#he's so gross and ratty and silly i love him
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A wee shit post for today. I've been working on some stuff for the Rogues! zine so posts will still be a little dead for a while but I'll be back to normal soon
#captain boomerang#digger harkness#george harkness#dc villains#suicide squad#suicide squad kill the justice league#suicide squad game#the suicide squad#suicide squad boomerang#worriwort art#worriwort doodles#he's so gross and ratty and silly i love him#i'm also super looking forward to playing the ssktjl game#soon enough it'll be released!!!#also hopefully opening commissions soon in between playing ssktjl hehe#ssktjl
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ok while qaa tries to fill the void that his da- i mean dadschlatt anon left in their heart, i will share an au idea
MEGAMIND au 😎
ok so the megamind plot is hero vs villain yadda yadda the hero wants to retire and fakes his death bc megamind in this case quackity is actually kind of a mild threat(maybe either slime or techno is metroman). Quackity has taken over the city and is probably in a silly goofy mood trying to make a new las vegas but feels empty inside and concocts a serum to create a new superhero to oppose him bc hes so lonely 💔 but then i always believed that if things didnt go to shit in the movie he would have ended up injecting the roxanne which would be wilbur w the serum bc he's obviously a real moral hero trying to make a good impact in the news networks from the position he can get (theyre probably anti wilbur bc he serves major cunt too well) and never took q's shit as a hostage.
q can be a bit of a ratty looking bird hybrid sort of avian w bird feet and feathered ears and actual wings that never developed to grant him flight and the super serum can be a little goofy and give wil his white streak ❤️ the plot would end up p different bc it would be tntduo being psycho-competitive just like they were when q was holding reporter wil hostage except this time wil has super powers and hes definitely not titan but maybe he goes a little power crazy wanting to punt this pathetic man into the atmosphere once he realizes how much more powerful he is ❤️ and ofc the roles could be swapped but now i realize that slime could be q's henchman ❤️ ohh or tommy could be wil's 👀
- cqaa
OH MY GOD, I LOVE MEGAMIND
Put this one for size: Techno is Metro Man, Quackity is Megamind, Slime is Minion, Wilbur is Roxanne, and Fundy is Titan
Don't get any gross ideas, it's not a romantic thing between him and Wil, he just desperately wants Wilbur to be his father figure and Wilbur is not having it, and then Quackity acts like his father figure and he's like "FINALLY I HAVE A DAD" but then he sees Wilbur and Quackity together and goes "Oh, so you're gonna be his dad instead??" (not clear which of them he was talking to) and they're both like "clearly not" but Fundy's gonna destroy the city about it anyway
#and I hate most liar revealed stories so I will simply erase the whole Bernard thing from the equation#Wilbur knows who Quackity is the whole time and slowly grows to like him anyway#anons my beloved#au ideas#the cooler qaa
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Jon's Trapped in Temporal Time-Out: A TMA Time Travelling Tale
Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.
Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him.
“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”
Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”
Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary.
The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”
“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”
Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”
I kept on bitching about how much I dislike the beginning scenes of TMA time travelling AUs so my friend @lazuliquetzal (who wrote the best TMA time travelling fic in the fandom) told me to put my money where my mouth is. It’s nowhere near her level, but in my defense it’s probably even stupider than Reflection. 10K of stupid under the cut.
Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.
Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him.
“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”
Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”
Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary.
The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”
“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”
Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”
****
There was, indeed, a corpse in the Archives.
More specifically, in the stacks. The worst place to die, or least be dumped. Sasha had to admit the logic of it: it was the darkest depths of the library that Martin had informed her was ‘somewhat creepy’ and ‘kind of ominous’ so ‘please stop sleeping there you’re going to give me a heart attack’. After Martin flipped on a few lights that were never flipped on (apparently Elias was a cheapskate, which explained the breakroom) they could all gawk at the corpse to their heart’s content.
Very kindly and thoughtfully, Tim asked Martin if he wanted to stay out of the library and maybe to ‘tell someone’ or something. Both Sasha and Tim had mutually and silently agreed that Martin seemed the type to have a delicate constitution. Granted, he hadn’t seemed the type to win Magnus Anarchist every month by breaking into abandoned buildings with absolutely no shame, so maybe he was the kind that surprised you.
But Martin had just looked a little unimpressed. “Do you seriously think this is my first corpse? I went to university.”
That somewhat intimidated Sasha, who abruptly worried that she had missed out on an essential university experience again. “Is that a typical university experience?”
Martin paused a beat.
“Uh,” he said, “yeah, sure, of course. Hazing, you know.”
“Is that what hazing…?”
“Fraternities.”
Tim, from where he had been standing at the entrance to the stacks snapping on the sterile gloves he had liberated from the cleaning supply closet, looked delighted. “You were in a frat too, Martin? What kind of hardcore frat had corpse hazings? Was it the Sigma Gammas? My frat always thought they were way too crazy, but we were a business one -”
“You know what,” Martin said, “let’s just worry about the corpse.”
After Sasha tied her hair in a ponytail and Martin snapped on his own gloves, they awkwardly approached the aisle where Tim had been trying to find a reference book for Jon. Sasha was worried that they would have to hunt for it a little, or that there would be a bad jump scare, but when they found it she saw that it wasn’t subtle at all.
It was sprawled on the ground, face mashed into the cheap and somewhat gross carpet. Sasha approached it with absolutely no hesitation, which Tim and Martin gladly let her do, and squatted down to get a better look at the figure.
She definitely needed to make a coroner’s report. She was the objective expert in coroner’s reports.
“Tim, can you run back and get one of Jon’s silly little tape recorders for my coroner’s report?”
“Did you just see that on the telly?” Tim asked skeptically. “Because if you did -”
“Oh, here one is. That’s really convenient!” Martin grabbed one off the shelf and pressed play, letting the tape roll. “Good idea, Sasha. We need proof to Jon that we were researching.”
Probably...not what Jon meant for them to be researching, but Sasha liked to believe that it was the intent that mattered. She pulled a pencil out of her pencil skirt pocket, poking the figure thoughtfully. “Report by Sasha James, Archival Assistant.” There, now it was work. “At 1:30pm today, Tim Stoker discovered a corpse in the Archives, thereby referred to as John Doe -”
“Do we have to call it John Doe?” Tim complained, standing next ot her and crossing his arms. “Then we have too many Johns, it’ll get confusing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sasha said dismissively. “Ours is Jon, this guy’s John. Completely different.”
“Sasha, I’m not sure that’s how words work.”
“What are you, an English major?”
“Yes! I was an editor for a living!”
“Sorry if I don’t listen to guys who were fired from book editing school -”
“Uh,” Martin said, “have we checked to see if he’s actually dead?”
Sasha and Tim fell silent. Sasha looked at Tim. Tim shook his head.
“Seriously, mate?” Sasha asked, unimpressed.
“I didn’t want to touch the corpse!” Tim cried. “So sue me! It’s not as if he’s moving!”
Pussy. Sasha gently reached out and pushed aside a little of the corpse’s very long and pretty curly hair. What was that, 3C? Jesus, that had to be work. Sasha was 3A and the amount of hair care products she owned was insane.
She waved her hand at the boys for silence and put her thumb against his pulse, concentrating hard. Martin quietly walked over and crouched down too, eyeing his chest.
“I don’t feel a pulse,” Sasha said finally.
“Also, uh, I’m not a doctor,” Martin said, “but he’s definitely not breathing.”
“I told you,” Tim said defensively. “You just look at the thing, and you go - yep, that’s a corpse!”
“Corpse appears to be an ethnically ambiguous adult man with very nice hair,” Sasha said loudly. Martin helpfully held out the recorder to catch her voice better. “Maybe 190cm. Incredibly skinny - potential cause of death. He’s dressed in...some very ratty clothing. Potentially homeless.”
“It definitely smells,” Tim said, pinching his nose. Sasha didn’t blame him - the clothing was an overlarge green hoodie, ratty and threadbare, and his jeans weren’t any better. His boots were worn and soft leather. “Maybe he’s a homeless guy who snuck in and died?”
“That’s so sad,” Martin said softly. “Also a little gross.”
“Have some respect for the dead, guys,” Sasha said, as she poked the dead guy with a pencil. “Tim, go flip him over.”
Tim held his hands up, stepping away. “I couldn’t possibly. Martin loves flipping people over.”
“This again?” Martin asked, frustrated. “This is just like when you made me handle the Rawlings case because you’re scared of the suburbs!”
“They have too many eyes, Martin!”
“I am surrounded by cowards,” Sasha noted for the recorder. Nothing for it, then. Sasha carefully straightened, wobbling on her heels, before solidly wiggling her hands underneath the corpse’s chest. He was cold - dead a while.
It was surprisingly difficult to flip over a limp adult man. Sasha was strong, but the corpse’s flesh was weak, and he was all floppy. Eventually Tim got over himself long enough to help her, making a very disgusted face the entire time, and they were able to finally get a good look at the man’s face.
Abruptly, upon seeing it, they all quieted.
There was something about seeing a man splayed out on the ground that was a little funny, if you worked for the Magnus Institute and had probably encountered a Leitener two years ago and lost all empathy. No more impediments in the search for science. But there was something very different about looking at a person, who had a nose and lips and a very ratty hoodie, and knowing that it was no longer a person. Just a lot of cloth and meat and blood and organs and nice hair that once was a person, back when things were easier and the world was a little less harsh.
But maybe Sasha was caught by sentimentality: after all, the corpse looked a little like Jon.
Judging from the stunned faces of her compatriots as they all bent around the figure, they all thought the same thing. Tim’s jaw was open, and Martin’s hand was covering his mouth in shock.
“Man,” Tim said. “This sucks. And it’s really creepy.”
“He must have been really gorgeous,” Martin said. “That’s so sad.”
Actually, Sasha tilted her head and took another look. He had sharp and severe features, elegant and striking. A large and thin, sharp nose, and equally sharp lips. His face was just as sharp and gaunt, as emancipated as the rest of him. He had strange scars trailing up his neck and curving around his jaw, but it just kind of accentuated the intense atmosphere.
It was probably a pretty stupid thing to focus on, but in her defense it wasn’t really the face of a homeless guy. Well, maybe. Hot homeless people existed.
Sasha frowned. She’s only met one other person this hot.
“Hey,” she said, “doesn’t he look like Jon?”
Both the men titled their heads.
Finally, Tim said, “Nah, he’s hotter.”
“Agreed,” Sasha said. “I think the scars really do it.”
“Uh, guys,” Martin said.
Sasha grabbed her tape recorder out of Martin’s hands, resuming her coroner’s report. “Subject appears to be in his thirties. Weirdly attractive, but that’s probably not as important as we feel it is.” She looked down at his hands, carefully using her pencil to push up the sleeve. “What looks like an aged and badly healed burn scar on his right hand. Supports homeless guy evidence.”
“Knife scar over his throat,” Tim quietly observed. “Someone tried to kill this guy.”
“Guys,” Martin said.
“Well, I guess this is the point where we worry about body disposal,” Sasha said, straightening. “I think Elias could handle this discreetly and professionally, but that might involve letting Jon know. And I don’t think any of us want that kind of stress in our lives.”
“So, are we not even pretending to want to call the cops, or…?”
“Listen to me!”
Both Tim and Sasha shut up, somewhat guiltily. Martin had straightened too, fists balled, looking firm and determined and resolute - everything that Martin wasn’t, really. Martin lived unsure of himself, never expressing his own feelings or ending every opinion with an “I don’t know, maybe, that’s just my thoughts, what do you think?”.
So Tim and Sasha paid attention, and when Sasha nodded encouragingly at him he seemed to find further courage. Solemnly, with the air of a wise man by the side of the road, Martin said, “This guy isn’t hotter than Jon.”
Christ. Sasha takes it all back.
Tim propped a hand on his hip supportively as Sasha rolled her eyes. “Look, mate,” Tim said, “I know that you think Jon’s the hottest person in existence, and maybe objectively he’s fine as hell, but once you know him for longer than three months he loses all attractiveness. It would be like being into the DMV clerk. The really pretentious cousin at all of your family reunions who tries to explain your own job to you. The dude in your English class who thinks he invented feminism.”
“That was you,” Sasha said.
“I am the objective expert in Jon,” Martin said firmly, shutting down the dissent. “He’s, like, my muse, okay? And can I say, as I have spent so many long hours memorizing the curve of his jaw - that’s the same jaw.”
If Sasha had a retort to that, or if Tim wanted to judge Martin for his taste in men further, neither of them had a chance. There wasn't an opportunity to say anything more, because the corpse opened its eyes.
Sasha’s first thought was this: wow, what green eyes.
Sasha’s second thought was: the fuck?
His eyes didn’t focus on her, or snap anywhere. They drifted a little lazily, fixed on the right, but the man was undoubtedly aware. His fingers twitched, he tilted his head from left to right, and his left hand - doubtlessly the hand that still felt texture - clenched the thin and cheap rug. The man’s jaw slackened a little, as if in surprise.
For their part, the Assistants frantically looked at each other, all conveying the exact same thought - you said he was dead!
Sasha froze to her spot, petrified. She could handle corpses, or coroner’s reports, or mysteries. Sasha was intelligent, unkind, firm, socially incompetent, and a Libra. She could handle the dead, but the living? Sasha had no idea what to do with alive people.
But Tim did. He hesitated two moments, reeling back in shock, before he abruptly composed himself. He crouched down to the guy, and modulated his voice to sound calming and firm. “Hey, don’t strain yourself. Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere?”
The man turned his head in Tim's direction, hiding his expression from Sasha, but she saw Tim’s eyes widen. Martin, standing closer to his feet, wrung his hands - clearly torn on what to do, uncertain how to help. Martin always hated being uncertain how to help the most. Which was pretty unfortunate, because Martin always wanted to help, and Martin was always uncertain.
“Can you speak?” Tim asked gently. “If you can’t speak, go ahead and knock on the floor for me, okay?”
“If we pack him into your car, we can say that we found him on the street,” Sasha piped up. As much as she distrusted NHS, and as much as the NHS refused to touch anybody who had ever stepped foot inside the Institute, they could hardly refuse somebody if they just lied their ass off about it. “They’ll have to treat him then, right?”
“We could make it so much worse if we move him,” Martin said quickly, just as strangely firm. “We need to take our chances with 999.”
“We don’t even know if he’s injured,” Sasha pointed out, somewhat optimistically. “Maybe this whole thing can just, like, not be a problem.”
Yeah, Sasha definitely preferred corpses.
The man was opening and closing his mouth, before he coughed wetly. Sasha clinically noted that it was the first time she had seen his chest move. As Tim reached forward, murmuring gently, and helped the man sit up, she saw that his chest didn’t move at all.
“Alright, let’s try to get you up.” Tim helped the man shift so he was leaning against the bookcase - uncomfortable, but a better position if he started coughing up blood. “We should fetch you some water - Martin, I don’t think he has any injury like that, he just seems out of it. His eyes aren’t focusing on me at all.”
Strangely, the man scoffed at that. The sound made him cough again, but the derision was unmistakable.
The derision was extremely familiar.
When Sasha looked at Martin his eyes were wide behind his glasses, and she knew that he had heard the same thing that she did.
Finally, with a raspy and hoarse voice, the man said, “Well, isn’t this fucking fun.”
Everybody stared at him. His voice...different, definitely, with a less posh accent and strained vocal cords scratching his tones. But when Sasha glanced at Tim, she just knew that he was remembering when Jon had insisted on coming into work with a terrible cold and Martin had to bully him home. He had sounded eerily like…
“Is this your idea of a joke?” the man said.
Tim, from where he was crouched next to the guy, turned his attention back to him. “I’m a funny guy, but last time I checked head injuries aren’t a joke.” He tracked his finger across the man’s eyes, frowning when they didn’t follow. “You definitely have a concussion, mate. If you can walk, we need to -”
“Lord, alright, I get it.” The man raised his burned hand and clumsily rubbed his eyes. “You’re mad at me, I’m sleeping on the couch, whatever. Is all of this really necessary?”
“Uh,” Tim said intelligently. “Mate, I’m not your boyfriend.”
The man waved his other hand in Tim’s direction as he pressed his fingers into his eyes in exhaustion. “I’m hardly speaking to you.” Tim’s jaw dropped in shock as the man angled his face upwards, the crown of his head jamming uncomfortably against the metal shelving. “In my defense, I was doing the best I could with the resources you gave me. It’s water under the bridge. I’ve forgotten about it already! So let’s just get back to our eldritch hellscape.”
Everybody stared at each other.
“We should move this into the break room,” Martin said. “There’s tea there.”
“Oh, don’t be rude,” Jon said, “making Martin into a caricature of himself. You like Martin, you told me so.”
“Counterpoint,” Sasha said weakly, “the bullpen has Jon. And I really don’t want to explain this to Jon.”
“I don’t even know who this one is,” the man said. “What? Not going to tell me?”
“Okay, like, fucking rude, but whatever.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking to,” Tim said firmly, reaching out and putting a firm hand on the man’s arm. The man didn’t recoil or jerk away, just looking down in vague surprise. “But they aren’t here right now. You’re in the basement of the Magnus Institute, alright? I’m Tim Stoker, at your service, and these are my coworkers. I think you have a brain injury. If you can walk, we need to get you -”
“I can’t eat here,” the man said, but he made no effort to remove Tim’s arm. He moved his other hand, pressing it against Tim’s own, as if they were friends. “Cutting me off from my Knowledge -” it was capitalized, Sasha could hear it “ - chaining me to my desk, for - what? You’re not even answering me? Come on!” The man’s voice raised, and for the first time Sasha could hear something ragged in it. “Don’t give me the silent treatment!”
“Jon.”
It was Martin, standing at a distance from the man - from all of them. He was wringing his hands again, shoulders hunched and tense, but his expression was caught in that same mysterious firmness.
The man didn't react. Not in surprise, not in shock, not in unrecognition. He just scowled a little, ignoring all of them.
“Jon,” Martin said, louder. “This isn’t solving anything. Don’t be stubborn.”
“I’m not the one being stubborn, Martin,” Jon - Jon?! - muttered, folding his arms. Like an infant. Like, hypothetically, something Jon would do. “I just don’t think omniscient fear gods should be petty.”
Everybody looked at each other.
“This needs tea,” Martin proclaimed finally, and everybody nodded in silent agreement.
Every nodded in agreement - even, strangely enough, Jonathan Sims himself.
****
This plan had a few complexities.
The first complexity was dealing with Jon - their Boss - himself. In an act of cunning psychological warfare, Martin had gone ahead of them and used his endless and infinite subtle acts of manipulation to guarantee that Jon wouldn’t interrupt them. This situation was already Quite A Bit, nobody wanted to babysit their boss.
Who Sasha frequently felt as if she babysat a bit. Having the youngest person in the office be the very rigid and authoritarian boss was objectively a little funny. But you know what’s not funny? Transphobia.
Eventually Martin came back and waved them forward, and Tim gently yet firmly dragged the man upwards and put a hand on his back.
“Do you mind if I touch you?” Tim asked. He sounded resigned about it - barely expecting Jon to respond. “Let me know how you want me to guide you.”
“Oh, it’s whatever. If you’re going to play it this way.” Jon easily looped his arm through Tim’s, who didn’t bother to mask his shock. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Sasha went ahead of them, watching Tim walk Jon down the aisle - hah! - with his arm looped through his elbow and a hand on his back. It was exactly the kind of care and meticulousness that Sasha always saw in him when it came to others. He literally walked grannies across the street. It was horrendous. She got second-hand embarrassed whenever she saw it.
Tim was loudly, extremely, messily kind. He was a person who adopted lost causes, like young men too grumpy to make real friends and women who only knew academia and never people. Sasha told him that once he got his teeth into something he never let go. It would get him into trouble one day. Maybe it already had.
Sure enough, when Sasha opened the library door for them and peeked her head into the hallway, she saw that Jon’s office door was very firmly shut and locked. Even more incriminatingly, she heard his cute little theater drama monologues starting. Tim had found Jon’s theater aspirations very adorable and he had tried recording them to put on his Snapchat and maybe get him discovered by an agent, but unfortunately the videos made Tim’s phone bleed. They had given Martin ten pounds to taste the blood. Man would do anything for ten pounds, but seeing as they all worked this job that probably applied to all them.
A workplace made out of people who always picked ‘dare’ in truth or dare. It was kind of a miracle they were still alive. Sasha was a little uncertain how she had survived to thirty five, actually.
Once Sasha gave the all clear, Tim was able to bring Jon (Neo-Jon? Nega-Jon? Dark Jon? Mean Jon? No, that was just Jon) into the bullpen. Softly narrating what he was doing, he pulled out a chair and lowered Jon into it.
Homeless Jon hasn’t been blind for very long, Sasha noted clinically. Long enough that he seemed more mildly irritated by it than anything else, but instead of orienting himself or testing out where he was he just kind of slumped in his chair.
“Jon - uh, the Boss is taken care of?” Tim asked Martin, who was rapidly bustling into the bullpen with four cups of tea that he seemed to be under the impression would help. Tim had sat Homeless Jon in Martin’s chair, which seemed to fluster Martin a bit.
“Uh, yeah. Gave him a normal statement to get his guard down, then five of the - you know, weird - statements and said that he has to go through all of them today. He’ll be in there for an hour at least.”
Sasha frowned. “After two he gets a headache and gets bitchy.”
“Three o’clock exactly,” Tim said solemnly.
“Oh, leave off,” Homeless Jon said, “it wasn’t that bad.”
Everybody double taked and looked at each other significantly - which was quickly becoming their predominant mode of communication in a ruthless act of ableism. But Martin just held out a cup of tea, faltering as he clearly stopped to wonder the easiest way to give it to him.
“Can you hold out your hands, Jon? I have some tea for you. It’s hot, so be careful, okay?”
“If the tea’s spiders I’m going to take it out on Annabelle,” Weird Jon said, but he held out his hands anyway and let Martin put the mug in them. He sniffed it cautiously, checking for spiders, before taking a cautious sip.
To Sasha and Tim, Martin said, “I know, he’s going to fall asleep after two. I mean, it might be because I drugged his tea a little -”
Weird Jon spat out his tea back into the mug.
“ - so we shouldn’t be interrupted,” Martin said brightly, clapping his hands. “Now! I think it’s time for explanations, don’t you?” He turned his mighty gaze upon Thankfully Blind Jon, who was occupied carefully holding the tea away from himself. “Drink your tea, Jon.”
Jon drank his tea. His expression twisted. “It tastes just like his.”
Everybody looked at each other. Tim mouthed the word ‘time traveller’ very clearly. Both Sasha and Martin nodded. It was the obvious explanation.
“An explanation now, please,” Martin said pleasantly. “If you’re a time traveller, you can tell us. This is a safe space.”
Jon-from-the-future’s expression harshened in creases. He hadn’t once relaxed, expression permanently tightened in annoyance and disgruntlement. It was ridiculously Jon.
Definitely a time traveller. You didn’t work at the Magnus Institute without secretly spending your life deeply hoping you run into a time traveller. Every researcher upstairs secretly prayed to discover the majesty. Everyone in Artifact Storage eagerly gathered around mysterious clocks and dared each other to touch them. Sasha, Queen of Truth-or-Dare, was the undisputed expert in making other people touch weird clocks and recording their reactions.
“Fine,” Super Time Traveller Jon said. “I know this is what you want. Statement of a stupid punishment by the pettiest little color in the evil crayon box. Recorded by the Archivist, in situ. Statement begins.”
Wow, Jon still had his job in the future? That’s a surprise.
Martin was mouthing the word ‘evil crayon box’ to himself, looking increasingly concerned. The forgotten tape recorder, clenched in Sasha’s fist without her even realizing it, clicked and whirred.
Then the Archivist began to speak.
***
In the hazy amber of a memory, there exists an office.
You can see it clearly in your mind’s Eye, even now. You could likely navigate all of it blindfolded - which you now see that your god has the intention to test. Every corner of it is known to you, in the most subtle and mundane of ways. There’s a dust bunny in that corner, never tidied. A mysterious stain on the far right ceiling. The faint smell of blood, just under the vents. The hot waft of tea; your hands wrapped around a mug.
Through these lonely offices, ghosts roam. They cling to desks and chairs; lingering in favorite mugs or in forgotten hair ties. A metal file cabinet holding neat rows of clothing, blood-stained jackets abandoned. A whiteboard with stubborn flakes of dried marker, forgotten handwriting clinging to life. These imprints no longer evoke terror or grief or pain. They are as familiar as the bloodstains and tea. Even death, eventually, is familiar. After long enough in a nightmare, it becomes indistinguishable from reality.
There is nothing unfamiliar in the Magnus Institute.
Nothing save these voices, emerging from nothing. Every one of your six million senses have been cut off - your hundred eyes reduced to none. You are cognizant only of two familiar voices, and one unfamiliar one. A firm hand, with calloused fingers from leafing through aged paper. A creaky desk chair - Martin’s, undoubtedly, always squeaking as he fidgeted in distraction. The air tastes the same as it used to back then, before the AC broke and no repairman would step inside to repair it. Daisy did, eventually. Three familiar voices, rendered unfamiliar by the harsh tides of wind and cruel plastic hands.
You are afraid of very little, these days. In this world that you’ve built, there is nothing that can harm you. The twisted little puppet strung up in his tower has been long since been disposed of, and the awful and terrifying future has settled into a gentle present. The apocalypse grows tedious after a while, and the buffet of fears start tasting a little samey.
But if anything could frighten you, this would. If anything would petrify you, it would be Tim’s kind smile, which died a year before Tim did. If anything could freeze you to your chair, it would be the sight of Sasha with red-rimmed eyes asking why you never even noticed that she was gone.
The sanctuary of memory corrupted. A mental place of safety infiltrated. A mind turned inside out, exposing its vulnerable flesh to the world.
There is nothing else this could be but your own personal hell.
Your loyal servant crouches on bended knee, giving this final prayer to you. He asks, humbly and with great reverence, one simple question:
Why couldn’t this have waited until after I got my milk?
***
The spell ruptured.
It was almost tangible, like a change in air pressure making your ears pop. Sasha blinked harshly, rubbing at her ears and trying to soothe strange ringing. Tim exhaled heavily and Martin screwed his eyes open and shut harshly, as if he was seeing spots.
The only person unaffected was Weirdly Christian Jon, who was slumped in Martin’s chair with his arms folded over his chest. He was still looking at the ceiling - speaking to whoever he had been addressing this entire time.
“Just one day,” Jon was saying. “Just one day! It was going to be a nice day! We had decided to take a day trip to the Flesh garden and have a picnic! My darling and beautiful husband was going to make us a cake! ‘Walk down to the Hell corner store’, my husband says. ‘Pick us up some Eldritch milk’, he says. ‘Why do I have to do it’, I says, ‘I’m in the middle of something’. ‘We need cake for bridge night with the girls and I’ll divorce you if you don’t do it’, he says. I didn’t even change out of my nightmare pyjamas! What did I ever do to you? How are you still upset about the eye thing?”
Sasha and the Assistants, still digesting the extremely disturbing monologue, let him talk. Sasha was caught up in how it felt exactly like Jon’s little drama monologues. Granted, he had obviously gotten a lot more practice - guy could go to Broadway - but the weird lilting and falling sing-songyness was just the same. And he only ever did that for the very weird ones. The ones that they were pretty certain were actually true.
So that probably meant at one point in the future, if Jon was speaking about the Archives as if they had worked there for years. Probably during the apocalypse. Which was happening. Which Jon had...built? Like, as a personal thing, or in a metaphor for capitalism and the human race? Definitely the capitalism thing - Jon was prone to flights of filing-induced passion that sometimes accidentally resulted in a stapler flying and punching a hole through the wall, but she couldn’t even imagine him even purposefully punching someone, much less being the Antichrist. Unless it was one of those things that just happened to you, like a rare genetic defect.
“Seriously. What was the alternative here? Endless horrorterrors, everybody screaming all the time? It was boring. You eat one Statement about somebody standing in line at a slaughterhouse conveyor belt and you’ve eaten them all. I didn’t do it because I didn’t like you, although for the record I don’t. But you have to admit that having Eldritch Lidls are much more practical than just having a bunch of people lying around screaming all the time. It’s not as if I don’t have other eyes, I hardly miss them. There’s no chocolate cakes in the swirling vortex of mankind’s worst nightmares!”
Okay. They had to find a way to engage with this guy. He was completely ignoring them, probably because he thought that they were mean ghosts. Sasha was only one of those things, and it was hurting her feelings. Judging from the expression on Tim’s face he was thinking the same thing.
Or - wait, Sasha knew that eyebrow. That was the ‘please please please tell the apocalypse has zombies’ eyebrow. Great.
But Martin was just looking thoughtful again. Sasha was pretty proud of him - it was probably very difficult for the poor man to remain coherent in the face of the crazy time-traveller who was definitely hotter than their already objectively unfairly hot boss.
“Jon,” Martin said, cutting Jon’s tired rant about how eggs benedict were much better these days, “Uh, I have an idea? Maybe you can’t get out of the - nightmare by bargaining with it. Do you know how to normally escape these things?”
Jon angled his head down and frowned in Martin’s direction. So far Martin seemed to be the only person who could shut Jon up, which was a hilarious turnaround from normal life. Sasha hadn’t heard anything about Martin being a sad little ghost, but it was hard to believe that Martin was a survivor in the zombie apocalypse.
“You go through the statement and you walk through it,” Jon said, in a very ‘duh’ kind of way. “Give the statement, highfive corpses, whatever.”
“Right, right.” Martin wrung his hands, biting at his lip. “So maybe it’s like that. Maybe instead of asking to be let out - you just have to walk through it. Like - like it’s a maze. Does that make sense? I’m not sure, it’s just an idea.”
Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Right as always, Martin.” Everybody’s jaw dropped, and Martin squeaked. “Fine, fine. Let’s...interact with the evil ghosts.” Jon gestured out with his arms, in a very ‘come at me bro’ gesture. “Go ahead and shoot. Hit me with how much you hate me and how disappointed you are that I never amounted to anything and started the apocalypse.”
Finally! Interrogation time!
But before Sasha could finally find out if global warming had killed the world, Tim jumped in. “Are there zombies in the apocalypse?!” Tim cried, way too excited. “Is it like the Walking Dead? Or is it more Last of Us?”
Jon squinted in Tim’s direction. “Define zombie.”
“...hunger for human flesh, shambling, gross looking?” Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen any zombie movies.”
“I’m omniscient, I’ve seen every zombie movie,” Jon lied blatantly. “I just think that you’re - you know, stereotyping. Sometimes people are the undead and eat humans and they’re - they’re very normal people.”
“Yeah, Tim, be sensitive,” Sasha said gleefully. She put the tape recorder on Martin’s desk, deciding that she would definitely need a transcript of this interview later. Also maybe ask more questions about that omniscient thing, but she was sure Jon was just exaggerating. If you asked Jon today if he was the smartest person on Earth he’d probably say yes. Jon wasn’t even the smartest person in the room.
For good measure, she drew out her little notebook from her pencil skirt pocket, flipping through it looking for a clean page. “The Archives have never gotten a time traveller before. This is unprecedented in its history.” Well, she really didn’t know what Gertrude had gotten up to, but she dearly hoped it wasn’t this. “Do you have any warnings? Desperate messages from a ruined world, that kind of thing?”
“I’m not a time traveller,” Jon said flatly, “so no.”
Everybody stared at him in abject pity.
“Mate,” Tim said sympathetically, “it’s 2015. You’re a time traveller.”
“No, I’m in a pocket hell dimension in a period beyond time and space,” Jon corrected arrogantly. “Time travel doesn’t exist.”
“The apocalypse exists but time travel doesn’t exist?” Martin cried. “That’s so unfair! Like, give us something, you know?”
“Your life is very hard,” the extratemporal reject said.
Typical Jon. A classic case of time travel and here he was denying it. Sasha crossed her arms, upset that they were wasting time debating temporal physics when they could be talking about zombies. She was a historian and had priorities. “Your denial ain’t cute, mate. You’re just wasting all of our time.” Jon opened his mouth, but Sasha steamrolled over him. “You want evidence, right? Do you need to, like, touch my face? Make sure that I’m not a sexy ghost?”
“That’s a stereotype that nobody actually does,” Jon said.
“Insensitive as always, Sasha,” Martin condemned.
“How else are we going to prove it to him?” Sasha said, somewhat defensively. “It’s not as if we have any evidence that we’re not sexy ghosts.”
With utmost care and incredible gentleness, Tim reached out an open hand and gently smooshed it into Jon’s face.
Jon slumped in his seat, arms folded, unimpressed.
“No mortal who is not my darling husband has dared to touch me since I became the Antichrist,” Jon said.
“I don’t know,” Tim said, withdrawing his hand and looking at Sasha. “What’s more unbelievable: Jon as the Antichrist or Jon with a husband?”
“Jon’s gay?” Martin cried, face beet red. “Gay Jon? Gay Jon real?”
“So, like, how do you get the Antichrist gig?” Sasha asked as she silently passed Tim a fiver. Her queerdar had never been so wrong. “Is it like an adventurer quest you can do or would you call it more of a rare genetic disorder thing?”
“Definitely rare genetic disorder.”
“Then does that mean that our Jon also has the Antichrist gene?” Tim asked, alarmed. “You’d never think so just looking at him! It’s always the quiet ones.”
“No, this makes sense,” Martin said.
Tim stared at him. “So, is that, like, a negative for you, or a positive…?”
Martin’s silence was incriminating.
“It’s a positive,” Jon said helpfully, startling everyone. They had conveniently forgotten not to talk about one very horny man’s very horny crush in front of sad grumpy time travelling crush. “He’s into it.”
“Wow, Jon,” Tim said, “what would your husband say?”
In a completely pointless show of sass, Jon rolled his eyes. “My useless husband is likely much more concerned with how I managed to get trapped in a nightmare dimension on my way back from the Hell corner store.” He waved a hand absently. “So, if we can hurry this up? Get started on the whole torturing me thing? Right now you’re just on track to annoying me to death.”
“We annoy you to death now!” Tim exclaimed, as Martin’s eyes boggled. “Isn’t that more proof for the time traveller theory?”
“It wasn’t annoying,” Jon said curtly. “I secretly enjoyed it. I always felt a little bad that I wasn’t included. Or wouldn’t let myself be included.”
That, abruptly, made everyone feel a little bad. Not guilty, seeing as Jon neither wanted nor deserved their affection, but just kind of bad. Future Jon didn’t seem any happier than regular Jon. Sasha liked to imagine that if she was trapped in an indeterminate period in time and space in a post-apoc hellscape, she’d at least be having fun.
Everybody looked at each other, equally a little uncomfortable. Tim was the one who finally took control of the situation, as the self-appointed Jon & Everyone Else mediator. He had taken up the mantle years ago and worse it with pride, and occasional exhaustion.
“Look,” Tim said, as reasonably as possible. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, this was super cool and awesome time travel. Let’s also say maybe this was completely baller and you’re from a post apoc future where everyone wears leather.”
“That’s just Melanie.”
“Put it down as one person who wears leather in the future!” Tim cried, and Sasha obediently jotted it down.”But let’s just put all of this in a hypothetical situation where you aren’t...uh, in a bad dream? So would there, hypothetically, be a way to stop the apocalypse or something?”
Jesus christ. What a try-hard.
Sasha crossed her arms, glaring at Tim. From next to her, Martin looked just as peeved. “Seriously, dude? Like we can just up and stop capitalism?”
“I don’t want responsibility for stopping the apocalypse,” Martin protested. “I can barely navigate the bus system. What if the Terminator comes after my mother or something?”
“You’ll be a bit better off, frankly,” Jon said. Martin nodded, conceding the point, before looking faintly disturbed.
“But he said that he caused it,” Tim protested. “Maybe the power of friendship can fix this? I mean, the apocalypse is cool, but I feel like this is the part where we’re all badasses and we fight evil or something.” Tim’s eyes widened. “That’s what the Magnus Institute is for. To stop the apocalypse!”
“Every day I feel a slight sense of emptiness due to my internalized guilt about your death, but you are usually wrong about things,” Jon said flatly, which seemed to both perk Tim up and depress him slightly. “And no. There’s nothing you can do. There’s no one event that precipitated the apocalypse; no rules of engagement. You are puppets on strings, indulging in the fantasy of free will. Yes, Sasha, the apocalypse is capitalism.”
Everybody stood in slightly depressed silence over this. Sasha, personally, was a little relieved. She really didn’t have to deal with the whole ‘preventing the apocalypse’ thing. She’d rather spend the finals days of the world in hedonism, frankly.
Really, the unique providence of the millennial was to live your entire life half-way convinced you were in the twilight years of the world. This hedonism and apathy was second nature. Or maybe the apathy was a Leitner - Sasha had lost track of that too.
“Aw, man,” Martin said, summarizing the abstract and complex feelings deftly and succinctly. “This sucks.”
“Yeah, this blows,” Tim agreed. “So should I buy my muscle car now, or later, or what?”
Then Martin and Tim started arguing over fuel efficiency in the apocalypse, and Jon royally checked out of the conversation. Sasha imagined that he was internally having a bit of a Saving Private Ryan moment where flashbacks of bombshells exploded behind his eyelids or whatever the fuck. The important thing is that everyone was distracted, and Sasha could finally check up on their most important gambit of the day: making sure Jon wasn’t bothering them.
Sasha listened carefully for the sounds of Jon’s little theater monologues, and caught only faint hints of sound. She slipped past everyone into the hallway and approached Jon’s office door, pressing her ear against the cheap wood. But she didn’t need to worry: he was still reciting away, oblivious to the actual interesting shit that was happening outside his door. Jon was a delicate plant, you couldn’t stress him out too much or he would die. Hopefully Martin’s drugged tea would kick in soon -
But Antichrist Jon’s head jerked towards her, directly behind him, and Sasha saw his unfocused green eyes fixate directly on her. No, not on her - on the door, or something beyond it. For just a second, his eyes flared a sharp and toxic green.
“There you are,” Creepy Jon hissed.
Well, sorry for leaving rooms without telling him, but she hadn’t thought that he even noticed, much less got resentful about it. But Weird Jon was standing up with no hesitation, and effortlessly swerved around Martin’s desk and stalked into the hallway. For the first time, his expression looked a little dangerous. It was bizarre and off putting, like seeing a ragged yet murderous two meter kitten.
He reached out an arm and let it trail across the wall, stopping short when he felt it hit wood instead of plaster. Tim and Martin surged forward to stop him, yelling warnings, but Sasha quickly stepped back. She never impeded the timeless march of science and progress. Sasha had done far worse in Artifact Storage for knowledge.
Jon brushed his hand down the door until it hit the doorknob and angrily twisted it, heaving the door open with unnecessary force. Tim and Martin spilled into the hallway as Angry Jon stalked inside, and Sasha eagerly hung in the door frame for a front row seat into the drama.
“This is your fault,” Jon intoned dangerously, directly in the face of a deathly affronted Jon.
In the spirit of the First Directive, Sasha heroically stretched out an arm and prevented Tim and Martin from spilling into the office. It was the right call. Jon stalked forward into the office, hair whipping in a nonexistent wind, expression obscured but undoubtedly thunderous, advancing on the terrified Archivist, as -
He tripped over a chair left carelessly in the center of the office, rocketing forward to land flatly on his face.
Beside her, Martin went white as a sheet. “Oh no.”
Simultaneously, in complete and total unison, Jon and the Archivist yelled, “Martin!”
****
Jon and the Archivist sat across from each other, exuding waves of pure mutual hatred.
Tim had quickly helped the Archivist up, moving the chair forward and getting him situated there. The Archivist’s mood was not improved by any of this. Which was difficult enough to handle by itself, if manageable. Sasha knew how to manage grumpy time travelling blind Antichrists who had gotten lost on their way to the corner store.
She even knew how to handle their boss, who was extremely grumpy about being harassed by a random homeless person with nice hair. Jon hated statement givers at the best of times, much less seemingly homeless ex-corpses. Or, well, Sasha didn’t know if he was an ex-corpse, but he was certainly an animate one.
They were both being so annoying about it Sasha was trying to determine if she should change their nicknames to something more derogatory. Thing 1 and Thing 2? Too long.
Both of them were very grumpy about the fact that Martin had pushed aside the chair for guests in front of Jon’s desks when he deposited the drugged tea, accidentally moving it close to the center of the office. Jon had known this because he saw it happen. The Archivist had known this because he, apparently, knew Martin very well.
Today had really been a bonding experience with Sasha, Martin, and Tim. Their skill at silent communication had reached borderline telepathy. They all looked at each other significantly as the Jons were caught in their mutual dyad of hatred, silently commiserating over the fact that their one goal had been spoiled by the greatest wildcard of all. Sasha privately liked to consider herself somewhat of a wildcard, but she was depressingly aware that the entire Archive team was composed of wildcards. Maybe that’s why half of them didn’t survive the apocalypse.
It was a little unlikely that Jon was a survivor/instigator in the zombie apocalypse, actually. Dude definitely would have bit it if he wasn’t cheating with Antichrist powers. Now, if Sasha had Antichrist powers, this whole game would be looking very different -
“Boss, this is a statement giver,” Tim hinted desperately, hands clenched so hard on the back of the Archivist’s chair that his knuckles were turning white. “Remember what Elias said about statement givers? About how we can’t harass them?”
“I was in the middle of a recording and this man was unnecessarily confrontational,” Jon said crisply. Sasha caught her eye jumping frantically back and forth between the two, trying to reconcile them. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Martin’s horny surety, she wouldn’t have realized that they were the same person at all. The Archivist’s most defining attribute was his big and fluffy hair, and Jon was sadly lacking in the nice hair department. That fade and twists were the shackle around his ankle. So was the sweater vest, baggy tweed jacket, and ill-fitting.“He’s lucky I’m not throwing him out.”
Martin, who looked as if he was having his tenth gay crisis of the morning, didn’t seem to hold the same opinion, but he was king of bad taste anyway.
“Remember what Elias said about harassing confused, blind statement givers? Remember that? Boss?”
Jon looked confused. “He didn’t specify the community of people with disabilities.”
“It was implied? Jon?”
“The optics would be terrible,” Sasha said, before snickering. Martin stomped on her foot. She stomped on his back, which definitely hurt a lot more. “Look, Jon, sorry about all of this. He was just - uh - really insistent that he talk to you -”
“I think if our visitor hassles Jon then maybe, objectively, you can say that Jon brought it on himself,” Martin said, in a daring show of anti-Jon sentiment.
This act of subtle rebellion was the first thing that broke the Archivist out of his cycle of hatred. He threw out a hand, bowling over Jon’s desktop cup of pens and sending them tumbling over the desk. Sasha saw him specifically orient his hand to do so. “Thank you, Martin! Your understanding of paraphysics is always immaculate.”
“Wow, really?”
“Stop complimenting my assistants,” Jon hissed, frantically diving to save his pens. “And stop - gesticulating over my desk! You did that on purpose!”
“Harassing the blind, Jon!”
“You don’t even need to tearfully blame me for how I ruined your life,” the Archivist said flatly. “You existing in my vicinity is torment enough.”
“That’s what I keep saying,” Sasha said, before pausing a beat. “I meant the first part, ha ha ha, obviously -”
“This man is a very normal statement giver who will be leaving any minute now,” Martin jumped in, “so there’s really no reason for us all to fight, when you think about it -”
“If you all don’t get out of my office, you are all fired -”
“You are listening.”
Everybody stopped talking at once, staring at the Archivist. He was still staring intently ahead, straight into his counterpart. Jon was hiding it, quite badly, but he was unsettled. He hadn’t even acknowledged that he and the man looked alike - the thought undoubtedly running through his brain and soundly dismissed - but it was clearly rattling him. But there was something else that was scaring him too - maybe the Archivist’s green eyes, so foreign from his own brown? His intense and furious expression, like cut glass? The particularly strange and heavy feeling in the air, prickling down the back of Sasha’s neck?
He hadn’t even stopped the recorder.
“You are here,” the Archivist continued calmly. “You were listening in. Why you were listening in on him, and his regurgitated aftertaste of Statements, I do not know. I felt you, and I came to you. We cannot forsake each other. Do not hide yourself from me.”
The effect was immediate.
The Archivist’s neck snapped forward, so harshly he cracked his head on Jon’s desk. Strangely enough, Jon screamed too, holding a hand to his temple as if he was suddenly pierced by a blinding headache. Tim immediately bent down to check on Archivist, making sure that he hadn’t hurt himself, as Martin bustled around the desk to check on Jon. Jon batted his hands away, scowling, so he was just fine. But the Archivist didn’t groan, or stir, or moan. He just lay there, still and limp, and when Tim shook him he didn’t even tense.
The air was heavy, a tang of metal in her mouth like the crackle before a storm, and Sasha couldn’t fight a shiver. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Jon, either: the way he stared at the Archivist, hand on his forehead, eyes wide and growing wider.
“Dad…?”
When the Archivist stirred, the spell was broken, and Jon’s mouth snapped shut so quickly it was as if he had never spoken at all. He turned his head and moaned, eyes opening uselessly. They were back to their usual toxic green, no flaring or flashing.
“Mar’in? Where…”
“I’m here,” Martin said quickly, and ducked around the desk to grab the Archivist’s hand and squeeze. For just a second, Jon looked a little jealous. Sasha had the sense that Jon had never been mothered than anyone other than Martin and Tim, and the prospect confused and frightened him so much he reacted aggressively to it. “Everything alright? You hit your head.”
“How many eyes?” the Archivist asked weakly.
“...physically, or functionally?”
But the Archivist just ran his burned hand over his smooth hand, kneading it and feeling the skin. “Still gone. Damn it.” He straightened, grimacing and spitting out a stray tendril of hair out of his mouth. “So it’s true…”
“So what’s true?” Tim asked urgently. “Do you finally believe us about the time travel thing? Because man, I have so many questions -”
He didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. The Archivist reached out a hand, fingers brushing against his shirt, and the Archivist’s hand abruptly clenched on the fabric. Tightly, roughly, the Archivist pulled him down and extended his other arm, and caught Tim in an awkward and lopsided hug.
Tim carefully straightened him and returned the hug, gracing the Archivist with the patented Perfect Stoker Hug, and the Archivist buried his face in Tim’s shoulder. His chest didn’t heave, and his breath didn’t catch, but the element of desperation was pungent and unmistakable.
“You were right,” Jon whispered. “We messed it all up.”
“Sure, yeah, totally!” Tim said, clapping the Archivist on the back in a masculine, yet sensitive way. “So, does this mean the zombie apocalypse is totally a-go, or…”
“Sasha,” the Archivist said, and Sasha chose to ignore her own personal distaste for hugs and being touched so she could step forward and hug him too.
He clutched onto her just as tightly as he had Tim, which surprised her a little. Jon and Tim had probably been best friends in the future, and Sasha couldn’t imagine her and Jon ever truly being close. He respected her as a colleague, but that was probably because Sasha purposefully left her manuscripts around the office and aggressively used as many big words in front of him as possible. Jon had always been an obstacle to her - innocently stupid at best, malicious at worst. To think that he would grip her so tightly…
With meticulous care, the Archivist separated from her. His expression was crumpled, and for the first time Sasha saw something over than aggravation or impatience in Jon’s face. Relaxed and soft, he looked like a different man. No - he was a different man, it was just apparent. The change softened his sharp lines into something a little friendlier; his striking exterior melting into something pretty instead of imposing.
Slowly, he raised his hand a little to tangle it in her hair. He frowned a little, gently tugging at it and feeling it spring back into place. “So it was curly…like mine…”
A lot of little hints snowballed into one strange and foreign realization. “Do you not remember me?”
“Dolls stole your identity,” the Archivist said apologetically.
“Like credit card fraud, or -”
“Metaphysically.” He paused guiltily. “I mourned you as an abstract concept?”
“Like I’m every woman in Hollywood?” Sasha screeched, outraged. This was not trans rights. “Alright, royally fuck that. Feel my hair, mister. Full permission to touch it. Feel that? You call that abstract?” The Archivist shook his head, eyes wide, and Sasha gently moved his hand to rest on the top of her head. “Taller than you in eight cm heels, remember? You asked me how I walked in them, and I said -”
“ - Barbie’s Princess Charm School,” the Archivist said automatically, eyes widening. “I do remember.”
Martin clearly waited around to be tenderly embraced, and was disappointed.
The Archivist stepped away from Sasha, expression creased in furious thought. “So it’s real. So far as anything’s real, I suppose. But I don’t understand how -” the Archivist’s eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers in realization. “The manhole!”
Everybody stared at him.
“I’m sorry,” Jon said pleasantly, “what is going on -”
“I was walking down the street, and I remember hearing city work!” the Archivist said brightly. “They were doing their monthly ‘clearing the gators out of the sewer pipes’ maintenance! And the Beholding told me that there was an open manhole, and I said oh it’ll be fine, I’m a demigod on Earth, I don’t fall down manholes - and then -”
The door to Jon’s office dramatically crashed open, and everybody jumped straight in the air. Jon, whose office had seen two more incredibly theatrical entrances than usual today, immediately bristled and opened his mouth to earn them all another harassment complaint, before he abruptly shut his mouth.
It was Elias, their miniature and unspeakably boring boss extraordinaire. He stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the doorframe, suit jacket askew and chest heaving. Had he ran down here?
“Is someone here?” the Archivist asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Tim said, stepping forward cautiously. “It’s our boss, Mr. Bouchard. Elias, we’re taking a statement, can we help - ?”
“How did that get here?” Elias asked, voice strangely tense and coiled. “How did you - not even I could -”
“That makes sense!” Martin cried, thumping a fist on his open palm. “Elias wants to time travel just as much as everyone else in the Institute!”
“I’m sorry,” Jon said, pathetically behind, “time travel -”
“Did the time traveller sensor alarms in the basement go off?” Sasha asked, surprised. “I thought only Artifact Storage had those.”
“Uh, Mr. Statement Giver, are you okay?” Tim asked, but it was already too late.
The Archivist had turned to face Elias, expression unreadable. Sasha felt that crackle again, weighing down the air, and she saw the Archivist’s hair puff and frizz slightly with a green crackle. His neon green pupils shone again and spun, like an infernal wheel.
“What’s wrong, Elias?” the Archivist mocked, as energy coursed through him. “Upset that Mama has a new favorite?”
And Sasha saw in that moment that the Archivist, who possessed the most inhuman green eyes she had ever seen, had eyes the same shade as Elias.
“Oh, man,” Sasha said, “is Elias a time traveller too?”
“Only in the most mundane way. Can’t even get a little bit of special attention, Elias? Sad!” It was second-hand thrilling to watch someone mock their boss, living the dreams of everyone in the room. Even if it was a little weird how much Jon seemed to hate this guy - nobody hated Elias, just like nobody liked him, and nobody had any strong feelings at all besides unpromoted women.
At the door, Elias’ expression was slack in - amazement? Was amazement the right word? He was staring at Jon as if...words didn’t even describe it. At least in any way that Sasha wanted to think about.
“Mr. Bouchard, I swear I can explain,” Sasha, who could not explain, said hurriedly. “We found this corpse and we were going to tell you, but -”
But the Archivist cut her off, as if nothing was less important than explaining himself to Elias. “Did you want to know how to stop the apocalypse, Sasha?”
Sasha froze. Martin and Tim did too. Jon, who nobody had actually bothered to brief since he was kind of the fifth most important person in the room, dropped his pen.
“Uh,” Sasha said, sweating. For the first time she understood the possible upsides of not knowing something. “I mean, if I have to, but you said that it was inevitable -”
“Oh, yes. But, just once every one or two centuries, a man comes along who fancies himself fate.” The Archivist raised a hand, eyes spinning and spinning, as Elias stood frozen in the doorframe. “I’ll be honest, Jonah. This isn’t to save the world. That’s so last year. I just really fucking hate you.” Something cracked in the air. “Ceaseless watcher, smite this -”
The door slammed shut. Sasha heard Elias lock it behind him. They all stood around as footsteps quickly echoed through the Archives, and another door slammed. Which was probably being locked too.
They stood in silence, the Archivist having clearly heard the slams. He let his hand fall, but the energy didn’t cease crackling around him. He didn’t look resentful or disappointed - just thoughtful.
“Everything in due time, I suppose. I guess it is pretty unfair to get to smite that man twice,” the Archivist said thoughtfully. “I’ll give someone else a turn.” His mouth twitched wryly. “You know, Sasha, there’s one other way to prevent the apocalypse.”
“Is it work?” Sasha asked tiredly.
“You may kill the man who arranged the dominos,” the Archivist intoned, before hanging his head towards a petrified Jon. “Or you may kill the man who toppled them over.”
Sasha stared at Jon. Jon stared back, frozen like a deer in headlights.
Martin silently passed Sasha a penknife from Jon’s desk.
“I’m very qualified for this job,” Jon protested weakly.
“Queen of feminism, I very much support you,” Tim said quickly, putting himself in between Sasha and Jon in a heroic display of stupidity, “but, maybe, killing your boss to take his job, is perhaps, maybe not that much of a great idea, just a thought?”
“The job’s being the Antichrist,” the Archivist pointed out, crossing his arms.
“The direct action against sexism, xenophobia, and transphobia is very admirable,” Tim said, eyes held up as if he was placating a tiger, “but think of it this way - if you kill the Antichrist, then you become the Antichrist, like in - uh -”
“Pokemon,” Martin volunteered.
Tim snapped his fingers. “Pokemon! So you shouldn’t -” He halted, turning back to Martin. “Pokemon? Seriously? That’s becoming champion -”
“A - alright, alright! Everybody stop!” Jon shakily stood up, brushing aside the empty tea mug right next to him. “That’s enough of all of this! I may not know what’s going on, or who this man is, or why he looks like me -”
“Hm,” Martin said, eyeing the empty tea mug.
“ - why he looks like a homeless person, why he barged into my office and insulted me, why you are all defending this atrocious behavior, why you are calling it the work of time travel, which does not exist and you have no proof for it anyway -”
“Jon,” Martin said, watching Jon’s arm tremble, “maybe you should -”
“Shut up, Martin!”
“Don’t be rude to him!” the Archivist snapped.
“You’ve been rude to him twice today!”
“I’m allowed to be rude to him! He’s even ruder to me! I’m the nice one!”
“ - and you were glowing in my office, which is just frankly rude,” Jon continued viciously, steamrolling over the Archivist. “You gave me a terrible headache, you hugged my assistants very inappropriately for the workplace, you made my boss walk in before trying to smite him, you encourage violence against my own person in revenge for a job that I definitely deserve -”
Both of Jon’s arms were shaking, and Tim’s eyebrows were slowly raising. “Boss, you should sit down, I think -”
“ - I want an explanation!” Jon yelled, slamming the desk. “And I’m not going to stop until you tell me what’s going on!”
Then Jon passed out.
Everybody watched it happen. Everybody, save perhaps the Archivist, had noticed that it was about to happen: at first a tremor, then a shake, and then a final collapse. Like a marionette with his strings cut, Jon slumped over and crumpled solidly on the floor.
Everybody stood in disaffected silence. Martin carefully stepped over and prodded Jon with his foot. “Out cold.” He shot a considering gaze at the empty tea mug. “Sorry, guys. Looks like I accidentally used the delayed action sedative.”
"It’s alright,” Tim said magnanimously. “At least that problem is solved now. Maybe we can convince him this was a bad dream when he wakes up.”
“If he insists it was real, we’ll just ask him for evidence and refuse to believe him without it,” Sasha suggested.
“Isn’t that kinda gaslighting?” Martin asked. “Isn’t that, you know, a little morally dubious -”
“You did drug him,” Tim pointed out.
“I mean, hardly the first time?”
“Maybe Martin should be the Antichrist,” Sasha said thoughtfully.
The Archivist’s face was doing something extremely interesting, yet inscrutable.
“I really don’t want to be Antichrist, though,” Martin said apologetically. “Does it even pay?”
“Jon did say it was a job…” Sasha said, already considering herself in the role. “Do you guys think I’d be sexier as the Antichrist? Be honest.”
“Yes and completely,” Tim said immediately, before realizing that he said that too quickly. “I mean. I’d never objectify you. I respect women. But -”
“Oh, I see how it is,” Martin said, throwing up his hands. “When you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot it’s normal and M/F of you. But when I do it, then it’s ‘gross’ and ‘get that away from me’. Great double standards, guys.”
“It’s not the fact that it’s a guy,” Tim protested, “it’s the fact that it’s Jon -”
“Oh, when you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot then it’s normal and cis of you,” Sasha said heatedly, “but when Tim respects trans women, then it’s ‘gross’ and -”
“I respect all women,” Tim said, equally heatedly, “but I do want to acknowledge the systematic marginalization of trans women within the community, especially trans women of color like yourself -”
A hoarse wheeze echoed through the office.
Everyone froze, terrified by the haunted sound, but after a second Sasha realized it was the Archivist - Jon - who was laughing.
They had never heard him laugh before. He was practically wheezing with it, bent over with his hands on his knees, with a strained cackle that fizzed with static around the corners. He was smiling broadly, his grin splitting his cheeks, for the first time that Sasha had ever seen.
He straightened and threw his head back and laughed too, a greater belly-laugh that was so hysterical and fragile and free that it struck something strange and raw in Sasha’s heart. He rubbed his face with his hand, still laughing, and eventually broke into coughs.
“I understand now,” Jon said, when he stopped coughing. “I thought that you had deposited me here in revenge. You had sensed that I was happy - that the green skies were beautiful, that your large eye seemed kind that day - and that you found it a waste of emotion. But that wasn’t true, was it? It must have been an accident. I’ve never been happier to hear these idiots arguing, and you’ve lost me like a toy behind a bookshelf. The strange stupidity of it! I’m enchanted.” He sombered a little, expression falling from hysterical glee into a soft and resigned happiness. He held up his hand, feeling the crackle of electricity run across his palms. “But you See me now. The foolish man brought you down upon us, and I intercepted your lightning bolt. His eyes, mundane and paltry, are closed, and you feel my consciousness in replacement of him. I can feel you already - my Eyes opening, the Reality that we built together calling me back. When your infinite grace re-aligns with every one of my atoms, forming the fabric of my world, I’ll snap back.”
Just like that?
Sasha had thought that there would be an...adventure, or quest, or something. At least a research binge. Some kind of heroic group effort. But the Archivist was a stretched rubber band, held tightly and out of position, and after long enough straining against its center it had to snap back. A telly flickering in and out, blaring the song of a dead channel.
“Do we have time to group hug or something?” Tim offered weakly, undoubtedly thinking the same thing as she was. “Last goodbyes? Anything?”
“Howl’s Moving Castle moment?” Martin asked urgently. “I’ll find you in the future, right? We’re still together there, right?”
“Martin,” Jon said, strangely fond, “we were never apart.”
Martin turned a unique shade of red.
But it was Sasha who Jon turned to, face angled to the sound of her voice. His expression was still distantly fond, but there was something strange in it too - a wry recognition, a subtle knowledge, a faint recollection of a joke that only he knew.
“Sasha,” Jon said, “so long as you’re brave, and buy ten fire extinguishers and hide them around the office, things will be just fine. Buy twelve fire extinguishers, just to be safe. And don’t ever go inside Artifact Storage again. Not even for Alicia’s birthday party. If it’s a choice between worms and Artifact Storage then choose worms, the scars add a certain appeal. I cannot stress enough, not even if you lose your jacket in Artifact Storage -”
“Are you sure you don’t have anything to say to me?” Martin asked desperately, almost crying. Sasha, personally, wanted to circle back around to the worm thing. “Sad goodbyes? Waving a handkerchief? I thought you said I was alive? Don’t you have anything?”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Goodness, Martin, if you insist. There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you. In fact, I do believe it’s about time.”
Martin’s mind clearly projected very loudly ‘I’ve been in love with you this entire time’ in blatant wish-fulfillment. Everybody held their breaths.
Jon drew himself up to his full, imposing height, and sternly looked at all of them. “I’m tired of holding my tongue about this, Martin,” Jon said finally, and Martin qualified. “For the last time, I don’t load the dishwasher wrong. I load the dishwasher correctly. It’s you who’s always insisting that the cups go on the bottom. It’s a freakish way to live your life, and I’ll never forgive you for -”
Static blared in Sasha’s ears and overwrote her mind, and she screamed. The sensation was a pickaxe driven into her ears, an unforgivable rip and tear, and she heard her screams echoed in concert.
Then the pain abated, and was gone.
Sasha, Tim, and Martin were left standing in an empty office, accompanied only by the unconscious figure of their boss. There was nothing left of the Archivist, nor any suggestion that he had ever been here - just a drained mug, some scattered pens, and a lingering sense of malaise and confusion.
Everybody looked at each other, feeling strangely and uniquely connected. It was hardly Sasha’s strangest Magnus Institute experience, but maybe it was the funnest.
“Well,” Tim said finally, “at least one day this week wasn’t boring.”
“Yeah, I didn’t even have to get drunk today.” Sasha sighed. “We definitely have to gaslight Jon about this.”
Martin was already carefully lugging Jon onto his chair, arranging him so his arms were folded on the desk with his cheek resting on his forearm. “We’ll pretend it was just a weird dream.” He propped his hands on his hips, satisfied. “Hopefully this convinces him he needs more sleep.” Martin gasped in sudden realization. “Maybe he becomes the Antichrist because he needs more sleep! Guys, I have a great twenty step plan for saving the world.”
“Oh, come on, we said that was too much work.” Tim shrugged and opened the office door, holding it open and gesturing for them all to come out. “I think if we just friendship Jon to death, all of our problems will be solved.”
Martin just shrugged, following him out. They really did have paperwork that they needed to get back to. “Both are vital components. But...hey, it’s not weird to put the mugs on the bottom rack, is it? There’s not really that much of a difference, right?”
“Mate, you’re a fucking freak.” Tim looked backwards at Sasha, who was still standing in the office, dazed. “Sash, you coming? Let’s go day-drinking.”
“Yeah,” Sasha said, “in a sec.”
He shrugged and left the door propped open, and Sasha heard their bickering fade slowly as they walked down the hallway.
But she couldn’t help staring at Jon sleeping at his desk, chest falling in and out, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose. His short, carefully maintained hair and meticulous fade. His baggy tweed and ill-fitting slacks. The subtle and shameful kind of earnestness, the desire mixed with fear mixed with hope mixed with genuine desire for a better future. He just wanted to be happy, to not be afraid anymore. He seemed weirdly human, when compared with his inhuman self. Or maybe it was the other way around.
The tape recorder on Jon’s desk was still running. Sasha squinted at it, taking a second to listen to the staticy hiss. It was familiar, in the strangest possible way. It felt familiar -
Sasha reached out and grabbed the tape recorder, stuffing it in her pencil skirt pocket. “Just remember,” Sasha whispered, “I’d make a great candidate for Antichrist.”
She ran to go catch up with her coworkers, shutting the door behind them and leaving Jon sleeping contentedly in his office, head pillowed on his arms, dreaming strange and comforting dreams.
#i know I say 'this is the stupidest thing i've ever written' EVERY TIME BUT#my writing#tma#the magnus archives#the magnus archives fanfiction#tma fanfic#tma time travel au#crack#jonathan sims#sasha james#tim stoker#martin blackwood#elias bouchard
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Unexpected
Prompt: “what happened to your clothes?” “I think i’m falling in love with you.” “I think ive always known, deep down, i think i’ve always loved you.”
Dean x Reader
Warnings: Swearing, somewhat detailed sex scene, iunno not much really.
A/N: Sorry it’s so long, i had this idea and thought it’d be a fun read. Enjoy :)
Dean sat on your bed, mindlessly watching and waiting as you hid in your closet, dress after dress, skirt after skirt flying out, one almost hitting him in the face. He caught it mid air before tossing it down next to him.
“I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up, its just a few drinks at the bar, Max already knows you, you dont need to impress him, he already likes you.” Dean spoke, watching as you popped out from your closet, three different shirts in your hands.
Dean was your best friend, you had met him and Sam as a child, your fathers had been hunting partners for a few years, always leaving you and the boys at bobby’s to cause trouble for the old man. You could still hear bobby’s voice sometimes, demanding Dean stop influencing you with his schemes.
His buddy Max had run into him at the bar last week while you guys had stopped in during a hunt and they had caught up for hours, you had connected with Max off the bat, and when he’d asked you out, you were skeptical, see deep down you always knew Dean was your guy, your never ending crush on him had turned into deeper feelings years ago, you tried to deny it for years, and definitely never told him, but when Dean had convinced you to give it a shot, go out on ONE date with a guy he knew and liked, you gave in, never being able to say no to him, i mean, to be fair you hadn’t been with a man in over 2 years and you could use a night out, maybe even some quality time in bed with a good looking guy, plus, Dean trusted him, and that was enough.
“Dean, i haven’t been out with a guy in 2 years, i’m not going out with a guy looking like a swamp monster, first dates are everything, and looking your best can make or break the date.” You huffed, holding out a shirt to him for an opinion, he shook his head, grimacing.
“First, you never look like a swamp monster, you’re stunning no matter what, you hardly have to work at that, secondly, that’s an old ratty tshirt you stole from me, really?” He pointed at it, now realizing he was right, why the hell you were even suggesting this. It was time to pull out the big guns. You sighed, hiding back into your closet, you had to have something date worthy.
Dean had popped away, grabbing himself a beer, giving himself a break from outfit advice. You were his best friend and he wanted nothing more than to see you happy, even if it meant trusting Max to take you out on a date. It was one date, it’s not like he was stealing you away forever. He had always had a soft spot for you, you were his first kiss as a kid and he’d looked out for you ever since, and even though he trusted Max, seeing you get all worked up over a guy that wasn’t him still didn’t settle well with him, but he shoved his feelings down and tried to be as supportive as he could.
He walked back into your room, realizing you were finally working on your makeup, you were slightly bent over your bathroom sink, reaching closer to the mirror as you did your eyeliner, truth be told, he loved when you did that black wing thing, it enhanced your big E/C eyes and drove him nuts everytime. He looked you over, realizing what you finally had chosen to put on, a shorter than he’d like black leather mini skirt, a matching leather shirt thing that looked similar to a bra more than anything. He cleared his throat.
“What happened to your clothes?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at you.
You finish your eyeliner before walking past him, fetching lipstick out of your little makeup bag before making your way back to your bathroom, “What do you mean? Theyre fine.” You spoke, applying your lipstick as he piped up.
“I mean like, where’s the rest of it?” he sassed and you rolled your eyes as you walked back into the room. “It’s not that bad is it? It’s literally all i can find that isn’t covered in holes, old blood or stained monster guts.” You looked down at yourself, smoothing out your skirt. Dean cleared his throat as he eyed you properly, trying hard to calm his way out of a boner.
“Uh, no, no i’m just teasing, you look incredible.” He smiled, nodding, you shoot him a innocent smile, “Better, Winchester. Much better, right answer.” You shoot him a small wink and he chuckles. He had come a long way on talking to women because of her, she helped him realize as a teenager and a young man that he didn’t need to be vulgar or gross to pick up women and he’d learned a long time ago thanks to her that chivarly was key.
He watched as she put on her coat, Max waiting by the door to take her out, she gave him a little wave as she told him not to wait up, she’d be fine.
“Be safe, have fun.” He smiled as she walked out the door, his internal groan coming out of his mouth and he kicked himself for being too scared to ever make a move himself. He’d liked her since they were teenagers, but he was too stubborn to do anything, his fathers voice telling him hunter relationships never worked.
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The night had been a blast so far, you and Max were having a great time chatting, dancing and enjoying each others company at the bar, he was sweet, nice and had a good view on life and hunting. He told you entertaning stories, some even involved moments he and Dean shared as young teenagers hunting together, being boys and trying to get girls, Max pranking Dean. They had a good friendship and you were happy Dean had someone besides you and Sam he could pal around with.
You had moved to his truck a while ago, the mix of alcohol and pure need affecting you both as you made out like teenagers, the windows began steaming up, it was an unusually warm evening in lebanon and you were thankful you wore this outfit or would have soaked right through it from the heat.
His hand moved freely on your thigh and you straddled him, his back against the backseat of his pick up with you on his lap, dry humping him like some silly teenage girl who hadn’t had sex yet, you made the first move, desperate to feel a mans touch, it had been so long.
You yank your top off, nothing but some nipple covers to cover your exposed breasts, Max lets out a soft moan, “Beautiful,” he mumbles while he kisses softly around your skin, he slowly peels off the covers off you and his mouth lands on your nipple and you let out a louder Moan than you want to but it doesn’t seem to bother him.
Before you know it, your both down to nothing but your underwear, you reach down and pull down his boxers, reaching a hand in and grabbing him and placing him at your entrance, you’re already so turned on you don’t need foreplay tonight, not when you’re this sexually frustrated.
You sink down on him slowly, and you both moan out, yours comes out as more of a shout, and you begin to move, slowly at first before changing into a soft but faster bounce, he’s making sounds, you know that for fact but you’re so distracted by the feeling of pure pleasure you haven’t felt in so long you aren’t even fully aware of what’s happening, you let out a shout, and before you know what’s happening, it all suddenly just stops.
You come back to reality and notice Max has pushed you off, he’s pulling his pants back on and avoiding your eye. Oh for fuck sakes, you haven’t even came close to your release and Dean set you up with a 2 minute one pump chump. You were going to kick his ass.
“What’s wrong? are you done already?” you ask, his looks at you, letting out an exasperated huff before licking his lips and shaking his head. “I’m sorry Y/n, i don’t think this is going to work out, besides, you shouldn’t really sleep with a guy if you’re not going to rememember his name.” He scolds, glaring at you before he shoves his shirt on and climbs out the back, you put your skirt and shirt back on, deciding to skip the panties all together.
“Hey! I do remember your name, it’s Max, i’m not stupid!” You yell at him, angry now that he would even suggest that. Max turns to you, glaring, “Oh yeah, then next time maybe you should try screaming my name out and not Dean’s, jesus christ y/n, if you want him that bad just go fuck him, i doubt he’ll say no!” He shouts and you stand frozen.
“What? Dean?, i didn’t...I don’t-” you stutter, he cuts you off. “It’s kind of obvious y/n, you screamed his name for a reason, you obviously have lingering feelings for him, and im not going to be your pitty fuck.” He sighs, he ushers you into the passenger seat, offering to drive you home in what is the most uncomfortabe, quiet, embrassing drive home ever.
You slam the bunker door closed, worst date ever. You make your way past Dean and Sam in the library as you try your hardest to avoid them, especially Dean, you were embarassed enough, you didn’t need to face him right now, and you sure as hell hoped Max kept his mouth shut about it too.
“Y/N? That you? “ You hear Dean call out but you avoid answering, flying past them to your room before slamming the door shut.
Dean’s eyebrows furrow.
“I guess the date didn’t go well then.” Sam speaks out, looking over at Dean. He shrugs, before getting up and walking towards your room
He knocks on the door softly, “Y/n, you okay? did Max do something cause if he did i’ll beat the living crap outta him.” He calls out, he can hear your sniffle, he sighs, before softly opening your door. You’re cuddled up in bed, watching your favorite episode of golden girls as you cry softly. He sighs and heads over, sitting on your bed.
“Bad date?” He asks and you shrug, “Something like that.” He gives you a soft smile. “Want to talk about it?” He asks and you shake your head. “No, i just wanna forget it.” You speak, he notices you never meet his eye. He nods and agrees to leave it alone, he joins you quietly, watching tv with you but giving you your space. When you finally fall asleep, he goes to bed himself, but not before shooting Max a text.
“Whatever the fuck you did man, she’s upset, and if i find out you hurt her, i’ll kill you.”
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It’s two weeks later when things finally come out, you haven’t spoken to Max since that night of your date. The bar is busier than usual, a few more college kids then there usually is but it is spring break, most of them are probably home for the much needed time away from school work.
Dean is at the pool tables, hussling some airhead jock out of pool money. You watch and laugh when he heads over to you, cash in hand.
“Ha ha, stupid brainless jocks. Always so much fun seeing how much of daddy’s money i can get out of them.” He chuckles, setting the money back in his pocket. You roll your eyes but smile. Why did you put up with this dork.
Before you know it, someone is calling out for Dean. “Yo, Dean!” You both turn to spot Max, waving Dean over for a game. You swallow, nervous that the details of your date will come out, you still weren’t fully over it, and you dreaded Dean ever finding out, he’d never let you live it down and he really didn’t need a bigger ego. Luckily Max hadn’t noticed you yet.
Dean motions he’ll play one round and be right back and you try to give him a smile, dreading this inside. Just don’t ask him about the date, you interally tell him, even though he’s long gone and can’t hear it.
You sip your drink, asking for another one and you try to keep your cool at those two being in the same room all of a sudden.
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One game had turned into 4 and before you knew it, the two guys had captured a crowd, some betting on Max and some on Dean. It was becoming a friendly competition between the two boys.
“Aw come on Max, don’t be a sore loser, i’m sure you can come back from that.” Dean teases, watching as Max lines up his next shot.
“Easy for you to say Winchester, tell me, do you ever get sick of being a pompous prick?” Max winks at him and Dean smiles, “Eh, Sometimes, but then i remember how fun it is to watch you lose and its all worth it.” Dean chuckles, Max suddenly isn’t in a joking mood and he shoots, it goes in, he gets a few more and Dean’s actually surprised.
“Not bad, man. You’re getting better.” Dean smirks, “Still no match for me though, i always win.” Dean leans in, takes a shot and gets his last three balls in, He lines up with the 8 ball, looks up at Max, and smirks, then his eyes find you, sitting behind Max a few tables down and he shoots you a wink, before sinking in his ball. Game over.
Max turns around, realizing who Dean winked at, he turns back around, slamming his pool stick down. “Good game, I’m done, guess you won Dean, you got the money, and the one girl i’ve liked in a really long time, guess you always do win, huh?” He spits out, a bitter tinge to his voice. He scoffs and walks away.
Dean’s suddenly confused, what the hell was he talking about. He looks over at you, you’re watching the television over the bar, no clue what had just happened, he follows Max outside catching him before he reaches his truck.
“Hey! I didn’t get anything, if this is about y/n, you screwed that up on your own, okay? I had nothing to do with that!” Dean shouts. Max laughs and turns to face him. “Oh bullshit Dee, you have everything to do with it!” He sneers, “I really liked her man, she was cool, but like always, Dean Winchester always gets the girl!” He scoffs, making Dean frown, confused.
“Y/n isn’t mine! she’s my friend, whatever you did to piss her off on your date was your problem, she didn’t tell me what you did but if you wanted her that bad, you had the chance to fix it!”
“REALLY DEE? Tell me, how the fuck would you fix the girl you like screaming your best friends name in bed when shes with you? Huh? How the fuck do i fix her thinkng about you while she’s fucking me?” He swallows, “Man, forget it, you wouldn’t understand, god forbid that ever happened to you.” He spits, before he’s in his truck, driving away. Dean’s still standing there, more confused than ever.
He finally makes it back inside, his eyes roaming around for you. He finds you in the same spot, the female bar tender chatting with you and making you laugh. Your eyes find him, beckoning him over and he moves.
He finally reaches you and you smile, “I got you another beer. How did the game go? You disappeared.” You ask, and he stares at you, he finally pipes up, and your heart sinks. Oh no. Please no.
“Max seemed very upset when he saw you, what happened on your date again? Why didn’t you ever go out with him again?” He asks, you take a sip of your beer and shrug. “I dunno, he wasn’t my type, just didn’t work out.” You bite your lip, hoping to god he lets this go, you don’t need to relive that embarassing moment.
He nods, taking a drink of his own beer, “Okay, so he just wasn’t your type, that’s all? It had nothing to do with you screaming my name in the middle of sex?” He calmly points out and you nearly choke on your beer, spitting beer across the bar table, everyone close by stares at you, you turn red, apologizing and grabbing napkins to clean up your mess.
You turn and face Dean, “He fucking told you!” Dean raises an eyebrow, “In a not so nice way, so it’s true? You really did?” He smirks and you bury your face in your hands, “Oh god...” You call out and when you look back up Dean’s cheesy grin is staring back at you, “Actually, apparently it’s Oh Dean.”
You throw a nice solid punch into his shoulder before you run out of the bar, “Y/n...y/n wait!” Dean calls out but you’re already half way across the bar and out the door. He throws down some cash and chases after you, catching you half way down the road.
“Y/n...” He calls out, “Just leave me alone Dean, i knew you would use this against me, i knew it. You’re a jerk.” You wipe away a tear, he finally reaches you and grabs your arm, turning you to face him.
“Hey, i didn’t mean to upset you, i’m sorry, i just, i was surprised, that’s all.” He sighs, “Why didn’t you just tell me? I thought Max was the one who hurt you or something.” He speaks softly and you sniffle.
“it’s embarassing, i didn’t even know i did it, i was so into it and then he just stopped, for a second i thought he’d already, you know, i was disappointed then we got into an argument about it and he took me home.” You shrugged.
Dean nodded, he was quiet for a while, and then he spoke, revealing something that made even you question if you were drunk.
“I uh, i guess i wasn’t expecting to hear that, and i guess i got a little excited cause iunno i just, i think i’m falling in love with you, and when Max told me i just uh, i guess i was hopeful that maybe it meant you felt the same.” He swallows before going quiet, watching your reaction carefully.
You nodded, frowning as you realised you weren’t dreaming, Dean loved you, Dean Winchester loved you.
“I think i’ve always known, Deep down, i think i’ve always loved you.” You shrug, “Every since we shared our first kiss, i think part of me has loved you ever since.” You smile, finally meeting Dean’s eyes, the grin on his face tells you all you need to know, this man is crazy about you, always has been.
“oh yeah?” He smiles, reaching out to grab you, you chuckle, leaning up and placing a slow, deep kiss on his lips.
“Yeah, what can i say, you’re just my type.” You smirk and Dean laughs.
“Well then, why don’t we get back home and i’ll give you a real reason to scream my name.” He smirks, leaning down quite a bit to place wet warm kisses along your exposed neck.
“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?” You roll your eyes, he meets them and a sexy grin appears on his face.
“Not a chance.”
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Congrats on finishing your paper! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧ Could I request Prompto-centric stuff? If you're up for AU thoughts, I recently had an idea flash of Versus13!Prompto (from early trailers) and canon!Prom being brothers/twins and got very excited - it'd be lovely to read your take on that! Your writing is such a rich, heartwarming experience. I'm ace & a Found Family lover too so it just resonates with me so much. Thank you!
x
Prompto shows up to the Crow’s Nest looking hunted. Gladio is already sliding over to make room for him on his side of the booth, and Prompto crashes into the waiting seat without ceremony. He shoulders off a ratty backpack, letting it fall to the floor at his feet, which would imply that he literally just got back.
“Hey, guys,” Prompto says without inflection.
“Oof,” Noct says. He leans forward across the table on his elbows, and gives Prompto’s hair a friendly ruffle. “Missed you too, loser.”
It’s an understatement. Noctis and Prompto have been comfortably attached at the hip since they were fifteen, and this past week was probably the longest they’d ever spent apart. Gladio’s had to listen to the crown prince whine for the last five days, and if it wasn’t his actual job to make sure Noctis didn’t get his ass kicked, Gladio would have kicked his ass.
Prompto makes a face and waves Noct’s hand away, but already his demeanor is thawing. “Of course I missed you. We only Facetimed like every five seconds. Sorry, it was a long drive.”
Gladio scrutinizes him on the low, taking in what Ignis probably already has. He’s wrinkled and red-eyed and jittery, something tight in the lines of his body that speaks of frustration.
“I take it you didn’t enjoy your trip?” Ignis asks. He pushes Gladio’s basket of fries under Prompto’s nose, more or less a command to eat something.
Prompto picks up a fry and worries it apart in his fingers.
“‘Course I didn’t. Driving all the way to Duscae in a gross car with a sleazy reporter to get your idiot brother out of jail isn’t exactly a vacation. I can’t believe I had to miss Iris’ birthday.”
“Hey, don’t let your head go there,” Gladio tells him firmly. “She told you it was fine, and she loved that stupid Moogle jacket you got her.”
“There’s, like, a whole fleet of not-gross cars at the Citadel that you could have borrowed,” Noct says for the nth time. “You have the same clearance level as Ignis, and Ignis can do whatever he wants.”
“Uh, I think that’s just ‘cause he’s Ignis.”
“Either way, I would have been happy to arrange alternate transportation,” says Ignis calmly. “Threatening Mr. Ghiranze with what I would do to him if he made you uncomfortable in any way wasn’t nearly as reassuring.”
Prompto chokes on a bite of Noct’s salmon and Gladio thumps him on the back until he gets it down.
“You what?” he finally manages. “Oh, no wonder he was so weird! He wouldn’t even look at me. Iggy, you’re the best.”
He’s breathless, and bright with the beginning of laughter, and Gladio thinks, Nice one, Specs.
It felt weird to be three instead of four, even only for a week. He won’t come out and say it, but Gladio is relieved to have Blondie back where he belongs.
He’ll be with Gladio heading up Basic Training for the next two months, and Gladio is more than looking forward to it. The new recruits are a bunch of pains in the ass, and they deserve to have Cor the Immortal’s ‘Quicksilver’ protege whip them into terrified appreciation for Gladio’s less manic approach.
The bell above the door rings merrily, and a familiar someone shouts, “Hey, birdbrain!”
The hard-won good cheer drains out of Prompto’s face like water from a leaky faucet. He doesn’t have time to turn around before Peregrine is upon him, pouncing like a hungry coeurl upon an injured anak.
“You left before I could say thanks,” Peregrine says with vicious glee, grabbing Prompto in a probably-affectionate headlock. His barcode is stark and bold under the fluorescent lights of the diner, hidden in plain sight by a geometric half-sleeve tattoo. “Sick of your big bro, is that it?”
“For sure,” Prompto wheezes, trying to peel him off. “Definitely, one-hundred percent.”
To this day, Gladio isn’t sure what to make of Peregrine. He showed up in Insomnia a few weeks after Prompto’s televised swearing-in ceremony, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a shock-rifle strapped to his shoulder. Given what they are, they’re physically identical, but Prompto’s friends have never had any trouble telling them apart.
“Whatever.” Peregrine lets Prompto go with a toothy grin. He’s causing a whole scene in the quiet diner, but he’s been a Hunter all his life and very little seems to phase him. “You gonna be home tonight?”
“If I say no, are you going to get arrested again?” Prompto asks his brother suspiciously.
“I’ll probably have my hands full with Dino, since one of your boyfriends here traumatized mine. He needs a little TLC, if you know what I–”
“Nope!” Prompto says loudly. “Bye, Pere!“
Peregrine laughs, and it manages to be more affectionate than antagonistic. This time, when he leans down to hug Prompto, it actually looks like a hug instead of a cheerful mugging.
“Thanks for coming for me, birdie,” Peregrine says, cheek propped on Prompto’s messy hair. It’s one of those unexpected moments of sincerity that occasionally pops up between the two of them like a buoy. “I know it sucked.”
“It did suck,” Prompto mutters. But he’s leaning into his brother’s arms instead of away, and the harassed, stressed out lines of his body are relenting. “But I was actually glad you called me.”
Peregrine’s hands go tight in Prompto’s jacket for a second. Sometimes, he looks as though he’d like to grab onto Prompto and never let him go.
The two of them spent so much of their lives alone– one in an empty house, and one in the wild countryside– and they both managed to find their own people, build their own homes. They don’t know how to be family, but they’re figuring it out. They want to figure it out. They’re learning their way around each other.
Peregrine ruins the mood by squeezing Prompto so tight he squeaks.
“I’ll quote you on that next time,” he chirps, and leans over to swipe Gladio’s basket of fries, and takes off as abruptly as he arrived in the first place. “See you, Prom! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
“No!” Prompto yells after him, leaning out of the booth. “No ‘next time’!”
“Text me, byeeeeeee!”
“Could you imagine being stuck in a car with him for six hours?” Noct says, with what looks like a new appreciation for Prompto’s plight.
Prompto whirls to face him, vindicated. “It was the worst!”
Ignis soothes him with promises of green curry soup for dinner– a handy excuse for what he already had planned, the chickatrice thigh and coconut milk sitting in Noctis’ apartment for Prompto’s return– and Gladio drops a heavy arm around Prompto’s shoulders to try to absorb some of his nervous energy.
Prom’s phone chimes while Noctis is getting the check, flashing Peregrine’s silly contact I.D. Gladio isn’t nosy enough to read over Prompto’s shoulder, but he watches the expressions parade across his friend’s freckled face. Surprise, good humor, the automatic joy of an inside joke.
As Prompto types out a reply, he’s grinning– the lighter, brighter half of a new dynamic duo– and Gladio thinks it’s a good look on him.
#final fantasy xv#ffxv#chocobros#prompto argentum#gladiolus amicitia#ignis scientia#noctis lucis caelum#ffxv fic#my writing#prompt#mugurahokori
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You should write more about that first part of those headcanons 💚
anon i literally thought you were riley because she asked me to do the exact same thing .2 seconds after she read them y’all are kindred spirits i swear
but anyways I hope you like this!! one tall glass of shane juice just for ya babes. putting a cut because this got hella long. chug that spicy fluff ladies x
It’s the end of autumn, and Marnie has asked Shane to look over Jas for the night. Jas is absolutely elated.
“Sleepover! Sleepover! Sleepover!” she chants, jumping up and down on the couch.
Shane chuckles, bringing out plates of pizza slices for them into the living room.
“It’s not a sleepover if we already live together, squirt,” he teases her.
Jas pouts at him. “Yes it is!” she insists.
He huffs. “Fine, you know what, if you want this to be a sleepover, let’s make it one. Just please don’t tell aunt Marnie I heated up pizza instead of the soup she left for us.”
Jas giggles. “Promise I won’t tell,” she tries to wink but just ends up blinking. “Pinky swear!” she adds, holding out her pinky and waving it at him.
Shane easily grabs her pinky with his. “I’ll hold you to it,” he says with a faked seriousness.
He pops in the movie into the player, some animated film about dancing sister princesses. If he didn’t go to Jas’s room regularly, he wouldn’t remember the last time he saw so much pink. He doesn’t mind, though; Jas is delighted, which is all that matters.
They finish their pizza pretty quickly, and Jas nestles into his side on the couch. He puts his arm around her, a swell of pride burgeoning inside. She’s so tiny, her breaths so small. He forgets sometimes.
They are halfway through the movie when someone knocks at the door.
“Who is it?” Jas asks, looking up at him.
“I don’t know,” he answers, frowning as he checks the time. “Don’t worry, I’m going to go check and be right back. You can tell me what I missed when I get back,” he ruffles the top of her head.
She giggles, before focusing back on the movie. He gets up with a grunt, stretching out. His steps are lazy as he makes his way to the door. The knocks come again.
“Yeah, yeah, coming,” he mutters.
He swings the door open, and is shocked to see you there.
“What are you doing here so late?” he asks, confused.
You take a second to answer, blinking at him. “Why hello Shane, good to see you too,” you grimace.
He sighs and scratches his cheek, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry. I, uh, nice to see you. But why am I seeing you, exactly? Weren’t you… mad at me?”
“You weren’t at the Stardrop,” you say, shifting on your feet, avoiding his gaze. “I was worried you might be sick or… something. You can be a rude ass when you put your mind to it, but that doesn’t mean I want you to perish, you know.”
His neck burns with heat at that. He’s still ashamed you had to find him like that by the cliffs, this summer. But you should know he’s doing better by now, shouldn’t you? It’s all because of you, after all. No matter how often he snaps at you, which he only does because he’s freaking out. Freaking out about how fast you make his heart beat and how great your hair smells when you hug him and how he’s still just waiting for the other shoe to drop when you decide you’ve had enough of his friendship.
“I’m babysitting Jas,” he explains, clearing his throat. “Marnie’s off boning the Mayor tonight,” he adds in a whisper so Jas won’t have a chance of hearing.
Your eyes grow wide and he sees you stifle a burst of laughter, biting the inside of your cheek. He… he likes when you do that. Couldn’t say why. He just likes it.
“There’s, uh, leftover pizza if you want to hang out a bit,” he offers. He really hopes you’ll stay; you’ve been so busy preparing for the winter, he’s barely seen you this week. And, there’s been the whole mad at him thing, because he called you overbearing and fussy for telling him to ease up on the drinking last Friday night.
You seem to hesitate, looking out towards the path that leads to your farm. “I need to wake up early tomorrow,” you start, and he deflates, “but I guess a slice of pizza can’t hurt.”
“Oh,” he says, not having expected that. “That’s, erm, cool. Jas is gonna be really happy to see you, too.”
“And you won’t?” you ask with a smirk, stepping inside.
He feels his cheeks burn. You make him blush so easily, it’s horrible.
“Jury’s still out on that,” he teases, hiding his fluster.
You glare at him as you kick off your boots, but he knows you don’t mean it.
“Jas?” you call out, heading for the living room.
He follows behind you. He can’t help his eyes dropping to eye the sway of your hips as you walk, and flushes once more as he forces himself to look away. Get a grip, man, he chastises himself.
He hears Jas gasps as she tumbles off the couch. “You’re here!! Are you here for the sleepover?” she exclaims, running to hug your legs, and you almost topple, but you keep your balance and laugh as you pet her hair affectionately.
“Hey baby girl,” you smile down at her. “If you’ll have me, I’d be really glad to join your sleepover, yeah.”
“Don’t be silly,” Jas giggles. “Of course you can be in the sleepover.”
Shane can’t help but chuckle at the whole thing. He can’t believe he’s lucky enough to have the two best girls in the world with him for the evening.
You get yourself some of the pizza, and Jas sums up the beginning of the movie for you, sat between you and him. Shane can’t help his eyes drifting to you every so often. At some point, he watches you bite into the slice, heat creeping up his neck when you swallow and lick your lips. You catch him looking, and he feels himself reddens harder, but you don’t seem to notice.
“Want some?” you simply hold out the slice to him.
“Uh, no,” he gulps. “I’m fine, thanks.”
You shrug, and he focuses on the screen. As soon as you set the plate down, Jas looks at you with expectant eyes.
“Can I braid your hair? Please?” she asks you.
“Well,” you smile, “It wouldn’t really be a sleepover if I said no, uh?”
Jas is ecstatic as you slide down to sit on the floor in front of where she sits on the couch. She takes up to braiding sections of your hair as she hums along to the songs in the movie, wildly out of time. Shane lets out a laugh when you start to dance along moving your shoulders as much as you can while still allowing for Jas to keep working on your hair.
“What?” you turn around with an exaggerated indignant expression.
Jas inhales loudly, before turning to him as well. “Yeah, what, uncle Shane?” she mimics.
He only laughs harder, pulling Jas to him. She squeals as he kisses the top of her head, and he catches you smiling softly at him and Jas. It creates a knot in the pit of his stomach.
“You look ridiculous,” he teases you, gesturing to the uneven braids.
Jas gasps. “No she looks pretty!” she argues.
“See, Jas knows what she’s talking about,” you stick your tongue out at him.
Jas is squinting at him. “Say she looks pretty,” she orders him.
His mouth dries up. You’ve suddenly taken to watching the movie very intently. Jas tugs on his sleeve, insistent.
“Okay, okay,” he gives in, swatting her away. “She’s… she’s pretty. There, happy?”
She gives him a toothy grin. “Really pretty?”
His breath strangles. “The prettiest,” he mutters, and you choke on the cold popcorn you’re munching on, startling him. “That good enough for you?” he asks his niece.
She nods vigorously, before settling back down behind you. As the movie goes on, she starts to yawn more and more often. By the end of it, she’s rubbing her eyes, struggling to keep them open. She barely puts up a fight when he tells her it’s time to brush her teeth and get to bed. He feels a warm rush when she hugs you goodnight and you plant a kiss on her cheek. You’d just fit so well into his life, he knows it. You already do.
He’s tucking her in when she asks him the question she’s asked him five or six times already.
“Uncle Shane?” she asks, voice sleepy.
“Hmm?”
“Why isn’t she your girlfriend?”
He sighs deeply.
“She is, squirt, she’s a girl who is a friend,” he replies.
Jas pouts. “Do you love her?”
“I…” he hesitates. “I do. Like I love you and aunt Marnie. That doesn’t mean I want aunt Marnie to be my girlfriend, now does it?”
She crinkles up her nose. “Gross.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, got that right. Sleep tight, baby girl. Sweet dreams,” he kisses her forehead.
“Night night,” she yawns, clutching the covers.
He’s as silent as he can be as he shuts her door and walks back to the living room. He finds you picking at your nails on the couch.
“Hey,” he whispers.
“Hey.”
You seem about to say something as you look towards the door. He speaks up first; he doesn’t want you to go, not yet.
“I don’t know about you, but I need a palette cleanser after all that glitter.”
You chuckle. “Won’t we wake Jas if we put on another movie?”
“I have a TV in my room,” he offers, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“Oh, right,” you nod. “Yeah, okay, sure.”
He exhales in relief when you get up to follow him to his room, before the nerves kick in. It’s not like you haven’t been in his room before. It’s just that every other time, Marnie was around, and it wasn’t past nightfall.
You shiver as you walk into his room with him. “Your room is freezing, man,” you say, rubbing your arms.
“It’s not even that cold,” he rolls his eyes.
He crouches in front of the TV to put in a movie, and he hears his bed creak behind him.
“What are you doing?” he asks, shocked when he turns around to see you settling down on the bed, back against the wall. “There’s a couch over there.”
You eye the couch briefly. “I’m not sitting down on your ratty couch, pal. Last time I did my jeans smelled like beer for a week.”
He flushes a deep red. “Fine,” he grumbles. “What movie do you want to watch anyways?”
You shrug. “I don’t mind. Your pick. Just make it good,” you tease.
He rolls his eyes. “Sure, no pressure then.”
He goes for an old favourite of his, pops it in before walking up to the bed, but he hesitates. You pat the place beside you, smirking, and he clumsily climbs up beside you, making sure to leave some distance. When the opening credits begin, you laugh incredulously.
“Are you kidding me right now?” you ask. “That one, really?
“What? It’s a classic!”
“It’s the cheesiest action movie ever made, is what it is,” you laugh.
“Be quiet,” he shoves you, and you only laugh harder.
You’re twenty minutes into the movie when he notices you looking around the room.
“Need anything?” he asks you.
You rub your arm. “Do you have a blanket or something? I’m a bit cold, but I’ll manage if you don’t.”
He scans the room as well, before remembering the throw he keeps for colder nights is in the laundry.
“Shit, sorry I don’t really have anything to offer you,” he says, contrite.
“That’s okay,” you wave it off.
Some more time passes before you shiver again.
“Boy you’re really cold aren’t you?” he notes. He wanted to sound like he was teasing you, but what ends up coming out is just soft. Too soft.
The embarrassed smile you offer him has him weak.
“Do you… do you mind if I come closer?” you whisper, staring ahead at the TV.
His blood runs cold. “Do I mind if..?” he trails off, only able to echo your question.
You don’t leave him much time before you scoot against him, pressing against his side. The way you exhale, leaning your head down on his shoulder, isn’t too far off from a sigh, and his heart jumps in his ribcage. Your legs are folded, resting on his lap.
“Oh,” he says. “Okay, uhm, here, I’ll just put my… arm around you,” he struggles to say, before doing so. “Like this…How’s this?”
“Better,” you hum.
He nods. “That’s good,” he murmurs.
He can’t remember the last time he’s been this nervous. Thank goodness for the darkness, because he knows that hearing you breathe like this, so very close, it has him flushing a dark red.
“Your shoulders are really comfy,” you say, shifting your head a bit.
He can only swallow. When the big love scene comes on, the two of you are still as rocks. He can hear the way your breath grows a bit shallow. It’s almost the end of the movie when you reach a hand forward, dragging on his stomach, to grab his hand, lacing your fingers with his.
“What are you…?” he asks hastily, heart skipping a beat. He becomes very self-conscious of the softness of his abdomen. He doesn’t see how you won’t notice it.
He hears you gulp, notices how you retreat your hand slightly. You still won’t look at him. “Would you rather I don’t?”
“No,” he sputters hastily, instinctively clutching your hand tighter. “I mean, I,” and he relaxes his grasp a bit, “I’m okay with it.”
“Okay,” you whisper.
For the rest of the movie, he can’t seem to focus. Having you curled up against him like this, it’s something out of his wildest dreams. He can’t piece together what it means, doesn’t understand what can possibly be going through your mind. He startles every time you shift in the slightest, every time you inhale a bit deeper or your breath hitches from following the action on screen. The top of your head is tantalizing; he wants to stroke it, to lean down and kiss it so you’ll finally know. He can’t bring himself to do it.
He grabs the remote and shuts off the TV when the credits start to roll. You don’t move. He tries to look down, but he can’t see your face, only the top of your head still.
“I’m sorry I was such a dick the other day,” he ends up saying. “I… I never mean it, when I snap at you.”
“I know,” you answer, and your voice is a low hum, so pleasant. “Why does it keep happening, though? If I annoy you, you can tell me before I reach your limit, you know.”
“No, it,” he pauses, struggling to find the words, “It has nothing to do with you. Or at least, it’s not your fault.”
He’s sure you’re frowning, despite being unable to see. “What is it, then?”
He exhales shakily. “Sometimes… sometimes I worry too much and I forget how to act. I get so fucking scared of losing you. You’re the only person who likes… gets me. As I am.”
You finally tilt your head to look up at him, and he’s short for breath. You’re so close. “I’m not going anywhere, Shane,” you tell him, squeezing his fingers. Usually, there’s always something teasing in your tone, even if it’s just underlying. But the way you say this… the way your eyes are so soft as you peer up at him, it’s gentle in a whole new way. Tender. “I don’t want to lose you either,” your eyes shut painfully. “I wish you’d stop pushing me away.”
Your eyes flutter back open. He doesn’t know what to say. You let go of his hand, and he lets it go reluctantly. And then you bring it up to his chest, and he gulps when his breath catches.
He doesn’t know how much time passes as you just look at each other like this, anxious. And then something shifts, something you both can feel but couldn’t pinpoint. Your mouths meet each other halfway, him leaning down, you tilting up, so tentative and slow. Your eyes flutter shut. At first, his lips barely graze yours. But then they do again, and your lips draw his in definitively this time. He overwhelmed by how loudly you exhale through your nose; it sounds like somehow you’ve just might’ve been holding out for this just as much as he has.
His head spins when you pull apart. “Woah,” is the only sound he can muster, filled with quiet wonder.
You huff the quietest of laughs.
“Can we, uh,” he swallows, “do that again?”
He expects you to to tease him for that, to give him that mocking smile of yours that seems to come so easily. Instead, you just nod, sitting up, your hand pressing further into his chest for purchase as you go back to kiss him again.
This time he’s ready. There’s more conviction to the way his mouth captures yours, more yearning. You make a sound halfway between a moan and a whimper, ringing so loud in the silence of the room. His arms wrap around you tighter. He doesn’t want to let go, ever. The abandon with which you kiss him has him reeling. He almost whines when you pull away.
“Let me stay here tonight,” you breathe. “I know you. If you don’t wake up with me beside you tomorrow morning, if I don’t hold you as soon as you open your eyes, you’ll convince yourself this isn’t real.”
He can hear blood thrumming in his head. You place a gentle kiss on his lips to drive your point home, before pulling back and holding his gaze.
“Nothing has to happen,” you add, blushing, and fuck, it’s adorable. “Nothing will happen. I just want to… be with you.”
“But,” he scrambles, “where do we go from here? I just… I don’t know how to do this. I didn’t think I’d get to.”
You smile gently and stroke the stubble on his cheek. He feels like he’s meeting a whole new you. There’s affection pouring from every touch. He’s never been touched like that, not really.
“We’ll figure that out in the morning,” you tell him.
You kiss him again, sweet as ripe fruit. His hunger for it hasn’t been sated yet. He wants you to feel how hard he wants you, every last part of you. It’s not a physical desire. Well, it’s part of it, and he knows he needs to stop before too much blood rushes down below, but mostly he wants you in an all-encompassing way.
He wants to spend evenings cuddled up with you by a fire as the wind rustles the pines. He wants to hear you say his name the way you do when you can’t bring yourself to be mad at him again and again. He wants to go to the beach at dawn with you for no reason, which is stupid he knows because he hates waking up early. He wants to be inside of you as the birds chirp in the morning and you still have pillow creases on your face.
“Stay,” he nods, breathing deeply when he pulls away. “Stay, and, and sleep in my arms. You’re right, you’re always right. I need…” he pauses, “I need you to stay.”
You kiss his jaw, and his eyes flutter shut. “I know. And I… I need it too. I need you too.”
#stardew valley#stardew valley shane#stardew valley headcanons#sdv shane#shane x farmer#sdv shane fluff#sdv bachelors
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Yoooooooooo I love romcoms like no other bitch jem, what’re ur thoughts on Isn’t it Romantic? AU with andriel 🙀
no,,,,,,,,,,,,this is a terrible idea,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
*
Andrew knows this isn’t real.
Why? Because Neil just flirted with him, and Neil does not flirt with him. Neil barely knows how to function as a member of society, let alone understand romantic relationships, or be able to prompt one.
Nevertheless: Andrew had walked into work, and Neil had leaned into his cubicle with a dozy smile, before complimenting his slacks, winking, and walking away.
Another strong contender for this being a distorted version of reality: Kevin now hated his guts. His assistant - the gooey-eyed, exy-obsessive, tall-ass freak was now waltzing around with Jeremy on one arm and Jean on the other, his once-employers, berating the shit out of people and purposefully spilling his coffee on Andrew before asking for him to get a new one.
Then he was in the bathroom, ringing out his coffee-stained shirt when his cousin, Nicky, who worked in marketing, waltzed in whilst flamboyantly spreading his arms and proclaiming “Shopping trip! Let’s go!” And whilst Nicky did sometimes act like that stereotypical hyper-feminine gay guy, he wasn’t this one-dimensional.
After work had finished - or, rather, after Andrew had been whisked away, forced on a shopping spree, and then sent back to work with an hour to spare only to have Kevin demote him - he stumbled out of the building, ready to catch a bus home, just as a car came careening around the corner and almost catching Andrew’s hip. He stumbled, almost dropping all his shit to the ground, just as the person driving the car got out. He put his hands on Andrew’s shoulders to steady him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He shoved the man’s hands away, repulsed.
“I can’t believe I almost just killed the hottest guy I’ve ever seen,” The man said, in a terribly breathless voice. Andrew looked up, seeing six-feet on tanned skin and expensive silk suit stretched across his shoulders. He was no Neil, but he was certainly easy on the damned eyes. “I’m Roland. Who are you?”
“Uh…”
“Doesn’t matter! Go on a date with me.” He tucked a business card into Andrew’s pocket, before blowing a kiss and sliding back into his priceless ride. Andrew was left, stunned, on the street corner.
Then he realised.
Best friend at work turned enemy? Overly-gay supporting character? Strange, handsome man almost killing him and then asking him on a date? Long-standing work-crush suddenly showing obvious interest?
Andrew was in a rom-com.
Shit.
*
“Neil,” He snapped his fingers in front of Neil’s face. “Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil. Earth to Neil?”
“Hm?” Neil looked up at him with those dreamy eyes, before smiling. “Oh, ‘Drew. Are you alright?”
“No.” Andrew snapped, fishing into his pocket for a cigarette. “Smoke break?”
“Sure.” He stood up from his desk and walked just ahead of Andrew, letting him appreciate how well-dressed he’d been as of late. Must have been Allison.
Not real, Andrew reminded himself. Neil had worn ratty jeans to work before (and gotten away with it because everyone loves him): His sense of fashion was beyond deplorable at best. This wasn’t real. None of this was real.
Andrew blinked: He’d just wanted to go out in front of their building to smoke, but suddenly, they were walking through a lush green park, where men and women laughed as they rode pastel bikes, whilst families picnicked on the little grassy knolls. Andrew was losing his damn mind.
“So,” Neil said, around his cigarette, smiling effortlessly. Another lie. Neil didn’t smile, albeit in a rare flash when Andrew said something particularly crude under his breath at work parties. Now he was grinning like a mad idiot, his scars much paler against his skin than they should be.
It made Andrew irrationally mad. Neil was gorgeous with his scars, but this dystopian hell-space had to wash him out and make him more appealing to a wider audience, like this was a real rom-com people were watching. Fucking gross.
“Roland, hm?”
“What?” Andrew echoed, blinking. “Who?”
“He almost hit you with his car, yesterday. He’s Kevin’s newest client for a new hotel on the south-side. Asked after your work because it’s the best. He also said he asked you out on a date but you hadn’t called him yet. What’s the hold-up?”
“No - I - well - what?”
Neil looked at the ground with an obviously disappointed pout. “I’m sure you’ll have a marvellous time with him.”
“No, Neil, I -” Not real, not real, not real. He eyed an escape in the form of a small flower stall that’d mysteriously popped up as they walked. This was ridiculous. Absurd. “I’ll be back. I just gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Okay,” Neil said, smiling again. “I’ll be right here.”
Andrew bought a rose, because that’s all the flower-vendor seemed to be selling, and turned around to return to Neil. If this was all gonna end when he woke up, he might as well make the most of it, shouldn’t he?
Walking back over to where he’d left Neil standing, he watched in dismay as a woman he’d never seen before leaned over and planted a kiss on Neil’s cheek. He gave her those doe-eyes that he’d been giving Andrew all day, holding her hands. She really was stunning, in a tight skirt and a floral shirt, with hair that was perfectly curled.
The rose fell from Andrew’s hand. What the fuck?
“Andrew!” Neil called out, waving enthusiastically. “Marissa just accidently almost hit me with her bike. Isn’t she gorgeous?” The girl laughed, leaning into his shoulder. “I’m going to head back to work later, alright? We’re going out on a date!”
“Sure,” Andrew muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets as Neil and Marissa giggled at one another, whispering into each other’s ears. “See you later.”
*
Roland wouldn’t leave him alone. Neil was waxing poetry about Marissa, wondering if it was too early to propose. Kevin sneered at him at every given moment, and Nicky wouldn’t shut up about being in debt because he bought a Gucci belt that he was dying for and had to have.
He hit his head against his desk over and over and over, just wishing it’d end. For the love of God, just fucking let this torture end.
“Andrew, what are you doing?” Roland’s nerve-grating voice called. “You’re so silly. I love that about you. Should we grab lunch and talk about this project?” He batted his eyelashes. “I’d love to get to know more about your ideas.”
Andrew sat up slowly. How did rom-coms end?
By ending up with the person.
An idea formed. He looked Roland dead between the eyes and said “Sure. Why not?”
Roland took him out to a glass-walled restaurant in a penthouse apartment, miles above the ground. Andrew felt sick the entire time and could barely eat: He even resorted to talking about work and plans to avoid looking at the sheer drop to the ground below him. They were up so high.
“Are you alriight, cutie?” Roland teased. “You don’t look too good.”
“I wanna get out of here.” Andrew stood, shoving the chair back. “I had a good time.” Not. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Roland winked. “Let me drop you home.”
Andrew didn’t protest, so long as he was on the ground once more and not dangling in the clouds. When he clambered into Roland’s car he let himself breath, unclenching his fists.
Neil knew he was scared of heights. Neil would have never taken him to a restaurant like that.
“Buckle up!” Roland insisted in his regrettably sing-song like voice, revving the car’s engine.
Andrew did not buckle-up, embracing the risk. Roland tried to hold his hand over the gearstick and he almost pulled a knife on the man, before remembering he was a client and Kevin would never let him live it down.
The last thing he remembered was wishing he could have given Neil a chance whilst he still had one, before another car came careening towards them with the lights glazing, head nose-first into Andrew’s side of the car -
*
“Andrew?” A distant voice called. “You’re moving your fingers. Can you hear me at all?”
His eyes peeled open: They felt glue-lined, crusted over with time. The face hovering near him looked relieved, settling back into the chair and reaching for a cup of water. The glass was held to Andrew’s lips who took a few hesitant sips, making sure it didn’t spill.
Andrew’s head throbbed.
“You were out cold for a few days. Your family will be back soon, but right now, it’s just me.”
Andrew focussed his eyes. Neil sat in front of him, not smiling, wearing an old t-shirt and jeans. His hair was a mess, and he looked like he hadn’t slept.
“Neil,” He muttered, waving heavy arms around. “What happened?”
“You were driving home from work.” Neil explained. “Kevin got the call from your brother who’d been working a shift when they wheeled you in, who told Nicky and I. We came here as soon as we could.”
“Kevin?”
“Yes, your assistant? Dark-haired giant, acts like a pathetic teddy-bear? He was crying a little when you came out of surgery.” Neil snorted, a hint of his tiny smile at the corner of his lips. “How are you feeling?”
He was back in reality. Thank fuck. “Fantastic.”
“Morphine does that to you.”
“Come here.”
“What?”
Andrew could still remember sitting next to Roland as they drove, wishing he’d just fucking taken the chance whilst Neil was available. Now he had the chance again. “I said come here.”
Neil shuffled closer, mildly confused.
“I want to kiss you.”
“Seriously?” Neil remarked, baffled. “Since when?”
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Since forever ago. You’re an oblivious idiot.��
Neil shrugged. “Can’t discredit you on that one.” He looked nervously down at his own hands, fingers wound together and knuckles white. “Maybe when you’re not stuck in a hospital bed. I’m not really sure. I would like to figure it out with you.”
“Yes or no,” Andrew admonished. “I’m concussed. Don’t make this any harder than it already is, junkie.”
Neil’s tiny smile, the one Andrew had fallen for in the first place, came out. “Okay.”
Andrew closed his eyes, hoping this was his reality. Neil’s fingers gently wove together with his own and squeezed. Andrew’s heart fluttered: He was pretty sure he couldn’t imagine that.
And then they lived happily ever after.
*
what a ridiculous and fluffy au. i’ll have to compensate for that in my next fic ;DDDD
#andreil#rom-com au#isnt it romantic spoilers#this is terrible#andrew minyard#neil josten#kevin day#all for the game#jem writes
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Support Your Local Writer! :D
So I’m going to be making a job change. There aren’t opportunities for extra money in it like there is for my job now, and so I’m going to take that extra free time and really get down to doing some fun stuff with my Patreon.
Patreons aren’t really fun without patrons, though! I’d love to have you!
There are still 8 days left in February to hit the goal of 28 patrons, at which point I’ll publish a bonus fic and Krys’ playlists from January and February (and if we meet it in the eight days, I’ll throw in March’s, as well).
Along with Press Releases, I’m planning on doing some exclusive SWTOR stuff over there, as well, so stay tuned for that, too. :D
If you’re not familiar with Press Releases, have an excerpt here under the cut.
Tuesday Afternoon
Krys Adler hates gas stations.
No, that’s not quite accurate.
She loathes them.
They’re gross. They always smell weird. Why are the floors always sticky? But it feels like she’s been in that too-small rental car forever and she’s absolutely dying for some beef jerky, so she’s going to suck up her dislike for the five minutes it’s going to take to run into this place somewhere in Ohio - Cleveland? She doesn’t know, she quit paying attention to any sign that didn’t say Erie, PA - and get a pack.
Ignoring the voice of her health-conscious roommate Jen echoing in her head, Krys barrels through the door and rounds the end of an aisle, eyes already focused on the colorful yet barren display, idly wondering if the absolutely mouthwatering man standing near it is going her way. Not that it matters - her leisurely cross-country drive is only leisurely because it’s planned within an inch of its life - but oh lord, the things she’d do to that man if she had the time. He’s got thick black hair, a strong jaw, broad shoulders. Style is a little too preppy for her usual taste, but he -
He’s got the last pack of jerky in his hand.
Oh, hell no.
“Look, Mister Too Hot to be Real,” she snaps as she reaches him, “you need to put that jerky down, because I am not stopping at another gas station today and that’s the last pack here. I’ve been in my car too long and I need that jerky. Drop it right into my hand here.” She stares up, way up - she knows she’s short, but holy hell, did his parents feed him Miracle-Gro as a child? - and opens her hand, her hazel eyes narrowed. “Drop it,” she reiterates, not unlike one would tell a particularly disobedient puppy to relinquish a tennis ball.
To her annoyance, all he does is raise an eyebrow, utterly unfazed by her outburst. “It’s generally polite to introduce yourself before demanding a complete stranger hand over a likely sub-par dried beef snack, you know.”
Krys heaves the world’s most put-upon, petulant sigh, determined to ignore that this marvelous specimen of humanity even has a sexy voice, a baritone with aspirations of being a bass. “I’m Krys. And you are? Besides the world’s best looking jerky thief?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “I’m Max, and I’m not a thief. It’s hardly my fault you’re slow.” He dangles the jerky out of her reach, green eyes drifting from her floof of curly crimson hair and Butane Jane t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, to her bared tattoo-covered arms, ratty jeans, and bright pink Docs. “You’re so … tiny. It’s kind of cute. You’re practically pocket-sized.”
Short jokes are not the way to Krys’ heart, and she scowls even harder. “Pal, if you think I won’t kick you in the shin to get that jerky, you are very, very wrong.”
He calls her bluff with a smirk that leaves Krys torn between wanting to pelt him with Twinkies and wanting to convince him to get a hotel room with her, strolling past her toward the clerk. She sweeps back out the door, very much in a snit, and is almost to her rental car when she feels a hand on her shoulder.
“All right, all right, jerky fiend,” he says with a chuckle when she turns. “Here.” He holds the package out, grin crinkling the corners of his eyes, then pulls it back. “Would this act of pure altruism net me a thank you in the form of your number?”
It’s ridiculous to give it to him. He’s never going to call. She knows this.
She holds out her hand and makes an impatient come on gesture. “Well? Give me your phone.”
Max pats one back pocket, then the other, extracting a swank-looking phone. Once he’s unlocked it, he hands it over, looking not at all sure if she’s going to put her number in it or toss it into the bushes. Or into the road. Her thumbs fly over the display, her phone rings; she taps his phone and hands it back. “There. Not that it matters, we’re probably from opposite sides of the country. But you did give me my jerky, so I suppose this is fair.”
He takes the phone, slides it back into his pocket. “Drive safe, hothead.”
“You too, snack thief.” She tosses her own phone through the open driver side window, then gets into the Versa. Music blares from the speakers when she turns the car on, and she gives him a mocking salute before reversing and pulling out of the parking lot, headed back toward the freeway.
Tuesday Night
“So you’re telling me you were menaced in a gas station for a pack of questionable supposed beef sticks?”
Adriana, Max’s older sister, is making no effort to hide her amusement at the entire situation, and Max glares at the phone’s reflection in the mirror as he fingercombs leave-in conditioner through his hair. “I was hardly menaced, Adri. Might I remind you that this woman was -”
Fierce. Obnoxious. Gorgeous. Not that he’s giving his sister any more ammunition than she’s already crafting out of this bit of nothing. He’s almost grateful when Adriana interrupts him.
“Tiny, yes. Among other things you just couldn’t help but notice about her.” Adriana’s smirk comes through loud and clear. He might have mentioned her hair. And her tattoos. And her eyes. “To be fair, little brother, most people are tiny to you. But she did threaten to kick you in the shins. For shitty snacks.” A pause. “And your response was to buy them?”
Max leans toward the mirror, turning his head this way and that, taking mental tally of the silver starting to appear at his temples. “Well, what would you have done?”
“I wouldn’t have been buying overprocessed sticks of death at a gas station, first of all.”
“Death sticks,” he snorts. “It’s just jerky. Don’t be such a snob, Adri.”
“Says the man who drinks Corona, of all things. Of course you don’t have any standards.”
Max swipes the phone off the bathroom counter and carries it out into the main room, setting it on the desk next to the open laptop. “You don’t have to drink it. No one’s making you.”
“Good thing, too.” Adriana clucks her tongue. “Our family couldn’t handle the shame of two of us drinking that terrible beer. You know Mom’s considered cutting you out of her -” Max’s text notification goes off, loud in the quiet hotel room, followed by a slightly stunned silence. “Max. Are you texting? You never text. Ever.” Confusion weaves through Adriana’s incredulousness. The entire family knows that if Max could uninstall the texting capability on his phone, he would. “Who are you -”
Max closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, offering a silent prayer that his sister won’t put two and two together.
A small gasp from the direction of the cell phone speaker tells him that no deity in the universe deigned to answer his hasty plea. “You’re texting her! The Gas Station Menace!” Adriana exclaims. “You are, aren’t you? No, you don’t have to tell me, your silence tells me everything. You - “
Time to end this before it gets even more out of hand. “I have to go, Adriana. Work calls.”
“You bought her that jerky to get her number! I knew something about that was fishy; I know you don’t ever, ever eat in that damn car of yours.” Adriana chortles. “No way were you buying that for you. You smooth bastard.”
Just when he thinks his sister has reached peak obnoxiousness, the notification goes off again, and it takes all of his willpower to not simply lower his face into his palms and wait for something else to catch Adriana’s attention.
“Multiple texts!” Adriana sounds like she can hardly contain herself. “I’ll let you get back to your no doubt torrid gas station affair, little brother. Remember not to text anything you don’t want on the news.”
“I’m going now, Adri.”
“And don’t do anything I wouldn’t -”
“Goodbye, Adriana.” Max jabs at the screen harder than necessary, then looks at his laptop, telling himself that of course he’s not going to answer those texts right away, that would be silly.
He picks up the phone, taps the notification.
It’s good to hear you got through the rest of your day without making anyone cry over Ho-Hos, that’s for sure, Tiny. I’m proud of you. How was your drive?
#patreon#amwriting#amwritingromance#swtor#come on over and join the janes!#we've got music and yummy food and snark and Marines#and art!
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MIN YOONGI - EN POINTE
request: hello :) since yoongi likes photography i was wondering if you could write a scenarios where yoongis girlfriend is a dancer and he ask her to poser for some photos and do tricks and stuff like that and can you make it very fluffy please
summary: your photography student boyfriend wants to take some pictures of you
word count: 1204
pairing: yoongi x reader
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After another long day of rehearsal, you sit on the slick floor of the dance studio rubbing your aching feet. The smell of sweat, blood, and strong deodorant fills the air around you thick and heavy like after any long rehearsal.
“How did it go today?” You look up at the sound of boyfriend’s voice, a deep rumble that fills the room in an oddly timid way.
“It was good, hard, but good.” You say taking out your messy bun to only pull it right back up.
“I like the way you look here, very natural.” Yoongi says as he crouches down and takes several pictures of you with the camera that always hangs around his neck. You raise your eyebrows, you couldn’t possibly understand what he meant, you were wearing dirty ripped ballet tights, ratty dance shorts, a sweat filled leotard, you didn’t have any makeup on and your hair was a sweaty mess. “Do you think we could do a little photoshoot?” Yoongi asks as he looks through the photos he took.
“Can I not look like this?” You ask with a little chuckle, Yoongi just gives you a blank stare.
“You can dress however you want.” He tells you with a small smile. “I’ll pick and place and then you give me a time?”
“Alright babe.” You say finally.
“Thank you, it will look great in my portfolio.” Yoongi moves closer and presses a kiss to your head. “You’re gross and sweaty.” He whispers when he pulls back, you laugh and stand up.
“I’ll go shower and then we can have dinner.”
You feel a bit silly standing in full makeup and flowing costume, pointe shoes clinging to your feet and your tights digging into your skin underneath the costume. The only things that feel different from being on stage was the fact that your hair was down, there were no bright lights, and there wasn’t a crowd just six feet below you. You had done photoshoots before but nothing like this, usually you were in a rehearsal room or a photography studio with a marbled background and at least a few other girls. Instead you’re standing in a wistful park with lovers and parents and children passing by as Yoongi set up. His friend, Jimin, was holding a reflector and waiting for Yoongi’s que, you too were waiting for it as well.
“Okay, let's get started.” Yoongi says, looking up from his camera. His mask is pulled down to his chin and beanie covering his overgrown hair. You felt a surge of warm for the man in front of you, something that happened often when you were around him. It didn’t seem to matter how much time the two of you spent together you he always managed to give you butterflies even over the simplest of things.
“How do you want me to pose?” You ask, shifting up and off of pointe.
“Let’s start with something simple…”
The shoot goes on until Yoongi says they can break for lunch. Jimin goes off to have lunch with another friend from their university while you and Yoongi find a café with strong smelling coffee and toasted vegetarian sandwiches.
“So, how have I been doing today?” You ask as you sip warm creamy coffee.
“Great.” Yoongi says with a smile, hidden behind his mug. “The best model I’ve ever had, you know I don’t like working with people. I hate when we get assignments that involve people as our subjects. But I like working with you.”
“Yeah!” You say brightly. “It worked out really well! You know sometimes couples working together doesn’t work out but it seems that’s not the case for us.”
“Well, you just keep listening to everything I say and we won’t have a problem.” He snarks, barley holding back a grin. You scoff and kick him lightly under the table. “Really, thank you. We can go do whatever you want after this until it gets dark and then Jimin will meet back up with us for a few evening shots.” You smile and bite your lip.
“That sounds great.”
An odd thing about dancers is how comfortable they feel walking around in public in full stage makeup and nothing to cover your costume but a hoodie. You’d done it plenty of times before, running to get tampons after a show, buying a pizza, or making a snack trip to the grocery store. Yoongi didn’t seemed phased by the looks the two of you got as you walked down the street, pulling him along after you into store after store.
You start with visiting the candy shop a few stores down, you each try different samples of chocolates and other homemade sweets that the shop carried. Yoongi buys himself a little bag of chocolates and two huge homemade peanut butter cups, then he gets you a box of mixed chocolates and a few other candies you seemed to like. Your next stop is an antique store where Yoongi plays the piano in the corner and you find the cutest antique tea sets. You and Yoongi stand together, fingers interlocked as you look over the art in the back.
Once night falls you and Yoongi meet back up with Jimin in the dark. Jimin’s friend, Taehyung, helps him set up the lights as Yoongi talks to you about what he wants to do next. You watch him as he speaks, eyes bright, and hands gesturing.
“You’re staring…” He mutters after a moment.
“Only because it’s you.” You whisper leaning over to kiss his cheeks, Yoongi scoffs and shakes his head.
“Get ready.” He says leaning over to place a peck on your lips, you after him for a moment as he goes to Taehyung Jimin to make sure the lights are angled correctly. You quickly warm up your ankles then turned back to Yoongi who had his camera ready.
“You were perfect!” Yoongi says he walked over to you draping his camera around his neck, the lens cap on. He takes you in his arms and presses kisses over your makeup covered face. “As always.”
“Stop.” You say, giggling, setting your hands on his chest to pull away. “You’re gonna get my makeup all in your mouth.”
“I don’t care.” He whispers and then presses a soft kiss to your lap.
“I better get paid extra for being forced to watch you guys make out.” You hear Jimin say behind you. Yoongi pulls back, turning his head to look at Jimin.
“Firstly, we aren’t making out and secondly you aren’t getting paid at all.”
“I think you’ll have to be my subject from now on.” Yoongi whispers in your ear later that night as the two of you are curled on the couch, empty takeout containers on the coffee table and a movie playing on the TV.
“Nooo.” You groan softly. “I’m so awkward in front of a camera.”
“You’re not, you’re perfect.” He whispers, his voice husky.
“You’re the worst.” You whisper in return.
“But you love me.” Yoongi finishes pressing kisses along your jaw. You find yourself feeling warm and content, you can’t imagine being anywhere else. You don’t know how you got so lucky.
“Yeah I do.”
#starlighthansol#bts#min yoongi#suga#bts reactions#bts scenarios#bts imagines#bts writing#bts fanfic#bts fanfiction#bts fic#min yoongi reaction#min yoongi scenarios#min yoongi imagines#min yoongi fanfic#min yoongi fanfiction#min yoongi fic#suga reaction#suga scenarios#suga imagines#suga fanfic#suga fic#suga fanfiction
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Crown of Midnight: Chapter 3-4
Chapter 3
Nothing fucking happens. Sardines has a nightmare about Cain and later she and Nehemia talk about the rebellion and the king’s plans without really saying anything, and my hatred for that fucking dog just keeps growing. Observe.
Fleetfoot took off through the pale grass like a bolt of golden lightning
[...]
Dorian had never said what breed, exactly, he suspected her mother had mated with. Given Fleetfoot’s size, it could have been a wolfhound. Or an actual wolf.
Are you telling me this fucking dog is a fucking golden wolf?
I will eat this spaghetti-lookin’ bitch.
Nehemia’s creamy brown face paled slightly.
Why does the word “creamy” upset me so much in this?
Nehemia wants Sardines to try to figure out what the king is planning, but Sardines is like “nah”.
She wasn’t even sure if she truly wanted to know what the king was up to—let alone share that information with anyone else. It was selfish, and stupid, perhaps, but she couldn’t forget the warning the king had given the day he crowned her Champion: if she stepped out of line, if she betrayed him, he’d kill Chaol. And then Nehemia, and then the princess’s family.
But then, literally the next sentence:
And all of this—every death she faked, every lie she told—put them at risk.
Sardines: Hmm. Finding out the king’s sinister plans and telling my allies about them is a bad idea -- even though said allies desperately need that information -- because that might put them at risk, but saving various noblemen for no reason and put my unknowing allies in danger just so I can keep the moral high ground makes total and absolute sense!
What a master schemer this idiot is, huh?
WHAT A KWEEN.
People say they love Sardines but hate Alien and I frankly don’t get it. Sardines has always been a dumb, selfish twat, that will clearly never change.
Celaena swallowed hard. That word—“act”—scared her more than she’d like to admit.
Good self-burn there, buddy.
Chapter 4
Salad (which is my new nickname for Chaol) and Sardines are having a jog.
They’d bundled up as best they could without weighing themselves down—mostly just layers of shirts and gloves— but even with sweat running down his body, Chaol was freezing.
Layers of gloves? What the fuck?
Noticing his stare, she flashed him a grin, those stunning turquoise eyes full of light.
Eat my entire ass, Sarah.
Salad angst about how he killed Cain. He’s very sad about it. This is what you get for hiring an inexperienced twenty-something to be the captain of the guard. But if we don’t make him young it’ll be icky for Sardines to fuck him, and if we don’t make him captain then he’s just NOT GOOD ENOUGH for Sardines, ain’t that right, Sarah?
I’d say you’re being transparent but you’re already pretty white.
He was the Captain of the Guard—he was bound to have killed someone at some point. He’d already seen and done enough in the name of the king; he’d fought men, hurt them.
SJM: Hey guys I’m clearly aware that this is dumb but if I acknowledge it’s dumb you’ll accept it, right?
No.
Salad asks Sardines if she ever thinks about the people she’s killed, and since she’s the most ruthless and epic and badass assassin the world has ever known, ever, she angsts on about how she never forgets anyone she kills.
I don’t give a single shit.
Salad angst about how he desperately wants to nestle his dick between Sardines’ pearly white and hairless asscheeks, but can’t because uuuuhhh angst angst loyalty to the king and also Dorian wants to do her and he doesn’t want to betray his friend.
Whatever. I don’t give a damn. Unlike many other antis, I don’t consider Chaol to be a good character and I couldn’t give less of a shit about his problems.
Listen. You guys only think he’s good because everyone else is pretty much terrible. You cling to him because his mediocrity looks impressive when compared to the literal ass-garbage that is the rest of the lineup.
We jump POV back to Sardines.
And what’s this? GIRL HATE? FOR ME?! IN CHAPTER FOUR?!
Christmas Yulemas has come early this year.
Since Salad is all sweaty from their jog and his shirt clings to his HOT MUSCLED MALE MANLY MASCULINE VIRILE MAN-BOD, there are DUMB VAPID BITCHES there to check him out.
Celaena could have sworn their eyes had bulged out of their heads and their tongues had rolled onto the ground.
Then the next morning, they’d appeared along the path again—wearing even nicer dresses. The day after that, more girls showed up. And then several more. And now every direct route from the game park to the castle had at least one set of young women patrolling, waiting for him to walk by.
“Oh, please,” Celaena hissed as they passed two women, who looked up from their fur muffs to bat their eyelashes at him. They must have awoken before dawn to be dressed so finely.
You see, when Sardines ogles Salad or Doriass, that’s okay because uuuuuuuuh Sarah loves her little baby girl and she can’t do no wrong and also she feels TRU WUV (even though her TRU WUV is made irrelevant with the arrival of Ratty to the point where every other love was just useless before that I guess) when she checks those boys out.
THESE GIRLS DRESS NICELY!! TO IMPRESS MEN!! WHILE ALSO CHECKING THEM OUT!!
THEY’RE VAPID DUMB BITCHES!! EVEN THOUGH THE ONLY WAY FOR WOMEN TO GET POWER IN THIS SOCIETY IS THROUGH MEN!! LOOK AT THEM AND LAUGH!! SO PATHETIC!!
Cool cool.
God, I hate this series so much.
Salad offers Sardines to help her with her Archer-related business and she turns him down.
Hey Salad, aren’t you, like, I dunno, the captain of the guard? Don’t you have STUFF TO DO?!
Sorry, I forgot that this world and its characters all revolve around Sardines and her problems. How silly of me.
They come across Doriass who is walking around with his cousin Roland, who I’m sure is totally chill.
His voice was pleasant enough, but something in it made her pause. It wasn’t amusement or arrogance or anger … She couldn’t put her finger on it.
[...]
Just the way he spoke told her enough about his history with women.
[...]
As she let Chaol lead her inside the castle, she realized she was in desperate need of a bath. But it had nothing to do with her sweaty clothes, and everything to do with the oily grin and roaming eyes of Roland Havilliard.
Yeah, I’m sure this guy is totally cool!
We all know that SJM can clearly write very nuanced characters and that this incredibly obvious and cliché character introduction is just here to mislead us and make us think that Roland is a gross douchebag only so Kween Sarah can prove us wrong and develop his character into someone truly heroic!
Anyway, turns out that Roland is the “lord” of some place called Meah, which doesn’t tell me anything, but whatever. He’s been offered a position on the king’s council, which is suspicious, apparently, because Roland is more interested in getting his dick wet rather than politicking. This is framed as disgusting, even though that’s pretty much exactly what Doriass is. It’s not the first nor the last time SJM makes hypocritical exceptions for her faves.
Doriass introduces Sardines as Lillian.
They still used her alias whenever she couldn’t avoid running into members of the court, though most everyone knew to some degree that she was not in the palace for administrative nonsense or politics.
So the official story is that a petty jewelry thief became the king’s champion, then?
Holy shit, this world is filled with morons.
I also love how “administrative nonsense” and “politics” are looked down upon, but when Sardines does her BRILLIANT MIND GAMES, it’s not politics, it’s uuuuh ... Fuck man, I can’t even begin to imagine how SJM’s mind works.
Roland hits on Sardines, and her two daddies really don’t like that.
Chaol smiled—if you could call it that. It was more a flash of teeth.
Have you considered that I don’t care and that this clarification doesn’t matter?
She wouldn’t mind working with him—but not in the way Roland meant. Her way would include a dagger, a shovel, and an unmarked grave.
Actually, her way would include a corpse, a staged murder scene, and the hope that he stays hidden and nobody recognizes him for who he is.
Eat my entire ass, Sarah.
We switch to Doriass’ POV.
Chaol positively hated Roland, and whenever he came up in conversation, it was usually accompanied by phrases like “conniving wretch” and “sniveling, spoiled ass.”
So Sardines and Doriass, respectively, though “conniving” might be overstating it.
Roland was a pain in the ass, and too aware of the effect his looks and his Havilliard name had on women, but he was harmless. Wasn’t he?
Dorian didn’t know the answer—and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
SJM: Subtlety? I don’t know her.
We switch back to Sardines’ POV.
Her salary as King’s Champion was considerable, and Celaena spent every last copper of it. Shoes, hats, tunics, dresses, jewelry, weapons, baubles for her hair, and books. Books and books and books.
Books? She likes reading? How relatable? You like reading too, don’t you, young female reader who is the target demographic for this book? Don’t you feel connected to Sardines on a deep, meaningful level?
You see, when other women dress nice, they’re whores and idiots and brainless. When Sardines does it, she’s just embracing her femininity!
Ain’t that right, White Feminism?
Whatever. Doriass is there in her room/s when she returns, which she doesn’t approve of.
“Aren’t friends allowed to visit each other more than once a day?”
She stared down at him. Being friends with Dorian wasn’t something she was certain she could actually do.
Seems like SJM has been taking writing lessons from Cakeass.
Didn’t you spend an entire book angsting about how you couldn’t be friends with Doriass and then deciding that you would rather stay friends than be lovers? And now you’re back on square one? Are we really doing this again?
I’m so tired.
“And you have so much time on your hands these days that you can spend hours with me again?”
“Well, I have my usual flock of ladies to attend to, but I can always make time for you.”
Dorian is written as a player, but whenever we see him interact with women who are not Sardines, he’s shitty and hateful towards them. But it’s okay though, right? Because those dumb sluts are worthless and stupid, not amazing and brilliant like Sardines! It’s okay that Dorian clearly doesn’t respect any other woman aside from Sardines (and presumably Nehemia, since SJM has bestowed her godly blessing upon her for now), because those other women are simply not worthy of any respect!
And obviously, even though Dorian clearly wants Sardines but plays around with other women, that’s totally fine! Women checking out men though? That’s disgusting.
SARAH J MAAS IS A FEMANAST KWAAAN!
Doriass makes it clear he still wants to tap that, but Sardines tells him to fuck off.
Alone in the foyer, Celaena clenched and unclenched her fists, suddenly disgusted with all of the pretty packages on the table.
Eat my entire ass.
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Wow, it’s been a long ass time since I wrote an empties post.
It’s something I did once and didn’t feel the need to do again, but since my goal for the year is to use up a whole lot of stuff, I think we should check out some of my trash.
Note: this is something I decided to do a few days ago so I didn’t get to take photos of everything I used. I’ll do better next month!
Things I’ve used:
Soap & Glory Clean On Me Creamy Clarifying Shower Gel: I’ve mentioned this stuff a few times. It’s amazing. Love the way it smells. Love the way it makes my skin feel. It’s my holy grail and is basically always in my shower.
Ulta Eucalyptus Mint Foaming Hand Soap: I know it’s kind of bougie to get my hand soap from a beauty store, but I do. I wait until one of the three for $10 sales and stock up, so these lovely smelling soaps end up being less expensive than hand soap from the drugstore. Win. I have four or five of them as backups.
Fresh Vitamin Nectar Moisture Glow Face Cream (sample): I was bringing this stuff with my on my travels earlier in the winter and really enjoyed it. My skin has been a little extra thirsty lately so I finished it up and for a second I considered buying the full size. Then I saw the price. Nope.
Clinique Take the Day Off Cleansing Balm (travel size): This also came traveling with me and I really like it. It rinses off cleanly and doesn’t make my skin feel gross. I have one use left, so I’m going to just use it up so I can put a different cleansing balm in the container for my upcoming travels.
Tarte FRXXXTION Stick Exfoliating Cleanser: This is the third or fourth one of these that I’ve used, and every time I run out I get sad. I just love it so much. It’s a cleanser, scrub and mask in a convenient stick form. It comes with me when I travel to use at night after my oil or balm, and when I’m home I use it as a quick mask when my skin isn’t cooperating. I don’t love how expensive it is but it’s one of my favorite products from Tarte.
Lace Howood & Lavender Natural Deodorant: This is the hippie natural deodorant I talked about awhile ago. I like it. I don’t smell bad. I have two backups so it’s not a tragedy that this is gone, but I don’t use up many deodorants before they get weird and hard so I’m pretty excited about this.
Things I’m decluttering:
I’m not the kind of person who declutters a lot of stuff for no reason, but recently I decided that I’m not going to force myself to use things that I hate. The only thing it does is make me cranky and not look forward to taking a shower or doing my makeup, and that’s not cool. Showers and makeup are basically my favorite things. So, some of this stuff I tossed, some I gave away. The point is that it’s out of my collection.
Garnier SkinActive BB Cream in Light/Medium: I reviewed this last spring and at the time I thought it was fine. The color is all wrong for me, but because it only comes in two shades (I still can’t believe that), there isn’t much choice. I found out later that my mom uses it and the color works for her, so it’s being passed on to her. There are too many good face products in the world for me to waste time trying to make this work on me.
Marc Anthony Hydrating Coconut Oil & Shea Butter Shampoo and Conditioner: I’ve never used a Marc Anthony product before this, despite hearing good things about the brand. I don’t have curly hair, really, but who doesn’t need hydration? Well, I hate this. Like, a lot. I don’t like the way it smells. The shampoo is too thick and the conditioner is too thin, so I was using them at drastically different rates, and that’s annoying. I don’t like the packaging because it holds a lot of water. There isn’t anything about these that I liked, so even though they’re not completely gone I’m tossing them.
Mizon Black Snail All In One Cream: I just reviewed this recently so I won’t go into detail, but it’s really not for me. This too is going to my mom. Or my aunt. Doesn’t matter as long as it leaves my bathroom.
All of my Colourpop Ultra Matte liquid lipsticks: I have so many of these, and when I first got into liquid lipsticks I really enjoyed them. Now I loathe them. I appreciate how cheap they are but they’re so drying and they get crusty and flaky pretty quickly, and that’s not cute. I’ve been moving away from matte liquid lipsticks in general, and since these are my least favorite formula of my least favorite type of lipstick, it’s time for them to go. I’ll be tossing the old ones and giving the newer ones to good homes.
St. Ives Detox Me Daily Cleansing Stick Matcha Green Tea & Ginger: When I found out that these cleansing sticks were coming out I was super excited. Stick products are awesome for travel; they aren’t messy and don’t need to be wrestled out of my bag for TSA, so everyone wins. There are good things about this stick, like the fact that there’s a ton of product for the price and it smells good, but it’s also full of coconut oil. That’s fine for an oil cleanser or balm, but that’s not what this is supposed to be. Also coconut oil is comedogenic, meaning it’s known to clog pores, so I’m not sure why they’d put it in a cleanser that’s supposed to be detoxifying and marketed to people with oily skin. Seems silly. So this went into the trash.
SheaMoisture Peace Rose Oil Complex Nourish & Silken Shampoo and Conditioner: This stuff has been kicking around since Dan was in Michigan last year, and I reviewed it then. He brought it home with him when he moved back, and somehow it then moved to Albany with us. Clearly we suck at getting rid of stuff. Anyway, I just found it when going through some of our other bathroom stuff, and I remembered that I don’t like it. It smells good, but it makes my hair feel a bit ratty. I’ll either toss it or pass it on to Dan’s oldest sister, since I know she loves it.
L’Oreal Paris Pure Clay Cleanser – Purify & Mattify: Another thing that made the trek from NY to Michigan and back again. I really hate this stuff. It somehow makes my skin feel extra dry, but also dirty. I don’t know how that happens, but it seems like the opposite of what a cleanser should do. I reviewed it more in depth when we were still in Michigan last year. It’s now going in the trash. Happy trails terrible cleanser.
What’s in your trash this month? How do you feel about decluttering things you hate? Do you force yourself to use them?
January empties Wow, it's been a long ass time since I wrote an empties post. It's something I did once and didn't feel the need to do again, but since my goal for the year is to use up a whole lot of stuff, I think we should check out some of my trash.
#bath products#beauty trash#clinique#declutter#empties#garnier#hair care#makeup#marc anthony#skin care#soap and glory#st ives#tarte#ulta
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