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goldfades · 2 days ago

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𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐄𝐓 ☆ BUECKERS⁵ (ev's 6k celly!)

free palestine carrd 🇵🇸 decolonize palestine site 🇵🇸 how you can help palestine | FREE PALESTINE!

CELLY MASTERLIST

ᝰ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 4.6k

ᝰ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | dating paige means learning to share her — with fans, cameras, the league. you’re used to being in the background: her pregame text, her airport pickup, the face she looks for in the crowd. but when she finally has a bad game — one that leaves her jaw tight and chest guarded, you’re the one she lets fall apart.

ᝰ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | angst!! hurt to comfort, paige being a little mean, kinda stay at home vibe for reader but not really?? HAPPY ENDING!!

ᝰ 𝒆𝒗'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 | yaya!! day 3 of celly, i hope yall are enjoying so far. here's the angsty, hurt to comfort paige fic yall were promised. also i feel like i needed to add that im not trying to hate on the wings at all, this fic is more about the emotional side of things than any real commentary on the team.

also obviously i have no idea what paige is actually feeling or going through (obviously LOL), this is all just fictional and for fun. just wanted to explore a softer, more personal side of what that transition might feel like for someone carrying that much pressure. no harm intended, just feelings & vibes & sapphic yearning <3

You meet her in a grocery store just off of campus, which feels fake even as it’s happening.

She’s in a hoodie too big for her, hood up, cart half-full of protein bars and Smartwater, reading the back of a box like it's a scouting report. You’re standing in front of the oat milk. That’s it. That’s the origin story.

She asks if the oat milk is good. You say it depends on what she’s doing with it. She raises an eyebrow and says, drinking it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world . You tell her it’s fine but the vanilla one is better. And when she reaches for it, your fingers graze. You don’t look away first.

It starts there — two people in the milk aisle, pretending they don’t know who the other is or maybe pretending it doesn’t matter.

It matters.

Now it’s almost two years later. You know which pair of socks she has to wear on game days, how she retapes her fingers during halftime even if the wrap is fine, the way she likes her smoothies: blended twice, don’t ask why and that when she’s tired she gets clingy but insists she’s not.

You also know how to stay out of the frame.

You're the person who picks up her dry cleaning, triple checks her call sheet, drives her to the airport at 5AM with a thermos of coffee you’ll never get thanked for. Not because she’s ungrateful, but because she doesn’t realize she needs to. She’s Paige Bueckers. She gives pieces of herself away all day — photos, autographs, interviews, sideline hugs for kids she’s never met and by the time she gets to you, there’s not always much left.

But she always finds your hand. That counts for something.

You get used to watching her light up arenas from the shadows. You like it, actually. The background is quiet. Safe. You can watch her without worrying about being watched back.

You know she’s yours even if everyone else thinks she belongs to the world. And lately, the world’s been getting greedy.

The apartment still smells like new paint.

Not strong, not offensive, just that faint, chalky scent that clings to the corners of the rooms, reminding you that the place isn’t quite lived-in yet. Boxes line the hallway in uneven stacks, some open, some sealed, all of them with your handwriting scrawled across the sides. Kitchen stuff. Shoes, maybe?? PAIGE DON’T TOUCH.

She did, obviously.

You find the proof in the form of an empty protein bar wrapper tucked into the top of a box marked winter clothes and you roll your eyes as you toss it in the trash.

It’s quiet in the apartment, which is rare lately. For the past few months, everything’s been loud. Not just the literal noise, although there’s been plenty of that: roaring student sections, confetti cannons, draft night applause that rang in your chest like a second heartbeat but the kind of loud that lives under your skin. Constant motion. Constant attention. Eyes on her, hands on her, reporters leaning too close with too many questions, and her answering all of it with that same polished smile that means I’m good, I’m fine, keep moving.

You know what it costs.

Winning the natty should’ve felt like a finish line but it only cracked open another beginning. Draft week came less than a week later. There was barely time to breathe, let alone plan a move to a new city, a new team, a new life. You booked the flights. You signed the lease. You made sure the sheets were washed before she got here.

You haven’t unpacked fully. Neither of you has had time.

Right now, she’s at shootaround — early preseason workouts, a light day, though deemed light by Paige Bueckers standards still means running through plays like it’s the Final Four. You’re not there. She asked if you wanted to come and you said no. She didn’t push. She never does.

You like seeing her on the court but today you needed the silence. Needed to breathe in a room that didn’t buzz with her future. Needed to sit in the kitchen she hasn’t cooked in yet and just be.

You wash two mugs, even though you only used one. You start putting away silverware and get distracted organizing the drawer — forks facing one way, spoons the other, knives stacked like soldiers. You don’t know how long you’re standing there when you hear the door unlock.

“Babe?”

Her voice is hoarse. You glance up, startled by the way your heart still flinches at the sound.

“In the kitchen,” you call back.

She appears a second later, already halfway out of her sneakers, gym bag sliding off her shoulder. Her hair’s tied up in a bun, messy, a few strands stuck to her forehead. She looks tired, which means she probably went too hard, again.

She smiles when she sees you. It’s not a big smile, barely there, really but it’s the one she only gives you. The one that softens all the edges.

“Hey,” she says.

You lift an eyebrow. “Don’t ‘hey’ me. You went for an hour and a half.”

“Sixty-five minutes,” she corrects, coming over to press a kiss to your cheek. Her hand finds your waist without thinking. “I’m being good.”

“You’re being reckless.”

“I’m being prepared.” She grins like she knows you’re already over it and you are. Mostly.

You turn into her, letting her rest her forehead against yours. Her skin is damp. You don’t mind. For a second, neither of you says anything.

“I missed you,” she murmurs.

You hum. “You saw me this morning.”

“Still.”

This is how it’s always been. Paige flies too close to the sun, and you make sure there’s a place for her to land. You’ve never tried to stop her. You just make sure the lights are on when she comes home.

She pulls away slowly, eyes scanning your face like she’s trying to memorize it, even though she’s already got it memorized a hundred times over.

“I know I haven’t been around much lately,” she says, quieter.

You could say I know, or It’s okay, or You don’t have to explain.

But you don’t.

Instead, you say, “Sit down. I’ll make you something.”

She blinks, then smiles again — wider this time. “You love bossing me around.”

You shrug, moving toward the fridge. “Someone’s gotta keep you alive.”

She sits. Watches you. You can feel her eyes on your back while you crack eggs into a pan and mumble about how she better not leave her sweaty socks on the kitchen chair again. She laughs.

For a second, the rest of it fades. The expectations, the cameras, the pressure. The whole world outside this apartment.

She’s here. And she’s yours.

The season starts badly.

Not technically — their opener is a loss, narrow but clean. The kind of win that looks okay in a box score even if you know, just by watching, that something’s off. Like the rhythm is a beat behind. Like Paige’s shot is just a little too flat. Like the whole team is waiting for someone else to wake them up.

After that, it’s four straight losses. One at home, three on the road. All of them ugly.

The headlines stay polite at first. Young team still finding chemistry. Bueckers adjusting to WNBA pace. But the subtext is everywhere. In the photos they run — Paige midair, Paige scowling, Paige with her hands on her knees. In the clips they replay: missed threes, turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. Even in the way the commentators say her name, like it used to mean something magical and now they’re not sure what it means anymore.

You try not to read the comments. You still do.

At home, she says she’s fine.

Fine when she’s up at 1:30 in the morning watching film with the volume so low you can barely hear it. Fine when she forgets to eat until noon. Fine when she gets back from practice with red-rimmed eyes and blames it on the wind even though it hasn’t been breezy in days.

You don’t press. Not directly.

You just hover. The way you always do. Fold her laundry. Wrap her knee even when she says it doesn’t hurt. Order in from her favorite Thai place and pretend you were craving it too. Make sure the lamp by her side of the bed is always turned on when she walks in.

You wait for her to let you in.

She doesn’t.

The apartment feels different now.

You don’t realize it until you’re halfway through cleaning out the fridge one day and it hits you: this is what distance feels like. Not loud. Not obvious. Just space. Gaps where the closeness used to live. Little things.

She doesn’t hum when she showers anymore. She texts you from the gym less. She doesn’t ask you to braid her hair before games. She doesn’t lose her phone and call out for you in a half-panic only to find it under a throw pillow. She just… moves quieter.

Sometimes she looks at you like she wants to say something. Like it’s sitting on her tongue, one syllable away from shattering the whole dam. But then she blinks and it’s gone, and she says something like “Did we run out of toothpaste?”

And you nod, and say “Yeah, I’ll grab some tomorrow” and pretend you weren’t holding your breath.

They lose again. Badly.

You watch from the tunnel, same place you always stand. You’ve watched her from this spot more times than you can count but this feels different. Wrong.

The buzzer sounds. 78–61. Another loss. Fifth in a row. You stand in the tunnel like always, heart clenched in that familiar way that used to mean nerves but now mostly means dread.

You watch her shake hands, high-five a couple fans who lean over the railing. The towel around her neck looks like a surrender flag. Her face is set, eyes sharp and far away. You recognize that look - it’s the one she wears when she’s trying not to feel anything. When the disappointment is too deep and too sharp to acknowledge in public.

She doesn’t look up at you.

Doesn’t wave. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t say your name like she usually does, even in passing maybe half a smile, quick reach for your hand if you’re close enough.

She walks straight past.

You wait for her anyway. You text her: I’m in the tunnel, I’ll be at the car.

No response.

She gets home almost an hour later. Drops her bag by the door and kicks her shoes off with more force than necessary. You’re curled up on the couch, pretending to watch a rerun of something, volume too low to actually follow.

You glance over. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says, tossing her keys onto the kitchen counter like she’s trying to miss on purpose. “God, what a night. I mean at least I only turned it over, what, six times? That’s practically an improvement.”

You pause. “Seven.”

“Oof.” She winces, exaggerated. “Even better.”

You don’t laugh.

She notices. She walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge, stands there like it's a portal to another dimension.

“You hungry?” she asks. “I could burn some toast or reheat something and pretend I made it from scratch.”

“Paige.”

She doesn’t look over. “Or we could do popcorn and call it dinner. Real athlete shit.”

“Paige.”

That lands. She shuts the fridge, too loud and finally turns to face you.

“What?” she says. Light, teasing. Like she already knows what you’re about to say and wants to joke her way out of it. “Don’t tell me you’re mad at me for that disaster.”

You sit up. “I’m not mad at you for losing. I’m upset that you won’t talk to me.”

She blinks. “I am talking to you.”

“No, you’re deflecting. You’ve been doing it for days. You came home last night and made a joke about retiring to become a barista.”

“Hey, that’s a solid fallback plan.”

“Paige.”

She lifts her hands. “Okay. What do you want me to say? That I suck right now? That I’m letting everybody down? That I feel like I made a huge mistake coming here? Would that make you feel better?”

The words cut sharper than they should. Not because she means to hurt you -- Paige never means to hurt you but because you recognize the panic underneath them. The way her voice spikes, too high, too fast. The way she’s trying to outrun the truth before it catches up.

You step into the kitchen, across from her now. Arms folded. Quiet.

“I want you to be honest with me,” you say, low and even. “Not perfect. Not funny. Not brave. Just… honest.”

She leans back against the counter like it might hold her up better than you can. Her arms cross over her chest.

“I can’t do that right now,” she says.

You nod but it’s not agreement. More like acknowledgment.

“Okay.” You back away slowly. “Then I’m gonna go for a drive.”

She frowns. “What? Why?”

“Because if I stay, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.”

She doesn’t try to stop you. That hurts more than it should.

The silence stretches.

A day passes. Then another. The fight doesn’t explode: it simmers. You still talk, technically. You ask if she wants anything when you go to the store. She tells you she refilled your prescription when she picked up her own. You switch the laundry she started. She rewinds the show you missed.

But you don’t touch. You don’t look too long. And she doesn’t say your name like it’s a question anymore.

It feels like standing on a frozen lake, the ice too thin and the water too black and freezing underneath. And you're the only one hearing the cracks.

You find yourself spiraling in stupid ways.

You start overthinking texts that don’t need to be overthought. You stare at her Instagram comments longer than you should. You don’t mean to but you do. All the hearts, all the compliments, all the people who don’t know her but think they do. Who think they love her.

And maybe they do, in that empty, worshipful, social-media way.

But they don’t fold her socks. They don’t know how her voice sounds when she’s half-asleep. They don’t press a cold washcloth to her forehead when she’s sick. They don’t know she triple-knots her laces and tucks the ends in because she’s paranoid about tripping. They don’t know she cries at commercials but hides it by blaming dust.

You do.

And it’s not jealousy, not really. It’s more like… fear. Like maybe all this silence is the beginning of her forgetting that she needs you.

And the worst part? You get it.

You know what she’s feeling even if she won’t say it. You know she’s disappointed, overwhelmed. You know she thinks showing you that will make her seem weak. You know it’s not about you.

But it still feels like it is.

You lie awake beside her that night, staring at the ceiling. You can hear her breathing, slow and even. Either asleep or pretending to be. You don't reach for her. Not this time.

And she doesn't reach for you.

The arena feels different tonight. Not louder. Not quieter. Just heavier. Like even the air is bracing for something it can’t name.

You’re in the tunnel again, where you always are. That same spot, hands tucked into your jacket sleeves, the lanyard around your neck sticking to your skin with the sweat you won’t admit to. You watch the players file in, coaches in tow, heads bowed slightly in that ritual of unspoken hope.

Paige doesn’t look at you when she runs out for warmups. Hasn’t, not since the fight.

Her face is unreadable under the lights, jaw set and mouth tight in that way that means she’s focused, or maybe pretending to be. You’ve seen that look a hundred times before. In college stadiums, back at UConn. But never like this. Never this brittle.

You watch her miss three shots in a row during shootaround. Not by much but by enough. No one else seems to notice or maybe they’ve gotten used to it. You haven’t.

When the game starts, you try to focus on it like you usually do. Not in a fan way but in a quiet way. You keep your eyes on her. Always on her. Not the scoreboard. Not the other players. Just Paige.

She’s off. Again. And this time it’s not the usual, not just missed shots or a slow start or teammates who don’t read her cuts. It’s everything. Her rhythm is gone. Her body’s tight. Her passes are rushed. Her confidence, usually such a steady undercurrent in the way she moves is nowhere to be found.

She fouls early. A dumb reach-in that she wouldn’t normally commit. Then another, chasing a fast break she had no hope of catching. By halftime, she’s on the bench, staring at the floor with a towel over her head and a stat line you know she won’t be able to look at later.

2 points. 1 assist. 4 turnovers.

The team is down by 15.

You don’t know what to do with your hands. You keep rubbing your thumb over your ring finger, a nervous habit you picked up somewhere along the way and never broke. You watch her jog into the tunnel at the half, shoulders tense, mouth pressed into a thin line.

She doesn’t look up.

The second half is worse.

The game slips away before the fourth quarter even starts. Paige goes scoreless the entire third then gets pulled halfway through the fourth when it becomes clear the coaches are calling it. She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t flinch. Just walks to the bench, plops down, elbows on her knees, eyes ahead like she’s watching something only she can see.

By the time the buzzer sounds, the final score doesn’t matter.

They lose by 22.

You wait for her in the same spot you always do. Tunnel. Left side. Just past the security guard who now knows your name.

The team walks by slowly. A few nods, a couple brief waves from familiar faces. But Paige isn’t with them.

She comes last.

No towel. No eye contact. Just her, walking like every step hurts.

She sees you — she has to, you’re right in her line of sight but she walks past without a word.

You follow.

The car ride is silent.

She doesn’t play music. Doesn’t reach for your hand at the red light like she usually does. Just keeps her eyes on the road, knuckles white around the steering wheel. She’s still in her jersey, sweats pulled over her shorts, hair damp from the shower and curled behind her ears.

You want to say something. Anything. But you’ve learned not to touch the wound while it’s still bleeding.

She unlocks the apartment, tosses her keys on the counter and moves straight to the kitchen. Opens the fridge. Closes it. Opens it again. Then just stands there with her hand on the handle, breathing like she’s trying to remember how.

You step inside, gently, quietly like someone trying not to startle a cornered animal.

“Paige,” you say.

She doesn’t move.

“Hey.” You reach out, touch her back lightly, right between the shoulder blades.

She flinches. Not from pain. From everything else.

“I can’t,” she whispers.

You don’t ask what she means.

Instead, you guide her hand off the fridge door and turn her to face you.

Her face crumples.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… slowly. Like a wall finally giving way after weeks of rain. Her mouth twitches. Her eyes glass over. Her breath catches in her throat.

“I’m trying so hard,” she says, barely audible. “I’m doing everything I can and it’s still not enough.”

You move closer, carefully, and she doesn’t pull away this time.

“I know,” you whisper. “I know you are.”

She shakes her head, eyes rimmed red. “I’m not who they thought I’d be.”

You feel that like a knife. Because you know what she means. Not just the media. Not just the fans. She means everyone. The people who waited for her. The ones who wanted her to be a savior.

“They all thought I’d come in and just… fix it. Like I was some kind of answer.”

You reach up, thumb brushing under her eye. “You were never supposed to fix it all, P.”

She exhales and it sounds like a sob even though there are no tears yet.

“You don’t get it,” she says. “I used to love this. I used to be good at this. And now all I do is mess up and get benched and watch them lose and try not to cry in front of the cameras. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I don’t even feel like me anymore.”

That last part cracks something in you. Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? She’s not afraid of losing. She’s afraid of losing herself.

You don’t say anything right away. You just take her face in your hands and hold her like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.

“I miss you,” you say.

She blinks. “I’m right here.”

“No, you’re not. You’ve been somewhere else for weeks and I didn’t know how to reach you.” Your voice shakes a little. “But I’m here. I’ve been here the whole time. You can fall apart with me. You have to fall apart with me. That’s the deal.”

And finally, finally, she breaks.

The tears come fast and silent, her body folding into yours like she’s collapsing under her own weight. You hold her through it, arms around her waist, her forehead pressed into your shoulder. You feel every tremble. Every shudder. Every breath she takes like she’s trying to relearn how.

“I don’t want to be strong right now,” she mumbles against your collarbone. “I’m so tired of being strong.”

“You don’t have to be,” you whisper. “Not with me.”

So she lets go. And for the first time in weeks, so do you.

Later, when the storm inside her has quieted, when her eyes are puffy and red and her breathing has slowed to something human again, you lead her to the couch like you’ve done a hundred times before. Like it’s ritual.

She lets you.

Still silent. Still raw. But softer now, like the sharp edges have dulled. Her hand lingers in yours longer than it has in weeks. She curls into you without asking, tucks her knees up under her and presses her cheek to your chest like she did during last year at UConn, after that Final Four game where she swore she’d never play that badly again.

You’d found her in her dorm that night, still in her travel sweats, hoodie pulled up like armor. She hadn’t said anything, just climbed into your lap, quiet and bruised and seventeen kinds of exhausted.

You held her then like you’re holding her now. Careful, steady, for as long as she needed.

You grab the fuzzy blanket from the arm of the couch, the one she pretends she hates because it’s “obnoxiously pink” but always ends up buried under after tough nights. You drape it over the two of you, then kiss her hair once, gently, where it parts at her crown.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs after a long stretch of silence.

You shake your head. “Don’t be.”

“I’ve been such a dick.”

You smile faintly into her hair. “Maybe. But you’re my dick.”

That gets the tiniest huff of a laugh out of her, muffled against your collarbone. It’s the first real sound of her in days.

You reach for the remote and scroll mindlessly until you land on the dumb baking show you always used to put on after her bad games. She pretends to hate it: “They’re just cakes, babe, why are they all crying?” but you know it makes her feel safe. Like the world is a little slower and a little sweeter.

You set the volume low, just enough to fill the room with chatter and clinking bowls and the gentle pressure of lives that have nothing to do with yours.

“I forgot how good this show is,” she mumbles after a few minutes.

You don’t answer. Just let your fingers drift through her hair, light and rhythmic. Her breathing evens out, one hand fisting lightly in your hoodie.

This is the version of her you’ve missed. Not perfect. Not polished. Just herself. Soft, sleepy, safe.

“You remember that night in Hartford,” you say eventually, voice quiet, “when you missed that game-winner and locked yourself in the locker room for an hour?”

She groans. “Don’t remind me.”

“You wouldn’t come out. I had to sneak in with that nasty gas station hot chocolate.”

She shifts a little, her smile pressing into your skin. “You bribed me.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

She hums. “Barely. I only opened the door ‘cause I thought you were gonna start sobbing outside it.”

You feign offense. “I was being dramatic for effect.”

“Mm-hmm.”

You let the silence settle again. It’s warm this time. Companionable.

“I used to think you only loved me when I was winning,” she says quietly, like it’s something she’s only just realized she believed.

You tilt your head down. “Do you still think that?”

She shrugs against you. “I don’t know. I think I forgot how to be loved when I wasn’t.”

You exhale slowly and tip her chin up with two fingers, just enough to see her face. Her eyes are tired, but clear.

“Paige,” you say, soft but sure, “you are loved when you lose. When you miss. When you fall apart. When you’re stubborn and snappy and full of doubt. There is no version of you I wouldn’t love.”

Her throat works around the lump there, eyes glistening again, but the tears don’t fall this time. She just nods.

Then she pulls you in and kisses you.

Not desperate. Not needy. Just real. Quiet and slow and full of apology and promise.

When she pulls back, she leans her forehead to yours.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For not walking away.”

You shake your head. “I’ll always be here. Even when you’re not ready. Even when you push. I’ll wait. That’s the job.”

She smiles again, and this time it reaches her eyes. It’s not big. Not flashy. But it’s real.

“You’re too good to me,” she says.

“Mm. Probably,” you tease, brushing your thumb across her cheek. “But I like the work.”

She laughs, and it bubbles out of her like it’s the first time she’s remembered how. The tension breaks. The ache loosens.

The couch holds you both.

Outside, Dallas hums on — noisier than it should be, traffic always loud and lights always spilling in through the windows. But the room you’re in is soft. Dim. Full of the kind of peace that only comes after a storm.

She nestles back into your chest, tugs the blanket up to her chin.

And you think; this is enough.

Not the win streak. Not the headlines. Not the perfect stat lines.

Just this.

Her body folded into yours. Her heart safe in your hands. Her breath warm on your neck. The worst of it behind you.

Finally, finally — home.

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↳ thank you for reading all the way through, as always ♡

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mrslittletall · 1 day ago

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I played WoW for 15 years. I started the game in 2005, shortly after release, and stayed with it. I had occasional breaks, but I would always feel the urge and come back to it. Until Shadowlands. I was logging in, doing my dailies and the game just annoyed me. I didn't feel invested in the story anymore, the stupid reputation farming was just upsetting and that the game just refused to give us flying and I spent more time walking to the world quests instead of doing the stupid things really broke my motivation. At the same time, the Blizzard scandal happened. This time it wasn't a break. This time it was over. I cancelled my subscription for good. I didn't plan to come back, and I never came back. And that is fine. I was angry back then, but now I look back at the game and I had 15 wonderful years with it. It gave me OCs, a lot of fun, I even think fondly of my once raid group waaay back from 2007.

But my time with it was over. I don't look down on people who enjoy the game nowadays, I simply am glad they have fun with it where I cannot anymore. I hope you WoW peeps continue to have fun. You deserve it. Now how ties this to FF14... Well, I was swearing MMOs off for good after I quit WoW, concentrating on single player or two player games (played with my husband). I was also big into Soulsborne during this time, so getting summoned to help with boss fights was a nice pasttime as well if I had the itch to play with others. But in 2023 I wanted to try out FF14. Several reasons led to it. First, my husband was hospitalized and he had started the game before he became ill. I wanted something to talk about with him. Second, I heard the music of the game and fell in love. And third, I felt the MMO itch. And well, FF14 has a free trial... I have to admit, I upgraded to full version before even ARR was over, but this free trial was a huge reason why I even started the game and fell so in love. And I notice in these essays, in the people who say the game is dead... I notice myself in them. The player who is just burned out from the game. Who doesn't enjoy logging in anymore. Who finally needs to pull the plug and do something else. It's burnout. They simply have burnout from the game, and it would be better for them if they just... stop playing. Look fondly at the times when the game was fun for you. Don't get roped into hating the game and telling everyone how much it sucks, especially the people who have fun in it. I see so many complaints about the patch cycles, and I am like "You guys, we have content every four months, we waited over a year in WoW back during WotL for the next raid tier!" And there is so much to do in the game? Like I am still leveling my jobs. And one issue I see is that people want to be QUICK QUICK QUICK with everything. Like why do you level up your job in three days and then complain about being bored in the game?! I levelled up five jobs, each for one role which I see as my mains and the rest are alts that I level up evenly, shortly, by doing levelling dungeons once a day and Khloe's stickers. My husband asked me why everyone was so hype about Occult Crescent, he went there and found it was nothing special. And I told him "It is because they already finished everything in the game and are bored." I plan to go slow at Occult Crescent. First, it is a grind anyway and second I am more interested in levelling gatherers, crafters and alt jobs at the moment. Long story short, these players, especially these content creators, have burnout and need to STOP. Oh, and if you want to follow a good FF14 Youtuber, Caetsu Chaiji is just there with many videos about tips and doing the maths and breaking myths. Favourite FF14 Youtube so far. I learned a lot watching his videos.

You guys, FFXIV is not dying. These video essays about how "the game is dead" are wrong. Just because you aren't enjoying the current content, does not mean the game is dying. FFXIV is doing fine. It has a set schedule that's been the same since StB (possibly HW) and always has low pop times and high pop times.

This whole "omg the game is dead it's bad abandon ship" trend is stupid.

#FF14

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loveroffemmes · 2 days ago

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Spoiled Kisses | Pre-Crash Lottie Matthews x Fem! Reader

Warnings: smut, face-sitting, bitchy! spoiled! Lottie, banter, v slight enemies to lovers?, slight degrading?, reader is kind of persuaded into it?

Summary: You don't like Lottie, she's everything you aren't; spoiled, a bit condescending, and irresistible. Everything changes when you hit her car in the school parking lot. You fuck up Lottie's car and then you fuck Lottie.

Spoiled. That's the one word I would use to describe Lottie.

It was infuriating knowing she had everything handed to her, how she never had to worry about a single thing because Mr. Matthews would always provide. I didn't have that same luxury.

That's how I knew I was fucked when I hit Lottie's car after practice.

"That's a pretty big dent." Lottie called out to me, stepping out of her car.

"I-I know." I ran my hand through my hair, I was so fucked.

Lottie smiled, acting as if this was no big deal, "My car's custom." She added, "My dad bought it for me for my last birthday." Fuck.

"Yeah, let's just exchange info and I can hope a Genie comes and grants me three wishes to pay for this."

Lottie laughs, it's light and it makes my knees weak.

It makes my knees weak?

"Come to my house, my dad has a good mechanic, you can get an estimate and pay me from there. No reason to up your insurance or anything." Some hope for my empty wallet, "I'll lead the way, (Y/n), follow my car." Lottie said, getting back into her newly dented car. I got into mine and drove behind her.

Where she led me to the massive Matthews' estate. Fuck.

She parked in her driveway and instructed me to do the same, "It'll be a few hours before we can get an estimate, do you want to wait inside?"

"Nothing better to do." I reply, following Lottie inside her house. There's a massive staircase in the middle of her house. I follow her upstairs to her bedroom. It's just as big as I would have imagined, except her decorations aren't as glamorous as the rest of the house. It's plain, but comfortable. She has team photos plastered around her room, an organized vanity, and not much else. It makes the big room feel quaint. Less snobby rich girl and more girl whose parents happen to be rich. There's also a weird amount of clothes from TJ Maxx in here...

"We never get to chat much outside of practice." Lottie says, "I always thought that was for the best, but who knows? Maybe I'm wrong."

Spoiled.

"For the best? I should be the one saying that. I could have gone all year without having to listen to perfect miss Matthews--"

"You could have if you didn't hit my car." Lottie smirks and god is it infuriating and god does it make my heart pound.

It makes my heart pound?

"Whatever, you're the one who can't park."

"So, this is my fault?" Lottie asks, her eyebrow raised, clearly amused.

"Yeah! If you actually parked inside the lines, then I wouldn't have side swept your stupid car." Lottie doesn't respond, she just keeps that dumb, hot smirk on her face.

Lottie sits down on her bed, we sit in silence for a bit as I awkwardly stand in her room, not sure of where to sit, "Are you done whining?" I feel my jaw fall open, who does she think she is? Before I could fire off an insult, Lottie starts laughing, "It's fun how worked up you get, (Y/n)."

I roll my eyes, "I'm going to wait outside." I say, heading for Lottie's bedroom door.

"Aren't you worried?" Lottie asks and I stop in my tracks.

"About?"

"How you'll pay for it all?" Lottie stands up and makes her way towards me, her tone low, "I mean, you're not very well off, are you?"

"That's my problem to figure out."

Lottie's standing in front of me now, leaning down slightly to whisper in my ear, "It doesn't have to be your problem."

"H-Huh?" I can feel the temperature rising to my ears as Lottie's breath hits it.

"You cannot be that dumb." I don't have a chance to reply before Lottie shoves me back onto her bed, I catch myself and I sit up.

Lottie climbed over me, straddling me. Her knees sank into the mattress on either side of me. Her hands moved to my shoulders as a way to keep her situated.

"What are you doing, Lottie?" My words come out airy, I don't mean to sound so unsure, but my brain can't seem to focus on anything other than how good Lottie's legs feel against my thighs or how close her face is to mine or how good her perfume smells or --

Before another thought could pop into my head, Lottie's lips were on mine. It was raw, it was desperate, it contrasted the poised Lottie I had always kind of known.

"You think too much." Lottie mumbled against my lips. Her hands ran through my hair, entangling themselves in it before pulling my head back. I groaned and I could feel Lottie smirking. I opened my eyes and saw Lottie lick her lips as if I were her prey and she had caught me. She kept my head tilted back, her hands in her hair ensured that I could not protest. Her lips found my neck, her kisses were soft at first and I could feel the wet stain of her lipstick on my neck. Then, she bit down. I groaned again, shutting my eyes. I could feel her smile against my neck. Her tongue darted out, licking the slight indentation on my neck her teeth had left.

She pulled back, her hands leaving my hair and she stood up. Before I could stop myself, I whined from the lack of contact. Lottie laughed and I felt my heart skip a beat.

She lifted her shirt over her head, throwing it to wherever. In another swift motion, she pulled her skirt down and stepped out of it.

"L-Lottie, what--"

"I'm helping you pay back your debt." She replied as if all of this was normal.

My eyes raked over her body, trying to commit every curve of hers to memory. In another second, Lottie had dropped her panties to the ground. I felt my mouth go dry. I couldn't tear my eyes away from her.

"You're staring." Lottie hummed, the smirk never leaving her face. She pushed me back onto the bed fully this time and climbed on top of me. Her tone was low, her voice barely above a whisper, "Do you know how to repay your debt?" I shook my head and Lottie laughed, her dark brown eyes locking with mine, "Have you ever eaten a girl out?" The bluntness of her question almost made me choke on nothing. She didn't need an actual answer from me because it didn't take her long before her knees were on either side of my head and she was holding herself above me. Her hands reached for the headboard in front of me and she grabbed onto it to help keep herself upright.

I wrapped my arms around her thighs, locking her into place before pulling her down closer to my face. She was soaked. I tilted my head slightly, my tongue poking out and running through her folds cautiously. Lottie instantly bucked her hips, a soft moan escaping from her lips. It was all I needed. I pulled her down even more, barely any space between my lips and her skin. I slid my tongue through her folds again, slowly. Lottie bucked her lips every time without fail, grinding against my face without another thought. One of her hands moved from the headboard to my hair, gripping it and holding my head in place as she moved her hips against my tongue. All she cared about was using me to get off.

Spoiled.

I dug my nails into her thighs, I could feel her trembling. Her breathing was ragged, her knuckles were white from how hard she was gripping the headboard, and every movement of hers was desperate. One long lick and then I took her clit into my mouth, sucking hard. Her whole body jerked and I didn't stop, I only got rougher. I wanted her to come on my tongue. I wanted to be the reason that Lottie Matthews unfolded. One last buck of her hips and I could feel her thighs clamp around my head.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." A string of curse words fell from her lips as I licked every last drop of hers.

Lottie's grip on my hair loosened and she swung one knee to the other side of me, flopping down next to me on the bed.

"Fuck..." Lottie murmured, clearly fucked out. It was my turn to smirk.

I pulled Lottie's blanket up over the both of us and pulled her against me. Lottie's arm wrapped protectively around my waist and I placed a kiss on her sweaty forehead.

Lottie's voice was quiet, worn out from how loud she was, "If only you put that much effort into practicing, we would have gone to nationals a lot easier." Anddddd Lottie's back.

"Shut up, Matthews."

"Plotting on how to hit my car again, (L/n)?" Lottie fired back and I rolled my eyes. She smirked and pulled me flush against her chest. Even though Lottie never let ups on her stupid banter, her body couldn't hide how she really felt. I could feel Lottie's heart racing when she pulled me into her. I made her nervous and that thought made me smile.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Lottie?"

"Maybe I would."

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orange-ghost · 3 days ago

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Queer youth of the U.S. This is not the time to lay down and die or let the anxiety get the better of you. Our community needs numbers & protection.

I get it, we're all fucking tired-- exhausted, even. I am, too. The president has been targetting specifically me (puerto ricans; disabled people; queers) since I was literally 12. Now he's coming for my adult life, too. You think I ain't nervous?

But I'm noticing a lot of anxiety and defeatist mentality in people a little younger than me. And a lot of privileged queers out here in New York/Jersey aren't even excited or making pride plans, even though they could be.

Fucking what?? No. This isn't the year you should sit out for! We've got WORK to do!

Jesus christ, people! We've got to grow up sometime. The older queers did not go through all that hell just for Gen Z to turn out all soft & fumble the bag like this. One "Big Beautiful Bill" and a shitty legislation & we REALLY start seeing who is/isn't a coward.

This isn't the time to speak a Republican victory into existence talking about some "they're gonna win." 'Course they will with that attitude.

Contact the political people and raise hell. Go to the festivals, marches, the pride centers, and the mutual aids if you can. Google is your friend.

Get little trinkets from queer owned businesses, even if its just one thing because they're pricey and we're broke. Support queer art, queer conversation, queer innovation, queer media, and history. Bask in all forms of love & heart that beat louder than the hands of these incapable old fucks who'll never know the feeling.

If literal loud celebration & the chaos of a pride march overstimulates you, opening some gay little book or film works, too.

Go out and have fun with your dumb gay friends if you have 'em-- queer joy is resistance, too! It could be literally just climbing trees together, Mario Kart, or getting stoned in someone's basement. If you're laughing, it's working.

Get that binder, that piece of clothing, or haircut that you want. Go on that date with your partner(s) or ask out that long time crush of yours, or bang that cute stranger; whatever.

And post about pride. Even if it's subtle.

Whatever you can access and do, revel in it this June and make the most of it. Everyone wants to act like we're all gonna die tomorrow. It's our job to fight like hell, make sure we don't, and make the most out of living on the off chance that we do. 🌈

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lightsoutmatthews · 24 hours ago

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protective auston has me feeling some type of way lol can you do something similar for willy? something like they are already an established couple and he never had to be protective before so she’s never seen that side of him? thanks!!!

Oh Annon you got my creative juices flowing with that one because I was debating between this and what I wrote for Auston and I was HOPING someone would send in another request. 🙏🏼

I got you – William Nylander

You weren’t used to this side of William.

He wasn’t exactly a hothead, never had been. If anything, William was calm to a fault. He didn’t raise to bait, didn’t snap back when people ran their mouths in interview or chirped him on the ice.

At home, with you, he was easygoing. Chill. Unshakably steady and calm. That was one of the first things you loved about him. He made you feel like you could relax. No drama. No big emotional explosions.

So, when it happened, it caught you off guard.

The two of you had been dating for multiple years at that point. You weren’t still in that careful stage where you pretended things didn’t bother you.

You lived together, shared grocery lists, fought over whose turn it was to do laundry. You knew his morning coffee order by heart. He kept a drawer in the entryway just for your keys because he said you always lost them in your bag.

You had been through quiet nights and loud ones. Road trips. Boring errands. Injuries. Post-game slumps. Summer lulls.

But you had never seen him like this.

It started at a team event. A charity dinner. You were used to those, dressed up, made conversation with executives, sponsors, teammates and smiled for the photos.

Most people were nice. Some were fake-nice. A few were a little too into the whole girlfriend of an NHL player thing, but you learned to brush that off.

The guy who crossed the line didn’t start off as a problem. He was older, some kind of donor or sponsor of the team. He wore a watch that cost probably more than your car and looked like he lived on red wine and bad decisions.

He was talking to you and a few other people near the bar. You didn’t catch his name, just his business card when he slipped in into your hand.

“You should call me some time,” he said, his tone light but with a weird edge. “I do consulting. Media stuff. You´ve got a great look, could be good on camera.”

You gave a polite smile and stepped back half an inch. Not rude, not obvious. Just enough to signal you weren’t interested in his offer. You figured he would take the hint.

He didn’t.

“You with someone tonight?” he asked, like he hadn’t noticed the very obvious fact that you were standing less than ten feet away from your boyfriends table.

William had been stuck in a conversation with a couple of board members, his eyes flicking to you every few minutes like a clockwork. He was watching. Not hovering, just being aware.

“Yeah,” you replied making your voice sound as flat as possible. “I´m here with my boyfriend.”

“Let me guess. One of the players?” he chuckled, like it was a cliché.

“Yeah,” you repeated, less amused.

He laughed some more, leaning in a little closer. “That´s fun. Bet he gets jealous real easy.”

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have to. You felt it before you even saw him.

William´s presence sliding in between you and the guy like a wall. Not loud. Not even rude. Just there.

“Hey,” William opened the conversation, resting his hand lightly on your lower back, eyes on the man in front of you. “Everything good here?”

The way he said it was casual, but something in his voice was different. Tighter. Like a string pulled taut.

You turned towards him instinctively, he looked at you first, not the guy. You nodded. “Yeah, we´re just finishing up.”

But William didn’t move. Didn’t smile like he usually did with sponsors. He looked at the man, quiet for just a beat too long. Then, still calm, he said, “She´s with me.”

“I gathered,” the guy huffed, like William was being dramatic for stepping in. Still, he looked at him a little more carefully now. “Maybe you shouldn’t leave your girl alone in a room full of men eying her up and down in that dress,” he added regardless.

Now it was William that huffed. “Maybe you should take a hint when a woman is clearly not interested and taken.” He paused for a second. “I remember you seeing us walk in.”

The guy raised his hands in defense. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Sure,” William replied, still even.

The hand on his back never moved, it anything, his fingers curled a little tighter around the fabric of your dress.

It was a short exchange, a minute tops, but it changed something.

The man backed off, chuckled something under his breath, and walked away without another word. Then it was just you and William.

You looked up at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, features softening. “You?”

“I´ve had worse,” you nodded carefully.

He nodded too, but he didn’t say anything else. His jaw was tight. Not really angry, but protective in a way that felt new.

You didn’t say much about it first. He stayed close the rest of the night, never smothering but definitely within reach. His hand found yours often and you caught him glancing around more than usual.

It was weird, seeing him like that. Not because you didn’t like it, if you were honest with yourself, you kind of did, but because it was different. Like you had unlocked a version of him you had never needed before.

Back home later that night, your brought it up.

“You dint usually do that,” you opened, slipping out of your heels. “Get, I don’t really know what to call it, protective, I guess?”

William, who was changing out of his dress shirt on the other side of the bed, looked over at you, “No?”

You shook your head. “I mean, you´re not the jealous type. You don’t get weird when people talk to me.”

“I´m still not jealous,” he argued, walking over and dropping onto your side of the bed next to you. “That guy just sucked.”

“He did suck,” you chuckled.

William tilted his head a little, thoughtful. “I didn’t like the way he looked at you. Especially, knowing you were taken.”

“He was a creep,” you offered.

“It wasn’t just that,” he muttered, much quieter than usual. “He didn’t respect you.”

You looked at him, there was something serious about his voice that made you sit up straighter.

“He didn’t listen when you said you were with someone,” he continued. “Didn’t take you seriously because you were with a player on the team. I know you can handle yourself, but I just…” He cut himself off, running a hand through his hair.

“What?” you asked gently.

“I just didn’t like it,” he summed it up. “I didn’t like the idea if you feeling like you had to be polite to someone like that. I know it happens more than I probably realize.”

You were quiet for a moment. “It does.” He exhaled loudly. “Yeah.”

Your reached for his hand. “You were good, though. You didn’t cause a scene.”

“I wanted to,” he admitted. “Like, just for a second, I felt like, I guess possessive. Which really isn’t me.”

“It´s okay,” you hummed. “It didn’t feel like you were trying to control anything. You just showed up. That’s all.”

He laid back on the bed, letting out another loud exhale while staying quiet for a second. “I don’t ever what you to think I don’t care,” he muttered, looking up at you, instinctively grabbing your hand. “Sometimes I worry I come off too chill. Like I don’t notice that stuff.”

You laid down next to him, carefully curling into his side. “You notice plenty,” you mumbled into his bare chest. “And I like that you´re not the type to get into a fight or argument over nothing.”

His glaze softened and he carefully wrapped an arm around you before placing a soft kiss to your head. “But if it’s not nothing?”

You smiled, squeezing his hand that was still resting in yours. “Then I´m glad to know you´ve got my back.”

#william nylander #toronto maple leafs #william nylander imagine #toronto maple leafs imagine #william nylander x reader #nhl imagine

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yeahponcho · 19 hours ago

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honestly, here's how it all began:

over the course of years my mom and I have just planned more and built onto it. this very spot is one of the first places shown in my video actually!

if you're tight on money like we are, just go bit by bit! expand a little here and there when you can. honestly you don't even have to use fancy pavers either, one of the coolest ways to make a flowerbed is just find some country road and pick up rocks from the ditches along the way. I've done that for a few of my beds and it's so much fun AND saves money!

I know I've got some non-native plants shown in my video, but my best advice is research what's native in your area and try to plant those wildflowers first and foremost. my mom found a site that sold tons of native flowers from my state, and ordered a lot from there. native wildflowers are a great way to diversify the types of bugs and things you see in your yard! we specifically try to look up native host plants for butterflies and such too. regarding plants it's also great to try to get a variety so that you've got pollen and nectar going for bugs in every season. for example, dandelions and clover are great for early in the year, and goldenrod is great for late summer. (at least, in my area! you'll have to research what blooms when for you)

BIG piece of advice - put cardboard or landscape fabric down when you make a flowerbed! it will cut back on how much weeding you need to do. cardboard can be found at grocery stores between the cases of water, or I bet you could ask an employee "do you have cardboard you dont need?" other things we've used as weed barrier are old rugs. you Will have to cut a hole in the rug for your plant to go in, but it is perhaps one of the best weed barriers ever if you're up for a little extra work there. make sure whatever you use extends outside your bed by a couple inches on all sides! so your rocks/pavers will sit On Top of your cardboard/fabric/rug and extend out a little. don't leave any spots for that grass to take over your bed!

if you need to use weedkiller, please skip the nasty chemical ones at the store. not only are they expensive but they're usually bad for a lot of things! you can get a sprayer bottle and mix up soap, salt, and vinegar and make your very own homemade weedkiller. I admit, it needs reapplying a little more often than the hard chemicals will, but it's a lot safer for animals and people.

there's absolutely more but this is already getting pretty long LOL. if you have the space and resources, I would absolutely encourage you to look into making a little flowerbed. it's so much fun to garden and it's rewarding to see the animals enjoy what you created.

welcome to my back yard! I've been working hard on it this year and I wanted to show it off a little. mom and I started transforming it together 7 or so years ago

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eveningdove · 2 days ago

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im posting this here instead of bsky bc its too long lol

the idea that gtn era griddlehark would have good? functional? sex is wrong lmaoooo

neither of them know how to have sex in the slightest

you could maybe, maybe convince me that gideon could talk a big game bc she does objectively read a lot of porn, but imo it would be cringe pornographic talk that doesn't translate to real life. also gideon in gtn ,while a cool, buff butch, is also a seriously under socialized 18 year old. anything she says would come out so awkward, which is charming in and of itself, but she is not suave.

and the idea that 0 experience gideon would have any kind of strap game, let alone a good one is a pipe dream (pun intended)

aLSO gtn era harrow would 1000% not be into physical domination. its something one could explore for a more mature harrow, but not gtn harrow. imo she's more likely to top than gideon bc gideon is willing to relinquish herself to harrows control (a thing that happens, regularly in the book) whereas harrow is still so desperately grasping onto any modicum of control she can get in her life. hell i think harrow allowing herself to be touched romantically/sexually at all would be a huge moment, one that is infintely more interesting to me than just getting dicked down by her butch.

anyway i think you can say so much about a character through sex and their dynamics with another person, and frankly its really fun and i love doing it.

👏being butch does not automatically mean being the top👏

ugh stone!harrow / bottom!gideon would be so delicious bc of the way being a stone's partner entails so much inherent and absolute trust in them that is in line with the story's themes. fuck, anyway im right <3

#well this is too long for bsky anyway lmao #griddlehark #gideon the ninth #pigeon coos #just abt general trends in the Fandom but also idc what ppl do i just think its fun to speculate

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millenianthemums · 2 days ago

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At long last, here’s Chapter Seven of Mabel’s Guide to the Power of Friendship!!! please enjoy

I had a long stint of writer’s block that I’m slowly recovering from, so this chapter took forever. and then i wanted to do something fun for the chapter art to celebrate finally getting the chapter out, and this took sooo long but was very fun to do. anyway thank you everyone for waiting and reading along, see you soon with the next chapter hopefully

INDEX

chapter text under cut

As much as Mabel hated even thinking the phrase… Bill had been right. Sneaking back upstairs was pretty effortless. Still, as she laid in the dark, curled up in bed, anxiety tugged at her brain. Why was Dipper up? He was a total night owl, he was never up this early unless he’d just pulled an all-nighter. But he’d been fast asleep when she’d snuck out earlier…

She grumbled and rubbed her eyes, trying to hold off a headache. Something was off. Did he know about Bill? Or suspect something? Were he and Ford talking because one of those sci-fi gadgets in Ford’s study detected Bill somehow?

Or was Dipper hiding something too? Something that had nothing to do with Bill, or her? His own sneaky little summer project that he didn’t trust her with. Like that dumb thesis contest he was so excited and cagey about.

Mabel’s eyes stung a little. It was probably something like that. But hey, she was keeping secrets from him too. Big, stupid, scary, dangerous, messed-up secrets that would horrify him. So it was only fair, really.

It was fine. It wasn’t the end of the world, it was just something they couldn’t talk about. Siblings weren’t supposed to be able to talk to each other about everything. Siblings hide things. They grow apart. They build separate lives, bigger and bigger, until they’re so many layers deep that they’re nowhere near each other anymore. That’s fine; it’s just how life is. She scrubbed roughly at a tear.

One hand thrashed around through the pile of plushies on her bed, searching for one in particular. She knew when she’d grabbed it without even looking. The fur fabric was rubbed smooth in some patches and still fuzzy in others, patched with all different textures and materials. It was Agatha. A big, pink, pillow-shaped, ratty old cat that had been with Mabel since it was bigger than her.

Last year Agatha had stayed in California, after a bunch of warnings that she’d take up too much suitcase space. But this past year had been… a lot. High school exceeding its bad reputation, the schlepping back and forth between Dad’s house and Mom’s new condo, the family drama, the nightmares, the weird panicky moments that came out of nowhere… but somehow, despite it all, hugging Agatha always made her feel a little better. So she’d made room for her.

Like she had so many times, Mabel squeezed the cat as tight as she could. And like always, it felt like a soft warmth pulsed out from her cotton-filled core, into Mabel’s heart. A reassuring glow that wore away her sadness just a little, like a gentle, fluffy, reassuring hug of pure psychic energy. With a small, weary sigh, Mabel looked at Agatha’s face, and imagined that her button eyes softened a little, like she was telling her everything would be okay.

Mabel wiped her face clean, cuddled into the blankets, and sunk into sleep. Whatever happened could wait until the sun came up. Right now, it was time to rest.

—-

And then, very quickly, it wasn’t. Pale morning light was streaming through the attic windows, and her brother was shaking her awake, saying her name in an excited whisper.

Her brain felt like sludge. “Hhbwuh?” she managed to ask.

“Follow me.” He was grinning like a 1000-watt bulb. “I’ve got something to share.”

He led her by the hand into the dark living room. She squinted around, thoughts still muffled by sleep. She barely had time to start being curious before the lights clicked on.

A trifold poster was set up on the coffee table, standing proudly in the center of the room like the guest of honor. On it, blurry polaroids of gnomes, lake monsters, dinosaurs and more cluttered every inch of bare poster board. Red string linked every picture in a wild web of conspiracy, and at the center of the chaos, every string led to a single point. A photo of Dipper and Mabel in front of the Mystery Shack, silly grins beaming at the camera.

A title festooned the top of the board, Dipper’s handwriting rendered with colorful highlighters. “Thesis Project: Dipper and Mabel’s Guide to the Unexplained.”

“I know the design’s not great,” Dipper said with a sheepish grin. “I just wanted to surprise you.”

Mabel had to swallow the lump in her throat before she spoke. “This is your thesis project?”

“This is our thesis project.” Dipper put his hands on her shoulders. “I mean… I want it to be. I want to spend this summer studying the anomalies in Gravity Falls, and I want you to help me.”

She snorted. “I would’ve drawn you a cover page whether you asked me to or not—“

“Not just the cover page,” Dipper said. “I want you to be my co-author. I want us to do this project together as lab partners and submit it together. Mabel, every awesome thing we did last summer, everything we learned and accomplished, it only happened because we worked together. If we do this together, there’s no way we won��t win.” He trailed off, suddenly sheepish again. “I mean, if you want. It’s okay if you don’t, I know it’s a lot of wo—“

“DIPPERRRRR!!!!!!!!” Mabel launched forward and tackled him off his feet with the biggest hug she could manage.

“—OUGH— ack— Mabel I can’t breathe!” he laughed. When he managed to loosen the vice grip embrace, he saw her face and his eyes bulged with concern. “Whoa, are you okay??”

Mabel scrubbed the happy tears from her face. “Of course I’ll be your lab partner!!” she sobbed. “There’s nothing I’d rather do!”

Dipper’s eyes glittered too. He grinned and hugged her back.

Mabel looked up at the sound of clapping, and saw Ford and a very sleepy Stan sitting at the kitchen table. “Bravo, Dipper!” Ford said brightly. “See, I told you it would go over perfectly!”

Stan nudged his brother. “And what’d I tell you, huh?” he grunted. “This town’s in good hands.”

——

Bill hadn’t meant to fall asleep again. Really, he thought he hadn’t. He thought he’d just been sitting on the floor, back against the wall, tapping his foot and trying to run through all his favorite songs in his head, beginning to end, just to kill some time.

It was harder than it should have been. He kept mixing up names, forgetting lyrics, sometimes forgetting whole songs he’d sung a million times. It was starting to drive him even crazier than usual.

He was about to give up on the whole exercise, just push away the terrifying notion that his mind, trapped in a tangle of delicate neurons and slimy fatty brain matter, was being slowly unspooled and pulled away from him with every second that passed, every cell that died. He was just about to forget all about that completely. But he wanted to finish this one last song. It was a good one, an old classic.

He’d almost managed to get lost in it for a second. Half-singing, half-humming the pre-chorus, idly performing for nobody. “—GONNA RISE UP SINGIN’… HMHM, TO THE SKY… BUT ‘TIL THAT MORNING, THERE’S NOTHIN’ CAN HARM—”

He stopped.

There was a sound. A soft sound in the room. He’d heard it while he was singing. And when he’d stopped, it had stopped too. Just a little too late. Another voice singing with him.

Frozen in place, Bill glanced around the room. It was dark. Still. Not a hint of life aside from him.

Then he saw the door was standing open.

In the doorway stood a triangle. A small triangle with lopsided edges, one side drooping into soft rounded lumps, like a chocolate bar melting in the sun. It was standing there in the doorway, perfectly still. In the dim orange light spilling in from behind, it was a pure black silhouette.

It reached out a hand. In a raspy, weak voice, it began to sing again. As the fire in the hallway swelled to a raging bonfire, began to spit hot forked tongues into the room, its voice was just barely audible over the flames. “so hush, little baby… don’t you cry…”

Bill sat up with a jolt, a half-strangled scream caught in his throat. Looking around wildly, he saw the room was empty. The door was still closed, and shafts of light were poking through the window above him.

“OKAY,” he croaked. “THIS IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM.”

Then he realized what had woken him. Just outside the window, a car engine was roaring to life.

Bill leapt to his feet, ignoring the headrush and momentary ringing in his ears, and raced to the window just in time to leap onto the trunk and pull himself up high enough to look out through the window. The car driving away had four distinct figures inside. All four Pines, lined up like little ducks, leaving the nest unguarded.

With a quick cackle, Bill dropped back down and grabbed for his lockpick. He wasn’t about to let a golden opportunity like this pass by. They might not be gone for long, but he might not get another chance to explore the upstairs rooms. It was time to get sneaky.

Just as he’d hoped, there was no one to interrupt his trip upstairs; even that dumb pig was nowhere in sight. A quick glance over the bedrooms confirmed his suspicion that he’d find nothing of interest. But when he turned the corner after them, his eye landed on a door left ajar. A tangle of wires spilled out into the hall from inside, and as he drew closer he saw that even if someone had tried, they couldn’t have kept that door shut; there were towering piles of books and corners of machinery jutting against the doorframe. Too much garbage for the room to contain.

Ford’s lab. Jackpot.

Bill could barely contain his maniacal laughter as he snuck around the room. It was like a candy store after he’d killed all the employees; so many treats all ripe for the taking. But he had to be careful, he reminded himself. He couldn’t take anything Ford would miss. He couldn’t leave a trace of his passing. Sure, this place looked like it had all the organization of a hurricane site, but knowing Ford, he probably had an intricate “system”.

Glancing around the half-buried desk, something caught his eye. In an overflowing cup full of pens, one was wrapped in painter’s tape with Stan’s sloppy handwriting in big block letters: “SHRINK PEN— NOT FOR WRITING!!”

Well, that was an intriguing label for a pen. Bill plucked it from the cup and inspected it. It wasn’t a pen at all, he realized. It was one of those little laser light pointers you can crash planes with. Fun in itself, but not any use to him right now… still, “shrink pen”? This required further investigation.

He pointed the pen at an empty coffee mug wedged into an empty spot on the edge of the desk. Searching for the button to activate it revealed a tiny panel on the side which slid away to reveal an even tinier screen and some up and down arrow buttons, with another in the middle labeled “reset”. Intrigued, Bill hit the up arrow, and the screen lit up with numbers and decimals. He set the display to “+2.0”, and clicked the button on the end.

The mug lurched as a beam of purple light hit it, and then began to swell. With a sudden pop, it was twice the size it had been, and Bill had to scramble to catch it before it tipped over and shattered on the ground. He fumbled with it and almost took a pile of papers down in his struggle to right himself. “GODDAMMIT!” he hissed. “IT SAID *SHRINK* PEN, NOT— UGH! LEAVE IT TO STANLEY TO SCREW ME OVER…”

He glanced around hastily, listening for any sign that the noises he’d made were overheard. Nothing stirred, except a few sheets of paper fluttering in the A/C. He sighed and turned to the giant coffee mug. Nervously, he pointed the penlight and pressed the “reset” button.

Sure enough, the cup receded back to its original size. Trying again, he set the dial to “-2.0” instead; as he’d guessed, the cup shrank to half its size this time.

He reset the cup and placed it back onto the circular stain where he’d found it. Then his eye landed on a toolbox lying nearby, and his eye widened with inspiration.

He pointed the penlight at the box and set it to “-0.25”. The box shrank down to the size of a dollhouse prop, and he rushed over to peek inside the tiny lid. He almost cheered; inside was a tiny arrangement of tools the size of little grains of rice. He shut the lid and reset the box’s size; all the tools were in perfect shape once he peeked inside again.

This was it. This was how he’d get tools and steel and rebar down into the basement. This was how he’d avoid discovery until the portal was complete. It was almost too perfect to be true; the only wrinkle was in how he’d keep Ford from noticing the missing pen.

He snapped his fingers. The copy machine! Surely Ford still had that magic copy machine downstairs somewhere. He just had to put the pen through that and then he’d have as many shrink rays as a triangle could ever need! He hadn’t heard the Pines’ car pulling back in yet; maybe he had enough time.

Bill shoved the pen into his hat and rushed downstairs to search. He swung around corners and skidded across floors, giving no mind to his surroundings— nobody was home anyway, and time was of the essence. He slipped on some tile floor, caught a locked doorknob and swung around a corner. He was just about to race forward when a shrill alarm tone sounded from a door just down the hall, and the doorknob started to rattle. Bill let out a barely-stifled shriek of panic and scuffled backwards, fumbling around for a hiding place while keeping his eye on the door. Just before it swung open, he managed to yank open a closet door and wedge himself inside. Through the crack in the door, he saw that big guy, Stan’s employee, hustle out into the hallway. Bill couldn’t remember his name… something dumb, like Smoof or something. He couldn’t even remember the guy’s symbol; he was wearing it on his shirt when they met, but now he was in a plain white dress shirt and suit. And a fez, weirdly. Dressed up uncannily like Stan, when he did his stupid Mr. Mystery act. And as he passed by the closet, Bill heard him muttering: “Hey, next tour’s here! Perfect timing!”

Weird. No time to dwell on it, though. Once he was gone, Bill slipped from the closet and rushed straight back down to the basement. If that guy was here, who knew if the rest of the peanut gallery was around somewhere… hell, if the Shack was having tours come through, any rando could wander away from the group and barge right into him. No way was he taking that kind of risk right now. Not when he finally had something resembling a plan.

He stashed the shrink pen inside that old treasure chest, underneath some blankets. He could have just kept it in his hat, but he wanted to cut down on the temptation to mess around with it. It was hard to resist his destructive impulses at the best of times, and all the harder when he had nothing else to keep him busy. This room was soooo boring. Even the small amount of time he’d spent cooped up in here was starting to feel like an eternity— and this was coming from the guy who spent the whole Triassic Period stuck in traffic. This was worse than that. Still not as bad as the void… but worse than that.

He rolled his eye and flopped backwards onto the beanbag chair. You’re a trillion and twelve, Billy. You’ve watched civilizations rise and fall without needing to blink. You’ve won staring contests with entire species. You can kill a couple hours alone in a room. The portal will be fixed in no time, and this whole ordeal will be over before you know it.

He stared at the blank ceiling and repeated the thought over and over, until he believed it.

——

Once Dipper and Mabel were finished crying and hugging over the thesis project, they launched into the planning stage. Dipper, in true Dipper fashion, had already made a huge spreadsheet with supplies they’d need and ideas to get them started. Before the sun had even finished rising, they were already wrangling the Grunkles into the car for a shopping trip. Stan only barely managed to convince them to wolf down some breakfast before they set out.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of tents, trail cams, hiking supplies, and far too many high-tech gadgets for Mabel to keep up with. Grunkle Ford had happily agreed to lend them a bunch of his inventions, and Stan had turned into a veritable font of advice about weapons. “Remember, kids, never carry a weapon where people can see it,” he’d said in the car. “Nobody should get a chance to nab it from you ‘til your finger’s on the trigger.” Then he’d paused. “By the way, if your parents ask, this conversation never happened.”

Around noon, they’d been at the mall perusing the selection at Richard’s Legally Distinct Sporting Goods, when Stan had heard Dipper’s stomach growling and demanded they break for lunch. He and Ford swore they’d handle the rest of the shopping. Stan even offered to foot the bill for the food. Of his own free will! No griping or anything! Dipper and Mabel both knew that wasn’t a deal to be taken lightly. So they agreed to bike to Lazy Susan’s Diner; maybe they could get an order in before brunch hours ended. Mabel had really been craving some strawberry pancakes.

Between the flurry of shopping, the rushed bike ride to Susan’s, and the dreamy visions of pancakes all crowding Mabel’s brain, she didn’t have brainspace worry about anything. So it wasn’t until the two of them were settled into a corner booth with menus and drinks that the thought of Bill even crossed her mind.

Dipper was in the middle of an infodump about the gadgets Ford had given them. “I’m already calling them ‘Weirdness Scanners’ in my head,” he said, holding two palm-sized contraptions that looked kind of like souped-up, military-grade Gameboys. “It’s oversimplified, sure, but it’s way easier to remember than… whatever Ford called them. See, the screen has a radar display that shows little blips when there’s an anomaly nearby. Anything interdimensional, reality-distorting, logic-defying… pretty much anything about base-level weirdness for our reality. So when we’re tracking a monster… or, y’know, being tracked… we’ll know where to look. And it even records the coordinates so we can check later! In case we’re, like, running or something, and don’t have time to note them down.”

“So does it only work when you hit the switch?” Mabel examined the scanner he’d handed her, inspecting all its sides and resisting the urge to press random buttons. “If it keeps records, maybe we could leave one on in the woods somewhere and see if something weird passes by? Like trail cams?”

Dipper’s face lit up. “Hey, good thinking! We could put these up all over the place! I bet we could talk to Grunkle Ford and set it up so we can get all the readings remotely… then if they spike somewhere, we’ll know to investigate! You’re a genius, Mabel!”

Mabel beamed, a glow of pride filling her chest. But her smile froze when Dipper continued. “We could set them up around the shack to start, and move further out from there. It’d be like a security system! If any monsters get near the house, we’d know right away!”

His voice faded in her ears, drowned out by sudden dread. Bill. There was no way the scanners wouldn’t pick up Bill, right? Magic powers or not, he was still a talking triangle! Definitely not normal! And if that was how the others found out he was hiding in their house…

Her dread was drowned by guilt. What was she doing? Dipper had trusted her enough to make her his partner on this huge project that meant so much to him, and here she was hiding this huge, crazy secret from him! What kind of sister was she? She’d been so hurt when she’d thought he was hiding something… how could she turn around and do the same to him?! It was so selfish, so mean, and for what?? Bill Cipher?? What was she doing?!

“Hey Dipper,” she blurted out. He stopped his brainstorming mid-sentence. Mabel’s throat was dry, she felt all clammy… no way he couldn’t tell she was about to say something really bad. She swallowed nervously and continued. “You, uh… you remember Bill, right?” She winced. What a terrible opening.

“What? Yeah, of course I do.” Dipper was suddenly pale and serious. The lump of guilt in Mabel’s throat got bigger. “Why, did something happen? … Are you having nightmares again?”

Mabel’s throat was almost totally blocked. She tried her best to clear it. “N-no. No, what? Of course not, it’s just…” She paused, trying to think of how to play this right. “I didn’t have… that many nightmares…”

Wrong move. Dipper’s frown deepened. “Uh, yeah you did, Mabel. You woke up screaming for weeks. You couldn’t even look at a snowglobe all winter.”

She twisted a sweater sleeve in her hand, flushing. “I got over that…”

“I’m not judging,” he said firmly, grabbing her hand. “I was right there with you. I still can’t look at marionettes without feeling gross, y’know?”

Her stomach turned, and she squeezed his hand, wracked by a wave of guilt. “Yeah, I know…”

“Listen, Mabel, it’s gonna be okay. He’s dead. He’s never coming back.” Dipper squeezed her hand in return. “And if he ever does, I’ll kill him on sight. I promise.”

Mabel’s throat was too dry to even think about speaking. She just kept her eyes fixed on the table where her hand was clasped in Dipper’s. Should she tell him now? Wait for a better time? Would there ever be a good time? Was there any chance he’d ever forgive her for doing this??

She had no idea, but she knew she had to say something. She had to make a choice…

“Dipper! Mabel!” A loud voice rang across the diner.

They both jolted and looked up, just in time to see Wendy Corduroy as she threw her arms around both their shoulders and pulled them into a crushing bear hug. “I missed you guys!” she boomed.

Mabel laughed, trying not to be crushed in the friendly embrace. Thank God for Wendy. This was the perfect excuse to take a little more time to make a plan about Bill.

Beside her, Dipper dislodged himself just enough to speak. “Wendy, c’mon!” he laughed. “We saw you two days ago!”

“Hey, you’ve only been back for a week! We’re supposed to be making up for lost time!” She mussed up Dipper’s hair. “What, are we just work friends now? We only hang out while I’m working at your house? No weekends?”

“Okay, okay, sorry! We get it!” Dipper was laughing as he tried uselessly to escape. Even if he’d actually wanted to stop the hug, he’d stand no chance. After spending the last nine months helping out with the family lumberjack business, Wendy was totally shredded. Mabel assumed she could pick up a tree with one hand by now. She’d look like an MMA champ if it weren’t for Dipper’s old cap she still wore everywhere.

When Mabel glanced up at the hat, her eyes widened. “Whoa!” She jumped up and pointed dramatically. “New haircut!”

Wendy grinned, stood back and flipped her hair to show it off. “Just got it last night! You like it?”

“Do I?! You look like a rock star!” Mabel gushed. Wendy’s bright red hair was teased up and styled into a spiky glam-rock mullet situation, all flared out dramatically as it fell to brush her shoulders. But most exciting, the edge of her scalp was buzzed short, a patch that wrapped around below her hair in an undercut. Along with the big brash grin from Mabel’s compliment, she’d be right at home onstage with one of those glittery glam-rock bands Mabel had been obsessed with lately.

Her imaginings were cut short as Wendy scooped her up off the ground in another big, rough hug. “That’s exactly what I was going for!” she cheered. “That’s exactly what I told Tambry: give me something my dad hates and Mabel Pines loves!”

They all laughed together, until a second booming voice rang across the restaurant. This one was deep and gravelly, like if Tom Waits had spent twenty years breathing sawdust. “Wendy! We’re headed out!”

“Ugh, speak of the devil,” Wendy groaned, turning to see Manly Dan Corduroy escorting her brothers out the door single file. “Sorry guys, gotta go. See you at the shack tomorrow.”

“We’ll be there!” Dipper promised, and he and Mabel both waved as she followed her family out the door.

Once she was gone, Mabel turned back to her plate, only to yelp and flinch back when her eyes landed on someone standing mere feet away. Dipper hadn’t even had time to turn around yet, so he flinched twice as hard at the sound of Mabel’s yelp, and swung around to glare at the grinning figure. In a high-pitched Southern twang, the kid piped up: “Pines twins! It’s been too long!”

“Gideon,” Dipper said, not quite able to feign convincing enthusiasm. Mabel managed to smile as she sat down and subtly scooted away, further into the corner of the booth. Maybe he was just passing by.

“Aw, I’m pleased as punch to finally run into you fellas!” Gideon continued, taking an uninvited seat right next to Mabel. “I’ve been lookin’ for you ever since I heard you were back! I’ve just been dyin’ to catch up with y’all!”

Mabel’s smile was melting into a grimace. She hoped Gideon didn’t notice. Even if he had tried to kill them multiple times last summer, and stole their house for a while, and been a total creep to her the whole time she’d known him… but still, people could always change. She knew he was trying to turn a new leaf; that much was clear just by looking at him. He’d ditched his usual weird little suit and bolo tie for a graphic tee and a backwards baseball cap. His hair didn’t even look professionally coiffed. And heck, if she was letting BILL CIPHER crash in her family’s basement just off an unconvincing promise to “behave”, she could give Gideon Gleeful a chance too.

Oh, he was still talking. “Y’know, kickflips are a lot easier than folks make ‘em out to be! All my pals were real impressed. You remember Ghost Eyes and those fellas, right?”

Dipper nodded. “The guys who tried to run me over with monster trucks last summer.”

“The very same!” Gideon said brightly. “Gracious, I still can’t believe we ain’t seen each other since then…” he suddenly slapped his hands on the table and stood up, making Mabel jump. “Speaking of which! Y’all notice anything different about me?”

Mabel stared at him, confused. Other than the new fashion choices, nothing about him seemed different. If anything, his face and hairstyle was almost eerily identical to last year, the tall white coif clashing bizarrely with his aggressively casual clothes. What was he expecting them to notice?

Intrigued now, she scanned him up and down. Still nothing jumped out at her, just more skater clothes; pre-ripped jeans, platform sneakers—

Hold on. Those weren’t platforms, those were flats.

“You got taller!” she shouted, so hyped by the discovery that her voice rang through the whole diner.

Dipper and Gideon both jumped in surprise, but the instant he recovered, Gideon was beaming brighter than a nuclear reactor. “I sure did!” he cheered, grabbing Mabel’s hands and hauling her to her feet with him. “I knew you’d notice! Look at this, we’re eye level now! Ain’t that just a delight?”

Mabel grinned uncomfortably. His voice had taken a tone that she didn’t really like. And he really should have let go of her hands by now. Still, when she saw the “you okay?” look Dipper was sending her way, she still gestured at him to stand down.

“Yeah…! That’s great!” she said to Gideon. He was so clearly excited about this, she didn’t want to be rude. “I’m happy for you! You can ride roller coasters now! Like… small ones!”

“Exactly!!” Still beaming, Gideon clasped her hands tighter and pulled them to his chest. “The whole world’s openin’ up for me! Y’know, it really is such a delight to see you again, Mabel… and say, speakin’ of roller coasters, there’s this brand new theme park in town- maybe sometime you and me could mosey on over there, give it a look?”

“OH. Uh. I’m… busy, actually!” Mabel yanked her hands free and sidled away. “I’m gonna be really really busy for the next, uh…”

They all jumped when a new voice cut in. “HELLO! Hot plates coming through! Can we make a little room here?”

Mabel turned to see a girl she half-recognized. Bottle-blonde hair turning brown at the roots, hurried but gorgeous eye makeup that mostly hid the dark circles below her darker blue eyes. A stained apron over a sensible work shirt, a tray of pancakes in her hands, and an ice-cold gaze searing holes straight into Gideon. “Your table’s actually over there, you know,” she said coldly, nodding her head sharply to the side.

For once in his life, Gideon took a hint. “Oh my, look at the time! Sorry to cut things short, folks! Let’s chat more later!” And he scurried back to his table, that glare following him the whole way. And when the girl turned back to look at Mabel again, it clicked.

“Pacifica!” she cheered. “Oh my gosh, it’s you!”

“Uh, yeah, obviously.” The response had no venom in it, which was still a little jarring after all this time. “What, did you think I was Susan? My makeup can’t be that bad”.

“Nah, Susan usually does it better,” Dipper said, leaning back with a wry smile.

“You know there’s boiling liquid in this pitcher, right?” Pacifica jabbed back with a grin, setting out their plates of strawberry pancakes and pouring them each some coffee. (Now that they were teens, that was officially allowed! That had always been the house rule, and they’d already told Mom and Dad no take-backs.)

“Don’t listen to Dipper, your makeup’s gorgeous ,” Mabel said.

Pacifica giggled. “Mabel, you said that about a bird once.”

“Hey, that bird’s mascara was flawless! I still think you should try a style like that.”

“Why don’t you go first.”

“You think I could pull off red and yellow eyeshadow??” Mabel demanded. “I’d look like a freakin’ hot dog! It’s not fair, you make everything look pretty.”

Pacifica snorted, turning pink. “Shut up,” she said, nudging Mabel. Mabel’s chest suddenly clenched, and she tried to gauge the other girl’s expression. Was that too far? Did she say something weird?

Mercifully, Dipper cut off her train of thought. “Okay, what poor bird did you try to put eyeshadow…” Pacifica cut Dipper off by holding out her phone with the secretary bird photos Mabel had sent her last week. “…Oh. Okay, I see your point, actually.”

“You guys are nuts,” Pacifica laughed. “Man, it’s been dull since you left. I know we’ve been talking and stuff, but it’s good to have you back.”

“Yeah, it is,” Dipper said, while Mabel nodded emphatically. “We really missed everybody.”

“We should hang out!” Mabel blurted out. “Make up for lost time! I mean, I know you’ll be working and all, and Dipper and I are gonna have a bunch of cool paranormal research projects to do, but still! We should do something! Like a movie, or, uh…” She trailed off, realizing abruptly that she’d been talking way too long. Finish the thought, Mabel. Suggest something. Dinner? No, that sounds weird. What else is there? C’mon, say something…

“I heard there’s a new theme park in town,” Dipper said with a knowing grin.

“Yeah! Yeah, we should go! That’d be—“ Mabel paused, remembering what Gideon had just said. She felt her cheeks burning, but she made herself finish the sentence. “…That’d be fun. We should do that.”

“We totally should,” Pacifica said. Then a dinner bell chimed from the back of the diner, and she jolted. “Ughhh, I gotta get back to my stupid job now. Call me, okay?” Mabel barely had time to give a thumbs up before Pacifica rushed off.

Once she was gone from sight, Mabel slumped over and let her head thunk against the table. “Ugh…”

“You good?” Dipper asked through a mouthful of pancakes.

Mabel sighed. “That was so awkward. Why was that so awkward? I’ve been texting her all summer, we’ve called and video chatted and everything… why now when we’re in person am I suddenly acting so awkward??”

“You weren’t?” Dipper said. “You seemed totally normal to me.”

“Yeah, right,” Mabel grumbled. “This from the guy who set me up to sound like Gideon…”

Dipper winced. “Yeah… sorry. That was a little mean. But it’s not the same thing, y’know? I mean, he was being creepy.”

“Ugh, I’m glad that wasn’t just me,” Mabel said. “I get that he’s trying, it’s just… I dunno.”

“He’s trying too hard. He should give you space. He really messed things up with you, he shouldn’t be trying to push you into hanging out with him again.”

“Yeah… you’re right. Thanks, Dipper.” Some of the tension in Mabel’s chest released. She celebrated by polishing off a few pancakes.

“But yeah, you’re not acting anything like Gideon with Pacifica,” Dipper continued, once they’d both had time to finish their plates. “She actually wants to hang out with you.”

Mabel flushed. “You think so?”

“Uh, yeah. I have eyes,” Dipper said, rolling them. “She likes you a lot, Mabel.”

Mabel clamped her hands over her cheeks, feeling them burning. “Um. Cool. Okay, good.” Then their conversation flashed back through her mind, and she covered the rest of her face. “It’s just hard to imagine when I’m acting so weird… I don’t get it! She’s our friend now, we’ve been talking for months! Why am I suddenly so nervous around her?!” With an exhausted sigh, she grabbed her water glass and took a big gulp to soothe her dry throat.

“‘Cause you have a crush on her,” Dipper said with a casual shrug.

Mabel spewed her water all across the table. Dipper barely leapt out of the way in time to avoid getting drenched.

“WHAT???” Mabel shouted in a completely nonchalant, unsuspicious way. “Are you NUTS? What are you TALKING about??”

“Oh, are we not at that stage yet?” Dipper asked, mopping the table with some paper towels. “My bad. Forget I said anything.”

“That’s RIDICULOUS. That’s not even– why would you think– that’s not a thing.” Mabel cleared her throat to make her voice sound even less shrill and anxious than it already did. “We’re friends. We’re just friends. I don’t even– I’m not– there’s nothing WRONG with it, but I’m NOT, and even if I WAS, I mean… she’s your ex, Dipper. It’d totally violate the Bro Code.”

Dipper laughed. “My ‘ex??’ We went on one date!”

“Still counts,” Mabel muttered, slumping against the table again.

“Mabel, seriously. We went into the movie as a couple, and before the credits even rolled we’d already decided to just be friends. That’s a relationship duration of less than 90 minutes.”

Mabel winced. “Seriously? Aw, Dipper, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be!” he said with a laugh. “We had way more fun once we stopped trying to act like boyfriend and girlfriend. Nobody’s heart got broken, it was just… we were both trying to force something that wasn’t really there, and once we decided to just be honest with ourselves, it was like a weight lifted.”

Mabel nodded slowly, a hundred awkward middle school dates flashing through her memory. “Well… good!” she finally said. “Because if she did break your heart, I would’ve had to kill her.”

Dipper laughed, shaking his head like he’d heard that joke a hundred times. She laughed with him, even though she wasn’t even slightly joking.

“Y’know, it’s funny,” Dipper said. “On our date, there was one big thing that tipped me off that we should just stay friends. Pacifica was laughing at some joke in the movie, I forget what it was, and then she just casually said ‘I wish Mabel was here, she’d love this–’”

“Uh, HEY! What’s that??” Mabel shouted, jumping up from her seat and pointing at the window across the diner. She’d just been desperately scrambling for a chance to change the subject before her face turned even redder. But then, like a gift from the heavens, there was a blinding flash of light.

And then, like a gift from… somewhere else… a power line pole caught on fire.

Dipper and Mabel exchanged that look that always meant “let’s check it out” and raced to the window. They were just in time to see a sparking blob of light leap out of the fire and slide across the power line like a skateboarder grinding on a rail. Then it leapt out onto a tree branch and bounced from one tree to another, vanishing deep into the forest, leaving bursts of burning leaves in its wake.

The lights in the diner fizzled and went out, just as a mighty roll of thunder swept through the sky. Like an entourage trailing that weird lightning bolt, dark heavy clouds were rushing in overhead, crowding out the sun as sheets of driving rain smashed into the ground. As shouts of alarm and annoyance filled the room around them, Dipper and Mabel locked eyes again. Dipper was holding his camera, lens locked on the trail of destruction the living storm had left behind.

They both broke into grins.

“I’ve got an idea for our first research project,” Dipper said. Mabel extended a fist, and he bumped it with aplomb.

——

Bill was losing his battle against boredom. Despite his very best efforts, his eye kept drifting closed as sleep clawed at him. And whenever it did, he jolted up again the next instant, blazing heat and eye-burning colors seared into his eyelids.

And how could anybody blame him? This place was so bland and unremarkable that it wrapped back around to being weird. Not a single object of interest; even the walls were just dingy off-white. Sure, Bill was no expert in interior design, but all anyone needed was one functioning eye to see that this place needed some work before it reached a comfort level of “bearable”.

Then again, Bill had a funny feeling that Ford had never intended this room as a place for comfort. The vibes were less “hangout den” and more “POW torture chamber”.

So he had to deal with the crappy amenities of a dungeon, and nobody was even bothering to torture him either! His brain had to do that part all by itself. Inconsiderate jerks. This place is getting ZERO stars for customer service.

His hands tensed anxiously. It was too quiet. He was getting too close to dozing off again. He scratched at his arm, felt his claws unsheath and dig into his skin. The sting of pain was reassuring. It reminded him that he was alive. It still wasn’t as fun as before, now that he knew he’d have to deal with scabs and bruises and scar tissue later. But the sharp rush of adrenaline kept his brain wired. Just a little scratch was as intense as when he’d stabbed forks into Ford’s possessed flesh, back in the old days. Like all the sensations around him, it was overwhelming. But at least this was one he could control.

Just as he’d started to draw blood, a sound jolted him back to the present. A knock at the door. Rather, three knocks, two soft and one heavy, then a pause, then the same three knocks.

The kid was finally back. About time; he’d started to wonder if she’d forgotten he was here. He crossed to the door and replied with a shave-and-a-haircut knock.

She almost knocked him over when she barrelled in at top speed. He staggered and shoved the door shut as she turned to him, eyes bright with near-manic excitement. “WHOA!” he shouted. “WHERE’S THE FIRE, KID?”

“We gotta be quick,” she said. “Dipper’s waiting upstairs. I’m just letting you know, the plan’s changed a little.”

Bill’s hands tensed even tighter than before. “HOW SO?” he asked suspiciously.

“So, Dipper and I…” she paused. “…Okay, first you gotta promise you won’t freak out.”

His suspicion quadrupled in size. “UH. SURE.”

“Okay, so Dipper and I are gonna be studying Gravity Falls all summer. We’re gonna be away on nature expeditions, like… basically all the time.”

Bill tried very hard not to let his excitement show. Getting the kids out of the way would be a dream come true, but there was definitely a catch coming up. “…AND?”

“And you’re gonna come with us.”

“WHAT?!?” he roared. He didn’t even think to hold back his rage. This wasn’t the time for tactics, this was pure insanity.

“Hey, you promised not to freak out!”

“YOU TOLD HIM?!?” Bill gripped his head. “I TOLD YOU— YOU SAID—"

“I didn’t tell him!” she shouted. “Just relax, okay?! I didn’t even finish!”

He took in a hissing breath. “THIS BETTER BE GOOD.”

“I didn’t tell Dipper anything,” she said. “He doesn’t have to know until I’m ready. But there’s no way I’m just leaving you in the house all the time while no one else knows you’re here–”

“THE DOOR’S LOCKED!” Bill blurted out.

She scowled. “Oh, come on! You’re a trillion-year-old evil mastermind or whatever! You expect me to believe you can’t pick a lock??”

Part of him almost appreciated that for a second. Then reason came back. “I’M HERE ‘CAUSE I’M IN HIDING, REMEMBER? WHY WOULD I WANT TO SNEAK OUT?!” That was the wrong thing to say, he realized slightly too late. He shouldn’t be giving her reasons to wonder what his plan might be.

“I know you’re not just gonna sit in here all day doing nothing,” she fired back. “Part of the deal was for you to stay close by so I can keep an eye on— so I can supervise you. And I’m not leaving you here while my family doesn’t know to watch their backs!”

“SERIOUSLY? WHAT, YOU THINK I’M GONNA START STABBING PEOPLE THE SECOND YOU TAKE YOUR EYES OFF ME?? I’M NOT A GREMLIN, KID, I’M A FULL-GROWN FULLY REALIZED PERSON!!” He stomped his foot, steaming with frustration. “JUST ‘CAUSE I SOMETIMES DO THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE, THAT DOESN’T MEAN I SPEND EVERY WAKING MOMENT BRAINSTORMING WAYS TO CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR YOU!”

She looked doubtful.

“COME ON! HOW WOULD TURNING ON YOU NOW BENEFIT ME AT ALL?!” He inwardly begged her not to think of an answer. “WHY ARE YOU SO CONVINCED I’M OUT TO GET YOU GUYS?!”

“Why shouldn’t I be?!” Bill actually staggered back at the sudden force of her voice. Her eyes bored into him, white-hot. “You tried to kill us!! You spent a whole summer trying to kill us! And you already said you want revenge! It was really dumb of me to bring you here in the first place… so if you wanna stay, you’re playing by my rules!” She stopped, shook her head, and pushed back some rogue strands of hair. “Besides. You still didn’t let me finish.”

He just stared at her coldly; she took his silence as permission to keep talking. “We’ll be in the woods most of the time. It won’t be that hard to stay out of sight. You’ve just gotta hide in my bike basket on the way there and back, so I know you’re not sneaking around our house. Then just stay nearby until we head back. We’ll keep in touch with texts.”

“YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING,” Bill snarled. “I SIGNED UP FOR ROOM AND BOARD, NOT TO TRAIL TWO KIDS AROUND A FOREST WHILE THEY CHASE GNOMES ALL DAY! NOT A CHANCE! NO!!”

She gritted her teeth and stared him down. He stared right back, immovable and silent. Nobody blinked.

“Fine,” she said at last. “Then the deal’s off.”

“FINE! WHO NEEDS YOU ANYWAY!” He turned to the window.

She grabbed his wrist.

He jolted in shock at the sudden harsh texture, and tried to tear his hand away. Her grip just tightened, and she started to drag him toward the door.

His stomach dropped. “WHAT— WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“If you’re leaving, I’m walking you out the front door,” she said simply. “If you climb out that window, you could just sneak right back in.”

“WHAT?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!?” He was using “crazy” as an insult; that’s how crazy this was. “THEY’RE UP THERE! THEY’LL SEE ME!”

“They might not, if we’re quick.” Her voice was ice cold.

Right. As if. And it was clear she wouldn’t lift a finger if they did. He launched his other arm out, and it stretched just far enough to latch onto the opposite wall corner. He planted his feet and pulled against her as hard as he could, but she just kept going. Dragging him along. Her hand was almost at the doorknob.

“THEY’LL KILL ME!” he roared desperately. “YOU KNOW THEY WILL!!”

She turned to look at him. When she met his eye, her steely gaze faltered. Oh, thank GOD. Of course Shooting Star wasn’t that ruthless. She wasn’t just going to drag him out there to his death. She wouldn’t get her hands dirty like that. Hell, she couldn’t even leave him to die in the rain earlier, when all she had to do was walk away! If she was too soft for that, she’d never have the spine to do this. He just had to push a little harder—

But then her features set into a colder scowl than ever. She turned and started dragging him again. SHIT! Had he been smiling? Poker face— he wasn’t used to these stupid face muscles, he never used to have to worry about his muscles moving on their own, he’d forgotten to hold a goddamn POKER FACE—

She grabbed the doorknob and started to turn it. “WAIT! STOP! I’LL DO IT!!” he screamed, wild with terror.

Her hand froze in place. Then the hand on his wrist unclenched and he ripped his arm away, scurrying back to the opposite end of the room.

Her shoulders slumped as she stared after him. The icy scowl was gone, replaced by a look of sheer exhaustion. As if holding that face had been an Atlas-level effort.

“I’LL DO IT.” It was his turn with the scowl; however guilty she wanted to seem, it wasn’t good enough. She’d shown where she really stood on all this. “I MEAN, I GUESS I’VE GOT NO CHOICE, HUH?”

She sighed. “I wouldn’t have let them—”

“SURE,” he said icily. “THAT’S WHY IT MADE SUCH A GOOD THREAT, RIGHT? LOOK, IF THIS IS A HOSTAGE SITUATION, LET’S AT LEAST BE UP FRONT ABOUT IT.”

“It’s not! I just… wanted to be sure…”

“TRUST IS A TWO-WAY STREET, KID.” He took a seat on the beanbag and glared at her. Trying to rat him out to her family was one thing; if anything, he was surprised it didn’t happen sooner. And using it as leverage was just as inevitable. But trying to convince him that wasn’t what was happening was just insulting. What kind of idiot would go against their allies to help some rando, let alone a proven threat? She wasn’t that stupid, even if she wanted to seem like it.

She sighed again. It looked like she wanted to keep talking, but he shot another glare and turned away, leaning back on the beanbag. He wasn’t in the mood to chat anymore.

He heard her fidgeting nervously with something behind him for a minute. Then she spoke up. “I’ll be back later. Once I know when we’re leaving.”

He gave a dismissive thumbs up without turning around. He heard one more sigh, and then the door closed. After a bit of hesitation, the lock clicked too, and footsteps padded slowly up the stairs.

He sat up and glared back at where she’d been. Once he knew he was alone, exhaustion slammed into him. Another entry on the “why bodies suck” list: the adrenaline crash. Because just being scared for your life isn’t bad enough. Your brain has to power wash all the energy out of your body as soon as the rhetorical tiger is gone. Because tigers famously never attack more than once.

“WELL, SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENED, BILL. HAPPY?” He rolled his eye and stood up, planning to pace the room and ward off sleep for as long as possible.

Something was piled up by the door. Warily, he approached.

A bunch of snack cakes and energy bars, placed atop a small stack of books. One thick paperback with a black-and-bright-green cover that just said “MISSING”, one with a very dramatic looking painting of cats, one with a mouse running into battle with a sewing needle “sword”; he chuckled a little at that one. And one coloring book with dragons, complete with a couple loose crayons scattered on the floor.

Bill just stared at the pile for a minute. This kid was tough to get a bead on. Talk about mixed signals.

“WHAT THE HELL,” he muttered, and cracked open the mouse book. Little guy stood no chance in hell with that pitiful weapon. Might at least be funny.

#gravity falls #mabel’s guide to the power of friendship #bill & mabel friendship au #bill cipher #mabel pines #dipper pines #gravity falls fanfiction #milleniart #robin writes stuff

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ticklefighthockey · 2 days ago

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jes!!!! hi hello. relatively new hrpf reader/blogger here. it recently occurred to me that my faves mr great 8 and natemac have, like, never overlapped ever not once in any of the fan media i’ve browsed. what are your thoughts on these two? irl dynamic predictions or where you’d see them connect in an rpf verse. i humbly come to you begging for crumbs of my big alpha dawg favies 💗

first of all welcome to hrpf second of all thank you for giving me the incredible gift of getting to imagine natemac(????)/OVI?????? for the first time ever. that is not a pairing that has ever graced my mind palace before but I am VERY MUCH enjoying thinking about it now ahaha. ok some scattered thoughts:

the one canon “interaction” I can think of is that video of sid and nate where sid’s holding hockey cards up to his forehead and nate’s describing the guy trying to get sid to guess him. and nate goes “you and him have been getting really close lately” or something like that and sid says, with a little giggle and a slutty voice crack, “ovi?” and you can see a series of expressions flit over nate’s face like he was Not Expecting the slutty voice crack & giggle combo over Alexander Ovechkin and does he need to investigate further what’s been going on there. (the actual answer was mitch marner.) so while that’s not exactly a direct interaction I think it is telling ahaha. I feel like nate is intensely jealous of anyone who monopolizes sid’s attention and ovi is a big cheerful charismatic totally shameless presence who has been periodically barreling through sidney crosby’s life and wreaking havoc on sidney crosby’s sexual psyche with his wolfish magnetism since sid was 18 years old so like. I imagine nate would VERY much want to JUST KEEP TABS on sid’s interactions with ovi.

I feel like nate would NOT know what to make of ovi in a social context. they are big alpha dawgs in such opposite ways. nate is the angry intense domineering alpha dog who will carry his pack on his back through the blizzard or whatever and like yes he will keep everyone alive but he will do so by occasionally losing his shit and yelling at pack members who don’t fall in line because he’s fucking TRYING TO KEEP EVERYBODY FUCKING SAFE ALL RIGHT. this is a man who has never once relaxed in his entire life. even when he is with sidney crosby, the man who makes him more relaxed and human than almost anyone else, nate is still on some level tensely scanning the surrounding environment nonstop to make sure there are no threats approaching who might jeopardize his relaxing human time with sidney crosby. alexander ovechkin, by contrast, was born relaxed. I’m not saying this man doesn’t have cares but he is like, existentially carefree in ways that natemac couldn’t imagine in his wildest dreams. ovi is an alpha dawg but in a big cheerful slobbery wolf kind of way… he nips ya and wrestles and pins ya down if he needs to and sure he’ll draw his lip back in a warning snarl every now and then if things are getting out of line but he is fundamentally not threatened by other dogs… in fact the idea of being threatened by them would baffle and amuse him. I do think he would get a real kick out of baiting nate just a little. just for fun. and then if nate tried to bite him for real he’d just scruff him like a pup until nate shook himself free and slunk off scowling to tend to his wounded pride in peace. sorry idk why they’re suddenly dogs and not just dawgs in this post I think it’s just the universe speaking through me telling you that these men are obviously both werewolves.

for nate/ovi as a SHIP I have the easiest time imagining them in some kind of triangulated situation with sid lol. sid doesn’t necessarily have to be PRESENT for this to work but he is somehow what brings them together. I think the sex is athletic and involves a lot of wrestling that is play-wrestling for ovi and deadly serious ‘I will put you in a headlock and choke you out before I let you pin me’ wrestling for nate but ovi wins and it doesn’t kill nate. it’s actually good for him. older alpha dawg knows what he needs, which is to get scruffed by a cheerful older alpha dawg who doesn’t take himself or sex too seriously. this isn’t a ship with a lot of long-term romance potential in my mind but I do think if nate can be fixed through sex ovi might be the one capable of doing it.

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punchspeedchunk · 2 days ago

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Got the Sketch pretty much done, no real BG because I got distracted drawing other shit once all the Gob Squad were in.

They are fighting a Category 2 Krasus here. Which is also a Lizrog. Because DnD re-uses art elements I guess. I took liberties on top of that also. Riz just ran clear across the arena to distract it by slashing it's belly with his sword so the others could ambush it. Shmim is leaning over to ask if he's good lol.

ANYWAY, specific context under cut because it's A LOT And if you need context for the context, you can find it all in THE BIG AU DOC

So, when Fabian’s and Riz’s kids are still young, someone brings up the fact that they’re all old enough to compete at the Adventuring Olympics if they want.

This is a thing that is held every 5 years in High Court, and you have to be both old enough (25 and older) and high enough level (16 or higher) to compete. Fig is the one to suggest it, since she realised the last time that there is an event that the Last Stand was based off, and they could absolutely kill it.

The Gob Squad hear about this and go ‘bet we could beat you lol’, and then Adaine points out this might be true, but Riz is in both their parties, and he would have to pick one to compete with, which wouldn’t be very fair.

Riz goes ‘why not both?’

There is a LOT of debate over this, until they check the rules and find out that while there’s nothing preventing him from signing up with two adventuring parties in that event, it’s not something anyone has ever done successfully - as in, anyone who’s done it has been unable to compete in their second match due to exhaustion/injuries acquired.

Riz goes ‘bet. I won’t even be using any of my Fae powers, im doing this pure rogue’

The Seven Maidens also get in on this because they think it’ll be fun and they will NOT be outdone by the Bad Kids and Gob Squad.

So the event is endurance based, with rounds of monsters that adventuring parties have to take on. They go into the arena with a limit on their weapons, items, steeds/vehicles, and rations. It’s both easier and harder than The Last Stand - they don’t have to answer questions or keep a proctor safe, but there is no limit to the rounds of monsters they can face.

They just have to last as long as possible, and their round ends when no members of the party are able to fight any longer, or the nominated team captain calls that they’re done. The monsters they are facing are generally more dangerous than the ones they dealt with in the Last Stand as well.

The organisers, looking at Riz, then looking at his adventuring rap sheet, decide that the Gob Squad’s round will commence on the first of three days' competition, and the Bad Kids will go on the last day, so that there is as much time between his rounds as they can give him. They do not expect him to do any better than any other competitor that has attempted two rounds with different parties, but he has good stats, and he’s got a reputation they want to utilise if at all possible to get better engagement with the games (They are looking at suspending them indefinitely after this year due to a lack of engagement. Higher level adventuring teams had grown bored of the games, audiences were bored of watching the same parties compete, and fresh blood hadn’t decided to compete during years of turmoil with wars looming all over the place).

So, Gob squad come in with very little reputation ahead of them, everyone is expecting them to last maybe twenty minutes to a half hour, most teams do like an hour and a half roughly. There is some curiosity over the fact that they don’t seem to have much gear on any of them, except for the big guy sitting in what is essentially a mech-suit.

The mech suit is something Shmim developed over several years after that one concert where both Bad Kids and Gob Squad fought off the cultist invasion. He got the idea of having a mobile battle station that could concentrate his bardic magic when DJing so he could turn it into really hard hitting attacks (imagine, if you will, concentrated, amplified Dubstep attacks - Psyonic monsters get their eardrums and brains scrambled, they never stood a chance).

He burns one of his famous DJ identities and outs himself as the Artist known as Avalanche when he plays a full set for the entire duration of their fighting… which turns into HOURS. Not only is the Mech basically his Bardificer battle platform, it provides cover/shielding/pack support/a rest spot for the rest of the party as well.

The others are stashing their packs on this thing and grabbing items as they need them, leaving them free to run the field without dealing with their bags. There’s a little nest platform on the top back where they can sit and have a drink and a snack when tapping out, and while the mech is not fast, it is an absolute tank, so it takes hits pretty well, and even when it’s mobility is compromised, it’s an effective shield, and Shmim can still keep the tunes flowing and the bardics coming.

The other advantage to running a constant music set is that Shmim can use it for communicating strats and targets to the other Gob Squad members. Certain tunes will herald formations for different enemies, and sometimes just act as hype tracks for individuals (Every Gob Squad member gets a highlight when their song comes on and they get to wreck shop on their own).

Basically, everyone in the stands is losing their mind. Who the FUCK are these guys? They’re just a bunch of goblins, how are they wrecking so much shit? Why do they have a guy who can barely be seen unless he’s in a melee attack? How is that stoner guy doing so much damage with that longboard without breaking it? Did that one with the over-sized wizard hat just fucking re-animate the T-Rex they killed to fight for them? Is that safety goblin saying a prayer to a Dwarf God??? HOW has the tiny dance bard not been eaten by anything yet how is their Bard a famous DJ what the fuck is HAPPENING holy SHIT did the fucking business rogue just take out a Wyvern SOLO???? (Of course, any Goblins watching know who these guys are and expected no less. After the events of 'The Long Road Home', the Gob Squad are known as The Goblin King's High Guards, so OBVIOUSLY they're going to smash it).

It’s like, 4 hours and 45 minutes before they’re out of spells (They had been eating dragon livers to replenish spell slots, as well as just keeping their strength up. Who needs provisions when you can eat your enemies as you go?) and finally dropping from injuries and effects from enemy spells and stuff. Riz and Dex are the last ones on their feet, and they could keep holding stuff off until they fall completely (Shmim’s out for the count but has tunes still auto-playing from what’s left of the mech-deck), but they call it for the sake of having already smashed the Olympic record at the 3 and a half hour mark.

Needless to say, the Gob Squad become absolute fucking legends (outside of just Goblin culture that is). It’s a lot for the other competitors to live up to, and most don’t until the Seven Maidens take their turn right before the Bad Kids on the third day.

Riz rests the whole of the middle day in the Fae Wilds, not because he wants to use Fae magic to heal up and recuperate (He doesn’t, he thinks that’s cheating) but because he can use the time dilation of just being in the Fae Wilds to get extra rest.

So when Riz comes out on the field with the Bad Kids, he’s basically fine, only a single level of exhaustion to hobble him, and the Seven Maidens threw down the Gauntlet by beating the Gob Squad time by two whole minutes.

So obviously the Bad Kids have to beat that.

It takes Five hours and fifteen minutes before the Bad Kids call their match, and it’s only because they ran out of revivify materials and Kristen is at 1 hit point. None of them are actually down, they just have various status effects they can’t shed and figure they did good enough smashing the record to absolute pieces and making it hard for anyone else to match.

Plus Fabian and Riz want to go back to their babies, who were in the stands with Pok, Sklonda and Kari, getting more bored and squirmy the longer the match went on.

The organisers are sweating bullets, they were pulling emergency monsters directly from other planes of existence just to keep this match going, they never anticipated something like this, if the Bad Kids hadn’t called it, they were looking at the prospect of just straight running out, and that would have been embarrassing as hell for the prestige of the Olympic Guild.

#d20 fantasy high #fantasy high #fantasy high au #fanart #riz gukgak #the gob squad #the bad kids #d20 fantasy high oc #oc art #fanfic #the working title for this pic is The Gobbolympics #You can't see it but Jinky has 'Juicy' on the ass of her shorts #and her tail comes out as the dot on the i

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whiskey-tango-matcha · 1 day ago

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Weird (M, cold)

Do you ever get such an insane urge to write something that you literally can't focus on anything else until it's done? Well, that was me with this fic lmao. HI here I am again, back with another Greyson cold fic bc I live to write the same thing one million times over. It's a big cold-denial drama-fest, my personal favorite lol. In it, Greyson gets sick on an important day and tries like hell to deny it. That's basically it! If ya read it, I hope you like it. It was a fun write.

CW: Male cold/snz, contagion, light mess, cold denial. I think that's it, it's pretty light for me lmao.

5K words under the cut. As always, I'd love to hear what you think! <3

Weird

Every year, Greyson looked forward to one event and one event only: Five Boroughs F&B Weekend.

Elliot’s, for being a small stand-alone, did a good number of events every year – from charity galas to full festivals, Elijah was near-obsessed with getting the restaurant in front of as many people as possible. Most of the events were, to put it lightly, complete and total nightmares; they didn’t provide you with food, or they gave you students to ‘help out’ which just slowed the entire process down. Once, at a huge New Orleans festival, Greyson had to cook 1,000 mini sliders on someone’s literal backyard grill. After that one, Elijah promised Greyson they wouldn’t do any more out-of-state events.

But the Five Boroughs weekend was always a fucking blast. Chefs all throughout the city got together to come up with their weirdest, chefiest dishes and the guests who bought tickets were the type of people who actually appreciated food. Not to mention the fact that there were three after parties – one for each night of the festival – with open bars that only closed when all the booze was completely gone. This would be Greyson’s fifth year at Five Boroughs and absolutely nothing could ruin it for him.

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Reed said, backing away from his boyfriend. Greyson didn’t lower the can of Lysol he was pointing at Reed until the other man was clear across the living room. “Far endough?” Reed near-shouted from the Greyson-mandated fifty-foot berth.

“Honestly, I don’t think it is far enough,” Greyson said, spraying the can into the surely-already-infected air. “Maybe you should sequester yourself in your office.”

From the far side of the room, Reed deadpanned his boyfriend. “Are you fuckigg serious?” he asked, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “I don’t even have a couch in mby office. Also, you already slept with me last ndight so…”

“I didn’t know you were sick last night.” Sprrtz, a spray of Lysol as Reed took a step forward. “You didn’t tell me you were sick last night.” Sprrtz.

“Could you stop with the fuckigg Lysol?” Reed asked, annoyed. “I’mb like half a mbile away from you.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Greyson shrugged. Before setting the can down, he gave one final spray in front of himself, a curtain of disinfectant mist that settled on the tile in a sticky puddle. Reed pulled his hand down his face, leaned into the wall, and sighed.

“This isn’t very ndice, you kndow,” he said. “I’mb always ndice to you when you’re siihh – hhITSZCHH-ue!” Reed snapped forward into his palm, then grimaced at the mess he’d apparently made. Giving his boyfriend a watery glare, he sulked to the bathroom in search of tissues. Begrudgingly, Greyson followed behind, grabbing the Lysol bottle on the way.

“I never claimed to be nice,” Greyson said, making eye contact in the bathroom mirror with Reed. From behind the tissue, Reed rolled his eyes.

“You are ndice,” he said, throwing the tissue into the tiny garbage can. “I mbean, ndot today. But usually.”

Greyson huffed out a laugh, let his boyfriend out of the bathroom. “Babe, I’m sorry,” he said, following Reed to their bedroom. “I’ll make you tea, I’ll bring you meds, whatever you need just… I cannot get sick for this event.” Reed, who Greyson knew understood where he was coming from, despite the pouting, gave a curt nod. He shivered then, an involuntary shake that gave him the appearance of a child left out in the cold. Poor Reed, Greyson found himself thinking; very little was more miserable than a cold at the height of summer, a time when his boyfriend should’ve been drinking spritzes on a patio while writing his latest review. He’d been running himself ragged at a new job with the New Yorker as their resident food writer, and it was a great gig but the man definitely wasn’t getting enough sleep, or enough sun, or – ironically – enough food lately, so of course he’d picked up some nasty bug. The timing certainly couldn’t be worse; with three days until Five Boroughs, Greyson was not only obsessed with not getting sick, he was also wildly busy prepping for the event. Reed had probably been coming down with something for days, and only now had Greyson noticed. Fuck.

Greyson set his teeth, lips pressed together, caught between the worst rock and the shittiest hard place he could imagine. Sighing, he set down the Lysol bottle and turned towards the closet that held the winter blankets they’d put away months ago.

“What are you doigg?” Reed asked. Greyson gestured to the bed that Reed was perched on the side of with one hand, the other cradling a fleece down comforter.

“Get in bed,” he said. “I’m only exposing myself to you for the next two minutes, so you’d better make it count.” Reed smiled a little; coughing into his shoulder, he burrowed beneath their thin summer quilt. Greyson unfolded the comforter and spread it across the bed. Against all his instincts, the chef cupped Reed’s face in one hand and kissed his forehead. “Tea?” he asked. “Your majesty?”

***

Something was off about Greyson.

It was day one of the Five Boroughs event – what was essentially his Superbowl – and he just seemed… weird. Quiet. Un-Greyson-like. Elijah had been with the chef for this event every year, and every year he was bouncing off the walls, unable to stop talking, and packed into the van two hours before they even had to leave. This year? Not so much.

“Chef, are you almost ready?” Elijah called from the front office. Greyson was in back with Matt, still, at twelve-oh-five, prepping the scallop sashimi they were presenting at that evening’s walk around event despite the fact that Elijah told him multiple times they had to leave right at noon. When no answer came from the back, Elijah groaned and stood. He’d throw on an apron if he had to, get everything sorted and packed for Greyson, whatever it took to get them out the door. C’mon, Grey, how long does it take to put some fish in a 100 pan?

“Grey, are you ready? We have to go,” Elijah called as he walked towards the back kitchen. Again – no answer. “Are you even back here, where the fuck-”

“I’m here, I’m ready,” Greyson called as Elijah rounded the corner. The chef put a lid on a final pan and pulled his hair to the top of his head, securing it with a Sharpie as he regarded his boss. “Sorry, just… running behind today,” he said, stacking the pans. “Matt, help me get these into the van. Please.”

The sous chef nodded and grabbed a stack of pans, while Elijah gave Greyson a confused look. “What?” Greyson asked as he moved past Elijah to get to the back dock.

“Nothing,” Elijah said, following behind them. “I just – are you okay?” he asked, prompting Greyson to glance backwards before placing the pans into the van’s trunk.

“Yes?” Greyson said, raising a confused eyebrow. “Why?”

“You’re acting weird,” Elijah said, crossing his arms. “And not like… normal you weird. Are you not excited for the event? This is usually like Christmas morning to you.”

Greyson pressed a hand into one of his eyes and rubbed for a moment before deciding how to answer Elijah. “I’m good,” he said, finally. “Just a little tired, I guess. I’m excited, I just need an energy drink or something.”

Elijah nodded. Let it go, he said to himself, though he was having the hardest time doing it. Something was weird, he could feel it, and Elijah knew to trust his feelings. “We can stop at a gas station or something on the way there,” he said, prompting a nod from Greyson. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Let me just grab a fresh coat, give me five,” Greyson said, pushing through the back door of the restaurant before Elijah could protest.

“...okay,” Elijah said as the door closed in his face. He turned to Matt, who was also strangely quiet today. “Did something, like, happen with you guys?” he asked. Matt looked up at Elijah and shook his head.

“No, boss,” Matt said. “All good.”

Elijah nodded, unconvinced. “Alright,” he said. “Thanks, Matt. Will we see you at the after party tonight?”

Matt smiled a little. “Maybe,” he said. “Depends what time I get out of here.”

Just as Elijah was about to answer, Greyson burst back through the door, buttoning up a new chef’s coat. “Okay, let’s roll. Fuck, it’s hot out here, why the fuck do they have this thing on the hottest day of the fuckin’ year?” He grumbled, slamming himself into the front seat next to Elijah. The GM said nothing, just nodded to Matt and closed his door. Turning the engine over and glancing briefly over at a sweating Greyson, he backed out of the alleyway. Something is off, he thought again as they drove away. What the fuck is his problem?

***

From the moment his feet touched the ground that morning, Greyson knew he’d caught Reed’s stupid fucking cold.

His head ached, his throat burned, and the buzzing deep in his sinuses, he already knew, was going to be an issue. Before Greyson could sneak out of their bedroom, he snapped in half with a volley of forceful, painfully-stifled sneezes. “NGTZCH! Hh-ITZCH! NTSH!”

Behind him, Reed tutted his sympathy. When Greyson opened his eyes, the tissue box that had adorned Reed’s side of the bed the last three days was at his side. Just shoot me, he thought, sniffling.

“Bless, babe,” Reed said, placing a hand on Greyson’s shoulder. “Can I get you anything?”

At the care, the concern, the immediate knowledge his boyfriend had of his illness, Greyson felt himself bristle. Pulling away from Reed’s touch, Greyson pushed himself to his feet. He turned to regard the other man, hoping he didn’t look as miserable as he felt.

“I’m fine,” Greyson said, tossing the tissue box back to Reed’s side of the bed. “Keep them. I’m not sick.”

Reed cocked his head a little to the left, confused. “Okay,” he said, coughing into his hand and pressing himself to a seat. “Sorry? I mean, good that you’re not sick, obviously. Sorry for assuming.”

Greyson grunted, annoyed, and headed for the bathroom without another word. Immediately, he turned on the shower to the hottest setting he could handle and submerged himself. Fuck you, body, he thought, scrubbing his hair. We are not getting fucking sick today. He leaned into the water as it hit his back, then turned to press his face into it, hoping it might loosen the congestion he could feel building behind his eyes.

Tonight was night one of the Five Boroughs festival, and of course it was the night that Greyson had signed up to cook, to make a thousand portions of a dish and smile at guests all evening. To work all day and then drink all night, as was tradition – the first night was always the best one, the one that the celebrities and Michelin-starred chefs from around the country showed up to, and only the chefs who’d done the festival multiple times before were asked to cook for it. It was the first year Greyson had been asked to cook for night one of the festival; it wasn’t going to be the last.

When the hot water finally ran out, Greyson begrudgingly turned off the shower and stepped onto the cold bathroom tile. He regarded himself in the mirror; at the moment, he looked fine. The worst part about the start of a cold was how shitty, how run-down and exhausted he felt – the best part was that unless he said something, he was fairly sure no one could tell he was sick. The chef combed his hair, brushed his teeth, and patted cologne on. If he wasn’t going to feel well, he was at least going to look good. He scoured the medicine cabinet as well, swallowing as much Dayquil as his body could handle without gagging. That’ll have to do, he thought, quietly replacing the medicine.

Dressed and secretly medicated, Greyson left the bathroom in search of coffee and a clean chef coat, ready to get out the door before Reed could fully assess him. He opened the cabinet where they kept the coffee beans, and when he closed it, Reed’s face appeared.

“Jesus Christ,” Greyson said, jumping at the sudden appearance of his boyfriend. “What’re you, sneaking around the house now?”

“No, I’m not sneaking around the house, weirdo, I wanted some coffee too,” Reed said. Greyson noticed that – annoyingly – Reed sounded markedly better than he had the past couple of days. Apparently, the old wive’s tale about passing along a cold making someone better held true – at least in this house.

“Oh,” Greyson said, pouring the beans into the grinder. “Yeah that makes sense.” He sniffled a little then, an involuntary action that made Reed raise his eyebrows. Greyson said nothing; just filled the coffee pot with grounds and started the machine.

“Are you excited for tonight?” Reed asked, thankfully avoiding the subject that had already set Greyson off once this morning. The chef shrugged.

“I’ll be excited when it starts,” he said, rubbing the back of his own neck. “Still a lot of work to do this morning.”

Reed nodded slowly, clearly thinking. “Is it still okay if I come tonight?” he asked as Greyson poured coffee into a thermos. “I mean, is my name still on the list and everything?”

“Mmhmm,” Greyson hummed. “Yeah. It starts at seven.”

“I remember.”

Greyson grunted again, closing the top to his mug and grabbing the pressed chef’s coat Reed had left for him on the back of one of their bar stools. “I gotta get going, babe,” he said, leaning down to kiss Reed’s cheek. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Greyson,” Reed stopped his boyfriend just as the chef was about to head out the door. “You’d tell me if you weren’t feeling well, right?”

The thunk of Greyson’s heart into his stomach was so intense, he was surprised Reed couldn’t hear it across the room. Normally I would, Greyson thought, though he wasn’t sure if that was true – he thought back to his time with Collin, all the times he was ill or upset, all of the times he reached out just to be tossed aside in return, then pushed the thought away. Reed wasn’t Collin; Reed actually gave a fuck about him. But he couldn’t miss this event, this day that he waited for all year long. Whether he would or he wouldn’t under normal circumstances, for now, Greyson gritted his teeth and lied to his boyfriend.

“Of course I would, babe,” he said, forcing a smile. “I’ll see you later.”

***

“If this is how you’re going to act all night, I’m going to kill you by the end of this thing.”

Looking up from the plates he was arranging, Greyson gave Elijah a furrowed-brow look. “What are you talking about?” he asked, annoyed. The GM closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

“You’re being fucking weird, Greyson,” he said, punctuating both fucking and weird by slapping a hand onto the setup station between the two of them. “You’ve barely said a single word to me all afternoon, and everything you have said has been you being annoyed with me. The fuck did I do to you? I feel like I’m in a fight with a fucking wall.”

The chef pressed his lips together, his face betraying nothing. Elijah took a deep breath in through his nose; this was supposed to be a fun day, and though he knew he was being petulant – childish, even – in demanding Greyson enjoy it, he couldn’t help himself. They so rarely got out of that fucking restaurant; they really ought to be enjoying themselves.

“Do you want a beer or something?” Elijah asked before Greyson could say anything. “Help you loosen up? Are you nervous about the whole being-here-night-one thing?”

Greyson swallowed compulsively, gave a little wince. What was that? Elijah thought, but before he could mention it, Greyson spoke up.

“Yeah,” he said, turning back to his plates. “A beer would be great. Thangks, Lij.”

As he went to walk away, Elijah’s ears perked up. Was he…?

“Are… are you sick?” the GM asked, turning back to face the chef again. Greyson’s face flushed.

“Ndo,” he said, congestion lacing the word. Greyson cleared his throat quietly – though loud enough for Elijah to hear – and shooed his boss off with a hand. “I was promised a beer,” he said, attempting a smile. Elijah chewed his bottom lip, but nodded and walked towards the bar. An illness really would explain everything – the annoyance, the quiet, the lack of enthusiasm – but since when did Greyson hide being sick from Elijah? Maybe when they first started working together, back before they knew one another – but now? Now Greyson would walk into the office and cough directly into Elijah’s face just so he wouldn’t be alone in being sick.

Maybe he wasn’t, then; maybe he was just in a bad mood. Greyson hadn’t mentioned anything going on at home with Reed, but Elijah knew his friend’s boyfriend was working a lot lately, and Greyson certainly didn’t do well when someone he loved didn’t have time for him.

As he arrived at the bar, Elijah smiled at the kid standing there, who handed him two shitty light beers from a cooler behind him. Handing the kid a twenty, Elijah turned on his heels and headed back towards their booth, silently wishing that Reed would be able to make it to the event tonight. Maybe that would get Greyson out of his mood.

When he returned, two beers in hand, Greyson was facing away from him. “Here’s your beer, princess,” Elijah said, placing it on the serving-side of their booth. Greyson didn’t turn. “Hellooo, did you hear-”

“NGGTSH!” Greyson’s whole body shuddered, the sound he made both choked and desperate. Elijah wasn’t sure if it was a sneeze or a sob or a laugh or something else entirely. He raised an eyebrow, picked the beer back up, and walked around to the other side of the booth, where Greyson’s hand was pressed against the bottom of his face.

“Bless you…?” Elijah said, handing his friend the beer. Greyson grabbed the beer with his unoccupied hand, roughly rubbing his nose back and forth with the one he’d just sneezed into.

“Thangks,” he said, chugging half the bottle on first drink. Elijah gave Greyson a look. “What? I’mb thirsty,” the chef said.

“Uh huh,” Elijah said, sipping his own beer. Without thinking, the GM reached up to touch Greyson’s forehead – an instinct, after all their years spending nearly every day together. Greyson stepped back to avoid the touch.

“Don’t touch mbe,” he near-growled, pointing the bottle at Elijah. “I’m already hot and in a shit mbood. Don’t piss mbe off by mother-henning mbe, too.”

Ah, Elijah thought, pressing his lips together and lowering his hand. “So you are sick,” he said, taking another sip of his beer. Greyson rolled his eyes.

“I’mb ndot sick,” he said, convincing no one. “I said I’mb hot. Because it’s fucking hot in this fucking conference roomb because it’s fucking hot outside. Okay? Yes, I’mb annoyed. I’mb trying to keep a hundred pounds of scallop cold on a hundred degree day. I don’t wandt to feed Thomas Keller or fuckigg Zendaya or whoever shows up to this thing tepid sashimi. So I’mb in a mood. But I’m ndot sick, and I’m ndot acting weird so please just drop it, Lij. Okay? I’mb – NGTZCH!” Greyson directed this poorly-stifled sneeze into his elbow, sniffled wetly immediately after. Elijah sipped his beer.

“You were saying?” he asked as Greyson stood to his full height again. The chef chugged the rest of his beer, slammed the bottle on the table, and pointed at Elijah.

“Fuck off,” he said, “and go get mbe some mbore ice.”

This time, Elijah didn’t prod further. He put his beer down, raised his hands in front of him as if in surrender, and said, “Yes, Chef,” before turning to walk towards the conference center’s kitchen. As he filled a bin with ice, he could feel his teeth grinding together in frustration. So much for a fun day out.

***

Whatever it was Greyson usually found fun about this event, he couldn’t for the life of him remember.

He was in the fucking weeds; he hadn’t sliced enough scallops back at the restaurant because he was too busy dipping into the bathroom every five-fucking-minutes to blow his nose, and now he was so behind that people had started skipping their booth altogether. Elijah, for all the shit Greyson had given him earlier, was the only one pulling his weight on their two-person team; he was stood at the front of the booth laughing and chatting with guests, while behind him Greyson sliced and plated to order like it was his first time ever doing a festival.

Eventually, he pulled himself out of the muck and the wave of guests slowed to more of a river, and Greyson was actually able to look up from his food and survey the event around him. There really were a ton of recognizable faces out there – from Food Network celebrities to institutions in the industry, it was a who’s-who of food-famous people that Greyson was embarrassing himself in front of. The chef ducked under their booth, the three seconds of rest he’d given his body apparently enough to get it to rebel against him immediately.

“NTSHH! Hh-! IGTSZCH!” Greyson attempted, once again, to stifle the sneezes into submission, succeeding only in making his own head spin. God, this was getting old. From behind him, Elijah grumbled a bless you under his breath; Greyson set his teeth to keep from snapping at his friend.

“You sound awful,” Elijah murmured, not turning towards Greyson. “You’ve sneezed like ten times in the past five minutes.”

“Mbaybe if you weren’t counting the ambount of timbes I’ve sndeezed, I wouldn’t sound awful,” Greyson muttered, standing. “Ever think of that?”

“I think, maybe, if you just let yourself sneeze like a normal human,” Elijah said, glancing over his shoulder, “you wouldn’t have to sneeze so many times. Hmm?”

Greyson rolled his eyes and turned back to the food. “I don’t have timbe for this conversation,” he said, plating another portion and handing it to Elijah. “Leave mbe alone.”

They continued like that for another thirty minutes or so, speaking only when Greyson had food for Elijah – food behind – or when he had to duck under the table – bless you, Chef – until finally, Reed stepped up to their booth.

“Reed!” Elijah exclaimed, stepping out from behind the booth to hug Greyson’s boyfriend. Greyson, preoccupied by plating, didn’t turn around.

Side-stepping the hug as graciously as possible, Reed gave Elijah an apologetic smile. “Lij, it’s so good to see you. Sorry, I would hug you but I’ve had a bitch of a cold all week. Wouldn’t want to get you sick.”

At that, Greyson bristled; for a moment, he stopped in his tracks. Fuck.

“Ohhh,” Elijah said, turning towards Greyson just as the chef peered over his shoulder at the other two men. “So that’s where he got it.”

Reed’s eyebrows knit together, confused. “Where who got what?” he asked. Beside him, Elijah gave Greyson a sidelong look.

“Grey?” he asked. “Did you have something you wanted to tell us?”

As if it wasn’t humiliating enough to be slicing his scallops basically to order, wasn’t embarrassing enough to have to turn guests away because he was so damn slow today, now Elijah was going to out him as sickly to his boyfriend in front of a gaggle of famous chefs. Greyson’s head throbbed in time with the music being canned in overhead; he whipped around and got as close to Elijah as he could without touching noses.

“Do you really thingk,” he whispered, voice low and husky, “that now is the timbe for this conversation?”

Elijah was unphased. “I really do,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’ve been an ass all day. You’ve sneezed yourself hoarse, and you very clearly have a fever. I think the least you could do is fucking admit that you’re sick.”

Just as Greyson was about to snap back at Elijah, Reed walked closer to the booth and addressed his boyfriend. “Babe?” he said, worried. “Shit, did I get you sick?”

The gut punch that was the upset in Reed’s voice nearly knocked the wind out of Greyson. He looked so sad, so genuinely concerned, that the chef immediately forgot what he was going to say. “I…” he started, before having to dip back behind the booth for the millionth time. “HTSZCHH! NGTSZH-uh!”

“Well,” Elijah said from above him. “There’s your answer.”

Rubbing his nose on the back of his hand, Greyson stood and turned to face his boyfriend and best friend. “I’mb okay, honey,” he said, ignoring Elijah completely. “It’s ndothing.”

Before Reed could reply, a new wave of guests made its way over to Elijah and Greyson’s booth; immediately, the drama between the two of them was forgotten as they once again took up their front and back of house positions, making and passing out food. By the time Greyson was once again out of the metaphorical muck, Reed was nowhere to be found. While Elijah was busy schmoozing a guest, Greyson pulled out his phone to see a text from his boyfriend.

I’m sorry I got u sick :( I wish you would’ve told me, baby. I could’ve at least brought you some medicine.

Guilt and shame tore through Greyson’s body as he clicked his phone back off. I’m such an ass, he thought as he returned to plating. Such a fucking stupid ass.

***

“So, when are you planning on admitting it? Because I’m honestly starting to get annoyed.”

Elijah handed Greyson a glass filled to the top with bourbon as he got back to the booth they had snagged the moment they got to the afterparty. Grateful, Greyson snatched the glass with one hand, while the other flew to his mouth.

“NGTSZCH-uhh! Hh...HRTSCH-oo!” The rough attempt at a stifle nearly spilled his drink, and lead to a fit of sticky coughs; Elijah grabbed the glass back from his friend, held it until Greyson wiped his nose on the back of his hand and sniffled, fruitlessly. Shot the chef a knowing look. “Alright,” Greyson muttered, taking the glass back and knocking back half the bourbon. “I’mb fuckigg sick. Happy?”

“Mmm. Happy? No, not particularly,” Elijah said, sipping his own drink. “But certainly satisfied.” “Whatever,” Greyson said, rolling his eyes. “You’re an ass.”

Elijah barked out a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “An ass who’s always right.” Greyson huffed out a little laugh, too, careful not to laugh hard enough to start coughing again. “You gonna admit the other thing, too?”

Greyson raised an eyebrow. “What other thing?”

“That you were being a dick today. That you were, in fact, being weird.”

Another eye roll from the chef, this time one that ended in a wince of pain. He rubbed an aching eye with his palm, musing. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess I was.” Greyson sighed, before slamming the rest of his drink. “I just… this is the only evendt I really care about. Y’kndow? I wait for it all year. And tondight was supposed to be...different. Better than this.” His second palm met his other eye, rubbing until Elijah started seeing stars on his behalf.

The GM blew air through closed lips, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Grey,” he said as Greyson finally pulled his hands from his eyeballs. “I know you were really looking forward to this. I mean… shit happens.” He shrugged at Greyson, whose head was perched on his hand, elbow on the table. “It was still a great dish. No one complained. Despite your best efforts, it was technically a successful event.”

Greyson laughed in earnest, punctuated by more coughs. “Thangks, Lij,” he said, grabbing Elijah’s mostly-full drink from his hand and slamming it before his friend was able to comprehend what was happening. “Can always coundt on you to mbake mbe feel better.”

“You dick,” Elijah laughed, elbowing his friend. Suddenly, Greyson stopped laughing, turned away from Elijah.

“Huh-!” he lifted an elbow to his face and pitched forward with little warning. “HuhhETSCHHH-ue! HUHHESHH-ue! Hh-! Hh...HRRSHHH-ue!” Finally, after an entire day of trying to hide it, Greyson let out three painful-sounding, throat-scraping sneezes. “Fuck,” he said, attempting to clear his throat. “God, I feel like fuckigg shit.”

Elijah tutted his sympathy. “Well, if it makes you feel better, you also sound and look like fucking shit,” he joked. Greyson choked on a chuckle.

“Least I’mb consistent,” he mumbled. “God, I have to go hombe and apologize to Reed, too,” he groaned. Elijah furrowed his eyebrows.

“Why would you have to apologize to Reed?” he asked.

“I lied to himb,” Greyson said, pulling a hand down his face. “He asked if I was sick this mborning, and I lied to his face.”

“So you have to apologize to Reed for lying, but not to me,” Elijah said. Greyson gave him a pointed look.

“Correct,” he said. “I actually lied to you just for the pure pleasure of it. The thrill of the gambe, as it were.”

This time, it was Elijah’s turn to choke on a laugh. Just as the two men recomposed themselves, Matt – who apparently did have the time to make it to the afterparty, despite his non-answer to Elijah earlier – snuck up on them and slid into the booth. “There you guys are,” he said, placing his drink on the table in front of him. He glanced at Greyson’s sallow face and grimaced. “Did you finally have to admit it?” he asked his boss.

Once again, Elijah burst out laughing. Greyson, not nearly as amused, deadpanned his sous, grabbed the man’s drink, and for the third time that evening, chugged. “Hey-!” Matt protested.

“Mbatt, you have ndo idea the evening I’ve had,” Greyson said, slamming the glass onto the table. “Ndow go get your ailing boss andother fuckigg drink.”

Matt rolled his eyes, but scooched out of the booth and headed towards the bar nonetheless. When Elijah finally recomposed himself, he regarded Greyson with bemused concern. “Do you really think you should be drinking so much… sickie?” He asked, elbowing his friend once again.

“Hondestly, boss,” Greyson said, rubbing his nose, “I do. I really, really do. HGTSHHH-ue!”

#whiskeyswriting #snz #sickfic #snzfic #snzblr #coldfic #male cold #kinda light on snz i feel like as i read it back #oh well! he's still miserable #and that's what's important lmaooo

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