oops! all mcelroys!

At least this is new. Interviewing possible crew members isn’t exciting, but it’s new. The most he can say is that— if this works out— the end result will be exciting. The ship is nearly made, the bond engine is incredibly impressive, and he can’t wait to explore what’s beyond the stars.

He reaches the conference room, it’s neat little plaque telling him it’s the right place. But there’s something… unique about it all.

There’s muffled shouting coming from inside. The recruits’ files didn’t label them as necessarily rowdy people; except for Burnsides, but even he can’t make that much noise on his own.

Scared and intrigued in equal measure, Davenport opens the door. Inside is… chaos.

Lup and Magnus arm wrestling is the first thing. They’re both leaned over the table, grinning viciously at each other as their hands struggle against each other’s strength.

The shouting is coming from Taako, who’s kneeling on the table and watching the fight. Near intelligible cheering in a mix of languages— Common, Elvish, and is that Draconic? Davenport can’t even tell who he’s cheering for.

Almost completely drowned out by Taako is the completely unrelated argument between Barry and Merle. Merle is calmly reclining in a chair, his legs propped up on a second one positioned right next to it, and Barry is leaning against the table as he gestures with his hands as he talks. It looks as though Merle is effortlessly infuriating Barry with whatever nonsense he’s spouting.

In an unoccupied seat, head bouncing between the two situations like a tennis match, is Lucretia. She’s writing in both journals without looking, but her hands move in sync. That’s probably the most confusing thing about this whole scene; how can she focus over all the yelling?

Davenport slams the door shut, drawing all attention to himself. Six bodies freeze and six heads turn to face him. A beat passes in utter silence as they all look at their captain like kids caught doing something wrong. Davenport prepares to speak, but the chaos has already continued as if it never stopped. Magnus wins the arm wrestle and Lup starts claiming cheating, which makes her, Magnus, and Taako’s noise increases dramatically. Merle’s pulled a drink from somewhere and is now sipping it. Barry’s pulled diagrams from somewhere and is now angrily presenting it to Merle. Lucretia just writes faster.

“Taako, I love your sister and I think it might be actively killing me,” he complained loudly. He could hear his best friend moving around in the kitchen, and normally he wouldn’t be so brazen about this fact, but Taako knew the score by this point. Plus, Lup had work today. 

“I mean, she sent me that skeleton ‘back on my bullshit’ meme sixteen times today! Sixteen! If anyone else did that, if you did that I would block your number so fast but because it’s Lup it’s perfect because she’s perfect and I just… love her,” he whined. 

He was knocked out of his lovestruck lament by the sound of a glass shattering in the kitchen. 

Instead of Taako, Lup was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She was wearing a fluffy pink robe and had a carton of apple juice in one hand still, the shattered remains of a mug at her feet. 

Her face was a deep, dark red, and Barry suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. 

“I-I… work? I thought- you- work?” he managed to stutter out after a moment. Which, really wasn’t doing any to help his save face, if that was even possible at this point, If he was realistic he knew it wasn’t.

“Closed early. That uh, that was what Bullshit Skeletons seven through sixteen were for,” Lup explained, sounding… well, Barry had no fucking idea how she sounded, it was hard to hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. 

“Oh,” he said, because what else was there fucking to say. “I should… I should go,” he managed, pushing himself up off the couch. 

“Oh. Okay,” Lup said, and Barry tried not to feel like his heart was ripping out of his chest as he scrambled up off the couch and out of their apartment. He didn’t end up getting very far, having to slump against the wall to try and pull himself together. He could have a breakdown later, once he was home. 

He’d been so careful though. Six years, he’d managed to keep it to himself. There wasn’t going to be any coming back from this. Lup knew and she was going to hate him, probably already hated him. He’d lost her, it was only a matter of time before he lost Taako and then everyone else and he couldn’t even blame anyone for that because he was such an idiot. 

“Shit wait Barry! I love you too!” Lup came busting through the door at that moment, practically plowing into him and almost knocking them both to the floor. 

“Wait, what?” Barry asked, certain he must’ve heard that wrong.

“You surprised me! I forgot I had to say it back!” she said, and there was a moment where all Barry could do was stare at her. Then he broke into laughter.  

“Sorry, sorry! I just- I didn’t see it happening this way,” he said, and he felt like he was going to throw up from the whirlwind of emotions. Lup was laughing to, her bright smile slowly shifting to something a bit more sheepish. 

“Yeah uh, me neither. And to make this even more not like you expected, think you could take me to the hospital?” she asked. 

“What?” 

“I dropped a mug on my foot and it shattered. I think I need stiches,” she said, and it was only then that Barry actually bothered to look down, and yep. 

“Lup!” 

“You surprised me!” 

“Oh my god!” Barry shouted, hefting Lup into a bridal carry so that she would stop standing on her bleeding foot. There was a startled look on her face at that as he started quickly carrying her down to his car. 

“Oh, that’s uh, that’s hot,” she mumbled, and Barry could feel his face turning red again. 

“We can’t kiss until you’re no longer bleeding,” he insisted, and the way Lup pouted at that definitely did something to his heart. 

“Aw,” she complained, and it was almost enough to get him to stop and kiss her then and there. Not quite enough though, because there was still the foot issue. 

Me, absolutely ignoring the part about the Starblaster being the “size of a medium yacht” in favor of the part about “sightseeing trips for two across doomed worlds”

[ID: two photos of op dressed as Lady Istus from the adventure zone. She is a black woman wearing a white dress and holding an iridescent cape across her arms. Her hair is a braid natural black at the roots to silvery grey and pinned back. There are two gold knitting needles in her hair. In the first picture she is smiling and making a peace sign. In the second picture she is smiling and turned slightly to the other side. There is also a video of op saying “I’m still technically in my cosplay because I spent too much time of it before the stream. And then immediately after the stream it was just Kravitz. No thoughts only Kravitz. Ugh, I gotta....(tired noise)” End ID.]

I’m on my Balance relisten and this bit from ep 1 of the suffering game was way cute