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ashlingiswriting · 7 months

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do i know you? chapter eight

[ chapter eight — 6.4k words ] [ masterlist ] [ prev chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven ] "well, now you know what to get me for christmas." richie jerimovich x reader, past mikey berzatto x reader, slow burn warning: drugs, insects

the next day, you wake to your customary darkness. outside your window light snow whispers against your window and thick clouds beyond promise there’s more where that came from. you pull a mini pizza from the freezer, crack an egg on top and put it in the toaster oven, call that protein. boil some water in your smallest pot. pull out your favorite chipped blue mug.

the dream did come last night, but its dread was dulled by early waking. you’re grateful for that. this is about as good as it gets, you think: tea on the way, a thick stillness enveloping your apartment, the city outside preparing to sleep while you keep watch.

but wait, the phone.

you go into your room and kneel by the bed.

michael’s small box is half-empty now that you’ve put his shirt in the wash, so the nokia is easy to find. when you flip it open, he’s there, waiting for you—one unread text—and in the sleepy silence, a bubble of incredulous unreality balloons and then bursts. it’s not michael.

they all blur into each other like drops of blood in water: you’re crushed to find that he’s still gone, relieved he’s still gone, guilty you were relieved, relieved that richie’s texted—no, happy—no, that’s embarrassing, but you can’t help it. it’s happiness and it’s something else. happiness is the warmth by your side and something else is the radiator.

the message turns out to be a single emoji, the one with the pink tongue sticking out. definitely richie. with no idea what that’s supposed to mean, you try to think of something equally silly. failing that, you pull up wikipedia on the phone and generate random wikipedia articles until you finally come across a fragment that strikes you as too beautiful to pass up. you weren’t looking for beautiful, but what the hell, it’s charmed you. copy, paste, and send.

> it was announced on january 30, 2023, that she will be writing an original poem dedicated to nasa's europa clipper. the europa clipper will launch in 2024, and by 2030, will be orbiting jupiter. limón's poem will be engraved into the craft.

not expecting an immediate reply, you replace the lid on the box and slide it back under your bed, only to hear the vibration of the phone against the wooden floorboards.

reading what he’s written makes you smile. proper punctuation and all, mimicking you. can’t tell if it’s meant to be snide or if he’s just matching what he thinks is your mood. you’ll take it either way.

> must be a bad motherfucker, that limon.

> must be.

> is she your favorite poet or something?

you feel a dissonant twinge of pride and shame. you once had a favorite poet, but that was a long time ago.

> i haven’t decided yet. are you getting better?

> i haven’t decided yet. i had three grape popsicles in bed for my breakfast, it’s kind of hard to argue with that.

> malingerer.

> i’m actually polish.

and so on.

when he finally says goodbye so he can go back to sleep, you’re still laughing a little to yourself, and you’ve been kneeling there beside the bed for so long that your knees ache.

in the days that follow, richie texts you at exactly the time he’d usually visit. you stand outside like he’s still there, have a couple cigarettes, and enjoy the nonsense even as your fingertips go numb in the cold. once, he sends a picture of a meme so italian that you don’t get it. you obviously weren’t meant to get it, either, so you respond by sending him the middle finger emoji, which he, nonsensically, hearts.

if he needs help, he’ll ask for it, you think. you hope. he seems to be on the mend. anyways, you no longer feel that fear except in dreams, and you stop wondering when he’s gonna text and start expecting it, and then, less than a week later, he shows up. you know this because he texts, where are you?

you open the window and stick your head out into an eddy of snow. sure, you’re glad to see him, but: it’s too fucking cold for this!

he waves.

man was feverish for literally days and here he is in mid december with a hoodie under his leather coat but no scarf, absolute idiot, and so you close the window, go down to meet him, and break the rule. standing there, holding the door open, you say, c’mon.

he’s surprisingly perceptive. he walks over, but he doesn’t cross the threshold, just pauses in front of you.

i don’t think we can smoke in there, he says.

we can’t, you say, moving back one more step, making even more room for him. or at least i can’t. i don't want to get evicted. my landlady will do it too.

yeah? he says, not moving. you're scared of her?

you shrug. you've moved back as far as you can, you're letting all the cold air in, and there's nothing you can do except say please.

you say, she's like four foot tall and a hundred years old, man. women that tiny that survive that long? you should be scared of them.

as if that was the final straw—though how could it be?—richie walks inside. without skipping a beat and for no reason you can figure out, richie walks inside.

learn my ways, sweetheart, he says, touching his chest and giving you his very best look of ridiculous condescension. old women love me.

as you close the door behind him, you fend off a stray, ridiculous burst of giddiness. it's just the lobby, pale linoleum floors and a single artificial plant by the elevators, but it feels radically different from the concrete outside. no cigarettes, no excuses. he’s only there for one reason.

old women do not love you, you say.

they do!

tina loves you. the rest of them, i don't know.

he snorts. you really don't want to be standing face to face with him for however long you’ve got him, so you lean on the wall instead, and he settles by your side the same way he always does.

when he looks over at you, there’s a hint of sly mischief in his eyes that makes you say, what?

wait for it, he says, and when you open your mouth, he holds up a finger.

you roll your eyes, but you hold your tongue with no idea what this is about, undisguised curiosity, and a readiness to be delighted.

you hear that? he finally says.

wind, maybe, or the distant rattle of a train? nothing special. you shake your head no.

that, richie says, is the sound of the sky not falling.

knowing he noticed, that’s the worst thing about being told that everything is gonna be okay. it’s also the best thing. you shove him with a bony, solid elbow. i should’ve let you freeze.

he catches himself before he can topple, his smile gone goofy and so pleased. fuckin drama queen.

full han solo style, block of ice.

it was carbonite, not ice. how do you not know star wars?

course i know star wars, you lie. how do you live in chicago and not own a hat?

i have hats. i just also have a car.

uh-huh. if he wants to trade accusations, you’ve got a doozy you’ve saved up till you could turn it on him in person. i noticed the other day that your place isn’t exactly in a location that makes my place ‘on the way home’ from the beef.

he’s caught, not sorry. grins. you noticed that, did you.

yeah, i might not be from around here, but i still know north from south, all that shit.

well okay, sherlock. you wanna charge me with a crime? the challenge in his eyes says it all; he knows you’re not unhappy to find he lied.

you still need to get a hat, you say.

well, now you know what to get me for christmas.

you’re getting jack shit.

you already know what you’re getting him for christmas.

kraft’s mac and cheese is a christmas tradition in a two-person slice of your family, and you’re one half of that slice, so mac and cheese is the first thing you think of when richie tells you he’ll be there for christmas eve.

after that, it’s on to donna’s on christmas day. then i’m gonna kidnap carmy for some ice fishing, he says.

you ever been ice fishing before? you say.

he splutters. do i not strike you as a, uh, an experienced-ass f—

no.

—fisherman and woodsman, and like—

nope.

—man of the… he gives up. whatever?

do you have a float suit?

richie exhales smoke and fixes you with a look, annoyed but curious.

i’m carmen fucking sandiego, you say, by way of explanation. of course you’ve been ice fishing, you’ve been all over the world.

sure you are, he says. he waves a dismissive hand. my buddy’s got all the stuff, we’ll be fine. it’s whatever, i just gotta get carmy out of the city so the only things he ends up killing are fish.

his first christmas since. you don’t have to finish the sentence.

yup, richie says.

it’s richie’s first christmas since, too, but there’s no call to say that.

lapsing into a companionable silence and shrinking a little closer to the building as the wind picks up, you decide that you’re definitely gonna make him kraft mac and cheese for christmas eve. he wouldn’t take it as a letdown, he'd laugh at the single spinach leaf on top. he’d get it.

on christmas eve, ten minutes before you’re expecting richie to show up, you get a text message.

> need u

it’s the wrong phone, though. it’s your work phone, and after everything those fuckers have done, they can’t possibly be calling you in on christmas eve. not now. your butter’s already cut, your colander’s in the sink, and you’re stirring the pot of boiling macaroni with a couple takeout chopsticks. they can’t—

the phone starts ringing. you pick up.

fuck off, you say.

no wait!

the voice is familiar; it’s kevin, a man so stupid that he once introduced himself to you out of anxious friendliness even though you’ve always made very clear that you don’t want to know anybody’s names. kevin must have you on speakerphone, because in the background, you can hear the telltale sounds of somebody else cursing in a continuous wretched stream. that piques your curiosity.

thirty seconds, you say. keep it clean. meaning, don’t give me names.

kevin says, we were doing a thing and some stuff happened.

that’s no use. he kept it a little too clean. you sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose between two fingers. you were doing a thing on christmas eve?

we thought…look, can you just come? aren’t you on call? isn’t this your job?

you tell me, you say. it’s been radio silence on my phone for three weeks and i haven’t gotten paid for almost a month now.

oh.

yeah, you say, knowing damn well that it’s not kevin’s fault, but more than happy to take this out on somebody. they fucking ghosted me.

sorry to hear that, man, he says awkwardly.

a thought occurs to you. likelihood of the carusos being involved in some shitbrained christmas eve scheme pulled by kevin? nil.

was this even a sanctioned thing? you say. like, did—

you know what, it’s fine, kevin says hurriedly. it’s basically a flesh wound.

the guy in the background howls, i got shot in the fucking foot!

shut up, howie, kevin hisses. you hang up.

there’s no reason for you to get involved. no orders, no blackmail, and probably no money; plus, your timer is counting down the last minute of macaroni boiling and richie will be on his way soon.

you pocket your phone, walk back to the stove, and resume stirring.

no reason for you to get involved. your timer rings out, so you dump out the pasta, put it back in the pot with the butter, add some water and the cheesy powder, stir with an eye for sauce thickness, wait for it to settle you. it doesn’t.

the thing is, there are so many small tricky bones in the foot, and you haven’t had a real surgery challenge in ages. ever since your bosses ghosted you, you’ve just been staying in your apartment, in limbo, seeing nobody except richie and occasionally a cashier. sleeping and waking neither on your old strict schedule nor on a normal daylight one. doing nothing, worth basically nothing.

so yeah, you text kevin.

> send me the address

then, as quick as you can so you don’t have time to overthink it, you text richie.

> work emergency, i have to cancel. sorry.

the response is immediate.

> text me when you get home.

you realize that you’re still stirring, and you turn off the stove. although you give him a couple minutes, richie doesn’t add anything. no joke to put spikes on the soft gesture, no expression of disappointment to make you feel guilty for canceling this late. nothing. text me when you get home, that’s all.

if you were that generous, you’d text back don’t stay up, let him get some extra sleep in preparation for tomorrow’s christmas hell. but you don’t. you want to think of him waiting for his phone to chime, staying awake for you, thinking of you, even worrying. so you react with a thumbs up to his message.

the next time your phone goes ping, it’s kevin sending you the address, and you head for the door.

you’re sitting on a coffee table beside the old sofa that holds your resting patient. lying on the coffee table beside you are half a dozen grape skittles, the remainder of your christmas eve meal. there’s literally baggies of cocaine sitting on the kitchen table, the tv is playing charlie and the chocolate factory, and everyone involved in this—including yourself—is so stupid that you’re all definitely going to jail. but you’re having one of your good nights.

only drugs compare to the state of pure focus that surgery grants you, and even though it’s always in shit circumstances done for shit people, you can’t help but feel like a serious machine doing all this ad hoc emergency shit. this has to be how athletes feel, after a game. it’s physical: your vision feels clearer, your hands are steady, your body’s slouched comfortable and sated. it was decent work you did, given the lack of fucking everything. you’re pretty sure howie won’t even have that bad of a limp.

kevin finishes counting your pay and hands it over. you begin to count it again, too—twenty, forty, sixty—and then look up at him.

what? he says.

you haul yourself up and walk over to the kitchen table, ignoring the cocaine in favor of the scale, on which you place a twenty. it comes up as 0.94 grams when it should be a single 1.0. so you throw your earnings in the sink, get out your lighter, and set it on fire.

the fire alarm! kevin rushes over to turn the tap on and put it out.

you can hear howie calling from the couch, what’s burning?

kev just tried to cheat me.

i did not, kevin says miserably, it was a misunderstanding.

he pulls his own wallet out of his back pocket and starts to count the money, but you take it from his hands, sit at the kitchen table, and begin counting money yourself, weighing each bill as you go. once you’ve taken a hundred and fifty, you stand up and call over to howie, night.

yo, howie says. is my, like. what are the chances they gotta amputate?

that gets you a little, despite everything. howie spent the past few hours thinking he was gonna lose an entire foot, and he was stubbornly proud enough that he almost made it without admitting the fear to anyone. in a way, you gotta give it to him. admiration’s too grand a word, but it’s something like that.

chances are super low, you say. as long as you follow instructions, keep an eye out for infection, and don’t get hooked on pills, you’re gonna be fine.

for a second, there’s silence. then: thanks, babygirl.

for that, you take another forty dollars from kevin’s wallet and point them at him. asshole tax, you say.

as soon as you’re out of the house, you can hear kevin locking the door behind you. then he says, goodnight!

i shoulda robbed you, you say. then you start down the sidewalk. it’s bitter cold and you’re not a hundred percent sure you’re headed in the right direction, but just then you feel invincible.

fuckin jagoffs, say to yourself.

on the train home, the peace and quiet is interrupted by a herd of college girls, twentysomethings all decked out in tinsel necklaces, clearly on their way to a different party, and hitting all the wrong notes in deck the halls.

most days, you’d hate this, but in your current state of satisfaction with yourself and the world in general, their effortless enjoyment doesn’t seem to completely shut you out. they’re so young, and one of them is sitting in another’s lap while a third drapes herself over her shoulder. they smell like spiced rum, they make it hard to be a bitter old crone.

one of the carolers makes direct eye contact with you, and instead of having the decency to keep herself to herself, she extends her hand to you and sings even louder, fa-la-la-la-ing like she’s god’s gift. for a second, you let yourself mouth along, fa-la-la-ing, but then she says, come on, i know you can do better than that! and nope, nope. fuck it.

you try to look away, she yells another, come on! and you give her the death glare. surprisingly, she keeps beckoning to you—they’re stubborn, kids these days—but eventually you win the way you knew you would.

she looks away and whispers in the ear of the lap-sitter. that girl, the tiniest of them all, gives you a look that could sear meat. you could break her in half with one hand tied behind her back, she really has the build of a hummingbird, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping her.

you roll your eyes, lean back with exaggerated deliberation, and get out your phone.

> i’m home.

you want somebody of your own, you want richie’s reply. but none comes.

he’s not waiting for you outside your apartment building, either, so there goes that mad hope.

when you get inside your apartment, you kneel to untie your boots and spot a flicker of movement on the floor. it’s a black ant scurrying towards your countertop. with a rising sense of horror, you straighten up and see a swarm of ants, dozens and dozens, maybe a hundred busily moving little black dots, crawling to and from the pot of macaroni and cheese on your stove. your stomach turns, and if you’d had a real dinner, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from throwing it up. as it is, you just gag. it feels like a violation, an invasion, and you’re more outraged about these fucking ants in your apartment—your fucking apartment—than you ever were about getting not paid or cheated or maybe even blackmailed.

you go into the kitchenette and get the ant spray out from under the sink, then you stand back and spray everything in sight. the whole fucking counter, even though, yes, you cook your food on that, and the stove, and the floor for good measure. fuck them all.

you should’ve known better than to leave food uncovered in this apartment. you’ve lived here for three years and this always fucking happens. you’d think the novelty would’ve worn off, but nope. it’s still as disgusting as it was the first time you woke up to see last night’s plate covered in black.

today, the spray isn’t working fast enough for you, so you get out a trash bag, put the pot in it, and head out for the dumpster.

out there in the cold, waiting for the ant spray to do its work inside the trash bag, you remember that you left your lighter in kevin’s house. you tip your head back and look up at the sky. it’s so thickly smothered in clouds, there’s barely a glow of moon.

yeah, you say.

after a while, you untie the bag, shake the dead ants off your pot, and throw the bag away. you’d stomp on the ants for spite, but that would necessitate looking at them, and you’ve had more than enough of that. you just head back for home.

you almost make it to the front door, and then you smell it, the smoke.

well? richie says from around the corner. he must have heard your footsteps. you coming or what?

you walk the last few steps and there, just around the corner, there he is. he has the navy hood pulled up over his head, both his hands shoved deep in his pockets, a cigarette between both lips. he looks at your pot with interest.

after a second, you say, you’re late.

something tickles the inside of your wrist and you flinch. one last ant has crawled up the handle of the pot and onto your arm; you drop the pot in the snow and shake the ant off you. it lands by richie, and he stomps it dead matter-of-factly.

it takes everything you’ve got not to start swearing like howie with a shot foot.

merry christmas? richie says after a second.

merry fuckin christmas. you reach out and take the cigarette from his lips. long drag. you needed that.

settling beside him so both of you can look out into the night, you hand the cigarette back. and that’s how it is for a while, sharing. the wind thins out, the streetlight across the way reflects in the glass of another apartment building's door.

when your body’s finally calmed down, you look over at him. i got you something.

aw, you didn’t have to, he say, a little curious and not particularly surprised. he probably thinks it’s a joke.

you hold your right hand palm up, and he takes his right hand out of its warm jacket pocket to mirror the gesture. then you reach into your hoodie and unclasp his gift from your neck.

the chain is gold. thick, but not so thick that it comes across comical. incongruous with you and with him, the weight of it and the shine, how new it is. when you lay it in his hand, it looks like a golden snake, intricate and flawless.

after a second, he gives you his cigarette like he can’t both smoke and think about it. then he speaks.

this is fake, yeah, he says.

hundred percent fake.

actually, it’s regifted. it was originally one of your boss’s christmas bonus gifts, and given that you pawned all the other christmas bonus gifts to pay rent, you’re pretty sure that the chain is solid gold. it’s for the best that he doesn’t know it, though.

as you watch, he puts it on, fumbling a little with the clasp. looks at it for a second, tucks it back inside his coat. there goes the last

yeah? you say, after a second.

yeah. think i like this sugar baby shit. keep ‘em coming, he says.

you laugh, real, so relieved that he didn’t take it weird, so relieved that you got lucky tonight and he got it the way he sometimes can, acceptance without explanation.

he lets you laugh, and then he says, mine’s better, though.

diamonds?

it’s back at my place, he says. i can drive?

you want that so bad, and you didn't even think to want it just seconds before.

yeah, you say, dropping the cigarette and stomping it out right beside the dead ant, unbothered.

you want to take the pot up?

you shrug, crouch down, and cover it with some snow; you’re not gonna leave him down here waiting for you, and you’re not gonna take him up to the horrorshow of dead ants either.

it’s still pretty obvious, richie says.

it’s christmas eve, who’s gonna bother digging in dirty snow to steal a pot?

this is chicago.

this is idle argument as companionship and you know that, but you're impatient. are you taking me home or what? yes, you can hear the double entendre. no, you don't fucking care.

there’s a slight pause before richie says, car’s this way.

in the car, there’s crumbs but not much mess; a coupon for personal pizzas in the cupholder, and that’s it. he must have cleaned.

when he starts the engine, you say, wait, and make an elaborate show of putting on your seatbelt. then you say, okay, now i’m ready.

fuck you, he says, and he’s still smiling when he starts to drive.

the radio is playing carols dimly in the background, and you don’t hate it.

you doing anything for christmas day? richie says.

i’m working christmas, you lie.

seriously? tell your boss he’s fucking barbaric.

would if you could; you’ve already tried to say as much in your many texts, but it is what it is.

yeah, you say. bunch of fuckin jackoffs, right?

jagoffs, he says, over-enunciating, frustration immediate. he really is too easy and he knows it. you’re—

jackoffs, that’s what i said, that’s what you told me—

if you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all. he has to drive with his right hand so he can make chopping motions for emphasis with his left hand, because of course he does.

you say, jackoffs.

you’re killing me.

and yet you go on surviving. you relent. got everything you need for ice fishing?

richie scoffs in disgust. yeah, but now carmy is trying to bail on me.

if he’s not gonna say, typical, then neither are you.

he wants to work on the twenty-sixth, he says.

oof.

yeah. like a full planning session, go over the rest of the rollout schedule with the entire staff and like… he rubs his forehead. i don’t know. like we haven’t even gone to christmas yet and he’s already, fucking. i don’t know!

i mean.

he glances over at you briefly.

carmy wants to make the staff come in on the twenty-sixth just to go over the renovation schedule again?

he’s out of his fucking mind.

you already know what you want to say, but you have to double-check it in your own head to make sure you’re not overstepping. you don’t actually know these people.

but also, fuck it.

you know, you say, you could tell him if he acts like this, syd’s gonna quit again.

he whistles. julie with the big guns.

how i’m built, you say.

yeah, i noticed, he says affectionately. it’s okay. i’ll figure it out.

i know you will. it’s kindness, and you mean it, and you don’t take it back.

thanks, he says.

you lean your forehead against the cold glass of the car door and watch chicago going by, all gold and black and white.

after a few minutes, he parks the car in an underground garage.

you ready for this? this is gonna rock your world, he says.

diamonds and rubies? you say, unbuckling your seat belt.

you’re gonna be fuckin crying.

diamonds and rubies and pearls?

at the door to his apartment, he says, close your eyes, hold out your hands, and wait here, so you do. when the door opens, you can smell whatever it was he made for his christmas eve dinner with eva. it smells like everything christmas eve should be, rich and homey. you could wait here for, say, half an hour. you could stretch this moment out. you wouldn’t mind.

okay, richie says. here.

when the gift touches your palm, you instinctively pull back. richie swears and catches it.

it’s hot! you say as you open your eyes.

it’s soup, he says. you want it cold?

you look down. yeah, that’s definitely french onion soup, with a big white and brown patch of melted cheese and toast on top. it’s an echo of what you made him when he was sick. it’s him showing off his work in comparison to your two-ingredient version. it’s unfortunately perfect. there’s no way he knew that you haven’t had anything for dinner except skittles.

it smells like home.

here. you hand the bowl back to richie, but only so you can take off your coat and your shoes.

there’s only one hook on the back of his door, so you hang your coat overtop his. as you move through his apartment, you take stock: the walls are still orange, but things are a little tidier and there are new drawings magnet-pinned to the fridge. eva’s going through a cat era, clearly. the kitchen lamp is as warm as before, and the cactus by the window has a small red ribbon on it, probably a nod to christmas.

you sit down at the kitchen table on one of the foldable stools, and richie sets your spoon and bowl in front of you. there’s a half-empty bottle of coors on the countertop behind you, and you take a sip of that. he sits down on the chair to your left, so he’s in your peripheral. he’s next to you.

you can feel it coming.

um, you say.

he glances over, and you can feel that too. what’s up.

don’t be a dick, okay. you say it very low and very flat, not even angry, because angry wouldn’t cut it.

the pause is too long, but at least he finally says, okay.

you pick up your spoon and take the first sip.

the bit of melted cheese hits first, warm and gooey and salty then the sweet savory richness of the broth, and yeah, okay. it’s happening. your eyes are wet.

you can feel him not saying anything about it, but before it can build up to torture, his phone rings.

sorry, he says, getting up. it’s tiff.

he must know from the ringtone alone, but you’re not even mad at it, you’re relieved. saved by the bell, another bit of good luck. maybe christmas is real.

uh-huh, you can hear him saying. yeah. that’s— he laughs, and you know from that laugh alone it’s something about eva. yeah, put her on. a beat, then. hey, honey. no. no, she’s right. listen, santa won’t come if you spy on him. the guy likes his privacy, okay? he’s not in it for the applause, he’s not in it for the publicity. pause. well, that’s what the cookies are for. i am being serious, that’s what they’re for. okay. who—okay. he snorts. okay, you got me. don’t tell your mother, though, okay? she really enjoys it. pause. it’s up to you. okay, i gotta go. i love you. hey. i love you.

that’s more than enough time for you to wipe your eyes on your sleeve, get all fucked up again listening to him, and wipe your eyes a second time. by the time richie sits back down, you’re basically normal.

that sounded like some saga, you say.

this jewish kid at school told all the christians that santa wasn’t real, he explains. and now she’s going around busting all the lying adults one by one.

you laugh.

they’re starting young, he says. when i was in school, they always used to make us wait until at least sixth grade before we could go around busting myths.

you’re jewish?

he shrugs. kinda sorta.

you see the opportunity to make another joke about him being zero percent italian, and you ignore it. did eva like the doll? you say instead.

yeah. i mean, it was a huge hassle, it’s so expensive i had to go halves with tiff, and i nearly had a heart attack when eva said something about kirsten cause i thought i’d got the wrong one— he starts eating again, eating soup and talking, and you don't hate it. which by the way, swedes? have the most boring american history of them all, i don’t know why they’d make a doll about that, but anyways, yeah. she loved it. he reaches across you and takes his beer back so he can drink the last dregs of it. ever since the divorce, we don’t even call it christmas eve, we just call it christmas one and christmas two. as is tradition.

he says the last three words kind of weird.

as is tradition? you repeat.

tiff and i, we don’t have a bunch of traditions from our parents, so it’s like. we make up a lot of stuff and then we say ‘as is tradition.’ cause it’s not.

i mean, you got two generations involved, so that counts.

eh, he says, drawing it out dubiously.

i got two-generations traditions, you say.

you didn’t intend to talk about your family, you weren’t thinking about that at all, you were just thinking about richie. but now you gotta sit in the silence as he decides whether or not follow up about your parents.

finally, richie says, you got a kid? he’s doing his best to be cool about it, but his voice goes up a little crazy on the last word.

no, i mean—you’re laughing. i meant me and my dad.

oh, he says, maybe a bit relieved, definitely a bit something, you can’t quite place it. oh.

i used to make us mac and cheese for christmas. with a leaf on top, like lettuce or spinach or something. cause, you know, that makes it salad.

that’s cool, he says flatly. after a second, he adds, less flat, i don’t have any traditions with my dad. i mean, he’s dead, but like before then, we never. so i think that’s cool.

you hate his dad. it’s a split-second decision, but you feel pretty confident about it.

two generations is all you need, you say. and you got eva. so it’s a tradition.

heard, he says.

when you glance over, you see the chain catching the light, gold over his dark shirt. he looks at you. you both keep eating.

eventually, you finish off two bowls of soup and a hot chocolate too, courtesy of eva’s swiss miss unicorn package. you feel a bit subdued by the ordeal of being human, but relaxed.

best christmas ever, you say.

really? richie says, like he believes it and feels bad for you.

god no, do you think i came out a dickens?

what the fuck is a dickens?

you’re illiterate, it’s okay. you look at him. you know that your eyes are a little red, but thankfully you can also see, reflected in his eyes, that he knows you're all right.

thank you, richie, you say. it’s all wrong, you shouldn’t be saying his name and you shouldn’t be saying thank you either, it’s thanks or nothing, but something about the formality feels a little heavier and therefore suited to the day. it’s getting late.

i’ll drive you? he says, and there’s a little extra question in it that you can’t bring yourself to consider.

you shake your head and get up from the table heavily, feeling a thousand years old. i’m good.

he gets up, follows you, stands there with his hands in shoved his pockets as you crouch to put on your shoes.

i wasn’t suggesting a sleepover, he says.

no, of course not, you say, and you congratulate yourself on not making it sound bitter.

unless, richie says.

you look up at him.

i have so many condoms, he says, deadpan. just. so fucking many. some of them are citrus flavored.

there he goes, saved it.

it’s not just tonight, is it? it’s not just tonight, it’s not just luck, it’s not just christmas; somehow, richie’s become…he’s figured it out, how to be with you. when to show up and when to let you go. not always, but more than enough, and he just. he wakes up and he struggles and he breaks shit and he irritates you and he calls eva and he watches youtube and he goes to bed and he wakes up and he struggles and he learns and you love him.

what a fucking time to find out. you look down and begin tying your shoes again.

you got pineapple flavor? you say.

in what world is pineapple citrus? richie says.

well, tough luck. you back up and turn around to put on your coat. for me, it’s pineapple condoms or nothing.

you’re a real high-maintenance fuck.

you laugh. michael used to like that about you, just how easy you were, or how easy you made yourself. buddy, you got no idea.

it’s been such a long day for both of you, apart and together. of course you’re getting messy, of course it’s time to go. you zip up your coat, run your hand through your hair.

let me drive you, he says again.

you wave him off. no, i need to walk. clear my head.

it’s december in chicago, fuckin pitch black—

i’ll be fine.

it’s christmas eve, are you really gonna punish me for a fucking joke? he says, and you look up, startled; you didn’t know he was upset. in retrospect, you were just focusing on avoiding his eyes, so what did you expect?

i’m not punishing you for anything, you were great. richie. you look at him straight on and steady, so he understands. a little gentle, as gentle as you feel you can get away with. you truly have to go, and there’s no resentment in it. i just need to clear my head. i’ll be fine, i’m always fine.

you never… richie trails off, eyes you, decides against finishing the sentence. you’re stubborn.

always. you give him a small smile. thanks for the soup.

goodnight.

that should be the end, but it feels unfinished. his blue eyes are alive to the possibilities when you reach out, but you just touch the chain with a fingertip where it rests over his collarbone. his right hand moves a little and you draw back, your other hand on the doorknob at once, already leaving.

two days later, the cops issue a warrant for your arrest.

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#richie jerimovich x reader #richie jerimovich #the bear fx #the bear fanfiction #the bear fanfic #mine #readerfic #do i know you?#the bear imagine #diky #guess who's still at it? ME!!! guess who's not giving up? ME!!!!!!

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ugh-yoongi · 1 year

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ho ho horrible | jhs

(or, the one where your neighbor is a relentless christmas caroler and refuses to take a hint, but at least he's really hot.)

❆ pairing: hoseok x f. reader ❆ genre(s): neighbor au, holiday au, one-sided e2l | humor, fluff, smut ❆ rating: explicit. minors dni. ❆ warnings: vague non-korean setting. christmas. reader has a one-sided beef with hoseok's caroling and is extremely awkward. taehyung is here and he's weird, idk. there is smut in this but it is not super explicit and mostly flowery, so if ur only reading for that part i wouldn't bother. however, smut warnings: kissing, oral sex (f. & m. receiving), hobi touches himself. this was mostly an excuse to write both a hobi & a holiday fic. ❆ word count: 5.2k ❆ thank you: bee / @hot-soop, for beta'ing this for me and saying "oh shit this got real fast" and making me wheeze. thank u love u. ❆ a/n: idk. like i said, this was just an excuse to write a christmas fic before christmas. riding fakie kicked my ass and took me 500 years and i banged this out in, like, two sittings. the universe can be so cruel. that said, i probably won't be around much between now & new years day, so if you celebrate christmas i hope you all have a wonderful one. happy holidays, happy new year, cheers to 2023. ♡

Christmas has threatened to break you before.

That one Christmas where your parents had sworn up and down was just going to be the three of you, only to tell you at the last minute your entire extended family was coming for dinner and gifts, and then your horrible little gremlin of a cousin flung mashed potatoes into your hair and pushed you down the stairs and broke your arm? Your parents never invited them again, but yeah, you’d come dangerously close to an aneurysm that year.

Not to mention the first Christmas in your first apartment. You’d been running late, scotch tape and ribbon stuck in places they had no business being stuck in, and your phone was vibrating relentlessly in your purse as you waddled to the elevator, gift pile threatening to tumble over, and it was fine. You were going to make it to your car in one piece. Make it to your parents’ on time. Eat enough food to have you popping the button on your pants, and then compound the issue with dessert, and your cousins were going to be celebrating in their corner of hell rather than with you. Everything was going to be merry and festive and bright.

And then the elevator broke down and you were stuck in there for over two hours.

All that to say—you and Christmas have a sordid history, so you’re no stranger to yuletide stress. You’re stronger than this, forged in the flames of failed holidays past, and you’ve put that biological adaptability to use and soldiered on. This Christmas will not break you, but it’s certainly trying its fucking best.

“You look tired.”

Your gaze snaps up and to the left, where noted office menace Kim Taehyung is staring down at you over the ledge of your cubicle wall. He’s dyed his hair an offensive shade of red in an effort to win the department-wide holiday cheer contest. For the third year in a row. No one else even bothers to participate anymore. “I’m fine,” you answer, jaw clenched. You like Taehyung, but you haven’t had a proper night’s rest in almost a week. Not since—

“Why not?” he asks, genuinely curious and concerned and unaware of social norms. “Were you up late watching Home Alone? That’s relatable, honestly. I’ve seen it a hundred times and still can’t help but watch it every time it’s on. The sequel, too. I can’t decide which one I like better. The original’s a classic, but I love Tim Curry, so it’s hard to choose…”

You suck in a breath. Exhale and count to five, because you like Taehyung and don’t want to hurt his feelings, but—“No, I wasn’t watching Home Alone.”

“Oh. Why, then?”

A quick glance at your computer tells you it’s almost one o’clock. “Tell you over lunch?”

Sometimes you can’t believe your luck.

Because the universe is fair and just, the torture of Christmas is cancelled out by the ease of homeownership. As soon as you’d announced your intent to buy a house, everyone came crawling out of the woodwork with tips and this one weird trick! and horror stories about realtors, mortgage and insurance companies, god-awful sellers. You’d been spooked. Almost called the whole thing off to spend another year renting until you felt confident enough to go up against those stressors, but it… hadn’t gone like that.

It’d really been as simple as: get approved for mortgage, see house online, tour house, put in offer, sign a ton of paperwork, move in. Easy peasy; you couldn’t figure out why everyone had been complaining. You’d gotten your dream house in your dream location, quiet side street in a desirable part of the city, for under your max budget. The neighbor on your right baked you cookies to welcome you to the neighborhood. The house on the left had been home to a nice couple with a young kid until they decided to relocate to the suburbs, and it’d been empty for a while until—

“Your neighbor is a caroler?”

You nod, shoulders sagging as you spear your salad far too violently, and all Taehyung can do is grimace. No shit, you think, taking in his pained expression, try living next door to him. “A caroler,” you confirm.

Taehyung whistles low as he sinks into the booth, vinyl creaking under his weight. “Does he wear the little hat and everything?”

You pause, fork halfway to your mouth. “No, just normal clothes, I think.”

“Bummer.” He pouts. “I like the little hats. Wait, what do you mean I think?”

“I mean I think,” you reiterate. “As in I don’t actually know, because I shut off all the lights and pretend I’m not home every time they knock on my door.”

Taehyung gasps, really selling that you’ve mortally wounded him with this piece of information, and you think it might be a little overdramatic. So what if you don’t answer the door? You’re a young, single woman who lives alone and has listened to true crime podcasts—of course you don’t answer the door. You don’t answer it for anyone!

“How could you?” Taehyung accuses, which prompts an eye roll from you.

“I’m a young, single woman who lives alone and has listened to true crime podcasts—”

“Which are exploitative and capitalize on suffering and paranoia, not to mention are usually nothing more than free PR for cops—”

“Well, I don’t listen to them anymore!” Taehyung seems appeased by this, so you continue. “My point is: I don’t answer the door for anyone. Not delivery people, not the Mormons, definitely not the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and not Christmas carolers. It’s nothing personal.”

Your coworker quirks an eyebrow. “Except it is.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Taehyung hums. He’d ordered a sandwich the size of his head and has barely put a dent in it, so you’re going to be here awhile. “Have you tried asking them to not carol in front of your house?”

“I don’t think it matters,” you concede, frown deep and unattractive. Are you being dramatic? It feels like you’re being dramatic, but you’ve already committed to the bit. “They stay on the sidewalk and that’s public property. Didn’t stop those shitty campaign people from sticking the signs in that little strip of grass last month.”

“Ugh, I forgot about that guy. At least he lost.”

“Amen, brother.”

Taehyung scrunches his nose. “Yeah, maybe don’t say that ever again.” Fair. You nod. “Hm. You think one of those ‘no solicitation’ signs would work?”

“Is Christmas caroling considered solicitation?”

Half of the turkey slides off Taehyung’s sandwich when he picks it up, bread gone soggy under the weight of mayonnaise and time, and you reckon now’s as good a time as any to find out.

What you lack in competent cousins and considerate neighbors you make up for in friends.

Friends in high places, specifically. Friends you can call in emergencies, which is why you’re locked in your bathroom, phone trembling against your ear, as the muted sounds of caroling trickle in from the street. You’re nearly in its grasp, which is why you’ve had to act quick: lights off, military crawl along the floor, pick a room with no street-side exterior windows.

Seokjin sighs. “Taehyung said you were being overdramatic about this. I should’ve listened.”

“Listened to what?” You roll your eyes. “I’m not asking you to break me out of my house. I simply called to ask you, an actual lawyer, a person who knows the law, if Christmas caroling is illegal.”

“You do need a permit in some places, yes—”

“A-ha!”

“—but this is not one of them. Your annoying neighbor is free to Christmas carol to his heart’s content.”

A groan escapes you, and you pull your phone away from your face to check the date. December 11th. Just two more weeks, and then you’re free for an entire year. Surely you can make it two weeks, right? A fortnight. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours. Once you’re past the holiday and things cool off, maybe you’ll borrow a play from your normal neighbor’s book and drop off please stop harassing me with your Christmas carols cookies.

You’re halfway to deciding which flavor (M&M, because they can kind of look like miniature carolers if you squint, or oatmeal raisin because they’re disgusting and you want him to suffer a little) when the troupe starts on a new song. A louder one. Enough of a volume change that even Seokjin can hear it, and he starts doing that honking windshield wiper laugh at your expense.

Fuck cookies. You should really burn his house down instead.

Big cities aren’t actually all that big.

Your mother says she’s finally sick of cooking, so you’ve been tasked with bringing side dishes to Christmas dinner this year. Which is fine. Learning how to cook for yourself had been relatively easy, to the point you’d run a Learn to Cook 101 weekly lesson at your on-campus apartment for all your hopeless friends. And hopeless friends of friends. In return, they taught you how to roll joints and do keg stands, so it’d been a worthy trade-off.

Still.

Your parents are woefully behind on current food trends, so your comment about bringing a sushi bake as an appetizer had been met with incredulous silence. Sushi isn’t high on your parents’ takeout list, and after you’d taken them to the nice hibachi restaurant in town and your father ate his California roll with a fork, you’d been too embarrassed to try again.

Anyway—the point is: big cities aren’t that big, because you’re standing in the seafood section of the largest supermarket within fifteen square miles, and everything promptly goes to shit.

“Hey, do you know if they ha—oh, shit, hey! You’re my neighbor!”

You squeeze your eyes shut. Do a really good impression of that meme gif of the guy blinking. Because this can’t be happening. You specifically go to this supermarket because it’s not the one around the corner from your house and also isn’t the one closest to your office. No one was supposed to be able to find you here, yet here’s your caroling neighbor, bundled up tight with a beanie shoved over his head, tips of his ears folded over so he looks like a little elf. It’s sick.

But you’re a professional, if nothing else (you’d argue mature, but can concede that hiding in your own home with the lights turned off to avoid the man grinning at you is not very girl-boss of you), so you offer him a tight-lipped smile. “Hi. I am your neighbor, yes. Hello.”

“Wow, what a coincidence, huh?” He laughs, and it sounds like Christmas bells. Who in the fuck is this guy? No, really, who is he? You can’t remember his name for the life of you. “You… have no idea who I am, do you?”

It’s the way his face falls further with each word. Makes you feel guilty and awful, and it’s a terrible feeling. Has you wanting to say things like no, of course I know who you are and drop his name, his parents’ names, ask him about that work thing, that person he’d mentioned he was seeing in passing. But you know none of these things, so you just suck in a breath and say the first thing that comes to mind, which is: “Of course I know who you are.” You feel your eyes narrow. “You’re my annoying caroler neighbor.”

That was… not what you were going for. You should apologize, try to find some way to salvage this, because you’re only here for salmon and imitation crab and now you’ve dug yourself a hole that’ll ensure your great-great-grandchildren are still feuding.

But he just laughs. Snaps his fingers and points at you in a way that’s jokingly serious as he says, “I knew it! I knew you’ve been home this whole time!”

Suddenly you aren’t feeling so apologetic anymore. “And you’ve persisted? Did you ever stop to think I didn’t want to be bothered?”

The answer to your question is no, judging by the look on his face. All-knowing you are not, so you’re not going to waste time decoding it when all you came here for was salmon and imitation crab. You really should’ve gone to the Asian supermarket instead, because a place like this is highly unlikely to have furikake, anyway, and you could’ve avoided this entire mess. Now you’re engaged in an awkward stare-off with your neighbor, and the two of you are going to part ways and still have to live next to one another.

“Oh, I—”

The butcher calls your number. You should’ve bought the prepackaged stuff in the freezer, but no, you had to be bougie and difficult. “It’s fine,” you say, holding your hand up. Just the imitation crab left now, you can do this. “Happy holidays. Please leave me alone.”

You are never making sushi bake again.

On a normal evening, the caroling would start just after seven.

This explains why you’re currently lying in bed, the only light from the television (Taehyung be damned, you are watching Home Alone), full of nervous jitters as the clock on your phone tells you it’s just turned 6:59.

Is your neighbor the vengeful type? Will you finally be granted reprieve now that you’ve had an embarrassing supermarket encounter, or will he tell his caroling troupe to sing as loud as possible to provoke you further? You shake your head. Sure, you’d only talked to him for three minutes, but his ears were folded over, for fuck’s sake—maybe you’re naive, but someone with folded-over ears doesn’t strike you as particularly malicious.

No, no, it’s going to be fine; you’re certain of it. You’ll deal with the embarrassment later.

Except ten minutes pass with… nothing. No muted singing, no perfectly-pitched renditions of Oh Holy Night (which you’ll admit was actually enjoyable), no hushed giggles when someone inevitably sang the wrong word. There’s just silence, and it’s exactly what you’d asked for, but it still feels off-putting after suffering through the opposite for so long. Instead, your doorbell rings at half-past, and this is it, you think, my neighbor’s going to be out there with a bomb.

Unsurprisingly, it’s not a bomb. There’s nothing on your front steps except a little gift basket—homemade, judging from the wrap job. A peek through the clear cellophane tells you there’s a bottle of wine and some cookies in there, and there’s a note card stapled to the front that tells you it’s from your neighbor.

Sorry about the noise. Didn’t mean to bother you. Hope this makes up for it. — Hoseok

You grumble all the way back to your bedroom, only a brief pit stop in the kitchen for a wine glass. Homemade or not, Hoseok had spared no expense on the cookies: double chocolate chip, salted caramel, snickerdoodle, little spritz trees topped with nonpareils. You grumble again as you pluck out a gingerbread man. To your dismay, it’s delicious.

You overpour the wine—red, which’ll give you a headache, but you’re past the point of caring. There’d been a little bow tied around the stem. It’s horribly endearing and gives you a stomach cramp. On the screen, Marv takes an iron to the face. This feels a little like that.

“You should return the favor,” Taehyung suggests. The two of you are back at the same deli. He’s working on some kind of vegetable sandwich this time, having abandoned turkey after his last one had been such a mess. “It’s the polite thing to do. Squash the beef.”

You wait a second. One, two, thr—“Ha, squash!” He picks something yellow off his bread. “Get it?”

“Yep.”

He sighs, underwhelmed by your reaction. “You catch Home Alone last night?”

“I did, actually.”

“Cool.” He heaves another sigh, slumps further back in the booth. “God, this time of year is so boring. Work is dead, your neighbor ended your one-sided caroling turf war, and Tim Allen is a shitty conservative, so I can’t even enjoy The Santa Clause anymore.”

You can’t help yourself: “Didn’t you just say the other day that you loved that guy?”

“Tim Allen?” Taehyung looks confused. Also looks a little concerned, like there’d be something severely wrong with him if he had said that, but then he comes to. Glares. “I said Tim Curry! Tim Curry. You know, Dr. Frank-N-Furter? The guy from Clue? Ew, don’t you dare confuse them ever again!”

It should be a crime, how easy it is to provoke him. He’s off on a tirade before you have a chance to tell him you were fucking around, and by the time you’re back at your desk you’re absolutely certain you could write a biography on the guy.

Taehyung had been right about one thing, though: there’s absolutely nothing going on. Everyone has collectively abandoned the illusion of working and aren’t likely to pick it back up until after the new year, so you’ve got nothing to do but scroll endlessly on the internet and spin in your chair until you feel sick.

Maybe you’ll resume the turf war just for something to do.

“Your father says not to bother with the sushi bake,” your mother says. “He thinks it’s too weird.”

Your jaw drops, eyes glancing at the pile of ingredients on your counter. What are you gonna do with all this stuff? How long does imitation crab stay good for? “Are you serious?” A distracted hum comes through the phone. “What am I supposed to do with all these ingredients, then? Can’t he just suck it up?”

She tuts. Years of putting up with and accommodating your father’s pathetic palate tells you she’s probably on your side, but she’s not going to admit it. “I don’t know, honey. It’s the holidays. Can’t you bring it into work?”

“Mom.” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Do you know what happens to people who bring fish into the office?”

“Well, I don’t know! Give some to your friends! Have leftovers!”

None of your friends want a sushi bake. You don’t even have to ask. They’d accept it out of politeness only, but you can almost guarantee it’ll either get tossed or brought along to their own holiday parties. Oh, no, I didn’t make this, they’ll say. It’s from a friend, but I wasn’t going to finish it all on my own, so here it is! That’s mortifying and you won’t allow it.

“Didn’t you say your neighbor brought you some cookies? Maybe you can return the favor.”

You’re lucky your mother can’t see you roll your eyes, because what a traitor. Taehyung suggesting the same thing had made sense. He’s never had a sense of loyalty. Wouldn’t know it if it came up and bit him in the ass, but your mother? The same mother that heard your complaints about this same neighbor and commiserated with you? She has one thing, and it’s the audacity.

But you aren’t going to argue with her. “Ah, yeah,” you say, voice laced with faux impression, “great idea. Thanks.”

“Of course, sweetheart. What are moms for?”

Not loyalty, clearly.

Everything has truly come full circle.

Here you are, standing on Hoseok’s front step, fist raised to knock and embarrass yourself by dropping off a fucking sushi bake. Not cookies or chocolates or anything else that could pass as Christmas fare—sushi bake. May God please strike you down.

You wonder if Hoseok will turn all his lights off and pretend to not be home. It’d be justified, and if it weren’t for the shadows of movement through the curtains, you’d just drop it off and go back home. Surely it’s cold enough outside to keep it fresh until he returned from caroling. But no, here you are, waiting for him to answer the door because sushi bake requires an explanation.

“Oh! Hello, neighbor!”

(God is fair, because you were not struck down to spare potential embarrassment, but you have been spared from the little elf ears again. A blessing. There’s no way you’d survive those again.)

“Hi,” you respond, thrusting the casserole dish in his direction, perfectly playing the role of a person who has never once met another human. “It’s sushi bake.”

Hoseok computes for a moment. “Sushi bake,” he repeats, like he’s learning an entirely new concept. What is it with men and sushi bakes? “Wow, cool, thank you.” He takes it from you with a smile, radiating pure sunshine. “That’s dinner sorted, then! Is this what you were at the grocery store for?”

“Uh, yeah.” You fidget, feeling awkward without anything to hold. What are you supposed to do with your hands now? You shove them in your coat pockets. “I was gonna make it to bring to my parents’ for Christmas dinner, and then my mom called today to tell me not to because my dad thinks it’s too weird, so, well. Here I am. Paying you back for the cookies with the worst food gift of all time.”

“I think it’s pretty great,” he answers, another dazzling smile lighting up his face. “You didn’t have to repay me for the cookies, though. I still feel really bad about the noise.”

“I—it’s fine,” you say. “Um, well. Enjoy… that.” You turn to leave, nearly slipping on a patch of ice and braining yourself on the brick step. “Have a great night.”

You think Hoseok asks if you’re alright, maybe mumbles something about needing to re-salt the steps and he’s sorry about that, too, but you’re down the sidewalk and back in your house before he can finish. Embarrassment warms your cheeks, and you wonder when you became incapable of talking to men. You roast Taehyung on a near-daily basis. Something must be terribly wrong.

(“Ooh, this is getting spicy,” Taehyung says, foregoing your cubicle wall to park his ass on your desk entirely. “Picture this: Two star-crossed lovers, unable to be together because of the Holy Caroling War. There’s a feud, they become enemies, and then—”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“No, and don’t interrupt me. Now, where was I?”

“Don’t remember,” you lie, and you resume your task of writing down things Taehyung’s hair reminds you of on sticky notes and adhering them to his body.

Elmo. The uniform jackets of those British guards with the silly hats. The Chicago Bulls mascot. Clifford the Big Red Dog. Cartoon cows. Cinnabar. A crayfish. General Thaddeus Ross aka Red Hulk—

“You’re jealous, I get it,” Taehyung quips, exasperated, as he peels a neon yellow note from his thigh. “Anyway, as I was saying. Are you gonna tell your neighbor you’ve got a big, fat crush on him?”

You don’t bother with a response. Instead, you jot down a giant gaping asshole on another note and stick it to his forehead.)

It becomes a… thing, after the sushi bake.

Hoseok feels guilty accepting your kindness, so he drops off a container of homemade radish kimchi. You feel guilty he’d done that, so you drop off some soup. This is unacceptable, but on and on it goes until you catch him leaving a vibrant poinsettia on your steps.

“What are you doing?” you ask, and you startle him so badly he topples backwards off your stoop, taking the poinsettia with him. Dirt shoots into the air like a cartoon, and it’s a struggle but you contain your laughter just enough to dart over to where he’s lying in a sad little heap on the concrete. “Jesus, are you alright?”

You extend your hand and he’s a little dazed, but he takes it after a second. “Ow. Yeah, I think I’m okay.”

“Are you sure? It sounded like you hit your head kind of hard.”

He groans. “Think I hit the trashcan on my way down.”

Gross. “Oh. Okay, I’m going to help you up now.” Once he’s upright, you give him a once-over and deem him physically unharmed. You can’t speak for his ego, but you can imagine it’s bruised. “Do you want some hot chocolate or coffee or anything?”

Hoseok shakes his head, which prompts another pained groan. “No, no, I think I’ve been enough of a bother.”

“I insist,” you insist, because you’ve truly lost all common sense. “It’s the least I can do.”

He looks skeptical. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Besides, we can call it even after, right? Your drink of choice for the poinsettia.”

You learn a lot about Hoseok in the span of an hour.

You learn he’s got a contagious laugh and a smile to match. You learn he’s genuinely kind, which makes you feel like pond scum. You learn that he loved your sushi bake and had even taken a picture of it to send to his mom, who said it looked “very cute,” whatever that means. You learn he’s relatively new to the city and that he works from home, so he’d joined the caroling troupe because he was lonely and wanted to make friends, which makes you feel like whatever’s lower than pond scum.

“Earth scum,” you mutter to yourself, and you say it so quietly Hoseok cocks his head to the side like a confused puppy. “Oh my god.”

You learn his friends call him Hobi and that his family lives in Gwangju, which is why he hasn’t traveled home for the holidays. Couldn’t get the time off, he explains, and says it’s okay because he’s going for his birthday in February. Your girlfriends (of which Taehyung is one) would warn you off an Aquarius man, but you take one look at Hoseok’s golden retriever personality and figure he can’t possibly fit the stereotypes.

Whatever. Who are the stars to tell you who is and isn’t the love of your life?

You learn that he knows all the words to Frozen, that he sings all the songs loudly and without shame and that you don’t mind this kind of singing. Not when it’s in your house. Not really when it’s him. And that kind of unabashed joy—Hoseok so unapologetic about who he is—it… does something to you.

Hoseok is kind and endearing and really fucking hot.

So you also learn what it tastes like when you kiss hot chocolate from the corners of his mouth. How it feels to thread your hands in his hair, the noises he makes when you tug. You learn what it feels like when he digs his fingertips into your hips, hauling you into his lap. How serious he becomes, a flipped switch, how that heart-shaped mouth straightens out and his eyes lose that glimmer, all business.

You learn the husk his voice takes on when he urges you closer. How he’s enthusiastic about consent but doesn’t ask for anything, just directs you how he wants you, says, you like it like this, don’t you, baby. You do.

Some horrible Christmas song plays on the television in the background. There’s no condom, not within arm’s reach, so Hoseok gets you off with his mouth. Throws your leg over his shoulder, tells you how good you taste, and you learn how quickly you can come undone in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing. Then you look down and learn Hoseok’s touching himself, couldn’t wait, he says, and you surprise even yourself when you swat him away and tell him to come in your mouth.

“Oh shit—fuck,” he says, but he’s upright fast, hand still gliding along his slick cock. Salt blooms on your tongue from the precum, but you learn how perfectly he fits in your mouth. You learn he sounds fucking divine when he spills over the edge.

You learn he’s a cuddler, and that you already like him way too much.

It’s Christmas Eve, and everything’s going to go right this time.

You can smell the success in the air, so winter-crisp it stings the inside of your nose. All of your gifts are wrapped to perfection. The roads are clear. No elevators to get stuck in this year, and last you’d seen your cousin was spending the holidays on the opposite side of the country, far away from you, so you’re feeling good. Got a pep in your step.

And then you lock the door behind you and there’s Hoseok, taking out his trash in a plush robe and reindeer slippers. He’s got light-up antlers on his head, and the butterflies in your stomach turn into more of a swarm. The two of you have kept in touch, sure. Made plans to go on a real date after the holiday chaos died down, but it’d been easy to tamper down those feelings when you didn’t have to see him.

“Hello, neighbor,” he says, and it’s Christmas Eve and he’s clearly got nowhere to be, can’t make it to see his family, and he’s still smiling. It makes your chest ache.

“Hi. What are you doing?”

The smile doesn’t falter at all. “Taking out the trash?”

“But it’s Christmas Eve.”

He laughs. The Christmas bells are back. God, you are so fucked. “Ah, yeah, I suppose it is, huh?”

“You don’t have plans?”

He shrugs. “Nope. Well, nothing besides some spiked eggnog and the Christmas Story marathon.”

That sounds nice, you think. “Oh, that sounds nice,” you say, and then the next words out of your mouth come unbidden: “Do you want to come with me? I’m going to my parents’ for dinner, which probably sounds… uh, rushed. And super weird. But it’s really low-key and they’re really nice, and I feel bad leaving you here by yourself and not inviting you. Don’t feel obligated, though! I just thought—”

“Do I have time to change?”

Dumbstruck, you just nod. Hoseok presses a kiss to your cheek and disappears inside his house, reemerging five minutes later dressed impeccably. Your mother’s going to swoon, and even though she’s not going to see it because she never checks her phone, you send her and your father a warning text. Bringing my neighbor, don’t ask, set up another spot at the table.

Just like you’d thought, your mother is overjoyed. You’ve only ever brought one person home for Christmas and that was back in college. A fling, called off before Valentine’s Day, so she’s been deprived of oohing and ahhing and talking a stranger’s ear off.

Hoseok is polite, a near-perfect guest, and your mother fusses over him while your dad talks about stocks and sports and whatever else. Something about mothers, they’ve always got a pile of emergency gifts stashed somewhere, and while you do the dishes, she dashes off to wrap some just so Hoseok has something to open. A cashmere sweater, a bag of gourmet coffee, some wool socks. This is too much, he insists, but it just makes your mother fuss over him more.

“Wait,” your father says, nearly melted into the couch after eating far too much, “weren’t you gonna bring some sushi thing?” Your jaw drops. Hoseok laughs so hard he’s in tears on the floor. Your mother looks away quickly, guilt clear on her face. A traitor. You’ve always known it.

Christmas has threatened to break you before, but this might be the year it makes you whole.

as always, thank you for reading! my inbox is always open if you’d like to leave feedback. i’d love to hear your thoughts! ❤

#bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts smut #hoseok imagine #hoseok x reader #hoseok smut #hoseok fluff #hobi x reader #hoseok x y/n #hoseok fanfic #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #btswritingcafe #thebtswritersclub #btshoneyhive #btscarnivalnet

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gvtted-ratz · 2 months

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read all our tags/ratings. they r important n give u all u need 2 decide if u wanna actually read or not. do not like the tags/rating? do not read.

FEM ALIGNING/IDENTIFYING PPL (unless mutuals/friends) DNI WITH OUR MLM WORKS. fem ppl can still request tho. respect our wishes or get blocked. yes we do read/check everything. we tag appropriately/use tags that go with our posts.

want 2 request? find the rules: here!

want 2 see all the fics? find em: here!

What’s Your Favourite Scary Movie, Eddie?

Edward Nashton (The Riddler) x Ghostface!Trans!M!Reader

Last Edited: 06/04/2023

TW: gore, blood, murder, stalking, dead bodies, transphobia, foul language, body dysphoria, phone harassment

Requested: no

Word Count: 2,381

AO3 LINK -> HERE

Notes: literally rewatching the batman 2022 as i make this lel. also, kinda think of the ghosftface from dead by daylight as i love that costume/look so the outfit that’s described. i finished this shit on 1 hour of sleep btw so hope u enjoy

He’s an odd man. His schedule used to remain constant until it didn’t. You’re unsure of what changed. He’s still a forensic account by all means. He forged those documents to get the job so of course he wouldn’t simply just quit. That part stayed the same. It’s after work when he deviates from his original schedule. Going out at night, spying on people, and getting odd information. There’s also his online presence getting stronger. You see him on his computer more and more. Sometimes he’s typing, other times he has some sort of outfit on to do live streams.

No matter what, he’s always busy with something. That something has gotten more and more odd these past few weeks. He’s obsessing over a vigilante. A man dressed in black who goes around beating people down until they cannot get up to fight anymore. A “Batman” is what they call him. For someone so many fear, little ol’ Eddie surely loves him. It makes your stomach twist in disgust. How can this man obsess over this random vigilante? Sure, he fights crime but he’s not going for the bigger people. He lets cops run around, nabbing the criminals only to let them go after a bit of bribing. Some saviour he is. Plus, to see this somewhat nerdy and dainty-looking man go for a man who appears to be jacked screws with your head.

You can’t help but want to maul your own skin at this observation. The mousey man wanting the dark, mysterious, and bulky body type makes you think of your own figure. You don’t have the exact body type so may want after all the struggles to so much as get the medicine you needed for your transition. It takes time, ranging from months to years. And the first man you see him obsess over is the usual “jacked” and “hot” man makes you angry. That original figure you had has changed over time, into something you’re more comfortable with. While some changes haven’t been made yet due to the lack of money, you feel better; like you can actually live in your own skin now after so long of feeling like your body was out to destroy you.

But that feeling does fade now and then, especially when you see someone you’ve been watching and pinning over for months wanting the one thing you feel like you can’t be at times. Sometimes it’s your mind, other times it's old words from people you knew. The majority is the people you see online spouting nasty things, all ranging from hatred to fetishizing; there are even times when it’s a mixture of the two. A “real” man is what they want. For some reason as well, a “real” man isn’t someone who takes hormones or changes their body. A “real” man isn’t someone who says they are a man, even if they don’t transition. If they don’t pass their assessments, they’re not a “real man”. But how can they be one? How do they know what a “real” man is? They call those bulky hunks in bars real men. They’ll call the men from the army real men. The men from the gym are real men. But the moment a man so much as acts, looks, sounds different or doesn’t have the “right” body, they’re fake. And to you, it’s all bullshit. No one has any right to tell someone they’re not a “real” man, especially when they themselves know nothing about you or others in the same boat.

So to suddenly see such people in his streams? You can feel yourself losing it. While you wouldn’t kill them for such a thing unless they preached or even tried to kill people for being different or “unreal”, it’s the fact that so many were actual shitbags added to it. From people who wanted to simply kill innocent people, to people wanting to do awful acts to those they hate, you can’t allow that. Spying from the rooftops and alleyways turns into watching him from his very own streams.

Your username on the streams is Gh0stFac3, read as GhostFace, is usually caught in the streams, never saying a word. You let yourself lurk while he’s online, letting out passionate rants about Gotham and some sort of “renewal plan”. You don’t necessarily watch him on these streams. You do listen though, taking down notes on his words. You do have other people to watch and kill later on, of course. Some from his streams, others from night outs. A few are even from your times at bars, hearing their nasty talking or genuine disgust about certain groups of people who’ve done nothing but live their lives.

Another name is jotted down in your notebook, a multitude of pictures clipped to the page with the target. You scratch at your neck from under the mask, sighing. It’s just another asshole really. This one is from one of Edward’s streams. From what you found out, the guy had been sending nasty messages to a coworker who rejected him. Pathetic in your case. But you can feel that itchy feeling creeping up under your skin. You’ll have to kill again soon. It’s like a drug and it makes you feel powerful in a way. From people seeing you as some dainty girl back in the day, nothing more than something to be used for bearing kids and eye candy to look at, to feeling like a man after treatment, meds, and eye-opening articles; along with blogs talking about their own experiences, you feel like you can actually feel and do the things you felt you deserved to do. The people who looked down on you or disowned you disappeared in just a blink. All you needed was time away to find yourself, who you truly are, before returning and dealing out the same amount of pain to them they forced you to go through for so many years.

You snap the notebook closed, rubbing at the face under your mask. All this thinking about how your body is, alongside was, is giving you a headache. It doesn’t help that you have more than just that man as the next victim either. You’re not sure who to choose just yet. Or, well, you do. However, all the constant thinking, together with your inner voice reminding you of all the transphobia you’ve faced thus far, is killing your mood. A snort leaves you. Killing your mood. You’re truly a riot with your own jokes.

You grab the flip phone closest to you, flicking it open. It’s a burner you picked up a bit ago. There were plenty of others but the satisfaction of snapping the phone shut after a call is enough for you to keep it around. You look at Edward’s stream; he’s still going. You give a sharp grin under your scream mask before dialling his number.

You can hear it ring from the stream. Seeing him go silent immediately is satisfying. He looks like a mouse again; a confused one at that. He starts up his rant again, seemingly going to ignore it. Narrowing your eyes, you end the call before texting him. The ding he gets is ignored. Another ding. Another. Another. His hands are shaking, eyes wide and crazed. Finally, you type in chat.

> Hello, Mouse.

The chat, usually fast, stops for a moment. They seem to notice something is off.

> Will you answer your phone?

> I’m calling.

> I’m texting you, Mouse.

People in the chat start to type, sending in a multitude of messages. Some are asking Edward if he knows you. Others are asking if you know him. You don’t answer them at all.

> Answer. I won’t stop calling.

He looks mad, grabbing his computer. “Who do you think you are? You know nothing! You’ve said nothing until now! You’re just someone trying to bring me down aren’t you?! You’re trying to destroy everything I’ve been working for to help Gotham!”

> Answer the phone, Eddie.

Everything stops. It’s like the entire chat froze as well as Edward. You know no one has any idea what his name is. The fact that you know it and suddenly type it with no hesitation only shows you know more than does. With shaking hands, he lets go of the computer and sits back in his chair. “I’m sorry everyone… But it looks like we have a leak. I’ll be making sure to get rid of the mole and that they are dealt with accordingly. I’ll host another stream next week after all of this is fixed.” His voice is eerily blank, almost like he’s bored or in shock. With those final words, the entire stream ends. You sit for a moment before calling him once more. Edwards finally picks up this time.

“Oh, Eddie… Did you really have to take that long?” The voice changer in your mask disguises your voice. From what you’ve been told by many victims before, you sound like a very attractive young man.

“Who are you?” His question, asked in a cold way, makes you hum.

“Ghostface. What about you, Eddie? Are you Edward Nashton? The Riddler? Who are you?” His breathing has changed; he’s panicked. You’ve heard that type of breathing so much that you don’t do much beside coo at him. “Don’t worry, Dear Eddie. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to destroy all that you’ve been working on. After all, you’ve changed your schedule to fit this odd thing now…” You sigh, leaning forwards in your chair. You prop your masked head on your gloved hand. “After all, you spent so much time and resources on it. It’s honestly been the most interesting thing I’ve seen in years.”

“Why are you calling, Ghostface?” He asks, wanting to get this call over with. You don’t want that though. You like how he sounds in your ear. You like how you can make his breathing change with just a few words.

“What’s Your Favourite Scary Movie, Eddie?” The teasing way you say it only adds character, or that’s what you tell yourself. You want Eddie to like you. You want him to obsess over you as he does Batman. You want him.

“I’m not playing your games!” He’s stressed, practically about to cry from the frustration. You’ve ruined his stream, teased him over the phone, and called him Eddie in front of people who don’t know his name. In his eyes, you’re out to destroy him.

“Eddie…” You feel slightly bad. You really do want him to like you and this is the only thing you had thought of. It’s clearly not working. “I like you, Eddie. You’re doing what others can’t or won’t… How about a deal?” The idea of a deal to possibly end this talk seems to get to him.

“What’s the deal, then? Or are you going to keep talking to me in circles and messing with me?”

“I wasn’t trying to mess with you. As I said before. I like you. You’re the only person who went from a possible victim to something else entirely… You should be proud! No one has ever gotten that far! Usually, I’d be in their home by now, hiding and waiting for the right moment to strike…” As you talk, it seems he’s intently listening to you with genuine intrigue. “The fighting is always hard but so, so fun. And the moment my knife meets their flesh and blood spills? It’s beautiful.” You let out a sigh, one could almost call it dreamy with how you talk about your deadly hobby. “The screams are a bit much, not going to lie there, Eddie. They’re so loud.. But the moment the life is gone from those shitbags, I can make them oh so pretty.” You’re out of your chair, pacing around your apartment. Your combat boots are heavy against the wooden floors of your home. One of your hands moves as you ramble, giving more passion despite the other man unable to see it. “A few more cuts, maybe some mutilation, a bit of stabbing.. Then I have to set them up how I want and take a few selfies. The selfies are always fun… I can send you a few if you’d like. They always turn out great, I make sure of it.”

The silence on the other end snaps you out of whatever state you had been in when talking about your hobby. You don’t hear anything, not even Edward’s breathing. Your hidden lips pull into a frown. Here you are, pouring your heart out and he’s said nothing! No congratulations. No good job. Nothing. The squeaking of your gloves is heard as you tighten your grip on the burner.

“How does this help me? How are you going to help me with some pictures of your pinned-up dead bodies?” You grit your teeth, hating this call more and more.

“I’m saying that I can be your blade, dammit! You can sit in your messy lil’ apartment, talking, coding, streaming! I’ll hunt down whoever you want! I’ll mutilate them! I’ll leave clues or riddles, I don’t care!” You’re yelling into the receiver, finally tired of listening to the man’s complaining. Taking a deep breath, you try to calm yourself. “I do all the killing and you continue doing whatever it is your doing.”

“But what are you looking for? What do you get out of it?” A hum leaves you, letting all that rage go. A nasty smirk crawls over your features.

“I get to watch you work… I love seeing you put your pretty lil’ head to use after all, Baby.” You practically purr, the distorted warmth filling you. It’s unhealthy how much you like him paired with how much you want him to like you. Unhealthy or not, you don’t care. If he can have unhealthy views and plans, so can you.

You hear the end of his line go dead, having hung up on you. You give a mocking put from behind the scream mask. Quickly, you let your thumb fly over the numbers. You snap the phone closed, happy to see that this is the start of something very exciting.

> Can’t wait to work with you, Sweetheart ;))

#my fics #edward nashton x reader #edward nashton x male reader #x reader #x male reader #the riddler #the riddler x reader #the riddler x male reader #x trans male reader #the riddler x trans male reader #edward nashton x trans male reader

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valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn · 6 months

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This is not good at all...

Insiders and nothing official, so take this with a grain of salt.. but it is brutal.

Regarding Kang and Loki:

“Marvel is truly fucked with the whole Kang angle,” says one top dealmaker who has seen the final “Loki” episode. “And they haven’t had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently [because of the WGA strike]. But I don’t see a path to how they move forward with him.”

So they might have to re-write the upcoming movies/series while it's all still filming. My, my...

The Marvels:

Directed by Nia DaCosta, “The Marvels” [...] resulted in four weeks of reshoots to bring coherence to a tangled storyline. DaCosta began working on another film while “The Marvels” was still in postproduction. “If you’re directing a $250 million movie, it’s kind of weird for the director to leave with a few months to go,” says a source familiar with the production. In June, Marvel held a public test screening in Texas. The audience gave the film middling reviews.

I'm including a snippet from another interview here because Da Costa said this last month:

While some directors, such as James Gunn, receive almost full creative control for their MCU entries, DaCosta recognized she had to answer to Feige: "It is a Kevin Feige production, it’s his movie." Da Costa did not have full creative control of the movie.

Picture me extremely worried now.

The VFX:

At the world premiere of “Quantumania,” [...] “There were at least 10 scenes where the visual effects had been added at the last minute and were out of focus. It was insane. I’ve never seen something like that in my entire career. Everyone was talking about it.” The schedule swap with “The Marvels” had left the “Ant-Man” sequel in a squeeze, pushing up its postproduction schedule by four-and-a-half months. Some final effects for “WandaVision” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” were inserted after their streaming debuts.

The VFX guys have so much work and Disney gives them impossible deadlines, to the point that the releases of their series arrive and they haven't had the time to finish their work. I'm so glad these guys are unionized now!

On Blade:

The project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead.

Holy fuck, that script? Seriously? I bet they would have tried to sell that as feminist, wtf... 🤦‍♀️

Bringing back the OG Avengers. No, really:

Sources say there have been talks to bring back the original gang for an “Avengers” movie. This would include reviving Iron Man and Black Widow. But the studio hasn’t yet committed to the idea.

"We're not working on the new characters well enough and people don't like them! What should we do?"

"Should we write them better?"

"No, let's just bring the old ones back!"

There is one good thing though:

Still, there was one bright spot in 2023: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which became Marvel’s biggest draw of the year with $845 million worldwide.

Fuck yeah, James Gunn! It's almost like when you focus on the characters and you tell a cohesive story, people like it and pay the damn tickets to watch it...

#mcu salt #mcu critical #the marvels #quantumania #holy shit Feige... what are you doing...

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thesims4blogger · 9 months

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The Sims 4: New Game Patch (August 3rd, 2023)

Maxis has just released a new patch for The Sims 4 fixing bugs found on its latest expansion pack, Horse Ranch.

If you have auto updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto-update once you open Origin. If you have auto-updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking the game in your library.Advertisement

Your game should now read: PC: 1.99.305.1020 / Mac: 1.99.305.1220 / Console: Version 1.79.21

Howdy, Simmers! We hope you’re having yourself a rootin’ tootin’ good summer (or winter for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere)! The crew has been super excited for The Sims 4 Horse Ranch Expansion Pack finally to be out in the world and we have loved seeing y’all’s fantastic Horses and homesteads! One teammate was telling us about a young stallion she had growing up named Starbuck. He was feisty and seemed a bit wild to some folks. However defiant Starbuck seemed to be, though, our teammate shared a special bond with him that was unmatched (despite him being more than happy to take an apple from anybody!). We hope you create your own special bonds with your Horses in the game! We have a few ranch maintenance notes to share, so kick up your boots and settle in. – SimGuruJoAnna

Bug Fixes

Base Game

The female outfit with a foldover sweater (yfBody_EF18LongPant_RedandWhite) now keeps its hands to itself when the camera is far away.

Circular Roofs once again haveshingles that lay properly.

L-shaped stairs that are two or more tiles wide no longer have a misplaced triangular section on the side.

Floor and Ceiling Pattern names have been updated since they now apply to both. Try them out for Painted Ceilings if you have not already!

Lessons about camera controls now have images that include the updated “Free Camera.” If you haven’t tried it out yet, use it to check out Ceilings that you now can customize!

Growing Together

The “Screen Smarts” Moodlet that children get for watching the Brainchild Learning television channel now has text in all languages.

Horse Ranch

Live Mode

Dazed newborn Foals that are fed an Age-Up Treat now become adults who maintain their “Horseness” when going on rides so they don’t walk upright like Sims.

Sims occasionally were stuck staring into space while starting activities such as eating or cooking. It turns out this was a possible side effect of going home from another location via “Ride Home”. Well, no longer! Sims now can enjoy their post-ride meal.

Sims on Horseback who select a “Community Job” from the Ranch Community Board now remain mounted in most cases when heading to the Job.

For new games inChestnut Ridge, Emily now only recommends affordable starter lots.

The Welcome Wagon no longer sometimes overstays its welcome because nothing says ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’ like a bladder mishap on the porch.

“Ask About The Community” on aChestnut Ridge resident now consistently shows the neighborhoodRanch Community Board when selecting “View Board.”

Horses that are uncomfortable now shake their head less frequently while trotting or cantering. To learn more about how a Horse is feeling, just hover the cursor over the Horse or ask an unhappy Horse “What’s Wrong?”

Horses move more naturally while walking, trotting, and cantering.

Horses runningaround for Fun now run in more direct paths and avoid running through Gates.

Horses now are less likely to loop through Gates.

When engaging camera auto-follow on the active Sim who is riding on a lot with walls set to “Medium” or “Tall,” the rider now remains firmly mounted instead of skyrocketing above the world. Sims are better off exploring worlds from the relative safety of the saddle!

Sims keep their hands on the reins when their Horse moves on his or her own.

Sims making Nectar no longer freeze up when another Sim uses certain greetings with them or when making jokes about Body Hair. It’s just a neighborly hello with jokes on hold until after the Nectar is made!

The Mysterious Rancher now pays the full amount of Simoleons when a Sim sells multiple bottles of Nectar at once.

Selecting “Hire a Ranch Hand” on a Ranch Community Board and then switching to a Child now shows the initial Sim’s phone interface after selecting “Call to Hire Ranch Hand.”

Horse Training options that the Sim cannot afford now have a tooltip that correctly states the Sim’s name.

Sims who are not Father Winter no longer travel to locations such as the Equestrian Center via fireplaces. Chimney transportation is reserved!

Sims now can enter only one Horse Competition at a time. This prevents Horses from sometimes getting confused and staying in the Equestrian Center.

Sims who lose an Elder Horse friend or acquaintance to death or who witness one passing now have a “Mourning Horse” Moodlet. Rest in peace, noble steed.

On Horse Jumps, “Practice Advanced Jumps” now kicks up dust from the ground properly when the Horse knocks off the top rail.

When selling many Mini Goats or Mini Sheep in rapid succession, the chance of one being left behind and i n v i s i b l e is lower now. If you encounter this, “Save” and “Reload” to resolve the issue.

Lots you can visit no longer have the “Place Animal…” interaction.

“Sniff” and “Nuzzle” interactions with Foals and Adult Horses no longer occasionally contort the Sim’s arms.

Manure/poop is more performant at the gameplay engine level. You heard that right – we “polished” this fertilizer powerhouse.

Horses in locked, enclosed spaces or who otherwise cannot get to the edge of the lot now can be sold successfully.

Build Mode

Rust’n Chic Table Lamp now can live a life independent of walls. It now slots onto the typical horizontal surfaces rather than snapping to walls.

Paddock Fencing and Sturdy Ranch Fencing now can be built withrounded corners.

Rancher’s Dream Window’s black design now is fully black.

Cormac Pine End Table’s white design now has a white swatch.

Create a Sim

Selecting a premade shape for a Horse’s head now preserves the Mane and Tail Color and any Feathers. Did you know in real life that the Arabian’s concave head profile is described as “dish”-shaped and muzzles (noses) with a convex profile are called a “Roman nose”?

Horses now are fully visible after undoing accessories while the “Coat Color & Pattern” section is still highlighted. No i n v i s i b l e Horses here!

Premade face shapes for Sims were missing for games that had Horse Ranch and not Werewolves. They’re back now!

“Plan Outfits” for Foals now includes Mane and Forelock selection.

Foals now have better framing in the Gallery. Who can resist that cute face??

The English riding outfit (ymBody_EP14RidingDressage_LogoBlueLt) now shows up with the “Feminine” filter.

The fringejacket (yfTop_EP14JacketFringed_SolidBrown) now tucks into bottoms properly.

The “Jumpsuits” category for the “Masculine” filter no longer includes a few errant tops.

The “Boomtown Maverick” Styled Look no longer has two errant color swatches.

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #game patch

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wusel1811 · 3 months

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Wusel builds a new town: Family Hillinghead / Ashe Part 1

(Originally published on November 7th 2023)

My husband and I have been watching a great show on Netflix called Bodies (go check it out if you haven’t already!) and once more I thought that I should create these characters as Sims and give them much happier lifes than they had on the show.

So here we are with our first two protagonists, Alfred Hillinghead and Henry Ashe. They gave up on life in the year 1890 and travelled to some more or less modern future. Probably around our time 🙂

I guess it must be really hard to be thrown into a new life like that, so they have a big piece of land in Chestnut Ridge where they live off the grid and with simple living activated, but most of all happily together.

Alfred is a loyal, proper, romantic and domestic guy who wants his lineage to succeed in life.

His husband Henry (sorry, I’m terrible at creating Sims… let’s just imagine he totally looks like Henry) is a good, creative muser who has a photographic eye (cc trait) and wants to become a photo-artist, which is a cc aspiration 🙂

What they have is their love for each other and lots and lots of space… and that’s it for now. But we’ll get there, guys – don’t worry!

I’ve downloaded some mods from BrazenLotus

so they can gather wood and stuff like that.

I’ll be more or less following these BaCC rules

although they haven’t been updated in a while, so I might make some changes to make up for that or just because.

A few moments later they are proud owners of their own well, a storage for their wood and two woodworking tables… it seems they need to forage wood to build all the new things I downloaded for them.

Henry gets some wood…

… and then makes logs …

… while Alfred is looking for berries.

I think I like these BrazenLotus mods 🙂

“Henry!!! I saw a scary snake while foraging!”

“Oh no… maybe you should help me with the woodwork instead so we have some furniture for our new home soon!”

“Okay, you make barstools and I make an endtable… I hope we learn new recipes soon!”

Hm… I usually say yes to whatever my Sims want, but I don’t think that’s a good idea, Henry… it will get better, you’re just upset because you pinched your finger! It will be fine!

“Hey, you’ve both pinched your fingers and are uncomfortable… do you want to go fishing for a while so you have something for dinner tonight?”

“Flirt? Oh yes, we definitely want to flirt!” ❤️❤️

Well, okay then…

Chestnut Ridge is so beautiful ❤️

Our first fish – Henry is a natural!

*sigh*

The fish Henry caught disappear after roasting in the fire, so my two adventurers get marshmallows instead – those are not really filling, though!

The disappearing fish is neither mine nor their fault, so after Alfred and Henry have put up their tent and built a campfire I deactivate simple living for a moment so they can have some veggie dogs

So far they have

collected wood

built some furniture

caught fish

collected a mushroom and a berry that Alfred can’t identify yet

planted the mushroom in planter they built themselves

Is that a successful first day or what? 🙂

I think they agree with me and are celebrating 🙂

#Sims 4 #Sims 4 BaCC #BodiesNetflix #ts4bacc

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pumpkinpie59 · 2 years

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the hate on rottmnt really amuses me because this isn’t the first time a tmnt series has gotten hate from tmnt “purists” because it’s “too different”.

no really. the 2003 series had haters when it came out. especially because of the utrom shredder thing. people complained that it wasn’t the 1987 series.

the 2012 series had haters. people complained that it wasn’t the 2003 series. they didn’t like teenage april, how silly the boys are, maybe the animation looked uncanny to them or something idk.

(lol i remember being 11 and feeling so alienated by the 2003 fans for enjoying the 2012 series)

the idw comics had haters. gosh, especially with jennika’s mutation.

i haven’t seen a whole lot of 2007’s criticisms but they are there too.

the bay movies had haters. the boys were too tall, megan fox april, michael bay was involved, etc etc

and now the rise series has haters because it’s not the 2012 series. leo’s not leader, april’s too loud or something, they’re too nice to each other idk

it’s just so funny to me. like wow how dare this new tmnt continuity be ORIGINAL and DIFFERENT.

and now there are people complaining about the concept art for the 2023 movie, and it hasn’t even come out yet.

to be completely honest, why wouldn’t you want something new? every version of tmnt has a special charm to it that the others just don’t have, and i love that. so why can’t we lay down our biases and just enjoy something new?

and i’m not saying let go of your critical thinking. you’re allowed to have issues with something. but don’t take everything at face value when there’s so much more under the surface.

like to be completely honest, the 90s live action movies don’t look super great to me, but that doesn’t mean i won’t give it a chance. i’ve heard that the fight scenes are fun and that there are some funny gags, and once i get the chance to watch them, i’ll be looking out for that.

#tmnt #tmnt 1987 #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 1990 #tmnt 2007 #tmnt idw #tmnt 2012 #rise of the tmnt #tmnt 2023 #tmnt 2014

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morphofan · 3 months

Text

Hyper-Fixation and The Bad Batch

Or, "WTF Is Going On With Morph, Lately?"

Me and The Bad Batch

SO, I first started watching The Bad Batch during the hiatus between S1 and S2. I was big into Boba Fett (thanks to The Mandalorian) and so I found The Bad Batch because Boba was mentioned in one episode. But I didn’t sit down to watch it until my friend, Cyn, told me I HAD to watch it.

So I watched the whole first season, and then had to go back and watch The Bad Batch arc in Season 7 of The Clone Wars. I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for Season 2. I was writing again, inspired again, hyper-fixated.

My sweet cat, my baby, Thomas, died at age 5 in November of 2022. It emotionally destroyed me.

Then my desktop computer had a total hard drive failure. Up until then, I was backing stuff up in a separate folder on my computer, which did f*ckall because the entire hard drive went bad. This was before I learned about backing stuff up on a cloud or OneDrive or whatever.

I lost all my fics, including a half-dozen Bad Batch fics in various states of completion. It was some of the best work I’ve ever written, and it was gone. Poof.

So, there was that sense of lost, and I almost left the fandom from sheer depression. I tried to rewrite the fics, but it wasn’t going to work because I knew I could never replicate what I had written.

Then came “Plan 99.”

I didn’t eat for a week. Not a bite, not a calorie. For seven days. I dropped 16 pounds. At the time of this writing, it’s been nearly 10 months since the finale of S2. The Bad Batch has occupied my mind this entire time. I couldn’t tell you what I did over the last ten months, because it was all just a long blur. I neglected my family, my duties, all the things that a grown ass woman is supposed to focus on.

I still tried to contribute to the fandom, with “Travels With Tech,” fic and video edits, but most of it has been more or less ignored.

A week or so ago, the friend that originally told me about TBB died, very suddenly, of a heart attack at age 45, leaving three kids.

We still haven’t been publicly shown the S3 Bad Batch teaser that was revealed at Star Wars Celebration back in May 2023. There’s been no word of a release date, aside from 2024. It feels now like the creators are mocking us by dropping little comments on TwiX about S3, but not actually giving us anything.

And I’ve realized now, that I’ve built up S3 in my head so much, and imagined so many scenarios I want to see, that I am destined to be disappointed when it does finally air. No matter how amazing S3 is, it cannot live up to the standards I’ve assigned it in my mind.

I did the same thing with S3 of The Mandalorian. I kept thinking, if I could just hold on until S3 of Mando, everything would be good again. But when it came, I was disappointed. And I know the same thing is going to happen with The Bad Batch.

Hyper-fixations always follow the same pattern. I get obsessed with something, and then, quite suddenly, it passes over and I become ambivalent to it. It’s happened with every fandom I’ve been with. Something that, for a time, I thought I could not live without becomes ho-hum. I don’t ever want it to happen, but it always does.

And now I have the guilt of wasting the last two years of my life on yet another hyper-fixation, only to lose interest in it just as suddenly as it started.

S3 of TBB is NOT going to make everything right again. It might provide some happiness for a few months, but then it will end and that will be it.

So anyway… sorry.

END

#the bad batch #tech bad batch #The Bad Batch Season 3 #Pouring Out My Purse #hyperfixation #fandom

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dduane · 7 months

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Ok so

1. I’ve only ever read one book you wrote (So You Want To Be a Wizard) but it was very good and I love it. Big fan.

2. Both out of curiosity and on behalf of my sister, as a writer of Barbie Fairytopia, did you invent Bibble. Because my sister has Bibble as her Home Screen and my whole family had a conversation about Bibble yesterday.

Thank you. Ur books are cool.

Thank you! Glad you liked SYW... . 😊

Now, about Bibble (and a nod here to @the-best-of-the-geeks, who also inquired about this):

The answer is... maybe. At this end of time, it's hard to tell.

I took a few moments off from today's* graphic arts work to go digging in my archived project files. What I can see from a quick glance at them is that Bibble (or the character who'd eventually be Bibble: there were a lot of name changes throughout the writing process) doesn't appear in any of the drafts of the worldbuilding bible I wrote, or in other associated background material. If it had, that would've been—not absolute, but at least fairly strong circumstantial evidence—that I was the character's creator.

The problem is that when you're working on a big-IP project like this, there are so many people involved in the creative process that it can become really difficult to accurately trace any one character's or story element's "lineage". It's possible Bibble originated in a note to me from one of the creative team, which would have been one of hundreds of archived emails. Or it might have been something suggested to me in a phone conversation... of which there were many. Without sifting through all those emails (and please forgive me, that's not something I've got time for at the moment) it's tough to say.

What I am sure of is that Bibble definitely turned up on my watch. I have a premise file dated 30 December 2003 which does not contain the character, and then a second-draft premise dated 10 January 2004... in which, with a slightly different name, Bibble first appears. Bibble (as Bobble) is also in my first draft screenplay, which was turned in in early February 2004.

So that much, at least, we can be sure of. Bibble's personality and speech style is clearly spelled out in the script (as is the suggestion that Bibble be voiced by Frank Welker. It's a shame that didn't happen: I'm a huge fan of his).

But this still doesn't constitute proof that I invented the character. Bibble could very well have been suggested to me by someone else—and suggestions and notes are so free-flowing in a project like this that it's possible we'll just never know. (sigh) Such is life.

What I do want to emphasize here was how extremely pleasant this whole project was, from beginning to end. There are screenwriting projects that will make you shudder decades after the fact just on hearing their name. But there are others that unfailingly make you smile when someone mentions them... and this, for me, was one of those.

The giveaway of how much fun I was having lies in some stuff that happens in the script and would, to those unfamiliar with tropes in animation writing, look like nothing in particular. But a recurring joke among animation writers back then (and maybe still) was designating a character's speech as a walla. In this case, it means not just a description of some kind of crowd noise—the usual definition—but of that particular character making speechlike noises. It's the kind of thing you don't bother doing if you're not feeling playful. (Or at least I don't.)

...Anyway: hope this has helped, at least a little. :)

*This post was written at the very beginning of May 2023, around the time the WGA strike was starting. During the strike period I haven’t been comfortable with doing long posts about my screen work… but the strike’s over now. 😄 Thanks to @violet-yimlat and @the-best-of-the-geeks for being so patient.

#Fairytopia #Bibble

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darling-in-wonderland · 6 months

Text

Kill Your Darlings (Redux)

(in collaboration with @twistedchatterbox ‘s event, Spooky Chattering 2023)

AN: If you were one of the five people that read the original Kill Your Darlings, then strap in because this is a reimagining that is way more cracked than it’s archived original counterpart. And if you weren't, well, you're not missing much. This version is leagues above the og and way more fun. Reader is my yuusona, Darling (she/her), who is very in love with Idia (but feel free to live vicariously through her like I do). Other characters in this little (*cough* 7k word) fic include Azul, Ortho, and Grim (with a little bonus scene at the end with Crowley) Vil is mentioned quite a lot, but makes no appearance.

CW: more of a dark comedy than anything, but there are still points of tension, anxiety mention (in response to the tension), feelings of being stalked/hunted, minor injuries/blood, and one (1) fbomb, meaning that it could safely be rated pg-13.

AN2: Also i am super new/unaware of fanfic etiquette so if there's anything i've missed/should label differently/etc, please let me know! now, without further adieu…

It was a day like any other, really. Foggy, but hey, I like overcast weather so I’m not complaining.

“I guess I never realized that the fog here is different from the fog back home,” I muse to Grim while we walk to class.

“Myah? Whaddya mean by that?”

“The fog back home didn’t stick around this much, I don’t think.”

“The fog here isn’t really that sticky, Darling.”

“Whatever you say, Grim.” I give him some pets as we walk. “Also, before I forget, I have Board Game Club after classes today. Remember the plan?”

“How could I forget?” he grins. “You offered me five whole cans of tuna to help you with this scheme!”

After the events of that phantom bride- oh how I hate her still!- I can’t afford myself the luxury of pretending that Idia doesn’t know that I like him anymore. With the lengths (and songs) I went to without hesitation, there’s no way he doesn’t know; but it’s polite to tell him point blank in no uncertain terms. I mean, that’s what you do when you like someone, right?

The plan is that Grim is going to distract Azul somehow to make him late to the club meeting. Hopefully this will mean that Idia and I will be alone, allowing me to tell him how I feel in person without anyone else there to watch.

Before I left the dorm, I made sure to spritz a bit of perfume on me, just something that makes me smell a bit like candy. I’m only thinking of this because I left the bottle on the stairs since I was running late to class, but I’m always running late to these early morning classes. Anyways, I need to remember to put it back in the bathroom when I get home.

After classes with Grim, we diverge on our separate paths; Grim to distract Azul with some random fetch quest and I to the Board Game Club to confess my love to Idia, though hopefully not in song while holding a heavy flamer this time.

I show up early to the club meeting, jittery and anxious. When I was out there white knighting and wedding crashing, I was so hopped up on anger, adrenaline, and the anxiety that my Sister of Battle armor would run out of battery too soon that I didn’t even notice that I kept singing the lyrics to “A Grave Mistake” wrong. When you meet the girl whose love you stole… Cringe, but I feel more on edge now than then. Why does this of all things make me anxious?

Time refuses to march on to my best nightmare, so I stay frozen in place as I pace the floor.

And then I hear the door creak open, forcefully shaking me from my thoughts and making my heart pound harder. I see the blue flames of his hair before I see him. I sit down and start nervously shuffling a deck of cards to keep from spontaneously combusting.

He eventually notices me and takes off his headphones. He too avoids eye contact. We haven’t spoken much since that phantom bride left.

“Magic?” I ask him, holding up the cards.

“Uh... sure,” he responds flatly, pulling out a deck of his own.

My brain is on fire, screaming at me to say something. Now is my chance! But I go to speak and find that my lips are welded shut as I draw my hand, only just now realizing that the deck I’m playing is my Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres deck. I feel bad, until I see that he brought his Juri deck and decide that it’s time to destroy him with toxic and proliferate keywords.

He notices my commander and smirks. “Feeling competitive today?”

“I have some things I want to win.”

Our eyes meet briefly and I feel my heart stop. I bury my face in my opening hand, but out of the corner of my eye I see his hair swiftly turning pink.

“Your hair looks purple today,” he stammers out.

“It’s purple everyday.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

The game continues on as normal.

I manage to ask him, “So, what’s your Halloween costume going to be?”

“Haven’t thought much about it yet.”

“Halloween is in four days, Idia,” I remind him. When I say his name, the tips of his hair turn pink. He’s so cute. I still can’t believe he’s single.

“What about you, Darling?”

Hearing him say my name makes my brain short circuit.

“Oh!” I snap out of my daze. “I was thinking Springtrap or Ennard or something like that since the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ movie comes out today.”

“That’s today?” his eyes light up with excitement. Now’s my chance now’s my chance now’s my-

“Yeah,” I smile. “I’ve already made plans to go see it. After this club meeting its gonna be one hour at Pomefiore to cover my arms with nose and scar wax.”

“With Vil?”

“Who else? He’s gonna help with the scars I have to put on the back of my neck.”

“Oh,” he retreats back to his normal energy levels. “That makes sense.”

And there goes my chance.

We finish the game without talking (aside from reading the cards to explain the cards). He won, obviously.

“Get rekt,” he grins. I can feel my cheeks get hot.

“I took a bad opening hand,” I justify my loss to him. I really want him to think I’m good at this game (even though I am painfully mid).

“Yeah, I saw that mana drought.”

“I had Oko, Thief of Crowns, in fairness.”

“Ohhhh,” he remarks sarcastically, “that makes it totally worth it.”

“If it had paid off I would’ve destroyed you,” I threaten him toothlessly.

“Sure you would’ve.” As he fidgets with his life counter, he says, “I, uh... you mentioned that you wish you had more hands to hold things as you cut out patterns the other day.”

“Especially with Halloween coming up,” I lament, realizing too late that he’s probably dropping hints for something.

He sets the counter down. “Wait here then.”

He glides out of the room as quietly as he entered. I crumple up in my chair. What a wasted opportunity.

When I was younger, I used to spend my free time outside catching butterflies. There was a slight degree of skill that went into it. If you ran up too quickly, the butterfly would get scared and fly away, but if you went too slow, you would lose your surprise and it would fly away then too.

It’s five minutes past. Where is he? My heart is beating out of my chest. What if something happened to him? I should go find him. My anxiety is fueling my paranoia, springboarding me to the worst possible conclusions. Maybe he died, or worse, I already scared him away for good.

It’s been too long. I’ll go find him. I set down my cards and start making my way down to Ignihyde. The halls of the main building are eerily empty. There must be a logical explanation for all of this. I’m bad at time and I haven’t checked my phone in a while, not that it would matter now because I don’t know how long our game of Magic lasted. He’s probably fine. He’s probably fine.

Despite all my logic, I still can’t seem to shake this paranoia. I hear screams of terror wafting down the halls. Film Club must be watching a horror movie for the spooky season. I hope so, at least. Against all good judgment, I push on. I wish literally anyone was here, some big guy who could do the fighting for me if things got tough, like Jade or Floyd.

Amidst my thoughts, someone grabs my hand and yanks me around a corner.

I shriek and cover my mouth before I realize that it’s just Ortho.

I almost let my body relax, but then I see the fear in his mechanical eyes.

“Ortho?” Panic rises in my voice like bile. “What's wrong?”

“It’s Idia. He’s sick.”

“Oh, is that all it is?” The tension in my shoulders releases, but only a little. “From the sounds of the screams, I thought that gladiatorial games were back in fashion. Where is he? I can help take care of him.”

“Sick isn’t the right word,” his voice is hard and serious as he flits through words in his databank. What has this kid seen?

“What movie is Film Club watching today?” I ask him as some more screams bounce off the walls of main hall.

Ortho looks me dead in the eyes. “Film Club didn’t meet today.”

I hear Idia cackle off in the distance, this time sending chills up my spine rather than releasing butterflies in my stomach.

“Ortho?” I ask, that old fear bubbling up once more.

“Yes, Darling?”

“Do you know what Idia was going to show me?”

“He never told me,” Ortho remarks. “But I did find a word that I think fits better than sick.”

Everything feels prickly and bad. The blood vacates my face as I hear another one of Idia’s cackles in the distance. Of all my worst case scenarios, none were like anything of what Ortho said next.

“Well, what word is it?” I ask him, panic leaching into my voice.

“Possessed. I don’t know what could’ve caused it, but...” His voice trails off, as if he’s having trouble coming up with a proper hypothesis. At least, that’s what I was hoping.

His eyes grow wide, his mechanical whirring hushing. The hand around my wrist clamps harder. The tips of my fingers are starting to turn a bluish purple.

“Ortho?” I whisper. “My wrist-”

I hear the soft tap tap tap of some boots prowling down the adjacent hallway. I can feel the temperature rise with each tap.

“Darling…” I hear Idia’s voice rasp, a mechanical grinding amidst his organic vocals, “I know you’re hiding here…”

My eyes are watering. I can’t turn around. I can’t even blink. My breath catches in my throat. Has he turned the corner? I can’t tell.

By the shadow on Ortho’s face, he must be looming right above me.

Ortho’s tugging on my ever-numbing wrist, a silent plea for me to run, but my body refuses to move from its position. This is my worst nightmare, and I can’t even wake up.

“Seems I’ve found you,” I feel hot breathing on the back of my neck. “And with Ortho, no less.”

I feel his hand land on my shoulder. I can’t even find the voice to scream as Idia’s grip gets tighter on my shoulder.

Ortho yells something I don’t make out and finally yanks me from my spot, flinging me onto his metal back. I cry out in pain as I’m ripped from Idia’s grasp. I feel something cold and metallic and sharp scratch up against my cheek. I hear him howl in frustration as we make our getaway.

Ortho and I end up hiding out in the empty classroom on the first floor where the Board Game Club meets.

“That’s a lot of blood, Darling,” Ortho remarks.

I reach up and touch my cheek and find that my face is slick with blood. My fingers are covered in the viscous red liquid.

“It’s just a scratch,” I inform him. “It’s not that bad.”

“Are you sure?” Ortho asks me, searching around for something to clean up the blood.

I laugh nervously. “I have more blood than this sitting on my bathroom counter.”

“Isn’t that blood fake, Darling?”

“And peppermint flavored, but that’s besides the point,” I awkwardly wave the question away. “You’re programmed with medical stuffs, right? Do you have a bandaid?”

“My lab body is back in Ignihyde,” he informs me, “so I don’t have any of my medical supplies.”

“Okay. That’s okay.” I see the Magic cards left abandoned on the table. The panic starts creeping back into my brian. We won’t stay hidden forever. Idia was originally coming back here. “I should’ve told Idia how I felt while I still had the chance.” “What was that, Darling?”

“Nothing, Ortho,” I try to smile. “Nothing.”

I close my eyes to try and think of a better place to hide, but I keep thinking of what I could’ve said to Idia before he got possessed by... whatever it was that possessed him.

“That’s quite a bit of trouble you’ve got yourself into,” a familiar voice cuts through my thoughts as its owner gently places a bandaid in my hand. “I can help, for a price.”

I open my eyes and see Azul staring back at me. I beam, my eyes starting to well up as he hands me a tissue. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s time for Board Game Club,” he answers, an edge lacing his voice. “Or are you asking about why I was late. I think you know why.”

From the satchel I didn’t notice before now, he holds up a very angry Grim.

“I kept him stalled for as long as I could, myah!” Grim responds, not thrilled about being held by the scruff of his neck.

“Uh, guys?” Ortho asks, but none of us hear him.

“For the band aid stuck to your face and the tissue now covered in your blood,” Azul continues, “all you have to do is tell me why Grim showed up to the Monstro Lounge and started pulling the table cloths off the tables and swinging from the chandeliers once my employees caught on to what was happening.”

“Grim!” I take the mischievous cat weasel thing from Azul to scold him. “I told you to distract him, not trash the Lounge!”

“Guys?” Ortho pipes up, but Azul pays no mind.

The school’s resident mob boss continues, “So, why did you send Grim to trash the Lounge?”

“My plan was to get Idia alone to tell him that I have a crush on him,” I confess to Azul.

“A crush on him?” Azul teases me. “Greaaaat taste there, Darling.”

And then Grim asks me, “Did the plan work?”

I laugh nervously. “Not exactly...”

“Guys!” Ortho yells at us from the open window. “Idia will be here any second! At least according to my tracking.”

“What?” Azul asks, almost offended at the fact that we didn’t tell him something sooner.

“Idia’s possessed,” I summarize for Ortho.

Grim hops back in Azul’s satchel and asks from there, “Possessed by what? One of the ghosts?”

“We don’t know,” I respond, the panic creeping back into my voice as I remember the problem at hand.

Ortho pipes up, “Yet!”

I nod hastily, “Yet, yet is good.”

“Guys…” Panic creeps into Azul’s voice like mold. “I don’t think we’re alone anymore.”

That’s when my ear zeros in on the sound of boots on linoleum and something metal scraping against the walls. I didn’t get a good look at whatever he was wearing when I last saw him. Maybe with his new personality he got a new wardrobe, too. I don’t know.

Looks like we’re about to find out as he starts throwing his body against the door Ortho barricaded from the sound of it. The first thud makes me jump, with each subsequent hit causing my adrenaline levels to rise.

“Good time to jump out of the window,” Azul remarks between thuds, “unless we all wanna end up sleeping with the fishes.”

I can’t bring myself to move. The barricades loosen and once again I am frozen. I have to see what he’s wearing. I have to see if anything about his design changed. I have to know what possessed him.

“Henchman!” I hear Grim yell above Ortho and Azul’s pleas, “I command you to follow us.”

The door breaks open.

I catch just enough of a glimpse of Idia, only a mere silhouette surrounded by fiery red with a bloody crimson light from the center of his head piercing through my being; a horrible, horrible glimpse, but enough of a glimpse to will my legs to work again and jump out of the window.

“We should run while we still have something resembling a lead,” I anxiously quip as Azul groans.

“Azul,” Ortho rolls his eyes. “Your only other option is dying.”

Grim pokes his head out. “Can I ride with Ortho?”

“Fine.” Azul hands Ortho the satchel. “It’ll make running easier.”

“Don’t worry,” I clasp a hand on his shoulder, “I know a shortcut.”

We share a smile, but the moment is shattered by a mechanized roar from Idia. “Oh you sussy baka!” Robotic tendrils shoot out from the window, just barely missing us. “Where did you vent off to?!”

I don’t acknowledge what he says, rather grabbing Azul’s hand on instinct as a signal to get him and Ortho to start following me.

I’m not the best at running, but at least my theatre kid energy makes me better at it than Idia.

“So where are we running to?” Azul wheezes after a few minutes of nothing but woods.

“By the looks of it, Ramshackle,” Grim responds, chilling oh so smugly in his little satchel.

“Narrishackke,” I correct Grim.

“Is now really the time to try and make Narrishackke happen, henchman?”

“It’s not gonna happen,” Azul manages to get out before collapsing against a tree.

I stop running and ask Ortho, “How far away is Idia?”

He calculates for a second before responding, “Idia will catch up to us in roughly ten minutes.”

“Okay,” I squat down to conserve energy, “so we have some time. We can formulate a proper plan.”

Grim hops out of the satchel and starts pacing. “We have to figure out what’s turned him into such a bloodthirsty monster!”

“Ghosts?” Azul muses.

I shake my head. “Unlikely. He still talks like himself.”

“There were those mechanical tentacles,” Ortho recalls. “And he was wearing some sort of hat.”

Grim rolls his eyes. “So he wanted to be dapper? Big deal!”

I dig deep in my memory for a detail that’s nagging at me. “Ortho, was the hat glowing?”

“There was some sort of red camera lens attached to it,” he replies.

“Like a headlamp?” Azul asks.

“No,” I continue trying to think, “More like-”

I’m cut off by the sound of falling trees and cracking wood.

“I thought you said we had ten minutes!” Azul hisses at Ortho.

Grim climbs back into the satchel and hides.

Ortho looks concerned as he rechecks his math. “I didn’t think he could move that fast.”

“A side effect of this possession?” Azul thinks out loud.

Another roar from Idia shakes the birds from the trees.

“Guys, we’re so dead if we don’t get out of here soon,” I snap them out of their conversation and start running again. Ortho nods and follows close behind me.

Azul takes too long to get up off the forest floor. At the speed of light one of those tentacles we saw earlier wraps its metallic phalanges around Azul’s wrist.

“Guys! It’s got me!” he cries, fear lacing his voice like bleach.

I turn to Ortho and tell him, “Take Grim back to Ramshackle. He knows the shortcut.”

“Be careful, Darling!” Ortho chirps before zipping away.

I rush over to Azul who’s still wrestling with the mechanical hand around his arm.

“You should’ve gotten away while you still had the chance!” he weeps, voice catching in his throat.

“And leave one of my best friends behind?” I remark as I start my attempt to break the tentacle’s grasp. “Fat chance!”

“Do you even have a plan?!”

I continue to stomp on the tentacle, using my foot to create the tension necessary to try and get this thing to snap. “Not at all!”

I survey the scene as it stands. The noises from the forest are getting louder. If I don’t get Azul out of here fast, I can almost guarantee that more tentacles will come for us.

I start trying to pry the fingers of the metal claw off of Azul’s wrist.

“If it breaks, it breaks,” I mutter under my breath.

“I’d rather you didn’t break my wrist,” Azul gripes through the pain. He then takes the cue and helps me pry with his free hand.

A red glow is coming from the foliage.

“We’re running out of time!” he cries out.

“Oh for the love of- Just yank your wrist out!” I scream, my panic getting the better of me.

Azul clenches his teeth and does so. He shrieks in pain as the claws scrape his wrist so hard that royal blue blood starts dotting the ground below. I pull him away from the tentacle and run before it can grab anything else. I lead Azul off the trail, hoping that Idia won’t be able to find us amidst all the trees.

Once the sounds of his jaunt through the woods fade to near inaudibility, I stop running to examine Azul’s injury. His face is pale as tears continue to pour down his cheeks.

“Good news,” I tell him as I wrap the sleeve of my blazer around the wound, “it looks to only be surface level. Keep some pressure on it and then I can get it bandaged up once we get to Narrishackke.”

“Ramshackle,” he corrects me with a touch of laughter in his tone.

I smile. “I said what I said.”

We move carefully through the woods, only by the Seven’s protection or some unrelated miracle that we make it to Narrishackke before Idia. Ortho and Grim look overjoyed to see us.

“Glad to see my henchman is still in one piece, myah!”

I tell Ortho to take Grim upstairs to keep watch and to bandage up Azul’s wrist.

“But Darling,” Ortho gently takes my cold hand in his, “what will you be doing?”

“Keeping watch downstairs,” I respond solemnly. “We still don’t know exactly what’s caused this.”

“Be careful with him, then,” Ortho cautions me.

I nod and start my vigil. “Nothing would hurt me more than making him suffer.”

Ortho takes Grim and Azul upstairs and I double check all of the downstairs locks. The ghosts seem to be keeping their distance today. I guess whatever this is is too much for even them. I could use their comfort now though.

Why is it that the one day I want something to go right everything goes catastrophically wrong? I can’t even cry properly right now, lest I drain what little moral is upstairs with the sounds of my sobs.

What if we can’t fix him? What if all of this is permanent? What if I can’t put him back together? After all the phantom bride stuff, things were starting to look up. I should’ve just left when he did to start getting ready to go to the movie. I have two tickets. I could’ve invited Vil.

Through my sobs, I start to sing quietly in a futile attempt to ground myself or summon the ghosts to my side, or even just to right this upside down world.

“Is it a crime to kill,” the melody of the song passing through my halfhearted sobs in a heart wrenching staccato. “if we’re only sinking deeper and love can’t stop the fever?”

A knock on the door startles me from my thoughts. I frantically look for something sharp and pointy.

“You open that door and I’ll kill you!” I threaten the person on the other end. I don’t care if it’s Crowley himself, I'll stab if he opens the door.

All I find is a pencil. I’m doomed.

“I finally leave my room,” my best nightmare’s voice scrapes against my ears, “and this is how you react? RUDE.”

He slams the door open, confirming my worst fears.

“Darling!” I hear Ortho call from upstairs. “What’s wrong?”

I can’t even open my mouth to scream as I stand in the shadow of the Prefect of the Underworld standing in my doorway, his halo of fiery red hair devilishly backlighting his face, making him look like a fallen angel. I just start crying again as I shakily hold my pencil out in front of me.

I don’t want to hurt him. He’s not himself. But he’ll hurt me if I don’t do something. But I don’t want to hurt him.

He slowly walks towards me, his boots making a heavy thud with each footfall. I slowly back up towards the stairs. My hands tremble, still holding the pencil pathetically between him and I.

“It’s game over for you, Darling,” he bares his fangs in a twisted grin.

In this moment I understand why moths fly towards candles and burn up in their fiery light, for I too am now a moth staring down a candle, every part of my mothy being crying out to be enveloped by the warm, inviting light. Oh how I’d love to grant my cells their wish and let them collapse in the melted candle wax; but, unlike a moth, I have a job to do. I can’t give up now!

The lens attached to his bowler hat glows brighter, as if a light could be filled with rage. If I try to run now, he’ll just grab me and rip my throat out with his teeth.

“I thought you felt differently about me, Darling,” he continues, “but my eyes have been opened. There’s only one thing that could love me as much as you claim to.”

He continues to advance on me, pushing me up the stairs with his presence.

“Are you going to hurt me?” I ask out of the blue, as if I’ve seen this scene before.

I see a pink plastic cylinder on one of the steps through my tears. A candy scented body spray, within arms reach.

“Oh, I’m not going to hurt you, Darling,” the robotic sheen on his voice makes him sound like a vocaloid.

I never moved that bottle of perfume back up to the bathroom, and I’d say my life is at least worth the seventeen thaurmarks the bottle cost.

Idia continues, “I’m just going to bash YOUR FUCKING BRAINS IN!”

He lunges at me, but that Shining reference telegraphed his moves so much even I was able to dodge him and spray what feels like half the bottle of body spray in his face, causing him to recoil and retch. I pump a few more sprays for good measure and bolt upstairs to Ortho, Grim, and Azul.

“I’ve got more info!” I inform them as I lock the door and wedge a chair under the knob.

I was in the middle of redecorating my guest room, which means furniture is rather scarce. Aside from the chair I just wedged under the door knob, the only place to sit is the floor. Thankfully, there’s still places to hide.

“Well, spit it out!” Grim commands.

“It’s gotta be the hat! Think about it,” I postulate, “first, he tells me he’s got something for me. Ortho, when you found me in the hallway, was Idia wearing a bowler hat?”

Ortho thinks for a second before his eyes widen and his apertures dilate. “Yes, he was!”

“And then something scratched my face as we fled,” I continue. “After that, we started seeing the tentacles.”

“The same ones that scratched up my arm!” Azul exclaims.

“But how is this proof that the hat possessed him and not something else?” Grim asks.

I take time to remember Idia’s exact wording, but Idia beats me to the punch, yelling from down the hall, “Fine! I never needed you, Darling! I’ll just keep this gift for myself!”

“Yeah, that works as evidence,” I remark as he cackles.

“So we have to rip that hat off,” Ortho states. “At least to prove or disprove our hypothesis.”

“I have a plan to get that hat off his head,” Azul announces. “Darling, you’re going to hide and get the jump on him. Us three will distract him so that you can knock his hat off.”

“Any idea what I can knock it off with without braining him?”

Just then, there’s a loud thud against the door.

“No time,” Azul responds. “You’re smart. You’ll think of something.”

I nod and move the chair back to where I decide to hide just as Idia kicks the door off its hinges.

He starts to growl, “There you are, Azul! And Ortho, too. How wonderful.”

“H-hi, Idia,” Azul stutters, eyes wide.

“You don’t appear to be at the club meeting today,” Idia rasps menacingly. “That’s not very poggers of you.”

“I had some,” he shoots a glare at Grim, “things to deal with at the Lounge.”

“A shame, really,” he sighs maliciously, “because based on that look you gave Darling earlier, I would’ve assumed that you would’ve wanted to hang out with her.”

“What are you going on about?” Azul asks, genuinely confused.

“Don’t play dumb!” Idia shrieks, moving closer to him, and therefore me. “I saw the way she looked at you through Doris. I know what I saw!”

Grim pokes his head out from behind Azul. “Myah? Who’s Doris?”

He grins and gestures to the bowler hat enveloping his face. “She’s Doris. I found her in some storage room around campus. She promised she would help me and she opened my eyes.”

Just walk a little bit closer. Just walk a little bit closer and I can knock that evil thing off of your head.

And then Ortho asks him, “But what does this have to do with Darling?”

Idia whips his head around and focuses on Ortho with laser-like intensity.

“Darling,” Idia runs over each syllable in his mouth like a flavorless wad of gum, “is a tease. She may act like she likes me, but Doris and I know better. There’s any number of guys she likes more than me. Like Vil,” he turns his attention back towards Azul, “or you.”

Azul sighs, “I’ll have to pay her back for this, but I have photographic evidence that Darling likes you.”

Idia scoffs, “Like I would believe you over Doris! Get pwned!”

I tighten my grip on the chair I’m hiding behind to keep from screaming. You’ll have to pay me back in a lot more than Monstro Lounge drinks if you leak those DM’s, Azul!

At this point, Idia is looming above the still seated Azul. Once Idia’s distracted again, I’ll strike. Now is not the time to miss my chance overthinking everything.

Azul grins mischievously. I’m almost more terrified of whatever he’ll say next than this “Doris.”

“Okay, so what if Darling likes me then?” Azul asks. “Are you just that terrified of me liking her back? Of the possibility of me treating her better than a loser like you ever could? I mean, if Vil couldn’t keep her happy, then what chance do you have?”

He’s a good liar, I’ll give Azul that. I know he’s lying and I’m still a little pissed.

Of course, Idia doesn’t take any of this well, letting out a mechanized screech as he lunges towards Azul.

“Well, Azul!” A new rage alight in the red lens on the hat, “looks like it’s time for you to show the audience your flashback sequence!”

Now! Now’s my chance!

Time feels like a thick jelly as I spring up from behind the chair to knock that hat off of Idia’s head. The sound grabs his attention as he turns to me.

“Found you,” he growls, a devilish smile painted across his face.

Using nothing but momentum and lucky timing, I manage to tackle the unsuspecting gamer and rip the hat off of his head. Before we hit the ground, I fling it into the wall. I can hear it spark and sputter in the background.

I gently brush his now blue hair out of his face. The tension in his face melts away when he’s asleep. Based on what Ortho’s told me before, this is a rare site to see. His face is so damp. It looks like he’s been crying for an hour or so. Poor guy...

Ortho taps my shoulder. “Darling?”

“Yeah?” I respond, continuing to brush Idia’s pretty blue fire hair out of his face, gently cupping his face in my hand, running my thumb over his cheek. He’s so... beautiful.

“I need you to get off of him so that I can perform a medical examination,” Ortho continues. “Just to make sure that the hat was indeed the culprit.”

“Oh, right,” I snap back to reality and get up to sit by Grim and Azul.

I don’t talk much. Azul walks me through the recent changes he made to his Urza deck, but it all goes over my head. I hold Grim in my lap and give him pets. I can’t seem to find where I threw that bowler hat.

Idia eventually comes to, given a clean enough bill of health by Ortho. Azul immediately rushes to Idia’s side to apologize for baiting him by calling him a loser earlier, while also telling Idia that he will not be giving him any emotional compensation for it.

I see the way Idia looks at Azul, and I can only wonder if a quiet guy like him could ever want to be with a high octane girl like me. He smiles, and laughs, and takes Azul’s hand. I must just scare Idia. He’s never that calm with me.

It all comes back to butterflies. My heart feels like a butterfly crushed underneath a hunter’s boot.

“You alright, henchman?” Grim asks me.

“I will be,” I respond, dejected.

I get up to go get Idia a glass of water. Seven knows he needs it.

I grab a glass from the cupboard and fill it up with tap water from one of the good sinks in the dorm. I should get him a snack, too. So, I set the glass of water down on the counter and rummage around for a bag of chips or something.

I feel a low rumble, like a car driving by, only shorter. Not to mention cars don’t drive out this way. My heartbeat picks up the pace. I drop what I’m holding and look at the glass of water on the counter. There are faint ripples on what should be a still surface. There’s no way...

As the rumbles become more pronounced, the ripples do too. I start to pray that I’m wrong and that this sound of thunder is only attached to a storm, but there’s no way. There’s no way!

I race back upstairs to the others and blurt out, “There’s a t-rex coming.”

“What are you talking about, Darling?” Azul pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Do you not feel the rumbling?”

“It’s probably just a storm,” he continues.

Ortho pipes up, “According to the local weather report, it’s clear skies for the rest of the day.”

“Well,” Azul tries to save face, “there’s got to be a logical explanation for this that isn’t t-rex.”

And then a mechanized roar like something out of Transformers rocks the dorm. I look out the window.

And I see it. I see the terrible lizard king himself. I see the beast trampling through my forest. And I see it heading straight for us.

“Dammit, Doris,” I hear Idia mumble. “I just needed you to hold sewing patterns in place, not this!”

“Doris?” Grim asks, “What does that cursed hat have to do with this t-rex?”

“She told me that she had a plan if things went wrong,” he continues. “And I guess getting slammed up against a wall counts. I have no idea how she could’ve gotten a t-rex but it doesn’t surprise me that she did. I should’ve known that hat was sus.”

“You didn’t build it?” I ask him.

“I found her in one of the storage rooms. She was broken, and soaking wet, so I fixed her up.”

The t-rex has gotten closer and at this point I can now see the tiny little bowler hat on its massive reptilian head.

It roars again; an earth shattering, mechanical scream as it starts to bull rush the dorm.

I sprint across the hall, too panicked to tell the others to do the same. Thankfully, they all had the same idea I did.

From across the hall, we watch the t-rex smash a hole in the side of my guest room. Note to self: twist Crowley’s arm to make sure he repairs that.

The boys ready themselves to fight this fierce beast. As always, it’s my job to keep them on track.

Grim looks up at me, crackling with excitement. “What’s the plan, henchman?”

“Try not to kill it,” I say, “but if you must, make it instant!”

They ready their pens and start slinging as many spells necessary to take the beast down.

I was doing my part by singing “Walk the Dinosaur,” since it’s the only dinosaur song I can think of, not to mention a bop.

It was a ferocious battle, with Idia’s defense being the only thing between them and a fate similar to that of the lawyer from Jurassic Park. Azul manages to sharpshoot the bowler hat dead in its lens with a jet of water so pressurized you could powerwash the grime off of Narrishackke with it. The thing eventually roars its last as it is soon felled by my team; falling to the earth with a thunderous crash. We go out to investigate, but the hat is nowhere to be found.

I examine what I thought was a corpse of a t-rex, only to find that it’s somehow only been knocked unconscious.

Azul sees the gleam and my eyes and asks me, “Do you want me to shrink the t-rex down for you so that you can keep it as a pet?”

I nod rapidly. “I’m gonna name him Nathaniel.”

“Of course you are,” Azul sighs. “This won’t be cheap, you know.”

“I figured,” I say as I text him an IOU. “Next time I have my wallet, come talk to me.”

He nods and starts getting to work. Grim and Ortho wander off to continue looking for the hat, but I have something more important to do.

“So... Idia,” I slide up next to him, wringing my hands anxiously, “ I know you said earlier that-”

“When I had the hat on?” he cuts me off, voice pinched. “Darling, whatever I said about you when I was possessed by Doris, just, pretend I never did.”

Now’s my chance now’s my chance now’s my-

“Then, would you like to come see the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ movie with me?” I ask him. “I originally bought two tickets, and you’re the only person I know that cares about this series as much as me.”

His hair turns bright pink tip to root. I can practically see the 404 error screen plastered on the walls of his mind right now.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude!” he finally exclaims. “You probably bought that ticket for someone else!”

“I did,” I confess. “For Grim. Because I was going to drag him along if you said no.”

“But you said you were going to get all dressed up for this.”

“Plans can change, and if we leave now we’ll arrive just in time.” I smile, extending my hand for him to take. “And I’d rather have you there than some nose and scar wax.”

He grins; nervously, excitedly, dreamily. He smells like candy. He gently takes my hand, as if I’m a Warhammer model he’s afraid of breaking or an unsleeved Black Lotus card. His hand is so soft, and warm, and wonderful. I’m holding his hand! I could cry if I wasn’t already so giddy.

I see a moth flying away in the distance towards some unknown light. I smile. The dust from the t-rex is still settling, making everything look hazy and dreamlike. And yet, I’m so lucky. Eat your heart out, Eliza! Eat your heart out, Doris! Eat your paradoxical heart out, Eckles!

The next day, Azul and I meet up to talk to Crowley about what is to be done about Narrishackke.

“Oh! So that’s what happened yesterday afternoon,” Crowley laments. “Has the press caught wind of this?”

“Not yet,” I respond, still worn out after the events of yesterday.

“We’ll leak it if you don’t answer some questions first,” Azul applies some pressure.

“Ortho did record everything,” I state.

“Fine, fine,” Crowley reclines in his office seat. “What is it you would like to ask?”

“First, where the hell were you?” I ask, doing my best to censor my language.

“Oh, well I was in my office. I initiated lockdown mode when it notified me that there was a prehistoric creature roaming the woods.” He smiles. I can feel my blood pressure spiking.

“How nice for you,” I respond, pissed.

“Next question,” Azul takes the floor. “What was that hat Idia found?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know,” he sighs. “I would check the library or ask one of the ghosts if you really care.”

“Okay, final question,” I ready my statement, “what are you going to do about the damage Nathaniel caused to House Narrishackke?”

“Narrishackke?”

“She means the ramshackle dorm building she and Grim are living in,” Azul pipes up.

“And I named the t-rex Nathaniel,” I state proudly.

“I’ll just give you a blank check,” he says quickly, exasperated. “Aren’t I just so generous?”

I take the blank check from him, “Yeah, generous works.”

After we leave the office, Azul asks me, “So what else are you gonna charge Crowley’s card with?”

“Whatever it takes to deck out a room for Nathanial,” I beam. “And an Emrakul, the Promised End.”

“Why?” he asks me, baffled.

I smirk. “I still have to beat Idia in a game of Magic.”

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