#might be thinking of earbuds actually. i will never share those. headphones are fine if they look clean and i dont have to use them too long

[today-i-am-thinking-about]

headphones

[bangtan-sonyeonddaeng]

Namjoon Scenario| “I just wanna stay right next to you”

I decided to combine these two requests because I think they went well together.  I Hope you enjoy some comforting Namjoon fluff! 

Today was the first day you had gone out of the house in a while. You had been in a slump of sorts, trying to find the motivation to do anything was proving to be a feat. You set a small goal for yourself. You wanted to go for a walk in the morning. In the early morning when there would be no one else around. 

You had woken up and almost weren’t going to go. But you had set your alarm to play Seoul off of the Mono mixtape and you instantly found yourself motivated to get out of bed, telling yourself that Namjoon would be proud of you for doing so. And you were going on a nature walk no less, one of his favorite things to do. You put on a coat and long pants and a pair of boots. It was still quite chilly in the mornings and you didn’t want to freeze. You grabbed your headphones, and made sure your phone was charged. You wanted to listen to Mono while you were walking in the woods as it brought you peace and comfort. 

You had been walking for about 20 minutes now, having his mixtape on repeat and playing the songs over again. You were singing along softly to Tokyo, completely oblivious to anyone else around you.  Namjoon had been walking behind you for quite some time now. He could hear your singing along to his mixtape and it filled his heart with so much joy to see someone thoroughly enjoying the music he had created. He didn’t want to walk past you. He was certain you probably thought you were alone and he didn’t want to scare you. So he kept himself a fair distance back. He soon found himself quietly singing along with you too. 

He got a little carried away and was dancing when suddenly he tripped over a large stick, landing with a loud oof and causing many twigs to break when he hit the ground. You screamed and threw your headphones off onto the ground ready to run, until you saw the crumpled figure of a man laying on the ground.

“Oh my god are you okay?!” You rush over to him and place your hand on his back. He’s still hunched over with his face buried in his hands. 

“Ah.. physically yes I’m fine. But my pride is a little hurt I must admit. But thank you.” You step away from him and give him a chance to stand up. You grab his palms and inspect them for any injuries.

“You have a few cuts on your hands are you going to be okay?”

“Ah, I’ve had much worse. But again thank you for your concern. You have a lovely voice by the way.” You blush when you realize this man has heard you singing. It’s at this moment you glance up and look into the kind stranger’s eyes, only to feel like the wind was knocked out of you. 

“Y...you’re....” 

“Ah, Namjoon? Yes that’s me.” 

“Oh my god you heard me singing to your songs. I am so embarrassed I made a fool out of myself.”

“No you didn’t. You sounded really lovely and it actually made me incredibly happy to hear you singing along with my music. Did you enjoy my mixtape?”

“Did I- what kind of question is that?! It’s amazing!” He chuckles at your enthusiastic response. Namjoon gestures to a large rock a little ways up the path.

“Do you want to sit with me? Maybe listen to it together?” Your brain short circuits for a moment when you realize that Namjoon, is asking to spend time with you. You agree and follow him over to sit. You hand him one of your ear buds and scoot close to him so the headphones will reach. You have it on shuffle and Forever Rain is the next song to play.

“Which song is your favorite y/n?”

“Honestly? I can’t choose. They’re all just too amazing. You really put your heart and soul into this mixtape and it shows. They bring me and so many others comfort. I mean just this morning I was struggling to even get out of bed but then your songs came on and I found the motivation to go on this walk. I actually haven’t been out of the house in days.. Ah sorry I’m rambling aren’t I?”

“No.. no it’s fine. I’m happy to hear that my music is able to help you. Are you doing okay though?”

“Yeah.. just kind of been in a slump lately but, I’m sure after today I will be feeling much better.” You offer him a small smile and he returns it with one of his own. He places his hand on yours and gives it a light squeeze before pulling his hand back.

“Good. I know it might seem small to you, but even leaving house sometimes can take a lot of effort. I’m proud you for doing so. I didn’t think I was going to see anyone else out here. Let alone a fan enjoying my music and getting to share a moment like this with them.”

“Me either. I actually came this early in the morning because I was hoping avoid other people. Not that I’m unhappy I got meet you!” 

“It’s alright, I understand what you mean. I guess this was kind of a small blessing that got us together right?” You nod your head and you both fall into a comfortable silence after that, letting the mixtape play on. You and Namjoon both sing along to some of the tracks, alternating lines and just enjoying the music together. When the final song plays and loops back to the beginning Tokyo begins playing. He sees you visibly relax and your eyes close as you listen to the peaceful track. You open your eyes and find that Namjoon is staring at you.

“What?”

“Nothing just.. it’s kind of cool to see the emotions in someone’s face when they are listening to something you created. I’ve never really had an opportunity like this before and it’s just.. amazing.” 

“Well, I’m glad I could be a part of this new experience with you then.” 

The song is coming to a close and Namjoon looks at you as he’s singing the last few words.

“If I could choose my dream, I just wanna stay right next to you.” You blush at him singing such sweet things to you, but you tell yourself it’s just because of the song and he can’t actually be saying them to you. You stand up and take the earbud out of your ear and Namjoon does the same.

“I should probably head back.. The members are probably wondering where I went.” 

“Did you not tell them you were coming here?”

“I did but they probably weren’t expecting me to be gone this long.”

“Oh.. I’m sorry for keeping you. You should have told me you had to leave.”

“But I wanted to stay with you longer. I meant what I said when I sang those lyrics to you. I was enjoying our time together and I didn’t want it to end.” You realize now that you had also felt the same way. Even though you two didn’t speak much, you just enjoyed being in each other’s presence. 

“Yeah.. I feel the same way too.” Namjoon chews on his lower lip, as if he’s hesitating to ask you something.

“Do you.. Do you think we could meet back here tomorrow too? We have a few days off and I would like to spend another one of those days with you.” 

“I would love that.” 

“Same time tomorrow?”

“If you want me to get out of bed that early again you’re going to have to bring me coffee this time.” He laughs loudly at your comment.

“Alright, I think I can handle that.” He gives you a shy wave before turning around and heading back down the path. You sit back down on the rock, recounting the day you had just had. All the while a smile is on your face, and you have a feeling that maybe things are going to be looking up for you after all. 

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

They See Us Trolling, They Hating || Rio and Kaden

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: @3starsquinn  and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Rio and Kaden meet a family of trolls in the woods. CONTENT WARNINGS: Minor mention of abuse, mental and physical.  

In other towns, hunting was exhilarating, an adrenaline rush. Kaden remembered it fondly. But not here in Wicked’s Rest. No, in White Crest, hunting felt more like a burden than it ever had before. Maybe it was the sheer number of monsters everywhere, maybe it was all the extra bonus weird shit happening everywhere else all the time. Or maybe it was just him. Maybe he’d changed enough that he was as broken as his mother implied he was. Still, it didn’t change what he was. So out in the woods he was, guns and knives on him and a crossbow strapped to his back. His brows at the rustling in the distance. Definite sounds of movement. He crouched down and hid behind a tree, keeping as quiet as he could. His hands coiled around the barrel of the gun and slowly pulled it from the holster, careful to make no noise as he loaded it. There was nothing but darkness and the sounds of footsteps growing louder as he waited, gun raised, aimed, and ready. With a deep inhale, he peaked around the tree to see… flannel kid. “You should try walking a little quieter,” he said, lowering the weapon. “Or come armed. I have a feeling you’ll go for the former.”

If it weren’t for the Scribe building, Orion would never go into the forest again. He hated this place. As if the creepy noises and constant threat of danger weren’t enough, the woods had always frightened him in other ways. They were both open and cramped. Quiet, yet extremely loud. Despite how lonely the place was, he never felt safe with his own thoughts. Perhaps that was the irrational fear talking. He tried to stay alert in the woods, but sometimes his hearing was so deafening that the only way to block it out was with headphones. Today, he had a pair in, playing music just loud enough to block out some of the usual noises. He never really knew when his hearing would cooperate or not. Some days it was perfect, he could cancel out noises he didn’t want in order to focus on certain sounds or people. Other times, everything poured in at once, needles jabbing at his ear drums and making him dizzy. He could only guess that his level of control may be tied to stress or anxiety. Both things that Rio had a surplus of. Of course, the downside to using music to drown at the noise was that he didn’t hear when someone- an armed someone was a yard away from him, popping out from behind a tree and scaring Rio to death. Rio jumped what felt like a mile high, letting out a scream and ripping the earbuds out by their cord. “Holy- Why?” Rio yelled at him through gasped breaths, “Maybe you should try being a little less quiet. So you don’t give people heart attacks!” Of course it was Kaden. Of all the people he could run into from town. His feelings on Kaden were…. Complicated. The two had gone from yelling at each other about the supernatural to casually discussing the humanity of the job. By the end of the conversation, Rio wasn’t exactly sure if Kaden hated him or liked him. Rio wasn’t really sure where he landed on the topic either. The uncertainty only worked to make Rio more uncomfortable by the sudden meeting. “I don’t do weapons.” Rio explained, “The last thing I need is to accidentally stab or shoot myself in the woods. I’d be a lost cause.” He already was, honestly.

“I was hunting. The whole fucking point is to be quiet.” Kaden didn’t intend to roll his eyes. Sure fucking happened anyway. “Putain, were you wearing headphones, too? In the woods?” Was he sure he had hunter training? No weapons? Not listening to anything around him? “You may have a point but even Regan carries mace with her. Do you have a death wish or something?” It was hard to reconcile having the powers that they shared and ignoring them, if he was being perfectly honest. At least Rio was useful with all the book learning and research. It was something he could barely tolerate. Only when it was a subject he was sincerely interested in. And hunting through ancient texts for possible mentions of a thing that may or may not be the thing you’re looking for wasn’t the kind of shit that held his interest. “Where are you headed anyway? I know you seem to be doing everything in your power to get yourself killed out here but I’d rather you didn’t.” Who he was hardly mattered. Rio was human and that was more than enough reason for Kaden to make sure the kid lasted the night.

Orion was going to assume that Kaden did not actually want Rio to answer that question about the death wish, “My hunter hearing isn’t… great. I use things to drown out the noise if needed.” Rio admitted. Kaden might be the worst of the hunters that he could have run into tonight. Clearly the two couldn’t agree on… practically anything. As far as Kaden was concerned, Rio’s lack of a handle on his hearing was probably just further proof that he was just one big giant failure. Rio had enough hunters in his life reminding him of that. He didn’t need Kaden adding to the chatter. And in French no less. “And language” Rio mumbled under his breath. Not that mumbling mattered, since Kaden probably had mastered his hunter hearing. He crossed his arms, suddenly nervous that he was out here in the woods with Kaden. He wasn’t afraid that Kaden would hurt him. Kaden seemed way too dedicated to the whole protecting humans thing that hunters used to justify the violence. He was more nervous about whatever Kaden was out here hunting. “Um- Scribe building.” Rio pointed back towards the direction of the building, “I was just grabbing a few things. And now I was heading home. What…” Rio was afraid to ask, “What are you out here looking for?”

Kaden shook his head at the reluctant hunter. “I know you have zero interest in your abilities but you didn’t even get a grip on your hearing? How the fuck have you not gone insane?” He could understand this from someone who didn’t grow up with hunter parents, didn’t know what they were. But he did. Fucking baffling is what it was. He rolled his eyes at the language comment but dropped it. Wasn’t worth it. Though it did make him want to curse even more, had to admit. Of course the kid had come from the library. He should have expected. What was Kaen hunting, though? “I don’t know. Anything,” he said with a shrug. “Didn’t find much yet surprisingly. Missed a shot at a chickcharney earlier but that was about it.” It was strange that he forgot how much this kid was probably going to squirm at the thought of him hurting a single hair on a supernatural creature’s head. “You know, I feel like I should offer to make sure you get home alright. I know how much you love the thought of violence but I know how much I don’t love the thought of you dead for no fucking reason.” Before they could move a foot, there was a low rumble in the distance. Vibrations rippled through the ground. Kaden concentrated and tried to pinpoint the direction of the sound and turned to his left, putting himself between Rio and the potential threat. He reached for the gun again and brought it up, aimed and ready to fire at whatever monster was headed their way.

“I think the jury is still out on whether or not I’ve gone insane.” Orion sighed. He was sure that his parents, and especially his sister thought that Rio was crazy in some capacity. Seeing the incredulous looks that Kaden gave him implied that he probably thought so too. Rio probably was, in some ways. “I wouldn’t exactly call my family’s training conventional. And I wouldn’t call myself a star student or anything.” Maybe Rio should have focused on their teachings a little longer, tried to master the basics before tuning out all of their outdated, cruel teachings. But clearly it was too late now, and he was stuck trying to figure it out on his own. “You really don’t have to do that,” Kaden offered to get Rio home. It was a nice offer, but Rio wasn’t sure why Kaden would offer. Sure, hunter duties and all. But neither of them wanted to be stuck awkwardly talking about how different their lives were. Rio had escaped hearing about his hunter duties once already, no need to go back. But then the ground started shaking. And Kaden reverted back to hunter mode in an instant, gun up and ready to shoot while Rio’s heart exploded in his chest. If the earth weren’t already shaking, he would be. It wasn’t until the ground began rising and taking a form that Rio realized what they were dealing with. Without thinking it through, or maybe because he truly did have a deathwish, Rio forced his body to move, moving in front of Kaden and using his body to block Kaden’s gun pointing towards the creature. “Don’t shoot them!” Rio held his own arms up in surrender. He was confident that Kaden wasn’t going to shoot him. That was why he had jumped in front of Kaden’s gun, right? “It’s a troll. They’re… not dangerous.” Rio stole a glance over his shoulder at the creature. He had read about them a lot. They had drastic size ranges, from tiny to bus sized. This one must be fairly younger, being no larger than a human child. Still, that tiny creature could lift a bus, and they weren’t exactly unknown to target humans. It just wasn’t super common. “Well, I mean they could be dangerous. But we should be fine. If we leave. Because they usually travel together.” As if on cue, that familiar vibration started echoing around the forest again. The creatures, more trolls it looked like, crept from behind a hill, following along a trail of tries that slowly led up to the one that had now noticed Rio and Kaden standing there. Rio was pretty sure those were his friends. And they looked a lot bigger than before.

Before Kaden could make a single move. Rio was practically throwing himself in front of the gun. “Alright we really have to talk about this fucking deathwish of yours,” he snipped. Putain, he nearly missed what was up ahead. It looked like a clump of moving rocks. A lot of moving rocks. “Get out of the way,” he hissed, not lowering the gun just yet. Still, his finger was fully off the trigger; he really didn’t want to accidentally shoot the kid. He hoped the visual threat would be enough. And yet there was no movement on his part. He caught a better look at the monsters with his peripheral vision, his focus stayed on Rio, hoping he’d get the fucking hint and move. They were trolls back there alright. “I know what a troll is. And you want to tell the hunters they’ve crushed to death with rocks how dangerous they aren't?” Honestly, Kaden wasn't sure anymore how many of the stories he'd’ been told among colleagues at hunter bars were true. Looking at them, though? He’d fucking believe it. Just as he was about to yank Rio by his shoulder and force him out of harm’s way, another fucking monster showed up. And then another. And another. Merde. “Move and let me fucking take care of them. Unless you have a better fucking plan. And if so you better start talking. Quick.”

As more and more began to show up, Orion was willing to admit that he was beginning to get a bit more nervous. Not out loud to Kaden of course. The last thing Rio needed was Kaden with those ‘I told you so eyes’ or worse, actually telling him that he told him so. But internally, Rio was able to begin freaking out. But he tried his best to stay calm, even if the shaking hands and quivering voice may or may not work to give it away. “Yeah well- uh trolls are not typically violent. From what I’ve read. So maybe those hunters were attacking them or something. We don’t know.” The sinking feeling in his stomach made it harder to argue. As it was, arguing over his opinions on the supernatural was a lot easier to do online from the safety of his bedroom. Staying calm and level headed seemed a bit more challenging now. “I- uh yes. I do have a plan actually. Just put your gun down. Or point it somewhere else.” Rio swallowed hard. His legs felt like gelatin as he tried to force himself forward. He wobbled, a straight path across the greenery impossible in his current state. But he tried moving with purpose, and his arms raised slightly in the air as if surrendering. “Hey there!” Rio called out to the group, shrinking himself as he stepped closer and closer to the group. “We are not here to hurt you. We were just passing through. We can both head on. Peacefully.” Rio said as loudly as his voice could manage at the moment, hoping his words got to all of the trolls scattered around the duo.

It was hard to tell exactly how the trolls were feeling at the moment. They stared at the hunter as if studying them, but their features were rigid, literally and figuratively. They weren’t easy to read. Finally, the one closest to Rio spoke, “Hun-ter” The voice was deep, methodically spoken and drawn out. It sent a shiver down Rio’s spine. “No!” Rio immediately called out, looking back at Kaden, the freaking gun in his hand a dead giveaway, “No. Just passerbys. No hunting here. I don’t have any weapons. I don’t even like fishing. Too violent.” He laughed nervously, wondering if the trolls understood humor the way that other Fae might. Jury was still out on if Trolls were even considered Fae or not. “I- we are not here to harm you. I just want to go home.”

Not a single fucking moment of this sounded like a good idea. Kaden was pretty sure this was how they got crushed with rocks. But some stupid part of him wanted to trust that the kid was right. If he was right here, maybe he could be-- Not the time, not the place. He remembered Theo’s words, and the words from his training. Uncertainty is death, decision is survival. He put his gun down by his side and was willing to give this shit a chance. Plus, he had a feeling if his weapon was drawn and this went south, the kid would get attacked first. Better to be a little cautious for his sake. It wasn’t like Kaden wasn’t a quick fucking draw either way. The conversation seemed okay at first. Maybe. But the reply of hunter didn’t exactly bode well for them. “Kid. Might be time to back away,” he whispered mostly through his teeth. He had a bad feeling about this. Of course Rio took this as a fucking opportunity to chit chat with the trolls. Bleeding fucking hearts. It was clear they were too dumb for so many words so fast. “Vio-lent? Squishy humans are violent?” it growled. Putain. That sounded bad. Almost like they missed the many other words the kid threw at them. “You try harm troll? You hurt?” Yup. Dumb fucking rocks were not listening to any words other than the not so great ones. Kaden made sure the safety was off and he was ready to shoot at any moment, slowly inching towards Rio to hopefully pull him away the second this went wrong. “Maybe we should just turn around.” Fuck, there were too many of them to fight if this got ugly.

“Tiny hunter no hurt troll!” it yelled out and before Kaden could leap into action, the nearest troll grabbed Rio and threw him like he was nothing more than a rag doll. Fucking hell. Kaden raised his gun and unleashed a few rounds at the trolls but it was doing shit all. Because fucking relicts were the worst. He ran over to see if the kid was okay. Fuck, they were fucked. One of the rocked fists reached out and grabbed his ankle. Kaden kicked out with his free leg, hearing the crunching of his shoes against the rock, not sure that it did much. Especially with its friends descending.

For how slow the trolls seemed to lug around the forest, they sure could throw people quickly. Before Orion could react, the troll in front of him had latched onto his clothes. He didn’t have much time to try to pull himself free before the troll had flicked him through the air as if he was no lighter than a tic tac. It all came to a screeching halt when Rio collided with the tree. All the air rushed out of his body and was replaced with searing pain. His nerves went haywire, and he was pretty sure he heard something cracking. The pain only got worse once he completed the fall and smacked hard against the ground, his back breaking the fall. Everything hurt. He tried pushing himself off the ground and his chest did not want to cooperate. Every breath felt like something sharp was piercing his lungs. Ribs. Something may actually be piercing his lungs. He was able to push himself up enough to drag his legs under his body and push up to his knees. Where was Kaden? He spotted him, heading towards Rio. Rio sighed in relief, flinching from the pain it caused in his chest. Kaden was coming to help. The two could get away. But then Kaden fell. No, Kaden was grabbed. Rocks were pulling at Kaden’s ankle, knocking him to the ground and starting to drag him.

Rio forced himself to move forward. He had trained with broken ribs before. This should be nothing by now. Whether or not Rio regretted what he tried to do didn’t matter. He was the reason Kaden was in trouble now. Rio searched desperately for something that he could use to help Kaden get free. Maybe there was still time for the two to escape. Rio ducked down and picked up a large rock from beside a tree. Fight fire with fire or something like that, Rio supposed. He stumbled his way through the forest until he could finally get to the troll that was holding onto Kaden’s leg. Rio fell back into his knees and smashed the rock against the troll’s arm, hoping to hurt it enough to let go of Kaden’s leg. “Let. Him. Go!” Rio yelled, one word for each swing. His voice was hoarse, it came out as barely more than a whisper. But it wasn’t working.  The body was too hard. And Rio was panicking. Until he remembered the stomach area. The idea of hurting the troll still made Rio sick to his stomach, even now. But the pain from hitting the true drowned out the nausea. Turning the rock so that there were no jagged edges, Rio swung the rock one last time at the stomach, jabbing the troll in the stomach and sending him tumbling backwards. Rio allowed himself a moment of triumph that Kaden had been freed before a troll grabbed Rio from behind and began dragging him backwards.

Shit, Rio looked like he was in pretty bad shape. It was lucky he had hunter genes or else Kaden was pretty fucking sure he’d be a lot worse for wear. Or at the very least, less prepared to deal with the pain. If they had to run, though, they were clearly fucked. “Get out I’ve got th—“ he started to shout, but there was the kid, coming to help anyway. Putain, he was hoping he’d have one less factor to worry about.

Kaden kicked and trashed his feet to try and break free, but it wasn’t doing any good. Rio’s swinging didn’t make much difference either. Until he gut punched the troll with a rock. Alright then. Kaden pulled his foot free and scrambled back. Only Rio didn’t exactly think to do the same. Fuck. Kaden stood and tried to take aim again. No clear opening. If he shot, there was no way to be sure he wouldn’t hit the kid. “Let him go!” he shouted at the troll. “Tiny hunter hurt Borg. Both hurt tiny hunter.” Kaden had no advantage here that he could see. Other than… He took a shot at one of the other trolls genius Borg, aimed for the squishier looking stomach. It growled in pain. “Let the tiny hunter go and we walk away or big hunter will keep shooting.” Another one of the trolls lunged out at Kaden, this time he kneed it in his guts before reaching back for his knife, pushing it right up against the beast’s belly as he reached around to try and headlock the thing. One slice and the troll would be toast. “What do you say, Borg? Yours for mine?” He kept the knife digging, small pinpricks of troll blood spilling out. This better fucking work. He was running out of plans.

Orion couldn’t break free. The troll had hold of the back of Rio’s sweater, dragging him through the woods. His body caught on rocks and branches, stabbing into his back and legs as his own sweater choked him. The troll’s rocky hands dig into his back as he was pulled backwards. Eventually, the grip on Rio’s sweater was loosened, but before Rio could scramble away a fist came down on him. It smacked against his face, crushing his head against the ground and ricocheting off of the hardened dirt. His head felt like someone just hit him with a rock, which he supposed was the case. Hot liquid dropped down his cheek and he could taste the metallic sting of blood as it dropped between his lips. He coughed it free immediately, a mixture of spit and blood pooling beneath him. The punch had split his cheek open, Rio could tell that much without even seeing it.

The troll grabbed onto Rio’s wrist next, squeezing it tightly and twisting it upwards, forcing Rio to follow its direction. He sat there, right arm raised in the troll’s grasp and facing towards Kaden. Rio was shaking, minutes away from full on tears, but he begged himself to stop the tears from coming. Not now. Not in front of Kaden. Kaden bartered for him, threatening another troll for the release of Rio. “Please let me go. Please” Rio begged. His voice was whiny and came out scratchy. He was so freaking pathetic and useless. He had gotten Kaden into this situation. If he had only come up with a better idea. Something not as stupid as begging for safety. As if any troll would have believed that coming from a hunter anyways. Rio used his free arm to feel around the ground, looking for anything he might be able to use to break himself free. “Big hunter lie.” The troll yelled to Kaden. Rio’s hand finally caught on something, a piece of a branch maybe? It was jagged and jabbed into Rio’s hand as grabbed onto it. Rio hissed in pain, pulling his hand back before going back for it more gently this time. His fingers just barely reached it. He stretched his hand as far as it could go and used the tips of his fingers to slowly start pulling the branch closer to him.

Some of the other trolls joined in on the yelling.  Rio’s head was swimming, but he could tell that they weren’t positive. They didn’t want them to get away. “Kill tiny hunter” the troll spoke. His grip tightened on Rio’s wrist and he cringed in fear. This was it. Rio was going to die. Killed by the trolls in some horrible misunderstanding. His hand tightened against the wood. What did he intend to do with this? Hurt the troll? Kill it? Was Rio even capable of that? Or was he better to just let himself get killed? “Kill big hunter next” the troll stated, matter-of-fact. If they killed Rio, would Kaden leave or try to kill them all? Would Rio get him killed too? The troll’s hand switched again, wrapping around Rio’s neck and squeezing. He couldn’t breath. Now or never. Now or never. Rio pulled the branch up and swung it behind him as powerfully as he could. He knew he hit his target. When the grip on his neck didn’t lighten, Rio twisted his arm, snapping the branch off and using the shortened piece to stab again. And then one more time. Finally, Rio could breathe again and he tore the arm off of him, refusing to look back as he threw his body forward and started to run back towards Kaden.

The more Rio was injured, the more Kaden could feel his blood boil. He had no idea if the kid saw it that way or not, but Kaden knew point blank they were dealing with monsters. He’d fucking kill every single one of them without hesitation if he could do so without jeopardizing Rio’s safety even more. “I’m n-- I’m telling the truth!” Kaden almost said he wasn’t lying but it seemed the trolls weren’t good with negatives, only the main words being said. “Let him go!” he yelled again. “We’ll fucking leave just let--” The troll didn’t fucking stop, just kept dragging the kid and Kaden could barely concentrate beyond the pounding of his pulse in his ear. He had to stop this but he couldn’t get a shot in, there was still no safe opening. Every time he thought there was, another twist and turn.

“No!” he shouted at the troll’s yelling and ran up to the monster as soon as he saw the rock hands clasp around Rio’s neck. As soon as he tried to get close, another troll cut him off. It reached to grab his arm and Kaden twisted away, shooting at it, not hitting a whole hell of a lot that was significant. The monster got his leg again instead, but this time Kaden knew what to do. He unleashed the rounds into the stomach and the troll growled and wailed, collapsing in a rock heap. Kaden wriggled and struggled to get his leg out from under the previously living boulder. Shit, shit shit, was he dead? Was Rio dead? There’s no way he-- He couldn’t hear past his own panic and breathing as he scrambled to get up, get his gun aimed again. Just in time to see the monster fall forward. Putain. He did it. He was a hunter. For a whole two seconds. Fuck.

Kaden didn’t waste a moment and rushed over to the “tiny hunter’s” side, dragging him away from the other trolls as soon as he could. Some of them had shambled away at the sound of gunshots earlier and the sight of their fallen companions. “Hunters bad! Hunters kill Borg and Trag!” the others bellowed as they turned away. “Yeah we fucking did! And we’ll kill the rest of you two if you don’t let us leave. So back off!” Kaden’s voice was pure venom and anger. It was enough. Whatever it was, it was enough to make them turn back and let the humans shuffle away. “We come back. We kill hunters if see again! We kill you!” the last one grumbled though rock.

Everything felt distant. Orion felt himself being pulled again, just barely registering that it was Kaden this time. And he was yelling… something? But Rio couldn’t focus long enough to understand the words. There was a loud humming noise in the back of his head that drowned out everything else. All Rio could do was stare at one single spot on the ground. His feet began moving on their own, following Kaden who seemed to be leading him through the forest. Or were they still in the same clearing they had been during the attack? Rio couldn’t tell anymore. He could barely feel the pain in his chest or wrist or head. All he could think about was all the blood on his hand. He could hear it dripping onto the ground. Some of the blood was his, probably. But most of it… He had killed that troll. Rio was a murderer. Just like his parents.

When Rio finally broke out of the trance he had been in, it was to finally start sobbing. His legs gave out on him and he found himself on his knees on the ground, a blubbering mess as he tried and failed to choke back the hysterical sobbing. He knew he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t know why he even tried. Probably because he was embarrassed that Kaden was here to see it. “I’m sorry!” Rio coughed through the tears. The pain came back, and every single breath reminded him of the pain some broken ribs could bring. “I’m so sorry.” He wasn’t sure who he was talking to at the moment. Kaden? Or the troll he had just killed? A mix of both, most likely. “This is all my fault. We could have avoided that if-” He cut himself off. Kaden didn’t need a reminder of how badly Rio had screwed up. And now Kaden was hurt. And trolls were dead. Rio noticed Kaden’s limp, but was too afraid to ask him how badly he was injured. Rio couldn’t take that guilt. He felt sick to his stomach, bile rose in his throat but Rio forced it back down. He grabbed onto his chest and tried desperately to quell some of the stinging pain, but all he could do was cry and cry. “I did this. I killed them.” His voice was nothing more than a whispered cry at this point. How did hunters do this? Rio felt like his entire life was coming to an end.

Once Kaden could help pick Rio up off the floor, they started hobbling away. Kaden did what he could to help, but he seemed okay enough to walk and it also looked like he needed a moment. Shaken probably didn’t begin to cover it. They were making their way back towards town, very slowly, the long way around to boot, but they would get there eventually. Kaden heard a collapse into the ground and whipped around to check on Rio, make sure he hadn’t passed out or hurt himself to the point he couldn’t carry on. From what he could see, it wasn’t the physical pain that brought him to his knees.

Every instinct from his training told him to be harsh. To tell him to suck it up, stand up, and keep moving. That was how you survived. Shit was hard but you killed the monsters and moved on, saved your pain and your tears for your pillow if you let them plague you at all. That’s what his training said he should do. But looking at Rio there on the ground, clearly broken hearted and in pain over whatever the fuck had just happened back there, the words caught in his throat. He couldn’t say them. But he sure as shit didn’t know what else to say. It didn’t make sense to him to cry over a few dead trolls. They were monsters. Maybe the next passers by in the woods would be a little safer. Something dropped in his stomach at the thought. Some small piece of him knew that wasn’t exactly true. Those trolls were angrier now and likely more of a threat to humans now then they had been a few minutes ago. He really should have found a way to kill them all.

Kaden stood and watched a few moments, let him figure it out or whatever, then out out his hand to help him up. No part of him could remember what he really felt after his first kill. It was so long ago now, he was only ten. He remembered the fear, though. The fear of dying and the panic when that fight or flight moment kicked into overdrive. The moment no amount of training could possibly prepare you for, no matter what anyone said. His parents had been proud. Even when offering their critique for next time. And what should have been a beginning felt like an end in a way. An end of choice. Or something like that.

He couldn’t say for sure what Rio was feeling right now exactly, but he figured there was some overlap or two. And no part of him could bring himself to tell the kid how to feel. “Was this your first time? Killing anything? In the field?” It was hard to imagine a hunter with parents like his refusing for this long. If that was true, he had to be used to immense pain. Kaden wasn’t sure where that pain would be coming from exactly, but he knew it was there at the end of a refusal to hunters like that. He just knew.

Orion expected to be belittled. To be yelled at or made fun of or something. Anything to bring back some sense of familiarity. But this was all new territory. Something was dead by Rio’s own hands. In just a few seconds, that troll had taken its last breath. Rio had stolen that from the creature. But Kaden let him have this moment. Rio wasn’t forced to listen someone berating him or telling him everything he had been wrong. Or even worse than that, risk his parents actually being proud of him for something. If they ever knew about this, what would they think? Rio would rather risk their insults anyday. Nothing could be worse than feeling for a second that he was like them. “It- I killed a stupid mime once, but-” That hadn’t been real. It had exploded into smoke afterwards, and then again with Winston’s. It wasn’t anymore more than some illusion or clone. “Not like this. Those things disappeared after they died. They weren’t alive. This-” He had stopped from crying, finally. And he accepted Kaden’s hand when it was offered to him. His entire body ached. All he wanted was to go to sleep. Could he even sleep, after what he had done? “You saved me. I got us into that but you still saved me.” He had no idea where he was going with that. He didn’t have it in him to thank Kaden, the murder was still too fresh. So he simply stated it as fact. “Can you- take me home? I don’t think I can drive right now.”

Kaden sincerely couldn’t imagine growing up in a hunter household and never killing one single thing. He was fairly certain he’d have been disowned by his own parents a hell of a lot sooner if that had been the case. “Right. The fucking mimes. Well, I had to kill mine twice. Or well, it was killed twice. I fucked up and let someone else get the killing blow the first time. Guess you really are smarter than I am.” Once Rio was up and standing, he waited a second until they walked again. So taking away life was his hang up? It was hard to argue with that. More and more, Kaden was starting to feel a bit more like a harbinger of death than his banshee girlfriend. The only thing people ever asked him for help with seemed to be killing shit. Alright, maybe that was unfair, but it was most people’s first thoughts all the same. “What, did you think I was going to leave you there?” He gave a small shrug, wanting to brush it off. Thanks and gratitude in any form weren’t something he was ever good at fielding. He was just doing what he was supposed to the best that he could. And he hadn’t done a stellar job of it today, as far as he was concerned. If the kid didn’t have hunter healing, he would have insisted that they go to the hospital. But as it stood, he knew Rio was familiar enough with pain management if not the rest of the hunter benefits package. “Yeah, I can do that. As long as you promise to be more careful next time you’re out here by yourself, got it?”

[crysj88]

Ch. 6 Start of Something Good

As their jet carried them back across the Atlantic, Bennett’s mind spun. There were so many things that didn’t add up, variables that didn’t make sense. Tony was acting strange. It had developed slowly over a couple of weeks. He was withdrawn, secretive. He offered only forced smiles and laughs. His voice was colder. He didn't speak to Pepper unless they were fighting and that was far more often than usual. He didn't seek out Happy just to share a stupid joke. While he still talked to Bennett if the topic was turned to him he found an excuse to leave.

The newest problem was this Vanko character. She needed to run an extensive background search and discover all she could about his family and connections to Tony. 

And last but certainly not least, Natalie Rushman. Who is she?

To solve the "Tony Problem" she would have to get him to talk. Which would more than likely require alcohol, lots of alcohol. She didn’t have to worry about getting drunk herself. As long as she didn’t down full bottles like shots she would be fine. Her body treated alcohol like a poison, diluting it as quickly as possible to keep it from damaging anything internal. That had it's good sides and drawbacks. Those issues wouldn't be resolved on the plane so she pushed them back.

The other two she could solve on her own. All she needed was a high speed internet connection, her laptop, and privacy. BOBbie would make that process faster and easier. A laptop and internet connection were easy enough. The privacy though...Tony and Pepper sat across the cabin after their last fight they refused to speak to each other but also refused to move. A stalemate. Happy was in the back of the cabin snoring loud enough to wake the dead so that wasn’t an option. The only other spot was the cockpit. When she had gone to check on the pilot earlier she had found Natalie there as well. They had been talking and laughing. Bennett had been a millisecond from making her presence known when she heard the pilot asking if Natalie wanted to go out some time. She didn’t care to hear the answer. 

So there would be no answers, no solutions until they got back home. 

She reached in her bag and pulled out a case with a pair of aviators with mirrored lenses. These were Tony’s answer to VR. When the next generation of virtual reality headsets were released Bennett had been excited and impressed with the new technology. Tony said they were subpar. The conversation ended with Tony determined to prove he was right and Stark tech was still the best. 

So now Bennett had a fully immersive virtual reality experience packed in simple aviator sunglasses.  A complete 3 dimensional experience with any video game, movie, or tv show  you could want. Realistic graphics and a full 360 degree view. His system allowed you to view the movie from any angle. A “Stark original” software program filled in the blanks and built the single screen image into an immersive landscape. Action movies were so much better when you were fully surrounded by the action. Advance wireless earbuds gave personal surround sound, Tony’s attempt to beat out the competition in yet another area. 

Over all the build, while functional and impressive, was far too expensive to mass produce. 

Bennett relaxed into her seat as the opening credits began to roll across the lenses. She was just reaching the climax of the movie when her glasses were gently pulled off her eyes. Natalie smiled down at her, “hey.” 

“Hey,” Bennett blinked several times allowing her eyes to adjust to the light.

“Nice nap,” Natalie questioned.

Bennett let out a soft chuckle, “actually I was just enjoying a movie.” Natalie looked between Bennett and the sunglasses. “Here,” Bennett pulled Natalie into the seat beside her before taking the glasses and carefully sliding them into place for Natalie. Bennett reached over tapping the earpiece on the right side of the glasses. She heard the movie start up again through the earbuds. 

Natalie’s sceptical expression changed as the pictures flicked to life. Her jaw dropped slightly as she turned her head in Bennett’s direction. Instead of the picture simply staying fixed to the lenses the camera seemed to pan with her taking in the rest of the scene as she turned. She watched for a minute before handing them back to Bennett. “A present from Tony?”

“Yeah,” she replied as Natalie handed the glasses back. “How far out are we?” She wrestled her backpack out from under her seat and dug through it, finally pulling out a glasses case and a tablet. 

“Not quite halfway across the Atlantic,” she sat straight backed in her seat. Bennett studied her closely. She always sat so still, unnaturally still. “Mr. Stark said he wanted to stop in New York before heading back to Malibu. So we have a few more hours.” She gave Bennett a soft smile. “I have some paperwork I have to finish so I’ll leave you to your movie.” She gracefully pushed herself from the chair. 

“You don’t have enough paperwork.”

The odd statement stopped the redhead.

“Still a couple hours from Malibu and Tony and Pepper have already fought twice.” She offered as explanation. At Natalie’s blank expression she continued. “With that much time, Tony is bound to get in another “disagreement” with Pepper,” she dug through the bag again. “If you are available he will drag you into it. I know from experience. So the best policy is to make sure you are busy.” She finally pulled a small cylindrical case out of the bag with a triumphant smile. She offered it to Natalie before turning back to the tablet, pulling up the movie she had previously been watching. “So headphones and a movie with me or you can fake sleeping like Happy.”

Natalie tried to hand back the earbuds. “Really I think I will be okay.”

“Humor me,” she nudged the buds back into Natalie’s hand. “You work too hard. Take a break, just this once.” 

Natalie considered her options. Her eyes seem to have an extra sparkle to them before her lips crept up into a smile. She slipped the buds in and scooted a little closer to Bennett to share the screen.

Bennett noticed the spark before the smile. It happened every time. She wanted to see it again but knew they came few and far between. “Pick your poison,” she slid up the screen with the list of movies so Natalie could choose. 

 They were finishing their third movie, as they neared Malibu, or almost finishing. There was a good twenty minutes of screen time left when Bennett shut the movie down. 

Natalie looked from the screen to her, “what happened?”

“What?” Bennett looked genuinely puzzled. 

“The movie wasn’t over.”

“I always stop it there.” A slight blush crept up her neck as she began. “Some movies the characters just don’t get the ending they deserve.”

“Why not just not watch the movie?” Natalie asked. 

She nodded to the screen indicating the movie they had just watched. “Man on Fire is an amazing movie but Crease deserved a better ending. I have two or three other movies that I do the same thing. I think they deserve better.”

“So you just rewrite the ending.”

“Yup,” she let the word draw out slightly. 

Natallie just shook her head, amused at the thought. 

“Wheels down in 20,” Tony called and Bennett began to pack her things back into her bag. 

There was a long list of things that needed to be done in preparation for Tony’s birthday party in three days, but not enough to bleed too far into Bennett’s evenings. So during the day she checked security plans and helped Pepper as much as possible. As soon as the night shift was in position she retired to her room. 

BOBbie connect us to the Shadow Server. With the help of BOBbie and JARVIS, Bennett had secured a private server that not even Tony could access. They also lent a hand in procuring the information she needed. All three nights she searched the same things. Ivan Vanko and Natalie Rushman.

On Ivan Vanko she traced his family history first. His father, Anton, had worked for Stark industries alongside Tony’s father. He worked with Mr. Stark on the original arc reactor but was not the sole designer. As Ivan had insinuated. 

On paper Ivan appeared to be as smart if not smarter than his father. He was an accomplished physicist and a talented engineer.  His reproduction of the reactor in Monaco was enough evidence to back up the academic claims attributed to him. 

His father was deported from the U.S. having been caught selling the arc reactor blueprints on the black market. The U.S.S.R. demanded he develop an arc reactor for them as well. When he failed he was shipped to Siberia. Anton lived in squalor. He became an alcoholic and abusive to his son.  

Ivan had an impressive rap sheet as well. Imprisoned for 15 for selling plutonium. He had been suspect in several other illegal weapons deals but there was never enough evidence to make it stick. A couple of assassinations that were credited to him but not proven. Another thing the father and son had in common was they were both dead. A death certificate for Ivan Vanko was dated less than 24 hours after they left Monaco. Information on Vanko was easy enough to find as most of it was public knowledge. 

Natalie Rushman however was a completely different story. Hours of searching pulled up the same results over and over. There were only a handful of documents for Natalie Aleece Rushman that matched the woman she knew. A standard background check and simple files that would pass for an employers search. The files were extensive enough to pass even Tony’s extensive searches, even though she was sure he stopped searching as soon as he found the modeling photos. 

Combing through a little deeper, with assistance, revealed the date the documents were created. Four months. The files had only been active for four months. Which meant that Natalie was not who she claimed to be. 

The woman had to come from somewhere so Bennett, BOBbie, and JARVIS widened the search. Bennett found only vague traces of personas that might be Natalie. Tatiana Sokolova. Irina Zlataryova. Laura Mathers. Nadie Roman. Natalia Shostakova. All of those names though revealed no more than Natalie Rushman did. The woman was a ghost. Bennett needed to clear her head. Nothing did that better than a little engine grease.

Down in the garage Tony heard a loud crash followed by broken curses. He followed the sound to find Bennett holding her right hand. The ratchet on the floor beside her bike explained her predicament.  She busted her knuckles taking apart the transmission on one of her bikes. 

So the question was why was she taking it apart? Boredom? Stress relief?  She was working out a problem. Had to be. Something she couldn’t just think through. 

“Hey kid, what’s up?” He threw her a shop towel.

She caught it, wrapping it around her hand. “The transmission was sticking.” She sent a glare at the bike. 

“Really? That’s the one you are rebuilding for your dad right?” She nodded. He hopped up on the work table nearest her. “You rebuilt that transmission two weeks ago and it was perfect. What’s really going on?”

“Too many things. But nothing for you to worry about, Boss.” She picked up the pieces of the transmission she had dropped. She moved it to the worktable and began to break it down. 

Tony grabbed one of the bolts she had just pulled and tossed it in the air, catching it before repeating the process. “Girl troubles?”

“You could say that.” The nut she was turning gave a loud squeak as she broke it loose. “But it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Is it your redhead?”

“Nothing to worry about.” She repeated. “Don’t you have a party to get ready for? Tomorrow’s the big day.”

Tony let out a long breath. “Don’t remind me. So...bucket list. What would you cross off it, if you knew you only had a month left?”

Bennett looked over to him.  “Left of what?”

“Your life. This is your chance to fulfill one last dream, tie up loose ends, and go out with a bang.”

She thought before answering. “Finish dad’s bike and take it to him. Write down every bit of advice I could think of for Zach because I would miss his graduation. Visit Nora. Try and patch things with Leo. Spend the rest of my time here with you guys. Probably plan a bit of mischief. Break a few of Pepper’s rules, nothing too big though. Steal one of your suits for a day. Few harmless pranks on Happy, lego in his shoe or cutting a few stitches on the seam of his pants so when he sits they split. Leave as many good memories as I could.” Her smile grew at the end of her list.

“Nothing with Rushman?” Tony asked. 

“The way I see it, if I leave things as they are then she mourns a coworker and if I am lucky a friend. If I try something more it may fail and destroy what we have currently. If it works and we have that connection, then I am possibly the worst human on the planet. Starting a relationship knowing I would hurt her sooner than later.” She shook her head, “I couldn’t do that. What about you?”

“I have no idea,” he chuckled. “You want some help with this.” He nodded toward the transmission splayed across the worktable. 

“Sure,” she shared his smile before they began their work. They had developed a rhythm over the last year and worked together fluidly. They talked, sharing stories they rarely told anyone. Laughter came easily and their individual worries seemed to drift away if only for that few minutes. 

The world could be falling apart at the seams but this always felt right, it was their safe place. As the question piled from the past few days began to fall, Tony would be her rock, and she would be his. Between the two of them they would set the world right again. 

Phylax Masterlist

[tgai-spock]

Lines of ice from rolling was and subtle villains

A phone call home

Chapter 7

Walking into the common room that evening was like walking into a busy pub, but without the rampant alcoholism, old fat men and feeling of someone in the vicinity leering at him, or about to stab him. Peoples voices were low to medium, and he felt comfortable enough to make himself a strawberry tea. There was still a question he had to answer though, as he waited watching the glass kettle bubble his hot water, where would he sit? His dorm with the others? There was no wi-fi in there and he needed to check in with his Mom. This room was busy and he didn’t want to take a call in front of anyone, besides the seats were almost all filled. The bean bag room? The segments? At least the segments should be quiet.

Spock took his tea in hand and walked to the segments, he didn’t have much hope for it, but he decided it was worth a shot. The second he stepped past the archway he could feel the difference. Voices were quieter some completely muted, the atmosphere in this room was more subtle, there was still the occasional giggle but it was much more to Spock’s taste. It did however seem almost empty in comparison, perhaps because Tyler had said he’d made-out with someone in each room. Spock pushed open a dark curtain by the far end of the wall. It had the added bonus of having it’s own large window, and a fancy windowsill. Half windowsill, half seat with embroidered fat pillows. A gentle blue light flickered on over head as he walked in. Looking up he spotted the lights, one over each segment, three were on. So that’s how he’d find out if someone was in them without walking straight into another person. The segments were fairly large, 3 meters long, and 2 meters wide. Beans bags on the floors rug, a pile of books in the corner, a couple of board games and a small table that was close to the floor, so you could use it while sitting on bean bags.

The window pointed across the field towards greenhouses and farther in the distance was farm land, golden fields reflected the sun towards him. He avoided the bean bags and placed his tea on the large window-sill. He knocked off his shoes and put his feet up, plugging in his headphones he video called his Mother. It rang three times before Amanda picked up almost dropping the phone as she did so.

“Spock! Are you okay? How was your first day?” She asks a cross between worried and excited.

“Awful come pick me up.”

Amanda pauses and sighs “how was it actually.”

“Alright I guess” Spock shrugged.

“What? Really? Thats great.” Amanda said.

“I’ve been wearing this hat all day. I think many of the people I’ve spoken to have had the wrong assumptions about me.”

“What assumption.”

“I don’t think they’ve picked up on my non-human traits.”

“Oh. Well I guess that could really change things.” Amanda said.

“Indeed. If I die, it is of course all your fault.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you have any classes?” Amanda asked.

“Yes, I had an English lesson, it was a very strange experience to have a human talk it all through.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“I learnt a lot about the meanings in a poem. He gave out printed sheets of paper which is very wasteful, it had all the writing he was talking about on it. He also wrote on an old fashioned white board a lot.”

“Aren’t they cute?” Amanda grinned.

“…I do not know if they are cute, but they are hard to read.”

“Awh. I’m sure they must be other dyslexic students at school, he must have arranged something for them.”

“Maybe but I won’t ask.”

“Please it is logical to ask.” Damn! Hit with the logic. Spock sighed.

“Did your teacher go around the room and make you say your name and things you like?”

“Why?” Spock asked

“Thats a basic introduction lesson. It happens at the beginning of every new class.”

“That sounds like a bad dating game” Spock shook his head.

“Oh, well okay. You know they do that in normal human schools.”

“Weird.”

“How do you know what a dating game is anyway?” Amanda asked. Spock raised his eyebrows in fear.

“Adverts” he settled with.

“Uh huh? I see.” Amanda said his gaze not leaving him. 

“I should probably go.” 

“Have you got plans for the rest of the night? Have they got a game night going on?”

“No. I’m doing english homework” Spock said “I don’t see how it’s homework though, because I’m not home.”

“Ohf, Mr Attitude coming through.”

“It’s illogical to call it homework.”

“Well I guess you’ve got a point. Are you doing anything else? Anything fun?”

“I guess I could try and find out where the bathrooms are.” Spock said thoughtfully.

“You don’t know yet?”

“Well, I know where my house’s prefect’s made out, but no, I don’t know where the bathrooms are, so I should probably figure that out before I need to go for my 1am bathroom piss.”

“That’s very specific Spock.”

“Is that a first year looking for the toilets?” Tyler’s voice boomed out from a segment far away from him. Spock jumped and removed one earbud.

“Yes?” Spock said loudly back..

“They’re at the bottom of your dorm hallway.” Tyler yelled.

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

“You're welcome” the voice said and then disappeared.

“Never mind, I’ve figured it out.”

“Shouldn’t you have found that first?” Amanda asked.

“I haven’t needed to use the bathroom.

“How has your day been?” Spock asked.

“Well, after I dropped you off I went to visit your grandmother and we talked about fruit cake for several hours, and ate a lot of it for dinner.”

“I’m just grateful to be in school” Spock shrugged.

“Did you get for dinner?” Amanda asked.

“I had pea pasta with fruit and ice-cream.”

“That sounds healthy, not sure about the ice-cream.”

“I can eat lactose.”

“Yeah” Amanda squinted but I don’t think you should eat a lot of it. I would hate for you to have a medical emergency while I’m away.”

Spock rolled his eyes “fine I’ll lay off the ice-cream.”

“Thank-you. Do you think you’ll be okay sleeping there over night?”

“I think I could wait until morning until deciding, the dorms here are nice. Did you know all beds have rape alarms attached to them?”

“Rape alarms? No! Honey” Amanda said completely aghast “those aren’t rape alarms those are to stop kids dragging sleeping people onto the roof and locking them up there while they’re asleep. It’s happened 8 times apparently. People really like pranks in that school.”

“My tour guide was very thorough in all the other uses of the alarms.”

“You aren’t sharing a dorm with that one are you?” Amanda asked.

“No.”

“Mmm. Anyway I must be going now. Your father says hi-”

“No he doesn’t.”

“He says it in his heart, without words, or emotion, or a physical reaction.”

“So he doesn’t say it.”

“He says I love you.” Amanda said wide eyed as though the whites of her eyes might be able to physically push the words in to Spock’s mind.

“I’d have a heart attack if he did..”

“Yeah” Amanda sighed “me too. I love you.” Spock nodded it was the best way he could say it back.

“Bye” Spock said and as he raised his hand to mean the LLAP.

“Bye” Amanda waved.

[Chapter 1]         [Chapter 2]         [Chapter 3]          [Chapter 4]

[Chapter 5]         [Chapter 6]         [Chapter 8]

[lovemesomesurveys]

When you get an account for something, what’s the first username you try? I’d rather not share that. What do you think might be someone else’s first impression of you? Awkward, shy, quiet, standoffish. Is texting having a negative or a positive effect for social relationships? It has its good and bad points. One of the bad things is that it’s SO easy for misunderstandings. What you say doesn’t always come off the way you intended it to.  Would you be okay with a friend wanting to date one of your exes? I think I’d have some issue with that. Have you ever been addicted to something other than a drug? The internet? Have you ever been addicted to a drug? I mean, after being on pain medications for so long my body developed a dependency. That’s just going to happen. 

Do you like macadamia nut cookies? I like how there’s usually white chocolate chips in them, but I don’t like the nuts. Just give me white chocolate chip cookies, ha.

What kind of accent do people typically have where you’re from? Californian one? It’s weird to think of myself as having an accent. It’s not distinguishable like a southern one or someone from like Boston. Bruno Mars- fail or win? I like a lot of his music.  Can you sleep without a fan on? Absolutely not during the summer. This summer I have 3 that are always going. Even during the winter I sometimes still have 1 on.  Does history interest you at all? Yeah. What’s something you wish you could do-over? A lot of things. How many times a day do you apply deoderant? If it’s a really hot day and I’m out and about for some reason, I may need to apply a couple times or so. Otherwise, once tends to do the job. Have you ever tried any drugs? Just weed. What caused the most intense physical pain you’ve ever felt? After any of my surgeries. Do you like those Sperry Top-Sider shoes? Sure. I actually had a pair of cute plaid ones once. Can you wear shoes like that without getting blisters on your ankles? I don’t have that issue. Would you agree that dark chocolate tastes like rotten chocolate? I don’t think it tastes rotten, but I don’t like it.  Do you touch your lips when you’re nervous? Yeah, I pick at and bite them. Do you think you can read other people’s body language well? I think I usually can pick up on that stuff. Are you a good driver? I don’t drive. Did you pass your driver’s test the first time you took it? I haven’t taken it. Would you rather be involved in a watergun or a paintball gun war? Neither. Is your hair in layers or is it all the same length? It was layered, but it’s been so long since I got a trim that it’s almost all one length now. Is there anyone who you’re afraid to be in a car with, if they’re driving? No. What’s a quick fix for a bad hair day? A hat. Do you enjoy flying or do you get scared? I was very scared, but taking off and landing are definitely the worst of it. Once you’re in the air it’s fine, unless there’s bad turbulence. I’ve only flown a total of 2 times and that was over 10 years ago, so I’d definitely be nervous. It’d feel like the 1st time all over again. I’d probably be nervous every time even if I was a frequent flier let’s be real. Be honest. Do you like making other people feel jealous? No. I admit that I played stupid games like that before, though. SO stupid. Have you ever purposely made someone of the opposite sex jealous? Yes. :/ ^^^ Are you addicted to shopping? Kind of. My online shopping sometimes gets out of hand. Do you always wear mascara and eyeliner? I very rarely wear makeup at all anymore. It’s been quite awhile since the last time. Do you have any huge hoodies lined with snuggly fur on the inside? No. I have in the past. Is there anything you do, kind of habitually, that’s completely mindless but helps you think? Probably picking at my nails, biting my lips, or messing with my hair. Not sure if that made a whole hell of a lot of sense… It did. Do you like headphones or ear-buds more? Earbuds.  What’s your favorite winter sport? None. I don’t like any sports. What’s something you’re very good at? Nothing. Where do you spend the majority of your summer? At home. Who do you usually spend the most of your summer with? My family, who I spend most of my time with everyday. How old were you and where did you go on your first real date? I was in my early 20s and we went to a movie and dinner. Have you ever had a bonfire on the beach at night? No, but that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Do you like sour gummy worms? No. I don’t sour things, it irritates my mouth. Have you ever helped a complete stranger with anything? Yes. Would you pick up a hitchhiker if they seemed harmless? Nooo. You never know for sure. They might seem harmless, but no one looks like a serial killer or something unless they have a mask on or a weapon of some kind in their hand like Michael Myers himself was standing there. People like Ted Bundy seemed harmless.  When playing a sport, are you more focused on winning or having fun? I don’t play sports.  Who’s the last person who gave you a piggy back ride? Probably my dad. I haven’t had a piggy ride since I was a kid. Who’s the last person that you gave a piggy back ride? I’m guessing my dad. Rock, paper, or scissors? Rock. Would you be bothered if your boyfriend liked to bite you? I mean, depends? Are you any good at dancing? No. Even if you aren’t, do you like to dance? I like to bob my head or tap my fingers a bit. Sometimes move my arms a little. What makes you feel the most ‘alive’? I’ve felt like a zombie for years. Who’s conversations do you appreciate the most? Ones with my loved ones. Ty and I had the best conversations, too. I miss those. Is there anyone’s advice you value enough to take against your own judgment?  I don’t know, it would really depend on the issue. How often do you get the opportunity to be completely alone? Often enough usually. Do you like being alone or does it drive you crazy? I like spending some time alone. I need to. I don’t like being completely alone for a long time, though. Like, I may just be in my room, but my family is home ya know? Do you have a trampoline? No. Do you get nervous when driving in convertibles, knowing that if you flipped, you’d be screwed? I’ve never ridden in one. What’s your favorite Pixar movie? Toy Story. Are you capable of successfully lying to someone you love? I have before and sometimes still do about certain things. There’s also things I’ll downplay or choose not to omit. I’m not a habitual or compulsive liar, though. Who do you adore? My doggo.

[moustache-man1967]

Long Post Ahead

I've seen many posts over the years talking about how overrated/bad The Beatles are, and how dumb people are to be fans. I believe that every person, including those who post that sort of thing, is entitled to their own opinions, so I'd like to share mine.

I started listening to The Beatles in 6th grade (around age 11). I used to hide my earbuds in class to listen to them, I had (and still have) a huuuuge crush on 60s Paul McCartney, and I used to spend hours watching bootleg copies of their movies on YouTube. Around the same time, my best friend was battling severe depression and anorexia, and was in and out of hospitals for more than a year. I actually witnessed her self-harming, at age 12. Also at this time, my sister, whom I have always been incredibly close to, was suffering from a (then) unknown illness which kept her from school and sank her (my big sister, my rock) deep into a depression. With this whirlwind around me, and a history of depression myself, those years in middle school became the lowest point in my life for my mental health. I was depressed for a year. I spent a year of my adolescence in absolute agonizing numbness and helplessness. Throughout this time, I always wore the same gray hoodie. A Beatles hoodie my grandparents had given me. It was my shield, my invisibility cloak. I never wanted to leave myself alone with this numbness, so I listened to the Beatles. They were my escape. I put my headphones and I was transported somewhere far away. To Penny lane, Strawberry fields, or an octopus's garden in the shade. I would escape to Pepperland; to a place where my sister wasn't sick, where my best friend wasn't slowly dying, where I could forget about how I felt every day.

Years have passed, my friend is now a survivor and is finding happiness in her life. And my sister is thriving as a disabled recent college graduate. About six months after the year of darkness, I was taking meds and seeing a therapist and for the first time in over a year I felt happiness bloom inside of me. Although I handle it better now, I continue to struggle with depression. To this day, I wear that gray Beatles hoodie on my down days, and listen to the Beatles when I can't sleep at night.

I am a Beatles fan, and I still carry deep respect for the artists that influenced them. I an a Beatles fan, and I know that the reason why they gained more recognition than many of those artists is because they are white cis men (Which is shitty). I am a Beatles fan, but I do not hold these men on a God-like pedestal because I know that they are/were human beings who have done some shitty things in their lives, (as we all do) and they have to be held accountable for that (as we all do). I am still a Beatles fan.

I am not saying that The Beatles are the greatest band in the world. I am not saying that everyone has to like their music. All I'm saying is that The Beatles are important to me. You can think The Beatles are overrated and still respect that. I love The Beatles because they have helped me through the hardest times in my life.

I know that many of the people who read this might scoff and call me overdramatic. That's fine. I guess my point is that we all have a right to our opinions, but we shouldn't disregard the opinions of others. Listen to the music that you love and respect that others might have different faves than you, for whatever reason. And above all else, always treat others with kindness and understanding.

Peace & Love ✌💖

[lutzofviktuuri]

so on my wrist, so on my soul

A Viktuuri soulmates au. Currently unfinished. Planned happy ending because that’s what Viktuuri is for. I’m not guaranteeing it ever being done. If it ever is, I’ll probably throw it onto AO3, but until then, it’s here. Rating: ....we’ll play this one by ear. M, I guess for now Chapter WC: 2,087 Current Story WC: 7,186 Chapter: One Summary: Viktor Nikiforov has known since he was sixteen years old that he was fated to be a champion. Now, at twenty-eight, the fate grates--what has he earned, and what is merely destined? He wishes, perhaps more than anything, that his fate had been a name and not a destiny. Katsuki Yuuri, on the other hand, has known he had a soulmate since he was sixteen years old, and some days, he would give anything, anything at all, for Fate to take it back.

Simple

On Yuuri’s first day of class at the University of Michigan he was still so jetlagged that he had, quite unlike himself, completely forgotten to cover up his fate mark, and as he leaned on his hand in class, half asleep, the slightly over-exuberant girl who sat next to him had sighed in clear longing, “Oh, you have a name! I’m so jealous. How simple that must make things.” It was fortunate that Yuuri was so sleep deprived that he did not process her words until well after the class had ended, or he might have, in his exhausted and stressed state, simply burst into tears. Simple. The words echoed in his head even now, four years later, as he skated in a loud and crowded arena. Fate marks were rarely simple. Of course, that was how the movies usually portrayed fate marks; an image, or a single word, or a name, or all three, pointing clearly to a path, to a destiny. The hero with courage written across his wrist becomes a fireman, the leading lady with justice written on hers serves on the US Supreme Court, the man with a full name written across his wrist puts together a social media campaign to find his match  and inevitably does, with a happily-ever-after ending. There was never really any uncertainty. There was never any struggle. They all walked clearly towards their fates, and they were, in the films, almost always happy ones. They never mentioned the unpleasant fate marks, the ones which read sacrifice, longing, despair. For those whose fate mark was or included name, they never mentioned the ones whose names were not soulmates, as usually thought, but fated enemies. They never mentioned those whose names were platonic, life-long friends. And they certainly never mentioned those unlucky few who wore a name that the other did not even share. A fate mark was destiny and could not be avoided or denied—but Fate was not always kind. Simple. His fate mark was anything but simple.

Yuuri took a deep breath as he gained speed with a few backwards crossovers. Warm-up was almost over, and he wanted to get in at least one more quad toe before he left the ice. He brought himself into position, getting ready to jump and reach back with his toe pick, setting off the spin, when he heard gasps and cheers from the audience nearer to the other side of the rink. He tried not to let the flash of silver distract him as he watched his idol glide out from a landing of what was probably his signature quad flip. He jumped, reached back with his toe pick, and spun—but as he was coming down he could feel it. His axis was off, he wasn’t going to land perfectly—he tried to save it, to only touch down with a hand, but he fell, and the crowd gasped for a completely different reason. Yuuri winced, pain radiating up his arm and throbbing on his left hip. He got up quickly, his cheeks burning in embarrassment. There was no way the judges had missed him biting the ice so badly. They would scrutinize him more closely in his short program now, he knew, watching more carefully for under rotations in his jumps, or unclear edges on his flip and lutz. He wiped ice shavings off his pant leg just as the announcer called for the skaters to leave the ice. Yuuri cursed internally, his gut twisting with anxiety. Why did that fall have to be his last element on the warm-up? All the skaters save Michele Crispino, the first competitor, made for the exit. Off the ice, Yuuri knew several of them were quite friendly, even friends. But as they stepped off the ice one by one, carefully wiping snow from blades and applying their skate guards, not a one of them looked at the others. They were all in the zone as Phichit was fond of saying. Yuuri, as he glided to the exit and t-stopped before stepping off the ice, followed the examples of the others, avoiding all eye contact. He spared only a brief glance towards a head of silver hair—but he looked away quickly. “Yuuri,” Celestino’s exasperated voice reached him as his blades hit the rubber mat. Ciao Ciao handed him his black and blue skate guards. His coach’s own fate mark was clearly visible: luce guida. Not a name, but a true fate. Yuuri busied himself with putting on his guards, looking down and avoiding his coach’s gaze. They walked together towards one side of the rink when Yuuri finished, headed back to the rink’s small gym so that Yuuri could jump rope until his turn—second to last—on the ice. Celestino walked closely to Yuuri, hiding his face and mouth from the cameras as much as possible. “You knew that was going to end badly before you took off. You didn’t properly set it up. Why did you jump anyway?” Yuuri’s gut twisted and clenched further. Celestino wasn’t scolding him, not really. He just wanted to know what was going through Yuuri’s head, Yuuri knew that. But part of Yuuri felt a barb at the end of the words anyway. You should have known better. Of course you couldn’t make that jump, what were you thinking? “I got distracted,” Yuuri replied honestly, wincing at his own words and rubbing his left wrist over his glove. He was like some lovesick schoolgirl staring after him that way— “Yuuri, I know that this is your first Grand Prix Final, but you cannot let it get to you. You have been pulling great scores all season. If you skate the way that you have been, you can easily end up on the podium—but not if you let the stress affect you, capisci?” Ciao ciao said. Yuuri blinked. Oh. He hadn’t even considered the stress of the actual competition yet, his first Grand Prix Final, but now that Celestino mentioned it… He felt his whole body tense and go rigid. Celestino frowned slightly. “Yuuri,” Celestino said. “I need to jump rope,” Yuuri said quickly. “Come get me just before my time, please?” Celestino’s jaw set, clearly holding back from saying things that he wanted to say. Instead he just nodded, and Yuuri rushed out of the arena and down a little, empty hallway. The gym was at the end of it, and when he pushed open the door he found that three of his fellow competitors were already inside—Christophe Giacometti, who was stretching somehow lewdly on the floor, JJ Leroy who was lifting weights in a corner with his headphones on, and— Yuuri avoided looking at the last too long. He didn’t want to be rude. Averting his gaze from any of his competitors at all, he honed in on his duffel bag, still where he left it in the corner of the room. He fished out his jump rope and his iPhone, shoving in his earbuds to drown everything out while he jumped. He closed his eyes, concentrating on keeping his mind as empty as possible. It was working well too, which was why he startled when he felt someone touch his ear and one of the buds was removed. His eyes flew open, and there stood Chris, grinning at him, Yuuri’s earbud held close to his own ear. “Are you listening to Ska?” he asked. “Chris,” Yuuri protested. Yuuri had known Christophe Giacometti of Switzerland since they were competing together in Juniors, and the man had always lacked a sense of personal space. “This sounds like ska to me,” Chris said, delighted. “It—I—” Yuuri looked down at his phone, strapped to his arm. He’d just been letting Spotify play whatever it wanted, and, sure enough, it was on some 80s J-ska band. “Oh.” “Yuuri, I’m surprised. I didn’t think you were a ska kind of person,” Chris teased him. Then he grinned, suggestively. “It’s always the quiet ones.” Then suddenly, Yuuri felt a hand on the base of his spine that slid quickly lower. He yelped and moved away. “Chris,” Yuuri protested, his face heating. He was familiar with Chris’ antics, but he didn’t think he would ever be quite used to them. “Chris,” spoke a quiet, delicately accented voice that Yuuri would recognize anywhere. “Can’t you at least wait until after the competition to sexually harass your competitors?” Yuuri tried not to stare directly in the direction of the silver haired skater who spoke. Yuuri looked just off to the side; staring directly at him was something Yuuri likened to staring directly at the sun. Chris just laughed. He backed away, but tossed the other skater an easy grin. “What fun would that be?” Chris replied. He winked at Yuuri. Yuuri just sighed and shook his head. Then suddenly the walls around them seemed to vibrate with the force of a cheer going up in the arena. Michele must have finished his skate. “Ah, that’s my queue. I’ll be on deck. See you on the ice, boys.” With a shrug and an easy wave, Chris exited the gym. Yuuri nearly sighed in relief. Dealing with Chris was fine, usually—but not before a skate. “My apologies for Chris,” spoke that soft voice again, and Yuuri went rigid. Was he actually talking to him? Yuuri whirled, and the other skater was watching him, a small, carefully constructed smile on his lips. “We have been friends for many years—he has always been that way, with everyone. He doesn’t mean any harm.” Yuuri tilted his head, for a moment uncomprehending. Then, he realized, with a little rush of embarrassment, that the other skater clearly didn’t know who he was—or, at least, anything about him. Well, why would he? Yuuri thought, with only a tiny touch of bitterness and a much larger touch of dismay and longing. You’ve never been anywhere close to being a threat or an equal. “Ah—well—I know. I’ve known Chris since we were in Juniors. But—ah—thank you? Anyway?” Yuuri spoke, and then cringed internally at the uncertainty of his tone as his heart beat faster than it had any right to do. The silver-haired skater just smiled a little more. It was a polite smile, though. A smile Yuuri recognized from his many press conferences and fan interactions. It did not reach his eyes. “Of course,” he said with a nod. The other skater then went back to stretching, and Yuuri averted his gaze, their sole interaction clearly finished. Adrenaline rushed through Yuuri’s body, and his hand shook as he replaced his earbud in his ear. He’d actually spoken to him. He’d actually spoken to him. And of course Yuuri had managed to make a complete fool of himself. Just like you’re going to make a fool of yourself on the ice if you can’t get yourself together. Yuuri returned to his aggressive jumping rope, doggedly losing himself in an unforgiving rhythm. The next time he opened his eyes, JJ was gone. He stopped jumping rope, suddenly panicked. How long had he been down here? Was he on deck yet? Surely Celestino would have come to get him if it was close to his time to skate? He yanked out his earbuds, shoving his iPhone back in his duffel and making for the door. “Katsuki,” the soft voice spoke, and Yuuri froze, his hand poised just on the door. He turned his head and knew that his eyes had to be wide; he couldn’t help it. “Ganbatte ne.” “Doomo arigato gozaimashita,” Yuuri replied automatically. He speaks Japanese? Yuuri felt like his brain had perhaps short circuited. He stood there for a moment, this time actually staring at the silver-haired skater, the man he had admired for nearly half his life. The man whose name was written across his wrist. Виктор Никифоров—Viktor Nikiforov. “Ah—davai.” He could not avoid, for a split second, glancing down at the other skater’s bare left wrist, even knowing what he’d find there before he looked—nothing. Yuuri gave the other man his own polite smile and, with that, went out the doors of the gym. There was no need to linger. No good could come of talking to an unrequited soulmate. Yuuri rubbed his glove-covered wrist as he entered the arena, assaulted once again by the cold and the noise. Simple. Staying away kept things simple.

Next >

[shaddy-bee]

I KNOW ITS BEEN LIKE 300 YEARS BUT-

5 things you’ll find in my bag

Right now theres uhh Notebooks, both school and 1 art. Drink mix ins, with such great flavors as sour apple jolly rancher and crush pineapple (tm) Two packs of cards, one of which steam punk themed and the other your regular ol bicycle. A calculator. Its a shitty old one but its for tests, i have google and shit for anything i need myself.

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom

A roommate. Idk if he is gay or what but he isnt straight, name’s will. Chill dude. Sleepin rn, what a fella MY SICK ASS COMPUTER IM MISSING OUT ON BECAUSE MY ROOMMATE IS ASLEEP AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I WANNA PLAY ROCKET LEAGUE WITHOUT LAGGING TO HELL also programming my mods. Need to upload that shit. Shit what number we on, 3? Okay cool. A bed. Wow really a bed in your bedrooM? yeah its pretty fuckin spectacular i know. I dont have posters n shit so like i gotta be creative you feel. A microfridge. Now i know what youre thinking, “ah a small fridge whats the big deal?” but no you dont understand, its a microwave fucking bolted onto the top of a fridge. They gave zero fucks attaching these two together and apparently the name is the same way, WHY NOT A FRIDGEWAVE EVEN LIKE MICROFRIDGE JUST SOUNDS LIKE A SMALL FRI- Last but not least, im tempted to just say my wallet here tbh, cuz its old but like, youd EXPECT that now would you? Something boring and mundane for me to fill out the word count with making everything super exciting so nah man, fuck it. Theres air in my bedroom. Fight me.

5 things I’ve always wanted to do in my life

Make a videogame. Like okay, a lot of stuff on this list is jokes and stuff, and I know im going into too much detail and my followers will probably murder me in cold blood for this shit, but im serious about this one like - i have some ideas, but i never have the motivation alone to like work whole-heartedly and finish one but like, at some point in the future id love to sit down and just go at it and make a game. Doesnt matter if its popular or big or small just i wanna make something that i love ya feel? I wanna like, go to newark, delaware. I know, its delaware and all, no one lives there, but ive met a bunch of cool people there and i was promised a donut run sometime, so lookin forward to that. Yknow that post awhile back that was like “i dont wanna be rich and like buy shit, i just wanna have enough money to throw at kickstarters whenever i want without having to strain on my food and rent costs” thats me. 100% Like i wanna have just enough money to be able to donate to cool people and watch them do cool shit - it wont always work out but thats fine, I just love shit. I wanna be able to donate like the high prize and fly out to meet these game studios for coffee and shit and just talk with em and see their passion and ideas. I love it. Im not actually really sure besides those. Like idk. I think itd be cool to enter a game tournament with my brother and win, but i doubt thatll happen and its not super like on my desires just itd be cool cuz we named ourselves Sora and Shiro after NGNL and to see that like, have us win would be great. Yeah. Ill make my fifth to think of a fifth one.

5 things on my to do list

FLOPPY DICKS i mean disks. Floppy disks. I do binding of isaac ab+ modding shit, and im currently working (its mostly done for what i want it to do) which adds a new consumable called floppy disks, effects are based on viruses, bugs, and just computer based shit. Like BSOD for instance, which makes the screen literately bluescreen. Or atleast look like it. Cant wait to watch people play with it. I gotta work on the programming class project too but honestly i dont waannnaaa. Like its cool as shit. Recreate a card game using c++ code. But man, i just love Apocrypha and Floppies so much more. Eat today???? Please. Dining hall opens in 3 hours. Its goddamn 4 am. I want my food. Dunno if ill get it - if ill stay awake till then. But i want it. Probably draw some stuff? Like i posted one drawing already (check it out if u wanna ;) kay?) but like theres wacom tablets here i can just kinda use whenever???? its great. I love being able to just draw stuff on em. Even if i suck at drawing, even if it took 10 hours to make the one i posted here, still love. Probably play more rocket league. Sleep first, soon as i get that food im CRASHIN BOI IM OUTTIE HA but uhh, rocket league has a halloween thing rn and i like playing it. Was playing earlier today and i matchd with a dude in 2v2 that had the same car, skin, AND colors set up as mine. Totaly random. We kicked some major ass together. I kept thinking of the same hat comic the entire time. (also my card was superior because it had furry ears on it ;))

5 things that make me happy

Getting an idea for a thing and working at said thing until like boom it went from this abstract idea to now it has a physical form and it works! And its fun and its great and i can share it with other people and they can have fun too!!!! that feeling is wonderful.  Obviously friends man. Just doing shit with people can be so great sometimes - like not all the time sure but like man. Its nice to talk to people and share experiences and just smile and tell bad jokes and have them groan but like it anyway like thats the shit. Going out at 2 am and walking to a nearby run down schoolyard and swinging on the swingsets and watching shooting stars burn up. Thats the good shit. Getting tents and setting em up in your friends back yard when your friend from far away comes up for a few days, and playing ridiculous games in a group like kick the can or fuckin zombie screaming your lungs out in the dark to freak em out, or just talkin around a fire about fuckin life man. The people make life great. Shits worth living for. I realize that last answer covered a LOT of shit but like, im just gonna add here videogames. Would be amiss if i didnt mention that, considering the rocket league rant above lmao. Yeah i better not make this category any longer.

5 things I’m (currently) into

Isaac modding, probably will be for awhile. Its good shit. As a suggestion from one of the people I work with (we also fuck around its a good time) i have started watching space dandy. Its a slow progress through lol like an episode or two a day but god man like its pretty ridiculous and the main character is pretty much everything i was expecting from seeing him everywhere. Rocket league again. It comes and goes with various different games to tide me over, give me a break from working. Bout 2 months ago or so said relaxing time was dominated by anime - i suddenly went on like a massive streak of watching shit. By that i mean, i watched all of hunter x hunter in like 2 weeks, among other shows prior to it. But yeah. Fuck man HXH I LOVED THE KING WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I have too many emotions about that. I wrote a rant to the Groupchat (tm) about the fucking battle and how everything is in slow motion but it fucking like makes it like foreshadowed and have so much of an impact and still so much fucking happens even while everything runs at super slow mo just GOD KLASFJBHUGHASFIUHIPJASK anyway. Yeah. Music, as always im listening to like constantly. Wireless headphones are a wonder for this, but uhh....i cant say im especially into any specific thing rn right? Like a bit ago i was super into joywave and then that faded out and now im just listening to whatever random shit, yknow? But I am into music in general. Its good. Art! A lot of times i dont do shit like for drawing right, like especially not in like pencil in notebooks but like, i sorta started doing a lot more art stuff? Like i had a period awhile back last year where i stopped using pencils and used only pens and i just loved the aesthetic of the ink like how it looked (funny how im doing the opposite of the fucking inktober though, huh?) but yeah im back into using pencils to draw shit occasionally. Im still terrible at drawing people (which is what i see mostly everyone drawing on tumblr lmao RIP) but its fun to sketch stuff out and just let my thoughts run and bounce to some music and shit right? Also the tablets. Especially with the tablets.

5 things people may not know about me (at least on tumblr)

I basically constantly wear sweatshirts, and they all have like earbuds where the strings go. All the earbud shits are broken pretty much, like occasionally they work (the one i have rn does) but like, i dont ever really use them? i have wireless headphones for my phone and a headset (because i need the mic for my computer) for said computer so like, idk. But yeah. I rarely take em off when im not home, and sometimes even when i am i just kinda keep em anyway? (also just now i realized i talked in the section for room shit about all the stuff in my current dorm, my room at home has all KINDS of wierd fucking shit in it. Really missed an opportunity there.) Like many people i like to stay hydrated and shit, but drinking water all the time seemed like a chore more than anything so i got like drink mix ins and shit, mio’s or whatever offbrand version you can find at your local SUPERSTORE CONGLOMERATE. I drink em like all the time pretty much so atleast im health in one way :P. Also gummy vitamins. I dont excercise but you can only ask for so much. Idk, its hard to think of things for this section because tumblr knows so little about me yknow? Like i never make my own posts or shit like its SUPER rare so im pretty much just tryna find random facts but that might not be interesting? Like i have a bad habbit of like talking way too loud when im excited about something right? Not quite yelling but like getting there and like idk. See? Thats not super interesting but it is something no one online would be able to really know ya feel? Idk. I mean physically im kinda fat as you do, but im also like wierdly strong? Like for someone who never works out i sure do have arm strength if nothing else lmao. My endurance is shit tho. Honestly? I can only blame it on osu and groceries. Osu is just a game i like where you mash buttons to the beat of weaboo shit tier music. The groceries is just because like, well, my policy is Least Trips Possible which means carrying in 13 bags at a time if need be it, fuck it milk too? And a watermellon? Bring it. 

Who am I tagging? Idk man. Just for shits and stuff tho i do wanna tag @theoriginalyami just to see what all’s changed in teh long time since i actually went to fill it out :P Dont feel like you have to add as much as me tho omg @milkchocolateowl because honestly? love you. Think about you a lot, just like glad im mutuals with that ray of sunshine. Good. @fantaledfish <3 (this is the friend i mentioned earlier, runs a QUALITY blog i guarantee it, better than mine for sure) @dragonfucker-supreme always top in my notes, a silent bond, like two guards assigned to watch back to back in the early dawn. Birds gather round. I can only tag so many people (i set myself a limit of 5 because...idk why i just mentally it felt right) so for my last trick gotta go with @ask-oncies-jizz like cmon man name changes for the win, also has quality icons and quality shitposts tbh, supreme top meme. Have fun yall.

[starments]

bring your sweet lovin’.

YOOOOO part 1 of a birthday gift for @kitandkanoodle. i was only going to write one thing, and then i ended up with two things half-written so i finished both.

basically, peter is shit at dealing with his grief and trying to cope with anything at all, and gamora is there for him anyway.

you can read it here on ao3!

God, it’s been a hell of a day.

Just once, Peter would like it if anything could go right for them. Sure, the Guardians get shit done, and they usually come out the other side pretty okay (except on… a couple of occasions, but Peter’s done a halfway decent job shoving every last detail of Ego into a dark, tiny box that he never has to look at). But everything always seems to get more complicated than it needs to be. Playing escort to a Nova Corps delivery ended with a bunch of would-be robbers trying to blast the Milano outta the stars. Picking off a gang of thugs on a tiny moon went from six guys to thirty-six. And a gigantic, spine-covered pterodactyl thing nearly carried Groot off to its nest while they were trying to shoot down a second one of those weird assholes.

Scratch that – it’s been a hell of a week.

Peter likes to be on the move, likes to always have something to do, but lately, they’ve just been getting hammered over and over again by the kinds of crazy jobs that will wring a guy out. He’s exhausted, and fuck, he needs a vacation.

Maybe like, six vacations. All in a row.

The Nova Corps can call somebody else for their stupid deliveries.

Peter’s mood seems to be shared among the rest of the Guardians. They all stalk off in various directions once they’re back on board the Quadrant: Rocket takes Groot down the corridor, muttering about how he oughta be more careful and, “what the hell were you thinkin’ waving at those damn things? Use some friggin' common sense next time, is that so much to ask?”; Drax excuses himself with a short nod in Peter’s direction, and he can see the big guy heading off towards the training area Gamora had set up on one of the upper decks – dude’s probably gonna punch some shit, and Peter can’t say he blames him; Kraglin and Mantis beat a hasty retreat before Peter can check in on them, and Gamora—

Shit, where did Gamora go?

He only has time to see her disappearing around the corner of one of the halls. She’s off in the direction of her bunk, so… maybe she wants some time alone?

Something heavy sits in the pit of Peter’s stomach when he realizes that. Not that he blames her or anything; Gamora can be a pretty solitary person, and he knows she needs peace and quiet to clear her head (and Peter Quill is anything but “peace and quiet”), but… today was shitty. This week has been shitty, and he finds that all he wants to do is sit with his best friend and maybe commiserate over some godawful alcohol, and then just go the fuck to bed.

… It’s kind of hard to do that when Gamora has up and disappeared, though.

But Peter knows better than to prod or try to be close when she clearly isn’t going for it, so he doesn’t trail after her. Maybe she just needs to unwind in her own way, and he can respect that.

Instead, he hauls himself off to the captain’s quarters, ditching his jacket, his boots, leaving his Zune on his worktable along with the other little odds and ends that sit there. He hasn’t disturbed much of Yondu’s leftover crap (no matter how many times it hits him that Yondu is gone, that it doesn’t matter what he does with all this shit left behind); it’s still oddly preserved, despite how messy Peter naturally is. His clothes may be all over the place, but Yondu’s knickknacks, his valuables, his holos and wardrobe— Peter hasn’t moved it around, not any more than necessary.

(Peter doesn’t think this place feels like his yet.)

Like the refined man that he is, Peter leaves a trail of clothing behind him on his way to the private bathroom in his quarters. He tells himself he’ll pick it all up later – but, in reality, he probably won’t until he gathers everything up for a gigantic load of laundry. He should wash things at least semi-regularly, Gamora’s told him on more than one occasion, but, you know. Details.

As he stands in the shower with the water beating down on his shoulders, he leans his forehead against the wall with a slow, shuddering sigh. He’d been so close to just flopping down into bed and passing out for the night, but he knows he’s dusty and gross and covered in weird pterodactyl… whatever, so he needs a shower. But, fuck, he just wants to sleep for a year.

Preferably with Gamora.

But apparently that’s not going to be a thing, so he resigns himself to cleaning off and rinsing his hair before he steps out to wrap a towel around his waist.

Official agenda for the evening: get in bed, stare at ceiling, listen to something he hasn’t heard on the Zune yet. That’s a pretty okay way to send off a shitty week, right?

He’s pushing his hair away from his face as he wanders back out of the shower, scrubbing the heel of his hand over his eyes, but he stops up short when he realizes he’s not alone in his quarters. He immediately refocuses, tense and at attention, ready to respond (despite the fact that he’s basically in nothing but a goddamn towel), and—

There’s Gamora, sitting on his bed with his Zune in her lap, her curls pulled away from her face in some half-braid that’s left a few stray locks of magenta falling around her cheeks. Instead of relaxing, Peter’s breathing just sort of stops for a minute, the wind knocked right out of his sails – and fuck, seeing Gamora does that to him when he doesn’t even realize it.

She doesn’t glance up from the Zune, though she clearly knows he’s there.

“I’m glad you showered,” says Gamora, still not looking up from the MP3 player. One of the earbuds is tucked neatly into her ear, the other hanging freely, though unlike his old headphones, it’s harder to make out what she’s listening to from a distance. “Whatever you fell in today was disgusting.”

Peter wrinkles his nose, something like mock offense. “Hello to you too.” He wanders over to a pile of clothes (clean ones, despite the fact that he hasn’t put them away), plucking up a pair of sweat pants. He looks over his shoulder at her, a little tentative. “You wanna like, turn around for a second or something?”

“I’m fine.”

“… I’m gonna be totally pantsless, dude; this is me warning you.”

“I’m aware of that,” comes the bland reply, but Peter supposes that as long as she’s fine with it, it’s whatever. He shrugs, then abandons the towel in favor of his sweats. He doesn’t think he sees Gamora watching, but he also thinks he might have caught the briefest flicker of her attention before she looks to the Zune again.

It’s only after he turns back around to look at her that he realizes she’s sitting with a bottle of something against her thigh on the bed, and he heaves a massive, relieved sigh.

“God, you’re the best. Like, the actual best.” He wanders to the bed, flopping down next to her and reaching across her lap for the booze. She doesn’t grab his wrist or try to stop him, instead letting him unscrew the cap and take the first swig as she pops the headphone from her ear to set his Zune aside. Peter winces as the liquor hits his tongue, and he swallows with a grimace and a rough exhale. “That shit could melt your eyes right outta your skull. Damn. You’re not kiddin’ around today.”

“You looked like you needed it,” she admits.

Peter looks down at the bottle instead of Gamora, smoothing his thumb over the label. “Not sure what might’ve given you that impression. Couldn’t be more fine. Doing great, actually. I’m the picture of—“

“Peter.”

… Man, she’s good at cutting off his rambling. She doesn’t let him talk circles around himself to bullshit out of any corner he runs into, and as much as he may need that, fuck, he hates it sometimes. She makes it so hard to pretend like he’s fine, to act like nothing’s getting to him – and that’s how he has to be, right? He’s the stupid leader, he has to keep it together at all times.

And it’s so goddamn hard.

“… I’m okay,” he tries again, somewhat more subdued this time.

“Is that another lie?”

Peter shrugs, and instead of having to speak, he swallows down another mouthful of the… rubbing alcohol? What even is this shit? Strong and pinkand probably pilfered from the Quadrant’s little bar.

Whatever, doesn’t matter. It’ll do the job no matter what it tastes like.

He offers the bottle to Gamora after he’s had a third gulp, and though she takes it, she doesn’t immediately move to drink. Shifting closer, she stops when they’re hip-to-hip.

Peter tenses for all of a second, and then—

He just sort of slumps to the side, leaning against Gamora’s shoulder. An arm curls around his waist, and he feels her turn to make it easier for his forehead to tuck against her throat. Okay, this is… nice, actually. Really, really nice.

He sees her set the bottle down out of the corner of his eye, and then her fingers are winding into his hair, wet as it is, and Peter goes practically boneless against her.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

Gamora presses her lips to the top of his head, and Peter wants to do nothing more than sit and relish this contact. He’s so damn tactile, and he’s sought out ways to fill that need in so many different places, but nothing, nothing soothes him like being close to Gamora.

“Can’t things just go— sort of okay for once? Like, when shit goes sideways, could we maybe not think someone’s going to die for a minute?” His voice is somehow— hoarse. Roughened. He doesn’t lift his head to look at Gamora.

At first, there’s no response. Gamora continues to run fingers through his hair, like she’s taking a moment to compose herself and her answer. “Groot was going to be fine, Peter.” She says it softly, and something about the sympathy beneath it all makes Peter’s gut twist.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t know that. We didn’t know that.” He straightens up, dragging his hand through his hair when he puts distance between them. “And I’m not— I don’t just mean today.”

Quiet falls between them. “… I know.”

Of course she knows. Of course she gets it because Peter feels like a goddamn open book with her, just all laid out on the table so she can see every embarrassing part of himself he usually hides under a quick laugh and a broad grin or the kind of aggravated standoffishness he’d learned to perfect with the Ravagers. She sees through it all, and she leaves him spread out and—

Fuck. He should just go back to drinking.

He reaches for the bottle she set on the ground, not quite able to drag his eyes up to hers. This time, when he straightens up, she sets a hand on his wrist, the other bringing her arm back around so that she can cup his jaw. He doesn’t resist when she tilts his face towards her, but he doesn’t quite raise his eyes to meet that piercing gaze, either.

“We make it through, Peter,” she says, soft and gentle. “It’s what we do.”

And that is how they deal, isn’t it? The Guardians may be losers, and they may have all lost so damn much, but fuck, they’re survivors too. They carry on. They move forward. They make something of themselves.

Green eyes flicker up to settle on Gamora’s, and that softness is waiting for him there. He’s so used to reading sympathy as pity, but there’s none of that in Gamora’s face now. She doesn’t think he’s pathetic, but she… feels for him instead. She feels with him after all of this bullshit, all this heaviness. Maybe these close calls lately aren’t what’s getting to him. Maybe it’s the remains of a dead man that live in his room like ghosts all their own, and maybe it’s how little he’s let himself— feel everything.

He’d rather keep it all in that dark, tiny box.

But for now, Peter doesn’t say anything. Neither does Gamora. He reaches up to rest a palm on her cheek, drawing their faces together until their foreheads touch.

They stay like that – close, breathing each other in, but they don’t break the silence. They don’t need to. At some point, the bottle is abandoned on the floor once again, and they both end up rearranged on the bed. Peter’s head rests on her stomach as she takes a pillow properly, and she lets him fidget with his Zune for a while as she makes herself comfortable. He passes her one of the earbuds, and in the quiet of his quarters, Here Comes the Sun filters gentle and sweet between them.

As her fingers wind into his hair again, Gamora listens, before she speaks again, “I like this one.” He can’t see it, but he can hear that soft smile he knows has to be there.

“Thought you might.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the night – not really. Some of Peter’s bullshit comments on and off, a mention of a song name or two, but they both seem content with the companionable silence until they’re ready to fall asleep. Peter ends up resituated to rest his head on a pillow, and Gamora curls up against his back, an arm reassuringly tight around his waist as she nuzzles against his neck.

And as shitty as this week has been? This is a pretty great way to end it.

[the-u-b-w-blr-blog]

Apologies!

Hey there everyone! We were hoping to release episode 2 today, but it seems that won’t be possible. However, one of our voice actors did write up a transcript of the episode! Technically we could share the script, but a few things were changed up in the recording process so it doesn’t count much. So let’s thank AJ, our VA for David, for setting this one up! If you’d like to read it, just click the read more!

Xavier Washington: Hey Leon, did you- oh. Headset again.

 Leon Hall: Huh? Oh- Xavier! Sorry. I was watching a video. A friend filmed us playing paintball, and I wanted to make sure there was nothing too embarrassing here before he decides to post it everywhere, because the guy has like, no self restraint at all.

 Xavier Washington: We have homework, though. Did you actually do it or are you stalling?

 Leon Hall: Man, we both know I always do homework early. What about you?

 Xavier Washington: Basically done. Can I watch too?

 Leon Hall: Sure, if you’ve got earbuds.

 Xavier Washington: Always got those.

 Leon Hall: Podcast nerd.

 Xavier Washington: I like podcasts and you’re obsessed with any game involving shooting people, I vote myself the one in better condition.

 Xavier Washington: Oh. You’ve got pretty good aim!

 Leon Hall: Nah, not really. Plus, staying away from the other players doesn’t make for a good strategy. I was pretty bruised from the last match, though. Didn’t feel like getting hit as much this time.

 Xavier Washington: Hm, that’s why I stick to laser tag. All the fun and none of the pain whatsoever.

 Leon Hall: Yea, sounds too good to be true. Though I’ve heard there’s a group that uses the funds the school provides for clubs to go play that?

 Xavier Washington: Oh? You mean people have finally noticed?

 Leon Hall: Yea, I- wait, what?

 Xavier Washington: Member of the U.B.W. and a siphoner of school funds, at your service!

 Leon Hall: We’ve been friends for two years and you never told me you had access to free laser tag?

 Xavier Washington: Well, I can’t tell ANYONE all willy-nilly! What’s that phrase Cici and Maria love? The best secrets are the ones you haven’t told?

 Leon Hall: Explain telling me now, then?

 Xavier Washington: You’re my best friend, you’re responsible, interested in games with guns, AND already aware the group exits. Doesn’t really break any promises anymore.

 Leon Hall: Promises?

 Xavier Washington: All of us made a deal not to tell unless it was to a friend who already knew. I really wanted to tell you though! I swear that, at least.

 Leon Hall: Dude, it’s fine. I get it, even if I would’ve liked to know. Question though. What the hell does U.B.W. stand for?

 Xavier Washington: Okay, that- that joke requires backstory. And I don’t tell it as well as the others. Actually, maybe they could tell you. And maybe you could play with us! We meet Fridays- would you want to join?

 Leon Hall: Free paintball minus pain? Do you even need to ask?

   Leon Hall: I swear to god, Xavier, if you don’t hurry up, I’m going to take off and leave you behind!

 Xavier Washington: Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

 Leon Hall: That was another founding fathers quote, wasn’t it?

 Xavier Washington: George Washington, yes. I’m going fast as I can, Leon!

 Leon Hall: I know, I know- Sorry! I’m just excited!

   Elizabeth Lee: Where are they? I know Xavier’s usually late, but this is insane! We’re going to have to go in without our scout, at this rate. How do we take down the base and cover ground without both of our scouts?

 Julia Taylor: I can always take a scout position, Lizzy- besides, David can handle scouting on his own for one day. It’s the small arena today, right?

 Elizabeth Lee: Yes, it is- that’s why you can’t take scout position, Julia. We need defenders. It’s too easy for them to reach our base on such a small turf.

 Cici Diaz: Hey, why does Julia get to call you Lizzy? You never let us call you Lizzy!

 Kane Jones: The girl is stressed and distracted, she could care less about nicknames. Elizabeth, since it’s so small, and I remember it having lots of tall walls and obstacles… one of us could take a scouting position? Sniping them when there’s a thousand walls in the way gets a lot harder with no higher ground.

 Elizabeth Lee: True, but it usually makes the difference in how many people reach our base either way. No, best we stick to the usual spots- you, in the hidden room by the side of the blue base, and me behind the wall next to ours.

   Xavier Washington: H-Here! We’re here!

 David Williams: We?

 Xavier Washington: I brought a friend! From coding class, remember? He’s really good at paintball, so I invited him to join! I bet he could be great at laser tag, too! Oh, uh- Leon, everyone. Everyone, Leon!

 Leon Hall: Uh… hey? I know, like, half of you. Did NOT expect this to be the group that uses club funds to play laser tag, honestly.

 Julia Taylor: Hey, I know you! You’re the one that falls asleep in English every class!

 Leon Hall: To be fair, who stays awake during Smith’s lectures?

 Elizabeth Lee: As much as I dislike those who fall asleep in class, he has a point. Xavier- aren’t we NOT supposed to spread the word of what we spend club meetings doing?

 Xavier Washington: I mean, I got excited when I watched him play so I sort of invited him?

 Kane Jones: Well, if he’s cute and can handle a gun, I’m not complaining!

 Maria Barrios: Seriously, Kane? No es tan lindo. Me parece que nunca sale de la casa.

 Leon Hall: Wait, what? Maria?

 Kane Jones: My cousin speaks spanish when she doesn’t want someone she’s friends with to know what she’s saying- which is RUDE, but she won’t listen. She’s saying that you aren’t that cute, cause you look like you never leave the house, but personally I think the neon green headphones, slightly baggy sweater, messy curly hair, sort of gamer look suits you!

 Leon Hall: I… uh, thanks?

 Kane Jones: You’re welcome!

 Elizabeth Lee: We… don’t have time to continue introductions, I think. The match starts any minute- we should get into the arena, get into position. Leon? You’re on trial run. Get an accuracy score of at least 50%, and more points than David, and I’ll consider letting you join us in matches. Deal?

 David Williams: You should know I never score below 15,000 points a match.

 Leon Hall: So, strong silent type I need to best to complete the quest? Sure, I can do this.

 Xavier Washington: Then welcome to the team! For now. Come on, I’ll show you a good starting point to get to the enemy base without getting spotted!

   Julia Taylor: Are you sure about this, Lizzy? We pass as a generally academically inclined club, and I’m not sure what adding him to our roster could do. What if the new principal starts to question the sudden new member?

 Elizabeth Lee: I don’t think he’ll bother a club that’s been standing a solid three years, now. Not his first year, at least. By the time he tackles clubs, we’ll be gone. What harm could it be? And who knows, we might find a new friend here.

 David Williams: I don’t know, Elizabeth. Chances are that the increase in club spending might draw his attention. I keep us mostly under wraps, but there’s only so much paperwork you can hide the spending under.

 Elizabeth Lee: Oh come on, have a little faith! Xavier hasn’t been this excited about someone in a while- and he’s the one that brought us all together, remember? This could be good for us. Now, let's get in position. And David?

 David Williams: Yes?

 Elizabeth Lee: Guarantee this is a challenge, would you? And tell Cici… she can have free range this match.

 David Williams: Yes, Ma’am.

   Announcer: Heeeeelllo there everyone!  Now, both teams signed up to battle today have been fighting here for a few years- they’re the best here! So let’s give a huge round of applause fooooooor- The U.B.W! Reigning champions, their team is a well oiled machine, ready to bounce and cover each other at any minute! Their team captain, with alias Zenith, is notoriously hard to find and harder to hit- let’s see if they can keep rising to the challenge against…. The R.E.D! Always coming close behind, never quite winning but conquering anyone else below them! Team captain, with alias Hellfire, operates much like U.B.W. member Paragon- a wild card, you can never tell just what trick they’re going to play! This promises to be an interesting match- so lights out, vests on, and let’s see how it goes!

 Xavier Washington: Alright, we can’t talk much- go for the base, and I’ll stay close for cover! Do you remember the path I showed you?

 Leon Hall: I- yeah, I do, but I think I’ve got another idea. Do you mind if I split off and go for it?

 Xavier Washington: If you think it’s a good idea? Just don’t tell Maria. She’s the one that keeps us working as a team when we're in training- she doesn’t like the whole separating thing.

 Leon Hall: Guess I’m not telling Maria, then. Good luck, Xavier!

   Maria Barrios: Shoot- Cici, we need backup! They’re already here!

 Maria Barrios: Nevermind- they weren’t that fast.

 Julia Taylor: We’ve got this. Kane has kept most of them running for their respawn point the moment they get close enough to start attacking- we’ll be fine.

 Maria Barrios: I know, I know- I hate this small field, though. So many obstacles- it's so easy to lose sight of where you’re shooting!

 Julia Taylor: That’s life, Mari.

   Leon Hall: Almost there- hey, do they not have defenders….? A wide open base… Hold on!

 Leon Hall: Sniper- that’s how they defend the base, and let the rest of their players run towards ours! If I can just hit the base, it’s instant game over- wait, no, it’s three times in a row, isn’t it?

   Cici Diaz: Oh, by the way boys, if you all run in groups I can shoot you all down at once before you spot me! Try to spread out, maybe hide a little! Then, just maybe you’ll land a hit!

 Leon Hall: Did you just-

 Cici Diaz: Give advice to the enemy? Yep! They hate it when I do that. Toodles!

 Leon Hall: That- sure. Ok. Now… got to take down the sniper…

 Leon Hall: Shoot! Nearly got them-

 Leon Hall: Got it! Base undefended, just gotta….

   Announcer: Aaaaaaaaand it’s game over folks! The U.B.W. may have taken some heavy fire, but in the end their newest member took down the defense and the base while the rest of the team focused on getting through enemy lines! Better luck next time, R.E.D! And that’s the match!

   Kane Jones: That was a fun match! Oooooh, I got so many points, I don’t know what to do with them!

 Cici Diaz: Ah, not as many as me, though!

 Kane Jones: I did get an overall higher accuracy stat than you did, though. That counts for a lot.

 Cici Diaz: A happy trigger finger takes a few sacrifices, Kane. And that’s all I can say! Oh, Leon! How’d you do?

 Leon Hall: A… 47% accuracy, and 10,354 points? Plus the base claim.

 Xavier Washington: Oh, that’s super good for your first time though! Even if it… probably isn’t enough for Elizabeth to let you on the team.

 Elizabeth Lee: Who said it wasn’t enough? All I did was give him incentive and a goal. It was too much to ask of someone who had never played the game before- but his score surprises me anyway.

 Maria Barrios: Even I admit, the gamer boy has potential.

 Leon Hall: So… am I in?

 Elizabeth Lee: If you’d like to be. We practice Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, time varies. Matches are always on Fridays. You’re free to join and improve your accuracy- you could make a good Wild Card, with a little work.

 Leon Hall: Thanks! I’ll do my best not to let you guys down- this was fun! And way, way less painful than paintball, honestly.

 Julia Taylor: It’s part of the reason we picked it! Keeps the clothes less dirty, too.

 Xavier Washington: You know what doesn't help keep clothes clean but is incredible anyways?Pizza! I say we go get some and celebrate a new member!

 Cici Diaz: oooooh, can we go to the pizza place next to Nitrogen ice cream, please? Pretty please?

 Elizabeth: I don't see why not. Can all of us go?

 Maria: I can go if Kane skips his skincare routine for the night.

 Kane: For pizza and ice cream on a Friday night? I can sacrifice some time. Does anyone else need a ride?

 Xavier: Me and Leon can go on our bikes. Do you have a ride, Cici?

 Cici: …No. My mom dropped me off here and I don't want to bother her on such short notice.

 Maria: You'll come with us, then. Julia, I'm guessing you'll go with Elizabeth?

 Julia: Do I ever not? Oh wait- can I, Lizzy?

 Elizabeth: Do you ever not? Of course you can. David?

 David: I borrowed Ms. Lissa’s car for the night and she doesn't need it back till tomorrow. I've got my way there.

 Elizabeth: Then it's settled! We’ll meet up there!

[awkwardspiritanimals]

be ready and be brave (keyleth and the mountain goats)

i’m doing a set of meta pieces where i take a critical role character and pick five mountain goats songs that i think they would like and that i associate with them, and then writing meta posts of varying middle lengths about them in my college!au. you can read the longer explanation on the project here, and here’s the mountain goats wikipedia page if you’re unfamiliar. this is also a decent quick primer on them. i’ll link my favorite version of each song i use so you can listen along.

without further ado, this is the first part, which belongs to keyleth.

i. be ready and be brave

keyleth listens to the mountain goats for a long time before she really gets the mountain goats.

of their group, percy in particular listens to them a bunch, and they spend a lot of time together, just the two of them, so that’s where she hears them the most. the animal shelter she volunteers at is over near victor’s, so she catches a ride with him pretty often, when he’s got afternoon or evening shifts, and they usually take his truck (he likes driving more than she does and is more likely to need his vehicle while working than she is and also quite frankly he just doesn’t fit into her car very well).

(when she’d bought the little green vw bug years ago, there was no way she could have possibly predicted that she would someday go off to college and befriend a bunch of giants. grog and the de rolos like to swap exaggerated horror stories about trying to fit themselves inside the tiny car without dislocating anything. pike and scanlan laugh at them about it a lot.)

percy defaults to the mountain goats most of the time when they’re driving, and keyleth doesn’t mind them, so she doesn’t complain. she thinks they’re fine pretty much from the beginning, especially once she’s gotten used to jd’s voice, to the songs that percy plays most often, but none of them ever particularly reach out to her, not until magpie.

it’s spring, some day in that last little lull of the semester before finals kick into full gear, warm enough that they’ve got the windows rolled down, and the song catches her right from the beginning as percy pulls up to a stop sign. there are a lot of different kinds of mountain goats songs, but this one is gentle, reaches out and touches some bit of her that still feels lost and vulnerable in emon, away from home and her father and the familiarity of the greenhouse, tugs and pulls at it, opens up some hidden, scared part of her in a way that makes her breath catch for just a moment before it shakes its way out of her chest.

(try hard to do your best. be ready and be brave.)

percy doesn’t say anything when she skips back to listen to it again.

ii. i will get lonely/and gasp for air

the second time this happens they’re in the library.

it’s that stage of finals where she’s legitimately wondering if giving up and going off to just live in a forest a long ways away is the better option, and percy’s sharing his headphones with her because she forgot hers, which is something she does a lot. the stuff he listens to while they’re working is more varied than when they’re driving, because percy doesn’t have to worry about distracting himself from the road and can skip around and choose new stuff whenever he wants, so get lonely catches her even more off-guard than magpie had.

it’s the same thing though, the gentle sound of jd’s voice on i will get lonely/and gasp for air reaching in and tugging at something in her chest, something hidden there from everyone else and from herself. the song sounds lonely, sounds how lonely feels, and keyleth is very familiar with it all. not so much these days, but there are still moments of it, cold, sharp pinpricks of it when everyone gets busy and they don’t see each other for a few days, little stinging bits of hurt reaching back to a time when she was so often lonely that she can only really understand the entirety of it now, removed from it a bit by time and place. the song pulls at the edges of this place inside her, both old and new, her breath catching to the rhythm of the string part at the chorus.

and then percy leans into her just a bit, his shoulder pressed warmly against hers and one eyebrow raised in question. the song ends, and percy’s still there, not saying anything but there. she nods, and he leans into her a little more for just a second before going back to his own notes, connected to her by his earbuds.

iii. the sun’ll come out tomorrow

when she finds this song, she is not expecting it to be one she already knows, because of course everyone knows tomorrow, and at this stage in her knowledge of the mountain goats it is not a song she would have ever imagined they might cover.

everyone knows tomorrow, but not this tomorrow, not this soft and gentle thing that john darnielle makes it. the original is bright and hopeful and just on the edge of triumphant, and this is those things too but something different also, all those things pulled down, tight and close, a tiny little ember of something, smaller and softer but still bright, still burning.

(keyleth can’t get over the volume of the piano in comparison to jd’s vocals.)

if magpie and get lonely had pulled things apart in her, tugged at hidden bits of her in a startling and sort of frightening way but also a good way, a way that had exposed them to light and air, had allowed her to learn the shape of them within her and the space they occupy there, then tomorrow puts something back together, smooths out rough edges and unjumbles things she hadn’t even noticed.

she wants to share it with someone, because it seems like the kind of song you should give to someone else once you’ve found it. keyleth thinks vex might appreciate it, in those moments where she’s less brash and sure of herself than usual, but in the end it’s pike who she shares it with first, because she thinks that pike will understand, understand it in the very specific way that keyleth needs someone else to understand it.

pike’s quiet for a little while after they listen to it, and keyleth is sure she’s made a mistake, that pike actually doesn’t understand, is about to say something nice just because pike is usually nice, especially if she thinks she’s disappointing you, but then she just puts a hand on hers and says ‘oh.’

it’s exactly the reaction keyleth needed.

iv. i’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me

there is a momentum to this year that always gets caught up in keyleth’s bones.

most of her favorites in the mountain goats discography are the gentler, softer songs, because those are the ones she needs most often, to pull at the ragged edges of things and to smooth them back into place. but there are also days she just needs to shout i’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.

there are those days when she thinks it might, maybe not literally, but days where life leaves her feeling jagged and incomplete and like she has no fucking idea what she’s doing. and those are the days when she needs to sing very, very, very loudly that she is going to make it through this, that it (it being at that moment the entirety of the cold and unfeeling universe) should do it’s worst and prepare for disappointment, because at the end of it all she was going to still be there, shouting along until her chest aches with the joy of it, of that defiance and that spite and that brightness.

the momentum of it all gets her every time.

v. you can’t tell me what my spirit tells me isn’t true

keyleth doesn’t have any tattoos. it’s not that she has any problem with them, or even that she doesn’t want any, it’s just that… it seems like an important decision to her. the others tease her sometimes, about how seriously she takes the whole process, but she won’t be rushed.

she has a notebook where she keeps all her ideas. she’s had it for years, adding new things in whenever something inspires her. vax and vex are fond of half-stealing it, adding their own doodles in the margins and starring the ideas that are their favorites. there’s an entire page where she let grog design some for her, big, bright shapes that morph into vines and flowers when you look at them for long enough. percy has a page of his own too, his drawings more traditional and measured than grog’s, and her favorite is a sunflower that takes up most of one corner, realistic enough that she swears it moves sometimes, turning towards the sun.

the page dedicated to the mountain goats had mostly happened on accident. she’d written down one line she’d liked (be ready and be brave) and then another (i’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me) and then once she’d really started listening to them there’d been a bit of a deluge and now there’s a page full of them (i have no fear of anyone, i am young and wild and free. you were brave, you are splendid, and we will never be alone in this world. we held on to hope of better days coming, and when we did, we were right. no matter what they say, it’s gonna be okay. and look about, all the stars are coming out.) most of them are written as tightly as possible, in every inch of available space, because there’s a lot of them and keyleth assumes there will always be more.

there’s one, though, that’s bigger than the others, written in the top margin of the page so she would have enough room. she doesn’t think it will be the first one she gets, because there’s percy’s sunflower and grog’s vines and kerrek, well, kerr had done this amazing sketch one day, when she’d been curled up in his and grog’s little studio space on campus, wondering what the fuck she was doing with her life and trying to escape from everything for a little bit, i have passed through fire, curling and dark and perfect.

but she thinks someday, maybe, a few tattoos down the road, it would be right, that it’s something she’d like to have with her always.

(i don’t have to be afraid. i don’t want to be afraid. you can’t tell me what my spirit tells me isn’t true.)

(she honestly wishes there was someway to tattoo the horn part. it feels important somehow, to the whole thing.)

[breeeliss]

[Femslash February]: Glitter

shhhhh i know it’s march let me have this

i accidentally started writing this in first person, realized it was too late to change it, and just went with it

Day 17: Glitter (Lilanette)

Words:

Link to Archive of Our Own: [AO3]

[Previous: Tea Party] [Next: Autumn]

Their visual arts teacher lets Marinette stay after school to sketch with the graphite pencils and charcoals in exchange for Marinette cleaning all the paint brushes at the end of the day. She forgets that she used to be an artist before she dipped into designing, and sometimes it’s nice to take a break and sketch things other than clothes for a change. Besides, it’s been a while since she’s sketched with charcoals, and Nathanael already keyed her onto which cabinets to check for the best sets. 

She’s in the middle of draining the sink and laying out all the paint brushes to dry when, like clockwork, Lila slips into the classroom and heads right for the shelves in the back of the room where all the containers of glitter, glues, and sealants are kept. 

Marinette has her earbuds in and nods at Lila who gives a very small smile and tips her chin up in return. Marinette washes her hands, grabs the good charcoal set, and sits on the window sill to try and sketch out the buildings and sidewalks just outside. Lila sets out old newspapers across one of the art tables and starts to pull out five or so glass mason jars from her bag. Just as usual, they both work in silence. 

She watches from the corner of her eye as Lila paints glue onto the outside of one of her jars, dusts glitter over the entire surface until it’s a shimmering gold, and passes over it with sealant before she leaves it to dry and repeats the process over again. Marinette has been trying to figure out what Lila has been working on for the past two weeks, but she is at a loss for what you could possibly need so many jars decorated in glitter for. 

Sometimes Lila comes in with close to ten jars, all different sizes, and spends the entire time coating the outside of them in gold, silver, yellow, and orange. There are a couple of days where she doesn’t decorate them at all -- just fills them with water and glitter, screws them shut, and sits on the window across from Marinette just turning it over in her hands and watching the contents swirl around like a snow globe. One time, instead of jars, Lila came in with lightbulbs and coated them in glitter instead. 

She can’t help but ask Nathanael the next day if they share the same visual arts block together. Maybe it’s just a project that she’s spending extra time on. 

"We're in the same class, but we’re doing watercolors right now,” Nathanael frowned. “Whatever she’s doing doesn’t sound like anything our teacher would’ve assigned.”

“That’s an awful lot of work to be putting into something that she’s just doing for fun,” Marinette thought aloud. 

“To be fair, I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on in her head,” Nathanael shrugged. “Ever since everyone found out about her fake Ladybug interview, she sort of just keeps to herself. Your guess is as good as mine.”

It isn’t her place to intrude on matters that are really none of her business. She’s sure the only reason that Lila has been willing to share this space with her the entire time is because Marinette commits to honoring the very clear desire to be left alone that Lila constantly exudes. But there are brief moments when Marinette can feel Lila’s eyes staring at the sketches in her book and following her fingers as they smudge the lines she makes across the page. Their eyes only ever catch a couple of times, and when they do Lila quickly ducks her head down to stare at her work, leaving Marinette to let her eyes linger as she coats glue over what looks to be old Christmas ornaments. 

There is so much melancholy mixed in with the prickly attitude she puts up -- like she wants to be left alone but also wishes that someone would reach out and interrupt the space. It mixes in terribly with the lingering guilt that Marinette feels at having embarrassed Lila in front of Adrien, even if Lila doesn’t know that it was Marinette who had done the scolding. It makes her want to work for a resolution -- some neat, happy ending that’ll end this longing dance they’ve created around each other. 

So one afternoon, when she takes a break from sketching long ball gowns on the people she sees walking around outside the window, she asks, “Have you ever thought of doing designs?”

They are so used to the silence that usually hangs between then that Marinette’s voice echoes rather loudly and makes Lila’s head pop up in shock. She takes a moment to scrutinize Marinette, as if she’s trying to discern her sincerity from across the room, and it gives Marinette an excuse to stare at the small grains of glitter stuck in Lila’s hair and against the apples of her cheeks. “Sorry?”

Marinette flips her sketchbook back two pages and finds some of the doodles she left there during class this afternoon. She slides down from the windowsill and pushes the sketchbook across the table. “You know, designs. Stuff like this.”

Lila’s brows lift as she stares at the swirls, waves, and curls that Marinette has doodled across the page. “Um....no, I guess not,” she mutters. 

“Might be cool to try,” Marinette smiles. “Instead of just coating the whole thing in one color. I-I mean, unless that’s not what you’re going for. If it’s not, then never mind. I just realized I don’t really know what you’re doing. Which is fine. But I guess....”

She realizes she’s rambling only after Lila’s hesitant frown turns into a smile and slowly melts into a bright laughter -- the first time Marinette’s ever seen her laugh since they’ve met. She decides she likes how it makes Lila’s cheeks blush and shows all of her teeth. “Those designs look cool,” she agrees. “But I’m not actually that artistic. I don’t think I could do something like that.”

“I could help you,” Marinette says. “If you use stencils, it’ll actually be pretty easy. Of course, only if you want to. I don’t mean to impose.”

Lila shrugs. “I don’t want to bother you....”

“I’m not doing anything too important.”

She snorts in amusement and gives Marinette a smile that’s so different from the short, polite one she’s been accustomed to giving thus far -- warmer, wider, and more sincere. “If you want to help, I guess that’d be nice.”

Lila makes it sound like she doesn’t care either way, so Marinette grabs some cardboard sheets from the shelves, sketches out a few of her doodles onto the sheets, and uses an x-acto knife from the drawers under the tables to cut out the stencil. She takes one of Lila’s jars, wraps the stencil around, sprays on one of the adhesives she has out, and sprinkles a dusting of orange glitter across the surface. Marinette peels it off and reveals a beautiful design of orange wrapping around the entire surface of the jar. Marinette hands it back to Lila who stares at it with her mouth formed into a shocked ‘o.’

“That came out so clean,” Lila breathes out. “It’s pretty.”

Marinette grins. “If you seal that bit and then put glue around the design, you can make the background another color.”

Something lights up in Lila’s eyes, because suddenly she’s pulling -- wow, close to twelve mason jars out of her extra bag and lining them all up on the table. “Could I borrow that stencil?”

The excitement is infectious, and suddenly Marinette is grabbing more sheets of cardboard. “Yeah. I can make you a checkerboard one next if you want. Might look cool.” 

She suddenly stops and starts shaking her head. “O-Oh, you don’t have to help or anything. This is just for me....it’s....” Lila pauses and swallows back the answer. “Anyway, you don’t have to help.”

“I mean, if you’re willing, I’d be happy to,” Marinette insists. “You’ve been working on all this for so long, I want to help you finish.”

They both stay after school a lot longer than they ever had before. Lila pulls out the rest of the light bulbs she has in her bag and Marinette starts making stencils of hearts, stars, and polka dots that she sprays onto the surface and covers into glitter. Lila is across from her experimenting with making gradients of two and three different colors on the surface of each jar. Eventually, Marinette pulls the headphone jack out of her cell phone and lets her music play out of her phone’s speakers so that they both have some noise to fill the silence around them. Lila looks like she’s not used to the upbeat, pop music that Marinette is partial to, but eventually they both get into a rhythm where they’re painting and spraying and rocking to the rhythm of the songs that spill from the speakers. They aren’t particularly talkative, but Marinette doesn’t mind that too much. Lila is flipping through her sketchbook for inspiration and humming absently to the music, and it’s far more than the thirty second conversation that Marinette had been hoping for when she spoke in the first place. 

It takes only a couple of hours for there to be a long line of glittery bulbs and jars neatly lined up along the table, ready to dry in the art room overnight. Lila pours all the excess glitter back into the jars and walks up to another windowsill where her jars from yesterday have already finished drying. She’s loading them into her bag when Marinette offers to help her take them home. 

“You really don’t have to do that,” Lila says as a gentle insistence rather than a demand. 

“It’s no trouble,” Marinette assures. “You don’t live too far from the school, right? I see you walk to school everyday.”

Lila looks like she wants to protest, but Marinette must look rather eager because Lila relents and shrugs her shoulders, pushing a line of about six jars in her direction. “If you could take these, that’d be a help I guess.”

It’s only a fifteen minute walk to Lila’s apartment, and it’s one that’s spent mostly in comfortable silence. They push through the three floor walk-up, and Lila has to shimmy her house key a couple of times in the lock of the door before it pops open and reveals a quaint apartment that’s not much larger than Marinette’s. She respectfully takes her shoes off before she pads across the carpeted floors, and looks around to see cardboard boxes and plastic storage bins stacked around the living room. 

“Sorry about the mess,” Lila sighs out. The sun’s already started going down, so Lila moves around the apartment and starts turning on all the lamps and closing the blinds. “Papa and I haven’t finished unpacking yet.” 

“It’s fine,” Marinette says. She briefly remembers Mme. Bustier telling her that Lila had moved here from Sicily with her father, and that it was important as Class Representative to help her adjust to the new country and the new environment. “Is he here?”

“He works late,” Lila says, dropping her books on the couch in the corner. She juts her chin to the back of the apartment. “You can just put it down in my room and I’ll sort through it later.”

Marinette takes the paper bag filled with Lila’s glitter jars and follows her into her bedroom. She isn’t quite sure what she was expecting when she walks inside, but it certainly isn’t dozens upon dozens of jars, bulbs, mugs, and ornaments all coated in glitter of all different colors. They are sitting on her windowsills, her desk, her bedside table, hanging on the walls, sitting on her bookshelves, and covering every available surface that her room can provide. Marinette walks over to one of her windows and peeks inside of the glitter-covered jars and sees that they have candles sitting inside of them. “Is this what you’ve been working on?”

Lila pulls a long line of fairy lights from behind her bed and nods. “Yeah. Not quite done yet though. You can help me if you want.”

Lila had poked holes into the lids of the jars she’d decorated, leaving just enough room for the lights to feed into the jar, feed back out, and feed into the next one. Marinette helps her push the lights inside the jars while Lila starts lighting the candles in the jars on her bookshelf. When they’re both done, Lila shuts the blinds, closes her bedroom door, and starts plugging in all the wires around her room. 

The effect is breathtaking. Everywhere she looks the jars are glowing and shimmering against all the glitter wrapped around the outsides, turning each one into a sparking globe floating like a star against the darkness of her room. All the Christmas ornaments and bulbs are hanging along her walls, tangled with more lines of fairy lights to make the glitter covered bulbs shine brighter against Lila’s otherwise bare walls. Marinette looks down to see Lila sitting on the carpet in the middle of her room and decides to sit down next to her. From down here, everything feels mystical and surreal -- almost like a calming, beautiful, and magical world that’s contained within the four walls of her room. Marinette almost wants to lay down and fall asleep counting all the lights, staring at their warm glow until she falls into a smooth sleep with dreams filled with floating lights and glimmering space. She feels calm and at peace, and suddenly she hopes that Lila will let her stick around for a while. 

“I found tutorials for it online,” Lila starts speaking without being prompted. “I liked how it made everything look all warm and shadowy. We move around so much, I don’t really get to decorate my room much. This is the first time I’ve really gotten a chance to go all out.” 

“You’ve never decorated your room before?”

“Nope,” Lila sighs. “We never stay in a city for longer than a couple of months. This is the first city we’ve decided to stay in for good, so I’m trying to get used to that. This was the first thing I wanted to do.”

Marinette laughs. “This is lovely,” she tells her. “I would never want to leave this room.”

Lila chuckles. “Thanks. I was trying to make it seem homey. So at least when I came home everyday, it would welcoming. Like this is a place that’s always going to be here when I come back to it.”

Marinette thinks of how hard it must be to come to school for the first time after having moved around so often. She wonders if Lila isn’t used to the sensation of having a solid place that you can always come back to. She thinks of Lila making brilliant lies about herself on the first day of school to try and make as many friends as quickly as possible, and she wonders if it’s to make it impossible for people to not like her. To make sure that she’ll have someone who will want to stay because she’s so used to having to let go of important people when she inevitably has to pick up and move somewhere else. She thinks of a Lila who sobbed at the realization that Ladybug had pulled one of her friends right out from underneath her, and she thinks of a Lila who grows excited at the thought of being able to do something as simple permanently decorate her bedroom for the first time. 

She realizes that she’s been more than unfair to her, and she feels the burning need to try and do her best to fix what she’s ruined. 

Marinette crosses her legs underneath her and leans her shoulder against Lila’s, trying not to smile too hard at the feeling of Lila pressing back against her. They’re both still staring at all the glitter and all the lights in her room when Marinette asks, “What other places have you lived before this?”

“It’s a long, boring story,” Lila tells her. “You’re not going to want to hear it.”

“I don’t think it’ll be boring at all,” Marinette says. “Try me.”

Lila grins and fills her chest with air as she thinks back. “Alright. Let me see if I can remember...” 

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 30

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(Ruby POV)

I watched Jaune wheel Qrow away. They said they were headed to the Malachites' bar first without any real direction afterwards. I suppose they'd start turning up stones there and see where that led.

I really needed to work up the guts to tell Qrow about Jaune. Qrow trusted him, he even liked Jaune. I really was just stalling on that front but family was hard. I'd never brought a boyfriend home before. Not that I was bringing Jaune to my house. He'd already been there though, before we were dating. The point was I wasn't sure Qrow would object to Jaune at this point. They were like two peas in a pessimistic pod. Qrow even shared his flask with Jaune after Jaune got roughed up that day.

I wanted to go to him so badly, then. He came back soaked in blood and we really hadn't had the chance to talk about it, even. We hadn't had the chance to really talk since the Gold Saucer when I told him how much he meant to me and how I truly felt.

The real trouble was Yang. I wasn't really sure how she would react to the news. I mean she knew Jaune was a good guy. He was trustworthy and wore his heart on his sleeve. Now she sort of knew the alarming competence that he had developed so she couldn't even complain about that. Jaune was a man now.

Pyrrha's and my work. I could be proud of that.

On the other hand, Yang certainly wouldn't handle the news we were sleeping together well. She was my big sister. That pretty much said it all but she'd done so much to raise me, too. She wanted to keep me safe and small. That's what she still saw me as but I was too big for that now. She'd learn, we just needed baby steps first, probably. Maybe a kiss on the cheek around her to start.  

I sighed.

I missed being kissed by him. I pressed my fingers against my lips as I imagined him taking them again. All passion and want. Heat flushed my face as I thought of the last time we were together in the shower here. His body pressed against mine and quiet gasps leaving my lips. Steam and need between us and nothing else.

It sucked having to hide things. Jaune hadn't complained since I'd told him what I wanted but I'd like to believe he was suffering a little too. It wasn't cruel, it just showed what he was just willing to do for me. He was willing to do a lot for me.

He'd killed with me in his heart thrice now, I knew. He was willing to get his hands dirty and when things got ugly he was right there up front with it.

I needed to prove I was like that too. I needed to show that I could lead with that same force of will that he had.

"What's the plan Ruby?" Weiss asked me. Like I was supposed to know how to infiltrate a brothel. Just because I knew some things now didn't make me an expert on brothels!

"Ren goes in." I said. "And gets a lay of the place." He didn't look happy about it. "How many exits and entrances? That sort of thing." I was quick to try and reassure him.

"Outfits?" He asked.

"If you can get your hands on some, sure. Shoot for something Yang's size. Or any of our sizes, really." Anything was better than nothing.

He glanced around at each of us, as though taking a mental stock of each of our outfits one last time. He was looking like each of us like we were sending him off to die much more than he was checking us out and his gaze showed it.

"Not Ruby's." Yang interrupted.

"Yes. Even mine." I ordered over her. I shot her a glare. And she shot one right back, slightly incredulous. I never said out loud that I would do it but I would. This is important. Jaune would do the reverse, not that that thought was nice to have. I had to be willing to go the miles I had to be willing to go. "If you can get your hands on it, yes absolutely. We cover a wide range of heights and sizes so if you get one thing it might just about do it." Yeah, I'd prefer if Yang did it, but if I had to...

Ren gave a single slow nod. "Do we, uh know where this place is?"

"Jaune said it was on the lower levels, right?" Nora brought up. "How big could the lower levels be?"

"Well it's the biggest of the levels." Weiss corrected lightly.

"Uh guys. Jaune left directions and an address." Oscar waved a hand behind our little pow-wow. He had a sticky-note in his hand. "So you don't have to guess about that."

"Oh uh." I stammered. Here was Jaune covering for me again. Thinking a few steps ahead. "Good. That's good. We don't have to guess about that, that is."

"I don't think they'll just have a box of outfits by the door." Nora chipped in again. "How do you suppose he gets some? Past sleeping with one of the girls I doubt he'll be in position to get his hands on their clothes."

"Plus wouldn't they keep the outfit on? Isn't that the whole appeal?" We all turned to look at Oscar. "I mean…" He trailed.

It was too late for him to save any measure of bright red face, but he may have had a point. Nora, for one, didn't look happy about Ren going so far. I wasn't super comfortable with the idea, either. Even those of us going to seduce the Don were only doing it to get into position.

None of us intended on going through with the deed.

"We'll just improvise. We'll wire you up." I said. I grabbed the wire and gear Qrow had put together. "Put this on." It was basically earbuds that hooked up to his scroll and we'd just be mid call with him while he was in. Bing, bang, boom. He was wired up. Ren threaded it under his outfit and plugged it into his scroll. They had modified a microphone next to his ear. Something subtle but it would ensure whoever was wearing it could be heard by those of us outside. It wasn't unusual for someone our age to walk around with one headphone in.

Not even suspicious.

"Improvisation is not my strong suite," Ren sighed.

"Do we just stay here while he goes in or…" Weiss asked.

"Maybe..." I thought for a moment. "No, better to be close. We'll find a restaurant or hang-out. We'll be nearby," I assured Ren.

He breathed in and out meditatively but said nothing. I thought maybe he was relieved but it was hard to tell with Ren.

Nora seemed to actually know and reached out and touched his sleeve. "You'll do fine." It was a small sign of affection but was made larger by Ren's silence. Yang even looked away from the two of them.

He gave her a single martial nod.

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"So this is what the lower levels are like?" Nora wondered. "Bit of a mess, isn't it?"

"Jaune's been hanging out down here?" Weiss asked. We watched a dust bomb get sold over a counter like a candy bar. "Alone?"

"Qrow's been with him. For the most part," I defended. It wasn't like Jaune had been waltzing around by himself. He'd been pushing my handicapped uncle around. Which, okay, I saw Weiss's point.

In a fight, Jaune would have been basically alone. I suppose he had been, too, that day he killed someone again. My uncle wouldn't have been able to do anything other than watch.

I really needed to talk to him.

He'd acted comfortable down here in the lower levels. I knew he had some criminal background but as I watched weapons freely exchange I couldn't help but wonder what I'd been consigning him to. Had he really been relaxed down here. I know Yang looked like she was feeling fine but I could tell her skin was crawling from how much she was looking around. Jaune would get an entirely different kind of attention than Yang would, I knew that, but still.

I'd just been relaxing above and never knew. Never even gave it much thought. I'd been baking cookies for God's sake and Jaune had been here with people baking bombs. I wasn't sure I wanted to think about what Malachites' bar was like and beyond.

I mean he had killed somebody in a bar fight.

I really, really wanted to talk to him.

We found the Honey Bee Inn. A multi floored white building with many bright signs and neon hearts near the entrance. We tried not to stand outside and gawk at the place we'd be infiltrating in all our own bright colors.

We found a bar across the street and Yang walked in with a confident look. She lowered her shades and looked around and no one asked us for our IDs. I mean Nora, Weiss, and I were short enough that I was sure the guy behind the counter had questions. On the whole though, he didn't seem to mind so long as we paid upfront. Which we did.

I meagerly sipped the alcoholic drink Yang had ordered for me with a grimace and tried to keep a clear head. Ren marched into the Honey Bee Inn with his wiretap turned on and connected to Nora's scroll set to the speaker which sat in the middle of the table.

"I'm in." Ren murmured. "There's a bar inside and… and a bunch of girls. They're not wearing much."

"Well you're in the right place." Yang reassured dryly.

"Eyes to yourself sonny." Nora warned. I was glad she was at least having a good time. Or having something.

"Get yourself a drink, look casual," I advised.

"Roger that." Okay well if he kept saying 'roger that' outloud his cover was blown. "What should I order? I've never been in a bar before."

"Just a whiskey or vodka. You're a big guy," Yang informed him.  

"Is prostitution even legal here?" Weiss asked the table. That seemed like a fact worth knowing.

"Probably not," Yang enunciated each syllable slowly.

"The girls are just acting like waitresses," Ren muttered. "Vodka." He said a little louder.

"On the rocks." Yang continued.

"On the rocks." Ren echoed. He figured that she was giving him instruction awfully fast for somebody who professed to not think fast on their feet.

"No one would order one dry," Yang went on. "Just relax and trust me."

We heard Ren sigh through the microphone and I could imagine him nodding. Yang had street smarts that would help with this. There was a reason we wanted to get her alone in a room with Corneo.

"Do you have a plan to get their outfits?" Weiss asked.

"Maybe." Yang's gaze flickered over to Nora.

"Well don't leave us in the dark, spit it out already." Nora exclaimed.

"Ren, when a waitress comes up to you tell her you like the outfits but that you have a girlfriend. Tell her you have a fetish for it or whatever."

"What?" Nora wondered.

"You can't be serious." Weiss wasn't in either.

"I don't know that I can do that." Ren told the microphone.

"So what? That he just wants to, like, buy one?" I asked. The concept seemed so foreign.

"Why not?" Yang wondered.

"Actually…" Weiss weighed in. "This could work."

"That's what I'm saying. He likes the outfit just not any girl in there in one. It's the perfect excuse. It's shady, it's kinky, and he's willing to pay cash. That should be pretty normal."

I wondered for a second if Jaune ever wanted me to dress up like something. We were so fresh into things that it wasn't like we needed to spice anything up. I felt my face flush slightly at the pleasant memories. Thoughts for another time.

"Okay." Ren breathed. "Okay. I'll give it a try."

"Well we really only get one shot at it. Don't mess up." Yang gave him the business. "And try to get more than one. Tell them you have more than one girlfriend."

Weiss gave her a look.

"What? Being poly isn't as rare as people make it seem. Especially here in Mistral. People are pretty open minded in this part of the world."

"I-I suppose." Weiss stuttered out. She got this way about stuff like this. Weiss was somebody I could talk to about anything, we were besties like that, but that doesn't mean I'd actually talk to her about anything, we were besties like that, I suppose.

"It's not like that in Atlas, then," I asked.

Weiss shook her head.

"Sounds uptight, ice queen. You don't need any of that." Yang stretched her bionic arm over her head, getting at her back a little.

"Hey!"

"How are you doing handsome?" A woman's voice crackled through Nora's phone. "Can I get you anything?"

"Yeah, um you see the thing is I have some friends, who are girls, girlfriends, even." Ren stuttered out. "And we were wondering if we, well, I was wondering, anyways, if I could buy a pair off of you guys. See I'm sort of into the look, if you understand."

"I see…" the girl's voice came through. "How many girlfriends a guy like you have? The good looking huntsman type."

"Ah…" I could practically hear Ren thinking furiously. "Four? Four."

I mean we'd told him to go for as many as possible.

"How much money you got?" The woman whispered conspiratorially. "I think I can help you out."

"Tell her we'll pay a hundred fifty for each outfit." Yang pumped a fist.

Ren did some quick math. "Um I'll pay you six hundred Lien."

"No, no, sweetheart. How much money do you have? "

I heard Ren swallow through the mic.

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"She made me open my wallet and everything." Ren bemoaned. "I'm out two grand!"

"Easiest money she ever made." Yang laughed. Ren had delivered with a box full of these honey-bee costumes. They had fuzzy bras with bright blue wings on the back. They came with these black and yellow striped bottoms which did not leave much to the imagination. The outfits left the midriff exposed, Ren was right, the girls inside were not wearing much.

The two pieces weren't that much more exposing than a swimsuit, I supposed. I held one up to my own body.

We were back in our hideout rental, and digging through the box Ren had made out with. He was holding his face in his hands while Nora patted his shoulder.

"I gave her your heights and I think she just guessed, I'm not sure how well they'll fit unless there's something about girls I don't know about."

"Oh. There's a lot you don't know about girls." Nora kept pating his shoulder. "That isn't one of them, though."

"I think she did decent." Yang said holding up the largest set to herself. "These bras are a bit on the one-size fit all kind. No matter if you show some underboob, sideboob, or cleavage. Kinda the point, even. Just need the important bits to be covered up. Y'all might have to do some switching, though."

"What did I miss?" Oscar came around a corner. He saw Yang holding up the fuzzy cups and round bottoms and said aloud. "Oh my Gods."

"Oh please." Yang threw the bra and bottom over her shoulder, she flicked her waist-length yellow hair back at the same time. "I'm not even wearing it yet. I will rock this."

I thought Oscar was about to burst a blood vessel, his face went so red. I giggled a little at his awestruck look.

Yang's hair went with it better than mine and Nora's would but I thought Weiss's would do fine. She cheated though, her hair looked nice in everything. Especially something like this where the white would contrast with the black.

I imagined it now, looking more silver than white, petite breasts covered with the little fuzzy cups and felt heat climb up my neck.

I shook it off as Jaune walked in. He was wiping his face off with his shirt, forehead sweat, mostly. His shirt went up and the heat came back, riding all the way up my face as I got a good look at his stomach and a bunch of warm pleasant memories rushed me.

I sighed when I saw the beginnings of the massive scars and his shirt lowered.

I felt like slapping myself awake. Maybe that alcoholic drink had left me more dazed than I pleased but the warmth felt nice.

"Jaune!" I shouted, holding the outfit up still. I watched his eyes go wide and an adorable blush ride him up. I grinned which only faded slightly as Qrow rode up behind him.

"Where," Jaune enunciated, "did you guys get your hands on those."

"The Honey Bee Inn of course!" Nora exclaimed.

"Right. The bee stuff should have tipped me off."

"What do you think?" I asked, holding the outfit over me.

"Yeah Jaune?" Nora bullied. "What's on your mind?"

"Um…" he managed cutely. Yang was right, I wasn't even in the thing. I already felt… powerful in a way. I kinda liked it.

"Eyes to yourself kid." Qrow grunted. "That's my niece you're looking at."

"I'm getting a good look, too." He was still staring. He was staring hard enough to make me blush some more and when someone looked away it was me. He looked at me like he was hungry. It had been a little while. I suppose I sort of invited it on us with how I'd gotten his attention.

"Yeah?" Qrow asked. His gaze flickered between us, like he was figuring something out, he rolled his eyes and muttered about kids. "Well we learned some shit about the Don you're probably not going to like."

"He likes new girls. They hire on new staff every time he visits the Honey Bee Inn. He gets bored fast and he likes virgins," Jaune said.

"Wow, who'd you have to beat up to learn about that?" Nora asked.

"Some guys. They were obstinate," Jaune said. He looked his knuckles over and I noticed the skin was rolled like he'd been punching something hard. Probably skin over bones. "And over what was basically gossip, no less. Still it should help with the plan. Slipping some of you girls in next time he's around. You'll go unnoticed if you mix with the new staff."

I had to wonder what he had been up to while this time I was out with the gals drinking. It seemed he'd outdone me again in his commitment to the cause.

I fumed silently and lowered the clothes.

"It's as good a plan as any." Weiss folded her own brassiere and bottoms over one arm.

"You're going in too, Weiss?" Jaune asked.

Weiss said, "I suppose I am. The plan was to get as many of us in as possible, right?"

Jaune just nodded and shot me a sideways glance. His concern did him credit but I needed to be in there. Boots on the ground, so to speak. Good thing the getup didn't come with heels or I'd be screwed.

They came with these fuzzy shoes.

"Well this is better than just Yang and I going in, and you boys get to see us in these." Nora leaned back. "Win, win."

Jaune shot a look over to his comrade in testosterone on the couch. "What did you guys do to Ren?"

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-WG

[sand-rose]

Finally got around to drawing and writing Ezzy’s and Luna’s character bios! I’ve started playing their household a little alongside my others in Sims 4, so I’ll have a lot more photos of them to share in the future. I’m hoping that the more I play, the more they’ll grow on their own as characters like Reim did. They’re just too cute together!

                                Character Bios Below

Full Name: Ezlyn

Gender & Sexuality: Female, Lesbian

Pronouns: She/Her

Ethnicity/Species: Ego Entity

Birthplace & Birthdate: Ego World (specifically the city Gavron), December 20

Guilty Pleasures: listening to punk/rock/heavy metal music, energy drinks (she insists the caffeine crash is worth it for the rush), playing electric guitar and writing song lyrics despite her inability to sing, sweatpants and hoodies when at home with Luna, playing any sport that gets her blood pumping

Phobias: It might sound silly at her age, but Ezzy is afraid of losing her hearing. She never used to think much about cranking the volume on her headphones all the way up when listening to her favorite music, but after a relative warned her about it she became a little scared. She may be in the fashion biz with Miss Pan and Luna, but music is her true passion. She shudders at the thought of never being able to listen to her favorite songs again, and the thought of never hearing Luna's cheerful voice again really upsets her. So she takes care now not to turn the volume on full blast when she's listening to music, and she makes sure to give her ears plenty of breaks when listening for long amounts of time.

What They Would Be Famous For: She's part of Miss Pan's entourage in the fashion industry. She and Luna are always at her side, ready to offer advice and opinions on whatever crosses the boss's mind. When it comes to Miss Pan's clothing lines and fashion amusement park exclusives, Ezzy handles the more tomboy-ish designs for women's clothing, as that is her style. One day she would like to be famous for her song lyrics and guitar skills, but it's a dream she's kept on the downlow.

What They Would Get Arrested For: Probably skateboarding where she's not supposed to and then arguing with the cops about it. lol It hasn't happened yet, and hopefully it never will. And while it's not technically an arrest, before she moved in with Luna she had the cops called on her more than once for blasting the stereos full volume.

OC You Ship Them With: Luna. Luna is her best friend, the love of her life. She didn't mean to fall in love with her, but she did. For years they were Pan's assistants, best friends, inseparable. They were always together, two peas in a pod. Luna was dating a guy from the amusement park's makeup department at the time, and Ezzy realized after a while that she was kind of jealous of him. She didn't say anything, of course, and just pushed the feelings away, because Luna was her best friend and she was a little confused herself why she felt that way. After Luna and the guy broke up, it took Ezzy some more time to work out her feelings and finally work up the nerve to confess to Luna how she felt.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: No one, really. She's pretty chill, relaxed... She's easy to get along with, and if someone does have a problem with her, that's their problem, not hers.

Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: She's honestly not too into either. She doesn't really watch movies or read books unless Luna urges her to check out something she's obsessed with at the moment. She'll happily oblige because she knows it'll make Luna happy. But if she had to pick... She likes superhero movies. The action is cool and she assigns theme songs to the characters. As for books, she likes comics because she can listen to music while she reads them and it adds to the story. They also tend to tie in with a lot of movies, so it's easier for her to get involved with the plot, trying to connect the dots.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: She loathes musicals if the music is too bright and cheesy. She can deal with them if they're in the vein of Sweeney Todd, but upbeat musicals just annoy the crap out of her. She wants music she can bang her head to, damn it! And she's not much for what's called the classics. They had to read both Real World and Ego World classical literature in school and she hated it. She's not dumb, but looking up what certain words and phrases meant sure made her feel like she was. Fuck that Charlie Pickens guy, or whatever his name was!

Talents and/or Powers: She's a pro with the electric guitar, largely due to the fact that she started playing the instrument when she was 5. Her older brother Jax got one for his birthday that year and she pretty much stole it when he got bored with it. She's great with other instruments, too. And Luna thinks Ezzy's ability to assign a song to someone within minutes of meeting them is a talent, but that might just be some sweet flattery. lol Aside from music, Ezzy's pretty athletic and adapts to a new sport very quickly.   

Why Someone Might Love Them: She's the chill pal, the one who rarely loses her cool. If Luna is freaking out over something she might get caught up in the moment and freak out with her, but with anyone else she'll keep her cool. She's just a cool person in general. lol

Why Someone Might Hate Them: She doesn't put up with rude people, which is just one of the many reasons why Pan loves Ezzy being her assistant. She keeps people in line and makes sure they know their attitudes aren't welcome in Miss Pan's presence. She's not the violent type, but she will unleash verbal hell on a person and publicly humiliate them if they don't act right. So in short, she has zero customer service skills, so anyone who gets on the receiving end of her backlash probably will hate her. lol And you would think that because of this It might hate her, but they actually get along. They do bicker, but it's like friendly arguing. There's some people he hates because they don't put up with his attitude, and then there's people he respects for the exact same reason. She just happens to be one of those that earned his respect. lol

How They Change: As one of Pandora's assistants, she's a side character, so she really wasn't all that fleshed out when she first appeared in my old comics. She and Luna showed up a few times here and there and I really loved drawing and writing them, but there just wasn't much to their characters. Now that they're in my Sims game, I get to see how they act and evolve on their own, kind of like how Reim did. The main thing that did change was her and Luna's relationship. They were best friends and that's all I intended them to be. But looking back on the comics when I was making their characters in Sims, they just seemed so perfect together. And growing up in the conservative rural environment I did, 8-9 years ago it just didn't really click that they could be a couple. Now that they are, it feels right and I'm super happy for them! <3

Why You Love Them: She's the rocker chick of the gang. lol She's a total tomboy, the type that rarely wears dresses or skirts, and she's not afraid to get dirty in the mud while playing sports. She was always friends with the boys, and she'll speak her mind without a problem. She's the exact opposite of Luna, so they remind me of the whole yin and yang concept. Together they create the perfect balance, which is why they might work so well as Pandora's assistants!

Full Name: Luna

Gender & Sexuality: Female, Bisexual

Pronouns: She/Her

Ethnicity/Species: Ego Entity

Birthplace & Birthdate: Ego World (specifically the town Fairton), June 11 Guilty Pleasures: clothes shopping, buying dresses and shoes, and having mini at-home fashion shows so Ezzy can see her latest buys; going to the dog park and watching all the cute doggos (since their apartment doesn't allow pets), listening to Ezzy play the electric guitar, watching Ezzy jam out when she's listening to music through her earbuds, facial masks and hot tea

Phobias: Horses. When she was 6, her family visited a relative's farm and Luna accidentally spooked one when she wandered too close and shrieked in delight. The horse stomped its hooves and whinnied and the shriek of delight quickly turned into a shriek of terror. Looking up at the horse in that moment suddenly made it seem very very big and very very scary. She's fine with pictures of horses, but seeing them in real life or on tv or in a movie makes her uneasy. 

What They Would Be Famous For: As one of Pandora's assistants alongside Ezzy, she loves to design the girlier clothes in Miss Pan's clothing line or the amusement park exclusives. She already has her dream job designing clothes, so while Ezzy might venture into the music industry at some point, she's content to work with Miss Pan for many years to come. So if anything, her fame as a designer might continue to grow.

What They Would Get Arrested For: Nothing. Luna is very sweet and pure, so she wouldn't really do anything that might get her arrested.

OC You Ship Them With: Ezzy! They're just so perfect together, the sweet cheerful girly girl and the cool chill rocker chick! At this point I can't imagine either of them being with anyone else. When Luna and her ex broke up (they ended their relationship on good terms; they're still friends and coworkers) and after some time had passed, she was surprised when Ezzy confessed her feelings for her. She was nervous to think of Ezzy as anything more than her best friend, because she didn't want to ruin their friendship if things didn't work out, but after their first date she realized she might have already been in love with Ezzy too. Needless to say, it wasn't long until they moved in together and now they're happily married!

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: I doubt even It would want to murder Luna. Her cheerful personality might annoy him, but she's always nice to him and thinks his weird t-shirt designs are 'so badass!' And unlike Aurora, she doesn't scold him when he swears.

Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Like Pandora, she loves the sappy romantic movies/books. There's a spot on the coffee table in front of the tv in their living room that is always occupied by a box of tissues. lol

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: She doesn't really like the 'based on a true story' movies/books. Her dad loves them, and growing up watching those types of movies sometimes got her mixed up on whether the story took place in the Real World or the Ego World. Which led to her getting events and people confused when learning about both worlds at school. The Ego World basically 'copies' material things from the Real World (like books, movies, video games, merch, etc), but of course has its own original products, so it's not uncommon for kids to get confused with which world has what. (History, religion, ethnicity, and world culture can also be very confusing, as the countries in the Real World don't exist in the Ego World, but they share cultures and other aspects because of Egos learning them from their Hosts. It's... complicated. lol) And because Luna's dad loves learning about the Real World, it was especially difficult for her to keep facts in order.

Talents and/or Powers: Her dad and younger brother Seren call her 'Miss Moonshine', a play on 'Miss Sunshine' using the meaning of her name. (As a side note, this was before her dad learned the Real World meaning of moonshine, but by then the nickname had caught on and they found it hilarious.) They like to say her power is that she's always got a smile on her face and can always cheer them up when they need it. She also loves interior design and Ezzy gave her full control on decorating their apartment because of this.

Why Someone Might Love Them: She's the one who genuinely cares how your day was, if there's anything she can do to help, to make you feel better. She's just a happy person in general, and she likes to make others happy. Sometimes it wears her out, being the one to make everyone feel better, but Ezzy's taught her that it's okay to take a step back and stop being 'the mood fixer' all the time. She's just a nice, caring girl that loves to laugh and smile and her mood is contagious!

Why Someone Might Hate Them: If anyone hates Luna, they deserve to never be happy again. Luna is a precious ray of light in the world, and as Ezzy would say, 'any haters can fuck off'.

How They Change: Again, she showed up with Ezzy a few times, but never really enough for me to think about her in detail. That's why I really loved doing their bios like this! It really helped flesh her character out a bit. The main thing that changed was the fact that she and Ezzy are a couple now, and it feels so right! They complete each other. <3

Why You Love Them: She's a good, kind person and the world needs more kind people. She and Ezzy have a loving relationship and she's got a strong heart full of love for her dad and brother. And I LOVE the antics she gets up to at work with Ezzy and Pan. They're a playful trio that make work fun! And I wish I had a sister like Luna. She's such a sweetheart!

Other OCs Written Bios Here

Other OCs Drawn Bios Here And Here

[courtneytincher]

Midway Through His Year, Our 52 Places Traveler Answers Readers' Questions

Some mornings when I wake up, it takes me a few minutes to remember where I am. I look around my hotel room, piecing together how I ended up here. Then, once I've calibrated my internal GPS (coffee helps), it's time to start exploring.Days of the week and even what month it is matter less when your routine is one of perpetual movement. So, the halfway point -- stop number 26 -- sneaked up on me. It came and went without any fanfare, and before I knew it I was on another plane to place number 27.But milestones lend themselves to reflection, so we took the opportunity to slow down for a second and tap you, fellow travelers, for questions you might have about my journey. Here are my answers to a selection of the many great questions we received, ones that we thought would be most helpful and offer a little behind-the-scenes peek into my strange, but wonderful, day-to-day. (You can also join me on Reddit at noon on Aug. 21 for a live AMA.)______Meaningful connections The most profound travel experiences often seem to come about by chance. How do you manage to make meaningful connections with people and places when you're only in each spot for a few days?_____I feel extra pressure to make connections, considering I'm looking for stories, not just things to see and eat. Still, I've been constantly surprised how easy it is to meet good people when traveling alone.You get from the universe what you put into it -- not in some quasi-mystical way, but in terms of attitude. I find that if I walk into a bar, or a town square, hoping to meet someone, I often do.We are naturally curious animals, and more often than not, someone is going to step in if I'm looking lost (which I often am) or if I'm not staring into the void of my phone. Usually, I'm not even the one who initiates conversation. At least once per place, I'm blown away by the generosity of complete strangers.______Planning (or lack thereof) How much planning do you do before you get to a place?_____Close to none. With the frenetic pace of this trip, it doesn't leave me much time to plan. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a travel strategy, but it sure is fun.I'm lucky to have a great team back in New York City who helps me with some of the booking and research, but when I get off the plane, I'm usually stepping into a five- or six-day stretch with no concrete plans. It's changed the way I travel. I'm less concerned with checking sights off a list, and far more interested in going for long walks and seeing what happens.You're not going to find serendipity -- that Golden Ticket of solo travel -- if you don't give it the space to happen.______Updates on Iran Are you still going to Iran? Could you please share the details about getting a visa -- or deciding not to go?_____It looks, for now, like going to Iran will be impossible. Americans can still visit the country as part of an organized tour group, but it gets a lot more complicated when you're a journalist. I have to be transparent about my work, and in talking to those at The New York Times with more experience in the region, it became clear that it would be next to impossible to get a journalist visa right now.I still get regular messages from Iranians welcoming me to their country and offering to take me around. I hope I get there some time, but unfortunately 2019 isn't going to be it.______Travel Zen You seem to be in go-mode constantly. How do you balance seeing things and reporting with your well-being -- and being Zen?_____I don't -- but I'm trying to get better at it.It baffles me that (knock on wood) I haven't gotten sick yet, and that I'm still going strong. I'm tired. Like, very tired. I try to get enough sleep, but often don't; and I try to eat well, but mostly just eat too much.There's something that happens when I arrive in each place, where adrenaline takes over and I immediately hit the ground running. I've been trying to give myself days off, but I can count the number I've successfully taken on one hand. Travel is just too exciting; I'm constantly weighing the cost of doing just one more thing, and "doing" always wins.That said, in each place, I'll give myself at least one afternoon when I leave the camera at the hotel and take my proverbial reporter's hat off, and just be in a place for real, with no agenda other than to soak it in.______Climate change and carbon footprints In what ways, if any, have you witnessed the impact of climate change thus far? And how have your travels affected your sense of our planet's future? Do you feel optimistic? How do you reconcile the carbon footprint you're creating with all your travels?_____A few places are on the list this year expressly because they might disappear because of climate change. Seeing these phenomena -- like the ephemeral ice caves of Lake Superior -- puts a lump in your throat that doesn't go away. It's one thing to think abstractly about a problem as big as climate change, but it's another to see it up close and hear how it's affecting real places.There's an obvious contradiction that comes out of this, of course: How can I talk about climate change when my flights are causing so much damage to the environment? I recognize the paradox, and I'm not encouraging everyone to go to 52 places in 52 weeks. Nor am I saying everyone should descend on Ontario's Ice Caves next winter.I hope that by reporting what I'm seeing, I'm helping bring more attention to the threats of climate change, beyond, for example, weather patterns or food systems. The beauty of our planet -- what inspires us to get off our couches and see it with our own eyes -- is at risk of extinction, too. Little things, like traveling with reusable bags, water bottles and cutlery, and buying carbon offsets for the thousands of miles I'm flying this year, do make a difference, even if it's a small one.None of it is a panacea, not even close, but it helps. I've also encountered a lot of places around the world that are doing a much better job with environmental conversation than we are. (Good luck finding a plastic bag in Chile.)______Staying healthy Have you gained weight or lost any weight? How do you stay healthy?_____Considering the amount of food I consume on a daily basis, I was surprised to find that I've actually lost quite a bit of weight. It comes from being on my feet and on the move most of the day, instead of sitting at a desk. I try to eat healthy, though sometimes that sixth serving of cheese focaccia just looks too good to pass up.After I threw out my back and was bedridden for a day in Uzbekistan, I'm stretching and doing strengthening exercises most days. I still haven't figured out how to get enough sleep. But that's what 2020 is for, I guess.______Coping with loneliness I've found that loneliness can be a challenge on extended travels. What advice do you have for making friends and meeting people in unfamiliar surroundings, especially when language may be a barrier?_____I still get nervous meeting people all the time. But the potential rewards -- new friends, a local's perspective on a place -- always outweigh the initial feeling of discomfort. So just go for it, even if you don't speak the language. You'll be surprised how far pointing and translation apps can go. Of course, putting yourself out there is a lot easier as a straight, ethnically ambiguous man, and I fully acknowledge that privilege. Sadly, not everyone can -- or even should -- take down those barriers.Loneliness happens. I've felt it many times. There was that time on a highway in Wyoming when a John Prine song came on the radio and punched me right in the gut. Or when I was sitting under the most beautiful night sky I've ever seen in Chile's Elqui Valley and I just wanted my partner to be there, to share it with me. But it's feelings that make us human, and I've learned to lean into loneliness when it comes. It makes the moments you're surrounded by people you could never even imagine that much more special.______Travel essentials What gear and clothes have you found essential?_____Those who follow this column are going to roll their eyes, but merino wool is still my biggest travel revelation. I hate doing laundry, especially on the road, and so anything that increases the number of times I can wear something without washing it is a godsend.In terms of tech, I couldn't imagine this trip without my noise-canceling headphones. They're obviously bulkier than earbuds, but I love the full immersion I can have while on flights, which is some of the only time I have to really relax, catching up on music and creating my own little cocoon of peace.______Managing risks You take a lot of risks that I would/should not take as a solo/single female traveler. For example: I would meet new friends for dinner, but I probably wouldn't get into a car with them. Have you gotten into any situations on this trip that made you nervous? What safety tips do you have for solo travelers?_____I have tried during the first half of this trip to emphasize that the decisions I make and the things I do should never be a boilerplate "how to travel" manual for everyone. The risks worth taking are going to be different for every person. I'm fine with getting blind drunk with a bunch of Georgians in the middle of the woods, because that's what I am personally comfortable with, but I wouldn't necessarily advise that for everyone.Travelers need to take the precautions that make sense given their particular circumstances and the situation they find themselves in. When people ask me if a certain place would be safe for a solo female traveler, I don't give a yes or no answer. That's a calculation that comes down to the individual.There are some common sense things you can do to minimize any risks you do take, though. I always know the emergency number for every country I'm in. I've shared my location on my phone with a few people back home so that if they haven't heard from me for a couple of days they can make sure I'm where I'm supposed to be. If I'm going into a potentially risky situation -- barhopping in Slovakia with some dude I've just met, say, or going on a full-day solo hike in Norway -- I'll tell someone back home about it first.But it really comes down to your own comfort level. You can have a perfectly pleasant and highly rewarding trip without taking the kinds of risks that I do.______Livable locales Have you visited any places that you felt you could settle down and live in?_____Many! I'm a weird case: I grew up in five different countries and have always had a pretty fluid sense of home. So it's not unusual for me to imagine myself living somewhere far from New York City.Specifically though, so far I've fantasized about moving into a 19th-century apartment in Plovdiv, Bulgaria; buying a beach shack and a surfboard in Santa Catalina, Panama; and trading the MTA for Tashkent's masterpiece of a subway system -- just to name a few.______Impromptu tour guides Where and how do you meet the people featured in your articles who show you around or act as impromptu tour guides? Do you know them in advance or are you just super friendly?_____Most of the time it's by pure chance -- a run-in at a bar or cafe, or a smile that turns into a conversation. Or they're friends of friends, sometimes three or four times removed. I also get messages on social media that lead to in-person encounters with locals.The people who really deserve the "superfriendly" designation, though, are the ones who let me into their worlds.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Some mornings when I wake up, it takes me a few minutes to remember where I am. I look around my hotel room, piecing together how I ended up here. Then, once I've calibrated my internal GPS (coffee helps), it's time to start exploring.Days of the week and even what month it is matter less when your routine is one of perpetual movement. So, the halfway point -- stop number 26 -- sneaked up on me. It came and went without any fanfare, and before I knew it I was on another plane to place number 27.But milestones lend themselves to reflection, so we took the opportunity to slow down for a second and tap you, fellow travelers, for questions you might have about my journey. Here are my answers to a selection of the many great questions we received, ones that we thought would be most helpful and offer a little behind-the-scenes peek into my strange, but wonderful, day-to-day. (You can also join me on Reddit at noon on Aug. 21 for a live AMA.)______Meaningful connections The most profound travel experiences often seem to come about by chance. How do you manage to make meaningful connections with people and places when you're only in each spot for a few days?_____I feel extra pressure to make connections, considering I'm looking for stories, not just things to see and eat. Still, I've been constantly surprised how easy it is to meet good people when traveling alone.You get from the universe what you put into it -- not in some quasi-mystical way, but in terms of attitude. I find that if I walk into a bar, or a town square, hoping to meet someone, I often do.We are naturally curious animals, and more often than not, someone is going to step in if I'm looking lost (which I often am) or if I'm not staring into the void of my phone. Usually, I'm not even the one who initiates conversation. At least once per place, I'm blown away by the generosity of complete strangers.______Planning (or lack thereof) How much planning do you do before you get to a place?_____Close to none. With the frenetic pace of this trip, it doesn't leave me much time to plan. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a travel strategy, but it sure is fun.I'm lucky to have a great team back in New York City who helps me with some of the booking and research, but when I get off the plane, I'm usually stepping into a five- or six-day stretch with no concrete plans. It's changed the way I travel. I'm less concerned with checking sights off a list, and far more interested in going for long walks and seeing what happens.You're not going to find serendipity -- that Golden Ticket of solo travel -- if you don't give it the space to happen.______Updates on Iran Are you still going to Iran? Could you please share the details about getting a visa -- or deciding not to go?_____It looks, for now, like going to Iran will be impossible. Americans can still visit the country as part of an organized tour group, but it gets a lot more complicated when you're a journalist. I have to be transparent about my work, and in talking to those at The New York Times with more experience in the region, it became clear that it would be next to impossible to get a journalist visa right now.I still get regular messages from Iranians welcoming me to their country and offering to take me around. I hope I get there some time, but unfortunately 2019 isn't going to be it.______Travel Zen You seem to be in go-mode constantly. How do you balance seeing things and reporting with your well-being -- and being Zen?_____I don't -- but I'm trying to get better at it.It baffles me that (knock on wood) I haven't gotten sick yet, and that I'm still going strong. I'm tired. Like, very tired. I try to get enough sleep, but often don't; and I try to eat well, but mostly just eat too much.There's something that happens when I arrive in each place, where adrenaline takes over and I immediately hit the ground running. I've been trying to give myself days off, but I can count the number I've successfully taken on one hand. Travel is just too exciting; I'm constantly weighing the cost of doing just one more thing, and "doing" always wins.That said, in each place, I'll give myself at least one afternoon when I leave the camera at the hotel and take my proverbial reporter's hat off, and just be in a place for real, with no agenda other than to soak it in.______Climate change and carbon footprints In what ways, if any, have you witnessed the impact of climate change thus far? And how have your travels affected your sense of our planet's future? Do you feel optimistic? How do you reconcile the carbon footprint you're creating with all your travels?_____A few places are on the list this year expressly because they might disappear because of climate change. Seeing these phenomena -- like the ephemeral ice caves of Lake Superior -- puts a lump in your throat that doesn't go away. It's one thing to think abstractly about a problem as big as climate change, but it's another to see it up close and hear how it's affecting real places.There's an obvious contradiction that comes out of this, of course: How can I talk about climate change when my flights are causing so much damage to the environment? I recognize the paradox, and I'm not encouraging everyone to go to 52 places in 52 weeks. Nor am I saying everyone should descend on Ontario's Ice Caves next winter.I hope that by reporting what I'm seeing, I'm helping bring more attention to the threats of climate change, beyond, for example, weather patterns or food systems. The beauty of our planet -- what inspires us to get off our couches and see it with our own eyes -- is at risk of extinction, too. Little things, like traveling with reusable bags, water bottles and cutlery, and buying carbon offsets for the thousands of miles I'm flying this year, do make a difference, even if it's a small one.None of it is a panacea, not even close, but it helps. I've also encountered a lot of places around the world that are doing a much better job with environmental conversation than we are. (Good luck finding a plastic bag in Chile.)______Staying healthy Have you gained weight or lost any weight? How do you stay healthy?_____Considering the amount of food I consume on a daily basis, I was surprised to find that I've actually lost quite a bit of weight. It comes from being on my feet and on the move most of the day, instead of sitting at a desk. I try to eat healthy, though sometimes that sixth serving of cheese focaccia just looks too good to pass up.After I threw out my back and was bedridden for a day in Uzbekistan, I'm stretching and doing strengthening exercises most days. I still haven't figured out how to get enough sleep. But that's what 2020 is for, I guess.______Coping with loneliness I've found that loneliness can be a challenge on extended travels. What advice do you have for making friends and meeting people in unfamiliar surroundings, especially when language may be a barrier?_____I still get nervous meeting people all the time. But the potential rewards -- new friends, a local's perspective on a place -- always outweigh the initial feeling of discomfort. So just go for it, even if you don't speak the language. You'll be surprised how far pointing and translation apps can go. Of course, putting yourself out there is a lot easier as a straight, ethnically ambiguous man, and I fully acknowledge that privilege. Sadly, not everyone can -- or even should -- take down those barriers.Loneliness happens. I've felt it many times. There was that time on a highway in Wyoming when a John Prine song came on the radio and punched me right in the gut. Or when I was sitting under the most beautiful night sky I've ever seen in Chile's Elqui Valley and I just wanted my partner to be there, to share it with me. But it's feelings that make us human, and I've learned to lean into loneliness when it comes. It makes the moments you're surrounded by people you could never even imagine that much more special.______Travel essentials What gear and clothes have you found essential?_____Those who follow this column are going to roll their eyes, but merino wool is still my biggest travel revelation. I hate doing laundry, especially on the road, and so anything that increases the number of times I can wear something without washing it is a godsend.In terms of tech, I couldn't imagine this trip without my noise-canceling headphones. They're obviously bulkier than earbuds, but I love the full immersion I can have while on flights, which is some of the only time I have to really relax, catching up on music and creating my own little cocoon of peace.______Managing risks You take a lot of risks that I would/should not take as a solo/single female traveler. For example: I would meet new friends for dinner, but I probably wouldn't get into a car with them. Have you gotten into any situations on this trip that made you nervous? What safety tips do you have for solo travelers?_____I have tried during the first half of this trip to emphasize that the decisions I make and the things I do should never be a boilerplate "how to travel" manual for everyone. The risks worth taking are going to be different for every person. I'm fine with getting blind drunk with a bunch of Georgians in the middle of the woods, because that's what I am personally comfortable with, but I wouldn't necessarily advise that for everyone.Travelers need to take the precautions that make sense given their particular circumstances and the situation they find themselves in. When people ask me if a certain place would be safe for a solo female traveler, I don't give a yes or no answer. That's a calculation that comes down to the individual.There are some common sense things you can do to minimize any risks you do take, though. I always know the emergency number for every country I'm in. I've shared my location on my phone with a few people back home so that if they haven't heard from me for a couple of days they can make sure I'm where I'm supposed to be. If I'm going into a potentially risky situation -- barhopping in Slovakia with some dude I've just met, say, or going on a full-day solo hike in Norway -- I'll tell someone back home about it first.But it really comes down to your own comfort level. You can have a perfectly pleasant and highly rewarding trip without taking the kinds of risks that I do.______Livable locales Have you visited any places that you felt you could settle down and live in?_____Many! I'm a weird case: I grew up in five different countries and have always had a pretty fluid sense of home. So it's not unusual for me to imagine myself living somewhere far from New York City.Specifically though, so far I've fantasized about moving into a 19th-century apartment in Plovdiv, Bulgaria; buying a beach shack and a surfboard in Santa Catalina, Panama; and trading the MTA for Tashkent's masterpiece of a subway system -- just to name a few.______Impromptu tour guides Where and how do you meet the people featured in your articles who show you around or act as impromptu tour guides? Do you know them in advance or are you just super friendly?_____Most of the time it's by pure chance -- a run-in at a bar or cafe, or a smile that turns into a conversation. Or they're friends of friends, sometimes three or four times removed. I also get messages on social media that lead to in-person encounters with locals.The people who really deserve the "superfriendly" designation, though, are the ones who let me into their worlds.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

August 22, 2019 at 02:25PM via IFTTT