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grace-writes-shit · 1 year

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Perfect For Me (Steven Grant x Reader)

Words: 2.2K

Warnings/Themes: Angst,Self-hatred, body insecurity, hurt/comfort, fluff, light nudity (non-sexual)

Characters/Pairings: Steven Grant x reader, Marc Spector

liavaleska asked:

Hellooo! How are you? I hope you are doing great. Can I request something where reader comforts Steven Grant when he is feeling insecure about his body? Ty❤️

A/N: Sorry it took me a while to get this up! But here it is and I hope you enjoy it. It came out a tab bit angstier than I intially wanted but I'm quite proud of this one! Let me know what you think :)

Tired eyes mindlessly watched the little goldfish bob around its tank. The only sound filling the apartment was that of the tank’s filter. Rain pattered against the windows. Each door that opened or closed in the building had her peeking at the door through the tank. It was a quiet evening. As it had been for the past few days, nearing two weeks.

Nearly two weeks of silence. All because the other occupant of the apartment was hardly around anymore. Something was up with one of the boys. She had hoped one of them would have confided in her. But they are alters of Marc Spector. Mr. Secret.

The notion of her husband keeping secrets saddened her. It wasn’t hard to suspect that something was wrong. Steven would be up before her and leaving for work earlier than usual. Before he would wrap himself tighter around her when her alarm would go off, begging her to stay in bed for a few more minutes.

He had also picked up the habit of jogging. At first, she had been happy for him; happy he had found a healthy hobby. But now she’s questioning how healthy it really is. The bags under his eyes darkened with the passing of each day. Getting up early, going on jogs, and working as Khonshu’s personal plaything, had to be tiring. Not to mention she didn’t really see him enough to confirm that he had eaten that day.

“At least you’re around, huh, Gus?” She murmured, chin resting on her palm. The fish swam into his pyramid. A groan left her as she hung her head. Great. Even the fish didn’t want to spend time with her. Pushing out of her seat, she decided it was time for bed. The clock on the wall read 1am.

A quick glance at her phone showed that her messages had been read. But there had been no response.

‘Hey, love. Just wondering when you’ll be home. Any ideas for dinner?’

Read at 7:30pm.

‘Hey, again, you’re probably busy so I wrapped up dinner for you. Chinese takeout, your favorite! Love you <3’

Read at 10:46pm

With a heavy heart, she typed out one last text.

‘Going to bed now. Love you, darling’

She didn’t wait for a reply and stuck her phone on the charger. Tears pricked at her eyes as she stared at the empty bed. This would be the sixth night in a row that she would be going to bed by herself. The cold, white duvet laughed up at her. Sniffling, she padded over to the closet and pulled out one of Steven’s hoodies, and tugged it on. His scent filled her nose but didn’t bring the comfort she craved. Rather, it broke the dam holding back her tears.

She wished she could help him. Wished he let her help him. Wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone in whatever he was going through. If only he would just let her in. Her teeth bit into the soft flesh of her lip as she tried to stifle the sobs. Curled up on the bed, she hugged Steven’s pillow to her chest.

Keys knocking against the door had her freezing. The door slowly creaked open and heavy, tired footsteps entered the apartment. The sound of a duffle hitting the floor broke her out of her trance and had her shooting up.

“Steven?” The figure outlined by the light of the fish tank shuffled over to the bed, standing at the foot.

“No, sorry…” Marc said, voice low and, dare she say, sad. She quickly flicked on the lamp on her nightstand, beckoning him towards her.

“What’s wrong, Marc? Are- are you guys okay?”

Marc was silent for a few heartbeats, his silence giving her time to think of every possible thing that could be wrong. Steven doesn’t love her anymore, Khonshu’s asking too much, they have some terminal disease… Her lip wobbled more with each new possibility.

“No… No, we’re not okay.” Marc whispered, “Steven doesn’t want me to tell you… but I don’t think he’s okay.”

He sounded so tired, and his eyes didn’t even come up to meet hers as he spoke. Whatever was wrong, it had been going on for a while and it’s become too much for Marc to handle. With a frown, she grabbed his hand to tug him onto the bed.

While she wasn’t in a romantic relationship with him, Marc was still important to her. He was like a brother to her. Without him, she wouldn’t even have Steven.

“Tell me, Marc… Tell me what’s wrong,” she begged softly. If he closed the door now after letting her get a toe in, she might completely break down. He sagged forward with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

“I just wish I could have protected him better… All of this is my fault. I’m so sorry, Y/N. I know this has been hurting you too, but I don’t know how to help him. He won’t eat; he runs until we have blisters… Hell, he’s been fronting during almost every fight and I can’t make him give me the body…”

It was as if once the words started pouring out of his mouth, they wouldn’t stop.

“The only reason I’m fronting now is that I think he was just too exhausted to…” The sigh that left him was far beyond his age. It was the sigh of someone too tired to continue. “You gotta help us, Y/N… You gotta help Steven.”

With a tear-streaked face, she nodded.

<><>

Marc had showered and changed into Steven’s favorite pajamas before climbing into bed. Y/N lay on her side of the bed, wishing that it was her husband she was falling asleep next to. She wanted to hold him close, to protect him from the dangers of his own mind. She could only hope that when she woke up, it would be Steven kissing her awake as he used to.

Her sleep was a light and fitful one. An odd form of sleep paralysis. She could hear the sounds of their apartment, and Marc’s heavy snores next to her. But she couldn’t move. Worry and fear gripped her body like a vice.

Time seemed to still be flowing as one moment she was hearing Marc’s snores, then the next Steven’s much softer breaths. Unconsciously, her hand drifted toward her husband. Her love. Her partner who needed her help.

She couldn’t be sure if her hand ever touched him. Because it was his strained whispers that had her fully conscious. The lamp in the living area was lit and he stood in front of a full-length mirror.

“You overstepped, mate. I told you not to tell her.”

She blinked heavily, unsure if this was a dream or not. A quick hand over his side of the bed told her that it was not and that he hadn’t been gone for long.

“I don’t care! If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here with a big bloody scar on our chest from that fight! Or the other dozen scars everywhere else!” His voice started to rise.

She couldn’t help but stare at his back as he whispered furiously into the mirror on the other side of the apartment.

“She’s not gonna… she wouldn’t want a human scratching post. Y/N deserves more than… this. I mean, look at us…” He inhaled a shuttering breath. His strong hands gripped the edge of the standup mirror. “A million scars, rubbish bags under our eyes… gross stretch marks, unflattering dad bod.”

His final whispered confession had her finally jumping out of bed.

“I just wish I could be the man she deserves.”

She gave him no time to react before she slammed into his back, wrapping her arms around his middle and bunching the fabric of his shirt in her hands.

His breath caught in his throat, shame filling him. He could feel her sobs more than hear them. Gods, he made her upset. That had been the last thing he wanted to do, but Marc’s words from earlier rang through his head.

“You’re hurting her. Leaving early, coming home late, not making love with her, and keeping the lights off when you do. It’s hurting her. She told me so.”

A sob forced its way from his throat, and hot tears fell down his cheeks. His teeth bit harshly into his lip as he bowed his head, unwilling to look at the reflection of Marc’s pitying look.

“I’m so sorry…So, so sorry.” His hands grasped hers over his chest, right over the scar that had started this whole thing. She shook her head, whimpering into his shirt.

“No, please, Steven.” She took a shuddering breath, “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m not mad; or upset with you… I’m upset for you.”

His eyes screwed closed, his lips pressed into a line to suppress his cries.

“I wish I could take this pain away from you. I wish I could love these thoughts out of your mind. You do such an amazing job of protecting me; I wish I did a better job at protecting you.” She pulled her hands from his to drift to his sides and gently turned him to face her.

He kept his head bowed. The shame, the self-hatred, the ugly expression on his face, it wasn’t something she needed to see. The flinch he gave when her gentle hand cupped his cheek was uncontrollable. Her hand dropped back down to her side.

“Steven, let me help you. Whatever you’re trying to keep from me, whatever it is you are trying to hide, I will still love you. Nothing will ever make me not love you; nothing will ever make me think you are undeserving. You are the only man in this entire universe that I will ever love.”

He didn’t flinch when her hand touched him this time. Instead, he pressed his tear-stained cheek into her palm. They both let out heavy breaths. A hand littered with scars he hated so much, gripped her waist. The other, just as scarred as the right, cupped the back of her neck and he brought their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry that I’ve upset you, love. I just... I don’t know how to… how to let someone help. But I know I need it.” Steven swallowed the lump still stuck in his throat. “I am truly fortunate to have you be the one to help me, though.”

“I’m even luckier to have you,” She whispered before leaning forward to press her lips to his. His grip tightened and he pulled her flush to his chest. Flames followed in the wake of her fingers tracing up his stomach to rest on his chest, lovingly stroking the raised skin of the scar. His heart was thundering and he was sure she could feel it under her fingertips.

Salty tears blended on their skin, hiccupping sobs breaking from his sweet lips. As if touching glass, she wiped his tears away, cooing and shushing him. Chocolate eyes locked with hers. Walking backward and not breaking eye contact, she tugged him by the hand towards the bed. Steven followed obediently while wiping his tears with his sleeve.

The bed was cool against her skin as she leaned against the pillows, opening her arms for him. The air was thick with tension as he stood still, watching her. The stifling air was broken when he pulled his shirt over his head with shaking hands. His body is on full display in the dim lighting. While the suit heals wounds, it doesn’t erase scars.

It didn’t seem possible, the amount of love and acceptance in her gaze. It made his breath catch in his throat and warm goosebumps break out over his skin. Wishing for him to be in her arms, she made grabby hands for him. The action made his lips quirk up.

Slowly, he crawled in between her legs and she sat up to wrap her arms around his middle. Soft lips ghosted over the scar as her hands smoothed over his sides. His head was nuzzled into her hair and his arms wrapped around her back.

After breathing each other in, she leaned back and guided him to rest his head on her chest. His strong arms constricted around her middle. Her socked foot caressed his calf while her lips kissed the top of his head.

“If I get too heavy, I can move.” He couldn’t help but mumble. Gentle fingers carded through his hair and trailed down his back. Painted nails lightly scraped over his skin, leaving a trail of more goosebumps.

“If you dare move, I’m going to handcuff you to myself and swallow the key,” she threatened.

Steven let out a breathy chuckle and relaxed more into her. The patterns she was tracing into his skin were hypnotic and slowly, his eyes began to drift closed. A low sweet hum filled his ears.

As he focused on her fingers, he realized she wasn’t just doodling random patterns. It was letters. Words.

‘I love you’

‘Perfect’

‘Strong’

Tears pricked his eyes once more. He tilted his head to press a lingering kiss to her collarbone.

“I’ve got you, Steven. I’m not going anywhere. Not when I’ve got the perfect man for me in my arms.”

#my writing #grace writes shit #fluff #reader insert #request #steven grant #steven grant x reader #angst #tw: body insecurity #tw: mental health #tw: self loathing #moon knight x reader #moon knight #marc spector

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obsidiancreates · 4 months

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The Smartest Dumb Person She's Ever Met (Shules Shawn Genius Reveal Fic)

“Shawn, this is ridiculous.” Even as she says it, Jules knows her smile completely undercuts her protests as Shawn sets out more and more and more plates of food.

“Babe, I told you, we are finding our new go-to takeout spot tonight,” Shawn insists. “We’ll just dump all the leftovers on Gus! He’ll love it, maybe even more than he loves watching debates about rash cream side-effects.”

“I don’t think he loves watching those, Shawn.”

“Then why does he spend hours on it every few months?”

“Well, maybe, because he has a day job. We’re not all so lucky to be employed by spirits and whims,” Jules teases lightheartedly as Shawn sits down and starts putting together a sampler plate. “Speaking of which, we didn’t talk about what I should expect from living with a psychic.”

“Aside from constant swooning and daily hair updates?”

“Aside from those.”

“Well, Jules, I’m afraid I can’t tell you what to expect, because I don’t know either.” Shawn hands her the plate, and sniffs. “Truth be told, this is uh… this is the first time I’ve moved in with somebody.”

Jules smiles softer. “Mine too. But I just mean… how often do you have visions outside of cases? And what about your dreams, are those affected?”

“No, not as far as I know- but I have been told I talk in my sleep.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Because you know me.” He kisses her before dishing up his own plate. “But uh, yeah, no psychic vision dreams for the most part.. … Well, sometimes, but not usually. And I can control the visions at home, don’t even worry another second about it.”

“Really? Because I thought you were completely beholden to them at all times.”

“Ehhhh… more or less.”

“Shawn.”

“Alright, so maybe a minor one here and there- but I’ll save the big stuff for the cases. No dramatic psych-outs in the living room.”

“Thank you.” Jules takes a bite of one of the various dishes on her plate, and coughs. “Oh my god, they used so much black pepper!”

“Let me try- hck! Oh my- ekch! That is just stupid, how much there is-”

“Get some water-”

“On it, on it, holy-”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shawn doesn’t have psychic visions or dreams, just like he promised.

But he has something else going on.

Jules starts noticing it after the first few days of lovey-dovey, disgustingly happy mushiness finally starts to settle into domesticity. She sits at the table and Shawn has a big stack of toaster waffles already drenched in syrup ready for both of them, even though he’s not a natural early riser, because it’s a day they both have off and it’s more Brunch than Lunch, and Shawn… isn’t eating.

His head is tilted, his eyes narrowed, and that usually means he’s having a vision. But this morning he’s just barely reading the newspaper- Jules is sure he’s not actually reading it, his eyes aren’t moving right for that, in fact they’re barely moving at all. They’re narrows and still, taking the paper in as one whole picture, probably absorbing nothing.

And she starts to realize he gets that look a lot, with no visions following them. He gets it when the delivery guy drops off their food, he gets it when the news comes on, he gets it when Lassiter comes over to drop off something Jules left in his car during a stakeout, and again and again and again.

And then it just goes away, and he doesn’t say anything. And she assumes, well, it’s a minor vision. He has them a lot more often than she had previously thought, clearly. Small, apparently unimportant visions that he just brushes off.

And then he tells her that they should stop getting takeout from the place two blocks away because the delivery guy is about to quit from being overworked. There’s no fanfare, no hand to his head, no sharp inhale- just an offhand statement that slips out right after he closes the front door.

It’s not the first time she’s heard him make a random prediction, not even close. But something about the understated nature of it makes her pause, and after a second she asks, “What makes you say that?”

“You’ve seen the state of that car they have him driving, it's one rough road away from falling to pieces. Plus his shoes are completely tattered, and his jeans, basically everything that’s not given to him as part of the uniform, but they’re also all stiff still- he just bought them and they’re already wrecked because of how many deliveries he’s making. That’d piss anyone off enough to quit, especially at his age.”

She hadn’t noticed that- at least, not all of it. She knew the car was a piece of junk, and the clothes were tattered, but thinking back she sees what Shawn means by them still looking stiff and out-of-the-box new. And somehow, somehow, she feels like if she points out that she hadn’t caught onto all of that herself, something… big, would just… slip away.

“That’s a shame, I like him,” is all she says instead. “He has a nice smile.”

“He just got his braces off, he’d probably literally skip for joy if he heard you say that,” Shawn says, handing over her food. Again, no fanfare, no theatrics- he just says it, unthinkingly, almost distracted as he digs into his honey cashew shrimp and chicken.

It’s different.

It has to be a vision, but it’s different.

And again, Jules gets a feeling that pointing that out would break… something, about this moment. So she makes a note, and tucks it away in her mind, and hopes she’s able to remember to follow up later.

“Good for him.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shawn talks in his sleep most nights, as it turns out.

It’s not very comprehensible majority of the time- usually all she can make out, when she’s even awake to hear it, is Shawn mumbling something to or about Gus. At first it’s a little offensive, frankly, that her boyfriend dreams about his best friend constantly and she never hears her own name, but it quickly becomes just… normal. Like most of Shawn and Gus’s codependency. Some days she feels like she’s dating both of them, just a little bit. It bothers her less than it probably should, certainly less than she would expect if she was an outside observer. Gus was Shawn’s original rock, his strongest pillar, his tightest tether, and she knew she’d never truly be able to match that even before she and Shawn got together.

She should probably ask Gus about some of Shawn’s more daily psychic dealings, actually- he’s known Shawn for their whole loves, so he must have lots of advice for her about how to deal with it. And how to deal with the rest of Shawn’s… quirks. Which she loves about him, she truly does, as messy and intrusive as some of those quirks are in their lives. Psychic visions, murder scene dates, fearing that Shawn’s going to get himself killed with his daily recklessness. She had kissed him on that Canadian overlook expecting all of it, thinking she had finally come to learn everything she needed to learn about him.

And then, all those months and years later, she’s laying in bed unable to sleep and reading a book to try and calm down when Shawn mumbles out something shockingly understandable about the case they’re both working.

She freezes, as though her silent eye movements while reading could somehow disturb the moment.

“Doesn’ ma’ s’nse,” Shawn mumbles in his sleep. “Th’ t’re tr’cks…”

Jules slowly lowers her book.

Shawn rolls over, facing her now, still fast asleep, lightly snoring. Jules watches him like a deer caught in headlights.

“T’res don’ ma’ch,” Shawn mumbles out. “Tr’d too w’de…” His brow pinches, his lips pursing a little. There’s a long beat of silence.

Jules holds her breath. Like with the delivery boy, something about this moment just feels… big. Important.

Shawn’s face smooths out. “M’gn’ts.”

Magnets.

Jules thinks about the case that they’ve been working together all week, a hit-and-run. They’ve got one witness who got a whole license plate number, they’ve got the plate number matching a car of that exact description, and the only problem is they’ve also got a suspect who vehemently denies ever driving that route in his entire life. And like always when things seem straightforward, Shawn had declared that he wasn’t convinced they had the right guy.

But that doesn’t help her figure out what magnets have to do with anything. After a moment she doesn’t have to figure it out on her own, because Shawn makes a soft noise of sleep-laden realization.

“Th’ s’x an’ th’ n’ne.” His hand twitches, roughly tracing out the numbers on the sheets. “Fl’p ‘em…”

Magnets.

License plate number magnets. Moveable, alterable plate numbers.

“S��me car m’ke, s’me num’er, diff’ren’ t’re.” There’s a note of satisfaction, even in the sleep-slurred mess that is Shawn’s voice. He smiles a little in his sleep, and moments later… he’s snoring.

Jules sits, book almost falling out of her nonexistent grip, stunned into silence.

Shawn just cracked the case. In his sleep. With logic and authentic detective deduction.

… But that’s not possible.

Shawn doesn’t work like that. He doesn’t pay attention to clues, reason out possibilities, connect dots. He receives visions, he relays them, he makes connections with the help of his abilities. And maybe she’s seen some times that contradict tha belief, but- but it’s just not how he works. She would know.

… Maybe he does get psychic dreams. Maybe he just doesn’t know he gets them? But there was a thought process there, and a natural one for it to come to him so easily in sleep. She’d heard every step of the process, followed him on each conclusion.

… But the tire treads not matching? Jules relaxes, closing her book and turning off the lamp. That had to be psychic. No-one else noticed or said anything about tire treads through the investigation. How would he even pick out and remember that detail, anyway, without spiritual guidance? He’d seen only photos of the crime scene, and not great ones at that- darn trainees.

… Psychic dreams. Has to be.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Jules, look at that.” Shawn smiles and points at the ducks in the pond they’re having a picnic by. “There’s a bunch of baby ducks over there.”

Jules gasps and looks over eagerly, but quickly frowns. “Where?”

“Right there, in those tall hot-dog looking things.”

“Um, the reeds?”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

Jules squints, searching for signs of ducklings. “Where are you seeing them?”

“Right there, look.” Shawn leans and points harder , like that will help somehow. “You can totally see the hotdogs moving.”

“I think that’s just the wind.”

“No, look, the moms are circling the hot dogs and luring the feeders over to them.”

“What?” Jules looks at the edges of the pond now, and realizes that, yes, the ducks are luring the people with the food towards the reeds- and finally, the ducklings swim out into view.

“Told ya.” Shawn takes a bite of an eclair.

“How did you even see that movement from here?” Jules looks back at Shawn in awe.

“You kidding? They were totally moving all over.”

“But it looked like the wind.”

“The wind is blowing the total opposite direction. Look, you can see it in the ripples.”

“Huh.” Jules looks back at the pond. “That’s really impressive, Shawn. I had no idea your eyesight was that good.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve been asked to be studied by science for my eyesight, but they said it would drain all the color out of them, and then of course I’d have to become a supervillain.”

“Or a mysterious warning corpse in the basement of a haunted mansion.”

“Neither of which I felt up for.”

“Right.” Jules giggles, and looks back at the pond.

She has no idea how he noticed that. Not unless it was psychic, somehow. And further, she has no idea why he’s acting like she should be able to notice it, too. And, like before with the delivery boy, it’s not the first time he’s done this. But it’s the first time it feels…

Like something she needs to pay attention to.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Shawn?” Jules sets down the bowl of brownie batter when she realizes he’s stopped licking the spoon and is staring, eyes glazed, at the wall. It’s probably just a vision. She should just consider it a vision. There’s no real reason to think it’s not.

“Shawn,” she tries again, shaking his arm slightly. He startles, just a bit, and then clears his throat and puts the licked-”clean” spoon down on the counter. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah.” His eyes flick back to the wall. “... Jules, uh, does the wall look…” He pouts a little, shrugging. “Suspicious, to you?”

“Suspicious?” She looks at the same spot. “It’s… a wall.”

“Yeah… but there’s something a little off, isn’t there?” Shawn walks over to it, and taps his knuckles against the plaster. “... Sounds off, actually. Come here, listen.”

She obliges, leaning in close. Shawn taps one spot on the wall, and then the spot he said sounded strange.

“... What am I supposed to be hearing, Shawn?”

“It’s more hollow over here.” Shawn taps the first spot, and then taps the second. “Right here, it sounds more uh… almost like wet cardboard.”

She listens again. “Okay… I think I hear it now. But you didn’t hear the wall from over at the counter, did you? Was it a vision?”

“There’s a ring around this spot,” Shawn mumbles, like he didn’t hear her. He smacks his lips, and then jerks away from the wall as the focus suddenly drops away into his usual energy. “Man, we’ve got a leak in the walls! I knew that landlord was lying when he said it was all up to code.”

“A leak? Shawn, we tapped the wall a little bit, that doesn’t really tell us anything.”

“Yeah, maybe… but I’m calling someone, tomorrow, just- remind me in the morning.” His eyebrows twitch up, his mouth forming an ‘O’ as he realizes something. “If I play this card right I might be able to knock a bit off our rent.”

“Shawn, you are not blackmailing our landlord over a leak that might not even exist.”

“I’m not! Not yet! Just planning to, possibly. So we can have more money for date nights!”

“It’s illegal.”

“Alright, alright. …How illegal, exactly?”

“Shawn.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s trickery. It’s lying. It’s wrong.

But she had been sitting at her desk, reviewing the latest round of new Detective’s Exam scores, when she’d remembered Shawn saying years ago that he had taken the exam when he was 15, and got 100.

A perfect score.

And maybe that meant very little to her once, when Shawn was just the strange somewhat charming guy who came into her life only on occasion to make a case more interesting. But now, dating Shawn and seriously considering spending the rest of her life with him, now as soon as she had recalled that tidbit it began to haunt her. Every time she watched Shawn around the house, and even in the station. It echoed in her head while she watched him look over reports, scan crime scenes, even while he was just watching movies and predicting things about their endings.

I got 100. … Why? What did you guys get?

He hadn’t even been bragging.

So now she sits on the couch, a thick binder in front of her, guilt twisting in her stomach at what she’s about to do.

She’s about to lie to her boyfriend, with the full intent of tricking him into the taking the exam again, just to see.

When he walks into the house, slightly out of breath and carrying something that looks suspiciously like the pineapple statue put into evidence during the last case, he startles upon seeing her and hides the statue behind his back. But his excuse dies in his gaping mouth when he sees how stressed she looks.

“Babe? Everything okay?” He sets the statue- it’s definitely the same one put into evidence- aside as he moves to sit next to her.

“Fine,” she sighs. “Just- Chief Vick asked me to help review the Detective’s Exam after someone complained there were errors in it.”

“Hmm. That person should either pass immediately, or be barred from detective status forever.”

She giggles softly. “That’s a little extreme. It’s just, this is going to take forever, and I was hoping to go out today and finally try that spa that opened up.”

“Well you totally should!” Shawn looks at the binder. “Just, leave it for another time, it can’t be that pressing. After all, Santa Barbara already has it’s best detective.”

She rolls her eyes fondly.

“And, she just so happens to be dating an equally awesome but more brunette psychic detective.” He kisses her on the cheek. “So she should go out and treat herself while her awesome boyfriend tries to divine if there’s actually a mistake.”

“Oh, the spirits know that kind of thing?”

“Some of them, some of them.”

“Well, let them know I’ll still have to check their work, so they better show it.” She gives him a kiss back and stands. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The guilt gnaws at her as she drives to the spa, as she picks her treatment, as she gets her facial and her massage and her body scrub. She knows she had to- she knows Shawn well enough to know he’d never retake the exam if she just asked him outright. He’d be suspicious why she was asking him to, and she’s not sure she can tell him without making him think she’s doubting him.

She’s not. He is psychic.

But he might also be more.

And if he is, he’s hiding it- maybe not as much as he did when she would only see him at the station, or planned dates, but he’s still hiding it. She sees him seeing things, noticing details, making connections, and when he does he never seems to…

She’s not sure. She just knows that he treats these moments like they’re something a normal person can do when they can’t, or like they aren’t happening at all, or even…

Even like they’re psychic.

She takes the long way home, breathing deeply the whole time. Shawn lies to her every day- she’s not blind to that. Usually about a case, usually because he’s more than likely doing something she could get reprimanded for just knowing about. She doesn’t like it, but even though he lies he doesn’t trick her, at least as far as she knows.

When she gets home, Shawn isn’t there. She finds a note on the coffee table, stuck to the binder. Gus called, be back soon, XOXO.

She smiles, takes a deep breath, and opens the binder.

There’s mostly Doodles. His artistic skill on display ranges from shockingly masterful to shockingly kindergarten-like, some doodles belonging in a gallery and some not even qualifying for the fridge under a free pizza place magnet. Aliens, dinosaurs, scenes from movies, random invention ideas…

No answers, at first, which disappoints her. Until she notices that one doodle seems to coordinate to one of the questions, and it’s like a Rosetta Stone.

Not all, but many of the doodles seem to relate to the answer to a question in some way, and where there’s not doodles there’s not-answers that show knowledge of the actual answer. There’s snark and quips and jokes that contain answers, and every once and a while she even finds something straightforward smushed among the almost deflective content of the pages.

Deflective.

He’s deflecting that he knows the answers. The more she flips through, the more she sees it. Shawn went out of his way to answer without answering, to show his knowledge without admitting he has it. He couldn’t just not answer, and he couldn’t just pretend not to know- but he couldn’t outright show it either.

“Oh my god.” Jules closes the binder and puts her face in her hands. “Of course. Henry.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jules finds Henry’s detective’s exam score a week later. It’s high- not perfect, but high. She finds Shawn’s score to compare. Like he’d said. It was perfect.

She goes digging through the file archives on her lunch break, and finds the actual exam itself- someone preserved it, because a fifteen year old got 100.

It’s not like the one Shawn did in their living room.

It’s still got doodles, tangents, signs of distractibility- but the answers are much more plain. Forthright. It reads like an actual potential detective, taking the exam seriously, trying his best.

And she’s pretty sure she knows who gave Shawn that exam.

Of course, of course. His dad was a cop, a revered one, of course Henry taught Shawn some skills- more than some! How did that never occur to her? It feels silly now, to think Shawn wouldn’t have at the very least picked up a few tricks of the trade, even if Henry hadn’t taught Shawn outright.

She puts the file back, smiling and satisfied with knowing she was right and Shawn does have genuine, non-psychic detective skills like she’d suspected.

… The smile fades when she starts to wonder why he pretends he doesn’t.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Carlton, can I ask you about something?”

Lassiter looks up from his paperwork and sets his pen aside. “Anything to save me from the banality of filling another report out.”

“You… met Shawn’s mom, right?”

Lassiter’s mouth snaps shut, his eyes going a little wide. “This isn’t anything about you and Spencer’s… relationship progress, is it?”

“What? … Oh, god, no! No, I’m not looking to propose or anything.”

He sags (well, relatively- Lassiter never truly sags or loosens up) with relief. “In that case, yes, she did my last psych eval.”

“Right. And you-you talked with her a lot?”

“As much as was required by the situation.”

“Was she… like Shawn, at all? It’s just that, well, even though she’s been in town three times now, I’ve never actually talked with her beyond some passing comments.” She’s barely involved with Shawn’s life- if Jules didn’t know how absent Madaline is from her son’s existence prior to dating, she’d have assumed Shawn’s mom hated her by how little they’ve actually interacted.

Lassiter thinks for a moment, looking out into the bullpen, and then looks down and picks his pen back up. “Not really, no. Closest she came was recognizing the Clint Eastwood movies I was telling her stories from. She was generally professional, somewhat soft-spoken, and somehow got me to open up without even half of the pressing nature of her son.”

Jules nods. “Did she… mention Shawn at all?”

“Only at the end, after I shared my innermost thoughts. … You know, I take it back. That was the most Spencer -like thing she did during our sessions.”

“Huh.” Jules looks down at her own paperwork. That answers nothing about why Shawn is pretending he isn’t a good detective. It can’t be his dad, Henry would be much softer and more proud if Shawn showed off that skillset, surely. Madaline seemed like a good lead…

“She was weird, though. Outside of the relation to Spencer. She didn’t even record our sessions, she claimed to have… dammit.” Lassiter frowns as he tries to remember. “Something about being able to remember everything she hears with almost perfect accuracy.”

Jules’s head snaps up. “What?”

“I thought she was bullcrapping, but I got ahold of the file and didn’t actually find any errors in the quotes she included- she must’ve tapped the room or something.”

“Carlton, go back. Perfect memory? Shawn’s mom?”

“See, I believed her about it until I learned that. With Henry’s recall, and a mom with perfect memory for sounds, there’s no way Spencer should be as airheaded as he is. Not unless his brain short-circuited from overwhelming competency it just wasn’t built for.”

“Oh my god.” Jules puts her face in her hands. “Carlton, what if that’s exactly what it is?”

“What? What are you on about?”

“Nothing, just- it’s nothing.” She fixes her ponytail and then stands up. “I’m taking my lunch break, I’ll bring you back a coffee.”

“Uh, and a danish.”

“And a danish.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Henry swings the door open with a readied scowl, but it drops away when he sees it’s Jules standing on his porch. “Oh, Detective O’Hara.”

“I’m here on a personal matter, actually.” Jules smiles a bit. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure, sure, come on in.” Henry steps aside. “I actually just grilled up a catch from this morning, if you’re hungry.”

“Thank you, that sounds great.”

Minutes later they’re both sitting at the table, Jules sees a little carving in the top of the old piece of furniture, a shaky scratching of Shawn and Gus Club right by her elbow. It makes her smile.

“So, ah, what is this about?” Henry gestures at her with his fork. “Shawn’s treating you right, isn’t he?”

“We’re great,” she assures. “I just wanted to ask a few questions about Shawn’s gift.”

Henry leans his head to the side, frowning. “I uh, can’t really help you there, Juliet.”

“Not the psychic one.”

Henry pauses, his frown deepening. He looks up at her with something… unreadable, in his eyes. “How do you mean?”

“I’m not doubting him,” Jules rushes to reassure, and it does seem to loosen something in Henry’s twisted expression, but not by much. “I just… I’ve always known Shawn was a little smarter than he let on, you know? But I’ve had reason to believe, since we moved in together, that it’s much more extreme of a mask than I thought.”

Henry puts his fork down entirely. “What’d he do?”

“Just… little things, that I used to think were maybe minor visions or feelings, but sometimes… sometimes he just says things that blow my mind. He notices way more little details than he used to let on, for example, and then today Carlton mentioned that his mom has an um…” She take sout her phone to look it up again.

“Eidetic tonal memory,” Henry fills in before she can even begin typing. “She does. I have a visual one.”

Jules looks at him, quickly tucking her phone away. “And then Carlton said that maybe Shawn struggled with handling that- well, he didn’t say it in those exact words-”

“Shawn does not struggle with his memory, except for when he wants to.” Henry’s mouth is puckered, like he’s eating a lemon dipped in sour dust. “You’re saying you think he’s faking visions.”

“Not all of them.” That’s just not possible, with everything he figures out. “But some of them, and I just- I just can’t figure out why he would fake them for some of the things he does. I mean, the other night he talked in his sleep and basically walked me through his process step-by step by accident, and then the next day he came into the station and pretended it just came to him when he reexamined the scene photos.”

“Shawn has always had an overenthusiasm for drama,” Henry starts, speaking quickly and with heavy exasperation. “He likes things to be public and dramatic as much as possible, especially when it’s an embarrassment to himself and to me.”

“That’s a little harsh, I think.”

“Trust me, it isn’t. Shawn has never wanted to embrace his full potential, Juliet- yes, he has both a visual and tonal eidetic memory, and on top of that I trained him to be a detective for his entire life. I knew, I knew he had the ability to be the best detective this department has ever seen, if he just-!” Henry stops himself and rubs one hand over his head. “But he likes living in a fantasy more. He likes slacking off, and refusing to apply himself, and avoiding responsibility, so he… indulged his psychicness, over his actual detective skills.”

“... I’m not sure he has,” Jules says carefully, watching for Henry’s reaction with a readiness to run.

Henry laughs a little, bitterly, and looks up. “He’s not a real detective, Juliet. No matter how much I want him to be, or how much he insists he is.”

“Just because he’s not on the force, it doesn’t mean he’s not a detective.”

“It might as well.”

“... You should be proud of your son, Henry. He’s helped solved a lot of cases we’d have had to let go cold without him.”

“I am proud.” He says it quickly, defensively- but not inauthentically. It occurs to Jules that this is the first time she’s heard Henry declade Pride in Shawn, in all seven years she’s known them both. “I am. Just not of his methods.”

“... Well, um, thank you, for the food, and-and the information.” Jules stands up. She’s starting to form a new theory about why Shawn hides his skills. “Do me a favor and, don’t tell Shawn about this? I just don’t want him to feel weird that I’m, well… investigating him.”

Henry shrugs and pretends to zip his mouth and throw away the key.

“Thanks.” She gives him a smile that has to be forced out, and leaves.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well I bet you can’t quote every line from The Breakfast Club without looking it up.” They’re playing a game of low-stakes wagers while they make baked mac ‘n cheese for dinner, and Shawn is losing badly- mostly because he’s only making bets that have Jules showing off her best skills.

Shawn looks at her, genuinely offended, before it smooths out into acceptance. “You’re right, I can’t. Not unless I’m given a big buzzing button, to replace the slurs.”

Jules nods. “Fair. How about you just point to me and I’ll make the noise for you?”

“Now that is a plan.”

She feels bad about tricking him again. She does. But she watches him run through the whole movie script, doing the dances, dramatically flailing around the room- and she sees something she’d been completely overlooking for years.

She laughs as he finishes it off, sweating and panting but grinning at her. “How do you remember all of that but the other day you couldn’t tell me if you’d even locked the front door?”

Well I remember important things, Jules.”

“Home security is important, Shawn.”

“When you’re not a detective dating a psychic, maybe.”

“Ha-ha. I’d still rather not come home from a date to our TV missing.”

“... True. Fair. I’ll work on it.”

“Seriously though, Shawn, sometimes your memory makes no sense to me. Do you think ADHD medication would help with some of the… little details?”

“Uh, no.” Shawn shakes his head. “No can do, tried it once and swore it off forever.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it uh… stuff filtered in but didn’t filter out, you know? Like Gus at a buffet.”

“Gross.”

“It was, it was gross. Both the meds and the buffet.”

“I can’t imagine. It would be awful, just… being unable to stop things sticking around in your head.” She watches him from the corner of her eye as she pulls the dish out of the oven.

Shawn’s posture tenses a little. His mouth parts and the tip of his tongue comes to touch the middle of his top lip. He shrugs, and nods. “Yeah. What a-” he interrupts himself with a chuckle that Jules can only tell is bitter and nervous because of how long she’s known him. “What a sucky thing that’d be!”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Shawn, this is too much,” Jules says as he leads her, his hands covering her eyes, somewhere for a date.

“Are you kidding? You saved my life on this case, again, and you totally prevented a huge disaster with getting the detonator away from that guy.”

“And you are the one who noticed he had a detonator in the first place.”

“The spirits noticed, Jules. But I will take credit for this.” He moves his hands away from her eyes, and she gasps.

They’re in some kind of outdoor dining area, an archway of flowering vines set up above a table covered with a floral cloth and light-blue chinaware. As Shawn comes around to her line of vision she sees he’d hidden a nice suit under his usual jacket when he first told her he had a surprise planned, and his tie…

“Shawn, are you recreating the play?” It had been a particularly great date, for a variety of reasons- but mostly, because Shawn had actually managed to sit down, watch the play, and not turn it into a criminal investigation. He’d still kept up a running commentary and restless fidgeting of course- Jules would have been worried if he hadn’t- but otherwise it had been proof to her that he could take this seriously.

“Maybe.” He offers her his hand and leads her to the table.

“Shawn, these plates are exactly like the ones from the date scene, how did you-”

“I may or may not have, solved a little case for the owner of the theatre and taken payment in the form of old props.”

Jules laughs, picking up the menu on the table. “Is this the actual menus too, then?”

“Unfortunately, no, but I think Gus- I mean, I, recreated them pretty well.”

“Mmm. Let me guess, you ‘managed’ the recreation, and Gus did the work on it?”

“I also turned on the printer.”

“Basically did the whole thing yourself.” She looks over the menu again- it had been held up briefly during the play, a larger version of it shown on a projection screen behind the actors, and she wouldn’t have remembered it if asked before this moment but now, seeing the recreation, she’s almost certain it’s exact.

It had been on stage for maybe one minute, maybe less.

“How did you even remember this?”

“Psychic recreation, Jules. I traveled back to the past in ethereal form. Your future self was there too- clearly, my gifts rub off on you fifty years from now.”

She laughs again, softer. He’s lying of course- he likes to lie for the humor, and the fun, and because no-one can truly call him out on his powers because even he doesn’t understand them as he often admits. But it feels different now.

He’s not lying entirely for fun. Partly for fun, sure- but he remembered the play, he remembered the menu, because he has an eidetic memory and can’t forget things and in the days since she spoke with Henry to confirm it that fact has been haunting her.

She has trouble sleeping some nights- it’s gotten better since Shawn moved in, having someone curled around her making sleep feel safer- because of the things she’s seen, experienced, endured. She still has nightmares about the clocktower, about sitting in a hospital bed waiting to hear if she has Thornburg, about desperately hunting down clues to Shawn’s whereabouts with Gus and having no idea if they’d even find him alive by the end. The images, the emotions, the sounds… they all stick with her, forgotten until the moment they strike.

What is that like for someone with Shawn’s memory? If her memories push in unwanted, what about his? The looks into the distance, the glaze over his eyes right before he reveals something, the visceral reactions when he remembers something he doesn’t like- it breaks her heart now, knowing that at least some of those are because his mind shoves near-perfect flashbacks at him.

And with observation, she’s realized that it’s usually unwanted and not sought out- just like his visions. It’s hard to tell them apart from the outside, which just makes her even more concerned- does he even know the difference most of the time? Does it affect all of his thoughts, his imagination, the way he fills in blanks? Is that why sometimes his “visions” are so wrong, because he’s so used to them working the same way as the rest of his mind that he can’t tell what’s Him and what’s The Spirits?

“Hey.” She’s jolted out of her spiraling thoughts by Shawn reaching across the table and taking her hand. “Are you okay?”

She plasters on a smile. “Fine. Just- thinking about how lucky we are. To be here, after everything we’ve gone through.”

Shawn smiles back and pats her hand once before withdrawing his. “Lucky, or just awesome and unstoppable as a team? You, me, Gus, sometimes Lassie- we’re literally a dream team.”

“We are.” She tries to push her concerns about her boyfriend out of her mind, ordering food from a waiter wearing a costume clearly not sized for him- Shawn is always making seemingly impossible things happen, and Jules has no idea how he roped a real restaurant into this, aside from it being either a favor or a blackmail- but Shawn doesn’t blackmail people as far as she’s ever known, so probably a favor.

Shawn is impossible. More and more so every day. And the most impossible is his contradictions. She watches him fumble with his napkin, and remembers him leveling a gun with a steady confident hand on more than one occasion during a case. She listens to him recount a completely wrong story that she keeps correcting the details of, and looks at the perfect recreation of a scene from a play they saw once, months and months ago. She watches him exclaim in surprise over realizing the plates have a design of playing labradoodles at the edges, and thinks about how he saw the reeds moving in a different direction than the wind was blowing from almost impossibly far away to pick up on such a detail.

“Shawn.” She sets her fork down and interrupts his gushing about how cute the design of one of the puppies on the plate is. “I need to tell you something.”

His smiles drops, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ shape, eyes alight with panic.

“I’m not breaking up with you.” The quick assurance makes Shawn sigh and slump in relief. “And-and I want you to know before I say this that I’m not doubting you either, or your psychic abilities.”

The tension in Shawn returns. “What?”

Jules bites her lower lip. “I just… can’t pretend not to know anymore, Shawn. Because it’s been just… awful watching you do everything you can to pretend you’re not intelligent.”

“... Jules, I-I don’t-”

“I talked to your dad.” She immediately wishes she’d started with anything else, the way Shawn shuts down and clams up. “No, that’s not what I- Shawn, I know you have an eidetic memory, and that you’re probably hyperobservant, on top of being psychic.”

Shawn’s mouth is tightly pursed, eyes searching, body language just withdrawn. Jules plows forwards, swallowing thickly.

“I’ve been seeing it since you moved in. You’re so smart, Shawn, and-and your detective skills are amazing. One night you solved a case in your sleep, and you mumbled the whole thing, and I was just blown away by how you were able to come to those conclusions and connect those dots.”

Shawn looks down, briefly licking his lips. “Chief Vick never asked you to review the detective’s exam, did she?”

“... No. And, you just proved my point. You made that connection so fast, Shawn.”

Shawn shrugs. “What-what is this? Why right now? On our date?”

“Because I love you.” She reaches over, pries his hands away from his sides and holds them. “And I want to understand why. Why do you pretend you’re not one of the best detectives I’ve ever seen? Your psychic visions are one thing, Shawn, but your skills… they’re genuinely incredible.”

Shawn won’t look her in the eye, traveling his sharp gaze around anything else around them. “You know me. I just uh, love putting on a show.”

“That’s what your dad said.” She feels his hands tense in hers. “But I don’t believe either of you. Well, I believe that’s part of it, but not the full thing. … Your dad said you’ve never really embraced it.”

“Of course he did.”

“But you do, embrace it. You do every day. I watch you get completely antsy and out of your mind without a case, and I used to think it was because you were just… chaotic, and-and bored, and maybe some kind of psychic restlessness but it’s not, right? It’s because you need to be able to solve something. Because you like being smart and solving cases, but you don’t like people knowing. Why?”

“Jules…”

“I’m not asking you to bring me in on your process, or to admit to anyone else when you solve instead of divine. I’m just… trying to understand you, Shawn, because I want us to work. And for us, this, to last… we have to know each other, and I feel like I’m just learning about you all over again.”

Shawn is silent for a moment, and then takes a deep breath and meets her eyes, reluctantly. “Gus knows,” he admits. “You probably figured that, but, he does.”

Jules nods.

“Did my dad… talk about uh…”

“... He mentioned he trained you since you were young.”

“... Yeah. … I don’t know how to, uh…”

She waits. He seems… lost.

“... I learned how to properly stalk a perp through a hideout before I learned how people get sick from each other,” he says. Jules blinks in confusion until he continues, “I learned most things about being a cop before I learned everything else. And it wasn’t… he’s not proud of me, you know? When I was a kid I wanted to be just like him, and I couldn’t be, and he was disappointed in me. Eight years old, I could close my eyes and tell you the clothes anyone in the room was wearing, could tell you who was married and who wasn’t, how… how many hats, were in the room, and it didn’t matter. It was…” He scoffs. “Adequate. That’s it.”

Jules rubs her thumb along the back of his hand. “You got bitter about it.”

“Bitter’s a strong word.” It’s not- it’s just right. It’s in his voice, his eyes, his posture. But he doesn’t like these words, she knows that about him. He doesn’t like these words and these feelings, and he likes to pretend they don’t exist, and he doesn’t experience them. And how hadn’t she realized that was a problem before now? How had that just settled in her perception of him without setting off alarms that maybe something wasn’t okay?

“Shawn, you’re more than adequate. Your dad said so himself, he told me he is proud of you.”

“... He-he did?” The genuine surprise, it makes Jules’s heart shatter all over again.

“And more importantly, we’re all proud of you. Me, Gus, Carlton is even if he won’t admit it either- The Chief, she’s so proud of you and the work you do! Even when you mess it up or cause major problems, she still defends you and knows you do good work.”

Shawn’s mouth finally untightens, slightly, one corner twitching up for a brief smile. But it fades all too quick.

“What’s the rest of the reason, Shawn? It can’t just be because your dad didn’t give you the credit you deserved. You’ve been doing this for years.”

“Well, like I said Jules, it’s not as fun. You know? You-you solve something psychically and everyone is in awe! Throw in some jokes, make a scene, plus the bad guys always seem to confess way faster when they think I divined certain things, it’s just better!”

“You could do the same with your deductions! I mean it, Shawn, they’re amazing, the way you solved that case with the hit-and-run was incredible. I don’t even know how you came up with the magnets.”

He puts a finger by his temple and gives her a somewhat prodding, questioning look. She frowns at him and raises an eyebrow, and he puts his hand back down with a defeated nod.

“... I don’t want to be my dad.” Shawn shrugs. “I don’t want to be my dad, and as amazing as he is I don’t want to be Gus, and I don’t want to be Lassie, or even-even some… ideal, me. I want to be… me, Jules.”

“I’m not asking you to not be you.”

“Not on purpose, but- this is me, Jules, this is who I am. I can’t live my life with everyone expecting me to remember everything completely perfectly no matter what, or asking me about every little detail of everything all the time, or saying I should know things or be smarter than what I did or-or have to be better than that-”

It’s like when the last piece of a case finally fits into place.

“Oh.” Jules squeezes his hand, and he cuts himself off to look at her with pinched brows and still parted lips. “Shawn… that kind of pressure is insane to put on a child. I’m so sorry.”

He blinks, frozen, and Jules stands up to come to his side and kiss his forehead. She crouches down by his chair. “You, are more than a detective,” she assures. “You are funny, and fun, and sometimes you’re so stupid and reckless that it literally hurts to watch, but that doesn’t mean that what you do right doesn’t matter. You don’t have to match your stupidity to your intelligence just to balance them out.”

“That’s not what I do.”

“Isn’t it? … Oh, my god, and after-after Yin you started going more overboard-”

“Jules-”

“-because he called you out and you had to hide even more-”

“Jules.” She looks into Shawn’s eyes and they’re… glassy. Red. Watering.

“You, being good at what you do, did not put me in danger,” she says softly, reaching up to brush her thumb over his cheek. “You being intelligent will not push me away, or change what I expect of you, or make you lose anyone you care about. But it might make us lose you, if you keep trying to bury it and compensate for it.”

“... I-I…”

“You know you’ve gone too far the opposite direction a lot these last few years, don’t you?”

He’s silent.

“... I understand these feelings run very deep, and all the back to your childhood. I understand that you probably resent what made your dad tain you just as much as you resent him and his training.”

“I don’t resent-”

“Shawn.”

“... I’m… working on not resenting him. Especially after he got shot.”

“I know. But you’re not working on how you feel about yourself because of him, are you?”

“... This is… very uncomfortable.”

“I know.” She wipes away an escaped tear. “You don’t like people being able to really know you, do you?”

“I like you knowing me. And Gus.”

“Do you? Because I had to figure all of this out on my own. Shawn, are you so used to hiding what you could be to be what you want to that you don’t even know how not to hide anymore?”

He flounders, opening and moving his mouth with no words, looking at the ground to her side. “I-I don’t know,” he finally gets out.

Jules nods. “And that’s okay.” Has he ever heard that before, in response to him not knowing something? Maybe. She won’t know unless they keep talking about this. She hopes they keep talking about this.

“... But you uh…” He presses his wrist, sleeves pulled down and gripped in his palm, to his nose for just a second, and sniffs. “You’re not saying you don’t believe I’m psychic anymore?”

“No, I’m not.”

He nods. “... You know, uh… Lassie is the whole reason I even got started, on the psychic detective thing.”

“Really?”

“Really. We still have this uh, table and everything for a few more hours, if you want to hear the story.”

She recognizes it for what it is. You know now, I’m uncomfortable with it, but I’ll try to not be, for you. So she sits back in her seat and listens to Shawn describe how he figured out a case through watching the news, and when Lassie didn’t believe him about it he claimed it was a psychic vision, and then he realized that works.

It recontextualizes even more things for Jules, even more of what Shawn must feel and think, and she wonders if she’ll ever fully figure him out.

She’ll just have to spend her entire life with him, she supposes.

#I'm not super happy with the ending but I can't make anything else work any better so. Ah well.#psych #psychusa #psych usa #psych 2006 #shules #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic

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arachnoia · 9 months

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rose-tinted lenses

moon knight (marc spector/steven grant)

— Saying he was left breathless is an understatement (in a good way). He doesn't know why it happened. He kind of wished it didn't, but at the same time, that was the best sex he’d ever had. Just the thought of your euphonious voice and gasps from the night before made him feel restless.

Marc looked over to his right side where you were sleeping soundly, the sun creeping in from the blinds and shining on your ethereal features. He doesn't know what attracted you to him or what made you so alluring but it was indescribable.

Usually, Marc wouldn’t care to pay attention to Steven’s everyday life as all Steven would do is wake up, feed Gus, work at the museum, eat with the statue guy, and overall have an average life. It was boring for the most part.

That is until you came along.

It wasn’t hard to spot you. Before he could even take a good look at you, he caught wind of your rather interesting outfit choices. It wasn’t anything he would wear since all he wears are neutrals and basics.

Donna figured one day, it would be best to move a rookie like you with Steven to inventory. Marc won’t lie, he does think you’re pretty but Steven was the one who fell hard. He admired your vibrant personality and took note of little things. Your favorite perfume, your favorite film, your major in university. He even found out the name of your electric guitar since you talked to Dylan about it.

When it came to you, he had rose-tinted lenses and talked to Marc about you. The only problem was, in Steven’s opinion, his way of talking to you. He froze and stuttered and just stared at you, which led to his idea of asking Marc to charm you (after several back-and-forth arguments, he agreed).

Now, Marc Spector isn’t one to fall in love so quickly. He refuses to and this was to help Steven.

But before he knew it, he had an almost insatiable want for you. After a few weeks, he got to know you, compiling more information and memorizing your favorite dish, favorite song, and favorite show.

He felt like his life had you in it all the time. At Steven’s job, in conversations with Steven, and even on the bloody street. And he was infatuated with you.

But he can’t. He shouldn’t.

Even after he made love to you, being tangled up in his sheets and his arms. He felt his heartbeat flutter beat loudly at the thought of you and your bright smile, your contagious laughter. He would compare it to nicotine but it’s more addictive than that.

Why?

Because to you, you're Steven Grant's. Not Marc Spector's.

#moon knight #marc spector #marc spector angst #steven grant #angst #moon knight angst #moon boys #augggg first moon knight fic #sol (not de janeiro)#moon knight system #earth 616 #moonknight #moon knight x reader #moon knight x you #moon knight imagine #marc spector x reader #marc spector x you #marc spector imagine

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2sleepyem · 4 months

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Well, time for What Remains of Edith Finch headcanons !!

・——————————・——————————・

When Calvin and Sam would get into fights and arguments Calvin would go into Barabras room while Sam would go someplace alone.

Calvin knew how to express his emotions, he'd cry, and talk to people about them, he was good with his emotions and would always express them a lot.

Sam didn't, he'd hide them, cover them up until he'd cry his eyes out and pull at his hair when he's alone. He always thought that he couldn't show them, that he had to be strong.

Sam would sometimes get into fights with his mom, they all ended badly.

Walter loves to hear stories about Molly, he'd ask Sven about what she was like, he always wanted to meet her.

Calvin once bit into a pumpkin while carving it, he lost a tooth, Sam thought it was a coolest thing ever, Walter was just concerned along with Sven, Edie didn't have much of a reaction, while Barabra was disgusted.

Gus would always make Dawn help him dye his hair, the first time they did they got red hair dye like everywhere, it looked like someone was murdered. All over the bathtub, Dawn's hands, some on her face, Gus had some on his head, face, and neck. Sam was flabbergasted.

Milton would draw the past family members a lot, he'd usually show his mom, whenever he'd draw Sam his mom would hold back tears.

Lewis is bi, he was afraid of coming out to anyone, but one day he came out to Edith and she was like " that's cool, are you trying to change the subject because I kicked your butt 5 times in this game?"

Gus knew he was different from others, after he (Dawn) dyed his hair, he'd paint his nails, Dawn would paint the left side. He'd dress differently and so on. Now that doesn't mean anything but he thought it did, he thought it meant something. Like he was trying to show himself. Sam would try not to flip out, he knew why Gus was doing all that, but he TRIED to ignore it and tell himself it was just a phase.

Sam is definitely FAR FAR FARRRR in the closet, he hated feeling like he wasn't normal, sometimes guys who were in the military with him would catch his eyes, and he'd immediately tell himself it wasn't right. There would be times when he was younger and would talk about girls to his brother and then it would lead into talking about guys, Calvin would be like in his mind ' damn my twin like men and women. Good for him. '

Barabra was almost like Sam, she of course liked guys, she was dating Rick, even if it was kinda just like him fanboying 24/7 and always being like 'child star blah blah'. She did love him, but, she always knew she was a bit different. Girls would catch her eye, she'd sometimes stare at a pretty girl for too long. She never told anyone at all.

Lewis is a sweetheart, a lovely guy, he always wanted a partner, to feel that kind of love, except he'd never know how to talk to anyone. He tried to talk to a girl once when he took Milton and Edith to the park, it was so bad they just left, Milton was laughing his ass off while Edith was confused.

When Barabra was born Molly was so excited, she helped her mom with everything, she'd play dress up, and much more. Molly was an amazing older sister.

EDIE AND SVEN ARE HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS

Sometimes Barbara would help her brothers with school work, Sam with math and Calvin with English, a lot of the time Walter didn't need help. Sometimes Walter would say he needed up just so he could hang out with Barabra.

Sam and Calvin are so so so nosy, they hear drama, fighting, or anything they'd listen to. Walter tells them they need to stay out of stuff but they never listened to him.

When Gregory was born, a few hours later Gus looked at his tired mother and father and asked " Can we dye his hair blue?" they didn't respond, Dawn just looked at Gregory and shook her head like a disappointed mom.

Dawn and Gus would sometimes look at Gregory play or something and be like "yooo.. We used to be just like him."

Sam would look at Gregory and sometimes he'd see Calvin, one time he started crying, Gregory was just a baby so he didn't know what to do, he put his little hands on Sam's face which made him cry some more. It ended up in him hugging Gregory and a few hours later they both fell asleep. Dawn took his camera and took a picture of it.

When Odin wanted to move his house across his sea Sven and Edie were like “ haha ur funny” but when they were actually doing it they were like “damn…"

Sam LOVED LOVED taking pictures, a lot of them were just stupid memories, he has a picture of Calvin moments before Calvin broke his leg, the hair dye incident, Barabra coming home from work looking tired, and much more

Barabra hated how her mother would always remind her that she could become a star again, it got tiring.

When Sanjay died Dawn felt lost, she thought maybe this was how Edie felt when Sven died.

Kay and Sam used to have a loving relationship, but after a while it went down hill, fast.

Sam had anger issues, PTSD, trauma, and stuff like that, especially after being in the military.

Edith always looked up to Lewis, she was his biggest fan, she once drew a really bad picture of him and her together when she was little that said "bset freinds!" misspelled and everything. Lewis kept it.

Sven surprisingly knew how to do and cut hair, he'd cut his kids hair from time to time or when they wanted it cut. Saved money.

When Walter lived underground Sam would visit him from time to time, try to make him come back up, he never would. Sam would say "now you're acting just like Calvin and I when you'd tell us to not me so nosy." Walter would just roll his eyes.

I'd like to think Christopher sees ghosts, just for the fun of it. Even though his mother is dead she's always with him, he gets to talk to his family members who died, it's scary yet nice.

Milton would sometimes annoy Lewis just because he could, there was one time Lewis kicked him out of his room but let him back in minutes later because he felt bad.

・——————————・——————————・

That's all I have for now!!

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avatarmerida · 10 months

Text

Alliance

A short thing I found in my drafts that I forget about. I wrote it when I was overthinking the huntlow pinkie hold. It consumes me to this day. 💚💛

—-

When the scouts ran drills, none of them ever wanted to team up with Hunter. It was quite the opposite, in fact. You’d think that they’d be fighting over the honor of having the head of the coven and the Emperor’s nephew on their team, but no. Rather, they’d jump at the chance to gang up on him and Hunter couldn’t help but feel like they enjoyed getting to exclude him.

But he worked better alone, anyway. It made him work harder.

“All right team, line up!” announced Willow. “Gus is gonna rig up some illusions to test our reflexes! Let’s see if we can sniff out the real Gus and snatch some flags!”

The Entrails cheered in agreement as they ran to take their places on the field. Willow smiled at their excitement and followed suit, setting up beside Hunter who had managed to sneak away for a few hours to help run drills.

“Hey Hunter! Wanna be my partner?”

“Y-your partner?” he repeated, confused.

“Yeah!” she said with a mischievous smile. “You take the left, I take the right. If we work together, I bet we can do it in record time.”

“But we don’t... have to work together,” he said, in case she had forgotten her own instructions. “You don’t have to work with me.”

“I know I don’t have to,” she chuckled. “I want to, if you want to. You’re good at strategy; it’ll be fun.”

“Oh, yeah sure.” He said, warming up to the fact that she was serious. “I’d... like that.”

“Awesome!” Willow said with a bright smile, extending her pinky out to him. “Alliance?”

He looked at her gesture with confusion and the raised his hand to mirror hers and touched his pinky to hers. “Alliance.” He confirmed. Willow tugged his pinky, completing the promise as Gus and his illusions took to the skies and beckoned the team to come after him.

He was new, that’s why she picked him.

——

Amity took game night very seriously. The only person who took it more seriously was Hunter. Before they could begin any game, they each had to have the instructions memorized. Every dice roll, every moment, every turn has to be by the book. They prided themselves in knowing every technicality which only fueled their competitive nature even more.

“Go back four spaces and take three additional cards, Hunter!” Amity ordered, taking far too much delight in delivering the blow.

“No! I was so close to the jackpot space!” Hunter exclaimed in utter dismay as he took his punishment cards from the deck on the table.

“Amity please!” Gus groaned in desperation. “We were so close to being done! Why??”

“Because if anyone’s gonna be the champ it’s gonna be me!” She declared, furiously shaking the dice to power up her revenge roll.

“What’s up Gus? I thought you liked silly human board games.” Lus said.

“I do! But these two and their love of rules make it so hard to cheat!” Gus sighed. “Deception is half the fun.”

“Don’t worry Gus, Hunter is still the closest the victory circle,” assured Willow. “When we’re done we can go watch the clothes spin around in the dryer, that usually makes you feel better.”

“But I don’t have enough tokens to make it past the trick space!” Hunter said in a panic.

“Where did you guys even find this game?” Luz said under her breath, looking at the box.

“Hey, I’ve got plenty,” said Willow, putting the plastic coins in a pile. “You can use some of mine!”

“Oh no Willow, I couldn’t,” Hunter insisted, knowing she had worked hard for her collection. “You earned those.”

“We can share them,” she said with a shrug, having worked hard to earn them mostly to aggravate Amity. “We can work together.”

“Really? Uh, hold on lemme check the rule book I know know if it says that’s allowed...”

“Well, it doesn’t say it’s noooot,” she pointed out playfully, gathering her pieces and scooting closer to him to combine their loot. “Alliance?” She asked, sticking out her pinky. Her face donned a devious smile as Amity waited in suspense for Hunter to confirm or deny, certain their team up would dismantle everything she worked for.

“Alliance.” Hunter confirmed, grabbing her pinky with his own and furrowing his brow in determination, ready to make Amity pay for playing as the piece he wanted to play as.

She wanted to end the game, that’s why she picked him.

—-

“… and then there’s supposed to be punch there too! It’s like all the flavors mixed together, so it’s looks kinda gross but trust me it’s actually really good!” Vee continued to happily explain as the group walked down the sidewalk to her friend’s house. They had all been invited to a party and Vee and Luz were trying to cram as much information about human realm parties to their friends as possible before they arrived. For the most part, they were all excited. They had been working hard and could use a break, and of course Gus had brought his notebook to take down as much as he could. But Willow couldn’t help but notice how quiet Hunter was as he dragged his feet beside her.

“You okay, Hunter?” Willow whispered and he flinched, as though he had been so zoned out he forget where he was. “You look… sick?”

“Sick?”

“I mean, you still look really nice,” she said quickly, knowing how much time he had spent making the jean jacket he was wearing. He looked more than just nice, if she was being honest, but she had a feeling that wasn’t what was plaguing his mind. “But you look nervous.”

“I mean… maybe I am, a little,” he admitted, hoping the others couldn’t hear. “I’ve just… never been to a party before, let alone a human one. I-I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or when I’m supposed to say something or if there’s a certain place I’m supposed to sit or-.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” she assured him with a gentle giggle. “I’ve never really been to a party before either.”

“You? Really?” He practically gasped. “But you’d be so fun at parties!”

“Aw, thanks,” she blushed, subconsciously adjusting her hair clip. “But yeah, I’ve never been to a party that wasn’t a birthday party, and even then it was only me and Gus. But this sounds like it’ll be fun.”

“Really? It sounds terrifying to me,” Hunter gulped, feeling like her was turning paler.

“Well, I’m really glad you’re going,” she said sweetly, knowing he hardly had a choice in the matter. He had just gotten on better terms with Vee and turning down an invitation didn’t seem like a good way to keep that positive momentum going. His heart leapt at Willow’s words, though he was sure it was just her being nice. He hardly expected to see much of her after they arrived.

He was sure the moment they walked in, everyone would be drawn to Willow. How could they not be? She was kind, funny, charismatic and not that he noticed but she looked absolutely stunning in the green sweater she had just bought, the way it made her eyes pop even in the dim moonlight. She was interesting and fun, they’d probably form a line for the chance to talk to her. He assumed he would gravitate to a spot in the shadows, maybe see if there were any books to read. Luz had mentioned that parties where the perfect time to impress someone and while Hunter pretended not to know what she was implying, he couldn’t imagine him being impressive in this type of social setting.

“I’m actually a little nervous too,” Willow said softly and Hunter looked at her in surprise once again. “I mean, I don’t know anyone there.”

“Well, you know me,” he said simply.

“That’s true,” she smiled, glancing up at him illuminated by the streetlights. “Um, would you wanna… hang out at the party?”

“Me? A-are you sure?” Hunter said, clearing his throat. She had plenty of other options.

“Yeah,” she said. “If it’s boring or awkward we can at least talk to each other. I like talking to you.”

“Oh… I like talking to you too,” he said, stopping at the edge of the driveway as the others walked in the front door. Vee greeted her friends with open arms and proceed to introduce Luz, diving into their story about being distant cousins or something. He sighed, his chest felt tight all of a sudden imaging all the people in the house. “I just…”

Willow sensed his discomfort.

“Hey, no worries,” she said. “How about if one us wants to leave early, we walk home together?”

“Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not,” she said. “We can always think of an excuse to leave. I’d rather be walking with you than at a party without you.”

“Oh.”

“And Luz mentioned there might be games and we’ve always been a great team at games,” she smiled. She did not bring up one game Luz had mentioned in particular, mostly as a joke, where two people spend seven minutes together. She didn’t necessary plan on participating, but if she did she’d want Hunter as her partner. “Or if someone talks to one of us and we don’t know what to say we can help each other out.”

“I’d really like that,” Hunter said with a sigh of relief, his hands fidgeting at his sides. Willow smiled, happy to see he was okay with her idea. She brought up her pinkie and offered it to him with a bright smile.

“Alliance?”

He looked at her, still confused as to how she was so content to spend the whole night with him. But he couldn’t say it wasn’t an ideal situation for him.

“Alliance.” He said, linking his pinkie to hers. But this time instead of releasing it after they sealed the promise, she brought their hands down to their sides and used it to lead him inside. He knew everyone who saw them would assume they were together but he did not remove himself from her grasp.

She didn’t want to talk to strangers, that’s what she did it.

She didn’t want to get lost, that’s what she did it.

She knew he would hide in a dark corner without her, that’s why she did it.

She was was worried he’d say something dumb and blow their cover, that’s why she did it.

Hunter’s mind flooded with excuses for why she did not drop his hand and stood so close to him without hesitation. Because he couldn’t fathom the reason for their alliance was because she wanted him on her side because she just wanted to be with him. She could pick anyone, but she kept picking him.

#huntlow #huntlow fanfiction #winter toh #toh fanfiction #the owl house #toh #Willow park #Hunter toh

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lunathebee · 2 years

Text

Pairing: Marc Spector x florist!fem!reader (with hints of Steven Grant x florist!fem!reader)

Warning: fluff (no I mean, me trying to write fluff for the first time), Steven loves his burrito, Layla doesn't exist just for the sake of this story

A/n: THIS IS PART 1, I repeat PART 1 😭😭😭 Istg I messed up some stuff and I have no choice but to write a bit more and call it a day, I am terribly sorry, part 2 will be post soon!

Summary: For the first time ever, Steven might be better at talking to a girl than Marc, but that doesn't mean Marc just gonna stand and watch him does so.

Steven is chewing down on a vegan burrito, talking to Gus about how his day at the museum went when suddenly Marc speaks up. "Steven, since when do you like flowers so much?"

It was a totally random and offset question for Steven, but not for Marc though, he is a man who knows what he wants and how to get it in the most subtle way.

"Oh whut? You mean those books? They're not mine, Y/n was kind enough to let me borrow it, nice to learn something besides just alien and Egyptian mythology init?" Steven smiles when mentioning your name, taking another big bite from the burrito while Marc is still starting at the big pile of books about floriography.

"And... who is Y/n?" Marc asked while trying his best to be clueless, of course he knows Y/n; she owns a small flower shop on the road where Steven takes the bus to work every day, always looking so perfect and flawless at 7 a.m.

Sometimes Marc feels a teeny tiny bit guilty about how he takes over the body whenever the bus gets near to Y/n's flower shop, and after a few seconds of staring, hoping to see you, he gave the body back to Steven, leaving the British man confused like a deer in front of a headlight.

"Oh Y/n is this absolutely wonderful florist that I met when I tried to find some flowers for my first date that... didn't go quite as well as you remember..." To be honest, Steven just wants to eat his burrito in peace and finish it quickly, but if the topic is about Y/n and not Khonsu then he would be glad to join in.

"Ah well then, I was wondering if you could introduce --- " Marc's voice starts to fade out because Steven is too into the burrito.

But wait, why is he eating this burrito so fast in the first place? Steven thinks to himself for a moment, and the memory of Donna talking to him floods into his mind, making him yell out. "OH BLOODY HELL, DONNA PUT ME ON INVENTORY TONIGHT, I gotta go now talktoyoulaterMarc!!" Steven bolted out the door, clutching his work bag, leaving Marc *behind* disappointed; perhaps he could continue this conversation with Steven over the weekend?

===☾︎ ☾︎ ☾︎===

"No way... Marc, are you serious? You have a crush on Y/n?!" Steven can't believe what Marc has told him, this is even more shocking than the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

"That is a childish way to say how a man is interested in a woman Steven, and I swear if you laugh at me-"

"No no no, why would I? Wow, good for you mate. I thought you would stick to fighting forever! With that silly old birb Khonsu, am I right Gus? " Steven exclaimed while sprinkling some fish food into the tank and missed how annoyed Marc looked.

'Tch, gimme a break' Marc thinks to himself while thinking about what Steven has said. Did he really spend that much time being an avatar? To the point where he gets lovestruck and doesn't even know how to talk to a girl?

"The main point is are you gonna introduce me to her or not?"

Steven feels strange after hearing Marc say that, what now? A guy who is not afraid of fighting and blood is scared of this sweet florist girl? "Why don't you just... introduce YOURSELF to her? Besides, I wouldn't know how to explain to her that you and I are basically the same, but at the same time we are not, bit odd init?"

Steven has a point though, it would be harder and more confusing if he told you about Marc. It seems like the only option left is for Marc to say hi to you himself (even if he wants to or not). God, how Marc wishes Monday would just come soon so he can meet you.

#marvel moon knight #moon knight x reader #moon knight imagine #moon knight fluff #marc spector #marc spector x reader #marc spector x you #marc spector x y/n #steven grant x y/n #steven grant #steven grant x reader #jake lockley #moonkight #fluff #oscar isaac

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apples-r-rubbish · 9 months

Text

Small Town (11th Doctor x Reader) - Part 2

Summary: It snows in October, an Amberpoint tradition. On this peculiar snow day you find things aren't just cold outside. Count: 2.3k Warnings: unreality, self gaslighting, mentions of death, long gaps between updates A/N: I didn't mean for this to take literally 8 months, but I have a degree now! it is what it is, sorry, I can't promise I will ever update consistently because that's not my style. However, Thank you for all the support of my fics even though I went M.I.A -L <3

MASTERLIST | PART ONE | PART TWO (you are here !)

You were wandering around the TARDIS arm outstretched out gently touching the walls with your fingertips. The ship hummed gently appreciating your company. It had been an overwhelming 36 hours.

The asylum was cold, wet and frightening. You prided yourself on generally being quite brave, but that place, that cold, dark, wet, place, sucked the energy right out of your soul. A dalek with a heart was not an easy sight, and as the doctor explained it you felt instantly floored. The horrors you’d seen remained in your mind. At some point you slipped your way down the wall and allowed a few silent tears to slip from your eyes, and a figure came and sat next you and you slowly began to-

No. This wasn’t right. They don’t exist. You made them up. This isn’t real. That didn’t happen. The dream stopped almost as quickly as it had come to you. It was replaced by an intense feeling of loss you couldn’t quite place.

You stirred from your sleep in waves. Slowly, slowly, you rose from your bed. The world was cold. You read the clock. It was 9 am, 27th October. You searched for warmth through the covers and it was ultimately unsuccessful. John must’ve gotten up early. You curled yourself up in bed for a moment longer, bracing yourself for the chill of air that would eventually come.

You wandered down the stairs now fully dressed. You frowned at your pyjamas, you couldn’t remember getting them. They were a gift, probably. John stood by the landline mumbling something into the phone. There didn’t seem to be a response coming through, but the conversation continued. He seemed to unstiffen when he saw you and mumbled ‘Work’ while scribbling a barely legible chicken scratch-esque note on paper before waving it at you.

‘Breakfast - in the Kitchen.’ It was something of an Amberpoint oddity, snow days in October. For as long as you’d lived there had always been at least one. It was something of a ritual at this point, John’s work would call, tell him they’d cancel his appointments and you guys would have a day inside with not much else to do. So you took solace and started camping. Kettle on, brain off.

You looked out the window halfheartedly, snow braced the horizon, usually it was worse - maybe it was the fact that last time - no year - had left you frozen in for two days with nothing but John’s rambling and intermittent radio signals. At first it was awful snow in October was never right in your mind especially in wherever you’re from again. But now however many years you had lived here, it had become somewhat embraced by you and your husband.

You heard the phone gently placed back on the receiver as John entered the room, a content sigh fell from him.

“So Amberpoint tradition, checklist. No work, tick. Haven’t bothered to check the radio yet, so 50/50 and judging by the snow. No people for give or take but roughly 24 hours,” he wrapped his arms around you and placed a quiet but appreciative kiss on your forehead. And almost as soon as he had said it a knock disrupted the quiet day you had built for yourself. Laughter.

Bee and Gus stood in the entryway shivering in a way akin to leaves, or something else that shivers. You welcomed them in, seemingly producing mugs of tea from nowhere. They graciously accepted taking up space on your sofa, heat clearly being appreciated.

“Sorry we had nowhere else to turn, we aren’t used to the weather you see.” Bee rambled between sips “I thought, ah yes, number 11 will know what to do and Gus said we shouldn’t bother you, but I knew you’d be able to help.” Smile sitting there. Saccharine. You agreed seemingly involuntarily, like you felt the force through your body move your head before you’d even registered the question. Unequivocally, you would’ve said yes always. Helping people is what you do. Maybe it showed on your face. Something wasn’t right.

“Y/N are you quite alright?” Gus asked seemingly as if he’d caught you out on a joke you had no idea of.

The words came to you suddenly, like divine intervention or a script cue you’d suddenly remembered. “Ah yes of course. Doors are always open for you, well at least I’d hope not or all the snow would get in,” your own laughter punctuated the sentence. That wasn’t your laughter. You’d heard it thousands of times. Even John frowned at the noise. No, this was it, what are you talking about? The look melted away, but the snow wouldn’t.

At some point through the snow day you’d resorted to games as the snow piled higher and higher. Charades was the game you’d decided would work. Simple, easy, no hosting, no fuss. Bee stood up, hands wildly gesturing, John and Gus throwing their answers in by the handful, which only caused Bee to keep forming the shapes with her hands but somehow more manically, a joking frustration forming on her face. A film title slipped from your mouth, the words tumbled out your felt your mouth form the sound almost involuntarily. It was garbled to your eardrums, it was like the sound was there and then it seemingly wasn’t. Static on the radio. Scratch on a record. A glitch on the screen.The world seemed to freeze in a way. You’d dragged the Doctor, John, to see that film, virtually begging him. He begrudgingly came along sort of, he sat in the cinema mumbling about how this character was an alien- no that one definitely was, the space travel was inaccurate or that historical thing actually didn’t happen like that and I would know because- the memory was cut short, the cold glare of Gus replacing it staring deep within your soul- something was wrong. He mumbled something, you couldn’t quite make out from the weird static that filled your ears.

The room swung back into you, head lightly slamming forward against the force of something, eyes shooting open. Laughter ensued, everything is fine, isn’t it? Another answer fell from your mouth - The correct one - with a smile, the same one Bee always seemed to give, it was met with a roar of a cheer from Bee excited she finally got to sit down, rather than manically gesturing in hopes that someone would guess something it was clear no-one was going to understand anyway.

It was well into the evening by now, a small hearty dinner simmering away on the stove, you and Bee sat on the kitchen floor, backs against the kitchen cabinets, discussing old memories.

“I literally bumped into John, that's how I met him,” You giggled between sips of wine, like a child on a sugar rush “He was running to somewhere off doing something stupid, and he ran into me, he literally knocked me off my feet and he pulled me up, said the thing he was doing was so important, so I’d have to come with him so he could ask me out later. I didn’t believe him, obviously, who would- But no he was right, had to save someone’s life, he is a Doctor after all, it’s what he does. But God, he dragged me around for a whole day, my feet were aching by the end of it, just so much running,”

Bee responded with a small, twinkling smile. It was different from the staged one, it felt like a brave act, giggling like a schoolgirl sitting on the kitchen floor in a snowstorm. But for once it felt real, as though there was no question of whether you should be here or not, it just was and that was right,

“Ah well, mine’s nowhere near that fun. We met in the office, worked together for years, he wouldn’t look at me twice, and then one day he just did and something just clicked in him. And he marched up to me and the rest is history,” Fiddling with her ring as she spoke, “It seems like centuries sometimes, and like days others,” At some point she’d stopped laughing and just drifted. Drifted through the sentence. Like silence on the other end of a telephone. It was then you took her in, nothing poised or staged or performed, just her. She was young, younger than you by the looks of things, but the stories she recounted should have made her older, or at least more well travelled. You gently nudged her, light returned almost as quickly as it had gone.

Soup was distributed amongst the four of you, sitting at the table not too unlike the other day, Was it the other day? The calendar said 1963. No, they're still new to the neighbourhood. They didn’t know about the snow. And that was a common frustration among the neighbours. I’m sure it doesn’t matter. “This is good, darling thank you for making it,” John commented, he must have noticed your inattentiveness, a small look of concern, thoroughly masked under layers and layers of social etiquette. You nodded, mumbled a brief thank you, and squeezed his hand something reserved for gut feelings, it came as almost normally as breathing, this secondary language you’d formed between the two of you.

The meal had finished, plates, everything washed and away. You’d finally dared to crack open the door a fraction as they’d calmed down thoroughly enough to go home. Snow was piled waist height, unmoving. Door slammed shut, try again tomorrow. Gus seemed to freeze at this,then the anger came “This wasn’t what-” He froze again, hyper aware of his actions, he corrected himself, his stance, his demeanour, breakneck speed back to the usual, “This wasn’t what, we expected,” a meak laugh thrown on at the end for good measure. John frowned at this, he’d caught it and his eyes flicked with something unlike him. Something cold, calculating. He saw you and nodded, an indication: Keep calm, keep it together, it said wordlessly.

Sitting at the balcony over your back garden, you both had a moment alone to talk.

“He’s weird,” You stated, sipping your drink slowly, almost to cover what you’d said.

John stared at you for a moment, almost incredulously, as if he couldn’t actually believe what you’d said, a pit of guilt forming in your stomach.

“He just makes me uneasy, like a tiger, or a bear, or- or a killer whale, or something else weird,” You said wildly gesturing, arms getting flakes of snow on them, as they stretched over the drop. He laughed at you, breaking character just for a moment, “I mean I get it, but we are getting to know them, darling. You’re married to an alien, I highly doubt we’re normal to them,” He chuckled, wrapping his arms protectively around you and placing a gentle kiss on your forehead. Married to what?

“Huh, what did you just say? I must’ve drifted off in that last sentence,” You said, rubbing your eyes like a small child, desperate to stay up past their bedtime, as the sleep hit you like a sudden wave. He took your face in his hands, “I said to a Doctor,” He followed his statement with a loving frown. “How did I get so lucky with you? Feels like someone planned all this in the best way,” He squeezed your body in a tight hug “Get some sleep darling.”

The dreams didn’t come that night, at least not one felt like a memory.

You awoke somewhere unfamiliar, a cyan and purple sky flashed above you in a storm, dirt and gravel were uneven underneath your back, and didn’t help you at all when you tried to stand. Wobbling to your feet, you observed around you, John- No, the doctor ran towards you and grabbed your hand, and pulled you with force. Ash was falling as you ran, making it harder to run, burning heat filling your lungs.

“We have to leave now, it isn’t safe.” He pleaded, “Come on! Run!” The sympathies faded quickly and were replaced with rushed panic. You nodded a silent acceptance, knowing you had to leave. This memory is not yours, you know it. You can feel it in your brain it’s wrong, like the pieces of two puzzles have been mixed up together all wrong. The Doctor pulls you along, you reach something resembling a vessel, at least what of it your brain allows you to see, the rest promptly replaced by static, the same static blocking out words in your brain. Where are you? You ask your thoughts, the static response is the same constant buzzing you feel in the back of your mind, wordless, uncaring, uneventful. You stand in what looks like a control room, fighting back tears, and wretches, as the doctor spins around you readying for flight “Y/N, come on! We have to leave. They’re gone- The sentence starts again, scene resetting down to the sparks flying. She's gone, we have to go, now,” He virtually screamed at you, something he never did and always refused to do. You nodded, gulping between tears, before hurrying forwards to press buttons, and help. The last thing you felt was a bumpy take off, desperately clinging to both the railings and your memories. Where am I? . You awoke, gasping for air, a tear fresh on your cheek.

Bee and Gus left promptly the next day, thousands of thank yous between farewells. The snow had melted mostly, some occasional flakes, falling like the ash in your dream. The static hummed low and slow in your mind. It stopped for a second, a split second, when Bee hugged you. You felt your body run cold, your question had received an answer. You shut the door after they left and made excuses to John as you retreated into your bedroom and sat quietly. The word rolling around your mind like a marble.

Dead.

#doctor who self insert #doctor who x reader #doctor who fic #doctor who x you #eleven x reader #eleventh doctor/reader #eleventh doctor x reader #eleventh doctor #hope it was worth the wait

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madsworld15 · 2 months

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Why Queer as Folk (2000) Was Seemingly Forgotten

An analysis by a professional TV Critic

Let me start off by saying the initial run of Queer as Folk and its current resurgence can be represented by this mantra by Brian Kinney: There are two kinds of straight people. The ones who hate you to your back and the ones who hate you to your face.

The initial run of QAF coincides with the first half of the statement: hate behind your back.

So, recently I started thinking about how in the early 2000s, Queer as Folk seemed to be on a trajectory of going down in TV history. Then, seemingly just as quickly, people stopped talking about it. So much so that by the time I finished watching it in 2009, I only got a few good months of chatter on social media platforms (Twitter mostly) with other fans before it just stopped being talked about in a wide-reaching manner.

I will even admit that I stopped thinking about the show not long after that and wasn't reminded of its full impact on my psyche until late last year when it was back on easy-access streaming due to Showtime's merge with Paramount+.

But why is it that this show is only just now starting to pick up speed again? (I'm talking fan cams on TikTok, memes, etc.)

I have some theories about all of this, so buckle in.

To really get a grasp of what Queer as Folk was working against when it aired on Showtime -- a paid subscription channel back before the days of an overabundance of streaming services, you have to look at the climate we were living in. Also, how inaccessible a paid TV channel was for most people.

So, in the early 2000s, life in the United States, and probably the world, but I'm not fully educated enough to comment on that, wasn't the greatest for those in the LGBT+ community. It would be years before the President of the United States would pass legislation that Gay Marriage be legal nationwide.

Employers were able to fire people for being gay, and the employees couldn't fight it. Gay parents had very little in terms of rights to their own children; in fact, some couldn't even adopt the kids they wanted to because there were no laws against discrimination.

All of these things are depicted left and right throughout Queer as Folk, with Ted getting fired from his job, Michael being extremely closeted at his job, and Melanie not being afforded rights to Gus because of adoption regulations during that time.

So, for our community to receive a show that was by us for us, we were overjoyed. There was something so resolutely refreshing about the unapologetic manner in which these characters were allowed to present themselves and live their lives. And while the show gets dinged today for its lack of racial diversity, we were glad to see queer people represented in a variety of ways -- we got to see the Emmett's and Justin's of the world being friends with the Ted's and Michael's and Brian's.

Not only that, these characters got to love who they wanted, however, they wanted, and whenever they wanted. Characters like Michael and Emmett could go from wanting to freely fuck whoever to finding that special person and settling down. We got to see Ted find the right guy at the wrong time over and over and over again until it was finally the right guy at the right time.

But most of all, we got to see a character like Brian, who, in the hands of a straight person, might've actually gone "soft" and "domestic" just by being with Justin. Instead, we got to see him never change his opinion about what he wanted, but still finding love in his own way.

However, not long after the show ended (like around 2008), the climate in the United States started to shift more towards open acceptance of the queer community. So, people stopped needing an escape from the hardships of real life because things seemed to be on an upward trend toward love and equality. Therefore, Queer as Folk sort of fell off the radar of viewers because we didn't want more of the gritty, complicated, messy queer stories. We wanted our stories to be happy and lighthearted.

(Keep in mind I am speaking in terms of general viewers. There are always exceptions to the rule)

Then, in 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, and suddenly, it was totally okay for people to openly mock us and hate us.

This is where the resurgence of QAF falls into the second half of Brian's mantra: hate us to our face.

Around 2016/2017, people started talking about this show again. And the love and fervor for it has only increased exponentially over the last few years, especially with the onset of COVID-19 and the merging of Showtime/Paramount+. Both events made the public more aware and able to access the show.

Now more than ever, we need something that isn't afraid to show queer people as we are, not as the media and those outside our community paint us. We need to feel like there is a media format that understands what we are like when we are with our closest friends. We say things that, in today's world, would probably get us canceled, and we judge those around us and have very biased opinions about certain people.

Brian Kinney's unapologetic "I am who I am and fuck anyone who tries to change me" attitude is the exact level of strength and courage we wished more people right now had. His biased, but not illogical, opinion of non-queers needs to be loud. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops because we now live in a world where we are hated just for existing as we are.

Even our rights that had been given to us just a decade ago are being stripped away from us once more. So, the fight for love and equality continues, and the hope that Queer as Folk gives us is important now more than ever.

So, people are seeking this story out and are begging others in the world to watch it and understand that we have always been here. We've always been these flawed but loving characters. We deserve to be heard.

In 2022, Peacock tried its best to create a redo of the series but failed miserably. But why? If we are desperately looking for queer media that is gritty, unapologetic, and real, then why didn't we latch onto this latest iteration?

The answer is simple. This new version was great at creating a more diverse image of the characters created for the Showtime series but failed to understand that recreating things almost note for note with entirely new characters isn't what we want.

It would've been better if the show stuck to broad-stroke themes and made these characters and their experiences their own. Queer today is different than queer in the early 2000s, just like queer in the 2000s was different than queer in the 1980s. Trying to put queer 2000s stories into a queer 2020s world isn't going to work.

We need to embrace this resurgence of Queer as Folk (2000) and give it the love and attention it should've always had. Perhaps finally giving its rightful due in the eyes of the history of queer media. Does it have its issues as the world changes? Absolutely, but we also can't sit here and deny the insane level of impact this show had on the queer media we now know and love.

We wouldn't have casually queer shows like Schitt's Creek, Heartstopper, and Our Flag Means Death if Queer as Folk hadn't broken down our walls and made us realize that we can demand stories for queer people by queer people.

#queer as folk #brian kinney #justin taylor #emmett honeycutt #ted schmidt #michael novotny #TV retrospective #TV history #queer history #looking at QAF from the lens of social queer climates then and now #opinions of a professional TV critic

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hoosurdaddy · 1 year

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Chapter 5.

Pairing: post covid! Stan Marsh x Reader, post covid! Kenny McCormick x reader.

Triggers: 18+, cheating, smut,gaslighting. Reader is married to Stan, bad grammar, short.. Rushing this so I'm finally finished a series

You had arrived home, shaking the entire way as you thought about what Butter's must of heard or seen when you were talking to Kenny. He must heard everything. Oh God, oh God. You had arrived home, throwing yourself into the chair before you fainted as many excused came racing through your head to explain what Butter's had heard or seen at work. It was joke, Kenny was joking. He was always a pervert. You fueled it by saying I looked sexy in blue.

That would work right?

You had managed to control your breathing somewhat when Stan came through, slamming the front door. Oh shoot, he was angry. And rightly so, he was angry at you, he was angry at Kenny. You were about to be divorced. What if he already had the papers?

Stan walked into the living room, his face was red and his hair was a mess, clear indicating that he had been messing with it furiously. He didn't say anything, expect stare at you. Stan let out a heavy groan as he plopped himself down beside you, before resting his head onto your lap. "Hey baby."

Shocked, you rested your shaky hand ontop of Stan's head. He sounded tired, stressed, worried. "What's wrong?"

Stan let out another groan, burying his head into your legs more. "The shipment in Nebraska of the new fire whisky didn't come through. It got 'lost' in shipment. I've lost over a thousand dollars, even more, in cost." You gasped. Poor Stan, his business was everything to him.

"Is there anything anyone can do? Can HR or someone not get a hold of the shipment?" You asked as Stan shook his head on your legs.

"I have to go to Nebraska tomorrow to try sort something out." Stan frowned into your legs before looking up at you tomorrow. "I can't go to the party tomorrow, baby."

You frowned down at Stan when he turned his head to look up at you with his puppy dog eyes. "I can go with you." You frowned, your hands running through his hair to try calm him down somewhat.

Stan sighed as he covered his face. He sat there like that for a moment before shaking his head. "No baby, you go. It's Tweek's 35 birthday, You have too.. At least one of us."

"But I want to go with you."

Stan shook his head once more. "It won't be much fun anyways. I'll be gone all day and some of the night too. I promise I'll be okay, just be safe."

You nodded, frowning as you and Stan stayed there for a few moments before he left to take a shower for his road trip tomorrow. You had decided to make arrangements to stay at Heidi Turner's house tomorrow as she lived closer to the couple, instead of coming home to an empty house. Usually Stan was always there to help you when you got drank and was your favourite designated driver.

You were going to miss your husband tomorrow.

Stan had left early in the morning, kissing you goodbye at 6:30 in the morning. Heidi Turner had collected you at around 3:00 and both of you were ready before 7. You both had opted to have a glass or two of wine before heading to the party. When you both arrived, Craig answered the door and greeted the two of you.

"H-Hey G-gu-guys." Tweek stammered as he held up his badge that read '35' on it. You gave Tweek his card, instead of getting him a gift you gave him money instead. You looked around, hoping to find a glimpse of Stan. Maybe he was going to surprise you at the party? He wasn't.

You excused yourself to grab a drink in the kitchen. In the corner of your eyes, you seen Kenny. You prayed he wouldn't see you but he did. He came skipping over to you as you mixed your vodka and sprite.

"Hey. I didn't see you without Frank Gallagher hanging out of you." Kenny teased, nudging you lightly. You rolled your eyes as you poured more vodka than mixture into your cup. Just like college. After that close call with Butter's yesterday, you decided that there was no reason to continue this affair. You didn't trust yourself and you didn't trust Kenny either. Stan wasn't perfect, but every kiss, every touch you gave to Kenny, could of been extra cuddles and love making with Stan. You didn't want Kenny anymore.

Kenny reached over you, taking the vodka out of your hands and placed it back onto the table. You looked up at him confused as he also reached down to place your drink onto the table. "I missed you."

"Butter's is here, he almost caught us yesterday." You snapped.

"And now you're scared Stan will find out?"

"It's not fair to him, none of this is Kenny."

"So you're suddenly holy?"

"What? No I never said that. I'm saying us nearly getting caught yesterday made me realise how unfair to Stan this is."

"And he hadn't messed up before?"

"Of course, he has. But he's never cheated."

"Y/N, Stop." Kenny growled as he held up his hand. "Don't stand there and pretend Stan is the second coming of Christ."

"What?"

"Remember at college when he used to get to drunk he used to piss himself? Remember how he used to get so mad at you when you wanted him to slow down his drinking or to leave a party? All the names he used to call you."

This time, you raised your hand to stop Kenny. "I forgave him. We went to therapy, he got sober. Stan has paid his dues."

Kenny rolled his eyes, grabbing your hand as he sneaked you both upstairs into the first room he found. Craig and Tweek's spare room. Thankfully, Kenny had managed to pull you both away without any preying eyes. Or else, rumours would of spread faster than Mr Slave's STD results.

"You hate your friend, you were saying."

"I don't hate my friend, I hate your husband." Kenny replied as he sat down on the bed, his hand never letting go of yours. "You're with a guy who doesn't deserve you. He's never deserved you, Y/N."

You shrugged. It wasn't Stan's fault. He was a product of his father, and growing up on the farm wasn't the easiest either. It doesn't matter who Stan used to be, it mattered who he was now.

"I love him." You announced confidently. Who were you trying to convince? Yourself or Kenny.

"If you weren't with Stan, would you be with me?" Kenny asked. This gave you deja vu from last week when he asked you the exact same question. You stayed silent. "Would you?"

You dropped your head down, shoulder slumped. "You know I would, Kenny." You answered back so quietly, Kenny had to lean forward to double check if he had heard your right. He smiled at your answer. With the hand that was still holding yours, he pulled you down onto his lap, making you immediately try to jump up encase someone came up.

"Than be with me, be with me." Kenny repeated the mantra as he held you in place. He placed a kiss onto your shoulder. "Please be mine, we were always meant to be and you know that, we can leave South Park, leave Stan.. be mine."

As Kenny pulled you into a kiss, you couldn't help but forget about Butter's and yesterday's event. You tried so hard to fight to memory Stan's sad face as you cuddled him to sleep last night. But that was all forgotten when Kenny's fingers pulled down your dress zipper, making you slip out of your dress. Kenny pulled off his t-shirt, making you admire the scientist in all his glory. Gosh, Kenny was beautiful.

You both sprinted quickly to get the rest of your clothes off. Kenny laid you down on the bed, him ontop as he kissed your neck. Your hands trailed down to his cock, pumping his shaft softly as you both moaned and basked in each others glory. It was finally happening. Something that had been eventually going to happen.

Kenny sucked on one nipple while his free hand played with the other. This wasn't his ideal situation, Kenny had always preferred something more romantic for the two of you. His house with rose petals, champagne. But regardless, Kenny was happy to have you as his from here on out.

Kenny grabbed his cock, teasing your clit and entrance, enjoying your wetness from your foreplay. Kenny continued to tease your entrance until your whimpers of his teasing got the best of him. He pushed his cock into you. Sighing, at the sound of you moaning his name. He followed.

In this moment, you were just Y/N. You weren't married. You were his. All of his.

"Oh fuck, Kenny."

Kenny tried to catch his breath as he laid on his back with you on his chest. His fingers played with your sweaty hair as your chest moved against his. Everything was amazing. You looked so beautiful after your orgasm. Despite the fact you had a husband, it was perfect. Everything was perfect. You had a husband would die right now if he seen you. A loving husband who brought you fast food every saturday and had wine Friday's with you. A husband who vowed for better for worst, in sickness and in health. All you could do was stare. Stan deserved better.

"That was.. wow." Kenny let out a breathless laugh as he stared at the ceiling. He was expecting you to agree but instead, he felt wet pooling onto his chest. He looked down. You were crying? Tears dripped down your face as you stared into space. "Y/N? baby, what's wrong?"

This is not how he liked girls crying after sex. He quickly sat up as did you. You quickly shot up off the bed, grabbing your dress and underwear off the floor, muttering something about going home. Kenny tried to stop you, but you jumped away.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm a married woman who broke her vows." You cried, putting back on your bra and underwear. "I'm a whore."

"Y/N, Stop." Kenny muttered, as he stroked your arm gently. You, again, jumped away before putting on your dress. "You're not a whore.. Bebe is a whore, but you're not."

"I have a husband." You argued back. "Stan Marsh is my husband, and I love him."

"You wouldn't of slept with me if you loved him." Kenny couldn't understand how you could still love Stan after the incredible love you both just made.

"And I broke my vows, I am a married woman, and I am a whore." You continued as you slipped on your dress. Your vision was blurry as tears continued to race down your face.

"You're not a whore, baby. You're not."

"And I am a married woman,"

Kenny stood up, nude, as he tried to get to beg you to come back to his and talk it out, maybe go for round 2? But in your state, it didn't look like Kenny wasn't going to get any more action tonight. Instead, he grabbed your shoulders. "Leave him, we go away together. We can go anywhere in the world together, we can leave right now. You won't need clothes, I'll buy you some. And, and, we can move so far away no one will ever find us."

"NO. I love Stan." You yelled back at Kenny, causing him to look at you in shock. You both just stared at each other for a moment before shaking Kenny off. "I'll see you at work." You gave Kenny once last look before heading out of the room, and straight out of Craig and Tweek's house. You had messaged Heidi that you were getting an Uber home, who gave you some drunk reply.

On the uber home, you cried and cried.

Once at home, you quickly changed into your pyjamas shorts and Stan's t-shirt he was wearing yesterday. You had to call Stan, you had to hear his voice. He answered immediately.

"Hey sweetie. I didn't think you and Heidi would be finished."

"I didn't feel good, so I came home." You muttered out, playing with the end of his shirt to try stop yourself from crying. "I wasn't having fun anyways. I miss you so much." You could hear Stan smiling down the phone.

"I miss you too sweetie." Stan replied. "But I'll be home tomorrow. I have amazing news."

"I can't wait." You replied, clearing your dry throat which caused Stan to become concerned.

"Are you okay, sweetie?"

Again, you cleared your throat. "I think I'm just tired." You sighed, but smile when you remembered that Stan would be home tomorrow. "I'll be okay when you're home tomorrow.. I love you so much Stan."

"And I love you sweetie. Sleep well, okay?"

"Okay, Good night."

Stan smiled when you hung up the phone. Everything in your life was about to get so much better. Although, Stan would give nothing more than to curl up into your body and hold you all night long. Where he belonged, where you belonged, where your life was just beginning.

#post covid!stan marsh x reader #post covid!south park #post covid!Stan Marsh #Post covid!Kenny McCormick #Post Covid!Kenny McCormick x reader #post covid!kenny mccormick smut #stan marsh #stan marsh x reader #kenny mccormick #kenny mccormick x reader #south park x reader #traitor series

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serialadoptersbracket · 2 months

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Round 2, Match 57: Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu vs. Yondu Udonta

Submitted kids:

Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu: Zhang Chengling, Gu Xiang, Liang Jiuxiao, arguably also Cao Weining and Gao Xiaolian

Yondu Udonta: The entire MCU guardians of the galaxy gang

Propaganda under the cut!

Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu:

1, Wen Kexing: “Look this man shouldn't be adopting kids because he's kinda evil and also the leader of an army of criminals and outcasts, a position where he killed his way to the top at a young age, BUT when he was still just a kid he found Gu Xiang and knew that if he didn't take care of her that she would die and became her father/brother/master (it's complicated). And then many years later when he's off doing his revenge quest he basically ends up adopting Chengling who is freshly an orphan which was kind of Kexing’s fault (it's complicated), but Chengling doesn't mind that his new dads are a little evil (his other dad is Zhou Zishu who basically created the CIA in fantasy ancient China). And then Gu Xiang falls in love with Cao Weining which puts Kexing into protective father mode and he goes all overbearing father-in-law on Weining, but he comes around when he's sure that Weining will treat her right. And then when Weining's family/sect turns on him, Kexing becomes one of the few people left he could call family (also with the rest of the group).”

2, Zhou Zishu: “former assassin who literally just wanted to drink himself to death in peace but then in the span of like 2 day he suddenly obtained 2 kids and a husband(stalker)???? poor man Did Not want this and proceeds to spend the next few weeks/months in denial about it before finally coming to terms with the fact that he cares about all of them (not that he's gonna tell them that) and then he gets a son-in-law too??? the universe really refused to let him die alone and miserable and decided to drop and entire family on him out of nowhere”

(Mod note: Full propaganda list coming soon!)

Yondu Udonta:

“My boy Yondu may be a pretty bad father but damn is he trying his best. Man kidnapped some kid to (unknowingly) send him to his death then felt bad about it and kept him. Then said kid dragged a bunch of pathetic little guys into their silly little found family and now they're THE found family ever.”

#wen kexing #wkx #word of honor #tyk #faraway wanderers #zhou zishu #woh #marvel mcu #mcu #marvel #guardians of the galaxy #gotg #yondu udonta #serial adopters bracket #round 2 #tumblr tournament #tumblr polls #mod note: there were like. three essays. I couldn’t read it all

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waywardsunlight · 28 days

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Okay, if you're still working on the Owl House Avatar AU, I have a few questions for it

Were the Air Nomads still wiped out like in canon? If they were, how will Luz learn airbending?

What kind of benders are Eda and Lilith?

Is Gus a waterbender, or does he fill the role of the guy who can't bend that Sokka and Asami had?

Is this version of Amity blind like Toph is?

Do the other Coven Heads have any roles in the story?

Will Luz be able to talk to any of her past lives?

The air nomads were (mostly) wiped out but the original air bending masters were the sky bison. I think Luz probably would learn airbending from a perhaps unknowing spirit... that happens to be the last of their kind... who has to figure out their airbending powers as they go on an adventure... (King!!). I also imagine Collector is an airbender who's captured by the Fire Nation. So not quite the last but there aren't a lot of them left. Eda and Lilith are both firebenders. Lilith is a general and Eda is an outlaw/deserter (very similar to Jeong Jeong). Yea, Gus can't bend!! Neither can Hunter, Hunter's using tech like Asami does (they have more tech earlier bc Belos is a tech guy).

Amity is blind! She calls herself the Mighty Mittens as her wrestling name. I know I've mentioned Darius as Iroh but I think Raine kinda falls into Piandao's area and Eberwolf is sorta in Bumi's position. I think the other coven heads are mostly fire nation. I think Terra and Kiki probably are Dai Li, espec Terra.

Luz's past lives are different but I haven't really figured that out yet or how I'd incorporate it into the show but I kinda thought of Papa as an airbender + the first avatar. I thought about Evelyn as a possibility but the avatar cycle would have to go through four people in sixteen years for that to happen minimum and ALSO Luz wouldn't be trapped in the ice long enough not to know about the war so probably not. However, I think there is a Clawthorne avatar.

#the owl house #toh #toh au #avatar au #ask

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blueberryrock · 2 years

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Birthday Surprise.

Summary: with Steven and Marc's 37th birthday today, Y/N has decided to give them a gift they will never forget

Warnings: pregnancy and fluff really, the end might be a little angsty but it's very light, and it's 1.4k words

A/N i don't think i've seen anyone do something like this yet? Or i've just missed those fics lmao, anyways i just wanted some Steven fluff and so i wrote steven fluff! I left this open-ended because i'm thinking of making a part 2? But y'all would have to let me know if you want that. Enjoy!!

Rules, Requests, and More! (Pt. 2)

"You sure Marc doesn't want to blow out candles too?" Y/N questions as she places two colorful candles in the shape of a 3 and 7 in the middle of a round chocolate cake, her eyes landing on the excited Brit sitting in front of the cake. "Cause you could blow out the three and he can get the seven or I can just get mo–"

Steven's soft dark eyes quickly glance at Gus's tank before replying. "Ah no," he begins, his lip twitching into a slight frown. "He says he's not much of a birthday guy anymore."

With a small nod, Y/N makes sure that all the presents are in place while Steven lights his candles. Sliding into an old wooden chair next to him, Y/N smiles softly at him as she says "Happy birthday love!"

After blowing out the candles, they happily dig in. "Wow this is amazing love," Steven hums.

"It's just from a box," Y/N shrugs. "I would have bought one from the store but it was too packed, I didn't have much time 'cause of work either," she scowls, eyeing the darkness pouring into the small apartment. "Save some for Marc!" Y/N cries as she watches Steven cut himself another big slice.

"They'll be plenty left," Steven replies, dumping the large slice onto his plate and spilling a few crumbs onto the table.

"Hurry up and eat then," Y/N sighs, pushing her mostly eaten cake slice away. "I've got to find your last gift anyways, just don't make yourself sick! I am not cleaning that up." The legs of the wooden chair noisily scrape against the wood floor as she slides out of her chair, a small groan escapes Y/N, her feet carrying them towards the small bathroom.

Giddiness beings to fill Y/N as she closes the door behind her. Immediately turning to the small sink and opening up the cabinet, Y/N bends down to sift through old cleaning bottles and stacks of toilet paper. After a few back-aching seconds, Y/N feels a grin creep onto her face as she grabs the small white test she was looking for.

She didn't have time to wrap it today, but Y/N hopes that the red bow that she slapped on it the other day is good enough. Making sure the small cap is on tightly, Y/N holds the smooth pregnancy test against her arm as she stands and makes her way to the bathroom door.

As Y/N steps out of Steven's small bathroom, she can hear him quietly talking with Marc but immediately stops when his gaze falls on her. "You ready?" Y/N asks with an innocent smile as Steven watches her closely.

"Oh, yes!" He says, instantly grabbing for a small orange box with his name scribbled on it. Setting the small test in her lap, Y/N gives Steven a small nod and watches him tear apart the delicate polka-dotted wrapping paper. "Oh wow," Steven's voice filled with amazing makes a smile grow on her face.

"I didn't know they made more of these!" Steven pushes the wrapping paper away to reveal a Rubix cube, only, it wasn't a cube but a triangle roughly the same size.

"Oh yeah, they make a whole bunch of them," Y/N beams, enjoying the large grin on Steven's face. "That one's called a Piramynx! I thought that you'd like a new challenge and honestly your other one looks like it'll break any minute now."

Steven snorts softly at ther words, his gaze fully set on the piramynx in his hands. "I wonder how this one works." He murmurs as he turns the box it came in. Y/N's gaze moves from Steven down to her lap, fiddling with the small test in her fingers, nervousness bubbling through her as she eyes down the two strong red lines.

The sound of ripping cardboard brings her gaze back up to Steven, who had begun to start playing with his new gift. "Steven?" Y/N chuckles, watching him immediately set the Rubix triangle-down. "I had one more gift for you, well you and Marc."

Immediately Steven's eyes flicker to the still wrapped gift next to him, but with a shake of her head Steven shoots her a confused look. Looking down at the small test in her lap, Y/N forces a small smile through her nervousness as she brings up the test to the table, sliding it towards Steven.

"You....are...sick?" Steven cocks his head as he gently holds the white test between his fingers. His head immediately whips towards Gus's tank, no doubt being scolded by Marc.

"I'm pregnant love," the whisper of those words makes Steven drop the test onto the table, his eyes blown wide as they fall on Y/N.

"You're what!" He squeaks, pushing away from the table, Steven stands to his feet as one of his hands runs through his dark curls. "A-are you being for real right now?"

"Yes!" Y/N giggles, sliding out of her own chair. "I am!"

"B-but how," Steven sputters. "Well, I know how but umm, but w-when?"

Slowly Y/N moves to grab Steven's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before her gaze meets Steven's. "A week ago maybe? For the test at least, who knows when it actually happened..." Y/N tilts her head in thought. "Yeah, it must have been! I took at least three different tests last Saturday when you two were at work, you had come home so late that I thought I'd wait to surprise you today.....so surprise?"

"I–" Steven begins, his soft gaze glancing from Y/N's eyes to her belly. "I don't know what to say, love."

"Are you happy?"

"Of course," he sighs. "Of course I am, I just never would have thought this would happen!" A grin spreads across Steven's face as he meets Y/N's gaze. Immediately he scoops her up into a hug, squeezing her tightly until he quickly realizes he probably shouldn't.

"Oh, I'm sorry love!" He exclaims out of breath. "I just.....wow, me? A father? I can't believe it!"

"I know!" Y/N says with just as much giddiness in her voice as his. "What does Marc think of this?"

"Oh," Y/N's face falls slightly at the quietness in Steven's tone. "Nothing bad really, mainly 'cause he hadn't said anything besides calling me stupid for not realizing the kind of test that was."

Y/N subconsciously begins to chew her lip, she knew that Marc had parental issues but he never went on about them besides the quick "we just didn't get along."

A warm hand cupping her jaw makes Y/N jump, instantly she brings her hand to brush over Steven's. "I'm sure he is just as excited Y/N," he says with a reassuring smile, his other hand sliding onto her belly. "He just might need a minute or two to process the information."

"Right, no, umm," Y/N says, shaking the anxiety out of her. "You're probably right, it took me a day or so to wrap my head around it too. But I hope it was a good surprise though."

"It is indeed," Steven hums before placing a soft kiss on Y/N's forehead. "Now how 'bout we clean up the table and then throw a movie on eh?"

"Yeah that sounds great," Y/N nods as Steven's hands drop from her. As he turns toward the table to put the few pieces of cake that were left away, Y/N decides to throw away the torn wrapping paper, her eyes trying not to land on the untouched gift.

Her fingers slowly slide against the smooth metallic green paper, the gnawing anxious feeling returning to her as Y/N silently reads the scribbled name on the top of the gift. With a soft sigh, she sets it back down and tells herself not to worry.

Marc will be just as happy.

That small sentence plays in her head as Y/N wipes off the table with her hand, chewing on her lip as she reminds herself that it'll be fine. Steven's enthusiasm has to count for something right? Y/N turns to glance at Steven who was rocking on his feet as he cleans the plates they had used.

I need to stop worrying, Y/N's eyes fall back onto the old table. Marc wouldn't want me to worry anyway, too much stress for the baby he'd say.

Everything will be alright, he'd add.

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lovesosweeet · 6 months

Text

better left unsaid // cth

chapter twenty two

in which orion has leukemia, and calum doesn’t know.

calum hood x fem!oc

read other chapters

TW: mentions of disordered eating, weight loss, body image descriptions

october 1, 2018 san diego, california calum

I could barely sleep last night with the excitement of reuniting with Orion at the front of my mind. I get to hold her, touch her, kiss her, be with her… today. It’s finally here. The day that we’ve been pining for is finally here.

I wake up early so I can be ready when she gets here. We slept on the bus last night after we drove out here from Denver. It’s quiet when I wake up, unsurprisingly. I grab my duffel bag of clothes and toiletries and head into the venue to take a shower. There’s no show today, but we’re camped out here for now. I’m supposed to stay at Orion’s family’s house tonight, but the rest of the band and crew are at a hotel.

As I get to the door into the venue, Gus is already here. I swear, the man is always working. His shifts are 12 hours at a time. He’s tired as he greets me, but still cheery.

“Orion comes today, right?” He asks me with a knowing smile. He knows the answer. The question is practically rhetorical.

I smile back at him without a second thought. Of course I’m smiling — I get to see my girl today. “Yep, she’s gonna be here around 10!”

Gus nods and opens the door for me. “Only three and a half hours to go, then.”

We leave the conversation there and I enter the building, looking around for signage to direct me to the dressing room. I find it and head that way. It’s nice to be in the venue this early. No one else is awake, aside from a handful of stray security guys and a janitor that’s mopping the floor.

I take what Orion would call an everything shower. It consists of scrubbing my entire body with a container of sugar scrub I stole from her abundant stash, slathering my body in some body wash from LUSH that she got me hooked on, shaving everything, shampoo, conditioner, exfoliating my face… everything. I want to look, feel, and smell my best for her, even though I know she wouldn’t care if I smelled like cat piss and looked like a complete mess.

When I get out of the shower, I text her, since it’s roughly when she will wake up anyway.

To: my love + stars gooooood morning!!!!! ☀️ today is the DAY!!!! drive safe and let me know when you hit the road. can’t wait to see you my love.

Back on the bus, I try to get my bunk in order. I make the bed as well as I can and organize my stuff so it doesn’t look quite as chaotic.

“Cal? What time is it?” Ashton’s voice sounds from the bunk above mine.

“It’s a little after seven,” I answer, trying to whisper.

“Why are you up this early?” He whispers back.

“We’re in San Diego, dude.”

Ashton opens the curtain to his bunk then so he can look at me. “Shit, didn’t even realize. You excited?” He smiles, already knowing my answer. Another practically rhetorical question.

“Can’t fucking wait.”

—

I spend my morning with Ashton inside the venue, just aimlessly scrolling on my phone while he reads a book. We’ve both downed a cup or two of coffee and eaten a few of the snacks we have backstage. It’s just bananas and granola bars currently, which is fine by me. I’m not really hungry. The excitement is all consuming.

My phone is already unlocked, watching Orion’s blinking blue dot on the Find My Friends app get closer and closer to mine. She stopped at her family’s house on her way here to drop off Duke so we can spend the day together. As her dot gets onto the premises of the venue, she starts calling. I answer instantly.

“Hi,” I answer. Ashton looks over at me then and he starts to smile. I’m sure he’s missed her too.

“Hi, I’m pulling in now. Matt told them I’m coming, right?”

“Of course. You’re his favorite, remember?”

She giggles. “Okay, sure. I’ll see you in a minute.”

“Can’t wait.” And then I hang up.

I get off the couch, brushing crumbs from my granola bar off my lap. I turn to Ash.

“Gonna go meet her. We’ll be back in a minute.”

He nods, looking back down to his book.

I walk around the maze of the backstage area, following signs to the exit. More crew are walking around now, all nodding to me politely as we pass each other. I open the back door to the buses and am greeted by the bright sunshine and Gus’ replacement.

I look around, trying to spot Orion’s silver sedan. I spot it parked behind the buses, but don’t see her.

Then, there she is, walking toward me with a glowing smile on her face, wearing a baggy green hoodie, presumably some shorts that I can't see, and a beat-up pair of New Balances. I take a few jogging steps toward her, but she's running, so we meet after just a few seconds.

I wrap her into my arms as quickly as I can from the moment I see her, but the second she’s there, pressed into my chest, I can’t help but notice she’s… different. Orion has always been tiny. She’s 5 feet tall and has always been pretty thin, but she had some slight curves still. Now, she’s bony and frail. Normally, I don’t like to comment on her appearance unless it’s telling her how absolutely gorgeous she is, except this time. I can’t help it. All I can think is that she’s smaller. I want to comment about it, and I try to hold it in, but I don’t trust myself to be able to do so.

“Hi,” I breathe, my face buried in her hair. I didn’t even remember to take in how short it is now. Her frail frame is the only thing on my mind.

“Hi,” she says back. She’s squeezing me back as hard as she can. Her arms are bonier than normal, somewhat masked by the oversized hoodie, but they’re there.

My hands slide up the sides of the hoodie she's wearing — technically mine — to grip her waist and I can instantly tell just how differently her body is shaped now. She feels fragile, far smaller than she was before. It's so obvious. Has the time apart really been this hard on her? I know it's been bad, but not unhealthily losing 20 pounds bad. Have I just not paid enough attention on our Facetimes? Am I that oblivious?

What happened?

Before I know it, the question falls out. “Did you lose weight?” I can't help it. The words tumble from my mouth and my hands scan her rib cage, feeling how much the bones protrude from her skin. She feels like just skin and bones, but she was trying to hide it under my baggy sweatshirt. Orion steps back so she can look at me.

Now, I notice her face and that her cheekbones jutting out sharper than before. Her cheeks are hollow, her eyes sunken in. She looks sick.

Has she been struggling so badly this whole time? Why wouldn't she tell me? Did I not look at her at all while I’ve been gone? I’ve seen her face, but I don’t know how I could have missed that it looks like this. My heart aches at the thought of her being too sad to eat, too depressed to move. Things have to have been hard on her if this is how she is now. It’s all my fault.

"Just a little," she mutters. Now she can't even look me in the eye. She's suddenly trying not to cry.

My hands can encircle her waist, completely. She's so much smaller than she was before and there's no way it's healthy for her to be so thin. "Orion, it doesn't feel like 'just a little.'"

Her eyes finally meet mine, holding so much more emotion than I can swim through. What're normally almost orange irises are dark and muddy. "It's fine, okay?"

Her voice is so meek and sad that it pains me to hear. I don't want to press it. We don't need to have a full conversation about her possible disordered eating or stress-starving herself outside of a venue in San Diego. But I can't just drop the fact that she feels like she's down to just her skeleton and organs.

Orion's eyes search mine like she's trying to find the right thing for her to say in the depths of my eyes. I didn't mean to make her cry. I just can't believe that she is so much less of herself than she was two months ago, and I feel like it's my fault for leaving. How can this have happened? Does she need help? I try to put a pin in all the questions I have, but they cloud my thoughts and it's hard to think about anything else. I want to be excited that we’re finally together again, but excited is nowhere near the top of the list of the emotions I’m feeling right now.

"Orion's here!"

"Oh my god, O!"

"Ah! Orion! Cal, why didn't you tell us she was here?!"

"We've missed you so much!"

Suddenly there's a mini stampede of my bandmates, their partners, and some of our crew, all encircling us. It's a mess of limbs and excitement, and I'm pushed back from my girlfriend unwillingly. Everyone else now gets to feel just how frail she is.

Orion is grinning now, a fake smile plastered on her face while giving everyone hugs back and saying how happy she is to see them. Before I know it, Luke is picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her inside. Everyone else follows. Orion giggles and tries to answer questions that everyone throws at her. They all are gone shortly, and I don't even realize that Ashton is still standing with me outside until he speaks.

"Alright, mate?" He asks, patting my back between my shoulders. When I lock eyes with him, he's sympathetic, as if he can tell something is wrong.

I don't know what's going on with Orion yet, so I don't want to start talking about it with Ashton. If it's an eating disorder, that's not something I can just share with him without her consent. As much as I want to describe what I just saw in my girlfriend and felt on her body, I can't tell him.

I clear my throat and plaster on a smile. "Yeah, just still in shock that she's here, I guess."

Ashton nods. “C’mon, let’s go save her.”