#we were all going insane in the groupchat tonight

[warlordfelwinter]

enjoy the potentially previously unposted and absolutely funniest fiver and the cat girls image

[squishious]

ok i'd apologize to you & everyone else for only blogging about myself and my friends tonight but actually that would be un-sincere because i love my friends so so so much and all of life is about love. anyway here's a long summary of css :

-1. the context: luna @hanjoonhwi got to know mika through me and @ramonapest and so she'd discover old stuff progressively and one day she found css and made it her whole personality (read: blog) because she did that often (for a while she was tomorrowlive because she loved live performances of tomorrow, etc etc etc) and so she saved the url cokestudiostardust or i did. and then we had the fantastic idea of both changing our urls to something super similar to each other for a little while just to confuse the 12 mika blogs here (a small group of which are commonly referred to as "the rodents" due to the existance of an almost-dead discord server that i would like to bring back alive and that you could probably be added to, where we discuss mika) ANYWAY sorry for the slight detour. so yes that was the plan. and then we were like wait we need to include rory (because we had a tiny groupchat called "mouaylor tshirts" <- more lore there but basically luna wanted a mika x taylor x louis collab and rory made a fake poster that i put on redbubble models and so we made a groupchat to discuss business and then ended up being besties). so yes back to the main story. we text rory and we're like hey do you wanna join us in this wild scheme? she was like what scheme? we said say yes or no because we cant tell you unless you're joining. she said yes and we told her everything and also she was moving that same weekend... so it was insane of her to contribute. but yes that's the end of this part

0. the prep: so we saved css url, and 2 typo css urls. picked an icon header and background colour for the blog (#facade pink) and then the point was to confuse people so we didn't want them to be able to scroll adn figure out easily which one is rory vs luna vs me. so what we did is we made rory (?) i think (?) post a link to the css yt video. then we each reblogged it privately to our blogs about 100 times in preparation and then didn't blog until the day of. the day of we unprivated all the posts, so basically if you wanted to see any posts before you'd need to scroll for so long. and we changed our urls (i dont remember who was which url) and icons and headers and colours and made our blogs only available on phone so you couldnt go to archive to figure out who was who. also we had the same blog titles (coke studio stardust) and bios.

1. phase 1: we basically went around blogging normally as if nothing happened, but also sending asks to common mutuals and each others mutuals (ex: "hiii squish!! how are you???") and all of us sending them, to create confusion. did that for about 24 hours. but the thing is we sent the exact same asks and reblogged all the same posts with the same tags. luna and i even managed to confuse rory's sibling and like long-time friend on here. a mika blog @grayskelly we didnt know at the time (but v knows) just joined us (same blog appearance etc) and became our immediate bestie, hence creating the famous and iconic @h-isforhome "big day in mika fandom" post (the first one in the image post you reblogged). also we followed any mutuals that we mutuals with 2 but not 3 of us (pretending we accidentally unfollowed) in prep for phase 2

2. phase 2: (my favourite phase) we "apologized" etc for our behaviour and said we are switching back. BUT we lied (celebrity apology video style), and what we did is switch to each other's!! blogs. so i was luna and luna was rory and rory was me. and it actually fooled people due to all the followings in phase 1 and it being practically impossible to go to posts pre may 15. this phase particularly drove people insane (luna and i were competing over who would lose the most followers, rory somehow was gaining followers). but yes basically we blogged exactly lik each other, tagging systems etc, spoke like each other (hashtag true bestiehood), and sent even more asks. the middle 2 pics are examples of such interactions after we finally switched back to the real us, making all the posts hilariously funny. one common mutual thought that was was going on was that we had logged into each other's accounts. another was like ahh i got you. x is pretending to be y and y is [etc etc], getting it all wrong and we were like ah yes! you got us! so true!. i think @thirteens-earring still hates us for may 16.... we were sending each other messages being like hi v this is rory! etc and v eventually figured out who was who but the whole time was sending us murderous threats + at one point luna was like hi rory this is v! to v, which was funny. anyway i think lizzie @dionysuswearsanorangetracksuit was the first one to catch on what was going on (like super early that day) and texted me and h about it but i made them promise they wouldn't explain to everyone what was going on.

everyone was like ah hahah ha hilarious right. you guys are done right. no really. you are done right. please please say you're done. and so, this is what we did after:

3. phase 3 prep: rory and luna collected the best posts through screenshots, i opened photoshop with a normal canvas size and started adding them and making the canvas bigger and bigger, ending up with a photoshop file of 16359x22200 pixels, it took me and rory 2 computers, 3 photoshop versions, and about 1 hour to export that as 4 pngs.

4. phase 3: on may 17 we changed all our blog titles to "phase 3", posted that image, and everyone was like hey guys. whats phase 3 whats going on pls explain. and to this day no one knows what phase 3 is <3 we will not say unless someone guesses

anyway if you've read all this thank you so much in indulging me and listening to me talk nonsense about friendship shenanigans (<- idk how to spell in english but i might have gotten it right). it was truly a wild time where rory was normal and luna and i were unhinged and drove rory into our unhingeness. i miss it incredibly and i wanna do more of that with you and them and all my little computer friends. or maybe we could jsut have a sleepover. idk but all i know is that if i knew you all in real life we would have the best laughs and the best times of our lifes and we'd just have so much fun. like if all of you bring this much joy in my life just by resharing the same posts as each other and replying to each other, imagine what it would feel like if we could all have a picnic or a roadtrip or just a day out at the mall even.... anyway this is getting sappy and i need to go to bed. ty for reading or sorry!!!!! now that we're friends i'll invite you next time we plan an international cyber-prank

HELLO OKAY !!!! apologies 2 my followers in advance but i need to immortalise this bc truly. this is the pinnacle of careful throughtful tomfoolery i'm very impressed

first off i'm all for the resuscitation of mika discord there really are sooo few of us on here !! mouaylor collab would be incredible and i need to see this shirts if they exist lmfao. also doing this while moving u are SO STRONG thats incredible !!!

anyways again the amount of thought that went into this.....the reblogged posts the turning off web view the following each others mutuals.....i would trust u to pull of a heist i think. sounds like a wild day and yesss would love to participate in international cyber pranks or sleepovers (or both simultaneously) w u all !!! truly i think that we'd have the most wonderful time if we knew each other irl the shenanigans and vibes would be unmatched <3 (i am living in constant fear of phase 3 now. its gonna haunt my every click on this site)

[slafkovskys]

Does Scottie sneak into the boys hotel room tonight?

she had been so proud of herself for denying the boys entry the night before even though they had been begging over their facetime call. she could feel herself slipping and that’s when she hung up, swearing she could hear their frustrated groans from five floors above. even this morning at breakfast they wore pouts, but she was still steadfast that visiting hours were closed.

until they get back from team dinner (she barely escaped ryan’s grabby hands on the bus and jimmy’s pouty lips) and she realizes that the cramps she had been having and the pounding headache weren’t just nerves, no, her body had decided to switch up on her and come a week earlier than normal. her relief was short lived when she realized her emergency kit she usually packed for this situation was missing from her suitcase and she’s texting their groupchat sos

not a moment later does her phone light up with a call from jimmy and both of her boys concerned faces fill her screen, “what happened?”

“i got my period,” she frowns

she doesn’t miss ryan’s mumbled, “oh thank god,” because they were all a little worried they may have fucked up, but jimmy’s the one who brings the focus back, “why sos?”

“i don’t have anything. i need to go to cvs or walgreens, but im scared to go alone,” she admits.

“give us a sec.”

“we’re coming, baby.”

she’s practically sprinting to the door when a familiar, coded knock sounds and her shoulders slump at the sight of the orange bag cradled in ryan’s arms, “how did you-”

“saw you left it on the bathroom counter.”

“i saw,” jimmy glares at his teammate before pushing him aside so he can have a chance at their girl first, “i put it in my bag just in case.”

“oh, you’re the best!” she presses a series of kisses to his lips before snatching the bag from ryan and disappearing into the bathroom. “you even refilled my tylenol?”

“that one was me!” ryan chimes as he collapses onto her bed, grabbing the stuffed animal she always traveled with and cuddling it to her chest. when she reappears a few moments later, both boys face softens, “do we need to grab anything?”

“no, i should be okay until morning,” scottie sighs as she climbs over ryan and slots herself between the two boys. she grants ryan the same amount of kisses she had given jimmy before he can argue about it being uneven and uses her finger to trace the boys jaw as jimmy’s big hand slips under her hoodie and presses down on her abdomen, “i don’t like being away from you.”

“how do you think we feel?” jimmy mumbles into her hair, “ryan sucks at cuddling-”

“um, fuck off. i’m an excellent cuddler,” ryan reaches over to shove at jimmy, “babe, rate my cuddling out of ten.”

scottie hums, letting her lips curl into a smirk, “are we talking about when you’re the big spoon or the little spoon?”

she doesn’t know how long she’s cuddled between her two boys, but she knows it was long enough for the tv to pop up with the question ‘are you still watching?’ and that’s when she pouts, turning in jimmy’s arms to face him, “y’all need to go back to your room.”

“but, you don’t feel good,” jimmy argues.

“you’ll get in trouble,” she warns as ryan presses his front to her back, just like he did when they were back home and in their own bed, “guys-”

“scottie,” they say in sync.

and she wouldn’t lie and say that she wanted them to leave. their body heat and the pressure from their alternating hands on her abdomen were a comfort like no other and, well, she knew it wouldn’t take much to convince them to get in that insane bathtub she had somehow gotten upgraded to. she stares at jimmy before turning to ryan, “you have to be gone by morning.”

“yes ma’am.”

[spaceskam]

i got a little time

a slightly last minute day 4 of @malexweek​: free day! companion piece to my story in some other life! It’s not necessary to read that one first to understand this one since it takes place in the same time frame

warnings: mentions of torture, mentions of death, ptsd, childhood trauma, basically just proceed with caution

ao3

Alex knew a lot of things.

He was admittedly smart and open-minded. He tried his best to be logical and kind and fair. Granted, that kindness hadn’t really been extended to Michael Guerin lately, but he deserved it. Alex had no regrets pushing him away because he deserved it.

However, as his phone went off and he read the text Michael had sent out, his stomach dropped to the floor.

From: Michael

Hi. Sorry for the group message. Basically I'm leaving tonight. You probably won't see me again and if you do then I've failed. I didn't want to go without saying goodbye, but I also didn't want to freak you all out today when I came to see you. I know I've let you all down and I hope what I'm doing makes up for it. Thank you for being around me even though you don't like me. I'm sorry for all my fuck ups and for hurting you and for generally being a bad person. I hope it's better in another life. Love, Michael

Alex read over the message at least ten times, trying to make sense of it. His mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario, but he couldn’t tell if he was just projecting or not. Either way, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it under a good conscience. Especially when other people in the groupchat were asking what he meant and receiving no response.

“Hey, I gotta go,” Alex said to his date, the name of whom escaped him in favor of trying to make sense of what was going on with Michael. He didn’t wait for acknowledgement before he went to his car.

Alex threw caution to the wind, speeding to the junkyard. The more he thought, the faster he drove. He was buzzing with worry. What if Michael was leaving the planet in that stupid spaceship? Or, worse, what if Michael was leaving in a much more permanent way? Gone. Full stop.

He pulled up to the airstream at the same time as Isobel, both of them haphazardly parking and getting out of their respective cars as quickly as possible. The trailer was moved and exposing the manhole in the ground and all that did was make it more nerve-wracking. They shared a look and immediately went to pry it open.

Everything around them seemed eerily quiet. All the sounds that came with being outside seemed to be gone. No creaking, no wind, no nothing. All dead. 

“I can’t feel him,” Isobel told him, her words soft and desperate. He spared her a look for a couple seconds before he just pried open the hole with all the strength he could muster. 

It opened and, again, more eerie silence. Alex went down the ladder first, moving faster than he should. Working a ladder with one leg was still difficult, but this was Michael. Michael, the love of his life and who had been torturing. What if he went too far?

Alex hit the ground and Isobel did within the next second, having chosen to jump down. They both immediately noticed the giant arch that hadn’t been there the last time they were down there.

“Michael?” Isobel called softly as they slowly made their way around the bench. The arch was humming with electricity still and the place around them looked like it’d been ransacked. Michael was always messy minded, but this was a different level.

Which is when they spotted him laying on the ground unconscious.

“Michael!” Isobel said, immediately dropping to his side and tapping his cheeks. Something was stopping Alex from doing the same. It took him a second to realize what exactly kept him from doing that, but, once he noticed, he couldn’t not notice.

His hair was noticeably shorter, the curls tighter and only seeming to be disturbed by him falling to the ground. His clothes were different, a button-up shirt that was buttoned up all the way up and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows along with tighter jeans than the man he knew would ever wear. His body was even different, much slimmer in every way including his shoulders being at least a couple inches less broad. He looked like Michael, but he… wasn’t.

“Isobel,” Alex said cautiously, his eyes staying on the unconscious body, “That’s not Michael.”

“What?” she scoffed.

“Just look at it,” Alex whispered, “That’s not Michael.”

A terrified little gasp racked through her body and she covered her hand over her mouth as it seemed to click that it really wasn’t Michael. Alex started to look around, looking for something that might give him a clue for what the hell was going on.

The whole table was covered in nonsensical math and writing, everything disjointed. He had lined paper, but it seemed he disregarded them completely. Alex started to gather them in one stack so he could bring it all back with him so he could study it when he spotted one page in particular. It had ‘ALEX’ written across the top in unmistakable letters.

ALEX

If you’re reading this, then I’m probably gone. Which is good, I think. Good for you, good because you deserve not to have me ruining all the good things in your life. I’m only writing this because I needed to get some things off my chest and it didn’t really suffice in a text. So here it is.

I love you. More than anything in the world. All of the bullshit I’ve done and the mistakes I’ve made, I never stopped loving you. You’re the reason I made it this far in the first place I think. Every time I got too sad or things felt like too much or getting out of bed seemed impossible, thinking of you always made it a little easier. You’re my home and you give me hope and that scares the shit out of me, but it’s true. And it’s okay that I’m not the same to you. I don’t need to be.

I could sit here and write a whole five pages on how beautiful you are, but you know that I think that. You know that I’m convinced you could stop traffic. It seems a little unimportant to mention something as small as physical beauty, but you’re gorgeous. Every single little thing about you. Name something about you and I worship it.

Every song on the radio is about you. The sky rains for you and the sun shines for you. The world turns for you. 

I think I might be insane.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I LOVE YOU. Today, yesterday, tomorrow, always. I’ll treat you better in a different lifetime.

Love, Michael

Alex took a deep breath as he looked over it a couple more times. His stomach was churning and he felt sick. What the hell did he do?

The not-quite Michael on the ground groaned, stealing Alex’s attention and reminding him what was going on. He folded up the note and shoved it in his pocket as he turned to help Isobel with whoever this was.

He slowly lifted his head and looked around. He was dazed and trying to piece it together. However, he seemed to wake up and he sat up straight, panic evident on his face.

“Did I do it? Where am I? There’s people here,” the Other Michael murmured to himself, checking himself for wounds. His chin was bowed to his chest and he kept talking to himself, kept asking himself questions, kept ignoring that he could ask the other people in the room. “Black boots, they didn’t have black boots. Jeans, they didn’t wear jeans. I’m not there, where am I?”

“Michael?” Isobel said. Alex wanted to reach out to her and pull her back so they could have this conversation in a more efficient way after they figured out  what was going on, but that didn’t seem plausible.

The Other Michael froze at the sound of her voice and he slowly lifted his head. His eyes were bulging out of his head as he looked up at Isobel. He looked over her a few times.

“You’re Isobel?” he asked cautiously. She nodded slowly. Then he lunged forward to hug her, clinging onto her desperately. Isobel’s eyes drifted up to Alex’s, trying to figure out what to do. But, honestly, he didn’t know. He was way out of his fucking depth. “I could do it, I knew I could do it.”

“Do what?” Isobel whispered, eyes still locked on Alex in her fear and confusion.

“Fix it, save you,” he said, pulling away slightly, “Where’s Max?”

“Uh,” she said. Alex decided it was time to step in and figure out what to do.

“What exactly do you mean by save?” Alex asked. Michael turned his head to face him as if just remembering he was there and he looked Alex up and down. His entire face flushed a shade of red his Michael never did.

“I know him?” he whispered to himself before adding an “I know you?” a little louder. Alex nodded and his face got an even darker shade of red. 

“Can you explain what you mean by save?” Alex repeated. Michael blinked a few times before he nodded.

“Right. So,” he said, looking around and taking every detail in. Alex could see the gears in his mind turning as he catalogued things in his mind. He was actually thinking before he spoke. That was new. “Okay, I think I must’ve miscalculated because of your ages. I didn’t go back in time. Or, if I did, I don’t remember it, but I would’ve remembered it, so I think I’m elsewhere. Are those notes?” He got to his feet easily and Alex noticed that he was at least an inch or two shorter than his Michael. He was clearly a grown man, but he was so small. 

Michael sorted through the pages, his head moving slightly with his eyes as he read them impossibly fast. Isobel stood up and went to Alex’s side, taking ahold of his arm as a way to steady herself. Michael stopped his reading by tapping the table.

“Right. So, I know what happened. I was working on creating a time machine and so was he. I don’t think either of us were actually that wrong. By the looks of it, it should’ve worked quite well. I think the problem lies in the fact that we happened to do it at the exact same time in our respective timelines and it created a weird twist and we swapped places instead. The only way to fix it is to, again, do it at the same exact time. It’ll be a little hard to do on purpose, but I think we can manage,” Michael rambled, looking up at them, “I know he’ll want to come back. Here seems much better.”

“Better?” Isobel asked, eying him, “What’s it like where you’re from?”

Alex wasn’t actually sure he wanted to know. Michael had asked if he knew him here. He couldn’t imagine a lifetime where he didn’t know Michael. As much as he was an asshole, that seemed impossible.

“Um, well, you’re not there,” he said simply, still tapping against the counter, “Neither is Max. Where is Max?”

“He’s,” Isobel said cautiously, looking to Alex before looking back to Michael, “He’s dead.”

Michael stopped tapping.

“Oh,” he said, tilting his head, “What happened? Was it the doctors?”

“The doctors?” Alex prodded. Michael went back to tapping. He seemed to be twisting in his skin. Alex had the undeniable urge to get him alone and learn all of his secrets. Apparently that needed didn’t go away no matter which version of Michael he was talking about.

“The doctors, the ones who found us after the crash? Kept us, trained us, pushed us. Pushed until… Well, doesn’t matter, I got out. Did we all get out here? You know, both of you are very accepting of the alternate universe thing, I’m surprised,” Michael rambled, refusing to let them fully comprehend what he was saying about anything.

“Things are weird here,” Isobel said, stepping closer, “Go back to the doctors.”

“And you, how do I know you? Are you still called Alex? You dress different here and you walk different,” Michael quizzed. Alex raised an eyebrow. So he didn’t know him where he was from, but he knew how he dressed and how he walked? Michael’s face turned red again and he looked away. Not like he was making eye contact in the first place. 

Before they could make any sense of the rest of it‒or even make sense of what he’d already said‒there was more noise. Liz and Kyle and Maria appeared on the ladder, all rushing in response to that goddamn text.

But this Michael, smaller and different, immediately changed gears as more people appeared. Alex spotted the way he shrunk in on himself as Liz ran to hug him. He didn’t hug back or respond. His panic visibly grew before something went off behind his eyes and they unfocused. Alex clocked that immediately.

“Liz,” Alex said, putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pulled her off him. She looked confused as he did so, but she noticed Michael’s discomfort. “Isobel, take Michael to the airstream so he can calm down and fill him in on what it’s like here. I’ll tell them.”

Which would’ve worked, but the moment Isobel tried to pull him that way, he freaked out.

“No!” Michael said when she tried to pull him to the ladder, “No, no, I can’t, no.” 

Isobel let go of his arm and he pulled away completely, backing himself into a wall. He put his hands on his head and he instantly started whispering to himself, counting and breathing as he sunk in on himself. It probably wasn’t helping that everyone was staring at him like he didn’t belong.

“Okay, new plan,” Alex sighed, “Everyone else up, Isobel stay with him here.”

“What do I do?” Isobel whisper-yelled at him as everyone started heading back up the ladder without argument.

“Just sit with him. I’ll get an air mattress down here, maybe we can get him to sleep and we’ll figure it out,” Alex told her softly, his eyes going to the boyish, terrified version of the man he loved despite it all, “We’re gonna figure it out.”

“Okay,” Isobel agreed. Alex squeezed her arm and headed up the ladder to fill Liz, Kyle, and Maria in on the little bit they knew.

That letter burned in his back pocket.

-

It took less than 24-hours (for Alex, at least) that, as charismatic as this Michael had seemed when he first woke up, that wasn’t actually who he was.

He was quiet, reserved, and anxious. He talked to himself more than he talked to other people and he shied away from basically all of them as soon as the initial adrenaline wore off. He seemed to need isolation and familiarity and this… Well, this was a lot of change. All of which would’ve been, but Alex had heard him mention he needed his medication. It was concerning to say the least.

Alex and Isobel had been taking shifts to check on him which was hell on his leg, but Alex was determined to watch over him if only because he needed the real Michael back for his own peace of mind. However, the only way they were going to get his Michael back, was if this one was working out the kinks in the machine. Something he couldn’t do if they sent him into a mental break by making him stop all his medication without weaning off of them.

“Do you know all the medication you take?” Alex asked as he came down the ladder. Michael looked up at him from the air mattress. His eyes were tired and he was curled up in a ball.

“Yes,” Michael said softly, “35mg of paroxetine, 25mg of lamotrigine, 2mg of clonzaepam, 50mg of‒”

“Write it down for me,” Alex said instead, “I’ll get it for you.”

“You will?” Michael asked, almost like he was surprised. Alex nodded and gave him one of Michael’s notebooks and pens to write it down. This Michael took it graciously. 

His handwriting was noticeably different from the scratchy handwriting of his Michael. It was boxy and childlike despite the words being spelled perfectly. Alex wanted to pry so bad. He wanted to know everything.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly do you take all that for?” Alex wondered. He was no stranger to a long list of medications, but the Michael he knew would never. He was sure he’d rather pout over a vat of acetone than follow anything a doctor prescribed.

“You name it, I’ve been diagnosed with it at least once by someone,” he said, glancing up at Alex before diverting his eyes again. He did that with everyone. “Right now, I’ve got PTSD, anxiety, depression, and a couple other things, but it all seems to boil down to those three things, so.”

“Me too,” Alex said. Michael furrowed his eyebrows. “Air Force Captain. PTSD basically comes with the job.”

“Air Force,” Michael said to himself, “What led to Air Force?”

“And your anxiety, is it primarily when it comes to people or were you just generally overwhelmed last night?” Alex wondered as he took the list. He planned to shop through his own medicine cabinet before taking it to Kyle to see what he could get his hands on.

“Um,” Michael said, rubbing over his face, “I-I guess all of the above? Humans are too much. They think so loud and there’s too much with them, you know?”

Alex did not know.

“It’s easier to stay by myself. That’s what I do at home, I stay by myself. I get coffee, I go to therapy, I go home. I work from home. I do things from home.”

“You said we think too loud,” Alex said cautiously, “Does that mean you’re strong enough to hear my thoughts?”

Michael looked up at him, making eye contact for the very first time and it hit Alex a little too hard. There was something so distinctly off about him and something told him it had nothing to do with all the things he’d just admitted.

“I am not strong. I’m weak. That’s the only reason I’m alive.”

Alex stared at him for a long while, trying to make sense of what exactly he meant by that. He had a feeling it was one hell of a story. His whole life was probably one hell of a story. That’s typically how one ends up with a medication list that long.

“Right. I’ll be back soon and I’ll pick up some food.”

Michael pulled the blanket back over his head.

-

“What are we supposed to do with him exactly?”

“Take care of him.”

“This is so fucking weird.”

Alex rubbed his eyes as everyone spoke around him. It’d been four days of still just rotating shifts of checking on the not-Michael, slowly watching as he got stabilized and adjusted. It was taking longer than he wanted, but he knew he was just being impatient. 

Not-Michael was still being tight-lipped about what his life was actually like, but, considering the context clues, Alex was stressing that his Michael was in a very bad place. A place where they pick up little kids and spend their whole life torturing them to the point that they try to build a time machine.

But, then again, his Michael tried to build a time machine too.

“Well, I was talking with him last night,” Isobel said. She was handling it better than everyone and it had everything to do with Michael being completely obsessed with her existence. Every time Alex saw them, he was staring at her like she was made of diamonds. “He said he works as an technical engineering supervisor from home, like he works for the government and stuff. The guy is smart. Like, makes our Micheal look stupid, smart.”

“He talks to himself, though,” Liz pointed out, voice a little hushed, “Like more than normal. Shouldn’t we be a little concerned that he’s just a ticking time bomb?”

“I don’t know, there’s people at Sunset Mesa that talk to themselves like that and they’re not crazy. I think it just comes from isolation,” Maria suggested.

“It also could be a side effect of his heightened anxiety,” Kyle said.

“But don’t smart people talk to themselves? Maybe he’s just smart,” Isobel said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Or maybe he had a shitty childhood, worse than we can even imagine, and it’s a coping mechanism,” Alex said sternly, causing all of them to give him their attention, “Or it could be any number of things all mixed together, but it doesn’t matter. We aren’t going to sit here and speculate and gossip about him. We’re going to give him time to adjust to his medications, adjust to the new setting. We just have to be patient and not treat him like he’s weird or crazy. He’s still Michael, just… extremely different.”

“But shouldn’t we know what we’re dealing with?” Liz said.

“Listen, I’ve read over Michael’s notes over and over and they don’t make sense. I understand some of it and I’ve researched some of the math that was past my understanding, but some of it is nonsensical at best. This Michael is our only shot at getting ours back, so we’re going to be nice to him and we’re going to help him,” Alex explained simply.

“You know, for someone who was pretty anti-Michael before all of this, you sure seem really eager to get him back,” Isobel said. Alex didn’t give her any kind of reaction to that.

They slowly but surely shifted their conversation back onto other topics and Alex eventually announced that he would see them later before excusing himself for the night. Like he had been for the last few nights, he made his way to the airstream. Other Michael had no idea that the airstream even existed since he refused to leave the bunker and his Michael probably wouldn’t mind him taking over the space, so that’s what he did. It made him feel safer, closer.

He changed into his night clothes and sat on the edge of the bed to take off his prosthetic. He needed to wash his leg and the liner, but Alex felt frozen in place. His head was heavy and his heart was aching and he found himself doubling over with a pillow in his lap, inhaling Michael’s scent and trying not to start crying.

It was more than a little difficult to process everything. Although Michael had only been gone for a few days, it felt like a goddamn lifetime. Alex had been overwhelmed with guilt and, any moment he wasn’t purposely distracting himself, he felt sick with it. The moment his mind relaxed, he’d just be drowning in self-hatred and anger and he had to distract himself again. He was fucking miserable and he just wanted Michael back. The right one.

Again, he played over the months leading up to this disaster. Michael had hooked up with Maria and was painfully mean to Alex all the while to the point that, when it crashed and burned, Alex felt no guilt being mean back. He pushed and he pushed and, when he saw Michael self-isolating and punishing himself, he pushed harder. Hell, that night, he’d purposely rubbed his date in his face, purposely told him to fuck off when he tried to say goodbye. It felt like it was all his fault.

The worst part was this was beyond his expertise. When normal people left, they usually just left the city or the state, not the goddamn dimension. This wasn’t something Alex could just follow him and apologize. This wasn’t even like he was dead and forcing him to mourn. This was hell. Did Michael know what this would do to him?

Alex kept the pillow under his nose as he grabbed the note again that Michael had left for him. He basically had it memorized by now, but he liked looking at it. He liked knowing that Michael didn’t hate him for being a dick. He loved him.

His eyes scanned over the words once again before he couldn’t take the tightness in his chest, so he quickly double checked that he hadn’t yet detached his leg before he stood up and went to go down to the bunker. He needed something and this was the closest thing he was going to get.

The Other Michael was sitting at the big table, looking between Michael’s work and a fresh notebook as he transcribed everything in a more cohesive manner. That alone gave Alex a little bit of comfort. Just… not enough.

“Hey,” he said, his voice a little breathy and obviously stressed. The Other Michael looked up at him, but he avoided eye contact by focusing his eyes on Alex’s shoulder instead of his face. Which, fine, fair enough. “So, I hate to be so pushy, but can you tell me how you live over there? It’s driving me insane not knowing what he entered on his own and, no offense, but you being so heavily medicated just makes me nervous about how he’s doing. I just need to know he’s not, like, being tortured.”

The Other Michael was uncharacteristically silent for a moment and Alex forced himself to be patient. He didn’t want to push, but he just needed to know. Eventually, Michael swiveled in his little chair to show that he was giving him his full attention.

“I live in an apartment in Manhattan and I work from home. As long as he’s figured out what my job is and is keeping up my work, then he should be fine,” he said. Alex swallowed harshly and looked around the bunker to try to think of something.

“Then what’s so bad about being over there? Because you seemed pretty sure he’d want to come back,” Alex said. Michael started tapping against the table again, murmuring to himself softer than Alex could hear. He decided it wasn’t even his place to hear those thoughts.

“Um, here, there’s Isobel and you and… others,” Michael said, his face turning that deep shade of red it seemed to always be when he had to talk to him, “Over there, it’s very lonely.”

Alex nodded, swallowing as he looked around again to find something to say. It was weird being here without Michael, without him showing off. Everything was wrong without him here. 

“I have another question,” Alex said, which was an understatement, really, because he had a million, “How do you know me if you don’t know Liz or Maria or Kyle? If you live in Manhattan and you’re alone all the time, how do you know me?”

Michael’s face flushed an even deeper shade of red and he looked down at the table. Alex didn’t know what he was expecting him to say, but a part of him was assuming the worst. Were those “doctors” he mentioned actually military people? Did he know Alex because he was the son of one of them? But, honestly, that didn’t make sense because, if he was, he probably wouldn’t trust to be alone with any version of him.

“Um,” Michael said, still tapping away, “You live up in Manhattan too. And, I mean, I don’t know you over there. You’re a barista that I see sometimes and I follow you on Instagram, but we’ve never had a conversation.”

Well that was certainly not what Alex was expecting.

“I’m a barista?” Alex asked, suddenly more interested in this weird other version of him than anything else. Michael smiled for the first time and it was nice to see that he was getting more comfortable. 

“And, um,” he said, breathing out a soft breath of air as his cheeks continued to darken, “A go-go dancer.”

Alex huffed a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. He couldn’t picture himself like that. The whole idea was laughable at best. He wondered if his Michael had discovered that yet. Did he find it funny?

“That’s…” Alex said, huffing a laugh as he leaned against the wall, “Insane. But I guess that could be fun in another life.”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed, still tapping. They were quiet for a moment again as Alex tried to picture it. “What, uh, what am I to you here? There you… Well, he would never give me the time of day if I tried.”

Alex smiled sadly to himself. He only had disappointing things to share. Somehow, that story of what could be sounded a lot more hopeful than Alex’s story of what could’ve been. They’d slaughtered their past, burned any chance of a future.

But, still, there was no point in lying.

“We’re in love,” Alex admitted and Michael nearly fell out of his chair. Alex snorted a laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve been on and off since we were 17, he’s the love of my life.”

“I-I’m so sorry,” this Michael said, guilt on his face. But it wasn’t his fault. Well, not really, anyway.

“It’s okay,” he promised, “We weren’t together when all this happened. Kind of in a fight, I guess.”

“Well, I assumed. Not even a fool would leave you willingly,” he asked. It was Alex’s turn to feel his blood run a little hot and he raised an eyebrow.

“You should definitely try when you get home,” he said, “‘Cause you probably have a better shot than you think.”

Michael shook his head and looked back down to his notebook. Alex instantly started wondering if they were any closer to fixing that thing and getting back to normal, but he knew they probably weren’t. That’d be too easy, too quick. Alex was never lucky enough to get what he wanted in a timely manner.

“But, basically, he’s alone over there,” Alex said, shifting the subject back to the one that was important, “Is he safe from those doctors you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Michael said instantly, tone clipped, “They’re all dead.”

“Dead?”

Michael whispered to himself, knee bouncing and finger tapping. He was closing in on himself and it was clearly a touchy subject. But, the thing was, curiosity aside, he needed to know. He needed to know what kind of universe his Michael was going into. He needed to know if he was alone and facing a threat that Alex couldn’t protect him from. He didn’t know why exactly he needed to know that, but… he did.

“You don’t need to tell me all the details,” Alex said, stepping closer, “But I would really appreciate a little bit of a rundown of what happened to you over there. I know you’re not exactly like him, but he’s curious. He’s going to look into things.”

Michael kept tapping and he looked up to Alex before looking back down. Alex wasn’t sure if he was like his Michael or not, but he had to assume he had some things in common. So, in an attempt to comfort him like he would comfort his Michael, he reached out and touched his shoulder. His head snapped in his direction, but he didn’t pull away. So Alex squeezed and rubbed his hand over his shoulder.

“Tell me.”

“Isobel, Max, and I were found in the desert of Roswell, New Mexico after waking up out of our pods. Found by people camping, I think, I don’t remember. The next day, though, we were selected to be a part of a study that was publicized as a study for kids who had escaped from cults at young ages,” Michael said, letting out a little laugh. Alex rubbed over his back, all bones beneath his shirt. “We were the only subjects. I-I don’t really know all the details, they obviously wouldn’t tell us what they were doing or why, but they said we were aliens and they were there to train us. And train us they did.”

“But it was torture,” Alex guessed. Michael shrugged.

“Wasn’t all bad,” he admitted, “They just pushed so hard. It was too easy to break, fight back as we got stronger.”

“What happened when you fought back?” Alex asked quietly, his fingers reaching up into his hair. Michael’s eyes closed and he leaned into his touch. It was too familiar.

“Depends,” Michael said, “How violent you were equalled how bad it was. I threw a bowl of oatmeal at a nurse and got six weeks in solitary.”

“Jesus.”

“Isobel threw a doctor off the roof, killed him. She didn’t tell me what happened, but she had scars everywhere.”

“And Max?”

“Max,” Michael said, smiling sadly to himself as he seemed to think back, “Max let it fester.”

“Oh?”

Michael’s head was tilted almost all the way back into his palm, completely unraveling in his touch. It was strange and new all at once. Alex felt more powerful than he could articulate and he couldn’t let go. So he didn’t.

Still, Michael shook his head a little bit and his eyes opened.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Then tell me this,” Alex whispered, tilting his head so that all this small, intelligent, deceivingly powerful version of man he loved could see was him, “What are you capable of?”

“You really wanna know?” Michael asked.

“Yes.”

In the blink of an eye, any wall in Alex’s mind that protected him from psychic evaluation was destroyed, a whirlwind of chaos entering his mind, grabbing him by the metaphorical collar, and yanking him into some place else. Once he got settled into that some place else, Alex realized it was the desert.

Except, not just any place in the desert.

Alex found himself standing in the middle of the crash site, the sand around his feet ever changing. He seemed to be reliving every moment of history that happened in that spot. Flashes of a shattered spaceship, of violence, of military conspiracies, of angered voices, of cold rain on his skin after getting high, of making love in the bed of a truck on hot summer nights, of feeling alone, of future moments that he wasn’t allowed to fully understand. It was overwhelming and Alex felt obscenely overstimulated, every nerve in his body screaming, but his mind, his mind told him he was at peace no matter how much his body disagreed.

In front of him stood Michael, not his Michael, but Michael nonetheless.

“This is only a little bit,” he said, his voice in his head and outside of it and everywhere and nowhere, “I’m not a psychic, I’m not an explosive, but I was trained to be both.”

“You’re a telekinetic,” Alex said and Michael nodded.

“I can use my mind to separate muscles from bones and white blood cells from red without moving,” he said, “And I hate it. I was trained and built to be a weapon. I refuse to be a weapon.”

“I don’t think you’re a weapon,” Alex assured him despite the fear he felt. It was hard to not feel fear when he wasn’t in control. But he would survive. 

“You’re scared of me,” Michael accused.

“No, not of you,” Alex told him and he was being honest, “Thank you for showing me this.”

“I hate what I can do,” Michael said, “I hate this. I hate being a weapon.”

Alex, despite his fear, stepped closer to him. He walked better here than in reality. He put his hand on his shoulder and slid it up into his hair. Was this manipulation? If it was, Michael knew and he didn’t mind, so Alex continued until he was holding him.

“Let me teach you not to hate it. Let’s use it for good. Let’s get my Michael back, okay?” he said. And this Michael nodded.

Soon, Alex was carefully put back into his own mind and they both unintentionally fell into each other, the mindscape draining them both for extremely different reasons. But Alex hugged him and he hugged him back.

They were much closer after that.

-

A few weeks later, things were agonizingly getting back to normal.

Liz went back to focusing on Max, Maria went back to focusing on the bar, Kyle went back to focusing on the hospital, Isobel went back to splitting her time with Max and Michael is allegedly even amounts. Alex was the only one that seemed to still be trying to fix this.

Well, Alex and Michael.

They spent most of the time in the bunker, considering Michael still refused to leave, and Alex was learning a lot about what could’ve been his Michael if things went different. He fluctuated between being completely silent to being really talkative and there seemed to be nothing that indicated which he would be. He’d be excited and loud one second and then, without warning, he’d shut down. Alex didn’t mind it.

They were rebuilding the portal from scratch basically. Other Michael’s theory was that his Michael fucked up the coding and accidentally created an alternate universe portal instead of a time machine and Other Michael created one that was applicable for both, so when they went in at the same time, it swapped them instead of going back in time. Alex could barely wrap his head around it, so he just took it as fact.

It was just slow and Alex only was getting a little bit of information at a time and he was becoming more and more interested in Other Michael’s past. He didn’t even want to know because of his Michael anymore, he was now just really fucking curious.

Context clues told him both Isobel and Max died before they were able to escape and Max died first, but he never told him how. Alex didn’t know how old he was when he got out or how he got out, just that they were cruel and he had to rely on Isobel and Max to stay sane. Alex didn’t know how all those doctors died, only that he went to therapy with the only doctor in the country who knew all of the details because he had been employed but left when he decided it was inhumane. He didn’t know how he got to Manhattan with a list of impressive credentials, only that he had a medicine cabinet that was obscene. He knew so little and he wanted to know everything.

“You know, if you ever want to leave the bunker for any reason, we can,” Alex said, “I know all the places in the town that people don’t go.”

Other Michael shrugged, tugging the blankets around him tighter as he whispered to himself. He did that on bad days. Alex had brought him more blankets when he asked for them and he cocooned himself in blankets and his own sweat. He said it put his mind at ease. To Alex, it seemed like some veiled attempt at replicating contact with another human. He was too awkward to actually offer despite their trip to his mindscape.

Isobel had shown him hers as a comparison and it was only when that happened that he realized just how much of a show off what Michael did was. She struggled even getting into his mind in the first place even when he was being open to her and, whenever she did get inside, she said it was literally impossible to coax him out. He was basically chained inside his brain. Michael was strong enough to break those shackles without any extra effort. It was impressive to say the least.

“Actually…” Michael said, voice small, “Tomorrow night, do you think you could bring me to see Max?”

“You want to see him?” Alex asked, perking up at the idea of getting him out and about. Michael nodded. 

“I want to see the pod too. I haven’t seen one of them since, well, I came out of it,” he said, “Just not today.”

“Yeah, absolutely, we can go. You want me to ask Isobel to be there too?”

“If you could.”

“I can.”

By the time the next night rolled around, Alex gave him a little reassuring pep talk that they wouldn’t run into anyone. It was the middle of the night and he would be fine. A shoulder squeeze solidified their understanding and soon they were climbing up the ladder.

“Oh,” Michael said, “I… I didn’t realize we were beneath a junkyard.”

“Yeah, my Michael lives in that trailer,” Alex said. Michael nodded and took a deep breath. “Feel good to breathe fresh air?”

“Something like that.”

The drive out to the desert to get to where Max was was spent with nothing but the sound of his tires on the road and Michael murmuring to himself. Alex couldn’t tell if he talked to himself quieter when he took his medication or if Alex had just been so on edge when they first met that he seemed to be louder. It didn’t really matter, honestly.

They pulled up next to Isobel’s car. She was already standing outside of it, looking gorgeous for no reason as she waited for them and gave them that charming smile. She was doing good for a woman who had one dead brother and another brother who was stuck in an alternate dimension. Still, she hugged Other Michael like he was the real thing and Alex didn’t know who it benefited more.

Alex hung back for a moment as the kind of siblings walked in to see Max. Isobel had filled Other Michael in more on the logistics of his death before and how they were working on bringing him back to life. While Michael never offered to help, Alex had a suspicion that he probably could be extremely helpful. The problem was that he was scared of himself, of what he could do. All that did was cause Alex to have more questions.

He wanted to help Michael get more comfortable using his powers‒though maybe not as comfortable as his Michael was‒but it was easier said than done. He couldn’t be his therapist, but he could be his friend. So he just had to treat him nicely and hope he realized he wasn’t scary.

Alex leaned against the car and thought about his Michael for the billionth time. He was always on his mind, it was nothing new. Every day that past, it got a little more normal for him to be there and it hurt Alex each time. He was utterly terrified that he would never get him back. And, if he didn’t, what did that mean?

More importantly, if he did, what did that mean?

He missed him and regularly found himself dreaming about him, about them, only to wake up alone. Part of him was wondering if he should get used to this and try to find someone interesting to love. Another part wondered if he should settle for the version of Michael right in front of him who willingly melted into his hands.

Was that wrong?

Eventually, Alex pushed off the car and walked into the cave. Michael and Isobel were both zoned out as they stared at the pod Max was in from their spot sitting on the ground. He was pretty sure they were trying to reach Max in his mindscape to see if there was anything to salvage. 

So Alex sat back and waited and wondered if this was the new normal.

-

“So, I know you’ve been rationing your meds.”

It’d been well over a month and Alex was ready to explode. Other Michael had apparently fixed the fucking portal, but he said they couldn’t try it yet because it wasn’t the right time. Alex was slowly beginning to think it never would be.

When he wasn’t in the bunker, he was with Max. He was still in the pod, but apparently his brain was working well enough that they could bring him into the mindscape. He was getting to know him that way and it seemed to make him feel better. Did it make Alex feel better? Absolutely not, but he was used to that by now.

Now, however, he was ready to be a little selfish and do something that was specifically to benefit him. And that meant learning more.

Michael looked up from the notebook he was always scribbling into and stood up a little straighter. Alex would never get over how strange his thin body looked in clothes that were baggy on even his Michael. 

“So I got you something,” Alex said.

“Another prescription?” Michael asked. Alex huffed a laugh.

“Sorry, no, but,” Alex said, fishing the joint he’d taken off of Maria out of his pocket, “Maybe this will help?” Michael stared at it blankly, not a single ounce of recognition on his face. Alex laughed. “It’s a joint, you dork. Weed? Marijana? Satan’s gateway to your soul?”

A small smile formed on his face and it was infinitely more innocent than anything his Michael had ever done. Alex was charmed as always. There was just something about him that didn’t make sense. He was both horrifically tortured in his mind in ways no one could imagine while also being relentlessly innocent. It was fascinating.

“Can’t that make me worse?” Michael asked, focusing back on his notebook.

“I mean, possibly,” Alex said, taking a few steps closer, “But it helps a lot of people. Might help you.”

“What happens if I do react badly?” Michael wondered softly, almost like he could tell how close Alex had gotten to him. And, knowing him, he probably could. Alex bumped his shoulder into his.

“Then I’ll be right there,” Alex said. A deep blush rose to his cheeks like it always did and Alex couldn’t help the smile that took over his face.

Michael eventually dropped his pen and he followed him to the air mattress. They both sat down and Michael curled in on himself like always. Alex put the rolled joint between his lips and pulled a lighter out of his pocket.

“Wait!” Mciahel said. Alex looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Is it safe to do it in an enclosed space?”

“What, you’ve never heard of hotboxing?” Alex asked. Other Michael stared at him until he laughed. “Yes, it’s safe.”

He lit the joint and took a deep breath, trying to force it to calm him faster than he knew was logical. Michael watched him before taking it and trying to copy him. He coughed a few times and Alex laughed before showing him again. Eventually, he was able to take a hit without choking and they relaxed. It was strange to smoke with a different version of his Michael, but, then again, wasn’t everything strange with him?

“You doing okay?” Alex asked him. He nodded his head and Alex reminded himself to take the questions slow. He couldn’t jump right in with the prodding. “Good. My Michael thought he was so cool when we were young ‘cause he smoked.”

“From all the stories you’ve told, I can believe that.”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed, “I miss him.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said. Alex shook his head and took another hit.

“Don’t be,” he insisted, “But, uh, do you know exactly when it’ll be ready to go?”

“No,” Michael said. His guilt was obvious in his voice and on his face, but Alex still didn’t understand why. What were they fucking waiting for?

“You sure you’ll know when it’ll be time?” Alex asked as nicely as he could, “Like, what goes into the timing?”

Michael shrugged, “It’s a psychic feeling. I felt it when I came over the first time. It’s like things click because we’re mirroring each other. It’s like, uh, like Deja Vu, I guess, but a little different. I’ll just know because it’ll feel right.”

“Okay,” Alex sighed, “I trust you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Alex shook his head again. He did trust him. Granted, he didn’t really have a choice. Not trusting him meant not accepting his help. Alex took a deep breath as he tried to find a way to lead into the topic of his trauma.

“I just, I don’t know. He was with me through so much. So much bad shit has happened and I’ve had him through all of it, it’s hard to go through things without him, you know?” Alex said, tilting his head in Other Michael’s direction. His face got a little serious and he nodded, taking the world’s saddest hit from the joint.

“I know,” he whispered, resting his head against the wall, “I think about my Max and Isobel all the time. I wish I had them here with me.”

“Why didn’t they make it out with you anyway?” Alex asked casually. He knew why.

“Like I said, I’m weak,” Michael said, huffing a sad little laugh. Alex watched him, waiting for him to elaborate without being pushed. Eventually, he did. “Max was ridiculously strong and his specialty was electricity. We were almost 16 when he got in trouble again, he always got in trouble, and they, well, I don’t know what they did. I wasn’t there when they did it, but whatever it was set him off. He shut down the whole building we were in and I remember just hearing people screaming. One of the head doctors ran into the room I was in and grabbed me and we went into the panic room. We were in there for, like, three hours at least. When we came out, half the staff had been scorched to death, nothing left but ashes, and Max’s system had given out because of over use.”

“Jesus,” Alex breathed. Michael looked up, blinking away tears from his eyes and he swallowed hard.

“Isobel and I made a deal after that. We’d stick together. Be on our best behavior and wait for a way out,” Michael said definitively, nodding his head, “And we were. We kept getting stronger which they liked. Then they started letting us in on what the plans were. We were going to be military weapons. Who needs nuclear bombs when you can just introduce a pretty white girl to a foreign city and then have her single handedly annihilate all of them.” Michael shook his head and scoffed. “Neither of us bought into it, but it hurt to hear. Isobel got upset when we were 18 and said she refused which meant she got punished. But she fought back. I remember they dragged her away kicking and screaming and I just sat there and let them. I just… sat there and let them. I didn’t even try to help. She didn’t come back.”

“What do you mean she didn’t come back? What did they tell you happened to her?” Alex asked. Michael smiled sadly.

“They didn’t. If I asked, I got in trouble. If I said her name, I got punished. So I stopped saying her name,” Michael said. Alex started to feel really bad about trying to learn about this. “They started being really hard on me after that ‘cause I was the only one left.”

“How did you get away?” Alex asked softly.

“Told you, I’m weak,” he said, sighing and graciously taking the joint from Alex’s fingers, “I did what they said until someone else came in to help me. Dr. Wyatt snuck in to help me escape, but I was too scared. But he promised he’d help me, I just had to help him. He told me what to do. I just did the dirty work.” Michael moved his finger in a circle and tilted his head to the side as if to insinuate that he killed them all.

“Oh my God,” Alex breathed. 

“But Dr. Wyatt put me through school and therapy and helped me get a job, got me out of New Mexico, made me a citizen because I wasn’t documented before,” Michael said, shrugging his shoulder, “So I deal. Even if I can’t talk to the gorgeous barista that has my order memorized.”

Alex tried to force a soft laugh even though his heart felt heavy with his admissions. It felt even heavier whenever Alex immediately started wondering what kind of testing they did on him. He was pretty sure he could keep those to himself, though. 

On a happy note, though, this was more than Other Michael ever talked. Maybe he should get him high more often.

“Well, you’re talking to someone like him now,” Alex pointed out. Michael lulled his head to face him and, for the first time, made eye contact. 

“I missed out on so much, though,” Michael said, “A childhood, social interaction, everything. I can’t go anywhere without thinking about it for days first or already knowing how it works. I eat the same things, I go to the same places, I do the same things. I got out of a prison, but I’m still so stuck in a routine that I can’t shake. You know I’m almost 29 and I’ve never even been kissed?”

Alex looked at every inch of his face, taking in every similarity and every difference from his Michael. He was so distinctly different. There was no confusing them for one another no matter how hard he tried.

“I can be your first kiss,” Alex offered. Michael’s face turned bright red and he looked away. “Seriously, I can. It’s not like it’d be weird. It would be more to, you know, get it out of the way with someone who has pretty much already kissed you.”

Michael swallowed and looked everywhere except Alex. Until he did.

“Okay.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Yeah.

Michael’s face was still red. Alex just grinned at him. This he could do. It wouldn’t fix all the bad things he dragged up, but it would be a happy little release at the end of the conversation. They both took one last hit off the joint before Alex stubbed it out and turned to the man in question. He reached up and put his hand on his cheek, feeling how he felt so hot it damn near burned his skin.

When Alex tried to press a kiss to his lips, he just met tense, overly puckered lips. He tried not to laugh as he sat there, hoping Michael would stop having his mouth like that. However, that didn’t happen and they both pulled away with a laugh.

“You need to relax,” Alex told him, laughing easily and using his thumb to rub all the tension out of his lips. Michael was so red he was probably about to pass out from lightheadedness. 

“I wasn’t ready,” he laughed, lying through his teeth before he told the truth, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t think about it too hard, just channel your inner Drew Barrymore and be kissable,” Alex told him. Michael’s eyes went comically wide.

“What does that even mean?”

“Oh my god, you’re so uncultured, we’re watching Never Been Kissed after this,” Alex said, scooting closer. Michael laughed genuinely for probably the first time ever and Alex took that as his sign. He closed the space between them again and it went a lot smoother that time since he was relaxed. 

Alex led the way, but he took it slow and Michael followed at the same pace. Michael lifted his hand and gently gripped his arm, pulling him close. It definitely didn’t feel like his Michael. There was no big spark, no mind-numbing perfection, no desire to keep him there or his life would fall apart in his wake. But it wasn’t bad. It was like kissing a friend.

The kiss slowly ended and they stayed close. Alex was about to make a joke again, but Michael, surprising him for another time that night, spoke first.

“Can you help me with something?” Michael asked.

“You know I will.”

“Can you get me a dead car battery?” 

Alex raised an eyebrow as he pulled away, but he couldn’t say no to his eager face so just said yes.

Within the next 24 hours, Alex found himself watching an impressive act. Michael used his hands as defibrillators. He didn’t scream like Max, he just focused and did it. When Max breathed his first breath of life again, Michael quickly turned his attention to the car battery. All of the negative energy that came from that was then transferred into something meant to hold electricity instead of letting it fester. 

Alex didn’t have the words for how proud he was.

-

“Are you going to miss him when he’s gone?”

“Yeah, but I want the real Michael back.”

Alex dipped his fry into his milkshake, feeling extra tired. He’d been a little too okay recently. He and Other Michael were good friends and they talked a lot. Alex ended up telling him his life story out of guilt for prying out his and they bonded over their trauma. It was nice to have someone to talk to and who talked back and there was no pity.

But then it hit him that he was still very lonely and that note that was just a ton of I love yous still was beneath the pillow where he still slept in his ex-boyfriend’s bed after two goddamn months. So now he was sad and longing for Michael to be back even though he felt guilty for wanting to send Other Michael back to a place where he would be alone.

“What are you going to do when he comes back? Just act like you guys weren’t fighting before he left?” Isobel asked. Alex sighed slowly and shrugged his shoulders.

“No, we’re gonna talk. I’ve really learned how to talk recently,” Alex admitted. Isobel raised an eyebrow and he rolled his eyes. “I have.”

“With the Other Michael?”

“Yeah, with him,” he said, “Maybe that’s what he’s here for.”

“To teach you how to talk to another person?”

“Yes.”

Isobel just laughed to herself, but she didn’t argue. They both finished up their meal and started to head back to the bunker where Max already was. However, they were shocked when they got into the bunker and Michael looked at them with wild eyes.

“It’s time,” he said, “I can feel it, it’s time.”

And things moved too fast. Michael started turning knobs and Max and Isobel called Liz and Maria. It was all too fast, so fast Alex barely found time to grab Other Michael’s arm and stop him so they could talk.

“Are you gonna stop long enough to say goodbye?” Alex asked. Michael looked at him with wide eyes.

“But it’s time,” he said, “Aren’t you ready to get him back?”

“Yes,” Alex said honestly, “But you still have to say goodbye. I mean, we’ve spent two months together. Are you even ready to go home? Are you going to be okay?”

Michael gave a small smile and he nodded, eyes not quite on Alex’s but close enough.

“I’ll be okay,” he told him, “All I wanted was to see Max and Isobel again and I have. And this version of them is happier than the ones I would’ve met if I went back in my own timeline. So I think it was fate.”

“But aren’t you going to be lonely?” Alex asked. He didn’t know why he was asking. He didn’t know why it sounded like he didn’t want him to go. Michael just pulled him into a hug that Alex reciprocated easily.

“I think I’m finally gonna talk to that barista,” Michael said softly. Alex huffed a laugh and squeezed him.

“I hope it works out.”

“I know it will,” Michael insisted, “I’m meant for him like your Michael’s meant for you. I can feel it.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m a lot of things, but wrong is rarely one of them.”

With a laugh, Alex pulled away and did his best not to cry. He still wasn’t sure why he was so upset. It was just… so fast. And yet not fast enough.

Michael said his goodbyes and then, in the most unceremonious of fashions, stepped through the portal.

And another stepped back out.

Alex lunged forward to catch him, checking over his body for any sign that he was hurt and they clung to each other. It was unreal how much he could feel that it was his man just by the way his body felt against his. He missed him more than he had words for.

Very reluctantly Alex let everyone hug him too and, for the next few hours, just hovered close as they all caught up with him after only a few minutes alone. It wasn’t enough. He needed hours alone with him. Days. Weeks.

There was so much lost time and he was okay. He wasn’t taking this for granted again. He refused.

That night, they found themselves in the airstream and Michael immediately noticed that Alex had been staying there.

“That is weirdly romantic,” Michael, his Michael, said as he sat on the bed. Alex laughed and just reached out to touch his face. Michael leaned into it just like the Other Michael, but it felt different. It was different. This… this was cosmic.

“I love you,” Alex admitted.

“And I love you,” he said, tugging his hips down to his lap. Alex immediately kissed him and it felt like breathing again at the feeling of his lips. When they laid back, though, it was impossible to miss the crinkling of that note. 

Michael reached for it and an embarrassed expression fell over his features as he realized what it was. Alex just took it and leaned in for another kiss. That note had kept him going for the last two months and he was going to treasure it. It was nothing to be embarrassed about.

“I’ve learned a thing or two since you left,” Alex said, “And one of them was all about talking through shit. Saw the other version of you do a lot of extraordinary things after talking through shit. So we’re going to do that, okay?”

“Okay,” Michael said, his tone telling him to continue.

“And in this note you said you’d treat me better in another life. Can’t it be this one?”

Michael stared up at him, something in his eyes that Alex couldn’t quite place. He hoped that he one day would be able to place it.

But, for right now, he was happy that he was home.

“It will be this one. But it’s you, Alex, it’s always been you.”

And, between him and the Other Michael, Alex knew it was the truth.

[geejaysmith]

On Minkowski’s Weird “I stayed up too late” Personality

check it out everyone, it's time for more Bullshit from Discord but this time with the groupchat

Kat [Yesterday at 8:17 PM] https://mspainttaz.tumblr.com/post/616173308845670400/beginning-of-stolen-century-musta-been-rough alternate explanation for "the cheeses" and why Maxwell won't room with Jacobi anymore

Gill [Yesterday at 8:19 PM] Jacobi: I could go out to the 24hr grocery store right now at 3 am and buy the fanciest fucking cheeses at Hy-Vee and no one could stop me. Maxwell: Please go the fuck to sleep. hm... what does everyone on the Hephaestus do when they can't sleep at 3 AM... what are their weird “i stayed up too late” personalities...

Kat [Yesterday at 8:22 PM] https://tiny-crecher.tumblr.com/post/627965201608802304/i-have-decided-it-is-of-the-utmost-importance-that not necessarily related but Eiffel found the kitkat, minkowski told him not to eat it, Hera somehow made the case for it also we know what Minkowski's 3am stayed up too late personality is, there was a whole episode for it

Gill [Yesterday at 8:22 PM] oh god that's right that's what that is Minkowski, up too late in season 4, has no Known Threats to build acid traps against, so Lovelace finds her in the mess hall building a Pepe Silvia Conspiracy Wall to Try And Deduce What The Aliens Want

agentartemis [Yesterday at 8:23 PM] Haha true And. Yeah probably

Gill [Yesterday at 8:25 PM] Minkowski, aggressively slapping half-scribbled notes connected with tape and bits of string: The aliens want us to go SURFING, it's the ONLY THING THAT MAKES SENSE Lovelace, sipping a protein shake and nodding along because neither of them are getting any decent sleep tonight and this is the most interesting thing to happen this week

Gill [Yesterday at 8:29 PM] Eiffel, at the "so does anyone have any ideas" meeting the next morning: you two like you had a... productive evening Lovelace: We narrowed it down. Whatever the aliens want, it's either about surfing or something involving an interspecies mating ritual that may or may not entail actual human sacrifice.

agentartemis [Yesterday at 8:33 PM] Eiffel maybe: ......well mark me down as scared and horny

Gill [Yesterday at 8:34 PM] Minkowski, after the end of Dirty Work when they're looking for Eiffel in the void of space (again): Dear god, I hope we're right about the surfing and wrong about the human sacrifice. Lovelace, later on, once Eiffel's back and they've escaped from Cutter and company and they need anything to talk about but the insane odds in front of them: So. Aliens. Eiffel: Yes. Aliens. Lovelace: You met some. Eiffel: Yeah, and the surfing theory wasn't... exactly off-base, per say... Lovelace: ...and? Eiffel: ..........And? Lovelace: Look, just get it out there and get it over with: did you fuck an alien? Eiffel: Oh, that. No. Lovelace: Right, right. You hear that Minkowski? You owe me Starbucks when we get back to Earth!

agentartemis [Yesterday at 8:42 PM] haha Minkowski: damn it but also thank god

Kat [Yesterday at 8:42 PM] Eiffel: I mean. I guess theoretically they are fuckable? But since it looked like me, no thanks.

agentartemis [Yesterday at 8:43 PM] Eiffel realizing he talked big game in the Would You Fuck Your Clone banned dinner debate but now actually faced with the possibility is realizing he is way more of a weenie about that than he thought he would be Everyone learning deep truths about themselves

Gill [Yesterday at 8:56 PM] Eiffel: You had a bet going over whether or not I'd fuck the aliens?? Minkowski: Well, not exactly... be fair, Lovelace. What were the exact terms of our wager? Lovelace: /sigh, fine. See, I jokingly tossed out an innuendo about how they were waiting for you to "get together and feel alright" and Minkowski took no time at all to turn that into the whole human-sacrifice-coitus thing, which, granted, it was 4 AM and she was on a bender fueled by nothing but caffeine and Astronaut Kibble, so really, that's my fault. But the point is, she was certain that if it was a sex thing? And if it was for the good of the crew, if not the whole of the planet Earth and all life on it? You'd do it. Minkowski: You also might just do it because they offered. Lovelace: Right, and I said, "no way, you saw him freak out when I did the whole- /handwaving to represent the Avatar state/ right? This all scares the hell out of him!" And then added, "if you're right, but he doesn't fuck the aliens, when we get back to Earth, I'm going to stroll into the nearest Starbucks and order something with enough sugar in it to send me into hyperglycemic shock, and you're gonna pay the tab for it." Minkowski: Right, but Eiffel didn't say definitively whether or not it was a sex thing, which left one of the terms unfulfilled. Lovelace: But he implied that it wasn’t a sex thing in the first place, which invalidates the whole first premise, but in the end, he still didn't fuck the aliens! So I'm still more right than you are. Minkowski: Eiffel, did or did not the Dear Listeners- Eiffel: Commander, what the hell made you so sure I'd be down for the microgravity mambo with an extraterrestrial!? Minkowski: Easy. You're a B answer.

agentartemis [Yesterday at 8:59 PM] you truly never live down a B answer, huh

Kat [Yesterday at 9:02 PM] filed under: discord chat concepts that took on a life of their own

Kinsey [Yesterday at 9:02 PM] Hahahaha

Kat [Yesterday at 9:02 PM] that one was also my fault

agentartemis [Yesterday at 9:02 PM] it makes me laugh every time so it's canon in my heart thank u

Gill [Yesterday at 9:05 PM] Eiffel: Yeah-!! Well- that was before we actually found any aliens. At the time I was assuming less "all-powerful incorporeal voice-stealing force" and more blue alien chicks from Star Wars, you know?? Or Darth Maul. God, Darth Maul was the best thing about Phantom Menace... Lovelace: Undergoing some self-reflection, are we? Eiffel: Yeah... and now that I think about it, I don't think I'm the only one. Isn't that right, Minkowski? Or should I say, Commander D-Answer? Minkowski, eyes narrowing: What're you getting at? Eiffel: I haven't heard a word of skepticism about the whole thing since Lovelace turned up! And you jumped on the "intergalactic transmissions and chill" idea pretty quickly from the sound of it... Jacobi: Holy shit can we just break into Pryce's lab and get this over with already I want out of this conversation

Kat [Yesterday at 9:06 PM] Are you insinuating you'd fuck Darth Maul

agentartemis [Yesterday at 9:07 PM] I am absolutely willing to believe Eiffel would fuck Darth Maul

Gill [Yesterday at 9:07 PM] look I needed an alien dude who wasn't just White Guy From Another Planet and that was the first thing that came to mind

Kinsey [Yesterday at 9:07 PM] Same whispers admiral ackbar

agentartemis [Yesterday at 9:07 PM] Nah Eiffel's a normie

Kinsey [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] Yea you're right

Gill [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] Ok, Phantom Menace came out in May of '99, Eiffel was born in '82, he would've been 16 and a half

Kinsey [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] NOT A FURRY EITHER or else...

agentartemis [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] He talks big about a wide variety of pop culture geek stuff but he has very normie tastes when you get down to it

Gill [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] and possibly still in the kind of Goth phase that would've been receptive to Shadow The Edgehog Evil Jedi

Kinsey [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] LOL

agentartemis [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] hahaha good take

Kat [Yesterday at 9:09 PM] it's true his pop culture lexicon is pretty normie Gabriel is this a reflection on you

Gill [Yesterday at 9:10 PM] as someone who follows the man on Twitter: probably, yeah

Kinsey [Yesterday at 9:10 PM] We have to make our own food With homestuck Eiffel

Gill [Yesterday at 9:10 PM] there are Homestucks on that station and if anyone tries to tell me otherwise I will face god and walk backwards into hell

agentartemis [Yesterday at 9:11 PM] hahaha they lurk

Gill [Yesterday at 9:11 PM] semi-related because I was speculating about Teen Eiffel's Taste In Men and this comic came up on my Tumblr dash https://werewolf-boi.tumblr.com/post/628109055176605696/reparrishcomics-facebook-twitter-instagram</p>

[cruzrogue]

Nerdapoolza

#Fictober19 @fictober-event

————————————————————————

for fanfiction:

Prompt number: Prompt 27 “Can you wait for me?”

Fandom (AU if applicable): #arrow fanfiction #olicity

Rating:PG13

Warnings/Tags:  relationships conversations

Summary: A troubled Oliver visits his best-buddy and lands up having to hang with a bunch of nerds at a study group.

Notes: Oliver talks about his past relationships with a girl who listens and with her own advice things change…

~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~sp@ce~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~

Nerdapoolza on A03

Oliver has no idea when and why he let things go so far. Doing both Lance sisters was a disaster in the making. So much so that the outcome when visiting his best friend on the East Coast his troubles happen to come along. He just loved having sex. He liked having a girl at home to placid his mother at least. He just really liked the opposite sex and what they had to offer.

What he could do without is the complication some girls brought to the table. Neediness, those girls who couldn’t distinguish between sex and love. Never happy and who can never get enough attention or help. They have no tolerance for being alone. They're clingy. They don't take hints. They call or text you continuously.

Oliver deleting another angry text by Laurel as he just goes to the TV room. Tommy laid out on the lounger watching an oldie.

“Woman problems?” Oliver just shrugs. “I told you to end thing eons ago but do you listen?”

“My mom liked Laurel.”

“Yea, because your mom is the one dating your girlfriend… I mean the ex-girlfriend, now right?”

“I had to leave Starling. It was insane. She’d show up wherever I went. Call, text, shoot even email me.”

“Well your free now. You need a cooling down period anyways?”

“Cooling down?”

“Yes. No girls for at least two weeks.”

“What? No way. Two weeks?”

“Whatever girl you date next shouldn’t fall into the mess you’ve got going on now.”

Oliver takes a moment to think this through, “Okay I get that but no way on the two weeks’ policy I’ll try to manage one.”

“There is no policy it’s just… You know what, if you could manage one without hitting on a girl. I’d be amazed.”

“Oh, please it’s not that hard.”

“Yea maybe when we were eight and we still thought them as yucky.” Tommy looks at his watch. “Alright I better setup for my study group I’m hosting tonight.”

“You actually hosting a study group?”

“Of course, Like my GPA to reflect how kick ass I am.”

“Nerdapoolza.”

“Ha, maybe if you actually cracked open a book, you’d be more than an average student.”

“Shit Tommy, you’ve insulted me in a few things today you want to try my manhood next?”

Tommy holds his hands up, “Bro, if the ladies are okay with you, which it seems they are because let’s face it they seem to bend over backwards for you.” Oliver rolls his eyes. “If you like you can hang out with us intellects.”

“Aren’t I lucky?”

“Here’s the deal. It’s a group of nine, four ladies the rest all guys. We all roughly go to different schools we met through online groupchat pipelines.”

“You just met these strangers online?”

“Well you meet face to face first in a public place and we had more of us but through semesters some have weened out.”

“Fascinating?”

“Ollie, I really enjoyed this. I’ve meet people with my same interests or people who make lackluster subjects that need to be taken easier. Also, there is a comradery.”

“Have you hooked up with anyone?”

“This isn’t like that. If I want to get laid there are better alternatives these are peeps, I want to mindcrush with.”

“So, no hot chicks?”

“There has been a few and well there is one that gets under my skin at times. You’ll meet her.”

“Plays hard to get?”

“No, she’s different?”

Oliver wonders if she is the crazy, bitchy kind of girl that is beautiful but out there. “Crazy? Pure lunatic? Or are you leaning the other way? Boring and predictable?” Seeing Tommy mum his lips, “Underage?”

“No actually she is legal since this past July.”

“Then what is wrong with her?”

“Nothing!” Tommy laughs. “She’s great. Smart to boot and she can dish out like the best of them. She just has different tastes than me.”

“She ‘ll be here tonight?”

“Yea, she’s also in charge of the chip selection.”

“Chips?”

“Yes, they’re brain food if you ask her and they are cheap enough that everyone can handle their chip turn.”

“You guys sound like the lamest party group on the planet.”

“Good thing we are a study group. Come on help me makes some drinks.”

“They won’t have any alcohol, right?” Tommy just sways his head in a different no position.

As there in the kitchen Oliver just watch Tommy take a veggie plate from the fridge. Placing some cut up fruit from a container onto a bowl. Oliver mixing some extra ice to the ready-made ice tea.

“So, what the subject for tonight?”

“Physics and Statistics.”

“Great!”

“In between we may play a game Charades but mostly we talk about what ails us.”  

“You really want me to actual negate points now?”

“Come on Ollie, you may actually enjoy a night of brainpower and sharing personal stories at its finest.”

“Shit, if I wasn’t so into proving I can lay off woman for a week I’d take off and enjoy the city’s nightlife.”

“You’d be missing out!”

As the first ring on the doorbell happened Oliver laughs, “Nerdapoolza here we come.”

“Hush!” Tommy opens the door to a Mike and then a Craig and Lisa join in. Soon Phil, and Jessica, and a Robbie joins them. When Carol joins the festivities Oliver wonders if she is the girl but she didn’t bring chips. As they spread around the nice living room the doorbell rings again and Oliver takes the lead to open it.

“Tommy, I got held up by the elevator. I mean why does your place’s elevator have it out for me anyway?” He can’t see her over the large bags of chips she’s carrying. “They had this sale and I couldn’t remember if it green or red salsa Lisa likes so I got them both. The had lime flavored popcorn that Rob likes and I also got you your nachos.” She keeps going and its weirdly amusing as she walks herself to the kitchen. She says hi to everyone without even glancing their way. As she dumps the chips on the counter, she simultaneously takes her backpack off.

From his vantage point he just sees her backside. A really nice backside. His eyes wavering until he focuses and what an interesting view it is. She’s wearing ankle grunge boots, her tie up leggings go up to a flair skirt and it seems she has a wraparound top. With the conversation earlier on this girl he can’t believe he didn’t ask for her name.

“Hence why I’m late and you know I’m an early bird.” She stops as she places the bag she has idly on her hand. Somehow, she is thinking it is weird that Tommy hasn’t stopped to add a colorful comment. “What’s gotten into you…” Her face shows shock the moment she realizes it’s not Tommy. “Who are you?”

“This is my best-buddy in the world.” Tommy says cheerfully as he walks into his kitchen. “We have been through some thick and thin times?”

Felicity glances between the two and then rolls her eyes. “Yea, I bet. Who drank the last beer and who was somber enough to get more?”

Oliver a little irked, “Wow! Really? He just means we made it through high school. Nothing to deep.”

Tommy can see Felicity size his friend up. Either she was going to go after his male ego or sock him.

“Well! Congratulations on that achievement. You know…”

Cutting her off, “Felicity, here is a Mathalon champion.” Oliver gives a don’t give a hoot look. “One of the reasons we are here tonight is how everyone of us has something to give. Tommy gives Oliver a freaking behave look. It has Oliver raise his hands in surrender but he still has a disgruntled look as Felicity is moving bowls and acting like she owns the place.  

Pulling Tommy to the side, “What’s her deal?”

“I said she was different. She’s the alpha here. Just go along with it.”

“You have got to be kidding me?”

“I swear Ollie give it some time. Just go with it. She’ll win you over.” Oliver just sighs and says fine to his friend. They join the others and Oliver just has a notebook he tries to at first follow everyone and after the first hour Oliver has just mentally closed off this group as he’s been doodling. It takes a hand to his thigh to get him to stir back to present time.

“I brought you a drink. You’ve been creating a really cool masked man, is that a bow?” Oliver looks down to his artwork and doesn’t really know why he drew this. “Well I think its cool. Not much into archery. Well… Not into many sports.”

“I’ve actually done some archery when I was younger.”

“I’m sorry about earlier. It was bad manners and I’m am sorry.”

He doesn’t know what to say so he nods and thanks her for the drink. Somehow from there on he enters the conversation with the group and finds himself walking the remarkable girl who grew on him this bizarre night.

They find themselves in a coffeeshop and there really is no topic off limits. Somehow dating became the subject and within the confides of what they’re talking about she off handily says, “Can you wait for me?”

“If your okay waiting about a week.”

“Huh?”

Seeing her confusion, he’d like to ditch the week thing but he decides to do something different tell her a truth, “I hate that I’m going to say this.” He huffs, “But I’m in a cooling period.”

“Oh! Though you gave yourself a week to figure out things with a girl?”

“What? No. I… I really don’t know much about this cooling off period thing but I’m not in a relationship. I messed up royally.”

“Do you want her back? Maybe talking to someone who isn’t Tommy would do you good.”

“Funny thing is I couldn’t fully ever break up with her.”

“Maybe there is something there. You really do need a cooling off period then.”

“Actually, you don’t understand. I’m not a good boyfriend.” Moaning, “I’ve cheated on her numerous times and yet she’d be disappointed but she’d take me back and the process would continue.”

“Hmm… It seems you are wondering if you a serial cheater? How many other girls have you cheated on?”

“I actually haven’t had many girlfriends. Other than Laurel they were all short lived and I guess no time to cheat.”

“Then you need to tell yourself what makes Laurel different than these girls?”

He doesn’t need time to answer because it flows through his lips, “Because she keeps my mom off my back.” Hearing Felicity making a displeased tone he needs to add, “Yea, I don’t think I need a longer cooling off period to figure that Laurel and I aren’t right for one another.”

“Okay, step one is figuratively figured out. Now you need time to reckon out what you want, to feel your own emotions, and to work on the next two things.”

“There’s more?”

“A week won’t solve anything but if you actually take the time.”

“If I take the time? Like another week?”

“I have no idea. It could take a week, a month.”

He blurts out, “Five years?”

“God, no. Five years would feel like a lifetime.”

Oliver just looks at the girl that is truly different like Tommy said. They keep talking and talking and after a week make it two, they’re still talking. Conversations that last longer as seasons change. Time may pass as they exchange heartfelt dialogue to one another in front of friends and family. Arguments over baby names. Sharing milestone anniversaries.

Although Oliver makes sure to have all the assorted chips under the sun. To him it commemorates one of the best celebrations as for one evening every year they host “Nerdapoolza.” From that one-day years ago every chat with Felicity has pushed him further to accept his situation and commit to change. He is this gleeful man today because he is loved and is loving the best part of him, his amazing tenacious wife.

***Thanks for reading as I try as I might to get all these stories out as soon as I can. It’s been a struggle at times. I have 4 more to go.Thank you all for reading!!!

[yandere-hanjisung]

Walls of Steel Ch.1 {Yandare!HanJisung x Reader}

Warnings: Yandere themes, Gore (at times), Gender Neutral!

Word count: 511

A/N: Hey guys! This is my first series I hope it can turn out well and if I can continue it!! Also this is a bit released a bit earlier lol

You and your eight friends always went on adventures together. It was tradition at this point. All of your best memories were made on the various outings that you all took part in. 

Chan, Woojin, Minho, Hyunjin, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin, and You of course. Since the nine of you had no classes together, you were often caught texting in the groupchat during class. Everyday in math, the same guy got you caught every day. 

Han Jisung. The boy wasn’t a bad guy at all, He was pretty funny actually. You laughed at all his jokes and helped him on lessons when he needed the help. The two of you were mere acquaintances. 

“I think he likes youuuuu!”Felix and Minho cooed as they poked at your shoulders. Woojin giggled before stroking your hair and making a comment about how much you’ve grown. You brushed it all off with a huff. “You guys are insane. Anyways, where are we going today?” you asked quickly trying to change the subject. Chan giggled at your sudden interest of where you all were headed to. 

He flips his collar. “Welllll, Today we are going to... Drum roll my children-!” He began. Hyunjin began to tap on the Aussie’s bag and Changbin clapped his hands. “The Ildo Mansion!!!” he exclaimed. The drum rolls and smiles dropped. The nine of you were silent as Woojin gave an awkward Woo... 

“The Ildo Mansion is known for paranormal activity, Chan!” Changbin told the blond boy while pointing a finger in his face. You nodded. “Yeah there are even some rumors that people hide dead bodies there.” The rest of the boys cringed at the thought. Chan just shrugged. 

“More of an edge for us! All these stories are from school. You guys know how delusional the students can be at times. If anything we can just prove them wrong.” He explained while toying with his curly hair. Seungmin pulled out his camera and sucked his teeth, “Eh, I guess this could mean I could get some pictures for a photography project too.” 

The rest of the walk was filled with laughs and jokes that to do with what you would find in the abandoned mansion. Until Jeongin stopped suddenly obviously catching the attention of the others. 

“Is someone watching us?” he asked as his head shot in many directions. Felix chuckled dryly and pulled the red haired boy toward the rest of the group. “Don’t play games like that. Look you got Binnie all scared.” He said a little hurriedly. Changbin rolled his eyes knowing full well that it was Felix who was shaken up from what Jeongin said. 

Even still Jeongin was right there were a pair of eyes burning into the nine of you. Jisung looked from the watch tower of the mansion that you guys would soon be exploring in. He smiled at the curiosity in your eyes and the excitement that showed in your body language. 

Tonight, Jisung planned for a visit from the nine of you. 

And he had a little surprise up his sleeve. 

[peachyteabuck]

chef’s knives, part ii

summary: you’re finally used to your job at the avenger’s personal chef. the next thing to tackle is your pesky crush on one james Buchanan barnes

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

words: 1722

trigger warnings: same as before. this time with a date tho!!

notes/other: idk how this is like just over half the word count as part 1 but I promise it’s still good

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

READ PART I HERE

Back in the kitchen, you and Natasha turned back to your previous conversation.

It’s insane. Bucky seems to like your food, always leaving notes on your stack of cookbooks in the kitchen on what he wants to eat.

But for some reason, he never wants to spend time with you.

Natasha, Sam, and Steve are the only ones who ever come grocery shopping with you for ingredients, even though you offer to take Bucky every week.

It had begun to take a toll on you, emotionally. Were you not good enough for him? Why doesn’t he like you? Is he just taking pity on you when he eats the food you make him? Does he secretly hate you? Is he trying to convince Tony to fire you?

Nastasha sees it all; both sides of the pining. It’s disgusting, really disgusting.

She sees Bucky’s longful stare. They way he cleans dishes after you’re done cooking. Sometimes asks to help you prep meals.

She also sees the way you always feed him first (with the exception of that pizza a few months ago) and ask him how it is with hungry eyes. You always make what he requests, it doesn’t matter what it is or when he asks for it.

Correction: it’s absolutely and totally disgusting

She had found you, just about to start the brownies.

“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked, trying to remain sweet in her interruption. Don’t get her wrong, she really wants to have a heart-to-heart friend-to-friend girl-to-girl conversation with you, but she also wants some of your amazing brownies. Priorities.

You hummed in lieu of an actual response.

“You need to talk to Bucky. He’s dying, honey. Absolutely dying.”

You stand up and shrug, trying to remain coy. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Of course you know! You know he’s practically in love with you and it’s killing him because he thinks you don’t like him back!”

You had tried to remain calm at the revelation, attempting to squander the middle schoolgirl in you.

No, you told yourself. You can’t go chasing men. Remember what you told you told yourself when you got accepted into culinary school. Education, then career. Nothing else.

Natasha had sighed deeply. “C’mon. He’s been crying to Steve since you first got here. America’s sweetheart just got fed up with it and told me to talk to you.”

You were starting to get frustrated. “Well, tell Steve to tell Bucky that if he really likes me, he can speak to me himself and ask me on a date like a real man. I’m not twelve anymore, Natasha, I refuse to be dragged around some kind of fangirl.”

You thought that would make her leave you alone, but no. She stuck near you like glue until you fed her baked goods.

Then Bucky had come down, and she gave you a look. Not a regular look, a look. You both knew what it meant, but neither said anything out loud.

It was frustrating! You just wanted him to ask you out.

Was he intimidated by you? Wanting you to make the first move? God, you hate men.

After the debrief ends and you feed them lunch, you’re sitting on your bed, reading.

A soft knock on the door almost gets drowned out by the climax of your book’s plot, but luckily you catch it.

“Come in!” You call, not wanting to get up from your cozy spot. You’ve changed into sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. Perfect for disconnecting from the rest of the crazy outside world via novel.

You’re a little taken aback when Bucky opens the door, looking as tired as you.

He steps right into the doorway and you immediately stand up to meet him.

“Hey, you say. It’s soft, breathless. Like you just ran a marathon. “What’s up?”

Bucky looks like he’s about to speak, but he closes his mouth before words can escape.

When he open sit again, all he can get out is “Do you wanna….” before he sighs. He just can never seem to find the right words with you.

You bite your lip, begging him to say something.

He clears his throat and starts again.

“Do you wanna go on a date with me?” His accent seeps through, making the words thick and sweet like syrup.

“Yes, of course,” you say, still breathless.

Bucky wasn’t counting on you saying yes. He expected you to turn him down, and he had a whole game plan for that. Sulk back to his room and eat something made of chocolate...which you made.

Wow, for someone who plans dangerous missions for a living, he’s very bad at this.

“How about tonight, seven pm. Meet me up at the roof?”

You nod. “Yeah, sounds perfect.”

The second Bucky’s out the door, you text in your “Women who deal with too much bullshit” groupchat.

Wanda texts back first.

OMG I’LL BE AT YOUR ROOM IN LIKE FIVE MINUTES

Maria texts second.

Have you decided what ur gonna wear??

Natasha is last, about five minutes later.

I’m bringing you red wine while we outfit plan!!!

For an assassin, Natasha Romanoff really likes giving dating advice.

When they’re finally all together, you commence the mini-mental breakdown you’d been saving for when they all were laying on your bed while you pace around...surrounded by various items of clothing.

“What do I wear? It’s gonna be cold, but I don’t wanna seem like I don’t care, you know? God, what if he thinks I’m trying too hard!”

They all roll their eyes in unison. It’s almost comical. Almost.

“God,” Maria says. “Do you know how much shit I’ve heard about you while Bucky thinks he’s just talking to Steve over comms? I can tell you for a fact that if you were into pet play, he’d be down.”

You and Wanda both cringe, but Natasha perks up.

“Really? That’s far…Wait how does he know what pet play is?” she shakes her head and turns to you. “He really likes you. You’ll be fine!”

You groan. “Knowing Bucky is sexually adventurous is very valuable information. Thank you, Hill,”

She tilts her glass to you as if you say “I gotchu, bud” while you take a deep breath.

“But I still have no idea what to wear!”

Wanda scoffs. “It’s not gonna be windy, just a little chilly. Wear those tall suede chunky heels and that cute pink dress with the deep neckline and the shoulders exposed.”

You crinkle your nose. “But won’t I be cold?”

“Yes,” Wanda says. “But then he’ll give you his jacket.”

“Ahhh” you, Natasha, and Maria all say in unison.

“You’re a genius!” you cry.

“I know,” she replies knowingly.

When 6:55 rolls around, you shoo them off of you.

Your hair and makeup looks flawless, but not too flawless. Like a casual flawless. A flawless that doesn’t try too hard. A flawless that comes naturally. One could say you woke up like this.

You make your way up to the roof, and you almost melt.

It’s a scene out of a 4.5 star romcom: little fairy lights make your pathway to a picnic with your favorite foods. It’s...breathtaking. You barely have time to take it all in before Bucky comes up behind you, encircling his flesh arm around his waist while the metal one holds a bottle of red wine in front of you.

It’s the good stuff, too. The nice stuff. The “I really like you so I’m going to get you tipsy” stuff. The “I stole this from Stark please don’t tell on me I just really like you” stuff.

You gasp and take it in your hands while Bucky guides you to the spot where your food lays.

Once you two sit down and you have a chance to admire the effort he put into the date, you lock eyes.

He seems nervous.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

You take another look around and run your fingers over the soft blanket. “Oh God, how could I not...it looks so pretty out here…”

“Good,” he says, opening the wine. “Don’t want to mess up our first date.”

You smile even wider as he pours you some wine and hands the glass to you.

You hold the glass up. “What should be toast to?’

Bucky places his finger on his chin and taps, mockingly thinking. “How about good health?”

You laugh lightly. “That’s so cliche! What about we toast for each other?”

Bucky smiles. “Sounds good.”

After you toast, the cold night air makes you shiver a little. Bucky immediately places his thick flannel over you, and you make a note to thank Wanda for her good service. Not only did you just get your crush to give up his jacket, but now you also get to see him in a beautiful black t-shirt that leaves little to the imagination.

You two talk the night away. You talk about being in food service, he talks about being an Avenger. You share equally hilarious stories about your jobs, even if Bucky’s seem a little more...dangerous.

It’s hours later when you find yourself falling asleep on Bucky’s chest, his arm draped protectively over you.

He’s still asleep, snoring softly, when you wake up. You wiggle your way so that your face is right next to him and just watch him. He’s so beautiful, so fucking beautiful. You peck him on the cheek before snuggling back into his warm chest to fall asleep again.

In the dark, you don’t see Steve slip Natasha twenty dollars in various types of bills.

“I told you they’d fall asleep on each other,” Natasha chides, counting her bounty.

Steve sighs. “I know, I should have expected this. Now I’m down twenty bucks and I owe Sam another ten for Bucky actually cooking food.”

Natasha tsks. “He can be a real sap when he wants to be. For someone who’s known him since forever, you’re really bad at predicting his future behavior.”

“It’s the love,” Steve says. “Ma says it always changes a man when he’s in love.”

Natasha watches you two cuddles for another moment before responding. “Yeah, especially when that man knows he’s about to get some goodass food out of it.

//

taglist: @projectxhappiness  @nerdyandproud9​

[naveengedupoori-blog]

Hysteria?

Nick; Jake; Robert; May; Director

Director :: Nick sends a message into the Gang groupchat

Nick: Sends text- “Hey guys, since we can’t meet up in person due to the quarantine, do y’all want to catch up on zoom later tonight”

Jake: Sends text - “Sure, but what time? I gotta make sure I’m not busy being bored out of my god d**** mind. “

May: Sends text - “Guys, I really really want to do something outside. Anyone want to hang out in my backyard? We can wear masks and gloves and such.”

Robert: “Sends text - I think Ill stick to the Zoom call, May. :P”

Director :: Later that night, the group of friends get in a zoom call to catch up for the first time since their time in high school.

Jake: Hey everyone! How’s college been treating you?

Nick: I’ve been really vibing. I have made some great friends and my professors are pretty cool too.

Robert: Better friends than us? Wow, this man moves on way too fast… tsk tsk tsk…

May: Robert, you clearly haven’t changed haha. Dude, I love my college dance team. It’s honestly a really large team but we still get along and I have met so many lit people during our competitions.

Jake: Oh May, do you remember when we met up at the dance competition in Dallas!? That was insane!

May: Jake, who was that guy from your dance team that tried to make a move on me at the Dallas competition?

Jake: Oh haha! That was David, he’s a legend. I thought that was so funny.

May: Funny? Please, he was so persistent

Jake: Maybe you were leading him on.    [ Playfully shrugs* ]

Nick: Well, May seems to be going places haha

May: Nick, you too? I expect this from Robert, but not from you!

Robert: Nah. This is too easy, there’s no fun in it.

May: By the way, do you guys think its okay if I make a Wawa run? Wait, is Wawa even open?

Jake: Yeah its open. If you go, just please wear a mask and gloves and such, the last thing we need is for you to get sick.

May: True… I think I’ll make a quick run, its been a while

Director :: May starts to drive too Wawa.

Nick: Say Robert, how have you been man? It’s been forever.

Robert: Terrible. College was great and all, but this quarantine is killing me fam. Dude, I haven’t watched a single recorded lecture since coming back home. I’m so screwed for my midterms.

Other three: SAME!

Nick: It’s not just that, I’ve been bored out of my mind. I spent all day baking cupcakes because I had nothing better to do and now I have too many… quarantine sucks.

Jake: cupcakes huh? I didn’t know you can bake. Wanna share the wealth?

Nick: I can’t bake cupcakes! That’s why I made so many, I kept messing up and trying again.

Director :: May arrives at Wawa

Jake: Well, you got any good ones you can share with me? I’d kill for a cupcake right now. That’s a threat by the way  [ smiles playfully* ]

May: Guys, why are people so crazy? I just left Wawa empty handed because some random old dude is in there just picking things up, licking them, and putting them down. It’s a riot in there! Whenever someone gets near him to kick him out, he tries to cough on them! Seriously, what is wrong with people oh my god.

Nick: Hysteria does that to people I guess. How many times in history has fear and hysteria led to people acting crazy and destructive

Robert: Witch trials

Jake: Red Scare

May: Still, we would never do that

Nick: You sure?

May: … no.