#it ends at 6. they start packing up about a half hour before. everyone i saw outside was leaving not going there. i was too fucking late

[anirudhpisharody]

we love spending the entire day trying to prepare for something just for everything in the day to go wrong that you end up not doing the one thing you spent all your energy on today preparing for

#i woke up early and did my hair i bought clothes beforehand bc i didn't have any professional ones i ironed my fucking clothes #i printed resumes i came up with this whole stupid plan to fit all of my stuff into this tiny bag so i could go to class and then change in #the bathroom into the professional clothes later it took me like half an hour just the figure out how to pack the bag so everything fit #i spent half of my first class researching companies and writing scripts so what to say so i could try to make a good impression #i feel like i bent myself fucking backwards to try to make this work and in the end #i burned my leg by hot soup i cried for an hour i forgot to actually eat lunch i went to buy some because i didn't have energy to make any #the fucking train got in my way on the way to pick up my food and i got every traffic light possible so i didn't make it home until 5:30 #and at that point i had come up with a new plan to get to the stupid fucking career fair but by the time i got home i realized. #it ends at 6. they start packing up about a half hour before. everyone i saw outside was leaving not going there. i was too fucking late #so now i'm sitting in bed not having accomplished anything eating my shitty lunch/dinner hoping this will all be worth it in the end #like i swear to god if i end up graduating college unemployed i might actually kill myself. i've worked too fucking hard to be a failure #shut up hanna

[lace-coffin]

Can I has soft Moonie and Monty gator fic, where reader is perpetually exhausted and the animatronics drag em off when they’re meant to be working to help them get some sleep in the pizzaplex? (Totally not projecting here)

How would Moondrop and Montgomery gator react to an exhausted reader on their shift?

Thank u for the moon and Monty rq I want to eat it up so bad😌

Requests are open!

Reader is gn! No trigger warnings required

Working for the pizzaplex was definitely an experience. A good one? Thats up for debate. No you loved your job, the actual security aspect of it was pretty univentful, flicking through the camera’s of the empty pizza plex. It’s not like any intruders would get far anyway with the security bots at every turn and moon slinking around in security mode. You did however get to see the dumb stuff the animatronics got up to after hours though so that was a plus. If she doesn’t tell that you’re watching YouTube on your shift then you won’t tell how you regularly see chica rummaging the kitchens like a racoon over the cams.

It was a pretty cushy job overall but the hours were vile, working from 12-6 am isn’t great for anyone and essentially becoming nocturnal because of it meant you were either sleeping or exhausted in your free time.

Today was one of the days that you’d turned up essentially half alive, isotonic drink held in a death grip and a pack of pain meds at your disposal. You clock in and slump on the chair In front of the security camera’s, groaning as the pain is taken off your joints.

Moondrop

Naturally moon has been following you to your work station since you clocked in, floating through the shadows of the pizzaplex in a totally normal and not creepy way. No matter how many times you tell him he can just greet you normally and walk you over he still refuses and watches you from afar, you know he cares but emotional vulnerability is difficult for him.

A few hours into your shift you can’t take it anymore, energy drink only doing so much for you. Your head starts to loll in your chair, finally getting a blissful second of rest-

“Morning glowbug!” Moon swings down from the ceiling in the upside down Spider-Man pose, intending and succeeding in scaring the shit out of you just as you were drifting off.

You jump in your seat and land in a pile on the floor on your ass. Once moon stops laughing at your misfortune and you realised it was just him and you weren’t about to get bite of 87’nd you huff at him from your spot on the floor.

“Very funny moon man, hilarious in fact, you do know the door is an option right? Now help me up you nerd” you say in fake irritation, tugging his trouser leg and giving him your hand.

“Everyone’s a critic, bug. I found it fairly amusing”he lends you his spindly hands and pulls you up with a bit more force than necessary, making you stumble. He snickers into the long end of his hat and you shoot him a glare. “Not the day dude”

Moons faceplate rotates at this, non verbally questioning what’s causing your sour mood, you usually love playing with him and whatever is ruining your mood needs to stop immediately because it’s ruining his fun (and maybe because he cares about you but he’ll never admit that)

“I’m fine moon, I’m just sleeping bad again, I’ll survive” you say nonchalantly, dangling your energy drink in your hand and chugging the last of it.

Moons grimaces as he watches you do this, you know he hates those stupid drinks, you feel better for an hour or two and then immediately crash worse than before, usually leaving moon to scrape you off the desk and take over the cameras.

You realise what you’ve done before moon can even get a word out, squeaking and throwing the can back on the desk. “It’s uh, not actually that bad! I’ll be fine, you know me haha, just a little behind on sleep” you stutter over your words trying to back track. You know it’s pointless and moon being the way he is you’re not going to get out of this.

“Oh no, go ahead starlight, drink your sludge. I can’t wait to peel you off the desk later” he drawls out, if his eyes could roll any further back into his head then they would have.

You rise from your chair, hiding behind it like a shield as if it’s going to save you from the inevitable. “You know the drill bug, either you get over here or I’m dragging your sorry ass over here” Moons voicebox fizzles out over the inappropriate word, stupid filters.

“Moon, you know I can’t, I have to finish my shift, I promise as soon as I get home I’ll go straight to bed, no messing” despite trying to placate him moon remains unimpressed, arms folded over his chest. You should probably run.

“Starlight they pay you peanuts, you can take one nap, they’ll survive”

The jester moves down slowly and sits on his haunches like a cat. Moon launches himself at you full speed. You scream and run to the other side of the security office, not much room to run to considering how confined it is in the first place. You yell and giggle as this continues, moon drinking in the way your eyes crinkle when you smile. Over a few minuets you start to get worn out, having no energy in the first place. This gives moon the perfect opening to land a pounce on you and snatch you into his arms, throwing you over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. You playfully kick and complain but you don’t have it in you to actually be upset.

Unsurprisingly you make it to the daycare attendants room in record time, moons huge strides cutting down on time. “You know the drill” moon says as he throws a pair of daycare themed pyjamas from the gift shop at you, hitting you square in the face. You laugh and crawl into the other room through the tunnel to change.

By the time you’ve changed and come back moon has his bed all made and fluffed up and is looking at you expectantly. “Your chariot, my lord” he says dumbly, pulling back the covers and gesturing to the bed. You snort and climb in, snuggling down into the plush bedding. You make a happy noise and look back at moon, taking his big metallic hand in your smaller warm one.

“Thankyou, for this I mean, I really appreciate you caring about me like this, it means a lot”

Moon makes a fake gagging noise but his faceplate tinges a darker blue, telling his real feelings. “Always so mushy starlight” he laughs, but you know he loves the attention.

“Can you stay until I fall asleep?”

“Bold of you to assume I was leaving in the first place”

Moon scooches into the bed and rearranges his limbs into a comfy position, pulling your head against his chest and starting up his music box. He traces little shapes into your palm until you fall asleep for the night.

Montgomery gator

A horrid crash feeds through the security cam speakers. Excellent. You sigh and flip over to gator golf, already knowing who’s most likely to be causing the noise. Sure enough faint mechanical grunting and roaring can be heard. You can’t seem to find Monty on screen though, so it looks like you’ll be taking a trip down to the golf course.

You groan and pull yourself up from your chair, you really don’t have the energy for this tonight.

Not having to look very far you catch Monty red handed a few steps into the golf course. Golf club jammed into the mouth of one of the mechanical gators below the bridge. You pause and just look at him, unamused, waiting for him to explain.

“Uh, howdy twerp, I’m having some…difficulties?” He try’s, almost framing it as a question. You rub your hand over your face in exhaustion and ask him to expand on his problem.

“I uh worked up a rage after screwing up a note in tonight’s show, wouldn’t have happened if stupid fazzass hadn’t bumped into me” he grumbles, getting side tracked complaining about Freddy. “Anyway, I may have taken a swing at one of those gators…it’s turns out once the club is in it’s hard to get it back out” he laughs and rubs at the back of his head awkwardly, hoping your not going to explode on him.

“I love you but you’re a nightmare, green guy”

Monty snorts at the nickname but realises you look a little worn down, your usual bite not as prominent in your banter.

“Are you ok cher? Like you looking after yourself ok? Not to be an ass but you don’t look as with it as usual” he says in a softer tone, a look of genuine concern washing over his face.

“You want the polite answer or the real one?” Monty laughs and asks for the real one. “I’m tired as all hell and I’m essentially a zombie right now, these night shifts are killing me”

Monty frowns at this, he knows the company can be hardasses when it comes to shift patterns, not caring if their employees work themselves to death as long as the schedule is covered.

“So what you’re saying is we’re going to wrestle this stupid club out of that gator and then you’re going to the nest without causing a fuss?” Monty says, phrasing it as an order and not a question.

“I don’t even have the energy to be stubborn, ask moon man to cover for me please”

Monty gives a toothy grin at this and nods his head. You both work on releasing the golf club from its grizzly demise. Combining both your effort and Monty’s unnatural strength you pull the club free! And send it through the window of gator golf…it can wait for the day crew, technically you only came down to remove it from the gator and you’re beyond caring.

Monty throws his arms in the air in celebration. “Nice shot, cher!” You both cackle at the absurdity of the situation until you let out a yawn.

“Ok squirt, let’s get you to bed” he says softly, rosey eyes roaming over your sleepy face. Monty collects you in his arms and makes his way back to his green room, lending you an oversized gator golf shirt to change into. Monty lets out a little huff out of his nose when he sees you in the baggy shirt, adorable.

“Time to hit the hay kid” he pats on the nest he’s made on the floor out of blankets and various plushies/pillows waiting for you to climb in. Once you settle down Monty curls up around you like a big puppy, placing his snoot on your chest. (He’s totally not hoping for some pets before you sleep..)

“I don’t want to hear a peep out of you unless it’s snoring kiddo” Monty grumbles. “Love you to big guy” you hum and pat his nose

You fall asleep wrapped up in the gators tail, your chest rising and falling in time to the gentle bellows rumbling from the now calm and cuddly animatronic.

#fnaf security breach #five nights at freddy's security breach #five nights at freddy's #montgomery gator #montgomery gator x reader #fnaf daycare attendant #daycare attendent #daycare attendant moon #daycare attendant x reader #moon x reader #moondrop x reader #writing #my writing

[thecynthh]

smart ass - M.S pt 2

synopsis - matt’s not doing to well with his schooling but is determined to get his degree and pass his classes. one essay which is a huge part of their grade haunts him with a bad mark, luckily y/n is willing to him him

notes - college setting, matt gets more attention ! not proofread!

authors notes - sooo i hope yalls like this, its shorter than i would like it to be but nonetheless its out! hope you guys like this one and i promise ill be updating again soon. also taglist soon! ill be asking who wants to be on it very soon and making an official intro and masterlist soon. thank you to everyone who enjoyed the first part of smart ass!

——————————————————————————

——————————————————————————

6:14 pm

friday night rolled around faster than i thought it would, i strip off my diner uniform laying down in my bed in just my undergarments. i lay out a large sigh letting myself melt into my bed. 

my phone buzzed beside me with a notification posted on my lock screen. 

Matt S 🐼 

8120 palace road 7 pm, see u soon :) 6:18 pm

i drop my phone back down, ill just close my eyes for a second, cus that shift really took it out of me. my eyes fell and a light sleep rushed over me. 

————————————————————————

10:17

buzz. buzz. buzz.

buzz. buzz. buzz. 

i swiftly sit up and hear the repetitive ring of my cell phone. i see many notifications from my multiple social media apps and from matt. oh shit. MATT! I completely forgot about him!  

Matt S 🐼

hey are u still coming over? 7:32pm

i know we agreed on 7 but if you need time just tell me 7:55

just get over here when u’re able too, please get here safe 8:57pm

oh shit oh shit oh shit. i quickly slip on some sweats and a baggy crew neck and grabs my school bag, im glad i thought about packing it before work today. i swipe up my laptop from my small desk and dash out the door. my car unlocks as i drop everything that was in my arms onto the seat next to me and step on the pedal getting there as fast as i possibly could. 

i see the outside of the larger house neighborhood and finally get to the house I was told to come too, pulling into the driveway. I see a silhouette of a man in one of the windows. 

i grab all of my belongings scrambling to the door, clicking the doorbell. I hear a melodic tune ring throughout the house. footsteps grace the front door as the door swings open. matt's eyes widen as they scan my body. 

He pushes the storm door open and says “oh you came.”

“im SO sorry matt, i came home after my shift and i ended up falling asleep on my bed because there was this mishap at the diner and i got blamed for it and i swear to god my boss is such an idiot and im so fed up with his bullshit.” i take a deep breath in “and then i know we agreed  again i fell asleep like a goddamn idiot.”

he just stared at me like i was the idiot, “im sorry is what i meant to say.” i continued 

he chuckles a little before stepping back slightly giving me space to enter, “hey its alright just come on in. follow me.” he says using his hand signaling to come along. 

we make it to a fairly large bedroom, i see a gaming setup squished onto a desk that was clearly not meant for housing gaming paraphernalia. “you can throw whatever we need onto the bed, we can just study there. and get comfortable. I know it's late but i'm still okay to stay up and we can even order coffee and some food as well if we get hungry. there’s not much in the fridge but chris’ soda if i’m being honest.”

“i’m alright for right now so let’s just get started on studying” i say to him.  

————————————————————————

1:29

“did you get that?” i ask matt after reviewing what we just went through. 

“yuuuup” he says with a smile, i noticed that his eyes squint when he smiles or laughs, its cute. i don't really think he got half of what i was saying but i think i got my point across.

“ i think it’s a good time to take a break, and plus we’ve been at this for 2 hours already.” i lay my head down against his plethora of pillows and just take a deep breath in. he copies me and comes falling down onto his bed.

i feel his weight shift as he reaches over for a remote to turn on the tv in front of us booting up netflix. moving down to his recently watched “brooklyn 99” begins to play as i hear the familiar voice of andy samberg talking. the theme song plays as i look over the boy beside me. 

“you like brooklyn 99?” i ask him with a furrowed brow pasted across my face. 

“god i love this show, every single episode.” he tells me looking back at me, his eyes stray from my eyes to my lips to my body. i didnt mind it to be honest, i kinda liked it if anything. 

I directed my sight back to the show. We sat in a comfortable silence but i couldn’t stay focused for long as my eyes wandered over to his sweats, then his hand near them. being fair he actually was pretty fine, i heard rumors before that he slept around a bit a year ago but it was old news quickly. 

as we near our third episode my eyes feel heavy and all my cares slipped away again as i drift off to sleep in his bed. 

————————————————————————

2:49

ugh, i wake up feeling incredibly hot. i rip off my sweater and dip underneath the covers, wow my sheets feel really nice, very fluffy…. 

#sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #matthew sturniolo #matthew bernard sturniolo #sturniolo smut #sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo x reader #Spotify

[sam-loves-seb]

I’ve read your Several Sentences Sunday post an embarrassing number of times. I’m just that excited for the next chapter of I’m Not The Way I Was.

aw thanks so much, this is so sweet. i'm so glad you're excited about i'm not the way i was. i am too!

also gonna use this ask to say that unfortunately there will be no new chapter today :( there are a few parts i'm still playing with because i wanna get them right, and life's just been too chaotic lately to actually give ch 6 the time and attention it needs. i am hopeful that posting will resume in two weeks and we can get back to the regular update schedule. fingers crossed!

until then, i'm posting the first thousand-ish words of ch 6 under the cut to hopefully hold everyone over until then. (it's unedited and unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.)

enjoy. xx

Ian wakes up in Lip’s dorm room. Again.

The alarm clock is blaring at full volume, and Lip kicks Ian in the shins until he’s conscious enough to reach over and shut it off.

“What fucking time is it?” Lip groans into his pillow.

“Eight-thirty.” Ian yawns.

“I don’t have class ‘til eleven,” Lip says as he pulls his pillow out from under his head and whacks Ian in the face with it.

Ian shoves him off. “Yeah, but I have work at nine.”

That’s part of the reason Ian was able to drag himself away from Mickey’s house last night. He took a cab back to CPU in the middle of the night after he got off Mickey’s block and realized he had to be up in six hours for work. He could’ve stayed at the house and taken the L back to campus in the morning, but he was so wired after his talk with Mickey last night that he used the cab ride to tire himself out.

Which ultimately wasn’t that successful because he spent most of the ride texting Mickey and planning their first date. He even called him as he walked across the green to Lip’s dorm and listened to Mickey’s raspy voice, half asleep and smiling on the other end of the line as they decided on a date and time.

Tonight. Seven o’clock.

“Next time you go to your boyfriend’s house, stay there ‘til the morning,” Lip teases, grabbing his hoodie from the floor and sliding it on over his bedhead.

Ian gave him the one-sentence-summary of his conversation with Mickey when his bleary-eyed brother opened the door for him at two-thirty last night. He did not, in any way, shape, or form, use the word boyfriend, but Lip doesn’t seem to care.

“Yeah yeah,” Ian says with a quiet smile, pulling on a fresh t-shirt he steals from Lip’s dresser. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair tonight.”

Lip reaches over and plucks at the eight-ball design on the front of the threadbare cotton shirt. “You staying at Mickey’s?”

“No,” Ian answers automatically, then pauses. His hands go still where they’re half buried in his backpack. “Well. I don’t know.”

Lip just raises his brows at him as he sits down in his desk chair.

“Is that a normal first date thing?” Ian asks, his brows pinched. “To sleep over?”

“Why are you asking me?” Lip asks, tapping out a cigarette from Ian’s pack.

“’cause you’ve done this shit before.”

Lip cracks the window and lights up. “Only one of us has dated Mickey Milkovich before, and it wasn’t me.”

Ian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but…” He shakes his head. “You know, Mickey and I never went on dates.”

Lip pauses. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Ian says, shrugging. “And I wanna do this right. I don’t know what the… etiquette is.”

Lip takes a long drag and sort of tilts his head from side to side. “I doubt Mickey does either.”

Something about that settles the little ball of anxiety that was slowly starting to build in Ian’s chest. Because Lip’s right—neither of them know what the hell they’re doing with this shit.

Whether that’s good or bad remains to be seen, but at least it puts them on an even playing field.

“Look,” Lip says, leaning over and clapping Ian on the shoulder. “Just feel it out. If things are going well, maybe suggest it, see what he says.”

Ian nods. “Yeah.”

Lip squeezes his shoulder. “Just talk to him about it. Okay?” He leans back in his chair. “It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Ian breathes out a long exhale. “Okay.”

The panicked nerves inside of him start to turn into an excited buzz after a minute. He’s definitely still nervous, but it doesn’t feel as heavy. Suddenly he desperately wants it to be seven o’clock, and he’s walking over to the Alibi to pick Mickey up for their date.

The fact that Ian has to work an eight-hour janitorial shift between now and then is criminal.

“You know I’m rooting for you,” Lip starts, “but in the off chance you don’t end up staying at Mickey’s house tonight—are you coming back here?”

“Nah,” Ian tells him, shaking his head. “Figured I’d stay at the house. Last night, and all that.”

“Oh, right,” Lip says. He blinks tiredly, a little dazed. “Forgot about that.”

Ian finishes packing his shit in his bag. “Bank’s coming to change the locks tomorrow.”

Lip taps his fingers against the edge of his desk. “I think I still have some shit in my room. Maybe tomorrow morning… I mean, I have work, but I can probably catch the L early and come home to get it before—”

“I already boxed it up,” Ian tells him, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. “I put it with my shit, so you can come get it whenever. Kev and V said we could move our stuff to their place until we figure out where we’re gonna go.”

Lip nods. “Thanks.”

“Yep.”

With a heavy sigh, Lip turns in his chair and opens one of his textbooks, flipping through the pages until he finds the folded sheet of notes he crammed in it yesterday.

“What are you doing?” Ian asks, tying his sneakers. “You said you don���t have class ‘til eleven. Go back to bed.”

“No, I gotta get this done,” Lip says, glancing at the clock. “I won’t have time to do it later, I have a… thing.”

Ian raises a brow. “A thing?”

“Yeah.”

When Lip doesn’t expand on it, Ian crosses his arms over his chest.

“You’re gonna be late.”

“Don’t care. What’s your thing?”

Lip sighs. “Alright,” he says, dropping his pencil. “You know that professor I told you about?”

“The one you’re sleeping with?”

Lip nods. “The school board kind of found out about it when this naked picture I took of her leaked online.”

“Jesus Christ, Lip,” Ian says, his mouth dropping open.

“I didn’t leak it,” Lip says, then shakes his head. “Long story—whatever. They know, and now I gotta go to this fucking hearing about it.”

Ian stares at him with worried eyes. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. Can’t they kick you out for this?”

Lip considers it, then shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Ian blinks. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” Lip scrubs his hands over his face. “So now I’ve got that to worry about, and Helene’s career is under fire over something that shouldn’t have been anyone else’s business in the first place.”

Ian’s lips quirk up. “Helene?”

Lip kicks at his knee. “Shut up.”

“You’ve never told me her name before.”

“Yeah, well. That’s when I thought we could keep this whole thing on the down low.”

Ian hums in agreement.

“Anyway,” Lip says, running his finger over the corner of the page in his textbook. “I gotta read this.”

“Yeah, I gotta head out,” Ian says, standing up with his backpack on one shoulder still. “Good luck today.”

Lip waves halfheartedly. “You too.”

Ian makes a confused face as he walks backwards to the door.

Lip smiles. “With your date.”

“Right,” Ian says, and he can’t help but smile too.

“Give Mickey my love.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

...more to come!

[ read from the chapter 1 on ao3 ]

#intwiw #no new chapter today loves my bad :( #i feel really bad about it but #sometimes live is just busy as fuck #anyway #here's a snippet #i'm not the way i was #ask sam

[belethlegwen]

The Rescue - Chp 54 - That Dark Old Friend [+ Life Update]

Hey there everyone!

So sorry about the delay in updates since the Christmas season, there's a lot of shit to blame for it and I'll get into it in more detail, but in short this was a wildly busy Christmas season where I had 0 time to write between work and family stuff from like, November-end of December, and then a whole lot of house shit started happening and I've been unbelievably stressed since just before New Years.

Longer details and stuff below the cut for people who are interested, but in short the important details are:

Updates to works on AO3 may be at random times with long delays between for the coming year. Can't be sure, but for now that's how things are looking while I have way too much shit going on IRL.

Please enjoy this little chapter for now, and if you're up for a long winding journey about why it felt like all of my hair has been falling out for two weeks, meet me below <3

So the Christmas season at my job was wildly busy, on top of that there's some issues going on there between the business owner I rent space from and the person who owns the building. It's a mess, for a while it looked like/still kinda looks like we're going to have some major issues with the lot clearing what with winter being a major issue where I live in the Frozen Nor'Atlantic. That was all bad enough.

I had been told back in the fall by my landlord, who I've been renting from for 10 years now, that her mortgage was up for renewal in January and that it looked like it was going to go up a hot amount. Rates are super fucking high in Canada right now, shit's bad, the mortgage specialist at the bank I was talking to yesterday said that it's bad enough they legitimately expect the government to be stepping in soon to do something about it before it's a crisis (or more of a crisis because personally, it's already a fucking crisis and has been, but I digress). She warned me the rent was going to have to go up, I told her I expected it, I knew it was going to happen, she's been amazing to me for 10 years, if it's gotta go up it's gotta go up, I get it.

This past fall is when my partner Zip came to visit for 6 weeks and we got engaged, and when we started to plan to move them up here so we could start immigration and the like, which we were aiming to do for the beginning of this summer.

So as we're gearing up to New Year's and everything, I am expecting to deal with the start of immigration application readying, and expecting rent to increase. December 27th, I got a message from the landlord that uh, someone wants to buy the house (as an investment property and keep the renters) and despite her best efforts to try and bounce around and get a lower mortgage rate, it didn't work out and she's going to have to sell either way. So we suddenly had to get the house ready to be listed and viewed.

Viewings were fucking hell, by the way. While priority for accepting the offer was going to someone who wanted to take the property over and keep the renters in place, Real Estate agents just want the fucking sale, so being in my home while people are wandering around it scaring my cats and talking about how my bedroom was going to be the kid's room and my office was going to be turned into something else? Shit time, don't recommend. Not to mention the agents that were showing up half-hour not just away of their own scheduled appointment but a half hour outside of when viewings were actually permitted to happen.

I'm glad we have such high paying careers available for people who are, apparently, fucking illiterate, but I was getting extremely rude to agents and their desperation for a sale by the end of it. Someone tried to show up yesterday after a offer was accepted literally the night before and we sent them packing fine enough, but now anytime the rain hits the gutters too hard I think someone is walking into my home so that's fun.

We have signs all over the house about keeping doors closed to keep the cats inside, including one on the back door (where it isn't an enclosed porch) that says in extremely large lettering Access To Patio From Outside ONLY, and there were still at least two agents that opened the back door, so. Nightmares all around.

An offering has been accepted, the person who is hopefully going to buy wants to keep us as tenants, and I'm locked in a lease until later this year anyway. Things are at least, as of yesterday when I got the confirmation that an offer was in that stage, stable now that I didn't throw up this morning. Hooray! It's been hell. I can not stress enough that this has been hell.

It still leaves the later part of the year up in the air a lot, because new landlord may still want us out at the end of the lease of whathaveyou, and between now and then I am flying down to America to drive across that wild country with a car full of stuff to move my fiancee here, then we gonna get immigration rolling and the employment switchover and everything else. My Dad has been a massive rock for me during this time in terms of trying to keep me level, and as he says: "this is all just one-step-at-a-time things. You're just keeping ducks in a row".

And as I keep saying: "Yeah but I've got a lot of fuckin' ducks, man."

So that's the kind of thing that's in the air right now for me. Lots and lots of stuff going on. I'm still picking away at writing but to make things easier on myself, I'm going to not stress about any kind of schedule or the like right now and just play with whatever flows come when I have them and have the time/ability to focus on them in the few quiet moments I have between all of the other stuff.

Much love to all of you, thank you all again as always for the wonderful comments you've all left, the kudos, the people who reached out, all of it. You're wonderful <3

Take care of yourselves out there,

~ Belle

#The Rescue #AO3 Update #g/t #giant/tiny #giant tiny #gentle giantess #gt #g/t author #g/t writing #gtauthor #author thoughts #big little thoughts #IRL update #life nonsense #real estate agents have no fucking respect for your time #the one that lied to my face THREE TIMES IN A ROW in just a matter of minutes still fucking gets me #And she drove a fucking Tesla so #that says more than I'd want it to to me #'I have a written confirmation for the time' No you don't #'I wasn't expecting anyone to be home' you pulled up in front of my house while I shoveling and salting the driveway and saw me come inside #'I'm gonna step outside and call the listing agent to clear this up' she did no such thing #fucking hell man

[risingwiththeheatabove]

A Little Honey - Chapter 6 - The Christmas Special - Part 1

Pairing: Josh X Reader

Series list

Warnings for series: Alcoholism, toxic parents, domestic abuse, drug use, alcohol use, explicit sexual content, NSFW, smut, unprotected sex, fingering, oral, blood kink, praise kink, daddy kink, and probably so much more that I am forgetting

Word Count 6.6K

A/N I can not thank everyone enough for all of the love and support I have received. You are all magical beings of light and I am beyond grateful to exist on this floating rock with you. I have been moving and unable to write as often as I would like. That being said I decided to make The Christmas Special two parts. I hope you enjoy part one. Peace and love.

December 2021

The boys had finished their shows for the year and were planning to head back home for Christmas. Over the last few months you and Josh had worked out what the new boundaries of your friendship looked like. To some it still seemed to cross the lines of friendships but you didn’t care. You and Josh were both comfortable in your understanding of the relationship. You still felt so deeply for him and at times you could see him reciprocate those feelings. But you had an agreement that neither of you were willing to mess up.

When you weren’t working you were with Josh or the group. The guest room at Jake and Josh’s place was essentially your room. You kept a few articles of clothing there along with some toiletries. At first it was weird sleeping in a separate room, but you both agreed it would be for the best. Josh planned hikes for the two of you on the weekends, weather permitting. You would surprise him with movie nights. Fans had spotted you together and assumed you were his girlfriend. You both just laughed it off. Together you had found a new normal for your relationship.

“What do you mean you don’t have plans for Christmas?! It’s Christmas!” Josh yelled comically over the phone.

“It’s no big deal Josh! Nora and I have never been Christmasy people. Something to do with our shitty childhood I suppose.” You say attempting to make a joke.

“That is unacceptable!” You hear him tapping on his phone. “Guys can you believe Y/N and Nora aren’t doing anything for Christmas?” He asks the guys, you could tell he had placed you on speaker phone.

“Unacceptable!” Sammy mocked Josh.

“I mean it! You guys should come up to Michigan with us!” Josh repeated his earlier offer.

“I have a healthy fear of meeting mama Kiszka!” You chuckle.

“Smart girl!” You hear Jake chime in.

“I am picking you up at noon tomorrow! You both better be packed!” Josh says ending the call.

You huff and walk into Nora’s room throwing yourself down on her bed.

“Time to go play Santa’s little helpers up at the North Pole!” You joke.

“Josh will make a cute elf!” She fires back. You smack her with a pillow.

“He said he will be here at noon so…”

“So be ready by 5 pm!” She said finishing your thought.

Noon rolls around the next day. Knowing better than to expect Josh to be on time. You slowly gather your warmest clothing to pack. Josh had shown you pictures of Frankenmuth. It was a winter wonderland. Something you did not have the wardrobe for. You raided Nora’s closet in search of a heavy coat but no luck. You pack what you deem warm enough and change into some comfy road trip clothes. Still no sign of Josh you gathered some snacks and drinks in a small bag.

From Josh

I am outside!

To Josh

Only three hours late! I am so proud of you!

Be out shortly.

You grab Nora and load into the Jeep. She takes the back to herself. You sit upfront with Josh.

“How long is the drive?” Nora asks.

“About 9 hours.” Josh responds with a yawn.

“Do you want me to start the drive so you can rest?” You ask.

“Absolutely not! What kind of host would I be if I let you drive?” He protests.

“Fine, but if you get too sleepy please tell me BEFORE you run us off the road!”

Nora falls asleep in the back and you keep an eye on Josh for the first few hours. About half way you stop for gas and dinner. Josh insists on paying as always.

“I think I am tapping out.” He says looking over at you.

“Can I drive?” Nora asks. “I am bored as shit sitting back here!”

“Be my guest! Literally!” Josh pleased with his joke, switches spots with Nora. You swear he falls asleep before Nora is even able to put the car in drive. About 45 minutes outside of Frankenmuth you decide to wake him.

“Good morning Sugar.” You say lightly tapping his leg. “Would you like to give us directions to your family’s place?”

“You ladies will be getting the FULL tourist experience. I got us rooms at The Frankenmuth Hotel!” He announces. “The house is too small for all of us to stay in comfortably nowadays so everyone normally gets a hotel anyway.”

You pull up into town, it is covered in a thick blanket of snow. Christmas lights liter the buildings and lamp posts. Giant ornaments hang in windows, resembling Santa’s village more than a Michigan town. You get to the hotel. Josh reserved two rooms one for you and Nora, the other for himself. You settle in for the evening and order room service. Josh joins for dinner in your room.

“I told mom we would be over there before noon tomorrow.” Josh informed you as he said his good nights.

“Josh I will not be late to meet your parents!” You yell as he runs back to his room.

“Chill out!” Nora says as you walk over to your bed. “It’s not like you guys are dating.”

“Thanks for the reminder!” You say crawling into bed.

The next morning came and you were up and getting ready for the festivities of the day. You decided to keep your outfit simple with a pair of light wash Levi’s and a black distressed sweater. You throw on you black hi-top vans, knowing you didn’t have the proper footwear for this weather. It was Christmas Eve and Josh had told you to prepare for drinking, games and lots of food. No presents were to be exchanged until tomorrow. You took the few extra hours to go into town and find some gifts for Christmas Day. You found a small gift for everyone and even had time to wrap them before Nora got up. You were both ready by eleven and you decide to go wake up Josh.

“Joshua Micheal Kiszka…” You began to bang on his door. Nearly fall into him as he threw the door open.

“I have been up for hours waiting for you!” He said sarcastically. He was wearing your favorite jeans and long white sleeve shirt. He paired it with his tan furry parka and white vans. You couldn’t help but stare at how cute his rosey pink cheeks were.

The drive to his Family’s home was long enough that you started to feel your anxiety building. You brought a bottle of wine from what Josh said was his mom’s favorite winery in Nashville. You hoped it would get you some brownie points. He could tell you were nervous so he took your hand, looking at you to make sure it was okay.

“Green.” You say holding his hand. You had implemented a color system to ease communication. Green meant something was good, or deemed friendly. Yellow meant something was on the verge of more than friendly, signaling the initiator to adjust. Red was too much, or deemed romantic. You both found the comedy in this system resembling the one many partners use in the bedroom.

He removes his hand from yours as you pull into the driveway. He gets out first and opens your door for you. Taking your hand he guides you to the front door.

“I am fine, Thanks!” Nora teases Josh as she shuffles her self through the snow behind you.

“Joshie!” You hear Karen yell running to the open front door. She grabs him up and almost lifts his feet off of the ground. “You are so cute! I just want to grab those little cheeks!” She plays, pulling at his face.

“I tell him that all the time!” You chime in, laughing at Josh’s embarrassment.

“Mom, this is Y/N.” Josh says stepping back for you to greet Karen.

“I am so glad to finally meet you! Everyone has told me such great things about you.” Karen said.

“All lies!” Nora joked.

“And this is Nora.” Josh added with a playful roll of his eyes.

“Nora, Jita and Danny have not shut up about you! I am pleased to meet you as well.” Karen hugged you both and thanked you for the wine. You all followed her inside.

“Where is dad?” Josh asked.

“He had to run out to the barn to grab some more fire wood for the evening. Why don’t you go help him before you take off your coat?” Karen suggested. Josh reluctantly went back out into the cold to help Kelly.

“Girls you can set your bags where ever you like. Make yourself comfortable by the fire and I will bring over some hot chocolate.” She gestured toward the living room. You did as you were told. Nora found a seat but you opted to stand in front of the fire to warm up. She brought over two huge mugs filled with warm cocoa, marshmallows and whipped cream.

“Thank you Karen this looks divine!” You say.

“I am just so happy you girls are joining us this year. When Josh told me about your family situation and that you had nowhere to go on Christmas, well… I don’t know who was more eager to invite you? Me or Josh?” She explains.

“Well we are so grateful to be here!” Nora responds.

“Josh doesn’t bring just anybody home.” Karen says nudging you. “You must be pretty special.” She shoots you a playful wink. You hadn’t spoken with Josh about what he had or had not told his parents. You figured they knew your relationship status like everyone else.

“Where is everyone?” You ask attempting to change the subject before relationships were discussed.

“Running late if you can imagine that! Well Danny is with his family, but he will join us for dinner tonight.” Karen explained as Josh came through the door with Kelly. “For once Josh is early! She must be a good one!” Karen said pointing at you.

“She is.” Josh agreed shooting you a wink as he walked over to join you by the fire. He grabbed your mug and began chugging it.

“Red!” You teased him.

“What was that dear?” Karen asked.

“It is a weird game they play. We all just choose to ignore them!” Nora quickly offered an explanation. You mouth “Thank you” to her.

“Girls, I am Kelly. I am sure Karen already said all the formalities so I will keep it short. It is lovely to meet you both. Thanks for helping to keep the boys in line.” Kelly said offering you each a hand shake. You giggled with Nora returning to the couch.

Realizing you were feeling slightly buzzed. “Is there alcohol in this?” You asked pointing to the mug.

“Tons!” Josh popped back laughing at you. A look of concern crossed the faces of both you and Nora. You had already finished one mug each. “We don’t need to repeat the cabin incident, Honey.” Josh said trading your mug for a glass of water.

“What happened at the cabin dear?” Karen asked.

“Someone had a little too much and ended up throwing my clothing out of a window!” Josh jested.

“Too be fair you totally deserved it for being so stubborn!” You bite back.

You continue to sit around the fire and inform his parents about yours lives. Your nerves were completely settled and the conversation was pleasant. The couples eventually made it over and Danny was the last to join.

“Well I will call Ronnie and let her know we are ready to eat! She stayed at a friends house last night.” Karen announced.

Shit you forgot there was still a sister you had to meet. You opted for another mug of hot chocolate that you agreed to split with Josh even though he had a good buzz going already. Ronnie entered the house and everyone stood up to greet her.

“Ronnie, this is Y/N.” Josh introduced you again despite you telling him you could do it yourself.

“Ah, the girlfriend!” She said sarcastically while she nudged Jake.

“Hi, Ronnie its nice to meet you.” You say offering out a hand. She pulls you in for a hug.

“Nice to meet you too! I am grateful my intolerable brother found someone to tolerate him.” She said flashing a toothy grin resembling Josh’s.

“Well on that note, lets eat!” Josh redirected you to the table where you sat next to him.

Dinner was delicious and you all caught one another up on what you had been doing since you last saw each other. Sam and Hannah had been working on some of Hannah’s projects. You insisted that she let you hear some demos before the trip was over.

“I am so happy to have all of my boys home! And I am even more excited to finally outnumber them with women!” Karen toasted. Eliciting a cheer of Woohoos from the table.

You helped Karen clear the table before everyone returned to the living room to play some Christmas games.

“Okay so in this one you have to shake the snow balls out of your butt!” Karen began explaining the game poorly.

“Mom you have officially lost it!” Sam teased, receiving a firm slap to the head from Karen.

“It’s fun I promise!” She responds.

It was one of those games where you tie an empty tissue box to your hips and it is filled with ping pong balls. Who ever shakes out all of their balls first wins. Everyone split up into teams. Karen and Kelly. Jake and Jita. Sam and Hannah. Nora and Danny. Then you and Josh, of course. The girls decided they would take on this first challenge. Kelly starts spinning a Christmas record and the games begin. All of your years working in bars and clubs had thought you the basics of twerking. You knew Nora possessed similar skill set. You both start having a twerk off, cackling at yourselves in the process. You ultimately clear all of your balls first, winning the first round. You sit back down next to Josh still catching your breath.

“I did not know you could do that!” Josh said laughing through a grin.

You wink at him as he stands up to take his turn.

The guys went next which had the women absolutely rolling in laughter. It took them a good fifteen minutes to have a winner. Danny took the round for the boys.

“That’s my guy!” Nora cheered as she smacked a hand against Danny’s ass.

You continued similar silly games until you were all out of breath from laughing so hard.

“This is definitely the best Christmas we have ever had.” You say to Nora.

“And it’s not even Christmas yet!” Sam yells drunkenly.

Josh pulls you into hug. “I am so happy you are here.” He speaks soft enough only you can hear.

“Joshie don’t look now, but there is mistletoe above you.” Karen says in a suggestive tone.

“What do you say, Honey?” He asks you.

“Hmm..” You say as you pretend to think about it. “Green.”

He plants a small kiss on your lips. The whole group cheers.

“Looks like you guys have had some practice!” Sam jests. Nora now being the one to smack him on the back of the head.

“Hey!” Sam retorts.

“Shut up.” Hannah cooed rubbing his head.

Everyone says their goodbyes for the even and returns to their respective hotels. You drive the Jeep back and make sure Josh gets into bed. Before you leave his room you want to ask him about his parents.

“You told your parents about… us, right?” You ask.

“Yeah, they know.” He responds already drifting off to sleep.

You leave it at that. “Goodnight Sugar. I love you platonically.” You say walking out.

As you shut the door you hear him say “ I love you, Honey.”

You head back to Nora.

“I am pretty sure Karen thinks you and Josh are dating.” Nora states the second you walk into the room.

“I just talked to Josh about it and he said he has told them about our situation.” You respond.

“He said those words?”

“Well, more or less.”

“Less?”

“Yeah. But surely someone has clarified things. We have been friends for months now.”

“It didn’t seem like it tonight.” Nora ended your conversation climbing into bed.

You stayed up replaying the conversations of the evening over in your head. Ronnie clearly knew, so surely their parents did. You tried to reassure yourself enough to get some sleep.

The following morning came way too quickly. You did not sleep well as your mind continued to go over every word Karen said. You got up and took a hot shower to try and melt the nerves. You wanted to dress nice for the holiday so you sacrificed being a little cold. You had a dark green, long sleeved, skater dress that had a deep V with mesh detailing. You paired it with some insulated black tights and your black docs. You threw on some gold jewelry you had packed and applied some light make-up. Having some time before needing to leave you decided to give yourself a blow out. Nora joined you in the bathroom as she began to get ready. You heard a knock at your door.

“Coming!” You shout opening it to find Josh with a bag of presents in one hand and a bouquet of red flowers in the other.

“Sugar, you shouldn’t have!” You tease knowing the flowers are for his mom. “But you do know those aren’t my favorite flowers!”

“Trust me Honey, I have that too.” He said pulling a joint from behind his ear.

“My hero!” You say imitating Olive oil from Pop-eye. “I just need to gather up my presents for everyone and we should be ready to go.”

You drive over meeting the rest of the group who was already at the house. Minus Danny as he was spending the day with his family.

“Look at the the presents! You guys are better than Santa Claus!” Karen cheers as you come through the door.

“My present is my presence.” Nora announces eliciting a laugh from everyone.

“Y/N dear come help me set these under the tree.” Karen says. You follow closely behind her. You begin placing gifts around the base of the tree. “I am so glad you and Josh are so happy together. You know this is a big deal for him.”

Shit. You think to yourself. She has no clue. “Um…” you say clearing your throat. “Josh and I… we aren’t… we are just friends.” You stumble over your words.

“Oh! But Jake had said you were his girlfriend?” She responded confused.

“Of course he did.” You say placing your face into your hands in frustration. “Let’s not tell Josh that. We do not need them fighting tonight.” You add.

“Good idea! I am so sorry! You guys just seemed so… close!”

“We are, but you know with tour and the whole lifestyle relationships can be hard. We just want to be really good friends.”

“If you say so!” She hums as she walks into the kitchen.

You take the opportunity to slip away and reprimanded Jake. You find him in the basement with Sam and Hannah. “Jake, what the fuck?” You spit at him.

“Something the matter sweetheart?” He responds.

“Woo there cowboys, what seems to be the issue?” Sam asks stepping between the two of you.

“Somebody thought it would be funny to tell Karen that I am Josh’s girlfriend.” You say peering over Sam’s shoulder starring daggers into Jake.

“Oh shit. Y/N I am sorry.” Jake says with genuine sympathy in his eyes. “I told mom that long before the cabin. I completely forgot. I will go make it right.” He says walking towards the stairs.

“It’s fine Jake… I already took care of it.” You say as your anger dissipates.

“You know I can be an idiot!” He says giving you a side hug.

“Oh I know!” You tease back, offering him a small punch to the gut.

“What’s going on down here?” You hear Josh yell as he comes down to find you.

“Oh nothing. Just letting Jake know I will kick his ass at pool next chance I get.” You quickly make up a cover story. Josh throws an arm around you as he joins the conversation.

“We can all go play downtown for Danny’s birthday!” Sam recommends.

“It’s settled! Now anyone care to smoke with me?” Josh says shooting you a wink.

“Let’s wait until after dinner. I would rather not spend my first Christmas with your family higher than a kite.” You suggest.

“That sounds rather amusing for the rest of us.” Jake teases.

You all return upstairs. Karen and Ronnie were setting the table for lunch. Kelly was outside grilling a ham. You helped prep some of the sides and set them on the table.

“This out does any Christmas dinner we have ever had.” Nora says as she approaches the table.

“What does your family normally eat on Christmas Day?” Ronnie asked.

“Chinese food.” You answered.

“Whatever was open.” Nora adds. You both laugh at the contrast of the meal in front of you compared to meals of Christmas past.

Josh walks up behind you placing his hand to the small of your back. “Care if I steal her away for just a moment?” Josh asks referring to you. He pulls you over by the fire. “Sam told me about Jake.”

Cursing yourself for not telling Sam to keep his mouth shut. “Jake and I already discussed it. Everything is okay. I clarified things with your mom as well.” You tried to reassure him.

“Now I get to hear about how stupid I am for not dating you.” Josh said in a playful tone.

“Well you deserve that!” You chime back as you pull him into a hug.

He places a quick kiss on your cheek. Your eyes flutter closed at the contact of his warm, velvety lips. “That was yellow, wasn’t it?” He asks realizing his mistake.

“It was, but I will forgive you if you find me a drink.”

He walks into the kitchen to mix you up a mimosa which can only be described as champagne with a suggestion of orange juice. You drink it anyway. You decided to prepare the rest of the groups drinks to save them from Josh’s version of a mimosa. Karen thanks you.

“Hams done! Come and get it while it’s hot!” Kelly announces placing a beautiful ham on the table.

Everyone gathers for another lovely meal. Dinner is filled with discussion of new music and the upcoming tour plans. Once again you helped clear the table after everyone was done. Trying to help out as much as possible you start doing the dishes.

“Are you sure you have to go back to Nashville? I could use your help around here!” Karen jokes.

“I think Josh would die!” Jita teases. “Those two are connected at the hip.”

“Well Josh will have to figure that out before tour starts!” Karen adds.

You finishing with clean up and join everyone around the Christmas tree. You and Josh sit on the floor in-front of the fire.

“I think that is your spot!” Karen says motioning to the spot you and Josh continue to find yourselves in.

“I guess so.” You chime through a grin as you nuzzle into Josh. In response he places an arm around your waist.

“Alright Honey as the guest of honor, you get to open one first.” Josh says pulling a small present from behind his back.

“Gee thank Josh!” Nora quickly jests, causing everyone to laugh.

“Shouldn’t you be at Danny’s house?” Josh jokes. You give him a quick smack to the chest in response to his comment. “Sorry.” He says reluctantly to Nora. He places the box in your hand. “Now this might be a little red, and if it is I will get you something else.” He says just loud enough for you to hear.

The box was delicately wrapped with gold paper. It had a white star on top. You remove the paper finding a black velvet jewelry box inside. You look at Josh and lift an eyebrow.

“Open it!” He says gently pushing the box towards you.

You slowly open the box just to tease him. Once it’s open you see a delicate gold chain necklace, adorned with a small rectangular pendant. On the pendant was a small “J.” For Josh, you thought. You felt tears well up in your eyes.

“Green, very green.” You threw your arms around Josh. He pulled away slightly to reveal he was wearing a matching necklace adorned with your first initial.

“Friendship necklaces.” He said with a big relieved smile. “I wanted us to have something to remember each other by when I am on tour.”

“It’s perfect.” You say wiping the tears from your eyes. “I was really worried I would forget you.” You joke as he helps you put the necklace on.

“Well that was disgusting.” Ronnie says poking fun at her older brother.

Everyone exchanges their gifts and enjoys each others company. As it gets late you find yourself alone with Josh on the couch. With just the light of the fire illuminating the room.

“I was so nervous you would think it was red.” Josh says reaching out to hold your necklace.

“Josh this is the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me.”

“Honey… I am going to miss you so much on tour.”

“I will miss you too. But we have trips planned during your breaks and I will be at as many shows as I can. You know Sam did offer me the job of Greta Van Fleet’s official mixologist!”

“And you turned it down?!” He said jokingly. “You better be ready for FaceTime calls at 1 am!” He continued to tease.

“I don’t have to answer them!” You poke back. He wraps you up in a hug around your waist. Threatening to pick you up. “Red! Red!” You yell through your giggles.

“Oh no! That’s not fair Honey!” He grabs you throwing you over his shoulder.

“Josh! Put me down! I have to say goodbye to everyone!” You laugh as the playfully flail your limbs for him to set you down.

He turns to the group who are all watching your antics. “Goodbye everyone!” He laughs turning away quickly and carrying you out the door. Nora running behind. He sets you in the Jeep and you flip him off while he climbs in on the drivers side. Nora rolls her eyes at the two of you. Josh drives you back to the hotel. You decide to stay up with Josh after Nora goes to bed. You change into the complimentary robe. Grabbing a bottle of mini bar wine and head to his room.

“Open up I have alcohol!” You announce at his door. He unlocks the door, as you walk in you see a fort of blankets and pillows around the bed. “How did you know I was coming over? Or do you do this every night?” You fire at him.

“I had a hunch.” He came over grabbing the wine and taking you over to the bed. “You get comfortable. I am going to change and grab some cups.” You settle in and admire his handy work assembling this with just the hotel furniture. You knew this was all feeling a little too romantic, so you decide to leave the robe on before getting under the blankets. You look at the TV to see Josh already had a movie cued up on Netflix. He returns from the bathroom with cups and hands you one. Pouring you a stout glass of wine.

“Woah there, you know I am a cheap drunk.”

“There is nothing cheap about you Honey.”

“I think someone is a little drunk themselves!”

“Nora did look pretty wasted.” He teased trying to redirect from his own state of intoxication. “Can a man not celebrate?” He asked shooting you a grin.

“What are we celebrating tonight?”

“Our first Christmas together!” He responds

“As friends.” You correct.

“As friends.” He says through a half smile attempting to mask his defeated tone.

You cheers and each take a sip.

“That is awful!” You say as you make a sour face spitting the wine back in the cup.

“That is pretty bad.” Josh says taking your cup and setting it on the end table with his.

“Hopefully the movie is better?” You say as you snuggle into the blankets.

Josh starts the movie and joins you under the covers. You had watched movies together in bed before. You had a standing agreement it was best to not cuddle and that any sleeping be done in separate beds. About half way through you felt yourself getting tired. When you looked over Josh was already asleep. You told yourself you will just shut your eyes for a minute and then return back to your room. No such luck. You slept all night in his bed. It was the best sleep you had in months. In the morning Josh was completely wrapped around you and you around him. You found your face in his chest and before thinking you nuzzled in. Letting out a small hum as you felt his warmth.

“Fuck!” You said jumping out of bed.

“What?!” Josh yelled jumping out on the opposite side. He looked at you with the most adorable confused expression.

“I fell asleep in your bed.” You said apologetically. Holding your robe tightly around your body.

“I will never forgive you!” Josh said in playful dram-antics.

“Josh I am serious! We were even cuddling! That is very, very RED!”

“Hey, we slipped up. It will be okay.” He came over giving you a hug of reassurances. You always melted into his touch.

You had two more days left on your trip and you didn’t want anything to ruin that.

Most businesses were still closed the day after Christmas so the boys had the bright idea of going sledding. Luckily Ronnie had some extra snow gear for you and Nora to borrow. You head over to the Kiszka’s and find everyone dressed for the occasion. Ronnie shows you where her clothes are and tells you to help yourselves. You get changed and head back outside to meet the group.

“You guys look like northerners now!” Danny said slightly teasing Nora and yourself.

“Still hotter than you!” Nora bit back shooting him a wink.

“You are not wrong.” Danny agreed.

The guys lead you to a spot behind their property that they have sled down since they were in diapers. Sam insisted everyone go down at once causing a predictable massive pile up on the test run. After that Jake was put in charge of the races. Two at a time everyone raced one another until Nora was crowned champ. She gloated the entire walk back to the house. Everyone stripped their layers once inside and secretly made plans for Danny’s birthday celebration the following day. You had Jake help you put together a tray of hot toddy’s for the group. It was your second best cocktail. You serve the group the warm drinks while you take a seat with Nora on the couch.

“Y/N these may be better than your margaritas!” Jita chirps and everyone nods in agreement as they take their first sips.

“A perfect drink to end a perfect day!” Nora says as she rests her head on your shoulder.

“Hey!” Josh whispered catching your attention. He slowly pulled the blunt from behind his ear. He nods toward the basement. You follow his lead slowly removing yourselves from the group. You meet him downstairs sitting on the old couch. He passes you the already lit joint. “You looked cute today.” He said.

“Thanks.” You respond flashing him a smile. “You looked pretty cute yourself, Sugar.”

“I mean it. Something about you all dressed up for me…”

“Josh, this feels… red.” You interrupt him.

“Fuck red, fuck all of the colors.” He responds playfully. “It gets pretty tiring doesn’t it? This game we play.”

“We only play it because of your rules.” You say unsure of where this is going.

“What if…”. He pauses. “What if there were no rules.”

You think very carefully about how you chose to respond. “What about tour?”

Before Josh could open his mouth to respond Sam and Hannah bust through the door.

“Stoner senses.” You and Josh say in unison.

“Keeping it all to yourself?” Sam says as he takes the blunt from you.

“Well it is my weed.” Josh responds annoyed by his brother’s intrusion.

You all finish the blunt and head back up. You are extremely high and find yourself reaching for Josh’s hand. He was your comfort.

“Josh not in the basement!” Karen reprimanded him but he was much too high to care.

“At least they aren’t fucking down there.” Sam jests. Kelly smacking him and Josh upside the head as the walk through the basement door.

“I would prefer it to THIS!” Karen fires back. She gets a fan out trying to remove the stench.

“Me too.” You whisper into Josh’s ear causing him to bite his lip.

“We are leaving.” Josh announces playfully to the group. As he pulls you toward the front door.

“No we are not! We are both way too high to drive.” You remind him as you attempt to stop him from walking out the front door.

“Shit.” He huffs.

“I will drive you guys back. I will need to be well rested for tomorrow night.” Nora pauses. “I didn’t mean it like that… you know what forget I said anything.” She tries to back peddle as everyone laughs at her choice of words. She drives you back to the hotel. You sit in the passenger seat falling asleep during the car ride. “Come on sleeping beauty.” Nora says practically carrying you to your bed. Josh follows behind to tuck you in and place a goodnight Kiss on your forehead. You wake slightly under his touch.

“Goodnight Joshie.” You hum into your pillow.

“Goodnight Honey.” He says before returning to his room.

“You two are a mess.” Nora says softly as she crawls into bed.

Your last day in town was the day before Danny’s birthday. The group had made plans to surprise him at a local bar. Nora was going to take him out for dinner and then bring him to the bar. Nora, Jita and you were up before anyone else. You guys took the Jeep into town, picking up Jita on the way. You sat down for coffee and breakfast at a little cafe.

“So… Josh was very…” Nora started talking watching closely for your reaction.

“He was very high.” You finish her sentence for her hoping she will drop it.

“Oh come on!” Jita took her turn attempting to fish something out of you. “He was undressing you with his eyes before any substances ever touched his lips.”

“And the necklaces? Who are you guys kidding?” Nora chimes back finding some bravery from Jita’s support.

“Things have been confusing on this trip. Lines blurred… but I am sure it will go back to normal when we are back in Nashville.” You try and convince the girls but they were not buying it. You weren’t either. Something was different this time. Josh was different. “He has been more… affectionate lately, but tour is coming up. He is probably just trying to make up for the time apart.” You try and end the conversation.

“We all just want to see you both happy.” Jita says squeezing your hand.

You finish you breakfast and drive over to a local craft and party store. You grab way more decorations than you need. Nora fills the Jeep with balloons. Jita had been in contact with the bar manager who said you could begin setting up anytime. You all agree to set up first then go get ready for the evening. You spend several hours helping the girls put up decorations. Nora strung lights and streamers. The ceiling was filled with gold and silver balloons. The tables were covered with flashy table cloths and metallic confetti. Banners were hung and a photo booth was brought in.

“I think that is enough, don’t you?” Nora asked unsure of herself.

“It is more than enough!” You say in an attempt to calm her nerves.

“Danny won’t know what hit him!” Jita added.

You drop Jita back off at her hotel before returning to yours.

“I have nothing to wear!” Nora says collapsing on the bed.

“You brought three bags! I am sure we can find something!” You begin sifting through her suitcases. You grab several articles of clothing and bring them over to the bed. “Are we feeling sexy or sophisticated?” You ask while holding up a few options.

“Somewhere in between I guess.” She shrugs

“Got it! Sexy librarian it is!” You jest.

You play around with a few outfits before settling on one. You throw the clothes at her and instruct her to try them. She slumps over to the bathroom and gets dressed.

“Okay… I was wrong.” She says stepping out of the bathroom and striking a pose. She looked stunning as always. You put her in an burnt orange satin dress that hit mid calf. Layering it with a black, long sleeve, turtleneck underneath and finishing the look with Chelsea boots. Her blonde, blunt bob complemented the look exquisitely. She added a single silver chain necklace.

“Jita was right! Danny won’t know what hit him!” You say in a singsong manner. You knew Danny and Nora were just friends but you suspected Danny had feelings for her. On occasion you thought Nora may reciprocate said feelings.

You kept it simple with black skinny jeans and docs. Pairing it with a black, long sleeve, off the shoulder body suit. You added a black belt with gold hardware, and your gold necklaces. You wore your hair down and decided to do winged liner with a red lip. You look in the mirror and giggled a little bit. Your look for the night resembling that of Sandra-Dee when she breaks bad for Danny Zuko. Josh insists that the girls take the Jeep and the guys will follow behind in Jake’s car. When you get to the bar everyone goes inside besides Nora. She grabs the keys to the Jeep and goes to pick up Danny for dinner. The bar was nice enough to give your group the entire place to yourselves. Jake and Jita begin ordering food for everyone. Sam orders a round of beers, while Hannah finds a table to set the gifts.

“This place looks fantastic!” Josh says handing you a beer.

“Nora did most of the work! There would have been even more balloons but they wouldn’t fit in the Jeep.” You laughed as the image played in your head of Nora frantically shoving balloons in through the trunk window. Josh laughs with you thinking about the three of you in the Jeep surrounded by balloons.

“You also look fantastic.” He hums into your ear, placing a kiss on your cheek. Unsure of where you stand after your last conversation you decide not to comment on his action.

“Speak for yourself hot stuff.” You giggle as you fluff his hair a bit.

“I mean’t what I said last night.” Josh pauses as he scans your face to gauge your reaction. Your stomach started to do flips. “No more rules.” He said as he wove his fingers through yours.

Part 2 to follow soon.

#gvf series #josh gvf #josh kiszka fanfiction #josh kiszka smut #josh kiszka x reader #josh kiszka x y/n #greta van fic #greta van fleet #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van smut #gvf fanfiction #gvf fic #gvf smut #josh kiszka #joshua michael kiszka #josh kiszka fluff #joshua kiszka #A Little Honey #greta van fluff #josh kiszka x you

[slipping-through-my-fingertips]

Tis the Damn Season

Day 6: Inscribe

AO3

After all, he’s only been here a semester. There’s still plenty to explore and do before he starts thinking about another move.

Alright so maybe he was daydreaming about Kurt and the whole American dream thing but it wasn’t like he was inscribing Kurt’s name on his skin. Though it was being doodled on the corners of his notes.

Was it really Blaine’s fault that class felt boring now? A week ago he was sitting in the coffee shop with the likely love of his life. Now he had to sit through his last day of classes and act like the end of a semester was a good thing? Sure it was a victory to have completed half of his first year of NYADA. But to not see Kurt for a solid month and no way of contacting him, that was no victory.

Turns out the contact on the flyer is just an email address for any interest in joining the band.

How could Blaine be so stupid to not have asked for Kurt’s phone number? They could’ve kept contact over their break and maybe gone on their first date come the new year.

Now he was stuck in class, no way to message Kurt, endlessly wishing for another week of the semester. Just a few more days hoping he’d bump into Kurt.

“So the next time we meet will be for the final. Tomorrow morning at 8 am.”

And just like that his last class of the fall was over.

On the way back to his dorm, Blaine stopped for coffee hoping he’d see Kurt. There was no line and just a few students hovered over their textbooks. No Kurt.

His roommate was there when Blaine got back.

“Packing? I thought you finished last night.”

“Nah dude, I forgot the Christmas gifts,” Will said.

“How could you forget the gifts?” Blaine laughed.

“I have no clue! But I have…” he zipped his luggage, “an hour to get to the train. So I will see you in the new year, buddy.”

“Safe travels,” Blaine said.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Blaine packed up his laptop and notebooks and headed to the library. He didn’t really want to be alone in this room.

The library was pretty full. Everyone is preparing for the beginning of finals week.

Blaine found an empty seat and got to work on his improv assignment.

#december klaine challenge 2023 #klaine advent 2023 #klaine fanfic #prompt: inscribe

[ilguna]

Hello, congratulations on 2k followers, you deserve everyone for the writing you create. For the celebration can I request number 25 and 60 from prompt list one and number 6 from prompt list 2 for a Johanna Mason x reader fic. Thank you.

☼ worried (Johanna Mason) ☼

warnings; swearing, death mention

wc; 1.4k

prompt; 25. "I can't smile at you, I'm mad." and 60. "Does this make sense to you?" and 6. "KIss me and/or shut up."

–

When you got drawn for the Quarter Quell in District Five, you thought that the pain couldn’t get any worse. You have to go back inside of the arena, you have to fight the people you’ve known for years, and you would probably die trying to win this time, but that’s as far as it would go.

What you didn’t take into consideration was the fact that there were going to be a couple people you wish didn’t get reaped. Whether that be good people that you’re friends with, like Finnick and Cecelia, or the assholes that could win the games with their hands tied behind their backs, Gloss and Enobaria.

You completely forgot that the girl that matters the most to you, the one that you’d kill everyone for, including yourself if that meant that she would stay alive, was now vulnerable too. You didn’t think that Johanna would also end up in this position, you thought that she’d somehow find a way to get out of this.

Well, if it were that easy, then you would’ve squirmed out of it, too.

You’ve already dedicated a year and a half of your life to her, and you thought that you’d continue past that. Even if that meant seeing her once a year in the Capitol, you were going to find a way to stay with her and keep her safe.

The Capitol does a lot to the people who survive it, but Johanna’s one of the victor’s that have suffered the most. She deserves better than this, stuck in an endless loop of winning and then losing right after. If it were possible, you would’ve taken her place in District Seven if you lived there, instead. Let some other poor girl victor from Five be the victim, if that meant Johanna would be safe.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. You get thrown a different curveball that you have to dodge or hit perfectly, and it keeps going like that. That’s why you’re stuck in an alliance that you were convinced to join by Johanna. Even though you’re currently listening to her pessimistic attitude on how the both of you are going to die here while guarding two geniuses. She’s afraid that the alliance is going to fail.

You can’t blame her. There’s five of you in this group alone, and Johanna seems to think she saw Finnick and Mags with Katniss and Peeta, another portion of the alliance. And beside you nine, there’s another six that’s supposed to join you. Fifteen members of this alliance, more than half the tributes in this arena.

The games started about two hours ago, since surviving the bloodbath, you’ve managed to make it pretty deep in the jungle. It’s only a matter of time before the cannons start blasting, with each passing minute, the curiosity on how many have died, only grows. A good portion of tributes ran straight into the cornucopia, and with how horrifying the career pack this year, no one’s making it out of there alive.

Actually, you can, but it’s not easy. Beetee was a goddamn moron and went straight into the cornucopia after figuring out the whole floatation belt device. Johanna had to run in after him, while you, Blight and Wiress hid in the jungle, watching and waiting for them to make it out alive.

Beetee got cut up in the process of grabbing a spool of gold wire. He’s got it clutched in his hands right now, he won’t let anyone beside Wiress touch it. Something about him worried that you’ll accidentally fuck up the wiring—you stopped listening a while ago because Johanna was speaking over him. You can’t keep track of both conversations at once, Beetee’s too technical and Johanna gets aggressive when she thinks you’re not listening.

Johanna’s not exactly thrilled that she, you and Blight were told to keep track of Wiress and Beetee and keep them alive long enough to meet up with the second half of the alliance. You were also told that if you find any other stray alliance members on the way, then you’re sorta required to bring them along and help keep them safe.

She’s a ticking time bomb. Johanna’s sweating so badly that she’s growing more irritated by the second. With Beetee continuously talking, and Wiress letting him finish her sentences, there’s going to be a meltdown. She doesn’t even like them in the first place. She just can’t be around Katniss because she’s known for starting fights, then again, Finnick does tease too much. He knows when to shut it down, though.

The only two relatively sane people right now are you and Blight. If you’re being honest, you think that you’re beginning to lose it, too. Especially since Johanna’s made one giant circle with her rambling and she’s about to do it again.

“I can’t believe we were tasked with this.” She complains for the fifth time, swinging the ax in her hand. You can see the sweat running down the side of her face. “If this group grows any bigger, there might as well be a giant target on our backs. There’s already five of us, could you imagine when we find Finnick?”

“That’d make nine.” You murmur, picking at your nails to keep yourself distracted.

“Almost half of the arena. And we’re still missing others.”

You hardly doubt that the group is going to make it to its final number. Woof is too old to help survive here, Mags is already bordering but since she’s got Finnick, she’s good for now. Cecelia was in the bloodbath when you saw her last. As for the morphlings, they’ve probably blended themselves into a tree by now and are going to starve themselves until the end.

It’s like finding a needle in a haystack with how thick this jungle is. If you were to wander off, you wouldn’t see them in the trees, you’d get yourself turned around and lost for good. For all you know, Finnick and them are wandering in the same direction you are, and you’ll be cursed to follow them, but never find. How are you expected to find the other few missing members of the alliance?

“Can you imagine it?” Johanna asks, “A group that big, the careers would really find us then. And then what? We’ll die holding hands?”

“If you’re offering, I’d love to.” You joke, Johanna gives you this look, unamused. You raise your eyebrows, “I’m sorry, are you telling me that you wouldn’t save me if we were attacked?”

“No.” She deadpans, starting up again, “We’d be able to take the pack, though. I’m sure we’d lose only a few people in the process. Gloss will be able to have another stab at Volts, or maybe they’ll attack during the night, killing half of us before we wake up. And then we’ll be too delirious to actually protect ourselves.

Your silence must make her uncomfortable, “Does this make sense to you?”

“It actually sounds like you’re worriedly rambling.” Blight mutters, clearly tired of the conversation that Johanna’s brought you into three times already, “We might not die, you know.”

“Oh, so you think the Gamemakers are just going to let us out?”

“Maybe if you ask nicely.” You tell her.

“How about you start first?” She asks you, “Since you’re the one that came up with it.”

“Gamemakers,” You start, giving her a side-eye, “Please make a rock fall on Johanna’s head so she’ll pass out and be quiet.” Johanna punches you in the arm, turning away from you. You let out a laugh, “That’s payback for saying you wouldn’t save me.”

“Whatever.” She says.

You don’t speak to her for a few moments, waiting for her to return to what she was saying. When she doesn’t you mimic her by crossing your arms and pouting, “Come on, it was funny.”

“Don’t mock me.”

You stop walking, waiting for her to finally look at you. She doesn’t realize at first, but when she reaches over to shove you, you’re not there. She then turns, seeing you with your arms crossed, still pouting.

The smile hints at the corners of her mouth but she fixes it, “I can’t smile at you, I’m mad.”

“Are you trying to remind yourself?” You snort, beginning to walk again.

“You know what, you won’t be laughing when the careers—”

You grab her arm, yanking her to you while the others pass you, “Kiss me and shut up." You pull her closer, hovering over her lips, "I'm going to make sure you're alright."

--

this was part of my 2k celebration!

join the party -> HERE.

#ilguna #johanna mason #johanna mason imagine #johanna mason x reader #johanna mason fanfic #johanna mason oneshot #thg #the hunger games #angst #2k celebration #anon #ask

[pbandjesse]

I woke up in kind of a bad mood this morning. Just not enough sleep and not feeling my best. James also didn't come up stairs and then they kept slamming the front door and I was just really unsettled. Not the best way to start the day.

When I went downstairs I told James how much I didn't enjoy the slamming and they apologized. But we were both kind of in off moods. They didn't sleep well either. But we pulled ourselves together best we could.

I had actually gotten out of bed at 650 so I was all the way ready earlier they needed. But I still left even if it was before 720. And I had a pretty great drive in. No traffic at all. And I got to camp at 750.

I would have a lot to do today. After I had my breakfast I would start writing out programs. Alexi would come in and we would half a almost half hour chat about what she wants from the schedule and all of the little things I missed at the end of the meeting. And I had a little more clarity about what the second "village program" block is. I have renamed it "cabin choice" for clarity. But I think I understand how to make it work.

I would spend the next few hours moving things around on the schedule and I really made it work the way I think they wanted. I was able to make it so there are specialty programs, village time, cabin time, all the other staffed programs like archery and riflery. And it was fun. Like solving a puzzle or pulling threads from a pile. I would have to take some brain breaks. But I really was making great head way.

Elizabeth asked us to check out the cabins for a group that was coming in this afternoon for the weekend. And so when I needed some time away from the computer I drove up to the Alaskans and walked around. Picked up trash. Made sure everything seemed clean. And then drove to the fort and checked out the rooms there too. Everything was in order.

When I got back to the office Elizabeth and Sarah were surprised I went and handled that without saying anything. They didn't know where I went. But it was completed and that was good. And it was time for lunch.

I would hear back from Parker about the check and he was so frustrated that the other staff didn't give it to me he literally walked to our house and put it in our mail box. What a sweet heart. He also hid our package, that was left on the stairs, behind the trashcan. Thank you Parker, you're a gem.

I would continue to work on my schedule and my programing ideas. I checked in with Heather and asked if we could go over everything later. She was finishing a grant though and it was due today so I would wait until she was done.

I would also help her with some math. Which was difficult! I got to learn was the revenue and expenses of camp are though and that was interesting. It was nice being productive.

When we would meet if was when everyone else was out of the office. Alexi left early to get Josephine because it's her birthday. And Elizabeth and Sarah had gone on a walk. And so me and Heather sat in her office and went through the whole schedule and she seemed really impressed that I made it work in the format I had already built. And I suggested we really start working on what the programing is, what we need to buy, and what we need to build to make it successful. So I am going to do that next week. I really hope that Alexi agrees this is a good direction.

I chatted with Heather about how much I would wander away from the group as a child. Just absolutely loved eloping. And how it was such a different world when I did it. Like it seemed no one ever looked for me. But when kids at camp run away I'm like. I get it. But please stop. We are going to get in trouble.

My laptop was on 6% which meant it was about time to go home. So I packed how and said goodbye to Heather and went home.

I barely had any traffic on the drive. And got home before 430. I saw we had some mail. Including the package Parker hid for us. And when I brought everything inside I saw we had a bill from Johns Hopkins. From when we were in the ER. When we were not actually seen or treated. So I obviously will not be paying that. Absolutely not. It did make me laugh though.

James would come home soon with more mail

They stopped at the left office and we had packages. One being a new bracelet they got me with "Jessica" on it. I love it. And the other being a gift from their aunt Jan. A door mat with our chosen last name and I just thought that was so sweet. What a thoughtful gift.

Speaking of gifts. I will have to start thinking about our housewarming party and invites and registry soon. I'm hoping for the first weekend in April? We will see how that shakes out.

James and me had a plan tonight to move the daybed upstairs. But after moving all of the stuff in the studio out of the way I got a really bad pain in my side and had to sit out. But James was able to take the bed apart in a few pieces and got it upstairs and reassembled pretty quickly. Was proud of them.

That little room is still going to have shelves and everhbting but we are calling it the "preplay room" right now. Like we would like a child eventually and that would probably be their room but also it's a guest room right now and where a lot of my toy collection will probably live. Fun fact I believe my bedroom growing up was also the guest room. Mom you can correct me on that.

After the daybed was set up James took me to Mathews for dinner. And they didn't even really need us to order. Root beer, diet Pepsi, thai pie, ranch dressing on the side. Me and James talked about camp and the programing stuff I worked on today. And the food was great and it was just a really lovely time.

When we got back James had to park in a very tight spot but they are an excellent parallel parker so they obviously killed it. And when we got inside we all (Sweetp included) cuddled up on the couch for a long while.

Eventually I came up here to write my post. And now my eyes are very sleepy. I still will take a shower and get all ready for bed. But I am excited to sleep in a little tomorrow.

The big plan tomorrow is to go to the apartment to clean. Then take an afternoon break. Then I work at the museum tomorrow night. It's been forever since I could say that. I miss it terribly. So I am very much looking forward to it. I hope it's a lot of fun. It will be my first event without Angie though and that makes me a little sad.

I hope you all sleep great tonight. And have a very good Saturday. I love you all very much. Goodnight!

[stillreeloading]

15th January 2024, monday

Hey my people I love u and I missed posting.

First of all, happy sankranti (and bhogi) to all those who celebrate!!

Sankranti is a South Indian festival often celebrated around this time of the year. I'm part of the many people who celebrate it.

So, the new semester started recently. So of course, I'll update you all about it.

9th january 2024, tuesday: Registration of courses.

This is the day we get back to campus and register for the courses for the semester. This doesn't mean we have an option to pick out courses on our own but you just, choose your profs uk?

That morning I cried a little because I didn't want father to leave (like how kids cry on their first day of school you know). I just didn't want vacation to end.

10th january 2024, wednesday: First day of classes!!

First hour I had management tutorial. The professor was pretty fun. We have the same prof for lectures too. He started with definition of business after a little warm up kinda session. During that session he basically introduced himself, rules he'd like to follow in tutorials and lectures, gave us a little survey with general questions like "favorite color, favorite movie" and other questions like "what do you think you'd learn in this course?"

Then we had a math lecture which got cancelled .

Then we had a pharmaceutical formulations lecture which was also pretty fun. Our professor legit looked like a rockstar (kiiiiind of?). He started with the question "have you ever taken drugs?" And everyone went "sir u gotta specify which kinda drugs" and he's just like "nope not doing that just answer. Drugs." Haha

Then we had a management lecture where we continued the first chapter.

Then we were supposed to have our first anatomy lab but we didn't and they said the labs will start from next week.

11th january 2024, Thursday: my first ever workshop!!!

I had a free morning today. I didn't have any classes from 8 to 9.

Then I had a chem lecture which was hard to understand. But okay.

Then I had workshop!!!!

We were divided into groups and i was in a group with 5 other girls and 4 other boys. This is the part where I low key degraded myself for almost the whole 3 hours of the workshop because of my communication skills which suck.

Then i had lunch.

I was supposed to have a math tutorial but that got cancelled.

Then I had an anatomy lecture which was kinda fun. Not as fun as pharmaceutical formulations or management but definitely fun.

12th january 2024, Friday: FRIDAY😭😭

Fridays are like, the most hectic days of the week this semester.

I have nonstop classes from 8 to 3 and then lab from 4 to 6. So technically, just an hour break from 8 to 6.

Howeverrrrr, today turned out a little okay.

First, I had a workshop lecture which was kinda boring. Then I was supposed to have math which got cancelled. During this break, me and my friend bought ourselves some snacks to eat between classes because we're too packed to have proper lunch. Then I had a formulations tutorial, which of course was interesting. Then I had a management lecture, again interesting. Then I had a chem tutorial where i struggled to stay awake.

Then, from 1 to 3, i was supposed to have lab (reason why I can't have lunch). But it was only for an hour cuz it's the first lab and it was only intro. By the time I got to the mess, it was 2 (closing time) but luckily there was food so i ate my lunch for this Friday.

I did a few chores and errands for myself before I went for my chem lab at 4 o clock. Before that, my friend and I read in the library for around 20 minutes. Chem lab was only for half an hour, because again, ✨ introduction✨.

after that, we both goofed around for a while before her father came to pick us up from campus and take us away for the festival.

That's how my days went

Today (15 Jan 2024) my father peeled oranges for both of us <33 (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

#ree #university #uni #studyblr #uniblr #studyspo #oranges #pinterest images #pinterest #interesting subjects #management #pharmaceutical formulations #pharmacy #anatomy #first week of college #college #studyspiration #alright idk what elze #father #i just love my parents

[ryttu3k]

It’s Nona time.

There are many spoilers ahead! Not enormously in this first bit, given that all but the very last section has already been released, but otherwise, spoilers abound.

Ready? Ready!

Nona the Ninth - Day One

Dramatis Personae Guest List

I would still die for Noodle and Stop It (name assumed)

You told me, Sleep, I’ll wake you in the morning.

I asked, What is morning? and you said,

When everyone who fucked with me is dead.

When everyone we loved has gone or fled,

That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean.

Let’s put this first-draft dream of mine to bed.

In the appointed hour

I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light,

Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night.

This time will be the time we get it right:

Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long;

Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true.

You held aloft the sword.

I still love y

*eyes emoji*

John 20:8

IN THE DREAM, he told her the words about where he took his degrees, his postdoc, his research fellowship. They were his noise and not really for consumption. More like meditation; like even his mouth knew the pointlessness of it, and just wanted to recite. Dilworth. Otago. Auckland.

a) Still so jarring to go from the Nine Houses to suddenly reading names like Otago and Auckland. I've been there! I've seen those places! Jod isn't Just Some Guy, he's a Kiwi! b) Looked up Dilworth, it's a private boys boarding school in Auckland. What a snot.

He said: We just wanted to save you. You were so sick.

'You'? I know he's talking to Harrow here (in a dream), but if Alecto is the Earth, that works.

He said, It was me and A- and M- at the start. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the money for a bigger team; we were simply the only ones capable of what they were asking. M- for medical, A- because he was the glycerol-6 genius. He could’ve gone anywhere but he stuck with me... and thank God for that, because he handled all the shareholders. I was there for everything, but those meetings were like dying. I’ll never love meetings. C- was brought on by the oversight execs for contracts, you know, checks and balances, but look where that ended up, she was on our side before the first year was over...

Augustine and Mercy, I assume. C might be Cristabel or might be Cassiopeia.

The Mark-R cryo cans had room for eleven billion people, easy. We’d got the procedure down to five hours per person with a trained team of four. Assuming an existing medical degree, that training could take as little as weeks, manpower wasn’t an issue if we started now. Sure, the maternity stuff wasn’t totally ironed out, but we were nearly there, and the packing was perfect. Of course they bitched about the timeline, and they bitched about the money, but they were always going to bitch about the money. Our rule was, nobody knowingly left behind.

And then they got left behind.

IAF were involved, Pan-Euro Astronautics gave it their blessing, it was all so benign. We even lent them G- at the time because they wanted to talk about coating. M- said that she didn’t like it, she smelled a rat, and you know what I said? You know what I told her? I said, Don't let it get to you and I said, Don't get paranoid! I fucking looked her in the eye and said, This is the way we’re getting out, and you know that the moment half a dozen trillionaires realise it, they’re going where the oxygen is. That’s what I always told her. They’re going where the oxygen is. Wealthy men head for the exit.

He said: When they called me up and said the cryo project was over she looked at me and she just said, There they go, John.

a) G is Gideon, I assume. b) If BoE is descended from the people that left instead of sticking with the cyro project, yeah, no wonder he's bitter.

In the dream, she was sat next to a bundle of meat he’d cut, thighs mostly, for when they felt hungry, which happened rarely and always simultaneously. When it did happen they would be side by side, eating until their stomachs were sore. They would drink from the sea like dogs.

Oh I hate the sound of that.

He said after a pause: You know the worst part? She cried. She and A- both cried. In each other’s arms, like babies. They were so fucking scared. And I was right there, and I couldn’t do piss.

Don't blame them tbh

He was quiet for a long time. The sea ate at the sand. The waves glowed a little even though there was no sunshine, only thick yellow cloud.

She prompted: So what did you do?

He said: A damned thing, didn’t I.

She said: When is the part where you hurt me?

He said: Soon. It’s coming up.

She said: I still love you.

And in the dream he rubbed his temple with his thumb and said: “You always say that, Harrowhark."

Oh yeah these sections are going to be interesting.

Day One

REGARDING NONA—HOT SAUCE IS WATCHFUL—THE CITY HAS A BAD DAY—NONA GETS A BEDTIME STORY—FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE TOMB OPENS.

Here we go!!

1

There's a little picture at the top - a cave with a rock in front, skull above it, two chains crossing it. I bet that'll change with each day.

LATE IN THE YEAR of nobody she really thought about that much in particular

Hehe.

“The painted face is on top of me. I’m in the safe water—I’m lying down, I think. Something’s pushing at me. The water goes over my head and it’s in my mouth. It goes up my nose.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“How do you feel?”

“I like it. I like the water, I like her hands.”

“Her hands?”

“They’re the things around me—maybe they’re my hands.”

The confusion here definitely leads a reader to think this is the pool scene. Is she Gideon or Harrow? Both? Neither?

She wrestled out of her nightshirt with her arms and stretched on her trousers using her ankles, in the move that Camilla called worm with problems.

<3

It was incredibly important that she not get upset like that again. She had only ever had two tantrums in her life, but it would be humiliating to have a third.

Humiliating or dangerous? I'm going to say that she will probably have a third by the end of the book.

She hedged cunningly. “At least please can you write down, I love you, Palamedes, please, from me? At least write, I love you, Palamedes, from Nona.”

This Camilla Hect did unblushingly, though Nona had to take it on trust. When she squatted down on her haunches, following the strokes the pencil made, she could not make out a single word. She could not even make out a letter, not of any alphabet she’d ever been shown, which interested everyone except herself. But you could always trust Cam. When the pencil stopped and the message was obviously discharged Nona leant into her and said, “Thanks. I love you too, Camilla,” and: “Do you know who I am yet?”

“Someone who’s late for breakfast,” said Camilla.

But as Nona straightened, she turned and smiled her rare brief smile, the one like the sun catching the glitter of a car on the motorway. Cam smiled so seldom now that Nona immediately felt it was going to be a good day.

She loves so much ;_; I love this illiterate amnesiac mystery so much <3

“Same as normal,” said Nona, reluctantly taking another bowl. “I wish I could dream something different for once. Do you dream, Pyrrha?”

“Sure. Just last night I dreamed I had to give a briefing, but I wasn’t wearing pants and my backside was hanging out,” said Pyrrha, hacking the shocking orange curds into clumps with the edge of the spatula. During a pause in Nona’s gurgles of mirth, she added solemnly, “It was no fun, my child. I knew I’d be okay so long as I was hiding behind the podium, but I didn’t know what I’d do once I had to sit down again. Die, I guess.”

“Are you being serious or joking with me?” Nona demanded, once this fresh pleasure had subsided.

“Deadly serious. But go put another mark under ass joke anyway.”

I also love Pyrrha.

“Can I get one big braid and two little braids coming off it at the sides?”

“Sure, if we’ve got time.”

“They don’t come loose and the plain plaits do.” Nona added in the spirit of truth: “And I can’t help chewing the ends with plaits. I want to steer clear of Temptation.”

She's adorable. Also, pain. Pain ;_;

“Don’t start the secondhand smoke argument again,” said Nona in alarm, but then, figuring she’d been harsh: “Anyway, they’re bad for you and I love you, Pyrrha.”

“Prove it,” said Pyrrha, which meant she had to eat the eggs.

It's been how many pages? And she's already said she loves everyone she lives with ;_;

Cam’s was dark brown and bobbed off sharply at the chin and it felt nice against your cheek, and whenever Pyrrha didn’t shave her head quick enough she got a little flat cap of dark terracotta, the colour of wet red earth at the building site. Most of Pyrrha was the colours of the building site: deep dried-out browns, dusty hunks of clay, rusted metal. She was raw and ropy and square-shouldered, and Camilla was long and shadowy and lean. Nona thought they were both exquisite.

We love a body positivity queen.

The easiest way of telling who was who was in the eyes. Palamedes had soft cool eyes of brownish grey, like bare ground in the cold mornings when Nona had been little, and Camilla had the clearest of clear grey eyes like storybook ice, not like normal cloudy ice at all.

Perfect Lyctorhood! Albeit in a shared body, so not Perfect Lyctorhood at all. Pyrrha also has G1deon's eyes now, and Nona... appears to be Harrow's body, Gideon's eyes, but who knows what's going on there yet?

Pyrrha continued, “Anyway, you’re paying for the meat roulette. The stuff the butcher’s keeping back is only ten percent upholstery, the rest is livers and gristle.”

Nona wanted to know. “What part’s the upholstery?”

“A very nutritious part,” said Palamedes.

“The part that hung out in my dream,” said Pyrrha.

That set Nona off again, so she had to get up from her eggs to make another mark on her tally sheet. Palamedes stared, distracted, and said: “Dear God, two in a day? Why are we even remotely in doubt? Forget the meat, I was being facetious. We wouldn’t have upholstery money even if I wrote hardcore pornography for a living.”

Pyrrha said, “Wish you’d try. These nicotine patches are killing me.”

“If that’s meant to make me feel guilty, I feel nothing, thank you,” said Palamedes. “Cam’s body is a temple. She’s the one who’s banned me from a life peddling poor-quality erotica. Says she doesn’t want our last gift to the universe to be tales of people mashing birthday cakes beneath their bottoms."

a) It's okay I giggled too. b) There is absolutely at least one AU of Pal as an erotica writer, right.

There is so much politics here and I've read this part so many times and I still don't know precisely what's going on other than it sucks for people right now :(

"BoE are making that choice, Palamedes... We Suffer’s lost. The Wakers and Ctesiphon Wing can’t protect us. Merv Wing’s got the glue, which is a way out. The Hopers call the shots now... and I’ve met leaders like Unjust Hope before. They’re the guys who come to the fore when people want leaders who don’t count the costs. We’re heading for a purge, Sextus. This is the Blood of Eden who don’t give a fuck."

Okay, so the Wings mentioned in the BoE memo were Tartessus, Merv, and Suva. Merv's mentioned, I guess the Wakers follow in Wake's memories. Unjust Hope seems to be a potential antagonist? We Suffer doesn't seem to be doing great right now. Wonder if Corona and Judith are still with her?

Nona loved the clean, bright smell of shaving soap, and to see Pyrrha swiftly and expertly scrape the dark russet-brown stubble off her cheeks and from around her mouth, and the little wet red marks that appeared. When she reached over to touch one freshly smooth cheek, the marks were already wrinkling up and disappearing.

lmao sweetheart if she's cutting the shit out of her cheeks, that's not 'expertly' shaving XD

Big blue thing that's periscoping? Oh dear, that's number seven, isn't it.

Pyrrha turned her eyes up to the ceiling in mute appeal. Her exhalation rasped loudly against the vent in her mask. “I used to run the whole Bureau,” she said, and she didn’t sound like she was addressing either of them. “Now I’m up against wannabe heroes and hairy dogs. This is the punishment she would’ve wanted for me. God, she must be pissing herself laughing... Let’s go, kids. Like hell am I walking in this heat.”

I'm assuming 'she' is Wake. Oh Pyrrha XD

2

Image at the top - the Tomb again.

When she looked in the mirror she had skin the colour of the egg carton, and eyes the colour of the egg mixture, and hair the colour of the burnt-out bottom of the pan. More to the point, Nona thought she was gorgeous. She had a thin, complicated face, and a mouth too easily unhappy and too easily discontented; but she had nice white teeth in a smile that looked sad no matter how happy she was, and arched black brows like she always wanted to ask someone a question. Nona talked to herself in the mirror even now. When she had been earlier born, and less self-conscious, sometimes she would rest her face against the mirror’s face, and try to reach her reflection. Camilla had caught her kissing it once, and had written about six pages of notes on that, which was humiliating.

a) I love her colour descriptions. b) Yeah I feel that's definitely Harrowbod, especially given that Pyrrha was the last one with her.

“You see,” Palamedes had said to her, “the eyes are a dead giveaway. When you give yourself to someone else, their soul shows in yours by the eye colour; that’s why you’ll never see me looking out of Camilla’s face with my own eyes again.”

“So someone’s inside me, then? I mean - I’m that somebody?” She always stumbled over this.

Hashtag Just Lyctor Things.

“Maybe yes, Nona, maybe no. Eyes can also show that a soul is in someone else’s body temporarily. Your amber eyes could mean that you’re like Camilla and me, or it could mean something else. But you seem to have had... a big shock.”

“Maybe I’ve just lost my memory,” said Nona dubiously.

“It happens,” agreed Palamedes - not convinced.

It's complicated, for sure!

“They wanted to see me naked,” said Nona. “It was a sex thing.”

Camilla had made a sound, and then pretended it was a cough, and drank a whole glass of water. After the glass of water, she said, “How did you know?”

“That’s just the way people look when they want to see you naked and it’s a sex thing,” said Nona. “I don’t really mind.”

After a moment, Camilla had told her it wasn’t a great idea for Nona to let people she didn’t know see her naked, and not to encourage sex things. She said sex things were right out. She said there were enough problems in the world. Camilla said it was bad enough that she had used to help Nona in the bath. Camilla had also written down a lot more notes.

Camilla is having such a time.

It seemed like there was nothing Camilla couldn’t do after a few tries - the laundry, or starting up a truck, or opening a door when she didn’t have the keys, or telling the drunk man at the bottom of their hall that none of them liked it when he hit his partner, in a mystical way that caused the man to move out of the apartment forever.

Cam. Cam did you murder the abusive guy. Honestly, fair.

In the beginning she hadn’t been able to do much for herself at all, but over time she had remembered how to button her shirts, and tie up her laces, and soap herself in the bath, and pour water into a glass so that her hand didn’t tremble and the water didn’t slop out. It shamed her, remembering how little she could do at the start. She had been so frustrated, in those slow early days. But now she could do nearly everything. She knew important facts like what was expected and what was unexpected at different parts of the day, and that people’s ears weren’t so interesting that she had to put her fingers inside them. In those early days Palamedes and Camilla and Pyrrha had often looked at her in a sort of stupefied shock; now they were still stupefied but they were not so shocked, and often she made them laugh.

The two main theories for Nona is that she's either an amnesiac Alecto or the combined souls of the 200 kids, I think? Both of those would work, then - a period of amnesia and needing to relearn everything, especially given that a lot of the kids were actual babies. The interest in sex could be from the fact that a lot were also teenagers. I have a thing talking about the amalgam theory here.

And now they touched her, sometimes not even by explicit request. Pyrrha would roughly hug her in one big suddenness, or sweep Nona up in her hard, wiry arms before setting her down on the sofa; Palamedes would pull the blankets up over her if she was getting into bed and tuck them in softly at the corners. If she slipped her hand into Camilla’s, when they were walking down the street, Camilla would hold it. Nona didn’t understand how the others could walk around and go through their lives only touching each other as much as was necessary. When Nona asked, Camilla said that this was because they needed to get the washing-up done.

Honestly no matter who this is, they were probably touchstarved as hell so. That is nice <3

Nona understood everybody, and could speak back to them so that they understood her, and nobody ever said she had an accent. This confounded Palamedes. When she first said that she could speak back by watching them talk and making her lips look like theirs, it confounded him so much more that it gave Camilla a headache.

Yeah, this bit I still can't explain XD;;

This had been the case for Nona’s entire life, which would be six months next week, and Pyrrha had said as a treat she would take everyone for a birthday trip to the beach (if nobody was setting up a mortar on it).

Nona was so grateful to have had a whole six months of this. It was greedy to expect much longer.

;_;

3

Ooh, new icon! This is a tree with a fruit hanging off it. That might represent Blood of Eden?

When the nice lady teacher turned up one evening and told Pyrrha and Camilla how wonderful the school was and how it had almost twenty other children and reading and writing at all the levels and an hour of the sciences every day and games, and talked about how it was even more important for children in the refuges to have a routine so why didn’t they want that for Nona, Cam had to tell the nice lady that Nona was nearly nineteen.

The nice lady was totally foxed.

“But she’s such a dot.”

Pyrrha explained without missing a beat that what with everything Nona had gone through she had been ill and still didn’t eat very much, which was why she was so knobbly and undergrown. The nice lady said that yes, many of the children had problems like that, but it was still hard to imagine Nona was anywhere over fourteen, wasn’t it?

a) Harrow turned eighteen in chapter 24, which was four months before the Emperor's death. If Nona has been around for six months, then yeah, her body would be two months off nineteen. b) Heehee she tiny.

After Pyrrha saw the nice lady teacher out, Camilla, who had been pacing around the kitchen, looked up and said coolly -

“What was that?”

“Getting us out of hot water, my naive beauty,” said Pyrrha, collapsing into a chair with an appalling creak. “She paid you and junior the compliment of thinking you were working girls, and that I was your pimp. God knows I’d have had better luck pimping out Augustine and Alfred.”

Nona wanted to know: “What’s pimp?”

God that's probably... not uncommon. Made ickier by the fact that the teacher absolutely assumes Nona is either very underaged or has an intellectual disability. I can definitely understand why she'd want to get Nona out of that environment, if it was true!

In fact, she only loved the Hour of Science because that was when she was allowed to look after Noodle, the science teacher’s dog, who was a dirty white creature with six legs and a gentle disposition.

I love you Noodle.

It was just as hard to make Nona learn any facts as it was to make her learn the sword or the bones - harder, probably; as she explained all the time, as sweetly as she could, her brain simply wasn’t interested in them. It was as though someone had probably told her everything before and she had already forgotten it.

That's leaning more towards Alecto, I think, but could also be teenagers from the 200.

Hot Sauce was the oldest child, at fourteen, but would have been the authority no matter her age. She was queenly for her years and spoke very seldom. She had burns on most of her body and had got to hold a gun in a war. If you were new to the school her group always eventually found you and said, “You have to come and see Hot Sauce,” and took you to Hot Sauce, and Hot Sauce would lift up her shirt and hoick up her shorts and show you the burns. This was intended to instil a sense of reverence in the fresh meat, not disgust, but the group was just as proud if the new child broke down crying or didn’t want to look.

Hot Sauce herself was blank and unmoving in her moods and did not seem to have many strong passions, except that she was violently disdainful of every subject but the Hour of Science.

Hot Sauce seems... deeply traumatised.

Trying to work out the name meanings! She hears names like Corona as Crown, so she's probably translating all of them? 12-year-old Honesty, the lieutenant, could be Atsushi (Japanese), Liêm (Vietnamese), Nazih (Arabic), or Tam (Hebrew). Can't find any names that mean 'Beautiful Ruby' in combination. 'Born in the Morning' could be Akinyi (Luo). ...I really hope Hot Sauce's real name is Sriracha XD Kevin is. Kevin. And The Angel... could be a lot of things.

“Is his name really and truly Honesty?” Palamedes wanted to know. Nona struggled.

“That’s how I hear it. Anyway, he shouldn’t be called Honesty at all, he tells huge lies and he’s trying to teach me too."

Nona longed to lie, but didn’t know how to stop her body from showing the truth; at first, she had triumphantly caught every one of Honesty’s lies, until he took her behind the bike sheds and said he would give her a cigarette a week if she stopped. He was lying, but she could see how much it meant to him, so she stopped. And when she did get a cigarette, she slipped it to Pyrrha.

The sheer inability to lie is fascinating!

But she never quite got over that little shake, that tight vibration of the stomach when the Convoy was near, how it excited her somehow. It was like she could feel something wonderful in it.

What's the Convoy carrying? Hmm.

And Honesty, who had been very nice since the cigarette arrangement, said: “When we leave school, we’re going to kill zombies, we’re gonna kill necromancers.”

lbr necromancers sound fucking terrifying to most people!

Born in the Morning protested, “I did throw a rock and it did die,” and Nona said, “What, the rock?” at which the others paused in order to jeer at her. Then Beautiful Ruby explained that the rock had been thrown at one of the cages and the necromancer had been almost all the way on fire, and the question of whether or not the rock had even hit the necromancer or the bars was still a live one, but the rock could have helped. A rock hits you in the head you’re going to die, aren’t you.

While the others litigated whether or not the rock still counted if the necromancer was almost all the way on fire, Hot Sauce, sitting with her legs dangling over the side of the broken floor, had gone very still. Nona always noticed when Hot Sauce was still, because her stillness was peculiar: it wasn’t the stillness others got when they were thinking about things in class, markers paused as their brains furiously combed over some answer. It was the stillness of someone rejecting thinking.

PTSD. Poor kiddo.

“I watched Nona eat a pebble,” Kevin volunteered, bending one of his doll’s legs into position. Then: “And a marker top.”

“Don’t squeal, Kevin,” said Nona, offended and on her dignity; she had just learnt squeal and therefore used it constantly. “And Honesty, don’t call me a dumbass. At home they said if you called me a dumbass again I should tell you that they know what you look like and they’ll beat you up.”

“Okay. I don’t want to piss off your folks, you live with a pimp,” said Honesty.

By that point Nona knew what pimp was, and was so annoyed she knew she was on the road to a tantrum.

Kids are mean :-\

“The necromancers will come back. They may already be here.”

Everyone subsided into reverent silence at Hot Sauce’s proclamation, even Nona, who took the opportunity to do five breaths in and out like Camilla had shown her.

Eventually Beautiful Ruby broke the silence and said, “What about Varun, Hot Sauce? What about Varun the Eater?”

“It’s here for them,” said Hot Sauce.

They looked up through the big crack at the blued sky respectfully.

Varun the Eater = number seven, I assume?

Nona whispered, “Join what, Hot Sauce?”

Hot Sauce didn’t answer her. When she did say anything, she asked a question instead, which was irritatingly like Pyrrha. “You like it here?”

“I love it here,” said Nona sincerely. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

“You’re sweet,” said Hot Sauce.

She is ;_;

Eventually, when it got dark enough, all their families would come looking for them - Cam always came horribly early - except for Hot Sauce, who had nobody to come looking for her, and Honesty, whom nobody ever remembered about. But even with this flaw in paradise, Nona could do nothing but hug her knees to her chest and feel fantastically, wonderfully lucky, luckier than anyone else who had ever had the pleasure of being born.

Oh that's. Oh that's sad ;_;

4

A familiar image, here! The Seventh House skull.

Once they were out of the park and out of the crowd, Pyrrha kissed the top of Nona’s head and said, “Be good,” like she always said.

Pyrrha is so soft <3 I’m glad she gets to be a Mum.

“I’m worried about her, living alone. I’ve tried to tell her about the sheltered accommodation, but she’s too independent...”

She's a traumatised fourteen-year-old, I can understand why the teacher is worried :( The teacher feels like a good sort, like she wants to make things as right and as secure as possible for the kids in the settlement.

Once Hot Sauce said that she would do something, all you could do was wait for Hot Sauce to do it. She would not invite you to help, or ask your opinion. Hot Sauce’s failure to ask anyone’s opinion on anything she did was probably the reason she was the unquestioned authority in the school, over and above the teachers. Nona had told Palamedes about it and Palamedes had said, Lead researcher material, certainly.

*snort*

It was such a relief to be pretty, and to have the braids that Pyrrha had given her look so dark and juicy and glossy. Cam said her hair was drying up and she had white spots on her nails, but Nona couldn’t see it.

That sounds like malnourishment bbygirl. And I wonder if there is a reason for her vanity?

The Angel looked less like an angel than ever that morning. Nona always liked the science teacher’s face, which was sort of snub-nosed and thin and crinkly around the eyes, but that morning she was frankly untidy. She was a gallant little person of fortyish who gave the impression that she had learnt a lot early in life and discovered late that it was no real good to her or anyone else. This lent her teaching a weightless, secretive feeling, like it was really all for fun at the end of the day. She liked to wear button-up shirts, often with suspenders to hold up the trousers, and a dust jacket to keep her clothes neat walking through the city; but that morning her shirt looked like yesterday’s shirt and her face looked like yesterday’s face - careworn, with her freckles fading into the background of her skin. All of the Angel was tinted in soft greys and browns, but she had delicious reddish freckles scattered on her cheeks and nose which added life and vivacity to her face; not so much today. As Nona led the tiny by hand into the classroom, Hot Sauce had paused on integers to say, “Good morning, sir,” which caused a reverberation around the classroom of equally respectful Good morning sir - Good mornings; but the Angel’s answering “Good morning, everyone” was distinctly pallid.

Not a description that rings a bell, but that doesn't mean much.

Sometimes Pyrrha went out late at night and came back smelling like alcohol, and Camilla would say nothing at all, but if Palamedes was there he would say, “Really, Pyrrha?” and Pyrrha would just say, “Really, Sextus,” and then the next morning she would be walking in that same rumpled, weary fashion - though Nona thought she exaggerated it for effect. Nothing Pyrrha drank could really hurt her. She had even drunk the contents of the bleach bottle once. When Palamedes had asked why, Pyrrha said she had realised she wasn’t used to being tortured while immortal and wanted to get a head start, and Palamedes said bullshit because he thought Nona had not been listening.

Oh Pyrrha ;_;

Beautiful Ruby, perhaps buoyed by being that day’s fruit recipient, held out cupped hands for the foodstuff in question and said: “Hey, you don’t look so well lately, Nona. You look kind of sick.”

Everyone turned to look at Nona, who writhed beneath this judgement, and they agreed that she had not looked well for, like, weeks. “I do,” she said indignantly. “Look at my braids—I look wonderful,” which thankfully replaced their worry with a group effort to squash her vanity. They often took it in turns to squash Nona’s vanity, which never worked. Beautiful Ruby, the best-looking out of them all and therefore the authority on looks, had once said, “You got the face of a rat and the body of a dead person,” but Nona knew she was beautiful and was complacent about it. Even if they all assured her that she was nothing to write home about, she could say, “Who cares? I can’t write,” and then they had to switch tack and squash her for being proud that she was so goddamned stupid. Nona quite liked this really; it made her feel like she belonged. They were all proud of her stupidity, in the same way that they were proud of Honesty’s rampant crimes and of Hot Sauce being the most important person in the universe.

Kids are mean :-\

When the class teacher clapped her hands together and announced the Hour of Science, which meant Nona was about to get the Hour of Noodle, Hot Sauce dawdled behind. She looked Nona dead in the eye, the ripples of her burns making pretty ridges up and down one cheek, and she said - “You’re right.”

“That I’m beautiful?” said Nona.

“No. About the Angel. The Angel’s worried.”

“Okay,” said Nona.

“Stay on the grounds today,” said Hot Sauce. “When you take Noodle.”

Yeah, something going on for sure.

5

Chapter image - Ninth House skull.

The pencil had been put down. The eyes had shadowed into earthen greys. “Crown,” said Palamedes pleasantly, “isn’t our friend right now. Okay, take that smallest piece there and try rolling it in your fingers. Feel all the little indentations in that scooped-out portion.”

“I love Crown,” Nona protested, giving the smallest bone a desultory grope.

“Why do you love Crown?”

Nona thought about it.

“She has lovely hair. And when she hugs you she smells like cinnamon, and her breasts feel nice, and she’s so big and pretty.”

Palamedes looked at her, and then he took the notepad out of Camilla’s capacious pockets. Nona despaired: there was always a tick somewhere if she mentioned breasts. “That’s not exactly love as I would classify it,” he said. “That’s simply a list of things most red-blooded human beings like about Crown. How do you know what cinnamon smells like, Nona?”

Hey, I wonder if the list is a fake-out? We see Nona referring to 'Crown' and assume that's Corona, and we see the BoE name 'Crown Him With Many Crowns', and assume that's Corona too, but is it actually? (Or am I just overthinking? XD)

“Do we still like the Captain?” (Even Nona couldn’t quite love the Captain.)

“I pity the Captain to the very depths of my heart, and never did like her much,” said Palamedes. “I pity Crown not at all, and like her terribly; that’s the problem. Why don’t you try to make that end smooth?”

Poor Judith :-\

“Why is it that the blue light in the sky hurts - other people,” said Nona, “but not you and Cam?”

She had asked this upward of a dozen times, especially lately, but Palamedes always answered unhesitatingly no matter how many times he had been asked before. “She’s got the wrong kind of body. She and I can cheat... for now... draw on me, not her, for the unusual kinds of things that I do, with the downside being that our time is very limited. If I was in her body for too long, I’d hurt her and the blue light would start to hurt me. But in summary, nothing will hurt Camilla so long as I stick to the time limit. Make sense?”

So Cam-Pal are immune to Varun because Cam's body isn't a necromancer's body, and Pal isn't in control long enough for it to pick up on his soul.

“I think so,” said Nona, and deciding: “Yes. That’s a relief... I wouldn’t want anything to hurt Camilla. I love Camilla.”

“And why do you love Camilla?”

Nona struggled with this a little. It was like asking why you breathed air.

“I love the way she moves,” she said pitifully.

He said, “Me too.”

“Do you miss seeing her?”

“Dreadfully. But the recordings are nice.”

Babies :(

“Is the blue light going to start hurting Pyrrha, Palamedes?”

Another question she had begun asking again. Camilla said it was anxiety. Palamedes said gently, “No. She’s immune to the blue light and it’s not going to start hurting her. She’s got the right type of body to be hurt by it, but the wrong soul. She was made to be immune to the blue light.”

Other way around for Pyrrha. She does have a necromancer's body, but a non-necro's soul permanently in the driver's seat. She's fine.

“So do I have the wrong kind of body, or the wrong kind of soul?”

This was the only question Palamedes ever hesitated on.

“We don’t know. We were worried that the blue light was hurting you when you first came to us, but you’re fine. This could mean that you’re like Pyrrha, and that you’re immune because your soul is protecting your body. But... there are a lot of factors, Nona.”

“Is that why - Blood of Eden don’t want me?”

“Oh, they want you,” said Palamedes. “They want you very badly. Look - are you scared by the conversation Pyrrha and I had this morning?”

“Not really. I mean, I know things are getting worse,” she said, wanting to sound worldly. “I know I’m not fixed and we only have a few more months to fix me, and who knows what’s going to happen in the meanwhile. But I’m not scared of We Suffer. I like We Suffer.”

Palamedes quirked Cam’s eyebrows in the way that meant he was amused.

“Just because the commander gave you a sweet the once?”

Lots of questions still there. Hopefully Varun leaves her be!

“In another time and in different circumstances I would also have liked We Suffer,” said Palamedes. “Hell, I might have liked all of Ctesiphon Wing. Right now though... Tidy up the bones, let’s stop for today.”

Ooh okay, We Suffer is Ctesiphon Wing. So we have: We Suffer, associated with Ctesiphon Wing, the Wakers (presumably associated with the memory of Wake), Merv has 'the glue', and Unjust Hope leads the Hopers. And mentioned in the extra-stuff memo but not in the book so far, along with Merv, are Tartessus and Suva.

“Sometimes,” she found herself saying, quite meditatively for her, “I don’t like it when you do - the necromancy word -” (“You just said it,” said Palamedes) “- but it feels nice at the same time. It’s mixed up. It’s like when you do that, it makes me sad - not sad that you did it, but sad that you can do it. Did I say something wrong?” Nona added in a rush, seeing Palamedes’s face.

“No,” he said, gently, after a moment. “I don’t understand yet, that’s all. Not even a little. I have so much to learn in the ways of not understanding.”

I get the feeling he doesn't like not understanding. Also, ow.

“Time’s up,” he said. “Give this to Cam for me, will you?”

And he spread Nona’s fingers like he always did, and he quietly kissed the second right-hand knuckle.

Nona always paid so much more attention to the lessons of the hand and the mouth than she did to the lessons of the bone and the sword: they were significantly more interesting. With the bone and the sword she faintly got the impression that she was being read a boring bit out of the newspaper, or one of the two-for-one books Pyrrha sometimes bought from the back of somebody’s truck. Whenever she was read to from one of these she was asleep in minutes. But she was good at this, whatever this was; she didn’t even know; nobody would give her the words, and she didn’t have them herself. The first time Palamedes had asked her to do it, quite a long time ago, and the first time she had raised Camilla’s hand to her mouth and done it—pretty much exactly as Palamedes had, making the same shape as his mouth had done like she did when speaking languages, and touching the same way as his hands had touched—Camilla had looked at her, and then she had gone away to sit in the bath by herself in the dark for almost an hour, even though there hadn’t been any water in the bath.

Now when Nona waited for Camilla’s eyes to clear, and she lifted up Camilla’s hand to press her mouth to it, all Camilla said was, “Thanks.” And she almost didn’t flinch.

;_; Here, have an art.

6

Chapter image - Seventh House skull.

Down at the local dairy

They were mentioned before but I do love the mention of the dairies. Really grounds this as being from a Kiwi writer XD

“Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

It was the first time ever that Camilla had asked that question. It was such an abundantly awful question to ask. The silence drew out between them in a way that made the tips of Nona’s ears feel hot. It felt as though it lasted a very long time.

Then - “Yes,” said Nona, faintly.

Poor kiddo.

“You haven’t wanted stories in a while. Said you were too sophisticated.”

“That was because Beautiful Ruby made fun of me when I said what I did to get to sleep,” said Nona.

That had been early on. It hadn’t even been that Beautiful Ruby hurt her feelings; it was that the others had shushed him immediately and Honesty had said in a much louder voice than was necessary, “Shut up, lad, Nona can do kiddie things if she wants to,” which was a much better way of letting her know she was being an appalling baby. And Hot Sauce had looked at her in a way she really hadn’t liked.

Yeah, I feel the kids are definitely working under the assumption that she has an intellectual disability or trauma-related repression or something.

Camilla’s curt, sweet, low voice took on the tones of recital: “We met you when the Warden saved you, after you were hurt.”

Nona supplied, “And it was the first time he showed he could do things like that because he didn’t have a body, and you were amazed,” and Camilla said, “Who’s telling this, me or you?”

Nona subsided. Camilla said, “It was the first time. He and I... were trying to talk. He was stuck, not having a body that talked. At the time we knew you were in trouble. You’d disappeared. We’d been trying to get you. We found you and Pyrrha. You were hurt. Pyrrha helped us escape from an attack. We lost people. Ships. Something very important. But we got you away, and we wanted to keep you. Other people said no. But you didn’t know what was happening. You weren’t a threat to anyone. Neither was Pyrrha. But not many people believed me, or the Warden. Many people said you were too dangerous.”

So, after escaping the River - Pyrrha emerges with Harrow's unconscious body straight into the midst of chaos. Pal, at this point, is probably still just in his hand bones, but is still able to use necromancy enough to heal Harrow's body. What they lost, 'something very important' - Gideon's body, maybe?

Nona said, “And everyone paid attention to We Suffer, who said, ‘I trust them. They will not betray us.’”

“Yes... back then We Suffer trusted us. We Suffer even let Pyrrha live. Pyrrha talked fast. Then I found a way for the Warden to come back. That was a relief. He wanted to evoke the break clause... which means, he wanted his family away from the Houses. You weren’t awake yet. You only woke up for very short periods and you couldn’t speak properly. We looked after you. The Warden convinced the Oversight Body, convinced the Sixth House to come with us. We showed them the secret of the installation. We helped them find a stele that would anchor such a big thanergy transition... which means, we helped them move. Then the Warden picked sixteen people to talk with Blood of Eden. To discuss the future. You were waking up. You met me for the first time.”

Nona said, “What did you think of me?” knowing the answer.

“I thought I didn’t know you at all. You were new.”

We Suffer steps up. She already knows Cam, Corona, and Judith, so once Pyrrha talks fast, We Suffer might let Cam take custody of them, maybe? Cam and Pal work out Perfect Lyctorhood, as much as they can, and try to evacuate the Sixth. Nona starts to wake up.

“And we lived here and I got better and Pyrrha went out to work and you taught me how to speak. And then things went wrong.”

That had been a hideous time.

Camilla said, “Yes. Then things went wrong. The light appeared. We found out Blood of Eden had lied to us... or at least, didn’t have the power to look after us anymore. That’s it.”

Got to the settlement. Varun shows up, things with BoE go south, possibly with the Sixth.

“I don’t understand why We Suffer hates Pyrrha.”

“Pyrrha’s best friend killed We Suffer’s boss.”

We Suffer might have had some sort of... intense relationship with Wake?

“Why did you want to take your families away from the other place?”

“We didn’t feel we could be there anymore... not until we really understood what we were doing, morally. The Warden is our leader, and our families listened to what he had to say. We voted on it... made promises we couldn’t keep.”

Camilla’s voice was bitter. Nona was sorry.

BoE broke promises to do with protecting the Sixth, probably. Didn't help keep them safe.

She heard Camilla breathing and felt nearly completely at peace, happy despite everything. Sometimes it was hard not to be happy; sometimes it was so difficult when everyone else had that hard, hurt look at the corners of their eyes that meant they didn’t quite know how to carry on: the men at the dairy, Pyrrha, Palamedes, the nice lady teacher at school, Kevin.

;_;

When she was 90 percent asleep, she heard the door very quietly unlatch and close. Then she counted, and at the end of five counts there was Pyrrha at the door saying, “Ah, my darling hearts, my sleeping babes, Daddy’s own treasures,” and Camilla saying without opening her eyes, “Go to bed. I just got her to sleep.”

Nona fell asleep and was happy.

<3 An art!

John 5:20

On to the new stuff!!

IN THE DREAM, she said, “But that’s it? They shut you down - it was over?”

[...]

He sat down on a patch of brown grass and laughed a little, and said, “Beloved, it wouldn’t be over - it wouldn’t begin - for a year.”

The 'Beloved' is pretty interesting.

A- was panicking because our kill-fee money was suddenly worth nothing and what if the banks crashed and that nothing went too? C- was panicking because with the project over she was getting recalled to England and didn’t want to go, she’d got N- and didn’t want to leave her, refused to admit they were dating even though we all knew. M- was panicking because we had a health board and someone from Energy coming to talk about shutdown and what the hell were we going to do with all the dead bodies we’d collected to test on?

Oh yeah, C- is definitely Cassiopeia, because her cavalier was Nigella. Also I kind of love that Augustine is panicking over the economy, Cass is panicking over being separated from her girlfriend, and meanwhile Mercy is just, "SHIT, GOT TOO MANY CORPSES."

I didn’t have to worry about the public or the media—we had a pet cop, P-. She’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD. Knew G- from way back, and G- and I were both hometown boys, so P- kept the heat down for us. We got a lot of attention at first because they wanted someone to blame, wanted to rubberneck, wanted to write up think pieces about it. Wanted to know who we were. M- and A- could’ve walked into new jobs in a heartbeat but I was irradiated, I’d never work in the industry again. I sure as hell wouldn’t be allowed to work on anything else to do with you. I told M- and A- to go and that I’d shut up shop, but they wouldn’t leave me. None of them left me.

Pyrrha, you were a cop? :( Gideon was also from Auckland. "I sure as hell wouldn't be allowed to work on anything else to do with you." You = Alecto = Earth = climate science?

The only way out was to dump the population on an exoplanet. The cryo cans would have let us get everyone to Tau Ceti in my lifetime.

Tau Ceti is the same class as the sun, and only twelve light years away. You could reasonably get there even with (still blindingly fast) sublight transport.

He said: I wasn’t panicking with the rest of them. I know I should’ve been. But I wasn’t. I kept working on the plan even without backing. Kept refining the canister mixture. It was like I knew more every day about how it should work, what the little niggles were. I was having six breakthroughs a day. They’d all expected me to go nuts. A- kept saying, Are you sleeping, are you okay, are you taking any Class As, you know you can tell me. But I wasn’t taking anything. I was sleeping like a baby. I was looking at those guys on the slab and something in me was like, I know you, I know this.

He said, Told M- that. Huge mistake. She was like, Oh my God, you’re drinking, aren’t you. You’re on amphetamines. You are on coke. You are on amphetamines and coke. I was all, Yeah... Coke Zero. She didn’t laugh. I laughed.

He said, I guess I’ve always thought any pun was automatically funny.

I hate that I find that relatable. Anyway. Emerging necromantic abilities?

I went around to everyone, talking to my favourites - I know it was weird having favourites, but let’s bloody face it, I’d gone weird -

And how XD;;

not even saying goodbye, just saying it’ll be fine, hang on for me, kia kaha, kia māia.

'Be strong, be brave.'

No dice. They shut down our power to the vats one night, one minute after six. We were all there, waiting, when they turned them off.

He fell silent, and she prompted - “What happened, Lord?”

He smiled out over the hillside, over the flat plains and the twisted rubbish, a strange fleeting thing with teeth.

“Most of the bodies got the melt, like we thought they would,” he said. “Damaged beyond repair. Their brains liquefied almost immediately. But, Harrow... all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved... they stayed incorrupti

That's it that's where the chapter ends. He's a necromancer!

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth spoilers #ry reads the locked tomb

[hopelesstaemintic]

The Art of War (Ao3versary requests 1)

I did it, I made my own deadline (just)! Here is the first of my five standalone Ao3versary request fics. This Haechan, enemies to lovers, workplace, fluffy-smut was requested by my lovely twitter moot @val0461 and I hope I did it justice. I originally said I would limit these to 500 words (cue hysterical laughter)... I wrote nearly 5000.

Details, preview and link to full fic all below as usual. Enjoy ☺️

Status:

complete (6/02/23), 4,349 words, one chapter.

Summary:

The new guy in the office drives you insane in every way possible. Little do you know you that he is also determined to make you his own.

Relationships:

Haechan/female reader

Tags:

f/m, female reader, older woman/younger man, enemies to lovers, workplace relationship, workplace sex, oral sex, vaginal sex, praise kink, Sun Tzu's art of war, mild jealousy, protected sex

Link to full work

Preview:

And just like that everything goes quiet. The silence hums through the meeting room like a particularly irate wasp trapped in a glass. This was not the way you had intended to start your Monday morning and you'll be damned if you have your week derailed this early.

"And what, pray tell, would be your suggestion?"

While the majority of your colleagues choose that moment to strategically focus intently on their laptops, a few daring eyes flick from you to the source of the tension: Lee Haechan, aka the thorn in your professional side since he was hired three months ago. He's leant forward, both elbows on the table and hands folded under his chin, a pencil woven between the fingers of one hand. His brown wavy hair falls in soft curls over his forehead until he brushes it back and tilts back in his chair. Smug git.

"Oh, I don't have one, I just don't think the ideas we've got so far will work. I vote we take the week to think about it and then reconvene with fresh eyes on Friday"

He smiles back at you like he hasn't just undermined your entire agenda and set your project back several days. The worst part about it is he is right. The current event plan was rushed and everyone including you knows it. He's always right. I can't stand this.

"Fine. One week." You nod to signal the end of the meeting, lingering for a while to finish typing up the minutes in the general milling about as people leave the room.

It takes you a few seconds to realise not everyone has left. Doyoung, your team leader, has come over and is leaning on the edge of the table to your right. Also, for some unfathomable reason, Haechan is still loitering smugly across from you in his leather chair. It's childish but you shoot him death glare before looking up and acknowledging Doyoung with a dazzling smile.

"Hey, what's up?"

Doyoung returns the smile but looks nervous for once, hand fiddling with his collar and not quite able to look you in the eye. His glasses have slipped slightly down his nose and you have to fight the urge to reach up and straighten them. He’s cute when he is disheveled.

"Oh, not much. I was just wondering if you wanted to grab a drink tonight… you know, to come up with new ideas."

Ah. You'd suspected Doyoung had had a crush on you for a little while but he hadn't been forward enough about it yet for you to politely turn him down. Not that you didn't think he was attractive. His long dark eyelashes had rendered you unfocused in more than one meeting. If his timing had been better, who knows? You just aren't the kind of woman to juggle multiple men at once.

"Sorry, Doyoung-ssi, I'm busy tonight. I'll pop in a half hour for us later in the week, you free Thursday afternoon?"

"Oh, okay, sure. You're coming to the team dinner Friday though right? I'll save you a seat."

You don't give up easy do you?

You settle for a neutral "I'll be there." and hope you haven't led him on. You also don’t want to spoil your good working relationship so you make sure to give him a friendly wave as he packs up and leaves. His gummy smile when he pushes up his glasses and walks out the door almost has you regretting your life choices. Almost.

The moment the door clicks shut behind Doyoung you drop your smile and pointedly return to your laptop. You try to focus so you can get done and go for lunch but the passive aggressive buzz of tension from the opposite end of the table has only increased.

"You two are friendly."

You roll your eyes at this, unwilling to stoop to Haechan’s level.

"We are polite and professional. Perhaps you should follow his example."

"Professional? Is that what you elder-millenials call it?"

That's it. You officially have zero fucks left to give and the way Haechan emphasised the word "elder" has sent you over the edge. Your work-mask slips off entirely and you slam your laptop shut. Haechan finally registers your anger and has sense to sit up straight and wipe the smirk off his face. You don't shout, you are far beyond that level of mad, instead your voice is quiet and ice-cold:

"I wouldn't expect an attention seeking child who interrupts his superiors to understand. Now, do you need me here to listen to your wingeing or am I free to go and completely rewrite the proposal that you so graciously torpedoed 10 minutes ago?"

"I…" for a split second it looks like he might apologise, but his ego gets in the way "It's not my fault the first one sucked." His words are arrogant but he's lost his earlier swagger. You just hold him with a look of disdain as you pack up your things and move to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To get some work done. You are welcome to stay here and continue to sit your smugness. I hardly think you need me as an audience.” Shaking your head a little in despair you walk out the door, leaving Haechan alone and suddenly a little smaller in the empty room. Your only consolation from the exchange is the way you feel his eyes linger on your ass as you walk away.

Continue reading here!

Enjoy this work? leave a like or reblog - every single one is appreciated. If you want to read more you can find links and descriptions to everything in my master list

#haechan x reader #nct smut #smut and fluff #nct x female reader #fluff and smut #ao3 anniversary #nct imagines #workplace relationships #older women and younger men #nct fanfic

[thatepilepticfriend]

I just finished writing my first ever fic! thought I’d post it here (even if no one cares lol)  

The Trade Network

Summary : We all know that during Nico's travels he has met and even befriended the most random creatures and even some gods and titans. And he was the one who discovered the Romans first.

Taking advantage of the fact that he somehow knows EVERYONE, Nico has started up a trade network between the cultures. A sort of Mythology Black market being run by a 15-year-old.

“Chapter 1” - an introduction

 Nico leans against the shelves of boxes filled with extra camp shirts and tote bags in the dim back room of the Camp Store flicking through a pack of Mythomagic cards he had grabbed off of a nearby shelving unit. On the floor nearby Connor Stoll has opened and is looking through a cardboard box filled with a variety of trinkets and books. He looks up over towards Nico “send thanks next time you pass by the Sumerian Pagans over in Toronto, this is some good stuff. It’ll sell for sure, especially with Cabin 6.”  Conner gets a thumbs up in reply followed by “I’ve got one more delivery to deal with that should be dealt with by the end of the day, but after that this is everything for the month.”

As Nico leaves the Camp Store he gives a wave to Miranda who gives him a curt nod from behind the store counter. Stepping outside he see’s Will waiting for him, “you guys really shouldn’t be doing this” Will says once Nico is standing beside him. “We’re just providing the campers with merchandising that would be otherwise unavailable to them, really Solace what is wrong with that?” Nico replies as the two make their way to the infirmary. Just as Will is going to make a retort to his boyfriend's statement 3 campers he recognizes from Cabins 11 and 17 jog up to where they are at the entrance of the infirmary. “You have next month's store request form then?” Nico asks, “yup” the girl in middle replies as she pulls out a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and hands it over before the 3 run off towards the volleyball court.

“Ok, seriously” Will says exasperated “how many people do you and Miranda have involved in this trade?!”

 “Chapter 2” 

Will stands in the doorway of the Hades Cabin while inside Nico is tossing a variety of currencies, an energy drink and other nik-naks into a side bag with a large rectangular  box on the floor next to him. “I’m not coming with you Nico, ok.” “Ok, so our first stop is Puebla to get some old astrological mapping systems …. How's your spanish?” “I just said I’m not going!” Nico sighs and tosses the bag he was packing onto his bunk, he swings his arm over Will’s shoulder and walks him into the cabin. “Look William, I’ve already arranged with Connor to have Harley cover your general lack of presence for the day.” “You guys are completely insane. And who is ‘covering’ your temporary disappearance then?”  “Who, me?” questions Nico, “The second word people use to describe me after ‘creepy’ is ‘runaway’, I don’t need to worry about people wondering where I am if they haven’t seen me for a couple hours.” Nico then goes and grabs the bag off of his bunk, swings it over his shoulders, with a grunt, picks up the box on the ground and grabs Will's arm as he walks into a shadow in the corner of the room saying “now come on we have a schedule to keep with”.

‘“Chapter 3”

As the two stepped out of the shadow, they entered an alleyway beside a series of looming buildings. The sound of a big city all around them, Nico temporarily put down the box he had brought with them and grabbed one of the energy drinks from his bag. He had already chugged about half of the can before Will spoke up “well it’s clearly too late to not be involved, so mind telling me where we are? Or maybe why are we here?”  Nico raised his eyebrow as he looked in Will’s direction. “Were you even listening? I’ve got a whole 3 way trade underway and this is the first stop.” Nico picks the large box up off the ground again and continues, “but…. We’re in Puebla”,  “wait Mexico!” Will says in a panicked voice. “Well yeah, I did ask how your Spanish was? We could have also been going to Spain I suppose…” Will just stares at him for a minute as a car horn blares in the background “I had thought your guys’ little out of pocket store was just between Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood?” 

Nico gives a little laugh and starts walking from the back of the alley towards the sidewalk, motioning with his head for will to follow behind him. “Oh William, that’s hilarious, no this is much much bigger than that.” “Ok then” Will following slowly behind begins, “so we’re in Puebla. Now, who is it that we are going to see?” After a few more paces they turn a corner to face a large apartment building. “The Mayans, not actually sure what we’re picking up today. But Sadie Kane from the Brooklyn House has been in contact with Bonaventura Escarcega, one of the main kids that run the show in town. And all I know is what l need to bring in order to get the final package from Brooklyn.” With that Nico pushed open the door into the lobby and walked into the apartment complex swinging the door behind him. Only just barely not hitting Will in the face as he made his way quickly in behind Nico. 

“Chapter 4 - Xamaiqinqu patron god of merchants and travelers

The lobby of the apartment building was surprisingly large, white tiled floor, white and gold walls, fluorescent lights shining down, black leather couches scatered around the room and 3 sleek silver elevators side by side on the back wall. But what really stuck out was the grand wrap around hotel style desk in the middle of the lobby with a short man in a rather elaborately bejeweled jacket standing behind said desk. 

Nico dropped the box he was holding with a thud beside Will and walked up leaning on the desk casually saying, “we have a meeting in office 12 at 2:30.” The man blinks at him and slowly drawls out “I’m afraid you must have the wrong address. This is an apartment complex not an office building”. That got him a are you serious look from Nico “an apartment building that no lives in longer than 2 weeks at a time? I know it’s you xamaiqinqu, I’ve got a trade deal with ‘tura. You really gonna stop a trade from happening? That’s like your whole thing.” The man sighed and rummaged through a drawer in the desk. “I suppose, you have built up a reputable reputation. But who's that other guy?” Nico turns around to see Will standing awkwardly beside the large box that had been placed on the floor. “Oh that’s just my boyfriend Will, you don’t need to worry about him”

Xamaniqinqu tosses Nico what looks like a security pass that he had pulled out from under the desk and tells them to “take the far right elevator to floor 5.”  Nico picks up the crate once again and the two make their way to elevator. Once inside with only Taylor Swifts shake it off playing quietly in the background Will looks over and finally asks, “ok who was that guy, and why does he remind me of Mr. D?” Nico shifts how he’s standing. “To answer the second question, I think it is just a result of being forced into a job that causes you to be grumpy. And for the first, that was Xamaniqinqu the Mayan patron god of merchants and travelers.”

A ding and temporary stop to the T Swift tells them they have reached the 5th floor. As they exit the elevator into the hallway they can clearly see office room 12 in front of them. A large golden double door at the end of the hallway with the number 12 engraved into the door in a shiny red. Walking up to the door Nico takes out the pass he had been given at the front desk and inserts it into a small key slot to the right of the entrance. A loud click can be heard and the door swings open. 

“Chapter 5 - the first trade off”

Office room 12 was not as glorious on the inside as it seemed on the outside. A typical board room, it consisted of a large table that had an array of papers and scrolls scattered all over it. with 15~ faded black office chairs scattered around. 3 large windows on the side wall faced out onto the bustling of the big city below.  But what or who they came for where the 2 young pre-teens standing on stools in front of a giant white board that spread over an entire wall, playing what seemed to be their 17th game of hangman. 

Taking a step inside Nico leans towards the table and nocks on it with his fist, causing the tweens by the board to turn around suddenly. The slightly younger looking boy being smacked in the face by the girl as they look towards the door.  “Afternoon Bonaventura, Nora” Nico said, giving a little wave and elongating his words before walking over to the table before dropping the box they had brought with them onto the table one last time. “Heyyyyyy!!! You made it, good to see you again long time no see ya know?” Said Bonaventura, the 12 year old’s words coming out at the speed of light as he bounced up and down on his toes.

 Having walked towards the table the older girl, presumably Nora, started picking at the cardboard box. “You brought everything than?” she questioned not turning around, still looking throughout the box sitting on the table. “Have I ever disappointed during a trade, yeah it’s all in there. 23 slates of celestial bronze and 14 of imperial gold.” Stepping away from the table Nora calls to her bouncing companion “Alright then ‘tura, you want to gather up the those maps for Chicago.” As the smaller kid started packing up all the papers and scrolls that had been scattered on the table, Will cautiously walked up besides Nico looking around him before asking “where did you get all that metal, surly the Hephestus wouldn’t let you take that much celestial bronze from the forge?” Getting only raised eyebrows and a look that can only be described as saying oh but wouldn’t they in response Will sighs “Leo let you take it didn’t he, he’s involved as well?” “Good to see you’re catching on.”

With that Bonaventura came up to them holding a cloth bag full of scrolls and file folders. “Now make sure they take extreme care of these things over at the Brooklyn house” he urges, “some of these planetary maps are over 3 thousand years old.” “Yeah yeah” Nico mumbles as he hands off the bag to Will. 

Saying their goodbyes to the young teens the boys make their way back down to the building lobby. Xamaniqinqu sat a stool that definitely wasn’t there when they entered the building, working on what seemed to be a crossword puzzle. When Nico went to toss the security pass he had been given back onto the front desk, Xamaniqinqu looked up briefly. Picking the pass up he held back out to Nico “keep it why don’t ya, I suppose you’ve proven your trustworthy by now.” Looking a little surprised Nico gives him a little smile and nod while taking the badge from the patron god. With that Will and Nico leave the skyrise to be greeted with the sounds of city traffic and streets lined with a mixture of tall buildings and storefronts. 

“Chapter 6 - A different side of New York”

Walking down the sidewalk for a few minutes they turned down a different sidestreet than where they had originally come from before taking a turn into a shadowy alleyway. Nico turned to Will who was carrying the bag filled with papers, threw his arm around Will’s shoulder and took a step into the shadows of the brick alley saying “next stop, a different side of New York.”

They came out of the shadows on the steps of what could only be described as a mansion. “Wow” was all Will could manage as he looked up at the large house that loomed in font of them. “Welcome to the Brooklyn house” Nico said as he rapped on the front door rather loudly. “So if Puebla housed the Mayan gods, than who’s in Brooklyn?” Questioned Will as they waited for someone to answer the door. “A few Magicians this is the 21st Nome, though they are scattered all around the main hub is the House of Life underground the Cairo airport.” “Well I guess that’s not any weirder than Camp funding itself by fronting as a Strawberry Farm” commented Will in reply just as the door swung open to reveal a teenage girl who definitely was not dressed as though she lived in a giant mansion. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to show, well come on in. Though I suppose a vampire like yourself needs to be specifically invited don’t you. Come welcome into my home”  Her voice dripping with sarcasm by the end of the sentence. The pair entered, Nico shaking his head the whole time “ seriously, how many times do we have this conversation Sadie. I am not a vampire!” Laughing she went over and lightly punched Will in the shoulder saying “than why do you dress and act like one huh?” 

As they continued to walk through the house Will spotted another few kids and teens scurrying around, one particularly young kid even seemed to be chasing after a penguin. When they finally made their way back to the houses Library. Again if it even really could be called a ‘house’, Nico took the bag Will had been carrying from him and handed it over to Sadie. “Here this is all of them, now I given instructions to inform you to make sure to take extra care of these ones due to there age.” As she carefully looked through the contents of the bag Sadie gave him a glance in response that one could tell even without words meant do you think I’m stupid. 

After looking through the bag and finding the contents adequate Sadie placed it gently on a woden table to the side. Turning over to the boys she motioned them to follow her “Walt brought these down earlier” they approach a back wall with a desk and office like set up. Sitting in the middle of the seemingly hand carved elaborate redwood desk, on top of a mountain of papers all written in Egyptian hieroglyphics was a small gold box with jewel detailing all around it. As Nico went to pick up the box and put it into his backpack Sadie grabbed his hand. “Now wait, if anything you need to be careful with these. You sure you and your people know what to do with them?” she asked. This got her the same do you think I’m stupid look that Nico had been given earlier. As Nico was putting the container into his bag however Will slowly raised his hand “umm actually I have no idea what is in that box or what I would do with it”. Nico looked at him like are you serious, “don’t worry about him Sadie he’s not going to be using them, and I’ll make sure everyone who does gets a full run down.” The blonde gave a sigh before saying “ok, but I’m not taking any legal responsibilities for anything that might happen. If you use them wrong. Now get out of my house before I either change my mind or my brother finds out I’ve got use involved in a cross mythos Trading scheme. We’re already on thin ice with the House of Life.” 

“Chapter 7 - the drop off” 

After Sadie sends the two back on their way to camp in fear that her older brother Carter might return from his outing with two of the students Shelby and Julien at any moment. With the golden box safely tucked away inside Nico’s backpack the boys arrive at the edge of the North Woods of camp just before 4:30. Done with the fiasco of the day Will and Nico split ways, with Will giving Nico the very legitimate reasoning for running off of “I need to go make sure everyone finished their chores today. You know Austin, would rather spend his day playing the guitar than make his bed….” and dashing off in the direction of the Cabins. 

Shaking his head and giving a little sigh, Nico started his way across the camp and up towards The Big House. 

Finally arriving up at the house, he began making his way through the Big House and quickly Nico made his way to the the Camp Store. When getting to the store Miranda could be found working behind the counter. Barely looking up from the papers she was dealing with, which from the looks of it they were another report of an attempted break in from Conner, and gave him a slight nod before going back to her work. 

Shrugging his backpack off and lifting it up onto the counter, Nico tried to Casually look around to see if anyone who might call them out was in the store. Seeing only Harley in the back corner, who was too distracted by the comic stand that had recently been brought in from New Rome to even notice that Nico had entered the store. He slowly pulled out the shiny chest from his bag, sliding it across the surface of the counter towards Miranda. As she quietly grabbed the chest and discreetly put it away under the counter neither making eye contact. Nico than swung the backpack back over his shoulder, grabbed an energy drink from the cooler beside the counter, paid 2 drachmas and then quickly made his way out of the store. 

And started strolling down to the cabins, getting ready for Ancient Greek at 5 before Chiron noticed was anything off. 

Chapter 8 - the finale 

The next morning as per usual Nico spent breakfast sitting alongside Will and the rest of his siblings at the cabin 7 table ‘per doctors orders’ of course. Nico having finally managed to convince Will that everything was completely fine after having an argument that was more sarcastic remarks than anything, but Nico ended up ‘winning’ Will over with the argument of,

“I mean we get sent on these life threatening quests, and fight in wars. Whats wrong with a little bartering between acquaintances?”   

As campers slowly started to filter out of the Dining Pavilion of the course of the next half hour as they finished breakfast and made their way to various morning activities, Nico noticed Harley Davidson one of the younger campers from the Hephestus cabin weaving through the various tables towards where the Apollo cabin was eating. Clearly nervous, which was strange for the in Nico’s opinion slightly deranged child who had come up with genius idea of sending them into the labyrinth for fun and games. Shuffling right up to Nico Harley looked around nervously before informing him that 

“Chiron wants to talk with you up at the Big House during your Foraging for Survival 101 session.”  Given fact that he confused Baneberries for Cranberries just last week mixed with the look in the kid’s eyes told Nico, that Chiron didn’t want to meet up at the Big House to inform him that his identification of edible plants was so good that he didn’t need to take the sessions anymore.

Will gives him a look of I told you so, and before leading his siblings off to their morning activities gives Nico a little hug and leaves him with “I’m not going to say it…. But I mean…. What did I say??”  Nico just glares at his boyfriend before starting the trek towards the House with Harley trailing behind him. 

As they approach the front porch of the Big House, Nico isn’t quite sure why the son of Hephestus is following him. At least why this one is, Leo he might understand a little more. He can see Chiron and Mr. D sitting waiting for him to arrive. It isn’t until he steps up onto the deck that he sees the aren’t alone, standing with her head down off to the side of the porch is Miranda Gardiner. 

“Glad you could join us Mr. di Angelo, I’ve noticed some interesting changes in stock at the store recently. I was wondering if perhaps you knew anything about it.” Before Chiron could continue Mr. D interrupted, “you know I don’t really see what the problem is. Mindy and Nico here were just exploring the world of business and showing their skills as budding entrepreneurs. Now what’s the harm in that? In fact I’m a tad proud of the annoying little beasts.” 

Giving only a disapproving sigh Chiron turned his attention back to the two teens that stood before him. Just as the teacher went to open his mouth to try and get to the bottom of the entirety of the scheme they, and perhaps whoever else was involved, had been conducting. And figure out how to move forwards. I mean could he really just let them continue? But at the same time in a way Mr. D was right they really hadn’t been doing anything wrong other than leaving camp without permission. And di Angelo did that all the time anyway. 

But just then, not aware of the fate he was running towards. Connor Stoll came dashing up to the Big House basically yelling, “Nico wait!! I think Chiron might have found one of our order sheets! He knows about the business, don’t say anything!!!” 

It’s right than that Connor sees everyone standing around the porch and he stops in place so fast Nico is convinced there will be skid marks under where he’s standing. 

“Uhhh, good morning Chiron how are you doing on this lovely day” Connor stammers out.  With a slight grin he answers simply “So thoughtful of you to join us Mr.Stoll.”

#PJO #Percy Jackon and the Olympians #nico di angelo #fanfiction #ao3 #fandom #will solace #i wrote a fanfiction #riordanverse

[d3a1h]

ᗩ TᖇIᑭ TO TᕼE ᕼᑌᗰᗩᑎ ᗯOᖇᒪᗪ!

Ft: the brothers

Warnings: none

˜”*°•.˜”*°• ★ •°*”˜.•°*”˜

It all started on a warm devildom morning at 6:02AM when Mammon charged into your room practically begging for you to wake up. You didn't need an alarm clock beacuse of Mammon and at times like this its inconvenient. As you finally began to wake up you soon realized he was still sat by the side of your bed. "Took ya long enough!" This took a while to sink in before you reply with a hazy "sorry..". From then on for what feels like hours (that was actually 20 minutes) he goes on about some trip to the human world that they are going on today. You wasn't paying attention really as you had more important things to think about.

Mammon dragged you out of bed and downstairs for breakfast explaining yet again that everything has to be done on time. The whole time you sit thinking 'since when was Mammon so organized?' until you reached downstairs.

As you arrived in the dining room, and everyone had greeted both you and occasionally Mammon you both took a seat. "Is it just me or does the food look better than usual?" You asked wondering if it came out rude or just plain obvious. "Mc are you feeling alright? It's nothing more than usual." Lucifer asked directly aimed at you. "I'm fine just.. nevermind" you respond with hoping he would understand and so he did.

Once everyone was finished and Beel woke up Belphie we were all told to get ready. He also added that I didn't need to worry about packing as he had already done so.

-25 minutes later-

Everyone had finished ages ago at this point other than Asmo and were wondering if they should check on you. Just as Lucifer was about to charge off you walked downstairs wearing a casual outfit. Joggers and a long sleeved shirt since its forecast to rain.

Once Asmo was downstairs too you all grabbed your bag's and left the house to head off to 'the Portal'

Everyone but you (and belphie beacuse he's asleep) are fighting over who gets to go first. "ENOUGH!" Exclaimed Lucifer clearly in a bad mood already. He opened the portal door and one by one you went in.

Wow the human world you hadn't seen this for over half a year now. It didn't even feel like home it was almost like a holiday!

Lucifer began to babble on about what we needed to do per usual when he mentioned you all need a partner to share with. As you can imagine everyone wanted to be your partner. Cruelly on the end he added that you would have your own room to prevent fights.

You all walked through the big city to find the hotel and finally after 50 minutes you did. As Lucifer booked you all in as if we were all kids we went off to our rooms. When you opened your door you found a small bedroom painted a cream colour. Well what did you expect it's only for a few nights?

-End

#obey me fluff #obey me scenarios #obey me x mc #obey me x you #obey me x reader #obey me #obey me brothers

[jmflowers]

Week of shoots

“Day 5” I managed to sleep on and off until about 2pm, so I felt much better heading into night two of the shoot. I had to pick people up downtown again, which was an hour drive from my place in Saturday traffic, so I left at about 3pm. Managed to get everyone to location for the 5pm call time.

Almost immediately, I was sent off on driving duties to pick up a few things, and then to grab one of the actors from a train station. By the time I was back, most of the set was dressed and lighting was nearly done, so shooting started shortly after.

The first half of the night felt painful, though. Imagine that phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen” but it’s a film set and they’re directors. No one had a clear vision and it just made for confusion, which had all of the actors antsy - especially the child actor whose first ever night shoot this was. We were aiming for lunch at 11pm, but at about 10:45pm they sent the actors back to holding to warm up and the creative team all stepped outside to argue “in private”. The rest of us who were not vital unless they were rolling slipped downstairs to holding and just hung out for the longest lunch I’ve ever been part of on a set - it was after midnight before we jumped back in. And, of course, the child actor had fallen asleep in the car during that time and we had to wake her back up.

So, there was the production at like 1am - all of us standing around in an abandoned convenience store, eating expired junk food and breathing in a ton of dust, watching as an 8 year old was being coaxed awake for a scene as she cried, “I don’t want to be here, I just want to go home.” And then her mom found packs of slime on the shelf, offered her one, and kiddo woke right back up to kill every. single. take. During a fight sequence, might I add. We had to wrap her by 4am, so her death scene coverage was shot and she was out of there by 3:45am.

Crazy.

There wasn’t much to do technically between takes and the DP only needed a spotter for camera movements a couple of times (one of which included me shoved back beside a bookcase, trying to hide from being in the shot when she whipped around), so I spent most of the time catering to the actors. It was cold in the building, since the heat wasn’t on, so I took their coats every time we were about to roll and then slipped them back on them each time we cut and reset to a new shot. Thank goodness I still had my set blankets in my car from my own shoots earlier in the week, as one of them ended up being best for wrapping up our child actor like a burrito without needing to care about if it was getting fake blood on it. One of the actors ended up hugging me goodbye before she left and they both thanked me profusely for taking care of them, which felt good. I think that’s the part of set I enjoy the most - just being able to help people. There’s such a humanness to watching someone perform at the top of their abilities in a setting like that and then to see them turn around and find comfort in a jacket or a bottle of water or a joke. It’s fun to be part of that, whether it’s with actors or creators.

We wrapped officially at about 5am and headed out shortly after putting everything away that we’d made a mess of. Said goodbyes to everyone - including the audio recordist that I’d worked with on another shoot last spring. I had to drive 4 people home, so we headed back into the city and I got everyone to their doorsteps before heading back to my own city. Pulled into my drive shortly before 7am and promptly showered off a lot of dirt before crashing into bed.

Day 6 was all about sleeping, for the most part, and just getting myself back off the nocturnal schedule. Slept until about 4:30pm, ate, went for a walk, watched a livestream concert, and was back in bed by about 10pm (trying to convince myself that I didn’t need to stay up all night again). Back to regular life and 8am classes the morning after, because that’s the way it goes.

All in all, I had a blast. It feels like hanging with friends when it’s a small crew and a lower budget. We talk about life and make jokes and mix up weird food concoctions in the middle of the night (like an oat milk and expired Kit Kat “hot chocolate” I tried to make in the microwave to warm up…). Mostly it’s all about eating Welch’s fruit snacks and making a movie. Can’t wait to see the finished product.

#film and television production life #and that’s a wrap on the week #time to dive back into post production at school #first night the joke was that I was there to supply pockets and rides #because of my PA cargo pants #second night the joke was that I was vying for MVPA status

[corndoggod]

A New Apartment

I almost feel like I’m back in Chicago. The wide screened windows at half mast, the smell of thunder seeping in, a big book in one hand and a tall beer in the other. And all is quiet. I’ve been getting up early too - before 6am - a habit I started the first summer I stayed in Chicago when everyone else decided to leave or go abroad, not that I had many friends anyway. It was one of the best summers in my life, largely because of my routine. I rose early with the sun to write for two to three hours before biking to my job where I watched the World Cup, read articles and researched recipes for dinner that evening. After work I bought a six-pack and went home to cook. I was in bed by 10pm. 

Yesterday I woke up to two mouthy sanitation workers and yelled down, “Thank you.” 

Today I woke up to Chicken meowing, only to realize later that she was thirsty, not hungry. 

I feel calm for the first time in a while. It’s been nice to be slow. Last night, C pried and I told her that ever since I got back from Nebraska I’ve felt out of sync with things, like I’ve been trying to slip back into the flow of things but can’t quite, as if I’m walking one inch off the ground. Normally I’m so consumed with day-to-day shit I suffer from tunnel vision. But it was nice to sit on shore for a bit and skip rocks and drink in the river from end to end. 

I listened to today’s episode of The Daily about people evacuating coastal cities due to the cost of living. And once again, I felt irritated. I was ready to leave, or thought I was, but I had just signed for a new place. I listened to the end, remembered to not race through life, and convinced myself that I was doing well in the city. I had a good job and my rent was below $1000. I lived on a quiet street a block from a park in a new neighborhood I was partially familiar with. 

I meandered from the kitchen where I took my coffee and yogurt and read. Then I ambled into the living room to read some more. Then I ran and rested my legs in bed before posting up in armchair to work. For seven years I had confined myself to my room, because I did not want to risk conversation or observation. But here I could move freely, and how nice it was to rotate around throughout the day. 

It was also great to be alone. I have never lived alone and I still don’t, but C was on Long Island for a paint job and I soaked it in. There were so many things I needed to do alone: bake salmon, catch up on Succession, read the final installment in The Three-Body Problem trilogy, diary, train for a marathon I just signed up for, an play Zelda, which I’d hel off on purchasing until after the move. 

Homeownership will come. Instead, I bought a tent for our upcoming road trip to Yellowstone, Wind Caves an the Grand Tetons. I was excited for strenuous hikes, free hot springs and the majesty of the West. 

After I signed up for the marathon in Acadia, I declared it the year of National Parks. The race has motivated me. I’ve run late (8:30pm) and early (6:30am) and I’ve ran at least five miles every day this week. I may live to regret choosing a full marathon, the training is basically a part-time job, but it’ll be nice to have that as a talking point again. And it’s far more impressive than a half, which feels pedestrian. I will suffer and I will like it and I will feel superhuman come September. 

Now I feel like a Paul Schrader leading man writing alone at the bare kitchen table. Writing the rules of my life. Rereading them. Throwing them away. Waiting for redemption from C who is due home any minute now.