#so i'm less concerned about getting to five pages than i was a couple days ago

[longroadstonowhere]

man, i probably should’ve started on this assignment earlier, but i’m honestly having such a blast doing it

[missjanjie]

Tell Me I'm Okay, Jasmine | Jasya

Title: Tell Me I'm Okay, Jasmine Summary: Jasmine is a wedding planner that cares deeply about the happiness and marital success of her clients. So, when she realizes something is just not right with one of her brides-to-be, she does what she needs to do to remedy the issue... even if it's a bit unorthodox Word Count: 1591 Relationship(s): Jasmine Kennedie/Daya Betty (with a side of Robin/Aura) Rating: T

This is for the fic exchange @junosjukebox and @themetaluna set up, and I was thrilled to get @petitmonde especially as a fellow jasya appreciator. I genuinely enjoyed writing this so I hope you like it <3

Read on Ao3

-

“I know she’s home,” Jasmine murmured after her second round of knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell didn’t bring her client out. Concerned, she fished out the spare key that she had been permitted to use and let herself in, calling out, “Daya?” as she rounded the corridor. 

As it turned out, Daya was well within earshot, but once Jasmine looked at her, she realized that it wouldn’t have made a difference. As a wedding planner, she found it imperative to connect with her clientele, and she found that despite butting heads in the beginning, they had formed a solid connection. If she were being honest, it was one of the deeper connections she had with a client, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. With that in mind, it was clear this wasn’t the Daya she had been working with for the past eight months. 

Daya sat motionless on the couch, eyes glazed over with a far-off expression. Her face was paler than her usual fair complexion and dark circles had started to form under her eyes. It was as if she was there physically, but nothing more. It was only the familiar vanilla scent in Jasmine’s perfume and the clacking of her heels that startled her back into reality. “Hey.”

Jasmine assessed the scene in front of her – scattered invitation samples, wedding binder open with a myriad of post-its and annotations over the visible pages, leaves and petals of fake flowers everywhere from the dog’s bed to Daya’s hair. To call a spade a spade, she was a hot mess. “I would ask if you’re okay, but I think I have my answer,” she remarked as she brushed a few petals aside before joining her on the couch. “Do you wanna talk about it?” 

There was a long, tense silence before she answered. “It feels like there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, you know? Like, was I sick the day of school they teach you how to be a normal person?” She sighed heavily and reclined against the couch, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Am I okay, Jasmine? You’re unbiased – just tell me I’m okay.” 

At her core, she knew exactly what Daya was feeling; the feeling had hit her twice in her life – once when she faced her gender dysphoria head-on, and the next when she had to come out all over again as a lesbian. She had long suspected the cracks in Daya’s relationship ran deeper than they appeared, but now she started to put together why. She leaned over, placing a hand on her knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. “You’re okay,” she promised, holding eye contact as she spoke. “Does this have to do with Kyle?” 

Daya tensed up and swallowed hard. “I keep waiting for the excitement about getting married to hit. I have fun planning it with you, but when I think about going into the church and walking down the aisle, doing all of these things we’re working on… I just feel numb.” She had previously written off these feelings as mere displeasure towards marrying in a church after caving to the pressure of her future in-laws. 

Jasmine chewed on her lip. There was no easy way to say ‘I think you’re a lesbian’ to someone you’ve known for less than a year. “When you think about why you love him, what comes to mind?” Having been in the wedding planning business for nearly five years, she knew the questions to ask to get couples to reflect on their relationship. Sometimes she would joke that she could take up couples’ counseling as a side hustle. But she never had to ask for this reason before. 

“He’s safe,” Daya mused, “when I’m with him, the world feels calm.”

“Are you attracted to him?” she asked.

“He treats me well.”

Jasmine arched her brow. “That’s not what I asked,” she replied, then asked again more pointedly. “Are you attracted to him? Does he turn you on? Get you wet? Make you c–”

“Jesus Christ, Jas!” Daya sputtered, her face flushed red. Normally, she was the one making off-the-cuff sexual remarks that made others clutch their pearls, leaving her all the more flustered. But, after a moment, she conceded, “No, to… all of that.” 

Again, Jasmine was left with a precarious choice to make. Then, she perked up with an idea. “I’d like you to come with me to my next client if you’re not busy with…” she gestured at the coffee table, “that.”

She mulled it over for a moment before deciding that taking a break from her self-imposed chaos would do her some good. Besides, she had grown to enjoy spending as much time with Jasmine as she could. “Sure, just give me some time to make myself presentable.”

As Daya was getting up, her dog jumped up into Jasmine’s lap, leading her to cheerfully reply, “Take your time!” as she pet him. 

—

After a ten-minute drive, they made it to Jasmine’s next clients. Once there, Jasmine gave a brief introduction of the couple – Robin and Aura, dating for three years, engaged for four months, wedding set for roughly a year ahead. Then they went into the living room where, like Daya, they had binders and samples covering the majority of the coffee table. But unlike her, there appeared to be some basic organization. 

At first, Daya didn’t understand why she was there. The couple was nice, they seemed to have some interesting ideas, but she felt out of place. But as the session progressed, she started to notice something – the way the two women interacted with each other, and with Jasmine. They were equally enthusiastic, offering input and listening to each other, and most noticeably, they were affectionate with each other. She saw them holding each other, gentle touches, quick stolen kisses and her mind started reeling. 

 “Daya?”

She blinked rapidly. “Hm?” 

“I asked which color scheme you thought looked better,” Jasmine replied, pointing to two sets of color swatches. 

“Oh, um…” She looked at the swatches, brows furrowed. “I like this dark teal, it stands out in the right way with the other colors.” 

The other three women nodded in agreement, the session continuing for the rest of the hour. “Do you wanna go get coffee?” Jasmine offered to Daya as they got back in her car.

“Sure,” she nodded as she buckled in, almost instantly gazing distantly out the window in a silence rarely associated with her personality. “They looked so happy,” she murmured with a hint of envy in her tone.

“Well, they are, that’s why they’re getting married,” she pointed out as she pulled into a parking spot, then turned to the taller woman. “Are you happy?”

This time, the silence was deafening. Every word she tried to utter got lodged in her throat until she finally forced out, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

All the tact and carefulness Jasmine had employed throughout the afternoon suddenly escaped her grasp as she blurted out, “Because you’re gay!” Realizing her mistake, she quickly attempted to backpedal. “I just… I mean… You seem so unhappy with him, you said it yourself that he doesn’t satisfy you, you couldn’t give me a concrete reason as to why you’re even with him, other than–”

“My sister is gay.” The revelation brought Jasmine’s rambling to a grinding halt. “She came out when she was nineteen and my parents threw her out. They’ve been working on repairing their relationship over the years, especially after she eloped with her wife, but I don’t think it’ll ever be the same. They don’t look at her the same, there’s this layer of disgust hidden under fake smiles.”

Jasmine nodded as she listened, opening her mouth to reply, but promptly shutting it when she realized Daya was still mid-explanation. 

“Crystal was the golden child. I was fifteen when she left and all of a sudden, I got all the attention and praise I’d always wanted. So when some guy asked me out that didn’t seem like he would murder me in my sleep, I just went with it. And I’ve been going with it for over four years.”

“So…”

She sighed. “Yes, Jasmine, I’m gay. You are now one of the three people that know. My sister and her wife have been sworn to secrecy. My only other option is to be alone.”

“No,” the blonde took her hand and squeezed it until Daya met her eyes, “your other option is to be happy.” 

“How am I supposed to be happy if I’m disappointing my family?” 

“Because you’ll finally stop disappointing yourself. Look, I’m not gonna pretend it was easy coming out as gay or trans, but I wouldn’t take back that choice for anything. Yes, I lost some family and friends, but I found people who care for me as I am. You will too – you have your sister, her wife… You have me.”

Daya cracked a small smile. “Even if I’m not paying you?” she asked, absentmindedly stroking her thumb over the back of Jasmine’s hand. 

She laughed. “How about you get the coffee and we’ll take it from there?”

“Fair enough,” she hummed. Then, as casually as she could, added, “Then I can tell you about the things that do turn me on.” Jasmine hit her arm and laughed as they got out of the car. There was the Daya she had first met. Or better yet, this was the real Daya she was meeting for the first time.

[purposefully-lost]

Alex was beginning to drift. He sat in bed with his knees drawn up, a book settled against them, but he hadn't registered what was on the page in over a minute. The past couple of days had been both the happiest of his life and one hell of a whirlwind. One day he'd been a single parent with a rough past, the sole survivor of a horrific string of infamous murders, a journalist who was only just now seeming to get back into the swing of things- and the next, everything had turned on it's head. Jack came home. And he loved Harley, and Harley was opening up to him, except he didn't fix all her problems. There was still school and the boy who'd teased her and the scratch she'd left on his arm because she was a five year old, and kids had sharp nails, and she'd lashed out in the middle of recess only a week or two ago.

He did his best. But he'd started to figure a while ago that Harley might've had something in her head that came from him or Rabbit, and that scared him. He wanted things to be easy for her. Pleasant. He wanted her safe and happy. He'd never really fixed his own problems so much as replaced them with new ones, and he didn't want that for her. And Jack...

He sighed, leaning back against the bed and closing his eyes. He was so tired.

"I'm really worried about her," he said quietly, letting the words just sink through the air around him. "I mean, she's doing fine, all kids get into scraps, but- but it's her, you know? They'll figure out who she is, and they'll look at her like.." He sighed. "I don't know."

"Did something happen?"

Alex's eyes snapped open. He tensed like he was ready to run, his eyes wide and wild as they landed on the man standing in the doorway. He breathed heavy, staring, and feeling his heart clench. Rabbit's hair was still damp from his shower, his expression as surprised as Alex's, but softened by concern. He took a small, hesitant step into the room, then glanced around like he was looking for something. He looked to Alex again. "Alex?" There was a gentle anxiousness in his voice. "What's wrong? ..Were you talking to someone?"

He didn't know what to say. Alex sat back to the bed, but his gaze was locked on Rabbit's. His heart thundered so hard he thought it was going to beat out of his chest. "I- I'm sorry," he said quietly, which only seemed to further Rabbit's concern. The larger man started to close the distance and settled on the edge of the bed. He looked as if he might speak, but Alex quickly stuttered, trying to force out explanation. "I just- I'm- I'm not used to you talking back."

Rabbit paused. He blinked, then started to laugh, more lost than anything. "Bambi," he started. "I know I was quiet before, but-"

"No!" Alex snapped. He was near panting now, panic bubbling up in his chest while his eyes started to burn. He shook his head. "I- I mean- I never stopped talking to you. While you were.. gone. And now--"

He'd grieved Rabbit. Of course he had- he hadn't ever stopped. But the heavy breakdowns, the crying himself exhausted, the yelling into a pillow or punching the hole into the wall that he'd had to caulk over, those had become less frequent over time. He hadn't thrown an angry, heartbroken tantrum over the man in at least a year now. But he could feel it rising up in him again, even though Rabbit sat right in front of him. Alex choked. "I- I didn't- I didn't think you were-"

Whatever explanation he'd been trying to form, understanding had already dawned on Rabbit's face. It was a kind of expression he hadn't seen since he'd come home, but that he'd been familiar with in their early days. A little scared, a little unsure, desperate to reach out and still learning how. A loud, heartbroken sob tore itself from Alex's throat and he tried to muffle it, but then Rabbit was pulling his hand from his face and tugging him to his chest. He broke and for maybe one of the only times, he really let himself go. Rabbit was speaking to him, but it was all little more than senseless noise. The only thing Alex could hear was his own screaming that surely, surely was going to wake Harley, and then he wouldn't know what to do, and she'd see him the one way he never wanted her to, and, and, and. There was always something, and it was always him left standing alone at the edge of the cliff face, and it was always his hand that had pulled the trigger. It was his silence to rot in and the hole in his chest that he'd never be able to fill.

At least, until there was nothing left in his body that was able to keep forcing the tears. And then it was Rabbit's strong arms around him and the quiet, soothing words he whispered. Alex sniffled as he tried to struggle out of his hold, only so that he could duck down and press the side of his face against Rabbit's chest. He listened for the heartbeat and his breath hitched. He had to sniffle again before he found his voice. "..You were really lucky, Jack," he told him quietly. There was a hand brushing through his hair and Alex close his eyes, let himself be soothed. "At least you knew I was alive."

Rabbit seemed to squeeze him a little tighter. Alex could tell from the way he breathed alone that he'd been in tears, too. "I'm sorry," he said. Alex shook his head.

"Don't be." He pulled himself up to look at him, taking in tear stained cheeks and reddened eyes, then simply pulled him close again. He could feel Rabbit's chest heaving against his own. "Not your fault," he said softly. "...I'm just glad I get to hear you again."

[nagipops]

hii I love your blogs sooo much you're really talented (I just needed to say it sorry) so straight to the point, I already made 2 requests to you and I really enjoyed your writing so I would like to make another again. As I'm clueless about what to request I'll just ask for random hcs for konoha 11, idk if it's too much but if so then you can do with Neji (I love him so much), Kakashi and Naruto. Thank you in advance and sorry anything ^^

RANDOM KONOHA 11 HEADCANONS!

FEATURING: naruto, sakura, shikamaru, ino, choji, neji, rock lee, tenten, kiba, hinata, and shino

WARNINGS: mentions alcohol, drugs, food, bugs, and the tiniest nsfw mention if you get the joke. hehe

A/N: AHHHH ANONN this seriously made my day, im so so glad you enjoy my work!! 💖

NARUTO

you know how we all have “the chair”, where we throw all of our dirty clothes onto?

yeah, imagine that, but from the seat to the fricking ceiling

its just a GINORMOUS MOUND of clothes, you wonder how he even goes through that many clothes so quickly???

definitely shoves it under his bed whenever guests come over (somehow)

holds chopsticks really weirdly. but it works.

asked tenten to put his hair into space buns to mimic his sexy jutsu and went around flirting with the village

jiraiya was so proud of him T-T

comes up with the WORST pickup lines

they’re so bad, its almost charming. almost

has gone AWOL multiple times, disappearing from everywhere, just everywhere

it scared you a little, so you searched the entire village for him

you finally found him sitting on the ledge of a cliff, gazing out at the vast sea

concerned and panicked, you cried out to ask him what was wrong

he turned to you with a crestfallen, devastated look on his face and said,

“i bought shrimp ramen instead of chicken ramen.”

you’ve never searched for him after his disappearance ever again.

SAKURA

100% makes origami shurikens and chucks them at you

they are deathly precise and deathly sharp. seriously, how are these not illegal weapons yet???

writes threatening motivational notes to herself on the mirror

“u got this!” “make sure to smack naruto today!” “ino sucks!”

her backpack would always be way too high up on her back. idk why but. it would

does her hair all nice and pretty before she goes out but once she arrives to her destination SHE KEEP. TAKING. IT OUT. and redoing it over and over and over again

like it’s impossible to make eye contact with her because she’s holding a bobby pin between her teeth while braiding her hair

her guilty pleasure would be hostess treats

ding dongs are her favorite. don’t ask me how i know, i just know.

eats the yellow starbursts just to spite naruto and all her haters

loves small lap dogs, she think’s they’re so cute and cuddly

but she especially loves chihuahuas

they’re so feisty and naruto HATES them, so of course she had to go and get one for herself

dresses the poor dog up in little bonnets and jackets and ties its tiny fuzzy hairs into pigtails

she and the chihuahua are not that much unlike <3

SHIKAMARU

this man is a god at shogi but he absolutely SUCKSSSS at cup pong.

is this an ick? idk. but he is absolute trash at this game.

it gets even worse when he’s got a couple drinks in him

tries to calculate the velocity and acceleration and angle and shit but his shot is always a good two feet off BYE 😭

just mutters an “aw, shit” before awaiting his turn again

hates checkers, loves chess

“checkers is for WUSSIES” - shikamaru nara

i said this in another post, but he is Very Good at whistling

like that’s his hidden talent

can copy any tune with the perfect pitch and rhythm

speaking of, he can do really cool tricks with his tongue

like making a four leaf clover, touching the bridge of his nose with it, flipping it upside down, you name it

he has slanted, scrawled handwriting, to the point where it’s almost illegible

wbk he cheats in school SO OFTEN. but he never gets caught. he’s not stupid, he just couldn’t care less about his classes.

thinks weed and e-cigs are stupid, cigarettes are where it’s at

you just can’t replicate the feeling of taking a drag from a cig after a long, tiring day

plus he looks hella cool while doing it B)

INO

teaches the boyz™️ how to braid their hair

like they all gather in a circle around this feisty fashionista and fail attempt to braid their hair

sakura was just fuming in the sidelines

“OI, INO-PIG, THAT’S A DUTCH BRAID, NOT A FRENCH BRAID!!”

yeah, ino 🙄

the only one that can actually do it is neji because a) this man is talented af and b) he’s got the long hairrr

ino probably envies his thick, sleek hair because hE’S a bOy

also asks everyone for their blood type and zodiac signs and tells them if they’re compatible with her or not

and definitely judges you for your sign 😣

“oh, you’re a gemini? hmm, what a shame...”

makes bouquets for her favorite people and kin assigns everyone a flower

only assigns the pretty nice ones to the people she likes (sorry sakura, you’re out of luck)

one of her favorite hobbies is crafting! she’s really good with details and small things so she loves making those miniature dollhouses and stuff

also really good at watercoloring. especially painting flowers and landscapes

also i feel like she would be really good at playing any instrument because of her skilled hands

can play a badass flute solo. period.

CHOJI

would honestly rather die than get anywhere NEAR an asparagus

he just thinks they’re so gross and bitter and NOT SALTY

he always eats his yakiniku a little bit undercooked because he’s way too impatient to wait for it to cook fully. who do you think he is??

whenever he cloud gazes with shikamaru, when asked what he thinks a cloud looks like, he just says some sort of food

“oi, choji, what does that one look like to you?”

“a... yakiniku grill... with... pineapple rings on it! ooh, and a wagyu steak right there!”

he thinks pringles are an abomination to society. where’s the crisp? where’s the grease? where’s the saltiness?!!!

asks ino to teach him how to do his hair all fancy and the two of them devote an entire day learning different hairstyles

it’s his new favorite thing to do now :D

he really likes crayons!!!!

like he’ll write with them, draw with them, color with them, do everything with them

he’s even tried to eat them. he said they tasted good.

definitely had the 128 crayon pack WITH THE BUILT-IN SHARPENER, and everyone thought he was the coolest kid in town

he ate it UP, he even scored some bbq dates with the ladies

i also feel like he loves basketball, and he has a MEAN slam dunk

like his vertical isn’t that high, but the man can REACH

he loves when people laugh at him when he challenges them to a 1v1 and then proceeds to absolutely destroy them <3

NEJI

he seems like a cucumber kind of guy.

just cucumber

like i feel like he puts it in everything; soba, salads, sandwiches, his face, yeah

it’s mellow and cool, just like him!

speaking of, i feel like he lives for spa days and facials

it just lets him be alone in his little cucumber scented world for an hour or two and he gets damn clear skin from it as well

seriously he has PERFECT skin. flawless. not a single blemish. his cheeks feel like baby butts they’re so smooth.

i feel like he’d be a god at solving rubik’s cubes, don’t ask me why

like if anyone scrambled theirs on accident they would just take it to neji and he’d solve it in the blink of an eye

CAT PERSON!!! loves the little meow meows

who are we kidding, neji basically is a cat; agile, aloof, does silly things without trying to, very cute

he just feels akin to the little fuzzballs and he thinks petting cats are extremely therapeutic. good for the soul

he is a golf man. he would take his juniors golfing and everyone thinks he’s uncool. cmon neji let them go to the skate park at least T-T

also very good at karaoke, definitely surprised everyone once he got a few drinks in him since he started serenading you

LIGHTWEIGHT!!! do not get more than one shot of alcohol in him. he will go berserk.

i also feel like he’d really love photography; not taking pictures of people, but of nature

he loves taking a quiet stroll through a pretty forest and snapping pictures of all the unique flora and fauna

it’s so serene ︶ ‿ ︶

ROCK LEE

100% milly rocks everywhere

gai got in on it too once he asked what lee was doing

“is that what all the youthful cool kids do these days!”

they also dab together. a lot

DO NOT BE SEEN WITH THESE TWO!!! you are not associated with them.

definitely is the one breakdancing in the middle of the dance circle at a high school party

he’s mad skilled at it too

headspins and windmills galore

challenged naruto to a dance-off and completely OBLITERATED him

lee then asked if naruto wanted a rematch, this time with one hand tied behind lee’s back

naruto obliged, and he STILL lost

RIP naruto and his fangirls, they all scrambled to lee afterwards T-T

i feel like his favorite subject is science

not the boring physics equations and laws and theories but the fun EXPERIMENTS

definitely has singed all of his hair off one time and he went to gai blubbering to help him grow back his precious hair

but he loves experimenting with different combinations and chemicals to get different reactions each time

created a potent love potion and carried it around with him all day one day

and it was actually working

girls were flocking to him left and right, staring at his lips and his face

he was so abashed at the sudden attention

heck, it even worked on sakura

“oi, lee-san!”

“hehe, yes, sakura-san?”

her eyes shifted downwards to his lips and his heart thumped harder

“hey... lee-san?”

“what is it?”

“you have something on your lip. we’ve been trying to tell you all day but you just winked and blew kisses at us.”

legend has it lee has still not recovered to this day.

TENTEN

has THE prettiest handwriting. and she can write SUPER fast

it’s like a superpower

like she transcribed five pages of a report in less than two minutes with perfect handwriting

naruto is so jealous.

she is also super good at origami! those diligent, accurate hands aren’t just for throwing things

taught sakura how to make shurikens but does NOT endorse any violent uses of them

she can replicate all of her weapons with paper and they can actually function, it’s so cool

made paper kunai knives one day and the wholeee village wanted to get their hands on them

i feel like she’d listen to mitski. idk i just get those vibes

LOVES BIG DOGS!! especially fluffy wuffy samoyeds

like man’s best friend?? no, GIRL’S BEST FRIEND!!

hugs and cuddles and squishes all the big dogs

she thinks small dogs are spawns of satan

sakura and her have definitely quarreled over this

but at the end of the day, all dogs are adorable fur babies, so she lets it slide :,)

KIBA

kiba always looks SO GOOD in photos you take of him, candid or not

like you could just whip out a camera and snap a photo of him at any given moment and he would look perfect

you framed a picture of him yelling at akamaru for peeing inside the house

it’s pure artwork

i feel like he tries to swagger around with his hands shoved in his pockets but it fails MISERABLY and the girls are wondering if he broke his leg or something 😭

kiba just walk normally. for the love of god please just walk normally.

he tries to slump back in his chair really low but one time he slouched way too low so he slipped off of his chair and onto the ground LMFAOOOO

he just wallowed there... in shame...

also.. he LOVES when the girls put makeup on him!!

he tries to act like he hates it. but it secretly gives him so much confidence

not to mention the girls hyping him up are a huge ego boost

okay the inside of his jacket hood is the warmest. thing. EVER!!!

seriously, no wonder this dude is so happy-go-lucky all the time, he’s living in literal heaven 24/7

it’s like you’re sleeping on a cloud inside a warm, cozy bed during a cold winter morning

10/10 would recommend letting him give you his sweatshirt when you’re chillin with a hair tie ❤️

HINATA

always smells like lavender soap. always

also has the cutest pencil pouches with little puppy faces and kawaii things

oH and she has those mini yoobi highlighters, she thinks they’re so cute (and functional!)

everyone flocks to her to try them out and marvel at the cute tiny highlighters

and they try to steal them from her but she doesn’t even stop them because she’s too timid to 😭

naruto goes BALLISTIC over them

she lets him have all of them <3

tennis girl!!! tennis girl.

all of her opponents always underestimate her because she’s so timid and shy and quiet

but she has a KILLER serve

and then she takes her opponents to the slaughterhouse with a complete shutout ;)

she’s really athletic believe it or not, she can beat most of the boys in a mile run and she has incredible endurance

i feel like she really loves velvet scrunchies

she just thinks they’re so pretty and they keep her hair soft so they’re cute and functional

also takes the PRETTIEST notes!!

color codes, dividers, headers, you name it, it’s all super readable too its insane

everyone asks her for her notes, not to study but just to appreciate the pure artwork that it is ^w^

SHINO

shino is SO easy to prank

“how do you catch an eyemaster?” *cue naruto and kiba snickering*

“eyemaster bait. that is because—”

even when everyone’s laughing their asses off, he still continues to explain his answer since he does NOT GET THE JOKE

tried his hand at writing haikus

here’s his best one so far:

“Bugs are amazing. That is because they are bugs. Bugs are very nice.” - Shino Aburame

VERY proud of it, since it took him weeks to perfect

praise it, pls

had one of those ant farms and bug-catching kits as a kid

and he would fill the kit TO THE BRIM. LIKE IT WAS HEAVY BECAUSE THERE WERE SO MANY BUGS.

he loves the little chitters of the different bugs

he had jars of different bugs all lined up on a wall shelf in his room

collects silkworms off of trees and sticks them into his pockets (no i definitely did not do this as a kid...)

HELP I FEEL LIKE he would record a timelapse of his ant farm growing and upload it to youtube with a movie maker title screen that says

“my ants”

if you enjoyed this post, likes and reblogs are much appreciated :) feel free to request here, and make sure to read the rules first! have a lovely day everyone <3

[swordandquill]

Title: Winter Break

Fandom: Leverage

Summary: The team find themselves snowed in in a little town in the middle of nowhere.

Ch 2: Fussing - Nate has to choose between supervising a shopping spree or supervising a grumpy hitter. He definitely chooses the lesser evil.

Author’s Note: I still don’t know where this story is going or when the next update will be. 

Many, many thanks to @whumpybliss for beta reading this chapter!

You can go here to read this on AO3 instead.

"I know what you're trying to do."

Eliot's glare was less impressive than usual, but Nate still would have bet his money on him. Not that he wouldn't always bet on Eliot, and with things much more valuable to him than money.

"Trying to get you to eat saltines, so you don't throw up when you take the prescription strength anti-inflammatories I know you have in your bag?" Nate waved the open sleeve of crackers in front of the hitter.

"Stop fussing," Eliot snapped and snatched the sleeve out of Nate's hand.

Now that Parker had pointed it out, Nate could clearly see Eliot was favoring his left arm. Or, possibly because Parker had pointed it out, Eliot was putting less effort into hiding it.

"They shouldn't be in there alone," Eliot pulled a few crackers out of the sleeve and shoved it back at Nate.

"They're not alone," Nate swapped the sleeve for a water bottle from the grocery bag at his feet, "they have each other. We might be living off of orange soda and Trix for the next two weeks, but I think they'll get each other out of the store in one piece."

Eliot gave him a dubious look but refrained from talking with his mouth full.

"Anyway, I'm listening," Nate tapped the comm he had slipped into his ear.

"Where's my…?" Eliot frowned and tried to reach behind the seat for his bag, wincing hard at the twisting motion.

"Stop it," Nate thumped his side lightly with the back of his hand, "I've got them. Parker hasn't managed to convince Sophie that Froot Loops are both a vegetable and a fruit. Sophie is giving her tips on being persuasive, and Hardison doesn't know the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber, but one of them has made it into the basket."

"How have they made it this far without dying of malnutrition?" Eliot let his head flop back against the headrest.

"Cereal is fortified," Nate said dryly and poked Eliot with the water bottle, "which bag are your meds in?"

"It can wait until we get to the cabin," Eliot grabbed the offending bottle away without opening his eyes.

Nate didn't have to wrangle an injured Eliot often. Most of the time, he was more than capable of managing his own injuries. When he wasn't, Nate usually let Parker take the lead in poking and prodding while he helped Hardison track down whatever medical help their hitter needed.

Parker needed to burn off some energy, though, and Nate would rather supervise a cranky Eliot than his team on a shopping spree. He had trailed Eliot through the first aid aisle, listened to him mutter over spices and knives on the baking aisle, and then dragged him back to the van with saltines and water bottles in hand.

"Just take the anti-inflammatory," Nate argued, "it won't make you drowsy, and the longer you wait, the less well they'll work."

"Stop. Fussing." Eliot growled, somehow managing to drink his water angrily. Nate was always impressed by how Eliot could make the most mundane tasks look threatening. Luckily for him and the rest of the team, Nate was not easily intimidated.

"Just for the sake of argument..." Nate started.

"No," Eliot said flatly.

"We're stuck in the car until Hardison picks a shampoo. Humor me," Nate ignored Hardison's protests over the comm about his sensitive scalp.

"They need to hurry," Eliot groused, 'the snow is getting worse."

"Right," Nate agreed and held the sleeve of saltines out to Eliot again. He was disproportionately pleased when the hitter grabbed a few more without protest, "so let's just say there really is some shadowy figure waiting behind the curtain to get us…"

Eliot raised an eyebrow at that, probably cross-checking his mental list of people who matched that description, but Nate ignored him.

"And they orchestrated stranding the five us in this specific tiny town, in the middle of nowhere, by waiting until we were both split up on five different planes, and there was a massive storm front to force our flights here…"

"Look, I know…" Eliot rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"Which is possible," Nate continued to ignore him, "highly unlikely, but possible. After all, shady figures are usually good at seizing opportunity when they see it. So let's say all of that is true. What's their next move? Where do they expect us to be?"

Eliot frowned before reluctantly admitting, "They expect us to be stranded, at the airport or one of the hotels."

"Right," Nate nodded, "and even if they somehow anticipated us renting a summer house, it would be almost impossible to control which summer house we rented. Hardison must have skimmed through a half dozen search pages worth before we went after this one."

Eliot's frown deepened as he worked the problem and thought how he would have managed something like this from the other side. Nate let him be for a minute because he was still eating crackers while he thought, seemingly without noticing.

"There are ways they could stack the deck in their favor," he finally said slowly. "Knowing what we would want in a place to lay low, making it available even though it looked unavailable, monitoring Hardison for the search criteria he was using, then populating it with multiple properties that they have control of."

"Possible," Nate conceded, "ridiculously elaborate and unnecessarily complicated, but possible."

"So, one of your plans, basically," Eliot snorted.

"I don't have the patience to wait on mother nature," Nate let the jab slide, "my point is, the best thing we can do in this situation is not be where we're most likely to be. The rest, we'll just have to deal with as it comes."

"I know that. It's just…" Eliot just looked worn out now, tired of having to run through every scenario and possibility for every given moment.

Nate had figured out fairly early on that Eliot's paranoia was rooted in both a lot of experience and a lot of trauma. It meant they would be idiots to ignore him when he said something was wrong (and Nate had, unfortunately, been that idiot on more than one occasion, although he tried not to be these days), but they also needed to be a second check on those things for him sometimes, because he could always work his way around to those perceived threats being possible, even if they weren't probable.

It had gotten a lot better over the years, and the team had gotten better at finding ways to help him deal with it when it did come up. There was never a perfect solution, but they were more than happy to settle for an imperfect one if it made things at least a little better.

"And we'll deal with everything a lot better if you just take your diclofenac," Nate cut him off again, "so what bag is it in?"

"Duffel," Eliot conceded defeat finally, "they really do need to hurry."

"I know," Nate turned around and started sifting through the bags they had tossed into the third row of seats, "they're almost done."

Parker had been sitting in the back row, and she had rearranged the luggage that hadn't fit in the trunk to make a nest of sorts for herself around the middle seat. Nate had to practically crawl over the back of the middle row to reach Eliot's duffel bag, and he only felt a little bad for messing up her carefully crafted arrangement.

Eliot carried prescription meds with him and had for as long as Nate had known him. He had worried at first about the bottle of oxi that was always packed in the hitter's personal medkit. In hindsight, he could see the hypocrisy of constantly watching Eliot for signs of opioid addiction while simultaneously getting blackout drunk on a regular basis.

It had only taken a couple months for that concern to shift from Eliot taking too many painkillers to getting Eliot to take them at all. Two years in, and Nate had been worrying about why Eliot felt like jobs would leave him in enough pain on a regular enough basis that he would need to always have that level of painkiller with him. These days, Eliot and meds were mostly a bargaining act, a give and take informed by context and where Eliot's head was at at the given moment.

Oxi made him disoriented and dizzy; he wouldn't take it if he didn't feel safe. Diclofenac made him nauseous if he didn't take it with food (sometimes even when he did). Of the two problems, that was the easier one to solve.

Nate finally managed to find Eliot's duffel bag and pulled the medkit out, tossing the bag back in the pile of luggage for Parker to rearrange and poke through to her heart's content once they got back to the van.

"You want one or two?" Nate opened the kit and sorted through the neatly labeled bottles.

"Just one," Eliot was slumped back against the headrest again, eyes closed.

"You're out of Zofran," Nate shook the empty bottle.

"I gave the last of it to Sophie when we hit that patch of turbulence on the way in for the job," Eliot said dismissively, "it's fine. I'll refill it later."

Nate handed the pill and another water bottle over to Eliot, then texted Parker and asked her to get a bottle of Zofran from the pharmacy. A little thievery would do her good after 8 hours on a plane.

Eliot took the pill, and the van went comfortably quiet aside from the rest of the team's chatter in Nate's ear. It was surprisingly relaxing to listen in on them doing something as mundane as arguing over pasta sauce and gummy frog brands. They were on the comms a lot, but during jobs, there was a certain amount of tension, the constant need to be assessing and reassessing everything that happened.

Nate didn't care what kind of pasta sauce they got, and he didn't like gummy frogs, but it was nice just to sit back and listen to them be together.

There was suddenly weight against his shoulder, and Nate held still as Eliot gradually slumped more heavily against him, eyes closed and breath even. Nate waited until he was sure he was settled before shifting to get an arm around him and stop him from sliding down too far. Eliot fidgeted in his sleep for a moment, then relaxed with a soft sigh.

It wasn't that unusual for Eliot to sleep around them, but after how keyed up he had been at the airport, having him resting solid and relaxed against his side felt like winning.