#so I hightail it downstairs in the hopes I can catch the UPS people

[kyuuppi]

Aoba Johsai, Nekoma, and Karasuno reaction to walking in on y/n in the shower. If you can't do all of them, then the main players on the teams

“Walking in on you showering”

Ft. Kageyama; Hinata; Kuroo; Kozume; Oikawa; Iwaizumi

A/N: For “main players” I picked who I assume are the two most important/talked about in the series. Thank you so much for your request, I hope you have a good day. 💛

General Scenario:

You invite your friend (and slight crush) over to study for an upcoming test after school. You decide to take a shower before the meeting but he arrives earlier than expected and lets himself in since you had texted before that the door would be unlocked. Realizing he may have a few extra minutes, he heads to your bathroom, oblivious of the fact it is already occupied...

KARASUNO

↳ Kageyama

➣  This boy’s brain is 90% volleyball, 10% milk—there’s like no chance he’s seen a naked body outside of the locker rooms. 

➣  The moment he opens the door he notices the telltale sounds of running water and knows he has messed up. 

➣  Logically, he should probably leave, allow you what minuscule scraps of privacy you may have left--but the logical side of his brain is not working right now. 

➣  Kageyama can only gape, body completely frozen as he watches your own paused figure just beyond the thin blue curtain. 

➣  Despite the plastic barrier, he is sure he can see everything. Every curve, every dip, all of it seems to be on display before his very eyes. 

➣  You have to literally scream at him to “get out!” for him to realize he should definitely be moving.

➣  He stutters out several words of gibberish in attempt to say “sorry” before slamming the door shut with enough force to rattle the walls and resigning himself to sitting on your bedroom floor.

➣  He tries to forcefully eject the memory and all the inappropriate thoughts it brings from his mind by reciting volleyball plays--it does not work.

➣  When you later join him to study, Kageyama refuses to meet your eyes and is visibly distracted during the whole session. 

➣  “Do you know how to answer the first one?”

➣  “Forty-two.” 

➣  “...Tobio, this is history.”

➣  “...oh.”

↳ Hinata

➣  Oh innocent, sweet sunshine child. 

➣  You are about to become the subject of his wet dreams for the rest of the semester.

➣  Hinata was absolutely not thinking when he swings the door open, rushing in with eagerness to simply relieve his bladder. 

➣  He realizes his fatal error when he nearly slips on the condensation sticking to the floor tiles and catches himself on the equally slippery bathroom counter. 

➣  His mind quickly connects the dots, finally noticing the sounds of running water and startling when you release a shrill scream. 

➣  Hinata probably breaks a few world records with how fast he screeches out a thousand decibel “SORRY” and darts out of the bathroom, leaving the door wide open in his haste to get the hell out of there. 

➣  When you finish your shower and come downstairs, fully dressed, you find an unusually quiet Hinata, ears stained crimson and posture stiff as he pretends to be hyper-focused on the contents of his (upside down) English workbook. 

➣  Hinata hardly processes anything from your study session and nearly jumps out of his skin every time you speak to him after any amount of silence. 

➣  “Shou, what is the answer to number—”

➣  “I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING, I SWEAR!!” 

➣  “...”

NEKOMA

↳ Kuroo

➣  Kuroo is a teenage boy, of course he’ll get flustered—but he’s also Kuroo which means of course he’ll end up teasing you about it. 

➣  The moment he opens the door, startling you with the sudden light and gust of cool air that comes with his entrance, he recognizes the situation and apologizes, quickly closing the door back before you can even react.

➣  After you get dressed you dread the moment you have to step out and face him, already expecting the avoided eye contact and awkward behavior standard between a previously naked person and the person who accidentally saw them naked.

➣  More than feeling embarrassed about yourself, you fear your friendship with Kuroo will never be the same.

➣  In a way, you’re right. 

➣  The moment you enter the bedroom, Kuroo looks up at you with the most teasing smirk in history. 

➣  The rest of the night Kuroo can literally not go 20 minutes without making a joke about the situation. You soldier through it, reasoning this is better than awkward silence. 

➣  But it doesn’t end there. Even at school the next day, Kuroo makes subtle little jokes. 

➣  Everyone else who overhears is totally lost because, despite how much he loves to rile you up, Kuroo isn’t malicious and wouldn’t go around telling other people about it. Besides, inside jokes are way more fun, he thinks.

➣  “Oh, it’s Y/n-chan. I almost didn’t recognize you—you look really different with clothes on.”

➣  “Kuroo, I swear to god—” 

➣  You created a monster tbh. 

➣  (However, if you seriously tell him you don’t like it, he will 100% stop and apologize.)

↳ Kozume

➣  If the two of you are not already extremely close by the time this happens, you may never hear from Kenma again, sorry. 

➣  He does not handle embarrassing situations well at all. 

➣  Eyes glued to the phone in his hand, Kenma doesn’t even notice he’s intruded until he hears your startled squeak.

➣  His head darts up and his brain quickly pieces together the situation.

➣  With flaming cheeks, Kenma wordlessly shuts the door back.

➣  He stands with his back to the closed door, staring wide eyed into the distance for several seconds before realizing he would rather take the L on tomorrow’s quiz than have to sit down for a three hour long study session after this.

➣   He probably sends a short excuse text after he leaves like: 

➣   “srry something came up” 

➣  But you both know that is bullshit.

➣  Kenma won’t talk to you for several days after and when you do finally get the chance to talk to him, he avoids eye contact even more than usual and only answers questions with a quiet “yeah” or “no.” 

➣  It takes a long time for Kenma to get over the situation but, eventually, he does. 

➣  However, if you ever bring it up, you can practically see Kenma willing the ground to open up and swallow him whole. 

AOBA JOUSAI

↳ Oikawa

➣  Despite his reputation of being a Casanova, Oikawa’s life is too preoccupied with volleyball to have much experience.

➣  So, when he mindlessly swings open the bathroom and finds the unmistakable shape of your naked body behind the clear curtain not even a meter in front of his face, Oikawa’s brain short circuits. 

➣  You have barely even processed that someone has entered the bathroom when Oikawa starts stumbling over his words. 

➣  He is absolutely flustered and his voice cracks several times as he stutters out his apology before he slams the door shut a little too hard and hightails it out of your house, studying completely forgotten. 

➣  For the rest of the day he avoids any contact with you as he processes the event over and over again. 

➣ However, by the next school day he seems back to the confident persona most people expect from him.

➣  In fact, rather than looking embarrassed, Oikawa seems rather teasing when he sends you secretive smirks from across the court while you watch him practice. 

➣  If you come over to talk  when he’s feeling particularly confident, he might even try to flirt with you. 

➣  “Y’know, Y/n-chan, we didn’t get to properly study last time...maybe you should come over to my place instead this weekend?” 

➣  Once again, the two of you aren’t going to get any studying done ;)

↳ Iwaizumi

➣  Tries to play it cool and be a gentleman.

➣  Keyword: tries.

➣  The moment Iwaizumi enters the restroom, every muscle in his body freezes.

➣  His senses are assaulted with the familiar sound of running water, humid air, and the sight of your blurry figure behind the shower curtain. 

➣  His reflexes are quick and he is quietly slipping out and shutting the door closed before you can even notice someone had entered.

➣  Iwaizumi spends the rest of your shower sitting obediently at your desk, waiting for you, with his whole face flaming while he uselessly tried to distract himself the small font in his textbook instead of the vivid imagery of what your body might look like without the curtain in the way. 

➣  When you finally exit the bathroom, fully dressed and surprised to see Iwaizumi already there you apologize for making him wait before asking why his face looks so red. 

➣  “I, uh, it was hot outside.”

➣  “But it’s winter???”

➣  “Let’s just hurry up and start studying, okay!?”

#suddenly-i-kin-oikawa #haikyuu #kageyama tobio #hinata shouyou #kuroo tetsurou #kozume kenma #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi hajime #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu hcs #karasuno #nekoma #aoba johsai #kageyama x reader #hinata x reader #kuroo x reader #kenma x reader #oikawa x reader #iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu x reader #kageyama hcs #hinata hcs #kuroo hcs #kenma hcs #oikawa hcs #iwaizumi hcs #requested

[littlespoonevan]

I feel like we always see Mickey jealous of Ian and never the other way around! Fic idea maybe? Ian finally jealous of someone hitting on Mickey lol

mickey gets a promotion in this fic bc it’s what he Deserves so he’s no longer mickey, the scary old army security guard with the tattoos, but mickey, the hot mall security guard with the tattoos lmao enjoy!!!

*

Mickey’s gotta admit, making the step up from OldArmy security guard to overall mall security guard comes with some perks. Forone thing he doesn’t have to wear that ugly ass uniform with the lilac poloshirt anymore. The pay’s better and whenever he doesn’t feel like interactingwith people he can always spend a few hours in the back office watching thesecurity cameras. Not to mention the vague sense of smug amusement he gets atthe way his new uniform almost makes him look like a cop.

There is one downside though.

He’s acquired some…fans.

He gets it, sort of. The rest of his colleagues arebalding middle-aged men with beer bellies – well, all of them except Sharonwhose tattoos are even more questionable than his and who doesn’t exactly talkto shoppers so much as barks orders at them if they’re in her way – so he getsthat he’s probably the closest thing that qualifies as eye-candy for all theteenage girls with weird security guard fetishes that hang around the mall.

Doesn’t mean they don’t get fuckin’ irritating thoughwhenever they interrupt his lunches with Ian.

Ian, the piece of shit, finds the entire thingfucking hilarious and makes sure to tell Mickey as much every time he catcheshim trying to dodge one of them while he’s trying to take his break.

Honestly, Mickey would retire to the back officeindefinitely if it weren’t for the fact that he’s the only one besides Sharonwho can outrun the little shits that try to steal stuff. So that means heusually gets stuck on patrolling duty, stalking up and down the mall untilsomeone radios him about an issue.

The mall’s been relatively quiet so far today, prettystandard for mid-morning on a weekday. Mickey’s just considering taking adetour past the pretzel cart when Johnny radios him from back office.

“Mick, can you swing by Game Zone? The cashierpressed the panic button, looks like some kids are hassling him.”

Mickey holds in a sigh and unclips his walkie-talkie.“On it,” he says, turning on his heel to go back the way he came.

He’s so not in the mood to deal with teenage assholesthat should be in school trying to disrupt his morning patrol because they feellike stealing a fucking video game. When he arrives at the store he sees threekids, all about fifteen if he had to guess, cornering the cashier while afourth is shoving games into his backpack.

Rolling his eyes, Mickey squares his shoulders andcalls out a sharp, “Hey!”

The three over by the counter all snap their heads inhis direction and the one with the games freezes mid-thievery. Mickey marchesover to him first, grabbing him by the scruff of his t-shirt and snatching thebackpack from him. “I’ll take that,” he sneers, sounding menacing enough thatthe kid relinquishes the bag without a word. Mickey gives him a warning lookbefore glaring at his friends. “I’m gonna give you little shits five seconds toget lost before I’m bringing out the taser. Your choice.”

They don’t need to be told twice, hightailing it thefuck out there. Mickey pulls the kid he’s still got a hold of close and pitcheshis voice low. “I ever find out you or your friends step foot back in thismall, it’ll be the last thing you do. Hear me?”

The kid’s eyes widen in fear and he nods frantically,stumbling a step when Mickey releases him before running for his life.

Mickey watches him go with a faint smirk beforeturning back to the cashier. “You okay, man?”

The cashier stares at him, dumbfounded, before heseems to find his words. “Y-yeah! Yeah, I’m good, thanks! They just caught meoff guard.”

Mickey nods, suppressing a snort. The guy’s skinny asa beanpole, Mickey’s not sure how much good he’d be if he was on guard or not.He makes his way over to the counter then, upending the backpack full of games.“Have fun restocking the shelves, I guess.”

“Thank again, um…Mickey?” the cashier says, squintingat his nametag and holding out a hand. “I’m Robbie.”

Mickey nods and gives the guy a once over. He can’tbe older than twenty-one, probably some college kid just trying to make a fewbucks so he can get wasted at the weekend. Taking pity on him, Mickey shakeshis hand. “Those kids shouldn’t be coming back to bother you.”

“Thanks,” Robbie breathes, opening his mouth like hewants to say more but Mickey’s radio starts going off again.

“I gotta deal with this,” Mickey says, silentlygrateful he doesn’t have to stick around and socialise. “See you around.”

*

Mickey doesn’t think much of it when he starts seeingRobbie around the place after that. He just figures it’s one of thosesituations where now that he knows who the guy is he’s able to distinguish himfrom the faceless shoppers Mickey encounters every day.

And Robbie’s an okay guy. Mickey doesn’t mindengaging in a couple of minutes of small talk with him when he passes thestore. He gets that Robbie probably gets bored during his weekday shifts – old peopleand soccer moms aren’t exactly the target demographic for a video game store.

Honestly, he doesn’t think anything of it at all untilIan does.

Mickey is on his way to the food court to meet Ianfor lunch when he hears someone calling his name. He turns around to findRobbie jogging towards him.

“Hey,” he says with a slight frown. “Everything okayat the store?” He was just about to take his fucking break; he doesn’t needthis right now. Ian’s only got half an hour before he needs to get back to theambulance.

“Yeah,” Robbie assures him with a wave of a hand oncehe reaches him. “I just thought you might be on your way to the food court? Younormally take a break around now, right?”

Mickey raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t realised theywere at the point of learning each other’s schedules. “Uh yeah?”

“Cool,” Robbie says, falling into step beside him.“I’m on break now too.”

Mickey doesn’t recall ever seeing Robbie in the foodcourt at this time but then again, Mickey doesn’t tend to pay much attention toanything besides his lunch and Ian when he’s on his break. The walk is short andslightly awkward and Mickey breathes a sigh of relief when he spots Ian waitingfor him at their usual table, both their trays of food already laid out infront of him.

“I’ll catch you later, man,” he says, absently givingRobbie a wave before making a beeline for Ian and dropping into his seat.“Hey,” he greets, bumping his foot against Ian’s under the table. “Thanks forgetting the food.”

“Who was that?” Ian asks, an odd pitch to his voice.

Mickey looks up from his food with a frown. “Who waswho?”

“The guy you came in with,” Ian says, looking weirdlyintense at some spot over Mickey’s shoulder.

“Who? Robbie?” Mickey answers around a mouthful offood. “College kid who works at the video game store downstairs.”

Ian nods, mouth a tight line. “He seems…friendly,” hesays, voice all clipped and seriously, what the fuck is wrong with him?

“I guess?” Mickey shrugs, can’t say he’s ever thoughttoo much about Robbie’s personality before.

Ian nods again and Mickey fixes him with ascrutinising look. It takes him a second but he manages to place the pinched upexpression on Ian’s face. The last time he saw that was around Byron and…

“Holy shit, are you jealous?”

“Wh- no!” Ian sputters, face twisting into a scowlwhen Mickey laughs. “I’m not fucking jealous,” he insists, slumping back in hisseat and crossing his arms. “I just don’t like how he was lookin’ at you.”

“Uh huh,” Mickey says amusedly.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ian grouses, avoiding Mickey’seyes and suddenly appearing very preoccupied with his lunch.

“You realise we’re literally married, right?” Mickeypoints out, trying and failing to keep the amusement out of his voice. “Sometwenty-year-old hipster that can’t even defend himself against a couple ofteenagers isn’t gonna steal me away.”

“I know,”Ian huffs, rolling his eyes before meeting Mickey’s gaze with a pleading look.“Forget it, I was being an idiot.”

“Yeah, you were,” Mickey agrees, reaching across thetable to take Ian’s hand. “In case you missed the memo, I’m in love with you,dumbass.”

And finally, a reluctant smile spreads across Ian’sface as he squeezes Mickey’s hand. “I love you too,” he says and Mickey willnever get tired of hearing that. “Can we enjoy our lunch now?”

Mickey nods and releases Ian’s hand to pick up hisfork. By the time he has to get back to work, he’s all but forgotten the Robbieconversation.

*

A couple of days later Mickey’s shift is just aboutto end when he gets waylaid by Robbie.

“Hey Mickey,” he says, managing to corner Mickey justbefore he can get to the back offices to grab his shit. “You finishing up forthe day?”

“Yep,” Mickey says, impatient enough that he hopesRobbie will get the memo that he’s in a rush. Ian actually has the day offtoday and Mickey’s 90% sure they have the whole house to themselves and dammit,he wants a few hours alone with his husband.

“You got any plans?” Robbie asks hopefully,barrelling on before Mickey can answer him. “Because, you know, I still haven’tthanked you for helping me out that one time and I was thinking we could maybegrab a beer or-“

Robbie abruptly cuts off at the exact same momentMickey feels an arm settle around his shoulders.

“Hey, Mick,” Ian greets far too enthusiastically. (Mickeyisn’t gonna complain about the cheek kiss though.)

“Hey,” Mickey says, giving Ian an I-know-what-you’re-doinglook. “Get tired of waiting for me?”

“You realise how rare a free house is, right?” Ianasks, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. “We need to take advantage of everysecond we can.”

Mickey lets a slow smirk spread across his face andis just about to let Ian lean in for the kiss when he hears a noise that soundsvaguely like a squeak and remembers Robbie is still standing there.

He looks away from Ian and finds Robbie staringbetween them with wide, bewildered eyes. He’d almost feel bad for the guy ifseeing Ian get needlessly jealous wasn’t so funny.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” Ian announces, all faux-politenessas he turns to Robbie. “I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Ian,” he says,sticking out his hand. “Mickey’s husband.”

“Husband!” Robbie sputters, voice high-pitched andcracking, and Mickey makes a valiant effort to keep a straight face.

“Yeah, how lucky am I, right?” Ian grins, squeezingMickey’s shoulder where he’s still got his arm around him. And Mickey knowsIan’s only saying this shit for Robbie’s benefit but it still makes him preen alittle.

Robbie seems at a loss for words and Mickey finallytakes a pity on him, deciding to end the one-sided pissing contest.

“We better get going,” he says to Ian, touching hishand to the small of Ian’s back. He has to bite the inside of his cheek when hemeets Ian’s gaze so he doesn’t start laughing. “See you later, Robbie!” hecalls, hearing Robbie’s faint, “See you,” as Ian starts steering them away.

“You enjoyed that way too much,” he mutters to Ian assoon as they’re out of earshot and Ian scoffs.

“Says the guy who used to stand over me like a guarddog when I worked at the club.”

“Those guys were literally trying to shove theirhands down your pants!” Mickey argues, elbowing Ian in the side before lettinghis arm wind round his back again.

“Fine, so we’ve established neither of us likes toshare.”

“No shit,” Mickey snorts.

Ian hums, pulling him to a stop just before theyreach the door to the back offices. “I meant it though,” he murmurs, drawingMickey in close until there’s only a few inches of space between them. “I amlucky.”

Mickey watches him for a minute, feeling his cheeksheat up and attempting to cover it up with a casual. “Fuck yeah, you are.”

Ian only smiles, looking too fond and tooaffectionate and Mickey so isn’t prepared for those eyes right now.

Patting Ian’s arms, he looks up at him with asuggestive raise of his eyebrows. “Now how about you let me get my jacket so wecan go home and I can show you how lucky you are?”  

Ian’s smile transforms into something more and hesqueezes Mickey’s hips before releasing him.

Mickey hardly gets two steps away, however, beforeIan’s dragging him back into a kiss. He figures he’s pretty damn lucky too.

*

#gallavich #ian x mickey #mickey milkovich #ian gallagher #shameless #this got so long kjsdahsf #my fics #asks #Anon

[everythingirl44]

Yessssss I have some kiss prompts for you!! What about Staticquake (well, of course XD) + First Date + At The Other's Place? 🤗

Thank you Lily for the lovely prompt! I rewrote this three times and I’m finally happy with the outcome. I was trying to figure out how to fulfill the prompt, it’s still a little iffy, BUT I think it works and it’s fluffy. Hope you like it!

Daisy doesn’t really know Lincoln. Jemma invited him to the birthday party Daisy threw her at their apartment. He was in Jemma’s classes and they had become good friends. Once she introduced him to the rest of their friend group, Daisy saw him all the time. Even if she was at their apartment, obsessing over her work he often came over to hang out with Jemma and Fitz. It was one thing having Fitz over when she was in work mode, but having Jemma, Fitz, and Lincoln in the same room was a disaster. All they ever did was argue and talk about medicine. The rest of her friends enjoyed his company as well. All Daisy could think about was what is so special about Lincoln? 

“Well, you never talk to him, Daisy. Maybe if you got to know him more.” Daisy rolled her eyes at Jemma. This was her one day off. She thought let’s go get coffee and have girl time, but no Jemma had to make it about Lincoln.

“All you guys talk about is Lincoln! What is so nice about him?” She got a hard stare from Jemma as she tried to drink her coffee. 

“What? Is there something on my face?” Jemma continued to stare at Daisy before slamming her hand on the table.

“You like him! Oh my God Daisy it’s so obvious!” Jemma’s scream alerted some people in the shop. Her cheeks turned a shade of pink. No way could she like Lincoln. Sure he was cute and funny and- Oh God she totally had a crush on Lincoln! But she didn’t even know him that well! Her revelation was written across her face because Jemma wouldn’t stop teasing her. 

“Why don’t you ask him out, I doubt he would say no.” It was Daisy’s turn to stare at Jemma. Was she implying that Lincoln maybe felt the same way? They don’t personally talk much, but they know each other so well because of their friends.

“Maybe, but just to prove that there’s nothing there.” That seemed to satisfy Jemma for now. Daisy didn’t know how to ask Lincoln. It would be weird to just give him a call since they don’t talk too much. Though, she wasn’t the one who had to call. When Daisy got a phone call in the afternoon she thought it was Jemma reminding her to buy healthy snacks. To her surprise, it was Lincoln asking if she wanted to “hang out” Saturday night. That was one time in her life that she was speechless, but of course, she didn’t say no.

Saturday rolled around and Daisy couldn’t stop smiling. She spent the morning prancing around the apartment with her coffee. Luckily Jemma wasn’t home enough to tease her about it. Jemma asked what made her so happy, but Daisy kept quiet about her totally not a date. He told her it was nothing fancy, but it would be fun. In Daisy’s mind that was confirmation that she did not need to wear a dress. She met him downstairs in the lobby trying to cover her excitement.

“Okay, so are you going to tell me where we’re going, or do I have to just follow you around?” They lived in a pretty small part of the city. You could walk or bike anywhere. 

“You like tacos?” Was his response, she rolled her eyes and nudged his shoulder.

“Yes, but what does that have to do with where we’re going?” His lips were sealed, he refused to tell her anything. It was nice though, walking along the city street before sunset. It was nice talking to Lincoln, really talking to him and getting to know him. The two stopped by the local park. Daisy has lived here for years and was unaware of the market at the park.

“They have it every Saturday, it’s a night market of sorts. Food, music, you can even buy fresh produce. I particularly like the food trucks in the parking lot.” Lincoln lived a lot closer to the park then Daisy. She never gave herself the time to go down here, but she wanted to start making time. They looked around before going to get some food. 

“Lincoln, seriously you don’t need to pay.” Daisy has never had to fight someone on who was going to pay. With Jemma, they always split the bill if they ordered food.

“I’m not letting you pay on the first date, Daisy.” She hasn’t let herself believe this was a date until Lincoln just confirmed it. Lucky for her, he wasn’t able to see her blush. The idea that this was a date made her all happy and giddy. 

“Prepare to have your mind blown.” Lincoln placed a plate of tacos in front of her. He raves about how they were the best tacos in town. Daisy couldn’t deny that these were amazing tacos and Lincoln loved rubbing it in her face. Everything was so perfect and Daisy hadn’t been this happy in a while. People had started packing up earlier than usual. Lincoln felt a drop of water land on his face followed by many more. Before they knew it, the sprinkling turned into pouring rain. 

“My place is just up the street, come on!” Lincoln grabbed Daisy’s hand and they hightailed it out of the park and to the street. Running through people walking around with umbrellas. They made it to his apartment lobby catching their breath before bursting into laughter. 

“Well, that was certainly an eventful date,” Daisy said, still smiling, laughter fading as the realization set in. They were both soaking wet.

“We can go up to my apartment to dry off.” He offered, Daisy followed him through the lobby to the elevator. Lincoln had a nice one-bedroom apartment, or as Daisy referred to it as a “total bachelor pad”. 

“Sorry, the rain kinda ruined the night or cut it short.” He said, handing her a towel. Daisy barely heard what he was saying. She was too distracted by how his wet shirt was hugging his muscles.

“Oh, um, I don’t think it ruined anything. I still had a really nice time.” Daisy was smiling up at him, loosely holding the towel he gave her.

“Nice enough to go on a second date?” A smile spread across his lips and Daisy couldn’t help but notice how his eyes got brighter. 

“I think that can be arranged, but you’re going to need to do some persuading.” They had been taking small steps closer to each other. There was barely any space left between them. Lincoln moved a strand of hair out of her face, keeping his hand against her cheek. Daisy’s eyes flicked down to his lips then back up to his eyes. He closed the gap between them, an arm circling around her back, pressing her closer. She dropped the towel, tangling her hands in his wet hair. 

“That, that was amazing,” Lincoln said once they broke apart for air. He wasn’t wrong, kissing him felt, in some way, electric. She was about to kiss him again when she was rudely interrupted by her phone.

“Jemma wants to know where I am, but Jemma can wait.” She was surprised that her phone even worked after the rain. Lincoln leaned down to capture her lips again. Daisy finally understood what was so amazing about Lincoln Campbell.

#staticquake #first date #kissing #first kiss

[thisstableground]

Okay, a bird gets in through the window of their apartment and can't get out (because it's panicked), and now it's flying everywhere *except* back through the open window. How do they deal with it?

(this is an early relationship fic bc i’m in that kinda mood right now)

edit: also on AO3! please leave a comment if you liked it!

*

“Looked like Vanessa was dolling herself up real cute for your lunch date when I went up on break,” Usnavi says. “And me stuck here at the store while you guys have all the fun without me.”

“You don’t mind, do you?” Ruben asks, concerned. “I don’t wanna, y’know, get in the way of things.”

“She’s your girlfriend too,” Usnavi says, charitably ignoring the panicked balloon-deflating noise Ruben makes: the g-word is still a very new development. “I just miss you both when I can’t come with you.”

“We’ll be done in a couple hours.”

“I know, it’s so long.” Usnavi says, tragically. He picks up his cell from where it’s vibrating insistently on the counter. “Oh! She misses us too! Hey, Vanessa!” 

His smile disappears as she responds: from where he’s standing, all Ruben can hear is a bunch of incoherent yelling and shrieking from the other end. His heartrate instantly triples. It might have shattered a rib or two.

Usnavi grabs the creased piece of laminated paper under the counter that reads “back in five minutes/vuelta en cinco minutos!!” and is saying “ ¿qué pa—Vanessa, cálmate, I don’t – what’s happening?” as he runs to stick it to the door and click the locks closed. Even from several feet away, Ruben hears Vanessa’s voice yell “JUST GET YOUR SKINNY ASS UP HERE RIGHT NOW!”

He hightails it after Usnavi up the back stairs to the apartment. “What was that?!”

“No sé, I couldn’t tell, it sounded like she said someone came into the apartment-”

“What?!” He doesn’t even have time to panic about it: they crest the top of the stairs and almost crash directly into Vanessa standing outside Usnavi’s front door. She’s dripping wet and wearing only a towel, trying to look in through the peephole despite that decidedly not being how peepholes work.

“Vanessa!” Ruben goes instinctively to check on her then hastily averts his eyes to the ceiling when he registers what she’s wearing, because yes, he saw her naked last night but he’s still polite.  “Oh, uh—“

Usnavi shrugs out of his shirt to drape around Vanessa’s shoulders and hugs her close. “Amorcita, what happened, are you okay?”

“No, I am not okay!” she says furiously. “I was in the shower and a fucking bird came in and chased me out here!”

“Wait, a bird? You were just screaming because of a bird?” Ruben catches Usnavi’s eye and both of them instantly burst into laughter, which is mostly from relief and is also exactly the wrong thing to do.

“Oh, so it’s funny is it?” Vanessa says, looking about as murderous as anyone with shampoo bubbles in their hair has ever looked.

“We’re not laughing at you, I promise!” Ruben says, undercut significantly by the fact that to be fair, he is still laughing. “We’re just relieved it wasn’t anything dangerous.”

“Not dangerous?!” Vanessa hollers. “It could have beaked me!”

“Heyheyhey, we’re cool, we’re cool,” Usnavi says soothingly, making cut it out eyes at Ruben. “Ain’t gonna let nothing run my girl out of my apartment like that. I’ll get the bird, you just wait here with Ruben. Who will not laugh any more,” he adds, severely.

“Laughing? Never even heard of it,” Ruben says.

“....You’ll be careful?” Vanessa says to Usnavi.

Usnavi stands just a little taller at her concern, glowing with chivalrous intent, and says, “no te preocupes, querida, I ain’t afraid of no bird.”

He opens the front door and pauses on the threshold. Ruben can tell there’s triumphant battle music playing in his mind right now, mostly because he’s humming it very quietly to himself while he adjusts his hat before he heads inside.

Three and a bit seconds later, there’s a brief crash and some hollered cursing from the apartment. Usnavi bursts back out into the corridor and scuttles over to the opposite wall, flattening against it like a shadow.

“Guys, I am so afraid of this bird,” he tells them.

“Did it beak you,” Ruben says dryly.

“It nearly did! I tried to ask it to leave and then it–“ Usnavi does a wild flapping motion with his arms and goes skraaaaaa!, his eyes all big in a way that implies see? Do you see how terrifying this is? Ruben tactfully does not inform him that it makes him look like he should be standing outside a car dealership in a heavy wind.

“It was never gonna work, babe, I already tried everything,” Vanessa says. “I tried yelling at it.”

They wait for the rest of it. There is no rest of it. Vanessa shrugs like I mean, what else is there?

“Well, I hope you’re not too attached to this apartment, Usnavi,” Ruben says, and both turn in unison to look at him imploringly. They’re wearing hopeful, expectant Ruben Can Solve Anything expressions, the ones they make before they ask him things about sports or Europe or other arcane and unknowable topics. It makes him want to shout hold on, I’m just a chemist, the only thing I can do to a pigeon is poison it or teach it how to run assays but it also makes him want to go and get a PhD in Please Get Bird Out Of Bathroom so that he can resolve the situation as comprehensively as possible. 

He is, he reflects a little sadly, a sucker for providing solutions.

“Alright,” he says, in a firm voice, because it’s either that or let them down. “Usnavi, I need you to go get me a box from the bodega to trap it in.”

Usnavi nods once, solemn-faced like a soldier being given orders, and hurries downstairs. He’s back in short order with an empty Doritos box that he hands over. Ruben makes it all of two cautiously tiptoeing steps into the apartment before Vanessa grabs his arm and pulls him back for a kiss on the cheek that has the resigned air of impending doom to it: we only had the Ruben for two weeks before he was taken by the birds, he imagines her telling people after the fact. I knew we should have had him insured.

Inside the bathroom is much less carnage than he’d expected based on the other two’s reactions. There’s water all over the floor, probably from Vanessa’s hasty exit, and Usnavi’s toothbrush cup has been knocked down into the basin, where it’s clattering around under the feet of a pigeon that Ruben would, scientifically, describe as Oh Boy, That’s Pretty Big Actually. In itself it isn’t all that scary, but in the context of being a pigeon in a places that pigeons usually aren’t it really is quite unsettling. Like how he isn’t in the slightest scared of rats, but still jumps out of his skin and tries to keep a wide berth whenever he sees one in the stairwell of his apartment building. At least it isn’t actively flapping around at the moment.

Ruben casts his eye around but there isn’t a towel in the usual place on the radiator – of course not, Vanessa must have grabbed it on her way out. He sets down the box as he takes his sweater off instead, thanks it silently for its dedication to the cause, and then holds it up in the air, inching closer to the pigeon.

“You could just leave now,” he tries, just in case. “It’ll be easier for both of us.”

The pigeon shuffles around, its talons making scritchy noises against the ceramic of the basin. “Trrr,” it says.

“The window’s right there.” He takes another step closer. “Fine, I guess not. Sorry about this,” and in a quick movement he throws his sweater over it and, using the second of struggling confusion while it tries to get free, scoops the sweater-wrapped pigeon into the box in a move that is significantly more blind luck than animal handling skills.

“Sorry sorry sorry sorry!” he chants, shoving half his body and the box out the window and inelegantly shaking a very confused and unhappy pigeon out into the sky, where it luckily flaps off in distress rather than going right for his eyes so he can bring the box back in and close the window blessedly un-mauled. His sweater is mostly unharmed too, albeit in need of a wash, because pigeons have pretty much one reaction to stress, as evidenced by the rest of the bathroom. He tosses the knocked-over toothbrush straight in the trash because he knows Usnavi won’t even think about putting it in his mouth all covered in bird-germs later, and is bleaching down the basin when he hears a tentative “Ruben are you dead?”

“Somehow I pulled through,” he says.

Usnavi opens the door the tiniest fraction. “Is it still in there?”

“No, I caught it and let it out. No casualties, except your toothbrush.”

Usnavi opens the door properly, with Vanessa peeking over his shoulder, not even pretending she isn’t hiding behind him. When they confirm that the bathroom is safe she stands up straight and both of them beam at Ruben.

“You really did it,” Vanessa says, in a tone of absolute awe while Usnavi kisses him enthusiastically and Ruben, a man who has faced down pain, torture and death, has literally never felt braver or more heroic than he does right now.

#ship: usnavi/vanessa/ruben #fandom: do no harm/in the heights #sophia writes fic #belphegor1982 #im 99% sure i took that 'i tried everything i tried yelling at it' joke from somewhere #damned if i can remember where but its just very vanessa so i had to use it

[kristannafever]

In The City of Angels - Chapter 12

KRISTANNA MODERN AU Rated: M (swearing, little bit of sexy times...) Why did this come out this way?  I have no idea, but it did... and I’m going to post it before I try and ‘fix’ it to death

Chapter Index

Kristoff and Anna woke to the sound of someone knocking loudly on the front door.  Kristoff blinked his eyes and looked down at Anna’s face.  Sometime in the night she had curled up to his side and he had wrapped his arm around her.  She looked back up at him, slightly worried.

“Don’t worry it’s probably just Sven.” Kristoff told her as he got out of bed and pulled on a shirt.  He paused at the door and winked at her as she stood stretching.  He took a lingering look at her body silhouetted by the light coming in through the bedroom window before he headed downstairs to answer the door. 

”Well Good morning!��� Sven sang happily as he walked inside when Kristoff greeted him.

“Morning Buddy.” Kristoff said shutting the door and following Sven into the kitchen. 

“So the re-shoots are going well.  They don’t even miss that you've been... you know, gone for the week.” Sven said going to the coffee maker and filling it with coffee and water and setting it to brew.  Sven had done this every time he had woken Kristoff from bed, and he had to laugh at how there was never a word between them about it.

“Thanks so much for doing that Sven.  I don’t think you know how much I apprechiate it.  You are a life saver.”

“Tut tut, no need to thank.  I just hope that-”

Anna cleared her throat softly as she entered the kitchen, letting Kristoff and Sven know she was there.  She had changed into jeans and a t-shirt. “Good morning.”  She said quietly.

He had to give Sven a lot of credit; the man easily avoided staring at the bruise on Anna’s face and there was no hesitation or change in his happy disposition as he said, “Good Morning to you too,” making sure not to make her feel uncomfortable.  He supposed it wasn’t the first time that Sven had come knocking on Kristoff’s door in the morning to find a woman in his place, but he was reminded how grateful he was for his friend.  Sven was the most non-judgemental person that he knew.

“Uh Sven, this is Anna.” Kristoff said as Anna shook his hand.

“Enchante mademoiselle.” Sven said, bending with a flourish to kiss her hand just as Oak had done when he had first met Anna.  Kristoff had to marvel at how similar Oak and Sven were for all their differences, which was probably why they all got along so well.

"Merci.  Parlez-vous français?" Anna said curiously, surprising Kristoff.  He felt is mouth slack open.

“Oui.  Ma mère était Canadain français.” Sven said.  “Comment as tu appris?”

“Je suis autodidacte.” Anna replied.

“Ah, très bon, très bon.” Sven said.

They both looked at Kristoff, his eyes flicking back and forth between them.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “The only French I know is vous les vous coucher avec moi ce soir... you know, from that song.”

“Oh Kristoff, my dear friend,” Sven said as him and Anna laughed.  He pulled a box from his bag and held it out to Kristoff.  “Here is the phone you wanted.”

“Its for Anna.” He said gesturing towards her with his chin.  Sven handed her the box.

Anna blinked at him.  “For me?  You got me a new phone?”

Kristoff shrugged.  “I just asked Sven to pick one up for you.  I maybe thought you might want to just lay low so, one less thing to worry about, you know?”

“Thank you,” she said smiling at him in a way that was all the thanks he ever needed.  “That is the most thoughtful thing...” she trailed off. 

Sven joined them for coffee as he went over next week’s shooting schedule.  Kristoff could tell Anna was daydreaming whenever he stole a glance her way.  Her eyes lay unfocussed on the table with a slight smile on her lips and he wondered what she was thinking about. 

Kristoff was glad to hear it was two more solid weeks of shooting and then they would be wrapped up and all that was left was little things here and there and recording the ADR, which Kristoff generally enjoyed. 

Sven eventually bid them a good day, leaving them alone standing in the kitchen, regarding each other with affection.  Anna’s eyes were still dreamy as she smiled at him, and Kristoff wondered again what was on her mind, but she did not offer, so he didn’t want to ask.

“So, do you speak any other languages?” Kristoff asked, thinking how sexy it was to watch French roll from Anna’s tongue. 

“Uh, not really.  I mean, I can speak enough Spanish to get by but that’s about it.” 

“You’ll have to teach me French sometime.”

She smiled sensuously as she walked towards him.  “Oui.” She said and wrapped her arms around his waist, looking up at him. 

He bent down to kiss her, relishing in the softness of her lips against his own.  He felt her fingers run through his hair and it sent a wave of pleasure all the way down to his toes.  He was vaguely aware that his phone was ringing, but he ignored it.  He moved his mouth slowly down the length of her neck, kissing her gently as she gave a soft moan in his ear.  He heard his phone again, but continued to kiss Anna, moving his mouth back up to hers.  Her hands were all over his back now, pulling him further into her.  The third time his phone rang he broke the kiss and answered it, annoyed.  “Yeah?” 

“So this is your new girlfriend?” Sunny said on the other end. 

Kristoff was immediately on guard, his eyes went to the balcony windows and he knew that Sunny was out there somewhere, watching them, but all he could see was the rolling hills of the park and the endless lines of trees.  He grabbed Anna lightly by the wrist and dragged her down the hallway leading to the garage where there were no windows.  “I’m going to block this number too you know.”  He told Sunny.

“I’ll just keeping getting new ones then,” she said strenly.  “You and I were meant to be Kris.  We-”

“I swear to God you better leave me alone or there will be hell to pay.”  He inturuppted her, feeling bitter anger rise within him. 

“Oh, I can't leave you alone Kris.  Just like I can’t let that red headed slut keep kissing you.” Her voice was full of menace.

Kristoff was about to unleash his rage at Sunny for threatening Anna, but she was gone.  He looked down at his phone in disbelief for a moment.  He could feel Anna’s eyes on him, but he was afraid to meet them.  Just when things were finally going right for them both, they had to deal with another force trying to keep them apart. 

“Kristoff?” Anna said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

He looked at her then, expecting to see fear or maybe anger, but he found compassion in her eyes instead.  

“We’ll get through this.”  She said.

Kristoff leaned his back heavily against the wall and slid down, sitting on the floor and dropping his phone beside him.  Anna sat next to him without a word.  “I feel like we just can’t catch a break,” he sighed and buried his head in his hands.  He felt Anna lean her head on his arm.

“What are we going to do?” She asked.

“Well I’m going to call my security detail and get them out here patrolling my property... and yours, and definitely the park because I'm sure that's where she was spying on us.  I’m sure she’s hightailing it out of there by now, but you never know.  Then I’m going to run around and pull down all the shades and then.... well, and then I don’t know to be honest.”

Anna nodded and remained quiet while he dialed the number of his private security team.  He told them what had happened and then hung up the phone and threw it down in front of him in frustration.  “They’ll be here soon.”  He told Anna. 

Kristoff hung his head in silent in contemplation.  He was suddenly very worried over what Sunny was capable of.  The thought of her stalking him and Anna made him extremely nervous and he could not ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach that things were going to get a whole lot worse.

“Forgive me for maybe being a little judgemental here,” Anna said pulling him from his thoughts, “but was she like this when you first went out with her?  You know.... crazy?” 

Kristoff heaved a short breath.  “Actually she was very charming when I first met her.  One of those people that says and does the right things on a first impression, you know?”  Anna nodded and he knew that she understood completely.  She herself had admitted that the only reason she had agreed to go out with Hans in the first place was because he was charming.

“Well when we first started talking I was intrigued by all the things we had in common, but when we got a little comfortable with each other she slowly started acting funny about everything.... like on our first date, when I told her I love to ride, she was so excited to ride bit... um, on the back with me.”

Anna chuckled.

“Anyway, when the time came and I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride, she got all weird and said she felt uncomfortable.  Then she ragged on me when I went out by myself, and I kind of never rode it again the whole time we were together because she made me feel guilty for it in a way.”

“Like how Hans made me feel to say it was un-ladylike and that I should sell mine.”

Kristoff nodded.  “Exactly.  She started to lay into me how unsafe bikes are and how I was going to kill myself, then she began to criticize other things I liked too.” He shrugged.  “I knew it was over between us long before I actually told her.  I know I kind of strung her along a bit, and I really, really regret that now, obviously.  But I... uh... guess I just put up with her for a while because I liked having a woman in my life.” Kristoff was a little surprised at how sad his words sounded in his own ears.

“You were lonely,” Anna said and she reached her hand up to touch the side of his face.  She brushed her thumb lightly across his cheekbone which sent shivers down his spine.  She was looking deep into his eyes, as if she was looking into his soul.  He suddenly felt vulnerable to what she saw within him.

She spoke softly.  “This might be way out of left field, and please tell me if I’m scaring the living shit out of you, but.... what if... we moved in together?" She inched her body closer to him. “That way you don’t ever have to feel lonely again... and neither do I.”

Kristoff felt in awe as he looked back into her eyes a moment before he pushed his lips to hers, knowing that there was no other way to tell her just how much he wanted that, how much he wanted her in every single aspect of his life.  He pulled her up onto his lap and wrapped his arms tightly around her body as they kissed.  She tangled her legs around his waist and lightly dug her nails into his back.  The passion became a flurry and their kisses became more desperate as they gripped each other. But a sharp knock on the door startled them apart.  They stared at each other a moment, breathing hard.

“That's Duke.” Kristoff said with a thick voice.  He gently pushed Anna off his lap and took to his feet. 

Anna stood with him.  “Duke?”

He nodded. “Head of my security detail.”  Kristoff noticed Anna’s eyes watching him as he adjusted his arousal up into the waistband of his pajama pants and pulled his t-shirt down overtop.  He did not miss the way she bit her lower lip quickly before raising her eyes to look into his.

He smirked at her.  “All this and it’s only 10:15 in the morning.”

#in the city of angels #cee wrote this mess #kristoff #anna #kristanna #kristanna modern au

[haidenschreave]

Confessions | Part One

A/N: A fic as promised. This is unedited and really sucky, but you know, it’s here. RPs courtesy of @heatherkuwahara and @princess-elaine-schreave (More beneath the read more.)

I’m not sure when I stopped listening to the monotone conversation I’m having with a council member and let my mind start to wander away. In reality, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore—it happens enough. But I’ve been putting a real effort into living in the present. So far it hasn’t worked.

God, there’s so much to do this week. There’s the diplomats coming, party planning for my birthday, not to mention there are still 15 Selected that I’m avoiding for reasons unknown to even myself. This is going to be fun to explain away when my parents ask how much progress I’ve made.

The answer is none. I’ve eliminated over half, but it feels like I’ve done nothing. I’m not even sure if they actually like me. Sure, a few have said so, but I truly don’t know. I know I like them. In what way is a mystery to me, but I’d consider most of them at least friends.

Most, not all.

“Your Highness?” Councilman Renado asks, snapping me out of my daze.

“Yes?”

“What do you think about my plan?”

For a moment, I panic, but then I piece together the bits of conversation I heard. “It’s a great idea. Take it to my father to discuss.” He looks triumphant, and I’m thankful no one notices my bluff. I’ve become a remarkable liar the past few years, something I’m not proud of but every politician has to master the art.

I’m excused from the meeting early, and I hightail it to my room before any of the girls catch me. I feel bad for avoiding them, but too much socialization just leaves me drained. Alone time is my solace, and I’m fairly certain it’s the only thing that has kept me strong enough to continue in this position. That, and the fact that I refuse to fail.

I make it to room my room easily. By now I have the path memorized well enough that I know how to evade most prying eyes, and hopefully no one bothers me. I’m always like this after meetings—stressed, tired, annoyed out of my mind. I always need to recharge afterward before I see someone or else it’s probably not a good time.

I flop on my bed and let out a groan. I could go on and on, whining about how much I hate my life, how I wish I were someone else, but that’s not me. I’m thankful I’m in this position, and I just hope that eventually my mind thinks so as well.

My door opens and I inwardly groan. Rule number one: Lock the goddamn door. “Haiden, what are you doing?” I immediately recognize the voice as Heather’s, and it just makes this whole situation more irritating.

The blood rushes to my head as I hang upside down on the bed. I can almost see her feet if I glance out of the corner of my eye. I don’t even bother answering. She’s been through this routine enough times.

“Haiden, what is the crisis?” Yep, she knows. She somehow always knows.

I close my eyes. “Life. The usual. What do you want?” She knows I’m lying, but the best part about Heather is that she doesn’t pry.

“We need to go downstairs to meet the foreign guests.” I think she’s done, but then she adds, “Like, now.”

I grab a pillow and smother it into my face. What would happen if I let myself die by using this pillow to kill myself? “But I don’t wanna.”

“But you gotta.” She rips the pillow from me and tosses it into a corner. I roll out of bed and straighten my tie.

“Will the Selected be there?” I groan. I feel bad for asking, but it comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.  

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, they have to be.”

“Make them go away.” It’s not that I don’t want the Selected here. They’re fun and make good conversation, but it feels like when they look at me they’re expecting something. And they are. They want me to make a decision as soon as possible. I’m not sure if they’re being unfair to me or if I’m being unfair to them.

It was easy eliminating the first half. Then it was about participation or who I didn’t “click” with, but that’s passed and now I have to get on with this thing. I feel like right now is the hardest part. Now I have to figure everything out for real and hopefully soon.

Heather lets out a huff and pulls me up from the floor. “I want to make you go away but that can't happen.” I snort and send her a glare.

“You probably shouldn’t be in here,” I say, undoing my watch and swapping wrists. “Don’t want any more rumors, right?”

Anger flashes across her face for a moment, and I fight off the smirk that threatens to line my lips. Messing with Heather is my favorite past-time (besides every other one of my hobbies, of course. She’s not that special), and it seems that it’s been mistaken as messing around with. Obviously I’d never do such a thing, but how the media loves it.

It’s almost an insult my approval ratings are just less than my father’s.

“God, Haiden, you’re such a child. Move.” She sends me a glare, and just by that I can tell that she’s almost reached her limit.

I sigh. “Who’s here exactly? I didn’t look at the names.” Again, lies. I’ve looked over at those names several times over just so I’m prepared. No, I may be disinterested, but I’m never unprepared.

She looks down at her clipboard. “Well, your cousin is here, along with Grand Duchess Mika, Queen Eilidh, Prime Minister Cranston, Chancellor Blakestein, Ambassador E-Jun and a few others.”

Wonderful. I have a whole army of officials who I’m sure hate me by now. What more could I want? Shaking my head, I say, “Wonderful, cousins. There is no rest for the wicked. Let’s go.” I walk out of the room, past a disgruntled Heather who I can accurately say must want to gut me.

She follows me, having to run a bit to keep up with me. “You’re terribly dramatic.”

I resist rolling my eyes. Oh, yes, I’m dramatic. She’s the one who insists on reciting Baguette’s full name every time he’s mentioned—No, Haiden, it’s Chef Lasagna Oui Oui Baguette. Get it right. “Right. So how are you, Heather?” I don’t mean this literally and she most definitely knows that.

“Just dandy. I love all the work and shit that the girls leave behind.” I laugh. “What's your stress level?”

I think for a moment. “On what scale?”

“Heaven to Hell.”

I smirk. “Whatever comes after Hell.” My tone is playful, but I know deep down that I’m serious. Borderline manic at this point, not gonna lie.

“Sounds great.” She lets out a huff and returns to her clipboard. Back to business, apparently. “Now, remember to keep your distance from Russia, and let England and Germany be.”

“Why Russia? And why England and Germany? Is there drama? Fill me in.” The questions come out of my mouth before I can stop them. I may live a drama-free life, but I have to have my healthy dose now and again.

Heather doesn’t look at me when she replies, “Russia is a bitch, England and Germany got some tension. Oh, and apparently Mika got in a spat with Eilidh, so now she's bound to poke her with a stick.”

The first part sticks to my brain. “Tension how?” Is there going to be war? Either that’ll be really good for our economy or bad.

“You're too young, Haiden.” God, I’m a prince. I think I’m old enough to hear about war. “Anyways, you must make sure you greet the New Asians and Russians properly, otherwise they'll throw a fit.”

“All right.” I remember again how much I don’t want to do this. “Is there any possibility I can claim I'm sick and very contagious?”

Heather almost looks like she considers it. Probably doesn’t want to see me embarrass myself again. “No, you used that last month.”

“Crap.” I think for a moment. “What about injury? Can I fall down the stairs?” Looking back, it hurts a lot, but I’d rather fall down the stairs than do this any day.

Heather doesn’t look at me like one should after suggesting they should purposely injure themselves by falling down the stairs. I’m not surprised. She’s been through this enough. “Well, seeing as we’re already down them, there goes that option.” She probably just doesn’t want to tell our guests I’m a klutz.

I stop and face her, my eyes pleading. “Let’s go back up. Please.” I grab her by the shoulders and sink down to her eye-level. “Heather, don’t make me do this.”

She bats my hands away. “I am making you do this. Keep walking.” And then she’s walking, hand gripped tightly around my wrist. Apparently she’s meeting the foreign diplomats with me or not at all.

With a defeated sigh, I surrender and let myself be dragged by a woman almost half my size. “I hate you.”

Heather lets out an almost presumptuous laugh. “Love you too.” She glances over at me for half-a-second before rolling her eyes. “And straighten your tie, look at least a bit presentable.”

I want to snort. Presentable stopped being my goal at 15. “You’re not my mother, Heather. Maybe you should straighten your… attitude.” Even I want to cringe at my sad excuse for a comeback, but it’s already done. Might as well save myself more embarrassment.

“That was a wonderful comeback, Haiden,” she says, sarcasm biting her words. “Top-notch stuff. Also, your shirt is crooked.”

I give Heather a very intense side-eye. “Wonder how it got that way.”

“Well, maybe if you fix it, it’ll come to you.” With a disgruntled sigh, I fix both my shirt and tie. By this time, we arrive at the door leading out toward the foyer where I’ll be meeting. Heather leaves me with no reply as soon as we enter, and I stand there awkwardly, praying that no one approaches me until I get myself in order.

Obviously I don’t have the aura I’m aiming for because almost immediately Elaine comes up behind me. “Are you planning on staying there for the rest of the meeting?”

Yes, I want to say, but Elaine never appreciates my sass. She’d see right through it anyway. I sigh. “You know I don’t like this stuff, Elaine.”

She rolls her eyes. “What will we ever do with you, Haiden?” She switches to French when someone walks by. “I'm not going to be here always to pretend we're having important conversations to avoid other people.”

I shrug as she elbows me in the ribs. “I could always tie you up and make you stay with me.”

Elaine sends me a playfully offended expression. “Why Haiden, I think you must have paid little attention to Miss Hurst when we learned the Law. Keeping people hostage is a crime.”

I snort. “So is arson, but that hasn’t stopped half of the Selected.” I’ll always be confused about their fascination with fire, but I’m assuming it’s best not to get tangled up in that.

“True... but considering I'll stay here as long as I'm allowed I don't think it'll be necessary for you to break the law. I'll save your ass as long as I can.” She shoves my shoulder lightly. “I am that good a sister. I'll be here to annoy you as well however.”

I roll my eyes. “I'm expected to fall in love and everything by 20 years old. What about you? When are we marrying you off?” It’s probably a low blow. Everyone knows it’s a touchy subject. My father’s been putting it off as long as he can, but it’s coming soon, and I’m sure it’s present in both my sister’s minds.

Elaine stares off for a moment, and I immediately know her mind is somewhere else. We have that kind of relationship where we know each other sometimes better than we know ourselves. Shaking out of her daze, she finally answers, “I don't know, I didn't get 35 girls to fight for my heart. Or rather boys in my case.”

I roll my eyes. “My crown, you mean. You actually think every girl here I actually liked me?”

“Well....Maybe the remaining do? I don't know, I'm just saying you have prospects.” Prospects. Right. Wishful thinking will only take you so far.

“That’s not what I’m aiming for and you know it.” Hell, I don’t even know what I’m aiming for. It’s always been adaptive. I’ve gone from one small goal to the next. Now I’m just waiting to get this over with. Fast.

She cocks her head. “You think you won’t find anyone between the bunch?”

“That was never my goal.” No, my goal wasn’t as complicated as that.

She looks up at the ceiling, her eyes wandering like they always do when she’s in thought. “Sometimes life is like that.” It’s that single phrase that makes me snap.

“Because you know so well? Yeah, okay.” I know I shouldn’t say this, but somehow it makes me feel a little bit better.

Elaine visibly frowns. “Excuse you?”

A waiter passes by with a tray of champagne, and I grab two glass, both for myself. “You’re not my mother, Elaine.” It’s childish, I know, but it’s the only comeback I have and it’s delivered with enough bite that it gets the point across.

She scoffs. “Is that really what you're going with right now?”

I down a flute of champagne in one sitting. “I'm just saying. You act like you know what's happening to me, but you don't, so mind your own business.”

Elaine opens her mouth as if she wants to say something, but shuts it almost immediately. Good choice. “Listen Haiden, I know you're under a lot of pressure right now, but it's not fair for you to take it out on me.” She’s silent for a moment before adding, “I'm trying to help.”

“Well, you're not. The last thing I need right now is my sister nagging me.”

She stares at me for a moment, and I can sense the hurt radiating off her. “I—I wasn't nagging…” I almost want to laugh.

I down another flute of champagne and immediately grab another from a nearby waiter. “Why don't you go flirt with the Italian Prince or something? I'd like to be alone for now.”

Elaine stares at me, her eyebrows furrowed. She reaches out to touch me, mumbling something like “Haiden.”

I jerk away before she can. “Elaine.” The two small syllables of her name speaks a lot.

She stares at me with a frown, and I can tell she’s fighting tears. “I'm sorry I bothered you…” She clenches her jaw and gulps. “It won't happen again.”

In a split-second impulse, I freeze. “Elaine, wait.”

She spins on her heel and starts to make her way out of the foyer. I curl my hands into fists. “Fine, be like that.”

She flinches at my words. A hand comes up to wipe her eyes as she mutters, “You don’t even care enough to follow.”

I turn away, pretending not to hear, and stalk out of the foyer. I can only take so much of this in one day. Heather will probably skin me alive for ditching the greeting, but I couldn’t care less. As soon as Elaine realizes she’s wrong, the sooner she can apologize and get on with our lives.

I walk down the hall, my steps sure enough that every maid and butler gets out of the way. There’s stuff I should be doing right now—greeting people from countries I don’t care about, having conversations that will never fix anything. I know I’ve ruined things. I’ve probably ruined my relationship with my sister for the time being. I’ll probably ruin it again and again and again because it’s almost like I can’t stop it. But even here as I slump down against a wall in a forgotten hallway, the champagne isn’t strong enough, the lights are too low, and I feel the familiar pang of dread that so often shows up in my stomach.

You can’t even handle being a prince. What’s it going to be like as a king?

The champagne flute shatters beneath my hand.

#selectionoc #haiden schreave #my writing

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 6: To Boldly Go

We go to even weirder places, and meet even weirder people.

Music plays around us, eerily emanating from all directions, as the two musicians play in the broken mirror’s reflection.. The cracks in the mirror glow and hum, and we begin to feel an intense sense of vertigo. Mist leaks out of the cracks, bringing with it a sharp scent of ozone.

From below, the sound is coming from several places throughout the house. The ozone smell seems to be coming from downstairs, down the hall. Gral stiffens in fear as he hears a terrible, familiar sound: a growling, snarling howl. It seems to be coming from multiple places. Gral casts Silence, hoping to stop the music, but the pattern on the walls is still glowing, the mist still flowing around us. (Gral takes inspiration for clever spell use, though.) Glancing out to the hallway, Shoshana sees a shimmering rend appear in midair. Some flickering horrible thing half-phases, half-pulls itself out, like a rat squeezing through a crack in the wall. But it is much, much bigger than a rat. 

Gral recognizes the growling howl of the hounds’ commander, but to him, it sounds like a distortion has been removed where there had previously been one. Like some kind of interference or static is gone. The cry is piping, almost musical. But now he, too, hears the sounds of one of the creatures that attacked Bullbreaker’s Expedition pulling itself out of the portal in the hallway.

Gral remembers that when his expedition was attacked, the horrible flesh-hounds were appearing out of totally nowhere and vanishing the same way. Nobody knew how they were able to catch up to the orcs. And now it’s like, oh, they use Portals in Reality. Cheaters.

Shosha, ironically, casts Mirror Image in defence. The gross, fleshy creature crits a WIS save against Gral’s faltering insult, his sharp wit failing him as he looks on one of the monsters that tore apart his unit. It flails tentacles at us, taking out one of Shoshana’s duplicates and smacking Gral somethin’ good. It seems to be wavering in space, making hitting it difficult and disorienting. Valeria smacks it, which stops its displacer-like defenses. We trade blows, with Valeria and Clem both scoring vital crits, while Gral hightails it to the other side of the room and Shoshana continues to fail to hit.

It spins, flailing with tentacles. Valeria catches one on her shield, and knocks it off balance with trident. She drives forward and pins it down with her weight, allowing Clem to bring down her greatsword, executioner-style, into its neck.

Gral hurriedly warns us: “There are going to be more. We should move. The music was silenced, but not its effect.” Downstairs, we can hear more flesh-hounds. We’ve got to move.

The music and strange monster sounds seemed to come from several sources; maybe looking around will work. Out in the hallway, the pattern on the walls is glowing and vibrating. Picking a door at random, Gral sneaks into the Study. (We wonder whether we are playing Clue. Possibly Betrayal.) Inside, there’s books and papers and notes, covered in frantic scribbles. There are windows, but where we should have been able to see out into the sinkhole, all we can see is eerie mist.

Valeria looks through the papers on desk and notices some of shapes in pattern. The disturbing thing: while some are just sketches, some of these look like rubbings. Looking closer, she sees they are labeled things like “Rubbings from the Drowned City,” or “The Derelict Temple.” Some of the notes are titled “Observations on the Space Between”. 

There is a carved chessboard etched with the pattern, a weirdly spiral shape to it. Shoshana fails her int check hard, which turns out to be a good thing - she avoids taking taint from trying to comprehend whatever is on the chessboard. Clem crits her investigation (for a total 19, because apparently fighters have no book learnin’) and finds a heavy, tattered notebook labeled with the name “Josephine Veluma.” It’s some kind of cross between a dream journal and a musician’s workbook. There’s some writing about “harmonics,” sketches of the pattern, and music notes. We also find an old book titled “Observations of the Planets” by Archiume Vlemisk. Hey, that’s the guy who owns house! Aw, it’s just a regular book about planets. Published by Sturmhearst University Press, of course.

Shoshana heads out of the room and down the hall. She rolls a good perception check but also a good Wis save, and manages not to be completely stunned by what she notices. 

“...Guys? This hallway goes to SPACE.”

Further down the hallway, the walls of the house are peeling away and cracking, revealing some kind of vast void beyond.

Valeria, meanwhile, finds an artist’s studio. This for SURE belonged to the Madman we met in the jail cell. Looks like he did lots of landscapes of the fishing village and the lake. (Oh! There’s one of the old church!) We find some sketchbooks, and one canvas featuring a city with vast towers sticking out of a discolored ocean. The towers are in ruins. They are all made of wildly different materials and architectural styles, positioned at weird angles, like a child throwing toys into the bath. Also, there’s a clearer view from the windows of...a piece of this house? It seems to be floating out in the void, connected by a winding staircase. Looks like the top of a tower, with a big telescope. Ah, yes. Astronomer.

There are definitely flesh-hounds sniffing around, getting closer. Gral urgently warns us that we’ve got to move, and tries to buy us some time by using Minor Illusion to make the door between us and them look like a wall. Meanwhile, Shoshana is still distracted.

“...GUYS, this hallway goes to SPACE???? I’m a peasant, I barely know what space IS, holy fuck, it’s SPACE?!?!?!?”

It is at this point the DM reveals the first part of his truly excellent Roll20 map. Indeed, holy fuck, it’s Space. There’s like, planets. And a long stairway out into the abyss. And a weird bulbous orb of eyeballs, blinkin’ at us. Holy shit, spaaace.

We can’t stay in the house. There’s too many fleshhounds. They’ve made it past Gral’s illusion and they’re sniffing around the stairs. Maybe we’ll go crazy if we stare especially deep into the void, but right now we don’t have much choice except to take the magical stairway to heaven.

So we go on the space stairs! As we step outside the walls of the house, we can house is flickering and shifting and shimmering – it’s in both places at once, the real world and the void. We can see the wooden floor of the conservatory, fractured and shattered, floating in space, strange crystals growing out of the floor and resonating with the music. We can see the two musicians and some other vaguely humanoid figures writhing in a weird rhythmic dance. But no time to stick around, the hounds are coming.

At a peak in the stairs, the strange stone of the pathway suddenly becomes metal? More worryingly, a shimmering vortex of energy and mist is swirling directly to the side of it. Down below, the hounds are following. 

Shoshana, curious, casts Message out into the vortex. Just a simple “HELLO, ANYONE IN THERE?” Worryingly, it responds to her magic, swirling faster. A crackling whip of lightning-like energy snaps out and tries to pull her in. The gangly sorceress’s Str save is baaaad, and she is yanked towards the portal. Clem grabs her, but also beefs her roll and slips, too. Clem and Shoshana tumble into the vortex. Valeria and Gral follow, because they’re way too loyal for their own good.

There is a disconcerting tumble through a dizzying nothing, and then slam! Gral feels cold metal floor bang into his buckling knees as he lands. Blinking the spots out of our eyes, we realize we’re surrounded by unfamiliar sounds. Something to our immediate left is chittering wildly. There’s a crackling of lightning and strange, staticky noises, bleepbeepcrckl. We look up, down a corridor echoing with strange slithering, and clawed feet on metal, and oh fuck, are we in an alien spaceship?!

Well, the players realize that. The characters are FAR more disoriented.

There’s some kind of big machine on the end of room, with a similar vortex of lightning to the one we fell into - looks like we just got spit out of this end. There’s three little guys in matching uniforms, not any species we recognize, in various states of frantic action. One is freaking out at Gral, one is pushing levers on some kind of...weird table? It’s all very complicated-looking, to our medieval-ass eyes. One of the little fellas is staring down hallway at the back of some Large Thing. It kinda looks like a hippo in epaulettes, with a sword on his hip and holding some kind of fancy pistol.

This array of mysterious creatures has assembled some sort of barricade in the hallway. There are noises of swarming creatures on the other side of the barricade. Not the sound of the flesh hounds - these are distinctly insectoid. The big hippo guy turns says something commanding-sounding in an unintelligible language, and turns toward us.

We can’t understand a damn thing anyone is saying, so we’ve got to rely on instinct. An insight check reveals the engineers are Freaking The Fuck Out. Apparently their day has already been quite bad, and now We’re happening to them. They are very scared of us, because we just leaped out of their warp drive, and things are probably not supposed to jump out of warp drives? We don’t know what a warp drive is, but we do know that these guys are ready to panic and shoot us.

Hmm. How to communicate? Shoshana creates a Minor Illusion picturing herself and an engineer-creature shaking hands. Hopefully hand-shaking is a custom they have? She rolls 18 on Persuasion, so nobody attacks...but they’re still pointing weapons at us. Hippo man, who the DM accidentally reveals is the  Security Chief, is definitely nervous. Gral holds up his hands nonthreateningly in what we hope is the universal Look I’m Unarmed pose. One of the little bug-person engineers cautiously pokes him with a metal thing, and then the security chief and bug-engineers chitter at each other.

Valeria rolls well on perception, and notices that as the security chief is talking, a weird purple wormy creature has slithered its way over the barricade and is lurking up behind the chief menacingly.

Valeria hurls a trident, directly towards the chief, who immediately reacts to the aggression, pulling his pistol. And then he turns, to see the trident PINNING THE WORM TO THE WALL. That’s a classic movie moment, folks.

There’s more noises on other side of barricade, though, and it doesn’t sound like it’ll hold for long. We can see past, a little, and there’s more mauve worms and some Big Freakin’ Space Spiders over there. There are also two weird devices just beyond the barricade, one to either side, slightly damaged and sparking. The security chief fires his gun twice – holy shit, a gun that fires more than once? We’re used to the most basic of muskets, that shit is IMPRESSIVE! Blam blam! Two of the worms just get blown apart.

The engineers are motioning and shouting, so we roll another insight to see what they’re trying to communicate. One of them points at the devices beyond the barrier, then reaches into its pocket and pulls out what looks like a stick, or a pencil. It points at the machines, snaps the stick, points the halves at the machines, then mimes putting the halves back together. We don’t roll great insight checks and are left a little puzzled. We gotta make those two devices touch each other?

Well, as Will Smith would say, we a little confused but we got the spirit. Valeria and Clem hop over the barrier and into the fray, getting close to the devices while doing what they do best and chopping some worms in half.

Gral manages a decent investigate check. Seems like one of the spider-bugs’ spines is wedged in the left device. There’s sparks coming out of it, which is...probably bad? Much pointing and shouting directs Valeria to get up close and personal with the machine. Luckily for her non-Int-based stat spread, Valeria crits her Int check to figure out what’s wrong.

She yanks the spike out, first of all. Simple enough. She looks inside. She doesn’t really get the point of all this weird junk in here, but there’s all these weird metal strings, some of which are severed. Looks like they should be connected to each other, probably? Better connect ‘em, then. Luckily they’re color coded! The red one twists on with the red one, blue goes with blue...

Behind the barricade, one of the little bug engineers chitters excitedly! He points at a display on wall panel. Shoshana tries to make sense of what he’s miming. He points at this moving picture. It looks like a vertical bar, and it seems like he wants it to go up. He then points at device.

Hmm. On that moving picture thing, there’s a symbol labeling the bar that’s not far enough up. It looks kinda like lightning bolt.

Now Shoshana might not be no fancy city scientist, but lightning, she can do.

Chromatic Orb sends a bolt of lightning straight into the device!! Luckily, a good enough roll means it does not explode. With a hum, a barrier of crackling energy hums to life between the two devices.

Valeria makes it back to the safe zone before the barrier snaps into place, but Clem has to dive through, and takes some damage. The security chief notices and grunts at one of his bug-engineers. It skitters off and quickly brings back a few metal canisters.

The big guy hands Valeria his gun, and points at one of the large spider-things lurking beyond the energy wall. He cracks open one of the metal canisters, pouring out this weird goop on his hands like sunscreen. He reaches down for Clem and rubs it onto her wounds. It is immediately dubbed “healing mayo,” to my personal utter dismay.

Clem is healed! The goop’s healing process feels REALLY weird. Like ants crawling over you, tingling and itching, and then - oh. The pain numbs, and her charred burns are looking significantly better.

There’s clearly some kind of action going on behind the barrier. Some big metal thing crashes into the hallway, shooting fire. The spiders tackle it and try to push it back. Reinforcements, maybe? We’re not gonna find out, because the bug people suddenly get very excited. One pushes past us and talks to the big hippo security chief, who turns and nods at us meaningfully.

The bug-engineers count down and pull multiple switches simultaneously, then grab onto stuff and hang on for dear life. The swirling vortex of the warp drive reverses direction (perhaps reversing the polarity of the neutron flow?) and we feel its sucking force take hold of us as everything interdimensional gets sucked back to whence it came. As we go careening back, the security chief salutes us. We will always remember you, brave hippo man!

We get spat out back onto the platform in the void, along with some random space junk that got dragged along for the ride. We receive:

-the chief’s space pistol, which he gave to Valeria, which has 5 charges

-one of goop canisters, containing 4 uses of Space Mayo, which Clem calls dibs on

-some sort of weird club-tool-thing made of otherworldly alloy. We assume it’s an adamantine mace. Really, it’s a big ol’ space-wrench.

-”2 generic otherword artifacts,” which we cannot identify. Due to us being dorks, one of them is explicitly declared a Zune. The other is possibly an alien Funko pop.

- the friendship of the space people, the greatest treasure of all.

Hey, we’re back on the path! It’s now made of weirdly spongy green stone. Gross. We can’t hear the hounds anymore. Seems like maybe they lost our scent. 

We head up more stairs, until we see something in front of another portal thing. There’s someone there! This person was clearly once a human, but he has the same pale skin and weird elongated fingers as the painter in the cell. Most disconcertingly, his forehead is just COVERED in like twelve eyes. He has paints spread out around him, and he’s just casually sittin’ there, painting something. He looks up and speaks in familiar Valdian. 

“Oh hello!” He puts on a pair of glasses, which match up with precisely none of the eyes on his face. "Hey, you’re not from here! How did you get here?”

We glance at each other, and then all check our notes to remember the madman’s actual name. “Um, Johann told us how to get here.”

“Oh, Johann! I hope he’s well! We were such good friends! He got stuck on the side we came from, you know,” he tells us blithely, blinking a lot.

“Yeah, he told us you were stuck here”

“Stuck? Heavens, no! We wanted to come here!” he argues. He does rather seem to be enjoying himself. We inquire if the Astronomer is here too, and yup, he’s apparently right up the path!

The fella seems friendly enough. Gral asks him if the hounds have been hostile to him. “No, they know my scent. Why would they be after me? I have permission to be here!”

“Uh, you have permission?”

“Well, I helped build the gate, I certainly hope I can go through it! Artyoum got us permission, really. The Lurker and the Hounds certainly haven’t bothered me.”

Oh, the Lurker? Who’s that? We discover that the Hounds obey the Lurker, and the Lurker protects the gates. It makes sure only those loyal to the Key can go through. Sure sounds like the awful monster that Gral’s squadron had the misfortune to meet.

Valeria and Shoshana take a gander at his art. He’s painting some sort of crab monster? It’s a horrifying thing, this enormous crab monster with weird tendrils emerging out of water in front of a crumbling wall. Wait, there’s an orcish character written on the wall. Just one letter - if there’s more text, it’s off the edge of the canvas. The whole thing definitely looks similar to the madman’s painting of the “drowned city” – a different art style, but clearly same place.

“See, I found a wonderful model!” this new painter tells us. “He tried to eat me, but I calmed him down. I got a good look.” He winks several eyes at us. “That’s the wonderful thing about being here, there’s so much to see! So much to capture! I tried for so long to capture it on this thing” - he knocks his fist on the metal object he’s sitting on - “and then I finally opened my eyes, and just kept opening them! I can see so much now! You should try it!”

We decide we are not going to try it.

“So, uh, do you go to all sorts of different places?”

“Oh, sure! I found this model in the city! I call it the Very Wet City. It’s just up the path that way. There’s some sort of camp just on the other side there. Some poor travelers who’ve gotten lost. Must have gotten past the hounds, somehow.”

Lost travelers? A camp? Gral is immediately on that shit like a halfling on second breakfast. “Were they orcs?”

“I didn’t see them, just what they left behind. A bunch of writing. They left a bunch of stuff there. I didn’t touch it,  it all seemed rather important.”

He gives us directions along the twisting and splintering path. His finger warps into a tentacle as he points , turning in the directions he describes. 

We try to get his name. “Oh, please, call me the Painter! They used to call me Devon. You met Johann, our other painter! He would always criticize my work. He’d tell me I was a terrible artist and that I should leave, but I always knew he was kidding.” 

He laughs heartily, and pulls out the metal object he was sitting on. It’s a shield! He’s painted a lot of really realistic eyes on it. “I’ve been practicing eyes! They seem to be a new theme of mine.” All his eyes blink simultaneously. We could swear that more eyes open up than he had when he closed them.

Another weird bulbous eye orb floats by. We avoid its gaze, but Devon tells us that the proper way to deal with them is to confidently stare them down. We try to say something, but he shushes us - the eye orb is talking! (It’s entirely silent, but he seems to be beginning some kind of spirited debate.)

Oh yeah, you guys should take the shield. Always nice to have someone appreciate your art! 

We have received…The Eyegis.

(The pun takes a second to hit, and then there is CACKLING.)

Devon seems to be talking about pigments with the eye orb. “Out of mummies? Really! What a thought.” He’s absolutely absorbed, now, and waves distractedly goodbye as we scram.

We hang a right at the next crossroads, as Devon the painter told us to do. Gral is nervous, yet heartened at what might remain of his expedition.

“The ones who are alive are probably warped beyond recognition, but I never found Bullbreaker’s body. Warped or not, I can sing it a death song.” The prospect of giving his comrades a fitting funeral seems almost more comforting than the thought of finding them alive.

Gral forges ahead, not stopping as he dives straight into the next portal. We emerge in a weird, ruined, twisted city. There’s a weird mismatch of styles in the architecture, though it’s harder to tell since so many buildings are crumbling apart. We’re not far from the edge of a body of water that stretches far into the distance, swallowing the bases of the buildings. This is the Drowned City. 

We’ve emerged in a crumbling structure of flat grey stone, many-floored but open to the elements. It’s a slightly destroyed modern parking structure. It all seems...rather post-apocalyptic. 

More importantly, there’s remains of a camp here, among the clinging mist. There is Orcish writing on one of the most intact walls.

Gral reads it out: “The Hounds can’t come here. The Whispers are quiet here. And if you can read this, look underneath this crate.” 

We look, of course. The crate at the base of the wall has a false bottom, which we dislodge. Gral finds two weird metal jars and a note, written in a delicate Orcish hand. He reads it quietly, and though it’s hard to gauge emotion behind his painted mask, there is clearly some great significance to what we have found.

Meanwhile, Shoshana rolls a rather high perception. What might “The Whispers are quiet here” mean? She’s somewhat attuned to the feeling of the Curse’s corruption, and the sense of taint does appear significantly lessened here, similar to the spaceship. This place is eerie and creepy as hell, but this is a lower-taint area than the rest of the dungeon mind-bending void. Because, after all, the Key isn’t on this world; it just links to it.

Gral, quiet and still as we had begun to search the campsite, finally speaks. “My comrades’ bodies, as many as could be preserved, are in these urns.”

He is quiet for a moment, listening, sensing. Gral can only very, very, faintly feel his connection to the the Allsoul, so far from home. “We need to take them out of this place,” he decides.

“This note is written by Bullbreaker. He tells of his time here – they spent a lot of time in this void. His remains are not here, but he saved the remains of those he wishes to name postmortem.”

Shoshana has to ask. “He wishes to...name them?”

Gral takes the time to explain: “Yes. Orcs have three names: their first name; their family name, tied in with their nation; and their earned name, for deeds over their lifetime. Earned names are granted by bards and cannot be given by other means, which is why Bullbreaker could not name them himself.

It is not common but sometimes those who gave their lives saving others, or are especially pure of heart, are given names post-mortem. Earned names are sung in the death-song, to ensure they take a proper place of high regard in the Allsoul.”

“Do you have an earned name?”

“Uh, yes. I don’t believe it applies to me now, but I was called Joybringer.” He sighs. “I prefer to use my given name. There is no joy in this place.”

We’re quiet a moment. The stillness of the strange, abandoned place washes over us.

Clem uncorks one of the fancy bottles of elvish vodka, hands it to Gral, and says “I am very sorry you lost your companions.” Gral drinks deeply. Orcs, it turns out, do not have a pour one out custom. (Elves do.)

We look around, subdued. There are signs of life here, but this camp was cleaned up and abandoned some time ago. There are remains of a large pyre – this must have been the funeral pyre for Thrice-Burned, Gral tells us, reading from Bullbreaker’s note. Gral knew him even before the expedition. He was a war hero from Clan Duu, famous for getting lit on fire a lot during the war. “He has the names Fireborn, Twice-Burned, and Thrice-Burned. He had to get a new name every time he got burned, you see.” 

We learn that once a name is given, it is not changed or taken away, but the orc is usually referred to by the most recent or most famous to avoid confusion. For example, Duke Shieldeater has like twelve earned names; everyone just calls him the most relevant one. An earned name is used as a term of respect.

 Shoshana reflects on this as they make camp. “I didn’t know all that, Gral. That’s quite beautiful.”

Gral doesn’t openly say anything, but he’s actually rather touched that a Valdian called his culture beautiful.

THEN A MASSIVE CRAB MONSTER LUNGES OUT OF THE WATER NEXT TO US. YOU THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING A SENTIMENTAL MOMENT, SUCKERS? ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!

Shoshana shrieks and does lightning damage to it, on the reasoning that it is wet, and wet things don’t like electricity. It responds by scuttling up right next to her at top speed and snatchin’ her up with a pincer. It’s very Fay Wray, except with more swearing. Valeria and Clem take stabs at it, but for a Giant Enemy Crab it’s very agile. Clem tries to trip it, but taking one leg out doesn’t do a lot if it’s got like seven more.

Gral casts Dissonant Whispers, hoping to send it running away through the meat grinder of the tanks’ attacks of opportunity. Unfortunately, it carries Shoshana with it, heading right into the sea. WHOOPS. Clem manages to slash at it and bloody it along the way. Valeria follows it and uses her Chains of Rack. It nat 1′s its save. 

Valeria can feel Rack’s presence so, so faintly in this place, but with an effort of faith and will she grabs onto it, fixating on it like a candle in the dark, and yanks his holy power through her. The chains rip out and wrap around the crab, woven with vines that burst into full rose blooms. The thing has a bit of a flower crown now. It looks…very pretty.

Shoshana Burning Handses it in the face instead of trying to escape, which is probably a terrible instinct to have. It whiffs at Valeria a couple times and tries to poison Shoshana, but Shosha saves. It shakes off the Chains, ditching its flower crown. A thousand tumblr moodboards cry out in agony, and fall silent.

Gral uses Phantasmal Force to make a lightning cage, preventing it from fleeing down into the ocean. The DM asks if it can take 1 less damage than the cage does, which, okay? Now it has exactly 69 health. NICE. 

Valeria Smites that. Shosha crits her check to escape and thus does not get any gross crab water in her mouth. It tries to escape the lightning cage and fails, and then Gral hits it with his Psychic Blades to finish it off. Gral’s sickle comes through the underside of the imaginary lightning cage and twists savagely into the stomach. From the crab’s perspective, a cadre of orcish heroes encircle it, and take a stab at it all at once.

Orcs are a river culture. Y’all know how to kill a crawfish.

We drag ourselves away from the shoreline and set up camp in the crevice of some crumbling walls, as far as we can comfortable get from the crab-infested waters. The portal we came through swirls placidly beside us.

We’re hurt and out of spells, and if there’s anywhere to rest on this weird journey, it might as well be here where the taint is faint. We settle in for a long rest, and to entertain ourselves, we read through the cookbook we snagged. It is straight-up an eldritch recipe blog, you guys. 

We have some low-stakes arguments on how many cloves of garlic is the appropriate amount of garlic. (Turns out dragonborns like a LOT of seasoning on their food. Shoshana, being functionally Ashkenazi, is on team All The Garlic. Clem thinks we’re crazy people.)

As we take turns on Crab Watch, Shoshana writes out a note to leave in the false bottom of the crate where Bullbreaker had hidden his comrades’ precious remains. Gral notices, and to quote his player, “likes, subscribes, retweets, and Twitch Primes.”

We wake in the morning and dick around a bit investigating the campsite, but as we’re packing up the last of our belongings and preparing to head back into the terrifying void of the Key, the portal beside us begins to shrink and vanish. Run for it!

Valeria and Gral are about to dive through, when they notice that Clem has fallen behind and Shoshana has rolled a nat 1 and straight up fallen flat on her face. They’re nice people and don’t want to split the party, so they stay. The portal whirls shut and vanishes, leaving behind nothing but a wall of bluish-black stone with a familiar pattern carved into it.

Well, fuck.

We don’t panic yet, though, because we come up with an idea: the portal from the Astronomer’s house opened when the mirror musicians played The Opening of the Ways. And we have the sheet music, and also a musician. Time to jam, Gral.

It takes some skill to adapt the piece for lute on the fly, but he manages. And sure enough, the stone vibrates, glowing cracks appear and begin to leak mist, and the portal swirls back to life. 

Gral gets ready to take a pile o’ taint, but then the DM rolls bad and he only has to take 1. We dash through, once more into the breach, to find our fortune and possibly lose our minds in the distorted between-space.

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Also, we decide that Bullbreaker, stuck wandering in a futuristic post-apocalypse world and looking for a portal home, is functionally Samurai Jack. And is thus almost certainly shirtless at this very moment.

#session recap #holzog #the key #shoshana bat chaya #gral omokk'duu #valeria argent #clem haxan #bullbreaker