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rianafying · 3 months

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i’m starving and i’m hungover and i’m in trouble. my sd card got corrupted and i might lose all the work i’ve done in january, which is a LOT of work. i just need to talk to my friends. the timing is bad because they’re either at work or asleep rn. i’m about to throw up.

it’s fine i reached them, after they woke up. spoke to friends, i feel better emotionally. but worse physically because it’s been so long since i’ve had some food. any food. there’s so much shit i need to buy but no money to buy them. i’m scared that one of these days i’ll have to resort to ebegging. i don’t want to do that. because im not even doing that bad but i feel terrible. and im prone to heavily catastrophizing every situation im faced with. somehow i have linked this sd card failure to the downfall of my career that i have worked so hard to build. if you dont have catastrophizing anxiety, you dont know what it feels like to imagine every single worst possible outcome and believe it to be true. but somehow throughout my life, it has been. what i feared kept coming true. but fearing it and being paralysed by it, didn’t help my case. apparently it’s in my brain chemistry to do this and also to have chronic pain. apparently there’s something wrong in my hypothalamus, pituitary gland, amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex. they’re are all fucked up and feel wayyy more pain than is ever necessitated. i feel like im spiralling out of control at a faster rate than i can reel it back in. for most of my life ive been getting wounded more than i could heal. and now im limping my way through life, and hating almost every second of it despite trying so hard not to.

i had a full breakdown today, worse than other breakdowns. i feel super defeated. people are being nice to me. somehow that is making me feel even worse. things keep going wrong. there is no escaping tragedy.

day 3 of this same journal entry. i’m officially out of money. even my coins. i have a little bit of usd in my absolute emergency fund, but i really don’t want to have to touch that. i have a week to go before i get paid a bit of money. which will still not be enough because i had to use afterpay to buy some necessary stuff at kmart, and now i have to pay it back. things rlly are tough out here. thinking i should not fix my laptop and instead spend that money like normal. like use it to get by nicely for a while. then what? at what point will i be able to get a real regular job? i found out for sure this month that i can’t make it to work on 25% of days due to my illness. so what work could i do. rlly upset about losing the images on my sd card. i haven’t permanently lost them yet, but, it’s far too expensive to recover. i was considering recovering the data when im in bangladesh but i dont think id trust the data recovery service in dhaka anyway. they’ll probably fail at the task and also ruin my card. things are so wrong rn. my microwave, my pan, my passport, my myki, my financial situation, the burnt skin on my face, my psoriasis and arthritis, my hair situation, my multiple severe nutritional deficiencies and chronic pain, my various mental illnesses, my awful dirty room, my inability to work on any, let alone every, one of these problems. i just get paralysed and bed rot for days. this is officially too much for me. it’s too many things to deal with. i’m not built for even half of this. how can i give up without like kms, like what’s another way to give up? because bed rotting isn’t cutting it. i could really use some help. when i asked for help, my uncle said to visit my friend in sydney, or to visit bangladesh, neither of which is going to actually help my situation, because ill be miserable regardless of where i am, until my problems have been resolved. and both of these things are expensive as fuck, like, what’s a girl supposed to do. i don’t wanna go on a $200 trip to sydney when my sd card requires a $400 data recovery. that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is my situation.

no amount of talking to people, or going on trips is going to solve my problems. which is painful for me to say because i’ve been dying to do something fun for once. not that i don’t have fun in melbourne i do, but that’s cause i try to enjoy work, and romanticise the life i already have. and because im not yet a local local, i can still experience melbourne like a tourist. with fresh eyes. anyway, yeah, im deleting bumble because its stupid, let’s be real im never gonna go on a date w a strangers plus i dont even respond to people because im obviously not ready to actually give this a chance. not yet at least. costar says i let my need for stability stunt relationship growth. but i’m okay with that, or at least i would be if i had any stability. right now i feel like i have the short end of every stick. no it feels like i have no stick at all. the universe or god or whatever is out there is giving me a huge middle finger and laughing at my suffering.

they say that i’m overthinking or that even if there is a problem there’s a solution. what’s the solution to not having enough money to solve my problems? by the time i might have money, these problems will have caused critical damage. what’s the solution to the weight i carry around from never feeling safe or loved my whole entire life. what’s the solution to the mother shaped void in my heart. what’s the solution to the fear of losing my sibling and friends. i cope, and i deal, but it never really goes away. even now as i’ve hit my weekly rock bottom, i’m trying to list things to be grateful for, to see the glass as half full. but i can’t lie, the glass is not half full. i’ve been running on a nearly empty tank for as long as i can remember. even if i somehow manage to get my tank full, there’s like holes in it that can never be permanently patched. i destroy everything i touch, i let down everyone i know, and i keep getting chances. i don’t need another chance. i need a break. i don’t want to prove myself, unless it is to prove that i fail.

i’m told that the broader focus of my life during this time is to clear away built-up structures that have been holding me back. excess is not always abundance. i’m supposed to decide what's worth keeping and what to pass up. apparently my sense of well-being relies on my willingness to seize new opportunities, which is a commendable move for someone who will only settle for all or nothing. “use this moment to streamline your aesthetic by getting rid of excess that no longer gives you pleasure.” this could not be more on the nose. fine i’ll pack some stuff up and head drop it in a donation bin. it will clear up some space in my room too. this might be good. give me some literal and also mental space to work with. also on the nose is “make sure you're not doing that thing where you over-intellectualize your experience, and then convince yourself that you know all the laws of the universe.” okay i get it. thank you for spelling it out for me. maybe now i will finally listen. i’m certainly being spied on. most of life is out of my control but i choose joy.

i couldn’t attend the invasion day protest today because i was on the phone talking a loved one out of killing herself. i shouldn’t feel guilty, it’s not like i had a choice in that scenario. i’m told that in most scenarios, there is no such thing as “fault”. if my goal was to shift blame, i could use all the words in the world to make myself innocent, but that’s not what i want, that’s not what i’m familiar with.

i think that maybe i would like to have a fresh start. i dont know what a fresh start would even look like. to go back in time a couple of years? how many years? at what point was it fresh? go back to when i was born? be born to different people? be a different person? a fresh start to me would be one in which so much is different from how my life is right now, that i don’t know how it would even be mine. this is who i am, all the terrible things that make up, well, me. and a fresh start wouldn’t be me, or it wouldn’t be fresh. i’m stale and im crusty, to the core of my being.

maybe i just need to go on a walk.

#personal #journal entry

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katierosefun · 3 years

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i hate working 14 hours a week but also i love getting paid so u see my problem

#caroline talks #like. i am exhausted and still need to write my personal statement.#but also. getting paid almost $200 a week……feels NICE #slowly but surely building up my bank account 🥲

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weekendsabo · 2 years

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Journal - Wednesday, January 2nd, 2019

I was so lazy yesterday. What did I do yesterday? I made pizza. I was made with green sauce, carnitas and cheese. I used the mixer, but it was way to dry, but it turned out pretty good. I think I should just come up with my own recipe, but they are basically all the same. On track. I woke up around 12ish, picked up the kitchen and mostly laid on the couch. I did write a day so it wasn’t a complete loss, but around 4:30 I took a nap till around 6ish and decided it was time for bed. I slept almost 14 hours. It was nice. I needed it. Pretty unproductive day, but it’s okay. It’s a new year and I’m ready to crush it this year. After work, I am going to clean! Evey thing! bey really. Kitchen for sure and the table. I will do the work out and possibly yoga. Maybe yoga before bed. I want to get more on a set schedule. It’ll be good. I also want to make the flash cards and play on the piano for at least 30 minters. I want to do that every day to get better at the piano! It’ll happen. also. No T.V. today and not on my phone too much Read. Read. Read. Read please.

Cont on 8/15

Top things I would like to do more of this year. Play more music. Listen to more music. Read more. Write more. Maybe find a different year planner with bigger days, or just start filling up the other journals I have. Move my body more. I did great for a long time then I just sucked some more. I want to save as much as possible. I’ll stick to the $200 budget and any thing that doesn’t fit I need to move my budget week from Friday to Sunday. Sundays will be fore grocery shopping and chilling. then by the time Friday/Saturday roll around we’ll see how much I have left. It’ll work out way better that way. No more of this $1.87 in my bank account. I specially since I made over $60,000 this year. I do have a lot to show for it, but it is the very least I could do. At least I’m aware of it. I’ve been living like this for a long time. 2018 was a great year and it’s only going to get better! Keep you sight close and focus on the day to day. You can do this. You want do do this. It will happen. You got this!

Cont on 8/14

So. It’s a very good possibility that I will have Mona back in my lfe relatively shortly. Like a week or so. As long as I’m able to get this pet deposit paid on Friday. Just have to wait for Anna to call and it should be good to go on Friday. I’m so stoked. I may have to drive up there to pick her up but I don’t mind. I could invite someone for the road trip. Could be a dun weekend. We’ll see what happens though. I do have my hopes up, but I won’t believe it till it happens. Then I always have an excuse to always go home after work. No more just stopping at the folks, which I don’t mind, but I just won’t be tempted. Then I’m always home on work days. Even Friday. There, I will move there likely just stay home all the time and I’m okay with that. Then I have no excuse to go out and not cook at home and not work out. Lets go with the no zero days. This is going to be my best year yet! I’m excited! I’m also very excited about the left over pizza that In the over! I can’t skip lunch anymore. It sucks. Couple more days!

Cont on 8/13

I may bail on Ian to go to the party. I’ll talk Ian to come earlier so I can get out of here around 7:30 and get to his place around 8:15isg. I haven’t. We’ll see. We have time to figure it out! They’ll be alright with it. Got the flash card done. It won’t take long to go through them before going to bed. Like 10-15 minutes. I feel just going through them once a day I’ll have them memorized pretty quickly and I’ll keep with the piano practice as much as I can. I like it. I want to be really good at the piano. If I do a couple times a week, there's no way I won’t get better. Lets say if you are getting better by like June, I will by myself a piano. Then I will have to practice all the time. Either way. I will keep practicing and getting better. Today I cleaned very little. Exercised. Kept under my calorie goal. Made some flash cards and practiced piano. there’s no reason why I can’t do that almost everyday. Only thing stopping me i myself. I am the reason why I am where I am all the food and all the bad. I just need to get rig of the bad stuff.

Cont on 8/11

I wonder how Haily felt about the Christmas card. It is weird I sent it to her work, but I’d be stoked to get something like that. I really do hope she writes back. I didn’t really leave her with any other option. No phone number or anything. Just a return address and hopefully it was legible enough for her to read ti. Oh well. It’s gone and if I don’t hear from here, I hope she lives a very happy life. I’m sure she will.

Cont on 8/12

I don’t think I can go vegetarian, but I definitely want to seriously reduce my meat intake. Maybe I can be part of the history of humans that stop eating meat. I’m not going to raise any kids, but maybe I can influence someone with kids that will lead them to veggie diets? Probably not. I don’t know, but I do want to but out a lot of meat from my diet. I’m starting to feel bad for these animals. What makes out life so much more important than theirs. The fact that we can talk and read and write and understand complex thoughts. They have thoughts an feelings as well.

#journal #january2nd2019 #2019 #january #wednesday

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achaoticeternal · 4 years

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THIS IS ME TRYING

AVENGERS X READER (tony stark x daughter!reader, platonic peter parker x reader) masterlist // taglist

Request: @big-galaxy-chaos “Hey so I see that you also need requests as much as I do 😚 so here is mine! So it's Peter x stark!reader angst. Where Tony is afraid of becoming like his father but in reality, he is worst than him. He favors Peter more than her. Even though she is smarter than her own father, and won tons of awards and shit. Tony doesn't realize what he lost until the reader is gone. Btw the relationship between the reader and Peter is platonic! Also, everyone is oblivious to how she is feeling. Just pure angst”

Summary: Dads and daughters are supposed to have a beautiful relationship. But you could never be the song he always wanted. Word Count: 2.5K A/N: Based on the song this is me trying by Taylor Swift. Reader and Peter are both 18+; takes place after Thanos and Tony lives. Warnings: Heavy angst, cursing, self destructive behaviors, mentions death

“Mr. Stark, I’ve been working on the chemical formula of my webbing and I’m pretty sure that I’ve completely perfected it,” Peter talked while walking with your father to the lab.

“That’s great because I’ve been working on your web-shooters. Now, they can shoot up to 200 yards in length and the error rate of them getting jammed is less than one percent.”

Tony rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder as they left the room together. Neither of them acknowledges you on the couch, reading another novel involving quantum physics. But you’re used to the cold shoulder your father has given you since he first met Peter Parker. You’re used to the way he’s turned you away all your life, justifying his choice by saying he’s protecting you.

You knew that he feared to become his father. Pepper explained that to you when you were a child and you couldn’t leave your room until Tony’s lady of the night let. Or as you and Pepper called it at the time “taking out the trash”.

Maybe that was when you became more interested in the mathematics and science you found in the book and the workshop over good ole bonding time with dear old dad. If he wanted to neglect the time and opportunity to raise you, you would at least make sure to put his money and name to good use for your own personal benefit. And in the back of your mind, you knew that part of you was doing this to earn the attention and love you desired from your father.

Tony just saw it as taking an early interest in your future. So he didn’t stop you when you preferred to sit with tutors over playdates, draw out designs for engines and inventions instead of scribbling in coloring books, or even reading through scientific theories over watching Disney movies. He didn’t think it was strange, because that’s what he did at your age. Hell, by the time you were 10 you had won three first-place national science fair ribbons, third place in the national spelling bee, and began developing a prototype to turn the emissions from cars back into breathable oxygen.

Everyone noticed your brain, and how much you had achieved now at 18 years old. You held 2 Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and Organic Chemistry from MIT and a Master’s in Astrophysics from Georgia Tech. And you were now planning out when you wanted to go to Law school and earn your doctorate. But you were living at the compound now, taking a gap year.

When you went away for school, you learned from others how normal life was for everyone else. You met kids who were the first in their family to go to college or were looking for opportunities outside of the small towns they came from. When you came home from your second semester at MIT, you told Tony about all this and he created the September Foundation in order to fund the projects and inventions those kids were creating. It was another punch in the gut to you, because you realized that you would never be enough for Tony.

If you were enough, he would have passed the mantle of Iron Man onto someone else after he almost lost you and Pepper to the Mandarin. If you were enough, he wouldn’t have enlisted Peter to help him in his fight against Captain America. If you were enough, he wouldn’t have gone into space for a final fight. If you were enough, Morgan wouldn’t be in the other room watching cartoons. And if Tony acknowledged you, just even a little but, maybe you wouldn’t be trying so hard to impress him and the world.

“Ms. Stark, your package has arrived. Shall I send it over to the labs?” F.R.I.D.A.Y echoed into the room.

“No, send it over to my personal workshop. In fact, send all of TS-2008 to my personal workshop.”

“Of course, miss.”

“Oh, and F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

“Yes, miss?”

“Please stop referring to me as ‘Ms. Stark’, (Y/N) is fine.”

“Alright, CASS, reboot the system diagnostics and run test C-24,” you yawned as you asked your personal AI system. The personal AI system you built for yourself, bu yourself - no help from Tony at all.

“Systems are checked out, shall I launch the test?”

“Go for it,” you groaned and took to Advil for your poundingheadachee. It was now two in the morning after another long night of coding, calibrating, testing, and perfecting the project you’ve been working on the past two years.

When you were younger, you tried to replicate the Iron Man suit, but your father quickly discovered the helmet and nearly perfected arc reactor you’d created in his lab. He trashed all of it and told you never to attempt to create the suit again. He said you were better than that, that you had more potential than pretending to be a superhero. You realized as you grew older that he didn’t care if you were trying to become a hero or not; but that you were copying his work. His precious Iron Man that he took months to perfect only took a week for his child to solve.

Dear old dad couldn’t let you have things the easy way. So instead after SHIELD fell and Tony began working to finish wiping out HYDRA, you began working on your own original model suit. Now it was almost ready to showcase to the world.

“Test C-24:successful. Shall I continue to run diagnostics to watch the processing and reaction time of TS-2008?”

“Yes, CASS. Run virtual simulations L-29, O-400, and T-38. Let me know when the trials have finished running and whether or not they were successful or not.”

“Yes, Ms. (Y/N),”

You pushed away from your desk and left your workshop. Before you knew it, you were in the kitchen pouring yourself another cup of coffee. You had been through 3 pots already tonight and no one noticed. Guess that was the nice thing about being Tony’s kid. Everyone else acknowledge your accomplishments and paid no mind to your destructive tendencies. In fact, maybe you’d celebrate tonight and snag a bottle of champagne from the extravagant wine fridge next to the dishwasher. You’d done it plenty of nights before when you wanted to drown out and numb the pain in your heart.

“(Y/N)? Why are you awake? And why are you holding a bottle of champagne?”

Ah, Peter... of course he would be spending the weekend at the compound. It’s not likely he has a perfectly good and happy home back in Queens with a guardian who loves him very much and would give the world to him. Guess that’s something May and your Father.

“Hello, Perfect Parker”

“You know I’ve never understood why you call me that, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t make sense from your end of the looking glass.Why are you up?” You tried so hard not scowl or be too rude. Peter had tattled to TOny before about you having a ‘bad attitude’ towards him.

“I believe I asked you that first.”

“That you did, but if you want an answer out of me, you’ll have to answer first.”

“I couldn’t sleep. thought I would get myself a glass of water. You?”

“I’m getting wasted, just like all my potential,” You faked a smile and started peeling the gold wrapping off of the cork of the bottle.

“Don’t say that, everyone knows how talented and brilliant you are,” He sighed while grabbing himself a glass and walking over to the fridge, “You’re a Stark”

“Tell that to Dad, because you’ll always be more of a Stark than I’ll ever be,” You huffed as you pulled a corkscrew out of a drawer near you.

“That doesn’t make any sense, (Y/N), are you sure you haven’t been drinking already? Because you sound delirious. Maybe you should spend some time outside of your bedroom, maybe even get out of the compound. When was the last time you left to go somewhere?”

“Thanks for the concern Parker, but I’ve been able to hold my own for at least fifteen years now. And I know I don’t leave here a lot because I don’t have the opportunity too. If there’s a private event, either Pepper attends with Tony or Spider-man makes an appearance with Iron Man. I’m just surprised that there aren’t rumors across the media wondering ‘Is Spider-Man the lost of the Iron Man, Tony Stark?” You waved your hand in the air to match the dramatic tone.

“Haha, you’re so funny,” He took a sip out of your water, “People know you exist”

“Yeah, maybe if they do a quick Google shirt. But I’m not offended, I know that I just live in your shadow. But I’m used to it,” Your poured the alcohol into a glass and began to sip from it, relief flooding through you.

“Okay , I get it. You’re just in another one of your dramatic moods, maybe you should just go to bed before you say or do something stupid,” he took a step towards you.

“Don’t I always?”

“Always what?”

“Say or do something stupid?”

He halted and shook his head, “That’s not what I meant, (Y/N), I-”

“No, that’s exactly what you meant, Parker,” You brushed past him and stormed into the living room, “You don’t understand how lucky you are.”

He came stomping after you, “Oh, so you’re feeling brave, huh? Well you just sound like an idiot. I’m not just some lucky kid! I’ve lost my parents, my Uncle was killed in front of my face, and I disappeared from existence! The only people who care for me are Aunt May and Tony.”

You turned to face him, face completely red, tears threatening to spill, “Well at least you have Tony, because I don’t! I’ve just run around all my life trying to be perfect, be easy for him to deal with, live up to his and everybody's expectations! But I’m not good enough, I’ve never been good enough, and I’ll never be good enough. I’m just Tony Stark’s bastard child who built herself from the ground up without the slightest bit of help from her father!”

“(Y/N)...”

“No, don’t you ‘(Y/N)’ me. You’ve gotten everything you wanted from my father since day one. I never had that. You didn’t have to work to really make your own suite, you didn’t have to endure a lifetime of pain because of his arrogant ass, YOU didn’t have to wonder where Tony was on your graduation day for MIT - his alma mater - because he attended your fucking high school graduation instead!”

“What the hell is going on?” Tony yelled from the opposite end of the room. Pepper stood behind him and you could hear other door creaking open to here the events down the hall, “Not only are you two fighting in the living room and woke up half the compound, but you woke up Morgan and now she’s crying in her room because you two are screaming at each other.”

“Well boo-fucking-hoo, poor Morgan woke up in the middle of the night,” you mumbled to yourself.

“I just came to get a glass of water,” Peter attempted to defend himself.

And from Tony and Pepper’s angle, he did look to be more innocent. He had a glass of water in his hand and was completely cool. While you stood opposite of him; a bottle of booze in one had, dark circles under your eyes, a tear stained face, and looking to be in a mad frenzy.

“(Y/N), explain yourself,” Tony spoke sternly.

You took a deep breath in and wiped away fresh tears with your sleeve, “No, I don’t have to.”

“Excuse me,” your father marched across the room, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight but-”

“What’s gotten into me? Do you even listen to the bullshit that comes out of your mouth? No, of course you do, because you like listening to yourself talk more than you’ll listen to me. So talking to you is as fucking useless as talking to a deaf man!”

Peter and Tony now stood stunned at you and your sudden tantrum, but you knew it had been coming, you had always known. You knew one day you were going to explode, and it just happened to be tonight.

“I get it, I’m not precious Peter, or your beautiful Morgan. I’m just your bastard child from some broad you met on Malibu Beach. Even though I’m just a kid, I’ve always been your competition, a threat to you and your name. And even after every nearly life-ending event, I thought things would change - that you’d finally love me. But that never happened not even after Extremis infected not just Pepper’s body, but my own! And now I’m dying, I’m fucking dying, dad. I’m running out of time and trying to do everything I can. I go to school and get these diplomas and certificates to impress you. I invent and build thing to get your attention. I do it all because I still desire your validation and I’m running out of time,” you fall to your knees, everything becoming to much, “this is me trying, just like I have been all my life- but it’s still not enough.”

The room went silent. Only sobs echoed around the room as champagne poured out the bottle, staining the carpet. Neither Tony or Peter knew what to say or what to do. How could they begin to comfort the crying girl on the floor, or fix everything that ha occured over a lifetime.

Tony finally knelt down, “(Y/N), you know I never meant for any of this to happen, for you to ever feel like this. I’ve always been so scared of becoming your grandfather... I thought I was doing right by never pushing you, I guess it just never clicked.”

“Oh yeah, is that why you pushed me away and found Peter? And then when you realized you had messed up and forgot about your first daughter, you had another one in order to make things up?” You raised to head and shoulder up first, then finally rose back onto your two feet, “well congratulations, you’re worse than Howard Stark. And I hope you’re proud, Dad.”

With that, you left the living room. You couldn’t deal with in anymore that night, maybe ever again. Because when Tony came to check on you the next morning, you were missing. Only a note by your bedside remained as the only proof you had even lived in the room.

I didn't know if you'd care if I came back I have a lot of regrets about that Pulled the car off the road to the lookout Could've followed my fears all the way down And maybe I don't quite know what to say But I'm here in your doorway I just wanted you to know that this is me trying

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calpicowater · 2 years

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Week 45.5/52: November 8th - November 14th 2021 | Remembrance Day 🌺

Day off!!!!! AKA only day to travel and it was so well spent (productive af). Use this post as a Victoria, BC travel guide by yours truly. Met up with Asako and Cody at around 9 in the morning and our first stop of the day was Hatley Castle (apparently X-Men was filmed here??). The weather was so shit... couldn’t get a lot of good photos (so tragic). The castle was super pretty though. The garden was nice too but it was lowkey kind of dangerous for me who was wearing doc martens... like bruh I almost tripped 3492384 times. Pretty place regardless. We couldn’t go inside the castle so we finished the walk around it/in the garden pretty quickly.

Our next stop was Miniature World (Miniature-themed dioramas & displays representing historical times & fictional worlds). I LOVE MINI THINGS SO MUCH. I took almost 200 photos here LOL (deadass majority of the trip pics are from here). We were all taking our sweet time with it... we had 2-3 families pass us :’) I feel like if I had come here alone I would have spent even more time trying to take photos RIP. I really liked it!!!! Everything was so cute and well-made. So tiny but so much detail went into it. The dedication is so real. These displays are truly worth 398923 dollars but I paid $18 to go inside to see it. Money well spent!

Third stop of the day was eating Fish & Chips at Old Vic Fish & Chips. It was lunch special time so my entire plate was only $11 and they gave so many fries!!!!!! It was so yum actually. The fish was god tier. I love deep fried anything but they did it so well. A huge piece of cod too that came with tartar sauce and coleslaw. Love it. Highly recommend. We also stopped by a vintage camera store and passed by the Parliament (so crowded because of Remembrance Day). We went back to the motel to rest first (I just went through my photos and watched TV) before meeting up together again for dinner at Nubo, a Japanese restaurant. The food was so good and it was Asako approved so you know it’s authentic and really good LOL. I got their plain udon and it was so delicious and affordable!!!! Only $12 after tips and tax O_O the same bowl of noodle would cost twice the amount in Vancouver fr. Also this night was SUPER warm. I was wearing my khaki/dad jacket and a sweatshirt and legit SWEATING when I was walking like wtf???? Crossed off the one last thing off of my bucket list which was taking night view photos of the BC parliament building! I really love taking these types of photos. Nothing I love more tbh. I never feel happy these days thanks to crippling depression but during that moment when I got the final shot I was actually pretty content. My photographer self is happy.

When the day ended, I felt like I wasn’t even in Victoria for work anymore lol. Legit felt like I was there for travel only but... back to work again for the next 2 days so...... gotta make that coin somehow. :’0 Anyway, I had still wanted to visit the Fisherman’s Wharf as well but it was raining the whole day and they close it when the weather isn’t good so we never got the chance to go :-( It’s ok. Maybe next time! Still a nice travel day regardless.

#365 #52 #victoria trip 2021 #fish and chips #udon #castle #circus #skyline #night view #parliament #such a happy day actually #so nice bonding 😭#theyre both so funny i legit love talking to them #they legit order beer with every single meal and every time the waiter is like 'what abt u' at me and i just respond with h20 DJKFJFSKJ #and then codys like can u not make us look like alcoholics?????#im like but u guys are????? im not doing anything wrong????#right???????#omg it was os cute cus the chinese server at fish&chips asked us if we were students #SKDKSF i wish #just a working adult now </3 #man this whole day i was like hhhhh xswl #why was miniature world so fucking COOL #we could press buttons to move properllers or cars or trains... so fucking COOL #IM SO OBSESSED ACTUALLY CRYING #it would suddenly get dark so we could see the night view too!!!!!!#i have so much love for this museum... this is my fav one i've ever gone to #and i have been to my fair share of museums lol

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shijiujun · 4 years

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sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening

(aka that sugar baby ficlet i wanted to see and then decided to write myself as a self-indulgent thing)

---

It comes to him suddenly in the middle of the day while talking to an old lady from the crowd surrounding their latest crime scene. Nothing special really happens, there isn’t a huge, eureka moment, but more like a soft… click, and everything falls into place in his head just like that.

And it all begins when the lady goes, “It’s nice to have a young man so taken with you, right?��

Lu Yao’s brilliant mind actually comes to a stop at the seemingly innocent remark, so much so that his train of thought actually disappears. That has not happened before.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Oh, don’t be shy! At my age, what have I not seen? That young inspector, isn’t he your boyfriend?” the lady leans in conspiratorially. “He’s been looking over at you repeatedly since you arrived. And I may be old, but I’m not blind! The watch you’re wearing, it’s the exact same type as his! It must’ve been a gift to you, no? Oh, it is a really lovely watch, can I touch it-“

“I think you’ve misunderstood something, ma’am,” Lu Yao forces a laugh, then turning his head around slightly.

It can’t be true, can it?

When he does turn, however, Qiao Chusheng is indeed faced his way, and he’s almost glaring at Lu Yao, impatient. Out of habit, Lu Yao jumps when their eyes meet, whether in fear or something else, he’s not sure.

Huh, Lu Yao thinks.

“We’re taking the body back to the station,” Chusheng says as he strolls over, looking at Lu Yao in a mixture of expectation and amusement. “Ah Dou is done with the police statements. Are you ready to go?”

It is the exact same watch, just with different coloured straps. How could he have missed it? Lu Yao doesn’t miss anything.

“Yeah, I’m done,” he nods, before remembering something. “Hold on a second, are we near Fu Lu Street? There’s a restaurant just three blocks away, I hear they serve the best duck in the city, can we…”

Chusheng’s expression goes carefully blank, both his eyebrows raised as he crosses his arms with a sigh, waiting for Lu Yao to go on.

Lu Yao laughs once, moving forward and batting his eyelashes at the man.

“Inspector Qiao, please? Come on, it’s just three blocks over, and when will we ever happen to be in this part of the city again? It’s so far away from the station and the house and I haven’t had duck since I came to this city. I can’t think when I’m hungry either, are you sure you want me to delay the progress of the-“

Chusheng puts up his hand, shaking his head. “Fine. We’ll go. This is an exception, don’t make it a habit.”

Delighted at having gotten his way, Lu Yao immediately moves off in the direction of the restaurant, trusting that Chusheng will follow behind. As they walk in silence, however, Lu Yao’s mind wanders back to what the old lady said earlier.

His eyes drop to the watch on his wrist, his reward for having solved Uncle Tan’s case. He thought it was a one-off thing… but now that he thinks about it, when was the last time he had to take out his own wallet to pay for something?

At the old lady’s reminder, Lu Yao realizes with a start that everything on him except for his shoes are gifts from Chusheng. His watch was a reward for breaking Uncle Tan’s case, and the suit… the both of them dropped into the river while chasing a suspect (Chusheng chased, while Lu Yao ran off to hide in the wrong direction and ended up falling down a slope, right into the river) and when Lu Yao woke up in the Bai Manor the next day with no memory as to how he got there, there it was, a checkered three-piece suit hanging at the door just for him.

As for the tie, Lu Yao has to recall if this is his, or if he snagged one of Chusheng’s rarely-used but expensive ones in retaliation for not letting him finish a bowl of beef noodles from his favourite store before dragging him off to a case. It’s in the same colour, although… Lu Yao nods, this tie is definitely Chusheng’s. He can tell just by the material under his fingertips.

When Lu Yao orders a full serving of roasted duck (Chusheng still rolls his eyes and gripes about how much he’s eating), the man quietly takes care of the bill regardless after Lu Yao is done. Not that Lu Yao would have any money on him to pay for the meal, of course. He’s reminded of all the meals he’s had in the past week - Chusheng has been paying for those too, and the one dinner they had at his house, Chusheng brought the groceries over for that one.

Even his baguettes! The past few times, Lu Yao barely had to pat through his pockets for non-existent money before Chusheng was leaning over and paying the store owner for him.

“You’ve been buying things for me,” Lu Yao says in the car, seated next to Chusheng as the inspector drives.

Chusheng looks at him, bewildered. “Of course I have. Or did you just forget that I paid for your roasted duck meal?”

“Not just that,” Lu Yao puts up his index finger as he thinks, “My suit. The watch.”

“The first was because you had no clothes at Bai manor, was I supposed to let you walk back naked? Plus, it’s not like you could have fit into any of my clothes. The second I explained to you too. That was for Uncle Tan’s case.”

“The new navy blue satin bedrobe in my room?”

“Didn’t you say You Ning ripped your original one apart after you refused to analyse the Bo Wan Tong case for her? The girls at the club knew where to get some nice ones, and I heard them talking about it.”

“What about my house rent?”

“This-“ Chusheng frowns, “ADon’t you remember? You were the one who asked for it as payment on the Hu Bin Yao case!”

“What about that bottle of cologne imported from England?”

“That Westerner you helped to prove innocent in the serial killing case offered!”

“Except,” Lu Yao finally turns to look at him, “That you insisted on putting the watch on for me personally at the dinner after giving it to me and it’s the exact same model as yours. Also, my original suit was probably cleaned and dry by the time I woke up, but you still got me a new one. That new bedrobe costs at least 200, the fabric is imported from India and there’s only one store in the whole of this city that can supply it which is exactly a 90-minute drive away from here.”

“As for the house rent, I’ve asked you so many times beofre but you’ve always found some way to not do it, and don’t even try!” Lu Yao points at Chusheng when the man opens his mouth. “Mr. Langdon said if he had any stock left he would give some to me, but his own shop and warehouse were wrecked in the aftermath, so unless you got him to specially ship some new stock over and paid some cash for it, I don’t think he would have done it that quickly, at least.”

“Not to mention everything I’ve wanted to eat in the past few weeks. You usually run off before I can make you pay for my baguettes. That hasn’t happened recently.”

Chusheng sighs softly, a smile tugging at the ends of his lips, but he doesn’t turn to look at Lu Yao. Instead, he stops the car after pulling them into a deserted alley first.

“So?” the inspector asks, leaning into his seat and finally giving Lu Yao his attention.

Lu Yao blinks, tapping at his chin as he observes Chusheng with the most innocent expression he can muster. “So…. why have you been going out of your way to buy things for me?”

Chusheng only chuckles, and Lu Yao barely blinks once before the man is leaning into his space. Out of reflex, Lu Yao inches his way backwards until the back of his head is pressed tight against the window behind him.

“Why do you think? You’re the great detective here, not me. I’ll give you one minute to think of the right answer.”

“Hmm,” Lu Yao avoids the man’s gaze, feeling oddly nervous as he tries to look at anything but Chusheng, who’s trapping him in this small, enclosed space. “Are you trying to bribe me into solving more cases for you?”

“Wrong answer, try again.”

“Boss Bai sent you to bribe me to be You Ning’s boyfriend?”

“Possible,” Chusheng pauses and considers this one. “It does sound like what he’d do, but not this time.”

He’s so close now, close enough for Lu Yao to run his fingers hesitantly down the front of Chusheng’s jacket. Close enough that Lu Yao can almost hear Chusheng’s heartbeat and feel the heat emanating off him. And while he has an inkling of what the correct answer might be thanks to the conversation he had with the old lady earlier, he’s not entirely certain still.

Lu Yao can tell what a person’s had for their last meal, where they came from, what they do and their personal habits just from a single look, and he has solved plenty of cases confidently. When it comes to Qiao Chusheng, however, Lu Yao is never really quite sure.

“Time’s up.”

Snapping out of his thoughts quickly, Lu Yao looks up with his eyes wide, prepared to argue with Chusheng when the man closes the remaining distance between them and kisses him.

When they finally pull apart, all Lu Yao can do is stare, his breaths coming out uneven after the very thorough kiss Chusheng gave him. He’s not usually one to be speechless, but this… thing has him oddly flustered and awkward, his earlier self-assured demeanour all gone.

“Then why-“

“Because all I want to do is give you everything you want, that’s why,” Chusheng responds easily, before ducking in to steal another kiss from Lu Yao.

#my roommate is a detective #MRIAD #ficlet #i tried #although can someone pls do an actual proper sugar baby/sugar daddy fic #cries #name your price!!#;-;#chuyao

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aventurasdeunatortuga · 3 years

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Laredo Part 2

Week 1

Hey friends,

After a long travel hiatus, as some of you may already know, I am back in Laredo, Texas. I’ll be here for about 3.5 weeks working with shelters to support recently arrived asylum seekers at the US Mexico border. I was here 2 years ago doing the same thing, you can go through the laredo tag on here to get some more background about what is going on here and to read about my experiences in 2019.

I have been here already for about a week and have been so exhausted I haven’t had the energy to write anything, but here is more or less what is going on.

So since Fall of 2019, the border was closed to all asylum seekers thanks to 45’s cruel Remain In Mexico policy, which forced asylum seekers from Central America to wait along the Mexican border for an undetermined amount of time until they could get an immigration hearing. In the past asylum seekers could wait with their families in the US for their court dates (it can be a long wait). Waiting at the border in Mexico, a country they are not from, left folks vulnerable to human trafficking, kidnapping, gang violence, and extortion from the cartels operating along the border. During COVID folks were living in makeshift tents along the border with no running water and were left vulnerable to exposure, flooding, disease, dangerous wildlife, and the millions of other dangers that come from being outside in 113 degree heat with no water. There was no international aid brought in and support was limited to the few aid workers allowed to cross the border, which was very dangerous given the amount of gang violence on the Mexican side. One shelter director in Nuevo Laredo was kidnapped and murdered last year.

When Biden was elected, he reversed the Remain In Mexico policy just a few weeks into his presidency. Meaning that asylum seekers could now enter the US after surrendering at the border and being held for indeterminate amounts of time in ICE detention centers. Once they are released from there they are given a court date in wherever their final destination in the US is, but are left on the street with nothing.

Most folks are illiterate, none speak English and some only speak indigenous dialects. All of their possessions and money have been taken by either cartels or by ICE. Most havent eaten in days and many are seriously ill. None of them know where they are or how to get where they’re going. ICE will drop them off at random towns along the border after releasing them from detention, sometimes hundreds of miles from where they crossed. They just have a name and phone number memorized of a friend or family member in the US that is sponsoring them and who they are planning to stay with.

The vast majority of folks are from Central America, they are fleeing cartel violence , government persecution, extreme poverty, and natural disasters caused by climate change. The instability in these countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) was caused directly by US intervention, but that’s a whole other topic I won’t get into now. Folks must show a credible proof of being threatened or persecuted in their home country to even be granted the status of asylum seeker and to be given a court date.

Shelters in border towns do what they can to support folks being released from detention. They help them make phone calls, provide translation, help them buy bus and plane tickets, give them food, water, medical care, showers, clean clothes, toiletries, and a safe place to sleep until they are able to make travel arrangements to their final destinations.

During the last 2 years under the Remain In Mexico policy, no one was being admitted and so shelters lost a great deal of funding, staff, and volunteers. They turned more towards community work, which was especially needed during COVID.

Shelters are in a difficult position now though, folks are allowed to enter now which is good news but shelters are having to meet even more extreme needs with far fewer resources than they had pre-COVID.

For a long time the shelter I worked with before, La Frontera, was closed due to lack of funding; but only very recently reopened again. I have been spreading my time between La Frontera (run by Catholic charities) and the other shelter in Laredo, Holding Institute Community Center, which is a community center run by the Methodist Church. Both of these shelters have 2-3 paid staff members, a revolving door of volunteers from around the country (the majority of them nuns), are entirely donation based, and receive 200-300 new people every single day.

About 20-30% of each busload of people that ICE drops off are infected with COVID. ICE refuses to test folks that they detain for COVID because if they knew they had positive cases they would have to provide healthcare and a place for them to quarantine. Instead they lump everyone together in cramped conditions and COVID is allowed to run rampant in these detention centers.

In detention folks are kept in overcrowded rooms, communicated with almost exclusively in English, are provided limited food and toiletries, and are kept in refrigerated rooms (65 degrees) with no blankets. These places are called the ‘ice boxes’. Sometimes folks are separated from their families here as well.

Lately there has also been a dysentery outbreak due to the fact that the city of Laredo does not currently have drinkable water, residents are advised to drink only bottled or boiled water, which asylum seekers do not have access to until they reach the shelters.

When folks reach the shelters, they are given on the spot covid tests by a team of nurses and public health officials. There is no room for them at the hospitals, even if there were room hospitals wouldnt accept them because they have no insurance. The city government has offered bottled water to the shelters but thats it.

After being tested for covid, the health team divides folks into 2 groups, positive and negative. Folks who test positive have to quarantine for 10 days in an empty warehouse next door to the shelter or if they’re lucky and the shelter can afford it, a motel. Yesterday the shelter bought out a motel because there were 200+ covid patients who arrived. We have two small classrooms at the shelter that have been converted into sleeping areas for about 40 covid patients. The medical team leaves boxes of food and clothing outside their door, and once a day they are taken to shower and then the entire bathroom is sanitized.

Those who test negative are immediately vaccinated on site, and then taken to get clean clothes, food, and a shower. They sleep on cots outside under the trees in the fenced courtyard of the shelter.

For the first few days I’ve been here, I’ve been working at Holding only because I didn’t know La Frontera had reopened. I was mainly working on sorting and organizing clothing and helping folks find clothes that they need. Last night though 200+ covid positive patients arrived and we had to stop allowing people in the building to pick out clothes, and today we moved to just putting together kits of different sized clothes to give directly to them.

I was feeling a bit frustrated the last few days because the staff member in charge of organizing donations was being extremely critical of me and it was very frustrating and degrading to be around. I was yelled at a number of times by her. For example, I saw a pile of 200 towels on the ground and folded them. I was told that I did it wrong, to unfold them and fold all of them a different way. Or I started organizing toiletries and was just told ‘no, you’re messing it up, don’t touch that’. I understand that I’m new but no one took the time to introduce themselves to me, orient me, or show me what to do and I was trying to be helpful. I also understand that folks are stressed and under pressure but please don’t take it out on people trying to help you. Most everyone there is extremely nice it was just one of the staff members in particular that was acting this way. I was told I wasn’t allowed to give water or shoes to people who needed them because “I didn’t know how to do it” and because “if you give water to one person, everyones going to want it, and i don’t have time for that”. I didn’t come down here to sit inside doing nothing next to a giant case of bottled water and be told I’m not allowed to give it to the thirsty person in front of me.

So I walked out and I left the shelter in the middle of the day to go drive around town and take a breather, because everything I did seemed like made someone upset. When I came back I inserted myself into the kitchen crew and ended up making 200+ sandwiches for dinner. I also had a long talk with one of the nuns who assured me that that staff member is like that with everyone and has a lot of control issues due to the amount of pressure she is under, and not to take it personally. She told me that La Frontera had reopened and so ever since then I started dividing up my days between the two shelters. This has made a big difference and I feel a lot better and more useful.

I also connected more with some of the nuns here and they invited me to dinner tonight which was nice. One of the sisters is writing a book based on narratives of folks passing through these shelters and is interviewing people she meets. It was fascinating to talk to her. She has worked with undocumented immigrants and DREAMers from around the country for 28 years, and wrote another book based on those experiences called Silent Voices In The Shadows (Paula Schwendinger), which I just finished reading and highly recommend.

Oh, also it has been raining really hard for the past day or so with 95% humidity and constant thunder and lightening, which has made things even more interesting.

I will try to keep posting semi regularly while I’m here.

#laredo #texas #borderlands #immigration #asylum seekers

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eldritchteaparty · 3 years

Link

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares

General summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter summary: Jon and Martin head back to the Magnus Institute, where Martin goes on an interview outing with Tim and Jon starts to catch up with Sasha’s “statements.”

Chapter 4 of my post-canon fix-it is up! Read above at AO3 or here below.

Tumblr master post with links to earlier chapters

***

Shortly after Martin’s phone flickered to life, he found a lot of messages waiting for him—and they were almost all from the same person.

Are you ok?

Message soon please.

Do you need anything?

Answer when you can.

Still worried…

He glanced at Jon, sitting on the other side of the bed and looking through his own phone.

“Sasha been messaging you too?” Martin asked him.

“Yes. And I’ve got one from Tim.”

Martin had that one also. “Telling you to answer Sasha?”

“Yes—and calling me something I won’t repeat.”

Ok, so he didn’t have exactly that one.

“All right,” Martin said a few minutes later. “Let’s do this, then. I’ll message Sasha back.”

“Wait—what are we doing? What’s the plan?”

He typed out a simple message to Sasha telling her they were ok and he was sorry for not answering sooner. “We lie to them.”

“Hm.” Jon seemed uneasy.

“Did you… want to tell them the truth?”

“Well…” Jon thought. “Obviously, we can’t. I’m just concerned that—”

“Exactly. And even if we did tell it to them, they wouldn’t believe it.”

Jon still looked doubtful. “Martin, I’m not sure if I—”

“Look, sometimes there are good reasons to lie. We just need to keep it simple, make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.” He read the message one more time and hit send. “Anyway, don’t act like you don’t know how. You’re actually quite good at it when you want to be.”

He didn’t mean to add that last part; it just came out, and it came out bitter. He looked at Jon again and regretted it immediately. He had come to realize he much preferred Jon’s anger to his sadness, especially when he was the cause. He opened his mouth to apologize, but as he did his phone began to buzz. They stared at each other.

“Jon, I didn’t mean that. I’m—I’m sorry—forget it, ok? I have to—hang on.”

He answered Sasha’s call on speaker, turning away to concentrate.

“Hey, Sasha.”

“Martin? Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t answer you sooner. It’s been—”

“How is Jon, do you know?”

“Yes, he’s—he’s with me. We’re both ok.”

“Oh, thank god.” Her relief was clear, even over the speaker, and Martin felt a pang of something in his gut. He hadn’t had a moment to consider how much he’d missed Sasha, how unfair it had all been, and how much it felt like she’d somehow come back. It would have been so easy to think that way—except their Sasha was still dead, and he may very well have been responsible for the death of the person she thought she was talking to.

“You do sound better,” she continued. “Look, I really didn’t want to tell you what to do, but—tell me you went to a doctor or something?”

Martin cleared his throat, aware Jon was listening to the conversation. “We did, actually. We did end up going to the hospital. I think we were maybe in a bit of shock after all.”

“No kidding. What happened? What did they say?”

“Physically, we’re—we’re all right.” He thought about all the blood again, and decided he should add a little more. “I mean, we were very dehydrated. They put us on a drip for a bit. And—and antibiotics, just in case. But they said we’re healing well, I guess?”

“That—that’s good. What else? What about—not physically?”

“Well, they did a lot of tests. The kind where they asked a bunch of questions. They didn’t want to call it amnesia, exactly, but we’ve—we’ve got some memory loss.” Experience told him the less specific the lie, the better. “Neither of us really remembers what happened. And it’s possible… we might have forgotten some stuff from before, too. We don’t really know how bad it is yet.”

“Oh. That’s terrible.”

Martin looked over his shoulder at Jon, who had crept closer to hear better. He nodded, and Martin turned back.

“It’s not great, but the good news is they don’t think there are any deeper issues. I mean, they’ve got us signed up for all kinds of therapy, but they don’t think there’s any—how did they say it—no lasting cognitive impairment.” Cognitive impairment was a phrase that maybe came to him too easily after caring for his mother; he felt like he was maybe pushing it a little.

“Well, that part’s good. How are you feeling, though?” Sasha asked.

“A lot better.”

“Did they feed you? Do you need anything? Can I bring you something?”

“No, that’s all right. We’re—actually, Sasha, we were wondering if we could… maybe come back. To work.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end, and Martin cringed and held his breath through it; he didn’t look at Jon. He might have gone for it too soon.

“You want to come back? Already?”

He exhaled quietly, away from the phone so Sasha couldn’t hear it. “They said the more we could normalize things, it might—help? I mean, I know there might be some issues rehiring us—but maybe if Elias hasn’t replaced us yet—"

“No, I mean—you know Elias, he hasn’t even taken you off payroll. It just seems… fast. Are you sure you want to?”

“Well, if you’re worried, we don’t have to come back right away.” Jon grabbed his arm and Martin frowned at him, shrugging him off. Wait, he mouthed. “I know we might not be up to our usual workload, and we’re going to have to take some time off for therapy and all… I’m really only bringing it up because they thought it would help, but it’s completely fair if you don’t want to take—”

“No! No, I don’t mind.” She sounded upset, and he felt bad. “That’s not it at all. And we could use your help, honestly, but I really don’t want to put pressure on you while you’re recovering. Do you promise you’ll let me know if it’s too much?”

“Yes,” Martin answered. “Yes, of course. Jon too.”

“Well…” said Sasha, “When are you thinking about coming in?”

Um… hang on.” He muted himself and turned to Jon.

“What do you think?” Then, before Jon answered, he added, “And do not say today. It’s already after 2 pm and that would just be weird.”

“Fine. Tomorrow, then.” Of course. He sighed.

“Sasha?” He said, unmuting the phone. “Jon says—Jon says tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Really?”

“Yeah. Yeah, actually. If you’re all right with it.”

There was more silence.

“And I mean Sasha, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t mind being around people. It would be nice.” That wasn’t even a lie.

“Ok. Sure, Martin.” It had done the trick. “Take your time getting in though, ok? And get some sleep tonight.”

“Will do. Thanks, Sasha.” He hung up, and turned his head slightly in Jon’s direction. “Happy?”

“Thank you,” Jon answered, putting an arm around Martin to press his mouth briefly to his cheek. Martin couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, all right. Just don’t exhaust yourself. Remember, you’ve got to eat real food and sleep real sleep now.”

“Mm.” Jon was already headed out to the sitting room where his desk was.

“What did I say, Jon?” he shouted.

“Eat and sleep,” Jon shouted back.

Martin grumbled to himself.

The rest of the day was spent washing the one set of clothes that he had, and going through the phone to learn what he could about his current situation. His passwords and fingerprints opened all the apps, but that didn’t faze him anymore. He was able to figure out from email and voicemails that the apartment building where this world’s Martin had been living had indeed kicked him out, but thankfully his belongings were being held in storage. He could pay two months of back rent and a late fee if he wanted to reclaim them, although it wouldn’t be until the following week.

Fortunately, Sasha had been correct that they hadn’t been taken off payroll—not only had they not been taken off, but Martin had been paid his full salary for the last two months. If he hadn’t already been convinced that Jonah Magnus was not running the institute, that certainly did it.

***

Although he didn’t successfully get Jon off the computer for it, he did manage to get him to eat most of a meal that evening at his desk. And while Jon didn’t get in bed at the same time he did, Martin was still up to hear him come in.

“Hey.”

“Sorry,” Jon said softly. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, that’s all right. You didn’t. I actually—something’s been bothering me. I wanted to apologize for what I said right before Sasha called today. About… you. Lying. I mean, we need to talk about it—what happened—but not like that.”

“Martin…” Jon shifted under the covers. “I want to talk about it. I do. You deserve that. I’m just…”

“You’re not ready yet.”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll—I’ll try not to push,” Martin answered, closing his eyes again. “I want to do this right. Or at least better than we’ve been doing things. Just… you try too, ok?”

There was a moment of quiet before Jon answered. “Ok.”

***

Going back to the Magnus Institute in the morning already felt much easier than it had the first time. It didn’t hold the same sense of discontinuity—it felt less like déjà vu and more like returning to a place he had genuinely spent a lot of time. Rosie was away from her desk when they arrived; Sasha and Tim were in Sasha’s office with the door closed, and they could hear muffled conversation through the door. Jon sat at his desk, but Martin decided he’d wait for Sasha before he even pretended to do something, and sat on the sofa instead.

“So,” he asked Jon, “how are you feeling, now that you’re here?”

“Good, I suppose,” he answered. “Well, not bad, anyway. I’ll feel better once I can start looking through some of Sasha’s statements.”

“They’re not statements, Jon. I expect you’re going to be disappointed if—”

“I just meant that I’ll feel better once I have some understanding of…” He trailed off. “Why do I need a pin?”

“Hm?”

“My laptop. I need a pin.”

“Wait, didn’t you have one before?”

“No. Sasha kept telling me to set one, but…” Jon sighed. “This would be a lot easier if we could remember things about this place when we wanted to.”

A thought occurred to Martin, something they hadn’t talked about yet. “Are you going to be all right, Jon? With Sasha being the archivist here?”

“She’s not the Archivist. There is no Archivist here. Not even me, right now.” Martin could hear him typing, trying different combinations of numbers, and could also hear his frustration growing.

“Hang on, let me try a couple things before you go getting all worked up.” He got up and went to join Jon at his desk. “And no, you’re right, of course—I just meant, are you ok with her being the head archivist here? At the Institute?”

“I don’t care.” Jon leaned back from his desk so Martin could reach the number keys. “Wait—is that the sofa that Tim brought in when—”

“Yes, it is. And it was a good idea.” The pin would have to be something Jon would easily remember, and knowing Jon, probably also too easy for someone else to guess. He tried Jon’s birthday; it didn’t work. He tried the street number of Jon’s flat, and that didn’t work either. “Hmm…”

“Well, I suppose professionalism isn’t as important when your entire area of research is—”

“Jon, hush.” Last four of Jon’s phone number?... Nope. He stared down at the keys and a wild thought entered his head. No reason he couldn’t try it, though. He typed the four-digit combination and was surprised to find that it worked.

“Oh.” Jon leaned forward. “What did you type?”

“I don’t know,” Martin lied. “I was just trying things. I don’t remember what I did.”

“Well, how am I supposed to get back in next time?”

“You’re going to have to change it.”

“I don’t want to change it.”

“Sasha’s going to make you change it.”

“How is Sasha going to know that—”

“Because I just saw Martin type it in for you,” Sasha said from the door of her office, smiling.

“Hey, Sasha.” Martin let himself smile in return—it was easy, if he forgot the last four years of his life. “Thanks again for letting us come in today.”

“Honestly, I’m already wondering if it was a mistake. I told you to take your time and really, it’s first thing in the morning.”

“Well, Jon just couldn’t wait to get back,” he said, reflexively rubbing the back of his neck. “He—hang on.”

He snatched the mouse away from Jon and clicked through to the screen where he could change his pin, while Jon did his best to appear extremely inconvenienced. “Oh, stop. Type the new one, I’m not looking.”

Jon grudgingly did as Martin instructed.

“So why were you so eager to come back, Jon?” Sasha asked.

“Oh.” Jon cleared his throat. “I, um…”

Martin interceded. “He’s actually been very concerned about—about the things you said have been happening here since we were gone.”

“I wondered if that was it. I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Sasha said. “I know you don’t remember anything, but the timing was just so… Jon, I know you’ve always been a skeptic—”

“And I still am. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for everything.” Martin thought maybe Jon would catch on after all. “But it would be quite the coincidence if it were unrelated. I was actually wondering if I might review some of the notes you took during your—interviews.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Sasha replied. “To be honest, I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with them. They aren’t exactly typical archive material. Maybe you can help me—”

“Morning, everyone.” Tim cheerfully disrupted the conversation as he slipped into the room behind Sasha. “How are we all feeling?”

“All right,” Martin answered, when no one else did.

“Great. Especially coming from you, Martin, because we are going on an adventure today.” Tim made his way to his desk and picked through a few papers.

“Oh?” Martin looked at Sasha.

“What Tim means is that if you are up for it, there were a few people who contacted us but couldn’t come in, and we haven’t had a chance to get back to them. I haven’t felt comfortable sending Tim to interview people alone, and well—it’s not really our job, and I’ve got more than enough actual work to take care of since—well, we’ve gotten a bit backed up.”

“What do you think, Martin?” Tim asked, waving the papers toward him. “Up for it?”

“Oh, well, I—I guess I could, yeah.” He glanced at Jon, who was suddenly sitting up very straight in his chair.

“Martin, I—are you sure?”

“I think so,” Martin replied.

“I’m just thinking that if something were to happen…”

“What—what sort of thing?”

“Yeah Jon, what sort of thing?” Tim echoed. They both turned to look at him and found him with a curious look on his face. “Oh look, if you two need to consult about this, please go ahead. Don’t mind me.”

“Yes, thank you, Tim.” Jon spoke through gritted teeth, indicating the sarcasm hadn’t escaped him. “Martin, just—come talk to me.” He stood up and took Martin by the arm, leading him out into the reception area and closing the door—but not before Martin saw Tim bite back a grin.

“Jon, what—”

“Martin, we have no idea what’s going on, or who or what could be out there, or—”

“Do you want Tim to go by himself?”

“Well—no, but—”

“Look.” He took Jon by the arm now. “I know we haven’t been apart since—well, not for a long time. And I know every time we have been apart, it’s been bad. But things are different now. This is different. You’ll be all right here with Sasha, and I’ll be with Tim and—”

“And with anything else that’s shown up since we got here. And if something happened, I—” Jon stopped and looked toward the floor. “I wouldn’t know about it.”

“Yeah, well, welcome back to being a normal person.” He squeezed Jon’s arm. “Look, if you’re really worried, I’ll come up with some excuse. But Jon, we’ve got to—we’ve got to try and be functional here. Plus, if you really want to figure out where things are—if you’re here going through the interviews, doesn’t it help for me to be out there? Talking to people? You know—like I used to do for you by myself all the time?”

Jon pressed a hand to his own mouth, thinking.

“Jon, I’ve got my phone.”

“Technically you had your phone when you went to look for Jane Prentiss.”

“Ok, I see why that’s not that reassuring, but do you realize how long it took for Jane Prentiss to—become what she was? And I will be with Tim, and—”

“Yes, you’ll be with Tim. Great.”

“Jon.” Martin sighed. “He’s just concerned. Ok, what if I—what if I look through the contact forms before I leave? Make sure I don’t recognize any names on them? Like—no bad names?”

“We don’t even know if it works like that.” Jon thought for another minute, but Martin could see his resistance starting to come down. “Look, I don’t want to… maybe I am being overprotective.”

“You think?” It didn’t really bother him to hear Jon say it; in fact, he got a bit soft knowing Jon felt that way, but it wasn’t going to help the situation to admit it.

Jon finally gave in. “All right. Do look at the names though—and if anything happens—”

“I’ll let you know right away. I won’t do anything dumb.”

“I know. Martin, I—” Jon looked up at him again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He leaned down for a quick kiss, which Jon returned. “I’ll be fine, ok?”

Jon nodded, reluctant.

***

Despite another look from Tim, Martin did check the names as promised; there were only three for that day, and he didn’t recognize any of them. By the time they left, the thought of spending time alone with Tim made him more nervous than their actual task. He imagined that as soon as they were out the door, Tim would start peppering him with questions about where he and Jon had been, what had happened between them, or both.

As it turned out, though, their time together was quite enjoyable. Martin had forgotten how easy it was to be around Tim—that he had that thing he could do that just made everyone comfortable when he wanted to. They took the tube out to a suburb, and on the way, they talked about the weather a little bit. They talked about a new café that had moved in down the street a few weeks ago; Tim said it was all right for an occasional something different, but nothing special. They talked about what Tim had been up to in his free time. As it turned out, his brother Danny was getting married soon to a girl Tim absolutely adored. Martin suddenly remembered when Danny had come into town and visited Tim at work one day a few years ago, and he’d been amazed by how similar the two of them had been when they stood side by side.

I’ve met Danny Stoker. The urge to smile hitting alongside that awful catch in his throat was becoming a strangely familiar feeling.

Their first interview was with an older woman in her home. She had gotten in touch with the Institute after receiving their information through a friend of a friend, who’d heard a story from yet another friend. Martin really thought there wasn’t anything to it. Well, he supposed it was possible there was a ghost living in her television set that just happened to have moved in after her daughter had tried to help her set up a new voice assistant—but in all fairness, it seemed unlikely. The second interview was equally unimpressive.

Once they finished up, Tim made a phone call to their third interview subject, and announced they were headed back to central London. The man didn’t want to meet at home, but he was willing to meet them somewhere public; Tim arranged to meet him at a deli not far from the Institute. The ride back was pleasant enough, if a bit quieter.

“It’s getting late,” Tim said, after glancing at his phone. “We have time to eat first, if you’re up for it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Martin was pretty hungry again by the time they sat down with their food. He supposed he’d missed being able to enjoy food, but having to eat multiple times a day was sort of annoying when it came down to it. He was just wondering if he should send Jon a reminder to eat, when he realized Tim was staring at him; he hadn’t touched his sandwich yet.

“Everything ok?” he asked.

“What happened?” Tim asked. “To you and Jon.”

“Oh, I—” Martin swallowed the bite in his mouth. “I assumed Sasha told you. We don’t—”

“Don’t remember.” Tim cut him off. “Really, though? Like—nothing?”

Well, here goes. “Really. Nothing.”

Tim regarded him thoughtfully. “We looked for you. Me and Sasha, we looked everywhere, for weeks. Well, everywhere we could think of.”

“Tim, I’m—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” That was the truth. In fact, he was sorrier than he was going to be able to explain.

“Sasha took it really hard, you know?” Tim said. “I mean, you were at work when it happened. She felt responsible. Like it was her fault.”

That sounded familiar.

“It wasn’t,” Martin replied. “It wasn’t her fault. It had nothing to do with her.”

“I told her that. Every day. I don’t think it made any difference, though. And I’m sure it hasn’t really sunk in yet that you’re back.” Tim picked a small piece of crust from his sandwich bread and chewed it carefully before swallowing. “I mean, it almost seems impossible, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were gone for two months, you left no sign of what had happened or where you were—and then you just show up again one day, making out on the landscape, covered in your own blood.”

“We were not making out,” Martin snapped.

“You were too,” Tim answered. “What’s that about, anyway?”

Martin didn’t answer him.

“Look, I have no idea what happened, but… I’ll admit, I’ve always wondered if you maybe had a thing for him. I mean, the man’s always been a bit of a wreck, and I’ve watched you defend him and try to take care of him ever since we all started working together. And it’s not like you got along that well, but I know you and it just seems like the kind of thing you’d go for. But I never thought—”

“You really don’t like Jon, do you?”

“What? No, I like him just fine. You know that. But I like him for who he is, and this just seems like… it seems like a lot after two months.”

“Tim, it’s complicated, and I don’t know how to explain it. You don’t—you don’t know what we’ve been through. What he’s been through, or what he’s—”

“I thought you didn’t either.”

Martin’s heart skipped, and then beat double to make up for it. “I just meant—look, I don’t know what happened, but I—I feel things I can’t explain. And I can say that it feels like it’s been a lot longer than two months since—since we disappeared.”

“Is that so?” Tim asked. “Just tell me. Do you not remember, or do you actually not remember?”

“I—I really don’t remember.”

“Why did it sound like there were quotes around that?”

“There weren’t.”

“Right.” Tim said. “Well in that case, I ‘believe you’”—he paused to make large air quotes— “and I ‘definitely won’t keep asking.’”

“Tim—”

“It’s fine,” Tim said as he finally took a large bite of his sandwich, then continued with his mouth full. “Whatever happened, I am glad you’re back—and whenever you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here.”

As hungry as he was when he’d sat down, Martin couldn’t touch the rest of his sandwich. He kind of resented the way Tim was able to keep eating. Tim had always been that way though, hadn’t he? Able to say what he thought without worrying about the consequences. It had taken on a different flavor after he’d found himself trapped at the Institute, of course, but even then, he’d stood up to Elias without any fear of what might happen. Even when he’d died, he’d gone out the way he’d wanted too—no regrets.

Martin wanted so badly to tell him the truth in that moment. Instead, he sat in silence and watched him eat.

A short time later, Tim grabbed a napkin to wipe his mouth. “I think that’s him. Our interview. Yellow shirt, black jacket.” He raised a hand toward someone coming through the door behind Martin.

“What was the name again?” Martin asked as he turned around.

“Hang on—” Tim pulled out one of the contact forms. “Here we go. Antonio Blake.”

Wait. Wait, there was something familiar about that name—shit. He’d thought about it too quickly that morning. He’d completely forgotten about the alias.

Jon is going to lose it when I have to tell him this.

“You’re—you’re Oliver Banks,” he said to the man now standing directly in front of him.

Oliver looked suspiciously from him to Tim and back again. “I didn’t—how did you know that?”

“I—don’t know. It just came to me.” Given what Oliver had to be going through, maybe there was half a chance he would find that plausible.

Tim gave him a look. “You know him?”

“Not—not really. Please, sit.”

Oliver continued to hesitate. “I’m not sure I want to.”

“Look—I am sorry, I didn’t mean to—I’m Martin Blackwood, from the Magnus Institute. This is Tim Stoker.”

Tim stood up and offered his hand in that easy, open manner he had, and Oliver tenuously accepted it.

“Please,” Martin said. “Whatever you have to say—we’d like to hear it. It might be important. Maybe we could… help.”

He didn’t feel great about himself for adding that last part.

Oliver slowly pulled out the third chair at the table and sat down. Martin didn’t know what he’d expected him to be like, but somehow this wasn’t it. He felt sad for this man. He looked so tired, but at the same time so ready to run. He reminded Martin a bit of Jon, actually, during the year after Jane Prentiss had come to the institute and before they’d realized that Sasha had been murdered. He supposed that made a lot of sense, the more he thought about it.

Tim spoke again. “You didn’t leave a lot of detail in your message, so—do you want to just walk us through what happened to you?”

“Well…” Oliver looked from one to the other of them again. “I’m really not sure you’ll believe me. To tell the truth, I’m not sure anymore that I’m not going crazy. I’ve—I’ve not been sleeping much, and it’s…” he trailed off.

“You don’t want to sleep because you’re afraid you’ll dream again.”

Oliver re-focused on Martin. “How do you keep—”

“It’s all right.” Martin said. “I just want you to know that I’ll believe you. If you want to tell us.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. Martin didn’t want to say anything that might send Oliver back out the door, and Tim followed his lead. Finally, Oliver spoke, quietly enough that it took some effort to hear him.

“It was a dream. Or it started with a dream. The first time, I dreamed that I was walking near Canary Wharf—I used to have a job there years ago, and—well, I don’t need to get into that, do I… The point is, I know the area. There were people around me, people I don’t actually know, like happens in a dream, but they all had these—I don’t know—tendrils.” He paused and made a motion with his hands, like he was holding something heavy. “I don’t really have another word for it. Like snakes, almost, but not alive like snakes. Just tendrils, everywhere, and they went through these people—like their hearts, or their heads, or around them somewhere. I really didn’t like it, you know, but also I think I knew I was dreaming. Everything was sort of pulsing and—and I was trying to ignore all of it, but when I headed home in the dream… Well, it was my landlady. She had lots of them, like black veins, running into her chest, or her lungs, really, somehow I knew it was her lungs. I woke up not long after that.”

Martin tried to keep his expression neutral. This was so much like the statement Oliver had made years ago in their world, to Gertrude, but it was also so different. Most obviously, it wasn’t a statement at all, it was just Oliver talking. That made sense. There was no Archivist here, either with them or in general, which Jon had so intently pointed out that morning. The words weren’t just pulled out like Martin was used to, thank god. And certainly, the people Oliver had first dreamed of in their world would have passed years earlier. The basic story, though, was the same.

“OK.” Tim nodded, scratching down some notes. “But I assume there’s more?”

“Well, the thing is—not even two weeks later, she—she died. Lung cancer. It was sudden. Undiagnosed. I’d almost forgotten about the dream, to be honest, but that… it shook me.”

“Understandable.” Tim nodded again. “So you think your dream was a—a warning?”

“Well, I mean—of course I was sort of struck by it, that day, but after a little time, it didn’t seem like such a big thing. She smoked her whole life. I know sometimes people know things they aren’t really conscious of, and maybe I just—knew she was sick. But then… it happened again. A man at the bakery near the shop where I work now. I barely knew him. It was his heart. And I—I dreamed it again. The whole thing. A week before it happened. And I just started wondering if—if every person I see in that dream…”

Tim frowned and looked toward Martin, which prompted Oliver to do the same.

“What do I do?” Oliver asked, and Martin swore a shiver ran through him—maybe it was from nerves or too much coffee or not enough sleep, or maybe all three. “I thought maybe you would—know something about this. Maybe you’ve heard of it before. Do you think—do you think I could help them? If I found them, if I talked to them—”

“No,” Martin answered. “I mean, I have heard of it before, and… no. You can’t help them. I’m—I’m sorry.”

Oliver worried at his lip. “I’m not—I’m not causing it somehow, am I? I was thinking that maybe—if I keep trying to stay awake—”

“No.” Martin shook his head. “No, you’re not causing it. You—you should know it’s not your fault. And if you sleep, or if you don’t sleep—they’ll still… they’ll still die.”

Oliver nodded his head, digesting the information. “So I can’t do anything. I just get to know they’re going to die, and I can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m sorry.” Martin wondered what he would have said if he’d had time to think about it. Would it have been any different? Would he have thought of something better to say, something that didn’t fall so flat the moment it left his mouth, something that could have actually helped?

Would Jon have said something better?

“All right,” Oliver replied softly, bringing Martin back from his thoughts as he stood up from his chair. “Thank you for listening. I—I think I’m going to go.”

“If you need anything—if we can help—you know where to find us.”

Martin wasn’t sure if Oliver even heard him.

“What the hell was that?” Tim asked loudly, once Oliver was out of sight.

“Nothing,” Martin answered.

“That wasn’t nothing. You knew that man. You knew what he was going to say.” Tim pointed at the door, waving his finger for emphasis. “And then you…”

“Tim, I can’t explain it right now.”

He turned his finger on Martin. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like this.”

“I’m sorry. I wish—” His phone, which he had set on the table, buzzed at him. It was a message from Jon, asking if everything was ok. “Let’s go back now, all right?”

Tim shook his head in disbelief. They didn’t speak on the walk back.

***

Jon jerked up from his desk when they walked in, which was now covered in numerous hand-written notes and manilla folders. Martin suspected he’d maybe been taking an unintentional nap. “How did it go?”

“Fine,” Martin answered. “Did you eat?”

“Not—not yet.”

“Here,” Martin said, tossing the rest of his sandwich onto Jon’s desk. “I didn’t finish it.”

“Oh.” Jon peeked under the wrapper. “You barely ate this at all. Are you sure you don’t—”

“Yes.”

“All right, well—thank you.” Jon took a quick bite and set it aside as he resumed reading.

“Well?” Tim said.

Martin ignored him.

“Are you going to tell him about your friend?”

“What friend?” Jon asked, eyes still on the paper in front of him.

“I didn’t catch his name, actually,” Tim replied. “But I do know it wasn’t”—he pulled out the now-crumpled contact form— “Antonio Blake.”

“What?” Jon immediately stopped what he was doing.

“Jon—”

“You saw Oliver Banks.”

“Oliver Banks.” Tim deliberately overpronounced the name. “That’s right. Thank you, Jon.”

“Tim—”

“How could you miss that?” Jon stood up.

“It was fine! Nothing happened. I would have—”

Jon didn’t even need to speak to cut him off; the look in his eyes was enough. “We need to talk.”

“Please,” Tim cut in. “One of you talk, at least.”

“In private. Come on,” Jon said, once again taking Martin by the arm. Rosie was back at her desk now, but Sasha had temporarily stepped out, and they spoke in her office with hushed voices, without bothering to turn the light on.

“Jon, it really was fine, I—”

“Stop.” Jon reached up to take Martin’s face in his hands. “It’s ok. I just want to know what happened.”

“Nothing, really. He—he’s had a couple dreams, that’s all. He wanted to talk about it. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do to—to help them. I told him he couldn’t. I felt bad for him.”

Jon closed his eyes and breathed out, then opened them to look at Martin again.

“Jon, I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, what does he even do? He sees people’s deaths, and wakes up other people’s”—he paused— “Archivists.”

“It’s not funny. Or that simple.” Jon let go and turned to face the wall. “Martin what if—what if he had seen your death?”

“Well then—at least I’d know? I guess?”

“Or what if he’d seen Tim’s? Or—or mine?”

Martin could sort of see Jon’s point then—but only sort of. “Ok, but—I still think we weren’t really in any danger. Yes, I messed up, and I should have caught that, but—”

“It’s too dangerous,” Jon interrupted. “You can’t do this again without me. And—and neither can Tim.”

“Oh really,” Martin responded. “And why do you—”

“It’s not just Oliver,” Jon broke in again. “I found some things in the—in the interviews Sasha did. Do you remember the thing we called the Anglerfish?”

“Yes?”

“And do you remember Laura Popham?”

“Um—”

“She went caving with her sister and—”

“Oh, right. Lost John’s Cave.”

“They’ve… they were in there, in the interviews. Already. In just two months.”

Martin was starting to understand Jon’s reaction.

“And I was hoping it was just those sorts of things,” Jon continued, “and no… avatars, but if Oliver Banks is already connected to the End—”

“I see.” Martin stepped closer to Jon to put an arm over his shoulder. “All right, I get it. Things are happening fast.”

“Well… most things.” Jon sounded a little offput.

“Wait.” Martin almost laughed, but not because he found it funny. “Wait, are you upset because you aren’t connected to the Eye yet?”

“Upset isn’t the right—”

“Now who’s jealous of Oliver Banks?”

“Technically that would be envy, not jealousy—”

“Technically yes, but that isn’t the—”

“—and I’m not,” Jon finished. “I just—I feel like I know it’s coming, and I’d like to get it over with.”

“Right.” Martin rolled his eyes, but only because Jon couldn’t see it in the dim office. “So what do we do now?”

“First, if there are more interviews to be done, they could be important, but… we do them together. You and me.”

“There are. And… if Sasha is ok with it.”

“And then I keep going through Sasha’s notes. And then I go back before that, just to—”

“Jon, you’re going to exhaust yourself.”

“Then I do.”

“No. It doesn’t do anyone any good if you—”

They were interrupted by Sasha’s voice.

“Jon? Martin?”

“Yes,” Jon answered. “Sorry, I needed to speak with Martin, so we borrowed your office.”

“That’s fine, but you didn’t need to do it in the dark,” she said, switching on the light. “So I was just talking to Tim, and it sounds like today was… eventful?”

“That’s not exactly what I said, but I suppose that’s the polite version.” Tim followed her into the office.

“Well, I have something to report, too.” Sasha sat down behind her desk. “I know I said I was going to get back on regular archive things today, but… well, let’s just say I got curious, and may have found a back door on the web to access certain matters of official police business.”

“Really?” Tim’s grin was back. “That almost sounds like someone’s misbehaving.”

“I’d feel bad about it, but let’s also say I wasn’t too pleased with the way a certain missing persons case was handled.”

“Good for you.”

“Thank you, Tim.” Sasha did seem very pleased with herself. “But that brings me to my next point. Tim, I know you have some… contacts at some of the local police stations who might be able to—supplement the information I’m getting? I could use your help with that.”

“Sure, boss,” Tim said. “And that should work perfectly, actually, because I believe Jon was just getting ready to forbid Martin from going on any more interviews with me.”

“That is not—” Jon started over. “I would like to go with Martin on any further interviews, if that’s agreeable.”

“I mean—that’s fine, and I certainly don’t want anyone going out alone,” Sasha answered, “but what about catching up with everything here? It seemed like you felt that was pretty important.”

“I’d like to keep doing that too. I might need to put in a few extra hours.”

Sasha sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that. Maybe? Let’s see how you’re doing next week.”

“Sasha, I’m—”

“—already worn out, and a very bad judge of your own health.” Martin nodded in agreement, and shrugged without sympathy when Jon glared at him. “For the rest of this week, if you come in, you’ll both stay here. Jon, you can keep going through my notes, and Martin—would you mind helping me catch up on some of the filing and patron requests? I don’t even want to think about how far behind we are. Those other interviews have waited this long, they’ll wait a few more days. Especially if Tim is able to help follow up with the police angle.”

“Of course,” Martin answered. Even if Jon didn’t think he needed to take it a little bit easy, Martin was more than willing to acknowledge his own limitations—and sometimes Jon’s, even if it wasn’t appreciated. “Oh, and Sasha—we’ve got therapy tomorrow morning, so we’ll probably be a little bit late.”

“Good,” Sasha replied. “And for now, don’t take any of those notes home, Jon.”

Jon stared daggers at Martin, but he didn’t regret it—especially not after Jon fell asleep on him on the couch during dinner a few hours later.

#the magnus archives #tma #mag pod #tma spoilers #jonmartin #tma fanfic #my writing

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being-worthy · 3 years

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Sunday Home Cinema: Army of the Dead!!

I haven't done one of these reviews in a long time (thanks to Covid-19 ¬¬) but I'm glad this film was the one to get me back in doing these reviews.

Honestly, I found out about the film about two weeks ago when I clicked on it on YouTube out of curiosity. It looked good and I'm an all big fan of zombie films and series and every zombie-themed film/series, even if it's extremely bad made (e.g. Z Nation but it's so funny to watch).

Sorry for any mistakes or things that make not much sense but I'm writing this at 2.30am and I just wanted to write this down while it's still fresh (I might review it later on if I feel like it).

> SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!! <

Apparently, Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead (here's the trailer), which can be watched on Netflix, is the prequel of Dawn of the Dead from 2004 also directed by him, which was a remake of the George A. Romero classic. I've got a hard time seeing this due to the zombies being so different but well, let's just roll with it.

Scott Ward (played by Dave Bautista) is offered/hired for $50 million by Bly Tanaka (villain/businessman played by Hiroyuki Sanada) to break into a walled Las Vegas after it was overrun by a zombie outbreak starting at the outskirts of the city with patient zero aka alpha zombie Zeus (more to the different zombie types later on) to "apparently" retrieve $200 million that is stashed in a safe at the casino's basement. Basically, it's like Ocean's Eleven but with zombies giving the film a nice touch.

I knew from the moment Tanaka offered Scott this job that there was going to be more to it. Why else would a stinking rich guy like Tanaka need to have a group to retrieve some money when: a. the insurance paid him some of that money back. I know he mentions he can't use it but come on, people like him know how to find either a way around whatever rule there might be or even wash it. And b. he looks like a guy who understands how business works and is well off, so you're telling me he wants to send a group there just for $200 million? B*tch please, I'm sure that's just petty cash to him, and there's surely more to it, especially after one of his goons (Martin) "invites" himself to tag along with the group to "make sure" they get the job done.

If I was offered that kind of money to go to a completely sealed city ruled by zombies, I wouldn't accept it no matter how bad my situation might be. The probability that something might go sideways is too high not to mention the risk that the virus spreads out to the rest of the world, I wouldn’t be able to live with that on my conscience.

In order to pull off this heist Scott assembles a team for the mission:

Vanderohe, the tank and chainsaw man. There'll be a little paragraph for him since his fate doesn't make entirely sense to me.

Marianne Peters, the pilot.

Maria Cruz, the mechanic.

Kate Ward, a volunteer in the quarantine zone. She's Scott's daughter and the only (human) survivor in the film.

Geeta, the mother. She ventures into the zombie-infested Vegas to find money in order to pay for safe passage out of the quarantine zone for herself and her children. I believe she dies in the helicopter crash but we don't see her body, so she might be alive somewhat?

Ludwig Dieter, the thief/safe expert, and I love how he questions everything lol!

Lilly "The Coyote", "the one who knows her stuff" aka zombie expert. Somehow interesting that she's got a conscience/good heart.

Martin, the inside man, and Bly Tanaka's right hand and got the death he deserved by kitten Valentine.

Mikey Guzman, the Sharpshooter and a YouTuber.

Chambers, the muscles and Guzman's sidekick (sort of). Her death was very predictable and her own fault! Girl, why the hell would you tell Martin that you don't trust him directly to his face?! That's such a rookie mistake!!

Burt Cummings, also the muscle for like 5 minutes before turning into the bait/bargain chip for a "deal" with the zombies in order to pass their territory. Overall, he's just a big jerk.

We see the first five people are survivors of the outbreak when Vegas was "freshly" being overrun by zombies and barely made it out of the city before it was completely sealed off. The rest of them are new characters. Almost none of them have any deep character story/feeling/development, most of them are quite plain and you don't care whether they survive or not. I've got also a hard time seeing any father-daughter relationship between Scott and Kate. I get that they haven't talked to each other since Scott had to put down Kate's mother after she got turned into a zombie but if I hadn’t seen the beginning I'd say they're just two strangers who met during the outbreak and he saved her at some point.

I very much like the fact that they introduce different types of zombies! On one hand, we've got the standard zombies aka shamblers who move slowly and are dead if you blow their brains out and if they bite you you become a shambler too. Then, there are the alphas who are fast (so fast that they can dodge bullets), they can also think, take orders, and are very organised. If you're bitten by one you become an alpha too but they also die if they're shot in the head which is easier said than done! We've also got a zombie horse, that's more bone than anything else, and a big tiger kitten called Valentine who used to be part of Siegfried & Roy's show (which also throws in the question, during which year is this movie set? They've both already passed away and they haven’t been retired from the entertainment world for a while before they passed away, and we see Tanaka carrying a modern mobile, so it must be during the past 2-3 our years.)

Their leader is patient zero aka Zeus who we see at the beginning being transported by a convoy of soldiers from Area 51 to somewhere else but never makes it there because he breaks free due to part of the convoy crashing into a car of a recent married (while the guy gets a blowjob and doesn’t watch the road!). He also takes the Bride as his queen (later on she's beheaded and her head still alive), who we see to be pregnant!! HOLY COW!! This throws in sooo many questions! For instance, how do zombies reproduce? The same way as we humans? What will the baby look like? Full zombie? A hybrid, half-human half-zombie? What power would they have? Do I even want to know or see this? Probably. Probably not. How many times did I wish they'd have introduced something like this in TWD (before I stopped watching it). At some point the virus that makes people zombies is supposed to mutate, every virus mutates at some point. We did already see a zombie baby in Dawn of the Dead but that was different since the woman was already in the late stages of pregnancy when she got bit. This one was one that was produced from zombie sex. I’ve got a feeling that their sex must be quite violent to say the least. Also, they way how the care for each other, especially Zeus for his Bride and child and seeks vengeance for both their deaths showing they’re capable of feeling and caring for their people. Maybe, just maybe want to find a way to survive without having to turn people but I think they’ll still need humans as a source of food. I don’t think they’re capable to live from eating normal food.

I've to make a special mention about Vanderohe. Besides, the fact that he's very attractive, there are a few things that don't make entirely sense to me.

He survives the nuclear blast of Las Vegas since he was looked inside the safe, which I can see being possible but (a little more possible than Indiana Jones seeking shelter in an old-fashioned fridge from a nuclear blast in Indiana Jones and Kingdom of Crystal Skull)... the whole city was nuked! And I mean big smoke of mushroom nuke! So, shouldn't the place, I don't know, be radioactive or something like that? And shouldn’t he find the nearest decontamination shower? Furthermore, it doesn't make sense that he gets infected, i.e. bitten. He gets into a fight with Zeus while they're in front of the safe and I watched that part several times and in slow motion too and we don't see Zeus bit him. There's one time where Zeus almost bites him but his teeth don't end up sinking into the flesh. He has Van in his hold, dislocates his right shoulder, and almost bites him there but only almost! In that same moment, Dieter hits Zeus in the head and pulls Van into the safe closing the door behind him (and most likely gets killed/turned by Zeus). I repeat there's no "visible" scene of Van being bitten by Zeus or any other zombie in another scene. So, where the f*ck did he get the bite and from who? I've also read that there's a theory of Van being immune because he's not turning as quick as the soldiers at the beginning of the movie when Zeus escapes the convoy (he still might be able to infect others though). He starts to feel lightheaded/dizzy and his body feels cold to the touch on the plane, and around the bite we see the veins turning black but that's it.

As much as I love the concept of the movie, it's very predictable as well as easy to figure out who makes it out alive and who makes it out the other kind of "alive" and it also reminded me a bit of Resident Evil (the first film was good and the rest just a waste). Tanaka wanting a fresh sample of an Alpha to make a virus that enables him to create an army of zombies he can control and take over the world. He could be Wesker's twin and his company the equivalent of the Umbrella Corporation. It's worth to watch but it doesn't compare to other zombie films such as 28 Days Later or even Dawn of the Dead (the classic and newer version), and many others.

#army of the dead #zack snyder #netflix #netflix original #sunday home cinema #honest review #film night #movie night #the ending makes no sense

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micahscowgirl · 4 years

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Bite Me ~ Chapter 4

Micah Bell x f!reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Cursing, Male Masturbation, Choking, Biting, Blood

Word Count: 3700

Sorry I haven’t uploaded in awhile! Been really busy and have had too many people around to just openly write fanfics. I hope this chapter pleases all of my readers <3. I am open to suggestions for the story and am accepting asks as well now, too! I am going to try and open up to new things like headcannons and shorts. Let me know what you think! Asks and inbox are always opened! Love you guys!

Also, this was proofed very quick, if you see any mistakes, let me know and I’ll take care of them!

Micah carried you to the room; he didn't want to wake you. Once inside, he laid you on the bed and covered you up. As he started to turn, you made a whining noise and kicked off the covers.

"Pants," you say, slurring the word. "No pants."

Micah shakes his head and smiles, "God, you're drunk." He obeys your command and slides your pants off. He was being nice for once. It was probably the alcohol and excitement from your little show you threw. After throwing your pants to the other side of the bed, he plops himself in a chair that stood in the corner of the room. He hated his insomnia. It made his nights dreadfully long. He would usually find a few sorry folks on the roads to rob, but he had to stay with you tonight. He didn't know why he felt that he needed to; you were such a smart ass towards him, he should want to avoid you. He would've said he almost hated you the day before when you embarrassed him in front of Charles. All he aimed for was to upset you. You deserved it after all. At the same time, there was that part of him that wanted to own you, have you falling at his feet. He hated that you were different.

He watched you lying there. He had pulled the cover back after sliding off your pants. You were lying on your back, arms laying on either side of your head. Your chest was lifting and falling in a peaceful rhythm. After a while, you began to squirm, turning onto your belly. He thought it was funny how you could appear drunk even in your sleep. He pulled out one of his pistols and began to clean it. He had a long night ahead of him.

He was stopped suddenly when you released a small, dreamy moan. You were caught up in your thoughts, so wound up in your fantasies that they were surfacing for him to hear. He looked up at you and started to think of your moans from earlier. As you were pleasured by the saloon girl, you had said his name. Moaned it, more like. You had been grinding on her, but looking deep in his eyes. He wished so bad that he was that girl. Except he wouldn't have been so gentle. He still needed to punish you for your actions.

Before he knew it, his pants were becoming much tighter. "Dammit, doll, what are you doing to me?" It had been so long since he had been with a woman, and especially long since he'd been with one he didn't pay for. He stands and leaves to the washroom. Thankfully, there was no one in the halls, so he didn't have to hide his growing erection.

He closes the door and paces around the room. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he thinks to himself. ‘That damn woman. She needs to stop getting into your head. She knows what she's doing. You're foolish to think she actually wants you. She's just playing one of her sick games.’ There's a chest up against the wall that he sits down on. He grips his member through his pants, trying to get it to go away. His thoughts won't leave him alone. He feels himself throb harder under his palm. "Fuck." As much as he tries to fool himself, he really doesn't want it to leave.

He undoes his button and zipper and frees his throbbing cock. He squeezes, spits on it, and begins to stroke. He keeps thinking of you grinding, and then bouncing. In his thoughts, you’re on his lap, not hers. As he starts to pick up the pace, he thinks of your hands. His cock would look so good in them. And in your mouth... He grits his teeth, his breath is picking up. Your tight body, your wicked, evil smile. The tip of his dick begins to release the first of his juices. You're so hardheaded, would you hold back your screams to torture him, or would you let them all out? He thinks of how you whimpered when he cut you. He wanted to torture you, spank you, and make you whimper more. He would be in control and you would do as he says.

He feels himself getting closer. He wanted to hear you scream as he pounded you from behind, the sound of skin slapping skin. He would reach up and grab your throat, continuing to push into you harder and harder. He wanted to choke you. You deserved it. You were going to get what you had coming for you. In his mind, he could hear you screaming his name while you tighten around him when you hit your climax.

That thought was the last before he spilled himself all over the floor. "Dear God, Y/N."

He sat there for a few minutes, trying to return to normal breathing, and then stood, sticking his soft member back into his pants. After finally composing himself, he returns to your room, leaving his mess on the floor.

When he enters the room, he sees that you have kicked the blankets down again. He walks over and pulls them back up, not wanting the sight of your body sending his thoughts venturing again. After pulling his jacket off, he sits back in the chair. You aren't making any more noise and you've stopped shifting around. He focuses on your breathing, the perfect, peaceful rhythm. Keeping his breathing at the same pace, he finally let his head fall, and, for the first time in weeks, he slept.

~~~~~~

You awoke the next morning, a throbbing headache already overwhelming you. "Dammit," you say as you sat up, a sharp pain in the side of your head causing you to wince. "What happened last night?" You throw your legs off the edge of the bed, rubbing your palms on your temples. "I ain't never felt this bad." You notice that your pants are lying on the floor, and your holster is hanging over a chair next to the bed. Parts of last night start to return to you. You had robbed a house with Micah; Dutch had sent the two of you together. ‘Wait, where's Micah, then?’ You think to yourself.

You stand up and pull your pants on. As you're securing your holster on, you notice your jacket hanging on a coatrack next to the door. You pull it off and see that Micah's was underneath it. There was no sign of him at the saloon anymore, so he must have forgotten it. After sliding your coat on, you grab his and head out of the room. According to your pocket watch, it's almost noon. The saloon is almost empty, excluding two men at the bar and one speaking with the barber that had a shop in the back.

You nod to the bartender on your way out. "Hey, girl." You approach your horse, patting her on the shoulder. You reach into your satchel to find some crackers for her when you gasp. Inside, there was a huge bundle of cash and a jewelry bag that's almost bursting. There's a note tucked in with the cash. You pull it out and read it. The writing was sloppy, but you could still make it out.

Doubt you remember much from last night, you were hammered, but we made quite a fortune off that house Dutch told us to hit. You mentioned keeping almost all of it after about 3 beers last night. Not sure if you'd have the same opinion when you woke up, so I just gave you all of it to make that decision. I still want my share depending on what you do. I'll see you back at camp, Doll. I have some business to take care of. -M

You look back into your bag at the money again. You can't help but chuckling a little. Not just at the idea of how much money you now had on you, but also at the note he had left. It was too nice to be the Micah you knew. What happened last night? You don't remember much after returning to the saloon. Maybe he still had some alcohol in his blood when he wrote it. That must've been it.

~~~~~~

You dismounted your horse, leaving her next to Arthur's. Jack was sitting nearby, picking some flowers. "Whatcha doing there, bud." You say while approaching him. He looks up at you and smiles.

"Picking flowers. Mama's been sad today, so I want to give her flowers!" He says, holding them up for you to see. "I like the yellow ones best, but I only have four of them."

"Well, I think I might recall seeing some near Pearson's wagon. Might want to check there."

"Really?" He says, jumping to his feet. I'll go look!" He starts to hurry off. You smile at the sight of his run, missing the days when all that mattered was where to find the best flowers.

You make your way over to Dutch's tent. He's sitting inside on his bed reading a book. Or, trying to read a book, that is. Miss O'Shea is fussing about who-knows-what. She always seems to be upset about something.

"Knock knock," You say as you walk in. Molly gives you a small snarl. Dutch looks up from his book at you.

"Great, give your attention to your little errand girl. I only must wonder what she's offering you for you to show so much interest in her. You probably know every bit of what's hiding under those clothes of hers." Before Dutch can say anything, she turns sharply and stomps off.

Dutch stands, lying his book on the bed. "I'm sorry about her, she doesn't know how to hold her tongue."

"She's just stressed. She probably feels that it's her job to try to relieve you of all the stress that you carry." As much as you dislike, Miss O'Shea, you don't feel it's appropriate to express those opinions, especially to Dutch. He just shakes his head, opening a new box of cigars. You don't want to linger on the subject, so you continue. "Micah and I paid a visit to that house last night." You reach into your bag and pull out the jewelry bag, which you had emptied more than half of on your way back. You hand it to him, and then pull out $200, which was just a small portion of what you actually made away with. You hold it while he looks in the bag and then hand it to him when he's done. He doesn't say much while he counts it.

"Where's Micah?" He finally says.

The question caught you off-guard. "W-What? Oh, I-I'm not sure." He turns and places the take on his bed.

"Did he put you up to this?"

"Pardon?"

He turns to look at you. "I may not have known you very long, but I can tell when you're lying." He walks up to you, only about a foot away, he seems to tower over you. "Micah set you up to this?"

You take a deep, quiet breath. You can remain calm in front of Micah, you can do the same to Dutch. "What are you accusing me of, boss?"

He starts to walk around you, taking a slow drag from his fresh cigar. "You know? I would've easily expected this from him, but never of you." He's facing you again. "Uncle told me exactly what the man said. The house you to robbed was sitting on a lot more than this."

You remain still, not showing him that he's right. "That's what he told us, too. But that's all we found. Must've had the rest of his fortune locked up tight somewhere. Micah and I looked as much as we could while they were asleep. We're doing our best without being shot or thrown in jail. Now, if you'll excuse me." You walk away from him, but are stopped quick when Dutch grabs your shoulder. This is the first time that Dutch has ever made you feel unsafe.

"Don't let him change you, Y/N. He's not a good influence, especially for someone as talented and special as you." He leans closer to you and whispers. "I let you come with us; join our family. Just remember that." He releases your shoulder and you walk out of his tent without saying anything else. You can't help but feel guilty.

~~~~~

Later that evening, you were sitting next to the fire. Javier was strumming at his guitar--not in any particular rhythm, but just playing with different chords. You were waiting for Micah to return. His share was still in your tent. You had removed it from your bag and hid it in your suitcase, tucked in with your undergarments. Hopefully, if anyone went snooping, they wouldn't find it. You hadn't seen any sight of him. Your thoughts kept falling back to Dutch. He had angered you and hurt you, even though you were guilty of what he was accusing you of.

Arthur and Charles were sitting nearby, talking about a hunting trip they were going to be taking the next day. After they were done, Arthur stood to walk away, when he spotted you. He walked over, and took a seat on the ground, leaning against the log you were sitting on. "Heard the house wasn't as good as Uncle led us to believe." You began to get hot. "Dutch was telling me about it."

You snap slightly, not getting loud enough to draw any attention. "What did he tell you?"

Surprised at your reaction, Arthur studders back, "I-I don't--nothing I don't guess." He looks down, you can tell he was genuinely shocked, meaning Dutch hadn't shared his thoughts.

"I'm sorry," you say, standing up quickly and hurrying away.

"Wait," He says. "Y/N, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude." He gets up quickly and follows you to your tent. He pushes back the flap and sees you sitting on the cheap, ragged rug you have covering the dirt, leaning up against your cot. Your arms are propped on your knees and your head is leaning down towards the ground. He walks over and crouches down in front of you.

"I didn't mean to upset you, miss. You shouldn't blame yourself for a bad lead." You glance up at him.

You shake your head, "It's not that, it's just..." you pause, trying to find the best words. "I guess it's just been a weird day. Dutch just seemed upset with the take, he was expecting it to be much more as well," you lie, not wanting to admit how the conversation with Dutch had actually gone. "I just hate to let him down." You sigh.

"Now, Y/N, Dutch ain't one to hold things like that against you, you should know that. He's here to look out for us and he'll support us regardless." You can't help but think of Dutch's aggressiveness when he had grabbed your shoulder. Only you knew how much you had upset him. But that wasn't the only reason you were upset.

"Arthur?" you ask. He lifts his eyebrows in acknowledgment. "Did Micah mention any sort of 'business' he might have had to attend to? I haven't seen him since last night." You leave out the part that you couldn't even remember seeing him the night before, you're memory was still trying to find it's way back to you. "I still have his share from the job to give him." And also you wanted to give him a piece of your mind for convincing you to keep most of the take. There was no way that was actually your idea.

"No, not really. I try my best to avoid the asshole." He chuckles. "You probably already know that though."

You smile. "Yeah, I guess so. Well, anyway, I guess I'm going to call it a night." He nods and stands up.

"I'm probably going to do the same."

You say your goodbyes and pull the flap of your tent closed. You sat down on the cot and pulled off your pants, keeping your shirt on, too exhausted to change it. You figured that you wouldn't sleep because of how worked up you had become, but once you laid down, you were out almost instantly.

~~~~~~

It was midnight when you were woken up. There were branches snapping behind your tent, almost directly next to your cot. Keeping still, you listen carefully. The steps don't belong to an animal. The steps move around your tent, coming closer to the entrance. You act fast, quietly pulling out from under the covers, you swing your feet off of the bed and hurry to grab your knife and crouch behind a chest you have placed next to the door. The steps come to a halt right outside and you hold your breath. Your tent is on the outskirts of the camp so you're easily the easiest target for wandering bandits. Or even worse, the O'Driscolls. After what felt like forever, the flap was pulled over and a man stepped in. He was wearing a leather coat you'd never seen anyone at camp wear. The collar was pulled up so you couldn't get a look at his face. He walked over to your bed and pulled the cover back. He reached down and picked up Micah's coat.

"Anyone ever teach you that it's not okay to steal?"

"Dammit, Micah! You need to quit scaring the shit out of me!" You say as he turns around to face you.

"You gonna answer my question?" He begins to move towards you. As you stand up he continues, "This ain't yours, dollface." He holds the coat up.

"Well you left--" He reaches forward and grabs the front of your shirt, startling you.

"You obviously don't know that if something don't belong to you, you don't take it." He pulls you forward, you're just inches from his face. "I gotta teach you a lesson; punish you for your actions."

He lets your shirt go and slides his hand up onto your neck. He's not grabbing tight, but it still takes your breath away. Your lips quiver and legs shake just slightly, but it's the reaction he was hoping for. The feelings of wanting him return instantly. You needed him.

"Now let's see," He starts, "Why don't you take that shirt of yours off, show me what you've been hiding under there."

"O-okay," you say and lift your hands, beginning the buttons from the top.

"Sir," He says.

"Huh?"

"Call me sir."

"Oh, y-yes, Sir." He nods, watching you undo the buttons on your shirt. You finish, and pull it off your shoulders and let it fall to the floor. You were wearing a worn corset underneath. He moves his hand from your neck.

"Turn," he says. You do as he says. You can still feel where his fingers were holding on your skin and you could almost beg to have them back. He undoes your corset, pulling it off and throwing it over to your bed. He runs his hands up your back, almost causing you to whimper. You have never wanted someone so bad in your life. He walks around you, standing back to get a full view of you, standing there, completely under his control.

He steps forward, coming close to you once again. He doesn't grab you or feel you like you so badly want him to. He simply raises a hand and touches the fading bruise on your chest. "That's what you get for being so dirty, playing a little trick on me." He then moves his finger over to your other breast. There is another bruise there, a smaller, pinker one. Where did that come from?

"And that was caused by another little trick you played on me. I doubt you remember that, though. I can see the confusion on your face." He draws a line up to your neck. You gulp, and he smiles. "Tell me you're sorry and maybe I'll let you be."

You look up and him. You didn't want him to leave. You want to provoke him. "I'm not sorry, Sir. You had it coming for you."

Immediately, he grabs your jaw and pulls you closer. It hurts, but you want it. "What was that, dollface? 'Fraid I misheard you."

"You deserved everything I gave you."

"Wrong answer."

He moves your face away from him, giving him full access to your neck. He leans in and bites you. A shocked breath and whimper escape your throat. Your underwear felt drenched. You were craving him. He had broken skin and was sucking on the tender spot right above your collarbone. Your arms move up and grab onto his coat, trying to pull him closer to you. Your hips move on their own, trying to grind against him. "M-Micah," You say softly, in between gasps.

He pulls away from you and looks deep into your eyes. You notice a small bit of blood on his mustache. He reaches up, drawing a finger against his bite. It stings, but you don't notice. He has you in a trance. He pulls his finger away and licks the blood--your blood--off, smiling.

"What's the matter, doll?" He says in his deep, raspy voice. "You're trembling like crazy." He brushes his fingers up your arm.

"Micah..." you begin, except you don't know what you mean to say. Everything has caught you by surprise.

He leans in once more, whispering in your ear, "I hope you've learned your lesson." After pulling away, he turns and leaves, leaving you standing there, completely shocked and turned on. So many emotions pass through you in an instant; disappointment, happiness, sadness, and lust. But most of all, you knew that you were going to have to return the favor. Make him completely subjective to you, and then leave.

You eventually pull your shirt back on and lay down. The adrenaline begins to leave you, and you are asleep within minutes.

#micah bell smut #micah bell #micah bell x reader #rdr2 #red dead redemption #smut #rdr2 fanfic

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ryqoshay · 4 years

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How to Handle a Nico - The No. 1 Masseuse in the Universe

Primary Pairing: NicoMaki Words: ~1.8k Rating: T’ish? Time Frame: Summer break of Maki’s 2nd year of high school and Nico’s 1st year of college. Story Arc: “Beach Reunion” Sunscreen The No. 1 Masseuse in the Universe

Author’s Note: This was originally intended to be about a 100 - 200 word addition to the end of Sunscreen, but I thought I might be able to build a full scene around it. So I did.

I’m also hoping my readers have seen the LL movie by now, as it’s referenced a little bit here.

And here she comes… Nico thought to herself as she spied a certain meddlesome purple haired girl heading in her direction. Ughn… that smug face of hers… Unfortunately, Nico was busy tending the grill as her part of preparing dinner for the group and thus had no means of escaping the teasing she knew was incoming.

“Ne~, Nicocchi~,” Nozomi drawled as she approached “I heard someone was having a bit of fun earlier.” She emphasized the word heard, accompanied by a wholly unnecessarily waggle of her eyebrows.

“Shut up, Nozomi.” Nico grumbled, trying to make it obvious she was focusing on the meat skewers in front of her.

But of course, someone like Nozomi would never just let something like this go. “You and Maki-chan seem to be getting along nicely as of late.” She continued. “I haven’t even heard much of your usual study session bickering. Are you two perhaps making some progress I should know about?”

“No.” Nico dismissed flatly. “And you know the reasons why.”

“I see, well, that’s too bad.” At least that part sounded sincere. “I still think you two would make a cute couple, and you know I’m here to support you however things go.”

“I know.” Nico nodded. “Say, what’s that behind your back?”

“Oh, Elicchi and I just prepared some fruit kebobs” Nozomi revealed the food “with the extra sticks and thought the No. 1 Grill Master in the Universe would be willing to cook them up.”

“Wow, those look amazing.” Nico marveled. “I mean,” she puffed out her chest with pride “of course Nico would be more than happy to reveal more of her mastery of the flame.” She clapped her tongs together a couple times for emphasis.

Nozomi giggled and started to place the kebobs onto the grate.

“Wait, not quite…” Nico snapped up one of the meat skewers and turned it for inspection “well, maybe it’s fine. Uhm, hand me that plate so I can put these on it.”

“Here you go.” The purple-haired girl did as instructed.

“And don’t be stealing any of these before putting them out on the table.” The raven-haired girl warned.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Uh-huh…”

Once the plate was full, Nozomi turned and began to walk away.

“So that was it?” Nico couldn’t help asking.

“Hmm?” The other girl paused and turned to look back over her shoulder.

“I mean…”

The Cheshire cat grin returned. “Don’t worry, Nicocchi, the cards told me something good will happen very soon.”

“Hrm… Hey! What did I say about taking…” Nico was about to chase after Nozomi when she remembered the freshly loaded fruit kebobs that now needed tending.

“Oh, Mama just messaged me” Maki announced, retrieving her phone as the credits began to roll for the movie the girls had just finished “she says she’s sorry for not remembering earlier, but the staff moved all of the futons to one of our other places for some retreat a friend of hers hosted last week and they haven’t been able to bring them back.”

“So, we can’t all sleep here like the other times?” Honoka asked.

“Well, we could.” The redhead acknowledged. “I’m sure there are enough blankets, but there are four bedrooms we could use if we don’t mind sharing.”

“So kinda like our New York trip?”

“Something like that, though each room only has one bed...”

“That’s fine! Umi-chan and Kotori-chan and I can share one.”

“The biggest guestroom is at the end of the hall.”

“Alright, let’s go to bed!” Honoka cheered, grabbing the arms of her two fellow third-years.

“H-Honoka…” Umi protested verbally, though didn’t appear to offer any appreciable resistance. “You had better not start snacking on chips the moment the lights go out.”

“That was just one time!” The orange-haired girl pouted.

“More like pretty much every time…”

“Don’t worry, Umi-chan,” Kotori chimed in “I’ll be sure to check her bag for any contraband.”

“Kotori-chan!” Honoka whined. “You two are mean.” Though despite her words, she continued to drag her friends up the stairs toward the room she had claimed for them.

“Rin and Kayo-chin are fine with the smallest bedroom.” Rin proclaimed next. “We’re used to sharing a bed these days, nya!” She pulled the other second-year into a one-armed hug.

“Rin-chan…” Hanayo murmured but didn’t disagree.

“Actually, the remaining two guest rooms are the same size.” Maki explained.

“You’re taking the master bedroom, Maki-chan?” Nozomi asked of the host.

“Of course, I thought that much was obvious.”

“Then Elicchi and I will take whichever room Rin-chan and Hanayo-chan don’t use.” She tossed a quick wink to Nico.

“See you all in the morning.” Eli said before yawning and following her girlfriend.

“So, that leaves…” Nico turned to the other remaining occupant of the living room.

“You can stay with me in the master bedroom.” Maki offered quietly. “If that’s alright with you, of course.”

If it’s alright? Nico thought to herself. Of course, it’s alright! This is how I wanted the room arrangements to be in New York!

But instead of giving voice to these thoughts, what came out of Nico’s mouth was “I suppose it can’t be helped. Nico will grace Maki’s bed with her presence tonight.”

“Or you can sleep on the couch.” The younger girl motioned to the mentioned sofa.

Nico giggled before striking a dramatic pose and held out her hand. “Lead the way to the master suite, Maki-ojou-sama.” She teased with the title she had heard used by the Nishikino household staff.

Maki rolled her eyes but took the older girl’s hand anyway as the two headed up the stairs.

“Ne, Nico-chan…”

“Mmm?” Nico looked up from the idol site she was browsing on her phone and took in a pleasing view.

Maki had just exited the bathroom, clad in her favorite purple pajamas with white stars and still drying her hair. She had insisted that since Nico was the guest that the older girl take the first turn in the tub and was now done with her own.

“About that offer of a massage…”

“Oh ho!” Nico couldn’t help feeling a bit giddy. As if sharing a room wasn’t enough to make her believe Nozomi’s prediction, this certainly solidified things. “Maki-chan is anxious to take advantage of the No. 1 Masseuse in the Universe’s skills already?”

“Just realized in the bath that I’m a little sore after everything we did today.” Maki admitted.

“Someone having a bit too much fun?” Nico happily added a sing-song tone to her voice.

“…” Maki puffed out a frustrated breath as she made her way toward the bed.

“Well, Nico is ready to provide the service, even if Maki-chan hasn’t paid for it yet.”

“You know I’m good for it.” Maki lay down on her stomach. “Besides, I’d probably end up helping you anyway, even without this; heck I’ve probably already paid for it several times over.”

“You sure you want to strike an attitude with someone about to give you a massage?”

Maki sighed. “No, you’re right. It’s just that cram school has been really stressful lately…”

“Yeah,” Nico said, getting up off the bed “I figured that when you upped your order from quad to quint.”

“Nico-chan?”

“Just getting you some water. I’ve read studies recently that say drinking before a massage may actually be better than after, as the water is already starting to work through your system when the toxins are released from the massage.”

“Hrm…”

“Trust me. Here.” Nico held out a bottle.

“Alright.” Maki accepted the water and drank a good portion of it before handing the remainder back. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Nico put the bottle on the nightstand.

“Anyway, this little vacation has honestly been the best break I could ask for…” Maki continued. “And… I’m happy you’re here with me for it.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Nico couldn’t help smiling at the unexpected, but by no means unappreciated honesty. “Nico always enjoys her time with her favoritest Maki-chan.”

Maki hummed an affirmative response.

“So, how thick are the walls here?”

“Hm?”

“Because…” Nico placed her hands on the other girl’s back. Immediately, she found one of the knots she had noticed earlier that day and pressed into it with her thumb.

“Ughn…” Maki pressed her face into the duvet.

“That’s why.”

“I’ll… be fine…”

“So you say…” Nico chuckled as the redhead was forced to muffle herself again.

As Nico found yet another knot, she wondered how hard she should work it. She had taught herself many advanced techniques over the years to help her mother deal with the stress of working multiple jobs, and nowadays to help a certain roommate deal with tensions stemming from things that made Nico jealous. As such, if she really put her weight into things, she could probably completely alleviate most of the smaller knots, if not a few of the larger ones as well.

However, it was almost time to turn in for the night and the group still had another day of fun planned as well as a long train ride back to Tokyo. She didn’t want to leave Maki too sore because as much as the tsundere’ish girl would deny it if confronted, she would want to participate in tomorrow’s activities. With this in mind, Nico decided to keep things on the lighter, more relaxing side. If Maki enjoyed the massage and its benefits, Nico could offer another one later that would leave the redhead unwilling to leave the couch the next day.

Of course, with that thought, Nico began imagining other things she could do to Maki that would leave her sprawled out on the bed, exhausted. For example, she could…

No. Nico shook her head. Focus. Now is very much not the time for that… We’re not even going out yet! … yet… She sighed with that last thought.

Having been lost in her own mind for so long, Nico suddenly realized that whatever conversation she had been holding with Maki had ceased, likely a while ago.

“Maki-chan?” Nico ventured quietly.

Silence.

Did she fall asleep? Nico smirked to herself before leaning over to confirm her suspicions. Sure enough, Maki’s eyes were closed and her breathing had slowed to a soft and steady rhythm. Good thing I had you drink beforehand. Nico glanced at the mostly empty bottle on the nightstand. Or else you’d really be sore in the morning.

Now Nico faced a dilemma, Should she wake Maki so she could get under the covers or find something else to use and let her sleep? Hrm… Nico eyed the closet door for a moment before getting off the bed to investigate. Thankfully, her suspicious proved correct as she located a small collection of folded blankets. As it was summer, she chose the lightest one and brought it back to the bed.

As Nico spread the blanket over Maki, she noted that it was not the right size for the humongous mattress and as such, it didn’t leave much room for her. She could, of course, just retrieve a second blanket, but… After a moment, Nico shrugged and slid in close to the other girl.

“Good night, Maki-chan.” Nico murmured as she pulled her share of the blanket over herself and closed her eyes.

Author’s Notes Continued in Followup Post

#NicoMaki #Nishikino Maki #Yazawa Nico #How to Handle a Nico #Love Live #fanfic

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celestialmystical · 4 years

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MY SOJU BOTTLE!!!

I haven’t felt like I’ve actually been in Korea.

Even after I finally left quarantine on last Friday, September 25th, I still felt like I was a nomad.

Because instead of going to the AirBnB where I was placed to stay from then to the 30th, I went straight to work.

Getting there was difficult, again. I had the taxi driver, who was really, really nice and patient with me, take me to a subway station that my boss told me to go to. He took me to wrong one accidentally. He then had to come pick me up and just take me to work, which I think would have been easier to do in the first place.

I get there and it’s inside a building where there is a convenience store below, of course.

Someone comes out to find me and it’s the first white person I’ve seen face-to-face since coming to Korea. He’s the person I’m replacing.

He sees the two huge luggage cases I’m holding and kind of laughs.

He helps me bring them up to the school where we just leave it in the library.

For the rest of the day, I just sit in the back of the classrooms and observe people teach.

I made sure to take notes not only on the different teaching styles I want to incorporate into my class but also on the different characteristics of each of the students I’ll soon be teaching.

Afterwards, I was sent on a taxi with students and a Korean teacher who was talking to the taxi driver about where to take me. The taxi driver seemed annoyed. I can’t count how many times I heard him say, “Ash!” Which is like “Ugh!” And I heard the word “foreigner” in Korean a couple of times with his tone a little less than pleasant.

But I don’t really know what he was saying. When I got out of the taxi, him and this other guy helped me find my way to the AirBnB.

Old Korean men, which are mostly referred to as “ajushis” here, have been my save and grace. They have helped me so much with directions and everything here lol.

One of them walked me to where the student taxi was going to pick me up on Monday.

Walking around the neighborhood the AirBnB was in, more towards the city of Hanam, farther from the school, was interesting. It felt kind of like I was in Harlem in New York—just the shops and atmosphere felt the same.

I think some man said some slur to me as I was walking by. It was the one time I was thankful I didn’t speak Korean lol. He started following me and the ajushi who was helping me.

I felt more angry than scared. I kind of gave him a look of like I’ll fucking kill you if you touch me and then he left me alone.

I was barely in the AirBnB for the 5 days I was placed there.

The next day, Saturday, for the first time, I took the bus and the subway to go to Gangnam in Seoul.

That was honestly the easiest time I had had getting to my destination up till then.

I got to the hotel I was staying at and met with the teacher orientation group I was placed with.

Everyone was super nice and chill. There was five of us and a guide.

We had a great time. We ate everything but Korean food lol. Which was a little disappointing for me but I know it would probably be my last time for a while before I’d ever eat Indian or Mexican food again.

We did so much walking and exploring it was insane.

We also went into Itaewon which is also in Seoul and known for having a lot of foreigners. More walking. Lots and lots of cafes. I have never seen so many. And they weren’t the type where you go study, but the type where you take cute aesthetic pictures in them.

Late at night, we went to a Canadian restaurant/bar. Hockey was playing on all of the TVs.

Walking towards the restaurant, everything along the street was for foreigners. It was weird to all of us to see so many foreigners in one spot after living in Korea for some time.

We had a couple of drinks which was really fun. Some of them left to go back to the hotel and some stayed with me to go explore some more.

I never had soju before so we went to a convenience store and got some soju bottles.

I had my first sip in the back of an alley. It was truly special.

Then we went into a foreigner bar. A lot of the bars on the street that had Koreans in them were very calm and quiet. Even though those would have been fine to drink in them, I think we were all craving the familiarity of the rowdiness that accompanies bars that have foreigners.

I had lots of fun in there. I almost got in a fight with the owner for bringing a soju bottle inside but other than that, it was great!

I didn’t know he was the owner at the time, okay??

I thought he was some random drunk not minding their own business.

Apparently, you can’t openly mix soju with beer in a foreign bar which is… whatever.

He was trying to take my bottle from me. I tried to tell him that I paid the bottle with my own money and he had no right to take it from me! I said “Sir, this is MY SOJU BOTTLE!!!”

Luckily, one of the people I was with, we’ll call him Mr. British, was more peaceful than me and the girl, we’ll call her the Shy Freak. We were not as diplomatic, I should say.

Mr. British had the bartender give us cups for us to put the soju in and then he tossed out the bottles.

Once we left, I looked up a dancing club for us to go to.

We walked and walked again. I was like kind of, not really, smashed honestly. I was trying not to show it in front of them but they knew.

Mr. British said I was swerving left and right while I was walking lmao.

He also said I got really grumpy and moody when they were commenting on how drunk I was and that I started walking in front of them.

Yikes lol.

We finally get to the club, and it’s not a dancing club. It’s like a lounge. And there’s a line to get in.

So that was a bust and we went to the hotel shortly after.

I kind of wished we stayed at the bar but its fine. It’s probably good that we walked so I could have digested the alcohol lol.

The next day, I wake up super early as I always do after a night of drinking for some reason. I take a shower because that always helps my hangovers. I go downstairs to eat some breakfast.

Once everyone is downstairs as well we start to talk about teaching and questions or problems that we’ve had. Then after eating Mexican food, me and the girls go to a mall called Coex, which was really, really cool.

But by this point, I was really, really tired.

So much social interaction and walking after having zero of any of that for two weeks can really take a toll on the human body.

Then Monday came, September 28th. The taxi never came so I had to take the bus which was fine. I did more observing.

Tuesday, there was an event for Chuseok, which is basically the Korean thanksgiving where they eat ricecake and such. I tried looking up how it started—but it began 2000 years ago so no one really knows how it started. America’s started less than 200 years ago to put it into perspective.

The first half of the day was full of games and activities which I had a lot of fun doing with the kids. I finally felt like I could interact with them and guide them.

For the last half of the day, it was back to school and I decided to be more hands on with helping the students learn English. It was fun. It made me really excited to orchestrate my own class.

Wednesday, I FINALLY moved into the apartment I’ll be staying in for a year! Yay!!!

I’ve settled in my stuff. Finally unpacked and don’t need to pack for a while. I’m really happy.

Now.

I feel like I’m actually, finally in Korea.

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aliciameade · 4 years

Text

A Thousand Cuts

Title: A Thousand Cuts Author: aliciameade Rating: M for alcoholism and angst Pairing: Beca/Chloe Summary: Beca doesn't realize she needs to get her shit together until it's too late, or, my take on a prompt I was sent to write something based on Taylor Swift’s “Death by a Thousand Cuts.”

Also on AO3

My heart, my hips, my body, my love / Trying to find a part of me that you didn't touch

Gave up on me like I was a bad drug / Now I'm searching for signs in a haunted club

Our songs, our films, united, we stand / Our country, guess it was a lawless land

Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand / Paper cut stings from my paper-thin plans

My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust / Trying to find a part of me you didn't take up

Gave you so much, but it wasn't enough / But I'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts

“You don’t mean that.” Beca’s voice cracks over the words; she’s moments from crying and she knows it.

Chloe’s already crying. “The hell I don’t.” Her voice is steady despite the tears. Her jaw is set, the muscles in her left cheek tensing with how hard she’s clenching it.

“Where am I supposed to go?” That’s when the first tear finally hits Beca’s cheek. They don’t stop after that and she doesn’t bother trying to wipe them away. “I don’t know anyone else here!”

“That’s not my problem.” Chloe walks away so abruptly, steps so heavy it makes Beca jump. She’s digging through the trunk that sits at the foot of their bed and pulls out Beca’s duffel bag to toss it onto the bed. “Pack. And get the rest of your shit out before the end of the month whenever I’m not here or I’m throwing it all away.”

Beca’s sure this must be what it feels like for the earth to swallow one whole. Her world’s been ripped out from beneath her feet.

The thing is, it’s her fault. She can’t argue that it’s not. She could have tried harder, not allowed herself to grow complacent. Chloe was someone who loves with her entire being, every inch of her soul. And Beca adores her. Loves her. But she has struggled to keep up with just how much Chloe needs from her in return for all the love she gives Beca. Truth be told, it’s scared the shit out of Beca since the day they exchanged their first ‘I love yous.’ She had even prefaced her confession by saying she will probably mess it all up.

Fucking self-fulfilling prophecies.

“I’m going for a walk,” Chloe says as she pushes past Beca more physically than necessary. “Don’t be here when I get back.”

When the door slams behind her, Beca fights the urge to crumple onto their bed and weep. They’d just made love on it this morning and she thinks if she touches it, it may burn her flesh.

Instead, she grabs the bag Chloe threw onto it and starts stuffing clothes and toiletries into it. Her head pounds and her chest aches with the need to sob but she won’t give this tiny apartment, their first home together as a couple. She fills the bag until she can’t zip it and throws her laptop into its case to swing them both over her shoulder.

On her way out the door, she rips a photo of the two of them in front of their Christmas tree last year off the fridge—not to destroy it, but to stuff it into her bag.

She wonders if Chloe will even notice it’s gone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Beca takes the train into Manhattan. Brooklyn feels too small, too familiar. She wants the city to swallow her since the earth only pretended to. She doesn’t have a single New York-based contact in her phone except for the ramen house Chloe and she love and the main number for her office. She doesn’t particularly like her job and has made no effort to get to know anyone there.

In the future, she’ll realize this could be a theme in her life.

She ends up at a hotel by Union Square. She can’t afford it. It’s nearly $200 for the night and it goes on an already precariously charged-up credit card. She’ll move to a hostel tomorrow; tonight, she needs privacy and space and the freedom to have the breakdown she’s been staving off for the two hours it’s been since Chloe told her it was over and threw her out of their home.

Once she gets to her room, she drops her bags on the floor and immediately throws up.

It’s the longest night of Beca’s life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She doesn’t get the rest of her belongings back. She’s living in a hostel in a room she shares with five other people, at least one of which is new every night. She has to wait her turn to use the bathroom and to shower and most of the time, there’s no hot water.

The good thing, she supposes as she tries day after day to find a single good thing in her life, is that at $35 per day, she can actually afford her room and board and even feed herself twice a day and keep her phone bill paid.

Thank God for ubiquitous free WiFi.

But that one good thing, just keeping herself in room and board, doesn’t do anything to outweigh all the bad.

She hasn’t spoken to or heard from Chloe in two months. There was no final warning about coming to get her belongings or they’d be trashed. Chloe hasn’t checked in with her a single time.

Not that Beca’s reached out to Chloe either.

She’d thought escaping Brooklyn would help protect herself. Far from away all their usual haunts, she would be safer from the constant reminders of all the moments she and Chloe shared in the year-and-a-half they spent living together there.

Instead, she’s faced with bigger reminders in Manhattan. So many date nights spent there at restaurants and concert venues and theatres and sunset strolls through parks.

“Oh, my gosh, baby, this is so romantic, we have to take a selfie,” Chloe said as she grabbed Beca’s hands to spin them in a circle that almost had Beca tripping over her own feet. “Wait, no! Excuse me, sir?” Chloe asked a passerby. “Would you take our picture, please?”

“Sure,” he said as Chloe handed him her phone. “Tell me when.”

“Just take a bunch,” Chloe answered before Beca had even had a chance to weakly and pointlessly protest the impromptu photoshoot.

Then they were kissing on Gapstow Bridge with Central Park and the New York skyline behind them and Beca forgot why she would ever want to protest such a thing.

She can’t even walk through Times Square without her eyes pricking with tears at the memory of Chloe dragging Beca up the red stairs in the middle of a snowstorm to take a selfie at the top while they kissed wearing beanies and scarves and gloves.

The photo came out looking like they were in a snow globe and felt as magical as it looked. It’s saved in her favorites on her phone, but she refuses to let herself look through that album.

Even when she’s alone at night in a strange place that is her home but feels nothing like it, Chloe is everywhere. She can feel her phantom arms around her waist to pull Beca back against her to settle into sleep. In the shower, her hands travel over her body and she remembers all the times and all the ways Chloe has touched her here, and here, and here.

Alcohol doesn’t help, though Beca gives it her best shot.

It leads to her waking up in the beds of people whose names she only sometimes remembers.

A man she goes home with makes her leave when she won’t stop crying when he tries to touch her.

A woman she goes home with spends the night holding her. They even have sex, finally, in the early hours of the morning. But all Beca can think about is how it’s not right. How she isn’t Chloe and she doesn’t know how to touch Beca as Chloe does. It does nothing to help Beca forget or move on. In fact, it only makes her miss Chloe more.

She stops trying to escape into other people and goes back to drinking alone. It’s cheaper that way, too, which is a nice bonus. One bottle of whiskey runs her $40 which gives her far more drinks for her dollar compared to going to bars.

Eventually, she finds someone in need of a roommate through a coworker and she has a room to herself in Washington Heights. Her roommate is nice, a few years older than Beca, and works for the city’s child services department. She’s a good listener on the rare occasions Beca confides in her when her emotions become too much to take alone.

It turns into a relationship of convenience. They both acknowledge that’s what it is and that they’re setting themselves up for disaster if (when) it ends because someone (Beca) is going to have to move out when things become too messy.

But until that happens, it’s nice to feel at least somewhat normal again. She doesn’t feel like she’s ready to fall apart if someone looks at her the wrong way on the street.

She still thinks about Chloe at least once every minute when she’s conscious.

And usually, even when she’s not.

She knows she’s fixating. It’s too hard to not spend as much energy as she can berating herself for messing up and losing Chloe. It’s delicious torture to hate herself so much and replay the details of every moment of their relationship and pick out every time she fucked up and think about how she could have done it differently, how she would do it differently if she had the chance.

What’s most irritating of all is that there is no one singular cataclysmic event she can blame. It was her series of micro-aggressions, so seemingly small (to Beca), that piled up until replying to Chloe’s multi-scroll-long text message telling Beca that she needed more from her with “k” got her thrown out on the street.

And she knew—knows—she deserved it.

She wishes she could go back in time and slap herself and tell her to get her shit together before she loses the best thing to ever happen to her.

But she can’t. She keeps drinking and it’s never enough to forget Chloe.

Eventually, her behavior lands her out on her ass again, but this time, she expects it. What girl wants her not-girlfriend crying about her ex every time they have sex? At least there’s a discussion first and she’s allowed a couple of weeks to find a new place to live.

A year has passed since she fucked up her relationship with Chloe but, somehow, she’s managed to get her professional life into something resembling moderate success. She’s surprised when she downloads bank statements at the balance in her account to have when she goes apartment hunting. She’s done nothing but pay rent to her now-ex-roommate and buy what few things she’s needed to get by (mostly alcohol). She thinks she remembers an email from HR about a bonus or royalty payout around Christmas…?

It affords her the ability to get her own apartment, a one-bedroom in Harlem.

It also affords her the freedom to indulge in all her vices without someone passing judgment. She can drink herself to blackout. She can have anonymous sex. She can cry until she’s sick or lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling all night in a drug-and-alcohol-induced stupor. None of it really matters, anyway.

She fits right in with the people she’s finding herself forced to be around more often. She gets wasted with colleagues and A-listers under the guise of networking. She impresses men with her ability to out-drink them despite her stature. And if one of them offers cocaine? She can be the last one standing in the early hours of the morning.

She prides herself on her endurance, though not more than she prides herself on the fact that no matter how hammered she gets, not once has she drunk-dialed Chloe to beg forgiveness.

She hasn’t dialed her at all, for that matter.

She’s never apologized.

She wants to point out that showing up at her former apartment building when it’s dark and the streets are empty repeatedly pressing the buzzer for what used to be her apartment is not drunk-dialing nor drunk-texting.

“Hello?” Chloe’s voice crackles through the shitty speaker and Beca slumps against the wall next to the metal intercom at the sound of it. “Is anyone there? I swear if you kids are pulling this shit again, I’m calling the cops.”

Beca laughs to herself, memories of a group of teenagers that roams the neighborhood raising havoc of the relatively painless variety. Things like Ding Dong Ditch and hiding delivered packages from their recipients. It always infuriated Chloe and made Beca laugh and tell her to calm down, they’re just kids and they could be getting into much worse kinds of trouble.

She considers continuing to ring the buzzer just to keep Chloe on the line; it’s been so long since she’s heard her voice. Maybe she could just sleep on the building’s stoop?

She’s still thinking about it when she hears the familiar squeak of the door opening.

“Beca?”

She wonders if maybe she finally passed out to slip into dreamland because Chloe’s standing in front of her in plaid sleep shorts and Beca’s favorite vintage David Bowie tee.

“Hey, babe,” she slurs.

“What are you doing here?” Chloe takes half a step out of the door and starts to reach for her but stops short. “Are you drunk?”

“What if I am?” she says as she pushes herself away from the wall to stand upright again, though everything feels like it’s tilting. She points. “That’s my shirt.”

Chloe crosses her arms over her chest as if that will hide it. “I asked what you’re doing here.”

Beca has to think hard. She doesn’t remember how she got to Brooklyn. She doesn’t know what time it is. “I’m tired,” she answers. “I came home.”

“You don’t live here anymore.”

“I didn’t say I live here. I said I came home.” She tries to walk forward but trips and finds herself caught by Chloe before she hurts herself. “Cat-like reflexes,” she says with a chuckle before catching the scent of the laundry detergent and lotion Chloe always uses and the tears come out of nowhere.

She’s vaguely aware that Chloe’s helping her walk and it’s up the stairs and into the apartment they once shared, not out to the curb.

The last thought that passes through her mind as Chloe helps her into what was always Beca’s side of the bed is that even through her blurry vision she can see a picture on the refrigerator. A copy of the same photo she’d taken with her the day Chloe had thrown her out, placed in the exact place the original had been for so long.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She wakes to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Her head throbs but not too painfully; she rarely gets hungover these days. She knows where she is. She knows the feel of the bed, the softness of the sheets, the scent of breakfast and the sound of the quiet tings and thuds of cabinets opening and closing, of plates, mugs, spoons, and knives.

She doesn’t want to open her eyes. Maybe if she pretends to be asleep she could stay there all day without having to be embarrassed by her actions. She can just hold onto this unexpected return to a past life for a few more minutes before it’s ripped away from her again.

She starts when the sound of a mug being placed on the nightstand near her head comes unexpectedly.

“Morning,” Chloe’s quiet, husky morning voice whispers as she sits on the edge of the bed next to Beca.

Beca grimaces and pulls the covers up over her head. “No.”

“I have to go to work.” Beca didn’t even think about the fact that it was a weekday. Her own schedule doesn’t conform to the typical Monday-through-Friday model. “But I’m going to call out sick for the afternoon and come back at lunch.”

Beca slips the covers down until they’re under her chin. She knows she looks like shit but Chloe looks more beautiful than she remembers her.

“You can stay here until then. Help yourself to breakfast. We’ll talk when I get home, okay?”

Beca just nods, afraid that anything more than that will wake her from whatever dream she’s having. She feels Chloe’s hand on her leg, a brief touch before she’s leaving too soon.

Beca watches her gather her things and leave the apartment, locking it with her keys.

She knows she should go back to sleep. Sleep off the last bits of the drunkenness she can still feel swimming in her. But she’s been thrown back into her old life, her old home, and like so many mornings, Chloe’s just gone to work after making coffee for Beca.

Slowly, she sits up to take in her surroundings. The small studio looks much like she’s remembered it. There’s a lot more of Chloe in it now, though. More photos of her and friends Beca’s never met. The band posters Beca had insisted on putting up have been replaced with generic canvas prints from Target that feature the Eiffel Tower and a recreation of a poster for la tournée du Chat Noir avec Rodolphe Salis. It makes her smile; Chloe’s always had an obsession with Paris and it had only gotten worse after they went to Denmark—but not France—in college.

Driven by her roiling stomach she forces herself out of bed. When she stands, she has to do a double-take looking down at herself. She’s not wearing the clothes she’d left her apartment in yesterday. She’s not even wearing pants. Her legs are bare and she plucks at the shirt she’s wearing to see it’s one of her old concert tees.

A memory flashes of last night, of Chloe in the doorway wearing Beca’s shirt.

It makes her feel lightheaded and she reaches for the coffee Chloe’s left bedside before crossing the room to the kitchen. Everything’s still in the same place and it’s mindless yet spine-tingling to go through the motions of finding something to eat in that room just as she’s done countless times in the past.

She plops down at the small table that she once imagined proposing to Chloe over on a Sunday morning over a cozy winter brunch they prepared together and is about to dig into her bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch that Chloe miraculously has on-hand despite claiming to hate it when she freezes, spoon halfway to her mouth.

On the clothing rack in the middle of the room, the one they had to fight over for valuable space, hang all of Beca’s clothes she’d left behind when she was forced to flee.

Her chair screeches as she pushes it back to rush over and quickly flip through the blouses, pants, and dresses she hasn’t seen in more than a year. She tugs open the third and then fourth drawers of the dresser they shared to find them both still stuffed full of underwear, bras, socks, tank tops, shorts, and Beca’s beanies and gloves she’d really missed that winter. She drops to her knees and reaches under the bed to find the sharp plastic edge of a storage bin and pulls it out. All her shoes, still in their place.

If not for the changes in decor, she would believe she never left. Nothing has changed since her last morning with Chloe.

It’s overwhelming. Chloe had threatened to throw everything away if Beca never picked it up. Beca never did, but Chloe didn’t follow through.

Her head swims and her eyes prick with tears. She thinks she might be sick from the rush of emotions and adrenaline; Chloe hadn’t tossed their life in the trash even though she’d tossed Beca to the curb.

She isn’t sick, though. Instead, she strips off her shirt and crawls into the bathtub and turns on the shower to sit under the spray and cry.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Beca’s heart races when she hears Chloe’s keys in the hallway seconds before they rattle in the lock. She watches the door open slowly, Chloe peeking in carefully until they find Beca sitting at the table.

“You’re awake,” she says as she enters with less care now that Beca’s not asleep. “Did you find something to eat? I brought lunch just in case.”

Beca’s eyes drop to the bag in Chloe’s hand; there are familiar round plastic take-out containers stacked in it and Beca doesn’t have to ask to know it’s from the ramen place they frequented. “I did, yeah.”

Chloe sets the bag on the table and Beca watches her take off and hang up her coat. When she turns back around, she pauses. “Oh.”

Beca wonders what she’s looking at until she realizes it’s Beca’s clothes. “You didn’t throw my stuff away.”

Chloe takes a break as though she’s about to speak but instead she sighs and says nothing in reply as she sits down in her chair to Beca’s left and starts unpacking the lunch she’s brought.

Beca catches her hand when it’s busy setting up soup and sides and Chloe’s entire body seems to flinch, but she doesn’t pull her hand away. “You didn’t throw me away, did you.”

Tears are welling in Chloe’s eyes when they meet Beca’s but she still doesn’t speak.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Beca rushes when she realizes she’s the one who has to do the talking. “But I do. Will you hear me out? Give me ten minutes. Five.”

“Okay,” Chloe says quietly as she pulls her hand back to resume passing out utensils.

Beca waits until she’s finished, until Chloe’s no longer distracting herself with busywork and her eyes land on Beca nervously so she can finally say, “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

The End

#bechloe #bechloe fic #bechloe fanfic #fanfic

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buckyfeelings · 4 years

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Culotte: Chapter One

Pairing: Mob!Seb x Stripper!Reader

Summary: When the strip club you work at gets a new owner...

A/N: This is my first fic for tumblr (so if the layout is weird sorry) and it’s also my first fic i’ve written in almost four years. So sorry again if there are grammatical errors etc.

Chatter filled the room alongside the clatter of makeup brushes as the girls prepared themselves for the night to come. Y/N was one amongst these girls, all of them here for different reasons; maybe it was to pay off late rent or just an easy way to make money fast. You had only started a few months ago when one of your closest friends Samara (known as Sam to you and as Black Lace to the paying customers of Culotte) had persuaded you into the whole idea.

‘’You know, if you wanna leave we can’’

Sam held your hand for reassurance causing you to give her a warm smile, she had been your first friend in New York. The two of you met when you were both assigned as roommates in your first year of college. You both clicked instantly, building a strong bond and soon becoming inseparable. Samara was like the sister you never really had and as the second year of college approached, the two of you decided to move out of the shitty college dorms and into an actual apartment. New York being New York made this a hard conquest, fortunately for the two of you had found a nice studio apartment. But New York being New York… meant that the rent was high. Two weeks into living in your new shared apartment the two of you found that paying $200 a week was becoming quite troublesome. And that’s how you now found yourself sitting with your best friend, waiting to get interviewed for this sumptuous strip club.

‘’I’m fine, I mean.. This is probably a more prehistoric way of making an onlyfans account but-’’

Laughter erupted between the two of you but was short lived when the door opened. A girl about the same age as you walked out, indicating it was time for the next interviewee. The two of you entered the room. It was small and dim-lit; much like one of the principal’s offices you’d see in a movie. Behind the large desk sat a handsome man quipped with silver hair in a rather expensive suit, he definitely fit the definition of a silver fox.

‘’One at a time.’’ He said sternly, pointing to the single chair in view. Samara looked at Y/N with a raised eyebrow and then picked up one of the extra chairs, placing it next to the other chair opposite the desk. ‘’We come as a package grandpa.’’ You sit in the chair next to Samara and watch him for a reply.

‘’Eh, fuck it. Don’t need you two sitting down for this anyways Get up’’

You both stood up as he eyed the two of you. ‘’Sway your hips’’ Samara was about to protest until the man said ‘’Look I’m gay, my boyfriend is waiting for me down the hall…. Just need to see if you can actually dance and you’re not wasting my time.’’ Samara sighed and started moving her hips, slowly bringing her arms up. You watched until you felt eyes on you that soon told you to do the same. Fighting a blush, you tried to mimic Sam’s moves, you were nervous but then you told yourself you shouldn’t be and tried to have fun with it.

‘’Alright that’s enough. You two are hired.’’ He says as he gets up from his seat. ‘’You’re gonna need new names’’

‘’But we didn’t even tell you our actua-’’ He cuts you off and points to Samara first ‘’Black Lace’’ and then pivots to your direction ‘’And you…. Princess.’’ You and Samara look at each other in confusion. ‘’Oh yeah, the name’s Eddy and welcome to Culotte ladies!’’ The last part he says in a faux french accent and makes his way towards the exit until he halts abruptly, slowly turning to face Y/N and Samara ‘’’You two work the weekends, only 10 an hour plus tips.. I’ll be seeing you ladies.’’ And with that, he was gone. Samara is the first to break the silence the second he leaves.

‘’What the fuck kind of stripper name is Black Lace’’

‘’I mean at least it’s better than the basic old Princess’’

‘’No, Princess suits you Y/N. It captures your whole pure essence’’

That was almost four months ago. You had now gotten comfortable with your new ‘job’ - You could work with your best friend, it paid nice and sometimes the men weren’t so bad. Eddy had you all waiting in the changing room for some big announcement.

Four months and you barely knew some of the girls in here, some were nice and others were just untouchable. But you did find yourself in a little circle amongst Sam and a couple other girls she’d become friends with. The door burst open with Eddy’s energetic energy filling the room. ‘’Ladies I have some news’’ those words caused the entire room to go silent, every head turned to Eddy to see what his so-called news was.

‘’I’m retiring’’ noise quickly found it’s way back to the room as everyone loaded Eddy with worrisome looks and questions.

‘’Girls, girls, girls, calm down. I’ve found a new, younger soul to run the place. I know it won’t be the same as Ol’ Eddy but this man sure knows business, he’ll take care of ya the way I did. As a matter of fact, he’s here right now, I’ll quickly pop out and get him so he can meet all of you.’’

Everyone started talking all at once once Eddy had left, Sam and the other girls next to you joined in on the topic at hand. You listened, not one to give your opinion on the matter. Although you did mention that It did feel like it was his time to retire, he was getting old and fighting one nasty cough. The sound of chatter started to quieten as soon as footsteps were heard coming from the hallway. Eddy had returned now with a much younger man, whose features were very refined, eyes the bluest you’ve ever seen and a beard that’d haunt your dreams for days. The mystery man, clad with a burgundy suit, places one hand into his pocket as he eyes all the girls and stops to lock eyes with you. He keeps his gaze frozen on you while Eddy introduces him.

‘’Everyone, this is Sebastian Stan. Your new boss.’’

‘’Sebastian, this is-’’ Eddy points to every girl in the room, identifying them by their stripper names and not their real ones. All while Sebastian’s gaze never leaves your face. You felt your cheeks blush the entire time, trying to keep eye contact with Eddy to refrain from Sebastian’s stark gaze.

‘’Zelda’’

‘’Dottie’’

‘’Roxie’’

‘’Black Lace and Princess.’’ finishing the list of names he turns to Sebastian, whose gaze seems to be glued onto you. ‘’Princess?’’ he holds out his hand for you to shake. In the heat of the moment you take it and he brings it to his lips for a kiss ‘’Enchanté princess.’’ He lets your hand drop and quietly exits the room with Eddy following suit just before giving you a wink.

‘’Well, do you wanna tell us what that was about?’’

Still in shock of what happened you had no idea how to respond, hell you had no idea if you could even move right now. A man that handsome had just flirted (?) with you. The rest of the evening goes on like any other at Culotte. You kinda hoped you’d see Sebastian again but he was nowhere to be seen. By the time your shift was over had changed into something more comfortable and got your bicycle ready for the ride home. Little did you know Sebastian was watching you from the front seat of his black Porsche and boy was he getting all hot seeing your new outfit that did nothing to hide your perfect legs.

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #seb stan #seb stan x reader #mob!seb #mob!sebastian stan #stripper!reader

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rainandhotchocolate · 4 years

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Movie Star - Part 2

A/N AND WE”VE REACHED THE END OF MY ADVENT CALENDAR a day late I know oops. Here’s part 2 to Movie star lovelies, hope you enjoy xx

Part 2

The next week felt like a blur to Y/N. And possibly the weirdest week she had ever experienced in her entire life. She was on set almost every day, with incredibly long hours given that they needed to do just as many night shoots as day ones, and it needed to be perfectly dark for the cinematographers to actually get the right shot.

Y/N had never felt so exhilarated and exhausted at the same time. She’d been on sets before, obviously, having tried to get as many internships and free work whilst she wasn’t getting any paid roles, and having done almost every small time shitty job that you could do behind the camera, but it was nothing like getting to be an entirely different person for 12 hours a day.

She’d met most of the crew, though she struggled to remember names given that there was over 200 of them wandering around at different times of the day. There seemed to be a rotating cast list, with only a few core people on set every single day with Y/N and Sirius. The person that seemed to be around the most was James Potter, who was playing Sirius’ brother Rowan, and had clicked almost immediately with Sirius. During night sets they could regularly be found playing small pranks on the crew to keep their spirits up when they needed to reset a scene for the 50th time.

Y/N hadn’t seen Mary since she’d dropped the very disconcerting news the week previous, but she had received hundreds of emails regarding their ‘relationship’ since then, with a very long list of potential Instagram posts and stories, events they will go together to, and potential dates to flaunt. Y/N had been trying to push down the vague nausea that seemed to wash over her every time she thought about it, but this morning she’d received a text that meant she might puke at any moment.

“Morning, Y/L/N,” Sirius grinned at her as Y/N walked onto set, yawning loudly at him, and holding a large cappuccino.

“Morning, Black. How’ve you been during the past eight hours you’ve not seen me?”

“Not bad, not bad, ate a packet of mike and ike’s instead of dinner but otherwise nothing wild.” He ran a hand through his hair as they walked through the sunny parking lot at the studio. It was incredibly hot, the sun shining directly on Y/N’s back and no cool breeze to stop the sweat from beginning to drip down her back.

“So…” Y/N could sense the slight change in his tone, and her stomach curdled. “Did you get that text this morning?”

“Yep, 6am on the dot. Do you reckon she actually sleeps?”

“I sincerely doubt it,” Sirius barked out a laugh as he pushed open the door to lot 34 and let Y/N pass in front of him. Y/N felt a little relief as Sirius’ face returned to his more natural ‘at-ease-with-anything’ expression.

“But yeah, looks like we’re getting brunch this weekend.” Y/N continued, wanting more than anything to get this conversation out of the way so she could go back to attempting to become best friends with a very influential actor.

“I’ve got to tell you a secret before we do,” Sirius lowered his voice, leaning against Alice’s caravan, his face significantly closer than Y/N was used to. “I don’t like brunch.”

Y/N burst out into laughter, nervous energy bursting out of her. He smelled like the ocean. Shut up, Y/N.

“How do you not like it! It’s the best possible meal.” Y/N protested, Sirius still leaning over her but pulled his head back to smile.

“Honestly, I ust feel like it’s so overpriced and I could probably just cook something better at hom… and I’m sounding like a total prat right now, aren’t I.”

“A little bit… Mr Millionaire.” Y/N teased, shoving his shoulder playfully.

“Oh shut up. Well I guess we must flaunt our incredible, blooming relationship.” He said dramatically, bowing at Y/N. “I’ll see you on set M’lady.”

Y/N rolled her eyes and pushed the door open to meet Alice who was standing very close to the door and giggling.

“You heard all of that didn’t you,” Y/N grumbled.

“Every last romantic word.” Alice bustled her into her chair and stood in front of her, getting started on her face. Y/N had stopped bothering to do herself up before coming into work, given that Alice was likely going to either destroy it or make her look ten times better than Y/N could ever have attempted.

Given that they were still early on in the script, Y/N was normally covered in dirt, but she was soon to be ‘cleaned up’ and accepted into the royal court where Sirius of course would be waiting.

“Have you seen Frank lately?” Alice asked calmly, only a slight edge of curiosity in her voice. Y/N snorted, blowing a puff of foundation powder onto Alice.

“Sorry, you’re just stupidly in love with that boy.”

“I am not!” Alice’s voice went up about two octaves and Y/N grinned wider. “Stop smiling I’m trying to make you look like a sad peasant.”

“I have seen him, given that he is the head cameraman and is constantly in my face.

“Mmm,” Alice replied nonchalantly.

“He mentioned you the other day.”

“Really.”

“Yeah but since you don’t care…”

“I will make you look like a pig,” Alice growled at her, puffing a brush onto her nose, making Y/N smile.

“That’s your head on a platter to Marlene, not mine,” Y/N could hear Alice grumbling under her breath for a few moments before she replied.

“Fine, I admit my stupid crush, what did he say about me.”

“Just that the make up looked very good on set, and he was very impressed.”

Y/N was sure that if she could have opened her eyes that Alice would have been dancing. But instead, all she heard was.

“That’s nice of him.”

Alice ushered her out of the van, wishing Y/N luck for the rest of the day. Y/N waved her off and made her way to costuming before heading back to set. Today Sirius was revealed to be the prince of Altervail, and Y/N had to stop herself from staring at him looking incredibly dapper in a deep navy uniform. It was form fitting and perfectly complimented his dark grey-blue eyes.

“Looking good, peasant,” Sirius grinned when he saw her, turning away from James who was wearing the same uniform.

“Thank you, your highness.” Y/N curtseyed very low in her pants.

“Ready to be accepted into our humble kingdom?” James side-stepped Sirius so he was beside him. It was a little uncanny looking at the two of them next to each other, dark skin and jet black hair. Sirius’ however fell with a kind of curling ease that James’ messy hair could never have achieved.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

In the evening, the crew had set up dinner and someone had brought in a crate of beers since they had managed to finish up early. Y/N had been talking to a small, very peppy brown haired girl when Sirius tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, I’m heading off – just wanted to say goodnight,” He was smiling softly down at her. He looked tired, his make up was off and he was wearing an oversized black hoodie. He somehow looked more like himself than Y/N had ever seen him, even though they had spent the last 100 hours together.

“Oh ok, goodnight then.”

“I guess I’ll see you on Sunday.”

“Yes, I nearly forgot,” Liar. He said nothing, but just continued to smile. “But yes, see you then.”

“Ok, well bye then,” And he turned and disappeared into the night.

“Please get out of the bathroom, Lils!” Y/N banged on the door loudly. “I have to go!”

“It’s a fake date, that’s hardly wild plans.” Lily replied, her voice strained. Y/N groaned, she was probably putting on her eyeliner which could take up to an hour.

It was 9:45, and Mary had left specific instructions that she needed to be at the restaurant at 10am sharp and Sirius was going to pick her up. She was to look good, but non-descript, like they were on a date but not trying to show off. It was a lot of instructions that Y/N really couldn’t figure out. Lily and herself had spent two hours going through each of their wardrobes trying to pick out an outfit that fit Mary’s words and they had finally settled on a simple yellow summer dress and sandals.

The doorbell rang and Y/N jumped.

“Fucking hell Lily, he’s here! Get out and stall him so I can look like an awake human being!”

The door swung open, Lily’s long red hair swishing along her shoulder, one terribly lined eye done and the other black line smudged all over her eye.

“You look great.”

“Shut up and put on your face.”

She swung passed her and towards the front door as Y/N moved quickly towards the bathroom mirror, pulling open all the drawers manically.

“Hey, come on in, she’s just getting ready.” Y/N could hear the door open and Lily inviting him inside, panic was building in her chest. How do you get ready for a date with Sirius Black? What were they going to say about her? What if every magazine just posts about how pathetic she looked beside him?

Lily popped her head around the doorway.

“He’s cute, also brown eyeshadow, keep it easy.”

“Thanks,” Y/N grabbed the palate beside her and attempted her eyes as Lily disappeared back down into their tiny kitchen/living room. Y/N could hear light chatter but couldn’t make out the words, which somehow made her even more nervous. Finally, she looked at herself in the mirror and grimaced. Good enough.

She made her way into the main room to greet him, plastering a look of calm and confidence onto her face.

“Hey! You found the place ok?” She smiled at Sirius and pulled him into a hug. Nice one, never done that before.

“Yeah, I actually used to live around here. Ready to go?” He was wearing a linen white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and dark blue jeans that were tight but not too tight. He looked perfectly casual but nice. Fuck.

“Yep, ready as ever.” Y/N grabbed her denim jacket and kissed Lily on the cheek goodbye, following Sirius out the door.

Taglist: @averytruerayofsunshine @siriuslyjanhvi @blushingskywalker @blackpinkdolan @thebabblingbookworm @cherrie511 @imlukesnirvana @avengersassemblee @maraudersandco @sly-vixen-up2nogood @katbernoulli @sirius-lysad @evyiione @minerva26love @aikeia @gollyderek @greatwombatblaze @songforhema @your-typical-giggle @myownviperroom @hermionie-is-my-queen @demiwitch527

Movie star taglist: WANGMANGAGAVROCHE @RIDDIKULUSLYPOTTER

#rainandhotchocolate #sirius x reader #sirius black x reader #sirius x you #sirius black x you #sirius imagine #sirius au #sirius black imagine

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