#but fuck if i can afford anything around here with just 1 person's salary

[sarahsupastar]

I so, so desperately want to move into a big beautiful Victorian house with a handful of friends. I'm honestly having a bit of a depression about the fact that it feels like a fucking pipe dream because 1) my circle of friends is very small these days, & 2) amatanormativity means everyone else is planning their future around a romantic partner, while I'm stuck trying to forge a future alone.

#i want the stability and the ownership and tbh the aesthetic beauty of a house of my own #but fuck if i can afford anything around here with just 1 person's salary #and i know from past experience that living alone is a depression trigger for me #and even though everyone loves to talk about how awesome it would be to live in a big house with all their friends #it really truly feels like literally none of them actually mean it #cause at the end of the day they inevitably seek out long-term romantic partners and plan their futures as a couple #and I'm just here on my own #desperately wanting that same stability and companionship #but kept on the outskirts because our whole fucking society is built around nuclear families and even people who recognize that's a problem #still use it as the default framework for their own lives #sarah talks at the internet #tag rant #i had to drive through the rich part of town to get to the bookstore today #seeing all those GORGEOUS Victorians and knowing that i can't realistically even DAYDREAM about some day having one has put me in a mood

[kira-anon-uwu]

Blossom in ribcage, until their backs break [ 1 ]

Coming out Swinging

Spiderinnit fic

Main post

~-~

          "Tommy, get up! We're going to be late!"

He sat up with a tired groan, throwing his pillow at his brother. "You mean you're going to be late; I don't have to be there this early."

"You do if you don't want to take the bus."

"Well who fucking said that you had to be in this early?"

"The principal, and if you want to keep living here you'll make sure I'm on time."

"You're a grown man, it isn't my job to help you make it to work on time."

"You have fifteen minutes, or I'm leaving you here and personally handing you your late slip when you finally get there."

"I'll just stay home."

"I'll tell Sam to bar you from that fieldtrip you have coming up if you do that."

That got Tommy out of bed, and he scowled at Wilbur the entire time. "Fuck off, don't you dare."

"Then you better not skip school."

"I've been looking forward to that trip for ages, I saved up my own fucking money for-"

"Holy shit, calm down. I wouldn't actually do that to you, you know that."

"I'm- Yeah, yeah sorry. Still not fully used to living with you over-"

"I know, it's alright. Get ready quickly, and we should still have some time for me to run through a drive-thru to grab us some breakfast on the way to the school, ok?"

"Damn, you'll run through it? Are everyone's grades that bad?"

"You know what I meant,", Wilbur said with an amused exhale from his nose, "Ten minutes, alright? I'm going to go warm up the car."

"No, leave it cold; wakes a man up better than coffee."

"If I don't let it warm up, it won't be running. Don't forget to put the shit you were working on last night in your bag, I can't get you any more of an extension on that now that we're done unpacking."

"Yeah, yeah,", Tommy rolled his eyes, searching his floor for some jeans that were clean enough he could get away with wearing them again.

Realistically, he'd still be getting up around this time if he didn't go in when Wilbur did, since the L'Manberg busses ran like shit on a good day, but he refused to acknowledge that since he hated to admit that his brother was right about anything. Except having him move out to live with him, that was a good idea; the only one the man ever had, really.

How he was affording a two bedroom flat on a teacher's salary was beyond him, but Tommy didn't really question that when it meant he could move out from Phil's house.

          Tommy remembered to stick his overdue school work into his bag before heading out, it was the backpack he ended up forgetting. It was easy enough to run back up four flights of stairs to grab it, at least, and he tried his best to hide how hard he was panting as he got to the car.

"Don't fucking pass out, jesus christ."

"Sorry, nearly forgot something,", Tommy breathed out, leaning the passenger side seat back as far as possible so he could lay down.

"You remembered to lock the door, right?"

"Probably."

"Tommy."

"Yes, I locked it. My shit's in there too, I'm not about to leave it open for someone to come in and take things."

"Just wanted to be sure,", Wilbur sighed, waiting for a break in the morning traffic to pull out of the parking spot, "Buckle your seatbelt, I don't feel like getting a ticket today."

Tommy muttered out a string of swears as he sat up to follow the demand. "Y'know, you were a lot more fun before you went off to university to become a narc."

"I'm not a fucking narc, how dare you."

"You are in fact a narc, snitch, and square now that you are a teacher."

"I will fail you."

"That's the only reason you wanted me in your class, so you can threaten me with my grades."

"I have done no such thing,", Wilbur chuckled, "Figure out what you want from Dunkin."

"Same shit as always."

"Wanted to make sure you weren't changing it up any."

Tommy set his arms behind his head with a sigh. "It's nice to have some things stay the same. The decent aspects of shit, at least."

"Listen, Tommy, I know alot of this has been hard-"

"We're not having this talk before school, I'm not in the fucking mood for it."

"No, I know, I'm just- I'm here for you when you are ready to talk, I want to make sure you know that."

"... Yeah, I know."

Wilbur gave him a reassuring smile through the rearview mirror, reaching over to ruffle his hair without taking his eyes off of the road.

"Hey- Fucking stop that! I brushed it this morning!"

"Oh, good, then I should still be able to find the brush stuck in there."

"It's about to be stuck up your ass."

"Why would you waste a perfectly good weapon like that?"

          A failed attempt to crash the car and trip through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru later, and they arrived at the school. Tommy took his tea and lukewarm bagel sandwich to the cafeteria to wait for his friends, sitting in the corner of the nearly empty room and watching as other students started showing up.

People left him alone for the most part by this point, realizing that he wasn't very fun to bully and kissing his ass wasn't worth it since he couldn't get Wilbur to change anyone's grades, so he was alone at his table until Tubbo eventually got there.

The short boy came in completely bundled up in a stupid looking coat and scarf, removing them as he sat down. "Holy shit, it's awful out there."

"It isn't that bad,", Tommy rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his tea.

He let out an offended squawk when Tubbo took it from him, laughing when the short boy immediately spit it back out.

"What the fuck is that?! Did you stick some dirt in hot water?"

"No, it's tea,", he snatched the cup back, "Not my fault you've got weak taste buds."

"I think I preferred it when you were in here with black coffee, at least that just tasted like bean water."

"Coffee is bean water."

"You're supposed to add sugar and shit to it."

"Tubbo, I haven't got enough money for the coffee that comes from shit, and I'm certainly not going to be adding my own."

"You will be boiled."

"No, that's what you do with the water, man."

"I will become the modern day Emperor Nero. Including rising to power at age sixteen."

"Well you're off to a great start, because you might as well be speaking to me in Roman when you say shit like that."

"The Romans used Latin. Or Greek, sometimes."

"Tubbo,", Tommy let out an annoyed whine, "It's too early for you to be teaching me shit. It's bad enough I've got to listen to Wil practicing his lesson plan at home, give my brain a fucking break."

"Saying that implies it ever gets any use."

"I beg your fucking pardon?"

"Then beg."

"Yo, who's begging?", Ranboo asked as they finally got to the table, a muffin that'd been acquired in the breakfast line in their hand.

"Me, for some fucking peace and quiet,", Tommy sighed, putting his head down on the table. Tubbo started poking him repeatedly in the arm, followed by Ranboo who took the other side.

          The day was very thankfully mundane after that, the only thing of note being his math teacher refusing to take his late work despite him having a note from the principal saying he had a pass on it. The asshole told him that 'moving house isn't a real reason, it's an excuse for him to be lazy'.

Tommy made a mental note to figure out which car belonged to that dickhead in the teacher's lot, leaving his, thankfully, last class of the day to check in with Wilbur before he headed off with his friends. "I'm going to Tubbo's for a while."

"Be careful, and don't take the Sixty-Two bus; route's fucked from some of the Ramulus shit."

"Right, we'll be taking the subway."

"Do you need fare?"

"Paying for the fare, that's funny."

"Tommy,", Wilbur sighed, looking up from his desk, "Don't admit to committing crimes like that in school."

"I've seen at least three teachers do the same shit, only tourists and dumbasses pay for the subway; the rest of us hop over it."

"I always pay when I use the subway, that's how the city makes the money to keep up with them."

They made silent eye contact for a long moment before Tommy turned on his heel and started walking away. "... Well, great talk. I should be home by supper, but I'll let you know if we get food anywhere."

"Bye, if you do anything illegal, don't get caught at least,", Wilbur sighed again, raising his hand to wave.  

And the rest of the week after that blended together for the most part; every day basically the same leading up to his fieldtrip on Friday.

His favorite teacher, Sam, had somehow managed to get a fieldtrip set up to go to Ewe Labs, and was bringing thirty students to get a tour of the place. Tommy might not have particularly enjoyed going to school, but his Zoology class was the one he looked forward to the most. He had no idea how Sam had managed to get the tour set up, since Ewe Labs were notoriously hard to get into, but he was excited as all hell for it and had been since it'd been brought up in the first place.

The only way the school was going to let it happen was if the selected students paid for it, but that hadn't been an issue since Tommy was able to 'borrow' some money from various sources in the city.

Which was completely moral in his opinion, since he was stealing from the people running mascot suit scams downtown. They made bank by forcing people to pay them for pictures they didn't even want to take, he got money by stealing their wallets and throwing away their IDs and photos of their children; nature is healing, or something. 

          Wilbur dropped him off earlier than usual so he could get into the group, giving him a pat on the back and a thumbs up before going to his own classroom to get his lesson materials ready for the day. He was getting ready to start his unit on Hamlet, and Tommy was more than alright with missing as much of that as he physically could.

Ignoring how much of it he'd have to hear at home, anyways, that part was inescapable.

Sam took attendance as seven-thirty rolled around, getting everyone onto the bus that'd been rented for the day.

"Ok, so here's what we're doing,", Sam said as he stood at the front, "When we get there, their head of security is going to give you guys all of the rules, and you're gonna listen to him. They're being incredibly generous letting us go in for a tour, so we need to be polite and follow those rules so we can do more stuff like this. Does everyone understand that?"

Almost everyone gave a positive response, and Sam cleared his throat.

"Tommy, do you understand what we're gonna be doing?"

"Why the fuck are you calling me out-", Tommy started complaining, with Tubbo smacking him in the arm, "Ow- Yeah, I've got it; we're going to be told not to touch anything, and then they'll show us the cool shit."

"Right, thank you. And watch the language."

"'Watch the'-"

"We're still at the school."

"Sorry, please allow me to stay on the trip."

"You get three swears while we're there, any more and you get to wait on the bus."

He folded his arms as the rest of the bus laughed at him, sinking in his seat. "Fu- Fine, whatever. I'll just have to make them count, then."

Sam told the driver they were ready to go and sat, with the trip to Ewe being taken up mostly by the teacher and driver telling people to stay in their seats and stop throwing stuff.

They were let out right in front of the main building for Ewe Labs, a tall white monolith of a skyscraper that was a staple of the L'Manberg skyline. The front proudly displayed the name, along with it's tagline; Experiment With Everything.

There were all sorts of people filing in and out of the place, all of them ranging from businessmen to what were clearly interns being sent on coffee runs that probably weren't getting paid.

There was also some short man that was walking directly toward their group with his hands full of visitor passes. "Eyy, if it isn't doctor Dude,", the guy greeted Sam, his eyes just barely running over their whole group before going back to the teacher, "Good to see you. This all the kids you brought with you?"

"Yeah, it is. Everyone, this is Quackity; the head of security I mentioned before." 

          "I'd introduce myself to everyone individually, but I really don't give enough of a shit about a bunch of highschoolers to do that. I'm passing these out to everyone, so make sure you get one if you don't wanna get thrown out and sent to prison for trespassing,", Quackity said as he handed out the passes he was holding.

Tubbo snorted out a quiet laugh. "Trespassing is a misdemeanor at most."

"Oh, we got a junior cop over here,", Quackity mocked as he passed them, sending more badges that direction, "This counts as a government building on the tax forms, so it'd be felony. That leads into the long, boring talk with everyone about what you're not doing in here. Sam, I don't need to pull up some Subway Surfers footage to get them to listen to me, do I?"

"No, they're all pretty good on paying attention. For the most part."

Tommy knew the second part was directed at almost exclusively him, and made sure he was listening the whole time out of spite.

"Fantastic. I'm only here to tell you guys what to do once you're in there, past the door you'll be following around one of our scientists into the places you're allowed to see. You need to stay in your group the whole time, no wandering. No touching anything, don't disturb anyone that isn't specifically interacting with you; people are trying to work. No food or water, if you've got a snack or some shit in your pocket keep it there. Any water bottles are gonna get dumped in the lobby like you're going into the airport. I'll give someone like twenty dollars to drink the Ewe Labs jungle juice-"

"No,", Sam cut in, like a killjoy, "Don't say that, because there's at least five of them that'd do that for free."

"Boo, Sam hates freedom!", Tommy had a hand to the side of his mouth to amplify his voice, Tubbo, Ranboo, and a few other people joining in on the 'boo'ing.

"Those are the people that'd drink it."

"Oh shit, give me a list of names. Could always use some human test subjects,", Quackity chuckled, raising his hands in front of himself as Sam glared at him, "Joking, I'm joking."

"Finish with the rules."

"You aren't any fun, man. Think the last thing to go over is no photos or video. That's a serious one, anyone caught with a phone out is getting it taken and destroyed. That should have been everything. I just want to be perfectly clear that breaking any of these rules invalidates your visitor pass, which means you're tresspassing and are gonna get arrested."

"Did everyone get that?"

The whole group gave some form of confirmation, and Quackity gave them a thumbs up as he turned back toward the direction he'd come from. "Great, I'll leave you to it then! I'll probably check in later to make sure everything's going ok, and remember that there's security everywhere so don't try anything!" 

          The tour really got going after that, with someone in a generic lab coat meeting them at the door to show them around.

Tommy did, in fact, try to partake in the Ewe Labs jungle juice, but Sam asked Tubbo and Ranboo to help drag him away before he was able to have a sip of the forbidden soup. He behaved himself past that point, outside of making jokes about drinking chemicals and eating rats, gradually getting more invested in what he was being shown over trying to be funny.

Ewe focused on animal genetics and testing, which had some aspects that were incredibly unethical, but for the most part just consisted of learning more about the genes and DNA of different species beyond what was already out there.

As they were being shown around the insect segment of the labs, his eye was caught by a dark room with 'Arachnids' on the door as they passed it. It also happened to be ajar, giving a very small peek inside.

Something about it was calling to him, and he really wanted to see what was going on in there. He wasn't exactly the biggest fan of spiders, but he figured there had to be some neat shit if the rest of the tour was anything to go by.

Tommy's chance came when it was time for their tour guide to switch, since they had to wait a little while for the new one to show up.

"Sam,", he grabbed his teacher's sleeve.

"Tommy, teacher mode."

He sighed, rolling his eyes as he addressed the man again. "Mr.Dude."

"What's up?"

"Man needs to piss, is there any chance I can run off to do that while we're just fucking standing here?"

Sam looked incredibly conflicted, eventually sighing and pointing toward a hallway they'd passed earlier. "Bathroom is down there to the left. Try to be quick, ok?"

"Of course, won't even know I'm gone."

He went down that way until he was out of sight, flipping his badge over so it was harder to tell what kind it was as he carefully found his way back to the arachnid room. The hallway was somehow empty, giving him an easy entry into the mysterious and dark lab.

          Tommy felt like turning on the light was a bad idea, opting for is phone's flashlight so he could be more inconspicuous with his snooping. He didn't even really know what he was looking for, just looking around for the sake of it.

From the way it seemed right off the bat, it was a testing lab or something absolutely stacked with empty bug terrariums.

Some of them had been knocked over at some point, and Tommy had to be careful stepping over them so he didn't kick any and make noise. Although that was kinda negated by him setting his hand on a table and very promptly feeling something incredibly sharp on his wrist.

He let out a pained and loud 'Fuck' as he moved back, knocking down the rest of the cages. He caught a glimpse of a spider of some kind on the table before turning off his flashlight and hiding behind it; just barely managing to get out of view before there were people entering the room and switching the lights on.

"Who's in here?"

No way in hell was he going to answer them, that was a very easy way to get arrested for trespassing like Quackity had repeatedly warned.

Tommy zipped his hoodie up, using the hood to hide his face and carefully making his way closer to the door. The security guards that'd come to check the room had moved farther in as they were looking for him, which gave him an opening to leg it out of there.

They were chasing him, and shouting at him to stop, but he somehow managed to lose them through taking random hallways and throwing a few potted plants in the way.

He stood as close to the wall as he could manage in an empty hall, catching his breath as he quickly took the hoodie off and tied it around his waist with the black liner facing out so it'd be harder to identify if the guards saw him again.

He actually went to the bathroom after that, splashing some cold water onto his face and freezing when he saw the dark red, nearly black mark on his wrist where he'd felt the pain in that lab.

"Oh, fuck, that isn't good,", Tommy chuckled nervously, trying to decide if it was worse that he'd been bitten by a mystery bug or that this could lead to him getting caught and, once again, arrested for trespassing. 

          Running cold water over it made if hurt slightly less, but really didn't do much to help with the flush that'd settled over him as he stood there.

Running and getting his blood flowing was probably a terrible thing when there was venom of some kind in his body; horrible, even. He was a big man, though, he could handle it!

Tommy swapped a wristband from his left hand to his right, using it to cover the bite as he very carefully started stumbling his way back out of the bathroom. He thankfully ran into Tubbo, the short boy immediately moving to help him stand.

"Holy shit, are you alright?!"

"Y-Yeah,", that was a lie, "I think I got food poisoning or something from that fucking food truck shit Wil bought me this morning. Spent that whole time fucking puking."

"Yeah, you look like shit. Mr.Dude sent me to get you, we're being made to leave because they've had a security breach or something."

"Oh shit, is Freddy here?"

"Shut the fuck up,", Tubbo sighed, helping him walk.

"You can't- You can't say there's been a 'security breach' and expect me to not make the joke. You're just jealous you didn't do it first."

"No, I'm jealous that Ranboo wasn't the one that had to come get your ass, because he'd be having an easier time with this. Are you sure this is just food poisoning and not the flu or something?"

Tommy immediately jumped on that excuse, acting guilty and looking to the side. "I mean, I did feel like shit this morning-"

"Tommy."

"It isn't my fault that I decided to ignore my stomach being fucked to go on a field trip."

"It absolutely is."

"Fuck you."

"You've used the three swears Mr.Dude allotted to you, now you need to stop talking."

"Fuck you."

"What happened?", Sam asked as they got back to the group.

"So, I may have lied about why I needed the restroom,", Tommy chuckled, avoiding eye contact, "Threw the fuck up."

"That's not good. The security issue doesn't have anything to do with you, does it?"

"Unless my head going in the fucking toilet counts as one, no."

"It's a good thing we have to leave, then. Come on, everyone; same way we came. Tommy, are you good to walk on your own? You really don't look good,", Sam asked as he started herding everyone else away, concerned expression on his face.

"Should be alright, can always drag Tubbo down to the floor with me if I start falling."

Tubbo immediately walked ahead with the rest of the group. "I'm leaving him to get stepped on and die."

"Wait, no-"

          Looking like a light breeze could literally kill him made his 'food poisoning / flu' excuse believable enough that security didn't interrogate him very much as they got back to the bus, and Tommy had Tubbo help him get his phone out to call his brother once the vehicle was moving.

Wilbur answered after it rang a few times with a sigh. "I'm teaching."

"And I feel like I'm about to fucking die. The trip is ending early because someone fucking broke in or something, but I'm sick and I need to go home."

"Are you being serious?"

"I can throw up on your desk when we get back if you don't believe me."

"I'll-", Wilbur interrupted himself with another sigh, "Let me know when you're almost back, alright? Text me when you're nearly here, don't call again. I'll find someone who can cover for me after this period, ok?"

"Right, thank you."

"Of course. If you aren't really sick I'm locking you in a closet."

He could hear whatever class the man was currently teaching laugh at that, scoffing. "Fuck you."

"See you in a little while."

"Bye."

Any annoyance was gone once they were back and Wilbur actually saw him. "Holy shit, what happened?"

Tommy shrugged at him, leaving it to Sam to explain the situation as he understood it. "He said he was throwing up, and he's been sweating bullets the whole way back."

"Right... Suppose we need to stop in at the nurse's office first before I can take him home. Might take him to the hospital, he looks awful."

"Fuck you, you look awful,", Tommy muttered, feeling considerably worse than he did before.

"He told me he felt like shit when he woke up this morning,", Tubbo chimed in, "But he was pretending he was fine so he could go on the trip."

"That tracks, he's an absolute plague rat,", Wilbur sighed, helping Tommy stand so they could go.

Sneeg, the nurse, didn't even take his temperature, writing a leave slip and giving it to him with a very encouraging 'don't die' as Wilbur dragged him to the office and then out to the car.

He managed to convince his brother to just take him home instead of the emergency room, since he really didn't want to have to explain what happened to medical professionals.

It was probably because of the fever, but he would have legitimately preferred dying over admitting that he'd made a mistake wandering unsupervised in an animal testing facility.

It's a shame it didn't happen while he was following the rules; seemed like something they could sue over if the circumstances were different. 

          But no, instead he got to suffer on the sofa like an idiot without any way to get compensated for his misery.

At least he was able to sleep through the worst of it, barely remembering the next couple days outside of waking up to eat or drink something and listen to his brother stress over him.

Wilbur made sure he was able to get up and do basic things on his own again before even considering going back to work, being incredibly clingy when he had to leave on the fifth morning after the incident.

"And you're sure you'll be alright? I've still got some days I can-"

"Holy shit, you always make a big fucking deal out of being late, stop worrying about me and fucking leave."

"I've spent the better part of a week watching you writhe in a pool of sweat and misery, I'm going to be anxious about leaving you alone after that."

"I'm pretty sure the worst of it is over, I'll send you a fucking text or something if I start feeling like shit again,", Tommy made a shooing motion with his hand, "Now get out so I can fuck up your save in Skyrim."

"I might stay home just to make sure you keep your hands off of that."

"Then I'll fuck up your save if you don't get the fuck out. I'll probably be sleeping for the most part anyways."

Wilbur looked like leaving was the absolute last thing he wanted to do, but eventually sighed and gathered up the stuff he was going to need for the day. "Any issue you have, call me immediately. If you start feeling worse, if you even think you might throw up or something, let me know the second the nausea starts up."

"Alright, drama queen."

"I'm being incredibly fucking serious. I don't mind coming back to help, alright? My top priority is you at the moment."

"Work should probably be a close fucking second; we need money to live."

"I've got plenty of money saved up, missing a few days isn't going to do any harm."

"Go, I'll still fucking be here when you're done boring the fuck out of seven periods worth of students."

"You'd better be,", he ruffled Tommy's hair, "There's still some of that soup in the fridge, and if you think you can handle solid food, there's some pizza as well-"

"Go."

Wilbur completely ignored him, continuing like he hadn't been interrupted. "Remember to drink water, I've got some electrolytes in the cupboard; those should help you replenish some of the water you lost through sweat. Try to take a shower if you feel well enough, you stink and I'm sure that would help you fell better." 

          "Fuck you, I smell perfectly fine. If anything, you're the one that stinks. I can fucking smell you from here,", he wrinkled his nose as he said it, only partially joking.

It probably had something to do with him not really being able to smell much while he was practically comatose, but everything seemed to smell far stronger than it had before.

The worst of it was his room, he could see what Wilbur was always complaining about whenever he had to go to the bathroom and walked past it. His door wasn't even open, and it was like he could smell every pair of unwashed underwear he'd left on his floor to handle later.

That was enough to make him start feeling sick again, since on it's own whatever he'd caught had calmed down to him feeling like he'd run the cross-fit version of a marathon or something. His fever had gone down to a manageable level, he was holding down food; really he was just weak from putting up with whatever fucked up version of the flu he caught.

But he'd made it through, proving once again that Tommy Innes Soot was the strongest man alive. Ever.

Wilbur gasped in mock offense at Tommy's insult, sniffing under his arm and scowling when Tommy started laughing at him. "That's enough to quell my concerns. If you're well enough to be insulting me, you're well enough to be left alone."

"I'll insult you further if you don't go."

"Don't taunt me a second time, you aren't the French."

"What the fuck does that even mean?"

"Don't worry about it,", Wilbur grabbed his car keys, "Don't make too much of a mess, but I'm also not expecting you to clean up and messes you do end up making."

"Trash the place, got it."

"If you can muster up enough energy to do so, have fun. Don't overexert yourself, alright?"

"I won't, bye."

"Goodbye, I'll text to check in when I'm on lunch."

And like that, he was alone. The first thing he did was go back to sleep, because six in the morning was way too early to be awake when he wasn't going to school.

He woke up again some time around eleven, needing a second for his eyes to adjust to the light coming in through the window before being able to see his phone well enough to send a thumbs up in response to a text Wilbur had sent asking how he was doing. 

          After that, he got up to make something to eat. The soup his brother had mentioned was just some canned stuff that he'd stuck into a container so it was easier to heat up, and, in Tommy's ever correct opinion, it tasted like it'd been in a tin.

He knew what it should taste like, because it was the one that Wilbur always got for him when he was sick, but this time it had a seriously strong metallic taste along with the normal cheap chicken noodle flavor.

That was also probably because of him being as sick as he was, because even the salt wasn't overpowering it; and that made up, like, ninety-percent of what the soup even was.

He tried adding more after microwaving it for a few minutes, but stopped when he realized it wasn't doing anything except lining him up for sodium poisoning on top of the mystery plague. Adding random stuff from the cupboard didn't really do much to improve it either, and he was just going to settle for sad, metal soup before having another idea.

He remembered seeing something ages ago about sugar cancelling out salt or something, maybe that'd work for the tin aftertaste as well?

Most things on the internet are usually true, and he'd managed to survive fifteen years without problems so far, so he decided to test it.

He didn't want to add too much, since he didn't like sweet things very much, but wasn't really able to stop himself from adding a few tablespoons after tasting how much better it'd been after only one.

That was something he was probably going to have to figure out later, because he didn't have nearly enough energy to try understanding it then. Getting some food in his system made him feel better, and the longer he sat there the more he had to accept that Wilbur had had a point earlier.

He didn't smell the best.

He was, in fact, quite smelly.

To a point that he wasn't going to be able to ignore it, even out of spite. The sofa also stank, probably from him sweating on it for like three days, so he opened the window despite it being the middle of February and went to deal with the stink problem. He also closed the curtains, because holy hell was it bright outside.

          His room was so much worse when the door was opened, and he decided he was just going to steal some clothes from Wilbur after giving up on trying to venture inside without holding his breath.

The shower he took was normal, only real thing of note being how much harder it felt like the water was coming out. It was also louder, maybe the flat building did something to the water pressure while he was sick?

Either way, it was nice after going four days without washing anything beyond his hands. Standing in the shower got rid of what little energy he'd been able to muster in the movement department, so he retreated back to the livingroom to relax again.

It was cold as all hell in there, especially with his hair wet, but having the window open got rid of the horrible smell of must that'd been filling the space before. The sofa was still foul, though, so he ran to steal the blankets off of Wilbur's bed to set up something comfortable on the carpet.

Could he have probably just laid down in his brother's room? Probably.

Did he want to? Not really, that would mean more movement if he decided he wanted a snack or something. Or some water, which was a thought that made him realize that he was pretty thirsty.

He figured that was something he should get before settling on the floor; water is technically important.

Tommy shuffled his way back over to the kitchen, lifting his arm to grab a cup out of the cabinet and almost immediately dropping it.

"Shit-", he reached his hand out toward it as it fell to the floor, feeling something tingle in his wrist as the shatter he was waiting for didn't come. Not even a clatter, the cup didn't hit the floor.

It took him a moment to realize that the cup was currently attached to his arm by something... white.

His immediate first thought was to make a cum joke, before the it really clicked with him that something was incredibly wrong here.

He panicked, trying to detach whatever the string of white shit was from him and breaking the cup anyways from flailing. He managed to get the string off after that, poking at it and finding it to be incredibly sticky.

"Fuck- Damn, this really looks like- Don't say it, this is serious,", he was muttering to himself, mind racing as he tried to piece together exactly what'd happened. 

          He was minding his own business, getting some water, dropped the cup, and reached his hand out to catch it. Tommy slowly moved his hand the same way he had before, trying to think of what exactly he'd done to cause that. He was trying to grab the cup as it fell, but he couldn't quite reach it...

Another string of the white stuff came out of his wrist, this time hitting the ceiling as he fell backwards in surprise.

He thankfully missed landing on the cup he'd broken, catching his breath before immediately hyperventilating because what the fuck.

Surely he'd seen that wrong, surely he'd felt it wrong. Maybe he was having some kind of fucked up fever hallucination; that was something that happened, right?

He scrambled to his feet, going over to the table to grab the thermometer so he could see if he was about to die or something.

His temperature was perfectly normal, lower than it'd been earlier, even. So then maybe his brain had been messed up somehow from the fever he'd had before? But nothing strange had happened before that.

Except for his sense of smell being kind of fucked. Or his taste buds being kind of fucked. Or his eyes being-

Ok, so maybe there'd been some other signs that something was wrong, but those were explainable to some extent. But this? This was some freak of nature type shit that he had no idea where to even begin breaking down.

He nearly called Wilbur to tell him to get home and take him to the emergency room, stopping right before hitting the button as he realized something.

He'd shot some white, sticky stuff out of his wrist. It clung to the cup strong enough to catch it. The second shot was still stuck in the corner of the kitchen ceiling.

Almost like a spider web...

"No fucking shot,", Tommy shakily scrambled to his feet again, going into the kitchen and using the broom to get down the mystery substance so he could have a better look at it.

Now, he wasn't really a spider expert, but it really looked like the webs he used to find in the back garden of the house he'd grown up in. Tommy dropped the broom, taking a step back and looking down at his hands.

He used the other one this time, holding it out toward the wall and trying again. 

          And, again, the web came out in a messy blob that stuck to the edge of the window.

Normally, he'd be very loudly freaking out about something like this, but he was very much in shock about the situation as a whole.

He decided the best course of action was to clean up any sign of the webs, because he didn't want to explain any of this to Wilbur. Not yet, anyways; he needed to figure out a way to make it seem like this wasn't his fault.

Because there was no doubt in his mind that this was because of the spider bite. The bite that'd calmed down to two little black spots on his wrist. If he didn't know any better, he'd assume they were freckles.

Tommy finally got some water after he was done hiding evidence, leaving the remains of the first cup on the floor for Wilbur to deal with as he very skillfully went back to the blanket pile he'd made earlier and promptly passed out. He'd already been tired, and the adrenaline from the web situation running out left him on empty.

He was dragged back into consciousness later when he heard the door open, not moving very much as he hoped he'd be able to go back to sleep.

"Holy shit, it's absolutely frigid in here,", the door closed, and there was a pause, "Tommy?"

"Floor,", Tommy tiredly called back, moving the blanket off of his head.

"And why are you on the floor?"

"'Cause the sofa stinks."

"And you chose the floor over your bed because?"

"'Cause my room stinks."

"I see,", Wilbur came over, squatting down and sticking the back of his hand to Tommy's forehead, "It feels like your fever's gone down more, how are you feeling?"

"Tired."

"Sorry for waking you, then."

"'s ok. I broke a cup earlier."

"You didn't cut yourself on it, did you?"

"No, I left it alone."

Wilbur let out  tired sigh, ruffling Tommy's hair and standing again. "I'll take care of it, go ahead and go back to sleep. I'll see if I can do something about the sofa, as well; so you can get off of the floor."

He gave a tired 'mhm' in response, rolling over and almost immediately passing out again.

The solution to the couch's stench problem was just a few blankets being thrown over it until Wilbur had the time to rent a steam cleaner, but that was better than nothing so Tommy made sure he didn't stick his face too close to it and he was fine for the most part.

          He was able to get away with laying around the house and avoiding school for another couple days before Wilbur deemed him well enough to go again.

And, normally, he would have been dreading it. Going back to school after spending a week doing nothing but watching TV and scrolling through random stuff on his phone sounded like the worst thing imaginable.

But, it also gave him a chance to be alone and figure out what the fuck was going on with the webs he was making.

There was only so much he could do inside of the apartment while he was trying to hide it, and he needed to actually go outside and experiment with it if he wanted to know anything.

The only things he knew for sure is that whatever it was was sticky, it was strong, and it started to decay after a few hours.

That one he learned when he decided to use it to dangle his phone from the ceiling so he didn't have to hold it; leaving him with a very lovely red mark on his face after it fell right on his nose.

Tommy spent his last day off before being made to go back cleaning up the apartment some, since it still fucking reeked, and coming home to see laundry being done was almost enough to convince Wilbur that he was still sick and needed longer. He wasn't that lucky, though, and was being forced to get up at the normal time on an incredibly cold Friday morning.

After that it was same routine, different day. Outside of his brother keeping a closer eye on him than usual, anyways.

Get up, complain, go get breakfast at some random place on the way to the school. Tommy was glad to have a hot drink, taking a sip of the tea Wilbur had bought him-

And immediately spitting it out on the dashboard of the car.

"What the fuck, man?", Wilbur asked, sounding incredibly annoyed.

"This tastes like shit."

"It's exactly the same as it always is."

"They must have fucked it up or something, this is nasty."

"Here, let me see it,", Wilbur grabbed the cup from him, taking a sip, "Plain black tea, tastes as horrible as always. Your tastebuds might be fucked from being sick, still."

Tommy folded his arms with a sigh. "That's fucking stupid."

"Mope about it while you clean the spit off of my fucking car,", Wilbur handed him a napkin, not taking his eyes off of the road.

"That's so rude and inconsiderate, I'm mourning here."

"The fuck are you mourning?"

"A perfectly good drink."

"You can still drink it."

"No, it tastes like dirt."

"Then don't complain. Wipe up the mess you made before it dries, because then I'm going to make you clean the whole thing."

Tommy took the napkin from him, muttering out a mix of swears and complaints as he did the bare minimum of cleaning up the tea he'd spat.

          And things were back on track after that. He dumped the tea in the parking lot, filled the cup with some water from a drinking fountain inside the school, and took his drink and lukewarm bagel to his usual table to wait for his friends.

A few different people asked if he was alright as they came in, and that's how he found out that his brother had been very poorly hiding his concern for him once he'd gone back to work; meaning Tommy now had some very prime bullying material.

He thought up different ways to make fun of his brother for that as he went to take a bite of his food, having to stop himself from spitting it out like he had the tea.

It didn't taste nearly as bad, but it sure as hell didn't taste like it should have. It was overly salty, and there was some chemical taste that he couldn't quite place in the sad puck of egg in the middle of it.

He managed to get down the first bite, needing to drink nearly half of the water he had to get the taste to go away.

Tommy opened the notes app on his phone, finally breaking and admitting to himself that his sense of taste being completely fucked was probably related to whatever was going on with the webs. He'd almost exclusively been eating the rest of the canned soup while he was home, so he'd been figuring it was something wrong with that before. But the fact that it was also an issue with the tea, and now the bagel...

Tommy was startled by someone sitting directly next to him, quickly turning off his phone screen before whoever it was could see.

"So, how was being on death's door for a week?"

He rolled his eyes, playing it off and giving Tubbo a shove out of his personal space. "I was not 'on death's door'; I spent a couple days sleeping, and then I got to play animal crossing."

"Any idea what was wrong with you?"

The temptation to tell the short boy what happened was there, but Tommy decided that it would be a terrible idea to explain it; especially at school. "No clue, just know that it felt fucking awful and I would rather actually die than go through that again."

"I can arrange that."

"Arrange yourself a fucking therapy session."

"You first."

"Excuse you, I am free of sin."

"That's bullshit."

"Now Tubbo, there's no need to lash out at me for being the perfect example of what a man should strive for. Really, you should be thanking me for my input."

"You're incredibly lucky you were sick recently, or I'd be striking you down with the might of god."

"You're built like a toddler, what fucking might are you talking about?" 

          Ranboo broke them up when he eventually got there, and Tommy decided to thank him for this by stealing his muffin.

"Wow, really?"

"You can have my sandwich, if you want."

"You're really gonna take the muffin that I paid for with my money, and offer me a cold bagel you already took a bite out of in exchange?"

"Yes. Do you want it or not?"

"Sure,", they shrugged, taking it without much hesitation.

Tubbo wrinkled his nose as he watched Tommy take a large bite out of the cafeteria muffin. "I thought you didn't like the school's breakfast shit?"

"I don't,", Tommy skillfully ignored how he was legitimately enjoying the usually far too sweet muffin, "Shit's been tasting weird lately, Wil said he thinks it's from me being sick."

"Maybe it fixed you."

"Fuck you, I wasn't broken. And even if I was, the only thing that'd 'fix' me is a two liter of diet coke and the school getting burnt down."

"I won't lie, my first thought when he said 'fixed' was in a dog sense; like, neutered,", Ranboo snickered, cackling when Tommy tried to shove him off the bench onto the floor.

The school day practically flew past after that, with Tommy anxiously waiting for it to be over so he could go experiment with his wrist goop. Wilbur had to stay at the school to catch up on stuff he'd missed while he was taking care of Tommy, meaning that Tommy just had to say he was going home and his brother wouldn't follow up on that.

And, being fair, he was going home first. He had to drop his bag off and change into a hoodie or something so he could hide his face in case someone came across him shooting sus white stuff out of his arms. After that it was a matter of finding somewhere to shoot the sus white stuff, because doing something like that out in the open in the middle of the city seemed like a bad idea.

That led to him Googling abandoned buildings in his area and settling on some factory that hadn't been in use for a good ten to fifteen years; deciding that science was far more important than tetanus. He was probably up to date on his shots.

Probably.

~-~-~

Next Chapter

~-~-~

Spiderinnit time! pog!

#mcyt #tommyinnit #mcyt fanfiction #fanfiction #wilbur soot #tubbo #ranboo #spiderinnit #chapter fic #chapter 1 #awesamdude #quackity

[aarav-lewis]

[ AARAV LEWIS. 30. MALE. HE/HIM.] is here! He has lived in Silver Lake for [ 6 YEARS ] and  is originally from [ VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA ]. He is currently working as a [ FIFTH GRADE TEACHER ] and in his downtime loves [ SURFING ] and [ PLAYING BOARD GAMES ]. He looks a lot like [ DEV PATEL ] and lives on [ REDCLIFF ST ]. 

alright alright alright, here i am with another dumbass. info below && more to come!!!!! 

STATS.

FULL NAME: Aarav Lewis NICKMAMES: Ari , Lewis MBTI: INTJ-T STAR SIGN: Taurus  BIRTHDAY: April 23rd, 1991

FUN FACTS.

Born and raised in Victoria, BC, right on the coast. 

Moved to northern California for college when he was 18

Received a degree in biochemistry and a masters in environmental science before he decided to go into teaching, and is currently studying for a PhD in ~marine environmental biology~ aka living out his childhood dream to be a marine biologist 

Completed most of his schooling up in Monterey Bay, and tbh he wants to go back and live there more than anything. It’s just crazy expensive, and not something he can afford on his current teacher’s salary. 

Aside from his interest in biology, Aarav is also big on studying ethics, specifically ethics in science 

Is a very, very passionate, excitable guy -- Aarav lives with his heart on his sleeve. You can see everything he’s ever feeling clear on his face. 

Can’t keep a secret to save his life.

Has a penchant for clothes he can’t afford, so Aarav has learned to be quite the thrifter

Has a dog named Odin (Odie) who he’s lowkey obsessed with

Gets overly competitive in games, and will be a stickler about the rules no matter what. Will not put up with your funny business. Will not stop a game of monopoly before it’s finished.

When i say this bitch is a nerd i mean this bitch is a nerd !!!! about EVERYTHING. When he’s interested in something / someone, he’ll learn absolutely everything there is to know about it / them. No detail is too small. 

Will forget plans with you as soon as something else catches his attention. Sorry. He’s a v busy guy with a v busy brain. 

Is a better cook than either of his two older sisters, and his mother absolutely loves him for it. He’s a mama’s boy, but that relationship has been saved by the fact that Aarav lives far, far away from home. 

Same goes with his dad. Aarav loves his parents, but there are some big generational differences between them -- even between he and his sisters -- so Aarrav is happy seeing them two, three times a year, tops. It means he’s forced to spend his time swapping recipes and funny stories instead of arguing politics. 

In his free time, Aarav likes to make !!! fun !!! educational !!! science !!! tiktoks !!! for the youth !!! ( à la hank green ) because boy grew up on Bill Nye and he truly does want everyone to consider the following. 

Aarav was super shy in his youth and through most of high school (save for around his closest friends) but since he’s moved to the west coast, he has really been able to grow into himself.

AKA he’s almost annoyingly outgoing now. He’ll befriend fucking anyone. 

Which means he knows everyone. Everywhere he goes, Aarav will run into someone he knows -- both a blessing and a curse. 

420 friendly 🍃

Pansexual king -- it’s the wine, not the label.

PINTEREST.  WANTED CONNECTIONS. 

Platonic Soulmate (0/1); – The love between these two runs real deep. I’d take a bullet for you deep. This could be a connection new or old. Bad Influence (0/1); -- These two are friends who constantly encourage each other to do bad things Co-Workers (0/?); – fellow teachers, school principal, guidance counsellors, social workers, etc.  Classmates (0/?); -- aarav was in college (UCLA, mostly) for a total of seven years, so along the way, he definitely made a friend or two.  Friends with Feelings (0/1); -- Either one or both have some kind of romantic feelings that often leaves the pair confused, and in awkward situations. Will they, won’t they? Who’s to say. Exes (0/?); -- These relationships could’ve ended on good or bad terms, either way, aarav most likely still holds a flame. He doesn’t know how to let things go. Once he likes someone, he likes them forever.  Roommate (0/1); -- While Aarav retains the lease on the house he lives in, he keeps the three bedroom home paid for with the help of a roomie. age / gender doesn’t matter, so long as they’re willing to put up with a big, dumb dog and Aarav leaving his shit everywhere. Sorry. He’s messy. Neighbours (0/?); -- This person could live next door, across the street, or just generally on Redcliff. Aarav isn’t the cleanest or the quietest neighbour, so the relationship could either be strained, or this person could be over at the Lewis house joining in on the fun!

LIKE THIS POST FOR PLOTS. 

#slintro #TAKE THREE ON AARAV #third time's the charm?????????? #come hit me up for all the plots!! #switched out a few tiny minor details but most things are the same <3 <3

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Field of Poppies Part 1

Summary: After being apart for six years, childhood friends Tommy and Amelia reunite under odd circumstances. Tommy is an outspoken young man and Amelia is pregnant and out on the streets. The bond of family can be unbreakable but it is tested often. Especially when Europe descends into war. 

Thank you to @justanothershelby​ for helping me out with this. And with pretty much everything. 

         When someone got the chance to leave Small Heath, they never returned. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a chance that others didn’t get. However, sometimes life was unfair and fate sent a person right back where they started.

                                                 1909 Small Heath

            Tommy Shelby was well known in Small Heath. The nineteen-year-old had a penchant for getting into mischief with his brothers. Still, his neighbors knew him as a kid who smiled often and had a good sense of humor. In fact, not everyone thought Tommy was a bad person. Everyone in the area had varying opinions on the entire Shelby family. The police thought they were a family of troublemakers. Some were skeptical of their background as Travelers. Many women revered Polly Gray for being near-mythical and often went to her to have their tea leaves read, even if it was behind their husband’s backs. And nearly every girl up and down the streets fancied at least one of the Shelby boys. They would giggle to each other when one passed by. If Tommy tipped his hat at them, they nearly fainted. Besides, what was better than a pair of blue eyes and a reputation?

            Nineteen and a bit too big for his britches, although they were hand-me-downs, Tommy walked through Small Heath with a confident step. As he continued down the block, one of his neighbors called out.

            “Up to no good, Thomas?” Mrs. Banks was on the front step of her home watching her two children playing on the street.

            “Just getting some shopping for Polly.” Tommy grinned, always amused by her disapproving shake of the head.

            “Hi, Tommy!” The Banks’ oldest child, Robert, greeted despite the glare from his mother. He kicked his football forward sending it careening toward Tommy.

            He knocked it back toward the other children with his heel as he headed on his way.

            “’Morning, Tommy.” The pretty blonde from down the street caught his attention only a few yards down the sidewalk.

            “Violet, you well?” He put on a charming smile and stopped to chat. Polly wouldn’t mind if he was a bit late. Well, she would but Tommy didn’t care if he got scolded.  

            “Better now that you’re here.” She looked at him coyly. “I haven’t seen you though. Thought you were avoiding me.”

            “How could I avoid you?” He tilted his head to the side. “Doesn’t sound like me, does it?”

            “Alright.” She playfully twisted a lock of her hair around her finger. “You could take me out tonight, then.”

            “I think that could be arranged. I-” Tommy happened to glance over Violet’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of someone familiar. Someone he hadn’t seen in years but could never forget even if he tried. “I uh-we’ll talk soon, yeah?” He slipped past Violet even though she protested. Walking toward the figure, he could hardly believe his eyes. For more than one reason, it felt like he was seeing things. “Amelia.” He called out before he reached her.

            The woman looked up; her eyes widened in surprise when she saw who was calling her. “Tommy.” The name left her lips in a soft gasp. “Wh-” It was quite a silly question to ask him, they were on Watery Lane. The only person who didn’t belong was her.

            So, Tommy asked the question for her. “What are you doing here?” The last time he’d seen his childhood best friend, she was at the train station. They were only thirteen at the time and Amelia’s family was moving to London. Her father had gotten hired somewhere with a salary that was unheard of in Birmingham. Naturally, that meant they could afford to live somewhere nicer, somewhere where his daughter wouldn’t have to play on the dirty streets with kids like Tommy Shelby.

            Amelia’s mouth opened but she couldn’t find the words. She had only been in Birmingham less than an hour after stepping off the train from London. It had been less than a day since she’d been banished from her parents’ flat. Her wounds were still fresh and she still hadn’t managed to piece the words together. So instead, she moved her suitcase to the side. “I-I’m pregnant.”

            Tommy stared at her for a long moment. The fateful meetup had suddenly taken a strange turn. He didn’t understand the explanation. Pregnancy didn’t equal moving back to Small Heath.

            “I’m sorry that was so sudden of me to say and-” She put a hand to her forehead in disbelief. “I just don’t know what to do, my brain’s all…I’m sorry.”

            “There’s nothing to apologize for.” It certainly wasn’t how Tommy imagined reuniting with her. Sometimes he thought about her and wondered if she was well. Thought that maybe their paths would cross again and they’d talk about all the fun times they spent together. Instead, Amelia was stood there in front of him, suitcase at her feet, pregnant, and devastated.

            Talking about it appeared to be too much for the young woman. She wrinkled her nose and bit her lip to keep from crying. “I’ve nowhere to go now and I hardly have any money.”

            “What about your parents?” Tommy reached into his pocket to retrieve a handkerchief for her.

            “They don’t want anything to do with me after-well.” She took the small square of cloth and dabbed her watery eyes.

            “You always have a place with us.” He insisted. “Polly’d never let you live out on the streets. Come stay with us.”

            “There’s no reason for you to offer me something like that.” It had been years since they’d seen one another, she never expected anything from the Shelby family.

            “I’ve more than enough reasons,” Tommy replied and picked up her suitcase. “C’mon. We have a lot of things to catch up on.” He offered his elbow to her.

            Still teary-eyed and clutching his handkerchief, she linked arms with him. She swallowed and began walking back to Six Watery Lane with him. “Like how tall you’ve gotten?”

            He smiled. “Told you’d I get taller one day.”

            “Well, I always knew you were destined for great things.”

            With a chuckle, he sidestepped a puddle of murky rainwater. “Guess we’ll see, aye?”

~~~~~~~

            When they arrived, Polly was a mixture of disappointment and happiness. She was dismayed by Amelia’s fate and irate that her parents would ever do such a thing. And yet, she was happy to see the young woman again. The little girl who was a staple in the household for so many years was all grown up.

            “Pregnant and kicked out.” She shook her head as she prepared tea. “Pregnancy isn’t a curse, it’s a fucking blessing.”

            Amelia looked small in the chair, even if she had grown a bit since she was thirteen. Before, she used to be a loud, outgoing girl who made her presence known in the household. With no siblings of her own, she gravitated toward the Shelby children who gladly adopted her. Six Watery Lane had become a second home to her. But things had changed so much.

            During her time away, she’d grown meek and withdrawn. Especially after news of the pregnancy, which she tried desperately to keep from her family. A whole month she went without telling anyone but the father of the child. It had taken such a toll on her that she was nothing like her former self.

            “Pol, it’s alright.” Tommy could see how uneasy Amelia was, sat across from him at the table.    

            Polly didn’t pick up on the hint though. “It’s not alright.” She reaffirmed. “It’s a disgrace. She’s nineteen, Thomas, just a child!”

            “Pol!” He urged again.

            His aunt turned around and saw Amelia’s head hanging low. She sighed and went to sit beside her. “You keep your head up now.” She touched her shoulder. “You’ve got a responsibility but you’ve also got support here. You’ll take Tommy’s room upstairs. We’ll fix it up nice for the baby. There’s enough room for a cot in the corner. It’ll be alright.”

            “Oh, Polly, I couldn’t just step in an-and make a fuss. I’ll find work and I’ll be alright.” Amelia tried to assure her.

            Polly raised an eyebrow. “Raising kids is tough work, young lady. Isn’t a walk in the park. Who’s gonna be watching the child when you’re off at work?”

            “I…I don’t know.”

            “It takes a village, my dear. Luckily, you’ve got enough hands around here to help.” Polly stood up, leaving the conversation as is. There was nothing else to argue. What was done was done.

            Amelia opened her mouth but decided the opportunity was too good to pass up. Without the Shelbys, she really was lost and would probably be out on the streets doing lord knows what for work. And while it wasn’t in her nature to rely on others to take care of her, it would have to do for the time being.

            Tommy smiled, apparently pleased that they were helping out. Maybe even that his old friend was back too. Not in the circumstances he’d been expecting but back all the same. “I’ll bring your things upstairs.” He said and jumped up from the table.

           “You’ve still got errands to run, young man, you’re not off the hook for that!” Polly called after him.

           “Got it, Pol!” He sounded in a considerably better mood now once Amelia showed up.

           Polly just sighed and smiled. “You’ll be okay.” She promised Amelia. “You’ll stay as long as you need to. We’ll help get you a good job, you won’t have to worry about being without.”

           “I don’t know how to thank you.” While she was filled with relief that she would have a roof over her head for at least the night, she was worried about the future. It had been six years since she’d been in Birmingham and while she wanted to trust the Shelbys, people changed. It would be reckless to be carefree. She was pregnant and that was something she had to take seriously. But she tried to just focus on the current moment. “Where’s Mrs. Shelby?” She wondered.

           A look of grief passed over Polly’s face. “Oh, dear, I suppose there is a lot to tell you about.” She admitted. “She passed away, ‘bout six months ago. Gave birth to another son but couldn’t recover from the labor.”

           It only solidified the fact that things had drastically changed in the time Amelia was away. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She said quietly.

           There was a soft wail from upstairs and Polly stood up. “That’ll be him now, our little Finn. I’ll be right back.

           Tommy came back downstairs, causing the creaky floorboards to make a fuss. He stopped in the kitchen. “Finn’s up.”

           “Yes, yes, I hear him. Now get a move on unless you lot want to starve tonight.” She shooed off her nephew.

~~~~~~~~~

           By dinnertime, Amelia was a little more comfortable being back in Small Heath. She tentatively unpacked her things in Tommy’s room even though she offered to sleep elsewhere. On the couch or on the floor, but Polly wouldn’t hear it.

           Amelia helped with Finn where she could. However, the infant was a stark reminder that she would be looking after her own child very soon.

           Ada came home from school and was delighted to see Tommy’s old friend. She used to admire the older girl because she wore bows in her hair and could do a perfect cartwheel. Now Ada was twelve and apparently had so much to tell Amelia. She sat on the kitchen counter as Amelia helped Polly cook dinner.

           “And I’ve learned to canter on a horse. Uncle Charlie says I’m really good, better than John is. I ride a horse named Tippy. I can braid her mane really well. She kinda looks like the horse that’s in the book I’m reading.” As Ada rambled on happily, the front door opened and closed with a slam.

           The eldest Shelby came marching in with Tommy behind him. Arthur, now in his early twenties, looked pissed as he dragged along a disheveled John. The teenager was sporting a bloodied lip and a bruise was starting to form below his left eye.

           Polly looked displeased but not the least bit shocked. “What happened?”

           “Found him scrapping down by the docks,” Arthur replied.

           “I didn’t fucking start it!” John protested.

           “You get into a fight then use that sort of language around your sister?” Polly pointed a knife at him. “Go get cleaned up for dinner before I send you off with nothing.”

           John wrinkled his nose but listened and trudged upstairs, earning a smack in the head from Tommy as he passed by.

           When Arthur stepped further into the kitchen, he looked surprised. “Is that our Mellie?” He chuckled.

           Amelia smiled a little sheepishly. She hadn’t been called that in quite some time. “Hello, Arthur.”

           “Found her earlier today.” Tommy sat down at the table. “She’s gonna stay with us for a bit.”

           “Really? Thought you’d become a posh London girl.” Arthur teased. “Too good for us Brummies.”

           “Of course not.” She felt a little strange, not knowing whether she should be open about the pregnancy or not. It was only a matter of time before people started asking the tougher questions. Who was the father…where is he…what happened…it was all embarrassing to her. She met Tommy’s eyes and he gave her a comforting smile.

           “Well, s’nice to have a familiar face.” Arthur apparently didn’t need much of an explanation.

           “Maybe she’ll bring some class to this household.” Polly scolded. “You know your brother fights because he wants to be like you two. He’ll do anything to be like you and it’ll get him killed!”

           “Relax, Pol, he’s just being a kid.” Tommy struck up a match to light a cigarette.

           “Yeah, one of these days we’ll teach him how to fight proper.” Arthur grinned and playfully socked his brother in the arm.

           “Enough.” Polly snapped. “Dinner’ll be done soon. Go wash up.”

           The boys jostled each other as they left the kitchen, pretending to box like pros.

           Amelia smiled and gathered the dishes to start to set the table. “So seven settings, Polly? Mr. Shelby will be home soon?”

           “Oh, no, dear I wouldn’t expect him around.” Polly gave her the correct number of settings. “He isn’t around often.”

           It was another change that Amelia didn’t expect. Arthur Sr. was never a loving, caring father. In fact, she remembered being frightened by the man. He had a loud voice and would often send Amelia home so he could punish his children. But he wasn’t absent, at least not as far as she could remember.

           “Polly, can I help feed Finn?” Ada asked, hopping down from the counter.

           “Of course, love, go get your brothers and we’ll say grace.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

           After dinner, Amelia didn’t stay up long. She was emotionally exhausted and felt the best course of action was to retire to bed early. She wished the Shelbys goodnight and went up to Tommy’s room. The bed was made, no doubt Polly had made sure Tommy cleaned his room for Amelia’s sake.

           It smelled distinctly of the young man. The smell of cigarettes was mixed with some sort of fresh, clean scent. Maybe a soap or aftershave. But it was strangely comforting and made her feel a bit more secure, protected even.

           Even though thoughts were running through her head like a herd of wild horses, she managed to fall fast asleep relatively quickly.

           But she couldn’t stay asleep. Around midnight, she found herself awake again. She soon became restless and unable to ignore her thoughts. There was so much that she needed to plan for but she had such little resources. How could she provide for a child in Small Heath? How could she manage to raise a child at all? It was all so foreign and frightening.

           With her anxiety bubbling up in her throat, Amelia had to get up out of the small bed. It was as if she were trying to escape her thoughts, by leaving the room and wandering downstairs. She winced at every creak in the floorboard, hoping she wouldn’t wake the rest of the family.

           She passed the sitting room and saw Tommy curled up on the couch. It didn’t look very comfortable but he didn’t seem bothered.

           That is, until she walked by and landed on a particularly loose floorboard.

           The squeaking noise woke Tommy up and he blearily rubbed his eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t make out the shadowy figure in the doorway. In his sleep-addled state, he almost forgot that Amelia was there. But then she stepped a little closer and his eyes adjust. “Oh, Mel, it’s just you.”

           “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” She apologized.

           “S’alright.” He yawned and sat up. “Can’t sleep?”

           “Not really.” She admitted and lingered awkwardly by the door.

           “Do you want to talk?”

           She let the question hang in the air for a bit. There was so much they could talk about. Years of events and happenings that they needed to fill each other in on. But it all seemed so overwhelming that she couldn’t even find a place to start. So, instead, she sat down in a nearby armchair. “I’m sorry about your mum.”

           Tommy paused and swallowed. The death of his mother was still very fresh. Six months wasn’t enough to mourn the gentle woman who selflessly took care of them all. “Oh, yeah, thanks.” He mumbled.

           “She was a good person.” Amelia had very fond memories of the dark-haired woman.

           “Yeah.”

           She looked down; a bit ashamed that she couldn’t properly comfort her old friend. “I should let you sleep.” She stood up and headed back toward the stairs.

           “Amelia.” He stopped her. “I’m glad you’re back. I know that…the circumstances aren’t great, or whatever. But I’m really glad you’re here again.”

           She nodded. “Good night, Tom.”

//If you’d like to be notified of future updates, drop me a message and I’ll add you to the tag list. Or if you want, you can be added to the permanent tag for every Peaky work I post. 

Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla​ @giftofdreams​ @biba3434​ @kimmietea​ @karmezii​ @enrapturedbythemoon​

Masterlist

#peaky blinders #peaky blinder imagine #peaky fookin blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #ofc #oc #arthur shelby #john shelby #polly gray #finn shelby #ada shelby #pre canon #pre season 1 #pre ww1 #cillian murphy #cillian murphy character

[nightmaze]

#HOME (silliness included)

A month ago we were finding the place where we could possibly move, filling all the files needed, sending so much paper that I’m that everything was done via mail as it would have costed the life of at least a whole tree to print everything, and not only we were lucky enough to have done everything right, but we also had the opportunity to pick the apartment where we would live as the couple who was supposed to take the apartment we were interested in eventually decided to not pick it.

A whole month later, we’re now in that new place, trying to arrange everything, one box at a time, and to survive to the infernal August heat.

We had been looking on and off for a new place since a few months before finding this apartment and we had a lot of issues to find one which would be affordable and comfortable for me to live while not being overpriced. Came that point where I said I couldn’t continue to live in that place, we had taken this apartment when my health was still ok and the two stairs weren’t a problem, we liked the park and our small terrasse, but the new landlord had cut all the trees and the gardens, destroyed our terrasse and was making our life a nightmare, telling us that he would stop if we could convince our landlord to sell him his share of the house where we were living.

After a few weeks looking for a new place, calling people, realizing that they wanted us both to work full time with a high salary to get an apartment of the same size (45m²), we were pretty discouraged, until I found an ads about a pretty cheap apartment to which I answered instantly explaining our current situation. I also tried to call, over and over again, as nobody would ever answer. It’s on the way of visiting another apartment that I managed to get on hold of one of the person responsible of those cheap apartments, who brushed me off, explaining to me that they only rent to people who were working in companies participating to the constructions of the building. I was of course disappointed and discouraged, even more after visiting that apartment which was nowhere as nice as it was described, but they called me again while we were heading back home, this time telling me that they read my mail and they wanted to help. She explained that they were allowed to make an exception for 1% of the place they were renting and that me, being handicapped in an unsafe place with two stairs should benefit of that help. I don’t think I’ll thank them enough to have gotten us out of our old place which was honestly becoming more and more dreadful as the new landlord was attempting to force us to either leave or do what he wanted.

We signed at the beginning of the August, the movers came a few days later to decide for a price to move us in our new home (my back is too much of a problem to move on our own and we don’t have family around), we boxed our belongings during the week-end, which was a crazy experience (did you ever try to pack a home where you lived for 11 years in 2 days ? I don’t recommend it) and the next day lots of people were in home moving things right at left until nothing remained there.

Our new place is nothing like the last, it’s bigger, sunnier, easier to air, all around better except for some weird details that I still wonder how those happened. Before even living there, we already had problems with a lot of doors not closing, lockets being blocked and the entrance door we couldn’t lock. All that (and more, A LOT MORE) was caused by the people who painted the house after the departure of the previous tenants. Happens that while they stayed there for 10 days to take care of everything, they just decided to not protect anything and roll with it. They painted the locks, they painted the tubes, they painted everything they could see, causing a lot of damages on the way and we’re still discovering some every single day. Those dude were so lax in their work that they threw all the paint in the bathtub and didn’t clean it, as a result, the bathtub is full of paint and the siphon is clogged.. Of course they did the same with the sink because why the fuck not. Day two here, I managed to FLOOD MY NEIGHBOR, which was a little crazy, we have some evacuation on the floor and I cleaned the loggia where it is and without thinking much just threw that in the evacuation.. Which was actually a hole leading directly to the loggia of the apartment right under us. Result : a taco machine died. The plumber came today and the evacuation was actually clogged and some weirdo made two holes leading directly down for the sake of it. Our plumber, insurance and renting company are as perplexe as us as how all that happened. We’ll never solved that mystery. Someone came to repair our intercom as well, as unless yelling we weren’t able to hear each other.. Fun fact, the reason why there was a problem was because they managed to turn the mic and sound upside down when installing the intercom.. So we basically requested to solve a problem which was happening since years and years for everybody (hope they will be happy to be able to hear who is using the intercom now).

Anyway, this place is a lot bigger than the previous one, we have 2 bedrooms which also mean we can think of enlarging your p our family and so on.

I don’t post a lot of update and don’t answer to everything that is sent my way, but I wanted to thank you for your support and kind messages. This new place will do me some good mentally as much as physically, I already feel a lot better than those pasts months during which we had to deal with constant renovation and people hitting our wall randomly from 8AM to 8PM.

I know 2020 is pretty hard for everybody, take care of yourself and your loved one, I wish you all the best and some good news ♥

#I MOVED #FINALLY #AFTER SO LONG #personnal #non FFXIV

[kaorei-endgame]

Game of the Year #4: Pathologic 2

You went in with 10 years knowledge on the subject, read those Rock Paper Shotgun Articles, consummate played-by-proxy nerd. And if you come in feeling like that, you've got a clean head start in the first few days of Pathologic 2: The Pandemic Simulation RPG (And Meta Commentary On Gaming (And The Nature of Fiction (And Perhaps Humanity Itself?)) and proto survival sim elements). Like it's turbulent and your health meters drain quick, but you get the jist. Water is short so you learn where the water drums are. Break borrow and steal. Deus Ex house-scavenging on a time limit. That is a genre of game you can wrap your mind around. On day two the plague begins, infected district is cordoned off on the map (which you know--because you have read Rock Paper Shotgun--is shaped, and named, like a cow's various parts, pre-butchering. metaphor!!) and your little virtual desire paths shift to compensate. A timed meeting with a medical colleague on the other side of the city now includes a 5 minute detour. Your nightly visit to harvest herbal curatives from an abandoned village in the steppe slides back into a midnight run, and then an early morning visit as the tasks consume you. Treat these people or we'll withhold your (paltry) salary. But also, heal your friend or his whole district succumbs. But also, buy a cloak to cover your face or you'll succumb. But also, you can't afford a cloak, which is why you're stomping through this abandoned village in the dark trying to remember where the fucking weeds to pick up are because you can't even afford a fucking cloak, much less real medicine!! Which is why you spend like a full quarter of every day making the trip here and back which is why there are now a half-dozen infected districts, all your friends are dead or dying, and the military has brought out the flamethrowers! The game has to be almost over, right? This fucking bull I scrounged up to buy on Day 1, when the world was simple and kind, is supposed to talk to me on the worst day of my life and you're telling me that's not right now, on Day 5 of the 13 total days in this game??

So it's kind of like that. Pathologic 2 arrests my functions through mechanical overwhelm. You're always on the knife's edge of poverty, and the next trashcan is always going to be the one that has a sewing needle in it that you can combine with the cloth you also don't have yet to make a pocket and expand an inventory you couldn't possibly own enough to fill with anything but more trash.

In 2020, this sounds close enough any survival sim but Pathologic's loop is so attenuated by long travel times and finely diced resources that you will never become comfortable. Here's a Terraria where you mine every copper vein you see while everyone around you slowly dies, but not so slow that you can't convince yourself you can save them, or if not them.... maybe the next one? Holy shit, this game is hard, yeah, but wow! Am I a doctor? Am I doing triage?

You build a base, and it's never stocked because you're living out of your coat pockets. Oh, haha, you think you're a doctor? Well you can't afford medicine, as stated, and your guess-work home remedies require infected organs harvested on the sly when you pray no one's looking, because they will run you out of the neighborhood for it. Haha, remember? You spent the literally whole first day, the only infection-free day, skulking in alley ways because the whole town was ready to kick the shit out of you Rambo-style for being a wandering vagrant?

And you still got the temerity to call yourself a doctor? Bitch, you're a fucking haruspex, and that much is clear in how a certain percentage of the population views you as moooore or less one step removed from the anthropomorphic nomad people who roam the plains (and who are, not coincidentally, being targeted by hate crimes as the plague sets in). Half of the tinctures you brew in your lab go into your belly to delay the onset of hunger or sleep for a few more hours. You crash on any couch you can find before the meter bottoms out. You spent less time diagnosing patients yesterday than you did scrounging through the garbage for enough refuse to trade for a fish from a midnight merchant called the Dead Item Seller who for some reason wants bloody bandages, and the fish didn't even fill up your whole belly. Barely even 40%. And the day starts anew, another two cornerstones of the town are sick and dying but what else is new. Have to go watch the giant plague doctors put on a secret play in the town's enormous baroque(????who cares???) theater we've converted into an emergency ward so don't wake the patients, please, you quasi-metaphorical thespians! Oh, my uncle or some shit says there's a hole in the center of the earth where all the blood goes down and THATS the problem?? 😰Well haha I don't think anyone's got enough Orange+ Tincture for a hole that big, Grandad!!🤣 Maybe better find another shaman trained in the ancient ways?? This one's barely making rent.😬 Oh the RAT KING wants to talk to me now? Is he gonna HELP? is he gonna GIVE ME DRUGS OR A FUCKING COAT?🤬

Please, it's 2020, 50% of the people reading this use horror movies as a safety valve to experience trauma and inure themselves to it. In that way, I feel I am among friends. Pathologic 2 is a mechanical expression of that release valve, maybe? A way to touch all those anxieties--Gotta Work, Gotta Rest, Gotta Eat, Gotta Talk To People, Gotta Do My Mindfullness Meditation, Gotta Be Responsible For Building My Own Boundaries In Personal Relationships And Also A 401K or an IRA If I Have The Time, You Know, On The Weekend, By The Way I Belong To A Class Of People The World Unilaterally Hates :)--so I think a good way to manage that.... for people like me.... who have brains who don't manage things well without external motivation.... which, for them, has been historically linked to trauma.... is to play a video game where everyone looks at you like you're sick while THEY'RE all dying of the fucking plague. Is that it? I don't know. It's 2020. So maybe that's just it.

#game of the year #goaty #goty #goty 2020 #pathologic 2

[thadelightfulone]

The Firm - Chapter 8

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Summary: Erik has been hired to find an embezzler for an old friend. The investigation is underway but who is after Green and LaNyah.

Pairing: Erik x Black!OC

Genre: Suspense

Words: 5K

--- Two Weeks Later ---

Erik and LaNyah fell into a regular routine as they made way on the audit. LaNyah moved back into her office last week after Erik spent the previous week on the accounting floor working from her office. They still met for their meetings, and on those days, LaNyah worked out of the conference room. Stacey joined both of them for lunch, as they all got to know each other better. LaNyah finally had some friends other than Ashley and Green, and that was exciting for her.

Stacey and Erik watched as LaNyah adapted to the new routine and found her footing. There have not been any repeat instances like at their first meeting. Nevertheless, Stacey has been keeping a watchful eye over them both.

It is a typical non-meeting day on the top floor of GBI. Erik comes out of the office, headed towards the coffee station, passing Stacey's desk along the way. "Hey Boss Man, got a minute?"

“Yeah, let me set this up first,” Erik makes his selection and starts the brew. Walking over to Stacey, “What’s up?”

“You never mentioned what you saw from her office. Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Oh that?” The machine gurgles and sputters to a stop; she waves him away. Erik goes to grab his coffee, he walks back over, taking a sip before leaning over her desk. “Well, your former team is boring as fuck.” Stacey spits out her tea.

She grabs a napkin to start cleaning up the mess on her keyboard. “That was not what I was expecting to hear from you, but go on.”

"Well, while I was observing everyone. I was checking out their login access to the database and their computer activity." He takes another drink of his coffee, "Thank you for that, by the way." Stacey nods her head. "No one is doing anything out of the ordinary; all the analysts and techs check out. Typical boring number crunchers.”

"Not LaNyah," Stacey mumbles to herself. "Really, everyone?" She inquires aloud, “Even Mr. Walking Harassment Suit?” Erik chokes up on his coffee, “Sorry, but that is the best way to describe him after I found all that shit in his file.”

“I heard that, Stace. Don’t start that again.” Her green eyes glance up at him over her tea, "You know what you said. And no, she's not boring, but she fits in with them, that's for sure." He puts his coffee down, tapping his chin, “Actually, do you have some time? I want to pick your brain about a few things before I make my final assessments of everyone.”

"Yeah, I'm available. Give me a few minutes to gather some things, and I will join you." Erik nods and walks over to his office.

Setting his mug down, Erik reaches for his investigation notes on LaNyah’s team. He opens it up to the page with all their names and positions. Stacey walks in and sits on the couch in front of the coffee table. She sets down her own information. Erik’s eyes go wide as he studies the thickness of the folder.

“Oh, I see we came prepared.” Walking over to one of the chairs by the couch, “You knew I would be coming to you for info?”

“Who else would you go to, Erik?” He laughs at her smart ass remark. She grabs her pen and a note pad, “Where do you want to start?”

Erik and Stacey spent the next two hours discussing her former team – backgrounds, experience, position roles, and salaries. Stacey filled in the blanks that Erik had about a few people. Stacey discovered that everyone did just enough and not more than what was required of them, even LaNyah. But she understood that it was different for her than the others. Each of her former team members could have all moved up in the company with all the opportunities GBI affords. None of them applied for or wanted to move, just content in their position and status at GBI.

Her information made it easy for Erik to share his thoughts regarding their team leader, Matthew. Stacey was not surprised to learn that he thinks that he is behind the embezzlement from the funds. Matthew’s habits were consistent with someone hiding something, but because of the lackadaisical attitude of the entire team, no one cares as long as he leaves them alone to do their job. LaNyah, with all her routines, found out what Green had only recently discovered.

“So, have you found out who he has been meeting with during those meetings?” Stacey asks. Erik just told her about him getting private calls, not on his personal or work cell, and then immediately leaving the office for ‘lunch.’

“Nah, I think I will make that my next move after talking to everyone.”

“Why waste your time with the others, if you know it’s him?”

“Gotta be thorough, and not like I am favoring someone.”

“Nyah.” Erik meets her eyes then looks down to put his notes away. “So, what is that anyway?”

“What’s what Stacey?” Erik looks at her as she crosses her arms and glares at him. “How many times do I have to say it’s nothing?” Standing, he grabs the notes and walks to his desk.

“Until you finally speak some truth.” She stands up and leans over the desk as he sits down. “Erik?” She softly goads. He runs his hands over his face before looking up at her.

“Fine.” Breathing deeply, “I am attracted to her.” He suddenly stands from his desk, looking out the windows. A new habit he formed whenever LaNyah crosses his mind, and he needs to reign it in.

Walking over to him, and clasping him on the back, "Now, was that so hard?" She stands back as he turns towards her, a blank expression on his face. "I don’t blame you. She's a beautiful woman. Anyone can see that." Stacey moves to sit in the chair in front of him, "It's not like she's off-limits to you or something." Stacey looks up as Erik plops down into the desk chair.

"She is." Stacey looks at him, confused, "I don't mix business and pleasure. It is not something that I plan to change anytime soon." She bobs her head at his response.

"Does this have anything to do with her background?" Now, Erik looks at her baffled. "I know what Ashley does for a living and how she met LaNyah." Erik's expression remains vacant, so she goes on. "I don't know the details, but I can only speculate it was pretty bad. Like I told you before, Green treats her like his own daughter." She abruptly stops as the words come out. "And you would never do something like that to Green…" Stacey's comment falls off.

“And Ashley,” he finishes her thought. "You sure, you don't want to come work for me when all this is over? You would make a great PI." Stacey laughs and shakes her head no. "Let's just say I know way too much – about Green, Ashley, and now LaNyah. And you think you know my history and skills, well what you could find anyway." He winks at her as she rolls her eyes. "So, let me share something that you may not know. I have been hired as her protector. As you said, that is Ashley and Alex's daughter, and I have been hired for her safety." He stands up, moving back to the windows, his back turned to Stacey facing them again. ”And even with my attraction to her, it is not a boundary I can remove.”

“Says who?” Erik heard that right over his shoulder and turned to Stacey, who is right beside him again. “You don’t think you can protect her and care about her at the same time?” His pensive look and silence let her know it is not something he considered. He protects, or he cares, not both.

He turns back to the sun, moving over their building, casting him in the light. She looks out at the view. “She doesn’t need someone like me caring for her.” They both stand at the windows quietly, watching as the view grows darker with the moving sun.

--- Somewhere Downtown ---

Sitting at the desk with their hands perched together, watching the henchmen bring in the latest person to make a misstep. Disloyalty is not tolerated in this organization. It runs smoothly because it is ruled with a swift and iron fist. There are no second chances nor time for explanations.

“You are fucking up my goal, Freddy.” The groggy man is sitting in the chair in the center of the warehouse. “As much as I want to know how this went wrong. I want you to know you are done here.” Walking by, picking up their favorite aluminum bat, whipping it through the air. Freddy squirms in his seat and moans through the duct tape over his mouth. “Shhhhh, it’s ok.” Running the bat across his legs, moving to a newly added chair right in front of Freddy, “It’s my turn to talk.”

Freddy takes two shots to the stomach with the bat, as his employer starts talking to him. “Your job was to find the locations of each member of the team that killed my brother.” Waving the bat around, “Yeah, I know they said he was ambushed, but I can’t help but think it was friendly fire that killed him. You know he was fine until that little bitch showed up on his team. Accusing him of assault, she was the crazy one.” Swinging the bat like a Kitana sword, listening to the whooshes of air as it picked up speed. "Of all the men, she could have slept with on that team, and she pushes up on her married commander."

THWACK! Freddy screams through the tape as the bat cracks the back of his head.

“My beloved brother did not want that tramp. He loved his wife and kids. He was not the predator she painted him out to be.” Pointing the bat towards Freddy, the bat is swung high through the air and comes down low to the ground taking out the back two legs of the chair, dropping him on the cold cement floor. "I am going to get that bitch. Starting with her husband and his company." Pushing the bat into Freddy's chest, "You, my dear, had one job, and I am still missing a name." Leaning in next to his ear, "It's a wrap for you, Freddy. Say Goodnight." Now rising from the ground, the bat is raised overhead and brought down, crushing the man's skull. "Get him off my floor and clean this up." The bat is tossed to one of the henchmen as they move in to clean up the mess Freddy made.

Breathing deeply, they sit back down at the desk and pick up their phone. Dialing a number and waiting for the call to connect. It is answered on the second ring.

“He-hello.”

“Matthew, dear. My favorite inside man. How are you?”

“I’m go-good. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Grinning evilly, “I love your enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, yes.” Twirling the cord around their finger, “I need you to double the amount we are moving from the funds.”

“Are you sure, Green is having them audited. I told you LaNyah told him about the missing money.”

“Audited? By who?”

“Some stiff ass PI named Erik Stevens. I can’t find out much about him, but he has been here for weeks working with LaNyah while Green is out of the country.”

“Stevens, huh?” Tapping away at the laptop on the desk, Erik Stevens pulls up a lot of redacted military files. “Does he scream military when you look at him?”

“Yeah, actually he does. He almost snapped my wrist about harassing LaNyah the other week. Little bitch.” A shout from the other end of the line forces Matt to drop the phone. “My bad, boss. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

"MATTHEW!!! You have done it, my boy. You found my missing link!" Matt can hear maniacal laughter coming from the line and moves it away from his ear.

“I swear I didn’t do anything bad. I just scared her a little bit, promise.”

"Shut up, Matthew. I am not talking about the girl, not right now anyway. No, Stevens is the last piece to this puzzle." Matt hears whispering and shuffling in the background. "Just make sure the money starts moving faster, got it?"

“Yesssss will do.” He shutters out as the line goes dead. “Damnit, I gotta go check on Laura. This muthafucker is crazy.”

---

Erik decided to continue his official visits to each member of the team. He only had two more that he needed to complete before he could focus on tracking down the person who hired Matt to embezzle the funds and set up LaNyah. Erik picks up his notes and makes his way to the elevator. He gets off on the 31st floor and walks over to Sandi.

"Hi Mr. Stevens. How are you?" The older woman smiles at him from her front cubicle.

“I’m doing well, Sandi. I was hoping to get a few minutes of your time. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

She eyes him in confusion and then recalls, “Oh, I’m sorry. You are talking about the position.” He nods at her. “Yes, we can go into the breakroom. I can have Cynthia cover the phones for me.”

"Sure, I will see you in a few minutes." He walks back and slows up as he nears LaNyah's office. The door is cracked open, so people know she is working but approachable. He smiles at the thought. Erik continues to the breakroom where he selects a table in the back for his chat with Sandi.

Fifteen minutes later, he is walking out with a blushing Sandi and wishing her a good day before walking to LaNyah's office. He knocks on the door, and she calls for him to enter. He walks in, leaving the door cracked as before.

“Hey Erik. What’s up?”

“I came to talk with you.”

“Oh right, Cynthia told me you talked to her last week. I guess it’s my turn now.”

“Yeah, it is. Is now a good time? I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Oh no, I was just finishing up this week’s data entries for the scholarship fund.” Pointing to her guest chair, “Have a seat.”

"Great." Erik moves to the chair and pulls out his notebook. He looks over to LaNyah, who has her arms laid out on top of her desk, eyes closed, and taking a few deep breaths. He clears his throat to get her attention, she blinks them open and pulls her hands into her lap. “Ready?”

“Yes, let’s talk.”

Erik starts off by asking the basic questions. How long has she worked there? What funds was she in charge of reconciling each week? Who she reports to when there is an issue? Then he started asking her about her database access, the fund amounts, and her spending habits, among other things.  

"What do you mean, how often do I meet with Green?" LaNyah is confused by the last question Erik asked. “I met him when I got the job, my first day here, and dinner with him and Ashley a few times." She tries to think of any other times. "Oh, and when I told him about the vanishing money."

Erik nods, “So, you and Green didn’t meet to change the accounts where the money is held?”

“What? Are you kidding me?” She stands up, pushing her chair into the wall. “I only have access to see the account numbers and what is in each account. You have seen my lists, Erik.” Voice rising, she continues, “I don’t know what account the money gets added to or how it gets moved somewhere else.”

“Not what I was told.” He makes a note of something, “but you do know that is it possible." LaNyah looks at Erik incredulously. "You have complete access to the whole database the same as Matthew, Stacey, and Green." LaNyah grabs for her chair and drops down into it.

She can’t believe he is accusing her of using access to the database that she wasn’t even aware that she had. She can’t believe he is accusing her of stealing money from Green, the only man who has treated her like a person --- she looks up at Erik, crestfallen, and scoffs. She can’t believe he is accusing her of anything related to this, after telling her that he believes her. Yeah, the only man who gives a damn about her is Green.

She stands up and walks to the door, mumbling along the way. Opening it wide, "GET OUT!" Erik, who was following her movements closely, looks at her in shock. "GET OUT NOW!" Erik stands and slowly makes his way to the door. He stops in front of her, watching her lips quiver and her shaky grip on the door. He reaches for her arm, and she jumps back, eyes watering. “Please just go.”

Erik walks out of her office and looks back in time to see her slam the door shut. He turns around and continues walking towards the front of the accounting floor. He passes Matt, who smirks at him and Sandi, who is perplexed by the loud outburst from LaNyah. Erik forces himself not to react and continue towards the elevators. Pressing hard on the 35, he scowls at anyone looking at him as he waits for the doors to close.

Erik bursts into the office, drops his notes on the coffee table, and knocks everything off his desk. “FUCK!”

---

After working together for most of the morning, Erik decided to work through lunch, and Stacey left for lunch because of the turn their conversation took. She walked back into the office with something for Erik, dropped it on his empty desk, and went back to her desk. She watches as he stands near the windows again before looking at her lit-up phone.

While checking her messages, she sees a missed call from Nyah's extension. Without listening to the voicemail, she immediately calls her back. The phone rings and rings, and right as Stacey prepares to leave a message; she hears the phone pick up.

"LaNyah, did you need to speak with me?" It's quiet, but Stacey can hear some sniffling in the background. “Hey lovely, what’s wrong? What happened?” She slams the phone down and rushes to the elevator. She looks over at Erik, who hasn’t moved from the window. His hands are clasped behind his back, and she decides against telling him where she is going.  

Entering the accounting floor, Stacey fast walks to LaNyah's office. She runs into Sandi and Cynthia, coming out of the breakroom. She waves at them but keeps moving when it looks like they are about to stop her to chat. LaNyah's office door is closed, so Stacey knocks and announces herself.

"Of course, big sister to the rescue." Matt stands in his doorway, watching Stacey and the door. She looks over at him, ready to say something when LaNyah cracks the door, and Stacey slips through closing it behind her.

Stacey looks at the coloring books spread out across the floor, surrounded by piles of balled-up tissues. She finds a clear space and joins Nyah on the floor, grabs the nearest book and some pencils. Stacey picks a picture and starts coloring it until LaNyah starts talking. She explains what happened that sent her into a spiral.

Stacey shakes her head, "LaNyah, look at me." Bloodshot eyes meet her gaze, and she plots to throttle the man who did this to her. “He is just doing his job, honey. I am sure he didn’t mean anything by what he asked.”

Nyah sniffs and blinks away fresh tears. Stacey pulls some Kleenex from the box on the floor and dabs at the corner of LaNyah’s eyes. “He told me he believed me. So, why would he ask me that? Stacey, I only know the pages you showed me on the database.”

She takes LaNyah’s hands in her own, rubbing small circles on them. "I know, sweetie. Green was going to let me train you on some more tasks when all this mess came up. We increased your access." She coughed to cover up the end of her lie. "Don't worry about that now. You know that you did nothing wrong, and that's what matters."

"But how am I supposed to work with him now?" She pulls her hands out of Stacey's. "Things were ok, and I considered both of you, my friends." Nyah weakly smiles at her. “I don’t want to be near him. I just want Green to get back so I can work with him instead.”

Stacey nods at her, "I wish it were that easy. Green cannot be involved with the investigation until it's complete. Erik is the outside investigator, so he will be here until the end."

"Yeah, that makes sense." She stands up, and Stacey follows her lead. "Thank you for coming up here so quickly, Stacey. I didn't want to go into a full-on panic attack here in the office with Ashley out of the country."

"I got you boo. You can call me whenever you need me." Stacey opens her arms, and LaNyah walks into them. "It's ok. I am still your friend even if that big bad boss man isn't anymore." She feels Nyah giggle into her chest. She holds her for a little longer, "Why don't you call it a day? Grab your things, and I will walk you out." Nyah looks at her and nods. They clean the floor, collect her bags, lock her office door, and walk out to the elevators.

--- Near Bakersfield ---

Matt arrives at his future mother-in-law’s about three hours after talking to his other boss. He rings the doorbell with the two bouquets in hand. The door cracks open.

“Hi Martha.” She looks him up and down before opening the door wider.

"Laura, Matt's lame-ass is here." She shuts the door behind him as she takes the flowers. "Thanks. She’s out back with one of my friend's daughters."

Matt makes his way to the back patio but stops short in front of the screen door. Laura turns at the small squeak he makes. She jumps up and greets him.

“Matthew, baby. I want you to meet Mrs. Williams.” She drags Matt forward. “Mrs. Williams, this is my fiancé, Matthew.” His mouth drops as he watches his second boss walk towards him. “Matt, don’t be rude.”

"Matthew, it's so nice to meet you. Laura has told me great things about you." He looks over at Laura, who is all smiles latched onto his arm.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Williams. I didn’t mean to interrupt you both. I haven’t seen Laura since I brought her out here for some fresh air during her pregnancy.”

“Yes, congratulations on that.” She looks between the two and down at Laura’s stomach. “Such a beautiful thing to bring new life into the world.” She moves forward to hug Laura. “I really should be running dear, but we must catch up soon. I’ll say bye to Martha on my wait out.”

"Bye." Matt and Laura say together, watching her leave. As soon as Mrs. Williams is back in the house, Matt drops down on the patio table.

“Laura, we need to talk.”

---

It’s nearly midnight when Matt arrives back home. He took Laura out to dinner and explained who she just met. She screamed and yelled at him, beating him up in the car all on the drive home. Warning him to keep her and the baby safe or she would kill him. The story of his life. As he steps inside, his burner cell rings.

"Matthew. You have a beautiful family. Why don't you keep her closer?" Mrs. Williams snickers, on the other end of the line.

“How did you find her?” Matt sits down on his couch to catch his breath.

“Matthew, Matthew. You don’t think I had you fully vetted before I brought you on. I have known your movements for years. Anyone tied to you, I know all their information. I only use what is necessary.”

“But she is not necessary.”

“Actually, she is now. There has been a slight change in plans.”

Sighing heavily into the phone, “What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing. I have this part in place already. I just need you to push the money to increase ASAP. Since Mr. Stevens is already looking at the accounts and they are still active, I want to give them a greater push to find me.”

Matt pulls the phone away, “How is that gonna change anything?”

“Sweetie, stop thinking. Now, I have the opportunity to get all three of the people I blame for my brother’s death.”

“Oh ok. Wait, what about LaNyah?”

“Oh, Miss Cole. I have something planned for her.” Matt gulps at the change in her tone. “Just make sure I see double tomorrow. I know she finished her data entry for the week.”

“Done.” The line goes dead, and Matt collapses on his couch. “Please don’t hurt Laura.”

---

Stacey storms back upstairs after walking LaNyah to her car. She knows Erik is still in the office. It’s too early to leave, even for him.

“Stevens!” She yells before walking right into his office without knocking. “What the fuck did you do?”

“What the hell, Stacey?”

“Answer the damn question.”

“I would if I knew what you were talking about.”

She walks over to him, “Do you know where I spent my afternoon when I returned from lunch?” Poking him in the chest, “No fuck that. Why did you do it?” She pushes his shoulder, “I know we hit on some hard shit this morning, but why the fuck would you go and do that?”

Erik drops his head. LaNyah. She called her office buddy. Of course, she would since Ashley is not in the country. She needed immediate relief from his interrogation. He knew he pushed too hard earlier, but there has to be more to it for Stacey to be fuming like this.

“Oh, so you do know what I am talking about. Or rather, who?" Erik looks up into fiery green eyes and stands up. In an instant, he has both her hands behind her back while holding her in front of him. "Let me go, Stevens.”

“Not until you calm the fuck down.” She tried to wiggle out of his hold, but there is no room for her to move. “You gonna try and hit me again, or do I need to keep you hemmed up like this so we can talk?” Stacey keeps cussing, taking her heel and stomps down on his foot. “Alright, fine.” Holding her with one hand, he takes his tie off and binds her wrists up. He tosses her on the couch and stands over her before moving back to the desk.

He watches as Stacey rights herself on the cushion. If life was a cartoon, he could see all the smoke clouding around her as pissed as she is right now. They stare each other down for a few minutes. While he waits for her to calm down, he grabs one of the desk chairs and sits down in front of her.

“You good?”

“Heartless asshole.”

“I got time. Let me know when you are ready to talk.”

“For someone who prides himself on how well he does his job, I want you to know you failed this one already.”

“Oh really? How so?”

"Protecting her means not just physically, jack ass." She looks down at the floor before staring back at him. "Emotionally and mentally, Erik. She is probably the most fragile person you have ever encountered, and you interrogated her like a common criminal.”

"I asked her whole team the same questions."

"Sure, you did.” She rolls her eyes, huffing out anger-filled breaths. “But you did not spend weeks building a rapport with them before doing so, right?" She turns around as much as she can on the couch, poking her hands out. "Let me go. I'm good." Erik slowly walks over and unties her wrists. While rubbing them to get the circulation back, she continues. "You do not need to protect them from whoever is trying to fuck over Green and GBI. Did you not tell me that you were hired to be her bodyguard, just this morning?"

“She’ll be fine. She’s a big girl.” Erik throws his tie on top of the desk.

"MEN! You know what. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I figured you would be good for her, once you figured out that she sees you for you." Erik bites his lip in frustration. "Yeah, LaNyah may never need to know all you have done or whatever other skeletons are in your closet. But she clearly liked the guy who was nice to her, appreciated her work, and didn't make her feel stupid for not having experienced life like other women her age.”

“What are you getting at, Stacey? I have work to do.” Frowning, Erik is done with this conversation.

“Oh, you are right about that. Because when your charge no longer trusts you, how are you supposed to keep them safe?” She stands up and straightens out her skirt, and she looks over to Erik, who is sitting stoically at his desk. "It wasn't why you did it; she knew you would have to talk to her. It was how you did it. You have the tact of a bull in a China shop and clearly forgot who you were addressing." She walks over to the office door and turns back to him. “She doesn’t trust you anymore, Erik. But something tells me that you were counting on that. It makes your job much easier now that you know she will keep her interactions with you to a minimum.” She opens the door sighing, “You’re a dick, Stevens.”

Chapter 9

A/N: Thank you for those who are still reading and enjoying this story. As always the tag list is open, so let me know if you want me to add you. 

Taglist: @killmongersaidheyauntie @dacosmicdame @muse-of-mbaku @panthergoddessbast @youreadthatright @princessstevens @eye-raq @stark-red19 @kreolemami @bidibidibombaclaat @iamrheaspeaks @missumuch1918 @simplyyamberr @cheychey10142 @ajspencer1892 @chrismarcs @loosewindmill @sydneebleu @semianta @eyeknowmywrites @alexundefined @itsjustmezari @goddessofthundathighs @purple-apricots @kissmyafropuff @gimmeface @fd-writes @jozigrrl @soufcakmistress @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @shaekingshitup @localtrapgod @post-woke  @theesotericqueen

#erik killmonger #erik killmonger x oc #black panther fanfiction #the firm #thadelightfulone

[bittysvalentines]

growing on me

From: @poindextears

To: @starryeyed-cat

Rating: T, for allusions to sex but nothing on-page

Hi lovely person! There's a part 2 to this fic, because apparently I'm out of control. When I see it go up on ao3 on the 14th, I will send you the link via tumblr. Until then, here's part 1! I hope you enjoy this fluff :)

May

The best thing about the new apartment is that there’s a garden behind the building.

It’s not the main reason Will chose to move here, exactly. But it did have some bearing on his decision. His old apartment was tiny, on the fourth floor of the complex, tucked into a dark corner with poor lighting and roaches and a leaky ceiling. He couldn’t so much as keep a houseplant alive in that place, much less any good spirits.

But for two years after college, it was all he could afford at his entry-level salary. His raise last fall put him in a better spot, and it led to this— renting out the bottom floor of a small house on the southwest side of Boston. The landlord says there’s another tenant moving in upstairs in about two weeks, but for now, Will enjoys the peace and quiet, the building all to himself. It has actual windows and floor space and sanitation that would pass inspection.

And… a garden out back.

It’s not the most lush thing in the world. If he could even call the area out back a backyard, it’s right in the center, amidst dingy grass full of brown patches that could use a proper irrigation system. The thing itself is a square patch of dirt, not the best soil but something he can definitely work with. It’s no more than ten feet across.

It’s not much. But if working in Boston means he can’t have the forest or the wide open sea or the yard his parents worked so hard to upkeep around the house he grew up in… then he can have a little garden.

So he resolves to bring the thing back to life.

*

It’ll be a vegetable garden, he decides, just like Ma always plants by the shed in the summer, because if there’s one thing that’s nice, it’s not having to buy your produce. He can envision it now— tomatoes on the left, cucumbers and summer squash under them, snap peas in the center, maybe autumn squash or pumpkins on the right side in a few weeks.

It’s the perfect summer project. When you spend all day working in front of a computer, a little dose of the outdoors in the afternoons is a nice balance.

He plants on a Saturday afternoon, donning his old work boots and a backwards snapback and stationing himself out back with Shep, who ambles around enjoying the mellow sun and napping on the patchy grass.

Shep is an Australian shepherd, or at least that’s what Will is pretty sure he is. Will adopted him by accident, after finding him on the street. His old apartment was no place for a dog, but he couldn’t stand to turn him into the shelter. It was another factor in his wanting to move out as soon as possible.

He’s shaking cucumber seeds into his dirt-stained hand when Shep lets out a little bark, not so much an alert noise but a happy one. Will grins as he hears him trot by, towards the house, and doesn’t look up from his seeds. “What’s up, Shep?”

But then, a voice. “‘Sup, doggy.”

Will whips his head over his shoulder, fearing for a moment that someone is trespassing on the property, but almost immediately he remembers the sounds of people going up and down the stairs this morning. The second tenant has moved in.

And here he is. After giving Shep a pat on the head, he makes his way across the yard and stops a few feet away.

“Oh, chill,” he says, laying eyes on Will for the first time. “Is this garden spoken for?”

Oh, no.

He’s beautiful.

He’s tall, probably about Will’s size, and looks his age, too. He has light-brown skin that makes his lavender t-shirt look bright, and he wears a floral snapback atop an undercut that ends in floppy, dark curls. He has a jawline that could cut glass, and both of his arms are covered in sleeves of tattoos, mostly of what look like flowers.

He’s… holy shit. Will is not mentally equipped to process this right now. He’s not sure he’s ever seen a prettier man in his life.

It only occurs to Will after what must be a slightly awkward few seconds that the guy has asked him a question, though. Is this garden spoken for? He tries to clear his throat, like he hasn’t just been staring blankly for the past several moments. “Some of it is.”

“Are you…” The guy pauses to scratch behind his neck, which is really not fucking fair, because it means he has to flex his tattooed arm. And he’s, um. He’s jacked. “... planning on using the some of it that isn’t?”

Will really hopes his face isn’t red. He weighs the implications of what the guy is asking, surveys the part of the garden he’s reserved for squash. If this guy wants to use the garden… so much for squash.

“I mean,” he says finally, “not if you want to use it.”

“Oh, chill,” says the guy, strolling the rest of the way up to him. He sweeps his eyes over Will’s patches of upturned soil and empty seed packets. “What are you planting?”

Will exhales. “Vegetables, mostly.”

The guy calculates for a second, then walks around the empty side of the plot. “Are you cool if I do flowers on the other side?” He spreads his hands out over the space like he can already imagine it. “Wildflowers, a trellis or two, maybe a rosebush.”

Truthfully, Will is not ‘cool’ with this. He doesn’t want to share the garden. He especially doesn’t want to share the garden with a beautiful hipster man who wears floral snapbacks and has sleeve tattoos. He wants to plant squash. He was not informed that his new neighbor was, apparently, also a gardening person, not to mention the most beautiful man in Boston.

As much as he wants to say no, he’s not cool with it, he also knows that there’s this thing called common human decency, and that they’re both tenants on the same house, and that, unfortunately, this garden technically belongs to both of them.

“That’s fine.”

The guy grins. His smile, infuriatingly, is just as gorgeous as the rest of him. His eyes are light— green or hazel, maybe. “Chill.”

Will is pretty sure he’s said chill three times in the past five minutes, which is way too many times.

The guy kneels at the edge of the dirt. Shep, meanwhile, lies down next to the spot he’s chosen, among Will’s empty seed packets. Will pauses for a second, and he wonders if the guy will leave without entertaining further conversation. When he’s still looking at the garden after a moment, Will’s curiosity (and gay frustration) gets the better of him. “Are you the other renter?”

“Oh— yeah, sorry; yeah, I am,” he says, then adds, “I’m Derek. I just got here this morning.”

“Yeah, I heard you moving your boxes,” Will replies. “I’m Will. I live downstairs.”

Derek reaches to pat Shep on the head. “Is this your dog?”

“Yeah, that’s Shep.” Will pauses. Shep closes his eyes as Derek scratches his ears, like it’s an incredibly zen experience. Will adds, as if it were not obvious, “He’s friendly.”

“Hey, Shep.” Derek smiles. He has nice hands. “You’re a fluffy guy.”

Quiet falls in the backyard for a moment. Will mourns the loss of his prospective future squash. Derek smiles vaguely at the stolen patch of dry dirt.

“Well,” he mumbles. “I should probably get unpacking, but hey, it was nice to meet you.” He stands up, and when he smiles at Will, Will feels his stomach do an entire acrobatic routine. Fuck, he’s beautiful. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, uh—” Will clears his throat again. He really really really hopes he’s not blushing. “You, too. Nice to meet you.”

Little does he know that this is only the start.

*

June

Derek plants in, like, four stages.

Will doesn’t understand his process, but he keeps seeing him outside, walking back and forth between the staircase that leads down from his apartment to the garden. He plants from seed, like Will does, except for this one time he carries a mini rosebush across the yard and puts it in the corner next to Will’s tomatoes. He puts a little wire trellis in the center, and his saplings start popping up about a week after Will’s do.

Will successfully avoids talking to him for a little while, aside from the occasional hello when leaving for work in the morning or when their watering times overlap. This is good, because avoiding talking to Derek means avoiding doing something stupid and embarrassing himself.

Then, one warm afternoon in early June, he lets Shep out and sees him go straight up to Derek, who’s watering his rosebush.

Will sighs from his open window. He could use to water anyways.

“Hey, Will.” Derek waves when he approaches, and Shep, thankfully, turns back from the enemy’s side to bound up to Will. “‘Sup?”

“Not much.” Derek is wearing a sun hat and Birkenstocks, and his curls blow in the gentle breeze. He’s ethereal, like a male Persephone. “Just came down to water.”

Will cringes at himself. Of course he’s here to water. He’s holding a watering can.

“Same.” Derek grins, ignoring Will’s stupidity. Will kind of wants to die, but he starts on his cucumber and tomato mounds anyway.

Just be calm. Be cool. He’s just a hot neighbor.

“So, new neighbor,” Derek says, all bravado. “I feel incomplete. I’ve shared a garden with you for two weeks and I don’t know anything about you.”

Will shrugs. “You know my name.”

Derek snorts. “Okay, Mr. Technical. Where are you from?”

“Maine.”

“Like, beach Maine or middle of nowhere Maine?”

“Northern coast Maine.” Will pauses, and almost feels a pang. He hasn’t been home since Christmas, and he misses it. “Near Bar Harbor.”

“Oh.” Derek pauses, then kind of snorts again. “It’s bold of you to assume I know where that is.”

“Well, where are you from?”

“New York,” Derek says, which, really, Will should have been able to guess. “City, not state. I just moved up here.”

“Why did you move to Boston?”

“Work.” Derek pauses, then smiles at his rosebush. “I’m a magazine editor, but I just got promoted, so I relocated to the main office up here.”

“What kind of magazine?” Will asks, for no other reason but curiosity.

“Northeast Lawn and Garden.”

Oh my God. Will might be actually blushing now. “Wait, seriously?”

Derek grins. The brim of his hat casts a shadow over his face. “You’ve heard of it?”

“Of course I’ve heard of it,” he replies. “My ma has been subscribed to that magazine since, like, 1995.” And so have I, since I moved out, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it.

Derek laughs into the blue sky, and it’s a sweet sound. “Hey, that’s chill. I’m glad she enjoys it.”

There’s a brief quiet between them, and Will could choose this moment to leave. His watering is technically done— the garden is so small that it’s low-maintenance— but there’s something about Derek that keeps him, something enticing that wills him not to go just yet.

Besides, it’s not like he has anything better to do.

So when Derek asks, “So what do you do?”, he keeps the conversation going.

*

July

The drive from home in Maine to Boston is long.

Four and a half hours, actually, and although he gets up bright and early at his parents’ house to come home this morning, it doesn’t go by any more quickly than it has in the past. He’s been visiting for the Fourth of July, and even though his brother and a few of his cousins can be prejudiced assholes, he loves his parents, and it feels nice to be home, to be someplace not quite so lonely.

When he and Shep get back to the apartment, it’s high noon, and Derek is outside in the garden.

Will discovers this because he goes to water his plants. They’re getting bigger every day, flourishing in the summer heat, but they’re also super thirsty all the time. Derek is in the same boat— he’s put in wildflowers and a hydrangea and his rosebush and his climbing things. The garden is a tangled mess, and it’s full of weeds.

Except the thing is… Derek is outside today, and… he has no business looking as good as he does.

His shirt, for starters, is a tank top, which leaves little to the imagination when it comes to his arms with all their muscle and ink. He’s also in running shorts, and his weird sun hat, and his skin shines in the sun, and he’s… he’s a lot.

Will has talked to his neighbor, has gotten to know him a little when they’re both out here gardening at the same time. He has managed not to let his annoyance about sharing the garden be his guiding principle with regard to their interpersonal relationship. But still… Jesus fucking Christ. Derek is too much for him to handle.

He pulls his window open, and Derek seems to hear the sound, because he looks up from his flowers and waves.

“Will!” He smiles. “Hey, welcome home, dude! How was Maine?”

“It was fine.” Will pauses, tries to steady himself and maybe not just gape at the fact that he looks so fucking hot oh my God stop being such a gay disaster please focus. “How was your week?”

“Super chill.” Derek stands and steps back from the garden. “Hey, you should come down here. You have a ton of flowers on your tomato plant.”

Shep paws at the door that leads to the backyard, as if to accentuate Derek’s invitation.

You know what? Fine. He needs to water anyway.

*

That’s it. Will is going to kill his neighbor.

Derek may be beautiful, but sharing this garden is not working out. Will’s beloved snap pea plants, having climbed the trellis, are starting to choke out before they bear actual snap peas. And the reason is that Derek’s sweet pea flowers are wrapping around them, turning them brown, tearing the life out of them.

“Derek!”

Derek pokes his curly head out the window of his apartment. “Are you seriously yelling at me from the backyard?”

Will whirls around on his heel. “Your sweet peas are choking out my snap peas!”

Derek snorts. “You’re the one whose plants hijacked my trellis, bro.”

“But they’re—” Will sifts through the plants gingerly, tries to distinguish between the flowered plant and the vegetable one. “They’re dying!”

“Uh, ch’yeah, because you’re encroaching on their territory.”

“The snap peas are dying, not the sweet peas.” Will lets out an anguished sigh. “And the plants were so big—”

Derek, in his window, leans his cheek into his hand. He looks like a noblewoman in a play, in her castle while her suitor confesses his love from the streets below. “Looks like this garden just ain’t big enough for the two of us, Poindexter.”

Will groans again. “You’re an asshole,” he says. While Derek laughs at him from above, he points at him menacingly. “And if my peas die, I’m blaming you for it.”

“I’ll happily take the blame,” Derek replies. “But they’re not gonna die.”

“Yeah.” Will bristles. “We’ll see.”

*

August

The peas don’t die.

Nothing does, actually. The flowers and the vegetables grow into each other, sure, but it’s more like reluctant cohabitation than beautiful cooperation. He and Derek work around each other well into the produce season, and Will vows never to agree to share the garden again. It’s a terrible idea. Derek’s flowers are everywhere, and there could’ve been so much more room for vegetables had he claimed the whole thing before he showed up.

The upside is getting to talk to him. He guesses.

Sunset is getting earlier, but tonight, Will heads out to gather tomatoes at golden hour. Derek is sitting in the grass next to his flowers, in his floral snapback, not really working in the garden but not leaving either. If anything, he’s soaking up the sun.

“Your tomatoes are huge,” Derek says, in lieu of a greeting. “They’re shading my rose.”

Will rolls his eyes and pulls a huge beefsteak off the vine. “The sun is on that side of the yard for half the day.”

“Oh, I’m impressed, not annoyed,” he replies. He looks down at something in his hands— he’s weaving a chain of his wildflowers together, by the stems.

He seems to notice Will studying what he’s doing, so he adds, “I’m making a flower crown.”

Will almost rolls his eyes again, but restrains himself. It’s exactly the kind of hippie shit he’d expect from Derek.

“Do you want one?” Derek continues. “You’d look cute.”

Will fully blushes. He yanks a tomato, hard, and nearly knocks over his entire plant and stake in the process. “No.”

“Okay.” Derek smiles, without a care in the world, and pulls his hat off to put the flower chain on his head. It looks, of course, perfect on him. “Then you can wear my hat.”

Will pauses with his hand in his cherry tomato stalk. “Beg your pardon?”

“Here.” Derek tosses him his snapback, and it lands in the grass by his feet. Then he adds, like it means nothing, “Bet it’d look good on you.”

Will has ascertained that Derek is bi— half because he has a shirt he said he got at NYC Pride that says pretty fly for a bi guy in purple, blue, and pink, and half because he flirts with Will and then pretends like he’s not flirting. Will hasn’t disclosed his sexuality yet, for this reason. For all he knows, Derek could be like this with everyone else in his life.

He’s not in the business of getting hurt by pretty boys, especially not when they share a garden and a building with him.

“C’mon,” Derek urges, still smiling. “Just try it.”

Will bends over and picks up the hat. It’s white, with florals in pink and yellow and green. When he puts it on backwards, Derek falls into the grass and whistles.

“Wow,” he sighs at the afternoon sky. “I was right.”

“I’m keeping this,” Will says, matter-of-factly.

Derek beams. His flower crown falls crooked, daisies and cosmos and nasturtium among his curls. Will wants to kiss him, but can’t and doesn’t. “Be my guest.”

*

September

It’s September, and the grass is green.

Will is picking the very last of the tomatoes off his vines. Some of them aren’t quite ripe yet, but rumor has it the season’s first frost could come tonight, and he doesn’t want to take any chances. While he’s piling them into a basket, he hears movement behind him, and he doesn’t even have to turn to know Derek is there.

“Hey, Will.”

“Hi.” Will pauses. The tomato he pulls next is completely green. “How’s it going?”

“It’s chill.” Derek sidles up next to him and investigates the tomatoes. Today, he’s in a cardigan, like he’s anticipating the cold. “Taking the last of the goods?”

“Yeah, I have to,” Will replies. “Or else the frost’ll get ‘em.”

“I know what you mean.” Derek gazes at his end of the plot. “I cut my last few bouquets earlier.”

Will glances at him sideways. “Do you, like, give them to people?”

He shakes his head. “No one to give ‘em to.” He pauses. “There’s one on my desk at work, then two in my apartment.” He folds his arms and looks at Will’s basket of green tomatoes, then meets his eyes and adds, “You could have one, though. If you wanted.”

Will chuckles. “I’m okay.”

“Well, the offer stands if you change your mind.”

Derek stands with him while he finishes gathering the tomatoes. He picks them slowly, like dragging out this small task will maximize on the time Derek chooses to spend with him before they both retreat into their apartments again.

Like always.

“So your last harvest,” Derek says. “Are you sad?”

Will shrugs. “No. Seasons change every year.”

“Yeah, I like the fall,” he replies, then nudges his arm a little as they walk back toward the building. “But hey, this might mean we won’t see as much of each other.”

“We live a floor away from each other,” Will mumbles, which. Are they friends? He’s pretty sure they are. They’ve spent an entire summer bickering and chatting and bonding over this garden. Derek even flirts with him. But he’s pretty sure friends-slash-neighbors is all they’ll ever be.

“I guess.” Derek pauses. Will hoists his tomatoes under his arm, and they meet eyes, and for a moment, Derek is looking back at him and Will’s stomach is butterflies.

He opens his mouth to say goodnight. And at the same time, Derek says, “Do you… wanna come upstairs for dinner or something?”

Dear giftee, there is a part 2 to this! Stay tuned and I’ll make sure you get it.

#dexnursey #bv2020 #bitty's valentines #omgcp fandom #omg check please!

[minyoongleschimjoongles]

Windfall 1

Pairing(s): Poly!BTS X OC, Sugar Daddy! BTS X OC

Warnings: Implied sexual situations

Note: In this fic, Zara can’t speak very much Korean. Until the language barrier is closed, Bold Text indicates that a person or an app is speaking in Korean.

Masterlist

The way Seokjin tells the story, the day he and the boys met Zara was foretold for centuries. He distinctly remembers the clouds parting to reveal the shining sun, and a choir of angels singing praises to the heavens. The moment her green eyes met Namjoon’s dark ones, the world stopped spinning for a noticeable moment, then her eyes swept over the rest of them, and their fates were sealed forever.

Jin’s full of shit.

The truth of the matter is this; the sky was downpouring, the clouds inky grey above pedestrians, locals and tourists as they ran for cover into stores and under awnings. It seemed to Zara like they’d never see the sun again.

The small coffee shop she was sitting in was overcrowded, but the wifi was free, and the Chai Tea was cheap, a blessing to Zara’s depressingly thin wallet. On the laptop in front of her was the essay that was due at midnight, the half-edited blog post scheduled to go up in two days, and the raw footage for her latest youtube video. When you were a content creator in college, multitasking was key.

Jin’s “chorus of angels” was actually the squealing of a group of prepubescent girls that had caught sight of the Boys as they moved through the shop with their coffee orders. Polite as they were, they were taking photos with the fans as they passed, though Big Hit would surely yell at them when they find out.

Zara was paying no attention to the commotion, eyes on her computer screen, listening to the audio of her video through the chunky headphones she wore. Had she been paying attention, Zara might have been able to prevent the disaster that occurred right at that moment.

Namjoon, still smiling at the young fan he’d just taken a selfie with, made to take another step towards the door. His foot caught on a table leg, his long, clumsy limbs pinwheeling in an attempt to recover his balance. The coffee was released in favor of the edge of Zara’s table, his eyes widening in horror as they followed the downward trajectory of the beverage, straight onto the keys of Zara’s computer. The screen flickered once, twice, then blinked out completely.

The world did go still when Zara’s eyes met Namjoon’s for the first time, but that’s because of the fury that surrounded the small young woman.

“Holy fuck,” Yoongi’s words were carried with a nervous exhale. Zara’s angry gaze swept over him briefly before going over the other five young men, before finally settling back on Namjoon.

“What,” she reached up to pull her headphones off her head, “the fuck?!”

“Oh, shit!” Namjoon straightened to his full height, grabbing for napkins to sop up the coffee before it began to drip into her lap. “Fuck, I am so sorry!”

Zara stood quickly, and despite being half a foot shorter than he was, the look on her face made him take a step back. He watched as she began to fiddle with her laptop, trying to get it to turn back on, to no avail.

“Oh, no,” she whined softly when she realized how screwed she actually was. “Oh, no, no, no!” She hung her head and brought her hands up to her face, thinking over her options. Her essay and her blog post weren’t an issue; anything she had to type, she did in Google Docs before submitting or posting. She didn’t need to worry about the unedited video footage either; her personal channel was nowhere near as popular as her family’s, so there was no uproar if supply didn’t meet demand, and her “fans” would understand. But the memories, and the photos she’d saved on her computer couldn’t be replaced, and to be honest, neither could the computer. At least, not for a long time. She quite simply couldn’t afford it on her meager part-time retail salary.

Namjoon reached out to gently brush her shoulder with his fingertips. “I’m so, so sorry. Are you okay?”

Becoming aware of the whispers and the many eyes on her as she had a quiet meltdown, Zara stepped away from him, shoving her ruined laptop into her bag. Namjoon watched her with guilty eyes, casting a pleading look at his brothers over his shoulder. Taehyung, the epitome of ‘no help’ shrugged his shoulders. Namjoon turned back to see Zara had shoved the rest of her stuff into her bag, leaving her half-finished tea on the table.

“I can make it up to you,” he said, as she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and made for the door.

“Look man, don’t worry about it, okay?” Zara’s voice shook as she called over her shoulder. “I gotta go, I gotta get out of here.”

Namjoon was quick to follow her out the door, his long legs carrying him over the distance between them in record time.

“Hey, hey!” he looked down as he matched her stride. Zara’s eyes stayed on the sidewalk, her hand tightening on the strap of her bag. “Come on, let me make it up to you.”

Zara’s cheeks burned, and she glared up at him.

“Oh my gosh, you’re not going to use this as an opportunity to hit on me, are you?”

To her surprise, Namjoon laughed, bringing out the most adorable dimples Zara had ever seen. “No, I’m going to use it as an opportunity to get you a new laptop.”

That stopped her in her tracks, and Namjoon grinned at her wide green eyes. “That’s better, Speedy. Hi. I’m Kim Namjoon.”

***

“How about this one?”

It had taken Namjoon the better part of an hour to convince Zara to agree to letting him buy her a computer and to come out to lunch with him and the boys, swearing up and down that they weren’t going to kidnap and murder her. Now she sat in a huddle of attractive young men, Namjoon’s phone in her hand, scrolling through the laptops Amazon offered with a frown on her face.

Namjoon looked up from the book in his hand at the price of the laptop on the phone screen and shook his head.

“No way, pick a more expensive one.”

“A more expensive one?!”

Namjoon just shushed her, a small smirk on his face.

Zara gave the boys a few more options, none of them going over $200. Finally, Jimin sighed and snatched Namjoon’s phone out of her hand.

“If you’re going to be unreasonable, I’ll have to do it myself.” He scrolled back up to the top of the page, clicking on a Macbook. Though Zara didn’t understand his words, his actions spoke loudly enough for her to understand.

“No, hey, that’s way too much!” she cried, as he clicked, ‘Buy now.’ “I’m never going to be able to pay you back!”

He completely ignored her protests, completing his order. When he had confirmation that the deed was done, he spun around to face her. His eyes darted over her face, taking in the blush, the slackened jaw, the frustrated tears.

“I can’t afford-”

“We can afford,” Taehyung assured in broken English, taking up her hands and shaking her gently. 

Namjoon closed his book, accepting his phone back from Jimin, before fixing Zara with a smile. “Look, I messed up. You don’t owe me anything. Come on, Zara, don’t cry. I hate it when girls cry.”

“I’ll find a way to pay you back,” she promised, wiping her eyes. “It’s not right to let you spend so much money on me when you could certainly be using it on something more important.” Over Zara’s shoulder, Namjoon connected eyes with each of his bandmates, his brow arched high. Jin’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. It wasn’t every day that they met someone that didn’t know who they were. It was certainly refreshing.

“You don’t have to.”

“I’ll pay you back!”

Taehyung rubbed her arms again, and seeing that she wasn’t going to cry anymore, he let her go.

“Yeah, you can try, Speedy.” Namjoon said, “Come write your number down so we can let you know when your laptop arrives,” he paused, and his grin widened a little more. “By the way, this will be the opportunity we’ll take to hit on you, Pretty Girl.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she scoffed, but now she was smiling too.

“Oh, you haven’t met incorrigible.”

***

PJM: What are you doing right now?

Zara looked away from the paper notes in front of her, a tiny smile appearing when she saw Jimin’s initials pop up. Over the past week, the boys had stayed in contact, painstakingly Google-Translating every text to ask her questions about herself, telling her stories about themselves. Jin admitted they’d googled her when she told him about her family’s Youtube channel AHillofaRide, and she admitted she’d googled them too, as soon as she’d gotten home that first day. She’d been more than shocked to discover how famous they actually were, but it got a lot of the awkward stuff out of the way and she found herself grinning like a fool every time her phone buzzed with a message from one (or all) of them.

Zara: I’m cramming for my WWII History Midterm.

PJM: I thought you were in Art School, Z?

Zara: I am, but I’m double majoring in History.

PJM: That’s amazing, Zara, you’re amazing. Art and P.E. were always my favorites in school, but I guess History was okay too.

Zara: You’re a monster, History is the best. Stop lying to yourself.

PJM: Yes, Ma’am.

PJM: So, Speedy...

All the boys had taken to calling Zara by Namjoon’s initial nickname for her, and it had begun to make her heart flutter.

Zara: So, Jimin...

PJM: Your laptop’s here. Did you want to come pick it up from the arena, or did you want me to drop it off with you? I can come by now?

Zara glanced up from her phone screen to look at the messy floor of her dorm room. She and her roommates had had a study party the night before, and the floor was covered in pizza boxes, candy wrappers, soda cans and a mixture of dirty and clean clothes. She imagined much of their suite looked the same.

Zara: I don’t want to be a bother.

PJM: It's no bother. I’m just hanging around doing nothing right now, anyway.

PJM: You’d be doing me a favor, really.

PJM: I’m getting stir crazy.

Zara: Well, we wouldn’t want that. Can you give me 20 minutes before you leave?

PJM: Sure thing. See you soon, Speedy.

Zara slammed her notebook shut, bolting to her feet. She shot a quick message to her roommate, Ji-yoo (who, conveniently was originally from South Korea), and their suitemates Jane and Clara, letting them know she was having a guest over, that she was purging the disaster, getting only positivity in reply. Apparently it was about time she had a boy over.

She started with the pizza boxes, breaking them down and putting them aside to be recycled. She moved on to the garbage in the floor, gathering the wrappers and shoving them into the overflowing garbage can that she and Ji-yoo shared. She let out a grunt and scoured the top shelf of their closet for any garbage bags, letting out a victory screech when she found the roll of bags wedged between the shelf and the wall. The garbage was dumped and she moved on to the soda cans.

The clothes were a lost cause, so she tossed them all into the hamper to be dealt with later. She made the beds, folding blankets and fluffing pillows and tucking in the sheets, before moving on to their desks. Ji-yoo’s desk wasn’t awful, just a little cluttered with her notebooks and textbooks. Her makeup sat in an overflowing basket on the corner of her desk, but other than that, all Zara had to do was put some papers in the drawers. 

Her own desk was covered in pallets of paint and sketchbooks and pencils, the drawers of the organization caddy she’d bought for her supplies were open, their contents scattered across the desk and the top of the caddy. With a huff, she cursed her disorganized tendencies. By the time she had everything back in the right drawers, and the desktop cleared, she knew her 20 minute head start was over, leaving her only another 15 to clean the common area.

The dorm suite was a simple set-up, consisting of a small common area; no more than a long hallway with a counter top spanning the length of it. There was a toilet room at one end, a shower room at the other, and the two dorms between them. The door to the suite had an electronic lock on it, as did each of the dorm doors, but the girls usually left the doors open during the day.

Sharing such a small space between four girls wasn’t difficult for Zara; she had younger siblings, so she was used to lots of people living their lives around her. Living in the dorm actually helped her with a bit of her home sickness. Having three people there to talk to made living on the complete opposite end of the country from her home, made living in a strange, huge city bearable and for that she would always be thankful.

Due to the common area being the most shared space, it was the cleanest. Jane had gone out and bought the recycling and garbage bins and Clara had brought a shoe rack from home that she let all of them share. Command hooks held various jackets, hats, and accessories, and Ellie’s art had been proudly sticky-tacked to the wall by Ji-yoo. 

There was a microwave on the counter and a mini-fridge on the ground beneath it. A TV sat haphazardly next to the microwave, with Zara’s blu-Ray player and Jane’s Xbox next to it, cables a tangled mess around it. There was a lone circle chair between the two dorms, upon which a large Scooby-Doo plush sat standing guard, courtesy of Zara’s younger sister Scarlet. 

She’d just finished tying off the top of the garbage bag when her phone vibrated on the counter.

PJM: They won’t let me into the building without you here with me.

Zara: That’s because you’re a random 4 foot tall stranger.

PJM: Ouch.

Zara snorted and lifted the bag, grabbing her key card and student ID from her jacket pocket on her way out the door. She dropped the trash in the bin at the end of the hall and started down the stairs at a light jog, her slippers echoing quietly in the silence.

It was easy to see Jimin standing at the security desk, an easy-going smile on his face as he made large hand gestures to the security guard, one hand holding the Amazon box. He looked nice in his plain white t-shirt and black skinny jeans, his hair tousled from the wind. His eyes lifted to meet hers and his smile turned into a full on grin.

“There she is!” He exclaimed in Korean. He quickly set the Amazon box on the counter and, to Zara’s surprise, wrapped his arms around her, sliding between her tank top and the flannel shirt she wore. The next sentence was spoken in slow, careful English, clearly something he’d practiced. “It’s nice to see you, Pretty Girl.”

Zara could feel her face heat up against Jimin’s t-shirt.

“Zara Underhill,” the security officer said, causing Jimin to break away from her. “You’ve never had visitors before.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Zara sighed, reaching for the sign-in sheet and signing her name. She slid the clipboard in front of Jimin and held out the pen to him. He filled out his information and signed his name with a flourish.

“Okay, Miss Underhill, he’s all yours.”

“Thanks, Phil,” Zara smiled and started back up the stairs. Over her shoulder she called, “This way, Jimin. Follow me.”

Jimin wasn’t the only one who had been practicing. Zara had enlisted Ji-yoo to teach her some Korean, sensing that her interactions with these boys would last longer than the short time they’d be in California. Although, Zara was far from fluent.

Jimin grabbed the Amazon box and followed after her up the stairs. On the third landing, he gave a little whistle. “You live so far up. Which floor do you live on?” When he saw Zara turn to blink back at him stupidly, he searched his brain for his limited English vocabulary. “What Floor?”

“Five.”

“Elevator?”

Zara shook her head and pulled out her phone, the Google Translate already open and at the ready. “It’s always crowded. I get enough crowding at home, you know, so the stairs are easier.”

Jimin nodded, smiling. He pulled out his own phone, “I guess it’s good exercise!”

When they reached her suite, she let them in and he lingered awkwardly in the doorway, looking at the art in the small common area.

“Yours?” He looked at the perfect colored pencil rendition of Rapunzel, a grin working its way onto his lips.

“Yep,” Zara replied, quickly tapping on her phone. “My sister, Scarlet, really loves fairy tales, and she was on a real Rapunzel kick. She’s got a picture of Flynn Rider I drew framed next to her bed.”

“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.” Jimin mumbled to himself. Zara grinned at him, and nodded to her dorm room.

“Come on, Legs.”

Obediently, Jimin followed her in, setting about opening the computer box as Zara settled herself at the head of her bed. She watched him quietly as he plugged it in and began the setup, letting her type in all her information, jokingly looking away from her passwords.

“There you go, Miss Zara,” his phone droned as he scooted back so that he reclined against her headboard next to her. He watched her fingers moving lightly against the keyboard as she scrolled through her Twitter. She placed her hand on the top of the screen and paused, before closing the laptop and setting it gently to the side.

“Jimin,” She said, sitting up on her knees. In response to the slightly serious edge to her voice, Jimin straightened his back a little. “Tell me what you want in return for the computer.” This is the phrase Zara had practiced.

They were back to this again, were they? Jimin’s lips twisted into a pout, and his fingers tapped across his phone screen.

“Zara, I’m serious, you don’t have to pay us back.”

“No, Jimin, I’m serious. Why won’t you let me pay you back?! It’s not like it’s a sex thing...”

Jimin, who had already been shaking his head and typing before Zara’s phone had even stopped translating, froze abruptly, lifting his eyes slowly, and Zara’s own eyes widened as realization took root.

“Oh my gosh, it is a sex thing! Jimin, you’re a total Sugar Daddy! Or would it be Sugar Daddies? Is it all of you?”

Jimin winced at her tone of voice, not needing her to translate the words, ‘Sugar Daddy,’ at all. His fingers finally typed out a response, “That’s not exactly the situation, but I guess that’s one way to put it.”

Zara stared at him a little longer, before coming to a decision. She reached for her flannel and ripped it off. Jimin started, dropping his phone onto her bed.

“Zara, what are you doing?”

She didn’t answer, reaching next for her black tank top. This action is what spurred Jimin into action.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” He grabbed her wrists gently, forcing her down onto her back. She gazed up at him as he hovered over her, stress showing in his eyes. “What are you doing?”

This, Zara understood.

“I’m paying you back.”

“Jesus Christ, Zara,” it was a long suffering sigh that left him, as he moved himself off of her. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Silence, and then Zara joined him on the side of her bed. She stayed quiet for a few more seconds before typing out, “We could do it, you know? All of us... that would be okay.” He glanced at her and nudged her with his shoulder, reaching back for his own phone.

“The laptop really was just a gift. Hyung killed your first one, we don’t want you feeling obligated to sleep with us just because we replaced it. And it really would be all of us, Zara. All seven. I can’t explain why right now, but I promise if you decide you’re okay with it, we’ll explain right away.”

“Okay,” Zara agreed, but Jimin shook his head and stood up.

“No, we want you to seriously think about it. I want you to think long and hard about if this is really what you want. It doesn’t matter what the guys and I want.” He looked down at her and smiled, “I’ll see you around, Pretty Girl.”

And he left, leaving Zara to think.

@snowythellama​ @stskpop​

#bts #bts imagines #bts taehyung #poly bts #ot7 imagine #kpop #kpop imagines #bangtan #bangtan imagines #kim taehyung #kim taehyung imagines #jungkook #jungkook imagine #jhope #jhope imagines #namjoon #namjoon imagine #seokjin #seokjin imagine #yoongi #yoongi imagine #jimin #jimin imagine

[tvntae]

heartbreak hotel 1

pairing: reader x ceo!jeon jungkook

plot: was sleeping with your boss really such a great idea?

genre: smut (eventual), angst, fluff

word count: 3.3k

You loved your new job, you really did but the days just seemed to drag on. You were kinda ready for new scenery, a load of fresh faces and just some newer air to breath in general. You wanted, no needed more creative freedom. You felt stuck, and you knew there wasn’t anything you could actually do about it. Unless you go to him. Now “him” was your boss, Jeon Jungkook. You hated asking him for things because he seemed so scary.  He was quite sweet, funny and even a little charming. But he intimated the living hell out of you, and you’ve never been able to pinpoint why. Maybe it was because of the look on his face during those redundant teamwork building exercise meetings that were held every 2 months. He seemed to despise them more than anyone else. To you, he was the big bad boss even though around here he was crucial and level-headed.

At least, that’s what you heard about him. Rumors must have been that mans last name because people loved to talk, and when you say to talk you mean gossip. Employees would either be discussing Mr.Jeon’s newest ride or the latest girl he’s screwing. Word got around that he was dating some new model on the scene, not that you really cared or anything, but last night Karen, the older lady who’s cubicle is to the left of yours, just wouldn’t stop yapping on and on about it.

“Did you hear about Jeon’s new girlfriend?” She squealed over the phone, entirely too enthusiastic over something that had absolutely nothing to do with her. You could barely get work done because of your unintentional eavesdropping. Seriously, it’s not like you actually cared or anything about Jungkook’s life it just... you know Karen and her very loud very exaggerated story over the phone with Suzie, that works a floor above you in HR were taking your attention away from all your important work.

That very night you went home you let your curiosity get the best of you, and you decided to do a little bit of researching your self.

Your laptop was filled with tab after tab after tab of articles about Jeon Jungkook. Things about his childhood, his family even his surprisingly healthy lifestyle. You didn’t know much of the guy, other than he was your boss and he was only a few years older than you. Oh, and also those ridiculous fables people made up about him, but other than that you didn’t really know him, know him. No one did, really now that you think about it. He tended to stay in his office most days, and he rarely came to the company parties, not that you were invited to them for you to obtain such knowledge, you just heard it from Soyeon and Erika from the sales department during lunch break a week back. You knew you shouldn’t have been listening to their private conversation but it wasn’t actually your fault, it just so happened that they were talking about that particular thing while you had paused your music to text your mom back.

You looked over at your clock on your computer and saw just how late it was. Almost 3 and a half hours had passed while you were snooping on your bosses life and you hadn’t even eaten yet. You opted out on cooking, even though in that article you just read about Jungkook’s healthy lifestyle said he always cooks his meals, you decided on ordering out instead. You didn’t have the luxury of making home-cooked meals every night and mostly ate out to suffice. With the salary you have, you do a lot more saving and budgeting than big baller spending. It’s hard enough to afford a place in Seoul, imagine how broke you would go if you started buying real groceries. Fast food was convenient, and it takes a lot less time to arrive at your doorstep than if you were to make a meal.

As you placed your order, you started to wonder if Jungkook was the type of guy to like a girl who could cook. With the luxurious and lavish lifestyle he lives, or at least what the way the tabloids paint his way of living, he’d surely be the type of guy to like a woman who enjoyed cooking for her man. You weren’t really that much of a cooker, a baker yes, but cooking wasn’t your forte. You could bake up a mean batch of chocolate brownies, or if you were in the mood you liked to bake apple pies but cooking actual dinner? Uh, that wasn’t a trait you could say you have.

Once your food arrived, you decided it was time to watch the local news. It was always something you did back home. You’d order some food and then flip to the news channel to hear the current events of the world. Old habits never die.

Oddly enough Jungkook and his new girlfriend were being featured. Typically, when the company you worked for was on the news Jungkook name was rarely ever mentioned just for the sake of not drawing attention to his name you’d guess. Nochu was notably known as a great company. Most people didn’t really know that such a young guy was behind such a successful business. Frequently, in cases you’ve seen young CEOs, mostly it’s because it’s a business that was handed down to them from their wealthy fathers and grandfathers. But that wasn’t the case for Jeon Jungkook. No, he started Nochu from the ground up, hustled his ass off even before college just to create a name for himself. You had a lot of respect for the guy. You didn’t see him much, but he was diffidently a diligent man. If you ever have the chance (and the balls), you’d try to conversate more with him. Get to know him as your boss, not really on a personal level but more as colleagues. 

If the news was anything to go by tonight, apparently Jungkook and his girlfriend were engaged. When you were doing your research about him a few hours prior there weren’t any mentionings of engagement nor was there any clear pictures of Jungkook with said, fiance. But the news seems to have evident photos of the couple together. And you were utterly blown away by the two. They were stunning together, hell, she was stunning alone. But together they looked so dominant. 

“The nations couple” was what everyone was calling them on Twitter. Honestly, you could see why. They’re perfect for each other, and they looked so content. You were sorta jealous, not because you had a crush on your boss or anything. I mean yeah, he is very handsome and the mysterious type. You’d be lying if you said he wasn’t your type. But it’s really the simple fact that you hadn’t been in a relationship for what felt like 15 years. Your last boyfriend was everything you ever needed, or at least that’s what you had thought. Once he got a job offer in another city, he dropped you so quickly and left without another word. So you being you, you ended up on the other side of the planet in Seoul to finish college and start an internship soon after. 

Your internship lasted for about 3 years and then you were offered a position at Nochu Corp. You thought you would be working for some old fat guy in his mid to late sixties. So to say you were stunned by Jungkook’s age and his smooth looking face was an understatement. You knew he could tell how flustered you were that day you accidentally ran into him with your high stack of papers. You were so sure he’d fire you on the spot, but he even offered to help you clean them up. He helped you that day, pick up all your papers, and you were so nervous you left without thanking him properly. To this day you’re still pissed that you made such a fool of yourself.

The morning dragged by slower than ever today at work, you were so ready to get out of the building and get home to your warm bed. Your uncomfortable office chair was starting to get old, you figured it’s never been replaced, and it’s been sitting at this particular desk for years. It often makes your back cramp up and spasm, and it indeed is a pain in the ass (like literally, it even hurts your butt to sit too long). 

From the corner of your eye, you could see your department manager, Jiwoo come into focus. You start to pray that she doesn’t hand you another task for today and instead hands it off to someone else less fortunate. You could not bear to stay sitting at this desk for any longer. 

“Hey, Y/n, how ya been?” Jiwoo asks you, a little too enthusiastically might you add. You could already tell you were a) In trouble or b) she was going to ask for you to complete another task for tonight. And God was you praying it wasn’t the latter. 

“I’m doing good Mrs.Choi, how are you today?” You maintained a smile through gritted teeth, trying to stay as positive as can be. Maybe, just maybe it was an audit and nothing too serious today. You had a drama to catch up on today, and you could NOT afford to stay any longer than usual. 

“I’m doing just fine, I was wondering,” here we fucking go, you think, “Youngjae called out sick for the week and we don’t have anyone to process the stats from this week and last well I need you to stay, maybe about I don’t know 3 hours after your scheduled time today.” The fucking bitch.

“But I-” you start, but Jiwoo soon cuts you off before you could protest.

“This isn’t a yes or no question Mrs.Y/n, I need coverage and your my only available person tonight. I know I can count on you. I’ll email everything that needs to be printed, copied and signed before I go and leave the papers on my desk, I’ll leave you my keys to open the copy room and, make sure you leave said keys with the papers you deliver. Have a nice night Mrs.Y/n.” And with that Jiwoo hands you her office keys and takes her leave, well not before giving you a hideous tight lip smile.

You truly hated that old hag. Out of all the employees she has in this department she chooses to always pick on you.

Night rolled by a lot faster than the afternoon, and you were finally able to stand up and stretch. Letting out a yell, since no one else was on this floor for the night you start doing the stretching exercises you learned from Youtube. The forward hang stretch would always be your favorite one. Anyways on to more important task, you grab Jiwoo’s keys and head to the elevator, since your department didn’t have a copy room you had to use the one a few floors above. 

The empty hallway to the room was dead silent and even a little creepy, you know most people here tended not to stay too late, yourself included. You hated this place sometimes, it was cold, dark and scary at night. And you always felt lonely here when you stayed overnight. 

Switching on the copy room lights, you mentally thank God that someone left the computer logged in because, for the life of you, you could never remember any of the passwords. 

You logged into your email, quickly, 3 hours after your ass. You were going to print these papers, sign them off and put them in Jiwoo’s stupid office on her big stupid desk. Oh, and along with her dumb stupid office keys. 

You were about 3 papers signed in when you heard a voice coming from down the hall. Your first instinct told you it was the custodial crew, so you brushed it off. 

“Yes babe, I’ll be home tonight don’t worry about it... Yes... Yes... Wait, I thought I turned those lights off, guess not, but yea see you soon, love you, k bye.”

“Oh. So it was you who has these lights on.” Too focused on signing you didn’t register anyone walking into the copy room. You nervously spin yourself around in your chair and get up to bow, but he motions his hand telling you it wasn’t necessary.

“How are you Y/n?” 

“I am doing well sir, how are you tonight?” 

“Same. Same. Choi has you working late tonight I see, you don’t normally stay this late.” He says as he squeezes past you to get to the small printer. You smile and nod as your response as he passes you. The room was cramped. There was one huge sectional desk that held all 3 computers, and on one side, a small printer on the other and then the copy machines were right next to the desk. For it to be such a big building, this room had to be the smallest one you’ve ever seen. You turn your chair back around to finish signing your papers, the only sound that was heard throughout the room was Jungkook printing papers and your swiftness with the pen as you signed. You rustle a few papers around, trying your best to not look like such an unorganized slob in front of your boss. 

It ended up taking your 2 whole hours to finish printing, copying and signing all 300 something papers. Jungkook had stayed in the copy room the entire time, mostly going through his email and answering texts. Wasn’t like you were snooping or anything, you were just surprised that man could type and text so damn fast. 

Jungkook looks at his wrist for the time on his watch. “You take the bus to and from work, correct?” Jungkook turns his chair to his left to face you. 

“Uh, yes sir, why?” You ask, bemused that he was asking such a personal question.

“Well, it’s late, and the last bus just ran 5 minutes ago, so I’ll be taking you home unless you have a ride tonight?” He raises his eyebrows. Jungkook knew you were new to the city and didn’t have many friends here let alone family. He only asked to see if you’d lie to him.

“That’s very kind of you sir, but you don’t have to-”

What was it with these people in higher positions cutting you off.

“I wasn’t really asking, it’s late, and I know for a fact you shouldn’t be walking this late, so I’ll be your ride tonight. Clean up, pack your things and I’ll be waiting for you outside of the building in the black Audi.” He starts to grab his things and leave, sending you a sweet smile before exiting the room.

It took you a second to process what just happened. Jungkook barely said 7 words to you when he first came into the room and then all of a sudden he’s offering to take you home? What parallel universe is this? For all he knew you could be a serial killer, hell he could be one. You were his next prey, and you didn’t even have a say in anything because he’s your boss.

Calming down your fast-beating heart, you pack up your papers and make your way to your department to drop everything all off. 

The inside of Jungkook’s car smelled terrific. Like pineapples and bananas but also with a hint of mint candy. It was strange but also quite pleasant at the same time. You heard around the office that he likes sweet smelling things. Opting to buy women’s perfume rather than men’s cologne. You had absolutely no problem with that at all. It just showed Jungkook cared a lot about hygiene. Which is why you’d rarely see any blemish or imperfections to his skin. 

“You know today was casual Friday, right”? Jungkook ask you while still keeping his eyes on the road. 

“Wait, seriously we have those? No one’s ever told me.” To say you were disappointed was an understatement, you loved causal days, and you never even knew they existed there.

You frown at the thought of it. 

Jungkook looks over to see the pout gracing your face, cute, he laughs to himself. “Yes, we have them a few times out of each month. There’s a lot we do there that Choi probably won’t tell you. It’s not as boring as you think it is.”

“I don’t think it’s boring.”

“Sure,” he draws out.”I can tell when someone is bored and you, Mrs.Y/n, are most definitely bored.” 

You laugh at that, “Maybe you’re right.”

Jungkook turns up the music to the radio and you two ride comfortably together. It felt weird but also right at the same time. You felt cozy and warm with him. 

You had dozed off about 10 minutes ago, It was a great thing Jungkook looked at your file for your address because you were in a pretty deep sleep. He honestly did not mind that you lived about 20 minutes away. It wasn’t that big of a deal to him. He could feel his phone blowing up with text after text from Jinah, his fiance. He’d just make up a little white lie and tell her he stayed an extra hour at the office. It wouldn’t kill her if he omitted the truth. He didn’t need her jealous rants, not right now, he was too tired.

You could feel Jungkook’s car coming to a stop. You knew it was time to wake up and in head inside your place when he nudged you awake.

“Hey, we’re here.” He tells you. You slowly lift yourself up, unbuckling your seatbelt and spreading your arms to stretch. 

“Thank you so much for this Mr.Jeon, I’m sorry I fell asleep here.” You awkwardly smile. 

He waves you off telling you it was indeed no problem.

“Just before you go Y/n I want to ask you something if that’s fine with you.

“It’s fine sir, go ahead.” You turn to face him. Figuring this must be something important.

“You see, I’ve been looking for a personal secretary for a month now and have been having trouble finding one I can trust. I was wondering if you’d like to be mine? You’d be getting paid more, get your own office but the flip side is you’d have to pick up more days. Is that fine with you?”

Woah, was he seriously asking you to be his right-hand woman? “Sir I-I don’t know what to say,” you were rightly left speechless, you had no secretary training, and he knew that, but he was asking you. You hadn’t even been at his company for very long, and he was already giving you a promotion.

“There's no need for formalities. You don’t have to call me sir or Mr.Jeon, Jungkook will do just fine.” He stifled a laugh.

“So do you accept the offer?”

“Yes, of course, of course! When do I start?”

“How’s tomorrow sound?” He asks.

“That sounds absolutely perfect!”

#bts #bts au #bts scenarios #bts drabbles #bts drabble #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #bts jeon jeongguk #bts jeon jungkook #bts fanfic #bts ceo au #bts jungkook #bangtan #bts reactions #bts x reader angst

[justanoutlawfic]

I Belong With You, You Belong With Me: Burn, Pine, Perish

Summary: James' inner voice jumps out.

Also on AO3

Storybrooke, Maine (December 1st, 2011)

 They listen to music in their cars or when they’re confined to Lacey’s bedroom. They sneak glances as he walks with his dad to the town hall meetings and she’s on her way to read her newest book recommendation from her. What’s more than that, are their text conversations with one another.

 You owe me dinner, Chinese. That’s what she sent him after she managed to get through The Tempest. They ate it on the beach, wearing thick jackets and listening to the waves crash in. They talked about everything over those weeks, getting to know each other as well as they knew themselves. James and Lacey spoke about their mothers who were taken from them too soon. Lacey never forgot to ask him how David is doing.

 The answer didn’t change much. He was released from the hospital, but didn’t return to Albert. He found an apartment and job quickly, thanks to the help of Mary Margaret and Emma. After Sheriff Graham’s sudden death, Emma took his spot but still required a deputy. So, she hired David onto help. The three had been spotted spending a lot of time together. Sometimes Henry would join them. James was happy for his brother, but wondered what it meant for him. David was never lucky in love, no matter how nice the woman was. And he didn’t quite get the connection that his twin and Mary Margaret felt to Emma. She was Mary Margaret’s roommate and they were her only friends. People wondered if the new sheriff in town was actually staying for good.

 For a solid month, James snuck around with Lacey. From their music dates to their mini-book club, he knew it was dangerous how much he was falling for her. He couldn’t offer her much. At the end of the day, he returned to the suffocating confines of his dad’s home and office. James was under Albert’s thumb, but he desperately wanted to find a way out.

 Lacey texted him again one afternoon as he finished up at the office.

 Wanna see a movie?

 A smile spread across James’ face as he immeaditely responded “Yes”. He asked her to pick him up in their usual spot, a place Albert would never look for him. Normally when he left the office, he’d check in with his father and explain his plans for the night (i.e, lie). That evening, he was too tired and just gathered up his stuff before walking to the park. It was 20 minutes from the office, but James was used to walking by that point. He had his driver’s license but his father kept such a tight hold on his finances, there was no way he’d be able to afford a car on his salary.

 Lacey’s Jag was in front of the park not long after he arrived. James climbed into her car and gave her a smile.

 “What do you want to see?” he asked.

“Well, since you’re making me read Shakespeare, there’s a showing of the classic 10 Things I Hate About You coming up soon.”

James chuckled. “Out of all the things we could see, that’s it for you?”

“I read it’s based on The Taming of the Shrew.”

“You know a Bard lover like me can’t pass that up.”

 She drove them to the theater where James bought the tickets and Lacey insisted on getting the snacks. Nestled in a back row, they shared boxes of Cookie Dough bites and a cherry Slurpee. Lacey kept popping bits of popcorn into his mouth and James wondered if that was what it was like to have a girlfriend.

 Can you stop being stupid? You’ve been hanging out for a month. She would’ve made a move by now.

 As Kat Stratford delivered her iconic speech about hate and love, James thought of his father. How he hated that he loved him. That didn’t seem like a good relationship to have with one’s father but he didn’t know how else to get out of it. He strained his mind to remember something good, but his childhood was a blur of missed baseball games and A’s on his report card not being good enough. In a way, it made him angry. There was that part of him that always attempted to jump out and yell at his father. That was always quickly subdued by…well, he could never quite explain it.

 The two walked hand in hand after the movie ended. James was silent as Lacey went on about Kat Stratford and whether or not she should have returned to Patrick Verona after everything. He listened as well as he could, but his mind was a fog.

 “You alright?” she asked, breaking through to him, finally.  “You’ve been quiet since we got out.”

“Doesn’t it always go that you talk, I listen?” Lacey raised an eyebrow and he sighed. “Do you ever think about how weird things are around here?”

“You’re not going to go all Henry on me now? You know he’s convinced I’m Belle from Beauty and the Beast.” She snorted. “Can you imagine?”

James laughed a bit, shaking his head. “No, definitely not. It’s just, my entire life I feel like I’ve just been who my father wanted me to be.”

“You don’t have to be that, James.”

“The thing is, the past few…God I don’t even know how many years, I’ve had this voice in my head that tries to stand up to him but I can never let myself. And the more I’m around you…God, this is going to sound weird…”

Lacey only got somber. “It’s gotten louder?”

“I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing…”

“No, you don’t get it,” she interrupted. “The past few years I’ve had this feeling like something was wrong or missing. At first, I thought it was my mom dying but then I realized it was more. I thought I needed to get out of this town but never could. And then…”

She trailed off and James felt his pulse quicken. “Then?”

“Then I met you.” Lacey let out a deep breath. “It’s like I’m uncovering a piece of myself that I thought I lost. I want to read books again, I don’t want to spend every night at the Rabbit Hole. I…I actually think I could fall in love.”

 Lacey moved her hand so their fingers were intertwined.

 “I think maybe I am.”

James blinked several times. “Are you saying…”

“When I’m with you, things just make sense. I didn’t know this part of myself and now I don’t want to stop learning it.” She moved closer to him. “I don’t want to stop learning about you. You’re all I think about when I wake up in the morning. James, you barely leave my mind all day. And if you knew me, you’d know that’s not the kind of girl I am. I fuck a guy and then I move on. But with you, it’s real. With you, I want more than just that.”

 Lacey swallowed and James put his free hand on her shoulder. Their eyes connected and for a moment, they didn’t remember that they were standing on a public street. They didn’t think about who they were supposed to be or what they wanted. Instead, James focused on her. From her baby blue eyes, to the curve of her chin. The way her bomber jacket was unzipped despite it being freezing and the Led Zeppelin sweater she wore under it. All of the reasons he liked her.

All of the reasons he loved her.

 They had only been in each other’s lives for a month and a half. Yet to James, it felt like he had known her for years.

 She kissed him first. They both knew it would always come to be like that. Her red lipstick smudged with his pale, nearly chapped lips. Their tongues intertwined and his arms slid around her waist to pull her closer. She stood on her tip toes and grasped to his neck for support.

He could have stood there forever.

If only the sun didn’t have to be replaced by rain.

 “James!”

 James would know the voice anywhere. He broke apart from Lacey and clamped his eyes shut. Her nails dug into his palm, a weight to the world.

 “I have been looking everywhere from you! Have you not checked your phone?”

 Wordlessly, James pulled his cell from his pocket. A missed call, then a text from Albert questioning his whereabouts. He had turned it off for the film, but he knew that wouldn’t be a good enough excuse for his father.

 Finally, he found the bravery to face Albert. James was tall, just over six feet. Even so, Albert always seemed like a giant when he was angry.

 “I’m sorry,” was all James could say.

“You’re going to be.” Albert gestured to his Cadillac. “Get in.”

“You don’t have to go, James,” Lacey said. Her voice was calm, yet her eyes were narrowed on her beau’s father. “You’re a grown man, you don’t owe him anything.”

Albert let out a shallow laugh. “Why don’t you go pick up your daddy from the floor of Aesop’s, little girl.”

“Hey!” James found the venom coming to his voice. Albert and Lacey looked at him in surprise. “You can’t talk to her that way.”

Albert raised a salt and pepper eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?” James knew what that meant. Shut up. Yet, that night, his inner voice came out.

“You can’t talk to her that way,” James’ voice became sturdier. “She’s a person. She deserves respect. You can’t just talk to people like they’re beneath you.”

Albert looked perturbed by his son’s sudden rebellion. “We can discuss this at home, James. Say goodbye to Lacey.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, no. I’m not going anywhere.”

 A pregnant pause hung in the air. Lacey’s fingers were still intertwined with his own. Albert’s eyes were wide. James felt like he was going to throw up.

 “James,” Albert managed to find some words. “You need to remember who you’re talking to.”

“Are you my boss or my father right now?”

“I’d say both.”

“Well, I quit one of those positions.”

 Lacey gasped. If James wanted to take the words back, it was too late. Albert was paler than normal and James wondered if he was going to have a stroke.

 “Think very carefully, son,” Albert’s voice grew darker. “I give you everything. A place to stay, an expense account. You only have a job because of me.”

“He doesn’t just need you,” Lacey spoke up. Both men looked at her. “There are other jobs he could get, ones where I’m sure they wouldn’t keep his actual checks from him.”

“You don’t know anything about this.”

“I know everything about it. And I know that if James needs a place to stay, he has me.”

James smiled. “Really?”

“Really. My dad would hate you staying with me, but I can help you get a room at the inn until you’re on your feet.”

“This is ridiculous,” Albert interrupted. “James, you are not leaving the job I gave you or our house.”

“James is a grown man. He can do whatever he wants.” Lacey squeezed his hand. “What do you want, James?”

 James looked from Lacey to his father. He knew that whatever choice he made, he’d have to stick with it. There was no going back from this.

 “I want to go with Lacey. I chose Lacey.”

 Before his father could react, James and Lacey headed back to the Jaguar. He slid into the passenger seat while she got in the driver. There was a silence for a minute, before Lacey grabbed his face and kissed him passionately. James pulled apart a few minutes later, panting.

 “I feel like I’m going to be sick,” he mumbled. “Not from the kiss…but…my dad…I just…”

“You just stood up to him, James.” Lacey tilted his chin up. “And I am so proud of you.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. He’s controlled my life for so long.”

“We’ll figure it out. Together.”

--------------------------------------------------

#i belong with you you belong with me verse #prince beauty #lacey french #prince james #albert spencer #ouat au #ouat #once upon a time

[katjacksonbooks]

If you’ve read Room for Three (Erotic Accommodations, book 1) and you’ve found yourself wondering “I wonder what Cali, Mike and Precious are up to,” here’s a short scene of them coping with the stress of the pandemic and new changes in their lives. 

If you haven’t read it, you can buy the ebook on amazon, barnes & noble, kobo and apple for $1.99. 

If money is too tight for books, feel free to pick up a bundle of this and some of my other books on payhip and pay whatever you want. 

And if you’d like to support The Ripped Bodice in this stressful time, you can pick up a paperback copy of Room for Three? and Neighborly or some of my other books here. 

I hope everyone is well and this brings you a bit of joy. And watch this space for some other quick check-ins on some of my favorite characters over the next few days. <3

SIX WEEKS

 “Stay out there,” Cali called to Precious, who was patiently waiting just at the threshold of their new rental home.

“I can help,” Precious said.

“No, I’ve got it. Stay there. I’m almost done.”

Precious rolled her eyes. “You could be done faster if you just let me help you.”

Cali didn’t even respond to Precious’s well-reasoned offer. She shook her head and kept disinfecting their groceries before she put them away. Precious watched, feeling helpless and a little anxious as Cali scrubbed at every surface with the intensity of a woman on the edge, because she was, which only made Precious feel even more anxious.

She couldn’t keep watching her, so she turned and walked through the living room and down the hall to the bathroom — their second bathroom.

When they’d decided to move to New Mexico, they’d been so shocked at the realization that they could afford to rent a small house, not just an apartment, on just Precious’s salary. They’d had to fight the urge while looking at apartments to get the biggest house in their budget and maybe assuage their realtor’s curiosity at why three people were only looking for two-bedroom houses. They didn’t need much space. A big enough bedroom for their California king bed and a small second bedroom for visitors and, eventually, a nursery.

But the second bathroom was a revelation because it meant that when their family members visited, they wouldn’t have to share a bathroom with new people. They were more than adept at sharing a bathroom — and everything else — between the three of them, but the idea of sharing with other people made them nervous. But when they saw that second bathroom, all of those fears had washed away.

Although right now, who knew how long it would be before they had visitors, and they only used this second bathroom to shower whenever one of them — usually Mike — left to go to the store. And that’s where Precious found him.

She pushed into the bathroom without knocking.

“Mike,” she called to him.

He was rinsing shampoo from his hair, and he cracked open an eye to look at her. “Don’t touch anything,” he practically yelled. “I’m going to disinfect in here when I’m done.”

“Oh. My. Fucking. God!” Precious screamed.

“What’s wrong?” Cali yelled from the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” Mike asked as he stepped from the shower, shutting it off absentmindedly.

He stood in front of her naked and wet, and at any other moment, Precious might have already stripped naked to join him under the spray.

“What’s wrong?” Cali panted behind her. She’d run from the kitchen.

Precious swiveled her head back and forth to glare at each of them in turn. “Stop treating me like I’m fragile,” she said. “I’m not.”

She could see Mike fighting not to say something that Cali just said.

“The fuck you aren’t. You’re literally six weeks pregnant. Anything could happen to you,” Cali shrieked.

She sounded hysterical, and Precious understood why. She also knew that Mike felt exactly the same way, and it made her furious.

It wasn’t that she begrudged them their fear, she didn’t, she just hated that they wouldn’t let her share in it with them. This wasn’t the pregnancy she’d imagined, but who ever imagined being pregnant during a pandemic? No one.

“We’re just nervous,” Mike said carefully.

“So am I,” Precious said, swiveling her head again.

But her eyes caught on Cali’s face because what Precious saw there wasn’t nerves, it was terror. It wasn’t just Cali’s darting wide eyes; it was the way she was wringing her dry, cracked hands in front of her body. They were all nervous about the pregnancy in these strange times, but Precious knew the way Cali thought. She knew that of all of them, the danger of this moment might trigger her latent grief about her parents’ death.

Precious took a deep breath because she knew that Cali had started seeing Dr. Toussaint through video chat three times a week, and when she wasn’t cleaning, she was reading every pregnancy and baby book she’d accumulated before the move or checking new ones out on the library’s Overdrive site.

Precious took another deep breath, unclenched her fists, and spoke slowly. “I know that there’s a whole fucking lot going on right now, and I know you both love me, but I’m a person too. I’m not just a womb for our baby, and I’m not so fucking fragile that I can’t help you two disinfect stuff, and sometimes, I need to get out of the house too.”

Cali’s knuckles were going white, she was clenching her hands so hard. She swallowed and shook her head, tears in her eyes. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she whispered in a fragile tone that broke Precious’s heart.

“And you think I want something to happen to you?” Precious asked.

Cali’s eyebrows bunched.

“Or Mike,” Precious continued. “Do you think I love you two any less than you love me?”

Cali’s tears spilled over her cheeks. Precious and Mike bumped into each other getting to her. Precious wrapped her arms around Cali’s waist and rested her chin on Cali’s shoulder while Mike gathered Cali against his chest.

They held her and each other while Cali cried silently.

Dr. Toussaint is going to be so proud of her, Precious thought with a smile. They’d been working on Cali expressing her emotions when she felt them and without a filter. She didn’t mention it in the moment, but she would later. She was certain Cali would blush as she accepted the praise. Precious could only imagine how adorable she would look in that moment, and she tightened her arms around Cali at the thought.

“I’m sorry,” Cali mumbled against Mike’s chest.

“Sorry,” Precious said. “I didn’t hear that, can you—”

“No,” Cali laughed. “Shut up.”

Mike’s chest rumbled with laughter.

“I didn’t realize I would feel like this when you were pregnant. I didn’t think…” Her voice trailed off, and she burrowed into Mike’s chest, rubbing her cheek against his skin.

“I get it,” Precious said. “What’s your excuse?” she asked Mike, squinting up at him with a playful smile on his face.

His wet hair was streaming water down his neck, and that one curl right in the center of his forehead was perfectly round. He grinned, and his sharp jaw jutted forward as he shrugged. “I’m just generally terrified. I don’t know anything about pregnancy or babies. Before the pandemic, I was freaking out that I’d lose the kid under a couch cushion while playing Halo.”

“What?” Precious breathed.

Cali’s body shook with laughter.

“I know. I don’t even play Halo.”

Precious took a deep breath to calm the nervous giggles that wanted to spill from her mouth. “I say this with every bit of love I have,” she said in slow, deliberate words. “You two are absolutely fucking ridiculous.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Duh,” Cali breathed, turning her head to raise a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“Are you just now realizing that? You’re the sensible one in this relationship.”

“Definitely,” Cali added.

Precious let go of Cali’s waist and moved to stand beside them. She took another deep breath and thought of how easy it would be to learn Lamaze with all the practice she was getting. “Well, since I’m the sensible one, how about you two listen to me and just…chill. Don’t treat me like I need to be covered in bubble wrap or think you have to take care of me without letting me take care of you too.”

“But Precious,” Mike started, but Precious cut him off with a raised hand.

“This is going to be a long ass pregnancy. Soon enough, I won’t be able to do some things, and I won’t want to, but until that time comes, just treat me the same.”

Precious could see the battle behind Cali’s eyes. Mike tightened his arm around Cali’s shoulders and held her close to him. “It won’t be easy, but we can do that. Right, babe?” he asked Cali.

Cali’s eyes darted between him and Precious. She worried her lip and swallowed thickly before nodding. “I’ll add it to my list for Dr. Toussaint,” she said.

Precious pushed a hard breath out of her mouth, relaxing muscles she hadn’t even realized were tensed. She rushed to press her body against Cali’s, holding the other woman’s face in her hands, gently and reverently. Her thumbs caressed Cali’s bottom lip. She licked her lips, and Cali’s lips parted on a soft sigh.

“All I want is for you to try,” she said, reassuring Cali with her words and her touch.

“I can do that,” Cali breathed.

“So can I,” Mike said as his hands moved up and down Precious and Cali’s backs. “Um, since we’re all feeling better…” His voice trailed off, and his hips jutted forward.

Cali and Precious turned to him. “Seriously?” Precious asked.

“You interrupted my shower,” he said as if that was an answer to her question.

“I’m okay with it,” Cali said, her small, dry hand covering Mike’s hardening penis.

Precious laughed. “I’m shocked,” she said, pulling Cali into a kiss. Their lips and tongues touched tentatively as Cali squeezed Mike’s dick rhythmically.

“Let’s go to bed,” Precious said against Cali’s lips, already stepping into the hallway. She walked backward to their bedroom, watching as Cali followed her and led Mike by the tip of his penis.

In their almost fully unpacked bedroom, Cali and Precious quickly undressed as Mike climbed onto the bed. Precious kissed her way up Mike’s thighs, licking at the leaking head of his dick, her eyes on him as she moved up his body.

Her back arched as she groaned into the muscled planes of his abs when she felt Cali’s tongue at her wet cleft. Precious had been on a mission up Mike’s body, but she stalled as Cali pulled her ass cheeks apart and licked her from her puckered bud to her clit and back again. Precious had just enough wherewithal to wrap her hand around Mike’s dick and stroke him, his abs jumping under her cheek as Cali’s tongue brought her over the edge. Before long, her body was slick with sweat and shaking as Cali sucked her sensitive clit, bringing her to a quick, intense second orgasm.

Precious jumped when Cali’s palm smacked her ass cheek. She was so weak, all she could do was laugh and crumple to her side, her cheek on Mike’s stomach. It was the perfect vantage point to watch as Cali sucked Mike’s dick so deep his hips arched from the bed, and he groaned so loudly it shocked Precious, but in a good way.

Mike’s hand landed heavily on the small of Precious’s back, stroking her and squeezing her ass as she and Cali made eye contact, watching one another as Cali’s lips moved up and down Mike’s shaft.

After a few minutes, Cali released the head of Mike’s dick with an obscene pop that made Precious’s clit ache. Cali leaned forward to kiss Precious so she could taste herself and Mike on Cali’s tongue. As always, it was the specific dirty romanticism that Precious had fallen in love with years ago.

Their kiss didn’t last long because even though Precious had come twice, Mike and Cali were still desperate for one another. Precious watched as Cali gripped the base of Mike’s dick and threw her legs open over his waist.

Mike’s hand clenched around the meat of Cali’s ass, his fingers playing at her opening from behind.

Precious watched with rapt attention as Mike’s dick slowly disappeared between Cali’s legs. Her nails scraped across Mike’s happy trail. She moaned as his fingers pressed between her legs and slipped inside her pussy.

His fingers fucked her as Cali rode his dick, and for the next few hours, they forgot about how difficult it was to find toilet paper, or about where exactly to store all the kimchi Mike’s parents had sent them, or the fact that Cali was terrified about her sister all alone in her cottage now that the local libraries were closed. They even stopped worrying about if they could paint their spare bedroom that would have to be a nursery sooner than they planned or the fact that they hadn’t had nearly enough time to find a doctor to get them through this pregnancy before the pandemic.

They fucked and kissed and licked and sucked one another and allowed themselves to forget how terrifying the world was outside their door, because whatever was out there, they knew they’d get through it together.

[lhs3020b]

Boris And the Baddest of Bad Weeks

I promised an expanded entry on what’s going on at the moment in our national meltdown, so here it is...

Allow me, if I may, to walk back an earlier comment of mine. Some time ago, I was distinctly skeptical about the idea of an early general election. However, the situation has evolved. You see, there was one thing I didn't count on. I never imagined that Boris Johnson would be stupid enough to force nearly two dozen of his MPs out of his party.

That's right: I over-estimated his intelligence. Umm, whoops.

In my defence, what he did may well have been the single most utterly-stupidly self-defeating maneuver ever in British politics. The only sense I can make from it is that he's having a narcisistic breakdown. Actually, viewed in that very narrow light, perhaps it does make a little sense. If you've ever had the misfortune to have a narcissist in your life, you'll be aware that the thing they just can't cope with is any sort of rejection. The "no"-word tends to summon a meltdown - and of course BoJo faced a pretty major series of "nopes" from Parliament this week.

The other thing I didn't count on was that apparently yes, there actually are some things that some Tory MPs just won't do, even if the consequences of Not Doing The Thing runs to damaging their personal careers. This did come as a surprise to me - I'd assumed that blind partisanship and the desire for salaries would ultimately trump - or perhaps, Trump - all other concerns. But no, credit where it's due, it turns out that for at least 21 of them, there was a floor on the greed after all. Admittedly it's taken us three years of accelerating chaos to find it, but it was there.

The next factor that I didn't count on was that the opposition parties got their act together. Bluntly, there was no hint of this over the summer. The speed with which it happened has left me a little dazed. The earlier failure to call a Vote of No Confidence, the weird shenanigens over ludicrous Governments-of-National-Unity, the generalised infighting and chronic myopia ... just two weeks ago, it was not looking good. I was basically starting to quietly accept that we on the pro-Remain side were finally defeated, and worst of all, we'd been defeated mainly by our own allies.

Then the prorogue happened.

It's fair to say that it's already backfired. The obvious cynicism of the strategy, the naked contempt for all the institutions of British government, the sheer gall of it all - it was meant to energise the pro-Brexit crowd. Instead, it appears to have driven everyone on the soft-Brexit/pro-Remain aisle into a state of thermonuclear rage. And if there's one thing that can bring unlikely allies together, it's a common enemy. By pursuing his grandiose "oh look at me being so Brexity!" cock-strutting routine, Boris accidentally made himself into exactly that enemy.

The other factor was that the prorogue has imposed a sharp time-limit. Consequently, Continuity!Remain just doesn't have the luxury of descending into factional infighting. The deep irony is that putting us on a tight deadline has actually helped us. It's imposed a focus that just wasn't there even 10 days ago.

Meanwhile, as for the wider country, well, Boris's walk-about up north yesterday seems to have been a complete disaster. Random people were basically coming up to him to tell him that it had all gone wrong. Then there was that bizarre speech he gave in front of a captive audience of police recruits. It was just weird - proper delusion territory, and entirely-incoherent. I'd like to compare it to Trump, but at least Trump can manage a consistent theme. Johnson was just rambling. There was nothing there, except possibly a desperate plea for attention. A lot of the political journalists I follow are openly-speculating about whether BoJo was on drugs during the speech.

(And wouldn't that be the ultimate post-2016 banter-timeline twist? If the Prime Minister - the Prime Minister! - got busted for snorting crack?)

Meanwhile, BoJo's narc-meltdown has accidentally undone Theresa May's one significant achievement.

Contrary to what many people think, Theresa May did manage to thread one single needle. That was, she (mostly) managed to keep the parliamentary Conservative Party together. Granted a few MPs jumped ship to Change UK earlier in the year, but it stayed in single digits. There was no big split - and, significantly, the Change UK crowd got wet feet about no-confidencing her. The advantage of this was that Theresa May avoided having the Tories fall into what we might call the 1922 Trap. Here's what I mean by that: in the late 19th Century, the old Liberal Party was increasingly-split on the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. The tensions only got worse as time went on. Then Asquith went and delivered the First World War and precious little else of value. (He was notably-slimey on votes for women, and seemed uninterested in doing anything about the property qualification that 40% of men still faced. The cynic might note that Nick Clegg's behaviour is not entirely new.) Lloyd George tried to put the party back on its feet, but the damage was done. During the 1920s, the Liberals were openly-split. At elections, Liberals ran against each other in numerous constituencies. Because of the way first-past-the-post voting works, in practise this meant that Tories or Labour got elected instead. (A constituency has - say - 46% of the vote for any Liberal candidate, but two run. Each of them gets 23% of the vote. A.N. Other Party takes 24% and gets the MP's seat.)

Theresa May's political strategy - yes, she actually did have one - was predicated on avoiding having Tories run against other Tories at elections. Given their divisions, it was a narrow needle, but she mostly managed to thread it. Boris Johnson has gone and exploded that. You see, of the 21 MPs he's sacked from the party, several are saying they'll contest the next election as independents.

It's hard to know just how big a problem the 1922 Trap will be - but, their vote is already split with the Brexit Party. And even the most optimistic opinion polls have the Tories around 10pts down on where they were in 2017. They're already in minority in the House - how many votes can they afford to lose, really?

Meanwhile, there's a further problem. The Tories' drift to the political right may have taken them too far. They assume that their friends at the Times, the Sun, the Telegraph and the BBC can plaster over the cracks for them - but, can they? The media was full-throated for May in 2017, and she still lost her majority. The newspapers are hysterical and shriekier than ever - but, who reads them? I can't remember the last time I bought a physical copy of one of the main papers. I suspect that's true of many other people too. There are signs that the socially-liberal/financially-conservative chunk of voters are starting to decamp to the Lib Dems. Again, it's not clear how big this movement is - but, as I said earlier, how many votes can the Tories afford to lose? It's possible that they could be facing the nightmare scenario of a general election where the right-wing vote is split three ways (four, if you count UKIP's still-slightly-tembling corpse, though they're close to a rounding error now). If the next election was still certain to be in 2022, all this would be somewhat academic. Two and a half years is a long time, they could find a way to turn things around. All things being equal, I expect they would.

But then BoJo had his narc meltdown, didn't he?

The so-called government is now in absolute minority in the House. While their opponents can't currently agree on an alternative prime minister, nonetheless the anti-BoJo grouping now has a majority of 43. They can stop him doing anything. No legislation is going to go through this house. Finance bills are basically dead on arrival. I really can't see how he could pass any kind of Budget. And also, if he does anything at all to irritate the Opposition, they can no-confidence him any time they feel like it. Quite simply, he's on death row.

My guess is that they'll leave him be during the prorogue period. The logic here is obvious enough - let him twist in the wind. He's doing a great job of destroying himself, so let him get on with it. This way, when Parliament returns late in October, they can do the deed and it will look like a mercy-killing rather than a gang-land execution.

Hypothetically, there are four ways Boris could get off the hook:

1) He could resign. This would arguably save him some dignity, and just perhaps it might leave a little room to revive his future career. But, he won’t take this option. He’s a narc. They don’t voluntarily quit. (Plus, uh, much as I’d cackle if he was forced to quit, it just leaves his successor with the same set of problems that he failed to address.)

2) He could try to simply ignore the anti-hard Brexit law. The problem here is, it would give the opposition a prima facie grounds for an immediate Motion of No Confidence. He might get some love from the rightwing press, but the ultimate result would presumably be his removal and a new Prime Minister. It would be the most pointless constitutional crisis ever.

3) He could arrange to lose a motion of no confidence in his own government. This would arguably be constitutional, and might be a way to trigger an early election. But, it would a) look utterly-absurd, b) be an unprecedented thing to do and c) would also require him personally to face the House telling him to fuck off. I’m not sure that a narc is capable of that. Also, there’s the issue that, as we saw in 2017, there’s no guarantee that he could win a general election. I’m absolutely not sanguine about the risks of an early GE but a) that’s democracy and b) if he runs his campaign the way he’s running being PM then he could well end up roasted.

4) He could reverse the prorogue. On the one hand, un-proroguing Parliament would buy him some extra legislative time. On the other hand, his opponents have control of the House, and a wobble on the prorogue would make him look weak. There’s not much upside for him here, though it’s the most “conventional” of the four options.

Basically the TL;DR is that while he has some choices, none of them are good and all of them could cause him considerable personal pain. The opposition have set up a proper four-pronged Morton’s Fork for him. Which tine will he impale himself on?

As for Brexit? Well, one interesting detail is that the underlying political question seems to be open again. It hasn't quite gained mainstream traction yet, but apparently people are starting to ask whether Brexit is going to happen at all. The Labour Party's position has moved visibly toward hard-Remain, albeit grudgingly. The Lib Dems are having their time in the sun again (though, I suspect that glomming up Philip Lee may help them less than they seem to hope). I don't know that I think it's going to happen, but I can now imagine a situation where at the end of October, the anti-BoJo constellation No-Confidences him then pushes a quick revocation bill through Parliament. (The "party line" here would be, "We wanted a second referendum but this man's scheming hasn't left us enough time.") Again, not saying this is at all likely, but I think it is now a possible outcome.

And if nothing else, BoJo's supposed golden hour is turning out to be quite the nightmarish turkey - and isn't that just delicious?

#diary of a disaster #UK internal politics #Boris's bad bad no good week #hahahahaha

[tomo-tron]

My experience growing up as an Artist (and trying to get a job)

Buckle up, it’s a long one.

I’ve never really thought about doing an actual written blog entry on here before as I’ve normally not really had much to say and prefer to talk about my work. But I thought it could be helpful to share my personal experiences of trying to get work post-university from the perspective of an illustrator/artist. This could be helpful to you if you’ve just graduated, are thinking of doing a course at uni or are currently freelance and are wondering how to get your first break in a full-time art job. Emphasis on could. 

So for those of you who’ve never met me (which is pretty much 99%+ of my followers), I’ve always drawn characters from games and comics etc. If I saw a character that blew my mind as a kid, I drew them. I had a big, lined, A4 notebook and drew in with biro pen. I drew in class when I wasn’t supposed to. I drew in my weekly planner for lessons (where you were supposed to write homework and deadlines etc) and then got into detentions because of them where I was even made to go through and cover them all up using paper and glue...Art at secondary school DID NOT help me. At all. A lot of schools don’t understand/recognise the games/comic/entertainment industry (or at least seemingly prestigious ones from the north where people make money by farming and/or settling into a mundane plane of conformative existence revolving around having kids way too early and peaking before you’re 25 before forever there after living in a bubble safely tucked away from the rest of the world and society). To be fair, schools have to cover a potentially very broad spectrum and kids don’t always know what’s best for them and where they want to end up. But sometimes kids DO know where they want to end up. To also be fair, my art teachers could see that fine art wasn’t my thing and that I was technically a good artist when it came to drawing, so they sort of gave me a lot of leeway when it came to work guidelines (one of my main teachers also looked and acted like Dean McCoppin from Iron Giant which was pretty much the best thing that could have happened there). 

Anyway, moving onto University. In the UK, 2011 was the year the university fees basically tripled...The work I did at that school didn’t really help me much when applying for places. No one I knew wanted to do anything similar. And there were no adults who had any idea what I needed to do to get to the places I wanted either. So I was on my own. Suffice to say I failed at getting onto a 3 year course (which I’ve always imagined was potentially due to increased demand just before the fees went up). The lecturer doing a portfolio review with me said I had “too many werewolves” and the less said about all of that the better. I think maybe there was two werewolves, done in the same style the point of which being that one was male and one was female and I’d tried to make that visually evident. However, I was offered a place on a 1 year Art and Design course (yay...). Ironically, the foundation course turned out to pretty much help me un-learn EVERYTHING that I had spent the last 7 years being told to do. Crazy right? It annoyed me that I had to spend an extra year there (though not from the social point of view and uni life) and straight after the course, I finally began a 3 year Illustration and Animation course. 

At 20 y/o (a year later than most) I started my 3 year course. I won’t say too much about the course itself as there’s a slight conflict of interest in regards to me potentially going back to lecture there soon. But in those 3 years, I gradually felt more and more comfortable to focus on producing work that I always felt I was supposed to be doing. Nothing great came out of my first year, the second year was arguably better/more professional and then finally in my third year I created a 26 page comic about monsters (which I drafted a good friend in to write the script for, bearing in mind he was on a course at the time too) which I called “Stubble” and it was the pinnacle of my artist achievements. It was a comic, but I had really developed these two characters from fairly in-cohesive and random creatures with rubber tire armour and boring shapes/silhouettes to these very much simplified, strange, stubble-y polar opposites of one another. So I figured that the ability to create characters and demonstrate that, would help get me into the games industry regardless, if I wanted to go that route. 

Then we had the end of year exhibition where we could showcase our final major projects. This got me noticed by a nearby toy design company in the area. It was exactly what I’d always hoped would happen, a job offer fresh out of university. They loved my work and I did a small-ish art test for them before being invited to a job interview that went really well. Their only major concern was my art style and whether I could adapt it appropriately for the sort of work they did. I was 23 y/o at the time, I was still no expert and hadn’t spent a whole lot of time doing product design on my non-product design based course (surprise surprise). I didn’t hear back from them for a while and because I’d never applied to salaried jobs before, I just thought it was the norm. I moved to London with my then gf and pretty much lost all motivation artistically when faced with the real world and trying to make ends meet in the most expensive part of the UK as a poor ass ex-student. Six months later, they got back to me. It was a no. They wanted to stress I was very much in the running along with 2 other applicants and choosing between the 3 of us had been the subject of much debate. So that sucked. And then not long after my long-term relationship fell apart which was a nice addition so I was back to square one at home with mummy and daddy and a seemingly useless degree. 

Thankfully, I had made some good friends who were still studying at my university and staying to live in the area afterwards to get work (they were all car designers). So at 24 y/o I pretty much begged them to let me move in with them so I could regain some independence and start again. I should probably mention that freelance work had been coming in post-uni in dribs and drabs. I was doing the work when I found it, but it was few and far between and not really helping me to create a uniform portfolio. I was applying to concept art and character art jobs where ever I could find them the whole time, despite really not having the portfolio to back them up because it was filled with irrelevant work such as cartoon cats I was doing for a legitimately crazy cat lady who was supposedly running a charity (but years later came to the conclusion she was more of an opportunist perpetually trying to reclaim her lost wealth and the life it had afforded her). I managed to end up working for Marvel and Lego which was weird. Though technically it wasn’t directly with either as the Marvel work was for a company who owned the rights to create licensed trading cards on Marvel’s behalf and the Lego job was outsourced to me through an agency that did media production and stuff for other companies. People always say to me “but the fact is you worked for Marvel and Lego”, and maybe it’s impostor syndrome speaking, but I don’t think they fully understand the way that kind of work...works (which is fine, but also perhaps trust the guy who’s been doing this for a living). I’d say I worked for Lego more legitimately than I did for Marvel.  

24/25 y/o and my confidence was taking a beating. I kept thinking how it was never meant to be this hard (getting a job). I’d been told by pretty much everyone I’d ever met, professional and otherwise, that I was talented and yet I wasn’t getting anywhere. Add to that the fact I was having to watch all my friends find work in their chosen fields easily and I’m honestly surprised I didn’t have/haven’t had a mental break down of some sort (especially after seeing how some people my age reacted to small periods of uncertainty). I DIGRESS, I started getting bolder with my applications and began sending them to places I thought were too good for me anyway and that would need me to be some sort of artistic veteran to even stand a chance at being considered. I’d mostly stuck to companies within the UK at this point, but I was having to move further afield because I’d exhausted what seemed to be every single games company the UK had to offer and felt like my work was more appropriate for what I deemed to be as bolder and more imaginative US companies. At the time, I was obsessed with League of Legends and had begun to learn about the company behind them, Riot Games. So I thought “fuck it” and I sent an application to their studio in Hong Kong despite being terrified by the prospect of moving there. And guess what?

They got back to me. 

Again, I don’t want to go into too much detail. But let’s just say I did another art test for this one. And then another. And then another. And then also another. I didn’t have a job, I was relying on my incredibly unreliable freelance work but pretty much prioritising the application process over everything else going on in my life. I was doing good work in my mind, quantity AND quality, the best of both worlds. I was pushing myself to get into a design frame of mind and applying my extensive knowledge of League of Legends to solve problems that I knew needed addressing in the best way I could. 

You can see where this is going. 

I didn’t get the job. I found out midday as I recall, which meant I had the whole day to wallow in self pity. But hey, I had a heap of new work for my portfolio. I was proud of it all for a few months at least and now I just feel like I have to include it in my portfolio because of how extensive it was and how much I threw myself at it. I realise now that quantity isn’t always the best thing. And I will never ever ever again draw that many iterations of a character in pencil with nice line work. It was a dumb way to work and it was slow as hell. You don’t focus on line work when you’re trying to develop ideas at an early stage, even if you’re trying to impress a big company. Part of the job is narrowing down ideas. But at the time I didn’t feel that it was my place to say what was and wasn’t good as I was trying to get in to a entry-level role and was expecting someone to make those decisions for me. I was the grunt, they were the overlord. Several months is a lot of time to exchange for a fairly simple lesson. Especially when you feel like you’re trying to play catch up in life and are now 2 years behind everyone else your age. But I’ve got to stress that I wasn’t an expert, I was still young and unlike most other people I knew, I literally had no one to advise me/ look to for tips. Which I think is something pretty much most artists go through at some point in their life seeing as we all end up pretty secluded. 

The thing is, I felt obligated to share the work I did from that application because it’s unfair to ask someone to invest so much (UNPAID) time and effort into something without letting them then use that to further their job hunt if you’re to turn them down. Art tests in general are unfair. Apply the idea of an unpaid test to most other areas of employment - marketing, banking (even bar tender jobs will pay you half the standard rate if they’re trailing you for the day) and people generally respond with something like “yeah I wouldn’t do something like that unless I was paid”. Because it comes across like you don’t respect yourself. And yet that is unfortunately the world we live in as artists. 

Moving on. Still 25 y/o going on 26, after posting pretty much all of that work on this very blog and whilst on holiday, I got an email from a guy called Ben saying he was from Riot Games and wondered if I wanted to collaborate on a comic together. I’d become accustomed to the word “collaborate” being synonymous with “free” so I was initially sceptical and didn’t think much of it. Instead turning my attention to the shrimps I was bbqing and jokingly telling my friends that some schmuck wanted to get free work out of me again. However, it began to become more real and eventually I understood that it was going to be a real job. Still freelance, but real. And for one of my favourite companies as well. I became one of 4 artists making web comics for Riot at the time and became pretty good friends with Ben. We made “Olaf Vs Everything” whilst the other horsemen of Ben’s apocalypse made “Crystal Quest”, “Academy Adventures” and “Punches and Plants” with him. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we had fun and did what we could with the limitations of the gig. Season 1 of the comic turned into season 2 and things seemed to be picking up. I was networking and making friends with like-minded artists across the world and suddenly didn’t feel so alone anymore.

I was super lucky to get invited to Riot’s HQ in L.A. along with a bunch of these other artists as part of Riot’s first Art Lab. It was a really crazy time in my life and didn’t quite feel real (sort of still doesn’t). I suddenly felt like I had something to back up my abilities to the friends and family around me and for once wasn’t a huge failure in my chosen field. It was a nice feeling and impostor syndrome definitely went away that week. 

That was over a year ago now, which is nuts. But I still know all these guys (and more). They’re a very talented bunch and for the most part, it seems like we’re all watching each other grow and actively try to get our dream jobs. Unlike the majority of artists I met at university, who seemed to only be in it for the qualification and have long since given up pursuing a career as artists. But don’t get me wrong, there were definitely some talented folks who made it work and some who really deserved to but I don’t think have done. Skip forward a bit and I actually started work as a part-time lecturer at my university in 2018, teaching the students taking the same course I did all those years ago. Working with the lecturer who 6/7 years prior had said my portfolio had too many werewolves in it (it’s some sort of running joke). It’s nice to see that they seem to be slightly more thirsty for knowledge than my year group was. The quality of their work is also a better I’d say. More diverse. And every single one of them has a drawing tablet in their first year (most of my year group didn’t get them until 2nd year, some never did). 

And now...

I spent the last few months actively sending out applications for concept art jobs again with my portfolio now containing my Artstation King Arthur competition entry in it (which has been helping me out more than I thought it would and you can see here: www.artstation.com/artwork/nQLePX). Side note - do an Artstation challenge if you can, they can be fun, push you and look great in your portfolio/cover letter. I found a job I really really really wanted that was nearby. It ticked all the boxes and almost seemed too good to be true. I did the procedural art test (unpaid of course) and had an interview. Everything felt good. Didn’t get the job. This time seemingly because of not being able to start immediately, despite the fact that all commitments I had had lined up for the next 2 months were completely cancellable. You can’t make this stuff up. So from now on, I will habitually write in capital letters on my cover letters “I CAN START IMMEDIATELY, I DON’T EVEN CARE IF I HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE STREETS IN BETWEEN WORK DAYS UNTIL I CAN FIND ACCOMMODATION, I’LL MAKE SURE I CLEAN MY TEETH BEFORE I COME IN AT THE VERY LEAST” as well as potentially screaming the word “IMMEEEEEDIATELYYYY” at any future interviewers upon hearing a “when can you start” related question. I would advise you to do the same. Well maybe not exactly the same, but y’know, just make sure they know you can start immediately. Bums in seats. Being able to start sooner = more important than being a good fit (sometimes anyway, so take that into consideration). 

I’ve mostly spent this past year realising that if I ever want to have a moderately “normal” life (aka having disposable income) then I had to give up doing comics in favour of concept art. I’d already felt that way for a long time, but this year I’ve actively avoided committing to big comic projects because they simply aren’t worth the time and effort in most cases. And to note, I did have a completely separate portfolio of comic page samples I sent out to publishers in an effort to up my game and I got absolutely no where. I’m not trying to dissuade any one else from succeeding where I’ve failed by any means. But you have to be prepared to fail a lot and if you can deal with that then by all means you should try. But for me, I really don’t like the prospect of taking a huge backwards step at this point in life, and by that I mean moving back home where it’s rent-free. Perseverance is an admirable trait. Persevering despite overwhelming odds. And though there is a very big difference between quitting and knowing when to quit, I think artists more so than any other profession don’t really know how to quit. Which is a pretty brave thing in most cases. Meanwhile, with each year that passes I feel like I can relate more and more to episodes of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa were all grown up and the major difference between the two career-wise. I love (ew grosss) my younger sister, don’t get me wrong (and don’t tell her) but she’s starting to make me look bad ahah. 

Next month I’m going to be doing a crash course at Escape Studios in London learning how to model/sculpt and animate a character of my own design in roughly 4 weeks. I’m hoping that broadening my skill set to 3D will increase my employability. It will at the very least mean I can eventually apply to character art jobs and stand a chance. However, after that course I am potentially going to look for part-time/full-time work in an unrelated field of work because I don’t really have a choice. 

I will keep looking for the concept art/ character art job out there that I know I’ll be good at. Because I’m in this for the long haul. And if you are as well, then I wish you the very best of luck and hope that something I’ve written here may help you out. 

Your hairy neighbourhood friend,

- Tom

#illustration #art #artist #concept art #character art #jobs #game #game art #game jobs #getting a job #breaking into the industry #game industry #art life #university #graduate #no work #experience #story #life story #blog #my experience #applications #cover letter #resume #cv #drawing #school #growing up

[theonethatcompletesyou]

Christmas in Lights | Junmyeon (part 1)

Genre: Fluff, Comedy, Neighbor!AU 

Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader Word Count: 2701 Warnings: None! Summary: Kim Junmyeon has been your sworn enemy ever since he beat you in the annual town Halloween decorating competition and now you will stop at nothing to beat him in the Christmas decorating competition. (This is part 1 of a 2 part story)

A/N: This was written as part of the @exo-writers-net December Collab Event! I was lucky enough to be partnered with @morkmywords I absolutely love all of her fics (I personally recommend Not Really a Cinderella Story and Peaches). And we’re sorta down to the wire on posting these, but better late than never, right??? @morkmywords wrote part 2!

PART 2 HERE

You looked up from your paperwork when the door to your office opened. Walking in the door was Kim Seju, a third grader and also your most frequent visitor. He was holding his elbow and had a small frown.

"Miss (Y/N)?" He asked with a frown.

You gave him a smile, "How's it going, Seju?"

He held out his arm out toward you, "I fell down and scraped my arm while I was playing tag."

You pressed your lips together, trying to not laugh as you reached for your first aid kit. This was the third time this week. This kid always got hurt in some way. Good thing your

He went over to his usual chair in the office and sat down next to you as you opened up the kit. You started to clean his scrape with the alcohol wipe. You started to talk to him to distract him from the pain.

"Any plans for winter break, Seju?" You asked, careful to not press down too hard to cause him more pain.

Seju winced, "Not really. It'll just be me and my dad this year. Dad doesn't have a girlfriend this year or anything so we don't have to go anywhere which is nice."

You nodded as Seju rambled on. You had already placed the bandage on his scrape but he didn't notice. You couldn't help but find his rambling endearing. At the mention of the lack of holiday plans, you had to hold yourself from scowling.

"So you and your dad are just staying home this year, huh?" You asked, a little bitter.

Seju looked at you, confused. "Yeah? But what about you, Miss (Y/N)?"

You shrugged, "I don't have any plans with family. My sister decided to go to the Bahamas with her husband. So I'm all alone this year."

For the third year in a row, you couldn't help but think bitterly. Well, you could blame it on her lavish lifestyle. She had certainly changed ever since she won the lottery.

Then again, she did gift you a house that you wouldn't have been able to afford on a school nurse salary. It was in a nice neighborhood, though you couldn't help but think it was probably the cheapest one.

You didn't have any actual plans for Christmas, but you had more important plans leading up to it. Possibly diabolical ones.

As if summoned by your thoughts, the door to your office opened again.

Walking in wearing a dark gray suit was Kim fucking Junmyeon.

He looked around the office confused until his gaze rested on you. He smiled wide, his eyes crinkling slightly.

"Knew I'd find you here," he said.

Not at you. But the boy sitting next to you.

"Dad!" Seju exclaimed, jumping out of his seat super fast and running to his father.

You watched as Junmyeon bent down to give Seju a hug. And if it were any other parent, you would have found this a cute scene.

Junmyeon locked eyes with you over Seju's shoulder, smirking. It made you seethe.

"What are you doing here?" Seju asked when he pulled away from the hug.

Junmyeon smiled and patted his son's head. "I'm pulling you out of school for your dentist appointment, remember?"

Seju pouted. "I hate going to the dentist."

Junmyeon laughed. "Well, if you don't have cavities, we can make cookies tonight, okay?"

"Really?"

"Of course!"

The bell rang, signaling the end of recess. Junmyeon nudged his son. "You go get your stuff and meet me back here, okay? I already talked to the office and your teacher."

"Okay!" Seju exclaimed, running out of the office. "Be back!"

Part of you hoped that Junmyeon would leave or wait outside, so your veins thrummed when he simply hung around.

"You going to the meeting later?" Junmyeon asked, leaning on your desk. You wanted nothing more than to smack his arms away.

"Do I really have a choice? Minseok would skin me alive if I skipped," you scoffed.

Minseok never forgave poor Baekhyun when he skipped a neighborhood community meeting to sleep early. He had put Baekhyun on cleanup duty for the three months after.

You locked eyes with him and he smirked. You wanted to slap it off of his face.

"I think he's going to announce the Christmas decorating contest tonight. Are you prepared to lose again? Ready for a repeat of Halloween?" he teased.

If you were a cartoon, steam would have been coming out of your ears. He laughed at your expression.

Seju opened the door once again, his backpack haphazardly thrown on. "You ready to go, Dad?"

"Yeah, let's go, buddy." He went to the door but turned around and winked at you. "I'll see you later, Miss (Y/N)."

Seju waved at you enthusiastically. "Have a good day, Miss (Y/N)! Thank you for the band-aid!!"

You gave the child a small wave back. You also tried not to look at Junmyeon's butt as he walked away.

You failed.

Shit.

Neighborhood community meetings were always interesting. You figured it was a perk to knowing everyone It gave you the chance to see people you were otherwise too busy to see due to differing schedules. Like Zhang Yixing, who travelled a lot but always made time to come to each meeting. And Do Kyungsoo, who always made enough food for everyone. Especially after the time Jongin was in charge of the food and gave everyone food poisoning because of bad fried chicken. It also gave everyone the opportunity to gossip like the catty housewives they pretended they wanted to be. Like Kim Jongdae, who was once again passive-aggressive in telling Chanyeol that his bushes were three inches too high for regulation. You had no idea if Chanyeol was playing dumb or if he genuinely didnt pick up what Jongdae was trying to tell him. You sat towards the back of the hall that was usually used for these meetings. You looked up when you felt someone take the seat next to you. Oh Sehun slumped in his seat, which you found odd because he usually had perfect posture. He sipped at his coffee that was usually provided at these meetings. His eye bags were dark and extreme. "Everything okay?" You asked. "I've been up for thirty hours," he mumbled. "Why?" He opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by Minseok who stood at the podium. He looked adorable in his Santa hat. "I'm glad that everyone could make it today!" He greeted warmly. "We have a bit to talk about today but I'll cut to the chase with our more exciting news. We are hosting another round of our Christmas decorating contest!" You squeezed the hem of your skirt tightly in anticipation. "This year's theme is Lights! So make sure you make your house light up the night this year!"  Minseok announced. He rambled on but your eyes trailed over to where you knew Junnyeon was sitting. You had been hyper aware of him ever since he entered the room. He looked over and locked eyes with you, a growing smirk on his face. You scowled. What a dick. "Are you still mad about him beating you on Halloween?" Sehun asked, you could tell from his teasing tone that he was amused. "Of course. What's passed is past. I just think it was ridiculous that he won even though Nightmare Before Christmas is clearly a Christmas movie and not a Halloween movie," you scoffed. "You're such a sore loser," Sehun chuckled. "Just you watch asshole," you grumbled. "I'm gonna beat him this year."

To say that you and Junmyeon had a history would be ridiculous. You had known him for a little less than a year, and for most of it you thought that he was a perfect gentleman. He definitely had his cool and suave sides, accentuated by the way he dressed in his suits for work. There was a charm about him that drew you to him immediately. It also helped that he was incredibly attractive. You felt yourself melt every time he threw a smile toward you. You could say that you harbored a little tiny crush on him. And then Halloween happened. Your neighborhood was famous—borderline notorious—for the Christmas decoration contest held every year. And for the last five years (including the first year that the house was gifted to you by your millionaire sister) the title for Best Decorator had been yours for the last five years. You were gifted a reindeer shaped statuette each year with the title Best Decorator and the year etched under it on its base. It was perhaps a little bit overboard, but you appreciated the sentiment and had each statuette proudly displayed on the mantle of your fireplace. So when a Halloween version opened up this year, you gunned for first place as well. You spent a lot of time researching fog machines and projectors. You went to haunted houses with the intent on taking notes on how to successfully make a scary aura. You had thought that your only competition would be Sehun, who thought that TP-ing his own house counted as Halloween decorating. Oh, how wrong you were. Kim Junmyeon won the title for Best Halloween Decorator. He had managed to turn his front yard into a recreation of a Tim Burton movie seemingly overnight. You could see elements of both Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice in his decoration. And because of it, he stole the title from right under your nose. It took you until almost Thanksgiving to get over the loss, but you had acknowledged Junmyeon as your rival. You resolved to keep your title for Christmas and crush him. You still adored Seju though, even though the kid got hurt enough at school to where you worried over him, seeing him was still the only good part of your day sometimes. You unlocked the door to your car only to freeze at what was inside. You looked around confused until you found a tiny card on your dashboard and opened it. You immediately ripped the card in anger. A door opened next door, Sehun was walking out, presumably leaving for work. You dropped the pieces of card on the ground and charged at Sehun, your hands wrapping around his neck. He yelped in surprise. “Why did you help Junmyeon break into my car?” you growled. “How did you know?” Sehun asked, voice barely escaping in your grip. “Only you are crafty enough to break into a car without breaking a window.” His eyes suddenly shined at the odd compliment. You thought that it was weird that he was flattered. “You think I’m crafty?” You nodded. “Like how Kevin McCallister from Home Alone is crafty.” You let go of Sehun’s neck, he bent over to catch his breath. “But that’s beside the point! Why did you help him do it?” Sehun shrugged. “He just asked me to do it and I did. He didn’t tell me why.” “He left a bajillion Christmas themed pacifiers in my car,” you said, frustrated. “Along with a card that said, ‘You might need these for when I beat you in the contest.’” “This rivalry you guys have is the weirdest form of foreplay,” Sehun wheezed, rubbing his neck. “What are you talking about?” you asked. Sehun rolled his eyes. “C’mon, (Y/N), it’s clear that you two have a thing for each other.” “I do not have a thing for Kim Junmyeon!” you exclaimed angrily, uncaring if the entire neighborhood heard you. “The way you stare at his butt begs to differ,” Sehun muttered bitterly. You rolled your eyes. In another world you thought you and Sehun would be a good match, but his interests more aligned with musicians who wore too many muscle shirts. Before you could open your mouth to reply—probably to tease him about his petty jealously—Sehun’s front door opened again, revealing Chanyeol who strided over to Sehun with his signature grin. “Sehun-ah!” he called out. He handed Sehun a paper bag. “You forgot your lunch.” Sehun smiled, eyes squinting into crescents. “Thank you, hyung. I appreciate it.” You looked back and forth between them. Sehun, as if remembering what was happening and where he was, looked at you panicked. “This isn’t what it looks like?” You quirked an eyebrow, “Good, because I don’t have the emotional capacity to unpack this right now. Just don’t help Junmyeon break into my shit ever again.” You turned around and stomped away. “I have an ass to beat this Christmas!” “Kinky!” Sehun yelled to your retreating back. You flipped him off.

You opened the door to see Seju shuffling nervously, holding a giant plastic bag in his hands. You blinked, confused, before shaking it off. You smiled, "Seju, how is your break going?" "Good, Miss (Y/N)!" Seju answered enthusiastically. He thrust the plastic bag at you. "I made these for you!" The contents of the bag looked questionable. Inside looked what appeared to be black star-shaped lumps. You hesitated to take them, but you didn't want to hurt Seju's feelings. "Thank you, Seju. What are these?" You asked. He tilted his head at you, confused. "Can't you tell? They're cookies!" You gulped before putting on a stronger, faker, smile. "Of course they are, how silly of me." "I made them to thank you for taking care of me!" Seju grinned. You were touched by the sentiment. "You're very welcome, Seju. Just be more careful when school starts back up again, okay?" Seju nodded, "Okay!" Deep down, you knew that nothing much would change. Seju waved goodbye as he went back to his house, leaving you with the bag of lump-shaped cookies. You closed the door and sighed. Should you throw them away? Another knock on the door startled you out of your thoughts. You opened the door again, surprised to see Junmyeon at your doorstep. He was most certainly dressed down. He wore a plain white shirt with gray sweatpants. His hair, not styled, was pushed out of his face by a headband. His hands were behind his back, and you could see the tiniest peek at how defined his chest was. How did he still look so good even in casual clothes? "Hi?" You asked. "What are you doing here?" Junmyeon sighed. "Whatever you do, do not eat those cookies." He revealed another plastic bag from behind his back. This time, you could clearly see that they were cookies. You gingerly took them from his outstretched hands. "Why are you being so nice to me?" You asked with a glare. Junmyeon shrugged. "My son likes you." You rolled your eyes. "You're just buttering me up so that I could let my guard down for the competition." His lips quirked up in a teasing smile. "Is it working?" "As if," you huffed. "Delicious sweets won't work on me." You were about to slam the door in his face but stopped yourself. "Thank you, though," you mumbled. "I had no idea what I was going to do with Seju's cookies." Junmyeon smiled bigger this time, more genuine. "My pleasure, (Y/N)."

You walked out on your front porch and screamed. "What the hell is this?!" You dont know how, but overnight your front yard had become a reenactment of Nightmare Before Christmas. You had come face to face with Jack Skellington in a Santa costume, smiling in a way that unsettled you. There was a note sticking on his chest with your name written in neat scrawl. You instantly recognized the writing. You opened the note. 'You're right, Nightmare Before Christmas is much more of a Christmas movie than a Halloween movie. Maybe if I gave you these you'd stand a chance at beating me. --Junmyeon' You crushed the note in your hand and pushed Jack Skellington over, screaming. You spied Sehun out of the corner of your eye, who raised his hands in surrender and shook his head, wanting to let you know that he had nothing to do with this one. You stomped over to the rest of the decorations, pulling them down. Kim Junmyeon just struck your last nerve.

PART 2

#exodecembercollab18 #exowritersnet #kim junmyeon #junmyeon #junmyeon/reader #morkmywords collab #ITS STILL DECEMBER WHERE I AM SO THIS IS TOTALLY ON TIME #kiki writes stuff sometimes #mine

[imagining-supernatural]

Chapter 1: The Party

Cracks In The Dam Series -- Reader’s POV

She’s a quiet engineering and physics major trying to forget the demons of her past, and he’s the campus playboy trying to turn over a new leaf. Their friendship is unlikely, but just might be forged to withstand the cracks in the dams they’ve built to protect themselves. (BuckyxReader college au)

Word Count: 1875

A/N: I wasn’t going to post this fic for a while, because I’ve been playing around with it for a while and I didn’t want to get locked into a certain storyline, but I just saw Infinity War and I decided I needed a little denial in my life (not a spoiler, but when the credits started rolling, I turned to my friend and whispered, “What the shit?”) So here’s the beginning of a mostly fluffy Bucky fic!

Why do I let him talk me into these things? If I could choose, I’d be spending my Friday night in my room with my music turned loud, hosting my own dance party for one. I definitely wouldn’t choose to be strolling around one of the biggest underground gambling rings in the city, keeping an eye out for some idiot who stole one of Stark’s designs.

Seriously, why do I let him talk me into these things?

Oh, right. Because he pays me the big bucks.

“How much do you think this place costs?” My boss’s voice comes over the comm system he implanted in a diamond barrette fastened in my hair right next to my ear.

“I don’t doubt that you could afford to buy it, but I strongly suggest you find a bit of self-control, Tony. You’re already walking on thin ice with Pepper.”

He just scoffed and I heard him ordering a drink, so I cast my eyes over to the bar and catch sight of him leaning against the glass counter. He flashes a smile at a woman sitting nearby and I can’t hold in my chuckle at how she nearly swoons. Really. The effect Tony Stark has on women baffles me. But, I guess I’m a little biased. After all, the man is like an Uncle to me. He changed my diapers when I was a baby and never lets anyone forget that fact.

“Canary, you spot anyone yet?” He mumbled that into his glass of whiskey so as to not raise suspicion by talking to himself. I turn around and keep up my perusal of the crowd.

Smoke from cigars mixed with the dim lighting makes it difficult to see everyone, but I make do. “I think one of my professors is over there. But other than that, I’m not seeing anyone suspicious.”

I can practically feel Tony rolling his eyes. “He’s not going to look suspicious.”

“I know that Tony. By the way, when my dad told you to keep an eye on me, I don’t think he meant for you to take me to illegal gambling setups and parties with Russian mobsters.”

“Cannie, you knew what you were getting into when you agreed to be my assistant. Besides, how else am I supposed to keep an eye on you?”

“Yeah. An amazing salary and you paying for all of my school. I’m not complaining. Just sayin’.” There was something niggling in the corner of my mind, so I quieted and tried to focus on that. Tony kept babbling through the comm piece, but I tuned him out. It was a necessary skill I’d learned years earlier.

I thought back to the surveillance video he’d shown me of the bump and grab someone had performed on one of his lackeys to steal the new weapon design. Needless to say, the person who lost the design was fired.

“Tony… how sure are you that it was a dude who stole it?”

From the corner of my eye and through the haze of cigar smoke, I saw his eyes slide over to me and his head cock to the side. “Why?”

“There’s a woman over there. The one in the green dress and pearls. Next time she walks around, watch her. She moves like the person did in the video.”

I made my way over to a craps table and pretended to be invested in what was going on. I really hoped that was her. The sooner we got the designs back, the sooner I could get back to my house. It had been a long week with a lot of midterms and homework, and Tony had been especially needy with our big deadline coming up that I needed to help him with, and I just needed two days of pure and utter relaxation.

“You’re right. I’ll get the guys on it. You did good, kid. I’ll meet you out by the car.”

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, ignoring Tony’s soft laughter. Before heading to the door, I made a stop by the bar and ordered a shot. There was alcohol back at my place, but it wouldn’t hurt to get started on my night right now.

I slowly made my way through the crowd of well-dressed people, sighing heavily with relief once I was out of the sea of diamonds, pearls, and velvet. I may have grown up surrounded by wealth, but I’d learned at a young age that it comes with a high cost. I put up with it for Tony’s sake, but I was anxious to get back to my normal, college life. Or, what I convinced myself was a normal life. Working for Tony Stark, I suppose I would never really know what normal was.

Like a James Bond movie, Tony was leaning against his too-expensive sports car that I honestly didn’t care enough to even know what make it was. He straightened up when I came closer and opened the passenger door for me. I eyed him, crossing my arms over my chest. “You good to drive? You spent a lot of time at the bar tonight.”

He rolled his eyes. “Get in, Cannie. I’m not even close to drunk. You think I’d risk your life like that?”

Point: Tony. Sliding into the sleek leather seat, I waited until Tony was in the driver seat before speaking up again. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Miss Y/L/N?”

“Add a stop at that liquor store on third, please. Tony owes me a really expensive bottle of good wine for tonight.”

“Will do, Miss Y/L/N. Mr. Stark, take a right at the next intersection.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

“Since when do you listen to her orders?” Tony asked, trying to act put-off, but I knew better. He loved me and spoiled me just like a real uncle would.

If Jarvis had a face, he would definitely be smirking. “Since she says please and thank you. Manners are important, Mr. Stark.”

My laughter rang out, nearly covering up the good-natured grumbling that came from the driver’s seat. Out of all of the creations that Tony’s made, Jarvis was my favorite.

After making that stop at the liquor store, Tony made his way to the house he bought for me. Having Tony Stark as a family friend definitely had its perks. No rent, expensive alcohol, free school… what more could a girl ask for?

“Fuck,” I muttered when I noticed all of the cars parked on the street as we got closer. “I forgot Nat and Wanda are throwing a party tonight.”

“It’ll do you good. Get you out of your shell.” The car came to a stop in the middle of the street. Tony twisted in his seat to look at me. “Seriously, have fun tonight, kid. Next week we’ve gotta hit that presentation hard.”

“Oh, is Tony Stark actually going to prepare for something for once in his life?” He just raised an eyebrow at my teasing and I schooled my grin into a serious expression. “Okay. I’ll be on my A-game. We’ll get you back in the good graces of the board.”

I picked up my purse and got out of the car. Before he pulled away, he rolled down the window. “I’m serious, Cannie. Party hard. Make me proud, but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Right... that’s not a long list.” I had taken one step away when I suddenly twirled around before he could leave. “Wait, Tony!” He watched as I wrestled with the barrette. It took a few seconds, but I finally unclasped it and tugged it free from my hair. Tossing it onto the passenger seat, I leaned down to talk to him. “I only make that mistake once.”

The first time Tony had taken me on a recon mission, as he put it, I’d forgotten to give him back the comm device. The next time I saw him, he gave me all sorts of shit for the things he’d overheard Wanda, Nat, and I talking about.

Even now, he smirked. “I was happy to hear that Wanda finally asked that Sam guy out.”

“Oh, fuck off, Tony.”

At my retreating back, he shouted, “Have fun! Use protection!”

“Drive away, Tony!”

The growl of his engine accelerating gave me all the permission I needed to finally let my smile loose. As odd as he was, I had to admit that my life would be much duller without my boss slash pseudo uncle in it.

But now I had to face a house full of drunk frat boys and sorority girls. Really, all I needed was to make it to my room and change out of this dress. Everyone knew that our bedrooms were off limits during parties, so that was my safe zone. My destination. However, I was dressed like I was going to walk the red carpet, so getting there unnoticed was going to be a struggle.

“Need some help up those stairs, doll?”

Exactly who I wanted to see. With pursed lips, I walked up the stairs to the porch and gave a tight smile to the man sitting on the porch swing with a cigarette hanging from his fingers. “Hi Bucky.”

“Your date didn’t go well? It’s only midnight and you’re already home.” He tsked and shook his head. “Such a shame too. You got all gussied up for him. What a waste.”

“Gussied up? What is this, the 1940s?”

“Obviously not, since your date would have walked you to your door instead of dropping you off in the middle of the street.” He took another drag of his cigarette before standing up and dropping it onto the porch, using his shoe to grind it up. “Where are people’s manners nowadays?”

With my eyes trained purposefully on the destroyed cigarette on my porch, I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Where are people’s manners anymore?”

He laughed and opened the door, using his free arm to motion me in first. “After you, doll. See, I have manners.”

“What a catch,” I respond drily. There are so many people here. How I ended up becoming friends with two of the most social people on campus was a mystery. I was the complete opposite of Wanda and Nat. Somehow, we worked though.

Heat from Bucky’s body right behind me set me on edge. He rested his hand on my waist and leaned forward until his lips were at my ear and he was practically pressed against me. “You’d be damn lucky to catch me, Y/L/N.”

“In your dreams, Barnes.”

That damn carefree smile on that damn gorgeous face with that damn twinkle in his eyes was all that I could take. Of course, just as I was about to come up with a good come back and walk away with the last word, he had to ramp up his charm. His hand stole my fingers as he came around in front of me and brought my knuckles up to brush his lips across the skin in a feathery kiss. “Maybe one day, Y/N. Maybe one day.”

Then he was gone, swallowed up by the crowd of drunken bodies. I huffed and turned towards the stairs, making my way up to my room. What a cocky arrogant bastard.

Chapter 2: History Class

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