#questionable diet buddies

[cokezerocherry222]

Anyone want to be friends and share daily what we eat, talk about goal weight, safe foods and stuff like that :) Please just message me, I'm very active on tumblr

[astroboots]

Every You Every Me Issue #3

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You are determined to meet your Spider-benefactor face to face and you go to ever increasing extreme lengths to do so. Problem is, Miguel O'hara is very uncooperative to your plans.

Word count: 5,500 words.

Content: Slowest of the burn, so slow you wonder if it's even burning. Near death experiences, the state of the economy and how expensive it is to live in a big city, the emotional whiplash of Miguel O'Hara.

Astroboot’s Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist

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You saw them in the window display of a bakery in Greenwich Village. Round sugar cookies with red frosting and white eyes, decorated as a tribute to everyone's favorite neighborhood Spiderman.

Before you had time to properly think things over (would he even like the cookies? Is he on a strict superhero diet and workout plan? What if he's gluten intolerant?) you were already standing in front of the cash register having a dozen of them wrapped up in fancy crinkly paper and were $72 dollars poorer. 

Charging six dollars per cookie is practically highway robbery, but that's par for the course with New York bakeries. You wouldn’t be surprised if every bakery in New York was already a part of Wilson Fisk’s criminal empire. 

As you push open the door, box in hand, you wonder wryly to yourself why Spiderman’s ruder alter ego isn't there to save you from that.

You wonder, for Superheroes, what classifies as an event worth intervening in and what everyday citizens need to be saved from?

Financial ailment doesn't quite seem to qualify from what you've been able to glean so far.

Tony Stark, for all the wealth he’s amassed (a large enough treasure hoard that he would be capable of buying the whole planet of Mars according to Forbes) isn't massively involved with charities. He only donates to the one: his own. And the Stark Foundation is really just Tony Stark paying reparations for the damage he and his buddies caused in the first place.

Thor is an actual deity, and you still remember that write-up in Esquire magazine, where local waiters in New Mexico had called him a terrible tipper and a habitual smasher of glassware.

Assault and battery is up in the air. There are accounts of Superheroes intervening; that Tiktok videos of She-Hulk breaking up a bar fight that went viral a few weeks back. But then equally, there are memes of Doctor Strange peeking out the window of Sanctum Sanctorum watching a street fight unfold,, utterly uninterested in getting involved. The internet labeled it as "mood". 

As for murder and mayhem, there's a longstanding public debate as to whether Superheroes cause more than they prevent. Case in point: that Moon Knight guy that paints the streets of London red.

There is no rule book written to explain how Superheroes decides who is worth saving and who is not.

Does one have to be important and have a material effect on the state of the world?

If so, you fall pitifully short. The most world-changing decision you made as of late was deciding to opt out of utensils on your last GrubHub order to help save the environment.

So it makes you wonder: Why on earth has this non-costume accurate Spiderman saved you, not once, not twice, but 13 times to date?

That’s just the first of many questions you’d like to ask him. What does he know that you don’t? Does he know why the universe seems to be out to get you lately? Or why death itself is following you everywhere you go, nipping at your heels?

You haven’t had the chance to ask him anything, because despite all of your encounters, you haven't met him face to face since that very first time. 

Inconveniently, you don't exactly have a way of contacting him. Superheroes aren't listed in the phone book. 

With no other way to reach out, you go at it the old fashioned way. You write him a note from a page you've ripped out of your notebook:

‘Thank you for saving me. Can we meet? I have questions.’

You place the note on the window sill. Setting the plate with $72 dollars worth of Spiderman cookies on top of the left corner of the paper to make sure it doesn't get blown away in the wind. Then you leave the window open for the first time since you've moved into this apartment before heading to bed.

There's nothing else to do but to wait. 

You wake to the spit and splatter of rain against your window. It's gray outside, and the cookies you set out the night before remain untouched. You frown at the sight, but you can't say you're surprised.

There was never any real indication that he was lurking around you. Superheroes are bound to have more interesting things on their schedule than stalking a random insurance employee.

You don't know why you thought this would work in the first place.

Getting out of bed, you walk up to your window to inspect the scene. The note is where you have left it, ink a little smeared from the rain, where the plate has kept it in place on the right corner.

That seems odd, now that you think about it. You stare at the note, eye drawn to the watermarks. Why are there water stains bleeding into the paper if your window was closed? As crappy as your rundown apartment can be, water damage is the one thing you haven't had issues with.

You draw your eyes to the closed window being smattered with the rain outside. Didn't you leave the window open last night? You're pretty sure you did, hoping that the open window would be seen as a gesture of invitation. You had left it open… right?

You did.

You're sure you did.

He must’ve been here.

Rude, not-costume-accurate Spiderman was here.

Right?

Your eyes flicker back to the window.

Or maybe you did close the window?

You close your eyes trying to recall your evening, packing the length of your apartment as you replay the memory. Suddenly, you're not so sure anymore. You always close your window, and even though you had every intention of keeping it open last night, who is to say you didn't close it out of sheer habit?

It's strange. Because if he was here, he would've spotted the note. But it's in the same spot you left it yesterday right under the plate on the left side of it...

You eye the undisturbed note tucked under the right corner of the plate.

Wait, wait. Didn't you put the note under the left side of the plate?

You did.

Yes, you definitely did.

Which means, he was here... Right?

You feel like you are going insane.

Are you seeing things that are not there? Was he actually here and if so why did he go to such lengths to pretend otherwise. Why would he passive-aggressively gaslight you into thinking he was never here?

You decide on a redo.

Because if you can't trust yourself and your questionable memory, you can trust a recording.

A teddy bear nanny cam sets you back $50. Not cheap, but not as outrageous as your stale-cardboard-tasting Spiderman cookies. 

You set it up on your dresser opposite your window and link it to your phone as per the instructions.

As for the bait. After having tasted those brick cookies for yourself, putting it out for a second night for a man who has saved your life repeatedly didn't seem right. You decide to bake them yourself this time.

The added bonus is that you get to mix blue food coloring into the frosting for the decoration that goes on top. In retrospect, the red Spiderman cookies from last time might’ve implied that you’re calling him a knock-off Spiderman. 

Besides, even with the cost of living crisis: a bag of flour, baking powder, unsalted butter, sugar and eggs cost a lot less than $72 dollars.

This time, you don't write him a sloppily put together note. You decide to write him a proper letter. 

If he did visit your apartment, (and you're not just going insane) the fact that he moved the note meant that he must've read it. 

This note didn’t work. 

It must not have been compelling enough, you were kind of in a hurry… 

You’ll have to write something better this time. Longer. More emotionally compelling. Surely if you take the time to really explain your plight, you can make him understand why it’s so important he talks to you! 

The problem is that it’s hard to sound serious when it’s written on lined paper from your ruled notebook. 

That won’t do. You go to the nearest stationery store in your neighborhood, a chain outlet of Paper Source to get yourself some decent looking stationary paper with a matching colored envelope to boot. 

You immediately regret this part of your plan, because it ends up setting you back another $26 dollars. Why is 6 pieces of paper so damn expensive anyhow? Surely there’s a few trees left in the world to chop down?!

$102 dollars down in your bank balance, you sit down at your dining table that night, pen in hand and begin writing. You pour your heart onto the pages, setting out in as precise words as you can manage the effect your near death incidents have had on you. 

How scared you are, how confused you are, but also how grateful you are that he's saved you, again and again and again. That you believe if you and him can just meet in person and talk, if you could ask questions and figure out why this is happening, then maybe you can find a way to stop it from happening again.

Then you fold the letter and tuck it neatly into the matching envelope and slide it under the left side of the cookie plate and go to sleep.

When you wake the next morning, nothing seems out of the ordinary.

The cookies are still neatly arranged on your plate. The letter snugly tucked underneath it.

On the left side this time, you note. 

It doesn’t look like he came. 

The only thing is that you swear that the envelope is now several inches further to the left than where you left it last night.

Again, maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

You pull up your phone, opening the app linked to the nanny cam and press play.

There is nothing but the still frame of your studio apartment, your bed to the right and your window square in the camera-view. You speed up the video, but the only thing that takes you by surprise is that you apparently toss a lot more in your sleep than you thought.

The camera footage goes well into 3am, and you’re resigning yourself to the fact that this was all down to your imagination.

He didn't come last night. Probably didn't come the night before. Most likely you woke up from the rain, closed the window and were too sleepy to remember.

You sigh, setting down your phone on the table, prepared to let this whole endeavor go.

On your screen, a smudged shadow appears in the corner of the window. You jump to your feet from your seat, knocking your chair over in the process with a raucous thud. The dark figure grows larger on your screen, dark navy blue and lines of stark red that perches itself onto your window sill.

YES! yes-yes-yes! You knew it. You fucking goddamn knew it!

You were right.

Adrenaline buzzes victoriously in your veins, and you grip your phone harder. Your heart is pounding so fast and hard in your chest you can hear the drumming beat of it in your ears.

He was here!

(You're not cuckoo for cocoa puffs).

You watch as his large figure sits on your window sill. He's still wearing his mask, and while you can't make out the expressions underneath, the outline where his eyes would have been, painted in dark blue, now narrow into a slit on your screen. 

There's a hostility emanating from that glare that you are able to sense all the way from the opposite side of the screen. He stares down at the plate of cookies suspiciously. Then he just stays there, unmoving, having a staring competition with the cookies you baked in his image.

In the privacy of your living room, you have the luxury of taking the time to get a proper look at him without interruption. It's hard to ignore the fact of just how tightly fitted to his skin that suit is. The dark blue fabric clings to every line of muscles on his body and it makes your cheek prickle with heat when you look. It feels voyeuristic somehow, but you can't help but think that the more modest alternative would be if he had worn nothing at all.

He's absurdly ripped. Muscular doesn't even begin to describe it. Broad shoulders and a narrow tapered waist segueing into obscenely thick and defined thighs that have your eyes linger for far too long. You shake your head to snap yourself out of it, Jesus you are acting like a creep. This isn’t OnlyFans, though lord knows you paid for this privilege! $102 for a cam video! 

On the footage, there is finally movement. He reaches for a cookie, bringing it to his mouth. The blue fabric dematerializes on his lower face until it reveals his tanned skin and that ridiculously cut jaw of his.

His mouth parts. Fangs protrude where his canine teeth are supposed to be and the sight makes you nearly drop your phone in shock.

Is this Spiderman a vampire? Or is he like a tarantula Spiderman with fangs to match?

You watch in suspended horror as he bites into the cookie, those sharp fangs of his are in plain view as he chews. 

He leans over to reach for a second cookie and all your trepidation is forgotten for a second, because if he’s reaching for a second one, it must mean he likes them. You grin at your screen, culinary pride beating out any caution or fear you may have had. 

Then he lifts up the plate, picking up the letter. The anticipation is too much. You press your face closer to the screen to try to get closer, because your screen is too small to pick up any possible nuances in his expression. 

He's carefully opening the envelope as he starts to read. It's impossible to tell what he's thinking. There's no visible change of facial expressions in the outline of his masked eyes. His mouth, which is bared to you, doesn't so much as twitch.

It doesn’t take long for him to read it. When he's done, he tucks the letter back under the plate. Then he bends down over the plate of cookies, and for a moment you think he’s going in for a third. Instead his hand lingers on the plate, before he starts to slide the remaining cookies around the plate to your confusion. You watch in confusion as he picks up the cookies one by one to space them out more evenly. You don't quite understand what he's trying to do, wait… is Vampire spider man re-arranging the cookies to make it less obvious he’s eaten them?!  

The bastard really was trying to gaslight you into thinking he was never here.

Once he’s seemingly satisfied with his work, he straightens up, turning until his back is against the camera preparing to leave.

To your surprise his face turns around to take one last look inside. The direction of his gaze settles on your bed where you're sleeping. His eyes lingers there for a handful of moments, inscrutable over the mask.

Is he sad? Angry? You can't tell.

He finally looks away and then he leaps off the window.

Politely asking him in writing is clearly not working out for you.

You decide the only recourse you have left is to try and physically catch him.

Such a simple sentiment that had sounded so easy in your head, but you quickly run into logistical issues when you try to put it into practice.

The man is built like a tank. Can leap off of skyscrapers (and the window of your sixth floor) without breaking a sweat. Potentially also a vampire.

You're not exactly sure how you're supposed to catch someone like that.

Your google research is off to a shaky start. Somehow you end up down a rabbit hole of tutorials for non-lethal mouse traps. It's not very useful inspiration. Because you can't exactly build a 7 foot large cage trap to catch him the next time he comes around to help himself to cookies.

But the concept of having a lure trap set with bait seemed transferable and so you decide to go for a classic spring trap that you’ll modify. No cage, instead you set up a DIY contraption with a sturdy string attached to a bell meant to quickly alert you to his presence next time he comes around. 

The game plan is to wake up and corner him before he has a chance to abscond.

As for bait, you google things that vampires might like in a half-thought of plan it might be applicable. Unfortunately, there are no young virgin maidens you know of as far as the eye can see in New York (yourself included) so that was a no go. 

So you default back to cookies (because hey, at least it worked last time).

Amazon has your whole set up shipped and delivered by the next day and you implement phase 3 of your rapidly escalating attempts to reach out to him.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. For one he doesn’t show up that night. Or the night after. It takes him four whole days to show up again and when he does, he spots your trap a mile away. When you review the footage on the cam the next day, he avoids the rope and the whole mechanism effortlessly. 

There's no sound on the nanny cam so you can't be sure of it. But you think from the way the line of his shoulders shake as he steps over the rope that he might be laughing at you. He’s definitely seen through few supervillain traps in his days so in hindsight the probability of success here was low.

He does however eat three of your cookies this time.

You get a little bit more desperate after that.

You decide that if a trigger trap to wake you won't work, then obviously, the next best thing is for you to simply stay awake.

The problem is that he doesn't show up every night. His visits are entirely random without an obvious pattern. Sometimes he shows up two nights in a row, sometimes he goes several days without making a guest appearance on your nanny cam footage.

It means you end up downing a whole carafe of coffee, and several energy drinks, every night for a week straight. Entirely unable to predict what night he's going to appear, you keep dooming your already tiny bladder to a dozen visits to the bathroom before the clock has even struck nine.

The saddest part of it is that despite being wired on enough coffee to power a nuclear power station by yourself, you never end up staying awake the whole night through. 

More often than not you end up falling asleep sitting upright by the dining table waiting up for him. Then the next morning you wake with a wry neck, a sore back and your face pressing up uncomfortably against the wooden surface.

But you're nothing if not tenacious. Tonight makes it the sixth night in a row that you’re doing this. You stare down the can of red bull on your dining table as you pick it up and lift it to your mouth. You’re going to keep going, hardness of the wooden table be damned.

You're surprised to find yourself waking up feeling well rested without any aches. Surrounded by the softness of your quilt and your even softer memory foam pillow. 

The luxurious comfort of it all is such a relief that you don't even question it at first. Don't question why you're in bed when the last thing you remember was nodding off against the palm of your hand and the hard discomfort of your dining chair.

In the sanctuary of your bed, you just dig your face deeper into your pillow and snooze for as long as you can. Ignoring the bright sun pouring in from your windows until it sears unforgivingly against your skin and you decide that it’s finally time to start your day.

By habit, the first thing you do as you get up from bed is to pull up the nanny cam app on your phone and press play on last night's recording.

There's nothing of interest. Seeing yourself read a book by the dining table and chugging down a series of Red Bull is hardly riveting television.

Yesterday you barely even make it until midnight because you can see yourself nod off at the table, head sliding off your palm and plonking down on the dining table. You flinch at the impact, vaguely impressed that the collision didn't wake you.

Your (maybe vampire) Spiderman turns up at 3 am.

Much like the times before, he perches himself on your window sill, peering inside (presumably to check for any new traps you might have laid out for him).

His broad frame stiffens, and then, with a smooth leap, he's inside your apartment.

Excitement rushes to your head, because this is the furthest he’s gone and the first time he's come all the way inside instead of just lurking on the window sill. 

He goes over to your bed, flinging the quilt to the side. He seems stressed, the dark shape of his eyes wide as he stands over the empty bed when it dawns on you what’s happening on screen right now. 

Oh, he's worried.

He looks over at you, hunched over the dining table, sound asleep and oh god, is that drool on your cheek? 

The line of his shoulder relaxes. The broadness of his chest rises then dips with a heavy exhale. Something warm trickles in your stomach at his obvious concern for you.

The mystery is confounding. You don't know him. You've never met him, but for some unfathomable reason he cares enough about you to genuinely care about your safety and you want to know why. 

He makes his way over to the table where you are. The mask slowly ebbs away, uncovering his familiar chin, cheeks and then finally his eyes. An other-worldly shade of crimson that has you spellbound and transfixed on the screen. 

You find yourself raising your phone closer to your face, trying to get a better look at him. Cursing the crappy quality of the video. You don't know what to make of the way he's looking at you. It's intensely focused, almost sad, and… and… And you don't know what, but it makes your heart leap up into your throat, chest clenching tight.

He bends over, wrapping his broad arms under your knees. He’s careful in his movements, cupping your head as it lolls to the side until you’re comfortably resting against his shoulders. It’s a practiced movement, as if he’s done this a hundred times before as he picks you up and carries you bridal style to your bed. Gingerly tucking you under the quilt with something that looks a lot like tenderness. 

It leaves you with more questions than ever.

Ever since you started your caffeine chugging marathon, work has become a new kind of hell.

You're already half-asleep and nodding off at your desk by 10.30. Eyes sore and strained as you stare at the bright screen and try to make sense of the endless columns that are all different and also all the same until your brain refuses to try to make sense of any of it anymore.

You need to go for a walk. Clear your head.

Maybe pop out for a coffee... smoothie. Definitely smoothie.

Outside, the heat is oppressive, far too hot for only being May. Definitely too hot when there are this many tourists around. The street is so crowded you can barely make an inch of headway, trapped behind a family with a stroller in front, trapped in front of a pushy businessman who keeps stepping on your heels every two steps, and trapped next to a guy who is really into his airpods.

With the excess of caffeine still trying to make its way out of your system and the unforgiving heat of the sun beating against your back, it all has the effect of making you feel like you’re hung over. Your breakfast is roiling in your stomach. Sweat plastered against every inch of clothing. You don't know why you do this to yourself.

Every morning you tell yourself never again, and yet every night, there you were, spending half of your disposable income on energy drinks.

Starting from today, you're going cold turkey on the stuff. You've finally given up on trying to stay awake long enough to catch your super-stalker in his cookie burglar routine. Endlessly chugging down caffeine every night is not working out for you. Neither are the DIY mouse traps.

You're running low on ideas of how to trap him. You have nothing else to go on anymore. No idea on how to summon the man. The only time you know he'll be there is the moment before each near-death when he's there to save you.

What are you supposed to do with that? Purposely throw yourself off another building to lure him out?

That's crazy!

…Right?

But maybe... No! Definitely crazy.

Someone screams, and you snap out of your thoughts. There's yelling and terrified shrieks all around you. You're caught in the throng of people, panicked bodies pushing and pressing up against you, all of them trying to run the other way.

You dig in your heels, bracing yourself against the stampede of people. They’re pushing in from every direction until it’s impossible to move an inch. It’s hard to turn your body, when second after second, someone is pummeling into your side, knocking into your bruising shoulder. You barely manage to crane your neck back far enough when you finally spot it. 

A red-green truck with a gigantic taco on its roof is careening towards you across the pavement, no driver behind the wheel. The sea of bodies parts around the out-of-control vehicle, people running left, right and forward to escape being crushed under the wheels.

There’s no time to react. It’s too close. Too fast. 

A hand clutches at your wrist and pulls you backwards, your vision obscured as your face is pressed up against a familiar solid warmth. 

"Hold onto me," he tells you, and you do. 

You're held firm against him as the ground underneath your feet disappears, and everything feels weightless. Then all you hear is a loud thunderous crash.

Your feet touch back down on the ground, and the strong protective hold on you unravels.

When you open your eyes he's already gone. You're left on the corner of Lexington Avenue, still trying to catch your breath. The mob of people is still there all around you, but the panic has passed now, everyone is standing still. Everyone is observing the wreckage of the run amok truck that is now flipped onto its side, rendered harmless.

Miraculously, somehow, nobody around you seems visibly injured.

From a distance, you can hear sirens approaching with a deafening wail. 

But your mind is elsewhere, on the shade of the familiar dark blue and red as you were being saved seconds ago. On his gentle voice in your ear that still thrums pleasantly in your chest. 

You want to see him again. 

It's Friday, and you break half an hour early for your designated 40 minutes of lunch, taking the elevator directly to the 72nd floor, which is under construction to renovate it into an open observation deck for the public next year.

The thing with commercial skyscrapers is that nowadays most of them have safety glass panels on all outside spaces of the upper floors to ensure that it is impossible to climb up the buildings and jump.

It's a safety feature that became standard after the financial crisis of 2008.

Turns out that imposing an 80 hour work week on your employees, where they don't get to see their family or friends or have a life outside of work, and then stripping them of their financial security makes a lot of people miserable and suicidal (who knew?)

The elevator pings open, and you exit into the construction zone, carefully avoiding the various tools scattered across the half-finished deck. On Fridays, the construction workers on the site leave by lunchtime, and the space is empty of people. 

Step by step, you walk up towards the edge of the terrasse, until you stand before the temporary safety rail, looking out over the sprawling city below you. Cars look like tiny moving pebbles and the people, a hive of ants scurrying from street to street.

It’s a dizzying view. Both beautiful and grotesque in its grandeur. The 72nd floor will be 28 more floors to fall from than the 44th was.

The air around you seems to thin, and your stomach wants to crawl down to your feet and hold on to steady ground.

Taking a deep breath, you lift the hem of your shirt, running your hand over the safety harness strapped around your waist, reassuring yourself it's still there. Then you feel along the attached cord, using the carabiner at the end to clip it around the rod of the safety rail. 

Being impulsive and daring in your quest is one thing. Reckless and stupid is another.

It’s not a real climbing rope and harness. Turns out professional safety gear is shockingly expensive, but you found a knock-off resistance training set, complete with harness and stretchy bungee cord rope, on Amazon for a very reasonable $15. You’ve already spent $72 on cookies, $50 dollars for a nanny cam set, and an extortionate $26 for stationary paper in your never-ending quest to lure out Fake Spiderman. You figure a rope is a rope, and you're not paying $100 more to get ripped off by the big climbing corporations. But you’re also not willing to go without.

After all, you've already fallen from the Chrysler building once, and you're not angling for a repeat.

As intent as you are on seeing your Spider-benefactor eye to eye, you're not quite prepared to die for the privilege. Your plan is just to make it look like you are going to jump.

Any superhero worth his dime wouldn't actually let you fall before they would be willing to save you.

That would be a real dick move.

You give your impromptu safety rig one last tug to make sure it's secure, then straighten your posture. Grabbing a hold of the metal rail, you hoist yourself up. You clamber onto it, gripping tight with shaking hands as you swing a leg over, straddling the bar.

Left leg then the right, until all of you are on the other side of the railing.

Then you stay there.

One second. Then two. You close your eyes and try not to look down at the many, many floors below, and how one gust of strong wind could probably knock you over and have you falling down the building again. You count the seconds that pass you by. 

Five. Six. Seven.

A strong gust of wind blows through your side, and your legs buckle at the strong resistance, hand gripping down on the metal railing to hold yourself steady so you don't fall off.

Eightnineten! Ok. Fuck. No. You're good. Fuck this! He's not going to come.

If he didn’t come when you climbed over, he's not going to turn up now.

You briefly let go of the railing with one hand, adjusting your grip so you can climb back to safety. The sun beating down on your back disappears and is eaten up by a large and looming shadow. Every hair on the back of your neck prickles in warning.

Your reaction is too slow, you don't even have time to turn around to see what caused it. Then all you hear is an angry booming voice right next to your ear.

"Have you lost your goddamned mind?!"

You panic, flinging out your hand to catch the bar, but the hard metal of the railings isn't there anymore.

There is a sharp metallic snap. The safety rope around your waist splits from the hasp.

He’s calling your name.

The world tilts and everything goes upside down along with it. Your stomach sinks with a sickening plummet, legs dropping through into zero gravity as you find yourself staring up at the blue and endless New York sky.

Then you're falling from the Chrysler building.

Again.

Fuck!

~ Next Issue

Dedication & Credits: To my dearest @thirstworldproblemss who has to constantly listen to me jabber on about this day and night endlessly and forever. She is in every sense of the word a collaborator on this project. She brainstorms, she pitches in, she edits and she beta-reads. This and so many of my works would not exist without her, please send her all the love if you enjoyed this story.

I don’t have a tag list but please follow me on astroboots-writes and turn on notifications to be notified when I post something new!

[mggsv]

Personal Chef

poc f!reader x Toji Fushiguro (18+)

summary: As you finally land your dream job as a personal chef, you quickly find out it’s not what you though it would be.

warnings: age gap (reader is 23, toji is 28),food play, squirting, oral (f receiving) , SLIGHT porn with plot, praising

“You will be given your own living space in the penthouse in order to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for the Ceo.”

“Right.”

“You will stay Monday-Friday, weekends off. You cannot stay here during the weekends. If you cannot work this way speak now.”

“It’s fine.”

“Perfect. You will not bother, speak to, or interrupt the Ceo at any given time. You are not friends, you are not worker buddies. You cook his food, that is it.”

“Right.”

“You will do the grocery shopping. Here’s what he usually likes to get, and his diet plan. Please stick to this list. If he asks you for something else then all means go ahead, however don’t get too comfortable doing so. This is your job. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Any questions?”

“…no“

“Great! Follow me.”

You stood there while the blue eyed, white haired man went on and on about your new life. You held a white folder in your hand, information about your “boss” who you weren’t supposed to formally meet, and various to-do’s. In fact you were to be completely invisible, “like a maid” the man had said at some point. You bit the inside of your cheek, almost regretting this. You hated having to adjust to new things, let alone staying at someone else’s home? The life of a private chef was something, but it was your dream. You finished college at the top of your class. You could do anything, and you chose what the little girl all those years ago wanted.

You certainly didn’t expect anything of the job other than the amazing pay and life style, instead you got that and more.

“Toji…” You moan, back arching on the marble kitchen counter. His tongue licking at your folds, licking at the syrup he poured just a minute before. “Fuck baby.. you make this yourself?” He groans, having another lick. Your juices mixed with the sweet tasting syrup went straight to his cock.

“M..Mhm..” Your hand tangled in his hair, eyes shutting tightly. You felt his lips suck on your clit, a sweet humming coming from him. Your legs twitch feeling his sticky fingers re-enter you. The sound of your juices as he finger fucked you drove you wild. Your hips rocked with the small thrusts. “Good fucking pussy..that’s my girl.”

“F-Fuck fuck-“ you whine, legs twitching at the feel of another finger slowly working its way inside. “My good fuckin girl.” Toji cooed. your hips rock against his face, his nose buried deep into your heat. You let out a small breath, feeling your cunt gush over Toji’s face. Eyes rolling as he slurped every drop, careful not to waste. “Let it all out..” he moans.

Toji never wasted his food. He always ate until he was full. His big hands pushed your thighs back, spread wide over the counter. You whimpered, your nerves skyrocketing at the thought of another maid catching you in the act with your boss. His tongue entered you quick, the muscle flicking in the right places. “Gonna cum..” You push his head further. “m’gonna cum Toji-“ He lifts his head up, eyes staring deep into yours, slick glistening on his chin.

“You gonna what?” He says. You balance yourself on your elbows. Your chest moved as you panted. Toji’s eyes trailed the pierced nubs with nothing but hunger. It was lunch time after all, and you were his personal chef. “nothing- sir.” You breathe. Toji reaches beside you, the homemade syrup still warm. He wastes no time pouring it over your breast. “That’s too bad,” he’s pulling his shirt over his head, hands moving to unbuckle his belt. His thick cock springing free, hard and leaking. “I’m fuckin starving.”

[mysticheathenn]

What Soul Tribe is Coming in?

Hi there! Remember to take what resonates and leave what does not. This reading does not supplement your need to seek professional help.

Take your time when choosing your pile. Ask yourself the question and choose the picture that you can’t stop looking at. Listen to your intuition.

The extended Patreon Members reading includes: (Both tiers)

What Soul Tribe is Coming in for You?

What will your Dynamic be like?

How and When Will You Meet?

Pile l:

What is your current tribe like? (Tarot: 8 of Wands (reversed), Death (reversed), Temperance, 7 of Pentacles)

Garbage! I’m sorry to say this pile 1 but your friends aren’t your friends and I think deep down you know this too. For some of you, your friends don’t like to see you win. Every time you mention something that you have accomplished or you did something or anything good for yourself they always feel as if they have to always one up you or try to diminish your light pile 1. If they aren’t diminishing your light, they are always trying to make sure you don’t change and hinder any progress you want to make for yourself. An example would be when you go on a diet, wanting to lose weight and every time you go out it’s always somewhere not healthy and they try to “It’s only a small fry”  or even do that dumb toxic shit where you’re eating a chicken caesar wrap while they have burger king and they go “Hmmm burger, wish you could have this don’t you.” I’m hearing for some of you, you’re the friend they always go to for advice or help but when you need something they are miraculously not there for you, or they don’t even try to give you any kind of good advice. Please know these are not your friends pile 1. I don’t know why you stay but you deserve better. I hope your tribe coming in is better for you.

What do you want out of the people around you? (Intuitive Message: Support & Accountability)

Support is the first word I heard from your guides that you want out of the people around you currently and for more supportive people to come into your life. Some of you may be struggling with depression and anxiety. I’m even hearing having suicidal tendencies that you sometimes have if not late at night sometimes throughout the day whenever you are feeling your lowest not having anyone to confide in. For a few of you, I’m hearing you want accountability from your friends as well. This may go both ways where you want your friends to hold themselves accountable for the sh!tty things they do and say toward you and other people. Maybe you have those delulu friends who think cheating is okay because they are female, and they have the mindset of men ain’t shit and they do it too. Maybe some of you need friends who will hold you accountable for your actions because you want to be a better person whether that’s having a glow-up or just needing to know your shit stinks too and you can’t be out here acting any kind of way.

Patreon Member Extended Reading (Both tiers) Pile ll:

What is your current tribe like? (Tarot: 8 of Cups, 2 of Swords (reversed), 9 of Cups, 8 of Cups, Queen of Cups (bottom of deck))

Before I start your reading pile 2 I just want to say in my best Mr. Rogers voice “I’m proud of you, I hope you know that.” This is my pile that has either no friends or very few people they can call friends in their lives if that. Some of you may call the few people in your life buddies or acquaintances which is nothing wrong with that because, in today's society, everybody is a friend because people feel some type of way by anything lower than that title. Some of you recently cut off your friends with the 2 of swords card, maybe for a while you didn’t want to but eventually, you just got to a place where you felt “You can do bad all by yourself.” I sense the loneliness from this pile because you have no to very few friends but at the end of the day you’re trying to stand on business with the Queen of Cups because you know your worth. You know that being alone is better than having fake friends all around you. This message is for a very few of you when I say few I mean less than 10 but some of you could have been the “problem” in your friend's group. Maybe you didn’t realize how high of a pedestal you placed your standards on that nobody can reach it not even god himself. Maybe you’re the type who once someone does even the smallest inconvenience you cut them off because you don’t have time for drama. While again good for you, it’s okay to let people be human and mess up from time to time for small petty things that aren’t disrespectful or intentional (meaning anyone could have made that small mistake).

What do you want out of the people around you? (Tarot: the High Priestess (reversed), (The Hanged Man (reversed), Knight of Swords, Strength (reverse), 7 of Pentacles, & 4 of Swords)

“G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S” I’m hearing the song Glamorous by Fergie. I’m not only hearing that but I’m seeing it as well you flying high taking trips on your boss babe sh!t. You don’t want anyone around you who isn’t trying to get their life together pile 2. If you aren’t trying to get a bag, better yourself, or do something with their lives you want nothing to do with them. Another song coming through for you is Latto – “It’s Givin” “It's givin' boss bitch (Boss bitch), It's givin' boss b!tch (Boss b!tch, it's givin'), It's givin' bad b!tch (Bad b!tch), Never ever play me like I'm average.” You honestly would rather be alone than let another person come and play in your face when you have so much going for you or want to bring in so much into your life pile 2.

Patreon Member Extended Reading (Both tiers)

Pile lll:

What is your current tribe like? (Tarot: 4 of Cups (reversed), Knight of Wands, Ace of Cups (reversed), The Fool, Queen of Swords (reversed),  9 of Cups (bottom of deck))

Unlike pile 1 your pile is neutral. It’s not bad nor good, it’s just the way it is. I’m hearing the song “The Way it is” by Bruce Hornsby  the lyrics go “That's just the way it is Some things will never change That's just the way it is Ah, but don't you believe them.” Pile 2 there may be a rift happening in your current soul tribe. You’re literally the medium group out of all 3 groups. Pile 1 needs to change friends, Pile 2 is their own boss babe best friend, and you’re in limbo with your friends' group. You have new beginnings and things are changing for the best for you but your friends and you are either a) not seeing eye to eye on things anymore that you used to bond over because you’ve leveled up mentally, physically, or emotionally, or b) You’re in different stages in your life and just drifting apart because it’s time. This pile feels like you have had most of your friends for a long time, for some of you, you may have had a few of your friends since middle or high school and you don’t want that friendship to end because the history you share with this person and possibly because you’re afraid of any new friends coming in. You fear untouched territory when it comes to friends, you want familiarity and nothing is feeling familiar to you anymore because you are leveling up. But unfortunately pile 2 this shift is inevitable, it’s bound to happen either now or later on at some point and I’m sensing if you keep progressing this shift from happening you are bound to but heads drastically and dramatically where life will force you to end things with your current group. It’s time for you to be open to new adventures and people. It’s safe and okay to let others in your life. “No new friends” by DJ Khaled ft Drake is playing in my head. This maybe for a select few of you but some of you maybe the type of friend who wants to bring their friends for the ride on this new path you’re going on similar to how rappers always bring their day one friends on the ride because they want to see them eat and be taken care of because you feel they deserve it after all you guys had to go through to make it.

What do you want out of the people around you? (Tarot: 2 of Cups, The Moon, Queen of Wands, Knight of Swords (reversed))

Instead of the question “What does pile 3 want from the people around them” I kept wanting to say “What does pile 3 need from the pile people around them?” and the phrase equal partnership came to mind when the 2 of cups came out as the first card. You need people who are going to also want to do action for themselves and not just get a leg up from you and your success or soon-to-have success if you aren’t there yet. With the moon card there’s something that you aren’t seeing with your current group of friends that the universe (god, allah, etc) is trying not to let happen as mentioned before a dramatic falling out where you and your current friend group will get hurt. The song No Hook by Latto where she speaks on her getting money and her whole family started acting funny comes to mind. If I’m being honest 21 Savage ft Post Malone song “All my Friends” is perfect for this group the lyrics go, “Lost a few friends chasin' hand money (On God) Had the same friends when I was bummy (Straight up) They should've went and did stand-up 'Cause when the money come, n*ggas act funny.” You need friends who are on the same level as you pile 2 this is in no shape or form elitist but more so you’re not seeing that the more success you get in your life the people you call friends are going to slowly start acting entitled to your new-found abundance and success and you deserve better than that. You deserve people who will be inspired that you did something awesome for yourself and want to do the same for themselves without clinging onto you or trying to stand in the same spot as you without doing anything for themselves except exist. Cadi B “Don’t be the why her type of b!tch, be the how can I get next to her and be like her type a b!tch”

Patreon Member Extended Reading (Both tiers)

Early Release

Thank you for checking out this Pick-a-Card reading. Be sure to check out the rest on Patreon.

I appreciate all of you, until the next reading.

Stay Safe and Be Blessed.

[lizardlicks]

Momo surprise

“I’m a little worried about Momo,” Aang said to his friends as they gathered around the morning campfire and started preparing for their day. “He’s been acting kind of off lately.”

The lemur in question was fussily nosing around Aang's abandoned bedroll in tight circles. As the group of teens watched, he laid down in a curl, chirped unhappily then got up and resumed tugging and scratching at the bedding. “How can you tell?” Sokka asked. He was by no means a lemur behavior expert. To him all of Momo’s actions were strange. It was possible that Aang's Avatar-ness gave him some kind of spirit connection to flying lemurs. Unlikely, but still possible.

“He doesn’t have as much energy, even though he’s sleeping more.” Aang explained, frowning. “You don’t think he’s sick, do you?”

“Maybe it’s the climate?” Katara offered helpfully. She wasn’t a lemur expert either, but she and Sokka had struggled the first few weeks with adjusting to the Earth Kingdom’s warmer weather. As far as she or anybody else knew, Momo has lived his entire life in the towering, windswept peaks around the Southern Air Temple, so maybe the sudden change had affected him too, she reasoned. 

“It’s because you’ve been giving him too many treats,” Sokka told Aang matter-of-factly. Lemurs were outside of his wheelhouse, but he'd helped the older boys with conditioning the polar dogs for sled pulling every fall. Spoiled pups turned lazy and fat, a hard lesson to learn for the littler children who only wanted to express their love.

“You think so?” Aang looked contrite.

“Yup,” Sokka said as he reached to snag a piece of star berry off the board Katara was using to prepare their breakfast. He snatched his hand back with a squawk when she smacked him.

“He is looking a little pudgy, Aang,” Katara said without taking her eyes off the food. Poaching brothers were too wily to be given that kind of an opening.

“Monkey feathers. I just can’t resist him when he gives me The Eyes.”

“I know,” Katara agreed. “He’s weaponized his cuteness.” “You’re going to have to.” Sokka nimbly dodged a sister elbow, but he still didn’t quite manage to snag any tidbits from Katara’s pile of fruit. “It’s for his own good.”

Momo, apparently noticing he was being talked about, finally abandoned the bedding to perch on Katara’s knee. “No, bad lemur!” She snatched her cutting board up and held it over her head. “No more extras for you!”

Sokka whooped in victory as he snagged a slice of moon peach and popped it into his mouth before Katara could adjust her defenses. “You’re on a diet, mister,” he informed the lemur as he sucked the juice from his fingers.

Momo chittered and pinned his ears back.

“Sorry, buddy,” Aang said regretfully as he scooped Momo up and tucked him into the crook of his elbow. “I already gave you a big handful of lychee nuts when you woke me up, you’re gonna have to wait until lunch time for more food.”

Aang could never quite tell just how much human speech Momo understood, but the lemur appeared to grasp something about the situation. He curled his tail around and grasped it anxiously, cooing at Aang with all the force of The Eyes that one tiny flying mammal could muster.

Aang held strong. For all of three seconds. “Okay... well. Maybe a couple berries wouldn’t hurt?”

--------

“AAAAAANG!”

The young monk bolted upright in his bedroll at the sound of his name, startled out of a sound sleep. Sokka was loud. Loud and very upset.

“What!? What is it?” He blinked several times, then rubbed at his face, trying to get his eyes to focus on anything distinct before he realized the reason he couldn't see anything was because dawn was still hours away. The moon hung in the sky, a crescent barely thicker than a thumbnail, with no light to offer. Hedgegoosebumps broke out across his arms. Aang hugged himself as the night pressed in, suddenly no longer a sheltering veil, but full of hidden threat from enemies he couldn’t see. 

The sleeping lump to his right rustled and shifted as Katara sat up in her bed roll. “Sokka-haaah,” her voice stuttered, breaking off with a yawn. “What's wrong?”

“What's wrong? What’s wrong!?” Sokka was rapidly climbing in pitch with each repetition. “Why don’t you look at this situation and tell me, huh?”

“Uhh.” Aang squinted into the dark and tried to make sense of their camp. Appa was still peacefully snoring several yards away, completely oblivious to the sudden chaos. Katara was wiggling and shuffling her way out of her sleeping bag, growling unflattering things at Sokka under her breath, and Sokka. Sokka was standing in the middle of their sleeping circle. He looked like he was holding something, but Aang could not for the life of him see what it was.

“We can't see anything without light, Sokka,” Katara groused. She finally won her struggle with her sleeping roll and started patting around for her bag. “You couldn't have lit a fire before you started yelling loud enough to alert the Fire Lord himself?”

“Oh, gee, why didn't I think of that! Could it possibly be because I'm dealing with Aang's mess over here!?”

Aang didn't remember leaving a mess. In fact he'd been careful to pack up everything before turning in for the night just in case they had to make a quick getaway. A few too many lost supplies had trained him quickly.

“What are you talking about?” He asked while stretching, less alarmed now that he knew Sokka was just. Well, being Sokka. They weren't being attacked, there was no life or death situation he had to fight through in the pitch dark.

Katara, having retrieved some kindling from her pack, scooted over to their banked campfire and began to poke the coals awake. She had apparently given up any hope of going back to sleep until her brother was sorted out. Even Appa was starting to rumble awake with the commotion.

“You said Momo was a boy!” Sokka hissed. 

Aang. Blinked. “Yeah?” he said, uncertainty clouding his mind. He must still be dreaming, why would Sokka wake up the whole camp to debate their pet’s gender?

“Then explain this!” Sokka shoved his cupped hands out, away from the protective shield of his body, just as the fire flared with a pop and Katara's satisfied grunt.

Cradled in between his palms, fur still sodden and sticking, was the teeniest, tiniest lemur Aang had ever seen.

[morallyinept]

D! Oh gosh! It's great to see you back here, buddy. You were missed last week by everyone. Frankie told me you were in rehab, how are you doing? You look great!

What? Oh, Frankie stood in for you. Yeah. He was amazing! Everyone loved him and… why are you looking at me like that? 

No, they don't love Frankie more than you. Don't be ridiculous. Pffft. Of course they don't. Well, maybe a little.

Aww Dieter. Don't cry.

I'm not replacing you! Look, Self Care With Dieter & Jett is exactly that: with DIETER & Jett. 

Don't worry bud, you're completely irreplaceable. C'mere. Gimme a smooch. Missed you. 

There, all better? Good.

This week, now that Dieter is fresh out of his stint in rehab, we're going to look at ways you can continue your self-care journey into feeling good by addressing negative thoughts and behaviour patterns. 

You ready to help our lovely friends and mutuals feel good, D? 

Well, at least you're back to your old self again. Which, I suppose, is a positive…

Enjoy this week's self care with Dieter & Jett! 

"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf." - John Kabat-Zin

Hands up, who has ever felt or experienced some kind of negative thinking?

What are some thoughts you've had about yourself recently, have they been mostly positive or negative? 

Everyone experiences negative thinking from time to time. However, for some, especially those who have low self-esteem and/or struggle with depression, overcoming negative thinking can be a massive and difficult mountain to peak, and one that seems to surface regularly.

How are you feeling today, D? 

Back to your old self, I see… 

Fortunately, there are more effective methods you can use to help you move past negative thoughts to a more positive mindset, instead of seven whiskey chasers...

☝🏻And remember, it doesn't make you weak or that there is something wrong with you if you have, or have experienced negative thoughts. We're all human, bub. We all experience them. 

Forgiving and nurturing yourself has so many benefits. Strong self-compassion can even set the stage for better health, relationships, and general well-being. Self-compassionate people recognize when they are suffering and are kind to themselves at these times, thereby lowering their own levels of related anxiety and depression.

So, Dieter. How can we show ourselves some self-compassion? 

Ooh-kay… maybe, I'll do this part.

What you let into your mind in your everyday life can have an impact on your thoughts. Identify the top sources of negativity in your life.

This could be anything from a messy space, to a difficult relationship. 

Once identified, find a way to replace them with sources of positivity. Below are some ways in which can help you flush out that negativity when it starts to creep in.

Shake that ass. Watch yourself.

I've said it before, and I'll continue to tell you, to move ya poppin' booty. The mind and body connection is a real thing, you know.

When you care for your body, you think and feel better too. Physical self-care includes how you're fueling your body, how much sleep you're getting, how much physical activity you re doing, and how well you're caring for your physical well-being. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to assess your physical health:

Am I getting adequate sleep?

Is my diet fueling my body well?

Am I taking charge of my health?

Am I getting enough exercise?

Exercising on a regular basis can have a profound positive impact on both your physical and mental health. Some benefits that exercise brings is that it can help relieve inner tension and worries. It can occupy your mind and also releases feel good hormones. 

So get dancing, or whatever that is, apparently...

You don’t have to plan an extensive and costly trip to the gym to see results either. Even a simple walk around the block can help. Or a dance, whatever.

Go on wit' your badself, D.

Talk It Out.

It's important to have healthy coping skills to deal with uncomfortable emotions like anger, anxiety, and sadness. Emotional self-care is a process in which we bring our awareness to our emotions and take the steps necessary in order to honor and care for these emotions. Here are some activities that can be helpful for emotional self-care. 

Talk to someone you can trust - a friend, a relative, an unhinged actor with a penchant for KitKats perhaps?

Journal your feelings - keep a journal, a dream diary, carry a notebook with you, or simply blog online. Get them feelings all out, no matter the medium in which you choose to express them.  

Feel your feelings without judgement. Acknowledge that it's perfectly okay not to always feel your best self. You can't always be "on". 

Meditation - spend a few minutes a day deep breathing and centering yourself.

Set boundaries - make time for yourself and stick to it. 

Take a break - close your laptop, put your phone down. Even for half an hour. You'll be amazed how good you'll feel afterwards. 

Find a Way to Serve.

One way to deal with negative thoughts is to focus on helping someone else.

By helping someone else, you give yourself an opportunity to bring positivity into your life. Whether it be helping someone move or merely listening to a friend, helping someone else is a great way to help yourself.

Consider volunteering, spend time with loved ones.

Care for a pet. Animals have such a positive influence on our emotional well-being too.

Oh, for the love of...

D! Careful, he bites! 😨

Find a Way to Be Grateful

When you are struggling with negativity, it can be easy to forget all the positive things in your life.

Try looking through your life and surroundings and find things that you are grateful for.

The fact you get to share the same planet with Dieter is pretty amazing already, right?

Yeah, you're pretty amazing, bud.

Write down all the things you're grateful for and put them in a jar. When you're feeling down, pull them out and read them to remind yourself of the great positive things you have in your life and all that you've achieved so far.  

Nurture the spirit within.

Nurturing your spirit doesn’t have to involve religion, though for some it does. And that's cool. It can involve anything that helps you develop a deeper sense of meaning, understanding or connection with the universe. Here are a few examples:

Meditation

Yoga

Going to a place of worship

Being in nature

Self-reflection

Be kind to yourself.

Did you know that humans have about 6,200 thoughts in a single day?

Well, some of us do anyway...

Don’t you think our self-talk will affect how we think and feel about ourselves? The language you use to describe and refer to yourself can also alter your mentality. 

Allowing yourself to receive kind words from yourself will boost that positivity and shrink the negative thoughts.

It’s also important to stimulate your mind with mental activities. Here are some mental activities to try:

Practice self-compassion and acceptance

Choose positive thoughts more often

Choose kindness

Channel your mantras

Do a puzzle to keep your brain stimulated

Learn something new to challenge yourself

To rid yourself of negative thoughts, try spending 15 minutes a day writing down your thought process. Doing this can help you identify how your thoughts are becoming distorted.

Far too often, we don’t want to slow down because there is so much to do. Ironically, by taking time for ourselves, we gain the strength and positive energy to drive forward in a higher gear. 

Sometimes, taking a step back is all we need to feel inner balance, happiness, and peace of mind.

☝🏻You deserve to feel good and you are worthy of quality time for yourself and with others. 

Remember, you are stronger than you think you are. 

So, D. I hope you're feeling much more positive. How are you feeling? 

Excellent! 

Now, I think it's time we uh, ride that high for a little while longer, if you catch my drift? 😏

Really? Jesus Christ, I said I want to ride you, D. 🙄 Nevermind… 

I hope Dieter and I have made you feel a little more positive today and put a smile on your face. Even if it was a little one. 

Check out this list of self-compassion mindful meditation exercises you can do too. And they're free! It's Dieter's gift to you. 🖤

YOU. ARE. STRONGER. THAN. YOU. THINK. 🖤

Do you. Then do Dieter.

More Dieter & Jett here

🖤

GIFS used of Dieter, as always, by the amazing @perotovar @uuuhshiny @miguelo-hara @a7estrellas If I've used one of yours here too, please let me know so I can rightfully credit you. I've saved them all to my phone and have forgotten who made them. Ta! 🖤

ℹ️ Dieter and I always strive to bring you unbiased, fact-checked advice. We're not licensed therapists, so we do a lot of research to ensure we can provide helpful and informative posts. Well, I do. Dieter mostly sits around eating KitKats.

[gxdsfavgal]

Corner Shop

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Pogue!reader

Warnings: a lil angst, fluffy, mentions of past fuck buddy relationship/one falling for the other, slightly emotional Rafe, drugs, not canon Rafe, not edited

A/N: very short little piece that I thought of at work

-

- 

It was getting colder here in the Outerbanks. It’s been Autumn for a month now and the leaves just started to change color, and the wind started to get colder. 

Here I was, working at the corner shop on a Saturday night when everyone else was out partying at Kelce’s for his “Back to School Bash”, even though they’re like two months in.

The corner shop was empty, only a few older men coming in to get a box of cigarettes and a Diet Coke. I was just sat behind the cashier, earphones in my ears blasting music, and the small tv hung up on the wall was playing some episode of Wheel of Fortune. 

The bell of the door rang which signaled that there’s a customer. I look up from my phone and see the tall figure and the body that I knew too well. His eyes quickly made contact with mine before he ducked into an aisle to find what he needs.

I went back to scrolling through my dream board on Pinterest, turning up the volume up so my music drowned out whatever he could say or the stupid show playing.

A box of condoms was tossed onto the counter. I looked up to see Rafe rocking back and forward on his heels, his hands stuffed in his khaki short pockets. I quickly sat up from my chair and scanned his box of condoms.

I was able to hear some mumbling over my music but I didn't care, that was until my earphone was tugged away from my ear.

“Don’t do that.” I looked up at him with annoyance all over my face.

“I was just asking if you can get me a pack of rolling papers.” 

I rolled my eyes secretly as I turned around to look for some behind the counter.

“Raw or Zig-Zag?” I held up the two brands.

“Uhh Raw.”

I scanned them and tossed it on the counter. 

“Nine dollars and 95 cents.” I told him as I was still bopping my head slightly to the music blaring in my other ear.

He handed my a balled up ten dollar bill from his pocket, just tossing it onto the counter. His hand was still digging in my pockets, which I assume to find some change due to the sounds of coins clanking.

“Hold on. I think I have some quarters.” his voice rushed.

He pulled out a handful of coins and wrappers from his pockets, a few coins hitting the floor.

“Fuck.” he mumbled out as he set down his coins and trash on the counter to pick up what he dropped.

“Jesus Rafe. You can pay with your card.” I grabbed the balled up bill and started to flatten it out.

“I- I can't.” he stood up as he tried to sort out the coins.

“Stop.” I told him, my hands signaling him to calm down. “What do you mean you can't?”

I counted the coins and picked out the trash while he slowed himself down and answered my question.

“My dad kicked me out.” he mumbled out.

“Not the first time he’s done that.” I chuckled at the memory of when Rafe first got kicked out, Barry and I had front row seats.

“Well this time it’s real.” his hands dragged over his face in stress. “I’m cut off from any money.”

“Sooo you're just gonna get high and sleep around to fix all your problems?” I scoffed at the end as I began to sort the coins into towers.

He stood there in silence, his eyes focusing on my hands working.

“Condoms huh?” I broke the silence and him out of his trance.

“Um yeah.”

I hummed in response.

“T-they’re not for me if you were wondering.” he was speaking fast again, his eyes searching my face for any sort of emotion.

“Whatever you say Rafe.” My lips drew into a thin line. “Um, you’re all good to go.”

I pushed his purchased items closer to the edge, making sure not to knock down the coins that I sorted for him. 

“I-I’m not sleeping around.” he tried to make a point.

“Okay Rafe.” I nodded as I put the money he owed into the till.

He let out a heavy sigh.

“Can you not act like that?” he leaned onto the counter.

“Like what?” I sat down onto the chair, trying to get myself comfortable again.

“Like you have something against me.” his finger tapped harshly to his chest.

“Rafe.” I looked at him with raised eyebrows. I hoped he remembered how things ended. 

His hands combed through his hair. “Fuck. I- I um.” he licked his lips.

“Rafe it’s all good, it happened and it’s done.” I looked up to the tv to see what was playing now, hoping that he took it as a sign to leave.

“I didn't mean t- never mind.” he grabbed his stuff and walked out of the shop with the bell ringing.

I finally was able to relax, my body was no longer tense, and I was finally able to breath. My breathing was stuttering. Pretending that everything is fine takes a toll, and that's what has been happening to me.

I put in my earbud that he pulled out and listened to my music again. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.

When I opened my eyes, Rafe was quickly opening the door again and taking long heavy strides to the counter.

I rubbed at my eyes, sighing in annoyance and exhaustion.

I pulled out my earphones to listen to what he has to say.

He was more fidgety, his eyes wider, and his hair messy from his hands. That was when I noticed the white dust on the tip of his nose.

I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it. “I-I didn’t mean those things.”

I nodded my head, staying quiet to see what else he has to say.

“Fuck! Do you understand me?” his finger tapped his chest hard.

I hummed to show that I was listening.

“Rafe, you said what you said.” I scratched at my head.

“You- You’re not listening to me.” he sniffled as he bit down on his bottom lip.

“We’re not gonna do this.” I stood up from my seat to lean on the counter right across from him. “You’re high and emotional, get some sleep.”

“I got attached.” he spoke loud and clear.

“What?” 

“I- I got attached and I didn't want Top and Kelce to know so I said that shit.” his hands rubbed at his jaw.

“Rafe, you’re not the on-”

“I know we set rules, t-that we will never catch feelings. Fuck. But you- you were so good to me.” his bottom lip quivered

His chest was rising up and down, his eyes were on me, and his mouth was open with his lips shiny from the amount of times he’s licked his lips.

We both just stood in silence. I’ve never seen Rafe confess to anything like that. Hell, I don’t think he’s ever done that.

“Now, you listen to me. Okay?” I told him, making sure to hold eye contact.

He nodded his head as his fingers raked through his hair again.

“I caught feelings. I thought you were distancing yourself and saying all those things because you didn’t want me.”

His angered face now softened, his eyes showing that he was still processing what I was saying. His cheeks were blushed and mouth agape.

“Say something?” I leaned onto the counter, getting a better look at his face.

His movements were quick. In a blink, his big hands cradled my jaw and his lips were on mine. His lips were soft and tasted like he’d been chewing gum and smoking weed.

Both of our bodies relaxed from across each other with the wooden counter separating us.

I pulled away and leaned my forehead against his, my eyes closed as I was entranced by the feeling and smell of him. His breath fanned over my face, we just stood there.

“I think we got that on camera.” I pulled away to point at the camera behind me to take surveillance of robberies.

“Download it.” he chuckled. His smirk was deadly, i’d be fine with dying from looking at him.

“You can stay at mines tonight.” I told him, my fingers playing with the collar of his shirt.

He nodded and rounded around behind the counter where I was. He grabbed an extra chair to sit by me until I closed.

[bouquetshark]

Pet Regressor!Abyss Monarch Cookie Headcanons

As a general baseline, Abyss Monarch Cookie is a very shy and sensitive octoling, and usually keeps to themselves about their regression because of shame and not having much knowledge.

• At first, Abyss Monarch Cookie was extremely ashamed of their regression, since they thought it was apart of their power's and a curse. They didn't actually realize it was regression at all that they we're experiencing because it was always involuntary impure regression—That was, until they slipped during a game they we're playing with Electric Eel Cookie, who immediately understood what was going on.

• Abyss Monarch thought they would be shunned, or worse, exiled. But instead we're met with a hug and a question: “are you alright buddy?”

• They aren't verbal aside from trill's, purring, mewling and other animalistic sound's. They also make biscuits much like a cat would, take this information how you will.

• When regressed, their pupil's are usually very round compared to when their using their power's, and get even bigger when excited or focused on something.

• They tend to follow Electric Eel around much like a lost puppy of some kind, and is very shy around new cookie's, but sweet once you get to know them.

• They don't have a nursery, but instead a nest of blankets with fairy lights for them to look at. Speaking of light's, their favorite pastimes/game's include:

• chasing a laser pointer or looking at a disco ball, watching movies or those baby sensory videos!

• In terms of snacks, they don't really eat anything much, mainly raw whale meat or jelly snake's. Which they catch themselves. This is safe for them to eat, but given jelly snake's are venomous, and consuming raw meat is dangerous for most Cookie's—so it's not recommend that their diet is replicated.

• They are very cuddly when regressed, and will lay on Electric Eels lap for hours. Their babysitters are Anglerfish Cookie or Lobster and Mocha Ray when they come to visit.

• They are SUCH A SWEETIE.. you'd completely forget they could take out entire countries off the map if they wanted to.

[mychlapci]

As much as I love pregnant Sentinel, I really love chubby Sentinel. After being demoted from his position, he gets depressed and starts eating more than usual. He neglects his strict diet and workout sessions. He gains weight, and it makes him more depressed. He starts to hate his frame and becomes very anxious about other bots looking at his frame. He unfortunately comes across to the mech he very much hates. Apparently, he had to be in a meeting in which he was late, and the only seat available was beside Optimus Magnus. He sat beside him and tried to avoid contact and tried to keep a distance. It's been a cycle (1 year) before the two of them meet, Optimus, when seeing Sentinel was schock by his frame. He's familiar with Sentinel being devoted to keeping his frame fit. Sentinel feels Optimus intense gaze at him. He starts to feel his face starts blushing and optics wanting to spill because he thinks the Magnus is judging or worse, making fun of him. However, it was the opposite, Optimus was very attracted to Sentinel's new frame form. He started to have inappropriate thoughts and was barely paying attention to the meeting. After the meeting, Optimus immediately went to his bedroom and started to jerk off, he overloads fast from too much excitement. Perhaps the Magnus can pull some strings to have a proper chat with his old buddy. Cue to the sex, Optimus has Sentinel in a missionary position and has Sentinel thick thighs around his waist. He is practically destroying Sentinel's fat tight valve. Sentinel screams and moans like a pornstar. Sentinel already made a mess due to Optimus eating him out like an animal and sucking on those fat valve lips and that beautiful big clit. Optimus obviously show love to those fat thighs and have them sorround by his helm. Optimus realized that Sentinel is a squirter and is determined to get another one. While fucking Sentinel, he was fondling Sentinel belly which made Sentinel had mixed feelings. Optimus then kisses the belly and worships it. This made Sentinel quickly overload and scream out Optimus name. He mewls when he was full of Optimus transfluids in his birth chamber. Thinking it was over, Optimus flips him, burries his face on his fat aft cheeks, and starts eating Sentinel out of his aft with a strong grip. Being sensitive, he pleaded for Optimus to stop. Instead, he got a swat on his aft and had no choice but to endure it. After finally overloading, he passes out. Optimus, being the gentlemech he is, cleans Sentinel and himself. He then carries back Sentinel to berth and starts spooning him, giving him helm kisses and on the mouth while fondling his belly and closes his optics. Bonus scene: Sentinel wakes up and finds himself in Optimus bed and remembers last night. Optimus comes back with breakfast and smiles warmly towards Sentinel. Sentinel breaks the ice and asks why he had interface with him? Doesn't he find the minor mech to be disgusting? Did he interface with him to mock him? Optimus is broken by Sentinel's questions. He persistently tells Sentinel that wasn't the case. He tells him he finds Sentinel very attracted and interface with him because he kind of missed him. He goes on in telling that no matter what shape Sentinel has, Optimus will always find him beautiful. Sentinel, after dealing with self-hatred and body dysphoria, he starts crying, and Optimus starts comforting and kisses Sentinel. Sentinel, after calming down, he feels Optimus hand on this panels, and he starts feeling warm. Perhaps being chubby isn't so bad.

listen, pregnant Sentinel and chubby Sentinel don’t have to be two separate categories. they overlap… if you believe.

mhmmm, Sentinel gains so much weight now that his life had gone a completely different direction than he’d planned – he’s been demoted and Optimus, bumbling, ambitionless Optimus became Magnus instead of him. I’m always in favour of weight gain signifying positive change but… i can get behind Sentinel overeating because he’s stressed and nervous and his motivation to keep up his good figure just plummets. People probably notice that he’s gaining weight and it just upsets him and when he’s upset he eats even more. He becomes five times as unpleasant due to his insecurity and his grudge for Optimus grows immeasurable.

Optimus was always aware Sentinel was attractive but now that he got fat he’s blissed out, staring at him constantly. Sentinel looks really good now that he’s filled out. Thick thighs and a fat belly suit him so well, and most importantly, they make Optimus blind with lust. He wants Sentinel in his bed, and gets just that. Eventually.

aw Sentinel thinking Optimus only fucked him to mock him, or that it was a dare, or to take pictures of his gross body and show everyone – Optimus is almost angry that Sentinel thinks he’d do something like that. I hope that after everything has been sorted out, Optimus gets to feed Sentinel all sorts of tasty fuels. Sentinel tried to watch his figure for a while because as much as he hates to admit it, having Optimus at his side made him feel better, but he decided against it. Optimus likes him this way. And also, he won't stand for it when Sentinel refuses to fuel.

[obsidiancreates]

A Lot To Chew

(Different Vampire AU than the last one, this one is Comedic. I just love Vampire AUs.)

Burton Guster doesn't see his best friend in the world until ten years after graduation. He gets postcards with no return address, from all over the world, but no sight nor sound otherwise.

Until he wakes up one night in 2006 to the sight of his formerly MIA best friend leaning over him with glowing red eyes, a gift-wrapped but obviously identifiable pineapple in his hand, and a wild grin with two sharp fangs visible in the moonlight from the window.

Gus's scream is so loud and shrill it actually sends Shawn to the ground, hands clamped over his ears and an equally shrill scream coming out of him.

Gus leaps out of bed and grabs his bible and a cross, backing into a corner and holding both out! Shawn gets up, rubbing his ears and sending Gus a glare.

"Not cool, dude. Is that any way to greet your best friend after a decade?"

"You better be in some crazy costume, Shawn!" Gus keeps the cross aloft in front of him.

"Well, if you'd let me explain before you stake me-"

"Oh my god."

"Listen, I know this seems bad but good news, I can totally live off stuff like rare steaks. ... Bad news, I can't shapeshift or anything like that. Medium news, I can totally help you move your couch with like, one hand if you need me to."

"Are you actually Shawn?"

"Gus. What kind of question is that? Obviously even if I wasn't I'd say yes."

"Ha! You can't be Shawn, you're too honest."

"Are you saying I'm less honest than a demon? What proof do you need from me to put down the cross, man?"

"... When'd we meet?"

"Uh, basically birth, and then when we were five we officially declared ourselves the best friends in the entire world."

"... Alright. Okay. Why'd you get kicked out of church?"

"First of all, I did not get kicked out- Father Wesley politely suggested we stop attending."

Gus lowers the cross slightly. "That's the same thing, Shawn."

"No, because I think getting kicked out of a church would mean lightning strikes me and I get blown out as a pile of ashes."

The cross goes all the way down, but he keeps a grip on it. "Oh my god. You're really you."

"Duh!"

"And you're a vampire."

"For about five years now, yes."

"What? You don't look twenty-three."

"Yeah, well, apparently an animal blood diet means I'm still aging. I mean, I'm aging well, no doubts about it- and even the supernatural had very little to improve on with my hair."

"How did this even happen?"

"Kind of a long story, buddy. And a little gruesome. Do you still throw up at stressful situations?"

"Shawn."

"That's a yes. I'll tell you another time, but, I came here for a reason."

"To drink my blood?" He raises the cross again. "Condemn me to share your eternal damnation because your love for me has been twisted by your monstrous transformation."

"Dude. That's way too dramatic and absurd, nothing like that. I'm here because we're going to become private investigators together!"

"What?!"

"Yeah! I need you to go out and do stuff during the day, obviously, but-"

"I'm dreaming. I have to be dreaming."

"I know, right? Dream come true. Anyway, the thing is the cops brought me in for questioning tonight because I called in a tip and when they wouldn't stop insisting my Nighttime Lifestyle pointed to me being a criminal I ended up telling them I was psychic and the spirits demand I only work at night-"

"You lied to the cops?!"

"Gus, I'm a vampire. What was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, maybe hypnotize them to let you go?!"

"... Huh. ... That would've been a great plan, actually. Whoops."

[olet-lucernam]

A Hollow Promise [27] chapter vi, part iv

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

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summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

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chapter summary : astrid gathers her allies, and draws the attention of her enemies. loki pays a heavy price for a victory.

recommended listening : what you waiting for?, gwen stefani

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tag list: @femmealec @mischief2sarawr

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[PREVIOUS] | [MASTERLIST] | [NEXT]

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54 weeks and 1 day out

“Sir. We have movement.”

Tony felt the lines of his spine and shoulder blades pull straight, almost reflexively, swivelling into motion at his holographic worktable like a well-oiled gear.

He was going on a self-imposed work diet- an attempt to rebalance, after living in his work for the past few months, building and breaking and remaking in an endless beta-testing phase, a Sisyphean attempt to patch every vulnerability he could imagine- but it had been pushed back, under the circumstances, and he had rationed out enough time for him to deal with the situation, before starting the full detox.

“Where are we, J?” He asked, with a casual upwards flick above the table.

The gesture summoned a hologram above the desk: an architectural scale model of the Tower, crafted in vitrified blue light.

“There is some unusual activity near the roof.”

The area in question turned orange on the three-dimensional map, zooming in for an exploded view of the topmost two-dozen floors.

Tony had remodelled the top of the Tower, after the Battle of New York. Damage had given him the excuse, and the team had provided the reason. Repaired and restructured, several stories added to its height, the broad, smooth curves and open layout modelled after his cliffside home in Malibu were scrapped, the exterior cleaner and sharper- streamlined, from the slanted crown of its roof, through the convex glass-faced layers of the penthouse floors, to the landing pad extending out into the open air.

Locals had taken to calling it Avengers Tower. None of the roster aside from Tony had taken up residence yet, but they all agreed that it was a good base, and Tony kept the personal suites ready for whenever they might need to drop in.

The luminescent A badge shimmered on the side of the building, level with the landing pad. Just below it- within the three floors dedicated to Tony’s private laboratories, workshops, storage, and fabrication facilities- a red diamond marked his current location.

“Surveillance feeds and motion sensor detectors are offline,” JARVIS announced, highlighting the locations in a chain, “as are the door sensors.”

Tony visually tracked the path that it created.

It led from the roof access, into the emergency stairwell, before terminating at the door into Thor’s suite: no more and no less than would be needed to gain access to the building.

It was more than twenty floors above him- a distance that would take several minutes to traverse. He had time.

“You locked out, buddy?” Tony asked quietly, summoning his touch keyboard with a sweep of his palm. “Or are they trying to be subtle?”

“Neither, sir. As with the first occurrence, this appears to be a mechanical failure, not a cyber-attack.”

His gaze narrowed briefly, jaw moving.

Somehow, that was both more and less plausible than JARVIS being hacked.

“Shall I prepare to go into lockdown protocol, sir?” JARVIS proposed. “It should be possible to isolate intruders to one of the penthouse floors, once they are inside.”

Tony contemplated the offer for only a heartbeat.

“No. Clear the way down for her, J,” he decided breezily. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”

There was a brief, audibly judgemental pause in the response time.

“As you wish, sir.” Tony could hear the mild disapproval and concern behind his AI’s cool, crisp tones. “Shall I at least stand by with security protocols?”

“Doubt we’ll be needing them, but- feels like this one’s got a few fireworks up her sleeve.” He conceded blithely, pre-empting the reproach about putting himself at unjustifiable risk. “Alright. Safety off, but finger off the trigger.”

Tony turned in his chair, scanning the room. The workshop was cluttered with a rich confusion of half-finished projects, both metal and digital, strewn across screens and surfaces between discarded coffee cups and various tools.

“And clear the decks, J. Window Dressing Protocol.”

At the command, the screens cleared.

Detailed blueprints and test data were replaced with generic schematics and randomised code, like cellophane pasted on a device fresh out of the box. They reflected in the wall of glass that faced the length of the room- diluted against the dark hallway beyond.

With a gentle swipe, Tony dismissed the render of the Tower.

Rising to his feet, he slid the rolling chair aside, summoned a program and began typing, looking to all the world like the very image of productivity and genius at work.

He wasn’t kept waiting for long.

A gentle rap of knuckles sounded on the reinforced, shatter-proof glass.

Tony’s head snapped up.

The girl whose real name definitely wasn’t Alethia waited just outside, painted like day in the light spilling from the workshop.

She was dressed for the winter night, a New York romance in a soft black sweater and jeans the colour of dried roses, champagne hair pinned in in a braided coil, emphasising a pretty set of cheekbones and long eyelashes. Backs of her knuckles still raised to the glass, snow-dusted and pleasantly windswept, she tipped chin down slightly in greeting.

She looked better, Tony observed. Her skin was clearer, her eyes brighter, expression smoother- less tension-soured, less angry, and more like the person that she had sounded like, aboard the Helicarrier.

Without looking, he tapped a command into the control panel.

The electronic lock switched open with a heavy snap.

Alethia turned the handle, stepping inside, flawless and measured.

“Dr Stark.”

There was a low thrum in her voice, as though cautiously pleased to see him.

“Not-agent.”

Tony’s reply was blandly jovial. Shunting the lines of code aside, he stepped away from the workbench, one hand tucked into his pocket. He had remained outfitted in dark sweats and a gym shirt, standard gear for the workshop, but his posture was that of when he was in a three-piece suit and a boardroom- eyes fixed on her face, chin tilted up slightly, sizing her up with an air of casual challenge.

To her credit, Alethia remained unaffectedly at ease.

It had reminded him a little of Pepper- but not by much.

Virginia Potts was like a ceramic knife. There was a deliberate poise to her, born of a consciousness of her disadvantages in the industry, a refusal to be anything less than a worthy player of the game; she was everything prim and correct and refusing to be intimidated, the result of thousands of observations and lessons learned and choices made, constructed into a statuesque, pleasantly intimidating facade.

Alethia reminded him far more of someone else.

Tony had realised it when she was leaning over the Tesseract transport device, her voice focused and softly mirthful.

Relax. I have steady hands.

For a moment, he had been hurled back in time. He had tasted metal, and dust, lung tissue still burning from the water with each breath, the heat of the forge at his back and the dim cold of the caves at his front, the weight of a car battery slung over his shoulder, and a pair of lean hands- Yinsen, sure and calm and steady, mild-mannered yet ruthlessly insightful, guarded and tired and yet earnest- pouring molten palladium into its cast.

Relax, he had chided Tony gently, tilting the long handles of the tongs, inclining the lip of the crucible over the mould. I have steady hands. Why do you think you are alive, ah?

After removing it from his chest for the second time, Tony had quietly returned the first miniaturised arc reactor to the display mount that Pepper had commissioned, sealing it back in glass.

It was still powered by that delicate ring of palladium, poured by steady hands under a mountain in Afghanistan.

With a steady sweep of her lashes, Alethia looked past Tony’s shoulder, at the screen display where he had been typing.

Her head tilted.

“Was there any particular reason that you were translating the lyrics of ABBA’s Dancing Queen into base64?”

Huh. Well.

Tony had more or less expected that she would see straight through the chains of randomised letters and numbers, like an awl punching through leather, but- the casual quickness was a little disorientating. It was like expecting a card trick, and getting shoved into a swimming pool instead.

“Everybody needs a hobby,” he said, bald-faced and shameless.

“Mm.” Hazel eyes flicked to his, warm as vanilla and laughter. “I’ve heard worse.”

They trailed into silence.

“Ran a trace, on the phone number you left,” Tony admitted boldly. “Before I called.”

Alethia smiled slightly.

“Ah. Were you disappointed?”

“I think I’d be disappointed if it was that easy.” Tony decided, circling the desks, feigning distraction. Alethia was missing a coat that would make sense for the cold. Her nails were trimmed neat, without polish. The only traces of makeup were a swipe of soft black kohl at the corners of her eyes and the sheen of lip balm. Practical, yet impractical. “Complete no sell, though. Impressive. That SHIELD tech?”

The corner of her mouth pulled up further.

“No.”

“You still with them?”

“If I ever was, I’m not now.”

“So you’re a free agent?”

“Free not-agent.”

“How long?”

“Is this an interrogation?”

“I mean, I’d call it due diligence, but I’ve got a pair of cuffs somewhere, if it’d make you more comfortable.”

Alethia’s smile bloomed into a brilliant grin.

“Didn’t think you’d be into that, Dr Stark.”

She sobered slightly, clear as glass.

“Ask me what you want to know. I wouldn’t have left a way for you to contact me, if I wasn’t willing to talk.”

Tony held her gaze for a long moment.

He tapped at the keypad.

Several pages opened across the screens.

Pages of instructions, formulas, tables, calculations, and skeletal molecular structures illuminated the digital glass.

Alethia kept her gaze on Tony.

“What is this?” Tony asked, quiet and direct.

She breathed a slow exhale, hip cocking.

“The formulas, chemical synthesis processes, and medical procedures for stabilising the biological effects of the experimental serum known as Extremis,” she announced clinically, “when introduced to the human body intravenously, subcutaneously, or intramuscularly.” Alethia paused, pointedly. “I did include an abstract.”

“And you broke into my building to leave it here.”

“I apologise for the necessity.” Alethia replied evenly. “It was safer, than a courier.”

“You couldn’t think of another way?”

She arched an eyebrow.

“So- a package, delivered to this building, or a file sent to the general inquires inbox for Stark Industries, addressed directly to you, from an unknown sender- wouldn’t have been lost in the system?”

Despite the lingering irritation, he could admit that she had a point.

And at least she hadn’t tried to hack JARVIS, or threatened to taser him, or ripped the arc reactor out of his chest, or thrown him through a window.

All in all, this break-in was probably in his top three.

Tony flicked his hands into a shrug, keeping his expression blank and blithe.

“Alright. Let’s say I buy that.” He did buy it, but she didn’t need to know that yet. “You wanna tell me what this really is?”

He saw the subtle shift in her eyes, becoming a little shrewder, a touch sharper- and a little pleased.

She pulled up one shoulder.

“A gift? Or a bribe, perhaps. Gratitude. Diplomacy. A resumé.”

“What, you’re in the market for a job?”

The quip was as pithy as he intended, but in the split second that followed- huh.

Actually.

That wasn’t a terrible idea.

Tony acknowledged that he needed to step back from Iron Man- at least until he could reorganise his head and redraw the lines so that it wasn’t the all-consuming furnace of fear and duty and penance and freedom-safety that it had become- but the work wouldn’t wait. The planet was on a deadline, and Tony had more resources than most to pull the necessary defences together. Having good people on board, who could keep his projects ticking over while he reorientated, was essential.

And Alethia knew. She had recognised the monsters lurking in the dark between the stars, and had looked for someone to warn when she decided that Fury couldn’t be trusted to listen.

And then there was the truth in all things, and cannot lie aspect. That was a hell of an ace up Earth’s collective sleeve- if, if, if-

“I don’t need a job, Dr Stark. What I need is an ally.” Alethia spoke as clear and calm as daybreak upon the mountains. “We both do. As many as we can get.”

Tony swallowed, carefully.

He turned his head to look at the screens, grappling down the swoop of intermingled terror and relief.

“So this is your pitch.”

“I was working on other areas, but- I saw the news,” Alethia said mildly. “The bombings. Malibu.”

She hesitated.

“I was worried.”

Tony flicked a slightly surprised glance back at her.

Alethia’s gaze was on the screens, inscrutable.

There was a note of quiet sincerity in her voice that rattled something within him, like marbles in a jar.

“Well.” Tony began, turning back towards the illuminated text. “I’ve come back from the dead before.”

“Even so.” She demurred. “You were- you were kind to me. I didn’t forget that. So I was glad to find that you were alright. Then I found out about AIM, and Extremis, and I- thought you could use the assistance.”

Tony didn’t know what to say.

He still couldn’t decide, even after a moment to reboot.

Instead, he deflected.

“I knew you weren’t an engineer.”

“Hm?”

Tony flicked a practiced, flippant gesture at the screens- a quick upturn of his palm, fingers loosely curled- turning away.

“Back then. The instructions you provided for the Tesseract device- I mean, we talked about it at the time. Hot garbage, right? Intentional hot garbage, but still. There was a solid working understanding of the physics and the mechanics, but it wasn’t written by someone au fait with the field. There are things that you only learn if you’ve studied it, read the books, learned how to speak the language. It’s all in the common practice- the jargon, the shorthand. That was missing, from your papers. There were a few pieces, but not enough. You’re not an engineer.”

Tony turned to face her, expression a flat, inscrutable mask.

“You are a doctor, though.”

Alethia didn’t flinch.

He would expect nothing less, from someone who had kept secrets from Nicholas Fury and was still walking around, doing as she pleased.

“This,” Tony raised a finger to his shoulder-line, indicating the screens behind him. “Is perfect. Flawless. You could send this for peer review and get it published in The Lancet.”

A chink appeared in Alethia’s expression- something that she had allowed to break through, intense as sunlight striking on a shard of glass.

Pride.

It was earned. As far as Tony could tell, she had whipped up the antiserum formula within a matter of days; any sane research institute or private company on the planet, including the medical subsidiaries of Stark Industries, would be putting a bounty on her corporate headhunt if they knew.

Blasé as he could afford to be with money, however, Tony rarely made a purchase without knowing the price.

“So. What are you?” He paced back towards her, gathering a slow momentum like the wind of a crank, closing in. “Biochem? Cellular biology? Genetics? What’s your speciality?”

Alethia smiled.

“Neurosurgery.”

Tony’s brow twitched at the admission, taken aback.

He wasn’t actually expecting a straight answer. He wasn’t expecting that answer.

And he wasn’t expecting its wistfulness.

“You’re a brain surgeon?”

She let out a short laugh.

“I should probably introduce myself.” An incandescent, media-ready smile lit up her features, relaxed and confident. “Dr Astrid North, MD.”

Tony stilled.

That was her name, he could tell. Not an alias.

Tony quickly calculated the risk, that she was taking.

“Date of birth recorded as the twenty-ninth of February, 1988,” she continued, as though this time she was actually reciting and submitting her résumé for consideration. “Graduated from Columbia in the class of ’03, summa cum laude, completed my neurosurgical residency in 2010. I also worked under the surnames Stephenson and Stephensdottir- spelt like the doctorate, not like the super-soldier. There should be records of me available here in New York, as well as the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, and Brazil.”

Tony could feel the staccato of his heart, stuttering behind the arc reactor, a thrum of anticipation.

“Hm. SHIELD know any of this?”

Alethia’s- Astrid’s- lip curled with a hint of contempt.

“No.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

She lifted her shoulder. “I thought you’d want an insurance policy.”

“And what have I done to earn that?”

“You listened.”

“I passed the test,” Tony inferred. “That’s why you’re here?”

“I’m here because I would like to trust you,” Astrid said coolly, “and because I think there’s a more than fair probability that I can. And- because I would like you to trust me. Even if only enough to work together.”

Tony observed her for a few dragging seconds.

“What’s your endgame?” He challenged. “You told me back then that you’re not an altruist.”

“Oh, I’m not.”

“Then why? What’s in it for you?”

Her brow tensed slightly.

“Enlightened self-interest? Or, is I don’t want the planet I currently live on to be destroyed insufficient for you?”

“Eh, plenty of people don’t find it compelling. Look at climate change.”

Astrid’s lips parted to reply- before she grimaced, glancing aside in admission.

“Alright, fair point.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But maybe I’m just more circumspect.”

“Or you have another reason.”

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling with a slow blink.

“You are being very obstinate about this.”

“You know, I don’t actually care, what your actual reason is,” Tony blurted out, sharp and caustic as battery acid, a sudden flare of anger and impatience shoving him forwards, “because you’re right. We need allies. Including each other. So I’m willing to work with your reason why. But only if I know what it is.”

The moment that Tony stopped speaking, he became aware of how Astrid was looking at him.

Tony felt like he was being taken apart, disassembled, the cover plate pulled off to check the hardware.

Truth in all things.

She hummed, soft in the back of her throat. It was the kind that he could feel in his sternum, even with most of it carved away for the arc reactor.

“Alright,” she said softly. “Fair’s fair.”

She straightened, looking away.

“There is- someone.” She said carefully. “Someone that I love.”

Tony blinked.

It was like the twist of a kaleidoscope, patterns reforming, in four simple words.

“And the one responsible for- that-” Astrid snapped a finger heavenwards, her entire being smouldering with a leashed, soul-deep hatred, “took them, at their most vulnerable. Captured them. Tortured them. For months. Years. Twisted their memories, tainted their emotions, and manipulated their pain until they no longer knew where they ended, and the sceptre began. They barely kept enough of themselves to ruin it all, and break free of the control.”

Tony felt a muscle in his bicep and jaw twitch, flicking an appraising, calculating look across her.

Interesting.

“The one that I love will be hunted as a traitor. Or, as a failure- I don’t think it matters, and I don’t care. It all has the same end. What matters is that the one I love will never be safe, until and unless that is no longer a threat.”

Astrid dropped her hand, meeting his eyes addressing him with a tone of complete, terrifying certainty.

“I have decided that it is not going to be a threat.”

The floor of Tony’s stomach dropped out, the room seeming to tilt.

He was suddenly struck with a strange thought- like some survival instinct coded into his evolutionary ancestry, tapping at his nerve endings, lingering like a chill in the vertebrae of his neck. It was the feeling that he was looking at something ancient, and angered- half-mad and unhinged and doing an admirable job of containing itself to its human skin.

He realised, in a split second, that Astrid was probably something not entirely human.

And she was baring her teeth at whatever was threatening to swallow Earth whole.

Fuck it. He could work with this.

“All of the sake of love?” Tony asked.

He took pride in the fact that his cadence was even-keeled, despite the stagger of his pulse.

A humourless, self-deprecating smile wrung through her features.

“You can laugh,” Astrid told him, rueful and without rancour. “I know how I must sound.”

Tony forced himself to shrug, nonchalantly. “I’ve heard worse.”

And he had. Tony had been worse. He had cut deals with worse, because he was a realist, and anyone pursuing utopia had to be willing to drag themselves through purgatory first.

After a long moment, Tony inhaled sharply, pulling his shoulders back.

“Okay,” he said powerfully. “If this is a bluff? I’m calling it. Cards on the table.”

A spark ignited behind Astrid’s eyes, like a struck match.

“Pepper’s been injected with Extremis,” he continued brusquely, “I need to get her stable, along with any other test subjects that AIM decided to turn into literal walking time bombs. That’s why you gave me these papers, right? You thought I could use it, and I can. So let’s get to it. You in?”

Astrid looked startled- before her entire demeanour snapped into a honed, clinical focus.

“Wh- are you monitoring cortisol levels? Internal temperature, heartrate, WBC-?”

“Per doctor’s orders.” Tony flicked his head towards the reams of detailed medical instructions, listed out on the glass. “Followed your procedures to the letter. We’re tracking down anyone else who might have taken part in clinical trials, but it looks like there were a limited number, at least.”

Astrid tugged up her sleeves with an efficient pinch of fabric, pulling the soft knit clear of her wrists and forearms. “How many potential patients?”

“Caps out at a dozen, maybe.”

“The antiserum? You’ve started synthesising it?”

“As we speak, lab’s running on auto.”

“How much?”

“About two hundred and fifty milligrams, in the first batch.”

“Not enough. Triple it. And quintuple it for the others, per patient. I don’t want to be caught out with less than we need. Have you started on the round of pre-antiserum IV fluids?”

“About three hours ago.”

“And no adverse effects, contraindications?”

“Nada. Smooth sailing, all in line with where you said we should be by now.”

“Good, but keep Miss Potts closely monitored. And we’ll still need to test the antiserum on a live tissue sample, if possible.”

“I’ll get on it.”

Tony swiped two fingers down through the air, dismissing the pages on the screens, the room dimming slightly as they slid away.

“If this works,” he said, his enunciation crisp, “we can talk.” In one fluid motion, Tony plucked a StarkPad from amongst the chaos of the workbenches, flipping it in his grip to hold it, outstretched, within her reach. “Sound good, doctor?”

Astrid smiled, light and wild, and Tony felt his decision settle in his chest with a feeling of rightness.

This could work.

She took the tablet.

“Lead the way, doctor.”

-

Astrid made an addition to her list.

Flour.

-

50 weeks and 3 days out

Brunnhilde would be the first to admit that she was not made for subterfuge.

She was a woman of brash, blunt action, more inclined to punch her way straight through her problems that to deconstruct them. As such, her vocation suited her. The Valkyrie were the vanguard, the cavalry, the elite corps, revered shieldmaidens who cleared the field with a swift, graceful brutality that was immortalised in legend and song and carving.

They had been thralls, once. Slaves.

Most of Asgard had forgotten that.

As war raged across the Nine, they had been appropriated by the throne- a form of tax levy, on the wealthy of Asgard- and dispatched to the battlefield in the wake of Asgard’s armies, to collect corpses from the slurry. Choosers of the slain, the golden-plated Einherjar snickered into their cups, leering over the rims.

Then there was a shortage of disposable warm bodies. It had seen weapons pressed into their hands, shoved to the front lines to fill out the ranks.

Against all expectation, the Valkyrie had fought. The fought, and lived, and bought victory to Asgard.

In recognition of their deeds, Bor had purchased their freedom. The Valkyrie became the pride of Asgard, a symbol of its might, arrayed in battle armour of bright, sun-catching pearl-white and star-silver.

Their origins were probably why the Valkyrie could be found working, even in peacetime- conducting funerary rites, serving at great state occasions, maintaining Folkvang- while the Einherjar regressed into nothing more than decorative doorstops scattered throughout Gladsheim.

Brunnhilde had once remarked as such to Loki. Months later, he had presented her with a gilded doorstop for her nameday, crafted into the shape of an Einherjar in full regalia.

It had sent Brunnhilde into a fit of delighted, undignified cackles.

I’m calling him Sigurd, she declared with a feral grin.

Ah, he’s not going to last a week, Loki had commented, clicking his tongue with a convincing veneer of faux-pity.

Even now, few if any of Brunnhilde’s sisters were of noble blood or wealthy backgrounds. Most of them came from labouring families, apprenticed in a trade before they turned old enough to apply to the corps, and they bought their skills to Folkvang. The Valkyrie’s halls, sheltered in a chilled, fertile basin in the mountains, was almost entirely self-sufficient thanks to their collective knowledge. They raised fields of wheat and flax, milled their own flour and spun their own linen, wove and baked and built, felled timber and hunted and fished, tanned leather and cured meat, cut stone and dug wells, even kept bees and pressed oil and fermented wine and made candles.

And then there was the lace.

A few girls who knew how to weave had taken it up, transforming thread into pretty swatches of aerated cloth. They had begun teaching the craft to a few others, when they showed interest. Then the pastime became an additional source of income, to supplement the stipend provided by the crown.

And within a few centuries, Valkyrie lace was considered amongst the most exquisite craftsmanship in all the Nine. A single spool of inch-wide trim commanded a small fortune. When a Valkyrie was wed, it was customary for her sisters to spend the year and a day between engagement and marriage- or longer, if they saw the union coming- making as many yards of lace as they could manage, as her dowry.

Brunnhilde loved her sisters, admired their work, and hated lacemaking with a virulence that she usually reserved for bilgesnipe and strutting lordlings who thought that bedding a Valkyrie was a notch in their gilded belt.

Fortunately, she also had absolutely no talent for it. The others had quickly banished her from their tatting pillows and needles and bobbins, gently shoving her off towards work that actually made sense to her.

And Brunnhilde was content to have nothing to do with it. She honestly couldn’t understand what the others envisioned in the countless threads, or why crossing one here or knotting another there would somehow create a magnificently intricate motif several thousand more motions later, even if she was capable of appreciating the result.

In that sense, subterfuge reminded her of lacework.

She couldn’t see all of the threads, where they were leading, or how they locked together into a single bolt of woven fibre and air- but Loki so clearly knew exactly how each and every loop and twist and knot would build outwards, and took quiet satisfaction in seeing each one tighten into place, like a miniature noose.

There was an aching patience to it, each miniscule snag changing the fall of the delicate mesh, and Brunnhilde was often caught by the impulse to just hack her way through it.

She didn’t.

Instead, she did exactly as he asked.

Asgard underestimates him, a memory whispered- that of a warm voice, accompanied by a smile that darkened the eyes above it into amber. Or thinks it sees him, or thinks it knows what it’s looking at. A trick of the light. A shadow on glass. It is a mistake, you know.

The darkened eyes had begun to glow, instead, when they saw that Brunnhilde was paying attention.

I think he might be the most real person that I have ever met.

“I was surprised,” Loki admitted, on a low, distracted hum, “that you didn’t ask.”

The dungeons were quiet, at least in the wing where Loki was being held. It felt like an archive, a place for lost and forgotten things to be kept, shelved and stored out of sight until they were needed- the air settled as silt on the bottom of a riverbed, barely stirring with the sparse rounds of the guards.

Brunnhilde had counted eleven weaknesses that she could exploit, if it came to it.

She would have counted three dozen more in a fraction of the time.

She felt her heart clench strangely. It was the feeling of old scar tissue, untouched for so long, flexing and moving once more.

She and Loki were seated at the front of his cell, arranged parallel against the golden barrier on either side. Swathed in worn, nondescript suedes, Brunnhilde slouched on the stone steps, bare shoulder shoved against the forcefield; the air felt thicker the closer she came to the curtain of spellwork, like magnetic resistance, but she found herself leaning her weight into it, defiant and testing, like pressing her thumb down on a new bruise.

On the other side, Loki was sorting through several sheaves of handwritten notes, stacks surrounding him like panes in a half-rose window. His black hair was braided back at his crown, dressed in soft leathers and deep green linens and lightweight boots, finely made with immaculate quality, but far simpler than would be expected of an Asgardian prince- at least outside of the privacy of the residential wings of the palace.

Brunnhilde knew that he could have dressed himself in illusions, if he wished.

The choice not to was- interesting. In a way that she refused to think about.

There were a lot of things she refused to think about, with regards to Loki.

Not when it made her feel all those mollusc-soft sentiments that she had decided to kill years ago, for her own survival, after the gold plating of Asgard had begun to flake in her eyes.

In that, at least, she knew they were both in good company.

“I asked about this,” Brunnhilde countered his comment, tapping a nail against the arm ring that sat flush against the curve of her bicep. It was a deceptively simple band of brass, seeming to blend in against her, unremarkable regardless of lighting. Between it, and Loki’s magic, they were shielded from the Gatekeeper’s watch- Loki as a glaring lacuna in the script, a blank space, and Brunnhilde as though from behind a fine, misting rain, the specifics blurred out of focus.

Loki rolled his eyes, in that prissy, superior manner that left Brunnhilde more amused than irritated, these days.

“Yes, about whether it would turn your skin orange or set you spitting toads, of all things.”

“It was a valid concern, knowing you.”

“Hm.” There was a slight upturn at the corner of Loki’s mouth- the closest thing to agreement that she would probably wrest out of him.

Brunnhilde slipped loose a smirk.

“I didn’t bother asking,” she admitted, in a crisp-consonant drawl, “because I knew that I probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. It would be like asking to read a contract before I sign, when I don’t know the language it’s written in.”

Loki’s eyes sliced up from the papers, without lifting his head, fixing her with a serpentine gaze.

“You do yourself a disservice, Brunn.”

Brunnhilde paused, a little surprised by his quiet vehemence.

She shrugged it away.

“This is just not something I’m suited for. Politics and subterfuge and spywork. Moving the pieces by moving entirely different ones, lightyears away. It’s like my sisters, and their lacework,” she admitted blithely. “I understand the theory. But even if you had told me where this was going, I wouldn’t know enough to tell if you were lying.”

But.

Brunnhilde wasn’t entirely ignorant to Loki’s plans. She had made certain of it.

She had heard the gossip, on dozens of planets across the Nine. The arm ring not only shielded her from Heimdall’s sight, but also from the perils of using the secret passageways that were specked across Asgard- allowing her to move freely between worlds, at Loki’s direction.

Steadily, disparate pieces and seemingly unconnected incidents were coalescing, into a clear picture.

Muspelheim had struck an unexpected trade deal with Ria. When the revival of the disused trade route had attracted Marauders and Ravagers, a new defence coalition had formed, stationed at crucial waypoints to prevent piracy and smuggling.

The Crown Prince of Vanaheim had headed a diplomatic envoy to Alfheim. By the time he had arrived, Niflheim’s queen just so happened to be also be visiting her fellow monarch. The triumvirate meeting occurred without a single Asgardian dignitary present.

A few weeks later, the realm of the light elves had also hosted several representatives of dwarven guilds.

The Nova-Kree War was turning cold. The Nine had become neutral ground. The Nova Corps had offered aid to those on the outskirts and most affected by raids, and had sent engineers to retrofit their older, short-haul vessels with swifter engines and stronger defences. The Kree were in tentative talks with Nidarvellir, to have the dwarves invest in maintaining local jump points, in exchange for Kree arms to protect their merchant fleets.

The realms were moving, like the interlocking turn of dials and gears. And for the first time in millennia, Asgard was excluded from its workings.

And it was Loki’s doing.

At his instruction, Brunnhilde had bribed and baited Ravagers to harass Nidarvellir trade routes. She had placed bets at various ports, on the likelihood of a Kree civil war. She had sold information on Knowhere, changed figures on shipping manifestos, stirred up bar fights and complained about the export tax on goods out of Ria, destroyed shipments and switched documents and delayed correspondence, paid off and blackmailed and persuaded civil servants and stewards and aides into suggesting or omitting a minor detail from a report, or handing a project to a different department.

Brunnhilde was the stage hand in a great, orchestrated play. The Nine were being gently herded into a strengthening current- one that was looking outwards, into a galaxy where the balance of power was shifting.

It was a coup.

And Loki hadn’t even left his cell.

Brunnhilde refused to be impressed.

After a moment, she realised that Loki was looking at her with a glinting amusement.

It wasn’t the kind that was intended to mock, but rather the prelude to bringing her in on the joke.

“Of course you can’t see where this is going, Brunn,” he said softly. “You’re the needle.”

A memory clicked into place, flickering in like guttering lamplight.

There was a bolster pillow in her lap, a lace pad template pinned atop it, embroidery needle gripped uncertain and rigid between her forefinger and thumb. The chatter and bickering and teasing of her sisters was a cloud of ambient sound that seemed to glow like nimbus, in the apple-golden autumn afternoon.

A warm shoulder brushed near her own.

Gently, Brunn! A voice laughed. Treat your needle with respect. Relax your hand. The needle can feel where it needs to go- you’re just guiding it.

This is a terrible idea, Brunnhilde had muttered. We all remember what happened when Svanhit tried to teach me.

Stay away from my bobbins, Brunn! Came a sharp call from across the hall, to a few snickers. Olrun, Hervor, keep her away!

Brunnhilde had made to wave a vulgar gesture at her, and almost stabbed herself with the needle.

Needlepoint lace is more straightforward, a clear voice interjected. Brunnhilde had looked over to her- the glint of her needle moving in brisk freehand stitches, looping and tightening, all deft skill and focus, one moving part, one thread. You don’t have to keep track of seventy different bobbins, and the order you need to cross or twist them in.

Your prince prefers bobbin lace, doesn’t he? Brunnhilde asked, smirkingly.

Brunnhilde received a gentle, reproachful elbow to the ribs.

A flush, through golden skin, head dipping and pearl-white hair slipping forwards.

Prince Loki has a mind for it, she replied, deliberately and damningly neutral. The dance of it, the complexity- it suits him.

Well, what do you prefer?

She had paused, head cocked.

I like both, I suppose, she hedged. Bobbin lace is essentially weaving- looping the strands together, pulling them into place against each other. It tends to be- lighter, more of a fabric with motifs created inside of it. Layers of opacity. Needle lace is often studier. Like- scaffolding. The pattern is all that there is. And the needle has to work back and back and back to bring it into existence, to make sure it holds in place, knotting back where it has already been.

Her eyes sharpened.

No- I think I prefer bobbin lace. Needle lace is- putting a great deal of trust on just one thing.

Brunnhilde blinked back into the present.

Oh.

Loki had learned some lacemaking. He would have likely received that same explanation, heard the same comparison.

After a moment, she scowled, looking away.

“I still hate lacemaking.”

Loki laughed.

-

Worlds away, Astrid made a cautious addition to her list, framed in brackets.

(Lace).

-

[PREVIOUS] | [MASTERLIST] | [NEXT

[bigwishes]

I sometimes secretly wish my best friend and me would turn into muscled bears..

well secret wishes are still wishes pal, and I can still answer them. So why don't you head to the kitchen and mix you and your buddy up some protein shakes make sure you add in as many calories as you can, you want the two of you to be big beefy muscled bears you'll need to eat like bears, you don't have to tell him about our secret little wish here, just tell him you want to go to the gym, I'm sure he'll be down, I can be very persuasive. Unlucky there is only this bland unflavoured stuff but I wasn't sure what you both would like. did he really just ask if this white coloured drink was chocolate flavoured? I'm sorry but that wasn't the smartest thing he could ask. what about you, I get the feeling you'd love to be slightly bigger than your friend, and the flavour of these shakes is awful so why he's chugging his down why don't you blend in a sneaky slice of this stale chocolate mud cake, you want to be a bear so you can afford for your diet to be a bit more laxed, and what's the harm one shake is going to cause?

Oh boy, I think you buddy is starting to change, look at him, he sure is a hairy mother fucker now! well say good bye to those clothes because the wish was for a muscled bear not an automatic clothing size up, what do I look like to you a mall? anyway why don't we take a look at your friend.

there you go, no need to keep wishing in secret, your buddy is one big muscled bear. But don't think I forgot about you mate, you a only just behind him, can you feel the itchiness in your pits as they fill with hair? can you feel you muscles inflate with blood as you bulk up? oh dear, why are you rubbing your stomach? protein shake not sitting too well? fuck man, maybe you shouldn't have added that slice of cake to it because your muscle sure has settled down but it doesn't look like your done bulking up. Lets get a good look at the new you.

stop scratching, I know the hair is itchy but you'll only make it worse. Damn man, you sure did trade away definition to be bigger than your friend. I'm sure you have a rock hard core but no one is going to see it under that protein filled gut of yours. Now we are just missing a few final touches.

Friends always have a stereotype to people on the outside, like the nerdy one and the sporty one. Well....your friend asked a stupid question earlier so from here on out he can be the stupid on, lets pull that IQ down to the single digits, he might slur all his sentences and drool a bit but you've been friends for a long time so at least you can understand him. Now for you, and that stunt with the slice of cake you can be the hungry one. Ever seen one of those "10000 calories in a day" challenge videos? no? well you might want to watch a few to learn your new day to day diet. Don't worry though, your eating won't change your body type, even if you eat celery forever, you'll stay just like this, a big muscle bear with a big muscle gut.

[eisforeidolon]

Question: I just started watching Supernatural with - my brothers got me watching Supernatural from its first season onwards. And when he heard that I was finally going to a Supernatural convention he even gave me a Supernatural necklace replica just like Sam and Dean on the show. And I just - one of the things that we both love about the show is that you both give very convincingly throughout the entirety of the show - always, you know, portrayed brothers in a believable way and an inspiring way? And you managed to go the distance over fifteen seasons and even in the last season you're still completely believable as brothers. And meeting you in real life, you seem that way offscreen as well. I'm wondering about, my question is, what is the secret that's kept you managing to do that over such a long period of time in a show? Because you hear in other shows people not getting along, getting tired of each other, but you did it all the way through, and I just wonder what is the secret to that?

Jared: Goddamn, thank you. I love that question. That's possibly a version of my favorite question that could ever be asked about Supernatural. I think - and you're talking about you have two brothers?

Question: Well, I have a brother and a half-brother.

Jared: Okay, okay.

Question: My real brother [?] is a Supernatural fan, so.

Jared: I think - all I can say is - well, not all I can say. The main thing I can say, is that whatever you see on camera? Though Jensen and I were playing Sam and Dean Winchester? Jensen and I weren't faking shit. It was real to us, and it was and still is an amazing life lesson, that you get out of something what you put into it. You know? If you half-ass something, whether it's a friendship or a marriage or a profession or a diet or an exercise regime? You're gonna get half-ass results. If you just kind of go, fuck it, I'm all in and if I get hurt, I get hurt and I'll abandon ship and do something else. But he and I went all in, like I think sometime during the Pilot, and I wish I - maybe I can think about it, about when that moment happened? But I think Jensen and I both just went like [snaps fingers] you know what, this is found family - could be found family. Maybe Jensen turns out to be an asshole, maybe I turn out to be an asshole. And if that happens, then I can reverse and put my guards back up and be like [makes pushing away gesture] okay, this guy's a jerk, or vice versa, he can say this guy's a jerk about me. But he and I both just kinda went alright, I'm gonna trust you and he went, alright I'm gonna trust you. We didn't say the words, but we just kinda had that communication nonverbal and went after it. And I to this day love the guy like a brother and, you know, there are ups and downs, you know? Someone goes through something in their life and I'll speak to myself, sometimes when I'm super stressed out, I can be a little hurt, a little, maybe, caustic? A little snarky or sarcastic or something? And your buddies around you - my buddies around me, rather, kinda have to be like, 'Hey, you're kinda being a dickhead, man. Like, you alright?' And I have to go, 'No, I'm not alright, I'm going through this -' But like having that trust? And I think Jensen and I found that, I know Jensen and I found that with Supernatural, with Sam and Dean. And I love their relationship, like I want that for my two sons. I don't want the rebar, but [audience laughs]. I want them to just rely on each other. I heard a great quote, and maybe there are some parents out there as well, or people who have parents? Which I think is most of us in my understanding of - anyways. It was a quote, I'm gonna bastardize it, "Parents leave us too soon, children - we're not around long enough for our children, siblings are the ones we go through life with." And I think siblings can mean anything. If you're an only child, it's your friend, it's your buddy - like you need a partner, you need two people in that rowboat. It doesn't need to be somebody who's there every day, but like somebody you can just go, like, hey I'm feeling like this. Not agree with all the time, like, life is not about agreement, otherwise why go through life if you're not gonna learn, if everything you say is right. So I think we just trusted each other, and I don't know why, but, you know, we held each other's careers in each other's hands. And we're like, alright, I got you, you got me? Yeah, I got you, you got me? Yeah, alright. Let's work it and get it to work. But I love that you and your one and a half siblings, two-ish, I'm assuming, put you here today. So thanks a bunch, it was nice to meet you, man.

[jovalencia]

okay the conversation before I forget it.

we talked for two and a half hours and we walked three full laps around campus and for the first 3/4 of a lap we were just talking about our classes and what we've been up to and whatever the fuck. I mentioned something about my stomach hurting and not feeling super great and he was like "well it's probably your poor diet" then went on about how I shouldn't just eat the same three things and how I need a balanced diet and how I should "just eat more" and that I was malnourished and told me what I should have at each meal like. FUCK you like actually go to hell. when you Know I've had a lot of stomach problems and eating problems? go fuck yourself.

but that was a graceful lead in to me being like "yeah well my stomach also hurts because I was super nervous to talk to you" and he was like "oh?" and I was like "yeah did you really think we were gonna be able to just move on like none of this happened?" and he was like "no I guess not...." so I busted out my checklist of points to cover (yes I physically had the checklist pulled up for this conversation. sue me I had things to say) and each individual grievance are things I've posted about before so I don't need to rehash them all to you. but I will tell you his responses. because it was like 95% me talking I will admit. I led with the big thing I wanted to ask him, which was if he wanted to actually be friends with Me or if he wanted to stay my friend because he was holding onto some hope that I would become a better person that was easier for him to like and get along with. and naturally he didn't actually have an answer to this question. and when I asked if he didn't want to be my friend bc I was mean and it made him uncomfortable or because he wanted to change the way our friend group spent time together, he said that me being mean led to him wanting to change how we spent time together and the group dynamic which like. doesn't make much sense but whatever I didn't push.

I explained that I had resigned myself to no longer being his friend after he never replied to my apology text and that I was okay with that. he seemed like he was hurt by that but who's the one who didn't reply to my text. and that if we never talked again I would have been more upset I never got closure than upset that we weren't friends anymore. so I asked him if he even wanted to continue being my friend and he was like "I don't know..." so I did have to be the one to be like "we're both trying our best to be the best versions of ourselves and this friendship isn't working out, so i don’t really see how this could continue" and he asked me straight up if I wanted to be his friend still and I said no. I was Really proud of myself for getting up the nerve and just saying I didn't want to be his friend anymore. because my biggest fear coming into this is that I would pussy out of doing that. and I didn't!!!!

I brought up that he (and the others) said he cared about me a lot more than he actually showed it and he just didn't have a response to this boooooo👎

he talked about how he wishes we could go back to the good ol days of riverdale nights in the lounge and how that's just not possible with the newfound distance between us (I made a joke after he said distance where i said "yeah x miles haha" and he said "well yeah but i meant more emotional distance" like yeah buddy😐 I know.). and I had to break it to him for the third time so that he could hopefully get it through his thick skull that I was in fact not actually having a good time back in may! I was miserable! I wasn't sleeping or eating and it sucked! and I get those were his good ol days but I hope I got him to realize there never even Were any good ol days for me.

one of my Big Things I brought up that I really liked is I said that whenever I explained this story to people (my best friend my mom and clara (rip) namely), what was going on with him that they always said something to the tune of "when you find your people, it won't be like this" (a lot of people also said they hoped he died but I opted not to tell him that). and that's so true! when I find my people (I have already found some of them) it literally isn't like this! radio friend and my bestie and my mom and sister and all of you and those lifelong friends I mention when we see each other twice a year would never treat me like this!!!!

the things he Did apologize for when I brought them up to him: being dismissive of my sexuality (it was not that thorough of an apology he was like "wow yeah that sucks im sorry" without actually really owning up to it but whatever ig), being condescending (he really can't help it so he just said he was sorry he made me feel condescended to and that was enough for me), accidentally making me feel alienated (I explained to him why I felt that way (bi guy jason not telling me things, them obviously being closer with each other than they were with me, that time they took off in my car for two hours without me) and it deemed like he genuinely felt bad about how alone that made me feel), and he said he was sorry after I explained that I always felt like shit about myself and like such an awful person after we hang out and how I didn't know what I was doing wrong to make them all not like me because I was really trying etc. but he did seem surprised that I picked up on the fact that they didn't like me which leads back to the whole condescension and him thinking I'm stupid thing. like you guys were not fucking subtle.

the things he did Not apologize for when I brought them up: saying he felt like he didn't know much about me but never actually asking about me (I explained how he never asked about me and when I talked about myself he seemed disinterested and he said "I'm not the type of person who makes bullet points when I talk to somebody" like okay fuck you. he also said some bs about how he just prefers to let the conversation flow naturally and how he doesn't like to ask questions. like okay then how are people supposed to know you actually want to talk to them?), being upset with me for never hanging out outside of bachelorette nights when He never asked Me to hang out outside of bachelorette nights (he was just like "yeah I should have reached out and not put that all on you" but he didn't actually say the words "im sorry" or seem to see what was wrong with that so im not counting it👎)

I didn't bring up sarah suitemate that much bc whatever the fuck her and I have going on is simply not his business also it's too complicated for any man let alone one with the brain the size of a pea to understand so I figured why bother. but I did bring up bi guy jason (who bi guy 2 insists never had a crush on me btw. which. if that's true all that worrying myself literally sick was for NOTHING!!!) and I asked if it would be worth it for me to reach out to him to try and get some closure there and he was like "ummm no I don't think that's a good idea. I think he's pretty much already done with you and wants to quietly lay this friendship to rest" like okay. well I'll go fuck myself then. because for the record bi guy jason was always Way worse to me than bi guy 2. so honestly he can kill himself.

it's worth it to note I did a lot of clarifying and apologizing in this conversation to make sure he didn't think I like. hated him or something. and like no matter what I say I really Don't hate him I just think he's a dick and a shitty friend.

I wish I had asked why he was doing so bad he couldn't respond to my text but I forgot and that's all over now.

but yes! the conclusion! as previously stated we kind of agreed to just like. not be friends but be cool with each other. which is the idea end outcome. I just didn't want to have to do any of that awkward pretending I didn't see him while walking on campus bullshit. and I think we're at a point where we can just say hi and appreciate the lols we had while this lasted.

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

have you done clodsire or quagsire yet?

(I haven't, so I flipped a coin and ended up landing on quagsire!)

A quagsire may be a lot for a lot of pet owners to handle, but it would certainly not be out of the question for someone with the right resources that knows what they're getting into.

See, quagsires love to swim. Or maybe it'd be better to say they like to float, or maybe even just sit, in water. In the wild, quagsires live in rivers (Crystal), even popping up often in those that are busy with human activity and boats (Gold). We don't know exactly what quagsires eat, but we know that they catch their prey by remaining as still as possible with their mouths held wide open, waiting for prey to swim right into them (Ruby/Sapphire). They don't move a lot (Ruby/Sapphire) but they spend a lot, if not almost all, of their time in the water. Having a pet quagsire would require having constant access to water for them to spend their time in. They are known to not get hungry quickly due to their sluggish lifestyle (Ruby/Sapphire), but they are not too clever (Pearl), so it is possible that a quagsire wouldn't maintain a healthy diet outside of their natural habitat and may become malnourished. They're not active hunters, so it would be important, when keeping one, to seek ways to either replicate their wild hunting behavior by releasing live prey into a controlled water environment or to find ways to hand-feed them that don't lead to them becoming lazy or overweight.

Given quagsires' size, handling these needs would be no easy task. Not many people have constant access to a body of water that is big enough for a four foot creature to spend all day in, unless they are willing to give up a pool to become their new buddy's hangout spot. Luckily, they aren't picky about their habitats: they are well known to be easy-going and carefree, not minding when they bump into obstacles like boats or rocks (Gold, FireRed).

Quagsires are, for the most part, not very dangerous. However, they are capable of using two moves that had a large impact on their score: Earthquake and Toxic. Earthquake is one of the most concerning moves that a pokémon can learn, since it can wreck haoc on your home and poses a risk to everyone inside it. Toxic allows quagsires to, with high accuracy, inflict a target with a bad poisoning that worsens over time. Quagsires are not known to be very aggressive given their care-free lifestyle, but we must consider that accidents do happen, and this pokémon, for whatever reason, can cause a lot of destruction to your home and body.

Quagsires are pretty laid back pokémon. They'd make a great buddy, and they're cute to boot. If you are able to provide an environment that simulates their wild habitat for their health and happiness, and are aware of the unlikely, but possible, chance of a dangerous incident, a quagsire may be a good pet for you. I'd suggest that newer water-type pet owners start off with something smaller, like a wooper or a fish pokémon, to get used to caring for an aquatic pet, but if you are determined to dive right in with this big fella it can't go that wrong.

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Lilia Vanrouge Bloom Birthday Personal Story: Part 3

"Happy Birthday"

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

[Diasomnia Dorm – Birthday Party Venue]

Jamil: So now, it's the final question.

Jamil: "What would you like to do in the coming year?"

Lilia: To endeavor to live healthily. That's pretty exhausting, though.

Jamil: I also make sure to take care of myself. After all, your body is your number one commodity.

Lilia: Exactly. There is no greater treasure than your health.

Jamil: So, what exactly do you do? To start with, sleeping early and waking up early is a must.

Lilia: Nope, because I'm a creature of the night, after all.

Lilia: I often hear, "As soon as you wake up, you should open the curtains and bathe in the sunlight," but…

Lilia: If I did that, I'd be grumpy all day.

Lilia: And besides, I'm way too busy playing my online games at night!

Lilia: I have a very skilled gaming buddy. During the holiday break, we've been tackling these super hard quests.

Jamil: When I hear that, I can't help but think of Idia-senpai…

Jamil: So, if you're not regulating your sleep and wake time… Another thing that comes to mind is exercise.

Lilia: I wouldn't ever skip that. I've joined Silver and Sebek in their trainings for basically forever.

Lilia: I might be running out of things to teach them soon. Kufufu, it's truly enjoyable to teach the younger generation.

Jamil: Silver and Sebek's training… Yeah, I get it, that would definitely be a good workout.

Jamil: After sleep and exercise… That leaves your diet.

Lilia: That's true. My diet… Or rather, my nutritional balance is something in the forefront of my mind.

Lilia: Tomatoes, cheese, broccoli, and oysters, as well as fermented dishes that have been passed down in the eastern countries for generations…

Lilia: If I've heard that an ingredient would be good for the body, I've used it in my culinary creations.

Lilia: Well, I always give those dishes away to other people, though. I just eat what I want.

Jamil: When you make something, please taste it yourself first…

Jamil: That concludes the interview. Thank you very much, Lilia-senpai.

Lilia: Kufufu, you did good too. Now all that's left is to fly the birthday road.

Jamil: Right, please use this.

Jamil: It's a refreshing and charming design that suits you well. Think you could enjoy flying on this broom?

Lilia: Absolutely. This is cute broom that's perfect for someone like me. There's no way this wouldn't get me excited.

Lilia: This will be an unparalleled opportunity to display my flight skills. I'll make sure to be a good model for all my underclassmen!

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3