#that was such a terribly unlucky series of rolls

[moonlightmagical]

see cassandra might be dead, but at least there was a nat 20 shrimp jump

#i don’t know what to do #that was such a terribly unlucky series of rolls #fantasy high #dimension 20 #fantasy high junior year #d20 #fh #fhjy #fantasy high spoilers

[miraclewoozi]

UNDER THE COLLAR. -l.sm

your unlucky-in-love best friend goes on a date with someone who, by all accounts, should be his perfect person. so... how exactly do you end up being the one who tucks his sorry, drunk ass into bed?

pairing; lee seokmin x gn!reader.  (he calls reader pretty once but that is all<3) content; fluff / some mild angst towards the middle / pining / friends to… still friends but with some ~tension~ and a snuggle? w/c; 4.6k and a smidge. warnings; swearing, alcohol consumption (offscreen), drunkenness, some suggestiveness (MINORS DNI), reader has some hard thoughts, a bit of affectionate touching but nothing deliberately sexual? seok is needy and cuddly (and a terrible flirt). let me know if i've forgotten anything! note; this was originally gonna be part of a mini-series/multi-chap situation but!! i ended up hating the full thing and only being attached to like. two parts of it lol so here we are! there could potentially be a second part to this? if people want it? i don’t know yet! but this kinda just works as it’s own standalone thing anyway i think~ happy sunday <3

The first text comes through just after you finally set your phone down on the bedside table. Your eyes are dry and have started to sting from a long evening staring at screens, your bones feel impossibly heavy, and you think maybe you’re settling down for a semi-decent night’s sleep when you hear the buzz of a notification. A buzz you initially plan to ignore. It can’t be anything that important: who would be trying to reach you at this time of night, anyway? 

You roll away from the device and snuggle down into your pillows, pulling the sleeves of your — his — jumper down over your palms and resting them just in front of your face. This particular garment stopped smelling like Seokmin after the second time it went through your washing machine, but there’s a familiarity in the slightly rough inner lining that makes you want to wear it to sleep in every night, forever. He never liked it when his hoodies were too new, too soft, leaving balls of fluff all over his t-shirts and vests; you don’t know when you started to feel the same way, but you’ve realised recently that you do.

Your eyes flutter closed and your body relaxes, head starting to feel fuzzy in that calm, white-noise, lovely way. You haven’t felt this tired and genuinely sleepy for… months. It’s bliss. 

And then your phone buzzes again. You squeeze your eyes tighter, determined not to lose this warm, comfortable feeling, but your phone vibrates and vibrates and vibrates and with an audible groan, you sit back up, reaching over to see what, exactly, is so damn important at 02:23 in the fucking morning.

Seokmin’s contact name flashes up on the lock screen and you see that there are seven unread messages from him in the space of the last 3 minutes. Instantly, your brows draw together: he’s seldom shied away from a double text, but you’ve never known him to pull a septuple, and you can’t feel but feel a little bit of dread in your stomach as you read through them. 

> seokmin: yn

> seokmin: ynnnnnn

> seokmin: i lied

> seokmin: i didmt go homr yet

> seokmin: can you come get mr

> seokmin: mr

> seokmin: m e

You shoot back a message instantly asking where he is, turning on your bedside lamp and already swinging your legs out from under the covers. You keep hold of your phone in one hand, waiting for it to buzz again to tell you he’s given you his location. With the other, you search for and pull on some sweatpants, sliding into a pair of sneakers. His replies come simultaneously too quickly, and entirely not fast enough.

> seokmin: u knkw the bar in town with the bear statiiue oitside

> seokmin: lol

> seokmin: do you think i ciuld beat thsi bear in s fight???

> y/n: christ. okay, wait inside for me. i’ll be there in 15. 

> y/n: also, no. you couldn’t. x

Your veins feel alive with adrenaline and worry as you grab your keys and head down the stairs to your car. The drive is quiet — you don’t even waste the few seconds it would take to plug into the AUX and pick a playlist, leaving it up to the radio to keep you company on the way. It doesn’t take too long: soon enough, you’re pulling up alongside the infamous bear statue to find your best friend sitting on the curb, propped up against the marble base.

“I thought I told you to wait inside?” you chide, rolling down the passenger side window so you can announce your arrival. It’s like he’s moving in slow-motion, or maybe your words just take an extra few seconds to reach him? Either way, he doesn’t lift his head until a silence has settled between you, and he doesn’t smile until his slightly glazed-over eyes land on your face.

“Y/n!” He cheers, lifting himself off the floor and staggering upright, pushing a hand through his hair. “Hi! Yeah, I know — but look, it was too hot in there. It was so hot. And I didn’t want you to wait-…” Hiccup. “To have to wait for me.” 

He slides into the passenger seat with a contented sigh, a mess of long limbs he can’t quite control, adjusting the vent in front of him so that the cold from your air-con breezes against his flushed cheeks. As he settles, you reach over him, pulling his seatbelt across his chest. 

“I was getting to that,” he whines, pouting his pretty lips at you, and you click the belt in place with a laugh. History tells you that when he’s drunk, Seokmin doesn’t always believe in the power of the seatbelt, among other things, so you think maybe you could be forgiven for not believing him this time.

“Okay, dumbass. Sure you were.”

He reaches down into the passenger footwell for your AUX cord, bumping his head on the dashboard and letting out an exaggerated hiss as he sits back upright. Nonetheless, he plugs his phone in and presses play on his own night-driving playlist, holding the device between both of his hands as you start off towards his place.

“So…” you prompt, because he’s staring blankly out the windscreen with a tiny smile on his lips and you’re concerned that maybe, this time, he has actually managed to drink himself stupid. He rolls his head over to look at you, and fond bliss is written into every line of his face. “What happened?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, still just… staring at you as you drive. Staring, even though every detail of you is committed to his memory already. Staring, even though he knows how your eyelashes flutter when you blink. Even though he knows how the muscles in your throat bob as you swallow the saliva on your tongue. Even though he’s sat in your passenger seat enough times to remember exactly how the late-night glow of the street-lamps overhead catch and illuminate the curve of your nose, how they highlight the point of your chin. He knows all this, but he can’t help himself. Staring is… indulgent. So, so indulgent. But he is pretty drunk and he can get away with it when you’re focused on the road — at least, that’s what he tells himself.  

When he does attempt to speak, just as you slow to a stop at a set of traffic lights, the sparkle in his gaze falters. He faces forward again, shoulders rising and slumping in a meek ‘I don’t know’.

“She was… perfect, I think,” he tries to explain, and you glance across to look at him; his lips are both non-existent, pulled between his teeth and he has worry lines creasing up his forehead. With the hand not holding the wheel, you reach over, pressing your fingertips to where his eyebrows have scrunched to try and get him to relax the muscles there. It sort of works, if only because he releases an involuntary breath of a laugh.

“Not perfect,” you gasp, dramatic and teasing even though it stings a little to hear him say that out loud. “I mean, that definitely explains why you were out drinking, alone, three hours after you told me you were heading home.” He turns his head fully away from you, now, letting your hand drop dangerously towards his lap. You pull it back to yourself before it collides with his jeans, clearing your throat. The traffic signal changes to green, and you drive ahead. “I’m kidding. Come on. Talk to me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, despondent, crossing his arms over his chest. You’re not sure you’ve seen him acting like this since you were teenagers. It’s a strange twist away from your usual, very easy-going banter.

“Seok...” You try again. “I won’t stop for nuggets if you don’t tell me.” 

“Don’t stop, then.”

“Seokmin…”

“Don’t-…” It comes out quickly, the vein in the side of his neck popping until he takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. “Y/n. I’m tired, I just-… I don’t wanna talk about it. Can you please just… take me home?”

He’s still struggling with his words, but he isn’t abrasive in the way he speaks; that’s something you learned about Seokmin very early on in your friendship. He doesn’t raise his voice at you. He doesn’t get deep and gravelly when he’s pissed off. He just… seems to let himself feel things super intensely for a few seconds at a time and then he short-circuits, goes flat. It might be convenient for him, but it gets frustrating for you. Especially when he encourages you to open up to him as much as he does. 

His head is bowed and cradled in his hands when you pull up outside his apartment block, and you unfasten his seatbelt for him which jolts him upright. You stay facing front, though, guilt coursing through your veins at the thought of maybe having pushed him too far. You just want to understand. Why was his date being good such a bad thing?

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” 

You shake your head. “Don’t be,” you tell him, and he scoffs, but quietly.

“Y/n,” he sighs, his crown falling against the headrest; he reaches over to you, places a hand just above your knee, and you try to ignore how it feels like someone has crashed their car into you from behind. How your heart lurches forwards in your chest. How your adrenaline spikes.

“I mean it. I shouldn’t have kept pushing. I’m sorry.”

He chews this over for a moment, but he doesn’t remove his hand, and you find that maybe you don’t want him to. Not yet, at least.

“Will you help me get up the stairs?”

“Of course I will.”

With one of his arms over your shoulders, your own supporting his waist, the pair of you begin the obnoxiously long ascent up through his building to his apartment. He’s lived here for a year and a half, and you think maybe the elevator has been working… for a total of about a week, since then? God forbid he ever got injured and couldn’t climb six flights just to get himself home. The climb is bad enough as is.

Somewhere around landing number four, Seokmin pulls away from you, mumbling something about having the spins and needing to sit down. You ease him to perch on one of the windowsills, sitting down next to him with your arm still around his hips to keep him balanced on the narrow ledge.

“You should’ve taken me back to your place,” he grumbles, doubling over with his elbows against his knees and his fingers linked behind his neck, taking deep breaths.

“Get your feet flat on the floor. Look at your shoelaces. Breathe slow. It’ll help,” you coo, and he shuffles a little so that he can do exactly that (not without wobbling and almost landing on his face, and he thanks you and your “super strong arms” for keeping him from such a fate). After a few more seconds of deep breathing and grounding, he lifts his head. Crisis averted.

“Are you-… like, a witch, or something?” he asks out of nowhere, and you snort so loudly that your throat hurts. He keeps staring at you, waiting for you to answer. Apparently your laugh wasn’t response enough.

“What are you talking about, Seok?” 

He rolls his eyes at you, as if you should just know. “How did you know how to fix me? It’s like magic.”

“Because I know you, stupid. Come on. Two more flights and I’ll get you into bed.”

“S’that a promise?” he asks, grinning to himself as you haul him back to standing, and he stumbles slightly against you, hands braced on your ribs. Sweating a little, you manoeuvre yourself away from him, landing a gentle, playful hit to his side. 

It doesn’t make your heart flutter, hearing what can only be a drunk rendition of his bedroom voice. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. It doesn’t.

“Save it for your next date with Ms. Perfect, would you?”

“Agh. You’re the worst.”

“I know. Now come on.”

After a few minutes of fumbling through Seokmin’s pockets yourself for his keys (it’s as if he’s forgotten how both hands and pockets work in his now very giggly stupor), apparently brushing every single one of his ticklish spots on the way, you’re inside his apartment and on your knees, untying his shoes for him, easing them off his feet. You don’t think he can be trusted to lean down to do it on his own without breaking something.

Or himself.

“If you go get ready for bed, I’ll bring you some water?” you suggest, sitting back on your heels, smiling up at him. There’s a weight in the gaze he’s looking down at you with, in the way his tongue darts out over his lips, and how his mouth doesn’t fully close after. You tell yourself he’s definitely only looking at you like this because he’s drunk, because you’re helping him — the boy doesn’t know ass from elbow, right now — but there’s no escaping the fact that your stomach drops a little at his intensity.

“Okay,” he strains after a moment, and you stand up and away from him, kicking off your own shoes. He heads in one direction towards his bedroom, and you move in the other towards his kitchen. 

Stop it, you tell yourself, leaning over the sink and splashing cold water from the faucet onto your face. Stop thinking about him like that. He’s your best friend. Stop it.

But… shit, you can’t get those big brown eyes out of your head. The way he looked down at you, the softness of his brows, the heat radiating off him. There’s nothing you can do to stop the way your thighs press together standing in his kitchen, in clothes that— you realise now— are entirely his. The hoodie. The sweatpants you pulled on. They’re an old pair that he let you steal just after your most recent breakup, when you’d stayed on his couch for a week straight just so you didn’t have to look at how ugly and empty your own apartment was. Everything. Even down to the socks.

You thought it was hard enough hearing that he was going out for dinner to your favourite restaurant with someone who wasn’t you; nothing could have prepared you for standing in his kitchen at three in the morning, hot under the collar over five seconds of tipsy eye contact, knowing he’s getting undressed behind the door you’ve been staring at for… minutes, now. Actual minutes. 

Oh, you think, feeling your blood run cold. 

Oh. 

I want him.

More minutes pass as you stew in this information — in the knowledge that you’re fucking desperate for the man who has been there for you through everything important enough to remember, and probably everything you’ve forgotten, too. The boy who took you to all of your school dances and was the perfect date, the perfect gentleman, the perfect partner. The man who has sat next to you in the doctor’s waiting room more times than you can count, waiting for results and sitting outside appointments that he told you that you were brave enough to book. Seokmin, who has been under your nose this entire fucking time — you want him, the man who went for dinner with his dream woman, today, and he said she was perfect. Acid burns the back of your throat as you fight not to run all the way back down to your car.

Fuck. It gets astronomically worse. I love him.

“Y/n?” you hear, and his whiny, gentle voice glides across the apartment like it’s been mounted on a cloud, blown straight into your ears. It floats around in your brain in the most beautiful way, and you think there could be love-hearts in the reflections on your eyes even despite the stress you’re now under. It occurs to you that his faucet is still running, and you still have two empty glasses sitting on the counter. How long has it been? Get it together. 

“Just a second,” you call back. Your voice breaks as you say it and you can hear him fucking giggle from behind the ajar door to his bedroom. The fluttering in your stomach worsens, and by the time you’ve shut off the tap and you’re walking through to him, you’re wondering if it’s possible for people to grow butterfly gardens inside themselves without noticing. No-one has ever made you feel this nervous, before. 

Breathe, you tell yourself as he comes into view, already snuggled down against his pillows with the top of his bare chest and shoulders visible in the low light. 

Fuck. 

This is the last thing you needed.

“Hi,” he greets you, pushing to sit up with eyes softer than the glow of the setting sun. “I missed you.” 

You stand corrected. That is. 

“You’re such a loser.”

You set his glass down on his bedside and crouch next to him. “Did you brush your teeth?” you ask, and his face transforms from a stupid childish pout at being teased to a devastatingly bright grin. 

This running joke you’ve shared between yourselves since your first night on the town together illuminates him, and he nods, proudly, his hair falling down over his face. You reach up to push a few strands away from his eyes, despite yourself.

“Sure did,” he tells you, and you believe him but you raise a brow anyway. He’s so pretty. With his playful smile, tongue held between his teeth, his nose a little scrunched. Fuck, how can anyone be so pretty?

“So if I go check your toothbrush, right now…” His smile turns into a laugh, his head lifts into your lingering touch until his cheek is fully rested in the palm of your hand. Stupidly, you tell yourself that this could mean something. Maybe he wants to feel you more.  

“You could find out another way,” he says, his voice dropping half an octave as his already heavy eyelids blink slowly at you. It’s a good thing you’re already on your knees because that tone could have you sinking to the ground in a split. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth fleetingly and you think you’re one more line away from melting into the floorboards. 

“You’re so out of it,” you murmur, shaking your head at him. “Did she make you get the oysters? Are you high on aphrodisiacs right now?”

He groans again and rolls onto his back, a hand dramatically coming up to cover his eyes. 

“Stop talking about her,” he whines. “I’m with you. I don’t wanna talk— I don’t wanna think about her right now.”

“Seokmin-…”

“Y/n,” he interrupts, lolling his head to the side, looking at you through impossibly long, dark lashes from between his fingers. “Please.”

You’re not sure what the pull in his voice is in aid of but you force yourself to let it go, pushing yourself up to your feet before you can fall forwards into him.

“I’m gonna head home,” you say, the quiet between you laying thick and heavy against your skin. “Text me when you’re awake tomorrow, okay?”

He contemplates this for a second, frowning; he doesn’t say anything as you start backing towards his bedroom door. Then…

“Please don’t.”

He says it so quietly. So hushed, you think you might have misheard. So delicate, you hold your breath just in case you somehow manage to shatter the moment. 

“Don’t what?” You ask, stopping in your tracks. He breathes deep and props up on one elbow, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Don’t go.”

Glued to the spot, you stare at him. You feel your head tilt to the side without really controlling it, and an eyebrow creeps up your forehead, slowly. 

“I left some lights on in my apartment,” you say feebly, and even though it’s true, a selfish part of you hopes that he’ll still keep trying to talk you around. It won’t take a lot to convince you. It never does. 

“So?” he asks, the duvet slipping just a little further down his upper half, baring more of his chest to you. “Please. I don’t want to be-…”

You swallow, waiting. The cogs in his inebriated brain are surely rotating at a few hundred miles a minute, his eyes almost desperate. Certainly glossy. Absolutely breath-taking.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Your already fragile resolve snaps under the pressure of his words and you’re moving towards his bed before you can stop yourself. 

“I don’t have anything to sleep in,” you say, offering him one last out if he wants it, but Seokmin just shrugs and peels the duvet back for you to slip in beside him.

“Don’t care,” he mumbles, and you gesture for him to look away so, at the very least, you can shimmy out of his sweatpants. He does, and you do — a few seconds later, with the garment in question folded neatly on the floor by his bed, you’re pulling the sheets over your legs and burying down against his cushions.

His breathing matches yours inhale for exhale and the more you let yourself think about this, the worse you feel even though maybe you shouldn’t. How many times have you drunkenly shared Seokmin’s bed, or how many times has he shared yours? This isn’t new. Even sober, you’ve been curling up together on the couch to watch movies and sleeping with your heads in each other's laps for years. There’s no reason for the guilt that’s burrowing its way deep into your brain, but you can’t seem to get rid of it, no matter how hard you try.

“Y/n?” he asks after a few minutes of you lying stiff as a pair of boards, a few inches of cold mattress between your wide awake selves, both of you staring up at the ceiling. You hum an acknowledgement, and he clears his throat. “Can I hug you?”

Your heart does something you’re a little bit afraid of, but you nod in the dark anyway, before you realise he can’t really see you now all the lights are off.

“Drink some water first,” you tell him lightly. “Then you can.”

There’s something undeniably nerve-wracking about the sound of him obediently swallowing a few mouthfuls from the glass you brought him earlier, even more-so in the way he sets it back down on his dresser. The bed rustles a little as he moves towards you, the sheets shifting over your bare legs, and then he’s got an arm slung over your waist, his head is on the very edge of his pillow, right next to your own… he slides a leg over one of yours, slotting it between your calves, and before you know it, you’re completely wrapped up in him.

He’s warm, and soft, and his fingertips gently soothe circles into your waist where they’ve slipped just underneath the hem of the sweatshirt you’re still wearing. You hum gently, moving your arm so that it snakes beneath his neck, curling up to wrap around his shoulders. This close, you can smell the cologne he will have put on before meeting his date. It makes you dizzy, slows down the neurons firing away in your brain. You wonder what’s going through his own head — what he’s thinking about, being curled up against your side like this. Does he recognise the slight stuttering in your breathing? How cold you are in contrast to him? Will he even remember this, in the morning? Or will you just wake up on opposite sides of the bed tomorrow, all this just a weird, foggy memory in the dark?

His head burrows slightly closer to you and all of a sudden, you can feel him breathing. Every exhale fans against your neck, right where it feels sweetest; Seokmin breathes through his nose when he’s sober, but through his lips when he’s drunk. You’ve never noticed before. It’s maddening. 

“Comfy?” you ask, your voice dry and unsure, and he wriggles a little with a nod to affirm that yes, he is. Something about that makes your cheeks go hot.

“Always sleep better with you,” he murmurs, and your face grows even warmer. You tell yourself he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just drunk. It doesn’t help.

“Then sleep,” you say as his hand moves just slightly further up beneath the hoodie, the tips of his fingers gently tickling your lowest rib. You have to fight back a whine. “I’m here. You can sleep.”

“Thank you, y/n,” he breathes, and you turn your head: now your eyes have adjusted to the low light, you can sort of make out his features, so very close to you. This proves to be a mistake almost instantly, but you can’t look away. His eyes are closed now; you’re glad. He looks too sweet. Too peaceful.

“What for?”

“Everything.”

“Seokmin…”

“No, I mean — everything.”

You move your hand up slightly, fingers playing with the strands of his hair at the top of his neck, and he whimpers softly at the touch. You freeze, and he nuzzles back against your hand to beg you to keep going, so you do.

“You can’t thank me for everything,” you tease him, and he chuckles breathlessly, his palm now laying flat across your rib cage, curling around your side. Holding you. Claiming you, just for now.

“Can,” he protests, and you shake your head. 

“Nuh-uh. Against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“My rules.”

“I didn’t know you had rules.”

“I’ve got hundreds,” you tease, threading your fingers through his strands and gently massaging his scalp. Another whine from him, but you don’t stop. Especially not when he hugs you closer, arm and leg both tightening around you.

“Hundreds?”

“Mhm. Maybe even thousands.”

“Well. Fuck.”

You breathe a laugh at him, and he laughs back; within a few seconds, you’ve both dissolved into giggles, and Seokmin has squirmed even closer until he’s half-covering you, actively chortling into your covered collarbone.

“You’re s’posed to be getting to sleep,” you sigh as his own laughter picks back up following a few seconds of deep breathing and quiet.

“I can’t!” He says. You can feel the pout in his own voice, even with his face hidden. When did he end up practically on top of you? When did your arm slip down to around his waist? 

“You have to. You’re gonna feel so shitty tomorrow if you don’t.”

“I know. M’probably gonna feel shitty anyway, though.”

“Come on. Close your eyes. Count back from a hundred. You can do it.”

It falls silent again, and you delusionally tell yourself that maybe it’s working. Until…

“Can you lie on your side?” He asks, and you sigh dramatically but nod anyway: as he peels himself off you, you roll over, facing the wall in the foetal position. He’s right back against you in a blink though, legs tucked up behind yours, trying to find your hand under the quilt.

“S’this okay?” He asks as he accidentally brushes your thigh in his search, fingers lacing through your own when he finally succeeds. Your now joined hands work their way into the hoodie’s front pocket, and everything starts buzzing when he rests his chin on your shoulder.

“Y-yeah,” you swallow. “S’good.”

“Good,” he mumbles. A few deep breaths later, his voice rumbles against your earlobe again. “You looked so pretty for me tonight, y/n. Dressed up in my clothes — you’re so pretty.”

“Go to sleep,” you whimper, grateful at least that at this angle that he doesn’t see how your face scrunches up, how wide your smile is, how ridiculously good he makes you feel.

Euphoria. This is euphoria; you never want it to end.

“Count for me,” he asks, dropping his head down so his brows rest against your back, now. So you do.

“A hundred… ninety nine… ninety eight… ninety seven…”

His breathing is slow and his grip on your hand is slack by the time you reach eighty three. You doze off too, not very far behind.

thank u for reading all the way to the end!! likes, reblogs, comments + feedback are all always appreciated<3

#dk fluff #seokmin fluff #lee seokmin fluff #dokyeom fluff #dk x reader #seokmin x reader #lee seokmin x reader #dokyeom x reader #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #j writes. #* #(in case we wondered: i am not better at tagging things this time around heh<3)

[alphajocklover]

What about a story about a sweet, kind 30something gay college English professor who wishes to get closer to his students so he wishes to be more like them. Only he turns into the worst version of himself. His turned into this younger, dumber toxic straight bro. A total docuhebag sleazebag or something. Instead of singing showtunes he's rattling off terrible jokes or rock n roll/rap songs.

Sam McGreen was a professor. A real, actual professor. He still couldn’t really wrap his head around it. It wasn’t that Sam thought that teaching was beneath him or anything, he had never really seen himself as the teaching type. Despite being a fairly successful writer whose murder mystery series had gained him a cult following, he was terribly shy when it came to public speaking. It was why he always avoided writers panels and interviews, which had sadly only increased the amount of speaking offers he got. People loved the ‘mysterious recluse’ persona he had accidentally created, and everyone wanted to be the first to get the inside scoop. Sam wouldn’t have even thought about taking the job offer to become a professor if he didn’t desperately need money. He had come down with a horrible case of writer's block, so the writing of his next book had unfortunately come to a halt, and even with the sales and royalties he got from the books he had already written, it wasn’t going to be enough to pay for the wedding. Sam had recently gotten engaged to his longtime boyfriend Micheal, and the wedding that had planned was looking… expensive. They had tried to keep it small, but both had romantic hearts and expensive taste, so it ended up getting out of hand. So, desperate for a more steady cash flow, Sam had accepted the offer to teach. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He knew he was going to fuck this up. But… maybe he was overreacting? It wasn’t like he was teaching kindergarten. These were college students, mature adults who paid to be there. Surely they wouldn’t be that bad, right?

It took less than 5 minutes for Sam to realize how horribly wrong he was. These people were savages! He knew the school had a bit of a reputation as a ‘party school’, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. No one in the class seemed to take anything he said seriously. The male students, who mostly seemed to be athletic jocks, were constantly telling crude jokes, laughing obnoxiously, flexing and harassing the few students who actually wanted to be there. The few female students who hadn’t left in disgust just giggled at the nearest jocks jokes vapidly and flirted with them. No one paid attention to a thing Sam said the entire class. Sam spent all of his first class stuttering over words, getting embarrassed by his own lack of experience, and being either ignored by or laughed at by his meathead students. By the end of the day Sam felt completely lost. Every class had been the same as his first, just as embarrassing and pathetic. Sam didn’t understand what he was doing wrong? At first he thought he had just got unlucky with his first class but as the day had progressed Sam started to wonder if something was wrong with him. It couldn’t be that all the classes were filled with bad students. Maybe he was overreacting. It was only his first day after all, but he couldn’t shake this feeling that he was messing this up. Maybe if he could understand these kids better he’d be able to teach better. He had gone to college himself, but he had spent most of his free time working on his first novel. He didn’t really get the same college experience that most people did, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass. It was late when Sam left, having stayed late to work on his curriculum. As he walked through campus to his car, he looked up at the sky and saw a particularly bright star. He stared at it for a moment, fascinated. Without even meaning to, he wished on the star. He wished to understand his students better. As he did so his eyes stayed transfixed on the star, which grew brighter and brighter.

And, in a flash, everything was different.

Sam woke up slowly the next morning, his head pounding as he did. What the heck had happened last night? He felt like he had the worst hangover ever. He got up from his bed and stumbled over to the bathroom, splashing water in his face. As his headache began to diminish into a dull throb, Sam looked in the mirror, and felt his brain short circuit. Something was wrong. Really wrong. For some reason it took him a moment to notice but… he had completely changed.

The thirty year old author looked like he was in his early twenties again, and was suddenly in much better shape than he had been before, even in his actual twenties. His eyes trailed down his strong biceps and defined abs, both in fascination and shock. He wanted to yell for his fiancée, but instead he felt himself smirk without meaning to. Without even thinking about it he lifted up his biceps and flexed, reveling in his own body. Sam didn’t understand what was going on. It was like he couldn’t control his body. Someone else was in control now.

As the other Sam, who Sam and everyone else had dubbed Green, went about his day it became apparent that Sam had gotten his wish in the worst way possible. He now understood his students perfectly, because he was just like them. A cock, arrogant, toxic, straight jock. He understood what it was like to find classes taught by pathetic professors boring as shit. He understood how it felt to party with an entire frat full of manly bros. He understood what it felt like to fuck a pussy, not caring how the bitch felt and only caring about how great his cock felt. Sam now knew exactly what it felt like to be one of his students, and he hated it. He couldn’t stop himself though. He was trapped, slowly losing himself to the new identity. Eventually Sam would forget he was anyone but Green. He convinced himself Sam was all just some weird dream. Why would he want to be some dumbass author when he was a fucking college stud?

#muscle growth tf #jock tf #jock transformation #jockification #nerd to jock #professor to jock #muscle tf #reality change #supernova tf

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

The Architect

https://www.patreon.com/empyreaniris?fan_landing=true

https://starr-fall-knight-rise.tumblr.com/post/182501791735/master-post

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzEIdDAB4omdO2JcQVMObfrhLJ5kX4ONmSsLypM1ks0/edit?usp=sharing

The backlash of the psychic wave hit him like a freight train on a downhill slope, steamrolling his mind to the point it was almost a miracle that he didn’t crash into anything. Losing momentary control of the jet, Adam spun in a listless rotation to one side just as the two other jets, Wicked and Mad Dog, floated off from his six in opposite directions, spinning like so many discarded pieces of trash in a gentle breeze. 

Already silent, the battlefield took a few moments of stillness as everyone’s brain went through the brief process of rebooting. 

And that was only the backlash.

Adam could only imagine what a full on assault would have felt like. In his life he had been attacked telepathically on a number of occasions, the starborn Queens and the leviathan having the biggest and most powerful psychic presence.

Neither of them held a candle to this. 

The figure, humanoid in nature, floated at the epicenter of the chaos. As close as he was, Adam could make out the shape highlighted in green, thanks to the Fealty AI, back turned to Adam and facing the void. The figure had its arms outstretched to either side in a gesture that was less an invitation to an embrace and more a gesture Moses might have used to part the red sea. Those ships unlucky enough to be caught in the direct path of that psychic wave, had gone dark and begun listing heavily to one side or the other.

Completely decommissioned.

Whoever the Maker was, Adam was glad to have him on their side, a sentiment he would reiterate only moments later when the figure before him geared up for act two.

Adam was just beginning to regain control over his body enough to start moving again when, the figure rolled its shoulders as if in preparation to lift something heavy and then raised its hands slowly. Some of the ships further along the line were just beginning to regain their senses, eager to use the moment and pick off those that were slow to recover.

They never got their chance as the figure flexed their hands.

And unmade the ships.

WIth just the curl of their fingers that single maker bent the fabric of reality to their will/. All of the the void ships, spread from horizon to horizon on the visible side of the Necritorium planet, went nuclear, warp cores simultaneously going critical and then imploding in a series of devastating eruptions that tore into the glowing orange shield to rip it apart like so much tissue paper.Had there been a shock wave it would have been lethal for tens of thousands of miles in any direction, but as it was, space remained silent.

Adam, given no time to sit there without his mouth hanging open like he wished to, was forced to perform a series of rapid, evasive maneuvers to dodge what remained of the void ships  that had protected this horizon of the planet.

He bobbed, and rolled and turned and yawed cutting like a knife between two charred pieces of metal shooting rapidly in the opposite direction. He was, however, unable to avoid the cloud of dust particulate that spattered against his shield, which flared briefly with a burst of golden light  before dying away.

Even so, he felt a sudden depletion of his energy, knowing that, the dust, moving as fast as it was would have torn his jet to pieces had there been no shield to protect him.

Had he known it would be this easy, he wouldn’t have worried so much.

He was unprepared for the next moment, where he would be forced to eat those words.

The power displayed by that single maker had been terrible, unfathomable and completely unfair. TO have such a being on their side would have guaranteed them an easy win. Adam had briefly wondered why this maker didn’t simply blow the planet to hell.

And maybe the maker might have been ready to do just that.

But it seemed this sudden use of power had not gone unnoticed 

Before the maker  could stretch out his hand again and make done of the void’s plans, massive black tendrils erupted from the space around them, engulfing them as Apollyon himself joined the frey.

His sudden appearance was shocking, terrible, sending a shockwave of shedded psychic fear that had Adam’s hands trembling on the joystick as he maneuvered them in the opposite direction.

 Suddenly, all around them tendrils rose up from simple blackness and shadow.

Adam heard a series of screams over the com, but the sound was cut off as soon as it came. A black tendril snapped around towards his ship forcing him into a sharp roll that brought him cutting through the center of the tendril just before it could close around him.

He dove downward before it could regain its bearings, but was faced with another eruption of tentacles, emerging from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

One swung at him from the left. He cut high right flipping the jet over onto its back, and cutting in a hard arc over another tendril that shot straight towards him. The Tendril tried to curve up after him, but he arced down, flipping back over to cut under the tendril this time, firing the engines and shooting down its length as it struggled to follow.

“Mad dog, wicked, do you copy!” Adam shouted.

No one answered.

All around him, little green figures, highlighted by fealty began to go black, snuffed out one by one.

Adam shot straight up through a wall of closing blackness, and out over a filed of carnage.

Maker ships hung suspended, crushed and pulled apart by tendrils. Bodies lay wide eyed in space,

The makers themselves had simply vanished.

Another tendril snapped at him from below, but he rolled right, and burned engines straight up and away from the tentacles.

Above him Avex’s imperial cruiser came into line of sight, somehow having managed to avoid being ripped apart, only for Adam to see why a moment later. A massive tentacle erupted out of nowhere headed straight for Avex’s ship, but the little battle hungry bastard was ready, firing all his weapons all at once, evaporating the tentacle with the same world-killing beam his father had once used to destroy a planet.

A tactic he seemed intent on using against the necrotherium as he fought forward towards the ragged hole that had been torn in the  glowing orange shield, which Adam was only now coming to realize, was beginning to knit itself back together.

As if knowing what his intentions were, more tentacles erupted from the blackness performing a full assault on the ship to the point Avex was forced to take more evasive maneuvers, Driving him away from the necritorium.

Several tendrils erupted upwards after Adam,He cut to one side, but they followed, chasing him like heat seeking missiles as he tried to shake them.

Then 

A blast.

The tendrils blew apart as a MAC round tore through it.

Adam rolled his ship onto its back angling upwards just in time to see the omen descending towards him.

“Thanks for the assist, Simon.” He said

“Any tim-”

She never finished her sentence, as out of nowhere, a massive black tendril, spiked down from above shattering the Omen’s shields with one terrible punch, and spearing her straight through the middle.

Adam screamed in shock and horror as his old ship, Simon’s ship, was impaled, and then shredded as the one single tendril became many smaller tendrils, blending her into pisces.

Below him, the glowing funnel of the necitorium pulsed brighter.

Muscle memory saved him from his own shock, diving down to avoid the Omen’s shredded corpse as the very shadows of space roiled around him. His mind wanted to go into shock, but he knew now was not the time for that.

Simon was dead.

The crew of the omen was dead.

No!

FOCUS.

Apollyon had re-leveled the playing field, The shield around the necritorium had almost knit itself back together.

Adam fired forward aiming for the hole that remained  even as Apollyon tried to stop him.

But these were gods they were playing against

Did he really stand a chance.

A wall of tendrils rose up before him, like a spiked forest, all waiting to collapse in around him, smother him.

He prepared for Evasive maneuvers.

And then.

Light shafts of it began to appear from within the mist of waving black tendrils charing them and causing them to shy away. First one and then a second, until thousands of beams of blinding white light were emanating from a singularity somewhere within the midst of the great blackness.

And then.

An explosion of light, dozens of the smaller tendrils evaporated, while the larger ones writhed in agony.

The light continued to grow as the tendrils writhed.

And as Adam looked, he saw.

The Architect.

He rose from the darkness like a Poseidon stepping from a sea of shadow, growing with every moment until he was larger than the ships, larger than the planet even. His form glowed with incomprehensible light simultaneously impossible to look at but also comprehensible.

The moment was clear.

Apollyon and the Architect had both taken their free shots at the other’s army.

But now this was personal.

At the height of his size, the architect bent and then fractured, shattering into a thousand figures, each in a different shape. Sentient beings, Tesraki, Drev, Humans, Gromm, Celex, but also non sentient beings as well, wolves, eagles, kinlits, moss strider’s, jeffrey snakes, all conceivable forms of life glowing with golden light and battling against apollyon’s writhing tendrils.

Equally matched, the two of them struggled against each other, neither gaining the upper hand for long.

The message was clear.

He had torn them an opening when he could.

And now they needed to use it.

[avid-avian-lives]

I feel like we’re wrong about the reasons (in terms of the universe) that grian and scar were put together

(this is kind of a long one)

having been (lurking) in this fandom right from the get-go, I remember seeing posts in the very earliest days of 3L that the universe wanted grian to lose. it sorta seemed like he had rotten luck between being put with scar, making all these enemies, leaving his plans behind… there was a bit of fate vs free will discussion, since grian made plans that were usually foiled by something intangible. these died down as he improved, gaining tools and power alongside his forced partner, but there is a reason we make so many jokes about traps not working on these series.

when LL rolled around, this idea really picked up speed. grian was more consistently unlucky, getting the lowest possible number of lives outright and still being the first to die (be killed by the boogeyman curse) on the life he loaned from scar. then, he’s the first in the southlands to go red, which meant that he was shunned from the home he built. he got a life back, but the southerners had irreparably fallen apart, leaving him with no one but martyn, who did not hesitate to stab him in the back when the chance came. by now, he’s killed his friends, is back on red, and has to team up with the guy who killed him twice. he takes charge of the reds but (as always) makes a lot of enemies, dying insignificantly in the final murder spree. especially after martyn’s reveal at the end of his last episode, people were all over the idea that grian’s terrible luck was god/watcher influenced.

so where does that leave us in DL?

I don’t think the universe was trying to be kind. grian’s track record of pissing off gods doesn’t exactly align itself with this theory, and neither does his luck in previous series. I’ve seen theories about him (and maybe scar, but not so much) doing essentially what the fandom has been doing in the weeks leading up to session one: basically hoping so hard that the desert duo would make a return that it, impossibly, did (you’ve all seen the “manifesting desert duo in season three!!” posts.) however, there’s one very good post that talks about how grian (in contrast to scott, though that’s not important here) is more willing to follow exactly what fate tells him. he takes what he is given and works with it, instead of trying to rebel against it. besides, it hardly seems like he wanted to get put with scar. it worked out in 3L, but grian still had the advantage of being one of the last green lives and the very last yellow life with his good survival skills.

when grian’s skills are actively hampered by scar’s complete disregard for his health bar, (my fellow hermitcraft fans know about scar flying around for several minutes with low health, only to bump into something fairly lightly, die, and be completely perplexed as to how this could have happened,) grian will be much more likely to die. for example, if he had been a perilous situation (caving, out at night, etc.) when joel axed scar, that would’ve been it. he would be able to survive on his own, but sharing his health bar with someone else, especially scar, maybe not. the universe has never liked grian, and as much I love the shippy art, writing, and theories, I think this is another example of that.

#3L/LL/DL: exists #watchers: it’s free real estate #double life grian #double life gtws #double life smp #trafficblr #avid avian says

[bsd-cherish-official]

So, it’s October 20th — a date that as far as this blog and especially Cherish’s author and first artist is concerned, is practically some sort of international holiday.

I wanted to have something much more substantial than these two tiny rough sketches out by the time the date rolled around, but as you all know, I’ve been quite busy with all the Cherish content I’ve been wanting to release for this month, so this is the best I can do for the moment, until I have the time to more properly clean them up and color them.

There’s a whole lot that I could say on a day like this — a lot of thoughts in my head just itching to find their way out onto the post, but I think that saying some of it would be a bit premature without first lining up all my proverbial ducks in a row, and I want to keep this post mostly lighthearted, anyway.

So…for now let me say this.

In the past I’ve made posts talking about how just precious and irreplaceable of a character BSD Arthur is, of his sweetness, of his kindness, of his gentleness and selflessness, and how dearly I love him and am glad he came to exist through the series.

All of this could not be more true, and I think that my intense interest and love and respect for him as a character still — all these five years and seven plus months later from the day I learned of him — should speak volumes about just how unique and incredible of character he is, despite his confinement to mostly only two light novels in official canon.

He is a wellspring from which my blog was primarily born and on which it still runs today, with no sign of drying up — a topic I could continue to talk of for ages.

…And yet, I would also be remiss not to mention the real life 19th Century poet of the same name upon which he was heavily and inseparably based, and to which we owe the entirety of his existence.

I had said once in passing that I wished a happy birthday to the tragic disaster of a human being that was him, but in hindsight, I don’t think that such words carry even half the weight that I wish to evoke when I say that I want to celebrate his birthday, too.

I know that a lot of people when they talk about BSD will wish the irl namesakes of their favorite characters a happy birthday, and I feel like my well wishes in the past also came off in this same way as many of them mean it: “Here’s an obligatory celebration of your existence because without you, this character couldn’t have been”…but the thing is, that in no way sums up how I feel about the situation at all.

Maybe, in the early days of my research into the author, it might have been like that, but it is not anymore. And it is not just as a poet, but most especially as a human being, that I wish to see and partake in Arthur’s birthday celebrated.

My lengthy and dedicated research over the years has taught me that at heart and in truth he was actually not this heartless, needlessly cold, absurdly cruel and gratuitously offensive, irredeemable little shit “everyone would hate if we met him today” that we see sensationalized in the various forms of media and clickbait articles, but rather, just a deeply troubled teenager who from a very young age continuously suffered through some of the worst shit imaginable, surrounded by terrible people and circumstances in a time where he quite frankly didn’t belong and in which the odds of his chances at finding genuine happiness and peace were almost nil from birth. Yes, he made many mistakes and sometimes did things that were definitely not quite right — he was absolutely as flawed a human being as you or I, but not more flawed, not evil. Once he broke free from the people who made his life hell, he became a perfectly decent and average — though withdrawn, emotionally devastated, and creatively burnt out and defeated — adult.

And it is to him — the tortured soul who yearned for more than the unlucky cards he was dealt, who dared to dream but whose dreams burnt up in the atmosphere and left him just a shadow quietly navigating the world he didn’t want to live in until his premature death — that I reach out to today, and on every day and every time that I write Cherish.

If I could reach out to the past and just give him a hug, tell him that he and his works are loved and heard and remembered by people that will not be born for decades — even centuries — after he has passed, and that he is not alone, then I would in a heartbeat. But since I cannot, all of this will just have to be enough.

Happy Birthday, Arthur Rimbaud. Both you and your BSD self. I’m so far beyond glad that you were born.

#bsd-cherish-official #linklethehistorian #bungou stray dogs #bsd #Bungou Stray Dogs: Cherish #Cherish #BSD: Cherish Official Post #Cherish Art #Cherish Official Art #my artwork #sketch #wip #digital art #procreate #iPad Pro 2020 #Apple Pencil 2 #my fanfic #my writing #fanfiction #bsd fanfic #my original content #chuuya nakahara #bsd arthur rimbaud #bsd paul verlaine #Arthur Rimbaud #CHUUART #verrim #rimlaine #posted by author and first artist Linkle

[blackhakumen]

Mini Fanfic #1024: Scary Café Stories (Persona 5 x Sonic)

9:45 p.m. at LeBlanc Café........

Omega: (Holding a Flashlight In Front of his Face) And so, as the poor, defenseless paper silently accepts it's fate as it approaches the small yet menacingly machinery, it's body slowly begins to get torn down towards the bottom of the bin as the once proud specimen has now been reduced to small, tiny pieces of substance. Now all the device of destruction can do now is wait. Wait for another unlucky soul to meet the similar demise by it's operating functions, with no care or remorse whatsoever. The End.

Everyone in the room begins to applaud the Ultimate E-Series robot as the lights turns back on.

Futuba: (Smiles Brightly) Nice one, big guy!~

Sojiro: (Standing Behind the Counter) Was not expect a paper shredder to be intimidating until now. Nicely done.

Omega: (Stands Up and Bows Towards his Peers Beside Both Sides of Him) Thank you all for the applause. It has took me approximately two hours, fifteen minutes, and thirty-six seconds to come up with this story in particular before approaching here. (Smiles Brightly) I am proud of the end results I made here tonight.

Haru: (Smiles Softly) As you should be~ Now, does anyone else here would like to tell a horror story for tonight?

Sae: ('Sigh') I suppose I'll give this one a go. If you would kindly, Sojiro.

Sojiro turns the lights back off as Sae holds the flashlight and turns it on in front of her.

Sae: One day, on a bright, sunny afternoon of September, a young, up and coming prosecutor begins her second week working at the Tokyo District Special Investigation Department. As she steps inside her office however, she was greeted to very horrific sight. One where no men or women should ever have to see on any afternoon workday: tall, poorly structured, mountain top-

Sojiro: Paperwork?

Sae: (Slowly Turns her Head to Sojiro with a Deadpinned Look on her Face) .........Yes, Sojiro. Paperwork.

Futuba: DADUMMMM!.....

Sae: ('Sigh') Really didn't need da-dum noise there, Futuba, but thanks anyways I suppose.......

Futuba happily gives Sae a thumbs up with her tongue out beside her lip.

Morgana: (Raises an Eyebrow in a Bit of Confusion) You're....actually scared of them or something?

Sae: No. (Rolls her Eyes in Annoyance) But I do feel immense amount of dreaded by just looking at them piling up my desk....They're the worst.

Lavenza: (Smiles Softly) Oh I wouldn't say the process is all terrible. It could be a relaxing experience every once and a while. Especially when you get to listen to your selection of music throughout all of it.

Omega: (Nodded in Agreement) Agreement concede. It could also be served as a time waster depending on the workers' working schedule.

Sae: True, but whenever I do them, it would always lead me to get off later than usual, thus making me even more exhausted.....(Smiles a Little) But it's nice to see you two find some enjoyment out of it. Which reminds me.....(Turns Back to the Young Velvet Girl) Lavenza-san, would you like to tell us a horror story next?

Lavenza: (Happily Nodded) Of course! It's been a while since I've done some storytelling, so you'll have to forgive me if I get rusty on a few areas.

Futuba: (Smiles Brightly) Nah, don't worry. You'll do just. I mean, your story can't be any worse than what your boyfriend here came up with.

Morgana: (Glares at Futuba) Hey, what's wrong with my Poisonous Catnip story? A cat actually died in that one!

Futuba: ('Scoffs') Please, Mona. How could it died from a catnip that easily if it has eight more lives to spare?

Morgana: (Groans While Rolling his Eyes) Again with this? Cats don't have nine lives, Futuba. It's one of those myths people made up for whatever dumb reason they can think of.

Omega: I highly find that information inaccurate. Last week, I saw a nearby alley cat get struck by a bolt of lightning and was able to get himself back up approximately ten point fifty-seven seconds later.

Futuba: (Raises her Hands Up) Exactly! If a cat survived a freaking lightning to the face, then we're pretty sure the one from your story could get through eating some nasty, rotten can of catnip in his sleep.

Morgana: (Rolls his Eyes) Highly doubt that, but whatever floats your boats I guess....

Lavenza: (Smiles Softly Towards her Boyfriend Beside Her as She Hugs Him) Cheer up, Mona-Chan. I thought your catnip was a spendid horror story.

Haru: (Happily Nodded in Agreement) Mmhm. And very well detailed as well.

Morgana: Thanks, girls. At least there's SOME PEOPLE in here who appreciate my work!

Futuba: Dude, of course your mom and girlfriend are the only ones who likes your story. Also, Omega-Kun's a robot, don't be rude.

Omega: Robophobia!

Sojiro: ('Sigh') Alright, alright, settle down. We don't have all night here. Lavenza?

Lavenza: (Eyes Widened a Bit) Ah. Yes.

Lavenza clears her throat before she was given a flashlight as she begins to tell her tale.

Lavenza: Long ago, there once was a boy who decided to tag along with his group of friends to venture through a nearby forest after their time at school has ended for the day. The trip itself was normal enough at first, but eventually, as they've gotten more farther into the woods, the boys soon realized how.....eerily dark the atmosphere has gotten. The wind begins to blow harshly, the branches start to creek slowly, many of the owls' bright eyes begins to slowly stare down upon the lost travelers, and the wolves and coyotes could be heard howling in the minimum distance. The boy tries to talk his friends into calming down, with little success, but it was unfortunately short lived as he hears a murderous growl behind him. As he slowly turns around, the boy and friends were greeted to a horrific sight of a giant, abnormal beast glaring at them int he shadows. Sharp claws, razor blade teeth, and eyes that could stare upon your entire soul an instant. These details were more than enough for the childern to runaway to dear life. Unfortunately, the boy, running behind them, manage to trip and gets his foot stuck under a tree branch. He's tries....and tries.....and tries as hard as he could to get himself out. He able to succeed of course, but with the cost of his life as a dark, shadowy hand grabs hold of his body, yanking him back to the depths of darkness, ripping him shreads in a matter of seconds!The loud, vicious roar and the screeching scream for help and agony were the only few noises echoing through the other children's ears as they continued running back to their homes, all of them being too afraid to even think about turning their heads around. The next day goes by and the group of childern has decided to never speak or step foot on that cursed forest for as long as they live, despite the guilt weighing on each of their hearts to tis day.. And thus, the young boy.... their one and only friend...and the unfortunate victim....was never heard from.....ever. again. (Smiles Brightly) The End~

The entire café went completely silent in shock and fear as Sojiro turns the lights back on.

Sae: Well......That was.....a something alright.

Morgana: Guys, I think my girlfriend beats us all in the story department.

Haru/Sae Mmhmm/I see no objections to that.

Futuba/Omega: Yep.

Lavenza: ('Gasps') I have? Truly (Raises her Hands Up in Glee) Horray!~ I didn't even know it was a contest.

Sojiro: It wasn't. You just had a more terrifying story than everyone. Hell, I don't even think my story could ever come close to topping that....

Lavenza: (Turns to Sojiro) What would your story be about, Mr. Sojiro?

Sojiro: Something coffee related.

Futuba: (Rolls her Eyes) Of course........

Omega: 100% predictability detected.

Sojiro: Don't get smart with me, you too.

@keyenuta

@cyber-wildcat

@princekirijo

@caleb13frede

@albion-93

@theweebmaster31

#persona 5 #sonic series #futaba sakura #e 123 omega #morgana #haru okumaru #sae niijima #sojiro sakura #lavenza #scary storytelling #humor #fluff #apologies for making Lavenza's story a lot longer than the others #this is the first time i came up with a horror story and this is the one i just thought of #Morgana x lavenza

[watermelonlovershigh]

Harry's Daughter Rose Get's Sick on the One Direction Tour Bus (singledad!harry)

AN: so i turned this Single Dad Harry & His Daughter Rose (journey through life) into a series where i'll write blurbs and maybe a one shot here and there. people seem to love this story so i'm happy to write for it.

This story contains: puking, child crying, comfort

{ singledad!harry - Prince Harry (2014 ish) - Rose age 2 }

word count: 1104

Rose wakes up sick to her little tummy on the One Direction tour bus and Harry cleans her up and all his bandmates help him out and clean up the mess she made with her sick.

On the tour bus, Harry and Rose usually shared a bunk. She's so small that it isn't a big issue. But tonight, Rose was attached to Niall. She fell asleep on Niall's chest when her bedtime rolled around and when they tried to move her, she's just start whining and crying. So Niall told Harry that Rose could just sleep with him in his bunk for the night and Harry agreed.

Harry did think it was weird that Rose had been cranky through-out the day, but didn't put too much thought into it. She is going through her terrible two's after all. But when he's suddenly being woken up by a loud scream coming from Niall's bunk, her moodiness correlating to her terrible two's goes flying out the window. Something else is wrong.

Harry is quick to jump from his bunk and barley has time to let his eyes adjust to the lights before Niall screams, "Harry, oh God. Come ere'." Thinking Rose might be seriously hurt or worse, Harry paces to Niall's bunk and immediately is hit with the stench of vomit. Then he sees Niall gagging into his bare arm. Getting a closer look, Harry sees puke all over Niall's sheets and running down his left arm.

As soon as Rose sees her daddy, she screams a heartbreaking cry, "Daddy, daddy, daddy." making grabby hands. Harry's little girl is covered in her own sick and shook up from the entire experience presumably.

Without second thoughts, Harry reaches into Niall's bunk and lifts up Rose, not caring if he gets covered in throw up. "Shh my love, you alright? Was your tummy just hurting?" he soothingly asks his daughter, but she just tries to burry herself deeper into her daddy's body and wails a loud cry that has Louis, Liam, and Zayn awaking and coming out their bunks to see the commotion.

"Mate, why is she crying for?" Louis asks in a Donny accent but soon sees the scene in front of him and realizes Rose has just been sick.

When Liam sees what's happening, he's quick to say, "Harry, take her to the toilet (the bathroom) and I'll clean up her vomit." Liam has always been the responsible one and the one who does the jobs no one else is willing to do, so cleaning up a bit of sick isn't a problem for him. He's cleaned all of his bandmates sick at some point or another so he can handle a two year olds puke without any problems.

Zayn on the other hand is quick to get back into his bunk, not being able to handle throw up. Just like Niall except Niall got unlucky and was the one who got puked on. That's why Louis goes over to Niall and is trying to comfort him because he's trying not to be sick himself.

Harry walks into the mini bus bathroom holding Rose to his chest and shuts the door, giving them a bit of privacy. He tries to set her on the top of the counter but she refuses, grasping tightly around his neck. "Baby, is your tummy still hurting? I need to know so I can help you."

Rose lifts her head from Harry's shoulder and mumbles, "Yeah, it wrilly hurts daddy." Harry takes that as a sign to go in front of the toilet and kneel down, holding Rose over the bowl. She lets out a few grunting gags before expelling more puke out her tiny mouth. Harry winces at the sight because he hates to see his daughters so sick. It breaks his heart.

Out of the bathroom, Louis has helped Niall clean the vomit off his arm and side, in the mini kitchen on the bus. And Liam has striped Niall's sheets and disinfected the walls and what puke that got on the floor. Zayn is laying in his bunk on his phone, trying to distract himself from what's happening around him.

Rose finally stops throwing up and Harry strips her clothes off, as well as his own (he left his boxers on), and stepped into the buses shower. He cleans them off and removes all puke that got on their bodies. The whole time, Rose wouldn't let go of her daddy. Almost as if he would disappear any second which is far from the truth.

Liam brings them two towels and searches through Roses' luggage to find her some clean sleep ware. He also brings Harry some dry boxers and has managed to put new sheets on Niall's bed. By the time Harry and Rose leave the bus bathroom all fresh and clean, everyone else was settling back into their designated bunks, ready to resume their sleep.

When Harry approaches his bunk, he sees where Liam was kind enough to leave a bucket on the floor beside his bed incase Rose needed to be sick again. Harry slips into his bunk with his daughter Rose to his chest, and holds her into his body heat. Her eyes slowly shuts by the seconds that pass.

When fully laying back down, Harry whispers to his baby girl, "If your tummy starts hurting again, please tell daddy alright. I have a bucket you can use. I love you my darling."

She mutters back, "Wove you." not being able to pronounce her L's very well. Harry gives her wet, clean curls a kiss and rubs his hand over her bony back, hoping to help her fall asleep easier. The covers are pulled up over their bodies and her tiny face is stuffed into Harry's shoulder length, damp hair.

The next day when they awoke, Rose was fine and they never figured out why she got sick in the night. Harry thanked his bandmates and friends for helping out with his daughter because he knows for a fact he wouldn't be able to have done it alone. Single parenting is hard, but even harder when you're on a tour bus and traveling all the time. They always step in and help with Rose when needed and he couldn't me more grateful for the people in his life.

(just edited this at 2 am so sorry for mistakes. this is my last fic before i leave my house to evaluate for the hurricane, so peace out and enjoy)

Masterlist (regular smut, fluff & sicfics)

My Favorite Harry Styles Fics MASTERLIST

Harry Styles Series One Shots Masterlist (for my one shots that go with a series universe)

Harry Styles blurbs, concepts, & short stories Masterlist- (short writing with little to no dialog)

#harry styles #harrystyles #harry styles blurb #singledad!harry #one direction #niall horan #louis tomlinson #liam payne #zayn #one direction tour bus #harry and rose #harry styles series #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles sicfic #sicfic #fluff

[vibing-and-writing]

kidnapping scenarios

A/N: hey! so one day I was super inspired and wanted to write a series of scenarios with genshin impact characters.... but i feel like if I’ve lost some inspiration for it so I decided I’m just gonna post the two I have finished!! also these are both suuuppper self indulgent but i had a lot of fun wrtiting these!! the traveler is also gender neutral ;3 i’ve never written for Kaeya so I hope its not too ooc. as always feedback is appreciated! hope you enjoy ;0

Summary: A drabble based on how Diluc and Kaeya would react if they found out you got kidnapped by Abyss Mages! 

Warnings: | Kaeya: a lil angsty, depiction of a panic attack | Diluc: N/A |

- Diluc  Ragnvindr-

It was supposed to be a simple commission. “I’ll be back before sundown!” you yelled over your shoulder as you walked out of the tavern. 

“Sundown” his ass. 

Diluc had been waiting for you for four hours pacing around the tavern until he couldn’t take it anymore. “They’re a really good fighter,” he told himself, “they probably got lost again.” But the reassurance was in vain. The moon was high in the sky and there was no sign of you anywhere in Mondstat. Chugging the last bit of alcohol, Diluc picks up his weapon and packs some food for the road, and sets off to go find you himself. 

When he goes to your commission location, the only thing left is a demolished hilichurl village, parts of the huts aflame and sword marks up and down the archery towers. But he does notice one thing. It’s so minute, Diluc almost walked right over it. There is the faint elemental trace in a circular shape. An abyss mage. With their teleporting ability, it was probably easy for them to overwhelm you with hilichurls before trekking you off to some far off base. Diluc can feel the anger and disappointment coursing through him. Anger for how the Fatui could touch a hair on your precious head and being disappointed in himself for not looking for you sooner. He had failed as a protector of Modstadt’s people, and he’d burn anyone that gets in his way to find you. Hell has no fury like an angry Diluc and it only took him half an hour to track where they took you.

Sneaking behind the bushes, Diluc can see you tied by rope covered in ice, struggling to get free. The abyss mage’s voice is shrill and echoes through the camp of hilichurl minions. “What are you planning, traveler? You know you are not from this world.” Diluc can see you roll your eyes, your body shaking. “I already told you I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you answered, your voice unwavering but hoarse. Diluc props his sword up next to him from the bush. Your gaze snaps to the gleam in the bushes before moving back to the abyss mage. Luckily, the abyss mage doesn’t notice and shoves his staff near your throat. “Don’t play games with me, traveler. You know something and I’m willing to use violence to force it out of you.” Diluc can hear you chuckle even through the relief that flashes in your eyes. “If it’s violence you want, then that’s what you’ll get.”, you say, as Diluc launched himself at the abyss mage with a battle cry. Using his Pyro, he melts the rope off of your body and hands you a Sunsettia before yelling over the sound of battle. “Stay put! I’ll come get you when it’s safe.” The abyss mage and hilichurls run around the camp chaotically, not prepared for Diluc’s rage. 

By the time the fight ends, the camp is nothing but ash. You had stayed put like Diluc told you, munching on an apple you found while you waited for him to loot the camp. Diluc crouched next to you, his voice soft. “Are you okay?” Diluc asks, his hands reaching towards your face to rub your cheek. You give him a small smile, your voice raspy but still happy. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. Thanks for looking for me. Sorry I missed our date.” Diluc smiles, for the first time since you left this morning and plants a firm kiss on your forehead. After the range of emotions both you and Diluc had been through, the day had come to a peaceful resolution, as you walked hand in hand back towards Mondstast, safe and sound.

>< Kaeya Alberich ><

At this point, Kaeya just wants you back in his arms. 

He knew sending you into a dungeon, especially without him being there was a terrible idea. You had been sent to investigate a dungeon that had highly suspicious activity going on, and for the past three hours, he’d been pacing back and forth in front of the dungeon doors. To not make up feel incapable, he let you walk in on your own, sending you off with flirty words of encouragement. Now all he wants is to bust into the dungeon and whisk you away from this cruel world. 

Doing just that, Kaeya slams open the doors of the dungeon, his heavy footfalls echoing through the space. Any unlucky slime or hilichurl that gets in his way is graced with an icy glare, making quick work of the first rooms of the dungeon. But then something sparkly catches his eye. Picking it up, he notes it’s a piece of your favorite cape, and his heart starts to ache. When he first entered the dungeon, he held onto hope that you were just taking your time or you went adventuring, but this confirmed his fears. Staring at the scrap of fabric, his thoughts begin to spiral as he jumps to the worst scenarios. They’ve taken you to a distant nation and he can never save you. You’re being tortured and you’re alone and you’ve lost hope. You’re sitting in some fiery pit, your spirit and his care burning with you. Feeling his anxiety grow, he tries to do those breathing exercises you taught him, but he can see his own breath due to the temperature he created. Standing still for a moment, he remembers a distant conversation you had about this very instance. “I hope you know I’ll always try to save you,” he had told you that night, his voice resolute and determined. You giggled at his dramatics, your hands tracing his eye patch gently. “I know,” you answered simply. “Because I’d do the same.” Breathes evening out, Kaeya feels his anxiety ebb away, letting in a renewed sense of determination and simmering anger. They fucked with the wrong knight. Grasping his sword with resolve, Kaeya sets on his way to find his beloved and prays that the poor souls that hurt you beg for mercy because he doesn’t plan on giving them any.

The air in the dungeon is frigid, and even before you can see Kaeya you know he’s coming. Glancing at your tattered clothes, and knowing Kaeya as well as you do, you knew he would find you sooner or later. For a guy with an eye patch, he’s very observant. And you also know he knows how to make an entrance. The floor around the metal door keeping you captive freezes before shattering with a loud clang. Pieces of metal crumple to the floor before you see Kaeya’s silhouette. Slowly, walking in, you can see frozen tears gathered near his eye, as he grabs keys he got from who knows where and the cuffs around your wrists fall. Grabbing one of your hands, he brings it to his lips, as new tears spring from both your eyes. “I told you I’d save you,” Kaeya says, his voice cracking with emotion. Wiping his tears with shaky hands, your smile lights up the dark cell. “I always knew.”

#genshin impact #genshin kaeya #genshin diluc #diluc x reader #genshin impact kaeya #kaeya #kaeya x traveler #genshin impact diluc #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact drabble #genshin imagines #diluc genshin impact #kaeya genshin impact #drabble #genshin traveler #kaeya x reader #kaeya x gn reader #gender neutral reader

[mandoalorian]

I Believe In Love [Maxwell Lord x F!Reader] — Twelve: Family

Summary: When you find your calling to leave Themyscira, you venture out to the World of Man with intentions of helping and healing a very specific person’s relationship with his son. You’ve heard his voice before, but only in dreams. You’ve felt his pain and anguish and you’ve never been able to relate to anything more. But things don’t come easy for you, and they certainly don’t come easy for him either. [This series contains spoilers for WW84 and is my interpretation of what happens after the movie ends].

Warnings: THE FINAL CHAPTER! very emotional, new beginnings, bullying mention, poverty mention, abuse mention, allusions to pregnancy.

Word count: 3000>

REBLOGS APPRECIATED.

Masterlist 

Previous - Chapter Twelve - Epilogue [coming soon!]

“I don’t know if I could do it,” Maxwell sighed, pacing around in anxious circles. He looked different, in his denim jeans and khaki-green cable knit sweater. It made a change from the oversized powersuits he once donned. Alistair was sat at the dining room table, colouring in, and Max was having a nervous breakdown about getting his haircut. “I’ve had the blonde in for so long.”

You smiled, running your fingers through his shaggy and unstyled hair. When it wasn’t perfectly coiffed, it was wavy and glossy, and smelled distinctly like the freshest green apples. “It’ll be okay. Think of it as washing away all the terrible things that went on in the past and starting anew. Like… turning over a new leaf.” 

You made a very good point. Maxwell knew he had to suck it up and just do it. It would be okay. He didn’t have to be Max Lord anymore, and he didn’t have this television persona to live up to. His main focus now was just being a father, and that’s all that mattered. All he needed to be, was himself. Maxwell Lorenzano.

“Daddy look!” Alistair smiled, waving around the piece of paper he’d spent the morning drawing on. It was stained slightly from his breakfast, and crinkled in the corners for where he’d applied slightly too much pressure when colouring, but all-in-all, it was perfect. Maxwell took the artwork and looked closely at it. Another typical family portrait of you, Alistair and Max. But this time, Maxwell was doting brown hair, and it reminded him of his younger days when he was first starting out as a businessman. “This is how you’ll look when you come home from the salon!”

“Wow Alistair, I love it!” Maxwell praised, unable to contain his grin. He held the portrait to his face and showed it off. “What do you think?” he asked you. “Do you think I’ll look good with the brown hair?” 

You giggled and nodded your head, before pressing the palm of your hand flat against Maxwell’s chest and brushing your lips against his. “You’ll look so handsome, I’m sure.”

“Ew!” Alistair cried, pulling the paper from his father’s hand as you kissed him softly on the lips. The curve of Max’s nose nudged against yours and he laughed at his son’s reaction.

“Alright,” you said, pointing your finger. “You better go. Don’t want to miss your appointment.”

Maxwell nodded and took a deep breath. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” he announced.

The second Maxwell left the house, your stomach began to twist. You’d been living at Lord manor for a month now but truthfully, it felt like a lifetime. It felt like you had always been there. You were adjusting to your new life pretty well, but this morning sickness that you had started to get was an unwelcome experience. Amazon’s never got ill, so this was brand new to you, and you weren’t enjoying it one bit.

You rubbed your stomach and took a sip of the glass of water that you’d been nursing. Sliding down to sit next to Alistair, you watched as he finished his drawing, adding a few final perfections. Once it was done, you hung it to the refrigerator and praised him for his hard work.

“Ali, why don’t you grab your shoes and we’ll have a walk down to the Smithsonian?” you smiled, grabbing your jacket that was hanging over the kitchen door.

“Ooh! Is there a new exhibition?” He enquired curiously, hopping onto his feet and fastening his shoe laces.

“I don’t think so,” you admitted sheepishly. “I have to go meet with some friends.”

Taking the bus was a new experience for both you and Alistair. Joe, Maxwell’s driver, would normally drive Alistair around to and from places. But not today. The bus was slightly smelly and the seats were sticky, but by the looks of it, Alistair was having the time of his life. He pointed out the window, grinning, and talked to you about all the different D.C. landmarks the both of you passed as you were driven into the city centre. He might have only been six years old, but that was six years of living in the world of man. You’d only been here for a month, and so Alistair could teach you a lot. 

Driving past the park, Alistair gasped, and shuffled into your body. “That’s the park where we first met,” Alistair pointed. You narrowed your eyes as you took in the sight of tall green trees and shrubbery. He was right. “Do you remember that day? You were wearing an awesome superhero costume like something out of my comic books. And you wore a tiara, and I asked if you were a princess. And you scared my bullies away, and helped me look for dad.”

“I remember.” you smiled, ruffling Alistair’s dark hair.

You remembered asking Alistair what his father looked like, and the only thing the boy could say was ‘strong, cool, and the best dad in the world’. Counting your lucky stars, you were so thankful you had found your forever family. You had come so far from that moment.

“Did you ever tell daddy… about those bullies in the park?” Alistair asked you hesitantly, his voice suddenly small and timid.

You pulled off him and looked him in the eyes. “No. Why?”

Alistair paused for a moment and glanced back out the window. “I was afraid he’d be disappointed in me.”

Your heart shattered in your chest. “Ali,” you said quietly, tears threatening to prick your eyes. “Your father could never, ever be disappointed in you. You know that, yes?”

Alistair nodded his head silently.

“He loves you so much,” you continued. “And the whole bullying thing… I think he’d understand better than anyone else.”

You remembered all the visions you had of Maxwell, even seeing him as a child at one point. You remembered him wearing rugged clothes that were too small for him and how he was picked on for his broken shoes. 

“Really? You think so?” Alistair asked.

“I know so,” you confirmed, pressing a kiss into Alistair’s hair. “Those bullies will never amount to anything if they continue doing what they’re doing. But you are so much better than them. Stronger. Your power lies in your heart, and in the truth, and in love.”

Alistair smiled. “You’re a real hero, aren’t you?”

“We’re all heroes.”

————

Yourself, Maxwell and Alistair loved trips to the Smithsonian. Diana always organised special access for the three of you, to go after hours when the entire museum was empty. Alistair was admiring the fish in the aquarium, when you noticed Barbara and Diana, and waved them over.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today.” Diana smiled.  

“It was sort of an impulse thing,” you explained. “Uhm, actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

You pulled Diana to one side and left Barbara with Alistair. “Remember how you said ‘I owe you one’, since I like… got your girlfriend to renounce her wish and kinda helped you save the world by destroying the second dreamstone?” you grinned, trying to hold back a laugh.

Diana rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “What are you plotting?”

“Max has been… worried, to say the least. We’re going to have to sell Black Gold and it’s a real shame because-- he worked so hard on it. We have some money and well, I haven’t exactly ran this by him yet but I was thinking about investing what we do have into the Smithsonian. Just like what Maxwell promised to do in the first place.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Diana sighed. “The gemology department is doing just fine.”

You shook your head, your smile only growing. “No Di, that’s not what I was getting at. How would you feel about… expanding the gemology department?”

“I’m not quite sure I follow…”

“I’ve heard Barbara talk about how there’s a lack of space to facilitate all the rocks and stones the Smithsonian keeps bringing in. She has a real fear that the entire paleontology department could be shut down and replaced with something else.” You sighed, running your fingers through your hair.

“That’s true…”

“So what if we use the Black Gold building as an extension for the Smithsonian, and have it specialise in all these fancy rocks and gems and stones. We could transport everything over and then we could utilize the leftover funds that Maxwell has, to keep all the palaeontologists and geologists employed. Hell, with a whole new building, we could even create more jobs for people. It would also mean that we wouldn’t have to fire Max’s old employees and-- Oh Di, I just know Max would love it. He really does have a passion for gemology. And his son, Ali… he has an interest too.”

“So I heard,” Diana rolled her eyes, but, to be frank, she liked what you were getting at. An expansion wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing… “It’s a big responsibility though, and it seems you haven’t even spoken to Maxwell about it. You would get funding from the Smithsonian as an institution, yes, but… it would still be Max’s business. Do you really think he could handle that? After what happened to his last business?”

“He’s smart,” you assured her. “And he’s a good businessman. He knows all these things I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Last time he just got unlucky. But this, this could really be something great. We have the building, and the passion, and enough money to get started. Please Diana… I know you could make this happen. Please.”

Diana spent a moment pondering the possibilities before shrugging her shoulders in defeat. “Alright,” She sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

You grinned and squealed excitedly, wrapping your arms around your half sister and squeezing her tight. “Thank you Di!” She laughed and rubbed your back before you pulled off her. “Oh, and Di… there’s one more thing.”

Diana tilted her head and gazed at you with fresh bewilderment. Looking around the museum to make sure no one was around to hear what you had to say, you leaned into the Amazon and whispered a confession you’d been keeping to yourself for the past month. 

————

Maxwell sat in the chair and frowned upon seeing his reflection in the mirror. “What can I do for you?” asked the stylist as she smacked her lips on a piece of gum. Max wasn’t sure if he could really bring himself to do this, until he remembered your words. This was ‘turning over a new leaf’-- a new start and fresh beginnings. 

“Uh, a trim please,” Maxwell requested before taking a shaky exhale. It was now or never, he just had to take the leap. “No, that’s not everything,” he sighed. “Could you perhaps take the blonde… out of my hair?” The question left his lips with an air of unsurity. Could one even do that? Take the colour out of hair?

“You want the colour stripped?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest. Maxwell supposed that was one way of putting it.

“Yes, I do.” he confirmed.

The stylist processed Maxwell’s words for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. “As you wish.”

As the stylist wrapped Max’s shaggy golden locks into foil, he closed his eyes. He’d come so far since the whole dreamstone debacle. His whole life had been a rollercoaster of up and down events but now, finally, things were evening out for him -- in the best way possible. He’d fallen in love and secured his family and home. The only thing he was mildly worried about, was the issue with Black Gold. But he knew that he’d somehow figure it out, especially now that he had you by his side to help him.

He’d always seen himself as an independent man. He fought hard to be as successful. He escaped his hometown, his abusive father, he ran away from poverty and was discriminated against by upper class white businessmen who told him he could never amount to anything. He proved all of them wrong. Because now, he had everything he could ever want. He didn’t need stacks of money or material possessions when he had you and Alistair. Maybe he wasn’t as independent as he once thought he was. Maybe, just maybe, he liked the company of others. He liked having you and his son around.

In his fight for wealth and success, he’d lost everything that mattered the most. But most importantly, he had lost himself. Maxwell swore that he’d never let that happen again.

As the stylist removed the silver foil from his hair, Maxwell nervously anticipated the result. His once bottle blonde hair was now a chocolate brown colour, and it reminded him distinctly of his youth. Max couldn’t help but feel like he looked younger, and he wasn’t going to complain about that. 

He just hoped you liked it as much as he did.

————

“I just don’t understand why mommy is taking so long,” Alistair grumbled as he and Barbara waited outside the ladies restroom. “And why did auntie Diana have to go into the toilet with her?”

Barbara stifled a laugh. “You’re inpatient, just like your dad.”

Impatience must’ve run in the family because you were sitting on the toilet seat, tapping your food as anxiety flooded your body. You didn’t expect to be this nervous. You’d wanted a child for so long -- in fact, your whole life to be exact. But now that there was a chance of it actually happening, you were beyond terrified. Maybe it was the fact Maxwell didn’t know about your symptoms, but you knew better than to feel alone. You were never going to be alone.

“How long left?” you asked Diana, who checked her wristwatch. It was an antique from the early 1900’s, something very special and something she kept very close to her heart.

“It should be ready now.” she told you, handing you the stick you had just peed on.

“I don’t want to look.” you squirmed, covering your face with your hands.

“Wow,” Diana hummed, her jaw parting slightly when she took in the results. 

“Wh-- what is it?” you asked, nervously.

“You’re pregnant.”

————

When Maxwell came home, you were shocked to say the least. His brown hair was absolutely gorgeous, and it suited him better than you’d expected. The deep shade was identical to the colour in his sparkling eyes. Jokingly, he tossed his hair and you let out a laugh.

“I was right,” you giggled, running your fingers through his locks. “So handsome.”

“I love it daddy!” Alistair cheered.

“Thanks buddy,” Maxwell grinned. “I like it too.”

Taking a deep breath, you took Max’s hand and pulled him into the living room, shutting the door behind you. It was quiet in there -- the perfect place to tell Maxwell your news. It had been a nostalgic day, and even standing in the living room reminded you of the time Max first brought you home. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked you, slightly concerned. But your warm smile soon eased him. You felt the need to wrap your arms around him and envelop him into a hug. Max had taken a big step today, and you were proud of him, but now it was your moment. It was now or never.

Harnessing every ounce of confidence within you, you took his hands and looked him in the eye. “Max, I’m pregnant.”

Max’s brown eyes widened and he was completely lost for words. “I-- you-- you’re--”

“Yes.” you smiled, taking his hands and placing them on your stomach.

His shocked expression turned into an elated grin as he processed the good news. “You’re really--”

“I am.” you confirmed.

You didn’t think you’d ever seen Maxwell so happy in your life. He wrapped his arms around you and held you so tight, like he was afraid to let you go. He swore in that moment he would never leave you, or his growing family, ever again.

This was it for him.

This was the start of Maxwell Lorenzano’s new life.

————

THE END.

————

Author’s Note: “I won’t cry” she says while sobbing into her Google Docs document. Thank you all for reading I Believe In Love. It’s a story I have wanted to share with you since I saw WW84 in the theatre, and I just can’t believe it’s finally over. This fic will always have a special place in my heart. The themes and plot points mean so much to me, but not only that, I’ve had the most amazing feedback on this fic and I will honestly cherish that for the rest of my life. I poured my heart and soul into writing I Believe In Love and it honestly one of my biggest comforts. I want you all to know that an epilogue is coming and if you have any requests for these characters I have created, feel free to send them my way. I adore my Amazon Goddess!Reader and I would absolutely love to continue their story at some point in the future. If you’ve followed me on this journey over the past four months, all I can really say is thank you. I love you so so much.

————

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I Believe In Love taglist: [in the replies!]

#maxwell lord #max lord #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #maxwell lord x reader #max lord x reader #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #ww84 #pedro pascal smut #ibil

[preciousthingsareprecious]

In Line at the Prize Counter

So this fic was originally intended to be part of Dick and Damian week, but life intervened and I didn’t end up finishing it anywhere near on time. That said, I found it too much fun to write and didn’t want it to live forever in WIP form. So, I hope you all enjoy this adventure featuring one Very Done Damian as he’s forced to rescue Dick from a Bomp n’ Stomp. 

Characters: Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne

Words: 4,965

Summary:  When Dick Grayson is kidnapped, Robin is the only one who really believes he's being held at the Bomp n' Stomp entertainment center. So he rolls up his sleeves, and heads into the dreaded building to rescue his brother from the likes of ball pits, twisted slides, and yes even go karts.

AO3 Link

~

Of all the places in the world Damian Wayne expected to walk into, a Bomp n’ Stomp was not one of them. In fact, he had argued viciously against ever entering the indoor playscape when his brother had suggested they spend a Saturday there.

To make matters worse, in an attempt to convince Damian of it’s legitimacy, Richard had called it an arcade.

An arcade .

The nerve of the man to sully that term by applying it to this ball pit filled, gum ridden, dirty carpeted, sticky establishment. A true arcade, like Shelly’s JoyCon, home of Cheese Viking, would never allow it’s door handles to leave a strangely greasy film on Damian’s gloves as he moved his search from a back room back out into the main area.

The inside smelled of old pizza, spilled soda, and that strange almost chalky scent of fog machines. It was, in a word, disgusting. Damian felt a pull at the bottom of his boot every few steps, like the carpet was coated in something sticky. He wrinkled his nose.

No, this was nothing like his favorite arcade.

Granted. It was also closed for renovations, with the promise of things like all new games, flooring, and yes even door handles. Still, Damian thought nothing could quite erase the smell of greasy pizza. That was a scent that stuck.

He shook his head. He needed to stop thinking about greasy pizza and continue working on why he was truly here. Some odious criminal had thought it a good idea to kidnap Richard on his way into Gotham.

It would not be stood for. Not someone snatching his brother. Nor holding him up in a place as terrible as this. To top things off, whoever had taken Richard had deprived both he and Damian of a perfectly excellent evening that should have been spent at the Observatory.

Damian sniffed and picked his way past skee ball games, an overly large wheel with inane words like “Double Prize Winner!!” in bold peeling letters on it, and the playscapes namesake, a Bomp n’ Stomp game.

At the Bomp n’ Stomp, he stopped to peer down at the curious game. It was obviously broken. The machine was little more than a garishly painted box with various holes covering the top. Out of one peeked a chipped plastic facsimile of a mole. Hanging off the machine were two objects strung on cords that looked ready to snap at any moment. The first was a toy hammer, it’s fabric ripped and leaking stuffing, the other a boot attached to a stick.

“Tt.” Damian discounted it and looked back up.

Whoever thought a game designed around attacking moles was a good idea surly must be a criminal.

He’d neared the end of the ‘arcade’ portion of the building and was entering a larger more open space. The carpet changed from soiled red to blue spotted tile. At the change, the ceiling rose at least a second story above him, towering high enough to fit a series of large structures.

To one side of this new area rested a climbing wall. It, out of everything Damian had seen so far, actually looked interesting. Even from here he could see portions that might make for a mild challenge in climbing.

Next there was a multistory play set filled with slides, jungle gyms, large netted areas he supposed children were expected to crawl through, and so many tunnels it would put most professional guinea pig enclosures to shame. A sign outside the entrance indicated that somewhere towards the center of the structure rested a huge ball pit.

Damian really, truly, hoped Richard had not been placed within that. If the rest of the Bomp n’ Stomp was sticky and dirty, the ball pit must be truly foul. He could not even imagine what had happened within it or what--he grimaced-- fluids could have coated the orbs.

He turned to the last attraction, a small go kart area. Perhaps the climbing wall was not the only redeeming quality to the establishment. Provided of course that the carts actually moved quickly.

So far, he had seen no hint of Richard. His brother had not been hidden behind a garishly colored game, and he did not seem to be dangling from the climbing wall. After a brief examination (and admiration of the engines on the small cars) Damian determined that his brother was either being held in one of the staff areas indicated by the back wall or-- He glanced at the huge play place.

After a moment’s hesitation, Damian squared his shoulders. As detestable as it would be to crawl around in there, he would do it if it meant rescuing Richard from being trapped inside. He could not imagine being held within the structure longer than a few minutes. It would be torture indeed.

The truly strange thing about his investigation so far had been that no one had attempted to stop him. There were no guards at the front, nor the back, and the building was empty of signs of life. The power was on, with some games sluggishly lit or playing bites of music, but Damian had not seen anyone besides himself.

He considered this as he made his way to the entrance to the play structure. He knew for a fact that Richard was here, even if Father did not.

Damian pushed the plastic draping away from the domed entrance and stepped inside the structure. He was surrounded by net, his feet no longer on solid ground, but pressed into some kind of foam. Ahead of him was a rope ladder that looked designed to be as unstable as possible. He sighed and began to climb.

Of the three possible locations Richard could have been taken to the Bomp n’ Stomp had been deemed least likely by his Father due to the fact that it was not altogether abandoned. While, over the weekend no one would be inside, the possibility of a worker coming in was high enough Father had assumed any capable kidnapper would discount it.

The other two locations, an empty ice cream parlor, and an abandoned junk yard, had been deemed higher priorities and dangers. But something had told Damian that the Bomp n’ Stomp was the right location, and he had argued that it should be checked out.

So while his family was split between the other two locations, Father had reluctantly allowed Damian to check out his hunch, promising to meet up with him after they'd cleared their own locations.

The ladder exited onto a platform made entirely of the netting Damian had seen from outside the playhouse structure. Tentative, he pressed a hand into the thick black cording, and when it gave less than he’d assumed it would, he climbed atop it.

Balance was a tricky thing on the strange floor, and Damian could not help but think the League would benefit from installing something of the kind in one of their training rooms. It turned a normal floor into something to be treaded on with care or risk getting a toe caught between the net. If he was unlucky he might end up tumbling to the ground or twisting his ankle. Damian couldn’t imagine it filled with children.

He was keeping his ears open for any sounds of either Richard or the kidnappers. From the letter and accompanying picture Father had received there were at least three men holding Richard, but there were sure to be more.

Father had immediately identified the men as being part of a relatively new gang in Gotham. Their motive was both money and an attempt at scaring Bruce Wayne into cooperating with them in the future.

Damian scoffed at their foolishness as he hopped off one platform and onto another. His eyes went wide as, instead of the net he’d grown used to, the floor rolled under his feet.

He bit back a yelp as his feet slipped forward, and he went tumbling, hands pinwheeling out beside him in an attempt to catch his balance. He stumbled back, then forward, then one leg was in the air, followed by the other and Damian was staring up at the faded yellow ceiling of the play place.

For a moment, he lay there blinking up at it. Wondering about the strange flatness, and remembering this thing had another level above him. If someone was above him, would he see imprints of feet? Sections weighed down by a kid stepping over it?

It did not matter. What did, was finding Richard and escaping this cursed place.

Damian felt the floor under him, and realized it was not a single solid piece, but four cylinders that each rolled on their own. Whoever had designed this place was a madman. Putting a trap like this in a place where anyone could fall could only spell injury on a normal day.

He grunted, and carefully pushed himself up, moving off the shifting section and onto firm foam again. Well, not quite firm. It sagged with every step Damian took, but it was far better than the rolling part or the net.

The next hurdle came when Damian reached the tunnels. He had seen them of course, out looking up at all this. Plastic, colored brightly, sometimes one segment a different color altogether than the last, little windows dotting the sides. But he had hoped he’d find Richard before having to crawl through one.

He crouched and stepped inside. After a few moments he realized he was going to have to actually crawl. He wrinkled his nose as he pressed palm to plastic and began moving. At one point his palm stuck and after a moment, he pulled it up to reveal gum pressed into the green of his glove. Richard had better be thankful for what Damian was putting himself through to rescue him.

The space was tight, and as a defensible position it was terrible. If a fight took place within the tubes it would not be good. Even Damian, as small as he was, would have a hard time maneuvering within them. He’d have a better chance of winning a fight in some of the Batcave’s tighter spaces.

They were also impossible to be silent in. Every inch forward created squeaking or creaking or the echoing sound of a knee hitting against plastic with a series of thumps that were anything but rhythmic. Any chance of silently finding his brother was dashed a minute after he entered them.

Once Damian realized that, he no longer bothered trying to move slowly through. Instead he hurried, around turns, down dips, and up tiny plastic hills. He was thankful for the extra padding over his knees and the leather of his gloves. If not for them he was certain his palms would be red and irritated and his knees bruised.

Damian was in such a hurry to get through the tunnels that he missed the slide. One moment his hand was pressed into plastic, the next it fell into nothing. His momentum was such that he’d assumed it was another dip, a temporary fall.

But no.

His next hand hit nothing, with the other was still in air, and then Damian found himself staring down the tube of a slide, and hurtling down it face first. It twisted, and turned, and at one point his chin caught on a portion of the plastic that was raised. Damian winced, feeling the plastic scratch his skin, sure he’d be wiping blood away if he ever exited this terrible contraption.

At last, he burst out. He got one good look at a space enclosed by netting and more slide exits before he saw what was below him. To his growing horror, the ball pit waited. Staring at the pit in bullet time Damian decided this whole place was ridiculous. A death trap made for children . Even Nygma could not come up with something so fiendish.

Nothing Damian could do would stop his crash. Balls of yellow, red, blue, and green exploded around him, bursting up and into the air even as his trajectory took him down, deep into the pit. He was drowning, and yet not.

After a moment he realized he’d stopped moving. The balls around him had coalesced into a kind of solid form that still allowed him to move. It took some work, but eventually Damian righted himself and managed to semi-swim upward, kicking off against the ground before shooting back up. And at last, his head popped out into clear air.

“Robin!?” The surprised voice came from his left.

Damian shifted, careful not to sink again, “Richard!” he cried, then corrected himself, he was in uniform and Richard was a civilian. Even here, the kidnappers might be watching.

“Mr. Grayson, I am here to rescue you.”

Richard actually snorted, an aborted version of what would have been a startled laugh. He was half buried in the ball pit himself. His torso and head above the sea of color. Rope was tied around what Damian could see of his chest, presumably holding his arms back, but otherwise he looked fine.

It was a miracle Damian hadn’t plowed right into his brother during his wild exit from the slide. He’d landed a foot or so away from him, close to the middle of the pit. The problem was, figuring out how to get both himself and Richard out.

Damian glanced around the enclosed space holding the pit. He counted four slides at various sides of the netting, and two rope ladders leading up. One to another tunnel, and the other to what looked like a real ledge.

“So, Mr. Robin , what’s the plan?” Richard asked, his tone far too delighted with their situation.

A scowl crossed Damian’s face, “Do not patronize me. It is your fault we are in this mess at all. Do you know how unsanitary this all is? From the pit to those cursed tunnels. Even the door was sticky.”

Richard gave him a patient smile, “But it’s not all bad right?”

“Tt. It has been horrendous. I do not know how you have survived.” Damian said, and began wading over to his brother’s side.

It was difficult to push through the pit, but he found that thankfully, the closer he got to an edge, the higher the ground under him was. It went from almost nonexistent, to high enough he could stand on his toes beside Richard. It was not ideal, but at least he was no longer at risk of being swallowed whole.

“There has to be at least one redeeming quality about this place.” Richard continued, “Even Robin must have liked something the old Bomp n’ Stomp has to offer. Maybe one of the games?”

“Nothing.” Damian answered, defiant even as he thought of the go karts and climbing wall, “Especially not the games. This place is childish, Richard. Childish and demeaning, and even you would not stoop so low as to drag me here.” he ranted, forgetting that he was Robin with a civilian and not Damian and his brother.

His brother’s smile was full of delight now, “You protest too much. I bet at least one thing caught your eye.”

“I said nothing.” Damian declared again, and sending balls flying, “Now come on, we do not have time to waste speaking of such moronic things.”

Richard cleared his throat, “Uh, Robin, aren’t you forgetting about something?”

Damian turned to see his brother shrug, plastic balls rolling away from him, and Damian caught sight of the ropes still binding his brother.  

Fire lit hit his cheeks. He swallowed down the embarrassment and moved again to hastily slice at the ropes holding Richard’s arms to his sides. Even in his rush, he slowed as the blade neared his brother, the night would only be worse if he accidentally hurt him.

The ropes fell away easily, and soon Richard was massaging his wrists and stretching his arms up into the sky, “That feels great, thanks, Baby Bat.”

Damian ignored the nickname, and Richard’s attempt to reach out and ruffle his hair. He ducked and turned towards the ladder by the platform, “Come along, I would like to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

Richard hummed, “Yeah, I have no idea when those guys will be back, so haste is probably a good thing. Unless you already took them out?”

“The building was empty when I entered.”

Damian scrambled out of the pit and up onto the ladder. He climbed up, only to realize Richard had not followed him. When he turned to frown at his brother, he could see the man had stopped at the ladder, his eyes focused on the rungs.

“Richard?” he asked, voice quiet.

“I’m fine, just a bit dizzy. I’ve been sitting there a while, my arms and legs are tingly and just waking up.”

“What else is wrong.” Damian did not ask, but demanded the answer.

His brother shrugged, “I might have sprained my ankle when they tossed me in?”

Damian nodded, assessing the situation.

“Can you climb?”

If it were Damian in Richard’s shoes, he’d power through the ache, but he did not wish to press his brother into doing something he couldn’t. He could support Richard as they moved, and they could utilize a slide to exit this structure, but if he could not climb, getting him out of the pit might prove challenging.

Richard nodded, “I think so.”

He placed his hands on the rungs and started up. It was not an overly high ladder, but even so, Richard made it a few rungs before he paused wincing.

“Here.” Damian said.

He knelt down and reached out for his brother, “I will pull you up.”

Richard gave him a look that could only be described as incredulous. Damian glared at him in return.

“I can handle lifting you a short distance. Push off with your good foot and let us get this over with.”

After another moment of hesitation, Richard reached up and took one of Damian’s hands. His other, he kept pressed to the bars for leverage. Damian pulled as Richard pushed himself up. Below him the ladder wiggled a threat. However, he managed to grab hold of Damian’s other hand with a tight squeeze.

Richard was heavy, but together and with another awkward step onto the ladder, Damian managed to help drag him up. For a moment, they sat together looking at each other.

“Well.” Richard said, “I guess we should keep going?”

Damian nodded, “Indeed. I believe there is a slide exit in that direction.” he waved in the general area he remembered seeing one. At least he hoped it was there. His internal map of the structure felt a little turned around after his dive into the ball pit.

He helped his brother up, and they began moving through the rest of the structure. Damian stuck close to Richard, who insisted he didn’t need to lean on him yet. Still, he kept one eye on his brother, ready to assist if he showed the slightest sign of wavering.

They reached another area where solid panels switched to a rolled floor and Damian threw an arm out to stop their progress.

“Careful, that part can be deceptive.” he said, pointing down at them, “Allow me to  walk you over them, so you do not injure your ankle further.”

Richard had an odd look on his face, a smile that seemed as if it hid another emotion, but Damian wasn’t going to worry about his brother’s reaction to his protectiveness. He always seemed to blow things like that out of proportion anyway.

They traversed the trap easily, and had just about reached the slide when a question that had been bugging Damian burst to the surface.

“Why were you in that ball pit? Surely there was an easier place to hold you.”

“Apparently, I talk too much.” Richard chuckled, “In truth, I was seeing if I could irritate them into letting me go.”

Damian couldn’t stop a surprised laugh at that, “It does not seem to have worked.”

Richard shrugged, “It was worth a try, it’s worked in the past.”

At last they reached the slide.

“I will go down first, so I can look for trouble and assist you if you have any problems.”

This time, Damian’s trip down a slide was a controlled one. It was a not altogether unpleasant experience sliding at a quick speed, and turning round and round in a spiral.

He couldn’t help but think back to watching Father, back when the man had lost his memory, playing with children on a large playground. A pang of want, not as strong as then, lodged in his chest. He tried to swallow it back as he popped out. Landing on his feet before he hurried forward to get out of the way.

Damian turned his attention away from lost memories and onto the rest of the Bomp n’ Stomp’s interior. His eyes ran from the go karts, paused at the entrance to the arcade portion, and moved over to the climbing wall on the far side of the room. Still empty.

“You may come down, it is clear.” he called up the slide. His voice echoed slightly up the plastic tube, sounding a little hollow and odd.

“Yeah!” Richard cried, his voice bouncing loudly down to Damian.

He could hear his brother swish and bump down the slide as he traversed it, the plastic rumbling as he reached the end. When he came out, he stopped himself with his hands at the exit, and carefully pushed himself to his feet, grinning.

“I don’t care how much you hate these places, we’re coming back.” he declared.

Damian rolled his eyes.

Before he could respond, there was the sound of metal on concrete. He spun on his heel and turned as a large metal door labeled Staff Only rolled up to reveal four very angry looking men carrying guns. By some stroke of luck, they hadn’t noticed Dick or Robin yet.

“We’re leaving now.” Damian said, grabbing Richard’s hand.

He made to run back towards the exit, but Richard yelped, his hand staying behind Damian. He froze, and turned on his brother, eyes looking over him. Richard was wincing and Damian remembered the man’s ankle. It must be worse than he’d let on.

Damian cast his eyes around him for something to get them out of there safely. He stopped when he saw the go karts.

“Can you make it there?” He pointed at them.

Richard’s eyes lit up, “Yes. That’s a big yes.”

Just in case, Damian hooked an arm around Richard’s waist to help support him, and together they hurried at a not quite run for the go karts. Just as Damian was helping Richard over the barrier separating them from the karts he heard an angry yell.

He glanced up to see the men running towards them, a cacophony of voices yelling at them to stop. Damian knew they had moments before the shooting started. He shoved Richard into the nearest kart that had two seats, and ran around to fiddle with the exposed engine. His earlier examination had been brief, but enough to tell him that the karts had safety measures equipped to limit their speed. That would not do.

His fingers were fast and clever, even working on an engine he’d never worked with before. It was moments and he was throwing himself into the open chair. Thankfully, a key was in the ignition and Damian had the kart roaring to life after a moment.

Just as he revved the engine, the gunfire started.

Damian threw the kart to the side, thankful the area the karts were in was somewhat open, and made a large loop, letting the cart pick up speed as he moved.

“Robin--” Richard’s voice was a question, “Just what’s the plan here?”

They were roaring towards the plastic partitions they’d only just hopped over. Damian was confident they were flimsy enough to ram, especially at the speed they were going.

He grinned, “We are going through them. I would suggest ducking. I do not wish for you to get shot while we escape.”

“Damian,” his brother hissed, “There’s an opening to the outside behind us.”

“To an enclosed area. The walls are high there, we would be trapped. This is our best option.” He'd seen the area when entering the Bomp n' Stomp earlier.

Even as he spoke they were nearing the path of no return. The kart raced towards the partition, the men racing towards them. Damian pressed his foot harder against the pedal and then the pointed front of the go kart was slamming through the short plastic partition, breaking apart the multiple pieces that kept it together and sending them flying.

Damian could not help but grin as one piece caught a kidnapper in the side, sending him tumbling to the ground.

He wove the kart through the remaining three as they yelled and one of them got off a shot. The bullet pinged off the side of the kart.

“Whohoo!” Richard cheered as they blew past the last man and sped through the building.

Damian pulled them back into the part of the building filled with various small games. The kart shook as it shifted from tile to carpet. The sound it made changing from a flat rumble to something more muffled.  At the bump, Richard winced again. Damian frowned.

“We will be exiting soon.” Damian said by way of comfort.

He could hear the rumble of feet behind him, and even the sound of another go kart having been started. Damian snorted, unless they’d modified it, he and Richard still had the advantage. To make sure, he glanced behind him.

There was only one kart chasing them down, another two seater, with both seats filled. Unfortunately for them, it did seem to be running quickly. Damian swore as it began closing the distance between them. He threw himself back against the seat as the man who wasn’t driving leveled a gun at them and fired.

The bullet sped past them by a wide margin, but the danger was still there.

“Hold on.” he told his brother and pulled the cart around one of the games, twisting through the maze of Jurassic Park simulators and skee ball machines hoping they’d shake their pursuers.

“He’s still there.” Richard said, now taking Damian’s place in watching their backs.

“Lean back, you’ll get shot.” Damian hissed, “We need only make it out the front doors.”

Richard followed his lead, just in time as more shots rang out around them. Damian caught sight of Richard's worried expression out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t have time to turn to him. He kept the cart moving forward, dodging games left and right.

At last, the doors were in front of them. Damian prayed the cart would trigger the door’s automatic response. As they sped closer and closer he started to wonder what it would be like to just plow through those too.

Then they swung open and Damian and Dick burst through.

Behind them, Damian could still hear the squeal of the pursuing kart. That didn’t matter however, as Damian’s eyes lit on the Batmobile. Father was already out, Red Robin beside him. It took them a moment to understand the extent of the chaos Damian had dragged outside, but soon they were moving too.

Damian pulled the kart around them, and heard the distinctive pop pop of something exploding. The men in the kart behind them yelled with surprise, and the sound of the kart cut off with a sudden deafness.

Feeling safe, Damian pulled his foot off the gas, slowing his own kart and turning it to drive closer to Father’s car so Richard would not have to limp far.

Turned now, they could see the other kart coated in foam. One of Drake’s newest experiments, and a successful one at that.

As they stopped, Damian grinned over at Richard, “See. As I said, we only needed to make it outside.”

Richard was grinning, and Damian found himself relieved to realize his brother was fine. Their mad dash did not seem to have resulted in his injury.

They sat in the kart as Batman and Red Robin took care of the two men in the other kart, and then moved inside to deal with the other two goons.

Damian leaned his arms on the steering wheel and gave Richard a small smile.

Richard, leaned forward to mirror him, elbow bumping against Damian’s, “Admit it, you had fun coming through there to rescue me.”

Damian considered the thought for a moment, “Never.”

“Ha! I knew you did.” Richard sat up, delighted.  

“I said nothing of the like.”

“But your face did.”

“The go karts were acceptable.” Damian admitted.

Richard reached out and tugged Damian into a half hug, “Good, we’ll do go karts when we come back, and try the rock climbing wall. And I’ll win you enough tickets to get one of those giant stuffed bears.”

“Father could buy me one for less than it would take you to get those tickets.” Damian pointed out.

“That,” Richard said sternly, “is not the point. It will be a thank you, for the rescue and one of the most exciting nights I’ve had in a long time.”

Damian snorted, but leaned a little closer into his brother’s side. Watching as Batman and Red Robin led the remaining two men out of the building.

“I can accept that. I will allow you to bring me back to the Bomp ‘n Stomp when they reopen. Even if the doors are still sticky.”  

#Damian Wayne #Dick Grayson #Batfamily #fanfiction #humor #fluff #this one's just fluffy you guys #kidnapping #rescue #Damian is out of his depth but that's not stopping him #Dick is having a Great Time #Precious Posts

[shinygoku]

very intrigued to see what you think of Henry!!! ^v^ (character ask!)

Another day, another Big Green! (The others are Piccolo and Thunderbird 2 lmao)

First impression

"Green ver of that one big creepy dude" (Look, when I was Babby I saw a Gordon picture somewhere that minorly spooked me lmao)

Impression now

Ahh, Henry! In some ways, very much like Duck! Green, long nose, popular with the fans and I'm here like Yeah he's a good fixture of the series lol

Ok well, maybe I should disclaim that he's not one of my favourites, which is partly as I guess it's a bit hard to nail down his personality.

His, for lack of a better term, Illness Arc is fascinating and oddly Real for a series about machinery. Something's genuinely amiss with him, but the lack of a clear cause (at least, to the other engines, who presumably don't know he was built from stolen, incomplete plans and the logical issues that would arise from that) and his frequent complaints turn the other characters off wanting to hear about it, thinking he's exaggerating. Then the Welsh Coal stopgap is found! Then the very next story he has a horrible crash but it was a blessing in disguise because then he's rebuilt as a Black 5 and his health issues are gone forever! (ain't we envious of machines now?) Until Lazy Writer Disease sets in Meta-wise, but more on that later.

I think it's safe to say that it's Entry Level RWS Knowledge to know Awdry's frustrations with the character, and it is kind of hilarious how much he tried to write him out, and iirc Henry wound up with the most appearances and 'his' book has 5 stories instead of the uniform 4 for some reason. But it seems it takes further Lazy Corporate Mandates to actually write him out in BwBa which really sucks and is doing such an iconic lad horribly dirty.

Pictured: Henry as seen by Awdry/Mattel, who are about to just shove him out of the story with varying degrees of success.

Well yeah, for me I can't really settle on an opinion because he never seems to have anything solid after the Rebuild. He's kind of the nicer one out of the Terrible Trio, but sometimes he's as bitchy and obnoxious as Gordon without prompting. He seems to be pretty unlucky and sometimes his misfortunes are self inflicted, but they don't commit to this bit. He gets his (in)famous forest, much to Awdry's chagrin, but it does offer a nice gentler side to him. He also seems to be the main Fast Freight engine, particularly more Fish shipments, but this doesn't really inform his character. He all too often feels like a Spare, Green Gordon who's less full of himself (but still gets boughts of Envy and inflated self importance, like Tenders for Henry), and that's a shame because this nebulous lack of anything concrete seems to be why Bad TatMR Writing diagnosed him with Need Welsh Coal again for quite a long time (dunno if that only changed when Mattel/Brenner came in or not). But then the US dub makes him sound like w--dy all-n and that's the worst treatment of all! I kind of understand the temptation to make him the resident worrier but HUUURGHGHH NOT LIKE THAT

So yeah, the better characterization of him needs to strike a good balance of him being ...I guess a Gentle Giant, who enjoys nature and maybe is a smidge prone to bouts of feeling jealous. Maybe catches the engine version of colds more than the others because the early morning runs in the freezing air? I dunno, I'm trying to combine several traits that have been in Henry but never seemed to stick. But done properly, I could really get behind a nice, faceted character like that~

Favourite moment

It feels a bit mean to say, but it's due to the strength of the episode itself with the fantastic visuals, godly music and shocking drama (with a nice bonus of Correct Head Codes!) that put Flying Kipper at the top of this list!

Another part of this ep, is the beginning where the Driver is saying "Don't tell Gordon, but if you pull this nicely, the Fat Controller may let you pull the Express!". Like, that really squeezes my heart, because his driver is rooting for him, the prospect of a better regarded job is floating there, and knowing what eventually happens, it's like... oof! But in a good way.

...Also I think that must have been something Awdry added after deciding not to kill him off because having that bit and for it to all go up in flames would have made children and me extremely upset and he would have been buried under letters of complaint from angry mothers of the time.

Idea for a story

Other than the overly simple and grimdark "he was in fact killed that day" type coma inducers, I suppose the Two Henries theory being explored could offer some interesting interactions.

Like, what if the Henry who rolls back into The Big Station is instantly accepted and in fact, liked more than og Henry? What if the other engines instead couldn't fully relax around him? Were his memories perfect? Too Perfect?

And what would happen if OG Henry were later discovered... (and in what condition?) Dun Dun Dun dododo Dun!

The thing is, it is hard to really explore this because it's innately such a dark, heavy concept. I don't enjoy the 'Authoritarian Hellscape" lameass interpretation by normies. I like my silly workcom on the rails with warm fuzzies and funny antics, thank you very much!

Unpopular opinion

Some of his faces (even before the worsening first inflicted by Magic Railroad) are pretty weird looking! Maybe cause his forehead is so huge and smooth, but maybe just the odd mouth shapes. I like the variety, but they aren’t what I’d call cute... I find myself thinking ‘Moon Face’ looking at him [even with the lack of craters lmao] and oops I think I missed the weirdest grin of all, but here’s a small sample anyway

Favourite relationship

Not a favourite, per say, but some of the more friction-ish interactions he has with Thomas or Percy are pretty funny. With Thomas’ immortal flippant disregard to viaduct safety, Percy retorting that engines with Proper Funnels do, in fact, need scarves, something Henry wouldn’t know about, and that Henry somehow manages to dismiss Bill and Ben, a feat Gordon needs to take notes from. Even the Something in the Air exchange with Thomas, which isn’t really stellar writing just has a funny lame argument vibe.

For some nice Wholesome interaction, Bear is hands down the winner! Easy pick maybe, and it makes me wonder if Bear’s complete absence in the TVS is part of the downward spiral because he’d offer a lot more Plotlines.... hmmm...!

Favourite headcanon

Other than the universal fandom acceptance that He Digs Nature, Baby is the notion I’ve seen a few times that his “fear” of the rain, or what it would do to his paint, isn’t actually why he stopped in the tunnel, and it had more to do with his mechanical failure and/or him having something of a nervous breakdown. He does come across as something of an ass if you take the episode at face value, but there having a secret deeper meaning is way more interesting 👀

#this is TTTE #TTTE Henry #TTTE #Thomas the Tank Engine #Henry the Green Engine #ttte talk #I also mentioned Gordon several times but I won't properly tag him lol

[yellowocaballero]

Jon & Sasha Arson fic

Little fragment of an idea that never went anywhere. No reason for it. Just thought it would be funny. I was right. Rest under the cut. 

Most people who were unlucky enough to meet Jonathan Sims assumed he had no friends.

This was true, up to a point two weeks after Jon became a researcher at the Magnus Institute: afterwards Jon had no friends, except for Sasha James.

Sasha James was attributable to arson.

Most people who were unlucky enough to meet Jonathan Sims assumed he had no friends. 

This was true, up to a point two weeks after Jon became a researcher at the Magnus Institute: afterwards Jon had no friends, except for Sasha James. 

*******

Sasha James was attributable to arson.

Arson was attributable to a bookshelf of Leitners, humming strange songs and spewing toxic energy into the air in rhythmic hissing motions. The Leitners were attributable to Artifact Storage, a testament to mankind’s hubris and a modern-day tower of Babel where a group of underpaid academics found themselves stress testing kevlar and fire suppression systems each day. Artifact Storage was attributable to the Magnus Institute, where Jon had managed to land a job after three months of desolate post-graduate unemployment. And the Magnus Institute was attributable to - well, probably Jonah Magnus, but Jon found that it was likely a bit of a reach to blame a long dead Regency gentleman for all of his problems. 

Jon needed this job. London was expensive and so were funerals, and he couldn’t keep living on life insurance forever. It was even a good job, with decent pay and the exact kind of limp, half-hearted academia that the private sector promised disillusioned English mastery holders. His coworkers were nice - well, Tim was nice, everybody else seemed to hate him for the same reason that everybody else hated him, likely intimidated by how smart he was - and the commute was short. He couldn’t afford to lose this job. Spiritually, metaphysically, and literally. 

Which was why he should stop staring at this piece of paper. The follow-up research to a statement given by some idiot unlucky enough to cross paths with what was certainly a Leitner. 

‘ORIGINATION OF PHENOMENA ISOLATED’, the page read out professionally, yet chipperly, like a young woman in a new office job. ‘ITEM QUARANTINED WITHIN ARTIFACT STORAGE (46B.1)’. 

Hm. 

Jon pushed down on the floor, rolling himself a meter to the left.

“Say, er, Mr. Stoker.”

Tim “I’m only four years older than you, please call me Tim” Stoker, who had been thumping away on his cheap plastic keyboard either writing up a report or messaging someone on one of those infernal casual sex websites, pulled down his headphones and blinked at Jon owlishly, before splitting his face into a grin. Jon could practically hear the David Attenborough-style narration within his mind: ‘After long weeks leaving out food for the wild Simothan, the feral yet gentle animal approaches the researcher of his own volition. A win for scientists everywhere.’

“Yes, Jon?” Tim asked, in an uncanny yet hopefully unintentional RP drawl. 

“What’s Artifact Storage?”

“God, I wish I was you,” Tim said feelingly. But he nodded sagely anyway, milking his ‘wise senpai’ thing for all it was worth. Jon could practically feel Tim calling himself a senpai. It was kind of embarrassing. “You know the shady room locked deep within the basement that exudes a terrible aura of malice and hatred towards you specifically?”

“The gender neutral bathroom?” Jon asked, confused. 

“No, the one that always smells somewhat of blood. You hear screams sometimes?”

“The Archives!”

“Yes, but no! It’s Artifact Storage. If the researchers dig up any creepy shit from a statement, or if a statement giver brings in something that melts the metal detector, then we dump it in Artifact Storage and let those miserable fucks take care of it.”

“Is it more of a containment facility, or would you say that they conduct experiments?”

But Tim just shrugged. “My source down there tells me that they do some experiments to justify their budget, but it’s mostly unscientific. Poke this and I’ll give you twenty quid, that kind of thing. They say that if you really want a sick day, all you have to do is touch a mysterious rock and whisper your mother’s name -”

“Fantastic, thank you for your help, must go back to filling now,” Jon said quickly, skittering back to his own desk. He tried to distract himself from the terrifying thought of the basement full of supernatural nuclear bombs underneath his feet by trying to remember his mother’s name, but he was stuck on if it was Marjorie or Margaret. Mary Anne?

Maybe Tim’s personal Meerkat Manor series of Jon’s life had paid off - Sims Shack? - more than Jon would like, because Tim squinted at Jon in an unsettlingly familiar way. As if he knew exactly what Jon was thinking about the literature of mass destruction, and he really wanted Jon to be thinking literally anything else. 

“I wouldn’t go down there if I were you, Jon,” Tim warned, sounding a little like a horror movie trailer. “Bushy tailed college grads who go down there don’t come out the same as they went in.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Stoker.”

“For the love of christ call me Tim!”

It really was a pity - Jon had actually liked this job. 

*******

It was remarkably easy to commit arson in central London.

Jon had done it once or twice. Three times, actually, although when you think about it arson was a criminal charge and only truly existed so long as someone was charged with it, so technically you could say that Jon had done arson zero times. In his defense, you try making it through Oxford without doing anything embarrassing. 90% of your time was in class or schoolwork and 10% of it was being hazed. At least Jon hadn’t fucked any pigs. 

Jon hit up the usual stores, and stashed the usual implements in his rucksack. It was a careful week after his conversation with Tim, as he couldn’t afford for the older man to connect the dots. He made a show of going home at a timely five pm, startling everybody around him, and paced in a tight circle around his flat until he gave up and watched mindless telly until the clock struck midnight. 

He took a cab to the park a few blocks down from the Institute, and walked the rest of the way. It was a cool, dim night in London, and the foot-traffic had slowed down to a steady trickle of young people in tight clothing. Jon pulled down his baseball cap on his head, fished a key out from his pocket given to him by a helpful and friendly janitor, and took a back entrance into the Institute. 

Said helpful and friendly janitor, whose allegiance had been won because Jon was a “nice young lad” and “I always wanted to burn down the place myself, I’m happy to see the next generation give it a go” had helpfully told Jon that there were no security cameras inside the Institute. A grievous oversight, but good luck for Jon tonight. He took the stairs down to the basement, zipping his jacket up tight against the inescapable chill, and pushed his hat further down his head as he navigated his way towards Artifact Storage.

He unlocked the door with the janitor’s key, hands shaking, and slipped inside into the dusky and unlit room. 

It was pitch-black, and Jon quickly fished a torch out of his backpack. He flipped it on, letting it slowly scan the room. It was the lobby into Artifact Storage, familiar from his stake-out missions: you walked in, met the bored woman behind the desk, checked in or checked out what you wanted, and if you needed to go inside she would press the button that unlocked the heavy climate-controlled door and let you into the hallway inside. The only other door in the lobby was to the office of the Director of Artifact Storage, a terrifying short and squat woman with silver hair pulled into a bun. 

Jon leaned over the counter and jammed the button, holding his breath until he heard the door click open. He quickly twisted the handle, swung the heavy door out, and slipped inside, taking care to grab one of the chairs in the lobby and prop it open. Quick escapes were necessary. 

He was in. 

The torch lit up a map taped up to the wall, and Jon squinted at it. Section A, Section B, Section C...he remembered the classification from the document he read a week ago, and slowly walked down the hallway until he found the heavy climate controlled door marked ‘SECTION B’. He carefully wrenched it open, taking care to grab a rolling cart and using it to prop the door open, before stepping inside. He fished the canister of gasoline and the lighter out of his backpack, giving the gasoline a good shake. 

It was a library. Small, and instead of shelves there were long metal racks with filing boxes stretching long into the darkness, but Jon knew a library when he saw one. Each box had a clipboard attached to it, and most boxes had very large and terrifying stickers on them painted sickly yellow or dangerous red. 

The only thing in the library that wasn’t a filing rack was a battered and beat couch. And the only person in the room besides Jon was a woman, blinking up at Jon blearily from where she had been passed out on the couch. 

“Er,” Jon said. 

The woman sat up, squinting at Jon’s torchlight until he guiltily aimed it just to her left. She had a wild mane of curly brown hair, and was wearing a pencil skirt and ruffled burgundy blouse. A blazer was folded at one end of the couch, clearly being used as a pillow, and she looked strongly as if Jon had just woken her up from a very nice nap. 

“Whuh,” the sleepy woman said. 

“My mistake,” Jon said, “this isn’t the loo. Go back to bed, this is - er, a very bad dream, goodnight.”

“Whutuhiseet,” the woman slurred. 

“It’s - very late, go back to bed.”

“Alright,” the woman said, falling back on the couch. After a second, her snores echoed through the room again. 

Jon very slowly crept backwards. Actually, on second thought, his mission could wait for tomorrow. Bit of a cock block, this, but that was alright - 

“Hey! Who are you!”

Jon, hand on the handle of the door, squeaked and turned around. 

The woman was back up again, and this time she seemed actually awake. She was frowning mightily at Jon, and was already sliding off the couch in stocking feet to glare at him. Jon was aware that he did not look like an innocent person in these events. The gasoline did not help.

The woman’s eyes trailed to the gasoline, then widened. Jon ineffectually tried to hide it behind his back. 

“You’re trying to burn down Artifact Storage!” the woman accused, somewhat fairly.

“Not all of Artifact Storage,” Jon said guiltily, “just the Leitners.”

The woman stared at him further, as if she was a special guest on Tim’s Sims Shack nature documentary. 

“Why,” the woman said slowly, “would you want to do that?”

Despite himself, Jon found himself puffing up in indignation. “They’re evil, nasty little books that shouldn’t exist. Forget studying and - and containing them, we should be making sure no more of them ever disgrace the world again. We should be burning every one we see. They’re pure evil given literary form, they are a disgrace to books and libraries, and if I ever met Leitner myself I would beat him to death with a rusty pipe for subjecting me to his fucked up books.”

The woman stared at him. 

Finally, she said, “I’m Sasha James. Want some help?”

“I - er, wouldn’t that get you in trouble, Ms. James?” 

“I like this job but I hate Leitner and his fucked up books more,” Sasha said gravely. 

Jon, having found a kindred spirit, held out the lighter. 

Sasha James took it, a wide grin splitting her face. 

*********

Jon didn’t remember much else of that night. 

There was definitely arson involved - or, seeing as they hadn’t gotten caught, just some good old-fashioned fire starting. He had the sense that they had both been so giddy with adrenaline that they had immediately joined the raging uni students in the late night bars, toasting their success in toasting. There had probably been quite a bit of alcohol.

When he woke up the next morning, it was in his narrow and uncomfortable bed, face to face with an unfamiliar snoring woman. For a second, two, Jon was briefly convinced that he had done something so drastically out of character it meant that a fucked up book had body swapped him with Tim. Bodyswapping was more likely than him having casual sex. 

Then Jon remembered the arson, and he exhaled in relief as his life made sense again. 

“Ms. James,” Jon whispered, poking her in the arm. She snuffled and muttered something. Jon poked her harder. “Ms. James, we have work.”

Sasha turned around, turning her back to him and pulling up the blankets. “Go back to bed, Tim.”

Ti - oh god. Jon felt like he was in a CW drama. This was why he didn’t interact with people, far too much likelihood that he would accidentally end up interacting with somebody who had sex.

“Ms. James,” Jon hissed, extremely embarrassed, “you have to get up!”

“Mergh mergh fuck off,” Sasha James said. 

Jon, like a true gentleman and hero, got up and made them both strong tea. He squinted at Sasha, recalling everything he knew about her (slept a lot, liked arson, hated Jurgen Leitner) before digging out some instant coffee and making some of that too. Finally, after shoving a hot cup of sludgey black liquid at the woman, she grabbed the cup and chugged it until she was able to sit up and open her eyes. 

She blinked at Jon, who was already picking his hair in an attempt to get ready for work. He could clearly see the thoughts ‘you aren’t Tim’ run through her brain. Hah! He could be the narrator of the nature documentary for once!

“Uh,” Sasha James said, “I’m sorry, did we…?”

“Commit arson? Yes.” Jon paused a beat. “But as I don’t believe we were caught, call it an indoor campfire.”

Sasha James drank more of her coffee. Jon grabbed his clothing and disappeared into the loo to get changed. 

When he re-entered his bedroom, she snapped her fingers at him. “Right! We got pissed after! Good times, mate!”

“I have to assume,” Jon said politely. He was doing his very best to be very polite, because Jon knew he was rude and didn’t want his new coworkers to know that until his probation period was over. Maybe he should have waited until after his probation period for the arson? Would it look bad on his annual review? “Do you need to borrow some clothing? I think we’re about the same size.” Oh, no, was that rude to say to a woman?

Sasha James squinted at him. “It’s like you’re not hungover at all. How old are you?”

“Twenty five?” Be polite, Jon! “And you’re...thirty seven?”

“I’m thirty one, asshole!”

Oh no. Women hated it when you called them old. “You don’t look a day over twenty seven!” Jon cried, panicked. 

“Have you met a woman?”

“I had a grandmother?”

“I’m going back to bed,” Sasha James said. 

Unfortunately, Jon knew that it would be very suspicious if they both skipped, so he forced Sasha into one of his suits that...looked much nicer on her than him, but whatever, and hustled them both to work. Now that the adrenaline had worn away and the sense of purpose in his holy mission had burned up with the cleansing flames, Jon found himself biting his nails in agony in the Underground. 

They had to know. Someone must have caught them. Maybe there were secret CCTVs in the Institute. Maybe Sasha was going to rat him out - but she had helped, so wouldn’t she just be ratting out herself? Was she a double agent? Mr. Bouchard was never going to forgive him, no matter how nice he was and how much he seemed to like Jon to the point where he rather wished someone had given him the ‘Stranger Danger’ speech as a child so he would know what to do. Jon was going to go to jail, or worse - get fired. 

Sasha, cooly sipping her coffee and looking somewhat fly in sunglasses and his suit, did not seem disturbed by any of this. Jon’s rapidly spiralling panic attack must have been obvious, because she casually flicked a finger on his forehead. Jon yelped with pain. 

“Take it easy, mate. If they catch us, I’ll just say that the books made us do it.”

Jon scowled at her, rubbing his smarting forehead. “The books?”

“Sure.” She waved her fingers spookily as the Underground rattled forward into the heart of London. “Brainwashed us to do their evil bidding of -”

“Destroying them?”

“There’s a lot of arson Leitners,” Sasha James said sagely. “Trust me, this is just a normal day in Artifact Storage.” She clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder, and Jon fought a blush. “Don’t worry. We performed a public service, kiddo. St. Peter’s gonna give us a medal when we get to the pearly gates.”

“I’m an adult,” Jon said, scandalized. He had gray hair!

“Well, I guess, but I don’t know your name, so…”

 Jon squinted at her. She squinted at him back. 

“You’re thinking that if you don’t give me your name I can’t rat you out to the feds,” Sasha said flatly. 

Jon pursed his lips. 

Finally, he settled on, “You don’t rat me out to the feds and I won’t tell them that you’re in an illicit relationship with Mr. Stoker.”

“Mr. - how did - what!”

“It’s Jonathan Sims,” Jon said gruffly, crossing his arms. He was slightly hungover and his nerve were jittery and he had set fire to his workplace the previous night, but somehow Jon thought that his heart was jackrabbiting in his chest for a different reason. Somehow Jon felt as if his heart couldn’t stop thumping behind his sternum because Sasha James was staring at him, head cocked, as if he was a mystery she was interested in finding out. “That’s my name.”

Sasha James stared at him, as if surprised, before her face broke into a wide and happy smile. Jon hunched his shoulders up, embarrassed, faintly aware he was blushing. “It’s nice to meet you, Jonathan!” Then she grabbed him by the collar, shaking him slightly. “And there is nothing illicit about me and Tim, and there is nothing between me and Tim at all, we are just friends, so get that out of your little head -”

The train rattled on towards the Magnus Institute, and towards the slight smell of smoke in the air. 

*******

Sasha: are you coming 2 the pub w/us 2nite?

Sasha: come onnn you should comeee don’t feel awkwardddd 

Sasha: I know you hate a) group settings b) drunk people c) Tim in a group d) drunk Tim and e) Tim drunk in a group but that’s no reason not to come!

Sasha: Tim is physiologically incapable of not adopting men 3-5 years younger than him it’s in his blood you can’t escape his affection

Sasha: or at least I find it funny so I’m not letting you

Sasha: Jonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Jon: Yes I’ll come, I need to talk to both of you.

Sasha: WAHOO

Sasha: wait

Sasha: really?

Sasha: did you commit ars*on again

Sasha: wait if you did don’t tell me the courts can request text transcripts

Jon: No, I just need your advice on an urgent matter.

Sasha: do you need to be drunk to do it

Jon: ...maybe.

Jon: ....Mr. Bouchard offered me the Head Archivist Job?

Jon: Which is stupid because I’ve worked here for barely four years and you’ve worked here for about ten years I think. And you’ve published five papers in parapsychological research. I know I helped you figure out that this place is a weird trauma mill but it was really mostly you. It’s completely ridiculous to promote me and I’m afraid it’s favoritism. For potentially heinous ends? This feels awful because it’s such an honor but I would never stop feeling stressed and guilty because I know so many more people (like you) are so much more qualified. Or qualified at all.

Sasha: holy shit

Sasha: ...do you remember the speech I gave you on stranger danger?

Jon: I’m afraid to mention this to Tim because he might beat up Mr. Bouchard for both my honor and yours.

Sasha: Jesus at this point I don’t even want a fucking job anymore. What bullshit. I’m never going to get promoted and I just need to accept that. This isn’t your fault, Jon, seriously, thank you for telling me. 

Sasha: we can talk about this at the pub

Sasha: in private. Off the radar. 

Jon: Looking forward to it :)

Jon: did I use the emoticon right?

Sasha: Yes, Jon, you did everything right. 

#tma #jonathan sims #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic #sasha james-centric #this is an implied fix-it everybody lives fic #crack #comedy #absolutely nothing sad? in a MEG FIC? #sasha james #tim stoker #jon is based off me at a new job anxiously calling everyone 'mr' #rest assured sasha is trans but it just never came up #my writing

[secret-engima]

Kinda busy atm so I won’t stay logged on long but I had this thought and HAD to share. Literally all of Naruto’s mistakes and plot holes, as a show, can be explained in one sentence.

What if it’s all a DnD campaign.

THINK ABOUT IT. You’ve got a rotating group of players aside from the Core Quad of Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi, each driving their poor DM up the wall in a different way, and the stakes keep escalating because the DM doesn’t want to outright railroad these nut jobs but they keep rolling just high enough to make their ideas pass.

“I summon a giant snake to save me from the suicide bomber.”

“You don’t ... you don’t even have enough chakra to use a fireball jutsu or a shunshin, how-”

“I. Want. To. Summon. A giant snake. To save me.”

“...Roll for it.”

“Nat 20.″

Naruto *pounding the table*: “Crit! Crit-crit-crit-crit-!”

DM: “Yes, THANK YOU Naruto.” *sighs* “Fine. You can summon snake to save you despite HAVING NO CHAKRA LEFT.”

And-

“Okay so you’ve finally found the real Pain, he’s this weak dude in a medical rig, looks like skin and bones, totally helpless once you get past Karin, which is going to be one heck of a boss-.”

“I give him a heartfelt speech of about our shared loneliness and pain and ask him to come to the good guys side.”

“... you wat.”

“I give him a heartfelt speech about our shared loneliness and pain and ask him to come to the good guys side.”

“...That’s going to be one heck of a charisma check.”

“Nat 20!”

DM: *sighs* “You not only convince him ... but he uses the last of his chakra to revive all of your friends and villagers he just brutally murdered. Konan flies away with his body.”

“Oh yea!”

And then there’s Sakura, probably a new player or just plain unlucky, who keeps TRYING to be useful in the party but instead rolls 1s and 0s except for the times she DOESN’T and hits like- five natural 20s in a row and that’s how we get scenes like Sakura saving Kankorou, Sakura vs Sasori, and Sakura punching Kaguya in the head.

Itachi is a guest player and Sasuke’s older brother, he’s actually from a different campaign the DM ran a while back, and the one who inspired Sasuke to go Chaotic Neutral/Evil after Itachi told him about how he rolled a series of 1s on his “save the clan” plans in that previous campaign, then just shrugged and rolled to murder everyone but his baby brother’s character. The DM kinda wants to strangle him, because whenever he shows up, he and Sasuke get into competitions on who can get away with rolling for the most overpowered nonsense (see: amaterasu, both susannoo’s, and the izanagi/izanami combo). Kisame is Itachi’s friend from work who likes to pop in and stir up trouble in the campaign just to unwind, the other Akatuski are probably NPCs. Kisame USED to be an NPC until Kisame’s player popped in and was like “Shark guy sounds epic can I steal him?” and nobody said no loud enough.

Kakashi is a veteran player who used to DM but decided it was more fun to be the background troll. The DM is sure that Kakashi uses loaded dice but can’t prove it, because how ELSE does this guy keep his character alive when he keeps triggering the chakra exhaustion condition?

The bad guys keep getting crazier because the campaign keeps escalating and no one wants to call it quits and that’s why the plot falls apart because the DM keeps introducing a new Big Bad to keep up with his players that keep rolling crazy dice combos that let them get past, kill, or reform the previous big bad. This campaign was supposed to end with the freaking WAVE ARC and now Naruto is rolling to use Reverse Sexy Jutsu (why oh WHY did the DM let him create his own jutsu he knew this would happen) on the RABBIT GODDESS FROM THE FREAKING MOON. What is even this campaign anymore.

Bonus if this entire thing is a stupidly popular youtube DnD series ala Critical Role and all the players are voice actors and the terrible fight scenes are fan animations the players got permission to use until they got an actual animator on board for things like the Kakashi vs Obito fight.

#Secret Engima Rambles #new au #crack au #naruto #Ninja Dice verse #oh dear

[greyhavensking]

100 Followers Celebration!

God, I’m late with this, but I finally passed the 100 follower milestone and I wanted to do something for it to show my appreciation. That something turned out to be almost 3000 words of emotional hurt/comfort and dumb boys in love, so I hope someone enjoys it.

I can’t even express how grateful I am to have (over!!!) 100 people think I’m worthy of following when mostly I just reblog other people’s posts and scream in the tags, but this is me trying to get the point across. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people who continue to tolerate my bullshit and occasionally encourage my sad stucky edits and my angsty fluff fanfics. You’re all amazing and wonderful people!

Also cross-posted on Ao3 here.

you left your mark on me like footprints in the snow

“Buck, you awake?”

It’s sort of a moot point, seeing as Bucky — light sleeper that he is — would have woken up the second Steve stepped across the threshold of the living room, but he feels compelled to ask nonetheless. His ma was a stickler for courtesy, especially when it didn’t cost anyone a dime, and while he can’t quite manage to defer to politeness when it comes to aggravating superiors, it comes easy as breathing with most everyone else.

Bucky isn’t everyone else, and half the time Steve doesn’t bother filtering himself around him, but tonight—

Tonight’s a bad night.

But it’s not Bucky’s night for a change.

As Steve pauses at the back of the couch, arms crossed and head ducked, he sees Bucky smoothly push himself up into a sitting position from where he was stretched across the cushions, rolling his shoulders back as he scrubs his flesh and blood hand over his face. He was awake, judging by the dog-eared book he lets slide to the floor; Steve can’t make out the cover from this angle, but he’d bet anything it’s one of those YA novels Sam recommended to him that he refuses to thank Sam for. Something about Greek gods and terribly unlucky teenagers. Steve doesn’t go for fantasy often, but he knows Bucky’s been plowing through the series for the last few weeks.

“I’m always awake,” Bucky says once he’s gotten a good look at Steve, despite Steve’s best efforts to tuck all the visible hurt away behind an admittedly shaky smile. He’s joking, mostly — when Bucky first came home, he rarely got more than an hour or two of sleep before some imagined threat had him prowling the confines of the apartment, checking and rechecking the locks and the security system. Nowadays his sleepless nights are still disturbingly frequent, but not every night, and he can usually pass them by reading or watching whatever he finds most interesting on TV. 

Bucky quirks a brow when Steve remains silent, tilting his head. Assessing. “You, though,” he continues as if he hadn’t paused at all, “you should be dead to the world, Rogers. Sawing logs, or whatever it is they say when you snore louder than a damn foghorn.”

“I don’t — I don’t snore,” Steve bites out, reflexive, which just gets Bucky’s other brow jumping up to join the first.

“So it’s one of those nights, huh.” Bucky nods to himself, twisting around on the couch to lean back against the armrest, legs spread invitingly. He pats the space between his thighs. “Good thing I’m a certified Steve Rogers expert and know exactly what you need.”

Steve considers refuting that claim, but he can’t bring himself to bother with it. A flare of indignation does pulse under his skin (he hates the idea that he needs to be managed), though it peters out just as quickly as it came, taking with it the last shred of warmth Steve’s been clinging to since he slipped out from beneath his bed covers. Bucky’s right, anyway; this is what Steve needs, something they’ve pieced together in the months after Bucky felt safe enough to put himself back into Steve’s orbit.

Rubbing briskly at his upper arms, more for something to do with his hands than any hope of warming himself up, Steve hesitates another moment before he sighs and climbs over the back of the couch to crawl in between Bucky’s legs. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s waist instantly, tugging him until his back is flush with Bucky’s chest. He noses at the nape of Steve’s neck, presses a kiss there that has a delightful shiver rippling down Steve’s spine, then wedges his chin into the space between neck and shoulder.

“What’s the threat level with this one?” Bucky asks quietly. Threat level is their established short-hand for how bad a nightmare was, what kind of toll it took on them. It’s easier getting that out than something like I woke up crying reaching for you can’t get my heart to calm down can’t breathe woke up alone and had to bite back a scream, and Steve can admit that Bucky’s nothing short of a goddamn genius for giving Steve a way to explain without explaining. 

“‘Bout a seven,” Steve says, which means it’s closer to a nine than he’d like. He can still feel the phantom chill of wind and snow on his face, the ice-clogged water in his lungs, arms outstretched but grasping at nothing nothing nothing. Bucky’s face, frozen over and glassy-eyed. No air, no breath, no life in either of them — but Steve, undead, trapped below the ice, forced to watch it all play out on repeat—

“Uh-huh. Seven. Sure, I’ll go with that for now.” Bucky’s voice is right against his ear, his breath warm, the solid weight of him so very real that Steve shudders again, leaning into him even though there’s hardly space left between them to close. “You need me to do anything extra special?”

Steve shakes his head, then pauses, reconsiders. “Keep talking?” 

His nightmares are — strange. They’re quiet, mostly, unless they involve the train, and then it’s the clack-clack-clack of the tracks, the high-pitched whistling of the wind, his own desperate screams. But when it’s the ice… it’s almost silent. Like an old film, the reels spinning on soundlessly around him. Colors are muted, too, shades of gray and blue and the occasional vibrant streak of red that could be blood, could be his suit, could be the afterimage of staring too long into a bright light. 

Bucky huffs a laugh and tightens his arms around Steve, and in return Steve shifts to lay his hands over Bucky’s skin, one sliding along his forearm, the other reaching down to slip under the hem of Bucky’s shorts. He’d grab the metal arm (it doesn’t bother him, and it’s body temperature from being tucked under Bucky on the couch) but he needs skin right now, and he knows Bucky doesn’t begrudge him it.

“Talking,” Bucky murmurs. “You gotta pick the one thing I’m no good at anymore, don’t ya. No, no, don’t start,” he says, reading the tensing of Steve’s body all too well, and Steve slumps back into his hold, caught out. “I’m not sayin’ I won’t do it, and I’m not gettin’ all self-deprecating on you, either. Words are hard, sweetheart, you know that.”

“Sorry, Buck. We can just put the TV on, or—”

“I said it’s fine, Rogers. Relax. I’m not in the habit of doing things I don’t want to these days, even for you, which is a goddamn miracle considering all the shit I put up with for your benefit when we were kids. Christ.”

Steve rolls his eyes, which he knows is the exact reaction Bucky was going for. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’d I talk you into that was so bad?”

“God, Steve, Snow White? How many times d’we see that in theaters?”

“What? You loved that movie!”

“No, you loved that movie, despite being fuckin’ colorblind. I went because I’m a goddamn sap and I couldn’t get enough of the wide-eyed baby deer act you pulled every time you got to see all that animation in action. You sparkled, Steve, it was addicting.”

“What?”

“Whaddya mean, what? Can’t a guy get all sentimental over how cute his best guy looked staring adoringly at a cartoon?”

“No, I mean— you went for me? We weren’t even…”

“First of all, jackass, I don’t gotta be in love with someone to wanna see them happy. Second, I honestly can’t tell you if I realized that I was in love with you back then. It’s all mixed up with how I definitely felt during the war, and then with everything that came with thawing out here.”

Hold on— 

“Bucky. Bucky. The war?”

Steve’s half-twisted around in Bucky’s arms now, staring at him, slack-jawed, because they’ve never had this conversation before. Nothing even close to this has ever come up between them. When they got together this century, they only acknowledged that they’d never considered doing so back in the thirties, that their feelings only really surfaced now because they finally had a moment to rest without the fear of discovery hanging over their heads. Bucky has never breathed a word of loving Steve at any point before that.

But Bucky doesn’t seem to understand what’s running through Steve’s head, because his brows furrow as he stares right back at Steve. “Why are you acting so surprised? You think I curled up with you every night just ‘cause I was cold?” He pauses. “I mean, alright, yes, I was freezing and you were a goddamn furnace all of a sudden, but—”

“You have never said shit about this, Barnes, what the fuck?”

And there’s Bucky rising to the challenge in Steve’s voice, lifting his chin and narrowing his eyes. Refusing to let go of Steve, though, for which he’s grateful; he needs the grounding weight of him all the more in this moment.

“I ain’t exactly proud of it, Steve. You and Carter? Fuck, you made my blood boil with her.”

Steve blinks. Blinks again, shakes his head like that’ll make Bucky’s words fall into a neat little line he can actually understand. He feels Bucky’s chest expand as he breathes in deep, feels it deflate as he lets it out in a heavy sigh. His eyes are nearly silver in this light, and so sheepish that Steve just wants to set this aside and kiss on him until he’s smiling again. But — he wants to know, fuck, he doesn’t like secrets between them anymore, and he knows Bucky’s the same way. It’s not the best time to get into this, but really, in the grand scheme of things… it’s as good a time as they’ll get.

“God, alright. I was jealous, okay? Whether or not I knew what you were to me while we were still in Brooklyn, I sure as hell knew it then when I was watching you two dance around each other for months. The way you’d stare after her, the way she tucked herself right into your side whenever you were in the same room… I was sick with it, hatin’ her and hatin’ myself for feeling that way when I didn’t have a fuckin’ claim to you. When you were happy with her and I couldn’t make myself be happy for you. You think I like admitting I couldn’t put my best friend’s happiness above my own bruised ego?”

“Buck…”

“Aw, don’t look like that, sweetheart. Was my own fault for never saying anything. And, well, for all I knew back then you were straight as an arrow. You thought you were pretty straight, as I recall. Maybe it woulda just driven a wedge between us if I’d said something.”

“Fuck that.” The words are whispered, but they get Steve’s point across just fine — it’s Bucky’s turn to blink, leaning away from Steve slightly like he needs a better look at him to process what he’s just heard. Steve just follows him, getting his knees under him so he can cup Bucky’s face in both palms, holding him close. “Fuck that. I always loved you, Bucky Barnes. Platonic, romantic, doesn’t fucking matter. If you think for one second I woulda left you over something like that—”

Bucky laughs again, a quick, sharp little thing that barely interrupts Steve’s vehement protests, but the kiss Bucky plants on his lips does the job of getting his attention.

“What a stubborn asshole you are, sweetheart.”

Scowling, Steve kisses Bucky again, harder this time but still achingly sweet. “You think I’m lyin’?”

“Do I look like an idiot? No, I don’t think you’re lying, but that’s what you’re saying now, with the glorious gift of hindsight. You can’t say for sure that’s how you would have reacted, and I wouldn’t have blamed you for it.”

“One more time, Barnes, ‘cause I do think you’re a little slow on the uptake tonight. Fuck that. You got my ass through every fuckin’ illness that so much as looked at our borough, got me through ma’s death… you think you catchin’ feelings was gonna scare me away? I was afraid of you leaving, god, I woulda clung to you forever if you let me, even if you got married, had kids, whatever. I probably wouldn’t have believed you could like me, but I wouldn’t have been mad at you over it.”

It’s quiet between them once Steve’s gotten it all out of his system, save for his heart thudding in his chest and their quickened breathing, the tick-tick-tick of the ceiling fan above them. Steve refuses to look away from Bucky’s searching gaze, and god, yes, he’s a stubborn asshole, but he’s also right! He’s right and he’s going to prove that to Bucky, one way or another, because this is too important to let go. He doesn’t want Bucky thinking even for a second that there is a scenario where Steve would throw him over for someone else. Anyone Steve loved — anyone who loved Steve — would have had to accept that Bucky came first, always.

In hindsight, Steve maybe should’ve figured out his own damn feelings long before he reached the 21st century, but that wasn’t exactly his point right now. 

Steve doesn’t know how long they sit there like that, holding one another without saying a word, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from Bucky’s for a single moment of it, willing him to understand that he’s always been Steve’s anchor, his touchstone — that absolutely nothing short of death could ever come between them, and fuck, even that didn’t stick. And he thinks Bucky might be getting there, the way a slow, tremulous smile spreads across his face, a flush high on his cheeks that does things to Steve’s heart. 

“I love you.”

Steve’s eyes crinkle as he smiles, automatic, ducking his head down to press into Bucky’s neck, the fabric of his worn t-shirt soft against Steve’s cheek. It’s far from the first time either of them have said it, but Steve still gets so giddy over it, knowing he gets to have this, have Bucky, to hold and kiss and adore this man in his arms for as long as they’re both alive… it’s heady, and something Steve doesn’t want to take for granted, not even for a second. The road they took to get here was too brutal for Steve not to be damn grateful for every moment they have together. 

Which means he doesn’t mind the teasing they get from the rest of the team, the not-so-sly remarks and gratuitous eye rolls that Sam and Natasha are so fond of, the downright lewd shit that gets thrown right back in Tony’s face when Bucky reminds them all that neither of them are innocent grandpas. 

It’s all part of getting to love Bucky the way he deserves, the way he’s always and will always deserve, and if there’s one thing about the future that Steve unequivocally loves, it’s that he can be as open as he wants about just how much he loves Bucky. And, if people do have a problem with it, Steve can kick their asses — mostly over Twitter, but still. He’s a fan.

“Love you too, Buck.”

Bucky hums, content, and readjusts so that Steve is mostly laying flat on top of him, the both of them stretched out across the couch. He snags the blanket from where it’s half-spilled onto the floor, draping it over Steve enough that it covers the majority of their bodies. Steve snuggles in, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s back, giving him a gentle squeeze to show his appreciation. 

He’s all but forgotten the phantom cold that drove him out here in the first place.

“Wanna try going back to sleep?” Bucky murmurs, rubbing circles into Steve’s back.

“Nah. You’re still gonna be here, don’t wanna sleep alone.”

“Mm, fair point. You just gonna lay here, then?”

He could, Bucky won’t protest his weight or the company. “Yeah. Right where I wanna be. You could read to me, though?”

“I’m in the middle of the book, Rogers, you won’t have any clue what’s going on.”

“Just like the sound of your voice, Buck. It’s soothing,” Steve argues, and he’s slurring his words a little, he knows, but he doesn’t care and Bucky doesn’t call him out on it. “Read to me?”

He feels the rumble of Bucky’s laughter in his own chest, pressed right up against him, then the shift of the couch as Bucky grabs his book from the floor and braces it against the dip in Steve’s spine so he can read.

And yeah, Bucky’s right — Steve couldn’t tell you a thing about what’s happening in the book right now (there are gods and monsters and quippy teenagers, but none of it settles quite right in his brain, none of it takes any recognizable shape) but he couldn’t be happier regardless.

Turns out it’s not so bad of a night after all. 

#stucky #stevebucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky fanfic #fanfic #my fic

[simp-for-spencer-reid]

Sugar with a Side of Coffee- Ch. 12

Chapter 12: Bakers Can’t Cook Series Masterlist

Light poured into Spencer’s room through his curtains that were just barely pulled back. It wasn’t storming anymore. He blinked a few times to wake himself up. He felt like a weight had been lifted. He had finally told Cate how he felt. She had kissed him. They kissed. He turned his head to look at the other side of his bed. 

It was empty.

Spencer’s memory made him certain that last night wasn’t just a dream. He had driven Cate back to his place and she had spent the night, in his clothes and in his bed. It was like the stars had aligned. So, if she wasn’t lying next to him, where was she?

Spencer’s smoke detectors started going off and the smell of smoke trickled in through his cracked door. He heard Cate’s voice curse and a loud bang. He leapt out of bed, and ran to his kitchen. 

There, he found Cate. In his housecoat. Her short stature was jumping trying to wave a dish towel at the alarm. A pan with a burnt mass was on the stove. Spencer stepped behind her and reached his long arm up to push the button and silence the alarm. 

“I didn’t know you were awake!” Cate jumped at his presence. Now that the alarm was silenced, Spencer could hear music playing softly from Cate’s phone. “I was making breakfast, but I got a bit distracted and burnt what was supposed to be scrambled eggs.” Cate tucked her unbrushed hair behind her ear. Spencer was taking her presence in.

“That’s my dressing robe?” He wanted to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“Oh, yeah I borrowed it this morning. Did you want it back?” Cate started to pull the red plush material of her shoulders.

“No, it’s okay.” Spencer placed his hand on hers and stopped her actions. His thumb ran over her fingers. Cate looked up at him. Spencer felt too nervous to kiss her again. Would it be too soon? He felt like he really unpacked a lot last night. 

“Do you want to go out to breakfast since I burnt ours?” Cate’s eyes flickered to Spencer’s facial features. His morning stubble looked out of place; he was normally clean shaven. Spencer sighed after checking his watch from the inside of his wrist. He was due at work in less than an hour.

“I would really love to, but I have to get to work. Do you want to shower?” He would offer her the first shower because his complex was always running out of hot water. Cate shook her head; she knew that showering at Spencer’s would only make him late for work. Spencer helped put the pan in the sink and clean the kitchen quickly with Cate before entering the bathroom from the door in his bedroom. 

Cate gathered her things and was sitting on the couch, ready to be dropped off at her building. While waiting, she picked up the book on his coffee table to inspect it. A book on quantum theory. Cate flipped through the pages to see if she could make some sense of it, but she’d always been terrible at Science. Luckily, she’d gotten better at Math since working the register at The Empty Mug. 

She thought of last night. She kissed Spencer. She had enjoyed kissing Spencer until the two of them decided it was time to actually sleep. The innocence of the pair sleeping on actual separate sides of the bed only lasted until a few hours into their slumber. Cate inched her way backwards until her back reached Spencer’s body. She was always one to get cold at night. Cate awoke to being spooned by Spencer. His face tucked somewhere between her shoulders and back. His knees bent into her own. His arms were folded into his chest, but Cate wished they had been wrapped around her. 

She remembered trying to stay as still as possible so as to not wake him. He shuffled backward in his sleep not too long after, providing Cate with her escape route. She had gotten out of bed to use the bathroom, but also because she was hungry. On the back of his door, his robe looked too tempting to ignore. She slipped it on to stay warm while she scavenged for breakfast. The only things she could find were some eggs, milk, and cheese. Not even any bread for toast. There was a surprising lack of food in his cupboards. Cate wondered how he even survived. 

Cate was lost in her thoughts of the morning when she heard the shower turn off. A few minutes later, Spencer came out dressed smartly in a suit. His hair was still damp from the shower, which Cate decided looked much better than it did when it had gotten wet from the rain. 

“Ready?” Spencer asked, drawing her focus back to present time. 

Sitting in Spencer’s car after the events of last night was only slightly awkward for the two. The radio was still tuned into the soft rock station, Cate hummed along while watching out the window. The sky was clear and blue. If they hadn’t been stuck in the brunt of it, they may have never guessed how bad the storm was last night. Spencer kept both hands on the wheel, but he wondered if he should hold her hand. 

The drive to Cate’s apartment building felt like it was shorter and shorter every time he drove it. Fortunately, the branches and wires that had blocked the road were cleaned up. Cate saw the large limbs pushed to the side of the road. Spencer had saved enough time to walk Cate up to her apartment. The trek up the stairs to the third floor went by fast as well. When Cate had opened her door, Shrimp was meowing and walked into the hallway to wrap around Cate’s legs. He paused, sniffing the air and getting closer to Spencer’s ankles, giving his brown dress shoes a sniff. After consideration, he headbutted Spencer’s suit pants and left some orange hairs behind.

“Aw, he likes you!” Cate bent down to pick up Shrimp, holding him against her chest. “Thanks for the ride.” Cate looked up at Spencer through her lashes. Spencer was debating in his mind about kissing her or not. 

“Oh, no problem.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Um, so, my coworkers were getting together tonight at Rossi’s if you want to come? They wanted me to invite you.” Spencer rocked, shifting his weight from heel to toe. 

“Is that who you were on the phone with last night?” Cate word vomited, immediately wishing she wasn’t so nosy. 

“Uh, yeah. They sort of were encouraging me to tell you how I felt. Not that I didn’t want to tell you myself, I was just worried-” He rambled before Cate cut him off.

“It’s okay.” Cate placed a hand on his cheek. “I’d love to go. I can thank them.” Cate giggled before balancing Shrimp with one hand, her other on Spencer’s cheek and reached up to peck him on the lips. Pulling away with a smile, Cate turned to enter her apartment. Even after the door shut behind her, Spencer lingered for just a few seconds, wrapping his head around what had just happened. 

He strolled into the BAU with only minutes to spare. He tried to make it to his desk before catching someone’s attention, but Derek was waiting for him at his own desk, which was located across from his. 

“Quite the storm we had last night. The power at my place went out.” Derek mentioned to Spencer. Without thinking, Spencer opened his mouth.

“Yeah some power lines were down on Cate’s street too.” Derek raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I wouldn’t- I didn’t… we stayed at my place, so I wouldn’t know if her power went out.” Derek smirked.

“We?” Derek rolled his desk chair across the walkway to Spencer’s desk. “We as in: you and Cate spent the night at yours? I didn’t think you had it in you, Pretty Boy.” Derek moved to clap Spencer on the shoulder, but Spencer was already standing to hide his blush. He hadn’t gone to The Empty Mug this morning on his way to work, so he made his way to the coffee station. To his dismay, JJ, Penelope and Emily were standing around in the break room. He’d have to walk between them to get to the coffee station. 

“Hey, Spence.” They all greeted, and watched him reach for a disposable cup.

“You didn’t stop at The Empty Mug this morning? You always stop there on your way. Did something happen?” Penelope analyzed his body language. 

“Yes and no.” Spencer replied. He began brewing his coffee and grabbed the sugar. He tried not to make eye contact with the girls.

“Don’t make us pry, Spencer.” JJ begged. “Is she going to join us at Rossi’s tonight?” JJ was still looking at Spencer’s back that was facing them. 

“Yep, she’ll be there.” Spencer put some sugar in his cup. 

“Okay, that’s good.” Emily tried to keep the conversation going. Spencer’s mind thought back to the phone call from last night.

“Come on, Spence.” JJ said from the other side of the phone. She was with the other girls of the team. He was lucky she had called while Cate was still showering. 

“Yeah, what’s the worst that could happen?” Emily chimed in. He didn’t realize they were all together for a girl’s night when he picked up. He had told JJ his plan earlier, but she must’ve spilled to the others. They had called to see how far along he had gotten in his decision to come clean to Cate with his feelings. 

“It’s so obvious that she feels the same, and I’m not saying that because we’re profilers.” JJ tried to make him feel better. He hushed them when he heard the water turn off.

“You got this, Wonder Boy!” Penelope encouraged. “Oh! While we have you on the line, if everything works out in your favor, we’re getting together at Rossi’s tomorrow night for a pasta dinner. Invite Cate! It will be so fun with another girl!” Penelope squealed. Spencer hurried their goodbyes and hung up. That was when he opened his bedroom door and Cate stood outside with her wet towel. He was relieved when she didn’t show any signs of hearing that conversation. 

“Well, I see some orange fur on your clothes and I know for a fact you don’t have any pets.” Emily started, beginning to profile him to get the answers she and JJ and Penelope wanted. JJ followed suit.

“She has a cat?!” Penelope interjected excitedly.

“That would mean that you were with her this morning.” JJ deducted. Lucky for Spencer, his coffee was finished brewing and he poured his cup and headed back to his desk. Unlucky for Spencer, Derek was still sitting by his desk, ready to interrogate him more. Luck must have been on Spencer’s side, because Hotch rolled in, announcing a meeting at the round table, saving Spencer from the confrontation.

All day, Cate scavenged her closet for an outfit to wear to dinner. It seemed like every dress she had was too fancy and every combination of a nice shirt and jeans was not fancy enough. She would’ve facetimed Marta, but Marta was working at the shop. 

As Cate sifted through each hanger again, she finally found something that caught her eye. It was perfect. It was a reddish purple off the shoulder dress. It fell at her knees, so it was classy enough. She had worn it to her sister’s wedding a few years back.

She had heard Spencer mention Rossi before. David Rossi, the author, who had a mansion. She knew it was an occasion to dress fancy. She of course, didn’t want to over do it, either. But, this dress was perfect for the occasion.

Spencer had left Cate a voice message with a well-appreciated detailed itinerary of the night. After he got out of work, he was going home to freshen up, and he would pick her up around seven for the late dinner at Rossi’s. He estimated they’d stay for roughly three hours before leaving and he would drive her home. Cate liked knowing what to loosely expect. 

Seven came around a little sooner than Cate anticipated. She was finishing up her makeup when there was a knock at her door. Upon opening it, Spencer was standing in her hallway with a small bouquet of flowers. 

“I know it’s technically not a date and I don’t know your favorite flower, but I got you these. I just thought you’d like them.” he held out the arrangement of lilies. “Roses say a lot, their meaning is typically romance and passion, but I felt like that was a lot to say, so I got you lilies. They mean devotion and purity to some, but also have other meaning tied to Greek mythology.” Cate gently took the bouquet from Spencer. 

“I really like them, thank you.” Cate smiled, leaving the door open and turning to put them in water. Spencer walked into her entry hall, hands in his pocket. Shrimp had padded out into the main area of the apartment, and found his way to Spencer, rubbing against his legs. 

Cate returned, and had a small clutch with her. Spencer tried hard not to stare at any part of her body too long. He held his arm out to her, and she gladly took it, wrapping her hands around the crook of his elbow. She had worn some short heels, easy to walk in and comfortable for the night. Her short hair was pinned back, but some pieces were too short and fell to frame her face. She had even painted her nails for the occasion, eager to impress Spencer’s coworkers. 

Spencer and Cate were the last to arrive at the party. They walked arm in arm up to the front door. Spencer rang the doorbell. Cate was getting nervous. She pulled her arm from Spencer’s and swiped the back of her hand on the skirt of her dress. Spencer could smell her perfume from their close proximity. She smelled like tropical fruit with a bit of musk.

David Rossi opened the door with a welcoming smile. After greeting them, he shook Spencer’s hand and pulled Cate into a quick hug. They walked into the huge house, entering the kitchen first, where the entirety of Spencer’s team was dispersed, talking amongst themselves. Penelope and JJ and Emily were the first to approach Cate. 

“Nice of you to finally show up!” Emily directed at Spencer. 

“You, my friend, have a lot of catching up to do!” Penelope took Cate by the hand and pulled her to the island, where an array of wine bottles were scattered on the granite countertop. “I hope you like wine!” She pulled a glass out of a cabinet.

“Rossi will insist that the Pinot Grigio is the way to go with our dinner, but you can have whatever you want!” JJ informed Cate. Cate eyed the labels of the different bottles.

“I’ll go with the Riesling.” Cate poured herself a small glass. The girls went to one of the many sitting areas in Rossi’s home to get to know each other more. Cate’s nude lipstick was rubbing off onto her glass with every sip. They dived into some conversation that led to the discovery that both Emily and Cate had cats. The girls laughed and chatted with one another and it was soon time for dinner.

Rossi had set a table outside on his patio. Candles lit up the table and Cate had admired his large yard and his beautiful home. Cate sat next to Spencer. She listened to the variety of conversation around the table and chimed in when appropriate. Spencer’s work family was so funny and welcoming, Cate was beginning to feel like one of their own.

The table was finished eating. Cate was settled next to Spencer. Despite having just announced their feelings last night, things were at ease. There was comfort in the air. 

The team had all broken off into a few separate conversations. Derek had caught Spencer’s attention, grilling him on why he was late.

“So, as it turns out, bakers can’t cook.” He recalled the morning of burnt eggs filling his apartment with an awful smell. The pair laughed together. 

After eating, Cate helped clear the table and bring plates to Rossi's kitchen to place in the sink. She and JJ put away some of the extra food into containers to put in the fridge. JJ refilled Cate’s glass for the third time that night. 

“I’m glad Spencer found someone like you.” JJ admitted. Cate blushed.

“Oh, please. I’m the lucky one.” Cate and JJ walked back out to the patio.

Spencer was further in the yard, entertaining Jack and Henry, Hotch and JJ’s kids. He was showing them magic tricks and chasing them, tickling them when he caught up to them. Cate’s heart swelled.In the few months they had known each other, she was growing very fond of him. A smile grew on her face as she watched him. JJ quietly walked away to Will, her husband. Spencer looked up, catching Cate’s gaze. He excused himself from the boys and made his way to her. 

Her hair was getting a bit disheveled from the long night. More pieces had fallen out of the bobby pins. Her lipstick was now transferred onto the rim of her wine glass. She had surprisingly held her own while Penelope and JJ had been refilling her wine glass throughout the night. The night was cooling off and Cate had goosebumps across her bare shoulders. 

“Hi.” He smiled at her, situating himself against the railing like she was, mirroring her position.

“Hi.” Cate parroted. She pulled her glass to her lips, tipping it back for another sip. 

“Having fun?” Spencer asked. Cate nodded.

“Your coworkers are so cool. I can’t believe I am at a dinner with a bunch of FBI agents AND David Rossi, a renowned author.” Cate’s words slurred slightly. As she looked around the yard at all of Spencer’s coworkers and friends, she shivered slightly, running her hands up and down her arms to create some friction. “You know, normally, the boyfriend would give the girlfriend his jacket at this point.” Cate smirked. Spencer’s eyes widened, he pursed his lips, quickly taking off his suit jacket, placing it around Cate’s shoulders. They stayed leaning against the railing. It finally registered in Cate’s brain what she had said.

“Oh my god, I didn’t mean to assume that we-” Cate started.

“I didn’t know if you really wanted to-” Spencer said at the same time.

“I’d love to. If you want to.” Cate blushed. She was thankful that most of Spencer’s coworkers had migrated inside.

“How much have you had to drink exactly?” Spencer laughed, pulling her into a side hug. 

“I’ve lost count.” Cate shrugged, giggling.

“Let’s get you home.” Spencer said, but he didn’t make a move to let go of her.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction