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fryedgreentomatoes · 5 months

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beneath the willow tree

pairing: jake kiszka x gn! reader

summary: you’ve been in love with Jake Kiszka for as long as you can remember, the only question is: does he feel the same?

a/n: this is a short lil blurb based off of a real dream that i had, if you find it as devastating as I did- well blame my subconscious not me :)

there are no warnings for this lil

blurb, it’s actually all fluff!

Some would ask how long you have been in love with Jake Kiszka.

You would argue that the easier question to answer would be was there ever a time that you weren’t? Because the answer to that question is simple: no.

You met Jake Kiszka when you were nine and he was eleven at the neighborhood playground. Specifically? It was a hot summer afternoon in August and you were with your friend Maddie trying to see who could jump the farthest off the swings. A dangerous game, but you were old enough to be without parental supervision and drunk with the power of it. It was the most fun you’d had all summer until you landed too hard off a jump and your ankle rolled painfully as soon as you hit the mulch. You had cried out and fallen to the ground, clutching your wounded ankle and trying to blink back the tears that were blurring your vision.

Then, an angel appeared.

You had looked up at the sound of your name from your slowly swelling ankle to meet warm brown eyes and though you were arguably too young for love at first sight or to even know anything about it, your heart had plummeted into your stomach the moment you met those eyes and the boy attached to them. He’d asked if you were okay and all you could manage in return was a wordless sob, your ankle pulsing with pain now. That fateful afternoon, Jake Kiszka had slung your arm around his skinny shoulders and helped you limp the two blocks home while his brother wheeled your bike behind you.

You were hopelessly gone from that afternoon onward.

The strings of your fates seemed to be irreversibly tangled. Small neighborhoods are just like that perhaps, the community close knit enough that it would make sense for you to be at the same summer barbeques and new years parties as you got older. But the hopeless romantic in you dreamed that it was because Jake Kiszka was your destiny. It was the worst of schoolchildren crushes. You doodled yours and Jake’s names in hearts in all your school notebooks in middle school. And in high school you could be found hiding under the bleachers at every soccer game or gazing across the chemistry lab, moony eyed, at who you were sure was your future husband.

The crush inevitably faded to background noise when you both graduated and left your hometown, him to follow his dreams of being a rockstar and you to attend college. But, you never quite got over him. It seemed you couldn’t help but compare every boy you let take you out to him. Sure, maybe the boy bought you a nice dinner or an ice cream, but did he dissect the frog in Biology so you didn’t have to? Sure the boy had pretty eyes or soft lips, but could they even compare to the ones you’d dreamed of for so long? It was torture, honestly. And very annoying.

It didn’t help that Jake’s dreams had come true. You would never forget the moment you were perusing the magazines at a bookstore and saw him on the cover of a guitar mag, looking just as beautiful as you remembered- maybe even more so. It filled your heart up to the brim that it had worked out for him, but a certain sadness clawed at your chest too. At that point, you were just a waitress in Nashville working two jobs to try and afford graduate school. Maybe your fates were so tangled together after all.

Then, Josh Kiszka sat down at the cafe you served at in the mornings and your whole world turned on its axis. He’d recognized you immediately, crowing your name and leaping up from his chair to embrace you. God, he hadn’t changed a bit. He still radiated warmth and kindness and pure, unadulterated joy. Josh had always been the sun to Jake’s moon. And it seemed they hadn’t grown out of that comparison.

“Hey! It’s my birthday this Saturday, I’m having a little celebration! You should come, I think the other guys would love to see you. Sam always had a bit of a crush on you, you know.” He’d left you those words, a kiss on the cheek, and with his address scribbled onto a napkin and pressed into your palm.

You debated all week if you should go. Josh had seemed so happy to see you, had told you that you were like a little slice of home. But you were nervous. You hadn’t seen Jake not on your phone or laptop screen in years. What if he didn’t remember you? Or worse: what if he didn’t care to?

In the end, you decided to go. And you walked up to Josh’s house out in the country with as few expectations as possible.

Nothing could have prepared you to see Jake in person again. He did a double take across the backyard when Josh led you out to it and from the moment your eyes met his again for the first time in what felt like eons, you audibly let out an “Oh no.” Because his eyes were the same. Even after all these years and all this time, those brown eyes were still the same. And you felt your heart plummet into your stomach again- just like it had when you were nine.

You were twenty five years old. And in a heartbeat, you were nine again.

And that’s how it felt every time you saw Jake after that. Like you were a moonstruck child who didn’t even know what love was yet.

Josh and Sam and Danny invited you into their lives like it was nothing and you found that each of them had grown into kind, lovely young men. But with Jake? Oh, it was perfect. He was everything you ever wanted. When you went out to dinner together and it began to rain, he’d give you his jacket to hold over your head while he brought the car around to you. He made you a playlist full of songs that reminded him of you or that he thought you’d like. You cooked together, giggling and dancing around one of your kitchens. He calls you “Bugs”, just like he did in high school after you saved a lady bug from a cruel classmate’s shoe. All of this and yet…

It was starting to break your heart. Eventually, you decided it was time.

Sitting in your best dress in Josh’s lovely backyard at his beautiful outdoor wedding, looking at Jake in his suit with his hair actually brushed you decided it was time.

The reception was small and lovely, but it still felt suffocating as you watched Jake twirl a girl around the makeshift dance floor. You felt a presence next to you and when you glanced over you found it was Josh, “I’m really glad you came,” he tells you, nudging your shoulder with his and you smile at him.

“Thank you for inviting me. What a beautiful night for this.” You try, but you can’t keep the melancholy out of your voice and you can’t pull your gaze from where Jake dips the girl down toward the floor and she throws back her head and laughs.

“You look lovely.” Josh’s words barely resonate and you shrug, shaking your head listlessly. Not to the only one that matters. Josh nudges you again, gently, his words just as soft, “He thinks so too.”

You grit your teeth, irritation and frustration bubbling in your stomach, and you shake your head again, “Don’t do that. Don’t say that.”

“You know, I always say that where this is love we must live on,” Josh ventures softly and you smile at the words, remembering watching the performance where he said them on your laptop in your college dorm room, desperate for even the slightest tidbit of Jake.

“And where this is not love, we must provide it,” You finish and you see him smile out of the corner of your eye. You’re a little confused as to the direction of this conversation and you’re about to ask what he’s talking about when he speaks again.

“Luckily, there is already love here.” And when you pivot to face him fully, he’s gone, leaving you with his confusing words.

Needing a moment to yourself, you retreat to your favorite piece of Josh’s property. A spot with a massive, beautiful weeping willow tree and a tire swing slung on one of the low branches. You’re sitting on the swing, staring at your hands when a branch breaks and a voice pulls your attention away from your hangnail.

“Thought I’d find you here.” Jake comes to a stop a few feet in front of you and stuffs his hands in his pockets, smiles softly. You can’t return his smile though and his brows furrow, he takes another step toward you. “What is it, bugs? Where’s that pretty smile I love so much?”

You know he doesn’t mean to make you cry, but tears well up at the corners of your downturned eyes anyway. How can he say everything right and it still not be enough? “Just needed a minute, I guess.” Your words are a whisper and even you can hear them break in the middle. You let the tire swing turn so you’re not facing him, not wanting him to see the tears that have begun to streak down your face.

He doesn��t give that easily unfortunately, you hear the leaves and the twigs crunch under his feet as he comes around so you’re facing each other again, this time kneeling in front of you and taking your hands in his. “Why the tears, bugs? What happened?”

You shake your head, but the words come out before you can stop them, “Do you remember when we were little and I rolled my ankle? And you walked me home?” You glance up at him after they’ve come out and his brows furrow in confusion, his lips parting.

“Do I remember when we met? Of course I do, bugs. You were trying not to cry just like you are right now. Tell me what’s wrong, please. Tell me so I can fix it.” His words only make it worse and you try to spin away from him again, but he holds the tire in his hand to stop the movement. You can feel his searching gaze on yours, hear the soft desperation in his voice when he whispers, “Bugs?”

“I have loved you ever since I’ve known you, Jake. Loved you so much it hurts. And I just don’t think I can do it anymore.” Your words are barely a whisper again, but you’re proud to hear that they don’t tremble or shake. They’re strong. And now they’re out there, with nothing for you to do but wait.

Jake is silent for several moments, long enough that you chance a glance up at him. His hands stay wrapped around yours and he’s watching you like he’s seeing you for the first time, “Oh bugs…” You turn your head, desperately afraid that he’s about to split your heart right down the middle when he speaks again, his words soft but full of feeling, “I’ve loved you from the moment you wouldn’t let James Booker crush that ladybug. I loved you then and every moment since. And I love you right now, sitting on this swing in front of me with tears in your eyes because you’re afraid I don’t feel for you exactly what you feel for me.”

You gasp softly, your head swinging back to face him. You search his eyes, desperate to see if he’s messing with you. Then you sob once and throw your arms around him, falling from the swing to kneel in front of him just as he had kneeled to confess to you. You hear him whisper your name, your real name, into your hair and you pull back just enough to press your lips to his, kissing him after more than fifteen years of loving him.

And finally, when the time comes, your notebook doodles and your teenage dreams come true. Jake Kiszka is yours, til death do you part.

#jake kiszka #jake gvf #jake kiska fic #jake kiszka x y/n #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka x you #greta van fleet #gvf #greta van fic #buffy tries writing

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romanoffsbish · 1 year

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A Simple Cat Nap

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

“Hon', if you take any more naps on the couch you're going to mess up your back.”

Natasha's post mission meeting was droning on, Fury's words no longer holding any sense to the redhead. They were instead background noise while her mind ran wild with thoughts of you. It'd been a whole two weeks since she last saw your smiling face, and it was becoming a bit too much for her to bare any longer if she was being honest; retirement was imminent.

The moment Fury shut off the prompter the woman was already to her feet, and that next second she was out the door without so much as a goodbye to the director or team she led. Nothing could keep her from hopping onto her bike and racing off to your cabin in the woods. A cozy little space the two of you purchased earlier in the year after becoming newlyweds.

—————

On her way home she'd stopped to grab a bag of takeout, knowing it is likely you hadn't been eating much without her there to cook for you, and there was no way she was cooking tonight. Not when she plans to hand feed you the greasiest grub as she cuddles you incredibly close to her while you watch the absolute brain rot that is reality TV together.

Natasha’s body buzzes at the prospect of seeing you when the secluded cabin fills her vision, and she is pleasantly surprised to find the place in working order upon entering. The usual mess of yours, made in petty retaliation for your lover’s absence is seemingly nonexistent. She doesn’t wish to dwell on the good news, instead she sets off throughout the space to hopefully find you, settling her belongings aside, along with the bag of food down on the kitchen counter. The redhead downs a glass of water in an attempt to satiate her sudden thirst, and it’s when she places her cup on the counter that she fortunately hears you.

The distinct sound of your soft snores made their way into the kitchen from what Natasha perceives to be the living room; your favorite place to lounge around and consequently to pass out. The Avenger tiptoes into the room, a smile gracing her face at the sheer sight of you. Flat on your back she cringes upon observing the horrible angle at which your neck is bent, along with the way that your arm awkwardly dangles off the couch with a remote in hand. The other arm was draped over your eyes, and your mouth was wide open, drool dried to the corners of your lips, and she wonders who’d been on this last mission, because you were clearly exhausted.

Even in your state you look adorable as can be, and as she approaches she acknowledges the black feline peacefully sleeping on your chest. Liho senses her presence, lifting his head from your chest he softly glares in her direction., “You were mine first.,” she quietly reminds the cat, but not quietly enough because you stir, and before she could try to remedy it your arm slid from your face, and your crusted eyes met with hers as she apologetically stared at you, but to her hearts content you tiredly smiled up at her causing her to mirror the sentiment.

She then watched in amusement when your body stretched out, mirroring that of Liho’s as he’d jumped up onto the back of the couch., "Hon', if you take any more naps on the couch you're going to mess up your back.,” she lovingly voices her concerns upon hearing the way that your body crackles like a bunch of glow sticks being activated at once., “Natty, this couch is the premier destination for a solid nap, you’re just delusional.,” she rolled her eyes at your asinine response, but she let it go for the sake of keeping the peace.

“If you say so detka.,” she extended her hand to you to aide you in sitting up, knowing very well that your body is likely as stiff as a rock, she had learned this the hard way after the one and only time she ever napped on this very couch., “I do say so.,” you said with a pouting face, and Natasha moved quickly to kiss it away which instantly brought a smile to your face, and a warmth bloomed within the both of your chests at that oh so familiar touch., “Welcome home.,” you whispered against her supple lips, and before she could say much of anything Natasha was squealing as your arms suddenly wrapped around her waist, pulling her into your lap, and slamming your lips to hers for a deeper kiss.

Natasha was quick to shift around until she was straddling your lap, her lips never once leaving yours as you partook in a steamy make out session that left the both of you rather breathless by the time you were pulling apart., “I really missed you Natty.,” Natasha gently leaned her forehead to yours, it was a level of intimacy that always brought her deep comfort, and she was desperately feening for some with the conversation she was about to initiate.

“Let’s have a baby.,” she blurted, her heart hammering in her chest when you stiffened., “Honey, we’ve talked about this.,” you went to negate her sentiment, but you stopped when she violently shook her head., “Detka, I’m ready. Fury received an email about an hour ago with my resignation attached, because I can’t keep living a life I’ve clearly outgrown, one that takes me away from you far too often, and holds me back from the future I deserve.”

Your arms wrapped around her waist even tighter as excitement built up within you, and she was squealing once more when you stood up and spun her around., “Natty, you’re being serious?,” she chuckled out a soft yes, and held onto you while you continued to jump about. Hearing her say something as simple as ‘the future I deserve,’ left you feeling hopeful. She’d always struggled with the concept, it took you so many years just to get a date with the woman; to know now that she’s actually come this far makes you feel immense pride.

“Is this a yes?,” she finally seeks clarity so you gently lower her to the ground and cup her cheeks to pull her in for an excited kiss., “Natty, it’s a resounding hell yeah, we could even get started right now if you wanted.,” she chuckled at your enticing innuendo., “Detka, we have all the time in the world so how about you pull up Real Housewives of whatever city, and I’ll go reheat our dinner—sound good?”

Natasha threw the Chinese takeout into the microwave, and while the food was heating up she cracked open a couple beers to celebrate. Returning as quickly as she could she found you waiting on the couch with an abundance of plush blankets surrounding you, and the way you smiled at her let her know that with her sudden retirement she’d be able to have moments like this with you all the time, and all her residual guilt melted away at the thought.

After about three episodes Natasha felt your head drop to her shoulder, and so she laid herself down against your favored couch, and cuddled you close like she’d been craving to do. Then by the time episode four was ending she heard your soft snores, which were followed by a sleeping you thrashing until you were facing your lover with her arms tightly around you. With a defeated sigh Natasha figured out that you’d both be sleeping on the couch tonight., “Oh, the things we do for love.,” she grumbled to the cat who now lay over both of your hips., “A sore back sure is worth it though with a view like this.,” she softly stated while shamelessly ogling your sleeping features, her lips gentle as they lay a sweet kiss to your forehead, then again to your pouting lips.

“Goodnight detka.,” she yawned., “Maybe this time next year we’ll have a mini you to chase.,” she shuffled slightly for comfort., “and rest assured that we’ll definitely have a new couch.”

——————————————————————

1,356 Words

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha x reader #natasha x y/n #natasha x fem!reader #natasha x you #natasha romanoff x female reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff x y/n #natasharomanoffpov #natasharomanoff #natasharomanoffxyn #gxg #black widow #black widow x y/n #black widow x female reader #natasha romanoff oneshot

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janeblr · 2 months

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Do you have any thoughts/headcanons on ge//ri//ta??

SO many thoughts. It’s the foundational ship for this fandom ofc.

Firstly, let me establish that I am a Germany-is-HRE truther. Everyone knows that EXCEPT Lutz himself but they all just kind of agree to not mention it. So Feli KNOWS that the boy he love(s/d) is RIGHT. THERE. But he can’t say anything to suggest they’re the same person because to Lutz, that’s a different nation who died, and Feli doesn’t want to confuse or upset him. But Lutz does love him, and not just because of any lingering memories from before!!! He fell in love with Feli completely on his own, and he would fall in love with him over and over again. AUGH. Once they both get their heads out of their asses and express their feelings for each other, FELI is actually the one who takes it slow because he’s afraid of making Lutz feel like he’s just a stand-in for HRE. Feli doesn’t want to jump right to “established relationship” because even though that’s how it kind of feels for him, that’s not how it feels for Lutz. So they take it slow <3 first dates, flowers, first kisses… augh.

Anyways enough with the amnesia agony. THE AGE GAP!!!! Lutz, in his experience, is only about 150 years old. But Feli has been around for over 1300 years. Cradle robber smh. It just cracks me up. And Feli forgets sometimes that Ludwig doesn’t remember anything before the 1870s so he’ll offhandedly mention something that happened hundreds of years ago as if everyone knows it, and Lutz is just like ??? I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. So even though Lutz often thinks that he’s the more “mature” one, Feli will make some joke about Byzantine Empire being bad in bed and Lutz suddenly feels very, very young. Feli often has to explain in-jokes between all the older nations to him or provide an INSANE amount of context for a simple passing comment. Lana del ray wants what they have.

Ok enough background. Let’s get to the headcanons

Their first dates were very simple <3 Museums, restaurants, art galleries, etc. Feli loves taking Lutz to art galleries and explaining the artworks and their historical backgrounds in vivid detail, and Lutz could listen to Feli talk passionately about art and architecture all day <333 Really I think he just likes the sound of his voice, his musical accent and animated speech. Every once in a rare while Feli will sing, maybe just a couple lines to a song, and Lutz fucking MELTS. They stopped going to restaurants after their first few dates after Lutz was like. Actually. Your cooking is way better and I like helping you in the kitchen. So let’s just do that instead. <3 Realistically a lot of their dates are things they were doing before they were a couple, just in a different light.

Feli taught Lutz how to relax <3 lounging in bed all day, curling up on the sofa with a cup of cocoa and a good book, just enjoying life without worrying about deadlines and routines. Although I don’t think Lutz will ever be able to sleep in the same way Feli can, they absolutely spend Saturday mornings in bed until midday, just tangled up in each other with not a care in the world <3

Conversely, Lutz taught Feli the joys of physical activity besides the walk from the sofa to the fridge lol. Hikes, bike rides, anything that gets them outside and moving. Feli has never been super outdoorsy or active, but breathing in crisp Alpine air and being surrounded by trees older than him is incredible. And he’s enjoying it with the man he loves <3

Meals! Entrées are Italian, desserts are German. Feli never acquired a taste for German food but goddamn that man can make a pie like nobody else. Feli is a lot more passionate about cooking (and Lutz can’t be trusted in front of a stove) but Lutz is happy to help chop vegetables or stir a pot of sauce. The one time they switched roles, Feli was stuck eating some sad, burnt to all hell potato and beef thing, and Lutz learned that he really hates tiramisu. This is not a condemnation of German food, they have some bangers, Lutz is just a bad cook lol.

They do indeed fight and argue like every other couple. Feli tends to be messy, leaving laundry all over the place and not cleaning up his dishes, whereas Lutz is neurotic about cleanliness and goes INSANE trying to convince Feli to just. Put his laundry in the fucking basket. Feli gets mad because sometimes Lutz will treat him like he’s incompetent or just outright stupid. Like there’s a reason he’s still alive and thriving after all this time. Get fucked mate. Ultimately their fights often come down to Feli being inconsiderate and Lutz being condescending.

They’re both fucking obsessed with how the other looks. Lutz is all strength and muscle and Feli wants to bite down on his forearms like a chew toy, and Lutz will never get enough of how Feli’s little waist feels in his hands or having those long legs wrapped around his hips. Also Ludwig is often like:

lol anyways. That’s all I’ve got right now, I have to do my timesheets or I won’t get paid for this week.

#mypost #japh

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runwithwolvcs · 1 year

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Right Where You Left Me

For Your Eyes Only

PAUL POV

The feeling of longing aches in my chest. God, I fucking miss Saskia.

I imagine her. Standing in front of me, touching me, telling me to breathe. To work through the steps Sam had given me to control my emotions. I can’t be losing it like this when she's not here, it just means I really don’t have everything under control and the prospect of hurting her again.

Another bout of anger courses through me.

She was so easy to forgive and forget what happened. To let me get close to her again, and wrap her in my arms as if I was the safest place on earth for her.

I wasn’t even angry. I mean not really, I’ve seen her in Jacobs mind. Laughing, working on those stupid bikes, even confiding in him when it should have been me. I should have been there all along. I could have been if I had just locked eyes with her sooner. Sam and his fucking rules ruined that, but his fears became reality all because of a simple touch. Jacobs hand on my imprint.

She won’t make me angry, I don’t think it’s even possible. She's so smart, and kind. Always thinking before she speaks, unlike me. Her way with words is something I envy. It was so easy for her, or at least it sounded easy. I can’t even tell her how I feel most days. The big, bad wolf with emotional baggage he can’t control. Pathetic.

I should have told her I loved her months ago, when the thought first crossed my mind. She was the one, I knew it even before I phased.

Anger, jealousy, envy are all things I know I feel too much of, I know they can trigger an unwanted shift.

My biggest fear is feeling too much of anything around her now, and if that means denying her the one thing she’s been aching for, then so be it. Though I can’t bring myself to admit that to her.Her gentle touch feels like electricity coursing through my veins, even if it's just to comfort me. One simple rush of excitement could ruin everything.

“You okay, son?” My dad asks, jolting me from my inner turmoil.

I grumble in response, not in the mood to divulge into conversation with anyone but Saskia.

He doesn’t get the hint as he asks me another question, “When does Saskia get back?”

“Sunday.” I mutter. It's been just over twenty four hours since she had been gone and I was losing my composure, fast.

“Maybe give her a call.” My dad suggests and I push my chair away from the table to stand up. Seems like everyone thinks Saskia’s the solution to my problem, and maybe she is, but I refuse to burden her with my issues. She has enough going on as it is. We’re finally back to a good place between us, all the normalcy we had before I had phased returning. Like nothing had changed. If I lose it she may not forgive me this time, and disappointing Saskia is not something I can handle right now.

“I’ve got it under control.” I say slowly clenching my fist at the mental image of her frowning because I phased accidentally, again.

“Sure looks like it.” He gripes causing an involuntary growl to escape my throat as I leave the kitchen. Can’t he see I’m trying?!

As soon as I reach my room, I call her number. I don’t care if she doesn't pick up and I have to listen to her voice message. I just need to hear her voice.

“Hey, Paul” She answered after two rings, I could practically hear the smile on her face.

“Hey, babe,” I try to hide the strain in my voice.

“Is everything okay?” She asked, trying to speak louder than the background noise. Saskia seems to alway know when somethings up, even when I think I’m shielding her from the problem.

I let out a small laugh, “Yeah, I was just calling to check on you..”

“Oh, well, everythings fine here,” she says, before breathily mentioning, “I miss you.”

I could feel the relief fill my senses knowing I wasn’t the only one feeling this way, sometimes it feels like the imprint only affects me. Leaning back against my bed frame, I tell her honestly, “Miss you too.”

“Hey, listen, we’re just about to head to my aunts for dinner. But I promise to call you after, okay?” Saskia promised, sounding distracted by whatever she was surrounded by, “You can tell me all about the drama I’ve missed between Jake and Bella.”

I let out a genuine laugh, “Will do.”

“Talk to you later, Paul.” She said in a hushed tone before hanging up.

Just like that, I’m alone again. Wondering about where she was going, would something go wrong? There could be leeches there. Maybe I should go check it out, I could find her using her scent. That's weird though. She’ll be fine, I reassure myself.

My phone dings nearly fifteen minutes later, there's a photo message from Saskia. I immediately open it, worried that something is wrong. It's just a mirror photo of her with her shirt bunched up over her breasts. No bra. The arm she was using to hold the camera was covering her scars, whether she did it on purpose or not, I don't know. I don't want her to feel insecure about something I did to her. Her long legs are showcased by a short skirt. The message attached I read aloud to myself, “Something for you to use to pass the time. x o ;)”

“You’re killing me,” I mutter, a grin forming on my face as I take in every detail of the photo. I sent back, “brb printing a poster of you for my room.”

I know she hates the one I’ve currently got, she mentions it every single time. I only keep it up to keep her riled, nobody compares to Saskia in my mind. Nobody ever has. I’ve had a crush on her since the day I moved in next door. The way her mom and her had been dancing in the rain when my dad and I pulled up with the moving truck. The way she laughed as she slipped in the muddy grass and picked herself up like nothing had happened to continue twirling around with a pair of costume fairy wings on. I was hooked.

“For your eyes only, L¯a wats a¯ kil,” was the next text she had sent. I read it back in confusion, not sure what she had actually called me. It was Quileute, that I knew, but I didn't grow up learning the language like Saskia had. As if she could sense my confusion, she sent a follow up text, “Grams says it means wolf.”

I can’t fight off the grin that forms. Saskia had purposefully asked how to say wolf in Quileute, meaning she was indirectly talking about the pack, maybe even just me, to her grandma. I knew her grandparents were elders and knew the histories well. Maybe they even know about the pack. I can't wait to see her again and hear about what she has learned from them.

#paul lahote #paul lahote fanfic #Twilight wolf pack #paul lahote imagines #paul lahote imagine #paul lahote smut #paul lahote x oc

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redeyesandchilifries · 21 days

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[Okay well this sucks.

But Joey is keeping up with Valon better than he expected to. Valon is a much more experienced rider in general, is used to riding that specific bike, and it's better designed for this kind of racing than the one Joey just happened to be able to "borrow." Around tight corners, dipping into alleys, riding up and down stairs, jumping across a waterway... Joey would make wider turns, slip a little further than he meant to, but he never lost sight of Valon for more than a second or two.

He also hasn't the faintest ever loving clue where the hell he is. But that doesn't seem to matter. Valon could very well be leading him into a trap, but... Joey's not so sure. He just has a gut feeling, just knowing it's going to be a lot more straight forward and not at all underhanded like that.

And he's right.

Valon leads the way into an empty lot. Secluded and isolated. It really would have been so easy to set this up to be some sort of ambush, but no; this is where they'll Duel.

Joey plays a little more defensively at first, hesitant and trying to ease into a feel for this stranger's fighting style. Valon goes all out, head on, facing straight into the fight. Were it anyone else, it would be dumb, but Valon's constructed his deck to suit this style. An all out offensive, the only defense being different ways to destroy the other monster in the process. He hides nothing, holds nothing back.

So Joey responds in kind.

They lay it all down; why they're fighting, what they believe in, why they believe it. Who they're fighting for, what matters to them, what drives them. Valon fights to win; victory is everything, the only thing. Joey remembers when he used to be like that. Before he befriended Yugi, and learned what it meant to fight for something. For someone. They use cards to pare away the excess, cards that conform to their bodies so they can fight even more personally. And it's... fun.

It's so much fun.

Their styles, their backgrounds, their abilities, they're different but they mesh so well. A competition that pushes one another to go further and further and be surprised about it, both at themselves and one another. When was the last time he had a fight with someone he could laugh with? Could fight while laughing?

But it hurts, too. Can't have one without the other. And with the Seal of Orichalcos, each hit to the Life Points also does real damage to their bodies. It sure didn't feel great to take a hit from a copied canon Hermos made; he almost didn't get back up. But still, it's exhilarating.

And then, Mai arrives. She can't stop them, angry as she is at Valon fighting Joey on her behalf. Only now, it isn't so much on her behalf anymore. The battle is too exciting, so uncertain, and getting so down to the wire. He genuinely doesn't know who is going to win now, and sees something in Joey and how he Duels that he and Mai lack. He understands now, he says, why she finds Joey so compelling. Joey has such a simple and direct passion for it.

They each strike again, playing their cards to their strengths. It's an explosive clash that strips them both of their armor, leaving them bruised and gasping. Their fight is rapidly coming to an end. They can't wait to see who will win. Mai watches on, sobered with the knowledge that one of them is about to lose their soul.

Rearmored, they strike again. Valon with his ace set of armor cards, Joey with Hermos boosting him once again. This strike is even more powerful than the last, Mai having to shield herself from the energy; yet still they each push harder and harder. Unfortunately for Valon, Joey is able to activate an ability. He sacrifices Red Eyes from his hand and is able to destroy all of Valon's armor monsters, and subtract their total attack from his life points. Ironic that the Seal is what dooms him; if it weren't in place, that little trick would have done zero damage. But his armor, boosted by the Orichalcos, now has 500 attack points each; more than enough to wipe him down to nothing.

It was a good fight. It's a bitter victory. Before the Seal closes, Valon says his goodbyes to Mai. He thanks Joey for the fight. He has no regrets. "And... Take care of her for me."

It hurts, to see him fall. It hurts, to see Mai run to him, cradle his empty shell of a body.

But neither of that holds a candle to how she clamps down, cuts off the sorrow, and blames Valon for doing this to himself. For being foolish. Blames Joey and accuses him of wanting to hurt Valon, wanting to kill him. He snaps back at her, but he can see she's not listening. She isn't going to. She's lying to herself about what she's really feeling, and the Orichalcos Stone is feeding into it.

There's only one thing she's going to listen to. One way she'll see his heart and have to bare hers. Just like Valon.

"Duel me, Mai."]

#ooc #action post #plot #((Okay maybe I should have broken this up into another two parts but sljdksdfj it's 2:30 am fuck it!!!!!))#((Fuck it he's dead now y'all know how the fight with Mai goes he loses 😂))#((And wins))#((He gets through to her BY losing he's kinda fucked for it but hey he did his best))#((idk if I'll write up that last part or not I didn't realize how late it got writing this one))

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spencerkellyv · 2 years

Note

May I please request for a will byers x male! reader where the reader is having a panic attack? How does will react? And what does he do in that kind of situation? :0

Thank you!

THE PLEASE AND THANK YOU OMFG👏👏

I liked writing this one so much too. My brain was literally flooded with ideas as soon as you asked for this!!!!

Anyways please enjoy

Warning this one has four categories to it lmao

I’ve actually got categories and stuff for this one. So many scenarios popped in my head I just have to include them.

WHILE IN PUBLIC (IN A PUBLIC AREA):

When in public Will would probably notice signs of an oncoming panic attack pretty quick.

When a panic attack starts he would immediately get you somewhere as fast as possible. Those places being either:

Isolated

Somewhere you can sit down

Out of the building your in

He would stay with you the entire time

If his friends are around he immediately orders them to find you water and or a snack

He’s not big on PDA but he would still put his hands on yours and rub his thumbs over them

———————————————————————

As you walked through the mall with your friends your brain started feeling fuzzy. The background noise became oddly quiet while peoples words was too loud.

“Love, are you alright?” Will said to you quietly, his eyes filled with concern.

You didn’t turn your head to him immediately and when you did your eyes were wide and watery. Your shoulders moved up and down quickly and your hands were shaking.

Will recognized what was happening and immediately escorted you to the nearest bench to sit down. When one of your friends came over to check on you, Will sent them off to find you food and drink.

He, after getting your consent, grabbed your hands and used his thumbs to smooth over your knuckles in a repetitive pattern. He guided you through simple breathing exercises. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Over and over and over again until you calmed down.

He smiled softly at you when you finally came back to him. “Hey baby are you alright? Do you want to leave? We can, I don’t mind I promise.”

———————————————————————

He won’t make you talk if you don’t want to

He will literally leave any event if you need him to

WHILE WITH FRIENDS (AT SOMEONES HOUSE FT. THE PARTY):

He is less likely to notice as fast when at a friends house

When he does notice he doesn’t make a scene, trying not to overwhelm you

Most of Will and your friends (as well as your friends parents) are used to Will’s panic attacks so they all spring into action when they see you.

———————————————————————

“Hey baby are you alright?” Will asks but he sounds distant. You feel tears slide down your cheeks but you aren’t even aware of them enough to wipe them away or blink.

When the others hear Wills words and look towards you they recognize what’s happening.

Mike goes off to find one of his parents as Will sits to your side trying to calm you down, using the all to familiar breathing exercises. His arm goes around your back to rub your shoulder and his other hand if holding yours.

He whispered soft encouragements into your ears along the lines of “hey calm down I’m right here” and “it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

When you finally do calm down Dustin hands you the bag of chips he was snacking on and you accept with a grateful smile. When Mike returns with his mom Will calmly explains to her what happened and she offers you a ride home.

———————————————————————

Will would sit close to you, making sure no one else got super close

If it was really bad he would take you home immediately, even volunteering to go get your bike the next day so that you don’t have to ride by yourself

AT THE BYERS HOUSEHOLD (FT. JOYCE AND JOHNATHAN):

If your in the Byers household Joyce would notice first (the woman cares for you so much change my mind)

Will would notice after his mom stared at you for an uncomfortable amount of time

Joyce being the mom she was would grab your hand while Will leaves to find you water.

When Will gets back Johnathan would also be in tow. Probably carrying some type of music track, hoping it’ll calm you down. He tries.

———————————————————————

“Hey honey are you ready to come back to us?” You hear Joyce Byers say softly as your mind clears up. “There he is.” She would say before stepping to the side so Will could kneel in front of you.

In the background you could hear music playing curtesy of Jonathan.

After you’d had a little while to recover, Will offers you his hand gently and asks you “do you want to dance with me?”

You giggle and give him your hand as he pulls you up. His favorite song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” just so happens to play. Also, you assume, curtesy of Johnathan.

The two of you dance together for a long time. A welcome distraction from the thoughts that overwhelmed you previously.

Eventually Joyce decides you can stay the night and you and Will head to bed together where he cuddles you until you fall asleep.

——————————————————————

Will is the KING of distracting you from your thoughts. Change my mind.

WHEN YOU ARE ALONE WITH HIM:

This is assuming you’re in his bed probably

When you’re alone his methods of calming you down gets more physical

He’d probably be sitting where your back is to his chest and you’d be in his lap, his attempt to keep you grounded

He’d place small kisses on whatever exposed skin he could access

———————————————————————

Will held you tightly as you followed his breathing patterns, though unlike you when he held for those seven seconds he placed soft kisses to your skin.

When you came out of it you turned around in his lap, now straddling him. You rested your forehead against his shoulder. Will moved his hand up to your hair and played with it as he hummed softly to you.

You feel your eyes go heavy and before you know it you’re sleeping in your boyfriends arms.

Doing his best not to wake you up. Will lays the two of you down. He doesn’t move to retrieve blankets, not wanting to risk disturbing your peaceful state. Will gives you soft kisses scattered on your face until he himself falls asleep. A soft smile on his face.

———————————————————————

If Joyce or Johnathan found you they’d 100% cover the two of you

No one really talks about it in the morning when the two of you walk out of his room together

THIS WAS BOTH THE MOST FUN YET MOST STRESSFUL THING IVE WRITTEN LITERALLY EVER. I hope you enjoy though <3

#stranger things #stranger things x reader #will byers #will byers x male!reader #will byers x reader #stranger things imagine #x reader #oneshots #80s #prompts #johnathan byers #joyce byers #mike wheeler #karen wheeler #panic attacks #comfort #tooth rotting fluff

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gasha40k · 8 months

Text

I’ve been reading a lot of 40k fiction in between painting recently, and I’ve gotten a good bit of progress done on both. I’ll start with a little reading update.

Horus Rising

False Gods

Galaxy in Flames

Flight of the Eisenstein

Fulgrim

First Heretic

Know No Fear

Butcher’s Nails

Betrayer

Wrath of Khârn

Khârn: Eightfold Path

I finished Betrayer just a couple days ago, and holy shit. What an incredible book. I am a strong Khârn stan (Argel Tal, too) and I am more convinced than ever that I’m a World Eaters gamer.

I plan to read the three (or four) Unremembered Empire books before I loop back to A Thousand Sons to read the “main” Heresy storyline through to Slaves to Darkness, and eventually Siege of Terra. But for now, I’m making a little detour through all of the books that Khârn takes center stage for, so that I can satiate the hyperfixation and figure out what he’s up to in the 42nd Millennium. I also plan to finish most of the World Eaters books, as that was the whole reason that I started reading the Heresy in the first place.

Betrayer is by far my favorite Warhammer novel. Fulgrim was my top for a while—I may be a closeted Emperor’s Children enjoyer, don’t tell Blood Daddy—but man. Betrayer blew it out of the fucking water. What an incredible ending to an incredible trilogy. My biggest takeaways were as follows: nobody fucking likes Angron, and Khârn is my favorite guy ever. Enough gushing, though. Time for painting stuff.

The second Ultramarine I’ve ever painted, weirdly enough. My first Ultramarine was my first model, so my second being a keychain-corpse for a new army is weirdly sentimental

Since we’re on the topic of Khorne, I finished up the torso of my old school Daemon Prince. I’m exceptionally proud of this! I think the shading and blending is maybe some of my best, most advanced painting yet, and I pulled out just about every technique that I know for this thing. I even did a little drybrushing on the Necron skull. Here’s to hoping I can maintain this level of quality across the other pieces of this mini once I get some more primer.

Getting some good use out of my technicals, and finally utilizing my skull box

Still on Khorne, here’s some more progress on those Bloodletters from last post. They’re just about done, complete with horn blending and everything. I’m planning on doing flaming blades for them, but I’ll have to buy some more paints before I tackle that. I’ve got a handful more of primed and based Bloodletters, so they’ll probably be my backup easy paint for a while. The bases are simple and easy to make, but decently visually effective, which I think is good and fitting for such a massed unit.

Next up, I decided to give highlighting a go with one of my newer Thunderbearers, since I’m trying to boost my painting technique all around. This is definitely my best highlighting work yet, certainly leagues ahead of my first try from last year. I think he looks pretty clean!

I’m also experimenting with new photography backgrounds since I got kinda sick of having pasta or hamster cage cleaner or whatever the fuck in the background of my poorly lit update pictures. Think I may have stumbled upon a good method for backgrounds.

I love you, empty white void

Last but certainly not least, I finished up the first bike for my lone Outrider Squad. I’m really happy with him, as well. The hardest part of painting these dudes is definitely base painting. They just have a lot of ground to cover with your brush so they absolutely devour paint, but it’s cool cause I finally finished him up after like, actual months of sitting half-painted in my vehicles box. I’m a particular fan of the little white lens glare in the top left of his eye. I just think it’s neat.

This unit is gonna be mad satisfying to finish, and I can’t wait to get more work done. In the meantime, I’m chugging away at my first 5-man Berzerker squad, including their bases, which are gonna be pretty unique. They’re like, black mountainous rocks littered with skulls and blood-stained snow. Alongside that, I’ve also been stripping my Custodes, so I’ll have a bit of an update about that next time, too.

#warhammer 40k #miniatures #painting #book club #adeptus astartes #chaos #thunderbearers #world eaters #khorne daemons

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heygerald · 2 years

Text

HEART MECHANICS - PART 1/9

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x oc

Matty Neven had dealt with her fair share of pilots throughout her life. Most of them, she has fond memories of. Her dad teaching her how to ride a bike. Her godfather sneaking her into a bar so that she could see what it’s like when she was way too young to be there. Her mother hosting a cookout reunion every couple of months for whoever was in town to catch up at.

But some of them weren’t so happy.

Soldiers insinuating that she only got her job because of her family ties. Men with starry smiles hitting on her at the bar despite the fact that she wasn’t interested. One night stands that didn’t have enough manners to wait until sunrise before kicking her out.

It was just the mechanics of it all.

And so, she made a very simple rule: love the jet, but never the pilot.

It’s a fairly easy rule to follow, right up until the moment she meets a pilot with a warm smile that seems to understand the heavy weight of family ties.

Read the story here: ... / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9

Matty Neven was a lot of things.

She was the daughter of an old school pilot, famous for his time at the local Top Gun academy and arguably even more famous for his late night cocktails that he could whip up using anything found in the fridge. She was the goddaughter of the Admiral Kazansky; Iceman as the other pilots knew him by. She was the oldest of her family, the only one that had enlisted in the military in her father’s too big footsteps while her younger sisters had gone the more delicate path of motherhood. She was the first in the entire Neven family to get expelled from school—a total accident, she would swear until the day she died, though Linda Ashlington did deserve to have her eyebrows burnt off during a wayward chemistry experiment—and the only member of the Neven family to puke at her high school graduation ceremony due to the excessive hangover she had been sporting. She was the blondest of all her siblings, the tallest too, and definitely the one with the worst sailor mouth when it came to cussing out bad drivers or drunken sailors.

And right now, she was also, really, really, really fucking late.

“Jesus, Matty,” Claire's raspy voice echoed in her ear; amusement in part, but mostly annoyance. “Where the hell are you? I thought you said you were coming.”

“I am coming!” she huffed right back, phone indelicately cradled between her shoulder and her chin as she turned into the too full parking lot of The Hard Deck. Not her favorite bar by any means, but certainly one that had the most character and the least likelihood of accidental food poisoning. “I’m literally pulling into the parking lot right now.”

“How are you so late? Actually, how are you always late to everything we do?” Claire asked. Pondered, really. And as the music thrummed in the background and people were shouting over one another, Matty could practically picture the brunette arching a sharp eyebrow high onto the crown of her head while watching the boys goad some drunks into a game of darts. “I mean, seriously, we left work at the same time. And we’re in the Navy. Haven’t you learned time management by now?”

“It’s not my fault.”

“Sure, Matts, sure.”

“It’s not!” she cried. Both annoyed that her friend wouldn’t believe her and anxious that she wasn’t going to be able to find a good parking spot in the overflowing lot. She was lucky enough that someone was pulling out, though, and as she waited patiently she nervously fixed her hair in her rearview mirror. “I swear. I did everything right this time—maybe I’m cursed. Too many broken mirrors over the years or something like that. Something with salt, I think. It would explain a lot, actually.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Dramatic but fantastically self aware,” she corrected, swiping some smeared eyeliner off her cheek as the Pontiac slowly muddled out of its spot. “Seriously though, I promise that It’s not my fault.”

“This time.”

“Oh, piss of,” she rolled her eyes. “I really think the world just hates me.”

Claire snorted. And, well, yeah, Matty would have too.

It wasn’t the best excuse she could have given for her tardiness, but it was true.

Her lateness wasn’t her own fault because despite the fact that she hadn’t wanted to spend her evening getting clambered over by the latest handful of Top Gun recruits, she had been looking forward to getting shitty at the bar with her friends after a long week at work. Plus, Eggs was one of her closest friends, and she wouldn’t have missed his birthday party for anything.

But, of course, life didn’t ever want to make things easy for her, and when she finally got home from work she didn’t have any hot water. And then her curling iron had gone bust, leaving her in a huff trying to figure out how to braid her unruly mop of hair into something half-up, half-down that Claire may have considered beachy with a splash of boho. Only to then have traffic backed up miles between her place and the bar.

So, no. It wasn’t her fault that she was late. Just fate.

She pulled into the empty parking spot with a sigh and said, “just tell Eggs to chill out, alright? I’m coming in now. Literally, parking as we speak.”

“You think Eggs would chill out if I told him?” Claire quipped. “The guy is so wound up all the time it’s amazing he even wanted to go drinking on a Friday night. He’s several beers in and is still grumbling about how he has to get up in the morning to mow his lawn before it gets too hot.”

Matty put her Jeep into park and removed her keys with a thoughtful glance at the small birthday present she had brought. “Maybe I should have gotten him a gift card for lawn maintenance instead,” she said, wondering how much he would like the leather wallet she got to replace the one he lost a few weeks ago.

“What he actually needs is some weed and a good night’s sleep.”

Matty laughed in amusement while hip-checking her door shut. The hinges squealed a little and she sighed because even though she was a damn good mechanic, some parts of her life tended to get lost in the fold.

Parts being her Jeep that she hadn’t even washed in well over six months.

Whatever. She could worry about that some other time.

Turning away, she started across the parking lot with the present in one hand, phone in the other. “Yeah, yeah, well I don’t think the Cap would be too happy with him failing his drug tests, but I am coming inside right now. That should cheer him up.”

Claire laughed. “Anyone ever tell you that you think pretty highly of yourself?”

“No. Why, have you heard something?”

“You’re an idiot,” Claire said. But as Matty opened up the front doors and was greeted with a wall of warm air and the smell of fresh beer, she hung up on her friend without bothering with a retort.

Just sighed with a glance around.

The bar was—unsurprisingly—even more packed inside than the parking lot was outside. Afterall, The Hard Deck sat in that sweet fourteen mile radius right on the edge of downtown that made getting to it easy for soldiers to get to after work and finding an uber ride home cheap enough to warrant. Uniforms lined every inch of floorboards from the pool tables to the bathrooms. A few old time veterans were perched at their unofficial seats at the bar, Penny on one side, smiling and smirking and making jokes as candidly as she could while also busting ass to serve everyone the drinks they wanted. People seemed jolly and drunk; probably a sign that some asshat had done something stupid and ended up buying everyone a round.

She was sad to have missed that. It was always fun to watch someone get thrown out on their ass. Matty made a note to ask Penny about it later.

Still despite the happy atmosphere, as someone bumped shoulders with her, Matty had to remind herself not to throw hands at every sailor that sent a beaming smile in her direction.

She was here for a good time with her friends, and though Eggs always liked to place money bets on how many egos she could bruise without even trying, Penny had warned her more than once that she couldn’t smack every boy that looked her way. Plus, she couldn’t really blame the wandering eyes. Here she was strutting around in a tight pair of jeans and a cute tank top that highlighted just enough skin to warrant some attention.

What was their fault, however, was their profession of choice. Matty was perhaps one of the only people at Miramar that disliked pilots with that sordid passion you could only get from being around them your entire life.

Sure. She had a respect for what they did, what they sacrificed, and who they were, but she also knew them well enough to keep any boy in a uniform at arm’s length.

Which was a little hard when the bar was packed shoulder to shoulder with them. Even moreso when a particularly brave one approached her.

“Hey,” he smiled, leaning close enough for her to smell the whisky on his breath. “It’s... Matty, right?”

She eyed him over, not liking his smile or his hazy eyes, but nodded all the same before sweeping her gaze back over the room in search of her friends. “Yeah, that’s me. Do I know you?”

“Ah, probably not,” he shrugged. She would have described the gesture as bashful if his eyes didn’t linger a little too long on her chest. “I’m one of the new airmen for Bravo company; just started a couple weeks ago so I haven’t gotten the chance to introduce myself to everyone just yet. I’ve heard plenty about you though.”

“Charming,” she said. despite the fact that nothing about the man was, in fact, charming. Decidedly less so, actually. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’m looking for my friends.”

She stepped right. He stepped left. Matty ground her jaw when he just batted his eyelashes at her while stepping closer.

“Let me help you.”

“No thanks.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem,” he told her, acting as if she was being bashful in refusing his help rather than flat out telling him she didn’t want nor need it. In fact, he wasn’t even taller than her, so she wasn’t quite so sure what he thought he could accomplish that she couldn’t. “I don’t mind helping out a pretty girl. You might actually help build up my ego a little bit.”

“Wonderful, but I’m not the Make-A-Wish foundation, so maybe work on your ego with something else. Like a mirror. That should fix it real quick.”

“You’re funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

He grinned as if they were sharing some sort of secret before throwing an arm over her shoulder, twisting her this way and that while looking for people she was sure that he didn’t even know. “What’s a pretty doll like you doing all alone here, anyways? I mean, are you sure that your friends are even here?”

“I’m sure.”

“Because if they aren’t,” he barreled on, “you can always hang out with me and my friends. We’re pretty fun.”

“I very much doubt that,” she deadpanned.

He laughed once more and just patted her on the shoulder while twisting around. Matty tried her best to put some space between them, but as a group of new recruits swaggered into the bar, she found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Ah, I can’t find them,” he told her. She was certain that he didn’t look; even more certain that he didn’t know what to look for, but when his gaze stopped on the bar, she figured he found something else worth his time. “You want a drink while you wait?”

Matty rolled her eyes. “Not from you.”

He laughed—again—as if she had said something funny.

“Ah, c’mon. I’ll buy you whatever you want. A beer? Mixed drink? How about some Sex on the Beach?” he asked. She pursed her lips tight at that, no longer even pretending to be cordial with some gnat from the base that she wouldn’t have talked to on a normal day, and he quickly dissolved into a cheeky laugh. “The drink of course. C’mon, Matty, we only just met you know.”

“How about no. Not interested. Ever.”

“But—“

“If you want to keep that arm, kid, you’d better move it before she does for you,” a Southern voice drawled behind them; warm but somehow still ice-cold, threatening but with an easy going staccato.

They turned together. You know, because he still had his arm thrown over her shoulder and was still moving her around like a ragdoll, but Matty felt the guy go stiff on her shoulder when he took sight of the man looming in front of them.

This time, it was Matty who smiled.

How she loved Frank and the sound of him threatening someone for her.

The airman blinked between the pair. He sized Frank up for a moment, but even drunk, it didn’t take him long to realize that he would not be winning that fight. Even when Frank wasn’t trying to take up space, he practically loomed over everyone else. At a clean six foot three, with heavy shoulders, large arms, and a nose crooked from one too many brawls, he cut an imposing figure among the sea of happy, go-lucky soldiers.

The airman cleared his throat. She batted her eyelashes up at him impishly.

“What?” she chirped, amused. “You’ve never met my friend before? I’m sure you would have heard of him if you’ve heard of me. Frankie is always starting trouble on base.”

“Uh, no, I haven’t...” he shook his head while carefully and quickly retracting his arm from her shoulder before it could be done for him. When he stepped back, Matty even noticed that his face had blanched a bit. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“Offer me sex on the beach?” she asked, feigning ignorance, before blinking over at Frank. “The drink, of course.”

That spurred the airman back another foot as he shook his head back and forth, no longer even looking at Matty as he couldn’t seem to remove his gaze from Frank’s unamused look. “No. No, I wasn’t—uh. Sorry. Have a good night.”

Then he promptly disappeared into the fray.

Frank snorted at the kid’s retreat. It wasn’t the first time he had scared someone off for Matty—surely wouldn’t be the last time either—but he always seemed to find some amusement in it. Probably because he knew that Matty had a temper worse than he did, and that out of everyone here, she was the one more than likely to throw a punch at a handsy sailor more than he would.

Yet, no one ever seemed scared of her.

She wondered if that had anything to do with her pink lip-gloss and sparkly eyeshadow.

“That didn’t take long,” he noted, sipping his beer with a smirk. “You were only here, what, two minutes?”

“Yeah, well, being beautiful is hard,” Matty sighed melodramatically before glancing over at Frank. “Although, couldn’t you have showed up a little bit earlier? I think he spilled some beer on me.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome, dickhead.”

“It’s a new shirt, Frank,” she told him.

He didn’t care. Just eyed the garment with a look of disinterest before touting, “don’t start getting all pissy with me, Neven. It’s Diego's birthday. He gets to pick the bar and we get to pay for his drinks. Rules are rules.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled, waving a hand in the air to show that even though she had heard what he was saying, she really didn’t care all that much. “All I’m saying is we could have just as easily gotten drunk at his house. Much less men to deal with there.”

“What—you got a bed time or something? You used to be fun, y’know,” Frank drawled before slinging his own arm over her shoulder. It kept any wandering eyes spurned in the opposite direction and allowed the hulking muscle of a man to pull her in the direction of their table, where the others were no doubt sitting already half-sloshed. “What happened to the girl who finished off an entire jar of moonshine that someone in the parking lot gave her?”

“Uh, she finished off an entire jar of moonshine that someone in the parking lot gave her. I don’t remember anything after the first sip, but I’m pretty sure that at one point in the night I fell off of a table.”

Frank tossed his head back with a laugh. “You got right back up, though.”

“Yeah,” she rolled her eyes. “And then I managed to fall right into some pilot’s bed. Try waking up to that with the world’s worst hangover. I haven’t touched moonshine since.”

“Seriously? A pilot?” he whistled, making fun of both the imagery and of her.

It wasn’t a secret that Matty had grown up in a military family; everyone in the motorpool knew that story, knew which bases she had been moved to in her childhood, knew the embarrassing stories of her father scaring the shit out of her boyfriends when she was in high school. But it was a secret which particular family Matty came from. Though she was proud to be a Neven, over the years she had quickly grown tired of people obsessing over the callsigns Hollywood and Iceman. She had dealt with enough shit as is just being a woman mechanic—having people insinuate that she was only successful because of family ties had been the cherry on top of the metaphorical shit sundae.

And the best way to keep people out of her family business?

Well, that was easy. She simply avoided the people who would know the family business; people like the naked pilot she had gone to bed with a couple months ago. People exactly like the group of suave, egotistical aviators that were cluttered at the pool tables all arguing about who was the best.

“I know, I know, I broke the golden rule.”

“That’s pretty much you’re only rule,” he said.

Matty sighed. Then she glared up at him. “Yeah, well, if I remember correctly I was left alone after finishing off the moonshine.”

“Can you remember?” he teased. “It was a fuck ton of moonshine.”

She punched him in the side. Not exactly a valiant effort given that Frank was more muscle than soft spots, but he groaned all the same, and Matty smiled up at him in victory as he dragged her around the bar. A pair of pilots stood talking to Penny, but when Matty caught the bartender’s eyes, she gave her a warm wave.

It caught the pilot’s attention. The blonde one, a man with a striking smile and an ego that she could smell from there winked at her. Matty promptly gave him the finger in return, and when he dropped open his mouth at it, Penny had to smother a laugh into her hands.

Frank shot him a smug look before directing Matty towards the back patio.

“Oh. Eggs is pissed that you’re late, by the way,” he told her.

“Ugh. It’s not my fault! I tried to be here on time.” He gave her a look. The same look that meant he didn’t believe a word out of her mouth, and Matty nearly whacked a bespectacled WSO in the face when she threw her arms up in frustration. She winced, but they were already moving on past, so she figured he would live without an apology. “I did. Why does no one believe me?”

“Because you’re always late to stuff like this.”

“I am not,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “You’re the worst. You’re supposed to have my back, Frankie.”

Frank snorted. “Show up on time then.”

“I thought we were best friends. I would always defend you if something like this happened, you know.”

“Hm,” he harrumphed, though there was amusement in his eyes when he glanced down at her. Matty batted her eyelashes up at him in return, and as they stepped outside, he shook his head with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re a manipulative fucker, you know that?”

“I prefer the term iconic.”

He didn’t seem convinced. It didn’t matter because in the next moment they were arriving at their picnic table, cutting through the thread of conversation as everyone swiveled in their seats to take note of the group’s latest arrival.

“Well, well, well, look who finally showed up, eh?” Eggs chided.

“Yeah, seriously. It took you long enough,” Claire tacked on, though she grinned all the same when Matty lovingly rolled her eyes. “I didn’t realize it took fifteen minutes to walk from the parking lot.”

“I was accosted,” Matty told her.

“By... beer?” Nick asked, gesturing to the stain on the top of her shirt with a quirked brow. Matty frowned at it, then at Frank.

“I told you he spilled some on me!”

“It’s a shirt,” he said simply, both not interested in arguing and not even the slightest bit upset about the mishap. Matty might have hit him if Eggs wasn’t sitting right there, still managing to look a little upset about her tardiness.

“Eggs, I swear I tried to be here on time,” she said, figuring that her attention was better spent on apologizing to the birthday boy than convincing Frank her outfit was, in fact, fashionable. “I really, really did.”

Diego eyed her for a moment, a failed attempt at being upset, before breaking out into a cheeky grin.

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t know why I expected anything else. You’re late to everything, Matts.”

“I am not!”

“I’m just glad you showed up. Nick had a bet that you were gonna fake a heart attack and skip the party entirely—again.”

Matty swung her gaze to Nick. The kid looked a little sheepish under her glare, but he didn’t defend himself. Just offered a look halfway between a grimace and a smile.

Whatever. She could kick his ass later.

“Well, I didn’t,” she announced to the table. Then, as if remembering that she was here for a reason other than defending her life choices, Matty turned her attention back to Eggs. Handing him her present, she chirped, “happy birthday!” while planting a sloppy kiss onto his cheek.

He grunted and waved her off, though everyone knew that he enjoyed the attention as much as the next guy. “Ah, yeah, yeah, enough with the loving, alright? It’s just embarrassing at this point, Matty. You know I’m married.”

Frank snorted as Matty seated herself between him and Claire, smiling happily when Nick slid over a lukewarm beer.

“Everybody is married,” she grumbled, though the table knew well enough that Matty didn’t have any interest in that particular milestone anytime soon. “Speaking of your wife, where is she?”

“Why? Still trying to convince her to make you godmother when the new baby comes around?”

“No,” Matty said. Then, when Eggs curled a disbelieving brow at her, she threw up her hands with a huff. “Although, I still don’t know why you won’t consider me. I’m great with kids!”

“You made Julia cry last time you babysat.”

“She wanted to watch a cute movie.”

“Yeah, a cute movie. Not fucking Bambi! She’s five, for fuck’s sake.”

“I already apologized about that, but whatever. I was just wondering if Maria is coming because I love hanging out with her. Besides, I could have used some more female company; I get tired staring at your ugly faces every day.”

“Hey!” Frank ruffled her hair while Diego kicked her in the shins, but the entire table erupted into laughter at the comment.

Claire simply smirked at the boys. “She’s not wrong. You fellas are fucking hideous.”

“Are you really a fair judge of the male gender?” Eggs smarted, prompting Claire to roll her eyes with a crass flaunt of her middle finger. “I'm just saying, if you’re not interested in us, then we’re not interested in your opinion.”

“Fuck off; there’s a reason you’re not interested in men either,” she retorted.

“Well, yeah, that’s because I prefer pussy—ow!” he grunted when Matty gave him a swift kick to the shins. Glaring, he sat back in his seat with a sharp huff. “This is my birthday! Will you stop being such a dick, Matty! Christ. First you show up late, now you treat me like shit.”

Claire busted out laughing as Matty just gave the table a faultless flash of her eyelashes. Sipping on her beer, she decided to change the subject before Eggs could get distracted enough from his beer to start pouting. Glancing around, she asked, “well, why am I getting yelled at when we’re still a few boys short? I thought Boomer and George would have been here by now.”

“They are here.”

“Then where—?”

“They’ve been hustling some pilots for the last hour,” Eggs rolled his eyes, though there was an amused gleam in his eyes that he failed to hide from the table. “Boomer promised to win me some money for my birthday, but I think he has a gambling problem. He’s attracted to money like a goblin.”

“A dragon,” Claire piped up from around her beer.

Eggs blinked at her, pausing. “What?”

Claire rolled her eyes, pointing at Eggs around the rim of her beer. “You mean a dragon. Not a goblin.”

“Why would a dragon want money?”

“What? You’re kidding right? Dragons are, like, notoriously obsessed with money and gold and jewels and all that bullshit. That’s why people are always trying to kill them.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Eggs shook his head.

“It’s the truth! Don’t you know your lore?”

“My lore?” he repeated incredulously. Frank and Matty shared a knowing look—Diego liked to argue about every little thing when he was drinking, and Claire loved to prove everybody wrong—which meant that this argument wasn't likely to go anywhere good. “No, I don’t know my lore, Claire, unlike you I actually got laid in high school.”

“Oof, low blow,” Matty laughed. “Claire wasn’t even out when she was in high school.”

“I was still fucking more women than Eggs," Claire tsked.

Diego rolled his eyes; disbelieving. “Oh, yeah? Like who?"

“Like your mom.”

“Oh, fuck you!” he chortled, allowing the pair to fall into their natural stream of mindless arguments. Claire seemed all too eager to knock him a peg down; even on his birthday, the mechanic lived for destroying the opposite gender’s ego.

Matty smiled as Frank leaned in, leaving the pair to their argument.

“Do you think she’ll let him win an argument for once?” he asked.

“Doubtful.”

“Not even on his birthday?”

Matty considered his point while sipping on her beer before shaking her head. She remembered a similar incident two years prior when Claire had spent two and a half hours arguing with Boomer about the superiority of the Woman’s US soccer team in comparison to Men’s. He hadn’t conceded defeat until everyone at the party physically forced the pair apart, and even then Claire had claimed victory for the coming months.

“Doubt it. Not that it matters, though, she is right.”

“About?”

“Dragons and their love of gold. I have no idea where he got the idea that goblins are obsessed with money, but he’s way off base. Not that I’m wading into that argument any time soon,” she eyed the pair for a moment before returning her attention to her beer. Frank laughed prompting Matty to turn to him with a scornful glare. “What?”

“You were a total nerd in high school, weren’t you?” he poked.

“Seriously? You think that Dad ever would have let me indulge in my nerdish fantasies without making a big deal out of it? He practically had a heart attack when I mentioned I wanted to join the debate club.”

“Yeah, well,” Frank shrugged, “that’s because people on debate club have no friends.”

“Hey!”

He laughed, only pausing to feign pain when Matty slugged him in the shoulder with a mock glare, before settling back into his seat beside her. A cheer went up around the bar as the group of pilots finished their game of pool—no surprise, it seemed like the blonde had won the game—and she rolled her eyes in bemusement about it.

Pilots always had to be loud. Then again, her table was pretty loud too.

Frank caught her glancing. When she turned back, he had a dark brow arched on his forehead. “Thinking about finding another pilot to spend the night with?” he teased.

“Not a chance.”

“Your poor dad,” he mocked. “Does he know that you refuse to even be friends with pilots?”

“It’s not that I won’t be friends with them,” Matty corrected Frank, though there was still disbelief shimmering in his eyes that promised this argument would take more energy than she likely felt like sharing. “Oh, shut up. You know how pilots are, anyways. All good bodies but bad temperaments.”

“Did I know that about pilots?” Frank muttered aloud.

“And, yes, he does know that I don’t date pilots. Him and Ice spent years introducing me to their fair share before I finally broke down and told them that I wasn’t interested. That was a fun conversation.”

“You ever think you might be a little hard on them?”

Matty rounded on Frank with wide eyes; this time, it was her that couldn’t believe him, and when he realized what he had just said, Frank seemed in disbelief at himself as well. “Ha, since when are you an advocate for the aviators? Last I remember, you thought that Cyclone was a total prick.”

“Well, he is,” Frank shrugged.

Matty moved past that. “Anyways, it’s nothing personal about pilots, and Dad gets that. I mean, hell, I love all of his friends.”

Frank knocked his hand on the table at that. “Speaking of your dad’s friends,” he started, and, well, fuck, Matty knew exactly where this conversation was going. “I heard that Mav is back in town and—”

Matty threw her head back with a groan. “Ugh. Don’t even start.”

“What?!”

“I am not hanging out with you two again,” she declared, an idle thought to the last time she had a cookout with both of them present. She had nearly shit herself when Frank set off that homemade firework. “My neighbors are still pissed at me for that, you know.”

“It was the fourth,” he shrugged. “I was trying to be patriotic.”

She snorted; no one believed that particular lie. “Well, feel free to hang out with him on your own time, but you are still banned from Ice’s house.”

Frank rolled his eyes, grunting under his breath as he did so. “That wasn’t even my fault. It was Mav’s idea, you know. But, anyways,” he barreled on, though she knew that the conversation would be brought back up sooner rather than later. He was a rockhead like that. “Did you see him yet?”

She had.

Maverick had made it a point to stop by the garage bright and early that morning before he was to show up at the school for debrief with Cyclone. It hadn’t been too much of a surprise considering his unwavering friendship with Iceman that he got the job in the first place, but his chirpy attitude had been enough of a surprise when she thought she was alone that Matty promptly slammed the bench drawer shut on her thumb.

When she swore with more colorful language than Maverick had ever heard, he keeled over at the waist laughing. And when he had tossed her an ice pack from the back of her fridge, she had laughed too because, well shit, times really didn’t change all that much considering it had only been a handful of years since him and Ice had slapped a packet of frozen peas onto her knuckles following her first fist fight at school.

Matty glanced at the digit, playing with the thick tape wrapped around it.

Frank pointed to it curiously. “Maverick did that?”

“Unintentionally. He always was a menace.”

“Pot, meet kettle.”

Matty knocked her shoulder into his, though the pair just laughed about the idiocy of it all, as the pilots started hooting and hollering once more. This time, they were crowded around the dart board.

“So, what’s the plan this time?”

“What do you mean?”

Frank shrugged while finishing the last of his beer. Matty tried to catch up, but as the bar just got more crowded, she figured she would need to switch to hard liquor sooner rather than later if she wanted to keep from causing trouble with the wayward aviators. “Ah, come on, Mats. We both know how secretive you are about the whole family thing. Now we have Maverick teaching the latest batch of recruits? You must have some sort of plan on how to keep people from knowing you two are best pals.”

"Not best," she announced. Then cleared her throat with a shrug. "And, it's not like I'll be sitting in his class anytime soon. I can keep a distance."

“Maybe, but you don’t think his jet will be coming through the motor pool more often than the others? Rumor has it that Mav likes to play it loose and fast—that doesn’t exactly leave much room for a mechanical fuck up in his jet.”

Frank had a point.

Matty knew because she had been considering it for the better part of the day. Maverick did like to fly recklessly, and he didn’t like people he didn’t know touching things that were his. Meaning she would most likely be stuck as his personal mechanic until she could convince him that the others in the motor pool were just as capable.

And knowing Maverick? That could take years just out of sheer insolence.

Sighing, she rubbed the sore spot between her brows. “I… think tequila doesn’t sound too bad right now. You want a shot?”

Frank grinned like an idiot. “When have I ever said no to a shot with you?”

Matty rolled her eyes at his enthusiasm, but let a smile stick to her features as she turned to the rest of the table. Eggs and Claire were still knee deep in their argument. Nick had long since disappeared.

“Hey," she waved a hand between them, "you losers want some shots?”

“Do we want some shots? What sort of question is that?” Eggs guffawed.

“Tequila good?”

“Fuck no!” he shook his head at her, not even budging at the look that she shot him in return. In fact, his face split into that sort of shit-eating grin that she knew meant nothing good would be coming. “C’mon, Matty. It’s my birthday! Doesn’t the birthday boy get to pick the shots you’ll be buying him?”

She planted her hands on her hips, waving at him impatiently. “Yada, yada, yada. You talk more than a politician on Sunday. What d'ya want, Eggs?”

“You already know what I want.”

The whole table groaned together, before everyone in unison said, “not Jaeger.”

“That’s right! I fucking want some Jaeger! What do you fuckers have against it, anyways? If we’re gonna do shots, then we’re gonna do them the right way!”

“Ugh. No need to go on a tirade,” Matty patted him on the shoulder, albeit unenthusiastically. She really hated him sometimes; birthday or not. “Jaeger it is.”

“Grab the boys on your way back too, would ya?” Eggs jutted his chin towards the dart board in the back of the room where two familiar heads were lining up their shots against a crowd of uniforms. “The last thing we need is to start a color war before we can even get properly drunk, eh?”

She waved off his request while making her way to the bar.

Uniforms shifted left and right around her, a few familiar faces popping out against the sea of khaki and Tommy Bahama shirts. Matty tried not to let her eye wander too much; the last thing she needed was to embolden some sailor into trying to get her number, but the bar was unusually packed making it difficult to avoid every blue-eyed sailor that looked her way. Still, she managed to get to the bar in record time.

Penny grinned at her arrival.

“Well, well, well,” Penny chirped, slinging her dish towel over her shoulder. There was a pair of pilots that she had been talking to who both glanced up at Matty’s arrival. She recognized the man with glasses that she had almost taken out earlier, but she didn’t have any clue who the dark haired woman beside him was. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to show up.”

“You and everybody else.”

“Late again?”

Matty threw her arms up. This time, she was much more careful about not whacking anyone across the face. Still, the guy with glasses kept a good distance for safety. “I swear it wasn’t my fault.”

Penny snorted. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Matty leant forward onto the bar with a depreciating sigh. The two pilots seemed amused at her theatrics, and feeling particularly nice, she smiled at them before turning back to Penny. “I need some shots.”

“Let me guess… Jaeger?”

She grinned. “Eggs is predictable like that.”

“How many?”

“Seven.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna drag Boomer off the dart board for me when things turn South?” Penny asked with a cocked hip, gesturing to the group at the back of the bar. Matty winced; Boomer was the life of the party, but he also loved to start shit with pilots whenever he got the chance. “I don’t think Hangman’s ego will be able to endure a game of darts with him. Plus, you know, I like my bar very much un-broken.”

The woman pilot snorted into her drink.

Matty eyed her a bit oddly, before turning back to Penny with a reassuring smile. “I’ll drag him out by the feet if I have to.”

“Promise?”

“Scout’s honor,” Matty said, throwing three fingers up into the air despite the fact that she had never, in her life, been a scout. Penny either didn’t know that tidbit about her or didn’t care. Matty figured it was all the same, and grinned just a little bit brighter while wiggling her hand in the air. “Your bar will remain very un-broken, Pen, I promise.”

“Hm. You know, sometimes I think you’re more trouble than he is,” Penny told her. “Hell, than any of these boys are.”

“But I’m, like, way prettier to look at.”

Penny rolled her eyes, though doesn’t disagree. Partly because she knows that Matty would argue till her lungs gave out if she had the opportunity, partly (probably) because she knows Matty was right.

Seriously. Matty was a total smoke show. How could she not see that?

“Nothing gets broken,” Penny declared, reaffirming her biggest worry, while slowly gathering up as many shot glasses as she can handle. At this, the female pilot’s eyebrows disappear into her hairline, and Matty feels something like pride worm its way up the back of her throat. “I mean it, too, Matts.”

“Does that mean you’ll add a shot of Jose Cuervo for me?”

Penny paused. Matty gave her an impish grin with a wink, before the brunette was mumbling something to herself with the shake of her head. Still, as she disappeared down the bar, Matty watched her pull a bottle of cheap tequila from the bottom shelf.

“Tequila, huh?” the female pilot chirped.

Matty turned to look at her. The woman offered a warm smile along with an amused curl of the brows, and though Matty didn’t actively make friends with aviators, she was in too good of a mood to actively ignore one either. So, she just shrugged. “The best way to get drunk besides shine.”

“Moonshine?” Glasses asked from around her shoulder, almost worried.

“Sure. Never had it?”

“No, I–I have,” he said, clearing his throat with an awkward smile. Matty darted her gaze between him and the woman, wondering if they were friends or just unfortunate workplace associates, but the woman gave nothing away as she grinned into her beer. Apparently, the idea of Glasses drinking moonshine is just as amusing to her as it is to Matty. “Just didn’t think you could find it out here. In the South, sure, but...”

“Hm. Well, you’ve obviously never been to some of the seedier bars scattered around Miramar. You can find it. Not sure if some of it should be drank, but it’s there.”

The woman laughed. “Talking from experience?”

Matty grinned. “Something like that.”

Glasses mumbled something under his breath that caught the woman’s attention, and as they fell back into steady conversation, Matty relaxed against the bar. She waved at a few regulars, smiled even when she spotted a friend of hers from basic, and snorted when some bickering started up at the dart board just like Penny had forewarned.

Yeah. Boomer was definitely trouble, alright.

And Matty was more than happy to keep herself company as she waited for her drinks when someone new slid into the open space between her and the pilots. At first, she bristled at having someone standing so close to her, but then she realized that bar was standing room only and...

Well.

He was standing.

But then she cautioned a glance over at him to find that he was already glancing at her with a curious brow and Matty almost—almost—thanked god that he had decided to stand next to her of all people because damn if he wasn’t a fine ass drink of water. Tall, thick arms, broad chest, tan skin, bright eyes, sun-streaked hair that was accented by a soft mustache that somehow looked good on him (not like the pornstaches that half of the fucking Navy was sporting nowadays). He almost looked statuesque beside her as he absorbed the warm rays of overhead lighting, smiled under her attention with something both inviting and cool, adorable and sexy.

Attractive really in every sense of the word.

Entirely fuckable too, even without moonshine.

And Matty was even considering making some sort of flirty comment towards him that would have, at the very least, earned her ten minutes of attention from a handsome stranger at the bar as she waited for Penny to return with her drinks, but then the female pilot said something to him, actually had the audacity to call him something fucking stupid like Rooster, and—

Fuck.

He was a pilot.

Matty just couldn’t win, could she?

“You weren’t saving this spot for someone, were you?” he asked after turning back away from the female pilot. The cadence of his voice was warm and inviting despite Matty internally wishing that his voice was squeaky and unattractive.

She cleared her throat and glanced at the dark bar top. “Nope.”

“Oh, good,” he nodded, still smiling. “Did you already order, then? I think the bartender—”

“Penny is working on it,” Matty told him. He blinked, pausing slightly, before nodding once again. She supposed that he was trying to be nice, but Matty had to remind herself that nice guys were the ones she had the hardest time saying no to in the past. “It’s fine.”

“You know Penny?”

“Sure,” she shrugged, effortlessly cool, yet somehow still miserably failing at being outrightly dismissive. “Everybody around here does.”

He turned at that so that he was facing her more than he was facing his friends, settling an arm on the bar in a nonchalant way that sent ripples up his toned arms and—where was Penny with those drinks?

“Oh, well, yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his neck for a moment, before adding, “I guess I didn’t realize you were from around here.”

“Taking a census, are you?”

Her deadpan response provoked a laugh from his lips; not quite the reaction she had been going for, but for once, she didn’t really mind. He had a nice laugh that matched his even nicer smile.

And—pilot, pilot, pilot.

Matty tried to keep that in mind when he leant the fraction of an inch closer so that he didn’t have to shout so much. “Not doing a census, no, just like talking to pretty girls.”

He smiled again. This was a little flirtier, a tad bit cheekier, and damn if he couldn’t be on a calendar for Miramar pilots.

“I’m Bradley,” he told her.

I’m Matty, she almost said, the reply so smooth on her tongue that it practically felt unnatural not to give it. But she shouldn’t—couldn’t—if she wanted to stick to her rules. So, instead, she smiled right back and chirped, “yeah? Good for you.”

“Alright,” he nodded, taking her dismissal in stride. “If I buy you a drink, do I get a name?”

“I already ordered my drinks, remember?”

“Ah,” he snapped his fingers, offering up an expression of mock remembrance. “I almost forgot. You’re not waiting on someone, and you already ordered your drinks from Penny. Right. You just got it all worked out already, don’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

He tsked, shoulders sinking with a sigh, as he tapped his hand on the bar counter. “Well, then, that only leaves with me one option.”

“Oh?”

“I guess I need to just go ahead and ask for your phone number,” he shrugs, as if it really is the only thing he can do. “I mean, normally I would say some stupid pick up line and then introduce myself, get a laugh or two from you, tell you that I think your name is just as beautiful as you are—of course, that's a given—and then I would ask for your number while buying you a drink. You’re really kind of ruining my routine here.”

“A shame,” she snorts, rolling her eyes, and trying her darndest not to smile.

It’s hard though. Especially when he is so unabashed in his flirting, so unbothered by her tone, and so fucking cute.

“There’s always next time,” he whistled. “Unless you want me to start over?”

Matty leant on the bar. On the one hand, she wanted to tell him to get lost. On the other hand, he was cute and had a good sense of humor, and seemed to be in a good enough mood that she might actually feel bad if she shattered it callously just because of her silly rules not to engage with pilots.

Still, when Penny brushed by with a curious look, Matty had to remind herself that one option was better than the other. “You can try,” she said, the implication that it wouldn’t be a successful attempt clear in her tone.

Yet, for some reason, he stuck around.

“Ah, c’mon, you don’t even know what I was gonna say,” he told her, leaning on the bar with just enough of a flex of the arms that she couldn’t help but look even if she didn’t want to. Bradley’s smile widened. The little shit obviously knew what he was doing. “Ready?”

“Alright then,” she waved a hand at him impatiently. “Let’s get this over with.”

He made a show of standing up straighter, combing his hair, adjusting his shirt so that it hung just right, before leaning back onto the bar as if he had just shown up. “Hey, this is really weird, but I think there’s something wrong with me phone. Your number isn’t on it.”

Matty couldn’t help herself and laughed loud enough that the nearby pilots could hear. The blonde from earlier—having recently vacated the dart board—glared at them from across the bar top.

“That was horrible,” she told him matter-of-factly.

“In a good way, though.”

“No, in a horrible way,” she tsked, slowly calming down from her laughter, and now truly struggling to keep a smile off of her face. Rules, rules, rules, she reminded herself while clearing her throat. “Maybe you should go find someone else to waste that line on.”

“I kind of like wasting it on you though.”

Matty curled a sharp brow at that, but somehow managed to keep from smiling again. What a reckless mess that would be. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re hitting on the wrong girl.”

“That’s perfect then,” he shrugs, before smoothly saying, “because I didn’t tell you this yet, but I’m Mr. Right. I think we’d be a perfect pair.”

His friends snicker to themselves over his shoulder at the obvious line, and as Bradley turns to shoot them a dark look that effectively shuts up their eavesdropping, Matty squares her shoulders. And when he turns back to face her, she actively tries to appear as disinterested as possible.

“Look, you’re seriously wasting your time,” she tells him, only now managing to be a little bit more serious and a little less flirty. “If you had been around here much before tonight, you would know that I am not the girl to hit on. There’s plenty others though that would be totally into... this.”

Bradley arches a brow high on his forehead, nearly touching the perfectly coifed curls that were resting against his tan skin at that. His smile was still bright and gentle, but there was a shine of curiosity in his eyes now. “You a big deal around here or something?”

“Or something,” she simpers.

If her attitude was off putting, he didn’t comment on it.

Instead, he takes a long neck of his drink before gesturing to her with his free hand. “Well? Are you gonna give me an introduction? Since I’m new around here, I think it’s only fair that I know the local big deal so I don’t get myself into trouble without knowing it.”

Damn him. Matty sighs at his continued persistence; even worse was the way she found herself wanting to stick around in conversation with him. Still, she knew. Better to shoot him down now before his plane got any wind under the wings—a fiery crash on the runway was less likely to hurt them both than a nosedive from the sky.

“Alright, fine. I’m not interested.”

“Not interested, huh?” he hums while picking at the label on his beer bottle. “That’s an interesting name. Are your parents multicultural or something?”

It surprises her how quickly his response comes; so laid back, unoffended, without that familiar lightning strike of ego that boys like him often had provoked when she said something so upfront and defensive. But what surprises her more was the laugh that once again bubbles at the back of her throat.

Definitely not good.

A cute pilot with a sense of humor? Oh no, Matty knew better than to go down that road—not fucking likely if she had anything to say about it.

“Look, Buddy—” she starts.

“Bradley.”

“Bradley,” she corrects with a huff, “I don’t date flyboys.”

“Flyboys? Isn’t that term a few decades old?” Matty shoots him a baleful look at his humorous response, to which he just shrugs with that same easy going smile of his. If she had to guess—and she was usually right about these sort of things considering the majority of men all shared the same two brain cells—he was amusing himself by riling her up because his caveman brain associated a pissed off female with a horny one. “We don’t even know each other. Why are you so certain that I’m a pilot?”

To this, she cocks a brow and a hip. “Seriously?”

“I mean, I’m more than happy to play twenty questions with you, but that sort of borders first date territory, doesn’t it?” he says.

“No thanks,” she deadpans. “Besides, I’ve been around long enough to see you pilots come through training every couple of months. I knew you were one the second I laid eyes on you, buddy.”

“It’s Bradley,” he corrects once more, amused at himself and at getting the chance to poke a little fun at her. “And how do you know I’m not a backseater?”

“Because you have that look.”

“Look?”

Matty doesn’t explain, and just as he’s about to ask, Penny settles a tray of shots into the open bar space between them. She gives Matty a look—one that says what the hell are you doing still talking to him?—which only further prompts the blonde to focus on why she was here, and not why she wasn’t.

Winking at Penny, Matty turns to Bradley, and promptly tells him, “WSOs don’t have that stupid swagger that you’re walking around with.”

Bradley leans back an inch, frowning down at himself as if he's trying to pinpoint the swagger she’s indicating, and Matty takes pleasure in poking the pair of sunglasses hanging off of his shit.

“Oh, and the aviators? They are decades old and a dead fucking give away,” she tells him before promptly throwing back the shot of amber tequila. It burns all the way down, relaxing the coiled muscles in her shoulders, and as she slams the empty glass back down onto the counter, Matty finds something cheeky worming its way along her tongue. “You meet your new instructor yet?"

His frown becomes perturbed as he coils a brow at her; no longer flirty, but curious, and slightly concerned. “No?”

Matty hums. “Well, you and your friends might want to check your egos on the tarmac then; there’s really not enough room for both of them when you’re up in the sky with that smartass.”

She heaves the tray onto her shoulder before turning away from the bar.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, only to be ignored as she surveys the bar. Boomer and George were already making their way outside, and she figures it was now or never if she wanted to rein them in from their gambling. Matty winks at Glasses on her way past as Bradley shouts, “wait! Seriously. Can I at least have your phone number?”

“Like I said,” she coils a foxy look in his direction, taking pleasure in the way he stands a little straighter beside his friends. “I don’t date pilots.”

Matty never knew if he took offense to that.

Probably, considering that every pilot everywhere had the ego of a goddamned Olympian, but the crowd swallows her up before she gets the chance to see his reaction. Fine by her; she hadn’t come to the bar to get hit on by this month’s latest crew of aviators. Instead, she had come to get drunk with her friends.

Friends that hoot upon seeing her arrive with the shots.

“Fuckin’ took you long enough,” Boomer crows, grinning wildly when she lays the shots down on the table. Everyone grabs their respective glass as he juts his chin towards the bar. “Another newbie trying to fuck?”

“They get more and more resilient every year," she jokes with an airy sigh. Claire snorts, amused, and makes a crude joke about why women were always better than men as George tosses an arm over Matty's shoulder with an endearing smirk.

“Yeah, well, fuck them,” he tells her. “I’ll keep you company, Matts.”

“My hero,” she bats her eyes at him. The rest of the table laughs; all the boys having taken turns keeping Matty from fighting off pilots, all deeply amused each time it happens, so they know that despite her not needing the help, she enjoyed it all the same. Next, she turns her attention the only man she wants to spend attention on tonight. “Happy Birthday Eggs!’

Eggs laughs in response as the others share their sentiments, pink flushing his dark skin until his cheeks were the characteristic rosy color of someone that was a step too close to being drunk. He takes only a moment to think before raising his shot glass in return, proclaiming, “to fixing shit that shouldn’t be broken.”

“And to breaking shit that should never be fixed!” the rest of the table responds in their self-proclaimed motto.

Together, they clink their glasses, cheer, and then throw back the Jaeger with varying degrees of disgust. In unison, seven glasses were slammed onto the table, and suddenly Matty finds herself forgetting all about egos, pilots, and cute boys like Bradley.

Afterall, he was a pilot. And rules were rules.

She didn’t break them for anyone.

***taglist (thanks for asking!) @callsignbarb @coyotesamachado @shanimallina87

#bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster x oc #bradley bradshaw x oc #top gun maverick #top gun maverick imagine #bradley bradshaw series #rooster series #heart mechanics #more to come

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sapphhyra · 16 days

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Tomorrow launched ARMTGE!

ARMTGE is born to be compatible with both 5e and onednd. It focuses on the noir, introspective, and human themes that are at the core of the cyberpunk genre, rather than flashing neon lights and heroic cyborgs.

The future isn't as bright as you wished. Corporations own everything, your life, and your body. People come into the world to buy, consume, and throw away. There is no more good and evil, but only people that do anything to survive.

Fantasy Cyberpunk: in the future, technology replaces everything. What was called magic is explained by science, and those arcane practices are long forgotten. Most of the fantastical creatures that people dream of went extinct, and only few ill critters survive dwelling in the sewers of metropolis. This is your magical world and the protagonists are still humans, elves, orcs, and all the common fantasy races.

ARMTGE also introduces many new mechanics, such as hacking, weapon attachments, and body mods, in addition to the new classes, origins, and character backgrounds. For the first time after Descent Into Avernus, players will also be able to own their personal vehicles, chossing from a wide variety of cars, trucks, bike and even flying vehicles. Each new mechanic is designed to be simple to understand, but also with enough depth to entertain any kind of player, from the casual, to the hardcore min-maxer.

If you love 5e, and you would like to experience your world in a dark future, this is for you!

#dnd5e #ttrpg #dnd homebrew #ttrpg community #ttrpgcommunity #cyberpunk #cyberpunk ttrpg

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rubykgrant · 6 months

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(Thing that's been floating around in my head, and It's hard to work up to the part where it takes place in the grander scheme of the story... so here it is, by itself~)

It's early in the evening. The air is still warm from the day, but a breeze is starting to blow, the night is stretching out from all the shadows and dark corners, bringing the coolness with it. The city is alive with movement and people, everything making a constant hum in the background... but a few things rise up occasionally; more movement, brighter lights, louder sounds. It's all very big and vast, yet full of so many little bits, areas that contain small moments of entire lives, defined and individual, and all of it flowing together.

On one sidewalk, a crowd of people walk. some in one direction, some going the opposite way. Eventually, a man crosses the street, turns a corner, and walks up several concrete steps to the top of an overlook. Here is space for people to gather and watch the city. There is smooth concrete for the bike baths, and cobblestone around the planter boxes full of trees, shrubs, and flowers.

The man stands at the top of the steps, pausing for a moment to simply look up at the buildings that stretch up to the sky, still faintly illuminated by the setting sun. It looks like a pale shade of turquoise, the clouds splashes of a peachy-pink color. It's like seeing the world upside-down, the sky is the ocean, the clouds are the sandy shore.

The man lets his head tilt back down to Earth, seeing the various people around him. The buildings cast long shadows across the overlook, the light making bright streaks, like stripes of summer and winter painted across the world.

Some people moving through the light and shadows are on their own, hurrying on to somewhere else or just taking their time to enjoy the view. Some are meeting friends to decide on where to go next. Some are meeting family for dinner, some are meeting for dates, some are going to work at a late-night job, some are walking their pets, and so on, and so...

The man walks forward, turning his head a bit when he hears music; below the overlook, in a little courtyard beside a bridge, there is a small amphitheater. A live band is starting to play.

Up here on the overlook, there are several people sitting along on benches beside the planter boxes, directly above the courtyard. At first it seems like maybe 4 or 5 different groups, maybe a few who are alone... but then somebody leans over to talk to the others on a different bench, somebody calls out a name and shares a joke, somebody walks to join another group giving a hug or playful shove, somebody interrupts a conversation because they have a different opinion and a fight that isn't at all serious starts up.

These people are, in fact, all part on one BIG group. Friends, a few relatives, and family by choice. Bad habits are well-known. Old arguments and on-going discussions are both amusing and comfortable. There is a shared sense of fondness even through the teasing and bickering. Perhaps even BECAUSE of it.

Knowing you've seen the worst in each other, and it wasn't enough to drive anybody away... and even if it was, they would come back. Knowing none of you are the same, but you're all connected. Knowing that you've all been hurt, you've all felt yourselves falling apart, you've all lost something important... but you're still here, you can still enjoy being alive, and you have the people you belong with.

The man's expression goes soft as he looks at them; it almost seems like an entire transformation from his previous expression, something like "resting irritated face". The small smile that quirks up in one corner reaches his eyes, and yes, it really does suit him now. In the fading light, streetlamps flicker on. Around him, there is almost a glow, as if he has his own illumination, pale little sparks of different forms of happiness. "Joy" does not describe it enough... it's a feeling of seeing something that is so simple, it would be utterly unremarkable to most people... and yet it is something precious to him, something he never thought would ever be his.

The man steps forward, going toward the group, and Tucker sees him first; he's standing and leaning over behind Caboose, resting a folded arm on Caboose's head. Caboose is pushing up against the feeling, appreciating the affection. When Tucker raises an arm in greeting, Caboose turns to look, and his face lights up even brighter than the streetlamps.

This is followed by the attention of everybody else- Grif and Simmons had basically huddled together, having some deep discussion about a movie nobody else cared about, with Donut standing up and basically sitting on Grif against his back. Simmons straightens up to wave, and Grif turns to give a little head-nod, pushing Donut off, but Donut keeps pressing his weight back on Grif's hand, so when Grif turns again, Donut just falls back to sitting against his back. He grins and laughs through the whole thing.

Sarge is talking to Locus, who seems to not know what to do with his hands in a casual situation, and Doc... though, maybe it's O'Malley, judging from the elaborate way he's gesturing with his own hands (the opposite of Locus, who is keeping them awkwardly held behind his back), as if acting out a violent scene from Shakespeare. Sarge gestures over, like he's saying- "Look who decided to show up!". Locus starts to wave, hesitates, then follows through. Doc smiles, O'Malley winks.

At another bench is Kai, Lopez, Wash, and Carolina; Kai seems to be in the middle of telling a story, and Lopez repeatedly cuts her off, because she's telling it WRONG, with Wash and Carolina as their captive audience. Kai puts one of her hands up between herself and the helmet that was his face, and Lopez flips her off. Wash notices the others greeting the new arrival, and he's the one who nudges Lopez to get their attention, and points over. Kai smiles, and Lopez nods agreeably. Wash laughs, tilting his head up as his hello. When Carolina extends an arm out, making a "come over here" movement, her expression goes soft as well, and for a moment, it almost looks the same as his...

He comes closer. As he gets to Caboose and Tucker, Caboose stands up to hug him; at his full height, he's much taller than Tucker, so Tucker just holds on, arms wrapped around Caboose's shoulders, making him part of the hug from behind.

As he passes the others, they reach out to give him a punch in the arm (Sarge), a side-hug, and other little taps and touches. He finally arrives to give Carolina a hug, and he has to briefly go up to his tip-toes so his chin rests on her shoulder. When she holds him close, just for a moment, Carolina notes how much more solid he feels than a few months ago; he's put on more weight, and it looks like he was really more of himself like this, like he was supposed to be somebody with thick limbs, comfortably chubby.

After saying hello to Wash and the others, he walks just a bit further to the next bench, where one last person is waiting for him.

Tex even sits with a "power-stance", unapologetically taking up as much space as she pleases. She's been waiting for him, knowing he'd get here eventually, and now she adjusts herself, leaning to one side slightly and holding out one arm. He sits down beside her, welcomed and comfy. He puts an arm behind her, bending to go up the middle to follow the dip of her spine. He hopes she knows how much he appreciates this... the closeness and the caring, it was always there underneath everything else, but they never got to really see what it could mean for themselves. They never got to really know what they wanted. They never got the chance to have it. If she wants to be here, with him and everybody else, he's more than happy to help her have that.

Church closes his eyes, listening to the music, listening to the conversations of his friends pick back up, listening to the city around them. He's part of all this. He's actually happy. This moment won't last forever, and who knows what might go wrong tomorrow, but right now... this felt really good

#red vs blue #rvb

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redswaberkez · 7 months

Note

ayo whos ur favorite deus ex character btw nice art

ohhhhh GOD my time has come. and so have i (wRONG GAME)

tldr

i love "main" 7-8 of them equally. What is a main to me? ofc Adam, Frank, Megan, Malik, Eliza, JC and Alex D. One special place in my heart is for Vaclav

big text below

Thank for compliment btw 😖

Spoilers alert ? idk

(warning my english is gonna be sometimes sooo rusty i guess)

DOUBLE WARNING I don’t rule out that over the many years of being in dxs fandom, the main concept of game's lore in my head just didnt messed up with my own headcanons. it is alteady messed up. cuz. yk) me n my besties created the full story aND - [GUNSHOT]

yeah i know it is strange to say, that dx has more main characters that just. Adam, JC and Alex D, cuz. They are Literally The Main chars. But back to my seven.

As i said before i love them all equally, for different reasons. One thing abt dx as a game is that characters arent plain and they are multifaceted.(?)

Adam

I love Adam for his complicated story, personality, for his own struggles, motivations and how they are represented in game. These small environment storytelling pieces and music that creates the mood (wait redswa it isnt abt the environment). What im trying to say. Through the gameS - dxhr and dxmd - we can see how Adam is healing from his trauma, and how heavy it was. Also needet to be noted how he interacts w another characters. AND this tension between him and Frank but how at the end of the day (but lit at panchaea) Frank is still cares a lot abt Adam.

Also Adam is just like my bestie. Moral think for yourself. Yeah.

Pritchard

ONE thing i need to say abt frank is HESSS JUST LIKE MEE FRR, and now imagine some kind of cringe sigma phonk playing on the background. Yeah thats it. I relate to him so much but like. in more✨deep infj cringe way✨ Have you evere feel like Pritchard is gonna explode from nerves or even neurotism? Or like from blast of incomperhensible mess of feelings but he hides it? This is what im talking about. Heyy dont judge me i need to project some shit to my faves okay???? Damn how could you tell i have a lot of hc on dx? i have no idea!

I love Pritchard's informality. I mean. BRO WHY YOUR BIKE IS EVEN ON YOUR WORKPLACE???? AND THIS FINAL FANTASY POSTER???? AND THIS TV INSTALLATION??? honestly?understandable.

In Prague, Frank is still reminds Adam abt himself. Yeah i knoe it is for game purposes, but imo in lore perspective: Pritchard is gathered a lot of info for Adam (basically dxhr retelling), and this small detail: Adam keeps Pritchard's book. (i know you can find them anywhere in Prague, but still (methink eidos gaf later abt this texture and put it anywhere jus because lmao))

This ^^^ is Frank btw

Ok enough abt Pritchard cuz then its gonna be endless

Megan and Malik.

Another notable thing that i like in dx series is that women in game arent sexualized. They arend "simple and f🤮ckable objescts" Megan is a scientist, on a verge of the greatest innovation. Yes. We dont know much abt her bc she is literally missing. Malik is a pilot. Damn i love her sm. Her chardesign. Strong and powerful charisma and nonconfotmity. Faridah's sidequest in Hengsha???? MY GIRLLLL GO AND GET AND BEAT SHIT OF THIS ASSHOLE. 👊👊👊👊

I remember how sad was i, when Malik was killed in dxhr and how happy was i to find out her little gift in Prague.

Overall kinda sad that there is not much screentime of them.

AND another notable thing. Megan and revolver. Revolver as an inspiration. OK I GOT IT

Eliza

Its 2028 and AI is already taken big steps in development. Questions of self-consciousness of an AI were asked in a lot of sci-fi creations. And deus is not not an exception. Love how Eliza obtains her own conscious during the game and how it leads to project Hyron at the end. I have a lot of thought abt p. Hyron overall. Another topic ngl.

And ofc her design is beyond all praise. Thank you designers for NOT making her oversexualized.

During dxmd Eliza is also questioning a lot of essential questions. I know she does. But cant remember what exactly it was. Need to replay tho

My bad, i still cant play through dx original, so i can only rely on his vibes. His vibes are good and silly. He has big meme potential cuz hes test-tubed. Not sorry tho

bro im laughing and exploding from this meme like 3 yrs but RIGHT NOW DURING ANSWERING YOUR ASK I UNDERSTOOD THAT THIS IS SOYJAK REFERENCE AND NOW IM DYING LIKe x3 TIMES I WAS SO BLIND MY VISION WASNT AUGMENTED TILL NOW

Alex D

When my pc even didnt existed and i was a laptop player, when the grass was greener....... I played dxiw. Yeah it isnt so big, but for its times it is good enough. Alex also radiate vibes of small and silly-stupid-Bi guy, the one who is gonna trip on air.

(meme with pom dog says "I will gnaw out your heart and eat it")

Look at him. Hes got an ears, unlike his brothers, but he has ZERO braincells. JC and Paul at least got some braincells, maybe one, or two and they are belong to Paul. Cost of an ears = cost of brain

Alex tried to fool up an AI. I would venture to say that he even flirted with her, and got rejected. Local bidlow tried to gop-stop (bandits tried to steal) his jacked and he could give it to and be like "better be pissed on than punched😖"

Yes, He is a silly fool (noneg, with love) but hes got a big heart like. At least, i remember so.

And last but not least

Vaclav

Love him for his light distinctive punkie nature, with big heart and ready to help whenever you need it. Vaclav tries his best so much. In library we can find cz-eng vocabulary with medical terms, when ig most of his patiens are czechs... says a lot

I would say that vaclav is silly but not stupid, not even naive. We can find him on Dvali's blacklist, but he is important for them. (but we also remember that otar just dont like him cuz vac knows radich's secret and otar is not (mb that the reason why vaclav is blacklisted))

well how to say it.. he's soul is good and lovely, he is not evil or dark. Idk cant find an eng analogue.

But in srb and ru we have доброћудан [dobrochudan] (literally good-lovely) or добродушный [dobrodushny] (good-souly)

actually this gif sums everything abt him very well

Thank you for ask! I really liked to talk on this topic

#redswa's microwave sounds #ask #deus ex #deus ex mankind divided #deus ex human revolution #adam jensen #francis pritchard #eliza cassan #megan reed #faridah malik #jc denton #Alex denton #longread #vaclav koller

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usernoneexistent · 1 year

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Challenge: All You need is love @hp-12monthsofmagic

A/N: I don't know what demon possessed me but I wrote this in like two days and then she had the audicatity to ask me to draw not just one but four drawings however o realised that I didn't have the time so here it is. So, Zola is tired from living with a loveless home but a simple letter from someone special is exactly what she needed.

Warnings: swearing, verbal abuse, child neglect, classism, no romance but angst with a hopeful ending

The night was cooling down London from the Summer heat earlier. The sun lingered around longer despite it being close to midnight. Zola wasn't even doing anything exciting, just hanging around the council block playground before a group of older kids from the block took over. She was smart enough to know when to move out of the way.

Instead she opted for walking aimlessly through her neighbourhood in the borough of London. Children screaming happily, ice cream vans and teens on their bikes filled the Summer night.

Zola had spent most of her summer either writing to her best friend, Tarra or seeing if Michael, a guy from her block was free. None of her old mates from primary wanted to hang out with the girl going to 'boarding school'. Like all of a sudden she has become one of those snobs from the West end.

And staying home wasn't an option for her. Auntie Gracie-Mae and uncle Andrew weren't exactly fun company either. They barely tolerated her presence so why stay any longer. Though now she figured would be a good time to head back to their council flat.

Zola waltzed back in without care that she made loud noise in the middle of the night. The TV was blarring in the background anyway. As she stomped pass the crack of the living room door where uncle Andrew has been sitting there since he woke up in the afternoon.

"Zola! What did I say about slamming the door?!" He yelled, slurring his words. The bastard was drunk and Auntie Gracie-Mae was off on the night shift.

She hated being alone with the slob. He didn't do anything but watch TV, eat, yell and sleep. Andrew was too lazy to even get out of the sofa.

"What did you say, you little bitch!" He yelled louder, grunting from the sofa.

"Fuck you, Andrew!" Zola slammed the door again.

"I said fuck you!" Zola repeated before marching to her bedroom, slamming another door. She grabbed a chair to lock her door before letting frustrated groan to the pillow. Remnants of her makeup remained on the pillow.

She looked at the news articles that she had converted as posters. All these cursebreakers free and full of fun and adventure. That's all she wanted, every Summer felt like a prison with them. Her father doesn't bother writing but her brother, Jeremiah did occasionally send an owl but ultimately she was all alone.

She clutched the pillow, hugging it tightly. No one wanted her. Zola was alone in this miserable apartment. Angry or sad tears, Zola wasn't sure threaten to leave her eyes.

"Everyone sucks." She muttered.

Zola wished she had a normal family or as normal as she could get. She was jealous of Tarra, her parents there for everything and even her cousin, Duncan. Yeah, he would moan about his father but it was clear that he wanted to be there for him. Her parents never did that for her. Her father decided robbing Gringotts was worth more than her and her mother...well she probably took one look at Zola and noped out.

A knock on her window brought her out of her own self pity party. A barn owl was outside with a letter inbetween her beak. She knew that owl immediately; Tori, Tarragon's owl.

Zola let in the owl and took the letter. Her fingers fumbled to open it quickly. She scanned each word meticulously, soaking in everything.

"Damn you, Tarra." Zola cracked a wide grin. "Always know how to make my day."

The timing couldn't have been any better. Tarra was inviting her to Scotland to stay with her and Duncan for a while. Without much thought, Zola grabbed whatever she felt she needed and stuffed it into a bag. Including her secret stash of gallons, sickles and knuts.

She boldly strutted past Andrew with new found confidence.

"Where are you going?"

"None of your business, not like you ever care." Zola opened the front door. "Oh and I may never come back. You can tell Auntie Gracie-Mae that."

Andrew looked startled through the door before Zola slammed the door one last time.

Before Zola could change her mind a gust of wind before a royal purple triple decker bus was infront of her.

She looked for a secluded road before putting her wand hand up in the air. She felt stupid but she was sure this was how she could get the knight bus.

"You comin' on?"

Zola blinked before registering what was going on. A man in a purple uniform and a worn out soldiers cap

"Right."

She hopped on, paying eleven sickles for a ticket and told her destination to the Tentsmuir, Scotland. The man was the conductor who welcomed her aboard and showed about.

Metal beds in rows took up majority of the space. Some curtains were closed from other passengers. The few who hadn't closed their curtains stared at the fourteen year old. Zola simply gave a glare back in retaliation and chucked her bag onto the bed.

She closed the curtains for privacy and pulled out the smooshed letters from Tarra. Every letter of Tarra telling her she missed her best friend and was lonely without her when she was in Romania, England or Scotland. While Zola doubt that Tarra would ever feel lonely surrounded by animals a her words filled her heart more than any snogging with Michael ever did.

At some point, Zola's body finally caved into to sleep after staying up for so long. Though when she woke up, she felt her neck sore and the letters spread on stomach and chest.

The bus halted to a forceful stop. Her letters flew off the bed and her bag rolled to the middle of the floor.

"We have arrived at Tentsmuir." The conductor announced. "Thanks for taking the Knight bus, we hope you had a pleasant stay."

It was a beautiful sight of the sunrise along if the forest behind where she could find the stone cottage. She walked through the patches of grass with hope that she could gain a new home.

Zola hurriedly grabbed everything and stumbled out the bus. It left immediately leaving her at a muggle road. She covered her eyes as the stream of sunlight of the sun rising beamed in her face.

#hp12mom #zola albatross #tarragon weasley moss #magic awakened #hp next gen #duncan ludwig

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zipzin · 10 months

Text

Boomerang - Act Two: Fall 2017, Part I (Also on Ao3)

And here we go :)

“White Canary, on your left.”

“I see him.” Sara muttered into the comms.

She slid the man’s legs out from under him. One punch to the head and he was out like a light.

“He’s down.”

“I’ve secured the target.” Oliver growled into the comms. “Move out.”

Sara dropped another man as Oliver reappeared. He fired an arrow at someone on the roof and she grabbed him as he got onto his bike. Things were so simple with Oliver. Go in, punch people, get out.

Team Arrow was precise with Felicity’s guidance, but they also didn’t have to worry about messing up the timeline if people saw them. Or if they accidentally killed someone. Or broke something. Or, Sara thought begrudgingly, left something behind.

They swept into the Arrow Cave in record time and Oliver placed down some technical component on the table for Felicity to look at. Rene cleaned his pistols while Curtis put away his mask and Sara stared, standing next to Felicity as she looked it over, flipping the piece in her hand.

“You think you can help Blondie?” Rene came up next to her.

Sara shot him a disbelieving look, “Obviously not. I’m not part of the Geek squad.” She heard Felicity and Curtis’s offended squawks in the background. “Just letting you two do your thing.” She waved at the cases.

Rene stared her down and Sara just stared back, trying to not look amused. He still hadn’t completely warmed up to her, every now and then questioning her like she was an enemy they were interrogating while Sara would try not to laugh at his attempts at intimidation. Oliver would just sigh, Felicity would try to fight him on her behalf, and John would imposingly stare at him.

Sara didn’t mind, her background was rather colorful, and she was pretty sure he hadn’t been around the craziness of Barry and Central City. It didn’t mean that she hadn’t purposely scared him with her “assassin training” as Felicity called it.

Seeing him leap out of his seat with a high pitched scream always helped whatever frustration she was feeling towards him.

Meanwhile Curtis had bombarded her with a thousand questions that she couldn’t answer. She’d almost given him Jax’s number, but figured that Jax might not forgive her for making him talk about time travel to an over-excitable stranger.

She was still waiting to meet Dinah, the woman who had taken the mantle of Canary from Laurel.

It was strange to just be a piece in the machine. She didn’t give any orders, just followed them, and while Oliver would take her advice sometimes, she didn’t pay enough attention to planning to really know the moving pieces. Sometimes it suited her, she could take all the pent up aggression from her idiot manager on whoever needed punching. But she just mostly felt like an overtrained thug.

“I’m out,” Sara said once Oliver and Felicity had put their heads together to go over some new plan.

“Will we see you tomorrow?” Felicity asked.

“Maybe,” Sara shrugged, “I’m working so.”

Felicity nodded and Sara made her way to the elevator, some of the tension between her shoulder blades gone, but mostly just feeling exhausted.

The steps up to her father’s apartment feel insurmountable, and for a moment she just leans against the wall. Who knew working minimum wage jobs was worse than staking out a target for Ra’s?

There were worse places to be, Sara reminded herself as she pulled herself up the rest of the stairs. She could still be working for Ra’s. Or Merlyn. Or stuck in Doomworld under Damian’s control killing all her friends.

Though working customer service felt like its own sort of Doomworld.

The apartment was empty when she entered and she heaved herself on the couch. She responded to Felicity’s text that she would not be joining them tonight and took off her shoes to try and get feeling back in her feet.

She’d figure out dinner later, closing her eyes as she felt her body begin to relax, aches she didn’t know she had suddenly making themselves known.

The door jangled as her dad stepped through, plastic bags swishing in his hand, “I brought dinner!”

“Thank god!”

He placed them on the coffee table, “Are you going out tonight?”

“No,” Sara said as she began to unpack the food.

He gave her a quick hug, “Long day?”

“The longest.” Sara sighed.

“Well, I’m happy that you’re staying in, we can enjoy an evening in.”

Sara snorted, “We both know you’re just going to turn on the Rockets game.”

His hand stopped, hovered over the remote. He smiled, “It’s always more fun with someone else.” And flicked on the channel.

The sports announcers were a quiet murmur in the background as Sara began the gorge herself on chow mein. “And,” He added, “I always worry when you’re off doing your thing. Even when you were on a futuristic spaceship with all that fancy technology. So, I like having you right here, where I know you aren’t getting into trouble.”

“I’m always getting into trouble.” Sara smirked.

He rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

“I know, and I’m in less danger than you think.”

He gave her a skeptical glance, “I think it’s better if you don’t lie and I can imagine whatever I want to.”

Sara laughed, “If you want.”

“I mean dinosaurs in LA? Atomic bombs and being scattered in time? Half the stuff you talk about I never could have imagined. I’d much rather think you’re kidnapping doctors from the wrong time period.”

“Deal.”

“How long does this train take again?” Nate whined next to her.

Sara rolled her eyes, “If you’d just come to Star City as I asked you’d already know. And we’d be there.”

“Look, I had a life there,” Nate said, “One that when this blows up in our face I’ll go back to.”

“It’s not going to blow up in our face,” Sara said.

“It always blows up in our face.” Ray nodded to Nate.

“Well, this one isn’t. We just need to prove to Rip that his Time Bureau isn’t perfect.” Sara said evenly, “And then we get our ship back.”

“Why would he just give us the Waverider? He probably has a team using it now.”

“Better than us?” Sara asked.

Neither of them looked that confident and Sara gave her best smile. She really wished that Nate had mentioned earlier that Amaya wasn’t with him. How was she supposed to contact her? Did Amaya get a phone? Was she in Central City still? She wanted to ask Nate, but he looked so depressed that she figured she’d let Ray talk to him about it. Ray was not getting her message to get him to talk about it and just giving Nate puppy dog eyes.

Though she really wanted Amaya here.

It was pretty much the only reason she’d gone to Central City.

She knew not messaging Stein or Jax was a mistake, but she felt bringing Firestorm would send the wrong message. They weren’t trying to blow something up.

She checked her phone, they had fifteen minutes before they were due to arrive, and Sara felt her heart skip in her chest. They could do this, they’d get the Waverider back, all they needed to do was talk to Rip, who was hopefully there, and as long as Rory had secured Julius Caesar, they were good.

What could go wrong?

Sara felt giddy as they walked up to the building that Felicity and her had staked out several weeks ago. She’d changed out of her uniform as they ate an early dinner at her dad’s and she was certain this couldn’t go wrong. The Time Bureau didn’t have a reception desk, and the badge from Craig was safely in her wallet.

They get up, they walk in, they find Rip.

Easy.

They get Rip to give them the Waverider and start patrolling the timeline.

Sara shook herself, that was getting too far ahead. No need to overcomplicate what could be a very straightforward mission.

The boys seemed surprised that she’d lifted a badge off an agent, and she can only shake her head at them, laugh bit down because they are technically trespassing. But Rip will understand.

She hopes.

The lobby is absurd, with a floating holograph symbol and a couple dozen people all wearing the same thing. Sara only has a moment to take it all in before the first agent pulls out a gun.

“Freeze!”

More agents pour in, guns cocking, and Sara sighed. Had Rip really plastered their picture around the Bureau and told them to be met with force? Or since they weren’t wearing those ugly suits everyone thought that they were an anachronism? She lifts her arms half-heartedly.

“Hello, everyone. Welcome.”

The woman’s voice whispered to something in her head, and Sara froze, trying to place it through time.

“On the floor. Hands behind your heads.”

Sara rolled her eyes. This was so fucking excessive. She began to crouch as the woman came into view and she felt like she’d been hit with three arrows all over again.

It couldn’t be.

She didn’t look at her, instead forcing Ray down with excessive force, but Sara couldn’t do anything but stare, her mouth dropping open.

She leaned over Ray, and Sara knew, that after 13 years, she was back in the presence of Ava Sharpe.

What the fuck?

#avalance #legends of tomorrow #my writing: avalance #my writing: lot #my writing #boomerang au #mine

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noahjobbinsaut · 22 days

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WEEK 7 - FORMATIVE POSTER ANALYSIS

these are the posters I have submitted for the formative assessment. I will post development evidence seperately. my submitted Rationale is in ittalics, and then I expand on my design decisions afterwards;

I chose to pursue my Political poster design for this Formative Assessment Handin. I found the limit of 3 colours to be an enjoyable challenge.

For the background of the two posters, I chose a contrast of red and green, using 2 of my 3 allotted colours. While this does convey the crude message of “consider riding your bike,” I chose these colours specifically to mimic a traffic light.

I chose to make the typographic elements a simple list, as lists are quick to read and easy to understand, as I don’t want to distract someone entirely, should they be driving.

The Black strip both acts to link the posters together, and it also represents roads, with the bike strip being thinner to showcase how bike lanes are thinner than car roads. I tried to keep the thickness similar enough so it wouldn't look out of place, and I think i achieved this.

If I was told to make a third poster, I would make another yellow poster, in the center, talking about buses. This would complete the traffic light comparison.

The context of the poster relates to Aotearoa today, this is because of many recent projects that are being pushed by various parties for increasing the walkability of our cities, and decreasing our countries reliance on cars.

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nverl0st · 28 days

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march song recs!

this month passed way too quickly. i finally put confronted the thing that has been plaguing me for the past few months. it saddens me that it turned out the way it did, but to be honest i don't have enough energy to care anymore.... so! i also did some things that scared me a lot (which were easier than i realized), got some really good scores on a couple of tests (i'm very proud) and realized that i need to continue improving on myself in various aspects. i cannot always hold other people to my standards, since we are all so different.

--- fight or flight - conan gray

my friends were shocked to see me listening to a "normal" artist for once. smh. ngl i did find this song from a ship edit- a DAMN good one at that, it tore out my heart. i seriously love the lyrics of the chorus and how "i'd rather lie" and "i'd rather die" contrast each other. it's. so. good. my second favorite part is the part that goes "they've got eyes like mine...". the way he sings is also so amazing.

--- 一笑江湖, this december

i've featured these songs before haven't i??? i'm surprised to see them so high again lol.

--- If I Could Ride A Bike - Park Bird, Chevy

i first found this song in 2020 (of course i did), from a ship animatic (of COURSE i did) so it brings back lots of very nostalgic memories listening to this song. i don't always love romance songs, but this one is super cute and ends on a terribly sorrowful note. it's always a easy listen with its cafe ambience vibes and simple metaphors. "but, I will never be, able to do these things", and the whole slow section, always hurts.

--- William Shamsphere ~ Back Alley Bard - Yasumasa Kitagawa

listen. do not get weirded out by the guy's name. this theme absolutely slaps. the castanet sounding like percussion in the background are so satisfying to listen to. it's so flamboyant and dramatic... like the guy himself. i've been on a dgs rewatch lately, so maybe more of its music will show up.

--- Being low as dirt, taking what's important from me - TUYU

okay i have no idea what this song is about, i don't even know the lyrics, but i wanted to try listening to some tuyu because i have a friend who really likes them (and i LOVE song titles that are extremely long and specific), and this song really stood out to me. it's so catchy and raw, vocally. also a very easy listen. i will check out more tuyu in the future.

--- rabbit hole - deco27

i don't know why this song is so popular right now. it released a while back... is it because of the animation? i only listened to it because i decided to click a random deco27 song, not because i was recommended it, so i was surprised at its current popularity. all i'm gonna say is that deco27 needs to stop making soulless music that sounds good on the surface...

honorable mentions: harrow, magic (milgram project), ghosting (mother mother), it's not like i like you (static-p). every time i listen to inlily i lose a bit of my soul from cringe but it's regained by the end of the song because its honestly pretty sweet.

#music #music thoughts #vocaloid #vivid thoughts #i need to find some jesus

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