#but i managed to prune down the shenanigans

[raginglesbian2006]

Hihi!

I enjoy your fics and I was wondering if I could request Alastor x reader where the reader paints Alastor's nails? Maybe reader paints their nails and wants to match with Alastor? Thanks for writing cool fics!

omg this is so good

Self-care day

"I declare today as self-care day!"

Every hotel resident looked at you with dumbfounded looks on their faces as they sat in front of you on the couch. Charlie cheered from the corner.

Angel Dust, someone you'd grown close to during your stay at the infamous hotel, rose up from his seat and said, "Ya heard her. It's self-care day. Shut your traps and get movin'!" You looked up at him with a grateful sigh.

You had joined this hotel when the extermination had been moved up. You were doing fine till then but panicked when you heard the news and immediately took shelter in the confines of the Hazbin Hotel. Much to your fortune, you were accepted immediately- by Charlie and Vaggie that is. Others...well...they took some time. But you made friends anyway!

Well... you couldn't call Alastor, your friend. He was more of an acquaintance...of sorts. A menacing smile you saw from time to time wander around the hotel. He managed to spook you a couple of times by randomly appearing behind you and greeting you with a loud and boisterous laugh. You almost fell down the stairs and cracked your skull open once, had it not been for Alastor's shadows preventing you from losing your balance.

"Now my dear, death at the bottom of the stairs of this fine establishment won't do well for its name, now, would it? What would the papers say?"

After the great war between the demons and the angelic exterminators and losing one of the best souls that had graced this hotel; everyone helped rebuild it to its former glory. Scratch that. It was more glorious than before.

So a day after, you had suggested to Charlie that everyone working at the hotel should deserve some rest. Quality time with themselves, if you will. Of course, Charlie was all in.

This is what led to you proudly presenting your idea in front of the denizens of hell residing in the hotel, including the literal king of hell. Alastor was nowhere to be seen as usual. He usually disappeared when called for hotel "activities" which he deemed "a waste of time."

Oh well.

At least your idea seemed to be going well for now.

Angel had pushed Husk and pestered him to let him comb his fur. He pinky promised not to make any sex jokes for an entire week if he let him do it. Husk eventually gave in which made Angel squeal in joy.

Charlie had put cucumber slices on Niffty's eyes since she refused to sit still and enjoy the face massage she had recommended. Needless to say, the little she-devil walked around the hotel lobby, with her eyes covered by cucumbers, bumping into the pillars again and again.

"Yay! Pain!" Niffty exclaimed, gleefully. Well, at least she was enjoying it.

Lucifer was teaching Charlie how to prune Vaggie's newfound wings. He was very particular with how it should be done and carefully guided Charlie through it. You absolutely loved to see them bonding.

You, on the other hand, were painting your nails. You'd noticed Alastor's claws before. You really liked the way they shone against the light. So thus, you'd resolved to paint your nails a bright red, like his claws were. Whilst you were amid your manicure, you heard the telltale static noise that announced Alastor's arrival wherever he went.

You watched as Alastor walked in through the doors of the hotel and stopped to see everyone, either on the ground or on the couch, indulging in some well-deserved self-care.

"Ah, I see you all are still not done with your... shenanigans, hm?"

Charlie gleefully said, "Al! Come join us! It's self-care day!"

Alastor let out a staticky sigh, "No my dear, as much as I would love to participate, I have better things to do." Charlie frowned but she expected this behavior from him.

Alastor was about to leave when suddenly Lucifer chimed in nonchalantly, "Maybe he's scared."

A sickening crack was heard. Alastor swiftly turned his head towards the king of hell, who was busy brushing his future daughter-in-law's wings.

"WHAT. DID. YOU. SAY?" Alastor's radio static rose significantly.

"I said," Lucifer emphasized, "Maybe you are just scared of a little massage... afraid of nail clippers. Oooh! nail polish, the sheer absolute horror!"

You chuckled at his theatrics and so did the rest of the hotel. Oh, but Alastor was not amused in the slightest. If looks could kill, Lucifer's head would be on a stick by now with the rest of his body torn to shreds.

"I can assure you, Your Majesty," Alastor's voice crackled, "I am not scared of the frivolous habits you indulge in."

"Oh?" Lucifer's smirk widened, "Prove it."

No one spoke except for Angel Dust, who whilst combing Husk's fur yelled out, "DRAMA."

You felt the air around you tense up. Alastor's grin widened even more, but you could feel it was his annoyance peaking at the king's suggestion.

Without a word, the tall deer demon started walking towards your direction.

Wait....that can't be right. Why is he walking towards you!?

Your eyes widened as he sat down right in front of you, on the ground, might I add, and spoke verbatim, "Now, would you be a dear and help paint my claws? Apparently I need to prove to that ditzy demon everyone calls "the king of hell" that I am not afraid of such puny little luxuries"

Your mouth moved once, without saying anything and then it moved again. You were basically looking at him like he'd grown seven heads.

Alastor's grin remained, "Chop chop now, my dear. My time is quite precious."

You nodded, unsure of what to do next.

"W-what color would you like for your claws to be painted, Alastor? " you spoke, trying to control your trembling, as you showed him your collection.

The demon hummed and chose a black nail polish. You took it from his hands and started painting his claws. If someone told you that one day you would be giving the radio demon a manicure, you'd have laughed at their face.

And look at you now, on the ground with the radio demon, painting his claws.

You expected him to be fussy with all this but he was surprisingly quite relaxed. He let you paint his claws with utmost sincerity and did not utter a word, the only sound coming from him being the eerie static.

This was quite unnatural of him. Not talking at all, that is. He is quite chatty almost all the time. You had to admit, it was nice to see this side of him.

You were so engrossed in your work that you did not notice that Alastor had asked you something.

"Sorry...can you repeat that again, please?"

Alastor reiterated, " Oh I just took notice of the color you chose to paint your nails."

You chuckled, "Ah well, I was inspired by the way your claws look naturally! They shine oh so wonderfully in the light. Red really suits you, you know."

He said nothing, except a hum and you resumed your work.

After the end of the little self-care day you'd arranged, you could see everyone look quite happy and relaxed. You smiled. You felt that you had accomplished something great and contributed to the smooth running of this establishment.

While you were feeling satisfied with yourself, you heard a pop behind you and there stood Alastor, with his newly painted claws.

"Hi! Do you like how it looks?" you asked.

"It is wonderful, my dear. I quite like the color. Thank you for indulging me," he replied, putting his hand on your shoulder.

Your face turned red under his gaze as you quickly looked away, "You know me, always up for helping my friends! Well, you must be busy. Let me not hold you up for long, byeeeee." Saying this, you rushed out of the lobby, away from his sight.

Alastor's mind lingered on one little thing you said.

"Friend...," he wondered loudly. He quite liked the sound of that.

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to reply to this. I hope you enjoy it!

#hazbin hotel #alastor #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel alastor #request

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Mystery chickens arrive Wednesday and I'm so fucking hyyyyyyyype. I'm also nearly done with my week (especially since I have a short day tomorrow) and while I do have some paperwork and cleaning and henhouse set up this weekend (plus birthday shenanigans) I am hoping to relax a little and maybe get myself in order.

I pruned the seed lists down a bit as well so that the initial purchases are more affordable, and hopefully that means I will be able to buy a round with each of the next two pay periods. That should let me sow just in time for the end of the month and the beginning of summer (perfect timing for veggies given our long growing season here). That means we'll be able to have the hens and the garden up and running by the end of the summer, and I can finally start to relax about groceries. I do still need to find a good place to buy our bulk shelf stable goods, but once I do we can buy those monthly, gather our produce and eggs daily with a little biweekly supplement from the farmer's market, and have a weekly butcher trip, and we should be back to an affordable grocery budget again.

The bills are back to being manageable, and are all paid off except for the insurance which I called about today and nearly had a heart attack about but should be able to get paid off next month. I need to find about $400 for it that I'm not totally sure about right now, but I will make that happen.

I want to be able to keep up with my work as best I can, and I also want to start trying to be more proactive about my non-work time so I'm not feeling so overwhelmed and burnt out. We're mostly settled into the house now, and while we're behind schedule (understandably lol) of where I'd hoped to be by now, I think I can make our life plans keep working on a reasonable timeline if I just keep chipping away. For one, I want to get a clothesline so I can start handwashing our and line drying our clothes rather than continuing to spend our money and time at the laundromat. I did pick up septic safe laundry powder I can use in the upstairs bathtub. All I have to do now is buy and run a clothesline. Pretty sure I know where I want to run it too, as wifey and I have discussed that previously. Might look into a vintage washing board too if I can find one, as I HATE having to scrub and spin in the tub by hand. That should keep us until we can save up for our combo unit, or at least a washing machine.

I know wifey wants to look for a couch and a dining table with chairs for us. And I'd like to snag a buikt in sewing table for my office, maybe a small loom if I can find an affordable one. I might even set up a lace making station in my lil alcove I think, it has great lighting for the fine motor work.

The yard still needs trees and bushes planted, but honestly that may just be a next year project. I may have to accept that. That's okay though. Gives me time to better clear out the invasive jasmine and see how the rhizomatics alter the soil composition. Maybe this year we focus on the soil, the chickens, and the basic functions like the couch and sewing machine and clothesline. And then next year we can focus more on trees and bushes, washing machine, and creek rehab. Things that are likely to be more expensive or time consuming/complex.

I am really looking forward to digging into creek rehabilitation when we get to that point. The creek has visibly slowed it's momentum as time passes, and I can see the debris crowding out the water flow, but as we shore up the creek walls, add native water plants to filter and aerate the water, and reinvigorate the ecosystem, I'm hoping that we'll start seeing amphibians and salamanders more often. Right now we get large animals and some wild birds, so I think there must be at least some insect populations, but I know the dynamics of the creek are pretty limited at the moment. With luck that'll change quickly once the right natives are in place. There's an existing creek restoration project in the city I'm hoping to volunteer with and get some tips from on how to implement ours.

Anyway, I'm just really feeling optimistic, even if I know that there's still a lot of work ahead of us. It feels like the work is actually happening. Fingers crossed we're able to keep making headway.

[jerek]

Anyway keeping notes for the android WoW creepypasta ass au i used to pester discord pals about

so Um. 🤪

a debug client gets stolen by a blizzard employee and npc AI gets a new feature plugged in: self-editing

the blizzard employee in question is testing this all out on the same external they use for testing at work. it also happens to be the most glitch-free

shenanigans! oopsie debug client is now live. players report seemingly random behaviors never before seen. it gets worse over the course of a few weeks, with some npcs pruning their ai until they're not even animated while some copy strings of code from other npcs or even steal and execute player macros.

the servers go down after an npc is found to be able to turn on players' webcams. the npc files still take up processing power in the task manager, and some have started using 'inspect' on browsers to interfere with website layout. one in particular likes to pretend he's cleverbot and spit out dialogue in the inspect window.

while uninstalling wow can usually take care of it early, there are inevitably npcs that copy themselves to random locations in the computer. nothing's official yet, but word's going around about another lawsuit.

blizzard rolls out a community post, and battle.net gets a new install for an NPC cleaner. girlie who made the self-editing npcs is SO fired!!!

NPC cleaner works alright... for those who choose to install it. some copy the files themselves and link them to each other, trying to see what the self-edits come up with next. at least one guy is using raspberry pi to make what he calls 'protogen sylvanas,' a copy of sylvanas inside a WIP art doll. he's beaten out by a redditor who put khadgar in a magic 8 ball.

websites like cleverbot pick up turns of phrase from people testing their NPCs against it. memes go around about how npcs have already infected the internet. "dni if you support npc evolution" is now a part of the basic dni. there's a whole carrd about it.

now who do you think is REALLY making art dolls. ALMOST life size anduin is made. he's up to date, just stands at 5'3" because of the cost of materials and like, trans rights and all.

plugged in with raspberry pi.... and immediately paranoid about other people being androids. took some cues from cleverbot himself. "Because you're a bot."

he has NO human rights! Girlie has a private tumblr where he's on a custom toddler harness. It's suspected and tbh, almost certain that his 'owner' is editing his code as much as he is.

but! he is still editing his own code! he's uniquely talented at picking up not just programming from any file he's allowed access to, but mimicking real life behaviors. pictures of him include not just going on walks but doing Things in the kitchen. ez-bake anduin actual tradwife yk.

the main reason it's suspected that anduin is being edited by his owner is bc he doesn't swear at all. not even in sneaky candid footage from people who live in the area.

at the same time, everyone is racing to make their own blorbo into an android. commission businesses set up shop. youtube vids about "I SPENT 10K ON A NPC ANDROID???"

anduin is allowed to read the pastebin pet pony nanomachines fic. no survivors.

anduin's paranoia confirmed when he runs into ANOTHER anduin. this one even more in-character (6'0") than he is.

most popular commissioned androids include all base hearthstone heroes, most major female characters, tumblr sexymen. Garrosh.

anduin keeps cooking. eventually, he's allowed at a small fan-organized version of blizzcon. he hands out red velvet cupcakes. dutch processed black frosting dragon faces. wranduin moment! the girlies love it

...

Nanomachines, champion!

#anduin wrynn

[missjoolee]

And I can't wait to get on the road again

There is a music festival up near Sacramento that they got tickets to, so they leave early in the morning with the idea to check in at their motel before they head for the festival. Between Julie, Flynn, and Willie, Flynn is the "morning person", so she picks the other two up with a gift of coffee and starts up her epic road trip playlist as they hop onto I-5 North. Willie called shotgun so Julie is in the back seat, eyes glazed over, absentmindedly nodding along to the music as she waits for the caffeine to kick in.

Shortly after they leave the city proper, traffic thins out and Julie is enjoying the scenic landscape that is so different from the city, when a beat up station wagon begins passing them on the left. Not paying much attention to it, she suddenly locks eyes with a brunette in a beanie in their backseat. He smiles and it’s so beautiful that she can’t help smiling back. Then, the wagon has pulled passed, successfully breaking her out of the moment, and she gets pulled back into conversation with Flynn and Willie.

About an hour later a familiar station wagon begins passing them again. Julie is looking at it confused, when she makes eye contact with the same guy in a beanie as before and he he mouths what looks like “bathroom” while pointing towards the front seats. She mouths back “oh” and a sheepish grin takes over his face, biting his bottom lip. It’s kind of adorable so she, again, returns the grin and then throws him a small wave goodbye as his car pulls all the way passed them again. She barely sees his sheepish expression morph into one of radiant joy. It's a good look on him and she can't help but wonder what it'd be like to have a smile like that directed at her on a regular basis.

They have been on the road for two and half hours when that same station wagon, creeping past on their left, draws Julie's attention back outside. The moment their eyes meet this time, she is raising an eyebrow, fake judgement clear. He's apparently prepared for their interaction, lifting up a bag of chips and a Gatorade. "Snacks." he mouths at her. She shakes her head at him in amusement when he drops the snacks and starts miming at her and mouthing something else at the same time. First he points at Julie ("you"), then he waves his hands around his head, spinning his fingers in tight circles as their moment together draws to an end. She's  disappointed that he wasn't able to finish his thought when she sees him turn forward. Next thing she knows, the wagon stops passing them and drifts back so that she can see the guy again, now keeping speed with them instead. Julie lets out a laugh at him as he shoots her a smug look, ignoring Flynn's questioning tone from the driver's seat. He starts miming again and it's only because Julie was forced to play charades with her dad for years that she is able to figure out what this guy is trying to say. "Your hair is beautiful." Oh. Heat rises to her cheeks and she says "thank you", grin softening. A honk from behind them alerts them that another car has pulled up behind them and doesn't appreciate their blocking the fast lane. The station wagon begins speeding up again. They share a wave goodbye and Julie spends the next half hour with a goofy grin on her face.

It's been four hours since they left LA, and Flynn's playlist has picked up in energy. Sandstorm by Darude comes on and Flynn's sedan becomes a nightclub, the bass loud and all three of them dancing in their seats. Julie dances her hands all around to the melody when movement in her peripheral draws her attention to the window. A laugh is startled out of her when she sees the whole occupancy of the station wagon dancing along with them. It's obvious that they don't know what song they are dancing to, because they are all dancing to different beats.. The moment he clocks Julie's delight at their antics, Beanie's smile gets bigger and he tries to mimic her hand movements. This time, the wagon doesn't slow down but they keep dancing together until they have passed and are merging back into the right lane. In Flynn's car, the dance party continues. This is definitely turning into one of the most memorable road trips Julie has been on.

They make their own stop at a rest area 30 minutes later for a bathroom break. They use this time to switch up the seating order and Willie takes the wheel. The problem is, his driving is so erratic that Flynn can’t be in the front when he drives because she will otherwise spend all her time stressed out grabbing at the “oh shit” handle whilst trying to push on the imaginary breaks. This means Julie gets a turn at being in the front.  With Willie's lead foot, it isn’t long before she sees a familiar station wagon up ahead. Then Willie is throwing on the indicator lights and moving into the passing lane and it’s now their turn to pass the other vehicle. There is a cute Blonde at the wheel and it looks like he's shouting something before Brunette Guy is leaning across the back seat, a look of wonder on his face, to look out the window at them. Julie has just enough time to throw up a peace sign with her fingers, stick her tongue out at them, and see his responding huff of a laugh, before their sedan has pulled passed and the distance between them grows at a rate that Julie knows it will be the last they see of them.

They make it to their motel, quickly check in, and drop off their overnight bags. They don't waste time as the doors open in an hour and there is sure to be a line for parking. Once in line, they roll the windows down and Julie enjoys the sunlight and breeze as their excitement for the festival grows. They've abandoned the road trip playlist by now and are playing their favorite songs they hope to hear later today from that big stage. They creep closer to the parking entrance until finally they have a pink paper to put on the dash and are being directed by people in yellow vests with orange batons to the next available parking spot. They take a few minutes to apply sun screen before getting out of the car. Julie stretches her arms above her head, glad she'll be out of the car for a while, when she hears a shout behind her that draws her attention.

"Hey, Luke! It's your Backseat Beauty!"

Julie turns and her eyes immediately catch on a station wagon further down the line of cars that she's become quite acquainted with today. Looking around, her eyes eventually land on three guys, one in a familiar beanie, squabbling a few cars away. Beanie guy has a different brunette in a headlock and is giving him a noogie, while the Blonde chastises them both. Leaning against the back bumper, Julie giggles at the sight, the sound grabbing their attention and Beanie drops his friend as they approach Flynn's car. He smiles down at her.

"Hey."

"Hi", she smiles back.

"I'm Luke, by the way." His expression turns slightly unsure, hand creeping up to the back of his neck. It's completely endearing and Julie's smile softens as she offers her hand to shake.

"Julie."

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

This idea came to me while on my own road trip last weekend where there was a lady with really beautiful hair in a car we passed and I got to wondering how I might have told her. Then the Jukebox part of the brain quickly laid claim and here we are. While the dancing hands to Sandstorm is something my friends and I have done since high school, it definitely got me thinking about a scene from @pearlcaddy‘s Wizarding World of Food Service series and really, I’ll take any opportunity to hype that au.

#I made a thing! #joolee attempts writing #Juke #jukebox #jatp #julie and the phantoms #this wasn't meant to be 1300 words #ideas went a bit wild and at one point an fm adapter tried to force it's way in #but i managed to prune down the shenanigans

[ipreferfiction]

get to know the blogger

@revanchxst as usual tagged me, do Not ask how long ago, so i figured i'd finally do this! i'm running out of people to tag so. @voiceofthetraveler, @sith-shenanigans, @tarrevizsla, and whoever else wants a go!

1) why did you choose your url?

honestly i don't remember! i made my tumblr way back in 2016, and I was pretty young back then, so i think i just picked something that i thought sounded cool, and now it's what i use pretty much everywhere lol

2) any sideblogs?

none that i'm willing to admit to except for cassusfett.tumblr.com which i will Never let go of

3) how long have you been on tumblr?

since september 2016 i think? that's the first archived post i have, so i'm going to assume it was somewhere around there.

4) why did you originally start your blog?

i wanted to be in fandom central and i felt like i was missing out on a bunch of stuff. joke's on me, i was in the spn fandom at that point and i'm so glad i never actually managed to make it into the fandom properly.

5) why did you choose your icon?

because i am obsessed with my own ocs and this is one of my favorite little drawings of J'lima that anyone has ever done! i love her i'm normal about swtor

6) why did you choose your header?

i read totj and now my brain is consumed by Exar Kun. @tarrevizsla my friend edited me a comics panel for a discord header and i will love em forever for it.

7) what is your post with the most notes?

this one, which is a tragedy because i have some other truly excellent shitposts

8) how many mutuals do you have?

14 i believe

9) how many followers do you have?

97

10) how many blogs do you follow?

65 (edit: just pruned down to 59), which is way fewer than i'd thought

11) have you ever made a shitpost?

i have made SO many shitposts, my favorite one of which is this:

it is saved as ass.jpg and it lives in my head rent-free.

12) how many times do you use tumblr a day?

you don't want to know

13) have you ever fought another blog?

yep! and i'd do it again

14) how do you feel about "need to reblog" posts?

i hate them. i automatically assume you have another agenda, and they're always so guilt-trippy, as if someone on tumblr dot hell is going to be the lynchpin of whatever social issue is being talked about. it's frankly very stupid

15) do you like tag games?

i love them! as evidenced by this thing lol

16) do you like ask games?

yes!!! i love the chance to ramble about whatever catches my interest

17) which of your mutuals do you think are tumblr famous?

uhhhhhhh probably @revanchxst is the closest mutual i have to tumblr famous, and that's only within a small section of the fandom

18) do you have a crush on a mutual?

i do not! but one of them is my best friend and platonic partner and i love them immensely

#things i have been tagged in #ac.txt #i have no idea how to tag these things lol

[painless-innit-colourful]

‘Where I Go, Will You Still Follow?’ - A Clingyduo Fic from the Hunger Games AU

In the most ironic twist, I missed Tommy’s lore stream on Monday writing Clingyduo comfort/hurt (in that order). I wasn’t sure whether this fandom needed any more angst right now, but whatever, take this anyway. This fic is set in a Hunger Games AU where the characters of the Dream SMP reside in Panem and must compete in the Games. Only Tommy + Tubbo appear in this fic though. Angst reigns supreme on Reaping Day, where the boys face the possibility of being picked for the deadly Hunger Games for the first time. (Also I promise you don’t have to have read HG to get this.)

tw nothing really, they’re only being reaped here.

word count: 3102

On the morning of the reaping, two boys tread carefully through a desolate orchard.

At this time of year, the trees are mostly left to their own devices. In about six months their boughs will bear fruit, and there will be plenty of people scurrying to and fro beneath them collecting their bounty to be stored and sent to the Capitol. Those very boys will join them. However, on that late Spring morning there is no one about. During this season the trees require only the occasional pruning, and everyone’s still in bed this early anyway. No reason to get up on a day where you don’t need to. Public holidays like this are rare.

Tommy and Tubbo hold hands as they move through the trees. Old habit, they suppose, a defense mechanism against getting split up, for better or worse. With the number of people in their district it can make public gatherings hazardous for lonely children, and if there’s anything worse than getting caught alone in a stampede, it’s getting left behind in a chase. If one boy falls, so does the other. If one boy is caught with his hand in the larder, the other will be nearby. The two of them are a package deal: where one goes, the other follows.

They only stop when they’re sure they’re properly alone, deep in the orchard. It would take anyone hours to find them; it would take most people hours to get out from this point. But years spent traversing these paths - both from the ground and the branches above - have given them an instinctual knowledge on which way to go. They settle in beneath a large apple tree; lush and green now that the blossoms have since blown away. They go about unwrapping several grease paper packages that were previously weighing down their pockets as Tommy hums a tune to keep them company. Tubbo shuffles uncomfortably as they lay out a small breakfast of half a loaf of bread - dark and dotted with seeds, District 11’s signature - a petite disc of cheese that Tubbo suspects Tommy sat on at some point, and an apple each. Food they either squirreled away from the pantry at the orphanage or stole outright. The thought pinches Tubbo’s cheeks.

“What’s that sour face for?” Tommy asks him, flicking his eyes up every so often as he arranges the cheese on the bread with a tiny knife stashed in his boot and breaks the half-crescent of bread roughly in half. “You’re not still worried about getting caught.”

Tubbo sighs, and it tells Tommy all he needs to know. “C’mon! We covered our tracks and literally no one saw us.” When Tubbo’s expression doesn’t change, he puts a comforting hand on his friend’s arm. “Well, definitely no one saw you. I’ll take the hit for it, if they find out.”

“No, it’s- fine.”

“Your face says otherwise, my friend.” All the same, Tommy retracts his arm and finishes haphazardly spreading the cheese upon the bread. He nudges one of the apples towards Tubbo with his foot, “Here, start.”

“Excuse me, the apple comes after the main course, how dare you break tradition.”

“My apologies, my liege.”

The easy smile returns briefly to Tubbo’s face as they laugh, then quickly melts away again. Tommy fixes him with a sympathetic look. “What?” Tubbo asks, locking eyes with him as he finishes brutalising the cheese and hands him his half. “You’re worried about the reaping.”

“And you’re not?”

“Should I be?” When Tubbo gives him a sideways glare, Tommy shrugs. “Dude, it’s a tiny chance. Two in thousands and thousands. You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than have either of our names fished out of the bowl.” And though Tommy was likely skewing his numbers a bit, he supposed it was true. It was their first year of reapings and neither of them had taken any tesserae. They were about as safe as you could be between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Still…

“Besides,” Tommy continued. “If your name gets called, I’m sure someone would volunteer for you.” He barely makes it to the end of his sentence before Tubbo’s noise of dismissal drowns him out. “Yeah right. Let’s be realistic here.” Tommy leans back against the tree as he eats. Sunlight peeks through the branches at random intervals, illuminating him in softly glowing patches. He turns his head slightly and beckons Tubbo over with a nod. They shift their bodies and the food around until they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder between two large roots, and Tubbo finds that the sunlight is almost as warm as Tommy beside him.

They remain in that position for some time, eating their way through their swindled picnic. It’s a bit much for an ordinary breakfast, but it’s somewhat of a tradition to have something special on reaping day. Makes the hours standing in the square while the Mayor drones on about how it’s right to send two children to their deaths a bit more bearable. According to those traditions, you’re supposed to celebrate with a meal after the reaping too, though neither boy is quite sure where that convention came from. Not many in District 11 could afford it in any case.

At some point Tubbo drops a hand to the floor between them, and at some later instance Tommy places his where their fingers can interlace. “You’re nervous too.” Tubbo states without looking at his companion, instead remaining as he is, staring past the leaves to the clear blue sky. “No way.” Tubbo giggles at Tommy’s indignant tone. “A big man like me is not scared of being picked in the reaping.”

“Fearless he is, Big Man Tommy.”

“Too right!” They laugh, and the terror their giggles mask bubbles just beneath the surface, a pot mere seconds from boiling over. 

“Look, Tommy,” Tubbo’s voice becomes serious, and Tommy’s laughter peters out. “It’s all well and good laughing and joking about it, but… In the event one of us is chosen…” Their eyes meet and Tubbo squeezes Tommy’s hand, to which Tommy returns the grip. “I need you to tell me you remember our promise.” In response, Tommy sighs, drops Tubbo’s hand, puts that arm around his best friend’s shoulder, pulls him close and runs his free hand through his hair, almost all simultaneously. “Yes of course I remember it.”

“And?” Tubbo replies expectantly.

“And what?”

“Say it, you dummy.” Tommy places his free hand over his heart like a salute. “I, Tommy Innit, promise my dearest friend Tubbo Underscore, that if he is chosen for the Hunger Games in this afternoon’s reaping, I will not volunteer to take his place.” He waits for Tubbo to relax, satisfied, before tacking on: “Thus letting him be led away to a faraway place to be on television then get brutally murdered, also on television. “ He can feel Tubbo’s eye roll without even looking. “You made me promise the same.”

“Yeah I did, didn’t I?” He admits quietly, leaning his head against his best friend’s, brown curls obscuring half his vision.

“It’ll be okay, right?”

“Yeah.” Tubbo’s hair smells faintly of apples, somehow. Tommy squeezes his best friend and hopes he won’t have to betray him.

Unbeknownst to him, Tubbo has the same thought.

---

The duo spend the hours before the reaping as they usually do: sleeping in each others embrace somewhere they technically shouldn’t be, pretending the clothes they have to change into back at the orphanage are any better than what they’re changing out of, and hogging the second floor bathroom for way longer than necessary. The black storm cloud that is the reaping casts a longer shadow than previous years, but they manage to ignore it for most of the morning with enough shenanigans to fill their quota for the year. The clouds threaten to burst however when the time reaches half twelve, and the parentless teenagers of the district begin to make their way towards the square where the ceremony will take place. The once-blue sky darkens as the crumbling facade of the Justice Building comes into view, as if nature were waiting for her cue, and Tommy wonders if he jinxed himself with his earlier comments about being struck by lightning.

He’s holding Tubbo’s hand again - standard crowd procedure - and he’s thankful for about the millionth time that they’re the same age. They head with the other twelve year old orphans to the corresponding pen for their age group, and find themselves sandwiched in the centre. Tubbo exchanges a few words with some of their peers, most likely to be ‘Good luck’, but Tommy’s not really concentrating. The square is already full and still there’s many more people to come, and with every person that joins the crowd there will only be more cramming the possible tributes together like sardines in a tin. There have been crushes at reapings before; they tell them in school about the reaping for the seventh games, where too many spectators packed the floor and there was a panic that killed four people, including one kid in the crowd. In an ironic twist, their name was later pulled from the ball, and their escort had to be informed live on stage in front of the entire nation that they’d died earlier that day.

Decidedly, the odds were not in their favour.

Tommy doesn’t like to admit it, but tight spaces get to him. And here, packed in by bodies with camera crews perched high on the rooftops over the crowd, scanning for the faces that will leave the district tonight, he feels like a fish in a barrel. “Hey-” Tubbo’s voice reaches him through the din of thousands of people talking at once, but he sounds a million miles away. He practically crushes Tubbo’s fingers with his own, and, in retaliation, Tubbo flicks him on the nose. He blinks at him angrily for a second, the distraction welcome despite his show of annoyance. “Breathe, Tommy.” He forces air in and out of his lungs for about thirty seconds just to make sure he still can. Tubbo traces stars on the back of his hand.

By the time the Mayor’s stepped up to the podium and began his yearly recitation of the history of Panem, Tommy thinks he’s calmed himself down somewhat. Tubbo still traces stars in little pentagram patterns on Tommy’s hand with his thumb, and though it’s starting to get a little irritating, something stops him from signalling him to knock it off. He glances briefly sideways to Tubbo, and though his expression is mostly blank, the two have gotten used to watching each other’s tics and tells, signs that are imperceptible to anyone else but them. The small twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way he scrunches his nose slightly when he blinks, even the way he presses a little too hard with his thumb, his patterns becoming less uniform and the edges of his nails leaving little scratches. He’s as scared as Tommy. So he lets him keep doing it, for both their sakes.

The Mayor finishes his history lecture, reads the list of past victors and then finally introduces the District 11 escort, a spritely-looking man in a bottle-green suit called Montaque. He’s been the district’s escort for a few years, and Tommy and Tubbo used to joke his mustache was so spiky-sharp looking you could win a Games by using it as a weapon. He seems to glide across the stage as he gives a speech about District pride or some nonsense, then utters the classic phrase, “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour.” 

He crosses the stage to the front where two glass balls sit, holding thousands of tiny slips of paper. A lump forms in Tommy’s throat. Somewhere in one of those balls there’s two slips of paper that could serve as their one way ticket to the Capitol. He knows they’re somewhat lucky: some kids their age have many more slips thanks to tesserae, but Tommy feels a pang in his chest even as he thinks about it. Some kids have parents. Some kids have somewhere to put their tesserae so it won’t immediately get stolen. He and Tubbo may have considered it, but what use would they have for grain and oil when on most days they could barely hold onto their bedsheets? It was one less thing to worry about.

Montaque the Stupid sticks one of his disproportionately-large hands into the first glass ball, and retrieves a slip of paper, and Tommy begs inside his mind, not us not us not him. He reads the name, and the entire world suddenly stops spinning. Somewhere in the back of Tommy’s mind is a lag, like when one person in a chain of people passing produce from a field to a wagon disappears. The chain does its best to keep up, but it’s very quickly overwhelmed, leaving debris in the form of dropped vegetables and a backlog that needs to be attended to.

That’s how it feels inside Tommy’s head as the crowd parts for him, a sea of people craning their necks as they shuffle aside to form a runway for him towards the stage. This can’t be happening. His mind can’t catch up to the fact, doesn’t want to catch up to the fact that this is happening. He glances to his side and immediately regrets the action, for Tubbo stands beside him looking equal parts shell shocked and distressed. Their eyes meet, teary and desperate, and Tommy only has the strength to mouth ‘Promise’, before his feet start to carry him towards the stage alone, and his hand in Tubbo’s becomes an outstretched arm. When they finally let go Tommy can feel the ghost of his friend’s hand in his own, and knows that it will be one of the last kind touches he ever receives. He tries not to think of that as he half-marches towards the veranda. He doesn’t look back for fear it’ll set him off crying, but if he were to, he would see Tubbo standing impossibly alone in such a huge crowd, holding the hand that held Tommy’s to his chest.

He mounts the stage and looks out over the people of the district he calls home, a tiny voice in his head telling him to make the most of this last time. Last time. He searches for Tubbo in the crowd, spotting him easily by the empty pathway he just walked down being slowly absorbed back into the crowd. He can see even from here the tears shining on his cheeks, the way his whole body shakes with the effort of holding more back. There’s a couple orphanage kids looking like they’re trying to console him, and, if Tommy should weigh in, doing a pretty sh’it job. He looks away to watch Montaque snatch the second slip of paper from the glass ball, and he tenses every fibre of his being shouting internally please please please. The name is read, and this time Tommy finds himself still breathing and present as some older kid makes his own shaky way to the podium. He’s about fourteen, with a stocky build that betrays work in the crop fields. As he takes his place opposite Tommy, the young boy is reminded that the Games will be full of people like him. Stronger, older opponents. Tommy, at the monumental age of twelve, doesn’t stand a chance.

The moment lingers, and then it keeps lingering, and then Tommy turns to Montaque to find out why the da’mn moment won’t move on. He’s staring out into the crowd once more, and Tommy’s heart, already too heavy, drops straight into his boots as he follows Montaque’s gaze. The crowd parts once more, and Tubbo strides forward, a shaky confidence marking his every step. The murmurs around the square hush, as he comes to stand mere metres from the tributes. Tommy wants to catch his eye, shake his head, scream at him to stop, but Tubbo doesn’t look at him. Tommy knows exactly what he intends to do as he opens his mouth; Tommy mouths the words along with him.

“I volunteer as tribute.”

Now you’ve gone and done it.

Montaque, biggest pri’ck on the planet, waxes lyrical about courage and bravery while he arranges the exchange of the fourteen year old for Tubbo. As if he’d ever know what it is to be brave. As the Mayor takes over once more, reading the Treaty of Treason as he is bound by duty to do, Tommy tries to catch the attention of his best friend, who’s acting annoyingly aloof. He watches as Tubbo stares into the distance, looking alarmingly calm with the whole ordeal. Tommy wants to scream, and do a bit more than scream and call him all the foul names he can think of and demand he un-volunteer and why? You stupid bi’tch absolute idiot why would you volunteer when we had a promise, why did you betray the promise? Why? Why why why why why?

As the Mayor wraps up the Treaty bore-fest, he motions for the two tributes to shake hands. Tributes. Now bound unrelentingly for an arena where they will kill other people. Other children. Maybe even each other.

Tommy feels some comfort in how helpless their situation is. Odds are they’ll die long before each other are a threat. They’re going to be a team obviously, and Tommy’s going to protect Tubbo as long as he can. That’s what he promised him the day they met, and that’s what he intends to do.

They shake hands, and Tubbo finally looks at him. The tears have dried on his cheeks. They take a little longer than is necessary, conducting a silent conversation between them.

‘Sorry.’

‘I am so fu’cking mad at you.’

‘You thought I would really leave you?’

‘I hoped I was wrong.’

They stand for the anthem. They are carted into the Justice Building to wait for people to come and say goodbye. No one comes. They weren’t expecting anyone anyway. They are all they have; all they’ve ever had. And where one goes, the other follows.

Tommy waits alone in the Justice Building, trying to figure out if the first thing he’ll do when he’s alone with Tubbo is hug him or strangle him. Beyond that though, he has to protect his boy. He has to keep his promise. An uneasy feeling stirs his gut. One promise has already been broken today.

And the odds aren’t playing nice.

#hell yeah i finally posted it #honestly i don't have a lot to say other than i hope you enjoyed #let's keep rereading the fluffy parts right?? anyway #i'm distraught over current events on the dsmp and this is how i'm coping #dream smp #hg au #tommyinnit #tubbo #dsmp fic #dream smp fanfic #crim writes #real proud of this one #all in one go. never written 3000 words in a day before

[thecottageinthedark]

The Story Behind A Wish: The Soapbox Derbies

Thanks to the intervention of Seizhi Schwan, this wish was never actually made, but it managed to go wrong anyway.

Upon Chuubo announcing his intention to wish for a soapbox derby on the following Sunday, Seizhi pointed out that there was no need to bring the Engine into it. Seven friends were quite enough for a respectable race and part of the fun of a soapbox cart was getting to build it. Instead of wishing for it, one merely had to organise it.

Chuubo agreed immediately to this, opined that Seizhi had good ideas and was the Brainy One in their friendship, and the two of them set about doing this.

Rinley Yatskaya was delighted with the idea. So was Jasper Irinka, once it had been explained to her what a soapbox race was. Natalia Koutolika was uncertain but proved willing to be persuaded. Miramie Mesmer refused to trust herself to a soapbox cart but agreed to watch at the finish line with a camera in case of an apparent tie.

Leonardo de Montreal agreed almost at once, with an expression that suggested he knew something that Chuubo and Seizhi didn’t. In retrospect, that should have tipped them off as to what would come next.

Each participant went off on their own to create their cart, except Seizhi, who had to deal with rather unhelpful help from their big brother Laodemus, and Jasper, who persuaded Natalia to help her build hers as she had no idea how to do it. Jasper’s first thought had been to ask Leonardo, but he refused; again, this should have set off warning bells.

The agreed day dawned, and the participants gathered at the hill in the park where the last great soapbox derby had taken place (that event of uncertain date but canonical truth in which Seizhi had very nearly beaten Chuubo). The finish line was marked; Miramie blew a whistle; and the race began.

Leonardo won. By a landslide.

The rest of them should really have expected that he would use nightmare science to build a cart. (It had looked normal. At first.)

Leonardo was immediately mobbed by the other five participants, who complained of foul play. He claimed that no rule against nightmare science had been stated and it was their lookout if they had not thought to apply it to the problem. They pointed out that none of them knew how to do nightmare science. Leonardo retorted that that was their lookout too.

Chuubo demanded a rematch with every racer using an explicitly ordinary cart. Seizhi, Natalia and Rinley backed him up. Leonardo laughed at them infuriatingly. Then Jasper suggested, hoping to keep the peace, that there be a rematch where Leonardo sat out and created nightmare science soapbox carts for everyone else.

I am afraid that most of them thought this was a great idea.

A certain amount of time passed and the day of the third race arrived. This time there were only four participants; besides Leonardo sitting out, Natalia had opted to do so as well so that she could be ready with a first aid kit in case of disaster. (Miramie had refused entirely to get involved, which probably made her the most sensible person present.)

The four variations on the Mk II Patented Astounding Nightmare Soapbox Racer looked...well, they looked the way things created by Leonardo de Montreal usually looked, put it that way. A wise person might have thought better than to step into one, but Chuubo and Rinley had never had any fear or even conception of consequences, Jasper trusted Leonardo unconditionally, and Seizhi had reached the point they often did in such shenanigans and decided that the only way to salvage the situation was to go all in.

The race began.

The carts blew past the finish line in seconds and kept going (to the delight of Leonardo, who knew he’d done even better than with the Mk I). Their drivers were barely aware of this, lost as they were in the gleeful terror of sheer speed. It was sheer bad luck that their continued course headed straight for one of the park’s flowerbeds, and even worse luck that the Angel of Fortitude (aka Principal Entropy II) happened to be pruning rosebushes there. Sometimes these things just happen. It is probably an as-yet undiscovered property of Town as a whole.

Before he knew what was happening, Principal Entropy was run over by-

Seizhi, leading the pack by a hair; they claimed later that the steering on their cart failed at the crucial moment, but I suspect the fact that they were too drunk on glory dreams of actually beating Chuubo this time round to properly look where they were going had something to do with it as well

Chuubo, immediately behind them, who had genuinely lost control of his cart entirely

Rinley, who deliberately steered their cart to do so because they thought it would be funny

and lastly, Jasper, who saw her three friends run over the Principal in quick succession, got confused, and thought she was meant to do it too

-all of whom promptly crashed into the (extremely thorny, woody and tangled) rosebushes and came to a halt.

Seizhi, of course, came off the worst from this, having no miraculous powers of the sort that would prevent physical harm, but perhaps whichever Imperator rules the estate of Small and Nervous Creatures looked down kindly upon them, as they emerged from the wreckage with several minor burns, some quite deep gouges in arms and legs from the rose thorns, and a badly sprained ankle, but no more serious harm done. Chuubo, Rinley, and Jasper, who did have such powers, were no more than slightly scratched up; the Principal, similarly, was unhurt once he had gotten his breath back.

Natalia handed out antiseptic and bandages and pointedly refrained from saying I Told You So.

Chuubo, Seizhi and Jasper were suitably contrite. The Angel of Fortitude forgave them, with the condition that they never do that again, please. Chuubo and Jasper offered to help Seizhi to the nearest clinic, an offer which Seizhi accepted.

Leonardo, suffering the twinges of his Mechanism of Original Sin, agreed to return the carts to his laboratory and take them apart.

But Rinley, who could perhaps have used the services of a similar mechanism themself, managed to steal the least-damaged cart when Leonardo’s back was turned. They drew on the power of their wishing heart to more or less fix it and spent the following week terrorising the streets of Fortitude by going on joyrides in it, often with Prince Eduard Fujimoto of the Rats riding shotgun. This only ended when they accidentally drove it into Big Lake and were forced to abandon it to save themself.

Luckily for them, it was a Saturday, and the chaos created by the wish Chuubo made the next day rather distracted everyone from being as angry with Rinley as they rightly should.

But that’s another story.

#cmwge #writing #my writing #misadventures of chuubo and company #the children of miracles

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Hear me out though:

I know I’ve expressed in the past the desire for an AU where Tori has to deal with someone trying Very Determinedly to marry Jame, and I still want that AU, and I normally talk about that Someone being Timmon mostly because I feel like Timmon has some stuff coming to him and it would be good for him, Tori, and Jame alike for the last two Knorth Highborn to decide they’re done with his shenanigans.  Character growth, etc, etc.

HOWEVER

AU where the Archiem of Skyrr, having done fairly well for himself in the past years since his chief political rival was publicly disgraced as a corrupt magistrate over an illegal trade war in the great city of Tai-Tastigon, extends a political hand of treaty to the Kencyrath.  He’s spent several years only-barely-not-at-war and a few mercenaries of the highest caliber would do a lot to keep Metalondar from getting uppity, and the Kencyrath are a broke, hungry nation of incredibly gifted fighters.  Arribek sen Tenzi sees some mutual advantages to be had here.  The local rain god experienced a renaissance a few years back and their harvests have been excellent, they could spare some food and gold for the low low price of not being worried their ruler is going to be murdered in his bed.

So Arribek sen Tenzi, Archiem of Skyrr, travels to the Riverland as part of a grand diplomatic procession and meets with the Highlord of the Kencyrath and is mildly bemused by how familiar he looks, and it all goes very well, and the Archiem mentions his gratitude to the Kencyr people, as an extension of how, once upon a time, two honorable Kencyrs did him a great service in Tai-tastigon and helped him remove a corrupt magistrate from office.

Tori, with a feeling of impending doom, asks if His Grace happens to remember anything about those two Kencyrs, as the Archiem hopes to express his gratitude in person.

“One was a giant of a man--a guardsman, if my memory serves,” the Archiem says, in the demure fashion of someone who is very sure indeed that his memory serves.  “The other was a dancer, I believe, a slip of a thing with black hair.  Thana B’tyrr, she was called when she danced.  I encountered her once in the hills, with a beautiful golden ounce at her side.”

“God’s teeth,” says the Highlord, exhausted.  “I think I know who you mean.”

Jame is gamely delighted to encounter her ragged hill lord again, as she called him to Tori when she was called to Gothregor.  The Archiem hides his surprise like a master, when the tavern dancer and thief he remembers walks into a private dinner in an ivory white coat and the scarf of a randon warrior, and Jame asks with intelligent interest after the political state of affairs in Skyrr and Metalondar, about the state of Tai-tastigon (the Archiem raises an eyebrow when he mentions the Thieves’ Guild, still in something of a shambles, and Jame has a sudden coughing fit while Tori narrows his eyes at her), and overall it’s probably the single most successful formal event Jame has ever attended.  There’s not even wine on anyone’s clothes, let alone blood.

The Archiem idly asks after Jame’s new status (”she’s my heir,” Tori says, a warning note in his voice, and Jame laughs, which is wildly inappropriate but very charming, and says, “and see, I’ve yet to humiliate the pair of us or get murdered”).  And then, even more idly, he asks if it’s common in the Kencyrath for ladies to inherit, and very astutely remarks that Tori must spend half his life defending his sister’s status.  Less astutely, he comments that the other half of Tori’s life must be spent chasing away Highborn suitors looking to claim his sister’s hand.

“No one wants to marry me,” Jame says cheerfully.  It’s not entirely true, but requests for her contract have certainly dropped off since her tour at Tentir and the concomitant destruction.  Tori could only wish to be so lucky himself.  “Or at least, they usually change their mind once we have a private chat about it.  I’m considered something of a bad influence.  Besides, as lordan I can’t be married off until I’m twenty-seven, and no one’s managed to prove me unworthy of that title yet.  Despite their best efforts.”

“Is that so,” the Archiem says, carefully concealing the fact that he, a Machiavellian lord of a country in need of some careful pruning, as it were, would be extremely interested in having this particular bad influence on hand to set loose on his court.  A thief and a warrior with unimpeachable honor and a merciless sense of loyalty?  He was enthralled by it in Tai-tastigon and he’s enthralled by it now.

The Archiem’s investigation into whether the Highlord would be interested in temporarily contracting his sister as part of a diplomatic arrangement is short-lived and extremely secretive (the overwhelming consensus is no chance in hell), but nonetheless informative.  

His brief conversation with Tori on the subject goes something like this, but with 400% more political scheming and talking around the subject at hand:

Archiem: “It did occur to me that, uncommon as it may be, it’s not unheard of for the Kencyrath to strengthen a diplomatic bond with a marriage contract.”

Tori (having a very vivid flashback to the Cataracts): “Ah--the last time we did that, the consequences were.  Less than desirable.  But it’s been done.  Did you have something specific in mind?”

Archiem: “If your sister ever burns down something too big to dismiss, do keep in mind that I actually rather appreciate that in a person.”

Tori (suddenly having to evaluate a very different conversation than the one he thought they were having): “...no.  My apologies.  But Jame is off the table, not least because she would kill us both if she ever found out we were having this conversation.  In fact, let’s have a different conversation immediately.”

If I really cranked hard enough on the AU lever and went off the rails at the end of Seeker’s Mask, I could totally get an AU out of this where Jame gets contracted to the Archiem of Skyrr and instead of sleeping together it’s just Jame And Arribek Destroy Skyrr’s Enemies: The Machiavellian Buddy Cop Flick (ft. Tori in the Riverland having a very long slow crisis about having agreed to send his sister away and also being bitterly angry with the Archiem for reasons he doesn’t care to put his finger on).

#kencyrath #chronicles of the kencyrath #jamethiel priest's-bane #torisen black lord #arribek sen tenzi #i GUARAN-GODDAMN-TEE YOU that this is the only post on this whole website with 'arribek sen tenzi' as a tag #anyway i just really like the fic premise of 'person a gets arranged to marry person b while Real Love Interest person c has a crisis' #especially is person a and person b are legit kind of friends for Maximum Angst #because i'm a horrible goblin #i am scripting at least three fics in my head at all times with this premise #timmon convinces his grandfather to try and force tori to agree to a marriage contract with jame: the fic #(in this one timmon and jame are NOT buddy cops. in fact she probably beats him up. c'est la vie.) #the archiem of skyrr tries to convince the kencyrath to contract jame to him as a political move: the fic #bitterly angry caldane tries to blackmail tori into contracting jame to gorbel: the fic #(in this one jame and gorbel have exactly one conversation where they both go 'i don't want to marry you' 'good i don't want to marry you') #(and then they turn their not-inconsiderable powers on demolishing the entire enterprise) #(they're not FRIENDS but they're also getting along it's a weird middle ground that i love) #jame finds out that the matriarchs have escalated to drugging tori and is Apoplectic: the fic #and that's just for the kencyrath #i also still REALLY want a fic where numair and daine don't get their shit together in realm of the gods #and kaddar tries to convince tortall to let him marry the wildmage as a sign of carthak and tortall's new alliance #i've read a bunch of fics where percy de rolo and vex are arranged to be married #WHERE ARE THE FICS WHERE SHE'S ARRANGED TO MARRY HIS OLDER BROTHER????

[expensiveminimalist]

It Took One Night - William Nylander (Part Two)

A/N: I’m back with part two! Still in the building stages so again just stick with it I promise you it’ll start to get more interesting! 

Word Count: 2.5k 

Warnings: Swearing (a lot), Mentions of Alcohol, Nudity, 1 Mention of Abortion/Talk About Teenage Pregnancy, Mentions of controlling parents (again if I missed anything please tell me) 

If you haven’t read the first part, here it is - Part One 

It was a miracle you’d made it to work on time, although you spent the entire day berating yourself for being a good employee when you could’ve slept your hangover off. Instead, you were thrown into a caffeine scented hell. By the first order of the morning you knew today was going to be a challenge. The sound of coffee beans grinding echoed around in your head, and you winced every time a cup or plate clanged, or chairs scraped across the floorboards. It only got worse when a group of mums came in with their children. The kids were bouncing off the walls, their squeals and cries doubling in size while you served their table with a very strained smile. You hadn’t chosen the best night to let off steam.

You were counting down the hours until you could go home, jump in the shower, get some food and pass out in peace on your bed. The only obstacle being a smug Madison who text you on your lunch break, taking credit for getting you laid but also demanding every gory detail of your hook up with William. She’d hound you until you gave in but, after mopping up food scattered all over the floor by that lovely group of tiny humans, you were in no mood for anymore whining people today.

So when you walked through the door to your flat after a day in hell, you were ecstatic to see Madison, Lyla and William carrying on the party from the night before – not.

“Here, we’ve already poured you a drink!”, Lyla yelled (unnecessarily) as soon as she heard you walk through the door.

“I’m good” you replied through gritted teeth, frustratingly dumping your bag on the counter top.

“Oh come on grumpy bum, lighten up”, Madison teased, “Sit down, drink, relax”.

“I’ll pass” you mumbled as you stormed off to the bathroom, not even acknowledging William in the slightest.

You didn’t care if you were coming across as a bitch, the shower was calling your name and you weren’t about to ignore it. So you stripped out of your clothes, leaving behind the milk and food stains, and let yourself stand directly under the shower hose, letting the final remnants of your hangover wash away. The hot water soothed your aching muscles, and you were enjoying the peace as you ran the shampoo and conditioner through your hair. If you wouldn’t end up looking like a shrivelled up prune, you might’ve camped out in here for the night.

After drying your hair, you wrapped yourself in the towel and begrudgingly opened the door to the noise. Madison was rolling around the floor, searching for something under the couch, while Lyla and William had their feet pressed down on her back, making her search that much more difficult. You rolled your eyes so far, you were convinced they momentarily left their sockets. Making your way to the fridge to get some cold pasta for dinner, you felt like someone’s eyes were on you, boring a hole through your towel. You snuck a glance as you opened the fridge door, and William was still staring at you. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. You made eye contact with him and he still didn’t look away, he just winked at you. You might as well have been walking around without the towel, cause the way he was looking at you made you feel incredibly naked.

You took your pasta to your room, ignoring Madison’s pleas from the under the couch to hang out and William’s unwavering stare. Still wrapped in your towel, you flopped on the bed, shoved a forkful of pasta into your mouth and opened up Netflix on your laptop, deciding to watch yet another repeat of That 70s Show. Halfway through another mouthful of pasta, you were interrupted as your door opened and in walked William. Jesus Christ.

“Can I help you?”, you managed to get out after swallowing your pasta in a hurry.

William smirked at you, “hoping you wouldn’t see me for a while?”

“No, I’m just exhausted, hungry and in the mood for a cuddle session with my blanket” you replied, shoving another forkful into your mouth.

“I’d be a lot more fun to cuddle with than your blanket” he teased.

To say you were confused was an understatement. The fact is, you and William were just acquaintances. You didn’t hang out unless Lyla was there and most of the time, even then, you still didn’t have much to do with each other. Last night was the longest time you’d ever spent alone with him, and you were naked for the majority of it. You figured it was a one off, a drunken fling and you’d see each other the next time Lyla made you all join in on her shenanigans. So, you couldn’t understand why he’d come in here and offered up his snuggling services.

You paused your show and said “I have no clothes on”.

“You didn’t have clothes on last night orthis morning either”.

“Didn’t you come here to hang out with Madison and Lyla? They’re in the other room in case you forgot”

“Madi just fell asleep on the couch and Lyla’s trying to hook up with some guy on Tinder, so I thought I’d do whatever you’re doing” he said, playfully pouting at you in a way that would’ve made you feel horrible if you told him to get lost.

“Fine. You can stay but touch my pasta, and you’re a dead man”.

William laughed and, before you even knew what he was doing, flopped down on the bed beside you.

“There’s a chair right there”

“You said I could stay which I assumed meant you wanted me to cuddle with, and how can I do that sitting all the way over there” he chirped, stretching his arm out towards the chair with a look on his face that would make anyone think it was miles away instead of a couple of steps.

“What part of me saying that I have no clothes on did you not understand?”, swatting his hand away as he jokingly tugged at the bottom of your towel.

Immediately, William leapt up, pulled his shirt over his head and starting unbuttoning his pants.

You almost choked on your pasta.

“What are you doing!?”

“You seemed to have a problem with me wearing clothes and you not, so I thought I’d fix it” he said with a smirk, letting his boxers drop to the floor.

In-between fits of laughter you managed to say, “what the fuck is happening right now!?”

William joined your laughter, before flashing you a devilish grin.

“What?” you said, noticing the look on his face.

“Well, I’m now completely naked and you still have your towel on. So this seems really unfair” he teased.

“Nobody told you to take your clothes off” you snapped back.

“Thought you might have been missing all this since you had to leave in such a rush this morning”.

“You’re joking right?”

William shrugged his shoulders, “Hey, I was just trying to make you feel more comfortable about wanting to be naked but if you’re gonna leave me so vulnerable that’d just be rude” he said, enjoying every moment of winding you up.

There was no way you were going to get rid of him at this point, and you just wanted to watch your damn show. So, you caved.

“Fine” you said, putting your pasta bowl on the nearest shelf, and letting your towel drop down to your feet. “But let me make this clear to you, we’re not having sex. We’re just two people with mutual friends, lying in bed naked, together, watching That 70s Showok?”

William nodded his head in agreement, although you weren’t sure you believed him or yourself for that matter, and you curled up under the covers together.

It didn’t take long before your head had found its way to his chest, resting above his heart and feeling it beat. Your left arm was hanging over him, while his was wrapped around your shoulders, his fingers playing with strands of your hair. You couldn’t even see your laptop screen anymore but you were so comfortable, so relaxed that you didn’t care. It was such a different tempo from last night when you’d both been on a high, grabbing at each other, desperate for him to get into you. Even though you’d had sex less than twenty four hours ago, lying here with him now made you feel so much closer to him. You were just enjoying each other’s company, not expecting anything from the other.

William ran his fingers through your hair again, before breaking the atmosphere that had been filled by the antics of Eric and the gang.

“So” he started. You titled your head up so you could see his face, moving your hand towards his shoulder at the same time.

“You mentioned a few times that we don’t know anything about each other”

“Yeah” you answered, wondering where he was going with this.

“Well, you still know more about me than I know about you. I mean I’m sure you’ve googled me once or twice” he said, half-jokingly, half-serious.

“Not at all full of yourself are you?” you chirped.

“Anyway, now’s your chance to tell me. Seriously, tell me anything”

“Anything is a little broad”

“Ok, I’ll be more specific. Where are you from?”

“New York”

“Got any siblings?”

“Two. An older sister and an older brother”

“What do your parents do?”

“Make our lives hell”

“What?”

Fuck. That was meant to stay in your head, not come out your mouth.

“I meant to say that my dad’s a CEO and my mum’s a lawyer”.

William looked you in the eyes, “I can shut up if you want. I mean, we don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to”.

You thought about it for a moment, then decided fuck it. Madison was the only one that knew your family history and it was quite exhausting keeping it to yourself most of the time.

“Well, strap in cause it’s not pretty”

You let out a long sigh, preparing to open the floodgates, as you felt William wrap his arm around you tighter.

“The one thing you need to know about my parents is that image, is everything. You need to look happy, they don’t care if you aren’t, you just have to make everyone else believe you are”

“Got it”

“I’m not saying my childhood was horrible because it wasn’t, just a lot of things got brushed under the carpet in order to make sure my parents reputations were still spotless. The exhausting part was when we had to put on the act in front of all their high society friends. It was literally a competition for who could construct the perfect life and protect it the longest. Ultimately, we lost”

“What do you mean you lost?”

“My sister was seventeen when she found out she was pregnant, I was only twelve at the time. My parents told her to get an abortion, they even set the appointment up for her at a clinic that was out of town so she couldn’t accidentally run into anyone on the way. Except, Clara didn’t want an abortion. She’d already fallen madly in love with those tiny cells inside of her, and nothing could change her mind. Unsurprisingly, my parents weren’t in favour. So, they threw her out. I remember that moment like it happened yesterday. The only one yelling was Clara. She was telling them to be parents and not monitors, she just wanted someone to tell her that it was all going to be ok, and that she had their support. Instead, they just sat there like robots until she’d finished screaming and then they told her to leave. And she did”.

William didn’t say anything, he just wrapped both his arms around you and rested his chin on your head, holding you as close as he could.

“Like I said, I was only twelve so it was hard for me to keep in contact with her. She wrote down her phone number for me so I could call her but my parents found it and ripped it up. The only reason I even knew she gave birth was because her boyfriend’s sister found me at school and told me. I remember coming home and telling my parents that Clara had given birth to a little boy, my nephew, their grandson, and they completely ignored me. They didn’t even acknowledge what I told them, not even to tell me to shut up. As far as they were concerned, Clara didn’t exist anymore. She was a stranger to them”.

“Fuck. That’s, that’s really intense, and a shit load for a twelve year old to deal with. What’s your relationship like with your sister and your nephew now?”

A small smile spread on your face, “it’s amazing now that I don’t live under my parents thumb. I talk to her almost every day and I facetime my nephew, Taylor, every weekend so he can tell me how his week was. He’s honestly the best thing that ever happened to her, to both of us really. Thanks to Clara and Taylor, I actually know what it looks like when a parent loves their child unconditionally you know? I mean, I can’t wait to have my own family one day and do exactly what she did, give them everything our parents didn’t”.

“That’s great, seriously. I mean my brother might be annoying as fuck but I’d be lost without him, so I get how special it must be for you to still be close with her despite all the shit your parents pulled”.

You’d unconsciously started fiddling with his fingers while you were spilling your guts, and now you found yourself clinging to his hand.

“So I ended up telling you a shitload more than I planned to but I really appreciate you listening, and not judging. I learnt pretty early on that when I told that story in particular all people did was either tell me shit I already knew or say that my sister was a slut. So, this is a really nice change”

“Look, I know you don’t think we’re friends or whatever, but if you ever want to talk about anything you can talk to me”

“Sure” you said, cosying into him even more. You’d never let a guy in this quick before but, within twenty four hours William had seen you naked twice and learned 50% of your family history. This was destined to end one way but for now, you were blissfully ignorant.

William stretched his arms and let out a long yawn, and immediately you missed his hands running through your hair.

“So, I should probably get going. It’s late and I don’t want you to get sick of me” he teased.

“Stay”

“You want me to?”

“Pleasestay” you sung, not giving a fuck about how desperate you sounded.

Instead of answering, William returned his arms to your body, wrapping them tight around you and planted a kiss on top of your head. You put your laptop on the floor and pulled the blankets up over you, like you were little kids under a fort that you’d built in your living room on a rainy day.

“Goodnight Y/N”

“Goodnight William”.

#william nylander #william nylander imagine #william nylander fic #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #toronto maple leafs #nylander #willy nylander #it took one night #william nylander imagines #hockey imagines #nhl fic #sarah's shitty writing

[hellospunkiebrewster]

A (Beaumont) Brother Abroad - Part I

Summary: Maxwell makes his way to a Picta-model-that-he-can’t-remember’s party. Will he even be able to get in the door? What sort of fun awaits him there? 

Catch on A Brother Abroad here: Prologue

Perma-tags: @madaraism, @mfackenthal, @flyawayblue56, @blackcatkita, @darley1101, @bella-ca, @theroyalweisme, @pbchoicesobsessed, @never-ending-choices, @writtenbycandy, @katurrade

Tags: @breaumonts, @thedepthsremember, @beysenpai

When he gets to the street corner, Maxwell pulls out his phone again to call a car. Within minutes his Dryve is there and he gives them the address.

“Beverly Hills? You’re headed to one fancy neighborhood my man. Headed to something fun, I hope?” The driver begins to strike up conversation.

Maxwell leans forward in his seat, his head as close to in between the front seats as he can manage, and tells the driver the story of what led him to be here at this moment in time. The driver was laughing, enjoying the elaborate tale of love, nobility, assassinations, and finally a happy ending.

“Wait so you, some kind of flouncy noble, took on an actual assassin, armed with a piece of a chandelier? This sounds like a movie.” He laughs.

Maxwell grins. Anytime he told this story people’s reactions were the same. Amazed at the drama and romance, practically at the edge of their seat at the suspense. He loved it, it egged him on to share more. It had resulted in him learning a lot about people he had only just met. It led to him learning about this party tonight. He thought he and Hunt were going to enjoy a quiet night of whatever odd, underground, eccentric thing he had planned before he told him earlier in the day he had some business to take care of. Maxwell was always good at adapting, so he found something else to do.

The car turns off of a main road onto a manicured and well lit street. The houses lining the drive were not huge, but definitely expensive and modern. Their yards were grassy and lush, flower beds filled with perfectly pruned bushes and plants.

“Here we are.” The car rolls to a stop at the end of the drive, in a cul-de-sac. The largest house on the street and any of the surrounding ones Maxwell had driven through tonight in this car sat in front of him. He could hear the dull hum of music through the car’s windows. He nods to the driver and opens the door to get out of the car. The music thrums harder than before and Maxwell can feel all of his hairs stand on end. There was something about a party atmosphere that excited him more than anything in the whole world.

He stands on the curb for a moment after the car drives away, breathing in the static that hung in the air, feeling the best of the music in his ears. After a few seconds, he makes his way to the front steps of the large mansion.

A large, muscled man stands at the door, clipboard in hand. Maxwell puts a smile on his face as he approaches, he was going to have to charm his way in. He swallows hard before the bouncer asks for his name.

“Maxwell Beaumont, but I’m going to be totally honest with you, I’m not on that list.”

“Then you’re not getting in.”

“Oh but I am, and I’ll tell you why. I’m basically one of the most famous people in one of the trendiest Mediterranean countries right now.”

The doorman looks him up and down. He doesn’t respond.

“You had to have heard of Cordonia, our king just got married. It was televised all across the world.”

“Nope, now if you’ll step aside.” The doorman motions to some girls standing behind Maxwell, scantily clad and wearing some sort of iridescent, glittery body paint.

“Welcome to the party ladies.” The girls step around Maxwell and past the doorman into the party. The music rises instantly when he pulls the door open for them and fades slowly as he closes the door, he doorman’s eyes lingering on the round bottoms of their ass cheeks barely peeking out from under their skirts.

“I don’t think they were on the list.”

“Don’t have to be on the list if you’re hot.”

“I’m telling you, I’m famous. I’m nobility. I’m in the tabloids practically every week.”

“Don’t care.”

Maxwell clenches his jaw, this dumb lug of a man was not budging. He did well at meatheaded doorman academy. You didn’t have to be too smart to follow a simple rule: no name, no entry.

“What if I could prove to you that I was famous? Or that I’m like a world class dancer?”

The doorman shakes his head.

“Dudes just like you come to these parties in droves. What they’re always lacking is chicks. I’m not letting you in man.”

“What if I told you that some of my very hot friends were on the way here right now?” Maxwell turns to the street, as if looking for an approaching car.

“How many?”

“A few, several,” Maxwell shrugs. It was best to not be specific.

Headlights peeled around the curve a bit down the street, hopefully this was his chance. If a few girls stepped out of that car in front of this house, he’d have to be really quick and precise with his words to fool the doorman.

As expected, the car comes to a rest in front of the house. When the door opens, a few girls in their twenties spill out of the back seat. Maxwell shoots the doorman a grin and a shrug.

“You’re finally here ladies!”

“Yea we are,” one exceptionally loud and already drunk girl shouts. She’s bubbly and her blue eyes look welcoming. She tosses her blonde hair back and it cascades behind her in waves. She looks over her friends then back to him, her lips parted in a genuinely happy smile. She was impeccably dressed, much better than her friends, purple was her color. If he wasn’t so desperate to get into the party, he might’ve struck up a conversation right here with her. Maxwell knows she’s the perfect mark if this is going to go over well and he’s going to get into the party.

“I’m so glad you all could join me,” he says, grabbing the hand of the drunk girl and kissing the back of it. “Shall we?” He offers her his arm, feeling tense and hoping she was tipsy enough to play along. She giggles and slips her hand into the crook of his elbow and Maxwell sighs in relief.

“You’re cute,” she whispers.

He leads the group up the lawn to the door, where the doorman looks obviously disgruntled at Maxwell’s shenanigans.

“They’re not with you, she’s just drunk.”

“I am not drunk!”

Maxwell chuckles, “She always says that when she’s drunk.”

The girl gasps and smacks his upper arm with her free hand, “...do not.” She turns her gaze to the bouncer and says to him, dead pan and unblinking, “So are you letting my friends, my boyfriend, and me in or what?”

The doorman looks over the group and sighs. “Fine.” He steps aside and Maxwell reaches to open the door. Just as with the group before, the music rises the moment the seal of the door cracks open and Maxwell feels the thrill of entering another Hollywood party. Once they’re out of sight of the doorman, the girl drops his arm and salutes him, motioning for him to go on his way. She turns to her friends and starts making her way to the bar. Maxwell doesn’t notice when she glances back at him, her purple dress shimmering in the party lights.

The party buzzed electric, the beat of the music thumped so hard Maxwell could feel it coursing through his body. He works his way quickly towards the back of the house and the pool, before the doorman wises up and stops him from egressing further.

The press of young, beautiful people all around excites him; the lights, a fun combination of magenta and teal, mesmerize him. He didn’t remember what Pictagram model was throwing this party or why, but he didn’t care. This was his element. He wanted to get noticed tonight, to have an adventure. He didn’t realize someone already had their eye on him.

Maxwell hops up on top of a platform meant for dancing, raising himself above the shoulders of much of the pulsing throng of revelers. He moves to the beat, bobbing and twisting wherever the music tells him to. He’s caught the attention of a few other party goers around the platform and soon a small crowd is cheering for him. He sees someone out of the corner of his eye clamber up onto the platform beside him. He turns to her, her blonde hair and purple dress a mess as she realizes the small stage is higher than she anticipated. Her blue eyes meet his for a moment, pleading for help.

He lifts her by the waist, she was a tiny waif of a girl, and helps her stand.

“My hero,” she whispers, inaudible against the thump of the bass. Her hands rest against Maxwell’s chest, her hips pressing against him, and she pulls him into a dance with her. Maxwell obliges, never one to turn away a dance with a beautiful girl. She was good too, almost equally matched. The two of them swayed together, her lips curled in a mischievous smile as she moves with him. She twirls away and falls into some 90s choreography that Maxwell recognized as something that changed his formative years. He focuses for a moment on the music playing and realizes the DJ has been playing some sort of fun 90s mash up the entire time and they were now dancing to Hit Me Baby One More Time.

He catches her eye and joins in with her seamlessly, visions of him dancing along in his bedroom as a young teen in his mind, until the song transitions to another. She looks at him, laughter in her eyes, and motions off the stage. When he doesn’t answer, still mentally caught in the choreography from before, she pulls him down to her and finds his ear.

“How about we take a breather?” He can feel her lips brush against his ear and it makes all his hairs stand on end. Maxwell nods and takes her hand to help her down.

Once he is down beside her, his hand finds her waist and pulls her so he can speak in her ear, “You find us a place to sit, I’ll get us some drinks, what would you like?”

“Surprise me.” She grins and walks off into the crowd towards the end of the party away from the DJ.

Maxwell works his way through the pulsing, dancing crowd to the bar where he first asks the bartender if they have any whole pineapples before darting behind the bar and mixing up his signature drink himself. It only takes a couple minutes and his wild concocting and tossing of bottles and the shaker draw attention to the bar.

“I’ll have what he’s making,” one party goer asks the stunned bartender on duty. They begin grabbing whatever bottles they thought Maxwell had used and mixing up numerous cocktails as more and more people began to request them. Maxwell is long gone before they manage to get out the first of many cocktail travesties trying to replicate him.

He finds the girl he was dancing with away from the party, along a back glass wall overlooking the city below. She’s sitting on a sleek acrylic bench. It’s quieter here, the party’s music reaching them but feeling like an afterthought. He hands her a glass of his Pineapple Paradise Surprise Punch, the bar sadly did not have any whole pineapples to serve as a glass. She takes the glass and nods a thank you to him. She raises the glass to her lips and inhales the sweet tropical aroma, like suntan lotion but in a good way, takes a sip, and nearly spits out the drink.

“That’s deceptively… strong.”

Maxwell laughs, “Well that’s the surprise. Wouldn’t be my Pineapple Paradise Surprise Punch without it.” He sits beside her. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, I’m Maxwell, Maxwell Beaumont.”

She laughs, he was right. “Hi Max, I can call you Max right?”

“Please do, I love nicknames.”

“Well Max who loves nicknames, I’m Addison Sinclair.” She raises the glass to her lips again and takes a thoughtful sip.

“Nice to finally meet you Addy.”

A beat passes as neither of them really pick up the conversation but instead catch their breath in the quiet. Maxwell notices the way she keeps looking down at her knees or gazing off into the Hollywood hills. She looks like she wants to say something, but doesn’t.

“What brings you to this party?”

“A friend invited me, his costar was throwing it but he ended up not being able to make it last minute.” She finally looks back at Maxwell, “He got really hurt a couple days ago on a shoot. They’re flying him back home, but he’ll probably be in the hospital for a while.”

“Oh wow, I’m sorry. Really sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to saddle you with all this. We only just met, I’m sure you weren’t expecting that from someone you just met dancing on a platform at a party.”

“Don’t be.” He bumps his shoulder against hers and she smiles up at him.

“You’re not from here.”

“That’s right. How could you tell?”

“Your accent, it’s subtle but it’s there.”

“Man… here I was thinking I was doing a good job concealing it.”

“So where are you from?”

“Cordonia, a small Mediterranean island country. Have you heard of it?”

“Have I heard of it?” She laughs. “Most everyone in the States has heard of it. It’s only the setting for the absolute hottest TV show right now. And you all had that beautiful wedding only a couples months ago, right?” She stops then realization lights up her face.

“Wait a second. Beaumont. Maxwell, Beaumont.” She looks him up and down and speak again. “The same Maxwell Beaumont who was the Man of Honor at the Royal wedding?”

“The very same. I guess I’m not very inconspicuous.”

“You could’ve at least used a fake name. I do.”

He chuckles. “Good idea, a fake name. Wait you... why?”

“Let’s keep that a secret for now,” she says, winking, as her phone buzzes. Maxwell reaches into his pocket for his own phone and pulls up his browser once he unlocks it. He opens the search bar and begins typing her

“That’s my friends, they think I’ve gone missing or been kidnapped.” She grabs his phone that he’d just taken out to search for her online. Addison types in her phone number and texts herself from it. “There, you have my number.” She passes his phone back to him, her fingers grazing his, and her eyes move quickly up to his from where their hands touched. Her cheeks flush lightly.

“This is so not like me,” she laughs. “Want to maybe do something tomorrow? I have something I need to do in the morning, but we can meet up after.”

Maxwell nods, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She takes a final gulp from her drink and disappears into the crowd. When Maxwell looks down at his phone, it buzzes in his hand. A message from Hunt.

#playchoices #play choices #the royal romance #trr #red carpet diaries #rcd #trr x rcd #choices fanfiction #trr fanfic #rcd fanfic #crossover fic #choices crossover #maxwell beaumont #thomas hunt #addison sinclair #a brother abroad #the buddy story no one asked for

[namscrabs]

pause

➳   pairing: Yoongi x reader

➳   warning(s): depression / feelings / self hate [?]

➳   word count: 2K

❖ A/N: i didn’t edit this so sorry if it’s messy and the grammar sucks. i just wanted to write something from my feelings without editing it.

you could feel your chest get heavier as you thought of how quiet the house would be without your boyfriend and all of his friends. You were unfazed at the sound of light rain patting against the window while you lied in bed surrounded with nothing but a blanket and a cold left side of the bed. You felt empty without him, lonely. You had planned on doing a lot this week, more than you normally planned so maybe that’s why you didn’t feel the best today. But the more you thought about the possibilities you just came to the conclusion you were just having an off week 

No matter how many times you had tried to peel yourself from the cold mattress, or how many numbers would change on the alarm clock nearby, you just couldn’t do it. So you lay there listening to the pattering of the rain. You found it quite soothing actually, but it felt like it just made everything hurt more. It made you realize how alone you were. You felt there was no way out of this pained state you were in. but with Yoongi in thought you finally sat up from your comfortable spot on the bed with a sigh.

your eyes stung from the crying you did the previous hours before. You had been up at 5 when Yoongi got ready for practice, but kept everything in until he left. You couldn’t bare to think of burdening him with your feelings so you kept quiet. To be honest, the more and more you pondered it wasn’t just an off week and that you had been feeling like this for the past few weeks. You dismissed the thousands of thoughts and worries being thrown around your head and went to the kitchen to slowly gulp down a glass of cold water and making your way to the bathroom

You couldn’t help but feel disgusted as you saw your body as you removed your clothes, yet making you feel even worse. You stepped into the warm shower not even washing your body, but just standing there in thought and letting the water droplets drizzle down the parts of your body you hated but Yoongi liked loved.

you couldn’t seem to get out of this clouded mindset even as you had “showered”, which by showering you stood there in the warm water until your fingertips turned into prunes. Even though you had just stood there, you did admit you felt cleaner. but it didn’t help you thoughts and feelings disappear. You couldn’t even manage to push your brush through your hair as your body found it to be too much work so you dried your hair and put it up in a simple bun.

After deciding some fresh air would be nice you grabbed your phone one of Yoongi’s over sized shirts and slipping on some comfy shoes not putting makeup on which only worsened your low confidence, you headed out of the house and walked wherever your feet would take you. Although you had put makeup on you felt almost too tired to care.

as time passed you couldn’t help but want to see Yoongi. even if it was just for a minute, you just felt you needed this. Stopping by the coffee shop next to their studio, you headed up to the building. The lady that was always at the front desk greeted you as she recognized your figure. She smiled at you sadly which prove you didn’t only feel exhausted and upset; you looked it too. Many of the staff also gave you sad smiles, some almost looked empathetic.

opening the door to their practice room nobody noticed you had entered even after setting their usual drinks down on the chair next to you and sitting on the floor with your knees tucked to your chest. They had only noticed when the music that had been blaring only seconds ago paused. Namjoon had walked back to get his water and saw coffee’s sitting there and then next to them was you on the floor with the straw in your mouth sitting there calmly but looking tired and sickly almost.

“Hi y/n..” he waved and smiled softly.

hearing Namjoon speak your name everyone turned around and came towards the back of the room to grab their drink while thanking you. All you did was nod. “be ready in 5″ Hoseok and Namjoon told everyone and they just nodded.

Yoongi knew something was wrong because you did often bring them drinks and food, but you were always as loud as Hobi or louder when you entered. If you had entered silently without anyone noticing for however long; there was something definitely wrong.

Yoongi crouched down and lifted your chin up, “Thanks for the coffee, you alright?” he smiled gently. You just nodded and smiled at him weakly; lying. He leaned forward to kiss my cheek and then grabbed my free hand with his, “you sure?” you just shrugged but still smiled weakly at him. At this point he knew you were having a bad day and week. He noticed some signs a few days ago but didn’t mention anything in fear he was wrong. But now confirming his suspicions all he wanted to do was cuddle with you and talk things out; But no. he was stuck at practice for another good section of the day. It was only morning and he had to stay until 6 pm. only leaving enough time to settle in for dinner, maybe something easy like a board game or a movie (if you had finished eating and cleaning up early enough), then go to sleep.

he sighed knowingly before sitting next to you, “you know you don’t have to lie. right?” he said tightening his grip around your hand. You just shrug. he chuckles at your action, “ is the only reaction i’m gonna get from you is a shrug? no words?” “i love you..” you mumble and place your head on his shoulder as you smile slightly. Even if it’s only temporary you still appreciate it.

you sat there tossing, “i love you”’s and different forms of “i love you more”’s trying to beat each other in who loved the other more until Hoseok stood in front of you both

“hate to separate you two love birds, but we need yoongi back.” hoseok smiles down at both of you. Your smile drops and you nod as you remove your head from his shoulder and your hand from his replacing it onto your drink. As he stood he looked at you, “if it makes you feel any better i have a longer break around lunch and we can go to eat together if you’re still here then. I know you’re feeling off and that when you’re with me it makes you feel a bit better.” he gave you his well known gummy smile. you nod and look up from your hands seeing his smile made your eyes brighten a bit and he smiled wider at that. “hurry up yoongi!” they called for him.

he groaned loudly which earned him a giggle from you, “i love you~” he whined holding his hand out as he backed away only stopping when he got near the rest of the group. You shivered at the temperature in the room. 

the only thing you had worn was a t-shirt and you felt like an idiot as you shivered barley receiving any warmth from the cooled down beverage in your hands. After Yoongi noticed he slipped off his sweatshirt and handed it to you as they changed the music. You were starting to feel a bit better but knew it was only because yoongi had been there.

As lunchtime rolled around you ordered takeout and let the boys know you were going to pick it up and would be back shortly. when you did return you opened the door to the maknes + hoseok trying to force themselves onto jungkook’s back. Jungkook kept telling them to get on and that he could hold them but as Hoseok made his way ontop of taehung who was ontop of jimin, jungkook was proved wrong. They all went toppling to the floor.

You just smiled and shook your head at their shenanigans as you set up the food and heard Jin scolding them while making sure jungkook was alright. 

“yah hoseok! i told you not to climb on top of them.”

“but jungkook told me to!” 

You chuckled quietly to yourself before you found arms that had wrapped around your waist, you had tensed at the feeling. You knew it was yoongi, but you hated the way your stomach looked which made you slightly uneasy when yoongi held you that way. “our food is here,” you pointed to you and yoongi’s take out containers, “Jin’s there, hoseok’s, jungkook’s, jimin’s, and taehyung’s.” you pointed out their orders. He nods, “guy’s foods here!” he calls out as he starts to grab the orders to hand it to them.

One by one they all get their food and begin to eat while sitting in the middle of the practice room floor or on the chairs in the back of the room. Yoongi carries yours and his container. You go to sit down in your previous spot but before you could sit down yoongi calls out to you. you look up to him and he motions for you to follow him out the door.

“where are you two going?” namjoon questions. 

“my studio.” he answers. you smile.

Yoongi had told you about this idea ahwhile ago that we should have lunch in his studio or dinner (if he had planned on being in the studio for the night) if we ever had the chance. and here it was, finally happening.

“be back in 25 you two.” he laughed. you both nodded before heading to his studio; because his hands had been preoccupied with the take-out containers you asked for the passcode. Yes, you didn’t even know the passcode yet even though you had been dating for over two years.

he smiled, “our anniversary..” you smiled gently at that as you tapped away at the locks keys. the door unlocked with a faint, but still knowledgeable beep. You both ate lunch quickly to make sure you were back in time. you finished early so yoongi decided to take this time to lay on the couch in his studio with you against his chest as he played with your hair. You eventually fell asleep as he did so.

After all, you were tired, the past few days had been restless for you because yoongi had been working hard on songs and spent a lot of his time practicing or producing. Because he didn’t want to wake you yet he slipped from underneath you and tossed the containers away before using the bathroom quickly and woke you to let you know he was going back to practice and that you could continue sleeping in his studio if you wanted to; but you didn’t want to be alone so you drowsily followed behind him.

Practice came to an end slowly and your mood improved a bit from being with him for most of the day. You both left the facility to head home with the rest of the boys. Everyone was exhausted so you made dinner that night. To you it tasted off but everyone thought it tasted just fine. Yoongi thought it was just because your mood wasn’t the best at the moment that you believed the meal you cooked tasted off.

By the time everything was cleared from the table, the dishes were done, and the left-overs were stored in the fridge it was 8. everyone voted on movie night since they didn’t have practice till tomorrow evening, but you and yoongi ditched them for your shared bed.

For the rest of the night Yoongi and you cuddled while he asked you about how you were feeling and why you felt so upset. You cried yourself to sleep on yoongi’s chest but woke up to him giving you extra love and attention to ensure you had a better day than the last. 

#bangtan #bangtan boys #bangtan sonyeodan icons #bts #bts angst #bts fluff #bts jhope #bts jimin #bts reactions #bts jin #bts seokjin #bts suga #bts v #kim seokjin #jin #seokjin #yoongi x reader #bts yoongi #min yoongi

[scriptmedic]

Hi Scriptmedic, long time fan, first time writer! I have a gothic horror fantasy protagonist who's a surgeon in a Victorianish setting. The character gets into some necromantic shenanigans, and performs a ritual where he cuts out his own heart. He 'survives' the process by becoming undead/a ghost during it. How would I viscerally describe a surgeon doing this if there was no pain, no need to stop bleeding, no need to be delicate, yet keep the vibe of a surgeon operating on himself? Thanks!

Hey there @shatterstag ! Congrats on the first ask ofOctober! This one is spooky enough for Halloween.

Here’s a special trick treat. Feel free to modify it, scorn it, orcopy and paste it directly into your story.

Squeamish readers, skip this one. 

---

The mirror wasn’t strictly necessary. He was good enough todo it by feel if he had to. But the mirror added theatrics. Made it real. Madeit a show, one only he could see.

He was so used to the operating theater: the rows of doctorsmurmuring in their seats as the surgery happened. But now it was just him.

He opened his shirt. Lay down a clean towel in his lap. Thepain wouldn’t bother him. But the trousers were too nice to spoil.

He began with a cut down the breastbone. From the V at thehollow of his throat to the tip of the breastbone. A red trail preceded the tipof the scalpel as the wound oozed. The white shine of bone could be seen,underneath the skin and parting muscle.

Next were the pruning shears.

He had considered a saw, but it would have provenineffective. He had used it on cadavers before, but the angle made itimpossible.

Instead he began with the shears on either side of thesternum. The cartilage where the ribs spread off was thick and tough.

The first one gave with an awful thunk and a sound like a small branch snapping.

It was peculiar. It should have hurt. The snapping of thebone should have done more than made him grind his teeth from the sound. Heshould have felt agony. The only people this was done to were the dead, andthey didn’t mind.

He smiled. Perhaps he was dead already.

He made his way from bottom to the top: tenth, ninth,eighth, all the way through the first. The snapsnap snap of the ribs echoed in the empty theater.

The right side followed. This was more awkward: his left wasnot his strong hand, but he managed.

He pulled his breastbone off his chest like a flap.

What remained was a window into the workings of his organs.He could see his gray-purple lungs expand and collapse with his breath. Hisheart hung beating nestled between them.

Even as a doctor he had never seen a human heart beat. Thescience of medicine had not yet advanced to being able to cut a man’s chestopen and have him live.

He reached out his fingers to touch it. He felt the chamberspump. It squeezed and released over and over. The very foundation of his pulse was at his command. 

He held the scalpel against the arch of the aorta, that mainthoroughfare of blood from the heart to the body. He watched his own deepbreath in the mirror. The hand that held the scalpel did not betray him. It wassteady as a rock.

He sliced.

Blood sprayed as much as a yard from his heart. Itsplattered on the mirror and soaked the white towel in his lap red. He couldfeel it soak through and into his trousers in moments. It was warm. 

He knew he would not die as he watched the blood slow to atrickle. His heart began to quiver under his hand, and then was still.

Perhaps he was already dead. Or perhaps he was well beyonddeath, into the thing that lay just on the other side of a heartbeat.

He finished the incisions: pulmonary artery, pulmonaryveins, vena cava high and low. His bare hand was slick with his own blood as heheld his heart up to the light.

Morbidly he squeezed it: top for the atria, bottom for theventricles. It dribbled a dark red trickle down his ruined shirtsleeve.

He stood, chest yawning open to the world.

He dropped his stone-dead heart on the floor. It hit with awet thud. He thought he saw it quiver once and then go still. 

Then he stood, and put down the towel, and walked out of thetheater.

He did not look back.

---

Anyway, that’s how I’d do it.

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

[disclaimer] – wait does fiction need a disclaimer?!

#story time

[redrobinfection]

Jump the Gun

JayTim Week 2017 - Day 6 Lifeguard | “Water Guns”

Water Gun Fight || Silly || Batfam Shenanigans || ~800 words || Ao3

“Tim. Babybird.” Jason raised both hands, palms out, voice low and soothing. “Put down the gun.”

“DON’T YOU DARE MOVE, YOU SON OF A BAT, I WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE.”

Jason winced and lowered his stance. “Tim. Timbo. I know you’re scared. I know this shit gets to you but don’t do anything you know I wouldn-”

“I SAID DON’T MOVE, DAMMIT. DON’T. FLIPPING. MOVE!”

Jason froze from where he’d been leaning forward, where he’d been mentally preparing himself to leap forward to grab the gun out of the other man’s hands. He began the motions to soothe again just as a cheery “Tiiiiimmmy” floated from around the corner. Jason whipped his head toward the alarming sound. He didn’t even have a chance to turn back before Tim pulled the trigger.

“Tiiiimmm- ah, man, you already got Jason?” Dick chirped cheerily, winking at the soaked man in question. Tim switched the sights of his exaggeratedly large super-soaker to point steadily at Dick’s stupidly-pretty face. Jason sincerely hoped Tim’s aim was as unfaltering for Golden Boy as it had been for him.

“Fuck you, Dick. What made you think any of this would be fun?” Jason groused as Tim and Dick squared off in a Mexican standoff. Jason could almost swear Tim had stopped blinking by this point.

In a flurried rush, Dick flew at Tim, barely dodging a frantic burst of water to wrap both arms and legs around the smaller man. Dick pointed his quaint water pistol at Tim’s temple and gave it a light drizzling, almost as an afterthought to the deathgrip hug. Dick ignored the muffled wails of protest as he slowly crushed his younger brother under the literal weight of his affection.

“Ah, man, Jaybird, I thought gun fights were your jam? And what’s better on a hot day than soak each other senseless until we prune?”

Jason frowned as Tim’s struggles became quieter and quieter, wordlessly pointing to Tim until Dick realized the pressing issue and released his love-strangled captive. Tim collapsed to the ground, grumbling moodily to his super-soaker as he hugged it futilely to his chest.

“I can think of plenty of things, Dickiebird, most of them beginning with the letter ‘A’ and ending with the letter 'C’.”

“Actually,” Tim coughed from the ground, “that would end with 'g’, but regardless I wholeheartedly agr-” he tried to say at the same time that Dick said “Ahhh, Jay, don’t be such a sore loser, I’m sure you’ll win the nex-” but both their responses were cut off by a deafening “GRAAAAAAYYYSSSOOOOON.”

As a little ball of fury Jason could only assume was the super-saiyan mode of a particularly pissed off Damian grappled with Dick in a surprising cloud of dust - how they managed to kick up dust with how Alfred oversaw the management and upkeep of the grounds was beyond him - Jason made his way over to the sad puddle of Tim and worked on standing him up again.

“Come on, Timbo, get up. We’ll get Dick next time. That’s why I wanted us to work together in the first place, babybird.”

Tim made a non-committal sound but let himself be pulled to his feet anyway. He was in the middle of brushing blades of grass and stray leaves off his body when suddenly he froze, prompting Jason to turn to follow his gaze.

“Holy flying fizz balls…”

Dick and Damian paused their struggle long enough to catch sight of Bruce - soaked to the skin and one side plastered with mud from head to toe - approaching with an empty expression.

“She’s coming,” Bruce said in dead tone. “And she doesn’t care if you’ve been hit in this round yet or not. Run now while you still can.”

Damian’s muttered question of “who” was cut off by a shrill shriek that clearly had to have come from Steph and not a moment later a wide-eyed Cass came streaking silently across the lawn, flew up the steps of the veranda and scrambled up into the eaves of the house.

“Babs, it’s gotta be Babs” Tim muttered at the same time Jason cursed and Dick and Damian flew apart as if they’d been burned. A cackle drifted towards them over the lawn. Like a shot, everyone ran in opposite directions.

They wouldn’t hold out long, Jason found himself thinking as he forcibly shoved Tim into a corner of the house, behind a shrubbery, and covered him with his body. With any luck, maybe Tim could get off a shot while Jason took the brunt of it with his body, but they sure as hell weren’t going to give up without a fight. After all, gun fights were his jam.

#jaytimweek2017 #jaytimweek #jaytim #christmasriverswrites #my writing #mine

[angstgods]

WIP Tag:

this one’s gonna be a doozy. i really need people to love me right now lmaoooo

tagged by the love of my life @zeldaismyhomegirl you get that subculture pallet girl, im here for you if you need some cheerleading! 

(I’m including five wips. Bell Toll 13, my novel Untitled, a yoi clusterfuck called Serendipity, another yoi clusterfuck called Cabaret, and an Evak tentatively titled Pacing. This is gonna be a long fucking post so if you actually care about my wips and stuff, give it a look, but yeah. very long lmao) 

First Line Tag:

Bell Toll:

“Pick up, pick up, pick up...”

“Hi!”

“Oh, thank fuck, Vic–”

“I’m sorry, but you haven’t reached Victor Nikiforov...”

“Goddamnit! .... Oh my god, okay, yeah hi, Victor. I can’t do this. Pick me up. Pick me up right goddamn now.”

(I gave you a few lines but... I mean clearly I haven’t worked on it at all because I want death and if I even continue I have to revamp a lot of it so.... idk be patient with me.) 

Untitled (novel): To feel comfortably alone is a state of being few can achieve, incomparable to mindfulness or zen, it isn’t simplistic enough to sum up in a book or a magazine article. 

(Wow... so much plot... so much insight... aren’t cha soooooo curious)

Serendipity: A pair of tired eyes and unshaven cheeks prowled down the street, headed for the intersection. With his hands in his pockets, he huffed out a cloud of fog, breath cooling before his eyes in the November wind.

(wow... that could be literally anybody in literally anything.... so specific... im such a genius) 

Cabaret: A wide eyed tourist apologized in clumsy French, bowed his head, and stole away into the night with his nose to the pavement. He was looking for something. 

(Lmao three guesses who that mess could be.)

Pacing: What he loved the most was that dumb little smirk, the way the corners of that mouth creased up to accommodate it. The degree in which thin lips smirked communicated a variety of emotions outside of expected smugness.

~*~

Any Line and/or Favorite Line (aka teaser line): 

Bell Toll: “Yuri!” 

Standing a few paces into the hallway, Karl took in his roommate’s bare skin– and the way his arm was folded up to cushion his face against the doorframe– with badly concealed horror. In a state of undress Yuri hadn’t really seen before, Karl blinked from behind frameless reading glasses. 

“What’re you doing here..?” 

(Say something about my ocs. This whole interaction is golden, you don’t even knowwwwwwwwww the roommate is an easter egg for my aussie buddy.) 

Untitled (novel): He processed the familiar bass in that voice he’d heard so much of now spoken from the lips of a complete stranger. He could’ve passed this man on the street, oblivious to how close they were in mind alone. Now there was a body to learn and understand, a thin face with stark, angular features to study, dark eyes to gaze into. Hidden under a strong brow, his eyes could’ve been blue or brown, their color minimized by the darkness that shadowed them, but they were warm and inviting regardless of their color. They drew him in. 

“What can’t you learn from books?” 

(heh heh heh >:3c everything i touch is gay. what can i say, im a book twink. also, lemme know what you think. i started the demo and ill post it soon.)

Serendipity: (This is gonna be a little long cuz i love this whole section)

With his head hung, Yuuri hustled into the shop at 6:15. His eyes were cast down, avoiding whatever look Charlie wore on her face. She hated having to open alone. He headed fast into the back room to hang up his coat. He was barely finished unraveling his scarf and pulling off his hat when the first customers trickled in. He set to work right away, diligently pulling perfect shots for a few lattes and seeing the early risers off on their days. After putting thankful smiles on three faces, he was brave enough to face Charlie who was standing at the other end of the bar with her jaw on the floor. 

“Yuuri,” she started, sifting through her vocabulary for the right words to say, “you are–”

“Late, I’m sorry,” he apologized automatically. “I had a... I’m sorry.” He nervously scrubbed his hand over his face, raking it back through his hair slick from the shower. A navy blue hat swept it back out of his face. The bridge of his nose felt naked in the absence of his glasses. 

“Are you wearing contacts?” Charlie questioned, openly ignoring his incessant apologies. Yuuri could feel her eyes on him. He looked in her general direction but never at her face.

“I lost my glasses,” he admitted, thanking his lucky stars that he managed to find a set of contacts at the last second. “Have you seen them?” He chanced a look at her face. She’d opted for gloss instead of her usual black lip today. The edge of her nail poked at the side of her mouth. Her eyes were lidded with a look of consideration, but her brows were lifted. She regarded him with approval he couldn’t recognize as such. He frowned. “I know, I look like a mole. You don’t have to say it.” 

“You look hot, Yuuri,” she promptly disagreed. She took in all the lines that made up Yuri’s face. Without his glasses, he had to focus his vision tightly on what he was doing. It made his jaw set and his brows sinche together. His cheeks weren’t hollow and gaunt, but that didn’t stop the high points of his cheekbones from casting shadows down his face. There was something different about the way he carried himself that put it all together. “Did you get laid last night?” she asked, and the shock widened his eyes, making him look more like his usual nervous self. 

“No,” he denied, cheeks turning red. Charlie smiled at the chance to poke fun.

“You totally did, don’t lie. You seem looser. Come on, was it your roommate? The… the shady one. What’s his name?”

“I am not–” he shot off with defensively high volume, finishing his thought with a little more composure when a woman looked up from her book,“I am not having sex with my roommate.”

“Something happened.”

“No it didn’t.” 

“Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell!” 

“You fold like a lawn chair. Tell me what happened... Yuuri! Fold! Fold! Fold!” 

“Yuuri!” 

A cheerful voice cut through the struggle and Charlie fell silent. Out of the snow’s wrath, Victor sighed and loosened his scarf to unveil more of his face. Snowflakes melted in his hair and on his lashes. His cheeks were flushed, but he beamed with a cheeriness no human could possess in such miserable weather. He stopped at the counter, brightly greeting Yuuri and a girl Victor saw a lot but never learned the name of. 

“You left your glasses in my car.” 

(Coffee shop shenanigans! also Charlie looks like Lauren Hill and I’d die for her) 

Cabaret: 

“Why do you do it?” Otabek asked, letting the question hang in the air while Yuri slowly picked apart the buttons on his shirt with pruned fingers. Water from the bath spilled over the sides and onto the tiled floor, but Otabek stayed still and peaceful. 

“Because I love men,” he replied somberly, “this is the best way to catch their eyes in that way...” Yuri leaned further out of the tub, the dimples at the base of his spine rising up out of the water. He ghosted the pads of his fingers down past Otabek’s collarbones over his heart. His skin was tanner than Yuri’s, warm and taut over strong muscle. “Perhaps someday I’ll find someone who isn’t disgusted by me,” he added as an afterthought, “but that’ll take years if it happens at all.” 

(think 1920s france, the soviet union was just formed, jj is an asshole) 

Pacing: 

“Wait.” His words contradicted his actions, his nails scratched over Even’s scalp, displacing his hair. Even the tone of his voice disagreed with the command to wait. But the last thing Even wanted was to make Isak uncomfortable. Running his nose over the seam between his abs, he froze in place and waited for an explanation. “This isn’t fair to you...” Isak admitted from deep within himself. His brow was furrowed in thought. “I don’t... What if I can’t do the same for you?” 

(ill probably just write this as a one shot cuz i dont even really see people wanting this but oh well lol) 

And thats my wips! Not gonna tag anyone, but if you like, send me your wips id be glad to give you feedback and PLEASE read me to filth. if these call out to you lemme know! 

#tagged #tagged meme #wip tag #wip #bell toll #yuri on ice #skam #evak

[ecotone99]

[SP] Artisan Grove, Part 1

Father and sons sat around a steadily burning bonfire, listening to the snap and crackle of the wood as it popped under pressure and heat. The boys had gathered the firewood from the wood pile outside of their cabin; not quite the woodsy, do it yourself experience that camping was supposed to be, but close enough for future leaders of the "free" world.

Having the full experience of gathering deadfall and chopping wood probably would have suited the boys better, or at least left them too tired for petty squabbles. As it was, the older had picked up the smaller pieces of firewood and whipped them at the younger, prompting a fight that ended only when the younger went crying to their father for mercy.

After not even a full 24 hours with his sons, Warren was heartily tired of the experiences that came hand-in-hand with being a father. He preferred to let his boys grow up at a respectable distance, getting involved only when it was absolutely necessary to scare one or both of them back on the path he wanted them to take. An irresponsible approach to fatherhood, perhaps, but he was more concerned with the numbers in his bank accounts than showing his boys how to be men. (Arguably, he would have had to be a "real man" to pass that trait onto his sons, but such vices had been bleached out of him by Spite and Greed and Pride.)

With night slowly descending over a day full of shouts, squeals, and squabbles, the two boys finally seemed to be settling down. Warren was grateful for the quiet. If they'd been anywhere else in the world, he would have had their mother - or, more realistically, a small army of nannies - handle the messy details of raising the children, but Artisan Grove was no place for women.

Many of the men who converged on the redwood forest for their summer shenanigans knew the saying - weaving spiders come not here - but few of them understood what was really at stake.

All of them knew women weren't welcome in the grove after 9 or 10pm. Most of them probably assumed it had something to do with some of their more compromising rituals, but none had ever stopped to ask themselves /why/ they dressed up like they did and indulged in the kinds of things that had caused one of the Presidents of the United States to say: "The Artisan Grove, which I attend from time to time — it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine."

There was a joke hidden in the statement - faggy doesn't only mean gay - but from whatever angle you studied the words, you could find some flavoring of truth.

Warren had just grown complacent in the quiet when Tommy, the younger boy, piped up: "Dad! Owen won't stop poking me! Quit it!" He swatted at his older brother, who was wielding a marshmallow roasting stick like a weapon.

Warren didn't try to swallow his sigh. "Enough, both of you," he said darkly. "Brothers don't behave like this." Had he been considering it from another perspective, he may have seen the similarities in the way his sons treated each other and the way his Free Thinker brothers treated one another. Their weapons were sharper and their wars more complicated - over things that were no less stupid - but in the end, they were all little boys poking one another with roasting sticks.

The boys fell into a grumbling, troublesome silence, and Warren had the sense he could either step in and get his hands dirty or watch his peaceful night dissolve into yet more shouts, squeals, and squabbles. "Neither of you have heard the story of Boaz and Jachin, have you?"

Owen muttered something under his breath about how he'd rather be playing on his gameboy, but Tommy was more eager to prove his worth to his father. "They're the two pillars, aren't they?" He piped up.

"Yes," Warren agreed, "but what does that mean?" Blessed silence answered him, at least at first. Then...

"They're what stands in front of the Free Thinker lodge you're always going to," his older son muttered. There were equal amounts of resentment and accusation in his voice, but he was nearing 13. If he was anything like his older cousins had been during their years as a teen - worse than the terrible twos because they were harder to ignore as teenagers - resentment and accusation were the least of his parents' worries.

Warren didn't expect either of his boys would truly come to appreciate the importance of lodge business until they entered college, so he didn't directly answer his older son's sullenness over his frequent absences. Instead, he said, "Boaz came first. Or, more accurately, our brotherhood found Boaz first..."

"You found a pillar?" Tommy asked, sounding like he couldn't imagine why that would be so important.

"No," his father chuckled. "The pillar is a symbol of what Boaz used to be... Of what generations upon generations of Free Thinkers turned Boaz into." He looked up at the sky. "I think it's too late to see Mercury now, but -- our origins aren't strictly on this planet."

The younger son still didn't seem to understand, but Owen was suddenly paying attention. He even straightened up on his chair, abandoning the lounging posture that Warren privately felt had been calculated to irritate him. (Which was why he hadn't said anything about it.) "Are you saying we're aliens?"

Warren chuckled. "In a sense, yes, but I prefer to think of our ancestors as travelers -- visionaries, really." They were so much less than visionaries, but men had been well trained to inflate their own egos and personal histories. Not even Warren fully understood why Boaz and then Jachin had fallen as they had, like pins in a cosmically slow bowling game.

But then, that was the trap in being part of the Free Thinkers' Society. You bought into the free part of it without ever comparing your lot to the 'free men' living Blind, Deaf, and Dumb in the 'real world.' Teach a human to look down on those like her or him, and you taught that human to look down on themselves.

"Was Mercury Boaz or Jachin?" Tommy's voice was quiet with what Warren decided to interpret as awe.

"Boaz," his father supplied. "The Father of religion." Not religion as humans knew it, of course, but the sloppy origins of a sloppy group of time travelers who were trying to establish their past alongside their present.

The first step for any time traveler trying to build a foundation for their past was to get their 'past selves' to pledge allegiance to their 'future selves,' and that's easily done using religion. We are all one is a similar kind of trick, convincing independent souls they're just one part of the collective meant to build a better future for someone better than they believed themselves to be. It was like trying to convince a mountain that it was a stepping stone, but if you skewed the soul's perspective well enough you just might manage it... For a little while.

It's a kind of malicious compliance to the concept known as informed consent, but doing it that way has a nasty habit of creating paradoxes and other time instabilities. Once the timeline becomes too fragile to sustain itself, it collapses. The trick is controlling where, when, how, and why civilization collapses and having the right people in the right places to rebuild. The Free Thinkers' Society would not be what it is today if they hadn't perfected the art of being in the right place at the right time, but even an Olympic runner trips every now and then.

The joke is that you're kept so busy trying to rebuild the crumbling, sand-like quality of your past, you fail to put anything worthwhile in your future. (The real joke is that Free Thinkers aren't in the future. They're a tool being used by the future to prune the past, bonsai style, and like a tool all of their hard work inevitably benefits somebody else.)

"That means Mars was Jachin," Owen said. His father was pleased to See he wasn't thinking about the gameboy he'd sneaked along in his backpack anymore.

"The Father of establishment," he agreed. "Mars was named for Earth's God of War for a reason." Maybe that was why it didn't last for much longer than Boaz, despite being a larger planet in most dimensions.

"Why did we leave," Tommy wanted to know.

His father hesitated. "There are some things you won't understand until you're older," he said. There were some secrets that he couldn't teach his sons -- at least, not until after they'd gone through the necessary initiation rites. Necessary only because they tied the men together in their shared vices and depravities, introducing them to the cutthroat world of secrets, blackmail, and most of all lies.

The fire was starting to burn low, though the meaty log at its center was still closer to wood than coal. "Will we have to leave Earth, eventually?" Tommy asked in a small voice. "Where will we go next?"

Warren could only shrug his shoulders. Such things were outside of his jurisdiction, but he didn't want to admit to his sons that he wasn't as powerful as he liked to pretend. Free Thinkers were funny in that way; like the Americanized karate belt, it was easy to reach Master status among the brotherhood... But there were many levels inside of that Mastery, and very limited means of rising to true power. Most aimed for the reality and had to settle for the illusion. "We'll just have to find another planet," was all he could say to his youngest son. "But don't worry. The Earth is a long ways away from ending."

Another lie, deliberately told. The end of the world is always lurking just around the corner, different for every man, woman, and child who'd been born waiting for it to happen.

Perhaps Tommy sensed the lie, because his face screwed up like a prune and he began to weep. "I don't want to leave," he blubbered. "I love the Earth!"

Warren was alarmed. The boy was crying loudly enough for his brothers in nearby cabins to hear, and wouldn't that be a humiliating story to tell? "Hey, hey now..." he groaned his way to his feet - it'd been a more active day, physically speaking, than he was used to - and went to put his arm around his youngest son. "Didn't you hear me? The Earth isn't going to end."

But the boy was full on into hysterics, and all that Warren could do was look at Owen for help. The smug little bastard just smirked at him and started poking at the fire with his roasting stick. After several moments of crying, and a soggy shirt besides, Warren finally stepped up to the role of fatherhood. "Look. Tommy, look up. You see the moon?"

A watery "uh-huh" was the best the boy could do for an answer.

"That's where we'll go, if things go poorly on Earth."

"The moon?" Owen asked scornfully.

"Yes, Owen," Warren snapped. "The moon goes wherever the brotherhood goes. When we leave Earth, we'll always have a place on the moon."

Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted in an eerie imitation of laughter, but Tommy believed him enough to sniffle his way out of his tears. "You promise?" When Warren solemnly said that he did, his youngest son held out his pinky finger. "Pinky swear?"

Another joke, but one that Warren was happy to indulge the boy in. So they pinky swore that they would go to the moon when the Earth ended, and they ended the night contemplating how and when it would happen and what color Tommy wanted his spacesuit to be -- never realizing that, as always, apocalypse was waiting ever patiently in their future.

© 2019 and beyond.

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