#rocky mountain pro

[bryzcoscursedkingdom]

[thorsenmark]

Finding My Next Adventure in Banff National Park by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While at an overlook to Two Jack Lake and view to the south to the ridges and peaks of Mount Rundle off in the distance. This location is along the Lake Minnewanka Scenic Drive in Banff National Park. In composing this image, I walked around until I could find an opening in the trees that helped to frame the view with the lake waters and reflection as well as centering Mount Rundle in the upper portion of the image center. I felt this helped to create a layered look and add interests, from near to far.

[naimahtaylor]

Here's a Post of Nebula She is Standing on the Ground There's Giant Marble Rocks The Sky is Light Blue The Sun Between the White Clouds

[ringthedamnbell]

Wrestling With Sin: 457

Wrestling With Sin: 457 featuring Curt Hennig, The New Age Outlaws, JBL and much more...

Brian Damage This is the 457th installment of the ‘Wrestling with Sin‘ series. A group of stories that delves into the darker, underbelly of pro wrestling. Many of the stories involve such subjects as sex, drugs, greed and in some cases even murder! As with every single story in the Sin series, I do not condone or condemn the alleged participants. We simply retell their stories by researching…

[sunlightmurdock]

AETERNA | Four

Three | Masterlist

chapter synopsis: rooster gets a glimpse of what he’s been waiting for.

warnings: bradley bradshaw x reader x jake seresin. supernatural circus au. smoking; the fic takes place in the 70s and so 70s era things will happen; this fic has mature themes and is intended for adults, minors pls dni. spooky stuff. word count: 8.8k

There is a river on the O’Malley land that comes from way up in the mountains, spilling down into the valley that Atwood was built upon. Across some pastures and some trees, there’s a quiet spot where nobody ever comes — not even the seasoned pros who got their fishing licenses direct from Mr. O’Malley himself.

In the early mornings, Rooster gets antsy. He tosses and turns in the swelter of his camper for a while, counting the rays of gold that pass across the weathered ceiling. He can hear everyone else tossing and turning too. 

He hears Paulie and the guys still up talking from the night before. Waylon snoring wildly from a few rows away. Erin and Tomas feeling each other up in their tents.

It has become his common routine to now give up sleeping once the morning sun crests the roof of the farmhouse up on the hill. On those mornings, he goes walking. 

He came across the spot where the horses are buried. Where the blackberries grow and brambles have started to consume an old chicken coop. Then, he came across the spot by the river.

As he plucks at the strings of his beat-up, old guitar on Monday at noon and tries to pretend that he’s all alone, Rooster regrets ever telling his chosen few about this place.

It had been fun, at first, when the eight of them had taken the walk out there and spent a couple of hours cooling off. But now, he’s stuck with the sound of Jake’s voice while the others play in the water in front of him.  He should be grateful that the rest of camp hadn’t bothered to invite themselves, too.

The next place he finds, he won’t be as quick to share.

Jake basks in the sun, his skin shining gold. He’s laying in his boxer shorts on the smooth rocks that verge the O’Malley’s access to the river, his arms crossed under his face and his eyes closed.

Rooster sits at the edge of the rocky riverbank with sunburnt shoulders and a guitar in his hands, strumming absently at something old. He’s watching his friends swim; Natasha sits on Bob’s shoulders and Callie sits on Rueben’s as they chicken fight in the clear, moving water around them.

The conversation between himself and Jake fell stagnant a few moments ago. His brown eyes track the blue dragonfly as it plays around the reeds that stand tall, out of the water, thinking of what Jake had last said. He can’t let it go.

There isn’t a lot left for them to argue about, these days. Something shiny and new comes along and the habit strikes back up. 

“If she’s got any sense, she’ll stay away.” Rooster sounds much older than he is sometimes, and that’s why all those lonely older ladies love him so much. Jake doesn’t bother to lift his head, but Rooster can hear his smile through his words.

“She’s got a sense of adventure, old man,” Rooster is only a year and a half older, technically. Jake teases him anyway. Rooster plucks at the strings like it doesn’t bother him. “And the sweetest tits. She’ll be seein’ me again.”

Rooster misplucks. 

Jake grins against his arm, a beaming smile from under his sunglasses, content with the idea that he has gotten under Rooster’s skin. 

The sun scorches above them, one of the first days in early May where the sun dares to be this hot. There’s still a light breeze, one that makes the heat just about bearable outdoors, but one that makes the river a straight godsend.

Callie shrieks as she topples off of Rueben’s shoulders and crashes into the cool water, sending droplets of water flying over Rooster’s thighs.

It’s a very unassuming scene, these town newcomers playing at such normality, right as the Redbrook River fishing season picks up. It’s far from secluded, just not frequently stumbled upon this far out.

Jake lays undisturbed, grinning against his arm, as Rooster tries not to picture your tits — more specifically, Jake’s hands on them. It’s bad enough he had to listen to it all. It’s a conflicting thing to have enjoyed so much about what he was hearing, and to have known it was all for Jake’s benefit.

“Keep dreamin’, bud,” Rooster answers right back. Their group of friends continue to splash in the water, long past the days of being fazed by Jake and Rooster’s competitive streak. “She thinks you’re a freak.”

Jake’s lips quirk and he twists his hips and rolls onto his back, draping an arm over his eyes. The sun covers his chest gladly, bathing him in mid-morning light. “I can work with freak. She thinks you’re a stick in the mud with an attitude problem.”

Maybe I am, Rooster acknowledges bitterly.

“If she likes you so much, why’s she chasing me?” Rooster counters.

Jake takes his arm away from his eyes and props his elbows against the flat, warm surface of the rock under him. As he lifts his sunglasses, the light catches on the green of his eyes, twinkling daringly as he looks across at Rooster. His grin stretches wide across his lips, dimpling at just one cheek — practically the only thing not symmetrical about his face.

Rooster stops plucking at the guitar. He fucking hates when Jake smiles at him like that. Smug and daring— and Jake knows how much he hates it. 

He sets the guitar down swiftly and stands up, shaking his head. “Fuck you.” 

They’re joking, but Rooster knows you won’t come chasing after Jake as easily as he would let on. He scared you last night; really scared you. Gave Rooster the impression that you’re smarter than he gave you credit for when you had first come poking around out here, all by yourself.

From the second things felt wrong, you had hauled yourself out of that truck like your hair was on fire. And, you hadn’t left your friend behind.

You had gone home last night, and you had checked that the latch on your bedroom window was locked. He had heard it click from across the fields, but only because he had been listening out for it. 

In theory, he likes you. He’s sure that the two of you would get along just great. But, way out here is no place for a lady.

“You act like it’s my fault your balls haven’t seen action since Roosevelt died.” It’s a slight exaggeration. Rooster’s moral compass sometimes loses its true north, and he winds up rolling out of someone’s bed before sunrise once again. It’s easier when he knows he’ll never see them again. 

Jake tends to be a little more… sentimental, about things. 

Rooster opens his mouth to speak. He’s standing there with water droplets drying like flecks of gold on his freckled shoulders, his curls wet at the nape of his neck and his blue boxer shorts clinging to his thighs and what hangs between them. Jake looks him over, pushing up onto his elbows, venom on his tongue.

The words die in Rooster’s throat as he looks up the riverbank and finds where the faint ringing in his ears is coming from. 

Upstream, nestled in the shade of the pines, Amelia watches them all. He wouldn’t notice her if he wasn’t specifically looking for her, tucked halfway back into the treeline and sitting down, her sketchbook open wide in front of her.

Her hair is wild and messy, like it always is. She must know that Rooster is watching her, but her eyes are on the ones in the water, cold and blue. Too calculated for a girl her age. 

“I’m going into town,” Rooster decides, not speaking to any one of them in particular, but loudly enough for them all to hear. Amelia looks at him. Her pale skin and sharp eyes remind him of a porcelain doll sometimes, and not in a good way. “Don’t need me.”

They will, undoubtedly, need him for something around camp. Everyone around here earns their keep, despite frequently having no place in the world to be but right here. Given that Rooster no longer performs, his duties around camp look a little bit different to everyone else’s.

He breaks up the fights, and man there are plenty. He’s the one who heads into town; he can keep his head down and get what he needs, a polite face and someone not interested in finding new friends. He keeps the customers where they’re supposed to be on show nights. 

Rooster pulls on his jeans and he takes his guitar.

On his walk back to their settlement, through the trees and across the fields, he gets to thinking about how much this sprawling land reminds him of fuzzy childhood memories.

He remembers his parents in shades of blue. The broken porch swing at the front of their house that his mother wasted away in. His parents’ bed with the slight dip in the middle. The car rusting away in the back, while he was still too young to drive it. He remembers everything about his mother and her sickness.

His feet brush across the grass and he thinks about his existence back then. Growing like a weed, always feeling hungry and always being too tall for his jeans. Playing with the neighboring boys in the street out front. Looking at that picture of his father in his service wear on the mantle, wondering what he would look like at that age.

Far beyond it now, Bradley hasn’t much considered his similarities to his parents. In some ways, his life is better than theirs ever was. Hell, he’s seen more of the continental United States than they ever could have dreamed of from their West Virginia trailer. He has time, which they never seemed to have enough of.

That being said, he’s glad they never got to see who he would become.

“Mornin’.” The voice startles him, which is a surprising feat in itself. Jeans unbuttoned and his shirt fisted in the same hand as his guitar, Rooster spins on his heel to look, finding Gus O’Malley himself sitting on the front porch of the Big House that Rooster had been passing by.

“Oh. Good mornin’.” Rooster tries to find it in himself to be polite, like he doesn’t know the kind of man who sits in front of him. He saw the fist-shaped hole in the house’s back door. “Sir.”

Gus is an average-looking man, with thinning hair and sun-reddened skin all over. Sun damage across the tip of his nose and his forehead, wrinkling him beyond his years. “Where are you headed?”

He looks Rooster over with an especially spiteful kind of envy.

“Just back from the river, I cut through the field.” Rooster explains with a quick gesture back over his shoulder.

Gus, red-headed and sitting with his hands on his rounded stomach, gives Rooster a look over.

“Yeah, I saw y’all out that way,” Rooster tips his head slightly, studying the amused shift in Gus’s tone. “That one with the dark hair, she your girlfriend or something?”

A pang of protectiveness strikes him. It’s not just about the fact that Natasha, who had been sunbathing on the large, flat rock that protrudes from the middle of the river, is like a sister to him. It’s that Rooster hadn’t once spotted Gus.

He hadn’t heard the heavy rattle of his strained breathing, or the lazy thudding of his heartbeat. It prickles at him like heat. 

As much as Natasha can care for herself, and take care of men like Gus, Rooster doesn’t want his bulbous nose poking anywhere around their digs. His mouth tips toward an aloof smile, disarming.

“Or somethin’.” He tells Gus with a soft nod, despite having never touched Natasha in his life. Gus smiles back at him approvingly.

“How are you finding it here? — I heard Maggie was putting you to work.” Rooster knows that Gus considers this question to be a test, and that he’s gauging exactly how close Rooster has been getting to his wife.

“Quiet. Nice to have somethin’ to do sometimes.” Is all that he offers up.

Gus’s mind ticks over the answer. He leans back in his rocking chair and nods his head. “Well, you kids stay outta trouble.”

The saying is that trouble tends to follow — and that isn’t quite the case for Rooster and his crew. They usually just happen to be where the trouble is already occurring. Well, that isn’t quite the case either. There’s nothing incidental about those two things.

You too, Rooster dreams of saying aloud. Instead, his eyes spark with a calm and polite smile as he nods his head and takes that as his dismissal. “Yes, sir.”

It plays on his mind as he pads his way back to his camper, images of Gus leering at them from his truck, probably drooling something fierce. Had it been while Rooster was teaching himself that Ray Charles track, or was it while he had been bickering with Jake? — What had he been so distracted about that he hadn’t noticed?

Gus hasn’t been around much since their tenancy began, and Rooster hopes that things will be that way for the majority of the summer.

His trip into town requires more clothes than are generally needed around camp. Shoes, for one, are a must, and shirts that are actually buttoned and paired with a tidy undershirt are appreciated too. He combs some tacky, woodsy-smelling pomade through the sides of his hair to tame the air dried, river-mussed mop of curls.

Perfectly presentable to go into town and hang fliers all afternoon. He could have taken Jake and Javy with him, maybe some of the others, cut his task load in half. But the alone time is worth the hundred or so extra papers.

As some kind of sick testament to the joke that Rooster will never really be rid of Jake, Elvis on the radio accompanies him into town. 

He hears you before he sees you. Smelling of daisies and cheap cigarettes and a fresh pack of gum, he twists his neck around at the stop sign and starts to wonder if he’s losing it. It’s not until the truck comes around the bend that he finds you.

Perched on the back steps of a large, brown-stoned building with a cigarette in your hand and a worried little frown plastering your face. Your hair is scraped all the way back, tucked into a neat updo, and you’re wearing a candy-striped tunic with white knee socks and Keds. Perfectly presentable.

It makes him think of the first day that he saw you, on the seats of that truck on all fours and waving at him in those little shorts.

“Maybe not branded,” You muse, letting your head fall back against the wall behind you while Olive studies the new baby blue colour on her nails. “Is there another word for when someone burns a shape into your skin?”

You don’t notice the green pickup truck pull past and head for town as you fret to Olive. It’s been a while since you had a man to complain about, but this isn’t your usual kind of conundrum. 

She smirks. “Maybe it’s something freaky-deaky.”

The back-and-forth repertoire thing that brought the two of you together fails today. The witty remark dies on your tongue with a wistful sigh. You wish you could laugh with her. He laughed it off pretty easily, waved you goodnight like nothing had happened. 

It just doesn’t… feel right. There’s an unsettled feeling in the pit of your stomach that you just can’t shake. “D’you think it’s like a cult thing?”

That’s no joke. You hear the stories about the hippies still hanging out in the countrysides, girls going missing across the country. Mansonites that didn’t wind up on death row. 

Your folks let you get away with a lot, but joining a cult might push the boat out a little.

Olive doesn’t seem half as fazed. The miserable guy who named himself after the least impressive animal on the farm hadn’t seemed too worrying to her, beyond his attitude. “His hair was short. Guys with crew cuts aren’t in cults.”

She’s still kidding. The comment wasn’t meant to reassure, and it doesn’t.

“Yeah.” You guess, knees tucked up to your chest as you mull over the idea. He looked tidy. Smelled good. His hair was certainly a little longer than a crew cut. Rooster’s hair was longer again. Neither of them looked particularly unkempt — Jake had smelled like a piney, masculine cologne. 

Cultists surely didn’t take such a pride in their hygiene.

Now, Olive knows not to joke with you too much. She had seen the dazed way you had stumbled back into the bar, colorless and rendered silent. It hadn’t taken a genius to figure out that whatever went down in the cab of that truck wasn’t a joking matter.

She just hadn’t expected it to be so strange.

You hadn’t been expecting him to let you go. Surely if he was so dangerous, he wouldn’t have helped you back into your shirt. Maybe you’d had too much to drink, but you don’t remember the last thing he said to you.

Something along the lines of taking care of yourself, making sure you got home alright. Entirely unthreatening, as he had remained in the cab to buckle his belt and wait out his boner, you guess.

“Why didn’t you just ask him what it was?” She frowns at you, plucking her cigarette from her lips and stubbing it out on the wall. Break time is over and soon Conrad will come looking, 

You don’t remember that either. 

You must have made such a fool of yourself scrambling out from under him and offering no explanation as to why his tattoo gave you the jeebies so bad. But then, he hadn’t exactly offered to settle you about it.

Your nose wrinkles as you straighten out your dress and follow your best friend back inside. 

The Pines has this perpetual kind of dust smell. Olive joked once that it was something to do with all the time running out around here. It’s a joke that sticks with you sometimes when those years of dust are making your sinuses itch.

Faded yellow walls and deep blue carpet. Stock-image paintings on the walls. It’s an okay place to send your parents, in the grand scheme of things.

Your mind is far, far from the Pines today. Out past Airport Road, following that narrow winding road up the O’Malley driveway. You think of the two strange, strange men who live out there now.

“It could’ve been really traumatic.” There can’t be a lot of ways that someone winds up with a cross branded into their skin that aren’t traumatic. Olive doesn’t think that way. She gets her answers when she wants them. She would have asked him then and there. She’s braver than you, like that.

“Yeah. You wouldn’t want him asking about Wes.” Olive sometimes speaks without thinking. His name hits like a ricochet, which is a strange thing. You spent your first seventeen years hearing it every day. It’s a shame that now his name is tainted— it will always bring sorrow.

You’ll never scream it when he’s taunting you again, never again write a gift tag addressed to him. You swallow. You almost have to shake your head to bring you back to what the original conversation had been about— not your big brother.

“No.” You agree. Atwood knows what happened to Wesley. The story spread like wildfire that late July. In a way, you’re glad that it had — you hadn’t ever had to explain a thing for yourself because everyone already knew.

She’s back on the topic of Jake quickly. “So, you think you’ll see him again?” 

You linger in the hallway as she knocks on to Mrs. Palmer’s bedroom door. “Didn’t give him my number.” 

“But you know where he is.”

“Yeah,” You mull over the idea. Seems a little pathetic to drag yourself all the way out to the O’Malley farm for the third time this week. Not very ‘California’ of you to spend your time stressing over some Carnies. “I dunno.”

“Maybe it’s just a war thing.” She considers, closing the door behind her and leaving Mrs. Palmer with her morning meds. You watch Mrs. Palmer’s blue rinse disappear behind the wood, her head turned toward the window. “He was over there, probably.”

“Probably.” You agree. It’s hard to find a guy born before ‘55 that doesn’t have a thigh full of shrapnel or a jagged scar somewhere he can’t hide. But you’ve never seen anyone with a wound like Jake’s.

Teetering on the verge of hidden and displayed. He covered it up, technically, with the ink and the necklace — but he wears both on top like a badge of honour. You just can’t shake the grin on his face when he noticed that you had noticed.

Like he was excited by it.

Rooster, three blocks away, feels eyes on him from before the heel of his boot first hits the sidewalk. It’s nothing too new for him. These small towns are always filled with people who like to stare, and people who like to ask questions. 

Jake’s the entertainer of the bunch, not him. 

He’s got his to-do list crumpled up in the pocket of his Lee’s and that’s all he’s here for.

Hanging fliers always comes last. He has found that townsfolk don’t generally take too well to strangers coming and sticking up what they consider to be trash all over their streets. First, comes the library to get those books that’ll keep Amelia from getting bored. 

The door opens with a jingle, the bell above it swinging wildly to alert the aging, half-deaf librarian of the stranger in his midst. Rooster’s boots are silent across the worn carpet, heading for the fiction section. 

“Afternoon.” He nods towards the staring librarian as he passes him by, earning himself a sound of acknowledgement at least.

Amelia reads a lot, and she passes her books around camp once she’s done. She must have library fees all across the Continental US by now, but they keep her put— out of trouble. 

She’s the youngest of their settlement. Maverick’s daughter when the cops come asking, just the kid he had found on the side of the road when they don’t. She’s not like the rest of them. Rooster knows that she likes him, she finds him funny and he doesn’t treat her like a baby — but he steers clear of her when he can.

She’s too curious for her own good. That’s landed them in trouble before. Trespassing seems to be in her nature, and Maverick usually has better things to do than to keep the twelve-year-old occupied. Their crew doesn’t exactly roll with too many babysitters, either.

In spite of all of that, she’s a good contortionist. Rooster watches every weekend as people in the audience gasp and lurch away from the way her joints bend and pop at will. They don’t even notice, half the time, that she’s the same grinning kid who does the aerial tricks in the first quarter.

She’s been good at making people squirm for as long as he’s known her.

“Could I check out these three, please?” He sets down the three dust-covered novels, broken spines and peeling covers included, and looks the gentleman in the eye. 

“You’re into thrillers.” The man comments, picking up the top book from the small pile and inspecting it. Rooster doesn’t care to make conversation, or to correct him. He smiles and nods like that’s the case. “I’m not going to ask if you’ve got a library card with us, because I know you don’t. Are you new to town?”

Rooster bites back a sigh.

He smiles something polite, albeit tight-lipped. “Yeah. Working just outside of town, got a lotta downtime during the day. You need my name first?”

Bradley taps on the counter as the man takes down some vague details, asking his small-talk questions each step of the way. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Atwood’s desolate Main Street, where the afternoon heat has driven people back inside.

The whirring fan behind the librarian's head kicks out more dust and lint than it does cool air, growling in complaint with each circle of the fan blades. 

Perspiration beads at his weathered, wrinkled skin. The long arm on his smudged watch face tells Rooster that the seconds are ticking on as normal, even though everything here feels so much slower.

He’s grateful for the heat because at least it means fresh air; leaving the librarian behind with another abrupt jingle of the bell above the door. 

With barely enough time to walk back to his truck, Rooster realizes that you’re heading his way. Thoughts are buzzing around your head like radio chatter, almost enough to make him wince. He doesn’t even realize you aren’t alone until he catches the scent of Old Spice walking next to you.

He lifts the tailgate and swings it shut with a bang. You notice him as he turns his head. Walking in your cute candy-striper uniform with your bag on your shoulder and a guy at your side.

He almost smiles. This wouldn’t be the first time that Jake’s kissed a girl with a boyfriend and suffered the consequences. But, he knows better than to assume. Plus, the step that you take away from the boy at your side is instinctual.

Barely even a conscious decision, but Rooster sees it and understands what you’re telling him. The blond in the coveralls at your side is not your boyfriend. 

In no mood for a conversation, or to upset the poor kid who probably thinks he’s got a chance with you, Rooster opts to give you the same polite nod he had wanted to offer everyone else that has crossed his path today, and turns his back. He walks around to the cab and flings open the glovebox, grabbing the red fliers. 

Shoes tapping delicately across the pavement. Perspiration and Old Spice beading along the back of your friend’s neck. The thoughts whirring around that pretty little head as you sneak closer. You’re leaning against the truck when he straightens back up, one elbow popped against the side and your brows furrowed through the glaring sunlight. 

Rooster gives you the benefit of pretending that you got the jump on him.

“Hi.” It’s a greeting by nature, but there’s something accusatory to your tone that tells him, yet again, he seems to be being held responsible for something Jake did. 

“Afternoon.” Rooster answers you, lifting his head to check on the sulking guy about a foot behind you, watching this exchange with his hands in his pockets. His train of thought isn’t half as pissed off as it could be.

“Are you by yourself?” You ask him, subconsciously reaching back to feel for your updo, smoothing back some humidity-stoked stray hairs.

“Jake’s a big boy, I figured he could watch himself for one day.” He replies, not sounding exactly kind in the way he refers to his buddy. 

Convenient for you at least, to be able to corner an inside source. The thought does cross your mind that maybe Jake is being punished in some way for his behavior last night, kept at their camp like a grounded kid.

“So, who’s watching you?” You poke at him, trying to get a feel for the type of mood he might be in today.

He turns his head and looks at you, his expression serious. Maybe it’s the look on your face, or maybe it’s that he likes you, but his hardened expression cracks and he breaks a smile.

“Looks like that would be you, doesn’t it?” He replies, tilting his head to the side, flashing you his stack of papers. “It’s gonna get pretty lame, just warnin’ ya.”

You turn your head and shoot a glance back at where Billy stands a couple of feet back. His hands are balled into the pockets of his overalls and he might as well be tapping his damn foot at you, but he just sulks instead. 

Rooster had this look on his face when you’d left last night, just this knowing expression— a real ‘I told you so’ kind of thing. He’s more of a straight shooter than his buddy is, maybe you would get some real answers out of him.

“Well, you need some help?” 

She thinks you’re a stick in the mud with an attitude problem, and yet, here you are offering to traipse all over town with him sticking these things up. Rooster looks over the top of your head, glancing back at your friend.

As much as he would get a kick out of watching you hop into the truck and stick with him, Rooster knows better. He’s already shaking his head before he speaks, certain. There’s a place for you, and it’s not with a guy like him — or a guy like Jake, for that matter.

“No, you two look like you have plans and I’m starting way out by the Shop’N’Save. I’ve got this.” He shakes the papers once and leans back against the door of the truck. He isn’t expecting you to give up easy, but he isn’t expecting you to step around him and grab the handle either.

You’ve already made your mind up. “Well, I actually wanted to talk to you, so y’know— two birds, one stone and stuff.” 

Rooster stands up and watches with furrowed brows as you pull the door open and step up into the cab. Then, he looks toward your friend. Your forearm grazes at Bradley’s, your skin against his as he stares ahead. 

Billy. Closer to a family member to you than a boyfriend with the tepid attitude you’ve got towards him. There’s a loyalty and affection there that Rooster would be grateful for if the roles were reversed.

Rooster looks between you, settling down onto the tan leather seat, and Billy, blue eyes are narrowed and he looking just about ready to rush him. Rooster catches the handle of the door. He considers telling you to get out. He should.

You hit him with an expectant raise of your eyebrows, and crane your neck back to look at Billy. “I’ll call you later. Take Lori out on that date!”

Billy’s mouth opens and closes. Rooster presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek, his decision made for him. Even if he’s your excuse, he’s not going to make you get back out and walk home with the kid when you’re so clearly trying to ditch him. It’s just not gentlemanly.

Your mouth twitches, equally surprised at his compliance as Rooster swings the door to the truck shut with a resigned smile, walking around to his side without much acknowledging your friend at all. You’re watching Billy through the side mirror as Rooster starts the grumbling ignition. 

“He’d follow me around forever if I let him.” You mumble quietly. Then, it’s like you remember yourself. You shake your head and sigh. “That sounds conceited, and I don’t mean it like that, but girls ask him out, y’know and — he just— he’d rather pick me up from work and sit in the same diner we’ve always sat in.”

There’s quiet on the other side of the cab, Billy is already walking away in the rearview mirror. You turn your head and he’s watching you, one hand on the wheel and the other out of the window. 

“This is what you wanted to talk to me about?” He prompts you, knees spread and his thighs straining against the blue denim, fingers drumming against the exterior of the door. He cocks an eyebrow at you, waiting for your response.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, you’re sitting in the cab of this truck and your mouth is watering. But, you’ve got better sense this time.

“Okay, fine. Look, I want you to give me a straight answer,” You turn in the seat, tucking one knee under you and creasing your features sternly. “About what’s up with you guys. Did Jake say anything after last night?”

He considers relaying the comment about your tits, just to further ruin Jake’s chances, but he plays dumb.

“No, but I figured you didn’t have the best time when you came running back in like that.” Rooster shrugs.

“He just gave me the jeebies,” You admit, fiddling with the hem of your uniform. Your tone is light but your skin is prickled like you’ve somehow found a chill on this warm summer afternoon.  “Like that tattoo on his neck, it’s like a scar, right?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that.” You’re studying him from your side of the bench, and you’re good at it, looking for the smallest little tell. Eyes on the road, he gives you nothing but a shrug. “The scar’s what freaked you out?”

“No, like — it’s weird. How’d you end up in a circus? — Are you on the run or something?”

His mouth twitches. He turns his face toward the window, smiling at the scenery rather than at your face, shaking his head all the while. 

“Maybe some folks just get their kicks juggling,” He taunts you with a shrug of his broad shoulders, craning his neck as he turns off of Main and toward Third. “You don’t hear me questioning your career choices.”

“Okay, fine,” You’ve seen Jake drop an entire marquee into stunned silence with his act, he’s undeniably good at what he does. You swipe through the fliers absently. “I just— I got this weird feeling from Jake last night.”

Clearly today, he’s in the mood to play. He quirks one eyebrow and smiles out at the road ahead. “Yeah, they usually tell you all about that feeling in Health Class, I think.”

You swing out a hand and smack at his arm, scoffing out a distinctly unimpressed and unladylike sound. “Shut up! I’m not talking about that, I’m talking… like that tattoo on his neck? — Was that— Was it a burn? — What was that?”

He pulls over to the side of the road coolly, killing the engine and looking across at you like you’re asking him to explain the intricacies of geometry. The Shop’N’Save is dead empty this time of day, feels like you’re the only thing around for miles. He reaches for the door handle and leans back, itching for some space, needing some fresh air.

“Means that Jake’s an idiot who’ll do just about anything on a bet.” He answers as bluntly as one can, taking the fliers from the middle of the seat and the shiny new staple gun from beside them. “He wasn’t gonna hurt you.”

You’re hot on his heels as he steps out of the truck and heads for the telephone pole, taking the fliers as you duck around him.

“I figured that much.” There’s a bite to your tone as you take the page and hold it up against the wooden pole, narrowing your eyes at him. He lifts his brows, unimpressed but amused. “I mean, I’m standing here, aren’t I?” 

Standing on a stretch of road that you’ve driven by a thousand times but never once walked down, the breeze catches your skin and makes your white and pink striped skirt blow around your thighs. His gaze flickers between your face and your hand on the pole with a beat. 

His boot tucks itself between your tidy white sneakers, his shoulders seeming to stretch wider as he steps up close. 

He places his hand over yours and tugs it upwards, readjusting the flier to a height that he deems appropriate. Pinning your hand with his palm, he lifts his other hand and strikes a staple into the wood.

“Call it baggage. Things with us tend to get complicated,” He nails another staple into the other side of the flier, and turns to look at your face, a grin ghosting at his lips. “Hell, why don’t you put that kid you were with out of his misery and go out with him?”

As you open your mouth to argue back, he drops your hand back down to your side with a squeeze and takes a look towards the two buildings to his left. Anything to cut this conversation short.

He jerks his head toward the stores behind him. “Feel like helping a guy out and asking to stick these in their windows?”

“Fine.” You thought he was a lot cuter when you couldn’t hear what he was saying that day out on Airport Road. He leans back against the door and watches you walk inside in your uniform, thinking to himself that you’re plenty cute right now.

Just like he had expected, both the gas station and the liquor store allow you to hang the fliers without so much as a question about why. Rooster wouldn’t have gotten the same treatment. 

He lifts his fingers and waves them at you as you cross the small parking lot back towards him.

“Let’s go, unless you want to be out here all day.” You hear him laugh to himself as you walk around the truck and pull yourself into the passenger side. He fixes his smile, knowing that it’s just likely to provoke you. 

As much as he’d rather not have you in his passenger seat, you’re useful when it comes to navigation. He wouldn’t have even tried half of the side streets that you point him down. He humors your questions for two hours, giving you barely there answers as the beat-up, old truck rattles down oak-lined streets. 

The afternoon sun fades from golden to gray somewhere between Sixth and Elm. The sky hangs low, darkening, a covering of dark clouds threatening a downpour. 

By the park, Bradley pulls over and hops out with a stack of fliers, offering you little more than the instruction to, “Stay there.”

He slaps the red papers up where he can, smoothing the papers out with his palm and working them into wooden surfaces with the staple gun. You are left with the rather cushy job of sitting pretty in the cab, while he does the hard work.

A couple of kids whizz past on their bikes, calling out loudly as they cycle home. Atwood is the kind of place where mothers are more than fine with saying goodbye to their children after breakfast and not seeing them again until sundown in the summers.

While following them by, you catch sight of a glinting metal at your feet. Just to check, you feel at your earlobe. Sure enough, your earring sits in the footwell.

As the driver’s side door creaks open, Rooster stands on the sidewalk and frowns at the way you have folded yourself downwards and are reaching for something under the seat. His brows knit together as you strain uncomfortably.

“You okay down there?” He prompts.

You huff, still struggling. “My earring. I hit it all the way under the seat when I was trying to grab it— I must’ve left it last-“

Last night. When you were sprawled across the bench with Jake’s tongue in your mouth. Rooster smiles at the way you stop mid-sentence, like that’s going to save his feelings. Like he hadn’t stood inside and listened to every last part of it. 

“Got it!” You pop back up, holding the dainty thing between your fingers and smiling at him. It stretches across your cheeks and your eyes glint with delight. The afternoon sun seems to brighten with you, despite the clouds rolling in from the east. 

His eyes widen with a dramatism that tells you you’re being mocked. “Thank god.” 

Caught somewhere between shooting him a glare and laughing, your face settles into a reticent smile as you fold your arms over your chest. “You’re a jackass, you know that?”

“So I’m told.” He agrees, settling back into the driver’s seat as the rain clouds decide to make good on their promise. Clicking his tongue, he sits back in his seat and glances across at the very much paper fliers he had just hung. “You hungry?”

“Hungry? Mm, a bit,” You shrug your shoulders, he nods, the answer spurring him into action as he heads back towards town. “Does that make this a date?”

He huffs out a small chuckle, which wounds your ego more than you would like to admit, reaching across your body to tug open the glovebox. “Depends if you’re as scared of me as you are of Jake, doesn’t it?”

Now, that’s the type of comment that doesn’t deserve an answer. You’re not afraid of him. He’s too honest to be frightening. Raw and witty, maybe a little grumpy, but man — that smile is one worth working for. You like him, a lot.

Your lovey-dovey thoughts come to a sudden stop as you track his hand. More aptly, you track what his hand nudges out of the way.

Unfazed, Rooster reaches past the box of Trojans and fishes, instead, for cigarettes. He plucks one from the pack and sets it between his teeth, then looks across at you. Watching him with an unimpressed expression that’s halfway to being a full-blown scowl. 

He smiles around the cigarette.

“What? — Did you forget how that earring wound up on the floor?” He taunts you, reaching back across with little regard for your personal space, in search of a lighter. 

You knock his hand out of the way and hand him the silver flint-wheel lighter from your own pocket. “It’s a big box, is all.” 

He steadies the wheel with his knee, cupping his hands around the flame to ignite his cigarette, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not my truck.” 

“Hm.” 

He looks across at you, one brow quirked, and a smile of disbelief toying around the cigarette.

“I’m not saying anything,” You answer, defending yourself with little conviction, arms still folded over your chest. “Just didn’t realize this passenger seat was such a tourist spot.”

He coughs out a laugh around his cigarette, his cheeks warm and crinkling around his endlessly deep brown eyes. His freckles are darker under the gray clouds, dotting his nose. He reaches across the cab and swats at your arm as you had gone for his.

You press your tongue into your cheek; keeping yourself from beaming as his hand comes up and covers your mouth, smelling of the cologne on his wrist and the cigarette he had held. 

“Cool it, kid — that spot’s all yours,” He’s still laughing as he talks to you, glancing across at you. Blinking at him with his hand settled across your jaw, the gold ring on his pinkie finger sitting against your chin. He pulls it back to hold his cig, his touch leaving you longing. “Now, what do you want to eat? — I’m buying.”

You crane your neck to look at the brown leather watch on his wrist, already knowing that you’re going to be in the weeds for missing dinner back home. Damage already done, you decide to introduce him to Atwood’s finest— the shitty little diner owned by Billy’s uncle that has had the same shitty menu for thirty years. 

It’s the perfect spot, in a hometown kind of way.

You hold your head a little higher than usual as you stroll through the place.

There are a couple of girls who work at Louie’s that will just die when they see you with the tall stranger, and you enjoy that just a little. Rooster enjoys it a little, too.

He’s busy looking around at the decor as he slides into the wooden booth, not exactly critical of it but not impressed either. He shucks a hand through his dampened curls and settles down into the seat, spreading his knees and kicking one of his feet between yours under the table.

“That’s the bridge out by us, right?” He asks, pointing to one of the paintings on the wall. Just another oil canvas in a dusty frame that you’ve never taken much time to critique. You purse your lips as you study it.

“Yeah, you’re right,” You come to realize, glancing back at him. “You’ve been exploring out there?”

He sits back a bit, as a tall brunette comes to fill your water glasses, brown eyes on you and a small smile on his mouth. “Yeah, a little. It’s quiet out there.”

“Lonely?” You prompt, lips stretching into an amused grin. Man, it almost gets him again. He bites at the inside of his cheek to keep from matching your look, rolling his eyes as he looks back towards the painting.

“Get real.” He mutters.

He watches you resting your chin on your palm and batting your eyelashes and simply shakes his head.

“This isn’t a date, by the way,” He’s cool as can be, staring back at you like you hadn’t seen the look in his eyes when you had him laughing. “You did me a favor, so this is me bein’ nice.”

“Well,” You hum, tapping your fingers along the edge of your glass, “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Louie’s isn’t exactly a busy spot at the best of times, but especially not on a Monday night. It’s just the two of you, the waitress who was rude to you in the playground all those years ago, and maybe a couple of line cooks in the back. 

The entire place is wood-paneled three quarters of the way up the wall, with green paint covering the rest. There are family photos and mass-produced paintings on the walls, and dust on the lampshades. Roy Orbison playing on the jukebox. A candle in a glass jar lit on the table between you.

He pays attention as you recite your usual order, finding the items on the menu as you go. Then, probably to make this thing easy and over sooner, he decides he’ll just take the same. 

Begrudgingly, he has to admit that your choice and your order is better than he had been expecting. Good, even. It feels good, being out and sitting across from a pretty girl, picking at fries that are a little too salty, like nothing had ever happened. Trying not to laugh too hard at her jokes, even when his lips keep twitching around the straw of his ice-cold Coke. It has been a long time. 

It’s almost disappointing to settle the check, and to have to see you walking ahead of him back to the truck. The rain has stopped and the air is grassy and piney, the sky a fading lilac, casting shades of blue across your skin. 

Cooler breeze passes you by, bristling at your skin just enough to make you appreciate the fading heat of earlier that day.

He starts by turning up the radio, tires rolling through a deep, mud-splattered puddle as he pulls out of the parking lot. You should feel exhausted after being at the Pines from the crack of dawn, but he’s got your stomach alight. Tapping his foot to the drum beat absently, one hand on the wheel, his jaw set and his shoulders straight. 

“Which way?” Like he couldn’t piece it together. You were walking home today, you’d hightailed it to the right after leaving Dutch’s last night. It would take him minutes to find his way to your front door.

Stretching your arms above your head, you sigh and settle back against the door. “Next left and then right at the lights.”

He was right. The guesses in his head would have led him to the Post Office near the park, and then he spots that station wagon in the driveway. He lets you direct him to the right house anyway.

Sturdy car in the driveway, flower boxes on every window, and the greenest lawn on the street. It looks like a nice place to have grown up. If he had grown up in a place like this, he wouldn’t be itching to leave half as badly as you are.

He looks back to you, watching him and trying to figure out how to route the conversation back to what had happened in that dark parking lot last night.

“Thanks for helping me out today.” The plain white fabric of his t-shirt stretches around his arm as he cards his fingers through his curls. 

You bite at the inside of your cheek. Fingers skimming over the stitching in the seats as you try to figure out your next move. Late already, he’s in no hurry. 

“I guess I’ll see you Friday.” You decide.

His brows draw together. “Friday?”

You smile, pointing down at the significantly smaller stack of red papers now between the two of you. “Uh-huh. Friday at eight.”

Friday at eight. You’ll stroll through those lit arches, looking for him. His brows knit a bit, but he doesn’t tell you to stay away, that’s not in the rules. 

He flattens his mouth a little, almost a smile but not the same kind where his eyes had lit up so bright.

“Right,” He nods. “Friday.”

You smile at him, reaching across and giving his arm a quick squeeze before you turn and hop down from the truck.

If this was a date, he would walk you to your door and sneak a kiss before your overprotective mother found an excuse to come to the door and introduce herself to him, which is when he would be charming enough to impress her but cool enough not to embarrass you. 

Your heartbeat ticks steadily in your chest. You’re already thinking about what you’ll wear on Friday night— whether you’ll bring Olive, or Georgie— absolutely not Billy. He watches you climb the porch steps and let yourself in through the creaking, blue door with the glass pane in the middle, not stopping to look back at him because you’re worried that your parents will notice it was a stranger who brought you home. Your mother greets you from the kitchen.

His mouth dries as he pulls away from the curb.

He could be like Jake, and let himself enjoy the feeling. Pretend that he hasn’t done the things he has, pretend that he hasn’t sat and listened to all the thoughts you have about him. 

He could pretend that he really doesn’t want to see you at the show this weekend.

But, the sun has already set on his day of normalcy. He turns the sound dial, tapping his foot to the only radio frequency that doesn’t drop out on the backroads out of town, windows down and the scent of fresh-cut, wet grass and new deliveries of hay carried by the evening breeze.

Fingers draped loosely around the cracked leather of the wheel, shooting the occasional glance over to the empty passenger seat. 

Lilac skies casting shadows across the rolling fields all the way out of town. 

It’s forty minutes before the truck pulls onto that gravel driveway with a growingly familiar crunch. He stops it in his spot by Jake’s trailer and steps out onto the mulchy, wet grass, following the sounds of conversation until he gets to the yellow RV. 

The yellow RV houses Natasha, Bob and more recently Mickey — but that’s just until he apologizes to Reueben. Most nights, that’s where you can find the guys. It’s the furthest vehicle on the row, and Natasha always lays out rugs and the camping furniture that’ll fit in the storage space.

Like he knew he would, he finds his friends busied with a game of poker, settled into the chairs they could scrounge up, illuminated by a couple of camping torches.

Jake’s tall tale about one of their times back on the West Coast falls flat, trailing off until it stops all together. He watches Rooster cross the lot, headed right for them.

Wordless, Rooster greets his friends with a cool smile as he steps right by them and plants himself into a wooden chair at the far side of the circle.

“You were gone a while.” It’s Javy that comments first, meaning well, not doing the best job at hiding his cards as Natasha studies them shamelessly from his side.

“Yeah.” Rooster agrees, sitting forwards as Callie kicks her legs up and stretches them across his. “Deal me in.” 

Jake’s brows draw together, their round seemingly dead in the water as Bob starts to collect the cards back in. He studies Rooster through the warm light of the lantern, narrowing his eyes just a bit.

“You want to play?” Jake scoffs.

Rooster rarely plays with them. He usually makes a point of keeping to himself, when they’re all together. He likes Natasha, and he’ll keep her company, when he’s not with Maverick. Everyone knows that he likes to pretend that he’s stuck with Jake, rather than accompanying him by choice.

Rooster’s mouth twitches, reaching out and letting Bob set the cards in his hand, meeting Jake’s gaze for the first time since he sauntered past him and sat down.

“Scared you’ll lose?”

…

NEXT CHAPTER

TELL ME WHAT YOU LIKED

tags: @sunflowercharlie13 @spinning-away @eloquentdreamer-blog1@a-reader-and-a-writer@breezyweazybeezy@mel119g@hersuitisbanana@one-sweet-gubler@atarmychick007@ximehs@nnatel@topherwrites@seitmai@yepyeahuhhuh@cherrycola27@ohtobeleah@roosterbruiser

[livinglycan]

☽ ~ The sand shifts beneath your paws and the scent of salt fills your nostrils ~ 𓃥

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ "𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚍, 𝚖𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍" ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Ello!! You can call me Theo, Ari, or Feng! I'm transmasc and my pronouns are He/It/That + any dog or (were)wolf related neos! I'm (feralromantic) aroallo, MLM/Gay, wolfdog freak, and objectum.

Feralromantic and wolfdog freak are both coins termed by me!

I am a werewolf. This is not a kintype, I am physically a werewolf. I’ll still post under the werewolfkin tags because I feel like werewolfkin can relate to my experience. I am a therian and otherkin but stuff relating to that can be found on my main blog, @confused-canid where I interact from. I appreciate the use of tone tags for me!

This blog is for me posting about me being a werewolf, or werewolf related things! This could be my selfships, art writings, etc.! My tags are: #Running with the wolves🐺 - Talking with my mutuals! #Howling at the moon🌕 - Original posts that are text! #Weird little claw marks✏️ - My art! This will usually be paired with text so it will be tagged as #Howling at the moon🌕 and as #Weird little claw marks✏️! #yapping back🌙 - Responding to asks! #Tasty posts🦴 - reblogs relating to this blog but not therian related or my own (usually used for posts I’m saving for later), #Rabies🥩 - Gore, animal death, and other things that make me hungry, #Home🌲 - Heart-home (Vancouver island) stuff, #Mother🏹🦌 - Artemis worship related things, #Little wolf🐾 - Agere posts (rbs and original ones

Theriotypes:

~Harlequin great Dane

~Bottlenose dolphin

~Western coyote (unsure what type but one that lives in or near Kansas, prairie dwelling)

~Leopard seal

~ Rocky mountain Bighorn sheep

Kintypes:

~Merfolk

~Two legged dragon

~Marble fox Kitsune

Others:

~Equidae clado hearted

~Changeling holothere

~ Lemon shork (Kaiju paradise)

~ Like slime pup (Kaiju paradise)

~ Nightcrawler (Kaiju paradise)

~ Chocolate sprinklekit (Kaiju paradise)

~ Lockheed SR-71 blackbird

DNI: Basic DNI criteria+, NSFW blog, make a lot of nsfw posts about werewolves, Radqueer, RCTA, Proship or any variants of it, Demonizes cluster B disorders or delusions/are an ableist, Zionist/pro Israel (Get tf off my blog. Seriously. Like, leave right now. I will maul you.), antikin, fakeclaimer, anti researched self diagnoses, pro Trump, pro Biden (Trump is bad and so is Joe. He is directly funding the genocide against Palestine.), anti ACAB, Pro contact for harmful paras (People w/ big 3 and other harmful (if acted on) paras can interact but don’t go against the rest of my DNI. I hope you can recover, I'm proud of you. You can do this.), anti atypical dysphoria, or are here to debate me about my identity.

Anyways, bye creatures!

Last updated July Fith 2024

I live in the central daylight timezone / CT, in case you want to talk

a lot of this was just to show off these dividers

^silly little werewolf gif collage ^^

[wisteria-cherry]

forty days and forty nights (day thirty-eight!)

(guys im so sorry it’s late😭😭)

the next day was a relief. after being in the house all day yesterday, you were getting restless, despite it being your own decision— what would your boss say if she found you out and about despite you saying you wanted the day off to recover from a semi-traumatic experience? no way you were willing to risk it.

by the next day, you’d taken off again; you knew there was no way you’d stay at home now that you had a date with katsuki. katsuki was going to pick you up at 4am, which was ghastly, but you figured that it must be worth it. katsuki wasn’t one to half-ass things, you knew that much.

you roll out of bed after hitting snooze about a million times, finally trudging over to your closet and throwing on an outfit— comfy yet cute. katsuki was adamant about not telling you the destination, which made it much harder to dress for, much to your annoyance. regardless, once you were dressed, you made your way to the kitchen, sifting through the fridge, finding an apple to munch on and call breakfast, knowing full well that katsuki would nag you about how it isn’t sufficient. so, to make up for it (and give yourself leverage for when katsuki would inevitably comment on your breakfast), you pour yourself a bowl of cereal.

half an hour later, katsuki’s sharp knock caught your ears. he let himself in, allowing you to work on your bowl of cereal, which you hadn’t finished yet, because your apple took longer than you’d expected to eat, since you kept finding little things around your apartment, like finding an empty wrapper behind the coffee machine on the counter or noticing that there was a feather sticking out of your pillow, so you had to pull all the feathers out.

���coming in.” katsuki called, opening the door. “hey, dumbass.”

“mm!” your eyes widen, your mouth full of cocoa pebbles. you quickly finish your bite before continuing. “katsuki, is it time to leave already?”

“naw, ten minutes.” katsuki sat down next to you, staring at your cocoa pebbles critically.

“are you judging my cereal?” you turn to look at him with a skeptical look. katsuki looked back at his hands, folded and resting on the countertop.

“yer gonna want more than that.” he warned.

“i had an apple, too.” you inform him matter-of-factly.

“we’re goin’ hiking. yer gonna want more.” katsuki repeated. hiking. no wonder you were up so damn early.

“it’s almost time to go, though.” you frown slightly, drinking the chocolate milk and setting the bowl in the sink. katsuki glanced at his watch.

“…there’s a bakery on the way to the trail. we can hit it up if you wanna. on me.” katsuki said finally. “order ahead and whatever.”

���okay.” you agree.

you do indeed hit up the bakery, and you get a sandwich. you’re very grateful for that sandwich, because, as you soon discover, the trail he had in mind was a whole ass mountain.

“this thing is massive.” you marvel. “we’re not gonna climb the whole thing, are we?”

“duh, we’re climbing the whole thing.” katsuki snorted.

katsuki wasn’t kidding.

however, halfway up the mountain, you found yourself completely spent— which was fair! it was a big ass mountain! regardless, you had to ask for a break.

“katsuki—“ you say between breaths. “i have to stop.”

“hah? we’re only halfway.” katsuki narrowed his eyes.

“we’re not all pro heroes with greek god bodies.” you gasp out. “shoot, i have to sit.” you finally sit down on the ground, dry leaves and pine needles providing a crunchy (but cushiony) seat and tugging your coat tighter around your body. katsuki surveyed the area.

“get back up, i know a spot.” katsuki grunted.

“but i just sat down,” you protest, but stand up anyway, following him. he was going along the side of the mountain, you noticed, not up, so it was significantly easier to walk.

katsuki lead you through the trees into a cleaning— a beautiful one. it was more so a rocky slope than anything, but big boulders provided front-row seats to the most beautiful sunrise you’d ever seen.

“we weren’t gonna make it to the top in time, anyway.” katsuki informed you, before sitting down on a flatter boulder that would be easier to sit on. you would have brought a picnic basket if you knew this was where you were going. “hurry up and sit down, dumbass.” then, almost as if katsuki had read your thoughts, he begins pulling containers out of his massive hiking backpack.

“wait, did you cook?” you ask eagerly, sitting down next to him. there were two thermoses, and you noticed some of the tupperware were steamed up on the inside— meaning, he’d made warm food, perfect for the chilly morning.

“obviously.” katsuki snorted. “dig in.” you curiously open one of the thermoses, inhaling deeply. miso. katsuki passed you a spoon, and you happily pour some into the thermos cap. salty and smooth, the miso was perfect.

“so this is why you had be up so early.” you muse, gazing at the sunrise. it was a picture perfect date, really. the sun painted the sky pink and orange and yellow, and the crisp autumn air mixed with the smell of deliciously cooked food, all paired with katsuki, made you want to stop time in its place and live this way forever.

“no shit. wanted ta do somethin’ special.” katsuki grumbled.

“all this for one date? you’re setting my standards really high, y’know.” you joke.

“then i’ll meet ‘em. hell, more than meet ‘em, i’m gonna blow ‘em outta the water.” katsuki looked toward you, his lips twitching up, daring to become a smirk.

“so there’ll be more?” you ask, half jokingly, half seriously.

“yeah. i want’cha to be mine.” katsuki stared straight ahead, his hands clenching into fists.

“you mean-“

“yes, i’m asking you to be my girlfriend, goddammit!” katsuki snapped, now looking away. you grin. his ears were pink.

“okay.”

“hah?” katsuki turned back to face you. either he couldn’t believe it, or he just couldn’t hear you. either one was plausible, but it was cute nonetheless, seeing his pink cheeks getting pinker and his pretty red eyes glaring at you.

“yes, i’ll be your girlfriend.”

“then i’ll meet ‘em. hell, more than meet ‘em, i’m gonna blow ‘em outta the water.”

(feel free to comment + leave your thoughts!)

tags: @kazuumii @k0z3me @stevenknightmarc @failingstudents-blog @faerikitty @cherryblossomclarity @deathsmajestysworld

[deartouya]

THE SUN ON YOUR SKIN — BAKUGOU

✶ summary: katsuki's always loved nature and being outside, an activity which is only made better in your company.

✶ pairing: pro hero!katsuki bakugou x gn!reader

✶ word count: 1k

✶ warnings: mentions of food/eating, incredibly self-indulgent. i started thinking about katsuki + nature and how he likes the sun and hiking and it made me so !! and i wrote this <3. i've been writing this for like. four months and still kinda hate it so. i'm sorry.

The air’s getting colder as you move deeper into the forest, the sun barely dipping from behind the trees and autumn just starting to melt into winter—the smell of it, crisp and sharp, heavy in the air. You’ve made it past the hardest part, past the uneven and sun-bleached rocks at the base of the trail and the path studded with hooked roots and shallow holes. This will probably be your last hike of the year, and you can barely keep yourself awake for it.

The ground grinds beneath your boots, brittle leaves and frost bitten earth a sign of the impending season change. You’re deep in the forest now, the tangy scent of dirt and the freshness of pine heavy and thick in the air. It’s nice—quiet, content: nothing but you, Katsuki, and the distant sounds of birds.

The sun has started to rise, slinking from behind the shadow of the mountain and casting the forest in soft warmth. Lush greenery brushes against your knees, curling around your ankles as you lead Katsuki up the path.

You scrub fruitlessly at your face, tucking your now empty thermos back in your backpack, “I was hoping that’d wake me up a bit before we reached the peak.” You sound annoyed, huffy, and you can hear Katsuki tsk from behind you.

He scoffs, shoulder knocking against your own, “maybe if you’d slept on the way here like I told ‘ya too, you’d me more coherent.” Despite the roughness, despite the way his fingers pinch at your hip, he hands you his thermos—warm between your palms and catered to your tastes. “Now stop your complainin’. Nearly at the end of the trail.”

You smile, leaning into the hand he smooths across your back as you tuck his thermos back in his bag, “thank you, Ki.”

He stays beside you this time, the broad expanse of a palm pressed into your back as you fall back into step. Katsuki likes this more than he’d ever admit, taking time away from the agency to spend with you. Even as he has to hover behind you and catch you when you trip and let you drink over half of his thermos because you drank yours before the first mile. He likes taking care of you, of having you rely on him.

“We’re nearly there, dummy,” he nudges you again, “we’ll eat that piss poor lunch you made then head back down.” 

You gasp, loud and exaggerated, and halt the both of you in the middle of the trail, “how dare you! I go out of my way to make you sandwiches and you insult my effort! We’ll see if I ever cook for you again, you jerk.” 

Katsuki grins wider when you huff, arms crossing tight across your chest. It grows even more when you're caught under his arm, tugged against his side as you continue to sigh petulantly. “Awww, I’m sorry, baby, I’m sure your sandwiches will be fine—can't be worse than some of the shit half and half tries to cook.” 

It’s a half-compliment at most, but it makes the faux annoyance slip off your face and let him tug you along with him. Content and quiet as you make the rest of the climb. He doesn’t let you slip away from him, keeping a steadying hand on your hips or shoulders, a soft and comforting weight. His hand slips into yours, fingers weaving tight as he guides you up the last of the trail. 

Your legs have just begun to ache when the path finally opens up, revealing the rocky ledge and sprawling trees before it. The perfect place to settle down and eat and watch as the sun settles in the sky. Though, you don’t end up doing much sight-seeing once he settles beside you. 

Katsuki reminds you so wholly of the sun—warm and bright and all-consuming.  

You think he looks best in it, when he’s nestled somewhere beautiful, when he’s surrounded by light and warmth and the smell of the trees. He looks most himself surrounded by beautiful things and with the sun on his skin.

He can feel the weight of your eyes, heavy on him as he peels a pair of oranges. His fingers are gentle, prying thick peels away from soft fruit, and his eyes are sharp and focused. It’s sweet. Sweeter than the juice that runs down his forearms, making him scrunch his nose in annoyance. 

Katsuki huffs when he finally acknowledges your staring, the corners of his lips twitching as he suppresses a smile, “tch, you done starin’ now?” He doesn’t let you answer though, hand tugging impatiently on your own, “c’mere.” 

You let him pull you into his side, tucked beneath a heavy arm and head cradled against his collar. Let him hand feed you slices of fruit, soft and tangy on your tongue. He smells nice, cloying yet sharp—the overwhelming scent of smoke and the sweetness of cologne. It fits him, you think, something that takes root in your chest and pulls. A smell that you can always sense—sweet and dark and him it makes you dizzy. 

Katsuki lifts your hand to his lips, placing a soft kiss across your knuckles. You're sticky with juice and sweat but he doesn’t seem to mind. He holds you, fingers intertwined, tight against his chest as he watches you, “thank you.” 

You hum, high and questioning, as you rake a hand through his bangs. He chases the touch, lips skimming the thin skin of your wrist, “for what?” 

“Comin’ with me today.” It’s more than that, you can see it in the softness of his eyes and the way he lets himself smile—unabashedly adoring and syrupy sweet. 

“Don’t need to thank me, Katsuki.” You’re silent for a beat, eyes soft and adoring before something clicks. Then, you grin and he can feel himself preparing to groan. “But, I think you should carry me on the way down this time. Y’know as a thank you.” 

He laughs, a sharp scoff that devolves into something easier, eyes bright as a hand comes to ruffle your hair, “in your dreams, dumbass.” 

tags: @call-me-ko ; @michabun-uwu ; @maplesuna ; @smashboxgirl26 ; @boo-kugo ; @dinodumbass ; @uwuthatshit ; @sugarmaplewings-fics ; @violetdahlias ; @hirugummies ; @dukina ; @trashy-bowtie ; @scarekat ;

[nevermindirah]

I'm a lucky duck who lives in one of the markets getting the limited release of Dandelion! Per Nat's request here are my thoughts to tide you over until it's more widely accessible.

As I said in my immediate reaction post, KiKi Layne was built for the big screen. This movie is full of gorgeous closeups of her. And medium-sized shots, and distance shots, and ok maybe it's just me, but bless this movie for making her a singer-songwriter-guitarist, because this means there are so many lingering closeups of her hands, and oh mY GOD NOT TO BE A LESBIAN (gender-neutral) BUT >:)))))))))

I could look at KiKi Layne all day, and now I could also listen to her sing all day. Her voice is beautiful and so expressive. She said in press leading up to it that she was nervous to share her singing voice and maybe that had something to do with just how expressive she is as a singer. Maybe sharing that is more intimate for her than the on-screen nudity this movie also has, and which is also compelling as hell.

This pro review notes that KiKi contributed to the music writing, which is so cool! It also acknowledges that much of the dialogue isn't quite right, often a little too like an essay or a headline to be organic for these characters, while getting at how forgivable that is in a movie whose soul is in the music and the visuals and the chemistry.

Somewhat miraculously for a movie with a white writer-director whose skill isn't primarily in dialogue, about a Black lead in a mostly-white place, it's conscious about race without being didactic. Dandelion is wary of going to white redneck territory for a music competition, and there's a sequence where microaggressions turn into shitty petty crime, but she's also not the only Black person in the sea of likely [redacted] voters. The movie does get a touch didactic about the struggles of women in creative industries, so maybe it wasn't a product of careful effort so much as Nicole Reigel's limited perspective, but the result works. Antiblackness isn't The Conflict of The Movie, simply a shitty part of the background radiation of Dandelion's life.

The music is so damn good. Soundtrack album here! Though the album tragically leaves off two of the movie's best songs: the stunning final number where Tracy Chapman vibes meet Prince, and a cover of 90s white boy song Hey Jealousy that starts off as mere pleasant background track introducing us to KiKi's voice and turns into a sleeper thematic tornado. Once you've seen the movie go look at Hey Jealousy's lyrics and backstory so you can join me in screaming about it and these characters.

Dandelion is a little movie, marvelously so. It's about just a few people in a short time in their lives. I hadn't thought about it like this until now but there are several thematic as hell shots of one or two characters shown tiny and off to the side amid sweeping rocky nature. The artsy shots of flowers superimposed on emotive faces aren't my taste but the overwhelming scale of the landscapes really spoke to me and now I'm realizing this is why.

There's a thing about some side characters wanting to be the biggest band in the world that's kind of an example of the clunky dialogue and kinda perfect for how wonderfully small this movie is. It doesn't matter where Dandelion's career goes after this. These scant few weeks of her life make for such a rich story on their own. This moment in time matters, even if these events don't turn out to have any more effect on the characters' futures than they do on the timeless mountains and prairies of South Dakota.

Fandom people are probably more likely to connect with this movie than the average non-musician viewer because of something that baffled me about a review I wildly disagreed with. Apparently some people can watch this and not understand how fast two people can develop deep intimacy and attachment despite barely knowing each other, just because they make art together. I don't understand how that reviewer didn't understand. You make art with someone and you're in each other's souls. It's intoxicating to collaborate with someone who gets what you're trying to say with your art and helps you make something that best captures the ineffable but crystal clear thing you're trying to say.

Not so intoxicating that you can no longer make rational decisions — but, well, in a way maybe it's the more rational decision to keep chasing the high of drift compatible creation, even when the person you've found to be your musical brain twin is maybe a not great choice in other ways.

Purely for Book of Nile reasons this movie is a damn gift. Tons of shots would be so easy to swap out one scruffy white boy's face for another. (Though Thomas Doherty is the same height as KiKi, which I personally enjoy, it's fun to have variety.) So much of the lyrics are extreme bait for gifsets and fic titles. (Tiny for the movie but very big for the BoNers spoiler: SHE LITERALLY CALLS HIM OLD MAN.) The first two thirds of the movie I kept thinking how perfect this plot would be as a BoN musicians AU — until a twist where I was both so pissed on Dandelion's behalf and internally screaming BOOKER WOULD NEVER.

As I was watching the final scenes I kept waiting for a thing to happen that didn't happen, a certain way of resolving the romance. The ending we do get left me yearning a little. But starting a few hours after leaving the theater the yearning subsided and now a week later my satisfaction with the ending has fermented into a yearning only to listen to that last song on loop forever. (WHY is it not on the soundtrack. I mean, TRACY CHAPMAN MEETS PRINCE.)

One more thing before I go. Dandelion is another thrilling expansion of the repertoire of KiKi's characters in terms of vibes and aesthetics. She looks so different than Nile in a theoretical mirror image outfit of practical boots and jeans and an oversized borrowed button-down thrown over a tee. None of KiKi's other characters, not even gentle Tish, would look so at home in delicate florals, doubly so when they're paired so effortlessly with a comfy denim jacket. And KiKi's physicality here is unique to this person: Dandelion, Theresa, a guitarist. Wholly unlike Margaret the dancer or Nile the warrior. Maybe someday Nile will grow locs like Dandelion's though.

In conclusion: watch Dandelion! I'm as glad I saw this in theaters as I was glad I watched Don't Worry Darling at 1.5x in a small corner of my laptop and only slowed it down for Kiki's scenes. The limited release is real limited, alas, but if you have access to a biggish tv to stream it on I'd strongly recommend making that effort. Both for the landscapes and those gorgeous closeups of Kiki's face.

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

Please get into fwhip being malnourished you mentioned it in the gender post and 👀

oh i WOULD LOVE TO. content warnings for discussion of famine and disordered eating below the cut. this is just a very fucking sad ramble for a lot of the time, strap in.

so in my heart of hearts, the grimlands is a very old empire, and it is an empire on the decline. fwhip is the last count of the grimlands because of the rapture, yes, but had the rapture not happened, or had the grimlands survived it, fwhip would’ve probably been one of the last few counts anyways. the last few generations of counts and countesses have been problematic for various reasons- warmongers, incompetent, greedy, etc., and this has resulted in the grimlands greatly decreasing in size by the time gem and fwhip are born, as well as loosing a lot of their allies and trade routes.

they haven’t lost every ally, of course. the wither rose alliance predates canon, with mythland and the grimlands being the original founders of it a long time ago, and gilded helianthia being incorporated in when it became a sovereign nation (as it was originally part of mythland) a few generations prior. they maintain trade with both of these empires, but otherwise don’t have any real allies. mythland also has the warmongering problem that the grimlands has had, but because mythland and gilded helianthia’s exports (iron and wheat/plants, respectively) are much more important to everyday life than the grimlands’ main export, their trade relationships remain, even if they’re rocky. i personally hc almost all of the emperors we see to fall into the categories of “ill prepared/trained to be a ruler”, “became a ruler way too young”, and/or “is the first ruler of their empire and as such has no idea what they’re doing”, which is something that has its pros and cons. one pro, though, is that they are generally much more willing to disregard their past grudges, at least for trade, and maybe to be friends with each other, than their ancestors. so these issues are definitely improving by the time fwhip becomes count, but the tension is still there and he is certainly not helping the problem.

the grimlands is also a very inhospitable empire, in terms of its environment. they live in rocky, mountainous areas, making for soil that can’t support many crops other than root vegetables (carrots and potatoes). its cold, basically all year, but the winters are particularly harsh. it’s generally very hard to farm plants or animals there, though obviously not impossible. it does mean that the grimlands relies very heavily on a quite small variety of food to survive, outside of trading for food with their slim number of allies.

these traits all coalesce into one very, very bad event in fwhip and gem’s childhood- a famine that absolutely ravages the grimlands. it starts because the potatoes are struck with a disease that makes the entire harvest basically inedible, and the carrot harvest is far from enough to feed the entire empire. they still have trading with their allies, of course, but at the same time, a different disease/animal infestation (not quite sure which yet) strikes the grain of gilded helianthia and mythland. this is bad for everyone involved, but gilded helianthia doesn’t only grow wheat to eat, so they’re able to still feed their people, they just don’t have the food to spare for their allies. mythland has more of a problem on that front, but they have allies that the grimlands do not, such as rivendell, who are more than willing to get iron for a new, arguably cheaper, food price while the problem is being dealt with. both of the other WRA empires spare what they can to the grimlands, but it’s not much. they have their own people to feed first and foremost.

so the grimlands, in gem and fwhip’s youth, suffers greatly from this famine. eventually, yes, they are able to recover, but not without significant loss. gem and fwhip, as nobility, get priority picking for the food (which i think personally disgusts them, i’ll get into that a bit), but they’re not unscathed. i think this famine is a contributing factor to the death of their mother, as well. it doesn’t kill her, but it doesn’t help a woman who already had some pretty significant health issues to not be able to access the same diet she had previously. even after recovering, the famine is visible in the grimlands’ people for years afterwards. gem and fwhip struggle to put on weight, and the fact that they’re both as tall as they are is a miracle (and can be at least partially attributed to the draconic in their bloodline, though that’s quite far back at this point). fwhip, i will note, does not help himself in this regard when he gets older.

here’s where we get into the disordered eating discussion. i wanted to bring it up again, since i imagine that’s a trigger more people are familiar with than famine.

one of the last notable interactions fwhip has with xornoth is the nightmare sequence that he, gem, and katherine(? don’t quote me on her being the third person) also experience. after that, he falls out of the xornoth plot a little bit, but in my mind he continues to have those nightmares when gem and katherine do not. gem and katherine continue to get visited by actual xornoth, but fwhip (and a few other emperors who get their own unique bullshit) are not worth xornoth’s time and energy to constantly visit. but of course, can’t let them get too complacent by leaving them alone entirely (unless you’re joel, he’s an outlier though). these nightmares suck and they are consistent, and fwhip starts searching for potential reasons he’s still getting them when xornoth doesn’t otherwise seem to care about him.

his first thought is the fertilizer. y’know. the corruption tentacles that he turned into fertilizer. there’s no way that’s not involved somehow, right? but the fertilizer is good, it’s borderline magic, it means his people are getting more consistent harvests and he knows they need that. and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, so fwhip keeps turning the occasional corruption into fertilizer (against gem’s better judgement) and just doesn’t eat the plants his empire grows.

but that doesn’t work, so he keeps thinking. well, the livestock are eating these plants too, aren’t they? maybe whatever’s getting into the plants is carrying into the animals too. so then he stops eating the livestock as well.

at this point, he’s only eating the stuff he gets from other people, from the wandering salesmen who come by the grimlands or the crystal cliffs, the golden carrots gem gives him, the like. there’s the fish, too, but there’s a bit of a religious aversion to eating them and fwhip isn’t particularly religious anymore but that did stick, so he really tries to avoid it. the problem with relying on other people is something i mentioned in the original post- fwhip is horrified of looking weak, of looking small, and admitting enough about this situation to get food is textbook vulnerability that he’s not gonna do, so he doesn’t. so he’s not eating nearly as much as he needs to from that point until xornoth gets locked away, at which point the nightmares do stop for real. (or the nightmares sent from god do, the mental illness ones remain, but they’re not as much of a constant problem)

that whole situation combined with the famine in his early childhood makes it insanely difficult for fwhip to get proper nutrition for the rest of his life. his stomach so small now, he’s not able to eat that much food without getting sick. he’s getting the right balance of nutrients, but he’s just not getting enough of it. the rapture, which i think gives him a ton of new issues, also compounds on this a bit, and the fact that he survives even a few months after the event are really contingent on the fact that he has gem to help him. because without her (or anyone who could help him get back on his feet after all that, gem was just who was there) things would’ve probably gotten very dire indeed, with his mental health after the fact compounding his new physical issues, compounding the old ones. he’s got. problems.

this is such a sad fucking rant i went on my god. this is what happens when you have autism guys.

[thorsenmark]

The Bow River and Mountain Peaks of the Sawback Range (Banff National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: It was definitely a beautiful day in May looking down the Bow River with the blue skies above and hillsides a tree stretching on the horizon...

[foap-enjoyer]

Drugging | Sick | Poisoned

Sick.

'Soap thinks he's got just a simple cold. Nope. Anyway, cue blizzard safehouse one bed trope because I'm lazy'

Trigger warnings for this prompt: Vomit. Ships for this prompt: Sort of the start of Ghoap? Ghost is very affectionate, more or less.

The one my lovely tumblr people voted on all those days ago! :)

Read it here, on AO3: Ouch. - Chapter 5 - Tsukuyomi_Ravioli - Call of Duty (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

~

Missions in Russian mountains were becoming way too common. 

At least, that’s what Soap thought.

There were positives to mountain missions, he supposed. There were positives to everything. A beautiful view; clean, fresh, untouched air. Sometimes, on long missions, he would even see rare wildlife, animals which had never seen a human before. They would peer at him through the brush, eyes bright and curious. Sometimes, some would even come over, eat a bite of whatever he had on offer before scrambling away. He liked those pros.

But the cons? Well those fucking sucked. The cold, firstly. The cold sucked- oh, and don’t forget the lack of signal, which meant no far-lined comms, no phones, no nada. Just him, his team, and a shit ton of snow, usually for days at a time. It could drive even the most social of men insane.

Oh, and to top it off, as a little added bonus for this mission, because that’s just how he rolls- he was sick. Not super sick, mind you. It’d started off as a cold, when he’d woken up pre-mission. At least, he assumed it was. Itchy throat, ugly cough, his usual first symptoms. 

In his childhood, he would have curled up into a tiny, sniffling ball and let his mammy hold him, and soothe the pain away just with her touch. But now, he was a fully grown man. A grown man who worked in a job that, unlike being a student in school, would not tolerate a day off. Especially for something as small as a cold.

So, brushing his teeth, tying his laces, and grabbing his bag, he went out to face the day head on. Like a soldier would.

~

He really wished he was still seven, still at home with his mum.

This… cold was no fucking cold. This was a parasite worming its way into every orifice of his body, a disease spreading through his blood, an alien forcing itself inside his chest, taking control of every nerve and joint and muscle until he was nothing but mush.

Fucking cold his ass. If this was a cold, maybe it was time to retire, because he clearly was getting too old for this shit.

The harshness of the Russian wilderness didn’t help his case one bit. 

They’d landed at their respective drop-off points. Price and Gaz were on the complete opposite side of the mountains to him and Ghost, and the plan was to meet in the middle, where he and Gaz would infiltrate the government-owned set of buildings as Price and Ghost ran overwatch on the outskirts. A simple enough plan, until the blizzard hit.

“You’re telling me that higher-ups can plan entire wars to a T, if they wanted to, but they can’t check the fucking weather?”

That was Gaz, voice static-y through the comms. He sounded pissed, and of course he was, he was allowed to, given their situation. Hell, Soap was too. Price sighed, and Soap could imagine him rolling his eyes at the younger man, “There’s nothing we can do about it, Sergeant, so quit whining. Ghost?”

Ghost was behind him, using his path through the heaps of snow surrounding them to guide himself, and his sniper-kit through the rocky terrain. He could hear the man grunt as he lugged the heavy bag over a large rock in their path. “Yeah, Cap?”

“There should be a little safehouse just a few klicks North of your position. Fancy taking a wander over there? Can’t do shit if this storm keeps up like this.”

Ghost grasped Soap’s shoulder, altering his course slightly up the hill, rather than downwards. Soap’s knees wobbled with exhaustion, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Back up they go. “We’ll take a look. What’re you two doing?”

“Cap’s looking now, says there’s a cave nearby.” Gaz huffed out a laugh, “At least you guys get an actual house.”

Soap chuckled softly, his teeth chattering together like a talkative parrot, “Send me a pic if you find a bear in there, Kyle, would you? You know they’re my favourite animal.”

“Will do, prick.”

The comms silenced soon after. Soap assumed it was because, like them, Gaz and Price were having to hike a while to get to their location. The mountains weren’t the steepest, deadliest of mountains, but in a blizzard as bad as this one, you needed full concentration. 

The wind was at its peak now, whistling through the canyons of the snowy wilderness, spiking him right through his clothing with its cold crystals of air and ice. If it weren’t for his deathly grip onto the passing uncovered roots of mountain-grown trees, he’s certain he would have fallen right off of the cliff-face by now. 

He felt numb, his whole body was ice-cold. He was trembling, at least, which was a good thing. Meant his body was still working. Ghost was still behind him, lagging behind slightly, preoccupied with lugging his bags as well as checking their location. When he’d last trusted himself enough to look back, the man had been busy checking a little grey piece of technology, the blue light reflecting in his snow-white mask. 

He knew that the little ipod-like thing hadn’t initially been supposed to be used to find this supposed safehouse, but rather help Ghost angle himself correctly when it came to overwatch protection. For later in the mission. At least higher-ups had been courteous enough to give them some form of direction in case of an emergency.

“Should be over this last hill!” Ghost startled him with his shout, even if he barely heard it over the wind. A hand clasped his shoulder when he stumbled, startled, and he could see a gloved finger in his peripheral, pointing in said direction. When Ghost spoke next, his voice was in his ear. “Through those trees.”

He nodded.

Another twenty, maybe thirty minutes, and they finally, finally came upon the house. If he was honest, it was more of a glorified shed, maybe. At least from a distance. No windows, one door, a little wooden building sat nestled between a few cut-down stumps of previous trees. Maybe the wood used to make it? Probably. 

The door had been locked, but a sharp boot to the lock had solved that issue. Their fingers were too numb to pick the lock anyway. 

Inside, it wasn’t too bad. There was a little fireplace, a sofa- actually no, it was a pullout sofa-bed, actually. In the other room, the only other room, a tiny kitchen. That was it, really. It wasn’t the worst safehouse he’d seen (he’d give that to the one he’d stumbled into, half stabbed, in Romania a few years back), but it wasn’t the best either. It didn’t even have a bathroom!

Ghost got to work as soon as the door was closed behind them. He shuffled forward, dumping his kit on the floor as he began shedding his clothes piece-by-piece, dumping them onto the back of the sofa-bed. He was in the middle of taking his shoes off before he peered up at Soap, confused. “Johnny?”

He blinked. “Yeah?”

“Clothes.”

He blinked again, before nodding, fingers trembling, fumbling for his coat’s zipper, “Yeah, gotcha.”

“No inappropriate joke today, Sergeant?”

He shook his head tiredly, “Too fuckin’ cold, LT.”

A soft huff of a laugh, and Ghost placed his boots against a nearby wall, tugging his soggy, icy mask off. Frost clung to his eyelashes, and calloused fingers rubbed at them. Once the majority of the white was gone from the hairs, Ghost’s eyes were on him again, eyebrow curled, “Soap?”

Oh. He was staring again. He shook his head, going back to fumbling with his stuff. “Sorry.”

If Ghost was worried, he didn’t say anything about it. “I’m gonna go look at the kitchen for some food.” He said instead, “You get the fire going when you can. You’re right, it’s fucking freezing.”

He watched as the man turned his back and waltzed into the kitchen. Which, technically, was simply an extension of the living room. All that separated them was a tiny archway, after all.

Once he finally got his coat off, and tossed onto the floor, was when his body began to fail him.

“Ghost…?”

“Yeah?” Ghost turned, peering at him from the other room, his eyes dark in the dim lighting of the safehouse. “What’s up?”

“I don’t…” He swallowed harshly. The room was beginning to spin violently, and he reached a hand out desperately to clutch onto the nearest object, that being the sofa. “I don’t feel so good…”

“Johnny?” Ghost’s voice was starting to fade out as he fought to keep himself upright. 

Something was buzzing under his skin, warm and itchy. Sweat pooled against his neck. He had been cold only a moment ago, freezing, even… What was wrong with him? “Simon?”

A hand on his shoulder, “I’m here.”

“I think…” His stomach coiled, and he squeezed his eyes shut with a soft hiccup, “‘m gonna be sick.”

“Alright, alright.” Simon’s hands wrapped around him, guiding him forward, towards the small kitchen. But as soon as his hand released its deathly grip on the sofa, Soap’s knees gave in. 

He would have hit the floor if it weren’t for Simon, who took his weight with a grunt, barely managing to move them forward off of carpet and onto tile before Soap vomited.

“Easy, Johnny,” He could hear Simon attempt to soothe as he retched, fully held up in the older man’s arms. He felt limp, boneless, “Easy.”

His world continued to spin violently as he heaved, the cold tile on his knees sharply contrasting the horrible burning sensation consuming him whole. He whimpered, trying to squirm away from the heat inside him. Simon just held him tighter. “It’ll be over soon.”

“I-” He retched again, dry heaving over a steadily growing pile of vomit. His eyes stung, and he choked on a sob. “Fuck-”

A hand pressed into his forehead. “You’re burning up…” Simon muttered softly, “Fuck, Johnny, why didn’t you tell me?”

He hiccuped, turning to press his head under the crook of Simon’s neck. He was crying, he could feel the familiar wet warmth soaking into the fabric of Simon’s shirt. He wanted to apologise, but breathing was hard enough at the minute. His hands, trembling, clutched onto Simon wherever he could get a good grip, circling around the man’s back, holding tight. 

He swore a kiss pressed into his hair. He swore it. “You’re alright, I got you.” Simon’s voice was firm, and yet it was laced with worry. They were both hardened soldiers, he shouldn’t be sobbing like this over a simple sickness. It had to be something more, right? After a moment,  “Do you still feel sick?”

He shook his head.

“Okay.” Simon took a moment to think, to breathe. Soap. “Okay. I’m going to move you to the sofa, and then clean this up. Think you can move?”

He shook his head again. His knees felt like jelly, if he got up, he’d most definitely fall right back down.

“It’s alright,” Simon murmured, “I’ll carry you.”

With a quick rearrange of arms, followed by a soft grunt, Simon lifted him up. Instinctively, Soap clutched close, squeezing his eyes shut once more as his head spun. As soon as Simon settled him onto the sofa only inches away, he brought a hand up to his mouth, dry heaving into his palm once more. No vomit, this time.

A hand rubbed at his back. “Easy.” A hand in his hair. He leaned against it tiredly as Simon helped him lean backwards onto the old cushions. “Just breathe. It’ll help.”

As soon as he was sitting comfortably, the hands were gone. His eyes cracked open, looking around. Simon had just… disappeared.

“Si’?” He croaked, anxiety coiling. He hadn’t heard him leave, where was he? “Right here.” A damp cloth touched his forehead, and moments later the man was back in view, kneeling down in front of him. A bowl was given to Soap, settled in his lap neatly. “If you’re sick again.”

“Oh.” He rasped. Yeah, of course Simon would think to go grab something. 

A glass of water was offered next. His hands reached out shakily to take it, but Simon didn’t let go, instead holding the glass steady as Soap brought it to his lips, taking small sips. He pulled it away a moment later. “Not too much.” He reminded Soap, “It’ll make you throw up.”

He hummed tiredly. “I know.”

“Now you’re not puking your guts up.” The glass was placed onto a nearby old, dusty coffee table. Simon’s eyes were on him not long after. “Care to explain why you thought it was a good idea to come out on a mission when you were feeling like shit?”

“I didn’t feel bad this morning.” Which was true. Sort of. It’d, mostly, come on suddenly. “Once I felt sick, we were already off.”

“You could’ve still told someone.” Simon’s voice was soft, but firm. “Price, Gaz, me, hell, even the pilots. Anyone, Soap.”

“Sorry.” He whispered tiredly. “Wasn’t thinking.”

“I can’t get a hold of Price.” That woke him a little. “Signal’s shit. Blizzard is practically snowing us in, I think.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Simon sighed, hand reaching up to brush some blonde, stray strands behind his ear. “But we’ve got a while before we’ll need to check back in. So, we’ll just hunker down. Feel like eating?”

He shook his head. Simon’s eyes softened. “You need to, Johnny.”

He shook his head again, eyes drooping slightly. “‘M tired.”

“Alright.” Simon relented, biting his lip. “Alright. I’ll… We can eat later?”

He nodded. That worked. 

“You take the sofa,” Simon went to move, “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

He reached out, grasping his wrist. “We can share.” He murmured, exhausted. “It’s a sofa-bed.”

“Yeah, like a single bed.” The older man huffed, “I can take the floor.”

He didn’t let go of the man’s wrist. Simon didn’t pull away, either. “Just sleep here.” He yawned, “‘S easier.”

There was a pause, before a soft; “You’re not gonna puke on me, are you?”

He chuckled, eyes already closed, “Only if you snore.”

[fat-oc-battle]

nero blue (he/they, bleak limiter) character & art by @pink-karnery

In the Bleak Limiter narrative, I would describe Nero as a character that can be very shy and quiet in the beginning of the narrative. However, once meeting Nameless Nineth (He/Him), he turns out to be very bold, sarcastic, and very head strong and very stubborn to a point. Of course, all that changes once Nameless, their dear friend goes missing one day. Nero isn’t sure why he left like that, or if he had said something to make them want to leave the group so Nero has no choice but to take the place as leader and help Nameless with his goals, Nero ends up distracted but a peculiar fellow that once to help Him and CC (He/Him) look beyond the plans of Nameless and do something even better. How this effects the duo, well you just have to wait and see ;]

Nero comes from a big family and is the second oldest. They get along well with most of their siblings however, he tends to get in arguments with their older sister sometimes. They have a rocky relationship with each other, so Nero seldom talks to her. However, they eventually get along better as the series goes on. Nero also gets along well with their parents! He is very thankful for them because they agreed to keep K’areena (His girlfriend later in the narrative) to stay with them when she and her brother ran away from their abusive family. Nero is 23 years old and is agender. They discovered they were agender with the help of K’areena when they were 14. It was also around the time that K’areena realized she’s a trans girl. Both Nero and K’areena loved to explore their fashion sense because of that. It ended up being one of their favorite past times. Finding clothes that are affirming for them.

Nero also likes to make and collect plushies and has a pet rat named Luz. Nero can be a bit of a loner sometimes so you may often see them in their room by themselves doing their own thing. There is a chance they might be on the autism spectrum! Feel free to interpret that as you wish, would love to see what head canons you all have regarding that :>

main blog, main insta, oc insta

VS.

comet crasher/crash (it, my hero academia) character & art by @phantom-provocateur

Crash is a pro hero and science teacher for UA High and takes both jobs very seriously! It'll do anything it can to protect its students from villains and make sure they don't fall behind their peers in class. It really enjoys science and especially likes to focus on quirk science and the various non-hero uses quirks can have in current day society. When it's not on the clock it likes to spend time with its spouses and children just hanging out and doing whatever. It especially likes going for walks, watching american-style football and watching/participating in mountain-biking races though :)

crash's toyhou.se

[batmanshole]

important question

okay. lets say hypothetically you have a choice between one of two vacations sometime in the next year and a half. you are going with two relatives. you can only pick one trip BUT there is also the possibility of the second one happening in 3-5 years. also assume you start this in my city not yours and the prices are roughly equal and not a huge deal.

please read both options all the way ok i need help

the choices are:

A. fly to edmonton (4.5hr flight), stay for a day or two, then take the TRAIN!!! (!! train !!) through the canadian rockies (day and a half or so) to vancouver and stay there for a few days before flying back. the pros of this are there is a fucking TRAIN!!!!!! and you get your own cabin but you dont really care about vancouver or edmonton. just train and mountains. BUT you've been to every canadian province except bc and alberta

B. fly to iceland (5 or 8 hr flight, depends) and stay for a week in the summer. you HAVE been to iceland before but you were 3. you are really into volcanoes and you also want to buy yarn there. you would have more fun at the destination but there is no train :( also you don't speak icelandic.

[atorchzagreusandtris]

I may or may not have made an entire AU surrounding Morro and a resurrection/redemption arc because let's be real Ninjago fans, Morro deserves it. The writers did him so fucking dirty.

I will eventually maybe be writing a fanfiction about this, but if anyone wants the rundown of my AU - most of the events pre-season 5 don't change, just get strung together a little better to make the plot flow more coherently. (Ie, the Ninja feeling creeped out in the Caves of Despair - the place where Morro died initially.)

Resurrection: It is around Day of the Departed when he is resurrected, though the Ninja don't find out he's alive until I want to say season 7. The Ninja think they see him in the distance but brush it off. There's no way, pfft, Morro is dead. The Cursed Realm is gone. Right? WRONG.

Redemption: While trying to figure out stuff about Krux and Acronix, not only do the Ninja find out that Morro has been alive, but that Morro has spent his new life living it the way he would have if Wu had never found him. He has a job and an apartment, he doesn't want to be a ninja. After everything Wu put him through... he just wants to be happy. He wants to live the life he never got to live. He doesn't care about being the Green Ninja anymore.

UNFORTUNATELY, the Ninja need as much help as they can to take down Krux and Acronix and are forced to try and get Morro's help. While there is a very VERY rocky start between the Ninja and Morro, they will eventually grow to trust them (Cole takes the longest surprisingly. It isn't until season 8/9 that he BEGINS to trust Morro)

Bass?: "But Tri where does this bass thing come from?"

Oh yeah either in Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu or VERY early Prime Empire - Jay and Cole accidentally introduce Morro to music and musical instruments. Morro falls in love with playing the bass and by the time of mid-Prime Empire, he's damn well near a pro at it to the point I already have a minigame planned for Morro to show off his skills with.

Souta?: It means "Sudden, sound of the wind" and "thick, big, great". It's a Japanese surname. Morro gave it to himself because he felt weird about the fact that everyone had surnames but himself. (And also he probably needed one for his job.)

Ghost Blade?: He may not be dead anymore, but because he WAS dead for so long, a lot of his energy is still connected to being dead, so bam. He can manifest a PHYSICAL ghost weapon. Might be a little OP, I don't care.

Also explains his gi, there are some changes to it BUT he remains very attached to his dead gi design + all gi designs I come up with for the different seasons will be based on his Possession gi. (the ninjargon letter M where his weird animal brooch used to be (which he wears on his shawl instead) pants/sleeves cutting off halfway down his calves/arms!)

Lloyd: Morro and Lloyd grow to see each other as brothers. Morro, having been in Lloyd's body and mind has a deeper understanding of him than anyone else could. Morro becomes VERY protective over Lloyd and due to this his relationship with Kai is one of the first ones he forms. Morro hates Wu and Misako (and S8+ Garmadon) for the way they've treated this boy. Morro isn't afraid to argue with Wu on certain things regarding Lloyd. Morro becomes the big brother to Lloyd whom he always wanted in his own life.

Islands, Seabound, and Crystallized: Oh boy, this will be fun because technically all three of these COULD have been connected to Morro (Islands and Seabound DEF were and Crystallized SHOULD HAVE BEEN). Anyways, I kill off Morro at some point in either Master of the Mountain (which I would LOVE to do the most because Cole at this point is one of the closest Ninja to Morro and it would HURT HIM SO FUCKING BAD, and be more of a driving force for his character arc), Islands, or Seabound to make it easy on myself plot-wise BUT he gets resurrected by Harumi in Crystallized because this dumb bitch thinks that just because he used to be a villain means she can convince him to become a villain again. Morro becomes a double spy.

Euphrasia?: Her element in the show is white. Morro's is green. She's not the new Elemental Master of Wind, she's the fucking Elemental Master of AIR and I will stick by that. Even canonically, I refuse to acknowledge it. If I get far enough as writing for Dragons Rising, I will definitely give Euphrasia and Morro a sibling dynamic.

Anyways! Yeah! This is but a preview of what my Resdemption-AU has to offer. If anyone wants to hear more about it, I could talk about it for FUCKING hours.

Oh!!! And I want to give credit to @sunfloraas because I took A LOT of inspiration from her Morro design because it's that good!!!