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cripplecharacters · 15 days

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hello! feel free to ignore me if this is slightly outside the boundaries of this account, but i'm a tabletop roleplaying game (ttrpg) designer looking for opinions on mechanics for disability in games.

my game specifically covers a lot of themes that, while not about disability, would make me feel remiss to not include some explicit mention of how physically/mentally disabled characters fit into the greater picture of the game. it has a specific focus on telling stories of diverse characters, for one, and on fighting the unfair capitalist systems that harm these marginalized groups.

my issue lies in how, exactly, to both treat this topic respectfully and make the characters not feel out of place or unbalanced. i've considered several options, and was curious to hear from a physically disabled perspective how to proceed (i am mentally ill & neurodivergent, but to my knowledge not physically disabled).

option one: mention that disabled characters of all kinds are encouraged, and talk about roleplaying them or provide resources for how to handle them respectfully, but don't apply any specific rules with hard mechanics or numbers to them. this option is least likely to be inadvertently misconstrued or written poorly on my part, but may make disability feel like a "flavour" side note.

option two: provide examples for some common disabilities on the mechanical effects (such as a low vision character rolling less dice on rolls to notice visual details) without any "counteracting" mechanics. this one gives mechanical weight to disability, so it feels less like an afterthought, but may discourage people from playing disabled characters as they would be more likely to fail than other characters.

option three: the above, but with mechanical incentives for roleplaying in a way that acknowledges the character's disability. a "benefit", but less "giving a blind character echolocation" and more "gain XP for showing your characters disability and any aids they use" (similar mechanics exist for following your character's goals/personality traits). this would make disabled characters be more on par mechanically with other characters, but i fear it may come across as... viewing disabled characters as not worth it without some sort of benefit, i suppose?

apologies for the long rambling message, but i'd love to hear which of these options (or another suggestion) you'd be happiest to see in a game written by someone who isn't physically disabled! this is far from the focus of my game, but it's still an important part of the greater theme that i'd love to be able to get right. thanks! (similarly, if there are any groups not covered in the "underrepresented but common disabilities" post from your FAQ that you'd want to see in a game, i'd also be happy to hear those!)

Hello!

First things first, thank you so much for thinking about this! This isn't something that most TTRGs consider and, as a massive nerd who plays DND, Pathfinder, and other tabletop games, this has always been a big pet peeve of mine since making a disabled character is always unnecessarily hard to do with the game mechanics and rarely works out well.

Most of the time, I have to talk to my GM about how to make it work in their game and, unfortunately, I'm often told they won't allow it because it's "too much trouble".

This is all just to say, I really love the idea here and the fact that you're actually thinking about these things and wanting to do well by them is great!

Now, taking a look at the options:

Option One

One of the unfortunate things that I see a lot is people that are too scared to get something wrong with representation (Or social justice on a broader scale) that they don't try to do it at all. With this current era of cancel culture and people's reactions to what they deem 'offensive', it's understandable to be a bit apprehensive but if you're approaching the subject from a place of respect and you're receptive to learning and improving, most people will appreciate the effort.

While this option does sidestep the main issue you've identified, I do think it sidesteps the attempt at making disability part of your game as well. You can encourage people to make disabled characters all you want but without any real content for them in the game, it won't do much.

If you do go with this option, I'd strongly suggest including some information on the culture of your world and how it relates to disability, both to provide more substance to the content and to give players a bit to go off of when making a disabled character.

Option Two

I like this option much more than the first one, though I do agree that it may discourage people from choosing to play a disabled character.

Within the game mechanics, I think it makes a lot of sense to have these kinds of effects but I would encourage you to include more variety with it. Disability isn't 'one size fits all' and two disabled people can have different needs, strengths, and experiences -- even if they have the exact same disability. Instead, I'd suggest going for a slightly different model that includes more choices.

For example, a character with low vision may:

- Roll lower on perception checks involving vision

- Have disadvantage with ranged weapons/attacks

- Have lower rolls/less success in dim lighting

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Having more options for how the character's disability affects them allows players to make a choice for how they want to play the character while also encouraging them to think more about how their character's disability might affect them and impact their life.

The examples given are all reflections of how blindness can affect somebody. Blind spots or blurry vision can make it more difficult to notice certain visual changes, severe nearsightedness can make it difficult to aim/focus on things that are far away, night blindness can make it difficult to see in the dark or in dim lighting, etc. That being said, there are dozens of other ways to go about this (Though I'd advise sticking to five options per disability at most to avoid overwhelming people).

Option Three

Personally, I like this one and the second option the most. Although I understand where your concerns are coming from, it feels less like it's implying that disabled characters have to be 'worth it' and more like it's just balancing it out.

Like with the second option, I'd suggest going for more of a choice model here where the player can pick what 'benefit' (For lack of better word) that their character has -- or even to choose no benefit at all.

Many physically disabled people develop our own skills or tools to compensate for where we struggle, whether this is an intentional decision or just something that happens.

For example, my boyfriend is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair full time. As a result, he has kick-ass upper body strength from it.

Similarly, many deaf and hard of hearing people are more observant when it comes to visual cues and many blind people are more sensitive to other senses (Though, of course, the whole 'super senses' thing is a myth).

While this isn't true of all disabilities or all disabled people in general, it is something worth considering.

That being said, if you do decide to implement this option, make sure that the benefit makes sense for the disability or is related in some way and isn't just something random being tacked on -- that would make it seem more like a 'disabled characters need to be worthwhile' thing.

As a few extra notes:

If you go with the second or third option, I'd suggest separating the different stat effects into different types of disabilities. You don't need to go too into specifics with it but something like 'low vision/blindness/vision loss', 'deafness/hearing loss', 'limited mobility', and 'chronic illness' would work. While disabilities are more nuanced than this in real life, setting it up this way would keep it pretty simple and allow players to tweak the mechanics slightly for their own characters.

If you go with the first option, I'd probably avoid discussing how to roleplay disabled characters. Because roleplay and character development is much more open than stats and game mechanics are, showing one or two 'proper' ways to play a disabled character is more likely to reinforce stereotypes, dismiss certain experiences that disabled people have, or just come across as more of a 'lecture' than anything. The same goes for including information on what to avoid. I'd stick to providing information about your world and how disabilities are seen in them instead of giving instructions here.

I'd suggest including ways for players to bypass the mechanics of disability if they'd like to, even if their character is disabled. That would allow for a bit more freedom with how they portray their character and would also ensure that they aren't being 'penalized' (For lack of a better term) with their stats for playing a disabled character. As a bit of an example of what I mean: A character in DND could have been a criminal growing up without necessarily taking the Criminal/Spy background.

In general, I think as long as you're approaching this respectfully (Which you are!) and reaching out to physically disabled people for their input (Which you are!), you don't have to worry too much about misrepresenting it.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

#mod icarus #anonymous

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theresattrpgforthat · 1 month

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As someone who designs games, are there any specific games you've read that do interesting things with the Forged in the Dark or Powered By The Apocalypse systems that get you excited to write your own stuff?

(Asking those two since Protect the Child is FitD, also excited to hear if another system is excited rant worthy)

My friend, thank you so much for giving me space to ramble lovingly about games and mechanics. I don’t know if anything suggested here will be new exactly, but I am relishing the chance to talk about how the games I’ve read and played have impacted my design journey.

This is going to be a walk-through of various games that have given me a lot of tools to work with. Right now my head is full of Protect the Child, so I'm not really thinking about any other design projects, but I hope you enjoy this nonetheless!

Brinkwood, by Far Horizons Co-Op, Slugblaster, by Wilkie’s Candy Lab, and Moth-Light, by Dissonance.

I knew of a few Forged in the Dark hacks before I heard about Brinkwood, but when I realized that the Masks were basically communal playbooks, my mind was blown. Both Slugblaster and Moth-Light appealed to me because of their setting, but when I read the rule-books I was also impressed by how they were able to take the base Forged in the Dark and change it to make the rules work for the proper genre and tone.

Brinkwood takes the playbooks with special powers and makes them communal. You can pick up a new set of powers every time but still play the same character, so you can have variety while still pursuing the same character’s storyline. Because the Masks are shared, the “crew playbook” doesn’t look the same as it does in a lot of other Blades hacks, as no matter what Masks you take, you’re still engaging in a rebellion against vampires. Brinkwood also gives the GM a lot of guidance on how to flavour the antagonists in a way that is challenging, interesting and dangerous, while also giving the players a way to veto any subject matter that bleeds too much into real-life boundaries. Honestly, I think Brinkwood probably directly influenced my game A Terrible Fate more than Protect the Child, but the initial moment of realizing how much you can play with the game was a really important step in my development.

Slugblaster re-organizes your dice resources as Boost & Kick, and shifts Stress into a currency (Trouble) that you have to spend, rather than a time bomb. This gives your characters more longevity and takes away a lot of the gritty trauma that works for Blades, but doesn’t make sense for hover-boarding teens. Additionally, Slugblaster gives agency of faction creation over to the players in a way that’s way more personalized than it is in Blades. Specific questions are meant to be answered by specific playbooks, which I think is a great way to speed up crew relationships, as well as ensuring that each player at the table has a piece of the world that they contribute to. When setting decisions are left up to the group as a nebulous whole, one player may have more say over setting creation just because they have the loudest voice or the most ideas. By giving specific choices to specific playbooks, you’re ensuring that each player has a piece of the world they can point to and claim as theirs.

Moth-Light takes the CATS safety tool and embeds it into Pact creation, allowing the genre and tone to shift the way the game is played slightly to reflect the kind of story the group wants to tell. The core setting is the same - a planet with gigantic bugs - but the ways the characters interact with the setting changes depending on the Pact that you choose. I think this is a genius way to give a group a way to use Safety Tools without them necessarily realizing it, and it ensure that the group enters the story on the same page. This mindset fuelled my choice to present the world-building as a series of questions for the players to answer, establishing some truths about the technology levels and the use of magic before players make their characters, setting some basic limitations to make sure folks are on the same page. Currently however, I don’t think I’ve achieved the seamless translation of CATS into a game-appropriate setting exercise - I’ve just ported CATS into the game.

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer.

External Containment Bureau minimizes a lot of their character options and does away with playbook options in order to make character creation customizable while still quick, and one of the primary ways they did this was by changing the way gear rules work in the game. In standard Blades, you can only use equipment to improve your Effect, but in ECB, you can use your equipment to add +1d or improve Effect. This is primarily because ECB doesn’t use stats in the way Blades does, but I liked the way that little tweak gave the player an additional resource.

Additionally, ECB doesn’t care about load. Instead, the character comes with some gear associated with their department, and a few gear slots that they can fill themselves. You can always have everything in your Gear section on you - the limitation is in what’s available. I really liked how the game provided a balance between gear that made sense for your department and gear that reflects the way the player wants to portray their character, so I did the same thing in Protect the Child.

Antiquarian Adventures, by acegiak

I heard about the way Stress works in Antiquarian Adventures when I was listening to the Dice Exploder podcast, and it sparked a lot of thoughts about what Stress can be used for, especially since I knew that I didn’t want to give the characters Trauma in Protect the Child. Thematically, it doesn’t make sense to imply that parenting is inherently traumatic, and I don’t want to cast the Child as a source of trauma for the parents.

Antiquarian Adventures solves this problem by allowing Stress to re-set every time you fill it, as long as the player is able to dictate how the character suffers some kind of setback or brings about some form of trouble as a result of getting too stressed out. The exact trouble is attached to the playbook, adding to the distinct flavour of each trope. In Protect the Child, I made sure to add one Reaction that was unique to the playbook, to reflect the same kind of thing.

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games.

Last Fleet blew me away with the Pressure mechanic. It’s a physical manifestation of stress that exists in the setting, that doubles as both a player resource and a ticking clock. You can spend Pressure to give yourself a better chance at success, but once it hits its cap, your character is forced into a situation that that they cause themselves.

In many ways, Last Fleet is doing something similar to Antiquarian Adventures, but the one thing it adds is that it gives the player options in terms of how they’ll cause trouble. Some options overlap across playbooks, but each playbook has a unique collection that helps keep it somewhat distinct from the others. One of the best moments I had in play was when one of my players realized that he had the option to actually turn on the group - the reaction was like a little present he’d just unwrapped for the entire group, and it made for an extremely memorable moment for the table.

Last Fleet also inspired me to shorten the Stress Clock in Protect the Child. Base Blades has a 8-mark Stress track, but in early play-tests, I felt like it was difficult for anyone to fill up their clock in a single session. The Last Fleet Pressure track can only hold 5 marks of Pressure, and re-setting it doesn’t empty the track, but rather puts it at 2. I think that constant Stress provides a bit of a friction point for players, which is needed since it’s easier for players to achieve bigger dice pools in Protect the Child.

Beam Saber, by Austin Ramsey

When I was agonizing about how to encourage more roleplay between players, someone recommended that I read through Girl By Moonlight. Unfortunately, I don’t own a copy of Girl by Moonlight. I do, however, own a copy of Beam Saber, so when I decided to comb through other Blades games for relationship mechanics, I stumbled on the relationship clocks of Beam Saber.

In Beam Saber, you write down beliefs you have of each other character in the party, and attach each belief to a slice on a Connection clock. During downtime, you have the option to Cut Loose, which helps two Pilots relieve stress with each-other at the same time as filling the Connection clock. Filling the clock awards XP as well as provides the characters an opportunity to confront each-other about the way they see each-other.

I liked the idea of using time together as a chance to relieve stress. As far as I understand, this moment of connection is also seen in Girl by Moonlight, but I decided to limit the amount of stress you could relieve in Protect the Child because I’m still operating under the ethos I was introduced to in Last Fleet - I want to keep the characters under a lot of pressure, making room for them to make terrible decisions, and therefore giving them room to grow.

Lady Blackbird, by John Harper.

I returned to Lady Blackbird when I realized that the way I’ve set up runs in PtC means that it may be hard for players to do things like engage in long-term projects, or train for XP in a regular Downtime session. I also noticed that it was hard to get the players to roleplay with each-other with the way that Downtime is written in base Blades - it’s often navigated through in a very procedural way. Finally, I wanted to make the game a bit more one-shot friendly, with a way to present a Downtime-like section partway through the game without bogging down play too much.

Lady Blackbird has moments in between Action scenes where it explicitly encourages players to engage in flashbacks or character interactions in ways that allow them to clear conditions and provide a bit of exposition into their backstory. This, coupled with the Impressions in Beam Saber, gave me the tools to both encourage the players to role-play while also giving them the tools to foster relationships with each-other.

Right now, Rest Stops only have two moves: Bond with the Child and Bond with Each-Other. By reducing both of your options to moments where your character interacts with other characters, and encouraging both of these options to reflect your character’s ideals and history, I’m hoping to provide some of the maintenance of Downtime while encouraging the role-play that happens in Lady Blackbird. Longer downtime actions are relegated to Time Passes, which will only come up in campaign play.

I still haven’t perfected this stage though. For example, I haven’t figured out what to do about wounds.

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi / @temporalhiccup.

It’s kind of hard to quantify or describe the influence Apocalypse Keys had on my design, but I’ll give it a shot.

In Apocalypse Keys, your character never has to fail. There’s always options to give yourself a success, it’s just a question of how much you want to sacrifice parts of who your character is in order to get what you want. Apocalypse Keys is itself an amalgamation of a number of different mechanics from various places, such as the way you use tokens to improve your rolls, as originally found in Libretè, or the Theorize roll, popularized in Brindlewood Bay but originating in Codex: Moonlight.

The character playbooks are also centred on different struggles that the player has decided to wrestle with. The Summoned has a lot of moments centred on fighting destiny, while the Last wrestles with grief and loss. Some of the themes in these playbooks give you a lot of freedom to explore struggles and traumas that affect people in real life, but are flavoured in a way to give your monsters great power and extremely interesting backstories.

Finally, the way your character looks is completely up to you, and is irrelevant to the things your character can do. If you want a thousand glowing eyes, it doesn’t matter which playbook you choose. If you want to be the spirit of all werewolves that came before you, it doesn’t matter which playbook you choose. If you want to carry a golden spear that can listen to the regrets of the restless dead, I don’t think it matters what playbook you choose. I think that there’s a bit of a carryover from what I love about Changeling: the Lost to be found in Apocalypse Keys, in that your character’s origin and presentation can be as varied as whatever you can imagine, and can fit into the themes of whatever playbook you decide to wrestle with.

Protect the Child doesn’t directly borrow any mechanics from Apocalypse Keys, but I think the ethos behind the design is there. I want the players to experience the same creative freedom, while tying down specific themes to specific playbooks. I want to enable conversations about real issues that affect real people, while allowing the table to situate those issues in whatever setting makes the most sense for the group. I want the players to feel powerful, and at the same time recognize that the biggest obstacles to being good parent are generally incredibly personal.

I also admire the way that Nedjadi designs, from the rigorous play testing, to the purposeful openness about his inspirations, to his careful documentation of who has inspired him and where his ideas came from. I think being able to provide a clear through-line to the ways your were influenced by other design works is good for the historians of our hobby, and it also reinforces a culture in which game designers influence and allow themselves to be influenced by each-other.

#protect the child #mint speaks #indie ttrpgs #tabletop games #indie ttrpg #asks

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noellawrites · 1 year

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Souvenir - Yandere!Luca x reader

summary: Luca just can't let his rivalry with Carmy go, so he leaves a permanent reminder inside of you. afab reader but no specified pronouns.

warnings: smut, baby-trapping, condom sabotage, forced breeding

You weren't even supposed to go to Copenhagen. The trip was booked for Marcus when his mother took a turn for the worse. So here you were, the recipient of a non-refundable flight, standing in front of Denmark's most renowned kitchen. As The Beef's only waitress, saying you had a lack of food prep knowledge was an understatement. But with Tina and Ebra back in school, the task was left to you.

—

"Carmy taught me everything I know about good service. Really, I owe everything to him. I thought he'd boot me after taking over The Beef but thank god he didn't," you rambled.

"Sounds like he means a lot to you," Luca spoke quietly as he prepped an example dessert.

"He's the best chef I've ever worked with. Maybe not as intense as your rival chef, but he definitely challenges me. For example, sending me here with no experience," you laughed, picking up a tub of diced almonds.

"Seems like a real bond," Luca said simply. He reached across to the other side of you and his tattoos crossed into your line of vision.

"He's like my mentor, brother, work husband and hero all in one. Actually, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud," you laughed nervously.

"I know what you mean. To be so consumed by someone's talent that you just want to seep into their skin," Luca agreed.

A comfortable moment of silence hung between you both as you kept working. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see him staring at you with an unreadable expression before he turned away to grab some dough.

—

"Your lips taste better than any dessert," Luca whispered in your ear as he traced his fingers down your stomach. Pleasure tickled down your spine and he pushed down your shorts, reaching into your panties and tracing your clit.

"Ah--ahh, Luca!" you moaned, and he clamped a hand over your mouth.

Through the dark, you could just make out his pepper tattoo on his hand, which oddly enough reminded you of Carmy. Come to think of it, the patchy placements of his tattoos reminded you a lot of Carmy's. And his entire apartment was bare just like Carmy's was, too. Even Luca's intense expressions sometimes mirrored Carmy's.

I really shouldn't be thinking of Carmy when I'm about to have sex with this hot pastry chef, you thought.

As Luca started pulling his boxers down, you held your hand out to stop him.

"Do you have a condom?" you asked, sitting up and looking around.

"Dresser, top drawer," he said, sounding a bit irked. You handed him the small plastic square and laid back down.

You could hear him ripping open the package with his teeth and stretching the condom over his cock when he suddenly pulled your panties down the rest of the way.

You were lost in pleasure as he dove into your pussy, licking and sucking with his expertly trained tongue.

—

Luca held you against him with his strong arms as you both reached orgasm together, a mess of sweat and pleasure and moans.

"Oh shit Luca, did you just cum in me?" you gasped, wriggling away from him as post-sex clarity struck you.

"The condom must've broken," he said, but you pulled away from him too quick and managed to see what he was trying to hide: the empty, fully intact condom next to him. His hard cock pulled out of you, covered in a mix of your cum, no condom on him at all.

"What the fuck, Luca?!"

"Stay here. With me."

Luca's kind eyes had turned dark, an ulterior motive lurking underneath the surface. You didn't know what he was up to, but you knew it couldn't be good.

You quickly gathered your clothes from the floor and tried to yank your pants on. Luca stood, still completely naked, and moved to stand in front of the door leading outside his flat.

"Move, I need to go pick up Plan B. I'm ovulating, you fucking asshole!"

"You're not leaving. Not until your flight."

"Oh my god, this is so fucked up! I-I barely even know you!" you cried.

"You knew me enough to let me fuck you," he laughed, pulling on his boxers. As much as you hated to admit it, he had stretched you better than anyone else had before.

"I hate you, Luca."

—

You took a Plan B when you got back to Chicago, but by then it was too late. Not only did you bring back three desserts for The Bear's new menu, but you also brought back a tiny baby in your stomach. A little bundle of cells forever tying you to the British pastry chef. You sobbed as you told Carmy, who then gave you the entire story about how he and Luca had met. Rivals, but Carmy was clearly more skilled, more talented, more ambitious.

But now, Luca had finally bested Carmy at something. He left you a permanent reminder, a souvenir from your travels, a big 'fuck you' to his former rival chef.

part two

#the bear luca x reader #luca x reader #pastry chef luca x reader #will poulter x reader #luca the bear #the bear x reader #pastry chef luca #the bear hulu #carmy berzatto #yandere the bear #yandere carmy berzatto #yandere will poulter #what are these tags lmao

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revuestarlight-pbta · 2 months

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The Dev of Revue Starlight PbtA Rambles For A Bit

So, Revue Starlight ReLIVE has announced end of service.

It feels weird. People have joked about the game being on life support for so long as if it'd happen any day now, to the point where it started feeling like "if Starira was going to EoS, it'd have happened already!" So, now that the announcement has come, it's kind of wrapped back around to being shocking.

I was one of the first to play it when the global servers launched back in 2019, before I even touched the Revue Starlight anime, stage plays, or other media. Though I do have my qualms with how the game was run, to put it lightly, the stories it had to tell and the characters it had to share always had a special place in my heart.

I don't doubt that Revue Starlight as a whole is going to sunset anytime soon, as we still have tons of stage plays - the heart and soul of the franchise - coming out through the foreseeable future, as well as El Dorado coming out very soon.

However, what does give me pause is thinking about the stage girls that never really got their own footing outside of the mobile game: in particular, Rinmeikan and Frontier. Some of their characters have gotten the chance to play supporting roles in the stage play and other media, but they've never been able to assemble the cast necessary to give them a major focus compared to Siegfeld, Seiran, and, of course, Seisho. With Starira sunsetting, it makes me worry that they won't have a "home" any longer, nor will it be easy for people in the future to access the stories that they do have.

...With that in mind, it gives me renewed encouragement to continue working on the Revue Starlight TTRPG. I want this to be a vehicle for anyone to create & experience new stories with all of the Stage Girls for as long as people are willing to meet at a table and roll dice.

Creating a game that sits at an intersection between two already independently niche circles of interest - Revue Starlight and indie TTRPGs - is, simply, kind of a ballsy thing to attempt and drum up support for. However, Revue Starlight is a franchise that is near and dear to my heart. I might even be able to say that it saved my life, and gave me the strength to keep on going. I want to continue sharing my love for it through a medium that, too, is precious to me.

Maybe meeting up with your friends and pulling up character sheets isn't quite the same as emerging in a theater in costume and acting before an audience. Nevertheless, it's a way that we all can play characters and step on a "stage" of our own, as Stage Girls of our own design.

So, as ever - it's on to the next stage! Maybe I should write a prewritten Rinmeikan or Frontier one-shot...?

-Yumi

#revue starlight #revue starlight ttrpg #revue starlight pbta #dev blog #starira

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stellarspecter · 3 months

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Who Is That Brand New Babygirl?

@stevieweek Day 1: Stobin | Day 2: Gender Euphoria | Dice Roll: 7. Lingerie

(since there were 10 extra prompts provided, i decided to roll a d10 each day for an extra prompt along with the daily theme! and i combined day 1 and day 2 because i didn't get anything out yesterday and it fit my idea anyway lol) (also divider by @/thecutestgrotto)

read on AO3

“How about this one?”

Stevie took the lacy scrap of fabric that Robin had shoved in her face. “I like the color.” The panties were blush pink, with a wide band of lace at the top.

“There’s a matching bralette, too.” Robin pointed across the aisle to a rack of bralettes, some of them the same color as the panties she held in her hand.

Stevie flushed. “I don’t know…” Wearing panties was one thing, but a bra? “I don’t even have any growth yet.” She gestured aimlessly to her chest, where the hormones she had only just started taking still had yet to work their magic.

“That’s why it’s a bralette, not a bra. No cups,” Robin explained. “Think of it like a training bra. My mom made me start wearing them in middle school and it was kind of weird, but it does make you more used to wearing one. And feel more grown up, which I guess you don’t really need help with because you’re already an adult, but you know. More like a woman.” She stopped talking with that look on her face that meant she was trying to hold in a patented Robin Ramble™.

“I thought you hated bras,” Stevie pointed out. Robin always made a point of complaining about her bra digging into her ribs, and at this point Stevie thought there might be more of them scattered around her house than in Robin’s, since she always hurried to take them off when she walked in the door.

“I do, but that’s because of the underwire. These ones don’t have that, see?” Robin showed her the simple elastic band at the base of the cups. “Bralettes like this are usually pretty comfortable unless the lace is too scratchy or something.”

Stevie hummed in acknowledgement and ran her fingers across the pink lace. It was soft to the touch, and she couldn’t help but imagine what it might feel like sliding across her skin, under her shirt, a secret from the rest of the world.

She really wanted it.

But what if it wasn’t right? What if she put it on and looked in the mirror and all there was staring back at her was a man playing dress-up, brutish and muscled and ridiculous? She didn’t think she could take the disappointment.

“I…” Her hand hovered over the rack, that fear holding her back.

“Here, we’ll get a few sizes,” Robin said, businesslike as she combed through them and plucked a few out. “You can try them on in the dressing room and see which one you like best, okay?”

“In the dressing room? But won’t someone — I mean, they’ll see that I have —” She stumbled over her words and just waved her hands at the pile of lace in Robin's hands.

Robin considered it for a moment, and then shrugged. “We can say it’s mine and you’re just helping me. Come on.”

With that, she led them to the back of the store, where a bored employee pointed them towards an empty fitting room all the way in the back, much to Stevie’s relief. They shuffled into the little cubicle together, the closeness not even close to a problem for them.

Stevie fingered the edge of her shirt nervously. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean what if —” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. “— what if it doesn’t fit?” She finished lamely.

“Then we go back out and get another size,” Robin answered. She seemed to understand the unspoken fear beneath her words, and took Stevie’s hand. “I’ll bring the whole lingerie section in here one by one if I need to, okay? We’re not leaving until we find something you feel good in.”

Stevie let out a shaky breath and squeezed Robin’s hand. “Okay. Okay, let’s do this.” With a burst of confidence, she whipped off her shirt and threw it down on the little bend built into the wall. Robin cheered like she was at a sold-out show, not in the back hallway of a department store where other people could definitely hear them. It made Stevie laugh, though, which was almost certainly the point, based on Robin’s satisfied smile.

She pulled a bralette off of its hanger and stared at it for a moment. Would the thing even fit over her head? Were her shoulders too broad? It didn’t have a clasp, so she had to try. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and put it on.

“Let me help you with the straps,” Robin murmured, soft hands fiddling with the fabric stretched across her back. After a moment, she smoothed her hands across it and stepped away. “Perfect.”

Stevie’s eyes watered under her closed lids. “Perfect?”

“Yeah, Stevie,” Robin whispered, gentle in a way that most people who knew her probably didn’t think she was capable of. But Stevie knew her down to her bones, and she got this side of Robin that barely anyone else got to see — the caretaking, loving, protective side of her that knew the nuance of a gentle touch. “Perfect. You wanna take a look?”

Stevie nodded, heart pounding in her chest, Robin’s hands on her shoulders, steering her towards the mirror. She felt paralyzed with the weight of the moment, this one thing that could make or break her whole transition. What if it didn’t fit her? What if she didn’t fit it?

But Robin had said she looked perfect.

Stevie opened her eyes.

In the mirror in front of her stood a woman. Brown hair just brushing her shoulders, moles dotting her tanned skin, blue jeans starting just under her belly button. The blush pink bralette cupped her breasts — her pecs — her boobs in a gentle curve. The wide lace band at the bottom secured it all, and the thin straps drew attention to her shoulders, yes, but also to her delicate collarbones and throat framed between them. The woman in the mirror reached a shaking hand up to feel, and at the first touch of lace to her fingertips, Stevie couldn’t help but sob.

“Oh, Stevie,” Robin said, bundling her in her arms immediately. “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you want to find a different one? Just tell me what you want, I’ll go find something for you, okay?”

“No, it’s — it’s perfect,” Stevie sobbed, tear tracks rolling picturesque down her cheeks. She hoped they wouldn’t drip on the fabric. “I just — I look like a woman.”

“Oh,” Robin breathed. She smiled softly over Stevie’s shoulder in the mirror. “So you’re finally seeing how the rest of us see you, huh?”

That made her start crying all over again, her smile staying fixed on her face. “I — Really? You’re not just saying that or buttering me up, you really — you really see me like this?”

“Really really,” Robin confirmed somberly. “I mean, I don’t know why you said you didn’t have boobies. Have you seen these?” She brought her hands up to Stevie’s chest, stopping just below the end of the bralette to frame them.

Stevie huffed out a wet laugh. “I guess they do fill it out pretty nicely.”

“You guess?” Robin said incredulously. “We gotta find some measuring tape so we can figure out your actual cup size. I bet you’re a B cup already, at least. It’ll be crazy to see how they look in a year.”

“Oh yeah,” Stevie said faintly. “I’m — going to get bigger.” She stared at herself in the mirror intently, analyzing where she might change. “Should we even be shopping this early? I’ll probably grow out of it in a few months.”

Robin shrugged. “It’s a rite of passage, Stevie. Every girl has their first bra. Their first training bra. Then their first real bra. Then they realize bras suck and stop wearing them. Then they realize they’ve been showing full nipple in public on accident for the last week and regrettably, go back to it.”

“That last part might just be you,” Stevie teased.

“So what if it is, it could happen to anybody!” Robin said indignantly. “But seriously, it’s normal to have to go bra shopping a lot while you’re still growing them. I’ll keep going with you, if you’d like.”

Stevie smiled at her in the mirror and caught her hand. “I would like.”

Robin met her eyes through the glass, warmth pouring out. “Awesome.” She stepped back and cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s have you try on the other sizes, just in case, and then maybe we can go find a couple more colors? I think they had some more in this style.”

“Okay,” Stevie agreed. “Thanks for doing this with me. And for being such a good friend.” She took the bralette off and turned around to hand it back to Robin, only to be met with her suspiciously shiny eyes.

“Of course, Stevie,” Robin told her. “Anything for my girl.”

#stevieweek #stevieweek24 #*writes #stranger things fic #stobin #stevie harrington

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rockdwarftv · 3 months

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So I've discovered Knave 1e

And It's everyone's problem now. Not so much fancy text this time but I've been going crazy making little systems for it. Like the first one, which was originally going to be in D&D 5e but I couldn't make it work there as easily. The system allows PCs to enchant any item with quality.

The effect any given spell gives is intentionally left out, as it should be up to the referee and the player as it what their enchantment does in the end. The next rule, again, was for 5e. But, translated well into Knave as I wanted the game to stay lethal but I wanted it to be a player decision. Sometimes a death would just be boring and that's dumb. So with this, you get to choose if you die or if you'd like to roll for it.

This would have had nice tables but google docs is ASS for arranging two tables next to each other.

Next is giving weapons a firm range. Knave had basic rules for this but I wanted to expand them to give players a little more wiggle room. The ranges use the base movement of all NPCs of 40 ft.

Knave also offers multiple ways to resolve attacks, while I prefer roling against a static value (ie Armor Defense), I wanted to offer players a way to actively defend against attacks. At a cost, however.

Rolling with your defense bonus gives you a chance to debuff the enemy, but puts you at higher risk of eating an attack. And even the rare chance of fumbling so badly the attack is made worse. Next was my crack at a monster, this is largely custom and based on the giant bloodworm statblock from AD&D. It's main purpose is to showcase how I want to handle conditions, this was made before Active Parry but it uses the same kind of idea.

Something Knave did not touch on at all, aside from stating a speed, was exploration. I wanted to steal from PF 2e for this so I made my own little simplified system.

This makes exploration feel a little more boardgame-y, and assumes there aren't going to be rolls for random encounters going on all the time. Ideally, unless the PCs are actively exploring new areas and not simply traveling between them, there should only ever be encounters which the referee has planned. Or, ones which match the movement of other groups on the map.

To tie into this, I've also worked out a Influence system, or a fame system.

PCs doing things should attract attention over time, they should have a real affect in the world they are in so that players understand their actions are actually doing something. It also could very easily tie into classic OSR ideas of building their own keep and managing hirelings. Doing that would draw the attention of local groups, for better or for worse!

Thank you for coming to my Knave ramblings. I like Knave a lot and I'm currently converting some modules into my own level 1 to 5ish game to run with these rules.

EDIT: (8/3/2024) I MADE MORE KNAVE STUFF

Made weapons a touch more interesting! Damage types now give bonuses, and the type of weapon is used to determine their bas damage and quality, not pictured because it's a big ass list lmao. Damage is also a flat value! If you deal damage you deal the maximum of a weapon's damage dice now, instead of rolling the dice.

Armor has been brought up to use the same mechanics as weapons, and adjusted slightly in how armor defense is calculated.

YEA PLAYER FOCUSED SPELLCASTING No more pre-made spell lists! Let the players make their own!

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #ttrpg design #ttrpg community #transrights #transgender #knave 1eOSR #osr #tabletop rpg #tabletop

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madisonmccoy · 2 months

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Teo Tomczuk tells us about the next season of Rykter!

https://730.no/forteller-om-neste-sesong-teo-tomczuk/%5C~%5D

SOMMERFJAS with Teo Tomczuk

By Tayiba Haji

3 July 2024 at 15:47

Teo Tomczuk sits down with SOMMERFJAS 😎 🎵 ☀️

(y’all this one needed a lot of cultural context to understand properly so you can see my personal explanations/rambling below in red lol)

“Fellesferien” has officially started (this is also known as general staff vacation in English, a practice where all employees at a workplace have time off at the same time, and in Nordic countries this typically takes place during warmer months like August). And while some people turn their sights towards the South (warmer/more southern countries in Europe), others are settling in well at their Norwegian cabins.

The next man out for our Summer column is Teo Tomczuk (born in 2006).

You may know him as Mathias from the NRK series “Rykter”, but in his spare time Teo is also very involved in music.

[730.no](http://730.no) had a chat with the Bergen native about his summer favorites. As well as what we can expect from the highly anticipated third season of “Rykter”.

Hi Teo! Do you have any exciting plans for the summer?

“I am going to play some concerts in Poland, and travel around Poland a bit. And I am going on vacation to Croatia with my best friend! It's a bit funny because all the “russegruppene” in all of Norway are going there exactly when we are going there."

(Russegruppene, or Russ groups, describe groups of students in their final semester of high school that celebrate the tradition of Russefeiring, or russ for short. This happens over a period of several weeks leading up to summer, and it is basically a continuous party commonly linked to drunkenness & public disturbances. It's also a tradition for the students to wear special overalls for the event, usually red or blue. Many groups choose to rent or buy party buses to drive around during this time. This tradition is unique to Norway and is an interesting read for those unfamiliar with it!)

Lovely! What kind of style do you go for in the summer then?

“I wear a lot of black clothes even though it's summer.”

What does the perfect summer day look like for you?

“A cabin trip combined with a fishing trip! And making music in the evening.

What movie/series did you last watch? And what roll of the dice do you give it?

“I saw The Fall Guy in the movie theater, it was very well made. The entire production. Dice roll 6!” (The roll of the dice is a Norwegian rating system for media, with 1 being the worst and 6 being the best)

Speaking of cool productions: Has the third season of “Rykter” been recorded?

“The third and fourth seasons have actually been recorded!”

Wow, so cool! What can we expect from the new season?

“You can expect a lot of love, broken hearts. Many try lots of new things and find out who they are. Mostly they get to know themselves. There will be a lot of identity stuff!”

Do you have any tips on what someone could do on a rainy day?

“I live in Bergen, so I'm used to that. The fish bite more when it rains. And make music of course.”

Do you have a favorite restaurant that you just have to visit in the summer?

“Mammas Kjøkken!” (Mom’s Kitchen)

How are you at parties?

“I'm the one who tries to put on 70s rock, haha! I’m really not the biggest party type then.”

What can we expect from you on the music front?

“I try to find my own sound. I developed a new style of pop rock that I think people can vibe with. There will be more international music, a bit of everything.”

What is this summer's vorspiel (pre-game) anthem?

"Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin”

What is this summer's nachspiel (afterparty) anthem?

"The End - The Doors”

(Vorspiel and nachspiel are German words that are used in Scandinavian countries to mean pre and after party)

What song is best to dance to?

“Lonely Boy by The Black Keys.”

What is your darkest party memory?

“I broke a tooth once haha!”

Huh?

“Yeah, it was crazy. I was going to open a bottle. Fortunately, it went fine in the end.”

Luckily! Do you have any good tips for the day after a party?

“In Poland we have a soup that grandmas and moms have often made over the years. It's damn good the next day. And just drink lots of water before and after.”

What do you spend the most money on in the summer?

“Probably beer!”

Who would you most like to meet this summer, and why?

“The best thing would be to meet my role models.”

And who are they?

“Many of them have died, but of the ones who are alive: Alex Turner and Ozzy Osbourne.”

(ALEX TURNER MENTION !!!)

Have you ever had a summer fling? Or is there anyone who counts as one this year?

“Not this year, but I've had ones in the past. It's best during the summer, that’s really when it’s the nicest.”

Can you send us some random photos from your camera roll this summer?

Thank you so much and have a happy summer, Teo!

“Likewise!”

#rykter #rykter nrk #rykter spoilers #rykter cast #rykter season 3 #teo tomczuk

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butchdykekondraki · 2 years

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waughfjqwhashdbd :)))

#[jay]#[jay rambles /pos]#<- peep the new tag #anyways #ouughhh #in loveeee so much loveeeee #love my duckie mi amor my loveeeee #cryinggg bawling i love herrr so muchhh #she makes me feel so safe ouguhhh #wanna hug her and hold her and hold her close and love him till the heat death of the universe forever #foreever and ever and ever and ever #and i am loved and i know that i know im loved because dice loves me!!!#and and maybe i am worthy of love because if someone as wonderful and kind and sweet as him can love me i think maybe i deserve that #ough #love. full of love. for quackity. my love.

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level2janitor · 6 months

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Diceless skills

the more i run and play RPGs, the more i start to be skeptical of dice. i like dice - i like rolling them, i think there's a whole lot of areas where they make a game better. but i'm skeptical about how they're the assumed default for how you resolve stuff.

ramble about ttrpg design under the cut

the way D&D handles skills is simple: you roll a die. if it's a big enough number (modified by the difficulty of the task & how good you are at it) you succeed. if not, you fail (usually meaning nothing happens). what this amounts to is a random chance to fail.

there's storygames that use more nuanced mechanics - no null result! rolling low is less 'total failure' and more that some twist happens. that can be more interesting. (i'm not familiar with a whole lot of storygames, so this is an oversimplification based on my limited knowledge, correct me if i'm wrong)

now these generally work fine for what those games are trying to do. they use uncertainty to generate drama: oh, shit, i failed the super-important deception check to convince the guards i'm a harmless merchant, now the situation escalates. perfectly good mechanic for your standard 5e campaign.

but that kind of stopped working as soon as i branched out into OSR games.

see, dice fill a very different role in an OSR game. these systems are designed with high lethality in mind - your fighter has 1d8 hit points, a sword deals 1d8 damage, you just die at 0HP. if you run them like 5e, you start killing PCs left at right and it can be very demoralizing.

the intended playstyle is, instead, that the players circumvent die rolls through cleverness - once combat starts, your fate is in the hands of the dice, so you make plans that avoid combat or swing the odds so far in your favor that the risk is worth it. so the dice still feel like they fill a good role, making combat deadly and unpredictable on purpose to set that dynamic.

this breaks down when you use the same logic for basic task resolution. most OSR games don't have skills, but i often see the misconception that you're supposed to use raw ability checks instead or the GM makes up a success chance on a d6. these fundamentally do the same thing as a traditional roll-to-win skill system: make luck a factor in basic task resolution.

the problem is OSR games have such high stakes in the form of very possible character death that involving luck in basic task resolution can be disproportionately punishing. "you failed the stealth check, roll initiative!" works alright in 4e or 5e where combat is the game, but in the OSR that's a line you very rarely want to cross.

(this is also why old-school D&D isn't my OSR of choice, since the thief just makes a bunch of tasks into die rolls with abysmally low success chances you'd never want to rely on)

instead the expectation is the GM is both generous and transparent with task resolution. most things should be a success or not doable; if something has notable consequences or is iffy enough to require a die roll, the GM should tell the player what is at stake before they commit to taking the action. (die rolls still have a place in terms of risk management but i feel they should be opt-in.)

this has worked pretty well in my games, but i missed skills as ways to differentiate PCs and allow specialization into different areas. it's a lever for customizing your character that i really like about D&D, helping two members of the same class feel distinct. so the best skill system i've found that still works well in this environment is this one borrowed from Joseph Manola:

Spending a skill slot on something means you are really good at that skill, and will always succeed at attempts to use it (emphasis mine) except under severely adverse conditions. If you have the Climbing skill, for example, you can automatically climb any normal surface you encounter, although doing so quickly or quietly might still require a Dexterity check.

it's a houserule i put into my Grave campaign for my home group and a core mechanic for iron halberd, and everywhere i've put it, it's run smooth as butter.

it feels like it slots into the OSR playstyle so, so much better than the old-D&D thief skills. die rolls are almost a punishment, so why bake them into the task resolution players use when playing as intended? the diceless skills are instead a reliable tool in your toolbox, and problem-solving with them should be rewarded.

i've also worked out what i think is the ideal number of skills for an average PC - two. less than that feels highly restrictive, while more than that feels like you have everything you really want for most PCs (thus devaluing PCs that spec into having more than two). i let players drop an attribute by 1 for an extra skill or vice versa, to allow for some PCs to be more skill-focused than others.

other variations on this idea include Dice Goblin's time, gear, skill system. i like this one because it's easy to houserule in a way for a player to double down on a skill - spending 2 skills on the same skill just lets that skill count for 2 requirements instead of 1.

overall they've been fun to use and players feel good using them. they do lose that drama aspect, but i find it easy enough to create tension in other ways in an OSR game. i might even try putting them in a non-OSR game because they've just worked really well.

#iron halberd #osr #ttrpg #game design #nsr

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thelemoncoffee · 4 months

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excuse me i'm just going to just copy/paste some rambling i sent on discord and call it a post. this is loooonnggg and kinda incoherent

stupid self indulgence is stupid but sometimes i think about an au where half way through his second year at HPA, Kokichi decides to drop out because he can't keep up with the image he made for himself. like he spends a whole year and a half being the asshole class clown of the class, but this is on top of having nearly dropped out of his previous school (hc: military adjacent) because they didn't like him there either due to his differing ideals for what a leader looks like. he's human and despite being very good at covering up his pain, there's still only so much he can take, so when he finally reaches that breaking point he drops out of HPA and just goes home

he told no one at HPA, just one day he was there and the next he's gone and never comes back again. he spends his time at home doing more with his families, both DICE and blood, as well as trying to find himself a job that doesn't suck major balls. he's lowkey depressed that he gave up so hard on his dream of becoming the best leader he could possibly be, but the road to it he'd been carving was insanely self destructive because he by nature can't follow the rules.

i can just kinda imagine the conversation he had with his parents about it before dropping out. his explanation is; 1) he isn't being taught new things on how to be a leader because HPA expects him to just figure it out on his own with the tools they give him. 2) he can't get but one person in the whole school to actually follow his lead (Gonta) and he thinks he's far too nice of a person to be dragged around like that. 3) because of his paranoia no one there really likes him so he's constantly fighting with people and digging his hole deeper- which he fully take credit for, he knows it's his fault- and if he were to ever stop no one would believe him at this point and it wouldn't change how they see him. 4) he's doing all of this just for a little paper that says he's the former ult leader, but really what the fuck kind of job would accept a vague ass title like that- and even if they did how many would his leadership actually be fit for?

to him, he's failed his mission to become the greatest leader, and he knows it's he himself who's to blame. DICE also can't last forever because while they may remain friends, they'll all grow up and get their own jobs they gotta focus on, some have already, and what little leadership he has to his name will fizzle away into weekend hangouts. he decides maybe he can go to a collage instead to get a degree in something he's good at, maybe a few different ones- just rummage through his bag of skills till he finds something that works. i really really like thinking about Kokichi's self image and how it affects how he handles being outside of HPA

i imagine he'd still have contact with only two people in total from HPA; Miu and Kaz (Kaz makes sense in my hcs i swear). Shuichi ended up finding out about what had happened to Kokichi from Miu and decided to try and get into contact with him again, which surprised the hell out of Kokichi because he thought Shuichi would be one of the people glad to see him gone- what with all the headaches and bullshit he put him through. little did he know- Shuichi's just as stubborn as he is……. and also he fell hard for him but that's totally beside the point

this is mostly about Kokichi's struggle, Shuichi prying his way back into his life is just a very pleasant bonus that makes Kokichi's life a little less hell. forces him to learn to open up to people again, something he failed to do with anyone at hpa in this au. the last time he opened up to someone that wasn't already in his close circle was when he was 16 and saved what would later become the final member of DICE, many got close but something usually stopped it before he could fully open up, making him want to open up even less

Shuichi's new. he stubborn, and really patient with him, and refuses to leave but doesn't push either. he's just there, waiting for him. he's not trying to forcefully help Kokichi better his life, but he's also not leaving him alone. he makes sure Kokichi knows he's always there for him, even if he doesn't take his help, so Kokichi can't just block him out like he tried before. luring him like a spicy kitten, he's got support, but Kokichi's gotta make an effort himself. the only thing Shuichi really ever makes any effort to push a little is trying to get Kokichi to come back to HPA, saying it's strange without him there and many people actually miss him despite what he thinks they think of him

i think it'd be wholesome if Kokichi decided to come back for the final year after both spending the last half his second year and the whole summer trying to fix his shit, and getting into contact with Kirigiri to confirm that yes he's allowed to come back without having to make up the lost time- if Rantaro can be gone half the year on trips Kokichi can be gone half a year for mental health.

actually imagine from the class's pov: half way through the year the chaos clown vanishes and it's not until like a month later everyone finds out via Miu and Shuichi that he's gone for good, then you spend the remainder of the year without him and it feels really off without his presence and some people kinda realize they didn't hate him as much as they thought, then finally you start your final year at HPA and THE CLOWN'S BACK!! but he's not the same, like some serious shit happened to him while he was gone and he's clearly not the same guy anymore… or he is, but you've never seen this side of him before, and he seems to be nervous to share it with everyone. he's the same, but totally different. he's still pranking people and telling jokes, but there's something broken and nervous there. he still lies but they're played more as jokes instead of the vile front they were before, and there's a noticeable decrease in their quantity. it's still Kokichi, but unlike before you cannot almost mistake him for a sunday cartoon villain in behavior- it's just too real, too lived, too human

but it really depends and i can see him not going back despite Shuichi's pleas too, im just a sap and i like the healthy wholesome stuff where he gets better instead of sulking in a puddle of depression

also not as important but if you want Kokichi can tell Shuichi he'll agree to come back to HPA if Shuichi pulls his shit together- ie; my hc Shuichi also has masking issues where he pretends to be a highly agreeable people pleaser and bottles all his anger and lets himself be a pushover, and Kokichi knows this so he only makes the deal if Shuichi can better himself the way Kokichi has been. mutual luring into healthier lives. it'd also mean Shuichi comes back from summer break a bit different as well and continues to become more different over the year

okay i'm done now

#danganronpa #ndrv3 #danganronpa v3 #kokichi ouma #shuichi saihara #saiouma #heacanons #au #au prompt #au idea #kai prompts #rambling #self indulgent

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heartsofminds · 1 year

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at least i let the light in (i).

"No one was more responsible than Bradley. No one was more reasonable than Bradley. No one was more mature than Bradley. No one else had life figured out the best they could like Bradley had. . . But no one knew how deeply sad Bradley actually was." or Bradley is on a downward spiral and Natasha doesn't know how much more she can take or the unofficial sequel to 'cause no one breaks my heart like you.

A/N: well guys, here we are! months after publishing 'cause no one breaks my heart like you, i decided to write my ass off and truly deep dive to the bottom of bradley's heart the best i knew how. while I'm not an expert and don't know everything, i am super proud of the work I've done and cannot wait to share more of it in the weeks to come. so for now, enjoy this small tidbit of the series and prepare yourselves to ride this rollercoaster with me! also, a special shoutout to jordan (@gretagerwigsmuse) for letting me ramble about this and reading over the millions of screenshots and drafts I've been hoarding over the past six months! i could not have had the courage to continue to write this or publish it without you!

After - Three Months

Maybe Natasha was mistaken; a phenomenon that did not occur very often.

She’s one of those people who’s a lucky guesser. Precisely the kind of person who could say “fuck it,” roll the dice of whatever was being talked about, and always come out victorious, and if not entirely correct beyond a reasonable doubt, was as damn close to right as anyone else could get.

But she’s not a boaster.

Sometimes being right is embarrassing and she never seemed to like the attention it brought; making people roll their eyes when asked for her opinion or always lucking out in a money pool whenever a bet was placed amongst her friends. She likes being right but she doesn’t necessarily like the reputation being right gives her, so she closes her mouth, nods her head, and tries to put on her best poker face whenever a bad idea is uttered from the mouths of her colleagues.

Watching people blow their own bullshit in their faces is comical and she and Bob get an absolute kick out of it whenever it's on Jake’s dime.

But this time it isn’t Jake or Javy or Maverick or anyone she would giggle and be in stitches over looking silly and distraught.

This time it’s Bradley, and from the iron flavor in her mouth from where she had been biting her lip the entire night, she knows that this is bad.

This is really bad. This is super bad. This is fucking horrible.

In hindsight, Bradley had a little bit of a problem. In hindsight, it was a stupid idea to let him have as much as he did. And in hindsight, it was downright imbecilic to let him get that wasted, play a game of pool with Jake (who loves to engage in smack talk), and not tell Jake about the breakup which resulted in Bradley leaping over the table and trying to beat the absolute shit out of him for making a joke about his girlfriend whom everyone else had yet to establish was now his ex-girlfriend.

Maverick, who watched the entire thing go down from the bar stools, practically begged Penny on his hands and knees not to throw them out and she obliged but only after tasking Mickey and Bob with taking Bradley to the bathroom and letting him calm down in there before he was ready to come back out.

And Nat knew that they all should probably head home and that Penny had every right to kick them out for the evening (and probably should), but she remained quiet while trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. Her careful eyes caught wind of Bradley’s incapacitated disposition as he stood slumped between Mickey and Bob as if he was an anchor ready to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Their gentle arms held him steady while their faces wore desperation. The chunky wet spot of acid on Bob’s pant leg told Natasha everything she needed to know and from the way Bradley’s head hung, he was down for the count.

If she was being truthful, Bradley had been down for the count for a long time; much longer than anyone had ever really taken notice of, and the seed of anxiousness planted in her torso only bloomed with each assisted step he had taken toward her.

Natasha was mistaken, and letting him tag along tonight was an incredibly bad idea.

“Hi, Nat,” he slurs with reddened cheeks and a boyish grin on his face. Part of him looks like the boy she had gotten to love like a brother all those years ago in flight school; way before the stupid mustache and the muscles and the “slight” drinking problem he’d developed over the past nine weeks.

“Hey, dumbass,” she snides back. She’s so overwhelmed that irritation is the only feeling coursing through her veins.

“We had a bit of an. . .” Mickey looks toward Bob who looks as if he’s about two seconds away from passing out, “incident in the bathroom. He really needs to get home, Nix.”

She sighs deeply; the likeness of a sleepless night and a massive headache in the morning a premonition burning bright behind the heavy blinks of her eyelids. Her hands hold her hips and her shoulders slump. She and Bradley had ridden with Jake to Hard Deck tonight, and she’s sure that the debit card saved to her Uber account would not appreciate a twenty-five dollar fee for an eight-minute straight shot up the road.

But asking Jake for a ride home after he’d been sat icing his left eye with a Heineken bottle isn’t ideal either.

Her eyes dart to the watch on her left arm; an old Cartier with a white face and hands that were always ten minutes off the hour. If she remembers right, multiplying the drive time by two would get her an estimate of the walking time, and if they jay-walk on Jasper and Kinnecky, they could shave off four minutes and be at her front door in about-

“Twelve minutes?” she looks up at the triad of men and flashes a small smile in the process, “Do you think he could make that long of a walk?”

Bradley tries to straighten his legs to stand on his own, but his knees buckle before he can even put his full weight forward. He giggles to himself; the sound childish and carefree. He attempts to lean his head on Bob’s shoulder but slams his forehead down too enthusiastically and knocks heads with the sheepish brunet instead.

“I’m gonna be so honest with you, I don’t think he can tell you what color shirt he has on. It’s a miracle he’s even standing right now.”

Natasha groans and puts her face in her hands.

Fucking hell, Bradley.

“Don’t be mad at me. Please don’t be mad. Don’t be mad,” Bradley speaks up. His voice is whinier than usual and it’s one of the few phrases he’s bothered to utter tonight. His weight still remains supported by his two friends and for a moment, she feels guilty for even being frustrated with him at all.

The warm hazel of his eyes peer into hers and she can almost feel his sadness and solitude. Bradley always liked to operate like he was angry, but anyone who dared to get close enough to him knew that the anger was how he felt about himself; a mirage of explosives made up of pure loneliness and hurt.

“I’m not mad —”

“Oh my fucking, God!” Bob screeches.

A slosh of yellow vomit exits Bradley’s mouth faster than anyone can manage to process. The warmth of his stomach acid mixed with the various types of alcohol he had shoved down his throat throughout the night makes everyone around them wrinkle their nose, and it’s in that moment - the one with Bob dropping Bradley’s arm in shock and Mickey being left to support his weight alone and succumbing to his friend’s heaviness sending them both straight to the floor in the puddle of puke - does Natasha accept the fact that this was a mistake and that Bradley had no business being anywhere but on a bathroom floor with a cup of water next to him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Mickey groans, his arms pushing himself up. He grimaces as he stands and examines his hands; the chunks of what was in Bradley’s stomach (which isn’t much besides alcohol, he figures) sitting warmly on his palms and making its way between his fingers.

Bradley grunts from the ground and is almost an afterthought due to the catastrophe taking place in front of them. Javy and Jake jump from their spots near the pool table and help him up.

Natasha can feel the headache brewing in her temples. She turns to look around and take count of all the watchful eyes. Even though she’s beyond mad at him right now, she always finds herself looking out for Bradley. After a quick sweep of the bar with her gaze, she figures that he’s not embarrassed himself too badly to never show his face around again.

Her eyes catch Penny’s sympathetic look. She mouths an apology while Penny nods and slowly starts to make her way to the supply closet in the back. On her way out from behind the bar, she pushes Maverick’s head with her hand a little bit harsher than what could be considered playful, and Maverick simply gives a sheepish grin in return.

“M’soooo tired,” Bradley garbles some more. His head hangs as if his neck isn’t attached to him.

“No, no, no, no. You can’t go to sleep right now!” Javy discourages. He pulls Bradley’s arm tighter around his shoulder. The brunet is properly jostled and Jake grumbles beside him.

Jake sends a sharp glare to his best friend at his sudden movement and for a second, he feels a wave of sympathy wash over him. It’s no secret that Bradley and Jake had been each other’s least favorite person for much longer than they had been friendly, but the fact that they can call each other that now - a friend - makes this taste so much sourer in the blond’s mouth now.

“But I’m tired!” Bradley croons. His body starts to go slack again as if his bones were made of rubber.

“But you can’t go to sleep, man!” Javy tries to reason.

“Why not?” Bradley continues to whine. His eyes squeeze shut and he stomps his foot like a toddler.

“Because – fuck, dude – because you just. . . can’t!”

“Why,” his foot resounds on the ground to punctuate his word, “Not!” The force of its landing causes him to stumble back a little despite the hunkering support on both sides of him. The room spins slightly and he chokes back a gag.

“Penny hates sleepers and you’re already skating on thin fuckin’ ice with her,” Javy snaps, “I suggest that if you don’t wanna lose a hangout spot, you try and get it together.”

Bradley attempts to mock him, but the effort it takes to remember what was said proves itself too great. He gives up after his third attempt at unscrambling his words and instead sticks his tongue out.

A frustrated puff of air leaves Jake’s mouth before he turns to Natasha. The face he makes is something Nat likes to call his “bitching face,” which everyone knew he made when he had something to say (which was all the fucking time, so he would often argue that it was just his face). She rolls her eyes to mentally prepare for the bullshit that’s about to come out of Hangman’s mouth.

“So what’s your plan, Phoenix?”

She hadn’t expected for his statement to be so tame, and for the first time tonight, the pressure of having to be right pinched her nerves like a thorn. For once in her life, she doesn’t really have a plan, and the realization startles her.

“Shit. I – I don’t know–” she stammers.

She feels a sharp pain in her thumb and glances down to see the side of her nail torn to shreds and spewing crimson. She curses herself internally. Picking anxiously at her skin was a habit she thought she had kicked after flight school.

Jake’s lips form a straight line of dissatisfaction with her answer. Bradley utters something incomprehensible to the sober ear and Javy shakes his head, pretending to understand what the brunet is saying when he truly has no clue if it was even English.

“I don’t feel good.”

Despite the confession being whispered, the world stops turning as if it were screamed from the rooftops. Bradley’s face pales. Javy can feel his chest squeeze with a sense of dread. Jake’s grip on his friend’s shoulders tightens.

“I need you to tell us what we’re doin’ before he starts blowin’ chunks everywhere!”

Natasha just stands still with a God’s eye view of the scene unfolding in front of her. Had you gone back in time and told her this would be her life three months ago, she’s positive she would’ve laughed in your face.

No one was more responsible than Bradley. No one was more reasonable than Bradley. No one was more mature than Bradley. No one else had life figured out the best they could like Bradley had.

But no one knew how deeply sad Bradley actually was.

And no one knew that this is exactly where that deep sadness would land him.

“What’s the plan, Phoenix?” Jake’s voice booms and bounces around in her ears.

Her hands come up to push the flyaways from her French braid back. Natasha’s face feels hot and the mugginess of the bar feels like a wet paper towel trapping her movements beneath its paper tendrils.

Think. Think. Think. Think!

“You need to make a decision –”

“I don’t fucking know!” she screeches.

Time stands still and everything seems to be moving in slow motion.

Penny whips her head around to see the commotion; her eyes wearing worry. Bob straightens his back due to her sudden change in cadence. Javy shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Mickey and Rueben give each other wide-eyed looks while Jake’s lips mold themselves even further into a straight line.

Even the music playing over the speakers seemed to quiet down.

It all makes her want to cry.

Her breathing is rampant and her heart beats raucously inside her ears. Her pulse is in tune with it and she can feel the blood coursing through every single vein in her body. Her hands shake and her body feels electrified from all the adrenaline.

Making a choice isn’t doable right now. And making the right choice is a task that remains an unsolvable dilemma with a bright red “danger” sign at its conclusion no matter the option.

“Fine,” Jake grumbles. He turns his body slightly to face Javy. “He’s comin’ with me.”

Javy widens his eyes; his thoughts formulating what he wants to say before he can even come up with the words to express it. “He can’t even stand straight. How in the fuck are we gonna get him into that stupid ass lifted truck –”

“Can you just shut the fuck up and help?”

Javy rolls his eyes and lets out a puff of air that he hadn’t even realized he was holding in. Jake is lucky that they had been best friends for over a decade and Bradley even luckier that Javy has a soft spot for him.

Natasha’s mouth feels stuffed with cotton and her limbs molded by concrete as the two men breeze past her to lead Bradley out of the front doors of Hard Deck. She could almost convince herself that the entire scene was a dream had it not been for the whiff of cologne and the slight tang of Bradley’s vomit hitting her nostrils as they walked by.

She slaps down a fifty-dollar bill on the bar top near the cash register before jogging into the sandy parking lot with the sky-painted indigo and violet above them.

By some miracle, Bradley is dragged (not without any hiccups or the impending fear that he would start projectile vomiting everywhere) all the way to the floor of the backseat of Jake Seresin’s black Ford F-150.

“Lard ass,” Jake mutters as he slams the door of his truck closed. Javy slides into the backseat with Bradley and another hollow sound of metal shutting can be heard.

Jake rips open the front passenger door for a meek Natasha, whose arms had yet to move from their crossed spot over her chest. Despite the dry summer heat nipping at her body and her damp arms showing evidence of her sweating, she feels cold.

Shocked.

Numb, is the word she’s looking for but can’t seem to find.

Her thumb rubs over her watch band and her purse hangs stagnant near her belly button. She looks as if she had seen a ghost. Her fingernails leave small scratches where blood had been drawn from her nervous picking.

Jake swats at her hand gently; telling her to let go. Telling her that this is okay. That this is under control.

That she needs to let go and let him help.

They stand silent in the hollows of the bar’s parking lot and Natasha can recall very few times where she had felt like this.

There was a weariness that grew in her whenever she told her dying grandmother that she would get to see her walk the stage at her high school graduation. There was a need for protection when she had broken up with her boyfriend before getting her first deployment assignment. There was a loss of hope whenever she looked at Bradley’s pleading eyes in her living room tonight, begging to let him tag along and carve out what he wants to say but can never manage to utter; “I’m lonely and I need help.”

Dread.

Impending doom.

Knowing the outcome despite trying to convince yourself that if you pray hard enough or ask God kind enough or are a good enough person or try your best or whatever the fuck you believe in doing – that this will work out and that you’ll come out on top.

But all that does is set you up for your grandmother to die two nights before high school graduation and for your boyfriend of three years to admit that he was cheating on you for two and a half of those.

All it gets you is a drunken best friend with demons and night terrors that still swallow him whole with fear despite sleeping on her living room couch and being thirty-seven years old.

“You coming?” Jake’s voice cuts through her downward spiral of thoughts.

She gulps down her feelings of decay. She makes a mental note to bring this up to her therapist this week even though she knows she’ll skate around it and they won’t get to unpack it for at least three more sessions.

“Y– yeah. I am,” she wipes at her forehead with the back of her hand, “Thanks.”

Jake gives a sharp nod of his head to her. Despite being a major shit-talker, he doesn’t really have much to say outside of the realm of having a good time or riling up some trouble.

He and Natasha aren’t close by any means of the word, but his appreciation for her had doubled the size since seeing all that she goes through dealing with an obliterated Bradley. Most friends don’t stick around like she does.

He sure as hell wouldn’t.

She throws herself up into his passenger side seat and closes the door before Jake can get to it. He’s already taking her and Bradley home, she figures. He can’t keep doing favors for her.

But then maybe shutting my own door is rude.

And then the thought spirals into why she doesn't think anyone wants to do nice things for her and how she’s undeserving of the good deeds she’s been dealt and then realizes that this thought pattern can wait because there are much bigger problems in her rear view.

Natasha turns her head to peer into the backseat. Bradley lays with his head in Javy’s lap and his legs folded in some miraculous knot. Javy doesn’t seem to mind and sits with his arms spread across the backs of the seats; scrolling away on his phone and checking his March Madness bracket to see exactly how much money he should be collecting at work tomorrow morning.

“How’s he holding up?”

The sound of her own voice surprises her. It comes out soft. Less assured. Less assertive than it usually does. She thinks that she sounds like her mother in a way before she discards the thought. She’s always hated the sound of her mom’s voice and –

Bigger things, Nat. Way bigger things.

Javy lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “Pretty shitty,” he looks down from his phone and turns his neck to the side, “Can’t even hold that big ass head up on his own.”

Natasha lets out an airy snort. Her eyes continue to drink in the sight of the two men behind her before her attention snaps to the sound of Jake climbing into the driver’s seat.

He lets out a soft groan before shoving his key into the ignition and the engine roaring to life. His hand finds the button for the stereo and clicks it off before any sound can come from it.

“How you holdin’ up back there, ‘Yote?” he asks, right arm behind the back of the passenger seat as he begins to back out. He whips the gear into drive and guides the wheel with the palm of his left hand.

“Haven’t had to play EMT yet if that’s what you’re asking.”

Jake’s eyes catch Javy’s face in his rearview mirror. The idea of saying something sarcastic crosses his mind, but he doesn’t indulge in it; not now when shit has hit the fan and there’s seemingly no end in sight.

There’s a time and place for his snide comments, he thinks.

See, I’m learning. . . .God, these people have made me soft.

He wrinkles his nose and checks his periphery for Natasha. She sits solemnly at his side like a child who knew they were in for it once they got home. Her hands sit in her lap; fingers busied doing God knows what (probably picking, Jake would guess, but he’s too focused on trying to get everyone home without someone dying to actually look to confirm). Her mouth is set in a deep frown and her face competes with the moon for how pale it is.

Jake had never really looked at Natasha before, but he’s seen her enough in quick glimpses and fond flashbacks to know that she’s never appeared this hollow.

Something is weird.

Something is off.

Something is wrong, and Jake starts to wonder how anyone could have missed it at all.

He opens his mouth to comment on it before he’s interrupted.

“Turn left up here,” she whispers. Jake has to blink a few times to prove to himself that he had actually heard her voice come out like that and hadn’t dreamt it up.

A simple nod and a turn much wider than he would have liked it to send them to the driveway of a charming California bungalow. Natasha’s car sits outside the garage parked next to the God-awful and constantly falling apart Ford Bronco that everyone and their mother knows belongs to Bradley Bradshaw.

Jake fixes his wheels to be parallel to the lip of Natasha’s drive before throwing the vehicle into park and killing the engine. He throws the door open and hops out to help Javy pull Bradley’s deadweight out of the truck to take him inside.

“Up you get, dumb fuck.”

Bradley lets out a soft groan before being fixed across both men’s shoulders. His feet drag on the ground and his eyes remain closed. His brain is absent of any thoughts and the possibility of him remembering a single detail about this tomorrow is slim to none.

Natasha jams her house key into the lock and switches on the hallway light. She doesn’t bother taking off her shoes before she’s turned the corner to her kitchen to fetch some Ibuprofen and a glass of water. Javy and Jake silently struggle behind her, and she tries to ignore their hushed comments of “Oh shit!” after a loud thud fills the house, which she presumes to be them accidentally dropping Bradley on the ground.

Her feet feel like they’re stuck in buckets of cement as she stands before her kitchen sink; idly watching the air pocket bubbles of water fill the glass she holds beneath the faucet. The thought of getting Bradley water from the Brita filter in her refrigerator briefly crosses her mind, but then she remembers that she’s angry with him, and at the very least, he doesn’t deserve filtered water.

It’s a childish attempt at getting even, she knows, but she can’t express her annoyance any other way without feeling as if she was a raging bitch.

Her hand mechanically slaps the lever on the faucet to shut it off and her throat tightens when she hears the sound of her coffee table being scraped across the floor and Bradley mumble a whiny “Ouch!”

Natasha takes a deep breath and attempts to count to ten.

One. Bradley is okay. Two. Bradley is okay. Three. Bradley is okay. Four. Bradley is okay. Five. . . He’s fucking killing himself and you’re not even trying to help. Six. What kind of fucking friend are you? Seven. You should be ashamed of yourself. Eight —

With a wobbling lip and starry eyes, she forces herself out of her kitchen and into her living room where she finds two of her friends huddled around her other one; trying to position him on his side so that he can properly fall asleep.

“You fucking – you fuckin’ dropped me!” Bradley cries, his limbs flailing around like a baby’s.

Jake rolls his eyes. “Don’t cry over spilled milk, Bradshaw,” the lightbulb to say something shitty goes off in his head, “. . . S’not even milk you’re gonna remember spillin’.”

Bradley wordlessly slides himself deeper into the couch and smushes his face up against a throw pillow. Natasha watches from behind and makes a mental note to go ahead and plan on taking that pillow to the cleaners tomorrow.

It would be by God’s grace if she came to the living room in the morning and the cushion was absent of vomit.

“Don’t be a dick, Hangman. He’s already down bad enough as it is,” she speaks, brushing past him to set the water cup down on the coffee table. Her fast hands move the small waste basket hidden by her lamp near Bradley’s head. Her palm lingers on his head; fingertips ghosting the space where his hairline meets the back of his neck.

She sits down on the loveseat adjacent to the couch with a ‘plop.’ All that can be heard is the buzz of the cicadas outside and the anchoring, rumbly snoring exiting Bradley’s mouth. Javy shifts his weight between his two feet. Jake chews on his lip.

No one speaks.

The elephant in the room has gotten harder to ignore.

Natasha senses the ball forming in her throat before she feels it; the scary, dark monster of angst that everyone seems to want to will away. Its claws dig themselves deep into the crevices of her throat and tear every part of her to shreds. The stinging prickling of her eyes becomes harder and harder to blink away. Her nose begins to run; leaking the secret anguish she had been keeping to herself for months. Her limbs feel as if they had been injected with pure lead and she can’t will herself to move.

Because this is it.

This is the end.

This is the official cry for help that she had never wanted to make.

It’s crazy, she thinks, how your body can betray you even harsher than your worst enemy could.

Jake knows she’s crying before Natasha knows she is. Growing up with four sisters gave him a special radar for hidden emotions. The knowledge startles him a bit because never did he ever think that she had it in her to be so. . .broken. His eyes widen when her chest begins to wrack with sobs.

He and Javy share a wide-eyed gaze as if the scene playing in front of them could be any less real. Both men had never been great at comfort because they never had to deal with it, and as she tries to stifle her cries in an attempt to not wake Bradley and to not freak out Javy and Jake, she wonders if the anger she holds in her heart for Bradley makes her a bad person.

It’s insane, she thinks, that in one of her darkest moments, she can’t help but be horrified of being an awful human being.

All she had ever known was sacrifice and she can’t help but want to throw in the towel. To stop fighting so hard. To stop caring so much. To stop loving so deeply.

But she can’t.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

And thus the tears continue to fall while she wipes furiously at her eyes. Through a blurry lens of reality, she looks down and sees marbled red between her fingertips, but says nothing. The metallic stench of her own blood dripping out of her nose isn’t enough to stop her frenzy of thoughts beating her feelings into those of self-doubt. If anything, the blood attracts the emotions of worthlessness like sharks to live bait.

“Shit,” Jake hisses. The sound of his boots tendering his steps toward her makes her cry harder. “Shit, shit, shit. It’s okay. It’s alright.”

His hand moves in slow motion to reach out and touch her, but he snatches it back before it makes contact with her body.

Although he’s good at detecting sob fests, he’s never been good at resolving them.

“Holy shit, that’s so much blood,” Jake whispers louder than he intended. He sits on his knees in front of her and tilts his head to both sides of her face to get a good look at the geyser of blood spewing out of her nose.

Javy sends daggers toward him before making a plan in his head. “You take her to get cleaned up,” he instructs, “I’ll stay with tilt-a-whirl to make sure he actually makes it to the trashcan.”

Jake opens his arms in offense and opens his mouth to make a complaint before Javy stops him, “Blood or puke, dude. Your call.”

The blond’s lips form a straight line before he quickly makes a decision. He ushers Natasha up and gently guides her to the bathroom down the hall. She can barely see with the rate of tears building up in her eyes and though she would rather die than show weakness, the vulnerability sat revealed on the cushions of her loveseat.

There is no tough guy act available for her use anymore.

As she sits on her toilet seat lid with her head tilted forward over a wastebasket, she determines that Jake Seresin isn’t the most atrocious thing she has ever encountered and has a slight appreciation for his detached demeanor.

He doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t push her to say anything. He’s more than content with the silence and sits on the ledge of her bathtub with his elbows digging into the tops of his thighs.

In any other circumstance, they would be ripping the other a new one; trying to embarrass each other by coming across the other’s faults with a fine toothcomb. In another world, Natasha is somewhere teasing him about being a softy. In another world, Jake is rolling his eyes at whatever she was saying and dismissing it with a nasally, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” In another world, he never sets foot in her house and in another world, she doesn’t fall apart at the seams like this.

But in this world, the one with an entire box of bloody Kleenex filling the waste basket she has her head over, they don’t say anything because they truly don’t need to.

The thing no one tells you about hating someone’s guts is the way that you’re so accidentally in tune with them.

You know how they think. You know what nasty little habits they have. You know exactly what makes them tick.

And you know precisely what faces they make when they want you to spill your guts.

Natasha tries her hardest to ignore his wandering eyes and looks down at the mess beneath her instead. She can feel his stare slicing through her body; layer by layer: skin, fascia, muscles, organs, bones, and all.

“He’s been putting vodka in his coffee every morning.”

Jake quirks his eyebrows together. His stomach drops at the idea of what her admission may reveal.

“I suspected it for a while. He’s never been a Yeti cup kind of guy,” she lets out a sarcastic laugh, “So one day I went over to his desk and took a sip. I figured he wouldn’t mind.”

She shifts uncomfortably and her tears begin to slide down the apples of her cheeks like a waterfall once again.

“You know the shitty part about being right no one ever tells you? That it applies to dumpster fires too. Like, I didn’t wanna be right about my best friend drinking on the job but. . .”

Silence fills the air. Jake’s heart starts to race. This can’t be good, he thinks. This isn’t good, he knows.

“But?” he leads, leaning forward more to make sure that his ears don’t miss a single word that falls out of her mouth.

“Went by his desk every day for a week straight and sniffed his cup. I was right.”

Night and day pass before Jake can let the idea – no. The fact that Bradley had been showing up to work drunk settle in his stomach. It spreads like a thick goo that he can’t swallow down.

“How long?” he asks quietly. Gently, like a parent whispering as they hold their sleeping baby to their chest.

She licks her lips. The wetness of her tears help mend the dryness her mouth had encountered.

“Three months.”

The admission is dropped like a bomb. The effects of both of them knowing changing the intricate thread of life as they know it instantaneously. Jake’s chest starts to heave with a feeling that he doesn’t recognize.

Hurt. Anger. Disgust. Care. Sympathy. Hatred.

All of these things that he has never felt at one time. All of these things that he doesn’t have a name for.

His mouth moves faster than his brain. “You know you have to report him.” He says it with such finality and although he knows it’s the right thing to do, it certainly isn’t the right thing to say.

Natasha narrows her eyes at him. “You think I haven’t thought about it? You think it’s just that easy?” she scoffs, anger making her cheeks crimson red, “Fuck you, Jake!”

He knows that he shouldn’t take any offense to her words, but the weight of the events of tonight has taken a toll on him, and her words plant a seed of irritation in his heart.

“He’s coming to work drunk, Natasha! Screw me for wanting to keep people alive.”

She takes a deep breath. Her knuckles whiten around the rim of the trashcan she’s holding as a means to try and calm herself down.

“Look,” she speaks through gritted teeth, “I know this is horrible –”

“Horrible? Just horrible?” his words sound sharper than he intended them to be, “Horrible is your dog dying or losing a bet or staining your white couch with a fucking nosebleed.”

A sarcastic laugh leaves his mouth as he stands up to leave the bathroom. “He’s gambling with life, and he of all people should fucking know better.”

“Because using the dead mommy and daddy card against him is soooo fucking rich, Jake. What else is new? Huh?” She shoves the wastebasket to the side and stands up to look him in the face.

“You gonna pull the dead grandma card on me? Cheating ex-boyfriend? Oh let me guess. The female pilot who belongs in the kitchen and not the Navy?” With each word, she gets closer and closer to him.

“Don’t let the fact that I have a heart and actually try to do the right thing make you forget that I’ll fuck your life up beyond repair. You’re absolutely the last one to talk about gambling with life when you tried to kill your team and didn’t even feel an ounce of sympathy. Being number one means nothing when you kill all your competition, fuck face.”

The dried blood around her nostrils leaves a scarlet film in its wake. Jake takes a few deep breaths to remind himself to calm down. He knows that she’s right. He knows that he hasn’t quite redeemed himself. He knows that despite everyone having a chummy attitude with him, he is still considered a person who cannot be trusted.

Because he does bail. He does cut people down to make himself feel better. He does eliminate his problems instead of facing them.

“I know that he’s your best friend. I know that he means the world to you, but what he’s doing is dangerous, and you helping him hide it will only bite you in the ass in the long run,” he exhales softly, “You need to tell.”

She rolls her eyes and reaches past him to flip the light off. She stomps past him back into the hallway that leads to her living room.

“You still don’t fucking get it. You’ll never fucking get it!”

Her gaze finds Bradley sleeping softly on the couch and Javy curled up on the loveseat fast asleep before she decides to lower her voice. She turns on her heel to face Jake once again and takes a deep breath to calm herself down.

“You don’t have to get it or understand or even pretend like you give the smallest ounce of a fuck about him, but I do. I care about him so fucking much, Jake. And I know that it’s fucked up and I know that I’m not doing the right thing, but I can’t rat him out because betraying him when he’s like this would hurt him even more than getting in the cockpit wasted.”

“Nat –”

She holds up her hands to his chest and distances herself from him. The tears start to form again and she wonders if she’ll ever stop crying.

“I can’t take this away from him. I can’t take the only thing he has left away from him and you can’t make me. . . . Because this time, he might just hate me enough to dig the hole so deep that he won’t be able to climb back out.”

The collage of versions of Bradley she had gotten to know and love so well over the years of their friendship blind her with sorrow and sadness. She truly knows him in a way that no one else ever will, and while part of her takes pride in that, another part of her wishes there was someone else to help share the load because she’s tired.

She’s so fucking tired and there seems to be no relief in sight.

“And I’d rather him rot away on this couch knowing that someone loves him than get a phone call that he—that he killed himself because I helped everything get taken away from him.”

She zips past him to her linen closet to grab a blanket for Javy. “So yeah. You don’t have to get it but I do, and I’m gonna continue to stick by him regardless because that’s what friends do.”

Jake stands dumbfounded in the dimly illuminated doorway as she carefully unfolds a blanket and gently lays it on Javy. He watches as she turns to Bradley and puts her finger underneath his nose to ensure that he’s alive and breathing. Her eyes refuse to meet him as she walks into her bedroom and shuts the door.

And when she wakes the next morning to find Jake fast asleep in a chair alongside Javy and Bradley, she knows that there was nothing but truth to the words he had uttered to her last night.

When they wake, they separate and leave for work like the events of the evening had never happened.

Like Bradley hadn’t projectile vomited at the bar the previous night or that Javy hadn’t dropped him on his ass in Nat’s living room. Like Natasha hadn’t cried so hard her nose bled and that Jake hadn’t had the chewing out of his life given to him in a bathroom at three in the morning. Like everything is fine when they all know that it’s not – the textbook definition of burying an issue beneath a rug.

Natasha almost tricks herself into pretending like the entire evening had never happened until she spots Bradley’s black Yeti cup on his desk. She stares at it with wonder and hatred and she doesn’t even realize how long she had been standing there until she feels the warm drip of blood seeping from her nose slide down her face and onto her chest.

Natasha Trace was a person who was very rarely mistaken, but now she can say that her mistakes run large when she is.

Because Bradley Bradshaw is fucked, and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it.

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