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#alex isn’t necessarily dead here
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The angst goblins are running rampant around in my brain, specifically rotating about that one post with the idea for a bad ending of the sitcom au where Alex gets kidnapped by the Lankmann foundation
I missed the opportunity in my fanfic there to add in that, this is an alternate version of the incident with the police hunting down Alex. Meaning that they were asleep. Meaning that they wouldn’t be wearing their glasses.
Imagine the imagery of Clyde frantically searching the ransacked house, futilely hoping that Alex is somewhere in there, safe and ok, and then Clyde sees their glasses sitting on the floor, with a cracked lens from getting launched off the nightstand during the struggle. Imagine Clyde taking the glasses with it on its roaring rampage of revenge. Imagine
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mandssisters · 2 years
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#marcusmumford
30.11.22
Vinilo deux Southampton
As I sit here tucked up safely in my own house nursing a red bush tea. Possibly a bit tired. What a fun day that was.
The closest Mumford (no Sons) gig ever to my hometown. What joy.
The Brook. Very much the student area of Southampton city, Portswood. Not much to entertain, just the McDonalds a plant burger and worst hot chocolate in years. Unless you are a fan of Machine Mart then this is the place for you. Car parked FOC in the roadside. Winner. And yes I had two wing mirrors and all 4 wheels post show.
The Brook was special as a student of Southampton and as a fan of the band #delays #ripgreggilbert I had high hopes and they certainly didn’t disappoint.
Inside two floors, one stage and a really great venue. Well done Vinilo for hosting. Great car park announcements. “I wonder if the owner of the white Toyota could move allowing the Tyre fitters next door to lock their gates?” If it was YOU…..
Round 1
All acoustic. Possible set list?!? Got a bit lost not necessarily in this order?!
Only Child
Dangerous game
Better off high
The Cave
Dinks song
Go in light
Cowboy
How
I will wait
So much banter I can’t remember from which set…
Set times today had be been tailored around the footy start and 1/2 times
Marcus Stopped during Better off high as he saw someone on the balcony mimicking his head “tick” and pulled them up said he can’t help it! Blew a kiss to them later! 😂
Forgetting the words in the cave, Only child was a long song, and after each verse, there’s another one. Why did he write it so long?
Loves doing this tour being back in the room with everyone. 20 gigs in 16 days. Last night was Nottingham, and he got away singing a Disney song “not in Nottingham”. Which basically is a song which isn’t a fan of Nottingham, but they seem to love it, not that bright there!! Lols. With a cheeky wink.
Really good form and lovely set.
Round two. Out the venue and in again.
Very similar set list but with added Grace and Reincarnation. Which was super cute. No dinks.
*A* star rating banter.
Ryan had won a game of fifa in the break.
Loving this tour, been feeling like he has been on his holi bobs, fucking around. His hate of silence between songs. The thoughts that run through the head whilst singing. PLAY THE LOUDEST YOU CAN ON THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR….. play the quietest. Those sort of thoughts!!
It was Ryan’s birthday in the week, (and Chris Polllards) so we sang an impromptu Happy Birthday. Then explained that Alex was previously the guitar tech and was touring with (said in a sarcastic voice) Harry Styles, but now he’s dead to us. “best birthday ever” looks at Ryan. They sent a video previously from Glasgow to Alex slating him!! Gives him the v’s!! Funny
Top right of stage, a glass window viewing pane! “Is that glass”. “You got Covid” waves!! Excited crowd all wave to the seated ladies! They look like pets in a shop window, they’ve got happy lives haven’t they…. Haven’t they?
Liking Southampton, got his haircut, they also wanted to manscape the face, but that was perfect! Had a nice snack in the Woodmill cafe. No one seemed to know this cafe.
Enjoyed the two gigs today, three tomorrow, someone shouts “ka-ching” nah mate!
I found tonight’s “How” especially moving. Too short an evening but a really special evening. Same time tomorrow?
More bands need to play The Brooks it’s ace! Go if you can.
Zzzzz’ds
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clemencetaught · 3 months
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(jumps in your askbox to ask things about the birthday boy uwu)
THESE ARE!!! For Patrick (Verse One):
⏳ In which aspects have you seen Patrick change? As in, the initial idea/concept you had of him VS. Now? ⏳ If he had the time and availability to have a pet, which one do you see him choosing? ⏳ Did he use to have a favorite place when he was a child? Somewhere he remembers with fondness? ⏳ What's a place he's always wanted to visit but hasn't? ⏳ Does he know that a certain detective named Lee Hyuk always carries him in his heart and mind and misses him like nuts and blames me for being away (IUWEHDWEIUDHWD)?
Feel free to skip any (or all) questions ;W; HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL!!!
now it's the professor's turn ( nosy questions for the birthday enby w/ @jeoseungsaja )
ALEX!!! 💕💕💕 my dear friend, first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THESE 🥺🥺🥺 i shall do my best to answer them as thoroughly as possible :DDD
⏳ In which aspects have you seen Patrick change? As in, the initial idea/concept you had of him VS. Now? 
HMMM, well i make it no secret that his inspo is professor layton, specifically in the third game- like literally, i think i made a post adding him to my muse roster on suki’s blog ( JK IT WAS ON CALUM’S BLOG here’s the post tho )...i was honestly debating between whether to make an oc inspired by her*shel lay*ton or just to write the professor himself. But i also wasn’t confident in my ability to write canon characters and i also knew that the layton rp community is kinda…dead?? ANYWAYS, when patrick started out, i originally planned for him to be very similar to layton himself: someone whose life at multiple points has been marked by significant losses, but because these losses happened a while back, someone who has learned to, not necessarily move forward (yet) but more of learned how to live with the grief. Since the creators of the lay*ton games probably didn’t have as much time to flesh out the professor in the third game as i would have wanted them too, patrick was basically supposed to be my exploration of that…you could say patrick in a way, is my self-indulgent lay*ton fanfiction FJSKLDJFLSD 😂
But to be more specific about the initial concepts, patrick was supposed much more in touch with the outside world ( henceforth the ‘anthropology’ part of his career once upon a time :’D ), more adventurous and also a tad more…brusque? more frigid? Kinda like that professor who’s always affable and you admire from a distance, but u wouldn’t necessarily go to for emotional support….basically not quite the gay english professor that all of the queer kids end up loving and subconsciously consider him the father figure they never had :’D
This is all way, if i may compare patrick to lay*ton, i’d say patrick ended up be way more milder, reserved and closed off in comparison to lay*ton. Warmer too although i think part of that also comes from his relationship with hyuk AKA as once stated, hyuk uses his teeth for patrick so patrick doesn’t have to grow them himself. Also while the two do more or less do still have the same demeanor, but patrick, in particular, is unabashedly biased towards his loved ones. Would drop everything for them even his morals ( which isn’t exactly very good of a gentleman :’D ). So i’d say in that sense, lay*ton is almost?? Ironically milder in this sense? In while he does have preferences, he doesn’t have as many sheer dislikes….patrick on the other hand does have very specific dislikes that while he doesn’t vocalize, it’s very obvious to know what they are. 
I’ve also noticed in this past year, patrick, depending on the verse, is becoming a lot more…petty morally ambiguous ( hyuk come collect your person and chastise him too fjksldjfdls :’D ). Selfless yes, but the means and his way of thinking uh….maybe it’s not the most morally upright version :’D i also do think he’s a bit more prone to silliness too in comparison to my original concept <3
⏳ If he had the time and availability to have a pet, which one do you see him choosing?
It’s more apparent in verse three and maybe even verse two, but patrick is very much of a cat person. Not that he hates dogs, but i do think he’s more drawn to cats, whether they’re on the sillier side or the reserved side- he’s a big proponent of self-suffiency and since the man is like, always working, he would want a furry companion who doesn’t mind just passing the hours in peaceful quiet :’D as of right now, he could probably get a cat, but it’d be an adult cat, probably one still pretty young.
If he gets one after elise has flown the nest though…i could see him getting a kitten :’D preferably a stray one bc patrick has a tendency of taking in strays, human or not &lt;3 <3 <3
⏳ Did he use to have a favorite place when he was a child? Somewhere he remembers with fondness?
Libraries have always been a source of solace for patrick especially when he was in secondary school. As the only asian kid in his town and not to mention probably the only kid that was adopted, the books in the library provided him with examples of sorts of people who were more like him…granted in the 1980s there probably wasn’t as much as there is now, but it certainly made him feel less alone. So i’d say the library in his childhood would be one of his favorite places aka one place he also would probably sleep over in if not for the librarian kicking him out :’D i’d say if he didn’t get in engrossed in academia and teaching, he’d probably be a librarian ( which he was in his second life &lt;3 )
⏳ What's a place he's always wanted to visit but hasn't? 
Anywhere that has hyuk in it. OKAY BUT SERIOUSLY, i would say….maybe yeongju? Since that’s where he was born originally although patrick wouldn’t actually know that until like after the whole thing with felicity went down. But i do think it is a place that would also help explain some of the strange images he sometimes gets of his past life as a seonbi…
⏳ Does he know that a certain detective named Lee Hyuk always carries him in his heart and mind and misses him like nuts and blames me for being away (IUWEHDWEIUDHWD)?
Hmmm, i don’t know hyuk…you might have to say a bit louder for patrick in the back to hear JFKLSJDFLSKJ jkjk, pls don’t apologize for your speed, patrick and i are MORE than happy to wait for u…unfortunately for all of us, you are stuck with me for as long as this hellsite is around and even when it dies i'll still be haunting u &lt;3
but since you’ve mentioned this, patrick has snuck out here to say something:
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“Ah, spoken like a true pigeon– do let him know to come back as soon as he can. I’ll have a Crosstown donut and an iced americano ready for him.”
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earnestly-endlessly · 3 years
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Hi! Do you have any Cherik Army AUs? I've managed to find just 3.
Hi Anon, thanks for the ask. I found some good Army AUs, though some might not quite fall into the category of 'Army AU'. There are, surprisingly, few Army AUs that I have found, whereas there are several military and war AUs, but those don't necessarily involve an army. I did include a variety that involve an army in one way or another, though some fit the bill better than others. I hope you find some that you enjoy!!
Cherik Army AU
I Want to Guard Your Dreams And Visions – luninosity
Summary: I was reading Barbara Hambly’s Abigail Adams mystery novels, and then Erik/Charles American Revolutionary War AU happened. Little snippet in which they share a tent, drink coffee, and provide support to each other.
The Eggnog Riot – Sophia_Bee
Summary: 1826. The American Military Academy in West Point. The day after Christmas. Cadet Erik Lehnsherr wakes up naked with a certain cadet Xavier sprawled across his chest. He can only blame the eggnog.
No Man’s Land – ikeracity
Summary: It's 1914 in Ypres, Belgium. British soldier Charles Xavier has been in the trenches for four months of endless artillery fire, bone-deep cold, and constant fear of the enemy. But on Christmas Eve, the gunfire falls silent, and they climb out of their trenches for a Christmas truce. Charles, of course, meets Erik, the German soldier across the way.
My Land’s Only Borders Lie Around My Heart – pseudoneems
Summary: WW1 Christmas truce of 1914. Opposing soldiers Erik and Charles meet.
Le soldat – Iggyassou
Summary: Erik is in the trenches, trying to survive the war so that he can go back to Charles, his young lover waiting for him back at home.
Names – Squeegee
Summary: In the summer of 1917, British soldier Charles Xavier finds himself taking cover in a shell crater.
Not sure if the 'graphic' tag applies or not, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Quell a storm with pen and ink – patroclux
Summary: Charles had spared his life. That was not something he could easily repay.
They wrote letters to each other for two years, until Charles was pulled out of the war from a sudden illness and Erik remained to fight for a cause he didn't believe in. One that ultimately had no effect; one that stole away four years of his life.
Traumatized and persecuted, Erik applied for a post at Janus, a lighthouse in the middle of the Irish Sea. He thought being alone would do him good.
Despite the letters and despite the love, Erik didn't expect Charles to find him.
Hier steh ich an den Marken meiner Tage – MonstrousRegiment
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a spy in the SS, and his British liaison is strategist Charles Xavier. Their relationship from the moment they meet to a year after the end of the war.
Theme and Variations: War – ninemoons42
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a musical prodigy and a man destined for great things and great stages. But his life is shattered by a terrible accident that leaves him blind and trying to find his way back to his life, his music, and his place in the world.
Then he meets Charles Xavier, an agent of Section 8 of the Military Intelligence Directorate of Providence, and he finds himself listening in to clandestine radio transmissions and clicking Morse code, and these sounds are part and parcel of a war that can only take place in the shadows and the hidden places of history.
Strib nicht von Mir – ravenoftheninerealms
Summary: A squad of Allied Forces, led by Charles Xavier, liberates the Nazi concentration camp where Erik was being held prisoner.
Cold foxholes, warm hearts – oddegg
Summary: Basically, this is Band of Mutants. A little slice of life in Bastogne.
Photographs and Memories – tirsynni
Summary: When war-battered Erik Lehnsherr met Charles Xavier, the man kneeling in the dirt and whispering to a lost refugee child, Erik feared his days of running from his deviance was done.
Marching Home – Quietbang
Summary: For a prompt on the meme asking for fic dealing with the fact that, in comics canon, Charles served in the Korean war.
War meant something different to this generation, Charles knew.
Crash on the Levy (Down in the Flood) – Quietbang
Summary: “This is much bigger than you think. You're in the middle of a war, and you don't even realize, do you?”
He pauses, and answers his own question.“No, of course you don't. How silly of me."
The Knight and the Dagger – Dow
Summary: A Lieutenant in the Soviet Army, Erik Lensherr had no other goals than to find the man that killed his parents. But when a discovery yields a little boy with wings like an angel, Erik is shocked to realize that he isn’t alone. There are other people like him, both dangerous and alluring.
Lifelong Service – Pookaseraph
Summary: Erik thinks he should be the one to teach their recruits hand-to-hand combat; Charles makes a persuasive argument to the contrary.
Footsteps of uprooted lovers – ninemoons42
Summary: Against a turbulent backdrop of artistic, social, and political upheaval, the playwright Charles Xavier and the photographer Erik Lehnsherr find themselves meeting under less-than-polite circumstances, but part rather more amicably than they'd met.
When they find each other again in a Barcelona that is falling inexorably toward war, they find themselves taking up arms, each in his own way, and together they join a struggle for freedom, for love, and for their very lives.
Dear Soldier – Lindstrom, ToriTC198
Summary: "Dear Soldier,
I pray that this package finds you well. The organization gave us a list of odds and ends that you might need, but I thought that a person so far from home might appreciate something more than soap and tube socks."
When Charles' school decides to send care packages to the soldiers fighting in Vietnam, he chooses to also include a letter and a few personal touches. When Staff Sergeant Erik is the recipient of that particular care package it will spur a relationship that will change them both.
Fortunate Son – blueink13
Summary: he days leading up to and during Alex's deployment in Vietnam. Everyone handles it in their own way. Some handle better than others.
You’re Here – Deshonana
Summary: Everyone decides its a good idea not to tell Erik when his boyfriend comes home from the military.
Welcome Home –  loveydoveyecstasy
Summary: It's been two years since Charles was deployed to Afghanistan, and Erik can't wait to pick him up at the airport.
When Secrets have Secrets – ximeria
Summary: The arguments that take place in General Xavier's office when General Lehnsherr has a bad day are legendary. Quite frankly, no one really knows what's going on and if the two men have it their way, no one ever will.
Quiet Company – Sophia_Bee
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is always on the move. He's spent the last many years going from war torn country to war torn country telling the stories of the people there through photographs. Then one of his pictures is selected as a winner for the Pulitzer Prize and Erik finds himself stuck in London for longer than he wants. He ends up with an assignment to photograph Charles Xavier, a wealthy philanthropist who is intrigued to find himself working with a Pulitzer-winning war photographer. Erik is far less intrigued by someone he considers privileged and out of touch. Both of their lives are about to change in ways they couldn't imagine.
The City is Ours – RedStockings
Summary: Erik felt his heart racing with excitement, lightened, and for once felt joyful. Charles had looked at him, really looked at him, and there had been something there, a knowing of a kind. As the soldiers laughed amongst each other, and joked each other about who would succeed in marrying the boy, Erik made himself a silent vow. Charles was going to be his, and nothing would keep him from having him. He’d marry him, and he’d save him, and Charles would love him for it.
Not even the war could keep them apart... right?
Sign of the Times – dsrobertson
Summary: Casablanca-ish AU.
Charles Xavier meets Erik Lehnsherr in Paris, 1937. They spend the next two years with one another, stupid in-love, until war comes heavy in September 1939. Erik leaves for Poland and the Resistance movement there, promising to return. Charles is left in Paris, where Nazi jackboots march in, Summer of 1940. He becomes a member of the underground French Resistance, publishing illegal newsletters, leaflets, until news comes through in February 1942: Erik is dead. Charles throws himself into more dangerous work, meeting with Communists, helping derail a German train, and he does too much, goes too far. His friends find him safe passage out of France, out across the Mediterranean, to Morocco, Casablanca. It is here he finds Erik, alive.
The Waste Land – nekosmuse
Summary: The White Queen and her Shadow King sit on their throne, safe behind the psionic shields of the Walled City. The armies of Genosha batter uselessly at the gates, a war locked in stalemate. Magneto, camped in the frozen mud, receives word the Citadel intends to send a telepath to the front lines. The same telepath he met two years ago, who sat across a carved wooden chess set and offered Magneto the first friendly smile in a lifetime. The same telepath who still haunts his dreams.
Winter Comes With a Knife – RedStockings
Summary: It apparently came to no one’s surprise that the war-mage Erik Lehnsherr took up residence in the Dark Keep. I knew he was going to choose my sister, Raven, to be his apprentice so why wouldn’t he let me go? What did he want from me?
My name is Charles Xavier, I can read minds and use magic. I’ve met Kings and Queens, mages and magic users. I’ve travelled through lay-lines and jumped through the Dark Void… but none of that really matters.
I am leading an army into war, I am scared and I never wanted this. I’ve come to realise that what I want, rode into my life when I was still a child. Now he’s out there, ready to charge into battle. Ready to die for me.
Polaris – LastAmericanMermaid
Summary: Charles Xavier is 19 years old, doe-eyed and soft; Erik Lehnsherr is 24 years old, steely-hard and bitter. One is a soldier, the other a refugee. Both are mutants. There will be pain, oh yes.
(An AU in which Charles is a wounded British soldier, Erik is the German hiding in France who nurses him back to health, and the contents of this fic are best read to the soundtrack of Atonement.)
Note: Unfinished
MEDIC! – paladin_danse
Summary: A British airborne medic finds himself alone and afraid behind enemy lines. When he decides to save the life of an S.S. German officer he finds wounded in the snow, he has no idea the choice he has made will alter the course of the war—and their lives—forever.
Note: Sadly unfinished
Suicide is Painlesss – weethreequarter 
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr did not become a doctor to pick bullets out of children. Unfortunately the US Army had other ideas.
Stuck in the middle of the Korean War, Erik and his fellow civilian surgeons have to battle not only the war, but also weather, mud, and boredom. And that's without mentioning Major Sebastian Shaw who thinks war is the best thing that's ever happened to him and never should've been allowed to pick up a scalpel, or Colonel William Stryker who may or may not work for the CIA and probably doesn't even know himself.
Throw in new arrival Captain Charles Xavier, and Erik is in for a very interesting war.
Note: Unfinished
A Light That Never Goes Out – R_Cookie
Summary: It was meant to be the war to end all wars; these two men were never supposed to meet. One a German Jew, the other a British surgeon. The odds that their paths should cross were next to none - but War defies the expected. It always has, and always will.
From the beaches of Dunkirk to the treacherous slopes of Monte Cassino - this is their story.
WWII AU.
Note: Unfinished
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Don’t Treat My Love Like a Habit Part Fourteen
Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist
Pairing: Santiago Garcia x Reader Rating: Mature (this may change) Warnings: Cursing; angst... And well.... Y’all will see Notes: Set before the movie. Not beta-read. Reina is Spanish for Queen. I hope everyone’s having a good week! 💜 Summary: You’d spent the last few days checking all of the cameras we had available for Hernandez, but you hadn’t been able to get another fix on the man.
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The tracker stopped giving off a signal somewhere around El Eden, outside Jericó. There was no way for you to know if it had been knocked loose, or if it had been found, but it gave you a direction. It also put Hernandez in range of one of the last in-person sightings of Lorea, down by Las Minas.  “So I’ll drive down--” “I don’t know if you should be driving anywhere. You haven’t even gotten your stitches out yet,” You gave the phone a withering look, willing Alex to feel the power of the stare from the other end. You and Pope were at the office, looking down at a readout of all of the places the tracker had given off a signal before cutting. You’d spent the last few days checking all of the cameras we had available for Hernandez, but you hadn’t been able to get another fix on the man. Pope told you that he hadn’t gotten anything else about Hernandeze’s whereabouts from his informant, either, and that she hadn’t even expected him to be in the car that night.
The two of you had taken to calling Alex when we were in the office and having him on speakerphone when we were talking over status updates that day. You tended to go by his apartment at least once a day to check on him, make sure he was eating properly and helping out if he needed it. Pope had gone with you a couple of times, and they had been… Amiable. “Fine, you drive,” Alex retorted. You shook your head. “I’m still looking through these feeds. I get that we may get something closer to where the tracker cut, but-- I don’t want anyone going anywhere until we have something more firm. If the tech just shat the bed, or they found it and broke it, going down to El Eden isn’t going to solve anything, it’s just going to waste time.” 
“Pope, your informant doesn’t have anything?” “She didn’t the last time I spoke to her,” Pope turned his head toward the phone to answer, his eyes still set firmly on the map, “But I have a check-in with her in a couple of hours.” A check-in. You were pointedly not thinking about what that might entail. “Look, soon as we get something that looks like Hernandez--” “What if we don’t?” Alex asked. You went quiet. It was a fair question. The man had slipped up once; he’d be raising his guard, making sure nothing like that happened again. You and Pope had both been twice as cautious that week, double- and triple-checking that the door was locked before we went to bed. “We will,” Pope answered. You turned to look at him, taking in the set of his brow, the way his lips were pulling down. He meant, ‘We have to’.
--
You hadn’t had a quiet night alone without Pope since the office had been broken into. It was… Odd. Not eerie or anything, but just like something was missing. You’d briefly, stupidly, wondered if Pope felt like this when you’d stayed with Alex at the hospital. It was Pope’s apartment, he was used to being there alone. Well maybe not alone, but at least without you there-- You huffed, closing the fridge door for what had to be the fifth time that evening. Pope hadn’t told you when he’d be home back when he’d left to meet with his informant. “You gonna tell me what her name is, or should I call her Isabella 2.0?” You’d tried to tease. He’d cast you a dour look as he’d tugged jacket. “What’s it matter what her name is?” He’d asked, and the words had left him with such tired irritation that you immediately felt stupid for saying anything. “No, it… It doesn’t,” You’d mumbled. He’d just grunted, said he’d let you and ‘Brano know if he got anything, and left.
Maybe he hadn’t sounded that irritated? Maybe you’d just been thinking about it too long. Being in the apartment alone gave you a lot of time and silence in which to overthink things. You’d texted Frankie and the guys to see how they were doing, but Benny had a fight that night, so you wouldn’t be able to distract yourself with them for at least another few hours, and by then, Santiago would be home. Hopefully. Hopefully Santiago would be home. Back. Hopefully Santiago would be back. 
-- 
Hernandez is hunkered down in Las Minas. You’d jumped at the sound of your phone, and now you were just staring at the text that had come through from Santiago. Lorea? Was Alex’s answering text. Unclear, Pope’s response came through in seconds.
Las Minas, you could work with that. First thing in the morning, you’d go in and start working through the camera feeds that you could access from Diego’s office. You opened your separate texts with Santiago. Coming back soon?
You watched the screen for a few moments before setting the phone aside. A few more minutes, nothing. He’d answered Alex so quickly. You looked around the apartment, stomach churning. Maybe you wouldn’t wait until morning to head into the office and start combing through those camera feeds. 
-- 
You left him a post-it, of course. 
--
“So I’ve got five possible targets, there are like three that I’m ready to rule out, but I wanted to get your read on them before I dropped them completely,” You said, not even bothering with a ‘hello’, instead pointing to a map on the wall with printed-out imagery from the cameras you’d been able to access pinned to it, “The red tacks are the ones I think are the most likely, blue are the ones I wanna ditch.” “Have you been here all night?” Pope didn’t bother with a ‘hello’, either. “Where else would I be?” You returned your hand to the keyboard, eyes still on the monitor. “I don’t know, with Zambrano?” He said it like it was obvious, like you were over there all the time, beyond helping the guy since he was wounded. “Just stopped by after work for a bit.” “And then?” “Would you look at the map, please?” You didn’t mean for it to come out as snappy as it had, but you were… Tired, and annoyed - more annoyed than tired. Santiago had never answered your text, nor had he texted you when he got in, which you’d asked him to do on the post-it. To top it all off, he was asking if you had been at the office all night. So, presumably, he hadn’t gotten in, had spent the night elsewhere, and… And you’d gotten a tip out of it. Anything else that happened didn’t matter, and you didn’t care anyway, and this game of emotional whack-a-mole was really starting to take it out of you. 
You didn’t dare look at Pope, didn’t want to know whether he was looking at you or the map in the stilted silence that followed. But after a few moments, you heard his footsteps trail away from your desk, over to the wall, and you let yourself glance over your shoulder. Same jacket as yesterday - but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. You lowered your head back to your work, shaking your head a little. What he was wearing, what he did last night or didn’t do, none of that mattered, none of it-- “Ditch the blue.” Pope’s voice cut through your thoughts, and you grabbed the pen you’d set aside hours ago, crossing them off of the list that you’d compiled. “Too conspicuous?” You asked. “Yep.” You tossed the pen back onto the desk and glanced over at Pope, watching him look at the two remaining targets. They weren’t terribly far from one another, but they couldn’t be monitored by one person. “I’ll get Zambrano, drive down, hit them today,” Pope said, pulling his jacket sleeve back and glancing back down at his wrist, “He can drive. We won’t engage if we see anything, it’ll be strictly recon,” He added, glancing back at you.  You turned back to your computer, nodding and wordless. You didn’t like the idea, but you knew that the tip that Pope had gotten would need to be moved on quickly. “You should go back to the apartment, get some rest,” Pope added, heading for the door of your small office space. “I’ve got some stuff to wrap up here,” You shook your head. “Reina.” You looked up at Pope then, raising a brow and waiting for him to speak. He hesitated before he sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll grab walkie-talkies, Zambrano and I will radio when we’re in position.” “Fine,” You nodded, and were on your way to adding, “Be careful,” When you found yourself speaking to the door. 
-- 
“How was the fight?” You asked, leaning back from your monitor and stretching your back over your chair as you spoke into your chair. “What fight?” Alex’s voice crackled through your headset. “Mic,” Pope’s sighed over Alex’s question. “Shit, hang on, ‘Fish-- Sorry, guys,” You apologized before tapping the mute button on your headset - the controls were so damn sensitive. You’d already accidentally knocked them half a dozen times. You raised your phone back to the ear you’d pushed your headset back from. “Sorry, Fish.” “Late night?” Frankie chuckled. “... So how was the fight?” You repeated, not in the mood to touch that just yet. “It was great. Benny kicked the guy’s ass.” “Atta boy,” You grinned, pushing yourself out of your seat, “How’ve you been?” You listened to Frankie catch you up on what you’d missed the last couple of weeks, checking your phone screen now and again for any texts from Santiago or Alex, just in case. “You okay, Q?” “Fine, why?” “You sound a little...Dead.” “Forgot what a sweet-talker you were, chulo.” “You know I don’t mean it like that--” “I’m teasing, Frankie,” You smiled a little, grabbing your mug and walking over to where you’d set up the coffee maker in the back office that Diego had allotted you and Pope, “I’m fine, just… Yeah, late night. Work, you know.” You hesitated as you set your mug down, thinking. “...Frank?” “Yeah?” “Let’s say… Hypothetically… That there was a, like… Snowball’s chance in hell that there was some truth to all the teasing you’ve done about me and Pope.” “How big a snowball?” “You know that boulder that chases Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark?” “Oh, no!” Frankie laughed, and you couldn’t help but smile a little bit at the sound of it -- it was so light, and after the mental hell you’d been putting yourself through, it was nice to hear someone laughing about it. “What’s going on?” He asked. You looked down at the coffee pot, trying to cobble your thoughts together. “It’s just-- Ugh, hang on,” You reached up, adjusting your headset as it began to slip, your hand brushing the controls as you did, “It’s just that-- I don’t know if it’s because I’m staying with the guy, or-- Or what, but I can’t get him out of my head. It’s bad, Frankie. And I mean, it’s not new, either, I’ve had feelings for Santiago since… Since before I took this job. I mean they weren’t always serious, not like they are now, but there’s always been something there for me--” Now that you were admitting it, you couldn’t get the words to stop; they were spilling out like unorganized tupperware from a hastily shut cupboard, “But fuck, it’s just been so much-- Worse isn’t the word, I mean, noticeable, maybe. Fuck, I’ve been living with the guy, we sleep in the same bed, and he’s cuddly, and I like it way too much. I spent half the night looking for new apartments because I just… I can’t do it anymore. If I don’t get out of there, I think I’m gonna fall in lo--” “Hey Q?” Alex’s voice crackled in through your earpiece. “Hang on ‘Fish--” You sighed, raising your hand to your headset. But before you could even touch it-- “Your mic is on,” Santiago’s voice was quiet, almost regretful. Your heart slammed into your rib cage with the force of a freight train. You reached up with a shaking hand, tapping the mic button on your headset again to mute it. “...Francisco, I’m going to need to call you back.” Tag list: @justanotherblonde23​  ; @revolution-starter​  ; @emurlemur​ ; @badbitxhbuckybarnes ;  @supernaturalcat7​ ; @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​
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quizzyisdone · 3 years
Text
Blacks Ops: Cold War Characters Ranked based on their BDE ™
Please note that none of these GIFs are mine, proper credits at the end! *BDE stands for Big Dick Energy, which admittedly, is a dead meme
Jason Hudson: 3/10
Unnecessarily aggressive, treats Bell like property at times, secretive to a fault.  Finding good quality GIFS of him was a bit of a journey, which is testament to just how unlikable he is. (Probably actually has a small dick, too.)
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Lawrence Sims: 7/10
Much better score than Hudson, but points are taken off for being somewhat distant to the player character. To be fair there’s not much to go off of here, besides his occasional banter with Lazar, which is pretty funny. If he had more character development he might be higher on the list
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Russell Adler: 7/10
Sorry, Adler simps. Checks off most requirements, such as being tall, strong, and charming as well as being an absolute heartthrob. But his involvement with the MK Ultra program as well as shooting the player force me to take off three points. (Bonus that he probably actually does have a big dick.)
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Alex Mason: 8/10
Only two things are keeping him from getting a perfect ten out of ten. One of those being is that he’s a terrible dad to his son, David. The other is that he’s too serious and lacks some confidence, which isn’t necessarily his fault, due to the whole brainwashing situation.
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Helen Park: 9/10
This lovely woman could’ve had a perfect score, but due to her involvement with the MK-Ultra program, I had to remove a point. She does make up for this by being the bad ass, tall, strong lady of my dreams. Additional points for being generally kind and having a sense of humor.
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Lazar Azoulay: 9.5/10
Checks off almost every requirement. Big and strong? Check. Confidence? Check. Absolutely hilarious? Check. Kindness? Check. Lazar is literally the man of your dreams. Only reason for a .5 deduction is that he doesn’t quite match the energy as our next character.
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Frank Woods: 10/10
Honestly, who’d you expect to see at the top of this list? Most people in the fandom agree that Woods practically exudes the necessary himbo energy. He’s incredibly handsome, charming, funny, confident, and probably actually has a big dick.
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GIF credits are as follows:
Hudson, Sims, Lazar credits to @queennymeria​
Woods, Adler, Mason credits to @frankwoods​
Park credits to @macintosh-23​
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oh-hush-its-perfect · 3 years
Text
The point of calling Alex an Old Norse slur in MCGA was to play into a few motifs:
1. Being part of a minority group (i.e. being trans, Muslim, brown/black, homeless, disabled, etc.) has an impact on everyday experiences because society is biased against those minority groups.
2. This side isn't necessarily the good side.
The first of these was expounded upon a lot more in canon than the second, and most of that was through Magnus coming to understand how being trans affected Alex's daily life. Part of this also included the rest of Floor 19 adjusting their habits. A lot of people seem to miss this part. The rest of the protagonists stopped saying the slur. That's a part of their character growth— how cis people can make themselves allies. In SotD, TJ started saying it and then cut himself off. It is acknowledged as a bad thing in canon, and a thing good people shouldn't do.
Which brings us to the second point: Hotel Valhalla and the rest of Asgard isn't actually good. I really wish this had been more prevalent because from what I've seen, it's gone over a lot of people's heads. Loki mentions in the flyting that the idea of good and evil isn't even a Norse concept. He also prompts Magnus to think about his punishment and how truly evil it is. The Aesir are not good. The Thanes are not good. Having them call Alex a slur was part of the way in establishing that.
I have trouble believing that most people concerned about this actually understand what's happening behind the scenes here. An insult being included in a kid's book is a very bad thing unless it is handled in a very particular way. No child is going around the playground and calling other kids that term because it is properly set up as a bad thing to say. Even if they did call other kids that, it's still from a dead language.
Honestly, I think it was a pretty effective way to show casual transphobia without actually using real, English words. It may be a little disingenous to get so upset with Rick Riordan for what I believe to be a tactful, measured attempt at representing discrimination and micro-aggressions.
However, I feel the need to say that I'm not telling trans people how to deal with their feelings. If Alex being called a slur offends you, you have every right to be mad about it. You can post about it and talk to other people about how it upsets you. That's valid. You're allowed to feel that way. This is just my personal interpretation of the text and how I always read it. Also, I'm not sure that Riordan developed these themes enough for them to be apparent to the casual reader, so even if you accept that he isn't transphobic, something is still to be desired about his writing.
TL;DR Morally-dubious characters and characters before their character arcs calling Alex an out-dated slur is narratively effective and might be a good way to introduce kids to the concept of discrimination without giving them language that is an active threat to the trans community. That being said, trans people who don't like use of the term are valid as Helheim.
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quillsandtypos · 3 years
Text
Our Stars Collided- Part 4 (1/2)
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Summary: As the reader finds herself joining an on the rise ghost band, she quickly makes friends with the bassist. But how long can she keep herself away from the lead guitarist?
Words: 3.2k
Warnings: none except sexual tension
Pairings: luke x reader, mention of willex
I had too many word blocks so I had to split this in two in order to upload
...........................................
By Sunday morning you had mostly forgotten about your little prank war. So you did not expect to see someone in your living room that morning. “Reggie!” you screeched.
Reggie looked equally as surprised to see you and jumped back.
After you calmed down, you walked up to him, “What are you doing here?”
Reggie glanced around nervously. “What are you doing here?”
“Umm this is my house,” you reminded him. He was obviously up to something.
He pulled his hair back. “Right, yeah, I knew that, duh.” He rolled his eyes for good measure.
“So then what are you doing here?” you questioned. You watched as he strained to come up with some sort of response.
“Oh yeah, I came here to talk to you abouuuuuuut,” he trailed off as he looked into space.
You waved your hand at him for him to continue.
“Goddamnit I can’t do this,” he muttered.
“Luke are you almost done?” he called out.
It took you a moment to realize that you didn’t need to worry about your parents hearing his yell. But then it clicked that Luke was somewhere in your house.
Your eyes widened in fear. “What did you do Reggie?”
Luke popped in next to him. “Oh he just might have helped me out a little,” Luke said offhandedly. Though the smirk on his face told you that he was quite proud of whatever he had just done. You tried to make your fear invisible to them.
“Okay, let me rephrase this, what did you two do?” you crossed your arms and glared into Reggie’s eyes.
Luke moved closer to you to catch your eye and leaned against a chair. “Well let’s just say Reggie decided he would rather be on the winning team,” Luke taunted.
It finally clicked that your favorite bassist had betrayed you. “YOU, you are so dead Reginald,” you threatened. Despite the fact that he was already dead, he did look slightly afraid. You licked your upper lip smugly, in the satisfaction that he was somewhat affected.
Luke clicked his tongue, “I would be more worried about your room if I were you,” he warned. There was no doubt in your mind that he was enjoying this. You were torn between wanting to threaten your opponents and wanting to know what Luke had done.
“This isn’t over,” you grumbled. You raced back to your room, and nearly slipped on the flooring. You opened your door with a shove to find that everything was gone, nothing was there. Meaning legitimately nothing, those assholes had somehow gotten everything moved out of your room. It was completely bare, minus your bedframe and mattress. And you had fallen for Reggie’s distraction. You knew you would have to come up with something drastic to get them back for this, but you first needed to figure out where they had hidden the rest of your stuff.
You stood in your room as you tried to figure out what to do; until you remembered that the boys were still downstairs. But when you retraced your steps, you realized they were long gone. You sighed in frustration as you decided where you would need to look. Your first thought was Julie’s, it was most likely too easy, but she didn’t live more than ten minutes away. So you hopped in your car and drove over.
You arrived a short nine minutes later and knocked on the Molina house’s door. Julie opened it with a very puzzled look on her face. “Y/n what are you doing here?”
You held one of your hands in the other. “So this is gonna sound like a weird question, but have you seen any mysteriously appearing furniture?”
“No, should I have?” Julie questioned.
“Ugh, okay, I knew they wouldn’t put it here. Thanks any-” you stopped. Reggie was just behind Julie, wearing your favorite blanket as a cape. Julie looked confusedly at wear your gaze is, only to watch Reggie poof out.
“Reggie,” you growled under your breath.
You then brought your attention back to Julie who was giving you a cautious side eye.
“I swear there’s a reasoning behind this,” you promised.
“For something, as weird as this,” she pointed to you and where Reggie previously stood, “I would think so.”
“So you know how Reggie helped me take one of Luke’s shirts?” you started.
She still looked weirded out, but she nodded her head.
“Well, now Luke has somehow gotten Reggie to be on his side and the two of them took everything out of my room,” you grumpily explained.
Julie was still a little confused on what you meant. “Define everything.”
“Like the only thing still in my room is my mattress and bedframe, kind of everything,” you specified.
“Oh shit really?” she exclaimed. She quickly glanced around to make sure her brother wasn’t in ear shot.
You nodded your head.
“Do you have any idea where they put it?” she questioned.
“No, I was hoping you knew,” you wistfully admitted.
“I mean, have you checked the studio?”
“That seemed too easy.” You paced back and forth trying to think of where they could’ve possibly hidden your stuff. You heard another poof behind Julie and just as you were about to start your interrogation, you realized it was Alex.
“I’m guessing you’re here for your stuff,” he speculated.
“Yeah, do you know where it is?”
“I do,” he admitted.
You weren’t entirely sure where he was going with this, and his face gave no hints as to his motive either. “And are you going to tell me where it is?” you inquired.
His lips twitched upward in satisfaction. “They are back in your room.”
“Did you put them back there?” you confusedly asked.
He smiled before nodding.
Your eyes went wide, “Oh my god, thank you Alex, if you weren’t dead I would hug you!” you exclaimed.
“But now I kinda need to be on your team since I helped you.”
You grinned wickedly. Those two had no idea what was coming for them. “You’ve got a deal Mercer,” you agreed. You went to shake hands but you just went right through him, so you settled for shaking the air where you could see his hand.
“Guys, I hate to inte-” Julie was then cut off from a faint yell that you assumed to be either Reggie’s or Luke’s.
“Run?” you suggested.
“Run.” Alex agreed.
“Guys, what am I supposed to do?” Julie called out.
“Pretend you never saw us!” you yelled back.
She gave you a thumbs up before heading back inside her house. You quickly backed out of your driveway and quietly took off down the road. You breathed a sigh of relief as you turned the corner off of her road. When you got home you went straight to your bedroom to find that everything was back in its place.
You flopped down on your bed. It was only noon and you were exhausted. You decided to take a quick nap. You set your alarm for two pm and you quickly fell asleep.
When you woke up, you felt pretty groggy, but still better than you had before. You turned on your back and stretched. You couldn’t yet be bothered with getting up.
You couldn’t have been laying there for more than five seconds when you heard a poof in your room. You sighed internally, you didn’t have the energy to be pranked a second time in one day. You choose not to give him the satisfaction of looking over, and instead kept your eyes towards the ceiling.
“Luke what do you want?” you whined.
“Hey, why does it necessarily have to mean that I want something?” he pretended to be offended.
You slowly turned to look at him with an unamused look on your face.
“Okay, so maybe I do,” he admitted. You nearly broke your demeanor at his comment but you were determined, so you turned to look away from him so he wouldn’t see your smile.
He looked around the room. “I see you got your stuff back.”
“I’m willing to bet you already knew that,” you guessed.
“True, but I wasn’t expecting for you to be able to turn Alex against me,” he retorted. You couldn’t see him but you were certain you could feel the warmth of the fire in his eyes.
“How did you manage to do that?” he puzzled.
“I plead the fifth,” you responded.
Luke continued to try to coax an answer out of you, but he was getting nowhere. You just remained silent and continued to look at a wall.
“Come on y/n you’re gonna have to talk to me eventually,” he reasoned. He sat down on your bed as you continued to ignore him.
“Y/n,” he sang, as he kept tapping your side. You couldn’t actually feel it but you could see his hand accidentally going through you.
You couldn’t help the growing happiness bubbling up from your stomach. “I’m going to throw a pillow at your head,” you playfully threatened.
“See, I knew you were smiling,” he teased.
And swiftly turned around to throw a throw pillow at him. Of course you knew it wouldn’t hit him, it was more for dramatic effect.
But not long after, you heard a soft ‘thump’.
“Did it just-” you stopped in shock.
The pillow had hit him squarely in the face and he caught it in his arms.
Luke was equally as confused. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know, I was expecting for the pillow to go right through you,” you babbled.
“That shouldn’t be possible, right?” he looked at you for assurance.
“Luke, I have no idea,” you admitted. The both of you just sat there for a minute in a silent bewilderment.
“Can I try something really quick?” he asked, his voice was a touch lower and harder to hear than usual.
You nodded, you weren’t certain where he was going with this, but for whatever reason; you trusted him. He reached over to one of your arms rested on your leg. Slowly he moved his hand to try to brush over your forearm. You could feel your heart beating in your chest and you held your breath. His fingers moved closer, you were now touching, but you couldn’t feel it. He just phased through you.
You felt your face fall and you quickly worked to make sure he didn’t notice. “It was worth a shot,” you added.
Luke looked up at you, he was not attempting to hide his disappointment. But it only took him a couple of seconds to recover, he looked like he had gotten an idea.
“Let me try something else real quick,” Luke trailed off.
You started to ask him what he meant by that, but you were rudely interrupted by a pillow going straight through you.
"Hey!" you yelled.
"I had to see if it was gonna work!" he loudly explained.
Laughing, you felt your mood start to lift, just by a little bit. “So what exactly did you want?” you asked.
“I don’t actually remember now,” Luke realized.
You felt the words tumbling out of your mouth before you could stop them, “Well I’m glad you came anyways.”
You were expecting for him to be smirking at you but instead he just smiled in that way that made you want to melt into the ground. “I’m glad I did too,” he agreed.
He got up from your bed to poof out, when you stopped him.
“Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“No more pranks when you’re in my room or involving my room. You come here almost everyday so it makes sense to have it as a peaceland,” you requested.
He charmingly winked at you. “Sure thing princess,” he agreed then poofed out.
You were really glad he left when he did so you could die from that nickname in peace.
-----------
When you woke up the next day you were a little surprised you hadn’t gotten any texts from Julie. But you figured you would catch up with her at school
“You,” she growled as soon as she spotted you heading to her locker.
You immediately put your hands up in surrender. “Woah, what did I do?” you asked.
“This,” she pointed to her outfit. It consisted of a jean jacket with paint on the back, a cropped sunset curve t-shirt, grey sweatpants, and white sneakers.
“What?” you puzzled, you genuinely had no idea what she was talking about. But she evidently believed that you should’ve known based off the look she was giving you.
“Because of you, I somehow got pulled into your prank war and they stole the rest of my shirts,” she finally explained to you.
“Well in that case their prank backfired because you still look stunning Jules.” You caught her eyes as you spoke and she smiled before narrowing her eyes at you.
“Do not try to compliment your way out of this!” she threatened.
You grinned and moved back from her accusatory finger. “I’m not, you genuinely look stunning. But if you want to threaten someone, I suggest it be the two who actually did it,” you argued. You grabbed your books and turned away to almost walk straight through Reggie.
Reggie threw his hands up in exaggeration. “Julie, this was supposed to be a prank, how do you still have a killer outfit?” he moaned.
You chuckled at his dramatics.
“Yeah, making the shirt look good should technically be against prank rules,” Luke agreed.
“Well Luke, it looks like you're technically losing.” You smirked.
“Not for long,” Luke scoffed under his breath, though it was obvious he wanted the three of you to hear him.
“Alright, point to the ladies, for this time at least,” Reggie trailed off ominously.
You threw your arm around Julie, “So does this mean you're officially on my team?” you asked.
“Yep, which means the two of you are officially going down,” she leaned into you and glared at the boys, as you smirked in satisfaction.
“That won't last long,” Luke boasted. He and Reggie poofed out, but not before you stuck your tongue out at Reggie.
Julie wrapped an arm around your waist. “So what’s our next play?”
“Well that is where Alex is going to help us,” you started to explain to her as you walked to class.
------------
The two of you anxiously sat in Julie’s room, you hoped that Alex would be the only one to poof in. You both heard a knock on the door and knew it had to be him.
“I heard we were coming up with a plan?” Alex inquired.
“We are but we need your help with actually getting it to work,” you explained.
Alex plopped down on the bed next to the two of you, “I’m all ears.”
“Okay so y/n had the idea of scaring them since you know it’s not usually the ghosts who get scared,” Julie started.
“Right, so how are we gonna pull that off?” he questioned.
You turned to Alex. “Well that’s where you come in. When would they least be expecting us to show up?” you asked.
Alex looked off into the corner of the room for a moment before coming back to you. “Probably when you’re in school or in the middle of the night. Since you guys sleep we are usually mostly alone in the world at night,” Alex divulged. He said it so casually, like being alone was a part of their routines; which sadly, it was. You tried not to think too deeply about it for the moment, but made a mental note to ask him if he wanted to talk about it at some point.
Julie walked around the room as she talked. “So school is obviously not an option, but doing it at night time seems easy enough.”
“Except we need to make sure it’ll actually scare them,” you added.
Julie pointed at you as she added that to her mental list.
“Well what scares people who are already dead?” you wondered. You looked to Alex for answers.
“I mean I’m biased with fears since I’m anxious most of the time; so I might not be the best person or ghost to ask,” he regretfully admitted.
“That’s okay, just tell us whatever you’re thinking of,” you reassured him. He looked nervously in Julie’s direction, but when she softly nodded at him, his gaze turned back to you.
“Your best bet is to jump scare them, I mean we’re the ones who can poof places, so they wouldn’t be expecting for you to be able to scare them,” Alex suggested.
“Ooh I like that idea,” Julie excitedly agreed.
"I do too, oh also I might be able to throw something at them," you added without thinking.
Your two friends looked at you with very confused faces. You suddenly remembered that you hadn't told anyone about the incident the night before.
"OH, I threw something at Luke yesterday and it hit him," you explained.
Your friends' faces didn't change, they shared a look before turning back to you.
"What?" they exclaimed, almost in complete unison.
"Well Luke was giving me shit and so I jokingly went to throw a pillow at him but then it actually hit him," you elaborated.
"And you're just telling us this now?" Julie marveled. Alex deadpanned.
"Well you seemed pretty upset about the shirt thing," you started.
"Y/n! Do you know how crazy that is?" Julie intently asked.
“I do, but there’s one problem we still can’t touch. We tried,” the last part came out quieter than the rest.
“What?” Alex asked.
“We tried, I still couldn’t touch him, and he couldn’t throw something at me without it going through me,” you divulged.
Alex looked at you through curious eyes. “Do you have any idea why?”
You through your hands up in exasperation. “No, but I wish I did.”
Julie walked up to her desk and searched around for something. “Alex, here try to catch this,” she spoke as she showed him a notebook.
Alex readied himself in the event that he would actually be able to catch it. But the book just went through his hands.
“Huh, okay y/n you try throwing it to him,” Julie directed.
You backed away from the bed and shook your hands. You were nervous even though you knew you had no control over how this would turn out. You tossed it into the air, but once again, the notebook just hit the bed.
“Damn it,” Alex hissed under his breath.
Julie shrugged, “Well it was worth a shot.” She tried to sound nonchalant about it, but it was evident that she was upset about it too. You all sat in a somber silence until you piped up.
“Guys I think I have an idea on how we can set up this prank,” you thought aloud.
The mood suddenly shifted and all eyes were on you. They eagerly listened as you explained your plan.
Taglist: @sunsetcurvej
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jobrookekarev · 3 years
Note
23 & 29
23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the others love? and who’s more afraid of loosing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry?
In the beginning, Jo worries that she is not good enough. She mainly worries that things between her and Alex will fizzle out or they'll break up and she'll be left without a place to stay. She really loves Alex, more than she's ever loved anyone else. For the first time in her life, she has a good healthy relationship and she doesn't want to lose him. Sometimes when they fight she'll tiptoe around him or try and stop the fight by giving in to him. After he realizes what she's doing he’ll make sure to communicate with her. He tells her that just because they fight doesn't mean that he doesn't love her or that they're going to break up. After a few months, Jo becomes more secure in a relationship. Soon they're able to even playfully fight knowing full well that at the end of the day they’ll fall asleep in each other's arms knowing that they love each other.
Like Alex can't even sleep on the couch for the whole night when they fight. If she banishes him to the couch or if he gets mad and goes there himself, they’ll tossed and turned for about 20 minutes. Then Jo will ask him if he wants to come back to bed with her and he'll jump up and crawl back into bed with her. Yet, as he cuddles up to her she'll remind him that their fight isn't over. Still they fall asleep wrapped in each other's arms and by morning they aren't fighting anymore.
Alex on the other hand is definitely worried that he's going to mess it all up. All of his past relationships have been messed up or not as serious as this and his divorce with Izzie is still something that lingers in his mind. He worries that he's going to be too much for Jo and that she will get tired of him and leave. For example, he first time she get’s sick she insists on going to work and it reminds Alex of when Izzie went back to work after she recovered from her cancer. She pushed him away when he tried to care for her and he doesn't want to make that same mistake. So he doesn't hover over her and lets her go to work. Halfway through the day, Jo comes up to him and asked to be put on his service. She thought that he say yes and would cover for her and let her nap in an on-call room. However, when he refuses to, she's confused and goes back to where she was working in the ER. At the end of the day the little cold that she had is now full blown illness and she's pretty much dead on her feet. Alex come to pick her up and take her home, but he’s still distant. Once they gets home Jo changes into pajamas and comes downstairs where he’s sitting on the couch. She stands in front of him blocking his you to the TV and asks why he's been so distant today and if he's really that afraid of her germs?
Alex: “It's not that. It's just that I assumed you wanted to tough it out. I’m not your parent and I’m not going to take care of you.”
Jo: “What if I wanted you to take care of me?’
Which surprises him and he gets that dumbfounded look on his face.
Alex: “You wanted me to take care of you?”
Jo throws her hands up in frustration: “Yes!”
Alex: “Oh.”
Jo: “Look you don't have to necessarily hover over me, but I wanted you to put me on your service because I knew that you would let me take it easy. I thought that maybe you let me sneak away to an on-call room and take a nap. I wanted you to take care of me a little bit, because no one's ever done that for me before. When I was a kid none of my foster parents cared about whether I was sick or not. I thought that you might at least care enough to notice that I was having a hard time, but I guess it's silly. I’ve been taking care of myself for years and I don't need someone to take care of me.”
Then she turns to walk away and Alex immediately gets up and wraps his arms around her and he picks her up. Jo's a little surprised and asks what he's doing and he says that he's going to take care of her starting with putting her to bed. So Alex takes her upstairs and tucks her into bed, before he goes and he gets cold medicine, tea, her favorite soup, and puts a cold washcloth on her head. The next day he insist that they both stay home from work and he takes care of her.
And Alex loves taking care of her. It makes me feel needed and useful. He can do something for her while she’s sick, rather than just watching it happen like when Izzie was sick or when his mom had a menial break or when his dad drank. And Jo loves being taken care of. The next week when Alex has inevitably caught her cold, Jo takes care of him and doesn't protest no matter how much of a baby he is.
Okay I might actually write this.
29) Who does some crazy stunt to try and impress the other and who ends up driving them to the emergency room after it backfires?
I know it's fall but I have a Christmas idea, so it's Christmas 2020 they're very first Christmas with both of their girls. Although Luna is still in the hospital and Helena is only 10 days old. They both want to make their first Christmas with their daughters special. Jo's 10 days postpartum and on Christmas day she'll only be a month postpartum. Most days she barely has time to take a shower, much less plan a big Christmas or anything. What Jo wants to do for Christmas is just get fried chicken, go to the hospital with Alex and Helena and spend a couple of hours with Luna, let the girls open presents or in Helena’s case dangle and new hanging toy above her head, take a family Christmas photo, and be in bed by 9:00pm.
Alex on the other hand is trying to plan the biggest Christmas event he can. He's already got a long list of Christmas gifts for the girls and for Jo and he's planning to coordinate with Meredith for a big family Christmas dinner. On top of that he wants to completely decorate the house and put up lights. He’s also trying to support Jo and care of Helena, so he hasn’t showered since.. well since Helena come home from the hospital. He’ also doing all of the cooking, while neither of them are doing any cleaning or laundry. Lucky Meredith and Link come over twice a week to help them.
So the first weekend of December, after Meredith comes over to help Jo and the baby he goes to the store and picks out millions of lights and a couple of blow-up Christmas displays, some candy canes for the walk way, and a thing to sync the lights to music. After he spends why to much money he home. After Meredith leaves and Jo and Helena take a nap he goes outside to put up the lights. Jo of course, knows nothing about all this. She thinks that he got ONE single blow up snowman this for the lawn.
So bare in mind that the only Christmas lights that Alex has ever put up, is a string of lights across the wall on the nurse’s station at the hospital. So there he is on their roof for the first time putting up Christmas lights and of course he underestimates how hard it is. He reaches a little too far and ends up teetering off the ladder and falls.
Jo here's the crash and runs outside to see Alex in the bushes with a ladder. She absolutely freaks out thinking that her idiot husband killed himself. So she quickly helps Alex up and figures out that he's fine except that he most likely broke his arm. Then she screams at him that he could have killed himself and what was she supposed to do if he died? And that if he ever scares her like that again she would divorce him?! Then of course she wraps her arms around him and kisses him because she's so glad that he's alive. 
So they get Helena in the car seat and drive to the hospital where Alex gets a green and red cast. While Link is lecturing him, Jo and Helena go up to visit Luna to tell her about how much of an idiot her Daddy is, but how he was so excited for her first Christmas. From then on Jo insist that Alex pay professions to put up the lights each year. 
However that doesn't stop Alex from completely going overboard and planning elaborate Christmas light displays and soon their house is one of the best in the whole neighborhood and is even featured on TV as one of the best Christmas lights house displays in Seattle. And every year Luna and Helena, and later Edith and Quin, get told the tale of how their father fell off the roof as a cautionary tale to never use the ladder without supervision.
Okay I am definitely going to try and write this for Christmas.
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heich0e · 2 years
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LIV!!!! I HAVE NO IDEA IF YOU LISTEN TO THE WEEKND OR EVEN LIKE HIS MUSIC BUT UM
his new album has a song called Best Friends (idk how to link things to here otherwise I would!!) BUT AUIZJDNFNAAI I AM HAVING A STROKE ??!! A HEART ATTACK ??!!! IDK WHAT IT IS BECAUSE IT FITS PERCOLATE LEVI AND ROOKIE SO WELL ATM ????
Been a part of toxic love
It tore us apart
not saying they’re necessarily toxic but they act so indifferent to each other ??? so much so that they just can’t seem to get their feelings for each other in check so Levi is just eventually leaving and in a way I’m sure rookie just feels like they’re falling apart ??
Oh, I don't want to be responsible
For your heart if we fall
'Cause I'll get clumsy and tear it apart
I love you so, but we can't get close
You're my best friend now
EXCISE ME??? THESE LINES JUST SCREAM LEVI !!!! JUST TELL ME THIS DOESNT SOUND LIKE SOMETHIJG HE WISHES TO SAY BUT SINCE HES EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED HE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO PUT HIS FEELINGS INTO WORDS !!! HE JUST RATHER NOT BECAUSE HES LEABING ANYWAYS ????
And I would never burn you
I could never hurt you
If we do it like that
Don't try to take it further
UGH THIS !! This is totally the mood of that last chapter when he went to her dorm and held her so tightly that he BRUISED HER WITHOUT INTENDING IT !! HENCE “I could never hurt you” BUT HE DID and of course ROOKIE DOESNT SEE IT THAT WAY CUASE SHES JUST AS WHIPPED AISKCNDKAK (I don’t blame her, I’d be into it as well if it were Levi)
Catchin' little feelings
Thought we had arrangements
Thought you weren't like that
FINALLY THIS PART ??? omfggggg, if this isn’t their little situation rn, idk what is ?? I don’t make the rules, you do in fact, and you made these idiots fall in love with each other when it was just supposed to be a “friends with benefits” type of thing ??!! I HAVE A FWB WITH MY LEVI LOOKALIKE FRIEND, WHEN IS IT MY TURN FOR HIM TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ME TO LIVE MY PERCOLATE LIFE ???
liv, I am terribly sorry for the deranged mess I just was…I hope you understand you brought this upon yourself and I am shamelessly giving in to you *kneels and bows down to the ground for you*
ALEX STOP THIS IS ALL VERY CORRECT AND ALSO I JUST GOT ANOTHER ASK ABOUT ANOTHER SONG ON THIS ALBUM AND THEY ARE BOTH VERY MUCH PERCOLATE
but this one.... oh wow.... "THOUGHT WE HAD ARRANGEMENTS/THOUGHT YOU WEREN'T LIKE THAT".... killed me dead
IF ANYONE IS READING THIS AND WANTS TO LISTEN HERE'S A LINK!
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Seattle Grace | Drew Starkey x reader
Requested by anon // Summary: Grey’s Anatomy characters x obx actors cross over. You’re a doctor and starting your internship at Seattle Grace Hospital. You and Drew have a fight about you working too much and the argument ends in breaking things off.
A/N: apologies for any mistakes, did not proof read because I wanted to get this out. I actually really enjoyed writing this! Hope you guys like this little crossover 
Tag list is at the end. Let me know if you want to be added xx
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Requests: OPEN {CLOSED}
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“You work too much!” Drew shouts. You’d started your internship at Seattle Grace Hospital, your dream hospital. However, your boyfriend Drew, wasn’t a fan about your work schedule. He’d be moving back out to South Carolina for the summer while filming Outer Banks season 2 and found out your hours only increased during the summer months, which meant you wouldn’t be coming out to visit him like you’ve been doing.
“It’s an internship, Drew! What did you expect? Me to be able to pick my hours?!” You argue back, throwing your hands up in frustration as you two argue in the middle of your shared bedroom. “It’s either I work the hours they give me, or I lose the internship! There’s no picking and choosing!”
“I never see you anymore, y/n. You work all hours of the day and when you do arrive home, you’re exhausted and want to sleep the rest of the night or day away.”
Before you can answer him, your phone rings on the bed. Drew laughs half-heartedly when he sees the name and photo pop up on the screen and runs his hands over his face, “of course he’d fucking be calling you!”
You reach over the bed and grab your phone.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you two are screwing behind my back!”
“Oh, fuck you Drew! You know Alex and I are just friends! We’ve been friends since the start of college!” You turn and face him, your phone going off once more.
“If you answer that phone, we’re done.” Drew points to your phone.
You look at him like he’s crazy, “You’re not serious.” You breath out. The phone stops ringing but Alex rings you once more.
“I’m dead serious, y/n.”
“Drew, I have to answer this. He’s on shift at the hospital tonight. Something could have gone wrong.”
“Fine.” He runs a hand over his hair, “answer “your fucking person.””
You take a shakey breath and answer the phone, “Hello?” You glance up at Drew, listening to Alex. “Okay… yeah…. I didn’t hear it… I know… okay… bye.” You hang up and head for your closet, “I have to go.”
Drew shakes his head, “Yeah, alright. Of course you do. Can’t even get through a conversation without you rushing off to Alex.”
You pull your scrubs from the closet, “Drew, there’s been a horrible accident in the city and the hospital is understaffed. I have to go.” You toss your scrubs in your bag and throw it over your shoulder, heading for the front door, Drew following close behind.
“I won’t be here when you get home.” He calls out to you, “I won’t do this anymore.”  
Your hand stops on the doorknob and glance back over your shoulder at Drew. He’d been with you through it all. He’d pushed you to become a doctor, to follow your dreams and now he was giving you an ultimatum, him or your career. Your dream career, your dream job; something you’d busted your ass for. You’d never give up that for a man. You’d worked too damn hard.
You throw open the door and step out, letting it slam shut behind you and walked your way to the hospital.
~
After a 24 hour shift, you’d arrived home to an empty house. Drew’s belongings were gone, along with him. You closed the door and broke down into tears. You didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or the fact your long time boyfriend had broken things off.
You slowly slid down the wall and your butt hit the floor with a thump. You don’t how long you’d been sitting in the floor, but a knock on the door stirred you. You sniffled, “Who is it?”
“It’s Alex and Lexie…”
“We have Chinese and wine.”
Without even standing you open the door and see their head peek in. As soon as they see your state, Lexie takes the food and wine to the kitchen.
“How long have you been here for?” Alex says bending to your level.
You give a small shrug.
He scrunches his nose, “Seems like since you got home.” He lets out a chuckle, “You smell like shit.”
You laugh a little but it then turns into a sob. “He left… he left.”
Alex sighs and sits next to you, wrapping his arm around you and pulling you to his chest, “It’s okay… he didn’t deserve you.” His hand rubs your back as you sob into his chest.
Lexi comes back and sits on the other side of you, leaning her head on your shoulder/arm, taking your hand in hers, “It’s gonna be okay… you’re going to be okay.”
“You got us.” Alex says, “We’ll be here for you.”
~ months later~
Time passed and you still hadn’t heard anything from Drew. However, you of course saw fan photos of him out in South Carolina, whether it be with the rest of the cast or by himself. You hadn’t spoken to any of the cast members since everything happened, which sucked because you were close to Rudy and Madison, but that’s what happens when a couple breaks up.
Drew sits on the couch next to Austin as Chase is flipping through channels. Maddie and Madison are watching tiktoks and Rudy and JD are fixing them something to eat in the kitchen. Drew wasn’t necessarily paying attention to what was on the TV when something caught his eye as Chase changed the channel. “Wait, Chase go back.”
Chase flips the channel back and it’s as if Drew’s whole world fell before his feet. There on the news channel was the hospital, the hospital you are interning at in flames. “SEATLE GRACE IN FLAMES….. 10 DEAD & MULTIPLE INJURED” Drew slowly shifts to the edge of the couch watching in shock, the rest of the cast following when they realize what’s on TV.
“Isn’t that…” Maddie begins.
“where y/n is interning.” He quickly stands and pulls his phone out, dialing your number, but it went straight to voicemail. “She’s not answering.”
Madison slowly rises from the couch, “Drew, I’m sure it’s okay. I’m sure she’s okay. She’s not allowed to have her phone and I’m sure it’s off.”
He begins to pace, dialing your number and once again it goes to voicemail. “What if she’s dead? What if…” His eyes are panicked as he looks on at his friends, “The last thing I said to her was I-I…” His hands run through his hair, “I don’t remember the last thing I said to her.” What if he’d never be able to make things right with you? Tell you how much of an idiot he was? That he still loved you?
Madison grabs Drew’s arm to stop his pacing, “Freaking out isn’t going to help. Why don’t you call her parents? See if they’ve heard from her? You can’t assume the worst Drew.”
Drew called your family, who hadn’t heard from you either and couldn’t get in touch. Drew finally made the decision to hop on a plane and fly out there for you. The cast following as well. ~
It had all happened so quickly. You and Alex were on your way to the cafeteria for lunch and the ground below you had shook. Then the ceiling began to fall, screams and dust everywhere. You called out to Alex, coughing and could hear him calling your name. You went to take a step and that’s when the floor below you gave out.
~
Alex was sitting at your bedside when Drew had come rushing in. He stood from his seat, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Drew looked over at Alex then back at your body laying in the hospital bed. You had a few cuts on your head and arms. “I saw it on the news… and headed straight here.”
“She wouldn’t want you here.” Alex points out the door, “Get out.”
“What are you her boss? How do you know what she would want?”
“Because you left her and you don’t deserve to be here.” Alex steps toward Drew so they’re chest to chest.
“There’s too much testosterone in this room.” You squeak out, coughing.
Alex turned around, grabbing the water and putting the straw to your lips. “Of course you’d have a sarcastic remark…”
Drew moves around your bed to the other side and you took in the man you hadn’t seen for months. The man who broke your heart.
“I told him to get out but the punk wouldn’t listen.” Alex mutters from your bedside.
“I had to make sure you were okay.” Drew remarks, “I saw the fire on the news and flew out as soon as I could..”
You took another sip of the water, “You flew out here? What about filming?”
He glances at the door then back at you, “Kinda can’t film if the whole cast is here… plus we’re on a break.”
“Everyone’s here?”
Drew nods, “We were all worried about you. Had to make sure you were okay.”
“Well don’t just leave them standing out there.. tell them to get their asses in here.” You wince, sitting up a little.
“There was a limit on how many in your room…” Drew begins.
You wave him off, “The nurses love me. They won’t say shit.”
Drew walks over to the door and motions the cast in. Madison was the first to make it to you and pulls you into a gentle hug, “We were so worried.”
~
Everyone stayed in the room for a little while before leaving to give you and Drew time to talk. Alex was reluctant to leave. “He’s a punk that you cried over for months.”
You give his hand a gentle squeeze, “Karev, I promise it’s okay. Go get you a coffee or something.”
He nods and then looks at Drew, narrowing his eyes, and giving him a look before walking out of the room. After the door closes, Drew takes the seat next to you.
“How’s your family doing?” You ask, turning your head to look at him.
“You just got in a horrible accident and you’re asking about my family?” He shakes his head, “You and your caring self… They miss you. Told me I was stupid for breaking things off.”
“They always did love me more..” You tease.
He chuckles and nods, “Yeah.. they really did.”
You reach over and take his hand, “You didn’t have to come out here.”
He peers down at your hand in his. His eyes filling with tears, “I called you and you didn’t answer.” He glimpsed up at you.
Your eyes fill with tears just as you saw his and you lean your head back on the bed, “You know you were the only thing on my mind.. after I fell through the floor. I know you ended things but I never stopped loving you, Drew.” You cast your eyes back to his, “You were what helped me. I just kept remembering little things about you to keep my mind on something else besides the pain.” Your hand reaches up to touch his cheek, “I told myself if I made it through this, I would call you.”
He shakes his head, his other hand taking yours, “I should have called you.. I just knew you’d moved on to some fancy doctor.”
“How could I move on to someone else when my heart was already taken?”
All my works tag list:  @blossomreed​ , @mggstyles​  , @simonsbluee​ ,
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retrievablememories · 4 years
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a strange love | yuta (m)
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title: a strange love pairing: alien!yuta x black!reader genre: sci-fi/fantasy, fluff, angst, smut request: “I read a good chunk of your NCT work and really liked them. Would I be able to request a fic where a black female reader meets an alien (can be Yuta or Jungwoo) and they're both coming to terms that they're attracted to each other and have to come to terms with being attracted to someone of a different species? Can be smutty and don't be afraid to give the alien a less human biology if you don't mind.” word count: 13.1k warnings: alcohol use, cursing, near drowning experience, lots of mentions of water so this one might not mesh well with people w/ aquaphobia, non-human biology/body horror, extraterrestrial sex, lots of cum, oral sex (female receiving), tentacle dick, unprotected sex, creampie, please heed the warnings because this is an alien smutfic lmao a/n: giving the shape of water teas. i’ve actually never seen that movie 😕 but i will at some point. forgive me in advance for the nerdy references in here.
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It’s funny how things happen when you least expect it. You never would’ve thought you’d be sound asleep when your entire world changed.
The night the UFO crashes in your city, you’re awoken by the tremors of its landing. The vibrations feel akin to an earthquake, and they make picture frames and other trinkets fall off your shelves and hit the floor in a clatter of noise. You jump up from your pillow at the racket, your heart pounding. You glance at the things lying on your floor and quickly register that the room—your entire home—is trembling.
There’s not much you can do at this point but ride it out, so you huddle down in your covers and hope the roof doesn’t cave in on your head. To your knowledge, your particular area isn’t known for earthquakes, which makes all of this even stranger. What could be causing one now? Is the world finally ending?
Eventually, the tremors stop. By now, your shelves have been emptied of nearly all their contents, but you’re still alive, which you’re grateful for. You wait a few more minutes to see if the shakes will begin again, but they don’t, so you climb out from the warmth of your covers to clean up your floor.
Police and ambulance sirens start blaring through the city not long after you get out of bed. That’s nothing unusual; there are usually injuries and casualties with natural disasters like these, and you expect many poor souls will be needing rescue tonight. You sigh and look at your closed blinds, watching them be sporadically illuminated by the lights of the emergency vehicles rushing past.
Once you’ve cleaned up your room and gotten back in bed, you think about checking social media for what people have been saying about the quake. There’s no doubt that the city’s residents have taken to Twitter and Instagram to document it. However, your eyelids are already starting to droop, and you’d probably fall asleep in the middle of scrolling, so you decide to tuck in and wait until morning.
Waking up the next day almost seems like a normal Sunday until you look at your blinds again and are suddenly reminded of last night’s flashing lights. Right. The earthquake. Throwing the covers back, you stumble out of bed to turn on your TV. You flip through the channels until you find a news station for your local area. You go to open the blinds, keeping your ears open for reports on the earthquake.
“Last night, we experienced unprecedented seismic activity throughout the majority of the city, caused by what appears to be an unidentified flying object, otherwise known as a UFO—”
Huh?
You turn to the TV, thinking this must be some kind of ridiculous hoax. You get ready to reach for the remote, thinking you must have turned it to one of those parody news channels by accident, but you freeze at what you see. Video footage of the city center—or what used to be the city center—plays on the screen. In place of the large historical monument that used to stand there, there’s a huge...silver and black spaceship. Or at least you think it’s a ship. It apparently sustained major damage in the landing, and now it looks more like a hunk of melted metal. The area around it has been blasted clear in every direction. Instead of green grass and pavement, there’s nothing but dirt.
The area is blocked off with yellow tape, though hundreds of people have gathered at the location to check out the object and take pictures and videos of it.
“What the fuck…” you whisper to yourself.
“We’re currently unsure where this UFO originated from, though we can confirm that it is not affiliated with any aircraft fleets owned by the U.S. military. Researchers and scientists from top universities across the country are being called in to assist in identifying this craft…”
“There’s no just way,” you mutter, grabbing your shower cap and pulling clothes out of your closet for your morning shower. “A UFO...guess that alien invasion is coming sooner than we thought.” You would like to believe it’s all just someone playing a terrible prank, but pulling off this level of theatrics is impossible.
After you get out of the shower and start making breakfast for yourself, you get a text from one of your coworkers, Alex.
10:30 A.M. Alex🍸 You seeing this shit on the news right now?
10:31 A.M. Obviously! It’s fucking wild. Do you really think it’s true? OR some elaborate government hoax? Anything’s possible. I’m betting “true,” but...
10:33 A.M. Alex🍸 I honestly don’t know. that’s why me and some of the others from work are about to head over there now. Wanna come?
10:34 A.M. The hell! I’ll pass. There could be all types of radiation n shit, I’m not tryna turn into the Green Lantern or the Hulk or somebody.
10:35 A.M. Alex🍸 lmFAO. Suit ypurself. If I gain superpowers don’t be surprised if I fly over to your house today.
10:35 A.M. You’re a mess. 💀
You spend breakfast watching more news reports and scrolling through Twitter feeds for firsthand information. People who visited the site, including your coworkers, have uploaded pictures of the UFO from various angles, inciting a frenzy of conspiracy theories and warnings that the world is about to end.
You don’t know what to make of the situation, but it stays on your mind throughout the day as you leave the house and go about completing your usual errands. The city center has been blocked off to all vehicles other than those belonging to people who’ve been called in to help, which means that traffic is sky-high everywhere else—even for a Sunday.
Sitting in a mishmash of cars, you roll down your window and sigh, looking out at the red traffic lights, and beyond that to the horizon. Things are about to get very weird for the next few weeks. Maybe months. You can only hope you’re prepared for it.
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You don’t know why, but the air seems strange tonight.
It’s been 2 days since the UFO crashed. There haven’t been many more answers apart from what everyone already knows due to the ship’s destroyed state. The city has professionals out for that sort of thing, but they’re taking their sweet time analyzing the ship—though you can’t really blame them. Jumping straight into unknown alien tech seems like a death wish.
Your life has been pretty much the same as usual, though you know a few people at work who have been more directly affected by the events. One girl, Sooyoung, who lives in the neighborhood near the crash site claims the officials are thinking about having that entire area evacuate, though you don’t know why they’re beating around the bush about it if it’s true. Whatever radiation or chemicals they’re worried about has probably already leached into all the surrounding homes, and now you’re just waiting for someone to walk into your workplace with antlers or purple skin.
Admittedly, you’re morbidly curious about the case and what all of this could mean for Earth’s future, but you keep your fascination lowkey. You don’t need any of your coworkers thinking you’re the next alien-obsessed Mulder from X-Files. But then again, you’re not curious enough to visit the actual scene, so maybe you’re not the crazy one here.
You feel fine when you get home from work that day, but as you get washed up and settle into your usual evening routine, you can’t shake the eeriness gripping your subconscious. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, either, just...foreign. Like an emotion you’ve never felt before, though you didn’t know there were even still new emotions to discover. Shaking your head, you figure maybe you should lay off the alien stuff for the rest of the week.
Before you head to bed that night, you go around the house making sure all the doors and windows are locked as you normally do. You pause at the backdoor for a reason you can’t explain, and the strange feeling grows stronger. At this point, you’re a bit frightened about what this is all about, but you can’t go to sleep without knowing. Curiosity takes over as you open the blinds and stare into the darkness of your backyard.
You don’t see anything right away. There are trees, bushes, your potted plants, and lawn chairs...everything looks normal. It’s only when you lean closer to the glass to squint that you see a figure lying in the grass. You jump once you catch sight of it, terrified that some monster or murderer has found their way onto your property. There was nothing there earlier when you closed the blinds, so whoever or whatever it is must’ve recently showed up.
You’re about ready to dial 911 when you realize the figure is curled in the fetal position and unmoving...almost like they’re unconscious. Or dead.
This is ridiculous. You feel like one of those people who always dies first in the horror movies because they went into the room the killer was obviously hiding in, but you’re overcome with the strong impulse to step outside. You grip the doorknob tightly, debating whether you should unlock it or not.
“...Fuck. Don’t let me regret this.”
You open the door with your phone in hand, the device serving as your flashlight. There’s still the screen door to get through, which you pause at for a moment. The figure remains unmoving even with the sound of the door opening.
“Hello?!” You call out to the individual, but there’s no response. Your phone’s light can’t reach them from there, which forces you to open the screen door and step out onto the porch. They’re still feet away, but from this closer distance, it seems like they’re wearing a sort of armor or full-body suit...maybe like a cosplay?
“Hope this isn’t some weirdo weeb passed out on my lawn…” you mutter, cautiously stepping onto the grass. As you approach, you can see now that the figure is likely male, though their back is to you so you can’t be totally sure. “Um, hello there? Can you hear me?” No response.
By now, you are only a few feet away from them. The person looks to be an Asian guy, with long blonde hair haloing his face. His features are angular and smooth, and he is indeed wearing some kind of body armor, its color unlike anything you’ve seen. Instead of being all one hue or even a few, it reflects the light from your phone and glows with a rainbow-like phosphorescence. The material itself looks translucent, but you can’t see through it; it creates a mind-bending optical illusion.
Your stomach suddenly drops to your feet. Is this who was in that UFO in the city center? It seems too out-there to be true, but your intuition is telling you otherwise. This can’t be fucking real.
You kneel on the wet grass next to the man and try to look for signs of life. You can hear his breathing, so he’s thankfully not dead. But he doesn’t look to be in good shape, either. He definitely won’t be able to get up on his own; he probably used the last of his energy to drag himself into your yard.
“Damn.” You turn the flashlight off and slip your phone into your sweatpants pocket. It seems like there’s no other options right now. You could call the police, but they’d probably accuse you of being in cahoots with this weird dude and drag you off to jail. Or they could cart him off for government experimentation, which sounds equally terrible. So with those things in mind, you gently maneuver his upper body until you’re able to hook your arms under his armpits and drag him towards your house.
You just really hope none of your nosy neighbors are seeing this right now.
He’s surprisingly light, and you get him inside the house fairly quickly. Once you’ve locked the door again, you pull him over to the living room so he’s propped against your couch. He still isn’t fully conscious, but his head and lips move as if he’s dreaming about something.
“What was that…?” You lean closer, trying to read his lips for some sort of clue. Surprisingly, you can make out the word water, which he mouths over and over again. “Water…” You run into the kitchen to pour a glass and bring it back to him, making sure not to spill any on the way over.
You press it to his lips, unsure if he’ll be able to drink, but to your amazement his muscles respond and he drinks quickly as you tip the glass. Soon, the water is all gone. You set the glass to the side with your palms sweating and watch as his face flutters even more. 
“Can you...hear me?”
His eyes open only slightly. This movement seems to cause him some pain, though you aren’t sure why. Maybe he has a headache since he was dehydrated? You scramble to turn the overhead light off, not wanting to make matters worse. He still doesn’t try to open his eyes any wider, though.
“Who are you? Were you...did you crash here?” You feel a little bad about asking so many questions, but you’re dying for answers as to what the hell is going on.
The man licks his lips, and his mouth parts like he’s going to answer. But his throat is still dry, and it hurts to talk.
“...Shit.” You get him another glass of water and let him drink until it’s gone again. He seems a little better after that.
“Th-this...” He clears his throat a couple times and tries again. “This is E-Earth, right?”
Now you’re the one lost for words. Although you already figured he couldn’t be from here, hearing it out loud makes your blood rush and your heart race. “Um, yes...this is Earth. Was...the UFO yours?”
He sighs, and his head falls back against the couch arm. “Yes.”
“It’s destroyed,” you say, and then feel silly about it. “But you already know that.” 
He doesn’t answer that. He just slowly glances around your living room instead, looking as if he’s never seen a stranger setup. The quietness is awkward, and you almost feel like he must be judging your taste for interior design. “Do you have a name?”
More silence. You decide he probably won’t answer until he finally says, “You can call me Yuta.”
“Yuta.” You tell him your name too, and he just nods, almost imperceptibly. He doesn’t say much without prompting, which makes it hard for you to know how to approach the situation. You don’t want to overwhelm him with questions, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to speak unless you do. “How did you end up here? I mean, in my—uh, my yard?”
Yuta shakes his head and then winces. “I crashed, and then...I just ran. The ship was melting. I just ran. I hid...I went from place to place, hiding. Don’t know how I got here.”
You wonder how he made it all the way from the city center to your home without being spotted, especially with that armor. You can only conclude that he must be stealth at hiding. Or maybe someone did spot him and the feds are about to bust down your door any minute. You take a shaky breath and try to push that anxious thought to the back of your mind.
Suddenly Yuta fixes you with a suspicious glare. “Will you reveal that I’m here?”
You try not to get offended, because you’d honestly be thinking the same if you were a newly-landed alien in a foreign land. “No. I don’t have any reason to do that. I just want to help. I’m not looking to be on anyone’s 6 o’clock news or cheap tabloid. You probably don’t believe me, but you can have my word for it...if that means anything to you.”
He’s quiet again, though you can tell he’s still skeptical.
“Um, do you need anything? More water?”
He sits up straighter at the mention of that. “Water.” You reach for the glass again, but he frowns. “Not that. I need…something more than that.” He looks around again, but when he doesn't see what he’s searching for, he attempts to stand only to slump down again.
“Slow down there, I don’t think you’re gonna make it like that. Can I help?”
You end up slinging his arm across your shoulder and letting him lean his body against you while you lead him to the bathroom. That’s the biggest source of water in the house, and you assume he must be wanting a bath or shower or something. Even aliens have their hygiene needs, you guess.
You turn the bathroom light on and have Yuta sit on the toilet lid as you turn the bathtub faucet. “Is...this what you meant?” He nods, and you put the plug in and let the tub fill up.
“Just water. Nothing else. I need to recharge,” he says, and before you can ask what he means by that, he starts undressing in front of you. 
At first, your reaction is delayed; you’re struck with surprise when you realize the armor isn’t actually a whole bodysuit, but more like...connected panels of material that can be taken off. You don’t understand the material at all, it doesn’t resemble anything on Earth you can think of—but of course, it’s alien tech. It conforms to his body as he’s wearing it but takes on a more rigid form once it’s peeled off, like actual armor.
Then, he gets ready to take the bottoms off and something finally clicks in your brain that oh my God he’s about to get naked in front of me.
“Whoa!” You spin around and cover your eyes for good measure, glad that your brown skin hides the way your face is burning right now. You step towards the open door. “Uh, I’ll just leave, sorry—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Um, what?”
“Doesn’t really matter to me,” Yuta says, pulling the last of his suit off. He steps into the tub and sits down in it, putting his hands underneath the stream of water rushing out of the faucet. The skin on his hands seems to ripple, like it’s readjusting itself, and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck at that. You forget to be embarrassed at his unclothed state as you watch it happen.
“What’s going on with that? And why did you need the water?”
Yuta splashes his face before answering, and he turns to look at you, the droplets of water sliding off the ends of his hair. “I’m part of a Water Race. Water is my home. Our bodies have adapted to be built for living in water, and it’s dangerous to be without it for too long.”
“Adaptation? But you look like a regular human.”
“It’s just a skin.”
“A skin?” You echo in horror, a sudden flashback to Silence of the Lambs popping into your mind. “Someone else’s skin?” 
Yuta gives you a look that seems to say he can’t believe you’re asking such a stupid question. “No, it’s my skin. It’s just not my natural form.” To prove his point, he holds his hand out, and right before your eyes his human skin pulls back and morphs into something much more scaly and green. His fingers are actually more like talons, with long black nails on the ends, and there’s translucent webbing between each one.
You gasp and step back, trying to catch your breath at the sight of something so very not human. The skin reforms around his hand—you assume he has to be willing it with his mind somehow, because he doesn’t even move—and his digits look just as human as ever.
“How the hell do you hide your nails under there? Isn’t it just like...wearing a bodysuit?”
Yuta shakes his head. “No. Once the skin is on, it becomes...part of me. My hand becomes a human hand. I’m not hiding anything, it just is. It’s hard to explain.”
“Have you been to Earth before? Is that why you have a human skin, because...adaptation or some shit? This is all so wild.”
“I can shift into different skins if I want, if I gather enough genetic information on certain species’ inhabitants...but there are limitations.” That doesn’t exactly answer your question, but you figure maybe it’s best if you didn’t know. You can at least assume he’s been in contact with humans before.
“I see…” You fidget for a few seconds before speaking what’s on your mind. “Okay, one last thing...you said there are limitations. Does that mean you can’t transform into, like...a dung beetle or something?”
Yuta gives you another are you serious look and you put your hands up. “Just wondering. It was worth a try.”
You feel awkward just standing there, and you feel like maybe you should give him some privacy even if he doesn’t care much, so you leave the bathroom to find something for him to wear.
You’re not sure if you’ll find anything that fits him, so you end up settling on a light pink bathrobe and decide he’ll have to work with that for now. You slip back into the bathroom to leave it on the sink, averting your eyes from his nude form in your bathtub. “Um, here’s something to wear...not sure if anything else will fit, this is all I have for now. Sorry.” You don’t wait for him to respond— he probably won’t anyway—before slipping back out.
It’s nearing 1 A.M. at this point, which is late considering you still have work tomorrow. You sigh and curl yourself up on the couch, hoping you won’t have to stay up for very much longer.
You’re not sure when you drifted off or how long you were out, but you wake up to the sound of footsteps and see Yuta coming out of the bathroom wearing the robe you’ve given him. You have to laugh a little at the sight of him in the light pink material, though you think it suits him in a way.
“Yeah, you’re gonna need some clothes.”
Yuta raises his eyebrow. “I still have my suit.”
“Yeah, but...don’t you want something else to wear? Your ship is pretty much gone, so you’ll probably be on Earth for a while...and if you don’t want anyone realizing you’re not from here, you’ll have to wear regular clothes.”
Yuta visibly upsets at the idea of his ship’s destroyed state, even though he knows there’s not much he can do about it. “I guess. I shared which planet I was heading to before I left, but...Earth is a very big place. And my trackers were destroyed with my ship, so…”
“I’m sorry,” you say, though you don’t know how much comfort that can be. “We can look for some clothes tomorrow. It’s probably better for you not to leave the house right now, but...that’s what online shopping is for.”
“Online shopping…?” Yuta seems puzzled by the concept, but he doesn’t ask any further. Then he looks around the room again. “Is there somewhere I can rest?”
“Oh, yeah, follow me.” You get up from the couch to head upstairs where the guest bedroom is. The house isn’t huge—it was your grandmother’s before she passed it on to you—but it’s more than enough for you alone, and it should fit one more just fine. You open the door and turn on the light, illuminating the small room. “It hasn’t been used in a while, so excuse any dust. I can fix that tomorrow, but it’s getting late...” you stifle a yawn, “...so we should probably go to sleep now.”
Yuta looks at you and nods. 
“Um, well...goodnight.” You wave at him from the doorway before closing it.
As you make your way down the stairs, a sudden weariness and apprehension comes over you. An alien in your home? Escaped from a recently crashed UFO? Wearing one of your bathrobes? You’re almost positive you haven’t thought this through deeply enough, but you’re in it now. Might as well see where the rabbit hole leads to.
The next morning, you prepare yourself to go to work like you usually do. For a while, the house is so quiet that you almost forget Yuta is there until you see him standing in the kitchen entryway, still wearing his pink robe, and you almost jump through the ceiling.
“Jesus, you came out of nowhere,” you gasp, holding your heart.
“Where are you going?” Yuta asks. He steps into the kitchen and tentatively sits down in one of the dining table chairs.
“To work,” you say, and then pause. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to leave a freshly-landed alien at home alone. “Will you be okay here by yourself? I could come over on my lunch break…”
“What am I supposed to do here the whole time?” Yuta asks, sounding displeased at the thought of being abandoned for hours.
“Well...you could watch TV? There’s the on-demand channel...the fridge is available for you too, just try not to clean out my—wait, do you even eat human food?”
Yuta shrugs, crossing his arms. “Not really. It’s not a big source of nutrients for us.” 
You nod awkwardly. “Huh. Well, that’s...interesting.” The stress of the situation is already making your head pound and you haven’t even left for work yet. “Uh, yeah—I think I’ll just come over later and check in...come on, I’ll at least show you how to work the remote before I leave.”
You bid Yuta goodbye once you’re about to go, though you feel more than a little hesitant about leaving him there. There isn’t much other choice, though; you can’t afford to take a day off on such short notice.
The extraterrestrial sighs, sprawling across the couch and looking at the ceiling. The TV is already playing the channel you left it on, and Yuta turns to the screen and watches as a group of humans make weird food dishes he’s never seen before.
“This is stupid.”
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The rest of the week with Yuta manages to be an adventure even though he never steps foot outside the house. 
Yuta doesn’t take a liking to human food, which means he opts for spending most of his time in the guest bathtub instead, claiming that the water gives him more nourishment than meals can. You don’t know how true that is, but you’re not going to fight him on it. Less food you have to prepare, you reason...although you often end up making extra anyway and getting him to try a few bites. It feels odd to not see him eat.
Living with someone from outer space is not really as weird as you expected it might be, which surprises you. Yuta stays in his human skin whenever he’s around you, and you steer clear of the guest bathroom when it’s occupied lest you walk in on something crazy. 
You’ve taught Yuta about new concepts he didn’t know before or wasn’t overly familiar with. He’s particularly intrigued with online shopping, and you ended up buying him a bunch of outfits that you both thought he’d look nice in. He doesn’t seem to be big on technology, which surprises you considering how advanced his UFO looked even its ruined state, but maybe human tech is more primitive than what he’s used to. He’s quite fascinated with the microwave, though, and how it can heat anything up in minutes.
With you uncovering new bits of information each day, you continually wonder how different his homeworld must be from the Earth. You can’t pull much out of him about it, for whatever reasons he has for keeping the information close, but you try to let him talk about it at his pace without pressuring him.
You could probably get used to living like this. 
Maybe not your wallet, though. You’re definitely not loving how your water bill is going to look once it comes in the mail.
None of your coworkers or neighbors know—not that it’s any of their business anyway. You don’t know how long Yuta is going to stay, or what the hell you’re going to do when his people finally catch wind of his whereabouts and land a UFO in your backyard, but you figure you’ll get to that part when it comes.
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On one Saturday morning, you wake up to the sound of tapping on your door. You try to ignore it, thinking it’s just some woodpecker setting up shop outside your window, but you’re proven wrong when the door swings open.
You pull the covers away from your face for a moment to see Yuta standing there looking at you. You stare at him for a few seconds before sighing.
“Why are you up so early? It’s the weekend,” you groan, pulling the covers back over your head. 
“Why do you sleep so late?” Yuta retorts, still standing in your doorway. You don’t know whether he expects you to get up and do a trick, but it’s not happening. You peel the blanket away so it’s just below your eyes and look at him.
“What?”
“It’s not fun being here alone all day, you know,” he says, crossing his arms.
“So...what? Do you want me to play with you or something?” You can’t stop your sudden laugh, but you feel bad about once it’s out. He has just lost his ride home and has no foreseeable way back until someone notices his absence. Plus, needing to stay hidden and cooped up like a criminal can’t be enjoyable.
Yuta rolls his eyes at your response and starts down the hallway again, but you jump out of the bed and follow him. “Wait, Yuta, I’m sorry. That was stupid. I know it can’t be easy living like this. I’m not sure if I can make it better, but I’m willing to try.”
Yuta pauses in the hall and turns back to look at you. “I’m tired of being in here all the time....no offense. But there’s only so much I can take. I know I’m supposed to be in hiding, but it’s not like anyone can tell the difference. Even you couldn’t. Can’t we go out for one day?”
You think about it for a moment and figure he’s right. You both were trying to be overly cautious at first, but there’s no real way anyone would notice anything unless he shifted. “I guess we could...as long as we don’t go anywhere with a lot of water.”
“I have more self-control than that,” Yuta scoffs, though his words trail off as he’s already heading back to his room to get dressed.
You and Yuta walk around downtown for a little while, although you can’t shake the lingering nervousness you feel. You both decided not to head back to the city center any time soon; there’s not much left of the broken ship anyway, with scientists carting off pieces of it for research. Just as you thought. It’s too big to transport all at once, but you’re sure the remaining parts will be gone within the next couple weeks.
Yuta is continually surprised by how many new and unfamiliar things he spots along the way—things he actually gets to see up close and in detail. Kinda hard to focus when you’re running and hiding for your life.
Eventually, Yuta slows down as you walk past a small and colorful restaurant. “What’s that?” he asks, pointing up at the sign. You stop to turn around and see what he’s gesturing to.
“That’s just a hamburger joint...you won’t wanna go in there,” you say, raising your eyebrows. Because you don’t eat food. Despite that, Yuta still seems curious about the restaurant and he hesitates to walk away. Realizing that you aren’t going to get anywhere, you go to stand next to him and peer inside. There are a few people already inside, sitting at scattered tables and eating their food. “Do you want to go in, or…? ‘Cause you have to eat something if we do. This is your idea.”
“I’ll eat, let’s just go,” Yuta says, grasping your hand and pulling you into the restaurant.
You wave at the person behind the counter who greets you as you walk in, while Yuta is busy scanning every inch of the place. You let him look over the menu for a little while, but with so many options available he isn’t sure what to get—especially when he’s not sure if he’ll like any of them—so you end up picking for the both of you.
When you finally get your food, you take it to one of the tables. You watch attentively as Yuta takes the first bite of his hamburger, and you try to stifle your giggles as you watch his face go from nonchalance to bewilderment to shock.
“This is actually...good.”
“Wait, this is really the first meal you’ve liked? Are you saying my cooking is bad? Damn.” You chuckle, shaking your head. 
“I’m not answering that.” Yuta laughs along with you, which is probably the first genuinely happy expression he’s shown since he’s been here.
Yuta has a very pretty smile, you realize. You’re a little taken aback by it. You haven’t seen much of it since you met him, but it’s here now and striking in its genuine quality. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside...which you mainly attribute to the satisfaction of doing something nice for someone else. Of course. Who wouldn’t enjoy a nice meal they didn’t have to pay for?
Things go smoothly for a while as you both eat and pretend to make boring small talk since you can’t talk about him being an alien in public. However, you feel sweat on the back of your neck when you see your coworker Alex walk through the door with his boyfriend. This city is too small for its own good sometimes. 
You try not to call attention to yourself and Yuta, keeping your gaze on your food, but he spots you anyway and waves enthusiastically. Alex gestures for his partner to go ahead and order while he comes over to your table.
“Hey, Y/N! It’s great to see you! Too bad we missed you at the UFO wreck today, though; we went out again one last time before they take the whole thing away,” he rushes out in one breath. Yuta’s eye twitches at the mention of his ship, and you’re suddenly on edge, hoping the situation doesn’t turn sour.
“Oh, uh, wow, that’s...cool!” you choke out, pinching your straw between your fingers. Before you can think of a way to divert the subject, Alex turns to Yuta.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Alex! Who’s this? Your boyfriend?” The last few words are directed at you. Alex gives you a playful grin, and you toss him an embarrassed smile back.
“Uh, no, he’s my friend! Yuta.”
“Nice to meet you,��� Yuta says, though you can recognize his tone is a bit dry.
“Pleasure’s all mine!” Alex’s boyfriend calls him from the other side of the restaurant, and he turns to respond before taking his leave. “Ah well, looks like we’ll have to cut it short, but it was so great to see you guys. Enjoy your lunch!”
You let out the breath you were subconsciously holding once he leaves.
“Boyfriend…” Yuta murmurs.
“What?”
“That would be really weird. Wouldn’t it? We’re not even the same species,” he says, lowering his voice. It’s not like you don’t agree, but you admittedly don’t appreciate the way Yuta screws his face up at the thought. You prickle with embarrassment.
You scoff, taking a sip of your drink. “Well I’m not exactly eager to date an overgrown fish, so…” You almost expect Yuta to fall into another one of his moods at your words, but he actually chuckles a bit, which surprises you.
“Then it’s mutual!” Yuta sticks his tongue out and you roll your eyes.
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The warm and fuzzy feeling, you soon find out, is not a one-time thing.
You don’t quite know what to make of that. You wouldn’t like for Yuta to go back to his initial broody state, of course, but you’re starting to believe this feeling can’t just be attributed to your charitable actions. You can’t stop thinking about the more playful side of Yuta you saw at the burger place that day, and the way he’s been gradually more open with you since then.
Yuta usually spends his nights splashing around in the guest bathtub, but one night he wanders into the living room and sees you putting your afro in plaits. He becomes weirdly fascinated with the process, watching you carefully and asking occasional questions. Amused by his interest, you answer all his questions and even offer to let him do one section. 
“It’s probably not the same, but I used to braid my friend’s hair often…” he says wistfully as he settles in behind you. “We did a lot of things together.”
Your ears perk up. “Oh? You sound like you were very close,” you say, resting your chin on your knees.
“Really close,” he affirms. His hands are gentle in your hair, as testament to his words. You close your eyes and relax into the sensation, and before you know it, that warmth is spreading through your chest again. You even allow yourself to wonder what it’d be like for him to do this all the time, tending to your hair and telling you about his homeworld, before you open your eyes again and quickly pull yourself out of that reverie. You probably shouldn’t get too used to this, you reason with yourself. “I think she’s what you’d call a mermaid...except the look is a bit...different.”
“Different?” you echo, wondering if you’ll get an explanation.
“They don’t have human arms or anything like that...it’s more like tentacles.”
“Ah,” you try to imagine that, though it’s hard. “That’s certainly unique.”
“Maybe you’d like it...my planet, I mean.”
“You think I would? Why?”
“I dunno, just a feeling…”
“If only I could breathe underwater,” you laugh. “You’d take me back, though? Hypothetically, of course. I’m not too human for you?”
“Will you ever let that one go? It’s probably the least I could do after setting up residence here. Maybe we’ll get you an alien costume, though, so you’ll fit in.”
“How nice of you to think of me in all my humanness. God, the universe is something else…”
You start when Yuta’s hands leave your hair. “I think I’m done?” he says, sitting back on his feet. You grab the mirror from the coffee table and look at the braid you let him do.
“Oh wow, it looks good.” You purse your lips to hide the grin about to break across your face. “Do you wanna do the rest?”
“If you’ll let me.”
“Go ahead then, my hands needed a break anyway.”
You sit back and let Yuta finish the rest of your hair, listening quietly as he tells you more about his friend from his homeworld. Her name is unpronounceable to you, but it sounds pretty all the same. They grew up together, he says, and have been on lots of adventures over the years, though he still keeps that same vagueness he always has when describing his life. He ends up getting you to tell him more about your life, which you do; you figure he probably doesn’t know a whole lot about you, either.
Yuta hands you the mirror when he’s done, and his head pops up next to yours in the reflection. “Good?”
“It’s great!” you say, and you really mean it.
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You discover that, strangely enough, Yuta has an affinity for sci-fi movies. Go figure. He especially seems to like the campiness of alien films; then again, everything is campy to him because of how different it is from how extraterrestrials actually live.
You are in the middle of watching The Fly when it comes to one of sex scenes, and you try not to sweat. It’s always a little awkward to watch sex scenes with other people, but doing it with an alien gives the whole thing an extra layer of weirdness.
“Human sex is so funny,” Yuta says out of nowhere. You just barely avoid choking on your drink.
“Uh, o-okay. Do I want to know what that means?”
Yuta only shrugs and leans farther back onto the couch, looking completely unbothered about what he’s just said. “It just is.”
“...I’m sure your people must procreate some kinda way?”
“Yeah, but it’s not quite this. But when I’m in this form, I can do it as humans do.”
That makes you pause, and you’re not sure what to do with that information. Actually, your mind has already decided for itself and is trying to go to a place you don’t want it to, and you’re mildly horrified by that revelation. There’s no real reason why you should be curious about it. And yet...
“Hummm...have you done it before? In this form?” You keep your eyes glued to the screen, which is now showing a shirtless Jeff Goldblum doing acrobatics—but that’s still less awkward than looking over at Yuta right now.
“There was one time.”
There is a twinge of something in your chest. Fascination? Sure. Revulsion? Maybe not that. Dare you call it anything close to jealousy? You immediately throw that one out the door, sink further into your seat, and try not to think about what your life has come to.
“Okay, since you still won’t tell me directly if you’ve been here before, at least tell me this; did it happen here on Earth? With a human?”
Yuta shakes his head. “Some other aliens have weird fetishes. I only did it because she asked and was really adamant about it.”
“Ooookay, you know what…” You get up from the couch and walk to the kitchen, laughing awkwardly all the way. You don’t have any particular reason to go in there, but you have to do something with the nervous energy that’s about to make you jump out of your skin. You pretend to shuffle around in the fridge for a minute so you don’t look too silly getting up for no reason.
After taking a moment to calm down, you turn back to Yuta. “Okay. Hypothetically, if you wanted, could you actually…? With a human? In your natural form? Or would the parts be incompatible, or...”
“Maybe...I’m not sure. It’s not like I’ve ever tried. Why?” Yuta gives you a look that’s partway between curiosity and incredulity, and you wave your hand in dismissal.
“It’s just a question.”
Yuta leans forward on the couch, barely concealing his own amusement at whatever he’s cooking up in his mind. “Are you saying you want to try it with me?”
“You’re not funny,” you sigh, trying to ignore the way your skin is burning at that suggestion. “Remind me not to ask you anything like that again.”
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When you get home from work one weeknight, you roll your eyes at the mass text sitting in your inbox, forwarded to you from Alex. Another after-work party, which means another event where someone will run through the sprinklers naked and everyone will pretend like they don’t remember it the next workday.
You don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one, especially with Yuta, who will likely want to go if he finds out, so you decide to just come out and say it and see what happens.
“Hey Yuta…” You slide up behind him where he’s sitting on the couch. “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be at home for a few hours on Saturday. I’m going to a party this weekend. It’s a friend’s party, someone from work.”
Yuta looks at you forlornly. “The same person we met at the restaurant?”
“No, but he’s gonna be there too. Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I really don’t know if it’s safe for you to go…”
“That’s not fair, the last time at the restaurant went well,” Yuta argues.
“Yes, but this guy has a pool and he’s a dickhead who likes to push people in and what if you get caught off guard and change unexpectedly?”
Yuta’s response is as straightforward as you expected it to be. “Then I’ll punch him in the face.”
You laugh at that and shake your head, coming to sit beside him on the couch. “Ugh. As satisfying as that sounds, I don’t need the extra stress of dealing with the aftermath. I don’t know, Yuta...do you think you’ll be okay? God, I feel like an overprotective mom or some shit.”
“Y/N, it’ll be fine, stop worrying. I can take care of myself,” Yuta insists, putting his hand on your shoulder and looking into your eyes. He’s a little closer than you anticipated, which makes your heart rate increase a little. You chalk that reaction up to his invasion of your personal space and shift away, groaning.
“Fine, I’ll bring you. But if shit goes down, I can’t promise an easy way out. Let’s just keep things lowkey, alright?”
“Of course I can do that! I’ve been doing it so far haven’t I?” he says, but somehow you’re not entirely convinced.
The party is filled with people you know from work and a slew of unfamiliar faces, probably your coworkers’ friends. It’s mostly a backyard party, like you already knew, although there are some people mingling within the house.
There are already a few people lounging in the pool. In any other scenario, it might be inviting to you, but now you just look at all that water with a looming sense of anxiety. Yuta sticks close to your side, saying nothing but studying everyone around him.
“Y/N!” your coworker David shouts from the backdoor of his house. He holds up his beer in salutation and you wave back at him, mildly annoyed that he’s brought everyone’s attention to you both. He hustles over to you and claps you on the back strong enough to make your bones rattle, and you wince. “Hey dude!” He reaches across you to pull Yuta into a handshake, and Yuta also winces when he grips his hand a little too tight. “Make yourselves at home, I’ve got everything you could ever need—including the booze and babes!” You both nod awkwardly before David goes off to greet someone else who’s just pulled up. You roll your eyes once he’s gone.
Yuta’s eyebrows draw together. “That was…”
“Annoying,” you finish for him.
“You don’t seem to like him. Why did you decide to come?”
“Workplace politics, if you’re the only one who doesn’t come it’s awkward, ugh. It’s just bullshit. Let’s not get into it.” You walk towards the house and Yuta follows, and you nod at a few people you know along the way.
You find Alex in the kitchen, where he offers to make drinks for you and Yuta. You cast a glance at Yuta, wondering if he’ll take up the offer; you have no idea how he’ll react to alcohol, or if they drink any equivalent of it on his homeworld.
“Um, I think I’ll pass.”
“Oh okay, straight-edge guy! That’s cool too,” Alex grins, making just the one drink for you. As you and Alex talk, the girl from your department whose neighborhood was about to be evacuated sidles up to your little group.
“I’ve never seen you before. What’s your name?”
“Oh...it’s Yuta.”
“Yuta? How cool, I’m Sooyoung.”
Little did you know that that one introduction would expand into them having a half-hour long conversation right there in the kitchen. You really don’t know how Yuta is pulling this off without spilling the beans, but then again, you do; he’s good enough at manipulating the conversation to make it seem like he’s sharing personal info when he’s really not. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he throws in things you taught him every so often.
Alex notices your changing demeanor and follows you as you walk into the living room, finally exhausted with playing third wheel. “Hm, someone seems a little spicy.”
You cough. “I’m fine, it’s just cramped in there, David should really invest in a bigger house..this place could use a remodel.” You throw a glance around the living room, not wanting to see the mischievous look in Alex’s eyes.
“Well, remodel aside, it’s not really my business, but you certainly seem to have a little green monster brewing here.”
You give Alex a long look. “Don’t. He’s my friend. He’s not even—” You have to stop yourself before you expose anything, and you shift nervously on your feet.
“Not even what? Your type? I don’t know, he’s handsome enough to me. You can’t go wrong with a pretty boy. Don’t tell Xavier I said that, though.”
“Lord, let me get the hell out of here…” You leave Alex to cackle to himself while you go out into the backyard again, holding your drink and mulling around the edges of the activity. Too busy wrestling with your own emotions, you don’t realize how close you’ve drifted towards the pool.
“Hey, Y/N?” David says from behind you.
“Yeah?” You go to turn towards him, but before you can, you feel a huge shove from behind and the next thing you know your feet are off the ground and you’re in the pool. It all happens so fast that you can barely catch your bearings, and for a terrifying moment you’re convinced you’re about to drown.
The seconds feel like minutes, and you can’t even open your eyes to tell up from down. The next thing you register is an arm around your waist, and somehow you’re being pulled up even though you’re too panicked to even control your limbs. Your head pops above the water and you cough and sputter loudly, trying to take in air. You try to blink the water out of your eyes, though it drips off your hair and makes it even harder to see.
You’re still not sure what the hell is going on until you’re hauled out of the water and sitting on the ground. Someone hands you a towel, and you hear a female voice saying you’re such an asshole, David.
You wipe the water off of your face and then you’re finally able to see; Yuta is crouching in front of you, just as soaked as you are and staring at you with a worried expression. You look back at him, disoriented and a little dumbfounded at his still-human state.
“You didn’t…”
Even though you’re still trembling with the fear of almost drowning, you’re unable to look anywhere but at Yuta for that moment—at the pure concern on his face.
“Nice going, David,” someone else says sarcastically.
“It was just a bit of a prank! No hard feelings guys, come on. Y/N?” You realize David is standing on your left, and he tries to come closer, his hands open in an apologetic gesture. You jerk away from him, holding the towel to your shaking form.
“Get the fuck away from me. You’re a fucking idiot!” you shout. “All you do is ‘play pranks’ and then you wonder why no one likes you!” That draws a few barely concealed laughs out of the people standing nearby, though you don’t think any of it is funny. David steps back, unsure how to respond and looking truly embarrassed for once in his life.
Filled with anger, you try to get to your feet but you’re still unsteady. Yuta puts his arm around you again, lifting you up and encouraging you to lean your weight on him.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
You don’t have much to say on the way back home. You insist on leaving right away even though Yuta suggests you sit and wait until the tremors subside. He obviously can’t drive you back home, so it’s all he can offer, though it doesn’t make you feel much better.
The silence itself isn’t particularly awkward to Yuta, but he is uncomfortable anyway because he knows it stems from your own discomfort. At a red light, he turns to you.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really.”
He’s quiet for a few moments, and then he speaks again. “I know you’re mad about the pool, but...it seems like there’s more than that. Did...you not like me spending so much time with Sooyoung?”
You scoff. “You can’t be serious. I don’t care what you and that girl do.”
“You’re not a very good liar.” You’re too worn out to argue, so you merely give him a sidelong glance. Yuta sits back in his seat and watches a few cars zip past, their tail lights looking like clashing stars against the night. He’s not used to so much...manmade stuff. There was his ship and his trackers, of course, but he still has a hard time adjusting to be surrounded by so much iron and steel. His own planet is ruled by nature, by the vast oceans in all their unpolluted original essence, but Earth—or at least this portion of it—is much, much different.
He means to glance back at you, but his eyes linger for a while longer than intended. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because your outfit is a pretty color, or because the coils of your hair look shiny reflecting the light. He’s never put much thought into human beings before, and his limited experiences with them were mostly better left unremembered. Taking a human form was no huge deal for him; just a move that was necessary at the time.
But now, he’s seeing humanity—and most specifically, you—in a different light, and he’s uncertain what to do with this realization. People have feelings, thoughts, and dreams, like his own species, or like any other. He’s beginning to care what you think of him, how you react to him, even though he doesn’t know why this matters.
“You look pretty,” Yuta says. The compliment is the last thing you expected from him. It seems especially random after what happened at the party; here you are, soaking wet and incredibly uncomfortable. You’re a little late to put your foot on the gas pedal once the light turns green, and someone behind you honks.
“Pretty? I thought humans were weird to you.” Your mind goes back to The Fly and the subsequent conversation you had, and your hands tighten minutely around the steering wheel.
“You are. That hasn’t changed.”
“Good to know.” You don’t want to laugh, but this does make you crack a smile. “But...thanks. And...thanks for that, at the pool, you know. I should...probably trust you more.”
The rest of the ride is a little more talkative after that, and Yuta is happy that he could lighten your mood if even a little bit. Although he wouldn’t tell you, he’s becoming accustomed to your smile, and he’s more displeased than he thought he could be when it’s absent.
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The thunder booms so loudly that it makes your window frames shake. It almost reminds you of the day Yuta’s ship fell out of the sky. You pull the covers tighter around yourself as if they alone could protect you from the storm’s fierceness. Storm clouds have been brewing all day, but the skies didn’t open until you and Yuta went to bed. Now, the rain and lightning is in full force. The rain pounds against your window, sounding more like hail or even bullets.
You’re startled for a second time when there’s a knock on your bedroom door.
“Come in?”
The door opens slightly and Yuta appears in the small sliver of space. “Sorry, but...can I sleep here? The storm...” He gestures to the window, where a crack of lightning strikes right after. He’s wearing a sleep shirt and loose pants, and his blonde hair is disheveled. 
“Uh, sure.” You shuffle over to make room for him. “I guess this isn’t your type of water, is it?” He huddles underneath the covers with you, facing you with his arm tucked under the unoccupied pillow.
“Not when it’s so intense like this.”
You hum in acknowledgment. “It’s scary. Does rainy weather make you think of your homeworld often?”
“Often,” he repeats. “But...I think I’d be worse off if I weren’t here.”
“Here...on Earth?”
“I mean, here with you.”
“Oh,” is all you can think to say. It’s a surprisingly personal confession, though you are grateful you’ve become someone so important in his life already, even if it’s only because you’ve given him shelter. That familiar warmth spreads through you again. 
Warm and fuzzies = gratefulness to a friend, the feeling you get when you pet a cute puppy. Right. It’s not the sensation you get when you think you might have feelings for your extraterrestrial friend, you try to convince yourself. “I’m...glad you’re here. Maybe not under these circumstances, but still.”
Yuta nods without speaking, but he doesn’t take his eyes away from you. You think he must be waiting on you to say something else.
“What?” you ask quietly when he keeps staring at you. “Take a picture, it will last longer.” Your joke does little to clear the air, and the tension keeps rising. You should probably be the first one to look away, to end whatever weird game this is and go to sleep, but you can’t. It’s unexplainable.
Yuta props himself up on his elbow, and you’re about to ask him where he’s going when he slips his hand onto your bare shoulder. You’re already covered by the blankets, but you suddenly feel even hotter with his hand on you, sliding up from your shoulder to the side of your face. “Y-Yuta…?”
You don’t know what to say or do, but you don’t object when he leans closer. Your faces are only inches apart now, like he’s hesitating and wondering if he should cross the line. The thunderstorm is intense, but this moment feels much more suspenseful than that could ever be. And then, it’s suddenly satisfying when his lips are on yours.
The kiss starts gentle. He’s careful as if he’s afraid to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable. It’s soft and sweet. Things get more heated when his tongue prods against your lower lip and enters your mouth. You don’t know when his hand made it from your face to your side, but he pulls you close with his fingers pressing into the flesh just below your breasts, and you tremble at the proximity.
When you pull away, both of you are breathing harder and unable to look each other in the eye.
“Should we be doing this?” you whisper.
Yuta shakes his head. “I don’t know. But it feels good.”
At those words, you pause for a moment before moving to kiss him again. His lips respond deftly to yours, his body crowding you in and making you feel hot and enraptured with desire from where you still lie under the covers.
His hair is very soft when you slide your hands through it, though you can’t push away the thought that suddenly manifests in the back of your mind. This isn’t really his hair, or his lips, is it? It’s all a mask to cover whatever is underneath, which is something you still don’t entirely know, yet are increasingly curious about.
Yuta’s hand drifts up just high enough to caress the underside of your breast—all still over the cover of your clothes. Abruptly, that thought forces its way to the front of your mind, making itself unavoidable, and you have no idea how to reconcile it. This is all so...very unfamiliar. And undeniably scary.
You pull away from him, your face creased with conflict, and his hand stills on your body. “S-sorry, I…um...this is...”
Subsequently, he pulls his hand away from you, though some part of you doesn’t really want that to happen. “I-it’s fine.”
You both settle back into the sheets, the tense aura from before replaced with one that’s thick with unease. The storm continues on outside, unknowing and uncaring of anything else but its own nature.
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Though you would like to pretend it isn’t so, things become strained after the night of the storm.
You and Yuta don’t talk about the kiss. You expected him to say something about it that morning after, but he didn’t acknowledge it, and so you figured you just forget about it, too. What are you thinking, anyway? You’re literally from two different worlds. You don’t have the first clue about what a connection would look like between you, whether it be just sex or a relationship.
Why couldn’t you just fall for a coworker and have a bit of office drama like everyone else? Even that would be simpler.
Why did you have to let your thoughts get the best of you? You don’t have any answer for that, except for maybe your own need to come to terms with your attraction. People have never been very skilled at accepting others different from themselves, you know that much. But that usually counts for people of different ethnicities or cultural backgrounds, not two entirely different species.
You spend the whole week afterwards tearing your mind up with this monologue and trying to figure out what you should do next, because you’re quickly growing weary of coming home to a tense atmosphere. Alex can only give so much advice—not that you’d really tell him the entire situation—without knowing just how complicated everything is.
Where he used to hang out with you and help you with your hair, Yuta spends more time up in the guest bathroom again. You wonder if he thinks you’re disgusted by him. You’d probably think the same if he reacted the way you did.
Unbeknownst to you, Yuta is facing the situation with a similar amount of inner turmoil as you, wondering if he’s gone too far. He’s done many silly things in his life, but he doesn’t know how to undo this mistake. The mistake of kissing you? The mistake of seeing you as more than just another human? The mistake of knowingly flying in a faulty ship? Maybe all of it.
He feels guilty about freezing you out and pretending as if nothing happened, especially with all you’ve done to make him safe and comfortable in your home. But, at the same time, he is equally frightened to face you and discover the real reasoning for why you pulled away that night. Because you’ll never see him as someone you could like? Or maybe even love?
If that’s your truth, he’d rather leave it unsaid.
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There aren’t many choices left but to face it. Whether this idea is smart or not is yet to be seen, but you suppose you don’t have many solutions left. And you are sick of being cooped up in the house.
“You sure this is safe?” Yuta asks as he stares at the scenery whizzing past. “You were all freaked out about me being near water before...now you want to go to a lake?”
You glance over at him. “Yes, it’s my parents’ lake property. It’s private, Yuta. No one will be there but us. I think we could both use a mini vacation this weekend, yeah?” 
“I guess, sure.” Yuta shrugs. His demeanor is more closed off than it was before that dreaded kiss, but you can still tell that he’s interested in the idea of getting access to a bigger body of water, even if he doesn’t outwardly express it.
The lake house is two hours out of your city. It hasn’t been used much in the past few years with both you and your parents being busy with work and life, but if there was ever a good time to use it, it’s probably now. You just hope there aren’t any squatters of the furry variety; the last thing you need is to be fighting raccoons or squirrels after stepping through the door.
Luckily, there’s really no one but you two once you reach your destination. The lake is big and pretty like you last remembered it, sparkling under the sun and throwing the rays back in your eyes. Yuta is automatically captivated by it.
“Here it is!” you say, walking along the sand and spreading your arms out towards the body of water. “It might not be much compared to your homeworld, but I hope it’s enough.” You carry your bag up the stairs to the house and turn back to Yuta, who’s still standing by the shore gazing across the water. “You can go in, you know? Get comfortable!”
That seems to snap him out of his trance, and he turns back to you, following you up the steps. “Not right now...I’ll go later.” You’re a little disappointed at that, but you simply nod and open the door to go in.
You spend the day getting increasingly more restless as you and Yuta hang out together. You go on the pier, walk around the entirety of the lake, and even take your dad’s boat out on the water, but he still doesn’t get in.
You eat dinner together later that night, although you’re the one doing most of the eating, and there isn’t much conversation to be had. You’ve both run out of things to say that don’t center around the kiss or why he refuses to get in the water.
Yuta spends a few more moments watching you push your food around your plate before leaning forward. “Why did you bring me here?” he asks.
You sigh heavily. “Do you not like it?”
“No, I do, but…” he hesitates. “Can you answer my question first?
You raise your eyebrows. “Okay, well. I brought you here because...I don’t know. I figure you deserve to have somewhere bigger to swim around in than my guest bathtub.” You laugh nervously.
He seems unconvinced. “Is that it?”
“I’d say so! Why won’t you even take one swim, is the better question? I want you to relax and be yourself.”
He furrows his eyebrows as if he doesn’t know how to reply. “You...aren’t you...repulsed by it? I just figured you wouldn’t want to see me in my natural form. Especially since…” He trails off at the end, and your palms sweat a little.
“No! I know I was weirded out at first, but...I-I guess that was the point of this whole trip, to show you that…” You grapple with your words for a moment, unsure if now is the time to fully confess what you’re feeling. “Look, I want to try, alright? I want to see it at least once. I want to accept you as a whole being, and that means, you know...all of you.”
Yuta smiles gradually at that, and you feel swept up with a sudden wave of affection you weren’t expecting. You are still a bit scared, but you don’t want to turn back now. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” you reply, clasping your shaking hands together.
Yuta nods and stands up from the dining table, gesturing for you to follow him. It’s late now, with the moon shining brightly and the last vestiges of dark blue sky giving way to black. The air outside is cool, but not uncomfortably so. You follow Yuta to the pier and watch timidly, your stomach flip-flopping, as he sheds his clothes, leaving them on the wooden deck. Then he slips into the water, disappearing underneath its still surface.
You crouch down, looking intently at the rippling water and anticipating whoever is going to resurface. The sounds of croaking frogs and crickets press in from every side, ringing in your ears so loudly that it’s hard to think straight.
You gasp when Yuta lifts from the water, his human skin gone and completely transformed into something that’s more...amphibian, if that’s any accurate way to describe his appearance. His skin is still scaly and green like you saw that first day, but in the moonlight it seems to glitter and reflect a spectrum of colors like his armor did. There are two fins on the either side of his face, translucent and shining a pale green. They slowly move back and forth as he treads on the water, as if they’re conveying an emotion to match whatever he’s thinking, and you watch them in fascination.
Yuta floats on his back in the water, the long gills on either of his sides catching the moonlight. You watch in fascination as they move with his breaths. Using the pier post to keep yourself stable, you reach out to touch them. They’re slick under your fingers, but not in a slimy or gross way. Your hand drifts to the rest of his skin, across his torso and along his sides, and every portion has a strikingly smooth texture. His alien eyes stare at you silently as you do, glittering big in the moonlight.
“What do you think?” his voice is quieter than you expected, as if he’s afraid of your reaction. He doesn’t break his gaze, though, studying your face carefully.
“You’re...amazing,” you say breathlessly. “Incredible.” 
His lips, which are green like the rest of him, form a small smile, and then he dives underneath the water. He does a few laps as if he means to impress you, his lithe marine form sparkling just below the surface of the water. You keep your hand suspended over the pier as you watch him, your fingers sliding against his body every time he passes by. You smile at his display, a laugh coming out of you at his impromptu performance.
When he’s finished, Yuta climbs up onto the pier with you and kneels in front of you, much like he did that day he saved you from David’s swimming pool. His feet are webbed like his hands. Droplets of water slide off of them onto the wooden boardwalk while others linger on the clear webbing like tiny jewels. Your hand is magnetized to his face, drawing across the scaly skin and tracing over his lips, which are just as smooth as the rest of him.
Before you can think twice about it, you lean forward and capture his lips with yours. Did you expect it to be fishy? Maybe. But it’s not that at all. He still manages to taste distinctly like Yuta, even though you’re not sure what that taste is. It’s a flavor that makes you feel...held. Yuta is surprised for a moment, but he responds to your kiss, one of his webbed hands inching close to your face. He doesn’t touch you at first, a little reluctant and yet wanting to let you lead the pace so he doesn’t scare you off.
You welcome his touch, carefully brushing your fingertips across his hand and bringing it to make contact with your skin. His own skin is still a bit cold from the water’s temperature, but it doesn’t bother you much.
The kiss soon grows more intense, and a mounting desire makes itself known in you. You won’t pretend like you’re 100% confident about all of this, but you don’t want to shun it anymore, either.
Yuta’s hand drifts to your neck, his long nails pressing into your skin ever so slightly. You dare to explore his body more, sliding your hands across his chest and over his side gills, feeling the way they contract under your hands, and farther down still. You haven’t looked down there yet, and you’re nervous over what you’ll find. But you keep going until your fingers meet something slick and hot and throbbing, seeming vaguely like a regular penis, though you quickly realize it’s more of a tentacle.
Yuta shudders and draws away from the kiss, and you feel alarmed, wondering if you’ve gone too far without thinking.
“If we’re going to do this, I should...probably shift back—”
“Don’t,” you blurt out. Yuta looks at you questioningly. “I...you should if it makes you comfortable. But...I don’t mind.” He’s quiet for a few seconds—seconds that feel much longer than they really are. You’re apprehensive of what he’ll say, but you keep your eyes on his face.
“Okay,” he agrees. “If you’ll accept me like this...okay.” 
Neither of you bother with moving to somewhere more comfortable like the lake house or even the sandy shore. Instead, Yuta peels your clothes away right there on the pier, covering every new bit of flesh with his strange and lovely mouth, his head fins ghosting across your collarbones and breasts like moths’ wings.
You tremble and grow wetter under his soft caresses, which are much gentler than you’d initially expect with his sharp black nails. His hands leave streaks of water across your body, which cools your burning hot skin.
Yuta carefully maneuvers your lower body at the same time as he bends his graceful head, bringing your sex close to his mouth and licking deeply into you. Your back presses hard against the pier, the wood scratching your skin as you cry out into the night air.
“Oh God, Yuta!” You soon realize that his tongue is much longer than any human one, and it reaches to a spot deep inside of you that makes you twist around in his grasp, your fingernails scrambling for purchase on the surface below you. He uses his tongue to pleasure that spot continuously, drawing moans and ever more wetness out of you as if he were controlling the waves in the ocean.
You find yourself coming apart on his extraordinarily long tongue, your legs shaking and then going limp with the pleasure flooding through your body. Your breaths come fast and hard. Yuta lifts his head from between your legs and pulls you carefully into his lap so his slick tentacle is pressing against you. It’s not hard like a dick would be, though it is clearly responsive to your body, and you momentarily wonder if it can even go inside you.
“Is this gonna work?” you ask, a tremor in your voice.
“It will work,” Yuta replies, and you’re not sure how, but you decide to trust him on it. 
It does, to your surprise. With your legs crossed tightly over his lower back, Yuta presses into you, wet and warm and very unexpectedly soft. It doesn’t feel like anything you’ve ever experienced before. It’s not a bad sensation, though—far from it. His tentacle is similar to his tongue in how it flexes and throbs inside you, pressing tight against that spot again and making you shiver in his arms.
You both quickly find a rhythm that works, your bodies moving together in an otherworldly combination of two beings, two species, two souls.
Yuta’s long nails scrape gently against your skin as he holds your back, guiding you on his sex and pushing his hips up into you. You sigh into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, feeling the cool scales underneath your lips. You seek a firm grip on his slick skin, bringing your body as close to his as possible.
“Yuta…” You moan his name. His hand slides to the back of your neck so he can bring your face to his again, kissing you deeply. There’s a wet squelching sound as your bodies connect, Yuta’s tentacle slipping in and out of you and pleasurably stroking your walls.
“Y/N…” Yuta whispers into your soft hair, pushing into your spot repeatedly, his thighs tensing under you as his pace increases. You grip his arms as you feel your orgasm swelling up in your abdomen. You tip your head back and Yuta’s mouth goes to your neck and farther down, his heavy breaths warming your skin and making you overheat from the inside out.
You tighten and cum around him, your voice stuttering out of you in broken gasps as he keeps thrusting into you, drawing your climax out. He pulses inside of you, which sends little shockwaves up your spine; you know he’s probably close, too.
When Yuta comes, there’s a lot more of it than you expected. His cum overflows and drips out of you with a consistency like syrup and a transparent color like precum. It makes the inside of your thighs sticky and shiny.
Yuta pulls out, and more of his cum spills out of you, leaking onto his lap and staining the pier underneath you.
“That’s not gonna get me pregnant, is it?” you say quietly, half-jokingly.
“Probably not,” Yuta chuckles.
“Probably!?”
Yuta carefully gathers you in his arms and stands to his feet, walking you off the pier and back towards the lake house. Your clothes are still on the pier, but you’re quickly getting sleepy and aren’t very worried about it; you’ll get them in the morning.
“What happens now?” Yuta murmurs as he walks up the front steps. You already know he’s referring not just to your relationship in this present moment, but to every event that will make up your future. Does he need to continue hiding, or is it really safe? How long will this last?
You close your eyes, resting your head against his chest. “We stay together.”
Yuta’s arms tighten around you as a silent affirmation of your words.
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unsaidjulie · 3 years
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jatp as a fairytale
okay so this was entirely inspired by this post. i talked a bit in the tags of my reblog and @metaorigin asked me to expand on my thoughts, so, here it is: 
why julie and the phantoms should be looked at as a fairy tale rather than your regular kids/young adult concept
let’s first discuss the differences between the two concepts. fairy tales are most kids’ first introduction to stories – think cinderella, snow white and the seven dwarves, beauty and the beast, as the universal ones. these stories serve to teach kids the abstract concepts of bad and good. 
let’s do this on the example of tangled, or rapunzel. there’s a clear villain aka bad guy (stepmother), a clear good guy 1 (rapunzel), and a clear problem (stepmother doesn’t let her out of the tower). there’s also the clear good guy 2, aka the saviour (flynn/eugene). the fairy tale gets a little bit more complex in tangled rather than the disney version, but the premise is the same, and the ending is the same: against all odds, rapunzel is reunited with her family, has eugene by her side, and the villain—mother gothel—is clearly defeated.
it’s simple. it’s showing that good defeats evil; that there is always hope, even when things seem bleak. tangled even follows the traditional narrative style where there is a twist, or low point where we are scared for the heroes (rapunzel going back to mother gothel) but it still doesn’t last. we are scared, but we have hope. 
the payoff for this is happiness with the outcome. it’s the best possible outcome, but it isn’t unrealistic – the bad guys are defeated, put behind bars/fallen out of the tower, and the heroes are safe. we have the feeling that nothing bad could happen to them, because they are happy. it gives the little kids hope. it teaches them a lesson that there is evil, but there is good that can defeat it. 
that’s a fairy tale. kids and young adult storylines, especially in the last few decades, take this and twist it. darken it. make it more like real life. 
for this example, let’s take harry potter, because everybody knows harry potter. once again, there’s a clear good guy (harry), bad guy (voldemort), and a clear problem (voldemort wants to kill harry so harry has to defeat him). the premise is simple enough. however, this is where things get complicated – this is not all harry potter is. 
there are characters like snape, dumbledore, malfoy, to name a few – characters who aren’t clearly good or bad, because good or bad isn’t black and white the way fairy tale show us. in real life, these two are intertwined, and it can sometimes be difficult to say which is which. people die in the end, good people, because even when good wins, it doesn’t win 100%. it teaches the viewer than you can’t have everything – that everything good comes with a bad. the concept of the ying and the yang, almost. there has to be a balance. 
stories about real life tend to be bittersweet, because real life is bittersweet. we don’t defeat the dragon and get the girl, we don’t escape our tower without feeling the repercussions of our isolation for the rest of our lives. the good doesn’t come without the bad. 
and now that we know the basic difference between the two concepts, let’s apply this to julie and the phantoms. (under the cut because this is getting a little long)
jatp is a tv show originally targeted at young kids, which is one big important thing that sometimes gets overlooked in posts theorising/discussing the show. most of the viewers, especially on tumblr (aka the ones who analyse the show the most) aren’t kids. some of us don’t even usually watch kids’ shows, so we’re coming from backgrounds of ya, of where things aren’t black and white, where bad things happen to good people because that’s how it works in the real world. 
if that’s the approach to julie and the phantoms, there is no way the boys become real. there is no way that something like this—something so inherently good—happens. even if it does, then it comes with a hefty toll. there has to be payback. there has to be a balance. 
it’s still a wholesome, family show, so the expectation could be that the boys cross over, find happiness that way. it’s nice enough, but it’s sad for julie – it’s her losing even more people she loves. jatp is about julie’s grief, to an extent, and it’s a vital part to julie – her grieving her mother and learning how to live with the hole in her heart. it’s only natural to show that grief doesn’t need to be the end of things, that you can grieve in a healthy way where it doesn’t put a pause on the things you love, right?
no. i mean, yes, but no. 
it’s a story they’re doing with julie’s mother. julie getting over grief is julie getting over her mother’s death, and we’re already being shown how much she has improved on dealing with that. this is the lesson that everything bad comes to an end, that you can move on even if your heart has been broken. life goes on. you heal. things get better. 
isn’t that a fairy tale lesson? that the good outweighs the bad, defeats it, until everything is well again?
if we’re taking the concept of rapunzel, julie would actually be eugene – the hero saving the good guys (luke, alex, reggie) from the bad guy (caleb). this has already, to an extent, happened – with nothing other than the power of love. whether it was their love for music, their love for one another, it was love. it was devotion. 
good defeated the bad. 
there’s also willie, who may not have saved the boys by giving them the hug of love, but he risked his own life and freedom to rectify what he’d done (which was an accident, by the way, because all he’s ever wanted was to help and caleb failed him. caleb made him a traitor. but willie fixed it, even if it wasn’t necessarily his fault. i’ll say it was love, too, for alex, aside from just the pure goodness of his heart.)
we don’t know what happened with willie at the end of the first season, but we assume it can’t have been good. there’s the balance, but is it really? we know willie will be fine. we know that the boys will be fine. we know that we can rely on the story to take us to a good place, to make us feel good, to give us an escape into the world where being good actually pays off and we can trust the world. 
i don’t know about you, but i don’t find myself trusting other fictional worlds like this. i always expect that it will hurt me in one way or another, that i will lose someone i love, that someone i love will get hurt and things won’t be the same. i don’t expect this from jatp. i expect happiness, and nothing short of it. 
this trust is the trust kids have in fairy tales. before you’re exposed to the fact that real life doesn’t work like that, it’s comforting to think that good will defeat the bad and things will be okay. it’s comforting. 
jatp is comforting. it doesn’t throw reality at you. it gives you an escape, just like fairy tales did. it convinces you that good defeats the bad. 
fairy tales are meant to show you that if you’re good, you’re going to get a happy ending. that everything can be defeated, even death (snow white? goldilocks?) – they’re teaching kids that things are going to be okay – to have hope – to not give up when things get tough, because they’re going to beat it. 
this is why the boys crossing over isn’t a good message for kids. it shows that even if you do everything in your power, it won’t be enough to keep someone. the boys will never get their chance at normal lives, at fixing things they didn’t have time to. that they will always have died young, with no real future. even if they’re playing with julie, it’s still limited, it’s still not the real thing. 
they’re still dead. they still don’t have a future. the reality is still there, and if they cross over, they will never have that little thing that means everything. 
it’s not right. it feels like they deserve more. it feels like alex deserves having a future with willie, luke deserves having a future with julie, and reggie deserves to be able to communicate with ray, have the positive father figure he’s always wanted (because you can’t tell me this isn’t reggie’s story.) they deserve more than just leaving things without a chance to live. 
a story that talks about how bittersweet life is won’t give this. a fairy tale will. and it will teach that everything and everyone is important, that being loving and caring and kind is enough in the world. that there’s hope. that even if things get tough, that everybody gets what they deserve and nothing less. that life is fair. 
netflix is a kids show. the story of julie and the phantoms is being told to kids. it’s showing kids what life is like, and it’s teaching kids that life isn’t all that bad. it gives hope more than a show that deals with actual reality does – and this is exactly why jatp has become a comfort show so quickly for so many people. 
and especially, brown girls. black girls. gay guys. jatp has got the representation and it would let these kids show that it’s okay to be what they are. that they have a future. that they deserve love just as much as the next person. that they can get their happy ending. that everything is going to be okay. 
tlrd; jatp is better seen as a fairy tale because it gives hope not just to young kids but to everybody, and that’s more important than teaching the lesson that life isn’t black and white. 
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swearwolf-writes · 4 years
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Sunset Curve not Sunset Straight (pt. 8)
It’s been a long day. Halloween is almost here and Flynn is raving.
“So we gotta get our costumes, matching, obviously. Oooh, maybe the boys can come as ghosts-!” She jumps up and down on Julie’s bed, it’s owner shaking her head. “They’re supposed to be from Sweden, remember?” “Oh, right.” She sat still, playing with Julie’s mic. “Your doodles are awesome - do the boys draw too?” Julie raises her eyebrows at her best friend, “Do you have a crush on them?” “Les-be honest,” Flynn wiggles her eyebrows, “you’re the only one with a crush on any of em.” Flynn still doesn’t know about Julie and Luke, Julie still trying to figure out how to tell her bestfriend that she’s dating a ghost.
“Julie has a crush?” Reggie saunters into the room and flops onto the bed next to them. “Do tell.” “I don’t have a crush!” She lightly pushes his shoulder, Flynn looking confused. “Which one-?” “Reggie’s here.” She points to the seemingly empty space on her bed, Reggie waving goodnaturedly despite the fact that Flynn still can’t see him. “He’s waving.” She grins and waves at thin air. The bassist turns back to Julie. “So what’s going on?” “Flynn here,” she gives the girl a pointed look, “thinks I have a crush on one of you guys. I told her I don’t-” Reggie and Flynn share a knowing look despite her not being able to see him. “-I mean isn’t there some sort of unofficial rule about bandmates dating?” “Boy, I hope not-” Julie blinks at him, slightly shocked. “Wait, did any of you guys date-?” He sits up, glancing between the girls suspiciously. “Are you winding me up or did you really not know?” “Know what?” “That they used to date.” Julie slowly moves her gaze over to Flynn. “Apparently Luke and Alex used to date?” Julie fills her in, the lesbian punching the air. “I called it!”
“Wait, you said used to? Why did they break up?” The girls stare at him expectantly, the boy raising his hands in defence of himself. “That is their business whether they tell you or not. But,” he jumps off the bed and moves towards the door, “I do have a bunch of polaroids from when they were dating.” She follows suit, grabbing Flynn’s hand and dragging her with them. “Lead the way!” “The way to where?” “Memory lane.” Julie grins and squeezes her hand, the girl not understanding her but going along with it anyways.
“Ta-da~!” Reggie brings the old box, down from the loft, setting it on their old table. Flynn creates a groove in the dust and wipes her dirty finger down in disgust. “This seems cool but my mom needed me home an hour ago. And remember, we’re matching this Halloween, alright? I’m thinking the creepy twins from The Shining. Or maybe we’ll be Ghost Busters.” “Hey!” Reggie complains to deaf ears as she smirks and walks out, waving goodbye. “I’ll think about it.”
She turns back to the pouting ghost and pats his knee. “We won’t bust you guys.” “I know, I know.” He shakes his head and turns back to the box, blowing the dust away as best as he can while Julie coughs in the background. “Pros of being dead: we don’t actually need to breathe so dust doesn’t make us cough either.” She continues coughing and glares at him, the boy quickly avoiding her gazing and opening the box.
“Aww, check these out.” He picks up some old pictures, smiling nostalgently. He shows them to Julie, watching as she smiles at the boys’ goofing off. “This is you guys and Trevor- Bobby?” “Yeah, Christmas, 1994.”
“All I want for Christmas is you~” Bobby sang along cheerfully to the song on the radio, taping mistletoe to the strings criss-crossed across the studio. The plant was all over the room, inescapable.
“Seriously, dude?” Luke walked into the studio, Alex and Reggie close on his heels. “If you’re gonna live in my garage, I get to decorate.” Alex groaned as Reggie whooped quietly, grabbing their camera and taking pictures of the bizarre décor. Bobby stopped the other boys in their tracks, pointing up above their heads. Mistletoe. “Seriously-” Alex stared at the rhythm guitarist with disbelief, only to be met with complete seriousness. The boys blushed as they met in a sweet kiss, Luke’s hand on Alex’s jaw, the taller boy resting his hand on the shorter’s waist. Bobby and Reggie cheered teasingly, the bassist capturing the moment in a picture.
“They were, like, together-together, huh?” “Bobby and I had a bet that they’d be engaged before they were 20.” Julie raises her eyebrows, cooing quietly. “And then you didn’t even live till 20.” Reggie side-eyes Julie goodnaturedly, gasping in mock-offence. “We died, Julie- that’s not something you joke about-” She raises her hands in defence, checking out the other pictures.
“Hey, you guys looked cute here.” She shows him a picture, the boys sat on Luke’s couch, Reggie taking a selfie with the four of them. They were grinning widely, Julie chuckling as she finds its sequel.
“Alright, I’m taking another-!” Reggie warned the band as he raised the polaroid camera. Bobby swung an arm over Alex’s shoulders, the quartet smiling brightly. “Say cheese!” Reggie took the picture, blushing brightly as Luke pressed a kiss to his cheek, the image holding that memory firmly.
Reggie flushes brightly as he spots the second image in Julie’s hand. He reaches over to try and take the picture from her hand, Julie jumping out of the way as she watches his reactions.
“Oh my God-!” “What?” “You have a crush on Luke!”  The boy babbles unintelligibly as his cheeks grow hotter. “No, you have a crush on Luke!” He pulls an Uno reverse card from his pocket, Julie bursting out into laughter as she sees the card. “I mean, we’re dating so I guess you’re right - but I don’t deny it - unlike you.” He relents with a nervous chuckle, rubbing the nape of his neck. “So maybe I have a small crush on Luke-” Julie bounces on the balls of her feet, slapping his shoulder wildly. “Awesome!”
He looks at her strangely. “You’re not mad?” “Why would I be?” “You got there first?” She shakes her head and flops, graceful as always, next to him. “You got there in 1994 or 95 - you just didn’t know it.” Reggie opens his mouth to protest but quickly closes it as he realises he has nothing to say to that. “That…. is true. Fair enough.”
They sit in silence, flicking through photos, Julie glancing back up at her bandmate every now and again. “You gonna tell him?” He splutters and sets the pictures down, mussing his hair. “Absolutely not.” “Why not?” She crosses her arms, setting the old polaroids on the table. “Because he likes you.” “He’s poly-” “Which doesn’t necessarily mean he likes me.”, he pointed out. “But it means he might.” She pokes his stomach, Reggie snorting and paling suddenly.
Julie looks back at where he’s staring, spotting Luke standing by the door, Julie’s old ipod still playing music from the earphones dangling in his hand.
“Luke! Look, Julie, it’s Luke. Lukester, Lukiepoo, Luke-a-” Reggie’s impromptu rambling is cut off by Julie, her hand plastered over his mouth. “Been there, done that - not fun.” She mumbles at him, smiling widely at the singer. “Hey, Luke!” “Hey.” He walks into the garage and spots the pictures, grinning brightly. “Oh hey, it’s Christmas!” Reggie moves Julie’s hand from his mouth. “Uh, yeah, I might have told Julie that you and Alex used to date and showed her the polaroids.” “She already knew, dude.” He kneels on the floor and looks between the old pictures, smiling sadly at the pictures of the four boys. “No, I didn’t.” Luke looks up in surprise at the girl. “I swear I told you-” She shakes her head, avoiding the urge to smile. “Oh- well, Alex and I used to date.” She shares a look with Reggie, their affection for the ghost clear in their eyes. “Who’d’ve guessed?”
She reaches towards the table and knocks some of the pictures off. “Oops- Reggie, help me pick these up.” She sends a sweet smile Luke’s way, her heart fluttering when he sends one back, and pulls Reggie down by the elbow. Luke raises an eyebrow, one earphone in as he hums and keeps rifling through the images.
“Ow-!” He hisses quietly as he hits said elbow on the table. The pair face each other, confusion all over the poor boy’s face. “Sorry-” She winces and shakes her head, slowly picking the pictures. “You gotta tell him-” She whispers, the boy frantically shaking his head. “I can’t-” “What’s the worst that could happen?” “Easy for you to say - you know he likes you.” He looks around, seeing Luke’s jean-cladded knees shuffle around he continues, seemingly unaware of their conversation. “I can’t ruin things between us. We’re family and I can’t-” “You won’t lose him,” she puts a hand on his knee, looking up at him, “he used to date Alex, right?” The boy nods, busying himself with the fallen polaroids. “And they’re still good, right?” “That doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt each other-” He sighs as he picks up the last picture. It was one of Luke with his family, taken only a few weeks before he ran away.
He was kneeling with his dog, Zeppelin, his parents smiling brightly as he tried to get the dog to stay still. “Stay.” The dog behaved himself, Luke swinging one arm over his back. “Good boy.” “Smile!” Reggie lifted the camera, snapping the picture just as the dog gets excited and jumps up, knocking Luke over and licking his face. The teenager yelped in surprise, laughing as he tried to shift the large animal. Reggie took another two pictures of this scene, the first image probably coming out blurry.
He’d kept the blurred image, one of the non-blurry pictures given to Luke’s parents and the other to Luke. He could still hear the scene in his head. “Luke’s been through enough. I don’t wanna hurt him-”
“You wouldn’t hurt me.” The pair jump up from under the table, Reggie this time hitting his head, the rest of the pictures falling off the table. “Fuck-!” He groans loudly, pressing his hand against his head. “I get that we’re sorta tangible now but that doesn’t mean I have to keep hurting myself!” He yells at no one in particular. Luke moves next to the whining boy, looking at his head. “You’re fine. And, y’know, not hurt.” He whips his head, ignoring the mild pain in his head as his cheeks flare bright red. “Did you just call me fine-?” “Yup.” He grins and picks up Julie’s black cat, making soft soothing noises and stoking her soft fur. “Even Melody agrees, Reggie’s pretty fine.” Said ghost looks between Luke, Julie and the cat wondering if they were playing an elaborate prank on him.
“What…. is going on?” He tilts his head, setting the pictures on the table and moving to pick the rest of the pictures. The singer looks at Julie as he tries to come up with an explanation, scratching lightly behind Melody’s ears. “I might have been eavesdropping?” Reggie groans and covers his face, shuffling the images in his hands nervously. “How much did you hear-?” “Like all of it-” “God-” He puts the pictures down on the table, looking up at Luke who gave the cat to Julie.
“Look-” Reggie starts only to have Luke cut him off. “Can I actually go first-?” Reggie bites his lip anxiously, looking over to Julie who gives him a thumbs up. He smiles and nods at him, Luke sitting in front of him, their legs crossed.
“I like you. Have since ‘93 - I didn’t realise till I was dating Alex and so tried to push it out of mind. I didn’t know poly was a thing till now and I know now that I like my very awesome girlfriend,” he smiles shyly as he thinks of her, “and I like our very awesome bassist.” Reggie blinks at him in disbelief. Luke frowns and looks back at Julie who shrugs. He waves a hand in front of his face, Reggie jerking back instinctually. “You good, dude?” He just gapes, red spreading further over his ears. “My crush of two years just said he’s liked me for 3- This-”, he gestures vaguely at the group, “this isn’t possible-” “Is it really that hard to believe?” Julie raises her eyebrows at him from the couch. “That Luke Patterson has a crush on me? Yes.” “Why? You’re hot, you play at least three instruments and can read Shakespeare off the top of your head.” Reggie freezes. “You called me hot-” “Yes, Reggie. Y’see, I have these things called eyes- I get that yours don’t work as well as most people’s-” “Oh, come on; I haven’t worn glasses since I was like 15-” “That doesn’t mean you don’t need them-” “We’re dead, man. I’m pretty sure I don’t need them- or do I-?” They sit in silence as they ponder their afterlife, Julie watching her dummies.
She coughs, drawing their attention towards her. She motions towards the two of them, the pair blushing as they remember their conversation. Julie sighs and lets Melody go, marching towards them with her hands on her hips. The boys lean back, slightly intimidated. “Luke, you like Reggie?” “Yes.” “And Reggie, you like Luke?” “Yeah.” “Luke, do you wanna date Reggie?” The latter looks up at her in surprise. “Definitely.” Reggie stares at the ghost, pleasantly surprised. “Reggie, d’you wanna date Luke?” “Yes?” “Good - you are now dating. Congratulations.”
Reggie stares blankly at the girl. “Wait, what-?” “What what?” “That’s that? We’re suddenly dating now?” “Pretty much.” She nods and smiles happily, chuckling at Luke’s excited grin. “I have a girlfriend and boyfriend- awesome!” He gazes at the pair of them softly, Reggie giggling happily. “I have a boyfriend-” The pair beam at him. “My first boyfriend. Wicked!” He smiles brightly as Alex and Willie walk in.
“Finally!” Alex stuffs his hands in his hoodie pockets, shaking his head at them. “I’ve been watching you two pine over each other for years.” “I wouldn’t say years-” Reggie attempts to defend them. “I would.”
Willie sits next to Julie and watches the exchange, taking his notebook out and tapping the table to let her know he’s there. “Hey Willie.” “Hey Jules.”, he says, writing it onto the pad, adding a smiley face.
“And we weren’t ‘pining’.” Luke backs up his boyfriend, Reggie nodding in support. “Are you kidding me- You look at each other like that cat from Shrek-” Melody hisses at the word cat before returning to grooming herself on top of Julie’s piano. Alex narrows his eyes at the cat. “Gremlin-” “Don’t be mean to my baby-” She tosses one of Luke’s shirts at him, the boy just watching as it passes through him. “Your ‘baby’ is mean-” He grumbles, sitting next to Willie.
“So how was your date?” Willie smiles brightly, lightly nudging the blond with his shoulder. “We went to the old Ghost Club and smoked weed mostly - no clue why but eating and stuff, still possible there, even without Caleb.” Willie talks and writes for Julie, Alex hiding his face in his cap. “There may have been some graffiti involved-” “Alex? Our straight-laced, trustworthy Alex broke the law?” Luke looks between the two ghosts, impressed but in complete disbelief. “Technically, the law doesn’t actually apply to us anymore. So, no, he did not.” “Alright, Alex! Welcome to the dark side; we break the rules and look good doing it.” Reggie pats his knee, groans escaping from behind the hat. He sweeps his hair back and puts the cap on, Willie staring at him with adoration in his eyes. “What-” “You’re cute.” “I’m-” The flustered boy takes a, technically unnecessary, breath. “Okay-” Willie giggles quietly at the pink flourishing across his boyfriend’s face, Luke, Reggie and Julie sharing a look.
Luke nods towards the door and the trio leave the couple to themselves. “So, they’re adorable.” Reggie remarks as soon as they’re out of earshot. “Right?” Luke walks backwards, his hands tucked into the pockets of his sleeveless hoodie. “Like, I can’t even see Willie and I can still tell they’re meant for each other.” Julie tucks a curl behind her ear, talking animatedly with Reggie, Luke watching them with a soft grin on his face. ‘My girlfriend and boyfriend - awesome!’ 
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fichtner-fics · 3 years
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Christmas Miracle (Alex Mahone)
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Warnings: none (besides some spoilers in the context describing, mention about family problems (just a few words)), in contrary TOO MUCH FLUFF AND CUTENESS OMG my heart just can’t take that
Context: So this is a bit out of the PB storyline. Cameron, Alex’s son is alive, but Pam is not in the picture at all. I didn’t exactly clarified, where she is or what has happened to her (she’s not necessarily dead), and from the point of this fic it doesn’t matter. What does matter: Cameron is five (just like in the serie), living with his dad, spending so much time with Y/N (who isn’t from the office, not even working in law-enforcement). And the rest is down there, I just wanted to explain the basics. 😊
A/N: So I thought it would be nice to surprise you with a little Christmassy-Mahone, with so much fluff, cuteness, love, joy, gingerbread and sparkles. This is the end result. ✨  (2298 words??? sorry I was just typing and suddenly it happened) (I’m already visualising a secod part of this, help, things started to get out of my control)
Originally I wanted to post this on the 22nd, BUT I JUST COULDN’T WAIT YOUR REACTIONS so tell me tell me whatever you think about this. 😭😭
I know this is quite early to say, but I want y’all to have yourself a very happy, merry, holy, jolly, fun Christmas, take care yourselves, and rest as much as you can. We all have things to recover from, so let this period be that recovery’s time. Thank you all for making my 2020 whole, giving me some light during these shadowy times. It is such an adventure which started this year. ❤
I know I have 2 requests pending, I’ll start the next year with them. Pinky promise!
[yeah, that’s Carl Hickman on the gif, but as I realized there’s no footage in the wide Internet of Mahone smiling so I had to improvise😆; gif’s from here, thank you!]
Alex and I were friends for such a long time. Though during his marriage we hadn’t seen each other as frequently, our friendship remained. What’s more, since they split up with Pam and he was left alone with his son, I was the first person he came to. I usually cooked them and spent so much time with the little boy. We grew closer and closer – with both of the boys. With Cameron in the sense of a mother-son relationship and with his father… well, I fell in love with him, and I was quite sure that he felt almost the same way. There was nothing on Earth I would enjoy more than our long nights with deep conversations and a cup of tea, which happened pleasantly often. We could talk about anything and everything, he shared with me all his ups and downs, everything at the office, in his (ended) marriage, and vice versa. I didn’t have a failed marriage to talk about, but given my drunk father, I had some things to share about as well. Long story short, basically we would just have to say things out loud to become a couple.
Given Alex had to work late (unfortunately) on the 25th of December, he asked me to look after Cameron, which I took happily. I already planned our whole day during the night before, so I arrived with decided plans at their house.
First things first, we of course bake some gingerbread to build a house. When finally it wasn’t hot, I put everything on the table and called Cameron. While I was gathering some tools missing, he took the plate in front of him.
“We won’t have anything left to build the house if you keep eating all those gingerbreads” I said laughing and messing up little Cameron’s hair. He giggled but kept chewing a gingerbread man’s leg. “And tell me” I asked, sitting on the chair next to him “what did you wrote on your list?”
While I was waiting for him to answer, I started to prepare the frosting and the tubes with coloured icing in them.
“I asked a huge… truck…” he said excitedly. “With a remote controller. And a toolbox for myself, because daddy has his own, and I want to help him repair things. And some Lego!”
“That’s amazing. You will have so much fun with these” I smiled at him. “Give me two sidewalls, please” I said after finishing the preparation of the necessities. It wasn’t the funniest part of making the house for a five-year-old, but I hoped that by involving Cameron in the process would cheer him a bit. I put some frosting on the sides of the gingerbread, then glued two pieces together.
“And I asked a gun, too” he said suddenly, while we were holding the pieces to stick. I laughed in surprise.
“Like daddy’s” I presumed.
“Yes” the little boy chuckled again. “To fight the bad guys, so daddy don’t have to do it alone. And you know what else?” he whispered, leaning close to my ear. His huge, brown eyes sparkled in excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“What else?” I whispered back, pecking his cute cheeks.
“I asked for you to be my mommy” he said out finally, scanning my face just to see my reaction.
At first, I couldn’t find the words. Just in a half second all our shared little tender moments with Alex flew in front of my eyes and suddenly I was aching for his love even stronger. I was so in love with him, I would do anything to know he feels the same. And of course, I was fond of this little boy, too. I already imagined the tree of us being a real, whole family.
“Aww, you’re so sweet, darling” I hugged him finally. He put his little arms around my neck and hugged back tightly. Luckily the frosting between the two gingerbread parts was stiff enough now to stand alone. “That would be my best Christmas present, too” I said quietly.
After our little squeeze-session, Cam helped me piping frosting and icing, pouring sprinkles and gluing sweets on the gingerbread roof with some syrup. Of course, at the end he looked like he was the one who had been decorated, but it was nothing a solid wash wouldn’t fix.
Rest of the day passed by with playing, laughing, and while he had his daytime nap I rested too. When I noticed the snow started to fall, I got so excited for Cam to wake up and see it.
It was around 4pm when I heard some noise from his room, so I went to take a look. He was sitting up in his bed with cute messy hair and sleepy eyes.
“Good morning, my sweetheart” I whispered happily. I sat next to him on the bed, letting him to lay on my lap. I started to play with his soft hair. “Did you sleep well?” I murmured. He was to drowsy yet, but his waggish smile already sparkled on his face.
“Yes. And… I dreamt about stars and reindeers” he said after a yawn. “And you and daddy and I was playing in the snow, really.” 
“I’m so happy you dreamt these nice things” I smiled at him, gently touching his nose. Talking about it reminded me the fact that it was actually snowing outside.
“Hey, you want to see something amazing?” I asked after some minutes, leaving him stretching a bit and playing with his plush rabbit. When he agreed in a quiet, husky little voice, I took him, and we left the room.
Cameron stayed in my arms as we stood in front of the window in the living room. We were watching the silently falling, huge snow-petals. I was surprised that he didn’t change his mind after a few minutes and wanted to play or do anything else – he was unusually cuddly that day. He just leant to my chest with his thumb in mouth, breathing quietly while I was slowly rocking him. There were no lights on in the house besides the light garland’s yellow twinkle on the Christmas tree, which gave such a warmness to the room. It was just the two of us, the snow and the spirit of Christmas around us.
“Are you awake, honey?” I whispered, because I thought he fell back asleep. Feeling him nodding made me smile. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Can we go out for a walk?” he asked in a dreamy voice.
“We should wait for your dad to come home” I suggested. “If he arrives and it’s okay for him, we can go and check the Christmas lights in the street. How does it sound?” I placed a kiss in his hazel brown curls.
It was his first thing to ask when Alex entered the house a few hours later. He said yes of course, so we put on some warm clothes, and left. Cameron ran forward, leaving us slowly mooning behind him.
“Did your day went well?” Mahone asked quietly.
“Yeah” I looked at him. “We built a gingerbread house, which you could see only in its ruins, because Cam pretended to be a shark and… bite the roof off” I laughed. “We played hide and seek, drew some amazing pictures and while he took his nap, I finally finished my book.”
“I’m glad to hear” Alex nodded. As we walked, he suddenly offered me his arm. I glanced at him, and with cheeks turned into rose I accepted the gesture. “Thank you for being here for us” Alex whispered. “I have no idea what I would do without you. Truly.”
I smiled but remained silent, only fixing Cameron standing mesmerized in front of a huge, sparkling snowman statue. His words came up in my mind, and at that moment I decided not to let the moment go.
“Did he tell you what’s he wishing for?” I asked innocently.
“You mean the gun?” Alex burst out in laugh. “Yeah, well, he won’t get that one. Not yet” he shook his head. I refused the temptation of rolling my eyes.
“Mommy look” Cameron shouted when we finally reached where he stood. Timing is perfect, little guy, I thought myself.
“What did you say?” Alex asked immediately, astonished. I remained silent, curiously waiting for what was going to happen. “Since when do you call Y/N mom?”
“It’s a secret, dad” said the little boy. “Only Santa has to know, and mommy has to know” he added, while nodding seriously. Then he took my hand and started to pull me where he saw the thing he wanted to show me. Alex just frowned more, but this time looking at me, waiting for a proper answer.
“It’s on his list” I mouthed while smiling wide at the confused agent. I only hoped this is enough information him to understand the situation. Letting him go, I crouched next to Cameron, to look at a little sheep in a Nativity Scene he was excited about.
“Look at him, he’s so cute” I said kissing the little boy’s rosy, cold cheeks.
“Can we have one at home?” he looked at me. I chuckled and looked towards Mahone who stood a few steps behind us. His face surprised me. He was watching us so tenderly, with sparkling eye, slight smile glued on his lips. I felt my cheeks burn suddenly and I had to fall my eyes.
“I don’t think your dad would approve” I answered to Cam. “Go, have a look at Rudolph” I suggested, pointing towards an at least three metres tall, red reindeer-silhouette. The boy nodded, then he started running immediately.
“Don’t rush, son” Alex tried to calm him, without any effect at all of course. I stood up biting my lips, because I had no idea what the agent will say about what happened earlier. “So, what’s this between you two and Saint Nick?” he laughed as I took his arm again. We walked slow, so he could scan my face as I looked at him almost laughing in embarrassment.
“Cameron wants Santa to make me his mom” I replied shyly. “I think he wants him to be reminded. But as you heard, it’s a secret, so I shouldn’t have told this to you.”
“This means I have to wrap you and place under our tree?” he asked. I heard on his voice that he was playing. If it wasn’t for his arm, I’d fly away by happiness for sure.
“Why, do you think it’s a wish so easy to make come true?” I teased back.
“Well, this is Santa Claus we’re talking about. He can do anything” he looked at me, smiling wide.
Suddenly I felt myself ran out of words. These past three minutes made me fall for Mahone even harder, but I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen. I pulled him closer, and in the same moment he lifted his other hand to fold on mine. When I looked at him in surprise, I found his wondrously blue, sparkly eyes already fixing me. He smiled at me, and I suddenly got sure about the meaning of the word ‘Christmas miracle’.
We remained silent until finally reaching Cameron, who basically looked around in the whole street while we walked slowly after him. When he noticed us, hugged our legs.
“Hey baby” I ran through my fingers in the boy’s hair.
“Aren’t you cold, buddy? Can we go home now, you saw everything?” Alex asked.
“Yes” Cameron nodded looking up at his father, but he suddenly froze. “Look daddy, mistletoe!” he pointed above us. And he was right. We stood right under the huge reindeer, who has a great deal of mistletoe hanging in his neck. I laughed out loud, shaking my head. This only could happen in movies.
“Do you know what it means, Cam?” Alex asked his boy but smirking at me. He shook his head. “We all can wish something” Alex explained, awfully misinterpreting the whole thing. I curiously watched them, my eyes jumping from one to the other, and I couldn’t believe what Mahone was doing. “But we must close our eyes, otherwise it won’t come true” he warned his son. “I count to three, then everybody shuts their eye, okay?”
“Okay, daddy” Cameron replied, then he lifted his hands, ready to place them in front of his face. When Alex counted three and Cam covered his face, we looked at each other, and within a split second he placed his cold lips upon mines. I felt him cupping my cheeks and I pulled him closer by his waist. He let me go after a little while, but before he would completely pull away, he whispered just on my lips:
“I love you.”
“I love you too” I breathed back. Suddenly we heard Cameron bursting out in chuckling. When we looked at him, he stretched up his arms towards me, giving a sign he wants to be taken up.
“And I love you so much too” I squeezed him after lifting him in my arms, making Cam laugh even louder.
“What’s so funny, little man?” Alex asked smiling as well. He stood next to me so close, resting his hand on my waist. I looked aside at him, just to see the joy in his eyes.
“I peeked” Cameron giggled with his little hand in front of his mouth. He was so sweet I almost couldn’t bear.
“You were so fast making your wish” I said pretending some surprise. Alex laughed through his nose.
“Because I knew what I wanted to wish” the little boy rolled his eyes. “But you didn’t wish. I saw” he stated.
“What makes you think we didn’t wish?” his father asked.
“Bec…” he yawned just in the middle of his sentence. “Because you kissed Y/N, so you didn’t have time for… wishing” he grimaced by pulling up his nose impishly.
“Hey, I made one” I said while nodding. “Did you make one?” I looked at Alex.
“Of course, I did. And you know what? It came real immediately” he added, looking straight into my eyes. Cameron gasped in surprise, and Alex pressed a soft kiss on my temple.
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im-the-punk-who · 3 years
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Could you post some more malex thoughts? What about that song? Or thoughts on them being endgame? Or season 3 malex thoughts?
Baby’s first RNM meta request 😭
ABSOLUTELY I can.
So I am gonna start with my S3 thoughts and endgame thoughts because everything else will tie into that.
From what I’ve seen, Roswell had 5 seasons originally planned, which is still what it feels like it needs to me. Which is cool! It also means we’re probably(hopefully, actually) not gonna get canon malex in s3.
The show has set them up as the ‘will-they-won’t they’ couple - most of their tension together focuses on *whether or not they get together* instead of if they’ll stay together. To me at least, it’s pretty clear the show’s assumption is that if they end up actually getting together in a healthy way(which they both seem to want in their relationships now), they will stay together.
If the show actually does it’s job right and takes the time to let both of them heal, grow, and experience other things that likely won’t happen until at least mid s4. It would make a nice dramatic midpoint for the season, they could play out a bit of that relief of finally being together in the late s4, and then whether or not they renew s5 they’ve told the story they wanted to. But if they do get a fifth season they can play with some hurt/comfort with Michael and Alex actually building/cementing their relationship. 
As we’re seeing with Liz and Max, tension has to come from somewhere and where RNM(as most shows do) fails is thinking it needs to come from the relationship, which is what I’m afraid would happen if malex get together so soon after making the(at least private) commitment to get better for each other. There won’t be enough time for growth and dramatic build to sustain the afterglow and they’ll have to find something else to torment the poor boys with. 
I don’t hold out a *super* large amount of hope for it, because like...this is the CW. But I do think either way malex will likely be endgame. Just from everything the show has told us and set up, I would be extremely surprised and honestly really fucking angry if they don’t. Not necessarily because they’re My Ship, or because it would be any sort of queer baiting - they’d both still be undeniably queer and I assume Alex would end up with Forrest or someone else in that scenario.
Honestly it would just be bad storytelling to set up your characters as having this deep cosmic connection, setting them up directly in parallel with our other pairs of starcrossed lovers Max/Liz and Nora/Tripp, dropping all the hints in the music choices(Holy Moly being the big one when linked with the Would You Come Home scene, but there are other small parallels in song choices - ‘Through Your Eyes’ as Alex walks away in 2x06 for example.) Especially with the literal confirmation that they both still *want* to be with each other (Alex’s song saying ‘if I got better and worked through my issues can we be together’ and Michael recognizing he’s got to give Alex the space to do that work so that maybe someday they can be together. ‘It’s not our time right now.“ “But it will be.” “I hope so.”)
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Anyway! So, I would count a Not-Malex-Endgame as a bad ending, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get zero canon Malex content in S3. In fact given where the characters are, I think it would be an AMAZING choice to have these characters who are fan favorites and who everyone *wants* to be endgame - stay apart and work on themselves, and build all that TENSION( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) for an entire season in order to cash in for an s4 payoff.
Also, I really want to see Alex grow as a person. 
Michael really started to change in Season 2 - we’ve seen him start trying to be better, dealing with his emotions more, recognizing how bad his relationship with Alex is and trying to improve with Maria as well as building his other relationships, too. To me, Michael is already very different than he was in S1 and honestly, Alex has some catch up to do in terms of working on his fears and how they relate to how he cannot stand to be around Michael in stressful situations.
To that end, I really want to see how Alex and Forrest interact, and how a relationship with Forrest might change Alex. We heard before that Alex doesn’t really consider himself to have had a real relationship, and Forrest does *not* seem the type to be up for a fast and easy thing, so I think he could really push Alex to face his issues around commitment and his tendency to cut and run. 
Which would actually be really cool! I am not a Forrest-endgame person at all, mostly because he seems both way too put together and way too needy for Alex long term, but I do think they would be really fun to see played against each other and also just .... nice things for Alex Manes please. 
Also then we get lots of Michael making sad eyes at Alex which is just *chefs kiss*.
For Alex, his personal conflict has always centered around his trauma, his father, being ashamed and afraid of being openly gay, and having enough faith in people to believe he personally is worth fighting for and my main wish for Alex is to finally fucking learn how to love and be loved in return.
So in that vein and especially if we see Malex as endgame, it only makes sense that Michael’s journey needs to be a parallel one of him finding something worth staying on earth for. He’s started to build a family for himself fucking finally - Maria, Isobel, Sanders, hell I think there is even the potential for Liz, Max, and Kyle to be family. And of course, Alex has always been his family. But previously no one has ever had his back in the way he’s had theirs. 
From what we’ve seen, Michael has always been the one who gives with his whole self - both Maria and Alex comment on it - “I don’t doubt your capacity for love” & “He keeps secrets because of how much he loves Max and Isobel, not because of how much he loves you.” He is a character who has spent his life throwing affection and emotion at the wall and seeing what(if anything) sticks. 
He took the crayon from Max at the orphanage, told Isobel he killed the girls, dropped his plans to leave Roswell for her, he both defended Alex from his father and didn’t stop him from leaving a place he was in danger, he let Liz experiment with his blood for Isobel’s antidote. He tells Alex once that he was glad that Max and Isobel had an easier time, even if it meant he didn’t. Michael’s biggest character flaw is that he believes he has to be useful to be wanted. That he, as he is, is unloveable. Or, maybe better put, that he is not worthy of the kind of love others have.
In S3 I want this challenged, CW I will fight you. I *REALLY* want to see him have to face head on his assumption that he’s going to leave Earth at some point and everyone is going to be fine with that. I want him to realize he’s become core in someone’s life again. I want to see someone grab hold and refuse to let go. I want it to get messy, and I want them to stay, damnnit! 
I want to see Michael start making plans to stay again.
I said in a previous meta that I thought the growth Michael has gone through already would lead to him being approached by Jones with an offer to leave (so that Jones can separate the pod squad, so that he can use Michael to get to Max, something like that) and I really want to see what decision a more grounded Michael might make in a situation like that.
And what my tiny shriveled shipper heart REALLY wants is a scene where Michael is put to this choice of being able to leave and - despite being offered everything he has been working towards for his entire life - the relationships he’s built are strong enough to make him stay(again.)
(Hint, I REALLY want this to be Alex, for the plot resolution for them in S3 not to be ‘we get together’ but to be ‘we are able to recognize that we can BE there for each other even if we aren’t together’, which would lead spectacularly into an early/mid s4 get together after some light angst :) 
I have a lot more thoughts re: what I want from everyone else and what I’d love to see from the non pod-squad squad (MARIA ALEX LIZ ROSA PICNIC DATE WHEN) (CENTERING YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS OF COLOR WHEN) (TRY MAKING YOUR VILLAIN NOT A FUCKING PERSON OF COLOR!) Also like, Generyx, Deep Sky, Mr. Jones, possible connections between them and characters who aren’t pod squad oh my god can we for one episode focus on someone else, etc, but like.....this is already so long so maybe that’s for another time xD
Also as stated like....this is a CW show so this isn’t what’s going to happen, but it’s what a I *DESPERATELY WANT* to happen. My interaction with RNM is VERY much dead-plot-do-not-eat until proven otherwise and I’m just here to no-thoughts-head-empty enjoy the parts of Malex I like and ignore everything else :)
I’m gonna use this image that Diana made me because honestly this should be a disclaimer to any RNM post I make.
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