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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 3 years

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Inked

Still on hiatus. But I found an old piece of writing and I revamped it just a smidge! It was originally published in 2018 on calumh-excess. Which is now deactivated. Hooray for finding pieces!

Calum's been watching Jay for a while. She's cute, talented, but a bit of mystery. Should he really give into her? What will it take for him to admit he has a crush?

Enjoy my masterlist (on hiatus)

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He watched her sometimes for far too long. The way her tongue stuck out as she pulled the skin and her hand worked steadily with the needle made it hard for him to resist. Her face always seemed to catch the harsh fluorescent lights and reflect it back so that it twinkled against her skin. A slight sheen, but nothing just of ethereal. He wasn’t even interested in any new ink, not seriously anyway. He had slowed on the ink train, but the shop his tattoo artist owned was a nice place to hang out sometimes. When he wanted to get out of his house but didn’t want to actually go somewhere, he could hang out here, listening to the buzz of the tattoo gun, poke his hand at trying a design here or there. They weren't great. He hadn't considered him this kind of artist, but the shop felt like a second home.

Besides, having her around was a more than welcomed bonus.

He wasn’t even sure what it was about her. She showed up about a year and a half ago, under an apprenticeship. Calum’s artist was unsure of her, much like everyone else that asked to work under him. A hazard of the job, according to the job, according to Calum's artist. However, her drawings spoke volumes; the colors and line work were impeccable. She had talent and knew it without being cocky about it. Well, sometimes she wasn’t. Calum watched her run into the occasional asshole that tried to belittle her; she always put her foot down in those situations. He didn’t fault her.

Today’s no different. When Calum walks in, he greets the guy at the front desk, eyes searching for her. He spots her in the back with her oversized frames creating a small glare over her brown eyes. He never quite got the appeal of the grandma-shaped glasses trend, but on her, they worked. She looked wise but soft. The glass pulled him in, felt like she was seeing into his soul. Maybe she was; maybe the pain made people more vulnerable than they anticipated--entrusting someone, a stranger in some ways, to permanently mark you and not fuck it up. Whatever the reason, looking at her felt timeless. Like she had seen it all, and you are just waiting for you to spill all the secrets.

“You finally going to get some new ink?” Calum’s artist teases.

Calum shakes his head, turning his attention away from her. “You finally took her training wheels off?”

“Your girlfriend’s got mad skills. I couldn’t baby her forever. Jay works hard on each piece, learned fast. Got a steady ass hand and pretty gentle for handling a needle.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, because you haven’t hardly even talked to her. Go for it, you wuss. What’s the worst she says? No?”

Calum exhales a chuckle. "I mean, the worst she stabs me with the tattoo gun. But considering the ink I'm already sporting, I doubt that's really all that bad.”

“Jay would not do that unless you asked for it, ff course. But really, go on, ask her out.”

Calum glances back at Jay. It’s a nickname. No one in the shop calls her by her full name. The only reason Calum heard it was when a client came asking for her. Jay was quick to correct them.

She wipes, clearing excess ink, before dipping back into the small cup. Jay smiles up at her client. Calum's sure they appreciate the reprise. Getting tattoos weren't always fun, but bearable enough to forget about it and get more.

Calum turns his gaze away. “I recommended you to a friend,” he says, hoping that he’ll escape the teasing. It’s not likely to happen. But at least he tries to minimize the ridicule.

"I appreciate it. Are they a first-timer?"

"A second-timer, but they're visiting town and want some new ink. I figured best not to fuck them over."

The two men laugh before Calum's escorted back to look through some new designs. Just in case something sparks his interest. Calum's visit is supposed to be short, but there's not much else on his to-do list for the day. He could kill a few hours here.

When Calum comes out from the back, after spending too much time pretending art was ever a talent of his, he looks for Jay again. She’s not in her corner, nor is she at the front. Calum shrugs, figuring she might have gone for lunch, or home depending.

As Calum walks to his car, he checks his phone. Nothing major's happened.

“Leaving so soon?” A voice states. Calum knows that voice, a little gravelly, mostly sweet. He’s dreamt of it every so often. He prays to hear it when he visits the shop.

He turns to Jay, who leans against the bricks. A vape is wrapped in her fingers. “Gotta get some dinner, maybe make a run to the grocery store," Calum returns. "I've gotten lazy."

She nods. “This reminds me that I can't survive off BLTs forever," she laughs.

"You could try, but I think you'd need other vegetables and some fruit in that mix too."

She pushes up on her glass with a nod. "Ah, yes, gotta get the whole food pyramid." It goes silent between them and Calum gives another nod, raising a few fingers to signal his departure while still keeping his phone in a secure enough grip.

"Hey, wait!" Jay calls out again, taking a half step forward. Calum turns to her. "Can I give you something before you leave?”

Calum nods, not trusting his voice. What would she give him? She nods back to the front door, taking back that initial half-step. “It's inside. Give me like two minutes.”

She disappears inside and Calum stands, his phone still in his hands, staring at the spot she once stood. Just as quickly as she disappeared, Jay reappears. In hand is her portfolio. She flips through before stopping and slides the heavy-duty drawing paper out.

Calum stares down at the green and black drawing. It’s his face, for the most part, that stares back at him. It’s distorted by a crystal ball that glows green. Inside are some instruments and something else, but right now he can’t really put it all together. His eyes keep moving over the lightning bolt, the crystal ball, the uncanniness of his face on a piece of paper, his three-dimensional face somehow translated perfectly into a 2-D space.

“Holy shit, this is amazing,” he breathes. “Thank you,” he says looking back up to her.

She shrugs with a smile. “You’re welcome.”

“Seriously, this is so fucking awesome. I’m going to frame it,” he gushes. He’s too excited to be nervous, or be embarrassed. "What are the dimensions?"

“I'm just really glad you don’t find it too creepy. I was watching you a couple weeks ago when you stopped by. It just sort hit me, the image of the crystal ball and lightning bolt; I had to draw it,” Jay elaborates. "And it's 8.5 by 11--standard printer paper size."

Calum shakes his head, staring over the drawing again. It feels so delicate suddenly in his hands. It’s almost like Jay recognizes the change in his handling. She shuffles her load in her hands and pulls out an empty plastic over. “Here,” she laughs handing it over. “So it doesn’t smudge or anything if you're worried."

Calum slides it in. “Thank you. Again. Seriously.”

“You’re welcome, Calum. Good luck with your grocery store trip and dinner,” Jay nods and then heads back inside. Calum watches the way the denim stretches across her hips, the way her hair billows just a little in the breeze of her strut.

For a moment, Calum can't move. The weight of the paper in his hand is hardly ounces, but it holds him--traps him to the point of the sidewalk. Jay thought enough of him to draw him. What did it all mean? Should he have found the courage to ask her out? He could walk back inside. But what if she didn't like him like that? Would it be too weird?

Calum blinks up into the hardly settling sun and thinks to himself, the second he can come back here, it better be with a bit more courage and possibly a gift certificate. No one can be made about free food, right?

It’s months before Calum can visit the shop again. The tour is a whirlwind and he only gets a few days off between legs. Not long enough to get back home or feel like he had any energy to drive out to the shop. But now that he's settled back in at home, he knows exactly where he's going.

It’s not his typical practice to just walk in and ask for a tattoo. But given the ink already on him, worse things could happen. When he pulls open the door, he notices it's kind of slow. Jay greets him at the front desk. “Hey, stranger,” she grins.

“Hey, how are you?” he asks in return.

“Pretty good. How was it? The tour? See any cool places?”

He nods. “Yeah, got to explore a few cities.” He taps his fingers against the wooden desk. “Do you have an appointment anytime soon?”

Jay shakes her head. “My 2 o’clock had to reschedule. I’m here until 4 before I see anyone. Why? What's tickling your fancy?”

“I was wondering if you could do a tat for me? I know this is very last minute and if you need me to come in another day this week, I totally can.” His words run into each other; his palms start to sweat. He wipes them on his jeans.

Jay laughs, holding up a hand. “Whoa, pump the brakes. One, what are you looking for?”

“You know that drawing you did for me?” She nods. “I was kind of hoping you could create something with just the crystal ball and lightning bolt. I know the drawing itself is kind of big.”

A grin lifts her cheeks; Calum’s heart settles for a second. “I think I can do that. Where are you thinking to put it?”

“Inner bicep.” He watches her gaze land on his arm. The t-shirt is baggy, he at least thought about that with enough advance.

“Give me 30 minutes to come up with some sketches.” Jay pushes away from the front desk and heads to the back, but not for calling to the shop to watch the front desk.

Calum slides into the seat at the front, leg bouncing as he settles down. This isn’t even his first tattoo, but the nerves flood his body. His scalp tingles. The thirty minutes move by too fast, but also too slow simultaneously. The seconds feel like hours but move by milliseconds.

Eventually, Jay resurfaces, waving him over to her. He walks back and looks at the sketches she places out in front of him. There are two different ones. One’s a bit more minimalistic, which is her style, with the lightning bolt in the background and a simple crystal ball at the point. The other is a bit bolder, the ball has a slightly warped edge where it connects to the bolt. It looks like the bolt is melting the glass ball.

“I can whip up more if neither one of them are quite right. But I wasn’t sure if it wanted something a bit more crisp and sharp or not,” Jay explains.

Calum admits that most of his tattoos are more cleaned up and sharp. He likes the idea of playing with a new style. “I like the second one,” he says, tapping it.

“You sure?” He nods, he’s never been more sure of something in his life. “Which bicep? Let me line it up and make sure it’ll fit.”

Calum lifts his left arm up for her. Laying the stencil over his skin, Jay notes she has to make a couple small tweaks. But after that, she’ll be ready. They discuss full color, or just outline, or shading, price, and a few other details before Jay concludes with, “Hop in my seat. I’ll be there soon.”

Calum nods and walks over to her station. Her stuff is already laid out, probably for her canceled 2 o’clock. It’s about five more minutes before Jay returns with the final stencil. Calum rolls up the sleeve of his shirt before she places the stencil. Happy with the placement, he stretches out on the table.

Jay gets herself ready before she brings the needle over his skin. The first puncture always makes him jolt a little, the first jab of pain causes his heart to race. “Do you plan on relaxing now that you're back home?"

"Yeah, for a little bit. I might go see my family, but I know we'll be back in the studio soon. Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

"I mean exciting things happen every day at this place. But it's not like I could recall them all now."

Calum hums, acknowledging her statement, but not quite sure what to say next. Luckily, Jay's faster to fill in the silence. "You do realize you didn’t have to get a tattoo to have a real conversation with me?” Jay teases, pushing up her glasses.

Calum’s cheeks heat. “It’s not like that,” he chuckles.

“Well, that’s how it seems.”

“You were always busy when I stopped by. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Not always,” she laughs. “But it’s alright. You’re going to have plenty of time while I’m stabbing you to say all those things you didn’t.”

A chuckle escapes him; of course, Jay would have this sense of humor. “Wow, I can’t believe I’m paying so much for people just to stab me and act as a therapy. Maybe I am a masochist.”

“So are a lot of people. Sometimes you just take the emotional pain out in the physical realm.”

“I always imagined people that worked in a tattoo shop to be more heavily tatted,” Calum hums, taking in scattered ink across her arms and one pokes out from the V in her t-shirt.

“I focused it more on my back and legs and not so much my arms. I’m getting there. So, why this one today?”

Calum goes to shrug, but stops himself as he hears the gun nearing his skin again. “Not really sure. It looked cool. I guess it also serves to remind me that fate isn’t linear. There’s going to be twists and turns, maybe some trouble. And that’s okay. Don’t be afraid of the journey. Also, it's really fucking cool art.”

Jay hums her laugh, “Why thank you. Wise brain you got there. Besides, it seems like you also have people you keep close to you.” She eyes the initials and the name under the bird. “Whoever they are to you, I hope you all stay close.”

“Those are my parents' initials,” he explains. “And my sister’s name. They’ve been with me through it all--I love them dearly.”

“So sweet. I wish my parents and I were closer. I tattooed my brother’s jersey number on me. It was my first tattoo.”

“What did he play?”

“Soccer, or for your kind, football.”

“Hey now, it’s played with the feet, it makes much more sense.”

Jay laughs, wiping off excess ink. She cocks her head to the side a little, then goes back in for the black ink. “I’m only teasing. Us Americans are so dumb sometimes. Like why is our football not called something else? Literally, the only thing that happens with the feet is the running. We carry the fucking ball.”

“I’ve wondered that as well!” he laughs. "Does your brother still play?"

“Yeah, the whole knucklehead still plays for his college.”

“What position?”

Jay laughs. “I'll have you know my job as the older sister is to show up and cheer him on. Something defensive? I don’t remember off the top my head.”

“I’ll give you credit for that. I’m sure he appreciates it.”

“He does until he sees with me in face paint on and then he’s acting like he doesn’t know me. Oh, oh wait, I think remember what he does. It’s defensive,” she pauses, lips pursed together, “something fielder.”

“Defensive midfielder?” he asks.

“Yeah, that. But like I said, I show up when I can and scream. That’s it. When he’s old enough, I’ll buy him a beer after his games too.”

“How old is he?”

“Nineteen, we’re three years apart.”

“The only sibling you have?”

“Nah, got a baby sister too. She’s fifteen. If you’re impressed by my eyeshadow thank her. Because she’s the one that taught me how to do it.”

Calum finds himself staring at the red and gold coloring her eyelids. “It looks really nice,” he breathes.

“Why thank you.” She pauses to bats her eyelashes. “I even managed to get those godforsaken falsies on right too. They look good, but the raise hell.”

“I think you’re the first woman I’ve met in LA that’s not obsessed with makeup,” he notes.

“Oh, you were doing so well. There are a lot of people of who aren’t huge in the makeup scene.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he tries to backtrack. “I’m sorry. In my experience, it’s not like that. They’re hiding the fact they aren’t wearing makeup--embarrassed by it or something.”

Jay nods, pushing up her glasses yet again. “Yeah, it’s not easy. We’re told to be perfect, but in reality, we’re just like everyone. We’re human, imperfect and flaw-full and beautiful.”

“Not in spite of, but because of.”

“Exactly,” she chuckles. Silences settles in around them. Calum wonders why she said she was closer to her family, but the way she talks about her siblings doesn’t match. She’s cheering her brother on at his game; she’s sitting down to learn makeup with and from her sister.

“Can I ask a bit of a personal question?” he asks.

“What kind of personal? Do I get a lifeline?”

Cal exhales a laugh. “You can always say no.”

“Hit me with it.”

“Why say that you’re family isn’t close but you clearly take a lot of pride in your siblings?”

“An observant one on my table, I see. It’s my parents. They don’t like that I’m pansexual, say I’m going to hell. My siblings don’t fucking care. I’m still the crazy-ass sister that loves and supports them.”

With a hum of acknowledgment from Calum, it goes quiet again around them for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He knows it doesn’t really fix anything for her; it doesn’t take away the potential years of her suffering. It’s the only thing he can offer her though. It feels right to say.

“Oh, no need for you to be sorry. It’s not like you threw me out of the house.”

“Ouch. You’re making it though right?”

“Yeah, now that I work here, things are on the up and up.”

“That’s good; I’m glad.”

“Thanks.”

“Favorite tattoo you’ve done?” he asks, wanting to hear her voice again.

“This one,” she laughs. “Though I had someone ask for a pin-up witch, which was also pretty fucking cool to do.”

Calum remembers seeing that on her Instagram. “That one was amazing! Her lips looked so good; I know that’s a strange thing to admit.”

“Don’t worry. I am quite proud of that myself.”

“Do you have a favorite tattoo on you?”

“The blue jay on my shoulder. My parents would take me on walks when I was still an infant. According to the legend, while they were sitting on a park bench a blue jay landed on me. I didn’t cry; it didn’t hurt me. It just landed for a second and then flew off. They called me Blue Jay ever since. I just shortened the nickname as I got older.” She gives one more wipe. “Finished. Check it out.”

Calum sits up, walking over to the mirror. He grins seeing the melting ball sitting against his skin. He grins over to Jay. “It looks amazing. Thank you.”

“No problem.” They head back over to her station. Jay cleans it and wraps the fresh ink. Calum carefully gets his sleeve back down with a little help from Jay. He pays their agreed price with his card, but slides two fifties over to her. “You do know that’s more than double a twenty percent tip right?”

Calum shrugs. “Is it? I’m bad at math,” he grins. “Treat your sister to a new palette or something. Treat yourself to something.”

“Thank you. Now next time, you come by, I hope we don’t talk while I’m stabbing you repeatedly.”

Calum shakes his head, a grin still on his face. Of course. He had forgotten to get the gift certificate. But possibly asking Jay to dinner wouldn't be such a bad idea. “Give me your number and I can promise the next time we talk, it won’t in your chair.”

She holds out her hand, waiting. He hands her his phone, after unlocking it. She puts her number in. She goes to hand the phone back but just before his fingers touch it, she draws it back. "I mean it--actually text me. I adore memes, dogs, TikToks, your favorite songs."

"I'll actually talk to you. I promise."

Jay hands over his phone with a smile. Calum steps outside the glass doors. Why should he wait? He could do it now. For fuck sake, the last hour had been the groundwork for a clear sign a date was absolutely an option. His fingers hovering over her name. He taps it, and then presses for a call. Holding the phone to his ear, he listens to it ring for a second.

“I can still see you, you know?” Jay laughs.

Calum turns around, catching her leaning against the front desk. “I told you the next time we talked you wouldn’t be inking me.”

“What can I help you with, Calum?”

“Dinner, tonight-- I may have ordered too many appetizers for just little old me."

Her laugh trickles in over the speaker. She drops her head, giving it a shake before looking back up to him in the afternoon sun. “I think I can help you with that. Give me the time and place."

Calum rattles off the name of a restaurant that he had been wanting to try. Nothing too upscale, but not something that would be too casual. "How does 8 sound?"

"I love it there. I'll see you at 8."

“Bye, Jay.”

“Bye, Calum.” As he walks to his car, his phone buzzes yet again. This time a text from his artist, I’m being fucking replaced, I see. I can’t be too mad since it’s Jay. Calum laughs as he slides into his car. Maybe he is getting replaced; maybe he’s not. Calum’s not sure. He is sure that he needs to figure out if he can make reservations and what to wear for tonight.

#calum hood #calum hood fanfic #calum hood blurb #calum hood imagine #calum hood 5sos #calum 5sos #5sos fanfic #5sos imagine #5sos fic #calum hood fic #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fanfic #5 seconds of summer fic #5 seconds of summer imagine #h writes

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dustedmagazine · 2 years

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Almost normal, but still weird: Jennifer Kelly’s year of venturing back out

Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty and Joe McPhee at Long Live the Thing!

Ah, remember the hopeful days of May and June, when newly vaccinated stirred from their burrows and nosed cautiously out into the warm spring air. Beers could be quaffed at outdoor tables. Trips to elderly relatives could be considered. And concerts could be attended, if a little nervously.

I went to see E, the post-punk band that Thalia Zedek shares with guitar-tinkerer Jason Sanford, in June. It was a triumph. They were great (and also on their first live outing in several years). But it was also very strange. I had become nervous around people in ways that owed nothing to the pandemic. Also, in a pattern that would repeat, I was absolutely sure I had COVID the day after. (I did not.)

I saw Chris Brokaw reprise his barn-burning rock record Puritan a few weeks later, fronting the power trio that plays on the album but which normally travels no further than New England. It was fantastic. I was thrilled. And again, I was a little frightened. A weird rash developed, which I thought must be COVID rash. (It was not.)

Chris Brokaw Band at Arts Nova, Keene NH

The summer went on this way. I’d dash out to shows in excitement and follow up with days of dread. We spent a whole day outside in Peterborough at a September edition of the year-delayed Thing in the Spring (called Long Live the Thing! this time because it was not, duh, the spring anymore.) Joe McPhee blew me away. Sarah Louise charmed and enchanted. Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney put on a surreal and beautiful set as Superwolves to close things out, and it was a festival, like a dozen other festivals from years past, though made strange by absence. I made another foray out to see Tobin Sprout and once, to meet up with Dusted friend Michael Rosenstein for dinner and then catch Bill Nace and the Powers/Rolin duo in Greenfield, MA.

Tobin Sprout at Arts Nova, Keene NH

And so, it was a year of returning to live venues, to eating out, to traveling in early November to Chicago again to see my son for the first time in two years. All good stuff. All welcome and celebrated. But none of it as casual, as taken for granted, as devoid of dread as it had been before. Welcome to the new normal. Just like the old normal except it scares you to death (and might kill you, though probably not, you big wuss!).

It was also a pretty good year for music though, and here’s the secret: it always is. You just have to listen to enough records to make it so.

Here are ten that I loved, described in some depth and another 40 to 50 listed. You could make a big deal out of the numbers or the placements but don’t. They’re all extremely good records.

Indeed, the list has been in a bit of flux since I first made it in October. I had flat out forgotten about Superwolves the first time around, for one thing. For another, I reviewed a string of really excellent albums from October on. NOUS/Laraaji, Michael Hurley, Endless Boogie, Bitchin Bajas, Emily Robb and Rider/Horse all came late in the year and all seemed worthy of at least a slot on the big list. It became a very big list indeed.

I’ve linked reviews and/or interviews where possible if you want to read more.

1. Cassandra Jenkins—An Overview on Phenomenal Nature (Badabing)

Cassandra Jenkins nailed the zeitgeist this year with her emotionally vulnerable, cerebrally challenging, gob-smackingly gorgeous album of not quite just singer songwriter songs celebrating life in the midst of sorrow. Everybody else is pointing to “Hard Drive,” as the hit here, and it’s very good, with its brainy museum guard sample, its sharp, driving rhythms, its blowsy dream-like sax around clear-eyed lyrics, but I like “New Bikini” best. “Let’s get you in the water/the water, cures everything,” Jenkins breathes, and amen to that.

2. Reds, Pinks and Purples—Uncommon Weather (Slumberland)

Like all the best pop songs, these lo-fi janglers smile and sigh at the same time, finding beauty in the fuzz and ambiguity of music—and human life itself. Glenn Donaldson imbues these tracks with a casual grace that recalls the best of 1980s New Zealand, but there’s a sardonic humor in the cuts about the music world. Stay right to the end for “Sing Red Roses for Me,” a song that hasn’t gotten much focus but whose chorus destroys me every time.

3. Chris Brokaw—Puritan (12XU)

Brokaw’s first unambiguously rock album in years, Puritan builds monumental sonics out of power trio basics. The title track makes you remember that Brokaw was in Come; its onslaught of guitar sound flickers and shifts in oblique post-rocking ways. “Bragging Rights” brings in Come bandmate Thalia Zedek for a mournful, acoustic interval. But it’s “Heart of Human Trafficking” that raises the stakes, with a rumble and roar that sounds great on record and even better live. Brokaw has never made a bad record, and this is a great one.

4. Mdou Moctar—Afrique Victime (Matador)

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Mdou Moctar’s 2019 album Ilana: The Creator made the case that the world’s current guitar shredding champion lived in sub-Saharan Africa, but Afrique Victime dials down the pyrotechnics to settle into hypnotic communal grooves. Not ready to give up on the double-tapping prowess? Check out opening “Chismiten” or the soul-stirring title track, both enlivened by astonishing displays of virtuosity.

5. Myriam Gendron—Ma Delire: Songs of Love Lost (Feeding Tube)

Myriam Gendron has only made one other album, a haunting re-imagination of the poems of Dorothy Parker, so I wasn’t quite prepared for how unearthly beautiful this one was. The Montrealean revisits Canadian folk songs, exploring their many lives as pre-industrial people’s music, as fodder for the 1960s folk revival and as post-modern meditations on love and sorrow. Essential, spare and adventurous, Gendron’s dream is flat-out gorgeous.

6. Sleaford Mods—Spare Ribs (Rough Trade)

Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson has run into a bit of flack lately for his support of Spotify, but that’s just him, with his outrageous opinions on everything. The surprising thing is how progressive he is, making a conscious effort to bring women’s voices into his laddish provocations. On Spare Ribs, like-minded punkers including Billy Nomates and Amy Taylor from Amyl and the Sniffers, spit corrosive verses to Andrew Fearn’s abstract and stuttering rhythms, while the Marxist academic Dr. Lisa McKenzie observes the historic plight of women in “Top Room.” Full of spit and bile and contrariness as always, but more inclusive.

7. Guardian Singles—S-T (Trouble In Mind)

The always great Chicago indie label Trouble In Mind had an even better than usual year in 2021, with excellent albums from Dummy, Smoke Bellow, FACs, Mountain Movers and Nightshift, but my favorite was Guardian Singles, a rambunctious Aussie punk record that recalled the best of the melodic post-punk bands—Mission of Burma, Wire, Feelies and the Clean—with a brash, fresh, idiosyncratic energy. “I’m so tired of never being alone,” rattled around my head like an antic mantra, while the fizz and pop cacophony of “Heartland” set my pulse racing.

8. Arab Strap—As Days Get Dark (Rock Action)

“I don't give a fuck about the past/Our glory days gone by/All I care about right now/Is that wee mole inside your thigh,” mutters Aidan Moffat in his scratchy Scots brogue at the outset of As Days Get Dark, but Arab Strap’s morose, sardonic, filthiness has aged surprisingly well. Still obsessed with sex, the band finds a kind of tenderness in a song about jacking off to old photos of the wife, and a strangled poetry in the way we cope with aging and loss. The writing is spot on, too, best line: “I come on strong with a limerick. She knocks me back with a villanelle.”

9. The Bevis Frond—Little Eden (Fire)

As he approaches 70, the Bevis Frond’s Nick Salomon can still rip a searing Hendrix-style guitar solo and can still construct serpentine pop melodies stick in your head. This sprawling double album was recorded entirely by Salomon, except for one track’s worth of drumming, and there’s not a slack moment in it, though you’ll swallow hard when “As I Lay Down to Die” forces you to contemplate a world without the Bevis Frond.

10. Six Organs of Admittance—The Veiled Sea (Three Lobed)

Ben Chasny makes a lot of different kinds of music—the hushed acoustic reveries from records like School of the Flower, the blistering feedback laced scrawls of the first Hexadic album, the free-ranging improv of his work with Rangda—but he seldom puts it all on one album as he did with this astonishing record on the Three Lobed label. “Somewhere in the Hexagon of Saturn” flits airily on flickering electronics, its guitar solo a rough monolith in a garden of butterflies. “Old Dawn” meditates on long washes of tone, and the semi-title track “Last Station, Veiled Sea” brings the slow-building revelations of Six Organ’s latter work on Companion Rises. But it’s the weird stuff that keeps me engaged—the boisterous electro-pop of “J’ai Mal Aux Dents” and the stinging no-wave disco of “All that They Left You.” Who knew he could do this? Who knew it would be my favorite part?

Let’s not even call them honorable mention. Here are a bunch of other records that I loved.

Pelt—Resistance Reticence (Three Lobed)

Damon & Naomi with Kurihara—A Sky Record (20/20/20)

Doran—S-T (Spinster)

Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney—Superwolves (Drag City)

The Chills—Scatterbrain (Fire)

Mess Esque—S-T (Drag City)

Dummy—Mandatory Enjoyment (Trouble in Mind)

The Goon Sax—Mirror II (Matador)

Rosali—No Medium (Spinster)

GG King—Remain Intact (Total Punk)

The Mountain Goats—Dark in Here (Merge)

Jupiter & Okwess—Na Kazonga (Strut)

Emily Robb—How to Moonwalk (Petty Bunco)

New Bums—The Last Time I Saw Grace (Drag City)

Rose City Band—Earth Trip (Thrill Jockey)

Michael Hurley—The Time of the Foxgloves (No Quarter)

Lorkin O’Reilly—Marriage Material (Team Love)

NOUS, Laraaji and Arji OceAnanda — Circle of Celebration (Our Silent Canvas)

Ovlov—BUDS (Exploding in Sound)

Bill MacKay & Nathan Bowles—Keys (Drag City)

Bitchin Bajas—Switched on Ra! (Drag City)

Rider/Horse—Select Trials (Ever/Never)

The Colorist Orchestra with Howe Gelb—Not on the Map (Dangerbird)

Fiver with the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition—S-T (You’ve Changed)

Reigning Sound—A Little More Time with the Reigning Sound (Merge)

Endless Boogie—Admonitions (No Quarter)

Strapping Fieldhands—Across the Susquehanna (Petty Bunco)

Yasmin Williams—Urban Driftwood (Spinster)

#dusted magazine #jennifer kelly #yearend 2021 #cassandra jenkins #chris brokaw #reds pinks and purples #mdou moctar #myriam gendron #the sleaford mods #guardian singles #arab strap #bevis frond #six organs of admittance

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kookiecrumb · 3 years

Text

jjk|| Teaser: Caught in the Web 🕷(T)

RELEASE DATE: postponed (tba as of 9/24)

Rating: Teen/17+

Warnings: Strong Language

Tags: Spider!Kook x f!Reader, fluff, that's all I know so far 👀

New York City 1997

The streets of New York need protecting from all sorts of crooks and criminals who look for trouble late at night, and who would have guessed that the uber nerd from your General Chem was the one protecting all of us?

What ELSE are you supposed to do when you miraculously gain superpowers from a radioactive spider who you accidentally let bite you?

See the nurse? Like a wuss? No, you suck it up and use it to kick ass, like a baddie.

So, sure. He had to learn a couple things before he could be fully prepared to take on the city's most notorious bad guys. These things included learning how to control the weird shooty thing from his wrist, at least some basic martial arts training, and time management.

Between being a college student, helping Aunt May with her errands, and super secret superhero training, love was on the back burner.

"A girlfriend is nothing but another vulnerability to these clowns." He told Taehyung while doing a 100 pound lift. He only barely strained, this time. "What? Yeah, it would be nice to have someone worry about me every now and then, but isn't that what you're for?" He dropped the weights down, poking Tae between his man-tits.

He shot out his web for his waterbottle, squishing the container with his meaty hands with minimum force.

"Dude, you're getting ahead of yourself. You don't just choose to not be in love. It hits you like a bus." Taehyung desperately chases after Jungkook, who's already moved on to quads.

Testosterone and adrenaline rushing through his veins, his words were floating somewhere below his consciousness.

Taehyung had recently been hanging around this girl, Deedee? She was tall, blonde, and had a posh accent because she spent her teen years in Manchester. That was all bookish, culture-enthusiast Tae needed to fall head over heels. It's all he'd been talking about for weeks, her sweet cherry lip gloss and her high ponytail seemingly had him under some sort of girl trance. Could never be him, right?

Yeah, never.

#spider!kook #jungkook #spiderman fic #fic #fluff #jungkook x reader fluff #jungkook x reader #spiderman!jungkook x reader #teaser #bts #kpop

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lordkuronekosama · 3 years

Note

Hello! Sorry for bothering you, I hope you don't mind with another discussion >_< I'm curious about your analysis about Sasori and his zodiac (I mean like, how accurate it is to his actual personality, compability, etc). Long or short, I'll gladly read your answer! ^^

I think this is Leonardo? Hello!

imo Kishimoto picked a birthday that matched his name, and developed Sasori’s personality with that in mind. it makes a lot of sense as a writer (in terms of the logic of picking out birthdates for characters)

But anyway. I’m not a zodiac expert but here is a Cosmo article that describes a bunch of Scorpio stuff. Let’s go through it line by line.

Scorpios are born between October 23rd and November 21st, and belong to the Water element of the zodiac (along with Cancer and Pisces).

>>> it’s so funny that Scorpio is a water element and that Sasori is from the desert lol

Scorpios are strong, enigmatic, independent characters who crackle with an intensity and charisma that makes them un-ignorable. For all of that power though, they often remain un-knowable to others, because they guard themselves and their private lives fiercely.

>>> this checks out. Sasori has a kind of magnetism that draws fans to him. Literally he hid his body in Hiruko’s shell.

>>> I totally adhere to the headcanon that Sasori is a gossip guy (based on his spy network). He will protect his secrets with his life; he will sell yours for a corn chip. He doesn’t even eat corn chips. Or anything.

You can bet there’s something juicy going on, under the wraps, though, because Scorpios like extremes, challenges, danger and darkness. They are, because of their planetary ruler Pluto, drawn to the outliers of human experience. If it’s kinky, risky or thrilling, a Scorpio will be involved somehow!

>>> he feels like both risk avoidant and likes a challenge??? Sasori comes off as someone who plots everything meticulously (I think bc he’s a puppet master, leads the puppet corps at some point, and control is implied here), but I think he’s probably a lot more impulsive than he lets on.

>>> Totally bragged about how difficult it was to kill the Third Kazekage, who could defeat Shukaku, so. Definitely drawn to danger…

>>> 10/10 will poison a person and leave them to die. That’s kinky right? Anyway, stan Kankurou,

>>> honestly this is more headcanons and jokes than actual analysis.

>>> I thought that scorpios’ planetary ruler was Mars?

Source: me. I’m a scorpio.

Scorpios are loyal, smart, shrewd and stoic. They stand by their beliefs, and they don’t crave anyone else’s approval.

>>> Sasori is often portrayed in fandom as stoic but in canon he is actually pretty expressive at times

this is from the video game iirc

>>> loyalty. kinda gotta tilt your eyes to see this. On one hand he clung to his parents so much that he tried to bring them back through puppetry and on the other he killed his kage in (seemingly) cold blood. I like to think that he is loyal to people he considers his.

>>> yup, his opinion on art is correct, and all other ideas are wrong. According to him.

Scorpio is like the big, bad elder sister of the Water sign crew. You don’t mess with the turbulent, deadly scorpion my friend, their sting can be fatal - and they make the other signs of the zodiac (apart from maybe Aries, who they share a planetary influence with) look like wusses!

>>> I mean, yeah, Sasori tried to stab Deidara over a minor argument so I’d agree with this 😭😭😭😭😭

The rest of the article goes into detail by personality trait but I think we get the gist. A funny addition:

Doing a Ouija board. They’re on good terms with Satan actually, they get Frappuccinos and hang out together at the park on Sunday mornings when it gets a little toasty down there in *you know where*…

>>> LOL

Re: Compatibility, I like to think he’s compatible with a lot of different people, but I’d like to look them up one by one because I’m not an expert. So feel free to ask about particulars.

That said, I have researched Leo-Scorpio, because of my own headcanons about the Third Kazekage. TLDR: Leos are narcissists, and enjoy the obsessive attention of Scorpios, are passionate lovers, but can also be flighty and self-centered. The makeup sex is amazing though.

#SasoThird #SanSaso #spicy #mentioned not in detail #sasori #Leonardo anon #Sasori and the devil are besties actually #Sasori AS the devil tho 🤔

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sapphicmsmarvel · 4 years

Text

PG: Gamer Girls

masterlist

-You kept your little gamer girl secret away from the team.

-Everyone perceived you as a badass who wasn’t a total geek. Well, they were right on one of those accounts.

-You were a badass, a nerdy little badass.

-You always kept your switch in your bag, you would walk into work with the giant purse that kept your switch, a charger and other games in it. As well as anything you may need throughout the day.

-But there was a really bad case, one that made you extremely anxious and shaken.

-You were sitting next to Prentiss, across from Morgan. You were debating whether or not to bring out your switch and play some Animal Crossing. Your leg was jumping and you were picking at your nails.

-Ah, fuck it. You needed the calming graphics of Animal Crossing and your favorite podcast.

-You pulled your switch out of your bag, Prentiss raised her eyebrow, “what’s that?”

-Before you could answer, Garcia sat next to Morgan, “is that a switch?”

You nodded, smiling, “yeah, I love animal crossing.”

“Me too! What’s your island rating and who’s your favorite villager?”

-Instead of playing, you both talked about Animal Crossing. You complained about sea basses and olive flounders. How Isabelle's dialogue is sadly boring. How sisterly characters are huge bitches. As well as bullying villagers and getting them off your island.

-The bullying conversation got a bunch of weird looks from Prentiss and Morgan.

-But that made your and Garcia grow even closer. You two planned weekly animal crossing dates at one of yours apartments.

-She came over at 8, bringing one pizza, a bag of breadsticks and one bowl of alfredo. You two always had a buffet of food.

-But it’s when she came over to yours that she saw all of your video games and systems. As well as merch.

-Your couch was covered in blankets and pillows. Some fandom, some regular ole pillows and blankets.

-Your tv had tons of zelda, mario and pokemon art on the wall behind it. You even had the backlights on the tv so your tv was illuminated by them. Your dvd cabinet underneath the tv had all your movies and tv shows. The cabinet next to the stand had all of your video games organized by system.

-She sat on your couch and gestured to the ps4. “What do you play?”

You shrugged, “I love horror games. I have Until Dawn on there, Outlast as well.”

She shuddered, “I wanna play those but I’m too much of a wuss.”

“I can restart them and you can just watch if you want. You can even spend the night too if you don’t wanna go home alone after playing them.” You shrugged.

Her eyes lit up, “please.”

-So you two started up Outlast first.

-She was curled up in her pjs next to you, chewing on lukewarm parmesan breadsticks

-It was 3AM before Garcia had had enough of the jumpscares, “that’s it! animal crossing time!”

-You laughed and you two played animal crossing until 6 am when both of you passed out, her on your lap.

-You two always get new video games together when they launch.

-You’ve gone to video game conventions too.

-You two found a nice safe space from the darkest cases, if you two found yourselves feeling sad, you would facetime together while playing a video game.

#Penelope Garcia #penelope x reader #Criminal Minds #criminal minds x reader

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aleidawrites · 3 years

Text

Baby Animals Are Romantic

A gift for @semicolonsandsimiles who gave me the prompt “post-canon/established relationship” for the @pynchpromptweek Pynch Secret Santa 2020. Have some of Ronan and Adam being soft and going on dates with each other!

Title: Baby Animals Are Romantic

Word Count: 3301

Summary: Adam had never been to the county fair before, so when Ronan suggests they go he figures this is a farming thing. But Adam's eager to spend time with his boyfriend, even if he also has to listen to an auctioneer trying to sell steers. Or, in which Ronan just wants to take his oblivious boyfriend on a date and maybe hold hands on the Ferris wheel.

Read on AO3

Ronan approached him a couple of weeks after they had finally discussed the dream-goop. It felt like they had progressed to a new stage of their relationship, with Ronan dedicated to his dreaming again and Adam figuring out what school was going to look like. Adam was bent over one of his many lists (this one a bulleted list of all the work study opportunities on campus) when Ronan rested his shoulder on the door jam to the study where Adam had taken up residence.

He liked the large wooden desk.

“You know, the fair’s coming up,” Ronan muttered.

“The what?”

Adam looked up from his list — the best chance for steady hours was working in the campus cafeteria but the assignment at the library would let him do surreptitious homework on the job more often — and frowned at Ronan. He could remember a school fair in elementary, but Ronan wouldn’t have those same memories.

“Wait, the county fair?” Adam laid his pen down carefully on the desk and leaned back.

The county fair took place every August at the fairground, which was just another field north of Singers Falls. Aglionby never paid much attention to the county fair, with the ruckus of the Fourth of July always outshining anything else that happened during the summer up until last year. Adam vaguely remembered some of his classmates in elementary school talking about their 4H projects or art submissions with markers and crayons.

“I’ve never been to the fair,” Adam said slowly. Ronan stood up straighter, pushing himself off the door. “What’s even there?”

“Y’know, competitions and shit, who can grow the biggest pumpkin, who’s got the best pig.” Ronan slumped fully into the room to lean against Adam’s desk, like standing straight was a hassle for him. “There’s rides they set up for kids, like those tiny airplanes that you get in and spin around.”

Adam didn’t say that he had never been in those rides as a kid. He knew Ronan wasn’t bringing that up to remind Adam of what he hadn’t had. They just had different perspectives of what kids had. Adam had a mattress on the floor of the double-wide, and Ronan had a dad who created magical things from dreams.

“And the auctioneer will come by to sell off livestock and shit,” Ronan said, speaking faster. “Steers and stuff for farmers. Sometimes there’s baby animals from the stock.”

Oh, so that was a thing. Adam leaned his elbows on the desk so that he could be closer to Ronan’s downturned face.

“You wanna go?”

Ronan’s shoulders slumped so fast that Adam barely noticed how high they had been before. But Ronan’s face relaxed at the same time, and that was more fun for Adam to watch.

“Shit, Parrish, don’t act like you're doing me a favor or anything,” Ronan drawled.

Adam rolled his eyes. For everything that had happened over the summer, Ronan was still shit at asking for what he wanted. He could’ve just asked Adam to go with him to the county fair auction.

“Fine.” Adam hid his smile in his shoulder and picked up his pen again. “When’s the auction?”

“Friday afternoon,” said Ronan. “You just have the factory shift on Friday, right? You’re free after that.”

Ronan asked like he didn’t have Adam’s whole work schedule memorized. Adam looked up and didn’t bother concealing his smile at Ronan.

“Yep.”

To Adam’s delight, the tips of Ronan’s ears turned pink as he nodded as if nothing was unusual about that.

“Good.” Ronan turned on his heel and marched back out the door. “Hey, brat, what’re you doing with that?”

Adam left Ronan to manage Opal on his own, but he was still smiling when he hunched back over his lists.

…

They left Opal with the Fox Way ladies on Friday, something Opal herself had mixed feelings about, but she seemed happy enough with all the various herbs the women let her chew on. Ronan drove the two of them back through Singers Falls and up to the fairgrounds.

Adam had only ever seen it when it was an empty field, mostly mowed down grass with patches of dirt or mud, depending on the season. Ronan kept vibrating in the driver’s seat, shifting so aggressively that Adam wondered if he should’ve offered to go “driving” with him before going to the fair. Or instead of it.

When they finally got to the fair, just after lunch, the field was already half full of cars on one side of the skinny two-lane road. The field on the other side of the road was full of white tents and footpaths around the various attractions. Rows of red and yellow and green tractors stretched out from one side of the fair into the empty trimmed field. True to what Ronan had said, there were a few carnival rides for kids, including a full sized Ferris wheel near the center of the fair.

“There’s a lot of people here,” Adam noted as they parked and got out of the Beemer. Lots of people was typically not Ronan’s jam.

“Don’t be a wuss, Parrish,” Ronan said. He hurried around the car to stand close to Adam’s side. “Let’s go.”

He grabbed at Adam’s hand and jerked him towards the road. Adam went. It was hard not to follow Ronan Lynch when he was this much like Ronan Lynch, a black T-shirt covering his shoulders while the wicked curves of his tattoo peeked out at the base of his neck.

For a minute as they crossed the road, Adam wondered if he should be more careful, if he should take his hand away from Ronan’s. His parents weren’t generally fair-goers, so he didn’t expect to see them or anyone else from the trailer park here, but farmers were their own kind of people. What would they think about two boys holding hands as they ran to the admission booth? But as soon as they pulled up to the ticket window where a gray-haired lady with a straw hat sat taking money, Ronan let go of Adam’s hand to dig in his pocket.

“I could’ve got that,” Adam protested, mostly because he could.

“So, you can buy us lunch,” said Ronan as he folded his wallet and shoved it back into his jeans.

The lady gave a string of pink paper tickets to Ronan, who tore it in half and gave one half to Adam. He took them and frowned at them. They looked like raffle tickets, but Adam wasn’t sure what purpose they served here.

“C’mon,” Ronan said and walked through the gates.

Inside the fairgrounds were full of lines of people grouped and moving like pods of fish. The packed squadrons of bodies all moved the same way, like rush hour traffic with bodies instead of cars. Ignoring everyone, Ronan pulled Adam to a stop in front of a fork in the dirt path and tilted his chin up towards the open sky.

“The games are that way.” Ronan pointed to the right.

Adam saw the pointed tops of colorful booths painted in reds and oranges and mechanical spires that — sure enough — propelled tiny metal airplanes up with kids strapped in and screaming in delight.

“I wanna know if they have the stupid carnival shooting games,” said Ronan. Adam rolled his eyes, but Ronan’s eyes went yet another direction. “There’s the Ferris wheel.”

Adam followed Ronan’s finger to the large white and purple wheel at the other side of the fairgrounds, straight ahead of where they were.

“Yeah, looks kinda cheesy.” Adam had only seen those kinds of things in movies. But it wasn’t what Ronan was here for, and in lieu of a responsible farmer, Adam supposed he could nudge Ronan towards the actual prize. “Where’s the animals? You said there would be babies.”

A frown darted quickly across Ronan’s face as he turned to Adam, but then he softened into something private, something reserved for Adam and the Barns. It was the kind of look that made Adam think they could survive a few years of long-distance, as long as Ronan always looked at him like that when he came home.

“Yeah, sure, Parrish, let’s go look at the babies,” said Ronan.

Slipping his shoulder behind Adam’s back, Ronan nudged Adam forward and down the left-hand path. They navigated around the people walking the opposite direction, and Adam felt Ronan’s hand pressing against his back, just below his shoulder blades where Ronan’s body blocked anyone looking closely at the two boys. Adam’s skin felt hot under his T-shirt.

They walked together to a long barn with a shiny metal roof, and Ronan shifted to take the lead up the incline to the end of the barn where the main doors were standing wide open. Adam recognized the smell immediately: hay and warm bodies and corn. But this was different from the Barns in a way that Adam could only attribute to the dream quality of Ronan’s home. Even once everything was awake again, there was a sense of peace over the whole thing, a wildness that the cows, the deer, Opal, and Ronan himself all were a part of.

But Ronan looked happy enough to be in his natural environment. The thought of teasing Ronan that he belonged in a barn made Adam’s mouth quirk up. Ronan grabbed his hand before he could say anything and pulled Adam towards one side of the barn.

“Look,” Ronan pointed into the pen.

People were pressed up against the wood of the pen, but Ronan just elbowed a man out of the way and ignored the glare that he received in turn. Adam scoffed but walked up beside Ronan and looked inside the wooden pen. Two lambs sat in the pen next to the back wall while a third lamb walked around on spindly legs, jerking its way back and forth from the many outstretched hands of the people crowding the pen then darting back to the safety of the other lambs away from people.

Adam rested his elbows on the top of the pen and watched the lamb dance back and forth adventurously, nipping at the outstretched fingers of a kid who had climbed up the rungs of the pen and then hopping back out of reach of all the adult hands that stretched out to pet the animal. Beside him, Ronan sighed and leaned down over the closed pen, nearly folding himself in half. He let his hand dangle loosely near the fluffy bedding lining the pen and ignored the rest of the people clamoring to see the baby lamb and entice them closer. Adam watched as one of the lambs from the back of the pen got up on its own shaky legs and nosed its way closer. Ronan wiggled his fingers and let the lamb approach him and sniff cautiously.

Adam leaned harder onto Ronan and watched the lamb lick at Ronan’s fingers, wary but eager for something that Ronan had. Adam could sympathize.

Ronan glanced up.

“Wanna pet him?” he asked softly, his voice toned down from his usual boisterous shredding of the English language.

Adam scooted closer to Ronan and leaned down with him, letting his fingers dangle just like Ronan had instead of thrusting his hand out in beckoning motions like the rest of the people. The lamb moved from sniffing Ronan’s fingers to seeking out Adam’s. It’s tongue tickled the tips of his fingers, and Adam stretched his hand out a little further and gently patted the top of the lamb’s head. He turned to see Ronan grinning at him.

“C’mon,” said Ronan. “I bet there are some calves they got further down.”

…

They passed through the other end of the livestock barn, where Ronan had stopped by pretty much every pen to see the baby animals and try to entice each one closer. Every time he had gotten an animal to come close to him, he offered petting privileges to Adam, which he appreciated. But Adam liked seeing Ronan’s unique magic with barns and baby animals even more than touching them himself. For all his dangerous appearance, Ronan was most at home being soft around animals.

After the barn, Ronan dragged Adam — fairly willingly but still — down the continuing path that looped back around to the carnival games that were all grouped together, next to the mechanical toy rides. Adam beat Ronan in a game of “shoot the water gun at the target,” which won him both an oversized red foam cowboy hat and a heated look from Ronan. It was only when Ronan had a bizarrely large stuffed giraffe under his arm that Adam thought he might be missing something.

“We should get food,” Ronan said. “You’re buying, right?”

Adam glanced down at the beaten watch on his wrist, still able to tell him when he was about to be late for a shift.

“What about the auction?”

Ronan frowned at him.

“Why would you wanna see an auction?” he demanded. “It’s just a bunch of people yelling about cows.”

“You yell about cows on a regular basis, Lynch.” Adam rolled his eyes. Ronan was probably just protesting too much and didn’t want to go to something that he was being forced to.

“Those’re my cows, though,” Ronan said into Adam’s good ear. “Special breed.”

Adam felt his cheeks flush and tried to brush the blush away with the back of his hand.

“Let’s do whatever you want,” he tried. “Where d’you want to go?”

Ronan stopped in between a booth with a ring toss and the back of a food cart that smelled like hot oil and sugar.

“I brought you to have fun, Parrish,” he said. “Are you that much of a workaholic? We talked about this.”

Adam bristled. He breathed in deeply, almost matching Ronan’s smoker-inhale, and told himself to be calm.

“Excuse me for trying to make sure you get what you need outa this,” he muttered lowly.

“Excuse you?!” Ronan’s eyebrows flew up.

Adam grimaced. The words had slipped out. Fighting with Ronan was still a charged activity for the both of them. Adam was still getting used to softness, from both himself and from Ronan Lynch.

“Look, I’m trying to be considerate of you here,” Adam explained very calmly.

“Well, don’t feel like you have to spare my fucking feelings!” Ronan bit out.

Adam threw his hands into the air, funny cowboy hat and all.

“You wanted to come!”

“I wanted to go on a date with you!” snapped Ronan.

Adam blinked his way out of his sudden anger and felt his stomach sink in its absence. Ronan looked suddenly sheepish and angry that he was sheepish. His jaw ticked like he was clenching his teeth, like he was trying to hold his words back from where they could do the most damage to Adam.

“I can do better than just driving in cars,” Ronan said. “This was gonna be fun. Way to ruin the day.”

Adam’s stomach turned to lead. He hated the idea that this was all ruined because of him. Part of his mind argued that going to the county fair was a weird idea for a date, but he recognized the defensive part of himself, the part that constantly looked for ways that he could get hurt so that he knew where to protect himself.

But the larger part of him saw Ronan’s jaw clench the same way it did when he was trying not to let his lip tremble, trying not to show how much he felt.

Adam thrust his red cowboy hat into Ronan’s hands and shoved him towards a wooden table in front of the food truck.

“Wait there,” he ordered. “I’ll get us lunch.” Ronan glowered at him unconvincingly. “Just wait there—” Adam just needed a couple of minutes to get his brain in order. “—I’ll be back.”

He marched off, trying to see what looked like actual food in this place.

…

Adam returned with a paper plate damp with grease and soaked in powdered sugar. Ronan was still sitting at the wooden picnic table, his head resting on his folded arms on the table. Adam slid the fried pile of dough toward Ronan and sat next to him. Sitting across would be too far away.

“I bought a funnel cake,” he said.

Ronan lifted his head and stared at the deep fried treat. It wasn’t real food, but Adam had thought it smelled good and was the kind of thing Ronan would enjoy stuffing his face with.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. “I didn’t know this was supposed to be a date. I thought you were just looking for more animals for the farm.”

Ronan snuffled into his bare elbow and then rested his chin on his arms.

“You’re a real romantic, Parrish.”

Adam bent his head and leaned into Ronan’s shoulder so that he could hide the small smile that threatened his mouth. Ronan was at least willing to forgive him, which made the shameful tightness in his belly abate a little.

“You like baby animals, though.” Adam pressed his head against Ronan’s stubbled skull. “I knew you wanted to come here.”

Ronan shifted beneath him like he wanted to sit up straighter but didn’t want to actually lose Adam’s touch.

“So, you didn’t wanna come?”

“I didn’t say that,” Adam said quickly. He drew his head back so that he could wrap his arm around Ronan’s waist cautiously, still aware that they were surrounded by people who had probably grown up like Adam’s parents. “I liked seeing you with the lamb. That was cute.”

Ronan’s ears turned bright pink, and he turned to hide most of his face against Adam’s neck.

“Shuddup.”

Adam grinned.

“I’m just saying.” He shifted his hand up to cover Ronan’s ribs. “I would’ve come even if I didn’t know it was a date. I like being with you.”

Ronan relaxed into him, and Adam held his breath like he always did when he had to remind himself that this was his now. He wasn’t being selfish for having this.

“So, next time I should spell things out for you,” Ronan murmured into his neck.

“Might be good.” Adam knew his own weaknesses, and he was prone to not communicating. He was working on that.

Then Adam straightened, shifting so that Ronan’s head rolled off his neck.

“Or I could ask you,” Adam said to Ronan’s confused (and slightly disappointed) look. “Ronan Lynch, do you want to ride the Ferris wheel with me?”

The brief glance of Ronan’s wide eyes made Adam smile through his heated cheeks. He knew he was blushing, but Ronan’s cheeks were fully pink now.

“I can try to bribe the guy to stop us at the top,” said Adam. “Like in the movies.”

Ronan inhaled his smoker’s breath and leaned so close that he nearly headbutted Adam.

“Thought that was cheesy.”

“I don’t need a replay of what I missed out on, Lynch.” A bit of leftover shame curled in Adam’s stomach before he smothered it entirely. He focused on softening his face, and he took Ronan’s hand tentatively. “But if you want to show me your favorite stuff, I can get behind that.”

Ronan threaded his fingers through Adam’s.

“I wanna be with you,” he said. “The rest doesn’t matter so much.”

Adam grinned.

“So, come on.” Adam pulled Ronan until he followed Adam to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“What about the funnel cake?” Ronan protested. Adam didn’t think he really meant it.

“That’s barely food, Lynch.” He rolled his eyes anyway. “I’ll buy you some real food after the Ferris wheel.”

“Fair food is a time-honored tradition, you pleb.”

Adam grinned all the way through Ronan’s complaining as they walked hand-in-hand through the fairgrounds.

#pynch #fanfiction #writing #the raven cycle #pynchpromptweek

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owlswing · 3 years

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SO I’M A TERRIBLE PERSON...

Hahaha! Guess who dropped off the face of the earth AGAIN? This guy! Well, anyways: Here is my contribution to the 2020 ROTBTD gift exchange! I swore I wouldn’t get on tumblr again until it was finished, but then life went insane.

@siodymph I am so sorry that it’s taken so long, and that this is so short, but I really hope you like it! Your very, VERY late Secret Santa!

Seashells

Rapunzel bit her bottom lip, squinting at her latest painting. It wasn't that she hated it or anything, but it just seemed off. No matter how hard she tried there was just that little nagging thought in the back of her mind slowly driving her insane the longer she looked at it.

"What do you think?" She asked without looking at the others who were standing there with her, staring at the painting with tilted heads.

"Rapunzel... It's white." Jack said.

"But it's not the Right white!" Rapunzel threw her arms up in the air, turning away from the painting so she could pace across her room. "I promised Eugene's dad that I would make the perfect flag for the Moon Kingdom in honor of their reconstruction and the treaty with Corona, but it won't be perfect if I can't even use the right colors!"

"What's the difference? It's white!" Merida questioned, looking between Rapunzel and the painted canvas.

"No! This is cotton white! I need pearl white! The flowers just don't look right without it!" Rapunzel huffed, looking through all of her paints and art supplies to see if by some miracle she still had some hidden somewhere. "Moon Flowers are the designated symbol of the Moon Kingdom, and if this flag is going to fly above their castle for the next few centuries, the least I can do is make it the right shade of white! But of course I don't have anymore and I've already been to three different shops in the city; No one has it!"

"Well, you know how to make all your paints, don't you? Why don't we just get the ingredients and you can make it yourself." Hiccup suggested, and Rapunzel sighed.

"It's not that simple! This paint is made from special seashells found on a specific beach three days away from here. Gothel only ever got them for me once! Okay, well, twice! But the second time is when I asked her to go get them so I could leave the tower and I never actually got the shells so I never got to make the paint! Not to mention to boil it down and make the paint would take at least a full day . Already that's a whole week and we have to leave for the Moon Kingdom in five days!" Rapunzel stressed, part of her brain told her that if she kept biting her lip like that she was going to split it.

"That's an easy fix! With Toothless it should only take a day to get there. We'll spend the night and be back with plenty of time for you to make the paints." Hiccup said, looked over at Toothless who looked up from where he was napping at the foot of Rapunzel's bed upon hearing his name.

"Sweet! Flying Trip!" Jack pumped his fist into the air.

"It has been a while since we went adventuring." Merida grinned.

"I don't know," Rapunzel hesitated. "Normally when we try to do something like this, something happens and then we end up in some kind of trouble. Remember last time? When Hiccup had a cold?"

"It was not my fault!" Merida snapped to attention, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Never again." Jack muttered, shivering.

"I don't remember much from that one, but even if it does take a little longer than it's supposed to, Toothless and I can fly you to the Moon Kingdom to make up for time. Just tell your dad it's super important, I'm sure he'll understand." Hiccup shrugged.

"Or, don't tell him anything and if he comes looking, we stall for as long as we need." Jack offered, leaning against his staff with a playful smirk.

They all looked at each other for a few minutes, considering their options...

~*~*~

"WHOOHOO!" Rapunzel shouted, her hands up in the air as Toothless and Hiccup angled along an air-current, gliding across the sky in a smooth swoop.

Jack popped up next to them, floating along on his staff with his arms behind his head as her reclined backwards. Merida rode on the back of Toothless's saddle, reading the map as best she could while it flapped in the wind.

"We're almost there now!" Merida announced, glancing down below at landmarks and pathways. "There's a town just a few miles from the beach coming up. If we're lucky, they might already have the paint made there."

"We should take a rest. Toothless isn't used to carrying so many people, and it's usually better to go in on foot then to land a dragon in the middle of town." Hiccup reminded them with a wry smile, peering over the Night Fury's shoulder to look for a good landing place.

"Oh, so we're not going to strike fear into the hearts of innocent villagers today. Good to know." Jack chuckled, flipping around and grabbing his staff in one hand to look down at the earth.

"We've never tried to scare people, Jack!" Rapunzel argued.

"Speak for yourself!" He quipped and Hiccup snorted, trying to hold in a laugh. Toothless didn't bother hiding his dragon-chuckle.

"Anyways," Merida cut in, sticking her tongue out at Jack, who was rolling his eyes at her. "There's a forest down there. Plenty of space for Toothless while we go into town!"

"Sounds like a plan. Let's go, bud!" Hiccup grinned patting Toothless's shoulder.

The two moved in sync as they tilted to one side and began their descent towards the earth. Air rushed up around them, and Rapunzel's heart fluttered in her chest at the exhilaration from it all.

Within the hour, Toothless was settled by a nice rock formation that offered him a decent enough hiding place and a small clearing to stretch his limbs while the Four made their way towards the town. The town had a port, so there was more activity than in most with ships sailing in and out, goods coming and going, people traveling. Though it was small and less visited than the larger ports like Corona itself, the town was still thriving and teeming with excitement.

The crossroads before the town had a tall picket with road signs nailed into it. One way led into the town, another path led to the beach, and a third path led out to the pasture land where sheep and cattle with grazing. Right below the picket was a fairly new-looking sign in red paint: Unauthorized Collecting of Seashells is strictly Prohibited! Violators will be Arrested!

"Now what's that about?" Merida demanded, her fists on her hips.

"Looks like we need to come back tonight with Hiccup in a wig." Jack said.

"I am not going to be the distraction! You like being the center of attention so much, you go and do it!" Hiccup grumbled.

"Okay, fine! How about plan B?" Jack asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Plan B only works if we get caught! The whole point of this is to not get caught!" Hiccup exclaimed.

"We are not breaking the law!" Rapunzel told them. "I'm sure it's just regulation to keep people from over-harvesting the seashells. Let's go into town and see if we can find a vendor who knows more."

"Okay, but remember we can always just tell Bunny that some guy in town said the Easter Bunny's a total wuss, and that'll be plenty of distraction!" Jack grinned.

"This is why the Yeti's don't let you go anywhere in the Pole unsupervised." Merida told him as they walked towards the town.

The fast-paced bustle of the town was even more intense when one was right in the middle of it, but Rapunzel had gotten used to crowded environments from living in Corona and exploring the city, and also with her traveling with her friends. Haggling though, was a skill that she just couldn't seem to get the hang of, so when they reached the market and began looking at the different vendors and shops, Rapunzel and Jack took a step back and followed after Merida and Hiccup.

Merida had the attitude of a pauper and, much to her mother's chagrin, had spent a good portion of her childhood haggling with townspeople and sailors whether on her own or alongside her father. Hiccup, by comparison, was simply a Viking. Trading and Haggling was one of many occupational necessities and also something he was especially trained in as future Chief.

Ambling up to the different booths and extracting goods for reasonable prices, or even just information with little trouble, was something the pair had down pat. So it wasn't surprising when fifteen minutes after entering the market district, Merida returned to the group with information on where to find the Seashell vendor.

"Guy was pretty tight-lipped about it, and he said the old hag's a bit crazy, but I told him we've dealt with worse. Anyways, he said she'll be down the road, 'round the corner from the tavern." Merida explained.

"Great! Let's go see her, then!" Jack jumped up from the fountain ledge he and Rapunzel had been seated on, pulling Rapunzel to her feet beside him.

Again the Four were off to their next destination, finding themselves walking deeper into the town. The closer they got to the large storehouses by the docks, the more dreary things became. No one was about on the street, and those who were looked on with watchful, skittish eyes. Rats ran about underfoot and the seagulls perched on lamp posts looked slightly deranged.

"Are we sure this is the place?" Hiccup asked, his eyes moving over to the tavern as a man stumbled out and barfed into the gutter.

"That's what the shop handler said, but it wouldn't be a surprise if he'd lied. He was a bit seedy looking." Merida shrugged.

"Merida! I'm sure he was a very nice man! We haven't even seen the inside yet! I'm sure as soon as we cross through that door, we'll see the Seashell vendor!" Rapunzel smiled confidently, turning towards the door and tapping out a cheery tune with her fist.

The door swung open very slowly with a low creak and they all tilted their heads to see inside the crack the door caused. It was dark inside.

"Well, that's creepy." Hiccup muttered.

"Come on, guys! It's not that bad..." Rapunzel tried, tiptoing closer as she gently poked the door open with her index finger. The door gave a louder creak as it swung open further, and Rapunzel's voice wavered a bit at the sight of more dark shadows. She gave a nervous chuckle. "Okay... Well, I'm sure it'll look better from the inside."

"I'd rather not get jumped in a dark room in the back of an alley today, thank you." Hiccup said, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture.

"I might have to agree with Hicc on this one." Jack glanced between Rapunzel and Merida, looking rather hesitant.

"Oh, honestly!" Merida huffed, stomping passed them and up to the door. "Here, I've got a flare in my bag."

"Why do you have a flare?" Jack wanted to know.

"In case I have to see inside creepy dark rooms, or get lost in the woods, or want to have a party with explosives." Merida said with a smile. "But also my brothers bought some off of a foreign trader last week. I promised not to tell mom as long as they gave me a couple."

"I love your brothers!" Jack grinned.

Merida pulled out the flare and struck it against the stone wall of the building. A bright flame sparked to life and Merida held it up as she and Rapunzel stepped further into the room together. The boys quickly followed in behind, and the Four shuffled forward quietly and slowly. The flare threw strange, flickering shadows across the room, and the four friends pressed closer together as they stared at all of the figures of fanged and clawed creatures.

"Are these... Bears?!" Merida exclaimed.

"What are they made of?" Hiccup asked, squinting at the closest figurine.

There were sculptures, cutouts, carved plank art, toys, moving trinkets, clocks, plant holders, and so much more. Everything had Bears. Small bears, big bears, slim bears, big round bears. There were so many bears made out of little white...

"These are shells." Jack said.

"And this whole thing seems very famil- AHH!" Merida screamed jumping back and slamming into the other three. They all stumbled, and Rapunzel fell against a shelf, rattling everything on it, but the tall sculpture on the very top tipped over and fell to the floor, shattering with a loud clattering of a hundred different shells.

"What is going on in here?!" A new voice shouted. There were two claps, and suddenly the blinds were thrown on the curtains and several candles were lit, filling the whole room into light.

The Four looked up from where they were piled on the ground, finding themselves in the middle of a shop filled to the brim with bear-themed shell-crafts. At the very center of it all, stood a woman that had Merida's jaw dropping open.

"You!" Merida shouted, throwing a finger towards the old woman standing before her.

"Oh! Hello there, dearie! So good to see you again! I hear that spell worked out pretty well for you, hmmm?" The old Bear Witch beamed at her, with her wide eyes that blinked slightly out of sync, the same ragged-looking crow looming on her shoulder.

"YOU?!" All four of the young adventurers shouted, recognizing the old witch almost immediately from their first major calamity of a quest in Scotland.

"What are You doing here?!" Merida demanded, stomping to her feet with her arms stuck straight by her sides and her hands clenched into fists.

"Oh, oh, oh! Well, Dearie, after you bought all of my carvings, I had to set up shop elsewhere! Getting wood out in these parts isn't so easy, though. But they've got plenty of these nifty little shells laying around!" She cackled, gesturing to all her art pieces. "Course I had a bit of trouble getting around those pesky bandits who decided they owned the beach! A few cakes seemed to do the trick just fine!"

She snapped her fingers and several larger pieces flew to the sides, revealing a cage with two bears inside wearing scrappy-looking vests and hats. One of them had a gold tooth. Merida stared at them before looking back at her friends, but they seemed as speechless as her.

"Well, anyways, what can I do you for? A paper weight? A planter box? Oh! How about this lovely little wall piece I finished just the other day!" She beamed, holding up a rather tacky sea-shell image of two bears reaching for one another.

"Oh, hehehe, we, um," Rapunzel coughed a little to clear her throat and then twirled her fingers around each other as she continued. "We just came here to collect some loose shells to make some paint. We thought maybe we would have to speak with the beach owners, but I guess that's not too much of an issue now."

"Oh, not at all dearie! There's a pile in the back! Help yourself! I need to get this cage ready! I've got a circus leader coming to pick these boys up in just a few hours!" The old witch grinned and then let out a shrieking cackle.

She turned and hobbled towards the back of the shop as Merida took a large, decisive step backwards to rejoin her friends.

"Should we do something?" She whispered to them.

"I really don't want to get turned into bears." Hiccup replied.

"But it can't be right to just leave those guys as bears... Is it?" Merida nodded at the two bears that... well, they didn't look unhappy with their forms. One was napping, and the other was licking himself.

"I mean, they're bandits. Let's be honest. If we'd gotten here first, we would've argued over how it's not right for them to claim ownership of the beach, they would've disagreed, then we would've fought them, eventually win and turn them over to the police. They'd spent the better part of the rest of their lives in jail. At least like this they can spend their time in the circus. That sounds pretty fun, right?" Jack offered, his tone wavering back and forth as he tried to make it sound less terrible.

"Jack, that's terrible!" Rapunzel said.

"What? I'm just saying; she gets to enjoy her creepy witch powers, they don't go to jail, we don't get tied up in something that will lead to Another lecture from your parents and North and Eugene. This seems like a win-win situation all around." Jack tried to be reasonable.

"He does have a point! I mean, we generally do good things, but that doesn't mean our moral codes have to be perfect." Hiccup remarked, and Jack nudged Hiccup's arm with a grin.

"That's not funny!" Rapunzel retorted.

"It's a little funny. But you two have definitely spent way too much time with Snotlout and the twins." Merida amended. Rapunzel snorted and turned towards the witch, much to her friends' horror.

"Um, excuse me? Miss... Miss Witch-Carver?" Rapunzel said as politely as possible.

"Yes, dearie? Find something you like?" The witch turned, grinning enthusiastically at the thought a possible sale.

"Ahem, not exactly... I was just wondering; those two aren't going to be like that Forever... Are they?" Rapunzel cringed at the way her voice squeaked even in her own ears, and the witch raised one large eyebrow at her before cackling and waving her off.

"Oh, no! Of course not! This spell is only temporary! The circus leader owes me a pretty penny for a marvelous piece I gave to him two weeks ago. He promised to send the payment, but never did. I'm going to change these two back into blundering buffoons right before show time! That'll show that slimy circus man!" The witch grinned, and Rapunzel's arms hung at her sides. She had no idea how to respond to the old woman.

"So, what I'm hearing is, you already caught the bad guys trying to own the beach and we can go collect our own shells without the risk of becoming bears or being subject to strange witchy-revenge later down the line." Jack stated, looking back at Hiccup and Merida, who both nodded frantically.

"Aren't you a bit worried about what all of them will do after you cause such a big fiasco?" Rapunzel wondered.

"I'm a witch, dearie, not one of them is going to come around here again if they know what's good for them!" She said, whacking the cage bars with a broom to emphasize her point.

Rapunzel opened her mouth to continue, but Merida grabbed her arm and started pulling her out of the small shop as the bears growled and roared while the Witch shouted back at them angrily. Jack held the door open, and Hiccup gave a small wave.

"We'll just be going now. Thanks for all your help." He forced out a grin, but there was a grimace in his tone, and then the four quickly filed out of the shop onto the front porch, letting the door slam shut behind them.

They stood side by side there for a few moments, processing, until Jack finally broke the silence.

"Pretend that never happened?" He suggested.

"Agreed." The others immediately nodded and they hurried back up the street they had come from.

Collecting the shells from the beach and returning to a napping Toothless was a quick and easy affair. They arrived back at the castle with plenty of time for Rapunzel to make her paint and finish the flag for the Moon Kingdom, and she even convinced Eugene to talk his father into extending her invitation to include Jack, Merida, Hiccup, and Toothless. Though, that was only under the agreement that they remain with the group at all times and agree to have Cass and Varian watching them the whole time.

Rapunzel knew it was a bit of a stretch to promise that nothing happen, so she simply agreed that they wouldn't try to cause, or go looking for, any kind of trouble. Jack, Merida, and Hiccup had all agreed with varying degrees of less-than-enthusiastic, but were happy to be attending.

Later that week, when the festivities were coming to an end and Rapunzel had finally found a quiet moment alone with Eugene, he asked about what they'd gotten up to while he was away helping his father.

"I mean, knowing the four of you, I probably shouldn't be asking, but also I'm concerned because I wasn't there and Cass and Varian haven't taken a single one of my warnings seriously because they haven't Seen the sort of stuff you four get into!" Eugene was rambling a bit, and Rapunzel chuckled nervously as she rubbed her arm.

"Well... No one got arrested this time." Rapunzel offered.

"What kind of a response is that?!" Eugene blurted out, fear washing over his face.

"I mean, we may have come across a gang war between a witch and some bandits who tried taking over a small beach town and a circus leader, but we all agreed to walk away before things got weirder!" Rapunzel explained. "I think it was mostly because Hiccup and Jack didn't want to get turned into bears, and you know Merida's had her fair share of bear stories."

"Most people don't have Bear Stories." Eugene informed her with a rather dry look.

"I like to think that we're special." Rapunzel smiled, and Eugene sighed rubbing a hand down his face.

"You most definitely are." Eugene chuckled, smiling back at her. "And I'm going to go with my first instinct of 'I don't want to know'."

"That's probably for the best," Rapunzel said. "It wasn't the most eventful trip we've had anyways."

"Oh, yeah, sounds like it." Eugene agreed easily, and Rapunzel made a face at him for the sarcasm. They both laughed, but were cut off by a loud crashing noise from another room.

"IT WASN'T ME!" Jack's shout came after a few seconds of silence and Eugene sighed heavily, trudging off to find the others with Rapunzel close on his heels.

#rotbtd #the big four #mini adventure #rapunzel #jack frost #merida #hiccup #toothless #seashells #not a beach espisode #it's kinda random #humor #oneshot #writing #I cannot apologize enough

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revisitingstoneybrook · 3 years

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#6 Kristy’s Big Day: Chapter 8

God, I really hate Karen.

So the first day of the BSC day care group is a success but then Karen goes and ruins it the next day. But you wouldn't be able to tell that from Dawn's entry in the BSC notebook. What a morning my group had - all thanks to Karen's imagination.

I'm noticing a pattern here. Every time Karen acts like an obnoxious, annoying, spoiled brat, the BSC just laughs, shakes their heads and blames her wild imagination! When with any other kid, they would complain about what a pain they were. DOUBLE STANDARD!

Ok, well they decide to take the kids out so they don't grow bored of hanging around the Thomases house all day. Hey, if they get bored, put them to work packing up the house and cleaning, since you have like two weeks to vacate! So they decide to all take little trips. Mary Anne takes the babies for a walk but she has the problem of cramming both babies in Beth's stroller. Mrs. Fielding didn't leave one? Though I guess it would look pretty weird, pushing two strollers at once. She finally remedies the situation by smushing Tony into Beth's lap, which does not sound safe at all, especially for the piece of crap strollers of the 80s. Eventually, Beth wants out (and I would too if I was a baby with another stuffed on my lap), so Mary Anne lets her toddle around next to them and you know how fast babies walk. So Mary Anne's occupied for the day with that.

Stacey takes her group to the park to catch minnows and...that's pretty much it. Some problems because Ashley's leg is broken, but she doesn't seem to mind. Also, I don’t know if kids from eight to ten would find catching minnows exciting but what do I know.

Claudia and Kristy combine their groups to go to storytime at the library. They pack bags of graham crackers and juice (yeah, try that at the library where I used to work) and diapers and toys and load the kids into David Michael's wagon and Mary Anne's old wagon. David Michael complains about them using his wagon because complaining is his other talent besides whining. They then head over to the Newton's, where Jamie joins them and Mrs. Newton breathes a sigh of relief because she now has time to go get the mail.

Dawn takes her group to the playground. And oh lord, this is going to be fun, just judging by Kristy's line here: Karen Brewer always seems to make things more interesting than usual. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that. “More interesting” is code for “ruins stuff by being annoying.” And right away, she starts by telling David Michael and Berk that according to some “big kid” on her street, Martians are going to attack Earth at seven that evening.

Is this the same big kid that told her about Morbidda Destiny? If so, I hope someone gagged the bastard for putting these stupid ideas in her head. ARGH. Anyway, Dawn tells her that's stupid (well, in a nicer way than that. Dawn's bitchy, but not to the kids) but it's no use. Karen says the kid who told her is a big kid, in 8th grade. Of course, David Michael and Berk believe her. Kristy so gave Dawn this group on purpose.

Karen says the kid told her a lot of people know about this but they don't want to believe it. I guarantee this kid is also a 9/11 truther who thinks Covid is a hoax. And that JFK was murdered by a magic bullet. Also, Karen's really gullible, even for a six-year-old. Dawn tells them Martians are silly stuff (so ironic, considering she's Little Miss The Ghost of Jared Mullray is Haunting Me) and Karen insists it is not silly stuff.

They continue to the playground, the kids staring up at the sky. David Michael justifies the Martian thing by saying he saw them on TV. So, of course, they must be real. Dawn asks him if he thinks Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are real because they’re on TV and David Michael says “No. But there might be Martians.” Dammit, kid on Karen's street, you unleashed a monster. Dawn once again reiterates there's no such thing as Martians but the kids say there are. You see where this is going.

The kids discuss what'll happen when they land and Dawn throws her hands up in exasperation. Wow, a babysitter losing their temper with a kid? Definitely an early book. But despite this being an early book, Dawn hasn't taken action against Karen. The kids keep scaring the shit out of each other, with talk of ray guns and spray guns (you know, guns that spray stuff so you can't move and they can bring you back to Mars) and Karen says UFOs are going to arrive. “Hundreds of 'em. All shiny and silvery.”

Did I mention I hate Karen? Because I do. And because she's the BSC Golden Child who can do no wrong and is always funny, cute, and imaginative, nothing happens.

Dawn, desperate for some distraction, pulls them over to an arts and crafts thing that's set up, with kids making puppets. It doesn't work because Berk asks David Michael if he can stay at his house and hide in the basement, because he doesn't know if his hotel has one. Dawn finally gets assertive and tells them to knock it off. Oh wait. She thought about telling them they weren't allowed to discuss Martians anymore, but decided that was too mean. I take back calling her assertive. Dawn, you're a wuss.

Dawn asks if they want to enter the puppet-making contest, then catches the kids whispering to each other. She tells them no secrets but Karen announces they're going to go swing, so she takes off with the others in tow. Dawn, completely oblivious, goes to find out about the puppet contest. A few minutes later, a little girl named Tina comes running over to Fran, one of the counselors. She's crying about Martians. Uh oh. Dawn marches over to the swingset to find Karen, David Michael and Berk warning the other kids about the Martian invasion.

One boy starts to cry and runs home, with others following him. Dawn, at this point, is pissed (I know, someone's actually angry at something Karen's doing). She orders them back to the puppet table, despite Karen's protests that she needs to warn everyone about the Martian attack. Hey Karen?

Everything's quiet for a bit, until a branch falls from a tree nearby and Karen shrieks that the Martians are coming. Kids scream in horror, run for the hills, cry for their mommy, all that stuff. Fran glares at Dawn and her group and Dawn apologizes profusely for what's going on. She offers to help find the kids, Fran tells her someone else is supposed to be at the playground soon and instead asks for them to get the hell out of here. And just like Elvis Costello from Saturday Night Live, Karen's been banned from the playground. Nice.

Dawn's really ticked off now. She finds her group hiding in a storage shed and takes them home. On the walk back, she gets off her ass and does some babysitting, scolding them for their behavior and giving them a talk about how they shouldn't scare the crap out of other kids. She also makes them promise not to talk about Martians anymore.

Thus concludes one of the very, very few times someone calls Karen out and yells at her for her bad behavior. A very rare occurrence indeed. Oh and Kristy throws in at the end how she's thinking of a special wedding present for her mom and Watson. What do you get for your mother and a millionaire? Hello there, Subplot That is Barely Dealt With.

#babysitters club #kristy's big day #kristy thomas #bsc #snark

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secretly-a-wuss · 4 years

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@sebacielevents Day 15: size difference (also belly bulge from yesterday)

😳💦

#a secret wuss's art #kinkmasinjuly #sebaciel #kuroshitsuji #black butler

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starshine583 · 5 years

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Le Paon Part 2

(oof~ this is a day late I’m sorry guys. Here ya go.)

Part 1 / Part 3

Felix glared down at the lump of blankets in front of him, unimpressed.

“Adrien.” He said sharply, picking up a pillow and smacking the pile of blankets with it. “Get up.”

The pile shifted, and Adrein’s head popped out, mumbling incoherent sentences- something about Ladybug and.. hamsters? He had the weirdest dreams.

Felix huffed and grabbed the edge of the blanket. “This whole school thing-” He ripped off the covers “-was your idea. Get up!”

Adrien shivered towards the sudden loss of warmth.

“Fe~ five more minutes~” His little brother whined, lazily grabbing at the air.

Felix scoffed. It’s already been four days since they started school. He should be used to the sleep schedule by now!

Throwing the blankets aside, He scowled and climbed onto the bed. Adrien barely even had time to look at him before Felix shoved him off the bed.

Adrien yelped, flopping onto the ground.

“Get. Up.” Felix hissed.

“Fe..” Adrien began, voice muffled from landing face first on the floor. “You haven’t had your coffee yet, have you?”

“And what if I haven’t!”

Adrien grunted as he pushed himself off the floor. “Yeah, I figured. I’m gonna go get ready.”

“About time.” Felix rolled his eyes.

The blonde chuckled, patting him on the shoulder. “You go get yourself some coffee so I can make it through your grumpy mornings.”

He narrowed his eyes, though he didn’t argue, simply spinning on his heel and stalking out the door. His caffeine addiction was itching at him anyway, and he could already smell the delectable aroma of freshly brewed coffee grounds.

Felix reached the bottom of the stairs, sparing a glance to his father’s office. Nathalie stood guard in front of the door, still as a statue. They’d chalked it up to waiting for them in the morning, but Felix knew better. He used to be able to enter Gabriel’s office whenever he wished, until he saw that hole the other day. Suddenly, his Father was “too busy” or “working on a special project that was top secret”.

They were hiding something, and he was determined to find out what that something was.

For now, though, coffee.

Steam clouded the air as the dark liquid spilled over into the silver thermos. Felix twisted on the cap, ensuring it would stay piping hot, and set the glass pitcher back into the coffee maker. This particular brand was a special cinnamon mix he’d decided to try.

“I’m ready!” Adrien announced from the doorway. He wore his usual, black t-shirt along with his white, near-short-sleeved jacket and jeans. His wavy, golden hair swept to the side and his smile could probably light up a Christmas tree.

Felix squinted, mockingly holding up his hand as though he were trying to shield his eyes from the sun’s light. “How do you do that?”

He hadn’t even woken up till five minutes ago! How did he look so energized?

“Don’t know whatcha mean, Fe.” The model replied innocently.

Felix rolled his eyes, noting the energy drink Adrien pushed further into his bag. How he got it, Felix doesn’t know, considering their forbidden around the house, but there’s no point in calling him out on the matter. Adrien needs to learn to defy some of their Father’s rules, to be honest. There are far too many of them to be reasonable.

Nathalie cleared her throat from the other room, a quiet sign it was time to leave.

The boys grabbed the rest of their things, Felix making sure to put his extra thermos in his bag, and headed for the door.

“You got your other thermos?” Adrien asked, mirth reflecting in his bottle green eyes.

Felix nodded, proudly opening his bag to reveal the second thermos.

Adrien snorted. “You’re so paranoid. Isn’t that heavy or something?”

He shrugged in response and took a sip of his coffee, sighing in pleasure towards the warm, cinnamon taste.

“You never know. Best to be prepared.” Felix stated simply.

“Right, right. Well, when you don’t end up using the thermos, I get ten bucks for calling it.”

Felix smirked. “I’ll take that bet.”

~~~~~~

I’m late, I’m late, I’m sO LATE! Marinette panicked, racing down the sidewalk towards the school. How did she manage to sleep through her three alarm clocks?!

She rushed up the front steps of the school. The halls were obviously empty since class started five minutes ago. They were probably waiting for her, waiting to make fun of her for being late again. It only made things more embarrassing that everyone was most definitely in class all ready.

Well, everyone, except for a certain Felix Agreste, apparently.

Neither had time to register the other’s presence, as Marinette slammed right into his back. Clangs and Thumps echoed through the hallway as their things spilled onto the floor.

“I-I’m so sorry!” She apologized, immediately kneeling down to pick up their stuff. The books had scattered across the floor, along with an odd, brownish liquid.

Marinette squinted, following the trail of the mysterious substance to a silver thermos. It took a full minute to register what it was.

Then she completely paled.

Oh gosh. Oh gosh his coffee. She’d made Felix Agreste drop his coffee. What was she gonna do? No doubt he’d march right up to the principal’s office and demand she be expelled for her ignorance. What would she tell her parents? Which school she be transferred to? Would she still be able to make friends their? Maybe Alya could visit her on weekends?

A stifled chuckling came to her ears, and she blinked.

Carefully glancing up, She saw Felix brushing off his black vest and dark grey, button-up shirt while laughing.

“Thanks. You just got me ten dollars.” He said, a faint smirk on his lips.

Marinette blinked again. Did he just.. Thank her? With a smile, no less??

Felix knelt down next to her, his pale blonde hair falling over her eyes slightly as he helped her gather the books on the floor. Once he was finished with that, he proceeded to pull another thermos out of his leather backpack. He even pulled out napkins!

“How..?”

“I live with Adrien. He’s a lot more chaotic than you think.” He glanced up at her, a mischievous glint in his cool, blue eyes. “You never know when something like this might happen.”

Marinette felt there was a hidden meaning behind those words.

“W-well, that’s good..I guess.” She replied dumbly. He was being so.. Nice?? I mean, He’d never been mean to her before. You know, in the four days he’s attended their school, but she’s seen the way he acts around other people, specifically Chloe Bourgeois. Marinette never wanted to be on the end of his bone chilling glares.

The two stood, Marinette shoving her books back into her bag while Felix placed his now-empty thermos in his.

“I need to go to class. Try to watch where you're going next time.” He advised, probably sounding more rude than he intended.

Marinette smile sheepishly and nodded, watching as he walked away. She shook her head, still in disbelief towards his gentle demeanor. They haven’t really talked all that much yet, but maybe they should.

She ran her hand over her phone, making sure there weren’t any cracks from it hitting the floor.

Then she saw the time and gasped.

“Ah! Now I’m even more late!”

~~~~~~

Felix almost whistled as he walked into his classroom and sat in his designated seat. That ten dollars was all too easy to achieve. Marinette had been delightfully predictable in her tardiness, and, as he expected, didn’t even see him coming when he stepped out in front of her. He imagined Adrien would grumbled about it when he overheard Marinette tell Alya of the collision in class.

Her panicked, bluebell eyes and jumbling words came to mind, and he smiled. Even if he hadn’t done it on purpose, Felix wouldn’t have found it in himself to be upset. She was too cute when she got nervous.

Out of the corner of his eye, a brunette-haired boy peeked over the back of his seat, tentatively searching his desk. When his gaze landed on Felix’s cup, the boy sighed in relief and straightened.

“We’re clear! He’s got his coffee!” The brunette grinned, sliding into the seat next to him.

Felix rolled his eyes, but a girl in the class giggled.

“You really think lack of coffee is the only reason he’s bitter?” She teased as she approached them, her sky-blue eyes filled with mirth.

“Yeah,” A dark-skinned boy in the seat in front of Felix spoke up, “If I had to guess, I’d say his coffee is sweeter than he is, and Felix takes his coffee black.”

Claude, Allegra, and Allan. He’d met this trio on his first day in class, and they adopted him into their group on the spot, for whatever reason. Felix never actively hung out with them, but they did seem to drag him around a lot.

“Oh! Did you guys hear about the explosion in the art room the other day?” Claude said suddenly, getting that look in his chestnut brown eyes when he’s about to relay one of his pranks.

"Explosion?" Allan asked, shifting his green cap with interest and turning in his seat to face Claude. The brunette mostly talked with his hands, so you normally needed to see him when he told stories.

A devilish grin spread across Claude’s lips, and he shifted in his seat to prepare himself for the story.

“So! Alex wanted to make some glow-in-the-dark paint for this new graffiti thing. So she snuck in some chemicals from the lab-” He hunched over, mockingly shifting his eyes from left to right to look shady- “and started mixing them with the paint.” He rotated his finger in the air.

“Can’t you buy that at an art store?” Allegra cut in, absently trailing her fingers along her platinum blonde braid that hung over her left shoulder as she listened.

Claude waved his hand. “Nah, she says it’s too expensive. Anyway, She’s mixing em’ together, and Nathaniel’s all like, ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’, and she’s all, ‘don’t be a wuss, Nath, it’s fine.’ So she keeps going. Now, I’m already taking cover in the back, cause I know it’s not gonna end well.”

He holds up his hands as if he’s holding onto a canvas to hide behind it. “The stuff starts glowing- you could see it from there -and she’s like, ‘See, I told you it was fine’, but before she could even finish the sentence the entire thing just erupts and sprays paint everywhere!”

Claude flails his arms around for emphasis of the explosion.

“And they-” He pauses to laugh, trying to stifle it so he can continue. “And they just- they’re just standing there, looking down at the empty can of paint. Alex and Nathaniel are-”

He bursts out laughing, holding his hand over his mouth. Allegra and Allan start chuckling from how contagious the laughter is.

“They are covered in paint. Head to toe. I’m dying. Marc looks like he’s trying not to laugh and like he’s kind of disappointed cause it sprayed him too. And Nathaniel-” Claude snorts, shoulders shaking and fist banging on the desk from laughing so hard.

“He just- he just looks at Alex. And he says- he says, ‘yeah. You sure told me.’”

All three of them lose it. Even Felix is having trouble holding back a laugh. It was a good thing their class started at a different time today, else they all would have had detention.

“I didn’t know this school had an art room.” Felix commented, somehow being heard over the madness. Admittedly, he should have taken more initiative to tour the school grounds.

“Wait, really?” Allan was the first to speak, his chocolate brown eyes widening in surprise.

Felix shook his head, and Claude dramatically gasped in disbelief.

“Oh, heck no. As soon as school is over, you’re coming to the art room with me.” The brunette declared firmly.

The next thing he knew, Claude was eagerly leading Felix through the school halls.

True to his word, He’d grabbed Felix and rushed out of the classroom as soon as class was over. Even Allegra and Allan weren’t able to follow them, though Felix assumed they’d catch up later.

The brunette stopped in front of a muddy brown door, covered in flecks of paint with a tilted sign that read “Art Room”. He kicked open the door- not hard, but enough to create a dramatic entrance. From the looks the students inside gave him, Felix assumed Claude did that often.

“Welcome to the Art Club!” Claude announced, gesturing around the room.

There were various projects around the room, such as unfinished paintings, scraps of cloth, papers, books, extra materials, etc. Paint flecks littered everything in the room, creating a lingering scent of the settled pigment. It was probably the result of the explosion that Claude mentioned earlier.

Claude waltzed inside as if he owned the place. “And now, to introduce the crew!”

He pointed to a short girl with pink pigtails and black and green attire. “This is Alex! Her specialty is graffiti.”

Alex gave a half salute with two fingers as a greeting before going back to her project of Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“That’s Nathaniel. He draws comics.” Claude continued, pointing to a boy who’s red hair fell over his eyes.

Nathaniel timidly glanced up from the sketchbook he was hunched over, muttering a quick “Hello”.

“Next up, We have~ Marc! The man behind the dialogues of Nath’s comics!” The brunette introduced, flamboyantly bowing towards a black haired boy currently hiding in his red hoodie.

“And last, but certainly not least, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!”

Felix perked up, eyes darting to the corner Claude was gesturing towards.

Marinette rolled her eyes, a playful smile on her lips as she set her sketchbook aside.

“Hey guys! You’re joining the art room?” She asked, the excitement in her tone surprising him.

“I’m.. not sure. Claude was just showing me around.”

“Wait, wait.” Claude interrupted, brows furrowed in confusion. “You two know each other?”

“We’ve run into each other a few times.” Felix smirked at Marinette, causing her to giggle towards the inside joke. The delicate pink spreading across her cheeks gave him an odd sense of satisfaction.

Claude only stared, dumbfounded. Then he pulled a pout. “Hey, what gives? You don’t smile like that for us! In fact, you don’t smile at all!”

Felix’s smile immediately fell, and he rolled his eyes, attempting to ignore Marinette’s snort.

“Is that all? I’m leaving otherwise.”

“Oh wait! You haven’t seen my stuff yet!” Claude said hurriedly and ran to another corner of the room covered in various canvases.

“And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for!” He began, holding an imaginary microphone to his mouth.

Marinette smiled fondly and sat down in a chair, pretending to be the audience. Felix noticed the rest of the club members were doing the same.

Claude made a small drum roll with his hands, and the others joined in shortly. Once he was confident they would keep the drum roll going, he stepped back towards one of the canvases.

“Ta-da!” He spun around the easel, a bright grin on his lips. A black stick figure was painted onto the white canvas, along with a yellow house with a red roof and a green tree. It almost looked like.. It was finger painted by a toddler.

Nevertheless, Marinette and the others laughed and cheered and clapped for him. Felix couldn’t help the feeling of.. relief. The painting was obviously less than impressive, but they gave him encouragement and praise anyway. It was refreshing. The thought of getting complimented whether your work was good or bad seemed extremely contradictory to the life style he’d grown up in.

“So what do you say, Felix, you wanna paint with me?” Claude asked, bringing him from his thoughts.

Felix hummed, looking around the room again. So full of life. Creativity. Of acceptance.

“Not today.” Nathalie and Gorilla were already waiting for him. “But perhaps tomorrow.”

Marinette was known to have a great taste for things. if she enjoyed it here, he might as well give it a shot.

~~~~~~

Felix speed walked into the mansion, pushing Adrien in front of him.

“What’s up, Fe? Why are we rushing?” His brother asked as they neared the steps.

Felix looked over his shoulder at the doors he purposely left wide open.

“No time to explain.” He gave Adrien a final shove towards the stairs. “Go to your room. I’ll be up there in a minute.”

Adrien didn’t have any time to question. Felix spun on his heel and walked briskly into their father’s office. It took Nathalie and gorilla around five to ten minutes to park the car. That’s all the time he had right now to investigate the room.

Swiftly slipping into the office, Felix went straight for the hole he saw four days ago. It was closed up now, but the outline was still visible.

He knelt down and picked at the sides of the hole, hoping to force it open somehow. When that didn’t work, He searched the room for a stray switch. Under the desk, in the drawers, behind the curtains. Nothing. So he checked the computer for certain commands- the security system was linked to it, meaning it had access to all the openings in the house.

Still nothing.

Felix huffed, closing the tabs on the computer and turning to face his Mother’s abstract portrait. She looked so.. Happy. And warm. The exact opposite of their family as of late.

He moved towards the painting, a soft sigh escaping his lips as he ran his hand over the work of art. What would life be like if Father went missing instead? Not that he’d really want either of them to leave, but if he had a choice.. Felix was forced to believe that Emilie’s presence would be far more welcoming than Gabriel’s. What if neither of them left? Would they be a happy family? Just imagining-

Felix paused. He ran his hand over the painting again and knitted his eyebrows together. Are their supposed to be bumps in this painting?

Again, he ran his hand over the art piece. Yes, there were most certainly bumps- No, no, not just bumps.. Notches?

The door swung open, and Felix yanked his hand from the painting.

“Felix, you’re not supposed to be in here.” Nathalie said sharply from the doorway. Despite her posture being firm, He could see the way her fingers nervously trailed up and down her clipboard, or the way her feet shifted just a bit too much.

He met her eyes, composed, if not a bit panicked, though that could be one’s own imagination.

“Right. I was just looking for something.” He replied vaguely.

Neither broke eye contact as he left the room.

~~~~~~

Nathalie held her breath as Felix walked past her. Stay calm. No need to panic. Felix was only studying his mother’s painting, that’s all. No way he was trying to find the secret button to unlock everything she and Gabriel worked for. No. not at all. He was just a boy. He isn’t smart enough to figure them out without any completely obvious clues. Everything had been hidden quite well. They were fine.

These thoughts didn’t stop her from pacing as soon as she heard the door close. She needed to talk to Gabriel, but would he see her? She’s not supposed to interrupt him at these times..

Nathalie drew in a breath to calm herself. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

She stepped in the middle of the circle and pushed in the two buttons on Emilie’s painting. The platform beneath her clicked, before slowly descending into the floor and bringing her with it. The first few minutes were met with darkness, concrete on all sides. It passed a door to Gabriel’s secret lair where akumatized people. Then, the concrete merged into glass, revealing a large, abandoned park.

When the miniature elevator stopped, Nathalie started down the broad, metal pathway. Gabriel stood at the end of it, quietly watching the coffin of Emilie Agreste.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I have concerns.”

Gabriel didn’t respond at first. He didn’t turn to face her.

Then, “About?”

Nathalie pushed down her anxieties and continued, “Felix is getting suspicious. He’s started poking around your office, and he won’t listen to me. I think- well -I think it might be best if you talked to him.”

Her employer nodded absently, and she almost wondered if he even heard her.

“So Felix is ‘getting close’?” He finally asked.

She nodded. “Yes sir.”

Gabriel hummed. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

Nathalie’s eyes widened. “But sir-”

“Felix is the next in line for the company. He will be taking over one day. If I can’t trust him with things like this, then his role as my heir would be concerning.”

“Besides,” He murmured, lightly touching the glass of the coffin, “We need all the help we can get.”

Nathalie resisted the urge to wretch. Help? From Felix? Absolutely not! They didn’t need help from a child.

“Of course sir.” She nearly growled, gripping her clipboard a bit too tight.

You know what? Fine. let that selfish, egotistical brat work with them. Then Gabriel will finally realize how incapable his son really is.

~~~~~~

Felix rolled onto his side, catching the time on the alarm clock. 2am. Everyone should be asleep by now. Perfect.

He looked over at Adrien, sleeping soundly next to him in their shared bed. Carefully, Felix pulled off his side of the blankets. If his plan was going to work, he needs to keep Adrien asleep. Thankfully, that kid was a heavy sleeper.

Once safely off the bed, Felix sneaked down the corridor, towards the stairs.

From what he could tell, the office was empty, no one guarding the door or residing inside. Felix flipped on the lights, looking around again just to be sure no one was watching him.

His breath caught in his throat when he found the notches on the painting again. What was he going to find? Would he even find anything?

He pushed the buttons.

A familiar click echoed in the room.

Felix nearly fell backwards when the circle he was standing on started to descend. It took him lower into the ground, surrounding him in concrete. Where was it taking him? How long had this secret entrance been here without him knowing? On that note, why would they keep it a secret?

He jumped through the first door he saw.

Butterflies, pure white as freshly fallen snow, illuminated a huge, dome-shaped room. There were millions of them. Why?

A butterfly landed on his shirt, and Felix narrowed his eyes.

Wait.

His heart stopped in his chest as he studied the creature. These butterflies had appeared on the television just a few days ago.

The same butterflies Hawkmoth had talked through.

Felix’s blood ran cold.

No wonder the voice was so familiar! His Father practically raised him through a screen! (If you can call that “raising”)

The butterflies, the voice, the secret door. It had to be him.

But why?

“I see you’ve passed the test.”

Felix whipped around, only to come face to face with Gabriel himself.

“You!” He spoke without thinking for once. “This is all you! You’re Hawkmoth! Why would-”

Felix paused, Gabriel’s comment finally catching up with him.

“What test?”

His father smiled- a bit unnerving since he normally doesn’t do such things.

“Follow me.”

Anticipation formed in the pit of stomach. He just found out his Father was a mass super villain. A super villain who wanted him to follow him down a strange, secret elevator.

Now, why would that be a bad idea?

Felix pushed away the obvious warning signs and did as he was told. He needed answers. If this was the only way to get them, so be it.

The two stepped onto the circular platform- a tad “comfy” considering it was only made for one person -and started downward.

Anxiety crawled up Felix’s chest when the concrete merged into glass. Another room, this time a large basement filled with an assortment of metals and plants.

Gabriel was the first to step off the platform, footsteps echoing through the secret garden.

Since when did we have a basement? He thought to himself, following his father down the broad, metal walkway. What else didn’t he know? How much was Gabriel keeping from him? From them? What would Adrien think of all of this?

“It’s true that I’m Hawkmoth.” Gabriel spoke up, regaining Felix’s attention. “But, despite what Paris believes, I’m not after power. It’s such a trivial thing, can be gone in an instant. No, I have a mission. A purpose.”

“And what ‘mission’ would compel you to terrorize innocent people.” Felix scoffed. It was out of turn, but he was tired. And frustrating. The boy simply didn’t have time for their usual game of “perfect picture child”.

Gabriel spared him a glance, one softer than Felix expected.

“There’s someone I need to save.”

Before Felix could question the comment, the man stepped aside, revealing a glass coffin.

Felix blinked, not believing his own eyes. It couldn’t be..

“Mom?”

Emelie Agreste was lying peacefully in the coffin, eyes closed, mouth smiling, and a delicate bouquet of flowers resting in her hands.

He choked out a gasp, reaching out a shaking hand to touch the glass. “How is- why is she- she’s here? What- what happened? Why?”

Gabriel sighed, staring down at his wife with a silent longing. It was still weird seeing him show any sort of emotion.

“She developed an illness, around two years ago. I did everything I could, took her to doctors, tried different concoctions of medicines, but in the end, she fell into a coma. I put her here, where she would be safe until I cure the disease.”

“How?” Felix found himself asking. He was becoming more invested in this than he should be. It was an illness, most likely terminal, and if it hadn’t been cured then, it’s not possible to cure it now.

..right?

“The miraculous of Ladybug and Chat Noir.” A certain excitement laced the man’s tone. “When brought together, they can grant one wish. Anything you desire. If I can just get those jewels..” He trailed off, letting Felix fill in the blanks.

The blonde tapped his fingers on the glass. It was definitely a mission, but was it worth it?

He looked down at his mother’s soft features. He remembered her sweet words and warm hugs, the way she tucked them in at night and played hide and seek.

And what wouldn’t a boy do for his mother?

“How can I help?”

Tag list: @im-here-for-the-content @novicevoice @mewwitch@minightrose @frostymoon11 @multishipper1needshalp@unabashedbookworm @unholykrow @trubel43@kaydenth3gayden @stardustrevoutionx @whatamessofwords @dani-ari @heaven428 @jaegertea

#Felinette #Le Paon AU #Felix Agreste

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hyperionswrath--archived · 4 years

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@onepartbrave

Relax? What about him screamed he wasn’t already? Couldn’t Seifer tell how relaxed he was by his chilled-out disposition and uncaring body language? He was as relaxed as he was going to get with such tempestuous thoughts circulating his mind. Seemed no matter where they went or how they grew, there’d always be someone to turn something good into pure and utter bullshit. Frequently, Squall experienced it during his time as the Commander of Balamb Garden. ‘Higher ups’ that thought he was incompetent at his job because of his young age. Morons that peered down their noses at his active stance in missions while still leading (he bet often most of them hadn’t stepped foot outside in a conflict). Jesters that claimed he was ill-suited for the role thrown at him because of his antisocial, no-bullshit behaviour.

The joke was on them. While he controlled the majority of Garden’s artillery, they’d never had been so prosperous. He had to fight to step down and take on a job as an independent operative instead of figurehead.

He needed another distraction until he was too wasted to care. Allegedly, Seifer read his mind and when the blond lifted his sleeve, irked eyes were straight on it. Surprise clouded his frustration for now and Squall openly admired the chosen depiction. Seeing it properly gifted him with the remembrance he failed to achieve earlier—the pattern on his coat. How… predictable yet shocking simultaneously. It looked good, professionally done and, dare he say it, suited the man.

“It looks good,” he echoed with an appreciative nod, seeing no problem with being honest. While yet to venture down the path of tattoos himself, he’d always been an admirer of any he’d seen. Artwork, pure and simple. “Does it hurt?”

Not that pain would ever dissuade him…

Disagreeing with the comment on Seifer deserving his fated suspension, Squall withheld another choice remark. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised to hear the blond laugh at his earlier tirade. He swore he almost saw the pressure leave the other’s shoulders and something unsettled inside his chest fell back into place. He pinned it on the feeling of remorse at being (at least a part of) the reason behind Seifer’s postponement at work. Or maybe he was simply softer in the head than he had been all those years ago. Either way.

Feeling more at ease with himself, Squall stood by while his former rival fetched his requested beverage, pleased at his timely return. Intending on going straight for the bottle, he halted at the (teasing?) observation of pouring some drinks while the blond reclined back like he owned the place. Inquisitive eyes flicked from the bottles to the man in question briefly before he shrugged internally and moved on to perform the given task. Two shots poured with precise efficiency, he popped Seifer’s selected refreshment on his side of the table and waited for no ceremony to chug back his own. Oh, that burned just right but he’d need a few more to loosen up.

Which… he poured and downed in quick succession. Two more, and then left another one hanging while he mulled over what facts to spill of the classified mission. Pure spite was motivating him to reveal everything but professional decorum reminded him of dire consequences should he blab. A few more contemplative moments decided for him (alongside the generous helping of alcohol already making its way around his system on his stupidly empty stomach).

“The guy’s an arm’s dealer that’s aiming to assassinate the King.” Short, sweet and to the blunt point. A single shouldered shrug was all he gave to the revelation. “I got tipped off he was here and that was the only time I’d seen him. My mistakes let the asshole escape and he’s likely on the other side of the world by now. Shit sucks.”

Another shot down and the burning inside his chest didn’t consist only of alcohol. Embarrassment of failing and undeniable guilt of getting Seifer injured and involved (and suspended) hit him again. The solution? More drink. Except this time, he abandoned the shot glass and took a large mouthful from the source. Mortification ensured his gaze stayed away from Seifer and glaring pointlessly out at the pub scenery.

In his book, relaxing did not contain to rub one's butt around the seat one had taken and forcefully having to keep one's hands from fumbling, but what did he know. Had Squall spoken his thoughts aloud though, the blond would have had to agree - somehow there was always something amiss and they were left to pick up the pieces. Fuck, didn't he know all about it? Faintly the smallest smirk played the corner of his mouth when Seifer witnessed the brunet examining the art on his skin with a certain air of awe, even going so far as to compliment it. The unexpected occurrences just kept on coming. "Thanks," he hummed, tonation indicating that he was surprised about the flattery. He hadn't taken Squall for someone to approve much of tattoos. But then again he had to look at the inked face of that chicken wuss all the time, so that figured. Tipping one shoulder in a shrug to the question posed, he straightened the sleeve of his shirt again. "Depends. This particular one didn't, there's enough tissue so it won't hit the nerves as much. This one though..." and with that, he flicked his right hand, showing off his wrist where a delicate, thin circle wrapped around, "...would have hurt like a bitch if it was any more than a line."

Back at the table after procuring them their first ration of the night, he hummed appreciatively as Squall did not argue to pour them their drinks (admittedly he had expected him to just pour one for himself). He waited patiently for the brunet to answer his question, halfway expecting him to dodge the topic or simply falling silent as it was so usual, but no, Seifer actually got an answer. Nodding along with the brief explanation and meanwhile reaching for his drink, he eyed the golden liquid thoughtfully before downing it in one go. "Well, that fucker can pick a number. I can't even tell anymore how many assassinations we got dispatched to prevent in the last half-year." Shaking his head at the thought, he leaned forward to grab the bottle of whiskey, only to halt all movement as he observed the other pouring multiple drinks in quick succession. "Dude.", he said, looking rather incredulous while uncapping his bottle, reluctantly peeling his eyes away from the sight of Squall engaging in getting shitfaced in no-time to pour himself another shot.

Interest piqued once more though, he decided he'd use the opportunity to find out what exactly was going on with the man nowadays, as he seemed so different in certain aspects. Maybe he could unravel that secret. Downing another shot he felt a slight urge rise inside him, as old as their knowing each other... competition. If Squall could down multiple shots after another, he'd surely not loose face! There was resoluteness tensing his mouth when he poured himself another shot, only to click his tongue when he saw Squall drinking straight from the bottle now. "Hyne-bedamned take it easy!", he hissed, reaching to gently tip the bottle down a bit - not enough to cause a mess or have it crash with the other's teeth, more a gesture if anything.

Just then the barmaid made her way towards them, placing a huge platter in the middle of the table. There were fries, potato wedges, slices of grilled meat and several vegetables as well as other fingerfood available along with several small pots of dips to go with it. "Thanks," Seifer hummed, shooting another of his prince-charming-smiles at the woman.

#onepartbrave #seifer is not a rolemodel goddammit xDD #but then again he's not wrong #rp #long post

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