haiiii what music do u think sam would listen to……. trying to figure out if he’d like metal…….

he absolutely would but DID YOU KNOW. !!!!! they literally said in an interview that Sam listens to fall out boy??? he's a fob fan real not fucking clickbait !!!!!!

read it on ao3!

Little Things

Peter woke up to the soft sound of the ocean coming from his alarm, at exactly 8 am, like any other morning. He got up and shuffled over to his ridiculously large closet in his even more ridiculously large bedroom suite -courtesy of Tony Stark to all the Avengers- with a yawn.

He picked his outfit for the day, an oversized pastel yellow sweatshirt with a cartoon bee on it, and baby blue scuffed jeans.

Peter walked over to his door and opened it, poking his head out to see if anyone else was around, but he was only greeted to an empty hallway. Leaving the door open, he headed back inside his room to finish getting ready.

He liked doing that; Having his door wide open. He knew that everyone there had gone through a hard time and well.. If anyone ever needed to talk, they’d all know his door is open to them. Literally.

He stepped out of his room ten minutes later, now with a pair of matching bee long-socks and headphones in.

Walking down the hallway, mouthing the words to his song and nodding along to the beat, he bumps into Tony, “Whoa there, kid”, he holds Peter by his shoulders, raising his eyebrows.

Peter pulls out an earbud, wincing. “Sorry Mr. Stark!”- An ad decides to blare out right that second, sounding a lot louder than his music.

Tony chuckles and crosses his arms across his chest. “C’mon, I told you to stop calling me that, Pete.”

“Right, right sorry, Tony”, He smiles and points his thumb down the hallway. “Breakfast?”

Tony shrugs and shakes his head, “Oh, I’ll just have Dum-E bring me some coffee or something.”

Peter pouts and crosses his arms like him, “You never have breakfast with the rest of us, c’mon grouchy pants, be a bit more passionate, spend some time with us-“, Peter kept going on about reasons why he should join the everyone for more meals, and Tony joined in, talking over him, “-what do you mean, be more passionate, you all live in my building, this is so insulting-“, rolling his eyes and following Peter -Not that he had much of a choice, since somewhere along his rant Peter had started tugging on Tony’s sleeve and pulling him down the hallway.

They walked into the kitchen, where Clint was leaning over the counter, checking his phone, a croissant and a mug of something hot in front of him. “Hey Clint!”, Peter chirped. The only acknowledgement he got from Barton was a single wave, and a mumble, his eyes never leaving his phone.

Steve was sitting next to Bucky on a wide couch in the open room on the other side of the kitchen counter –which was more than often used as a dining room-, a discarded newspaper beside them as Bucky pointed to something on an IPad Steve was holding, showing him how he could surf news websites instead of “-reading newspapers like a boring old man.” “Hey-!”

Bruce Banner and the Widow were nowhere to be seen.

Peter let go of Tony’s arm, his headphones forgotten around his neck, and started pulling out containers of pre-cut fruit as Tony poured out two mugs of coffee. He handed Peter one and they both sat at the other end of the counter, giving Clint some space.

Peter scrunched his nose up at his coffee and got back up, returning with a mug that was more milk and ice than coffee. Tony gave him a poker-faced look. “Oh I’m sorry, but some of us don’t like things that taste like drywall.” “Excuse me-” “You’ve been excused, now eat.”, he nudged a small bowl of berries towards Tony.

Tony looked at Peter, hand on his chest, “The audacity-”, he popped a blueberry into his mouth and his face morphed into something of happiness. “I’ve haven’t had these in so long-”, “Yeah I bet”, Peter snorted and took a sip of his coffee, (If you could call it that) and put one of his headphones back in.

An entire bowl of berries and four Spotify ads later, Tony left for the workshop, with a snarky remark and a genuine word of thanks from Peter.

Three hours later, in the middle of his workout session, a notification on Peter’s phone let him know the details about his new Spotify premium account. With a small smile and a roll of his eyes, he stepped off the treadmill that had slowed to walking speed, and patted his forehead with a soft towel.

Pulling a grey hoodie on, he fast-walked to the kitchen and pulled out a bowl of small, cut carrots from the fridge and made his way to Tony’s workshop, knowing he’d probably still be there. He and Dr. Banner were two of the very few people who had access to this room. “Knock knock”, he announced his presence in a singsong voice, thought he knew that F.R.I.D.A.Y had probably let Mr. Stark know that he’d be coming. “Hey kid”. Peter walked across the many parts and mechanical tidbits strewn across the floor and made his way to the table Tony was sitting behind.

“I come bearing gifts-”, he said as he set the carrots down on Tony’s table, -“And thanks. Seriously, I know we can’t stop you from spending money on us, but Spotify premium?” “What, the ads were annoying-” “You didn’t hear me talking, but you heard the ads-”, “Oh it’s just some silly little app anyway”, Tony replied, crunching down on a carrot piece. Peter sighed, walked around the table, and gave Tony a one-armed hug around the shoulders since he was still sitting down. “Thanks, Tony.” “Yeah yeah, get off me, kid.”, he grumbled and pat Peter’s arm, a smile growing on his face.

The rest of the day, every time Tony would finish his fruit, a new plate of snacks would show up less than fifteen minutes later, with no sign of the boy himself.

~

Six months later, just as Peter was dosing off in Tony’s their bed, in Tony’s their bedroom, he finally got to find out what his “super-secret project, no you cannot help me, and no one can know what it is”, project was.

Tony dramatically entered the room, startling Peter out of his half-asleep state, waving something around, “Oh my God, Peter, it’s finally over, Pete, old ladies do this as a hobby, a hobby, I tell you”,- rolling his eyes and dropping onto the bed. “Christ Tones, what’re you on about?”

Tony holds out what he was holding. Peter’s expression of confusion and slight annoyance instantly turns into one of adoration. “Tony-”, “No, okay I know it isn’t perfect, but you were really upset when I spoilt your bee sweater,” –He said with a smirk- “And I wanted to make you something anyway- hey hang on, why’re you crying, baby, oh n-”, Peter cut him off with a big kiss, and snatches the newly knit sweater from tony. It was a soft peach color, and had two little knit bees in front. It fit him perfectly, a little bigger than his own size, but that was Peter saw as his perfect size anyway.

He wore the sweater for four days straight before Tony made him take it off to shower.

Taste of a Poison Paradise | Chapter 5

Title: Taste of a Poison Paradise Summary: Life at Jackie Cox’s strip club, Poison Paradise, isn’t just lapdances and g-strings. There’s enough drama, lust, and heartache to rival any soap opera. None of the girls know what to expect on any given shift, especially while navigating their torrid, complicated relationships. Word Count: ~2.9k (this chapter) / ~15.1k (total) Relationship(s): Lemyanka (Lemon/Priyanka), Crygi (Crystal Methyd/Gigi Goode), Sportsdoll (Jan Sport/Nicky Doll), Jaidie (Jaida Essence Hall/Jackie Cox), Branjie (Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo), Kamjie (Kameron Michaels/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo), Rosnali (Rosé/Denali Foxx) Rating: E

Read on AO3 | Ko-Fi

Chapter Summary: Lemon and Priyanka's relationship is more of a rollercoaster than ever and Rosé figures out the truth about Denali

-

“Are you still giving me the cold shoulder?” Priyanka asked, a mix of frustration and exhaustion in her voice. There was also an underlying hint of anxiety, but that was something she could address later, as much later as possible.

Lemon turned to look at her with a deadpan expression. She didn’t utter a word, instead, she blinked and looked back at her phone, scrolling in tension-filled silence.

The taller woman sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Lem, I told you I haven’t been avoiding you. Mark’s project got delayed so he’s home all the time. He was gonna start getting suspicious if I kept spending the night with you.”

“He keeping you occupied with that mediocre dick?” The cold harshness in her voice was, at least to Priyanka, even worse than the silence.

“Lem, don’t do this,” she pleaded softly. “You know I’d much rather be giving you my fake dick than taking his real one. But it’s just gonna be a little difficult for us to have our usual rendezvous until his project starts back up,” she explained, then quietly strummed her fingers against the bar. “I’ll make up an excuse and come over tonight… if you still want me to, I mean.”

Despite her best efforts, Lemon cracked a slight smile. “Yeah, I still do. I’m not gonna punish my pussy just because I’m still pissed at you.”

Priyanka put her arms up in surrender. “Hey, I’ll take what I can get.”

Lemon swallowed a laugh as she hopped down from the barstool. “I’ll be back after my shift, there better not be any sudden plan changes,” she warned before going upstairs to spend the time before her shift in the common room.

“You seem to be in better spirits,” Jan observed as she noticed Lemon come in. She sat down on the couch with the mug of coffee she’d just poured. “I take it Pri was finally able to pencil you in for a booty call?”

“Ugh, don’t say it like that, it makes me sound desperate,” she rolled her eyes. “Her stupid, ugly, smelly boyfriend is still around.

Jan quirked her brow. “Have you ever been in the same room as him?”

“No, but I don’t need to be to know I’m right.”

“You know I worry that you two are gonna end up in over your heads if you aren’t already,” she warned in a calm, gentle tone. She’d had a front-row seat to a fair amount of Lemon and Priyanka’s intimate trysts being Lemon’s roommate and from day one, she’d had the sinking feeling things would end badly. But there was only so much arguing one could do with someone like Lemon.

And unsurprisingly, Lemon scoffed. “Look, I know what we’ve been doing is amoral, but when you think about it, it’s not even our fault. It’s society’s fault for making Pri feel like she has some guy when I’m literally right here.”

“So you do wanna date her?”

Her face reddened, which she tried to offset by rolling her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

------

Denali fixed herself up in the quick-change dressing room. It was her last main stage dance for the night and she had just enough momentum built up to go out with a bang. She looked up when she saw Gigi walk in via the reflection in the mirror. “What’s with the smug grin?”

“I think you have a special visitor in the audience.” When they noticed the confusion in the dancer’s expression, Gigi followed up with, “Rosé asked me if you were up next and sat herself front and center when I said that you were.”

“Oh!” her voice went up in pitch and volume. She cleared her throat and instead focused on fixing her platinum blonde wig. “I mean… oh, cool. I’m sure she’ll enjoy the show.”

Gigi tilted their head to the side. “Is that how I sounded all this time? Fuck,” they shook their head. “Oh, by the way, I’ve decided to go by they/them off the clock, I’ve been letting the rest of the girls know too. It's like, I've been feeling like I’m just dressing up like a girl on stage, you know how it is.”

Denali nodded as she got up. “Whatever makes you feel the most yourself, babe,” she told her with a smile, then took a deep breath as she sauntered onto the stage to the slow, seductive beat of the music. She focused on maintaining the confidence she always brought to her performances and not letting the fact that Rosé was right in her field of vision throw her off.

Rosé watched intently, and while her gaze tended to linger on Denali’s body, she would look up at her face often enough for something to click. She finally realized she recognized the dancer from her work as a cam girl. The realization made her blush but didn’t deter her in the slightest.

After Denali had finished her number, she beckoned Rosé over. She leaned down and whispered, “go upstairs, I’ll meet you there in five,” before backing off to collect her tips as if nothing had happened.

Naturally, Rosé made her way upstairs as quickly as her legs would take her and waited eagerly for Denali to join her. “You know,” she started when she saw her, “I figured out where I know you from.”

“You got me,” she replied and slowly pulled off her wig and wig cap in one go, so her black hair cascaded down her back. “I’m Hannah Montana.”

Rosé blinked, then snorted with laughter. “You’re so fucking stupid,” her tone was fond as she shook her head. “I guess it makes sense. Taking this on as a second job.”

“I’m a people person, being in front of a camera just doesn’t do it for me. Money’s decent, but still. I’ve been considering bringing that stage name over here.”

“Oh you’re not gonna make poor Heidi try and announce ‘Aurora Borealis,” she playfully chastised. Then there was a beat of silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “Did you think I’d have a problem with it or something?”

“No,” she shrugged. “It was more fun making you work for it.”

She cocked her brow. “Oh, you’re a little brat, aren’t you?”

“I feel like there’s not much use in trying to argue that, so.” Denali leaned against the wall, looking up at Rosé and fluttering her lashes with coy flirtation. “You gonna do something about it or not?”

Rosé tilted her head and bit her lip, moving closer to Denali until she had both arms bracketing her against the wall. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Was that your endgame the whole time? Give me this whole run around until I was frustrated enough to fuck you as hard as your bratty ass wants?”

“I mean… yes, obviously.”

“Not in the common room, we eat and cry in here.” Jan’s voice pulled Rosé and Denali from their moment, but she shrugged when they glared at her. “What? Just fuck in the spa room like the rest of us,” she told them as she grabbed a cup o’ noodles from one of the drawers that Jackie kept stocked for the girls, and left a couple of dollars from her bra in its place.

Rosé rolled her eyes. “Bitch, I will fuck her in front of you, don’t test me.”

Jan scoffed as she started eating her noodles. “Do it, I dare you.”

“I am begging you not to,” another voice chimed in, the three women turned to see Lemon come up the stairs. While of course, she had no issue with hooking up in various parts of the building, Rosé is her cousin and that was simply a line she refused to cross. She did not care how badly Rosé wanted to fuck Denali – and yes, she knew.

“I cannot believe you’re cockblocking me right now,” she huffed, glancing back at Denali and mouthing ‘sorry’.

But Denali was unphased by the entire exchange. “Girl, just take me home. I’m still gonna put out.”

“Oh,” Rosé blinked, “alright then.”

------

Even though it had barely been a week since Lemon and Priyanka had last hooked up, it felt like ages for them. The second they were inside Lemon’s apartment, clothes were coming off and being tossed any which way as they stumbled into the bedroom, naked by the time their bodies hit the bed.

Priyanka rifled through Lemon’s closet until she came back with the strap-on, fastening it around her waist. She smirked when she turned around and realized Lemon was waiting for her on all fours. “Damn, I should hold out on you more often,” she teased.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Lemon hissed as if there was the slightest chance Priyanka would pass up time with her if given the option.

She chuckled as she positioned herself behind her. “There’s my bratty little Lem,” she cooed, holding her waist with one hand while the other guided the length of the silicone toy into her. She waited for a beat after she bottomed out, making sure Lemon was comfortable before she began thrusting steadily.

Lemon started moaning out the second it started. Her hands fisted into the comforter on her bed, her head hanging forward. Whenever she wanted more or wanted it harder, she would push her hips against Priyanka to urge her on.

And Priyanka knew what each movement meant. “You’re so fucking needy, aren’t you? So desperate to get pounded out,” she grunted. Her hand moved from Lemon’s waist to grab her hair, pulling it back while her free hand moved between her legs, rubbing her clit in time with her thrusts.

“Fuck, baby, just like that, please,” it was only when Lemon was in the heat of the moment, and close to an orgasm, that she would use words like ‘baby’ or ‘please’ unless she was trying to get her way with something. But luckily for her, Priyanka obliged without comment, and she let out a sharp, pleasured cry as she came moments later.

“That’s my good girl,” Priyanka praised, pressing a kiss to her shoulder as she eased out of her, cleaning up and putting the dildo and harness away, then got under the covers. “Come, you owe me cuddles.”

Lemon ducked her head away to hide how big her smile was, then cuddled up to Priyanka, resting her head on her chest. “Not to be like, corny or whatever, but I missed you,” she mumbled, hiding her face in the crook of her neck, lest she accidentally make eye contact.

Priyanka grinned, shaking her head. “I missed you too, weirdo,” she said and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She gazed down at her, feeling warmth and affection for a fleeting moment, before angst and melancholy built up from the pit of her stomach, coming out in a sad sigh.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I…” she chewed on her lip and looked away. “Yeah, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

------

Rosé hummed to herself as she got into the shower, letting the hot water wake her up from the deep sleep the night before. And perhaps she needed it more than she realized, as she was startled when she suddenly noticed she was no longer alone. “I thought you were still asleep.��

Denali shrugged. “I was. But then I woke up and you weren’t there, and I got bored.”

She chuckled softly, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman’s waist. “Well, good morning, then,” she pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You sleep alright?”

“More than alright. Pretty sure I passed out somewhere after the fourth orgasm,” she chuckled softly, trailing light kisses along her jaw.

Rosé smirked. “No wonder you’re so clingy, they always wanna stick around after they get fucked well,” she teased, her hands moving from Denali’s back to squeeze her ass. “That why you’re in here? Woke up craving more?”

“God, you’re so fucking cocky,” Denali huffed, though she had no honest way of denying that. “But… yeah, very much so.”

“That’s what I thought,” she chuckled before sinking to her knees and nudging Denali’s thighs apart. She gripped each of her thighs, keeping them far enough apart for her to trace her tongue along her folds, then swirled it around her clit.

Denali gasped out softly, resting her head against the wall. “Fuck…” she exhaled, her eyes fluttering shut, moaning at the sensation of Rosé’s tongue on her clit and her fingers easing their way into her.

Rosé continued to lick and suck on her clit as she steadily curled and thrust two fingers into Denali, her free hand moving to her waist, gripping it to keep her steady and hold her in place.

She whimpered and moaned, dragging her fingers through Rosé’s wet hair, her hips starting to rock despite her grip. It wasn’t long after that that she felt a familiar tightness building in her stomach. “Fuck, Rosie, I’m close,” she warned, and not a minute after that, her body arched forward as she came.

Once she was certain Denali was done, Rosé eased out of her and stood back upright, pressing a kiss to her lips. “Now, do you mind if I actually take a shower? I have to get ready for work.”

“Okay, okay,” Denali put her hands up in surrender as she stepped out of the shower. “You think your roommate heard us last night? Or just now?”

Rosé shrugged as she washed her hair. “Probably not, Mik sleeps like a rock. The bitch would sleep through a nuclear holocaust.”

“Fair enough, not that I mind an audience, after all,” she hummed. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair,” she laughed at her own joke then kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you around.” She dried off and redressed before leaving for her apartment. Everything had gone well so far, she thought, the sex was fantastic and they didn’t need to complicate it with anything else.

------

Lemon had just finished her set when she noticed something out of the ordinary. After grabbing her robe from the quick-change room, she made her way over to the bar. “What’re you doing back there, Jaida? Is Jackie cross-training the strippers now?”

“I bartended in college,” Jaida explained. “Pri couldn’t come in, said she had an important dinner to go to, and based on how it sounded, I think it’s with her boyfriend.”

“Gross,” Lemon muttered. “Gimme a melon ball and a lemon drop.”

Jaida arched her brow but made the shots for her nonetheless. “You a little cranky without your girlfriend here, huh?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” she huffed, downing the shots one after the other. “And I don’t care who the fuck she has dinner with. I’m just annoyed because she was supposed to give me a ride home. Since, you know, Jan spends more time at Nicky’s than anywhere else.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” she offered with a shrug. “Something tells me you’re not gonna wanna be alone tonight.”

Lemon smiled weakly. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” She was quiet for a few beats with her downcast gaze on the bar, until she finally looked back up at Jaida and asked, “can I get another lemon drop?”

And, as it turned out, Lemon would need the adult supervision. Once her shift ended, she had gotten much more drunk and needed to be hauled into her apartment and tucked into bed, where she passed out almost instantly.

Jaida had stayed awake and watched Lemon for a little while, feeling almost a maternal instinct when it came to Lemon. But eventually, she retired to Jan’s room for the night, figuring she wouldn’t mind, given the circumstances, and slept through the night. She woke up the next morning to a knock on the door and pushed herself out of bed. “Oh, hey Pri, how was your dinner?”

Priyanka furrowed her brows. “Why are you in Lemon’s apartment?” she asked, her stomach tightening in a knot as she followed up with, “did you guys hook up?”

“Nah, she was too wasted to even try,” she shook her head as she ushered her inside, the two of them sitting down on the couch. “What’s going on? You look like you saw a ghost or something.”

Priyanka exhaled deeply. “No, um… actually, I’m kinda glad I can practice on someone else, because I’m terrified of telling Lemon,” she looked down, fumbling with the hem of her shirt, shifting uncomfortably, unable to find a satisfactory way to sit and instead just slumped forward and sighed. “Mark proposed. And I panicked and said yes.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring, morosely sliding it onto her finger.

“Oh shit,” Jaida blinked in surprise, her eyes widening when she saw the ring. She pressed her lips into a fine line. “Listen, this might not be the ‘right’ advice, but I don’t think you should tell Lemon yet. You can say whatever you want about whatever your relationship is, but it don’t take a rocket scientist to know it’s more than just sex. She’s not gonna take it well, you need to really think this out.”

She swallowed thickly and nodded, taking the ring off and putting it back in her pocket, then scratched at her hands as if she were fighting the urge to wash them. “You’re right,” she nodded, eyes focused squarely on the floor. “I can’t tell her yet.”

But she didn’t need to, as Lemon had been silently listening from her room, peering through the cracked open door. She shut it quickly but quietly, deciding to go right back to bed. It was too early for her heart to break.

Halo! Can you please write fic where like a random character is new to the school and they befriend Draco and are like aww, isn't he the most innocent person ever. And then they find out that this literal angel is dating this other dude with a really bad reputation which is of course Harry. And then D keeps trying to introduce them but the newbie is making up excuses becuz hello, scary person alert. Until one day they do end up meeting each other and their reactions could be up to you. Thanks!

“And that’s the music room.” Draco says, shifting from foot to foot nervously. 

Hermione considers herself to be kind looking - not harmless, by far, but certainly not intimidating - but Draco Malfoy, the Honor Student who’s showing her around, has been anxious the entire tour.

“It’s really nice.” She says, and sees Draco smile, a little relieved. He’s been anxious the entire time they’ve been together, and she gets the feeling that he was forced to do this rather than volunteered for it. “How long have you been here?”

“Three years.” Draco says. He’s wearing a jade jumper with a silver H on it, three sizes too big on him. Hermione’s curious as to why, but she doesn’t think she can ask yet. 

“What’s your favorite place here?” She asks. Honestly, the school is so big that she’s already half lost - and most of the places she’s seen are too crowded for her taste. She wants something else; a library, or maybe a quiet spot in the gardens where she can read. If her first impression of Draco - he’d arrived at the Headmistress’s office with his clothes and hair ruffled and carrying four heavy books - is right at all, she thinks he’ll know where she can find peace and quiet.

“The library.” Draco says immediately. He chews on his lower lip as he rebalances the books on his arm with a frustrated huff. “I’ll show you.”

“Thank you,” Hermione says. “I hear the classes here are interesting. Do you enjoy them?”

That had been the main reason for her transfer. Hogwarts is a prep school for either incredibly smart people - with scholarships - or incredibly rich ones. She’s almost entirely sure Draco’s the former, just like her. 

“I like most of them.” Draco says as they walk into the library. He says hello to the librarian and then leads to Hermione to the back of it, around a corner and to a lone, sunlit table. He spends a lot of time here, Hermione can tell, because of the familiarity with which he sinks down onto the chair nearest to the wall. “I can tell you about the classes, if you’re interested.”

“I am,” Hermione says, sitting down in front of him.

*

They begin hanging out a lot after that. Draco seems to enjoy being in the library as much as Hermione does, and their time together mostly consists of reading in silence or voicing out loud incomplete thoughts. Still, Hermione finds herself thinking of him as her friend, and she thinks he feels the same way.

They spend so much time together - between classes, and homework, and free periods - that it’s impossible not to notice some things. The first thing Hermione notices, is how often Draco gets flirted with. The second thing she notices, is how entirely oblivious he is to it.

It’s endlessly amusing.

“You keep doing that.” Hermione says, when Draco pushes up the sleeve of the jumper for the fifth time in an hour. They’re working on a project, outside this time, because the day is nice. “Why don’t you just wear tighter clothes?”

“It’s not mine,” Draco says distractedly, fingers typing quickly on his laptop. They’re working on a research paper for their Biology class, and it’s taking a ridiculously long time. “It’s my boyfriend’s.”

“Harry, right?” Hermione asks distractedly. It hadn’t taken too long for Draco - or other people - to bring Harry Potter up. Hermione has never met him, but she’s heard plenty about him, seen him from afar.

He’s taller than Hermione - and she’s tall - and has a motorcycle, and a leather jacket that used to be his godfather’s. Hermione hears that he has six tattoos, and one of them is Draco’s name - she doesn’t know if it’s true and is too polite to ask - and that he once hospitalized a guy who grabbed Draco’s arse. 

Hermione has no idea how they ended up together.

“Yeah.” Draco says. “He’s having a party on Friday. You should come, he wants to meet you.”

“He what?” Hermione’s head snaps up, alarmed.

Harry Potter is exactly the kind of person she wants to avoid. He’s filthy rich and the epitome of careless, two things which Hermione is the opposite of. He’s also scary as hell. Hermione doesn’t want to meet him.

“Wants to meet you.” Draco repeats, thinking Hermione hadn’t heard him. 

“Right,” Hermione says faintly.

Draco continues working, entirely oblivious to her inner conflict.

*

“Are you ever going to stop stealing my clothes?” Harry asks teasingly, one of his hands on Draco’s thigh and the other on his back, underneath his jumper.

“I don’t steal them,” Draco pouts, upturning his nose. Harry’s sitting on his bed and Draco’s straddling his lap, hands knotted in his boyfriend’s hair. He smirks lightly and brushes his lips against Harry’s jaw. “And you like how I look in them.”

Harry smirks lightly and tightens his hold on Draco, moving the hand on his back down to his arse, squeezing lightly. 

“I do.” He says, pressing their lips together teasingly. Draco frowns lightly and chases his lips when Harry pulls away, causing him to laugh. “Fuck, you have no idea how much I want to kiss you.”

“So do it,” Draco is not whining, he’s really not. 

Harry smirks lightly. “I’d love to, but I’m pretty sure my dad and my godfather are both outside.”

“We’re not!” Sirius says from outside the door. Draco’s cheeks immediately go crimson. His mother is a very private person, and he’s never had any extended family; it had been quite a shock when he’d met Harry’s and realized how nosy and intertwined they all are. 

There’s fumbling outside the door, along with not-very-quiet whispers, and then the door opens. James peeks his head in, Sirius right below him. Harry’s hand immediately leaves Draco’s arse and comes up to rest on his hip.

“We’re leaving.” James informs them. “But we’re going to be watching movies downstairs, and you’re going to keep this door open!”

“Don’t do anything indecent.” Sirius sing-songs, and then they both disappear.

“And use a condom!” Lily yells from outside. 

Harry groans. “My mom, how did I not see that coming?” 

Draco laughs, face still burning, and rubs his nose fondly against Harry’s.

“Next time, we can go to my place.” He says teasingly. “We haven’t made out in my bed yet.”

Harry laughs and kisses his forehead fondly, squeezing at his arse one more time before rolling sideways so they’re face to face and their legs are tangled together.

���Next time,” He agrees. “For now, we can just lay here.”

There’s nothing that Draco wants more.

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

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i typed out a Whole thing and then changed my mind but how about like lazy sunday in before the work week w t-shirt verse jalex? ily bye x

omg hello this got (1) away from me and (2) so ridiculously romantic i have no excuse. there’s just something about t-shirt jalex. also i am currently taking suggestions for what color alex’s hair should be in this ‘verse bc as of now it is unspecified. okay hope you like it x

read here on ao3

Alex is at the stove. Jack’s barely awake and this is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Morning,” he croaks, slumping forward to affix himself to Alex’s back. Alex staggers, laughing quietly.

“Good morning, my love,” he says. The kitchen always feels somehow both bigger and cozier with Alex in it, spacious but flooded with love. Love, Jack finds, smells like pancakes and tastes like Alex’s toothpaste and feels like sunlight and the cotton of Alex’s shirt under his fingers. It fits nicely into Jack’s kitchen. Their kitchen. 

Their kitchen. Jack is still having a hard time getting used to that.

“You didn’t have to get up,” he mumbles against Alex’s shoulders. “Coulda slept in.”

Alex shrugs. “Was up anyway. Thought it’d be nice to make breakfast.”

“But it’s nice to cuddle,” Jack points out, eyes still closed. He presses his nose into Alex’s neck, inhaling deeply. “Mm, you’re warm.”

Alex’s deep, gentle laugh fills the air. “You’re clingy.”

“It’s cold,” Jack slurs. Slowly but surely, the atmosphere is seeping into his senses, pleasantly waking him up. “I love you for making pancakes.”

“I know you do.”

“Gonna make tea.”

“I prepared your mug and boiled the water already. You just need to pour it.”

“Have I mentioned lately that you’re the love of my life?” Jack presses his lips to the tattoo behind Alex’s ear, lingering a moment.

“Doesn’t hurt to hear,” Alex says happily. Jack reluctantly detaches himself from his boyfriend’s body to go and make himself some tea. 

Tea is a weekend drink. Jack drinks coffee to get through the mind-numbing work days, but tea is for Sundays like this one. It’s nine in the morning and Jack can already feel the laziness of the day settling over their shoulders; they’re going nowhere today, doing nothing. It’s not often a perfect Sunday comes along, but Jack clings to the opportunity whenever it does. Like today.

Dust hovers in the beams of light stretching through the room and the apartment feels alight with a glittering January. Unlikely warmth starts in Jack’s chest and spreads outwards, something he can’t even attribute to the tea since he hasn’t begun to drink it yet.

Glancing over at Alex, humming to himself as he flips the pancakes, the warmth intensifies. Oh, Jack thinks, not particularly surprised.

It stands to reason that the love filling the kitchen would saturate his body as well.

-

Light spills over Alex, highlighting strands of hair and shining on his skin, brown eyes glowing almost as golden as the sunlight. It makes Jack wonder why he’s not a poet or something, except there aren’t words for this image, and Jack would be hard-pressed to come up with an original way to phrase what thousands of artists have already expressed.

He takes a picture. They’re worth a thousand words, if what they say is true, and that’s close enough.

Alex looks up at the movement. Jack just smiles and shamelessly takes another, catching the fond look on Alex’s face before setting his phone face-down on the table again.

“Stop it, you creep,” he says. “Help me with this.”

“Alex, I’m so fucking bad at crosswords,” Jack says, shifting his chair around the table anyway. “You know this.”

“But you know things that I don’t! Together we can solve it.”

“You could also solve it on your own.”

Alex shakes his head. “You’re overestimating my skills. I don’t think I’ve completed a Sunday puzzle in, uh, my entire life.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you,” Jack says wryly, “but I am not your secret weapon.”

Alex reaches for Jack’s hand and brings it to his lips, brushing a kiss over Jack’s knuckles. “Yes you are.”

Jack sighs. He’s a sucker for Alex and he doesn’t see that trend slowing anytime soon. “Fine. Give me one.”

“Here, I bet you know this one.” A tap of the pen against the newspaper next to the clue for 6-Down. “‘For You’ co-singer Rita.”

“Ora,” Jack says immediately. “Everyone knows that song.”

“Ora,” Alex repeats to himself, like something he should have known to know. “Actually, I didn’t. See? Already fulfilling your secret weapon duties.”

The puzzle is sparsely and randomly filled out. “Why don’t you go in order?”

“Because I don’t know 1-Across,” Alex says. “And if I stopped there it’d be a very short puzzle.”

Jack hums, skimming the list of clues for any other answers he might have. Most of the clues he thinks he could get are ones Alex has already filled in. Some are ones Jack would never have known. “What the fuck is a superlative prefix? ‘Most’?”

“Yeah, like…high school superlatives,” Alex says. “Most likely to make it big. Most likely to, uh, go to jail after graduation.”

“What the fuck were your high school superlatives?” Jack says, amused. “I didn’t know that’s what they were called.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is wrong, though,” Alex says, face drawn in thought. He’s doing the hair-twirling thing again so Jack interrupts the motion, linking their fingers together and scratching gently at the nape of Alex’s neck. Alex hardly seems to notice. “Because I’m pretty sure 4-Down is ‘prince’.”

“‘Hamlet, for one,’” Jack reads from the clues list. He shakes his head. “I’m starting to think you’re smarter than me, Al.”

“Starting to?”

Jack scoffs and stabs at the remaining pancake on Alex’s plate, mostly because he knows Alex isn’t going to finish it. “Hey.”

“I’m teasing, completely joking,” Alex says, leaning into Jack and briefly resting his cheek against Jack’s shoulder. “I’m definitely not smarter than you. I teach middle school. If anything, that automatically makes me more of a dumbass.”

“You love doing that, though.”

Alex sighs. “Yeah. You can love something and still be an idiot for doing it, though.”

“Like being in a relationship with you.” Jack giggles. “Joking. Just kidding. I’m just kidding.”

“You better be,” Alex says lightly. “I know a lot of your deepest darkest secrets, Jack Barakat, and I am not afraid to unleash a pack of twelve-year-olds on you.”

Jack would like to argue that a horde of twelve-year-olds doesn’t scare him, but it does. It very much does.

“Fine,” he says. “You win this round.”

Alex kisses his cheek. As he moves away, Jack turns his head and kisses him on the lips. “You taste like pancakes.”

“You taste like you,” Alex replies, and it doesn’t sound sweet, but it really, really is. Jack licks his lips. He’s not sure what exactly he tastes like, but it charms him to think that it’s always more or less the same, or at least that Alex finds something familiar in every kiss he steals off Jack’s lips. 

“Okay,” he says, leaning over the newspaper spread out before them. “We can do this. Who was in The Irishman?”

-

Whoever said that thing about how it’s better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all might have been onto something.

They concede to the crossword puzzle after almost an hour of staring at it. To Jack it seems pathetic, until Alex grins at him and promises that this is rather impressive considering when he tries to do it alone he only ever gets, like, ten answers, and they’re often wrong. 

Half-finished really isn’t so bad.

The rest of the afternoon and evening stretches out before them, in all its unscheduled glory, and Jack, like the mature adult he is, pulls Alex to the couch and insists they spend at least three hours of the day watching TV.

His second mug of tea is sitting, partially drunk, on the coffee table, Alex’s empty mug beside it. Jack’s is going cold but he’s warm with Alex’s head in his lap, eyes closed as Jack pushes a hand through his hair, and he can’t find it in himself to care. As a compromise, they’ve put on Project Runway, something Alex loves Jack enough to sit through but doesn’t care enough about to pay attention to. If Jack were a more petty person, he would be annoyed by this, but he’s not. Having Alex like this is arguably better, essential in the task of keeping Jack’s thighs warm and also giving Jack something to look at when the urge strikes him.

The angles of Alex’s face and the way his hair flops over his forehead are enough to keep Jack mesmerized for hours.

It’s in one of these moments of weakness, Jack gazing down at the boy in his lap instead of watching the high-stakes but decidedly less enchanting events unfold on the TV, that Alex opens his eyes. His gaze catches Jack unawares, but Jack doesn’t flinch.

“You’re not even watching,” Alex huffs, smirking. “It was your idea to watch something and you aren’t even watching it.”

“I’ve got a better view right here,” Jack says.

Alex just rolls his eyes. “C’mere,” he says, grabbing clumsily at the front of Jack’s shirt.

“I don’t think I am physically capable of kissing you from this angle.”

“Oh, is that a challenge?” Alex picks his head up and pulls Jack down, and it’s not ideal or particularly attractive, but Jack has to admit that they do, technically, kiss, thus proving Jack wrong, which is probably in Alex’s top ten favorite things to do. Only for a second, though, before Jack pulls away.

“I stand corrected, but I also kind of hated that,” he says.

Alex laughs, musical and bright. “Sorry. Let me try again.” He shifts around, straightening up until his feet are on the floor and his body is upright, and this time Jack has no complaints when Alex curls his fingers around the collar of Jack’s t-shirt and drags him in. 

Project Runway isn’t exactly the ideal soundtrack to making out on the couch, but Jack’s not picky.

A fluttering touch lands on Jack’s hip, sneaking just under the hem of his shirt to rest against his skin. Alex releases Jack’s shirt, sliding his other hand up and around to cradle Jack’s face, thumb brushing his jaw. The show in the background fades to nothing, as so often the world does when Alex’s lips are on his. Everything is Alex and Alex is everything — and maybe that’s always true, but it’s easier to sink into when they’re attached in so many places, lips under teeth and noses brushing cheeks and hands forever tracing skin, clothes, hair, whatever ends up beneath Jack’s fingertips. 

It’s looking more and more like the love in the kitchen hadn’t been confined to the kitchen. Or maybe it had never been about the kitchen, but the company. And maybe Jack has known this all along, and the love he feels for Alex follows him around like a stray dog, like a best friend, like a promise. It bleeds from him, infusing itself into the air without ever lessening in himself. Sometimes it trips off his tongue.

Often it does.

“I love you,” Jack murmurs, like he’s just a ragdoll stuffed with love who’s coming apart at the seams, another stitch undone whenever Alex touches him. He’ll keep spilling this love over them and somehow he’ll never run out, and if that makes him weak then Jack is content to be weak. 

Alex only laughs a little, but it’s not mean-spirited, just sweet. “Would it surprise you to know that I love you, too?”

It wouldn’t. This is the secret to Jack’s never-ending supply: the love he gives is the love he receives.

“I love you for making me breakfast,” Jack whispers, pressing his lips to Alex’s cheek, just outside the corner of his eye. “And for the tea. And for making me do the crossword puzzle with you. And for watching shitty reality TV with me.” With each proclamation he brushes a kiss to Alex’s forehead, his other cheek, the corner of his mouth. Alex’s smile stretches across his face, crinkling his eyes by the time Jack kisses him again, for real, though he still returns it to the best of his ability.

It doesn’t last long. “You don’t play fair, JB,” Alex breathes, then laughs again like he can’t help it. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

“You could start with ‘I love you too,’” Jack suggests, slanting a breezy smile at Alex. “That usually works.”

Alex gathers Jack’s wrists in his hands and kisses his palms, one after the other, before lifting his gaze back to Jack. In the light of the apartment, Jack has never seen anyone more beautiful. The truth of his own earlier words washes over him like a sedative, a comforting tranquilizer. 

“Doesn’t feel like enough,” Alex admits, “but I’m not sure this love can be put into words, you know?”

Jack does know.

“Though it’s worth saying,” Alex continues, sliding his hands into Jack’s until their fingers are interlaced, “that I love you for doing the impossible crossword with me, and I love your half-drunk cups of tea, and I loved you in the morning and I love you right now and when we go to sleep tonight, I’ll love you then, and every night after that for the rest of my life, you know what? I’ll love you for those too.”

Jack understands that these are big, big words, promises that are much easier to make than keep. But with Alex holding his gaze and his hands right now, sheltered from the real world or maybe creating it, he knows that Alex means every word, and Jack does too.

For Once in My Life

Cooking together with wine, music, and only half dressed... life in Paris, reunited at last, isn't half bad.

Friend drabble series part four, for @saraluvstiva!

___________________

“We should do something on Friday night, Ziva,” Tony suggests out of the blue one day.

“Why this Friday specifically? Do we have an anniversary that I have forgotten?” Ziva wants to know. They have a lot of them, because they don’t take anything for granted these days. They like to memorialize the day they met, the day Ziva came home for good, the day Ziva was liberated from Somalia, the day they moved from their old flat to a bigger one. Then, of course, there are the usual excuses to celebrate: birthdays, their wedding anniversary, any and all major holidays—French, American, and Israeli. 

Basically, they find it absolutely necessary to honor this second (third, fourth) chance at happiness whenever they can. 

“Not that I can think of. It’s just that Tali’s going to be sleeping over at Violette’s house then, and we so rarely get to do things just the two of us.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Their eyes meet, and they share feral grins that make it very clear just what they’re both thinking. They are who they are

What they’re both thinking is sex somewhere other than behind the closed door of their bedroom. Somewhere exciting. Somewhere they can spice it up.

Somewhere like the living room sofa.

___________________

They do exactly as they planned, and it’s glorious. 

Afterwards, they lounge lazily on the sofa, tangled comfortably together to avoid falling off, and they talk about nothing important. The pull to have real adult conversation—which honestly just means swearing—is entirely too strong, and for once, they don’t even turn on a movie. They just chat, and hold onto one another, and salute these happy days.

Eventually, Tony’s stomach growls loudly enough that Ziva can feel its vibrations, though, and she laughs. “There is a bear inside of you and he is not happy,” she says in amusement. “Perhaps we should feed him.”

She carefully sits up, thinking idly that they really need a larger sofa. They’re not quite as young or quite as nimble as they used to be. 

“I think the bear wants your famous spaghetti,” Tony agrees, trying as always to coax her into cooking his favorite things.

He usually succeeds.

“The bear may have it, if the bear helps. Up you get, Tony.”

“Alright, alright.” With a groan, Tony sits up, but he’s less successful than Ziva at balancing, and he falls to the floor with a yelp.

Ziva, giggling, leaves him there, grabbing an item or two of clothing to put on as she heads for the kitchen.

___________________

By the time they start cooking, they have almost an entire outfit on between them. Tony ends up in his own pants, bare-chested and ready to wield a pasta strainer when necessary. Ziva ends up in Tony’s misbuttoned shirt, bare-legged and with too-long sleeves rolled up to her elbows.

Ziva starts to delegate tasks; Tony is decent at following directions but is, at best, an unimaginative chef with a tendency to spend so much time sampling his projects that he gets distracted and burns them. She sets him chopping up vegetables to begin with. “You’re like a drill sergeant,” he complains teasingly. “All work and no play.”

“I am not certain we should play when you have a knife in hand, Tony,” she replies, smirking. “You are not as proficient as I am.” It’s little more than a taunt, a challenge—she knows exactly how to motivate him. 

“We’ll see about that.”

Of course, it hasn’t been five minutes before he gets distracted by the way her breasts look in his shirt and he narrowly avoids cutting his own finger.

Then, snorting, Ziva decides to downgrade his status from sous chef to… waiter. “You cannot be trusted,” she informs him, but she pats his chest in consolation after confiscating the knife. “Maybe you can open some wine for us and put on music while I finish the carrots.”

Tony mutters something under his breath about how he’s not quite as much of a clown as she thinks he is, but he’s hiding a smile, and he kisses her temple before ambling off to choose a bottle. By the time he’s back, Ziva is nearly done with the chopping.

“Ever thought about being a chef?” Tony asks curiously, pulling two wine glasses from the top shelf of a cabinet and opening the wine to be poured. “You’re really good at it.”

“Ah, well, not every hobby is well-suited to be a career, but thank you.” The smile she sends his way is easy, brilliant, relaxed—like all her smiles are these days.

Tony thinks all the time about how dazzlingly Ziva’s sun shines now that the clouds are gone; she’s a brighter light than perhaps anyone else he knows except Tali, who certainly inherited it from Ziva anyway.

He hands her a glass of wine and holds up his own. “Cheers,” he begins, “to wine, and your spaghetti, and jazz, and all the dancing we’re about to do, and most importantly… cheers to you, my brilliant but terrifying wife.” She is, after all, still holding a potential murder weapon.

Ziva laughs and clinks his glass. “Cheers,” she agrees, and after she takes a sip, she sets down the knife and leans in to kiss him.

The kiss tastes like pinot noir and kid-free Friday nights and all the bliss of a normal life.

___________________

By the time the sauce is simmering and the noodles are boiling, Tony and Ziva have had two and a half glasses of wine each, and they’re both in distinctly pleasant moods.

They’ve been listening to Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits, getting increasingly into dancing around the kitchen with each song and each sip of red. Tony sends Ziva into a fit of hysterical laughter when he steals the sauce spoon and uses it as a microphone, not caring at all that he’s splattering bits of tomato all around as he spins and sings. 

(They can clean the kitchen later, and besides, they’re very used to messes, raising an enthusiastic six-year-old as they are.)

Tony puts the spoon back in the sauce and snatches Ziva’s hand, spinning her into his chest and initiating a dance that she just can’t say no to. He’s in such a good mood—if she wasn’t already feeling so nice herself, it would be infectious anyway. As it is, she laughs helplessly, feeling hopelessly smitten as they swing dance. 

“For once I can say,” Tony sings, “this is mine, you can't take it!” He dips Ziva backwards and her hair almost ends up in the spaghetti. (They might need a bigger kitchen but that couldn’t be of less consequence now.) 

“As long as I know I have love we can make it,” Ziva sings back, kissing her husband between lines to distract him so she can tickle his sides and make his dance moves falter with laughter. 

He bounces back quickly, though, spinning them faster as they chuckle together. “For once in my life, I’ve got someone,” he sings, louder. “Yeah, for once in my life, I found someone…”

“For once in my life, I’ve got someone who needs me!” They finish together at a forte, ending with a kiss that’s mostly just giggling into each other’s lips.

The neighbors will complain tomorrow about the mildly obnoxious noise, but with bellies full of spaghetti and hearts full of music and love, Tony and Ziva won’t care a bit. 

You’re a WHAT

Kanene’s Notes:

I’m weak for carzy scenarios  and glitter, so BOOOM!! Why don’t get these two things together??? :D)/ This fic marks the end of my break, I will be (trying to) going back to my old projects and probably won’t be writing for some weeks kjnhgfvghjkjhg. Wish me luck! <33

This wasn’t suppose to take so much to be written but I lost my PC and life got in the way :v   Buuuut! I manage to finish it and I already count this as a victory! xP

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* That fanfic has Remy and Roman. They’re friendos yay :3. Oh, and this is pretty crazy. Context: The morning after Black Friday when you’re grumpy and wanting to kick the society in the face. A LOT of swearing, Patton does not approve.  

* This characters do not belongs to me. They all belongs to the amazing Thomas Sanders in his series of Sanders Sides.

* Something around 2.900 words. -w-)b.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any advice is very very welcome!

* Tô com preguiça de postar a versão em português brasileiro aaaa! Thankys for reading, my lollipops! Try and have fun with new hobbies, be safe, talk with the one that you love, drink water and sleep well! Byeioo!~

                             [~*~]

Roman thought himself as a really lucky human being. Unbelievable lucky.

 It wasn't due to the apartment where he currently lived - Too much dull for his personal taste and space, getting even smaller from the day he admitted a messy, sassy and with sleep problems roommate, since Roman just started his musical career and couldn't afford an own house yet. - or the fact that was finally able to pursue his dream after years and years of just picturing, painting this moment on his future, only to find out his fantastic breathtaking and incredible goals weren’t nearly close of the cold reality, at least for now (Who would know that, after umpteenth days of hard studying and training he would need years and years of experience in order to even START wondering in get out of his partial-time job on that Electronic Store) or any other reason someone would be able to consider himself a receptacle of pure, brute luck, enlightened by the spotlights of the good, pleasant destiny...

 ... Or at least the most pleasant it could be in the horrible and exhaustive middle of the night after a whole day filled with his attempts to survive and treat respectfully the unmerciful, dirty jungle that humanity was at Black Friday. Something around fifteen  hours working with massive hordes of unscrupulous zombies starved for a sale and able to even kill and die (more likely the first option) to get what they want and with souls (if they still got one) free of any slight sight of education, patience and morals to be inserted in a society which, as it seemed, was equally rotten as them. View point only proved as Roman was obligated to be working after his shift to "clean all the mess" - more like hide the bodies of exhausted warriors after such bloody battle. – the store because those sons of a...

 "... Bitch, YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!" The poor, frustrated employed shouted to nowhere specific, his face turning towards the sky, seeking in some way to show his all his hate to the cinematography - because this was too much coincidence to NOT be part of a movie or some random fanfic on the black hole that was internet - rain falling at full force leading the weather to became even more freezing as soaked them both with its cool, thick drops.

Anyway, what he was daydreaming about?

"Roman." Oh, yeah, the reason why he viewed himself as a truly lucky person. "My gurl, if you try to impersonate a fucking, dramatic, bitch crow in my ear even again, I swear in the name of my life juice bean that I'm going to KILL you with my bare hands and these sunglasses."

 At least his best friend since, honestly, diapers, who coincidentally was his roommate and even more coincidentally, his coworker was just screwed as Roman himself. Which automatically made the duo less screwed, however equally pissed off, something that neither of them discovered if that was a good or bad thing, yet.

 "Fuck you, Remy" Roman whispered between an tired yawn, too much tired to even think about some nickname or to put real heat in his words as he got instinctively closer to the other, the one called taking off his jacket and lazily throwing it over their heads, doing his best to cover they both with the small available black leathered fabric, the act intertwined with grumpy grumbling and motions which would probably slap Roman's face if he wasn't careful. "I'm the one who buys your coffee."

 "Having my incredible, unique personality in your life should be motivation enough for you to buy me the entire Starbucks Company, be glad I'm weak to your cute face and am going easy on ya."

 " 'Cute'? Excuse me, I'm the most handsome, hottest and fabulous man you will ever met in your lowly life, mortal."

 Remy snorted at this "Whatever helps you sleep at night, babe, but if it's going to be like that your ego soon will have to pay his part at the rent."

 "Well, this 'ego' here was the only thing between your highness and jail after stopping you from committing all those murders today."

 "Bold of you to assume I wouldn't use my contacts to hide the evidences." Their tune were already completely sleepy, bodies instinctively leaning onto each other as the words stumbled, mixed and almost lost themselves in the soundly wind as slipped from their lips. Roman just laughed.

 "Well, if by ‘contacts’ mean 'Virgil' good luck getting him out of his bed on his free day. You would became the fucking new King Arthur." Roman rubbed his eyes, trying to physically force his eyelashes to not close, a new yawn finding its way to his mouth. He didn't even know about what they were talking anymore.

 "I roll the dice to cast Badass Nerd Bitch."

 “Logan??”

 “He likes to study nature stuff, especially at night, I’m sure he already knows some good spots to hide bodies. Glasses.”

 “Glasses?”

 “Glasses.”

 “OMG, the anime character with glasses.” Roman stopped, his mouth wide open as if all the secrets of the universe had been revealed to him.

 “Exactly.” Remy extended each syllable, grinning smugly.

 “I’ve never-“

“THIS IS A ROBERY!!”

 The sentence, which appeared to came out from nowhere, cut the air in a harsh, sharp tune, breaking the barriers and tying them up in the same place in a frozen position and wide eyes staring astonished the hooded form and their unreadable features under the bad illumination of the light poles helped by the increased storm. The wind trespassed them, stirring their clothes and making the muscles shake both of the alone employees in the middle of a dark, empty street at the dawn, even if the dangerously shiny knife directed towards their direction still in a hatred silence. 

 “My.” Roman knew he probably should be afraid, the freezing feeling running across his veins and frightening his brain and actions as infected his words in an unspeakable terror impossible to ignore nor escape. “fucking.” However, the only thing that slipped through his next was the purest, deepest, truest... “ASS.” Indignation.

 Roman thought about a lot of things. He thought about running away, grabbing Remy’s arm and sprinting across the street, about scream in the top of his lungs the waterfall of swearing already racing half way to his throat and even about kicking the knife out of the other’s hands and then kicking him - with a couple of cool moves he saw in some actions films - together with their frecking audacity to try to rob him of all the people in the world. Roman, who asked himself if he would have enough money to eat in the next week with a concerning frequency, who wondered if this is the life he will have until the end of his existence, if he will ever be able to accomplish his dreams.

 His gaze changed to Remy, who was paralyzed, trembling between the poor light of the street and the massive rain. Roman swallowed. Everything was in his hands.

 For a piece of Roman felt the strange urge to spill to the figure before him the story of his life, all his tries, all his battles, his everyday fights to make his dreams real. Blow by blow. Day by day. A life destined to go after everything he wished to himself, everything he wanted to life, to experience, to savor, to do everything in his hands to ignore and one day maybe, hopefully forget all the ghosts - these ones always accompanied by those emotionless, sharp whispers - asking, doubting nonstop if he ever would be able to do all of this, if he was doing the rights thing, if it was really worth all of it.

 However, before the first word even slipped of Roman’s tongue or his mind came fully back to Earth, Remy was already positioning himself strategically between the robber and his friend, the currently only one with the leather jacket falling on his shoulders. However, Remy didn’t seem nearly soaked as he should be, and for a heartbeat, the same one which Remy moved his hands to his jeans’ pocket, his fingers touching and firmly holding something there, Roman could swear that the unexpectedly shiver running across his spine wasn’t due the cold wind.

 Nor the sentence hurled in the clouds.

 “You know what?? Fuck it.”

 And then he unsheathed his magic wand.

 Roman loved with the entirety of his heart all kind of magic, he could easily spend an entire afternoon (which he already had, by the way) listing his favorites movies, musicals and stories with that theme. That also could be easily said by the thousands and thousands of worlds, universes and lifes he invented – in and out of his head - about the subject trough his childhood and handful of teenage years, random ideas and inspirations appearing and dancing in his mind until nowadays. If that only wasn’t enough to convince someone then the umpteenth memories of mornings and afternoons bathed in the smell of books, rocked by the calm silene of the public library as he turned one more page, his back lightly aching by the bad position assumed behind the shelters, in a place he strategically found and claimed as his own Bridge to Terabithia, enjoying every moment as if nothing else mattered. Perhaps you wouldn’t even need to swim in such deep, ancient waters to find out his love, since at least fifty percent of his day was dedicated to shout, hummer or murmur Disney songs.

 However, as rays of pure energy  - shiny and kind of glittery one - involved and swirled from Remy’s, who now was floating a few centimeters above the ground, wand in stripes that got lighter and lighter, begging to spin faster around the aforementioned, creating a spere of a power stunning and big enough to stop the rain in the corner.

 The silence resulting from the lack of the storm didn’t had the opportunity to fill the moment, being obligated to give its space to a soft, intense melody whispered in their ears. The notes standing some more moments in the air, the beating following the changes in the shadowed figure inside the spere. Hesitations taking over the loud, quick heartbeats when the song finally stopped.

 The power’s spere finally exploded, the impact leading to an unbelief and intensive force push both human meters away.

 “Get. Out.”  Remy’s tune still the same, his form – Now adorned by a gleaming crop top, his fluttering skirt over shorts floating in synchrony with the veils which surrounded his clothes and wrapping his arms, the ending spreading in the air as a bunch of angry powered and fancy snakes. - even with the new vestments full of glitter (this probably would be a hell to get off, later) still the same, his gaze, powerful – a new meaning pouring from this word – strong, still the same. But yet…

 Yet his wide eyed, heart hammering in his chest friend since he could remember found himself struggling to connect the same Remy who he had known – if he could still say that? -  all his life with the same being who gleamed dangerously before him.

 The magic wand danced in a quick flick and a trash can came of what seemed nowhere to hit the wobbled and absolutely terrified robber, who fell with a soft thumph in the ground, unconscious.

 “-man, Roman!!! Don’t just stay standing there like a tree, help me here, gurl!” Suddenly the called snapped from his own sea of thoughts, submerging and astonished blinking in Remy’s direction. The rain started to fell on them again, and when their eyes met, when Roman saw the same guy who spent afternoons climbing trees and pretending they were knights and dragons attacking or saving the world, when he recalled the silent sleepovers where they just sat near of each other enjoying the mutual company, the grumpy mornings in their apartment, the comfort hugs, the looks full of words, the smiles filled with meaning, the friendship stuffed with so many, many memories... 

 Nostalgia. The feeling that everything was changed albeit something… something important always stayed. Roman felt, truly felt it and fixed his glare into that brilliant – quite literally - glare adorned with a ‘I’m about to punch your cocky face if you keep fucking narrating every freaking second of your life, ya bitch’ he realized... 

 It was Remy.

 He took a deep breath, moving closer and gradually relaxing as the aforementioned focused in trying to lift the guy, swearing more frequently than raindrops fell from the sky.

 “Remy?”

 “Yeah?”

 “First crush.”

 The other stopped, frowning confused. Roman didn’t quiver, feeling he deserved some sort of answer. At least about this. “What?”

 “My first crush. Who?”

 “Kovu.” Remy maybe was a bit cold hearted, maybe he wasn’t the best with human interactions or knew exactly what Roman wanted with that… but he knew Roman enough to realize this was important. Essentially when the said seemed to relax, his form untensing itself and being allowed to get closer of the magic being.

 “Okay. Okay, okay…” Roman took a deep breath, grounding himself. Their gaze met, his next words coming a little calmer. “Okay.”

 “Please don’t make me sing that serenate you made for him. I’m gonna fucking quit.”

 “Oh, shut up!! Our first love is something special, mister I-Can’t-Choose-Between-The-Beast-And-The-Beauty.”

 Remy decided to ignore the words, slightly lowing his sunglasses with his special Judgmental ‘Bold of you to assume I have enough shame to be mocked’ Look. Roman just flipped in his direction, taking advantage that the other’s hands were occupied.

 It was still Remy, with a whole more of style and glitter – Why are there so much glitter here?? - but it was just Remy. Like just any other day.

 Before he even realized, Roman was already at his friend’s - and as it seems a magical being - side, helping him to carry the robber’s body to somewhere dry so he wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

 “Why don’t you- Ouch!! My feet, dammit!” His breaths came out as puffs, the effort leading to his already exhausted muscles only protest even more and very much probably curse him later with sore movements for the audacity to transport anything heavier than a pen. “Why don’t you use your... Wizard magic or something to carry him??”

 “Oh. My. Gosh. Roman, you are sooo intelligent, why aren’t you in Harvard? Ow! Ow! Ow!!” Remy’s sarcasm was cut when the other kicked, or did his best to with their actual position, him in protest.  “Homophobic.” He exhaled a mix of irritation and a snort, receiving a playful punch in his arm by their inside joke.  “I’m your Fairy Godmother, brainless. Unless it was you laid in this stupid, cold ground I can’t use my magic anymore... Except if this is someone of your family but I doubt-”

 “Wait, wait, wait, WAIT!!! YOU ARE MY FAIRY GODM-”

 “No, no way, nope, we are NOT having this conversation right now.” Remy, the Fairy Godmother let go of the unconscious body in a way that probably will make the guy wake up sore, perhaps with a concussion even, directing his index finger in Roman’s direction in a deep, determined stare full of darkness and things that Roman could swear would make Remy be expelled from the group of Friendly Fairy GodmotherS  or whatever... thing he was inserted. “Let me tell you what we are doing right now: We are going to home, change our clothes then I’m getting coffee and you will get sleep so I don’t have to face nor care about the freak consequences of my damn actions.”

 ...

 “That...” Roman stop, as if was considering his next words. Remy’s face just scrunched in a bigger, firmer frown. “That would be hella scary if you didn’t look like someone who just stole a store of glitter and got attacked by the gay, glitterly, shiny fairies who protected the place.”

 “Go fuck yourself. I’m locking you outside when we get there.”

 “Noo, please don’t! My evil stepmother didn’t let me go to the prince castle and now I need help! Crying emoji, crying emoji.” Roman mocked, imitating sad sobs and sniffles as quick his pace to follow the other, who flipped him.

 “I’m this far from knock you out with my magical wand and then you will see who is the evil stepmother.” His wand gleamed in warning, the red color getting mixed and trembled by the fast movements of his veils, one of them getting dangerously next to Roman’s face, who cleverly got silent for some heartbeats, the sound of the rain slowly calming their heartbeats and rocking them, the tiredness gaining the space which, piece by piece, was being unhanded by their adrenaline.

 They arrived home, both still quiet, feeling free as a relieved sign left their lips. Remy threw his soaked jacket in some dark corner, the bed being the only thing which was allowed to take over all his thoughts and will. 

 An awed gasp echoed behind him and he immediately regretted his move.

 “YOU HAVE WINGS????”

 Before his eyelashes closed, the shiny of the wand disappearing gradually as an ungodly amount of sleepiness gained complete control over his body, relaxing each one of his fibers and as a warm, magic good feeling fills every single cell in his being, Roman wondered if ‘Fuck it’ was the name of Remy’s spell.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

GOD THIS TOOK FOREVER!!!!! it’s 6k fucking words too, jeezus lord. at least its cute, and sad, and cute.

the events of my old ass drabble TOUCH. is mentioned briefly in this chapter too, should you have not read that and would care to :]c ANYWAY, ENJOY

[Dear Diary,

I had another dream about killing Devi.

They’ve become too vivid… I’m growing more and more worried that my mind will blur fantasy with reality, and I’ll attack her thinking it’s a dream. I don’t know why I would do that… I don’t want to attack her. I don’t want to hurt her, ever.

So, as a precaution, I’ve decided that I won’t be sleeping anymore. Staying awake is all that I can do combat these shitty nightmares.]

--

Johnny scratched the final letter of his latest diary entry firmly into the paper’s face, then closed the cover quietly. He tucked the book under his chair, careful to not alert Devi, who was painting a few feet away, that he was making any unusual movements.

He felt badly to keep these dreams a secret from her, since he was confident that Meat was interfering with his sleep somehow, but he buried those prickly feelings of guilt to the best of his ability. The only other reason for these reoccurring nightmares would be that he, in fact, was thinking them up all on his own, which was even worse as far as Johnny was concerned. Either way, he was terrified that if he mentioned it to Devi that she would again grow suspicious of him.

After regaining so much of her trust, it would kill him inside to see her hesitate to accept his company, or linger on her words or her decisions in what she allowed him to do with her, all because he wasn’t in control of his subconscience. Very few people were able to control their unconscious mind, but Johnny still felt immensely paranoid that Devi wouldn’t be understanding, regardless of if it would be because of actual resentment, or simply out of fear, even though she would still want to trust him. That might sting even worse, actually.

They had built such a comforting routine in her home; working away on creative endeavors together at all hours, and enjoying each other’s company over shared meals and television in their downtime. It was so soothing, bidding her ‘goodnight’ and ‘good morning’ each day. Devi’s sleep schedule had returned to its atrociously inconsistent cycle since he moved in with her, so sometimes he would be saying ‘goodnight’ at 5PM, and other times saying ‘good morning’ at 5PM, but it was gratifying all the same. He didn’t know, after he was ‘better’ and was supposed to return to his own house, how he would go through each day without being able to offer her such daily pleasantries. Maybe he would be able to do so over the phone, he thought, but it wouldn’t be the same.

His eyes lifted from the scantily-worked-on page that was fastened to his drafting table and settled on Devi’s kneeling figure a short distance away. Johnny smiled to see the small smirk on her face while she blotted color across her canvas. She had been toiling away on this commissioned work for almost a week now, and she always seemed to enter some kind of frenzied state whenever she was nearing a piece’s completion. It was a large project, she had told him, and would offer her a very hefty paycheck once it was finished. Maybe it was the thought of money that pushed her into such an energetic fit of creation – Johnny could only speculate. She grinned and rubbed a bit of paint from her cheek as she stepped back to review her efforts.

His lips pursed into a longer smile; how could he even consider sullying her mood by bringing up useless things like night terrors? He couldn’t. He would handle this himself, and leave Devi to her work.

--

DAYS LATER:

Devi beamed, squiggling her brush down her canvas to the rhythm of the song she currently had blasting from the speakers of her art room. Nothing was more satisfying than going to the bank and depositing a nice, big, fucking check, and she could only express her delight by jumping right into a personal project as soon as she and Johnny had returned home. It felt so good to have enough money, for the time being, to indulge in painting what she wanted to for more than an hour.

“Hey!” Johnny’s voice piped up over the music, and Devi turned to see him pull his headphones off of one of his ears. His headphones were his only defense against her deafening taste in music, so it must be important. Devi searched the floor for the dinky little remote that controlled the speakers, and lowered the volume to a reasonable level.

“Yeah?” She grinned at him, and he met her smile with one of his own.

“Can you hold your arm out like ‘this’ for me?” Johnny stuck his arm out and twisted it downwards in a fist to give her an example. Devi scoffed, used to him asking her to pose for reference by now, and tried to mimic what he had requested.

“Like that?”

“Ummm, no, down a little more. Ehhh—” He wiggled his fist in her direction. “—put your shoulder up more, maybe? Give me… ‘intimidating’.”

Devi laughed.

“Shut the Hell up.” She huffed a few chuckles and brought her shoulder up as instructed.

“YES. HOLD THAT.” Johnny exclaimed and hurriedly resumed his sketching. Devi’s smile remained while she watched him work.

She had to admit she was proud of how far he had come since this whole thing started – he hardly ever devolved into a crying mess when his drawings weren’t progressing to his liking anymore. The last time Devi remembered him throwing a fit was shortly after the ‘leash and collar’ situation began, and she figured that that was more out of pent up frustration for that small bit of humiliation, and not so much because he was a creative loose-cannon.

The way his tongue poked out while he drew was a little more endearing suddenly, but Devi dismissed the thought, chalking it up to the current carefree feeling in the air. The evening was set to be lighthearted the moment she had gotten paid; the plan was to have whatever the fuck she wanted for dinner, and then binge-watch the entire movie series of The Beast What Licked Me, which was the main trilogy and all of its subsequent, horrible spinoff movies by less-than-admirable production studios. Devi smiled at the idea of having fun for once.

“You know, the lofty smile doesn’t really give me that ‘intimidating’ vibe.” Johnny spoke with a teasing laugh, earning a dismissive, blithe scoff from his model.

“Shut your mouth—aren’t you hungry yet?” Devi snorted, wriggling her shoulder to rib at him further. He stuck the end of his pencil into his lip curiously.

“Are you?”

“Sure, and I think my hand’s had enough painting for one day.” She straightened her posture with a widening grin. “You done?”

“Well, I am for now, if that’s alright with my, er, mentor…” Johnny replied with the question in his stare, and Devi snickered again.

“You are excused for the evening. Now, let’s order Chinese, for delivery. I don’t feel like leaving the house again today.” Devi mused while she walked out of the room. Johnny smiled giddily at the comment – one trip outside was enough for one day, he’d agree wholeheartedly!

--

FIFTEEN-MINUTES-OR-LESS LATER:

Johnny threw the wad of cash that Devi had so-entrusted him with directly into the delivery boy’s face, knocking him over with the force of the impact as he snatched the take-out bag from him. He slammed the door shut callously, and hummed in approval at the now familiar smell of Devi’s favorite Chinese restaurant.

He strode to the kitchen with it, and began laying out the bag’s drippy contents onto the counter. He jumped when he felt something jab into his side, but hardly had to turn his head before he recognized Devi’s head peeking into his peripheral. She gave him a cheeky grin, and he smiled back shyly.

“You’re already finished showering?”

“Yeah, heh, just needed to rinse off that outside-world smell.” She crossed her arms over one of his shoulders as she leaned to see what he was doing. “…Why’d you bother bringing the food in here?”

Johnny gesticulated his hands loosely around the counterspace as he attempted to explain, but it was difficult with Devi touching him.

“WELL, it’s—” Another swat of his hands. “…greasy!”

Devi snortled and slid off of his shoulder, giving his back an additional plap with her palm before moving to inspect tonight’s dinner. She popped open one of the containers and couldn’t help but jam a pair of chopsticks into it right away, scooping a pile of noodles into her mouth happily.

She exhaled contently through her nose while she chewed, then turned a curious eye to Johnny, who was picking at the fabric of his shirt where she had just been pressed against him. It was only for a second, but it was enough to take notice of before he tilted to look through the boxes and find which one was his entrée. Devi swallowed, and watched his thin fingers play with the lids while she thought.

When had she gotten so comfortable with touching him? It had been a long time since physical contact with anyone had been so nonchalant for her. If she could guess, it was probably due to the whole ‘close proximity of the leash’ thing, or maybe the whole ‘living together’ thing, but either way it was bizarre that she hadn’t realized how casual things had become until she noticed Johnny’s slight change in demeanor in response to it.

One wouldn’t have to ask Johnny ‘when’ the touching started; he could tell you with one-hundred percent certainty that it was the night that they went to pick up a few groceries from a nearby 24/7. Devi had approached him, and set a hand on his arm for an undiscernible amount of seconds while she spoke to him – undiscernible because his brain had just about exploded from the direct contact. He had returned the casual touching with a modest hand on her shoulder, and she hadn’t killed him for it. Johnny would probably remember that night for the rest of his existence.

But Devi was left to ponder at what point she had regrown enough trust for him to poke and prod at him without wanting to carve her own skin off afterward. He was a lot less horrible now, and she enjoyed his company again, so she supposed that said something, at least. She shrugged it off and stuffed a piece of chicken in her mouth.

“You ready to get this hideous marathon underway?” Devi asked while she chewed. Johnny carefully lifted the top off of the horrendously spicy dish he’d ordered.

“Yes!” He beamed at her eagerly, brandishing a spork as though it was a beacon for his well-equipped-ness for the evening.

--

FIVE MOVIES IN:

“Oouughh…” Devi vocalized her agony with her fingers pressed to her sore eyes.

“Yeah, that FX make-up is garbage. Worse than the one in Spawn of The Beast What Licked Me.” Johnny replied lazily from his side of the couch, half-melted into the cushion. Though his corneas burned just as badly, the pain didn’t register with him the same way.

“No,” Devi griped. “my eyes are killing me…”

A yawn punctuated her complaint, and Johnny lifted his head attentively. She was tired. He’d come to learn the signs of her exhaustion quite well, and despite his current feelings about sleep, rest appeared to do Devi some good.

“Are you going to go to bed?” He asked and reset his head onto the back cushion of the couch comfortably. Devi peeked at him from the armrest on the opposite side, where she had devolved into a lumpy ball as the night wore on. Her ear pressed into the cushy fabric, and she slanted her mouth in discontent.

She didn’t particularly want to go to sleep. There was only one more movie to go, and it felt weak as Hell to give up now when she was so close to the end of a movie binge. Devi lulled her head in the direction of the TV, and winced away in regret when the flashing light burned her eyes.

“Ugh.” She grunted in defeat. “Yeah, I guess.”

“We can finish these last two tomorrow.” Johnny offered to ease her frustration, and Devi smirked through her exhaustion.

“Yeah, okay.” She agreed and rolled into a seated position. She struggled to stand with her tired legs, but managed to force herself up.

One of her hands came down to point at Johnny as she passed him, her finger hovering just out of reach of his nose.

“—And don’t you dare watch ahead.” Devi smiled despite her threatening tone. “You turn that shit off, you don’t get to watch without me.”

Johnny grinned uneasily, half of him delighted at how she joked with him.

“Yes, of course.” He assured her, and Devi nodded appreciatively before hobbling off to bed. Johnny watched her door click shut, then searched for the remote and turned the TV off.

His body slumped against the couch, the satisfied feeling in his torso weighing him down into its pillows. He debated what he could do for the rest of the night with his lazy, fried brain. The dull feeling in his arms made drawing seem impossible, and he didn’t want to turn on the TV again until he was sure Devi was soundly asleep. So he laid on the couch and thought to pass the time.

It didn’t take long for his thoughts to turn to Devi, and he smiled comfortably as he reviewed the day’s events. Johnny laced his fingers over his chest and contemplated if their relationship would progress further than this, or if it had reached it’s peak at her not hating him and offering him passing physical contact. He was perfectly happy with how things were now, but he would have said the same thing about her begrudgingly tolerating his company two months ago. Now he couldn’t imagine going back to that time and being satisfied without her smile, or laughter, or rib jabbing.

A sigh slipped past his lips as he smooshed further into the couch at the memory of her forearms crossed over his shoulders early this evening. It was so nice. Everything was so nice now; he felt like he could exist like this forever. The impermanence of his situation was lost from his mind for the time being, and he nestled his brow into the cushion while he let his tender thoughts carry his brain away.

Without realizing, his eyes slowly began to settle closed, and he drifted into an impromptu nap.

--

Johnny reaffixed his grip on the handle of his knife, the tendons there further visible under the gaunt skin of his hand. He would usually wear gloves for something like this – it was so messy – but a kill such as this one, that was so personal and passionate in nature, had no room for measures of tidiness.

She deserved this so much; she was so mean. Cruel. She never treated him like this before, when they had their nice, engaging conversations at the bookstore. Everything was so pleasant then. He could still imagine her, with her short black hair and uniform apron, and her dark, painted lips that made his heart go berserk when they tilted up into a smile for him. Him, bringing a smile to someone else’s face. How abnormal.

His own mouth twitched upwards more, making his grin look more unhinged than it already did. The little spatters of blood on his cheeks and nose smeared under the creases it brought.

Devi lay below him – on the floor, if he wasn’t mistaken – looking up at him in fear. He’d only stabbed her a few times so far, but Johnny could tell by the terror in her eyes that she knew those wouldn’t be the only ones. He crouched over her form, as he had over so many others, and held her shoulder with his left hand while the right started its habitual swinging.

The blade plunged into her chest again, marring her shirt with another bloody hole. Then another, and another. He could feel the flexible bones of her ribcage bend under the base of his palm, compressed by the weight of his blows.

It felt so GOOD. She earned all of these! All of her stabbing, painful comments – she should have expected this outcome. This new, purple-haired, pigtailed Devi was not the one he cared so much for; she was a demon! A bastardized version of his Devi; one that smirked coolly at him as though she owned him; one that barraged him with pointless tests and berated him with cutting words when he failed.

“You deserve this!” Johnny breathed, digging the knife into her torso again. Devi did little to stop him, as she had so far, and only looked at him painfully. YES! She deserved this pain!

“You deserve this – you deserve this—!” He ranted, continuing to repeat the phrase over and over as he stabbed her. He watched her eyes – those pretty, green eyes – filled with hurt.

But it wasn’t the hurt that he had originally thought.

It wasn’t like the looks his other victims gave him, eyes filled with tears from the physical agony they were in. It wasn’t even the same as the horror he’d seen on her face before, when he had lunged at her in his home. Johnny’s smile slowly began to drop, seeing the unusual emotion in Devi’s eyes. She looked at him with so much betrayal – almost longingly, as if to ask “Why?”, or to say, “How could you?”.

Why wasn’t she fighting him? She should be able to get away. She’s always gotten away from him – always refused to be a victim to him. Why was she just LAYING there, letting him kill her?

That’s what he was doing. He was KILLING HER.

Devi seemed to acknowledge her impending death at the same time he had, and her expression grew wearier. Johnny felt anxiety rapidly mounting inside him, and only removed his fixation away from her face when he felt her hand gingerly grip at his fist. He looked down and watched her fingers, matted with blood, trying as best as they could to grasp onto him. He also realized that he was still holding the knife firmly in her sternum.

With a jolt of fear, he yanked the knife away, and Devi cried out for the first time that he could remember. It made him drop his weapon, and settle both hands onto her shoulders.

He yelped her name, as if that would do any good. What had he done? He had killed her – she was dying. He didn’t want to believe it, and the sound of her labored breathing brought him to tears. This shouldn’t be happening – Devi had helped him. She offered him so much of her; her time, her support, her home – and he had reduced her into a gored mass on her bedroom floor.

No, no, no. This wasn’t right. He wanted to scream and sob, but that would do nothing to fix this.

A sticky sensation on his cheek brought him out of his panic, and he realized after a moment that it was Devi’s hand, wet from her own blood. Despite the slippery, unpleasant feeling of the blood, Johnny was drawn to the delicate touch of her fingers, and tried to lean into them despite the weakness in her digits. He wanted her palm – he wanted it to cradle his cheek, and indulge in the forbade softness from her that he himself had ruined his chances of.

Johnny didn’t get what he wanted, of course. Devi’s hand slowly dropped away from his face, lingering until all the strength left her limbs, and her arm fell to her bloodied stomach. Johnny refused to take his eyes off of hers, and the anxiety he felt previously worked into a massive ball of dread as he saw the glint in Devi’s eyes begin to dull.

No, no, no, no—

--

Johnny almost gagged from the abrupt force of the gasp that brought him back to consciousness. His leg kicked out, knocking over some empty containers and cans that had been left on the coffee table, and he scampered away from the sound with startled fear. A hand came up to palm away the wet lines that streaked down his cheekbones, but cold tears were the least of his concerns with his lungs beating air out of him faster than he could bring it in. Johnny tried to gather himself and calm his breathing down, but his heart wouldn’t allow it, and continued pounding against the walls of its boney prison like a furious captive.

His eyes shook with anxiety as his pupils flashed from side to side, trying to use some amount of logic amongst his hysteria to convince himself everything was fine, and that his panic was just the result of another Godawful nightmare. Johnny noted the dark living room, the messy table, the quiet television set; nothing amiss or broken, nothing to indicate that anything in the apartment was any different from any other night, besides his quaking form bundled up on the sofa.

He turned his attention to Devi’s bedroom door, and his haggard breaths immediately stopped. Her door was ajar. He had never seen her door open when she was sleeping, ever.

A shaky inhale sucked down his throat, and he started shivering from his shoulders down his arms and to his stomach. There was a sudden, paralyzing feeling of nausea woven through his guts, and it was almost painful to make his knees lift him into a standing position, like forcing a rusted bolt to twist. He couldn’t get his back to straighten fully as he stood, so he crept with a nervous hunch in his shoulders toward Devi’s bedroom.

Johnny swallowed past the dry flesh of his mouth as he reached the threshold of the doorway. His breath trembled again; he was terrified that upon pushing open the door fully, he would find Devi’s lifeless body on the floor, right where he had ‘dreamed’ it was. He couldn’t bear the thought that his worst fear had come to fruition – that his crappy, broken mind failed to recognize reality from fantasy, and either it, or Meat, had tricked him into murdering Devi with a rage that he didn’t even have for her.

Despite his paralyzing fear, his hand settled onto the front of the door, and he creaked it open slowly. Johnny shakingly took a step inside, and even with the only light in the room being the dim reflection of a billboard outside, he could tell that there was nothing on the floor besides the usual scattered belongings. Certainly no bodies, and definitely not the one that belonged to Devi.

He brought his attention up to her bed, and his lips wibbled fearfully at the unidentifiable shape under the purple covers. He could see what would be assumed to be Devi’s head poking out of the lump, resting on a pillow, but that was all. Johnny gulped quietly again. His paranoia couldn’t let him leave it at that – he had to make sure that she was well, instead of just assuming she was sleeping peacefully.

He hurried to the side of the bed, and stared down with wide, fearful eyes at her neutral face that was tucked so snugly behind her curled hand. She wasn’t making any sounds, and he couldn’t tell with his own body shaking the way it was, if she was breathing or not. He continued staring, trying with all his might to determine if her body was rising and falling with lifegiving breath, and only grew more and more panicked the longer he couldn’t stop trembling and focus enough to confirm it.

With a renewed burst of anxiety, Johnny shot forward, jabbing a knee into the fluff of her comforter. He grabbed her by the shoulders to shake her awake with terrified urgency, unable to think of any other way to quell his fears fast enough. Devi’s eyes opened right away, rattling around in her aching head with confused alarm until she heard Johnny’s wailing.

“DEVI! DEVI, DEVI—!” His face pinched miserably as he saw her irises flicker into view and focus squarely on him. His fingers tightened onto her shoulders further as his began to shake again, and he drooped like a dejected, wilted flower against her collar. He continued calling her name, but his voice garbled as he deteriorated into sobs.

It took Devi a moment to register what the Hell was going on, but her shocked expression melted into a tired, exasperated one as she realized Johnny was just having a fit about something, again.

“Nny—Nny!” She tried to urge him out of his crying with a few shoves on the arm, but Johnny only continued blubbering. He was trying desperately to explain himself, Devi could gather that much, but he was completely incoherent. She sighed in exhaustion, desperate to calm him and go the fuck back to bed.

“Johnny,” She set a hand on his head, lazily leading it to lay flat on her mattress. “relax, please. Relax.”

Johnny, whose figure had been half-collapsed on her bed already, buckled from his distress, and he laid loosely at her side like a ragdoll.

“—you were dead, you were dead—!” He managed to blather out, and Devi sighed again. She assumed that this was the result of another nightmare he had, and papped his hair with as much sympathy as she was willing to muster in her fatigued state.

“I’m not dead, Nny. I’m fine… see…?” She mumbled with her eyes closed. Johnny stifled his crying as he tried to accept what she was telling him, but even with the affirmation that she was alive and well, he couldn’t stop his body’s pitiful reaction to fear. He hadn’t been so terrified in a long while – he couldn’t even remember what he would do to ease the feeling before.

A sudden sensation against his hairline startled him out of his grim thoughts, and he realized after a moment that it was Devi’s thumb idly brushing against his skin and into his hair. He stared at the sheets in surprise, unable to do much else besides focus on the strange scratching at his skull. Slowly, his eyelids lowered, but his somber expression remained. Johnny brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them tightly, hoping the pressure would help him relax.

Devi’s fingers stilled after a minute, and he felt her wrist settle loosely on his temple, then eventually slip lower until her forearm rested across the side of his neck. He sniffed, and bent his head down more, but instead of his forehead settling onto his kneecaps, it was obstructed by something warm and flat.

Johnny tilted his head up at an angle, and was surprised to see that what he’d bumped into was Devi’s collar – or rather, the area right below her collar. Her sternum; the bone that he had so viciously impaled with a knife several times in his newest dream. Guilt demanded that he pull his head away from where it rested, but as he turned his head, his ear pressed against her and he felt the light thumping of her heart tickle at his skin. Johnny froze, and his stillness offered him the full, uninterrupted rhythm of Devi’s heartbeat.

Even with his own heart pumping erratically, the sound of Devi’s heart was so audible and loud to the ear that was currently resting against her chest. It was just like any heartbeat, he supposed, but it was so calm and steady, much in contrast to his own which was still wild from coming down off of terror-induced adrenaline. The stable rhythm slowly began to calm him, and he took deep solace in the fact that as long as he could hear that drumming in his ear, it meant that she was alive. He curled further into himself, making sure that his temple was still pressed firmly against her collar.

Johnny chastised himself for a moment, trying to argue through his emotional exhaustion that this was, to some extent, inappropriate, and that now that he knew Devi was safe, he should leave her to rest. But he couldn’t resist the lure of Devi’s soft skin on his cheek, or her arm that was draped over his head, that made him feel oh-so cozy and secure. His eyes settled shut, and with a few lingering post-sobbing sniffs, slipped back into sleep.

--

THE FOLLOWING MORNING:

Devi mumbled in the back of her throat as she roused from slumber. There was still a dull ache in her brain, and she wasn’t currently at all fond of the idea of opening her eyes or waking up. Her lip twitched at a weird texture flittering against it, and she snorted to encourage whatever it was to fuck off. Her breathing started to slow again, but after a moment, the tickling feeling moved up to her nose, making it curl and huff in annoyance.

She brushed the unknown irritant away with her hand, and opened her eyes bitterly as she accepted that going back to sleep wasn’t going to happen now. She stretched her back out with a groaning sigh, and brought the same hand up to rub her face clear of any grogginess. As she did, the tuft of annoying, plumy things that had woken her up settled back against her mouth. Devi glared out at nothing in aggravation, then flicked her eyes down to finally see what it was.

Her eyes widened in confusion to be greeted with a pile of twisted, black hair. The confusion was short-lived as she realized that the hair was attached to Johnny, who was curled up in a ball beside her within the small space that her bent legs allowed, his head tucked comfortably under her chin. She blanched, and her cheeks quickly grew red from embarrassment and disoriented, shocked anger.

With a jolt of ego-preserving violence, she shoved him away and off of the bed, leaving only his skinny legs splayed in awkward angles atop the mattress. Devi sat up and glared at his boots.

“Johnny, what the Hell!” She huffed, her cheeks still tinged with color. Johnny rebounded from the initial shock of hitting the floor rather quickly, scampering up into a kneel at the side of her bed.

“OH, UH, I—” His own face blushed in shame, and he looked up to Devi’s glowering face, hoping that she wouldn’t be too angry with him. “I uh, I guess I… I fell asleep, after, um…”

His fingers drummed awkwardly against the sheets as he looked around the room noncommittally. Devi’s expression dropped as she remembered, foggily, Johnny coming into her room during the night in absolute hysterics. She grunted and scowled with some acceptance that he’d ended up passing out beside her.

“You moron.” Was all she could say. Johnny raised his eyes to look at her dejectedly, and she scoffed. She threw her legs off the other side of the bed, and walked around it, and Johnny, to reach her bathroom.

Johnny’s lip stuck out curiously. He wondered if that was going to be the extent of his punishment for unwanted physical contact, but dared not ask. Instead, he pulled himself up to sit on the corner of her bed and waited patiently for her to return. He hoped she didn’t come back with anything to hit him with, like the good, old-fashioned, ‘bar of soap in a sock’ flail.

Devi only washed her face, then reentered her room to frown at him. She crossed her arms at the sight of him sitting on her bed, and Johnny held his hands between his knees, timidly avoiding what he assumed was a bitter glare from her. Devi rolled her eyes as she sighed, and joined him on the edge of her mattress.

“Another nightmare, Nny?” She asked. Johnny’s head lowered from the annoyance in her voice.

“Yes…” He mumbled, twiddling his thumbs nervously. He heard Devi scoff again, and he felt further guilt that she was unaware of the seriousness behind his night terrors. After her unintentionally warm comforting the night previous, he felt compelled to tell her the truth.

“Devi, uh, I actually… there’s something I must confess.” Johnny looked to her, and Devi’s mouth flattened in surprise. She hoped silently that this wasn’t something romantic, given the already ridiculous start to her day. Johnny swung his legs absentmindedly.

“Well, you see…” A sigh. “I’ve been having these… “nightmares”, for months.”

“All of them have been about, well, killing you.” Johnny grimaced as he said it, and Devi’s expression shifted to a different kind of surprise. Johnny continued. “Each time I fall asleep, they get worse; more vivid, more violent. Last night’s was the worst one to date. It was so real, Devi, I—I swore that I’d killed you. I was so certain…”

His hands gripped at the fabric of his pants nervously.

“…I think Meat’s behind it.” He said finally, and Devi took new, startled interest in his admission. They were quiet a moment before Devi replied.

“You really think the dreams are his doing?”

“I do.” He affirmed. “He doesn’t speak to me very often now that I live here, but I’m sure it’s him. I… I don’t know why he’s doing it, but I’m sure that he’s influencing them to be so gory and… awful… and you-related.”

Devi pondered this new development with a healthy amount of bitter suspicion. As far as she knew, Reverend Meat wanted Johnny to live, and had yet to try and influence him to kill anyone. What he wanted Johnny to do was engage in normal human-y things, and lose himself to his emotions, to his feelings. His feelings for her, in this case specifically. She slid her attention back to him with her suspicions hidden, as to not inadvertently express it to Johnny, and Meat, by extension.

“Did you have a nightmare after you fell asleep in my bed?” She asked.

Johnny blinked, having not bothered to even think about that until she mentioned it.

“Oh… no, I didn’t.” He replied. Devi pursed her mouth, convinced she knew the reason for Meat’s meddling this time.

He was trying to drive Johnny directly into her arms, like a bovine herder whacking his cattle with an electric rod. It boiled her blood to think of that shitty little parasite being so crafty. It would be easy for Meat to convince Johnny, without words, that he was urging him to commit violent acts, like Johnny’s previous voices, when in actuality, he was still just pushing this ‘physical longing’ crap.

“I’m sorry Devi…” Johnny’s head hung pathetically. “I know I should have told you. I was just so afraid… Afraid that you wouldn’t… trust me, again.”

He lifted his head.

“So much has changed since we, uh, ‘reunited’, if you’d want to call it that.” He mumbled. “I was scared that everything would regress back to the way it used to be. Everything is so nice now, I didn’t want to disturb it if I didn’t have to.”

Devi frowned at him in disbelief. She was still unused to any kind of heartfelt comments from anyone, especially him. For a moment, she debated whether or not to inform Johnny of the conclusion she’d just come to.

It could be beneficial to let him know, even if that would let Meat know as well, but then Johnny would probably go out of his way to avoid any touching, and maybe even hide his emotions more, just as a precaution to keep any and all feelings for her in check and not vulnerable to the Reverend, as futile as that would be. Devi hated to admit that she… didn’t want that. She liked bothering him, and it was nice to have such a casual friendship with someone after all these years of crappy people and self-made solitude.

She let her shoulders sag in defeat to her own wretched feelings.

“Yeah, things are nice now.” She smiled at him. Johnny was surprised that she would agree with him, and grinned shyly back at her.

“You still should have told me though, idiot.” Devi added with a meaner smirk, and Johnny shrugged in reply with a laugh. Devi pushed his shoulder.

“I’ll forgive you if you make me breakfast.” She offered, and Johnny jumped at the opportunity.

“Okay!” His smile grew wider, and he began slinking off toward the kitchen, lingering as though he was urging her to follow him.

Devi snorted a laugh and got up to join him. She would just keep these nightmares under close observation for now, until she was sure that she was correct about Meat’s intentions.

--

NEXT.

bittersweet, oh love.

“you’re still here?”

it’s obviously not meant as harsh as it sounds. but it comes out judgmental anyway, because yuha’s brows are knitted close together when she walks into the studio, americano in her hand and jaw slack at the image of her senior on the couch. 

kang is struggling to get himself together, back aching from the position he’d slept in, and eyes adjusting to the light suddenly flooding the studio. suddenly finding a passcode and lock for the studio sounds like a good idea. though, even then samuel would find a way in. as the youngest of the producing team he bounces from which of his seniors he likes to gather advice from and today - and it’d probably be harder to explain the situation to the younger but yuha. yuha is much too perceptive and kang is suddenly wishing for the presence of the hyperactive male or even donghyun with all his ideas and insecurities.

‘did you - did you sleep here?’ the room certainly smells slept in and even though some producers have spare pillows and blankets for late nights, this position looks far too comfortable to be accidental. yuha’s arms fold over her chest and she keeps her space at the door occupied in respect for his space and for him to get himself together. 

‘yeah the - we were working on the kiddo’s album.’ “doe’s album released last week.” kang had attended the release party. ‘right well--’ it’s not often a staff member gets to see the kang fumble over his words and as iconic as this moment is, it leaves a dirty taste in yuha’s mouth. any thoughts of teasing or commenting on how he’s getting old don’t quite fit right.  “did you session all night? with who? donghyun? did he keep you up in here for advice? or was it daehan escaping practice duties?” the man was well known for his strict studio sessions but also the abundance of advice that poured whenever someone such as a trainee or someone with surprising musicality bat their eyes towards him. he was softer than he realized. apparently to the point of neglecting his own health. yuha has half a mind to discuss donghyun’s sphere of producers with his managers as well as daehan’s practice regimen with his instructors. but she waits, because kang is finally - finally sitting and running a hand through his hair, admittedly he looks like he needs a long bath and coffee.

‘doe had some more ideas so i let her session late, i was editing some of the works for her and i must’ve lost track of time.’ it makes sense. it’s actually very on par for what he usually does, kang known for throwing himself into projects in the way most abc soloists are known for doing. still - it’s well known that kang has become rather attached to the new starlit of the company, her vocal tone being right up his alley and his decision to train her directly shocking nearly half the company.

it paid off though, the album being one of their most solid, diverse projects in a while. it’s because her genre is his style, and no one really questioned it. doe’s managers often have to drag her out the studio and they have to cut sessions when they overlap with other trainees or artists and meetings but it’s never been a problem. it shouldn’t be a problem.

but yuha has known kang longer than any trainee in the company, longer than the people who hired and brought him onto the team. so she watches the way he boots up his computer, mechanically checking for files like his eyes don’t burn for the comfort of a pillow and a bed.

“does your wife know you’re here?”

there it is. kang doesn’t budge to show that the words have any effect. he keeps the typing on the keys steady even if he’s just moving up and down the track lists. he keeps his hands busy, his eyes reading and picking up beats that occupied his mind last night. 

‘she knows.’ “she knows you’re here or she knows you’re sleeping in the studio?” ‘consider she’s the one who doesn’t want me home right now, both.’

this is too much, it’s much too much for someone who hasn’t had their coffee but yuha knows this is the only time to get it out. it’s a cheap tactic but she’d had a hunch that he’d been spending longer than necessary in the studio and she’s worried. it’s why she took samuel’s offer and came on her own accord, knowing if samuel came they’d be occupied for another two days of this - mess.

“she kicked you out?” kang and his wife had problems. problems that stemmed from disagreements, resentments they went into marriage with, but it’s never built into this. sure he spent time away from home in the studio, sure he could be an escape at times, but not like this. the scoff that leaves his lips is answer enough that there is more to this than the normal marital problems. the only times kang gets this tense, really this tense is when discussing his marriage.

‘she seems to think i have a home elsewhere so she wouldn’t consider it kicking out.’

“explain.” so yuha takes a step inside, the door closing firmly behind her.

‘put simply? she doesn’t like how much time i spend here.’ “it wouldn’t be the first time yo spend time here though---” ‘her words were ‘at least you have the decency to fuck them there.’

yuha sputters, the words catching her off guard and coffee spurting from her lips. if there’s anything kang isn’t - he’s not oozing sexual activity. she knows the look very well and she’d definitely notice the change in him.

“excuse me? them? who does she think you’re fu----- oh.”

oh.

“that’s -- she’s - a whole decade younger than you.” ‘as if i had time to explain that while she screamed.’

it’s not unheard of, though yuha feels bad for thinking of it, it’s not completely foreign. the thing is, people who didn’t really know kang were probably prone to these thoughts, especially with his budding fascination with their newest artist. it was impossible, it was entirely and utterly impossible and a little disturbing to imagine but she remembers - kang and his wife do not understand one another at all. so the increased nights spent preparing for the album and even attending a release party, he’d become a close mentor to the younger woman and to the wrong pair of eyes - to the hazy pair of eyes it could seem ( however impossible ) it could seem, as if something else was going on.

“this is a little disturbing.” ‘don’t i know that.’

he’s discussing it rather nonchalant, though he might’ve had time to process this. he might’ve already vented his frustrations in his own way. yuha wonders just how long this has been going on. 

 “you need to go home, sleep in your bed.” ‘don’t i know that too? if i go home it’s to a riot.’ “better a riot to straighten out than nothing at all.” ‘you don’t know my wife.’ “no, but i know you.” it’s unhealthy and he’ll avoid the confrontation for as long as he can which will only end up with the studio smelling and him surviving on the cafeteria food and coffee until he eventually knocks out. that’ll be a story and yuha’s trying to prevent that. “talk to her.” ‘and say what? i’m not screwing my mentees? i shouldn’t have to.’ “apparently you need to. it’s obvious you have to do something.” it’s obvious there’s more there that needs to be unearthed. yuha doesn’t know all of it but she knows that with his nature it’ll just sit and fester, kang is a straightforward person so if he sees no problem and it isn’t brought up he won’t address it. he believes the accusations false, ludicrous so he doesn’t want to discuss it, and his wife? who knows what’s going through her mind. “besides, what happens if she starts sharing gossip with friends about this? you need to talk to her.”

it’s another cheap trick, using company status and the well-being of the artists to guilt him, but it’s probably all that will work given the situation. 

‘jesus - you don’t think she would.’ “i think it’s not a chance to take.”

if there are any gears, she can see them start to turn now. he’s unfolded the ends of his hoodie from his face and let his head free from the hoodie. kang’s not the most stylish guy, he doesn’t quite stand out intentionally but he’s lanky, tall and seeing him so shrunk and agitated in the chair doesn’t sit well with yuha and it’s definitely going to be noticed by others - if it hasn’t been already. 

‘alright...i’ll go home today.’ “you’ll go home and talk to her.” ‘i’ll go home and try to talk to her.’

it’s good enough. so, she turns on her heel to open the door. tunes have started to play from the computer and it’s either an indication that he needs his space right now or he’s feeling better. yuha won’t try to decode it she’s done enough for the day.

“i’ll go get that extra large americano for you.”

his response is a grunt, the closest to a thanks she can get. so she runs with it.

Crazy Ex Girlfriend?

Sorry for getting back at you thaaat late, but I kind of had to binge-watch the show first. Damn, have you sent me on a wild rollercoaster ride there.

Just to make that clear: I’m not gonna watch every show I don’t know. But this one, I have literally never heard about, I wasn’t even aware of its existence. So I looked it up and the premise sounded like fun and I decided to check it out. And well, I fell down a hole and only crawled out of it with the season 2 finale last night.

But before I get started, sure it’s been half a year now but still, if you haven’t seen the season 2 finale yet and don’t want to be spoilered, then don’t read ahead because I’m getting into the entire show here and particularly into the finale of season 2. There be spoilers.

Okay, so the show is fun, but definitely different from what is advertised.

When looking at it from the Wikipedia summary point of view, it sounds like just your average rom-com without substance. Girl falls for boy, girl follows boy to his old hometown to make him fall in love with her, shenanigans ensue.

That is not what it is.

We have our mentally unstable protagonist Rebecca, who has a panic-attack slash mental melt-down in the middle of the streets, sees her high school sweetheart Josh and talks to him. He talks about happiness and how happy he was in his hometown and that he’s moving back there. She doesn’t remember what happiness tastes like and sees this as a sign from above.

She claims - to everyone - that she didn’t move there for Josh, but everyone “knows” that she did. Even though, if you actually read between the lines, her claims were right. She didn’t move there “for Josh”.

The thing is, Rebecca doesn’t know happiness. So in the moment Josh starts talking about it, he becomes her anchor, her symbol for happiness. She chases him as a crutch. “If I can get him, I can get happiness”.

In West Corvina, Josh’s hometown, a love… square?… ensues with Josh’s best friend Greg falling for Rebecca, while Josh is in a relationship with Valencia.

Throughout this ridiculous love square plot, it becomes abundantly clear that it’s not the boy Rebecca wants, it’s the concept of happiness.

First she chases Josh for that, but with Greg in the mix, it becomes decidedly too easy for Rebecca to jump ships. And she jumps them a lot. It’s a constant back and forth between declaring love to one and then to the other. All she wants is The Boy and it doesn’t really matter whose name is attached to that title, really.

She lives in this fantasy girls are raised on thanks to Disney movies where “the hero gets the princess and they lived happily ever after” equals happiness and as a person with no own concept of happiness, she decides that is it.

My personal favorite episode was when she noticed that she’s not the princess but the villain in the tale. Because Josh is dating Valencia and Rebecca has done a wonderful job of completely ignoring the fact that she’s trying to sabotage that relationship and break Valencia’s heart - something that has been bothering me from episode one because I hate cheats and I hate home-wreckers. That she was completely unaware of the fact that this was what she had become, the villain (literally, she does a villain-song on that - yes, there are songs in this. It’s a musical show. Forgot to mention that. Will get back into this a little later). It was good, it showed strength.

Rebecca evolved. From the girl chasing Josh and Greg and Greg and Josh into someone who was trying to find herself. For that, she found friends. In Valencia and in her former-neighbor-turned roommate Heather. And for a little while “happiness” and “having friends” seem to be equals, but then she spirals down the Josh-road again.

They finally pull through with the ship and Rebecca and Josh are together, just for Rebecca to have a break-through and actually put to words that it was never about Josh, it was always about fixing her life and finding happiness and somehow, Josh had become the symbol for that to her.

But that moment is ruined by Josh stumbling in and proposing, so yeah.

Now, before I get to the season 2 finale and to what I love most about this show, I need to mention what I hated most about it first.

Rebecca’s new best friend Paula. I hate her character. I hate her so much. With season 2B, she became… an okay character, finally. But I loathed her throughout the first one and a half seasons.

Because she’s crazy. I mean, she’s more crazy than the titular crazy main character. She meets Rebecca, is the first one to realize that Rebecca moved to West Corvina for Josh and, in that moment, Rebecca has a moment of clarity and realizes how crazy that sounds - that is where Paula jumps in and starts telling her that it’s not crazy and that it’s love and that she’ll help her.

Paula is a self-centered enabler. Clearly, Rebecca isn’t mentally stable and clearly, her obsession with Josh is not healthy. Instead of helping her friend get better, Paula completely enables her. Every single time, Rebecca starts realizing that what she’s doing isn’t good for herself, Paula keeps pushing this fantasy of True Love Conquers All.

Paula does ridiculous, illegal stuff for the sake of pushing Josh toward Rebecca. Stuff that Rebecca never even asked for. Paula is more obsessed with that romance than Rebecca is, because Paula is a sad, lonely housewife who projects her own lack of romance onto Rebecca.

When Paula realizes that however, she doesn’t try to change in a good way, she basically abandons Rebecca by putting up a “friendship agreement” that forbids her from getting involved. So, basically, their friendship turns into a “Nice weather we have” kind of situation because the plotting and scheming was all that connected them from the start.

Coincidentally, Paula is going through a tough time by realizing she’s pregnant and having to decide to have an abortion. She doesn’t tell Rebecca that. Not even when, after the abortion, Rebecca comes visit her at her bedside because she thinks Paula has the flu. I’ve never had a friend who would come visit me when I just have the damn flu. And Rebecca asks her point-blank if something’s wrong, but Paula still keeps her mouth shut.

That, in itself, is okay. I understand if you don’t want to talk about your abortion, especially not right away. But this leads to ridiculous accusations on Paula’s behalf that Rebecca doesn’t care and that their friendship is a one-way street of Rebecca always taking and Paula always giving.

Which is… the opposite of what happened? Because yeah, Paula gave. Unwanted things that did not do anything good for Rebecca. In the end, Paula took more than she gave by continuously using Rebecca as her source of entertainment. Because that was what Rebecca was to Paula; not her best friend but her entertainment-program. Best shown in the Christmas/Hanukkah episode where she gives Rebecca a brooch with a camera and then spends her own Christmas dinner watching Rebecca on her phone, like one of those uninterested dads who rather watch sports secretly during dinner.

Paula is a pathetic excuse for a “friend”. Without her, I believe, Rebecca would have had her break-through a season earlier. That she then actually accuses Rebecca of being the only self-centered party in this “friendship” is simply ridiculous. Yes, Rebecca is overly self-centered and she didn’t do much for Paula, but damn she was there. She was there to stop Paula from cheating on her husband.

Though she did win bonus points with me when she immediately kicked her husband out for cheating. But... she lost those bonus-points by taking him back in the end, so there’s that. I mean, it is a little balanced by the fact that if not for Rebecca, she would have cheated on her husband first, but still the fact that, so shortly after the abortion he cheats on her... That makes it even worse. Because, even though they agreed on that abortion and it was the best solution, that shit isn’t easy on anyone. And instead of being there for each other, they drift apart and he drifts into the vagina of another woman and that shit is not okay.

Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, I need to get into my favorite part. The season 2 finale. The big pay-off.

In a ridiculous plot-twist, Josh realizes that he’s been doing the exact same thing as Rebecca. Using a romantic partner as a crutch for happiness.

He literally leaves her at the altar and goes to become a priest. Rebecca has another break-down, but this one is very revealing.

We learn that she has once had a boyfriend before who left a huge impact on her life, Robert. He left her, she burned down his house - and that is where it gets juicy. She’s sentenced to get help. During the sentencing, the words used are identical with this season’s intro-song.

After that, we get a blurry short scene of Rebecca, as she looks today, in a mental institute, with the nurses commenting that “this one always sings”. Rebecca, in her wedding dress in West Corvina, all the while looks dizzy and confused by this.

The thing is. That last part in the mental institute? That was not a flashback. That was a short view into reality. And now let me get into why and why this is the amazing part.

Every single thing that has happened in this show is only in her head - and it makes so much sense. Literally everything that bothered me or was strange and out of place makes perfect sense in this context.

Let’s start at the beginning, again.

Let’s start with Josh. He’s been dating Valencia for fifteen years. But she’s living in West Corvina while he’s living in New York? She’s… a yoga-instructor. She could have moved with him and easily found a job in New York. She’s not tied to West Corvina, in fact she doesn’t seem to like the place so much so why would she stay there and have a long-distance relationship with him? We never even learn why Josh was in New York to begin with. He doesn’t have a career or anything and when he first talks to Rebecca in New York, he doesn’t mention going back home to his girlfriend, it sounds more like going back to living with his parents.

It makes no sense at all why Josh was even in New York.

Unless all of this is only in Rebecca’s head anyway. She was committed into the mental institute while she was still a law-student. That was when her delusions start. Back then, the perfect fantasy of happiness meant being a top lawyer. So she became a top lawyer in New York in her head.

But when that fantasy grew stale, her mind supplied something new. Bringing forth a happy memory. A happy relationship, not like what Robert did to her. Josh. Josh was good. Josh was safe. Josh became the escape deeper into the fantasy.

There are many things that don’t make sense in the show and I don’t like the cop-out excuse of “It’s comedy, it’s funny so don’t think too hard”, or “It’s a musical, everything is possible!”.

For one, her job and her money. We learn that she got her job by promising she’d work for real cheap. But she keeps buying expensive, ridiculous things and literally leaving money left and right.

Which yes, does get a moment when she’s actually broke. But miraculously she receives a “bonus-check” - we never learn how much that is or what for it is exactly - and it fixes everything. The concept of money to her seems like the concept of someone who has never worked a day in her life, like a law-student stuck in a mental institute. At one point, she realized she must have spent too much money so she instantly went broke, but that problem was easily fixed and so far not brought up again even though she continues spending ridiculous amounts of money.

Said job where she’s working for barely anything? She also basically never works. She leaves work early all the time, she invests all her time in her persuit of Josh and/or Greg. She never actually works, aside from that one big case that she only takes on because it’ll bring her closer to Josh.

And then the new big lawyer comes in and buys out the firm. Nathaniel. He claims that she is the one who brought this firm onto their radar, only… How exactly? They did have this one big case, as just mentioned, but they lost it. What about that would make a big name law-firm interested, really?

Unless. Unless her mind grew bored with things as they were. She slowly started figuring out that The Guy is not what brings her happiness, that part of the fantasy was slowly unraveling, so her mind supplied this new character, who literally as she says stands for everything she left behind in New York. He stands for the career. For the dream that worked before. Like her mind is desperately trying to melt both those things together. Career and handsome man, both wrapped in one. As, you could say, a safety net in case the Josh-dream failed too.

A very big part of why all of this being in her head is plausible are the musical elements. In the beginning of the show, I thought that her singing was a sign of her mental problems and the fact that she flushed all her meds.

But everyone sings.

Characters who aren’t her or who aren’t even in the same scene as her also sing. Which, yes, you can go the musical cop-out excuse there. They just sing, it’s what they do in musicals.

Or… it’s what they do in the mind of a musical-obsessed crazy person who invented this world, those people and thus their songs and can listen to them even when “she” isn’t in the “scene” herself.

Another smaller instance were Heather’s parents, who were just retconned in. Everything so far set it up that Heather was living on her own. Suddenly, when Rebecca was in dire need of parental love, it is revealed that Heather has parents. Not just parents, but doting, caring, loving parents. Everything Rebecca ever wanted from her parents. And despite her being an entitled and rude brat, they take her in and treat her like a second daughter right away. Because her mind wanted and needed that comfort.

The biggest thing to “confirm” this theory to me however is the scene where she decides to pack her things and move back to New York. She’s on a flight and has a dream-revelation. Only. Only that her dream-scenario is literally one-by-one exactly what’s happening. She dreams of all her new friends being in her house and worrying about her. While her friends are actually in her house worrying about her. That scene has bothered me so much because it was the most unrealistic part of this show - and that’s saying a lot in a musical show about a crazy ex-girlfriend. But that she could actually see what “really” happened while dreaming in a plane? That was just too much.

Unless it’s all in her head anyway. The friends she made up were worrying in her apartment and, as the all-knowing being who created this world, she could of course see into her apartment and see her friends worrying even though she was on a plane miles away.

So, yes, to sum it all up, the show is great as a simple musical story with an unreliable, unstable narrator, but it becomes amazing if you view it as a fantasy in a crazy person’s head. And if, down the road, this show’s finale actually reveals that yes, she’s the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but that was always meant as Robert’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and not Josh’s, because she’s actually in a mental institute because of him and that all of West Corvina is only in her head, it’d be the most amazing end.

Not that I want it to end any time soon. I’m very much looking forward to season 3 and I will be looking very closely for any more hints at all of this not being real but in her head.

A real fun time with @frostlocke, we had an extensive playtime, wherein I had a wonderful time smushing them into the perfect base for a toyfriend~. I can't wait till they're done at the factory perfecting her toyline, then we can have our fun datey playtime~.

   Frost had finally arrived at the address listed on their phone. They had recently begun trying out for a new jobs search program put out by major multi-industry corporation, ReesCo, and while most of the jobs seemed bland, one of them truly stuck out: "Play Tester". Its font and page layout was much brighter and sillier than the formatting most of the other jobs listed, and best of it, it was excellent 20 dollars an hour at start… just for playing games! If that wasn’t enough to at least peer into, then nothing was. Finally looking at the place in question, it didn't really seem to him like the facade of a game dev studio, especially with a spurious name like ‘Hoffi's Arena’. He raised an eyebrow, being more than a bit wary... but for $20 an hour, he was willing to ignore his concerns long enough to give this place a chance. Maybe it was worth it. He went up to the door and let himself in, assuming the door was unlocked since that's how a normal business would operate.

   Stepping inside gave way to an environment was cool and clear, the small front room modest in style. There were a couple coffee tables littered with light literature, what looked to be comic books and graphic novels; surrounded with plush, yet playful chairs. The rest of the room was fairly neat and tidy, the only real present decoration being the case holding several ostentatiously patterned rubber balls. The desk itself seemed empty, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be fully automated. Huh, kinda cute, he supposed. Heading up to the desk, he tried to get its attention. "Hello? I'm here for the job listing? It says here you wanted to hire a playtester?"

   The automated system played some light music, before suddenly jarring, the large, double sided door to the side busting open. From it sprung a small, very shiny, tan individual, whose presence radiated a manic feeling. "Did I hear that someone's here for the new playtester position~? :]" They asked, eager to see why the system had rung.

   Frost was... a bit taken back by them. For starters, they were hurting his eyes, and he adjusted his glasses, tint allowing him to see properly. More importantly... "Did you just... speak an emoticon?" They hadn't spelled out the symbols used, Frost just somehow heard them say... ":]". Furrowing his brow, he adjusted his posture. "Though yes, I was interested in doing an interview for the playtester position. My name is Locke, though most people call me Frost." He held out his hand for a handshake.

   Hoffi smiled widely, gripping frost's hand, then yanking them over, using the leverage to flip onto the reception desk. "Yes, I did~. And it's really, really nice to meet you mistah Frost~" Hoffi kicked her legs energetically, hands on the table. "I'm the owner of this place...” she paused for a moment, “well, technically the owner, but close enough~!" She giggled, "You look like a fun person already, and cute too; sooo..." she hung on her words a moment, tapping her finger to her lip, "you're hired!"

   "...uh." Frost suddenly had several questions. You aren't going to run a background check? Why aren't there any other employees? Why are you only "technically" the owner? You aren't going to let me know what the job actually entails? Is this actually a business or a front for some drug cartel? Despite all that... one question seemed more important than any other. "I kinda assumed you'd tell me your name?"

   "Heheheh, silly me!" the little rubbery enbie giggled before bending backwards into a front flip, landing cleanly on the ground right in front of their applicant. "My name's Hoffi, the namesake of this place, of course!" She said, beaming happily, hands on her hips in a seemingly 'commanding' position; or at least a child's interpretation of it.

   "...right. Hoffi, are you the...only person here? There isn't anyone above or below you that I could speak to?" He doubted her title, given her extremely diminutive size, build, and general attitude; but didn't want to call her out directly just in case she actually was the owner.

   "Nope, no one else here right now~ Just you, me and the automated systems~" Hoffi giggled, innocent gleam radiating from her face. "I, like, work my best when I have the space to be freeee~!" She said as she twirled once in place. "And I love encouraging that in new prospects as well~!"

   That was incredibly suspicious. Very suspicious, to the point where the paycheck was feeling a bit non-worth. Still... it's entirely possible she's just wrong. If he could access the database and do some snooping, he could verify what she was saying. Or at the very least confirm they have a functioning bank account. Frost mulled, before addressing the shiny enbie. "Hmm... mind if I try something?" He looked over the counter. "I'd kinda like to try using the computer manually."

   Hoffi looked quizzically at frost before her face adjusted back to an average smile. "Alrighty, but I don't know if you can really do anything with it~." She said teasingly, "It is fully automated, so I don't mess with it~ " She stood aside, letting frost make his way to the computer interface. "Though, why do you want to use it?" she asked inquisitively, having scrambled her way up on the desk again.

   Hmm...excuses, excuses... "I bought taffy and I want to see if it got delivered to my house yet." He responded, slightly nervous that his weak response would be insufficient for her.

   "ooh, taffy! Go right ahead~!" Hoffi glimmered, watching intently as they went to work on the computer. He was hoping she'd be at least ten feet away, but it seemed like she wasn't looking very closely at the screen anyways; even if she was, she probably wouldn't recognize what he was doing. Pulling out a little USB stick from his sleeve, he carefully slotted it in, activating the program of his own design held within it. In a matter of moments, it begun its task, burrowing under as many locks and firewalls as possible, circumventing the security and giving him access to the information contained within. In effect, it was a much more direct and practical search engine, letting him find... basically whatever he wanted to find. Thankfully, his recent efforts into updating it were enough that even if they had an advanced antivirus, it didn't seem to be able to detect his suspicious activity.

   Frost decided to search for the terms "hoffi", "employee", and "profile," seeing if he could pull up Hoffi's employee profile or the profile of any other employees working here. His program’s digging seemed to pull up a good amount of data as it produced a list of employee files were listed for short term contracts, each with a different project under the belt. Something about the names seemed familiar, but not in terms of gaming, however that was no matter for now when they had more important information: facts about hoffi themselves. No major employee profile came up, but rather a list of records noting their permissions and lack of permissions in the facility, and a user denotation of 'Facility Manager' amongst the jargon. Everything else seemed somewhat sparse, as the USB program suddenly seized up, halting as it tried to access external server information, before propping up a notation about the privacy rights of ReesCo industries, LLC on the screen.

   Hoffi watched in awe and amazement as they couldn't tell what Frost was really doing, just that it seemed really cool. "Cool~ Now I really wanna play with you, cause that's awesome!" She said, even her relaxed posture not allowing for a relaxed tone.

   The short search didn’t give Frost much, but it gave him enough. If he had to guess, Hoffi was a surname and this was the owner's...daughter? And she was given a fake title to keep her amused while actual business was handled elsewhere. Or maybe she was in charge of finding employees or something; but whatever. He was content to humor her until an actual employee showed up. "Yeah okay, I think I'm ready to ‘play’ now. Though, don't I need to sign a contract first?"

   Hoffi held for a moment before realizing, and snapping her fingers. "Ah, right! I completely forgot about that. the computer should handle that for you~!" She said, shifting over and pushing frost, before pressing a button, relocking the computer’s interface onto a page that was a form with several fields. "Just put in your application information, and we can get the boring business part over with, and get back to playing~!"

   Frost spent roughly 15-20 minutes filling out his information on the form... Full Name, Address, Resume, Bank Account Information, Owned Game Consoles, Cuteness Of Pets, Total Comic Books Owned... Favorite Food... okay was he signing up for identity theft or what? Ugh, whatever, this seemed just as official as the documents he spied on so it was probably legitimate. Maybe these were more concessions to entertain his daughter. All the while, Hoffi continued to kick her legs back and forth and hum as she waited, eagerly watching for the moment he was done.

   "Hooray, now we can get to the fun stuff!" She said, flipping off the desk, and swinging around Frost's neck and shoulders, her breasts pressing against his back, not as soft and supple as what one would normally expect, along with an oddly smooth feeling as the arms slid around his exposed neck. Releasing, she flipped in front of him, excitedly moving her arm to direct him to the doors she first came through. "This way~!"

   "...you don't really know what personal space is, do ya?" Frost rolled his eyes, following her gesture as he went through the doors with Hoffi clinging much too close to him for his tastes. Hoffi simply stuck out her tongue as she parted slightly from Frost, taking to skipping through the hall. after they were a few feet in, the automated doors shut behind them, leaving the two to move through the oddly spacious corridor, decorated with various pictures of sporting events and equipment, leading to a large pair of doors. the slope of the hall had gotten steeper as they had walked what was clearly much further than the seeming length of the building, hoffi's excited singlemindedness keeping her cheerfully directing him.

   Observing all the sports regalia on the wall, Frost remarked. "so... normally when people want to hire a ‘playtester,’ the idea is that they're going to be doing quality assurance on video games." Frost kept himself steady as they were eventually walking down a ramp. "Can't help but notice that there doesn't seem to be any game development stuff at all. What exactly am I playtesting?"

   Hoffi giggled, "I'll show you," she said excitedly, their presence at the second large door triggering its opening. As the opening widened, the lights inside propped on one by one, revealing a large gymnasium court, seemingly similar to any one you'd find elsewhere, though small glimmers about it seemed different between them.

   Frost looked around, a bit disappointed. "All that hype for a high school gymnasium? Okay, I guess. Not exactly good at any sports though, so..."

   Hoffi cut him off, "That's fine, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon enough~! " and gave him a shove, well past the door frame. Following suit, she continued her acrobatic tricks into the room, the doors shutting behind them. Finally inside, the plethora of fancier devices, monitors and speakers were clear. This may have had the aesthetic of a plain old gym, but it was clearly far more than state of the art. "Welcome to the playroom~!" Hoffi giggled, arms held out in the air. "So, what do you think~?"

   "...I feel like you expect me to be a lot more wow'd than I am." Frost casually strode around, trying to get a better look at one of the devices. "Like, it's cool and all, but your constant pauses make it seem like you're expecting me to be picking my jaw up off the floor." Frost was... being a bit of a downer, but he was once again doubting his pay considering athleticism was never brought up before now.

   Hoffi slumped for a moment, disappointed in it, before snapping back to her cheerful self. "Aww, that's a shame, but I guess that means we can go right to playing~!" She took to an excited stance once more. Frost sighed, looking down at his outfit. A hoodie and jeans weren't exactly exercise gear. Then again... asking for gym clothes felt like an obvious trap, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and wait for Hoffi to start a game. Mulling for a moment, Frost lost sight of Hoffi, before suddenly…

   WHAP! a sharp sting suddenly struck him in the back of the head, throwing him off balance. Frost very quickly found himself face-first in the linoleum, knocked so swiftly to the ground his feet had flipped up above him before he flopped down onto the floor. "...OW." Frost struggled, trying to look over his shoulder to see what happened.

   Hoffi stood several feet away, her left hand raising to shoulder level. "You're not very good at this, but that's why we're playtesting~!" She giggled at her own joke, "now then, we start for reals~!" In an instant, she flicked her wrist, a green sphere conjuring within it. With a hard rotation of her arm, the ball soared through the air, flying right at Frost!

   “Woah!” Frost scrambled to his feet, doing his best to leap out of the way. "Wh… don't I need to know the rules to be able to playtest??" Hoffi was winding up her next throw, before stopping stiff. Returning to a standing position, she tapped her finger on her mouth.

   "Oh, right! The rules are simple. I throw these balls, you try to dodge them. The longer you dodge, the better you do. That's how we playtest..." she paused for a moment, before resuming her wild throw, doing a spinning flip. "...YOU!"

   "...WHAT?" Frost leapt out of the way of another throw. "Why am I being tested?! That's not how a job works, and that's not how… okay this isn't even a real fucking company, is it?" Urgh... Frost was too agitated to properly finish his retort, instead reaching up his sleeves to activate some gadgets. Small thrusters to make large precise leaps, stabilizers to be able to change trajectory in midair, and he tweaked his glasses to try and start predicting how Hoffi's balls would arc. Dammit... maybe if he could get to the doors, he could escape?

   "Because, you're the newest toy... and my newest playmate!" Hoffi giggled, deftly jumping backwards, conjuring and tossing more rubber spheres at moderately fast speeds. "It's no good if my fellow toys aren't as fun as I am! Hihihihihhi~ " She continued to beam that innocent feeling even with her suddenly intimidating aura, each shot flying hard. Frost managed to dodge them fairly easily with his attachments, but only because he was keeping his distance. He was no closer to getting past her to the door, so... taking a risk, he tried to leap past her, hugging the right wall as he did so.

   "You're really slippery and speedy aren't you?" Hoffi, conjured an orb as frost sped by, "I like that, it means you'll be extra fun~!" Just as Frost slipped past the rubbery toy, her figure twisted at the torso, the sphere suddenly flying back in the exact opposite direction she was facing, striking him square in the back, setting him off course. The heavy impact stung like crazy, though in its wake, it left an oddly positive sensation and a feeling of cold air touching his back, as if the spot was bare. "YEAH, DIRECT HIT!" Hoffi cheered, her jump letting her form realign properly.

   Frost tumbled along the wall, skidding to a halt as he tried to clutch at his back. "Did you... paint me with something?" Urgh, now he kinda wished he sprung for the rearview mirror. He can't know how to react if he doesn't even know what she's doing. But whatever, he was at least on the same side as the door! Kicking off the wall, he tried to leap towards the door while facing Hoffi, doing his best not to get hit before reaching them.

   "Like I said, you gotta dodge the balls, or else I'll help you dodge them~" Hoffi giggled further, lobbing a couple more shots towards Frost. With Hoffi's rapid fire, Frost once again found himself unable to advance, too busy dodging to move forward. On top of that, he no longer had an angle to advance with since he was effectively cornered. Hrm... she wasn't that smart, so maybe... he decided to leap back the way he came, circling clockwise around her. Hopefully, she would be so focused on chasing him that he could reach the door unopposed… even if this path was excessively long, with plenty of room to slip up.

   "Heheh, I'm gonna getcha~!" She giggled more intensely, seemingly more aggressive than before, beginning to fire her shots in a blind fire. Her slew of shots continued to fire towards him, toughening his trail, until he reached the right side, her shots stopping as she seemed to stand in confusion. "Hey, where did you go? That's great trick~!"

   FrostLock-Yesterday at 6:56 PM

   ...that… was actually significantly more effective than he thought. Wow, she really was dense. Anyway, frost stopped mulling as he looked at the door and found it to be much sturdier than he had supposed before. He could test the lock, but he found himself no longer respecting this place's property value. Pulling out some diamond-shaped devices, he slapped three of them in a pattern on the doors and triggered them, leaping back as they exploded!

   "Oh, there you are!" she said, her head twisting around entirely, to see the explosion "Hey- you're supposed to be playing with me, not the place! :T" She huffed, her springy body slinging back once more, flinging another sphere right into his shoulder. The impact was hard and intense once more, as it spun him around and back, away from his target. The stinging was once again accompanied by that odd sensation... what was it about it that felt so appealing, and why did his shoulder now feel bare like the spot on his back? "You play with me, silly~"

   "Wha...the hell?" Frost rubbed his shoulder, feeling...a bit soothed? What was on his shoulder?? He was a bit too distracted by that to notice how his bomb thing went, or what Hoffi was doing.

   "Come on now, you can't stop already~" Hoffi slowly approached, conjuring another ball. "Unless you want me to speed things up for you~ then that sounds okay to me~!" Hoffi giggled, lobbing yet another sphere at him. Frost was legitimately too distracted by his shoulder to properly react in time, getting beaned square in the head by Hoffi's pitch as he stumbled backwards.

   "hahah, another direct hit, SCORE~!" Hoffi begun to dance happily, seemingly distracted by the nice, clean hit. Frost, on the other end could feel the stinging sensation across his face. An impact that tough would normally lead to swelling, but the shape that was present still seemed apt... though once again that strange feeling was there, strong enough to realize what it was: pleasure. A shudder rand down his spine from the chill of the good feeling, and the strange numbness in his face from the spot, and the others, seemingly wider.

   This was...more than a little weird. Why did this feel good? He was trying to escape, and getting hit with her balls hurt. He didn't... why was his mind suddenly so cluttered? He rubbed the numbness on his face, finding it oddly enjoyable to do so. "Look... you're clearly doing something to me... can you just explain to me what it is?" Frost's question was a lot more exhausted than accusatory, not being able to muster up the strength for another period of shouting quite yet.

   Hoffi giggled, "You're cool, and fun! …a lot more fun than most of the others who have shown up here before, they were easy play." Hoffi continued to approach frost, gesturing. "But you, you'd make a great toy, just like me~" She said pointing to herself proudly. "No one's lasted this long, after all~. But enough talk, it's time to keep on playing!" Hoffi giggled, conjuring her two spheres while close, holding a readied stance.

   "Yeah, I'm kinda not interested in becoming someone's toy." Frost retorted as got ready once more, trying to muster up the energy to get around her… though he was having a bit of trouble remembering where he was getting around too. He was also feeling a bit sluggish, for whatever reason... was she weighing him down? Or was he just fed up? Letting his thrusters do the work, he launched himself high in the air, hoping Hoffi didn't know how to account for arcing shots with her throws.

   "Ahh, there it is~ I like that a lot~!" Hoffi giggled, tossing her spheres into the air. Unfortunately, all of them fell short, hitting the walls just behind him at high speeds. Huh. A lot of Frost's strategizing had a lot of minor backup options and backup-backup options planned out in his head, as he assumed Hoffi would be able to keep up and make it very difficult for him. But... he was actually outsmarting her fairly consistently. It was... getting a bit hard to be enraged at her when it was so easy for him to gain the upper hand, it was almost endearing. Holding onto a light fixture for stability, he just stood in the air as he looked down at her. He… almost felt like taunting her, but if he upset her that might give her the strength to actually hit him.

   Hoffi stood, huffing lightly, looking for their fellow toy to be. "I wonder where you are? She said, looking around, before finally looking up." Ahh, there you are, I got you~!" She said, confusing frost. she had not thrown any spheres, but in an instant, the two she had thrown before bounced and banked, striking him right in the thigh and arm, the intense pain coursing through, leaving him with that intense pleasure once more. It felt so nice, so warm, it even seemed to pull in that heavy stinging into a pleasurable tenor, the cold air feeling crisp on their seemingly tougher thigh and arm, as well as even more of the space on their back, shoulder and face. "Gotcha~! "

   "Mmmrrrghhh!!" Frost trembled, awash with conflicting emotions. He let go of the light fixture, feeling another desire to rub his thigh and arm as he took a good look. Were they different? They definitely felt different, he could say that definitively. He idly drifted through the air as he focused on his sensations, once again ignoring Hoffi.

   "Heheheh, like a nice target dummy~" Hoffi giggled, tossing a pair, one hitting his leg directly, the other banking off the wall to smack him in the back of the head once more. The two continued with the same overtaking coating, the one to the back of the head suddenly kick starting a shift in the face, seemingly pushing it into a wide smile as its default position, while seemingly locking his hair into a stiffer, and more solid, shape. The other, striking the ankle of the other leg, coated and smoothed the whole of the leg in one fell swoop, leaving it with that odd sensation, his booster disappearing into the smoothed void, disrupting his balance amidst the growing feelings of enjoyment.

��  "Whu....woah woah woah!!" Frost flailed, smiling for no clear reason as he begun to spin out and fall to earth. This was exhilarating and terrifying and stupid and felt good and… urgh, thinking about this was hard. He was already having trouble remembering what he was doing in the first place, but now he had to put that aside and try not to fall. He was able to swerve and gain height still, but it was more like a kite following the whims of an unknown breeze than actual flight. His movement was sporadic, but not particularly fast and made for a much more interesting target.

   "And now, for the coup de grace~ <3" Hoffi smirked, spawning several arms from her form, each one conjuring its own ball. In a deft display, they shot one by one, each shot beaning its target clean, each shot more intense than the last, until the final one struck the last of the thrusters smoothing the whole of them down, causing the now smooth and rubbery figure to fall to the ground. The hard impact with the ground filled up those intense feelings, as Frost did not splat, but bounce cleanly off the ground.

   Frost found herself bouncing up in a way that caused her to gently land on her feet, suddenly standing at attention. What the...what was going on?? Way too much was swirling around in her head, and she could barely even comprehend the multi-arm technique Hoffi just pulled off because she was still struggling to process that her thrusters were vanishing. Plus her entire body felt good. Why was it like that?? Why was she on the floor and not in the sky?? Why was... UGH! She just stood there, pressing her arms to her sides as she idled and tried to think through her confusion, though with the smile on her face, her emotion was a bit hard to read.

   "Heheh, now you look like an athlete~ " Hoffi giggled, looking over the at attention figure. Their form was smoothed over, once clothing little more than decals now, seemingly shifted to have a much sportier look. Their hair heavily sculpted, though their form was still roughly the same. "Though, clearly you want more play, don't you, hmm~?" Hoffi teased, running her finger up the new recruit's back. Frosts spine chilled lightly, making her feel more aware to her odd, far too masculine, shape for a toy. "We gotta hammer out those kinks, after alll, teeheheheh~"

   "Uh...is that right? I thought I was....trying to... door, and... playtesting, I...flying?" Frost's mind was lagging behind her body, doing her best to try and think critically about this and only managing to construct half a sentence. "This...isn't, uh... its nice, but...should I...uh?" Hrm... despite her happy appearance, she seemed glum.

   "Heheh, you're disoriented, cause this is your first time playing... and that figure isn't helping either," Hoffi smirks, conjuring a sphere in hand. "But now it's time to get back to playing, then you'll feel better~! As for round two, we'll be playing..." With a snap of her fingers, the greenish ball turned a dark black, its shine intense. "Hardball~ "

   "...uh, wait, no, I..." Frost backed off a bit. Despite her massive confusion as her brain tied itself in knots, she was at least able to remember that she didn't want to be hit. Why... she kinda forgot, didn't it feel good? Or did...guuuh, thinking about this was making her head hurt! Okay, she wanted to not get hit, end of discussion. She remembered thinking that a lot so she was gonna keep thinking it so she could focus on thinking about...lamps? Why was she... Hoffi watched as her new toy vaguely stumbled backward, clearly suffering from some sort of dizziness but unable to tell what due to her static face and broken speech. She was completely unfazed by the strange actions of her fellow toy, instead opting to help fix the situation.

   "Heheh, ready or not, here I start~!" Hoffi threw the dark ball, its high-speed flying towards the rubberfrost, far faster than any of the previous shots were. Frost was struck square in the face with enough force to launch her backwards, skidding and bouncing as she tumbled along the ground and eventually hit the wall. Huh, she was supposed to be bouncy, but she retained a surprising amount of momentum. Maybe cuz of her stabilizers or whatever the hell. The impact in the face still stung, but mostly it made her far more giggly happy, such a good feeling~ With it, it seemed to bring an odd deformation of the face, before it popped back out, feeling, rounder, fuller; as if it's structure had been simplified. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to feel right, especially with the feeling of strong lashes and more prominent lips accentuating that wide smile.

   “Heh...hehehe...” why was Frost laughing? Why was she over here now? Why did her face feel nice? Why was Hoffi picking up a ball? Why wasn't she standing? Why... ugh, too many whys. She was starting to hate whys, they felt important but they were making her head hurt. It was a lot easier to just decide, like when she decided she was gonna dodge things. Okay, she was just gonna decide again. She was over here because she... jumped here! Yep, that's it. No other questions, she was just gonna roll with that for now. She hopped up to her feet, giggling a bit absentmindedly. She still had a lot of whys in her head about other things, but she found it easy to focus on two decides: she wanted to dodge, and she could jump!

   "Heheheh~, let's go, Frosty~ That's the spirit!" Hoffi said cheeringly, before conjuring two more orbs, then tossed in sequence flying right towards her vicinity! Uh, woah! Frost leapt out of the way almost on instinct, managing to avoid them well. Woah, she did great! She was kinda too distracted by her performance to realize she was idly bouncing along her trajectory instead of stopping. Man, if this was gonna be that easy, maybe she'd have the time to figure out her whys.

   Hoffi huffed lightly in glee now that her target was being much more competitive, but with that slow bounding arc, it didn't take much to aim for the toy's gut. In a single deft shot, her relatively flat stomach was beaned directly, it reflexively pushing in, the lost mass shifting up and down into her hips and thighs, sliding the figure about. “Hehehe...” Frost collided with the wall, focusing enough on her pleasurable hurty sensations to forget some of her whys. She couldn't remember that she forgot them, as she was too busy remembering the whys she still remembered and trying to understand them. Why was she here? Why did she want profiles? Why did she leave her USB stick upstairs? Why did...oh! She could see Hoffi readying another attack and leapt away before Hoffi even threw it.

   The next couple of shots flew right behind Frist, the toy deftly dodging them super easily. "now you're getting there~ and that means I'm gonna have to ramp it up~!" Hoffi giggled, this time throwing several shots about, none of them aiming for her target at all, while she stood smugly watching, readying her next set of balls. Oooh, she knew this! She could predict where her shots were gonna go and dodge in the opposite direction! Clearly she was gonna throw where she was currently leaping, so she pivoted on her heel and leapt the other direction! However, since Hoffi wasn't actually trying to hit her, Frost dove directly into a hardball as her face collided with it, flipping over as she tumbled past it. Ugh... maybe that wasn't a good think time...

   The pleasurable strike filled her with glee as her rounded face popped back to normal, but not before reflexively volumizing the sculpted piece that was her hair. of course, her skid to the ground did little to prevent her from being smacked by the return bounces of the other two balls. the strikes to the arms pushed them out from under her, as they seemed to lean out and readjust, the seams for gadgets becoming more evident, her chest expanding once more. "Heheheh, each hit's making you look better and better~!" Hoffi shouted, cheering on the toy.

   Frost was engrossed in thought, thinking about why she thought so much. She was doing all this thinky stuff and Hoffi wasn't thinking at all! Sure, she tricked Hoffi a few times, but Hoffi was never really losing. She was just... not winning sometimes. Meanwhile, she was so busy not doing much that she was tumbling about all of the ricocheting hardballs, letting herself be struck with various bursts of pleasure as she giggled mindlessly and let each firm strike knock a few thoughts out of her. This seemed way better than caring about whys! So... she decided not to. Why? Cuz balls. Any time she had a why she'd just let herself be beaned and immediately drop the subject. She let herself get battered around some more as all of her whys were knocked away, getting more into it as she started to strategically bump into the hard balls, adjusting her hip or flailing her arm to keep the momentum of the hardballs going. Hoffi stood back, watching as Frost somehow managed to turn her gym into a weird pop-o-matic chamber.

   Hoffi couldn't help but be stunned in joy as her fellow toy willingly pushed all the balls into herself, each impact hitting a new spot, pushing and reshaping her form; expanding her arms, tapering her feet, widening her hips and breasts slightly, her voluminous, yet sculpted hair quite pretty. She couldn't help but love the look of the excited, airheaded doll, her 6 foot figure wild yet still probable. She only needed one more thing...

   "Ready or not, here I come~!" With a leap, hoffi bounded up into the air, positioning herself just above Frost, before falling straight down, impacting her square on the top of her head. The enbie toy's pliable bottom was still as hard as any of those dodgeballs, feeling the compacting force pushing her straight down, adjusting that vertical mass outwards, improving the expansion of those toyish droney hands and widening her figure further. Hoffi's force ended when she cleared about one foot of distance down, sliding off the dazed doll. "Tadaaa~!"

   Frost stood there for a moment, almost as if she was processing something... before she just fell back, laughing a bit harder than just some giggling. "Hehehehehe! Like... balls are pretty neat!" A pretty...dry observation, but one which was probably intended to be profound. Her boobs wobbled around from the impact, staying in motion for a surprisingly long time as she laughed. "Like... do I get paid now?" ...somehow of all the things from her original identity to retain, money was one of them.

   "Of course you will~ You're gonna get plenty of royalties once they make the toyline for you. And that means you'll get a BUNCH of new accessories, and maybe a cute new outfit~" Hoffi giggled, gripping and hugging the toy girl, a few of the internal gadgets activating, propping out of the seams on her form. "Oooh, and you even have your own tricks, too~ We should totally work with that, too...~" Hoffi giggled trailing off, gripping and pulling you to the back, ready to head off and get dressed up with a new style, ready to have lots of fun with her new toyfriend~.

   The toyfriend giggled to herself, finding that answer surprisingly satisfying as she let Hoffi near-literally drag her around. She was being paid to let someone else do the thinking for her? That seemed like a completely perfect setup! Without a good reason to protest, she was content with whatever ideas Hoffi suggested, such as having her mold reworked further for mass market appeal, rebranding to give her a cuter name, maybe some further personality adjustments just to be safe... well at that point she kinda didn't have enough brain cells to cobble together to think about that herself. She was mostly inert... but whenever Hoffi pulled out a ball, she suddenly fixated it and sprung to life, getting ready to use whatever she could in order to dodge it perfectly, like any Toyfriend would~!

Group Project: Part 5

Running Title: Group Project. Part 5 Part 4: Here Part 6: Here Sequel to Shelter Summary: The Walker-Link family are adorable as kittens while the Mafia leader cries about it, and Cross gets love advice from a ten year old. 

At the adoption signing, Lala looked at her name, scripted on the dotted line of the very thick cut of paper.

WALKER, Lala.

Directly after, she would write and re-write the name dozens of times, until all the paper in the suite was used up.

She never had a last name before.

---

Adam D. Campbell, the Don of the Noah, was crying on the floor.

His assistant, Lulu Bell, ignored him for favor of setting his desk back into order, while his son and heir looked on unimpressed.

Just yesterday the man had chopped off fingers and auctioned on the Black Market.

Ah, the duality of man, Neah mused.

Tyki Mikk slouched into the room without so much as a knock. “Hey boss I-” he stopped and stared. “Why did he break this time?”

The heir passed on the file he just exposed his father to. His cousin flipped it open and whistled, impressed. “Damn, the boy’s been busy! Another kid already?”

“She’s a lovely PRINCESS!” blubbered the Don.

---

Allen’s tattoo started at his fingers, and traveled all the way to his shoulder, where it tapered off into something that was part elegant and another part roguish.

His hand was painted like a glove of mandala’s, red scarred fingers still visible, and wrapped up to the wrist before shifting into curves of black. Waves of it wound up and up his forearm until reaching the shoulder, where the ink exploded into a crown.

In early mornings, because of his tendency to wake before the sun, Link would trace the ink and thank anything that could hear his thoughts for not taking Allen away all those years ago. 

(He thanked clowns and red haired Colonels for finding him, ensuring the two would eventually meet.)

The only downside to being a famous singer/songwriter, was that  everyone and their pet parakeet found you to be the most interesting creature in the world. Things that made Allen who he was became plastered all over tabloids and blogs.

What happened to that arm? The world suddenly was very interested. Is that hair natural? Where did Allen Walker come from?

---

“Link, I don’t think the loft above the bakery will be big enough.” Allen stated out of the blue, while the little family finished packing.

With two additional tickets, passports and a slue of documentation proving that, yes, these two lovely children are ours now, thanks for checking, it was time to head home. The tour was over, and Link had to return to his bakery.

The blonde looked at his husband, eyebrow raised, and wordlessly handed Allen a handful of printouts.

Oh boy, the singer thought. Houses!

“You’re the best husband, ever.”

---

The third time he fell in love, it was with a woman who held herself like royalty and had a smile that made kings throw crowns at her feet.

Cross realized it one night from work, passing the center of town to home, and noticed Anita’s Cafe still had it’s lights on. As if on autopilot, he parked his car and knocked on the entranceway. 

With her hair a cascading mess and falling out of her bun, sleeves rolled to her elbows and covered in dust, Cross thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. From the independent set of her shoulders, to the elegant and easy way she moved about the room, he could feel a familiar stutter in his so-called heart.

“Marian!” Anita exclaimed, both surprised and pleased at seeing the officer at the current hour. She smiled her beatific smile and Cross felt double damned and freedom all at once. “What are you doing here?”

“Saw the light.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalant and that he was definitely not having a mental breakdown behind his mask of charm. (Which he most certainly was.)

The cafe owner let out a short laugh, and wiped her hands on her dirtied apron. “I was doing some cleaning. Then I found myself redecorating. And after that, well.” It was her turn to shrug. “Tables needed to be moved.”

Marian kind of wanted to move onto a table with her at this moment, but kept that to himself.

“Would you like to come in?” She opened the doorway wider.

It was tempting. Beyond so. Every bit of himself wanted to say yes, please, and spend this lovely quiet night in the presence of this amazing woman. But.

She was so damn beautiful and the last time he thought this of someone, they ended up gone, gone, gone.

“Sorry.” He lamented. “I don’t think I can.” And he leaned to kiss her forehead before getting back to his car and running away, away, away.

---

He was scared. It tasted like ash and left a burden between his eyes.

To let go so easily? How could he?

Damn his guilty and weak heart.

---

“So, Allen!” The Talk Show Host elated. “Everyone’s been wondering, what’s with the arm?”

Backstage, Lenalee began to seethe and considered throwing the stage director through the curtain just to cause distraction. Said stage director looked at the pretty bodyguard nervously.

In his bakery, Link squeezed an entire tube of strawberry icing all over the floor and frowned at the television.

At the city police department, Colonel Marian Cross barged into Commissioner Tiedoll’s office and asked, loudly, if he could arrest an asshole please and thank you.

Blinking and tilting his fluffy white head to the side, Allen, at 18, lifted said hand and wiggled the scarred fingers. “This arm? I had an accident as a kid.”

And that’s all he said on the matter. He wiggled his digits again, if only to make his engagement ring catch the lighting and attention of the host. “Hey look I’m also engaged!”

“Also, my hair is naturally white and I like to sing and write music. I’m thinking about being a singer one day, what do you think?”

The audience tittered at the humor in Allen’s voice, obviously charmed by the young man, while the host tried to cover his bewilderment with a weak laugh of his own.

---

There was something terrifying at the idea of a family, Lala concluded.

For as long as she could remember, she never had one. What do you do with a family? What are the rules and expectations? Some days, the young girl felt out of her depth and the unsure footing her life had taken was distressing.

The idea of a family was also something her lonely little self desired. There was a warmth that she couldn’t describe and it made the proverbial gears in her head that had once stand still, whirl and rotate. A song rose up, and the usual notes inside her head shifted into something different.

But what do I do with it? Lala wondered.

How do I know this is where I’m meant to be?

A family meant love, but for the life of her, Lala didn’t believe she knew how to recognize such a thing.

---

On the table, Allen’s cellphone began to chime. Faster than a blink, Timothy snatched up his father’s phone. “I got it!!”

He looked at the caller I.D and answered. “Hi grandpa!”

Lala poked her head from around the corner, her new clothes half folded in her arms from packing. It seemed very odd that the Colonel would be calling them. Usually it was their father who did the calling.

“Where’s your dad?” Cross questioned around a mouthful of cigarette.

Little Timothy looked around the suite before shouting to his aunt in the living room. “Hey auntie! Where’s Dad?”

Looking up from painting her nails, Lenalee bid, “He and your Papa went out.”

“Dad’s out being gross with Papa right now.” The boy translated to his grandfather. “Do you want to talk to Lenalee?”

“No.” God, no. Cross shuddered at the thought. The girl herself wasn’t awful to talk to, but he doubted coming to her for his emotional crisis would go over well.

Especially since he was 100% certain Komui would somehow find out about it and Cross did not want to deal with that mess.

He sighed and pinched his brow. “Never mind kid.” What was he thinking, anyway? Calling in the middle of the night to bitch for advice like some kind of lovesick protagonist.

Marian Cross did not do lovesick.

The grandson scrunched up his nose. “Why do you sound so sad?”

“What?”

“You sound like, really sad and junk. Well, more sad than usual.”

“Excuse the fuck out of you goblin child.” Cross grouched, now determined more than ever to hang up.

“You owe me so much money old man.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Lala rolled her eyes. “Tim, don’t harass grandpa.”

“I’m not! He just sounds lame right now and I want to know why!”

The redhead felt his whole face twitch. So he was lame now?

“Did you break up with the pretty lady?” The blue haired goblin child asked, well, out of the blue. Cross almost swallowed his cigarette.

“Listen, kid, there’s nothing to break up when we’re not even...unbroken in the first place!”

“That’s dumb, why?”

Goddamn, Cross had forgotten how nosey kids could be. “Because. I’m hanging up now.”

“Dad says you’re in love with her.”

Silence. The Colonel went to his alcohol cabinet. “Yeah, and how does he know that?”

In a packed up suite in Barcelona, Timothy sat on the kitchen floor and blew a raspberry. “That’s easy!”

---

“She makes you feel safe, right?”

Lala leaned against the wall and listened to her younger brother, slightly awed.

“Like, you don’t feel scared to be yourself and and she doesn’t make you feel bad for it. That’s love, I think.”

How cool, Lala thought. She had gotten herself a cool little brother.

---

After seeing what the media papers had to say about Allen Walker, newest young singing sensation, the Godfather threw them all at the wall. “Disgusting?”

Lulu watched, bored, as her boss threw his tantrum. Sometimes the man needed to have one in order to function properly after. Regardless, someone was going to need to clean up the mess, and it wasn’t going to be her.

“Lulu Bell! Did you read this nonsense! They called his arm disgusting!” He wailed and threw a chair.

Media outlets were also becoming too curious. They began snooping and trying to dig into Allen Walker’s life. To be fair, Lulu thought, the boy did practically come from nowhere, with too much amazing talent and too many secrets.

One photo in a magazine depicted Allen from grade school! Outrageous! The Don was beyond furious.

“What do you want to do about it, sir?” Lulu inquired, because her boss never simply complained about a problem. He got rid of problems.

“Get Tryde here!”

---

“Hello Mister Walker, I’m here to cover your interview.”

Allen started at the overly serious looking man in his living room. “Uncle Tryde?”

“This is my photographer and assistant, Chomesuke.” The uncle in question billowed right on, as though the young man had said nothing.

“Hello Master Walker, cho!” The peppy assistant waved, setting up her camera.

Link hovered in the entryway like a protective, yellow haired shadow and gave the woman a look at the “Master” comment.

He may never get used to Allen’s family at this rate.

---

After his very titillating conversation with his ten year old grandson, Cross tossed his phone on the counter and uncorked a wine bottle.

He wondered if this is what his life had come to, finding advice from kids he’d never met in person and then getting drunk afterwards.

“Safe, huh?”

He sat heavy on the piano bench. Allen hadn’t been able to take it with him, with the bakery apartment being too small. Cross thought it was just left as an excuse to bother him.

Closing his eyes, Marian pretended he didn’t feel a familiar weight lean against his side. A memory of dark curls tangled with his mess of red hair while the weight would tuck into his shoulder.

“What am I going to do with you?” The memory would grouse, half whine and half sigh.

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

“Too late for that, I think.”

The memory vanished the instant the doorbell rang.

On the other side was Anita with her hair down and apron gone. She gazed up at the Colonel, eyes clear and seeking. “Hello.”

“Hi.” Cross found himself giving out an uncontrolled, throaty chuckle and leaned on the doorway, suddenly exhausted. “Want to come in?”

“Well, I didn’t come all this way just to be stared at.” Anita sassed, pushing her way through.

Closing the door, Cross didn’t notice a familiar image under the lamppost. With the click of the door, it flickered and disappeared.

---

Timothy squirmed in his sister’s sudden hold. “Hey, Lala what the heck?”

First Grandpa was being bizarro and now Lala? What’s the world coming to?

The blonde girl shook her head and gave the boy one last squeeze. “Thank you.”

“For what?” The boy squinted, confused. Lala ruffled his wild blue hair and left to finish packing.

Man, Timothy thought. Girls were weird.

Lenalee glided in like a swan and planted a noisy kiss on the boy’s cheek. “You’re a good kid Tim.”

Said good kid squawked and slapped where he had just been kissed, turning red. “AAAH!”

---

Soon enough, candid photos of Allen Walker made it to magazine spreads. Full articles about his life, but still vague enough to not daw too much gossip made it to media blogs.

Everyone learned about the boy who was adopted by the Colonel, who married his childhood sweetheart. Who always had a talent for music and also had an adorable corgi that smiles for the camera.

Link has a stack of magazine covers, featuring Allen in much more lovely light that he preferred seeing his young husband in. He kept them if only because he believe the white haired young man to be madly attractive, and it would be a shame to get rid of them.

One day Allen would come home, giddy as can be and shove a new magazine heading into Link’s face.

“Delightful! Sweet Barker, an Even Sweeter Husband!” With Allen and himself on the cover, arm in arm.

The blonde baker stared at it, incredulous. “Where did they get that photo? Isn’t that from Alma’s birthday?”

“I gave it to Chomesuke to use.” His husband said, innocent as can be.

Link stared at his husband.

Said husband grinned his damnably charming grin and kiss the other man soundly. Pulling for air, he states, “Now everyone knows how good of a man I have.”

Link stuttered, face flushed.

---

Going through the stack of homes for sale Link had handed him, Allen came to the last one and gasped.

Link knew which one he had found.

“This one! Link this one!” The singer waved the paper in the air, eyes glittering with delight.

The baker huffed to hide his smile. “If you insist.”

---

Anita ran her hand over the grand piano’s white base, admiring.

“It belonged to Mana. Gave it to Allen eventually.” Cross said, like a confession.

“Tell me about him.”

---

Another new morning, and Allen, bed head and still in his pajamas, found himself a lapful of teenager. “Lala?”

Snuggling into her father, Lala bid him a pleased “Good morning.”

“Good morning!” The father laughed, equally pleased, because if his kid wanted to cuddle, then she could as long she wanted.

Link, who was watching from the kitchen felt his heart grow fond.

“Papa!” Lala ordered. “You too! Here, here!” She patted the space on the couch where she had trapped Allen in.

“...Alright.”

“Me too, me too!” Shouted Timothy, not wanting to be left out.

Setting her suitcase in the foyer, Lenalee snorted at the family piled together. “You’re supposed to be getting ready for the airport you saps.”

Allen, a giddy and joyous mess, could only blubber.

Oh, whatever, thought Lenalee. They were a cute family.

Lala, sighed with contentment. 

She felt safe.

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... 60 Days In (S03E03) Trust Issues Airdate: March 16, 2017 Ratings: 0.822 Million :: 0.31 18-49 Demo Share Score: 6/10 **********SPOILERS BELOW********** Initially we had a plan to work in '60 Days In' and parallel the manufactured, fictional Netflix Drama 'Orange is the New Black' with 6DI's authentic, guerrilla style, aggressive reality television meets dramatic docu-series, expose. After a few episodes of OITNB and it's focus on the prison riots and binge-worthy bottleneck type episodic viewing patterns, it was clear that these two weren't a good fit. Each series that Spotlight Saga now covers will be taken to a new height... Last television season we overwhelmed ourselves with the number of projects and frankly that's just not fair to shows that can have a real existential impact on everyone from viewers to participants to the people making the series. Due to an overwhelming response to '60 Days In' we are going to keep pushing, people see and feel the effect a series like this can have on our society and the corrections system at large. It's hard to say if these seasons of 6DI actually affect the jails they take place in, but people are watching, and it's damn well doing something. I've personally talked about reaching out to former inmates and participants of S1 & S2 and readers responding with a lot of questions and comments across the internet & social media, and believe me.. We'll be doing the same with S3 & S4. We've already begun lining up a few, but before we dove directly in, I wanted to make sure I could give this project the attention that it deserved. After two episodes we've already seen 1 person flee the scene when they found out that Louisville was upgraded to Atlanta... And we've only met a few of the show's participants. Take the sign however you want, we believe it to be an obvious cue that S3 was done right and that everyone will be given their fare share of the limelight... An opportunity to make their personal contributions. Despite our assessments of any new volunteer inmates, remember that everyone at Spotlight Saga wishes all participants the best and we all understand that there is truly only so much that Lucky 8 can do to keep the cast as safe as possible. 'Trust Issues' starts with Don. It's been awhile since we've covered the show, but to give a quick catch-up... Don has a problem with any kind of authority but ultimately has honorable intentions. We're only human, y'all. For drama sake, Lucky 8 has somehow made sure that Don ended up with the oldest, wisest, most street savvy inmate in the entire jail, DelRico. Of course DelRico questions Don's cover story. Production and the facilities they work with have failed to come up with truly great cover stories because Don's, like many others are, is weak at best and allows the participant too much wiggle room to say the wrong thing. Don does the best he can to sell it, but it's obvious that DelRico smells blood in the water. Don could be in trouble. Clearly DelRico is lying to him... If he had 30 years on his plate, he'd be in a different zone entirely and be praying for them to take him on into prison. He's testing him, that must be it. Since we're on the subject of terrible cover stories, if A&E wants to continue to do this series, they might want to also have an extensive class beforehand on slang and different terminologies that the inmates might come across or use to make themselves look more adapted to this lifestyle. You don't need to be in jail multiple times to know particular lingo or slang connected to a specific area's 'life of crime'. These contestants are supposed to be 'first timers', not first time ever coming a crime'rs! Street smarts aren't necessarily a problem for Don, however they do seem to be an issue for Calvin. His bunkmate, Dasanique, is also suspicious and it's easy to see why. DelRico might be dangerous, but I think off top that the younger groups pose more of a real threat than the older crowd does. DelRico can easily be swayed by Don's approach to authority, they bond over it and Don uses it to his advantage. It's a smart move. Calvin wants to help so bad but he comes from a different world & more importantly a different place from the soul, so he simply doesn't think like that... 'Roll with it and use what's working.' Calvin is also easily embarrassed... As the CO's call him out for his sloppy bunk keeping skills, he clearly becomes embarrassed and slightly confused. He's blindsided easily and these are things that these younger men notice, whether it's intentional or not... It's a sociological response. Calvin is oblivious that Dasanique thinks that he's a snitch. He's obviously in trouble and the clever tv editors show off their skills and demonstrate just how oblivious he is by splitting an interview where Calvin is telling the producers everything is going well with Dasanique yelling through the vent to other inmates as to what he thinks of Calvin. Clever, editors, real clever... And although I'm legitimately worried about Calvin, as I am all the participants, I believe that Calvin's strong resolve will prove to benefit him in the end. Essentially this is one big set-up episode so we'll have to wait and see, the dominoes are being set, it's now a question as to how they'll fall. Never count anyone out or anyone in. As far as the men as concerned, my personal favorite, Jon, is clearly thinking fast and naturally going with the flow. He's doing exactly as he should... Keeping his head down, his mouth shut, making acquaintances, but keeping them all at an arms length. Jon is keeping his details light and instead of engaging in thorough conversations about details of his charges and present situation, he's engaging in games, or *reluctantly* letting other people talk. Yeah, I'm talking about Deshaun, the babyfaced 'blood' wannabe who is in for crack possession who talks a whole lot... Like a WHOLE LOT. It's funny how the other men cast in the show can't seem to shut up, and on the flipside Jon can't keep the inmates from shutting up and blabbing in public to him. This is just yet another testament that Jon is playing his hand the best way he knows how, while the other men struggle to find their niche and get a grip on balancing adapting to jail life past their cover stories and 'alleged' crimes committed. Nate is the newest edition to the male cast. He's good looking, but he has a bit of 'fish out of water' look to him that worries me intensely. He has military training so those things should and most likely will cancel each other out at some point. The thing is, almost everyone has had some type of degree of difficulty adjusting to either the jail or their cover story. Once these guys are settled and can get past this 'What are you in for?' routine, things will be come much easier and a whole lot less scary. The producers continue to make a conscious decision to downplay Nate's airtime, which leads me to believe that, in fact, he'll have quite a bit in the future... And we all know that Lucky 8 Production Team loves them some military men... I.E their 'Golden Boy' from S1 & S2, Zac Holland (Zachary Baker). The previews lead us us to believe that Nate has trouble ahead, but outside of that bewildered look in his eye that is most likely natural for anyone walking into Fulton County Lockup, I have a feeling he will be just fine. We didn't spend a whole lot of time with the women this episode and that's a shame. I took an immediate liking to Jessica, and she continues to play it smart like Jon is doing among the male population and keeping her down and mainly observing. However, she is showing signs of shock & disbelief that put her resolve in question. I hope that she didn't just check in to get a rare taste of her husband's former life and then bounce... But as I've said before, I have the upmost respect for all involved here. And with only reviewing two episodes (now three), I've already talked to several actual inmates who seem to be trying to turn their negative experiences in Fulton County Jail into positive ones, more on that later... Although on our FB page you can find a YouTube video of Male Inmate Trae, who has created a well-crafted piece of music accompanied by his environmental influences... Check it out '6LUE_ANACONDA'. Unfortunately, Jessica's polarizing bunkmate, Lyric isn't among those few inmates. Although, for the record, if at anytime these articles make their way to Lyric or anyone that knows Lyric hands', I would love to speak with her... She's fascinating. I feel like she's not being shown in a proper light when it comes to her portrayal on television. I don't know Lyric and I'm not pretending I know anything real about Lyric from the brief edits that she's made onto the show, but I feel this weird empathetic connection with her. I am no stranger to jails, juvenile halls, detention centers, group homes, rehabs, or boot camps... I was never in the foster system, so I can't even imagine adding that to the list, but Lyric, to me, comes off as a fascinating and complex individual who never got a fair shake. Now, here she is on the '60 Days In: Atlanta', and she's not being painted in the best of lights either. I hope that that changes or she's put in front of someone who is able to help tell her story because she seems like she is one compelling tale after another. I was so invested with the show while she was on it that I was furious with Iesha as she taunted her into getting physical, then just pulled her hair and threw embarrassing blow after embarrassing blow. Iesha, if these reviews make it your way, you might as well put them down. She reminds me of the bitchy, unruly medium sized dog at the dog park that squares up with every bigger dog she sees. It's sad. Obviously they let this poor excuse for a fight go on for the cameras because no one is truly in danger and Lucky 8 needs some fight scenes to hand into the network. Here ya go, A&E, enjoy! Just as we added Nate to the Male Gen Pop, Mauri (with an I) is added to Female Gen Pop in the South Annex. Mauri is a former corrections officer from a men's state penitentiary. She cares more about her weave than she seems to care about anything else. Then again, I am immediately triggered and understand when she says that if she loses that weave it will make her feel less like of a woman. Essentially she is saying that any potential removal of said weave will play a huge role in dehumanizing her. Just from talking to women of color from various countries (mainly Trinidad and Jamaica, as well as transplants from Caribbean Islands here in Miami) when working on previous articles, particularly about the 'fetishization of black skin and it's psychological and sociological effects', I have a deep understanding that anything that tends to affect some of these women in a way where they feel anything less than a human being is particularly jarring to their senses, more so than other groups of people or gender. We are generally taught to respect women and when women are denied that respect or have had traumatic experiences, particularly fueled by race, it can truly flip the wrong switch. Unfortunately, that switch has almost always been toggled, outside of those born with specific blessings (as Lil Wayne would call them), so it's understandable (at least for me) that Mauri would cling to this specific 'piece of her' as she's being processed and brought in. Also, in a more simplified perspective, said weave may also trouble Mauri excessively because it looks like a glue-on wig and she may have been told it could go either way at intake considering that once she's inside, not everyone knows she's is this program. Mauri ends up keeping the weave/wig and the inmates notice and point it out as soon as she arrives. It's hard to get a read on Mauri as we don't spend a whole lot of time with her, just like her fellow late entrant male counterpart, Nate... But once again, I have made respect for anyone who walked in those doors... I don't care if you were worried about a piece of lint in your pocket that you brought from your house because it gave you a sense of home. People sometimes dismiss or nervously laugh off my more intricate or complicate breakdown of simply human behavior... But that's because the truth, or the mere possibility of that truth, makes people nervous and defensive. That's it for 'Trust Issues', guys. I've attempted to add as much as I possibly can to what I admit to being a 'set-up episode' more than anything. I will continue to try and bring you alternate perspectives that others have yet to bring to the table... And also... RATINGS, I got ratings, which have still not made it to wikipedia or any other source material. I have no idea why... But I'm happy to release them and will be sharing them with TVTime and Twitter now as well. Remember to comment wherever your seeing this article. We love feedback! You can DM us on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Path, and of course... Our #1 Spot and community for likeminded individuals sharing love, comments, reviews, video responses, memes, and art for all our favorite tv shows... TVTime.com! Any private conversations stay private, unless otherwise given permission by the other party involved in any project process gate messaging or video contact. We are no longer affiliated with one specific social network, who isn't fond of our championing of equal rights... Or should I say, the way we go about it. I am, we are... NOT... a divisive group. We only want to trade shoes with our audience and the people on the shows we cover, because everyone deserves a voice, everyone deserves a chance at empathy. We've gotten a lot of messages about 'Too Tall'. Please, remember that we cover this show episodically and refrain from looking at spoilers that could affect our perspective, so please don't send us any either... We are aware of 'Too Tall' and his impact on the series but specifics will come as we tackle each episode... Ending with a finale on the finale, of sorts, with short interviews and extras from the cast. Show love, Get love! -Kevin Cage