#have spent the last three hours wrangling this

[rriavian]

I've finally redrafted the mess that was Courting the King, so unless something goes horrifically wrong during my reread tomorrow it's ready for one final intense edit.

Then I can post some other fics, can finish the last couple of thousand words of Deliverance, enjoy some more ask games, and hopefully not get stuck on an almost finished fic for half a year again. Honestly it's been almost done for long enough that I'd really planned to post back in March. So if I come on tumblr tomorrow and it's just incoherent screeching, erm, well—take it as a sign I'm probably writing more self indulgent cat!Dream to cheer myself up.

(Who am I kidding—I'll be writing self indulgent cat!Dream anyway)

#thank goodness #i came home from work half asleep #have spent the last three hours wrangling this #got so much spare prose it's insane #and the next part of the series might not end up being the fic i've finished #but i think it's finally nearly done #fic progress

[strangersmunsons]

read 'em and weep

you and Eddie meet at the library. he’s smitten.

Contains: Eddie x Reader, bookworm!reader, lovesick!Eddie, reader gives Eddie book recommendations. No mention of reader’s physical appearance, no use of y/n. Warnings: brief mention of loneliness & negligence in Eddie’s childhood. Word Count: ~2.2k it's my hope to make this a little series! i think eddie is def a bookish guy - no lord of the rings quoting, metal head dungeon master hates reading. he would certainly be open to any fantasy/horror recs you had for him! <3

Indiana. 1989.

Hawkins Library sees a lot of action in the summer.

They offer a wide variety of youth programs to keep the local kids busy and the parents sane while school is out. One of the main events is Saturday Story Time, a beloved weekly staple that you have recently been tasked with putting on.

It’s simple. You gather a number of books, usually with a common theme, and then read a select few to the children who had signed up for the day. Most of the kids in attendance are no older than six or so, with some parents even pulling up chairs to the back so they can sit with infants cradled in their arms. The older ones sit criss-cross-applesauce on carpet squares in front of you, their chubby faces alight with giggles as you recount each silly, fantastical story with all the spirit you can muster.

And then there’s always an accompanying arts and crafts project, of course. If you read The Very Hungry Caterpillar then, naturally, you have to make little googly-eyed caterpillars out of popsicle sticks and colorful pom-poms. You don’t make the rules.

If trouble occurs during Story Time, it’s usually in this phase. (Giving paste to toddlers is always a gamble – you never know what they’re gonna do with that.)

And on this particular morning, it’s been chaos from start to finish. A whopping eighteen kids had signed up, and you stretched yourself pretty thin trying to attend to everyone.

One of the babies spit up directly onto the little girl sitting in front of him and his mother. Someone slipped on their carpet square and fell harshly to the floor, earning a bruised elbow that you gently fussed over. You wrangled a pair of twins who fought bitterly over a bottle of Elmer’s glue. There were three individual running-with-scissors-scares and, finally, you spent a good ten minutes soothing one sobbing child with whom there was nothing apparently wrong with, and that you suspected was just in need of a good cry.

So yeah, it was basically pandemonium.

But eventually, to your great relief, things wound down. The audience dispersed, with their handmade goods clutched in sticky fists, and went to peruse the glossy line of picture books you put out for display. Within the next hour or two, everyone traded the cool darkness of the library for buttery sunshine, and all was quiet again. You waved cheerfully to the last parent-child duo as they made their exit, promising them that there’d be a fun activity next weekend too.

You love these storytime sessions, you really do, but sheesh. Sometimes they run you ragged. With the havoc of the morning finally over, and the promise of lunch in your near future, you try to shake off the weariness, and instead take it upon yourself to clean up the disorganized mess someone’s made of the horror section.

You’re going about your work, tongue poking out in concentration as you strain to reach the really high shelves, when you notice someone standing in your peripheral vision. You turn and glance at him, or at least, what you can see of him. He’s half-hidden by the shelf behind you, but you catch sight of brown hair and denim.

A pale face appears on a craned neck from around the corner. His dark eyes meet yours, widen slightly when he sees that you’ve caught him lurking, and he abruptly disappears again.

You purse your lips to hide your smile. This isn’t uncommon; such moments often occur when you’re cleaning up a section of books someone is hoping to sift through. In a small act of kindness, you move over to the neighboring shelf and look for something to busy yourself with; trying to give the guy a chance to browse without having to ask you to step aside.

He doesn’t emerge. You wait, expecting to sense him passing by you, but no dice. It’s amusing to think that someone might be frightened to approach you (You? Really?) but you can’t help feeling sorry that you were in his way.

The rest of your shift is rather uneventful. At the end of the day, you punch out and head home, the stranger behind the shelf forgotten. 

When you come back to work on Monday, it’s much quieter than the last morning you’d been in. You greet your coworkers and set up shop at the front desk, opening up a book of your own to pass the time until someone needed assistance.

You’ve been reading for about half an hour when the big double doors open up for the day’s first visitor, the sound echoing loudly in the silent, spacious room. You look up in interest, ready to greet the person with a warm smile.

“Good morning!” you softly call out as he comes into view. He walks slowly towards you, shoes scuffing the checkered tile with each step. As he comes nearer, you can see that he’s biting his lip, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, the gesture oozing self-consciousness. He only makes eye contact with you for a second before his gaze flits away again.

He’s pretty conspicuous-looking to be approaching the desk with such hesitance, you think. He has dark hair that hangs in slightly-scraggly curls down to his chest, and huge dark eyes. The pale skin of his arms, sticking out from within a denim vest/Judas Priest t-shirt combo, are littered with tattoos.

He pauses a few feet away from you, like he’s debating whether he wants to stop and chat, or to simply veer off towards the bookshelves and start browsing. Ultimately he decides to shuffle forward, closing the distance between the two of you.

“Hi there. What can I do for you?” you ask, voice gentle but encouraging.

He looks down and rests a hand on the desk, absentmindedly tracing the wood pattern with his thumb. “Um, yes.” He doesn’t offer anything else.

There’s a pregnant pause, both of you digesting the fact that what you had asked was not a yes or no question.

He tries again. “I…am in need…of some new reading material.”

You nod gravely, expression serious. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Did you have anything specific in mind?”

He begins to rock lightly back and forth on his feet, contemplating. “I like fantasy, especially Tolkien. I read a lot of horror, too, and sometimes sci-fi. If you had any suggestions for me, that’d be great.”

“Oh, we can certainly find you something,” you reassure him, already flipping through a mental rolodex of your favorite books in those genres. “Here, come with me.”

You stand and move around the desk to meet him, beckoning for him to follow.

Eddie watches you run a delicate hand over the spines of the books, keenly aware of the clammy sweat that’s flooding his own palms. Be cool, Munson. 

“So,” you begin, a gleam of excitement in your eyes, “you like fantasy. Do you read Le Guin?”

Eddie nods eagerly, hair bouncing slightly with the movement. “Oh yeah, I’ve read the Earthsea trilogy.”

“Have you read any of The Hainish Cycle books?”

“I haven’t read those ones, no.”

You pull out two slim paperbacks from the row, holding each one out for him so he can study the covers. “These ones are science fiction, and they’re pretty good. You might like Rocannon’s World since it’s similar to a fantasy novel, but personally I think Left Hand of Darkness is the best.” You suddenly pause, and look around furtively, like you were checking to make sure that you two are really alone. You even put a hand up to the side of your mouth, as though shielding the conversation from eavesdroppers.

“Honestly,” you lower your voice like you’re admitting something scandalous, “I even liked it better than Earthsea.”

“No!” Eddie immediately matches your whispered, gossipy tone and lets his jaw drop, pretending to be aghast.

“Yes!” you insist, seemingly delighted by his willingness to play along. Eddie’s heart soars.

“I guess I can’t refute that until I read it, huh? What’s it about?” he asked, taking it from your hand.

“An envoy is visiting this frozen alien planet, and he’s trying to convince them to join this intergalactic coalition that he represents, but they’re making it like, really difficult for him. Also, gender doesn’t exist, and there’s political turmoil stemming from border disputes.”

“...oh. Cool.”

The next half-hour passes in this fashion. Your soft, mild demeanor is aglow with enthusiasm as you pull out book after book, giving him an off-the-cuff elevator pitch for each. Eddie can practically feel the cartoon hearts swirling around his head, bright pink and red bubbles that are almost certainly going to appear out of thin air and give him away.

He can’t put his finger on what it is, precisely, that’s pulling him in so deeply, drawing him towards you like a magnet with an opposite pole. Maybe it’s the tender way you talk about each book, the love and care that’s so tangible in your sweet voice, the way you speak about them as though they’re your old friends. Perhaps they are.

It’s not an unfamiliar concept to Eddie. A childhood steeped in loneliness and poverty, instability and dysfunction, neglect from his volatile and unreliable parents…yeah, he gets it. The wanting, the longing, the dire need to escape to someplace that doesn’t exist, some place where things were better and didn’t hurt, a dreamworld that would be kinder to a scrawny little boy with unwashed hair and a mean father.

The closest he ever came to it was when he lost himself between the yellowed and dog-eared pages of the few, precious books he owned.

So he listens to you chatter away with chest-aching tenderness, already thinking that he could listen to you like this for hours and be glad for it.

“You love fantasy, but you’ve never read The Last Unicorn?” 

Eddie gives you an apologetic half-shrug, no longer able to keep the goofy, besotted grin from unfurling across his face. “Never got around to it, I guess.”

“It makes me cry. You have to take it,” you tell him with pleading eyes, adding it to the top of the growing pile in his arms before he can refuse. Not that he ever would. How could he, when you look at him like that?

“You cry at this one, really?” He looks curiously at the artwork on the front, an innocent picture of the pale horned creature. “But it’s so unassuming…”

“Don’t be fooled, it’ll get you. Take it,” you repeat.

Eddie shifts the stack of books to cradle it in one arm, so he can raise the other at you in a salute. “Yes, ma’am. And when I’m finished with it, I’ll give you a full report on the emotional damage it caused me.”

This makes you giggle, lips turned up in a gorgeous smile, and Eddie knows he’s a goner.

Back at the front, you resume your previous positions at the desk. Him in front and you behind, this time separated by a short pile of books.

You hold your hand out. “Card, please, sir.” Polite and professional, but with a little sparkle in your eye that lets Eddie hope for a moment that his time with you this morning was more pleasure than business.

He fumbles with his wallet, slipping out his library card and slotting it between his index and middle fingers, extending it for you to take. His chunky silver rings catch the light.

You accept the offering. “Thank you” – you quickly read the messy signature at the bottom – “Edward.” You look back at him with a grin.

He cringes, face scrunching in embarrassment. “Oh God. Call me Eddie, please.”

The scanner gives a little chirp! as you begin the checkout process, nodding. “Will do, Eddie.” His name sounds like a song when you say it, one he never wants to stop listening to.

You finish scanning his books, and slide a receipt into the jacket of the novel on top (which just so happens to be Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love). Instead of sliding the stack towards him, you keep both hands clasped on the cover, hesitating. You bite your lip, an unconscious imitation of himself earlier. “Listen….”

Eddie straightens up a little, stomach flipping like a coin. “Yeah?”

You bow your head. “I’m sorry if I talked too much. It’s just – most people who come in don’t actually ask me for recommendations, and I got excited,” you admit quietly, looking sheepish.

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie says without missing a beat. “I appreciate it. I really enjoyed it, actually,” he adds, eager to quell your anxiety. “I liked talking with you.” More than you know.

“O-oh,” you stutter, taken aback. “I liked talking with you, too.”

Eddie nods, smiling slightly. “Would you like to…talk again?” He flushes scarlet and coughs. Smooth. “I just mean, when I finish these” – he motions towards the day’s finds – “we have to discuss them, right? You helped me pick ‘em out, after all.”

“Of course. You have to let me know what you think.”

His smile gets bigger. “So we’ll reconvene?”

“We’ll reconvene,” you chuckle.

“Awesome. Looking forward to it.” He sweeps up his books, and gives you a little wave. “Thanks again, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.”

And he can hardly wait. It looks like he’s got a lot of reading to do…

thanks for reading!!! <3 edit: this is now a series! Read Ch. 2-> Here!

#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x bookworm!reader #stranger things fanfiction

[wintaerbaer]

things we don't say: part 6 (TEASER) (kth)

banner credit: @itaeewon

summary: Three years after graduating college, everything seems to be falling into place for you: stable job, cozy apartment, and a long-term boyfriend with a ring box hidden in his desk drawer. But when a mutual friend makes a remark that your best friend of nearly two decades is clearly in love with you, you realize that life may not be as simple as it seems.

pairing: Taehyung x Reader (with some VERY brief Seokjin x Reader and Yoongi x Reader)

rating: 18+ (MINORS DNI)

genres: best friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, slooooow burn, angst, fluff

word count: 1.2k

teaser warnings: a very sad boy, references to sexual situations, brief mentions of child abuse, vomiting, someone has a wet dream, guilt, shame, a haircut

a/n: sincerest apologies that this series has gone so long without an update. i was struggling with some aggressive writer's block these past few months, but i think we're back in business! <3

PREVIOUS // SERIES MASTERLIST

To say he falls into a state of depression may be an understatement.

He barely eats, barely sleeps, and while Taehyung has always considered you to be the center of his universe—his entire being oriented to you like a star—you’ve begun to haunt him in ways that you never have before. Reminders of you creeping into every minute of his days.

It’s passing your favorite ramen place on his way home from a photoshoot. Or finding a can of your favorite sparkling water buried in the back of his fridge. Or flipping past the cooking show you used to watch together or stumbling upon one of your sweatshirts in his closet or the fact that he still has that damn photo of you hanging up behind his desk.

You’re everywhere—your being so deeply ingrained into his life that he couldn’t erase you even if he wanted to.

And he certainly doesn’t want to erase you; he’s too selfish for that. Even now, even after he’s fucked up to catastrophic degrees by forcing his feelings on you, he still can’t bear to face you directly. Because he knows it would be the end of him for you to reject and abandon him too, even if he can’t blame you for it.

It keeps him up at night, thinking about what he could’ve done differently. How he somehow lost his handle on the control which he has always internally prided himself on (sans a drunken conversation with Namjoon last year where he spilled his guts as was met with a lack of surprise on his friend’s part). He’s always promised himself that he would never burden you, that his love for you was not your responsibility but something for him to manage on his own.

And yet, with you sitting so close on the hotel bed—looking absolutely beautiful in your simple PJs even after he spent the day with you all dressed up—his defenses had crumbled the second you pressed into his side and asked him the final question of your fateful game.

How could he not kiss you then? How could he not give you what you asked of him when he wouldn’t hesitate to lay down his very life if you required it?

But still, he spends hours each night staring at the white expanse of his ceiling wishing he had held back like he always did. Years spent training himself to resist the way his blood calls out for you reduced to naught the second he got his first taste of your lips. And now you likely hate him.

And as if it’s not enough for his brain to put him through this nightly torture, the guilt eating him alive, when he finally does manage to scrounge up a few hours of sleep, there’s the matter of the dreams.

He revisits the hotel room every night. Can taste you again, hear your moans, feel your mouth on him and your warm skin underneath his hands as his mind drags him back through every minute detail on a loop. It’s agony, having to both wrangle with the knowledge of how it felt to be with you as well as face his sins every time he closes his eyes. Realize just how badly he fucked up when he wakes to once again find the other half of his bed empty.

Because in spite of him spending years convincing himself that you were never meant to be, there’s still a small part of Taehyung’s subconscious that’s always carved out space for you in his life. It’s the part that stocks your favorite drinks in his fridge, keeps that photo of you pinned behind his computer, leaves a side of the bed open for you because he became so damn accustomed to sleeping next to you in high school.

He’d found that the bruises from his father didn’t hurt as much when you were sitting next to him making him laugh in your bedroom. That his brain would quiet enough from the terrors to allow him to sleep if you were there lying next to him. That he didn’t feel the dull pain, only the gentle touches of your fingers, as you carefully applied makeup onto the dark patches of skin before school.

It had been easy, then, to dedicate himself to providing you with the same support and care you had shown him in any way he could. To wish for your happiness above all else—his guardian angel through and through.

At least, that is, until he lost control in that hotel room.

One night, after a particularly vivid dream involving your body under his, he awakes to sheets that are soaked around his middle. He blanches at the evidence of his body’s desire for you even now, the horror at the audacity of his unconscious mind causing bile to churn and rise in his throat.

He bolts for the bathroom, barely making it there before he empties the contents of his stomach into the toilet. His body shakes as he retches above the porcelain, guilt rattling his bones until he can hardly keep himself upright.

When the waves of nausea stop, when he can finally pull himself up to lean his elbows against the sink, he stares hard at the mirror and man he sees there.

He looks haggard, dark splotches sitting under his eyes and hair hanging limp around his face and over his forehead. The pale skin of his cheeks and lips is surely due, in part, to the vomiting, but there’s no denying that he’s a shell of his former self. A ghost just going through the motions of a past life.

And it’s there, peering through the darkness at his own reflection, that Taehyung decides he hates himself.

He’s not sure if it’s the raw disgust or the unrelenting shame that has him reaching for the hair clippers, but as his sable tresses begin to fall in chunks over the bathroom counter and floor, Taehyung thinks he deserves this.

He deserves the torment of his dreams. That disturbing combination of his wildest fantasies and nightmares rolled into one.

He deserves to wake up alone. To be reminded of his transgressions at the break of each day.

And he deserves to lose you.

Hell, he never deserved to have you.

The silence that follows the buzz of the trimmer seems at odds with the roaring in his head. Still, he manages to scoop the mess of hair into the trash before dragging himself back to the tangle of his sheets.

He finds himself right back in that cursed hotel room.

When he shuffles into the living room the next morning, still fighting the lingering tastes of bile and your lips, Jungkook and Jimin are already awake at the kitchen bar drinking coffee. They freeze at the sight of him; the pastry that Jimin was halfway to putting in his mouth hits the ground with a thud as Jungkook lets out a low whistle and simply shakes his head.

“That bad, huh?”

a/n: may or may not go back and revise this again for the final draft. in the meantime, a reminder that my ask box is always open! <3

#taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts x reader #bts x you #bts imagines #taehyung imagines #taehyung fic #taehyung fanfic #bts fluff #bts angst #bts fic #bts fanfic #taehyung smut #bts smut

[legendofmorons]

An incomplete list of Stories The Chain Likes To Ignore Happened

(I will elaborate if asked. Or if I'm bored, tbh.)

Legend having a nightmare and getting woken up halfway by Wild to go collect goats for something the Sailor wants. This ends with 15 goats, three separate lectures, and Legend biting Twilight's left arm (on accident)

Wind is a fucking crow or magpie istg- he picks up anything shiny, this has gotten him into SEVRAL traps and dungeons they could have avoided

Time got stuck in a tree. He was NOT a happy camper. (Wild has pictures)

Hyrule walked into a fairy fountain and passed out in it. He was so tired.

They got to see a play about Legend's adventures and Legened. (It went about as good as it did in Avatar the last airbender) ---> See Here

Wild and Twilight had a goat wrangling competition. Warriors won despite not participating.

Sky and Four spent six hours discussing the master sword. They still can't figure all the secrets out.

#lu #linkeduniverse #lu time #lu wild #lu hyrule #lu legend #lu warriors #lu four #lu wind #lu twilight #lu sky

[rfxiii]

I saw the winter prompts could you possibly do "You're the only gift I want to unwrap." For Franklin

Btw I love your work keep it up 💚

(Hii! Tysm for the request and the kind words! I hope I did your request justice! So sorry for the long wait 🙏)

All I Want For Christmas Is You

TW: smut

Word count: 2903

“Oh my god! This is hopeless!” you growl to yourself, flopping backwards onto the bed and glaring out the huge windows framing the large backyard at Franklin’s Vinewood home.

You’d spent the last three weeks agonizing over what to get him for Christmas. But unfortunately, Franklin was so damn easy to please that when you’d practically begged him to tell you what he wanted for his Christmas gift, he’d simply shrugged and said “I don’t need nothing. Seriously. Anything you get will be great.” But that wasn’t good enough for you. He was the perfect boyfriend, he was the perfect man. And there was no way you were going to get him some generic, boring present. He deserved the world.

You’d broken down last week and asked Lamar for help. But as close of friends as they were, that lanky goofball was little to no help. He’d suggested taking Frank to get a haircut, or maybe buying him some better clothes or a replacement for his “dusty, busted ass shoes.” But even that felt too basic for what he deserved. You’d even asked Michael for his opinion. But after they’d all received all of that cash from their Union Depository score, Michael had only shrugged and said “The kids got all the money in the world now. If he wanted it, wouldn’t he have it by now?”

You’re floundering for ideas now, but not deterred. There’s only one more day before Christmas, but you were not going to let this conundrum get the best of you. And with a new fire ignited inside you, you pull out your phone and call up Lamar yet again, “Lamar, listen! I’m dying here. I need help! Meet me at Rockford Plaza in twenty. Please! I still haven’t gotten Frank a gift, and I’m dying here!” you plead, pacing the bedroom in a growing panic.

“Ugh! Aight, aight! Damn, you really stressin’ about this. And we gotta go to the fancy ass mall?.. Fuck. Aight! I’ll meet yo’ ass there.” Lamar groans, and you hear shuffling in the background which thankfully signals him actually getting up to get ready to go.

“Oh my god! Thank you! Thank you, thank you! I owe you so big for this, Lamar! I’ll see you there!” you chirp, hanging up the phone and scrambling off to grab your jacket.

You’d planned on this shopping trip today, and had thankfully been able to wrangle Michael into your plan of helping get Franklin out of the house to avoid any suspicion. And now, with all your plans set carefully in place, you head off to meet Lamar for your last ditch effort in finding the perfect gift.

But unfortunately, this close to Christmas, your shopping trip proves to be anything but easy or relaxing.

You and Lamar hurry through the crowded plaza, your eyes darting from one shop to the next as you both try to contain your growing frustration. It's been almost an hour since you met at Rockford Plaza, and so far, all you've managed to find are a few mediocre presents that just don't seem quite right for Franklin. You can't help but feel like you're running out of time, and with each passing minute, the pressure to find the perfect gift for the man who wants nothing seems to intensify.

"I don't know, man," Lamar says, shaking his head as he studies a display of expensive colognes, "He's just so hard to shop for. I mean, what does he even like?"

You feel your brow twitching in irritation as you shoot him a look, “What do you mean, what does he like? You’re his best friend! How can you not-“ You stop your ranting and pull Lamar to a stop in front of a jewelry store, the glittering display of diamonds and precious gems catching your eye. "What about jewelry?" you suggest, feeling a pang of nervousness in your stomach. Jewelry like this is a big gesture, and you're not entirely sure if it's something that Franklin would even want. But as you look around, you can't help but feel drawn to the elegance and the beauty behind each piece.

Lamar shrugs, looking unsure. "I guess it won’t hurt nothin’ to look, right?" he says, following you into the store.

The saleswoman, a polished and professional woman with a knowing smile, approaches you both and inquires if she can be of assistance. You glance at Lamar, who seems to be growing more nervous by the second, and then back at the saleswoman, feeling a surge of determination. This is it. This has to be the one.

As you describe to the saleswoman the qualities that you admire about Franklin and the kind of person he is, you feel a warmth spreading through your chest. You're not just buying a present; you're expressing how you feel about him, how much he means to you. The woman shows you various pieces around the store, but when she shows you a stunning pair of black diamond earrings, you know immediately that this is it. This is the gift that gives everything you've been trying to say for the past three weeks.

You swallow hard, feeling a lump forming in your throat, and turn to Lamar, who is watching you with a mixture of anxiety at feeling out of place and hope that you’d finally found the right gift. "Lamar, I think I got it," you say, your voice trembling just a little. "What do you think?"

“Ya know what-..” Lamar mutters, gazing at the diamond studs inside the thick, glass case, “I think we got a winner.”

“Yeah?” you breathe hopefully, grinning up at him as you begin to imagine the surprise on Franklin’s face when he revived his gift.

“Yeah, homie.. Now, hurry up and let’s get the fuck outta here. I can’t put up with too much more a’ this shit.” Lamar snickers, his gaze darting around to the masses of people milling about frantically through the shops.

You grin at the saleswoman, pointing again to the earrings with a decisive nod, “These. We’ll take these, please!”

The price tag on the item nearly floors Lamar, and the expert wrapping skill of the sales associate has you gawking, as well. Finally, she places the perfectly wrapped box into an equally nice bag- decorated with shiny, black tissue paper. You give her your thanks and quickly lead Lamar back to where you’d left your vehicles.

“Aw, motherfucker!” Lamar growls, snatching the parking ticket off his vans windshield, “Double parked? Bullshit! This right here is a perfect park job!” He argues with absolutely no one.

You have the good grace not to mention his abysmal parking job. Instead, snatching the ticket from his hand and taking in the several hundred dollar fine he now owes, “Ya know what- Gimme this. I’ll pay for it as soon as the holiday is over. Like I said, I owe you so big, LD!”

“No shit? Aight, bet! Thanks a lot, homie!” Lamar chuckles in relieved disbelief. And as he watches you jog off to your car, he calls out to you with a big, cheeky grin, “An’ merry Christmas!”

“Yeah! Have a good Christmas, Lamar!” you shout back, feeling relief washing over you at finally having found the perfect gift.

You spend the rest of the day biting your tongue to keep from excitedly spilling your secret gift to Franklin. But the night is still nice together. Michael had taken him golfing, Trevor had joined them later on and gotten them kicked out, then they’d all been forced to go see one of Michael’s favorite, shitty, black and white films, before he’d come home and been happy for time to actually relax with you after trying to corral his two older friends all day. You’d had a nice dinner, spent time together watching tv, curled up together on the couch, before finally going to bed and leaving you struggling to sleep with your bubbling excitement.

The bright morning sunlight streams in through the window the next morning, casting a warm glow across the bed where you and Franklin lie. Your stomach rumbles, reminding you that it's been a while since you've eaten, and with a contented yawn, you roll over to nuzzle into his neck. He hums sleepily, one hand absently stroking your hair as he nestles deeper into the pillows. You grin, sitting up and swinging your legs over the side of the bed.

"Morning, sleepyhead," you murmur, leaning over to kiss him gently. "Think you can get up and help me make some breakfast?"

Franklin yawns, stretching his arms high above his head, before letting out a contented sigh. "I guess I could," he grins sleepily, sitting up and blinking blearily at the clock. "What are we having?"

As you watch him throw off the covers and pad over to the bathroom, you can't help but marvel at how comfortable you've become with him. It feels so natural to be here, sharing this space with him. Even as time passes, there's still an element of newness to it, a spark that keeps things exciting and alive. You know that this is where you're supposed to be, and that thought alone fills you with a warmth that spreads through your entire body.

While he's in the bathroom, you head into the kitchen and begin to rummage through the fridge. You pull out some eggs, bread, and some fruit, setting them all on the counter. The eggs sizzle in the pan as you chop up some avocado, thinking about how much he's going to love the surprise you have planned for him. You're so focused on your cooking that you don't notice him sneak up behind you until you feel his warm breath on your neck.

"Mmm, that smells amazing," he says, wrapping his arms around you from behind. You lean back into him, feeling the muscles in his chest and arms through his t-shirt.

"It's just a little something I threw together," you reply, glancing over your shoulder at him. "But I hope you like it."

He pulls you closer, nuzzling into your neck as he breathes in the scent of breakfast. "I'm sure I'll love whatever you make," he whispers, his lips brushing against your ear. "You're the best cook I know."

When the food is finally ready, you serve it up on two plates and carry them over to the living room, setting them down on the coffee table. You watch as he takes in the spread, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Wow, this is... amazing," he breathes, looking up at you. "Thank you, babe."

You grin, feeling a rush of pride and happiness. "You're welcome. I hope you like it."

He takes a bite of the egg and avocado sandwich, savoring the flavors before swallowing. "It's delicious," he says, looking up at you again. "You really outdid yourself."

You blush, feeling the warmth spread from your cheeks down to your stomach. "I'm glad you like it." You hesitate for a moment, then reach over to grab the small box that you'd hidden behind a throw pillow earlier. Handing it to him, you watch as his expression changes from surprise to delight.

"Merry Christmas." you urge, your heart racing. He takes the box carefully, his fingers tracing over the intricate pattern on the wrapping paper. With a gentle tug, he pulls it off to reveal the black diamond earrings you’d searched so hard to pick out.

“Babe,-.. Holy shit..” Franklin gasps out, his fingers almost cautiously tracing the gems of the earrings.

His reaction is muted and shocked, and you begin to fear that maybe this isn’t even remotely something that he enjoys. But before you can panic too thoroughly, he’s letting out a disbelieving gasp and shooting you the brightest smile you’d seen since you’d agreed to go out with him, “This is…amazing! Holy shit! How’d you pick these out?” he gasps, the smile on his cheeks unwavering.

“You..like’em? Really? Oh my god, I’m so glad! Lamar and I were out all day looking for something to give you, and he was no help, and I was afraid you wouldn’t like these! But I saw’em, and I thought they’d look really nice on you, and I’ve spent all month panicking over what to get you, and-“

“Babe!” Franklin chuckles, cupping your cheeks to silence your frantic rambling, “These are perfect.” he coos before leaning in closer, “But really-.. You're the only gift I want to unwrap.”

He leans in, stealing your breath away when his warm, soft lips press to yours in the softest, slow kiss that has your heart fluttering and head spinning.

“I love you.” you gasp against his lips- your fingers knotting in the front of his shirt to pull him close.

“I love you too, babe.” Franklin mutters with a grin softly twitching his lips.

As you sit there, wrapped up in each other and the glow of the Christmas tree, the room feels impossibly warm and cozy. You lean in, pressing your lips against his again, feeling the familiar heat of his mouth against yours. He pulls you closer, one hand slipping beneath your sweater to stroke your back, the other tangled in your hair.

Time seems to stand still as you lose yourself in the moment, the rest of the world fading away into the background. And in this perfect, fleeting moment, you realize that you are exactly where you're meant to be.

The kiss deepens, and your heart races as you feel his hand slip under your shirt, tracing lightly over your skin. His touch sends shivers down your spine, and you find yourself melting further into his embrace. You pull back slightly, just enough to look into his eyes, and you know that he can see the desire burning bright within them.

With a soft moan, he presses his lips to yours again, more urgently this time. You respond in kind, your hands fumbling with the buttons of his shirt as you try to get it open. He helps you, his fingers deftly working the buttons loose before throwing the shirt aside, revealing his toned chest and soft skin.

You reach up, brushing your fingers over his hair, marveling at the feel of it between your fingers. He shudders at the touch, and you can feel the hardness of his erection pressed against your thigh. You pull him closer, feeling the heat from his body sear into your own, wanting nothing more than to be as close to him as humanly possible.

"I love you," you sigh again, your voice barely more than a whisper as you gaze deeply into his eyes. And in that moment, you know without a doubt that it's true. He smiles, lips curving into a lazy grin as he responds, "I love you too."

As if the words themselves are a catalyst, your clothes seem to melt away, and you find yourself lying naked beneath him, bodies entwined. The air is heavy with the scent of the pine Christmas tree and desire, and the only noise that fills your ears is the rhythmic sound of your hearts beating in perfect unison.

With a soft groan, he presses the length of his erection against your entrance, and you feel the hot, thick head of him press into you. You gasp, arching your back as he slowly begins to push inside. He fills you slowly, inch by excruciatingly perfect inch, and when he's finally buried deep inside you, you feel complete.

His hips begin to move, and you throw your head back, moaning as he starts to thrust. The sensation of being so intimately connected to him is overwhelming, and you feel your orgasm building quickly.

"Franklin..." you breathe, your voice shaking with the effort to hold back the release. "Oh god, I'm going to..." Your words are cut off by a sharp cry as your body is wracked by an intense shock, your muscles tensing and your nails digging into his skin. He follows soon after, his thrusts growing frantic as he releases himself deep inside you.

As your breathing begins to steady, he rolls to the side, pulling you into his embrace. You feel his hot breath against your ear as he whispers, "I love you, baby. I love you so much." And in that moment, you know that this is real. This is forever.

Your heart feels lighter than air, and the warmth from his body seems to spread through your entire being. You lie there, content and at peace, feeling the rhythm of his heart against your chest. He nuzzles his face into your hair, kissing your neck and shoulders, and you feel a shiver run down your spine.

“So,-..” you sigh softly, looking up at him with the faintest hint of a teasing grin, “What’d you get me for Christmas?”

“Oh my god! You’re ridiculous. Hang on!” Franklin chuckles, pressing a kiss to your forehead and stumbling to pull up his pants before scurrying off to the bedroom.

And you can’t help but laugh as you watch the love of your life stumbling downstairs with his pants halfway off his hips.

This Christmas had been hectic, and more than agonizing in your endeavor to find the perfect gift. But seeing the smile and excitement on Franklin’s face had proved to be more perfect than any gift.

#gta v #gta 5 #grand theft auto v #grand theft auto 5 #franklin clinton #gta x reader #x reader #/reader #franklin clinton x reader #franklin clinton/reader

[noxturnalpascal]

Happy Ending [II]

Masterlist (with all warnings)

A/N: tía - aunt, tío - uncle, primo - cousin, dios mío - my god, chulo - pimp, bonito - pretty (masculine), mala - bad, cariño - darling, guapo - handsome, mi amor - my love

🩷 🌅 🌴

The next morning he lets himself sleep late - nearly 10am - but gives himself plenty of time to shower and wrangle his hair so he’s presentable for the 2pm beachfront service. He uses the outdoor rainfall shower, enjoying the sounds of the waves and the breeze blowing through the palm fronds. He heads into the closet, drops the towel on the bathroom floor and throws on a pair of boxer-briefs. He goes to grab the suit he hastily hung up while unpacking yesterday and a panic grips him when he realizes it’s not there. 

He turns around three full times, checking and rechecking the empty closet, and begins to immediately sweat, wondering where the fuck it could have gone to when he hears a knock at the main door. He’s wondering what to do and who to call and when he pulls the door open he’s hit with a wave of relief as he sees Kiki standing there holding his suit out in front of her.

“Oh thank god, I was just looking for-,” he pauses and points at his suit. “Wait, how did you get my suit?”

“When I came to the room for turn-down service last night I noticed this suit hanging in your closet. It was covered in wrinkles and it smelled like…” she’s tactful enough not to finish her sentence. “So I just assumed you wanted it cleaned and pressed.”

Frankie suddenly realizes he’s standing there in only his underwear so he grabs the hanger from her hands and holds it against him, offering himself a small amount of modesty.

“Thank you, Kiki,” he mumbles, shutting the door quickly.

The service is beautiful but hot, sitting on the beach in the glaring afternoon sun. He didn’t think to bring any sunglasses, the hat that rarely leaves his head usually providing enough shade. It’s all he can do to focus on the bride and groom and shit, he thinks he’s gonna get a headache from squinting so much. He’s sitting next to his mother and notices she’s sniffling the whole time, getting misty-eyed at the sight of Elio marrying his love. She’s probably thinking about how she’ll never get to see her own son’s wedding since Frankie has spent the last decade finding new and exciting ways to blow up his whole life.

As the ceremony comes to a close he tells his mamá he’ll see her at dinner, and manages to duck away and get off the beach before the couple comes down the aisle and the crowd closes in. He feels a little bad sneaking away and being antisocial but he can’t handle the onslaught of well-wishers descending on the couple. He never does well in crowds like that anymore. 

He takes a walk down the beach during cocktail hour, setting an alarm on his watch with plans to head back to the reception building just as dinner starts. He’s taken off his dress shoes and socks, letting his feet sink into the wet sand where the waves just lick at them, cooling him off. He’s also enjoying the warm, salty breeze as it soothes the beads of sweat collected on his forehead. He hears a melodic sound travel across the sand. Holy shit, that sounds like your laugh. 

He looks around, seeing some couples obviously dressed up enough to be from a wedding, maybe the one he was at, maybe the one he saw set up further down the beach near his villa. He looks at their faces as they pass by him. None of them are you. He puts his hand to his forehead, shading his eyes to look behind him, towards the building where the reception will be. 

There’s a large wooden patio off the back of the white stucco building, sliding glass doors separating the outside from the inside. Bistro lights zig back and forth above the crowd of people already gathered there, drinks and small plates in hands, and floral arrangements cover every square inch of the railing, spilling over the sides and draping themselves towards the sand. He scans the faces in the crowd but between the distance and the brightness, it’s hard to see. 

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t see you among the crowd. But he wouldn’t, would he… because this is just his mind fucking with him. You’re not here, why would you be here, on Paradise Cay?

But shit, did that sound like your laugh.

---

The fit of giggles you would become lost in when a movie night went too late. You called them your 2am crazies and you’d laugh yourself hoarse, then beg him to let you stay the night. Even though he barely got any sleep those nights, too warm with you cuddled up against him in his small bed, he never denied you.

The screaming laughter you’d let out when he would start to rock the car of the ferris wheel at the top of the rotation. You’d tell him you were going to be brave when you got on the ride, sitting a fair distance from him, yet still gripping the safety bar as tight as possible. A couple rocks was all it would take for you to give up the pretense of courage and throw your arms around his middle, just like he wanted.

Your nervous laughter as you told him about the job offer you got. You told him how some of the girls at the call center were leaving for new jobs and then, days later, you finally told him what the job was.

“They’re gonna be making movies,” you admit.

“What kind of movies?” he asks, innocently, until you pin him with a look like he should already know what kind of movies your sex phone-line coworkers would be doing. “Like porn?”

“Yeah, kinda,” you tell him.

You told him there was a new website that was paying girls $20 for pictures or $500 for videos, and for a cut there was a guy who would photograph or record you and then upload them to the site. Frankie wants to ask how you could even think about making porn. He wants to ask if you know what they do to the girls in porn videos. He’s seen enough of them to know that you deserve to be treated better than they get treated. He wants to give you all the money in his bank account so you don’t have to do this to yourself, subject your body to this. 

You’re sitting across from him awaiting his response. You see the look he doesn’t even realize he’s wearing on his face and he watches your expression fall.

“You don't like it,” you mumble, looking absolutely dejected.

“No! I just-,” he’s fucking terrified for you. How are you not terrified? “I’m just… worried. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not gonna get hurt, Pancho,” you grab his hand. Are you reassuring him right now?

You tell him that you don’t plan on making a video with another person just yet, that the $500 is for a solo video, just you and the cameraman, recording you touching yourself. You laugh again, nervous. It’s gonna be okay you keep telling him, maybe telling yourself too.

“A website?” he repeats.

“Yup,” you say, popping the p. “The world wide web.”

“I thought the web was just for downloading music and getting research materials from the library,” he half-jokes.

“It’s still gonna be all that... there’s just also gonna be naked pictures of me on it,” you laugh. Nervously.

Two weeks later on a Friday afternoon he picks you up and drives you to a small building in a not-great neighborhood on the north side of the city for your filming time. Your nervous laughter is back. You’re unusually quiet, and keep joking that you should have smoked or something to calm your nerves. He wondered before how you weren’t terrified and now he sees that you are, you’re just trying your best to appear brave. You can’t come in, you'd already told him. The photographer had explicitly explained to you that you could bring girlfriends but absolutely no boyfriends. 

“But, I’m not your boyfriend,” Frankie says as he holds your hand in the front seat, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. The truck idles in the parking lot as rain drizzles down on the windshield. 

“I’m not sure they’re gonna make the distinction when you roll up there with those big, broad shoulders and these angry brown eyes.”

“My eyes are not angry,” he says in defense.

“Then what is this?” you tease as you poke at the wrinkle set between his furrowed brow.

He waits in the parking lot for an agonizing fifty four minutes, watching the rain clouds clear and the sun come out, before you come out of the building, eyes a little glassy and trembling slightly. He jumps out of the car and helps you into the passenger seat, driving you both to a taco bell and buying you meximelts until the color returns to your face. How was it? How do you feel? Are you okay? You tell him it was awkward but everything was fine, and show him the $500 cash you made.

It takes you almost a week to admit that the cameraman gave you a pill he said would calm your nerves and it made you feel funny the rest of the day. He almost jumps out of his skin but you assure him that nothing happened and that you can take care of yourself. You also promise him you don’t plan on taking any more pills from strangers.

You get asked to do another video. You’d make $850 this time, recording a video with a guy named Rock Hardson. Frankie groans but tries not to let his jealousy come out. He’s not your boyfriend. You don’t belong to him. You weren’t a virgin when you met him and you have every right to use your body to make yourself some much-needed money.

It goes like that for a few more months, him driving you to the little building with the dirty parking lot every 3-4 weeks, waiting outside while you go in and make your money, then taking you to eat afterwards. Always asking if you’re okay, if you feel alright, if they treated you well.

Spring break comes around in early April and you have enough money to go on a trip with a couple of your high school girlfriends and their boyfriends to Miami. You shyly ask if Frankie will come with you even though he’s not your boyfriend so you don’t have to feel like a fifth wheel. He almost bites his tongue off with how quickly he says yes.

He holds your hand the whole flight, talking you out of a panic attack during takeoff, just now realizing how terrified you are of flying. He’s never seen you this scared of anything. He wants to tease you but instead he distracts you by handing you his discman and letting you listen to your Celine Dion album for the short flight, hearing you humming the ubiquitous Titanic theme song. 

The week goes by too quickly, filled with salty, sunscreen-slathered afternoons on the beach and cigarette-infused, drunken nights in the club. Your last night there you finally convince him to dance with you, both of you too wasted to keep rhythm, clumsily bumping your bodies against each other for several songs. He feels your smooth skin under his hands, your fingers twisting in his hair. How badly he wanted to kiss you, his inebriated state almost granting him the courage.

You both fall into the bed you’d been sharing all week but tonight your friend in the bed next to you is drunk enough that she’s agreed to let her boyfriend have sex with her even with everyone else in the room. You and Frankie giggle to each other and you hear laughter coming from the fold-out couch on your other side, where your other friend lies with her boyfriend. 

Then, you both hear those laughs turn to breathy moans as well. You lie face up next to each other in the bed, smack in the middle of the two fornicating couples, the tension and awkwardness growing. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been making his dick so hard it hurt. He was so scared you were going to see the tented sheets over his erection and be appalled by his behavior. He’s supposed to just be your friend. A friend doesn’t get a hard-on laying in bed next to his friend.

You grab his hand and he almost jumps out of the bed. His head is spinning, both because of the alcohol and the situation unfolding. He thinks you’re looking at him, he thinks he can see it out of the corner of his eye, but he can’t look at you. He’s afraid of what he might see on your face, just as afraid he might see your friend on the bed next to you getting railed by her boyfriend. The room is filled with the sounds of sex; low grunts and the slap of skin on skin. 

“I bet you’re used to this,” he whispers, trying to ease the tension with a joke.

You let go of his hand.

His stomach sinks. Maybe he shouldn’t have-

“I’m too fucked up for this shit,” you mutter, rolling over and going to sleep.

When you get back from Miami you tell him that you’re going to quit, your school bill is paid off and you don’t want to make any more videos, and he won’t have to drive you anymore. For a few days he’s worried that he fucked up so badly on vacation that your friendship has changed, but when you call him for laundry day on Sunday everything seems fine, your friendship seems like how it used to be. 

---

His watch beeps, letting him know he’s been reminiscing for over an hour and it’s time for him to get back for dinner. He puts his shoes back on and makes it to his table just as a glass is being clinked for the champagne toast. He looks at the table setting in front of him and sees a small bottle of sparkling water next to an empty champagne flute. His mother must have made sure that was done for him. She’s so thoughtful. He’s lucky to have her, even after all the ways he’s disappointed her, still by his side rooting for his sobriety. 

Although if he’s being honest, he could really use some champagne right about now. All this sappy love bullshit is making it feel like a fist is clenching around his heart. He’s happy for Elio, of course, but goddamnit is he fuckin’ lonely. He’s not sure if the near-constant thoughts of you are a cause of or a product of his loneliness. It doesn’t really matter either way, the end result is the same. He’s here and you’re not.

After a delicious meal, he’d gotten the crab-stuffed-fish, his mother leaves the table to dance with two of his aunts, encouraging him to find someone to dance with as she goes, pointing around the room. He doesn't even look up as he says “I can’t dance, mamá .”

He’s immediately wrapped up in thoughts of you again.

---

You came to his graduation, standing next to him while his family snapped photos of the two of you, even stealing his mortarboard and putting it on your own head for a few pictures towards the end. He’d gotten his post-graduation assignment, he was going to a base in Germany, but first he’d be headed to Texas for six months of training. He was scheduled to leave in July, just after the holiday.

You spent the nine weeks of summer you had together alternating visiting the other. You’d borrow your mom’s minivan for the weekend and cross the state line to come to him. You’d spend your days together going to the mall, grabbing sbarro for lunch in the food court, and sneaking into the cine-plex. His friends from high school would let you in through a side door and you'd go between theaters, watching movies all afternoon, then help his mamá make dinner at night. He'd give you his bed and go sleep on the futon in his abuela’s room. 

Alternately, he’d drive his worn-out Ranger to you, and you’d take him with you to watch your little brother’s baseball games, grabbing pretzels and a frozen yogurt at your mall afterwards. Your mother felt guilty making him sleep on the couch in her cramped apartment's small living room, so you easily convinced her to let him sleep on your bedroom floor.

You’d toss a pillow at him and he’d get comfortable under a blanket as your mom poked her head in to say goodnight. As soon as the lights were off and everyone was in bed you’d whisper for him to get up here, and he’d join you on your full-size mattress, holding you close. His mamá called you his girlfriend when she talked about you, but you’d still never even so much as kissed each other. You called him your best friend and that was enough for him. Getting to hold you and have you confide in him and be the person to make you smile was more than enough.

You spent your birthday in mid-June together, camping in the bed of his truck under the stars. You’d spent all day at the amusement park nearby, some of your friends joining you for the day. He’d held your hand on the roller coasters and let you feed him spoonfuls of dippin dots ice cream. He pressed his face against the top of your head as you both headed to the campsite in the evening, drained from a long day of walking, screaming, and being in the sun.

He lit a fire in the campsite’s ring and covered you in blankets where you perched on his tailgate, drinking cheap beer and ringing in your 20th year, roasting hot dogs and watching as the flames got lower and lower, until the fire was nothing more than glowing embers. You laid down under shared blankets to sleep, limbs tangled together for warmth, and scratched your fingers through his hair while you fell asleep. He knew then he was probably in love with you. But he wasn’t going to ruin your friendship by ever telling you that.

And then the day came that he was scheduled to get on a bus to leave for Texas. He kissed and hugged his mamá, shook hands with his pop, and then turned to you. You’d driven all night to be there for his 5am bus out of town, and your face was already streaked with tears. He pulled you close and you held him so tight, he doesn't know where he found the strength to let you go. Neither of you could bring yourselves to say the word goodbye and before his stinging eyes could spill tears over his waterline he pulled away. He felt you shove something in his pocket, sniffling as you wiped your face with your shirtsleeves.

He waited untill he got on the bus to slip what you’d snuck in there out of his pocket. He thought it was going to be a note but it was a CD. For my Pancho, you’d written on the disc in Sharpie. He knew he must look so dumb with the goofy grin he had plastered on his face. You’d made him a mix tape. He was so excited to listen to it that he fished his discman out of his bookbag and pressed the CD in. It spun up, read 00:00, and spun down. It wouldn’t play the music. He’d have to wait till he arrived on base and could put it into a better stereo.

Between the long drive, the haircuts, the room assignments, the introductions, one awkward phone call with you, and getting a ton of homework from his classes right away, he doesn’t get a chance to even think about the CD again until a week later. It doesn’t work again in his neighbor’s stereo, but he thinks maybe you put the music in a different format so you could fit more songs on the disc. He heads across the base to the technology lab on his next day off and his hunch is confirmed when the computer opens up the disc’s contents in a folder, revealing a video file. He double clicks the file and watches the monitor as it opens up in Windows Media Player.

A low resolution image comes across his screen and because he’s never seen it before, it takes him a moment to comprehend what he’s looking at. It’s you. You’re standing in front of the camera, a warm afternoon light spilling in from the window you must be facing, highlighting your face, shining on your dewy lips, your chin, your neck, your tits. Holy fuck you’re topless. He clicks pause and looks around, making sure no one else can see his screen, then presses play again. As the video continues the camera keeps panning out, and reveals you to be totally naked. 

Holy shit this must be one of your videos. You’d talked about them before of course, the two of you talked about everything. You’d told him things you liked, things you didn’t, even awkward things that would happen during filming. You’d never tried to show him one of your videos and he would never be bold enough to ask. He knew you’d shown a couple friends, overhearing you discussing it one time, but he didn’t want you to feel objectified, so he said nothing.

A group comes into the computer lab and sits down nearby, checking their email. He can't keep watching this in here. There’s a crowd and he’s already half-hard in his pants. As an officer he’s lucky enough to have his own small apartment on base, and he waits three more weeks, the CD burning a proverbial hole in his desk drawer, until he finally saves up enough money to go get his own computer from Circuit City. It takes all goddamn afternoon to set up the computer and install Windows and finally, just after sunset, the computer boots up and is ready to use. 

He slides the disc into his computer’s drive and watches for the first time, headphones on his ears to get the full experience. After the camera pans out to reveal your naked body you take a seat on the edge of the bed - he notices it’s your bed in your home bedroom - and the camera slowly pans back in as you lie down and slowly spread your legs. It remains a tight, but full-body still-shot for the rest of the video, recording you touching yourself to the tune of no less than three orgasms. Frankie can’t help himself and begins to touch himself too on your final peak.

Your breathy, panting moans, the way you pinch your nipples, the wet noises of your cunt, your fingers circling your clit, your cries as you fall over the crest each time; it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen. He wants to immediately call you and talk about it but with his training schedule keeping him busy and your junior year keeping you busy, you’ve barely talked in the month he’s been gone. How can he call you now and talk about how he’s seen you naked and watched you getting yourself off? What is he supposed to say? Thank you? You guys used to talk to each other about everything, but does he tell you that he jerked off to you? Is that why you gave him this video? He doesn’t know how to proceed. Why would you give him this as he was leaving?

The two of you write some letters back and forth and you eventually connect for a phone call at Christmas break, right before he heads to his post, but you miss his long-distance call from the base in Germany on New Year’s Eve. The calls get fewer and further between but his views on that CD never falter. It’s been so long since he’s spoken to you, almost two decades now, but he watches your video all the time, counting the CD among his prized possessions. 

He’s not even ashamed to admit that he takes his cock in his hand nearly every time he watches and can time it so perfectly by now that he’s spilling his come over his hand just as you hit your third orgasm. Shit, he’s pretty sure the disc is in his laptop’s CD-drive right now. He brought his laptop, right? He feels himself start to harden in his pants. Maybe he can ditch out on this reception early and go back to his room to watch it. Even without any champagne, that would make it a good night. 

He feels a gentle tap on his shoulder.

#francisco morales #frankie catfish morales #happy ending #noxturnalpascal #frankie morales x reader #francisco morales x reader #triple frontier fanfic #triple frontier fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #Frankie Friday #writing challenge 2.0 #iamasaddie prompt

[batsandbugs]

Bruce Wayne’s Headache Classification System Chapter 3

IKEA Verse

A/N: The author shows up a month and a half late, with Starbucks: S'up, here's 7500 words of pure chaos. Feast! Y'all are the best, thank you for the amazing comments in the last chapter. I love seeing your excitement for this crazy little world I've created. I have a new fic that I'll be adding eventually, called: "The Stalking of Daminette: A Treatise by Steph and Cass" it's still in its baby stage, so we'll see how long that grows before I post. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it because I have not started on the next part and I'm moving in less than a month, so maybe the next chapter will be out sometime in October, but I'm not making any promises. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

Bruce narrows his eyes and pins his children with an unimpressed stare. “What did you do?

“He was totally willing!” Dick insists with an innocent grin.

“Coercion.”

“Manhandling.”

Dick’s grin disappears evilly side-eyeing his brothers. “Both of you suck at being back up.”

“He didn’t want to at first,” confesses Tim. “But they held my computer hostage to convince me to agree.” Tim rubs a hand over the top of his laptop in a soothing manner. “So, I stole all his knives so he couldn’t stab us, while Jason and Dick wrangled him into the car.”

“Little demon was spittin’ nails, but we persuaded him not to throw himself out the car, so he was trapped.”

“By the time we arrived, I convinced them how a game of hide-and-seek would be a fun, non-disastrous way to spend time together,” says Dick, his face one of ruined hopes and dreams.  

“Mostly through bribes, blackmail, and calls to our innate competitiveness,” says Tim.

“Dickie kept the keys so none of us could leave, and declared himself seeker first,” Jason continues. “He found me-" 

"In the food court," says Dick.

"Then Replacement-"

"At the Starbucks."

"Didn't even get to have that coffee," grumbles Tim.

"So we joined forces and decided to search for Damian together. We spent an hour chasing him in circles. Swear I almost caught him too.”

Tim scoffs, “Yeah no, he had us good. We had no clue where he was.” 

Jason rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up Tim.”

“You shut up,” Tim shoots back.

“Boys…” warns Bruce, already regretting bringing all three of them into this sitrep.

“Okay, so he evades us long enough to team up with a girl named Marinette Dupain-Cheng-” starts Tim.

Jason growls a bit. “Lying bitch.”

“Jason…” Dick sighs but doesn’t refute the insult. This only serves to deepen Bruce’s headache which now strongly veers out of the I-am-not-mentally-or-emotionally-prepared-for-this category and straight into Ongoing-dumpster-fire territory.

This was fine.

Jason slams a fist on the table. “She lied to my face multiple times! She said she was hired to poison Tim and Damian in order to steal Tim’s phone and if I didn’t find them in time, they were gonna die from brain damage!”

Bruce blinks. Did he hear that right? “Sorry, what?”

Tim sighs. “Okay, rewind, so Damian evading us like the little assassin he trained to be, hooks up with Marinette, who, as far as my research shows, is a civilian-”

“Yeah right, girlie ain’t a civilian. No way, not in a million years.”

“Shut up Jason, let Tim talk,” snaps Dick.

“She lied to Jason about where Damian was, and between her initial meeting with Jason and the incident in the food court, about an hour passed. Then she appeared in the cafeteria with Damian’s card, how we tracked her there in the first place. She panicked when she saw us and used her magic on the shelves in the warehouse to cause a diversion-”

“She crushed a fucking forklift, and we got blamed and billed for it.”

‘How?’ Bruce thinks in despair. Not over the money, of course. They had more than enough to cover costs, just in the general sense of incredulity. One would think, after being Batman this long, it would inoculate Bruce from bewilderment at all types of situations.

It has not.

Tim shakes his head. “No, I proved we had nothing to do with that."

‘Oh well isn’t that grand?’

"Didn’t manage to pin anything on her either considering how much electrical interference occurred whenever she performed magic, but we don’t have to pay.”

“Magic doesn’t cause electrical interference,” Bruce reminds them. “Not unless it completely breaks the system in the process.” All three boys – men really, his kids all grown up now, even if they pulled stupid shit like this – turn to him. Identical expressions of contemplation played over their faces.

“Shit, you’re right,” mutters Dick.

“Well, her magic does,” counters Tim, his brow creasing heavily, grasping past the sleepy, foggy haze that comes with being awake for three days straight. Grabbing a notepad he jots down the observation. “Her magic doesn’t obey any rules we know to be true.”

“It’s magic, dumbass,” Jason sneers. “It doesn’t have to make sense. I’m still on the fence about whether she enchanted Damian though. On one hand, demon-spawn shouldn’t be capable of smiling that much, and he defended her, deferred to her, fucking used her first name without blinking an eye. That ain’t natural for him. On the other hand, she’s the same brand of demented as he is, and maybe they want to be horrible little demons together.”

“I…” starts Dick before trailing off, his face flickers through a series of emotions. Mostly fragile hope, pragmatic disbelief, and good heaping of uncertainty.

“See, Golden Boy, even you can’t say this is a good thing!”

“He made a friend?” Dick offers with a pained wince.

“She’s a psychopath!”

Bruce cuts off the argument. As much as he would love to hear more in-depth detail about Damian’s newest… acquaintance, he wants a clearer picture of what happened at the store before he judges the situation. “Boys, behave. Tim, please continue.”

Tim nods. “Okay, so Marinette escapes the warehouse, and we track her back to their entry point into the vent system. We split up to cover more ground, I take the warehouse and keep myself from the worker’s sight but close enough to the vent I could spot them exiting. About forty-five minutes later they set me on fire-”

“Wait,” interrupts Bruce. “Fire? FIRE?”

Tim looks at him like he’s being particularly slow. “Uh, yeah, I said that a time or two now, keep up. To be fair, the fire was more around me. But I did end up singed.” He shows his arm sleeve again, and the singeing on the sleeve takes on a whole new meaning.

“I wasn’t sure what happened at the time, I expected to catch the little twerps, not engage in guerilla warfare. So, understandably, I’m off my game. The security guard dragged me into the office, and I’m ready to call for backup, only to find my phone missing. I talk down the manager in the warehouse, but then he yells at these poor workers. And Bruce, they were kids, couldn’t be more than fifteen, working in this busy warehouse with no clue about any rights they had, and then after the manager became… distracted I conversed with the other workers, and-”

Tim’s one-breath ramble was swiftly cut off by Jason. “Yeah, yeah you caused a worker’s strike through the power of charisma and rhetoric. So original. No one else in the world’s history has ever done that. Can we get back to the French bitch tricking me?”

Tim huffs, crossing his arms. “You can continue then because I wasn’t part of that.”

“Cool, I will. So, there I wait at my post, and it’s been like an hour and a half at this point. Timmy finally calls, but it’s not actually him it’s the French girl. She’s actin’ like a paid assassin slash company spy, and says she poisoned Tim and Damian through tricking them into eatin’ poisoned coffee and shit.”

“And you believed that?” Bruce asks. Jason glares at him with piercing green-blue eyes, and although his second son puts off an air of anger and annoyance, it’s a mask for a deep-seated fear that his brothers were genuinely in danger. That he would be too slow, too late to save them, like what happened to-

Jason flippantly shrugs his shoulders, years of practiced reticence covering his care. “With our craptastic luck, I sure as hell wasn’t going to take any chances. So, I go chasin’ and-”

“~It’s a trap~,” Tim gloats in a sing-songy voice, his grin wide and eyes unfocused. He’s going to crash soon, it’s just a matter of time.

“Shut up, you ended up set on fire and pickpocketed. You have no leg to stand on.” Tim rolls his eyes but slouches back in his chair. “So, it’s a trap, and demon-spawn is waitin’ there with one of those tricked-out trip wires Timmy made. He and Frenchie wrapped me up good, taunted me, and stripped me taking my wallet and phone. Bitch also took my knife. I insult the brat, and he fires back, but before he does anything else Marinette pulls him back and tells him to simmer down and he does.” Jason’s wide eyes drip with incredulity and, quite frankly, a little awe.

“I see,” Bruce says, a fake calm surrounding his words. He really didn’t. They were talking about Damian. Bruce loves his only biological son, he truly does. He loves Damian’s sketches, and care for animals, he loves his dedication to sword mastery and sly humor. The way his son has the same wrinkle crease between his eyes Bruce gets, and that Thomas did before them. The similarity soothes a small part of Bruce’s aching soul. He’s ridiculously proud of all the work and effort Damian went through, put himself through, to become a better person. To overcome the trauma his upbringing caused and come out stronger.

That being said, Damian was still arrogant, stubborn, and quick-tempered. He considered his opinions and plans more highly than others, and unless one could give a quick and compelling explanation as to an alternative option, he would be proceeding with his plan with efficiency; damn anything else standing in his way. Damian spared no sympathy to the average person and even less for fools.

This behavior was extremely out of character for him.

Which made the entire situation ring with alarm.

Jason shook his head. “I don’t think you do,” he says, calling Bruce’s lie out. “You’re gonna need to see it to really understand. Anyway, they leave me there for the police to find me, and the wire’s wound on tight, so I’m still struggling to get them off when security finds me ten minutes later.” Jason smirks. “Now those idiots had no clue who they were dealing with, and they loosened the wire round my legs, cause they sure as hell couldn’t carry me. By the time we reached the car I was out of the bonds and knocked one out and escaped from the other. Fat-ass bastard.”

“Language,” Bruce reminds him. Jason flips him off.

“Fine, the heavy-set bastard. Better?”

Bruce sighs. “Not really.”

“I scale the building, figuring the store entrances would be monitored. They had a nice handy dandy human-sized ventilation shaft up there - no wonder with the place’s fucking size - so, I shimmy down-”

“Like Santa,” Tim giggles, well past bordering on a manic state, and instead moved well into the capital of it.

The comment doesn’t appear to have fazed Jason though, who takes another long sip of his alcohol-soda mixture. “And like Santa, I have a knack for toys. I emerge out of a vent in the children’s toy area and snag myself a nerf gun.”

Sharp pain blooms on the side of Bruce’s neck. He doesn’t let it show on his face though. “Why?”

“Seemed like a good at the time, ya know?”

Bruce mentally counts to ten, takes a deep breath, and says, “Sure.”

“So, I head towards the play area to find Dick, because obviously, Replacement was a lost cause.”

“Geeze thanks, Jason.”

“But before I can get there, I spot Demon Spawn constructin’ a wacky ass Rube Goldberg contraption-”

Dick winces. “I saw the remains when I chased after Marinette. It was initially meant for me.”

“You were chasing the girl?”

Dick pouts. “She stole my phone!”

“Wait, so a civilian pickpocketed all of you?” 

“She was quick,” mutters Tim.

Jason raises a finger. “She didn’t technically pickpocket me, she frisked me after tying me up. I was fully aware of the stealing.”

Bruce reminds himself that he can’t strangle his children. He. Can’t. Strangle. His. Children. “I plan to make all of you go through awareness training, again. A civilian!?”

“Still not convinced,” Jason mutters, crossing his arms.

“I don’t care she certainly hasn’t trained with assassins and spent half her life mastering stealth and deception. I expect better from you all.” All three men mutter in acquiescence, to the extent that they would do better. “Continue.”

Jason’s demureness fades to be replaced with a gleeful grin. “Yeah, there wasn’t much left of the trap after I jumped the little bastard. I started shooting-”

“Jason…” Bruce’s headaches gain a specific twinge of exhaustion whenever Jason becomes involved. It’s a talent he possessed since the day Bruce found him hi-jacking the Batmobile’s tires.  

Jason’s hands go up in defense. “With the nerf gun, chill Bruce I ain’t trying to contribute to America’s public shooting crisis. I wouldn’t take a loaded gun into a shopin’ center unless crazies were already causin’ chaos.”

“I’d prefer you not to use guns at all.” It’s a pointless request, but maybe one day Jason would cede to it.

Jason scoffs. “Yeah, you’re still gunna lose that one pops. I got a rep to maintain.”

Bruce reigns in a sigh. Expected.

“Anyway, everythin’ was fine, I’d managed to dismantle their little trap for ya, you’re welcome,” he says with a pointed glance at Dick.

His eldest crosses his arms, and with a total deadpan stare, replies, “Thanks, Jason.”

“But then a security guard interfered after I knocked down a display or two.”

“So, you strung him up and gagged him?” Dick asks voice rising into the hysterical range.

Bruce now understands why Tim looks exhausted, dealing with the fallout from a situation this unhinged for the past forty-eight hours.  

“No, I didn’t do that. Demon spawn already set the rig, waitin’ for you. The guard tripped it.” He pauses, cheese-covered chip in hand. “Although I did add the gag, he was shoutin’ too much and grabbin’ attention. It only took a second, but by the time I turned back, Damian had shot off like a rocket.”

“Don’t take your eyes off the target,” chides Tim, with a smug little grin.

Jason’s eyes flash a brighter shade of green. “Fire.”

“Shut up.”

“Boys…” Bruce warns.

“Fine, fine,” Jason mutters, as he takes another sip of his drink. “I chase him through the store and he’s barely keepin’ ahead of me. I keep shootin’ at him. Newer nerf guns have a range and a surprising amount of ammo. Bastard didn't even look inconvenienced; he takes a fucking phone call at one point.”

“That was when I was chasing Marinette and we found the remains of their plan,” Dick interrupts. “She panicked with the sprung trap and called someone, but I couldn’t hear a word.”

“Yeah, he jumps off the call when I manage a shot at his head, and I’m close enough to have him in reach. Unfortunately, he ducked into the employee-only entrance. We weave through security rooms and offices and shit, and of course, causin’ chaos there.”

“He was right there, and yet somehow, we’re the only ones banned,” mutters Tim.

Jason scoffs. “Yeah, don’t know how that happened. Pretty sure I saw him dump a pot of coffee on-” Tim groans in frazzled distress. “Bad Timbo, you can’t have any more caffeine until you take a goddamn nap!”

Tim slouches into the solid wood dining chair. “You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my dad.”

“Tim you can’t have any more caffeine until you sleep,” Bruce says.

Jason grins, sticking his tongue out at Tim, while Tim only glares and mutters something under his breath about ‘killjoys’ and ‘he’ll show them tired’ and Bruce really doesn’t want to see the result of that decision. This needs to wrap up soon. For both Tim’s sake, and his own as his headache has moved from Hassles-have-evolved-into-ongoing-dumpster-fires to Information-overload-caused by-dumbass-decisions-please-reboot-system.

“I get tangled in an office jam – literally, there were cords involved and by the time I scramble out of it, Damian’s already through a door and down a hallway. I haven’t a clue which way he’s gone, so I pick a direction and gun it because security is on my tail and there ain’t time to waste. I head down a hallway and lock the doors behind me to give me a second of breathing room. Then I spot the intercom system.”

“I wondered how you got close enough to use that,” Dick muses.

“I wondered what they did to piss you off so bad,” Tim adds.

Dick nods. “Same.”

“Yeah, so I call out Demon Spawn and French Bitch over the intercom, and I know they both must have panicked, but the guards broke through the locked doors, so I split. Now here’s the fucking miracle.” Jason leans forward, grinning. “I find the door that’ll take me back to the showroom area, the guards bearing down on me from all four sides. I don’t have a chance in hell, when the lights go off.”

“Blackout?” questions Bruce.

“Magic,” Dick says flatly. “It was Marinette.”

Jason slaps the table, snarling, “Damnit! Now I have to give credit to her.”

“She knocked out electricity to the whole store,” says Tim.

“And caused a display to collapse in front of me. I tripped,” admits Dick.

“You have fought off assassins while poisoned, and executed advanced acrobatic maneuvers with broken bones, and you tripped over a toppled Swedish store display because of the dark?” Bruce knows he’s trained his children better. Why in the world did this go so sideways on them?

Dick braces his arms against the table and roughly slides his fingers through his hair. ”I know. I know. I was right there. Any other day and I wouldn’t have blinked about jumping right over it, but this time it felt… off. Bad day?”

“You’re getting old Golden Boy.” Jason takes a sip of his drink, doing nothing to hide his shit-eating grin as he teases his older brother. “I guess it’s all downhill from here ain’t it.”

Dick flips him off.

Jason sticks out his tongue.

Bruce’s headache takes on a twinge of my-children-are-immature-brats feeling (generally categorized by a sharp sting right at his temple) and holds in an exasperated sigh.

“So, after magic girl shuts the lights off with her mind or whatever, I escape the security guards by an inch. One emergency exit later, and I’m back in the store proper. People are freakin’ the fuck out about the lights. By the time they turn on again, I’ve lost Damian for good, and now I just try to stay off security’s radar. I settle in a nice little blind spot right outside the children’s toy area and keep myself out of any trouble.” Jason looks over at Dick, fighting to keep a smug grin off his face. “Course I did see a woman go off on a poor employee. I kept my nose clean of it ‘cause it wasn’t my business.”

“Oh, ha, ha very funny. That woman was a menace,” groans Dick.

“Woman?” Bruce questions, almost scared to ask.

“Jessica Merope-Laverne, fifty-five, resident of Pleasantville. Married twice, has two children, a restraining order, and a police file with multiple notes about disturbing the peace,” Tim rattles off. “Thoroughly unpleasant.”

“That’s an understatement,” mutters Dick.

“Practically dragged Dickie Bird away by the ear.”

“Right as I was about to nab Marinette too. She’d hidden in one of the wardrobes in the room, and I was this close-” Dick positions his fingers scant centimeters apart from each other, “-to cornering her, and I got dragged away.”

“Shit, would have loved to know that,” mutters Jason. “Anyway, I stood around, making sure nobody was on my tail, soon I heard rumors about a ruckus in the atrium-”

“That would be me,” Tim admits with a grin.

“Well, I didn’t know that. I was hoping demon spawn and Frenchie were involved somehow, so I headed over, and then-”

“Oh, I know what happened from there. I saw the video.” Bruce pins Tim and Jason with a stare. “I respect both of you have opinions-”

“Opinions? Opinions? I have justified grounds for calling out his revolutionary bullshit! His entire life embodies nothing but the anthesis of systemic poverty, and he argues for class cooperation!” shouts Jason. Bruce always marvels at how eloquent Jason becomes when angry.

“Violence isn’t the answer,” counters Tim. “You would harm the very people you try to uplift in the process.”

“Sure, it is! It’s the natural response to a gluttonous, greedy, overburdened, bureaucratic system that’s leeching off the populous and perpetuating its own supremacy.”

Tim slams a hand against the table, raising to his feet, exhaustion clearing from his eyes. “It’s an option, not the option. We can do better than violence if we work at the cause's root problem without pulling out a fucking guillotine.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Oh of course you would argue for that, you’ve never had less than six figures in your bank account in your life.”

“So says the self-proclaimed drug lord!”

“That was ten years ago!”

“A bag of heads on the steps of the GCPD!”

“Oh, get over it!”

“If it matters,” interjects Dick. “Probably doesn’t, systemic economic issues are hard to fix when we have bigger problems like an actively insane criminal population that likes destroying important city infrastructure on a monthly basis.”

“Which Wayne Enterprises does its best to counter,” adds Bruce, not bothering to chide his children back on track. This particular topic turned them into a bunch of unherdable cats.

“Funneling more money into the one percent’s hands!” Jason’s bordering on manic at this point.

“We are the one percent, Jason!” counters Tim. “And we stay that way, despite the copious amount of infrastructure projects, that we hire Gotham citizens for, and pay at least a living wage to all of them. Not to mention every other single employee we hire who also are paid a living wage, with benefits, and support. I know I am privileged. I am trying here.” The last sentence came out as a distraught cry, as he collapses back into his chair.

“Are… are you okay?” Dick asks tentatively, ready to cross the table to comfort his brother.

Tim shoves his hands into his hair and mutters, “I need an espresso.”

“No, you need sleep,” says Bruce, mentally calculating where all the caffeine in the house is so he can hide it. “Can we return to the recap, so your brother can go to bed?”

“My side of things is much shorter in comparison to Jason’s,” says Dick. “As long as nobody interrupts.” Casting a pointed glare in Jason’s direction. Jason shrugs casually and crosses his arms.

“I waited at the children’s play area. Now, a man my age would attract attention without a need to be there, so I’d ducked into the employee-only area, and grabbed a shirt to disguise myself. I hung out in the Starbucks for a good forty-five minutes trying to look like I was on break while observing the play area. Although I couldn’t tell where the vent entrance was, I figured two adults Damian and Marinette’s size would be easy to spot coming out of an area meant for children.

“When an hour and a half passed by, I’m nervous, because neither Jason nor Tim has sent any word. I called them both. They didn’t answer.”

“Yeah, 'cause the French phone napper took our phones,” mutters Jason.

“So, I decided to do some reconnaissance. The lady at the front desk looked bored enough, and so I went over to… chat.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “You mean flirt.”

Dick glares. “Shut up. So, I hang around the front desk for half an hour at most, before the kids went crazy. Like plastic balls being thrown everywhere, kids shrieking, this one little girl, later we learn her name is Abby, she’s doing this whole speech about a revolution-”

“Tim…”

“Not me, I’m not here at this point.”

“I stand there in shock, wondering what the heck set it all off. This one little girl runs up to the daycare worker, Melinda? Melody? Something. I don’t remember. And the little girl’s nose was bleeding, so there immediately goes my peaceful cover. I back up into the crowd, which at this point has gathered around pretty thick.”

“You know I wondered why there were so many people hanging around in that front lobby area,” says Tim.

“I’m almost sure the commotion has something to do with Marinette and Damian, so I keep my eyes peeled waiting for any adult-sized figures to emerge from the play area.” Dick sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. “I was right of course, but I missed Marinette slipping out, and she approached me from behind.”

“This is where you get pickpocketed too!” crows Jason.

“Really, Richard?” asks Bruce with a raised brow. This is ridiculous.

“Okay, look, I was distracted, off my game, there was a ton of screeching, and it had been a long day. And she was very good. The technique was flawless, minus a bit of overacting and a touch of obviousness. Which was her goal because-”

“~It was a trap~” Jason and Tim sing together.

“It was bait,” Dick corrects. “Leading me to a trap, that didn’t even work. So really, I did the best between the three of us.”  

“You all will complete remedial awareness training, so a situation like this never happens again.” Bruce massages the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh. “Just… just please continue.”

“I can’t full-out chase her or anything, but she keeps out of reach through the store, until we reach the place where they set the trap. Obviously, Jason already tripped it, so she turned face and ran in the opposite direction. I followed, trying to convince her to stop and talk. But at this point, she’s full-on outpacing me and doing well too. I’m hesitant to say trained, but she had practice.”

“She’s gotta be a spy, or maybe she’s working for the League?” muses Jason.

“Damian would see right through that,” interrupts Bruce. He knows his youngest son has an instinct when sniffing out undercover League members. Talia certainly sent enough of them over the years.

“Maybe she’s just that good?” says Tim. “I certainly can’t find a damn thing on her, and being a League plant would explain that.”

Dick shrugs. “We’ll figure out her deal later. She calls Damian, and they talk briefly, but I couldn’t hear the conversation. Soon after Jason does his whole intercom takeover Marinette pulls out her little magic electro bursts and short circuits the electricity to the entire store.”

“And then caused you to trip.”

Dick wearily nods. “And then caused me to trip. By the time I detangle myself, she’s long gone. The lights come back on, and I’m stuck wondering where the hell she’s gone. I try to avoid getting clocked by security, so I keep to blind spots, which is how I eventually spot her doing the same.”

“Suspicious,” mutters Tim. “More evidence for the ‘League plant’ theory.”

“Or she could know security is looking for a woman of her description and she’s smart, either way, I tail her and corner her in a display room, no idea why she chose that one, but when I walk in it’s empty.”

“She teleported, or vanished like a ninja,” gasps Tim, eyes wide, pupils smaller than pinpricks. Bruce is now counting the seconds until he passes out.

Dick shakes his head. “No, she hid in the fucking closet. Tim, you need sleep.” Tim sticks out his tongue.

“I was this-” Dick places his fingers centimeters away from each other “-close to nabbing her, and then the whole Jessica situation happened.” He rubs a hand through already messed up, fly-away hair. “She drags me away screeching about lawyers and customer service, and it had been a very long day, so the second her back was turned I bolted. I couldn’t risk heading back to the display room, although if I were Marinette I’d be long gone, so I backtracked to where I stuffed my actual clothes and headed towards the atrium.”

“Yes, I saw your arrival as well,” Bruce confirms with an exasperated drawl. The videos spread out across multiple platforms gave an all-around idea of what happened in the atrium. “You all know better than to escalate things in public. We have an image to maintain after all." The boys nod, cowed and guilty. "That being said, things wrapped up rather neatly.” He eyes the boys with a paranoid weariness. “Too neatly.”

All three sag into their seats and gaze at each other with sheepish grimaces.

“Yeah, B, we noticed that too,” says Jason. “But at the time…” he trails off.

Tim continues, his speech sluggish. “It felt normal, to accept what was going on. The fight, the crazy lady, the little kid with the ball pit balls, her uncle being Dick’s old friend, and the store manager, and they let us go. It was easy to go along with it.” Grimacing, he gestures to his assorted piles of papers. “You know, besides for all the work I have now.” Crossing his arms on the table he lays his head in the middle. “Too many people, so little sense.”

“Damian hasn’t said a word about any of it.” Dick slouches lower in his chair.

“Kid was all smirks when he and the little liar approached us after we left the store,” grumbles Jason. "Had fuckin' ice cream and everything." He spins the almost empty bottle of alcohol coke on the table. “Of course, they made us wait, because after we left and booked it to the car, Dickie realizes his keys are gone too. So there we are standin' in the parking lot, Timmy doesn't have his shoes, and all we got between us is one nerf gun, no phones, no keys, and no fucks left to give.” Bruce, too tired from the absolute rollercoaster of emotions and information his children just sent him on, can do nothing but muster up a stern and disappointed glare. He trained them all better than to let a civilian pull one over on not just one of them, but all of them.

“Yeah, yeah, I know situational awareness. We’ll work on-” Dick breaks off his sentence, and sighs softly. A small soft smile overtakes his face, and he raises a single finger to his mouth. He nods in Tim’s direction.

Tim’s head, previously cradled in his arms, now lolls to the side. Neon blue light from his laptop highlighted his closed eyes, and the purplish bags underneath.

“Finally,” Jason mutters. “I swear he has the survival instincts of a wet paper bag. He’s been up for way too long.”

Bruce is just grateful he won't need to physically drag Tim off to bed and force him to get some desperately needed sleep. “Now we just need to get him to his room.” He would have done it himself if his ribs didn’t spasm the second he thought of the idea.  

“Not it,” Dick whispers so quickly it’s practically a rush of air.

“Not it,” says Jason, barely a millisecond behind.

“Ha!” Dick impishly grins. “You do it.”

“But-”

“Nope, I said it first. You got to carry him.”

Jason turns his head towards Bruce, big bluish-green eyes looking for support.

Bruce doesn’t get himself involved in the decision-making games his children play. “He said it first.”

Jason’s hopeful glance turns into a disgruntled snarl. “I hate both of you,” he spits.

“Love ya too, Jay.”

“Thank you, Jason.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, wrinkling his nose. Jason pushes back his chair, and although he’s annoyed, the solid wood chair doesn’t scrape against the floor, so he can’t be too mad. Despite drinking his entire liter of mystery-alcohol-diet-coke mixture, his footsteps pace steady and strong. “Come here, ya little coffee-addicted gremlin.” Jason slips his arms around Tim’s body. It’s a testament to how exhausted his son must be, that Tim only flutters his eyes and protests incoherently at being lifted out of his chair.

“Quiet down, Replacement,” Jason murmurs, his voice soft as he speaks to his sleep-deprived brother. “All your calls and research will be there when you return from the land of nod.”

“But…”

“You can go willingly, or I can grab sedatives from the med bay and forcefully put your ass to sleep. I’ll put a bet on who’ll win that brawl.” Jason stands a good six inches taller than Tim, who looks like little more than a bedraggled rag doll in his older brother’s arms. Bruce knew who would win that fight too. Tim sighs and relaxes another inch into Jason’s arms. “There ya go. You can go back to bein’ insufferable once you’ve had some fucking sleep.”

“Hmm…” Tim's eyes fully flutter shut. Jason shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but softly traverses the room so as to not jostle him. Looking back over his shoulder one last time to shoot an I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this look at Bruce and Dick, before walking out of the room.

Silence overtakes the grand dining room as the last of Jason’s footsteps fades into the echoing halls of Wayne Manor. A light rain drizzles outside, the faintest patter hitting the tall arched windows letting in a soft grey light.

Dicks groans, pulling himself out of his slouch gracefully and into more of a respectable position. “I’m getting too old for that.”

“If you’re old, I must be ancient,” Bruce responds. He’s not, really. Only forty-seven to Dick’s thirty-two. What he’d been thinking taking in a ten-year-old at twenty-five, he couldn’t really quite say. The only thing that mattered at the time was the aching echo of loneliness reflected in the eyes of a child who had just lost their parents.

Now, look at them, all these years later.

“Nah, you’re not ancient, B. We’ve just been through enough shit in our lives to age a person twenty times over.”

Bruce gives him a look of high disappointment. “Stunts like this do not help, Richard.”

Dick has the decency to look properly ashamed. “I really didn’t mean for the situation to get so out of hand,” Dick insists in a soft, quiet tone. Bruce doesn’t quite believe it. His sons thrive off of chaos. Even if they didn’t mean for things to get out of hand, they tended to actively encourage it once in the middle of the undertow. “I know, I know, but how was I supposed to anticipate Damian teaming up with a… witch? Magician? Whatever she is.” Dick mutters the last sentence, but Bruce hears it clearly.

His sons certainly think the young woman is dangerous. Tim is thoroughly confused and stressed by her existence, although deciphering his third son’s emotions through his fog of exhaustion is a vexing endeavor Bruce still isn’t sure he accomplishes all the time. Jason clearly hates her or at least is holding a very large, very deep grudge against her. He wonders what exactly the content of the conversation was when she threatened Tim and Damian. He wonders if she knew the effect it would have on Jason.

Flickering light from the chandelier above pierces his eyes like a particularly vicious game of stab-the-vigilante, but this conversation is important, so, despite the full body ache accompanying his you’ve-pushed-too-far-and-now-you’ll-suffer-the-consequences migraine, he pushes through to ask, “What do we actually know about her?”

Dick sighs heavily, rubbing a hand across his face, and suddenly he looks every inch of his thirty-two years. “To be honest? Only a little. Tim wasn’t the only one to look her up. I did my searching too.”

“And?”

“Practically nothing. Basic info, but school records sealed tighter than Fort Knox, and firewalls grow tighter every time I try to hack ‘em. School activities, online media presence, and even pictures; all of it is whisps in the wind. Every time I try to look deeper, something...” Dick shudders as if shaking away a bad feeling. “I come up short and I can’t find a reason why. Even trying to think about Paris as a whole feels off and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“I can see if there’s anything in the League’s database about the city the past few years. It was Diana’s home base for decades until…” Bruce trails off, his mind an unexpected blank. Diana moved to the US from Paris eventually. Sometime within the last decade, but he can’t quite remember why. Surely, she must have told him at some point.

“She’s a fashion designer, I know that much. She has a website but it’s very bare bones. Commission work only. And her current course of study at Gotham U is Fashion and Business Management. But-” Dick’s hands flail into the air. “She’s from Paris! What on earth possessed her from moving from one of the fashion capitals of the world to here, to study fashion is beyond me.” 

“Hmmm…” Bruce’s brain whirls at a million miles a minute. Connections forming and rearranging on his mind’s case board. The incongruency is so stark, there must be a reason. They haven’t found it yet.

“As for her magic…” Dick shrugs. “She said her powers mostly affected situational outcomes, and from the incidents I saw, she told the truth. But I’ve never seen magic like that before. Magic that just… happens. She didn’t say words, she didn’t make hand gestures. She used tiny little - I want to call them mechanized balls, but we never came close enough to tell – to kickstart the magic.”

“A techno-mage then?”

Dick contemplates the idea for a moment before saying, “Could be. But it felt more than that. As soon as she became involved the whole day felt… left of normal. Which I suppose aligns with situational outcome manipulation. The day certainly went their way…” Dick shrugs. “I just don’t know.”

Bruce hums, finally asking the question that had swirled in his mind since the girl was brought up. “Do you think she’s a danger?”

Dick leans back in the chair, his face an avalanche of flickering emotions. Wind lightly howled outside the dining hall filling the intervening silence. Finally, he sighs and says, “No, I don’t think so. She was chaotic sure but genuinely enjoyed the game for what it was. Damian probably encouraged the more unhinged ideas. And yes, she has magic, but so do a ton of other, far more obviously dangerous people. Our system is tricked out for all types of magic users, and even if she can bypass them due to her own unique magic, we’d at least receive a warning. And as for our identities…” Dick half-smiles. “She didn’t even know we were the ‘Waynes’ until we were just about to leave, and she didn’t appear particularly star-struck. I doubt she’d make the jump from chaotic billionaire’s kids to vigilantes.”  

“As for Damian…?” Bruce hardly knows what to make of his youngest’s out-of-character reaction and hopes to receive some cohesive read on the situation from his eldest.  

Dick, being quite unhelpful, shrugs. “I think you should talk to him. Get his side of the story. Things may have been chaotic on our end, but he did genuinely have fun. And, yes, he’s acting out of the norm.” Dick pauses. “Way, way, out of the norm for him, but I don’t think he’s enchanted. I think he just has a crush.”

Bruce blinks. Isn’t that a hell of a thought?

Damian.

With a crush.

He doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with these kinds of realities. Reflexively he massages his temple with the tips of his fingers trying to relieve the paining, aching pressure.

“Headache again?” asks Dick with sympathy. After twenty years his son knows his tells well, and Bruce has always had headaches, although his reasons for having them have certainly increased over the years.

“Yeah, is what it is though. We’ll keep an eye on Damian, have you run him through the influence-affected protocols?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Dick shrugs. “Nothing, it’s mostly why I think he’s fine. She may be a danger, or powerful, but I don’t think she’s doing anything to Damian. Besides making him run up the data plan on his phone. He really hasn’t stopped texting the past two days.”

They’ve spent plenty of time talking about Damian, but Bruce hasn’t seen a glimpse of him since he woke up this morning. “Where is he?”

Dick pulls out his phone. “On a date, according to Stephanie.” Pulling up a photo that’s taken in a long-distance setting. Damian is pictured, seated at a cafe table, drinking out of a white coffee cup. Across from him sits a girl, Asiatic features, black hair, clad in a colorful sundress. They’re both smiling at each other.

It’s normal and adorable. And slightly worrying. Damian doesn’t smile like that unless looking at a fluffy four-legged creature.

“Stephanie trailed him?” 

Dick flips the phone away. “Actually, she and Cass both followed him when he left this afternoon. Not sure what they planned, but they’ve sent some nice pictures.” He pauses for a moment and smiles fondly. “If she’s not a danger, or a League plant, this could be really good for him.”

Bruce hums, unsure, and hating himself for that unsurety. He’ll make a call when he has more information, and less of a migraine. “Go wash up and grab some sleep. I’m out until my ribs heal, so I’ll need you to take point on patrol.”

Rising from his chair, Dick stretches and shoots him a grin. “It took you twenty-five years, but damn, you’ve finally learned to call it quits when you need a break. Proud of you B.”

Bruce doesn’t bother to disguise his roll of the eyes. Dick would know he did it regardless. “Get on.”

Dick shoots him a lazy salute. “Sir, yes, sir.” He ambles to the door, and Bruce calls out again before he’s gone.

“And next time, Dick, please try to keep the antics out of the paper, and off the internet.”

The shit-eating grin betrays Dick’s real thoughts when he says, “Of course Bruce, won’t happen again.”

Liar.

Bruce shakes his head in reluctant bemusement – should he honestly have expected anything else – and Dick ducks out of the door without another word. Finally, the dining room is quiet, except for the pitter-patter of rain on the window panes, and the soft hum of Tim’s computer.

Carefully, Bruce rises from the chair, his side twinging, head throbbing in what is now a full-on migraine.

He should have stayed in bed.

Ah, well, he’s suffered worse, and now he has a good idea of what happened with his sons that caused a headache so insistent he felt it halfway across the galaxy.

Gently closing Tim’s laptop, he doesn’t bother to touch the articles and paper, knowing his son’s organizational system may appear a mess to outsiders – even him on occasion – but that it has meaning for him. He observes the rest of the room; collecting Tim’s coffee mugs, and Jason’s empty plate and coke bottle – no need to have Alfred do it if he was right here – and ambles slowly to the kitchen taking care not to drop the dishes or disturb his ribs.

Placing the dishes away, Bruce leans heavily on the counter. Mind whirling, analyzing, and connecting the information as he has always done, however, it battles for dominance over the present, persistent, migraine. His body screams for more rest, and as much as he wishes to dig to the bottom of these problems right now, he trusts Dick has given him an accurate read of the situation. Later he can pry information from the girls, maybe they’ll have a less biased view of Damian’s… friend than his sons do.

He flicks the lights off in the kitchen, for now though, he’s heading back to sleep.

-line break-

A nap, a full meal, and hours later, the pitch black of the night concealed a heavier storm than the light drizzle which draped over the manor earlier in the day. Bruce, knowing damn well he wasn’t fit for patrol, sat in his office, a bottle of forty-year whisky perched next to a crystalline tumbler and a box of chocolates. A minor indulgence, especially as he should stay far away from alcohol at the moment. But if he hadn’t died from insane nutcases, aliens, or his children’s antics, mixing medicine and alcohol probably wouldn’t kill him.

Bruce snapshots a picture of the newspaper Alfred gave him this morning.

The front-page cover contains enough of the story to showcase the significant amount of drama his children had caused.

He texts the images to both Diana and Clark.

All he adds is, ‘I always know, and I’m always right.’

He pours another finger of the amber liquid into his glass and swirls it around as the computer turns on. Just because he wasn’t out and about, didn’t mean he intended to take the night off. Bruce stretches his fingers and opens up a blank case file template.

Time to find out who exactly is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. 

#maribat #damian x marinette #maridami #mlb crossover #daminette #damimari #marinette dupain cheng x damian wayne #ml x dc #marinette dupain-cheng x damian wayne #damientte #damianette #mlb x dc #the ikea verse #ikea verse #headache classification system #the great ikea game

[dragoon811]

I am so so tired

What is a rest? What is a good night's sleep? My oldest has a cold and is clingy. My youngest has gone from a kiddo with a good sleep routine and a nighttime cuddle to having the biggest tantrums EVER. I spent THREE hours last night getting her to bed.

I don't know how I stayed calm. I don't.

I say tantrum I mean shrieking "NO! YOU STUPID!" and kicking and hitting and running off and sobbing like she's being murdered and hiding under beds, in closets, etc. Like... please understand. She is a very sweet child. Frilly flannel nightgown with minnie mouse on it. Little wispy hair. Just a full-on nightmare.

And then I had to get the older to sleep. Because it has to be mommy. And she took another HOUR to go to sleep! T__T.

Like...I work full time. I do the grocery shopping. The meal-planning. Wrangling daycare and school. I do most of the cooking. I still have 2 loads of laundry to fold. By time I get the kids to bed? It's too late to vacuum so I pick stuff up by hand and put it in the garbage. I wish I had hardwood - at least I could mop at night. You look crazy, sweeping cheese off of carpet.

I come home and the List wasn't done. Put away laundry? I video'd everything - what it was, where it was. Closets and drawers are labeled. And there is still. laundry. not. put. away. OK. I'll just do it. Litterbox? Floor wasn't swept. Grab the broom and dustpan. Not enough litter put into the box. Do that, too.

Dishes? Hah! A paltry amount. A mountain awaiting wash. And the few that did get washed? Not properly clean.

Fill the diaper bag, make sure there's spare clothes. Wash out the lunch box. Brush hair. Eczema lotion. Style hair. Convince toddler to pick an outfit from the options presented. Meal-prep. School lunches- ensure they're allergy-friendly! School - events, check with teachers, return library books. Holidays! Gotta do valentines. Make sure snow pants are clean and dry. And coats. Don't forget to wash them once a week!

Change sheets. Clean couch cushion covers. Bath time! Let me clean your hair, clean your ears. Trim cats' claws. Play games to learn letters/words/taking turns. Color. Draw. Do Lego and playdoh to strengthen hand muscles.

Playdates/activities. Grocery shopping. Gas in the car. Bills. Clothes for children who seem determined to destroy or outgrow everything. Wear your bra til it falls apart because they're expensive.

Try to reach out to your friends at least once a week so you can TRY to maintain those relationships. It's usually a 5-minute phone call on your drive home because that is the only time you have to yourself.

Be constantly sick. Cry over the price of medicine. Cry over the cost of groceries. Try to find deals. This may mean driving all over town and four different stores.

And all of this dragging two kids and a husband you're taking care of but who would rather play video games for 10 hours and has memory problems. Wonder how much is the illness and how much is incompetence.

Get everything done. Sit...no energy for a book. No energy for a movie or show. No energy to knit or crochet. No energy to write.

Does...does it ever end?

#shut up dragoon811 #i do NOT want advice i just want to vent #could use me a sugar daddy #can't do only fans i have gross retail feet

[fruit-salad-ship]

In light of farm girls prompt, I have developed an entire cheesy room-com draft for you all to enjoy. It is cheese on ham on cheese. And it’s perfect.

We focus in on a quaint farm few hundred acres that makes ends meet, part of the community, provides a lot for the locals, run by a stoic salt of the earth woman (peach) with no real wants or needs other than a good cold beer and a sit down at the end of a hard days work. She and her Pokemon keep the place ticking over just fine alone.

She’s alerted to a taxi dropping someone off by the dirt road at the end of the drive by her trusty vulpix and lycanroc(midnight), the herders who help her keep the other mons in line.

She ignores it, probably someone got lost, and continues to ride around on her stocky rapidash corralling the Milktank into their grazing field. She notices a sound of struggling looking down at a woman in very smart clothes, carrying some heavy looking bags, the dirt road and her high heels not getting along at all. She’s from the local authorities to try to convince peach to sell the farm and move on. She refuses and rides away.

When she gets home, the woman is on her porch waiting, pushy, and slyly asking to stay. Peach’s old school ways won’t let her leave plum out in the cold, and so she offers a spare room for no more than 48 hours, so she can sort new accommodations out.

City slick plum spends most of thise first day trying to convince her to sell, listing endless reasons why leaving is a better choice. Peach is working hard for very little, the farm keeps her endlessly busy and she has no time for leisure from the looks of things. Her endless chores and jobs seem hectic and tiring. Plum gets to see the true mountain of this woman’s form, sweating out in the fields, lugging feed around, shifting hay, fixing leaks, wrangling mons. She is…watching (dis)respectfully.

Peach tells her if she stays she’s gotta put a little effort in, maybe if she spent a day doing some actual hard work, she could understand the joy of the farm. So Plum is handed a bucket of food and soon realises the torchic she’s been told to feed sense her fear. She struggles to do the job without being chased and pecked relentlessly. Peach sees this and just laughs, goes into the pen and tells plum off for spooking em, they simmer down when she shows up, sit on her arm and stay nice and calm. She’s bonded to them, collects the eggs, at least offers breakfast. If this city slick is going to do her first hard days work in her life, least she can feed her. It’s…nice. Plum rushed around her whole life, the city is snacking on the go and expensive venues full of so-so meals for extortionate prices, often alone.

Peach’s first thing is to find out what mons this city dweller has and get em roaming again, like Pokemon should be. Plum keeps them in their balls all the time, one dragonair, fussy, a lycanroc (day) who hates dirt and being sweaty, and a mismagius who’s too use to the high life. Peach sets them up with various other Pokemon of her own to see if they can perform any jobs, or even just have fun for the day.

That leaves plum, who has donned jeans and flat shoes for the first time, and despite never having ridden a Pokemon, has agreed to try, nervously. She tries her with three different Pokemon, none of which vibe with her. So instead she scoops her up onto her Rapidash to go about the daily tasks. This includes herding, which peach’s lycanroc teaches plum’s to do, and both enjoy it with practice. There’s a little fence repair, a job her mismagius is smart enough to understand, and strong enough to do a good job. The functional skills being used bring out a little pride in the bashful ghost type, who reveals in the praise. Finally the dragonair, who struggled with the last two jobs, but peach found just the right one, 3rd times the charm. Feeding the baby Pokemon. Plenty of mons need to be fed, and what better than that long body to hold a lot of bottles. The dragonair can wrap around several at once and feed the little ones with ease, their bubbly young energy matching hers perfectly.

Two days turns into a week, the duo sharing a lot of hours together, plums learning there’s more to life than the smoke and smog of the city, and her social networking. The pair even get to go to a barn dance and relax a little together, have some drinks, meet some locals who all enjoy peach’s hard work, she’s quiet and wants nothing from them but they all talk behind her back about the endless jobs she does for the town and it’s residents. They love her, and admittedly, plum is starting to see why. She’s just sitting there petting someone’s growlithe, chatting away, no real clue that everyone around her appreciates the hard work. All her countless hours and seemingly pointless jobs she’s seen her do day in day out start to make a lot of sense. The pair have a nice night and stagger home together, falling asleep on the sofa together. Plums phone buzzes in the night, wakes her, and she sees a text from someone she doesn’t want to hear from. Ignores it, turns the phone over, and goes back to sleep, cuddling up to the sleeping farmer beside her.

During this time, plum was able to see her team enjoying things she never expected, they adjusted so fast, and with each job, she also felt more accomplished. She enjoyed riding near some big Pokemon, and ok she scraped her arm fixing the fence but it was good to see the hard work make something real and tangible, and the little Pokemon were so cute, she could feed those sweeties all day! The duo once again mount up, plums been happily tucked up at the front of the saddle, between peach’s thighs, happily against that chest, watching the world go by with her quiet companionship. The pair take the long way home, which takes them up to the top of a mountain, where the sunset views are pretty incredible. Nothing like the city, not even a little. The pair bond a little, and plum asks to stay a little longer, she’s had a nice day, maybe there’s more to this ‘country life’ thing after all. Peach agrees, the pair ride home. The farmer was right, a cold beer at the end of a long day tasted better. The pair sit out on the porch with their Pokemon and watch a big storm roll in. It feels very right.

Plum realises developing the farm isn’t an option, but it has to make more revenue or more people will come to push peach off the land and turn it into condos or a mall. The next few days, plum is strategising, figuring out new revenue avenues. She turns the dining room table into a work desk, papers and ideas all over, her laptop out, on the phone to local businesses and people. Peach is too busy working all day but sees this eventually, asking why the mess? When she hears that plums trying to save the farm it kind of clicks that the city girls not all that fussed about her fancy outfits and things anymore. She’s been in jeans and a shirt for a week, the phones not been glued to her face, she’s slowed down to appreciate the view, a hot tea in the morning, the way rain hits leaves. She’s changed.

With great efforts, the town rallies, the biggest turnover is an old barn, it’s a little shoddy, hasn’t seen a lick of paint in a while, no leaks, but unused. The town pays back some of the favours peach has endlessly given them, and the barn is secretly done up. Plum tells peach to meet her there at the end of the day, so she rides over and hops off. Inside it looks like someone else’s property. The walls are cleaned up, beams wound with lights, a long table down the middle, small raised stage at the end, laid out fancy with flowers and silverware. Plum saw the money in weddings and figured a hand full of rentals per year would bring in enough cash to make sure no one comes along and bullies them off the land. It does look very rustic, beautiful and somehow clean? Peach is impressed, more so when plum says she’s already got the first booking. All peach has to do it grow some flowers and get a cart and ride Pokemon to pull it together. The farm itself is safe.

It is that night, the pair have gotten back to the house, relaxing with music that they hear a car pull up down the end of the drive. A smart suited man gets out, peach doesn’t know him, but he puts her on edge, she goes out with three Pokemon on the offence to find out who it is. He asks if she’s seen a woman called plum, to which she’s taken back. Did she say yes? She doesn’t have to say anything, plum walked past, a weak smile on her face, the man not moving to meet her, she had to go to him.

She introduces him as her…boyfriend. A hesitant sentence, looking back at him anxiously. He immediately asks what she’s wearing and why she’s not called him. Peach hears him slate the farm, which fair enough it’s not for everyone, but he shrugs and calls over to peach, saying he’d be joining his girlfriend where she’s staying, which is clearly here. As if there’s no choice.

This man is rude, and peach tolerates him only for plum, who’s gone uncharacteristically quiet since his arrival. He’s been brash and harsh, angry that she didn’t apologise before she left the city, angry that she didn’t organise a shopping delivery for him either, went as far as to ask why she’d let her hair go back to its natural, curled state. Peach all but forgot she arrived with perfectly long straight hair. Got so use to it the way it just was without the fuss.

That night it was impossible to not hear the arguments the pair had in their room, over who said what, why plum didn’t come back sooner, why she didn’t manage to get the farmer to sell. Peach lay there, trying not to listen, going as far as to put a pillow over her head, but it was futile. She got up and went downstairs, sitting out on the porch to try and get some peace, lycanroc and Val in her lap, enjoying a good scratch. A door slammed inside somewhere, and before long she had company, plum furiously pacing out into the yard, unaware that peach was right there, as she kicked a rock, picked another up, threw it as far as possible, her anger boiling over. Upon turning around she locked eyes with peach and realised she’d been observed. It became obvious that plum wanted the boyfriend gone but didn’t know how to say it, he never took ‘no’ for an answer. Use to be nice but since she came to the country, things changed, and she didn’t…want to go back.

The defining moment when they both joked about kicking him off the farm brought them closer, the truth started to unravel. Plum had perhaps grown attached to the farm, to peach, to the life here. The pair share their first kiss, sitting in the cool night air listening to kricketot chirp, and it becomes very clear that maybe this was fate that brought them together. Plum does not go back to her room, she goes back to peach’s, locks the door, and refuses to handle this mess until the suns up.

By morning the boyfriend sees them emerge from the same room, questioning the events last night, his temper flares, he starts getting irate when plum brings up ending their relationship. The first thing he does is insult peach, lashes out in anger as she sits at her table sipping a hot coffee peacefully. A little man with a loud voice, peach didn’t care, he called her a hick, a bumpkin, a slut, a redneck, degen, everything you could think. She didn’t care. So long as he left, nothing else really mattered, just continued to sip her drink. And then he made a fatal error, he turned on plum, spewing hurtful words and seething remarks. After three warnings from the farmer, to stop being a coward and direct his anger at her instead of the smaller woman, he did not listen, and on the 4th scathing insult, he felt a fist collide with his jaw so solidly it took him off his feet. Peach, more irked at the fact that she spilt her coffee, than bust open her hand with the sheer impact, dragged him out onto the porch and dumped him in the dirt. Threatened to break more than his ‘pretty little jaw’ next time she swung for him. Plums Pokemon threw his bags out onto the floor with him, and watched as the man scampered away, shaking his fist in anger, calling a cab to get out of there fast.

And so the girls stayed on the farm, with all the Pokemon happy and together. plum adjusted really well, peach even went back with her to get her things from the city,making sure her useless ex didn’t give her any trouble. They ran a successful wedding rental business, and every day found new things to love about each other. The city slick and the country bumpkin, a perfect pair.

#I had to put this somewhere #brainrot

[enigmatist17]

Part 1

-----

There's a message waiting for Angel on his answering machine when he gets home.

It's not uncommon, Angel grateful an exasperated Cordelia had helped set up said machine and spent a good three hours teaching him how to use it. While he still wasn't a fan of modern technology, it was quite nice to be able to not have to fret over every missed call, a potential client, or lost soul going unheard for a myriad of reasons.

With a click Angel starts the recording, hanging his coat up and going for the fridge.

Hey Capt. Forehead, miss me?

Spike, of course, it was Spike.

So, little ol' me goes to D.C right, huntin' down some arseholes and all, when I come across someone who's a lot of fun.

Angel paused, eyebrow raising as he lifted his mug of blood to his lips.

I ran into you! First I figured you followed to make sure I wasn't "harming innocents" when we all just know you like having complete control. Well "you" had a gun, and whoever this guy is he really knows his way around 'em, and was fighting like a human. So, I figured you were just being weird, until I realized he's got a heart, a real beatin' heart underneath that ridiculous bravado you usually charge with. I mean I've seen similar-looking descendants before, but this bloke is almost exactly like you, minus our lovely affliction. Call me when you decide to get your arse home, I can't wait to research this guy.

Angel whips out his phone before the beep on the machine, not really caring it's late for Spike.

"Really mate, you couldn't wait?" A clearly sleepy Spike groaned when he finally picked up after the second round of calls.

"When you leave a message like that? No, the hell did you think I was going to do?" Angel rolled his eyes. "How's the East Coast?"

"They have some great bars here, and the theatre scene is a nice change of pace. Not as many naughty stores though, real shame."

"Right, absolute shame." Spike snorted as he sat up, yawning when he saw it was about 11 in the morning.

"I won't torment you, I can hear that wheel spinnin' in your head, plus I want to sleep. This bloke called himself Special Agent Goody Two-Shoes Seeley Booth, of the FBI."

"Uh-huh." Angel couldn't help but grumble into his blood, able to visualize the smirk on Spike's face. "And?"

"If he didn't have a beatin' heart, I could see you being one of these agent types as a human, easily. Fightin' for the innocent." Spike crooned into the receiver, cackling when he heard Angel choke on his meal. "He also gets into trouble just like you do."

"What does that mean?" Angel took a seat on his bed.

"Already has a hit squad after him, well, him and some lady I 'aven't seen yet." Spike shifted up and out of his bed with a yawn, digging around in his mini-fridge for a late-night snack.

"Do you need help?" Angel tapped the side of his mug, and for a moment both vampires don't say anything.

"Bring Cordy with ya, she's always fun." The younger drawled, slipping back into bed with his snack. "How is she by the way?"

"Better, it's...she's good."

"Tell you what, after everything gets cleared up, we take her out on the town. No bullshit is goin' to mess with the two of us watching over her." Angel could laugh at the gentle tone Spike spoke with, but if he was honest, it was nice after the intense whirlwind that had been the last few months with Cordelia and Jasmine.

"She's going to want to shop you know."

"Of course! Well, I'm going to sleep, so sod off and let me know when you land." Spike yawned, squinting at his alarm clock by his bed. "Oh, and bring my journal will ya?"

"I can wrangle that." Spike responded by hanging up, asleep almost the moment he laid back in bed, and Angel stood by his fridge, looking down at his phone. It's been a while since he's traveled to the other side of the states, and a small break wasn't such a bad idea as he typed in Cordelia's number.

---

Agent Booth can't help but fiddle with his fingers as the sun slowly sets outside of his office, leg bouncing underneath his desk. The day had passed by as if in a dream, and not even the squints and Brennan could distract him from what had happened last night. Vampires, demons, all these nasty things that he and the others had been blindly investigating were real, and it was a lot to swallow. His eyes flick over to the small duffle bag he'd bought that morning, filled with holy water and crosses because...because...well, he wasn't sure.

Sure caused a riot at the scanner.

He finally gets up to head out for the day, bag in hand as he heads to his car, masking his nervousness with smiles at various coworkers. He had to take a breath or two to calm himself once he was in the car, but soon set his mind to finding the place Spike was staying, which was closer to his office than he was comfortable with. The hotel was just like any other Booth supposed, and after parking he tracked down the room number Spike had given him the night before, knocking after pausing for a moment.

The door was opened by someone who wasn't Spike, a man who was a touch taller than Booth looking surprised.

"Uh, sorry, I have the wrong room." Seeley winced, and the man blinked before clearing his throat.

"Ah, you must be Agent Booth right?" The Brit made Seeley pause, and the two awkwardly held gazes before the man looked over his shoulder. "Ah, he's here."

"Let him in then!" A second voice chirped, and a woman popped up behind the first man with a grin. "Hi, I'm Cordelia, and the dork in front of me is Wesley and wow you look exactly like Angel!"

"I am not a dork!" Wesley squawked, adjusting his tie. "Wesley Wyndam-Price, a pleasure to meet you."

"Nice to meet you." Booth gave an awkward wave as Wesley stood back to allow the other man inside.

"Here we go." Spike chuckled from a corner of the room, and when Booth turned to look at the vampire, he instead stared at...himself.

There were no words for how weird this was.

It was almost like he was looking in a mirror, save for the large leather jacket that Booth could never pull off...or uh, maybe? The same brown eyes he saw in the mirror every morning were watching the agent's every move, as if Booth could lash out and harm the occupants who were watching the two in varying stages of amusement to awe.

"I have to ask about the belt buckle." Angel finally says something, and four sets of eyes zoom in on Booth's waist, making the man squirm.

"It's a good buckle." Booth defended, crossing his arms. "At least I don't look like I walked out of Hot Topic."

"What's a Hot Topic?" Angel tilted his head slightly, Cordelia and Wesley biting back laughter. "And I'll have you know this is a very nice coat."

"Uh huh, if someone was going through an emo phase," Booth smirked, Angel rolling his eyes as Spike cackled. "You too blondie."

"This coat is not a phase!" Spike immediately protested, before pointing a finger at the two other humans in the room. "I can hear you laughin' over there."

Cordelia just snorts, and Wesley hides a laugh with a cough. "Ah, we were...are not." Booth couldn't help but let out a chuckle of his own, feeling a lot less tense.

"So...this is fun." Cordelia clapped her hands together. "Heard you have a hit squad out for blood, and we're all experts at fighting demons, at least it's a change of scenery!"

"You all new here?" Booth asked, Angel gathering up some chairs before taking a seat on the couch next to Spike.

"I've flown through Washington, but that's the extent." Wesley waved, adjusting his glasses.

"Nope, been to Sunnydale and L.A, this is a West Coast gal." Cordelia hummed, having curled up in her chair with a grin. "Always wanted to come though!."

"I was here in the 1910's, New York was a lot more fun." Spike drawled, flinging his legs over Angel's lap to the displeasure of the older vampire, yet Angel made no moves to shove them off.

"Angel, gonna share with the class?" Cordelia asked, and Booth didn't miss the flicker of adoration between the two.

"I uh, I don't really remember much." Angel shrugged, shoulders hunched. "I think I was in Baltimore?"

Booth has a feeling this Angel was being vague for a reason, but everyone had their demons, so who was he to judge.

"So, storytime is nice and all, but I think we need to get to the business at hand?" Booth cleared his throat, and watched as Wesley stood to grab a book from the weathered coffee table.

"Cordelia here was a darling and got us access to your files at this Jeffersonian place, and I believe I've pinpointed the exact demon who ate the people you've been investigating!" Wesley rifled through a few pages while Booth just stared, one hand on his hip and the other running through his hair.

"I'm sorry you hacked into the Jeffersonian? Federal property? For access to a case I literally brought with me?" Booth's voice is high-pitched at the thought, and Cordelia sinks in her seat when he focuses on her with a stunned look.

"This is better than my soaps." Spike snickered from his corner, Angel putting a hand over his face. "Impatient the lot of you."

"Uh, am I going to get in trouble, because I totally was doing what I was asked to by my boss." Booth just stared before muttering something under his breath, setting the bag he'd brought down and rooted around to produce a folder.

"Do that again, I will arrest you." He pointed at Cordelia with the folder before handing it over. "I just, I don't know what's going on here, but at the minimum don't do anything with federal property. Hell, museums are off-limits until I say so!"

"You can't do that, I wished to see what you have in your Natural History museum!" Wesley balked, though took a step back when Booth rounded on him with a glare.

"Hey it's the Mr. Grumpy look." Cordelia grinned, and both Booth and Angel round on her with the same annoyed look. "Twice the stare, great!"

"Help me deal with...this weird shit, and I might let you in." Booth continued with Wesley, who looked hopeful at the prospect. "Love that I have more squints to deal with, fantastic."

"Squints?" Angel voiced, Booth making a weirded-out look at hearing his voice.

"Squints, you know, the research people." Booth waved one hand, struggling to come up with the right words. "I'd say the lab people, but you all are in the field as well, so maybe not squints..."

"Huh...I like it." Angel made a hum, and Wesley slowly looked over with narrowed eyes.

"Don't you dare call me that."

"Too late squint."

"I'm going to stake you."

"Good luck."

"How about dear Wes and I go take a nap, it was a long flight." Cordelia stepped in, getting to her feet with a stretch.

"Do you need anything?" Angel asked, shoving Spike's legs off him and standing as Wesley grabbed his books and the case.

"No I'm good, you two just play nice okay?" She smiled, the dark-haired vampire returning it with his own soft smile before the two headed out for other rooms, the younger woman threatening Wesley about sleeping as the door closed behind them.

"You've got it bad." Spike snorted as he readjusted on the couch, Angel shaking his head before facing Booth with a wary look.

"Blondie there is right." Booth merely chuckled, regarding Angel once more with a shake of his head. "So...now what?"

"You give us your address, and that of uh, 'ang on." Spike dug around in his coat pockets before producing a small slip of paper. "Some Dr. Brennan so we can keep you safe from a bounty."

"A WHAT?!"

Huh, so that's what Angel's screaming sounds like.

#buffy the vampire slayer #bones #bones tv show #angel #angel series #seeley booth #agent seeley booth #spike #spike btvs #cordelia chase #wesley wyndam pryce #temperance brennan

[walkinginland]

first line tag game

Rules: Post the first lines of your last 10 fics posted to ao3. if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics 

Tagged by: @three-drink-amy, @flyinghome-againstthewind, @lord-jen-grey thank you friends!!!!!

Tagging: I have totally lost track of who has done this so apologies if this is a repeat for you :) @paperstorm, @wafflesetc, @homerforsure, @pulveremcomedesligulas and anyone else who wants to join in, consider yourself tagged :)

1. let the ransomed be free - the song of achilles

Time passes differently under the earth. It is marked by different measures, decided by different powers. Gods and suns wheeling in the sky above are not permitted here below. Kings who counted their days by dreams of their own glory, now cut short here alone, with no one to mark the loss of their pride.

2. return my fists to fingers - the last binding

Robin jerked awake, gasping for air to fill his tightened lungs – too fast, slow down you fool – as if there were far more weighing down on his chest than thin, familiar sheets.

3. Sunlight - the song of achilles

It was a rare morning that he woke before Achilles.

4. into the empty parts of me - outlander

In the house on Chestnut Street, in the dim pre-dawn hours, John Grey – still half asleep – rolled over to find someone on the other side of his bed.

5. remember me, love - outlander

That day.

That day

               they had drawn breath

                               together

               one last time before

                                               stone came to separate

               that together into

                               apart.

6. I Would Not Ask - outlander

He was dead. Or at least he should have been.

He was standing, somehow, had dirt in his eyes and blood covering more of him than not. But he was standing.

7. All the Colors in the Rainbow - outlander

Claire was standing at her dresser on a Saturday morning, putting the finishing touches on her makeup and making a last-ditch effort to wrangle her curls.

8. Find a Little Remedy - outlander

Jamie Fraser sat under a tree on a cliffside, a stone’s throw from the cave where he spent most of his days. It was near sunset, and he was thinking. Of all things he could be thinking of, he found himself to be slightly baffled that the topic on his mind this evening was singing.

9. To Heart and Home - outlander

It didn’t work. It didn’t work it didn’t work it didn’t work.

Oh thank God.

10. it just takes some time - outlander

She is five years old when she learns that life is not guaranteed. Stability is not a promised existence, and parents don't always come home. She is five years old when a car flips upside down and upturns her life.

+ one WIP because why not

Claire didn’t mean to fall in love with anyone.

cheers, friends 🥰🥰🥰

#textin #tag games #i don't often go back to my own fics so this was fun i completely forgot how most of these opened 😂

[limerent-object]

In The Fray, Pt 1

If Priya hadn't spent every day for the past quarter preparing for the Fray Theater's winter charity gala with Salem, she probably would have been more nervous about this cliffhouse weekend she had somehow convinced him to play along with. Priya's live-in partner, Paul mocked her relentlessly for packing and re-packing the same, slightly different four outfits all throughout the week. "Priya, the man has seen you naked during the uniform fittings. There are no surprises here!" Paul said as he took a bite out of a sloppily made ham sandwich, standing in the living room watching her fiddle with her duffel bag the day prior to her departure. Priya stared distantly at the crumbs from the rye bread tumbling from Paul's hand to the living room floor and grumped, though she knew he was right.

Salem and she had basically spent more time together over the past three months than your average group of theater kids at the local community college before the big year-end musical. They were on calls in the morning, and shuffling around downtown Philadelphia trying to get paperwork cleared by afternoon. These past three weeks especially had been hellish. She felt like she was planning a wedding, she was both the bride and the maid of honor simultaneously, and she wasn't even getting married or allowed to eat lobster at the reception!

Well, that last part wasn't entirely true. But still, even though Salem was pulling his weight (probably more, honestly) she felt overwhelmed. Her typical submissive exercises with Paul were barely keeping her on an even keel, despite the usual cold-bath routine's effectiveness at bringing her back to planet Earth. She was careful to keep this dynamic and her current stress levels from bleeding into her work, but despite her meticulous efforts to keep her exposed skin unblemished and unbruised, she didn't expect a few drinks to kick her scrupulous routine in the knees.

As far as Priya was aware, Salem was too slavishly busy managing city permits and AV agencies to have time for romance, let alone be concerned about her own orbit. She liked the way his dark hair crowded his jawline, and his hard brow... she was sure he wasn't lacking opportunity, after all. Yet, one night after a particularly rough day of wrangling contractors to repair the ceiling of the theater's foyer, Priya's assumptions were corrected over three and a half whiskey sours at the Ranstead Room.

"Women? Priya, women do not see me. They assume with a name like 'Salem' and casual use of the term 'polyamory' that I am some exiled escapee of the Muslim community, or something." Priya felt a small zap at the word, like the release of a static shock. Salem recognized the lack of guard on her face. She barely remembers exactly why or when, but somehow it all came out. The stress. The protocol. The constant attempt to tame the weird carnal energy on the job. The wearing of harnesses under her business suits and the shock collars cinched to thighs under her woolen skirts. Her eyes searching his face for... recognition? Familiarity?

Salem laughed casually at first. They had entered that state of inebriation where someone could admit to murder and their audience would hardly careen from the news. But as the alcohol's effects dwindled in the smaller hours of the morning, the laughs became more hesitant, the locking of eyes a little more sustained.

Many days passed after they parted ways that night where even the subject of personal life did not cross their usual conversational bound. Priya began to become anxious about her professionalism, fiddling with her glasses while they reviewed schematics over lunch. Had she made things awkward? Maybe Salem wasn't that kind of open. Did he think her a freak? Was there a way to rectify the image?

A week later, while standing in the box office many hours before the theater opened to do routine PA tests, Salem entered the booth. Priya looked up from her clipboard but before she could break the silence, he cautiously lifted his hand to her throat and pulled down the lip of her turtleneck, exposing her clavicle... and a discreet prong collar. Her eyes locked with his in a panic, and he released the fabric with such nonchalance she wasn't even sure she had been exposed at all. The corners of his mouth, however, betrayed his amusement as he handed her a cup of coffee in a paper cup and exited the booth.

When she found the little cliffhouse up the coast posted on a vacation rental website, she did not resist the impulse. She booked it for the weekend after the gala was set to take place. She told herself it was to guarantee she would actually take a vacation after this frenzy. She told Paul it was to truly unplug. But she knew... she wanted to be confined to four walls with Salem, where no one could watch them from the light booth.

[skykashi]

I'm about 30 hours late in saying this, but I can't tell you just how perfect this was 🧡. Over the weekend, I was actually trying to wrangle about eight or nine different plot ideas/oneshots for assorted fic I've been wanting to write for months now. I had thought I might try to use some for Kakashi Week, except none of what I had written really fit the prompts to my liking, and I was just feeling overwhelmed by too many choices (not to mention wanting to finish my current projects, too!).

When I read your comment, the BIGGEST lightbulb went off in my head for how to use team min + time travel to connect all the ideas in a fun and logical way. It was such a rush that I just sat down and typed and edited and drafted for a while, and I forgot to come back to tumblr to tell you THANK YOU!! Not just for pointing out how funny and cute and entertaining this whole thing would be, but also for reading and laughing at my dumb tags and everything! I love seeing your reactions, I'm glad we seem to have a similar sense of humor, and I always look forward to checking your blog and reading your posts. (1/2)

I'm gonna make a blog update about this a little later on, but I just thought I'd give you a bit of a headsup that I'm going to be taking a bit of a break from tumblr/ pulling back from updates and reblogs for a while. I have a short queue lined up, but over the last few days, I realized that tumblr has been absorbing a lot of my energy, and I want to reserve some of that time and energy for creating other stuff. (Writing more is definitely one of the other things). So if I'm not checking in as frequently, don't worry; I'm not losing interest in writing posts or finishing fic or anything. Just doing a bit of rebalancing.

Also, fyi, I spent the first half of yesterday re-reading the first arc of "Abandon." I kind of fell back in love with it after feeling a lot of hesitation and distance from it all summer. So that is where all my writing energy will go next, is to continuing part three, and then finishing part four + five afterwards. After that, probably continuing "Up Against The Wall," and after that, the new one with the Team Minato time travel in it. That's the plan, but I have no idea how long it will take or if I will stick with that order (hopefully not too long). Anyway, thank you for reading, and cheering me on when I'm tired of writing, and going with me and my Team Minato on their sad rollercoaster of emotions. I really appreciate it so much!! 🧡🧡🧡

Shzbvsbjsks I'm so glad you found my silly idea inspiring 🥰 it always strikes me how much Kakashi's personality changed from his kid version to his adult version so I always wondered how team Minato including kid Kakashi would react when they see adult Kakashi shenanigans 😂

It's always sad when one of my favorites blogs isn't as active as usual but it's also very understandable and it's a good thing too that you will get to focus more on writing so hopefully this will mean more new chapters will be coming 👀❤️❤️

And I can't even tell you how much I've missed "Abandon" so reading that you are falling back in love with it is such a great news to me, I can't wait to read everything you have for us, I know all of them are worth the wait 😍❤️

#my asks #sky answers

[collectorcrowcalamity]

Gray, Green, and the Inbetween pt. 2

The Railroad Man x Non-binary Witch Reader

Pt. 1

Garbage summary: Witch lives alongside the railroad, they’re a community organizer, healer, teacher etc. After unsuccessfully trying to wrangle some control over the reader’s village, TRM gets a lot a little obsessed with controlling the town and the reader. The reader likes a challenge and is more curious about TRM than is safe and sane [Basically, where’s the TRM x Reader love? I mean he squicks me out in an attractive way? he’s an embodiment of capitalism and brutally uses people for his own gain… but hear me out]

TW: Mentions of bodily harm caused by working at the railroad. There will likely be more as I come up with ideas for this story.

∾∾∾∾∾

You could feel his smile on your skin, somehow, it was hard to explain. It has always felt dirty and sickly to have been caught looking, but even more so by him. You knew he wouldn’t get close, you’d warded the place so well that even well-meaning visitors wandered around lost for a bit before finding who they were visiting and anyone who wasn’t meant to be here never seemed to notice any of it. This helped prevent people from banks coming to evict community members because the bank decided they owned this little village jammed like a doorstop into the edge of the woods.

Still, there was a feeling of unease, and the next three hours were spent reinforcing the wards. He may not have succeeded in destroying the town to make way for newer capital last time, but his presence on the hill every week now, it used to only be once a month when he could pretend he was hidden by a moonless night, made you nervous. 

You didn’t get much sleep after that.

The morning brought a light that activated a small, but treatable, headache behind your eyes and a harsh knock at the door. It was a rhythm rushed and broken, so you knew who it was before you even opened the door. 

A dark-haired boy stood on the porch, stood was a kind way to phrase it, more like pacing in place to get his energy contained. Isaiah Maddox was twelve, big for his age, and strong as an ox, but he was twitchy and needed to be outdoors. He loved running errands for you in exchange for whatever you had decided to bake that day.

“Finished with your chores already?” you feigned disbelief. Isaiah had two sets of chores, one in the morning, and a longer one after dinner meant to boil off any of that excess energy in him before supper. 

Isaiah grinned “Not unless you got any more for me!”

You thought hard about it, you didn’t really want him to go into the woods and outside your wards if you could help it, not with whatever strange meeting the Man had, you didn’t see him as the helping-people-out-of-the-goodness-of-his-heart type and whoever he helped was likely the same. The best bet was to pick things he liked to do in town, that would help him stay busy and safe, but not be too suspicious about it or he’d know the man who led his father out of his life was slinking around the town again. You didn’t know how, but that boy knew more than was good for him, and he had too much energy to keep any of it to himself

“Well, I was thinking about fixing that fence there and then heading over to my mama’s place”, you said with a smile knowing she’d be able to come up with plenty of things to keep Isaiah out of trouble and help you figure out what to do. 

It seemed to do the trick, the boy’s face somehow lit up even more. 

∾∾∾∾∾

The Man had given them business cards and you barely saw them, grey and shining, as they were tucked away into shirt pockets, hat bands, shoes, really any place they could be easily and reliably stored. Isaiah was holding one despite being far too young for the type of labor the railroad required and staring at it with a puzzled expression, he mumbled something that you couldn’t quite hear.

“What was that, Isaiah?”

“Shit business card doesn't even have a way to reach him” he grumbled.

Usually, you’d pretend to uphold his mama’s wishes for Isaiah not to swear, give him a little look he’d pretend to get sheepish at, but you figured now was the best time for a little swearing, and no one else seemed to have heard him. But he was right, it was a plain card with an “R” and railroad tracks, no name, and no company. 

“Isaiah, give me the card.” You tried your best to sound firm but calm, rather than the creeping fear you felt at losing this small boy to… who knows what. He must have figured you out because he handed it to you silently and shoved his hands in his pockets kicking at the dirt to pretend he wasn’t interested. 

The card made your fingertips tingle, it wasn’t painful like pins and needles when your foot fell asleep, but it felt dangerous, like the buzzing of wasp wings. With your heart racing, you turned back to your home.

Nearly the entire day was dedicated to you collecting and destroying the business cards, you found you could only hold a few at a time before the tingling turned into a burning, and it was a pain to cleanse the cards and burn them out back. You weren’t about to burn them and release that energy into your home. Many men refused to listen to your pleas that only bad things could come from this Man, that the railroad took life and limb indiscriminately, and that they best think about their families and the community that relied on them. Besides, the rails on the hill have been done for a year and a half now, what more could they need? Neither sympathy, logic, nor approaches to their egos worked on them, they wanted the glory and wealth the Man in the gray suit had offered them. You didn’t blame them, you knew they wanted the best for their loved ones. Money wasn't much here, most people went out into fields owned by other men to tend crops they didn’t own, and others traveled together weekly to larger towns to sell wears they had made and buy whatever the town couldn’t grow in the community garden. You did your best to make sure everyone got to eat regardless of their individual successes, and you never asked for payment when you set bones, delivered medicine, or delivered children, but the truth was, everyone was struggling. 

And so the next dawn, the men who held their business cards with iron grips walked out of town and they never came back.

∾∾∾∾∾

You snapped back into focus as you approached the small cottage, Isaiah had been talking, and you’d been responding with as much attention as you could, but your nerves had really taken over as the day progressed. Your mama, who wasn’t exactly your mama but might as well have been, had the table laid out with food much to the joy of Isaiah. 

“Hello, ma’am” Isaiah shouted a bit too loud for the house.

“Isaiah, you better be heading out to wash up before you even think about touching that food” a voice yelled from the kitchen. Isaiah froze one hand hovering over a roll before slinking off to scrub off his hourly dirt collection. 

A hand grabbed your shoulder, and your mama gestured for you to join her in the kitchen.

“I take it he’s been showing up again?”

You nodded grimly and felt your stomach flip a little. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but you hadn’t told her every single instance you’d seen the Man poking around. You pretended it was because you didn’t want her to worry or get angry and try and drive him off with one of the wooden spoons from her collection and put herself in more danger, but it also felt strangely intimate for him to be checking on the town. You didn’t like thinking about how your heart races a bit when you look out the window before going to sleep, and that he was on the outskirts long after the rails on the hills were established.

#this is just setting up stakes #i promise #im feral for this man im sorry #not to be attracted to men but #no beta we die like thems #old gods of appalachia #ogoa #the railroad man #the man from the railroad #the railroad man x Reader #ogoa x Reader #nb reader #the gray green and inbetween #fanfic #ch 2

[chronal-anomaly]

@avalior asked:

Embrace + reverse - might I humbly request Lena seeing Markus again post Recall to kick his bum into coming back? 👀|| Indulgences ( accepting! )

Lena was tired.

Her last meal and a shower was twenty-one hours ago, her last time in bed was longer, probably, she didn't remember. Launching the Recall had consumed her waking hours and some of her sleeping ones too, plans on bringing back whatever pieces of the team together, and blueprints on how to avoid the watchful eye of the United Nations, at least for now, had swallowed the hours away.

The past three days had been spent with Winston, wrangling bits and pieces of the old team back together. Lena had managed to get a message off to Cole - still waiting on a response - and Reinhardt had responded with his usual, intense enthusiasm. Travel had consumed her other waking hours, forced onto a commercial plane that made it impossible to sleep - they really just hired anyone to fly these days. But getting the Orcas back online was an endeavor she was putting off for another few weeks, so Swiss airlines would have to suffice for now.

So excuse her appearance as she sat against one of the benches in the refugee camp, watching a small crowd of children play idly in the dirt. Lena heard the whispers, the word "hero" like a stained phrase, tossed so casually among strangers that still she would defend with her life. One of the children eyed her, old enough to know the cartoons and the catchphrases, and the passion burned into his eyes stirred something in her. They needed Heroes.

And Lena played the part, sitting up straight and giving them the strong, two fingered salute. The comments eventually devolved into regaling the children with stories of omnic defeat, of the good guys winning and Null Sector being crushed into the dust. A twisted tale lay plain, one to rival the Grimms Brothers themselves, if only to make the kids feel better for a fleeting second. There was still hope, somewhere in the dredges of strung-out and exhausted heroes. Otherwise, why would she be there, recruiting one of the few lifesavers that still lived.

But for everyone else, time moved on. Someone called for chow, and the lines of children that had seen so much slowly filed in for their nightly rations. The camp grew quieter, people finding ways to busy themselves, while Lena remained on that bench, reserved, exhausted, ticking off the seconds that always seemed a little too fast in her head.

Finally, after the hourglass in her head flipped again, the tent slid open, revealing the ramshackle, exhausted prize she had travelled around the world for. Suddenly, the exhaustion melted from her figure, and the caged bird in her ribcage beat once again against her chest.

Energy restored and boots crunching against the dirt, Lena dashed, pushing herself into Markus' chest and knocking him back a step or two with the fury of her force. All other comments from the surrounding parties went unheeded as she pulled back, considered him, and hugged him tight once again.

The look of unfiltered emotional lit up the already drawn eyes and mused hair was enough to spark a sense of familiarity, of connection that only life at war would provide. There was another pause, Lena looking Markus up and down for any new, terrible injuries, before stumbling back onto her heels.

"Heya, love. Good to see you. You look good - well, as good as anyone working in a dusty refugee camp would." Her tone was light, words kind, for she knew the immensity of the coming request would impact their friendship for a long time to come. "Do you have a minute to talk? I brought Snackajacks."

#( ic. ) #Here is your novel you ordered I'm so sorry #avalior

[nocompromise-noregrets]

five good things

I'm off work for three whole weeks now (I save my leave up so that I can take a good long time off at this time of year because I know I'm going to need it), and then for my first two weeks back I'll be working at home because I have a database-wrangling task to do and I can concentrate so much more easily at home.

I have a study at long last! We finished it last weekend, and I've spent a good bit of time in it and somehow I feel a lot more motivated to do stuff when sitting at a desk (except this afternoon but never mind, we can't have everything). Photos when I've sorted out everything that's going on the walls - probably at the end of next week, as I won't have the chance before because...

...tomorrow I am heading off to Heathrow and early on Wednesday morning I have a flight to Hamburg to spend a week with my lovely friends who live deep in the Schleswig-Holstein countryside. HOORAY! It's really crept up on me, but I've just packed my case and everything fits (so far) and it only weighs about 15kg out of my baggage allowance of 23kg. A minor miracle. Keeping my fingers crossed that the baggage handlers' strike today and tomorrow doesn't have too much of a knock-on effect on my bag going with me on Wednesday, and that the Border Force strike doesn't have too much of an effect on me clearing passport control when I come back next Thursday as I forgot I was coming into terminal 5 rather than terminal 3 and only have an hour between my flight arriving and my coach leaving, OOPS.

I have rediscovered the scarves I was knitting for our local homelessness charity while I was off work sick seven years ago (sigh), and found that I still had yarn for three more scarves, so I'm in the middle of making them. It's a super simple pattern, extra chunky wool and big needles so they're knitting up nice and quickly and it's extremely therapeutic. I dropped the first batch (two carrier bags full) into the charity's community cafe/warm space in town last week, and they wouldn't let me go without taking cake with me, as 'nobody leaves here empty handed' in the founder's words. They do fantastic work all year round and quite honestly the guy who founded it deserves a knighthood. I'll be going back in the new year with more scarves. :D

I've finished all my festive fic challenges, plus another prompt-fic, and am hoping for plenty of inspiration while travelling/waiting for my flights/etc. I suspect there will be at least one lazy, quiet afternoon while staying with my friends, so am hoping to get some knitting and writing done.

Not to mention studying, as I've got a bit to catch up on and an assignment to start thinking about. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed as I'm really struggling to remember the terminology, but I had a tutorial on Saturday and the tutor explained a few things in a way that finally made them make sense - and she also said that there have been a few people feeling overwhelmed in the forums, but that it's pretty usual for this part of the course as we've had so much new information piled on us in a short time (I'm already 50% through the course, more or less O.O ) - so I went and checked out the forum threads and found lots of encouragement from the student buddies, who have studied the course before, and the teaching staff - one of the prior students said she never did memorise all the terminology and was using crib sheets right up to the final assignment. Which is reassuring - and at least I can do that with this course, since none of the assessment is in real time.

I have the Job Number Two Christmas party this evening - which is a treat for the staff of both estates, laid on by the family we work for/the estates (my other job is local authority so we don't get a paid-for do - but this one is always rather nice), and is taking place in the main location which is a real honest-to-god castle that has appeared in many film and TV productions :D :D :D Drinks in the Long Drawing Room at 7, and dinner in the Great Hall at 7.30. I feel properly fancy every time XD The missus is giving me a lift there and back too, so I can have a couple of glasses of wine, which tends to take the edge off having to talk shop all evening (I usually end up sitting with one of my volunteers, or with one member of the family or another, and I don't know anyone well enough to talk about anything else XD it's usually entertaining sitting with any of the family though).

ANYWAY. Festive greetings to all of you, a very happy Hanukkah to those of you who are celebrating, and Solstice blessings and a Merry Christmas and all good wishes to everyone else. :D

#five good things