#oh this is actually spot on in a genuinely non-shallow way i love it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mslynnwrites · 3 years

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touches 42 for jmart

#42: braiding the other’s hair

This is such a good one. I wrote way more than I should've. I literally need to go get groceries but all I can do is be sad and gay on main lmao.

CW: panic attack, discussions of trauma

Jon had incredibly lovely hair. It was one of the first things Martin had noticed about him. Even now, with him going apeshit over the smallest things, it remained silky and luxuriant. It looked very soft, and Martin had a very hard time not imagining running his hands through it.

Today, he had it pinned up in a very loose, very messy bun. Thick strands escaped the band, draping around his face like an illusory helmet. Even a placebo of protection must have been nice, Martin supposed, though he wished Jon would open up and tell him what was really going on in his head. He missed their talks.

They hadn’t really spoken much since Martin revealed how he lied on his CV. He still wasn’t really sure why it relieved Jon as much as it did, but it was at least nice to catch a shy smile from him when he thought he wasn’t looking. He hadn’t quite determined if Jon had a crush on him yet, but...well, he was pretty sure that’s what it was. He hoped that’s what it was, although he was perfectly fine just being friends with the man. Still...he always was a bit of a romantic, and now Jon was aware how close in age they actually were…

He shook his head and ran a hand down his face, accidentally smudging his glasses. He couldn’t keep thinking about Jon like this; it wasn’t healthy, and Jon was in no state to handle a relationship with him. Neither of them were. Not to mention that Jon was still his superior! No matter how close he felt to him, there was still a severe conflict of interest. And if Tim was right about not being able to quit, he doubted Jon would be able to move him to another department.

Tim shot him a smirk from the other desk. “Pining again?” he snorted.

“Shut up, Tim,” Martin muttered. As if his crush on his boss wasn’t bad enough, apparently it was also painfully obvious.

“You seriously need to get a better taste in men.”

“Yes, yes. And you need to cut me some slack,” Martin said. “It’s not my fault he’s pretty!”

“Who’s pretty?”

Martin’s face turned hot, and he knew he was beet red. Jon hovered in the doorway to his office, his own cheeks a bit flushed, though it’s possible Martin was just imagining that. He had a bit of a pout going, too, and Martin tried very hard not to look absolutely smitten.

“Oh look,” Tim sneered, “the hermit emerged from his lair for once.”

Now Jon was definitely blushing. “I-I leave all the time!”

“Yeah? When was the last time you actually went home instead of, oh y’know, taking a snooze at your desk, staking out your employees’ homes—”

“I’m not—!”

Tim stood up abruptly and sauntered off. “Fuck this noise,” he spat as he went. “I’m taking my lunch.”

Martin gulped and felt his face get impossibly hotter. His palms were quite slick all of a sudden.

Jon sighed. “I...Martin, have you seen Sasha lately?”

Oh good, a non-prying question. Just a totally mundane, normal thing for someone to ask. “Um...I think she’s still on her lunch, actually. Pretty sure she was meeting up with that new boyfriend of hers. Tom? I think?”

Jon nodded slowly, still looking off distantly at the door Tim had left through. It was rare to see him so openly upset. It was strange. “Right...well, when she um...when she gets back, could you let her know I need her follow-up notes on the Russo case?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied. He swallowed back a wave of anxiety. “Are um...are you okay? You seem a bit...off, today.”

Jon’s shoulders raised a bit with tension. “I’m fine,” he answered flatly. “I’ll be in my office.”

He turned and practically fled before Martin could get another word in. Martin sighed. Hopeless crush, indeed.

He didn’t see Jon again until later that night as he was preparing to leave. The faint glow of his office light cut through the dark Archives like butter. He frowned. It was—he checked his watch—half seven. Late for Martin, at any rate. Yet Jon was still holed up in there.

He breathed out slowly. If anyone could get him to go home, it was...probably him. At any rate, he felt like he was the only one who cared if he did nowadays. He knocked lightly and pushed the door in ever so slightly.

Jon was lying draped over his desk, arms held over his head protectively. He was shaking, and deep red marks covered the back of his neck. He was muttering something so quiet it was unintelligible.

Martin’s heart broke a bit, seeing him like that. He chewed on the inside of his cheek—a nasty habit, he knew—and knocked a bit louder.

Jon lurched out of his seat, a terrified shriek slipping out of his mouth so loud it seemed impossible to have come from him. He landed hard on the floor, limps splayed out, face pinched in shock and terror.

Without thinking, Martin rushed to his side and took hold of his arm, his other hand supporting his back. A seemingly endless stream of “oh my God I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to scare you are you all right are you hurt oh God” flowed out of him as he pulled Jon into a sitting position.

Jon’s breath was panicked, coming in shallow gasps. Martin stared into his eyes, desperate for any clue as to what he should do. Jon’s eyes were distant and unfocused, and a bit watery. Very slowly, Martin began to rub circles into his back, moving his other hand to hold Jon’s in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

It took a few minutes, but Jon’s breathing eventually evened out. Martin watched his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow before he nodded at him to stop. He withdrew his hand from Jon’s back, but kept holding his hand with the other.

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Martin said. “I-I swear I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Jon drew in a shaky breath. “I-it’s not your fault. Just um...the statement I read earlier really uh...it didn’t do good things to me.”

“Do...do you want to talk about it?”

He ripped at a few strands of his hair that had escaped from his bun. “It...no. No, I don’t.”

Martin gently clasped Jon’s other twitching, tearing hand and drew it away from his neck. “You’ve scratched the hell out of yourself,” he murmured. Blood spots and raised bruises coated the back of his neck.

Jon shuddered. “Kept feeling like...like there were s-spiders,” he rasped. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t stop myself.”

“There’s no spiders, Jon.”

“I know!” he spat. “I just- it itches and that Goddamn statement, it—” he sucked in a breath. “It’s because of my hair,” he muttered. “Just...little strands tickling the back of my neck, feelin like t-tiny legs and I just...I couldn’t stop.”

Martin sighed and brushed away some of the wayward strands, letting his palm sit over the back of Jon’s neck. He tensed in surprise, but quickly relaxed back, leaning into it.

“At this point, I should probably just cut it,” he said. “I just...can’t bring myself to do it.”

“I could braid it, if you’d like,” Martin said before registering that that’s what he was saying. His eyes widened with horror, and his face burned. “I-I mean- well, only if you want me to. I-I wouldn’t want to—”

“I think I’d like that, actually,” Jon murmured, averting his eyes. “It...it might help.”

Martin stared at him, genuinely shocked. “A-are you sure?”

“If the offer still stands, yes.”

He blinked. “R-right. Right. Um...well let’s at least get off the floor.”

“All right.”

Martin helped him to his feet. Jon still wouldn’t meet his gaze. It’s late, we’re probably the only ones still in the building, and he’s going to let me braid his hair. There was no way this could be happening. It was a prank, right? Or a dream?

Jon rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “Would the breakroom work best, do you think?”

“Probably, yeah,” Martin replied, trying to reel himself back in. This was fine; it was just like the times when he’d been living in Document Storage and Jon had stayed late to keep him company. This was fine. Everything was just fine.

He drifted out of the office after Jon, following him down the hall, into the breakroom. He was fine.

“Let’s um,” he started, “let’s wet it first, then I’ll braid it, okay? That way you um...you shouldn’t have any flyaways.”

“Sounds good,” Jon said. He sounded hesitant. Nervous.

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?”

Jon nodded. “It’s...I know you won’t hurt me,” he said, strained.

“Of course I wouldn’t!”

“I-I know. That- that’s why it’s okay. I wouldn’t...I can’t trust anyone else.”

He bit his tongue. There were so many things he wanted to say—that he should say. How he was grateful Jon trusted him. How he was worried that Jon trusted only him. How he wanted to help him, and protect him, and hold him tight until he wasn’t afraid anymore.

How he wanted to love him. How he hoped Jon wanted him to love him.

But he didn’t say any of that, because it would take too many words, too many emotions, too many fears. Instead, he led Jon over to the sink and gently undid the ruined bun while the water heated to a decent temperature. Then, he reverently ran his fingers through Jon’s hair, just as he had wanted to for so long. Jon closed his eyes and sighed, leaning against him for support from the odd angle he had to be in to get his head in the sink. Definitely no other reason he would lean against him. None.

After a few moments, Martin shut the water off and wrung out the hair as best he could. Then he led Jon over to one of the seats before settling down behind him.

Jon was silent for a long while, making no noise even when Martin was sure he had just ripped out a hair or two by accident, or when he pulled a bit too hard on one of the cords. His shoulders actually relaxed, for the first time in a very, very long time.

“Thank you,” he murmured, sounding almost in a daze.

“Of course,” Martin replied, doing his best not to let his hands shake and praying the wetness on his hands was just water.

“I mean it! I…” He paused. “No one’s wanted to do this for me in a long time.”

Not for the first time, Martin was struck with the fact that he may well be Jon’s only friend. “All you have to do is ask,” he said.

Jon fell silent again for a few more beats. “The statement was about an experiment gone wrong,” he said. “One involving spiders.”

Martin worked through a stubborn knot. “Oh?” he asked softly.

“It...well...it hit a bit too close to home, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“A-and as much as- as I hate them, I-I can’t stop once I’ve started reading a statement, no matter how revolted or terrified it makes me feel.” Jon gasped, his body trembling once more. “Like...like I have no control over my actions anymore. All I can do is read on.”

The knot finally gave way, and Martin continued threading the thick braid. “Like a puppet on a string,” he murmured.

Jon jolted up, whipping around to face him. “Exactly!” he cried. “A-and no matter what I do, I-I keep losing myself in them, and they’re awful, and- and—” He broke off, his eyes gaining that panicked glaze once again. Martin took his hands in his own, ignoring the fact that he was going to have to rebraid everything again. Jon needed him.

It took him another minute or two to calm back down. Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I read a Leitner, once,” he said in a low voice. “It did the same thing to me.”

Martin felt his chest go tight with worry and fear. “What?”

“It...I couldn’t stop reading, and it made me move, walk toward...toward what was certain death. I’m only alive because someone took the book away from me.”

There were tears in his eyes. “And now the statements...it’s the same thing all over again. But...this time, I don’t know that anyone would be able to save me before it’s too late.”

Martin squeezed his hands tight. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“No one would believe me,” Jon sniffed. “They’d think I was mad.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re different.”

Oh. He reached up and brushed away a tear from Jon’s cheek. “You know I’m here for you,” he murmured.

Jon brought his own hand up and held Martin’s against his face, taking a shuddering breath. “I know.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for caring.”

Martin moved closer and brought Jon’s head against his chest. Always, he thought. Always.

#i'm having too much fun #they're SOFT #tma #the magnus archives #panic attack #trauma #and they COMMUNICATE #please keep sending me prompts #even if they're not from the touches thing!#i love writing these two very gay men #other characters too ofc #but like #jmart <3 #non-sexual intimacy #i need to put these all on ao3 #prompt #forgot to add the cut oops

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

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Aquaphobia //Yandere Leviathen x reader//

Oh, have I never mentioned that I am MORTIFIED of water and literally any sea creatures...no? It must have slipped my mind.

For this story, I'm making a few assumptions. 1) Levi can turn into some sort of sea monster-like thing I'm assuming it looks like a cross between a Megladon/Giant squid/ Sea serpent. 2) He can communicate with sea creatures. 3) The giant horrifying aquarium that basically makes up his back wall is in reality linked to either an ocean or somewhere that houses a bunch of dangerous sea beings. 4) In addition to sea animal communication Levi posses Aquakinesis

------------------------------------------------------------------------

For as long as you can remember water has always haunted you.

The large bodies of H2O particles have never failed to shake you to your very core.

In every single nightmare you ever recall, you are drowning in one of those shallow blue celestial bodies. The colorless liquid invading your mouth, clawing its way to where your lungs rested, joyously filling and choking them.

Sea roamers of all kinds flocked to your drowning corps, millions of eyes drinking in your defenseless form, from the beady black shark eyes to the yellow cyclops eye of a giant squid. A fraction of a second later and those beastes were sinking their fangs into your tender flesh, large tentacles wrapping themselves around an arm or leg and tugging it until it detached from the rest of your corps.

But in the end, you always woke up, always resumed your day as if nothing had come to pass the night before, back then you knew that it was only a nightmare....however this time you weren't so sure.

Out of all seven brothers you'd always dreaded Leviathan the most. You had nothing against his "otaku" like ways or his unkempt appearance. No, it was simply what he was that made you keep your distance.

Yet the third born seemed to have other plans for you. Leviathan hates "normies", the average demons and humans that overpopulate the earth, mocking those like him who have hobbies and likings that are "abnormal" in their eyes, forcing them to live shameful lives of isolation. Due to the superiority of normies in all three realms Levi had never once come across someone as abnormal as himself...that was until the new exchange student had arrived. At first, they had seemed to be just like anyone else, a normal human with absolutely nothing extravagant about them. But as time progressed Levi became aware of just how similar the two of them were. She would spend hours talking to Mammon about the newest anime or the latest level of the video game she was playing. Her tone was always so excited and pure, eyes gleaming and radiating happiness. But Mammon never understood, he simply scuffed and made some degrading comment about her being a nerd or worst then Levi.

Maybe it was then and there that Levi had decided you were the one. That if anybody angel, demon or human would ever understand him, ever be this alike to him, it would be you, it had to be.

You didn't want to go to his room. You'd avoided it like the plague after Mammon had described the bathtub bed and giant aquarium that drew its water from one of the Devildom's massive oceans. The avatar of greed had even vividly described how the ceiling tiles could pull away, reveling yet another large aquarium for a roof.

It sounded worst than any haunted house, a place you would never dare venture into. But this time you didn't have a choice, try as you may you couldn't get out of this.

Earlier that day you'd awaken to something cold and yet trailing down your visage. The mere texture of the substance had jolted you from your slumber, the fear of the colorless liquid had bounded itself deep into your body's habits and subconscious. Eyes dilate, body frozen, tears at the brink of falling. A moist want reached out and cupped your chin, turning your neck too briskly that you were sure you heard a few bones "pop". A squeal escaped your lips only to be met with an instantaneous "shh, be quiet". Your (eye color) orbs landed on the third born, his eyes housed a sort of sick glee it matched the sadistic twisted smirk he dawned on his face. Maybe it was the adrenaline pumping through your veins, maybe it was the fact that you'd just awoken and your brain was still partly asleep. Either way, you could have sworn that Leviathan's teeth had somehow changed. They where long and jagged, bending at roots were they sprouted from his gums, to top off the horror thin lines of thick juicy crimson highlighted the tips and betweens of his shark life teeth.

By now you had begun to sob, tears flowing non stop from your puffy red eyes. Your body was frozen you dared not move, vocal cords had given up and your tongue laid dead at the bottom of your mouth.

"Hello, princess sleep well?" Despite it seeming so innocent there was a sort of mocking laced into the question.

You noticed something in his other hand. A large familiar blue-colored plushy with a gasmask was suffocating in this grasp. That was a rare collectible you'd somehow managed to win from a Crain game back in the human world. You never slept a night without, feeling safe whenever you held it in your embrace. When you'd arrived in the Devildom you'd practically begged Lucifer to retrieve it for you. It had taken all so many tears and tantrums, in addition, to agree to take over his chores for the course of two months. The day the firstborn had carelessly tossed it to you, had probably been the second happiest day of your life.

Levi let out a cruel giggle as he brought your prized possession closer to your face. His long nails dug into the fabric of its forehead as he dangled it before your eyes. "It's kinda cute, what show is it from?" This time round he sounded genuin, no inanity to be heard. Yet you didn't speak still petrified and stiff.

One heartbeat

two heartbeats

three heartbeats--

"Fine! What you won't talk to me cause you think you're better than me?!" You shook your head slowly, the gesture barely being noticeable. Yet he picked up on it. He let out another string of offensive giggles "You're scared, right? Afraid the big bad sea monster will eat you?". Oh, God how desperately you wished you could run. Find Mammon or Lucifer and cling to them. To find any means to get away from this monster.

His fingers fell from your face, he turned without saying another word and made his way to the door. As he opened it, he called behind his shoulder. " If you want it back, come to my room at midnight and come alone" He then slammed the door abandoning you to your thoughts and terrors.

In short, that was why you were standing in front of the door that would lead you to your personal hell. You had no desire to step foot into his room and yet it was the sole means to retrieving your stuffed monster. Hesitantly you lifter your hand to knock, your finger had not touched the wood when the door creaked open and something slithered around your arm and dragged you into Leviathan's room.

"I-I'm h-here know p-please give it back--"

Your back collided with the cold tiled floor. You let out a scream of pain before Levi's hand was shoved over your mouth.

"Be quiet would ya?" His orange and purple orbs gazed into your wide mortified eyes. He let out a sigh and his gaze softened. "(Y/N)...I-I've never felt this way about anyone before...well maybe Ruri-chan and Sugar Frenzy's lead singer for a short period of time, oh and this one...nevermind! Look I-I feel like your something different okay. I g-guess that I have a little crush on you. Noting big alright! But-but what do you say (Y/N) will yo be mine? We'd make a great couple! We like the exact samethings, share practically the same opinions. We are meant to be one!" Slowly he lifted his hand from your mouth, an excited smile playing at his lips, his eyes sparkled with joy and exhilaration. Maybe if you'd have time to think this trough you would have felt bad about what you next words where.

The second his hand was removed from your mouth you shouted.

"NO! No no no no no! Never! I can't I just can't your a freaking sea monster you--"

No sooner had the words left your mouth that you felt your head accelerate forward and then get smashed on the wet hard floor. The notion repeated again and again. You where sure you were bleeding, some sort of concussion must have formed, your sight was blurry and spots were dancing everywhere.

"You stupid normi! You tricked me! I thought you were like me! That would actually love someone like me! You made me freaking fall in love with you, you bitch!"

He twisted your head to the side and pushed your face into the floor. "You're scared of water aren't you? Your sacred of what lives in the water too right? Is that why you don't love me (y/n)? Cause I'm some sort of water freak? Well? Damit answer me!"

"Yes" you choked out "y-yes L-Leviathan, I'm scared of you!" He let out a furious sigh, his tail wrapped around your neck and hosted you up pressing you into the glass of the aquarium. An odd noise filled to room, something alike to buzzing yet..somehow very different. "You know what's funny (y/n)? I may be some sort of freak, but I'm also the only thing keeping you safe from the horrors behind the class."

Something was swimming closer and closer, it's figure getting bigger and bigger. The teeth and large snout and hulking dorsal fins soon became evident what was coming toward you. You screamed, the noise echoed and bounced from one wall to the next. Your throat started to bleed and go raw, your mind blank with the loud ringing of alarms or was that your heart trying to break your ribcage and runaway?

As the monstrous shark swam only a few centimeters away from the glass, you could feel the sensitivity and life drain from your corpse, blackness taking over. You tried to remain awake to grip on to conscious, darkness was not friendly for it only showed the monsters face, the image burned permanently into your brain.

As you slipped away into a stygian dream world, Levi brought your limp body to his chest cradling you gently and sweetly kissing your forehead. He waved a hand dismissively at his "pet" and watched for a second as it swam away. He lifted you up and brought you over to his bed. Placing you carefully inside. He placed your stuffy next to you and stood up admiring the aesthetic of your sleeping form. You were so gorgeous when you weren't scared or defensive.

"You're mine (y/n), finally! I'm never going to let anyone else come near.. you never!"

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idnek83 · 3 years

Text

Aid - Chapter 5/13

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Soda Kazuichi/Tanaka Gundham

Tags: Alternate Universe - Island Mode, No Game Spoilers, Masturbation, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Grinding, Wet Dreams, Anal Fingering, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, Anal Sex

Summary: Everyone is hot and half naked because of their beach vacation. Soda is horny and tries to do something about it. Gundham tries to help and does. It all gets a little out of hand.

Chapter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Read on Ao3

This Chapter: Soda tries incredibly hard to ignore everything his heart is telling him by listening to his dick instead. Soda has a dream and goes shopping, Gundham makes him eat breakfast.

_____________________

Soda felt like his chest was going to burst. He felt like he was going to throw-up.

He unclasped his hand from Gundham’s.

“H-hey, we should probably clean up and head back.” He couldn’t look at him. He pulled up his shorts and stood.

He picked up the bowl. His heart wouldn’t stop hammering.

He stood frozen there, holding the bowl and taking deep unsteady breaths.

A hand on his shoulder. He flinched.

“Kazuichi?” Gundham sounded concerned. Genuinely concerned.

About him.

“I’m good dude. Let’s just… go back.” Shit, he was being rude. He looked up at Gundham and forced a smile “I mean, you’ve been up since yesterday right? Don’t wanna push you…”

Gundham smiled softly. Soda felt happy. Soda felt disgusted.

“I slumbered while you were at the beach with our companions.” Gundham took a step towards him. “I have more than enough energy for the rest of the night.” A hand on his hip. Soda looked away. “You, however, seem somewhat… drained. Let us retire then.”

Soda watched as Gundham retrieved his towel. He wanted to hold him. He wanted to be held.

They returned to the hotel grounds.

Soda wanted to be alone.

When he turned to goodbye to Gundham, he found him, once again, standing so, so close.

Gundham raised a hand to his face and stroked his cheek. “Sleep well, my paramour.” He lifted Soda’s hand and kissed his knuckles once more.

Gundham smiled softly and left.

Soda didn’t want to be alone.

He closed the door behind him as he walked into his cabin and slid to the ground.

He lifted his hand to his mouth as he thought of Gundham’s. His lips so soft and gentle on his knuckles, warm and tender on his neck, sly and teasing on his chest, and wet and hot on his cock.

He was getting turned on again.

Soda sighed and dragged himself to bed.

He fell into a fitful sleep wondering what those lips would feel like on his own.

–

He felt like he was floating. His body was hot, and he was so god damned turned on.

Gundham’s hands were hot on his hips, pulling him close and holding him still. Soda thought he was whispering something into his ear, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t hear over his own cries of Gundham’s name.

Soda could feel Gundham’s body sliding against his own as he thrust into him.

He didn’t know what it felt like. It felt amazing. He checked the window of the beach house to make sure no one was watching.

Gundham was kissing his neck the way he had been on the beach, biting now and then and making Soda gasp. His thrusts were slow and shallow, hardly pulling his hips away from Sodas ass before pressing them flush again.

Soda might have been crying, he didn’t really know. His chest felt tight. He wanted to kiss Gundham.

Gundham’s lips were soft, gentle. Loving.

Soda wasn’t sure if he wanted that.

The lips on his were hot, and soon they were joined by an equally hot tongue.

The sand was cold.

Gundham fucked into him faster and bit his lip. Soda felt amazing. Soda felt guilty. He let the guilt be washed away by Gundham relentlessly pounding into him.

He knew he was crying. He felt so good. He felt awful.

“Don’t stop! Don’t leave!”

Gundham kissed his knuckles.

Soda woke up.

–

He was in his bed in his cabin, not in the beach house and not on the beach. And he was alone.

His heart was racing, and his dick was hard.

Jesus.

He sat up, put his head in his hands and tried to stop thinking about his dream. He’d had all kinds of sexy dreams before, he’d woken up hard nearly as many times as he had woken up with a sticky mess in his pants. Hell, this wasn’t even the first time he had dreamt of a guy.

But he’d never woken up feeling so rattled.

His heart was still hammering away in his chest as he tried to make sense of that.

It couldn’t have been the kissing, he usually kissed the people he fucked in his dreams so…

His thoughts filled with the fading images of Gundham fucking him, his dick took interested, he remembered the feeling of Gundham’s lips, and his heart beat impossibly faster.

Oh.

It must have been the whole getting fucked thing. Had he dreamt of that before? Probably not right?

Soda exhaled shakily. Yeah, it was definitely the thought of getting fucked that was affecting him so much. His brain was getting caught up on it because he had no frame of reference for it, he had never had a dick or anything in his ass, duh, so he was just shaken up cus like, uh-

What would it feel like to have something in his ass? It was really good in his dream, but there was no way if would feel that way for real.

Right?

Fuck.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it really did feel amazing, there were lots of people who were, like, super into anal, so at the very least it couldn’t be bad. Plus, that was where the G-spot was supposed to be on dudes, right? So…

He was going to need lube if he actually wanted to try this. He glanced over to a toolbox that he knew had a bottle of oil inside it. That would probably work.

But what if it didn’t? What if he got, like, oil-poisoning and had to explain to some doctor why exactly he had been putting it up his ass.

“Well ya see doc, I had a dream about this really hot dude and-“

Nope. That was not fucking happening.

The supermarket here had condoms; he had been checking the place out on the first day they had arrived, and had totally not felt flustered at all when he saw them just casually sitting in one of the aisles. He didn’t need condoms (shit, did he need condoms?) but if they had lube, that’s probably where it’d be, right?

He glanced at the clock. Everyone would be eating breakfast right now. If he wanted to do this without getting caught, he had to do it now.

He got dressed and hid his boner as best he could, promising his dick if it could just chill for now, he’d be sure to give it plenty of attention later. The thought did not help his dick chill. Whatever.

He stepped out of his cabin and looked around in a totally unsuspicious way to make sure none of his classmates were around before heading for the supermarket.

–

How had he even made it this far? He knew his face was bright red as he stared at the little shelf where he had seen the condoms on the first day. Yup, still lots of condoms. He couldn’t help but gawk at a box labeled ‘XXXL’, and remember that Gundham was, in fact, quite well hung.

But XXXL? That had to be a joke, right? No one had a XXXL dick, right? Right?

Focus dumbass.

He shifted his gaze to the selection of lube. There were more options than he thought. Really, he had kinda just pictured there being one generic looking bottle labeled ‘lube’ that he could just grab and leave, but no, apparently there were options.

He fucking choked when he saw that one was banana flavored.

Well, at least that gets rid of one option. He quickly scanned them and ruled out anything with a flavor or an obnoxious color and settled on one that seemed pretty inconspicuous.

Like, it still said ‘Personal Lubricant’ in big ass letters across the bottle, but whatever.

He grabbed a pack on non-XXXL condoms for good measure and exited the aisle.

“Hm? Soda?”

This creepy fucking guy again.

Soda shoved the condoms in his pocket and moved to hide the lube behind his back in a totally subtle way.

“Oh what’s this?” Nagito reached out and plucked the lube from Soda’s hand. “Oh my. Could this have anything to do with what I overheard last night?” Nagito’s face was neutral and friendly, but there was definitely something weird in his eyes.

Shit. Right, Nagito had overheard him offering to ‘aid’ Gundham. Had he really figured out what that meant so easily? No way. It was probably just a lucky guess, which meant Soda could still get out of this situation by lying his ass off.

“W-what? No idea what you’re talkin’ bout dude.” Totally believable. He was a pro at lying. “Just needed some lubricant for the, uh, thing I’m working on. Like, obviously this isn’t the type I’d usually use, but they don’t have a, like, automotive section here or anything so I figured this would probably work well enough.” That should be convincing enough, Nagito probably didn’t know shit about what Soda did so there’s no way he could know for sure if he was lying. He forced a laugh and took the lube from Nagito’s hands. “Anyways, gotta get back to it.” He shot Nagito some finger guns and pushed past him to leave.

He was sure he was just being paranoid and imagining things when he heard Nagito mumble something that sounded like ‘Gundham’ before laughing creepily behind him.

Fuuuck.

He ran back to his cabin. If anyone saw he’d just make up an excuse later. There was literally no way Nagito could actually know what him and Gundham had been doing, right? He must have just been fucking with him, that’s what that guy was all about. He was just looking to get a rise out of Soda by saying weird shit.

Right?

Soda set the lube on his side table and laid facedown on his bed. Shit. Why had Nagito even been at the supermarket? Everyone should have been at breakfast still. Had Nagito been looking for him? No way. There were only like two people who might have cared that much that he missed breakfast: Hajime and…

He turned his head to stare at the lube.

This was all Gundham’s fault. Stupid, sexy Gundham, making him have stupid, sexy dreams, and giving him stupid, sexy thoughts.

He thought about Gundham’s cock in his ass. He thought about Gundham’s lips on his.

He reached for the lube.

There was a knock on the door.

His heart jumped and he stood up.

“Y-yeah, one second.” He adjusted his dick, which was thankfully only at half-mast, and answered the door.

Speak of the stupid, sexy devil.

“Is everything well, my companion? You were absent from this mornings meal, and I feared you had caught ill.” Gundham gently placed the back of his hand on Soda’s, admittedly heated, forehead.

“O-oh, nah, I’m good. I just needed- uh, I went to the supermarket to get- like, I just needed… stuff. Mechanic stuff. Cus I’m a mechanic. Ha.” Smooth. “Anyway, I guess I just, uh, forgot about breakfast?”

Gundham squinted at Soda and examined his face for a moment.

“Was your slumber troubled? You have the markings of one who’s rest was interrupted.”

Great, he must be rocking some pretty serious eyebags if Gundham was so concerned.

“Ah, it’s nothing. Just one of those nights, y’know?” One of those nights where you dream about your bro kissing you and fucking you senseless, y’know? One of those nights where you wake up so damn affected by the thought of your friend plowing your ass that you need to immediately go buy some lube and test out the real thing ASAP, y’know?

Yup, just one of those totally normal nights.

Speaking of, Soda remembered that the lube was still sitting on his side table, entirely visible from the door. Better get Gundham out of here before he notices…

Or?

“If you were not suffering from some affliction then you should have joined us to break your fast. It is important for mortals-”

Gundham was lecturing him about the importance of breakfast. But Soda was too busy watching his lips to listen. Or at least he was, until Gundham began accentuating his speech with flourishes of his hands and Soda found a new place to focus his attention.

Gundham’s fingers were slender and long, and, from what Soda could remember, they were strong. Maybe he could just… ask Gundham to help him figure out the whole ‘does it actually feel good to have stuff in your ass’ thing. He’d probably do it right? He’d probably be more than happy to help Soda out with those wonderful fingers of his, and he’d probably enjoy it just as much as Soda would…

But what if Soda didn’t like it? Like what if he created this whole sexy mood and then once things started getting hot and heavy he just, like, wasn’t into it? Would Gundham get mad? If Soda asked him to stick his fingers in his ass, then Gundham would probably… god, he’d probably assume that meant they were gonna fuck after, so if Soda changed his mind, he wouldn’t even blame Gundham for getting pissed. You can’t just blue-ball a guy like that and expect him to be okay with it…

Ok, so he should probably just keep the lube for a solo session.

He forced himself to focus on what Gundham was saying again. Still talking about breakfast, good.

“Okay, okay. I get it Gundham.” He raised his hands in defeat. “Let’s go get me some breakfast before I die of no-breakfast-itis or whatever.”

Gundham looked like he was debating calling Soda out for obviously not listening to whatever he had been saying about the importance of breakfast. He simply followed Soda to the hotel restaurant instead.

It felt a little weird to find the restaurant empty. Soda never really came here outside of the group’s regular meal times, so he was used to it being full of activity and noise. Now it was so quiet he could hear the ocean waves in the distance, and he thought to himself that it actually wouldn’t be a bad place to take a girl on a date.

Soda found some cereal and a bagel to eat, then took his spot at the big table they all normally ate at. Gundham took his seat beside him as usual. Wait, was it as usual? Did they usually sit this close? Gundham’s knee was touching his. Nope, pretty sure that was new.

Gundham began talking about the Deva’s. Soda thought he caught something about how Jum-P was doing well, and he was pretty sure he managed to say he was glad, but mostly he was just certain that he really liked the hand Gundham had rested on his lower back.

He was smiling while eating, and he had to actively remind himself to close his mouth all the way while he chewed. He watched Gundham between bites of his breakfast. He looked happy as well.

Soda let himself enjoy his surprisingly good mood, he felt like he had been stressing so much lately. What had he even been so worked up about? Sitting like this, chatting about nothing with Gundham’s arm around him, just felt nice. He felt calm. He felt happy.

He laughed at something Gundham said and bumped his head against his shoulder, letting himself just stay there for a moment. He wrapped an arm around Gundham’s back and gave a little squeeze, sighing and just taking a moment, before laughing again as he returned to his previous position to finish eating.

That had felt so nice. Why didn’t he hug his friends more? He looked to Gundham to make sure it hadn’t weirded him out or anything. He was rewarded with one of those soft little smiles he loved so much, proving his friend had enjoyed it just as much.

Gundham… was his friend, right?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone coming up the stairs.

It felt like a bubble popped. Suddenly his stomach dropped, and he moved his knee away from Gundham’s. He shifted his shoulders and Gundham seemed to get the hint, removing that warm hand from his back.

Soda told himself he was glad.

“Ah, so this is where you were Gundham!”

That was… Sonia. Soda heart did about six different things at once and he couldn’t tell if he was more excited, scared, or disappointed to see her.

“Hi Sonia.”

“Greetings, dark queen.”

He sounded so pathetic next to Gundham, no wonder Sonia ignored him.

“Gundham, I wanted to ask you about a creature I saw earlier.” Sonia sat across from them and began to describe some animal. Soda’s head just filled with static.

He stared at her, still so lovely, still so perfect, and yet, looking at her didn’t make him feel the way it used to. He watched her ignore him and he could feel his heart breaking. Of course she had never like him, what did he have to offer someone like her?

What did he have to offer anyone?

He was just some stupid mechanic. His grades were below average, and his family was poor. He wasn’t even attractive or funny or anything. He was just a waste of space, he really couldn’t blame Sonia for ignoring him. Everyone should probably just ignore him. No one actually cared about him. He should just-

There was a warm hand on his shoulder. Gundham was looking at him questioningly.

“W-what?”

“I was asking your opinion, dear friend, the dark queen and I were discussing how enjoyable our trip has been thus far. Do you feel the same?”

Gundham smiled at him, but there was a bit of concern in his eyes.

Right.

Some people did care about him.

Sonia not caring didn’t mean no one did.

Sonia wasn’t everything.

He opened his mouth to tell Gundham that, yeah, despite how confused and anxious he had been recently, he did feel the same.

“Soda, it is impolite not to answer someone when they ask you a question. You even made Gundham repeat himself, yet you are still ignoring him. You should apologize for being so rude.”

Something snapped in Soda and he could feel his face turn red.

Sonia wanted him to apologize for ignoring someone?

He stood abruptly and didn’t look at either of them. He was shaking with how hard he was trying not to shout. He just swallowed and turned from the table.

“My companion?” Gundham sounded worried now. Soda felt kinda guilty about it, but he just needed to get away before he said something stupid.

“Sorry.” He muttered as he moved towards the stairs.

He knew he heard Sonia say something about him having no manners as he left.

He just walked a little faster. He kept his eyes focused on the ground and his fists clenched all the way back to his cabin.

He though he would yell when he got there. Yell and maybe break something he’d regret ruining later. But once he closed the door, he just felt tired and sad. He crouched down and pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes to stop himself from crying.

Yeah, it didn’t work.

He was sobbing. Crying alone in his room like a pussy, but he could hardly bring himself to care. Why did he even like Sonia? And why did she have to treat him like such shit? It wasn’t like he was actually rude to her, right? Like, sure, sometimes he stared more than he probably should, but was that really so bad? Wasn’t that actually like a compliment? Girls loved guys obsessing over how hot they-

Oh.

Soda was an asshole. Of course Sonia hated him. He was just constantly, like, leering at her, wasn’t he? And he was always following her around when she obviously didn’t want him there, and trying to insert himself into her conversations. He just never took the hint that she didn’t like him, huh? No wonder she had just started ignoring him completely.

Shit. He needed to apologize to her. And then he needed to just… leave her alone. She probably wouldn’t ever like him, but maybe if he left her alone long enough?

No. If he kept thinking like that then he’d probably just piss her off even more.

Still, it wasn’t like she had to treat Soda so badly. Like, she could have just told him off instead, it would have hurt less.

Ok, well, in her defense, confronting someone like that was pretty hard, so really, it was probably entirely Soda’s fault for not realizing what a jackass he was being earlier.

He let out a deep, shaky breath, and was surprised to find he actually felt a little better.

Huh. He didn’t think admitting he had been wrong would have felt so… relieving?

He got up and sat on hid bed so he could stop crouching in the middle of his room like a crazy person. He rubbed the dried tears from his cheeks and let himself just breathe for a while. It wasn’t like he was over Sonia, but he was ready to accept that it probably wouldn’t have been the best relationship for either of them…

It was probably thanks to Gundham that he was finally able to realize that. Now that he wasn’t so damn sexually frustrated, he was finally able to see things a little more clearly. Well, maybe it wasn’t just the sex that had helped. He thought back to the way he had felt before Sonia had shown up to crash his breakfast with Gundham. Gundham just made him feel like… like maybe he wasn’t the failure everyone thought he was.

But the sex was pretty damn good too, even if it wasn’t, like, sex sex…

Soda glanced at the bottle that was still sitting on his side table.

Yet.

Next Chapter

#Soudam #Soda kazuichi #gundham tanaka #Soda/Gundham #danganronpa #danganronpa 2 #fic #My writing #Fellas is it gay to want your bro to put his dick in your ass and kiss you until you can't think anymore?#Fic Aid

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

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how a life can move from the darkness [7/?]

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Summary: Two drug addicts (Eren and Historia) meet in group and decide to be roommates to make their living situation slightly less weird. From there we do the slow burn found family dance mixed in with the struggles and agonies of recovery. Heavy on friendship feels, especially EMA. Eventual yumikuri.

Eren’s first thought was that something was wrong with his taste buds.

He took another bite.

Light and fluffy, with enough crunch to be satisfying, the cookie melted in his mouth with the chocolate chips it was spotted with. Sugary, somehow warm despite living on a table for an hour, and… good. The cookie tasted good. Even with the small scorch marks.

“What do you think?”

Petra was hovering. Almost vibrating with how long she’d held the question back.

“They’re… good,” Eren said. “Really good. What did you do?”

Petra’s face flushed with joy, complete with a happy smile that warmed the whole gym like unfiltered sunshine. “I bought new measuring cups.”

Eren grabbed another cookie. “What was wrong with your old ones?”

She grimaced. “I was using my mom’s measuring cups and spoons. She never told me, but she got them from a bargain bin sale because none of them were labeled right. My father came by for a visit and pointed it out.” Petra sighed sadly and snagged a cookie off the plate, but that smile still shone on through. “That’s what I should have opened today with: the wonders of communication.”

“It’s good you got it sorted out.” Eren hadn’t planned on saying anything about it ever, but Historia had stopped taking the cookies after the last week’s made her throw up.

For him, he had the problem of food starting to taste like food again. He wasn’t sure how many more times he could have eaten Petra’s cookies without wanting to rip out his tongue.

Petra held out the entire plate to him. “Consider these your reward for supporting me all this time. No one else here is going to touch them, so you and Historia can take them home with you. Maybe use them as an excuse to drop by those friends you’ve reconnected with. Or that brother of yours,” she added. “He might have a sweet tooth to exploit.”

Eren took the plate and cut off eye contact so he wasn’t actually frowning at Petra. She’d had enough of that from him. “Aren’t you the one who said not to push everything at once? I just started talking to Armin and Mikasa again.” His thumb ran along a chip in the porcelain. “And it isn’t like everything changed anything between me and Zeke. It’s always been like this.”

“That’s not true,” Petra said, and before Eren could point out that she’d never met him so how would she know, she continued. “You used to never bring him up at all. I think you mentioned him five times today. By name.”

Eren hadn’t noticed that.

The corner with its folding table and loud clock he barely heard anymore felt cramped with just him and Petra. Historia was across the gym, suffering through Daz. Him trying to befriend the feral cats who hung out in the same alley his dealer had before their arrest had somehow turned into her problem.

She’d said she was a heroin addict today. Then she sat down and didn’t talk the rest of the hour. Apparently that marked her as accessible.

“It isn’t a recovery thing,” Eren said. Leaving out the shadow of Mikasa that lived in his mind and reminded him that he’d never gone and dealt with the dad part of what happened. People lost parents. Normal, healthy people. They got over it eventually. He didn’t need an extra boost of support just because he’d lost theirs so violently. Thinking he did was how the pills started. “Zeke’s just Zeke.”

Baseball-obsessed, hard to thank, hard to hate, hard to love.

Hard to have a full conversation with.

Their last one had probably been when he was six, and Zeke was explaining what was so great about a game where you spent most of it standing around doing nothing. He’d patted his helmet onto Eren’s head and carried him around the baseball diamond on his shoulders instead of partying with his division champion team.

Dad had offered to drive them. Zeke turned him down.

“You’re never doing nothing. You’re always waiting for the right moment, or creating the right moment. You watch your team and your opponents, and you think about the right pitch to throw, the right out to make—and if you watch them carefully enough, and practice hard enough, when that moment happens, you’re invincible.”

Eren had held on to his big brother’s buzzed head. “Mom says no one’s invincible.”

“Your mother wants you to stop picking fights.” Zeke looked up at him. “If you thought them through a little more carefully, maybe you’d win more.”

Eren remembered sticking out his tongue.

“You can’t win if you don’t fight.”

Years later, Eren glared at the plate he was holding and its chipped rim.

Petra was smiling at him with laughter dancing in her eyes.

“Recovery’s about us, Eren. Not what we did or what we got hooked on. Who we are as people. Just because it never technically broke doesn’t mean you can’t want it fixed.”

Eren didn’t know if he could have asked Mikasa, or Armin. Or Historia, because that answer was obvious and unhelpful. The question was all of the things he never should have let himself turn into, and it curled around his tongue like acid.

But he could ask Petra. He could ask the woman who’d made his mom believe in him a little by giving him the will to stick out every meeting when all he wanted was to burn everything he knew to the ground.

“Don’t you ever get tired of trying to fix things?”

Petra let the laugh out and squeezed Eren’s wrist.

“The secret to that,” Petra said, “is that’s what all those people you’ve already fixed things with are for.”

----

Eren taped a bagged cookie to Zeke’s apartment door.

An hour later, he had a text.

Outsides were a little scorched. You shouldn’t leave them in that long.

---

they weren’t even my cookies. i didn’t cook them, petra did.

what does he know about scorched

the first ones she made tasted like charcoal briquettes

these were so much better

like food

but go off i guess

In retrospect, spitting out a bunch of angry texts during Mikasa’s class hours and expecting it to help wasn’t the smartest thing Eren could have done. When his phone finally told him she saw them, he could practically hear the concerned silence reaching out his way and asking if someone needed to call someone for him.

I’m not on drugs, Eren clarified. Slightly less annoyed and remembering that Mikasa wasn’t used to non sequitur rants. Usually Armin got those. Because usually they weren’t about Zeke.

Mikasa finally type a response. I believe you.

Zeke’s just an asshole

Yes.

petra worked hard on those cookies she bought new measuring cups

[…] […] Who is Petra?

friend

Why did you give Zeke one of her cookies?

it was supposed to be therapeutic

Oh.

Eren had known Mikasa for enough years to see her eyes tracking back to the beginning of the conversation and to know she was hearing all his words in exactly the intonation he’d stamped them out with. That was why he usually texted Armin. Armin’s judgment was in quiet sighs that passed quickly. Mikasa’s stuck around with the reminder that some people had no problem being their best self every second of every day.

[…] I have time. If there are any cookies left, I could come over and take some for myself and Armin.

No offer of Eren coming over to their place, which used to be his place. He didn’t know if the tightness in his chest was frustration or gratitude.

really?

Yes. Your friend’s efforts should be appreciated.

[…] thanks i’ll let her know you love them

A grand total of one personal growth point coming from trying to reach out to Zeke, and it came from bonding with someone else over how badly it was going. Eren held his phone to his forehead and did the breathing exercises that didn’t work.

At least Petra had been right about the secret trick to it. Even if it wasn’t much of a secret. Eren’s friends had always been better than him at getting him out of the holes he dug himself.

----

“Is that real?”

“Pinch me, right?”

“No, I mean is that…”

“Yeah.”

“She’s…”

“I know.”

“I didn’t know she could do that.”

“You’re both assholes,” Ymir said. Doing nothing to change the surreal scene playing out in front of them. Her comment barely touched it. She was still bent over her bike, water bottle still held by nothing but her teeth, phone still in her hands, smiling. Genuinely. Not smirking. Not snarling or cackling or leering. Smiling.

It was one of the most unnerving things Eren had ever seen.

That covered a lot of ground.

“I thought… She’s fighting with Historia?” Eren asked.

He’d called for a break, and the first thing Ymir did after vaulting off her bike and pulling at her phone at the speed of sound was announce to the entire trail, “Eren, your jackass roommate just called me unromantic and shallow.”

Reiner was grinning like a maniac. For a guy who’d almost fallen over getting off his bike, he looked downright perky. Eren had worried he’d pushed things too far, but the bounce in his step when he flipped his water into his hands said otherwise. “She is.”

“But she’s smiling.”

“Yeah.”

“She looks happy.”

“She does.”

Someone Reiner’s size shouldn’t have been capable of giggling, but Ymir was already breaking Eren’s sense of reality. Reiner joining in wasn’t that different, and at least Reiner looking happy was something Eren could appreciate well enough for it to spread.

“What about Historia?” Reiner asked, letting his voice carry with a more direct grin at Eren. “How does her side of the fighting go?”

Eren had trouble thinking about the ongoing argument seriously without remembering tears and track marks. He couldn’t see the lighthearted moment staying if he brought that up. Ymir helped him out for once and didn’t rise to the bait. She rolled her eyes and took a sip of water by bending her entire head back instead of sparing a hand from her phone. “Historia? That’s really her name? Who hates their kid that much?”

Moment ruined anyway. “Don’t message her that,” Eren said sharply.

Ymir’s fingers had been waiting, not typing, but they stopped anyway. Her responding look saw through Eren and any past lives he or anyone in his general vicinity had lived, and Eren hated to admit it but he liked the smile more. He glared steadily back.

Her eyebrow quirked up. She tilted her head back for another drink. “Someday,” she said, “I’ll meet drug addicts who don’t have parental problems.”

“Eren likes his mom,” Reiner said, impervious to the tone shift.

“Sometimes.”

When he’d gone over to the house for dinner, she’d told him his hair was getting too long, and he should do something about it if he planned on running around so much.

“Now watch him not ask about the other times,” Ymir said.

Eren’s hackles rose. “There’s nothing wrong with my mom,” he said. “She’s the best.”

Ymir rolled her eyes so hard they practically landed in the back of her skull, and Eren didn’t know what was going to come out of her mouth next, but he’d probably want to punch her for it, and he needed to find somewhere safe for his helmet if that was how this was going to play—but they were both interrupted.

Her phone buzzed again, and the bizarre, reality-melting snap of joy that flashed over her face made Eren feel weirdly guilty about imagining what it would look like with a bloody nose.

He flopped his damp hair out of his eyes and slumped over his bike, watching a bird hop along the trail in front of them with a deep scowl that was fake enough to only make it through the third hop and the bird pecking at a piece of bread larger than its head.

That was a kind of happiness he could get. Hunger and feasting on things he wasn’t supposed to.

Eren swiped away more of his hair and looked down at the ground underneath his feet instead.

Reiner’s feet, done stretching, padded over the dirt, and his massive shoulder nudged Eren’s.

“You work at Steady Rock, right?”

Eren glanced up, because topic changes with Reiner felt safer with eye contact. “Yeah?”

“We got our hands on some coupons and wanted to know if it’s cool if we drop by during one of your shifts,” Reiner said, leaning further into Eren’s personal space than he was used to when they had somewhere larger than a cell to roam around in. “My little cousin is really into climbing right now, and she’s coming out for a visit in a few months. Scouting out places that might keep her attention is a pretty high priority before she gets here.”

Eren asked the obvious question. “Your family’s letting you watch her?”

Reiner didn’t quite look at him, and Eren wasn’t enough of a bastard to force it. “Her parents are coming along,” he said. “We’re only getting a few hours with her. But we want to show her a good time, you know? Convince them to let her back.”

Eren had spent every moment at work since Hannes’ latest discount series wondering how hard it was not to spend forty minutes of a promised hour falling off things and screaming about it, but Reiner would at least let him get a word in before he sped up a wall and got stuck. He snapped his helmet back on and shrugged. “Customers are customers,” he said.

Reiner chuckled. “Yeah, just… you know.” He cleared his throat and the next words sounded like they came out of one of the countless recovery books they’d both been forced through before their release. “Trying to respect your boundaries.”

They both looked Ymir’s way. She didn’t snipe anything back, too busy glowing.

Eren checked his watch to see how close to ending their break time was, pausing when he saw the clock over the running timer. He looked back up at Ymir, and the glint in her eye that said whatever was putting it there was ongoing.

“Time to head out?” Reiner asked.

It was a little early, but Reiner was breathing easily, and hadn’t gone after his water like the ravenous wolf he’d started out on these expeditions. “Yeah,” Eren said, one more quick, curious frown at his watch before Reiner called out to Ymir to cut her flirting short.

Weird.

He’d figured bad weird, since neither of them really knew how to talk to people and their starting point was all the yelling Eren wasn’t supposed to do anymore.

He slipped out his phone for a fast text, then put it away and got back to work, a little spark of okay beating out the worry and lightening his pedals.

----

i can’t text you during class, but ‘melancholic genius’ crystal wick can?

She doesn’t have my number. […] She was using Twitter.

----

It wasn’t because of what Ymir said.

Not really.

He would have done it anyway, eventually. She just brought it up when he was stable enough to do something with the reminder instead of stew in sad, guilty feelings that planted visions of pills in his head.

Eren scuffed his shoes on the welcome mat.

“The Doctor is Out,” it read, a sad smiley from a waiting room pain scale next to it, “But You Can Come In!”

Zeke had bought it. Eren had whined about how much time their dad spent at the office. The next day, it was on the doorstep, and his mom was telling his dad that they’d get rid of it when it stopped being accurate. Eren had said that wasn’t right, because they never told the people who knocked on their door to come in.

His mom never got rid of it, and it was back to being accurate. The doctor was out.

Before Eren could drown himself too deeply in that and why the mat wasn’t there when he came over for dinner, his mother opened the door.

“Eren,” she said. “This is a surprise.”

She looked worried behind her welcoming smile, but the kind of worried that made him want to stomp off and find a mud puddle to splash in out of spite. That kind of worry he could handle, even if it always ended with her trapping him in the laundry room and explaining how to get stains out of his clothes.

Eren rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sorry. I can call ahead next time.” His shoes crunched over the welcome mat. “I didn’t know if I had to. I still have my key and I’m not here to…” He sucked at this. Worse than any text to Historia about which chart smiley she’d pick out for her mood of the day. His ears hurt listening to himself.

“I thought I’d patch up my bedroom,” he said. “I was going to do it even if you weren’t here, so I didn’t call.”

His mom raised her eyebrows at him. “You never need a reason to call your mother, Eren.” Before the barb sunk in enough for Eren to come up with a retort, she swung the front door the rest of the way open. “Did you bring tools with you, or are you borrowing?”

Eren followed in, the bag he’d brought along swinging from his shoulder. “Borrowing for anything that needs paint. I thought I’d use what’s left in the garage for that.”

“And this isn’t going to be like the last time you tried to fix the house by yourself?”

Eren’s ears and the rest of him went a very fine red.

He and Armin had lost an action figure down a sink. They knew if Zeke wasn’t the one watching them, there wasn’t a good chance of anyone deciding that the toy’s fate was anything but sealed, so turning up the volume on the movie that had inspired the soldier’s sink dive, they’d searched the house for a saw to crack open the pipe they were sure it was stuck in.

Eren could still feel the weight of his soaked t-shirt as he tried to hide Armin behind him in the puddle they’d created, his mom’s hurried footsteps rushing down the stairs at their yelps of surprise.

The main puddle showed up because they’d tried to fix the first without anyone noticing. Armin had slipped and almost hit his head when he had the idea that they could probably find instructions in a book somewhere, and if they were really fast…

They weren’t fast, and they weren’t quiet, and Eren’s mom had rolled in like thunder.

“Never,” she had said, holding him by the chin while his wrench clattered to the floor and the pipe kept spewing water all over the three of them. “Eren you listen to me. You are never to use tools like this by yourself. You find me, or your father, and if something needs to happen, we will use them, or show you how. You never try something like this on your own.”

Most of his parents’ ‘nevers’ didn’t last long. Loopholes or exceptions followed Eren around like weeds.

That one stuck. For Armin. The first time they’d had a problem in their apartment, they’d called home, just to double-check, before getting to work. It stuck worse when Eren’s mother snatched the phone from his father, who’d picked up, and told them to talk to their landlord before they took another step.

Which had come up before she shouted it into their ears. But then they’d had diagrams, and measuring tape, and Mikasa loaned them a hammer, and they could probably fix it by themselves.

The landlord hadn’t agreed.

Walls weren’t so hard, though. Patch jobs were one of the first home improvement lessons Eren’s dad put him through. He’d thought the house could use fewer holes, and taught Eren early. Eren could tackle walls alone. Even if they were his, and he had to walk by a closed door that made his heartbeat hit deafening and his breathing fall short to get to them.

Five minutes in, standing in the gaping mausoleum of a room that didn’t have any of his stuff but had scars all over, Eren wasn’t alone.

His mother, recently changed into what she called her work clothes, entered the room and went for the spackle.

“Mom,” Eren said. “What are you doing?”

“Putting my house back together,” she said.

“It’s my room.”

“You don’t live here anymore.”

“Yeah, but it’s my room. My—” damage. Everywhere. The holes from the fist he’d put through the wall, the hole from Zeke’s baseball going through the wall, the cracks from all those holes spiraling out and trying to link together, the tiny bits of plaster on the floor… Eren had stopped remembering his room had ever looked another way, but he knew those things weren’t supposed to be there. That was why he was patching them up.

His mother didn’t seem concerned with any of the emotional progress being waged. “I have a right to participate in my own household chores, Eren,” she said.

“You haven’t done anything about this for months,” Eren said. “You left it out for me to clean up.”

“Because,” she approached a crack by Eren’s elbow that hadn’t come from a punch, just a bad nightmare that felt like it cracked his skull just as badly, “any man I raised should expect to have to come back and clean up his messes.”

She ran her fingers over the mark before taking her putty knife to it. When she looked up at him, Eren realized he’d stopped working to stare. He realized it a second too late to escape the nudge of her hand on his arm, prodding him along.

“I did think you’d be along sooner,” she continued. “Am I that far down your list?”

Eren’s face burned.

He could feel her smiling next to him, and he wasn’t surprised when the next nudge was his mother reaching up to tweak his ear. “Or,” she continued, “am I not on your list because I’m your mother, and you don’t think you have to apologize to me?”

“I know you like apologies,” Eren said defensively.

“And I know how much you love giving them to me,” she said.

The rebuke was as gentle as she bothered with, but it still stung. Eren’s hands stopped again, and he stared into the wall, the crack he’d have to tend after the hole acting like a window into a whole different dimension. One where the only reason he knew he saw his mother that day was because he could remember shouting at her.

“Mom,” he started, all the good intentions and work ethic bleeding out into guilt. “I really—I...”

The words felt as hollow as his room did without pieces of him taking up the space.

“Fix the walls,” his mother instructed. “Then you can stay for dinner and tell me how Armin and Mikasa are doing. They stop by even less often than you do. Or that roommate of yours; we’ve hardly spoken. Frieda seems to be the only one of any of you who can remember her social niceties.”

“Mom.”

----

Petra would tell him that there was nothing wrong with starting out easy.

He didn’t know where to start with his brother? Mother was in the same ballpark, and as long as he kept taking steps forward, he’d get to where he needed to be in the end. There wasn’t anything wrong with baby steps.

There was maybe something wrong with thinking of his mother as one. He’d never been a great son.

Eren, stinking of paint and supposed to be going to wash off before dinner, was stuck in front of the closed door marking the center of the upstairs hallway. The midway point between Eren’s room and his parents’. The office.

Otherwise known as the gateway to most of Eren’s fits when he was younger.

“But why. Dad has two rooms I can’t go in, why does he get two?”

At the funeral after-party, the door had been open. No one had bothered closing it after his dad changed his mind and agreed to come along to the MMA tournament finals. Eren had told him he needed to see it, because he was going to come in first place for the first time, and maybe after he could talk to Mom and change her mind about how rough it was because it wasn’t really that bad…

His dad was the one who decided if the door was open or shut. He’d left in a hurry, so he wouldn’t be late. So the day of the funeral, it was open.

Eren had slammed it shut with his crutches.

Baby steps. Closing up walls. Cutting off some of Ymir’s ammunition.

Eren watched his spackled, paint-covered hand reach out and turn the doorknob.

On slow feet, he took a step in.

He immediately wanted to step back out. The blinds were drawn. They were thick, wooden shades designed to tell the sun its service was not wanted, and the entire room was plunged into night despite it being the middle of the day. Light from the downstairs windows was still bouncing its way upstairs.

None of it touched the office.

It smelled like dust. Eren could feel his shoes leaving prints in the carpet.

He’d never been allowed inside without his father’s permission, so by the time he was five, he knew the ins and outs of the room better than any other place in the house. He knew before he could reach which certificate on the wall stood for which achievement, even with every inch being covered. Whenever his dad received an award, Eren would talk him through which spot of the office had the most room to put it in.

Armin had hidden under the desk with him. Hide and seek. They were willing to risk it when Zeke was sitting for them. Then he’d turned that back on them and found them the second after he was done counting.

Eren wouldn’t fit under the desk anymore. It was big enough for one man and the work in front of him. Plus the piles on either side. There wasn’t much extra space. The picture frames on it were pushed all the way to the edge of the wood.

It might have fitted more if the back of the desk was against the wall, but his dad had liked it in the middle of the room, his chair facing the doorway. Eren had figured out, staying up late and listening to all the different footsteps in the house, that he liked it that way so he could stand up and pace in front of the window.

Baby steps.

Eren breathed in through his nose, exhaling slowly. His legs wobbled like they were trying to go back to the last time he’d entered the room. He was, but not like that.

In, out, dinner.

He passed the desk and went over to the corner, where the largest filing cabinet in the room stood. Without stopping to think about it, he dropped to the floor, cobwebs and dust joining the paint. If it was the other way around he’d have to come back and wash the floors.

Back in the far corner of the shadows, there wasn’t enough light for anything to glint back at him, but he’d always had what his mother called an overactive imagination. Nothing close to Armin’s. That defense had never worked.

He reached his hand into the dark and flicked off whatever bug tried to latch onto his fingers, groping around until his palm connected with a piece of cold, round metal.

Eren almost yanked his hand back out without collecting it. A flinch wracked his body like a shiver.

He grabbed it, and pulled his arm back into his chest, the rapid thump of his heart covering up all of the other sensations that came with it. His forehead was clammy, bangs sticking to it like glue.

He stayed on the floor for a few more minutes than he meant to.

Long enough for his ears to catch a different thump.

The lamp in the opposite corner of the room flicked on, and after an aborted pause that Eren could feel, his mother stepped over the threshold.

“Eren? Did you hurt yourself?”

“No,” he lied, into the dusty carpet.

She sighed, but didn’t walk any closer. The floorboards creaked under her stationary feet. Eren’s fist clenched around the object in his hand, and he made himself push his body back up, taking a string of cobweb up with him and blinking under the new light.

His mother did step forward when she caught sight of the new collection of dust all over his clothes. “Eren.”

“I already had to change,” he said.

She shook her head and pulled a dust bunny out of his hair. “You really do need to get it cut.”

Eren would blame the environment for why the only thing that he could think to say, and successfully made it out of his mouth, was, “Dad had long hair.”

She fixed him with a look that he had spent his entire childhood rebelling against. “Yes, and your father took care of his,” she said, coaxing strands of his hair apart with the tips of her fingers. “If you don’t know what to do with it, having more is always a mistake. All that exercise you do; doesn’t it get into your eyes?”

Eren crossed his arms and avoided eye contact. Longer bangs helped.

Only the angle he put his head at meant he was staring straight at the photos his father kept on his desk.

The dust blurred the images, but he didn’t have any problem recognizing the candid shot Mikasa had taken at graduation. Of him and Zeke grinning at each other, the summer sun beating down on both of them while Eren wielded his diploma like a relay baton.

Eren’s folded arms fell to his sides, the cold weight in one starting to feel hot enough to burn.

“I wasn’t going to stay in here,” he said. The words rang. He fumbled his grip and held the object out to his mother. “I wanted to grab this. In case you wanted it.”

His mother, full of smiles and competence for him all day, froze. She didn’t need any of the seconds Eren had when he’d raged into the room and found it waiting on the desk. She recognized the polished shine instantly. The watch she’d given her husband for their twentieth anniversary.

The one he’d died wearing, while his son listened to the ticking clock and stopped trying to be sane.

The one his son had picked up and thrown into a dark place no one would ever think to look.

His mom’s hands shook, taking it out of Eren’s hands. He didn’t think she saw the cracks in its face. She couldn’t know to imagine the blood entangling its joints. She just took up the watch, and held it the same way she’d held it out to Eren when she picked it up from the store. Asking for his opinion while Eren shrugged and told her to bother Mikasa with stuff like that, it looked fine.

“It was already broken,” Eren said. “From the accident. I didn’t help, but… it stopped working in…”

She looked away from the watch and up at his face. Eren bit the inside of his jaw, staring at the picture of him and Zeke and thinking about how hot that day had been and how no one except Armin had been interested in a color that wasn’t black for their robes.

Then he wasn’t staring at the picture, because his mother’s hair was in the way, and her arms were wrapped around him. She tugged his head down to meet her shoulder, and she smelled like sweat and paint and mom.

The tears couldn’t make it past his choked throat.

“I told Frieda I couldn’t even miss him,” Eren whispered. “I was too busy thinking about myself.”

His mother’s soft laughter buzzed his ear. “You got that from him.”

Eren would have pulled away if that didn’t mean leaving the hug. He didn’t think he was strong enough to ask for another. “What?”

She laughed again, kissing the side of his head and rocking him slowly back and forth. “Your father,” she said, “was a passionate, driven man, and he’d get so caught up in what he was doing I sometimes think if he didn’t sleep better in his bed he’d never have come home at all. It was always the next step, with no reason to look back.” Her head turned towards the desk. “That’s why he never made things right with your brother. He thought he failed so badly, there was no reason to repeat it all. Instead he tried to move forward with the damaged parts they had left, and…”

She sighed so heavily Eren wished he’d been the one to start hugging her. She pulled away slightly, tenderly smoothing back his hair and curling it around his ears. “I like to think we both had a part in raising that out of you, no matter how little you enjoy apologizing to your mother.”

“Mom,” he said, “I am so—”

“Eren,” she interrupted. “You have never been an easy child.” She cradled his cheek in her hand. “It is always something, even when you’re supposedly a grown man so far above our responsibility.” She sighed at him again, displacing the glinting tears in her eyes and using her thumb to rub away his. “I can’t say I’m happy with how you chose to be difficult this time, but… your father was a wonderful man, and truth be told, I don’t know how to be without him either.”

Eren fell forward, holding her as tight as he knew how and hiding his eyes in her paint-stained shirt. “…You’re doing better than me,” he mumbled.

“I’m your mother,” she said. “That’s my job.”

[next]

#drug au #fic #mine #long post

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muzachio · 4 years

Text

Last task

Short and sweet fanfic about the #TaskHusbands.

Greg Davies/Alex Horne ; Taskmaster UK ; PG-13

One should never mistake the correct order when preparing a proper cup of tea. To Greg, pouring milk in the empty mug was the closest to a war crime as a non-violent act can be. But he laughed at himself every time this silly thought crossed his mind. However imposing and respectable he looked to everyone else, Greg made it so he would never take himself too seriously. Sometimes acting on impulse, all he truly wanted was to enjoy life to the fullest. A fundamental part of it was to cherish his relationships and truly understand their depth in different moments. For that reason, the natural progression of events and how they affected how close – or distant – he got to his friends and colleges was something that Greg would find himself contemplating almost daily. Especially when very busy, long days ended in particularly quiet nights.

Alone and sorting colorful mugs to choose which one to use, Greg felt the accumulation of hours of work over his shoulders. He was worn out, but satisfied. He didn’t want to go home yet. It seemed like a better idea to stay at the studio a little longer while he could look at things empty and silent. The lack of excitement helped him appreciate how much full of energy they managed to make that same space just a few hours prior. He was fairly sure that only one other person was around, so he finished fiddling with tea boxes and went to find them while the water was heating up. The theater had only soft service lights turned on. Walking through the rows of chairs he could hear distant sounds of a vacuum cleaner. Covered by the darkness, Greg found that the someone he had been looking for dared to be sitting in his Taskmaster throne. Alex was holding the unfailing tablet, legs crossed, clearly immersed in thought. Greg approached carefully, trying not to be noticed until it was too late for Alex to deny what he was doing. Lost in his worries, Horne didn't see the tall shadow betray Greg's attempt to keep hidden.

"What do you think you're doing?", the booming voice startled Alex, who let out an embarrassed chuckle at the sight of Greg with both hands on his hips, standing a few feet away from the throne. "Come on, mate. That's not yours to sit on." He said, faking outrage. Then took two steps closer and reached out one hand to Alex. "Plus it's not comfortable and I have tea for us upstairs..." His voice was now soft and inviting.

"Oh, that's lovely. Could you please take this for me? I'll shut the lights off and be right there in a minute", Alex asked after handing his tablet to Greg. A small nod and the taskmaster was walking back to the office. That was it, just the two of them. It was perfect actually because he had been meaning to spend some time with Alex to discuss the season so far, how pleased he was with it, and how thankful he felt for the entire team. Being a big grumpy man was all an act, the real Greg only knew to be kind.

The kettle awaited impatiently for his return, spilling boiling water over the counters. They should have replaced that old piece of crap months ago, but here it was, acting up if it lacked attention for two seconds. By the time Greg remembered the mistake, it was too late. He ran from the stairs straight to the kitchen and stopped at the doorway deciding not to risk Alex’s most important work tool in that watery mess. So then Greg took a few steps back to put the tablet down on the coffee table in front of the couch. Upon reaching the kitchen the sight was not pretty. There was water everywhere around the kettle. Some tea boxes were soggy, the mugs were standing on shallow puddles. Greg slapped it shut – promptly questioning if that was the reason why the poor thing started malfunctioning in the first place –, to then try to salvage two decent cups of tea. He made an effort to remember how Alex liked his tea, considering that the kindness of fetching tea was usually a task performed in his benefit. After the counters were dry again and most of the chaos was dealt with, he decided he had done enough. Carefully, Greg finished his simple task in the most straightforward way possible, no need to get creative. The office area was so quiet now that Greg could hear Alex shifting around to make himself more comfortable on the couch next to the stairs. He smiled again, spoon touching the edge of the porcelain. It was a good evening. He just wanted to keep enjoying it with his friend.

It seemed like the almost motionless image of Alex was asking Greg a variety of very deep, difficult questions. He just couldn’t understand the myriad of emotions surfacing during those quick steps to get closer and closer to the man who had been with him through some of the best times of his recent years. Perhaps it was his complete puzzlement that made Alex stare back as if he was expecting an explanation, but Greg had no words, just a fresh, warm cup of tea. He put down one mug in front of Alex, over the coffee table, and walked around it to the other side of the L shaped couch holding his own mug.

“Thank you, Greg”, said Alex, still splitting his attention between the work screen and his friend. He was sitting closer to the edge, right next to the stairs. While Greg found a good spot to settle down, he just kept moving things with his fingertips on the tablet. The smell of hot beverages made him sigh in relief to realize the day was finally over. Greg was now nestled by his right side, sipping tea and spying over his shoulder to get a glimpse of what he was still doing. Each time Greg adjusted his legs over the seat, Alex felt their arms brushing lightly. Regardless of how strong the air conditioning was set, Greg would always change into a short-sleeved shirt as soon as he was off the clock. Alex, on the other hand, preferred his cozy dark blue jumper.

Finally, Alex gave up on looking at screens and let go of the tablet. They stared at each other in silence, simply acknowledging their presence. Greg lazily savored his tea without breaking eye contact. Nobody could win against him in a staring contest, ever. Even keeping his mouth shut Greg would still dominate any conversation. Alex wasn’t intimidated at all by it but honestly fascinated about it. Nonetheless, the unspoken game between them was a lot more fun if he played the part.

Alex uncrossed his legs and leaned back on the couch, hands over his knees. This was how he gave up the victory, this was how he’d let Greg be Greg.

“You did great today. As usual”, said the Taskmaster between short sips.

“Well, you did too. Very good show…” Alex hesitated, clearing his throat. He would look at his clasped hands when he wasn’t really sure of what to say, glancing at his companion now and then. “Very good season. The crew is doing a fantastic job…”

“Of course. Everyone is doing great…” Greg leaned closer to rest his mug on the table. “But you just deserve a bit more appreciation than you have been given lately, I feel.”

A self-professed natural sidekick, Alex had a hard time accepting compliments. He averted his eyes away from Greg’s ever so intense gaze, lightly rubbing his hands on his pants. All he could do was to nod silently, finding some comfort on a warm gulp of tea. Then, Greg scooted even closer, legs touching, one arm stretched out behind Alex’s back. When Horne was done with his drink, he threw his body back all the way to end up lying his head on Greg’s arm. They moved slowly and gently. Despite being so used to each other, there was a slight awkwardness to overcome with every new touch. No need to rush, both enjoyed the seconds of closeness.

“How are you, little Alex Horne?” Greg said playfully, caressing his hair and looking at his face intently.

“Tired.” He replied in his characteristic matter-of-fact tone. “I feel good, yeah, good. Just a mild headache.” One hand raised to gesture the size of his discomfort, very small. Then he lifted his head and looked at Greg, pouting like he was hurt for real. Greg chuckled but soon fell quiet. Just as fast, Alex relaxed his face.

They seemed to weight each other for a moment, until Greg held the back of Alex’s head, moving forward to place a kiss in the middle of his forehead. They smiled at the gesture, Alex still not sure of how to thank him for the kindness. But before he could do or say anything, Greg went for a second bow, now with a wicked look on his face. Having just enough time to close his eyes, Horne received a mischievous kiss on the tip of the nose. That made them laugh softly, bobbing their shoulders and unintentionally sliding a little closer.

Greg once more stared at Alex’s face, who was taking his time opening his eyes back again. Davies felt the need to search for Horne’s hand like he had done so many times before. It was almost a reflex to Alex now to nest Greg’s hands between his whenever the Taskmaster reached for them. While his right hand was hugged by his favorite sidekick, the left one slipped down from the achy head to the neck of Alex. Greg gently tugged on the flesh, nearly pleading with Alex to look at him. Still unsure, but slowly giving in, Alex gathered the courage to look into Davies’ eyes.

He knew Greg had something to say. He could feel the anticipation in his breath. Otherwise so sure of himself, the mean Greg Davies was having trouble saying this one silly thing he wanted to say just because he felt like it. The moment had brought up a strange opportunity that neither was particularly seeking, but it suddenly seemed just right. He never felt so at ease with Alex. He had his impulses, and all the joy in the world to appreciate.

Greg took a deep breath, opened a wide smile, and took a chance.

“I genuinely want to kiss you right now.”

“Do you? Come on, then.”

They were smiling and hesitating. Before uttering those words, Greg had absolutely no plan on how to act in case Alex agreed. He assumed he would get flat-out laughed at and that would be it. In the same sense, Alex wasn’t expecting to call Greg on his bluff. The game suddenly became real and neither of them was ready to back out. It had happened before, but not that way, when they had no punch line to use as an excuse. Now, they just honestly wish to discover how it would feel. Maybe it was the constant provocative suggestions they would toy with, or everyone else joking about the relationship that made the idea not so foreign. But the fact remained that they barely needed to negotiate it inside their minds. And for some reason, they leaned into the antic.

Almost in sync, Greg and Alex merged their smiles in a timid kiss. Contrary to their initial expectations, there was no intention of breaking contact on either side. Instead of hastily ending it, Greg let his face relax from the smirk and sensed their warm lips together. Alex followed suit, not allowing any space for judgment in his mind. The moment solely asked for genuine physical touch. Alex took advantage of his confidence rush to pull Greg’s hand and hold it against his chest. It was like he wished to say something but through pure silence. He was trying to complete the action somehow, to make it so Greg could know not to let go just yet. And let go Greg would not because all the sensations he didn’t even know to crave were taking him by surprise. His thoughts were focused on detailing every single inch of them that was touching, from the hand on Alex’s neck to the leg he folded over and rested on his lap. He gently pulled on the skin with his fingers while sliding it down even more until he pressed the middle of Horne’s back. Perhaps this was the closest they would ever be.

Greg held Alex’s face, tenderly stroking his cheek with the thumb. They fought their way back to when this was not happening and merely kept their faces close, but not in contact. Alex knew he had to release Greg’s hand, but didn’t want to. He pulled it down and kept the grip with only one of his hands. He had never told Greg how much he appreciated every time he would randomly join hands with him during recordings of the show. It would always catch him by surprise. Now he felt like maintaining the connection for longer, even if not sure about what Greg was thinking. To his luck, the Taskmaster had no different desire and simply embraced him again, coaxing Alex to rest against his body.

It took them a moment to take full stock of the event. Greg was rubbing Alex’s arm while he looked at their fingers interlocked sitting on top of his thigh. Suddenly, both begin laughing at absolutely nothing. Cackling like madmen, Alex freed Greg’s hand, who then awkwardly hugged him. The laughter died down naturally, Davies still tapping on Horne’s leg. It was so silly, but here it was, did and done. Their courage to leave – or move – was on an all-time low. It was hard to know what to say, if they should discuss it somehow or just let things be. Also, both were very tired and not making the best judgment of any situation.

“Always a pleasure spending time with you, mate. But I guess it’s late and we should go.” Greg offered the treaty.

“You’re right. You help me just make sure everything is closed here, please?” Alex seemed to be lighter, relieved somehow. He tried to get up, but Greg resisted, forcing him to stay. He waited. He knew that look on Greg’s face, the imaginary deep breath before speaking his mind.

“Thank you.” It was Greg’s turn to avoid looking into Alex’s eyes. “I needed that, I suppose. So thank you for putting up with my silliness…”

Alex had never experienced Greg in that kind of exposed position, so candid and vulnerable. He finally understood the level of trust that was developed between the two. A sense of pride and fulfillment poured over him.

“We both needed that, Greg.” He stated, standing up right after. Greg stared at him almost confused, obviously surprised, but wearing a giddy smile.

Five minutes later, they were standing outside the studio and Greg heard the phrase that had become his favorite in recent times. Alex waved once and said, “See you tomorrow, Taskmaster.”

#fanfic #taskmaster #greg davies #alex horne #taskhusbands #little alex horne

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tinytendril · 5 years

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we stayed up all night (to watch the sunrise) | A High School!Robbaery AU

Summary | Robb enlists Margaery’s help, by pretending to be his girlfriend for the end of year ball in order to make Jeyne jealous. At some point, they’ll have to convince themselves it’s all just an act.

AN | mostly inspired by the wonderful ramblings of this small yet fantastic fandom. Also, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Robb as the avid poetry-writing romantic (duh), and Margaery as the shamelessly popular it-girl. Also, who doesn’t love a good fake-boyfriend/fake-girlfriend trope!? Allllso, an excellent song to go with this fic.

‘She was a rose in the hands of a blind man who could only feel her thorns,’ Robb finishes, looking at her imploringly. Any passerby, swaying in time to the overhead music as they are, would assume that he was reciting poetry for her.

She rolls her eyes, but does so with unmistakable amusement.

‘Stark…’ Her lips, twisting upward into her habitual smirk, eventually gives way to her laughing.

Everything Margaery expresses makes anyone encounter her feel like they’re the cause of her infectious laughter, easing them into feeling like she’s let them in on an inside joke. She’s fast friends with what seems like their entire year because of this. That and the fact that half the student body has, at one point or another, fancied her since primary school.

He, unfortunately, was looking for actual feedback. He is afraid to ask, ‘What?’

‘I was at Waterstones the other night, picked up a magazine and found a little ditty in it too, a caption for the Who Wore It Better page.’

‘Except I wrote that one.’

‘Dickon wrote me a poem in our fourth year. I think it went something like, “There once was a woman from Nantucket—”’

‘It’s surprising how little I’m getting from this conversation,’ Robb finally lets out an exhausted sigh, steering her into the dramatic dip she taught him to do just before entering their PE hall. In the corner of his eye, he spots some friends of Sansa’s blushing and whispering about them from the no-dance zone, against the walls of the hall. Thankfully, his family wouldn’t be witness to any potential mortifying moments tonight.

‘Oh hush, it’s working.’ Margaery gestures for him to look over her shoulder to where Jeyne Westerling is in the arms of Harry Hardyng. Or, the person who had the guts to ask her to go to this ruddy dance before he could get the chance.

Jeyne, to his surprise, already has eyes on him and isn’t quick enough to avert her gaze without suspicion. If he’s not mistaken, he catches a small, fleeting smile his way.

Robb comes to and finds that Margaery still has her own knowing smile on her face.

‘Do you know what girls want, Stark? Girls in our year don’t want roses or poetry, they want a guy with a car, or a guy who can sit pretty for an instagrammable moment, and they definitely want a decent promposal just in time to set up hair and makeup appointments for an even better selfie for prom night.’

‘That’s shallow…isn’t it? Besides she’s not like that.’

She shrugs, though he does have a point, since she’s almost certain that Jeyne would be the type to coo over Robb waxing poetic over her being his ‘flower’. Still, he's one to talk when he, just days ago, asked her a favour by pretending to be his girlfriend for the night, in hopes of making Jeyne jealous. If it wasn’t so out of character for him, she’d be calling him out on this behaviour, but she decides against it. In fact, she decides to berate Theon about this scheme later.

It’s a lucky thing that Sansa is a dear friend. Lucky that she also knows their mother to be just as dear. All the Starks are legitimately the kindest people she’s ever met. And luckily, Robb happens to be familiar enough to her to know his intentions were and have always been pure, if their sharing a kiss during a game of spin-the-bottle and the ensuing hand-crafted Valentine’s Day card in their fifth year was any indication. More lucky is the fact that her actual, non-fake boyfriend Joffrey is on holiday and would not be interfering tonight.

‘It really is working, isn’t it?’ Robb gestures for her to watch Jeyne this time, especially since Harry has disappeared to the refreshments corner and Jeyne’s curiously watching them, sitting at a nearby table with a gaggle of other girls.

Before she can stop herself, she ties her hands around Robb’s neck so that he has to dip his head lower, low enough to count how many freckles he has on the bridge of his nose. Close enough to see that his blushing may be because they haven’t been this close since fifth year’s spin-the-bottle days. If this is all part of the plan, she thinks, either of them could be successfully convincing the other.

‘It’s weird,’ she says softer than she meant to sound, maybe because she realizes that their charade and the rules they had set up for themselves hadn’t called for any unnecessary physical contact (though she instantly questioned his experience of being in a relationship before this half-baked mission), yet she is contemplating this closeness as well.

Gods, Joffrey will be asking her to offer some kind of penance for this when he returns.

‘What’s weird?’

‘Well, you’re so stubbornly kind to everyone,’ she tells him as if he should know better. ‘You’re smart and Gods know you’ve got a better reputation going for you compared to half the boys in school. You’re not bad-looking either. You looked even better in your football kit when you and Theon won last Saturday’s match.’

Theon: i’m not v good at lip reading, but did Margaery actually say my name? mate, is she asking about me????

Robb silences his phone, and tries to silence the fear that Theon (the only person he somehow entrusted with this scheme) could give them away at any moment.

‘Smart and not bad-looking. I should make that into a shirt,’ he quips.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

This is a terrific feeling, he thinks, and is reeling from this rarity; suddenly, she’s out of witty comebacks. He figures he shouldn’t take this moment for granted and triumph a little. Margaery and her academic accolades, her family’s summer house in Dorne, and her doe eyes literally opening doors for her. He can’t explain the thrill of having an upper hand over her for once.

She even lamely replies to his silent amusement, ‘Oh, shut it.’

Though true to form, and because she’s right about him being stubborn in his ways, he tries to make her feel comfortable again, ‘Thanks for doing this, Marge. It was a long shot in asking you, and we haven’t spoken or even hung out in ages—’

‘That, right there,’ Margaery says with wide eyes, bright and focused again. ‘Why wouldn’t Jeyne want someone kind and humble and smart over someone as simple as Harry—’

‘And Harry’s got his arm around her, and she’s going mad from laughing at something he’s said, and he’s definitely going to ask her out tonight. That’s it, that’s what’s happening.’

He’s not sure what possesses her, all he knows is that he sees her inching forward and he does not stop her. Suddenly, he feels her lips on his, and he instinctively shuts his eyes. This kiss isn’t like fifth year’s tentative, purse-lipped one. This is her pink-laquered pout softer and more appealing than he imagined (and yes, he’s not going to be that idiot who denies his eyes flitting to find them throughout the night), and this is her perfume that reminds him of the shopping bags his sister and mother have sometimes brought home from one of their girly shops. Except, he doesn’t remember his mind feeling hazy from smelling this honey, flowery scent before.

‘Robb…’

If it wasn’t for his perfume-addled brain, he might be analyzing how she’s openly chewing on her bottom lip when they separate. But, she’s already starting before he can, ‘She’s coming.’

‘What—’

Then, Margaery shoves him away, and dramatically bursts for the surrounding people to hear, ‘Robb, you’re right. I’ve got to go back to Joffrey—but—’ A single tear tracks down her cheek. ‘This was—I won’t forget you.’

Robb finally sobers at that, ‘On the nose, that one.’

‘Hush,’ she whispers and angles a wink just for his eyes.

Like a scene in a play, he musters his strength to not laugh after she departs their stage, taking her last act with her. He almost misses what Jeyne has to say as she finally approaches him, while, in the distance, Margaery tosses her chestnut curls over her shoulder before she finally exits the hall.

‘Is everything alright?’ Comes Jeyne’s sweet concern.

‘Erm—aye—fine, yeah. Just got dumped, but I’ll uh—be fine.’

‘I didn’t even realize you two were together.’

‘We barely started,’ he explains, though he surprises himself to hear how genuinely disappointed he is to admit this.

#robbaery #robb x margaery #robb stark #margaery tyrell #got fanfiction

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aflyingcontradiction · 4 years

Text

aflyingcontradiction reads a women’s magazine - Installment 2

As I threatened two weeks ago, I just received the second magazine in my free trial subscription (Freundin 14/2020) and here’s my reaction log.

The cover lady is actually a woman of colour this time. I wonder whether this particular magazine tries to match its diversity to the actual diversity of German women or whether this is a one-off. ‘Cause most of the women’s magazines I see in supermarkets around here tend to have a never-ending barrage of long-haired blonde white women on the cover (and stereotypes aside, nah, we don’t all look like that.)

We immediately start out with some plague content: The editorial staff answer the question “Our lives have changed a lot in this crisis. Tell us what you do more frequently or less frequently these days.” Fortunately, the answers aren’t ALL of the uplifting variety, so it’s not too nauseating.

There’s a “Six heroes of the crisis” feature later in the magazine that almost-but-not-quite crosses the line into nauseatingly uplifting (the “not quite” being that the tone is at least sometimes “We’re helping to make things less shit, but let’s not forget that that’s because THINGS ARE CURRENTLY SHIT!” Personally, I would have preferred less focus on these specific instagram models - no, really, several of them are - and their lives and more on the projects they started and the problems they’re trying to solve, especially because each feature was only about half a page long, but oh well.)

Again with the vapid interviews. They’ve literally managed to get a Green party member of a state parliament and what do they ask her? “What makes you a good friend?” Just ... how shallow do they think the average German woman between the ages of 25 and 49 is, exactly? Surely, you can manage to maintain the feel-good vibe you’re going for while also not being completely condescending!

Half the content is still actually ads for overprized products. I wonder whether this is aspirational or whether it’s actually common to spend 20 € on a single piece of costume jewellery.

There’s a pretty decent if basic article about anxiety (basically: anxiety disorders - what are they? How can you tell you have one? Here’s where you can get help and this is what some forms of therapy look like). I think it’s good that a mainstream magazine acknowledges and talks about mental health issues that affect a lot of people - I assume my social bubble of “everyone is a mess and perfectly willing to admit it, at least to some extent” is not most people’s experience of the conversation around mental illness.

Somewhat hilariously, the only non-condescending interview I’ve found so far is with a woman who founded a “social plant nursery” (where she grows flowers organically and employs people who would otherwise be unemployable due to various mental health issues - and hopefully pays them properly, but they didn’t ask her about that.) At any rate, they asked her actual questions about her project and the philosophy behind it, about the importance of the project to herself, her employees and wider society, etc. I mean, they did also ask her about her favourite flower, but most of the questions were actually, dare I say it, relevant. Now if they could manage to do the same thing next time they interview a politican, that would be lovely.

There’s an article about the importance of eye contact, some of which is genuinely interesting, but I have no love for the shame-y “People these days look at their phones instead of other people on public transport” intro. Germans already stare at strangers too damn much (myself included, tbh) - we do not need encouragement. Please, everybody, keep looking at your phones!

Some of the ads are seriously pernicious. There’s a two-page “article” on the *cough* science *cough* behind a weight-loss supplement that I very nearly took for - erm - ad-adjacent content before I spotted the little “Advertisement” note at the top of the page and realised it was just a good old-fashioned ad-ad.

Okay, so I was wrong - there are a few non-condescending interviews in here. One of them is with a heart surgeon who also researches the connection of mental health and heart health. The interview is, of course, as dumbed down as they could possibly make it, but at least they asked him actual questions and not “What’s your favourite place in the world?”. I like that the article has a little info box on how the symptoms of a heart attack in women often differ from those in men.

Wow. Just wow. The article immediately following the heart surgeon interview is a three-pager on homeopathic remedies for children The intro: “Homeopathy is frequently discussed. It is true that not everybody is happy with this alternative form of therapy. However, it is also a fact that many parents swear by globuli as a gentle treatment for their children’s minor medical problems or to supplement conventional medicine.” That’s certainly one way of not technically lying. Many parents do, in fact, swear by homeopathy. Ideally they would stop doing that, but I suppose it is undeniable that they do. Also, the German text uses the term “Schulmedizin” for, ya know, medicine, which I hate with a passion. In fact, I hate literally everything about this. Also, all the “medical issues” that they list as being treatable with homeopathy are also fucking treatable with a kiss, a cuddle, potentially some bed rest and a hot cup of tea. They even included home sickness. HOME SICKNESS! (Mind, the book on homeopathy that my dad made me read in an unsuccessful bid to convince me to switch to homeopathy for my chronic illness included a treatment for masturbation in children, so it could be worse). ... I. am. going. to. break. things.

Apparently there’s such a thing as “organic water”. Okay then.

And yet more plague content: “Since the start of #stayathome, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to my neighbours and noticed that their lives are actually just as boring and flawed as mine”. Great realisation, now kindly stop writing self-congratulatory opinion pieces about spying on your neighbours. Or maybe just stop spying on your neighbours. Jeez, lady.

The horoscope on the final page tells me I’m afraid of change. I don’t think I needed the stars to tell me that, thanks though.

The magazine came with a little extra-booklet of summer holiday destinations in Germany - somewhat more realistic than last edition’s very optimistic international travel tips, but I doubt all the attractions they mention have actually reopened.

#german stuff #aflyingcontradiction reads women's magazines #there's some more #covid 19 #content in this one as well #my babbling

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chocolatequeennk · 5 years

Text

A Visit From St. Nicholas, 2/2

On one very special Christmas Eve, the Christmas wishes of three people will be answered in a way they never imagined.

Ten x Rose, reunion fic with Tony Tyler and Martha Jones. For @doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas, presents.

I had this almost ready to go on Christmas Day, and then my cat got seriously ill. I spent 36 hours focused solely on nursing her back to health. She's doing much better, so I was able to finish it today. I'll hopefully be updating my other holiday story today or tomorrow as well.

AO3 | FF.NET | Ch 1

Rose watched the Christmas snow fall for a few minutes, then pulled on a warm coat and snuck downstairs. This was a moment she wanted all for herself, without her little brother’s company or her mum’s commentary.

Outside, the first dusting of snow just covered the walk. Her boot melted through it instantly, leaving a dark footprint behind.

She held out her hand, and a snowflake melted into her black leather glove. On an impulse, she tilted her head back and caught one on her tongue, just like she’d done when she was younger.

She hummed happily. “Still tastes like icing sugar.”

Then she pulled her scarf up to keep out the cold and stepped off the walkway. The whispering sound of her boots stepping through the fresh snow only highlighted the peace that had settled over the estate.

Like everything, snow brought back memories of the Doctor. Those were some of those non-trouble parts she loved so much about her life with him. Days spent traipsing through quaint villages with snow-covered streets. Snowball fights in a park, when she’d enlisted an army of children to ambush him. Ice skating on a frozen pond.

Rose burrowed her cold nose in a fold of her scarf, then laughed when that brought up the memory of the ridiculously long scarf she’d found in the wardrobe room. The Doctor had rolled his eyes and muttered something about his old fashion sense when she walked into the console room with it looped around her neck three times. But he hadn’t complained when she used it to pull him into a kiss.

Lost in her memories, Rose didn’t notice the warmth spreading over her chest until it was almost uncomfortably hot. “What…?” She fumbled with her zipper and reached under her jumper to pull out her TARDIS key.

Her heart started racing when she saw the way the key was glowing. She’d seen a TARDIS key glow like that once before, and the Doctor had said it was because it was trying to tell him it was still connected to the ship.

“Oh my God.” She clutched the key tight and turned in a slow circle. “Please, please, please…”

She hadn’t felt a thing from the key in years. If it was connected to the TARDIS now, then maybe that meant the Doctor was in this universe.

The wind picked up around her, but Rose refused to believe it was anything other than the snowstorm until she could see the outline of the TARDIS forming. Her hands started shaking when she could see the light on top of the ship flashing at her and feel the warm hum in her mind.

The door flew open as soon as the ship landed, and Rose watched in shock as the Doctor rushed out. They stared at each other for a long moment, then somehow, they were in each other’s arms.

The Doctor cradled Rose’s face between his hands, thumbs brushing over her cheekbones. Rose! He reached out for her, and there she was, her mind just as beautiful and vibrant as it had been that night so long ago when they’d bonded.

Rose gasped, then her hands curled around his lapels and tugged him down for a kiss. Thought I’d never see you again, she said as she carded her fingers through his hair. I missed you so much.

I know, love. I know. The Doctor snagged her bottom lip between his teeth and nipped gently, then swept his tongue into her mouth when she parted her lips in surprise. But I’m here now and I’m never letting you go again.

She sighed, then melted into his kiss. The Doctor pulled her close, not wanting there to be even an inch separating them after so long spent apart.

The wind blew snow around them. Even through the passion and joy of their reunion, the Doctor could feel Rose shiver. “You’re freezing,” he mumbled between kisses. “Let’s go inside.”

Rose hummed her approval and slowly pulled out of the kiss. But when the Doctor tried to turn towards the TARDIS, she shook her head. “Come with me,” she whispered, walking towards the house with his hand in hers.

The Doctor dragged his feet a bit. “But our room is in the TARDIS,” he protested.

The impish humour he could feel over the bond intrigued him, and he waited for Rose’s response. “Indulge me,” she said, and the Doctor’s resistance melted away.

“Lead the way.”

She rewarded him with a brilliant smile, and they raced across the lawn hand-in-hand. When they reached the back door, Rose held her finger to her lips. “I think everyone is asleep,” she whispered. “They should be, anyway. But just in case…”

The Doctor leaned down so he could whisper in her ear. “Rose Tyler, are you trying to sneak me into your mum’s home?”

She shivered when his breath hit her neck, and he couldn’t resist nuzzling into the sensitive spot. When she sighed his name, he nudged her scarf aside with his nose and kissed her neck.

Rose hummed her approval, then stepped away from him. “Come on, inside.”

With one last caress over their bond, the Doctor pulled back and gestured for Rose to open the door. He stifled a chuckle when she crept stealthily into the kitchen, looking around to make sure they were alone.

“Ooh, biscuits,” the Doctor said, spying the plate that must have been left out for Santa. He snagged one on the way by and munched on it as they started up the back staircase. Rose rolled her eyes at him, and her indulgent affection warmed him.

Just like a little kid, she told him as they reached the first floor landing.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, then let her see a few of his plans for their reunion. Rose’s breathing shallowed, and she pressed a hand to her heart.

Or not, she agreed shakily. Come on. We’re almost there, then you can show me what else you’ve been planning.

They crept up another two flights of stairs, then Rose took his hand again and backed up, leading him to one of the two doors. The Doctor put his hands on her hips as she leaned back against the door and twisted a strand of hair around her finger.

“Never brought a bloke up here before.” She bit her lip and looked down—if the Doctor didn’t know better, he would have thought she was genuinely nervous.

He huffed softly and stepped closer. “I’ll try to make it worth the risk,” he whispered against her lips.

He felt Rose’s lips curve up into a smile, then she turned the handle and they went inside.

oOoOo

Later, Rose relished the comforting weight of the Doctor’s arm around her waist as she lay curled against his side. After five years without, she didn’t think she would ever get enough of his touch.

The hand that had been running absently up and down her back paused. “It’s been five years for you?”

Rose nodded, and his guilt and heartbreak made her throat tight. She swallowed, then quickly redirected the conversation.

“That’s not important though,” she said. “How did you get here? I thought travel between parallel universes was impossible.”

The Doctor pressed a kiss to her temple before answering. “I might have had some help with that, actually,” he admitted. “It turns out, I’m not the only pan-dimensional being left in the universe.”

Rose propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at him, just able to see his face in the moonlight. “You aren’t?”

“Nope.” The Doctor mirrored her position, and the duvet slid down a few inches. “Martha and I were in the console room this morning when we heard a tapping on the roof.”

Rose frowned, trying to picture the story he was painting. “You heard… On the TARDIS roof?”

“Yep! The tiny hoofbeats of eight miniature reindeer, as it turns out.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rose breathed.

The Doctor giggled and shook his head. “Even I couldn’t make up a story this unbelievable,” he assured her. “I opened the door, and Santa was there, in his sleigh, floating in the middle of the Vortex.”

“Santa Claus. Father Christmas. Bearded fellow dressed in red velvet.”

The Doctor nodded. “The very one. He’d come to get me to fulfil Tony’s Christmas wish.”

Rose blinked, trying to stop the sudden, unexpected tears. “Not just Tony’s,” she murmured.

The Doctor took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Anyway!” he said. “It turns out Santa is able to travel between dimensions. That’s how he gets all the toys delivered every year.”

“So Santa in this universe is the same as Santa in our universe, and he heard our Christmas wish and decided to make it possible?” Rose summarised.

“Yep! Pretty much.”

Rose took a moment to process that. It was mental, but didn’t that describe their whole life? Looking up at her husband, she decided there were better ways to spend the night than trying to understand trans-dimensional physics.

She rested her hand on the Doctor’s hip and licked her lips. “You know, Doctor, I hear that Santa won’t come if we don’t go to bed.”

The Doctor blinked. “I just told you. He already came.”

Rose shook her head and waited for him to catch on to her not-so-subtle innuendo. A moment later, amusement and approval sparked over their bond, and he slung a leg over hers and rolled them over.

He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers, then whispered, “Well in that case, Rose Tyler, let’s go to bed.”

oOoOo

It took Rose a moment when she woke up the next morning to realise what was different. Then she felt the lean body wrapped around hers, and more importantly, the Doctor holding her close over the bond.

He pressed a kiss to her neck. “Happy Christmas, love,” he murmured against her skin.

Rose tilted her head to give him more access. “Happy Christmas, Doctor.”

The words sparked a memory in Rose’s mind, and she sat up abruptly, elbowing the Doctor in the ribs in the process. “It’s Christmas!”

“Yes, I know,” he groaned, rubbing at his side. “And if that’s how you’re going to react every Christmas, we might never land on Christmas again.”

Rose shook her head impatiently. “It’s Christmas morning,” she emphasised. “Presents.”

He scratched at his sideburn. “Ah, I don’t have anything for you… though I’m sure I could find something in the TARDIS…”

Rose rolled her eyes. “No, you plum. You are the present.”

She felt the moment it clicked. “That’s right. Santa said Tony had been asking to meet me.”

Rose listened carefully. “I don’t think he’s up yet, which is a Christmas miracle all of its own.” Her mind whirled, trying to think of the best way to spring the Christmas surprise on her little brother. “Come on. I have an idea.”

They dressed hurriedly, Rose in flannel pyjamas and the Doctor in his suit.

“You do an awful lot of sneaking,” the Doctor commented in a stage whisper as they went back downstairs.

Rose looked over her shoulder at him. “Part of living with a very curious younger sibling,” she explained. “Now, shush! We’re almost there.”

She led the Doctor into the lounge, which was still half in shadow as the winter sun hadn’t even risen yet. “And now we wait,” she said.

The Doctor sat down in the corner of the couch and pulled Rose into his lap. “I missed this,” he said as she settled into his arms. “Holding you, feeling you breathe, hearing your heartbeat.”

Rose massaged his temples, and the Doctor felt his tension melt away. “I did too,” she agreed. “But that’s all over now.”

Before the Doctor could voice his agreement, or kiss her, they heard a door bang against the wall upstairs, then what sounded like a herd of elephants thundering down the hallway. He could only assume Rose’s little brother was awake.

“Rose! Rose!” a young boy shouted. “It’s Christmas, and it snowed!”

The footsteps moved away from them, and Rose said, “He’s running up the stairs to my room.”

Another door opened, and a more familiar voice joined the cacophony. “Tony Tyler, what have I told you about running inside?”

The answer was faint, but chipper. “Happy Christmas, Mummy!”

Jackie’s sigh was audible even in the lounge, and the Doctor pressed his lips to Rose’s shoulder to suppress his laughter.

“Come on, Jacks, we might as well open presents.” A light flicked on. “After all, it is Christmas.”

“Mummy, Rose isn’t in her room.”

Rose slid out of the Doctor’s lap and reached over the arm of the couch for something on the end table. “I’m already downstairs, Tony. I was just making sure Santa brought all the presents you asked for.” Then she shot the Doctor a wicked smile and put a big red bow on his head.

The Doctor’s squawk of surprise was drowned out by Tony’s childish shout of delight. Footsteps echoed back down the stairs, and the Doctor felt the first glimmer of trepidation—how could he possibly live up to whatever image Tony had of him?

“Tony, stop running!”

A tiny red-headed boy skidded into the lounge on his stocking feet, heedless of his mother’s command. His gaze landed on the tree first, then when Rose cleared her throat, he looked around the room.

Tony’s eyes widened when he spotted the Doctor sitting on the couch. “Are you him?” he whispered, and the hope in his voice eased all the Doctor’s worries.

He swallowed, then nodded and opened his arms as the little boy hurtled across the room and leapt into his lap. “I knew it would work, I knew Santa could bring you!” he mumbled into the Doctor’s chest. “Rose said there wasn’t any way for you to get here, but Santa can do everything.”

Jackie and Pete appeared, then froze in the doorway. “How…?” Jackie said, for once unable to say anything else.

Rose nudged him when she picked up on that thought, and he smiled unrepentantly at her.

Tony squirmed until he was sitting properly in the Doctor’s lap. “Look, Mummy! I asked Santa to bring the Doctor for Christmas, and he did!”

“Yes, he did,” the Doctor agreed.

Jackie narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew she was about to tell him off for encouraging Tony’s belief that Santa could do something so magical.

He shook his head quickly. “Strange as it sounds, Jackie, that is exactly what happened. He flew right up to the TARDIS in his sleigh and gave me a button that would let us travel between universes.”

Jackie looked at him, then at Rose, and her shoulders slumped slightly. Pete wrapped an arm around her waist, and she smiled at them.

“This is the second Christmas party you’ve crashed, you know.”

The Doctor frowned at her for a moment, trying to understand why she seemed so sad. “Yesssss…” he said slowly. “But it won’t be the last.” He’d mentioned that, hadn’t he? “This was not just a one-time trip,” he continued. “The TARDIS will need time to recover between trips… say, about a year. So, unless you object, Jackie, I think Rose and I will visit every year for Christmas.”

Jackie stood stock-still for a moment, then she let out a shriek the Doctor hoped never to hear again. She ran across the room and pulled him and Rose both to their feet, wrapping her arms around them.

“I still don’t understand that life of yours,” she said as she pulled back after a few seconds. “But if it means we can still see Rose, I don’t care. Just try not to get in too much trouble.”

“It’s the best life!” Tony protested. “Trouble is just the bits in between.”

The Doctor looked over at Rose, his eyebrow arched. Rose smiled and put her arm around his waist. “I told him all of our stories. His favourite is the Sycorax, because you used a sword, but I think this is the one I’m going to love most of all.”

“Tony, why don’t you see what else Santa brought you,” Pete suggested. Tony darted around the Doctor and Rose and ran to the tree.

The Doctor ignored the gift unwrapping happening a few feet away. He had already been given the best gift possible. He turned and pulled Rose close, resting his hands on her hips. Her head tipped back slightly, and he couldn’t resist the invitation.

The best story of all, he agreed as they kissed. With the best possible ending.

Somewhere in the universes, he knew a jolly old man was chuckling as he flew over the snow-covered world. And even though he knew it was just his imagination, he thought he could hear the familiar words echoing in the air.

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

#ficandchips #ten x rose #doctorroseprompts #31 days of ficmas #reunion fic #tony tyler #jackie tyler #pete tyler #happy endings #ahhhh #i really love this story #i hope you do too #fic by Nancy

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lil-mutie · 6 years

Text

I wrote?

It bout Caboose?

It’s absolutely absurd

Warnings include:

Vague creepiness, blood mention, bad writing, alcohol mention, insults, dramaticness

It had only been a few weeks since “the sweet, little, helpful, innocent, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly, red caboose had returned to the surprisingly unwelcoming crowd of the Apollo Victoria Trainyard. It was as if as soon as he had entered, a giant monster had appeared. A giant monster who wore the flesh of his victims, a gigantic monster who was absolutely crazy...psychotic even. Someone who had betrayed everyone’s trust by doing something soooo dastardly....Caboose sighed, who was he kidding. That’s what everyone was thinking at that moment... with the exception of the “giant” thing...

There were faces of anger, terror or discomfort surrounding him as he had quietly trudged in going no where but the direction of the freight yard then veering off into the small silent corridors that surrounded a lot of the yard, like secret passageways but also a free for all dumping site of nuts and bolts and bottles and other useless junk. Somewhere he always silently joked Rusty would feel right at home.

Eyes were always watching every move the caboose would make, conversations would stop as he passed and whispers would arise. Even so he still heard everything, all the troubles that people were having or the engines or coaches were battling with no matter how stupid they were to him. One day it could be Gook gruffly muttering rubbish about how he swore some chic had winked at him and how they hit it off right away blah blah blah. The next day it could be Pearl being indecisive about WHICH PINK LIPSTICK TO WEAR OUT OF HER COLLECTION OF TWENTY DIFFERENT SHADES OF THE SAME BLOODY COLOUR. She truely drove him around the bend that girl. With her snide remarks about himself and the way she just had darling ickle Rusty wrapped around her cute little pinky. Man how he would just love to break that little pinky off or even better her whole arm off.

It had taken up to a week to finally get Poppa to give in and give him a shed which was the farthest from anyone else’s for the good reason that it was still full of bits and pieces from whatever stinking cattle car that had lived in there and what smelt like died in there. After a good few days of moving, ventilating, sleeping outside and wearing a peg over his nose in the process, he was in his new little abode for one and one only.

‘A party’ it said ‘for the new world champion who has surprised all!’ Caboose grimaced, ‘Apollo Victoria invites all it’s members to attend. Non-formal. 6pm sharp in the Freight hall. Can’t wait to see you there!’

“Can’t wait to see you there!” He read out in a purposefully obnoxious way again. “Yeah like they’d like me to show my sweet lil face.” He rolled his eyes, ripping the invitation up slow enough to let the sound soak in and to then watch as it floated down to the ground before his wheels and stare at it and sigh. “My innocent lil face.” CB cooed as he posed with his hands cupping his deadpanned face as he stared off into the distance.

Caboose rubbed his face hoping it would wake him up just that little bit more that morning. He was only half dressed with his multiple layers on but still lacking his gloves, belt and hat. Things essential to his uniform. “Stupid lil Caboose.” He pouted as he stretched his arms high into the air and groaned. “Like anyone would want you there” he chuckled as he tilted his head back to see an unexpected, smug looking electric just casually leaning against his shed. His smile snapped to a look of irritation as he flew around to look at the engine who could’ve been standing their for ages for all he knew. “Well what is it you big, blue, brainless buffoon?”

Electra hummed softly as he looked the brake van up and down with a small smirk resting on his lips.

“Hello? CB to Electra, I repeat, CB to Electra, do you copy?” Caboose said waving a hand in front of Electra’s face. The electric merely glanced up with an ever growing grin before turning around and taking off leaving the caboose hanging onto his words and confusion for a bit longer before he muttered “Creep.” under his breath and returned to insides of his shed.

The days seemed to flow much differently after that. He would go out for chores and others would silently help him with a smile. And by Thursday someone had actually manned up to talk to him. Well Dustin was a sort of pushed forwards as a sacrificial lamb to greet CB with a simple “Hello!”

“......”

“C-Caboose?”

He found himself frozen to the spot, eyes wide just staring at the hopper whilst clutching onto his box of bolts for Poppa.

“Um Caboose?” He repeated

“...Hi?” He raised an eyebrow and gave some sort of awkward half smile.

The big hopper giggled and smiled back gently “I’m-I’m glad you’re back in... in one piece.”

“Oh heh, yeah well I was planning on coming back as a mangled carcass but they uh wouldn’t let me for some reason. Apparently healthcare is a thing.” He replied with an odd feeling washing over him as the other freight hummed in amused chuckled and snorts. “You feelin’ any better?” Flat-Top asked in a somewhat more concerned tone that what you could expect from the brick truck. “I’m alive ain’t I?” CB tilted his head and smiled more genuinely. Flat-Top tried to smile before his face fell “Yeah but like... you gave us all quite a scare when y’came out looking all.. y’know. And uh Poppa still doesn’t trust you.”

“Like at all.” Rocky 1 piped in.

“He thinks you’re crazy.” Rocky 2 added as 3 and 4 barged in to have their say too.

“He warned us about you!”

“Says you’ll smash us, just like you smashed Rusty!” Rocky 4 was instantly hushed after.

Caboose looked at him, then his brothers, then the rest of the freight. All faces he thought he knew. “And do you believe him?” He asked after the strange silence had lasted between them all for over a minute.

“Caboose.”

The brake van zipped around at the call of his name to face the old steamer just watching him from a distance. CB swallowed thickly and opened his mouth hoping he would make a joke or break the tension but nothing.

“Back to work now.”

He nodded sharply and stared down at the bolts in his arms and scooted off. As he was leaving he heard old McCoy ask the freight if they were okay, “Did he hurt any of you?” He heard and looked over his shoulder in disbelief as Poppa lifted up Rocky 3’s arm to inspect it. The freight shook their heads with quiet mumbling. Poppa looked at CB hard enough to get him back on his way down the freightyard to find ‘Storage.’

“The sheer audacity.” The blue eyed Caboose growled with his eyes glowing brighter and becoming paler as he thought over the scene again. He reached ‘Storage’, opened the door with a face of disgust as he angrily threw the box in, not even bothering to shut the door as he stormed off to the sound of bolts clanging and clashing against the floor and spilling out everywhere.

The party was the following night and the physically defeated CB was tucked up in a cosy corner with a book. A book Ashley had slipped under his door to him. He knew it was Ashley as the book about some cheesy vampiric love story set in the 1800s. So you could tell, it was from Ashley. The book was accompanied by some freshly baked cookies, from Dinah, which were decorated in orange icing flowers, most likely from Buffy and finally a collection of pink flowers from someone so annoying Hello Kitty said goodbye to them, someone shallower than a dry seabed, someone who wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Pearl. At least that’s what he thought of her anyway.

The flowers had come with a note reading ‘I found these flowers and they reminded me of you and your bright red cheeks and beautiful smile!’ With a smiley face at the end and a love heart. CB had briefly spoke his own response to the note “Aw Pearly, your face reminds me of a flower too!” He threw the flowers in the bin “A cauliflower.”

When would she learn?

After a good hour of tunes blasting at top volume in the distance a knock came from his door. He didn’t move. Because why would he? The knocking came again and yet again he stayed still shoving the fourth cookie into his mouth. When suddenly the door burst open and in fell a drunk Electra throwing himself to the floor making Caboose jump in such a fright he started to choke on his tasty turned backstabbing choc chip cookie.

“Booooooooooseyyyyy” came a long, desperate, drawn out whine as the electric brushed himself off. He looked over with a stupid grin and noticed the red caboose hacking up like a cat, fist pounding against his stomach as he spluttered and coughed, caving over onto the carpet to spit into his hand and to then look sadly down at the piece of cookie.

Electra tilted his head and loudly inhaled again “Booooooooooooos-“

“WHAT?” he yelled looking up at the unwanted figure.

Electra swayed a little and pouted his lips making a kissy sound. “Bo-“

“Sit down you drunk dipstick. Do you think you can barge in just like that? To somewhere where you’re not welcome” he pulled himself up and started to clean the mess.

“I thought I was welcome here?” He flopped down across the couch dramatically.

Caboose looked at him as if he had six eyes

“Electra you’re as welcome as a hedgehog in a condom factory.”

It took Electra approximately 10 seconds to process what was just said to him. “Well that’s not a very nice thing to say to a guest.”

“This is my shed not a restaurant.” The red caboose replied “You are stupid Electra.” He muttered

“I’m not stupid!”

“Hm?

“You just said I was stupid!” He sat up and snarled

“I didn’t say you were stupid. I said you ARE stupid. There’s nothing past tense about it Leccy.” CB retorted with a laugh

“I’m not as stupid as you!” Electra dragged himself up from the chair and swung an arm at the short little rebel.

“If you’re going to be a smartarse about it then you have to be smart. Otherwise you’re just an arse, dear.” Caboose cackled as he ducked the drunken attempt of an attack. Electra crackled with anger as he tried to move forward but slipped and falling again, taking CB with him and winding the small freight vehicle. The muscular engine lifted his head up a little as it rocked up and down before clambering up with the support of the chair closest. The electric groaned and slowly moved to the mirror to check his hair and makeup were still perfect. “Ugh. I need some fresh air, my head is spinning.” He whined

The dazed CB sat up and followed the drunkard out into the alleyway outside where the cool night breeze flowed and the moon shown brightly in the clear sky. When he looked back at the e-lok yet again he was up against a fall just... staring. “What?” He sighed. Electra just pushed out his chest. “Why do you keep doing that? Is it a glitch? You just keep staring at me. Like a... a weirdo.”

Electra grinned and shrugged “It's ‘cause your... pretty.”

“You’re just squiffy Electra.” Caboose rolled his eyes having hoped for an answer that sounded more truthful that that. He came closer to wipe the crumbs and dust of Electra.

“You’re reaaaally pretty.”

“Uh-huh. How nice.”

“Like almost as pretty as... me.” He smiled happily and nodded at the thought of supposedly himself. “Why didn’t you come to the party?”

CB didn’t even look up as he responded, “I would rather stick needles in my eyes... Or your eyes.”

“Not even a little dance Boosey?”

“I really want to, but the voices tell me i shouldn’t. Also stop calling me that.

“Aw come on.”

“The short answer is no. The long answer is noooooooooooooooooo.”

“You’re such a bore. An absolute B. O. R. E.” Electra said looking him in the eyes. The brake van didn’t respond and just stared back emptily.

“If I’m a bore it seems you’re Dinah.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going because I can’t. Simple as that.”

“What have you got to be up early tomorrow to check the alphabet is still in order?” The electric smirked and rested his hands on the freight truck.

“Hands off.”

“No.”

He continued to bring a hand up to stroke Caboose’s cheek and twirl a small ringlet of ginger around his finger.

“Please stop.”

“What you scared of me?”

“No. Just... disturbed.”

The engine just laughed being to drunk to care how toughly he was gripping the smaller train.

“Sure.” Were his last words before he closed his eyes and began travelling his lips closer to CB’s. The brake truck became quickly startled and threw a punch at Electra’s cheek in a blind panic and a quick screech and a half.

Electra let go and fell to the rough ground below in outrage, shock, and pain. Instead of tasting delicious sin he was tasting... “Blood? Is this-... Uh-... UH-... OW.. OH MY..” the naturally intimidating electric now sat on the ground fanning his face as he gasped and whined. He turned to Caboose “WHAT WAS THAT F-FAH?”

“YOU TRIED TO KISS ME!”

“SAH?”

“SO? I SAID NO AND YOU APPARENTLY DONT KNOW WHAT NO MEANS!” He giggled nervously looking at the pathetic engine beside him. After a few moments he started genuinely cracking up and backing away from Electra to just watch the electric colossal of fame start to tear up like a baby.

“GAH WRAHN!” He yelled

“I can’t sorry. I need to get up early to check the alphabet is still in order.” He snickered

“HOW AM I GAHNA GET HAR?”

“Crawl baby, crawl. GO ON!” CB doubled over in laughter as the engine started to get up and stagger away in fright and confusion at the blood leaking from his mouth. He watched until he turned the corner and wiped the tears from his eyes. Caboose returned to his lowly shed soon after to rest from a good days work.

It wasn’t until early next morning when he was violently shaken awake by a high energy dining car. “What?! What?” He rubbed his eyes and trying to focus his eyes as he was dropped onto the bed again.

“I BOUGHT YOU SOME DRINKS!” yelled Dinah. Was she... He checked the clock. 2:53AM. Yep Dinah was absolutely hammered.

“Stop shouting.” Caboose whispered softly and took the six pack from her hands to put them on the table to look up to see Rusty sniggering at the half awake and bed head looking caboose he had ever seen. “Why’s Rusty here?” How on earth was Rusty drunk too? And he looked so normal? Well normal compared to Dinah who would be absolutely pink in the face with her nostrils flared as she would take on any engine for an arm wrestle or two.

“Rusty’s my FRIEND!” She giggled and beckoned him over to which he responded by also making himself perfectly comfortable on the brake truck’s bed with a silly little smile.

“He IS? WOW DINAH YOU HAVE FRIENDS?” Caboose shouted back sarcastically giving her a sour look.

“YESH!” She said proudly and hugged the steamer tightly.

“Why are you here Dinah?” He sighed

“We thought you were lonely so we decided we would sleep with you!” Rusty giggled and smiled back

Caboose rubbed his eyes quickly “I BEG YOUR PARDON?” Not expecting to EVER in a million LIGHTYEARS to hear such words come out of the pure little steam engine.

Dinah elbowed him “You haven’t a choice I’m ‘fraid.” She said as she wiggled her beside him in the single bed. She then reached for Rusty and pulled him closer and then somehow the caboose found himself with a dining car hugging him from the side and a precious little steamer lying on top of him. As soon as they were settled they almost instantly fell asleep. Caboose had barely spoken a word from being in a state of shock for the past twenty minutes or so.

Poppa was gonna kill him.

Oh well.

#i started writing and didn’t stop #i shouldve

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deadcactuswalking · 3 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 06/02/2021 (Fredo’s Money Can’t Buy Happiness)

This is an odd, scattered week - a slow one thankfully for the day after my birthday - but we do have a bigger album bomb than I expected from Fredo, even if “drivers license” is still at #1 for a fourth week, blocking EDM remixes of sea shanties because of course, it’s the UK after all. Let’s just get back into REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Now, I predicted last week that Fredo would have two songs debut high up on the chart from his most recent album, Money Can’t Buy Happiness, and the pre-release single “Back to Basics” would rise to the top 10. That didn’t exactly happen, as “Back to Basics” actually dropped out of the chart off of the debut for being one of the lowest-performing Fredo tracks, or at least less successful than the three songs that debuted, as that’s all the UK Singles Chart allows. Speaking of drop-outs from the UK Top 75, they’re all mostly inconsequential, made up of recent debuts like “Wellerman” by the Longest Johns and “Bad Boy” by the late Juice WRLD and Young Thug. In terms of notable drop-offs, we do have some arguably premature falls for minor hits, like “champagne problems” by Taylor Swift, “Body” by Megan Thee Stallion, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco, and, finally, “Diamonds” by Sam Smith. This is a slow week outside of the top 40, so we just have some spare oddities to cover outside of the drop-outs. For our fallers, we have “34+35” by Ariana Grande fading its remix boost at #14, “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #30, “SO DONE” by The Kid Yaoi at #52, “All I Want” by Olivia Rodrigo at #54, “Lo Vas A Olvidar” by Billie Eilish and ROSALÍA at #64 off of the debut and a couple real crashes at the tail-end of the top 75, those being “Holy” by Justin Bieber featuring Chance the Rapper at #71, “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion at #72, “Notorious” by Bugzy Malone featuring Chip at #73 and “Dynamite” by BTS at #75. This may explain the otherwise inexplicable returns for songs that are always clinging onto the back half of the chart, like “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #74, “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran at #70 and, incredibly, “Mr Brightside” by the Killers at #68, the highest it’s been in a while (and that’s a feat considering how long it stays on the damn chart). For gains, we’re really not picking up much traction here. Sure, “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong is back at #73 for some reason, but otherwise we just have middling songs with middling gains, like “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #61, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo at #59, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles rebounding to #44, “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S making a surprising and scary gain to #42 (and I’ll admit, I’ve warmed up to it quickly), “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra clawing back in the top 40 at #39, “Friday” by Riton, Nightcrawlers and Musafa & Hypeman dopamine re-editing itself up to #24 (Please don’t make this a hit) and finally, “Streets” by Doja Cat continuing its rise up to #12. Oh, yeah, and “Skin” by Sabrina Carpenter is down to #41 off of the debut but everyone’s forgotten about that song considering how big “drivers license” still is, so yeah, let’s just get to our new arrivals, because we do have some interesting things to touch on this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#66 – “Higher” – Clean Bandit featuring iann dior

Produced by Mark Ralph, Grace Chatto and Jack Patterson

Well, they made a song with 24kGoldn, and that was awful, so... I guess it’s Puerto Rican emo-rapper iann dior’s turn. They might as well remix “Mood” while they’re at it. Instead of Mabel filling in for the singing where 24kGoldn couldn’t on “Tick Tock”, however, we have honestly a less charismatic singer in iann dior playing all the parts, without a rap verse to speak of. Okay, so this could work if he just fills in the spot of generic anonymous singer, and it fits exactly within that mold if he wants to, even though that’ll take away any of the character he had – not that any of that character was likeable or interesting, but hey, baby, he is not your dad, so maybe he’ll blend in well with Clean Bandit’s decreasingly unique production. This is a tropical EDM track where iann dior’s non-existent range and raspy, uncaring tone zaps the energy out of the touches of steel drums and orchestral stabs. This drop is nothing more than a vocaloid loop, and a pathetic one at that, with iann dior’s really gross falsetto proving that Auto-Tune can’t really fix bad singing, not that it needed to be proven. The lyrics here are nothing to write home about, wrapping a love song with ocean metaphors probably just so he can say “I’mma get her wet, oh, baby, then slide”... Gross. There’s like zero build-up to this drop at all as well, so there’s no stakes, no climax, and hence not a good EDM track. Come on, Dan Smith of Bastille wrote this, can’t he get the lead vocal? At least it would sound competent.

#63 – “Grown Flex” – Chip featuring Bugzy Malone

Produced by the Fanatix

Ah, my favourite duo. Apparently this is from a Chip album that I didn’t even know existed, thankfully because it’s 21 tracks, over an hour, with two consecutive Young Adz features. “Grown Flex” is another collaboration with Bugzy Malone, probably here because of the video and the sample of iconic UK bass tune “Heartbroken” by T2, one of the most popular songs in that wave of EDM and a pretty damn great song. It has been sampled before by people like DJ Khaled and Drake but no-one’s made a better song, so maybe these formerly feuding Londoners can make a good song with this sample as the base? That isn’t a question actually, but if it was, the answer would be no. They pitch up the (honestly ahead of its time) vocaloid loop, and put an obnoxious UK garage-adjacent drum loop over it that’s barely on beat with all of the chiptune sound effects distracting from Chip’s also off-beat flow. The chorus is really awkward, with him being off-beat and uncredited female vocal backing vocals with entirely different vocal processing coming in and sounding equally janky. This beat isn’t broken inherently, it could work but it’s too shrouded in these two rappers void of personality. Bugzy Malone is here but his rough tone does not work on this beat, regardless of how much he wants to pretend there’s any melody to his drawl with the Auto-Tune and multi-tracking. He’s still somehow the best part though because, yeah, this is just... incredibly awful. The production is onto something by the end with the horns coming in but they immediately fade out and eventually it just abruptly cuts to some pointless chiptune beeping sounds that have been there the whole time but play alone right at the end for no reason. This is aggravating, I know I’m pretty much nit-picking but there’s nothing of substance to pick apart here anyway. This is pure incompetence and a butchering of a good sample... that they should be allowed to use freely, though, by the way. Abolish copyright law.

#62 – “Ride for Me” – B Young

Produced by Mike Spencer and Pacific

Since everyone seems to have forgotten how to actually make music this week, at least we can always count on B Young... okay, no, but at least he’s given up on trying to be a rapper or R&B singer at this point, as a lane of generic guitar-pop probably would work best for the guy’s voice. I mean, we have an acoustic loop here that sounds like it’s jacked straight from a Shawn Mendes demo. At least the incompetence here is charming, with his rougher vocals being a pretty nice contrast from the otherwise kind of ugly mixing, especially on the flat percussion. I do like the lyrics here, as he’s simply love-struck and enjoys the company of this woman, for more than just sex and appearances. He just hopes that things don’t change and the relationship lasts forever. Sure, it’s shallow but it seems genuine. Sure, there’s some drug references and him being pushy to ask her for no make-up, though it does come off as just enjoying her presence instead of any stuck-up preference, especially since he offers his tracksuit and they end up watching some crap Netflix original film. Yeah, this is just a sweet track if nothing else. Since I did do a full song review for his song “Jumanji” years back, I feel a weird sense of almost parenthood for this guy, like I’ve seen him grow and finally he’s made a good song, even if it’s a bit out of his wheel-house. He’s never not been genuine, just only now that’s given him some more likeability, even if it’s just to make a cute love song. He sounds like a good boyfriend, and that’s really the appeal of the song, so, yeah, good job. I’m honestly kind of surprised.

#60 – “Gravity” – Brent Faiyaz and DJ Dahi featuring Tyler, the Creator

Produced by DJ Dahi

This is the most frustrating song I’ve heard this year so far, I’m almost fascinated by it. Before we get into that, I’d like to say that it’s good to see Brent Faiyaz finally debuting a song relatively high, and this is DJ Dahi’s first ever credited UK Singles Chart entry, although he’s produced top 40 hits before for Kendrick Lamar. Faiyaz has been a bubbling artist in R&B for the past few years, and honestly he might have had the most successful career off of the three artists that propelled themselves off of the back of “Crew” with GoldLink and Shy Glizzy. It was a minor hit that ended up producing no rising stars until around five years later, where we have a genuine hit potentially coming from the guy who sung the chorus, of course with some help from Tyler, the Creator. I do think this song is good but owes a lot to that to the production and charisma of our artists, as I can pick this apart way too easily for my taste. This beat is good, with some incredible guitar work from Steve Lacy as he would always deliver, but feels very aimless, especially with the pointless air horns in the background that if anything distract from Brent Faiyaz, who needs room to breathe. I mean, he’s an R&B singer, of course he does. The beat takes certain left turns during the verses that seem like meanders and if it’s not deflating any of its groove for the sake of guitar loops, it’s got this really tense percussion that does not work for the content or performances here, which are both pretty checked-out, especially Tyler, who’s as stiff as always but without any really interesting lyrical moments or a shift of flow. It’s one of his worst verses in my opinion, and he really goes in one ear and out the other with how short it is, which surprises me because of how Tyler usually either steals the show or meshes really well with his collaborators. So, our two performers are mostly checked-out with little to no chemistry, and the beat is awkward and unfitting for the content, which is about them being brought back down to Earth by their loved ones, hence the name, despite their travel habits due to touring – which isn’t a thing that’s happening right now at all, so maybe this’ll be a slow burn hit before it can really resonate. If we listen to these lyrics more closely, we also don’t get the sense that Brent Faiyaz is even likeable here, as we have no reason given for this woman to not feel uncomfortable that he’s paying little attention to her. Instead, Faiyaz just comes off a dismissive ass to this undeserving woman who is reasonably upset at the lack of time spent with him. It’s never made clear that she’s pestering him, so I honestly don’t get how Faiyaz wants to frame this. It doesn’t help that Tyler has the opposite reaction, longing for his partner when he’s on tour instead of feeling annoyed by her, but ultimately with no interplay so this means nothing. Oh, and if the songwriting weren’t janky enough, the chorus is barely catchy and covered in pitch-shifted multi-tracking that takes any of the focus off of Brent Faiyaz, who’s constantly crushed by backing vocals, being pitched down for no reason with unnecessary censor bleeps when they both swear freely at other points in the song. This type of maximalist production works but only when there’s any grandiosity to make it feel warranted, and if there isn’t that, the gunshot percussion is out of place and there ends up being a lot of empty space. There’s nothing smooth about this, and that’s frustrating as you’d expect these three to bring a really relaxed tune with some great 70s soul vibes and... I mean, that’s obviously what they’re going for here, but it is painfully over-produced and ultimately immensely disappointing. I can see people enjoying this a lot but no, this doesn’t work for me at all. Sorry.

#45 – “Dancing on Ice” – Yxng Bane featuring Nafe Smallz and M Huncho

Produced by Don Alfonso and Quincy Tellem

Oh, Jesus Christ, these guys again... and Yxng Bane, I guess. So, you know what the deal is with this UK ‘trap-wave’ type stuff, right? There’s a vaguely interesting synth loop drowned out by cheap percussion and crap bass mastering, as well as awfully processed vocals from everyone involved. They can trade verses, but more often than not don’t say anything that doesn’t embarrass themselves. You get a sense of really toxic masculinity, misogyny and materialism without any charm in their delivery, inflections or wordplay – which is usually non-existent. Here, it’s not any different. Yxng Bane has some good melodic flows – and I really like his line about his Rolex Presidential Watch being discontinued but since he’s “going Donald”, he wears it anyway – but he also threatens... presumably the listener with gay conversion therapy in the first line of the verse, so all good will’s lost. Nafe Smallz sounds better than usual but his nasal flow is still whiny and insufferable, and M Huncho is here to waste time and sound bad doing it, although he’s probably the least worst sounding vocally out of these three clowns. I misread his line about his rucksack being heavy as “nutsack”, and that’s all the positive engagement I could claw out of this. I ask this every time but honestly, who listens to this?

#21 – “Ready” – Fredo featuring Summer Walker

Produced by Mojam

Much like the end of a Morrisons sweet aisle, past this point, it’s all Fredo. Admittedly, I didn’t end up listening to the record but I have heard a select few songs, this being one of them, and I’m not really a fan. I do like the eerie loop but it seems a bit unfitting for a triumphant flex song emphasising a rags-from-riches narrative, especially since the mix really crushes both Fredo and Summer Walker in this blend of boring skittering trap percussion and the ambiance, making her hook impact a lot less. Fredo’s verses are pretty damn heartfelt, I’ll admit, and I really like his lines about pleading with God that he should be let into Heaven. In fact, Fredo’s bars are pretty consistently great, focusing on how his criminal past in the streets of London refuses to escape him despite his efforts to make it out using rap, and by the end, he sounds pretty defeated when he says, “Yeah, I’m lonely, but that’s just a player’s life”. Honestly, for a song that initially builds itself up to be a triumphant flex song, it ends up just being kind of sad, and that’s fine, more fitting for the instrumental but it really makes the hook feel even more out of place. Ah, well, the song’s fine, really, just a blend of ideas that never really stick the landing together.

#18 – “Burner on Deck” – Fredo featuring Pop Smoke and Young Adz

Produced by RicoRunDat and Yoz Beats

Now this is what I want from Fredo. Now, this is posthumous in Pop Smoke’s case but it’s far from an unexpected feature, as whilst this is one of his first UK drill collaborations, Pop Smoke was known for his pioneering of the New York style of London’s grittier, more menacing drill music, and even named Fredo and Young Adz as some of his favourite rappers. Okay, so he had questionable taste – I mean, Young Adz? - but Pop Smoke felt more of a connection between New York and London beyond just instrumentals, with a shared slang, street culture and arguably most importantly, inequality. This is all cited from a Complex interview, by the way, but you can tell even from his music what a great respect he had for British hip-hop, especially considering his main producer, 808 Melo, is from London. The song itself is pretty great too, relying on these spacey synth loops that build up with more eerie keys before finally crashing into an intense drill beat, with all artists sharing the Auto-Tuned hook, but Young Adz probably shining the most in how he plays off of Pop Smoke’s deeper, rich voice with his nasal whine. The lyrics may be generic gunplay and flexing, but the delivery saves it for me, with Fredo enthusiastically shouting out Gorillaz of all people, and the chorus being way smoother than it would usually be for a drill track, as well as being really catchy. Pop Smoke absolutely kills it here, going with his typical stiff, fast-paced flow for a verse that is really short but just as powerful as he usually delivers. You can tell this was made for this track as well from the interplay on the hook and him shouting out Young Adz in his verse. Fredo pretty much completes the second verse by chiming in and showing more of the charm I enjoy from him as he mentions coughing the bar before he coughs for basically an entire bar. It caught me off-guard at full listen and it still leads in perfectly to the oddly-mixed sombre piano that comes in for the final hook. With a better mix – and even then, it kind of works without it – and maybe some extended verses from both London and New York drill artists, this could bang even harder. Maybe for a remix, this beat could bring the best out of Swarmz, DigDat, AJ Tracey, Hardy Caprio, Tion Wayne, Fivio Foreign even... I could go on, this could be a great posse cut. As it is, it’s still pretty damn good, and again, rest in peace to the late Pop Smoke.

#3 – “Money Talks” – Fredo featuring Dave

Produced by Dave

At first, I was surprised this debuted at #3, which seems high for a British rap track, but then I remembered that the last time these guys collaborated on a single it debuted at #1 without an album attached, and it helped that “Funky Friday” is also a great song, admittedly something I didn’t think at the time. It does make perfect sense that this debuts so high, especially since this album was actually executively-produced by Dave, so given these guys’ track records together and alone, I did expect something great, and, well... okay, so instead of a drill beat as this pretty vocal sample would be fit for, as would the flows, we get a lightweight trap beat with odd vocal and bass mixing. Admittedly, the 808 slides here are pretty excellent, but that’s the only shred of intricacy I see here, which is usually commonplace in Dave’s production. There’s also simply not enough consistency or variety here to make it worth the four and a half minutes, with the chorus being awkward if anything. There’s less depth to the rags-to-riches stories here, with Fredo probably giving more commentary than Dave does, which seems odd but fitting for how checked-out Dave is here. There’s just a resounding lack of anything to this song other than a boring beat and performances that could be a lot sharper and interesting. Sure, Dave flexes his technical piano skill by the end but the beat had already run dry by about two extra minutes before that – this could have run through your second verse, Dave, or you could have added a bridge instead of repeating the chorus. I do like some of the lines here that are obviously more personal and introspective, like Fredo’s conflict with the justice system and Dave explaining how he got robbed when he was a child and to cope with the trauma of this, he started toting weapons. I guess the EastEnders reference is funny but it just reminds me of DigDat making a similar cocaine joke with arguably funnier source material on “Guten Tag”. Yeah, this could be a lot better but it’s not offensive and hey, it’s competent at least. I mean, it’s Dave, it won’t be anything less, just a tad disappointing. I mean, come on, “coochie freshly shaven, man’s got expectations”?

Conclusion

This week is so disproportionately male, huh? Ironically as I say that, none of the women represented here – in the form of soulless EDM production and boring guest feature – get Best of the Week, as that’s going to Fredo’s “Burner on Deck” featuring the late Pop Smoke and, yes, Young Adz, with an Honourable Mention to B Young of all people for “Ride for Me”. Worst of the Week will obviously go to Chip and Bugzy Malone for the pathetic “Grown Flex”, with a tied Dishonourable Mention this week going to both “Dancing on Ice” by Yxng Bane featuring Nafe Smallz (for being gross and offensive) and “Higher” by Clean Bandit featuring iann dior (for being remarkably inoffensive). Yeah, Brent Faiyaz and Tyler are safe there but that’s still a fascinatingly bad song, though I don’t think I’ll make any friends with that opinion. Anyway, here’s the top 10 for this week:

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed and want more of my cacti-branded rambling, follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank. I can’t make any predictions for next week that aren’t depressing, but we may have to discuss death and politics next episode if a certain song gets renewed traction. Happy times. See you next week!

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sixmorningsafter · 7 years

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Chapter 14 Review - Intimacy and evasiveness in equal measure

Thank you so so much for this chapter; you are freaking awesome. At this point, your fic is longer than most PhD thesis. You’re completely bonkers, in the absolute best way. Please never change. Seriously, the level of interactivity in this fic is such fun and thank you for encouraging that. Some of the recent fancasts have been beyond amazing.

Gabi: “the level of interactivity in this fic is such fun” - you mean how I take fifty fucking years to respond to reviews that legitimately make my life!?!?!?!?! THAT LEVEL OF INTERACTIVITY!?!?! LMAO, gurl, can I just say before I dive into any of this that this review literally made me go back and edit some parts, that’s how helpful it was, and yet here I am, answering it an entire CHAPTER LATER!? For some reason the feedback for fourteen was really slow at first and then all of a sudden like 10 giant reviews came in at the same time, and I just took way too long to get around to all of them and kept answering the short ones first (because they take less thought/time), and then once I was done answering the short ones I was drained because I’m weak and wouldn’t survive the winter. BUT HERE I AM. Ten years later. Ready to friggin go. LET’S DO IT.

Firstly, I can’t believe you stopped before the Steroline sex! Rude. I would have been devastated (melodramatic OTT much) had you not given us one of the best SC kisses ever. Honestly, I think I might have sighed a little out loud. And after Stefan’s stupid assed, jealousy mental meltdown, Caroline demonstrates exactly why he has no need to be jealous in one sentence - “Damon could do all those things without it once being intimate.” It’s really obvious that ‘intimate’ is a mental thing for Caroline, I loved watching the switch click in Caroline’s mind from non intimate to intimate. Oh Caroline - you poor silly girl, you’ve got it bad!

Gabi: So, the plus side of answering this once 15 is already up is that I don’t have to feel bad about blue ballsing anyone anymore, muahahaha. Steroline sex is officially up and out there and there’s no taking it back now. Re: 14, though, love alllll of these insights and the particular moments of theirs that you choose to compare and contrast. They’re both stupid levels of in denial here, but the good news is the end of 15 and hopefully the majority of 16 is a bit of a new era for them - one where they actually try, I don’t know, communicating? It’s going to be wild.

The part where they are watching YouTube videos together and eating Caroline’s secret food stash (naughty Caroline keeping treats from the other inmates of 2B - tsk, tsk) was very sweet and surprisingly intimate in it’s own right. I love how they have elements of easy friendship that they don’t even seem to recognise. I’m very interested in how their sexy timez are going to go because they could be hot, sweet or kind of silly/jokey or maybe all three. I think it’s going to get intimate whether Caroline likes it or not; Stefan may even bust out some of his Disney Prince romance vibes. I’m so intrigued as to who their third wheel could be.

Gabi: I really enjoyed writing that scene for exactly that reason - that somehow, these two super awkward people with a bunch of confusion and tension between them keep finding themselves in random moments of easygoing camaraderie, and all it really takes for that to happen is time and/or a distraction. I’m trying to hint at a possible future for them that doesn’t have all of this drama, that’s actually driven by a genuine enjoyment of spending time together and light-hearted banter and a warm hum of affection, but their poor coping/communication skills from their past experiences are just getting in that way of it. And hahaha, re: sexy timez, now you know! Disney Prince romance vibes definitely happened and Caroline, well... had some conflicts with it. As for the silly/jokey thing, I wouldn’t rule that out just yet for future scenes.

I know you are trying to achieve balance between your characters. At this point, I feel I know a lot about Stefan, Bonnie and Caroline, but with Damon, he’s still a mystery.

I both love and hate that we don’t know more.

Love - because I know you are being all clever and writery and keeping it from us on purpose. That having us see Damon through the other characters’ eyes is a clever way of 'revealing’ titbits without revealing them. Even Damon’s internal monologue is super evasive and kind of shallow (compared to Bonnie’s about him which was downright hilarious and completely nuts especially the hitman, Bonnie the world’s most boring mark lmao).

Hate - because I am such an impatient spoiler seeking nut bag, I need to know everything! Look honestly though, if you had told me before this started that I would actually be interested in Damon as a character himself, not as Bonnie’s boyfriend or Stefan’s brother, I would have scoffed at you. See Gabi, this is the power you wield. Use it wisely! Mwah ha ha.

Gabi: SOOO it was definitely still in the typical evasive flashes-of-insight format that Damon’s PoV tends to operate in, but I think 15 hopefully gave you a little more of what you were looking for regarding him? His guard was forcibly down for a bit, and his head went more into his complicated relationship with his mom, and part of the reason why I didn’t tie his panic attack fully up in 15 was because I’m carrying that arc into 16. There’s definitely aftermath, there’s definitely Bonnie the Hufflepuff making him feel unsettling things and think more about his life, and there’s also some Kai/Damon stuff that’ll have echoes of Damon/Tyler. So much more Damon ahead! And GURL, you don’t even know how happy it makes me to hear that re: ‘if you had told me before this started that I would actually be interested in Damon as a character’. That’s like the biggest compliment to me for some reason, like it gets me so hyped, so thanks so, so much for telling me! It’s tough to get people to like characters even when they’re blank slates, so getting someone to actually come around to someone they weren’t about before is like YAAAAAAS.

In all seriousness, Damon didn’t deserve the kicking he got from Stefan in the opening scene. Sorry Stef, that was uncalled for even if Damon did start it. While this scene was all about Stefan’s pov and his reactions, Damon’s evasiveness is totally in character. Even though he’s oh-so-not-bothered, Stefan’s assessment of him has to smart a bit. I hope these two crazy kids work it out. I need my drigh!brotp back together. (Quick aside about Stefan – I hope at some point, he’s going to fess up that it wasn’t about Damon, Bonnie, Caroline or even Elena. It was about his own feelings of insecurity. It’s like Bonnie’s rampage of self-destruction as the person most hurt by this is himself. It’s actually very canon Stefan.)

Gabi: He definitely didn’t deserve it, and I wanted to write it that way because I wanted to show that Stefan, like everyone else in this godforsaken headache of a story, is a flawed character who gives into emotional reactions and insecurity sometimes and acts out. Like I really wanted to make it clear that Stefan was in the wrong there, and I really wanted to do it at Damon’s expense because at the shallowest of glances, Damon would be the guy you’d assume can be asshole sometimes and Stefan would be the guy you’d label as the patient, understanding saint, and 14 chapters in, I really wanted to flip that. As harmlessly trolly as Damon can be to Stefan about Caroline, turns out that Stefan is the one who drew first blood between them, you know? And I think you’re totally right about the oh-so-bothered-but-not-really thing re: Damon - he’s been called terrible things his whole life, so he’s learned how to let them slide off him like butter, but even butter leaves a trail, you know? They definitely add up to a perception he has of himself that’s probably darker/less flattering than it needs to be, and Bonnie absolutely confronts that in 16. She’s kind of like, ‘hey, newsflash dark and twisty, you’re a good guy’. She has a little speech I’ve written out that I really like. Lots of feelsiness coming in 16, man. Including Stefan insights and realizations about insecurity!

I’m still super interested by Damon’s two identities. Are the two different dates of birth significant? Him not mentioning anything after Bonnie fessing up to poking in his wallet - evasive much? So he doesn’t take his Fell ID out normally? I need more details, here, stop trying to kill me.

Gabi: lololol, got a little more of this in 15! I’m not sure how much was obvious from the story because Damon’s thoughts about his past always come out super jagged when I write them (and obviously I know the whole thing ‘cause I’m making it up, lmao), but I think I gave enough to kind of explain why he had that ID on him? Maybe?

Bonnie telling him all about her sex dreams had him speechless and I loved that. Yes, he was very much – that’s ok Bon, sexy daydreams are fine, but I still think there was an element of him being chuffed about it. That was really cute; I liked that his reaction wasn’t to grab her and lay one on her - she did that instead (oh Bon, you saucy minx). I loved their kiss, so hot; I really like their connection, it has a more brutal honesty to it than Steroline’s. By that I mean that Caroline lets Stefan get away with more introspection because that’s what suits her, whereas Damon pushes Bonnie to lay out her soul for him because he really wants someone to do it back to him, deep down. I may be over analysing this and be completely wrong.

Gabi: LMAOOO, ‘you saucy minx’ - she really is. And Damon is all about it. And no, you’re 100% spot on in your analysis of the two ships, assss usual - I think that’s a brilliant way to put it. Damon doesn’t wonder as much about Bonnie because he pushes, in more ways than one, till she gives him answers. He’s confrontational. Blunt. And Bonnie needs that, because her insecurities and problems are so deeply, deeply entrenched into her that they’re basically covered in layers of cement. You can’t slowly uncover that, you need a jack hammer (vs. for Caroline and Stefan, the wounds are still a little too fresh and shallow for a jackhammer to do anything except make it worse. They need the gentle discovery). Damon’s a bit of a paradox in that he’s either 100% blithe and flippant and dgaf, or he’s 100% blunt and real talk, and generally he uses the first mode to evade and the second mode to investigate. Problem is, Bonnie’s a bit of a jackhammer herself, and I think 15 was the beginning of the tide shifting to Damon being the one under the spotlight. And we’ll see how he likes that moving forward. Payback’s a bitch.

Did I detect that Damon might have a slight bird phobia? A dove in your shower is never good, but he seemed more than a little nervous. Also how is his hand doing? Dr Bon needs to follow up her patients better. I am kind of surprised how prompt he was for Kai’s dinner. Does Damon have immaculate time keeping? Or he is genuinely terrified of Kai? I guess I’m kind of struggling to find Kai scary, a bit loopy, somewhat odd, but I was really surprised that Damon would be scared of him (I have blanked out the crossbow in his face episode). We know he can handle himself in a fight (thank you for that Caroline) and he’s survived that gunshot as a child. Damon strikes me as being hard as nails (except around Bon) - Kai should be a cakewalk. Does he recognise something in Kai that he might have experienced in his past? Chapter 15 should be illuminating - I really hope we get plenty from his pov. I can’t wait.

Gabi: You did and it was totally unintentional. I actually went back and read over the way I’d written it after this feedback and totally got the same vibe (it was meant to be humorous but definitely came across as a little deeper than that), so thanks so much for pointing this out! I did a few little edits that I think put forth a more accurate picture of both the bird reaction (annoyance, bafflement, Damon in general being a growly diva) and his immaculate time-keeping (which was definitely supposed to be the focus more so than any actual fear of Kai, which, lmao, I think 15 makes pretty clear doesn’t exist). I think I could maybe argue that getting attacked by a dove in the shower could carry a bit of trauma from his basement-with-rats days, but even so, he’d hide that, so. Edited and more accurate thanks to bomb feedback!

ANYWAY, THIS IS ONCE AGAIN 600 YEARS LATE but oddly, it was kind of fun answering it with 15 already written? In any case, I’m so friggin’ sorry it took me this long to respond, and your feedback, as always, is one of my fave things about writing this fic because it’s always so hilarious and insightful. Thanks so, so much for this review, and hopefully 15 delivered the things you were after and 16 will deliver them even more. LOVE YA, BABE!

#reply #six mornings after #review #14 #lmao first I wrote '16'#and then I wrote '15'#and then I was like WAIT NO '14'#yikes #submission #anyway this was rad and still makes my day so #thanks so much babe #janet's the best

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tomhollandish · 7 years

Text

Peter: Kinesis

A/N: This is overdue. Long overdue. I’ve been working on this a while now, trying to get each part of it to work, and now it’s done. Happy New Year everyone.

Summary: In which Queens gains another hero, and Peter gains something else.

Warnings: Cursing

Word Count: 4,578

The walls of midtown flew by Peter Parker as he scrambled his way out of the school. From his back pocket he produced his mask, slipping in on over his head as the doors bust open, rattling on their hinges from his strength. He cursed, chucking his backpack into the nearest alley and took off his clothes, the signature red and blue already underneath. Along with his spider-sense wracking through his body, there were the sounds of screams erupting from the blocks that lay ahead.

Peter shot a few webs, swinging himself to a higher vantage point. There was dust blowing back from the scene of the crime, car alarms ring off, and even from here, Peter can see debris flying, indicating that this wasn’t an average robbery.

He was trying to get closer when something, much faster than his brain could register whizzed above him.

“WHOA,” Peter was literally cut off, hands flailing in the air as his web was severed, sending him into a free fall. He flicked his wrist towards the nearest building, perching atop a balcony. There was the smell of smoke, and the haze seemed to fill an entire two block radius.

Peter could hear sounds of static throughout the city, certain electronics on the fritz in all the smoke and rubble. And with the arc of lightning that cut his web, there could only have been one person behind it.

Before he could piece it all together, his danger warning flared again, making him jump. White hot lightning jumped like sparks, arcing to reach the wall crawler. Peter was fast, but he could still feel the heat singe the side of his suit, flesh burning as he tried to stay moving. “The faster I move, the less likely he is to hit me,”

“Oh, I do love that brain of yours, you insect!” Electro’s voice was smug, trying to fly after the wall crawler. Peter made a swing around a lamp post and kicked an unsuspecting Electro in the face, making him fall back.

“Actually, spiders are arachnids,” He corrected, smirking behind the mask. He used the few seconds he had to take in the devastation of the blocks around him. There was too much damage for Electro to just be shooting bolts of lightning at random things. Lights flickered, electronic billboards were fritzing out, and the sides of buildings had been completely blown out. It wasn’t until Peter noted the metal, street poles leaning, signs being pulled in Electro’s direction did he understand.

“Neat new trick you’ve got there,” Spidey remarked, noting that after his kick, Electro paid him no mind. “Hey what’s the matter? Tired of me already?” He swung around, trying to face the villain but there was a tug in his gut, much deeper than his normal spider sense. He immediately dropped to the ground before heat lapped at his back, flames erupting from the side of a building where a transformer was blown to bits.

More shouts filled the air and Spider-Man froze, looking back at the wreckage from the spot he was crouched in. Metal was still falling around the air and from the looks of it, the machine has exploded from the inside out. Electro was cackling, rising high above the air in front of Peter. His maniacal laugh was outlandish, but never the less frightening.

“It is a good trick little spider. It’s too bad you won’t be around to see anymore!” Hands poised to strike, Peter was too awestruck to move before the lightning would engulf him. The boy was fast, but he wasn’t faster than lightspeed. Looking up he tried to find a feasible escape route, when something behind Electro caught the boy’s eye.

It was a glimmer, almost like a tiny point of refracted light. For a second it twinkled and pulsed like a star, but then it expanded, into a flat disk of bright, almost purple light. It was placed above Electros head, and for a moment, Peter thought it was some effect from Electro’s power.

And then it hit the villain flat on the head.

He expected the disk to shatter on top of his head like glass, but instead it slammed him onto the asphalt right in front of the red and blue vigilante. Spider-Man jumped nearly a foot in the air, watching as the villain lay motionless in front of him.

“Hello? Earth-to-Electro?” he tapped the side of the man’s head, a groan escaping his lips. Peter gasped and shot a web to silence him, slinging two more to secure his hands to the ground. He then craned his neck high above him, catching sight of a cloaked figure descending to street level.

Once their feet touched the ground, Peter gave then a long hard stare. The dark purple cloak revealed almost nothing about the person; the hood covered well past their eyes, shielding their identity as a form of mask. There’s a huge jewel set in an emblem that rests where he thinks their chest would be, but other than that, no other connections form in Peter’s mind.

He blinks, thinking the stranger might be looking back at him from under the hood, but he doesn’t want to make the wrong assumption. He wants to make a quip, but before he can, a bubble of the same purplish light forms around Electro. He’s lifted off the ground, levitating beside the mysterious hero.

“I will make sure he is put away,” the figure speaks, and Peter is taken aback at the sound. It’s powerful; a sound that is both daunting and comforting, like the voice of a goddess. Her English is proper, much like Thor’s and it’s almost accented, in the weird way that all mystical beings are.

His Spider-sense isn’t what’s going off at the moment, it’s his heart beat. He’s nervous, unsure of what to tell the woman as she flies off, Electro secure in a bubble of light behind her. In the distance police sirens are wailing, coming closer and closer to the scene of the crime, and Peter splits, trying to rid his thoughts of the cloaked woman.

“And just what the hell was that?”

Tony Stark was pacing the living room in front of a bruised Peter, the wounds on his back being tended to by you, who tried very hard to focus on both men at the same time. Peter would notice your brows furrow as you flicked your eyes up to your father, before bringing them back down to the scrapes in front of you.

“Dad, can you just calm down for a second,” you gritted out behind Peter. “The news isn’t going anywhere, they’ve been playing it non-stop for hours,” you rolled your eyes, patting salve onto Peter’s burned side. There were raw red scars from the heat of Electro’s lightning, and the hero could see the worry in your eyes. He’d never been hurt quite like this before.

Tony probably hadn’t even noticed Peter’s injured state, what with being whipped up into a frenzy. His back was turned towards them, the footage of the fight from earlier that day playing on the national news. “And it seems there’s a new hero in town—does New York have room for a new caped crusader?”

“She has a goddamn cape!” the Billionaire shouted, stomping his foot on the ground like a child. “There’s only two men who can pull off a cape, and they live in this tower!”

“Technically, Thor lives in Asgard,” Peter laughed as Mr. Stark turned on you, brown eyes fixed in a menacing glare.

“Upstairs, Y/N. Now,” he hissed out, and you seemed considerably shocked. Closing the latches on the medical kit, Peter turned to see your pouting face, looking at your father in disbelief.

“Fine,” you eventually stated, crossing between Peter and your father, staring him down. The boy found it odd that you hadn’t given more a fight, but there wasn’t much time to think about that after the elevator door shut. The room was quiet, save for the television, broadcasting the same moment over and over again.

Tony hummed, holding his elbow in his hand, stroking his chin in thought. “What was it like, Parker? Seeing him in action like that, taking down a villain without even showing his arms.”

“I think it was a girl,” Peter corrected, hopping down from his place on the counter top. Tony spun on his heels, creasing his brows.

“Really?” he spoke in almost a whisper, his eyes not entirely focused on Peter. Knowing that same gaze, the younger man shook his head, arms up in a placating gesture.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You don’t think what’s a good idea, Parker? I haven’t even said anything yet,” the smirk that played across the inventor’s lips was one that spelled trouble; not just for him, but for all involved.

Peter had gotten used to Mr. Stark’s whims, often going along with what he said for fear the repercussions weren’t worth the fight. He’d often seen you deny his father what he wanted, but there was a level of trust and respect there that Peter hadn’t earned.

But now, after nearly two years answering Tony’s beck and call, becoming part of his team, and practically living here because of Y/N, he figured he might be in a position to remind Tony that messing with foreign entities was a horrible idea.

“We don’t know what she can do,” he responded, speaking warily and carefully, like he was stepping around a landmine. “We don’t know who’s side she’s on. We’ve seen plenty of people do good deeds and then turn on a dime. Before you even think of knocking on the door of a potential alien threat, let’s make sure she won’t kill us if we do.”

There was a silence that followed, but to Peter it was filled with his shallow breaths and loud heartbeat. His brow began to sweat the more Tony stayed silent, and the teen shut his eyes when Tony started to approach him. It was only when a hand lay clasped on his shoulder did Peter open them, seeing a genuine smile gracing the billionaire’s features.

“That’s some pretty sound advice there, Spider-Boy,” Tony teased, making peter gulp. “Wonder where you learned to make such good decisions.”

Peter wanted to laugh, but his insides were still panicking, waiting until the hand was gone before his shoulders relaxed. “Tell you what, kid. You keep letting her run into you and maybe, just maybe we’ll have enough intel to make a call. Sound like a plan?”

“What, you want me to spy on her?” the boy cocked his head, unsure of what Mr. Stark wanted.

“I want you to make her trust you. Do whatever you think is necessary to gain some background knowledge on her. Who knows, we just might have to make a silver bullet for her, just like we did Banner,” Tony muses, and Peter grows a little pale. He wanted to step out of the billionaire’s grip, but Tony’s hand is like a metal clamp that squeezes tighter and tighter the more he fidgets.

“Peter I know you’re doubting me right now. Everyone does at some point. But you have to believe me when I say that I want not only the best for this team, but the best for the only world I can change. Does that make sense?” Tony’s brown eyes were pleading, a shade of humility and compassion Peter hadn’t seen up close. Perhaps this was the twinkle in Mr. Stark’s eyes that made him say yes to Germany all those years ago.

Peter felt his chest heave, but he didn’t remember saying yes. There was a nod from Tony, and then a wink as he took his hand off of Peter and resumed his stance in front of the T.V, stroking his chin in deep thought. He thought he’d heard the man mumble “I’ll figure you out soon enough.”

The following day was normal; as normal as a life being Spider-Man could get.

His villains were standard—robbers and thieves who obviously knew they’d be up against the crime fighting spider, for they held a few tricks up their sleeve.

“Hey, buddy!” Peter yelled, dropping on top of their getaway van with ease, knocking on the driver’s window. “The speed limit here is only thirty-five, you might need to slow down!” He was met with bullets, flipping out of range and back onto the hood of the car. He swung off and landed in front of the car, shooting webs between the two light posts perpendicular to the car. At the speed it was going he only had a few seconds to create a web strong enough to hold back tons of force, or else he’d be sent flying through some skyscrapers.

“C’mon, C’mon,” he jittered, thickening the webs as much as he could. The moment he looked up the headlights were right in front of him, car hurtling at an even faster speed that he wasn’t sure his webs could hold. For a split second there was a shuddering current of fear that passed through Peter, and the next second his stomach bottomed out.

“What the-??” He almost cursed, insides churning at a sudden weightless feeling. He was kneeling down on something purple and solid, but he could see straight through it, the van in pursuit below him. He tapped his finger against the barrier, the surface hard and reflective like glass. It was only then did Peter have the sense to look up, noticing the billowing cloak beside him.

“You have permission to get back down anytime you like,” she said, and Peter swore from under the hood he could see a smile. With her cloak pulled back he could see her costume; a leotard and tights combination that he was certain only worked in comics and cartoons, but the woman didn’t seem to have a scratch on her. The more he studied her, the more he found her familiar.

She seemed to catch his stare, turning her head to meet him and Peter’s nerves flared, choosing to look back down at the chase. A slew of police cars were speeding after the van, and from the passenger’s window something came tumbling out.

“Wait!” Peter screamed, noting the small hand grenade that was tumbling among the police cars. Suddenly they stopped, the cars passing them and the woman stalled.

They were hovering for a split second before she seemed to catch sight of what Peter was yelling about. She turned to him, and with a rushed voice said, “Do you trust me?”

“Yes!” there was no hesitation in his answer, just a loud and clear response before she dropped the barrier. Peter landed on the hood of a police car with grace, watching as the floating figure loomed above the street. Her hands had caught the grenade in a purple bubble, the device exploding within its parameters and before collapsing into nothing.

Peter could only stare, impressed beyond measures before she had caught up to the chase. “Do you want me to help?” she inquired as she pointed to the van, plowing passed lanes of traffic as it sped away. Peter felt frazzled, his nerves on overdrive as news choppers flew overhead, cameras pointed down at the heroes as they whizzed by.

“Can you make a disc, like you did earlier?” he questioned, and in a matter of seconds the girl was pulling Peter onto the platform.

“What’s your plan?” she spoke, speeding up to catch the van.

“I need you to get me way in front of them, and make sure they only go in a straight line. Can you do that?”

“I’ll manage,” she said, before grabbing his hand tightly. “Be careful, this is going to get difficult.”

He didn’t have time to ask what she meant. Her hands closed around his wrist like a vice, and then they were flying; gravity defying flips and turns to avoid the debris that went flying. Peter had felt this feeling before on his own, but her tricks were almost scary without the safety of his webs.

She slowed down before dropping them safely on the ground. Peter set to work on his massive web, while his partner stepped forward. Just as the getaway car swerved to turn, she shot out her hands, creating a wall of purple light. The car veers left, noting the barrier on both sides.

Peter looked up with a grin, but it fades as he notices the girl’s arms shaking, her fingers crooked and strained as she keeps the walls of light. The robbers have slammed the breaks, trying to stop before they reach the spider’s trap, but it’s no use. The car screeched forward, and seconds before she would have gotten hit, the cloaked women fell out of the way, hitting the pavement before Peter can react.

Several things happen all at once: the van sticks to the webbed wall, the volley of police cars wail into existence, all of them curbing to stop before they create pile up. A wave of police officers swarm the scene, apprehending the criminals and shaking hands with Spider-Man. As Peter tries to wade through them, they turn to the spot he’s fixated on, the spot where a woman in a purple cloak should be, but instead its bare, as if no one had ever been there.

“You let her go again?”

Y/N is surprisingly absent from the tower, the only person Peter wanted to see, and the only person who would be able to tone down the glare on Tony’s face. Steve and Natasha, who are surprisingly present, have their arms crossed as they stand on either side of the fuming billionaire. Noticing their expressions, Peter pouts.

“Don’t tell me you’re on his side of this!” Peter says, sulking even lower in his chair. Steve can only sigh, taking in Peter’s cut arms and bruised cheek.

“Take it easy kid, we’re not on anyone’s sides. We’re just analyzing the fight,” he explained, laying a hand on Peter’s shoulder. The boy blinks, looking between the captain and the screens behind him.

“What do you mean analyze. Were you watching me?”

Steve opened his mouth to answer, but Nat beat him to the punch. “We were, and we still are. The fights’ been filmed and we’re playing it on a loop right now.” The assassin is chewing gum idly, as if Peter’s bewildered face means nothing. Her pink lips curve into a smirk. “Wanna see how you did?”

“No, I don’t. I was there,” Peter replied, his mood sourer than before.

“No need to be pouty, you did pretty well. I mean, the little that you did, it was pretty good,” Natasha teased, blowing a bubble as Steve shot her a look. “What?”

“What she means is,” Steve interjected, surveying everyone’s faces. “Is that this…person has shown a wide variety of powers that are amazing.” The blonde man looked back to the screen Tony couldn’t look away from, being pulled in to a similar trance the longer he stared. “And with that kind of power,”

“Comes responsibility,” Peter finished, effectively gaining three pairs of eyes. Steve’s widened eyes became normal again as he smiled fondly, his shock at Peter’s burst of wisdom wearing off.

“You got it kid,” he said, ruffling the web slinger’s hair as he exited the room, not even sparking a glance backwards. Nat followed, smirking at Peter, but with softer eyes that conveyed affection. The door stayed open as they left, giving Peter the impression that they were eavesdropping.

“Oh, they’re still in the hallway,” Tony confirmed, winking as he turned to face the younger man. “Keeping an eye on me, making sure I don’t come up with anymore crazy plans.” He said this with a type of cynicism that came off as resentment, but Peter didn’t point this out. “They’re also wondering if I’m going to tell you what I think. They don’t believe you should know.”

“Know what?” There was no curiosity in his voice, just a leery tone that makes him edge back into his seat. Tony eyes are sharp, cutting across the room to Peter with deadly precision.

“They—we—think that little miss Kinesis might have gotten her power the same way Wanda did; Loki’s staff.”

The hard truth should have bothered Peter more than the nickname. “Kinesis?” he wondered aloud, making Tony’s serious nature deflate just a hair.

“You’re killing me kid, stay focused,” he snapped, although there was more mirth in his eyes than had been there before. “I came up with that, by the way. Banner came up with ‘Ultraviolet’ and Vision, surprisingly, came up with ‘Prism’. I think he wants someone with a name like his, but not everyone can pull that off.”

“Okay wait,” Peter thought, a little annoyed that he’d gotten Tony so off track. “Didn’t Wanda and Vision get their powers from the same place? And aren’t they on our side?”

“They are now, but Wanda wasn’t always,” Tony grimaced, looking at the floor as his feet shuffled. “But the most concerning part of this theory is that Loki probably didn’t do this himself.”

“But why would he give power to a human?” Peter was simply thinking out loud now, running through every possibility in his head. “Wouldn’t it be more likely that she’s like him? An Asgardian?”

“Ah, but see, that’s even worse,” Tony pressed, his pointer finger poking into the table. “Loki isn’t actually an Asgardian; he’s a frost giant. His magic is not the same as Thor’s. But that’s neither here nor there, considering Loki’s powers on his own only include shape shifting and being really sweaty on earth,” Tony shrugged, now sitting in a chair. “But the staff however, had something else inside.”

“Something with the ability to give people powers. Something Wanda got from H.Y.D.R.A,” his words died after that, a shuddering feeling working its way down his body. Frightened, he looked up at Tony, who wore a mask, lips in a thin straight line as he nodded.

“Another agent to topple empires,” he said in a whisper, as if Steve really was listening outside. Then Tony dramatically cleared his throat, standing to full height. “But, these are only theories.”

Peter still sat in silence, the hypotheses running rampant in his mind. He looked to the screen behind Tony, watching as Kinesis fled the scene, disappearing into thin air. Every theory seemed wrong, even in a world full of power stones and frost giants. The avengers judged everything she did, but Peter couldn’t. He saw her help him, twice. He needed to know why.

“I won’t walk away with nothing next time,” Peter spoke, making Tony pause in the door frame. He looked back at the young avenger, face turned toward the screen and his back hunched in intrigue. There were no more words exchanged as Tony closed the door, shutting Peter in the room, alone.

Nightly watches were Peter’s least favorite part of his job.

They were almost unjustified, considering that from his apartment in Queens, Peter could feel danger almost as well as he could out here. The night was freezing as November rapidly came to a close. He sat atop a building, pacing to keep warm.

The city was a cacophony, sounds meshing together and finishing each other’s trains of thought. Smoke rose high into the sky and lights flickered in and out of existence. The more Peter focused, the less he felt, slipping into a trance as the city hummed under his feet.

He sighed, content. Being a hero in his city beat being an Avenger any day.

Queens had just a grip on him that his danger sense didn’t warn him about the figure floating next to him. It was only when your feet landed (with no caution, to his benefit) did Peter return to the world of the living.

He looked over at her, his heart still beating twice it’s normal pace. Her hands poked out from underneath her, pulling the cloak closer inward for warmth. “I did not mean to scare you.”

Her voice alone was eerie, but Peter didn’t mention that. “I know,” was all he could say back.

“I was wondering if you would like company,” her voice was not at all bashful. Instead when Peter balked at her, she stepped closer to him. “It must be boring and lonely at times up here.”

Her noted her slight change in tone this time around; still powerful, but quieter, as though the gravity of the situation was different between the two statements.

Peter took her offer into consideration. On the one hand, they could hit it off with jokes and laughter, bonding over what, Peter couldn’t fathom. But on the other hand, he could agree and shake hands, only for her to stab him in the back (and hand).

He weighed them both, watching her closely as she stood patiently (too patiently?) for his answer.

“Company is much appreciated,” he told her at last, wanting to at least shake on it, but instead turning back forward. The two of them stood side by side in silence, watching the bustling city below them. Every now and then Peter would cut a glance at her, eyeing her movements with narrowed eyes she couldn’t see.

“What should I call you?” he blurted, not even moving his head to look at her. Peter’s face erupted in heat, an interesting feeling bubbling in the pit of his stomach—like butterflies moshing together, their wings beating around and making him breathless.

“What do you want me to be?” She sounded vulnerable, human. Peter looked at her.

“Kinesis,” he said without thinking, before stuttering. “That is, if you don’t have a name already.”

“Kinesis?” she asked, cocking her head with confusion. “I do not follow.”

“No, it’s…a name. You don’t have to choose Kinesis, you could choose…Prism! Or, or Ultraviolet!” He was grasping at straws, trying to explain his mistake to her.

“I meant, what do you want me to be to you,” the way she emphasized you made the butterflies in Peter’s stomach freeze, along with his brain. “A sidekick, a partner,”

“A friend.”

Both of them understood the weight of Peter’s words as they hung there, the two heroes facing each other. After that moment, Kinesis took her hands and pulled down her hood, showing for the first time, a smile.

With the moon at her back, certain features were lost, but the ones that remained transfixed him. Decidedly dark green hair swirled around her shoulders in curls, framing her face. Bangs covered her forehead, but between her eyes rested a jewel, a downward facing crescent of gold. Piercing eyes looked back at him, a color he could not quite decide. She stepped forward again, hand extended for him to shake.

“Alright, Spider-Man. I will try my best.”

In her lowered voice, smiling with more than her mouth, a familiar feeling tugged at Peter, one he didn’t want to place. He had forgotten entirely his promise to Tony, and the theories of her origin. He took her hand, the tips of her fingers cold from the November air, but her palms warm. Taking in the moment, Peter finally grinned back, his excitement apparent in his voice.

“Kinesis, I have a felling this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

tag list: @agentkenziecaptainamerica @winterfellsgreywalls, @girlsandarrows, @bisexualwanda, @1022bridgetp @mountartemis, @thepeterparker

#mine #peter parker #peter parker x reader #spiderman #peter parker imagine'#spiderman imagine #marvel imagine #marvel

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swiftkick404 · 7 years

Text

AU: Ginny's memories of her First Year and her time with the diary horcrux are wiped. Things go a little differently because of this - especially as she resists the rule of Death Eaters in Hogwarts in her Sixth Year :) [WIP five chapters 30k words]

the second splinter

chapter five: the condemned and the conspiring

o o o

silent knife, unholy knife

o o o

Ginny shared her room in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place with Hermione, and for most of the summer that had been a perfectly fine arrangement.

It was less than ideal since their latest guest's arrival at the old house.

She stood outside her bedroom in a dark hallway and considered possible places to sleep that didn't also house her brother, Ron, and a very agitated Harry Potter.

From the other side of the door, Ginny could hear the three of them: Hermione trying to be placating, Ron attempting mumbled support, and Harry speaking quickly and lowly while he paced the room. He would hit the floorboard at the end of Ginny's bed and turn there, on the squeakiest spot, in his laps.

He was genuinely upset about You-Know-Who, and Ginny sympathised, really, she did, but she was also tired and frustrated. If the three of them couldn't bother to include her, then they should have at least had the decency to do their private conferences in Ron and Harry's room. She wanted her pyjamas and the squishy feather pillow with the soft cotton sheeting and she wanted to sleep.

She also wanted to be involved in their conversation but that wasn't going to happen.

Ginny gave the door a very perturbed look and turned for the staircase. There were lights on in the kitchen and she decided if she couldn't find a bed for the night, then company would have to suffice.

“Hey, Tonks,” she greeted the older woman as she dragged her feet into the kitchen.

“Wotcha!” Tonks grinned, her face pink and eyes a little glassy. Eying Ginny's frizzled state, she pointed out the obvious. “Sleep evading you?”

“Those three are holed up in my room. Didn't even invite me,” Ginny grouched.

Also at the table with Tonks was Sirius Black. Tonks had changed her hair to match his in colour, styled with one side long and the other buzzed, and the two could have been models on a rock album cover. Between them, furthering the rebel image, was the remaining third of a bottle of whiskey and a set of shot glasses.

Ginny took a seat with them and nodded to the alcohol. “Mum'll be after your heads for that.”

Sirius didn't often engage Ginny in conversation – they didn't ever have much reason to acknowledge the other in any specific manner – but he perked up at Ginny's warning. Smiling at her, he tapped his nose and winked. “Mum'll have to be awake to know any better.”

“Molly's finally worried herself to sleep,” Tonks said, shaking her head. “I haven't seen someone drop like that in a long time.”

Ginny was surprised. Her mother had been a ball of terrible energy for the entirety of the summer holiday and Ginny had sort of expected her to shun sleep until “the kids” were at least back at school.

“She really needed it,” Ginny murmured. Her gaze landed determinedly on the whiskey.

Sirius noticed and set his chair forward from where he had been sitting on its hind legs. Inclining his chin at the bottle, he asked, “interested?”

“No, no, not a good idea –” Tonks slapped away Sirius' sneaking hand. “Sorry, Gin.”

Ginny shared Sirius' devastated, open-mouthed stare of utter betrayal. She pointed out, aghast, “Tonks, you're supposed to be the fun one.”

“Don't the two of you team up. That's not fair!”

“Shit, what does a kid have to go through these days to earn a little whiskey.” Sirius was smiling, but it was a strange face he made. Bitter and disbelieving. “Fer cryin' out, Tonks, she's had just as much madness going on in her head as Harry –”

Ginny nodded, but didn't exactly understand his meaning. It sounded like a good argument.

“Totally mad,” she agreed.

Tonks' face went noticeably whiter and her eyes flickered, alarmed, over Ginny and back to Sirius. She said with a thin lip, “that's enough, Sirius.”

It took a moment for the warning to hit for Sirius. “Oh! Fuck – right. Shit, I meant – I meant –”

Understanding she was missing something important shared between the two, Ginny dropped her playful sadness and frowned. “What? What is it? What are you talking about?”

Because it usually went as such, Ginny thought they were talking about Harry. Another terrible thing had happened and he was worse off than before. Something more than the scar aches, perhaps?

“We're all dealing with the You-Know-Who stuff, innit?” She said. Insisting, “I could use whiskey. I've had it before. Charlie thinks he's good at hiding his stash.”

“Right, right,” Sirius said. He reached for the bottle and glasses again, tapped one with his wand so that it replicated itself, and handed one of the pair to Tonks and the third to Ginny. Easing his cousin's apprehension, he promised, “she'll just take a sip.”

Ginny held up two fingers close together. “Little sip.”

“She'll probably not even like it.”

“I'll hate it, I promise.”

Sirius whispered, quite audibly, “she's weak, now, Ginny. She's three under already.”

The two of them, a pair of tricksters, snickered as Tonks dragged a hand down her face and haggardly waved the other one for Sirius to pour a round. She grumbled about how they were very barbaric to strong arm her in such a way.

Ginny asked Sirius, who sat with easy composure, “have you really had three shots?”

He did whisper then, “actually this is her fifth and I've stopped at my first.”

“Cruel man.”

“I have a reputation to maintain, but hell, I'm not in my twenties any more.” He made a very big show of disappointment to hide his remorse.

“Stop your conspiring, the lot of you,” Tonks said, straightening her posture and becoming very determined. Lifting her glass, she solemnly called, “cheers,” and drained her shot.

Across from her, Sirius tipped his glass back, his mouth closed, and Ginny watched the whiskey reappear in the bottle. She swirled her own serving and put back the spoonful amount. Only enough to burn her lips and tongue and trickle down her throat in a hot, buzzing line. Ginny kept her features neutral; it really wasn't a taste she loved.

Tonks dropped her head to the table, groaning. “I've made so many bad decisions in my life to lead me to this moment.”

Sirius breathed out a shallow laugh.

“She'll be alright,” he assured Ginny. He held a finger to his mouth and poured another bit of whiskey into her glass. “Life is short.”

She didn't drink it right away, and instead slid the glass between her hands while trying to keep the drink from spilling over. She tucked a leg under her and rested her head on the other, raised tight to her chest. Sirius seemed content to sit and listen to Tonks' increasingly less coherent mumblings.

The kitchen was quiet but for the soft sound of snoring by the time Ginny got around to draining her second “shot.” More tingling at her lips.

“Don't care for it,” she said honestly. “When it's this hot out, the drink makes it worse.”

Sirius made a non-committal type of noise. He didn't seem to mind the warmth.

She asked then, because the question had been bugging her, and because she sensed a vulnerability in his front, “why would I be mad?”

They might have been talking about Harry earlier, but Sirius had said she, Ginny Weasley, had just as much madness in her head. Not just everyone was dealing with the resurgence of You-Know-Who, but her in particular.

Ginny watched Sirius tense slightly, a stiffness entering his shoulders and jaw. He liked to hold an aura of carefree fun – especially around Harry and her siblings – but he had tells and he hadn't quite remembered how to hide them. His shadowed eyes slid from watching Tonks to meet Ginny's patient, inquisitive stare. He winced at something he saw in her face.

“What?” She wondered, a little wounded by the reaction.

He didn't want to answer her – and he didn't answer her, not really.

“You said I was a cruel man?” The rhetorical statement hung between them, threatening to fall and end their odd and rare conversation. Then Sirius sighed and rubbed at his temples. Gravely, “I wouldn't have done that, though.”

She pinched her mouth at one corner, but let him talk at his own pace.

“Listen, Ginny, I'm all for keeping the whole of you informed. I've seen what happens when information is withheld from the right people. I know that,” he told her, his tone apologetic. Abstractly, “I don't like it. I don't.”

Shaking her head in confusion, she admitted she still didn't understand.

Sirius pushed his chair back, fidgeting, then pulled it again to the table to lean over to her. “They would prefer not to talk about what happened, Ginny. They would prefer it didn't happen at all.”

His closeness was unnerving, and his rambling meaningless to her, but Ginny felt an unexplained thrumming of excitement down her middle. She chewed her numb lip and waited with a breath trapped in her lungs for him to say something more.

“What happened?” She asked after Sirius considered her for too long a moment.

Her voice seemed to rouse him from his thoughts and the man retreated to his seat, went back to balancing on its legs. Looking away, all he he said was, “we've all seen it, Ginny.”

And she liked how he said her name, like he meant it. He said it like she wasn't a simple child fumbling around adults. But he also said it in a way that recognised a weariness in her she didn't see herself.

She watched his gaze become too distant for the tiny kitchen of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

“We've all been there,” Sirius said. “We've all seen the darkness. You're not alone.”

He might have been attempting to reassure her, but Ginny felt a hollow ache in her middle at his words.

#harry potter fanfiction #Ginny Weasley #Sirius Black #Nymphadora Tonks #harry potter au #one of my fics has 2100 reviews and this one has 16.... what has gone wrong in my life....

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fentonizer · 7 years

Text

Achievement from the comfort of your pyjamas

Horizon Zero Dawn is a “good game.”

Strap in, folks.

Horizon Zero Dawn is peak “video games.” It is all things to all people. It is an open-world, action-adventure-rpg with resource gathering, crafting and stealth mechanics.

If you were to send one game into space so that if an alien civilisation found it they would know what human beings thought video games were all about, then Horizon Zero Dawn would be it.

None of this is praise, by the way. Not really. If you asked me to give it a score I would say that the game gets seven points out of ten points. Or I would say that it gets three and a half stars out of five stars. Or I would say that it gets sixty-eight percent (because the number sixty-nine is a meme and should be avoided in these circumstances).

Let’s take a step back. Let’s talk about open world games in general.

Open world games are a genre of video game that are as popular as they are maligned. Like most genres (of any medium), it’s kind of hard to pin down key facets that a game has to have to be open world, but I’ll try- if instead of walking the circuitous ground level path to your objective, you awkwardly try to jump up steep hills, trying to catch a piece of geometry your character can stand on, there’s a good chance you’re playing an open world game.

OK, let’s take another step back. Video games are an interactive medium. the most popular games are about either sports or shooting people with weapons. Conflict, basically. Conflict is inherently the easiest thing to make a game about as you can lose, so it’s easy to give the player a lose-condition and therefore motivation.

There are other ways to motivate the player, of course. You can tell them that there are one-hundred of a thing and they have to find a lot of them, if not all of them. This is a pretty base motivation. You could put something really difficult in the game, something that takes study and mastery to succeed at. The problem with this is that it’s much harder to make a system like that than it is to put one-hundred of a thing in a space.

Open world games often rely a lot on finding lots of a thing. I don’t know how I can say this without being rude, but open world games are generally a time sink. Without a well crafted world that you want to see, there’s no more depth in finding one-hundred of a thing in a hedge maze, or block of flats. Moreover, the only difference between an open-world game like this, and a linear story based game (something like The Last Of Us, which is more similar than you’d think) is the extracurricular padding.

Experience points is another good one to motivate people. Start at level 1, kill an enemy, get 10 experience points. Get 100 experience points and you can get to level 2, and then you’ll be strong enough to fight the thing that gives you 12exp. Get to level 5 and you'll have enough points to learn a new skill! Pretty great, huh?

Crafting is good as well. There’s a very popular game called Minecraft that, as well as lots of mining, had lots of crafting. You get some wood and that makes sticks and planks, and with some sticks and planks you can make a shitty pickaxe that can get you a few stone. Some stone gets you a better pickaxe and then you can mine coal and turn enough stone into a furnace, put the coal in it and smelt copper, and so on. The player is enticed by a branching tree of options as they find more and more things, and they are encouraged to explore and forage to build up supplies of these items.

Horizon Zero Dawn has all of this, which is why people like it. Problem is, it never gets out of the kiddie end of the pool with it. It’s the base level amount of a system, and it’s obvious how shallow it is after an hour (that’s why I said “kiddie end of the pool” because that’s the shallow end. Please fund more of this writing on Patreon).

Crafting is just some of a thing to get more space to carry stuff. That’s it. Then you can stop crafting. Levelling up gives you 10 more hit points, and 1 skill point to spend on a skill tree that is basically useless beyond 5 incredible skills that make the game a cake-walk (Double arrows/triple arrows/sneak attack/better stealth/more resources). There’s no weapon customisation beyond some modifications, but there’s no strategy here, just find the best ones (purple, because fucking obviously) and slot them in.

The story is the usual “chosen-one” power fantasy that gets bonus points for at least being about a woman. Robots threaten the world, oh no. Try to stop them ok? Second act (hugely telegraphed) plot revelation, third act triumph, post credits sequel bait. Knocked that shit out in a weekend, mate. It doesn't successfully say anything or mean anything to anyone, despite trying very hard to send a message about the dangers of hubris, or trees being super. If anything, the takeaway message is that humanity is a collection of bumbling savages and should have been consigned to extinction at the first opportunity.

To be fair, games are about systems. At least, all the games people play, are about systems. Maybe, if you want a good story, then do something like read a book, you fucker. A good story in a game is hard to come by, mostly because it’s very difficult to mesh an interactive medium with linear story telling (and even harder to do non-linear story telling).

Systems and mechanics are what keep people hooked, and differentiate the medium. But a game where the systems and mechanics can ultimately be “solved” are boring. This is the best weapon combo, this is the best armour, these are the best mods for the best weapons and best armour.

There’s some good time to be had with the gameplay, as you learn the combat. You can scan enemies and see their components, and you have you actually learn how to fight things. They’re not simply big bubbles of hit points, with a red spot on them that does double damage. There’s fuel tanks you can rupture, or you can shoot off their weapons, or tie them down, or lure them into traps, or apply statuses. And that’s fun! it really is. At least three of the aforementioned three and a half stars I would give this game come from fighting things.

The combat is good because you have to learn how to be good at it. You have to have a plan and an approach. You can’t waltz in with you spear and start whacking shit as you will lose, and personally I think that’s great. Well, fighting the machines anyway. Fighting humans is a clumsy mess, as they are actually blobs of HP with a head that takes lots of damage.

The rest of the game makes me super sad though, because it’s full of all these gamer-contrivances. It’s full of real menial shit that is only in there because most gamers (at least the most vocal ones) are time-rich kids who need something to do. So give them exp to grind, give them a map full of shit to tick off a list, none of which does anything.

Give them main story quests, side story quests, AND THEN errand type quests. Make them walk to a place, start a quest, walk to another place to talk to a person, click the now mandatory button that highlights the things you need to interact with before going to a third place to kill some dudes, before finally going back to the first person who tells you “thanks” and then to fuck off as dispassionately as the whole affair started.

Make every ledge the player character can climb obvious so when you need to scale something vertically, you’re just doing a dot-to-dot that is impossible to fail. And then make other waist-high walls insurmountable because whoever was meant to come around and paint this edge in worn white paint didn’t get here yet.

The world is large but ultimately uninteresting. There’s no sense of place or sufficient landmarks to encourage you to learn where you’re going. You rely entirely on fast travel and the numerous on-screen arrows to get around, never once did I feel lost or small, I felt the opposite. I felt like the centre of the universe, I felt like the whole place was built just for me. Which, again, comes down to the bizarre decision to make climbable objects so obvious, it breaks my immersion, because “a creator” has clearly done something.

It makes me sad, genuinely sad, because this is a “good video game.” People like it because of these things, not in spite of them. They like it because they can sit down for 3 or 4 hours and they will feel like they've achieved something... All I see, for the most part, is the total waste of time that video games are. They are the illusion of progression and achievement. They are the chips of the cultural world; objectively better than nothing at all, but ultimately of no value. No amount of “Triple-Cooked” BS is going to stop them from just being chips (triple cooked = triple-A, support me on Patreon).

If this is the height of games, if this is a masterpiece, then we truly are doomed. We don’t need to strive for better, for more meaning in our games, what we need is a dozen shallow systems that a player can indulge themselves in between school, work and masturbation breaks. That’s what gets the big bucks after all, a psychological trick-room where you’re lauded for “achievement” from the comfort of your pyjamas. You did it! Who’s good player?! It’s you! Yes it is!

And I know, I am being hugely elitist, this is a personal attack on you and the thing you like, and that makes me reprehensible. Maybe I’m just doing this to be contrarian or to be noticed. If this game had gotten bad reviews, I’d say I loved it.

A lot of people put a lot of hard work into this game and I respect that. It frequently looks stunning and... well, I don’t want to delve into consumer advice as a deflection here. It’s fine. The game is fine.��It’s a fine game. Did I feel tested or challenged, did I feel I had to improve myself to overcome? Rarely. Do I feel like I learned something, anything, about the world, myself, my fellow man, or even anything about “video games?” No.

7/10. 3.5 Stars. 68%.

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