#they paused and looked at the people still desperately trying to rise

[d3adlyromb3ar]

✰ sinking lily pads

— synopsis. he thrived in the sorcerer world, she was forced into it. how could two people that strayed so differently from each other become so close?

— pairing. gojo x oc!fem!reader (main), toji fushiguro x oc!fem!reader

— word count. 4k

— contents. heavy child abuse, torture, neglect, abandonment, angsty asf, injuries, blood/gore, depressing thoughts, suicidal ideation, dissociation, ptsd, mentions of death, jjk violence/fighting

— notes. italics are flashbacks 🤍

series masterlist | previous chapter

✰ chapter three. no point in forgetting

June 10th, 1999

The wood traced her exposed back, the end trailing down her spine. Her hands gripped the bars tightly in front of her— palms squeezing the cold metal so tightly it threatened to burst.

I know it’s in there somewhere.

The bad man had said. Tsking in disappointment as she had failed yet again in perfecting her rising technique.

She had just discovered the mere sensation and instincts of something new— yet the bad man had demanded she perfected the ability. It seemed unfair, but she also knew that she failed.

Again and again the bad man forced her to focus and tried desperately to pull the technique out of her. Unbeknownst to him, it just didn’t work that way.

Quit holding back, it’s only gonna make things worse for you girl.

The bad man would taunt, every threat causing goosebumps to cover her flesh.

It didn’t matter. No amount of screaming, training or torture would bring it out. But in the man’s eyes, she failed— and she deserved to be punished.

The wood leaving her skin brought her back to reality, remembering her position and how badly she wished to escape from this situation.

“How many hours of failure today?” The bad man spit, his eyes glaring into the untouched skin of her back.

She forced her lip to stop quivering, needing herself to answer strongly.

“14.” She whispered, voice still weak.

The man leaned down and swept her hair off her neck, his lips dangerously close to her ear as he hissed his next words.

“Then that’s how many you’ll get.”

The words were enough to bring tears to her eyes, shivering in disgust as his voice almost sounded excited to inflict such damage. She couldn’t find it in herself to be ashamed of her state, she wailed and screamed— but not once did she let go of the bars. Staying completely still.

She felt his presence leave her, and knew that the little shuffling sounds indicated he was pulling back the stake. Her body could only tense up as she prepared herself for hell.

“I’m very disappointed in you Miss Dair.”

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。

“I’m very disappointed in you Miss Dair.”

Yaga’s voice boomed. Although he was speaking at a normal frequency— she couldn’t help but wince as the words rolled out.

“I thought I could count on you to be honest with me. With your classmates…” He paused and looked at her more intensely, “With your friends.”

Moon narrowed her gaze slightly at him, knowing he was trying to get some kind of reaction— but she had none. She knew he had the right to be upset, as she was upset with herself just as equally.

“It’s important you inform me of details so severe as your life. You do realize not to take your 9 lives for granted, yes?” He questioned, more like interrogated.

Moon’s eye twitched.

“Yes sir, I understand.” She replied almost robotically.

Yaga wasn’t have any of it though.

“No, you don’t understand. That’s the issue I’ve realized,” He stated bluntly, “You don’t value your life, and it saddens me.”

Moon’s jaw dropped and she went silent for a few moments. Watching Yaga lean back in his seat and cross his arms.

It was her turn to lean forward.

“Principal Yaga, I do value my lif—”

“We can cut the bullshit.” He interrupted harshly. “Really Miss Dair? Do I look like someone you should lie to right now?”

Moon clenched her jaw, her nose burning with a familiar sensation that tears were threatening to come.

“With all due respect sir, I didn’t intend on dying. It was a mistake and it won’t happen again.” She voiced lowly, not even believing herself.

Yaga scoffed and shook his head, but he wasn’t trying to seem rude. He was worried deep down and extremely disappointed in this change in his student.

His silence gave Moon time to overthink, and she couldn’t stop herself from speaking.

“Do you… do you think I meant to die?” She asked, wondering just what it was he was thinking.

Yaga adjusted his glasses, before leaning his elbows on his knees.

“I don’t think you did, I just think you don’t care that you did.” He told her.

She found herself stuck in a tough spot. Her body wanted to escape, to run away and hide from the truth that was being spat at her. Another part of her realized just how right Principal Yaga was.

The principal watched as Moon was left speechless, fiddling with her fingers in her lap anxiously— as she couldn’t come up with anything.

It only saddened him more. A part of him wishing that it wasn’t the case.

“What’s going on?” He asked her, his voice softer than earlier.

Moon didn’t know why she felt like she could talk openly with him. It wasn’t like her to express herself— at least not anymore. Although, it was hard to forget what Yaga had done for her, and maybe that’s what forced her to talk to him.

Yaga had saved her from the horrid clutches of the Zenin Clan, to which now she felt like she owed it to Yaga to at the very least— talk with him. He deserved that, and of course so much more.

Moon took a deep breath, tucking a fallen strand of hair behind her ear.

“I never asked for this life.” She whispered, just barely loud enough for him to hear.

But he did.

“I know you didn’t.” He agreed gently.

“So you understand.” She assumed.

“Understand what? That getting yourself killed is supposed to be okay?” He spoke, voice rising but still trying to remain calm.

Moon sighed, throwing her hands up in frustration.

“No— I…” She trailed off, “You know what… forget it.” She had more words to say but held herself back from voicing them.

Yaga narrowed his eyes.

“Moon,” The principal started, grabbing her attention seeing as he rarely called her by her first name. “I know you’ve been through a lot, and whether or not you ever fully open up to me about what exactly they did to you. I know they hurt you. In ways I’ll probably never understand.”

The burning sensation within her nose grew stronger from his words.

“But everything they did to you, everything that happened— you deserve to live a happy life.” He told her, wishing so badly that she could believe the words he said tonight.

“You’ve told me this before.” She whispered, her gaze focused on the floor.

“Because it’s true, and I need you to believe it.” He pushed, his voice softer again.

She shook her head, her vision blurry with tears— but she’d be damned to let them fall.

“Life has been cruel to you, but it doesn’t have to be anymore.” He told her, “I want you to live and be happy, because it’s what you deserve.”

She stood up from her spot and turned away from him, not walking away— but she couldn’t allow him to see the tear that managed to slip down her cheek. She wiped it away, before facing him again. This time she stayed standing.

“It’s difficult to live a happy life when I’m stuck doing something I don’t want to do.” She spoke carefully, turning defensive from his kind words.

“You’ve never been forced to do anything here.” He stated calmly.

“Then let me leave.” She argued.

“No ones stopping you.”

She felt her tongue become led in her mouth, swallowing as yet again— she was left speechless. It was cruel in a way that Yaga was always right, and he was.

Not once was Moon ever forced to go to school here. Not once was she forced to fight, to spar, to train. Not once was she forced to exorcize curses— it was all her choice. Yaga made sure of that.

He also knew that deep down under that facade of the girl she presented, the one who wishes to run away— to hide. He knew she was still a good person, someone who couldn’t walk away from the opportunity to help people. To save people.

He knew she was more at a battle with herself than anyone else.

“If that’s all sir, I’d like to be excused.” She muttered quietly, clearly finished with the conversation.

He let out a breath, knowing it wouldn’t be that easy to convince her of all he said today.

“One more thing and then you may leave.” He stated and she looked up to him, “There is an upcoming mission, one where you will work with your classmates. It’s important and I suggest you screw your head on straight before you take it on.”

She nodded in understanding.

“More information about said mission will be provided tomorrow. I suggest you relax today, get lots of rest.” He recommended sternly.

Something about his words made it sound like she was going to need her rest for this mission. At that, she became intrigued with what this mission was exactly. Time would tell.

“You can leave now.” He said lastly, his attention back in front of him.

Moon bowed her head lazily, making her way out of the room. She had a lot of thinking to do— a lot of reflecting. Yaga’s words weren’t said to deaf ears, and now they swirled around her mind.

I want you to live and be happy, because it’s what you deserve.

Those words specifically echoed throughout her head, the kind sentence causing her to scoff.

What did I deserve?

She wondered bitterly.

The school grounds were quiet and calm today. Usually the ambience of people wandering about, the different conversations being held— it was comforting. But the silence wasn’t unwelcome, and it seemed rather peaceful.

The dark haired girl made her way down the steps of the school, when a familiar voice caught her attention.

“Well well, look who it is.” The white haired sorcerer acknowledged from his spot under a tree— relaxing in the shade.

Moon glanced at Shoko and Geto to his right before meeting his eyes through his glasses.

“Hope we weren’t missing out on important information about our upcoming mission just now.” Geto teased.

Moon wished to of gone back to her room to rest, but couldn’t think of an excuse to leave them now that they spotted her. Plus, she wanted to see them.

She shook her head, walking over to the trio.

“Nah, just Yaga being… well… himself.” She mumbled.

Geto snorted, always finding Moon and the Principal’s relationship silly. He knew that Yaga had taken you in when you were young, but he didn’t know any further than that.

“Don’t disrespect the man.” Gojo commented.

Moon turned towards him, giving him a glare. Shoko chuckled at her reaction, her cigarette resting in between her fingers as she observed her friends.

“C’mon Satoru, be nice.” Shoko warned.

Gojo looked around dramatically, lifting his hands up in the air. The whole act only causing Moon to roll her eyes, even though deep down her lips threatened to curve.

“I didn’t even do anything!” He whined before locking eyes with Moon. “Right Nines, y’know I was just joking if anything.”

Even though she told him not to use that nickname anymore, she couldn’t find it in herself to care at the moment.

“It’s fine.” She shrugged, taking a seat next to Geto.

Furthest away from Gojo, causing him to pout slightly. Unnoticed by everyone.

“So what do you think this big mission Yaga keeps mentioning is about?” Geto wondered.

Gojo sighed loudly, gaining everyone’s attention. Typical.

“Who knows, probably a small job.” He assumed.

“You think so?” Geto asked, and only received a shrug back.

Moon let her classmates voices turn into background noise as she got lost in her thoughts. She knew better than to be hanging around them, trying to steer clear of getting close with anyone. But every interaction, even the tiny ones that led up to this point— she clenched her jaw in defeat. Whether or not she wanted to believe it or not— she had already created bonds with these people.

She only felt one thing for herself: disappointment.

“…right Moon?” Geto’s voice suddenly registered.

She glanced to the three who were now staring at her, clearly waiting for her answer. It was evident that she hadn’t heard a thing they said.

“What’d you say?” She asked, a little embarrassed.

“I said given the choice pairing up with me or Satoru for the mission, you’d pick me right?” He asked again, a grin on his face.

Despite his concerns for his friends behavior.

Moon scoffed but had a playful grin.

“Oh yeah, no question.” She played along.

Gojo pushed his glasses back up to cover his eyes completely, rolling his eyes behind the black lenses.

Moon smiled wider at his reaction, lowering her gaze to the grass. Missing the way Gojo was staring at her lips.

It was easier to pretend nothing was wrong sometimes, these lighthearted moments almost convincing her to quit her efforts to keep them away completely.

Your friends worry about you. Yaga’s words from a previous conversation, echoed through her head.

It wouldn’t be wise to head into a mission with everyone’s heads in the wrong spot. Maybe she needed to do her part, and reassure the ones she was surrounded by. It wouldn’t matter if she didn’t believe any of the words she said— she just needed them to believe it.

“Hey,” She nudged Gojo’s leg with her foot, “Take a walk with me?”

His head had leaned forward again, allowing his blue eyes to peak over the tops of his shades. He studied your expression, making out one thing quickly— genuine.

“Sure Nines.”

The two promised to come back to Shoko and Geto.

As soon as they made it far enough, where soon it was just them two secluded— Gojo was the first to speak.

“Gotta say I’m a little surprised.”

Moon turned her head towards him, confusion washing over her features.

“Surprised?” She asked.

“Well yeah, you’re actually talking to me. Correction— you’re talking to me first. Without me starting the conversation, like I always do.”

“Okay, I get it.” She stopped him, the corners of her mouth turning up.

“So what’s with the sudden change— ya know not that I’m complaining or anything. Just curious.”

Moon walked with even steps, keeping up with his larger strides as they traveled deeper into the woods.

“Well, I needed to apologize to you.” She uttered quietly.

Gojo tilted his head slightly, confusion washing over his features this time. He kept his gaze on his feet in front of him.

“Apologize for what?”

Moon swallowed, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear nervously. Or was it guilt?

“I’ve come to realize that I’ve been making you… unfocused.” She was careful with her wording. “I’m sorry for any stress I’ve been causing you, as for the others as well.”

Gojo stopped walking, causing her to stop and turn towards him as well. He didn’t know why her apology was ticking him off. Mainly because he didn’t see a good reason why she was apologizing in the first place.

“Making me unfocused?” He asked carefully, making sure he heard that right.

She nodded shamefully, the action making Gojo’s cheekbone twitch in irritation.

“Nines, you do realize that you shouldn’t be apologizing to me right now.” He surprised her.

“Wha— why not?”

“Because you just shouldn’t be.” He argued.

She was silent for a moment, gazing deeply into his shades— desperate to see his eyes. Knowing that it was the only way to depict how he was truly feeling.

“You have been so stressed out lately.”

“Yeah but that has nothing to do with you.” He lied.

Yes he was stressed, and yes maybe you were in a way the cause of it— but only because he worried about you too much.

“Listen Nines,” He took his glasses off, looking down to lock eyes with hers. “Anything that’s going on with me, isn’t your fault. So don’t start beating yourself up.”

“How can I not? With the mission coming up, I don’t need you to be distracted— and getting hurt because of it.”

He smirked slightly, unable to control himself.

“Weird, for a second there— it kinda sounded like you cared about me.”

Moon rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious Gojo.”

“And I’m serious Moon, you shouldn’t be apologizing.” He tried to convince her. “Plus, I’m not unfocused… if it’s anything, I’m just worried about you.”

She knew he was, but it was completely different hearing himself say those words.

“You don’t need to be worried about me, I’m fine.”

“That’s just the thing you don’t understand Nines,” He trailed off, taking a few steps closer to her. “I’m always gonna worry about you.”

His words had her shuttering, her chest warm with an unfamiliar sensation. She couldn’t confirm whether she enjoyed the feeling or felt indifferent about it.

“Why?”

He stepped closer again, and had to think of his words for a moment as the view from his perspective of her— distracted him. Her eyes were round and slightly glossy as she gazed up at him.

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re important to me.”

She felt her chest tighten slightly, one of her hands lying over her heart. This wasn’t what she was hoping would come of this conversation. But she also knew that these talks were almost inevitable.

“Don’t seem so shocked. You know that I care about you.” He added, her silence irritating him.

She swallowed, needing a moment to clear her head.

“You shouldn’t. You need to focus on the mission.” Was all she came up with.

“I can do both. I’m a great multitasker.”

She huffed and let her eyes drop to the grass, focusing on the grass blades instead of his intense blue eyes— she found it hard to focus when she gazed into them.

“This is pointless…” She muttered under her breath, which Gojo didn’t miss.

“Ouch.”

“I’m serious, this isn’t some kind of game—”

“I am serious Moon,” He repeated himself, growing agitated, “God, why is it so hard for you to understand that people care about you?”

She could only stare at him, coming up with nothing to say. She really found it hard to believe people cared about her. 

“I know I’m not the best at expressing emotions, but fuck— I hope that at least my friends can see that I care.” He huffed, turning away from her. 

She felt bad for making him frustrated, that wasn’t her intention— it never was. It seemed she was always causing him to be though. 

“You’re fine Gojo, I’m sorry. I don— I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

He turned back towards her, gazing into her eyes and taking in her shameful expression. 

“Why is it so hard for you to understand that people care about you?” He asked again.

She swayed in her spot and debated whether she should cloak and run away— it was always the first thing that came to mind when she was put in these situations. Although, she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. Not when he sported this kicked puppy look— it had her feeling all that more guilty. 

“Moon.” He got her attention again, watching as she spaced out. He walked closer to her until there was a little space in between them. It had her craning her neck up to meet his eyes bravely. “Why?”

“I don’t know…” She whispered, her eyes dancing just below his eyes to watch the muscle in his cheek flex. “There’s something wrong with me.”

His gaze softened as he found her telling the truth. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you Nines.” He started and thought about the line he was dancing on, “You just need to be nicer to yourself.”

She scoffed and lowered her head, her stare on his shoes. 

“It’s not that I… I just feel like I don’t work right. Like… I don’t know.” She tried to explain, but grew frustrated when she couldn’t voice what she wanted. 

She felt slender fingers grab her chin gently, and tilted her head up so that she was looking back into his eyes. She couldn’t ignore the flipping sensation in her stomach from the gesture. 

“You’re not broken like some toy, Moon.” He tried to tell her.

“Maybe not physically but, it just feels like that. Like everything I went through with the Zenin Clan…” She rambled on, catching herself before she could say anymore. 

Gojo knew she was saved from the Zenin’s clutches— but he didn’t know of the details. Nobody did. The only person who knew a little more was Yaga, but even then he didn’t know everything. She had never uttered a word to anyone of her experience. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” He reassured her, noticing her nervous look. “But you can if you want.” 

She gazed into his eyes and found herself reliving the same exact sensation she got the very first time Gojo tried to… kiss her. She didn’t know why she felt it— especially when he wasn’t showing any signs of leaning closer to her. It was after a couple seconds stuck in her thoughts, when she realized she was the one who was moving towards him. 

She stopped herself instantly, swallowing harshly when she still felt his fingers on her chin. 

“I know deep down that people care about me. It’s just hard to truly understand that.” She answered his question, not going into her past. 

He let go of her chin, letting his hand slide down her arm as he grabbed her hand. 

When was he this touchy? She wondered. 

She didn’t stop him, or pull away as she let herself enjoy the comfort his touch brought. She’d usually stand a little farther away than necessary— keep her distance. But she was starved and let herself have this moment— this sliver of affection. If that’s what it was. 

“So deep down, you understand that I care about you right?” He asked, his eyes glancing back from one to the other. 

She’d never seen him look so— desperate. 

The question circled within her. Yes, she knew he cared. But no matter how much convincing to herself— she’d always have that doubt in the back of her mind. The one the Zenin’s damaged to a pulp. 

“Yeah, I do.” She told him, the words feeling bitter coming off her tongue. 

She watched his shoulders sag with a huge breath he had been holding in, and she didn’t know why the little act had her heart hurting. The fact that even in this gentle moment— she was still causing him pain. 

“Good.” Was all he found himself saying. 

He wasn’t sure if this version of his Moon would stick around— whether or not she would revert back to her isolated self. But he would appreciate her in any form she presented herself in— he was learning quickly that his sorcerer friend was right. 

Our Moon is very much there.

Geto’s words finally made sense as he realized that maybe things wouldn’t go back to the way they were— but he still had her. That was enough for him, and he’d stick by her until the end. Now only if he could voice those words to her. One day. 

He smiled at her and let go of her hand, despite him not wanting to— he didn’t want to overstep. 

“Come on, let's head back.” He told her, starting to walk back to Shoko and Geto.

Moon followed after him, her shoulders feeling a bit lighter— her mind feeling a little more at ease. She wondered why the sudden change in how she was feeling— but couldn’t care enough to complain. Her feet moved quickly, keeping up with his long strides. All while there was a small smile on her lips. 

Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. 

— ending notes. pls lmk what you think of this series so far, feedback always appreciated 🤍

#jjk #anime #jujutsu kaisen #gojo satoru #gojo my beloved #gojo x oc #husband #toji fushiguro #angst #angst with a happy ending #suguru geto #jujutsu kaisen suguru #shoko ieiri #jjk shoko #jjk yaga #trauma #zenin clan #sinking lily pads fic #sinking lily pads #sinking lily pads series #moon dair #moon dair oc #fic series #fic rec #series recommendations #🤍🤍🤍

[freebooter4ever]

i send my friend suggestions of tourist places to see in his new country (his contract was extended, lucky him!) or messages about friend of friends i have living there that he could maybe meet for fellow americans to talk to, and his response is always that he doesnt have time. and not in that exaggerated way that people do to seem busy. but in that bone tired way i recognize from him here in LA, that i recognize in myself.

#jrnlsht #i watch the lives of my friends who have Made It on social media and its like looking through glass into another world i cant relate to #theyre so happy and confident and successful and its beautiful #you know whats a funny thing about LA #so many people on the on*line da*ting apps put *successful* on their list of requirements in the people they want to date #like theres a bar of entry and if you haven't reached a certain goal post like... blue check marks on your social media or a level of wealt #then they arent even going to want to get to know you #and its so antithetical to how i was raised i cant even comprehend #and yet i see it happening to my own relationships #in pittsburgh i had friends from literally ALL walks of life from people who made even less money than me to comfortable to fairly wealthy #here my friends are almost entirely of one professional class #and i have been observing how my hyper wealthy friends self select in who they interact with to maintain this wealthy bubble around them #i dont think it's entirely intentional but its also not not intentional if you know what i mean #anyway its one of the reasons i fucking loved the talk on saturday oh my god those two were a breath of fresh air i needed so much #these smart genius dudes built their own life and instead of constantly looking up for more and more personal gain #they paused and looked at the people still desperately trying to rise #and were like if i have gotten this far why cant i help you do it too and then they DID IT they actually started helping #i think that is the true meaning of success

[luxaofhesperides]

Accidental Bride Sacrifice ; requested by @starlightcat04!

Danny has long since gotten used to the feel of summonings. They don’t happen often, but sometimes the right components are put together to force him into answering, and he’d have to go as the new Ghost King.

Which no one told him was a thing! He hadn’t protested too much about the whole Ghost King deal when they finally told him about it after he graduated high school. It gave him a good excuse to ditch life in the living realm and not worry about college or a career, and let him really embrace his ghost side. 

The summonings are a problem, though. They always feel staticky and bad, like a dumpster that just got struck by lightning. The taste of iron on his tongue, a clear sign of blood being spilled, lets him know that it would be one of end the world for us summonings, because some people can’t put in the effort to do it themselves, apparently. 

But this time, the summoning feels different.

Danny pauses, eyes going unfocused in the middle of his conversation with Jazz. He had been looking forward to spending the week with her, now that she’s on winter break, but his luck is as bad as always.

“I’m being summoned,” he tells her, cutting off her rant about a transphobic professor she had. 

“Oh, no. Do you need me to do anything? Should I go with you to beat up whoever it is that’s summoning you?”

Danny tilts his head to the side, considering. The taste of blood is noticeably absent. In fact, this summoning pull doesn’t make him feel sick at all. It makes him feel warm, as if he’s just been wrapped in a hug.

“No,” he says. “I think I’m good. This one feels different.”

“A good different?” Jazz asks, worry clear in her voice.

“Yeah. A good different. I’ll come back soon, okay?”

“Alright. Be careful, Danny.” Jazz pulls him into a quick hug, then steps back to watch as Danny stops fighting the pull of the summoning and disappears into a swirling white rings that flashes into existence behind him, blinding her for a moment, and is gone when she manages to blink the spots out of her vision. 

For a minute, Danny drifts in a void of stillness, traveling through the realms as the summoning draws him closer to the correct realm. And then he’s rising out of the ground in a dark building made of concrete, candles of green flame scattered all over the place.

“Great One!” someone in a hooded cloak cries, raising his arms in jubilation. “Our calls have been answered!”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” a mechanical voice yells from farther back. When Danny looks past the cultists’ heads, he spots a man in a red hood and leather jacket chained to a pole, along with a bunch of other people in strange costumes tied up, desperately trying to free themselves. 

“Silence!” The leader of the cult, or who Danny assumes is the leader, snaps at the hooded man and gestures to the people off to his left. They force another costumed person forward, this one in yellow armor. He can see the blood running down their face from beneath their helmet and from their nose, dark lines of blood cutting through their brown skin. 

The cultists throw the armored person forward, forcing them to kneel. Then they bow to Danny and step back.

“Great One,” the leader says, voice unpleasantly reverent and grating, “Welcome to the mortal realms. We offer you this sacrifice to feed your strength. He will make a fine general for your undead army in your crusade to rid this world of its filth.”

The people in the back begin shouting all together, panicked voices overlapping, and Danny is left staring down at the cultists in shock.

The summoning had felt so nice. What the hell was this? He did not sign up for another ‘end of days’ insane cult. He just wanted to be hugged. 

His silence makes the cultists nervous. They begin to shift uneasily, whispering to each other, and the leader clears his throat, then pulls a large crystal dagger out of his cloak. “We shall prove our devotion to you through an offering of a hero’s blood!”

And then he moves towards the sacrifice and Danny snaps out of his shock to yell, “Wait!”

The entire room freezes. Even the costumed people in the back go still. 

Danny winces, then tries to smother his power, make himself more palatable to the humans of this dimension. “Wait,” he says again, and he sounds closer to human now. If he could, he would drop his ghost form entirely, but he knows better than to endanger himself like that. “What, exactly, did you summon me here for?”

The cult leader stares at him for a moment. “To… To rid the world of filth and allow your loyal followers to spread word of your power. You will be worshiped again, Great One, and serve as a reminder to man that Death shall always prevail.”

“Okay, I get that, but I was talking more along the lines of the summoning. What ritual did you use? What specifically were the summoning requirements?”

Normally, he’d be able to figure it out himself, but these cultists didn’t use a summoning circle. So they did something else, something less visible and therefore harder to figure out, in order to bring him here.

A woman standing off to the side speaks up, stepping forward hesitantly. “I had pieced together a few summoning spells from this book to bring you here. You had to accept our chosen sacrifice to your side in order for the summoning to work.”

“Hold up that book for me, please?”

She does, and Danny flies down to grab it from her hands. “Point out which lines you used,” he says, already reading a few of the words written down. It’s definitely ghostspeak written down, which should be near impossible for living humans to translate without being skilled in magic.

“Ah, these ones.” She points to each line, reading them out for him, and Danny starts understand what, exactly, went wrong.

“Is there a problem, Great One?”

Danny returns the book then floats over to the sacrifice and picks him up. The costumed people make alarmed noises, but quietly quiet down again when all Danny does is move him away from the cultists.

“Okay,” he says, “So. The lines you used to summon me were not translated properly. What you interpreted as ‘accepted to stay by the king’s side in loyalty and strength’ is not meant to be, like, him being part of my undead army or whatever. It’s a royal marriage vow.”

“They married us?” the sacrifice shouts, disbelieving. The cult leader buries his face in his hands and sighs.

“My deepest apologies, Great One. We meant no offense. We simply wanted to aid in your destruction of this depraved world.”

Danny scrunches his nose and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not gonna fly with me. I do not do the biding of random people, especially those who are ready to murder innocent people for no reason. Frighty, if you would.” He snaps his fingers, calling up Fright Knight who always enjoys getting to torment the people who summon Danny for murderous reasons.

Fright Knight appears in a swirl of darkness and screams. Shadows swallow the room, and when they recede, no cultists remain.

“Thanks, Frighty. Have fun with them. I need to figure out all… this.”

Fright Knight bows to him, then disappears. Danny lets out a breath, then floats down lower to be eye level with the sacrifice. “Hey,” he says gently, with a smile, “I’m so sorry they did this to you. I’m Danny. What’s your name?”

“Du— Uh, Signal,” the sacrifice says, sounding rather dazed. 

“Signal,” Danny repeats. “Like… a traffic signal?”

“No. I mean, maybe? But it is Signal. That’s my hero name, not my real name.”

“Oh, you’re a hero!” His getup makes more sense now. Danny checks him over for any signs of injuries. So far, only his head and nose seem to be injured, but his wrists are tightly bound behind his back. Carefully, Danny calls upon his ice and shapes it into a sharp knife, then cuts through the zipties.

He helps Signal up to his feet, floating by his shoulder. “All good?”

“Yeah, man, all good. Let me just get the others free.”

“Oh, I can do it!” Danny flies over to the other costumed people, who must also be heroes. All it takes is one link in the chain being frozen and broken for the entire thing to go lax, allowing them to free themselves. Hooded guy spares Danny a single glance, then hurries over to Signal to check on him. The other three, a man with a blue bird across his chest, a blond girl with a yellow bat outline on her chest, and a guy with bandoliers and a golden bird emblem, all watch him warily as he floats back towards the center of the room.

“So,” the blue bird man says, “If they summoned you with a marriage vow, and you accepted, does that mean you’re planning to steal Signal away from us?” He’s smiling, but it’s not a nice smile.

“No! I had no idea they did this! I am so sorry you all got caught up in this. You most of all, Signal.”

Signal shrugs, nudging hood guy away from him. “Nah, man, it’s all good. This is definitely the better outcome.”

“I don’t know, being married off isn’t really a good thing.”

“Hey, at least they married me off to a decent guy.”

“You don’t know that,” Danny says, “What if I’m secretly evil?”

“If you were secretly evil, you’d be destroying the world right now. I think you’re fine.”

The blond girl waves at him, demanding his attention. “Quick question! They were calling you ‘Great One’. Are you a god or something?”

“Not really? I’m the Ghost King. So I’m a ghost who rules over other ghosts and also a majority of the Infinite Realms.”

She nods as if this is all totally normal for her, then shoots Signal a grin. “Congrats on bagging a king! Not the worst way to spend a night, right?”

“Can you break the marriage?” blue bird man asks, the lines of his shoulders tense.

Danny awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, not looking any of them in the eye. “I honestly don’t know. I can look for a way! But I genuinely have no clue. This was unexpected.”

“But you accepted.”

“I didn’t know what I expected! It just felt like a hug, and I wanted a hug! I thought I was being summoned for something nice for once!” Danny curls up, bringing his knees up to his chest, and hides his pout behind his hands. He knows he’s being childish, but he can’t help but be upset that he couldn’t have this one good experience from being Ghost King. 

It’s always responsibilities and death cult summonings and fighting ghosts who don’t think he should be king. Sure there have been some good things, but they’re comparatively few when looking at all the other stress and pain that comes with the crown. Sue him for wanting to have a nice night for once. Hell, at this point, he’d take being summoned to help with some kid’s homework, because at least then he could have a quiet night helping someone.

“Hey, man, can you come down here?” Signal asks. 

He wants to stay out of reach, hiding himself away for a bit longer, but Signal is his new, surprise, accidental husband, so Danny lowers himself to the ground and peeks through his fingers to look at him.

He tenses when Signal hugs him, soft and warm and comforting. It takes a moment for him to realize what’s going on, and then he’s melting into Signal’s embrace, dropping his hands to wrap them around Signal’s back.

Distantly, he can hear the other heroes talking quietly amongst themselves. He blocks out the sound as much as he can, determined to enjoy this hug while it lasts.

Which is… fairly long. Signal makes no moves to end the hug, so Danny closes his eyes to really savor the moment. 

“So,” Signal murmurs into his ear, “As newlyweds, how about we get to know each other a bit better before we start working on fixing all this?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Let’s ditch these guys and take some time to ourselves.”

“I promise I’ll get this fixed,” he says, just to make sure Signal knows. “Genuinely, I am so sorry to have married you through an old Realms vow when you had no say in it.”

“Hey, if it lands me a very nice, very attractive king, then I don’t mind at all. I could have done without the murderous cultists, though.”

Danny huffs out a small laugh. “Oh, for sure. Thanks for being so cool about this. Want me to fly us out of here?”

“Yes please,” Signal says. Danny smiles and tightens his grip on Signal, then lifts them both up. “I’ll see y’all later! Have fun with the rest of your patrols!” he calls out to the other heroes, who start shouting at him.

Danny flies them right out the roof before the other heroes figure out a way to kick his ass. The city they’re in is smoggy and dark, tall buildings rising up into the cloudy sky, and police sirens ring through the air. There’s no where that looks like a particularly nice spot to land for a conversation, so he asks Signal where he’d like to go and follows his directions from there.

They end up phasing through a building, then into the floor, which leaves them in what Signal calls The Hatch. 

Danny takes a quick moment to freak out over being in a hero’s secret hide out, the composes himself and finally pulls away from Signal.

“So,” he starts, looking around The Hatch and taking in the giant computer, the workstation, the motorcycle farther down the way, “What did you—Woah!” Danny spins around, slamming a hand over his eyes the instant he realizes that Signal is taking off his helmet, leaving his face bare.

It’s not like he’d know who Signal is anyways, being from a different dimension, but it’s the principle of the matter.

Signal laughs when he sees Danny’s attempt to keep from looking at him. A warm hand wraps around his wrist and gently pulls it away. “It’s okay, Danny, you can look,” he says. “It would be pretty weird if my own husband didn’t know my face.”

Slowly, giving Signal to change his mind, Danny opens his eyes. He moves his gaze up, going from Signal’s armor to his face, his very cute face and his warm brown eyes, and Danny stares for a moment. 

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Hi,” Signal says, fondness coloring his voice. “My name’s Duke. Are all Ghost Kings as cute as you?”

“Duke,” Danny repeats. “Hi. Um, no. The last one really sucked, actually, which is why I fought him. He was so bad the Infinite Realms didn’t want him anymore, so though I technically didn’t beat him in single combat, it was enough for the Infinite Realms to kick him out and get me on the throne.”

“Man, I can not wait to hear more of your stories. Think we got time for that while we search for a way to undo that marriage vow?”

Taking his chance, Danny says, “Sure! It’s a date.”

He’s awarded by Duke’s bright smile and idly wonders how long he can keep them married. Hopefully long enough for them to get into a real relationship where he can propose properly. And then he can get Jazz’s blessing too—

“Oh shit,” Danny realizes. 

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I need to tell my sister or she’s going to actually kill me.”

Duke winces. “And I should probably tell the others before Spoiler makes a mess of things… B is not going to be happy with me.”

They share a despairing look, already dreading the amount of scoldings they’re both going to get. He’s not looking forward to it.

“...Put it off until tomorrow?”

Duke nods. “Yeah. That’s a tomorrow problem. For now, how about a late dinner?”

“Sounds perfect.”

. . .

[send me a ghostlights prompt!]

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dpxdc fanfic #dp x dc fic #prompt fill #my writing #dukes pov is just: u're abt to be sacrificed. u're mildly concussed. a cute guy glowing like the north star saved u and is now ur husband #he's had a night but all in all it ended pretty nicely! #they're gonna work together and just hang out while trying to undo the marriage summoning ritual and find they're super compatible #and then in a few years they'll be marrying each other for real :) #thanks for the prompt!!

[filynxs]

: ̗̀➛ Feel You from the Inside.

⚝ Sukuna is your ex. But he is still obsessed with you. Thus, he pays you a visit at your apartment. He knows exactly how much you still like him. After all, the only reason you left him was because you didn‘t like his dark side. While you are an ordinary woman who knows what’s wrong and what‘s right, he is someone who doesn’t seem to have any morals. But when you see him again, you can‘t help but give in to him and his seducing actions.

⚝ Sukuna x fem!reader

⚝ 18+; sexual content; dubcon; rough s*x; swearing; manipulation

» [Closer - Nine Inch Nails] «

0:00 ─〇───── 0:00

⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻

"Sukuna, I already told you, it’s over." you repeat your words with an insisting tone in your voice. Words which are not the ones he wants to hear.

Standing across from you, he slightly clenches his hands into fists in reaction. You can see how tense his jaw is as he moves even closer to you, causing you to step back until your back touches the wall.

Your heart is racing inside your chest, as if asking to jump out and run away from this man. But there’s something else deep inside you that causes the fear to fade away, turning it into excitement.

"Come on, baby—" he replies with his raspy voice, raising his arms as if showing how defeated he is by your attitude towards him. However, you cut him off.

"Don‘t call me that, Sukuna." your voice is shaky as you speak, merely above a tiny whisper, a silly little breath in the air that doesn‘t show how you actually feel. "We separated for a reason."

Sighing deeply, he massages his temple. His breath even brushes your cheeks, indicating just how close he is to you. But you don‘t care anymore. The way how his alluring, red eyes look down at you makes you freeze in your position, asking yourself what creature he actually is. You have never seen so mesmerizing eyes like his. Especially in that color.

While you are distracted by his eyes, his impatience grows as you don‘t say anything anymore. You just stand there, your words from earlier still lying in the thick air between you two.

"Y/N," he pauses, and his masculine hand finds its way to your soft cheek. His caress is not tender nor gentle, but rather a mixture of softness and roughness, "I still want you. You can‘t just give up on us." He takes a deep breath.

You gulp, and your eyes dart over his face. It was always you and him together, for years now. Until his morally dark attitude and perspectives became too much for you to handle. He did things to people you never imagined one could do…

Leaning closer to your ear, he breathes against it while he lets his hand wander down to your neck.

"Why don‘t we just," he pauses, his hand wrapping around your neck like a tight collar, "enjoy ourselves a bit so I can show you that you still need me?"

Your chest rises with the heavy breath you take, running your tongue over your lower lip. His pink hair tickles the skin of your cheek, sending a pleasant feeling through your heated face. It seems like he still knows what to do to make you fall for him. Or is it just that you never moved on from him at all?

"Your scent," he inhales deeply, moving his free hand up below your shirt, "it‘s still so intoxicating."

Dryness forms inside your mouth, being caused by the feeling that is coursing through your veins. You‘re not sure if it‘s just excitement or fear, but one thing is clear: His presence and his mere touches arouse you.

You feel his cold hand on your skin as he moves it upwards your torso, reaching your bra that is separating his fingers from your soft breasts. His lips touch your earlobe before he moves them over your cheek to your pair of lips. With hunger he kisses you, diving his tongue deep inside your mouth.

It almost feels like he is trying to taste you so desperately because he had been separated from you for so long. He needs you on his tongue. Every tiny inch of your entire being.

A soft moan escapes you as you kiss, mixing with the loud bumping noise in your ears that‘s being caused by your racing heart.

As your kiss intensifies, his grip around your neck becomes firmer. You can feel how your body becomes weaker by each passing second in which not enough air fills your lungs.

However, right before you are about to pass out, he pulls back, letting a spit string follow his lips, that’s connecting you. You catch your breath in unison while your gazes lock with an utter intensity. An intensity that resembles the fire between the two of you.

Without saying anything, he lifts you over his shoulder and carries you to your bed. You gasp as he does so, being too speechless to let a word escape your soft lips.

"There’s a lot we need to catch up on." he chuckles darkly, throwing you onto your bed so that your body is trapped below his large one. You can‘t do anything against his actions, being in a vulnerable state.

His hands grab your clothes, ripping them apart with no hesitation or mercy. Your breasts jump into his sight as he does so, catching his full attention. The red irises of his focus on your hard nipples, as if devouring you with just his gaze.

Leaning down, he opens his mouth wide to take as much of your tit between his lips as possible. The smooth and sensitive flesh fills his mouth, and his tongue begins to slide over your nipple.

Moans come out of your throat as you squirm, and he grins only in reaction. His smirk touches your breast, his voice vibrating against your hard nipple as he begins to chuckle. His chuckle is so deep and raspy that it sends a shiver down your spine.

With his free hand he grabs both of your wrists, keeping you below his dominance as he sucks on your delicate tit. His skilled tongue plays with you, knowing very well what to do to drive you crazy.

"Your skin tastes so sweet." he purrs between his greedy sucks on your breast. It‘s almost like he can‘t stop caressing it, wanting to eat you up like a delicious dessert.

While his hand keeps your arms up, his other one roams your body, his palm stroking your soft skin until reaching your hot core. The searing heat that forms between your legs is almost unbearable for you. Now that he is playing with you like this, he has to finish what he started. Whether you like it or not, your body craves it.

He gives your nipple a gentle bite with his sharp teeth before leaning back to look at your lust filled face. His fingers move over your slick folds, feeling your damp pussy below his palm.

A dark snicker escapes him. "You still get wet so easily." To taste you, he sticks his wet fingers into his mouth, sensually sucking on them while gazing right into your eye. He licks your wetness off his fingers, making sure not to let a drop go to waste. His eyes roll back even, as if he‘s savoring your delicious taste.

He is… entirely obsessed with you.

Without a warning, he pulls his fingers out of his mouth and pushes them inside yours. A string of his spit follows his finger tips in the process. You moan as his long, thick fingers penetrate you, reaching so deep that it almost hits your throat, causing you to gag ever so slightly.

Your body‘s reactions cause him to chuckle, and he doesn‘t stop. His hand that has been holding your wrists against the mattress now reach down to your pounding clit. However, you keep your hands on the place he pushed them up earlier, showing just how much control he has over you. But you like it.

His fingers move on your clit in circular movements before he grows bolder and harsher with his actions. He rubs your clit with a fast pace, pulling on it and squeezing it between his thumb and index finger. Your moans fill the steamy silence, sounding like music to his ears. The flesh he is playing with throbs between his fingers, swelling more and more as he proceeds to play with your sweet spot.

The hard bulge in his pants grows harder by each passing second, rubbing against his clothes. Thus, he slowly grinds his hips against the mattress, and a deep groan escapes him.

You feel your climax approaching, causing you to squirm below him. Continuously caressing your clit, he grins as he notices your lustful expression. The way how you gaze at him while his touch pleases you turns him on even more, giving him the urge to just rip his clothes off and fuck you senseless.

As you reach your peak of pleasure, your teeth gently bite his fingers that are still inside your mouth. A needy groan comes out of you, vibrating in your throat. Your hips buck against his fingers that are still playing with you, and a hot, sweet nectar shoots out of you. The entire body of yours shudders in pleasure, savoring the orgasm and the tiniest seconds of it.

After your intense orgasm, he leans back, pulling his hands off you. Your sweet liquid is on his fingers, dripping down onto your crotch. He licks them clean, softly humming in satisfaction as your taste fills his mouth.

You turn him on, and this makes you aroused, causing your swollen clit to throb even faster. Just the thought of him getting off on you drives you insane. The fact that his cock is getting rock hard just because of you makes you wet. And it has always been like this since you two were in a relationship.

"Sukuna—" you pant, sweat rolling down your temple. But he cuts you off by pressing his index finger against your lips, silencing you.

"Quiet." he murmurs, "It‘s going to be amazing."

His hands wander down your waist until reaching your hips, giving them a rough squeeze. He then proceeds to rip his shirt off before making his trousers vanish from his body. You look down and see his hard cock coming into your sight, being adorned with black tattoos that also cover his entire body.

He‘s attractive. No, not just that. He‘s fucking sexy. And he knows it.

Letting himself down on your lower abdomen, he makes his cock find its way between your soft breasts. You two have never done this, but he wanted to fuck your tits for a long time now. And he uses this opportunity to do so.

He takes your breasts and squeezes them together so that they hug his shaft ever so tightly. His length pulsates against your tender skin, showing just how badly he needs you. With slow movements he proceeds to thrust his hips forwards, causing his tip to touch your chin as he fucks your breasts.

A shallow groan escapes his throat as he uses your breasts to pleasure himself. Just the sight of how your soft tits embrace his shaft makes him horny.

You bite your lip, panting for air as he continues to pleasure himself using you. The feeling of his actions, however, don’t make you feel negatively used. It‘s rather like being useful for his satisfaction is not a degradation to you. It‘s a push into further pleasure from which you get off. For you, it feels good to be his toy.

"Fuck, that‘s not enough." he groans, tightly wrapping his fingers around your neck, "I wanna feel you from the inside."

He pulls back, his tip leaking his sticky pre cum already. It drops onto your stomach as he moves, aiming for your slick pussy.

"Y/N, turn around." he orders firmly, so you move. But he is so impatient that he grabs your hips and turns you around, causing your ass to be stretched out to him. His hard length touches you between your ass cheeks, eagerly poking you with its wet tip. "I‘m going to fuck you like an animal, hun."

Wrapping your hair around his hand, he harshly pulls on it, causing you to arch your back. His other hand holds you by your hip while he aligns his cock with your throbbing entrance. He can tell that your body is just as ready as his. And this alone gives him the permission to roughly thrust into you.

His cock easily penetrates you, sliding into your wetness. Your walls embrace his flesh with arousal, wrapping around it like a warm blanket. You let out a loud moan in ecstasy as he fucks you, thus his thrusts become faster and rougher. A slight pain comes along with his harsh penetrations, but this pain you feel instantly turns into satisfaction.

The wet sound of flesh slapping together fills the walls of your bedroom, being the beat to the melody that is being created by your moans. You are not only love making, no. You are making a song that demonstrates the bond between you two. A lovingly sexual bond.

With harshness his hips smash against your ass with every thrust he makes, and he buries himself deep inside your womb. His cock fills every single inch of you up, making sure not to miss a spot out. He picks up his pace, and he hits your sensitive g spot every time. That big, hard shaft of his makes you crazy, even though you thought you got over him. But no, and just as he said earlier, he is making sure to show you just how much you still need him.

"You are tightening around me." he exclaims with a heavy pants, leaning close to your ear from behind. His hot breath brushes your skin as he laughs. "Are you going to come?"

You whimper in pleasure, biting your lip to hold your needy noises back. Gripping into your bedsheets, you shift your eyes to the side to look into his red ones. He fucks you from behind while his body is lying on top of yours almost, and his face is right next to yours. Your hair brushes his face as well as his neck, slightly tickling him.

An invading gaze is apparent in his red irises, penetrating yours as if hypnotizing you.

"Yes." you groan in reply as you come all over his length, and your wet walls tighten around him. He feels your liquid on his cock, and he picks up his pace as you continue to tighten around him. This only pleases him even more, causing him to reach his satisfying climax a few more thrusts after yours. His warm seed fills you up, mixing with your nectar.

Both hands of his wander to your chest, giving your tits a squeeze as he rides out his orgasm. His loud groans fill your ears. He‘s not holding himself back at all. He actually wants you to hear how you give him the pleasure he needs. The pleasure he craves.

He pulls on your sensitive nipples, causing them to become even redder and harder than ever. You moan softly, cursing below your breath. "Fuck."

Keeping his pulsating length deep inside you, he snickers into your ear. His voice is so fruity and husky, its raspy growl sending a pleasant wave of electricity down your spine.

Your breasts are still being held by his hands, and he tightly squeezes them as he rolls your nipples. He knows very well how crazy it makes you when he does that. You love it when he plays with your tits. Thus, he does so.

Still catching your breath, you begin to relax your muscles. But he is not letting you rest.

"You‘re such a good girl. My girl." his hips rock against your ass again, and you can feel that his cock is still hard, pulsating inside you. "I‘m not letting you rest. So you better stay awake the whole night."

#anime #jjk #jjk x y/n #jujutsu kaisen #manga #sukuna x y/n #sukuna x you #sukuna smut #sukuna x reader #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna ryomen smut #jujutsu kaisen ryomen #jjk ryomen #ryomen x reader #jujutsu ryomen #sukuna ryomen #smut #jjk sukuna ryomen #jjk sukuna

[oneforthemunny]

the more that you say, the less i know |mafia!eddie munson x reader|

prompt: you have the talk with eddie about his job.

contains: not really angst but not really fluff??? language. alludes towards violence or potential violence, but nothing specific mentioned.

"Can I ask you something?" You whispered, fingers tracing down a pattern of a web surrounding the black widow etched into his collar bone.

The room was thick with smoke, sweat. Eddie's cigarette burning between his fingers, the hallway light the only illumination the two of you had. Skin still slicked with sweat, clothes discarded on the floor; it was routine now. Eddie would pick you up from the bank, take you out, spoil you in lavish gifts or expensive dates, and you'd take him back here. To your place. Never his.

"What's on your mind, baby?" Eddie rasped, cool and easy, blowing out of him like the smoke that rolled through his nose.

"What, um," Your throat seemed to swell together, choking out the words you were desperate to say.

Eddie's head lolled over to you, careful and casual. Still there was a glint in his eye that you caught, even through the low light of the room, and it made you shudder. Like he knew what you were thinking, what you were going to say, like he could see right through you- maybe he could.

"What's going on, baby?" The purr in his tone, soft and calming. It almost made you want to brush it off, stuff your question down again, push it away for another time so you wouldn't ruin the moment. Ruin the softness.

His eyes were so soft when you finally met his gaze, bright and alert looking solely at you. Eddie was good at that, making you feel seen, like you were the only person in the entire world. It was one of his many magnetic qualities that kept pulling you back in, not that you gave much of a fight.

"I... I don't want to make you upset." Your stomach twisted, turned sharply, heart hammering.

Eddie's eyes didn't move, but he didn't miss the way your hands wrung, softly in your lap. "What's wrong?" He cooed, a gentle tone, wobbly and unsure. It wasn't one he was used to using, but he'd try for you.

You swallowed, bile rising, unsure of what to say. It sounded insane, the idea of it all, something out of a movie or a book, not something that should be your reality.

"You alright?" Eddie frowned, bumming the cigarette in the tray besides him. He brought his hand towards you, a gentle brush over your cheek bones. You winced at the feeling, jaw clenching. Eddie's heart sank in his stomach. "What's goin' on?"

"You... You said you worked in management." Your voice was small, filled with hesitancy.

Eddie blinked for a moment, face staying the same, unmoving from your own gaze. "Yeah." He nodded.

There was a pause, a tension so thick in the air you felt like it was crushing. "Is that-" You stopped yourself, a shuddering breath, hand still gripping and wringing around your palms. "What-What kind of management?"

Eddie exhaled slowly, pushing off the mattress slowly. Your eyes never left his, rounded and scared. You looked terrified- Why did you look terrified? Did you think he would hurt you? You were hard to read like this. Eddie was used to being unsure, used to the cryptic unknown, but not with you.

"I do all kinds of management. Management of people, mainly." Eddie said slowly, watching your face carefully. "Why? You lookin' for a job? Gonna leave the bank, baby?" He grinned, teasing, playful, a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. To get you to not ask what he knew was coming.

You didn't laugh. Lips didn't curl, and he didn't get to see that dazzling smile he hoped to. Instead, your eyes stayed low, avoiding his gaze.

"That's... That's really what you do?" You muttered, head still tipped towards your lap. "Management?"

Eddie inhaled, shoulders rolling back, slouching against your headboard. Instinct kicked in, that reserved feeling washing over him, trying to detach his emotions to you so he could threaten you. Scare you. Get you to fall into line like the others in Hawkins did.

Your eyes cut to his, rounded, scared. His heart skipped, rushed with familiar bouts of electricity, head spinning, a heat spreading from his neck to cheeks to ears.

He couldn't.

His mouth wouldn't allow it even if he wanted to. Tongue swelling thickly in his mouth, choking back every venomous word that threatened to fall.

"Why don't you ask," Eddie said calmly. "And I'll tell you what you want to know."

He knew you weren't wearing a wire, completely bare in front of him. Nothing around was out of the ordinary, he wiped his nose, casually looking out your window to see only his car on the street. The same cars of your neighbors in their driveways, he'd memorized them all by now. Knew who was at each house.

"What?" Your brows creased.

"Ask me what you want to ask, baby." Eddie said calmly. He could see the hesitance, clear on your face, scared by something someone had finally told you.

"Hey, look at me." Eddie nodded, reaching out to touch you, fingers barely grazing over your bare shoulder. You tensed under his touch and he tried to ignore the aching that filled his stomach.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, baby. C'mon." He cooed, sweet and coaxing enough to have you melting back into his touch. "I would never."

"I know." You muttered. You did know, even if the more rational side of you told you that you shouldn't. You shouldn't trust him, not after what Nancy told you.

"So just ask me." Eddie's hand rubbed over your shoulder, thumb pressing into a blossoming bite from earlier. "I can't say this is unexpected. I knew you'd have questions sooner than later."

Your eyes shot up, rounded with shock. Eddie's lips curled, it was cute, how sweet you looked. Like you'd been caught.

"You're... You're not in management, are you?" You muttered, toying with the material of your quilt, rolling the fabric between your fingers.

"I'm in management." Eddie nodded slowly. "Just not a management you're familiar with. More freelance, I guess you could say. Not like in an office like you are, sweet thing." He pulled his knees towards him, letting his arms fall over top.

You could feel his gaze on you, careful but not harsh, gentle. It was unexpected. "Right." You frowned.

"I-I heard something different." You could barely register the words coming from your own mouth, so far removed from the bedroom, that it felt like you should have just been on a different planet.

"What'd you hear?" Eddie pressed lightly.

That same silence crept back between the two of you, eerily still, your gaze meeting his. "I heard you were in the mafia." The bluntness of your tone left a finality, cutting and sharp.

A chilling realization washed over you, crashing with a reeling sensation of nausea. Eddie's brows raised, a tiny quip, before he could even stop it. Your own eyes widened, color draining from your face entirely.

You didn't think your heart could beat any faster, no it wasn't possible, yet here you were, letting it hammer mercilessly in your ears. A sitting duck in front of Eddie, you wondered how many other there had been in this position. How many others saw his face as the last they'd ever see, and if you were destined to be next?

"Hm," Eddie's tongue rolled over his teeth. You jumped at the sound, fisting the sheets. Eddie didn't move, didn't pounce on you, no goons flying in from the windows like you'd imagined in your fear stricken fantasies. He stayed calm, relaxed even.

"Well, that's... that's the easy answer, I guess." Eddie nodded slowly. "That's one way you could describe it."

"So, it's-it's real?" You babbled stupidly. "That's real? You're-You're in the mafia?" A wobble in your tone that made you cringe.

"Well, not, like, the mafia." Eddie snorted lightly. "Not like The Godfather type mafia, but not not that. A, uh, a smaller scale. We- I work with some different stuff." His eyes met yours. "Do some different things."

"Like what?" You whispered. Why were you whispering? Your mind raced, head spinning. This was a dream, it had to be. It certainly felt like a dream.

Eddie's lips curled, just soft enough to have your heart fluttering, flustered in a whirlpool of heat and emotions.

"Told you, it's management. I wasn't lying about that. People management, money management," Eddie paused, finger drumming against his knee cap. "Other stuff." You fought back a shudder.

"I... I don't-" You swallowed, though your mouth was incredibly dry.

"Let me talk for a second." Eddie said, a commanding tone in his voice you weren't familiar with. It startled you, and you weren't sure why you were aching down to your core.

An inked hand skated across your sheets, and for the first time you saw the rows of skulls across his knuckles when it grabbed yours. "I don't know what you've heard, or what you've been told, and I don't want to know. I don't really give a shit about what other people say about me, but I do care about what you think about me." Eddie's fingers intertwined with yours, holding your clammy hand in his.

"I-I don't do this. I don't date, and I definitely don't talk about this kinda shit with people I don't work with." Eddie muttered. You could feel his own sweaty palms, squeezing your hand lightly.

You weren't sure what to say, that you could even speak if you wanted to say anything at all. So you stayed still, stayed quiet.

"But I meant what I said. I'm not... I don't want you to be scared of me or anything." His eyes met yours softly. "I won't hurt you. Wouldn't've started this with you if I didn't... if I didn't want something serious along the way."

You swallowed. "Why?"

"Why?" Eddie repeated. "Why what, sweetheart?"

"Why... Why do you do this?" Your voice dropped into that hushed tone, like you were scared to speak too loudly, you wanted to keep it between you. Eddie's heart swelled, the sincerity in an action he wasn't even sure you knew you were doing.

"It's all I've ever known." Eddie admitted softly. In the darkness of your room, he'd never felt more seen, more exposed under your soft eyes. "Everybody's gotta make it somehow, baby. This... This is what I had to do."

"And," Your fingers wiggled in his grasp, squeezing his hand nervously. "You wanted to do this? You're happy doing this?"

"I'm not... I'm not like some fucking sick monster, ok?" Eddie huffed, more defensive than he would have liked. "I don't enjoy when I have to do certain shit, but..." His knee bounced, eyes flickering back over towards his cigarette.

"The women's shelter down the street from where you work, you know the one?" Eddie asked. You nodded slowly. "They didn't have hot water for a month last spring. City wasn't going to do anything about it, they didn't fuckin' care until I made them fuckin' care." You watched him carefully. "Couldn't have done that if I had a normal job, could I?"

You shook your head lightly, teeth gnawing at your bottom lip nervously. "Point I'm trying to make here, baby, is..." Eddie took a deep breath in, free hand cradling your jaw gently, pinning you under his gaze. "I'm not just wreaking havoc around here for no fuckin' reason. I don't fuck with anyone unless they fuck with me and I have to, alright? That's just how the business goes. That's management."

"But I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm not gonna hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it. That's not what this is. That's where those movies got shit wrong, alright? It's not all like that." Eddie shook his head with an eye roll.

"You want me to be honest? Most of the time, it's boring. A lot of planning and moving shit around, making sure it's where it's supposed to be. It's organized crime, baby, not nearly the chaos that Hollywood wants it to be."

You hesitated. "It's not?"

"No," Eddie rolled his eyes. "I mean, you gotta be careful and stuff, but it's not like every single day you're having a shoot off with a rival gang or some shit. Not all horse heads and explosions, most of the time it's just planning shit. Managing people and things, and making sure it's where it's supposed to be with no issues." You didn't dare ask what the 'it' of the matter was, not now anyways.

"I just," You swallowed, taking a deep breath in. "I thought because you-you're always so... alert."

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to be stupid." Eddie scoffed lightly, the playfulness in his tone returning. "You should be more alert. More aware of your surroundings. How long did it take you to realize?"

"Realize what?" You frowned.

"Realize you were going out with a guy in management." Eddie smirked, picking his cigarette back up.

You blushed, picking at the sheet again. "I had a feeling after the fourth date." You admitted. "Not that it was that. Just that... I don't know. I knew it was something. I asked around and... someone told me."

Eddie knew it was Nancy, but he respected how you tried to play it off. Play it safe, that you were protective of your friend.

"So..." Eddie's fingers drummed on his knee. "Anymore questions?"

You shook your head, thumb brushing over his knuckles, lightly over the inked skin.

"I got one for you." Eddie hummed, squeezing your hand lightly, blowing the smoke towards the window. Your eyes lifted towards him. "You want to go to my place?"

"Your place?" You asked, stilling.

"Yeah, I mean, now that you know, I can show you my place. Don't have to explain why there's security and it's out in the middle of nowhere." Eddie smirked. "I have dogs too."

"You have dogs?" You asked, eyes lighting up. "You didn't tell me that."

"No, I knew you'd want to meet them." Eddie grinned.

"How many?" You tilted your head sweetly to the side.

"Four." Eddie beamed. "You'll like them. They'll like you."

"You're just full of secrets, aren't you?" You hummed, lazily holding his hand in yours, fingers curling around the other.

Eddie blew a last drag of smoke out of his mouth, letting the cigarette dwindle away in the tray. "You want to come?"

"Is this your way of luring me away so you can sink me in the river?" You laughed, nervously, like you weren't entirely joking.

"C'mon," Eddie shook his head lightly. "Don't play like that. I just wanna show you my place."

You looked a little anxious, torn. "Truth? I want you to come over so I can show you where I live." Eddie cooed, hands sliding down your arms sweetly. "And... honestly? I can't do the twin bed again tonight, babe, I'm sorry. It kills my neck."

You gaped, shoving him lightly. "What's wrong with my bed?"

"Nothing. You know I never complain." Eddie grinned. "Just a little cramped for the two of us. I've got a bigger bed. You can spread out more."

"Oh? You're just taking me to see your bed?" You teased, grabbing your discarded shirt off the floor.

"No, I'll let you see the whole house of horrors." Eddie smirked, eyeing you as you bent over to grab your pajama bottoms. "But you can definitely see my bed if you want to."

You hummed, stepping back towards him. His hand caught your waist, pulling you nearly on top of him, noses brushing. He needed to see you, see your eyes, know what you were feeling, thinking.

"You trust me?" Eddie whispered, long lashes batting. Your heart swelled, and for a moment, you were sure he could convince you to do anything if it meant he'd stay looking at you so sweetly, so fondly.

You hesitated for a moment, nodding slowly. Nancy never said he was mean or cruel, only what he did for work. You knew she would have told you earlier, long before you asked if he was.

It was just a job, you told yourself, letting him sway you. Let him consume all your fears with a feverish kiss, hands pressing into your spine, pushing you closer and closer to him.

He held the passenger door open for you, letting you slip inside. Your street was quiet, still with neighbors who's long gone to sleep. Eddie held your hand in his on the drive, thumb brushing over your knuckles, stealing small sideways glances at you. You trusted him, let him drive you into the unknown, through the dark, together.

#oneforthemunny #munnytalks #mafia!eddie munson x reader #mafia!eddie munson #mafia!eddie #mafia!au #mafia au #eddie munson x fem!reader fluff #mafia!eddie munson smut #mafia!eddie x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader smut #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie x fem!reader #nancy wheeler #eddie munson au #eddie munson au #eddie stranger things #eddie my love <3 #eddie x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x reader smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x fem!reader angst #eddie munson x reader angst #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fic #oneforthemunny blurbs

[uravitypng]

Hope you’re doing great!! I’m obsessed with your writing. What do you think Bully!Tsukishima would act if someone else tries to bully his crybaby?

~ Anon ❄️

i'm good thank you!! i hope you're well too! i hope you enjoy how bully tsukki reacts <3

it never even crossed his mind that someone else might try and bully you and if it did it was fleetingly and on occasions when he heard someone laugh at something he did to you, the thought didn't bother him. in his eyes it doesn't matter, if someone did start teasing you then that's your problem, it doesn't affect him.

although it really does.

when it actually does happen properly and he realises someone is genuinely bothering you it then becomes a reality and he has to deal with it.

you never hid that someone else was upsetting you and teasing you, tsukishima would never care about it anyway. coincidentally he found you one day taking deep breaths and sniffling as you're trying to breathe correctly after being tormented by someone who has started bullying you and they were crueller than anyone you've ever met before.

tsukki never thought he'd see the day where he would see you cry and not take some amount of pleasure in it but seeing you desperately try to calm down from something he didn't know about filled him with serious dread. something he has never felt so strongly before.

he crouches down to your level to where you were sitting and you jump not realising he was there in the first place. he frowns and tilts your head up so he can look at you and wipe the tears off of your face with his thumb but the tears just keep coming. "talk to me princess," he says gruffly.

you shake your head vehemently.

tsukishima clenches his jaw at what he believes is your ridiculous behaviour. "don't be a baby, talk to me."

"you won't care," you reply quietly.

"won't care about what?" if you were anyone else he'd likely have lost interest in trying to help someone so stubborn by now but you're you. if people don't want to accept his help and keep refusing to cooperate with him the majority of the time he stops trying to help, the only real exemptions are his brother and yamaguchi but even they know better than to test tsukishima's patience on this kind of thing.

"someone's being mean to me," you say while trying to stop crying.

tsukishima scoffs. "so what?" he pauses for a second before continuing, "is this why you're in here hiding away? so what if someone is being mean taking away your pen and you cry your eyes out."

you shake your head again but meekly this time, "they're being really mean tsukishima." he doesn't say anything and just looks at you. because of his gaze on you you feel his scrutiny so you come clean completely and tell him, "they're bullying me."

tsukishima just goes completely still because no one else can treat you like that. no one else can make you cry, at least not over something so serious, not over something that really upsets and affects you. not if that person or persons are bullying you. you're his, only he is allowed to do that to you. no one should make you cry. he can accept you crying if you thought someone looked at you funny or took a belonging of yours or teased you a little because you cry all the time, but this? he's not having this.

he wets his lips and looks up, taking a deep breath and trying to stop his anger from rising to the top. he's not an angry person, no one ever would assume he was an angry person and they'd be right, he's not and he never thought he would be but the idea of someone bullying you, the idea that someone is being really mean to you, that pisses him off because its not like before when he thought you where overreacting like the crybaby you are about someone mildly teasing you on one occasion, this is serious. "who?"

"does it really matter?" you fiddle with your fingers, finally calming down a bit and having less tears flowing down your chubby cheeks.

"yes, it matters."

you tell him their name and tsukishima notes it to memory.

tsukishima kisses your forehead and lifts you up, resisting the urge to kneed your soft wide hips as you stand up. "come on, lets get you something to eat and drink." it's extremely rare that tsukishima ever is seen with you in public alone but he takes you to a vending machine outside in campus.

you think he did this because it's quieter out here so there's less people and less people to recognise the two of you together but in actuality it was the closet place from where you were and he wanted you to drink something as soon as possible with how much you were crying. he's never seen you cry that much and that's saying something, the man who gets off on seeing you and making you cry not ever able to make you cry as you just have been... (yet)

that person never bothers you again. not once. why? you don't know but you're guessing tsukishima had something to do with it.

the thing with tsukishima is that he is actually very popular and is friends with people that are also popular so one bad word about someone spreads like wildfire. there are so many rumours about him in just one day it's crazy, that's when tsukishima decides to have his own private conversation with them. "your social life is a wreck your club is thinking about kicking you off the team because of all those allegations. they might be fake but really who would they believe out of the two of us? you bother my girl again, i'll make it worse. if you even talk to her or look at her i'll make sure these rumours follow you for the rest of your life."

no one talks to your bully any more but tsukishima kept his promise to not make even more extreme rumours. after he was kicked off his basketball team he was content. he'd never done anything like this before because it's not like him at all it's not in his character. so he doubts he'll ever do it again... that is unless someone else tries to bully you. they need to learn their place after all. don't touch things that aren't yours to touch.

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x chubby reader #tsukishima x reader smut #tsukishima smut #kei tsukishima #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x chubby reader #bully tsukki -p6 <33 #haikyuu x reader smut #hq x reader smut #hq x chubby reader #♡ mine / writing #♡ tsukki #❄️ anon #hq smut #haikyuu smut #tsukishima x chubby reader smut #hq tsukishima #♡ lana's letters

[moralesmilesanhour]

if you believe in me - 02

summary: word gets around fast. wc: 2256 a/n: got too impatient soooo here we are lmao. I'll still be writing ahead I just wanted to post this one lil thing. warning for like one vague sex joke prev next

Your hands swung between the two of you until you reached the bottom steps of Visions Academy. The moment you began your ascent, little gasps and whispers followed not far behind. Miles’ hand began to squirm, as if trying to weasel his way out of the vice grip you had on it as you tugged him along. The reason why dawned on you when you entered the main hall:

Everyone was staring.

Scanning the clusters of students gathered in front of the escalators, you noticed that some of their mouths had fallen open in shock. You turned to glance at Miles, who was staring straight ahead with his brows knit together with worry. 

“Miles, what’s wrong–”

“Y/N?”

Tianna’s voice interrupted before you could finish the question. The short, dark-skinned girl ran up to you for a quick hug, the smell of her vanilla body mist wafting off of her uniform.

She pulled away to give Miles a once-over, narrowing her eyes at him. He nervously avoided making eye contact.“I see you didn’t take my advice, as always.”

“Well, we met up this morning,” you shrugged. “It worked out.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Miles remarked quietly.

“I know,” your friend shot back as she tugged your arm to pull you away. “A moment, please?”

He raised his hands in surrender, and you gave him an apologetic smile as you let go of his hand. You followed Tianna until you reached a spot where he’d be out of earshot, where she stopped abruptly. She spun around to face you with her arms folded.

 “Y/N…girl.”

“What? He said we were a thing when I asked him–”

“You had to ask him?” Tianna sighed, massaging her temples. “At least I know you weren't lying about the kiss.”

Your mouth fell open in offense, making her burst into laughter. 

“Girl, fuck you! You thought I was lying?” you yelled as you gave her a playful shove.

“It’s Miles Morales! I don’t think he’s even had a full conversation with anybody since ninth grade. How you got him to kiss you is beyond me.”

“What does that mean?” you laughed. “You’re mad disrespectful.”

“That’s not the point, though. He didn’t even text you first.”

“Maybe he just forgot my number.”

“You don’t know anything about him.”

“I know a lot about him!”

Tianna raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Name three things you know about him that he told you himself.”

“Easy,” you began counting on your fingers, “He doesn’t like wearing his glasses, he likes rock music, and, um…”

You paused, racking your brain for something that you didn’t have to find out from asking around. Tianna’s lips were pressed into a thin line, wholly unimpressed. She sighed again.

“Yeah, okay, sis–”

“Wait!” you interrupted in a last-ditch effort to defend yourself. “He told me he’s actually not a gang member like people say, so that’s a plus, right?”

She saw the desperate look on your face and shook her head. 

“Look, just…be careful, alright? If you not gonna listen to me, at least do that much,” Tianna pushed you gently back in Miles’ direction just as the morning bell rang. “Now go to class.”

You looked back at her one last time and smiled. “Thanks.”

Miles looked up expectantly as you jogged over to him. “So? What was that about?”

“Girl stuff,” you lied, sticking out your hand. “Walk me to class?”

As soon as you made it up the escalator, Miles mentally prepared himself to make his way through the crowded hallway. He wasn’t used to being at school this early, and it seemed that–judging by the sudden rise in conversation and exaggerated ‘oooh!’s as you passed by–neither were his fellow students.

Your homeroom wasn’t too many doors down from his, so he gently let go of your hand just outside Ms. Keene’s classroom.

“Aight, see you in calc–”

“Um, sir,” you stopped him before he could turn around, with a hand on your hip. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Miles’ eyes narrowed, then widened in understanding when you placed a finger on your cheek. He glanced towards the clusters of kids gathered around their lockers.

Many were still watching out of curiosity, looking for something to talk about come lunchtime. He turned to you and smiled apologetically. 

"Later."

"Imma hold you to that, Morales!" you called out behind you as you finally entered the classroom.

“Good morning, miss L/N,” Keene greeted with her eyes still glued to her laptop. 

Every morning, she’d project the list of morning announcements onto the whiteboard then spend the rest of homeroom checking emails. The class was allowed to chat idly until the bell rang, just as long as it didn’t get loud enough to catch the attention of any administrators.

“G’morning!” you replied.

You had just sat down when a nasally voice asked suddenly, “Did you get Callahan’s homework done on time?”

Startled, your head snapped towards the girl sitting next to you, Caitlyn. As always. 

She leaned forward with her palm cradling her chin, pale and freckled face beaming with anticipation as if gossiping with a friend. The girl hardly knew you.

“Um, yeah, it…wasn’t too bad,” you replied tentatively. “You?”

“Girl, I was struggling,” she answered with a wave of her hand. The phrase came out oddly, like she was reciting lines off of a script, and it made you cringe internally. “Spent nearly the whole night on it.”

You hummed in acknowledgement and nodded. Just before you could fully turn away, though, Caitlyn jumped to another topic.

“So you and Miles are like, together, right?”

“...Yup.”

Her eyes widened in anticipation.

“So what’s he like? Outside of school, I mean.”

Grinning to yourself, you almost spilled every detail: the glasses, his dimples when he smiled–like, really smiled–and jazz music. But she didn’t need all that.

“He’s…cute. Real smart-ass, though.” you answered while fiddling with the lead in your mechanical pencil.

Caitlyn snorted, “No shit. I heard he used to give Ms. Jones hell in AP Calc once he got back from his, um…break.”

Your expression soured at that last bit.

“You got anything specific you wanna ask me?”

“Have you two…? Y’know.” 

She made her eyebrows jump up and down, making it uncomfortably clear what she was implying.

“No,” you replied coarsely. “And if we did, I wouldn’t be tellin’ you.”

Caitlyn opened her mouth to respond, but was swiftly cut off by the bell. 

You rose from your seat and swung your book bag over your shoulder as quickly as possible before making your escape into the hallway. 

Three more periods of that to go. Lovely.

A chorus of boys whooped and hollered when Miles passed by them on the way back to his locker. 

“Yo, is that my son Miles? On time?”

The voice calling out to him belonged to Jeremiah, a shorter boy with dark skin and newly-cut hair after spending the entirety of ninth grade with a short, unstyled afro. A tiny grin played on Miles’ lips. They used to hoop with some of the Brooklyn Middle kids after school, before everything happened. 

It wouldn’t kill him to say ‘hi’.

“I’m always on time, y’all just early!” he called out over his shoulder, even doing the little salute his dad would always do when he dropped Miles off.

This lift in his mood would be killed swiftly by third period, when Hakim ripped out one of his airpods. Right at the bridge of one of his favorite songs, too.

“What you listenin’ to, Morales?”

Miles glared daggers into him, but the boy was never really one to take a hint.

Hakim went on, “Huh. Didn’t pin you as a seventies guy.”

He returned the earbud, ruffling dark ringlets that nearly covered his eyes. It used to be much shorter, until he grew it out in eighth grade and soon realized that girls preferred it that way. 

“I’m full of surprises,” Miles muttered darkly, examining the airpod between his fingers. He made a face at it, and decided they were unfit to stick back into his ears before storing them in their case. “Sumn you need?”

Hakim opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Mr. Callahan’s booming voice:

“Hold the side conversations, please.”

“My fault, sir,” Miles replied. He didn’t need to rack up behavioral infractions at ten in the morning.

The middle-aged man paused his scribbling on the whiteboard and turned around. He stared directly at Miles like a child about to pull a prank.

“Actually, Morales, since you’re so talkative today and–well–actually here,” he pointed with the dry-erase marker in his hand, “Why don’t you help us calculate the total charge of this particle?”

…Right. 

Miles had almost forgotten that, technically, he was still Callahan’s ‘star student’. 

He’d never forget when the former university professor pulled him aside after a particularly difficult class and told him:

 “Y’know, I’d actually have you teach this class on some days if that was allowed. Like a high school T.A., but without the salary!” 

He’d forced a polite laugh, then. The man genuinely seemed to believe that he’d told a good joke. 

That’s the thing about teachers who believe in you: they won’t just ignore you sitting in the back of the classroom with your airpods in.

Miles gave Callahan a pointed look as he took the marker from him and got to work. If it could even be called that. 

Inventing sneakers that defied gravity in his room made this all look like basic addition. Most of it was just a series of conversions, nothing that a bit of mental math couldn’t solve. He boxed his answer then looked up for approval that he didn’t need.

“Correct as always, Morales. You may return to your seat,” Callahan raised an eyebrow, “Quietly. Not all of us are as adept as you are and do still need to focus.”

“You got it, boss.”

Miles handed the marker over before shuffling back to his seat. Feeling the classroom full of eyes burning into his clothes, he considered waking up late on purpose from now on if it meant avoiding them. 

Shortly afterwards, the class transitioned into his least favorite section: partner work. Miles could usually get away with ignoring whatever poor soul had been seated next to him, but some were a little too…persistent. Asking him to solve every problem for them as if he alone could bring their grades up. 

The thought reminds him of someone, and a lopsided smile spreads across his face.

“Yo, who got you smiling like that?”

He snapped out of his contemplation and turned reluctantly toward Hakim.

“Nothing,” Miles answered sharply. “Nobody.”

“It definitely ain’t nobody,” Jeremiah piped up from the seat behind him. Since when did he take this class? 

“We all saw you this morning, bro, who is she?”

“Yeah, spill!”

Miles inhaled deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose before responding, “Y/N.”

“That’s your girl? Since when?”

“Since…”

Since three and a half hours ago.

“Since last week.” He nodded curtly.

“That’s a relief,” Hakim remarked. “We thought you were gonna be a hermit for the rest of your life.”

Miles snorted. “Don’t rule it out just yet, the year's not over.”

Jeremiah piped up again, “Off-topic, but have you finished this packet yet? This shit kinda blowin’ my mind right now.”

“What do you think?”

Lunch rolled around, and Miles had never rushed upstairs faster. He was not in the mood to have the counselor pick apart every word that left his mouth and drone on about his “journey with grief”. 

He was fine. He just needed to be somewhere where no one was fucking watching him.

Miles wouldn’t get that, though, because you were sitting in his spot, eating half of a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Took you long enough,” you said before taking another bite. He grinned and shook his head.

“And what business you got up here?”

You set the sandwich down and tilted your head. “You think I forgot about this morning?”

Miles sat down next to you with a grunt, and crossed his legs.

“That serious, huh?”

“Very. Might keel over and die without it.”

He leaned in and planted a warm kiss on your left cheek. “We can’t have that, now, can we?”

Just before Miles could put any more distance between you, you gently placed a hand beneath his chin. It’d been a while since you’d had a good look at his face.

Faint freckles dotted across his cheeks, a tiny scar through his brow that you don’t remember being there. He squinted when the sunlight hit his face, and for a second his left eye looked like it was a duller shade of brown than the right. Almost green.

“Y/N? You–”

You pressed your lips against his before he could finish the sentence. Miles remembered to tilt his head and relaxed into the kiss as your hand moved to the nape of his neck to toy with one of his braids. He still didn’t know where to put his hands.

When you pulled away, he couldn’t look you in the eye. It made you giggle to watch his pupils dart to and fro, not knowing where to land. 

Miles took a deep breath to collect himself, but the exhale came out a quiet laugh.

“Ion know if I’ll ever get used to that,” he half-whispered.

An impish smile spread across your face. “You wanna practice?”

“Whoa. Relax, ma. This is a public space.”

#earth 42 miles x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #miles morales x reader #miles morales x black!reader #earth 42 miles morales x black!reader #moralesanhour

[vmbrq]

(about your ovulation / ethan landry post)

YES PLEASE YES YES YES

-

this is SO TMI but last night i was basically crawling up the walls with how horny i was for ethan landry, and i was so fucking confused. checked my app: i’m ovulating. makes sense.

BUT YES LIKE ethan wouldn’t understand why you’re so touchy all of a sudden, not that you’re not touchy but it was amped by like, 100. and then it dawns on him and he’s like “oh. 🤔 oh 🤭😏” like he has never seen you so feral for him before, and it turns him on so much to know you want him so bad. bonus points if you cry while you’re riding him because he feels so good and you’re so horny for him.

i’m dead died dead

i know it's been a minute since i made that post, BUT MY FEELINGS STILL STAND AND YOU'RE SO CORRECT. and whenever i'm ovulating, i feel like a werewolf chained to a tree during the full moon, so you're so real for that.

your behavior would be different--not intrusive or unwanted, just different.

but, he doesn't comment on it when you ambush him from behind while he's talking with chad, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressing your face into his back to take a deep inhale of laundry detergent, aftershave, and something distinctly ethan. you'll take every available opportunity to have at least one hand somewhere on his body in public, whether you're casually rubbing your palm over his back or hooking an arm around his to keep him close or linking your pinky with his. you steal kisses off him whenever you can. you're more forward about wanting his attention, even if you don't always outright say it.

while he certainly isn't complaining, he just doesn't quite understand where the onslaught of affection came from. sure, you love him, and you very rarely shy away from demonstrating it, but this exceeds what he's used to. throughout the day, he remains blissfully unaware, never knowing that you're a solid four seconds away from popping the button on his jeans and taking what you need. the shifting of his jaw and the concentrated furrow of his brow as he works through difficult homework questions, the defined sculpt of his arms in short-sleeve button-down, the earnest adoration reflected in his big, dark eyes as he listened to you speak--everything about him just looked so good.

how could you be expected to keep yourself in line?

he would refrain from inquiring until you two are in the privacy of one of your rooms, not wanting to embarrass you or put you on the spot in front of other people. but even then, he doesn't get much of a chance, because as soon as he shrugs off his backpack and turns around, you pounce, nearly causing him to trip over his own feet as you push him back onto the bed and climb atop him.

he's surprised, rightfully so. but you kiss him, and he's more than willing to let you. but his hands flutter tentatively around your waist as he tries to ground himself and sort through his thoughts. it feels as if his world has been flipped upside down. he simply thought you were being affectionate. was he wrong? were you trying to signal to him and he just never noticed? is there something going on?

"hey," he interjects when you finally break the kiss. his chest rises and falls beneath your hands as he pulls for oxygen, the collar of his blue shirt rumpled from where you'd drawn him closer, his eyes dazed and searching yours for an explanation. "hey, are you--are we..?" you shouldn't mistake his pause for rejection, he just wants to understand. he's rarely seen you this desperate for him before.

and when he finally does? when you, just as disheveled and breathless as he is, whine that you need him--that you need him so fucking badly, all it takes is a couple moments of consideration before he realizes what's happening with you. he swallows as the pieces of the situation click into place. fuck. you're ovulating. suddenly, your earlier behavior makes sense. your desire for his attention, your craving for touch, your insistence on being pressed as close as possible to him on the subway back to your apartment--you must have been feeling the full weight of its effects all day. and now that you have him beyond the view of the public eye, you can't wait any longer.

a hushed, broken moan of his name as you impatiently grind down on him is all that's needed to stir into creation a fire in the pit of his stomach. you want him--no, you need him. you need him. he can already feel his cock beginning to stiffen against your thigh, and the tip of his tongue flickers over his bottom lip. his gaze scans your expression once more, and his breathing grows shallower when he finally identifies that distinct glimmer in your eyes as sheer desperation and need.

at this point, he's certain nothing will be able to deter him from having you.

"how badly?" he pants. it's paired with a slight, teasing upturn of the corners of his lips, just testing the waters to see how you'll react. to see how deeply your desire runs.

he gets his answer when you, in a fit of irritation at his lack of urgency, draw him into another searing kiss that he returns in full. he gets his answer when you swat his hands away from your waist when he attempts to ease you down on his cock, your own pace much more reckless as you sink down on him without giving either of you a moment to adjust. he gets his answer when you pin his wrists down to the mattress, using them as leverage while you fuck yourself stupid on his cock. you treat him as if he were nothing but a toy for you to maneuver and utilize for your own pleasure, relentlessly pursuing orgasm after orgasm even as your thighs tremble and tears of bliss pool along your lash line.

for a moment, he wonders if you're too drunk on pleasure to speak properly. but your hands move from his wrists to his strong shoulders, and you dig your nails into his skin as you begin to babble mindlessly. "feels s' good. more, i ne--i can't--" you hiccup, a single teardrop slicing through the layer of perspiration blanketing your cheek. "need you to cum," you mumble. "want it inside."

"you sure?" he pants, eyes wide. "we've never--"

"ethan!" you complain petulantly.

shit. his hands, now freed and granted permission, move to grip your waist firmly. a squeal is punched from your throat when he meets your descent with a sharp, upward thrust of his hips, burying himself as deep inside you as possible.

he grins. fine by him.

#ethan landry smut #ethan landry x y/n #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry x you #scream 6 smut #scream smut

[tangledinink]

Okay! One last I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? oneshot, and then next week we'll get a new chapter... and this week's piece is about Mikey! :) Read it on ao3 or below the cut.

It had all started with a beautiful shade of ultramarine.

And it wasn’t as if Mikey took issue with the color itself-- it was a lovely shade of blue. That wasn’t the problem. And quite frankly, he didn’t notice it at first, but at some point halfway through his fifth-period class, while his eyes were wandering idly around the room, looking at nothing in particular, just roaming for the sake of roaming while he listened… he had paused, frowned, and back-tracked to do a double-take.

Ultramarine?

That was so odd, because… Usually, Mona was midnight blue. Her life color was a lot darker than this, richer, slightly less saturated, and closer to a shade of navy than… this.

I mean. There was nothing wrong with it. Ultramarine was a good color. It looked good on her…!

But it wasn’t hers.

Mikey had frowned a bit, his brow twitching slightly. He had never seen anyone’s life color change before. Was that a thing?... He supposed he had no way of knowing since it was just this weird little quirk that he enjoyed on his own, so it wasn’t like he could look it up or ask anyone, but… he had never seen this happen before.

Did something happen to her, he wondered? He had worried about this for a bit and endeavored to check in with her later, just in case, but then had let it go. I mean, what was he supposed to do about it?

But then she wasn’t the only one.

He noticed it slowly, but more people’s colors seemed to shift throughout the remainder of the class. Bit by bit, things began to tilt just ever so slightly to either the left or right on the metaphorical color wheel, not wrong but not exactly right, either. By the time he got to his next class, everyone’s colors were just a little bit off, and beginning to blur slightly, kind of fuzzy around the edges, and Mikey was starting to freak out just a tiny bit.

The shimmering, bouncing lights came after that. They teased at the very edges of his vision, tickling at his eyelashes, but never there when he tried to turn around and see them. And the more it happened, the more nervous he became. His stomach flip-flopped, and he resisted the urge to fidget in his seat. Something felt… wrong. He wasn’t very focused for the rest of the class.

It had been just after the final bell of the day, amongst the chaos of the entire school’s excitement of being dismissed, racing through the hallway, when a portion of Mikey’s field of vision gave out from under him. And suddenly, there was this big, fuzzy patch of black on his left side. No matter how many times he blinked and rubbed at his eyes, it wouldn’t go away. It was suddenly like he was halfway blind. And then he for-real started to panic.

He was debating whether he should take out his phone and call one of his family members, like, right now, or if he should try to make his way to the nurse’s office on his own (could he still do that--? School was technically over--) when the pain started.

It was like being hit by a freight train. 

He nearly dropped his books at the impact of it when it truly settled in, the knot in his stomach from before now rising up into full-blown nausea, threatening to overtake him. He came to a very sudden stop in his journey, finding the nearest wall to hang onto and squeezing his eyes shut, fighting back the urge to vomit.

Oh my god.

It hurt so bad. 

The pain was absolutely dazzling, pulsing bright and vicious through his head. It felt like he had some sort of hot, heavy, alien creature attached to one side of his skull, burrowing its way into him, and he could feel its heartbeat. And it was absolutely all-encompassing. He couldn’t even make his feet move-- all he could do was stand there for a second and try to breathe, to swallow repeatedly, and try desperately not to throw up here in the hall.

For a second, he just stood there and he thought, maybe it’ll go away. 

Maybe it’ll get better.

But it was just getting worse.

It was so loud. It was so bright. Every voice and shuffled foot and slam of a locker door was like a drill buzzing straight into his brain, and the fluorescent lights overhead were eating him alive, and he couldn’t move, but he had to-- He had to do something.

He was so, so certain that if he stayed here any longer, he was absolutely going to die.

We gotta do something. Come on. Move. You have to get-- somewhere. Not here. To the nurse’s office. They’ll be able to help, but you have to move. Go on. Move! Move your feet! He begged, and eventually, miraculously, his nerves listened to him.

If anyone noticed him, stopped him, asked if he was okay, he couldn’t hear them, because he was putting every piece of energy that he had into making his body move instead of curling up into a little ball on the floor. A few tears were already beginning to track their way down his face as he trembled, panicked breaths rattling through his chest. He ducked and weaved past other students in his frantic retreat, but he couldn’t see anything properly out of his left side, and he kept bumping into people. And he wished he could stop and apologize and see if they were okay, but he couldn’t. He just-- He had to not be here. He really, really had to not be here. He was on the fifth floor. His goal, the nurse’s office, was on the ground level. 

Oh god. 

This was the worst pain he had ever experienced in his life.

He made it about as far as the stairwell before he couldn’t move anymore.

---

Once he hadn’t been able to make himself go any further, the pain and nausea overwhelming him, he had stopped for a bit, leaning against the cool concrete of the wall and clutching his books tight in his hands as he focused simply on breathing. 

At some point, he had taken out his phone, attempting to text one of his family members to send out an SOS, to tell them that he was fucking dying in the stairwell and that he loved them and that his final wish was for them to give all his artwork to the MOMA, ‘cause they’d be damn lucky to have it, thank you, and everything else to charity, but it was like looking at the goddamn sun. Every time he tried to draft out a message or even just navigate enough to place a phone call (at this point he was tempted to just straight up call 911, which felt pretty dramatic for a headache, but every second that passed the statement ‘I’m dying’ felt a lot less like hyperbole and a lot more like a real, actual possibility,) he was hit with this bright, hot white pain on top of the already thick layer of pain and his head would throb and his stomach would lurch and his knees would buckle, and eventually, after a few attempts and a good deal of frustrated crying, he just gave up.

By the time he had gotten here, the crowd had already thinned out quite a bit, with the main max exodus of the final bell already having tapered off. Only the occasional group of students would come through, and some of them looked at him, but with him crying softly and squinting at his phone in the corner, most people probably figured he was fighting with a friend or going through a breakup or something and seemed to feel it wasn’t any of their business, and they didn’t bother him. 

He was basically alone by the time he accepted his fate of dying here in the stairwell, curling up sadly in a little ball and weeping softly to himself. Now that there were so few kids lingering, and therefore much less competition, anyone who did want to head up or down the stairs would likely take the elevators instead. And Mikey thought belatedly to himself that he should have grabbed someone and told them that his brain was melting when he still had the chance.

But now he was alone, and he supposed that was that. 

And he didn’t know what else to do. Picking up his head hurt, and opening his eyes hurt, and everything hurt, so he just… sat there. His earlier sobbing had died down to just weak little sniffles and hiccups, tears dripping sadly down his face as he tiredly, miserably, manually sucked in each and every inhale and exhale-- just trying to somehow breathe through the pain.

He wasn’t really sure how long he was there. Looking back, he figured it couldn’t have actually been that long. But it felt like eons. Mikey had just about accepted this as his final resting place when the relative quiet of his hiding spot was split by the horrendous screech of the door opening, and Mikey winced--

And then he heard, “Oh, sweet Salomea Skłodowska–Curie, there you are! Mikey, where have you been!?”

And the noise hurt, but he recognized that voice. He picked up his head just enough to stare at Donnie in shock… and then absolutely sobbed in relief at the sight of him.

Donnie blinked in surprise, floundering for a moment before letting the door slide shut behind him, kneeling quickly down by Mikey’s side and examining him with worry.

“Mikey? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I-- I don’t know!” He hiccuped pitifully, his shoulders shaking as he sniffled. “It’s-- s-something is w-wrong, and, and I don’t know w-what but it hurts and I, I can’t see, and, and I don’t kn-know what’s happening, but everything hurts and I feel like I’m gonna die…!”

“You can’t see?” Donnie repeated, their voice pressing a bit with obvious concern. “You can’t see at all?”

“N-no, it’s, it’s just-- just a little over here,” Mikey sniffled, gesturing slightly to his left. “Like a. A spot, and. E-everything is just… f-fuzzy, and, and my, my head hurts…”

“Mikey, why didn’t you text one of us?”

“I can’t,” he sobbed. “It h-hurts too bad to look, Dee, it’s too bright!”

Donnie narrowed his eyes, frowning slightly.

“And you said your head hurts?”

Mikey nodded weakly, wiping at his eyes.

“Where? Show me.”

“Uhm…” Mikey wobbled for a minute, wincing before he finally kind of wiggled a hand to indicate. “J-just… over here, on this side, all the way u-up… It… It hurts so bad, I…! I d-don’t know what to do…!”

Donnie stayed quiet for a moment, seeming to consider this, before he sighed very softly, patting his brother’s knee decisively. 

“Right. Well. Congratulations, Hamato Michelangelo,” he hummed quietly, his voice all careful and whispered. “I diagnose you with a migraine.”

Mikey kept quiet for a second, processing this, before he sobbed.

“This is a migraine?!” He bit out, his voice absolutely trembling. 

“Yes, well, they are genetic--”

“I-is this what it’s like for you!? This-- this is h-horrible! You-- you have m-migraines every other week!” Mikey wept.

Donnie blinked in surprise, seemingly taken aback by his brother’s outburst before scoffing softly, waving off his concerns. “Experience is all relative,” he muttered. “The point is, you’re not dying, alright? You’ll be fine. It’ll just be… unpleasant for a little while,” he sighed, shrugging his bag off his shoulder and beginning to dig through it. “Did you take anything yet?”

“N-no…”

“Okay. Here,” he produced a small pill bottle from his backpack, cracking it open quickly and shaking out two little pills. “This is the good shit. We should be at approximately the same dose…” He paused to rapidly examine the label, humming softly to himself for just a second before he was seemingly satisfied, holding the drugs out to the other. “I don’t know if it’ll fix it, but it should at least help.”

Mikey sniffled, nodding a tiny bit and agreeably holding out a trembling palm to accept the medication. Donnie grabbed his water bottle from his bag, passing it over, and though Mikey took it, he hiccuped softly, hesitating for a second before he looked up at Donnie with wide eyes.

“Y-you don’t l-like it when, when people drink out of your water b-bottle…”

Donnie rolled his eyes. “As much as I appreciate the concern, Michael, I will disinfect it later. It’s fine. Just take the meds.”

Mikey hiccuped a bit, but he did as he was told anyway, tossing the pills into his mouth and swallowing them down with a generous swig of water. Despite this, this sickly sweet taste kind of burned the back of his mouth for a minute, and he wrinkled up his face at it. Ew… 

“Yeah, I know,” Donnie hummed. “Okay. Uh. Look. Let’s get you to the nurse’s office so you can lay down and wait for these to kick in, and then we can go home.”

Laying down did sound pretty good, Mikey had to admit, and he nodded a tiny bit, his bottom lip still wobbling.

Donnie sort of hesitated for a second, his brows furrowed with concern as he looked Mikey up and down. “Do you think you can walk? Or do you want me to… carry you…?”

Mikey paused for a moment, and then he snorted.

“Carry me?”

“Look, I’m trying to be nice…!”

Mikey kind of laughed weakly, somewhere between a giggle and a sob, wiping at his face.

“Dee, you can’t carry me…! You’re too small!”

Donnie bristled in offense. “Pardon me!? I’m taller than you!”

“Yeah, but you’re smaller than me,” Mikey insisted, just barely managing a teeny little smile, his eyes still closed as his head drooped against the wall. “You’re… little… you weigh, like, five pounds…” 

“Oh, you are so lucky you have a migraine, or we would be having a discussion right now,” Donnie hissed in reply, an absolute scowl painting his face. “I could…”

He hesitated.

“I could call Raph. He could carry you.”

Mikey’s trembling grin widened a teeny, tiny bit. See? He was right. Donnie couldn’t carry him. At least not for that far.

“No. It’s. Uhm. It’s okay. I can walk,” he said, taking a few long breaths, very slowly rising up to his feet. Everything kind of wobbled and swam for a moment, but it backed off after a second as he found his balance again. “Okay. Hang on. Here,” Donnie mumbled, “This will help…”

Mikey watched in shock as his brother pulled his headphones down off his head, reaching over to instead carefully place them over Mikey’s. 

The muffled quiet that fell over the world was, admittedly, absolutely lovely, but he still gaped at the other.

“But-- you need these--” he tried to protest.

“Mikey, I assure you I can make it from here to the nurse’s office without a meltdown. You need them more right now. I will be fine,” Donnie promised, reaching over to adjust the settings on the headphones slightly, tilting Mikey’s head to the side with his hand as he did so, careful fingers nudging at his chin to get him to turn. White noise washed over Mikey like seafoam, lapping at the edges of him, cold and soothing and soft. 

Mikey nearly started sobbing again. Because everything still hurt so bad, but even just this, even just taking away the noise, which there was very little of to begin with, made it so much better. He didn’t think he had ever been in so much pain in his life, and that was still true, but already it was just so much less than it had been five minutes ago.

“Alright. Is that okay?”

Mikey hiccuped softly, nodding a little bit.

“Alright. Let me know if you need a break or anything. And keep your eyes shut. The hall lights are gonna hurt, so just keep close and I’ll make sure you don’t walk into anything. Got it?” Donnie instructed shortly, reaching out to offer his hand to the other. 

Mikey did sob a tiny bit this time, scrubbing at his wet face with his sleeve one last time before he took his big brother’s hand. 

“Th-thanks, Dee.”

“Don’t mention it,” Donnie muttered. “I know how much this sucks. You ready?”

Mikey breathed deep, taking a long inhale, and then letting out an exhale, passing his trust entirely over to his sibling as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Yeah. Ready.”

---

[ Donnie: Have any of you heard from Mikey?

Leo: not since likkeee lunch. he sent me. like. eight tiktoks.

Raph: hes not with you???

Leo: dont you guys have dance r/n?

Donnie: No, I waited at the usual place so we could head over, but he didn’t show up.

Raph: what????

Leo: chill, he prbly got distracted w one of his friends or smth and wasnt looking at the time. U know how he is.

April: ^^^

April: ill try calling too. I havent left yet so i dont mind lookin around rq to see if i can find him anywhere

Donnie: Thank you. I’ll do the same. Please text if you see him.

Raph: if you dont find him ill come back

Leo: i can duck out of rehearsals if you guys need. but hes probably around.

Donnie: He’s definitely still in the school, as per geotracking.

Leo: stop geotracking us

(read)

Donnie: I found him. He’s fine.

Leo: seeee? hes finneeee

April: where was he?

Donnie: The stairwell.

Donnie: And he has a migraine so no one bother him for the rest of the evening, understood? Don’t call him. Don’t text him. Don’t come poking around his room to see if he’s okay. Just leave him alone.

Donnie: Raph.

Donnie: I’m gonna try and see if I can get him to sleep once we get home so he can at least be unconscious for some of this. And if I am successful in this and then any of you dum-dums wake him up, I swear there will be severe consequences.

Donnie: Light and noise should be kept to an absolute minimum until he’s over this. Got it?

April: oof!!! that sucks :( poor mikey. got it!

Raph: 👍

Leo: lol yah ok ✨boss ✨

Leo: thank god raph is older than u coz ud be a fucking nightmare lmao

Donnie: Die. ]

---

[ Mikey: omg i missed my phone 🥺

Mikey: migraines SUCK

Mikey: also PSA if anyone ever makes a noise above a gd whisper when D has a migraine ever again i will do unspeakable things because i have seen the error of my ways i s2gggggg

Donnie: THANK YOU.

Leo: eugh boi ]

#sorrywhatnowau #tw vomit mention #sorrywhatnowau fic #writing #tmnt #tmnt 2018 #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fic #rottmnt michelangelo #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #rise mikey #rise donnie #rottmnt au #rottmnt human au #tmnt fanfic

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Chapter 2- Unsettling In

— — — — — — —

“Dibs on being the first Pines inside the Shack!”

The old floorboards creaked lightly under Mabel’s weight as she bounded through the door, pausing only to drop her bags by the staircase before she continued on towards the living room. “Aww, I’ve missed this place!” 

She jumped from the small doorway step to the carpet, twirling on her toes like a ballerina before she gestured to the television set. “Hello, ancient TV that only plays local access channels~!” Her gesture moved to the large dinosaur skull in the middle of the room. “Hello, weird T-Rex skull that we use as a coffee table for some reason~!” 

She waggled her finger at the aquarium. “Hello, giant aquarium tank that only sometimes has an animal in it~!” she said with a giggle. “You can’t hide from me forever, Sir. Wiggleton the Pink!”

From the nearby couch where she had seated herself and Waddles, Wendy raised an eyebrow. “Sir. Wiggleton the Pink?”

“That’s what I call Stan’s axolotl,” Mabel explained matter-of-factly. “He’s very sneaky, and likes to hide a lot. I only got a good look at him, like, once last year!”

“Maybe he sneaks out when nobody’s looking?” Wendy suggested, then snapped her fingers with inspiration. “Ooh, what if he’s actually some kinda secret agent, one who goes out and fights bad guys? And that's why it's so hard for anyone to spot him in the tank, ‘cause he’s not always in the tank!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Mabel agreed enthusiastically. “Maybe he’s part of a whole secret organization of secret-agent animals! And they all wear funny little hats!”

While they laughed in unison over the idea, more creaking from the hallway floorboards drew their attention to the doorway. A moment later, Dipper’s body was propped against the frame for support, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he gulped down precious breaths of air.

Between the desperate attempts to catch his breath, he shot Mabel a sour look. “You know, most people might call ‘tripping your brother as he tries to pass you in the driveway’ something along the lines of—oh, I dunno, maybe something along the lines of—cheating?”

Mabel’s mouth curled into a coy little smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dipping Sauce~!” she said innocently. “Not my fault you don’t know how to avoid branches while you’re running.”

“You literally stuck out your leg as I was trying to pass you!” Dipper argued. “And then after I fell, you laughed about it once you were sure I wasn’t actually hurt and was only just mildly inconvenienced!”

From her spot, Wendy let out a cackle. “You tripped him? Brutal.”

“It was a branch!” Mabel insisted. 

“A branch shaped like your leg!”

Mabel waved him away. “Oh, we can go on and on about things I did or didn’t do all we want—”

“You did do it.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered anyway!” Mabel continued, tossing her arms up in the air. “I still called dibs on being the first Pines to step inside, and you can’t go against dibs!”

“She has a point,” a voice spoke up behind Dipper, seconds before Ford stepped into the room. “The International Dibs Protocol is highly respected across countless dimensions, with millions of interdimensional beings valuing the weight it holds when it comes to ownership over specific affairs.”

He pressed a hand to his chin. “I believe at one point, there was even talk amongst the council members here in town about passing a law that would make adhering to said protocol mandatory. But the idea was scrapped before the House could ever lay an eye on it.”

“Yeesh, so this town’s just fine and dandy with people marryin’ woodpeckers or deciding ownership of a place based on whatever chump’s got the deed in their hands,” Stan called from out on the porch. “But you call dibs on something and suddenly that’s going too far—hey, hey! Knock it off, Soos, I’m not gonna look!”

He cast a miffed look to his right, where Soos had firmly remained throughout their entire walk up the driveway. His arms were spread out as wide as he could possibly get them, and he had even crab-walked up the porch beside Stan in an attempt to block something from his line of sight. 

“Sorry, Mr. Pines,” he said, keeping his arms outstretched until both of them were safely inside the house. ”But I can’t risk you seeing anything on the other side of this building until I give everyone the tour later!”

Stan let out a gruff sigh as they joined everyone else in the living room. “Yeah, yeah, like I’m in any rush to jump right back into work stuff after a nine-month vacation.”

Soos gave him a pitiful look. “Wh-you mean you’re not excited for the tour of all the new exhibits and stuff?”

“...I said ‘right back into’, didn’t I?” Stan pointed out. “Gimme an hour, we’ll see where I’m at then.”

He moved to the couch, then paused with a look to Wendy. “They got all the rats outta this thing while we were gone, right?”

“Completely rat free,” she assured him, moving her hand to Waddles’ head for scritches. “Although you’re never gonna guess what happened after we chased the last of them out of the shack—”

“Well, that sounds like six voices,” a voice called from the kitchen, seconds before a woman peeked her head through the doorway. “Pretty sure that’s everyone, unless we’re also expecting the girls.”

“Negative,” Wendy replied, as Stan settled down next to her. “Mr. Pines put down a hard no on any sleepovers tonight. Well, any sleepovers with the under-fourteens, at least.”

“Dipper also put down a hard no,” Dipper added. “Also hey, Melody!”

“Melody! Hi!” 

Mabel’s features lit up as Melody stepped out into the living room proper, and both twins rushed over to greet her further with a hug. “Hey, you guys!” she said, bending down to reciprocate. “Been a while, huh?”

“Sure has!” Dipper said with a hearty laugh.

“It’s so nice to see you again!” Mabel added with equal amounts of enthusiasm. “How’ve you been?”

 “I also think it’s nice to see you again!”

Before Melody could answer, all three suddenly found themselves lifted up from the ground. “I know we were only gone for, like, fifteen minutes or so,” Soos said, hugging all of them close to him. “But still, that’s enough time to miss someone, right?”

Despite most of her face being squished against his own, Melody smiled up at him.  “Well, fifteen minutes is about the same amount of time it takes to complete Ladybug on Dancey-Pants Revolution—” She paused and wriggled an arm free to tick off her fingers. “—what, five times? Five and a half? Just saying, that feels like an eternity when you’re trying to hit a perfect combo, doesn’t it?”

“That is so true,” Soos said with a nod. “You have such a way with words, babe.”

A squeak of delight drew their attention to the teenagers smushed between their bodies. “Hehe, you guys are adorable!” Mabel piped up. “And nerdy!”

“Also you’re kind of squishing us,” Dipper added with a wheeze.

With an apologetic smile, Soos lowered the group back down to the floor. “Sorry, dudes! Got so caught up in giving Melody a hug, that I kinda missed you were there.”

“Don’t worry, I’m okay,” Mabel assured him as she straightened out her clothes. “Being squished like that made me feel like the ham and cheese in a lovey-dovey sandwich!”

She gave a nudge to her brother’s arm with her elbow. “Guess that makes Dipper the lettuce and tomatoes!”

“What? Why am I the vegetables?” Dipper asked.

Mabel shrugged with a smile. “Because even if they’re not the most exciting ingredients, it just doesn’t feel like a proper sandwich without them,” she explained, pressing her hands together as if she were forming a sandwich herself. “But you gotta put ‘em between the meat and cheese, otherwise their veggie juices get mixed in with the condiments. Then bread gets all soggy and fall-apart-y and the sandwich is just inedible at that point.”

“Okay first of all, rude and gross. Second of all, that is a very weird analogy which explains nothing.” 

He pressed a hand to his stomach. “Although weirdly enough, it is making me hungry.”

“Good thing I got a head start on dinner before everyone got here,” Melody said. “In fact, I just checked the timer and there’s only a few minutes left before I need to pull it out of the oven—oh, by the way, lasagna from a box is fine with everyone, right?”

She directed her question both to the kids and to the group that had gathered by the couch, earning her a nod from Ford. “Fine with me. Meals that require minimal effort to prepare have sustained me since my college years, and I see no issue with continuing that trend now.”

“Long as there’s no fish involved, I’ll eat anything,” Stan assured her.

Wendy, who had distracted herself with scritching the spot between Waddles’ ears, looked to him. “Got sick of seafood out there on the open ocean, Mr. Pines?”

“Got sick of badly-prepared seafood.” 

Stan shot a pointed look to his brother. “Apparently somebody can rip out the spine of a zombified fishman from the ‘Walking Bullhead Dimension’—” 

“We’re gonna start this again, Stanley?” Ford interrupted, giving him an flat-but-amused look that implied they had discussed this topic countless times before.

“—but you give the guy a regular tuna to debone, and suddenly it’s all ‘Oh, this is ~soooo~ hard!’” Stan continued in a jestful tone. “‘I’m gonna make my twin brother nearly choke on a rib bone! Or two. Or five.’”

“Their spinal cords are more delicate than what I’m used to handling,” Ford insisted. “The anatomy of an anthropomorphic fish person—oh, uh, make some room?”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Stan made a gesture with his hand for Wendy to move. “Hey, scooch over and put the pig on the floor so we can all sit down.”

“I can take him off your hands now, Wendy,” Mabel said, holding her arms open. “Although he’ll probably end up on the floor anyway; I know he’s been dying to root around in the carpet for burrito bite crumbs again!”

While Wendy readjusted and passed Waddles back to his owner, Ford seated himself comfortably next to Stan. “As I was saying,” he continued. “The anatomy of an anthropomorphic fish person resembles our own more than that of a non-anthropomorphized fish from our dimension. This size increase in bone structure makes it far easier to get a grip on their spinal column and just—” He made a tearing motion with his hands. “—rip it straight from the body—”

He paused and looked to the younger twins. “Only when such drastic measures are necessary to take, of course. Had the dimension been populated by living anthropomorphized fish people, I would not have resorted to ripping out anyone’s spines.”

Stan lightly bumped his knuckles against Ford’s arm. “Heh, sounds like a buncha fancy-schmancy excuses from a guy who never learned how to properly work a pair of fish tweezers,” he said, making small, pinching motions with his fingers. “What’s wrong, Poindexter? Thought you were used to usin’ delicate sciencey tools out in the field with your dainty little sciencey grip.”

“Nothing about my science or my grip has been dainty in over thirty years, and I think you know that.”

“Yeah, tell that to the octopus babe you tried to hook up with off the coast of Australia! When’d she leave again, less than half-an-hour into the date?”

While Ford responded with his own playful fist to the arm—one that Stan cackled loudly at in return—Mabel knelt to the carpet and set Waddles at her side. “Aww, it’s nice to see you two getting along so well now!” she said sweetly. “Does that mean no more fighting? I mean, actual fighty-fighting and not play fighting?”

“Psh, please, let’s not go that far,” Stan replied, with a wave of his hand. “Of course we’re gonna fight, we’re siblings. Or are you forgetting how you tripped your brother out there in the driveway?”

“It was a bra~anch!” Mabel insisted in a singsong tone.

Dipper gave her a flat look. “Still gonna go with that excuse, huh?”

“Yeah-huh~! Also it’s not an excuse.”

With a wink to them, Stan snaked an arm around his brother’s shoulder. “But if anyone’s worried about a repeat of last year’s performance, don’t be!” he assured them. “Nine months of punching sea monsters and nabbing treasure from sirens have made us thick as thieves, just like old times!”

“While Stanley’s claims are a touch exaggerated, he’s not wrong,” Ford replied. “Despite our petty bickering over fish preparation, there’s nothing quite like spending months out on the open seas with someone to remind you of what’s really important in life. Sailing around the world on the adventure of a lifetime—”

He cast a small smile in his brother’s direction. “—well, it puts a lot of things in perspective.”

With a faux look of disgust, Stan pushed him away. “Ugh, why’d you have to go and make what I said all sappy? What, you wanna make the kids blow chunks on their first day back?”

While the kids giggled at this response, Ford nudged him in retaliation again. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, we could always go back to our petty fish arguments,” he said with a smug look. “You’ve harped on my inability to properly debone a fish, yet you act as if you didn’t completely butcher the deboning of those seatrout we caught along the coast of Florida.”

“Hey, hey, I plead the Florida loophole!” Stan insisted. “Which clearly states that if anything funky happens within the Florida boundaries, it was caused by the fact that we were near Florida.”

He folded his arms firmly across his chest. “Can’t be blamed for anything when we’re sailin’ through territory that could give this town a run for its money in weirdness.”

“Oh, you two were down in Florida?” Melody piped up. “That’s exactly where Abuelita headed a few days ago!”

“She won a free trip in a bingo game,” Soos explained with a look of pride. “Man, you should’ve seen how jealous Agnes and Bertha got when she held up her winning card—”

The ringing of a timer from the kitchen turned everyone’s heads to the doorway. “Oh, sounds like the food’s done,” Melody said. “Better go ahead and start plating.”

“Need an extra hand?” Soos asked.

“Mmm, I think I can manage slicing up lasagna by myself,” she assured him, before casting another look at the group. “Besides, I know how excited you were for everybody to get here, and I wouldn’t dream of pulling you away from everything just to help me slop some food on a plate.”

Soos moved his hands to her shoulders with a solemn expression. “I love you. So much.”

With a chuckle, she leaned up to kiss his cheek before turning back to the kitchen. Once she disappeared out of sight, Soos let out a warm sigh. “Isn’t she the best?” he asked to no one in particular.

Stan turned to Wendy with a raised eyebrow. “So them bein’ all lovey-dovey with each other,” he said. “Is that a rare thing or am I gonna have to actually start stockin’ up on eyeball bleach for the summer?”

“Told you to keep it in mind earlier,” Wendy said, hand on her hip. “Also, you call that ‘lovey-dovey’? Kisses and random compliments for the other when they’re not even in the room barely crack a three or four on the Soos-Melody Romance scale.”

She tilted her head in thought. “Though I guess it’s been more about quantity than quality lately. Can’t go five minutes without one of them trying to smother the other person in affection because of…reasons.”

She raised a finger to her mouth before casting a look over at Soos, who smiled and pressed a finger to his own mouth in return. Leaving the Pines family to watch them with raised eyebrows and tilted heads. “Well, that’s not cryptic or anything,” Ford said.

“Yeah, what’re you two hiding?” Dipper asked. 

“C’mon, spill the beans!” Mabel added, with a quick glance around the living room before she followed up with: “...If there were any opened cans of beans lying around, you know I’d poke ‘em over for dramatic effect!”

“Hehe, that’d be so funny,” Soos said amusedly. “It’d be like…a callback or something! But sorry, dudes, no beans of any kind can be spilled at the moment. Whether it’s beans of the secret variety, or just the ones in a can.”

“Why not?” Mabel asked.

“I mean, I think we ran out of them yesterday so you can’t spill what—”

“The secret part, Soos,” Dipper clarified.

“Oh, that!” Soos pressed a hand to the back of his neck with a tender look. “Well, it’s kind of a big deal, y’know? And I wanna wait until Mel and I can tell you together.”

“Yeesh, this secret of yours must be big big,” Stan said with a loose chuckle. “What, are the two of you getting married or some…thing—”

The mild amusement in his tone faded as the punchline he was waiting for never seemed to come, while the giddiness in Soos’ expression only seemed to blossom further. His cheeks had brightened to a light shade of red and he’d pressed hand over his mouth as he tried—and failed—to hide the smile that was quickly taking over his entire face.

Wendy also slapped a hand over her mouth to hide her smile—her entire upper half trembling as if she were holding back the biggest laugh of her life—while a deafening silence of realization overtook the rest of the Pines family.

“Alright, who wants the first two plates?”

It was Melody who finally broke the silence, having returned to the doorway with a paper plate of lasagna in each hand. “Again, I would’ve prepared something better for a welcome-back dinner, but with Abuelita out of town and the party tomorrow—”

“YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED!”

Mabel’s words were punctuated by an ear-piercing scream—one that earned slapped hands to the ears of everyone except for Melody and Soos—and she flung herself around the neck of the latter to hug him tightly. “You guys are getting married! I can’t believe it!”

Dipper hurried to join in the hugging of Soos with a hearty laugh. “Congratulations, Soos! I’m so happy for you guys!”

“Can I be the flower girl?” Mabel prattled on. “Can Waddles be the ring bearer?!”

“What?! Why Waddles?” Dipper asked, then looked to Soos hopefully. “Can I be the ring bearer?!”

Melody stared at the sight with a look of mild confusion, to which Soos shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, babe,” he said meekly, and slung an arm around both of them. “Guess my poker face needed a little work.”

She chuckled in response, and went to set the plates down on the t-rex skull. “Well, I guess that’s one way to spill the beans.”

“YEAH! I spilled the beans!” Mabel said delightedly, pumping a fist in the air. “The metaphorical beans!”

“I mean, technically Stan was the one to spill them,” Wendy said, flashing Stan a grin. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, dude, it was priceless!”

This earned her a pair of narrowed eyes from Stan. “Hey, hey, what’s with you and the jokes today? You should be a little more respectful to the guy who used to sign your paychecks.”

“Mmm, are you going to be signing my paychecks again now that you’re back?”

Stan opened his mouth to respond, before the implication behind her reply snapped his attention right back to Soos and Melody. “Woah, woah, hold on, go back a sec—you’re telling me that you two are actually tyin’ the knot?”

Melody held out her hand, an engagement ring with a beautiful, purple gemstone resting comfortably on her finger. “End of the summer’s our set date,” she confirmed. “Oh, not the end end of summer; Soos told me that the kids’ birthday was the last day of August, and he didn’t want to take the spotlight away from their special day with our special day.”

“Aww, what? Booo!” Mabel protested as she hopped down from Soos’ arms. “Come on, we can share the day with you guys! Right, Dip?”

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed. “If there’s anything that’ll make our birthday better, it’ll be sharing it with your wedding day!”

Soos pressed a hand to each of their heads with a warm smile. “Aww, man, now I kinda wish we did!” he said, with a hopeful look to Melody. “You don’t think we could—”

“Normally I’d say yes in a heartbeat,” Melody said. “But we’ve already booked the photography, and you know how they are about rescheduling at the last second.”

“But don’t you guys have three months?” Dipper pointed out.

“To a wedding photographer, rescheduling earlier than five months counts as last minute,” Melody explained. “Especially if your set date’s in the summertime; they’re usually pretty swamped from June to the middle of September.”

“You shoulda gone for a Vegas wedding,” Stan said. “You get in, get out in an hour tops and all you need is a witness.”

He crossed his arms with a scowl. “And I guess you’ll need a safe for your valuables, in case the broad’s only marryin’ you for your winnings and plans on running off with ‘em in the middle of the night. …On second thought, don’t get married in Vegas.”

“Well, thankfully I don’t have any plans to go running off with any of Soos’s valuables, so there’s nothing to worry about there,” Melody said, taking a look around the room. “Besides, I’m pretty sure the majority of his valuables are sitting right in this very room, and I don’t think I could carry most of you.”

This earned her a chorus of ‘aww’s from the kids and Soos, and a retching gag from Stan. “Yeesh, forget the eye bleach thing, I’m gonna need something to scrub out my ears with after hearing that.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Wendy said, rising to her feet. “You still want some help with the food, Mel? I’ll do it just so Mr. Pines has an excuse to stop complaining about all the mushy stuff.”

Melody pressed a hand to her mouth to try and stifle back another laugh. “Sounds like a plan,” she said, and gestured for Wendy to follow.

While Wendy hurried after her—Stan glowering at her until she was out of his line of sight—the kids continued to swarm Soos with questions. “So where are you guys holding the wedding?” Mabel asked, hands folded together. “Ooh, lemme guess! Uh, uh—the arcade? No, that’s not romantic enough. Hoo-Ha Owl’s Pizzamatronic Jamboree? Since it’s where you had your first date?”

“Here at the Mystery Shack?” Dipper guessed. “Or, you know, a regular church?”

Soos pointed at him. “Ding ding ding, Dipper got it! Or, uh, he was right with the first guess.” He tossed his hands in the air. “We’re gonna have it here at the Mystery Shack! We’re gonna make some space outside, maybe put the alter over in that spot by the totem pole—it’s gonna look so good!”

“Well, I know I’m happy for both of you,” Ford spoke up from his spot on the couch. “I mean, I might not know either of you very well. But from the little I’ve seen of you two together, this is clearly a big deal and I’m honored that we get to share this opportunity with you.”

Soos turned to him with a surprised, yet touched expression. “Wh—aww, thanks, Dr. Pines,” he said, placing a hand on his heart. “That actually means a lot, coming from you.”

Ford blinked in confusion. “It…does?”

“Well…yeah,” Soos said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean, I know you didn’t plan for this place to become the Mystery Shack when you built it. But because it became that, I was able to meet Mr. Pines, and then Dipper and Mabel—” He began to tick off his fingers. “—and they were able to help me learn how to get a date, which led me to meeting Melody at the mall—”

He paused, looking to his hand. “Hey, should I count the whole ‘killer video game girlfriend’ thing in there somewhere, or was that more just a…thing that happened and isn’t really connected to all of this?”

“Definitely more of a side thing,” Mabel said. “Like, it happened, but I think connecting it back to the shack is a bit of a stretch.”

“The very weird point they’re to make is that none of this would’ve happened without you building the shack to begin with, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper said with a smile in his direction. “So in a way, a lot of this is because of you!”

“This wouldn’t be possible without help from our friend here!”

Ford’s smile vanished, nails gripping the arm of the couch tighter than he’d intended as the shrill, high-pitched sound of Bill’s voice echoed through his mind. Cruel tauntings mixed with the vicious laughter of his surrounding henchman, all while he struggled desperately against the invisible binds that held him in the air—

“Grunkle Ford, is everything alright?”

Mabel’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, a expression of worry painted across her features. Not only hers, but Dipper was giving him a mildly concerned look as well.

Ford let out a slow exhale of air through his nose to steady himself. It was just a horrible, fleeting memory, as were all his memories of Bill. Outside of his nightmares, he had managed to keep a lid on most of them for the past nine months whenever they managed to snake their way to the front of his mind.

That’s all it was, just another bad memory. No need to dwell on it, especially not now.

“I’m fine,” he reassured the rest of the group with a smile. “I was just about to say that I don’t know if I would go that far with the compliments. I mean, Stanley’s the one who put all the time and effort into making this place what it is today, isn’t he?”

He looked to his right, an identical pair of eyes meeting his own as the older Pines twins stared at each other in silence.

While he and Stan had only been reunited for less than a year, falling back into the habit of picking up on Stan’s mannerisms had almost been second instinct for Ford. Despite the forty year gap between their teenhood and the present, so much of the way that Stan presented himself hadn’t changed in the slightest.

So naturally, Ford had also picked back up the ability to distinguish when Stan was hiding his displeasure with a situation.

It didn’t happen often; Stan had always been the kind of person to openly and fervently vocalize his complaints at the slightest inconvenience. A behavioral habit he had possessed since they were young boys—such a thought sent an uncomfortable wave of nostalgia rippling through Ford’s chest—and one that had clearly stayed with him throughout the years—more uncomfortable waves in his chest of a different sort.

So whenever Stan made the choice to to keep his grievances to himself, it usually meant there was more bubbling under the surface. More than he was willing to let anyone see.

And the way that his features had shifted, jaw clenched and a rigid look behind his eyes that was easy to miss if you blinked—

“Yeah, the heck am I? Chopped liver?”

Before Ford could think to question Stan, he’d already turned back to the group with an affronted look. “Or are you knuckleheads forgettin’ who even started this whole business to begin with?”

This sent a wave of laughs through the trio. “Of course we didn’t, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel assured him. “We’d never forget about you!”

“Of course not!” Dipper added with a laugh.

“Not for a second!” Soos added. “In fact, I was actually about to ask you—”

“More plates coming through~!”

Melody and Wendy reentered the living room, a plate in each of their hands. “Alright, dorks, come and get these before I eat them,” Wendy joked, passing both plates in her hands to the younger twins.

“And one for you,” Melody said, handing one of hers to Soos with another kiss on the cheek.

This got a small hum of delight from Soos, which was accompanied by another eye roll from Stan as he leaned forward to take one of the plates off the skull table. “Eugh, on second thought, I don’t want any sorta credit for this mush fest,” he said, bringing it to his lap. “In fact, unless you got more happy news to tell us, I’m turnin’ my attention to this mush fest instead.”

To emphasize his pun, he brought the back of his fork down onto the lasagna with an audible squishing sound, before shoving a large bite into his mouth. “‘Sides, the sooner we eat, the sooner we get to see Soos’s big, fancy shack tour, right?”

His point seemed to encourage the kids to dig into their own plates as well, although not without bombarding the happy couple with more wedding-related questions. Wendy, in the meanwhile, had realized that she was the only person left without any food and headed back to the kitchen to fetch herself a plate of her own.

Leaving the remaining plate on the dinosaur skull, one growing colder by the minute, for Ford to take.

He leaned forward to pull it to his lap as well, unable to resist giving Stan a glance out of the corner of his eye as he did. Stan’s expression had returned to a more relaxed look as he dug into his food, any previous signs of distress now nothing more than a memory.

Settling back into place with his plate, Ford turned his attention back to the group—specifically Dipper and Mabel as they laughed along with whatever Soos was telling them through a mouthful of lasagna. 

None of them had expressed any further concern for Stan’s behavior after it had happened, and the three of them had spent far more time with Stan than he had in the past thirty years. Sure, the two of them had spent the past nine months together out at sea, but the kids had gotten to know him over the course of the previous summer. And Soos had practically spent all of his childhood and young-adulthood around him.

If they had failed to noticed anything was wrong with him, did that mean that Ford had misinterpreted his reaction completely? If one of Stan’s closest employees and family members—people who had been around Stan for far longer than he had in the past few decades—hadn’t noticed anything wrong with him, then maybe there was actually nothing to notice at all?

“Ho-ho! Looks like Mr. Brainiac finally got smart!”

…Then again, he did have experience in not picking up on the obvious.

His grip on the fork tightened as he stabbed it into the remaining lasagna on his plate, letting out another slow exhale in the process. It was like Stan had said earlier at the bus stop. If the two of them showed any signs of stress regarding the events of the previous summer, then it was sure to stress out the kids as well.

He raised the fork to his mouth. And it was like he had said; It was a new summer. A chance for everyone to start over, and for them to start over together.

“We don’t have to do anything alone ever again, right?”

“We don’t have to do anything alone. Not now, not ever again.”

If there was anything truly wrong with Stan, he would say something. They could talk things out, find a solution together.

As he bit down on the lasagna, however, he couldn’t stop his gaze from uncertainly shifting back to his brother.

—right?

— — — — — — — — 

“Remind us again why we’re wearin’ blindfolds?” Stan asked.

“Oh, how the tables have turned,” Mabel piped up, and reached her hands out in front of her to blindly grasp at the air. “Are you going to make Grunkle Stan drive us somewhere with his blindfold on?”

“I strongly advise against anything of the sort,” Ford said quickly. 

“Nah, I’m pretty sure Soos just wants us to be surprised by all the new stuff he’s added to the shack,” Dipper pointed out, and looked towards where he had heard Soos’s voice. “Isn’t that right, Soos? …I think I’m looking at you, I can’t actually tell.”

“You got it, dude!” Soos said, giving him a thumbs up before adding as an afterthought: “By the way, you can’t see it but I gave you a thumbs up!”

Dipper gave him a thumbs up in return, while Stan folded his arms across his chest. “Yeesh, with how much you’re hyping this thing up, it better end with a boatload of cash.”

He flipped his thumb in the direction of the parked car and boat situated a short distance from the group. “And don’t think I don’t know how much a boatload is, we got the Stan-O’-War 2 parked right over there for reference.” A pause. “I’m pretty sure it’s over there, at least.”

“It is,” Soos assured him. “Alright, is everyone ready?”

Dipper gave a nod. “We’re ready, Soos!”

“Yeah, knock us dead, Mr. Mystery!” Mabel added encouragingly.

After a quick glance down at the stack of flashcards in his hands, Soos looked back to the waiting Pines with a big smile. “Greetings, ladies, gentlemen, and other assorted tourists,” he began in a rehearsed tone. “First of all, the Mystery Shack family would like to offer you a hearty welcome to the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon—”

He winked at them. “Or I guess I should really say welcome back to the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon! …‘Cause, like, you all came back to the town after leaving—”

Stan pressed a hand to his forehead. “You’re really gonna give us the entire pitch first, huh?”

From off to the side where her and Wendy were situated, Melody perked up at his remark. “He’s been waiting ages to show it to you,” she called to them. “He barely got any sleep last night out of excitement!”

“I kept opening my eyes and hoping it was finally morning,” Soos admitted with a bashful smile.

“Besides, aren’t you the one who’s always saying that buttering up the chumps that come through here is a good way to get them to toss more money at us?” Wendy added. “Why do you care if he gives you the entire pitch first?”

“Hey, never said I didn’t approve of it,” Stan clarified. “I especially like the part where he refers to the staff as a family.”

He gave a theatrical wave of his hands. “Paints a mental picture in those chumps’ minds. A picture that says ‘Hey! The people at this place must be really close if they’re callin’ themselves a family! And if they’re a family, they must have a bunch of hungry kids to feed! Let’s toss all the money in our wallets at them…for the children!’”

“Probably helps that you actually made us dress up like ‘the abnormally hungry twins’ for an exhibit last year.” Dipper cast a flat look towards Stan, then to verbally emphasize his point: “Which I will not be doing again this year.”

Stan waved him away with a scoff. “‘Course not; those extra inches on your height won’t make you pass as anything more than a starving teenager. And people aren’t as taken in by teenagers in need as they are kids.”

“An unfortunate fact, but a true one,” Wendy chimed in again. “Now shh, Soos worked really hard on preparing this speech!”

“Thanks, Wendy,” Soos said. “But I don’t mind any interruptions, especially not from Mr. Pines! If there’s anything my online forums taught me, it’s that running a business is like writing a fanfiction: healthy criticism informs me of the areas I can improve on, and makes me feel good about the areas I’m already doing well in!”

He tapped his chin. “There’s also a lot of overlap between the two when it comes to people who want to learn about how to romance a werewolf,” he mused with a chuckle. “Turns out the secret is just buying a lot of beef jerky, they go nuts for the stuff—”

“Keep it on track, Soos,” Stan interrupted with a roll of his hand.

“Gravity Falls, Oregon,” Soos continued. “A mysterious and strange town, full of mysterious and strange beings. Whether they’re human, animal, vegetable, mineral, something in between or something else entirely, the one thing they all have in common is that they call this town home.”

He tossed an arm in the air to gesture at the building behind him. “And lucky for you, our totally awesome family here at the Mystery Shack is happy to help bridge the gap between the mysterious and the…not-mysterious—”

He made a so-so motion with his hand. “This part’s a little rough, but we’re working on smoothing it out. I know there’s a good M-word that would fit there, I just can’t remember off the top of my head.”

Ford pressed a hand to his mouth, before he spoke up with a suggested: “Mundane?”

Soos’s features brightened with inspiration and he shot a finger gun in Ford’s direction. “Boom! That’s the one!” he said, fetching a pencil from his pocket. “Thanks, Dr. Pines! …By the way, I shot you a finger gun. If you don’t know what that is—‘cause of all the time away from our dimension—I can tell you! It’s when you take your finger and—”

“No need to explain, Soos,” Ford assured him. “The concept speaks for itself.”

While Soos scribbled a few edits onto his flashcard, Melody raised a hand from her spot. “Sorry to interrupt your speech, Soos, but I just want to make sure I’m getting things right now that everyone’s here.” 

She pointed a finger at the Stans, shifting it back and forth between them. “Mr. Pines is the founder of the Mystery Shack and Dr. Pines is the one who actually owns it, right?” she asked with a shrug. “Or—well, I know that technically we own it since we have the deed to the building, that’s such a weird law for this town to have—”

“You have no idea,” Stan added.

“—but you get what I mean, right? Dr. Pines is the name on the deed?”

“I gotcha, and you’re right!” Soos clarified. “Mr. Pines founded the mystery shack and Dr. Pines is the one on the deed.”

He turned to face her completely. “If it helps, you could try remembering it like this: Mr. for mystery and Dr. for deed to the shack!”

Melody considered this for a moment. “Oh, that does help, actually. It’s like a stalactite/stalagmite kind of thing.”

“You could also just call them Stan and Ford,” Mabel added. “Ooh, or Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford like we do!”

“I mean, technically they aren’t her great-uncles,” Dipper pointed out. “So that wouldn’t really make sense.”

With a tut, Mabel placed her hands on her hips. “Please, the title of Grunkle is less about being a great-uncle, and more of a state of mind.”

“...Yeah, the state of mind where you’re a great-uncle,” Dipper said pointedly. “Hence the combination of the two words.”

“You can call us whatever you please,” Ford spoke up. “Clearly there are plenty of options to choose from, and all are accurate to some degree.”

He pressed a hand to his chin. “Although I will admit that it’s been a long time since anyone has referred to me as Dr. Pines. It was far more common for people to call me that for the first few years after I finished college.”

“You know what, I’ll experiment with a few different names, see what sticks,” Melody said, then turned her attention back to Soos. “Sorry, babe, didn’t mean to interrupt. Go ahead and keep going.”

“Never hurts to double check,” Soos assured her. “Plus since the two of them are part of the Shack’s history, it doubles as a tour question! Ooh, we should write that into the speech, too—”

There was another pause as he scribbled something down on his flashcards. “See, that’s another reason I wanted to show you guts the tour as soon as possible,” he said to the Pines. “I’m adding so much that’s gonna knock the next group of tourists that hears it on their butts! Okay, let’s see, where was I—”

“Mysterious and mundane,” Dipper reminded him helpfully.

“Thanks, dude! As I was saying before, we here at the Mystery Shack are happy to help bridge the gap between the mysterious and the mundane—”

He playfully waggled a finger in Ford’s direction, before tossing his free hand in the air. “And hopefully after today’s tour, you’ll all be able to walk across that bridge alongside us! Welcome to the Mystery Shack!”

He squinted down at his flashcards again. “Is…is that good for a welcoming statement?” he asked. “Did I do a good job? Do you feel invested to learn more about what awaits in this fine establishment?”

“Oh, I know if I had a wallet full of money, I’d be tossing fistfuls at you right now,” Mabel said supportively, and dug a hand into the pocket of her skirt. “Ooh, wait, I might have some glitter I can toss instead—”

After blindly feeling around for a moment, she pulled her hand out with a with a disappointed look. “Aw, nope, false alarm,” she said, opening her palm to reveal a squished, blue blob. “Just my wad of that sticky stuff teachers use to hang up posters that I stole over the school year~!”

She dropped it in her pocket again and gave the side a pat. “Just gonna tuck that back where it belongs~!”

“And I’m always ready to learn more,” Dipper added. “So you don’t need to do much to convince me!”

“Sounds like a yes to me, Mr. Mystery,” Melody said. “We good to move on to the next part of this tour?”

“You know it!” Soos said, before looking back to the Pines. “Okay so that part of the speech would normally be followed up with me leading everyone over to the exhibits area and showing all of them off.” 

His gaze moved to the Stans. “But I know you wanted a quiet evening without tourists or sleepovers or parties—”

“We did,” Stan confirmed.

“I didn’t,” Mabel argued with a pout. “I’ll bet Candy and Grenda would’ve had so much fun on the tour!”

“Oh, they’ve taken it many times!” Soos assured her. “They’re practically honorary employees at this point, and sometimes they even help with the new exhibits!”

At this information, Mabel’s pout was immediately replaced with a cutesy smile and she squished her hands to her cheeks. “Aww, of course they do! Can we see some of the ones they helped with?”

“Well, uh—like I was saying, we knew Mr. Pines wanted at least one evening before all the loud stuff,” Soos said. “So we ended tours early for the day and sent everyone from the exhibits home.”

The Pines exchanged a series of confused, blindfolded looks, before Dipper vocalized their confusion with an: “Everyone?”

Soos looked to Melody and Wendy, who nodded in unison. “We sent everyone home,” he continued to the Pines. “But we still wanted to give you all a taste of the kind of tours we’d normally give on a regular basis! So Melody had the brilliant idea to leave out the empty displays and do a fake tour before cleanup!”

He gestured for them to follow. “If you really want to know more, you’re gonna have to come look for yourselves~! And to look for yourselves, you’re gonna have to follow me!”

“Refusing to explain further until we take the tour for ourselves?” Stan gave a proud nod. “Good, good, you’re reelin’ us in…”

“Uh, Soos?” Dipper said, and pointed to his blindfold. “How can we follow you if you can’t see?”

Soos froze, and pressed a hand to his forehead. “Oh, duh, forgot about that!” he said, and thought for a moment. “Uh…just carefully follow the sound of my voice and footsteps?”

He began to walk backwards, making wide gesturing motions with his hands as they blindly followed him. “Alright, dudes, just keep walking forward—oop, careful of that crack in the ground, Dipper! Okay, just a little further—”

“Still don’t understand why we can’t just take the blindfolds off,” Stan said, taking a few bold steps forward—

—and letting out a grunt of pain as he stepped on a small rock. “Also, since when did Soos know to call you Dr. Pines?” he asked, kicking the rock to the side. “Don’t remember you ever tellin’ him to do that.”

He directed the last remark at Ford, who was carefully toeing the dirt in front of him before taking a step. “Well, I did mention my college years back when I first stepped out of the portal,” he reminded Stan. “Perhaps he took that fact and came to the conclusion that using the Dr. prefix would be appropriate, given my numerous PhDs.”

Stan’s expression shifted for a moment. “Oh yeah, that did happen, didn’t it,” he said, before shaking his head. “Yeah, given your whole science guy thing, I’ll bet he woulda called you Dr. Pines even if you didn’t have the credentials for it.”

“I would’ve!” Soos confirmed helpfully.

“Ooh, Mabel just had a fun idea!” Mabel piped up, and pressed her hands together. “What if we called you Dr. Grunkle Ford?”

She smiled cutely in Ford’s direction, despite being unable to see him. “I’ll bet one of those PhDs is from mastering the study of Great-Uncle-ing, isn’t it? Hmm~?”

“Well, if we’re getting into the specifics,” Ford began. “The field of studies I majored in were biology, archaeology—dabbled in Hyper-Advanced Engineering and Fifth-Dimensional Calculus for three semesters, deeply regret trading the rest for an extra semester of Applied Quantum Phase Theory—”

He paused. “Oh, that was a joke, wasn’t it?”

Mabel let out a giggle. “The PhD part was, the Dr. Grunkle Ford part was not. That was also not a ‘no’ so I’m gonna tuck that away for later.”

She made a motion to grab something out of the air, and pretended to drop it into her pocket. “And just ‘cause you can’t see it, I grabbed the nickname out of the air and dropped it into my pocket,” she explained, patting her skirt. “It’s resting right next to my blob of sticky poster stuff as we speak.”

“Hey, Soos, are we able to take off our blindfolds yet?” Dipper asked.

“Just a little further ahead—ooh, okay, stop, stop!”

Soos came to a stop himself, smile wider than ever. “Alright, esteemed guests! You may now remove your blindfolds and behold the wonders the Shack has to offer! …Or, at least, get an idea of what the Shack has to offer when we’re not closed!”

Four pairs of hands met cloth as the Pines reached up to lower their blindfolds and take in the sight before them.

The area situated between the shack and the edge of the woods was reminiscent of a carnival after all the guests had gone home for the day—the grass a tamped-down mess of discarded pamphlets and trash, and a wide selection of empty displays surrounded them on all sides.

To their left stood a tall aquarium that stretched around ten by ten square feet, filled nearly to the brim with placid water. Further ahead was a lengthy presentation stage, littered in the remains of unidentifiable objects made of wood, stone—anything that looked like it would’ve been a challenge for a regular human to destroy.

Ahead of that was an artificial recreation of a magical forest glenn, one perfect for a unicorn to kneel before in a graceful and elegant fashion. A series of perches for winged creatures both big and small. A small pet bed the perfect size for a plaidypus. A collection of scattered Pitt Cola cans near a skateboarding ramp covered in massive, yeti-like footprints and tire tracks.

Empty display after empty display surrounded the Pines family as they looked around, each a clear indicator of what beings would normally occupy them during business hours.

And if the sight wasn’t enough, Soos was happy to confirm it as he lead them forward: “Now, this is our Main Exhibit Area,” he said, and gestured around himself. “Any live beings for these attractions would normally be gathered here for their demonstrations—”

“Live beings?” Dipper asked with a hopeful sparkle in his eyes. “As in we’ve started including actual, real monsters and creatures and stuff?”

“You know it, dude!” Soos said.

Mabel smooshed her face against the side of the large, glass tank, pupils darting back and forth while questions spilled out of her mouth at breakneck speed: “Is this a mermaid tank? How many mermaids are here? What are they like? …Are any of them Mermando?”

“Reminder that you’re in a relationship,” Dipper said.

Mabel pulled her face back with an audible pop, before giving her brother a pointed stare. “I wasn’t asking so I could date him again! It’d just be nice to catch up with an old friend!” 

She moved a hand to her forehead, rubbing the spot where skin had met glass. “Besides, you act like Dev wouldn’t be cool with being in a polyamorous relationship with a mermaid.”

“...You know, that is probably something he’d be cool with.”

“Soos said he had a feeling you’d like the mermaid tank,” Melody said, coming up beside them. “And Wendy had a feeling that you’d love to see me jump into it.”

Mabel stared up at her with a grave look. “I would love nothing more.”

“Called that one,” Wendy said with a smug grin.

Using the ladder near them, Melody climbed up and onto the wooden platform on top of the tank, pausing only for a moment to fiddle with something in the very center. After a few seconds, she lifted the half she was not kneeling on upwards and held it still for the group to see. 

Rather than being made completely out of wood like the other half, the ‘lid’ was made up of sturdy, steel bars with gaps between them. Like the bars of a jail cell, if the entire jail cell had been laid on its back and made of glass.

“We like to close and lock the lid between mermaid demonstrations,” she explained to the Pines family. “Keeps any bold tourists from trying to climb inside.”

“You lock your mermaids up?” Mabel asked, hands pressed to her mouth in horror.

“Wha—oh, no, don’t worry!” Melody quickly assured her. “We only lock it up once Mitch is outside of it and in his portable tank—hey, Soos, Wendy, can you guys—”

“Oh, yeah, one sec.”

Both Soos and Wendy hurried over to the opposite end of the tank and held out their arms, as if preparing to catch something out of the air. Once they were in place, Melody arched the lid up and over towards the side where they stood. While it quickly swung downwards at the two of them, they stood firm as they caught it in their arms, before gently guiding it to rest against the side of the tank.

Looking pleased, Melody turned her attention back to the kids. “Alright, I’m not even gonna try to do a proper mermaid dive into this thing because there’s a good chance I might break my neck,” she said. “So are we fine with a cannonball instead?”

“Cannonball! Cannonball!” Dipper and Mabel chanted in unison.

“Cannonball!” Soos added with just as much enthusiasm.

“Sounds like a yes to me!” Melody said, and took a small step back from the gap. “Get your cameras ready!”

Mabel held up her cell phone with a bright smile, before taking a cautious step back from the tank. “For safety measures,” she explained. “Don’t want what happened to Dipper’s phone to happen to mine~!”

“There was a chicken in science class, caught on fire and set off the sprinklers…” He shrugged in mild annoyance. “I had to get a new phone, it was a whole thing—”

“Shshshsh,” Mabel said, taking one hand off her phone to wave him quiet. “We can exchange cool stories after the tour! Cannonball time!”

“Oh, right—go for it, Melody!”

And with that confirmation, Melody took a deep breath jumped up and over the open side of the tank, folding her body into a cannonball shaped before she sank down into the water. Water that splashed up and out, soaking the grass around the tank and the toes of anyone who hadn’t followed Mabel’s example and backed up to safety.

While Melody breached the surface and swam to the tank’s side, Soos looked back down to his flashcards. “As you can imagine, normally a trick like this would be done by our hired merteen, Mitch,” he explained. “He would do a few tricks, explain a few of the basics of being a merperson, and then answer a few questions from the audience about being a mermaid and stuff.”

Melody propped her folded arms over the side of the tank. “And since I’m not an actual mermaid, I can’t really answer any real mermaid questions,” she said. “Or, at least, not as well as someone who’s been one their entire lives. But if anyone’s got any about how the exhibit works in other ways—”

“And Mabel’s hand is already in the air.”

Dipper flicked a thumb towards his sister, who was waving her arm about so frantically that it was a miracle that it didn’t go flying right off her body. Melody smiled and gestured to her with a damp hand. “Go ahead, Mabel.”

“Because I didn’t get any answers before, I repeat my questions from earlier,” Mabel said. “How many mermaids are here? What are they like?”

She turned her nose up at Dipper. “And would there happen to be an old friend of mine by the name of Mermando among them?” she asked. “One I am not interested in dating again, but one I would like to say hello to, despite what a certain someone might think—”

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we?” Dipper asked.

“Ehhh, we only got the one merman and I doubt you’d be interested in dating him,” Wendy answered. “He’s kinda dull, one of those beach-dude types who’s overly obsessed with surfing and sun…”

She flicked a thumb towards the skating ramp. ”Gets along pretty well with the Abominable Bro-men who hang out at the halfpipe, though.”

“Speaking of which, he headed down to the California coast for the summer,” Soos said. “Apparently he’s got a lot of family down there—”

“Makes sense,” Dipper said with a nod.

“Totally tracks,” Mabel added.

“—which means that the only mermaid exhibit you’ll get to see for the next three months is Melody’s,” Soos continued. “Unless another one applies for a job soon, that is. ‘Course we’ll still need to check their resume, confirm their resources are legitimate—”

“Which could happen,” Melody said, as she pulled herself up onto the edge of the tank. “I’ve got a couple of interviews lined up.”

She looked towards the older Pines twins. “What about you two? Got any mermaid questions for me?”

“I’m afraid any questions I might still have about mermaids would only be able to be answered by actual mermaids,” Ford said, and looked towards the rest of the displays. “And I assume the same applies to the rest of the exhibits.”

He cast them both a smile. “But I’m in full support of this method of showcasing them! I mean, using the supernatural beings of Gravity Falls as willing exhibits, and providing a chance for everyone to grow accustomed to each other in a neutral setting?” 

He tossed his hands in the air. “All with education lessons about each creature added to the mix? Quite the scientific approach to this sort of thing, color me very impressed!”

“Well, we kinda have you to thank for the idea, Dr. Pines,” Melody said. “You and the kids, of course.”

Once again, Ford found himself bewildered by the sudden praise and he tilted his head with a curious look. “Care to explain?”

“See, I spent sooooo much time with Dipper and Mabel last year,” Soos explained. “And they spent sooooo much of their time doing lots of cool, mystery stuff! Whether it was fighting some big monster or just trying to find out more about the super-mysterious author guy who wrote the journal that Dipper found in the woods—”

He once again pointed at Ford with a playful grin, before continuing: “—we learned about a lotta weird dudes! And with the town coming together and everything after Weirdmageddon, that meant a lotta those weird dudes were walking around in broad daylight. Which meant a lotta tourists started seeing those weird dudes walking around in broad daylight!”

“And as most tourists do, plenty had questions about them,” Melody continued from the water tank. “So with the Shack being one of the most popular locations in town, some talk was thrown around about us providing a space for those beings to answer their questions!”

“It probably helps that a lot of those weird dudes hid in the Mystery Shack during Weirdmageddon,” Wendy added. “So you know, didn’t take a lot of convincing to get them involved, since they kinda consider it a safe haven now.”

“That’s so cool!” Dipper piped up excitedly.

“It’s brilliant,” Ford agreed. “During my years of research, I spent so long studying all the strange and mysterious beings of this town. How they came to exist, how they functioned—”

He placed a hand to the side of the tank. “Not just them but the weirdness that surrounded the town as a whole. Why all of it was so drawn to this tiny, Oregon town out of anywhere else in the world—”

“Imagine it, Sixer—a whole dimension of weirdness! One where the strangest and most bizarre beings the Multiverse has to offer call home! All waiting for someone as brilliant as you to pop on over and show the world what they—and you—can do!”

“You really think so?”

“Buddy, I know so! This is the way genius happens! …With a little help from a friend, of course!”

The hand against the glass curled into a fist as Bill’s voice once again pounded through his skull, the memories of their ‘research’ together gripping his insides like a vice. All those years of hard work for naught, all that wasted time being fed promises from the honey-dipped spoon of a liar, the bitter truth hidden from sight until it was too late to spit it back out—

He slowly unclenched his hand with a shuddery exhale. Deep breath, just relax. Everything was fine. “—well, this whole setup is making me reminisce on more nostalgic times,” he finished with a forced smile in Soos’s direction. “That’s all.”

If Soos had caught on to his half-truth, he didn’t show any sign of it in his own expression. Rather, his own smile simply widened further as he looked to Stan. “What about you, Mr. Pines?”

Ford couldn’t help but look to his brother as well, and his eyes once again met a matching pair as the two of them stared at each other in another shared silence.

The rigidity in Stan’s features from before had returned. Far less prominent than it had been back in the house, but the way his jaw was set, the cold, studious gaze behind worn lenses—

“All I wanna know is how much this kinda stuff’s costing the two of you.” 

And quick as a flash, Stan had turned back to the rest of the group, arms folded across his chest and any sense of tension in his features nonexistent. “Don’t get me wrong; I think usin’ all the ghouls and goblins of this town to get more money outta tourists is a great idea—”

“You mean like what I suggested last year?” Dipper pointed out.

“Last year I was still playin’ dumb about all of that, in the hopes it would keep you kids outta trouble,” Stan reminded him. “Think we can safely say that ship has sailed by now. Besides, I ain’t the big man in charge anymore, so whatever changes you make to the shop are up to you and you alone.” 

He directed the back half of his sentence at Soos and Melody as he turned to face them again. “But you know me; always lookin’ at the side of business with the dollar signs. And I just wanna know if you’re turnin’ more of a profit than what you’re spendin’.”

Ford’s gaze continued to linger on his brother for a moment more, before he turned to them as well. “Stanley raises a good point. While I clearly support the desire and motivation to help others approach the supernatural beings of the Falls with a more respectful and scientific mindset—well, as Stanley put it so eloquently, such methods aren’t exactly cheap.”

“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about,” Melody assured them. “If anything, the Shack is making more money than it ever did before!”

“Oh yeah!” Soos agreed. “Even taking into account all of the paychecks we give out—of course we pay anyone who’s part of an exhibit—”

“They’re employees after all,” Melody chimed in with a nod.

“—even taking all that into account, we’re doing really well!” Soos finished, tossing his hands into the air. “In fact, the Shack is more popular than it’s ever been before!”

Ford glanced back at Stan, scanning his features for any other signs of distress. However, Stan only seemed to perk up further at Soos’ comment, even going so far as to clasp a proud arm around his shoulder. “Well, then I have no complaints whatsoever! Show me another one of these magnificent, moneymaking—uh, m—uh…whatever, just show me another one.”

“Sounds like my cue,” Wendy said, and turned to the younger twins. “Who wants to see me break something over at the Manotaur stage?”

This time, Dipper and Mabel’s hand shot up in unison, and Wendy laughed as she lead them over towards the empty presentation stage. Much like back at the bus stop, the adults found themselves left behind as Soos helped a sopping-wet Melody back down the ladder and into the grass. 

“Well, the tour might not be how we usually do things, but at least they seem to be having fun,” she said, and reached up to wring out some of the water in her hair. “Plus getting a chance to jump into a tank of water on a hot summer evening’s probably the opposite of a problem.”

“You cannonball like no other,” Soos said, tone full of sincerity before he looked to the older twins. “So you’re really enjoying the tour so far, Mr. Pines? I know you probably won’t get a proper feel of the new exhibits until you’re able to take a real tour, and I know this is a huge change from how you used to do things—”

“Like I said, it’s makin’ this place more money than ever so I’ve got zero complaints,” Stan said with a shrug. “Your methods are smart, keepin’ up with what the people want like any good business should…”

His features shifted to something that almost resembled genuine pride, if one looked closely enough. “You’re…you’re doin’ good, Soos. Really.”

A single touch could’ve shattered Soos like glass, eyes swelling with tears of pure joy.. “Thank you so much, Mr. Pines!” he said, and finally gave in to the urge he was probably holding since the moment the Stans arrived and scooped Stan up into a hug. “You’ve no idea how much this means to me!”

Any pride in Stan’s expression vanished in place of annoyance at being scooped, and he struggled fruitlessly against Soos’ embrace. “Alright, alright, save the huggy stuff for your fiance over there,” he insisted firmly. “Besides, didn’t Wendy say she wanted to show us another exhibit or whatever?”

“Oh, right!” Soos said, and looked to Melody. “Want me to hug-carry you over to the stage?”

“Soos, I’m soaking wet.”

“Then we’ll both be soaking wet!”

Recognizing a good point when she heard it, Melody shrugged and hopped into his arms and the two of them fell into a shared fit of laughter as Soos lead them both towards the Manotaur stage. 

Leaving the Stans as the remaining two near the mermaid tank. 

“Can you believe this?” Stan asked, with a light flick to the glass. “A mermaid exhibit with a living, breathing merman? And one not made out of random animal parts?”

“They really seem to have tapped into a brilliant method of showcasing the exhibits here,” Ford agreed, turning his attention to the glass as well. With Melody no longer inside, the water inside was slowly settling back to a calm and undisturbed state. “You really picked the right man to take up the reigns in your absence.”

“Yeah, I…I really did, huh?”

That heavy silence from before began to envelop the brothers again, nearly impossible to ignore by this point. Not even the whooping and hollering from the stage—apparently Wendy had started her demonstration without them—was enough to distract Ford from his growing suspicions that Stanley was hiding something.

With the way he kept looking at Ford, features set with that rigid expression that clearly obscured his actual feelings beneath, he was either hiding something or he needed to say something without the others nearby.

Well, they had a moment alone now. Best to do the straightforward thing and just ask directly. “Stanley, is everything alright?”

Stan snapped his attention from the tank to Ford so quickly that it was a miracle he didn’t pull something, and for a moment he did seem like he had something he needed to say—

—before his expression settled back into something more neutral as he leaned back against the glass. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

It was an odd thing. With the many years of conning people under his belt, Ford had expected his brother to be far better at lying right to his face. “Are you sure?” he tried again, and leaned back against the glass as well. “You know you can talk to me, Stanley. It’s like you said before: we don’t have to deal with things by ourselves anymore. So, if you need to talk about anything, anything at all…”

This earned a small chuckle from Stan. “Throwin’ my own words back at me, huh? Cheap shot.”

He hesitated to reply for a moment, before giving him a halfhearted shrug. “I dunno, it’s nothin’,” he said. “I think I’m just having a hard time getting back into the swing of things now that we’re back in town. Just a lotta new stuff to get used to, stuff that wasn’t here last year…”

He cast Ford a smirk. “Guess you could say I’m having trouble gettin’ my land legs, instead of my sea legs,” he said, leaning over to nudge him with his elbow. “You—you get it? My land legs—”

Dodging the subject with a joke, and an incredibly cheesy one at that. A classic Stanley move to avoid talking about something he didn’t want to, one that only cemented Ford’s concerns further.

However, his first remark brought a thoughtful hand to Ford’s chin. “There have been quite a few changes in our absence,” he agreed. “It would make sense that it would be difficult for you to readjust, especially in regards to the shack.”

He cast a look towards the shack itself. “I mean, you were in charge of this place for what, thirty years? That’s about five times the number of years I lived here,” he said. “Not to mention Soos and Melody’s whole announcement, I can imagine that would be quite the surprise for you—”

“Only surprise there is that there’s apparently someone on this planet more nerdy than Soos,” Stan interrupted quickly, and crossed his arms. “What about you? How’re you holdin’ up?”

Ford stared at him, perplexed. “Me?”

“To quote the words you stole from me to then throw back at me; we don’t have to deal with things by ourselves anymore,” Stan said. “So do you have anything you wanna talk about?”

“Heads up!”

A shout from the stage sprung the brothers into action, and both jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a porcelain vase whizzing past at breakneck speed, right before crashing straight into the side of the cabin and shattering on impact.

“Sorry, guys!” Wendy called from atop the stage. “Think I put a little too much oomph into that swing!”

“I think you put just the right amount of oomph into it!” Mabel said from beside her, grin bright. 

“It was incredible!” Dipper agreed. “Can you do it again?”

“I dunno,” Wendy said, tapping the end of the bat against her boot. “The destruction of valuable properly really gets both the Manotaurs and the audience all riled up, so they tend to keep the going until there’s nothing left to destroy.”

She moved the end of the bat was moved to a discarded plank of wood near her feet, gently nudging it towards the edge of the stage. “And judging by today’s damage, it’s a miracle that one vase remained unscathed as long as it did.”

“Aw, boo,” Mabel said. “I wanna see more mindless violence!”

“Sadly that’s all I got for the big lugs for now,” Wendy said, letting the bat clatter to the stage. “You squirts know all about their deal already, so random trivia is kinda out of the question. I mean, I could always do the thing where they let someone from the audience challenge them in a fight, but ehh, I’ve already gotta clean up the displays on my day off—”

“Didn’t you choose to come to work anyway?” Mabel pointed out.

“—so I’m just gonna pass the baton to Soos,” Wendy continued, tossing a hand in Soos’ direction. “How about it, Soos? You’re the only one who hasn’t shown off one of the exhibits yet, it’s only fair you get a turn before we move on to the Big Stuff inside.”

“You make a good point!” Soos agreed with a nod, and glanced around at the remaining exhibits for a moment in thought. “Who wants to watch me try and do a kickflip over at the Abominable Bro-Men’s halfpipe?”

“Me! Me!” Dipper piped up enthusiastically. “You are absolutely going to fall and break your neck, so I’m in!”

Beaming, Soos turned back to the direction of the mermaid tank. “What about you, Dr. and Mr. Pines?” he called. “You wanna join us?”

The sudden vase attack had pulled both from their conversation long enough to grow distracted by the kids’ antics on the stage. At Soos’ call, however, the two of them exchanged a look with each other. “Like I was askin’ before,” Stan tried again. “Are you okay? You got anything you need to talk about?”

It was said in such a knowing tone, as if Stan could physically see the triangle-shaped echos that were permanently etched against the inside of Ford’s mind. As if he were just waiting for Ford to offer him the chance to swing another fist at them again.

But while swinging a fist at Bill had worked the first time around, Stan couldn’t exactly swing a fist at the nightmares that had plagued Ford’s head for as long as he could remember. And even if he could—

“I’m fine, Stanley,” he finally insisted aloud. “Really, I am. Perhaps it’s as you said, and it’s taking me more time to readjust to being back in town than I’d initially expected.”

He flashed Stan a weak smile, one that his brother hesitated to return for a few seconds. But eventually, the corners of Stan’s mouth curled upwards into a amused smile of his own. “Pretty sure my exact words were ‘having trouble gettin’ my land legs’,” he pointed out, clasping a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Was a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”

“Stanley, you realize that ‘getting your land legs’ is about as common of a phrase as ‘getting your sea legs’,” Ford pointed out.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure I made that one up,” Stan said, and plopping an arm across his brother’s shoulders. “Now come on, let’s go watch Soos break his neck or whatever he’s gonna do.”

“Personally, I’m not a fan of Abominable Bro-Men,” Ford admitted. “But with all this talk of neck-breaking, I think there should be at least one person there who knows how to reset a bone.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert with human bones—”

While the adults followed Soos towards the half-pipe, Mabel let out a disappointed noise. “Aww man, I wanted a chance to try and fight Wendy!”

“Eh, we’ve got all summer,” Wendy reminded her. “Besides, you’re telling me you’d miss a chance to watch Soos fall flat on his face?”

With a giggle, Mabel shoved her hands in her pockets. “Now I never said that—oh, wait—” 

She shuffled her hands around for a moment, before pulling them back out and peering into her pocket with an annoyed look. “Aww, dang it, I think my wad of sticky poster stuff fell out of my pocket somewhere.”

“Eugh, that probably means it’s all covered in dirt or something now,” Dipper said with a grimace. “Probably best to cut your losses and start a new one when school picks back up again.”

“Are you kidding?” Mabel protested, gaze now shifting around their feet and the rest of the stage. “I barely managed to collect as much as I did before the teachers started catching wind of my thievery!”

Taking care to avoid any of the broken debris, she dropped to her knees and pressed her face against the stage for closer examination. “By the time fall hits, they’ll probably have security guards around every single one of those cheesy pun posters that relate to each class’s specific subject! I’ll never be able to get the new one back to the size of the original!”

Dipper placed a hand on his hip. “You realize that this is a very weird and specific problem that only you could have,” he said, then paused. “You want me to help you look?”

“Nah, nah, you go ahead and watch Soos. Just snap me some pics with my phone.”

Without taking her eyes off the stage, she held out her cell phone to him. “Feel free to add whatever filters you want, I’m partial to the kitty-ears myself.”

“Of course you are.” 

While he hopped down from the stage and headed towards the half-pipe, Mabel continued to search on her hands and knees for the telltale blob. When the stage itself produced no results, she moved to retrace her steps from the stage to the mermaid tank, to the area where she was pretty sure she’d pulled the lump out of her pocket—Soos making them walk around blindfolded had been delightfully quirky at the time, but now it was just making her search all the more difficult—

THUMP!

The sound of something heavy hitting the ground snapped Mabel’s attention towards the edge of the forest, her gaze darting about wildly as she tried to locate the source. A goal that didn’t take long for her to accomplish; a conspicuous black mass was splayed out on the ground between a pair of nearby birch trees.

Her first guess was some kind of animal, until her gaze landed on a small, fleshy hand at the end of an arm. An arm, a head of messy hair, a pair of legs—

“Wait, that’s a person!”

Once her brain put two and two together, Mabel broke into a sprint towards the unknown—potentially unconscious—body. Sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed once she reached it and knelt down to investigate.

They were short, probably not much taller than her or Dipper at full height. And as Mabel rolled their unconscious body onto their back to get a closer look, further similarities between the mysterious person and Dipper presented themselves to her.

They had the same facial structure, their noses were the same rosy shade of peach that was slightly darker than the rest of their face. Even their messy mop of hair fell over their eyes in the exact same way Dipper’s did when he wasn’t wearing a hat, although his usual brown shade had been swapped for a light bleach-blonde that would make the entirety of Sev’ral Timez weep with envy.

Despite the similar physical features—the mysterious person’s fashion sense differed from Dipper’s in every way. Rather than the casual shirt, vest and hat combo that Dipper wore on a regular basis, the person was dressed in a black jacket and pants, bow tie, yellow button up—an unusually fancy outfit for someone who might’ve just fallen out of a tree in the middle of the woods.

“What’s wrong, Pumpkin?”

Drawing her gaze from the body, Mabel looked up to see Stan approaching her with a curious look. “I think someone fell out of one of the trees,” she explained. “I heard a loud thump, and saw them lying here. I think they might be a kid—”

“What’s going on over here, dudes?”

Stan turned to see Ford and Soos coming up behind him, a skateboard tucked safely under Soos’ arm. “I was just gonna wait until everyone was at the half-pipe ramp,” Soos explained. “Dipper said Mabel was looking for something, and I’m in no rush.”

He flashed a grin in Stan’s direction. “Even if I’d love to get to the inside part of the tour as soon as possible, you are gonna flip when you see it, Mr. Pines—”

“What’s wrong, Stanley?” Ford asked, echoing his brother’s earlier question.

“Accordin’ to Mabel, some kid fell out of a tree or something,” Stan said, with a look to Soos. “What, you’re just lettin’ kids climb in the trees around here now? You lookin’ to get sued by some Patsy or Jane with straight bangs and a failing marriage that she insists on makin’ everyone else’s business?”

Soos innocently raised his hands. “I didn’t let anyone do anything, I swear! Maybe he was part of the last tourist group of the day and got separated from them before they left? Haven’t had any parents show up looking for a lost kid, though.”

“Either way, we should probably call 911.” 

Ford knelt down beside Mabel and pressed two fingers to the unknown child’s neck. “Well, they have a pulse so they’re probably alive,” he said, then pulled his hand back. “Of course, a lack of pulse doesn’t rule out the possibility of them being undead. But if they did fall out of a tree, they could possibly have a concussion. So either way, it’s a concern.”

“Well, let’s hope you don’t have to rip out the spine of this one,” Stan said.

While they conversed, Mabel gingerly placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder and gave it a light shake. “Hello? Are you alright?”

There was no response, so she tried again with a bit more force. “Hey, kid, I hope you know that you just fell out of the sky!” she said with a bit more urgency. “Which is probably not out of the norm for kids in Gravity Falls, but still, it’s a little worrying!”

The child remained still for a moment more—

—before their body began to tremble with a quiet chuckle. A quiet chuckle that slowly morphed into a full-on laugh.

Any relief that might’ve started building inside Mabel was snuffed out in an instant as the laughter—that cold, cruel laughter—only grew more vocal, and sent her crawling backwards in a panic as the body slowly rose up from the ground and turned to face her.

Now that Mabel got a better look at his face, the similarities to her brother were so clearly skin deep. Their aforementioned features were the same as before, but Dipper never smiled in a way that revealed all of his teeth and gums at once, like a young child being told to smile for the first time in front of a camera.

Dipper’s limbs weren’t quite as gangly and limp as the other boy’s, like a marionette being controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer who hadn’t mastered the art of making their body move naturally.

And Dipper’s eyes weren’t that terrifying, familiar shade of jaundice yellow, complete with slitted, catlike pupils that bore deep, deep into her very being.

“Grunkle Ford!”

Her panicked shout—one that spilled out of her on complete instinct before she could even process what she was saying—was far from necessary. Ford had completely frozen when the laughter had started, features aghast and grim as he stared at the child, as that wicked, horrible laughter droned on and on—

CRACK!

And suddenly the laughter was silenced, and the same sound of a body hitting a ground as before drew Mabel’s attention back to reality.

The child was unconscious again, now with a decent sized welt on the back of his head. And beside him stood Wendy, the bat from before in hand and her body hunched over while she tried to catch her breath. “Saw…saw what was happening,” she explained between sharp gulps of air. “Heard the laughing. Panicked…”

The only sound to break the silence that followed for a few seconds was the faint rustling of the wind through the trees, until a pair of approaching footsteps against the dirt drew everyone’s heightened attention towards the sound in a panic. 

Much like the others had done, Melody and Dipper were approaching the group from the direction of the half-pipe. Upon seeing their petrified expressions, Melody held up her hands. “Woah, woah, hey, what’s going on?”

From beside her, Dipper lifted up something he was clutching tightly in his hands—one of the discarded planks of wood from the Manotaur’s stage. “I heard Mabel yell and saw Wendy run over here with her bat,” Dipper added. “Thought it’d probably be smart to grab a weapon, too—”

“Get a rope.”

Ford didn’t tear his gaze from the body as he responded in a low tone, as if it would vanish the moment he looked away. As if he, or everything around him, would shatter in an instant if he dared tear his attention away from the body that had previously been letting out that horrible, horrible laughter. 

The laughter that had haunted his dreams for four decades, the laughter still bouncing off the inside of his skull, even after Wendy had silenced the source.

When he didn’t elaborate further, Dipper looked to one of the other adults for an explanation—

“You heard him! Get a rope!”

It was Stan who replied next, and actually spun to face them with a grim expression. “A rope, chains…if it can be used to tie someone up, then get it!”

“It’s code yellow, Melody,” Wendy said quickly. “Soos, do we still got that unicorn-hair rope?”

“Same place as it always is,” Soos said, and looked to Melody. “Come on, we need to hurry—I’ll get the moonstones, you fetch the mercury.”

Recognizing their urgency, Melody looked to the unconscious body on the ground. “...That’s him, then?”

“Did you hear me, I said get a rope!”

It was Ford who spoke again, tone more demanding as he finally tore his gaze from the body to glare at them. “If I have to say it a third time—”

“Oh, okay, yeah, that answers that question,” Melody said quickly, and gestured for the rest of them to follow. “Alright, there’s a rope and a chair to tie him to in the shack. But who’s gonna—”

“I’ve got it.”

Letting the bat clatter to the ground, Wendy scruffed the unconscious child by the back of his jacket and hoisted him up into the air. “Let’s get him inside.”

With mild chaos, the group hurried towards the Shack with the unconscious child in hand. Leaving the bat, Mabel’s unfortunately-missed blob of blue poster tack lying several yards away, and the remaining exhibit displays abandoned as the first real hints of night began to peek their way through the tops of the trees.

#Hayley Writes Triangulum #Gravity Falls #Triangulum The Fic #My Writing #Long Post #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #(There are more characters but they are on the poster and arguably get the most focus this chapter)

[devirnis]

“feeling each other's pulse” pleeaassseeee 🥺👉👈

Anything for you, Molly my dear!

quiet my fears with the touch of your hand

Rating: G Relationship: Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz Word count: 1.2k Contains vague season 7 spec

Eddie comes to with a burning in his chest and Buck’s name on his lips.

For a second, he has no idea where he is or what’s going on, but then sound filters in around him – water crashing, sirens, people yelling out orders – and it all comes back to him in startling clarity.

The ship shifting suddenly. Debris crashing down and blocking the exit. Water rising with no way out.

Buck looking at him, heartbreak in his eyes, and saying, “I love you.”

“Oh, thank God,” someone says above him. It might be Bobby. “Ravi, help me get him in the ambulance.”

No, no, Eddie can’t go into an ambulance – not until he knows –

“Buck,” he gasps, trying to look around. “Where’s Buck?”

A hand on his shoulder, and the ground beneath him starts to move. “Eddie, just lie still.” Definitely Bobby. “We need to transport you.”

Eddie shakes his head. Bobby didn’t answer his question. That means he either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to tell him. Neither option is acceptable. “No, I don’t – where’s Buck?”

A telling pause. “Hen and Chim are working on him,” Bobby finally says.

Working on him? Eddie’s stomach plummets. No, Buck can’t – not again – not after he said –

“Ravi, on three,” Bobby orders.

“No!” Eddie flails his arms, tries to push himself upright. “No, let me – I can help – I need to see –”

“Eddie,” Bobby says calmly. “Hen and Chim have got him. Let us take care of you.”

Eddie glances around wildly. His gaze lands on a familiar turnout with WILSON written on the back, crouched over a few feet away from him. She’s obscuring his view of Chim, but Eddie can see that he’s on top of someone, performing compressions.

“Eddie –” Bobby tries again.

“Cap, I’m not going anywhere until –”

“He’s going to be okay, Eddie. Just let Hen and Chim –”

“I’m not going –”

“We’ve got a pulse!” calls Hen’s voice.

Relief crashes over Eddie like a tidal wave. His arms give out and he slumps down onto the backboard, finally allowing Bobby and Ravi to load him into the ambulance.

He’s unconscious before the doors slam closed.

---

When Eddie regains consciousness again, he immediately knows he’s in the hospital.

If the fuzzy memories of fighting with Bobby while he was bathed in the red emergency lights didn’t tip Eddie off, the exposed feeling of wearing a hospital gown underneath starchy sheets and the beeping from various machinery confirms it. It takes a monumental effort, but eventually Eddie manages to get his eyes open. The lights are dim, so it must be night. He lolls his head to the side and sees Bobby, asleep and slumped in a chair at his bedside.

Eddie frowns; he figured that if Bobby would be keeping vigil over anyone, it would be –

Buck.

Panic surges through him as he struggles to sit up. If Bobby is here and not with Buck, then that must mean Buck is in the ICU or surgery or –

As Eddie rips the covers back and swings his legs off the side of the bed, his eyes scan the rest of the room and he realizes he isn’t alone. There’s another bed across from him, and in it is a sight so dear that Eddie nearly topples off his bed as the fear drains out of him in an instant.

Buck is unconscious or asleep – Eddie can’t tell, and his eyes immediately flick to the vital signs monitor at Buck’s bedside. Buck’s pulse and blood pressure are normal and his oxygen levels are fine, but just reading Buck’s vitals doesn’t do much to soothe Eddie’s worry. He’s seen Buck hooked up to machines in hospitals too many times before, and only hours ago Buck’s heart was stopped again. Eddie is suddenly overcome with a desperate need to touch him. He needs to feel Buck’s heartbeat, his blood pumping in his veins, and only then will the uncomfortable, anxious skittering under his skin finally settle.

Eddie eases himself off the bed, grabbing his IV stand for support. The last thing he wants to do is go crashing to the ground and wake Bobby up. He gingerly makes his way across the room in his bare feet, and lowers himself into the chair at Buck’s bedside. Reaching out, he gently takes Buck’s hand and flips it over, pressing his fingers into Buck’s wrist.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Buck’s pulse is strong beneath Eddie’s fingertips. The tightness in his chest loosens, and Eddie relaxes back into the chair, keeping Buck’s wrist in his grip. He’s alive, Buck’s alive; they’re both going to be fine.

Eddie doesn’t know how much time passes, but he finds himself slowly nodding off, soothed by the steady beat of Buck’s heart. He’s completely fine with drifting off to sleep in this chair, but then he feels Buck twitch. Eddie straightens up a little, suddenly awake, as he looks over Buck for any sign of distress. His vitals still look good, but his heart rate is starting to climb.

Buck’s face twists, and he makes a small, pained noise. Eddie’s own heart rate spikes and he starts fumbling with his other hand, searching for the nurse call button –

“Eddie…” Buck whispers.

Eddie shifts his grip, grasping Buck’s hand firmly. “I’m right here.”

Buck shakes his head back and forth. “Eddie…”

Oh god, is Buck hallucinating? Eddie’s just about to press the call button when Buck’s eyes fly open and he sits bolt upright, his gaze skittering around frantically.

“Eddie!” he gasps again. “Where’s –?”

“Buck, Buck, I’m right here!” Eddie squeezes Buck’s hand. “It’s okay, I’m right here.”

Buck’s eyes finally land on him. He blinks a few times, like he’s expecting Eddie to disappear any second. Eddie squeezes his hand again and Buck looks down quickly before looking back up at Eddie.

“You-you’re okay?” Buck rasps.

Eddie smiles. “I’m okay, you’re okay. We’re both okay.”

Buck presses his lips together into a thin line, still clearly uneasy. Eddie can’t blame him; after all, he walked himself across the hospital room in bare feet just so he could get his hands on Buck to reassure himself that Buck was fine, even if he had the evidence right in front of his eyes.

“Here,” Eddie says. He takes Buck’s hand and touches Buck’s index and middle fingers to his pulse point, just like he’d done for Buck earlier. “Feel that? That’s my heart. I’m here with you.”

“Ye-yeah,” Buck croaks. He presses his fingers more insistently against Eddie’s wrist.

They stay like that for a few minutes, just sitting in silence, Buck’s fingers on Eddie’s pulse, Eddie’s eyes on Buck’s monitor. Buck’s heart rate slowly returns to normal and Eddie finally feels like he can breathe easily again.

Eventually, Buck clears his throat. “Do you… do you remember what I said?”

“You think I was gonna forget you telling me you’re in love with me?” Eddie teases gently.

Buck blushes, averting his gaze. “I’m sorry –”

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie interrupts. Then a horrible thought strikes him. “Unless you didn’t mean –”

“No!” Buck’s wide-eyed gaze snaps back to him. “No, I’m just sorry that I told you like that. I wish– I wish it was in a romantic setting, not a life or death one.”

Eddie brings Buck’s hand up to his lips. “Once we get out of here, I’ll take you out for dinner. That new fancy Italian place that just opened.” He kisses Buck’s knuckles. “You can tell me again then.”

Buck gives him a bashful, pleased smile. “Deal.”

(also on ao3)

#911 fic #buddie fic #evan buckley x eddie diaz #physical intimacy prompts #myfic #fic: quiet my fears with the touch of your hand #bigfootsmom #ali answers

[lunarblazes]

Ren needs something. His rule isn’t being properly respected—the hermits have grown restless and wild, challenging his authority.

Ren knows that the faerie stories of old are not just stories. There are tales of fae who aid any kind of rebellion, any kind of creature resisting a force, for a price. A small price, if Ren’s plan goes smoothly, which it will. Sir BDoubleO has seen to it that pure iron shackles are crafted and enchanted to bind Ren’s new helper to his will. No betrayals are to be had on this day.

And thus, Ren stands in the shopping district, a world away from where his hired help will find their task. He carefully steps around the faerie circle he’s concocted out of mushrooms around an old, battered stump, wary of getting too close and being sucked in. Fae are dangerous. Tricky. They cannot sense any weakness about you or they’ll pounce on it.

He waits for nightfall, until the stars shine overhead, the shackles in his hands poised and ready to coil around the first hint of faerie fire. As the sun rises, Ren sighs, deciding his hopes must be misguided.

It’s not a bright flash of light, or a spectacular supernova of petals. Ren smells the scent of sickly sweet rose petals, honeysuckle, and lavender on the wind before he’s even seen the creature. He snaps his fingers on instinct. The shackles lunge at the signal, snapping around the vague shape of a fae creature, and Ren smiles, his fangs on display.

“Hail and well met,” Ren says, inclining his head, but not looking upon the creature’s form. “I am King of these lands. Who might you be?”

Ren can feel the thing staring at him as its presence molds around the shackles. He’s forced it to show itself. An irritated sigh wafts in on the summer breeze as Ren continues to stare doggedly at the trees behind the circle.

“I am a traveler,” says the faerie, “and I am quite annoyed with you, King.”

“I require a boon,” Ren says swiftly.

“Don’t all of you?” the fae retorts.

“I offer payment.”

“Well, I should hope so,” it scoffs, “against faerie law not to.”

Ren blinks. He didn’t know that was a thing, but whatever. “I need your assistance. My people, they don’t respect me. I am setting up a gauntlet to test them, to prove that I am their rightful king, and I need your power to assist me.”

The faerie is quiet for a moment, contemplating the request. “I hate that that makes sense. Resisting a resistance. Wonderful technicality, I should have stopped those stupid stories.”

Ren doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just clears his throat. “Er, yes, I suppose? You will be paid a diamond, and to gaze upon your task we must travel to the Nether.”

“A diamond,” the faerie says incredulously. “One diamond.”

“Er… yes?” Ren says, trying desperately not to show any kind of hesitation and mostly failing. “That is your payment.”

A long suffering sigh from the circle. “I should have stopped doing this. Blast it.”

“Well, to the Nether!”

It’s only when Ren tries to move the faerie by the enchanted manacles around his wrists that he actually gets a good look at the creature. The manacles are bound to each other with a very large length of chain, large enough to let the faerie move its arms freely, lest they impede its work, and another length of chain sits resting in Ren’s palms so that he can lead the faerie around. He can lead it around and into the Nether by the manacles, and he begins to do so before pausing as he glimpses the creature’s face and freezes.

It has pale skin, only a slight red flush in the cheeks in the colder autumn air, and its wrists are clearly starting to blister. Small feathers wrap around its cheeks and the hollows of its eyes, shining iridescent in the rising sunlight; its hair is honey-colored, golden, and very fluffy, almost like puffy seeds. It doesn’t look very pleased, hissing under its breath when the manacles chafe against skin and leave blisters behind—fae can never touch pure iron. The enchantments might lessen the sting some, but it’s still gotta hurt based on the expression of the faerie being stuck in an eternal mix of annoyance and discomfort.

What’s far more pressing to Ren, however, is that he knows that face. It’s twisted, somehow, projected and dialed up to ten, but he knows who this is, suddenly he’s very sure he does.

“Grian?” Ren asks.

“Took you long enough,” Grian grumps, attempting to cross his arms and only succeeding in burning his forearms with the manacles. “Let’s get on with the stupid project, shall we? Chop chop, I haven’t got all day, especially not for one diamond.”

“You’re not free until I say you are,” Ren reminds him, slightly giddy. “You’ve got all day if I say you have.”

Grian stares at him, then shrugs. “You’re the boss, sure.”

Ren turns back to the Nether portal grinning. Oh this is excellent. Grian is not only a faerie but a powerful enough one to have legends written about him! An ally of the known resistance in the kingdom, and there’s such an easily exploitable loophole to use against him! Their morale will be decimated when they learn their beloved assistant had built an impossible quest against them. It’s perfect! Glorious! Nothing could be going better!

Ren’s so caught up in the glory of actually capturing a powerful faerie that he nearly forgets to stop walking when they reach the vault. Grian yanks on the manacles, snapping Ren out of his daze.

“Earth to King,” Grian says testily. “What d’you want me to do?”

“Right, right!” Ren says, shaking himself back into his skin. “Well, you just—I want each of my minions to build me a vault room in here.”

Ren pretends he doesn’t see the way Grian’s skin crawls at being called a king’s minion. If he sees it, he’ll get caught up in the glory, and he has to pay very close attention to these instructions, or Grian might decide the terms of the contract are unsuitable, and then they’d be nowhere. The manacles were insurance against that; if Grian didn’t like the terms, Ren could just lock him up here until he did!

“Then, every willing citizen of mine kingdom will doth be placed in this chamber! If they defeat the games in the vault, I shall give up my crown. If they cannot rise to the challenge, I shall stay in power forevermore!” Ren continues dramatically.

“Forevermore?” Grian asks.

“Forevermore,” Ren says solemnly.

“Okay,” Grian says, “what do you want me to do about it?”

“I need you to make a room that will cause despair. Make them give up their hope,” Ren says. “They should reach your room and feel as though they’ve hit the worst challenge yet. I want there to be no chance of success.”

If Ren had been looking at Grian, then, he would have caught the way those electric blue eyes of his flicker gold with delight as he phrased his instructions, the way his sharpened teeth nearly outgrow his mouth for a moment before snapping back to their rightful place. Despite his excitement, Grian’s voice is even as ever when he responds, “no chance of success?”

“Mhm,” Ren says absently. He’s just realized that capturing and forcing such a powerful faerie for this project is a great way to legitimize his rule. He’d be the King who tamed an untamable creature, the very forces of the wind and sky themselves! King Ren, the king who bested a faerie, bound him in chains. His people had to respect him after that. “No chance of success.”

Grian smiles to himself. “I can work with that.”

#rendog #grian #hermitcraft #lunar propecies #i SAID fae grian i MEANT fae grian! #for real i wanted to write this so badhgrfjfkd #i dont think it does justice to the scene i had in my head tho sighs #but it’s worth it to get it out there hehe

[ranposbabe]

Wine settles the nerves part 2 | Aegon II Targaryen x implied Strong!Reader

A/n: Thank you to everyone who liked part one it means so much since only recently I’ve started writing here on tumblr.

Originally, I was only going to have one part but since people asked for a part 2.. gotta give people what they want 🤎

It had barley been a moment when you stepped down and your heels had touch the grounds of Dragonstone before being hurriedly swept away to your private chambers.

“What’s going on with our sister ?” Luke pondered, nudging to his older brother.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jace sighs, slightly reassuring his young brother.

“She’ll be fine.” He states, patting the younger boy on the shoulder. Despite Jace himself feeling uneasy due to not knowing the circumstances concerning his only sister, it felt like his duty to reassure his brother. “I hope so.” Luke mumbles before he himself was being ushered away to bed.

“Please leave.” You state, already climbing into your high bed. “Not until you inform me as to what happened this night..with your uncle.” Rhaenyra pauses, taking a seat before you on your bed. “We spoke.” You mutter, crossing your arms. “About what ?” Your mother questions, her brows furrowing in confusion.

You sunk further into your silk cover, clearly refusing to indulge further. At this moment all you craved for was endless slumber. “You can talk to me, y/n.” She says, playing her hand on your knee. “Are you sure ?” You question, gently placing your hand on top of hers. “Not too busy preparing Luke to take Driftmark and my other brothers gods know what.” You spat, pulling your hand away.

“What has caused this sudden change, my sweet ?” Her hand suddenly placed upon your cheek, her thumb slowly soothing your skin.

“I want him !” You cry, growing frustrated as each moment passes by. If your mother now couldn’t grasp what had caused your heart to weaken then she never would.

“He is the only one who doesn’t treat me like I am a duty !”

“We all have a role to play, my daughter. Sooner or later you’ll learn that there are no exceptions.” Rhaenyra sighs, raising from her seat. “Mother please !” You beg. “He truly is the only one who understands !” You cry as your mother slowly walks towards the door.

Her hands rests above the handle, slightly twitching in anxiousness. She turns her head slightly with her long silver hair neatly thrown over her shoulder and her curious eyes meeting your melancholy pair.

“Must there be moon tea prepared ?”

“Do not insinuate such filth.” You scoff, pulling the sheets over your head.

At that, the realm’s delight leaves.

“Let me go !” Aegon yelled, desperately trying to pull away from his brother.

“I have no wish to rule ! No taste for duty, I’m not suited.” He whined, still trying to find the strength to run away from Aemond’s grasp.

“You’ll get no argument from me.” Aemond replies, still not letting go of his elder brother. Suddenly Aegon turns, grabbing Aemonds face with both hands to lure him close to listen intently.

“Let me go and I’ll find a ship and sail away never to be found.”

“I’ll even drag Rhaenyra’s daughter along the way.” He adds. Aemond could only stare down at his brother somewhat dumbfounded at his statement. Yet the look in his eye gave away a look of consideration. “The queen awaits.” Cole states, patting the soon to be king on the shoulder. Soon to be.

It had been a while since your mother had left your chambers, you assume to rant to Daemon.

You however pull the sheets off from your face and slowly but hesitantly rise from your bed. If you clearly had a role to play as your mother had clearly stated before, then that role was clearly not here in Dragonstone.

Suddenly your eyes catches a red dress lying on a chair belonging to you that you assume a servant brought in.

Biting your lip in contemplation, you take the dress in your arms, running your fingers along the thin fabric.

That settles it.

“What about y/n ?” Aegon wonders, still holding the blade. “What about her ?” Alicent questioned, sitting side her eldest son in the carriage. Soon he’d be crowned king. A desperate sigh escapes his lips.

“Here I am, no wife nor heirs yet you want me as king.” “Everyone knows that she is of Ser Harwin Strong’s blood, my son.” Alicent whispered as if the gods could hear her words.

“We were betrothed years ago.” Aegon sighs, staring off. “I’d doubt y/n would even remember that, Aegon.” Alicent replies, shaking her head. “Yet her stepfather Daemon put a stop to it and neither you or father questioned it !” Aegon turned with an accusing look in his eyes.

“Aegon when you are king no one will deny you.” She paused, carefully thinking of her next words. “So what is it that you wish of me ?” She asks with genuine concern.

“Betroth y/n to me.” He simply states.

Alicent turns to longingly stare out the window. No one denies the king.

You sneak round the dark corridors, practically confidently now due to sneaking away so often. You can recall some fond memories of you and your willingly younger brother Luke sneaking around the corridors late at night, your giggles being evidently heard.

You can remember trying to convince your older brother Jace to join you yet he simply disapproved, wanting to be a good example. Yet he seemingly never outed his mischievous siblings. Not once.

You couldn’t help but smile as soon you steeped outside and the wind had managed to cool you down.

“Ryax !” You call to your girl.

Acknowledging you, she happily roars nudging down her large head close to you, already craving pets and rubs.

Despite being one of the last to hatch, Ryax was the biggest out of dragons between you and your brothers. You couldn’t help but stare in amazement as you pet the young dragon. Her scales were a dark shade of purple indigo yet when the sun had struck right she glowed like a amethyst.

You then hurriedly climb to your saddle, adjusting yourself before calling to your beast. “Sōvegon Ryax !” (Fly Ryax !)

Time Skip…

“Princess !” A serving girl gasped running towards you as you leaped down from you dragon. Some dragon keepers following being the girl. “Please look after Ryax.” You giggle, already making your way past them. “She’s quite tired some.”

“Princess wait !” The serving girl called out to you yet her words fell silent as you made your way to your destination.

You couldn’t help but cautiously step into the throne room despite feeling excitement at the thought of seeing Aegon again.

It was if though he were wine and you craved to have another taste.

You keep your head down, slightly dragging your feet. It wasn’t like there was anyone else in the-

“A āmāzigon Dāro ñuha tala.” (You’ve returned to Kings Landing, my girl)

You gasp, your head raising and your widen eyes meet those of the man you were seeking. There he was perched up on the Iron Throne. Your eyes wonder around the room and you couldn’t help but notice that there was no guards in the room. Just you and him.

“Ozmijegon I?” (Miss me ?) You smirk, coming closer to the throne.

“Trūmirī.” (Deeply) He whispers yet your ears managed to catch his soft spoken words. “So what are you doing sitting here ?” You question, standing right in front of him with your knees slightly hitting off his legs.

“Especially with no guards present aswell.” You wonder, looking down upon him.

“I sent them away, I needed to think.” He mumbles. “And why would that be ?” You take his hand, gently running your thumb over the back of his hand.

“My father is dead.” He blatantly put it.

“What ?” You step back in shock before being pulled back with his arm now round your waist. “News has not yet struck Dragonstone yet I take it.” He says, pulling you down to his lap while you remained in a daze. “You ? A king ?” You inquired, meeting his eyes. “Your king.” He corrected.

Just then, looking down did you realise the position you found yourself him.

The prince-no the king’s arms tucked round your waist while his other arms rested on the throne.

“So my grandfather’s really gone ?” You mostly mutter to yourself.

But then it dawned on you.

Had the news actually hit Dragonstone yet or did you not hear due to being with Ryax ? When was the coronation ? Since when was he now suddenly fine with being king ? Has anyone realised you’ve gone missing yet ? If so who ? Jace, Luke, Daemon or even…your mother.

Oh. Your mother.

“Jurnegon I.” (Look at me) Aegon whispers, placing his fingers under your chin and turning you to face him.

You barley turn before his lips meets yours. You find yourself being consumed in the act and turn to properly straddle the king’s lap while still remaining on the throne. The kiss loses its innocence and becomes more intoxicating as his hands run through your hair and his tongue meets yours.

Pulling away for air, your hand rests on his chest. “Kipagon jeva zaldrize.” (Ride your dragon) He smirks, leaning in for another kiss. Your hand pushes back his chest slight as you remove yourself from his lap and head down the steps to the throne. “Not until I’ve made my presence known to the others.”

“No need.” He states, he himself following you down the steps. “ I had a feeling you’d return.” You turn to face the now king as he places his hand on your cheek.

“Mother and I have come to an agreement.” “An agreement ?” You wonder, raising a brow. “We will be wed now.” He nods. “A king of course needs his queen. Not to mention a couple of heirs.” He whispers, for a moment placing his hand low on your stomach.

Your hand grasps his as you try to pull your thoughts together.

You had always imagined yourself being wed yet being here now in the moment was more than just unexpected.

You feel as if though around Aegon you didn’t need to contemplate things as much. Here you were feeling as if though you could finally take a breath of fresh air and oh how you enjoyed it.

“Very well then, husband.” You smile, placing a small kiss to his cheek.

Time Skip…

Later the same day, those present which consisted of you and Aegon and of course the elder marrying you stood outside feeling the calming breeze.

You couldn’t recall the words the elder spoke but the same could be said for Aegon. You came across as being smitten as you stare longingly into Aegon’s eyes and the smirk on his face was evident and couldn’t be easily wiped off.

You snap out of your daze as soon as Aegon pulls you into his arms and declares you his. His lips pressing against yours almost immediately.

After the ceremony, you join your husband to one of your favourite activities.

“Oh gods !” You scream with laughter as Ryax was soaring through the air with Aegon flying on Sunfyre behind you. Ryax as usual performs her tricks by flipping round and flying upside down.

You hear Sunfyre’s blaring roar from beneath you and look down to meet your husbands admiring eyes.

You raise your arm above your head, seemingly reaching down to him.

Yet somehow, your finger tips manage to graze his. Suddenly you feel something light touch your face. His fingers manage to linger touching it and just then you had realise it was your necklace that he had gifted you all those years back that had fallen on your face.

You couldn’t help but laugh as Ryax finally turned back to fly properly.

You watched as Sunfyre flew by as the clouds disappeared every time his golden wings had flapped.

Now in this moment you finally felt at peace. But… for how long ?

#hotd spoilers #hotd 1x09 #house of the dragon #house targaryen #x reader #reader insert #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon ii targaryen #aegon ii x reader

[elfqueen006]

The Lifeguard Part 2

Sunny Day Jack x Reader

--- Tags/CW: summer camp au, camp counselor au, aforementioned murder, angst, rivals to lovers, horror, slasher au. (ik I said "enemies" before but rivals is more fitting for their dynamic) A/N:I make Jack cuss a lot here, Idk if it's fitting. Minors DNI

Jack liked Skylar. He really did.

He liked Ian too, despite his less than effective counseling skills.

He liked both of them. But the stress had caught up with him in the worst way. The bar. Seeing them together. The mention of your name… It just sent him over the edge.

He would like to think that in another life he would’ve been great friends with the two of them. But the remnants of that sweet dream lay six feet under the dirt behind the shed.

It was getting late, so the counselors were wrapping up activities for the day. He snuck behind the cabins, treading carefully till he reached the outhouse shower. Jack spends a long amount of time soaking fully clothed. At first, its’ to see if this is all a dream. When he doesn’t wake up he discards the costume completely and scrubs furiously at his naked body. It doesn’t matter that the washrag here was used by several different people within the week. In Jacks’ mind, his soul is dirtier than anything within these four walls.

Knock, knock.

“Jack?”

Silence.

“Jack, you in there?”

“...What do you want?” He bites out.

“Where have you been, man? Bill’s got everyone in a frenzy! We had to wrap things up early til’ we found you!” You said.

“...I was where you sent me, where else?” Jack said.

“Oh…” a pause. “Oh.”

His blood pressure rises from the snicker you make behind the door. A slight creak indicates your leaning on it.

“Sooo, how was she?”

Jack doesn’t bother switching off the faucet as he flings the door open and stalks towards you menacingly. His yellow eyes are wide and erratic. It pierces something in your chest.

“How was she?” Jack repeated darkly, “How she was, is that what you asked me?”

You stumble back against the cabin wall. “I-I didn’t mean it like-”

“I went to see how she was and I caught your boyfriend between her legs, so you should ask him.”

Your eyes go wide as saucers. You searched his face for humor, a change in expression, fidgeting or any trace of dishonesty though all it held was the cold, hard, truth. Jack bit back a twitch of a smirk on his lips as he watched your face go through different phases of denial. Your ego along with your spirit was crumbling at his words. And he took a sick satisfaction in it. There was, though, still an air of guilt – or rather, a reminder to feel guilty. You had been cheated on after all. But he hasn't acknowledged it too much. After all, the offender was dead and the offended was suffering. It’s about as fair a trade can get.

“Tell Bill I’m taking a sick day.” Jack said coldly.

When he’s done, you are gone. It isn’t as refreshing as he’d hoped. Showering. Though he does admit, unintentionally sticking it to you did give him a needed amount of dopamine to get through the night. He tries not to look at his fingernails so much, though. They are still tinged red at the tips, with remnants of gore stuck underneath.

Jack waits till everyone has gone to sleep to use the lobby’s laundry room. He learned that blood washes out with cold water at a young age. So he’s sure to scrub out the extra dark spots before letting the rest rinse out via a wash cycle. Before putting in the pants though, a phone had fallen out of the back pocket.

Skylar’s phone. Shit.

He’d meant to toss it in the dirt along with Ian’s. But must’ve unconsciously held onto it… as if she’d need it back.

When Jack picks it up it vibrates with a message. From you. The ID reads ‘Bitch <;3’. He has to admit… it is very you.

sky, it reads, sky pick up wut happened at the shed??

…

i know you see this

jack says he saw you with ian. tell me he’s fuckin wit me

Especially with how long the dots float then stop, then float again, indicating you’re trying desperately to figure out what words to say. And then backtracking on them.

sky QUIT leaving me on read i’m so serious rn

…

I KNOW YOU SEE THIS BITCH!!!

Jack stops there. Pocketing the phone. He sighs, “Gonna be a long day tomorrow.”

—

You texted all through the night. Jack had to eventually turn  it on silent and shove it in his nightstand drawer. Though when he woke up and checked it again, there were 50+ messages waiting for him. You hadn’t stopped until two in the morning. It was a virtual moodswing of desperate pleas, cusses, and threatening emojis. As he scrolled back up to the texts from a month before, it seemed as though emojis were really your whole thing. Most notably ones with hearts, laughter, and occasionally the wine emoji.

Jack was almost grateful Skylar wasn’t on the receiving end of either anymore. Whether it be by voice or text, you were a very chatty person.

It was business as usual. Kids clamored to him once more (some were crying, poor dears) and he got an earful from Bill again. The day was so… normal. It was almost as if the dear departed counselors never existed.

FFFFT!

A sharp whistle could be heard across campus. Jack looked over to your high chair and immediately picked up on the drastic change in atmosphere around you. 

Instead of your usual lounging, you sat upright with your arms crossed stiffly. Your leg bounced impatiently. In addition to your usual red lifeguard leotard you now wore a pair of black sunglasses.

“Keep the water out of your mouth, David!” You shout, “You wanna catch something?”

A counselor - whose name tag read ‘Shaun’ - came up beside him. “What’s up with the lifeguard? She’s been in a shit mood all day…” He asked.

Jack shrugged, “I couldn’t tell ya.”

Every slight mishap earned the kids a taste of that shrill whistle. He felt bad they had to deal with your sour mood. Of course he knew the cause, and that only added to the guilt…

FFFFT!

He had to put a stop to this.

There was an odd sense of deja vu as he marched up to your high chair. This time he knocked on the ladder. You look down at him through your shades.

“What?” You snap.

“Get down here, I need to talk to you.” Jack said.

“Can’t you see I’m doing something?”

“Y/N-”

“As in my job?”

“Now.”

You narrow your eyes at him before hopping down the chair. You saunter up to him and snatch off your shades. There’s a venomous look in your eyes. “What is it?” You said.

Jack folded his arms. “First off, I appreciate the initiative you’re taking in your position as of late,”

“Thanks. Can I go now?”

“However… I can’t say I agree with the way you’re going about it.”

Your eye twitches and you throw your head back with a bitter laugh. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me…” You mutter.

“Far from it, actually.”

“What do you want from me?” You said, “You say you want me to take my job seriously, but now you say you don’t like how I’m doing it? Can you make up your damn mind?!”

Jack then leans down just inches away from your face, “What I want is for you to leave your emotions at the door when mentoring these kids,” He hissed, “And if you can’t do that I will exercise my ability as a counselor to get you removed. Are we clear?”

You held each others’ gazes for a while. And with you already at your lowest, you’d been the first to give in. You sigh, “...Crystal.”

He nods and puts on a big smile, feeling a bit of smug satisfaction. “Good. Enjoy the rest of your shift, Y/N.”

He ignores your muttered demand that he “go to hell”  and walks off. Though not without hearing your whistle once more.

FFFT!

“Hey, I’m not kidding about the lake water – cut that shit out!”

—

Though you loosened the reins, the kids had avoided you like the plague. The counselors gave you heavy side eye the rest of the day. And once it was time to eat dinner, you asked Bill if you could excuse yourself. He allowed it.

You sat on the steps of the lodge, staring out at the lake. The water was still and began to reflect the deep purple in the sky. Crickets chirped and you even spotted a few fireflies. It was such a calm scene, and yet the whole time you were feeling like shit.

You pull out your phone and go to Skylar’s contact which had been changed from ‘Whore<3’ to ‘Dirty skank die die’. Not your most creative nickname.

All the texts you sent were still on read. Though with all that you’d said, you now wonder if it were better this way. It was like you were a completely different person in these. You always liked to say you weren’t for the drama, but you were certain if you showed this to any reality show host they’d fire everyone on set and make you their star. You hung your head and groaned.

Before you could wallow any further the sound of an engine came close to you. You look up and Sunny Day Jack puts the Moke in neutral and leans over in his drivers’ seat.

“Hey, why the long face, camper? Lose your group?” Jack quips.

“You’re not funny.” You said blandly.

“Well, that’s why I’m a camp counselor first.” Jack said. “Why aren’t you inside?”

“I’m not feeling the menu…” You reply.

“Don’t you always go nuts for spaghetti night?”

“What’s it to you?”

Jack rolls his eyes, “You always scream out that spaghetti night “is your bitch”, so if you’re not managing it like a decent pimp something has to be wrong…”

A twitch of a smirk plays on your lips and you gesture blandly to the lodge with an exaggerated sigh. “My bitch knows her way around the corner. It’ll be fine.”

“If that’s the case then, I’m sure you’d want something to put on your stomach nonetheless…”

“That being…?”

He grins, “I’ve been wanting a change of palette myself. And the local Popov’s just started serving burgers. You in?”

#somethings wrong with sunny day jack #sunny day jack x reader #sdj x reader #sdj x you #sunny day jack x you #sunny day jack fanfiction #sdj jack #swwsdj #swwsdj x reader #summer camp au #camp counselor au #slasher au #the lifeguard #my fics

[plisuu]

Happy Friday and welcome back! How about for Connor x Bull and "I'd rather deny my feelings than have to explain them" 👀

I've been sitting on this prompt for a while and finally have words for my thoughts! I didn't think anyone could be dumber than Connor and Cullen but I think these two really take the cake. wc: 950 @dadrunkwriting “So. You and Cullen huh?”

Connor looked up with a start from the laces of his boots as he tucked the tail ends of them into worn leather.

“Do we have to talk about this now?” he asked, trying and failing to appear as nonchalant as Bull did, who still laid lounged out across his bed, fully nude and head propped up on one elbow.

“No time like the present, boss. And if we’re gonna keep doing this, we’re gonna have to talk about it.”

Connor sighed in quiet resignation. He and Bull had been casual—as casual as Connor was capable of, at least, with his desperate and constant need for reassurance, trust, and consistency. Bull was accommodating, but Connor was acutely aware that this was an arrangement, something that they both pretended didn’t exist beyond the bedroom, with set boundaries and rules.

“Fine. What about me and Cullen?”

“Are you guys a thing?”

The question gave him pause. Were they? Nothing official, certainly. It was just a flicker of feelings, a connection through the things they had suffered, stupid stories shared over ale and deeply competitive chess games when they weren’t busy yelling at each other over the war table. They were no more of a ‘thing’ than this was, so he shrugged.

“No, not really."

Bull eyed him carefully, watching him shuffle around the room, gathering pieces of clothing that had been haphazardly discarded earlier that evening.

“That’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh? What does it look like, then?” Connor tried not to sound defensive, but the words came out harsher than he intended. He was always a little more on edge when it was time to leave, when he had to walk out of Bull’s room and pretend like nothing happened, that he was okay with it, that he didn’t want to simply curl up and sleep tucked into Bull’s side. That wasn’t the agreement they had though, so he tried to shove the feelings away, where he wouldn’t have to face them.

“I dunno. You seem close. Just wanted to know if you were serious about him,” Bull replied, pushing himself upright.

Another pause. Why did it matter? Connor shrugged on his coat halfheartedly, trying to smooth out some of the wrinkles from being left in a crumpled heap on the floor. He was almost certain Bull was seeing other people, so why couldn’t he? So what if it was serious? And even if it was, he was in no position to ask Cullen for the kind of release he found beneath Bull’s hands.

“Would it be a problem if I was?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“If you think we should keep doing this. If it’s still working for you.”

Connor felt his anxiety rising, panic creeping its way into his chest and making it difficult to breathe. He tried to swallow it down. What did he expect? Of course he was going to have to face this at some point—to ignore it would be selfish, cruel, keeping Bull trapped in their arrangement. He knew that Dorian was becoming more and more of a prominent part of Bull’s life, someone he could be with in public, someone that could offer a real relationship, something more than secrets behind closed doors. It only made sense that Bull was looking for a way out, a way to end things gently, so he could move on.

“If you don’t want to do this anymore, just say so.”

He couldn’t parse apart the look Bull gave him, and he felt his frustration begin to bubble over into tears that he tried to hide as he turned to the washbasin, splashing his face with the cold water. He shouldn’t be crying. This was supposed to be casual, for fun, for stress relief, there wasn’t supposed to be emotional entanglement. It wasn’t supposed to feel like drowning. It wasn’t suppose to feel like he was grasping for something to hang onto and gasping for air he couldn’t reach, like the falling feeling in the pit of your stomach when you expect the next step and it isn’t there.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Bull grunted. The bedframe creaked under his shifting weight as he stood. “I just figured you’d want something more stable, and if Cullen is gonna be that person for you I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

“I don’t…” He didn’t want to break this off. It felt like the only thing keeping him anchored, the only thing that kept him sane through the torrent of emotions and sudden onslaught of responsibility and expectations, freeing him from the immense weight of it all, if only for a moment. It was selfish, he knew that, but he wanted to be selfish, just a little longer.

“I don’t want to stop,” he finally whispered.

“Then we won’t.”

The heat of Bull's chest pressed against Connor's back, and a gentle yet heavy hand rested on his shoulder, as if anything more might break him. He wished Bull would do more, wished he could do more, but knew he shouldn’t ask—he was already asking so much. He set his hand over Bull’s, resisting the urge to lace their fingers together, to press the warmth of it against his cheek, and nodded.

Bull only sighed in response. Connor wanted to imagine it was relief, that Bull wanted this as much as he did, and he closed his eyes against the guilt that was reflected back up at him in the basin—of himself, disheveled and half-dressed, and of Bull hovering over him quietly, patient in even this.

#dragon age #the iron bull #iron bull x trevelyan #iron bull x inquisitor #connor trevelyan #my writing #dadwc #why is connor so messy #and sad #quick someone teach him how to communicate before he explodes