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ellephlox · 2 years

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Obstinacy

Summary: You get sick and refuse to let Matt help you because you don’t want him to get sick, too — the question is, how long can you keep him away?

Pairing: Matt x fem!reader

Warnings: Some gross pneumonia descriptions, light swearing, nothing else!

A/N: So I’ve been away for awhile, and I’m really sorry about that. I’ve been trying to write my own book and I finished the second draft, so taking the time for fan fiction has been on the back burner lately. But of course with the RETURN OF OUR BELOVED KING on She-Hulk, I had to take the time to write something because IM STILL FREAKING OUT GUYS MATT IS BACK AND HES SO AMAZING AND HOT AND ALLSKJF LSDKFJLSKDJFLSDK

You felt the chest pain on your way home from work — the kind that arrived out of nowhere, as though it dropped from the sky into your lungs, and seriously made you wonder how colds were able to work that quickly.

Of course, maybe it wasn’t a cold. You kept your hopes up as you cooked dinner, testing your chest a few times with a few large intakes of breath, but each time was the same result: a small tickle in the back, like a little voice saying, Hey, I’m here, and you’re going to be miserable for the next couple of days!

Which really stunk, if you were being honest. It was getting towards mid-October and you were hoping to carve pumpkins with Matt or do some other corny autumn activity that every other normal couple did in the city. Not that you two weren’t normal. But other couples didn’t really have to contend with the whole I’ll-see-you-later-honey-after-I-beat-up-some-bad-guys-tonight, and you figured it must make movie nights a lot more frequent for most people than it did for you and Matt. That was another thing on your list, too — watching a horror movie to get into the Halloween spirit.

“I’m not into horror movies,” Matt had said when you’d pitched the idea to him. “Audio commentary kind of kills the whole scary aspect.”

“Then you’re watching the wrong movies. I don’t mean movies with gallons of blood and cheap jump scares. I mean psychological horrors, the kinds that make you stay awake at night because they’re that freaky. We’re doing it, Murdock, whether you want to or not.”

Whether you want to or not, however, didn’t include the extenuating circumstances of getting sick.

It took longer than usual to get up the stairs to your apartment. You felt so drained that you wouldn’t have minded showering and then crashing into bed, if you weren’t hungry. The wind rattled at your windows as you cooked a big pot of rice, enough to last the next few days. You’d bought fixings yesterday to make a homemade curry with it, but one look at your pantry and you scrapped those plans in exchange for half a jar of pesto with a dubious expiration date on it. Matt wasn’t supposed to be over until after seven in the evening, thanks to the unforgiving hours of lawyering, but you called him as you stirred the pesto in with the rice.

“I was wondering when you’d call,” he said. His voice was lighthearted.

“Hi,” you said, as casually as possible. “How was your day?”

“I officially reduced the pile of paperwork on my desk from ten inches high to eight inches high, so I’d call it a success. You at your place?”

“Yeah. Hey, I wanted to let you know that I think I’m coming down with something, so maybe you should stay at your own place tonight.” Before Matt could ask, you added, “I’m fine. Just one of the colds that’s going around. But I’d feel horrible if you got it.”

“What about the pumpkins?”

“Pumpkins can wait. I haven’t even bought them yet.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, and your stomach flipped. What a way to boost my self-esteem that he actually likes me. “How about we just don’t share sodas, then?”

You frowned. “Last time this happened, I told you to stay away from me and then you just ended up kissing me. The next day, lo and behold, you started coughing. So, no. Not happening.”

“You kissed me, if I remember correctly.”

“Excuse me? What kind of a lawyer are you? That’s gaslighting, sir.”

He continued, ignoring you. “Maybe I’ll just hear some suspicious noises coming from your apartment tonight. And then I’ll have to investigate, because it’s my civic duty as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. And when I see a beautiful girl, sitting on the couch and pathetically eating rice and pesto alone, I’ll just have to join her. Accidentally, of course.”

“What I’m interpreting from that is that you go cuddle up with any girl that you find eating alone in her apartment.”

“What I’m interpreting is that Matt says he’s doing all these dangerous things at night but really he’s just chilling out while enjoying the lavish praise of being a local superhero,” Foggy said, his voice distant in the background.

You snorted. “Am I on speakerphone?”

“No,” Foggy answered, sounding far too cheerful for someone working far beyond sunset. “Matt just keeps his phone volume weirdly high for someone who supposedly has super-hearing.”

“I do have super-hearing, Foggy.”

“Then how are you not shattering your eardrums? Between your phone volume and crashing at girls’ apartments to eat rice and pesto, I’m really doubting this whole Daredevil façade,” Foggy said.

“Anyway,” Matt cut in, “I’ll pop in tonight, just to bring over some food and meds. Do you want anything specific?”

“Matt, really. I don’t want you catching this. And it’s late, you should get home and actually get some sleep for once. I’m fine, it just feels like a cold.” You would have elaborated, but your chest decided to seize at that moment, and you had to trail off quickly before it became apparent in your voice.

He sort of listened to you that night. He had swung by (through the window? Or with the spare key you’d given him? There was no way to know) and dropped off food, but it was while you were asleep, and it looked as though he’d only gone into the kitchen then left.

You’d only found the food when you wandered in blearily at three in the morning, sweating and freezing at the same time. There was no point for the thermometer; a fever was obvious and you didn’t particularly care what the number was. The cough was worse, though. It made it hard to fall back asleep — every few seconds you’d feel as though your lungs were spasming, and the back of your throat felt as though it had been bitten by fire ants.

Sirens rang in the distance. You hoped it wasn’t for something Matt was involved in; not because you didn’t trust him to handle it, but because it was three in the morning and you’d kick his ass if he wasn’t sleeping at this point.

Then the headache hit you. Maybe you wouldn’t be kicking his ass anytime soon.

The pressure was enough to make you stumble into the counter as you rummaged for a glass of water. Everything about your arms felt off, as though your muscles had been crushed into powder, and you misjudged your grasp on the glass. It fell, crashing to the floor and skating outwards like a nebula of knives. Automatically you reached for the paper towels, and in your haze you stepped forward.

Barefooted.

Glass crunched under your foot and you swore, not at the pain but at your own stupidity. It took another half an hour to bandage up the bottom of your foot and at that point you were too exhausted to finish cleaning up the glass.

When you woke up next, sun was filtering through your curtains and your mouth was as dry as though you’d swallowed ten cotton swabs. Dazed, you picked up your phone, and squinted at the notifications; one missed call from Matt and a followup text. Quickly you sent him an I’m okay message and then fell back onto your pillow.

The fever felt worse. Goosebumps ran up and down your legs, but you were simultaneously sweaty under your sheets, so you threw them off to go shower. Only then did you remember the glass you’d stepped on because your foot protested angrily as soon as you placed it onto the carpet.

Hopping was the only option remaining, and that expended just about every ounce of energy you’d garnered while sleeping, so that you just about collapsed against the bathroom wall, wheezing, by the time you’d made it. And of course that was when your phone rang, so you hopped back to your room, and barely made it in time before it went to voicemail.

“Hello?” you croaked.

“That’s all I need to hear. I’m coming over.”

“I... what?”

“Yeah. You sound terrible, Y/N.” Matt’s voice was overly concerned, and you didn’t like it at all; you could practically feel the pity coming off of him. At least, it felt like pity. And that wasn’t what you wanted.

“Matt, not only will I personally make you rue the day that you step foot in here while I’m sick, but—” You broke off, coughing, and wincing at the same time because you could imagine Matt’s expression on the other end.

“I don’t like talking to you over the phone,” he said in a low voice. “I hate not hearing your heartbeat, hearing your lungs, feeling your temperature. You’re being overruled. I’m coming.”

“Don’t you have to be at the court today?”

“Not until ten.”

Defeated, you flung the phone on the other side of the room. That conversation sucked out everything you had, and you gave up on the idea of taking a shower. The bed looked much more comfortable. It didn’t help that your breaths were getting alarmingly short, and it was difficult to draw in anything more than a quick inhale. Your eyes were closed for about five seconds before they popped back open.

Matt was coming. Damn it, damn it, damn it. You went to the windows and locked them all, then crossed to the front door. He had a spare key, but you also had a bolt, and you slid it across, feeling somewhat proud of yourself for having made the trek to the entryway. The bar is very, very low at this point.

You’d run a marathon right now before letting Matt get anywhere near you. That resolve was the only thing penetrating the fog around your head, and you double-checked the windows again. It wasn’t as though he’d be leaping and climbing up to them, anyway; he was coming from the office, and would therefore be in his lawyer suit. With the number of people down on the streets and the broad daylight, Matt would be hard-pressed to make it up to your fire escape without the newspaper headline being BLIND ACROBAT BREAKING AND ENTERING IN HELL’S KITCHEN the next day.

Sure enough, ten minutes later Matt was outside your door, and his sharp rap on the door did nothing to make you move. You sat at the counter, sipping on some water, and shook your head. “Nope. Not happening.”

“Y/N, I can hear the crackling in your lungs,” he said, his patience more intact than you would have expected. He thinks he’s going to win.

“My lungs aren’t crackling. They’re just... not feeling so hot.” Now overly-conscious of your breathing, you tried to make your breaths smoother and less obviously sick.

There was a pause on the other side of the door. “You’ve got too fast of a heartbeat. Unlock the bolt or I’ll kick the door down.”

“Yeah, my heart’s racing, because there’s a man threatening to kick my door down,” you said, and feeling inspired, you clicked the on button of the remote next to you. The television flashed to life, showing the weather report, and you turned the volume up. Take that, Matt. “See? No more lung crackling or racing heartbeats.”

The only issue was that now you could hardly hear him. You barely made out his next sentence, it was so faint on the other side of the door. “I can still hear both, you know,” he said, muffled. “You know how many televisions there are in the average block of apartments that I have to filter out every single night?”

“Shit.” You shut the television off. “Listen away, then. It’s not going to change anything because I’m not letting you in.”

“I wasn’t kidding about kicking the door down.”

"And I’m not kidding about not letting you in. Plus, you’d have some tough questions to answer when my neighbors report you for kicking down my door, Devil Man.”

“Why won’t you accept help when you need it? You really need a doctor.”

“Hypocrite,” you said under your breath, relishing the fact that he could hear you.

“I can hear you.” Just as you’d expected. “And what I do is irrelevant to the fact that you’re currently sitting in your apartment with what’s probably pneumonia.”

“Oh, it’s not pneumonia,” you said dismissively, though you felt awful enough that he was probably right. At least, your lungs seemed to concur with that diagnosis, and as if to verbally agree with him you coughed, wheezing and choking for air.

“If I didn’t have to be at the court in half an hour, I’d go home and get into the suit just to have an excuse to come through your window right now.” Matt was pissed, that was for sure. There was a dangerous undertone to his voice, softened only by that ever-present concern in what he was saying.

“I know, Matt.” You rolled your eyes. “It’s a lost cause, alright? Tomorrow I’ll be feeling a lot better and then maybe — maybe — I’ll let you come in. And that’s if we keep all the windows open for fresh air and—”

“Why do I smell your blood?”

You glanced down at your foot. Traitor. It had stopped bleeding ages ago, but you should’ve changed the bandage again one more time before Matt showed up. “I’m... doing acupuncture. On myself.”

“Y/N.”

“Fine. I made a blood oath and pricked my thumb to assure myself that I will never, ever let you catch a sickness from me.”

“In ten seconds this door is coming down unless you tell me. And if you could hear my heartbeat, you’d know I’m not lying.”

“Fine! I just stepped on some glass, okay? But my foot is fine, it’s seen worse days. I mean, you should’ve seen that time that I got a pedicure and the lady told me my heels were the most cracked she’d seen in a long time.” You were rambling, and that wasn’t a good idea, because it made you lose your breath and then you were gasping for air.

After another five minutes of arguing that ended only when you swore to call the doctor if you got any worse, he left, grumbling that Foggy would kill both of you if he was late for court, and that was the only reason he was giving up — “temporarily”.

Only when it was too late did you realize that was a mistake, and that you should have let him help.

It was past two in the afternoon when you woke up from a nap, and every muscle in your body felt as though it were frozen. You were trembling slightly from the cold, but couldn’t muster the energy to even sit up and grab the blanket at the foot of your bed. It was difficult to swallow, and you clutched at your throat, certain that someone must be standing over you and clasping their hands around your neck, but there was no one there.

“Matt,” you whispered, expecting him to be there, or to hear you, but there was no one. Taking slow breaths, you tried to calm down on your own. One, two, three. One, two, three. All you could manage were short, raspy breaths that hardly got enough air, and your head pounded. Blindly you reached out for your glass of water, and nearly dropped it again, your hands were shaking so much. The feeling of your lips against the rim was like pressing a dried sponge to the edge of a bowl and the water tasted sour in your mouth.

And then you tried swallowing. It was as though someone had blocked up your throat, because you couldn’t swallow, and you gasped, heart racing as panic flooded through you; for a moment you couldn’t breathe and then you finally coughed up the water, chest heaving from the sharpness of each cough. You grabbed a tissue, hacking into it for at least another thirty seconds, and finally a glob of mucus came up and your airway cleared up just enough that you could breathe a bit more.

You almost tossed the tissue to the floor without looking at it, but a flash of red caught your eye.

Blood. In the mucus.

That was the tipping point for you. Didn’t people die shortly after coughing up blood in the movies? That was how it went. A character coughs, looks into their hand, and then resignedly tucks it away without the other characters seeing. It was like the knoll of death, ringing in your ears.

You hardly knew what you were doing as you dialed Matt’s number, not even thinking about what you were tapping into your phone but allowing muscle memory to guide you.

“Hello?” He picked up almost immediately.

“Matt—” You started to speak his name, but halted; it was too painful. Dropping your voice to a whisper, you started over. “Matt, I think I need you here.”

“What? What is it?”

“I’m—” You glanced down at the tissue. Literally dying here? That was a surefire way to make Matt have a heart attack. “I’m not doing so well. I might take you up on your offer to help.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be over in five minutes. Did you call the doctor already?”

“No.” The thought of calling the doctor was exhausting on its own.

Matt seemed to notice that. “I’ll call,” he assured you. “Can you breathe alright?”

“Not really.” Tears were spiking in your eyes and you brushed them away. “I just coughed and... there was some blood in it.” You wheezed for breath, the drawing in of air rattling everything inside of you and getting caught at the top of your throat.

“I’m taking you to a hospital.”

“But—”

“No, sweetheart. You need a real doctor. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Somehow you must have fallen asleep again, because Matt was lifting you from the bed and you wrapped your arms around him. “Can’t breathe,” you whispered, gasping for breath.

“I know. I can hear your lungs,” Matt said, voice strained. “I’ve got a cab waiting on the street. Can you walk or do you need me to carry you?”

“I... I can walk.” You slung an arm around him and made your way slowly out of the room, limping with every step on your bandaged foot. Matt, to his credit, allowed you to do what you could. His tie was loosened and his suit jacket was gone, but he still wore a button-down, tucked into his pants.

“Bet you won your case, then,” you whispered, hardly even aware of what was coming out of your mouth. “No one can... say no to this.”

“This?”

“Hm. This.” You meant to nod up and down at Matt, but it came across as more of a head shake. “You.”

And then your assertion that you could walk proved difficult to fulfill, so you redirected your efforts to not face-planting in your living room, despite the strong, steady hands Matt kept on you the entire time. Once you reached your stairs he took over for the most part; your feet were hardly touching the ground with the amount of support he was giving.

That was where your memory cut out. You must have passed out, because the next time you opened your eyes, it was in the hospital bed, and Matt was reading next to you, his long gaze fixed on the wall in front of him as his fingers danced over the text.

“Hi,” you whispered lamely. Everything about you was groggy and it was hard enough just to focus on him.

Him. Only he could look handsome in a hospital. At some point he’d exchanged the suit for a tee shirt and sweats, and his hair stuck out at every angle possible. You wondered vaguely if he’d come from Fogwell’s.

He set the book down, relief evident on his face. “Hey, sweetie. How are you doing?”

You ignored his question. “How do you always manage to look good?”

He nudged you. “I should be the one asking you that.”

“That’s... the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. Even if you weren’t blind, it’d be a lie.” You closed your eyes, then opened them again. The ceiling was too white. “What happened?”

"Aspiration pneumonia.”

“Hm?”

“You have aspiration pneumonia,” he said. “Which just happens to be a type of pneumonia that’s not contagious.”

You meditated on this. “So?”

“So you could’ve let me into your apartment, that whole time,” he said, looking distinctly indignant, and it was enough to make you laugh. The laugh was short-lived, because it quickly transformed into a wracking cough that made your entire chest throb, but Matt was on his feet in an instant, holding your hand.

Only when the coughing stopped did you remember the bolt on your door. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you get in?”

“Broke down the door, like I promised.”

“Are... are you serious? What about the neighbors?”

He laughed. “You know, breaking down a door isn’t incriminating evidence that I’m Daredevil. I told them you were having an emergency, and when they saw you, they believed me.”

“They saw me?” You didn’t remember an audience when Matt was helping you out of the apartment.

“Well, you were taking your sweet time on the stairs, and coughing loudly enough for anyone in a mile radius to hear you, so yeah, they wanted to see what was happening.”

You buried your face in your hands. “That’s just great. And now, what, is my apartment wide open for anyone to go in?”

“No, I called in a favor with Foggy, and he’s hanging out there until someone can come in and fix it.”

“Even better. Now I’m indebted to Foggy.”

Matt smiled coyly. “Oh, and I should mention—”

“Oh, no. What?”

“—that there’s something else you’ll love about all of this.”

“Stop smiling like that. Why are you smiling like that?”

“Aspiration pneumonia is commonly associated with the institutionalized elderly. In other words, it’s a nursing home problem.”

“A nursing home problem?”

“A nursing home problem,” he confirmed. “I was thinking that maybe for your next birthday I could get you fitted for dentures.”

“Hilarious. Really, so funny. You really should have been a comedian. I swear to you that the next time you get sick, I’m going to make fun of you and you’ll never hear the end of it. Got it?”

He grinned and squeezed your hand. “Murdocks don’t get sick.”

“That is the second biggest lie I’ve ever heard. I seem to recall that time you projectile-vomited off of the Ferris wheel.”

“Because I was motion-sick, not sick-sick.”

Your eyelids were already getting heavy just from the five-minute conversation. You beckoned him closer and leaned onto his shoulder, pressing yourself into his warmth. He smelled like fresh deodorant and coffee. “Pumpkin carving as soon as I can leave?”

“Definitely,” he said, placing your fingers onto the pulse that drummed under his wrist. “And this time, I’m not lying.”

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #Daredevil #daredevil x reader #marvel #MCU #hurt/comfort #reader #reader insert

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autisticlancemcclain · 4 months

Text

“Pass me the — thing.”

“The thing.”

“Yes. The one.”

Hunk’s amusement is evident. “Here’s the thing about capital-T Things, Pidge Podge.”

She makes a face. Ugh, not him too. The annoying nicknames Lance comes up with always seem to end up in other people’s vocabularies. It’s the worst. (They don’t even make sense, either. Her name comes from Pascha, her Hebrew name, because she was tiny even when she was a baby. And Matt is ridiculous. But Lance’s names come from nowhere!)

(…She supposes she’ll allow it, though. Occasionally. Because she’s the best ever, basically, and endlessly benevolent.)

“Things in concept are referential,” Hunk continues, snickering to himself as he dodged her blind kick. “Ergo, you need to reference them. Specifically. Outside of your own brain.”

She makes a noise of frustration, tilting her head in the direction of the scrap pile on Hunk’s work table. “The thing! Shiny! With the— blegh!” She is Focused right now, alright. There are Processes happening in her brain. Words are secondary.

“I’m just going to ignore you now.”

“No! The thing! The thing that looks like a dreidel!”

“There we go,” he says emphatically. She scowls at him. He grins brightly. She holds her glare for a whopping three seconds, which is frankly record-breaking, so. Point to her. “That’s a referential Thing.”

He scoops up the piece and tosses it at her. She catches it without looking (which is wicked cool and something she will subtly mention next time she watches Allura drop something) and sets it on the table top beside her, finishing up a tricky solder. Leaning back to admire her handiwork, which is, indeed, quite handy, her gaze keeps getting pulled to the little part.

“You know, it really does look like a dreidel.” She picks it up by the stem, flicking the little acorn-shaped object and watching it spin. It works like one, too.

Hunk hums. After a few moments, curious at the air newly lacking the sounds of her tinkering, he looks over at her. He purses his lips thoughtfully.

“…What day is it on Earth, do you think?”

Pidge shrugs. “We left in late May. Been a few months, at least.”

“Lance has a watch.”

“Course he does. ‘Cause he’s a big ol’ nerd geek loser.”

Hunk snorts. “Indeed.”

At the same time, without either of them having to say a word, they scramble to their feet, abandoning their projects and rushing out the workroom door.

“Pool?” Hunk asks.

“Nah, training room. He was in the pool this morning.”

Neither of them is particularly fast, but after months of Shiro’s training they can handle their own. They don’t, sprint, per se, because that would be embarrassing and Lance would be all dorky and pleased about it (can’t have that), but they…hustle. Hustle would be the right word. There’s some hastiness about, some purpose to their step.

As they run past the kitchen and finally turn down the corridor to get to the training room, a door opens on the left and someone walks out. Hunk grabs the back of Pidge’s sweater (totally not Keith’s grey hoodie that she stole) to keep her from crashing straight into them.

“Hey, Lance,” Hunk says, smiling brightly. “We were just looking for you!”

Lance, predictably, gets all dorky and pleased about it.

“Well, Lancey-Lance is at your service,” he preens, brushing fake dust off his shoulders. “Of course I am happy to offer my services to such —”

“Why’d you come outta Keith’s room?” Pidge interrupts, squinting.

She’s pretty sure that’s Keith’s room, anyway. The door on the left has a dent on it from when Lance tripped and brained himself on it in their first week of space.

Curiously — oh so curiously — Lance turns a violent shade of red and cringes with his whole entire body.

“Whaaat,” he says, voice cracking so many times she actually winces in reflective sympathy. He laughs nervously. “That’s not — I’m not — Keith isn’t —”

He opens his mouth, then closes it, then coughs, then doesn’t bother. Pidge can actually feel the heat pouring off of him, which is so humiliating that she almost decides to be merciful.

“Is Keith also in there?” she says instead, because fuck that.

Lance looks at the floor like he’s considering swan diving onto it. “What did you guys need me for again?” he asks, loudly.

Hunk, too soft from years of close proximity to Lance, takes pity. “We need your watch, dude. What day is it on Earth?”

Lance’s dark eyes go a bit sad, like they always do when someone mentions the E-word. But it’s gone before Pidge can so much as register it, really, and then he’s glancing down at his dork ass bright blue Moana watch and saying, “One twenty-six on December 7th.”

Pidge cheers. Hunk grins.

“Clear your schedule!” Pidge shouts, pumping her fists. “Hanukkah starts in a few hours!”

———

“An…oil…feast?”

“Yeah!” Pidge says enthusiastically. Allura leans forward, intrigued — she loves stories from Earth. Anything from Earth fascinates her, really. “Thousands of years ago, Jews — my people culturally and religiously — had just freed themselves from the cruel rule of a kingdom that resided over them. They wanted to purify the Temple — that’s where practicing Jews go to pray — so they were burning holy oil. But there was only one bottle of sacred oil, which was upsetting, since that would only burn for one night. But miraculously, the oil kept burning for eight nights!”

Allura gasps. “But how?”

Pidge shrugs. “Religious Jews believe it was a miracle from God, who is our holy deity. Whether or not you’re religious though, Hanukkah is celebrated at the end of every year to commemorate Jewish resilience and hope. The oil is our physical way of celebrating, ‘cause it burned for eight days exactly — as long as it takes to make more oil.”

“And so we get to celebrate by eating delicious fried food,” Lance adds, fist-pumping. He grins at Pidge’s raised eyebrows. “My sister-in-law is Jewish, so my neice and nephew are too. We celebrate Hanukkah every year and it rocks.”

Pidge can feel her smile lighting up her body. There are bigger celebrations, and more religiously important ones, but Hanukkah is so much fun. She hasn’t celebrated in too long — it came and went last year before she even noticed, too wrapped up in finding her brother. And the year before that, her and Mom couldn’t…not without Dad and Matt. They couldn’t celebrate with just the two of them, they spent most evenings in their own rooms.

Shiro’s steady hand comes to rest on her shoulder, squeezing gently. She glances up to find him smiling sadly at her, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“We’ll light a candle for each of them,” he murmurs into her hair. “Colleen, too.”

“Is that what’s done?” Coran inquires softly. “Candles lit, in remembrance?”

Pidge hums, leaning back into Shiro. He holds steady, hand staying fast on her shoulder. Keith flashes her one of his quick smiles, small and comforting.

“Yeah. Eight candles, in something called a menorah. One for each night, one for each intention.” She meets Coran’s eyes first, then Allura’s, her own expression determined. “We’ll light a candle for Altea, too.”

“I would like that,” whispers Allura, swallowing.

“I can make the menorah,” Hunk offers, “if you and Lance want to help. Lance has a good eye for design.”

Pidge takes a couple more moments in Shiro’s embrace, soaking up some of his strength. No one interrupts her. Once she feels like she can stand straight again, like her family is tucked neatly where they usually are in the centre of her heart rather than spilling out all over the place, she stands, patting Shiro’s hand as it falls away, and steps towards her friends.

“Yes, let’s do. We’ll need a few things, actually, to get ready. Keith, you think you can paint the right symbols on the dreidel if I describe them to you?”

He nods. “Yep. I’ll draw ‘em out first, it shouldn’t take long. I think I’ve seen them before, anyway.”

“Cool. Allura, Coran, you wanna put up some decorations? Lance can help you out.”

All three enthusiastically agree, rushing off to make do.

“Shiro —” She falters. “Uh, dude, maybe steer clear of the kitchen. Wanna help with the menorah since Lance is on decorations? Then Hunk’ll have more time to cook.”

Shiro pouts, as he always does when he’s teased about his cursed kitchen tendencies, but the twitch of his smile gives him away.

“I guess,” he laments. “I’m sure I could fry latkes without burning the castle down.”

Keith, Pidge, and Hunk shudder in unison.

“Yeah, right,” Keith says. “You remember when you set a pot of water on fire, Hazard Boy? Because I do.”

———

For people who have no idea what they’re doing, the decorations end up looking really nice.

Everything does, actually. By the time Lance’s watch hits six — the time they have all collectively decided will be sundown based on absolutely nothing — everything is prepped and ready to go. Keith got the characters down after a couple tries, and the dreidel looks like any other one Pidge has used before. Lance had, from what Pidge picked up from Allura’s grumbling, channeled his inner festivity dictator to ensure all decorations were as lovely as possible with their limited materials. Of course the menorah Hunk and Pidge created looks beautifully intricate, one of the more gorgeous things Pidge has ever seen even with all the wonky mismatched candles.

“Okay,” Hunk says, clapping his hands together. “If you guys want to set up the table, Lance and I will be finished plating the food shortly. I dunno about you guys, but I’ve been smelling fried food for a couple hours now, and I need to eat.”

“Please,” Pidge groans, because she’s been smelling it too and boy is Hunk ever a head chef.

Everyone rushes to get the table set as quickly as possible. Pidge makes sure to put Lance’s favourite cup (that he has a hissy fit if anyone else so much as looks at, even though it is practically identical to ever other cup except one tiny chip one the bottom that he loves for some reason) next to the chair closest to the door, where Keith always sits, because she has not forgotten the Earlier Incident. If all goes well then something embarrassing will happen for her to witness, which is all she can ask for, really.

“Can someone who is not Allura come help me bring food over?” Hunk calls from the kitchen as Pidge places the last fork. “No offense, Princess, but I watched you and Lance walk into the same door this morning and I’d rather our hard work not end up splatted and inedible on the floor.”

“Offense taken,” says Allura darkly, and Lance’ whining echoes all the way to where they’re standing.

Keith meets Pidge’s eye and snickers.

“I got it, Hunk,” he calls, jogging over to them.

“Absolutely not!” Lance screeches. “There is no way I will allow Mullet to be entrusted with something I am not allowed to —”

He cuts himself off with a loud shriek. Whether Keith finally pinched him quiet or Lance is just shrieking for drama’s sake Pidge will never know, but moments later the red paladin is striding out of the kitchen, heaping bowl in one hand, batting Lance away with the other.

“If you drop that I’ll kill you both,” Hunk promises, setting the heaping plate he’s holding down on the table.

Thankfully, nothing gets dropped (although does it ever come close). Everyone is accounted for and seated and nothing has gone to waste, and Pidge’s stomach is growling.

“Got a little bit of everything,” Hunk says. “Classic latkes, kugel, and sufganiyot. And you mentioned the zippoli and arancini your Nonna used to make, Pidge, so I made some of that too. And Lance made lots of masitas and plátanos.”

“Hope that’s okay,” Lance says, face kind of scrunched. “I know it’s not traditional, but we had it on Hanukkah, and I thought —”

Pidge grins at him. “Looks great, man.”

Everyone takes turns passing food around and loading up their plate. Pidge takes four zippoli. She regrets nothing. She has had none in several years and this looks perfect.

Before anyone starts, all eyes turn to Pidge, so she squeezes her eyes shut and remembers her mother’s blessing: “Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam shehakol niyah bidvaro.” She opens her eyes again. “Dig in, everybody.”

No one needs to be told twice. For a while the castle is even shockingly silent, everyone too busy shoving their faces. Keith chokes on latke. Shiro laughs at him until the red on his face is from more than a lack of oxygen.

“I love human food,” gushes Allura, inhaling more plátanos. “You guys got to eat like this every day?”

“Unless you lived with someone who regular fucks up ramen noodles,” Keith says pointedly, dodging Shiro’s under-the-table-kick.

“I think Numbers Two and Three might just be talented in the kitchen,” Coran responds. Both Hunk and Lance beam at the praise.

After dinner — and lordy it does not take long to polish it off — they clear the plates away, tidying up the table, as Pidge sets out the menorah. She carefully sets out the candles they have gathered, arranging and re-arranging the order. When she’s satisfied, she picks up the smallest candle, thin green stripes running up its sides, and places it in the space at the far right. She picks up the shamash — choosing the thickest and tallest one — and accepts the lighter Keith offers her. Once it is flaming, she holds it outwards, and begins to softly recite the blessings she memorized so long ago:

“Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah. Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, she-asah nisim laavoteinu v’imoteinu bayamim hahaeim baz’man hazeh. Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.”

She says the words slowly, carefully, allowing herself to feel the shape of them on her tongue. They are familiar. They are heavy. They get caught in her throat, tangled, and stay there until tears begin to trickle down her cheeks, softening the way out. Her voice shakes, but she feels her own strength spreading through her like the heat of the shamesh candle.

“Make it home to me, Matt,” she whispers, as she lights the first candle.

———

“Okay, there is no fucking way.”

Pidge cackles at Keith’s indignant protest, accepting Lance’s sharp high-five and dragging in the entire pot of tokens again.

The two of them are absolutely fucking killing it. Their token piles are high. Keith has had to begrudgingly ask Lance for a loan no less than six times. Everyone else is dangerously low, except for Coran, who’s doing alright.

Pidge thinks this is righteous. As the two youngest, she and Lance should be winning by birthright, basically.

“Suck it, Kogane,” she says gleefully. She flicks a token at him. “Take some charity.”

Keith scowls at her, but takes the token because he is too broke not to. It is greatly amusing.

Ha! Loser.

The game shouldn’t last as long as it does, but somehow it keeps going for hours. Pidge suspects Shiro has several dozen tokens up his sleeve and is cheating. Allura may also be using alchemy to make more tokens appear. Either way, Pidge and Lance’s hordes are steadily increasing, and the menorah has long since been blown out, and the food has settled in everyone’s stomach, and Pidge’s head keeps drooping.

“Think it’s just you and me, Pidge-Podge,” Lance says softly. Someone tucks her hair behind her ear, she’s not sure who. Her eyes might be closed. “What say you we call it a tie, huh?”

“There’s no tie in dreidel,” she argues. “We gotta finish.”

“I’m thinking we play again tomorrow,” Coran suggests. “I’m sure when you’re fully awake you can destroy Number Four much more efficiently.”

“Hey,” says Number Four in question, indignantly.

Pidge manages a smile. Keith sticks his tongue out back at her, and the next thing she knows there are arms around her waist and she’s airborne. She buries her face in a strong shoulder and pretends, secretly, it’s her father, even though she knows it’s not.

“Say goodnight, dork,” whispers Shiro. He pauses, adjusting slightly. “Oof.”

“You’re getting old,” says Keith gleefully.

“Respect your elders,” hisses Lance, accompanied by a swift punch to Keith’s shoulder.

“Ow!” Keith complains, but interestingly he only pouts at Lance instead of maiming him. “It’s Shiro! He’s not even an elder, he’s six! You —”

“Goodnight, Pidge,” say Hunk and Allura, loudly.

Pidge smiles. Her voice is half-buried in Shiro’s shirt. “Night.”

She doesn’t remember the walk to her room, but she feels it when she’s laid down, when blankets are fluffed over her and a kiss is pressed to her forehead.

“Sleep well, Katie,” whispers a voice, and the cool metal of the fingers brushing her hair are soothing. “Love you, kiddo. Happy Hanukkah.”

She falls asleep the the click of her door closing and a warmth burning hot in her heart.

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alexlwrites · 1 month

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From my notes app: we can't be friends

This is heavily inspired by Ariana Grande's new music video so please go watch it. Anyway happy birthday yoongles sometimes i wish i could forget you so i could stop comparing normal men to you. All the love, my dude.

On the corner of a surgery room, a few doctors studied your box of belongings: a guitar pick, a half-empty bottle of perfume, scraps of paper and a white t-shirt. They lined up years and years of memory and scanned each of them, the room fading in front of you as each object went under the red light.

It didn’t take long for the first memory to appear, bright and shiny as the day you lived it: White cotton sheets covering your body, his beating heart all you could hear as you rested your head on his chest, long flushed fingers intertwined with yours. The whole world was encapsulated in that room and nothing else mattered as you and Yoongi breathed each other in a moment of quiet suspension, avoiding even blinking as to not miss a single moment of peace, mapping the shapes and planes of his face and swearing to never forget it.

Ultimately, that was the problem.

Lights flicked and suddenly you were in his studio as he bashfully showed you some unfinished tracked, callused fingers picking at his guitar strings as you held your breath until the melody finished. You clapped enthusiastically, stealing an embarrassed smile from your boyfriend. Even now, that song haunted you in dreams and followed you around your apartment. Every so often you’d catch yourself humming it and crumble to the ground as your weaponized amygdala worked against you, notes turning into a silent cry of pain.

The doctors moved into the scraps of paper, straightening them out. The surgery room faded once more as you were transported into another memory, brief recollections of all the moments he left behind notes with scribbled thoughts he could never say out loud, didn’t know how to, but still wanted you to know: how much he loved you, dimension and intensity, and how he carried your memory into every song he wrote and performed. Those papers carried the only evidence of all the music he made for you and for you only. The world could listen to them all, but never claim it.

“Please” you sobbed, shaking as the doctors rushed to restrain you “please let me keep that one. Just that one. He made it for me, I can’t forget it, please, please.”

But as you begged to keep that one moment in your heart, the machine moved on, projecting the one thing that drove you into this office and got you signing those documents. The reason why you need surgery and he didn’t - after all, he had no problem forgetting you.

“Maybe we can still be friends” he had said, as if that was all you were before. As if everything you lived together could be erased to the point where you could sit by each other and feel no urge to hold his hand. As if your existence in his life could be reduced to something else, washed out. As if one day he could wake up and be clean of you.

He could, you came to find out. The problem was you couldn’t.

“Please” you begged, but by then you didn’t even know what you were begging for. That was just all you knew how to do these past months - begging him to stay, then begging for the radio to stop playing him, begging the TV to stop showing him, begging every corner of your life to stop being so thoroughly stained by his presence in it.

Begging to forget. Begging to remember. Begging to forget again when your heart shatters and pierces you from the inside out. You couldn’t handle it anymore, being the sole vessel of all these memories, carrier of a whole universe of moments only you seemed to care about. You couldn’t take it anymore, so please, please…

The lights flicker. One of the doctors hands you a guitar pick but you don’t play, so you’re not sure what they want you to do with that. Then he gives you a little pile of scribbled paper, but the words don’t make much sense to you. You crumble them and shove them in your back pocket, where they will be destroyed by the machine once you do your laundry.

In the hospital reception, there’s an idol on the TV. He plays a song about his first love and you listen to it for a couple seconds before leaving. Every so often, you catch yourself humming the melody and smiling.

#bts fanfic #bts x reader #min yoongi #yoongi fanfic #min yoongi x reader #yoongi imagine

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cowgurrrl · 1 year

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Everyone I’ve Never Met

Pairing: Ellie Williams x platonic fem!reader

Summary: “You can put your strength down. I’m sitting here with you at your kitchen table. You don’t need to say anything.” - Eden Robinson, Writing Prompts for the Broken-hearted aka you tell Ellie the truth [2k]

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, angsty angst angst, tumultuous parent/child relationship, references to what happened in Salt Lake City, talks about Anna, grief

She looks shocked when she opens the door to find you there. You smile and glance inside her little house, doing your best to keep the peace.

"Can I come in?" You ask. She doesn't nod or say anything. She just turns on her heels and leaves the door open for you. You walk as though you're entering hollowed ground, gentle and quiet, so you don't disturb anything in her home. It's clean enough to support life, although you wish she would let you take her laundry from the corner it's piling up in. She stands awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, and you smile at her again, hoping for a glimpse of that innocent girl you saw so much of five years ago. "How's Dina?"

"Why are you asking about her?" She clamps up.

"Just curious," You try to soothe her, but her shoulders are still by her ears. You take a deep breath and hold the thick file in your hands. "I know you're mad, but I've been working on something for a while and wanted you to have it." You say, placing it on the table next to her.

"What is it?"

"There were some people who owed me favors back in Boston. They were able to get me some information about your mother," you say. She looks confused but opens the folder anyway. "It was a shot in the dark. I didn't know how much they'd be able to find, but-"

"How were they even able to get all this stuff?" She asks as she sifts through the stack of papers. There's more than you thought there would be. Letters from patients that Anna helped, scraps of newspaper with her handwriting on them, a half-finished silly lullaby called Ellie's Belly. You wanted to cry when you read it. Few obstetricians practiced after Outbreak Day; even if they did, they needed the equipment to do sonograms. The likelihood that Anna knew she was having a girl before she gave birth was slim to none, but she still wrote this for her Ellie. Your heart hurts when you think about how much she loved the daughter she never got to raise.

"Anna Williams had a lot of people who loved her. When she died, people were devastated. Made them cling to what they had left a little tighter. What did you know about her before this?"

"I knew she was a nurse and was friends with Marlene, but that was pretty much it. I have her knife and a letter she wrote me," she trails off as she picks up a faded Polaroid. She shows it to you hesitantly, like she's afraid you'll rip it up. "Is this her?"

"It was in with Marlene's stuff. I don't know if this was before the Outbreak or after," you glance between her and the smiling redhead, forever frozen in time. She looks kind with big green eyes and a big, toothy smile. She can't be more than twenty-two in the picture, and you wonder how far away she was from getting pregnant. "You look just like her." For half a second, Ellie grins. Her fingers trace the outline of her mother's features. You wish she were here. You wonder if you two would've gotten along, but it seems hard to imagine that you wouldn't if she's the woman who brought Ellie into the world.

"Did you… were you able to find anything about my father?"

"Nothing concrete. Some people said he was a FEDRA officer. Others said he was a smuggler passing through. She never said anything to anyone about who he might be," You watch her shoulders slump a little, and your fingers twitch to squeeze her. You don't. "I'm sorry." You say instead. She shakes her head and shrugs.

"It's fine." She says. It doesn't feel fine, but you nod anyway. You take a few steps toward her front door, suddenly feeling like you're intruding.

"I can leave you with all this. I know it's a lot to take in."

"Wait," she stops you, looking up from the tiny ghosts of her mother, and the air seems to get trapped in your lungs. This is the most she's looked at you since she found out. "How is he?"

"He's okay. He misses you. We both miss you."

"I miss you, too. This whole thing... it doesn't just have to do with you two. There's more that I'm trying to figure out."

"I get it. If you have any questions, I'll do my best to give you answers."

"Thanks," she walks over to her cabinet and pulls down a big bottle of whiskey. You both sit at the table as she pours two healthy drinks. Joel probably wouldn't approve of you two drinking before patrol tomorrow, but you don't care. The silence is less uncomfortable now and feels the most normal in months. She sloshes the drink in her glass, a pensive look taking over her features, and you lean back in your chair to watch her.

"I can hear you thinking." You say. She puffs air out of her nose in a quiet laugh and looks at you.

"Am I that obvious?"

"No, I just know you," it spills out of your mouth, and she chews the inside of her lip. "What's goin' on up there, kiddo?"

"Tell me what really happened that day." She says. You take a big sip of whiskey as you remember waking up in the Firefly hospital. A lot of it is still blurry, and you're not sure if things will ever get clearer. You don't know if your brain is protecting you from the horrors of that day or if you genuinely blacked out. What you can remember is bloody and riddled with shell casings, broken glass, and bodies. So many bodies.

"You're not gonna like it."

"That's not what I asked."

"Marlene and some Fireflies were in the room with us when we woke up after the smoke bomb went off. We wanted to see you, but she told us you were going into surgery and explained that they would crack your skull and pull the Cordyceps out of your brain to get what they needed for the cure. Just like that," you shake your head. You didn't realize how angry you still were at Marlene for deceiving all of you, for making you think she had a future when she never intended to let Ellie walk out of the hospital. "Something snapped in both of us. They pointed guns in our faces and were told to escort us out of the hospital and to the highway, but the Firefly soldiers walked us right past our stuff. They never had any intention of letting us live, so we did the only thing we knew how to do."

"Kill?"

"Survive," you correct, remembering the blind rage that overtook the both of you that day. "One of the guys grabbed me, and that was all Joel needed. I don't remember much else, but I know we made it out with you. I know we did horrible things and killed people because nobody mattered to us as much as you did. As much as you still do."

"Why did you choose me? You could've helped save the world. They would've hailed you and Joel as heroes, but now you're just here."

"During that first year, you became our world. You made us laugh and worry and love for the first time in years. It became an unspoken agreement that you were more important than us, that if it came down to saving you or either of us, we would always pick you," you say. "So that's what we did. We picked you. We saved our world. Fuck everyone else."

"So many people have died because there isn't a vaccine. Riley, Tess, Sam," she takes a breath as she looks at that polaroid again. "My mother."

"And making one wasn't going to bring them back."

"So, you don't regret it?"

"I regret lying to you and how it's affected us, but I don't regret saving you."

"My life would've had meaning. You fucking took that from me."

"There was never any proof that the cure was going to work. They were experimenting. That's all they were ever going to do. Once we realized that, there wasn't a chance in hell that we were going to let them do that to you," you say. "If you were going to die in that hospital, we were going to die right alongside you."

"Maybe that would've been better." Hardened eyes bore into yours as she says it. She's unflinching, precise, and hits you right where it hurts. You’ve seen the same tactic in how she kills, in how you and Joel kill. The similarity makes you want to throw up.

"Maybe," you nod. "But, I would do it all over again, even knowing what I know now." Ellie shakes her head and takes a big sip of her drink. The silence that fills the space between you is unbearable. You want her to scream, to yell, to throw a tantrum. You want her to unleash all her anger so you can love her anyways. You want her to see that even as she yells and hates you, you'll still stand there and say, "I can take it. I'm not afraid of you because I know you and I love you.”

You don't know that you can ever forgive Marlene for putting so much weight on fourteen-year-old shoulders. Ellie was a kid. A kid with immense guilt who felt like the only way her life could have meaning was if she died because everyone she has ever loved had died. Even if you had the chance to go back and ask Ellie's opinion, you still think you would've done what you did. A teenager in that headspace is not the right person to make decisions about their mortality. But just because she's alive and has a new life doesn't mean the weight Marlene gave her is gone. If anything, it's gotten heavier, and she's gotten quieter.

She rubs her eyes and bounces her knee under the table, a habit she picked up from you. She's exhausted and looks like she could start crying at any second. "I trusted you." She mumbles, sounding so much like the Ellie you met all those years ago. Your throat feels raw as you stare at her.

"I know," you say. Your voice is soft but not quite apologetic. "Ellie-"

"You were right. It's getting late, and we both have patrol in the morning, so you should go." She says, standing from her chair to put her empty glass in the sink. With her back to you, you look up at the ceiling to force the tears back into your eyes. You clear your throat and stand, but she doesn't turn.

"Try to get some sleep," You say in place of "I love you," and she hums from the sink. Anna's smiling face watches you leave her Ellie's house and walk back out into the freezing night, feeling emptier than when you showed up. You glance through her window and find her still standing at the sink, clutching her stomach as her chest moves quickly. It looks like she’s having a panic attack. You want to go back in to soothe her, to hug her and tell her everything will be okay, before you remember that you probably caused the attack. You feel like you just got punched in the stomach as you go against your better judgement and start walking home.

You wonder if this is how it’s going to be for the rest of your lives— watching her life unfold behind glass, unable to do or say anything to make her feel better. At least, she’s alive, you try to remind yourself, but is it really living if she’s not sleeping, eating, or letting herself feel anything? Is it a life if she’s mourning every time she should’ve died but didn’t? Is it a life if you’re watching her slowly kill herself from behind glass, your desperate screaming falling upon deaf ears?

Or did the most important part of all three of you die in that hospital and you’re walking corpses? Does digging into a wound to find and name the bullet make the pain any better?

🍓

(June stop getting philosophical at the end of every fic challenge)

#ellie williams #joel and ellie #ellie tlou #ellie the last of us #anna williams #the last of us #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #the last of us x reader #platonic Ellie Williams #i wrote this for me but you can read it too i guess

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rorywritesjunk · 1 month

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Be gentle with yourself as you uncover Your best kept secrets yet to be discovered

Buggy meets an infamous pirate who dabbles in magic that everyone seems to be after, but they only have eyes for Buggy. Why is he so special?

Rating: PGish. Warning: None. Buggy is Buggy. A/N: My "Howl's Moving Castle" fic based off the movie because I never read the book. It will have different moments than the movie just to omit some things. This story uses "You" but I couldn't not give the character a name and for some reason "Shore" is what I thought of. And Shore is referred to as they/them, nonbinary, and breaks hearts wherever they go. Buggy is Sophie in this fic, is 22, and not always in a good mood.

Title comes from "Better In The Morning" by Birdtalker.

Taglist: @lostfirefly @fanaticsnail @youreinthewind

Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4

Chapter IV

Buggy definitely had his work cut out for him as a maintenance man.

There were creaky stairs, some loose floorboards, a wobbly chair, and shelves falling off the walls left and right. As he fixed one in the main living area, another one would fall somewhere else in the ship. Was Shanks somehow doing this to be obnoxious? Buggy sighed as he hammered in another nail to secure a shelf before giving it a few shakes to make sure it was secured. Why did he say he was a maintenance man?

The table was… okay. He had enlisted Luffy to help him clear the table first of dishes and other nonsense, but the boy broke one plate the second he picked it up so Buggy just had him get out of his way. He didn’t want to clean up after the boy while cleaning the rest of the ship.

Buggy spent time cleaning the table off, sanding down any roughened edges, and hammering in any loose nails. In the end, it looked better than when he first walked in though it had still seen many meals at it. There were stains, dents, and scuffs in the wood, but that didn’t bother him that much in the end.

“Mister Bogey, what’re you doing next?” Luffy asked as he stood there with a broom. He thought he was being helpful by sweeping, but honestly, he was just making a bigger mess by creating dust clouds.

Buggy sighed. “It’s Buggy. And I’m going to hang you outside by your toes if you keep making a mess, kid!”

“I’m helping!” Luffy insisted.

“You’re helping make a bigger mess!” Buggy shot back as he pointed to the stairs. “If you want to sweep then do it out on the deck!”

“But I want to help you!” Luffy insisted, gripping the broom handle tightly in his hands as he pouted at Buggy. That made him pause for a moment. He wanted to help, really? Buggy… wasn’t used to that. Back at the circus he stopped asking for help because the times he did he was met with resistance. Why should he expect help now from a kid? He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut tightly as he tried to think of a task Luffy could do that would actually help him.

“Fine. Can… you organize the dirty dishes by what they are?” Buggy asked, knowing he would need to tackle that task sooner rather than later. “Silverware, plates, bowls, cups. Organize them like that.”

Luffy took in what he was asking and nodded before hurrying over to the sink where the dishes were piled up. “I can do that!”

“Carefully!” Buggy ordered. “No more broken plates, kid!”

“Okay Mister Boogie!”

“It’s Buggy!”

Buggy replaced a step that had snapped in half that led up to the main deck. He and Luffy weren’t able to get up there without much difficulty, so he had the boy find some scrap wood so he could fix it and Buggy was pleased that the boy came through, finding an old step stool that had seen better days, so Buggy managed to repurpose it into a step.

He straightened up, rubbing his back as he looked proudly at his finished task. He never thought to add maintenance man to his list of possible jobs after leaving the circus, but so far he felt he was doing alright. Sure, every joint in his body was aching, he had some splinters, he hit his thumb with the hammer a few times already, causing it to bruise and swell, and Luffy only managed to break two plates and a bowl when he organized the dirty dishes for him. So far the day was okay.

“So, Mister Buggy, how did you come to find us all the way out here?” Your voice startled him as you came down the stairs, stopping just above the step he fixed. He looked up nervously, wondering if you could see through his curse or if you even remembered him. He hoped you didn’t. He didn’t want you to see him become a pathetic old man instead of… a pathetic young man who needed rescuing.

“Oh, well… you see…” He wasn’t sure how to respond. Would you see through any lie he said? Maybe you’d kick him off the ship, fire him from this ‘job’ that he made up on the spot, leave him to die out in the wilderness to be food for scavenging animals.

You held your hand out to him suddenly and he looked at you in surprise before taking it. Carefully, you placed your right foot onto the newly finished step, then the left, smiling at him as you looked down at him from it.

“I hope to keep you around to fix things when they break, Mister Buggy.” You smiled as you descended the last few. “Please don’t go away any time soon.”

He hated how warm his face got at that smile, or the way his heart started pounding. Was this his heart giving out in his advancing age? Why were you still holding his hand?

“What's in your pocket, Mister Buggy?” You suddenly asked, shaking him from his thoughts. He looked down, his free hand reaching into his pocket while his other hand held yours. He dug around for a moment and frowned, pulling out a snail shell and holding it out to you. Smoke started to come from the shell, it felt hot to the touch suddenly and Buggy dropped it, watching it land on the step he just repaired. It fell apart, leaving a sigil scorched into the wood.

“What is that?!” Buggy asked. “I just fixed that step!”

You crouched down, waving your hand over it and Buggy saw the marks rise up from the wood and into your palm. It was a sight to see and he knew he’d have to get used to seeing magic in motion if he was going to live on this ship. You smiled at Buggy as you straightened up.

“Just a message from an old friend.” You told him, clenching your fist for a moment before opening it to show him your empty palm. “The Witch of the Waste sends her regards.”

Buggy bristled at the mention of Alvida but he didn’t speak, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. You said nothing as you brushed past him, heading over to Shanks and giving him instructions. Buggy only caught a few words, his hearing not what it was just days before as a young man, but he heard you say something about moving the ship elsewhere. Oh, were they stationary this entire time, or did it float around among the clouds freely? Buggy actually wasn’t sure, he hadn’t taken the time to look out.

You suddenly brushed past Buggy to get on the step he just fixed, giving him a smile. “I’m going to wash up. When you have time there’s a broken cabinet in my bathroom, could you fix it when you have time?”

“Uh, yes, of course!” He nodded. “I’m your maintenance man after all! I can fix anything!”

You chuckled softly and nodded in agreement. “I’m glad you joined us then. There’s a lot to fix around here.”

You ascended the stairs after that, leaving Buggy alone at the bottom. You were glad he joined, even if it was a surprise for all of you. It felt nice to hear that but he quickly shook the feeling off, figuring you were just saying that so he’d fix the cabinet sooner. He would get to it next, once you were out of the bathroom. It was just weird to feel appreciated like that but he tried to brush it off. Sooner or later you’d probably kick him off the ship to fend for himself anyway. No one wanted a pathetic maintenance man on their crew.

The main living space looked better now that Buggy repaired wall shelves, fixed furniture, and even washed all the dishes. It was a little more like a home now than a chaotic space. He felt proud of his work, though the next thing to do was check the chimney. While Shanks seemed to have no problem burning along, enjoying the stacks of wood Buggy had given him earlier, smoke was getting everywhere, and before Buggy could attempt to clean the soot from the wall, he had to see why the smoke was so bad.

“Can you hear me?” Luffy yelled up to him from the fireplace as Shanks looked up. Buggy had gotten outside onto the main deck, finding the chimney that was near the main mast. Was it safe to have a chimney like this? Wouldn’t sparks light things on fire? Then again, you were a wizard of sorts, so things could be enchanted to prevent that. He had a broom to knock loose any soot that built up.

“I can, are you able to see anything, kid?” Buggy shouted back from the opening of the chimney. He was ready to shove the broom in bristles first, but he wanted to be sure it was safe to do so. Shanks would be just fine.

“No, I just see Shanks and hear your voice.” Luffy told him.

“Get out of the way then!” Buggy shoved the broom down the chimney, gripping the handle tightly as he plunged it up and down, trying to knock loose as much of the crud as possible. He fought for a few minutes before it became easier. He must have knocked it all loose, so he looked down the chimney, seeing just a bit of the fireplace but without a fire. “Everything okay down there?”

“Shanks is out!” Luffy sounded panicked which worried Buggy, so he hurried back down as fast as his body allowed. He nearly tripped on the steps going down, but he stopped when he saw you at the fireplace, picking up a small coal surrounded by flame. He watched as you gently blew against it, seeming to breathe life back into it, before setting it down on two fresh logs. When Buggy approached, you looked at him with an amused expression.

“Please be careful with Shanks, we do need him around.” You told him gently as Luffy cheered as Shanks started bemoaning the fact that Buggy just tried to kill him. It was all an accident, really, but you didn’t seem mad at him. Instead you touched his hand gently and he felt the warmth of the fire for a moment before you pulled back and headed for the stairs to leave the ship. You spun a dial beside the door, Buggy watched it spin for a moment before it stopped and you opened the door, stepping outside and leaving the others behind.

“Why’d you try to kill Shanks, Mister Buffy?” Luffy asked innocently. Buggy huffed in annoyance, scowling at the boy before he went to grab his makeshift tool box he cobbled together.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, and besides, Shanks is fine! A little soot won’t hurt him!” Buggy snapped at him as Luffy went to grab another piece of wood for the fire. “Now, I have work to do in the bedrooms, got it? If you don’t want any of your things thrown out, you better deal with them now, kid.”

Luffy’s eyes widened and he rushed past Buggy and up the stairs. His room was not the cleanest and he wanted to protect his treasures from him. Buggy smirked and looked over at Shanks; the flame was watching him carefully.

“Y’know, if I go out then that’s the end of Shore.” The flame told Buggy. “We’re connected, we can’t live without the other.”

“Well, that’s just dumb.” Buggy grumbled; he couldn’t imagine such a life of having someone to depend on. He depended on himself and that was it. “Try not to go out then, you silly little flame, if Shore needs you that badly.”

He turned to head up the stairs but glanced back at the flame for a moment, thinking over what he said. Could you really die if Shanks was put out? Buggy didn’t really want to think about it, instead choosing to be more careful next time even if Shanks was annoying. With a sigh, he started up the stairs, wincing as his lower back and hips protested at the movement. Right, he was old. He needed to get used to it since he would likely be this for the rest of his now short life.

He managed to make it up the stairs to the level where the bathroom and bedrooms were. Oh, right, he would need his own room, wouldn’t he? Though, he could just do with a cot, even if his old bones would protest it. Shaking his head, he headed for the bathroom, opening the door and freezing at the sight before him. Clutter, a cabinet resting on the floor, holes in the wall, and a tub and toilet that looked as though they had never been clean. There were bottles and products scattered all across the floor as well.

How could two people live like this?

Buggy went to open the window first, wanting to get fresh air in there. Movement below caught his attention and he saw that they were actually moving, sailing over the rocks and terrain as clouds drifted by. Oh, this ship really did sail in a way, didn’t it?

“Shanks, is that you making the ship move?” Buggy shouted down to him.

“Of course it is!” The little flame called back to him. Huh, it was impressive, but Buggy wouldn’t say that.

“Guess you’re good for something then.” Buggy mumbled before he turned his attention back to the bathroom. Okay, it was time to start cleaning.

#buggy the clown #shore x buggy #buggy the clown x you #buggy the clown x reader #buggy the clown x oc #buggy x reader #buggy x you #buggy x oc #opla buggy the clown #opla buggy #opla buggy the clown x reader #opla buggy the clown x you #opla buggy the clown x oc #opla buggy x reader #opla buggy x you #opla buggy x oc #nonbinary oc #nonbinary original character

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icy-oranges · 27 days

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OG chapter five for my fic. (Hint hint, new chapter just dropped)

p>The day went on normal. Sun was doing paper bag puppets with the children, while Moon started to set up for naptime.

Then, there was a knock at the daycare doors.

Moon put down the sleeping mats he was putting out and slowly walked over to the doors. When he opened them, he saw a very familiar face. She had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a Chica hoodie, and bright purple leg warmers with black stripes. She was a little frail for a thirteen-year-old but other than a few scrapes, smudges of dirt, and a patchy red scalp she looked perfectly healthy.

Moon smiled, "Hello Annabelle, how are you?"

Annabelle Crane, she was one of the first children he and Sun cared for, and even after she outgrew the daycare she still came back to help out.

"I'm good Mr. Moon, just came back to escape my friends and help out with some of my younger ones." She spoke in a very light southern accent, "How 'bout you?"

She walked into the daycare and made her way to the craft table sitting down with the younger kids. She waved at Sun before starting to help a kid with the cap of a glitter glue pen.

Moon smiled; she was always a sweet kid who called every fellow child she met her sibling. He was, however going to check on her later since it's been a while since she came to visit.

Moon resumed setting out the sleeping mats, rolling them out on the soft daycare floor. Occasionally he looked up to check on all the children, plus his TECHNICALLY younger brother even though it was only by two minutes. Eventually, he finished and brought out the piles of blankets from out from under the daycare desk. Moon set them down and went back over to the desk and turned the lights off.

"Naptime starlights!~" Moon sung as he walked towards the table full of children.

He was mostly met with complaints. He was about to tell them about the no whining rule when Annabelle spoke up instead.

"Hey, how 'bout I read 'em a book before they nap?"

"Oh, um, sure Annie just try not to get them rowdy this time..." Moon frowned, she had a tendency to make children more hyper than sunnydrops.

"Pshhhhh, that doesn't even sound like me! Now, c'mon! Onward my little sisters and brothers!" She pointed forward like the captain of a ship and the rest of the children followed her lead, excitedly running to the story corner and sitting down.

Moon shook his head as he surprised a chuckle before looking over at his brother, who was also softly smiling.

However, Sun's smile was short lived turning to an expression of worry.

"Hey Moonie?..."

"Yes Sunny?"

"Can you check on her during pick up? I think she's pulling out her hair again."

"Don't worry I'll check up on her and try to get her to stop again." Moon gave Sun a reassuring smile before going to check up on the kids.

All the children were listening intently as Annabelle made goofy faces and gave the characters funny voices. Moon had to admit, that girl had a knack for being able to keep someone's attention.

"The end!" she closed the book with a loud thud, smiling happily, "Okay... now race you all to sleep! Threetwoone go!!!"

All of the kids all shot up and ran giggling towards their sleeping mats, each one flopping down on them, and closing their eyes trying to be the first asleep. Moon looked back over at Annabelle. She was humming and putting the book away on a shelf before looking back at Moon, "What's next?"

"If you want you can take a nap, or you can help me and sun scrap the glitter glue off the table." He said as he crossed his arms and smiled playfully.

"I choose sleep please." Annabelle spoke as she laughed softly.

"Alright, into bed then. Need a MoonDrop?" Moon dug through his pockets, looking for a MoonDrop

"Ooo! Yes please, I love vanilla." She smiled and held her hand out as Moon dropped one into her hand.

Annabelle popped the Moondrop into her mouth and went off to plop herself on a beanbag and take a nap.

TIME SKIP: PICK UP TIME

As Sun was talking to the parents and keeping track of the kids that were yet to be picked up, Moon walked up to Annabelle and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Hey Annabelle?"

"Whatcha' need Mr. Moon I'm up for anything, except cleaning up piss from the ballpit."

"Language, and, I need you to talk with me real quick." Moon tilted his head towards the patch of land in the ballpit.

"Oh. Alright then." Her tone changed from happy and playful to more serious.

Moon and Annabelle both jumped over the wall of the ball pit and they both sat down on the patch of false grass in the middle. Annabelle started tracing the yellow flower prints on the floor.

Moon cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the tension. "So, Sun and I have noticed that it looks like you've started pulling your hair out again... are you... comfortable talking about it?..."

"I-I just got stressed that's all!" She spoke in a distressed tone.

Moon frowned and hugged her while rubbing her back in circles. "It is fine for you to get stressed sometimes, I'm not mad, just worried... you're hurting yourself..."

"I-I know... but I just can't help it! It helps me calm down and not cry..." She started pulling on her hair.

He gently removed her hand from pulling on her hair and hugged her a little closer. "Annie... is everything okay at home?..."

Tears welled up in her eyes. "I don't go "home" anymore..." She wiped off some of her tears and hugged onto Moon's arm. "My mom didn't even report me missing...."

Moon's heart dropped. He pulled her even closer hugging her tightly. What could he even do to help?... He couldn't take her home with him because that would be kidnapping, and he couldn't keep her in the daycare all the time. The only thing he could do was call CPS, but he had already called many times and they didn't do shit since she had only been neglected and not physically abused.

He sighed and just kept hugging her trying to think of something he could do...

"Annie, where have you been sleeping?..."

"My friend has been letting me stay in his garage right now... and his parents are fine with it..."

"Okay, you stay there for now... I'll try and get CPS to do something..."

"Ok... I think I want to go back to my friend's house..." She wiped the rest of her tears.

Moon let her go and gave her a small reassuring smile. "I'll see you later starlight, be safe..."

She stood up and returned her smiled before walking towards the exit, where Sun was waving goodbye to the last kid. Moon himself got up.

"Bye dad-" Annabelle stopped midway out of the door, her eyes wide. "I MEAN MR. MOON!"

Moon chuckled, and Sun smiled, "Awww she see's as her dad Moonie!" Sun sang.

"BYE!" Annabelle took off, running out of the daycare and towards the exit of Kid's Cove.

"Welp! Home time Moonie!" Sun said as he clapped his hands together.

Moon nodded before checking his phone, seeing a new text message from DJ.

None of this is cannon I just wanted to put this up just in case people want to reread it.

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sheliesshattered · 3 months

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Top third or so of the pleated panel is sewn down!

I tried out a couple of different methods for handsewing this to the shoulder and sleeve, but after a few inches of each, the 'stitch in the ditch' method was the clear winner. It's basically invisible, and lets the piping stand up as it ought to. I'm doing a stitch about every 1/8th inch, and keeping most of the distance on the top so that the stitches inside the sleeve are as small as possible, and won't get caught on things. I'm getting faster with the technique, so I'm hoping to buzz through the rest of this sleeve and the other one over the next few days.

But I'm also going to be interspersing this sewing with starting on my vest scratch build. I was able to find the pattern I made for my vest for The Moment way back in 2014 (it was exactly where I thought it would be, hurrah for keeping old patterns), and I spent some time staring at the existing vest in the mirror and pin-marking the changes I would like to make.

There are enough small changes that I'm going to just draft a new version of the pattern using the old one as a guide. But there are only the four main body pieces that really need re-drafting, and once it's something I can try on then I'll figure out how I'm doing the new collar (so it doesn't look so much like a motorcycle jacket), and I might just drape the new collar on me while I'm wearing the in-progress vest.

Over the weekend I also went though my stash looking for fabrics that have enough yardage (or at least big pieces) to cut out the body of the vest, and after comparing all those to the pieces I know I'll definitely be wearing as part of my Batuu Bound -- gray hooded wrap, brown leather belt/bag/gloves, and black leather-look leggings -- with Jack's help I decided on some lovely dark navy linen that I've had in my stash for years, left over from a dress project. It's on the heavier side for linens, but not quite as stiff as the canvas the Moment vest is made from, but I think it'll work nicely.

I'm going to stick with the basic lines from the Moment vest, including the diagonal cross-body closure. After noodling on this for a week or more, what I've decided to do is a shorter zipper that ends around underbust level or just slightly higher, and then a flap over that with either no visible closures, or some cool looking Star Wars-y buckles or something. I have a few ideas for that, but I won't make any decisions until I can try the new vest on. The separating zipper and the thread for this project have been ordered and should arrive before I'm anywhere close to needing them. Pics on this whole vest project as it develops.

Beyond that, I need to add a tiny dot of glue to a pendant that I made (in the upper left of the photo -- it looks a bit like Jyn Erso's kyber crystal necklace, but smaller with more of a blue tone to it) to make sure the wrappings stay attached. I still want to figure out something to cover the lacings of my big Doc Martens, either wraps over the whole boot or a suede panel that snaps onto the lacings or something of that sort. I've started to gather other accessories, and there are a couple of things I want to order (in particular my Captain's License, once I can settle on a name and spelling for my OC, lol).

I have a long sleeve shirt to go under the vest that works with my color pallet, and an idea (and fabric) for another shirt I could sew, but the weather has been so all over the place lately (80 degrees and sunny! no wait, 60 degrees and rainy!) that I don't want to put too much effort into the shirt until I've got a better idea of the weather we'll have 4 weeks from now. Finishing Jack's jacket and making my vest are definitely the priorities.

4 weeks to go! Hokay, I've got a pile of linen scraps to go iron.

#my sewing #Jack's jacket project #Batuu vest #Batuu Bounding #2024 mood #long post

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shepherds-of-haven · 2 years

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Good day! I know you've said before that you like to keep a schedule for when you should work on things, so for the alpha build do you write in bits and pieces here and there over the month or do you dedicate only the last few weeks to the update? Similarly for the monthly story, do you write it all in one go then edit the next time you work on it? I've been in awe for some time over your work ethic so I'm extremely curious on how you handle your writing time! Thank you~~ :D

Hi anon, thank you so much for your lovely words!! Generally, I never write in bits and pieces anymore, unless it's literally just a sentence or few paragraphs in my notes or scrap pile: I tend to dedicate the first week and a half of the month to taking care of various things, like all of the various Patreon tasks, stuff for WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE, working briefly on my next novel (which, so far, has gone abysmally lol), and then I dedicate the last few weeks of the month to writing the alpha build in a very focused way, without doing anything else! So for those two weeks or so, whenever I'm working, it's exclusively on updating the alpha build, though my pace can be really slow or really intense depending on what part I'm at, how inspired I'm feeling, and how well I've plotted out the next scenes, as well as what's going on in my personal life and if there are any little unforeseen scheduling things that need to take up my time!

The last few days of the month (after I've posted the alpha update) are when I write the short story from start to finish, and typically, I don't edit them except for doing a once-over for glaring errors before I post (which is sometimes why I can't read them again for a while lol sorry 😵‍💫). I have gone back and edited some of them months later, but these are usually for continuity issues that I ran up against when writing later game or short story content--I haven't edited any of them for actual readability purposes yet and just kind of plow through lmao!

I hope that answers your questions, and thank you so much for sending them in! :)

#me #Patreon #Shepherds of Haven #writing #personal

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cabinofimagines · 1 year

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Holi-days seven; Tight Knit

Hehe danny has had her reign, now I get to drop in again

Pairing: PLATONIC Connor, Hazel, Frank and Reyna x gn!reader

Warnings: None!

Words: 1.2k (oops)

<- prev - mlist - next ->

-Asnyox

You knew Klaus had offered to teach you and whomever else was interested to knit today. What you had not expected, was that he invited about three quarters of camp to learn, and that Connor had followed him around telling everyone about a ‘secret’ plan. As soon as you understood what Connor was planning, you laughed at his naivety.

This guy had either underestimated how hard knitting would be for a bunch of hyperactive demigods or overestimated the willpower of campers to pull of this prank. Although the latter would be the deciding factor in his plan, you supposed.

You sat at one of the tables, with your friends by your side. Sometimes you forget how big you friend group is, for even if not everyone showed up you easily filled a table solely with you friends. Frank and Hazel had each taken on of your sides and you were holding a staring competition with Reyna. It was not really a competition, but rather it was a ‘You made eye contact and now neither is looking away’. Normal people behaviour.

“I didn’t know you were interested in Knitting,” You stated, suspicion in your voice. Reyna smiled.

“I’ve always liked to learn how to knit, and I finally picked it up with the Hunters.” Her face turned a little bit softer, “It’s nice to make some warm socks when you spend this much time on your feet.”

“And you never made any for me?” You gasped and Reyna laughed.

“Who knows, maybe you’ll find some in your stocking.”

Conversation flowed easily as everyone waited for Klaus to take the reins. Eventually, after some Hermes kids came out and distributed knitting needles and yarn to everyone, Klaus coughed as he got everyone’s attention.

“Hello my little elves!” Klaus smiled, “Today I will try to teach you how to knit,” Suddenly Connor popped up behind him.

“And together we will knit a blanket that will cover the entire dining pavilion!” Connor yelled and cheers came from the tables around you, as you shot Reyna a confused look.

“Ah yes,” Klaus looked slightly surprised, “This will be a team effort, for sure. Anyways-” as Klaus explained how to start your knitting work, and with some help from Reyna, you got to knitting.

───────────

“This is harder than it looks,” Hazel stated as she stared intensely at her needle work, “I keep messing up the loops that I do.” You looked up from your work, gazing at Hazel’s handiwork. You noticed that her yarn ball was more like a yarn knot at this point.

“When did you yarn unroll?” You asked and Hazel sighed.

“I don’t know, but that is a problem for later.”

“I think I am getting the hang of it?” Frank mumbled from next to you, and as you looked over you saw that he had a decent square shape going. You let out a soft ‘wow’ as you looked at the mess in your hands. It was not the worst, but it was definitely not great either. You sighed as you looked around the Arts and Crafts building, noticing that quiet a few campers had left already. There were a few abandoned projects here and there, and you saw Klaus picking them up carefully and finishing them.

After another hour or so, Connor dejectedly walked up to your table.

“Please tell me you guys made a massive blanket together.” He pouted, and everyone at your table held up their little squares. Connor sighed, as he sat down next to Reyna, “No one said knitting was so slow!” he complained.

“Now, now, Connor, we still have a lot of little bits!” Klaus sat down next to Frank, dropping a pile of scraps on the table, “If I may, can I have your pieces? Then we can see what the effort of the camp made!” Klaus smiled, and you could have sworn his ears twitched. You handed him your needles and patch of knit work, which he quickly finished.

“And where is my favourite elf, Jason?” Klaus asked, a glint in his eyes, “or my second favourite, Percy?” Klaus started working on sowing the patches of knitwork together.

“Jason, I don’t know,” Connor started, as he looked with little hope at what Klaus was doing, “Percy said he was doing research or something.”

“Ah, Percy has seemed a little stressed lately,” Frank noted, “Hey Klaus can you teach me how to finish the knitting process?” Klaus nodded eagerly.

───────────

In the end, your ‘blanket to cover the dining hall’ ended up more the size of ‘blanket to cover some knees, maybe shoulders’. You were still impressed by the size of the blanket in the end, and more so at how aesthetically pleasing Klaus made the blanket in the end, with just the little knitted patches that everyone made. Connor seemed less happy with the outcome; his plans ruined.

“What do we do with this?” he complained, as Klaus put a simply yarn bow around the folded blanket.

“Maybe you can give it to someone?” Klaus got a mischievous glint in his eyes, “Someone who could use a little warmth from the campers?” Conner seemed deep in thought, before he looked up and spotted his target.

“You are right Klaus!” Connor stood up, grabbing the blanket, “Let’s give it to Chiron.” He smiled, and for once he seemed to not have anything up his sleeve. You watched as he walked up to Chiron, and gave the centaur the blanket.

As you were taking in the adorable sight of Chiron lowkey fawning over the blanket (and being showered by the campers in compliments for the blanket) you sighed a little. The holidays were almost over, and you were going to miss everyone who was around at camp. You were also regretting that you could not attend the new years party this year, and you were dreading even more to go to the party in your hometown. Someone had leaked you the information that a certain unwanted guest would attend, whom you did not want to face alone.

But that was a problem for another day. Right now, you were getting distracted by Percy, who was aggressively gesturing for you to come to him. When you reached him, he quickly grabbed your hand and pulled you to be away from the Arts and Crafts building.

“You must have noticed something off from Klaus.”

“I mean, nothing weird outside of the general child of Hermes behaviour.” You stated. Percy seemed unconvinced, but before he could say anything you shook your head “Perce, sometimes the best option is to just ignore other people’s behaviour if it bothers you.” You softly grabbed his hand and looked Percy in the eye “Klaus is a nice kid, so give him a shot, alright?”

“I see he has you in his grips too, (Y/n).” Percy stepped away, a determined glint in his eyes, “I will uncover the truth and expose him. I promise.” Percy swiftly turned around and started walking away. You could hear him murmur to himself as he clearly was making his way back to the Arts and Crafts building.

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winnieleighwrites · 1 year

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I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year.

Hopefully this doesn't sound too much like most of those YouTube videos we're all watching, figuring out who is and who isn't participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I added a "Keep reading" below for anyone who wishes to skip past.

The main point is that I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, as the title says. Under the cut is explaining what I'm planning on doing in the following months (as the author behind this tumblr account).

I have always said I was an author of many unfinished stories. I just never said how many... and how I'm handling that.

I use a Notion database to pile all of my story ideas together. As of today (November 6, 2022), I currently have a total count of 91 in the database.

As you can see, this author is stressin'. Instead of writing my current WIP projects that I have spent months to years struggling to write, I'm going to outline all of my story ideas and process them into different stages.

First step, I'm going through my stand-alone story ideas - I have 36 story ideas that are currently stand-alones. Each of them only have a gist of an idea, possibly a scene in mind, and/or a few characters with names I might need to change. I want to get them all through the outline stages.

I'm a plotter, if you can't tell. My outlining process is mostly using Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, from Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! I am also using the pen-to-paper method, as it's easier for me to get the words down when I'm in the outlining process. It's harder to count words this way, which is why I'm not being a rebel and adding up the outline words into the NaNo site.

For an example: I finished an outline for a story idea that was previously a stand-alone, but is now a duology. I started the outline process on Oct 17 and finished on Oct 29, taking 13 days to finish, but I only outlined on six of those days.

Because it's not a stand-alone anymore, I set the outline aside for after I finish outlining all of my stand-alones, and I will return to this outline when I go through outlining all of my duology series.

Second step, once I have finished outlining all of my stand-alones, I'm going through my series. I have four duologies and one trilogy. I have two short-story collections. I have an eight-book crime series and a ten-book family series. Lastly, I have an umbrella series, a Universe if you will, with three series - in total, the Universe has twenty books.

I'm still on the first step of outlining my stand-alones. I'm going in alphabetical order from the Novel Database, with the temporary titles I made for each story idea. That being said: on Nov 2, I started outlining my second stand-alone story idea.

I will start making update posts; to keep myself accountable, to keep track on how long it takes me to outline each of my story ideas, to keep my followers updated on where I'm at, among other things. I will also make a tag, that way all of the update posts are filtered together, and for those who wish to follow or to blacklist the tag.

The tag is - p; winnie's outline progress - it is in the tags below for clicking access.

In conclusion, I am truly hoping this will relax my brain and keep me productive. Who knows? Maybe I'll scrap story ideas once I realize there's nothing to make of them, and it'll slowly dwindle down from the 90s. On the other hand, maybe I'll just end up adding to the list and make it into the hundreds. We'll see when we get there.

Good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo 2022, good luck to everyone not participating, but still writing, and good luck to everyone who may not be writing at all.

#p; winnie's outline progress #u; winnieleighwrites

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blackfire-fanfiction · 2 years

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Mortal Deities: Chapter 4 - Bruno - Age 14

Read on AO3 at Mortal Deities - Blackfire493

Bruno Madrigal took a deep breath and prepared himself to go into town. He had a worn leather bag slung over his shoulder, and the clinking of the emerald slabs made him wince as he adjusted the bag.

He ducked his head and ventured into town.

Bruno didn’t often go into town, the crowds and stares making him uncomfortable. But he had a stack of visions, and his mama said that they had to help the town, so he went anyway.

“It’s Bruno!”

He winced as a hush fell over town, quickening his pace. He was still crowded, showered with gifts and praise.

“I have prophecies to deliver, any gifts can go in the temple or you can bring them to Casita,” Bruno said awkwardly.

People apologized and rushed off to the temple, and Bruno was still crowded, but he was able to get where he needed to go.

The crowd continued to follow him as he delivered his visions to homes, holding their breaths as he walked over to their houses and carefully placed the emerald on the open window sills that held their daily candles.

Bruno finished delivering the majority of his prophecies headed for the temple. The crowd that was following him finally dispersed, staying behind to crowd around his vision tablets to see what the future held for them.

He placed his last tablet on a table outside the temple, the vision showing the entire town partying at a girl’s upcoming quinceanera.

“Not our quince, I hope.”

Bruno jumped, whirling around.

“Julieta! You scared me,” He said to his sister.

“Let’s head inside, before people crowd both of us,” Julieta said, pulling him into the temple.

“Just escaped your crowd?” Bruno asked.

“You would think that they’d get used to seeing me every day, but nope, they’re still obsessed.”

Bruno snorted at her tired voice. He spotted his statue and headed over to the large pile of gifts that laid at the base of the sculpture.

He scraped the candle wax off of the stone, placing the stumps and scraps into a basket off to the side of the statue. He then stood up and took stock of what was on his statue, pausing when he saw a new leather back slung over the shoulder.

Bruno carefully lifted it over the sculpture and sat down on the ground, checking to see if there was anything inside it. He grinned at seeing the drawings and the food items carefully wrapped up for him. He examined the green embroidery that decorated the strap of the bag, and replaced the worn one he usually wears with the pristine one.

Bruno put his worn bag on his statue, and left it to go over to his sister, who was collecting the items decorating hers.

“Why do they always give me cooking ingredients, we’re able to buy them in town,” Julieta complained as he drew closer.

“You know how people are, just accept it,” Bruno replied, waiting for his sister to finish.

He wasn’t waiting long, Julieta standing up to leave a few moments after he spoke.

“Leaving the jewelry again?” Julieta asked, looking towards his statue.

“They keep making it out of my vision tablets. I keep telling them to stop but they refuse,” He complained.

“You should really take your own advice and just accept that people will be that way,” Julieta replied.

Bruno rolled his eyes, “I’m heading back to Casita. Hopefully I don’t get crowded, knock on wood,” He leaned over and knocked on a nearby table.

Bruno left the temple, quickly heading back home. He had a few people come up to him, but it was a relatively easy journey back to Casita.

All in all, a pretty successful trip.

#mortal deities au #encanto au #encanto fanfic #encanto fanfiction #bruno madrigal

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worldismyne · 1 year

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The Longest Sleepover Ch 10

Summary: The first year of school did not go as planned for Harv and he’s never felt more alone. That is, until a loud kid from the saga studies course decides they’re best friends now.

(Year 1 AU, Harv deals with homophobia, Finn is oblivious.)

Series: Warrior U

Pairing: HarvFinn

Rating: T

Ao3 Link

Harv woke up early that morning and left Finn curled up in his burrito of blankets. He needed time apart from Finn to sort out and bury his feelings. He ate his breakfast in silence, the morning sun casting the kitchen in a bleak grey light. He shouldn't wish for things just because they'd be convenient for himself, especially if it put his hosts in an awkward position. After he finished his meal, he stared at his empty plate like a man who'd committed someone to the grave. The occasional caw of a crow was hardly a comfort as he forced his heavy limbs to add the dishes to the pile in the sink.

"What's gotten into you?" Harv jumped at the sound of the witch's voice.

"Is there anything that needs to be done today?" Harv asked. "I'd like to get it done before Finn wakes up."

"See, now that's more like it!" Leenan collected her morning coffee. "I was starting to think you weren't really serious about the job." Harv's shoulders sagged a bit, still too tired to put on joyful airs. "There's a few potion ingredients I'm short on at the moment. Some of them can be picked from the garden, but one of them is... free range." She eyed the warrior's long hair suspiciously. "How flammable are you?"

Finn came downstairs after waking up to a cold bed and an empty room. It shouldn't have been so bothersome, after all he had spent most of his life waking up this way, but it was unsettling none the less. Harv had promised to wake him the next time he slept in, and yet here he was eating breakfast at mid-morning by himself. His mother, already dressed for the day, assured him nothing was wrong.

"Sweetheart, you can't expect him to be attached at your side every waking moment." Leenan chided.

"Why not?" Finn prodded his half-finished brioche. "It's not like he has anything better to do. Besides, he's still my guest. The whole point of him coming here was to spend time with each other." Leenan had always known her son craved other's approval more than she did. It was a phase every child went through. What concerned her was how quickly Finn was trying to rewrite the nature of his friendship with Harv. He usually only resorted to storytelling when something was bothering him. She took a seat across the table from him.

"It'd be a little difficult for him to find other things to do if you kept him busy, wouldn't it?" Leenan asked. Finn gritted his teeth and sloppily heaped a knife full of marmalade onto his bread.

"I'm not 'keeping him busy', I'm hanging out with my friend." He slammed the knife down. "Is it really so hard to believe that I finally have a real best friend that likes me? Best friends do things together all the time."

"...Not all the time dear." Leenan said.

"How would you know?" Finn dumped his scraps in the waste bin, his appetite lost. "You've never had a best friend."

"Finnegan!" Leenan stood up from the table. "You keep taking that tone with me, and you won't get to play with your friend at all today." She was only trying to help him, but the look he gave her was borderline scathing.

"You can't do that." Finn lingered in the doorway; his mother unwavering. "What we do is nobody else's business; not Beatus, or his dad and certainly not you. I thought you wanted me to be happy." Her expression softened a bit, even in the face of Finn's defensiveness. Others had tried to intervene already; he just didn't want to listen.

"I do want you to be happy."

"Then why is it so bizarre that I am?" Finn snapped back.

"I just don't think it's a good idea to pin all your happiness on one person." She said. The tension eased from his body, now feeling less attacked. It was still frustrating to hear over and over that people were worried about him when there should be nothing to worry about. "I don't like seeing you this anxious. Your friend should be able to run errands without you acting like he's abandoned you."

"I'm not-" Finn bit his lip. "It's not like that... I know I... I am anxious. It's just... I can count on one hand all the times I've seen him smile. It doesn't seem fair." Especially when he was saying things like Finn liked him more than he liked himself. He couldn't just force Harv to like him the way he did either, no matter how hard he'd tried. Knowing Harv had a tendency to try and run from his problems wasn't helping Finn feel more secure either. The best he could do was talk himself out of these anxious thought cycles. "I know he'll come back; I just wish I knew where he went."

"He just went outside." His mother sighed. "Maybe, instead of snapping at your poor mother, you could try asking."

"Sorry." Finn said. His mother hugged him, running her fingers through his hair, still a mess from sleep.

"And I don't think your friend would appreciate you assuming he's unhappy here." Finn nodded into her shoulder. It was hard for him to put into words in a way people would understand. It's not that he thought Harv hated being around him. He just wished Harv was as happy as he was when he was around. "Not everyone shouts joy from the rooftops like you do." It would just be easier if the people around him would stop saying that joy might go away.

He pulled away from his mother with a puzzled expression. Something was clucking outside, and the sound was getting closer. He cautiously entered the front room just as Harv opened the front door.

"Bwkaw!" A bright orange bird climbed from Harv's shoulder to his head. It danced on the top of his skull in a happy circle before settling for a good sit. The furs around Harv's shoulder were a little singed, but otherwise he seemed intact. A smoking beak started to comb through Harv's locs, looking for a good place to start cleaning.

"Hey now, what did I say about the grooming?" Harv said. He gently pushed the bird's head away from hair, only to be outmaneuvered again.

"...mother..." Finn said, catching Leenan the moment she set foot outside the room. "You neglected to mention he was running errands for you."

"Why should that matter?" Leenan shot back sheepishly. "Besides, it's for you too, you know we're almost out of Phoenix feathers. Now just wait right there, I'll get the tweezers." Harv had offered Finn a passing greeting, but otherwise had his handful trying to keep the affectionate bird from nesting on his head.

"Harvey, you didn't need to bring back the whole bird." Finn sighed.

"But it's so sweet, I didn't want to hurt it." Harv said. The dopey thing puffed up its chest with pride as its head flopped backwards against its own back. Thin waves of heat radiated off its feathers, as if a bird could blush.

"Get that thing off your head before you hurt yourself." Finn crossed the room, ideally looking for something to keep the fire bird at a safe distance.

"But it's harm-" The minute Finn made eye contact with the Phoenix he was engulfed in flames. Harv's hand shot up, closing the little beak barehanded. Finn coughed out a puff of smoke, his clothes ashed over and his bangs singed. "...less."

"To you, maybe," Finn dusted off his clothes with disgust, "but not us. And certainly not the furniture." He gasped, rushing to douse a small flaming throw pillow with leftover wine from the night before. He then had to smother the flame on the tile floor. The phoenix looked down on him smugly. "He's doing it on purpose."

"It's a she I think." Harv looked up at the preening bird.

"Even worse."

"Finn..." Harv couldn't help but be amused, even though Finn's face was pinched into a tight scowl. "Are you jealous of a bird?"

"NO!" Finn hurriedly tidied the mess the mystical creature made, his face flushed from embarrassment and the sting of a close flame. It shot off tiny flames when it laughed. If birds could laugh. "I'm not jealous, I just think wild animals should be outside!" Harv couldn't help but find the way Finn huffed afterward cute, even if the bard smelled of burnt lavender. "It's already set a couch on fire." A quick bite of the Phoenix's toes shook him out of his thoughts.

"Where's your mom?" Harv started wandering toward the study.

"Oh no you don't." Finn grabbed Harv's sleeve. "One spark and half of mother's work could explode." Again the bird tried to smother him in flames. "Take it outside!"

"Okay." Harv grabbed the bird by her chubby body and walked out as Finn held the door open. "Come on, we'll wait in the garden." Two sapphire eyes glinted at Finn over Harv's shoulder with pride.

Hours later, Harv was still getting caught up with chores. Finn had collected some biscuits and tea, ready to enjoy his gawking from the garden, but an orange speedbump was keeping him from setting foot outside.

"It's still out there." Finn grumbled as he leered out the kitchen window. The tailless Phoenix would follow Harv around like a little duck, but was always quick to rush to the back porch if Finn so much touched the handle. "Evil little thing."

"I think it's quite handy." Leenan laughed as she stole a biscuit from Finn's tray. "Imagine how much easier it'll be having one in our front yard instead of hunting it down every year?"

"Mother, don't even joke about that." Finn said. "Think of your roses."

"My roses will be fine." Leenan shook her head. "You can see him cleaning out the shed just fine from the window." Finn let out an aggravated sigh. "It's not like you were planning to help him." Finn mumbled a few incoherent complaints. His tea had gone cold, and Harv had barely talked to him all day. It was his first time wearing his new clothes too, and all Finn could catch were glimpses through the dirty glass.

"I'm going to try the north balcony." Finn picked up his tray and marched out the kitchen, much to his mother's growing concern. She had no problem setting up wards to keep magical pests out, not that her son had seriously tried asking for one. Rather he seemed quite focused on getting the best view of, in her opinion, just some guy doing ordinary things. Finn, who'd complain any time she kept the crystal ball focused on a rival garden for too long because it was 'too boring'. While she had her suspicions as to the cause of her son's change in behavior, she couldn't fathom why. At this point, she was a little afraid to ask.

It had been difficult for the bards to find rehearsal space. While all three had played for a live audience before, few people liked hearing the same half-finished songs ad nauseam. Shad and Beatus's hostel room was too cramped, and Finn detested playing outside if he could help it. If Harv was watching, he wanted everything to be perfect, even if it was the first time the three had played together in months.

Finn had reluctantly pointed them in the direction to his mother's shed. It was far enough from grass for Finn to feel comfortable with leaving his harp oil out and far enough from the house to avoid any magical artifacts. Mother's things had a habit of ending up in the wrong hands when visitors were left unattended. Harv's doe-eyed Phoenix had thankfully given up for the evening, waddling back to her nest with a heavy heart, and allowing Finn to finally go into his own backyard again.

The interior of the shed was dusty with plenty of standing room. Chairs from the patio had been cleaned off and brought in for them to use along with some dated linens. Sunlight fought through years of dirt to illuminate the wooden interior. With more time, they could have set up lights or some kind of drapery, but Shad hadn't given them prior notice their original space wouldn't work out.

They still couldn't agree on a name, and Finn was the first to propose playing first and worrying about the name at a later date. The group stumbled through Shad's first choice for a song. Each sour note causing Finn to glance up nervously at their audience of one. It wasn't like he never played for someone before. He'd done plenty of concerts for the palace in the past, but he'd never played this badly in front of someone before. Shad was off rhythm and he suspected Beatus was putting minimal effort as a form of protest over the song choice. He always hated playing anything with lyrics.

"Man, you're really off today Finn." Shad shook his head.

"Can we just play it through once today." Finn shifted uncomfortably at the feeling of blue eyes on his back. "We can worry about everyone's notes at a later date."

"I wouldn't be a very good friend if I let you keep playing badly." Shad said with a wry smile. The blond flushed, fists clenched tight around the frame of his harp. They were all accomplished musicians, anything they played together casually would sound fine. Not perfect, but fine. "What's the rush?" The rush was sitting five feet away from them, picking at his nails because they couldn't get four bars in without stopping. Finn would sooner eat his belt than admit that in front of everyone.

"I have to sleep sometime." Beatus said. "We all do." Finn thanked his lucky stars that for once Beatus was being a pain in his favor, rather than against. Shad shrugged, washing his hands of the other's performance and promised to hold his tongue until the end.

Finn started them off with a few plucky notes, finding the beat set by the drums. He let muscle memory take over, glancing up to catch Harv's full attention. While the warrior was tired, he offered a shy smile, only to cover it up with his hand. He couldn't mask the crescent creases above his cheekbones, and then Finn heard the bum note he played from getting distracted. Shad clicked his tongue, but said nothing. Finn spent the rest of the song struggling to fall back into the music with flushed cheeks.

Once the group started playing, Harv could relax a little, knowing that it was more appropriate for him to watch them when they were actively performing. Watching people perform was a perfectly normal thing to do. No one would blame him for watching the member he knew the best out of the group the most. It just so happened that Finn made the most interesting faces while he played and had taken his gloves off for once, all things that anyone who knew him would notice. From what he could tell, things were proceeding exactly how most rehearsals go. The other bards acted like it was business as usual and Harv applauded himself on how perfectly normal he was being about watching his cute friend get frustrated over playing the wrong note.

#warrior u #harvfinn #little finnharv things #fanfic

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garaksapprentice · 1 year

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Today's Knitting is Brought to You By Sleep Deprivation

I had grand plans when I woke up to Get Stuff Done. The world is technically still on holidays, so this is the perfect time to sneak in some good, long writing and weaving sessions. I managed both yesterday. (I was the only human moving in the house for the entire morning. I watered the plants and set up the mister for the chickens, then hit the workroom and didn’t come out for four hours. It was glorious.)

Unfortunately, I slept like absolute crap last night. The weather was obscenely hot yesterday - 37ºC at 5pm - and I sleep on the west side of the house. It was barely down to 28ºC by bedtime, even with a good southerly breeze and a fan pointing directly at me. I kept waking up, tossing, turning, and generally having a terrible time of it. Even some lackadaisical morning gardening and a decent coffee didn’t help.

So I scrapped the “Get Stuff Done” plan, in favour of the far more restful “dick around the house reading and scrolling social media” backup. On the plus side, I finished Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles book 4) by Ilona Andrews before the library took it back. On the minus, I either wait six weeks for my hold on the newest book in the series, or I experience sweet, sweet instant gratification via my Amazon credit.

One nice thing about reading is that I can work on (some) knitted projects at the same time. All the other fibre stuff I do requires my eyeballs to keep things on track. So one of the vests I’m working on finally saw some love for the first time in months.

It’s about five inches longer than it started today, and right about the time I need to stick the live stitches on a thread and try it on for length. I suspect it will still need another inch or three - I want it a touch longer than my current favourite vest, so it hits the top of my jeans/belt properly and keeps my back a bit warmer. I also haven’t given much thought to the edge (though a nice simple 1x1 rib is always a good option).

Once that’s sorted it’s just armbands and a neck band, weave in a few ends, and enjoy one less WIP on the pile. (Shrinking the size of Area 52 is one of my goals for this year. It’s gotten really quite out of hand, and it’s stressing me.)

I’m slightly concerned about the sizing, too, but at this point I’m not averse to felting it down to size if it’s a touch too large. The weatherproofing would be helpful since it’s destined to be a house vest, and house vests often end up worn in the cold, windy rain in around here.

Speaking of WIPs...

After a ~5 year break, I’m back to using Habitica for day-to-day task management. While the vast majority of my project/task management happens in Obsidian (love that app), I found I needed some distance between “everything that I ever need to do, whether today or five years from now” and “stuff I need to get done within the next week or so".

Both my needs and attitude towards task management have changed a lot over the last few years, so I was hesitant to go back to it, but for right now it meets 95% of my needs. It helps that the elder child is old enough to start learning to manage their own stuff, instead of me. The gamification (especially the pets) is catnip to them. Our little two-person party is doing pretty well for a perpetually-stressed adult with too many responsibilities, and an ADHD homeschooled tween with no sense of time.

And, because I just can’t fkn help myself, I joined a Guild. Just one. I learned my lesson from last time. Overwhelm is the shortest path to a quick death for any system. Of course, I have no sense of restraint, so I joined the New Years Resolutions guild. As the name implies, it features monthly challenges to help you plan, set, and work on yearly goals. I traditionally have a few of those, so *shrug* decided to tag along for the ride. Which leads me to...

#HabiticaResolutions

One of the tasks for this month’s Challenge is to post your goals on social media. Historically, I like to keep things close to the chest, since what I decide to do with my life is between me and me. But, in the spirit of experimentation, I decided to give it a go this year. (There’s a version of the Challenge that doesn’t have the “post to social media” task, so you can opt out of it if you really don’t want to share.)

Thus, my goals for this year:

Finish my current novel/write at least 50,000 words of fiction

Work on improving my writing skills via further education

Publish at least one blog post a month

Spend ~2.5 hours per week working on my weaving skills

Finish at least 12 WIPs (1 per month) from Area 52

Make some clothes for me, not just for the kids (at least 2 items)

Yesterday I wrote a touch over 500 words, and spent not quite 1.5 hours weaving. And now I’m throwing a blog post out there. (Tumblr totally counts, right? It’s easier to use than “real” blogging platforms...) So while I’m bummed that I didn’t have the super productive day I envisioned this morning, I’m still happy with how things are going.

#wip #knitting #habiticaresolutions #new year resolutions #tumblr is actually great though #and so is sleep #sleep is the best #fibre arts #fiber arts

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harper-ance · 2 years

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Kit and Zoey (A himbo romance series - part 3)

The smell of green apple fragrance filled the air while Zoey, wearing bright yellow rubber gloves, worked her way through a pile of dishes. After the incident in the garage the day before, even though she and Kit had finished their shift in there, their boss Justin had thought it was best to switch them out of the dust filled air just in case. At first Zoey had been grateful because the garage was a mess of squirrel nests and heavy boxes, but five minutes inside had her wishing she could be knee deep in the wood scraps again.

The owner of the house they'd been hired to clean out was an adorable older woman, who's four middle aged children were spread out in various other rooms to help pack up the important stuff to set aside somewhere safer. "My my my," the woman kept saying every few minutes. "I'd nearly forgotten about this!" To which she would show an object to Kit who would take an interest and ask about it. Everytime Kit was distracted, Zoey found herself chancing a glance in his direction and staring at the hat he wore, imagining the hair underneath that she had recently seen and learned was actually rather long.

Zoey understood that something was going on with the woman to contribute to her hoarding. It had sounded as though the passing of her husband when their children were still in high school played a big part of it. But hearing that same phrase over and over again while she stared down at the pile of dishes that never seemed to end had Zoey clenching her jaw tight and staring at the soap suds in the sink as as she rinsed the one hundredth plate.

The dishes left behind were only a fraction of the original mess. The crew in there the day before had boxed and trashed the vast majority of them. The only thing that kept Zoey going was that Kit had to stay close at hand, helping to hand dry and put away the dishes. At one point he gently coaxed the woman, whom he fondly called Mimi at her insistence, to toss all her plastic takeout containers into the recycling can he'd brought in from the side yard.

Kit was so good at keeping Mimi on track and distracted with conversation that Zoey didn't have to participate much. She would occasionally thank Mimi when the woman tried to offer her one of ten beverage options from the fridge or would call for Kit's attention when he didn't notice the dishes waiting for him. She was on the verge of thinking her brain was going to melt with boredom when Zoey heard Mimi ask Kit something interesting.

"Are you dating anyone? Is it serious?" Mimi asked. "My granddaughter, you know the one in college I was telling you about earlier? She's a little younger than you, but mature. Real smart girl, real pretty smile. You two would be so lovely together! You should let me call her over, where's my cell phone?"

Zoey stood up a bit straighter as she realized that Kit's answer was more interesting to her than it should be for someone she couldn't stand no more than twenty four hours before. She stared at the plate in her hand extra hard, watched the suds as they rinsed away and disappeared down the drain.

"I'm sure Jenny is wonderful," Kit said, clearing his throat for a moment and turning his back to Mimi in order to pick up a few plates. He busied himself with putting them away before he followed up with, "It's very nice of you, but I'm not looking for anyone right now."

"Oh," Mimi said with interest. "So you are seeing someone? Tell me all about her, I feel like I've told you so much about my dear, late Richard and I haven't heard anything of your...?" Mimi trailed off in an attempt to prompt Kit into giving her some sort of details.

"I'm not seeing anyone," Kit answer. "Not anymore."

"Oh, a broken heart," Mimi fussed before she distracted herself with her own memories of her teen years, telling Kit stories of dates she went on in high school. In between remembered moments she asked Kit if chocolate would make him feel better while turning to her pantry and remarking, "I know there's a few boxes in here... Samples are the best way to go, you know. A little taste of everything."

Zoey glanced over her shoulder to see what Kit was doing only to find him standing closer to her than she realized. He stood there, quietly drying some glasses, and looked much happier than she might have expected. After the internet snooping she'd done the night before, as best as she could tell, he hadn't really been single all that long. And it had looked like his ex had been around for a long time.

"Life is a journey and all we can do is enjoy it," Kit beamed when Mimi paused long enough during her stories. "Smile because it happened, not because it's over. Am I right?" The cheeriness in his voice reminded Zoey, once again, that he was a very different person from herself. The last time she'd been in a breakup situation she had nearly eaten her own weight in ice cream and Krispy Kreme donuts. But Kit was bouncing around the kitchen like he was a delighted little grandchild visiting grandma for a holiday.

Mimi's cellphone began to vibrate on the table and she gasped with obvious glee. "Oh my, her ears must have been ringing! Jenny dear, is that you? Do a video call, there's someone I want you to meet!"

Zoey knew immediately what it was that Mimi was hoping to do and she felt a mixture of amusement and sudden jealousy. After a few protests Jenny relented to a video call while complaining that her hair was a mess, though Zoey doubted that it was. "Meet this wonderful man, Christopher," Mimi said as soon as the video was active. "Isn't he handsome? He's single, too!"

"Grandma!" Jenny exclaimed. "I'm so sorry, my grandmother is just trying to be nice. Mom! Mom can you hear me? Grandma is objectifying people again! Mom? Moooom!"

"What's all this?" The woman who joined them in the kitchen could only be Jenny's mother, Zoey assumed, as she looked over at the small crowd forming. Kit stood behind Mimi with a big, goofy smile on his face while he waved at the video that Mimi was hoisting up for all to see. "Mom, stop pestering Jenny! She had finals to study for." Sheryl poked her head through the doorway behind them all, curious what all the noise was about but kept her distance as a curious bystander.

"Oh, relax Sarah. I just want to make sure Jenny remembers to have fun! Christopher has been so polite today, I'm sure he'd take her on a proper date."

"Mom," Sarah protested, though she laughed a little. "You're supposed to be clearing out the cabinets. I'm sure Jenny can find her own dates."

"Oh," Mimi exclaimed. "I almost forgot to ask. Are you actually gay Jenny? You know your brother just informed me last week that he's gay. They say that kind of thing runs in the family. Zoey over here at the sink is cute, too! She's a hard worker, I bet she could help you study."

Zoey found a phone being shoved in her face all of a sudden, catching her off guard. She wasn't sure if she should be flattered that Mimi had called her cute, or curious what it was about her that made Mimi think she was both single and into women. "Uh," Zoey said, seeing a frazzled girl sitting on her dorm bed with her hand over her face and the sounds of other girls in the background giggling. "I'm not into girls, but good luck with your studying!"

The phone was out of her face just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Zoey wondering when exactly a cleaning job had turned into speed dating. As Sarah wrangled the phone away from Mimi, Kit leaned on the counter next to Zoey and took a plate directly from her rather than the stack she'd been building. "They're adorable," he said, watching them. "It must be nice to a grandmother. Do you think she has those cute little aprons anywhere? I'd wear a cute little apron."

#himbo romance #harper ance #original characters #original writing #hoarders #a story about cleaners #opposites attract #a cheesy romance story #guilty pleasure #writers on tumblr

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bakugoyelling · 2 years

Text

[cake] - tamaki amajiki x reader

wc: 740

summary: per his request, you bake a cake for your boyfriend’s birthday ♡

warnings: fluff + some suggestive talk at the end

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*♡*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

Being around the public sure is draining for Tamaki, but slowly, he’s getting used to it. Plus, he gets to come home to you, wrapped in the serenity that quells his feelings of unease.

After a night out on patrol, the two of you are up to the usual. Relaxing together as you lounge on the sofa — feet propped up on the ottoman.

“So…” you perk up during a commercial, patting Tamaki’s arm to grab his attention. “Next Friday is your birthday,” you remind him, biting your lip to contain your smile.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, grabbing a grape from the fruit bowl the two of you are sharing, promptly biting it in half.

You chuckle at his nonchalant behavior — he’s never been one to make a big deal out of the day.

“Well, what do you want?” you ask, your manners almost flirtatious as you tap your fingers up the length of his arm, stopping at his bicep. “Anything special?”

“Uh, not really,”

You could have guessed that would be his answer, typical Tamaki.

“But, I wanna get you something,” you murmur, peering up at him with a pout. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

In all honesty, he really can’t think of anything he'd like. He hasn’t been eyeing anything recently. And as long as he has what he needs, he’s good. But, perhaps there is one thing you can do for him.

“You can make me a cake,” he suggests.

“Really?!”

“Yeah,” Tamaki smiles at your reaction. “I know you’ve been wanting to practice more so you can make one for my birthday.”

Delighted at the idea, you immediately get to planning, grabbing a piece of paper to jot down a list of ingredients you’ll need. And when you ask Tamaki what flavor he would like, he keeps it simple — vanilla, with white frosting to top it.

So, when the following week rolls around, that’s exactly what you do.

You’re in no way a professional baker, but after tasting a few scraps of cake along with a dollop of homemade icing, you must admit. It’s pretty damn amazing.

Once assembled, “Happy Birthday Tamaki!” is scribbled along the top, and the dessert is finished just in time for his arrival.

As his keys rattle against the front door, you excitedly hurry around the kitchen, dimming the lights before you ignite the candles atop the cake— and when he enters the room, the traditional ballad begins.

Tamaki knew you were making a cake, but he wasn’t expecting such a “grand” presentation.

Still, your off-key singing has him smiling, warmth spreading to his ears as he settles on a place to stare, studying the details of the dessert in front of him.

Noting how awkward it can feel when someone is singing to you, you chuckle at his demeanor.

His eyes don’t settle on you again until you’ve chanted out the last line — peering up at you as his lips pucker, instantly blowing out his celebratory candles.

“Yayy!” you happily clap while Tamaki chuckles, thanking you with a kiss on the cheek.

“Now, we taste it,” you say, hurrying over to grab a cake knife. “I hope it’s good,”

“Well, usually everything you make tastes good, so I’m not too worried,” he says, holding up a plate so you can serve him.

Smirking at his praise, you plop down his slice with ease then, move on to plate a piece for yourself. And with your forks in hand, the two of you dig in.

“Mmm,” Tamaki politely nods as he chews, impressed with the flavor.

“Is it good?” you ask.

“Really good,” he replies, taking another bite.

“Well, just be sure to leave room for dessert,”

“What do you mean…” he stares at you quizzically. “What’s for dessert?”

With his interests piqued, you play it cool. “Oh, I don’t know…me?” you shrug, peering up at him while you play with the pile of frosting on your plate.

Cleary, you have flustered him a bit, your eyes catching the way his throat bobs as he swallows.

“Oh, well, in that case…” he dabs the corner of his lips with a napkin. “Maybe I’d like dessert first,”

"Tama!!" your reserved boyfriend's indication shocks you, your mouth falling open in a gasp as you giggle.

“Hey,” he cracks a nervous smile and chuckles along with you. "You started it…”

And he intends to finish it.

・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

a/n: Happy Tama day! Thanks for reading, if you liked it let me know!

— please do not modify or repost my work.

#tamaki amajiki x reader #amajiki tamaki x reader #tamaki x reader #bnha x reader #bnha fluff #☁️bnha #💗tamaki #🌻fluffy stuff #mp #m.writes

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