#only the shittiest pictures for the shittiest website
Text
here are some iconic concert pictures
#kai.jpg#only the shittiest pictures for the shittiest website#panic! at the disco#p!atd#brendon urie#ryden#brallon#pftwtour#pray for the wicked tour#pray for the wicked#pftwtourchicago#rosemont#chicago
139 notes
·
View notes
Note
I mean, I enjoy some good Tigerstar angst as much as the next guy, but I'm craving some fluff. Whatcha got?
alright, now that i've returned to the fluff side of the cycle...
i am returning to my Roots (not that i ever left them) for that sweet mistyfoot and feathertail content.
* * *
(honey bee)
On her first day of work, Mistyfoot kisses Feathertail on the forehead. "Call me if you need anything at all."
She hates leaving her. Even knowing Stonefur is here, and that it'll only be a few hours, she can barely stand it.
"I'll be fine," Feathertail promises.
* * *
It is nice, to be able to leave the triplets with someone. Feathertail is less convinced, but she doesn't argue. She's twisting a ribbon. Mistyfoot still isn't sure who gave her the first one, a blue, satin scrap that turned to shreds eventually, but Mistyfoot bought a couple of different spools.
"This is the last -- appointment, right?"
"It's the last follow up with the internal care stuff," Mistyfoot says. "But not the very last."
* * *
Feathertail braids her own hair. It reaches just past her shoulders, and Mistyfoot smiles.
* * *
Stonefur brings home a milkshake for her.
She hasn't had one in -- a long time. Ten years, maybe.
"I bought the shittiest cheeseburger," he says, "six months after I left. It was the best thing I ever ate."
* * *
Mothkit falls asleep, her head on Feathertail's chest. Stonefur takes a picture, and then a video.
* * *
"She's still really tired," Mistyfoot says. Feathertail is supposed to be doing the bulk of this, but -- Mistyfoot's not sure she remembers a normal time.
"Feathertail?"
"I guess." She fidgets, her fingers twisting together. "I don't know. I'm tired a lot." She takes a deep breath. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about things. I went for a walk with Stonefur. I was tired the next day. Is that normal? I don't know"
* * *
Feathertail starts to learn origami. She's found some website with different instructions, and she makes her way through them systematically. Her favourites make their way to the top of their dresser, and her least favourites are unfolded, the paper recycled for colouring.
* * *
July Fifth.
They've been up all night, but dawn breaks.
One year.
Feathertail is better than she was. She is curled up against Mistyfoot, but that's understandable. But she is so much better. Mistyfoot wouldn't have believed her transformation if she didn't watch it. She is -- well, she's still slightly feverish, but Mistyfoot understands that's to be expected.
And this is the Feathertail who has strung together more paper cranes than she can count, who blows bubbles for the kids, nominally, but pops quite a few of them herself, who texts her father and laughs at what he sends her.
(It's harder to see the progress in herself, but it is there. She makes jokes about her brother and has a job. She follows the new. She has lost the frantic urge to set up the baby monitor so Feathertail is monitored by it as well.)
"Think this year might actually be a good one," Feathertail says.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Montgomery Files: Chapter 7
Dredd x reader
By @adventuresintooblivion
Word Count: 2194
Summary: A gala. With embezzlement. And Wolfe’s family. Oh joyous day!
Note: Takes place after my series that you can find in the Masterlist.
Montgomery sighed softly, picking idly at her Lo Mein. Tonight was a weird night. Dredd and Y/LN were on a mission together for fucking once but it was guard duty of all things. It was for a fundraiser for kids or something like that. But not only were they undercover, the event was hosted by the Wolfes of all people.
After Chief had told the couple about their assignment, Montgomery had been called into Control for a special favor. While the Chief didn’t cash in her special favors very often, this one seemed to be particularly important. And illegal. Hence, why it had been given to Montgomery.
Her skills with a computer were somewhat infamous amongst her peers. However, they all were aware that what she did wasn’t always within the confines of the law. Most people tended to turn a blind eye since it kept street Judges alive. This was different though.
This assignment wasn’t dangerous and it was almost impossible for either Dredd or Y/LN to get injured let alone killed. It was a fundraiser for crying out loud. What were they doing, hiding guns in the punch? But with the Wolfe’ involved, Montgomery couldn’t help but wonder if this was a bit personal.
Despite the fact that she usually thrived on this underground night life, Montgomery couldn’t help but wish she was at home watching some stupid mystery show. Over the past couple years, she’d practically begged Operators and Handlers alike for a chance like this. To be working with the two best Judges to walk the planet and be allowed to do as much shady shit as she wanted? It was a dream.
And five minutes in it became obvious that Dredd had a stick up his ass the size of the empire state building. His tux was bare minimum. He refused to drink or even grab Y/LN anything. Something about not being intoxicated while on duty. Then to top it off, he wouldn’t dance.
Again Montgomery was staring into the live feed, the gaudy decorations making her go a little cross eyed. For some relief she happened to glance over at a separate screen which displayed, in live time, the charity funds and where they were going. A list next to the sum of money in the account caught her attention. It was all of the guests credit card information, security number and all. Even the bogus cards that had been given the Dredd and Y/LN were listed. If Montgomery wanted to, she could get herself a nice pair of boots.
She pushed the thought aside as she began tracking the funds. Money began to pour in as the bidding started. The website said the money was supposed to fund a research program for children affected by pollution. It was called KIDS2BCURED. While the name was cheesy enough to make it sound real, it didn’t mean anything.
Montgomery flipped through the half dozen windows she had open for this project before finally settling on the bank accounts. It was supposed to arrive in a joint bank account for employees and supervisors to use in order to fund their research. However, no matter how much bidding was done at the fundraiser, no money showed up.
Montgomery frowned. Maybe there was some weirdly high tech security on this.
But then she got curious and began tracking down the paper trail from KIDS2BCURED. It existed on a couple pieces of paper but besides registering for the name the actual company didn’t exist.
Suddenly one of her windows pinged as it begam active. As she pulled it up she glanced at the headline. This was a list of all the bank accounts owned by the Wolfe’s respective business ventures. The one labeled as DuoCare Pharmaceuticals was suddenly filling up with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Montgomery followed the paper trail on this as well, wondering how real this company was compared to KIDS2BCURED. Soon she found a copyright license for the name and a deed to a warehouse. The nice a reputable kind that’s surrounded by the shittiest part of town and other empty warehouses. And the bank account itself was owned directly by Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe.
“Welp, that’s illegal.” Montgomery couldn’t stop the chuckle as it came unbidden to her lips.
Rodrigez peeked around the wall of the cubical, “Oh? Illegal? Now you wouldn’t be snooping around unauthorized locations again?” His sing-song voice barely penetrated the drone of the party coming through her headphones.
This time Montgomery rolled her eyes, “No, I’m authorized to go where I want this time. But you know the friendly neighborhood fuck-up?”
He nodded eagerly, slowly making his way over to peer at her computer screen.
“Her parents are totally embezzling money from the richest and most powerful families in the Megacity.”
“Aren’t half of those Mafia?”
Montgomery nodded and continued typing.
Rodrigez continued, “No fucking way. That’s too ballsy to be someone related to her. Wait, do you think she knows?”
Before she could answer Rodriez hopped back on his computer and began typing furiously. His face lit up with an intense focus. Montgomery glanced over curious. All she could see was Wolfe’ picture on the screen.
“Oh Montgomery, this is poetic. She’s there.” he exclaimed.
Montgomery felt her mouth fall open, “She’s at the fundraiser?”
He nodded, “She requested off just for it.”
Montgomery squealed happily, “Oh this is gonna be great. Wait, am I a bad person for wanting this to happen?”
Rodrigez shrugged as Montgomery switched the comms on, “Y/LN, Dredd?”
It was Y/LN who replied, “Yes?”
The Handler grinned, “So how’s babysitting?”
“Dear God, Montgomery, don't get me started. Is there something you need?” She groaned into the microphone.
“Hmm? Oh nothing except a possible arrest warrant for Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe.”
There was a long moment of silence on the other side of the comms, “Hello?”
Y/LN cleared her throat, “Yeah, I’m here. I just...What for?”
“Embezzlement. Turns out that little fundraiser they host eventually works around to line their own pockets.”
A deep chuckle came over the comms, “Oh that is too perfect. Has the warrant been made official yet?”
Montgomery rolled her eyes, “Come on, Dredd, what do you take me for?”
Montgomery quickly sent the information to the Chief as a soft groan emanated over the speaker.
“I think you’re a Handler that straddles the line of the law and who frequently dips their toe into questionably legal activities. You’re also really fucking loud,” he replied. The screen finally flickered to life as he finished.
“So why haven’t you arrested me yet?”
Dredd didn’t dignify her with an answer as the scanners began to identify party goers. People dressed in the most expensive of fabrics this city could create. Montgomery chuckled dryly as she noticed the copious amounts of potpourri. So this is what the rich did to hide the stench of the squalor that surrounded them.
A soft ping pulled her from her thoughts as a notification appeared on Dredd’s screen.
His deep voice soon followed, “Arrest order received. We will commence with caution.”
Y/LN grumbled, “You know if it was anyone else besides the Wolfe’ the we wouldn’t be waiting for a warrant. We’re Judges.”
Dredd sighed softly and turned to look at his wife, “They donated thousands of dollars to the Academy since Wolfe joined. Not to mention they have a monopoly on the materials used to make our uniforms bullet proof. Understandably, the Chief is a bit nervous about this whole thing.”
Montgomery interrupted, “Hey guys, maybe we should talk about this later when we aren’t being recorded.”
Y/LN pressed her lips together before standing and making her way towards the Wolfe’. Dredd followed close behind. His hand rested on his firearm gently as they got within speaking distance. Judge Wolfe was standing beside them.
In Montgomery’s opinion, her dress was hideous. It was a silver strapless monstrosity. The color plus the copious amounts of ruffles left her looking like a pale scrawny chicken with no breasts. Her badly dyed hair didn’t help matters in the slightest. And she was about to get the shock of her life.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe you are under arrest for fraud, embezzlement and forgery. You’re coming with us.” Y/LN pulled out her cuffs and began restraining the suspects.
Mr. Wolfe stammered, “E...Excuse me? We’ve done no such thing! Where is the proof?”
Dred spoke over Mr. Wolfe’ rambling, “Sir, you know how this goes. We are waiting to sentence you away from your daughter. Don’t make this any harder on yourself.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? These are my parents, they can’t do anything illegal.” Judge Wolfe’ shrill voice pierced through the clamour of the crowd.
“Stand down Judge. This isn’t your case.” Y/LN shot her down. She wasn’t about to deal with her tonight.
“No I will not stand down! I mean seriously, this can’t be happening. They wouldn’t steal. They donate to a bunch of charities-.”
Y/LN finished for her, “While lining their pockets. We’re not going to discuss this further.”
Wolfe whipped out her badge, “I am a Judge too and I order you not to take them.”
Dredd began pulling the Wolfe’s away, “You don’t have that authority. Stop making a fuss.”
“Also, I’m your partner. I know you’re a Judge. You’re supposed to know how this process works,” Y/L/N grumbled.
Wolfe stomped her foot, “If you take another step I’ll arrest you for...uh...kidnapping.”
Y/LN growled, “Wolfe this is your last chance, get out of the way.” Wolfe folded her arms in defiance, “Alright, you’re charged with obstruction of justice. One night in a holding cell.”
Wolfe’ mouth fell open. She didn’t move in time to escape the cuffs and before long all three Wolfe’ were escorted out.
Y/LN let out a large sigh of relief as she smiled at her husband, “That was so satisfying.”
“DAMN FUCKING RIGHT IT WAS!” Both Y/LN and Dredd flinched, grunting at the pain that lanced through their ears.
Dredd growled, “What the fuck, Montgomery?”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. That was so cool. I had to put the comms on mute so I didn’t yell your ears off.”
“Don’t worry; I recorded it,” Rodrigez chimed in.
The heavy door on the transport closed with a heavy thunk. The Wolfes all hung their heads in shame. Y/N was about to leave but before she could get very far, something tugged on her hand.
She turned to see Dredd giving her only what she could call a sheepish grin. She couldn’t stop her answering smile from spreading across her lips.
“What?”
“Well.” He pulled her closer until their bodies were pressed together. “I can’t help but notice that you’re all nice and dressed up.”
She smiled as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her body molding against his, “You look rather handsome yourself.”
Dredd chuckled, “Why thank you. Now, we have a rare opportunity presented to us. We are both dressed up, out on the town and have the rest of the night free. Fuck the Wolfe. They’ll still be there in the morning.”
Y/N blinked in surprise, “Judge Dredd, putting off the law?”
He pressed his lips against hers, silencing her before pulling her away from the gathering crowd. They quickly disappeared into a nearby hotel. Y/N laughed nervously as she looked around.
The place was decorated lavishly. Even though they’d never been here before it was obvious it’d been decorated for some event. The chandeliers glinted like thousands of stars against a marble ceiling. Plush chairs were set around a large fireplace. Tables and desks shone with an intense red that Dredd didn’t know could belong to wood.
A clerk dressed in a tux glanced up from the front desk, “Hello, are you two here for the Midnight Gala?”
Dredd pressed his lips together, “ Yes?”
The clerk nodded before typing quickly on his computer, “Names please?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Y/LN,” Y/N answered.
After a few clicks he smiled, “Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Y/LN I’m so glad you could make it. I have your reservations right here. Would you like me to print out your invitations?”
Dredd shared a look with his wife before replying, “That’d be great.”
As they were being escorted through the hotel, Y/N leaned over to her husband, “What the fuck?”
The comms buzzed to life, “You’re welcome.”
“Montgomery? You’ve got to stop this, you’re being creepy.”
“Then turn off your cameras.”
Y/N grumbled before finally asking, “You did this?”
Montgomery chuckled, “You two looked so adorable such busy busy Judges. I figured you could use the break.”
Y/LN smiled despite the fact that the Handler couldn’t see her, “That’s awfully sweet of you. So, what’re you planning?”
“Nothing.” She replied. “But after you’re done I”ll be rooting for you to fuck him sideways.”
Y/N suppressed the urge to admonish her but instead turned off her camera and squeezed Dredd’s elbow, urging him to do the same.
#dredd x reader#judge dredd x reader#dredd imagines#judge dredd imagine#dredd imagine#reader insert#the montgomery files#Dredd OCs
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
Lay Your Bones Down (1/1)
Summary: When it comes to soulmates people tend to fall into two camps of thought.
Notes: Prompt fill for the wonderful @ahwuum who has been super patient and supportive. <333!
(Read on AO3)
When it comes to soulmates people tend to fall into two camps of thought.
The ones who go all-out looking for their soulmate. Buy into what Vinewood and other “experts” have to say on the mater. Read all the books on how to recognize the signs or whatever, watch the television specials and pay close attention to their horoscopes and magazines aimed at helping people find them.
Sign up for the websites and download the apps once they become available because it’s a driving force for them, part of their pursuit of happiness and everything.
Sometimes it works, they find their soulmate and live happy fulfilling lives with them.
Other times it doesn’t, and they make themselves miserable looking for a needle in a haystack all their lives and let every other chance for happiness pass them by and it’s. It’s just sad, is what it is.
Then you have the ones like Jeremy who – he’s not going to lie, okay.
He’s curious who his soulmate is. What kind of person they are, if they’d even like each other, get along like a house on fire or hate one another at first sight. (A different way of getting along like a house on fire, and to be honest saying’s always bothered him but that’s a conversation for another day, or something. Whatever.)
He used to think about it a lot more when he was a kid, bright future ahead of him and all these possibilities, right? Smart kid like him? Could have done anything.
And he did.
For a while.
Then one of his buddies got caught up in some trouble of his own making, and stupid idiot Jeremy thought he could help get him out. Only got dragged into the same kind of trouble and into a literal pit facing off against guys twice his size trying to get back out again.
Stopped wondering who his soulmate was when his primary concern was not getting his face beaten in, and then things escalated to the point all of that slipped to the back of his mind.
Soulmates and the criminal life don’t go so well together, puts a crimp in things. (He figured if he did meet his soulmate doing the things he does now, it wouldn’t be a ringing endorsement for either of them.)
So, yeah.
Jeremy pulls himself out of the fighting rings in Boston, but doesn’t do it clean. Has people who’d be glad to put him down, so he decides it would be a good idea to get the hell out while he still can.
Goes from city to city doing what he can to get by. Realizes he’s in a goddamned ridiculous line of work and figures if he can’t beat them he might as well join them (something like that) and goes all-in.
Picks up the Rimmy Tim thing somewhere along the east coast. Browsing through the offerings in a thrift store where he finds these hideous yellow suit pants. Catch his eye, have him cackling like an idiot, but that might be more the painkillers blunting the ache of a stab wound in his shoulder.
Finds a purple suit jacket a few cities over and something about it hits him just right.
It isn’t until he’s somewhere in Texas he spots the cowboy hat. Gas station with a tired looking woman on the register and news on the television talking about something going on in a city named Los Santos.
Jeremy gives her a bright grin, all nice and friendly because he’s just passing through, ma’am, no trouble here. Watches the footage of another gang war in progress play on the television as the woman rings his purchases up.
He’s been seeing more and more about Los Santos the closer he gets, figures it’s a big deal in this part of the country. (Liberty city’s got the east coast locked down for chaos and carnage.)
Gets this little itch going in the palms of his hands because everything he’s seen tells him it would be smarter to stay the hell away from a city like that, but.
Jeremy’s kind of an idiot.
And, you know.
There are still people out there with a grudge to bear against him and a city as big as Los Santos seems like a good place to get lost in.
Can’t possibly get caught up in anything big enough to make the news like half the things he’s seen so far anyway, right?
========
There are books out there that have a lot to say about the placement of people’s Names. Conflicting information based on what old wives tale the author grew up on, their region of the country.
All of them agree on one thing, though. Names closest to the heart mean you’re bound for a happy match once you find your soulmate, get that happily ever after everyone’s running towards.
Jeremy’s Name is on his back, running along his spine, and the one book he read about Name placements had nothing to say on the matter. Didn’t look further into things because he was afraid of what he’d find.
Awkward placement for him to get a good look at it, but he’d tried when he thought he had a chance to find his soulmate. (When it would have been a good thing.)
Did all sorts of crazy things to get a picture.
Tried taking a picture using the bathroom mirror but he only got parts of it in the frame. Set up a series of mirrors like an idiot and got better pictures out of it he played around in the edit mode to flip it.
Other things like that.
Realized his soulmate has the shittiest handwriting known to man or maybe something was wrong with his eyes because even now he can barely make out what it’s supposed to be.
A signature for sure, the way most of them are.
Starts with a big looping letter and ends in this indecipherable scrawl like whoever they are they either gave up along the way or couldn’t be bothered with the rest.
Sometimes he’ll catch sight of it in a bathroom mirror of whatever shitty motel or apartment he’s staying in, wonder what could have been.
========
Jeremy’s supposed to be watching this hacker.
Keep an eye on him to make sure he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, or keep him safe, his current boss didn’t specify.
Squirrely little bastard, though.
Scrawny.
Looks like a twig with a wild tuft of hair and this nose that got him picked on as a kid. (If the way the rest of the crew treats him is any indication, that never stopped.
Jeremy might feel bad about how the others treat the guy, if he wasn’t such an asshole.
And anyways, it’s his first job in Los Santos. Some dirty little gang that’s been outsourced to do a job for an ally of theirs.
He’s hired muscle here and so low down in the pecking order he might as well not even have a name.
Just Goon #2 or something.
“What kind of name is Rimmy Tim?” the hacker asks out of the blue, not bothering to look up from his work. “Did your parents draw it out of a hat like a raffle?”
The two of them are alone in the warehouse the gang operates out of. It would be real easy to kill him and pretend he didn’t know how it happened.
Just.
So easy.
The thing that stops Jeremy from doing it is that murder is a bit of an overreaction to the annoying bastard. And, he’s being paid to watch the guy so he’d be shooting himself in the foot. Also, it’s clear he’s not thinking about the words coming out of his mouth.
Some idle thought floating around in his head while he focuses on his work and no brain-to-mouth filter.
“Yeah,” Jeremy drawls. “They used this hat to do it to. Gave it to me on my eighteenth birthday to commemorate the occasion. Even gave me a lasso so I could catch my first horse.”
The hacker keeps tap-tap-tapping away on his laptop for a few moments afterward before he processes what Jeremy said.
Slowly lifts his head to squint at Jeremy like he’s sure he’s being fucked with, but also maybe not?
“Wait, what?”
Jeremy smiles and tips his hat at the asshole as he gets up to grab a beer out of the fridge.
========
As much as Jeremy tries not to think about the Name on his back, the rest of the world makes that impossible.
Television shows and movies. Best-sellers at the store. Songs on the radio. Marketing campaigns every-fucking-where and shoved down people’s throats at every turn.
No wonder so many obsess over their Name when they’re made so aware of it every waking moment.
It’s still kind of weird, though, listening to the guys he works with gossiping about them. Doesn’t matter who he’s working for, where he is, there’s always someone like that.
Stone-cold killers and no remorse to them, and they’ll kick back for a poker game and someone will start up a conversation about the Name on their shoulder.
Curling script and little hearts dotting the ‘i’ and wondering what they have to think about their own rough scribble of a name. (Good penmanship isn’t a requirement for their line of work.)
It’s enough to make Jeremy wonder what it is about Los Santos that people like them think about their soulmates like that. Hope they’ll get the chance to meet them even though they’re on the wrong side of the law and the odds of them getting something good out of it are so damn low.
========
Jeremy’s been in Los Santos for about a year, two, before his name gets put out there as someone people might want to watch out for.
Well, one of his names, anyway.
He still gets strange looks when he introduces himself as Rimmy Tim, but considering Los Santos is the kind of city where everyone’s scared of some idiot in a rubber mask calling himself the Vagabond, he figures he's doing alright for himself.
He’s been hired on by a crew that hasn’t tried to fuck him over since they brought him on to be an extra gun for them. (Yet.)
Decent pay that helps with the rent for the place he shares with a couple of idiots he’s fallen in with in Matt and Trevor, and until recently they were playing it smart.
Did nothing to attract the notice of the bigger crews in town, but that’s changed the last few weeks. His boss with his eyes set on moving up in the pecking order which means coming up against those same crews who could squash them flat with barely a thought.
Trevor keeps harping on him to get the fuck out, fake his death if he has to and have Matt gimmick him up a new identity, the whole works, because.
Fuck, because his boss is taking swipes at the Fake AH Crew.
Just about the worst crew to mess with, what with their reputation for not taking kindly to that kind of thing and all.
The crew Jeremy’s working for keeps bringing in new blood because they’re dropping likes flies with every skirmish they get into with the Fakes.
No mercy to the Fakes when one of theirs gets hurt, just this single-minded anger snapping back around on whoever is stupid enough to go after them.
If Jeremy was smarter, he’d listen to Trevor, he would. But Matt’s got these debts and smart as Trevor is he hasn’t been able to find a way to get him out of them other than paying them off. Jeremy does his part to help, which means being the kind of idiot out there tempting fate working for a certified moron with a death wish.
It’s how you say, not great.
Jeremy’s boss knows he wants out, but he also knows Jeremy doesn’t have a lot of say about it, so he keeps giving Jeremy the worst jobs. Sends him out with the other expendables on what amount to suicide missions and no skin off his nose if they don’t come back.
Which is how Jeremy ends up being partnered with some other disgraced bastard in the crew to put a little pressure on a weapons dealer looking to side with the Fakes. Convince him he’d do well to stick with them, but they pick a bad (good?) time to do with, what with the Fake AH crew members they run into there.
Guy in a leather jacket with a snarling wolf’s head on the back, the goddamned Vagabond, and some pretentious asshole with gold-framed sunglasses and stupid hair.
There’s a moment where they all stare at one another in shock, and then at the scumbag weapons dealer has the temerity to hiccup nervously before the shooting starts.
Jeremy’s not sure who fires the first round, but the moment they do it’s a free-for-all. Bad lighting and not the best anything and it’s confusing as hell.
Bullets flying and enough yelling to almost drown out the gunshots.
He hears one of the Fakes yell something about bringing the car around when things get bad. Sees a figure go pelting out a side door like a bat out of hell. The remaining Fakes doubling down to push Jeremy and his partner back, buy time or just put an end to things.
Jeremy drops behind cover, pops off a few shots and watches his partner – stupid asshole, stubborn as hell and just plain dumb – go down without a sound.
Swears under his breath and returns fire, with the realization he can get the hell out of there or die, and he knows which one he prefers. Cuts and runs like a coward, or just someone with a brain who doesn’t need to run the numbers to know he’s facing shitty odds, whichever.
He finds a door that leads to an alley and runs like hell until he hits a side street. Glimpses an ugly little purple car puttering down the street towards him from the corner of his eye and jumps in front of it to get the driver to stop.
Thanks God the idiot didn’t think to lock their door before he’s ripping it open and forcing them into the passenger seat, means to kick them out entirely but the Fakes find them before he can, spilling into the street.
“Fuck it,” Jeremy says, and “sorry, pal, but you’re probably safer in here than out there,” and then his foot is on the gas and they’re zooming out of the alley to...somewhere.
Jeremy doesn’t fucking know, okay.
He’s shot and bleeding and apparently a kidnapper now?
So.
Yeah.
He drives for God knows how long until he hears this quiet little laugh next to him. Incredulous, disbelieving, and -
“I can’t believe you still have the damn cowboy hat.”
Jeremy almost slams on the brakes because that voice.
British accent and infuriating as hell and what are the odds?
But, the part where he’s running from the Fakes and can’t do that – traffic and all – and just, it would be bad if he slammed on the brakes.
Instead he slows down a bit to keep from plowing into the car in front of them as it slows down to make a turn, and then whips around it the moment he can and keeps on going. Waves his gun in the hacker’s direction to shut him up, intimidate him, who knows, and heads to a safehouse he knows.
Only, the gun doesn’t shut the little idiot up, no.
“You’re bleeding,” Jeremy hears, which is not news to him.
He also hears, “That looks nasty,” which, he imagines it would. Bullet plus squishy human flesh and he’s not great at math, but even he can figure that one out.
Also?
“This is going to be so difficult to explain later.”
That makes no sense at all to Jeremy, but then the hacker’s reaching for his arm and Jeremy sends him a sharp look, because maybe don’t fucking do that when he’s got a gun sort of kind of aimed at him?
Takes a chance by taking his eyes off the road and almost swallows his tongue as he goes to tell him to very fucking politely not because -
“Oh, fuck me,” Jeremy mutters, because.
Stupid hair and gold-framed sunglasses, and Jeremy's kidnapped the Fake AH Crew’s Golden Boy by accident.
Accident.
There are people in Los Santos who’d pay an obscene amount of money for someone to do it on purpose and Jeremy did it by accident.
Awesome.
========
The Golden Boy plays it smart, in his own way.
Doesn’t shut up, no, but realizes Jeremy doesn’t appreciate him trying to stop him from bleeding all over the interior of his car (not so much the bleeding part as the potential risks of what he could do to Jeremy instead, so yeah) and keeps his damn hands to himself.
Babbles as Jeremy navigates backstreets and alleys to get to the shitty little safehouse Trevor scouted out for the three of them a few months back. Paranoid as hell, Trevor, and smart enough to know things would go to hell on them sooner or later.
Either Matt’s debts or the mess Jeremy’s trapped in, who the hell knows.
Trevor’s good about planning ahead, and Jeremy trusts him like no one else he’s met in this shithole city. (He trusts Matt, don’t get him wrong on that. But Matt is the same kind of dumb as Jeremy and it’s just. Better to look to Trevor for shit like this.)
Safe enough to hide out here to patch himself up, figure out what to do from there.
He parks the car a few streets over because you can never be too paranoid in this city. Pushes the Golden Boy ahead of him while they keep to the shadows and the gun ins his jacket pocket as incentive to go along with things for now.
No damn idea what he’s going to do with the little idiot, not that it matters because Jeremy’s fucked any way you look at it.
The Fakes will tear the city apart looking for him, and they know where to start looking. His own crew would sell him out in a heartbeat to save their own skins.
The only good part about this, if it can be called that, is that Trevor will figure out something went wrong when Jeremy doesn’t go back to their crappy little apartment and want to know what happened.
(Hell, now might not be a bad time to listen to him about faking his death before the Fakes find him.)
So until then...yeah.
It’s a mess.
Jeremy’s a mess, suit jacket ruined along with the shirt underneath. Something more than a simple graze that turns his stomach and hands nowhere near steady enough to stitch himself up.
“Fuck,” he says, and again a little stronger as he stares at the his wound, still bleeding sluggishly, ”fuck.”
The Golden Boy shifts. Nervous? Anxious? Who knows.
Says, quiet, careful, “I could help?” like he’s not sure how Jeremy will take it after the whole thing in the car with the glaring and everything that followed.
He shrugs when Jeremy looks up at him, pushes his stupid sunglasses up into his stupid hair. Looks tired without them hiding his eyes. Dark bags and under his eyes and this crooked little smile Jeremy doesn’t remember seeing before.
“I’ve done my share of stitching people up.”
There’s something to the way he says it that makes Jeremy believe it. Him. Whatever.
(The Fakes are known for being vicious about protecting their own, hurt one of them and you’re fucked and he’s never thought much about it before, but. There’s got to be a reason for it beyond not looking weak to their enemies, rivals.)
Jeremy’s out of options, knows he’s probably making a mistake here, but that part about being fucked anyway, so.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, and pushes the first-aide kit towards the Golden Boy.
Watches him like a hawk as he picks through the thing making these little tutting noises as he does because Jeremy may or may not have forgotten to restock it after the last time.
Rolls up his sleeves and Jeremy follows the motion without thought. Eyes going to the line of letters he can see just on the Golden Boy’s his inner forearm. Something familiar about them, but then the Golden Boy notices Jeremy staring.
Clears his throat and pulls his sleeve down to hide the Name inked on his skin. They’re a liability in this business, get people killed, and Jeremy pulls his gaze away guiltily.
“Sorry,” he says, because he’s an asshole and a ruthless criminal as these things go, but even he’s not that far gone. Not the kind of monster who’d take advantage of knowing who the Golden Boy’s soulmate is, use that against him. Not like he can say that and expected to be believed, but still. “It’s...sorry.”
He can feel eyes on him, knows the Golden Boy is watching him, judging him, and then there’s a little sigh.
“No worries, love,” he says, striving for bright and cheerful, just this hint of uncertainty, maybe even fear to it. “Not your fault, now is it?”
(Is it?)
Jeremy remains silent, winces as the Golden Boy sighs again before he picks up a washcloth Jeremy scrounged out of a cabinet to clean away the blood. He works quickly and efficiently, murmurs an apology when Jeremy hisses in pain as he plucks out cloth fibers and whatever else have gotten into the wound before he starts on the stitches.
Neat, even things, and a little laugh afterward when he says it might not scar noticeably.
Not a major concern for Jeremy, but still nice to know.
“Thanks,” he says, as the Golden Boy tapes off the bandage covering the stitches. “Just, uh. Thanks.”
Awkward as hell, thanking the guy you’ve kidnapped (accidentally, and he’s never going to get over that) for patching him up, but hey.
That’s Jeremy’s life in a nutshell.
(Or...something.)
He watches the Golden Boy pack the first-aide kit up nice and neat, reach for a stay bit of trash from the supplies he used, sleeve riding up again and this time Jeremy gets a good look at the Name on his arm.
Realizes why it had seemed so familiar from the glimpse he caught, and reacts without thinking.
Grabs the Golden Boy’s wrist with his good hand, painfully aware of the way the Golden Boy freezes like a deer in the headlights because Jeremy’s still got his gun and the whole being kidnapped thing.
Ignores the pain ins his bad arm as he pushes the Golden Boy’s sleeve up to reveal the Name on his inner forearm.
Jeremy’s name.
Knows his signature after years of using it, every upward sweep and downward loop, and his heart drops because this, this is how he meets his soulmate, of course it is.
“Jesus Christ,” Jeremy mutters, releasing the Golden Boy’s wrist, aware of the way he recoils away from him like he’s been burned. Holds his arm close to himself, hiding the Name on his skin from Jeremy, and he feels sick about his reaction.
(How could he? Why would he?)
Probably thinks Jeremy’s like all the other sick fucks in this city who’d pay anything to know whose Name someone has on their skin. Use it against them and do it happily because it gives them power over them, and fucking hell.
“I - “ Jeremy’s voice fails him and he thinks about just whipping his shirt off to show him why, but that’s.
Gonna send a bad message if he can’t explain himself first, and he can feel himself on the verge of laughing like a lunatic because this is not now he saw today going at all.
He looks up to see the Golden Boy watching him. Wary, as Jeremy would expect him to be after watching Jeremy act like the aforementioned lunatic.
“What,” the Golden Boy asks, voice cracking a little. “What was that all about?”
Jeremy stares at him, because he looks scared, sure, but also?
Angry.
Like he’d kill Jeremy rather than let him use his Name as a weapon or a threat against him. Willing to protect the idiot whose name is indelibly inked on his skin with everything he has because that’s what you do for your soulmate if you give even the tiniest of fucks about them. (Even without their unique situation.)
People are so stupid that way, and it’s both the funniest and saddest things about them to Jeremy.
Because.
He’s got a name running along his spine and he may not know a hundred percent what it is, what with the horrible handwriting, but he knows without a doubt it’s this little idiot’s.
Knows it like he knows every other important thing in his life, and this just complicates things even further, doesn’t it?
Rival crews and a carjacking that led to an (accidental) kidnapping. A soulmate that looks like he’s trying to decide the best way to kill him to keep Jeremy from using himself against him, and it’s getting real confusing in Jeremy’s head.
One thing he does know, though. He can’t let his soulmate (Jesus, Trevor will never let him live this down and neither will Matt) think he’s one of those scumbags who’d use his Name against him.
“Rimmy Tim isn’t my real name,” he says, which should be obvious by now because no self-respecting human being would go through life with it as a name and not have it legally changed at some point.
Just, no.
The Golden Boy’s still watching him. Cocks his head at Jeremy’s admission, eyes narrowing as he tries to figure out where Jeremy’s going with this.
“This is...” Jeremy trails off, knows if he just tells him his name is Jeremy it’s not going to come off well, given the current situation, so. “Uh, this is going to seem weird, but bear with me, okay?”
It’s a bit of a risk, what he’s about to do.
Turn his back on someone with every reason to use the opportunity to attack him, kill him, but he can’t think of a better idea. Just. No better idea and sure as hell doesn’t want his soulmate to think he’s in a situation where his Name is something to be used against him, that fear, even if it backfires on Jeremy.
He twists around and pulls his shirt up, hears the Golden Boy’s confused ”What?” and ”Oh, God, what?” and then this sharp inhale followed by silence.
A long, long moment of silence and this shuddery exhale, cool fingers on Jeremy’s back tracing the letters running along his spine.
Quiet laugh, shaky, and, “Bloody hell,” he hears, followed by, “I knew that couldn’t be your real name,” and another laugh that just sounds tired.
Which, yeah.
Jeremy gets that, he does.
He pulls his shirt back down and turns around to find the Golden Boy watching him again, but there’s a thoughtful quality to it this time.
“So,” he says like he still can’t believe it. “You’re my soulmate, are you?”
Hard to get a bead on how he feels about that, what with the being carjacked and kidnapped at gunpoint thing they have going for them. The way things are a little too Romeo and Juliet for Jeremy’s tastes seeing how well that went for all parties involved in that little disaster.
“Uh, yeah,” Jeremy says, for whatever it’s worth. “I guess I am.”
========
The mirror in the safehouse’s bathroom is dirty as hell, has this crack running straight down the middle of it like the fault lines under Los Santos.
Good enough to get a decent picture of his back at least, have Jeremy frowning at all the scars he’s picked up since the last time he did this. (Five, six years ago? Maybe longer.)
It’s late now, few hours past midnight and the Golden Boy’s sacked out in the bedroom. Tired after a long day and what seems to have been an even longer week for him. Put up a fight because he wasn’t the one with a bullet wound, but Jeremy had overruled him on the basis of 1.) being carjacked, and 2.) being kidnapped after being carjacked.
Not to mention the reason for the carjacking and subsequent kidnapping and just...everything else on top of that they haven’t addressed properly.
More like stared at one another for a long moment trying to process before the Golden Boy yawned, reminding them both of the late hour, and they decided it would be better to pick things back up in the morning.
Sleep on all of it and figure things out then and Jesus if that’s not reason for Jeremy to grab his stuff and get the fuck out. Run off with his tail between his legs before his soulmate tells him thanks for the terrifying day and all, but he just doesn’t see things working out between them – carjackings and kidnappings do not a good relationship make – but do take care.
But he hasn’t, has he. Is creeping around the safehouse being an idiot instead.
Jeremy sighs as he fiddles with the limited photo editor app on his phone, flips the picture he just took so he can read the Name on his back.
Everyone in Los Santos calls him the Golden Boy, sometimes though they refer to him as the Fake AH Crew’s Golden Boy, sometimes he’s Ramsey’s Golden Boy, but his name’s not a secret.
That first letter on Jeremy’s back is definitely a ‘G’, and knowing what he knows now, he can see the rest.
And now that he knows, he’s afraid to say it out loud because there are -
Just.
A lot of unknowns in their future.
Or, not.
At the very least, he knows who his soulmate is now, won’t have to wonder about it anymore, and that. Well, it has to count for something, doesn’t it?
========
“So now what?”
The Golden Boy – no, Gavin – is watching Jeremy closely. Head cocked to the side and so very careful.
Looking at him, Jeremy realizes he never searched him for weapons when they got the safehouse. Wasn’t in the frame of mind to think of it with the chaos of the shootout, pain from his injury and everything that followed. World-changing realizations and all.
Can spot at least one gun on him. A few knives. Who the hell knows what else because rumors say he worked with the Vagabond for a while before the Fakes snatched him up and he’s picked up a few habits of his along the way.
Good news, no immediate rejection regarding the soulmate situation. Bad news, he’s still not indicating how he feels about the fact Jeremy’s his soulmate.
Playing it safe, smart, given the everything else that’s happened or something else, Jeremy doesn’t know.
“What do you mean?” Jeremy asks, because what does that even mean?
Gavin gives him this look, and gestures at himself.
Ego aside, he makes for one hell of a prize.
Any of the Fakes would be to be fair, but the Golden Boy?
Jesus, what stroke of luck to catch him.
Hit the Fakes where it would hurt the most because he’s always been considered untouchable, all these attack dogs keeping him from harm and poster boy for the crew, more so than Ramsey ever was.
Silver-tongued negotiator with an impressive string of successes behind him in the allies the Fakes have won over to their side since they clawed their way to the top.
That whole thing where he’s got a price on his head in the city only the craziest bastards would even think about cashing in on. Catch him and sell him to the highest bidder and live a life of luxury. (Until the Fakes found out who’d managed it and went hunting.)
Jeremy stares at him because 1.), no, and 2.)? Also no.
“How about this,” Jeremy says slowly. “You take that piece of shit car of yours and go back to your crew and I go back to mine and we pretend you did not just suggest what I think you did.”
Because, and Jeremy cannot emphasize this enough, no.
Even if he wasn’t Jeremy’s soulmate the answer would be the same. Jeremy’s an asshole, but he’s got limits. Lines he won’t cross and something like that?
No.
If he did have a personal grudge against the Fakes, well.
Honestly, there are only two things that would be part of that, and they’re both idiots. If something happened to them and the Fakes were involved...
Jeremy can’t say what he’d do then, but he likes to think he wouldn’t sink so low as to do something like that. (You never know what you’d do until you’re in that situation though, do you.)
There’s a long, long moment where they stare at one another, Jeremy’s heart beating double-quick time in his chest because Jesus fucking Christ. Also this sudden, violent urge to throw up because the whole soulmate thing on top of everything and how repugnant the matter of selling him out is with that factoring in?
Yeah.
Gavin laughs, tension seeping out of him as he regards Jeremy.
“Well,” he says, “that’s good to know.”
Like he really thought Jeremy could – would – sell him off like that even without the soulmate thing, Jesus.
“Yeah, sure.” Jeremy scrubs a hand over his face. “You’re welcome?”
Gavin hums, and then Jeremy feels a touch to the back of his hand and looks up to see him watching him.
“I never would have thought,” he says, and laughs like he’s still processing the whole soulmate thing. “I never would have thought you’d be the one.”
There’s...Jeremy swallows because there’s this note of wonder in his voice, the way he’s looking at Jeremy.
“Thought for sure I’d annoyed you past all reason.”
Not...not quite.
Annoying as hell, sure, but there was a part of him that appreciated watching a fellow horrible little bastard at work. Amused as hell at the way Gavin got under the skin of the others they were working with just because he could.
Yeah.
He should have known something was up then, but it was just a job at the time. Jeremy scrabbling to get by and just another job to put money in his pocket and all kinds of excuses that fall flat when he looks back on it.
“Nah,” Jeremy says, and smiles. “I mean, I wouldn’t say past all reason.”
He laughs to soften things, and is rewarded with a quiet laugh and then...it’s not awkward between them, just.
There’s.
“I should contact the others,” Gavin says, reluctant about it. “They’re sure to be worried by now.”
As if they wouldn’t have been the moment they realized something was wrong with a crew known to be as close-knit as theirs.
Trevor and Matt have to be worried about him as well by now, and the two of them can’t just hide away here forever no matter how tempting it is.
Should have gone their own ways the night before everything got complicated on them. Kicked Gavin out of the car somewhere his crew would be sure to pick him up before continuing on to the safehouse, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly.
Too late for that now, though.
“I - “ Jeremy sighs, because there’s no putting things off any longer. They’ve done enough of that as it is. “Yeah, okay.”
========
There’s not much for Jeremy to do as Gavin makes his phone call, but he finds reasons to be out of the room. Give him some privacy.
Wanders around straightening up for the next time someone needs to use the safehouse. Make a list of things he needs to get to restock the first-aide kit. Sends Matt a text letting him know he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere and he’ll tell them everything when he gets back home because he’d rather avoid Trevor’s heavy judgment for the time being.
He laughs when he gets a thumb’s up emoji from Matt, and then a few moments later a succinct Fuck you, man, that’s sure to result from Trevor expressing his disappointment in Matt for not pressing Jeremy for details.
Jeremy makes his way back to the living room just in time to catch the end of the conversation the Gavin’s having with whoever he called. All this exasperation to it and dumb little smile and he just.
Watches him for a long moment since Gavin doesn’t seem to know he’s there yet.
No telling what will happen once they leave the safehouse.
Jeremy’s got to be high on the Fakes’ most wanted list by now, and the smart thing for him to do is stay under the radar until that changes, if it will.
So. Yeah.
Gavin finishes his call and looks up to catch Jeremy’s eye, amused smile playing on his lips so so much for going unnoticed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, just,” Jeremy shrugs. The safehouse isn’t big, not a lot of places for him to putter about while Gavin was on the phone.
Thankfully Gavin seems to understand that because he laughs, and Jeremy.
God.
He’s heard the stories, you know?
From his parents, other people who found their soulmates and had things work out. The way you just. It’s not some magical thing where everything’s suddenly easy, everything nice and clear and simple, but.
There’s a difference.
This thing where you look at your soulmate and you know.
Their smile seems brighter than anyone else’s, fills you with this. Love, warmth, whatever the hell that can help flip a shitty day over into one that’s a little more bearable. Small things that make life better in a million little ways, make you feel less alone in the world.
Not easy, and shit still happens, but it’s not. Not overwhelming anymore, like you know you can make it through a bad day and any others that come after it because someone’s there to help you through them.
Jeremy sits down next to him and reaches for his hand, feels stupidly relieved when Gavin reaches back.
========
In the end, Gavin gets in his Blista and drives back to his crew, and Jeremy watches him until he’s out of view.
Out of the two of them, he’s the one with the target painted on his back, and while Jeremy’s not delighted about letting him go alone, it’s the smart thing to do.
Jeremy’s a nobody compared to him, can find his own way home without worrying about running into trouble, and he does.
Gets an earful from Trevor who’s doing a good job of looking his usual put-together self, but Jeremy knows him too well by now to miss the signs of Trevor in full-on Deeply Concerned mode.
“Trevor,” he says, because goddamn they’re all kind of dumb. “Shut up.”
He drags Trevor into a hug despite his half-hearted protests – he is lecturing, Jeremy, and hugs are illegal you fiend. And then he does the same to Matt who’s off the side nibbling on a breadstick and trying to look bored and disinterested like he’s not just as worried.
“Where the hell were you?” Trevor demands, hands on his hips and ridiculous as ever. “We heard about what what happened, and then you didn’t come home and - “
Jeremy winces at the fear he can hear plain as day in Trevor’s voice even with the dramatics he’s throwing in to cover for it. The dark circles under his eyes and bloodshot eyes from a lack of sleep and just. Everything he can see mirrored in Matt.
“It’s a long story,” Jeremy says, which is the wrong thing to say even if it’s the truth because it sets Trevor off all over again with his own side of things.
Because Matt keeps tabs on Jeremy, on Trevor. Might as well have animal tracking collars on them or gone and microchipped them in their sleep. No way to hide from him even if they wanted to. (A lie, because they’d find ways around it, but what would be the point when he does it to look after them in his own Matt Bragg way?)
And when Jeremy dropped off the radar after the shootout with all the “extra touches” at the safehouse to prevent them from being tracked there...yeah.
“I, uh.” Jeremy doesn’t know how to put this gently, so he just goes for it. “I carjacked the Golden Boy and found out he’s my soulmate?”
There.
Perfect.
Good job all around, well done him.
Jeremy turns on his heel and power walks to the kitchen to grab something strong to drink while Trevor’s brain tries to process that and Matt stops choking on his breadstick.
While he’s there he decides to be civilized and grabs glasses for Trevor and Matt because he gets the feeling they’re going to need them.
========
Trevor can’t actually ground Jeremy, because for one, Jeremy’s a fucking adult? And two, he’s not the boss of him. (Something Jeremy thinks in the safety and privacy of his own mind lest he give Trevor ideas.)
But.
The three of them are in agreement it would be safest for Jeremy if he kept a low profile for the time being, which means he is more or less grounded.
Sits around the apartment pestering Matt while he works on whatever Matt does. Offering unhelpful suggestions until even Matt has enough of his bullshit and kicks him out of his nerd lair so he can work in peace.
Thinks about doing the same to Trevor, but Trevor is by far the smartest one out of them and voted most likely to plot intricate, painful revenge Jeremy will never see coming, so he doesn’t pester him.
Watches a lot of daytime dramas and talk shows instead. Some DIY videos from the internet on his laptop which is great, because he finds this one channel of a guy who helps him expand on his homemade explosives repertoire.
Also?
Picks up a few delicious recipes and other things from people not out to topple governments or just make really, really, questionable life choices involving explosives.
And then one day Trevor comes up to him with a package bearing the logo of a small delivery company.
He looks conflicted, like he’s not sure what he’s doing is a good thing.
“This came for you the other day,” he says, and holds it just out of reach. “I had Matt check it over first, just in case.”
Jeremy sets his game controller aside, because Trevor has a shifty look on his face. Is having a hard time looking Jeremy in the eye.
“Trevor?”
Trevor clears his throat, fidgets in a way that is very, very alarming coming from him.
“I realize I may not have come across as happy for you as I should have,” he says, waving a hand at Jeremy and his everything. “About this whole. Soulmate thing of yours, and I apologize. For that.”
Jeremy cocks his head.
While Trevor’s not wrong, he’s not. Jeremy knows him, okay. Knows Trevor’s glad he found his soulmate, but there was the matter of everything else to deal with too because Jeremy’s a damn idiot who can’t do anything the easy way.
“You really don’t need to - “ Jeremy starts to say, and snaps his mouth shut when Trevor levels him with a look. “But, ah. Thank you?”
Trevor harrumphs, scowl slowly lightening to a rueful smile as he holds the package out to Jeremy.
“Anyway, this came for you the other day and Matt says it’s not going to kill you. Or, it might, but if it does it will be from cancer due to long-term exposure to radiofreqeuncy radiation and not explosives or what have you.” Trevor pauses for a breath. “But as we both know, that won’t happen for decades if there really is a link between cell phone usage and cancer, so, uh. Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”
Jeremy doesn’t know what to say to any of that, so he accepts the package with a simple thanks and scurries off to his room before he catches whatever the hell Trevor has.
(Too late to avoid the insanity, but he already knew that.)
========
There’s a cell phone in the package, but Trevor gave that away with his unsettling warning about the hazards of cell phones or whatever that was.
There’s also a note.
From Gavin.
Awkward and sweet, and Jeremy laughs as he reads if for the third time because he’s an idiot and a sap.
It’s a chance to get to know Gavin better and a burner phone to make that possible.
Side note about this being for the best until Gavin can talk sense into his crew regarding Jeremy and this rambling tangent that has nothing to do with anything, but still makes Jeremy smile.
They’re getting further and further away from the bizarre Romeo and Juliet situation they were in at first, but everything’s still unbelievably stupid and ridiculous in their own way.
Still.
Jeremy sets the note aside and unlocks the phone and brings up the contacts. Stares at the only one saved for a long moment, nerves and whatever else getting the best of him for a moment before he shoves all of that aside and presses the send button before he can think better of it.
========
A month goes by before Trevor deems it safe to let Jeremy out on his own unsupervised, which is just as insulting as it sounds.
To be fair, it’s taken that long for his bullet wound to heal to a point he can take on work again without making things worse, so it works out.
He’s been talking to Gavin every chance he can get, gone from once or twice a week to three to four to every day thy better they got to know one another. Realizing they might be among the lucky ones to find their soulmate and someone they could stand to share the rest of their lives together with.
He’s been itching at the chance to see him in person again, and Gavin feels the same because he texts Jeremy the name of a cafe along with a time and date, and Jeremy -
“Good God man, you can’t wear that abomination on your little lunch date!” Trevor looks personally offended because Jeremy’s dressed in his finest Rimmy Tim ensemble, complete with a new hat to replace the one he lost in the shootout with the Fakes.
All shiny and white because he felt like a change was in order, and also they were out of brown.
Jeremy keeps a straight face by sheer strength of will, something not helped by the thumb’s up Matt’s shooting him over Trevor’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong with it?” Jeremy asks, looking down at himself like he’s looking for a stray piece of lint or wrinkled fabric. A loose button, something along those lines. And, “You don’t like it?”
Trevor makes this...this noise in the back of his throat that somehow conveys frustration, disgust, and barest touch of rage as he throws his hands up.
“You march right back into your room and find something to wear that isn’t both horrendous and garish right now, young man!”
There’s a delicate silence in the moment after his outburst.
And then Jeremy makes the mistake of looking at Matt, and that’s the end of that. The two of them crack up laughing while Trevor heaves this sigh of utmost suffering that comes from having to deal with idiots like them.
========
Jeremy changes into clothes Trevor deems far more reasonable than Jeremy’s Rimmy Tim getup and makes it to the cafe with time to spare.
Follows the hostess out to an outside seating area and can’t help the goofy smile on his face when he spots Gavin waiting for him at one of the tables.
He looks.
Well.
He looks nervous, fussing with this coin he’s rolling over his knuckles in an obvious nervous habit, but he also looks good.
Button-down shirt that makes his eyes stand out. Pressed slacks and dress shoes, hair – still an unruly mess but it’s more artfully messy rather than all-out disastrous. Those ridiculously expensive sunglasses of his hooked into the collar of his shirt and best of all, he looks rested. Like he’s finally managed to get enough sleep, and the smile that crosses his face when he catches sight of Jeremy -
Blinding.
“Jeremy!” he gets to his feet and pulls Jeremy into a hug, and the last of Jeremy’s nervousness vanishes in the face of his clear excitement at seeing him again after so long.
Jeremy closes his eyes and breathes out a sigh of relief as he hugs Gavin, because nerves and this...he doesn’t even know.
Like part of him somehow thought he’d imagined it all from the shootout to the carjacking (Jesus Christ, that’s going to make the story of how they discovered they were soulmates a tricky one to tell people) to the events at the safehouse.
The phone calls that had spilled over from one burner phone to the next until Jeremy had decided the hell with things and started using his own instead. (A risk, sure, of the Fakes finding him to “have a little chat with him” Gavin had warned him about when he told him, but more than worth it.)
Everything.
This ache in his chest at being so close and so far after all these years of wondering. Maybe there is something to the soulmates thing science can’t explain because it feels like Jeremy’s taking his first full breath in far too long.
The world feels a little more real, brighter when he opens his eyes to look at Gavin.
Something.
Gavin laughs again and they untangle themselves, sit down at the table Gavin’s gotten for them and stare at one another like idiots for a moment.
It’s a beautiful day, sunny and bright and the people of Los Santos are making the most of it. Pedestrians out for a walk for the hell of it or out and about on errands or other business talking on their cell phones or enjoying the break in weather from the spate of rain they’ve had the last week.
Dogs barking, birds singing. People laughing.
All of it paints a different picture of the city than Jeremy’s used to seeing and for a moment he can almost pretend it’s any other city.
Almost.
“Uh,” Jeremy says, because pretty as things are right now, Los Santos is certainly not any other city. “Did you know - “
Gavin rolls his eyes, mouth quirking as he leans towards Jeremy. Drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Ignore them,” he says, gleam of amusement in his eye. “It’ll drive them mental.”
Jeremy raises his eyebrows at that because Gavin knows his crew best, of course, but still.
There’s a car idling at the curb just beyond the patio they’re seated at.
Shiny chrome number and the guy with the wolf on the back of his jacket Jeremy remembers seeing from the shootout behind the wheel.
Glaring at Jeremy.
Another car is parked across the street opposite him. Sleek black number with bright green accents. Too far to make out more than an outline of the driver, but Jeremy’s sure he’s wearing a skull mask. (He’s seen that car on the news too often not to know its owner.)
Not even two tables away from them are a pair of people in the absolute worst disguises Jeremy’s seen outside of a spy parody movie.
Dark sunglasses, fake mustaches and beards, and holes cut out of the newspaper one of them is reading along with oversize trench coats on a beautiful early summer afternoon in sunny Los Santos.
“...Okay?” Jeremy says, because okay.
And...he gets it, he does.
The Fakes are a close-knit crew and he and Gavin didn’t kick off this whole...soulmates thing between them in the traditional way.
At all.
To be honest, there’s a part of him that’s relieved they’re being this overprotective of Gavin. Watching out for him in an admittedly creepy way.
It’s just.
Weird as hell, too.
“Jeremy,” Gavin says, and gives him this look like he knows, but better to go along with it than fight it at this point, which.
Again, yeah, okay.
He can handle dealing with Gavin’s crew if it means he gets to have this...chance with Gavin. (Besides, he hasn’t even met Trevor or Matt, and God knows they’re going to be as terrible in their own ways, idiots that they are.)
They chat for a bit as they look over the menu, knot of worry and doubt in Jeremy’s chest unraveling as Gavin laughs at Jeremy’s stupid jokes. Smiles at the truly awful ones like he can’t help himself even though they both know how terrible they are.
Jeremy doing the same as Gavin tells him about his recent exploits with the Fakes, little adventures he got up to on his own when he managed to slip away from his minders. (Paranoid after the incident where some inconsiderate bloke carjacked Gavin.)
“Are you ready to order?”
Jeremy freezes.
Looks over to see a man dressed like one of the cafe’s waiters standing next to their table. Impressive mustache and tattoos he can see peeking over the collar of his shirt. More on his hands holding a notepad and pencil and this glint in his eye as he ignores Gavin to stare Jeremy down.
He’s seen the Kingpin on the news. Heard all kinds of wild stories about him, the things he did with the Roosters before coming to Los Santos to start his own crew.
Ruthless.
Merciless.
Only man in all of Los Santos who could get the Vagabond to join a crew and all the other rumors out there making him to be this terrifying figure in his own right, and for good reason.
And now he’s in a waiter’s uniform waiting to take their lunch order and Jeremy has no idea how to proceed, because his brain is having difficulty processing the situation.
Jesus.
He feels a sharp pain on his shin and snaps out of his daze or whatever the hell he’s fallen into to look at Gavin.
Gavin, who just kicked him under the table and is now giving him this look. All remember what I told you, and follow my lead and God’s sakes, Jeremy, don’t let them get to you, they can smell fear.
A lot to convey with a single look, but somehow Gavin pulls it off
“Actually,” Gavin says, looking back at his menu. “I was wondering if there’s any shellfish in the shellfish cioppino? I’m allergic, and it would absolutely ruin my day if I had even the smallest bite.”
That’s a blatant lie. They were just talking about Gavin’s love for shellfish after they got onto the topic of the east coast and Jeremy’s hometown of Boston in particular, but alright.
Jeremy stares at Gavin who lifts his eyes from his menu to wink at Jeremy before gifting their waiter with an arch look.
The Kingpin glares at him.
Takes a deep breath and in a voice that says he’s going to have words with Gavin later, and says, ”Yes, sir. Unfortunately there is shellfish in the shellfish cioppino as the name implies. Perhaps something else on the menu appeals to you?”
“Oh,” Gavin says, crestfallen that his first choice might kill him if he was in fact allergic as he’s claiming to be. “That’s a shame. What about the steamed mussels?”
It goes on like that for a while as Gavin asks about every dish on the menu where shellfish is a key ingredient and several where no seafood is involved at all.
The Kingpin goes from being annoyed to resigned and defeated, staring off into the middle distance as he answers Gavin’s questions.
“Well then,” Gavin says, when he’s done torturing one of the most feared men in Los Santos. “I suppose I’ll have the shellfish cioppino.”
There’s no reaction at first, but when the Kingpin realizes Gavin’s done tormenting him he snaps back to himself. Draws himself up to his full height and scowls down at Gavin as he angrily scribbles down his order to keep up the pretense as their waiter.
Gavin beams at him, hands folded neatly in front of him on the table.
The Kingpin snorts, corner of his mouth twitching before he turns his attention on Jeremy.
“And what would you like to order?”
He’s not glaring at Jeremy now, but it’s close enough to count.
“Hmm,” Jeremy says, mimicking the posh accent Gavin had slipped into. “Are there any mushrooms in your smoked mushroom ravioli? I have this allergy to them.”
No doubt he’ll regret it in the long run, but when he hears Gavin laugh figures it’s another one of those things he can deal with just for that.
========
They go for a walk along the beach after lunch, a nice leisurely stroll.
Sure, they’re being watched by members of Gavin’s crew, but Jeremy barely notices it anymore with Gavin laughing next to him.
“Oh, God, did you see his face?” Gavin’s giggling, all lit up with it, and Jeremy’s heart does that little flippy thing it started doing halfway through lunch with Gavin laughing and smiling and happy. “Geoff will make me pay for it, but his face.”
Gavin won’t be the only one paying for what they did, but that’s a future worry.
Right now it’s the two of them enjoying a nice day and being the horrible little bastards they are.
Amazing.
Their shoulders bump every so often, shifting sand under their feet and wandering along aimlessly as people are wont to do like this. Their hands do too, and after a while it gets to be a problem, so Jeremy has no choice but to tangle his fingers with Gavin to put an end to that.
Heart in his throat as he reaches for his hand, and that flippy sensation in his chest when Gavin slides a look at him, crooked grin on his face as he slides his fingers through Jeremy’s.
========
All good things end, or something like that, and Jeremy and Gavin find their way back up to the street next to the beach.
Gavin leads them to a pretty little thing parked next to the curb. Matte black and low-slung. Looks like it could go from zero to sixty in no time flat and Jeremy would love to see that happen one day.
He laughs when he notices Jeremy admiring it, hint of a blush on his cheeks as he gives it a fond pat on the hood.
“It was in the shop at the time,” he says, and shrugs, a story behind it he’s not telling Jeremy just yet. “That’s why I was driving my Blista.”
Jeremy raises an eyebrow because those stories Gavin told him earlier and his far from spotless driving record. Gavin coughs, gaze sliding away.
They lean against Gavin’s car and watch the waves roll in below them, sun starting to sink towards the horizon. They’ve shed their escort in Gavin’s crew, one by one until it’s just the two of them now.
Jeremy passing a test he wasn’t aware of or them getting bored enough to go off to wreak havoc in another part of the city, who the hell knows.
“We should do this again sometime,” Gavin says, light and casual, like he’s not holding on to Jeremy’s hand as though it’s a lifeline. “I had fun.”
Jeremy could do that. He could. Spend hours with Gavin without keeping an eye on the time.
“Me too,” Jeremy says, and squeezes Gavin’s hand. “I’d like that.”
Gavin ducks his head, and Jeremy laughs because.
Yeah.
The whole soulmate thing isn’t a guarantee you’ll fall in love the moment you meet yours, or that you’ll even like them, but goddamn is it nice when you do. (Amazing.)
After a moment Gavin looks up at him, expression on his face like he’s thinking hard on something, and then he breaths out this sigh. Annoyed at himself for something as he straightens.
“Jeremy,” he says, and he sounds determined. Focused. About to take a risk and intent on following through. “I think I’d like to kiss you.”
Jeremy bites back a laugh because it’s so formal of him. Right and proper and all that. Very British sounding.
“Yeah?” he asks, grinning at the annoyed huff from Gavin. “I think I’d like it if you did.”
Gavin’s eyes narrow because he knows Jeremy’s laughing at him, and try as he might he can’t hide his own amusement at their ridiculousness.
“Jeremy,” Gavin says, because this is no joking matter.
Jeremy tries to wipe the grin off his face, he does, but he can’t with the way Gavin’s looking at him and the way his heart is doing that flippy thing again.
Good thing, then, that Gavin does it for him when he leans in for that kiss of his.
========
Jeremy’s life isn’t all kittens and sunshine now, no.
Matt still has those debts of his that Jeremy and Trevor are helping him with because God knows he’s an idiot and things are getting better on that front.
Los Santos is still the same shithole it’s always been.
He’s still at the top of the Fake AH Crew’s most wanted list, albeit for a very different reason now.
But.
Jeremy’s found his soulmate and while the two of them have to deal with a few more hurdles in their path than most people do, they manage just fine for themselves.
“Gavin - “
Gavin laughs, pecks Jeremy on the cheek to shush him as the lights go down in the movie theater around them.
“Ignore them,” he he whispers, like Ryan and Michael aren’t a few rows behind them making sure Jeremy doesn’t kidnap Gavin (intentionally) under cover of darkness. “They’re just being ridiculous.”
“I - “Jeremy sighs, because Gavin’s got a point. “Okay.”
The Fakes like to show up on their dates from time to time, scowl and glare at Jeremy because they’re just “like that” according to Gavin, but they disappear after a while to let them have time to themselves.
More of a running gag by now than actual threat, even if Ryan still wears the mask half the time.
It’s weird as hell and definitely not the way Jeremy imagined what finding his soulmate would be like back when he used to think about it, but it works for them and that’s the only thing that matters.
#jerevin#ragehappy#fahc au#soulmates au#ahwuum#Prompt Fills#Kings of Nowhere#vagrant fic#thank you so much for supporting me friend!!!#<333333333333!#(...this is kind of what you asked for???#also it got out of hand on me#so there's that???#:D???)
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
Just in case y’all needed some good ol’ evidence that A) my C teacher knows nothing about C (or teaching for that matter) and B) some college teachers are scum of the earth, here ya go:
THE CONTEXT:
Every week we have quizzes on the week’s topic. This week was loops. The quizzes are 10 questions and multiple choice, so like super easy to pass but of course also super easy to fail. I missed 4, and yes I’m admitting up front that 2 of them are 100% my fault, I wasn’t paying attention, but because I missed 4 that means I got a D. I should also mention, the quizzes are automatically graded.
The 2 questions I’m not taking credit for missing though went as follows:
The code on the left is a direct C/P from the quiz. Now, it’s clear what’s meant to happen is it compared myVar (which at the start is equal to 0) to 99 and says essentially “If 0 equals 99, write true. Otherwise, write false.” So the answer that should output is “False”, because 0 does not equal 99.
However, as you may notice, the if-statement is missing another equal sign, so instead of comparing myVar to 99, it’s instead setting myVar to 99, and because it gets successfully set to 99, the if-statement reads that as being true, and so it goes ahead and writes “True” instead of “False”, as is shown in the console on the right.
So, of course, the question on the quiz being “What will output from this code?” I answered with “True”, and of course, that was apparently wrong. I was apparently supposed to glean that this was clearly a typo and answer with what the code should’ve output, not what it actually does output.
The other question:
Again, the code is a direct C/P from the quiz. It’s clearly meant to exhibit a loop that continuously prints until the variable ‘row’ is no longer less than 10. The question here was “What will be the first value output from this code?” and it’s clear that the intended output is that it will print “row = 1″ first, so the answer should be 1.
However, maybe you noticed the semi-colon after that there while-loop. Now ya see, what that does is change the entire meaning of the code, because instead of printing “row = “ every single iteration until row is no longer less than 10, instead it’s taking row, which in the beginning equals 0, and it’s basically doing the entire loop in the background. So essentially, without you being able to see anything, it’s starting from 0 and adding 1 until it’s no longer less than 10, so until it hits 11, and then it’s moving to the next line of code which says to print “row =“ along with whatever ‘row’ equals at the time.
So evidently, the answer should be 1, but because of this typo, the answer is 11. This question actually stood out to me more than the other one because this is a multiple-choice quiz, it’s not like I’m writing in my answers here, and 11 was in fact one of the available answers, along with 1. So I swear it almost feels like they knew you’d answer with 11, as you reasonably should because 11 is the answer, but they did that just to fuck you over, but I digress.
SO OF COURSE, I emailed my teacher as calmly and rationally as I could (after having numerous other issues with him). I basically just said “Hey, the code in these two questions have typos in them, so the quiz marks these answers as wrong even though they’re technically the right answers.” I explained everything pretty much as I did above, included those same pictures, and said “I can’t possibly imagine I’m the only one these will trip up so I thought I would point them out.”
This was his response:
Again, for context, I looked this guy up online on one of those teacher-rating websites. So I knew going in how bad this guy was, unfortunately I just didn’t have any other option. Not to mention, the single most common complaint I’d read was that he likes to go on long-winded off-topic tangents, and I figured being that I’m taking this class online, that wouldn’t bother me because there are no lectures, just reading, so NBD (but as you can tell from his response, this common complaint seems very self-evident).
The other complaint however, that I guess silly me didn’t think would be that huge of an issue is that he refrains from doing any work he deems to be “extra”. Which leads me to this:
I have had some really shitty teachers in my life, the former-shittiest being one who taught an AP-level class on subject matter he was entirely unfamiliar with and he frequently saw zero issues with allowing us to utilize our classmates, our textbooks, or even the internet on tests. In an AP-level class. I say this with no hyperbole, we all got A’s in the class. Not because most of us even learned anything, but because of what was said above along with the added fact that he never graded any of the tests himself, he always left it to students, sometimes students who hadn’t even taken the test themselves yet.
You know what happened to him? He lost his license and works at Costco now. Don’t get me wrong, he was occasionally a nice guy (when he wasn’t throwing chairs at students but that’s another story), and I wish him the best, but I am very very happy that he is no longer a teacher because he was not a good teacher.
But of course, as you might’ve noticed, him being a shitty teacher worked in my favor. This one however, is not. And TBH, I don’t even know what to do. In high school it was easy, we all went and talked to the councilor and principal, because they’re the adults so they need to deal with it.
Now I’m the adult, and I’m the one shilling out hundreds of dollars to fail quizzes because of typos, and to be marked down on assignments for personal preferences that are not listed anywhere on any of the rubrics, and to learn from a guy who brazenly admits to putting zero effort into teaching his class.
Like, I know there’s a whole thing about teachers not making much money. I get it. That sucks. Teachers definitely need to be paid more. But this, this is absurd, and this does not make me want to pay teachers more. This is, as a teacher might call it, a bad apple ruining it for the rest of the bunch.
Theses whole “reusing old assignments from other teachers w/o reviewing them” bit, or the “using an auto-script to grade and never opening the code to read it myself” bit, or the “deeming everything short of pushing the run button on my auto-script as being ‘extra’ and not doing it” bit, or the “acknowledging when a student points out an error on my end that impacts their grade w/o doing anything to fix it” bit...these bits are why college professors are nothing but scam artists.
EDIT: I will add that, I’m giving him until Monday to change my grade. I’m trying to be the good guy here and give him the biggest benefit of the doubt and say “Okay, maybe he replied to my email late on Friday, but he was done w/ his day so he’ll change my grade come Monday.” Or maybe tomorrow, since tomorrow is the due date for it anyways.
But I should point out, that while that might absolve this issue in particular, there are still many many other issues with this “””teacher””” that go beyond this one issue, and I’m still contemplating going to the department head about it, or someone else. Whoever I need to go to about it, because it’s ridiculous that we’re all paying hundreds of dollars for this 40-50+ year-old man to be treating this class like he’s a 16 year-old working at Taco Bell, which quite frankly, is a discredit to 16 year-olds working at Taco Bell.
#random rant#long rant#long post#long#school#college#programming#teaching#scam#big scam#nothing but a scam#the worst scam#the biggest scam#frankly my next step is going to the department head#because fuck else do I do
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
More Stucky Fic Recs
I’m currently living in a motel ya’ll, and since the internet here is the shittiest thing ever and won’t load much but ao3 and my gdocs (tumblr MOBILE is loading better than the actual website on my computer, it’s a fucking travesty) I’ve been doing a lot of reading! So here, have some Stucky recs, because I’ve read a shitton lately.
the universe makes it all even out (in the end) by hotelmichelle
Bucky used to read all these science fiction novels with morally ambiguous scientists and half-alive monsters. Perhaps that’s what Steve is now; a thing with half of itself missing. Perhaps that’s what the universe is now.
The post Infinity War Fix It Fic that your soul needs, wants, and deserves. It gives you angst, it gives you humor, it gives you a beautiful resolution and a happy ending and it’s just a delight. Go forth and read it now because it’s only got a little over 100 kudos and honestly? That’s a travesty because it deserves so many more.
Echoes In Our Minds by Cristinuke, Nonymos
Steve Rogers is struck by a persistent headache as the dawn rises over DC.
So are—simultaneously—Natasha Romanov in the Muscovite night, James Barnes in the dull grey of a Berlin afternoon, Tony Stark stumbling out of his Afghan cave, Bruce Banner in the crushing heat of the Nevada desert, Clint Barton squinting up at the Vegas lights, Loki Laufeyson under the Scandinavian sun, and Prince T'Challa amidst the West African rainforest.
Surely it’s nothing but an odd coincidence.
I’mma be real here, my ass hasn’t watched a single episode of Sens8 but this was everything my soul never knew it needed. If somehow you haven’t read it, go forth and do so.
Fourth Floor by dirtybinary, mithborien, picoalloe
Steve has his life in order, okay. He goes to wizard college, even if he can't technically do magic. He has his own apartment, even though it's small and dinky and kind of gross, and forgets to exist sometimes, and might also be alive? Plus, he has a crush on the hot cyborg in unit 404 who cooks fiendishly good breakfast foods, and may or may not have some kind of weird connection to the sentient building they live in. He's not sure.
He's dealing, all right, his life is in tip-top condition, or it was until an eldritch monstrosity called the Hydra started posing as a real estate company to try and buy over his new home.
He's really pissed about that.
(The one where Steve is an angry millennial wizard, Sam is a Disney prince, Natasha is a shapeshifter, and Bucky is a spoiler.)
Honestly, this fic is ~40k of content that made me pterodactyl screech constantly. It’s beautiful, it’s so fucking creative that I weep with envy, and if you haven’t read it yet then I must respectfully ask, who are you and what are you even doing with your life???
Probably Not What They Meant By a Game Of Cat and Mouse by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)
Once upon a time in an apartment block in the city there lived a cat named Bucky and a mouse named Steve.
Everyone knows cats and mice can't be friends. But Bucky's not a normal cat: he's a witch's familiar and a damn good one (just ask him). And Steve's not a normal mouse. He's...well, he's Steve.
This is their story.
(Contains many true mouse facts for your edification.)
Does every stucky fic rec list I make feature at least one fic by leveragehunters? Yeah, probably tbh, I’m not ashamed. I honestly have no idea why it took me so long to read this (and it’s sequel which is great and I also recommend) but I finally read it last week and honestly? It’s pretty freaking perfect. And tbh it’s just more proof that everything this author writes is gold, because while I LOOOOVE pretty much anything magical realism/urban fantasy/fantasy and magic in general, I’ve never been the biggest fan of animal aus? But I could read this like 12 times, so you should too.
where the dread fern grows by silentwalrus
Sam's gotta buy a wedding present, and nothing but elf booze will do.
BOG WITCH BUCKY BARNES! BOG WITCH BUCKY BARNES!!!! I live for this, and I live for Sam Wilson’s POV throughout this because I weep with envy over people who capture his pov so well because I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
Tiptoe Through the Tulips by notlucy
Steve and Bucky debate the ethics of sex pollen because they have nothing better to do with their time. No, really.
Literally my favorite sex pollen fic of all time. I mean, I just read it recently but like, I can safely say it’s a favorite OF ALL TIME.
#TweetMeDaddy by StarSpangled (Senforza)
Coulson, for his part, stares up at Bucky with such a betrayed look of frozen horror that Natasha actually goes the extra step and presses another button, capturing the moment and airdropping the photograph to her phone for posterity. When he speaks, his voice comes out as a hoarse whisper. “Why…?” He swallows and starts again, trying for some semblance of normality. “...Why would you tweet something like that?!”
“If you must know, sir,” and somehow he manages to make ‘sir’ come out with the same inflection most people reserve for ‘motherfucking son of a bitch’, “it’s because I have a difficult time doing my job when my job involves monitoring the man with the best fucking ass in the United States of America.” He slowly lowers himself back into his seat until he’s at eye level, making extreme eye contact with Coulson until Coulson turns away to make mortified eye contact in Natasha’s general direction through the one-way glass. Natasha would take another picture, if she weren’t too busy catching Steve’s red-faced sputtering. “Sometimes, I vent to my Twitter followers. Sometimes, it’s about hot men with washboard abs. Can I go now, or do you need a graphic description of how I pleasure myself at night?”
Bucky Barnes is justifiably and righteously furious for like most of this fic and tbh I’m in love with him?
And because I’m an asshole and this is my rec list so I do what I want, I’mma link to Steve Rogers Is (Not) A Good Influence which is my fic where Steve Rogers and Peter Parker go on a road trip and Steve Rogers is a questionable mentor at BEST, as well as It's A Kind Of Magic and it’s kinda sorta prequel The Unfortunate Incident With The Swamp Witch. It’s A Kind Of Magic features vampire!Bucky, witch!Steve, gift giving/courting, a semi-sentient plant, and fluff. The Unfortunate Incident With the Swamp Witch features Steve almost getting eaten by Baba Yaga. That’s it. That’s the whole plot. (I have other fics -11 more of them to be exact!- but these are the ones I’ve written since I’ve been cooped up in a motel room so they take ~precedence.)
Go forth, read ALLLLLLL the fics!
30 notes
·
View notes
Text
I see an idea that keeps coming across my dash (mostly from the su crit sector, which I do my best to avoid but some things can’t be helped) and I feel like I have to say something, because it’s an exceptionally dangerous idea.
The idea is that depicting “bad guys” as sympathetic is horrible and will lead to children rooting for people who oppress others, and will lead children to believe that since these tyrants are shown to have grief and motivations we can empathize with, their actions should be condoned or forgiven.
I know that many people on this website need things to be clear cut in order to feel comfortable. The bad guys need to be ALL BAD and the good guys need to be COMPLETELY GOOD or else the story is a BAD EXAMPLE FOR CHILDREN/PEOPLE.
Let me tell you what this kind of representation does to people.
It tells people that if a person has redeeming qualities and has ever treated you with kindness, that they must be a good person, and that everything they do must be good. It makes them believe that the abuse that they suffer from that person who loves them and has treated them well, IS DESERVED. It tells them that if the person doing this to them is the good guy, THEY MUST BE THE BAD GUY.
Let me tell you another thing that you already know: nothing is black and white. Nobody is completely good or completely bad. Everyone does good things, and everyone does bad things. Some people try harder to do good things than others, but they’ll still do bad things! Because everyone does sometimes! You do bad things and so do I, but what matters is that we’re trying.
Some of the people who want to do good things will do horrible, hideous things in the name of their good thing. They think they are the good guys. Are they the good guys? Honestly, it depends on whether you agree with them or not. They are certainly the good guys in their own story, that’s for sure. Everyone is the good guy of their own story. Everyone is just trying the best they can, even the shittiest, most irredeemable person you know. Even our abusers. Even fucking Hitler and Trump (and, I can’t believe I have to say this explicitly, I hate those fuckers and they should never be forgiven or excused.) And they can still be kind to people, and have compassion for others, and love dogs and cats and art and flowers. They do that shit every day. OF COURSE that doesn’t make their horrible actions excusable in any way.
If you portray the bad guys in all media and caricatures of evil villains, of people who do bad things because it’s fun and they kick every puppy and punch every baby they come across and never do anything relatable, you’ve just written a person who doesn’t fucking exist and teaches people nothing of value. That’s not real. That’s not real life. Your enemies will NEVER, EVER BE LIKE THAT. Trying to make your enemies like that clouds up your argument for why these people are actually not to be trusted. When people see that these ‘evil people’ don’t purposely step on kitten’s tails they’ll say “Oh they’re not so bad, I’m going to listen to them to see what they have to say.” And that’s how people like Jon Tron Jafari are made. Because they didn’t immediately grow horns when they went on /pol/ like they were told they would, they felt like the people there couldn’t be that bad. And then it was hey these people are nice to me, surely these are good people and then new TERFs and Nazifurs are recruited-- you get the picture.
What needs to be taught, what needs to be shown, are how people who do bad things come to do those bad things. People who hurt others have been hurt themselves, full stop. Guess what, sorry, that’s going to be relatable. When you see their story, you’re going to feel bad for them and understand why they did the things they did. THAT IS NOT A BAD THING, IT MEANS YOU’RE HUMAN. You can understand where someone is coming from and still know that the actions they’ve done in response to it are unforgivable. Just because you understand and feel for them doesn’t mean you excuse their horrible behavior.
What needs to be shown and taught is that extremist ideological communities are going to have very strict behavior guidelines, and make you feel so so loved and cherished and valuable when you adhere to them, and rip you to fucking shreds, label you as evil and exile you when you don’t. That’s abuse, children! In case you didn’t know, that is high profile emotional abuse. These communities are also big on violence against the people who don’t adhere to these guidelines, and insist that their guidelines are the only way to be Good People. Their dedication to being a good person has turned them and their community into bad people. That’s what extremism does, and it’s not just the bad guys who let themselves go that far. I see it happen all the time in communities with objectively good goals. I see it all the time on this website. People are hard wired to get sucked into the extremism trap, especially young people who have been hurt. People who have been hurt are more likely to create those kinds of communities. WE NEED TO TEACH PEOPLE WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. WE NEED TO TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO AVOID IT.
We need to teach people how not to do bad things after they’ve been hurt. We need to teach people what good-intentioned bad things look like.
Humanizing the bad guys can do that. Showing the redemption of the bad guys can do that.
Showing people that they can get better can do that.
Redeem Jasper. Bring back Bismuth. Lapis was abused but also an abuser and she’s healing and learning how to live a happy, healthy life and forgive herself.
Rebecca Sugar is a gift and I thank the universe for her every day goodnight.
96 notes
·
View notes
Text
things i think about often in terms of the universe:
how come the world went to shit so quickly? now, i get we only have a little picture of the states alone here, but i can’t believe that it looks like that throughout everywhere. it seems highly unlikely that the government, as well as the military didn’t have a plan for a thing like this. maybe not exactly a zombie apocalypse (tho irl the us have one), but even a plan for a pandemic crisis. plus, especially the US is equipped with a bunch of really strong weapons, so how come things weren’t resolved, and if they were in some places, where are they. THERE MUST HAVE BEEN PREVENTION PLANS.
to add to that, i can’t believe the government such as the president even, and some rich ass assholes don’t have some convenient bunker to hide in. they probably do and keep their asses warm with a significant military force. probably.
what about the rest of the world tho like ??? i would love to know ??? like idk i’m polish personally and we have zero gun laws for example, and not that big of an army, so i just wonder what comes of europe? or even asia? there are oceans around so i just wonder how this works and is it handled, and is it the case that america is busy killing each other while ppl are restoring governments into europe. probably not but ???
can you imagine meeting some famous people while running around looking for food or fighting zombies. like how weird would that be??? hi i liked that tv show u did watch out a zombie.
why keep fighting each other when ppl should work together, collect books to learn useful shit and make things better.
these are walking corpses they are decomposing as time passes i can’t believe it would honestly wipe everything out like. even this website tells me a month after death a decomposing body turns to fluid. now i get the virus does some mushy shit there but they are clearly falling apart, so like ???
things i often think about in terms of the show:
i know they made the worst decision ever by firing frank after season one okay, but i also wish they kind of left the very BRIEF level of intelligence in the zombies. i mean, in s1 they would try smashing the windows with bricks, or turn the doorknob, and while i get it must have been limited as the body decomposing, that’d make things more interesting, a bigger threat, and also keep some consistency maybe but well......... i guess they wanted to distance themselves.
if they wanted to keep the show interesting and the characters diverse, what was the point of perhaps the most pointless death i have seen on television which was beth greene’s. like......... you’ve got this cool, interesting character, who’s not llke everyone else, but is strong in her own name, who got a lovely character development, and you kill her for probably shock value and over the shittiest, smallest pair of scissors in the history of existence.
i wish what happened with carl right before terminus was addressed like ??? the fuck ??? i get it’s the apocalypse, but carl is still a damn KID for crying out loud, and that would be a literal traumatic shit for everyone so like ??????????????? the fuck ??????????
who ??? is ??? taking ??? care ??? of ??? judith ???
#( outofwalkers. )#oh my god listen.......................#i was cleaning up and my brain just went places#in any case feel free to ignore me#tbh i think both stef and i agree ngl#long post for ts#also in other news: in my book glenn is alive
1 note
·
View note
Text
Pissing in the wind
First day in Brussels has been an interesting one that's for sure. I thought that I would wander around the city and scope this out a bit, leading to a couple of cool finds and also a couple of sweet nothings. The first place I decided to go was a "church" that I had seen the night before while on the way to get some food.
I traced my path back and found that this was no mere church, it was the cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula. This place is astonishing. I don't think I've ever seen a cathedral this old and this grand before. It has been on the current site since the 9th or 10th century, but the current gothic facade began to be created in the 13th and took 300years to finish. It's easy to see why, the place is massive with several seperate prayer areas, beautiful stained glass windows and intricate stone sculptures all around. The bells in the tour still sound off each 15 minutes, I know because walking around and seeing almost all it has to offer was a good 45 minutes.
After that I went for a wander following a map I had gotten at the hostel. The film and art museum however was closed and the place it recommended for lunch was also not open when I had arrived so with no time to waste I thought fuck it and just kept wandering through the city. I realised pretty quickly that they were setting up for something big, and only found out later that the Christmas festivities start on the 30th of November so there are little stalls popping up all over.
While on this wander I passed a church that had urinals placed the outside of the facade. Having spent many a big night out on multiple pub crawls and the like all I could think was what a great idea. It's not like you'll miss the church, maybe Melbourne should implement this and save some hassle...
I sat down for lunch at drug opera, far less interesting than the name suggests, and watch stereotypical Asian tourists, far more French than I expected, take selfies on the tinsel laden staircase. The lower end of town is far nicer than the top end, it just feels more like how I expected a European city to be. Cobblestone streets, smells of waffles as you pass the shops, old gothic style buildings, it's lovely really.
Managing to scope out where my tour was to be held I caught a glimpse of a familiar blue thing in the distance. It was a big smurf sitting in a round about just outside what I was about to discover is the museum of original figurines. This museum is made up of figurines donated by local collectors of all different kinds of classic comic characters from Brussels, the most famous of course being Tin Tin. There is a rich history of comic culture in Brussels and this museum shows it's beginnings, the most popular characters and some bits and pieces in between. Well worth checking out, and a nice little hidden gem within the city.
After the visit to MOOF it was on to the main attraction of the day, a walking chocolate and beer tour through the city of Brussels. The tour ran by a lovely ex-Spaniard Daniel was amazing. We started off at a shop called chocopolis, unique because it's owner is lactose intolerant so they developed a way to create dark chocolate replacing the cream with coconut cream and still getting a delicious result. They also ship from a website so it is possible to try some of what I had 😉. Within chocopolis we had 2 of our eventual 12 treats. This included a taste of the 60% dark chocolate, and a chilli chocolate, that didn't burn, but had a nice warmth to it.
After chocopolis it was on to our second destination Frederick Blondeel, another artisanal chocolate shop. This was a family run shop that had spent time travelling around the world and had several single origin chocolates on offer, as well as several with fillings. We found out on the way there that the original idea for chocolates in the city originated from how difficult it was to originally swallow medicine in the old days. Because of the rough chemistry set like flavours of the medicine a local chemist started to cover them in chocolate to make it easier to take, eventually this led to removal of the medicine and insertions of ganache and other things to create the chocolate we know today.
At Blondeels I partook in a piece of 75% single origin cocoa from India, a raspberry caramel filled praline that was amazing, a cayenne pepper and lemongrass chocolate that was surprisingly refreshing and lastly a small piece of 100% dark chocolate and a roasted cocoa bean. The 100% was pretty nice, but the bean tasted like I was eating red wine, horrendously bitter and not that tasty overall but each to their own.
From there we moved across the street to what was described as the coco Chanel of chocolate, Pierre Marcolini. Marcolini started out as a pastry chef but eventually turned his fine work and flavour combinations to the world of chocolate and while it is some of, if not the most expensive chocolate in town it is truly delicious. Here we tried out a 75% single origin from Venezuela, that had a totally different taste to the one tried from India, it was much less smooth and more like what you'd expect a dark chocolate to taste like. There was a chocolate infused with violet, that we did a pseudo experiment on, holding our noses at first while chewing the chocolate then opening it and allowing the flavour to really explode outwards proving just how much smell affects taste, lastly was one named the melting hug, while not my favourite of the bunch it was sort of like the rich popcorn equivalent of chocolate.
After this we had a little history tour of the city. Passing through some more of the cobblestone streets, we saw buildings that had been up since the 16th century, part of the old city wall that once encompassed the city and got little tidbits and facts about the town along the way. We also got to hear tales about and see the iconic Mannekin piss. This is a statue/fountain of a little boy pissing. Several legends surround why this little boy came to be, including a Braveheart esque inspiring of the troops as a small child ran onto a battlefield and pissed on their enemies. He is kind of cute and funny, and has got more than a thousand outfits created for him over the years. It is also the symbol of the city and shows that they don't take themselves too seriously.
Our final chocolate stop was Mèert, a French chocolate shop in the shopping gallery. Within this shop we got to pick any two on display, so I went after a fancy snickers like nut and caramel one and a black currant jelly filled one, similar to a Turkish delight. I didn't realise how tasty chocolate could be, and I don't think I'll be able to find anything at home that loves up to what I've tasted here.
The next part of the tour was dedicated to beers of the area and visiting a few different pubs. The first one we went to was family run for over 5 generations and the last owner even has a mannekin piss costume designed after him. It was here that we tried a Lambek ( I think that's the right spelling) which is a sour beer with cherry flavour. Much alike champagne this style of beer can only be called a lambek if it is made within the area of the city, which I forgot to mention has around 1300 different beers within it. The second beer we had was a golden Carolus triple, the triple means triple the alcohol. What we learnt about this was that doubles will always be dark, triples will be blonde, and quads could be anything. The triple we had was quite frothy and about 9%.
The second bar of the evening brought us some more new age beers of the region. This included the Delta IPA, One that was far less hoppy than what I am used to back home, and the Jambe de bois triple, a late hopped triple that seemed a little closer to the stuff I'm used to. About now was when the beers started to hit and the points Daniel made were coming to fruition, mostly being that you can't really have a huge night out in Belgian beers because of their power.
The last stop on this trip found us at the oldest pub in the city. So old that the walls were soaked with nicotine and when some of the artwork was moved you could see the original paint below. We finished off the night with a Trappist double, a dark sort of stoutly beer, and a St Bernardus quad that while also dark was not as nice as its counterpart. Overall it was an amazing afternoon/evening that only left me feeling a little groggy the next day.
What I realised this next day was that I had forgotten how tiring it is to walk around all day, and thanks for the heads up mum and dad for how much the cobblestone seems lovely but also sucks to walk on all day.
Anyway today was a much quieter day. It began with a revisit of the hotel de ville, or town hall we had seen the night before. A grand spire adorns the building and its pretty damn hard to miss it, it was one of the only buildings not to be destroyed int he bombing of 1695 and still holds strong today. Across from this is the history of Brussels museum, housed in a stunning black gothic building it holds so much information about the expansion of Brussels throughout the ages and holds some wonderful works of art as well. The city itself has been surrounded by two walls, the first of which was eventually absorbed into the city, and the second built so large that it was not broken down until the 19th century.
From there I went in search of lunch and managed to get the shittiest sandwich I possibly could, note to self don't trust the pictures. It's meant to be some Brussels thing with chips and meat and salad all in the one sandwich but honestly the best part was the bread. Maybe I just chose the wrong place but was not impressed.
From shitty lunch it was up the hill to the museum if musical instruments. This museum was truly incredible. It must have hundreds of instruments from all different parts of the world and all different time frames. There were Jews harps, and harpsichords with stunning paintings on the lids. There were weird tribal bagpipe-esque things and synthesisers, the place was just packed. The really cool thing was also being able to hear some of them with the audio tour, even if some of them sound terrible, but to be fair it would have been a little underwhelming without the audio tour. There's four levels to the museum and after that a 10th level restaurant which I was told had a great view of the city. It did, but you couldn't step outside to get a good photo so a little bit sucky.
Quite frankly after all of that I was pooped. Quickly dropping past the mannekin piss I found him dressed up in a little costume today, and then it was off to get a nice tasty waffle for a snack. I'd love to say I did more after that but alas i did not. The walking had seriously taken it out of me and I need a decent rest to see what I really came to Belgium for, Bruges.
So until I arrive in Bruges and have some stories to tell you about that town I bid you all a good evening or morning depending where you are. Brussels has been a nice place to start the travels off and I'm sure it will get better as the days go on.
0 notes
Text
I think I can play my worst day of the year card, and most stressful day of my life card which was played on my dissertation day :) :)
• so it was day before my dissertation needed to be handed in
• and so me being me, I started getting paranoid that it was shit
• so I ended up doing an all nighter to try and "brush it up"
• I had my results on a different document and then it started to play up, all the pictures kept disappearing etc
• and then eventually, word decided to not work with it anymore, and saying the file was too large to open and basically corrupt itself
• so I had to half ass the results as this was about 4am now and the deadline was at 12pm and labelling scientific shit takes ages
• I was ok ish up until now
• then work bugged up and again and corrupted my work
• luckily I was saving my result word document on my external hard drive
• but I lost my actual writing document
• so I lost my discussion entirely, about 600 words from my intro, and my in silico (basically science stuff done on a computer / outside labs
• in silico is worth about 20% and it takes a long time - so I had to hand it in without
• I also had to quickly make a completely new discussion which ended up only being a page ish (which is bad btw)
• because the only recently saved thing was on my hard drive and it was the shit version
• this is about 9ish now
• so I finally gave quits cos I had to print out 2 copies and i had to go in and it in before 12
• printer decides to jam out of all days its been so loyal
• so I wasted time trying to get that fixed
• finally got it printed out at my mum's work
• it's now 11am and I had to drive to uni
• handed it in, I usually don't feel bad about work I hand it, but I feel so shit about this
• cos it was something I've worked ages on, and I was actually happy with it and everything
• which doesn't usually happens when it comes to my work
• so yeah I was in the shittiest mood, basically crying non stop since 5am
• got home to upload it to the uni's website
• my hard drive's port thing decided to snap off the board (you know where you plug in a cable to connect it to the PC
• so now I've got the shit version again because it was the only thing it was saved on
• so because I've already handed in a version, it couldn't be different from the one I was about to upload so I just emailed my tutor saying look, everything fucked up today, this is what your getting lol, i accept that i could be prevented this, despite that i’ve never had this many fuck up in one essay
• uploaded it, and just went to bed, and I've been emotionless ever since cos that drained all my emotions away
• and it's now Sunday and I'm still too nervous to go on my computer to check my emails to see what he said
• so yeah I'm gonna fail that and might not graduate lol
• I'm so sick of uni and I was so ready to leave and now i might need to redo that uni, therefore, stay another year and not graduate with my friend
• fml
• lol
• wish I was making this up
• this only happens on TV for the drama effect
• but no
• this actually fucking happened to me
• on my dissertation deadline
• fuck
#im so fucking upset about this#i just needed to write this down lol#its not leaving my head#i am so nervous as fuck as to what will happen now#im so embarrassed as well#considering i couldve handed in MUCH better work in#sian speaks#ignore me as well lol
0 notes
Text
It’s been a shitty night. And I’m new.
Hello. My name is Kelly. I am 21 years old, and my mother is a drug addict. I am not doing this in spite of my mother. I am doing this in an attempt to stay positive and to even help her. Also spread awareness. And also to clear my head a bit, when nights like this happen.
This is not the first time this has happened. When I was 11 years old, my mother was addicted to pain pills prescribed to her when she had back/hysterectomy surgeries. I remember very little from that experience other than her and my sister getting into serious arguments and her short-lived stay at rehab for a week. I remember this because spring pictures were happening and I had to pick out my own outfit for school and I chose a long-sleeve camouflage shirt with a peace sign on it and dark green cargo pants. I also remember talking to her from rehab that morning. This was also a time where I first started pulling out my hair. (This is a story for a different time, but I have trichotillomania, which is a condition where I pull my hair out compulsively. I’ll continue with my mother’s issues for now.)
She has been an addict since, and I’m not sure when she started taking pills or where she stopped, or if it’s been continuous this whole time but it wasn’t an issue in earlier years because we had money. Anyway, right now she is using pills that she found on the Internet. God fucking knows what is in those, right? These websites claim that there is Kratom in those pills. I managed to look up the Wikipedia page for it. Hell, I’ll just include the link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa
I don’t want to have to explain what that is anymore. No offense to you, I’m just burnt out on it. I found out that my mother was back on pills in November of 2016. It was Thanksgiving break, actually. My mother almost overdosed on these pills. She took so many that the night before she kept falling asleep while we were watching television, which she never does. The next day I woke up with a text on my phone from a work friend, Donna, who was anxiously asking me what was wrong with my mother. Frankly, I had just woken up, I had no idea anything was wrong with her. I went downstairs in a hurry, obviously worried. I went into my parent’s bedroom where the lights were out. My mother was in her bed, asleep, and my father was in his chair in that room, watching television. Mind you, this is a Monday, when my mother should be at work. When he saw me he frowned a little, trying to smile and walked with me out of the room my mother was in. He talked to me for a little bit, then motioned me to the couch in the living room where he then explained to me that all the money troubles we had been experiencing in the past few months were because of my mother, and that she was spending it on drugs. I naturally broke down and my mother pretty much slept that entire day. It turns out she had taken too many that morning and was falling asleep at work. My aunt came over and recommended rehab places for her to go, but we simply cannot afford a rehab center right now because the only income we are receiving comes from my mother’s job and my father’s retirement. If she were to go to a rehab facility she would be fired and we would no longer have insurance or money. It was one of the shittiest Thanksgiving breaks I ever had, making 2016 one of the worst years of my life thus far.
Anyway, it’s been a continued struggle since I found out, and tonight the straw nearly broke the camel’s back. Tonight I was with my parents. We had a good day. My cousin came over and we watched Netflix shows and ate cake because it is almost my mother’s birthday. Later that night, my mother told us goodnight and was going to bed when I heard a pill bottle crash on the floor. I asked my dad if he heard anything and he told me to go check it out. So I did. She claimed it was her anxiety pills that fell. However, I searched her medicine cabinet anyway. What did I find? Some pills that looked very familiar as they were some of the kind that I found when I searched her purse when she almost overdosed. They were the exact kind, in a smaller bottle. I asked her if my father knew about it and she said yes, it was the ones from when we searched her. However, I knew that my dad burned them. She definitely ordered those. So I went into the living room with my dad and gave the bottle to him. He got upset naturally, and I did too, very much. Not nearly as upset as my mother, though. She was yelling at us because we didn’t believe her that she didn’t take pills tonight. I really don't believe her, but I really can’t afford to believe her at this point. She has lied too many times. It got ugly and my mom eventually went to bed and was crying so loudly that my father and I could hear from the living room. I went in there with her. I have been having a hutch that she might be keeping pills in her puzzle boxes. So I asked her about it. But at this point I’ve had enough and I’m not entirely sure if I should even worry anymore because she’s going to do it anyway. No matter how many times I tell her how fucking terrible it is to poison herself with that shit and hurt us.
It is so fucking painful to have to live here. I feel like there’s nothing I can do to help her. She can always order more. She can always lie. And I can’t tell if she’s telling the truth or not. Not even my father can, and they’ve been married for forty years. I just want this shit to stop, but it won’t because she’s hooked so badly on that poison.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
