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redriotinggg · 6 months

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Luffy’s lovesick crewmates need a little push. He’s more than happy to give them a necessary shove.

—

Luffy is grumbling as he approaches Nami and Robin on the uppermost deck. They watch curiously as the rubber man mutters to himself, an unhappy look on his face as he drapes himself along the railing.

“Is everything alright, Captain?” Robin asks. The women come to stand on either side of him.

“I wanna play with Usopp, but he’s busy talking with Sanji.” His frown deepens. “He’s always hanging out with Sanji. It’s like they love each other or something.”

Nami’s eyebrows raise, a mischievous smile spreading on her face. Robin just shakes her head, silently telling her to stay quiet.

“What do you think?” the archaeologist asks. “Do you think they love each other?”

The pirate captain hums thoughtfully. All three of them are watching their two crewmates sitting on the grassy deck below them.

Sanji and Usopp are sitting together, close enough that their knees are touching. Sanji is uncharacteristically talkative, all smiles and sweeping gestures as he keeps his eyes on the marksman.

Usopp is listening raptly, a fond grin on his face and stars in his eyes. He’s nodding along, asking questions and making jokes.

As they laugh and converse, the duo seem to unconsciously lean toward to one another, as if drawn to their respective energies.

Sanji’s hand, the one closest to Usopp, comes to rest on the grass. As he adjusts, his fingers brush Usopp’s. Both men freeze before leaning back and snatching their hands away, averting their gazes with red-tinged faces.

“They do that all the time!” Luffy exclaims in exasperation. “They get closer and closer but then they pull away, like they’re scared. Usopp shouldn’t ditch me if he’s not even gonna do what he really wants,” he pouts.

“So, you think they love each other but they’re too scared to admit it?” Nami clarifies.

“Yeah! And that’s stupid. If you love someone, you should tell them.”

“Y’know Captain, I agree with you,” Nami says, a false sweetness to her voice. “But it seems that Sanji and Usopp haven’t gotten the hint.”

“I think the two of them need a little push,” Robin suggests. “Perhaps their Captain can help them get their affairs in order?”

Luffy stands with a decisive nod. “I’ll do it. I won’t let anyone stand in the way of my crew’s happiness. Not even my crew!”

Without another word, Luffy hops onto the railing and stretches his arms downwards. He gets one hand on Sanji’s shoulder and the other on Usopp’s, startling the two men. They don’t even have time to protest before Luffy is launching himself at them, knocking them all over.

“Usopp! Sanji!”

“What’s the big idea, Luffy?!”

They all sit up, Sanji and Usopp glaring at their Captain while he frowns back.

“I’m mad at you two!”

“What? Why? What’d we do?”

“You two aren’t being honest!” Luffy accuses.

“We aren’t being honest about what?” Sanji asks, frustration obvious in his tone.

“Your feelings! Usopp loves Sanji, and Sanji loves Usopp, but neither of you will say so! It’s dumb!”

Luffy continues his rant, unaware of how he’s rendered his red-faced crewmates speechless.

“Don’t forget that we’re pirates! We’re supposed to be free and take what we want! And we’re nakama. We’ll always be there for each other, no matter what. Do you get it? If you love each other you should say so!”

“B-b-but Luffy—”

“No buts! Get your shit together, Captain’s orders! In fact, you guys should kiss right now.”

“We are not kissing in front of you, Luffy!”

“But you will kiss, right?”

“I-I mean, if Sanji wants to…”

“I want to! I really want to.”

“Great! So go kiss, lovebirds!”

Usopp and Sanji sit in stunned, embarrassed silence for a few moments. Ultimately, Luffy’s expectant look is what spurs them into action.

Sanji jumps to his feet. He’s practically glowing from how hard he’s blushing, but he pushes through his overwhelm to extend a hand out to Usopp.

“Come with me to the galley?”

Usopp blinks up at him in astonishment for a moment before he takes Sanji’s hand, allowing him to pull him to his feet. The sniper grins shyly at the chef, softly twining their fingers together.

“You really want to kiss me?” Usopp has to ask, bashfully batting is long, dark lashes.

“I do,” Sanji smiles. He looks at Luffy, then up at Robin and Nami, who he’d noticed are watching them. He cringes at the attention, returning his gaze to Usopp. “Just, not in front our crewmates. At least, not the first time. And I’ve got some things I want to tell you that are probably better said in private, for both of our sakes.”

“Me too,” Usopp whispers.

“Well then, looks like we’re in agreement. Shall we?”

Sanji leads Usopp to the galley, both of them ignoring the cheering from the nosy trio. The door slams behind them, muffling the sound of shared laughter and whispered confessions.

Luffy launches himself back up the ship so he can peek inside the window and check on his handiwork.

“So, Captain?” Nami asks, leaning over the railing above him. “Did they keep their promise?”

Luffy giggles happily. “They sure did! They look super happy now. Problem solved!”

He takes a moment to observe his crewmates as they seal their bond. Robin and Nami watch as a look of panic overtakes his face as he seems to realize something. “Wait! Now that they’re in love, will Usopp spend even less time with me? And will Sanji be too busy to make me meat and snacks? No!”

Nami shakes her head and Robin chuckles as the Straw Hat bursts into the galley, loudly interrupting the union he insisted on.

Neither of them try to stop him to protect the moment for the newly established couple. Their Captain needs his food and attention, after all.

#sanji and usopp curse luffy to hell and back for interrupting them. and luffy is like right but remember when i made sure you guys kissed??#luffy wants the best for his nakama but then remembers that might not be in HIS best interest. bc he needs food and attention always #sanji and usopp are embarrassed they got called out by their captain but mostly they’re overjoyed that their feelings are finally out!!#they can’t shake luffy off until after dinner which KILLS them they just wanna touch and kiss and LOVE #it has to wait until usopps night watch shift #they can finally be alone and close the distance between them #sanuso #one piece #black leg sanji #god usopp #usosan #red’s fic #monkey d. luffy #strawhats

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thegraveyardsh1ft · 1 year

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Ethan: Are you a beer dad, wine mom, or vodka aunt?

Henry: *looking him dead in the eyes* I'm an orange juice grandma

(Henry hasn’t drank since the Great Depression, but for the life of me, I could not figure out how to draw Henry holding a tiny juice box. So instead have the other three Graveshift Boys raiding the alcohol aisle)

#the graveyard shift #the graveyard shift au #fnaf #five nights at freddy's #michael afton #mike schmidt #fnaf michael afton #resident evil #ethan winters #resident evil ethan winters #dark deception #dark deception doug #doug houser #willys wonderland #the janitor #willys wonderland janitor #answering asks #sorry for the delay #im trying to find a transition between henry kicking michaels ass and the next scene

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kirby-the-gorb · 9 months

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#kirby #daily kirby #my art #digital #hal laboratory #nintendo #my partner's friends have a big important camping trip they've been planning for a whole year tomorrow #and me and my wife are also invited #camping is Tricky for me #between the illness and the army experience being Miserable #plus since it's a big group of people The Autism comes into play too -n-#but my wife and partner have worked together to accommodate me only staying for one night even though everyone else is staying for 3 #(which also means daily drawings will not be disrupted even though I'm leaving my tablet at home!)#so I am looking forward to touching trees or whatever people do when they're camping not-for-work #(I wouldn't know literally my only experiences of camping were in the army)#(I have been promised I will not have to sleep directly in the mud and I will not be woken up for a guard shift)#(so like. it should be fine.)#favorites

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enhanced-operatives-division · 27 days

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Junicrane/Starstruck Ramble

I will not be brief, all under the cut

To clear some things right off the bat:

No corpse, no proof with Juniper. Obligatory this is set in a canon where he's alive and adjacent to the agency in some way.

Reggie & Juniper are just gay to me, but I don't mind any interpretation of their sexuality

The games are set in 1967/68 to me (based on a couple bits in game) which is before it was legal to be gay in America at least (1971), which is relevant to how I interpret canon as being somewhat grounded in reality, despite unrealistic elements.

This is just an insane amount of headcanons/elements of and AU all culminated into one post. I will talk about some headcanons like they're just facts because they are established in my head, and it saves me over explaining literally everything, however I will explain some parts a little bit for clarity.

Alright. Actual beginning of the ramble:

Juniper is a character to me who had gotten so lost in his job as an actor and a social presence that in the end his whole life revolved around that 'role'. Because of this, by the time he's put into the situation where he's around the Agency, he basically knows nothing about himself, though he doesn't realise at first. Furthermore, what little identity he had has changed in so many ways. He's no longer a beloved famous actor in the prominence of public light, he's legally dead and he tarnished his career just before he was supposed to die, with the bonus of that making him lose the majority of his estate. From that, he also has horrific facial scarring from the electrical burns from literally having his face fried. I believe a friend of mine made a post about this a while ago (I also think they were the first to think it up also), but, to me, Juniper has a permanent trimmer in his right arm (aka his dominant hand) from the electrical current and it is messing with his nervous system.

All in all, he's not doing great, but he's too proud to admit that he's not doing great, because if anything, what's left of his ego is all he has as a defense since he's deep in unfamiliar water.

Before ending up around the agency (I have multiple interpretations of this, so I'm just going to bring it up generally), he'd never actually seen Reggie, and his only impression of him is a single voicemail, which was his only reference he had to later impersonate him. Juniper probably has very little feelings other than the ones he projects onto him because of Phoenix and that, at the very least, he's physically attracted to Reggie to some degree (that's like the beginning of how everything else would tumble into place in this sort of interpretation at least).

And on Crane's side? His feelings towards Juniper are probably very intense and muddled. On the one hand, he adores musical theatre, and that's his now ex-favourite actor. The thought of just casually being around him blows the bit of fanboy in him away at first because THAT'S the GUY, plus the inklings of a celebrity crush which still poke at him. And then there's the rational side of him, which knows Juniper has committed absolute atrocities on the side of Zoraxis, and hates him for that. Then there's how much Juniper comes off as an asshole at first because he refuses to cooperate with anything the Agency tried to put in place. He finds Juniper endlessly frustrating, and yet he's stuck working with him since, afterall, he's the one who knows the Agency's history with Juniper the best. I imagine him acting a lot like how he does IEYTD 1 around Juniper.

At this point, I'm just describing the pitch for a romcom.

I think the start of their relationship with one another largely started with Juniper trying to wind Crane up. It was a way of getting his attention, and I don't think Juniper knows why he's so dead set on that at first, because I don't think he realises he has a crush on 'this grump' at first. (I think that's actually the fun part about these two, because it's almost like a role reversal of the celebrity crush dynamic. This ex-big name actor has a TERRIBLE crush on an average joe and it is KILLING HIM.) But of course the Agency keeps them together because Juniper is at least conversing with Crane, so it's a start.

Through one way or another, they actually get talking casually, at least mildly at first. It takes Juniper a long time to fully deconstruct the wall he's built, and the thing is, Crane isn't the one trying to deconstruct it, at least at first, because yeah, Juniper realises if he wants Reggie to actually like him in any way, he can't keep winding him up. So they talk. Small talk at first, something rhythmic and almost easy to keep to a script. And over time that turns into actual conversations. Genuine ones in which Reggie rips out the occasional one of his jokes which Juniper is endlessly endeared about. The way he smiles just before he makes them, like he wants to chuckle at what he's about to say before he says it. That's probably when Juniper realised that he does have some vague crush on him, and that it wasn't going away.

This is what kickstarts John I can't-buy-you-things-to-impress-you-so-acts-of-service-it-is Juniper to do little things for him. It mostly starts off as him trying to make Reggie his tea how he likes it. However, the nerve damage in his arm makes that hard, as the weight of the kettle and trying to pour is hard all of a sudden. And he refuses to accept that, so he tries for a very long while. Long enough that Crane would go to investigate what was going on. And when he does see Juniper leaning over a cup with the kettle as he uneasily tries to pour it, and when Crane asks Juniper responds so matter-of-fact that his intention is nothing but genuine. And it catches Reggie off guard because Juniper hadn't done anything like that up to that point, and his very apparent vulnerability is so clearly on show.

It shifts something between them.

From that point on, conversations are longer, more familiar. Both of their attitudes soften, and Reggie makes more jokes. Juniper learns how to better use his left hand while strengthening his right back to a point where it could be used again. Slowly, they're both spending time with one another not because they have to, but just because they can. Little bits at first, not too far outside what they already were doing, but those little bits turned into long bits to a point where the other person's company was genuinely desirable.

As time passes, Juniper probably realises that he doesn't genuinely know much about himself or what hobbies he's into, because he never really had the time when he got big, and his home life in his youth wasn't bad, but it wasn't picturesque. I think Reggie would pick up on it, and absolutely try to introduce him to some things he's into. Some things stick, other things don't (corn husking very much stays Reggie's passion, and John will go with him sometimes because it's him, but it's not something he strongly cares for). Crane introduces him to a lot of music, and it's something that becomes a staple between them, with tracks they listen to more than others (tragically, I know relatively little about 60s music so I couldn't really say what). Occasionally they dance, never anything intense, think slow dancing, but the closeness is nice.

Through all of it, Juniper is battling the worst crush of his life, and he can't stand it, because I think he struggles to read people since he doesn't have anything like a script or a director to refer back to, so he has no idea if Reggie likes him back or if he's just desperate for that to be true. I think because of that any sort of confession between them would be incredibly raw, not only because of the time they live in making it hard for them to be truthful about how they love, but because it's a complete show of Juniper who's worked to be this better person. I don't exactly know how that would go, mainly because I don't have one set version of their dynamic, this post is just a generalisation of main consistent points.

Reggie does like him back, because he's gotten used to Juniper being just this guy, not a figure in the public eye, not a Zoraxis lackey, and not any sort of Agency operative (despite being under their care to some degree). He's someone he genuinely cares for, because they've given one another the time of day to learn one another, and I think because Reggie was a field agent, he was a lot better at reading Juniper than Juniper was at reading him. Eventually Juniper's company becomes something he could see around him for the rest of his life, and I think he accepts that he likes Juniper a lot more gracefully.

I think any affection directed at Juniper would at first be met with him feeling a little muddled. Reggie was a very physically affectionate person when he could be, and sure the initial flirting with one another came with the occasional little touches, but everything now was so deeply intentional. I also don't think Juniper would almost ever get over the novelty of being able to kiss him, or many other gestures, because it made the fact that they were together so very real, and it was great. I do think it comes easier to Reggie, and it's a big way of showing how much he cares, so it's important for Juniper to try and show it back because he knows how much it means to the other.

I like the idea of them eventually living with one another, too. I think Juniper would have always had a quiet little daydream of sorts where he does just live a domestic quiet life, and he can with Reggie (well, as close as they can get between the Agency and Zoraxis always being at odds), and he loves that, and he loves him, and it's immense.

I think they cook for one another a lot, it helps Juniper work on his dexterity in a controlled environment, which means a lot because it's a huge point of insecurity (that and his scars). He does improve, and Crane is proud of that and shows it and it's great. I also think they'd probably cook together too, because they can deal with being in the kitchen together and they work well with one another. It's probably a good way for them to unwind because over time they can do it in relative silence.

As I said before, I also think music is a staple in their household, and that Reggie listens to things on vinyl almost all of the time because he likes the background noise. Sometimes Juniper will catch him chuntering along to the music which he finds endlessly endearing. I wouldn't put it past his dramatic ass to also join in to fluster Reggie, but I also don't think Reggie would mind that terribly because Juniper has listened to the music enough to know the lyrics, and that's huge to him.

I don't think they are without rough patches, no relationship is, but I think the good part about them is that they're willing to talk about it (... eventually). They're used to long conversations, and while they're often less fun conversations, they're needed and they know that, and it works out.

Alright. I think I'm done for now. I haven't mentioned everything, but this definitely got the worst of it out of my system. If you ever want to hear any specific thoughts my ask box is open but other than that, behold my general dynamic for these two which has been festering in my head for years. I think they're great

#ty right-agent for explicitly telling me that this would be welcomed you a real one #i had a massive babble to my friend abt what if they all feed me to the hounds for speaking #and he said “girl that fandom is like 12 people big they need you to speak” and yeah that also helped #i have a hard time talking if I'm not asked/prompted to that's why i adding tags is great for me. that and i like the format #anyways.#THESE TWO.............dear lord can you tell I have been unwell abt them forever..#this is propeganda (/j) for them. btw. please you have to understand the potential here. it's so good.#it's slowburn <- my (probably) demiromantic ass cannot handle romance without a build up and this set up is perfect (it will never happen)#also i find it easier to write ANYTHING between these two from Juniper's perspective because i find it easier to get into his head #idk reggie is like the gay version of the: what is he thinking of? i could take a bear in a fight. audio ive heard.#whereas with juniper i have him trapped under a microscope #im going to tag this now so i can use the remaining tags to RANT #ieytd #john juniper #reginald crane #junicrane #starstruck #i expect you to die #<- being BRAVE!!!#when I get really excited i start getting like this internal shaking feeling and uh. yeah this rant started that #the worst part abt that is it also triggers my tourettes so like. double whammy. excited about blorbos? jail :(#but. yeah I uh. yeah. sorry this IS so long..I did warn but . AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHHAUUUUUUAHHHHHHHHHHHHH #also i did this rant in 2 parts. last night and this morning so yeah uh. yeah.#god im so messed up about these two #make me a boat by the family crest came on while wroting this and while it's mainly a roxanix song to me......AUUUUUG.....#i struggle to find music for these sillies because they have such a specific vibe to me amd I've not quite managed to find something which -#- genuinely feels correct for them and it drives me up the WALL #GOD NIGHT SHIFT JUST CAME OF SHUFFL.....all my ieytd songs are coming out to drive me up the wall.......#FINISHED I've been adding tags as I've gone alonga #thank you for reading hope you enoyed and if you didn't im sorry

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maybeher0 · 4 months

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team "something horrible happened to me after my loved one unknowingly gifted me an incredibly cursed mirror that might be a gate to another world"

#this post is sponsored by my sleep deprived night shift working ass multifandom drifting between two brainrots #and me playing TP too #twilight princess #loz tp #kirby #kirby triple deluxe #tp yeta #kirby sectonia #kirby joronia #this is incredibly narrow superlative but I'm amazed there happened to be two nickels #the only difference is yeta lived /j

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stone-stars · 4 months

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ep 99 short rest is so much all the time to listen to

#em and jake talking about moonshine and hardwon is so.#‘she was scared of loving bigger than anyone was capable of loving her back’#‘hardwon is like the first person that moonshine ever met that just like fully loved the crick- she didn’t have to prove it’#‘it just felt like his capacity for love matched hers’#‘i also think it’s really interesting what you’re saying about moonshine having so much love to give #because that’s the exact thing that hardwon was starved for growing up’#also murph saying moonshine and hardwon are a thing that shifts between #platonic and romantic over time #just going back and forth #‘they would go out and prowl together and also share one big bed at the end of the night’#it’s so!! god. i love the way they talk about those two.#naddplog #hanbles

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pastafossa · 4 months

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just saw a post that said ‘pasta is an antidepressant’ and my brain immediately thought of you

and i hope you and your mom are doing okay <333

THIS IS SO SWEET! 😭 And also hilarious because I've become so used to Pasta being my name online that my thought process as I read went ''Pasta is an antidepressant' oh hey that's me! -> wait they mean they saw a post about actual pasta -> oh but then connected it to me so it is me!' I'm hopeless. This is why I can't be in the pasta aisle at the store with anyone else, because I have and will say 'Yes?' if they mumble 'Pasta?' into their phone.

And she's doing pretty good all things considered, thank you friend! Coming home has helped her a lot, even if she's still got a lot of in-home PT ahead over the next few months and she can't really be alone in the house for a while. But even then, she's recovering a lot faster than anyone expected - they thought she'd be in the hospital for a good month even after they released her from the ICU to a normal hospital room (she's only just now realizing how really, really, really sick she was cause ironically she was too sick to realize it when it happened). So we'll all happily take it! As for me, I'm mostly tired and still kinda... idk how to describe it. Disoriented maybe. I know all those emotions are all gonna come up and slap me in the face again eventually but at least for now they're just lurking while I focus on the logistics (adjusting schedules, general caretaker duties, house projects to make things easier for mom to move around, etc).

#I AM AN ANTIDEPRESSANT #that makes me so happy #i WANT to make people happy so goal achieved???#also yeah we're rolling along at least!#mom is doing REALLY well tbh so i'm holding onto that but she had no idea until now just how sick she was #but between me and my dad (retired) and sis on afternoon/night shift at work (hours i'm usually awake)#we're able to basically always have someone with her so we're uniquely set up for this fortunately #and she's still *her*. like she's talking and joking and her happy pasta mama self which helps just as much #however not to use a trt metaphor but i know for a fact there is a trauma boar somewhere in my forest rn and it'll pop up eventually #i just gotta be ready for it

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waxedpaperdoor · 4 months

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I try not to be a dickhead just in general and to people in particular - you never know what's going on in their lives or what kind of day they're having, why would you be a dickhead anyway etc. etc. - but sometimes it absolutely cannot be helped. This person I'm not overly fond of but to whom I was being polite said, on hearing that I have a few days off this week, "bit cheeky, that, were the holidays not enough for you?", and the words WELL ACTUALLY rolled out of my mouth like they were on a mission to destroy Autobots 🙃

#'the holidays' is a made up time period for people who don't do shift work #PLUS I worked Christmas Eve Christmas Day Boxing Night New Year's Eve #with multiple assorted shifts in between #so A can go jump off a cliff

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anna-hawk · 18 days

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I love how I keep lying to myself, like, “Okay, I'll just finish this chapter before I turn in for the night.”, when I already know that I'm going to read the whole fic and complain about being tired the next day.

#fanfiction #reading #sleep #the endless dilemma #between the late night shifts and still reading in bed afterwards I've been running on 4 hours of sleep these last few days #that and insomnia #and no nap possibility 😭#i will learn nothing from this #fanfiction and webtoons will be my downfall

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veil-touched-rights-org · 9 months

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an angelo volta collage

#night shift podcast #angelo volta #the night shift: an urban fantasy audio drama #veil vocalizes #coffee and a collage #i made this in between customers at work so it may not be the best #i plan on making more both generally and for angelo individually

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void-botanist · 2 months

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Rose's Kiss Week Day 6: Home Alone

OCs: Sierra Callawel and Ian Carlisle (Spinder's oldest sister and her husband)

Words: 1189

Content warnings: none

Notes: Ian's canid form is a common raccoon dog. It is also well-known that shifting to that form makes you itchy.

When Sierra looked up from her computer, she could see the full moon hanging too-large over the faraway trees outside her window. She’d lost track of time. Ian would be transformed, now, and she hadn’t seen him at all. She locked her computer and stood up. The kids were out, so making a circuit of the house wouldn’t draw them out of their rooms and interrupt the nice night she wanted to spend alone with her husband.

“Ian?” she called as she started up the stairs. “Where are you?”

She heard a mournful squeaky-toy noise from somewhere down the hall and smiled to herself as she went to find the source of it. When she flipped on the light in her bedroom, she got a louder and angrier squeak from the bed, where a golden brown and black fluff of a dog was burying his little face under his front paws.

“Sorry,” she said, going to turn on her bedside lamp before turning off the overhead light. He didn’t raise his head until she sat down on the side of the bed, and then he tried to crawl in her lap immediately.

Laughing, she held him back gently and got fully onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard before she let him snuffle his way into her space. He seemed content to put his paws across her legs and rest his head on them, but she scooped him up all the way, holding him close against her. His response was to put his paws on her arm and set his head there instead. He was probably just tired after transforming, but he always looked so cute and sad in his dog form, and it made her want to hug him tighter. So she did, pressing her cheek to the top of his fuzzy little head and then kissing him there. He let out a longer squeak, stretching his neck out further, and as she petted his head she followed his gaze to the brush he’d set out for her. Oh, of course. Grabbing it was a bit of a stretch, and she almost dumped him out of her arms accidentally, but once it was in her hand she settled him in her lap and began running it through his fur in long strokes, head to rump. Instantly he was a dog-shaped puddle in her lap, his only reaction little snuffles of pleasure.

When she paused to pull out the mat of hair that had collected in the brush, he rolled over onto his back, cradled in her crossed legs. She scratched behind his ears while she drew the brush along the contours of his ribcage and haunches and arms. He didn’t even tense as she carefully brought it over his neck and chin. As soon as she set the brush aside, though, he was getting back out of her lap, jumping down onto the floor with a cacophony of clicking nails and pausing in the doorway to look back at her. She smiled and followed him back downstairs to the kitchen, where he waited by the table while she got their dinner out of the fridge: sliced chicken, lentils, and a touch of cranberry sauce. For him, at least. She could have as much as she wanted. His was already in a bowl, so once she pried off the lid she set it in front of him on the floor. He wagged his tail but didn’t move. While she made her own plate from the main bowls of food, she saw him bend down and sniff his bowl, his eyes never leaving her.

“You can start without me,” she said.

He made a sound somewhere between a shriek and a growl and sat straight again. With a laugh she returned the food bowls to the fridge and brought her plate to the table.

“Blessed be the fruits of the earth, and us among them,” she said, and he squeaked out the same cadence before shoving his face in his bowl. She ate with half an eye on him inhaling his food, mostly because his enthusiasm was adorable.

On the way back to bed she carried him up the stairs, letting him jump down on the bed before she got into her pajamas. He didn’t stay on the bed, though, since she had to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth and he apparently had the energy now to not let her leave his sight. He brushed against her ankles where she stood in front of the sink, hopped in the bathtub, and started rolling around on the textured treads on the bottom of it. That was why he was accompanying her. He’d told her before that there was something sublime about the feeling of the bathtub treads specifically that he really couldn’t explain. He didn’t feel that way about them in human form. She didn’t care as long as he didn’t leave his fur in the tub, though she was often the one who cleared it out to take a shower anyway. But it was worth it to see him being so happy in there. When she left the bathroom, he followed, and she scooped him back onto the bed. He curled up right next to her while she read her book for a bit. After she turned out the light, he yipped along with her presleep prayer, and she gave him a last pet on the head before relaxing into the dark.

At the crack of dawn the sudden weight on the bed woke her. In the light that sifted around the edges of the curtains she could see Ian, now fully human, getting under the covers. He turned his back to her—he might not even remember that his transformation always woke her up—but she came over to him anyway, putting a hand on his side as she kissed his shoulder. When he shifted onto his back, she kissed his scratchy cheek, then gave him a peck on the lips before leaning back on her elbow to look at him. There was always something a little canine about him to her, but it was stronger when he’d just come back—the way he blinked at her like a sleepy dog melded with the way he still smelled of fur. And it was his smell, because he smelled the same if she met him in the middle of the hallway, or raiding the fridge downstairs. After he took a shower it would fade, but for now she breathed it deeply. She could never explain it to anyone but him, but these were the hours when he smelled most like himself, like her Ian.

His hand slipped into the curls at the back of her head, guiding her into a deeper kiss. She wrapped an arm around his warm chest as he smoothed his other hand over her shoulder. He kissed her a second time, then ever so gently pushed her away.

“Okay, I’m sleeping now,” he said with a tired smile.

She caressed his cheek, then laid back on her side of the bed. “Goodnight.”

RKW taglist: @jezifster @kk7-rbs @vacantgodling

Shifters taglist: @outpost51 @kk7-rbs

#Sierra is generally known to be caring but sharp and humorless. then there's moon nights #I love what this implies about their two adopted shifter children who very likely have the same moon as Ian #there are other places they go and feel safe shifting. I don't know where but. Spinder's probably been there #I wonder if there are shift clubs. idk how you could possibly enforce that though #I have been forever changed by Patricia Taxxon's On The Ethics of Boinking Animal People btw #even though this clearly is not “boinking” or really even “animal people” I now aspire to write stuff like this in a sensory way #beyond that I also think it's interesting how people inhabit liminal spaces with the things they enjoy #it's most obvious in kink but shifters do a lot of the lifting for me lol #I guess the reason I have never committed to making shifters have anthro animal forms is I don't have anything interesting to do w that #but having a person cross the line between how we treat husbands and how we treat pets...that's intriguing #still working out the details of being in canid form tho #also don't ask me what their religion is I don't know lol #c: Sierra #c: Ian #rose's kiss week #rose writ

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