#so I go to my usual haunt. do some writing. only mildly fuck up ordering the drink I get. everytime.

[readingwriter92]

Anxiety is cancelled from now on. I’ve had too much of it today

[miracle-sham]

Die Like the Butterfly Shoot With Their Guns.

| {Jasonette July 2021, Week 2, Day 7: Guns} |

Chapter 1 of Sheltered by Darkness not yet Moths to the Flame.

| [Ao3 Link] | | [Masterlist Link] | | [Spotify Playlist Link] | | [Chapter 2] |

———

| Sometimes a family can be a gang comprised of eleven vigilantes, and their AI robot, fighting against the father of one of their own. |

| Or alternatively: after falling through the cracks, they do what they must to survive. And if that means committing crimes in order to bring down the Big Butterfly and all the other corrupt businesses in the city, then so be it. |

———

| Tonight's the night. Half of them will strike one of the Big Butterfly's warehouses that just so happens to contain some fancy new gun tech. Besides, it'll be in better hands with them than the Big Butterfly or his associates. Now all that matters, is that nothing goes wrong! |

| Word Count: 3,322. |

| Warnings/Tags: Cyberpunk/Criminal/Gang Au, Explicit Language/Swearing, Hacking, Breaking and Entering, Theft, Mentions of Bombs and Guns, Mentions of corrupt/shady businesses, Fluff, Gang/Team as family/family dynamics, Found Family. |

———

| A/N: It is Cyberpunk Au time! This is a twoshot, so have a looksy to see if you can find all the snippets of foreshadowing I've set! Also this is mostly Action/Fluff but beware of the warnings regardless. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy! |

| Also side note, Don’t Like? Don’t Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

———

Rain patters against the concrete, sound mixing with the low hum and high buzz of electricity. The ground is slick with murky puddles that never seem to clean the pavement. Still just as filthy as before, permanently dyed with dried bloodstains, mud stains, electric scorch marks, and far worse. The air is heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke, ozone, and that ever underlying decay that clings to the city.

It's dark—dead of night—but the streets are awash with flickering neon lights. There are a few others haunting the street though most of them are sticking to the areas of light, avoiding the shadows.

Which is where Marinette, also known as the ruthless gang leader Fantôminou, is lurking.

Jason—Red Hood, her co-leader—snarls as he drops down onto the shadowed fire escape beside her. “We've got a rat. Someone's tipped off the big Butterfly and security has been increased around the perimeter. Most likely interior security increased too.”

Fantôminou flexes her glowing clawed gauntlets, “I suppose we should check in with our local pied piper, before we strike, hmm?”

There's a bzzt in her earpiece as the channel is hijacked by the familiar voice of their gang's hacker, Max aka Raijack. “I wouldn't worry about that if I were you, our pied piper has already been contacted. Whoever they were, they didn't reveal which location we were targeting, so it's just a general security increase.”

She hums. “Raijack, link us up with the rest of the strike force.”

“Got it, 'Minou.” He responds, and not a split second later, the earpiece makes another bzzt and there's the faint ping of the rest of the channel being alerted at someone joining.

“Look, I think you could totally pull off the—oh, who just joined the channel?” Adrien, Cheval Mallet, asks in surprise.

“Just me and our anthill tiger.” Red Hood announces, snorting at the glare Fantôminou sends him.

Silence echoes across the line before a scrabble of hushed but excited voices causes a ruckus.

Fantôminou sighs, “I know we're all excited to hit the big Butterfly hard by stealing some of their new fancy gun tech. But let's leave the yelling for when we inevitably set off the alarms!”

“Hey!” Raijack protests. “I'll have you know I have produced a new virus that has a ninety-eight per cent chance of not setting off any alarms!”

Red Hood rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, but you've still not worked out how to get your viruses to deactivate the bombs in the crates yet, huh?”

“I will one day, until then it's your job to stop the bombs from triggering the rest of the alarms!” Raijack counters with a huff.

Fantôminou sighs again, this time with an added sprinkling of are-you-kidding-me. “Red Hood, Raijack. I can and will kick your asses if you do not shut up so we can discuss final prep before we begin the pesticide protocol.”

Bumping shoulders with her, Red Hood snorts again. “I've got nothing against being beat up by someone as pretty and buff as you Minou, you know that!”

“Oh, I think we can all agree to wanting to get crushed by Minou's guns.” Cheval Mallet pipes up once more.

Fantôminou sighs very wearily. “Nevermind, are you all ready?”

Red Hood salutes at her, and despite his mouth being covered, it's easily telling that he's grinning cockily underneath. “I'm ready. My guns are ready, and I've got the bomb defusal kit at the ready.”

“I may be holding my horses but I'm saddled to giddy-up on the go!” Cheval Mallet cheerfully announces.

“This has to be one of your worst attempts at horse puns yet.” Raijack comments, “otherwise, I'm in position and ready to hack on your call, Minou.”

Red Hood exchanges a glance with Fantôminou as silence falls over the earpiece channel. “Hold up, where's Arsenal? Shouldn't he have checked in by now?”

Taking his hand gently, Fantôminou gives it a reassuring squeeze.

“He already did but because you two had your issues getting into position and avoiding the unexpected police patrol, Arsenal had to deal with another issue that popped up which would've threatened our plan,” Raijack informs, sounding nonplussed.

“Well, you don't sound concerned.” Fantôminou points out the obvious. “Has he got back up?”

There's the faint tapping of a keyboard through the earpiece channel before Raijack responds, “Chèvrapide is on her way to back him up, don't worry.”

“Then that's everyone accounted for. Let's rock and roll.” Red Hood orders, dropping from the fire escape and landing in the rain-slick alleyway with ease, conveniently right beside the hoverbike they had stashed here.

Fantôminou hops down after him, except she manages to flip and expertly land in the driver's seat. “I'm driving Jay, you're the one with the guns after all,” she all but states, putting one gauntleted hand up and flexing just to hammer in the point, “I'm close range only right now and you know it.”

Red Hood throws his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey! I'd never complain about getting to watch you drive this beauty of a hoverbike.”

Fantôminou snorts. “Just get on, pretty bird!”

“Well, if you say so, pretty kitty!” Red Hood teases back, vaulting onto the back of the bike behind her. He wraps an arm around her waist and rests the other hand on his sheathed-for-now gun.

She revs the engine of the hoverbike and steers out of the alleyway with practised ease. There's no directions on the hoverbike's holoscreen, but it's not like they need any—the directions to where they need to be outside the warehouse have already been memorised by each and every one of them.”

Down the left street, take the right at the T junction, pass under the flyover street, then take a further two lefts and then straight on until the block of office buildings forming a protective extra layer between the warehouse electric razor wire tipped fencing and the road. Easy.

“All networks in the office buildings have temporarily shut down. As far as the tech will be concerned, it'll look like the networks just decided to not work today.” Raijack announces through the earpiece channel, voice coming through slightly more robotic than usual.

“So no security cams?” Fantôminou checks cautiously, circling like a hawk around the small stretch of street between her and the office building she and Jason will be entering through. The rain has slowed to a drizzle but that doesn't make the circling in it any less mildly uncomfortable, at least inside it'll be dry.

There's the familiar clack of keys once more. “Not quite, they're a little harder to crack than entering in through the backdoor via someone's unprotected webcam in the office. Thank you, Shodan.” Raijack pauses, keys continuing to clack in the background. “Unfortunately, the Big Butterfly's got tech security smart enough to keep the security system on a closed network so I can't hop from webcam to computer to network to cams. However, they didn't account for Markov, suckers!”

Red Hood snorts. “Isn't Markov a little obvious for this kinda mission?”

“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” Raijack says, in a voice that very clearly conveys he didn't forget so much as purposefully neglected to mention, “I recently upgraded Markov, outfitting him with the currently most highly advanced cloaking system. Thanks to some help from Fantôminou's knowledge of cloaking and camouflage fashion.”

Red Hood leans his head onto Fantôminou's shoulder. “I'm hurt, you knew and didn't tell me? I want cloaking guns! Think of how much cooler I'd look with them!”

Fantôminou merely hums in an unamused response. “Raijack wanted it to be a surprise.”

He huffs. “I see who your favourite person in our gang is then!”

“You're right! It's me!” Cheval Mallet cheers, jumping into the conversation.

“Fucking 'ell!” Red Hood curses under his breath. “I thought you were gonna mute whilst getting in position.”

Cheval Mallet's laugh cuts in and out across the earpiece channel. “And when did I hay that!”

“Hacker voice, I'm in!” Raijack interrupts. “Looks like the security system was perfectly untouched by whatever minor error caused the main networks to crash, how lucky. Which is to say, looping is in process, and we now have free entry.”

“Got us a place to park yet, though?” Red Hood asks.

Raijack doesn't immediately respond, but the sound of the garage door connected to the office building opening, is answer enough. “I might.”

Fantôminou snorts. “Thanks, Raijack. Hood and I need to split here right, just until we get past the fencing right?”

“That's right.” Raijack responds, “good luck, and Markov and I will see you all on the other side.”

“Break a leg, or three!” Red Hood calls over the earpiece. “Preferably some else's though!”

Fantôminou pulls the hoverbike into the garage, keeping her gaze ahead. “If I could elbow you without fucking up my parking, I would.”

Red Hood cackles quietly in response, trying to at least keep to the stealth part of the mission plan.

In the blink of an eye, the hoverbike is securely parked. Perfectly hidden in plain sight but easily accessible for a quick and clean getaway should nothing go wrong. And well, if something were to go wrong, there's not going to be any hoverbike left for evidence. Though, that's not to say a small part of Fantôminou's brain doesn't anxiously hate how they're practically sitting on top of bombs ready to blow up at the slightest hint of things going wrong. However, they've been through enough strikes like this for the concern to be mostly easily ignored.

———

With the hoverbike parked, Fantôminou and Red Hood part ways.

Fantôminou heads up through the internal stairwell connected to the garage, whilst Red Hood takes one of the external doors leading to the office building next door.

The stairwell is like any other maintenance stairwell. Grey concrete walls, metal railings and steps. Even Fantôminou's light footsteps clang loudly against the ridged metal stairs. It's cold, just as cold as the garage was and barely warmer than it is outside in the rain. The air is stuffy but at least the respirator hidden beneath the bandana wrapped around her mouth makes it bearable to breathe. Other than the aforementioned clanging of steps, and her breathing, Fantôminou is alone with the ominous silence of a liminal space.

The stairs stretch on upwards for what seems far longer than it should, but eventually, Fantôminou reaches the final steps to the roof entrance door.

The door is unlocked, and so Fantôminou opens it as quietly as possible. She walks out into the rain once more and scrunches up her nose. A quick glance of the roof yields no immediate signs of danger or anything of note, so she continues to the edge of the roof.

Fantôminou rests one foot on the lip of the roof and flexes her gauntlets, lights switching off for stealth. Carefully, she turns around and crouches on the lip, gauntlets gripping the edge and toes of her boots braced against the wall. Bit by bit she descends, gauntlets making it more than easy to stay attached to the wall.

Two-thirds of the way down, Fantôminou climbs onto a window sill. The fence is only a metre below, with a further four-metre drop. No security drones in sight, yet—but no alarms have been triggered yet either.

A shadow drops down the building and over the fence on the other side of the compound. Not a second later is the double buzz of the earpiece signalling that someone is in position.

Fantôminou smirks beneath her face coverings, not one to be so quickly outdone she leaps forwards in a dive—spinning midair as she begins to plummet. Clearing the razor wire fence with room to spare.

She hits the ground in another diving roll, and immediately uses the momentum to throw herself up and run towards the nearest warehouse building. As soon as she reaches the wall, she double-taps her earpiece to send the double buzz signal to others.

A moment later comes the third double buzz, soon followed by the fourth and final signal.

“Markov is covering our air support.” Raijack's voice clips across the earpiece channel, “Fantôminou, you and Red Hood are on opposite ends of the same warehouse. I've unlocked the doors for you. You know the drill.”

“Thank you, Raijack. Entering now.” Fantôminou responds, she slinks over to the warehouse doors and cautiously pries open the now unlocked door.

Fantôminou heads straight for the terminal, and knows Red Hood is doing the same. Slipping Raijack's new and improved virus into one of the terminal's ports. Seconds pass.

“Interface secured,” Raijack informs.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Red Hood prowling over to her. She nods to him and taps into the terminal with her gauntlet.

Red Hood readies his bomb defusal kit as she instructs the internal warehouse drones into delivering the goods to them.

The drone, blinking yellow—a sure sign of Raijack's virus in effect—hovers over and drops a large black cased crate before them.

As soon as the claws of the drone release the crate, Red Hood is immediately on it, pulling it open and weeding out the bomb.

They wait with bated breath. Red Hood tinkers away. The earpiece channel is silent as the team focuses.

He hisses through his teeth, and Fantôminou tenses—ready to grab him and run, in the worst case—but he only packs the kit back away and sighs in relief.

He taps the earpiece thrice—signalling success.

Raijack and Cheval Mallet don't respond, so Fantôminou and Red Hood stuff their haul into Fantôminou's Miraculous, for ease of transport, and begin making their way towards the warehouse the other two were hitting.

By the time they reach the nearest warehouse doors, the earpiece triple buzzes. Success, again.

They pause only to exchange a nod between the two before continuing to meet up with Cheval Mallet and Raijack—no rendezvous needed this time so far.

It takes forty seconds to cross halfway to the other warehouse, where they meet the other two along with Markov in the middle.

Cheval Mallet waves a hand and the five of them skulk over to a small shed off the side of another warehouse. He raises his horseshoe weapon and calls out, “Bon Voyage!”

The portal forms and Markov flies through first. The remaining four exchange glances then bolt forwards, racing to see who can get through first.

The blue light blinds them all for a second, despite how used to the power they are.

“Mission success!” Fantôminou cheers breathlessly once the blue fades, throwing her hands up in celebration.

“WOOH!” Cheval Mallet yells, jumping up and punching the air.

Red Hood snorts, “but more importantly I so won!”

Raijack hums, “let's see what Markov has to say about that.”

Markov makes a series of boops and beeps, yellow LEDs flickering. “Red Hood is correct, he won the portal race.”

“YES!” Red Hood crows.

“Oh come on!” Raijack grumbles.

Footsteps and clapping approaches. “Well done,” Félix praises, “but perhaps leave the celebration until after you've all gotten into jammies.”

Cheval Mallet giggles, “Flicks, I can't believe you can somehow still sound pretentious whilst saying something as childish sounding as "jammies"!”

Félix raises an eyebrow, “you say this every time I call pyjamas that. Now come on, I've ordered pizza and Roy, Alix, Luka, Artemis, Kori, and Bizarro are already waiting for you lot, in the lounge, so we can get the party started.” He turns on his heel and walks out of the utility-changing room.

Markov, as the only one not needing to change, shows the tongue-sticking-out emoji on his LED screen and zooms after Félix.

Jason, Marinette, Adrien, and Max all start changing out of their gear as quickly as possible.

“Oh no!” Adrien gasps, half undressed, suddenly remembering something. “We forgot to take the motorbikes back!”

Marinette groans, “I knew I was forgetting something!"

Facepalming, Jason sighs. “We were all too caught up in everything going well for once.”

Max snorts. “Oh don't worry! I anticipated this, all it took was a little hacking into our hoverbikes and now they're on autopilot to one of our empty storage bases.”

“Oh. Well, that's good then.” Adrien says, looking a little embarrassed.

“Yeah… anyway come on, we don't want to keep your cousin and the others waiting any longer! They'll eat all the pizza!” Marinette exclaims.

They all finish changing into loungewear and pyjamas just as music starts to play from the lounge and so frantically, they all dash towards it, trying to shove each other out of the way and laughing playfully as they do so.

They've won a battle, they've successfully gotten in and out with a good haul of gun tech. No alarms tripped, nothing went wrong. Hoverbikes undamaged and on the route home. For once, everything went smoothly. And that, is cause for an evening of celebration.

Leaving the worries of the rat for tomorrow.

———

In a dark observatory with a closed butterfly window, a folder is tossed across a desk.

Papillon glances down at the folder with indifference. He rests his elbows on the expensive polished wood and steeples his fingers. “You said you had acquired information that you believe will interest me?”

The man in a black suit sitting opposite Papillon, smiles patiently. “My informant went through quite the lengths to acquire this. Why not take a look inside.”

Papillon purses his lips, “this better not be a waste of my precious time, Lex.”

Lex Luthor raises an eyebrow in amusement. “I assure you, Gabriel, you will find what is inside most interesting.”

There's a moment's pause as Gabriel waits. Nothing happens. He nods and then opens the folder. He spreads the papers inside in arc across the desk. In the middle of the papers, is the photo of a smiling teenage girl with bright blue eyes, and blue-dyed hair. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng?” He reads out, lips curling into a contemplative frown.

“Poor little girl,” Lex croons mockingly, “missing—presumed dead—after her parents' bakery was destroyed in an Akuma attack. Her name should be familiar to you though, won your one-day derby hat competition at her school.”

Gabriel's fingers still mid-steeple, and he moves one hand up to his chin in thought. “Ah yes, I remember that designer. The one with the feather derby whose design was stolen and copied. That signature embroidery was impressive work.” He recounts.

Lex grins, “yes, however most distressingly, it would seem this up and coming star of a designer has lost her glow.”

“How so?” Gabriel responds, furrowing his brows.

“Well you see, my informant has found… evidence, that our poor little designer here fell through the cracks into the shadows after the loss of her parents and bakery. It's rather obvious that the larvae have taken her as their own, some of their masks and clothes fit perfectly with what we know of her unique incorporation of her signature, as well as stitch work.” Lex explains, waving a hand towards the rest of the photographs and documents spread from the folder.

Gabriel frowns and eyes a few of the other papers with interest. “I see, that is most unfortunate.”

“But.” Lex cuts in before Gabriel can say anything more. “I'm well aware you're plenty familiar with fixing larvae with damaged wings and frayed wires. As such, a strange little cold case brimming with potential for your program, would do quite nicely for your collection, wouldn't you say?” Lex insinuates, rising from his seat as he continues, “rescue the poor larvae, craft it a chrysalis, and nurture the Pupa into something radiant. Not unlike what you did with the Macrothylacia Rubi, and your replacement wife.” With that, Lex smiles smugly down at Gabriel and then strides out of the observatory, not giving Gabriel a chance to respond.

And leaving Papillon to the folder and his musings.

———

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little fic! Comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated! |

| Behind the Names: Fantôminou is a portmanteau of Fantôme (Ghost/Phantom) and Minou (Kitty). And she's called that because I thought the Black Footed cat fit her, and they're nicknamed Anthill Tigers. They also have the highest successful hunting rate! |

| Raijack is a portmanteau of Raiju (lightning dragon) and jack plug (the connect-y bit on headphones into a phone for example) but is also a play on the word Hijack. |

| Cheval Mallet is an evil horse spirit that offers rides to weary travellers and kidnaps them. Yes, there is a reason behind this. It's covered in Chap 2 |

| Chèvrapide is a portmanteau of Chèvre (Goat) and Rapide (Fast). |

| Also feel free to send me any comments with any questions you have regarding this fic, I’ll be more than happy to answer! |

| @jasonette-july-event |

[queencamden]

The Dead Queens Club Ghost Headcannons!

I’m pretty sure only, like, two of you actually want this but here goes!

-Katie’s ghost is constantly soaking wet, as a result of her having died in the river. She’s also always cold, which works because Anna is on fire.

- Literally. Anna’s skirt has permanent flames on it (George is only mildly scorched- I’m going with he fell from the roof and she caught fire a bit before she did too. Because historically Anne Boleyn was almost burned at the stake before her sentence was commuted.) It works to warm Katie up, but sometimes Katie’s water temporarily puts it out.

-George first found out he was dead when he tried to comfort Parker after the explosion but she couldn’t see him.

-Anna found out when she tried to slap Henry and her hand went through him.

-Anna’s very bitter about the concept of death, and the fact that she peaked at sixteen.

-Katie was initially very scared of the whole thing, because no one could hear her. She’s gotten used to it now, but when she first died she spent the better part of an hour calling to Parker and Cleveland.

-Anna desperately wants to be a poltergeist. She’s just got all this anger and nowhere to go with it. She also really wants to be noticed again. Poltergeisting is very hard, but Anna is an ambitious go-getter so she just THROWS herself into it.

-Katie is the materializing Queen. She’s such an emotional person that she manifests quite easily.

-Anna’s really jealous. The only person she can materialize in front of is Amelie, who just straight up does not give a shit.

- Anna once launched a printer at Norfolk.

-Anna and George had a falling out early on as ghosts, because it was Anna who knocked that wall (I think it was a wall) onto Parker’s back and gave her the scar. Not intentionally of course. She was just trying to get her OUT OF THE BURNING BUILDING by blocking her path but things got messy.

-They made up when their parents were run out of town because they were both devastated. (That was when Anna threw the printer)

-Anna’s just been casually haunting Cleves for like, a year, partly because that’s her house, and also partly because “her dad’s in Germany and poltergeist’s a German word idk”

-That scene in the lakehouse when Henry and Cleves make out while they’re wearing Anna and George’s clothes? Anna was there.

-Sometimes they head down to the lakehouse together, because their rooms are still in order and it feels like they’re alive again.

-All three of them panicked when their rooms got cleared out. With Anna and George it was a long process. Their parents wanted to hold onto them, and the ghosts almost convinced themselves their rooms would just stay up.

-George tried to chase their parents car when they left.

-By contrast, Norfolk got rid of Katie’s room almost immediately, which left her in a weird lurch, as she hadn’t yet figured out ghosts don’t sleep.

-She usually climbs through Cleves’ window and invisibly snuggles her (Cleves doesn’t notice, but does wonder why she’s suddenly sweating so much there’s water stains on the sheets)

-She once tried that for Tom, (with less snuggling) but she accidentally materialized and it freaked him out so much he left the school.

-One time when Anna was practicing materializing in the country club a security guard saw her and straight up fainted (a reference to the Victorian story about Anne Boleyn’s ghost making guards at the Tower of London faint on duty)

-Historically, Anne Boleyn also haunts Hever, her childhood home, and Blickling, her birthplace, which is why she primarily haunts Cleves’ house and the lakehouse (which I guess makes that her birthplace now? Maybe the Boleyns went for a water birth)

-Apparently at Blickling she comes with a hoarde of demons who chase her father around for betraying her, but since Thomas Boleyn in DQC (and probably historical Thomas Boleyn too) is actually pretty okay, and also not dead she just. Doesn’t do that. Some tourists see the fire off her dress and think it’s demons.

-Which also led to people thinking the lakehouse was possessed by a Satanic cult for a while (by people, I mean Eustace and maybe Cleveland looking for newspaper stories)

-George has managed to gain possession of things long enough to ride his Vespa once again.

-It is.... a strange sight, especially since he is still completely invisible.

-Anna can conjure fireballs (another part of the whole demon thing) and for the entire summer after her death, she planned on torching Henry at end of the road (not to kill him- God knows there’s enough rumors about that- just freak him out a little)

-But then when she goes to do it she sees him lunge at Katie to push her off the drainpipe and loses her focus. It’s also raining, so her fire keeps going out. She can only watch helplessly as Katie disappears over the edge.

-It’s a thing in a lot of old mythologies that drowned souls stay trapped in the ocean forever, so Anna and George jump into the river and save her, very dramatically. Extra as possible, Mission Impossible style.

-George spent an entire day mildly inconveniencing Eustace and Henry for fun.

-Anna somehow got Guitar Guy’s adress and absolutely FUCKED. SHIT. UP. No one is clear exactly what she did, least of all Katie (or me) All that is truly known is it involved fireballs.

-Anna keeps trying to leave Cleves, the only other person who knows about Guitar Guy, a message telling her to do the same, but sending messages as a ghost is HARD.

-Anna locked Cleves’ car door when she was in the forest with Henry, in an attempt to keep it away from her. The sound of him unlocking it freaked Cleves out more, leading to her punching him. Anna was very much okay with that.

-Katie doesn’t really like being a ghost, but she’s also scared to move on. She knows if she does she won’t see her friends again, and more than anything she just wishes she could go back to school and live her life.

-Anna’s scared for another reason. After the Lina fiasco many people (football guy Cromwell, Eustace, Hans, Maggie, possibly Lina herself) told her to go to Hell. She knows it was a figure of speech, but it still makes her worry a little bit.

-At other times she is VERY confident in her innocence. After all, she got murdered. That wasn’t her fault.

-George wishes he could communicate with their parents and Parker, and finds the fact that he is bound to the city frustrating. He wants to see the world, and now he can’t.

-Mary went to the lakehouse once, to find closure. Anna decided materializing with all the fire was probably a bad idea, but she and George tried to move some things around to show her they were there.

-They think it worked. They hope she noticed. They hope she told their parents. They hope their families know.

-Katie feels bad for cheating on Henry and Anna and George are all “Okay, well normally I’d agree but considering murder is a thing that’s happening at this school cheating’s not really as big of a priority right now”.

-George claims he’s been to the afterlife waiting room and met Beetlejuice. The girls assume he’s joking but sometimes he just pops off and nobody knows where he went. Plus, he’s got strangely specific details of the whole thing.

-Basically George knows all kinds of advanced ghost shit, but can’t do really simple things. For instance:

-George is really bad at materializing. Like very bad. Which is unfortunate because he really wants to help out Parker.

-Katie tried to help him once and is now Parker’s sleep paralysis demon, so that’s nice.

-The girls keep materializing to Parker at night and talking to her, even if she thinks she’s dreaming. Katie tells her about how George is doing, and Anna tries to convince her to do something about Henry. (I.e, she snarks. A lot)

-Katie gets really bad flashbacks where she goes back to just before her death.

- During a few of these she materializes in Hampton Court (the cafeteria). Luckily no one is there, but Parker saw her once and th: rumors spread (that line where Cleveland talks about Katie haunting the cafeteria is literal- she just doesn’t know it.)

-Katie is very happy that Cleves is standing up for her, but also feels kind of betrayed and scared by the fact that she still listens to Henry.

-That time when Cleves and Henry almost have sex and she hears Katie’s voice? That was because Katie panicked seeing them together thinking Henry was going to kill her too.

-That night, fueled by the possibility of someone else dying, Anna gains control of her poltergeist powers and finally writes a message on Parker’s wall. Tell her the truth.

- Parker sees it and knows she has to tell Cleves about Henry.

-And thus Operation Desdemona is achieved.

-You know that bit at the end where Parker days she promised George she would kill Henry or something like that? She did. Literally.

-Well not really. George can’t materialize still, so really she was speaking to Anna, who was speaking for George.

-It was something like “I’ll kill him George. I’ll avenge you.” “George says that sounds great.” “Holy shit Anna, no I didn’t. My girlfriend’s not KILLING anyone!”

-After they are avenged and Anna’s name cleared, they’re ready to move on to the afterlife.

-They chill with the Queens a bit as they paint the wall. Katie gets into the radio waves to play her phone’s theme song.

-Before he goes George figures out how to materialize, and finally manages to say goodbye to Parker.

-The two of them talk in Cleves’ attic for ages, in their old blanket fort, long after Anna and Katie are gone.

-Except not really. Anna waits for George because she doesn’t want to go alone (and maybe Katie waits too, and they all go together)

-Their afterlife’s pretty great.

-In ten years they look down on the world and watch the Queens meeting up at Homecoming, like Katie had wanted them to.

-They’ve gotten a lot better at materializing.

-The three of them show up, and talk to the Queens for a while.

-The Queens are initially very freaked out by all this, except for Parker, who’s mainly just glad she’s not crazy.

-Cleveland does not understand how, she, a reporter, could not have noticed her house was haunted.And why didn’t Parker tell her? That would have made an amazing story

- She complains about this, often and loudly.

-When she gets home she makes some quip to Amelie about the house of their teenage years being haunted and Amelie’s just like “Yeah, you didn’t know?”

-The goth phase had to come from somewhere.

[jowritesthingss]

A (Demi)Boy and His Demon: Prologue

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): LoSleep (Logic | Logan + Sleep | Remy)

Rating: Teen

Content Warning(s): lots of swearing, religion mention, demons mention, injury/blood (Remy gets a papercut)

Length: 1,418 words

Brief Summary: Sleep-deprived writer Remy accidentally summons a serious-and-seriously-fed-up demon named Logan. Prologue. In Which Remy Inadvertently Summons a Demon

Fic Masterlist!

*

In Remy’s defense, he hadn’t exactly meant to summon a demon in the middle of a coffee shop on just another typical Tuesday.

And they most certainly hadn’t meant to bind the poor sap to them for the rest of their (presumably now-shortened and miserable) life.

But there he was.

And that was exactly what he had done.

But—erm, well. We’ll get there.

-

“Remy!” a familiar voice chirped as said enby pushed the door open to his favorite haunt. “Do you how do?”

“Ugh. Like, horrible.” The answer was instinctual at this point. Usually it was just sarcastic, but on a deadline like this? Satan had nothing on the wrath of an editor.

The echo of the bell ringing bright through his ears, Remy walked over to the front counter, where his good friend and caffeine addiction enabler stood. They tried in vain to pretend that they were swaggering and not at all staggering from sleep deprivation and lack of caffeine.

“So it’ll be the usual for you, then, yeah?” Emile smiled, and god, for all the years they’ve spent working as a barista themselves, Remy would never understand how Emile could stay so upbeat while on-shift.

“You know it, gurl,” Remy answered, fishing out his wallet. “Although gimme the largest size this time, hun’.”

Emile clucked sympathetically, already turning and getting started on Remy’s iced coffee. “Deadline coming up?”

“Uh-huh. Tonight.” Remy sighed, slapping a ten dollar bill onto the counter. “I’m due to get the script for chapter sixty-nine to Remus, but like, he’s been too busy giggling over the number of the upcoming chapter to finish the one we’re supposed to publish tomorrow. Virgil’s on the warpath, and I’ve been roped into designing shit to make up for Remus falling behind.” He rolled his eyes.

“Golly, that sure sounds rough.” Emile slid some ice into Remy’s coffee before popping a lid on it, swirling it a couple times, and sliding it across the counter with some verbal sound effects to accompany it. He picked up the tenner and began to punch things into the cash register, counting out change for Remy. “But I believe in you!”

“Gurl, you shouldn’t. I don’t,” Remy snickered. They reached back into their bag, groping around for their reusable straw. Pulling it out, he popped it into his cup. “There’s a reason I’m the brains behind the writing of this operation, not the art. You think I’d be working with those idiots if I had a choice?”

“Yes, I do,” Emile said mildly. He handed over Remy’s change.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fair.” Shoving his change into the tips jar, Remy rolled his eyes. Again. They did that a lot. Which, how could he not, when he was surrounded by so many dorks?

“Anyways, I’ll be in my usual corner, I guess.” Remy jerked their head towards their usual corner table. “Lemme know if you need any help back there, babe. Or if any tea needs spilling.” They winked at Emile from behind their sunglasses before turning and heading to sit down.

Once seated, Remy pulled out his laptop and the battered spiral notebook that he kept most of his ideas for their comic in. Exchanging their sunglasses somewhat reluctantly for a pair of blue light glasses, he booted up his computer. Then, after setting everything up in its typical position and connecting to the wifi in the coffee shop, Remy allowed themself a moment to sit back and sip at their iced coffee.

The contrasting tastes of sweet white mocha and bitter coffee filled his mouth, and Remy felt his shoulders relax for what had to be the first time in twelve to twenty-four hours.

Classes earlier in the day had been an absolute nightmare of scribbling in margins and surreptitiously typing the script up on his phone when professors weren’t looking. Then the night before had been a horror-filled dream sequence of exhaustion and trying to write actual content down without falling asleep on the keyboard and waking up with the L key imprinted on their nose and sixteen pages of keysmashes.

So suffice to say, Remy was not having a good time. But the iced coffee? It warmed their gay little heart. It made things just a bit more bearable on days like this.

All too soon the buzzing of his phone reminded Remy of their subsequent impending deadline and doom, and he came crashing back down to earth.

Sipping once more at their iced coffee, Remy set it off to the side, slipping in his earbuds and focusing in on the Word document in front of him. They began to type.

-

Three hours and two refills later, Remy had finished chapter sixty-nine, had sent it to Virgil to look over, and had even started on chapter seventy for a good measure.

Until Virgil sent back his edits, Remy’s focus of the moment had shifted to designs for chapter sixty-six, which Remus should’ve started drawing a few days ago, but nooo, the asshat wasn’t even done shading sixty-five, which was supposed to be posted in...Remy consulted their phone...in roughly six hours now. Fuck.

Remy couldn’t draw for shit, but they could research like nobody’s business, and designing and sketching was simple enough, so he wasn’t entirely unused to getting dragged into stuff like physical character designs and the creation of symbols and outfits (Remus was far too oafish and uncoordinated when it came to fashion, anyway).

Shaky as Remy’s art was, Remus certainly knew how to pick out what he liked from Remy’s miserable excuses for sketches, at least, so their partnership worked well enough...even if Remy privately thought his similarly-named partner acted like a dolt and smelled like minute ramen (and not even the good kind! more like the shrimp kind, and what the fuck kind of imbecile eats shrimp-flavored microwave ramen).

Finally satisfied with the roughly-sketched summoning circle that they had copied from the web, Remy exited out of Google Images.

Summoning circles, Remy had to admit, were a new topic of research for him. Their story—a Good Omens-type comic centering around an angel and a demon trapped in the human world—had required plenty of research into religion and religious imagery, of which they had not been a fan, but for some reason summoning circles had never really cropped up on their radar.

Remy may not have been a fan of the concept of angels, but he certainly wasn’t a fan of the concept of demons and the occult, either, so digging through the ominously dark websites had been...interesting. Eventually they had just given up and straight-up copied a summoning circle at random. They could take that and go from there, adding their own flair to it.

Remy looked down at the shaky summoning circle he had sketched out before him. It was kinda lopsided, but it was whatever. It was also much too boring, if you asked him. When they sent Remus their final reference, they’d put a note in the margins telling him to add some of that weird gory imagery stuff he was obsessed with. “Creep would really like that, huh,” Remy muttered aloud to himself.

Scrutinizing the copied circle for a few more moments, Remy mentally listed out some of the changes they wanted to make—an extra line here, a circle there, take out that square—and they reached into their backpack for one of the random looseleaf sheets of paper he always had floating around in there. Only, they grabbed at the wrong corner of the paper.

Feeling the sheet of paper slice into their pointer finger, Remy quietly hissed out a breath. “Fuck.” He drew his finger out of the bag, pulling it up to his face to get a good look at the injury, and shit, the papercut was bad enough that it was actually bleeding.

“Goddammit,” Remy cursed as a few drops of crimson splattered onto the paper in front of them, blurring over the details of the summoning circle he had drawn.

Remy popped his finger into his mouth and sucked at the smidgen of blood leaking out. Deciding to actually look at what they were sticking their hand into this time, they turned to the left, fully intending to practically stick his head into his bag to find a napkin and that pesky sheet of paper both.

This was how they came to be aware of the person who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to stand to the side of their table.

.

.

.

Prologue || One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six

*

This was supposed to be a one-shot, but Remy told Logan to hold their coffee and then bullied me into making it a prologue and six chapters’ worth of useless gays. I accept my defeat with dignity and insist that it was, in fact, actually my decision in order to get used to writing multi-chap things again before I tackle my Big Bad AUs.

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

[dargeereads]

Title: Vik

Series: Shot Callers #2

Author: Belle Aurora

Genre: Forbidden Romance

Release Date: September 17, 2021

BLURB

Nastasia Leokov has loved her brother’s best friend since the very moment she met him. Understanding that she’ll never be anything more to Viktor Nikulin than a treasure to guard, Nas sensibly hides her feelings. But when she makes a brash decision to kiss him, everything changes.

That kiss. That hot, explosive, all-consuming kiss.

It haunts Vik. And suddenly, Nastasia Leokov isn’t just a teenage mob princess.

No.

She is his. Undeniably. Indisputably.

An unbreakable connection. A hidden relationship. A lifetime of firsts.

And yet, something is missing.

Nas desperately craves the one thing Vik has never offered her.

His heart.

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EXCERPT

I was tired. I was restless. I was irritated.

The trifecta of bitchiness.

So, when I saw him sitting at a table by himself, I stilled midstep, and my annoyance grew.

Seriously?

Why, God?

How dare he look so good when I could barely find matching shoes this morning.

He brought his espresso up to his lips as he read from the newspaper he held in his hands. I didn’t know why that got to me. Maybe because he looked so effortlessly relaxed, and my fragmented mind was being split in a flurry of puzzle pieces, none of which fit back into their original spaces.

My body rigid, my feet started moving, and they didn’t stop until I stood in front of him with a cold expression that could’ve set off the next big freeze. Before he even looked up at me, I hissed quietly, “This is my spot.”

Vik simply peered up at me with a furrowed brow. “No, it isn’t.”

Uh, excuse me? “Yes, it is. This is my spot. My café. You go get your own.”

And his grin had my heart racing with anger. “Firstly, I brought you here, so if we’re getting technical, you wouldn’t even know about this place if it weren’t for me.”

My neck flushed.

Oh, right. I’d forgotten about that.

Feeling stupid, I huffed out a short breath, threw up my hands, and said, “Fine. I’ll leave.”

As I turned to walk away, Vik’s hand shot out and gently but firmly circled my wrist. I twisted back to find his gaze had darkened some, and he uttered, “Stay.”

It wasn’t a plea nor a demand. I might’ve been delusional, but to my ears, it sounded like a wish.

My rigid stance loosened mildly.

Only one word out of his mouth, but I felt the caress of it all over.

I peered down at that hand. It held me firmly as his obsidian gaze locked me in. “I heard you’ve been spending time at Laredo’s. I know you’re smarter than to try to get the attention of a particular Frenchman, so I won’t warn you against it.” Those eyes sliced over the length of me. “You know better, don’t you, baby?”

Every fiber of my being screamed to sit and stay, but the insecure part of me told me to leave before we hurt each other. Against my better judgement, I sat opposite him, and because I often had trouble keeping my mouth shut, I said smugly, “Sounds like you might be jealous.”

The hand on my wrist flexed, and Vik held me down with his glacial gaze. “Wanna test that theory?”

My chest squeezed.

My ego was a petty bitch and hooted loudly, all for it. My heart thought nothing would be more romantic. But my brain, on the other hand, knew what Vik plus jealousy was capable of. And it wasn’t pretty.

Don’t get me wrong. I was never the target of his anger when he got like that. The men standing in his warpath, however, usually ended up with a split lip, a broken nose, or a concussion, or all three. And after it was all done and dusted, Vik would then take me home, take my mouth, and then take me roughly against the nearest surface, all while maintaining eye contact.

Ugh. It was so fucking hot.

The memory had my knees snapping together under that table, trying in vain to ignore the thrumming warmth that suddenly lit in my core.

Hmmm. Maybe we should test that theory after all.

No.

But—

Not a good idea.

My inner self pouted and called me a prude.

Not so smug anymore, I cleared my throat and asked, “What do you want from me, Vik?”

Refusing to let go, his thumb gently caressed the sensitive spot at my inner wrist, and without hesitation, he responded one word that shattered my resolve.

“Everything.”

The way he said it, with zero hesitation, had my heart aching. I wanted that too. If only the stakes were even. If only he had as much to lose as I did. My heart was on the line. I wasn’t sure if Vik even knew how to access his.

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Belle Aurora is thirty-something year old and was born in the land down under. 

At an early age she fell in love with reading. Boredom one summer had her scouring the bookshelves at home. She stumbled across Sandra Brown’s Breath of Scandal and fell in love with romance.

Having been brought up in a loud and boisterous family of Croatian descent, she developed a natural love for dramatics and laughter. Only some years ago had she discovered a new love. 

Humorous romance novels.

So many authors had opened a brand new world where she could lose herself yet feel safe and at home in their stories. Belle has been known to become a screeching banshee while anxiously awaiting their newest titles.

Belle never thought she would write. It had never interested her until recently. Friend-Zoned began to form and in February this year Belle typed the words Chapter One. And she fell in love.

With words.

With writing.

With a creative imagination she never knew she harbored.

Belle Aurora is a USA Today best-selling author.

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[dansphlevels]

Could you do a fix where one of them goes the dentist please? You're an amazing writer.

This ask freaking haunted me. I can not tell you how many times my family or friends asked me what was wrong and I sobbed out “how am I supposed to write a story about them going to the DENTIST? What spin can I put on this? How has my life come to this?”

(Don’t let that keep you from ever sending in asks tho. I will write whatever stories you request, no matter how vague/detailed the prompt is. A little bit of challenge/emotional turmoil is necessary for the creative process.)

Words Aren’t Always Needed

Day 6 of 12 Days Of Prompts

Length: 2.5k

Summary: After a bad reaction to painkillers administered by his dentist, Dan loses the ability to speak for a few days. Which wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they didn’t have plans, including an important business meeting and going to the Star Wars premiere.

Or, the one where Dan loses his voice and Phil has to interpret for him like an extended, inappropriately timed game of charades.

TW: For light (but semi-frequent) cussing 

Dan certainly had his peculiarities. One of which being that he actually enjoyed going to the dentist.

Well, most of the time.

Daniel Howell, as in danisnotonfire from YouTube, as in ‘Dan and Phil’ Dan, was slightly different than many people due to his high tolerance for pain. This meant that he didn’t mind small bumps or bruising and that he seldom took painkillers unless they were really needed. It also meant that going to the dentist every six months wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable an experience as it was for others. Dan always left with his teeth feeling fresh and clean. What was the harm?

That was on a normal trip to the dentist, however.

This specific trip to the dentist was supposed to be no different. Dan would go, the dentist would poke around for a while, there’d be a little scrapey scrapey, then Dan would get a free toothbrush and be sent on his way. And Dan was an absolute slut for free toothbrushes. But instead, he found himself reclined in the dentist’s chair as the man towered over him, tapping the side of a needle with his knuckle. “This will make you go numb for the procedure. When the medicine wears off, your voice might still be slurred for a few hours, but should recover relatively quickly.”

The dentist lied. Because after the ‘relatively quick procedure’ was over, Dan’s voice wasn’t slurred, it was gone. When the dentist asked him to say something, all that came out was a squeak.

The dentist frowned. “That’s not right.”

No fucking shit, Dan thought, trying to avoid glaring at the doctor as he inspected his mouth and throat to see what the issue was. Fifteen minutes later, and Dan was sent out the door with the explanation of 'the numbing medicine seems to have had a small unexpected side effect. While uncommon, this has happened before, and your voice should likely return within the next few days.’

And, to top it all off, they were out of free toothbrushes.

So Dan was left with no voice, the lower half of his face still numb, and a goody bag with only floss in it. Floss.

Dan managed to get in a cab and hand him his phone with his address typed into it- his phone was on 7% battery, because God absolutely hated him- and was sent on his way. He was already almost home when he remembered to text Phil, and let him know what had happened.

To Phil: The dentist was horrible. He screwed up the numbing solution and now I’ve lost my voice for the next few days.

To Dan: Aww, I know how excited you were to goI’m sorry the dentist didn’t fulfill all of your scrapey dreams But you lost your voice? What about the event tomorrow?

And that’s how Dan ended up sitting in the backseat of a cab, banging his head against the window, because Fuck, they had plans tomorrow and how was Dan supposed to do anything when he couldn’t even speak?

—-

Phil was waiting for him when he got home.

He laughed when he saw Dan. “Is your face still numb? You look a little, um…” he didn’t need to finish his sentence.

Dan managed his best seriously, Phil expression and flicked his friend the middle finger before heading to his room to charge his phone.

That night was Phil’s turn to make dinner, which was good because otherwise they weren’t going to fucking eat, were they? Unfortunately, by then the painkillers had completely worn off and Dan’s jaw hurt to move too much, so he was unable to eat the fajitas. Finally, taking sympathy on him, Phil stopped making fun of him for thirty seconds so he could get Dan some applesauce.

“The shoes I ordered came in!“ Phil said when Dan was settled in with his applesauce and spoon. All of their normal spoons were dirty, so Phil had given him a decorative tea spoon that someone had given him. It was about half the size of a normal spoon and made Dan want to crawl under his duvet and never come out.

Still, Dan managed to give Phil a mildly interested look. Okay, that was a lie. But he did manage to not scowl at him, which was an improvement.

"They’re really cool Dan, they’re gold and like, scaly-” he giggled at Dan’s expression. “And shiny. Really shiny. Actually, they’re not gold, they’re more of a yellowish, copperish, I’m just going to keep talking because it’s not like you can interrupt me, and they fit really well…”

Dan set his tiny spoon on the table and picked up the cup of applesauce, bringing it to his face and trying to down it like a shot. Instead, a single glob fell out and went down the wrong pipe, resulting in Dan almost choking to death which would have been just awful, really, he wouldn’t accept the warm embrace of death at all on a day like this.

Dan was done with his applesauce after that. In fact, he decided then that he was done with that day in its entirety, and with a small salute to Phil, Dan headed off to his room to scroll on the Tumbs for a while and try to forget the day he’d had.

—-

The next day, Dan woke up and had almost forgotten about his loss of voice.

He went about his morning routine as always, scrolling on Tumblr for a while before getting up and making himself get ready for the day. His face was back to normal, which was good. Dan put on some of his nice-ish clothes and went to grab breakfast.

"Hey Dan, is your voice better?“ Phil asked when he saw him.

And Dan. Dan actually yipped. A full blown, injured puppy yip. And Phil gave him this look, like he was wondering if Dan had just been possessed or if he’d stepped on the LEGO Phil figurine again (which happened far more often than you would think, seeing as Dan’s LEGO figurine never fell off their whiteboard. Dan believed there was a conspiracy.)

Dan tried to explain himself, but all that came out was a squeak.

"I guess that’s a no,” Phil reasoned. “How are we supposed to even go to the things today? Should you just stay home?”

Dan shrugged, looking at Phil pointedly, like you should be able to figure this out because I don’t know.

Phil scratched the back of his head. “Well… you might as well come? I mean, you’re going to the Star Wars thing anyways-” Dan nodded vigorously “-so it’d probably be offensive if you skipped the meetings.”

Dan sighed, which he was still able to do just fine. He nodded and went to get his shoes, pouting all the way.

—-

In the car on the way to their meetings, Dan and Phil texted each other back and forth, even though they were sitting right next to each other.

They got to the official-looking office building and Dan climbed out of the cab as Phil paid for them. They walked in together, with Phil taking the lead slightly and Dan trailing behind, his hands stuffed in his jacket and his eyes on the floor. It was strange how the loss of his voice seemed to affect the rest of him; no one was trying to take to him, yet he still felt as though he wasn’t able to communicate properly.

They got to the queue. A chirpy seeming receptionist (who’d probably been there since five that morning and drunken her entire body weight in coffee) greeted them, letting Phil in with a chirpy “Floor 5!” But when Dan tried to follow, the turn dial didn’t let him through. “Sorry, I don’t think there’s anyone else authorized to go upstairs? If you’d like to take a seat, I can check.”

At this point, Dan had absolutely mastered his 'I’m so fucking done’ face, which he proceeded to show the receptionist.

And Phil hadn’t noticed. He’d kept walking along, turning a corner and was out of sight, and Dan couldn’t fucking yell to get his attention, because, well, he couldn’t fucking speak.

Dan aggressively gestured and pointed for the next thirty seconds before Phil came back, looking a little embarrassed. “Um, sorry. He’s with me.”

Damn fucking right I am, Dan thought as the receptionist apologized and let him through. He was still glaring as they started walking away.

"Sorry about that,“ Phil admitted sheepishly.

And Dan was so done with not being able to speak that he actually stopped walking, pulling Phil to a halt with him, and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him so close that Dan’s lips were almost touching his ear, and Dan managed to whisper in the quietest, raspiest voice imaginable, "Lit-rally fuck everything.”

Phil giggled, made a bad innuendo, etc etc. Dan smacked him on the arm. And they kept walking.

The meeting was, surprisingly, not as miserable as Dan expected. They came in and shook hands with everyone, Phil explaining that Dan couldn’t speak while Dan tried to smile instead of grimace. Then they got down to business.

This particular meeting had to do with new mercy that was to be released. It involved a lot of technical stuff, which, depending on the topic, Phil was either very good at or completely oblivious to. He and Dan usually split up the duties of remembering important things.

"We need to approve the styles of shirts as well. Did you have some in mind?“

Phil looked to Dan. "Um…”

Dan gestured like go on, you should know this. Phil just widened his eyes, to which Dan rolled his eyes in response. He gestured at his arms, tapping his wrist.

"A watch?“

Dan pinched the air above his wrist as if tugging at invisible cloth.

"Oh, long sleeves. And…”

Dan tapped on his shoulder, right where the cut off of short sleeves would be.

"And short sleeves.“

"What style of short sleeves?” One of the official looking business people asked.

Dan cupped the air under his chest, as if pushing up invisible boobs.

"Girl ones,“ Phil translated. "Like… you know those tighter fitting shirts that girls sometimes wear?”

"You mean a fitted T-shirt?“ One of the people supplied.

Dan nodded. "Yes!” Phil said. “And…”

Dan flexed his arms like a bodybuilder.

"Muscle shirts?“

He shook his head, pointing under the table to his crotch.

Phil looked a little uncomfortable. "Dan, I don’t think that’s exactly appropriate…”

Dan huffed. Finally, he reached over under the table and pulled Phil’s jacket up a little, grabbing onto the edge of his T-shirt.

"And normal T-shirts,“ Phil supplied. "Um… unisex ones.”

Dan nodded, giving him both thumbs up.

—-

Phil adjusted his bow tie in the mirror. There was a knock on his bedroom door, and he walked over quickly, opening it to reveal a suave looking Dan decked out in a completely white suit with a black dress shirt underneath. Dan leaned against the door, biting his lip, showing off his ensemble for Phil to admire.

"You look very dashing,“ Phil agreed, because though Dan hadn’t said anything aloud, his feelings towards the outfit were made clear with the prideful glint in his eyes.

Dan nodded in a you too. He stepped forwards, admiring Phil’s golden shoes.

"Pretty snazzy, right? I kind of based the whole outfit around them.” Phil tugged at his lapels, which were patterned with golden swirls. The rest of his suit was a formal black, save for a white dress shirt underneath.

Dan nodded in agreement, moving closer and adjusting Phil’s bow tie for him wordlessly. Phil had been wearing them for longer, but Dan had more of an eye for detail.

Wordlessly, they grabbed their phones and wallets and headed out front, Phil stepping into the road and catching the attention of a cabbie almost immediately. He stopped, and Phil climbed in, followed closely by Dan. They sat so close their legs touched without thinking. That’s just how they were comfortable.

It took a long time to get to the Royal Albert Hall where the premiere was being shown, mostly due to traffic. It was a big event, and if you weren’t going as a guest, you were going as press. Then, when they finally got there, they had to wait in line for ages just to get in, as everyone had to have their bags searched, because the princes were there, screeeeee!

"We could play i-spy!“ Phil suggested in excitement. Dan tried to let him down easily, gesturing at his throat like um, how? Then, when Phil insisted they try and make it work, they tried, and it didn’t work.

Dan pointed at himself, gesturing that he’d go instead, and Phil could guess. He scanned the room, his eyes locking on a hideous white dress shirt with polka dots on it. He nodded, pointing at his white jacket.

"It’s white,” Phil translated. Dan nodded in agreement, and Phil scanned the area.

"Those shoes that lady is wearing-“

Dan shook his head.

"That man’s white shirt.”

Dan saw where he was pointing, and shook his head again, smiling a little smugly.

"Is it one of the stormtroopers?“

Dan widened his eyes, peering over the heads of people to where Phil was pointing. He squeeeeed in excitement, one of the only noises he could still make, ignoring the looks he was sent.

"You have to take a picture with them!” Phil encouraged.

Dan gave him his trademarked 'duh’ expression, though this time, it came with a genuine smile. He puffed out his jacket a little, like you think I wore this for any other reason?

———-

They got the picture with the Storm Troopers, even though in order to do that they had to pose for the press, which both of them tried to avoid as much as possible. It was still sort of funny to think that people were actually interested in pictures of them, but Dan sort of doubted anyone in the press actually knew who they were. They just knew they were snazzy looking guests and that they must be important enough to have been invited to the event, so they didn’t question it.

Then, finally, they got to see the movie. And almost the whole time, they whispered back and forth, Dan’s whisper even quieter than Phil’s, but he still understood it. They’d been best friends for long enough that sometimes, words weren’t completely necessary. They could interpret each other’s expressions and general excitement almost as easily as they could interpret each other’s words.

12 Days Of Prompts Masterlist / Fic Masterlist / Request A Fic

[nickireadstfc]

The Foxhole Court, Chapter 11 – Orange Sportsball Gets The Fuck Real

In which the Foxes play their first match of the season, I have questions about American college sports, my Percy Jackson obsession has a brief cameo, and I’m sadly less excited about Actual Sportsball Games than I should be.

Sounds good? Then it’s time for Nicki to read The Foxhole Court.

           Thursday’s excitement had nothing on Friday’s. The whole school got decked out overnight with vibrant orange and white streamers. Ribbons and banners hung off every sidewalk lamp. Live student bands took over the amphitheater for short concerts and the student newspaper released that morning gave details for the afternoon parade.

Is that, like…………. Normal behavior on game days?? Actual American high school/college students, please confirm. Is this an actual thing???

I mean, I know y’all are big on sports and school spirit, but this big??

Please understand my confusion: At my school, no one fucking gave a shit about the sports teams. I didn’t even know when anyone had games/competitions unless we got told afterwards who won what brilliant award now, and even then like 5% of us cared. And I can’t speak for my uni yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same there as well. Do German unis even have sports teams?

I always liked to make fun of High School Musical 3 for having those giant ass banners displaying the athletes hanging in the halls. I am now starting to realize that might be perfectly normal for American schools.

What the fuck.

Also, Neil officially came out now – as a member of the Foxes, that is, of course.

           Neil wanted to cut class and hide at Fox Tower until game time, but athletes weren’t allowed to call out without a legitimate medical excuse. Someone from the athletics committee went around all day counting heads through classroom windows, and Wymack would be the first to hear Neil was absent.

They seriously stalk their students all day in fear they might be skipping class? And these students are in college, they are grown adults, not 14-year-olds. Again, is this a thing, what the fuck??

Then again, we’re talking about the country who invented hall passes. This is probably not the craziest thing around.

Fortunately, the Foxes decide to display their first sign of group solidarity in these trying times and guide Neil from class to class. This is a really small detail, but I love it.

I’m imagining Neil as a lil baby duck who obediently follows a big spikey-haired Matt duck, a small white-pastel-y Renee duck or a glamorous blonde Allison duck, wagging behind them in a tiny duck-sized jersey.

Although, when you think about it, they’re all just lil baby ducks following a big Wymack momma duck.

(Someone draw me fanart, I’m BEGGING YOU.)

I’m getting off track. Back to the plot.

           Andrew hadn’t lied to Neil back in May. In almost every article that talked of Neil’s pathetic experience Kevin was quoted as having high hopes for him. Kevin really had said that Neil would one day be Court.

Because this is the second time this has come up: What exactly does “being Court” mean?? Like, being Captain? Being MVP? Also, is this a regular sports expression or is is Exy-exclusive? Exyclusive?? Help.

A small silver lining of future hilariousness appears on the horizon: An Exy kickoff banquet is going to happen sometime in the next few chapter, and I am HYPED. This chaotic mess of a team + all their rivals + dates + drinks can only equal a Massive Fun Time™.

Fun for us, not for them, might I add. I am dying to see this.

           “[Renee] hasn’t asked [Andrew] yet, but it’s inevitable. (…) Money’s on the table as to whether or not he says yes. Pot’s getting pretty big, so get your bet in fast.”

           The only thing the Foxes had in common besides Exy and hardship was their strange obsession with betting on the stupidest things. Neil had figured that out only two weeks into practice. A week didn’t go by when there wasn’t money on something or another.

A team after my own heart <3 Can I join? I can never find anyone to bet on dumb things in my own circle of friends.

Will I throw this piece of paper in the bin on my first shot? Will the bus be late? Will Friend A and B hook up tonight? Will I lose my (nonexistent) emotional sanity to this series before the last book is over?

I don’t know about the others, but the last one is 100% happening.

           “There’s something we haven’t told you yet,” Dan said. (…) “So Andrew’s technically legally required to take his medication, right? (…) He struck a bargain of his own with Coach. The only reason he signed with us is because Coach agreed to let him come off his drugs for game nights.”

Is this supposed to come as a big plot twist? Because I kind of saw that coming. 10 bucks says Andrew comes off his meds for all Important Moments.

*insert yet another rant about the negative portrayal of mental health meds as barbaric mind-numbing, mania-inducing ~happy pills~ here*

Anyways, back to game day!! Our beloved foxy nutcases are playing against the Breckenridge Jackals, which is shaping up to be a Fun Time™ as they are apparently the biggest bullies around (second only to the Edgar Allan Murder Mob Clique, of course).

However, when faced with his impending wipe-out on the court, our favourite Sassmaster McSavage reaches new levels of Hell Fuckin Yeah:

           “[Gorilla] will break every bone in your body if you give him the chance.”

           “Don’t worry, though,” Matt said. “He’ll probably be too busy killing Kevin and Seth to notice you.”

           “This is my reassured face,” Neil said, pointing up at his blank expression.

SAVAGE.

I actually laughed so hard at that. This is some Percy Jackson level of sass right there.

Come to think about it, I want the entire AFTG series narrated by Percy Jackson, especially the chapter titles.

“I Am Offered A Foxy Deal”

“My Troubled Past Comes Back To Haunt My Ass”

“I Get Dragged Into Some Gay Shit”

“We Kick Serious Jackal Butt, Sort Of”

Remind me to make a full post of that once I’ve finished the series.

Off topic again. Sorry.

Before we finally begin the actual match (and wow, it’s 1.1k words already), Nicky seems to finally get the mental slaps I’ve been sending him since a few chapters ago:

           Nicky looked at Neil. “Hey,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk after… Well. I wanted to say sorry, but I kept chickening out. Are we okay?”

           “I don’t know yet,” Neil said.

           Nicky weighed that for a minute, then sighed and said, “Fair enough.”

Deep sigh. Who are we kidding, I can never resist a self-aware comic relief, Nicky, you’re still one of my faves. At least he knows he fucked up.

And now, finally: It’s Orange Sportsball time!!

Time for fast-paced sports action, balls flying, racquets hitting, body-checks left and right, a flurry of energy and emotion… that I simply can’t get behind.

I’m sorry, you guys, but I found myself having to double- and triple-read passages here in order to keep up with who is standing where, who is passing to whom and just generally what exactly is going on. Maybe it has to do with my own lack of interest for any sports involving balls (or actually any sports that isn’t dance, cheer, or anything involving performance), but I’m not really excited about this whole game part, to put it mildly.

Don’t get me wrong: I am loving the emotions attached to it. Solidarity, passion, group dynamics and character development shown on the field, give me all that good shit. I just couldn’t care less about who’s passing to who. Forgive me.

Did someone say passion and group dynamics?

           Neil’d watched his teammates fall apart to in-fighting all summer long, but now he finally saw them as a whole. As much as the Foxes disliked each other at times, they disliked their opponents more. They were still too fractured to be truly great, but they were good enough to give him chills.

This is shaping up to be good, you guys.

I can only imagine the sheer gloriousness in the upcoming books when Kandreil finally get their shit together and play on the field as a beautiful unstoppable three-way killing machine. I WILL DIE.

Twenty minutes into the game, Seth is crushed against a wall by three hundred pounds of pure douchebaggery – and I actually do feel sorry for him, not gonna lie – which means it’s time for the moment we’ve all been waiting for:

           “Going on for Seth Gordon is freshman Neil Josten, number ten, of Millport, Arizona.”

           Neil wondered if casket lids sounded like court doors being shut.

Ah yes, thank you for reminding me, even in the face of impending doom, how incredibly extra our boy Josten is.

           “A national champion and an amateur? South Carolina’s gotten even crazier than usual.”

           “An amateur and a cripple, you mean,” the dealer said.

           Andrew slammed his racquet against the goal, making several athletes jump and drawing more than a few wary looks his way.

This is such a small detail but it’s the /best/. Nobody insults my boyfriends in front of me, fuckface.

Bla bla bla more sports bla bla, I’m putting everything remotely interesting that’s happening in a bullet list because let’s be honest, it’s not fucking much.

Neil scores! Twice! Good boy.

Matt takes a card for the team by punching the fuck out of Gorilla, what a babe.

Also, his mom is a professional boxer? When can we meet her. I’m always a sucker for strong women who could kick my ass.

Gorilla has been hitting Kevin’s hand on purpose all the time, which is not cool, yet not surprising, ain’t no honour in Exy injuries, apparently.

That is it, my dudes.

Writing the next chapter on a coach (yet again) as I’ll be visiting some friends in NRW, so I’ll be coming to you live from my Prime Flixbus Office Space, let’s see how that works out. Till next time, ily all. <3