Never Grow Up! Never Surrender!

for @sterek-events2019‘s Soulmate Exchange and @delicious-irony!!!

In which Derek discovers his soulmate is a superhero too far out of his reach to ever actually be with. But it doesn’t feel right to flirt back at Stiles now either, no matter how much Derek wants to. Amazing or not, he’s not Derek’s soulmate.

11.5k | G-rated | Superhero AU | Pining

It was always a big deal when a superhero’s soulmark was revealed. Even if it was just a glimpse, that little peek inevitably sent the media and the public into a complete frenzy.

Hysterical matches were guaranteed, people who were so desperate to be with their hero that they would find any way to rationalize how actually their marks did match up, thank you very much, even if they looked nothing alike. Even more guaranteed were the fakers, photoshop and tattoo ink at the ready, determined to bag themselves a rich and famous mate, or at the very least grab their fifteen minutes of fame before their ruse was figured out. Tabloids went wild with claims of the most implausible matches they could dream up, the poor hero in question got hounded by paps and reporters for months on end, and the chances of a real matchup coming out of the whole ordeal were practically nil in the chaos.

All this ran through Derek’s head as he stared at the reporter on the campus lounge’s television screen, gleefully reporting on Ignition’s latest fight. Behind her floated a photograph of him mid-battle, zoomed in on where his bodysuit had been slashed open across his left shoulder blade. It was a little blurry, a little pixelated, but more than clear enough to get a good look at the black mark on the bare skin there.

“Oh shit,” came Erica’s delighted voice as she dropped down onto the couch beside Derek. “Let the circus begin!”

Derek’s his heart dropped; circus was right. He resisted the impulse to reach for the spot on his own shoulder blade that itched and burned. It wouldn’t do him any good. He could make all the calls, send in all the verifiably undoctored photos of identical marks, make all the noise and fuss he wanted. With the buzz and the confusion, it wouldn’t matter. No one would believe him.

True match-ups never made it through a circus like this.

The girl with the dragon boy

You know that temporary amnesia after surgery prompt that’s been going around? I wish fandom would get more creative with it. I mean, hospitals are so limiting.

What if they were in the middle of a fight instead, running away from a baddie, and Stiles was trying to shake off the aftereffects of a spell or something? So they’re dragging him along, trying to dodge bad guys, and Stiles is, like, completely confused and loopy. He has no idea what’s going on. There’s a badass girl with a katana, Lydia Martin throwing molotov cocktails, a coyote running alongside them, and—and Scott! Who has monster entrails all over his claws - HE HAS CLAWS - and he says the guy half-carrying Stiles is—

“Woah, my husband?!” Stiles yells, taking the man in from head to toe. “Are you sure?”

His husband - HOW! - grunts and rolls his eyes at Stiles and eviscerates a goblin with just one hand.

Stiles is impressed. Disgusted, but impressed.

“You married me?” Stiles asks, forgetting all about the nightmare monsters coming after them. “But your eyelashes are so pretty.”

The guy - his husband - lets out another grunt and picks Stiles up - like, literally HE CAN PICK STILES UP - and places him behind a tree.

“Stay here,” he orders, with a resigned expression on his face that says he knows Stiles will not.

“Oh my god,” Stiles says. “You did. You married me. I married you. I married a fireman superhero pornstar!”

“Sweetheart,” his husband says through gritted teeth - holy shit Stiles is in love - “Stay behind the tree and be quiet.” And then he’s back in the middle of the fight, slaying monsters and roaring and basically being the hottest thing Stiles has ever seen in his life.

And then it’s over. The clearing is bathed in green blood, and the people - his friends? - are picking themselves back up, shrugging off bits and pieces of monster from their clothing, and Stiles has a pair of ridiculously strong arms around him, a nose buried in his hair, a kiss pressed against his temple.

He could get used to this.

Which, Scott apparently doesn’t want him to, because he says, “We need to get out of here,” and Stiles is suddenly being thrown over someone’s shoulder and woah, hello.

“Scott, oh my god. Look at my husband’s ass!”

“I’d really rather not, buddy,” Scott says. The katana girl laughs.

“It’s a work of art!” Stiles gushes. “Belongs in a museum! But no! It’s a Stilinski exclusive!”

“I’m going to drop you on your head,” his husband warns.

“Could help with the amnesia,” Scott chimes in.

“You wouldn’t,” Stiles says smugly. “You loooooove me.”

The hands around his legs tighten. “God knows why,” his husband grumbles.

-

Stiles can’t stop smiling, staring around the room. His room! In his apartment! That he shares with his husband!

“This is so cool,” he slurs. “So cool.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” his husband says, tucking the sheets around him tightly, and then climbing over him to take the other side of the bed.

“You’re really real.” Stiles runs his palm down one stubbly cheek. So handsome.

His husband, the handsome monster slayer who wears soft jammies to bed, catches his hand and kisses his palm. “You’ll be fine in the morning,” he says.

They are an Assistant Professor of Media Industries at New York University and literally just finished writing The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal, a book on the history of the computer industry in the 70s.

i think i found my new favorite artist on twitter

Good question, also no that won’t help.

shitty MS Paint 3 minutes doodle, nto entirely accurate: When you have your pinky hooked on the “bottom” edge of the phone for the extra security so it doesn’t slide out of your hand that easily, you’re wreaking damage on your hand, since the pinky is extremely askew from it’s resting position. You might have noticed that when you hold your phone like that for long time it begins to hurt, like when you are gripping a pen too tightly for example.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

And another time some new hot shot leader says Nightwing is nothing but a pretty boy who doesn't have the skills, bravery or experience to run their team during a mission. So Nightwing tells the Leaguer very calmly to go and voice his concerns to Batman instead since that if the proper way to handle it instead of gossiping about him. So the guy goes to Batman with the most demeaning, derogatory rant about how Nightwing shouldn't be on the League let alone running a mission. And within minutes that guy is scared to even look at Nightwing in case Batman decides he didn't show him the proper respect.