like a regular bin, not even recycled or anything

Wall Street Journal goes to bat for the vultures who want to steal your house

Tonight (June 5) at 7:15PM, I’m in London at the British Library with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

Tomorrow (June 6), I’m on a Rightscon panel about interoperability.

The tacit social contract between the Wall Street Journal and its readers is this: the editorial page is for ideology, and the news section is for reality. Money talks and bullshit walks — and reality’s well-known anticapitalist bias means that hewing too closely to ideology will make you broke, and thus unable to push your ideology.

That’s why the editorial page will rail against “printing money” while the news section will confine itself to asking which kinds of federal spending competes with the private sector (creating a bidding war that drives up prices) and which kinds are not. If you want frothing takes about how covid relief checks will create “debt for our grandchildren,” seek it on the editorial page. For sober recognition that giving small amounts of money to working people will simply go to reducing consumer and student debt, look to the news.

But WSJ reporters haven’t had their corpus colossi severed: the brain-lobe that understands economic reality crosstalks with the lobe that worship the idea of a class hierarchy with capital on top and workers tugging their forelacks. When that happens, the coverage gets weird.

Take this weekend’s massive feature on “zombie mortgages,” long-written-off second mortgages that have been bought by pennies for vultures who are now trying to call them in:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/zombie-mortgages-could-force-some-homeowners-into-foreclosure-e615ab2a

These second mortgages — often in the form of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) — date back to the subprime bubble of the early 2000s. As housing prices spiked to obscene levels and banks figured out how to issue risky mortgages and sell them off to suckers, everyday people were encouraged — and often tricked — into borrowing heavily against their houses, on complicated terms that could see their payments skyrocket down the road.

Once the bubble popped in 2008, the value of these houses crashed, and the mortgages fell “underwater” — meaning that market value of the homes was less than the amount outstanding on the mortgage. This triggered the foreclosure crisis, where banks that had received billions in public money forced their borrowers out of their homes. This was official policy: Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner boasted that forcing Americans out of their homes would “foam the runways” for the banks and give them a soft landing;

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

With so many homes underwater on their first mortgages, the holders of those second mortgages wrote them off. They had bought high-risk, high reward debt, the kind whose claims come after the other creditors have been paid off. As prices collapsed, it became clear that there wouldn’t be anything left over after those higher-priority loans were paid off.

The lenders (or the bag-holders the lenders sold the loans to) gave up. They stopped sending borrowers notices, stopped trying to collect. That’s the way markets work, after all — win some, lose some.

But then something funny happened: private equity firms, flush with cash from an increasingly wealthy caste of one percenters, went on a buying spree, snapping up every home they could lay hands on, becoming America’s foremost slumlords, presiding over an inventory of badly maintained homes whose tenants are drowned in junk fees before being evicted:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

This drove a new real estate bubble, as PE companies engaged in bidding wars, confident that they could recoup high one-time payments by charging working people half their incomes in rent on homes they rented by the room. The “recovery” of real estate property brought those second mortgages back from the dead, creating the “zombie mortgages” the WSJ writes about.

These zombie mortgages were then sold at pennies on the dollar to vulture capitalists — finance firms who make a bet that they can convince the debtors to cough up on these old debts. This “distressed debt investing” is a scam that will be familiar to anyone who spends any time watching “finance influencers” — like forex trading and real estate flipping, it’s a favorite get-rich-quick scheme peddled to desperate people seeking “passive income.”

Like all get-rich-quick schemes, distressed debt investing is too good to be true. These ancient debts are generally past the statute of limitations and have been zeroed out by law. Even “good” debts generally lack any kind of paper-trail, having been traded from one aspiring arm-breaker to another so many times that the receipts are long gone.

Ultimately, distressed debt “investing” is a form of fraud, in which the “investor” has to master a social engineering patter in which they convince the putative debtor to pay debts they don’t actually owe, either by shading the truth or lying outright, generally salted with threats of civil and criminal penalties for a failure to pay.

That certainly goes for zombie mortgages. Writing about the WSJ’s coverage on Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith reminds readers not to “pay these extortionists a dime” without consulting a lawyer or a nonprofit debt counsellor, because any payment “vitiates” (revives) an otherwise dead loan:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/06/wall-street-journal-aids-vulture-investors-threatening-second-mortgage-borrowers-with-foreclosure-on-nearly-always-legally-unenforceable-debt.html

But the WSJ’s 35-paragraph story somehow finds little room to advise readers on how to handle these shakedowns. Instead, it lionizes the arm-breakers who are chasing these debts as “investors…[who] make mortgage lending work.” The Journal even repeats — without commentary — the that these so-called investors’ “goal is to positively impact homeowners’ lives by helping them resolve past debt.”

This is where the Journal’s ideology bleeds off the editorial page into the news section. There is no credible theory that says that mortgage markets are improved by safeguarding the rights of vulture capitalists who buy old, forgotten second mortgages off reckless lenders who wrote them off a decade ago.

Doubtless there’s some version of the Hayek Mind-Virus that says that upholding the claims of lenders — even after those claims have been forgotten, revived and sold off — will give “capital allocators” the “confidence” they need to make loans in the future, which will improve the ability of everyday people to afford to buy houses, incentivizing developers to build houses, etc, etc.

But this is an ideological fairy-tale. As Michael Hudson describes in his brilliant histories of jubilee — debt cancellation — through history, societies that unfailingly prioritize the claims of lenders over borrowers eventually collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

Foundationally, debts are amassed by producers who need to borrow capital to make the things that we all need. A farmer needs to borrow for seed and equipment and labor in order to sow and reap the harvest. If the harvest comes in, the farmer pays their debts. But not every harvest comes in — blight, storms, war or sickness — will eventually cause a failure and a default.

In those bad years, farmers don’t pay their debts, and then they add to them, borrowing for the next year. Even if that year’s harvest is good, some debt remains. Gradually, over time, farmers catch enough bad beats that they end up hopelessly mired in debt — debt that is passed on to their kids, just as the right to collect the debts are passed on to the lenders’ kids.

Left on its own, this splits society into hereditary creditors who get to dictate the conduct of hereditary debtors. Run things this way long enough and every farmer finds themselves obliged to grow ornamental flowers and dainties for their creditors’ dinner tables, while everyone else goes hungry — and society collapses.

The answer is jubilee: periodically zeroing out creditors’ claims by wiping all debts away. Jubilees were declared when a new king took the throne, or at set intervals, or whenever things got too lopsided. The point of capital allocation is efficiency and thus shared prosperity, not enriching capital allocators. That enrichment is merely an incentive, not the goal.

For generations, American policy has been to make housing asset appreciation the primary means by which families amass and pass on wealth; this is in contrast to, say, labor rights, which produce wealth by rewarding work with more pay and benefits. The American vision is that workers don’t need rights as workers, they need rights as owners — of homes, which will always increase in value.

There’s an obvious flaw in this logic: houses are necessities, as well as assets. You need a place to live in order to raise a family, do a job, found a business, get an education, recover from sickness or live out your retirement. Making houses monotonically more expensive benefits the people who get in early, but everyone else ends up crushed when their human necessity is treated as an asset:

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

Worse: without a strong labor sector to provide countervailing force for capital, US politics has become increasingly friendly to rent-seekers of all kinds, who have increased the cost of health-care, education, and long-term care to eye-watering heights, forcing workers to remortgage, or sell off, the homes that were meant to be the source of their family’s long-term prosperity:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9

Today, reality’s leftist bias is getting harder and harder to ignore. The idea that people who buy debt at pennies on the dollar should be cheered on as they drain the bank-accounts — or seize the homes — of people who do productive work is pure ideology, the kind of thing you’d expect to see on the WSJ’s editorial page, but which sticks out like a sore thumb in the news pages.

Thankfully, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is on the case. Director Rohit Chopra has warned the arm-breakers chasing payments on zombie mortgages that it’s illegal for them to “threaten judicial actions, such as foreclosures, for debts that are past a state’s statute of limitations.”

But there’s still plenty of room for more action. As Smith notes, the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement — a “get out of jail for almost free” card for the big banks — enticed lots of banks to discharge those second mortgages. Per Smith: “if any servicer sold a second mortgage to a vulture lender that it had charged off and used for credit in the National Mortgage Settlement, it defrauded the Feds and applicable state.”

Maybe some hungry state attorney general could go after the banks pulling these fast ones and hit them for millions in fines — and then use the money to build public housing.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in London and Berlin!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/vulture-capitalism/#distressed-assets

[Image ID: A Georgian eviction scene in which a bobby oversees three thugs who are using a battering ram to knock down a rural cottage wall. The image has been crudely colorized. A vulture looks on from the right, wearing a top-hat. The battering ram bears the WSJ logo.]

(Reposted from DW)

So I try not to make these rambles too powered by salt but considering Impactor is very near my favourite character in the franchise and as a result I read a lot of badfic featuring him out of sheer desperation for something, I'm seriously devastated by the way I've never seen it explored just what a harrowing and accurate description of moral injury and reflexive self-loathing he is.

Like, it's wild to me that we have it in the text, actually on page, that Impactor outright thinks he's a monster. We see it on page! It is written with plain words! He's stuck thinking like "can't survive if the other guy doesn't die", "your life is bought with the blood you spill, and you want to keep living so you best learn to like killing" to the point where he doesn't even want to live anymore and yet he can't stop, he's stuck, there's no safety for him to retreat back to because nobody taught him to value himself in any other way except in balance against someone else.

Like we know. Exactly what Impactor considers horrible, what he considers ugly and unseemly and corrupt. And it's all stuff that makes sense. It's all stuff the most of us probably find a little bit horrifying. We know that his perception of the world is so utterly bleak that there is no way but down, the only trajectory he sees for himself is to slip further and further from that surface because this is just his life now, this is what he is now, this may be what he always was, so isolated in his self-loathing that he can barely see the surface of where the horrible things end, and sure as hell doesn't think he can reach it. He's been cut off from his access to the sublime, to the fortifying, to the beautiful and wonderful and safe, this is all he has left, this is just what he is now.

I think the massive overriding misreading is assuming Impactor has any regard for himself. He may have the ability to act confident and move through the world with intellectual assurance over his own skill, and it's easy to take that as a sign that he has some kind of a core, undivided wholeness of personhood that lets him keep acting like he knows what he's doing. But I don't think that's it at all. His sense of self has been so completely fractured and damaged by the horrors he's committed and been isolated with that they've attached themselves to the space where his sense of self would otherwise be. Again, I'm not even extrapolating -- this just is the text of "Escape".

And then there's the negative influence of Guzzle, another person who thinks the way to deal with your trauma is by committing massive violence on it who has no idea this should maybe be something to discuss with people -- like, we see the way his abandon and reveling in having power and returning the violence drags Impactor down, too, because it's familiar, it makes sense, and then Impactor locks him in a box and goes "I can't fucking do this anymore". It's literally the most unsubtle death wish, it's a textbook flight arrest response, he doesn't want to keep doing the thing he's doing but he doesn't know what else there is, he sees no way out other than down.

And IDK I don't want to cast blame, honestly as a recovering abusive asshole myself, the terrible things he does to other people out of a sense of "this is how it has to be, don't be naive, don't be stupid", the loop of self-justification and grasping for value in his identity as an anonymous source of violence and ruiner of lives is a big part of why I love him so much, and his victims are really visible in the text, their mess deserves exploration and their pain deserves narrative validation, if only for completeness' sake

but like goddamn I just feel for this trash mech so much. He was left locked up with only his own bad thoughts for company, forced in a situation where becoming a worse person was the only way to escape further pain to the point where he's just completely cut off from his access to the sublime, to the fortifying, to the beautiful and wonderful and safe. Like where is there to go when the only things you know what to do are all fucked up? What do you do when all you've been "taught" is that living means killing, but you're getting extremely sick of the killing, when you're tired of your whole life being stained in blood and gore and the traces of the grotesquerie that is living with the knowledge that having power over other people is the ultimate act of survival when you never wanted that?

Ticketmaster, The Master of All Tickets

Thoa Pham

37685344

ECON20A Monday 3PM

Introduction

As a teenage girl with a mediocre social life and an undying academic victim streak, I have to resort to other means to find my happiness–music. Now, I’m sure many people can relate to me in this aspect because music is a component of our lives that we cannot completely get rid of, even if some of us hate it. It allows us to feel, and we know that feeling our emotions is extremely important. Personally, I am a big fan of the K-Pop group, Enhypen, so in order to REALLY feel, I bought their concert tickets, and I knew that my enemy from the start was going to be Ticketmaster, the platform where everything goes down, where people want to rip their hair out to see their favorite artists.  

Ticketmaster as a Monopoly 

In 2010, Ticketmaster and Live Nation had a merger that was speculated to lower ticket prices and increase the efficiency in the ticketing market. However, not much of these goals that they had in mind were observed in the last 14 years. The platform is known to have terrible service and absurd amounts charged for tickets themselves, and services fees along with that. There have been many lawsuits filed against them for acting like a monopoly and kicking out competition from the market. To be completely clear, Ticketmaster is not the only online ticketing platform, however, due to the fact that their competitors do not perform as well as them, they are allowed to function in a monopolistic model instead. 

It has been highlighted that many artists do not have much control over setting the price of their own concert tickets, and it is mostly Ticketmaster’s decision. Serena Elton, a former executive with EMI has stated that “Your choice becomes do a deal with them and do this tour, or don’t and don’t tour”, emphasizing how little control over their agreements the actual artists and their team gets. Rosen, the CEO of Ticketmaster, changed the system so that instead of paying Ticketmaster for using their website, Ticketmaster would pay the venues a portion of the service fees. This allowed them to be the sole provider of concert tickets because the venues were getting paid to use their platform. 

As a result, this led to even higher service fees charged towards ticket buyers, so that there was enough profit to divide to venues. Although service fees are at an all time high (as much as ~30% of face value), concert tickets are still in high demand as there are many fans that would pay these fees for the tradeoff of their happiness. Companies like Ticketmaster feed off of this high demand by raising ticket prices without worrying about whether their tickets will be bought or not, and since they are similar to a monopoly, they can set their own prices without much worries. Even as their CEO has stated, he is not worried about the change in demand due to service fees. 

lh7-us.googleusercontent.com

The graph above shows that at the level of quantity produced by Ticketmaster, their price should be much lower at P*, rather than at P^m, the monopoly pricing where MC=MR, and the quantity at that point is priced at where it intersects with the Demand curve, D. The profit that Ticketmaster makes is also shown in the graph along with the deadweight loss that consumers lose in the value that they pay for and the producers lose in the benefits that they get. 

Dynamic Pricing Strategy 

Another aspect of Ticketmaster that is extremely despised by fans of artists is their dynamic pricing. This means that when demands are high, their supply will also be high, increasing the prices of the tickets, especially during the beginning hours of ticket sales, where the website will have traffic jams with people queuing up to purchase tickets. 

lh7-us.googleusercontent.com

Resellers 

While many fans wait in the queue despite the 8000+ people in front of them, there are many who are not able to grab a ticket for themselves because there are faster “fans” in front of them. These people are most likely just as despised as Ticketmaster, due to the high prices that they resell the tickets at. Most of the time, these tickets sit on the website for a long time, awaiting someone who will purchase them. As time goes on, the prices get lowered and this is why many people will wait until the last minute to make these purchases. Resellers, however, operate by setting their prices higher than the price that they purchased for through a markup by following P > c. However, they do not get to keep the entire difference of their sales as Ticketmaster does take a portion of that profit for themselves. 

Conclusion 

My friends and I were absolutely shocked to wait in the queue early and enter the ticketing site with almost nosebleed tickets that were priced at $75 dollars each due to the lack of choices that were available. Then as we were checking out three tickets, the total shot up to over $350 dollars. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. Because it was my first time buying tickets for a concert, and it was on Ticketmaster, I got to understand the hatred towards Ticketmaster that so many fans from different artists have for it. However, as I am looking at the website right now, there are reselling tickets that go for $300 for the same section that I bought, making me feel very grateful. I think my biggest takeaway from this experience is to save my money next time and simply watch through a laptop screen on Youtube instead.

hermes crocodile birkin 8

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SHEA BUTTER BABY | S. James

Requested by: @theshyprincess “Can I get a spencer James getting married and smut biracial if I’m not bothering you I really like your writing”

A/N: decided to do this in hc form, hope that’s cool? And it’s been my thing lately anyways lol. Hope you like this one! I also hope I channeled Spencer well 🙃

WARNINGS: light smut + some curse words ofc!

We all know Spencer takes the world on his shoulders; when his finds you, you become his world

You meet freshman year in university, specifically on the football field and decided to invite him to a sorority party because what’s the best way to start off your freshman year? A little party never hurt nobody

Except it did, things got rowdy resulting with a huge ass knot on your forehead and losing consciousness for a few minutes

You expected Spencer to dip like any other asshole dude would have but you were shocked that he actually came to your aid and walked you back to your dorm even tho you had a “big ass egg” growing from your forehead

You could laugh about it a little then, but more so now

He actually asked for your number before you departed, even tho you thought you majorly screwed whatever this was up but he wanted to see you again and you were more than happy to oblige

It was instant friendship with a touch of flirtations but you knew that he recently got out of some heartbreak from his senior year of high school and you had no choice but to respect that he wasn’t looking for a relationship right now

Day by day you became the best of friends spending majority of your time together while also getting to know each other’s outside friends and family, you became each other’s family

It was end of sophomore year where Spencer decided he wanted to give it a go but it was your turn to be leery since you watched him go through some girls but he never flaunted that in front of you, yet you always knew

You didn’t want to be his last option

“You could never be that, y/n. You’re so much more than what you think I think of you.”

Words of affirmation is definitely Spencer’s love language and he had no problem saying how he felt about you

He openly admitted that he was confused at first, trying to fight with his inner self on taking your friendship into the love zone. He’s always gone the friendship route first before it turned into romance—well maybe not with Kia but his past two relationships he did

He was not only confused but nervous and you made him work a little bit to get a date from you but you didn’t hold out for too long since you felt Spencer was your person

You took things slow but you still felt like friends except now you held onto each other a little longer and touches seem to burn now but you liked it, really liked it

Senior year is when he proposes, he’s actually the second out of his group of friends back home to get engaged...JJ was the first and actually went through with the marriage after one drunken night in vegas with some girl who was studying physical therapy

Sure it’s only been two years but like your grandmother always says, “when you feel a pull in your heart whenever they’re not around, they’re the one baby.” And your grandparents got married only after knowing each other for four months. Every love is different

You were a sappy mess and Spencer found it humorous while slipping the ring on and embracing you, “we not doing that. Save it until the wedding, huh?”

And he gets a few nice whacks to the chest but he can take it ofc as he’s kissing you so gently

It’s a private moment and you wouldn’t have it any other way

A year and a few months after you graduate, Spencer gets drafted into the NFL and you’re still searching for a job you majored in

You’re both living apart with you going back to your hometown in Arizona and Spencer in Cali. Things aren’t easy but you’ve been planning your wedding and it feels like Spencer is just saying he’s okay with everything which is frustrating. You don’t want to do this alone and you need to find a place to live together, you didn’t want to live with Spencer’s mom and brother as much as you loved them. You were both adults and needed to take the wheel

Yet it always felt like Spencer was busy planning on putting further distance between you since he was secure in his career and you just felt stuck

That caused a riff between you two but Spencer didn’t like that silent treatment bs. You were gonna talk to him one way or another

Once you get through it, which you definitely do!! it’s pure heaven and you couldn’t be happier

You get married at a banquet hall

You both have a lot friends and family that’ve invited

Your best friends + sibs are your best men, bridesmaids, maid of honor

Spencer leaves a chair open for his dad up front with his mom and brother 🥲

Initially you were going to have your guests pick whatever seat they wanted and just have your immediate family have the front areas but you knew that would probably end up hectic with the strong personalities you had within your friend and family group so you kept it traditional. Your family/friends on one side and spence’s family/friends on the other

Memorable wedding, you were gorgeous and he was so handsome. You loved when Spencer got dressed up, it did something to you and you couldn’t wait for your honeymoon

It wouldn’t be anything over the top like The Bakers tried to gift you with, you just wanted something simple but nice with the man you loved

You were going to Palm Springs the next morning!!! Spending the night in the hotel

You were going to hold out even longer until the night you reached your honeymoon destination 😌

Spencer wanted the both of you to write your own vows and you sure didn’t know how you would compete with this guy. Spencer James always had a way with words!!!

He ofc had you a sobbing mess again but you knew it was never about out-showing the other

when you seal your marriage with a kiss, his hands rest securely on your hips with your hand cradling his jaw and you’re all smiles as the hall fills with cheers

“I love you, Mrs. James.” He’s got that smirk of a smile on his lips and love in his eyes

“As do I, Mr. James.” And you can’t wipe the smile from your own lips even if you tried

One thing you both know how to do is party so the reception goes on for awhile, until about 3 am even tho you both have to be on the road by 10 or a little later since check in isn’t until early afternoon

You’re both so giddy you can hardly sleep but you eventually do, you in your dress + Spencer in his dress shirt but he’s lost the tie and loosened his pants

Since Palm Springs is a 2 hr drive you’re reminiscing on how you basically taught Spencer how to drive and look at how far he’s come now with the rental you’re both using for 4 days and 3 nights

“so it’s my fault you don’t know how to instruct?” Which leads to harmless bickering over spencer’s road trip playlist

it’s been agreed that you each had an hour to play your playlists then for the left over minutes you’d listen to the radio once you got to your destination

your airbnb is REAL colorful and modern, not exactly your tastes but nonetheless it was your getaway from home. You were used to the desert while spencer? Not so much

“the hell was that?” Spencer is dodging and weaving especially if they fly

“looks like fire ants.” keep your distance.” “Why do you know what that is?” “I get stuck watching discovery channel with my dad when I can’t sleep and he’s always up. I saw one episode about them and we don’t want to mess with those bastards.”

you don’t do much with the rest of your day there, just enjoying each other’s company in the air bnb

You decide to shower while Spencer is ordering y’all your dinner from grubhub and deciding what you’re going to watch on firestick that you bought with you

you tend to take long showers so you’re just about done rubbing shea butter into your skin when Spencer announces that the food is here through the door

when you step out you’re on a mission with your silk robe, bustier, and garter

although you kept your own values of saving yourself until marriage—while Spencer was way more experienced you didn’t feel as nervous to get intimate with the man of your dreams

but that changed the moment his set his eyes on you

“what’s this?” He smirks, popping a fry into his mouth

You’re playing coy as your skin shines, leaning over to steal one of his fries. “My pajamas.”

He’s amused but definitely turned on, “oh aight, so that’s just the norm for you now?”

“I could change.” You pointed back to the where the bathroom sat

“I ain’t say all that, Mrs. James.” Spencer blinks then lifts his head upwards, “c’mere.”

And you move to sit on his lap with excitement even tho you think you hide it pretty well. You’ve always pictured how this would be and you knew from stories from your cousins and friends that half of them didn’t have the most romantic experience...

You didn’t need the rose petals and candles but you knew Spencer was a romantic at heart, plus you had plenty of time to see what was up his sleeve and knew this wouldn’t be the only time as of tonight. You were hoping!!!

“Are we starting dinner?” You ask, wrapping an arm across his shoulders but his eyes are set only on you

“I’m hungry for somethin’ else right now,” his nose presses against your beating throat, “and it just walked in here, looking good enough for this appetite.”

Now he’s kissing on your neck and when he gets to that sweet spot behind your ear he’s got the confirmation he needs but he needs to hear you say it. And he asks with his eyes which you reply with a dip of your head

Now he’s got his hands underneath your thighs, locking your legs around his waist for you and he’s off to your temporary bedroom

He’s always so gentle with you, even when he’s laying you down on this bed

“I promise the next time we do this, I’ll make the place look special for you.” He says into your neck and your nod as you feel the weight of him against you

You’re gasping for breath before he’s been fully touched you yet, “we still have the tub and a couple of days.”

He breathes out a laugh, “that we do. That we do.” Before your lips are brought back together

You know you are loved with the way Spencer touches you and speaks to you even in your most intimate moment

He builds you up before he gives himself all to you. It’s something you heard about, SEEN and knew it was crucial but you didn’t want to put too much logic in this moment. You don’t think you can even think straignt with the way you’re on fire for Spencer rn

And he’s know that but he needs you to be patient, he knows how to take his time. And he should know what he’s doing...he does

He’s seeing what your body likes, he’s watching his face even when you begin to whine for him

He knows when you’re truly ready even when you’re begging

He gives you your first climax with his mouth and you know you need more because you knew how much you loved his lips but you loved them even more now

“even better than I imagined,” he says with a lick of his lips from below before pressing a kiss on your abdomen and you’re still seeing stars

“you okay up there?” He asks. He’s always seeking reassurance from you. That’s too important to him, you’re too important to him

You have to say it as your vision slowly starts to splat back to normal, “I need you i-in— but there’s heat pooling in your cheeks. You’re a bit shy now as you’re getting in your head wondering how you must have sounded or looked in that moment of your first climax but it didn’t seem as if Spencer was disappointed. He seemed just as happy to please

He knows what you need. He worked with your body up to this moment

So he’s kissing up your body, slow and soft. He looks into your eyes before he glances over to grab his wallet from the night stand to grab protection

you didn’t think this far ahead but part of you wanted to know if there was a difference without, ofc you knew the risks without and you had forever to try so you made no comment about the choice to use protection

You wanted to do the honors, and so you did

You were surely in awe to be this close and personal with something you get to have for a lifetime

“Careful, something might fly in there.”

You can’t help but you roll your eyes and snort as Spencer places a kiss to your cheek before he reaches up to lock your hands together and up over your head, your wedding bands contrasting against the bright orange walls and your shea butter skin

“I’m ready.” You whisper, your eyes shifting from Spencer’s deep brown eyes to where your bodies would connect

Spencer hums as he keeps his eyes on yours before lining up, he has to free one of his hands to guide

and your mouth falls open with a slight arch in your back

He doesn’t move right away, he needs to be sure

when you lock both legs around his hips, tugging him closer than close to you, fully allowing him in your space, you then squeeze your hands tighter together, never wanting to let go

Spencer James was all you ever needed and you were more than thrilled to continue this journey of life with him

Random Personal Rant

For anyone somehow here not from the original thread, this started off me getting asked what finishing school is and me getting shit off my chest that is only mildly relevant about how I could both be of the social class that gets sent to finishing school and grows up on welfare.

With an understanding that in many parts of the world it wouldn't qualify as so, as far as the US goes, my dad is from what counts as a very old money family from Baltimore & Philadelphia. Both his siblings went to college and one now owns a major hedge fund, and his sister is married to a C-level executive at a huge conglomerate. His parents went to college. His grandparents went to college. All eight of his great grandparents went to college. My dad...did not go to college. He was not about that life, and while I don't mean it as an insult, when I say his primary occupation until I was ~5 was a drummer in a mediocre band I mean that he opened for a lot of great acts, and if you lived in the Boston to Atlanta area in the 80s you may have heard him play, but he was never a huge national name. But he wasn't an amateur band playing for free at some random local gig either.

My mom grew up on a chicken farm in a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania but also completely rejected her heritage and became a model, sort of like my father, of mediocre status. Not Giselle Bundchen, but had national contracts and if you have a Graco ad/box from 1990-1993 you might see both me and her on it. They met because my mom's friends placed bets, one each, on who could sleep with a member of their favorite local band first and my mom picked my dad and...my mom was actually supposed to go be a model in Tokyo and found out she was pregnant with me and couldn't go 😂

So, after my parents had two kids back to back with a third on the way and determined they needed lifestyles more in line with having three children, they became much poorer than they originally were because my mom stopped working and my dad, with a barely-passed-high-school education but needing a true "day job" worked day labor in construction. My dad's father was too proud to give us money/help if my dad didn't beg for it; despite having eventually four young children my dad never did so we ended up on all the state assistance programs one could imagine. My grandma jokes that dinners at my parents house were BYOC - bring your own chair, because we didn't own any.

My mother and paternal grandmother had no such pride issues and I live in eternal gratitude that my welfare childhood was not as crappy as it should have been because my grandmother would have my mom accompany her on grocery runs and buy us food without my father or grandfather knowing, and every Christmas and birthday my grandparents/godparents could give us the one big ticket gift all the kids wanted that year. But, on the other side, I once got stung by a bee inside my mouth because my brother threw a hairbrush through a cracked window at me and broke it and we couldn't afford to fix it for about two years and a hornet got in one day and rested himself in my coke can (my parents were the very American type that fed me coca-cola in baby bottles at age 8 when I was jealous of my younger siblings lol).

It is hard not to believe in "toxic masculinity" when two men warring over dumbass pride issues would rather their children/grandchildren go without food than suck it up and decide 'help' isn't the worst word in the English language, and you know you've only been saved by two women who came from totally different backgrounds and entirely disapproved of each other but reached out the hand to shake when it came down to toddlers getting the short end of the don't-bend-the-knee stick. It wasn't that either of the men were bad people, I loved them both and got along great with both, but on a societal level I feel they were socialized in a very fucked up way if that was the end result, as both claimed "male pride" in these instances [my dad took multiple thousands of dollars I'd saved from working during college from me during the 2008-2010 financial crisis and didn't tell me and that was the reason I was given for why I hadn't been informed/asked, because it would be too emotionally difficult for an adult man to ask a young woman. My graduation present was them repaying me 1/3 of the money they'd taken from me without asking because I'd like, trusted them when it had been in a joint account that was a holdover from when I was <18 and couldn't have my own bank account].

While in some ways my parents on the surface achieved the American dream of going from nothing to a bunch of money, the real factor in play was that my dad's father was the bank. My parents had no credit and couldn't get real loans. My dad worked construction and during the two major periods that flipping houses was very lucrative, he never had to get an actual loan or pay actual interest, he just had to ask his father to pay out cash and then repay him at a flat 2% interest rate that didn't even accrue over time, just...whenever you are ready, repay the value of the loan + 2%. Because my father was doing something productive, in these instances, my grandfather was happy to pay, because it wasn't giving away money, it was loaning it. I had a very weird situation of mostly being poor but like also getting taken to the "big donors" events at the Kennedy Center and my grandparents regularly buying me a dress as a child worth more than my mom's wedding dress and also needing to pretend I fit in with these people.

And look. When I say "these people"...honestly, by and large, most wealthy people, whether inherited or not, are not the assholes you want to imagine. Most of them are extremely nice. Most of them are generous when it comes to the less fortunate who are in their personal sphere of being. Most of them are just really out of touch. The 100% kindest of all of them that I know once relayed to me that she thought people would be happier if once a year they did what she did...go to the airport with a purse packed full of absolute necessities, buy a one way ticket to the most appealing destination on the flight board, buy your clothes and book your accommodations after you'd arrived, and come back after you felt you'd 'centered' yourself. She didn't understand why there were so many unhappy people who weren't taking this very obvious route to being happier. I didn't quite know how to explain that saying "most" people couldn't afford to do that either financially or from a job/career angle didn't even cover it, as "most" sounds like 70% instead of 99.7%.

I was both my parents eldest son and eldest daughter in the worst combination possible. I was the eldest son because I was the most stereotypically male of all my siblings, in everything from desire to physically fight the battles I was given to dislike of shopping/fashion to lack of emotional connection to my relationships, so I can now fix your average household plumbing/drywall/electrical issue better than most "city" guys I interact with and remain less clingy to them in the process. I was also very much the oldest daughter from a responsibility perspective, I managed our household and from age 10 - 24 managed the finances of our family business, my mom almost died giving birth to my youngest brother after a ruptured uterus that should never have happened in the first place if we had adequate insurance to get her a non-emergency C-section (I was just past 9 years old at the time) and I was informally withdrawn from school for two years to take care of the family when she couldn't because there is no paid parental leave in the US and we got double-fucked by the medical industry because she got a bad "mesh" put in and then had to have a further surgery to repair that which we also had to pay for and didn't have the money to win a lawsuit over.

I don't know quite how to put this, but in the deepest fuck you of the universe, my rich-immigrant-ggggg grandfather's money led to him owning banks, insurance companies, etc, and the family cashed out in a big way when their ownership was bought by and merged with what is now Cigna, one of the biggest US healthcare insurers, and my nuclear family specifically got screwed by the American health insurance industry, but anyway, we were the people selected for that karmic comeuppance so if you want to feel schadenfreude at my expense, I'll allow it without begrudging the sentiment, my family might have fucked up your family’s life too, not just their own.

I got up twice a night to feed my brother because my dad had to sleep unmolested in my room to get to work and my mom was too weak to carry my brother or even hold him against her while she nursed so I had to hold him up to her. Adjusting to living in a city and hearing lots of random noises all the time was not easy when I'd had mom sound instincts from age 9.

I learned to drive the fall my youngest bro was born because my mom couldn't and I had to get my middle brother to preschool and go the grocery store on my own. While I hold absolutely no ill will towards my father or grandfather for this and given that about 1/3 of my paternal family either has an autism diagnosis or should, I fully feel the struggles they both went through to be communicated with, my father wouldn't ask for help, and my grandmother that lived 20 minutes away couldn't give enough help because my grandfather refused to do a single dish on his own as that was outside their "marriage contract" type agreement and she couldn't ever stay with us overnight when there wasn't a clearly-communicated need, so they let the burden fall on a 9 - 11 year old child and that really shaped a lot of my life in both good and bad ways. My youngest brother is 22, and we have only just climbed out of the medical debt his birth left us with between my dad's life insurance and my oldest brother and I paying for the extra cost of out-of-state college tuition.

The irony of all of this is that because my father died before his father, when my grandmother dies, my siblings and I will all inherit enough money (as a non-blood relative my mom, despite keeping her vows to part at death and not having remarried in eight years, is cut out entirely) to make this a non-issue, but my grandfather couldn't conscience spotting his unluckiest child some money in the end of days to pay for my youngest two brothers' education and take that worry off my father as he was dying. The day before he died I had to hold him down in bed to keep him from trying to climb in his truck to go to work because he was so anxious about trying to provide for us in spite of his father having fuck you money, because his father didn't think it was fair to the other siblings (who, at the time, still owned a major hedge fund and were married to a C-level executive of a huge conglomerate). A day and a half later I went back to my job because at the time I was then the sole provider for the family and didn't want to risk asking for the standard week's bereavement leave when I knew I was capable of showing up at work the next day and was fresh out of college so hadn't built up a reputation yet.

My father worked the day each of us was born, so I suppose it is only fair and he smiled at the choice. In spite of what it may seem, I gave a baller and very heartfelt speech at his funeral to all his rich friends that over and above everything, he'd taught us how to be happy with our own lives no matter what, and multiple of them emailed my mom in the aftermath to say they'd reassessed their relationship with their children in light of it, although...tbh I kind of doubt that lasted and they probably changed nothing 😅. The last good talk I had with him, two weeks before he died [his liver was going and it sent toxins to his brain that de-personed him after that and he no longer recognized me as his daughter, but as his sister], I reassured him that though we would all be sad he'd gone, we'd live on just fine without him because that's how he'd raised us, and according to my mom that was what gave him the final bit of peace he needed. Although honestly, I don't think I will ever see the strength in another human again that it took my grandmother to sit next to him and stroke his hand and tell him to close his eyes and imagine he was happy on a beach and die, for God's sake, because he was unaware and in pain and just prolonging it for our sake by then.

That type of obsession my grandfather had with assessing his children and grandchildren on the basis of economic productivity and a very black and white idea of "fair" is one you don't easily forget, I promise you. My hedge fund uncle is currently positioning himself to screw us out of our inheritance because of janky writing in the will and I'm doing my fuck all best to gain the wherewithal to go toe-to-toe with this cold motherfucker in court as the oldest and representative member of my happily much nicer and softer younger brothers who I want to remain that way not because I even care that much about the money, I know what bills affect your credit first and what you can put off paying and all of us have good enough career prospects to do our own thing, but just because I want to give the middle finger to a man that was a multi-millionaire and drew lines on his milk and orange juice bottles when I came over so he knew if I drank what my parents couldn't afford when I was approximately six. Anyway, ask me why I support major reforms in wealth taxation. I don't care who it goes to, just not that guy, you feel?

Having expendable income was very exciting for a bit after I started working but once I got to the hateable point of assessing my annual bonus and internally complaining that I'd spent the money I should have spent on a Sauternes cellar to drop five digits on bedset materials (to be fair they are drop dead gorgeous, very comfy and the factory pays a living wage for people to handmake the sheets/duvets/pillows to people in San Francisco, which is not cheap, so maybe I did more good than harm with that), I two seconds later nodded to myself and went "the government needs to confiscate more money from me". The narrative is always that the "undeserving" will use it for dumb things they don't need like iPhones or refrigerators...?...but like...I could also have gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a very nice sheet/comforter set for at most a tenth of what I paid so am I really spending it responsibly either....?....who is going to get more joy out of this misspent money....?....not me, that is for sure, I probably would have had more fun going to BBB and laying on all the demo beds and buying something there.

My lifelong dream, which may become possible if/when I do have something of an inheritance, is to provide food security for one of the many towns in the US were most residents don't have it. It's the thing I remember the most distinctly over the years. I never could quite believe it when I got to the point that I could just...pay to eat at a restaurant. One of the most disappointed my mother has ever been in me is when I was twenty five and confessed I actually had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost in a city grocery store besides that it was probably between $1 and $5, because I didn't have to know. For now I make a weekly drop off of my excess produce to a mom group I met under somewhat weird circumstances but I was walking through the cut-through that went through the low-income housing back to my apartment at like 2 AM on a Saturday and these moms were out there partying and smoking weed with their kids all strapped in strollers around or the older ones watched by a rotating member of the group and I felt very safe and like these moms had a very good vibe of both living their own lives [seriously for mental health parents but in most cases specifically mothers need to be able to keep up relationships with people their age] but keeping their children safe and accounted for while doing so and trying their fuckin' best against all the odds to figure out how to make that happen when life had dealt them a shit hand.

...anyway, looping way back to the original question of what finishing school is, when I was almost done with middle school my dad had built a legit construction business that then very quickly took off because we lived in a commutable zip code to the now-rich-in-their-own-right people he went to high school with who trusted him to redo their homes. We eventually moved to that zip code but I stayed and commuted back to my old high school. But, i was a pretty wild kid which my father appreciated for a long while because I would follow him around on jobs and enjoy doing physical labor, but once I was mid-puberty and also he had to maybe show me to his high school friends that did not fly.

I snapped - not broke, snapped - my left thumb and my parents had to trap me like a wild animal to get me to go the hospital. Then I got a deep cut that partially injured a tendon in my leg and at eleven I tried to beat the shit out of my dad to prevent him from picking me up to strap me in the car and go to the hopsital. Next I got a deep splinter due to my eternal-barefoot tendencies and it wouldn't come out so got infected and I refused to go to the doctor [another weird back story but I was minorly sexually assaulted [[to be clear, not raped or anything big traumatic]] when I was eight and had to stay in hospital for a week and my parents couldn't be with me all the time so I have a permanent heebie-jeebie about going to the hospital, not true anxiety, I will go if I know I need to and I don't breathe heavy or anything, and I'm actually not permanently weirded out by sex or anything, just doctors in hospitals specifically I kind of unconsciously try to justify not needing to the extent I can rationalize it] and my dad was tired of my antics so he was like "fine if you don't go I will slice your foot in half with a Swiss Army knife to get it out" and I called his bluff and laid down on the floor, stuck my foot on his lap, and he didn't really know what to do when a barely fourteen year old girl called his bluff so my brothers watched in fascinated but horrified awe as I got my foot sliced open spectacularly so that the infection/splinter could come out and I didn't even make a sound out of spite despite it being quite painful to my recollection almost twenty years later.

They saw me cry from pain exactly one time when while trying to break up a fight between all three of them (it was over ice cream) I got pushed and my ankle got dislocated and what actually made me cry was snapping it back in place and they realized it was not a joke. These dumb assholes that I love have ragged on me for "skipping" chores the day after I was in the hospital because the day before that I had to spend 18 hours running Thanksgiving as a good sub-hostess like I didn't have a serious infection that needed treating and couldn't rest because none of them were up to any task beyond peeling potatoes.

After the Swiss Army knife incident, my dad's discussion of sending me to finishing school became real, which I knew when my mom made me take a walk with her and talked about it. Finishing school is like...etiquette school....? In ye olden day when finishing high school was not the norm for anyone, wealthy men finished high school and wealthy women often went to "finishing" school to have a combined education on being a proper lady but also being able to hold a decent conversation with your presumably-educated husband, so it wasn't entirely etiquette non-academic. It was more just like "what a rich man wants in a wife" school, which was sort of household management and knowing enough about cleaning/cooking to correct the staff if they fucked up, how to be a polite hostess, and how to not entirely bore him when you were alone together and had done your five minutes of sex or whatever so actually had to have a conversation. In modern times it has obviously expanded to be less bleak.

I said miss me with that, I can be a girl on my own, so I went full throttle into the girliest sport they offer in high school and ever since have gained the inestimable advantage of knowing how to also use femininity to my advantage, which I am very grateful to my parents for making me learn. It would be great if we lived in a world where that didn't count, but it did/still does, and they really set me up to operate in all the worlds.

It is weird for me to tell the story to Internet strangers because it's one of those things that makes your parents sound terrible and abusive in the general tone of the Internet nowadays, and while I support gender nonconforming children I don't remember my childhood or parents that way. But, I feel like the bits and pieces of my life I've given don't always make a ton of sense together without the context, so here it is, and in the end, I think a number of parts of it are areas where you can probably understand where it makes me have the opinions I do when I write.

Anyhoo, this makes my life sound far worse than it is, I actually have a great life and I am not unhappy with it at all and feel I was on the whole blessed with many more turns of luck than unluck, so, please, do not take this as a depressed artist rant, it is more like a rant of a very energetic person who rants about a lot of things all the time and didn’t need to come out but just did because the question was asked and the time was right with my life being in a bit of flux to think about how I got where I am and where I want to go and why.

Always remember no matter what problems it seems like I have, if I didn’t solve them on my 2 year round the world traveling hiatus I took from working, it’s my own fault, I definitely had the time and money to solve them and just chose not to.

#2 - Aberrant

Nero tol Scaeva/G’raha Tia. NSFW. 

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33640546/chapters/83652457 He is not sure what to think of the imperial capital, all told, other than he is embarrassed to admit how small it makes him feel. Many things make Nero Scaeva feel small, in all fairness: he is a rail-thin twelve-year-old boy, freshly arrived in the city from one of the poorest rural provinces in the Garlean Empire (and his family is poorer still). He is far more aware than most of his dull-witted peers of the world beyond his tiny village, a world that is vast and open and waiting for him to make his mark upon it. It does not take him long to decide - although he has enough of a survival instinct to keep it to himself - that he does not care much for his Emperor's city. It is uniform in its stark grey ugliness, and it sprawls for malms south of the high mountain pass that leads into the upper reaches of the Ilsabardian tundra, as if winter has unhinged its maw to vomit ceruleum, iron, and Solus zos Galvus' manifest destiny onto the rest of the continent.

All that being the case: his first sight of the Imperial Magitek Academy's administrative building is one Nero has dreamed about for the last two years. It is a fresh start and he is determined to make the most of it. A cursory glance is all Nero needs to know he is comfortably the youngest boy here; he can feel surprised stares from the older boys boring into his back as he lunges up the wide steps two at a time, a smugly confident smile spreading his lips and his favorite book clutched across his chest. Part of him worries at the fact that his robe is handmade rather than store-bought, patched in several places, and as ill-fitting as the threadbare jumper and breeches beneath them. The other students at his tiny village school had often derided him for wearing his sisters' hand-me-downs. But he will have to cross that bridge when he comes to it. He is far more likely to be teased for his age than his clothes, or so he hopes.

"Seven hells, there goes another one," he overhears the derisive scoff on his way into the foyer. "I didn't realize the Academy was starting an engineering initiative for nursery school."

Nero knows how to ignore inane remarks like that and simply does not react to it, but once he's passed out of sight of the two upperclassmen he ambles behind a hefty column to eavesdrop. Anyone who happens to glimpse him- if they notice him at all - will assume he is simply reviewing his upcoming class schedule.

"Another one?"

"You didn't hear? Word is Midas nan Garlond's son will be joining us this year. Smarter even than his old man, so they say. The most brilliant prodigy the Empire's ever seen."

Something in him rankles sharply at that. Just as with the state of his clothing, Nero is all too conscious that his village is poor and small and so is the rest of his province, relegated to some of the most inhospitable lands in the Empire save for one thin stretch of arable land: little grows there other than root vegetables and pigs. He would prefer not to be reminded of his fundamental disadvantage, pitted against some privileged highborn boy he has never chanced to meet. 

Most brilliant? Oh, we'll see about that, Garlond. We'll just see about that.

From this moment on, he vows, he refuses to be anything but first. ==

Nero tol Scaeva, former tribunus laticlavius of the XIVth Imperial Legion, now just another nameless imperial deserter (albeit one with a handsome price on his head), is honest enough to acknowledge that he has outfoxed himself. There is one major thorn in his side frequenting the Saint Coinach encampment. This one Nero cannot even blame on Garlond, for he has brought this particular circumstance (and conundrum) down upon his own head thinking to use her as readily as her allies. As amusing as it has been to watch Cid's cheeks turn crimson with suppressed anger every time Nero takes an opportunity to insinuate himself with the Eorzeans, the engineer finds he is often distracted from any given purpose, or scheme, or tomestone study, by the errant toss of honeyed hair and the herbal spiciness of a lavender sachet. One of these days he's going to dig that blasted bag of flower petals out of her bedroll and toss it into the godsdamned lake, to hell with the consequences. "You too, eh?"

He manages, somehow, not to jump. The interloper unfolds his arms and straightens his posture from its leaning position against a nearby wall, long since crumbled beyond recognition. A rueful smile plays upon the Miqo'te's full lips as his tail swishes idly from side to side."

Don't look so surprised, Tribunus," he says. "Nearly every time I see you, you're watching her. Someone was bound to notice eventually."

Like himself, G'raha Tia is an outlier- an outcast and misfit with a knowledge of Allagan history and folklore nearly as comprehensive and encyclopedic as Nero's own. And just as with all those long years ago upon his arrival at the Academy, his competitive nature is instantly irked by a sense that this upstart boy is stepping on his toes. Certain aspects of the man's personality -- his friendliness and his quick japes, his willingness to accept most people at face value -- remind him so much of Garlond that the sight of him sticks in Nero's craw almost as badly as though he were Cid given feline form. And yet every time they share a space, G'raha invariably treats him with the easy familiarity of an old friend. He is often the only one who does so. It is confusing, and Nero does not like to be on the back foot in his dealings with anyone. 

"Not that I begrudge you for it, of course," G'raha continues. "She's absolutely fascinating."

He makes a sound that he hopes is a disinterested grunt but the younger man doesn't appear to have noticed his own dismissal. His eyes, one crimson and one a deep teal blue, seem to sparkle in the feeble light of the afternoon. Nero groans inwardly.

"I wager she presented you and yours quite the puzzle." That smile has never once left his lips. Moreover, it has taken on a sly cast, and unaccountably Nero feels his hackles rise at the sight of it. That this boy would presume to know anything about him-- "A Garlean who can use magic? One they call the Warrior of Light, no less? Your emperor would no doubt take great interest in such an aberration."

Remarks he had made to himself not so very long ago, in truth, but hearing them from another's lips pings the edges of Nero's temper like the sting of tiny pebbles. He grits his teeth.

This is your own fault for teasing her the way you did, a part of him chides. Now you can't let it lie.

"I do not recall asking for your observations, paltry and superficial as they are." He draws his dignity about him like a cloak. "And I would prefer not to trifle with such distractions. There is still much work for us to complete ere Garlond's useful little friend finds her way to the top of the tower."

"Come now, Master Scaeva, it's all right to admit it, you know." 

"Admit what?" His grin, brash and insolent, seems to split his face in twain with his mirth. 

"You like the Warrior of Light."

Nero scoffs, "Lies and vicious slander."

"Is it?"

"I detest her."

The man only laughs, the sound of it light and melodious and infuriating. "No need to dissemble, Nero. I assure you none here would think less of you for your infatuation-"

"Seven hells, I am not infatuated with the woman!" 

"-as from her deeds I personally find her to be a lady more than worthy of your high regard."

Thoroughly annoyed now, Nero retorts: "So then, what brings you to speak to me thus? Have you come to have a jest at my expense?" 

Once again he is on the defensive. His usual humor seems to have deserted him now that there is no Garlond present to visibly and loudly scorn, and it is in that moment Nero realizes just how emotionally taxing it has been to conceal his bitterness. It has festered for years, as he watched lesser men laud the 'young prodigy of magitek' all the more for his desertion and sometimes even misattributing Nero's own accomplishments and inventions to the damnable man. He hadn't really meant to let all those years of suppressed resentment pour out of him at the Praetorium in front of anyone present to listen, but it seems that once let loose there was no stopping his anger. Now it seems to be trying to fly free at every turn despite all attempts to maintain the jester's mask, his pride be damned.

What surprises him, when his eyes meet G'raha's, is the raw sympathy he sees there rather than censure. 

"No," the Miqo'te says. "But I did come to ask if you'd like to join me tonight."

"Why?"

The question is out before he can stifle his surprise. G'raha shrugs. 

"Why not? For one, I'm in the mood for company - your company, specifically. And you seem like you could use the 'distraction,' so-called, for all you insist otherwise."

==

He isn't sure why he agreed to it, even now. Extroverted as he seems, Nero tol Scaeva is both an iconoclast and quite content with his relative solitude.

And yet here he is, folded on his knees across the rough homespun bedroll with his fists curling into the linens and his deep groans vibrating against the lumpen pillow, the corner of which sits clenched between his teeth, and the only sound in the closeness of the tent beyond their heavy breathing is the wet slap of bared flesh. For all his diminutive stature, G'raha Tia is not a small man and even with his preparations the stretch of his girth burns, teetering just on the pleasurable side of uncomfortable with each rolling oil-slicked thrust. It makes Nero think of other nights, cold nights buried beneath blankets with a hot mouth on him and biting down on his knuckles to stifle the noise when-

Fingers dig furrows into one of his lean flanks and break the skin with their scratching. The sharp sting of it is a pleasant counterpoint to this hot and tightening ache, especially when G'raha tilts Nero's hips and adjusts his angle and the wide, flared head inside him grinds against his prostate. 

Nero spits another muffled curse into the pillow.

They are not taking many pains to be discreet, as he is well aware. He is just as aware that Rammbroes or the eikon-slayer could walk in at any time and see him like this: arse up and face pressed into rough hemp and saliva soaking into G'raha Tia's pillow, his face deeply flushed and his hair a sweat-dampened, tousled disaster. It's a distinct possibility and one he doesn't currently give a single damn about whatsoever. He is so hard it hurts and each heartbeat pounding through his temples echoes itself in the heavy, ponderous throbbing between his legs. 

He unclenches one fist from the bedding to squirm beneath his weight, then swipes his fingers hastily over his own leaking head and along his shaft before taking himself in hand. The angle is somewhat awkward and if he stays that way too long his arm will go numb, but Nero is undeterred in the heat of the moment. He rocks his hips back to meet the Miqo'te's powerful and increasingly rapid thrusts while stroking himself as best he can manage. 

It is over in what is probably moments but feels like years of drowning in steadily increasing pressure, the tightness in his balls and heat spearing down his spine and into his cock in the brace of seconds before he spills. Seed spurts over his clenched fingers and drips into the bedroll, and in a matter of moments he hears G'raha moan and his pace stutters and slows before stilling entirely. Neither speaks for long moments as they try to catch their breath. Nero relaxes his grip, then frees his arm just before the pins and needles sensation begins to set into his fingers.

"Let me get you something," G'raha mutters hoarsely. "You're-"

He doesn't need to finish the sentence but it still hangs between them as he sits back on his haunches to rummage in a nearby knapsack. Nero rolls onto his back with his ears still ringing and his heart beating as furiously as if it were the aftermath of a skirmish, and accepts the scrap offered him with a brief nod. Right now they're both too nose-blind to take note of the combined scent of sweat and musk. In a few minutes, he will collect his clothing and go find a likely place for a late-night wash before retiring to his own bedroll as if this had never transpired.

But that will come later. For the moment they lie next to each other, hip to shoulder to knee (as much as their notable height difference will allow), staring at the peaked corners of the tent. Nero is the first to break the silence.

"I don't think my head has been this empty in years," he says, and G'raha chuckles. 

"Your thoughts are your own worst enemy. I understand the feeling." His tail, draped over Nero's knee, beats a soft and lazy tattoo against his calf. "I suspect Aurelia would too if she knew."

"I doubt very much the eikon-slayer would care enough to commiserate."

"Why do you say that?"

Nero drawls, "Attempting to capture her on multiple occasions while using her as a test subject for Project Ultima will not have endeared me to her good graces, I suspect."

"You should give her a chance."

"History would indicate that course of action to be unwise. She despises me."

"Ah, so it's not that you despise her, you think she despises you." G'raha props himself up on one elbow. His brows lift and drop, and that wry half-smile returns. "That shouldn't matter. I took a chance on you tonight," he says, "and I was clearly right to do it."

"So you say," Nero's retort is dismissive on its face, but G'raha seems wholly unaffected by his scorn. 

"You're very unusual. A strange man indeed," he says. "Not at all what I would have expected of a Garlean. Cid isn't either, but you're a cut beyond even him. And as such, I wager you're well familiar with what it means to be alone- but so am I. So is she." Sadness lurks in the depths of his eyes, narrows the corners of his smile. "Everyone needs friends, Nero. Even you. And Aurelia... well, let's just say I don't believe the two of you are so very different." 

He almost objects but something stays his tongue. Entertaining tumble or not, easygoing demeanor or not, G'raha does not know him nor his history. He does not know what it is to live off the Empire's dregs, to scrape one's way to the top while leaving parts of oneself behind. Carving away the bits that don't quite fit into the gears, and even the rough shape made acceptable enough to fit can still never run as smoothly as the rest of the machine. 

Nero tol Scaeva has done perfectly well these last thirty-four years by himself. His scraping and cutting and striving earned him a career and relative renown. He doesn't need to complicate matters with friends. He doesn't need friends at all, not to get what he wants.

And watching as G'raha Tia's features relax and he drifts off into a contented doze, Nero almost wishes that were untrue.

About BJD Recasts (2020 Version)

What is a recast?

A recast is when a recaster steals, buys, or is given one doll, and they make multiple copies of that doll and sell them. It’s like buying a piece of artwork from an artist at a con for $30, then going to Kinko’s and making 50 copies of the artwork, then standing outside the Artist Alley selling the copies for $5 each. Synonyms are: counterfeit, knockoff, bootleg.

What is “pro-artist”?

Pro-artist BJD collectors do not buy recasts. Most pro-artist BJD collectors do not interact with collectors who own or support recasting.

Why are recasts a problem?

Money made from recasts does not reach the original doll sculptor. Most BJD ‘companies’ are just one or a few sculptors and some support staff. They are small companies. When a person buys a recast, that money goes to the recaster instead of to the actual artist. This causes legit artists/companies to lose money, so they may not be able to make as many new dolls in the future.

Purchasing any recast hurts all sculptors, not just the main companies. If you buy a recast of a “big company” (and even the largest BJD company is small compared to toy companies like Mattel), the recaster can turn around and use the profits from that purchase to buy and copy the dolls of other, smaller BJD companies.

Recasts hurt the secondhand market. BJDs are “durable goods,” like a car or a house. They should maintain some value over time, though not necessarily exactly what they were purchased for. Many hobbyists buy dolls, then sell them as their tastes change. This allows people with smaller budgets to find budget legitimate dolls affordably. It also allows established collectors to reasonably expect their dolls to have some value. If collectors have to assume that they’ll never make back the money that they put into a purchase, they’re likely to buy fewer dolls. This hurts legitimate doll artists.

Isn’t it classist/elitist to insist that people buy legit dolls?

It is not. Encouraging people to buy legit dolls, even if they are more expensive than knockoffs, puts value on the labor of the original doll artisans. The sculptors who make BJDs deserve to be paid for their labor. Inventing a doll takes much more labor than recasting. When pro-recast people insist that they should be able to buy recasts at a low price, they are basically saying that their ability to obtain cheap goods is more important than the artist making a fair, living wage.

How can I avoid buying a recast? Check out this post.

What should I do if I bought a recast accidentally?

First, if you paid with a credit card, bank transfer, or PayPal, immediately report that you received a counterfeit item. Most cards and PP will respond with a “chargeback,” where they refund your money and sometimes try to get the money back from the fake vendor. If you bought the recast from a site like eBay or Amazon, report the seller to eBay/Amazon as selling fake goods. If you bought the recast from another hobbyist, contact them so that the issue can be resolved. Finally, post publicly about your experience, so you can warn others about the problem.

What should I do if I knowingly bought a recast, but I want to go legit?

Stop buying recasts. Post about your change of heart, and your reasoning. Put your recasts away and stop posting them (selling or donating them can be problematic). Save up for a legit doll if you don’t already have one. Then, celebrate your legit dolls and be happy that your actions are now supporting the artists who make these beautiful dolls possible!

I’m broke, but I want a doll.

There are tons of dolls available for under $300.

All the cheap dolls are ugly.

You have not looked at these dolls! You can also consider…

buying secondhand

buying an expensive head and putting it on a less expensive body (this creates a hybrid doll)

saving up for your grail doll (check out this thread on earning and saving)

posting a photo of your grail doll and asking for lookalikes at your price point

I can’t participate in the hobby with my one cheap doll.

Of course you can! Your love for your doll is what brings you into the hobby. To enjoy your doll without spending more/much more money, try: taking photographs, crafting a wig, sewing clothes, knitting clothes, writing stories, taking photos for a photo story, RPing with your doll character, creating a diorama or scale props, making eyes, doing your doll’s faceup…

If I don’t have the most popular Minifee, no one will ever notice me on social media.

It can be super difficult to get noticed online, especially when you’re just starting out. This is true for everything, not just the BJD hobby. But starting your collection with a fake doll is not worth it. Instead, try: commenting on other people’s dolls, joining Den of Angels, sharing/reblogging others’ doll posts with encouraging notes, posting your doll photos/ideas/plans, going to a local meetup (after coronavirus is over)… You will eventually build up some true friends in the hobby, which is more fulfilling than just gaining likes or followers.

All the collectors I see have 10+ dolls, and I don’t have any. I’ll never have enough money.

BJDs have been around for over 15 years! Most ‘big’ collectors have been in the hobby for ages, and have put their ‘fun money’ for all that time into dolls. Additionally, many hobbyists are adults with full-time jobs. Your collection when you are first getting started isn’t going to look the same as the collection of someone who has been into BJDs for a long time. More importantly, your dolls are about *you,* not anybody else. Instead of comparing yourself to others, spend time working on your doll story, crafting, photography, etc. You’ll feel much happier!

More about the problems of recasts...

BJD sculptor FreakStyle talking about why recasts are problematic and more about how recasts hurt sculptors.

Infographic: BJD sculptor Creature's Dolls explanation of how artists work harder than recasters.

Volks' statement, published after a recaster tried to copyright the name of one of Volks' sculptors.

Repost of Fairyland's statement against recasts.

Repost of sculptor Fifth Motif's statement against recasts.

Explanation of the costs of producing a doll (as a response to complaint about doll prices).

Video: Adam Savage from Mythbusters explaining the problem of recasts (he talks about garage kits but the concepts apply to BJDs).

Video: Why replica Lolita dresses are a problem (concepts apply to BJDs).

Another hobbyist explaining recasts.

Author Maggie Stiefvater explaining how book piracy hurts authors (reblog).

Author Seanan McGuire explaining why secondhand book sales aren't a problem.

Why secondhand BJD sales are a not a problem.

Why music piracy is a problem (concepts apply to BJDs).

Meeting and Dating Jason Voorhees

(Not my gif)(Requested by @fandoms-are-my-friends-1321​)

(I’m sorry that the meeting part is so long but granted, the start of your relationship with a slasher is going to take a while.)

- You first met Jason when you were little and attending Camp Crystal Lake. You were a few years younger than him; and a girl, so you weren’t around him much, especially since his mother tried to keep him away from the other kids as much as she could.

- Even so, you would occasionally see him around the camp, specifically being bullied around the camp, and felt sorry for him. Anytime you saw him, you tried your best to be nice and make him feel welcome. You still remember how awful you felt upon hearing that he drowned. But you were young, years passed and you slowly forgot about him.

- When you were older, you bought a cabin near the lake, wanting to have a break from people. The whole week after you moved in, you felt like someone was watching you. You figured you were just paranoid since you were alone up there. Unbeknownst to you, you were being watched.

- Everything came to a head the second week that you were living there. It was late and you were walking home from the lake. A part of you knew that it was a stupid idea to have stayed out so long but you rationalized that no one was up there with you, you’d be alone and the most that would happen is you would run into an animal on the beaten path.

- A little ways into your walk, you could hear the sound of something nearing you. You ignored it for a while until you were sure that it was there and could hear that it had gotten very close. It sounded big, so like a rational person, without thinking, you began to run.

- At most you thought it was a wolf, maybe a bear, but your assumptions were proven false as you were gripped from behind and thrown to the forest floor. When you opened your eyes, you could see the person who had attacked you; a big man in a hockey mask.

- Letting out a shriek, you fought your way from him, managing to escape his grasp enough to take off running again. You could hear him following after you as you reached your home, slamming and locking the door behind you, though it did little to stop him.

- It seemed as though he struck down your door in seconds, pursuing you even further into the cabin until you reached the living room. You were backed against the wall as he raised his arm to slash at you, that was when he noticed the photos framed on the wall behind you.

- He froze, there was something so similar about the little girl in the pictures, obviously they were you, but who were you? In an instant, his memories came flooding back, the little girl at camp, the one person who was nice to him, his first and only crush as a child.

- You stood still, terrified to even move until his arm lowered and his other hand came up. You winced as it approached you, snapping your eyes shut until you noticed that he hadn’t touched you. Upon opening them again, you saw that he had tore a frame off the wall and was looking down at it. You thought that perhaps this was your chance and quietly spoke.

“That’s me. In the picture, I mean. I was seven there.” He didn’t look at you for a long while before he glanced in your direction, heaving a deep breath.

- A wave of fear coursed through you but he didn’t move any closer. Instead, he dropped the frame on a table nearby, hesitated for a moment, and then walked out of your home. You made sure he was gone before calling the police. They combed the area but could find nothing of the man. Inexplicably, your mind flashed back to your time at camp. The boy who drowned; he was never found either.

- Still shaken up, you went into town and stayed at an inn for the night. In the morning, you went to the library and searched through their archives, trying to find out more about the area in an attempt to figure out what had happened. 

- A part of you began to believe that the masked figure was Jason. He was the proper age, seemingly knew the area well, and his body was never found. It seemed like a ridiculous idea but was it completely implausible? 

- Having bought the cabin; and having nowhere else to go, you had to return home at some point. He was gone, right? So you made the trip back and tried to put the encounter out of your mind. Even so, every now and again you could swear that you saw him; always in your peripheral or in something's reflection. 

- A day or so later, you found that the tires on your car were slashed. The situation confused you, why would he slash your tires yet leave you completely unharmed. What was the point of keeping you alive if he wanted you dead, he didn’t seem like the type who wanted to scare you before he finished you off. Deep down, some part of you knows that; for whatever reason, he doesn’t want you to leave. 

- It was some time later that you encountered him again. You were swimming in the lake when you felt eyes on you. As you looked around, you could see him standing at the tree line. He just... stood there, saying nothing, still as could be. 

- Were you scared? Yes, but you were also curious. This whole charade had to end at some point, right? Why not now? Seeing that he was empty handed, you stood in the water and slowly made your way over to him. He let you approach him until you stopped just a few feet away on your own accord. 

“You’re Jason, aren't you?” You asked tentatively, quietly. He said nothing. “I thought you were dead. We all did. I saw you.... How?”

Still, there was no reply and for the first time, you remembered that he couldn’t speak. So you asked a simple question, one that he could answer without his voice and one that could potentially ease your nerves. “Do you want to kill me?”

- He didn’t reply at first, looking at you for a long moment. You could see his eyes locked on your face from behind his mask. Then, silently, he slowly shook his head. 

- You see him more after that; he doesn’t hide as much though he still keeps his distance. A part of you knows that you should probably be wary, try to escape or call the cops or something. But another part of you tells yourself that if he wanted to hurt you, he could have already, and he probably would be carrying a weapon with him.

- The only times that he actually got close to you was when you tried to go into town, he’d appear quietly behind you, your face level with his chest, blocking you from going anywhere until he made sure you only had your purse with you. He didn’t want you leaving him; escaping, he liked you too much.

- Over time, you’re feelings of empathy got the best of you. His mother; his one true friend, was dead, he was alone in the world and alive when he should have been dead himself; he had no one, nothing. So after debating with yourself about it all day, you made your way over to him when he appeared and invited him inside your home. 

- You supposed you were more lonely than you expected since; after a few minutes of hesitance and awkwardness, you began to talk to him... and then talk some more and more until finally you realized you were recounting half your life to the masked killer. Trailing off, you apologized and asked if he was hungry. 

- Over the next few months, you started to interact with him more and more. It was normal for the two of you to spend time together and soon enough, you genuinely begun to enjoy his company. 

- Your relationship will definitely be a slowburn; I mean, it is Jason we’re talking about. So it could be a full year before anything of value happens between you. And when something does happen, it happens slowly as well. 

- After some time, you realize that there’s more to your feelings for the man and though it may not be the greatest crush you’ve ever had, you can’t deny that it’s there. So you decide to confess. You tell him that you like him, a lot, and ask if there’s any way that the two of you can be together.

- In response, he stays very still for a long moment before reaching out, stroking your face and hair, and clumsily pulling you into his arms. 

- You don’t exactly have dates so you don’t really have a first date, and you’re not sure if your first kiss even counts. It’s a quiet night, the two of you are sat beside each other on your front porch and you have the inexplicable urge to kiss him, even though you know he won’t even let you see what's underneath his mask. 

- Not knowing what else to do, you lean over, place a gentle hand on the back of his head and press your lips to his mask. He stiffens but lets you and moves just a bit closer to you once you’ve pulled away. It’s certainly not the most conventional relationship you’ve ever been in but you can’t say that you regret being in it. 

- The two of you have gone out in public together like five whole times so pda is a difficult thing to explain. He occasionally holds on to you but more often than not he’ll make a quick escape as people start to show up around you.

- He tends to keep a bit of a distance between the two of you, mainly because he isn’t sure of what he should do with you. He’s never had a relationship before so this entire experience is new to him. 

- He’s so not used to human affection anymore. It’s been a very long time since he’s interacted with anyone so he’s going to have to learn how to accept it again. He goes still and cherishes every touch you give him though; for a while, he’s going to be internally panicking the entire time. 

- If the two of you are going to be together, you’ll have to be innocent(at least on the outside) and kind; someone his mother would approve of since; even in death, she’s still affecting his decisions.

- He tries to be very gentle with you, not wanting to hurt you in any way, especially on accident. You feel like a little china doll with the way he holds and touches you. 

- Jason has never been kissed …but he deserves to be!!! He lets you kiss his mask without hesitation but is apprehensive when letting you see what's underneath. He may yearn to kiss you but he isn’t sure if he should since he’s completely inexperienced and; in his eyes, physically grotesque. 

- You make him nervous. Jason’s never really had any friends besides his mother and he’s certainly never had female company that he’s found attractive(and that's actually liked him) so being around you has an effect on him. 

- He likes listening to you talk. You could be rambling about nothing at all and he’ll still want to hear it. Most of the time, you’ll assume he isn’t even listening but then he’ll look at you once you’ve stopped, nod his head at something, or let out a noise that's the equivalent of a laugh for him; and you’ll realize he’s actually been listening the entire time. 

- Learning how to communicate with him. 

- Going on weekly runs to get all the supplies that the two of you will need. 

- Patching him up when he gets injured. You know that he heals himself but you still feel the need to do something about it. 

- Even though he has a really high pain tolerance, you still wince for him every time he gets hurt. He finds it sort of touching that you care or at least show empathy towards him, it’s also amusing in a way. 

- Receiving little gifts. Flowers, rocks, feathers, …bones. He sometimes steals things from his victims that he thinks you’ll like. You don’t ask where he gets his “proper” gifts from. 

- He’s honestly a big fan of pets/animals and; weirdly enough, they love him too. Doesn’t matter if you have a dog, cat, bunny, bird, or hamster; he’ll like them and they’ll like him.

- You once gifted him a teddy bear, mainly as a joke, but he genuinely adores it. It stays in his little shack where he can hold it when he’s away from you.

- Under all that murder, he’s really just sweet boy. You’re respected, cared for, and loved at all times. 

- Would you not fawn over him? Would you not act like a doting, proud mother as he stands there menacingly? Would you not boast about him over the phone as he sits and eats at your kitchen table? Don’t lie to me. 

- Whenever you compliment him, he sort of just stares at you for a long moment before going back to what he was doing. He doesn’t know how to respond and hearing your praise makes him flustered.

- You’re gonna have to take care of him a little. While he can, in theory, take care of himself and live on his own; if you call consuming foraged berries, squirrels and lake water living, you’ll have to provide him with a few essential's if you want to see him thrive. He likes being looked after anyways; it reminds him of when he was little. 

- Either learning how to sew or buying him new clothes every week. He most likely tries to assure you that its fine but only having like 60 percent of a shirt doesn’t seem very fine to you.

- Cooking for him. Don’t worry if you’re a bad cook, Jason could literally eat dirt and find something good about it. He sets the table and offers to wash the dishes which is …quite the sight to see. 

- Catching him up on what’s been happening in the world. He died and was suddenly thrown into a whole new world so there’s certainly a few important things that he’s missed. 

- Getting bridal carried or literally held on his hip like a toddler. Tired after a walk through the woods? You’re immediately in his arms. Injured in the slightest? In his arms. Just want to be carried? Fine by him.

- You’ll never have to worry about struggling with something heavy ever again; this boy could pick up a house if he wanted to.

- Comparing hand sizes. He’s amazed at how small you are compared to him and how much softer your skin is. 

- Trailing behind him as he goes lumbering through the woods. He usually doesn’t really acknowledge your presence besides occasionally stopping to make sure you’re following or that you can catch up with his long strides; or physically stopping you so that you don’t get hurt on something. Having a companion is new to him but he does enjoy it.

- His mother taught him manners so while it may be a little funny seeing a hulking mass of a man gingerly knock before he enters your room or pull out your chair for you or wash his hands before dinner; it’s pretty commonplace for you.

- Campfires when it gets dark. 

- Tight yet careful hugs. 

- He’s enthralled by television. When he was little, him and his mother had a black and white tv with like three channels on it so seeing a full color tv amazes him. 

- Taking photos with him is kind of hilarious. You’ve certainly took a few over the years and while you have different poses or faces in each one, the only thing that changes about him is his clothes. He just stands or sits there stoically, his mask still on as you position yourself around him.

- What's better than cuddling with a big ass boy? He loves being able to cradle you in his arms and listen to the sound of your steady breathing. 

- Swaying together while listening to music. 

- You kissed his cheek the first time he showed you his face and he nearly cried. Emotionless killer Jason Voorhees isn’t nearly as emotionless as you think. 

- Jason; above all, wants to make you happy. He can’t stand the thought of you being upset or not having everything you’d like. He always tries his hardest to provide you with whatever he can to make your life better and happier. 

- He never really questions you. You’re just below his mother on people and things he should listen to. it may take you a few moments to truly convince him to do something but more often than not he’ll listen, unless he really doesn’t like the idea.

- Reassuring him that you really do love him. There’s no way he isn’t insecure after everything that he’s gone through so sometimes he just needs to hear you say it.

- There’s not many instances where he has the chance to get jealous but if there is one then I assure you: he gets jealous. Even so, he doesn’t quite understand the feeling. He just knows that you’re his and whoever it is that he’s jealous of better stay away. 

- He’s incredibly protective of you; overprotective to say the least. You’re everything to him and he’s not letting anything happen to you. 

- He tries to keep you as far away from his killing as he can. You’ll never see any bodies if he can help it.

- He feels nervous when letting you touch his machete yet... inexplicably turned on. Excuse him while he prays for himself.

- It’s sort of hard to fight with him but whenever he get’s mad, he’ll storm off and not return for a long time. He gives you the silent treatment for a little while but will ultimately forgive you fairly quickly. 

- He cant stand it if you’re angry with him; he’ll do whatever it takes to make things better. God forbid you get up to leave; he’ll physically stop you, pulling you into his arms and all but throwing you away from the door. He can’t exactly say he’s sorry so he’ll sink to his knees and hang his head in apology. 

- It’s definitely going to take a while for him to show you what he looks like without his mask on whether you already know or not. He still remembers what the other children at camp thought of him and he definitely doesn’t want you to be able to look at him for too long. 

- When he is comfortable enough to let you see, He’ll allow you to take it off while he sits incredibly still. It’s the ultimate show of trust for him so don’t think of it as nothing. 

- Obviously, he can’t speak so he conveys his love through his actions and perhaps the occasional sloppily written note. 

- Well he’s pretty much bound to live forever so expect a long and loving life with him. He’ll steal a ring from someone he comes across and; in both your eyes, you’ll be husband and wife. 

Why do I not have the option to copy and paste formatting? Why is that an option I am not given? Who thought that I wouldn’t need that when I’m on my phone? Screw that guy, who I am arbitrarily calling Adam. If anyone knows how to do that, please tell me.

Chapter 6 Pt 2

“There is no fucking way you got a date with her.” Raphael does not even look it up. “No way in hell.”

“And yet the flow chart worked.” He laughs from his lab, shutting off any excess equipment as to not overwork it. “It worked like a charm and she asked me to go to her place so ha.”

”You didn’t show her the chart, did you?”

“I did not.”

“Well, there you go.” Leo looks back at him from his seat on the couch. “What time?”

“Seven o’clock.” He slides the door closed. “But I’m planning on being there at six fifty-five so that she knows I value her time.”

“Does the sun set that early?”

“Why do you even ask?” Raph turns a page in his once periodical periodical. “You know he looked it up.”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Forgive me for also valuing preparedness.”

“Nobody likes a know it all.”

He grins smugly. “That’s where you’re wrong. See, I,” he gestured to himself, “have a date with a gorgeous girl tonight, one where she has already invited me into her home, and you,” he gestured to Raphael, “are reading a magazine from a company that went out of business two years ago alone.”

“Donnie, don’t be a jerk.” Leonardo looked back at the television. “Raphael brings up a valid point; you tend to act like you know everything, and the actual request wasn’t for a date.”

“How else can I interpret one on one time with her?”

“Well,” he counters, “how do you interpret one on one time with us?”

He blinks. “Wait, so you’re saying she’s… how do you put it?”

“Nah, I don’t think she’s friendzonin ‘im.” Mickey looks up from his drawing. “Think she’s sending signals she doesn’t mean to.” He sets his half-shaded piece aside. “Think about it; she said she’s been all stressed out, right? She died like two weeks ago.” He shrugs. “She’s probably just lonely and needs the company.”

“That’s… actually really insightful of you.”

He grins. “What can I say? I’m a modern McPherson.”

Raph snickers at that. “Donnie is more of a McPher—how old is that movie, anyway? A hundred?

“Hey!” He shoots a glare at his brother. “Respect the classics.”

“Not to interrupt your riveting intro to film class,” Donnie interjects, losing his shit, “but I really need to know what this is before I go, and it’s already fifteen ‘till.”

“Look, maybe she’s interested, maybe she’s not.” Leonardo’s eyes are back on the screen. “Just try to tread carefully and you’ll probably be fine.”

“Probably?”

“Again, Raph had a point.”

He groans, walking to the entrance and exit of their home. “You guys aren’t helping.”

“Not our job.”

Leo calls after him. “Be home before six!”

He turns the corner, cradling his head in his hands. ‘I am totally and thoroughly fucked.’

--

GoodFellas.

Of all the movies in the world, that is the movie you have decided to use to explain these concepts. This is the example piece that you are going to show to the vigilante. All you know is that you had started watching the Phantom Menace and had decided against explaining the concept of racial coding and this is the only other movie that you can think of right now. You have decided to commit, and you are already regretting it, but you decide to figure it out as you go.

You set the pizza on the coffee table, throwing a bag of popcorn in the microwave to pop. You do not expect Donatello to be late, so you decided to start now so that they could get started right away. You start walking to the window, stopping at the mouth of the hallway. You look yourself over one more time in the bathroom mirror despite yourself. You do not exactly know why you care so much; this was not a date, and you had not advertised it as one. Still, impressions are important, and the last thing you need is for him to not listen to you because of it. That is what you are telling yourself, anyhow.

You hear knocking against the glass. You check your phone for the time. ‘Five minutes early.’ You smile softly. ‘How responsible.’ You open it up, smiling at your guest. “Welcome, Donatello.” You take a step back. “Please, make yourself at home.”

He barely makes a sound as he steps off the windowsill, looking around your apartment, fully illuminated, for the first time.

After about thirty seconds of his investigation, you clear your throat. “Donnie?”

He snaps out of it. “Huh?”

You smile gently. “You wanna sit down? I bought pizza.”

“Uh, yeah.” He nods, sitting down and facing the television screen. “I like your place.”

“Thanks.” You sit down next to him, tucking your feet under you as you flip on the television. “How do you feel about gangster movies?”

“Gangster movies?”

“Yeah.” You list a couple on your fingers. “Scarface, Godfather, all that jazz.”

He shakes his head, brow furrowed in confusion. “How can you make gangster movies legally?”

“That is a long answer. The short version?” You lean forward, taking a slice from the box. “The police are kind to those who cooperate, and people think their stories are fascinating.”

“So they’re documentaries?” He mimics you.

You shrug. “Sometimes. Not always, but sometimes. You want something to drink?” You hear the microwave beep as you stand up.

“Water?”

You nod, walking over to pull the popcorn out of the microwave and grab your drinks. “I trust the walk wasn’t too bad?”

“Not at all.” The small talk is torture. “Getting to your window was a bit of a challenge, but it wasn’t anything too bad.”

“That’s good.” You pour him a glass. “I’ll have to get something for that; maybe a planter or something, so you have a bigger ledge.”

“It’s alright.” He taps his fingers against his knee. “It’s wide enough to stand.”

“Still.” You place his cup on the counter, dumping the kernels into a large plastic bowl. “I wouldn’t forgive myself if one of you guys got hurt trying to come in through the window.” You grab a can of soda out of the refrigerator, sitting down and handing him the glass.

He smiles slightly. “You’re really sweet sometimes, you know that?”

You grin. “I try,” you hum, starting to pull up the movie. “I think you’re pretty cool too, Hamato.”

He chuckles. “You make me sound like I’m fifty.”

“Oh, totally.” You nod in agreement. “You’re an old soul.”

He blinks. “Old soul?���

“Mature, I mean.” You shrug. “I mean, handling the stuff you do with any degree of tact, to me, displays a great maturity you don’t see in most teenagers, myself included.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

You get back up for napkins and plates. “Not at all.” You hand him one of each. “It’s an admirable quality, though not one I particularly envy.”

“You think?” His hands linger for a moment longer than typical as he took them.

“Yeah. You want me to turn down the lights for the movie while I’m up?”

His face goes red. “I-I mean,” he stutters, “if you want to.”

“Then I will; shows the image better when it’s dark.” You walk to the wall, flicking off the lights and sitting down next to him, setting your slice on your plate as you turn on the movie.

Your reactions to it are different.

He does not seem what you would call disturbed, but he gets grossly invested in the story extremely quickly. He is noticeably more interested in watching you watch the movie, but he studies the plot intently, noting the more domestic plotline between the lead and his wife in particular. His reaction to the violence is strange to you; he is not aloof, so to speak, but he does not flinch much until the fighting is between Henry and Karen.

You have seen this movie what feels like a thousand times. Whenever you think it applicable, you lean over and whisper to him about the directing, the script, the plot—it is supposed to be a lesson, after all. But you realize that your attention, every so often, shifts to the bed, to your pillow with the knife underneath it. The violence of the movie makes you edgier than you are used to.

About halfway through the movie, you move closer to the boy sitting beside you. You lean your head against his shoulder, closing your eyes as you listen for cues for comments. You don’t notice his reaction, but you do notice how his arm snakes around your waist, pulling you closer to him. You do not object; you were the one who initiated, after all.

“Here’s a psychology relationship thingy you can tell your family about.” You cringe at that poor little girl standing in the hallway. “’That’s all in your head’ is classic gaslighting. I dunno if that’s really your area or not.”

“Oh, yeah, I see what you mean.” He fiddles with the cloth of your jacket absentmindedly. “It’s kinda hard for me to wrap my head around, people staying like that. I mean,” he clarifies, “I get why, but—”

You both tense up as a young man on screen is shot dead by Joe Pesci’s character.

You exhale. “Yeah, I get what you mean.” You shrug. “But folks get scared, ya know? In her case, she doesn’t want to break the family apart, and she’s really into him.”

“What? No way.”

“Yes way.” You look up at him. “What can I say? We fall into infatuation so fast with bad people who say what we want to hear.”

“Don’t you mean fall in love?”

You watch as Lorraine Bracco holds a gun to her husband’s face. “Nope. Love is entirely different.”

“Yeah?” He glanced down at you.

“Apples and oranges.” You gesture to the television. “Love is supplementary, a beautifully imperfect connection between people.” Your voice becomes smoother, airier. “It’s a bond built on trust and respect. Infatuation is more of an addiction than anything.” You sigh as Liota meets to discuss his relationship with Sorvino. “At least I think so. That’s why love at first sight is a bunch of bullshit; you can’t have that kind of profound trust with someone you just met.” You shrug, looking back up at him. “Then again, what do I know? I’m an inexperienced, fifteen-year-old girl.”

“That makes a lot of sense, actually.” He looks back down at you. “I get what familial love is, but whenever Master Splinter talks about his wife, he has a hard time putting what he means into words.”

You hear their guilty verdict. “Totally get that. Articulation is not easy to do.”

A few minutes go by.

“May I be frank?”

“Please.”

You watch as a man drags his wife out of a Christmas party. “This movie is exactly why I don’t ever want to learn how to do the stuff you do. It changes you, all that violence; desensitizes you.” You bring your knees to your chest. “Especially Raphael. I swear, that shift was as dramatic as his, at least at this point in the flick.”

He pauses. “Please, tell me you’re kidding.”

You close your eyes, breathing slowly. “I’m going to try my best,” you swear, “do everything in my power, to see to it that you guys don’t experience more than you have to.”

You mean it. He can tell.

You two are quiet for the rest of the movie. You explain why certain directing choices were made, connect the beginning with the end, talk about the theme, all while you two watched their fall from grace. When the movie ends, you realize how tangled up in him you are; your head on his chest, legs draped over his with his arms around your waist. You feel the icy air against you, as if his skin attracted it to you. You push the hair out of your face. “So,” you stretch, turning the light back on, “do you wanna see another movie, or do you have a curfew?”

He pauses. “I should honestly probably get home,” he sighs. “If I’m not home early they’ll start getting ideas.”

“Oh, yeah.” You nod, completely understanding the reasoning. “You can take the leftover pizza home if you want; the guys’ll probably eat it before I do.”

“Mikey’ll be on cloud nine.” He picks the box off the coffee table. “Thanks.”

“Any time.” You stand at the window, opening it for him.

He climbs onto the windowsill, looking down at you from his perch. “I had a good time.” His face flushed. “We should do this again.”

You nod in agreement. “Definitely.” You rub the back of your neck. “I’ll pick a lighter movie next time.”

“Alright. It’s a plan.” He gives you a thumbs up.

You steal yourself, cupping one side of his face and kissing him gently on the cheek. “Goodnight, Donnie.” You smile. “See ya tomorrow.”

You are a bit concerned he’s going to fall off the windowsill. “Y-Yeah,” he grinned, words slurred. “See ya later, Y/N.” He waved, climbing up and out of your window.

You smile softly, sigh. You flop back on the bed, rolling over. You have not been this at ease since you died.

‘I really like that guy.’ You close your eyes. ‘I really, honestly do.’

You drift off to sleep, dreamless for the first time in too long.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 6 Part 1

Chapter 7

im a nerd and let me explain to you what happened on Wall Street so we can all laugh together. 

to start this you must first understand how the stock market works okay I'll try to put this out as SIMPLE as possible bc that shit COMPLEX. okay, big companies list their shares on the stock market (ws) and these are released on the game.

the game consists on buying shares with the expectation of a price rise after they bought them, meaning that they earn money with that BUT! always assuming the risk of also loosing money-- just like playing with a slot machine lmao 

but this phenomenon is not something “normal” since it is governed by the oh so lovely “supply and demand” we’re so used to see everywhere: higher demand, price goes UP. lower demand, price goes down to hell. 

therefore the purchase of shares itself, when the purchase is done massively, obviously generates a price increase (which is the objective sough when one buYs shares). on this context, the projections made by wall street are very valuable!! if wall street projects that a company’s shares are going up = a lot of people buy them, AND if all of those people actually buy them = the shares will obviously go up. and that's how the project is fulfilled. much of the financial market is driven by these self-fulfilling prophecies. 

the eternal debate is whether this system should be regulated by the state or, on the other hand, if it should be left free to the total market freedom lmao (this last option caused a terrible worldwide crisis like 10 years ago and no one remembers it??? excuse me??? Lehman brothers???)

but Nikki what is actually happening in Wall Street right noooow????? WELL! LET! ME! EXPLAIN! TO! YOU! WHAT! SHORT! SELLING! IS! FIRST!

short selling literally means to borrow a share for a certain amount of time and, in that time, sell it and buy it again. now, If the price goes down =you earn money; if the price goes up= you lose money. let me put this as an example with numbers so your brain can imagine it better: 

you borrow a share for $10,000 for 5 days and you sell it.in that time the stock drops to $6,000 and you buy it AGAIN to return it, right? what happened? you keeping the $4,000 difference!! yay!! if the market rises up to $12,000, you would've lost $2,000. 

this is actually cool because you can earn a lot of money in a really short period of time but there's a.....slight.....problem: the purchase of shares has unlimited possible profit (a share can grow to infinity) and limited loss (the most you can lose is 100% of what you invested). nn the other hand, short selling operations are the other way around for the same reason: they have limited profit (you can earn up to the full original value of the share you borrowed) but the possible loss is unlimited (again, a share can grow up to Infinity). that’s why they’re called short selling operations lol what theyre trying to do is to minimize the risks! it can happen that a company has a catastrophic fall in 5 days but it is very rare that such abrupt increases happen in such a short time.

people are literally betting for a company to fall so they can earn money. haha. this operations are prohibited in most of Europe but not in the US because everyone knows they’re the cool kid and their parents let them do whatever the fuck they want hell yeah!!

okay but Nikki what really happened in Wall Street this week??!?!?!?! calm down kids bc this is where the fun comes around: as you might imagine, while it is difficult to predict which companies will rise, it is a bit easier to know which companies will fall. There are companies that have been falling for years and will continue to do so. these companies are under a great amount of short selling because people know they will continue to fall.

but THEN! A GROUP OF HOMIES ON REDDIT STARTED TO DEBATE ON THAT! my dudes literally decided to hit THE MARKET AND Wall Street. what they they do? they agreed to buy, all together, shares of a company called GameStop (this company has been falling for years ok). this company has been on a steady decline for years so many TOP FUNDS IN THE WHOLE MF WORLD have been short selling with their shares?!?! but these days they ran into the surprise that, instead of going down, it went up. yeah you know what happened. 

Two weeks ago, a GameStop share was worth $ 17. Right now it's worth $ 337.

this means that, if a fund put 10 MILLION DOLLARS in a short sell against GameStop at the original price, they will have to pay now 200 mILLION. ASTRONOMICAL. 

and my homies didn't only do it with GameStop, they decided to start lifting many companies that were considered to be dead such as BlockBuster and Blackberry (lmao I had one of those, did anybody else!? they were cool af) anyways!!

the funny thing is that in the last 24h the biggest fish of wall street have paraded through the media (ALL OF THEM FREE MARKET TITANS WHO HAVE BEGGED TO DEREGULATE) now asking for regulations to avoid this kind of things :((( how sad :(((

the fund that has lost the most is M*lvin C*pital, one of the most important, powerful and ruthless funds in the world. the fund warned Wall Street yesterday (GameStop was at $ 160), that if that company kept growing, they would go bankrupt. and wall street allowed them to leave the short selling them earlier (violating the contract they signed!!! talk about privilege my dude!!)as an exception to avoid their bankruptcy and, by domino effect, the bankruptcy of many other funds. they saved the companies but they had lost an immense amount of money. 

on the other hand, somewhere in the world, there's a group of high-schoolers (the range of age of that reddit group was between 16-18 which makes everything funnier go gen z! go!) from middle-class families, who, from home and their computers, put into the game $100 of their savings and now they had earned around $2,000. and they can still earn more if stocks continues to rise. 

When the Levee Breaks...

Summary: It's been three months since The Snap. The reader has a lot to cope with: newly-aquired super soldier capabilities, being a stranger in a strange place, and most of all, the loss of Bucky. But lucky for her, Steve Rogers isn't one to let his friends go through hard times alone.

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem!enhanced! Reader (mentioned), Steve Rogers x fem!enhanced! Reader (platonic)

Reader has the ability to see bits of the future, understand all languages, and process information quickly as well as being a super soldier

Warnings: angst, self-destruct behavior, mentions of suicidal tendencies, mentions of mental illness, mentions of eating disorder, tiny bit of fluff.

___________________________________________

“Some times I feel I’ve got to run away, I’ve got to run away…” Her footfalls are too fast to keep in step with the song’s beat, but it still gives her some comfort to listen. Some, because really, when she’s punishing her body for the mere sake of feeling it scream at her, there’s not much comfort to be found.

“Once I ran to you, now I’ll run from you, this tainted love you’ve given-” She’s so busy concentrating on pushing herself, making herself hurt, that she doesn’t realize there’s anyone in front of her until she runs smack dab into them. “Oof!”

She’s knocked flat on her ass, but it doesn’t keep her down (no, of course not, she’s a damn super soldier now). She hops up immediately, intent on apologizing, making sure the other person is okay, and then getting back to her run, when the person she’s run into grasps her arm.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am are you-” Whoever she ran into stops short (she’s trying not to look him in the face, faces are painful to see now that she knows she’ll never see Barnes’ again), and the hand on her elbow falls away, forcing her to look up. Oh no.

“Steve.” Great. Out of all the people she had to run into, it had to be Steve Rogers. She knows most women would be absolutely thrilled to have knocked Captain America off his feet (he’s now brushing off the back of his pants, which she should probably do as well, but can’t bring herself to care), but not her. She likes Steve, really she does. They haven’t spent a lot of time together, but he is -was, he’s gone now, was- Bucky’s best friend, and they got along fine. He’s a nice guy. That’s the real problem, because-

“How’re you doing? I haven’t seen you in forever.” -he’ll ask her that. You know, being nice. Which means she’s going to have to lie.

“I’m fine. Good to see you again.” Now if he’d just get out of her way so she can get back to what she was doing.

“I didn’t know you were a runner.” Damn. He wants to have a conversation. Doesn’t he know that earbuds in means, “Don’t talk to me?” Probably not, because he’d never be that rude. Captain frickin’ America.

“I’m not.” Why did she have to say that? Now he’s looking at her in surprise, eyebrows raised, mouth open in shock.

“Then why-”

“Just thought I’d try it out. See if the super serum really is all that.” She can’t very well tell him that she’s out here hoping that the place where one of Thanos’ goons speared her through the lung (and the kidney… and the intestines… and part of her brain) wasn’t repaired as well as the doctors’ claimed and it’ll open up if she just runs fast enough, allowing her to slowly bleed out. He seems like the type to see that as a cry for help.

He chuckles. “Well, considering you were going around 65 miles per hour, I think you have your answer.” Sixty-five? That can’t be right.

“How do you know that?” He shrugs.

“ ‘Cause that’s how fast I was going, and you ran into me.” Right. Of course she’s now as fast as America’s golden boy. Because her life wasn’t bizarre enough already.

“Sorry.”

“No harm done.” She’s all prepared offer him a courtesy nod and take off again, when- “Are you hungry? Let me buy you breakfast.”

Her first thought is, “He’s flirting with me.” and her anger flares, but then she remembers who this is, and calms down. He’s being nice. Again.

“No thanks. I already ate.” She didn’t, hasn’t in two days in fact, but the damn super serum is keeping her from dropping.

“Then how about coffee?” He can’t take a hint. “Just a head’s up, the serum also keeps you from getting a buzz from the caffeine, but it still tastes the same.”

“I drink tea.” Why does she keep talking to him? The last thing she wants is to be around anyone that reminds her of whom she’s lost.

Steve smirks. “Then let me buy you a cup of tea.” Again, anger wells up in her, anger and pain, but she pushes it down. He doesn’t know about the last person who bought her a cup of tea, or what it lead to. This is just being friendly to the widow (no, they never made it that far, ex girlfriend) of his old pal.

“Please.” The megawatt smile falters for a moment. “We’ve all lost so many people that we can’t afford to let even potential friends slip away that easily.”

She doesn’t want to be his friend. Doesn’t want to be anyone’s friend. She just wants to be left alone for however long she has left until her enhanced body falters and finally gives out. But, it’s against everything she believes, whatever values she has left now that a huge part of her has disappeared like dust left behind after the snap, to return kindness with a cold shoulder. And if he’s so desperate for company...

“Okay.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

He’s never been to this coffee shop before, but he’s trying to hide that fact by studying the menu written in chalk with great concentration. In fact, he doesn’t particularly want to be here now. It’s too empty, too quiet. There’s too many people crying into their beverages of choice. But he had to come up with a valid excuse to keep her from disappearing again like she had three months ago after he told her, “I’m sorry. He’s gone. We lost him.”, and he was running low on ideas.

She looks terrible. No, correction; she looks average. He’s never seen the effects of the serum on a woman before (apart from the brief encounter with Hydra’s other super soldiers), but he’s almost certain she should look… stronger, somehow. More robust. If he’s being honest, she doesn’t even look like her old self, pre-serum.

She’s cut her hair, chopped it off unevenly, and it makes her look more severe. Or maybe that’s the fact that her cheekbones are more prominent, and although it shouldn’t be possible, she has dark circles under her eyes. She’s thinner too, although it’s unavoidable that her muscle tone has improved (at least from what he can tell; she’s in workout clothes, not the trendy kind, but a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, and besides, he’s keeping his eyes trained respectfully on her face). In short, she looks miserable.

Eventually, they both do order, and he doesn’t so much as get the chance to ask where she’d like to sit before she makes a bee-line for the table in the corner, half-hidden by a large fern, away from everyone else. That cuts down on the chances of them being recognized, or really, mostly him.

He gives her a few minutes to stir and sip her tea before starting the enquiry.

“So how are you doing really?” She nearly drops her cup at that.

“I told you, I’m fine.” So he’s going to have to dig.

“No you’re not.” She opens her mouth, more than likely to contradict him, but he continues. “You can’t be. I’m not, and I don’t know anyone else who is.”

Her eyes narrow, and he’s reminded of something Bucky told him in passing conversation back in Wakanda. “I always know when she’s mad, and so does everyone else. Trust me, you can tell.” He was right. Her face is rapidly flushing, and her posture has completely changed.

“Fine.” She snaps, and begins tearing the label off of her drink. “I’m doing shitty. I don’t have anywhere to live, so I’ve been sleeping at a different emergency shelter every night. I don’t have a job, which means I don’t have a source of income. I don’t know anyone because I’ve never been to fucking New York before. Oh, and my fiance turned to dust in front of me. That what you wanted to hear?”

There’s so much to unpack, but first thing’s first.

“You’re staying at the shelters?” She nods.

“Most nights. Sometimes I sleep on the subway. It’s not like the seats are full anymore.”

That’s not going to cut it. He may not know her well, but he’s not going to let her be homeless. He’s about to offer up the couch in his apartment (or, more than likely once she’s actually agreed to go, the bed while he takes the couch), but out of nowhere, she bursts into tears.

“I’m sorry, Steve.” She swipes at her eyes roughly. “That was rude of me. You didn’t deserve that.” No, he didn’t, but he gets it. This is a weird time for everyone.

“It’s okay.” He attempts what he hopes is a friendly smile. “I think we’ve all earned the right to not be as polite as normal. Plus, you really are doing shitty-”

She chuckles. “Wow. Captain America swears. Who would’ve thought.”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

They sit in silence for a few more minutes, her sipping her tea, and him his… whatever this is. All the while, he’s trying to figure out the best way to shoe-horn, “Let me help you.” into casual conversation. Finally, he decides to just do it. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? She runs off again, goes back to the subway. On second thought, that’s pretty bad. Tact. This is a time for tact.

“What was it you do again? For a job, that is?”

“Did.” What? “Sorry again. Force of habit.” She meets his eyes. “I taught English as a second language, mostly to adults. That makes me a little anal about grammar.”

A teacher… that’s unfortunate, because all schools (and colleges for that matter) nation wide have suspended classes “until further notice” in the wake of Thanos. It’s possible she could submit an application now and be hired whenever they regroup, but she needs a source of income immediately.

“I also worked as a translator briefly. That is, before people started asking questions about how I was able to understand every foreign language they put in front of me without so much as a briefing.” Now that, he might be able to work with. Especially since their team has gotten a lot smaller.

“If, and it’s not a guarantee, but if I could offer you a job working with me, Nat, and what’s left of the team-” She grows a shade paler but doesn’t say anything. “-as a translator only, would you consider it?” To be honest, they could use her as more, especially with the training she received in Wakanda and her new status as a super soldier, but if her reaction is anything to judge from, the wound is too fresh for her agree to that.

“Yes.” The answer is immediate. His shock must show on his face, because she shrugs and tells him, “I’m out of funds and I don’t have a place to live. If someone offered me a job cleaning toilets, I’d take it.” That’s what gives him the courage to mention the next part.

“Is that your mindset about places to sleep too, because I have a couch that pulls out into a bed.” Her eyebrows shoot up, mouth forming a perfect “oh”. “That is, until you find a place. Or I can contact Natasha and see about renting you a hotel room-”

She shakes her head. “No, you’ve been generous enough. All of you, really. I can manage-”

“I know you can.” He feels bad about interrupting her, but this is going nowhere fast. “I know you can take care of yourself and manage on your own. But you don’t have to.” He almost adds that Bucky wouldn’t want that for her, but decides against it just in time. “If we don’t band together to help each other right now, then Thanos may as well have dusted all of us.”

She’s quiet for a few moments, studying her lap, and he thinks that he’s pushed too far. Then, with a sigh, she nods.

“Fine, but just a warning. I talk in my sleep.”

“Duly noted.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

It’s not been as bad as she thought, living with Steve. He’s an orderly guy, so she’s not picking up after him. He knocks before he enters a room, even if the door is open and gives her space. He doesn’t complain if she uses too much hot water and remembers to put the toilet seat down. If anything isn’t to her liking, all she has to do is mention it, and he immediately augments his behavior. In fact, the only disagreements they’ve had in the month and a half since she moved in have been over who gets the bedroom (he insisted on being a gentlemen and taking the couch, which she absolutely refused; she finally won by telling him that if he forced her to take the bed, she’d pack up her suitcase and leave) and who does the cooking (she said she’d do it and the laundry since she’s basically living in his apartment expense free, he said he’d do it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while she did it Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, then Saturday would be takeout; he won that one because he actually likes to cook).

They don’t really hang out together, apart from occassionally watching the news. Most of their conversations are banal. How was your day, I did laundry, gas prices have gone up, do you want the shower first. Roommate talk, but just from that she can tell why Bucky liked the guy so much, why they were such good friends (especially once she discovers that sweet, polite Captain America can be a sassy son of a bitch when he wants to be). It’s all very… nice.

And still, since that first day, she hasn’t sat down with him and had a conversation. Not about anything significant that is. He’s tried several times, but she’s shut it down as quickly and politely as possible. She appreciates the effort to be her friend, take care of the brokenhearted girl that remains, but she can’t let it go that far. She knows if she lets him scratch the surface, the floodgates will open, and she’s not prepared for that. She doesn’t want to talk about Bucky. She won’t.

No, they’ll just keep being nice to each other, being agreeable until she’s got a couple of paychecks under her belt and can make a deposit on an apartment and pay him back for his kindness (which is another uphill battle, but she’ll think about that later).

That’s the plan anyway, until after a run, she realizes that it’s gone.

“No.”

She distinctly remembers leaving it on the sofa table in an ashtray that’s there for decoration only. It’s where she leaves everything; her wallet, her key to the apartment, the damn knife she purchased as a scared eighteen year old on the run from her government. But it’s not there.

Maybe it was so loose thanks to her self-inflicted emaciation that it came off while she was wearing it as she slept and it’s between the cracks in the sofa cushions? She rips them away as if they’re a bandage, finding nothing (not even lint, because she had a cleaning fit on yet another sleepless night and vacuumed). Under the couch then. Behind it. Nothing and nothing.

She’s ransacked the entire living room and is intent on moving onto the bathroom when the front door opens.

“What the-” She doesn’t bother looking up, but it doesn’t matter. He’s next to her in three strides. “Are you okay?”

She means to reassure him that she’s fine, just misplaced something, but instead what comes out is,

“It’s gone, Steve.”

“What’s gone?” Even as he speaks, she’s emptying out the trash can to make sure she didn’t acidentally throw it out (her mind’s been all over the place these days).

“My ring.” It’s the last piece she has of him. There’s a few pictures saved to her phone (which she can no longer so much as charge up), and his file which has since been given over to her care, but that’s the last physical thing she has that he left her, the last thing his fingers touched that she can touch too. And it’s gone.

“I can’t believe I lost it. I was being so careful-” She’s babbling, not even making sense to herself at this point. “-and now it’s gone. It’s gone, just like him. Fuck!” She shouldn’t be crying like a child, but there’s nothing she can do about it.

“Language.” Her head snaps up to stare at an embarassed Steve. “Sorry. Force of habit. What I mean is, why don’t I help you look for it?” She nods, and forces herself to take a deep breath.

“It was silver-” vibranium actually, but the color is more easily identifiable. “-with engraving-”

“I know what it looks like.” He interrupts sheepishly. “Trust me. He asked me, “Do you think she’ll like it” about a dozen times in ten minutes before he gave it to you.”

She never knew that, and it sends fresh tears to her eyes.

“And it’s vibranium, in case you didn’t know. Said it needed to be-”

“Strong and adaptable.” She recites back. Same as you. That’s what he told her when he slipped it on her finger, explaining why there wasn’t a stone. She doesn’t feel like either of those things. Not since he went, and she stayed. “I know.”

“Alright.” He nods. “When did you last have it?”

“Before my run. I took it off so I wouldn’t lose it.” She laughs bitterly. So much for that.

“Then you check your bag and the bathroom. I’ll give this room another look and search the kitchen? Sound like a plan?” She’s out of the room without a reply.

The bathroom turns up nothing, and despite upending her backpack, purse, and the pockets of each various piece of clothing, there’s no sign of it. So that’s it then. She’s lost him, down to the final shred.

Starvation, over-exertion, lack of sleep: none of it has taken her down so far, but knowing that it’s over, she can’t even hold onto that little piece of him, is what finally makes her legs give out from underneath her as she collapses in a heap.

She hears his footsteps long before he enters the cramped bathroom, but she doesn’t lift her head. At this point, she’s not even sure if she can. If heartache really can kill a person, she won’t be here for much longer. And, if Steve wants to survey the damage, she won’t stop him. She’s too weak to hide it anymore.

“You haven’t eaten anything today.” It’s not a question, so she doesn’t bother to answer. “Or yesterday. I’m not sure about the day before because it looked like you tried the meatloaf, but you could’ve squirreled it away in your napkin while I wasn’t looking.” He’s right. That’s exactly what she did.

Her eyes are closed, but her enhanced senses let her know the moment he sits down next to her, a respectful distance away, of course.

“You could be suicidal. You could have an eating disorder or another mental illness. Or you could just not care anymore. My bet’s on the last one.” What’s there to care about? She has no family. No friends. She has a job now, sure, but they could easily find another translator.

“You don’t care, and you’re grieving. That’s a dangerous combination. Was when I came out of the ice with everyone I loved either dead or dying, and it still is.”

His hand settles on her shoulder. Just lightly. Not so much a grasp or a pat as an assurance, an “I’m here.”

“You need to talk to someone about it. Maybe not me, but someone. You don’t want to go on, but like it or not, you’re here. You’ve gotta find a way to keep going. Maybe find something like a purpose eventually.” He sighs. “I’m gonna get you a glass of water and I’ll be right back.”

“I miss him.” She’s not sure when she decided to say it, or even if she did. “So much.” Steve doesn’t say anything, so she takes it as a sign to continue. “I know I don’t have any right to say that. You knew him for so much longer than I did, and you’re not falling to pieces. But I feel like half of me has been ripped away, and I don’t know how to live without it.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I’m not even sure I want to.”

He sighs, and she gathers what little strength she has left to apologize. She shouldn’t talk to him about this. That’s like comparing your stubbed toe to the man who’s had his foot amputated. But before she can do any of that, she hears a muffled thump. She should care what it is, but she doesn’t. That is, until she realizes that Steve is now lying on the floor with her.

“Now that we’re both about as low as we can go-” The corners of her lips turn up despite herself. “-I miss him too. A lot. But not the same way you do.” She would assume not. After all, that would be weird. “There’s a girl I miss like that. Her name was Peggy. But, that’s a conversation for another day.

“I’m not gonna tell you it gets better, because it doesn’t. I’m not gonna tell you you’ll move on, because I haven’t. What I’ll tell you is you learn to live with it. Eventually it hurts less to talk about them, or to even think about them. It still hurts, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more good than bad. Sometimes it helps to talk about them with someone else. For me at least, it’s like I’m keeping her alive. But it’s okay if that’s not something you can do right now. When you’re ready, I’ll be more than happy to take a trip down memory lane if you want.” She nods, still not lifting her head. “Okay. I’ll keep my calendar open. Now, I really need to get you that glass of water.”

He’s nearly out the door when she manages to croak out, “Thank you. For being nice to me. It’s good of you to look after your best friend’s…” What is she now? “...old flame.”

“You’re welcome, and just so you know, I’m not doing this because you’re Bucky’s girl. I’m doing this you because I think we could both use a friend right now. A real one.”

It’s only after he leaves the room that she feels something digging into her hip and discovers the ring in her pocket.

___________________________________________________________________________________

It’s convenient, her moving just down the hall from him. Especially since they had that little talk, and now Steve actually considers her a close friend. She’s looking better now, back to eating and drinking. Sleep is still dubious, and over the past few months, he’s woken multiple times to her screams coming from the living room. At first he ran in, thinking there was an intruder. Now he knows to crouch next to the pullout mattress and shake her shoulder until she wakes up. Occassionally there’s tears. Often there’s a midnight conversation about whichever funny memory they can think of to lighten the mood. As she’s come back to herself, bit by bit, he’s starting to see why Bucky was tied up in knots over her. It’s obvious they were good together in a way that can’t be replicated.

The one thing that hasn’t gone by the wayside is her running, and that’s one he’s not going to touch, because he does the same thing. In the morning, they both take off just as the sun is rising (in opposite directions to avoid anymore collisions), and once whoever’s pushing the envelope on how much distance they can really cover is done, they meet up, have breakfast, and start work.

Natasha keeps giving him not-so-subtle hints that he should ask her out, but that’s never gonna happen. Even if you took away the greiving and both of them still being in love with other people, she’s just not his type. He can’t see her as anything but a good friend at the least and an annoying little sister at the most, and he knows the feeling is mutual.

That’s part of the reason why he doesn’t bother knocking before using his key to step into her apartment, a bag full of things she’s left behind in his hands. She’s not in the living room or the kitchen, and even though they lived together for a solid four months, he’s not about to cross his boundaries and go any further into her place without permission. So he takes a seat on the couch (his old one which is now hers because she claims she’s gotten used to the lumps and can’t sleep without them) and waits for her to appear.

A good fifteen minutes pass before he hears footsteps approaching the apartment and the sound of singing. He recognizes the voice immediately because of the times she’d sing in the shower, but the song is unfamiliar. More than likely, she’s still got her earbuds in and hasn’t realized she’s giving a free concert to anyone in earshot.

“Got the sunshine on my shoulders, got a fist full of four-leaf clovers. Yeah, my cup runneth over. My sky is blue.” Cheerful, and a catchy melody. Maybe he’ll ask her the name so he can look it up. You can find any song you like nowadays on one little app.

“Been kissed by lady luck, the stars are all lined up. Every arrow that I aim is true-” The key turns in the lock and he starts to stand. “-but I miss you.” Some pains never completely fade, but at least they’re talking about it. That has to be worth something.