#which is apparently the only solution to people right now

[willowways]

Is it me or does it seem like no one has a plan

Like both the skip the vote and the vote blue no matter who people are thinking less about what will benefit people and more on moral superiority

Like … I would like some direction please

[hedgehog-moss]

(There is blood pictured at the end of this post) (well, 1 drop) (don't worry it's mine, not some innocent creature's)

I found a dormouse in my kitchen today, just chilling on the ceiling above my head, watching me cook. Maybe even judging my cooking technique like Ratatouille. I only noticed its presence because there's a bunch of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling above the stove and at one point I heard a rustling, then a crunching noise.

It was eating my herbs.

As if they were a little snack I'd placed here for my dormouse friends. None of my other animals can walk on the ceiling, therefore any food that's near the ceiling must be an offering to the dormice. (I admit, that's sound logic.)

A dormouse family has been living in my walls since before I moved here—I should probably call it a dormouse dynasty, by now. Here's the first post I wrote about them, in 2019 ! The cats eat a lot of them (especially Morille, she loves dormice) but apparently not enough to make the key decision makers in this dormouse community decide that living in my house is more trouble than it's worth.

Every year when they hibernate and go quiet for eight months I have the renewed hope that this time the cats got rid of all of them, but the next spring they wake up and start scratching inside my walls in the middle of the night again. (Not only that's creepy, but it's so loud.)

Anyway, this dormouse, let's call him Alfred. I saw immediately which hole between two stones he'd crawled out of and the first thing I did was to stuff a salt shaker in there to block his escape route. Step 2 was to call for backup—I summoned Morille, and she came down from the living-room 2 seconds later (the cats know it's always good news when I call them to the kitchen while cooking.)

Alfred was panicking.

I grabbed a broom and started threatening him with it like an angry old woman in a cartoon. He tried to flee towards the ladder, but Morille was there. He tried to flee towards the door, but Morille was also there. He tried to hide on top of the fridge, and Morille happily lay siege to it, like my fridge was a Gallic oppidum on top of a hill and Morille was Caesar and his entire army.

Morille was having the time of her life.

But my kitchen door was ajar, and Alfred managed a heroic jump from the top of the fridge to the lintel, like a flying squirrel. He scurried out then grabbed hold of the climbing rose right above the door. When I got out and took this photo, he looked fairly stressed and pessimistic.

I didn't want him to climb the wall all the way to the eaves and go right back into my house, so I went back in to get my broom again, either to make him lose his grip and fall straight into Morille's gaping maw (sorry), or make him run away into the woods (inferior solution; they always find their way back, unless you take them very far away.)

(I used to trap dormice humanely then drive them 3km away to release them near the barn of a neighbour I disliked, but this neighbour has since moved. (Not because of my dormouse warfare, I swear.) There's also an abandoned house in the woods where I used to exile my prisoners, but after a while I started feeling silly driving around the countryside with dormice in the backseat, so I stopped trapping them (it really was a hassle) and just let the cats eat them.)

But Alfred is a combative and resourceful rodent. In the half-minute it took me to go back in and grab my broom, he laid a trap for me.

He ran along the stem of my climbing rose in such a way that his weight made it droop jussst enough to be now hanging at face level rather than above the door. So when I ran outside again with my broom, I was slapped in the face by a thorny rose plant. (For a minute I thought I was crying tears of blood, which seemed worrying, but it was just a scratch above my eye.) (I wish it could leave a tiny scar, so people will ask how I got it, and I will tell them about the mighty dormouse wielding a rose sword.)

I sent these pics to my brother hoping to get some sympathy, and he cropped & desaturated the one with the blood teardrop then sent it back with the comment "you look like an Evanescence song"

By this point I decided Alfred had won this battle. (Not the war, because it's almost autumn aka hibernation time so he probably found another gap between two stones and went right back inside. The war continues.) But this humble dormouse set a Saw trap to poke my eyes out the second I stepped outside my house and I respect that. I admire the way he used his environment to his advantage, and teamed up with my climbing rose to level the playing field (since I had teamed up with my cat first.) He has won the right to spend another winter inside my walls, curled up in my cosy wool insulation, dreaming of dried herbs, thwarted cats, and heroic skydiving from fridgetops.

Well played.

[scary-grace]

blind date (shigaraki x reader)

After endless failed attempts to help Tomura up his game, his friends have settled on their last resort: A blind date. Even before you show up, it's not going well. No quirks AU, 2k words.

this was originally in the x reader lovers community, but I figured I'd release it into the wild as well!

Part 1 Part 2

Part 1

Tomura gets being a little late. “A little late” is practically his middle name. He waits until the last minute to do almost everything, and that means any complications mean he’s running behind. Hypocrisy pisses him off so much that he tries to avoid it all costs, so that means he has to put up with it without bitching when somebody else is a little late, too.

Except half an hour isn’t a just a little late for anything, let alone a blind date Tomura didn’t want to go on in the first place. He’s been waiting outside the bar you were supposed to meet at for half an hour, and he’s pissed.

“That’s it,” he says after the eighteenth time a woman his age has walked past and hasn’t been you, whatever the hell you look like. “I’m out of here.”

“Just a little longer, honey,” Magne says. She’s smiling, but she’s also got her arm around Tomura’s shoulders, and if she squeezes any harder, Tomura’s going to pop like a balloon. “She’ll be here.”

“No, she won’t.” Tomura crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his hands in so nothing will bite them. They’re on the waterfront, in the summer, and there are insects everywhere. Whose dumb idea was this? “You showed her a photo of me and she changed her mind.”

“It’s a blind date,” Magne says. Like Tomura’s supposed to know what that means. “She doesn’t know what you look like, either. That’s why you have to stay right here and keep wearing that baseball hat. Otherwise she won’t know it’s you.”

Tomura hates the hat. Right now he hates everything. “So she got here on time, saw me, and left. Can I go?”

Magne shakes her head. “You promised you’d try.”

“I showed up. I waited for fucking half an hour. I’ve tried.” Tomura finally shoves Magne’s arm off his shoulders. “I’m done.”

Tomura wishes he could say he didn’t know how he got here, except he does. One of his friends is getting married, and there’s supposed to be a wild bachelor weekend in Vegas, one last blast of stupid before settling down. Most of the groomsmen are planning to hook up with as many people as possible, and that’s where the problems start. According to his friends, Tomura has no game. Zero game. Negative one hundred game. If he was rolling for his game stat, it would be a critical failure – and none of his friends want to babysit him when they could be getting laid.

Tomura wouldn’t want to babysit when he could be getting laid, either. His solution was to skip the bachelor weekend and just show up for the wedding in his stupid rented suit. But apparently his friends really want him to come to the party, and they decided that what he needed was to get some practice in before the trip. Which means that for the last month, Tomura’s spent every Friday night and weekend getting dragged through his own personal hell.

They made him try dating apps, which were a disaster, even though Tomura let Toga set up his profile and make the first move. Then they tried traditional online dating, which also sucked, because Tomura’s too picky and other people have standards. Hanging out in bars and clubs worked exactly how it’s always worked – it doesn’t – and when Dabi pulled out the big guns and dragged Tomura to the sex club where he met his fiancé, the only people who talked to Tomura were guys. Tomura thought that was sort of a good sign, even though he’s not into men, until he remembered that guys will fuck anything with a hole in it. He’s not high on himself on his best day, but that was a really shitty night.

He thought they were going to quit after that, but his friends had one last ace up their sleeve – a blind date, Magne’s idea, which Toga enthusiastically signed off on when she saw a picture of the woman Magne wanted to set Tomura up with. Toga’s type and Tomura’s type line up, sort of, and Spinner giving the photo two thumbs way up sealed the deal.

It’s not like Tomura was hopeful or anything. He just wanted to get his friends off his back. Still, rejection sucks, and ghosting sucks worse. He’d rather have you show up and tell him to his face that you weren’t interested than stand him up.

Magne collars Tomura again, but her phone starts ringing at the same time, Toga’s contact info popping up. “Don’t go anywhere,” she warns Tomura as she raises the phone to her ear. “We’re here. She’s not here yet. Can you tell him –”

Tomura ducks out from under her arm and books it into the crowd of people on the waterfront, figuring he can make it to the metro stop before Magne figures out which way he’s going. But even that can’t go his way today, because he runs into somebody who’s moving at warp speed in the opposite direction, colliding at the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. Tomura’s not confrontational, but it’s the wrong fucking day. “Can you watch where you’re going? It’s not like you matter to whoever you’re going to –”

“Are you Tomura?”

Tomura’s heart lurches. He stares hard at you as you right yourself, picking up the backpack you dropped in the collision. There’s no way this is happening. There’s no universe in which his blind date would be someone like you.

He can see right away why Toga and Spinner approved of you, but he thought you’d be someone in his league, not somebody who’s several kilometers above it. Maybe Tomura’s too excited that you actually showed up to evaluate what you actually look like. He looks away, then looks back. Nope – you’re still pretty, even though your face is flushed and you’re breathing hard like you’ve just been running. Did you run here to meet him? Only one way to find out. “I’m Tomura.”

“I’m so sorry,” you say. “My boss held me back at work, and I missed my train –”

You’re wearing some kind of work uniform. Scrubs, maybe. Are you a nurse? “And then I couldn’t decide whether to wait for another train or just run, so I ran – but I don’t really run, so it took even longer –”

Tomura doesn’t run, either. When he was doing the stupid online dating thing, he sorted out everybody who said more than one sentence about working out. You pause to suck down a breath, then keep talking. “I know everything I just said sounds like an excuse, and I know you’re leaving,” you say, “but I was hoping I could catch you so I could say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stand you up. I get it if you want to call it off.”

Before Tomura can answer or even think about what he’s going to say, Magne bursts out of the crowd. “I told you not to run off,” she scolds, collaring Tomura again. “If you don’t stay put, there’s no way she’s going to – oh! You’re here!”

You nod. Magne looks you up and down. “I told you to dress cute,” she scolds. “And to get here on time. I practically had to chain him to a streetlight so he wouldn’t escape.”

“I’m sorry,” you say. “My boss –”

“Of course,” Magne says, scowling. “He’s never met a good time he doesn’t want to ruin.”

Magne knows who your boss is? “How do you to know each other?”

“She’s a pharmacy tech at the place I go to pick up my E,” Magne says. “She’s the only one who works there who isn’t an asshole, and her boss is the biggest asshole of them all. I only go in there when she’s on and he’s off. But let me introduce you the right way. Shigaraki, this is – ”

Tomura misses your name the first time Magne says it, catches it the second time, but it barely registers except as something he probably shouldn’t forget. You’re pretty. You’re not an asshole, or at least you’re the same kind of asshole as Magne and everybody else Magne’s friends with, including Tomura. Your boss is the wrong kind of asshole, which means you probably didn’t blow Tomura off on purpose. And you ran here so you could meet him even when you knew you were really late. You must have really wanted to meet Tomura. What did Magne tell you about him?

Tomura can ask you about that later. “So?” Magne is saying expectantly. “Can I leave you two alone, or are you going to run away again?”

“No,” Tomura says. “You can go.”

You look surprised. “Um –”

“Now.”

Magne cackles. She snatches the hat off Tomura’s head, ruffles his hair, and slaps him on the back hard enough that he staggers. “Have fun! I want all the details later!”

“Sure,” you say, bewildered, as she kisses you on the cheek. Tomura’s going to have to talk to you about that – any details you share with Magne will be fair game for the rest of Tomura’s friends, and he’s not sure how much he wants them to know. “Um, bye.”

Magne waves and vanishes into the crowd. Now it’s just you and Tomura standing on the sidewalk. You shuffle off to one side, out of the way, and Tomura follows you. “Are you sure you still want to do this?” you ask once you’re both leaning against the railing. “I get it if you’re not in the mood. When I’ve gotten stood up, I haven’t wanted to –”

“You’ve never been stood up in your life,” Tomura says, and your expression changes from confused to offended. “Look at you.”

You look down at yourself, then back up at him. “What does that mean?”

“I didn’t know anything about you and I got here on time. If I knew what you looked like beforehand I’d have been two hours early.” It sounded like a compliment in Tomura’s head, but he can’t tell if you’re taking it that way. “People like you don’t get stood up for dates.”

“I wish that were true,” you say. You look away. “I know how it feels. I get it if you don’t want to go out anymore.”

Tomura pretends he’s thinking about it. “How far did you run to get here?”

“Sixteen blocks.”

“You ran sixteen blocks to meet me. That cancels out being late,” Tomura says. You look up, surprised for a second or two before the relief kicks in. “I still want to go out.”

“Me, too,” you say. You smile at him. Women don’t usually smile at Tomura. People don’t usually smile at Tomura. He doesn’t know what to do with it. “Thanks, Tomura. For giving me a chance.”

“Yeah,” Tomura says. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t really know,” you admit. “It’s been a while since I went on a date.”

“Same,” Tomura says. ‘Never’ counts as a while in his book. “I don’t know – grab drinks or something?”

You nod. “Can we find somewhere to sit down for a second first? I don’t usually run that much, and I don’t want to pass out on you.”

“You can pass out on me if you want,” Tomura says. You blink. Tomura facepalms even though you’re looking right at him. “There are benches back there.”

The crowd on the sidewalk is only getting denser. Tomura doesn’t want to get separated from you, so he tells you to hold onto the back of his shirt. You grab his hand instead, and you’re still holding it when the two of you find a place to sit down. Still holding it once you’re both settled, searching for something to talk about. Tomura’s not optimistic about this. You’re too good to be true – the kind of woman who’d run sixteen blocks to meet him and hold his hand is a kind of woman who doesn’t exist. Even so, it’s – nice. Tomura laces his fingers with yours and decides to enjoy it while it lasts.

[seat-safety-switch]

Well, it's been a good run, but they've finally done it to me. My home province has, at long last, and after many years of threats, made truck-owning a mandatory part of citizenship. All those impoverished small-car freaks can't vote anymore. Which is good, since they were just voting for things like "bike lanes" and "turns" that were hampering the economic productivity of the right-thinking, truck-owning majority.

At first, I was very upset. After a traumatic formative experience around the Ford Courier, I had sworn off truck ownership forever. When I was searching my backyard, though, I found that I apparently own an old '76 International 150. Don't know where it came from: I'm operating on the assumption that someone was driving by, saw a whole bunch of cars in my yard, and decided I wouldn't get upset if they dumped one in there. Was it used in the commission of a crime? Not with that asthmatic rattletrap V8 under the hood, that's for sure. Or at least not successfully.

Back to it, though: now, with proof of ownership, I could regain my lost citizenship. I could access health care and have running water, again, and even visit the Home Depot, which now has so many trucks in the parking lot that the depreciation curve on their leases can be seen from the International Space Station. Despite the fact that my truck is "small," it still counted as a way to hobnob with the hoi polloi and not be sent directly to a re-education camp, as they had done to all the undesirable "van people." Turns my stomach, the idea that vans are often built on a truck chassis. Disgusting propaganda.

Anyway, as we've learned from so many other economic and political crises, the only solution is to vote our way out of it. When it comes time for the next election, I'll come pick a few of you "regular people" up at a time and drive you to the polling place. That ought to fool the guards. It's going to cost you, sure: hope you have some old Plymouth parts in your garage. All worth it, though, to wrest control of the apparatus from those who would do us harm, and return our country to the way it used to be, where kids could go to school even if their parents only owned a luxury crossover.

[theyrealllesbians]

Regulus was manically pacing around his room, playing with the cord at the base of the phone.

"What do you mean there's another one?" He asked in an exasperated tone, rubbing the bridge of his nose to try and fight the annoyed headache he could feel brewing.

"Another wedding invitation has just come for you, from Emmaline Vance? Wait was she the one who was obsessed with Peter and would try to dance with him at every party for like a year?" Sirius said, getting progressively louder and more excited as he carried on.

"Yes." Regulus bit out. He really could not be bothered to go to another wedding. Why did everyone want to get married all of a sudden, it's only been a couple, wait no 7 years, since he left high school. God, how had it been 7 years already? "Surely I don't have to go. I can just RSVP back saying 'thanks, but no thanks' that'll work right?"

Regulus didn't even really understand why he was getting so many invitations. He'd had 5 wedding invites so far, 2 baby showers which he was not going to and 2 reunion dinners. Of course his own brother's wedding invitation was not included in this list of grievances. He's never dare complain about having to watch the happiest day of Sirius's life. Even just hearing him and Remus try and sort out the last few details made his heart warm in a way that he would never dare admit to.

"Come on, you have to!" Sirius exclaimed. "Everyone will want to see you. Besides all of us," 'us' being Sirius, Remus, James, Peter, Lily, Mary, Marlene and Dorcas, "are going and I refuse to spend another evening answering a million questions about you when you could just get over yourself and come!!!!"

Sirius was referring to the last high school reunion that happened 2 years ago that he had refused to go to. Apparently, Sirius spent the whole night getting asked about Regulus's whereabouts and what he was doing, if it was true that he had refused to work in the family business, whether he was gay and if so, was he single?

"Ugh," he groaned, "if I do go, and that's an if! I'll need a date. Where am I supposed to get a date on such short notice." Regulus's head was now beginning to ache as it had threatened to do so at the thought of having to sit through a wedding with someone he barely knew just to show that he wasn't alone and that he was doing well for himself.

"I don't know, do I? I mean you don't have to have a date." Sirius suggested, speaking through a mouth of some form of food.

"I do though don't I, otherwise I'll just get pitying looks the entire night. Or worse, people coming up to me trying to ask me out." He shivered at the thought.

Sirius choked a little, "That's a bit cocky don't you think?"

"No I don't think it is actually, not after I had Gideon touching my knee last month asking if I'd 'be interested in a night to remember', I cannot do that again. I just can't," he whined. He may as well have stomped his feet to go along with the toddler type tantrum he was getting close to. But Regulus did not care, he was being entirely serious when he said he could not do it again.

"Fine then, go with Barty?" Sirius suggested.

"Can't he's already going with Evan." Regulus responded, damning them both because it wouldn't be a half bad idea.

"Act as if you're in a throuple, you could pull it off." Sirius teased.

"Sirius" Regulus whined again, he needed real solutions.

"Pandora?"

"Doesn't really work now that everyone knows I'm gay." Regulus was getting tired now, why did he call his brother again? Oh right he didn't, Sirius called him because Regulus is currently on a work trip and Sirius is watering his plants and clearly snooping through his post.

"Well, I don't have any other ideas. This is why you need more friends." Sirius said matter of factly.

"To have as back up wedding guests?"

"Yes, that's what we do all the time. I don't actually think that anyone really knows who is with who. Oh, you could go with James. I don't think he was planning to go with anyone."

"Yeah, pass." He would not go with James Potter. Not for any particular reason, he just couldn't.

"Right well, I can't help you"

"Apparently so. I'm gonna go" Regulus just needed to lie down and think about what he was gonna do. He still had a month to figure it all out.

"Alright, see you soon, call me if you need anything else." Sirius said, trying to maintain his 'helpful' older brother personality that he had built.

"Yep will do, bye." Regulus hung up.

He really hated wedding season.

Just had this idea, it will be Jegulus. Kinda fake dating/ friends to lovers type deal. I'm actually pretty excited to start writing it and have quite a few ideas already.

[mothhball]

II – VIRIDIS

viridis – marked by youthful vigor

JONATHAN CRANE X FEM!READER

summary Drinking your woes away was a temporary solution, and it ends up in tears. But even in the darkest night, there's the chance of a silver lining. Just be sure you're well-informed about your shiny spark of hope.

warnings NEEDLES, BLOOD SAMPLE, very mild medfet (a whisper for now), alcohol, reader gets drunk, some mildly foul language, unhappy relationship,

notes oooo longer chapter! and things are MOVING

! MINORS DNI !

story masterlist • main masterlist • taglist • kofi word count: 5.2k

The news themselves were already bad, but even worse was the pity from everyone you told about the rejection. Behind every sympathetic smile and half-hug was a hidden “I told you so” that no one said out loud, but was obvious enough.

Despite what people told you, apparently no one had believed that you could make it in the first place, and that realization caused a rage to burn and fester within your guts. A rage which found no outlet since that wretched Thursday that you since then blacked out with a fat sharpie from your calendar. Reading that letter felt like repeatedly getting hit over the head with a steel pipe, beating you into a pathetic, bloody pulp right where you were standing in your kitchen. Your boyfriend tried to rub your back, but you bristled and immediately turned away from him, scowling like it was him specifically who sent the rejection. His little pout disgusted you. But what made you actually nauseous was the relief in his eyes. Never once, in 3 years of this relationship, did you resent him like you did on that Thursday afternoon. Bitter, seething resentment which almost caused you to lash out at him like a riled-up dog.

But instead, you chose to take the high road. Or rather you fled, left the apartment and drove over to your best friend Mina’s to cry and shout into one of her lovely couch pillows. The smart, admirable choice would’ve been to write an email to Potomac. To timidly ask Dr. Rabin to turn a blind eye and allow you to send in a late application. But every time your fingers hovered over the keys of your old, ratty laptop, the embarrassment was too much, and you slammed it shut once more, leaving the unfinished request behind. But your boyfriend Tristan, in his seemingly endless quest of half-heartedly trying to manage your future, urged you to send the email. So, you did. At least that’s what you told him. A little white lie to let him keep his peace of mind. 

Your mood only got worse towards the weekend, prompting a few of your friends and your boyfriend to drag you off to do the responsible thing. Get drunk and shake off the tension during a night out. And now here you are, downing shots on a Saturday night in an attempt to forget your woes at least for a little while.

The club is packed and stuffy, and the lights flicker over a mass of people that seems to have grown into one hive mind of an entity, allowing you to feel swallowed and anonymous for just a few blissful hours. Every mouthful of alcohol that you swallow works in your favor to numb the anxiety gnawing at your bones while the bass gently licks at your feverish skin, causing your heart to vibrate in your ribcage. It’s easy to lose yourself in sips of colorful shots and cocktails. At least until a firm hand on your shoulder prevents you from placing another order. Turning your head, you’re met by Tristan’s disgruntled eyes, and before you can shake off his grip, he’s already pulling you away from the bar to a relatively quiet spot in another hallway of the club. Still, he has to raise his voice when he speaks to you, already laying the foundation for a screaming match.

“What are you doing??” he asks, giving you a once over that only serves to further sour his mood.

“What do you mean? I’m just having a couple of drinks,” you slur back at him, returning that nasty look he’s sending you. Tristan scoffs, shaking his head like you’re a lost cause, even though he’s not exactly sober either.

“You’re getting wasted. Are you still sulking over that rejection? Jesus…”

That actually makes your jaw drop, and you’re speechless for a few seconds, which your boyfriend takes as his cue to continue.

“Just let it go. Some things aren’t meant to be. It’s better this way”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” you hiss back at him, curling your fingers tightly into the fabric of the little dress you’re wearing.

“I… Listen, we both know Arkham isn’t… your style. You… you’re not that kind of person –“ Tristan sighs, somehow trying to make his statement seem less insulting and vague by waving his hands around in your face.

“The kind of person to what??”

“The kind of person who’d make it there! You would’ve quit after two weeks! Let’s be real for once. And then you’d have to start over again and you would have to wait yet another semester to graduate!” Every word that leaves his mouth pisses you off even more, and a truly ugly emotion rears its head within you. Things are escalating. You still have half a mind to realize it. You should call it a night, go home and talk things out in the morning. But this is the first time that Tristan is being brutally honest about your career choices.

“Oh, I didn’t know it was a race, Tristan! How silly of me! I’ll make sure to plan every future decision around your life schedule from now on!” You get in his face, venom dripping off of every shouted syllable that slips from your tongue a little too easily.

“You’re putting words in my mouth! I never said I wanted you to plan your life around me! I’m just worried! All of my friend’s girlfriends –“

“So that’s what this is about? The girlfriends of your little business school friend group?? Am I part of some weird dick measuring contest?” You continue before he gets a word in, asking a question that’s been burning in your throat for a few months now.

“Are you ashamed of me??”

You’re met with silence. Silence that’s so obviously an answer in itself that it causes your heart to slip out of your chest and shatter on the sticky floor below. Tristan notices the devastated expression on your face, but his drunken audacity eggs him on to double down. 

“I wouldn’t have to be if you just acted like an adult! You can’t always get what you want! For fuck’s sake, just be happy with what you have for once!” You wish you had a drink you could throw in his face. But your hands are empty, shaking with anger and disappointment. You can’t look at him anymore.

“Screw you, Tristan.” And with that, you turn, leaving him standing there while you rush to find an exit as tears well up in your eyes. He doesn’t make a move to follow you, and it simultaneously calms and saddens you even more. 

Navigating the club is even more complicated with your blurred vision, and you bump into a few people, no doubt spilling a few overpriced drinks in the process. But you’re either too fast or they’re too drunk to really do anything about it.

Finally, finally, you make it outside, choking out a strangled noise that’s a pathetic mix between a sob and a whine, and you quickly duck into a nearby alley to give way to the tears. You’re drunk and overly emotional, you try to rationalize with yourself, but it doesn’t lessen the ache in any way. So, pressing a palm over your mouth, you reluctantly allow yourself to cry. The night air is icy, but fresh enough to comfort you and slowly clear up the lump in your throat, and after some cathartic five minutes, you start to calm down again. Your tears run black at this point, dragging your favorite mascara down your cheeks, and you sniffle as you into your purse to grab a compact mirror and assess the damage. 

It's in that moment when your phone display lights up, alerting you to an incoming call. Your stomach twists into knots as you fish the phone out of your purse. A call from Tristan might make things worse, and you’re not really in the mood to talk to him right now, so – 

But the call isn’t coming from your boyfriend. Your eyes widen before they narrow into slits, and annoyance bubbles up within your chest. There on the phone display, proudly displayed as the caller ID is Dr. Jonathan Crane’s name. Your thumb hovers over the glass before you decide to pick up the call. As soon as you hear his voice, annoyance gives way to a little spark of hope. It also serves to sober you up a little. You barely have time to rasp out a “Hello?” before he speaks, sounding almost relieved that you picked up.

“I know that calling at such a late hour is quite unusual, but I’m glad I could get ahold of you before it was too late. Believe me, I was just as surprised as you most likely were. To be frank, I was so certain that you'd be joining us that I didn't even check the list to confirm it.” Papers rustle on his end of the line. He must still be in his office.

“Yeah, I… I was optimistic as well. Maybe… Maybe a little too much,” you admit softly, trying to concentrate on your words to avoid slurring. Crane hums, and you can’t tell if it’s in understanding or amusement. Reading him in person was already hard enough, but it’s nigh impossible over the phone.

“Tell you what, I believe you dodged a bullet. I clarified with the other staff members what the responsibilities of those interns will be, and that wouldn’t be right for you. Sorting files and sitting in on group therapy sessions at the Low Security Wing? No, that would be a waste of your time. You’re not that kind of person. Which is why I’m offering you something else.”

You lick your dry lips, still tasting the salt of your tears and some last traces of your lipstick. For a second, you’re unsure if you heard him correctly. “Something else?”

Crane glosses over your question, and in your mind you understand. This might be sensitive information. Drunk-You feels a little like a spy, keeping a secret from Tristan who would surely be mad that you’re even talking to the director of Arkham Asylum right now.

“Are you free to come in tomorrow? I know it’s quite late already –“

“Yes. Yes, I am,” you interrupt, feeling brave. 

“Good. Then let’s meet in my office at… let’s say… 10 am? Is that alright?”

“I… uh, absolutely.” You quickly rummage through your purse, using a lip liner and an old receipt to haphazardly write down the appointment. “I’ll be there.”

“Perfect. Enjoy the rest of your night,” he says before he hangs up right after. You have no chance to say goodbye properly as the line clicks. Maybe it’s for the best. Knowing yourself, you would’ve wished him a great night as well with the addition of a plea to “get home safe”, which would’ve been a little much.

When you head back inside, you’re spotted by your worried friends and an indifferent Tristan, and dear GOD, the urge to boast and gloat has never been this strong before in your life. But you stay quiet as you put on a smile, avoiding to look at your boyfriend. You stay quiet as your group gets into a taxi, and stay quiet as you get back home and head straight for your bed. “You’re not that kind of person” was something you heard twice in one night. And only once did it feel right.

The pounding ache in your skull serves as your alarm clock the next day, tearing you out of a restless sleep only 10 minutes before you were supposed to get up anyway. A frown finds its way onto your features as you tiptoe out of the bedroom, catching a glimpse of the still sleeping Tristan on the couch in the living room. Neither of you have said a word to each other since the fight, and you'll be damned if you start the conversation about something he messed up in the first place.

You walk past him, feeling the cold surface of the floorboards beneath your feet as you head into the bathroom to try to make yourself look (and smell) presentable. The stench of alcohol leaves your tongue after brushing and rinsing with mouthwash thrice, and an overindulgence of body wash in the shower solves everything else. The final touch is a generous amount of concealer under your eyes, and you're surprised that you actually pass off as someone who doesn't have an awful hangover right now.

Getting dressed is another challenge, though. You can't exactly say that Drunk-You had the gift of foresight to pick a suitable outfit for your second meeting with Dr. Crane, so you dig through your closet to make yourself look presentable. Your fingers wander over the different fabrics, tracing cotton and polyester, wool and tweed as you grumble to yourself. Christ, this shouldn’t feel like rocket science.

This dreadful indecisiveness eats up a sizeable chunk of your time, and as you button up your blouse, you realize how late it suddenly is.

Breakfast consists of an aspirin and a large black coffee, and you make sure to let the coffee machine shriek as loudly as it wants just to spite Tristan a little more before you rush out of the apartment. 

This time around, the drive to Arkham Asylum feels a little more familiar. You still depend heavily on your GPS, but you remember some of the turns and streets, and you don’t feel as tiny and insignificant as you did a week ago. You’re here with an explicit purpose now. Crane knows who you are and asked you to come back nevertheless.

Upon entering the still intimidating building, you stop by the reception again, spotting a familiar face. The receptionist seems just as surprised to see you, sharp eyes flicking down to a visitor's list that seems to confirm the validity of your return before she points a manicured nail towards the security check. You raise your hand to wave at her as you pass. She doesn't wave back. Oh well, you can't get them all.

The maze of a third-floor feels straightforward as well today, made possible by the ever-present red lines guiding you to your destination. This time, you're able to meet Crane in his office, and his request to enter can be heard through the door after the first knock.

Everything still looks the same as you enter, save for his now orderly desk. The chaos of files from back then is now a neat stack that the doctor rests his folded hands atop. You open your mouth to greet him, but Crane speaks first, completely catching you off-guard.

"The bunny is back. I'm glad to see it."

"Excuse me?" You blink at him before you look down at yourself. No, no bunny-themed clothes or accessories anywhere that might have given him the idea to call you that. You’re drawing a blank. Unsure whether this is part of a hazing process or an inside joke you must’ve missed, you lift your gaze back up to him. There’s a fleeting look of sardonic amusement on his face before he reels himself back in to elaborate.

“That's what you reminded me of the first time you came here. Glancing around, all skittish and frightened in the hallway…” he explains, already turning his head away from you to reach into one of his desk drawers and retrieve a folder. Your folder. “Please, close the door and take a seat. We’re already running low on time.”

After following his instructions, you find yourself sitting in the same chair from a week ago, foregoing the act of presenting yourself as a confident person. It’s no use, anyway. Crane already knows you’re desperate. It’s seeping out of your every pore, giving your worries a rich and sweet taste that the director of Arkham seems to indulge in for a moment. At least, that’s what you assume based on the expression in his cold eyes. You’re no fool. It’s basically a guarantee that his offer will bite you in the ass in some way or another. 

“You must be a little put-off by this meeting. It’s not exactly orthodox to ask you to come in on a Sunday, but I read the list of this year’s interns just minutes before I called you last night. And that was purely by chance. Like I said, I was positive you’d be one of them.” Crane opens your folder, but his eyes stay on your face. “I have no idea what goes on in the heads of my staff sometimes, and now I’m fairly certain it can’t be much. But I don’t intend to waste a person like you.”

You shift in your seat, listening intently to every word that leaves his lips. It’s your lifeline. And he knows it.

“So, I am making you an offer. Just promise to listen first,” he says, and one of his eyebrows twitches upwards at the intensity in your gaze. “The position I’m offering you would be exclusive. It won’t be approved by anyone else but me and it technically didn’t exist before I made up my mind about it. I am offering you the position of intern assistant.”

Your eyes widen. Even in his darkroom of an office, it feels like the air just became lighter and the colors brighter. Crane lifts a finger, continuing his offer.

“No surface scratching – You’d be my shadow. Which means more work and responsibilities, but also more privileges, more insight, more knowledge. I’ll teach you what you need to know to get ahead in this field, and by the end of it, your fellow students will eat your dust. Your professors as well, if I’m being honest.”

Before you can even respond, he’s already reaching back into his desk, pulling out a massive stack of paperwork. And then the rushing begins. Crane checks his watch, clicking his tongue before he pushes the documents over to you, along with a fountain pen.

“How long would it take you to read this? I have to hand this in within the next 50 minutes to make sure you’re cleared in time. If you even accept my offer, that is. It’s a terrible time crunch, I know, but I’d really like to have you as a member of staff in one week.”

Tentatively, you reach out for the fountain pen, twirling it around in your fingers for a moment as you think about his offer. This hesitancy only causes him to lean forward and flip through the first pages, pointing out a handful of sections for only a few seconds each before he moves on.

“It’s the regular stuff, I guess. Everything I just told you in cumbersome wording. I really wish I could take my time and go through each page with you, but the circumstances just won’t allow it. If you have any questions, I’ll gladly answer all of them once you’ve signed.”

It’s shady as hell. A red flag that’s so glaringly obvious that it makes you wonder how Crane can keep a straight expression. But this is your one chance of getting a look behind the scenes. Your one chance of proving them wrong. Professor Campbell, Tristan, everyone who doubted you could do it. This could go horribly wrong. But it could also be your ticket into the big leagues. Shadowing the asylum’s director would be a privilege that no one else gets. A chance to make connections and grow. Not to mention that your résumé would look incredible with Crane’s recommendation attached to it.

Hell, he may be exploiting you, but who says you can’t exploit him right back? It’s your good right to milk this opportunity as much as you can.

Meanwhile, the psychiatrist continues to ramble on, rattling off half-apologies and made-up reasons why you have to sign as quickly as possible once he reaches the last page of the contract. The page where you have to place your signature on the intended line. Both of you are surprised by how quickly you sign it. 

As you place the cap back onto the fountain pen, it feels like the air has been sucked out of the room, creating a vacuum in which both of you seem to grapple with the reality that you’d be stuck to Dr. Crane’s side for a few months, following every step and instruction of his. You manage to break the silence first.

“There. I have questions now.”

“Of course. I already expected as much,” Crane says as he pulls the freshly signed contract back to his side of the desk, staring down at your signature as if he’s half expecting it to jump off the paper. But then he places the thick document back into the drawer it came from, letting out a quiet breath. You notice that he seems significantly more at ease now, movements once again patient and effortlessly measured, and your brows furrow a little as you speak.

“What’s my hourly rate?”

“There’s nothing of the sort, I’m afraid.” Your blood runs cold at his nonchalance, and your lips part to protest when he cuts you off. “You will be working the same hours as me. And since my overtime and schedule is a little unpredictable at times, we will just have to see. You will be paid at the end of the month, however. The amount will depend on how much we actually did.”

“I… alright.” You bite your tongue, even though your displeasure is obvious. Nevertheless, you proceed with your second question. “You mentioned more responsibilities. I guess there’s a catch, then? Or a few?”

Crane chuckles, getting up from his chair to walk over to a cabinet in search of something specific. He speaks to you from over his shoulder.

“Right to the point. Wonderful. But yes, there are a few peculiarities that come with the position. Starting with – You’re not afraid of needles, are you?”

He closes the cabinet, returning to the desk with a little tray containing various items.

“We’ll start with a mandatory blood sample. I hope this isn’t a problem. I just need to know that my assistant is in peak condition. And didn’t smoke anything on the way here.”

You want to scoff, but swallow the sound at the last second. The fact that you took offense to his unspoken accusation is written across your face, and Crane doesn’t comment any further on it as he sets the tray down on the desk and pulls his chair closer to yours.

“I’m fine with needles,” you murmur, already pulling up your sleeve.

“No trypanophobia? A shame,” Crane chuckles, sitting down again before he reaches out for your arm. Your doubts whether he’s even qualified to do this as a psychiatrist vanish the moment his hands come in contact with your skin. He’s cold. Almost uncomfortably cold as his fingers brush over the bend of your elbow in search of a suitable vein. Once he’s successful, he picks a tourniquet from the tray of equipment and fastens it around your upper arm. His movements seem too perfect to be experienced. As if he’s a green med student working with the textbook perched on his lap. As if he’d burst into flame if he did something wrong.

“So, about the catch,” he continues, grabbing a bottle of disinfectant and spraying it over the spot he picked on your arm. Surprisingly, the liquid isn’t much colder than his touch. “Since you’ll be my shadow, you’re also required to accompany me to appointments outside of Arkham. Conferences, meetings… so on and so forth. I also have some upcoming court dates within the next few months. Obviously, I’m not the defendant. I’m just an advisor.”

You nod along to his words, eyes following his hands as he rubs disinfectant into his own skin before he pulls on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. Crane stretches the material over his hands until it’s taut, making it squeak before he shifts closer until his knees touch yours. At this proximity, you can smell his cologne, and the combination throws you off a little. It’s mainly sandalwood and bergamot, but there’s a hint of something else you can’t quite grasp. Something chemical, almost acidic. The psychiatrist continues to speak, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“Another catch is that there’s a required dress code for you. As my assistant, you need to always look presentable. You can’t be running around looking like a hobo since your actions and appearance will reflect on me as well. And I’d rather not be associated with… any of those cheap trends that seem to be popular with the bottom of the barrel nowadays. You’ll have to give me your clothing size so I can prepare a new wardrobe for you. It’ll just save us time in the long run.”

Your brows furrow, but his request seems reasonable. “Alright. I suppose that’s fair,” you say, watching closely as he runs his thumb over the bend of your elbow. Then, he presses down to anchor the vein. It’s right in this moment when he decides to drop another bombshell.

“Which brings me to probably the biggest drawback in all of this.”

Your eyes flicker up to meet his. He’s already looking at your face, watching for the slightest twitch in your expression.

“You’ll have to stay at my place for the duration of your internship.”

What follows is a solid minute of deafening silence. Your pulse races, thumping softly against the pad of Crane’s thumb. He can tell you’re displeased, and he frowns a little, surprisingly empathetic.

“What?” you manage to croak out, swallowing dryly.

“Believe me, I spent all night trying to come up with a better solution. Sometimes, I get emergency calls in the middle of the night and it’s vital that you’re there with me. Those cases are the real deal. They’re raw and unfiltered, often much more than incidents that happen during the day. And as you told me during your interview, you live quite far away from here.”

You nod stiffly, gaze dropping to where he’s still pressing his thumb down on your arm. Crane can see and feel how uneasy this condition makes you, and he tries to lessen the blow.

“You’ll have your own bathroom and bedroom, of course. We will only share the kitchen and living room. And the laundry room, but I suppose that is the least of your worries. I won’t bother you.”

When he sees that you’re still not too happy, he quickly adds, “You can also tell me to be quiet whenever I mention work after hours.”

This at least gets a reaction from you. You force yourself to crack a smile, meeting his eyes once more.

“Okay. I’ll hold you to it.”

“Perfect.” The psychiatrist nods, wasting no time uncapping a butterfly needle and puncturing your skin with it. The sudden sting almost makes you flinch, but his grip suddenly is so tight that you don’t get any wiggle room. You watch as your blood travels down through the attached tube, filling up a small sample bottle and shortly after, a second one.

“You’re pretty brave for a bunny,” he jokes, setting your blood samples down on the tray before he releases the tourniquet and reaches for some gauze. His eyes stay on yours the entire time as he pulls out the needle and presses the gauze against your arm, soaking up your discomfort in a way that only fascinated scientists are capable of. 

“Press down.”

You mutter a “sure” as you obey his instruction, relieved when he finally turns away from you to discard the needle and his gloves. The final touch is a little band-aid over the tiny puncture wound, and you keep your hand over it as Crane pushes his chair back into its rightful place and takes a seat once more. He studies one of the full sample tubes as he speaks up again.

“You must be a little overwhelmed right now. Which is understandable, don’t get me wrong. But I’d like for you to go home and start packing your most important belongings. I’ll text you my address and will take care of the rest. You just need to show up next Sunday and get started on Monday.”

“Do I need to bring anything in specific? Like… a notebook or something?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You’ll get your stationery and other supplies here. I’ll make sure to try to organize you a separate desk. Maybe even one of the more comfortable office chairs. But I can’t really promise any luxuries.”

“I know this establishment oftentimes seems like a revolving door when it comes to staff applying and quitting. But I don't want that with you.” Crane tears his eyes away from your blood sample, giving you his undivided attention again. “There won't be an easy way out, however. Either you prove yourself and do your job until the end of your internship, or else there will be no certificate and you'll have to try your luck elsewhere. And I hate to worry you, but getting a job without one of my letters of recommendation might be a little tricky. But I assure you, that's the absolute worst-case scenario."

You let out a little breath and nod, straightening in your chair. Your mind is already racing, spinning around in a colorful variety that ranges from dread to genuine excitement. The biggest problem, however, is that you will have to break the news to your boyfriend. The thought makes you a little nauseous, but if Crane notices it, he’s generous enough not to mention it. 

Your goodbyes are brief, and you’re still holding your hand over the band aid as you leave the building and reach your car. Dark clouds are brewing overhead, announcing one of Gotham’s common rainy afternoons, and it already smells earthy with a hint of wet concrete.

The drive home doesn’t take as much time as you would’ve liked, even though you’re stopped plenty of times by red lights or passing cop cars with their sirens turned on. No, you reach the apartment much too soon, climbing the stairs with a heavy heart and sweaty palms. The band aid feels like it’s burning a hole into your flesh, hidden away underneath your sleeve. A secret hint of the meeting with Crane. Your key hovers in front of the lock on your front door as you freeze. Telling Tristan about the internship would mean telling him about your impending new living arrangements. Yes, you’d get the satisfaction of proving him wrong about your capabilities, but he’d blow up about everything else. Even worse, what if he reports the conditions of your internship? What if he ruins everything before it has even begun? 

Another big fight doesn’t fit into your schedule either. Neither does a breakup. Taking a breath, you unlock the door and step into the apartment, almost immediately meeting Tristan in the hallway. Time freezes for a moment, and then you say the first thing that comes to mind.

“I need to pack. They want me back at Potomac.”

It’s okay, right? It’s no big deal. After all, it’s just another little white lie to let him keep his peace of mind.

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[alexanderwales]

Castle Solutions was the only time travel company in the world. They had a giant corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago, which was the only place in the entire world with a time machine, at least as far as anyone knew. They were worth hundreds of billions, and the only reason they weren't worth more seemed to be that they didn't care all that much about money. The time machines were used for everything: reporting, media, market corrections, the surveillance state, and industry. Castle Solutions was the lynchpin of the modern world.

Daniel had thought the waiting room would be nicer.

He sat in a blue-gray chair that would have been at home in any waiting room anywhere else in Chicago. Slightly tinny music played over speakers from the ceiling. A fake potted plant sat in one corner, failing to look lively. There were no windows, because the waiting room was deep in the heart of the building, close to the machine itself.

Daniel was the only one in the waiting room. He'd come half an hour early, lugging all his gear, and now the only thing left was for the clock to run down. A bored-looking woman had come in to tell him that it might be awhile, that they were running behind schedule — the time travel company, running behind schedule. So there had been more waiting than expected.

A man in a charcoal gray suit with a simple blue backpack came in. He slung the backpack down onto the ground with a sigh and rubbed his face. He had stubble there, but an artful amount of it, like he'd spent some time in the mirror making sure that it was the right amount of scruff to offset his expensive suit.

Daniel looked straight ahead, trying not to look, keeping his face blank, like he was passing by a homeless person who might ask him for money he didn't have.

"Wow, you've got a lot of stuff," said the man. "Is that a sword?"

"It's a katana," said Daniel. He didn't match the eye contact the man was giving him.

"Oh, cool," said the man. "You're going to ... katana times?"

"Edo Japan, yeah," said Daniel.

Daniel was trying his best not to engage, to get this conversation over as quickly as possible. He wasn't making eye contact.

The man picked up his backpack and moved across the waiting room to be closer to Daniel.

"You speak Japanese?" the man asked.

"Hai, watashi wa nihongo o hanashimasu," replied Daniel. He wished that he were more fluent, that the words had come out less rote.

"Cool," said the man. He had apparently also come closer to get a look at all of Daniel's stuff. His eyes moved over the duffel bags. There wasn't much to see, everything had been carefully packed away. "Wow, you sure are prepared, huh?"

"It's a different time and place," said Daniel with a shrug. It represented five years of planning, five years of training, learning, honing himself.

"Personally, I'm going to 1946," said the man, though Daniel hadn't asked. He held out his hand. "Archie Vedder."

Daniel reluctantly took the hand. "Daniel Strom." He had never really gotten the hang of shaking hands. He worried that his hands were too clammy, a worry that proved founded when Archie wiped his hand on that expensive charcoal suit.

"I went with the kit," said Archie, pointing to his backpack. "I've got papers, I've got a computer with a backup, I've got a projector, a media library, a science library, the whole works, plus some forged bonds and a stack of cash. I got a sweet deal on it, they're overstocked now."

Retreating into the past had seen its heyday. Now most of the people who had been most enthusiastic were gone, and there were only the dissenters left. Everyone agreed with using the machine for the mundane stuff, but simply leaving, never to return, rubbed people the wrong way.

"I guess they don't sell kits for Edo," Archie ventured.

"They do," said Daniel. "They're trash."

"Ah," said Archie.

"This is all custom," said Daniel. "Higher quality, field tested, everything I'll need to set myself up there." Only some of it was stock. He had two computers, three smartphones, chargers and plugs, solar panels, replacement batteries, and redundant media libraries and science libraries.

Archie raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean, field tested? Because people don't come back. You're there for good, right?"

What it actually meant was that Daniel had gone out into a field and tested it, made sure that it worked under various conditions, set himself up like he might be explaining all this to a carefully chosen daimyo. There was only so much that camping in the woods and taking dry run vacations could tell him though.

"Some of it is theory," said Daniel. "Research."

"Yeah, see, that's why I went with 1946," said Archie. "It's really well-trod. You know, I was reading an article the other day that maybe the Baby Boom was a little overstated? Like, we're obviously living in the wake of time travelers, but that's the prime time to come back, anywhere from 1946 to 1960. The economy is doing well, tech is advancing, it's familiar enough. The culture is so close you can sell some stuff from a media library, it's brilliant. You're five steps away from becoming a multimillionaire in a time when that meant something."

"Sure," said Daniel.

"Any reason you're doing hard mode?" asked Archie. "I mean, samurai and ninjas are cool, sure, but —"

"It's not about that," said Daniel.

"Alright, sure," shrugged Archie.

Daniel looked over at the waiting room's lone clock. You would think that a waiting room for a time travel company would have better clocks, but it was a cheap utilitarian design, thin plastic and wobbly hands.

"What's it about then?" asked Archie.

"I was going to go with a friend," said Daniel. "We had practiced together, trained together. Then he got cancer."

"Ah, shit," said Archie.

"He lived," said Daniel. "He's fine. But he's on medications now, and will be for the rest of his life, and he can't go anymore."

"Huh," said Archie. "So there's a friend who you're leaving behind?"

"No," said Daniel. "I mean ... this was what we did together. We talked about it a lot. We read history books and practiced crafts and skills. At the start, I didn't really take it that seriously, it was just a hobby, but I got invested, and I guess I kept seeing it as — I don't know."

"I mean for me, it's a way out," said Archie. "Most people feel that way, yeah? My wife filed for divorce, I got fired from my job, so hey, time to start over in 1946, pretend I'm part of the Greatest Generation, ride the waves I know are coming. Exploit it."

Daniel grimaced. The Vietnam War, segregation, the Red Scare? People had a rosy view of that time. He'd never felt particularly aligned with people like Archie who were just looking to make a quick buck.

"Oh come on," said Archie. "You think you're better than me? You're a, you know, what's the word. Colonizer."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "No."

"What, just 'no', it's not, you know, what we did to the Native Americans?" asked Archie. "The whole 'conquer the past' thing?"

"I'm a single person," said Daniel. "I'm bringing back things that will change their culture forever, but I'm not an agent of my country, and even if I were, I think those people who want to be a god king are morons. And sorry, I'm not spending my last minutes in the present on badly rehashing a debate I've had a thousand times already."

"Why not?" asked Archie. "See, I think having arguments right before you go is great. You can leave on a high note. I've spent the last few days saying whatever the hell I wanted to people. It's great. I went to my dad and said 'hey, you were a terrible father, I never liked you, and it's sad that you thought I needed your approval'. And then you know what's hilarious? I get to just walk away and never be seen again. How's that for a power move? How's that for a mic drop?"

"Seems immature," said Daniel.

"Well, see, I'm actually fine being immature," said Archie with a little laugh. "And when this conversation is done, one or both of us is going into the past, never to be seen nor heard from again, and isn't that great? You don't like me, I don't like you, and then we're strangers again."

Daniel had been looking straight ahead, but he turned to Archie after that. "You don't like me?" he asked. "You don't know me."

"I know your type," said Archie. He leaned back. "You spent what, three years cooking up a plan, making this trip back in time your entire personality, and now you think you're better than me, better than everyone, like you've got it all figured out. You talked yourself into throwing away everything you've got going on here. You got dreams of a future in the past. It's quitter talk, is what it is."

"Fuck off," said Daniel. In his normal life he'd have never said it, but he was on the precipice.

"You think going into the past is going to transform you?" asked Archie. "That another world, a second chance, you'll somehow become the man you think you were supposed to be? Well let me tell you, if you were a loser here, you'll be a loser there."

Daniel stood up and drew his sword. He'd practiced the draw a thousand times. The sword gleamed, even under the ugly fluorescent lighting of the waiting room. "Fuck off, or you'll be going back to the 50s missing a hand."

"Bah," said Archie. "Fine." He stood up and took a seat further away, the same one he'd taken when he first came in. He was bouncing his leg and reading something on his phone.

Daniel was putting his sword back in its sheath when the receptionist came into the room.

"Daniel?" she asked, glancing only briefly at the sword. "They're ready for you."

"Finally," Daniel thought but didn't say, because even though he wasn't going to be around anymore, he believed in basic politeness.

He gathered his things and left the waiting room, ready to leave.

~~~~

Archie sat outside Castle Solutions, in their little courtyard, vaping.

It wasn't long before the receptionist, Lydia, came to sit next to him.

"It didn't really seem like you wanted to convince that one," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry."

She shrugged and pulled out a vape pen of her own. "Sometimes you just want to yell at someone. I get that. But you're risking us getting caught. And if we get caught in the future, we probably get caught in the present."

"Yup," he said. "Won't happen again."

"Give it a few days before you come back," she said. "Three, let's say. He didn't file a complaint, so there's nothing in the system."

"Mmm," said Archie. He made a long, slow drag of the pen. They sat there vaping together for a while. It had often occurred to him that vaping was impossibly lame, but it felt less lame when done with someone else. He watched as the vapor left her mouth in a thin, concentrated stream. "You wanna go out sometime?"

"On a date?" she asked. She gave the tip of her vape pen a casual look. "No, not really."

"Alright," said Archie.

"I don't really know what your deal is," she said. "Why this is important to you. Why you want to talk people back from the brink, or yell at them."

"Mmm," said Archie. "You want to tragic backstory?"

"Meh," Lydia replied. "I'm not going on a date with someone who has a tragic backstory. That's all. Sorry. I've got my own tragic backstory, thanks very much."

"Fair," said Archie. "It was my kid brother, that's the short version. He up and left one day, left us a note that read like ... well, you know." He drew a finger across his neck.

"Where'd he go?" asked Lydia.

"England, 16th century," said Archie. "He thought he was going to take Shakespeare's place." He shook his head. "Only eighteen, you know? Unconscionable that they let kids that young through. He had his whole life ahead of him and he just ... disappeared."

Lydia sighed. "Yeah."

She turned off her vape pen, then mimed stubbing it out on the bench like a cigarette before slipping it into her purse. He felt a surge of attraction for her.

"Alright, I'll go on the date," said Lydia. "But if we're going to be dating, you've gotta stop this."

"Vaping?" asked Archie.

"You know what I mean," said Lydia. "You going in there trying to convince them to back out, that's one thing. It's noble, almost. But if it's going to be fighting, if it's you trying to work through some shit, then I'm not sticking my neck out for you. Doubly so if you want to get together. You process your trauma some other way, or repress it like the rest of us, alright?"

Archie thought about that for a moment. "Alright. Sure."

"I've got to get back to work," said Lydia as she rose from the bench. "You have my number."

Archie nodded, and after she had left, he stayed, looking out at the courtyard.

He wondered how Daniel was doing out there, in that other timeline, but he supposed that he would never know.

[tanadrin]

It sounds like you likely side against the protesters in New Caledonia who were apparently protesting about France giving people who moved there recently the right to vote in local elections. (i.e. the native minority doesn't want the colonizers to have the right to vote)

I probably would! If you live somewhere, and pay taxes there, and use the public services and utilities there, you should have full political rights. That policy seems like an overcorrection for historical injustice--e.g., the French not granting Muslims voting rights in North Africa.

And there are other awkward questions you could pose for my open-borders-and-free-citizenship stance--like the fact that the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was driven in part by immigrants of American background who felt excluded from representation (but who in turn wanted to exclude Asian immigrants from representation), or how small countries that suddenly find themselves in an advantageous economic position often find their demographics rapidly changing (Qatar, Hawaii in the early 20th century).

But the alternative--the whole hog of blood-and-soil nationalism, with a bit of anti-colonial lipstick--seems pretty bad to me. People move around. Places change. Cultures change. We can and should do everything in our power to ensure those changes and that movement is the result of, like, free individual choice, and not war or violent seizure of land or systems of brutal economic exploitation. And sometimes despite those changes, the things people love about their traditional cultures can persist--especially now, in a world that pays much more attention to the rights of (for example) minority language speakers than it used to.

But the desire for the world to remain culturally, linguistically, and economically static is basically reactionary. I mean really, it's the aesthetic heart of reaction. It's also an absurdity. Even perfectly isolated societies can change in dramatic ways. And, of course, very often "tradition" is a cudgel simply wielded in the service of entrenching a different kind of elite power: I am no more supportive of the Hawaiian monarchy, one born of bloody conquest by an imperialistic dynasty, than I am of the British; the British one just happened to be more historically successful, but the underlying principles are the same. Cf. also the way land tenure works in American Samoa, a system that is billed as keeping land in native hands--which it does, by institutionalizing the colonial system of blood quantum and being explicitly racist, and simply serving to prop up a different set of elites (in this case, traditional tribal elites rather than colonial ones).

I think the only way you can really escape the trap of reaction and nationalism is to refuse to play the game in the first place--to put the primacy of your bond to your fellow human beings, regardless of culture or race or origin, and thus inherent political equality (and solidarity) above other considerations. Tribalism, pillarization, byzantine ethnicity-based power-sharing arrangements, special rules for land tenure or voting rights--all these have a nasty way of turning into new forms of exploitation, of someone figuring out how to do the economic and political arbitrage at someone else's expense. The central insight of 1789 was correct here: the only solution is the universal equality of all human beings. The trick is to carry that insight through to its logical conclusion.

[gabessquishytum]

I've been thinking a lot about medieval longbowman Hob,,, and how a modern alternative might be gymbro Hob,,, the kind of gymbro who bulks and gets really strong and is just an absolute unit,,, and so i dug up this ole gym dreamling encounter from discord, and here we are!! The Hob I'm picturing here is an unholy amalgamation of comics!Hob in 1389, and Ferdie. So make of that what you will!

Fuckin' Resolutions

Dream is not the kind of person who makes New Year's resolutions. He's the kind of person who prefers to repeat his mistakes over and over and then yell at everyone who says “I told you so!” But. Dream is now in possession of a membership to his local gym, courtesy of his least favourite sibling. They obviously thought it would be a funny joke. Dream is out to prove them wrong.

And so, kitted out in a brand new pair of shorts (black) and a tank top (also black), as well as new trainers (you guessed it: black), he enters the gym. It is a new year. He can do new things. Maybe going to the gym will be the solution to the puzzling mess that is his life.

Naturally, Dream chooses the foyer area – what seems to be a writhing mass of people to his anxious eyes – in which to embarrass himself.

Scanning the various arrows pointing off in different directions, hoping that one of them might tell him where to go, he loses concentration. It really is quite overwhelming, with a myriad of classes, workout areas, lockers, and even a small snack bar. Dream looks around, wildly lost. And he walks right into something very warm, and very soft.

"Woah!" The warm and soft something says. "You okay there?"

Dream pulls himself backwards like he's been burned. In front of him stands a broad, smiling man, about the same height as himself. He's rather sweaty, and he smells… good.

Dream mumbles something about a yoga class that sounds nonsensical even to his own ears, but the man nods along seriously. He's entirely focused on Dream’s words, and he seems quite absentminded as he pulls the hem of his t-shirt up and uses it to wipe the sweat from his nose.

Dream’s mumbling trails off to a complete stop and he just gazes straight ahead. Hiding beneath the man's inconspicuous t-shirt was, apparently, the most gorgeous, soft, godly stomach. It bounces slightly once freed from the fabric. The rest of his torso is just as thick, and Dream even catches sight of his pecs peeking out. They're the kind of muscley-soft that should absolutely be illegal, if only for the sake of Dream’s sanity. And hairy, too. From his chest to the waistband of his shorts, thick body hair curls lovingly across his skin. It glistens faintly under the bright lighting, drops of sweat looking more like the golden highlights in a painting

The guy raises an eyebrow as Dream continues to stare. "Whoops! T-shirt kind of hides all that, right? Sometimes it's a surprise for me too!"

And what a wonderful surprise, Dream thinks. The guy is still giving him a free view of his belly, apparently unbothered by Dream’s gawping mouth. He can't stop looking at the little spills lovehandle over the waistband of the man's shorts. The man angles himself one way, then the other, like he's showing himself off. He even flexes his chest.

"I'm sorry." Dream stutters. "I think I may be having some kind of sexual awakening?"

The guy laughs – nearly making Dream faint outright as he watches the gentle shaking of his stomach. "You're very sweet. I really didn't mean to flash you like that." Tragically, he pulls the t-shirt down again. But he does offer Dream his hand in recompense.

"I'm Hob. Would it be okay if I show you the way to the yoga class?"

Dream nods dumbly. He isn't so much shaking Hob’s hand as he is holding it. The t-shirt tents over his belly, but the rest of him is still sturdily visible. Thickly muscular arms and thighs, wide shoulders, a warmly smiling mouth. Dream might as well have met Apollo the sun god himself in the middle of the gym. This man is certainly more magnificent than any classical figure.

"I'm Dream." He says, meekly. Hob has started walking, pulling him along by the hand. Dream takes one devastating glance at his arse (it's right in front of him!) and wonders hysterically whether his face is as bright red as it feels. He's never thought to describe another man's arse as pendulous before, but there's something hypnotic in the swaying motion created by all that soft flesh.

Hob turns and offers him another bright smile. "Yes, you are. Very dreamy." He allows Dream to come up right alongside him, and drops his voice to a theatrical whisper. "You know, cute boys at the gym don't usually look at me like that. Not unless they think I'm not looking, anyway."

Dream makes a disbelieving noise.

"I know! They don't know what they're missing. Once you come over to the dark side, you never go back." Hob continues, with a jaunty wink. And Dream feels the tips of his ears begin to sizzle. He must be bright red from head to toe, surely. He squeezes Hob’s hand (which he still, incomprehensibly, holding) in an attempt to convey his agreement. Hob, for whatever reason, squeezes back.

"Well, here we are. Yoga class is in there." They come to stop somewhere along a corridor. Dream hasn't been paying attention and has no idea how he'll find his way out of the building.

"Thank you." He manages, and clears his throat. "I am sorry. If my staring was in any way offensive."

Hob’s eyes twinkle and he plucks at the front of his t-shirt idly, pulling it up an inch or two. Dream gets a glimpse of soft lower belly for his troubles. "Not at all. Feel free to objectify me any time." He leans close, and bumps Dream gently with his hip. "In fact. I'll be very disappointed if you don't have at least three more sexual awakenings when you watch me doing downward dog."

And with that, he enters the yoga class, leaving Dream to stumble after him.

The yoga teacher is a very nice woman called Rachel, and there are at least a dozen people in the class. Dream actually feels quite comfortable hiding towards the back of them. Hob is a row in front of him, and he winks over his shoulder. He's absolutely divine to look at from behind – everything is taunt and muscular from his shoulders to his calves. Except for his arse, which carries a healthy load of fat. Dream has spent most of his life looking at men with lustful intent, but never has he seen a man like Hob. This is a man who could draw a longbow, or heft a battleaxe. He could scoop Dream over his shoulder and carry him like a bag of flour, should the need arise.

And, as it turns out, he is devastatingly flexible. It seems almost unfair. Somewhere along the line, Dream just finds himself staring, transfixed, as Hob contorts into pose after pose. His thighs flex, his shoulders remain steady as ever, and Dream gets another lovely little peep of those sweet lovehandles. After the class, Rachel praises Dream for knowing his limits and not pushing himself too hard. He doesn't have the heart to explain to her why he spent most of class standing with his mouth half open.

Hob is waiting by the door when Dream scurries away from the other class attendees, with his yoga mat strategically positioned in front of his crotch. He smirks, and once again pulls his t-shirt up to wipe his face. He's not even sweating, particularly.

Dream is sweating. A lot.

“I don't suppose you'd fancy a little post-workout drink? You can get a decent protein shake around here.” Hob quirks an eyebrow upwards. “Or I could just help you find the showers?”

“Showers.” Dream breathes out, clutching his mat tighter. “Please. I think you need to make up for the absolute mess you've made of me, this afternoon.”

Hob looks very pleased with himself indeed, and he wraps his arm around Dream’s waist. It's an intimate gesture that makes Dream throb from head to toe. “I may make a mess, but I always clean up after myself.” Hob murmurs.

Dream's hand brushes Hob’s arse is passing as they start walking… and he can really only hope that Hob is telling the truth about cleaning up. If only for the sake of his brand new shorts…

[certifiedkazuhaskitten]

The uncrowned king of no man's land

duke of the north!wriothesley x fem reader

arranged marriage, romance, kingdom setting

Part 1

People who came to the Fortress of Meropide dukedom were either officials, guards, or criminals. After all, it is the "wasteland" of the kingdom of Fontaine—though you're not sure you're fitted to any of the category mentioned above. A mere diplomatic pawn you are; that's right, you're going to that northern dukedom. The Iudex worked hard to solve everlasting (one-sided) feud between the noble faction and the current duke residing in the Fortress of Meropide, and have came to the solution that the relationship between the noble faction and the duke may be mended through marital means. He chose Count Hugues, a noble who publicly opposed the duke to present one of his many daughters as the soon-to-be bride of the duke. And out of six beautiful daughters, five of which he spoiled, he picked you, the adopted daughter who happens to be a great convenient scapegoat. Your talents in swordmanship and mastering the pyro elements fell short on the count's eyes now as he easily sacrifices you to keep his five beautiful, frail biological daughters at home, waiting to be married to a good, rich noble.

So here you are, the soon-to-be bride of the duke, accompanied by your escorts to the Fortress of Meropide dukedom. You secretly sneak a grin as you cover your face with your hands, pretending to quietly cry and be distressed. No one should know you're secretly happy about this whole arranged marriage, because then the escorts will find you suspicious.

I'm finally out of that hell house. Fuck them, that shitty count and his bitchy daughters. And his idiot wife too. And everyone in that house.

Should've burned the house down before I left, you thought to yourself. To kill time as you wait the boat to reach the end of the underground water tunnel, you continue letting your mind idly wander.

Piercing eyes stab you in the back as the escorts seated next to you look down at you in disgust—apparently bloodline is very important for the nobles of Fontaine. Used to their treatment, you roll your eyes silently, unbothered with their unsubtle attitude. The whole reason you're in this situation right now is also because of those fontainian nobles; backstabbing, judging hypocrites who find it outrageous that someone of criminal background could rise to equal standing as them. And the duke couldn't care less because he had all the money in the world to mind his own business.

Who suggested the count that you must be accompanied with a bunch of escorts to the dukedom anyway? This bunch of losers are killing you with their repeated poor attitude towards you. You're convinced that they're sent here to be with you so they make sure you suffer somewhat in the dukedom and then they could gather something to accuse the duke of. You wish you could just burn them all off, but doing so may will struck the already severed diplomatic relationship even worse, so you keep your lips shut and sit silently in the corner of the boat heading towards the dukedom.

The air feels stuffy and damp, as expected of an underground water tunnel. It smells like sea and iron. Someone could piss down here and no one would notice given the sharp tanginess of such scent—or, you bet, someone already has. The scenery of underground tunnels and murky water reminds you of your old home residing just below the capital; Fleuve Cendre. Not that you miss it, but the nostalgia hits hard. Fleuve Cendre was known as the ugly place in Fontaine, and based on rumors you've heard, The Fortress of Meropide dukedom is no different. The only difference is at the dukedom, there are more killers, while pickpockets and alcoholics roam the streets more often in Fleuve Cendre.

"We're here." Said one of the guards. The long tunnel finally reached its end, revealing a cold and unwelcoming entrance used to greet criminals. Clank, the tip of the boat lightly bump the entrance. Everyone's heartbeat start to race.

Anxiety engulfed the escorts as they get off the boat, while you try your best staying calm and composed.

I've experience a lot of shit in my life already. I can do this.

You change your stature and body language subtly, making sure you act and look like a noble you were raised as. The escorts cowardly stand behind you, afraid of what the guards could do to them.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The sound of dangling handcuffs and a very nuanced footsteps can be heard. As the guards change formation to make way for the duke, you notice the deadly piercing eyes gazing upon you in alert. Pretty eyes, you admit, icy white irises that rekindles nostalgia.

"Welcome, the sixth daughter of Count Hugues and her escorts. We have long awaited your arrival." He spoke, and you can feel the vibration of his voice intimidating the whole room.

You hold your breath.

I can do this Can I really do this?

To be Continued.

[kristlewrites]

“Lucid Dream”

CW: cheating(?),semi-public sex (elevator),smut, oral(f!receiving),nicknames (baby,mamas,ma), unprotected sex.

PAIRING: Ex!Zoro x Blk!FemReader

WC: 1.8k

🫧🗯️: Didn’t expect so many people to actually vote lmao..😭😭, but ty to all those who have!! This is made just for you guys. First of all it wasnt supposed to last a week, but as soon as I saw zoro taking the lead I had to write this. So ill make another one based off whose in second place!! lmk if i missed anything for the content warning!!

MINORS DNI

(rêve!!)

You pick up your phone, it's ten pm.. It's been over an hour since you arrived. You spent even longer getting ready. Wrapped in a beautiful emerald dress with gold accessories to match you felt amazing, but that feeling quickly went away once you realized your date wasn't coming. Picking up your phone you see his message. 

"Sorry, I can't make it…maybe next time?” 

Maybe next time my ass! You cannot believe this. You slam your phone onto the table and leave, storming off in the direction of the exit. Wiping away your tears as they stream down your face and hurrying down the restaurant stairs. Making your way out you step into the cold Atlanta night. Using one hand to warm up your bare shoulders you use your other to grab your phone to call an Uber...except that it wasn't in your purse. 

Dammit! You had left it on the table. Practically out of breath from the stairs you pick up your pace gearing towards your table. But when you finally reach your table you are met with someone you'd rather not see again. Especially tonight out of all nights!

Pulling out a chair for a blonde??! You see his gorgeous mint hair first.

“Fuck!” you whisper-shout making sure he doesn't hear. You quickly snatch your phone as fast as you can, apparently too fast because now the glass of water has fallen onto the mint's lap. “Oh my god..” you gasp, You cannot believe your luck.

The man looks up in response to your voice, recognizing it almost instantly. You guys make eye contact for about a solid second, but that was enough to make you fold. You ran away, breaking for the elevator, you wanted to get away from all of this. The blonde shouting in the background for spare napkins. You cannot believe you just saw your ex, at a restaurant out of place. Not only that but with someone else!!! It's been only three months since you broke up with him.

Now you were really crying, you walked into the elevator and pressed some random ass buttons, you just wanted to be home. To dazed in your own world you didn't even realize Zoro being right next to you in the elevator, he pushes the first button which you had already pressed undoing the action. “It was already going down…” you whisper and go back to press the first floor button. 

“Well, I didn't mean to press that one. I was gonna do the third floor” He hits the third floor button, not even a second later he presses the first floor again! 

“You are so..” You seethe. This nigga cannot be serious at all. Just when you are about to hit the first floor button, the elevator rocks.”Fuck..what the actual fuck.” You are absolutely losing it, no way this is happening to you. You start spamming the panic button, yelping for help hoping someone would hear. 

“Relax, someone is probably already on their way.” Zoro sitting down already making himself comfortable.

“Relax..?1!! Nigga are you fucking insane? I feel like I'm boutta explode.” You pace around the room thinking of possible solutions.

Zoro grabs your ankle and halts you in place, “Stop moving around, you're gonna make us more stuck. Just try and sit down” 

“You moron that's not how it works..” You kick his hand from your ankle cause who does he think he is? He removes his jacket, and places it down underneath you, he pats the jacket a couple times gesturing for you to sit down. Hesitantly you go down and sit down with your legs in a 45 degree angle (?) (idk it's hard to explain, but like that sit you do when you're on the floor and you dont want yo panties showing.)

“Who was she?” you ask, staring dead at your phone, no service on your phone either.

You hear a small chuckle and immediately regret everything.

“Why are you here?” He asks looking you up and down, you know you look good and damn he knows it too. Green is his color and to see you look pull it off better than him makes him proud a lil bit.

“I asked the question first.” You utter and stand right back up, only for him to drag you down. “What is wrong witchu!” 

“Her name is Dahlia, Sanji he had us go on a blind date, I had only met her like two hours ago”  Zoro had finally admitted, rubbing his forehead. You laughed a lil, just the idea of sanji going through all that trouble. His face nearly illuminated when he heard you laugh, it's been almost three months since he last saw you let alone heard you laugh like that.

You check the time, it's been twenty minutes already and there's been no sign of help. How is this possible if the restaurant still should be opened? How have they not been able to get any help?? By this time you and Zoro were about an inch apart, he was glaring at you not in a mean way but in a possessive way. You guys were just staring at each other not saying a word.

Within a split second Zoro had quite literally grabbed you and plopped you down right onto his lap, still damp from the water, and kissed you. You almost instantaneously returned the kiss. It was absolutely exhilarating, you've missed him so much. Tongues were clashing teeth clanging it was messy but you loved every second of it. You pushed away, trying to catch yo breath. 

“What about your date..?” you were panting so hard and out of breath. 

“Man fuck Daffodil” he said, reaching his fingers to your cheeks “Ive missed you so much baby” Caressing your soft skin

“I've missed you too” You were definitely gonna regret this the next day, but with his stunning face and practically hypnotizing smile it was hard to go against anything he was doing.

He begins to remove your sleeves, bringing down your dress revealing your cutie pink lace bra. Your hands react quickly and cover your boobs,

 “Awe baby don't be shy” he pouts a little and undoes your bra tossing it next to him. He immediately latches onto your brown nipples sucking and licking them like a starved baby. You start grinding against his crotch becoming impatient. Sure you've had a few one night stands after you guys broke up, but quite clearly none of them met up to the bar that zoro had established long ago.

“Seems like you’ve really missed me heheh ” He laughs a bit at your desperate grinding. You were too focused on reaching your high to even feel embarrassed. Zoro noticed this, the increasing moisture from your underwear “woah, not without me mamas.” 

He moves his coat and places it behind you, with ease he sets you down on your back with your wet panties facing him. He tears off your underwear so aggressively it’s for sure torn, He rubs his hands together and licks his lips before diving into your cunt.

“Ah” you exclaimed, it was all so sudden you didn’t have a chance to even think about it.

“Ma, I’ve missed hearing your voice so much” zoro groaned, but you couldn’t hear him with all the squelching from him absolutely raving in your pussy. He was going up and down on every corner, letting his tongue fly in n out your pussy. Your thighs started closing in on him

“I-i'm cummin’” you moan out loud grabbing on to his short minty hair, letting your orgasm flow out with zoro still licking it up

 “so sweet, can't get enough”, he pants while still lapping at your drenched pussy. Your legs Leg’s jittering, heart racing, you haven’t felt this way in months. Retracting his head from your now damaged cunt, he licks up all remaining cum from his lips. He lowers his pants and boxers, to reveal his pulsating cock leaking with pre-cum already. “You still on the pill?“ he asks, with his tip already teasing your entrance. You nod, too dazed to even speak. With no second to waste his dick already making it way into your pussy, you hiccup at the suddenness. “That’s right mama, take me nice n slow” he mutters, going in at lagging pace. 

“Fast, go faster” you say airily as you squeeze your pussy wanting more. He obeys and picks up pace with your fat cunt enveloping his dick so well, the sound of his balls slapping your ass and the subtle moans escaping your mouth fill up the air as both of you guys are now short winded you can feel his dick reach up every inch of your vagina.”Z-zoro, I’m gonna c-cum!” You scream, whilst creaming all over his dick. Hearing his name come out of his mouth was enough to send over the edge and fills you to the brim with his warm cum. Breathing hard he removes he cock from your pussy and marvels as, his cum flows out of your pussy.

Banging from the outside, got you straight up. “We’re gonna get you out of there, helps coming give us five minutes!” A man shouts.

Zoro helps you dress back up, because your whole body is aching. Even with the jacket the floor was still pretty rough. He helps gather up the piece of your underwear keeping one of them ‘for a souvenir’ he explains to you, you roll your eyes too tired to even argue. Meanwhile zoro buckles up his pants and tries his best to clean up any leftover cum on the floor, while you sit down by the door damn near immobilized.  

The doors finally open up, and the cacophony of fire trucks and power tools was already enough to send you into a spiral. Trying to stand up you’re a lil wobbly, zoro grabs your hand aiding you out. The whole staff is outside all lined up cheering for your rescue. “How long has it been?” you ask clearly, you are absolutely exhausted. 

“Forty minutes” zoro responds. He lends you his jacket once you get outside. “Where’s your ride?”

“I don’t have one, I’ll just get an Uber.” You answer fishing for your phone in your purse.

“Here, I’ll take you home” zoro says, walking towards his car acting all nonchalant..

‘Who does this nigga think he is?’ you think to yourself while trying to keep up with him. “how are you gonna offer me a ride then leave me chasing you..goodnight you know i can’t even walk properly.” You shout, the audacity is crazy.You can practically hear his eyes rolling when he stopped in the middle of the road turning around towards at a concerning pace. He grabs your waist and hangs you over his shoulder, flailing your feet and hands “Let me go nigga!”

“Weren’t you jus complaining…right, stop moving before I really leave you” he replies in an irritated voice.

regardless of his warning you continue to flail around, jus for the fun of it hitting his ass and laughing. zoro continues to walk, you can’t see his face but he smiles a lil at the sound of your laughter. He wishes that this would last forever.

(Thank you all for the support on my first fic!!)

[prokopetz]

I have a pinned post for my games in development, but it doesn't really describe what they're about, and apparently this is something we're doing today, so:

My games in development, in rough order of priority:

(Note: all of these have public playtest drafts behind the links.)

Eat God

A game about weird little anarchist muppets with reality-warping powers themed after classic Looney Tunes gags wandering around a classic sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting stirring up trouble. Roughly 50% character creation rules by volume, with provisions for randomising every part of it; the linked draft, above, includes an online character generator if you want to play with it. The mechanics are a sort of elaborated spiritual successor to Costume Fairy Adventures, a game whose development I headed up about a decade ago.

Current status: actively writing, hopefully zeroing in on a feature-complete playtest draft within the next month or two.

Tiny Frog Wizards

One of my customarily literal titles, this is a game where you play as wizards who are tiny frogs. Features elaborate semi-freeform rules for casting spells, lots of big stupid random tables for when spells go off the rails, and absolutely no mechanics for anything that isn't casting a spell; it's a very focused sort of game. Narratively, it's a game about being an overpowered little twerp sticking your nose into other people's problems and offering solutions no-one asked for. Portions of the rules crib shamelessly from @jennamoran's Nobilis 3rd Edition, for which I offer acknowledgement but no apologies.

Current status: development of the text has been set aside for the moment to work on visual identity, with an eye toward crowdfunding an expanded hardcover edition later in the year.

Space Gerbils

A tactical mecha combat game with a very silly twist: the entirety of the tactical positioning occurs inside the mecha, because the game's premise is basically "what if instead of the Big Reveal at the end of Metroid (1986) being that Samus Aran is secretly a girl, Samus Aran was secretly 3–5 small gerbil-like creatures operating a person-size mech suit?" Players engage in positional jockeying and resource management to determine which stations they're crewing within the suit, which is boiled down to a single roll of the dice to determine what happens outside the suit. Includes papercraft minifigs.

Current status: essentially feature-complete, apart from some character creation options and a planned random mission generator; this will likely be the next game I crowdfund after Tiny Frog Wizards.

Indie RPG Prompt Generator [working title]

Essentially a joke that got out of hand, this is a big set of random tables of common indie RPG tropes that you can roll on to generate a description of a hypothetical game, complete with specific rules toys and setting beats. I probably could have finished this up already, but I decided to include examples of each rolled element, which turned into this big hairy research project I'm not able to give adequate attention to right now. If you've got a game of your own that you think would be a good fit for a presently unfilled example slot, please, let me know!

Current status: plugging away at it in bits and pieces as I'm able.

Three Raccoons in a Trenchcoat

This is an anthology consisting of three minigames: the eponymous Three Raccoons in a Trenchcoat, which is self-explanatory; Unfamiliar, in which you play as uncooperative wizards' familiars; and System Crash, in which you play as malfunctioning robots. More a series of formal experiments in character creation and group composition than proper full-featured games, all share the same core mechanics, with milieu-specific addons of varying practicality; for example, System Crash has specific rules for which senses each player is allowed to use when asking the GM for information, because it's completely possible to have a group in which only one of the robots can see. Large portions of Unfamiliar were later re-used in Eat God, above.

Current status: I have a list of notes as long as your arm on planned changes to integrate into the text, and I'm confident I'll get around to doing so one of these years.

Gone to Hell

Literally a Doom (2016) pastiche as a Belonging Outside Belonging game, which is just as silly an idea as it sounds; grown out of an earlier 24-hour RPG called Doomguy. The central conceit is that there's only a single player character, with players taking turns assuming the role of the Slayer, while everyone else takes ownership of the various hostile factions comprising the game's conspiratorial twelve-car pileup of a plot. Lots of pontificating about the implicit power structures of tabletop RPG groups. This one probably needs a full rewrite in order to lend a bit more formal structure to the "one player character, many GMs" conceit than out-of-the-box BOB offers.

Current status: I have not looked at this game in three years, which is actually a really long time for me.

Rotate Bird

Another of my "is this a formal experiment or a real game" titles, this one revolves around constructing characters out of abstract symbols, which are interpreted during play to retroactively define what your character is actually capable of doing. Even the title seen above is an interpretive approximation; strictly speaking, the game is called 🔄🐦. Possibly the most shitposty game I've ever written, which is saying something, but based on playtest feedback it seems functional.

Current status: the only reason this is listed as lower in priority than Gone to Hell is because I genuinely don't know what to do with it. It's probably publishable, with some cleanup editing and graphic design, but it feels like there's something missing. I'm open to suggestions!

Get in the Fucking Robot

A pamphlet-size, competitive, GMless title that's at least as much a board game as it is a tabletop RPG, this one is about a bunch of dysfunctional candidate mecha pilots competing to be the first to pilot the titular giant robot. The game is played under misère conditions: while each character's IC goal is to pilot the robot, each player's OOC goal is to avoid that fate, with the player whose character actually Gets in the Fucking Robot being accounted the loser.

Current status: playtesting suggests the current framework of play doesn't actually work – like, at all – so this one needs to go all the way back to the drawing board; I don't feel like doing that any time soon, which puts it squarely at the bottom of the list.

[moreespressoformydepresso]

I was thinking about my AU’s where the tributes get their medical care after all the fixing and for a while now I’ve had it in my head that most of them don’t know what good medical care actually looks like so I decided to type it out!

So it’s pretty clear the Capitol oppresses the districts and treats them like shit at every opportunity, even if it’s against their own benefits. Treating them better and helping them advance would probably lead to more productivity, better products and far lower chance of a second rebellion but it’s apparently more fun to be an evil scumbag so into the toilet we go. This probably means they don’t let the Districts have any medical care, even if keeping your workers happy is a better decision. Meanwhile, the Capitol has all this fancy medical equipment like defibrillators and oxygen masks and anesthesia and stuff. Now imagine a bunch of terrified, injured kids who do not trust anyone but each other suddenly having all these unfamiliar machines shoved in their face while people in white lab coats prepare to inject them with a needle containing heavens know what kind of weird fluid.

That’s… not gonna go over well

Predictably, the kids all freak out and while their reactions are dimmed due to the several peacekeepers with guns surrounding them, quite a few like Reaper and Coral are still putting up a fight, several others are currently having a panic attack because “Oh no they’re gonna kill us anyway” and everyone is far too tense to be given the anesthetics necessary.

So what’s the solution? Having the mentors sit with their tributes and explain what’s going on because these kids will not believe anybody else. It’s the best option right now, and it would be especially interesting if this is emergency care and thus happening in a public space somewhere so people can see that. They can see the effects of their behavior in real time as literal 12-year-olds know not to take a Capitol citizen’s word for anything.

What makes doing this so interesting to me is the possibility to explore the different levels of effectiveness in this strategy and everyone’s way of handling it. Tributes like Lucy Gray, Jessup, Lamina, and Dill would calm down and listen to what their mentors are saying, possibly asking curious questions about how all of this works in more depth. Teslee and Circ would already know the technical stuff and ask about the more hands-on kinds of treatment, because they know this is gonna happen whether they like it or not so they try to distract themselves from it with curiosity.

Meanwhile, tributes like Bobbin, Reaper, Treech and Brandy are not calmed down in the slightest. Reaper stares Clemensia down with clear distrust and only ends up unhappily letting this happen because of Dill, Bobbin is slowly starting to get angrier and angrier with every snippy comment he throws Juno’s way about all the reasons he dislikes her. Brandy looks one wrong move away from a murder (though in fairness Arachne is only just starting to crack the code on how the tributes are just kids so she wasn’t the best person to be doing this anyway) and Treech is relaxing his muscles but he isn’t calming down at all. It becomes pretty clear with the several nervous glances he’s just scared Vipsania will punish him somehow for not complying, which she could given the peacekeepers around. She has to reassure him she won’t and be far more vulnerable and honest about her inner conflict since meeting him in order to make him (very reluctantly) give her the benefit of the doubt.

Marcus may clearly dislike Sejanus, but he does trust him enough to let the medical stuff happen and Sejanus goes around to help the mentors who are struggling with calming their tributes down. You can pry these two slowly reconciling from my cold dead hands and my ghost will just come to steal it back.

I think it would show the Capitol these kids are all different people, and moreover it would show them that they’re just reacting to the way they’re being treated. They’re fully capable of trusting Capitol citizens, but as Bobbin so helpfully makes them understand: some of them don’t have any reason to. Why trust someone with your life when you couldn’t even trust them to bring you food? When it’s so obvious they just needed you for their own gain or you’ve lost so much to the Capitol already that it just isn’t worth the risk?

Idk I thought it might be fun to explore

[supernovafics]

series masterlist | next part

pairing: modern!actor!steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 1.3k words

warnings: explicit language

summary: a lunch that was supposed to take your mind off of work brings about even more stress because it turns out you're the only solution to the one problem you wish you didn't have to handle

PROLOGUE | ❝𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒈𝒐 𝒐𝒏❞

There were certain moments in your life that felt like defining moments. Moments that you’d later look back on and fully understand just how impactful they were in the grand scheme of things. 

Those instances were a rarity, but when they would happen, they were painstakingly obvious. It was almost as if you could feel some sort of shift happening. Your life beginning to turn in a specific direction that, as it’s happening, you could never tell if it’s good or bad, but you knew that you’d probably find out sooner rather than later. It was always a weird feeling, a little jarring.

You experienced that exact feeling at lunch with Jessie— your longtime friend and current Director of the movie you were working on as the Production Coordinator. The lunch was supposed to be simple, and it started out as such; the weather in Los Angeles was nice and surprisingly not unbearably hot for mid-April, which made you both sit outside of a cafe that was almost always busy, but they served the best sandwiches so it made sense.

It felt good to have at least a small break from all of the pre-production tasks that had been consuming pretty much every single moment of your last few days. The closer actual filming got, the more hectic everything else seemed to get. 

And it seemed as if that sentiment was proven to be even more true when Jessie told you something that turned the simple lunch into anything but simple. 

“You’re joking, right?” Was your immediate reaction. 

Everything she had said to you had to be a joke because there was no way that she was asking you, or more so telling you, that you’d be Steve Harrington’s assistant for the next three months. 

But, you also fully knew that it couldn’t be a joke because it sounded both insanely unbelievable and way too real to just be some joking story that Jessie cooked up in her mind. 

Steve’s assistant, who was six months pregnant, would be on bed rest for the entirety of her final trimester due to stress. And because of the untimeliness of that situation, she had no time to hire a replacement for the time being; which, of course, included the three months of filming that was set to begin in a week. And that was sadly where you came in because, like most Hollywood actors, Steve could not function without an assistant, and that sent Jessie and the producers that had invested so much in the film into a frenzy because he was now close to pulling out of doing the movie if he didn’t have a good assistant for the duration of filming. 

All of that sounded the perfect amount of insane to be true. 

“You’re the only person that I trust doing this,” Jessie told you, further confirming that all of this was not some sort of sick and twisted joke.

You simply looked at her for a few moments before responding. “He’s notoriously known as an asshole, Jessie.” 

You had already been mentally preparing for having to deal with him in passing while on set, and now apparently you were going to have to deal with him even more than you anticipated. The thought made you want to scream. 

“You’re the only person that I believe will be able to fully handle him,” She said. “And most of the stuff he asks you to do, like getting lunch or coffee or whatever, can be pawned off to some production assistant. But I know that if I just assigned a random PA to him, they’d fold under the pressure because, yes, he’s an asshole, and they’d probably cry at the first shitty thing he says to them. And I know you won’t because you’ve been in this industry long enough and have probably dealt with people worse than him.” 

You hated how much sense that made. But still, you couldn’t accept it all just yet. Your job consisted of you solving problems or trying to stop them before they’d arise, so of course you’d attempt to solve this. 

However, you quickly failed to think of any solution because every potential solution you thought of only led to another problem. 

If you let him quit the movie that would be horrific because production would be pushed back a handful of months and a shit ton of money would be lost. And it also sucked that he was actually an insanely good actor and was probably the perfect person for the role.  

Or if you waited until he found a replacement assistant that met his “perfect standards” or whatever else— which with the way he seemed, sounded like it would take weeks upon weeks— the same issue would happen of filming being stalled and money going right down the drain. 

There really was only one solution to the problem, and it truly sucked that you were it. 

“You can say no,” Jessie told you, putting a pause on your thoughts, and before you could tell her that there was actually no way you could say no, she continued. “But, if you do this, I promise I will make you the Assistant Director on my next movie, which is going to be filming in Europe for six months right after this shoot ends.” 

“No way.”

Jessie nodded at your surprised words. “Yes, I found out about it a couple days ago. The original director they had backed out, so they asked me and I actually really love the script so I said yes. And before they started looking for a new AD too, I told them that I already had the perfect person in mind.” She smiled at you, and hearing how much she believed in you never failed to make you want to cry at least a little bit. From years ago at your first real paid job in the film industry where you were a PA on a movie that she had been the Assistant Director on, she completely saw your potential and never failed to tell you that. “And I know you’ll absolutely kill that job just like you’ll kill this whole being his assistant thing while also doing your actual job.”

That was where you felt it. The shift. That weird feeling hitting you like a ton of bricks as you considered Jessie’s words and let them fully sink in. 

You pushed around some of the last bits of food left on your plate before looking up at your friend. “He knows that being his assistant won’t be my only job, right? That I’ll have a shit ton of other things on my plate during filming.”

“I’ll make sure he knows that,” Jessie said with a nod. “The assistant part of this doesn’t take precedence over you being the production coordinator. That’s much more important.” 

“Okay… Okay, good,” You responded and then after a breath of silence you let out a sigh. “I’ll do it. Of course, I know I have to; there’s really no other options. But, I won’t like it one bit, and I reserve the right to be mad at you for making me do this for, at least, the next twelve hours.”

She laughed at that. “Yes, I fully deserve that.” 

“But, before I allow myself to be mad at you I first have to say that I love you and I can’t believe you think I’m good enough to be AD, and thank you so much.” You said and then took a long sip from your refilled drink that had yet to be touched in the past ten minutes. “I’m experiencing so much emotional whiplash right now I feel like my mind is gonna explode.” 

“You deserve it,” She said and then let out a small laugh. “Not the emotional whiplash. I meant the job. And even if you said no to being Steve's assistant for filming, I obviously would still want you to do this. You’re the only person I could imagine doing this.”

You let her words sit with you as the two of you finished the rest of your lunch, the conversation happily shifting to something that was not work related. And you continued to let them sit with you once you both parted ways and you were in your car. 

You thought about how you knew this would be a moment you’d think back to years down the road because of how much was about to change. 

Once you made it through these three months you’d move onto doing something that you never even imagined yourself doing, but you felt completely ready to take the leap. 

That felt pretty defining. 

Still, though, you first had to survive three months of being Steve Harrington’s assistant, and that sounded like it would be hell.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

next part!

[jewfrogs]

hi gabriel. i have a problem. i initially followed your blog a year or two ago because i was in the process of converting; haunting my local reform synagogue, becoming a known quantity, chilling with folks at holidays, et cetera. i stopped attending friday services regularly a little before oct 7 (restaurant job with conflicting hours), but since things started i haven’t gone back. i keep telling people it’s because i don’t want to have to talk about it but i don’t know how to square being an anti zionist convert with being surrounded by people who are firmly pro israel. just last week they invited an idf soldier to speak about how hard his job is!! and fuck i miss the friends i made there. i miss having ten grandmas. im sorry i know you’re not the Jewish Ambassador and you sure didn’t ask for receiving random emotionally loaded anons, but i dont know what to do. i know i can’t be a solitary jew but the ones i know are apparently cool with war crimes if their side does them. i didn’t think i had a soul but i guess i do and it’s fucking hurting bad right now fuck

hi honey. i’m sorry i can’t say much of substance beyond that i’m right there with you and it’s miserable and i wish there was an easy solution. i wish it wasn’t this way; i wish so many jewish spaces weren’t this way.

nothing can fully replace physical, in-person community in most cases, but it’s important to find ways to remind yourself that you may be solitary, but you are not alone.

you might look into the shabbat services at tzedek chicago (one of the only actively antizionist synagogues i know of) which are available virtually around the world.

depending on where you live, there might be a jewish presence at pro-palestine protests or events with organizations like JVP or INN or other local groups, which can be affirming and meaningful (and even if there isn’t an explicit presence, there’s a high likelihood that there’ll be other solitary jews).

reading historical and contemporary writings by antizionist jews is great (i recommend anti-zionism: analytical reflections, although i’m not sure if it’s anywhere online).

online spaces can be a blessing too—r/jewsofconscience has consistently solid conversations and community, and even just seeing other antizionist jews on here reminds me that i’m not alone and i’ve never been alone.

i wish you well and i hope you find as much peace as possible 🪬💙🧿

[unhingedpolycule]

Dogs on an airplane

Townsfolk of Tumblr! Y'all have decided on my dialogue so this is what I made of it! I hope you guys enjoy it!

It's also on my AO3 :)

~Moss

His luggage had been lost, his connection flight severely delayed and the room in which he stayed had not just one couple fucking the whole night in the neighbouring rooms but two! So, it was just Johnny’s luck that he, upon getting onto the tightly packed plane, was seated right next to the creepy as shit looking guy who, for some reason, was allowed to wear a goddamned balaclava on the plane. Why not a stressed business woman. Or a couple of retired folks. Why did it have to be the guy that Johnny would constantly feel on guard about? 

Thank fuck the flight only took a few hours. 

He smiled politely when putting his luggage in the overhead compartment and then nodded toward where the man was sitting. 

“Sorry mate. Ah think yer on my seat.” 

A long, cold stare. Johnny didn’t avert his eyes, rising to the challenge and not letting the man stare him down. He wasn't going to let a man with a skull print mask for no apparent reason other than to scare people off. 

“No I’m not.” 

Johnny checked his ticket. He had booked the window seat, right? A look on the row and seat, a quick check on the overhead signs indicating which seat was which. Yes, he had been right. 

 “Well, my ticket says-” 

The stranger just kept staring and behind him a woman got impatient with the idiot who just stood in the aisle so Johnny sighed and just took the seat at the aisle, sliding his backpack underneath it. The one between them was taken up by a book and a bottle of water. A few last passengers filtered in while Johnny put on his headphones and picked a playlist, closing his eyes. He loved takeoff, loved watching the world beneath them shrink and finally disappear under a blanket of clouds but he could live without it. He wasn't a child. 

The plane began to move, maneuvering into position on the runway, stopping briefly before starting to move again, faster and faster, finally the wheels lost contact with the ground and Johnny was pushed back into his seat comfortably. He enjoyed the sensation for a long moment before the biggest rush was over. He opened his eyes again, a vacant smile on his lips that vanished the second he looked over to catch a glimpse out the window despite his seat. 

“That's a dog!” Johnny’s voice was as quiet as a shriek of absolute terror would allow. 

“Yes.” Came the answer matter-of-factly, “a puppy. Now keep quiet about this or I will get in trouble.” 

The man didn't seem to think that simply telling Johnny to shut up could possibly backfire on him. Usually people were intimidated by his presence, he supposed, but with a couple years of military career, Johnny was not. That didn't mean that he wasn't positively floundering at the dog that had poked its head out of the three quarters unzipped hoodie jacket of the man beside him. 

“How did you- this-” Soap opened and closed his mouth a few times in a quite passable carp impersonation, “How did ye get this thing through security!” 

All that he got in reply was a shrug. And then, after a long pause, finally some words: “Same way I got my guns through security.” 

Words that Johnny couldn’t believe got a single second. “Yer fucking what?”

“My guns, aren't you listening?”

“How are ye more casual about having weapons on you than a fucking--” The look the stranger gave him made Johnny lower his voice again, his whisper urgent, “A fucking dog! Nobody hijacked a plane with the help of a puppy!” the stranger looked quite unimpressed with his outburst, “Okay, right, how the fuck did ye get yer weapons through the security check?” 

“Have you ever seen a guy with three knives and a micro uzi get through security?” Johnny shook his head and the stranger rolled his eyes at how simple the solution to this problem seemed to be to him,  “Obviously, I wouldn't have, so I didn't.” 

Now he was just fucking with Johnny. Straight up. There was no way this was actually true. 

Over him staring at the man unbelievingly, he didn't notice the small, wet nose that came closer until it touched Johnny’s bare upper arm which made him yelp, pulling away as the stranger zipped his hoodie up further, giving Johnny a glare, “You’ll give us away!”

“Us? Ah am having no part in this!” Johnny snapped. If it was up to him there would be no dog existing in a ten foot radius of him! 

“You know about her, you have part in this now.” The man would absolutely lie about this, wouldn't he? He would get Johnny in trouble alongside him if he got caught. Fine, he would try to be more subtle. Just having made peace with the thought of coexisting with the puppy quietly, the stranger spoke up again, “You almost act like you’re scared of her.” 

“Ah’m not scared!” Johnny insisted, the man sitting in front of them had apparently heard him over his blasting music and turned to look at the two of them through the slit between seats. Johnny smiled apologetically. Inside voice, he reminded himself. 

“Pet her then.” The man said when the man had turned back around and they had made sure that they hadn’t roused any other attention. The zipper was pulled down a little again and the happily little panting face pushed out of the confines of the shirt again, curiously pushing toward Johnny. Johnny reared back, the stranger pulled the little dog back and distracted her with head scratches way more careful than Johnny would have ever considered of a behemoth like that, “Knew you were scared.” he commented drily without any kind of smug satisfaction. 

“Snakes are more up my alley. They dinnae bite, they dinnae pee all the time, they are quiet.” Well, the noise level wasn't exactly what drew Johnny to snakes but who had to know that? Nobody. He would never see the man again. 

“She doesn't bite. Has been in my hoodie for hours now and she's been behaving just great.” 

“Hours, huh?” How could a person have trust in a dog like that? Even just considering, what if she started whining? Or what if she needed to go? Oh god, that was an issue, wasn't it? Because the stranger couldn't just take his dog to the damn bathroom. 

“Yes.” The man was utterly oblivious of the necessarily impending doom. 

Johnny tipped his head to the side and gave the stranger a long look, “It’s only a matter of time before it pees on ye.” 

“She peed before we came on here.” The man said and the flight attendant walking by gave them a weird look. Johnny smiled at her and gave her a one shouldered shrug. Both of them waited until the flight attendant was gone before looking back at each other,  “Which means she’ll make it until we land again.” 

There was a stretch of silence. 

“You’re a sick fuck.”

He looked back down at the puppy whose movements were very clear if Johnny actually paid attention. 

“Oh, Ah’m a sick fuck?” Johnny asked incredulously, “Ah am a sick fuck?” 

The stranger gave him an appraising look before coming out with his answer that was just as short as it was easy. 

“Yes.”

“Oh, humor me. What makes me the sick fuck between the both of us, Mr. ‘Ah wear a balaclava on a plane and also ah say ah have guns on me and also ah am hiding a god damned dog in me sweater and if ye tell anyone ah’ll get ye into trouble too’?” 

Another pause. When the stranger answered it sounded 100 percent serious. 

“It’s not a sweater.” 

Johnny gaped at the man, speechless. That was the point he was trying to nitpick then? The sweater? 

“Close your mouth before flies get in it.” the stranger’s eyes crinkled at the corners. A smile, finally. This motherfucker. “And it’s the snakes. Snakes are fucking nasty.” 

“Ye’re fucking nasty.” Johnny muttered. The stranger turned back to look out of the small window but he audibly tried to hide his chuckle by clearing his throat loudly. 

Johnny didn’t put his headphones back on, but he fell asleep in his seat with the conversation between them having run its course. 

When he woke up, it was to a big hand on his shoulder and the printed smile of a skull mask. 

“Touching down in 20.”

“Huh?” Johnny said intelligently and this time the huff sounded a little annoyed. 

“We’re landing in twenty minutes. Wipe the drool off your face.” 

Johnny scrambled to do just that, swiping his sleeve over his mouth and cheeks. This time he missed the way the stranger smiled, turning his masked face back to the window. He brushed his hands over his face roughly and yawned, trying to wake up properly. 

“Th’nks fer wakin’ me.” 

“You’re welcome.” The stranger said, petting the sleepy puppy who was curled up on his lap and half hidden by the hoodie. 

Johnny watched him pet her. 

“Yer not going to hide her a wee bit better? Woulnae surprise me if someone saw.” 

“What are they going to do? Kick us out at 20.000 feet?” The stranger said with a noncommittal shrug. 

“First of all, ye better mean yerself and that dog and not me.” Johnny said and the look that the man gave him told him that no, he was clearly seeing Johnny as his partner in crime. Great. “Second, ye were really insistent about me keeping it quiet earlier. Wha’ changed?” He yawned again and the stranger handed him a closed bottle of water. 

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” Johnny was about to ask what exactly qualified as stupid questions but in the end decided to just roll his eyes and crack the bottle open, taking a few swigs. 

They didn't speak much before the plane landed, Johnny dozing some more and the stranger quite preoccupied with the dog whenever Johnny did open his eyes to check the time and how much more time he had before having to get out and into his hotel. 

One more night in a hotel bed before he was expected to report for duty with the 141. He smiled and the plane landed. 

Somehow the stranger got off the plane before Johnny, throwing him a lazy salute when Johnny walked down the stairs and onto the tarmac. He was wearing a simple duffel bag over his shoulder that clearly had its best years behind it, and held his arm in a highly suspicious pose. 

Before Johnny could catch up with him so they could walk out together, the man disappeared in the opposite direction to everyone else. Johnny grinned, shouldering his own duffel and followed the crowd. He had no reason not to go through the regular channels after all, fun as it might have been to watch a man and his puppy - and maybe guns, Johnny reminded himself - evade security. 

The base was busy, soldiers buzzing all around him as the man who had introduced himself to Johnny as Kyle led him over the premises. He was nice, around Johnny’s age and easy to talk to, laughing at his ludacris story of the man on the airplane.

“Sounds like one hell of a trip, Soap. At least it wasn't boring, huh - oh! Hey, there’s someone you should meet!” Kyle shouted across the open area, waving his arm, “Lieutenant!'' The person he wanted to attract the attention of apparently wasn't showing the reaction that Kyle had wanted to because he shouted louder, “Oi! Ghost!” 

Johnny froze. 

“That’s the one.” was all he could whisper before the man in the skull balaclava came to stand in front of him, frowning under his mask. Gaz gave Johnny a confused look but didn’t ask any further questions. 

“Sergeant.” The Ghost said. Johnny felt like his breath had been punched out of him. He had spent the entire flight watching his superior officer hide a dog in his hoodie and hadn't even known!

“That’s the new guy, John-”

“Sergeant MacTavish.” Ghost finished. His voice was neutral and his brown eyes were sparkling mischievously, “Hand picked by Price for the 141. Youngest person to ever make the tryouts for the SAS. Impressive.” 

Johnny did his carp impression again, his eyes now flicking down Ghost’s body, only dressed in a shirt and jeans, arms crossed over his chest, a whole sleeve of tattoos sneaking down one of them. When he looked back up, the Lieutenant was grinning again, it bled into his voice, smug, “I am sure that you are capable of honoring confidentiality, Sergeant?”

Kyle was looking back and forth between them. The question was right on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t ask, instead watching the situation play out. 

“Aye, sir.” Johnny said, “Can keep my yap closed.” 

“Good man.” The Lieutenant clapped his hand on his shoulder and then walked away again, “Come to my room after Sergeant Garrick has finished showing you around!” he rounded the corner and was gone. 

“Gaz, he is the one!” Johnny whispered urgently. 

“The one you wanna marry? Yeah, saw you eyefuck each other, alright. As long as you two can keep it quiet it should be fine, our Captain doesn't take certain rules too seriously." 

Johnny huffed, shaking his head, “From the plane, ye numpty! That was the guy from the plane, with the goddamned dog!” 

There was a long moment of silence between them. 

“Ah. Well. It does sound like something Ghost would do.” Kyle finally said, then adding "It's The Crow Incident all over again…"