#tales from the front

[bowofbalance]

Teenage 13 would 100% yell back at a customer

#whatever the opposite of projection is #tales from the front #thirteen house md #house md

[houseildanan]

In Which He Prepares Brunch

The oven door latched with a soft click and he straightened, surveying the stovetop, the pans and pots on the burners, the counters with the cutting boards marked with the juice from the fruit he’d cut and the butcher block surface dusted with traceries of flour and bits of pastry trimmed off to even out edges.  The pastries were not a usual project, but this morning it felt right to make some even as he tended to more savory fare to accompany them.  A proper brunch seemed right this morning, despite everything.

Perhaps because of everything.

“It smells good in here,” his commander’s voice said from the doorway.  The red-headed woman stepped into the kitchen, glancing around and finding them alone.  “When did you get back?”

“About an hour ago,” he said.  “I stopped in the market before I came back.  I hope you don’t mind.”

“Knowing how well whatever you brought back will serve morale?  No, never.”  She joined him at the stove, reaching over the pots and skillets he tended for the one of coffee set at the back to stay warm.  Her glance in his direction held the very vaguest hint of concern.  “What emergency sent your wife here to fetch you back at half past one in the morning?  You didn’t have to come back so quickly.”

He frowned briefly, using a spatula and a firm hand to toss some sizzling greens in their pan.  “What makes you think it was Seni?”

She favored him with a level look tempered by a wry smile.  “There is a very particular flavor to Senithvia Dra’zar’s magic that I am more than well acquainted with, Tyr.”  She filled a mug and then settled the coffee pot back into place.  “Come on now.  Are we going to do this dance?”

One corner of his mouth kicked into a grin as wry as hers.  “That depends on you.”

She stepped away, sinking into one of the chairs at the table, one that creaked even under her relatively slight weight.  Age and the temperatures were starting to wear on so much up here.  So much would need replacing and repair if they were to stay for much longer, to make everything into a proper garrison.  They both knew that—his commander better than most, since her contingent of Alliance forces was the most likely to remain on-station here even if the Crusade moved on.

She took a sip of coffee, her brow arching.  “Does it?”

He shrugged and turned away, checking the hash.  “It wasn’t Seni.”

“Then who?  And why?”

“My nephew.”

It took a moment for her to catch his meaning, but he knew it had registered as soon as he heard her mug against the table, rattling slightly in a way that suggested she’d hastily set it down.  The chair creaked as she leaned forward, almost but not quite rising.  “Is everything—”

“Everything’s fine,” he soothed.  “Honestly, they didn’t really even need me there, I think.”

“You wouldn’t have forgiven yourself if you hadn’t been.”

He stared down at the stove, at the array of cooking vessels and food he’d begun preparing.  It was probably too much, but better too much than not enough.  The urge to do it was half habit and half therapy.  As bitter as some of the memories were, far more were good.

His eyes stung.  “You’re right,” he murmured.  “I wouldn’t have.”

“Still, that doesn’t explain why you’re already back.  Unless…?”

He laughed.  “She told me to and some habits in that regard die hard.  Orders are orders, right?”

“Everyone’s healthy?”

“She and the baby, yes,” he said, shaking his head.  “Everyone else may be in some kind of altered state, but she said it was fine and I trust her to know.  Told me not to borrow trouble when she shooed me off.  I was glad to have been there, though.”

“I’m certain she was, too.  You’re as much her brother as her actual brothers.”

Tyr laughed quietly, eyes stinging, but he nodded.  “I suppose you’re right.  She’s seemed to collect those over the years.”

“Tyr, if you want to—”

“No,” he said gently, reaching for the coffee pot to pour himself a mug.  “No, Commander.  She’s right, my place is here right now.  I have a job to do until you and the Crusade find someone who can do it better or until I’m actuallyneeded back there.  They know where to find me, how to find me.  I write when I can.”

“Did you leave them breakfast, too?”

He barked another laugh, reaching up to wipe the tears from his eyes.

“What do you think?”

In answer to that, she simply smiled.

#Tyrvarden Kindaer Grimstryke #tales from the front #Argent Crusade #Jude Auroran #Mention: Wyn Ilthyrii #Mention: Senithvia Dra’zar #Northrend #World of Warcraft #Mention: Juden Riverwind #Wyrmrest Accord #RP #fiction #WrA #WoW #Resolute Blades #Age of Blood #Retribution of Arathor

[hypewinter]

If you had asked Danny what he'd be doing that night, he might have answered with a variety of things. He might have said taking down a small time crook. Or maybe even scavenging for some dinner. But never in a million years would he have guessed he'd currently be carrying an unconscious Superboy to a random address he blurted out before passing out.

When he finally made it to the apartment, the door opened before he could even knock and a tall hunk of man towarded over him. And of course the first thing Danny said in all of his stupid glory was "Umm hi. Special delivery?" Someone end him now.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #winter's tales #clark is panicking because he son is injured #and the kid in front of him barely has a heartbeat #meanwhile danny is trying his best not to pee his pants #just what did he get himself into #even better if clark has the glasses glowing effect from anime lol #this culminates in both boys having a staring match because they don't know what to say #luckily lois is there and quickly brings danny and kon inside

[yellowtrinity]

Raven Vesperia? :D

this single shot was the highlight of the entire first strike movie for me

#they put him in the movie for no reason other than to keep me engaged like jingling keys in front of a baby #also it took me until now to realize his collar is a separate garment from his coat. his layers........ #tales of vesperia #tov #raven tov #my art #mail

[omg-snakes]

Do you know if there are ways to know if a snake from a pet shop has been properly taken care of or not? Asking since i've been visiting some and i saw one with a boa that had some kind of sinking or deformity on his tail, so i'm kinda wary now.

Hello, friend! I'm sorry to tell you that there is not.

I've worked in multiple areas of the pet industry and I've met the full gamut of types of shop owners, and while I don't consider all of them wicked people, some certainly are. Even the best of them have a bottom line to consider. This means that they won't divulge where their animals are coming from so that you can look into a breeder before making a choice, and they're likely buying animals from backyard breeders or bulk importers. This also means that it's unlikely that the animals they're selling will have established health histories.

Having worked at one of if not The biggest reptile chain in Northern California, I saw some horrors that scarred me for life. Among the lesser sins that took place there:

Folks who bred reptiles but didn't have incubators set up could bring their eggs in for incubation services, the price of which was half of the clutch, and the store owner would then sell the resulting babies as "born on-site," which was technically true! But we didn't know the parentage or health potential of any of these animals. We didn't sell incubators in the store for this specific reason.

Surrenders came in regularly from owners who didn't have the time or resources to care for their pets any longer. They went on the sales floor with a price tag the second the previous owner walked out the door. No veterinary care, no health evaluation, no observation period, nothing. If they looked okay they were priced at regular retail price and we were explicitly told to never admit that they had been surrendered. 100% profit.

Any animal that was injured or sickly, no matter where it came from or how it got injured, was tagged as a "surrender" that we would claim was dropped off by a bad former owner and we'd had them cleared by a vet so that we could rehome them. This was a lie. None of them ever got veterinary care, ever.

Enclosures were cleaned regularly but were never properly sterilized between animals. We sold veterinary-grade cleaner in the store but we were not allowed to use it because it was too expensive. We used diluted Lysol!

Again, this is a large reptile chain with multiple stores and mostly positive online reviews* and I wouldn't trust them with a pet rock, let alone anything breathing.

You're much better off getting a snake from a reputable breeder, or at least someone who can answer reasonable questions about feeding, parentage, genetics, any possible health issues, etc.

*the owner actually reported negative reviews and would have employees write good ones while I was there.

#They consider themselves the Elon Musk of reptiles... #yeah pretty much #snake #snakes #reptile #reptiles #reptiblr #answers to questions #text post #i still have some ptsd from that job #I'm not kidding it almost destroyed me #pet store #tales of terror at the reptile shop #shockingly that's still not the WORST reptile job I've had #there was the one who tried to burn down the shop for insurance money #or the one that I'm 99% certain was a front for drugs #don't work at a pet store! #don't buy animals at a pet store!

[apollos-boyfriend]

alignment chart of all the different ways i've come across people formatting their ao3 tags

#icarus speaks #tales from the bins #not mentioned is anyone who uses a weird text/symbol up front #like × or smth #to everyone who attempts the canon format ily #different fandoms just format things differently sometimes so not everything is the Same

[betasuppe]

I wonder if when Rinzler was left in a moment of pure silence all alone before a disc battle that his thoughts might've wandered out far beyond the reaches of his reality, missing something or someone he didn't even know existed.

#twizzler & front♡ #rinzler #the tron part of rinz was so heartbroken that #rinz ended up a sad mess as well x0 #waiting for his prince charming to come rescue him from the evil curse #some fairy tale romantic bs i love♡♡♡ #nok draws

[deiaiko]

Wheee happy 5th anniversary @tower-tale-comic (damn its been so long already, keep it up)

#soli requested TT canon KB with casual dresses #i would've made them more intimate but i'd die from embarrassment bc i sat at the front and ppl could stare #i know they're attractive but don't stare too long or either of them will get jealous #tower of god #tog #tower's tale #my art #bam #baam #25th baam #25th bam #the 25th baam #the 25th bam #jue viole grace #khun #koon #khun a.a #khun aguero agnis #khunbam #koonbaam #bamxkhun

[ceruleanfuckup]

I'm so excited for my D&D campaign

#i ran one in this world for two and a half years where everything is ravaged by dragons #but now theres been a somewhat revolution because one of the only surviving major cities was impulsively conquered by my players #so things have been shaken up a lot and now they have a holiday because they brought i think three gods to earth at once #two of my players became the vessels of the gods of light and darkness and duked it out and fast forward a year or two #and their hold on the economic powerhouse of the continent is solidified and they have partnered with an organization #that specualizes in magical artifacts from every concievable reality #and my NEW campaign is people hired by this organization #The Forge of Wonders #they have this entirely greyed out library full of strange books that when you pick them up gain color and you can read their spines #and these books are stories. theyre fairy tales. theyre pirate adventures. theyre dragon babysitting. theyre demon apocalypses. #and these stories are worlds. theyre stories in truth. and my players have been hired to dive into the stories and retrieve Thing #for the forge of wonders #which means i get to make WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT BITCHES #i get to be so fucking impulsive with my story crafting #and im not going to balance anything correctly. theyre just going to have to assume from the summary in the front page if its doable #demon apocalypse? probably outside of our level. gnome tinkerers? probably not too bad #and ill have prebuilt stories and something theyre taked with retrieving and they get to choose which onr yhey do #anyways the forge of wonders started as a magic shop that only accepted platinum (1000 gold) as currency so they did a lot of shopping ther #i just took that old document full of crazy magical items and i tweaked it and molded it and added to it and the new version is 33 pages 🥰 #thats what ive been doing at work the past three days lol #dnd #my dnd

[dukebee]

The best thing about deciding my work email signoff of “Regards,” was too formal is now every time I type “Warm Regards,” instead, I have multiple Freudian Slips of typing “War,” in the process

#guest (derogatory) interactions #tales from the front desk #just hotel things

[bowofbalance]

I just had a highly intelligent moment where someone came in to see me for an appointment. Due to the way the tutoring center is set up I usually just plant myself at the first table in the Open Office and I use the Public Speaking sign to try to mark myself as the public speaking tutor in the room. Usually that's enough for people to know that I'm the person they're trying to meet.

Anyway someone didn't get that message today, and she asked me if I know where (my legal name) is. And my first reaction was to tell her I don't know, and it took me a solid minute to process that that's actually me. oops

Anyway I'm very smart

#my brain is not processing correctly today i think #usually i can identify that (my legal name) is me #just didn't click today #more arguments for changing my name I guess #tales from the front

[houseildanan]

The Calm

The scent of coffee soothed his ragged nerves, the steam rising from the mug wreathing his face.  The first light of sunrise was starting to paint the sky purple in the east, the wind off the harbor as bracing today as it had been three days ago and three days before that.  His ear twitched slightly at the slight sound of a boot against one of the cobbles.  He didn’t turn.

“How was it up there?”

“You heard me coming?”  Concern and amusement braided together in her voice as she finished her approach.  The ease with which the woman wore her armor belied both the weight of it and the relative slightness of her frame, reminding him briefly of another, miles away to the south.  Quin cradled a mug of coffee between her hands as she came to stand beside him, staring off over the harbor.  “I’ve gotten sloppy since regaining my sight.”

“Maybe,” the medic murmured, inclining his head.  “Or maybe I’ve just grown used to listening for every scrape of a boot, every whisper of something out of the ordinary.”  He glanced toward her, his brow arching slightly.  “You didn’t answer my question.”

Her gaze flicked up to need his, the wry smile she’d been sporting fading like mist burning away with the dawn.  “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I asked.”  His shoulders shifted slightly in a shrug and he suppressed a sigh, looking away, back to the harbor, the water, the sunrise.  “We don’t have enough numbers, do we?”

“The threat is much larger than anticipated,” Quin said softly.  “I don’t know what forces we’re going to be able to marshal against it.  That’s above my pay grade.”

“But not by much.”  One corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile that faded as quickly as it came.  “You know all of this better than most.”

“Both sides—at least, the other side in the before times.”  She exhaled, scrubbing a hand over her face.  One of her fingers twitched slightly, unconsciously, a reminder of torments long ago but not far away at all.  “What do you make of it, Tyr?  You must have theories.”

“As do you,” he said before he took a slow sip of coffee, gathering his thoughts.  “This is a threat that won’t be easily handled, no matter how much we wish it might be—and if it can be kept bottled here, then that’s what all the powers that be will try to do.  The world is weary of war.”

“The world is weary of world-threatening threats.”  Quin sighed softly.  “But that’s not something we get a vote in, is it?  The world has other plans.”

He nodded slowly.  “It does.  Will they be able to hold?”

“They’ve reinforced the grounds considerably,” she said.  “It should hold.  It has to.  That’s the better infrastructure and higher ground.”

“Of course, we assume the threat will be in Icecrown,” he murmured.

“You don’t think it will be?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Quin.”  For a second, he stared into his cup of coffee, trying to ignore the raw ache inside.  “Nothing has turned out the way any of us expected.  We shouldn’t be back here fighting a new war against the same enemy.”

“No,” she agreed.  “We shouldn’t.  But here we are.”

“Aye,” he whispered.  “Here we are.”

She reached up to squeeze his shoulder.  His hand covered hers, fingers wrapping around her hand for a moment.

Then he sighed, gaze drifting back to the horizon.  The sky was turning bright pink over the water.  “A storm is coming,” he murmured.  “Can you feel it?”

“In every bone that was broken,” she said softly.  “You too?”

He nodded.  “In every bone and muscle, too.”

“Have you told her?”

“Not yet.”

“Should we?”

“You know her better.”

Quin sighed, nodding.  “I’ll tell her.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you going to stay out here?”

“A little longer.  I need some air.”

“All right.  Don’t stay out too long.”

One corner of his mouth twitched toward a smile.  Quin’s brow arched.

“What?”

“You sound like her.”

She stared up at him for a moment, then smiled wryly.  “I’ll take that as a compliment.  Don’t stay out too long.”

Tyr simply nodded.  Quin’s hand slipped from his shoulder as she turned to head back inside while he lingered there on the overlook above the harbor.  The clouds above were dark.  The wind was cold.

A storm was rising.

It was only a matter of time.

#Tyrvarden Kindaer Grimstryke #tales from the front #World of Warcraft #Argent Crusade #Valiance Keep #Northrend #WrA #WoW #crossfaction #Quin Adama #Wyrmrest Accord #Resolute Blades #Age of Blood #Retribution of Arathor #RP #fiction

[tales-from-sysblr]

i got fakeclaimed not for having a fictive. but for having..fronting triggers???

WH?? Lmfao???

Sorry y'all go home fronting triggers are cancelled /j

#tales from sysblr #tales from anon #tales from the queue #fronting #fronting triggers #fakeclaiming #fakeclaim #ft #system #did #osdd #cdd #udd #did system #c did system #osdd system #culture is #< kind of

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

The Romance of Anonymity

Part 1 / 2

@polyshipweek 2023 Day 1 - Road Trip

What universe is better for road trip vibes than the 90's strip mall AU? As per usual in this universe there's virtually no plot to this, just flirting and Vibes™. Part 2 will be 'Bed Sharing' for day 3 of the prompt list ♥

--//--

Sunlight flickers red and burning orange against Meng Yao’s eyelids, the searing heat of it tempered slightly by the intermittent ruffle of the breeze through his hair. Under the monotone rush of the wind past the cracked-open window and the hum of the asphalt beneath their tires, he can just barely hear his boyfriends talking quietly together in the front seat, a soft, safe countermelody to the road noise that had lulled him to sleep some indeterminate amount of time ago.

“I can’t believe he’s short enough to lay across the seat like that,” Mingjue marvels, snagging Meng Yao’s pleasantly wandering attention away from contemplating a second nap.

“Well darling it’s not like he doesn’t have his legs curled up as well,” Xichen laughs quietly. “He only barely fits on it better than you or I would.”

“Still!” Mingjue protests, on the verge of laughter that Xichen quickly shushes through his own chuckling. “I feel like I always forget how small he is and then he pulls shit like this.”

“I may be asleep but that won’t stop me from kicking your ass, da-ge,” Meng Yao pipes up, smiling blindly up at the roof of the car when his boyfriends laugh without muffling themselves, all of them a little giddy from the hours they’ve already spent in the car over the last day and a half.

“A-Yao, sweetheart, you’re going to get a crick in your neck,” Lan Xichen frets with a soft hand laid on his bent knee. Meng Yao cracks an eye open and turns his head enough to squint through the sunlight on his face at his boyfriend turned around halfway to reach over the top of the front seat of Mingjue’s Cutlass. “Do you want us to pull over and get the pillow out of my suitcase?”

Meng Yao stretches his arms straight up towards the roof before he turns onto his side to face the front seat with a sigh, one eye still stubbornly shut against the early-afternoon sun cutting through the window above his head. Lan Xichen lifts his hand to allow the movement but puts it back the moment he’s settled, palm rasping pleasantly over his jeans as he rubs it back and forth, calf to knee to thigh and then back down.

“Mmm maybe. How long did I sleep?” he asks around a yawn.

“About an hour and a half,” Mingjue tells him, head lifting a bit as if to look at him in the rearview mirror though Meng Yao can’t see the mirror well enough to meet his eyes at this angle. “A-Huan and I were planning to switch at the next rest stop in about ten miles, so we’re pulling over anyway.”

Meng Yao spends another long moment indulging in the sleepy lassitude of the hot sun, the rumbling of the car, the road, and the attention of his boyfriends before he lets it slip away in favor of waking up properly.

He sighs again, mutters a grumpy, “No, I’ll wake up it’s fine,” and props himself up with a hand on the seat beneath him, forcing himself upright with the promise of kissing Xichen for a reward. Xichen smiles and goes up on one leg to lean back over the bench seat and accept his kiss easily, the both of them ignoring Mingjue’s grumbling about the unfairness of being the driver and why doesn’t he get any kisses just because he has to pay attention to the road.

“Ten more miles, da-ge,” Xichen soothes when they break apart. Meng Yao gives himself a little shake to wake himself up properly as Xichen turns to lay his head down on Mingjue’s shoulder, beseeching and teasing as he tuts over Mingjue’s many hardships and how he’s so brave to endure them anyway just to get him riled up.

Smiling at the familiar tune of his boyfriends’ banter, Meng Yao reaches down to the beat up igloo cooler from the gym down in the footwell behind the driver’s seat to rummage around for something decent to snack on. (The problem with dating two health-conscious gym rats is that they think grapes constitute a snack. Which…fine, maybe, but Meng Yao is of the opinion that cheap, filling junk calories of any kind are far superior, and he’d insisted they pack accordingly.)

“A-Yao?” Mingjue calls when they seem to notice his foraging up front.

“Hm?”

“Did we bring beef jerky?”

Oh of course, how could he forget the only other acceptable snack for the non-vegetarian gym rat boyfriend?

“I could never part you from your one true love, da-ge.”

This time he’s in the perfect spot to look up at meet Mingjue’s eyes in the mirror when his boyfriend sighs and raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

“Sassy. Go back to sleep, you’re still grumpy.”

Meng Yao withdraws the package of teriyaki jerky and pinches it delicately between thumb and forefinger to slowly drape it over the middle of the seat between Mingjue and Xichen, wiggling the package back and forth a bit to make it crinkle.

“No thank you, da-ge. You’re going to eat what you want of this, brush your teeth at the rest stop, and then we’re going to make out in the back seat while Xichen tries not to run somebody off the road from trying to watch us.”

Nie Mingjue’s eyes in the mirror crinkle up as he grins widely enough Meng Yao is sure his dimples are as deep as they can go.

“A-Yao,” Xichen doesn’t quite pout but it’s close, turning to look at him again to better hit him hard with his best pleading eyes. “Can’t we stop somewhere for a while so we can all…relax?”

Meng Yao offers Xichen a sweet smile and stands up a little, hunching over to avoid hitting his head on the roof (though his hair still rubs against the microfiber lining) and leaning over the seat to bury his face in the crook of Xichen’s neck. He presses a few kisses to one of the spots that makes him shiver and punctuates them with a little nibble.

“Of course, er-ge, that’s why we’re stopping at a motel tonight,” he purrs. He’s still getting used to so many things: being wanted – by two handsome men – and telling one or both of them ‘no’ (even temporarily) are probably the biggest ones. But he hopes he never gets so used to the effect he has on them that it becomes mundane. Xichen tips his head to the side to give him better access and swallows thickly, turning into putty even from such a light touch.

“The faster you drive when it’s your turn the sooner we can make that happen,” Mingjue adds, always his partner in crime when driving Xichen up the wall is on the table. Meng Yao feels Xichen shiver again and he peeks an eye open to see Mingjue’s taken one hand off the wheel to rub it slowly up and down Xichen’s thigh with clear intent. “Just, you know…If you need an incentive to drive faster than the average 90-year-old.”

Meng Yao snickers into Xichen’s neck, effectively ruining the sexy vibe he’d been going for but he doesn’t mind. He smacks another kiss to the skin under his mouth before he sits back down again and resumes his hunt for his own snacks as Xichen sighs and opens up the bag of jerky to start handing pieces to Mingjue while he drives, the 5-mile sign for the rest area flashing by the window just as Meng Yao sits up with a triumphant cry for having found his bag of goldfish tucked safely in a separate bag where they wouldn’t get crushed.

--//--

As all motel rooms are, theirs is dingy and unimpressive. Meng Yao lugs his suitcase in first with a grunt, sticky in the small of his back and under his arms even just from the short walk from the parking lot up to their room on the second floor. He steps aside to let Mingjue and Xichen through, relieved when Xichen immediately heads for the AC unit under the window to flip up the lid and start fiddling with the dials. Mingjue barely even bothers to kick the door shut behind himself before he yanks his shirt off over his head by the back of the collar and rolls his shoulders with a sigh of relief.

“Mingjue, darling, you have got to get a car with a working air conditioner,” Xichen whines from where he’s draped himself over the humming unit, cold air fluttering the strands of his hair hanging damp with sweat over his forehead.

“Can’t hear you!” Mingjue shouts back from where he’s soaking a rag at the bathroom sink to scrub over the heat-flushed back of his neck. Xichen rolls his eyes at the blatant lie but seems a bit too wilted to bother arguing. Meng Yao drops a kiss to his sweaty hair in consolation before he makes what is, objectively, the best decision out of the three of them and goes to monopolize the shower.

“There is absolutely not room for two in this shower, da-ge,” Meng Yao hums a few minutes later when the man pulls the curtain back about halfway, enough to lean against the wall so they can chat without the floor getting soaked.

“Could be, you don’t know.”

“Considering what happens when we shower together, yes I do know.”

Mingjue smirks at him and gives him a long, appraising look down the length of his body while Meng Yao turns to grab the complimentary bottle of shower gel that contains enough soap for roughly half a grown man’s body.

“Fine, suit yourself. We’re thinking about ordering pizza from that spot we passed on the way in, A-Huan’s too hot to pretend like he doesn’t want to be spoiled with junk food. I’m assuming you have no complaints?”

“Not a one. Don’t let him order mushrooms though, he doesn’t have to pretend to like them for our sakes.”

“Sure. You want soda?”

Meng Yao shrugs and preens under the way Mingjue’s watching him attempt to stretch the shower gel as far as it can go to clean the sweat-salt off every inch of his skin, looking very much like he’d absolutely be the one doing it for him if Meng Yao would let him.

“Coke’s fine, or there’s always water from the sink.”

Mingjue nods, pushes off from the wall with a sigh, and finally looks up to meet his eyes again, clearly unembarrassed by his own brazen behavior.

“ ‘Kay. Hurry up, that looks really fucking nice and I think A-Huan’s actually going to fuse with that air conditioner if I let him lay there too much longer.”

“Him you can send in to share,” Meng Yao turns his face out of the spray to say, earning himself a heartfelt, “Oh fuck you,” that makes his laughter bounce off the walls of the tiny closet of a bathroom when Nie Mingjue turns to head back out into the rest of the room.

Xichen, when he arrives just as Meng Yao is finishing his rinse, plasters himself to his back and crowds him under the weak spray with eager kisses along his neck and shoulder that make Meng Yao laugh, quieter this time, as he reaches back to pat clumsily at Lan Xichen’s thigh.

“Hi, Huan-ge,” he hums. Xichen nuzzles into his hair and wraps strong arms around his chest to hold him close as he turns them around with shuffling steps to sigh as the cool water hits his back. Meng Yao chuckles again and leans his head to the side to pillow his cheek on Xichen’s bicep, eyes drifting shut to better appreciate the contrast of smooth, warm skin and the cool slide of water between and over them both tangled up together.

They stay there like that for long, quiet minutes, just standing together under the water, swaying ever so slightly as Xichen hums something that they’d had on in the car earlier under his breath. Meng Yao relaxes his (yes, sore) neck a little further until his cheek is fully smushed against Xichen’s arm, lazy and utterly unconcerned with how he looks. He’s just held and comfortable in the too-dim bathroom of a Motel 6 in some tiny town where no one but his boyfriends knows him.

They’ll be gone in the morning, a few strange faces in a rotating cast of them through this place, a battered blue car on the road going somewhere no one around them will care about. Meng Yao feels the weight of years fall off his shoulders in the anonymity of it, secure in the knowledge that he won’t be lost, he’s still known by the most important people in his life and they’re right here with him, but outside of his partners no one else cares.

It’s more freeing than he would’ve ever expected.

They get out of the shower when Xichen decides to unstick himself from Meng Yao’s back with a few parting kisses tender enough to make Meng Yao’s eyes sting. Xichen pats him dry, smiling, with the scratchy motel towels that smell of strong industrial bleach. Meng Yao returns the favor with another identical towel, ruffling up Xichen’s long hair for good measure to stop it dripping on his shoulders and making his boyfriend wrinkle his nose at him when he emerges from the towel, rumpled and soft around the edges.

“Hi,” Meng Yao says again and earns a kiss to the tip of his nose for it. The careful brush of knuckles against his cheek.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Not fair not fair not fair. Meng Yao tries not to melt at the tenderness in Xichen’s voice and realizes immediately that that will be impossible while stuck in this tiny bathroom looking up at him and his stupid kind eyes. He needs Mingjue.

He returns the kiss to his nose with a smacking one to Xichen’s bare chest and then he’s wrapping his towel around his waist to head out into the room again in search of something sharper to force him back into the shape of his body.

Mingjue’s sitting on the edge of the bed nearer the door still in just his jeans, hunched over enough to rest his elbow on his knee to better hold the room’s phone to his ear. Meng Yao climbs up onto the bed behind him and knee-walks his way across the slippery (stained? Ew) bedspread to drape himself over his back the way Xichen had done to him in the shower, arms over Nie Mingjue’s shoulders and his cheek resting against the back of his head.

“I told you Xichen left food in the fridge for you to have for dinner,” Mingjue snaps in the way he only talks to Nie Huaisang – beleaguered and affectionate in equal parts. Meng Yao has been reliably informed that that’s simply the curse of having a little brother. He privately thinks his own brother wouldn’t feel like that if they were on speaking terms. (Or...’acknowledging each other’s existences’ terms.)

Nie Mingjue covers his eyes with his free hand at whatever Nie Huaisang says in reply. Meng Yao ghosts his fingertips up and down the familiar contours of Nie Mingjue’s chest as he focuses more on the vibration of his boyfriend’s voice thrumming through him where they’re pressed together chest-to-back while Xichen putters around them, getting dressed and turning down the covers on the other bed for the evening.

“Okay, fine, whatever, but if you spend all of your allowance eating at every restaurant in town I’m not giving you more. It’s your choice, money for the arcade for the week or dinners with your boyfriend.”

Meng Yao smiles a little as Nie Huaisang whines on the other end of the line, too garbled up for him to hear from here, and brings one hand up to card lazily through Mingjue’s hair, brushing it back from his too-warm forehead.

“Alright, A-Sang, whatever! Did you go help Zonghui with the gym today like I asked?”

Meng Yao ducks down a bit to start pressing featherlight kisses along the shell of Mingjue’s ear, smiling when his boyfriend leans his head further to the side to allow it as well as hold the phone receiver between his shoulder and his head to grab Meng Yao’s hands in both of his to squeeze his fingers, raise them to his mouth to nip at his fingertips in between his own little kisses in return.

Meng Yao sharpens his kisses into little bites the longer Mingjue spends hemming and hawing to his brother on the phone, until finally he’s gnawing on his boyfriend’s earlobe (much to Xichen’s entertainment where he’s pretending to meditate on the other bed) and Mingjue gives up with a huff of irritation, sitting up straight again abruptly and catching the receiver before it can fall away from his ear.

“A-Sang I have to go, we need to order dinner and get to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow night, okay?”

Meng Yao smirks in triumph as Mingjue practically slams the phone down to turn and tackle him to the bed, teeth bared as he lunges in to return the favor with hard bites up and down the expanse of Meng Yao’s entire neck.

“No fair!” he gasps around breathless laughter, “I only went for your ear!!”

“I’ll order dinner,” Xichen offers, reaching for the phone and the laminated page of listings for restaurants that deliver in the area off the nightstand. Meng Yao doesn’t even have time to chide him for this betrayal in not rescuing him before Mingjue is kissing him hard and dirty, fitting all the too-soft parts of him that Xichen drags out into the light with barely an effort back under the surface where they belong.

For now.

Xichen orders dinner and Meng Yao makes Mingjue leave him be long enough to get dressed in lounge pants at least before the pizza arrives. They all pile into the bed they won’t be sleeping in to eat, sitting cross-legged with knees knocking and toes brushing ankles, dinner piled up between and around them on the bedspread that has absolutely seen worse than some stray pizza grease. Meng Yao lets the feeling of it settle into his bones, and he decides that before this road trip is over he’s going to tell them both that he loves them. Out here, where it’s just them and the road and a string of motels they’ll never see again, he feels like this is the way he can say it first.

Unwatched.

Unmonitored.

Just a man who loves his chosen People.

One of many.

#the untamed fanfic #PolyshipWeek23 #The Romance of Anonymity #3zun #90's strip mall AU #Meng Yao #Lan Xichen #Nie Mingjue #fluff #Tales from Jianghu Shopping Center #<- universe #NMJ's car (for those who are curious) is a 1994 oldsmobile cutlass which is the car my sister and I learned to drive in as teenagers #It was a GREAT car it drove like a fuckin tank and it had a bench seat in the front that was tilted at the back #so it felt like driving while sitting on a couch #in the notes of the fic on AO3 I've got a link to an article about one that was being sold last year that's got some good pictures #so you can appreciate the beautiful 90's yacht of a station wagon that it is

[britneyshakespeare]

Also I never knew that there was even a single color photograph of my grandparents' wedding in 1952. I've only ever seen the ones in black and white. Don't they look beautiful? Didn't I just come from the most gorgeous people?

#i love how you can actually see my grandfather's red hair #as a redhead i know the injustice that black and white does to us... alas! #my charcoal self-portraits always look unlike myself to me because im like i have red hair. this doesnt look like a redhead #this isnt me #also even though it's a white dress. grammy's dress looks so much more beautiful surrounded by color #wow #tales from diana #did you know i never knew my grandmother was a local beauty queen when she was younger until after she died? #when her dementia got to the stage where she needed a live-in nurse to help her all the time #at one point my aunt rediscovered a picture from when she was about. 17. i posted it years ago #she scanned it and had it cropped and framed and left it in the front of the living room #the first time the nurse saw that photo (i was there) she said 'DAAAAMN MOM IS THAT YOU?' #and grammy was like 'oh :) yes thats me' #like it was nothing and then later on the nurse said 'i know you already said it but damn i just cant stop looking at you!' #that nurse was really nice. really really nice. #the priest at the wake when saying a prayer for the family before everyone else started ushering in #mentioned what a beauty my grandmother was and what a lovely couple the two of them were. #they went to that local church for about 60 years so he mustve known them for decades. it was a nice touch.

[mossnrocksnbogwater]

Summer in the city?

#digital art #tales from conant #rock kor'an #Stick Ko'ran #aiden speaks #my art #okay tags done #i like how this turned out #i wanted it to feel cramped but comfortable. #they're siblings! stick is in the front and rock is by the window