#oh my god and the interview is probably all in german help me

[lordsooga]

Just got some News and ive got a job interview and then my thesis presentation and then the thesis paper’s deadline all within a week so ill be MIA while im freaking out about THAT

#my god #but after that it might be DONE #i fucking hope it is anyway #WOULDNT THAT BE NICE #HHHHHH #just gotta survive this week is all #and the presentation isnt graded #so as long as its not.........................terrible??? #oh my god and the interview is probably all in german help me #tc talks

[hime-memes]

                                                 • A Girl’s Guide To Murder   •  ( Part 1. ) 

These starters have been taken from Holly Jackson’s, “ A Girl’s Guide To Murder “ Book. These are from chapters 1 - 11. 

Recommendations: These starters would best serve angsty or crime fighting muses/plots/timelines.

As always: feel free to change anything within these starters that you see fit to make it work for your muse & the receiver’s muse !

** Any slight wording changes / sentence break ups made to the original text is to accommodate for RP purposes or more clarity. **

Trigger Warnings: Swearing, murder / death, toxic friendships, alcohol mention

“ I ... You don’t know me ... I’m ( Name ). I was a few years below you at school before you left. “  “ I was wondering if I could borrow a second of your time ? Well, not only a second, we’re already way past that ... Maybe like, a few sequential seconds, if you can spare them. “  “ I don’t think your brother/sister/sibling did it -- and I’m going to try to prove it. “  “ ( Name ) ! Why is the dog wearing my shirt ?! “  “ Oh my god, I was trying to do homework ! “  “ That’s because you’re a judgmental prepubescent boy who still thinks little people live inside traffic lights. “  “ Oh my god, ( Name ), stop being so gorge. “  “ I wish I didn’t have to be in pics with you. Give me your face. “  “ Yep. We’re prepared for the tears. “  “ Oh, the calvary’s here. “  “ First, you’re banned from looking at this for the next 24 hours. “  “ He did it over text ! “  “ Boys are dicks, you could do so much better than him. “  “ Massive red flag. “  “ Thanks for coming, guys, I didn’t know if you would. I’ve probably neglected you for half a year to hang out with ( Other Name ). “ “ ... And now I’ll be third wheeling two best friends. “  “ That’s crap we’re all best friends. “  “ Yeah, us and those mediocre guys we allow to bask in our delightful company. “  “ Do you like bunnies too ? “  “ Okay, rom-coms or films where boys get violently murdered ? “  “ I don’t see the logic in putting a nose hole in your nose hole. “  “ ‘ It’s sausage to me ‘ is a German saying; just means ‘ I don’t care ‘. “ “ Oh my god, how many times ? He only did one nude photoshoot in the eighties, that’s it ! “  “ Questionable segue, but yes - and I’m going back to interview him tomorrow. “  “ What do you think I’m going to do ? Pin her down and beat responses out of her ? “  “ But ... honestly ...I thought you were just messing with me. “  “ Like bribery muffins ? “  “ I’ve never trusted anyone who takes their coffee black. “  “ We try not to talk about ( Name ) too much: it upsets Mom. It upsets everyone actually. “  “ It’s that ... well ... we’re not allowed to grieve for him, because of what happened. “  “ Crying already ? We haven’t even gotten to the sad parts. “  “ Should I be nervous ? “ “ Uh, we were just, like, drinking, talking, playing some xbox ... nothing too exciting. “  “ No, they make me look old. “  “ That’s okay, you are old. “  “ I’ll never cross to the dark side. “  “ I remember you were about 5 at the time and always wore a pikachu onesie with a tutu. “  “ Yeah, well, Van Gogh’s work was unappreciated in his own time as well. “  “ Excuse me, ( Name ), I asked if you had a problem. “  “ I’ll deliver my complaint in person. “  “ Look, I don’t need some kid I hardly know fighting my battles for me. “  “ I’m not your problem, ( Name ); Don’t try to make me your problem. “  “ Sorry, he/she is a bit friendly. “  “ That’s no way to talk about your ( Familial Relation ) ! “ “ Sometimes, my mouth starts saying words without checking with my brain first. “  “ I used to want to be a lawyer. “  “ You can’t help that these happen to be the woods outside your house. “  “ My brain hasn’t been able to leave it alone. “  “ Go on - I want to hear your theories. “   “ You think it’s possible that ( Name ) was actually murdered ? “  “ That’s ( Name )’s ? How do you have it ? “ “ Let’s go look at it in my workstation ... uh, bedroom. “  “ Sorry, you’re just very entertaining when you’re this intense. “   “ Stop finding my life amusing ! “  “ Yeah, take a look. Don’t worry, they aren’t sexty or anything. “  “ Then, maybe someone else wrote that text ? “  “ I think they’re terrified of false hope. I am too, if I’m being honest. “  “ That line of inquiry is lost. “  “ What did you tell them about ( Name ) ? “  “ When I asked ( Name ), they just said ( Other Name ) was being a ‘ little bitch ‘ about something. “  “  I don’t like the person I was. The person I was with ( Name ). “  “ I was addicted to her. I wanted to be her. “  “ It was bound to end in tragedy, I think. “  “ Yeah, you’re right - I guess I just still feel protective of ( Other Name )’s secrets, you know ? “  “ Well, let’s hope the camping police don’t check instagram, because I’ve announced it to the world. “  “ Dismantling the patriarchy one tent at a time. “  “ I love camping ! Time for vodka and peach rings until I puke ! “  “ Well, how are you ever going to get a girlfriend ? “ “ With my hot bod and twinkling personality, obvi. “  “ She tells the handsome guy with the flashlight to shut up. “  “ A murdered girl isn’t fair game for your crappy jokes. “  “ I was just about to get to the part about ( Name )’s secret older lover - slash - killer. “   “ That’s way over the scary boundary ! “  “ Stories are fine, but no communicating with spirits. “ “ That was needlessly dangerous ! What were you trying to prove ?! “  “ We’re crying because we got lost and the flashlight broke and we’re DRUNK ! “  “ Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What does the note say ? “   

#book-based starters #book sentence starters #roleplay meme #rp meme #rp sentence starters #roleplay sentence starters

[leiawritesstories]

Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

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

Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair. 

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job. 

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth. 

As if she knew anything her staff actually did. 

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together. 

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation. 

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself. 

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order. 

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English. 

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

~

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple. 

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved. 

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure. 

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved. 

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve. 

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind. 

“You broke both of your hearts” 

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart. 

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

~

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice. 

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds. 

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city. 

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner. 

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed. 

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction. 

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth. 

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love.  We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. 

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages. 

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan. 

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof. 

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech. 

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying. 

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan. 

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing. 

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow. 

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything. 

She was worthy of him. 

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified. 

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

~

Present day. 

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked. 

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch. 

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.” 

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

~

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

~

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......

#my writing #rowaelin month #aaaaaangst

[annab-nana]

Stay With Me - Colby Brock

When tagging along with the boys on a trip to London, you experience some crazy things when you’re alone in your room at the Langham Hotel.

@traphousedaily’s favorite snc series project with: @lonely-xplr, @sarcasmhadachild, @taradummy @reddesertcolbs, @reinad-snc, @cartiercolby, @colbylover99, @sunflowerwhoever, @xplrtrash, @goddess-of-time-and-magic, @xolbyz

A/N: This is my longest fic I have ever written, so if you like the longer fics, let me know! Also, this probably isn’t the best edited because I tried to get it out in a hurry so sorry about that haha

Warnings: some curse words; mentions of suicide, murder, and suffocation

Word Count: 4.6k+

--------------------------------------------------

“We’re going to England, brothas!” Sam shouted which was followed by excited squeals and scream from you, Jake, and Corey as Colby clapped beside you all. When you went to the party at Kian and Jc’s, you were not expecting your best friends to come up and surprise with such news. You giggled as you watched Corey prance around, saying “Oh my God” repeatedly, and Jake spew absolute nonsense of connecting Queen Elizabeth to Bloody Mary.

“Pack ya bags. We’re going to London, baby!” Sam spoke enthusiastically before covering the camera lens that Colby was holding with his hand. And from there, your crazy adventure with the boys began and you hand no idea what you were in for or how badly it would end.

...

After your suitcase was packed and you had your backpack on, you were ready to go to London. You were so excited to see a new place and considering you have never left the country, this was a whole new experience for you. After a ride in an uber and a plane, the five of you arrived in the capital of the United Kingdom.

“Are you guys gonna be safe driving on the opposite side of the road?” Jake questioned as we walked through the parking lot of cars.

“Oh,” Sam and Colby say together, though Colby’s ended with a ‘my God’.

“I didn’t even think about that,” Colby added as he walked backwards, facing the camera towards us.

“Look at the steering wheel, brotha!” Jake pointed to the steering wheel of a black car in front of you all and the wheel was in fact on the opposite side.

“Oh no! How are we gonna do this?” Colby questioned as we all looked at the car, thinking the same thing as the boy with reddened locks.

“I don’t know my right from my left,” Sam spoke in a horrid British accent that you could not help but laugh at.

“Alright, you’re gonna drive,” Colby told his counterpart as you playfully rolled your eyes.

“Okay,” the blond sighed in defeat.

“This isn’t looking good,” you spoke to the camera that Colby held as you two watched Sam try to pull out of the parking spot. He already nudged Jake with the car and then tried to turn right when you can only go left. After a bunch more tomfoolery from the group, you all finally moved your stuff into the car and got in as well.

“Alright boys so-” Colby started to explain what we were doing but was cut off by Corey clearing his throat.

“And girl,” he scolded as he nodded his head in the direction of you.

“No, Corey. Y/n is one of the boys,” Jake butted in.

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult,” you chuckled before turning your attention back to Colby so he could continue his explanation.

“Anyway, this is what we’re doing. We’re going to the Langham Hotel which is known as the most haunted hotel in the UK.”

“And also top ten in the whole world,” Sam added.

“Wait, are we going there or staying there?” Jake asked beside you. Your eyes followed from his to Colby’s to see his answer.

“Staying there.” Your eyes widened slightly as you looked at the two boys beside you. Corey giggled nervously and made jokes to hide his fear and you and Jake just laugh in disbelief.

“In our last series, The Origin, we talked to those guys like a demonologist and he says we’re a lot better at paranormal investigations than normal and he thinks we have a gift. So, this whole trip is trying to prove that our group is the best ghost hunters on YouTube and because of that, we are meeting with two paranormal experts who’ve been studying the paranormal and demonology for years and we’re doing an interview here in an hour,” Sam explained.

Jake appeared to be really excited to the right of you and on your left, Corey stayed quiet, which led you to believe he was kind of scared and trying to hide it. You felt a mix of both the emotions of the boys next to you. You were excited for the adventure like Jake was, but also a little scared like Corey since y’all were going to one of the most haunted hotels in the world.

...

“Hey, there it is,” Colby announced to you three in the back and the camera that he had pointed at the building before you guys.

“The Langham!” Sam shouted as he kept his eyes locked on the road, still trying to get used to driving on the other side of it. You all pulled up the hotel, got your bags, and headed inside in no time.

“So, we have a reservation under Golbach,” Colby started as he spoke to the man at the front desk.

“We put in a request. We don’t know if it was able to be fulfilled, but we’re trying to do room 333,” Sam asked the man in the grey suit, a maroon tie and handkerchief to compliment it. You and Corey shared a look after Sam mentioned the number 333, both knowing it did not sound good.

“Absolutely. You have been allocated in that room,” the front man told y’all and Colby turned to you three with an excited grin which you returned. The man at the front desk noticed your group’s excitement and smiled along with you.

“We heard online that room 333 was like haunted or something like that?” Sam mentioned, hoping to get some information from the clerk.

“Is this why you have the camera?” He grinned as he processed the transaction.

“A little bit, yeah,” Sam chuckled.

“There is the legend, yes,” he told you all as he focused on his work.

“Have you heard anything about that?” the blond pressed again.

“We can’t tell guests,” the clerk starts with a smile, but the grin soon drops as he nods his head. Something about the way he did that made you feel a bit uneasy.

“Do you believe in it personally?” Sam questioned as you all listened intently to what the man had to say.

“No. In one year that I’ve been here, I didn’t have any complaints and so on, but you can tell me. Just stay there with the camera, yeah?” he laughed as you all joined in, trying to relieve the awkward and weird tension.

...

“My name’s Sam. This is Colby, Y/n, Jake, and Corey. We’re filming for our channel, but these guys are always into it and woah.” Sam turned the camera to the large creak you all just heard coming from above him and Rosie, the lady you had just met who is a member of the ghost club. John, a guy from the council for the Society for Psychical Research, sat next to her. You sat on the couch nearest to him between Colby and Jake and Corey sat on the chair next to Sam across for you.

“We just rented out room 333. We haven’t even told them why that’s a significant number, but do you guys know much about room 333 here in the Langham Hotel?” Sam asked, filming the response from Rosie.

“Well, the story goes that a Victorian doctor spent the night in room 333 with his bride. It was his wedding night. Who knows the circumstances, but the story goes, he actually murdered his bride in room 333.” She pauses as y’all take in the information she had just given before she continues.

“So, fast forward now to 1973 and the journalist James Alexander Gordon was staying room 333 where he’s waking in the middle of the night and he said he saw a fluorescent ball of lights that slowly formed into the figure of a man, but there was something strange about this man. He was dressed in a full evening suit, very smart, but the bottom half, his legs, were actually missing. Now the journalist actually tried to speak with the figure, but the figure didn’t speak to him. He just walked towards with his arms open wide.”

“A famous cricketer, he was staying at the room and in the middle of the night, he was woken by the sound of taps turning on. He went into the bathroom. Water was gushing out through the tap.”

“Woah,” all of you say collectively as you think back on what happened to the boys previously. You didn’t go with them on that trip, but you heard the story several times and watched the video too. Sam fills in the woman in on the experience briefly before she can continue with her story.

“Anyway, he turned off the taps, went back to the bed, what he could hear was still the sound of running water, gushing out even though the taps were turned off.”

John nods along before speaking about a theory that ghosts are like a tape recording of traumatic experiences that just play over and over again. He explains that you can’t really interact with it because it’s always going on a loop. The theory piques the interest of the group to say the least.

...

After finishing the interview and exploring a bit of the beautiful town you were in, you all gathered around the camera as Sam gave some background on the hotel. He tells you all about a German prince who jumped from the building out the window and how the doctor from earlier killed his wife and himself afterwards, both stories happening in room 333.

Soon the camera is turned off and you all pile in the elevator to head to the third floor. The whole hotel has an unsettling vibe, especially with some weird and creepy paintings that are hung all around. There is a big one of a boy with creepy eyes right when y’all get off the elevator.

“Which way is room 333?” Corey asks a worker when y’all get to a hallway and do not know which way to turn.

“Oh… uh… room 333… it’s that way,” he speaks, dragging out each word and shuffling away in a weird fashion. You and Corey share a wide-eyed look before going to catch up with the rest of the group.

“This is the most haunted room in the most haunted hotel,” Colby tells the camera as he films Sam who is about to unlock the dreaded door. The key does not work on the first try or the second which scares you all, but thankfully, the third time’s a charm.

Sam pushes the door open to reveal the supposed haunted room. A bed sat in the center of it, a closet to the left and a desk to the right. Huge grey curtains covered the window and another door was next to it, which you assumed to be the bathroom.

“It smells like old people,” Jake mentioned. “You know what that means? That means its haunted, bitch.” You and Colby giggled at the beanie boy as Sam and Corey were off in the other corner of the room. Colby mentions how tiny the room is as Corey says how that one of us could be standing where someone got murdered.

“Oh, we got three rooms. There is no way we can all share this bed,” Colby mentioned.

“Where are the other rooms at?” Corey asked as he stuffed his hands into his new hoodie that he got earlier when we were going around the city.

“Just down the hall,” Colby told him.

“Oh, so still on the most haunted floor,” Corey rolls his eyes and nods, accepting the fact that something bad might happen tonight.

...

You all left room 333 and headed to 324 where Corey and Jake would be staying to check the room out. Your room was next door, 323, and looked remarkably similar to 324. After exploring the rooms, y’all take on the hotel in its entirety, passing more creepy paintings and experiencing a door closing behind you without anyone around it, several vortexes, handprints on mirrors, immediate temperature changes, strange noises, and so on. The thing that freaked you out the most was Sam getting random headaches as you explored.

Back in room 333, you guys sat on the bed and Sam explained all the new ghost hunting gadgets they got, from the EMF reader to the dowsing rods. Sam says that with the dowsing rods, you can find basically anything you want.

“Anything?” Colby questions as he picks up the rods.

“Alright, where’s my girlfriend?” he asks and both rods point to you almost immediately. A blush scatters on your cheeks as you laugh it off.

“See guys, even the rods think you two should get together,” Jake tells the camera. Colby ignores the awkwardness between you two as he asks Corey how to effectively use the rods.

Y’all decide to begin the investigation, starting with the EMF reader. Corey brings it close to the hangers that made a noise and it moves up one green light. It lights up to orange in a few places on the right side of the bathroom which freaks you all out and y’all decide to set the EMF reader up in the bathroom since it got the most activity. You all put together that the bathroom is the only spot in the room that has a vortex and that it is exponentially hotter than the bedroom.

While Sam and Colby messed around in the bathroom, you, Corey, and Jake stayed in the bedroom to see if anything would happen in there while the cameras weren’t running in there at the moment.

“If there’s anything in here, can you please make the bed shake?” Jake asked into the air above him, trying to get whatever was out there to make the bed shake like they did earlier. At the moment, he was laying on the left side and you were on the right. Corey was next to you in the desk chair. You guys waited a moment for any responses and then you got one.

“We’re here,” you heard the raspy low whisper come from the closet.

“Please tell you heard that too,” you begged as you sat up, pulling your knees to your chest to comfort yourself. Corey nodded profusely in the dim lighting as Jake audibly answered ‘yes’. Corey dashed to the bathroom door to tell the other two.

“Hey, you good?” Colby asked you quietly as the other boys discussed what happened. Your eyes left the trio before meeting the blue ones that gave you such peace. He had placed a comforting hand on your back, his thumb rubbing it to soothe your nerves.

“Yeah, just freaked out. This place has been giving me an uneasy feeling all day, but I’m good.” You smiled up at him and he gave you a grin right back, one big enough for those adorable little dimples to pop out.

“Bro, if you guys lay on the bed, you will feel something with you,” Jake told Sam and Colby. You stood off the bed, allowing Colby access to lay on it. He handed you the camera, which you handed to Corey because you were not the best them and your hands were slightly shaky.

“When I was laying with him, we could feel it shaking,” you told the duo as they sprawled out on the mattress.

“You should turn off the light,” Jake told Corey and he did. It was just you five in the room alone with the darkness and all who inhabit it.

“Do you guys feel the bed shaking at all?” Corey asked, his voice right next to you.

“Maybe, barely,” Colby’s voice sounded in front of you.

“If the German prince or the doctor that killed his wife is in here, please shake the bed,” Sam asked nicely of the spirits that are presumed to be in the room with you guys. After a moment of silence, a stunned ‘woah’ fell from Sam’s lips.

“What?” Corey questioned as you heard him fiddling with the camera. “What? Bro, I can’t find the light.” Sam grabbed the green light grid thing and turned it on to provide you all with some sort of light.

“I felt it go back and forth,” Sam told us all as he kept his eyes on Colby to see if he felt anything too.

“You felt it? I don’t know if I’m feeling anything,” Colby sounded a little disappointed like he wanted to feel what you, Jake, and Sam had felt.

“It literally rocked bro,” Jake told the camera and you nodded your head in agreement. You all hung out in the bedroom, trying to figure out the green light grid and how else you all wanted to go about the investigation when Corey got a text from his little brother, Cambrey.

“Are you okay?” you asked Corey as he stared wide-eyed at his phone screen. The other boys turned to look at Corey to see why you asked him such a question when y’all were just chilling at the moment.

“Uhh yeah, Cam just texted me this: Hey so I just saw your new video and at the end of it when you were talking about in the part where y’all kept saying save me and you were wondering like what you should do, I just wanted to let you know I went to a psychic lady and she told me that I have powers to send ghosts to the other side lol. All I have to say is you are free to go to the other side and it helps them go through. I know this sounds really stupid but ever since I talked to her, I’ve been seeing giant black figures in my room every night and when I sleep, it feels like someone’s watching me.”

“What the fuck?” Sam comments as you all share looks between you guys.

“Wanna know what’s even freakier? Cam is fourteen right now and I was fourteen when I first saw the shadowman.” ‘Woah’s fall from the group around him as we take in the information and process what we’ve been told because it seems so surreal. You all talk about how to deal with this. Corey feels guilty and responsible for Cambrey possibly seeing the shadowman. You try to comfort him, but the heavy feeling that he is dealing with is something that you can’t help that much.

“Maybe it might be good if we call it a night,” Sam suggests to the group as you nod your head. Things are a bit tense right now and maybe just getting settled into our own rooms and stopping the investigation for now could ease it some.

“Let’s set our alarms for three or something like that, but I think it’s good to take a break for a minute and like relax and we’ll come back to this in a minute.” And that is exactly what you guys did.

“Are you gonna be good by yourself, y/n?” Colby asked before you left their room with Jake and Corey.

“Yeah, I should be but I might call you so that if I hear something, you might hear it too and so I don’t go crazy,” you chuckled as he smiled at you, the grin making butterflies flutter around in your belly. He nodded before you turned around and went to your room.

A sense of relief flooded your body when you walked into the room. You were still very creeped out by the hotel and the fact that you were on the most haunted floor of the most haunted hotel in the most haunted country in the world. You were happy you were no longer in the most haunted room, but the things that were happening in there freaked you out.

You went to your suitcase and flipped through your clothes until you found something to sleep in. You had packed mainly warmer clothes for sleepwear, but since room 333 was so hot and you were still burning up from it, you grabbed the one pair of shorts you brought and a tank top. You grabbed a hair tie from your backpack and went to the mirror, throwing your hair into a ponytail. After you brushed your teeth and got your charger out, you settled into bed and shot Colby a text.

Y/n: can I call you?

Colby: of course

“Hello?” you asked as soon as you hear the ringing stop.

“Hey, are you okay?” His voice sounds so concerned and it makes you smile.

“Yes, Colby. I’m fine. Can you stay on the phone with me until I get tired?”

“Yeah, sure.”

It didn’t last long until you were about to conk out, so the two of you said your goodbyes and you placed your phone down on the bedside table. Just as you were about to fall asleep, you swore you felt the bed shake. You do not know why you said what you were about to, but you did.

“If there is anything there, can you make the bed shake again please?” A moment or two of silence passes before it does it again. The bed wobbles lightly beneath you.

“Okay so there’s something here,” you whisper to yourself. You try your best to shrug it off and go to sleep. You almost slip into a blissful sleep before you hear a whisper similar to the one from before.

“You’re not alone, y/n.” You immediately grabbed your phone to text Colby. You knew he would probably be in a deep sleep by now, but it was worth a shot.

Y/n: the bed shook in here

Y/n: and I asked it to do it again and it did

Y/n: then it whispered youre not alone y/n

After not seeing the bubble with three dots pop up, you decide to let your phone record audio while you sleep just to catch anything that might happen and set an alarm from three in the morning. Finally, you get to sleep.

You woke up with a jolt, a sweat on your forehead and the bed moving slightly beneath you.

“You’re not alone”

“We’re here”

“Come with us”

The whispers filled your head as you watched an outline of a guy appears in the hallway near your door.

“Colby,” you call out as you sit up and rub your eyes.

“Sam? Jake? Corey?” you continue but not a peep comes from the man as he inches towards your bed.

“Seriously guys. Cut it out,” you chuckle, but he keeps coming closer and closer until he is right beside you. You reach a hand out to try to touch him, but your hand falls through his misty form.

“Whoever you are, please leave. You aren’t welcome here,” you demand, but your voice falters at the end. You hear a loud maniacal laugh vibrate throughout your small room as the figure crawls on top of you.

His presence is suffocating enough, but when a hand comes up to your throat and clamps down, it becomes difficult to breath. You fear for your life as you try to pry the hands from your neck, but just like his body, you can’t grab onto them. Your fingers slip through his and there is nothing you can do about it. Tears seep out your eyes and black spots cloud your vision before all you can see is black.

“Y/n! Open the door! Y/n!” you hear the worried shouts of your friends. You look around and reach for the lamp to turn it on. Looking around, you see that you are safe. It was nothing but a bad dream. You hand flies to your throat and when you feel that there isn’t a misty hand closing in on it, a sigh of relief leaves your lips.

You sling the covers off your body and run to the door. When you open it, you are met with the concerned expressions and worried eyes of the four boys you loved most. Your tear-filled eyes meet the specific blues ones before you step forward and wrap your arms around his waist, hiding your face in his chest.

“Are you okay, y/n?” Sam asks as he places a hand on your shoulder. You flinch at his touch unintentionally before muttering a ‘sorry’.

“You were screaming,” Jake added as he met your eyes.

“Really?” you asked, but based on how scratchy your voice sounded, you could tell it was true. “What happened?”

“Sam and I went to Corey and Jake’s room because Corey called us, but we heard you screaming and rushed over here. What happened to you?” Colby asked calmly above your head.

“Did you get my texts from earlier?” Colby nodded at your question. “I had a nightmare and the same whispers I heard earlier, I heard in my dream. And then this figure came up to me and try to choke me to death. I saw black and then woke up to you guys banging on my door,” you finished as the tears came back and you went back to hiding in Colby’s chest. His hand rubbed up and down your back comfortingly as he looked around at the other guys, unsure of what to do.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore,” you muttered into his chest.

“You can come stay in our room,” you heard Corey offer.

“Or ours,” Sam suggested.

“Can you stay with me?” you asked the blue-eyed boy as you looked up at him.

“Yes. Sam, can I have the camera? I’ll start looking through the footage and you can go to sleep since you couldn’t earlier.” Sam handed him the camera that he had hanging by him side before the other three left to go back to their rooms.

“Was I really screaming?” You asked Colby as soon as you sat on the bed.

“Like you were being killed,” he told you. You grabbed your phone and began to listen to audio recording you started earlier. It is mainly quiet for the most part, just your soft breaths and sounds of you moving in your sleep. Then, you hear the whispers again.

“Listen to this!” you shout as you hand the phone to Colby. His eyes widen at the sound.

“That’s what I’ve been hearing.”

“That’s insane,” He told you as he handed the phone back to you. You get all the way to the end and do not hear any screams.

“There’s no screaming on this.”

“When did it end?” You check and the time that stares back at you freaks you out even more.

“3:33 a.m.”

“Here. Let’s put this away because you have been through a lot tonight and just chill out,” Colby suggested as he placed your phone down and pulled you closer to him. You settled yourself into his side and placed your head on his chest. He had one arm around you while the other laid on his stomach.

“I’m sorry we put you through this,” he muttered as he fiddled with the bottom of his shirt.

“No, it’s okay. I have had a lot of fun this trip and I don’t want it to end early because I had a bad dream. That’s all it was,” you tried to see the bright side of it all.

“That makes me feel better because I really do love you, y/n, and I’d hate to see you not come on another trip with us or stop hanging out with us because of this.”

“I love you too, Colby, and it’s gonna take a whole lot more than a bad dream to get rid of me,” you both chuckled as a comfortable silence fell over the both of you. You fell asleep in the safety of his arms and right there, you did not have another bad dream that night.

#colby #colby brock #cole robert brock #Sam and Colby #colby imagine #colby x reader #colby fanfic #colby fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #colby brock fanfic #colby brock fanfiction #colby brock imagine #colby brock x reader #y/n #xplr #traphouse #jake #jake webber #corey #corey scherer #sam #sam golbach #traphousedaily

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Book 2 Chapter 2: My Breakfast With Evan

Just a couple dudes getting to know each other.

“If you must know,” Evan sighed, spearing a glistening sausage on the end of a flimsy plastic fork, “my jackass older sister thought it would be hilarious to give me a cupcake she'd baked with about a dozen powdered viagra for my fifteenth birthday. I wound up passing out eventually. Burst a lot of blood vessels. Damaged the erectile tissue beyond usefulness.”

Titus froze mid-coffee-sip. “Seriously? What a bitch!”

“Buddy, you don't know the half of it.”

“So... no signs of life down there?”

“Nothing for twelve years.”

“I think I would literally kill myself.”

“It's not so bad, I guess. At least I don't have to drain the blood out of it any more.”

“Eugh! Fuck! Did not need to hear that!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to.”

“Do you get, like, blue balls all the time, then?”

“That's basically my ground state of being.”

Titus whistled flatly, avoiding looking Evan in the eye. He settled for staring at the table. There wasn't a lot of Evan's face that he felt comfortable looking at; every part seemed to at least be adjacent to some unpleasantry or another. About the only safe area was his right eye, which, as luck would have it, was directly opposite Titus's 'good' eye. Titus rallied and met Evan's gaze again. “Alright, your turn.”

They'd agreed on a sort of mutual interview process, taking turns asking questions to suss out what the other was capable or if he was worth having around. Evan took a bite out of the sausage and chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

“Who's Moreno?”

Titus hissed through his teeth. “A real piece of shit.”

“I'm going to need more than that.”

“I'm getting to it. He's basically, like... a freelance henchman? Like, sort of a mercenary criminal. Sells his services to the highest bidder.”

“And why's he matter?”

“That's another question.”

“No, it is not,” Evan said, quiet and serious. “Do not argue with me in bad faith, Titus. I have very little patience for it in the best of times.”

Titus regarded him for a long moment. The man across from him was wider than the table they sat at. His muscles were so pronounced in some points that Titus could tell when he was about to move by the way they bulged and contracted. Yet he gave the impression that he was constantly trying to pull himself inward, to make himself smaller. He spoke quietly and with a simple formality, but only hours before Titus had watched him single-handedly beat down some of the nastiest people he'd met in the past month.

Hmm.

“Fine. Moreno matters because I'm after the guy he's working for. You see, Moreno isn't just a normal scumbag. He works for people who need nasty things done. Not like regular nasty, either. How much do you actually know about magic?”

“I've got some... notes. So far I'm not able to find a lot of coherent rules. It mostly seems like it relies on things that nobody would normally do.”

Titus snapped his fingers and pointed at Evan. “Hit it right on the head. Rituals, reagents, that kind of thing... the reason—well, one of the reasons—magic doesn't just happen all the time by accident is that it's all weird little things. A lot of the more heavy magic relies on some pretty elaborate and obtuse shit to get it going.”

Evan momentarily thought back to the Book of Fate and his ritual in the woods. “So Moreno does these things for people?”

“Yeah. Thing is, though...” Titus stopped raising a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and set it down again, as if he'd momentarily lost his appetite. “The people who use his services generally practice some pretty vile magic. Real depraved shit. And to empower depraved magic, you need depraved rituals. Moreno is the guy you go to when...”

“I think I get it,” Evan interjected, since Titus seemed to be struggling with deciding whether to continue. “Your turn.”

Titus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, then looked Evan in the eye. “How smart are you?”

The scars on Evan's face squirmed around as he actually smirked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Hey, we agreed no 'whys'.”

“Alright, alright. Well, there's really no objective metric for it, but... I have Master's degrees in computer science and theoretical physics, Bachelor's in those in addition to mathematics and electrical engineering, and associate's degrees and certificates in everything from EMT training to ballet. I should have my doctorate in physics, but...” he said, with a bitterness that Titus made a note of, then changed gears. “Oh, and I also speak Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Arabic pretty fluently. I also know ASL. I can get by in German and Russian, too. I don't know if any of that is what you meant but--”

“Jesus, I get it,” Titus muttered, rubbing the side of his head. “How the fuck do you make money?”

“Software consulting, mostly. I specialize in security and processing efficiency. People pay me to break into their systems and then patch the holes, or to make their code run quicker or make their programs smaller. I've got a few patents I've licensed that bring in most of my income nowadays, though.”

“Anything I would have heard of?”

“If you've used a computer made in the last four years it probably has something I wrote integrated somewhere into it. I also helped develop a protein-sequencing program that helped develop a vaccine for this nasty SARS variant that broke out in China last year. They say if they hadn’t nipped it in the bud it could’ve spread worldwide and we’d be looking at millions of deaths by now.”

Titus scrunched up his face. “Oh yeah, just say that like it’s no big deal.”

“I’m just glad it turned out not to be one. What I'd really like to do is get my compression algorithm out there, but if I do that, somebody's going to try to hoard it all for themselves.”

“Are you talking to yourself or me?”

“Look, I... a few years ago I figured out a way to compress memory down by a exponential factor of six with zero loss. All it takes is a couple software plugins that don't take up much room themselves. Essentially, I could make a gigabyte fit in a kilobyte with very little trouble, now that the math's figured out.”

“Holy fuck, that's insane! Why haven't I heard anything about this?”

“Mainly because I don't tell people. If I put it up on the market, some ISP would buy it and bury it. If you make information smaller, you make it faster. Can you imagine what it'd do to internet access if dial-up and barebones cellular networks suddenly had the bandwidth of fiber optics? It would... maybe not revolutionize our society, but it would level a lot of playing fields. Bring a lot of underdeveloped areas of the world—hell, this country—up to modern levels with no extra cost. The telecomms would crash and burn so hard. But I don't have the means to get it out there without going through someone else. Yet,” Evan added. “So I basically work watered-down versions of the compressor into the software I make. Nothing that can be duplicated, and nowhere near its full potential, but enough to get me hailed as some kind of genius and pay the bills.”

“So why aren't you on your own private island or something somewhere instead of puttering around God's Ashtray in a shitty old Bug?”

“Hey, the Beetle is not shitty,” Evan said, defensively. “And I'm just waiting for the AC in my RV to get fixed or I'd be driving that.”

“Oh hot damn! Now that's the way to live!”

“Not the one I'd choose voluntarily, but it could be worse.”

“How come you're doing it, then?”

“I think it's my turn to ask,” Evan said, mildly.

“Fine,” Titus said grumpily, crossing his arms.

“How do you make money?”

“That's easy. I'm basically a freelance bailbondsman. I just roam around, drop my advertising around bars and courthouses.”

“You get many clients that way?” Evan asked, cocking his remaining eyebrow.

“Oh, you'd be amazed how desperate people can get,” Titus said, shrugging. “Of course, they're usually not the most responsible people, so when they bounce, I track 'em down myself, drag ‘em back to jail, get the money back. My eye usually makes it super easy. Sometimes they don't even see me before I get the cuffs on 'em.”

“Why did you feel the need to rob a bunch of drug dealers, then? The thrill of it?”

“I had a pressing need for a large amount of cash that my normal work doesn't bring in. That got me enough to hold it off for a while. My turn.”

Evan waved down a waitress for a refill of his coffee, trying not to take it personally when she gasped upon seeing his face. “Go ahead…”

“No, no, hang on.” Titus waved a hand dismissively. “I want to try something. Take your hair out of the ponytail.”

“What? Why?”

“Humor me.”

Evan groaned and reached back, removing his hair tie. After shaking his head, his hair fell over his face, obscuring everything but his nose and mouth. Titus pursed his lips and regarded him seriously for a moment.

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, I guess. Well enough to not walk into things, I think, and I could probably read if I had to.”

Titus snapped his fingers. “Good. Go with that from now on.”

“Why?”

“Because now you don’t look like God’s mistake. Now you look like a big, dumb-but-lovable goon. Like Jack Black would voice you in a cartoon.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Do you like seeing people contemplating their own mortality and the general cruel absurdity of the tragic farce that is human existence when they get a glimpse of your face?”

Evan felt his cheeks burn and was actually grateful his hair was covering most of his face. “…not particularly, no.”

“Then there you go. You’re welcome. Okay, question time. Uh… how did you get your powers?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, now who’s arguing in bad faith? Fucking all of them, you thick-lipped gargoyle.”

Evan had the feeling he hit a sore spot. Titus's easy-going, jocular tone had bled away from him, leaving behind the hard-edged razor-blade of a man that had ambushed him the night before. He decided not to belabor the point.

“I don't know why I can rege—why I heal so quickly. No, I'm serious, as far as I know, it just started happening sometime in the past few months. I can't remember. Don't look at me like that, I'll get to that in a minute. When I was younger I recovered from a lot of injuries a lot quicker than the doctors thought I would, so maybe it's something I was born with and it just got stronger recently for some reason.”

Evan took a sip of coffee, mainly to buy a few seconds to think of how much to explain for the next part.

“The ability to shut off powers... that's part of, well, I guess you'd call it a magic ritual, because I don't know what else to call it. I found a weird old book that said it contained the key to making someone an instrument of universal justice, or something of the sort. Since then I can see... I guess they're souls? Maybe? I can sort of move mine and when I run it into someone else's it seems like I can shut off their powers. Or... take them entirely, if they're dying.”

“Horseshit!” Titus scoffed. “That's... that's like meta-magic. I don't even know if that's real.”

“No, seriously! I don't think it's just magic powers, I think it... 'normalizes' things.” He briefly recounted his encounter with the pain monster.

“Are you kidding me? That...” Titus took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly and loudly. “Look, I don't know much, but the fact that you even ran into something like that, let alone survived... those odds are astronomical. And you say you negated not just its powers, but its whole form?”

“Yeah. Once I... reached into it, like I did with you—oh don't make that face. Grow up—I kind of disrupted what made it... different, I guess? Like I cut it off from its special qualities. Like it was...”

“Disjuncted,” Titus cut in.

“Yeah, that's a good word for it. Like the old Mordenkainen spell?”

“Fucking nerd.”

“Eat my ass. Anyway, after I killed it, I was able to reach into its... soul? Animating force? Aura? I don't know what to call it. I was able to grab something and pull it out and it just got pulled into me.”

“Not aura.”

“What?”

“Aura's a different thing,” Titus said, dismissively. “So what did you get from doing that?”

“I.. I feel pain differently. I don't flinch or get adrenaline rushes from injuries that don't actually impede my ability to function. I think I have a better sense of what is actually dangerous to my body now. It still hurts, but I don't react to pain like people normally do. It's like...hmm.” Evan drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you know anything about video games? Fighting games, specifically?”

“I used to fuck around on an old Alpha 3rd Strike cabinet when I was a kid. Why?”

“Do you know what 'super armor' is?”

“Isn't that where a move can't get stopped by being hit when you're doing it?”

“Right. I'm kind of like that now. Pain doesn't interrupt me.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Evan's fist involuntarily clenched. “I'm trying to put this in terms you can understand, you stupid reprobate. My experience with your judgment thus far hasn't given me much faith in your intellect.”

Titus burst out laughing. “So he does know how to banter! I thought you might be one of those Rainman types.”

“Oh sure, call it 'banter' to try to excuse the fact that you've been insulting me for the past half hour. Do you say you're ‘just joking’ when people get mad at you for saying stupid shit, too?”

“C'mon, lighten up! We're partners now! Tell me more about this soul thing. I still think you're full of shit.”

Evan sighed through his nose, then held up his left hand, forming his fingers into a circle and peering through them.

“Yours is... a sort of cross between a sea green and an oil slick. The tendrils of it keep reaching out and snapping back, going all over the place. It seems to keep expanding and contracting. It's almost flickering, like... it's indecisive. Very chaotic. The tendrils that aren't snapping around seem to be kept pretty close to your body, wrapping around you like... I can't tell if it's protective or restrictive.”

Titus's expression slowly became serious. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know. I have a lot of theories, but nothing solid to go on. I'm not sure if it's allegorical or a literal representation of a person's... power, maybe? Yours definitely looks a lot different than most people's.”

“I don't believe this for a second. Let me see.”

“How would I do tha—hey!”

Titus grabbed Evan's wrist and held his hand up to his eye. “Ho-lee...”

He pulled back from Evan's hand, staring at him. Then he looked around the room, mouth slack as he took in the diner's other occupants.

“Huh. Did you know it keeps working until you blink?” He said after a moment, a faraway tone to his voice.

“I didn't even know other people could do it,” Evan said, awe in his voice. “Hey, wow, you're right!”

“Jesus, yours is, like, really blue. It looks like... a bunch of steel cables. It's weird, I felt like I both could and couldn't see the edges of it...”

“I can kind of move it, but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it beyond interfering with people's powers. It's like learning to use a muscle you didn't know you had.”

“Huh.” Titus was again silent for a long moment. “Your turn.”

“Can you do anything else supernatural? Besides your time-eye?”

“Don't call it that, it sounds stupid. And... sorta. I seem to have whatever innate talent you need to actually do magic, but it's not like it's easy to find instructions. Most of the people I know who can use it just dabble with half-broken magic items—wands, amulets, charms,” he pulled the silence charm out from under his coat and bounced it at the end of its chain. “I guess I'm sort of a dabbler. I know a few tricks, I can use a lot of magic tools, I can sense magic pretty well, I can dowse... Most of the time I really never have to use anything besides the eye, though.”

“Is the eye all-or-nothing?”

“Yeah. It's not nearly as useful as you'd think, but any edge is an edge.”

“When I turned off your power and it was coming back, though, you started speeding up—or, I guess, everything else was slowing down? You were moving faster, one way or the other. You were able to touch me, and those punches hurt.”

“Huh, yeah, you're right.”

“Do you think there's a way you could learn to only partially activate it?”

“That'd be great, wouldn't it? Thing is, just using it is a huge strain, and that time spend outside of time adds up. Going by normal calendar time I'm only 26.”

“Fuck, I'm 27!” Evan laughed.

“Yeah, well, I'd rather be prematurely gray than what you've got going on. My turn. Uh... huh, I can't really think of anything else. Uh... are you gay?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“No, but the question still counts.”

“I'm bi,” Evan mumbled, crossing his arms across his prodigious chest. “Not that it matters. And before you ask, no, you are not my type. We're done talking about this.”

“Huh. You ever sucked--”

“We. Are. Done. Talking about this.”

“Fine, God. Go.”

Evan mentally circled back to an earlier question he felt hadn't been properly answered. “Why are you after Moreno?”

To Evan's surprise, Titus didn't hesitate. “I'm actually after his current boss. He's just the best lead I have to go on.” He took a deep breath, then started talking with a rushed, deadpan pace, as if he was eager to get the words out as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be in his mouth very long.

“Moreno is working for a guy only known as the Soultaker. He has an innate supernatural ability to pull a person's soul out of their body. When that happens, the person just... shuts down, usually. No motive force behind them. Eventually they just die of dehydration, usually. I've seen some people so set in routine that they keep going without a soul, but... it's not really life.

“It seems like the extraction process takes a while, so he can't just walk past you on the street and pickpocket your entire essence. So he needs people rounded up for him, held until he can do his nasty juju. So that's where a degenerate like Moreno comes in.

“So when he pulls out a soul, it, well, it looks like this.”

Titus pulled a battered, faded Crown Royale bag out of his jacket. It bulged strangely and made a quiet clacking when he set it on the table. He pulled out what looked like a large marble, or maybe a dull pearl, and handed it to Evan.

Evan brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered into the milky depths of the sphere. After a few moments of staring, the murky clouds inside the thing seemed to clear and a face floated to the surface. A black man, maybe in his late 40s, going thin on top. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, but his expression had a look of discomfort to it, as if he was having a bad dream.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan whispered, “I've seen this guy... Martell Calloway? I saw some news article about how his family found him tied up in his apartment and completely comatose! But he didn't have any injuries beyond being a black eye... so he's dead?”

“Life support,” Titus said, taking Mr. Calloway's soul back from Evan's unresisting fingers, “technically, he's one of the lucky ones. They found his body before it wasted away to nothing, and I was able to intercept his soul before it got to a buyer.”

“Why would someone buy something like this? What use is it? Can you fix him?”

“A human soul is a damn near exhaustible arcane battery,” Titus said gravely. In the split second between sentences, Evan noticed something—after he'd put the bag back into his jacket, Titus surreptitiously touched a pocket on the other side of his jacket, as if he was making sure something was still there.

“If you know what you're doing, you can power a lot of magic using a soul. And you can reuse them as long as you don't overdo it. If you know what you're doing, you can wring all but the last drops of essence out of a soul and let it heal or recover or whatever, and it'll eventually be back to full strength. Very resilient things,” Titus continued. “I don't think they're conscious in there, but... anyway, it's supposed to be really hard to extract a soul. But this guy was born with or spontaneously developed or somehow figured out a shortcut to the whole process. So the market is getting flooded with torture-batteries and ECUs are getting flooded with vegetables. And families are winding up with loved ones who are as good as dead, without having any idea why this happened to them. Dozens of them have been taken off life support in the past few months. Half these souls have no body to return to. And no, I can't fix it. At least not yet,” he sighed again. “I was hoping once I found him, I could somehow get the secret out of him or force him to put them back, or... maybe I thought if I killed him it'd reverse the effect. He needs killing, either way.”

Titus's eye widened as a thought struck him and he looked Evan in the eye for the first time since he'd started the story. Evan realized what he was thinking and looked down at the tattoo on his left arm, flexing his fingers.

“If you can take people's powers after they die...”

“...then we can save these people.”

Titus put a hand over his mouth and for a moment Evan thought he saw his eye well up.

“I'm in,” Evan said, a sense of righteous purpose welling in his heart. “I don't really know what the universe wants, but I doubt... I know it's not this. We'll find him, we'll stop him, and we'll save as many of these people as we can.”

“...thanks,” Titus mumbled behind his hand. He swallowed hard, then seemed to come back to himself. “We're back to square one, though.”

“You said you could dowse? Like, for real?”

“Yes, for real. I can find things and people with the pendulum method. It's handy for tracking down bounties.”

“Why don't you dowse Moreno?”

“Why didn't I think of that?!” Titus said incredulously, smacking his forehead. “Because he's warded. He's not magic himself, but he's collected enough gear through his career that my normal methods don't work.”

Evan rubbed his chin. “What if we used an abnormal method?”

-------------------

An hour later, they were in the RV. Titus was poring over the collection of Evan's notes and the strange papers he'd bought from Delmann's shop. Evan was very carefully slicing a strip of skin from his own ankle up all the way up his leg. The Guiding Light—the Finder's Follysat on the table between them, filled with fresh blood.

“Even if this works, he's going to know we're coming,” Titus muttered, engrossed in the pages. “Remember what I said?”

“That's why we're not going to look for him,” Evan said, adjusting his grip on the potato peeler. “I don't know how we'd even write his name. Can you read that, by the way?”

“Kind of. This is... most of this is written in, like, arcane pidgin. Who compiled these notes?”

“I did, I think.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to clarify on that. Apparently a couple months ago, before the ritual, I drilled a hole in my own brain to erase some kind of very dangerous memory.”

“You what.”

“That's not a metaphor or anything. Really did it. I could show you the video.”

“I'll pass. So you don't remember where this came from?” Titus shook the Book of Fate at him.

“Nope.”

“Jesus shit, do you have any idea--”

“How reckless that was? Yeah, yeah, I'm still here and I'm the answer to your fuckin' prayers, aren't I?” Evan gave a whoop as the peeling skin reached his thigh. “Got it this time!” he said cheerfully, snipping the flesh-ribbon off with scissors.

“God, that's so fucking gross. Anyway, you haven't explained how we're going to use that thing to find Moreno.”

“We don't set it to look for him. We look for somewhere he's been. Maybe the last place he slept. Do you think you can describe him well enough in that language for it to work?”

Titus looked like he might actually be impressed, but he hid it well. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. I've got a dictionary I've put together on that tablet next to you, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe it'll help?”

---------------------

Two hours later, they had it.

Find where a man born between the 27th and 28th north parallels during a new moon under the sign of capricorn with black hair and green eyes who has killed at least 10 people slept in the past week.

They really had to squeeze the letters in, but when Evan put a flame to the wick, it sprung to life, wavered for a moment, and then pointed east. Both men cheered. Evan threw Titus the keys.

“Drive! Drive north until I tell you otherwise!”

While Titus started the engine, Evan spread a map of the United States on the table in front of the lamp, then produced a protractor and a notebook from a drawer. “Okay, you bastard... let's see where you've been hiding...”

It took three days—one spent driving north, one spent driving back to where they'd started, and one spent driving south. While Titus drove, Evan made meticulous notes of the flame's direction, marking angles on the map. Finally he threw the pencil down triumphantly.

“He's in Salt Lake City.”

“Well, that narrows it down a little, I guess. So what, do we just go there and hope this thing points us in the right direction?”

“Too slow,” Evan called, stepping back into what used to be his bedroom and sitting at his computer. “Now I work my magic.”

After parking, Titus walked back to look over Evan's shoulder. The half-dozen monitors on the wall were flickering between rapidly-changing pictures of faces and what appeared to be CCTV footage.

“What is this?”

“This,” Evan said with dramatic pride, “is Blaccat. Facial recognition algorithms that the CIA wishesit had. I actually started working on it years ago before I thought about the implications of it, but I shelved it. I figured since I may be needing to, uh...”

“Be Batman?”

“...yeah...that I should get back to work on it. Right now it's comparing faces to the description you gave me and cycling through every damn security camera in the city looking for it.”

“How illegal is this?”

“Soooooo illegal.”

“Oh, hey, can you get into police department records?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

“See if you can get into the Las Vegas mugshots from... February 2019. Run your face-recognition thingy there.”

“Alright.... and... is that our boy?”

A handsome Latino man in his early 30s with shoulder-length jet-black hair and piercing green eyes stared at them from over a booking clipboard.

“That's him,” Titus breathed.

“Perfect! Now I just have to feed that into... wow.” Evan made a gesture and a black and white video popped up on the biggest monitor. The man in the mugshot was walking along the street, flanked by a short stocky man in bandanna and a lanky man with the ugliest white-boy dreads Evan had ever seen.

“That's him! Where is that? When is that?”

Evan grinned up at Titus. “That's live. I can track him and put us at the nearest intersection.”

Titus smiled, eye overbright, and began breathing heavily through his nose. “We got him.”

Evan met his eye and nodded. “Let's get him.”

#my writing #urban fantasy #ugly man chronicles: reignition

[thecatladywife]

God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Yangyang x Male Reader

Fluff

I’m weak.... I couldn’t resist writing about him in the end. Also there isn’t enough Yangyang fic on tumblr, so if you have any to recommend please think about me :(

Another refusal.

It was slowly getting to you even though you pretended that it was fine. That the next interview would be the one when it was the tenth where you heard that you were lacking experience for the position. At least this time they told you right away and you wouldn't have to wait several weeks to get you hope crushed...

You sighed as you stirred a cup of coffee and milk from the coffee stand in the station.

You had come a long way to Munich but for what use in the end? Maybe your mother was right when she said that the problem wasn't your qualifications but your style, on top of the recruiter’s usual discrimination.

You lifted your hand to touch the short dreadlocks on your head, thinking that it wasn't that bad. Lots of working men sported the same hairstyle nowadays and you even made the effort to dress for the occasion, willing to appear as serious and professional as possible.

To no avail though.

Wearing slacks with a green jumper and a white shirt under a long grey coat, you were standing next to the platform, another pitiful sigh leaving your lips before you took a sip of coffee and looked around you.

It was mid-afternoon and the station was full of people which wasn't unusual since Munich was one of Germany main hub with the international airport not so far.

You were absentmindedly watching people going on and off the trains on the platforms when you noticed from the corner of your eyes a ticket inspector walking towards your train.

Few moments later the sound of a whistle blowed took you out of your daydreaming, startling you as you only got an instant to realise that it was for your train about to leave.

 "Fuck me."

You dashed in the direction of the train, feeling hot drops of coffee drizzle on your fingers as you held your goblet securely with both hands. Today was really the kind of day where you wondered if you should’ve gotten out of your bed.

You finally rode on the train, out of breath and the face covered in sweat since your ran all the way to the front wagon so you could get to your designated seat.

The passengers in the wagon gave you either weird looks or mocking grins as you walked through the alley and you tried to ignore them long enough to get to your seat.

Relief washed over you when you finally found it in a four-seat area and let yourself fall down to sit, too exhausted to care and thus not noticing the young man already there.

On the phone when you appear out of nowhere, he opened wide eyes as you startled him.

He had a handsome face, some might even say pretty because of his soft features, a beanie on his head was covering part of the hair falling on his forehead and he wore casual clothes giving him even more boyish looks.

You mouthed some apologies while taking off your coat and putting down your coffee and your bag, the man carrying on with his conversation in a language you didn't understand.

He said a few more words before hanging up and putting his phone away

You instinctively apologized in French but immediately corrected yourself and switched to German.

 "Sorry I must be tired... I wanted to say sorry for my brutish manners, I didn't mean to bother."

"It's ok! You look like you almost missed the train so don't worry about that."

You gave him a small smile, half apologetic and embarrassed because of the situation. He really didn't seem to mind and only smile brightly at you, making you froze as it was the most beautiful smile you had ever seen.

God put a smile upon this face, you thought to yourself forgetting about all your hardships of the day, all your worries being washed away by this gorgeous being.

 “I’m Y/N.”

You blurted out, mouth slightly agape from shock as you wondered what got into you but you quickly understood when the guy gave you another dazzling smile as well as his name.

 "Yangyang. Nice to meet you!"

Yangyang... you had fallen hard for a guy you had just met on the train.

You didn't dare to talk to him as the ride went on but you kept taking glance at him, your heart almost jumping out of your chest each time he caught you and grinned in response.

You probably looked like a fool but you couldn't help yourself.

At one point you realise that you wanted to know more about him so you took your courage and looked up at him.

 "So... You're going to Dusseldorf?"

"Yes, hm... I'm going to visit some friends there for the holidays."

 You nodded, not knowing what to add to carry on the conversation. Luckily for you, Yangyang decided to talk before you could come up with something.

 "You ?"

"Hm ?"

"You go to Dusseldorf too ?"

"No, to Francfort. I live in Strasbourg so I'll change train there."

"Oh I see... you'll get off after the next station then..."

 You weren't sure if he sounded disappointed or if it was just you hoping. You fell back into silence, Yangyang busying himself with his phone when you were thinking about ways to see him again.

After all, if you didn't do anything this perfect smile and the man it belonged to would only be a souvenir that would slowly fade with time.

You couldn't let that happen.

You opened you bag, taking out a pencil then one of your resume in the folder you were transporting to draw on the back of it.

You started with the sun like smile you couldn't get out of your mind then stealing glances at him, you went on with Yangyang other features until you finally completed his portrait.

A loving smile appeared on your face as you admired the final result but the satisfaction you felt satisfied longed only for a moment and panic took you over.

What if he found you creepy for making his portrait when you don't even know each other ?

You looked hesitantly at Yangyang. He wasn't on his phone anymore but watching the landscape through the window pane. He was so peaceful, so perfect to your eyes that in the end the drawing you made wasn't worth it anymore.

It was him you wanted, for real.

The train was slowing down when you took the sheet of paper and shreded it into pieces.

Yangyang turned his head at the noise and stared at you with intrigued eyes after noticing the papers in your hands.

"Ah it's nothing. It's... too lacking to keep."

You made it so every single piece was turned on the side of your resume and he couldn't see any part of the drawing you made.

You put your things back in your bag and got ready to leave the train. And Yangyang. The thought made your heart ache harder than you expected.

"It's your station next ?"

"Francfort... yes."

"It was fast, I guess."

He nodded to himself and watched you as you put your coat back on then stood next to your seat. Even though you didn't say much during this two hours together and didn't know much about each other, you didn't want this moment with Yangyang to end now.

"I..."

"Yes ?!"

He lowered his face slightly, flustered after showing so much enthusiasm, red spreading on his cheeks.

"I.. hm.. goodbye..."

"Goodbye Y/N"

You hated yourself for the words wouldn't leave your mouth. You couldn't muster up the courage to ask him for his number or any way to keep in touch touch with him.

All you did was stare at Yangyang before turning your back and getting off the train with your heart already full of regrets.

You stood on the platform and looked as the train left, staying a little longer as all the things you could've said went through your mind.

You finally walked toward the embarking area of the station to take your connection when you heard your phone ringing in your pocket. Assuming that it was probably for another interview, you quickly took it out from your coat and answered.

"Y/N ?"

"Yangyang ??"

You almost dropped your phone on the floor when your heart jumped in your chest then started beating fast when you were sure that it was him.

"How... how did-...??"

"I didn't really think and... actually I got off the train after you."

You turned around and saw him standing further away on the platform in a long brown coat with his luggage by the hand. You jogged in his direction, the phone still on your ear until you realized that it was no longer necessary when you stood in front of him.

"How did you know my number?"

"I found this!"

He dug out a little piece of paper from his pocket and showed it proudly to you. On one side you notice a fragment of your drawing representing the corner of his mouth and on the other, it was the part of your resume where your phone number was written.

You had an astonished look on your face while Yangyang was giving you his brightest smile.

That was all you could see and think about as you took a couple of steps forward, crossing the distance between the two of you. His hands found the side of your coat, grabbing them lightly and he gaze at you softly, his voice turning into a whisper when he kept on talking.

"I didn't want to part with you Y/N... not so soon."

You nodded, never taking your eyes off his perfect smile, focusing on his thin lips as your hands found themselves on both sides of his face.

"Me neither."

You brought his face to yours, kissing him deeply.

#nct #nct 2020 #wayv #nct x reader #wayv x reader #wayv x male reader #nct x male reader #kpop #yangyang x male reader #yangyang x reader #my work #god put a smile upon your face #liu yangyang #yangyang

[soyouthinkucanwrite]

Chapter 3 - Unexpected texts

Synopsys: The name of the series is super random, don't mind me. Reader is a postgraduate student at NYU, made a docuseries on her research, and the show got picked up by Netflix. She goes on a press tour and meets Tom on a ‘chat show’. They get together and she decides to stay for a few days in London with him. This could be an amazing few days or more? It’s been interesting writing how they’ll deal with distance and tight schedules once ‘honeymoon’ is over...

Heads up: my first language is Portuguese, so that might explain some things here - of course, I wrote thinking about myself hahaha

Warnings for the series: mention of illicit drugs, angst caused by distance, smut (next chapters, very explicit), anxiety caused by paparazzi, and rude random people taking photos.

Other than that, this is just my guilty pleasure writing so lots of caring sweet Tom and fluffiness.

Chapter 1 - A new city

Chapter 2 - Show time

Chapter 3 - Unexpected texts

This is 2.4k words (approximately)

Later, you were just laying in your hotel room and watching some tv, or telly how they say over here. You wanted to get some sleep and maybe call your parents to tell them about the day. It was so crazy, you didn’t think they’d quite grasp how crazy, but you wanted to include them anyway. I guess maybe especially because of that. Tomorrow you guys had to be at the station super early for the Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James. 6 o’clock you thought it was that David had told you. You might as well check with him and set an alarm already. So you went to grab you phone for texting him and got a text from an unknown number.

The contact you had saved as “Tom Holland” (with the air quote marks) was calling on Facetime. Shit. This couldn’t be him. Could it? Have you even given your personal number to the producer at Graham? Shit. Just answer it and kill Lukas. You pressed the green button and the screen was dark. There was some music in the background, but it was a little muffled. And sure enough, there he was. Smiling at the phone slightly bellow his eye level. He’s hot. You look like shit with zero makeup and your hair in a crazy pony tail.

“Hi!” He said laughing. “Do you believe me now?”

“Hi…this is embarrassing. Sorry! I have the worst friends and is just like them to try to pull a prank on me because of this” You answered.

“No worries, darling. I’m a little sad you’d think me texting you is laughable though.” He joked.

“You know what I mean! Like I said, Tom Hanks wanting to work together I would have an easier time believing.” You laughed.

“Maybe I want to work together. By the way, I’m glad you did, but for future reference, you probably shouldn’t use your personal number for these things.” He advised you.

“Well, it’s not like I have more than one number so…” You told him.

“Your agent’s then.” He clarified.

“I don’t have an ‘agent’.” You emphasized the last word.

“Well, you should probably get one then, darling. Trust me on this one.” He was walking and the music got louder for an instant and then muffled again. Looks like a bar or the outside of a bar at least.

“Are you in a bar?” You asked him laughing.

“Excuse me, not a bar, a PUB. And no, I’m on the sidewalk of a pub, actually. Going home.” He said. “And you are…?”

You were kind of getting what he wanted from you and that was kind of annoying actually. He’s a movie star for god’s sake. Can’t he get a girl in whatever pub he’s at right now? “Busy actually.” You answered him.

“Oh sorry. Terrible timing, huh? I asked for your number this afternoon, after the show. But the bloody PA just sent me it right now. He might lose his job for this. Took him a lot of convincing, ya know?” He was talking and walking, you could see he was clearly trying to start a conversation and all that in the middle of the street.

“So you just got it and couldn’t wait to text me huh?” You teased.

“Kind of, yeah. The two pints probably helped me build the nerve. I’m not usually like this. I barely facetime my friends.” He told you.

“And in the middle of the street. If you get mugged, I don’t want to be accounted.” You were relaxing a bit and sat on the bed leaning on the headboard. He laughed at your joke. Maybe he was just drunk and not really after a booty call. “I thought you british were famous for spending nights at the pub. Why you leaving so early, anyway?” You asked.

“Got to get up early tomorrow for a work out.” He answered simply.

“Of course you do” You said.

“And I much rather talk to you too.” He said.

Silence. What do you answer to that? Is he flirting with you? He’s definitely flirting with you.

“Ahem” He cleared his throat. “I really did liked your show, you know? It’s really something.” He said.

“You did? Thank you. Means a lot.” You said. “I’m still shocked it’s getting this much attention, to be honest.”

“Why? I’m shocked no one’s done it before. Is such a good idea. But maybe if they’ve done it, it wouldn’t be the same. Cause your presenting is probably what makes it that good.” He had stopped walking and you could hear keys juggling in his hand. “I live really close to the pub. I know” He laughed and you laughed back. “Hey!” He said to someone outside the screen and started to walk up stairs.

“Do you live with someone else? Your parents?” You asked.

“Uhh…no, no. I mean yeah, my mates Harrison and Tuwaine and my brother Harry. It’s just Tuwaine and his girlfriend downstairs though, I think.” He told you while taking off his shoes.

“Hey don’t go cockblock your friend now” You laughed.

“Never. And always.” He joked back. “Thought you’d be out enjoying London tonight, or were you planning on going out later?” He asked you in a thick accent.

“What? No, I’m a serious business girl. No time for shenanigans” You said laughing, so he’d know you were joking.

“Shenanigans” He laughed back. “Your English is better than mine you know?”

“Oh I’m sure” You answered sarcastically. “Flattering will get you far, but lying will not”

“I’m serious. If you haven’t said it today I’d think you’re American. You kind of have a New Yorker accent” He said.

“Yeah? ‘Fuhgeddaboudit’” You said in a thick accent and you laughed together. It was fun talking to him.

“What other languages do you speak?” He asked you when you stopped laughing.

“Portuguese, English…Spanish, Italian, a little bit, and German” You answered while counting your fingers.

“No way. Say something in German. By the way, I’m still here, I’ll just change these clothes.” He said while putting the phone on the nightstand and getting out of the frame. He was taking off his clothes, you thought. And he wanted you to say something in German.

“Nennen sie das Ärger?” You said, without thinking everything through.

“Now say the same in Portuguese” You heard his voice but didn’t see him.

“É isso que eles chamam de problema?” You said again.

“Yeah, portuguese is defenitely sexier.” He laughed and grabbed the phone again to sit on the bed. He was shirtless and with his head on the headboard of the bed. “What did you said anyway?”

“Excuse me, I wasn’t aware I’d have to translate it.” You mocked being offended.

“Oh so it WAS dirty. I thought I was imagining.” He teased you.

“You’re smooth.” You shook your head. “I’m still not saying it. You’ll just have to learn Portuguese, or German.”

“I’ll learn Portuguese if you teach me.” He said. “How long are you here for?”

“Just till tomorrow.” You said. “Flying back to New York tomorrow night.”

“More interviews?” He asked.

“Tomorrow’s the last one actually. But I’m traveling with David, he makes the show with me, and I’ve kept him from his fiancé long enough. That and we have to prepare for big meeting with executives next week, you know find an agent and stuff.”

“I could talk to my agent if you want to, he’s an actors agent but maybe he knows someone for other kinds of jobs” He said. “You don’t have a fiancé to get back to, do you?”

“No. No fiancé or jobs for that matter.” You laughed. “And I’m not even sure what kind of jobs would those be.”

“Publicity deals. If I had a brand, I’d want you to be the face of it. It’s the face of diversity and youth, isn’t it? It’s a beautiful face” He said.

“The face of diversity and youth?” You laughed. “Now you’re the one confusing me with Tom Hanks” You joked and he laughed out loud. “I could use some friendly recommendation though, on the agent thing. I don’t even know where to start looking and sounds like the type of thing you don’t want to ask the wrong people” You added.

“Yeah, sure. He’ll know someone for sure.”

“Thank you”

“Glad to help! Really!” He smiled at you. “So where you going tomorrow?”

“Breakfast show at Radio 1. Greg James I think” You answered.

“Oh he’s great! We were there today. You’ll have a great time! It’s a bit early, no? Am I keeping you from sleep? Do you want to hang up?” He was cute, all concern and stuff.

“Yes, yes and no. I’m enjoying you keeping me from sleep.” You said. Maybe it was the time, but that was kind of bold Ana. Good job?

“Good. I’m enjoying it too.” He said while you were getting under the duvet, getting cozy. “Are you enjoying London? What’s your favorite place so far?”

“I loved what I’ve seen from the car window” You answered sadly. “And all the studios we’ve seen.” You laughed a little. “But since we’ve landed it’s been go go go.”

“That’s a great song though.”

“I can’t believe you got that reference.” You said surprised. You love The Maine.

“I love The Maine. Honest. ‘Where I come from you learn to make the best of things’”

“‘But honey since we’ve met you know you’ve had the best of me’” You mock singed together and laughed when you finished the verse.

“OH MY GOD DO YOU WANT TO MARRY ME?” He joked while laughing.

“YES! AND WE CAN GET ON THE ROAD CHASING INDIE BANDS ON TOUR?” You joked back.

“I mean, that’s the dream, that’s the dream.” He said. “I can’t believe that you haven’t seen London though. Wish you’d stay longer, I could take you some places. If you’d like, of course” He said.

“Don’t you have work? I though movie stars didn’t have time for tourism in their own home town” You teased.

“I’m sure movie stars don’t. Good thing I’m not one.” He said smirking.

“Ok, and where would you take me then?” You asked. Where you really contemplating extending your trip just right now? Get a grip on yourself woman.

“Uh, I don’t know. Parks?”

“Parks?” You laughed.

“And pubs.” He laughed too. “To be honest those are the only places I go to when I’m home. I take my dog on walks and drink with friends.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad life to me.”

“No, I guess not.”

You guys kept talking for hours about everything and nothing. Favorite music, food, drinks, spots for each of those in different cities. You lived in NY but had lived in Berlin before and he was interested in that and you were very interested to hear about the places he’d been, but mostly about London.

“So you actually live here?” You asked him.

“What you mean? London? Yeah.”

“But don’t you work more in LA and stuff? You have a place there too?”

“Uh, no, actually. I don’t work there as much. No as much to justify getting a place anyway. If I’m honest, I haven’t stayed in the same place for too much time, unless I’m off work. And then I’ll be here. Closer to the family. Friends. You know.” He told you.

“That’s nice. It sucks to be away all the time”

“You probably know what I mean. There was a time I was considering getting a place in LA, you know, that whole Hollywood thing. And I was kind of seeing someone there at the time, so that might have had some influence in the decision. We were looking at houses and they were amazing, huge and crazily luxurious.”

“You were going to move in together?”

“No, she was just helping me look for places. Anyway, it didn’t worked out and in the mean time I found this house here so it was for the better I think.” He was opening up to you. “That’s really not for me. That whole life. Mansions, cars, the paparazzi.”

“Listen, I’m not sure how to break it to you. But you might not have chosen the best work line then.” You joked.

“No joke” He laughed. “I know it’s part of the job. At some extent. But I don’t need to go looking for trouble too. This way I’ll just deal with all that when I’m at the states and here I can focus on something else. Spend that money with something else. Spend my time with people that I actually care about and care about me. You know?”

“I like your mind” You said without thinking and there was a while of silence between the two of you.

“I think that’s the best compliment I ever gotten” He said.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.” You blushed.

“I know. And that’s why.” He smiled. “I like your mind too. I like that you don’t filter it. You’re genuine” You had blushed and closed your eyes at his compliment. When you opened them he was smiling at you. “You have the most amazing green eyes, you know that? They’re beautiful. And smile too. I love your smile.” You turned your head to the side, like you didn’t understand what he was saying, but you did. You were only studying him.

“Where you getting at Holland?”

“Can I see you tomorrow? Will you have sometime after your interview?” He asked.

“Yeah. I have the day actually, my flight is not until 11 at night, I think. When you want to meet?”

“I can pick you up right after and we can grab some lunch, sounds good?”

“Yeah, sounds perfect” You said and looked at the clock, it was 02:38 in the morning. “But I should probably try and get some sleep now, or I won’t be a real person tomorrow.” He touched the screen on his phone, probably looking at time himself.

“Shit, that’s late. Sorry, I didn’t felt the time” He apologized.

“Me neither” You smiled. You wanted to say more, like how amazing it was talking to him and that’s why time flew like that, how you haven’t felt that in many years. But you didn’t.

“Okay, I’ll let you go now. See you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow Holland” He laughed. “What?”

“I like how you call me by my last name. Sounds good. See you tomorrow (y/l/n)”

“I liked how mine sounded in your English accent”

“Yeah? Did I pronounce it right?” He laughed.

“Close enough” You laughed. “Alright, good-bye now”

“Tchau” He said while you hanged up, catching you by surprise.

You couldn’t believe what just happened. Oh boy indeed. You were sure you weren’t even going to be able to sleep tonight, smiling in the dark to yourself like that. Get a grip woman.

#tom holland #tom holland fic #tom holland x reader #tom holland one shot

[sarah-writes-marvel]

Interogation: Avengers x Fem!Reader

S.S: This one is a little cringe worthy, its got a lot of Pintrest writing dialouge in it so just caution of that! But hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Knife, Blood (kinda), cringe.....

Word Count: 1,624

MASTERLIST

-----------------------------

I settled onto the couch, in my plush baby blue PJ pants and an oversized sweater, and my wet hair still dripping onto my shoulder. The team had just returned from a rather difficult mission and everyone was exhausted. Slowly one by one, each Avengers walked into the room, decked out in their own pajamas, and freshly showered.

“What are we watching?” Tony inquired as he took a seat in his chair.

“Something funny. I need a laugh.” Clint insisted.

Nat took the remote from my hands, most likely growing impatient with my slow picking and ran through the movies, clicking on one of the funnier ones that we had all seen once or twice.

“I hate to interrupt.” Fury’s voice traveled through the living room, eliciting groans from everyone. “Don’t worry I just need Agent L/n.” 

“For what?” I question, from my slumped state on the couch.

“An interrogation.” 

“You can’t get someone else to do it?” I asked peering over the back of the couch to see him dressed in his usual trench coat.

“Already had our best people try.” He admitted. I toss the blanket that I had snuggled under off onto Bucky who sat next to me.

“Alright, let me go change,” I grumbled.

“Wait, if your best guys have already tried, why send in Y/n/n? No offense, but isn’t she a little inexperienced in that category.” Nat questioned.

“Gee, thanks. I’m not just a good shot Nat. I’ve got tricks.” I smirked before walking back to my room to change from my cozy jammies. I could hear the questions through the hall and Fury staying silent, causing irritation amongst the group.

I was quick to change into black high waisted jeans, a light blue shirt tucked into the waistband, and shrugged on my leather jacket and pulled on my heeled black combat boots, slipping a small pocket knife between my ankle and leather. Adding mascara and running my hands through my wet hair I decided I was good to go.

I was never one to look or be menacing. I was the sweetheart of the group, I wore bright colors, found the silver lining of everything. I did my best not to focus on all the bad around me, which was maybe power in itself considering what I’ve experienced. 

“Alright, let’s get this over with.” I groaned walking into the living room. 

“Wow. You should wear black more often. You look good.” Sam commented.

“Thanks but it’s not really my style. Unless it’s needed.” I informed. “Y’all coming or something.” 

The group was standing next to Fury, each had their arms crossed or their hand placed on their hips.

“Yes. We want to make sure you’ll be ok.” Steve stated.

“I just want to watch. It’ll be entertaining.” Tony chuckled, I assumed because he believed that I’d walk out of the room defeated.

“Alright, but no intervening with my interrogation.” I laid the ground rule. Each nodded, some after a little bit of hesitation but agreed nonetheless. “Good.”

--------------

We stood on the one-sided mirror, looking into the culprit. A hydra operative, who looked disgruntled, to say the least. Fury handed me the file with a grimace.

“Do you worst. Anything to get him to spill.” He instructed. I nodded in understanding before entering the room.

“Hello.” I greeted, looking through the file. “What’s your name?”

“Why don’t you just read it from the file?” his thick german accent spit.

“Because I dont like conducting interviews like that. I like to see other perspectives first.” I informed, with a small smile.

“Atticus Kahl.”

“I’m Y/n L/n. You can call my Y/n if you would like, or agent if that suits you.” I say as I take a seat across from the man. “I assume you probably know why I’m here talking to you.”

“I will never tell Hydra’s secrets. My loyalty lies with them.” he sneers.

“Alright, we’ll just see about that,” I say with a sickeningly sweet voice. “So I see here that you were a top officer. That must’ve been a lovely privilege.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I’ll bet your wife was proud, to know that you had a commanding officer position amongst Hydra.”

“I don’t have a wife.” he sounded hurt, which he should be.

“Oh, oh I missed that here. It says you volunteered her for experimentation.” I looked at the file. “Oh my, and she died under the needle. I’m sure that was awful.”

“Yes. It was a tragedy, she would’ve been a wonderful asset.” He reminisces.

“I’m sure. Women tend to be very strong-willed. Perfect for the army, things like that. You never questioned your loyalty after they had essentially killed your wife?”

“They didn’t kill her, she was too weak. A woman on her own is weak, I was helping her become more.” 

“So are you insinuating that I am weak?” I question his misogynistic view.

“Unless you have a serum running through your bloodstream, yes.” his dark green eyes pierced mine.

“I love it when people underestimate me. It makes my job so much more fun.” I smiled. “Let’s continue. So you sacrificed your wife for experimentation, meaning Hydra is continuously trying to find the right serum.”

His eyes shifted away, giving away the obvious answer.

“Alright. So you want to let me in on that. I mean you were captain. I’m sure you got to see every failed attempt correct.”

“Like I’ve said before. I won’t betray Hydra. They will come for me.”

“Ya, and when they find you I’ll bet you that they kill you on the spot. Im sure they’d take me instead.” I laugh.

“What makes you believe that your life is worth more than mine?” He questioned leaning towards me.

“What makes you believe that your life is worth anything at all?” I reciprocated his actions. “You’re a pawn for Hydra. They gave you the responsibility of captain, expecting you not to fail and get captured. But here you are, sitting in front of me, spilling Hydra secrets chained to a table.”

He jerked towards me, expecting me to flinch at his immediate action but instead I smirked at him.

“That’s so cute. You think your scary, cause you work for Hydra. But sir, I’ve seen scary… and you ain’t got his smile. Now tell me more about the experiments and Hydra. I love learning.” I insisted.

“Go to hell.” he seethed.

“Sorry, I can’t. Satan still has a restraining order against me.” I retorted propping my feet onto the table. “You’re losing my interest and that’s very dangerous so I suggest you spill the Hydra secrets before I take drastic measures.”

We sat in silence for a solid five minutes before I took the knife from my boot, slamming into the table.

“Since it seems that you people respond best to displays of violence, the next time I set that knife down it’ll be through your hand,” I said pointedly.

“Awfully confident arent you?” he chuckled.

“Yes, my momma raised me to be confident. She taught me which dinner fork would be the most effective for killing a person. It was quite enlightening.” I threatened.

“You’re a psychopath.” 

“I prefer creative,” I said as I flipped the knife and stabbed it through his hand. His ear-piercing scream rang out. “Now talk. And think before you speak,” I hissed “the last person who lied to me got more than a stab to the hand. And I’m sure you’ll want your tongue so you can negotiate your life with your commander.”

The man paled and his terrified features caused a rush of adrenaline through my system. He immediately nodded his head, fear coursing through his veins.

“Good, let’s start from the beginning.”

--------------------------

A confession, diabolical plan (if you could call it that), and 30 minutes later I walked out of the interrogation room, facing the in awe Avengers.

“Here you go. Hope it’ll be enough. Just because he was a captain doesn’t mean he was let in on every secret.” I told Fury, handing him the file and the notes I had made.

“I realize that. It’ll be a start. Thank you. You all can return to your relaxation.”

“Dang I forgot my knife.” I groaned, staring into the room seeing my knife still stuck in the operative’s hand. “Oh well. Alright, movie time?” I asked turning back to the Avengers.

“Who the hell was that in there?” Nat questioned, in awe of my immediate change of personality.

“Uh, me. I dont understand what your asking.” I looked at her curiously.

“That is seemingly impossible. You are the definition of joy.” Thor added. I scoffed.

“Seriously, that person in there was terrifying,” Bucky stated. “It wasn’t you.”

“If you all could even begin to comprehend where I’ve come from, you’d be terrified of me. So it was me, just a side that I dont show often.” I admitted. “Now, you guys can bombard me with questions another time but I’m really not in the mood for anything but pj’s and a movie.”

“Ya, I dont want to get on your bad side after seeing that,” Tony confessed. “Let’s go watch the movie and get some sleep. God knows we could use it.”

With that, the team walked back to the compounded conversation about anything but the interrogation and mission were being discussed.

“I’m sorry but it boggles my mind that you switched your personality so quick. Who taught you that?” Clint asked, breaking the streak.

“Clint,” I said in a warning tone. “Not now.” And with that the rest of the walk was quiet, minus the hurried and slightly annoyed click of my heels in the hallway.

------------------------

Thanks!! Hope it wasnt too cringe worthy!!

#marvel #marvelfanfic #captainamerica #wintersoldier #ironman #thor #hawkeye #blackwidow #readerinsert #femreader #fluff #avengers #badass #steverogers #buckybarnes #tonystark #natasharomanov

[thethoughtsfromthreeam]

Monument Woman

Pairing: Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)

Warnings: None

A/N:  Enter Marcus Pike, stage right

Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tag List:

@zeldasayer​ , @beskars​ , @coolmaybelateruniverse​ , @the-feckless-wonder​ , @pascalisthepunkest​ , @mandoandyodito​ , @randomness501​ , @fioccodineveautunnale​  , @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​ , @lilkermit14​ , @tortles   [please message me to be added or subtracted]

[PART 1]  [PART 2]  [PART 3]  [PART 4]  [PART 5]

Part 6 – Step Forward, Step Back, Find Your Partner Quick

Helen tried her best to console a distraught Rosemary as Officer Garcia spoke to several of his colleagues in the hallway.  Her screams had startled the director, who was already on edge due to the break-in and if the circumstances had been different, the look of surprise and horror on the officer’s face would have reduced Helen to peals of laughter.  But all the situation did was add worry to her shoulders.

For nearly two hours, the officers questioned Rosemary about the break-in, about the missing piece, and they kept asking if the museum had any enemies. As much as she wanted to say Fred Breyers out of pure spite, Rosemary kept her mouth shut – sure some people weren’t always pleased with some of their program or exhibit topics, but nothing that would result in the theft of an artifact or the physical beating of a staff member.  The two women were exhausted by the time the three cops left the building.  Rosemary laid on the couch in her office, a wet cloth over her eyes as the lingering headache from the attack ramped up under this new stress.

“Rose, are you going to be okay?”  Helen’s voice was soft, but unable to keep the worried tone at bay.

“I honestly don’t know.  That statue was the only thing missing.  I don’t know if I’m upset because I promised Robert we’d care for it or mad as hell that accepting that ugly ass hunk of bronze led to all of this and possibly hurt the museum’s reputation.”  She sighed heavily, the now cool cloth doing little to help her.  She slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the sofa’s edge.

“I wouldn’t worry about our reputation.  I’m already working with Marquetta on a press release to get ahead of the game.  Louis over at the Caller always does right by us, I’ll give him the scoop first and he’ll spin it in our favor.”  Helen leaned back.  “I’ll also call major donors today to inform them of the situation.”

“I’m sorry, Helen.  I never thought this would have happened!”  The younger woman groaned heavily as she tried to stand, but the director held out her hand to keep her from getting up.  The body stilled.

“Did Francois’ report show anything differently than what Robert had given you?”  Before Robert’s health worsened, Rosemary contacted an old friend of hers to appraise the piece as Helen wanted a second opinion for the insurance company.  The in-depth discussion about the findings with Helen was moved back first by Robert’s death and then the attack.  “Are we still looking at the same value?”

“I reread it the day before the attack to prep for the meeting that never obviously happened, and he seems to agree with the assessment Robert gave us. The statue was processed into the collections several months ago and I put in Robert’s information, but never got around to putting in Francois’ report.”

��Well, so long as the original value was imputed into the report, it’ll give us something for the insurance company.”

“Are we going to report it lost?  What if they recover it?”

“Rose, I don’t mean to sound mean, but I doubt these officers are going to find the piece.  Whoever has it is probably long gone by now.”  Helen glanced over at her.  “Unless a miracle happens.”

“Well good thing I believe in manifestation and miracles.”  For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Rosemary smiled as her old humor began to shine through.  The director smiled back, unable to let the infectious comment not affect her.

“We’ll see.”

---***---

Two Weeks Later

“Pike!  Get in here!” Carmichael’s voice carried through the small cluster of offices their department occupied.  “Pike!”

“I’m coming!  Damn, give me a second!”  Pike grumbled as he scurried from his office and across to hers.  She wasn’t a loud person, so the excited shout she gave had everyone around her curious.  As Pike entered the room, he could see his partner standing behind her desk, doing a little hop-dance.  He raised an eyebrow.

“You need to look at this!”  She pointed at the computer, her smile so big it nearly took over her face. He stopped because she was giggling, Carmichael never giggled.  Whatever this was, it had to been good.  Pike came around the desk and bent down to see what she was looking at and when his eyes landed on the screen, his eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped.

“This is one of them, isn’t it?”  Carmichael asked, her voice quivering in excitement.  He ran out of the office to the command center for the cold cases, his presence startling his crew.  He looked over at the evidence board and ripped off a picture hanging in the middle before rifling through one of the boxes to find the corresponding file. He ran back to the office.

The picture in his hand was faded with time, that grainy look of age that pictures older pictures were taking on, but despite those flaws, the sculpture in the photo matched the one in the new alert in the NSAF database.  The Cornucopia had always been breathtaking.

And it’s been missing since 1993.

The agents glanced over the dossier, reviewing the piece to try and discover how this priceless Russian artifact made its way to what looks like a small museum in Western Michigan.  Neither had reviewed the original case file closely and both felt their jaws dropping as they read further and further into its history:

A rare example of the early Ukrainian Avant Garde art movement, The Cornucopia was created by Artem Chumak, a well-known artist from Odessa. Commissioned by the then-governor of the country as a gift to Czar Nicolas II in 1907, the piece was designed to showcase the entirety of the Ukraine in a single moment.  Because the country was known for its agriculture, Chumak chose to use the image of the cornucopia as his inspiration.

The piece is made of bronze and inlaid with the following precious gemstones:

               Siberian diamond

               Ural sapphire

               Ural ruby

               Ural jade

               Russian emerald

               Russian opal

               Ukrainian pearl

Upon the fall of the Russian empire in 1917, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna Romanov took the piece along with several others from the royal art collection when she fled Russia.  She remained owner of the piece until 1920, when she sold it to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

In turn, the Grand Duke loaned the piece to the National Museum of History and Art and it remained with the museum until the outbreak of World War II. The ducal family took the piece back, along with several others to protect the collection from the advancement of the Nazis.

Unfortunately, the move did little good and much of the museum’s collection, including the pieces stored in the ducal family home, were taken by the Nazis, with intention of destroying them as part of the Germanization of the annexed country.

The pieces remained missing until 1949, when a team from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (a.k.a. the Monument Men), recovered the stolen collections in a cellar in Hamburg and returned them to their respective homes.  The Cornucopia was returned to the museum and was on display until the ducal family attempted to sell the piece in 1965.  The sale failed and the family remained owners until the piece was loaned to the Luxembourg-American Cultural Museum in the U.S. in 1992.

In 1993, the piece was stolen from the museum and reported to the FBI’s Art Theft Squad days later.  The piece has yet to be recovered despite the best attempts of the team.

Pike looked at Carmichael and they grinned at each other.  While it being reported as missing didn’t mean that they had found it, it did mean that this cold case was heating up.

“Do you think we found our key?”  He didn’t want to sound hopeful, but he had to admit he was optimistic that they were much closer to solving this case.  The evidence they had been sifting through meticulously was painting a picture, but like a jigsaw puzzle, they were still missing pieces that brought it all together.

“I think we have.”  Carmichael replied.  They grinned at each other.

“Whose turn is it to go and do the interview?”  

“Mine, but could you do it?  Marty is out of town on business this week and I can’t leave Dinah alone.”  She rarely asked to trade like this, but Pike held up his hands in understanding.  They smiled, grateful they were partnered up, their work relationship had always been a smooth one.

“Sure, what could possibly happen in Michigan?”

They laughed as they started to walk to the command center.

---***---

Rosemary and Banana walked into the house, both exhausted from the day, the museum’s annual fall field trip event a cacophony of noise and excitement. The program had been exactly what Rosemary needed – something that distracted her from everything that had happened over the last month.  Her stomach hurt all day from her laughter as young kids swarmed the museum in their Halloween costumes.

As she hung up her coat, she caught something out of the corner of her eye on the kitchen table.  Walking over, Rosemary immediately recognized Fern’s loopy handwriting.

Hey sweetie, probate hasn’t cleared yet, but I heard word it should within the month.  Not to jinx it, but welcome to Saugatuck – its’ about time!  I’m also including some keys to Robert’s safety deposit boxes for safekeeping.  You can’t open them until the probate has cleared, so don’t get ahead of yourself! Love you, ae-in.  Always.  -F

“Oh, thank god.”  She huffed as she opened the bulky envelope, dumping out various keys and paperwork, including the deed to the house and the store.  She had an underlying fear that something would happen, and Robert’s wishes would have been overturned and she would get nothing.  “Looks like we’re here for the time being, Baba!”

Rosemary read through the papers and picked up her phone to call Fern. For the next hour, the two women chatted about the changes, what she needed to do to register ownership with the state, and more.  After they said their good-byes, Rosemary pulled her jacket on and patted Banana on the head as she left the house.  It was dark now, but she knew the path through the cemetery and trudged up the hill towards Robert’s grave with no problem.

“You know, I’m certain you chose this spot for some reason or another, but I think it’s to punish me for not getting enough exercise.”  She groused at the polished granite, wondering how she made this walk as often as she did, and it still robbed her of her breath. She was out of shape.  

Robert’s cheeky grin beamed from the porcelain cameo embedded into the stone.  She had never seen anything like it, but he had told her it was common among Eastern European communities.  He described how they used this horribly unflattering photo for his aunt Ionna’s cameo and that he vowed he’d choose his own rather than leave it to his relatives to decide.

She sat down on the damp ground and settle in.  She was still visiting the cemetery daily and while she didn’t cry as much as she had in the beginning, her throat always felt painful after she left.  Wrapping the coat around her tightly she sighed.

“You missed our field trip day.  I know you loved volunteering for it and the kids who remembered you from last year asked where you were.”  She smiled. “I told them you were attending as a ghost and that they couldn’t see you.  I think they believed me.

“I don’t know what strings you pulled up on that cloud of yours, but Fern thinks the probate will clear next month.  I’m glad, this whole process has been a pain and thank you for not making me go through it.  I’d give up and just die if Fern weren’t in charge.  My landlord was mad I’m breaking my lease, but I know you’re excited, you always hated that place.”  She sighed as a wave of sadness washed over her.

“I miss you.”  Her voice crackled with tears.  “I miss you so much, Robert!  I hate that you’re gone.  I hate that! I hate this!  And I failed you!  They still haven’t found the statue and I contacted the FBI and I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t know what to do!”

She cried harder, her ribs hurting as if the pain she experienced weeks ago was still fresh.  She gripped her sides as she continued to sob.   She was tired and everything that had happen in the month and a half since Robert died was catching up with her.  Rosemary sat in the cold evening for hours and let her sadness out.  When she finally left, the exhaustion she felt forced her straight to bed when she arrived at the house.  In a bit of mercy, she slept a dreamless sleep for once.

---***---

“Good morning.”  The deep voice caused Marquetta to turn from the display case she was working on.  A tall man with brown hair and a kind smile stood at the front desk.  She watched as Bob ambled over to welcome him.  She couldn’t hear their conversation after that, but she kept a subtle watch on the interaction as the two men talked.  The stranger smiled again and walked past her towards the stairs and she watched up trudge up each step until he was out of sight.

“You aren’t being very subtle.”  Bob’s voice sounded behind her and Marquetta jumped at the noise.  She felt herself grow hot, grateful her dark skin hid the blush rushing across her cheeks.  She turned to look at Bob, who was grinning at her.

“Who was that?”  She tried to keep her voice steady.

“Some FBI agent wanting to talk to Rosemary.”

“FBI?”  Marquette frowned before her eyebrows shot up.  “FBI!  Oh my god! They’re here!”

“Don’t shout.  It’s rude.”

“No, Bob!  Rosemary reported that statue that got stolen to the FBI!  That means they know about it!  They’re here for that!”

“Does that mean they’ll find the men who hurt her?”  He sounded hopeful at the idea.  Even if he thought her manners were lacking, Bob was deeply upset that Rosemary had been hurt the way she had been.  If this young agent can help find her attackers, he was all for it.

“I bet they do if they find the statue.”  The two stopped talking when Rosemary and Banana entered the building. She looked up and felt awkward when she realized they were staring at her.

“Um, is something wrong?”  She sounded unsure of herself and Bob got angry, realizing that these men didn’t just rob the museum of this ugly statue, it robbed Rosemary of her self-assurance.

“Never, Rose.  There is an agent from the FBI in your office.  Marquetta says you contacted them.”  She startled, not believing that her reporting the stolen item would bring them to her front door.  They were just a small history museum in Michigan, not the Detroit Institute of Art or the Smithsonian.  She figured she’d get an email or a call, but never a real agent.

“They’re here?  Really?” Her eyes lit up when Bob nodded. She started to laugh because she didn’t know what else to do.  Marquetta walked over to hug her and the physical contact help to ground her.

“He’s good looking, too.”  Marquetta whispered in her ear.  Rosemary pulled back at the comment. “Like really good looking.  His butt is cute.”

The two women giggled at the comment and hugged again.  Picking up the leash she dropped, the curator and her furry companion went towards the stairs, hope beginning to bubble in her chest. Maybe she hadn’t failed Robert after all, she thought.  When she reached the third floor, she stopped to catch her breath before walking down to her office.

When she stepped into the doorway, she saw him standing there, looking at her walls.  She couldn’t see his face, but everything about his presence radiated kindness – something she hadn’t expected from an FBI agent.  When he turned to look at her as she cleared her throat, his face lit up in a smile and she couldn’t help but smile back.  For the first time in weeks, she felt safe.

“I’m Special Agent Marcus Pike.”  He held out his hand to her.  She took it with her customary firm grip.

“I’m Rosemary Carter.  Welcome to Fort Jamison.”

#marcus pike #Agent Marcus Pike #marcus pike x reader #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal x reader #fanfic #the mentalist

[puckinghell]

i dont know if you write for him but can you do something for leon draisaitl? like maybe 11 fluff or 14, 19 random?

Thanks to this prompt I watched a 40 minute interview with Leon and found out my German is really a lot better than expected, so thank you for that!

–

“I want to die,” you proclaim, laying on your back on Connor’s couch, your eyes squeezed shut. “I mean it, Connor. Open your window so I can jump out.”

Connor’s voice is amused when he speaks. “We’re on the first floor, you’d break a leg at most.”

You groan and try to telepathically convey to your best friend that you hate him without speaking, because speaking hurts your head.

“I don’t get what you’re so upset about,” Connor says. You open one eye to glare at him; he’s sitting opposite you, seeming annoyingly chipper and not hungover at all, which is rude. “You didn’t say anything that bad.”

“I told Leon I want to have babies with him, Connor,” you deadpan, your glare only intensifying when he says:

“But you do wanna have his babies. You’re always saying whatever genes he has to get those great cheekbones need to be distributed across the world.”

“I’m always saying that to you, you idiot! I’m not meant to say that to Leon!”

You groan and let your head drop back against the couch. It’s annoying that your best friend doesn’t get it, but you never really expected him to. Connor is stupidly logical about things like crushes: you’ve been crushing on his extremely hot German teammate for a literal year and Connor has been saying “Just tell him” for a literal year, too.

As if it’s that easy.

And then yesterday you got really drunk at Nursey’s house party and threw up your affection all over Leon; you don’t remember exactly what you said, but there was a lot of bad attempts at flirting and even more mentions of how hot he is.

The only thing that would’ve been worse would be if you’d literally thrown up on him. God, you wanna die.

“Oh, by the way,” Connor says, as he gets up to – you assume – refill his coffee cup, “Leon is coming by in a minute to go on a run with me.”

What happens next is kinda like a movie script: Connor stretches, the door opens – because Connor’s teammates tend to let themselves into the house like the heathens they are - and you shriek, before launching yourself over the back of the couch.

“Davo, I’m here!” you hear Leon say, and then Connor’s voice, like he’s trying to muffle his laughter: “Hey, Drai.”  

“Where’s Y/N?” Leon asks. “I saw her car outside.”

Please, if you love me, don’t tell him, you beg Connor – again, telepathically, because you can’t very well speak – but clearly your best friend is an asshole, or just very bad at telepathy.

“Oh, she’s hiding behind the sofa.”

You press your head flat against the hardwood floor and close your eyes, waiting for the inevitable to happen.

When Leon speaks next, his voice sounds close; too close to still be in the living room.

“May I ask why?”

You open your eyes and there he is staring at you; his beautiful blue eyes and chiseled cheekbones – fuck you, Connor, those genes do deserve to be distributed – and an amused grin on his face.

“Uhm, just, like it here,” you mumble, trying to ignore the way your cheeks are heating up. “Uhm, very comfortable.”

“I can imagine,” Leon says, in a way that tells you he doesn’t believe you at all, but he’s very amused by your antics.

“She’s hiding from you,” Connor says, and this time, you do say it out loud.

“Fuck you, Connor!”

There’s a chuckle from your best friend and then his footsteps retreating up the stairs, presumably to get ready for his run.

Leon raises one eyebrow, still hanging half over the couch to look at you. “Is that true?”

“Maybe,” you admit.

He clutches at his heart and pulls a face, sounds wounded when he says: “Ouch, that’s a tough one to recover from.”

You commend his effort to try and behave normal after you surely freaked him out yesterday, so you sigh and sit up.

The least you can do is act normal too.

“I mean,” Leon continues, “it’s not the first time I’ve been shot down, but it’s definitely the first time I pretend to want to go on a run so I can see a girl and she launches herself behind a sofa to get away from me.”

And, uhm, what?

“Are you flirting with me?” you ask a little dumbly, and Leon grins.

“Finally, you noticed. Did it last night too, but you didn’t seem to get it.”

And if that ain’t mind-baffling information.

“I probably didn’t get a lot last night,” you admit. “Sorry, it turns out tequila really isn’t my friend.”

“Tequila is nobody’s friend,” Leon says poetically, then extends his hand and helps you up, over the back of the couch again. You sink into the pillows next to him, but Leon doesn’t let go of your hand.

“You meant it, though? What you said last night.” For the first time, there’s a hint of vulnerability shining through his voice, and you groan.

“Oh my God, what did I say? Apart from that thing about having babies and how much I like your cheekbones.”

Leon laughs, carefully laces his fingers through yours. Then, softly, says: “You said you’ve been in love with me for over a year.”

Oh. Connor had failed to mention that to you.

You feels your cheeks heat up.

“Oh, so maybe I didn’t see that one coming. When Connor told me of my embarrassing doings last night, he left that one out.”

“You’re the one that said it,” Leon points out, rightfully so. “Although I maybe said something similar. But, I guess, if you don’t remember…”

He’s clearly teasing you, but when he starts to pull away a wave of panic washes over you and you scramble to hold onto him, somehow ending up half in his lap clutching his biceps.

“Say it again,” you all but order him, and Leon smiles; a real one this time, not a half teasing grin and not a smirk, but a soft,  gentle smile that lights up his eyes.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, and you react by kissing him.

“So, I guess we’re not going on a run, then?” Connor’s voice sounds, but he doesn’t sound like he cares too much.

You manage to flip him off without breaking the kiss.

—

Request from this prompt list. Please try to avoid requesting numbers that have already been done! If you want to blacklist, these will be tagged “blurb”

#leon draisaitl #blurb #regular blurb #edmonton oilers

[kietzemaze]

Sherlolly Self-Interview 2020

Oh God, this is both funny and strange. Embarrassing even. 🙈 But yeah, I wanted to participate and so I did. 😅 Don’t bite my head off for being too late, though...

When did you step into the Sherlock fandom?

I joined the Sherlock fandom quite late, to be honest. I don't have television and I don't use any platforms such as Netflix to watch films or series. If I wanted to get entertained by that time, I just grabbed a book and started reading. It was my boyfriend who nearly „forced“ me to watch BBC Sherlock about 2 years ago. And what can I say: I fell in love with it immediately. Since I'm from Germany, I watched the German version first but I quickly wanted to see the original, too. I remember that my jaw literally dropped when I heard Benedict's voice for the first time. I binge-watched the series over and over again but it was never enough, so I started to pay some more attention to fanworks as well.

And by paying more attention to fanworks you mean you've started to read fanfiction in the first place?

Yes, it was basically fanfiction I consumed. There weren't any good ones in German, so I searched for some english fics on Google. That's when I came across AO3 - I've never heard of that platform before. The first story I read on there was „I told you so“ by @writingwife-83. It's such a great story! Really – it took me on a rollercoaster of emotions! I was so impressed by that work that I started looking for a way to contact her. I just felt the need to let her know how I felt about her story. I haven't had an account on AO3 back then and I didn't want to get one for leaving a comment only. So I got an account on tumblr instead which I'll never regret! I got to know so many people from the beautiful Sherlolly fandom and even made some new friends on here.

That sounds like the start of something really exciting indeed! But what made you write fics on your own?

I was so inspired by „I told you so“ that I wanted to try it on my own, too. Wifey made me see that fandom isn't just a place were everyone goes crazy about something. It was also a place in which one could contribute things that might be valuable for others. A place for being creative and inspiring. So I sat down and started typing. I've had lots of ideas anyway but I didn't know if I could make it to the end. If I could complete a whole story.

But you did as we can see on Fanfiktion.de...

Yes, I posted my first fic on Germany's biggest site for fanfiction. I didn't intend to post it in the first place but when I was done, I thought it would have been a waste of time to having typed for days without anyone to read it. Not even me. I mean, you don't go through your own works every other week, do you?

No, you probably don't. Did you get any feedback?

I did but it wasn't that much. I made the mistake to post the whole story at once and not chapter per chapter. But nevertheless I was so happy about every single click, like or comment. It is addictive! Amazing but addictive. Luckily, I had the opportunity here on tumblr to talk to other writers about dealing with all the things that comes along with being a writer. There was a lot for me to learn.

So you started posting fics in German. Are there some available in English, too?

Well, I did not want to translate my fics. There are already so many good ones out there and I didn't want to annoy anyone with a fic that constantly sounds a bit off because I'm not a native speaker. As it happens, though, some people on here were asking me if they could read stories of mine. That's when I decided to give it a go. Now I also have an account on AO3.

And how did it feel to translate your own stories?

It was very hard in the beginning. Making myself clear in a different language is just so different from creating a text that is worth reading. I really put some effort in it and it took me more time to translate than to write the original story. But the feedback I've got so far is just overwhelming. I don't know if I'm happier about comments saying that I'm In Character or about the ones saying that they haven't noticed it's an translation.

You were talking about being In Character. How hard is it for you to achieve this goal?

I don't struggle with it that much except when I write parts from Sherlock's POV. But as it turns out, my readers love those parts the most. It's harder for me to add some details to my stories. I'm very straightforward. Whereas some writers are able to talk about the rays of sunshine dancing over the floor for several pages, I even forget to mention that there might be a sun shining outside Baker Street.

Where do you get your ideas from? Can you tell us something about your writing process?

I'm afraid there is nothing much to talk about which might sound a bit strange. I just have certain scenes and pictures in my head that I need to write down. If I'm lucky, I can find a plot that links those scenes to a story but I often find myself in the middle of a fic not knowing where to go next. Luckily, I have a boyfriend to consult every now and again. Sometimes he has to spend the whole evening plotting. I can be very pushy and annoying but he got me into this. Now he has to live with it.

Does he also help with the smutty parts?

No. Definitely no! He even hates that my version of Sherlock Holmes is having a sex life at all. This is just my imagination running wild. When I posted the first chapter containing sex, I felt highly embarrassed. I thought, „Oh my God, I hope no one I know will ever read this!“ Well, I've lost that shyness completely over time. I now see it as the peak of a slow developing romance rather than a dirty sin or something.

There are lots of different ships within the Sherlock fandom. What made you fell for Sherlolly?

I think I fell for them because I can see myself in both Sherlock as well as Molly. We are all looking for that kind of true and long-lasting love that Molly fails to find because she has already lost her heart to a man she can't be with. We know the pain she is going through but we also know how lucky she is to be able to feel that way for someone. But since we get disappointed and disillusioned along our way, we tend to become more and more like Sherlock who is constantly protecting himself from (hurtful) emotions. We get tired of all the drama we have been going through over time. Seeing and feeling them softens our heart and makes us able to dream again.

Well that's a beautiful ending for an interview, isn't it? Thanking myself for answering my own questions! 😂

And thanks to all of you who have read my humble contribution to the Sherlolly-Self-Interview 2020!

#sherlollyappreciationweek #sherlollyselfinterview20

[anxiety-trademark]

The week in review:

Raw 09/21 NXT 09/23 NXT UK 09/24 Smackdown 09/25 Clash of Champions 09/27 + Main Event 09/24

Raw:

Billie’s not wrong. None of these people are wrong. That title has fallen so fucking far since Becky held it, Jesus.

Interesting to see Billie Kay be somewhat (?) supportive of Peyton. Manager?

I implore women to stop using red eyeliner unless you’re trying to look possessed.

Oh at least Mickie’s gonna have her last match with her snazzy pants on.

God that theme music is so outdated.

If there was one person on the roster that could convince me they wrestled in the Diva’s era, it’d be Mickie James.

Beautiful Octopus, dare I say best in the division. Look at those crossed legs. Just beautiful, Zelina.

Man it was cool watching Zelina reverse the powerbomb attempt into a rollup, but Mickie couldn’t be bothered to get her shoulders down for a 2 count before the reversal. Shame.

Zelina needs an increase to her speed to pull off the style she’s going for, but it’s a fun style.

oof I think Mickie actually caught Zelina’s forehead with that high kick.

Seated Senton off the top rope is garbage and I hate it.

Lmfao Zelina won with a backstabber. She’s literally Sasha-lite. Okay.

Word was Bianca was the star of the pc combine, right? So if you wanna showcase her strength, do it against someone I fucking know lmao. Who was this bro? Of course she’s stronger than a nobody in the pc. Friggin Alexa Bliss can effortlessly give piggy back rides to Sheamus. That’s impressive, because I know how strong and big he is. This could’ve been done better is all I’m saying. Maybe do a sitdown interview with her pc peeps hyping her up, or show footage of her blowing everyone in the combine out the park. Idk.

Ruby stop hyping up Nia and Shayna individually, individually they suck lol lesbireal.

So did Ruby just give Liv her shirt? …You know what, it works, I’m not gonna dig into this.

I feel like all women use the same starting moves against Nia and it’s a little tired ngl. They do this headscissors into a standing crucifix hold, and then slide down to try and roll her up. Then she picks them up and headbutts them. Come on peeps.

Mk just throw Lana through another table, she’s as useless in the ring (kf wise) as Liv is on commentary (non-kf wise)

Let me rewind, how did Nattie get taken out this time? A punch again. COOL. Nattie confirmed worst tag partner in the history of the division.

Lmfao rip Lana. Bye.

Wow we just said fuck entrances huh? Ugh God. Imagine Becky not getting an entrance as a damn champion.

So Peyton forgoes jumping for the German suplex, which could’ve resulted in her landing on Asuka’s head, and her reaction is to laugh. Consummate professional. Becky Lynch’s optic cranial nerve injury (caused by a failed German suplex) called, it can’t seem to find the humor.

Idk what that double underhooked move was by Peyton, but it was nice.

What bothers me about Peyton’s spinning heel kick, is as high as she gets it, she only hits people with her calf. Awkward to see.

That attempted transition into the Asuka Lock was... something.

Highlight: Lana going through the table

---

NXT:

Did Tegan say “why me” to Candice fucking her knee up with a metal pipe? Somebody get this girl some tissues.

Haha watching Tegan writhe in pain is funny. Candice gets points. And I do not like giving Candice points.

Really appreciate Rhea’s theme after hearing so much generic garbage lately. She’s so done with nxt as a performer, she has passed literally all of them by.

Not to be that person, but seeing so many people in the ring together bothers me. If one person was sick, literally all of them are sick now. It’s just kinda yikes.

Did they forego having a crowd? If so, wise. There’s enough ppl in the ring and at ringside.

Rhea fucking yeeted that girl into the barrier lmaooo.

“...Marina Shafir who’s done some great things on Raw Underground recently,” lmao sure.

The absolute half-assed attempt by that girl to pull herself up before Rhea booted her down to the floor was questionable.

So adding all these random peeps from the pc to this battle royal was done solely to have Raquel and Rhea flex for their feud in 4 months, huh.

Kacy does cool shit, wbk lmao. Gets kicked out, lands on her back, rolls into a handstand, rotates, pulls herself up into the ring using her feet on the ropes; gets kicked out, lands on the side of the guardrail, pulls herself up, uses the plexiglass to help balance herself, jumps onto the stairs; gets kicked out, lands on the side of the guardrail, stands on Kayden’s shoulders and gets chauffeured back to the ring. Brilliant. Would be overkill in a Royal Rumble, but it works here.

R&R eliminate each other/themselves together. Fitting. Dakota “help me I’m useless on my own” Kai is shook.

Why is Indi in the top 5? Or top 7? How is this girl so damn prestigious??

Kacy really just slung herself around the ringpost. I’m becoming a fan of her antics/performances in multiwomen matches.

I see Shotzi’s character is, “I come so close yet cannot manage to touch the gold.” I feel for her... cuz I can’t stand Candice.

Boooo

I love how Io carries herself. She’s a shining example of not allowing her heritage to hold her back or make her feel unimportant. She responds in Japanese, and without missing a beat, translates in perfectly spoken and quick English. Never dances, never smiles, never looks like a chump. Serious and answers the damn question. She gets points.

Highlight: Kacy shenanigans

---

NXT UK:

Lol I love KLR so much. Just ducks out of the ring the first time she’s bested.

“KLR is well versed in mental manipulation,” that she is. She’s honestly a top competitor in that sense; equal to the likes of Sasha and Charlotte when it comes to psychology.

Piper’s got power. Ragdolling KLR here.

That’s right, performing with Charlotte Flair at wm is an accolade one can only hope to achieve (I’m annoying I know) no but seriously, KLR vs Becky Lynch? Take my money.

Nice Superkick, nice Tornado ddt.

Dear ref, stop yelling at her and restart the count. Dweeb.

Lmao self inflicted wreckage of her knee. 

This ref is a walking headache. We’re now getting into the autumn of overbooked women’s matches. And UK’s first title match back. Yikes.

That senton was awkward and looked painful af for KLR’s neck. If you’re gonna risk that move while selling a leg injury, make sure you have more space to correct your landing.

I almost wish that turnbuckle came undone naturally because KLR is already such a good seller, but I’m gonna assume this is a worked move since it’s been left exposed.

Yeah see there are issues with that spot. Positives: KLR didn’t purposefully undo the turnbuckle, so it’s not on her to give another title match; the spot has potential, as I’m guessing that would be genuinely painful. Negatives: Piper is too big of a woman to hit the lower turnbuckle doing the cannonball, so she ended up hitting the middle... which was padded. Good ending on paper if you don’t do the equations, but poor execution. Not Piper nor KLR’s fault though.

Slow pacing and I hate overbooked garbage, but this obviously isn’t the only match they’re having so *shrug*

Highlight: Clean tornado ddt, and I do love KLR’s selling

---

Smackdown:

Lol Bayley has her chair. She automatically gets a point every time I see it.

Top of the ramp this time? Okay, sure.

Stop cutting to the fancams, production. I don’t care about their reactions.

A fine enough promo to move along both of her angles, but production sucks. Wbk though.

“...one of the most complex personalities,” which personality of Alexa’s are we referring to, though?

Their timing on her pyro was off and now I’m sad. The pops during the breakdown leading into the fountains are fucking amazing and honestly cannot be topped by any of the other women.

When did Alexa stop wearing her gloves to the ring? Probably when she turned face. Shame.

She just called Lacey bitter, southern tea, and you know what? What a fucking drag. Imagine bitter southern tea. As someone who was raised in the south, that is a disgrace to southern tea. Sweet sun tea or pass.

Look at Alexa: selling Lacey’s strength, full of agile speed, and yet here’s Lacey not even bothering to put her shoulders down for her pin attempt. SAD.

A problem I consistently have with SD in particular is how they set up commercial breaks. They always do something dramatic, cut to commercial, come back and shit’s always completely different. How you gonna cut from Alexa leading and hearing the Fiend’s laugh, to return to Lacey in charge ???

Dear Cole, why are you calling her Alexis lol. Like I know that’s her real name but, hello??

oof Alexa’s midsection is beet red.

Lacey has not been putting on a “clinic” stop tossing that term around, Cole. Good bump by Alexa though.

Love how Lacey doesn’t mind landing flat when her moonsault misses. Respect. Her and Charlotte both eat that so perfectly.

LOVE how the monitors of people turned into Fiend’s face. POINTS.

It’s like she’s reverted back to her heel persona. This is literally 2016 Bliss, right? Right??

Roman is a large, strong, intimidating guy... but holy shit the visual of 5′1 Alexa staring daggers into the back of his head is intense af. I almost complained that he cut off her exit, but well done with the continuity.

Highlight: I’m really digging the Alexa/Fiend story

---

Clash of Champions:

Loving the red roots, hate the eyeshadow.

See, if Asuka wants to fuck around in the ring, you won’t hear me complain. I just wish she took her non-wrestling segments more seriously.

The patience Asuka gave Zelina to set up the arm kick was dumb.

“A hard arm bar by Asuka,” he says, even though her legs were completely bent. Easy on the credit given plz.

Zelina telegraphs too much. None of the bumps she takes ever catch me by surprise.

In the spirit of being fair, put your fucking shoulders down and let her attempt a pinfall, Asuka.

Haha Sasha-lite did meteora in the corner.

Nice roll into a kick, half point for Zelina.

No you don’t get to sell frustration or disbelief yet, that’s not buyable.

I don’t know wtf Zelina was going for with that counter before the Asuka Lock, but honestly idc. Could’ve been a kickoff match indeed. State of Becky’s title btw.

Every week it’s the same shit with Asuka. She gets on the mic, speaks Japanese, barely accomplishes anything, then gets interrupted/slapped/attacked... with dancing and smiling inbetween. I really wish she was more like Io.

Nikki isn’t “medically cleared to compete”, and the tag team titles aren’t being defended. My memory is fuzzy but wasn’t there some covid concerns going around back then? Was that just baseless speculation?

Love that Bayley turned this into an opportunity to be a bigger douche than she already was lol.

IS SHE DOING A VICTORY LAP LMAO

I want to hate this from a smarky “give other women a chance” perspective, but Bayley is an ass and this is great for Asuka to build credit as a face, and after being made to look foolish yet again. Lesgo.

Lol sounded like Bayley said, “you think you can cuck me?” I’m sure she didn’t. I’m choosing to believe she did though.

I never know exactly who to blame when Asuka’s Codebreaker looks ugly, but I swear Charlotte is the only one it looks impactful with. Sell job isn’t the problem, but taking that actual move is always dicey af.

Great kick by Asuka. Rekt.

Bayley says nah fuck this rofl. Fair ending; a fun little sprint of meaningless jabs.

“Chairwoman of SD” I like that too, Graves. Points to you.

LMAOOO Bayley set that shit up perfectly kekekek what’s up Sasha.

She be looking fucking incredible, but that neckbrace is a mega bummer.

Character wise, I’m surprised Bayley’s choosing to dole out punishment rather than taking her title and bolting.

Welp maybe she should have, Sasha going to town lmao.

oof peep that red line going down Bayley’s arm. eesh. Welts all over her back.

Highlight: Sasha beating the shit out of Bayley with a kendo stick

---

*BONUS*

Main Event:

You don’t pan the camera over to fucking commentary during Bianca’s entrance. Do better @ production.

Ruby puts her confidence in Liv even though everybody knows Bianca is winning this match lmao.

LOVE Liv’s boots.

like 20 seconds into the match and it’s already 10x better than the Bianca vs Billie Kay one. Don’t even waste a spot on Main Event for Billie Kay. No, I’m not not sorry for saying that.

It’s not that I hold issue with Bianca’s showboating or mannerisms, but it’s all so much more fitting for a heel.

Beautiful stalling suplex, but Liv is rather small.

Beautiful distance on that dropkick to Liv. Liv gets points for throwing herself so far.

We have enough women who rip their shirts off deep into matches, me thinks. Don’t need it from Liv as well.

Momentum could’ve been split better, but that was a decent match.

---

*Clash of Champions would be my highlighted event mostly thanks to Bayley, but if that’s a cop out, I’ll give a slight nod to Smackdown’s handling of Alexa.

#wwe #issa review #feel free to ignore these #cuz who tf cares lesbihonest #today's props goes to: #bayley

[thenewlarislynn]

Coffee Stained Confusion

Next Chapter

Chapter 1

Bucky wasn’t exactly thrilled with his new mission assignment. His life was about to be turned into some buddy cop movie with Sam Wilson. However, he didn’t have much room to argue about it since he was the newest to the team and still wasn’t completely in Stark’s good graces. Apparently this new mission would help him “strengthen ties” with others, but Bucky knew that was just an excuse to pair him with someone who couldn’t stand him. On the bright side he’d be able to get out of the tower for a while.

He didn’t hate the tower, not really. The others were nice enough to him. Natasha understood what it was like to be a weapon in someone else’s hands, and Bruce was sympathetic enough too, but he still didn’t have a real connection with anyone except Steve. He missed being out in the real world, and this mission would give him a much-needed breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, the cons outweighed the pros.

This wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill mission. Some recent murders looked a bit too much like HYDRA’s work for them to be overlooked, so they decided to send the one most familiar with the organization. Bucky knew he had to be the one to go, but it still brought too many old memories to the surface. Memories he wanted to so desperately forget. It certainly didn’t help that he was partnered with the most insufferable of all the other Avengers.

“Hey Buck, are you about ready to go?” Steve’s voice shook Bucky out of his thoughts.

“Of course, but it’s Detective James Baker now, remember?” he said with a grin. After settling in at the tower he discovered his love for some of the newer shows, including Brooklyn 99 and decided to have some fun with going undercover like Jake Peralta did.

“Are you sure that won’t be too obvious, James?” Steve said with emphasis on his somewhat new name, only half joking. “It's so close to your real name."

"No one knows I've joined the Avengers, and if they do recognize me then we'll have a bigger issue than my blown cover." he responded with a laugh as he grabbed him bags.

~~~

The professor’s monotone voice droned on as you sat in your lecture. “Now who can tell me what the British did to try and convince America to join WWI? Y/N?” You answered without looking up from your screen, “They dumped oil drums filled with cut off baby hands into New York harbor, claiming they were from Belgian children killed by the Germans, but it was actually propaganda. The hands were from British children who died of the flu.” The professor looked at you for a moment before responding, “Very good, Miss Y/L/N.” You wished he had asked someone else, you were right in the middle of watching Jake propose to Amy on Brooklyn 99, and besides, if he was trying to prove you weren’t paying attention he should have used a harder question. Everyone learned about that in tenth grade, it wasn’t like it was uncommon knowledge.

The bell rang and you left the lecture hall, but not before the prof assigned a 3 page essay on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The autumn air had a slight, crisp chill to it as you walked to the campus coffee shop. The leaves were just starting to change color and the ones that had fallen made a satisfying crunch under your feet as you walked. You could hear students talking noisily and realized you had reached the little cafe. People sat outside in the little courtyard enjoying the weather. You waved to a few friends before stepping inside. After setting your things down at your usual table, you walk to the counter.

“Hey Y/N! What’ll you be having today?” the barista, Sasha, smiled at you.

“Oh, hi, uhh can I get a large iced latte with three extra shots of espresso?”

“No problem, but are you sure you want three? The drink already has four pumps of espresso in it to start with.” she explained.

“I have had the longest day, and it’s only 10 A.M.,” you laughed “besides I can’t cry over a failed test if I’m undergoing cardiac arrest.”

“Alright then, but when you can’t sit still in your next lecture don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

After paying for your drink you head back to your table, taking in a deep breath of air. When you needed an escape, this was always the best place to come. The warm, cozy environment was so calming, and you could actually get some work done since it wasn’t bustling and noisy like the courtyard outside. Your name was called and you got up to get your drink. You felt strangely calm for once. It dawned on that for the first time in ages you didn’t have any work that needed to be done immediately. You pulled out your notes and a highlighter and made some annotations in your notes. You put your earbuds in and lost yourself in the satisfying job of highlighting important facts to remember.

Before you realized how long you were sitting there for your alarm went off. “Shit!” you exclaimed. You tried to down the rest of your coffee while putting your things away but ended up spilling it all over yourself- and your notes. You groaned in frustration while grabbing your things and rushing off to your next class. The sad thing was, this always happened. No matter how careful you were, or how neat you tried to be, you always spilled something on your notes. Mainly coffee, but there was the occasional chocolate smears there too. What could you say, you had a sweet tooth. You speed walked across campus, hoping to make it to the lecture hall with a few minutes to spare. As you walked you saw two good looking guys rounding the bend on the sidewalk near you.

They didn’t look like students, and one was carrying a red binder stuffed with papers. Probably interviewers for potential interns, you thought with an eye roll. Or they could be working for CollegeBoard. Dear God, what if they saw the PSAT memes you made in tenth grade and were here to kick you out of college? You laughed at the thought but still glanced at the sidewalk as they drew closer, just in case.      

As they neared you, you could just make out snippets of their conversation. The one with the binder sounded irritable “I’m telling you Sam, I don’t think we’ll find him here-”

“Get out of the way!” someone yelled.

You just managed to jump to the side as a person on roller skates raced past. Unfortunately, you jumped directly into the path of the two men, dropping all your notes and causing the one holding the binder to drop his as he caught you. “Hey, careful there, you wouldn’t want to get hurt.” he said with an easy smile. Huh, you hadn’t noticed how toned he was until now.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” your cheeks flushed as you regained your balance, “I’m sorry about your notes-”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” his friend said kindly as he collected their papers, “people here are always rushing around without looking where they’re going.”

You knelt down to pick up your notes quickly and said “Thanks, speaking of rushing I have class but uh have a good day…” and rushed off. Unfortunately you didn't have time to check if the coffee stained papers you grabbed were your own, and maybe you should have.

#coffee stained confusion #my wriitng #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #captain america #bucky barnes fanfiction #sam wilson #steve rogers #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes x reader

[geneclarksboobs]

The Great Peter Infodump of March 2020

yo @brackets-and-woolly-hats @mijaco-geo and @mike-nesmith-for-mayor I have recently been informed that yall would really like me to infodump about Peter and I want to thank yall because I think if I held it in any longer I would explode

Also thanks to the coolcherrycream articles and various interviews that I learnt all these from in the 5-ish months I’ve been thinking about the monkees for

But before I start going hnngggg Peter I would like to warn you that despite my tone this is going to contain some heavy stuff. We’re talking brief mentions of blood, and suicide and death so be careful about that

This is gonna get hella long so *cracks knuckles* let’s begin

Childhood

let’s start from the very beginning: a very good place to start

Friday, 13th February one bb was born and he would always say that Friday the 13th was a lucky day for years onwards

He was born with a lot of diversity in his parentage

He’s Irish and German-Jewish on his mother’s side and Norwegian on his dad’s side

Speaking of Jewishness (is that a word???) I rememeber an article saying that he used to randomly say Hebrew words in interviews and I think he taught Mike how to say something too?? I dont know

Peter was a very friendly boy even when he was just a toddler cus he would drag any new friend he had home

Anyway, he was born in Washington DC

Once on Christmas he went missing and his mum and grams panicked and looked all over the house for him

Turns out he was just waiting at lampost in the snow because he wanted to make sure that Santa would bring him a present

Speaking of Grams, when he was 3 (i think im doing this from memory) he was at a post office with his mother when she came in.

He got uber excited and shouted “THAT’S MY GRAMS. HER NAME IS CAIT!”

And so everyone turned to look at her and he squealed

He would also often ride on the top part double deck buses and whenever the bus slowed down, he would wave to nearby people and say “HI MY NAME’S PETER WHAT’S YOUR?” to which those people who wave back and sometimes answer him. I mean, wouldn’t you?

Also he started to play with pianos when he was 3 and also he liked dancing so that’s cute

One of his first memories was of being at the hospital where his brother Nick (who they called Nicky and that’s what I’m going to call him) was born

Soon after Nicky was born they moved to Germany Yeet. He was 4 and the time and Nicky was like 18 months or smth

Germany

Right so I dont know why people dont talk about this part of his childhood because like,,,it’s interesting??

In Germany they had two maids

They had to put sugar in every food so that Peter and Nicky would actually eat the strange German food

He became very fluent in German and would help his mother with translations

He was also fluent in French for some reason

Someone made a statue of his 4 year old head and it became a famous minor art piece that featured in calendars

It probably now sits in his house because I saw in in the background of the short documentary that his son, Ivan Ivanoli made about him which you sould check btw

Anyway, when Peter was 5 he made his first official best friend Ule who was two years older than him

Once when he was playing hide and seek with Nicky he ran at full force at a closed glass door that he thought was open, shattering it, and getting a shard into his arm. Reasonably he screamed

Apparently, he was hurt a major artery and would have bled to death if not for someone being in the house to call a doctor

Once he was out and about wandering around, as you would do if you were Peter when he was stopped by some official looking guy from going back into his own house.

It’s important to note that Peter looked very much like a German boy and would ONLY talk in German outside. God knows why he did this.  Reasonably, the dude thought he was lying and he had to call for his mum

Anyway, in Germany school starts when you’re five but his birthday was in the middle of the school year so his parents sent him in early which set him up for some outcasted child syndrome later

And then the moved back to America yeet

AMERICA (LAND OF CAPITALISM)

So he moved back into America but it didn’t stop there. No. They had to move around like a 100 different times and as someone who went to a total of 4 different schools (so far oh no) that sets you up with outcasted child syndrome. What also sets you up with outcasted child syndrome is if you’re an undiagnosed neurodivergent which Peter seemed to think he was when he was in his 50s (either ADHD or autism) so uhh keep that in mind

So he was in school and as mentioned earlier he was a year younger than his peers so that’s fun

He was very very clever. Often he would finish his work first and his (4th grade) teacher would make do some reading or creative writing. She encouraged him to do creative writing because she saw some talent in there

Not only was he acadmically gifted, but he was also musically gifted. Playing not only the piano (which he got lessons for) but also the guitar, the banjo, the bass, and the french horn which he got an award for when he was in highschool playing in a band made out of college students for some reason

Speaking of awards, he was once given an award for maths

This giftedness would later set him up for Gifted Child Burnout he had in college

Also he changed schools like a total of 13 times so that’s fun

He went to a private school but apparentl, according to his parents, he hated it (but he remembered liking it???)

Also, he made a lot of jokes in class

Remember Nicky? Yeah, Nicky would often write songs for him to sing and stuff (Nicky would later write songs for Peter’s solo album and a bunch of other stuff what a great brother we stan)

The family had some kind of barn once where he would do puppet shows his siblings

Anyway, school life was all fine and dandy until 5th grade hit and he changed schools and everyone lost interest in him because he was one year younger

Also his dad was apparently very disconnected with him. Needless to say, Peter felt like his father didn’t like him

Once when he was 9, he told his father that he noticed that when the clouds were around at night, it would be warmer during the day to which his father shouted at him saying that “he has no proof of that” and that he shouldn’t say anything without proof

This of course led him to feel like no one wanted to listen to what he wanted to say

poor baby

I think his father would have been the reason why Peter would later say in an interview that he hated “loud abusiveness” the most

He would also later say that a combination of his dad and feeling like he was weird and different would lead him to his drinking problem

So umm we dont stan his dad ok

Once when he was 13 he picked up a loaded shotgun and put it against his head. But he decided that he didn’t want to do it at the last second.

Overall, life from 5th grade till highschool was terrible for him

He didn’t have any friends in his school

So when he moved to a new school in Conneticut where he was surrounded with people of the same age, he was really happy all the way until college where he flunked out twice

Hippie Time (Honestly this part is just me talking about him and Stephen Stills because Steter Stirk changed me)

And so Peter became a hippie in Greenwich Village

In the Village, he became a sort of entertainer. Not just singing and playing, he was also a comedian. 

And then he kept hearing about this dude who looked like him from other people.

This dude turned out to be Stephen who was also hearing the same kind of talk for about the same amount of time

Pete and Stephen VIBED im not kidding they started to play with each other and also Stephen’s room mate who was also there

Also it turns out that they liked to talk about the same things so that’s neat

Peter went to Venuzuela apparently and when he came back the Monkee thing happened yeet

Once when Stephen was waiting to move into his new house Peter was all like “hey dude live with me”

For a while they also lived in the same house when he was Monkee and if that doesn’t fuel any ship fics I dont know what will

Im serious the ship is here and its real I saw fics and fanart

Dont ask about Stirk

They played with the colour tv and would “pick apart each other’s brains” umm

Also Peter’s favourite band was buffalo springfield and we stan a friend who would say your band was their favourite band

And I think this is where my knowledge starts to fade because I haven’t really heard any cool facts from here on afterwards

Last Final Cool Facts

He was a teacher for quite a while and taught about Maths, basketball (despite not liking any sport except swimming) and Easter Philosophy,,,yes easter philosphy the man was into that kinda stuff

Also he was a big reader. Always having a smoll book in his pocket that he would read while on set with the Monkees. But he was particularly a non fic kinda guy

He would write poetry on the back of scripts

In the 2000s he said that his sister thought he might have ADD

Also autism but when asked about it he’d be all P E R H A P S

which is very unhelpful Peter pls give us a straight answer

I mean he cant give us straight answers because he was the gayest monkee (he fricked a dude once but he didn’t like it)

Hey look I ended on a gay note yeet. Thanks for reading this mess

#the monkees #peter tork #blood tw #death ment tw #suicide tw #i think that's all the tws #im finally free of this knowlege #i feel so good #just wait till i come back with a truck of knowledge in 5 months

[matrixaffiliate]

Re-blog Tag

The fabulous @magic-girl-in-a-muggle-world tagged me to re-blog a fic I’m proud of. Thank you so much darling <3

If anyone wants to play consider yourself tagged. I’ll tag @gryffindorhealer @thisismegz @petals-to-fish @pansexualsnuffles

Glimpsing Happiness

FFN and AO3

I wrote this wonderful piece with @hufflepuffmarlenemckinnon and it’s still one of my favorite ones to go back and read. I’ll post just the first two chapters here, but if you follow the links above they’ll take you to the full 34K word story. I hope you enjoy this WWII Blackinnon AU!

Chapter 1

Marlene straightened her veil and smoothed the creases out of her white apron before grabbing her gray woolen coat. She chuckled bitterly at the lies she and Mary had told themselves when the war began. September seemed like a dream not just over half a year ago.

When she'd interviewed for the QAIMNS to be a military nurse she'd been a bit startled at being asked to wait afterward. The officer had returned to the waiting room ten minutes later and handed her a packet. Open only in the event of war was printed across the front. He thanked her and sent her on her way. When Mary had the same packet after her interview, Marlene at least knew it wasn't a ploy. Marlene still remembered the chill she felt when England declared war. She and Mary opened their packets together in Marlene's room. The fact that they'd been assigned to the same place was a miracle within itself. War had a habit of pulling everyone apart. But they thought Netley would be an adventure back then. They thought they would be by the sea and have beautiful scenery to live in and that this was how they'd make a difference. Though if she was honest, Marlene would have preferred being handed a rifle and marching orders. But she had to take what she could get.

“Ready Marls?” Mary came out of the loo and walked to the small bed adjacent to the one Marlene sat upon. Her Majesty's nurses were being put up in qualified dwellings, but Marlene knew the stories from The Great War and she refused to become attached to this small flat as home.

Home was London. Home was the bustling streets where she would run to school with her brother and sister. Home was making fun of her older brother for pinning after the shop girl. Home was her younger sister playing their grandmother's violin because she had the gift. Home was her mum's Sunday dinners and her seamstress work all over the sitting room. Home was the smell of her dad's pipe tobacco wafting through their small house and his hugs that made her feel understood. Home was when everyone thought that the world had seen it's worst war. This, well this was anything but home.

Marlene sighed and grabbed her gloves, “Let's get this wretched walk over with.”

Mary tutted, “Just think of it as a pleasant stroll near the seaside.”

Marlene playfully pulled one of Mary’s black curls from under her veil, “I can always count on you to be a bright ball of sunshine can't I?”

Mary reached up and grabbed one of Marlene's blonde ringlets. Marlene flinched as the lock of hair caught on Mary's wedding band, “Your fault for wearing the sun on your head, Sister.”

The women began their trek up to Netley Hospital. The cold spring air whipped against them and Marlene nearly lost her veil twice. It was biting cold and their fingers and toes ached as they climbed the hill. There's a reason that it took two steam engines for the trains to reach the hospital station, Marlene mused as she braced herself against the wind that threatened to knock her back down the hill.

When they finally made it to the hospital doors, Marlene groaned. The entry to the hospital was most peculiar and if she was being honest, downright disturbing. This grand entry served as some sort of deranged circus. All the skulled momentos of animals that had been collected across the British Empire. Beasts really, she shuddered and practically dragged Mary past it all as quickly as possible. Marlene didn't think she'd ever become accustomed to it.

“They really aren't all that bad, Sister Marlene,” Mary smirked and stopped to admire what was labeled as an elephant skull.

“Sister Mary, we're going to be late if we don't step to it and the Matron won't thank us for it.”

Mary sighed and removed her coat before adjusting her scarlet tippet, “Well then off we go.”

They walked to their Matron’s office, nodding politely and grabbed their assignments off the wall covered in file folders.

“Bollocks,” Marlene muttered as they walked out and she opened her folder.

Mary peered over her shoulder, “Oh dear.”

“I was supposed to be done this week!” Marlene groaned. “Private Fenwick will be cleared and on his way to the station by now and I was supposed to be done with Quarantine because we'd have no more patients. But no! We had to get a typhoid fever patient!”

“But we sent vaccines over to France. He should have been vaccinated, it was mandated, David told me so.” Mary’s husband had been sent over to France with the British Expeditionary Force.

“The vaccine isn't a guarantee, Sister. He's probably one of the lucky ones.” Marlene huffed and snapped her folder shut.

“Yes,” Mary rolled her eyes, “very lucky, indeed.”

“Enjoy surgical recovery,” Marlene tipped her head as they reached Mary's ward.

“Enjoy your walk,” Mary blew her a kiss before walking into the first room of her ward.

Marlene started her near quarter-mile trek to the far side of Netley Hospital. She'd gone home last night looking forward to a new assignment, to being done with the Quarantine patient. Not that Private Fenwick was a bad sort, but Marlene was tired of being sequestered off with the shy little ward maid, Arabella Figg. She was a sweet enough lady, but she always insisted on talking about the cats she bread and Marlene wasn't particularly fond of cats, she was more of a dog person actually, so their conversations fizzled out quickly.

“Sister Marlene,” Arabella smiled kindly at her as she pulled the sheets off of Private Fenwick's cot. “I told them to put your new patient by the window. Not much of a view, but I thought a bit of sun would do the poor officer good.”

“Thank you, Arabella,” Marlene nodded and walked to the far end of the room where a man lay unconscious under his blankets. Opening the chart, Marlene sighed, “Welcome home, Captain Black.”

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

Chapter 2

It started out like just a common cold. Sirius did his best to ignore the blaring headache and aches in his muscles. He was fighting in a bloody war; he had more important things to focus on than the damned sniffles.

But within a few weeks, it was high fevers to the point of full-on delirium. No amount of Iron-will stubbornness could have kept him on the field after that. He was lucky someone had dragged him off to sick bay before his vision gave out.

Losing his sight was quite jarring, even to a mind that was preoccupied with the fact it was boiling. Was he dying? Where was he? What was happening?

He woke up, and by virtue of doing so, he was fairly sure he wasn’t dead. He didn’t quite have a gage on how long he was unconscious, but when he woke he was absolutely sure he’d been moved.

The smell.

This was some sort of infirmary or hospital. It smelled like sickness. Death and dying. Was he next? What sort of soldier dies of the sniffles? Uncle Alphard would be ashamed.

Or he would have been...He was gone now. Sirius winced. The news of his favorite Uncle’s passing was fresh. The letter had only come a week before the nosebleeds began.

Uncle Alphard had been his hero. The only person he could really look up to in that whole god-forsaken family. He was also just about the only blood relation that Sirius had who hadn’t been ashamed of him.

To be fair, the shame went both ways. Having grown up in a house with his 1st cousin, Bellatrix Black, who kissed the ground that Herr Hitler walked on, was not something that Sirius was particularly proud of. Leaving aside the constant rumors that she was intimately close to the Führer and may or may not be pregnant with his horrible Nazi hellspawn. Sirius didn’t even believe that last bit, but he felt sure that Bella wished it were true. She’d had these awful framed photos of him up in her bedroom when they were children. She was living her dream… It disgusted him and he didn’t bring it up if he could help it.

Instead, he attempted to shake off any hints of German in his speech and mannerisms. This was a monumental task for someone who spoke German from the nursery. In truth, he was a quarter British, if that. His mother’s mother was a Granddaughter of Queen Victoria herself. But they’d married Germans, as the British nobility had been wont to do, and consequently, his Mother’s noble house of Black, was about as German as anyone in Europe.

His father was bitter that he never got to wear the crown he had lived his life thinking that he deserved. He’d never fully adjusted. It was a far fall from His Royal Highness Orion, Crown Prince of Saxony, to an untitled exile, taking his wife’s name and live off her relatives' generosity.

Things were always tense at Uncle Cygnus’s generosity and his estate in Berkshire. Sirius and Cygnus’s middle daughter, Andromeda, clung to each other, and their uncle Alphard, in the midst of all these disgruntled Germans. The three of them were all that was left, well before England declared war. The others contended that Herr Hitler had the right idea about the Herrenmenschen. Transparently desperate to be superior to someone after losing their titles, they made their choice.

Sirius felt that he had to make choices of his own, despite being only 15 at the time. He’d opted to stay behind with his best mate from Eton, James Potter, and Uncle Alphard. This decision, and his iron-will refusal to do as he was told, did not go over well.

His mother berated him for his choices, saying he was a traitor to his blood. He said they were traitors to his country. This was the country that had educated him and taught him to be a man more than she ever could. So his parents and younger brother went on their way to support the Fürher and Sirius Black did his damnedest to be an English Gentleman through and through. That was that.

Apparently, being an English Gentleman did nothing to fend off typhoid fever. So he was to convalesce at the rather unpleasant smelling Netley Hospital for the time being.  

Those were amongst the words of the commanding baritone voice, was it a doctor? A medic? How was Sirius supposed to know? He couldn’t bloody see. How did people manage to live like this?

This was going to get old very quickly, if, like the voice informed him, he was going to live through it. Six weeks as a blind invalid?

Bollocks…

“Welcome home, Captain Black” the sound of his name startled him out of his half unconscious state.

“Did you say home? Are you sure about that? I think perhaps I died and went to Hell. Are you Hell’s secretary?”

“I beg your pardon! I’m Sister Marlene McKinnon. I’m charged with taking care of you while you recover here at Netley. So I recommend you be a bit nicer to me. You just asked the woman who’ll handle all your meals and medication for the next… ooooh six weeks is it… if she was Hell’s secretary.”

“And I’m still not convinced that you’re not. Sister Marlene. Are you a nun? I’m afraid I find myself dreadfully blind at the moment. You’ll have to tell me; are you wearing one of those nun head what’s-its?”

“Well, this is going to be an eventful six weeks… No, Captain Black, I’m not a nun. Sister is a rank. Sister is my rank in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.”

“Ah yes. Great Aunt Alix. That was the funeral of the season when I was six.” He remarked casually.

“Captain, I don’t care if her Majesty herself was your aunt. You still have to be polite.”

“Do I? Is there a law? ‘Here in Hell, we must be polite’? I must say, that’s unexpected. Here I was thinking the Devil would be lax with the rules. Shows what I know.”

Sirius was pretty sure he heard the woman, Sister Marlene, groan.

“I’ll be back in an hour, Captain Black. Perhaps by then you’ll have reconsidered your attitude.” Her clipped footsteps faded towards what must have been the door.

#blackinnon #blackinnon au #sirius x marlene #sirius black x marlene mckinnon #sirius black #marlene mckinnon #blackinnon fanfiction #WWII au #world war two au #enemies to lovers #fluff #historical fiction #historical fic #period romance #romance #harry potter fanfiction #jily #blinded by love

[hollenka99]

A Day Long Overdue

Summary: Jack is allowed to spend his birthday with the egos. (Essentially a sequel to A Talk With The Creator).

Hey, guess which AU isn’t dead! It’s been like 3 months since I last posted something for the Creator AU (or anything for that matter) but I’m back. Have some bittersweet fluff with a hint of angst.

Jack wakes up, older than he remembers being. He's in a bed, a medical one at that. It would appear he was in Schneep's medical bay. There is no recollection of being sent here. The grogginess is interfering with that. He should probably find an assistance button to alert the doctor. That's when he notices the cards. Upon further inspection, he can only assume these are for a birthday. His birthday. He is able to read some of them before a commotion is heard in a different part of the building. Henrik stands in the doorway, seemingly incapable of not staring at him. Unsure of how to break the ice, Jack comes out with "I guess I'm not 27 anymore, am I?" "Not really." His doctor remains stationary, smiling until his attention diverts to the collection of footsteps approaching. "Wait! He's not ready yet." "Schneep, what the hell are you doing? We want to see Jack too." That sounded like Chase. "Just one minute." Henrik points to someone Jack can't see. "You see him first." "So it is your birthday today. We got you cards and presents. But there is something I think you will like better than all that." "What is it then?" Jack smiles humourously. Schneep turns his head back to the corridor. "Come now." Dressed in jogging bottoms and a hoodie which swallowed him, a teenager stepped into his view. Eyes brim the longer he takes in the image of Jack sitting up in bed. His face has matured a little since they'd last been in the same room. All those months he'd been petrified at the thought of him being hurt while held captive, where he'd pointlessly jotted down memorable events in the hope the youngest ego was still alive to possibly read them one day. All that fruitless hoping and searching must have finally produced a result. It had caused him to be standing feet away. The kid even had a bit of a quiff going on. Jackie. Fuck, this was Jackie. "Hey." Jack breathes out an incredulous "No way." Jackie takes a seat on the bed. The hero's embrace is stronger than the one he can return. Jack gets so lost in mutterings of 'Oh my god' and 'You're okay' that it accidentally becomes melded together at one point. When they both register the blunder, they dissolve into snickers. "I think I forgot how to English properly." "I think so too." "How long have you been back?" "September 2017." "We missed each other by a month?" Jack stares at the baby of their little family. "Yeah." "That sucks." "You have no idea." Tears are wiped but it proves futile as they are immediately replaced. "We've all missed you so much." "You can say that again." Jack glances past Jackie's shoulder to see a small crowd crammed by the entrance to the room. Before he is allowed to greet anyone else, Henrik insists on detaching him from as many wires as was necessary. Once given the all clear, Jack is left beaming as he is encompassed by three of his friends. Chase has a revelation about someone who shouldn't be missing out on the action. He sprints down the corridor to fetch them. He is perched on the bed, assuring Henrik he felt absolutely fine, when the two return. One near-inaudible 'Crikey!' is all it takes for him to freeze. Surely not. Yet there was one of his oldest friends. Angus didn't appear so run down. Was this for real? First Jackie was home and now Angus was healthier. He hadn't been awake for very long and it is already shaping to be a fantastic day. "You look much better than the last time I saw you." "Speak for yourself, mate." He can't help but sob as he approaches Angus. At least the survival hunter wasn't leaving him to be the only one. He is so grateful for the others allowing the two of them to stay in each other's hold for as long as they needed. It's been so long since his Australian friend has been this present. God, it's been so so very long. Despite Henrik not being sure it was for the best, the five of them lead Jack to the living room. Apparently, they had bought a cake to commemorate the day. He had always been partial to red velvet. Although, thinking about it, that was likely the point of them picking that flavour. Cake was still cake either way. He wasn't going to pass up the opportunity for a slice. He notices a German Shepherd hovering by Jackie. He assures his dog that she doesn't need to work at that moment. Work? Gwen, Jackie clarifies, is a service dog to help with his mental health. She sleeps in his room and keeps him company for most occasions excluding his heroing duties. Oh, okay. Well, that just makes her even more of a good girl, doesn't it? Marvin mentions the expansion of his cat collection. Hardeen and Houdini tended to do their own thing while Trico was up for cuddles most of the time. There was also his rabbit whom he had dubbed Tim the Enchanter. Hang on, hang on, so Marvin was saying that not only did he have the Egyptian goddess of cats but also one of the best known magicians in history and his brother, the best fictional creature in gaming as well as a minor character in Monty Python as pets? The magician's completely straight expression as he challenges Jack to fight him causes him to burst into laughter. Trico turning out to be from a small breed makes it all the better. Chatter explodes between the group over cake slices. Okay, let him get this straight. He has been a coma for the past year and a half. Schneep still isn't sure what exactly the illness that caused this was. Regardless, it's good to have him conscious once more. It is not his 28th birthday as he had initially presumed but his 29th. In that time, a fan game was released which aided in Angus regaining some strength. There were four new egos: a community-conceived zombie called Robbie, Shawn Flynn who was born from a Bendy voice acting gig. Jameson Jackson the pumpkin carving actor that communicated via BSL and an android nicknamed S34Nnor. On top of all that, there was a significant lack of green in anyone's hair. Jack wasn't going to say it out loud but perhaps Chase's beard could use a trim. Not only was Sean doing voice acting gigs, he had travelled across America and Europe with his own comedy show. He was interviewing celebrities too. Sorry, what do they mean, Sean met Ryan Reynolds?! Wow, that was huge. They mention Sean also hanging out with some guy called Bryan Dechart but that name doesn't ring bells. "Okay, Chase, do the line." Jackie encourages. "Alright but that was Sean's series so... keep that in mind." Chase take a breath in preparation then, "Hi, I'm Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife." They all cheer and laugh at that. S34Nnor speaks up. "As a combination of both the character of Connor and Sean, I believe I can improve upon your already good attempt." The line is repeated and everyone becomes excitable once more. "Yes!" The outburst is Chase's as he points to the android with a grin. When the noise has died down again, his expression appears to make his new words honest. "I'm planning on stealing that jacket one day." "You're going to have to fight me for it." Jackie gives a disingenuous glare. "Besides, I'm part machine now sooo go off, I guess." Jack loves the atmosphere. It's been years since it has been this lively here. If this was February 2019 then it must be over two years since their household has been whole. After Halloween 2016, they lost Jackie's playfulness. His absence had been deeply felt throughout the house. It didn't matter now. Who cares if he's so out of the loop that this Cyberlife stuff and any other running jokes don't make sense to him? This house has been missing this sort of energy. He refuses to risk killing it. However, one comment piques his interest. Something tells him to broach this subject carefully. It seemed like it may be sensitive. "Part machine?" "Oh right. Well, I don't technically have any knees anymore." Jackie gestures to his legs. "Prosthetics, both of them." That made sense, given the comment. It doesn't faze him in the slightest that Jackie has had life altering surgery at such a young age. Nope, not at all. "....Prosthetics." "Yeah, it's not that big of a deal. I just hurt my legs when I was getting out." "He has been doing very well with the physical therapy." Henrik smiles. Coming back with a drink in hand and a grin, Jacques pats the superhero's shoulder. "Got a little crush too. What is her name? Aisha?" "Nyesha. And I don't have a crush on her. We're just friends. Not even close ones at that. Tori is aesthetically admirable too." "What a sophisticated way of pronouncing attractive." Marvin teases. "Stop!" The hood was up now with the surrounding strings yanked. "Okay, okay, I think I've got the idea." Jack leans closer. "Promise me you'll let me know if you ask her or anyone else out, alright?" Out of resignation, Jackie mumbles out a "Sure.", only to sit up and divert the attention to the magician. "Marv has a partner though." "Oh, does he?" At this, the new subject of the conversation chuckles, happily telling Jack whatever he wants to know. Jack tries to protest when Jackie is given alcohol. With a soft smile, the youngest member of this family reminded Jack he was 18 now. Of course he is. It was 2019. Jackie has been 18 for some seven months now. July next year, he'll be entering his 20s. Actually, now that Jack thought about it, he and Sean would be 30 next February. Well then. That wasn't crazy to think about. Speaking of Sean, the two of them should really sit down and have a discussion. Although hazy, memories were slowly converging to form recollections of the disastrous dispute. There was a lot to talk about. He's lost eighteen months of his life. There were amendments to be made. If Sean's been on a worldwide tour, he wants to hear about it from the horse's mouth. That must have been an amazing experience. And Signe, he wonders how she's doing. He always regretted the way she kept getting indirectly caught up in his and Sean's dysfunctional friendship. He should wish Sean a happy birthday. That's probably a decent first step to brokering peace. Plus, if his long time friend woke up from a coma on his birthday, that would probably make his day. Jack can only hope Sean would agree. He makes an off-hand comment about this. The idea of reconciling with Sean gets shot down within seconds. Jesus, he doubts he's seen this level of hatred in Marvin towards anyone other than Anti. What the hell did Sean do to warrant this sort of universal repulsion towards him? "Trust me, you do not want to know." Henrik grumbles. Right. In that case, he'd better leave it until tomorrow. Jack is careful when enquiring about Chase and Henrik's families. He's pleasantly surprised when it is generally positive. Chase sees his kids on weekends now which is fantastic. But surely Noah couldn't be little over a week away from turning 5. He was just 3. Willow and Alina were much more confident readers. Jack remembers two little girls who struggled to piece together syllables in simple sentences. They would both be beginning primary school in September. Likewise, Elias was already in his first year of secondary school. Could people stop getting older? He can't keep up. He laughs with them when Chase says "You think they're growing up too fast for you." They order pizza in the evening. Schneep is still against him eating solid food but relents once more. Jack has eaten cake today and there have been no repercussions. As Jacques and Jackie debate with Angus about whether stuffed crust enhanced the experience, Jack took the opportunity to get to know Jameson. With Chase translating, he discovers this is a unique ego. An entire life before coming to exist here. It's such a novel concept to Jack. Even he, as the first ego Sean ever made, can't imagine having proper memories prior to creation. He's used to the others being born with limited memories. Man, he could listen to this guy's anecdotes of the early 20th century all night if he and Chase were willing to carry on that long. They are still hanging around in the living room as midnight is crossed. Some egos have already excused themselves to retire to bed. Once Jack realises it is nearing 1am, he urges everyone else to head to their beds. They shouldn't stay up for him. Besides, he was the one who didn't sleep, remember. He would never wish for them to become sleep deprived for his sake. They refuse and remain. Before long, the man who never slept was experiencing long blinks. Was he tired? Wait, no, this isn't right. The only time he's felt this close to collapse is when... when it's a medical emergency. Like when his throat was bleeding. Or when all he knew was that he didn't feel well. Henrik crouches before him, steadying him in his hold. It's not okay. Stop saying it's going to be okay. Something's wrong, incredibly wrong. Henrik takes his hands, encouraging him to stand. The doctor explains it's likely the sudden regaining of consciousness is catching up with him. Assurances that it was perfectly fine for him to be feeling like this are repeated as they head towards the infirmary. All Henrik wanted to do was monitor him safely. Jack's arm couldn't help slipping from where it was wrapped across his friend's shoulder. Schneep adjusted it without hesitation every time. He defies his eyes any attempt they make to gain an advantage over him. Even when laying on the bed, he refuses the urge to relax. Henrik promises nothing will happen. He is as much of a Good Doctor as he is his friend, right? Please trust he will try to provide the best care he's able. He knows he has failed him before but- "Never!" Jack protests. "You are little bit tired. Is okay for you to sleep. Don't need to fight the sleep, my friend." "Not..." He drifts, only to remember himself a minute later. "Not a failure." "Thank you. Now please rest. We can have a lot of the chit chatting in the morning, yes?" "A'right." A roll of the eyes. A drowsy half smile. A prolonged exhale. And that's all it takes for them to lose him once more. No matter how much Henrik sits, gripping his friend's hand as the monitors revert to the figures they were displaying previously, it won't prove helpful in the slightest to permanently wake Jack up. When Marvin regretfully comes to urge him to get some sleep himself, Henrik waves him off. Just a few more minutes, okay? Then he'll go to bed. As much as they had to fault Sean on, they couldn't say he hadn't done something good today. Henrik can only hope Jack had enjoyed his birthday. Maybe they'd be able to celebrate with him next year too. Maybe. Either way, he couldn't stay here the whole night. With a final check of the equipment, he bids him goodnight. "One of these days, we will get longer. I promise."

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye egos #creator au #my writing #writersofjack #It will be 2am in roughly 20 minutes but I got it done #it hurt me to end it like that but there was no other way