just some stuff

But I think this gets even better when you add in the idea of Mobei Jun getting frustrated in his attempts to win his strange little human's affection, and, in his pettier moments, deliberately trying to get caught by these kids who refuse to catch him.

Just imagine Mobei Jun, thinking that if he exposes Shang Qinghua as a traitor, then his human will have to seek refuge in the Ice Palace, and Mobei Jun can sweep him off his feet and into the nearest set of wedding robes. So, when Qinghua's not around, Mobei hunts down whatever closet Qinghua keeps Mobei's spare boots and fur-lined cloaks in and flings them across his floor to be discovered. He starts leaving the traditional animal-head courting gifts out on Qinghua's doorstep instead of on his desk. He "accidentally" encases half of Qinghua's leisure house in ice in the middle of summer. At one point, he heard disciples walking by and marched outside in full daylight, and still the children did not turn their heads to see the massive ice demon standing just outside their shizun's doorway.

Mobei Jun is starting to think that being very, very dense might just be one of the requirements for study on An Ding Peak. Meanwhile, Airplane is having a heart attack every other day from trying to cover up these stealth fails that no one cares about.

Some people are genuinely unaware this is a thing that happens at all, of course, and it's probably an alarming surprise to those people every time but An Ding is not one of those peaks. Any version of SQQ was probably not informed.

Also can mean that ppl who Knew about at least the occasional not-human disciples hear the initial accusations and want to headdesk. Head in hands. Are you FUCKING KIDDING. So much hassle over what, to them, is just Overreactive People Being Nosy about Good Kids. Not THAT surprising that a grown up one stole their Peak Lord away from people who were trying to like, arrest and execute him. Disciples that don't die grow up!!

Then the clarifications come that might identify MobeiJun and... Well then. Damnit.

Was SQH holding out in us on making talismans/seals that were THAT effective that MBJ could play human? Or do we actually have to untangle Something Problematic instead of kicking out the livid interlopers? (And defusing the more reactive uninformed sectmates.)

An Ding remains in Revolt. How Dare. We were FINE if Underappreciated by most. Target OUR lord? Disrupt OUR entertainment? OUR WORK?!?!

No one who was in what they thought was the loop believes it when SQH is accused of helping sabotage the IAC. Clearly these outsiders are jumping to scapegoat conclusions because of something he did to help the not-actually-human disciples that may have been present. (Or) His boyfriendhusbandfuckbuddy refused to stay away for quite long enough for the longass trip, since An Ding gets saddled with extra prep and post event work, and being Not At An Ding, someone Noticed.

Like.

There is probably VERY little really solid evidence to counter those takes, unless Someone Talks who actually Knows. Who even saw MBJ during the attack, other than those who died (maybe), SQH, LBH, and SQQ? It was mostly Beasts type demons unleashed not Warriors. Of COURSE there are traces of SQH all over. Its his JOB to check things and work on things!

Yeah under the circumstances it all LOOKS bad, the An Ding Horde and the scattered others Aware of at least the Not-Human Disciples get that, but getting them to believe the actual traitorous saga? As opposed to the Forbidden Romance and Grey-Area-Its-FINE angles?

Whoever is stuck being The Face, in SQHs absence, and like, YQY if he was in either loop, are Miserable. They gotta Hold against the Rage yet not make things WORSE. Telling Just Anyone about the Kids just puts ALL the kids in danger of being attacked and "tested" by bigots and those with their tempers High. Gotta talk all these Others down, talk sectmates who Didn't Know down, talk Their Own down from attacking the Raging Accusers...

YQYs biggest complaint right now isn't the collusion its the lack of warning. Shidi. Shidi please. I knew about the kids. If I knew about the Possible Courting By A Demon, we could have made contingencies. I could have had PLANS. Paperwork. Look at his rank. Secret treaties! Trade Networks! Something.

Now Da-ge has to pull it 100% outta his ass, on the spot, backup (partially) absent. (Too many of the Lords that would be good at helping with the war of words right then are either absent or out of the loop. At least Liu-shidi will listen to Zhangmen-shixiong and help scare people into keeping the swords sheathed...)

Internal tears of frustration. Mentally throttling SQH for not even hinting this could be a Factor and MBJ for being Conspicuous And Dramatic about it. Given the portal-shadow escape, they COULD have Been Sneaky. But no.

Shen Jiu never once considered himself to be anything but human, of course.

Everyone just assuming he was Aware. He might even have figured out the SQH stuff at least, after all, bro was ON SQH when he came back from MBJ that first time, had the grabby possessive hands on the guy and was trying to keep him to himself on the mission with LQG and stuff too. He was hilariously in his space when with everyone else in the sect he was wildly 'don't touch me'.

New shiny Shen Yuan version SQQ would not have even had this much information.

And SQH is so stuck on 'I am a SPY' that he forgot his own worldbuilding and that Cang Qiong is the weirdest sect in All The Land.

See, this is why SQH ends up back at Cang Qiong eventually, because there's so much of a stink about everything even though it's actually FINE that it gets reverted. But also, it's very possible, hilariously, that no one even considered pinning the Discussion Conference Invasion on him at all until Huan Hua Palace needed a scapegoat about it when they were getting investigated which even started the whole mess.

After all, SQH doesn't end up having any issues back at Cang Qiong until after SQQ decides to murder himself in a very public way after breaking out of prison. Of course Huan Hua Palace would not be willing to address their own poor security and instantly start making accusations.

Worse, then Binghe would do his thing and make a mess and start kidnapping Peak Lords and that would muddle the issue thus make it even more difficult for MBJ to hang onto SQH given MQF got to go home after Binghe kidnapped him. It'd be a double standard if the other Peak Lord couldn't come home too.

Shen Yuan in the not-too-distant future plays an immersive virtual reality MMO, a revolutionary one of its kind that offers unprecedented customization options, called YGGDRASIL. While the basic game inclines itself most strongly to western fantasy TTRPG tropes, it's so flexible that players can create a wide range of fantasy archetypes.

Shen Yuan ended up falling in with, and eventually taking over, a guild that was focused on xianxia tropes and workshopping character classes and race types to create them. The guild had pretty strict rules on what players could do racially and aesthetically to fit in -- stuff like secret dragons and demons and aesthetically-swapped paladins were in, elves were allowed as long as the character lore steered more towards nature spirits and less towards tolkien, and undead were taken on a case-by-case basis.

Over the course of several years, the Cang Qiong guild rose to prominence on their server as one of the strongest good-aligned roleplay groups, to the point of even having some dedicated copycats and rivals. The original twelve founding members each built a different segment of the guild's base, styling it as a mountain range with twelve peaks, and a lot of energy was poured into constructing NPCs to defend the peaks from the frequent incursions of rival player factions.

But over time, other games like YGGDRASIL started to appear and pulled players in. Some were more complementary to the eastern fantasy genre, some had better immersive features or superior tech, more hype, and etc. Other plays began to filter out as different aspects of their lives took over and they started families, got too busy with work, found other hobbies, and so on.

Twelve years after its launch, YGGDRASIL announced rather unceremoniously that it would be shutting the game down, with everything on it destined for the deletion bin. By then, the only players left in Cang Qiong guild were Shen Yuan and Xiang Fei, the latter only ever logging on occasionally to goof around and build extra NPCs for his novel ideas, while Shen Yuan kept maintaining the guild out of nostalgia and a firm belief that the game would be getting some kind of renewed interest any day now.

Accordingly, Shen Yuan was pissed to learn it was just going to be shut down, without even any word of a possible YGGDRASIL 2 or if players would get any bonuses for carrying over their accounts.

Shen Yuan decides to stay online until the last possible moment as the server goes dark. Xiang Fei joins him and nearly has to log off to go to sleep and get up in time for work in the morning, but decides to tough it out for his bro. As Shen Yuan laments, the two gather up all the major NPCs in the sect, head for the peak lords hall on Cang Qiong, and arrange the "Peak Lord" NPCs around the table with them. The NPCs can't talk, but each was styled as the lord and defender of a different peak and as brethren of a united sect, deferring only to their ancestral masters and creators, the godlike players of the setting.

Shen Yuan also insists on bringing along Luo Binghe, the secret demon emperor and trump card for the sect's defenses. Binghe was, in Shen Yuan's opinion, the pinnacle of Xiang Fei's creativity. Though with the appearance of a humble (read: ridiculously beautiful) disciple, in reality Binghe was a top level max skill demon lord, who had taken so many resources and quests to bulk out that it was ridiculous. His programming was fussy, to the point where he had once gone on a rampage and wiped out the actual guild players -- sort of the last interesting thing to have happened before another more popular game was released, and their guild activity plummeted.

Xiang Fei had often teased Shen Yuan about liking Binghe so much, especially since, in his opinion, he was a less interesting secret demon than the one defending his home peak of An Ding. As a final gesture, Xiang Fei reprograms Binghe to be a disciple of Qing Jing (Shen Yuan's peak) in specific, and chuckling to himself deletes the line about him being a playboy and replaces it with a line that says he's madly in love with Shen Qingqiu (SY's avatar).

As the players and their NPCs sit around the table, the game servers go dark. Shen Yuan closes his eyes, braces for the forced log-out...

Then feels himself draw a lungful of cool mountain air, instead.

Ensue Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua freaking out as they realize that they've apparently transmigrated into some sort of reality based on their game. At first the other "Peak Lords" (the NPCs who have suddenly come to life) are confused as to why their sect brothers are acting so erratically, but then they go out and discover that their entire mountain range has seemingly been displaced from its geographical location in YGGDRASIL, to some unfamiliar spot in a totally different world.

Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua double freak out because not only have they somehow become real in the context of the game, they've also brought their mountain range wholesale to yet another fantasy world?!

Shang Qinghua takes some of the other peak lords and goes to check on the actual peaks, to confirm if the other NPCs have come to life and that everything from the guild has made the inexplicable transfer. Shen Qingqiu sets out to check the surrounding area, while tentatively agreeing to let Liu Qingge, Yue Qingyuan, and Qi Qingqi go check in other directions. Luo Binghe ends up insisting on accompanying him, much to Shen Qingqiu's bewilderment, but he just ends up going with it. Outside the unfamiliar world is in its night cycle. Most of the exterior wards are still functional, although they've lost some of the alert arrays from the further outposts. Shen Qingqiu flies up for as high of an aerial view as he can get, surveying the situation, and musing that it really does seem that they've been transported to a totally new world. Also, using all his cool cultivator/class abilities is even more exciting in the flesh.

Anyway, Shen Qingqiu warns Luo Binghe that this unknown world could also contain unknowable threats, they don't know how their respective abilities would stack up here, etc etc, and Luo Binghe privately vows to bring this world to heel and lay its treasures safely at his shizun's feet.

Additional thoughts under the cut:

Loving the idea of it being mid-canon. Wei Wuxian is just like hey. Where did. Why's there...? And yet he can't just ask because obviously anyone should know the deal about the Mysterious Mountain of Cultivators that appeared sometime in the years he was dead.

And SY and Airplane do have to stay in their identities, yup! It would probably destabilize too much for the NPC characters who've newly spawned into actually being alive for them to try and add the additional layers to it, and who knows how they might react? They're all now very powerful cultivators, some even more powerful than Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua, so it's safer just to go along.

I think Shen Qingqiu's probably got no actual backstory that he settled on for himself, beyond a few sentences about being the Qing Jing peak lord and being important enough as a strategist and political player that even the sect leader defers to him on many matters. Then when everything becomes Real he somehow finds that he's Shen Jiu's twin brother and Yue Qingyuan defers to him because of trauma reasons, by some alchemy of the system trying to work out the most reasonable explanations.

So, after uploading all the science and posterity videos, Ryland adds one ‘For Eva’ knowing full well that several governments and possibly the entirety of what is left of the world is gonna see it and he lays on a thick spiel about how he finally remembered that they were gonna get married, right before the accident that put him on this mission, that he remembered proming her the rest of his life and he remembered ‘how hard it was for us to say goodbye’ and ‘you made the right decision. Of course you did. Of course it was the right decision, but Eva, I still miss you. I was missing you before I even fully remembered you. Golly, why didn’t we just – touch more? Talk more? You wouldn’t even let me hold your hand! But I understood. Your hands were full. You had the world in them, Eva.’ And ‘I hope you kept the lights on love, because I’m coming home!’ and he gives the camera this goopy, sweet, broad smile, because he’s utterly tickled, knowing full well that Eva is gonna have to live with this for the months and or years between the Beetles arriving and Ryland making it back, and he even gets Rocky to make him a xenonite wedding band to tuck into a Beetle with his little spaceman, to really sell the whole thing, right, and he’s just freaking giddy about how mad that’s gonna make Stratt –

And then the tauemoeba escape, and Ryland has to go back for Rocky, and he makes another video, explaining the science and the issue and the solution and then he trails off for a minute or so, expression conflicted, and when he looks back up it’s just with this breathless soft ‘Eva’ on his lips, and then he swallows, and then he smiles and it’s – sweet in a sad way, because for Ryland this is really goodbye, and his prank had sort of made him feel better about what she’d done, and honestly – he did miss her. Even still. ‘Eva, I’ve gotta go,” he says, his eyes wet and his voice quavering. ‘You were right about me. It’s gotta be me,’ he shrugs, laughs, wipes away the wet line at the edge of his eyes. ‘There’s nobody else and I mean, I’m on a winning streak, right? Why not try 2 for 2 in saving an entire species, huh? So I just…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made it so hard for – for us. And I’ll miss you. Just – do me a favor and in case I don’t make it – I know how you love back-up plans, yeah? – do me a favor and send an extra probe of taumoeba to 40-Eridani for me? You really can’t let me die in vain here, alright? So make sure – make sure to save both our worlds, alright? Yeah……. And just…. if you care for me any bit at all still, do me one other favor, Eva Stratt. Live a good life for me’ He pleads, before he shudders a breath, looking off to the side for a quiet moment, and then he looks down, nods to himself, presses a kiss to his fingers and his fingers to the camera and turns it off.’

And Eva, right, watches these tapes in a room full of world leaders and aerospace representatives and she’s just – fuming red and there is that stupid little ringbox from the Beetle in front of her with the most unique wedding band in the galaxy in it and it fits perfectly and she’s just -seething, because that is not what happened. They were not – secret lovers, they did not secretly marry or promise to marry, none of that –

But the old Petrova Task Force, right, they take this and run with it – “Oh yeah, it was obvious, I mean ,they denied it, but you could tell –“

“Grace was so bad at hiding right, terrible liar –“

“Stratt was always slipping him these – sour skittles packets, and i mean, that was definitely favoritism, you have no idea how hard it was to get anything on the vat –“

“And the sticky notes! She’d leave him these cute little notes, right, on his lab or on his coffee mug or, one time, I saw her just stick it to his forehead –“

“And Grace never let her be alone, you know? I mean, he was always kind of following her around like a puppy, but no one else ever really approached her, so when we were all, you know, together, those two would wander off –“

Eva’s getting bombarded with all this, and she’s shaking with anger and like, maybe cried a tear or two of frustration, denying it because people are acting sympathetic, while she's insisting that; "I paved the Sahara and I bombed the Antarctic shelf and I sent Ryland Grace into space against his wishes –“

And everyone is just like, oh Eva, we know you loved him. We know how hard that must have been –

And they remake the movie about the project, and the new one has this entire romantic sublot, and the theme of her loving him so much, and having to give him to the stars to save humanity, knowing she’s never getting him back, and this really poignant ending about Stratt waking up in prison (because she did go to prison) and Ryland Grace, waking up in space, both of them on these narrow bunks with these tiny little windows, reflecting different suns, and theres this mutual red streak of cinematic glare in that sunlight, right, and they turn her into this doomed tragic heroine in the public eye, right, and Eva goes so far as to try and release the audio of Grace’s refusal to go up on the Hail Mary as proof that it was not what they were making it out to be, except someone (Carl) removed bits of it, and the rest can definitely be interpreted as having some… subtext, and Eva’s like ‘Carl, why?’

And Carl’s just – it’s what our man would have wanted.

And Eva actually wears the damn ring, right? It’s a space ring, from outer space, from another intelligent species, and it she looks at it daily wanting to kill Ryland Grace and knowing she already has, and what to do, with that?

So there’s one generation that knows her as Eva Stratt, World Dictator, and another generation who knows her as Eva Stratt, Ryland Grace’s Widow, and like, in every single public appearance, she has to continue to protest that they were not married, and everyone is just like ‘Damn, she’s so broken-hearted she’s in denial’ and Eva is like ‘No, that is not what is happening.’

And anyways, she lives to an unreasonably old age and when she’s like, one hundred and eight or so a ship arrives from Erid, bearing a delegation and Ryland Grace’s ashes, which one of the aliens absolutely insists on delivering to Eva Stratt, right, and this is Rocky and he’s carrying this most beautiful sort of crystal urn and it’s all very public and touching and Rocky asks ‘Did Eva live a good life?’

And Eva actually cries this time, for Ryland, and it’s stupid and they weren’t ever anything and this whole joke of his has tormented her for decades and now she’s crying over him because he’s dead. She sent him into space to die and it took him a lifetime to do it and she still outlived him and it is – unfair, now. It has always been unfair.

‘He did not actually love me,’ Eva tells Rocky, when they have been ushered somewhere private out of respect for her ‘mourning’. ‘We were not – that.’

‘Rocky knows,’ the alien says. ‘But Grace said…. maybe could have been.’

‘Is that really his last message for me?’ Eva asks, shaking her head.

Content warning: Colt was and continues to be a whore ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

“Jesus fuck, the first time I see my brother in three years and you guys try and drop him from a hundred and fifty feet,” Colt hissed, speed walking over to the lift as Simon detaches them from the safety bar, stepping down with Grace, who nearly crumbles from the short step down. But after being up that high it all felt like falling.

“A hundred and thirty four,” Simon corrects, unlatching the carabiner keeping them secured together and patting the middle of Grace’s stomach to comfort him. “He did surprisingly well, actually. Got all the way to the edge- I mean he definitely should not have gotten that far but-”

“No shit.” Colt huffs, finally in close enough distance to grab onto his twin’s harness, pulling him in and gripping the back of his head and back to hug tightly. “Jesus Ry. Why are you always getting into trouble-”

“I told so many people I wasn’t you,” Ryland defended, though shaky and with only half his heart as he hugged back tightly. “What the hell guys!” Colt yelled back, half his arm wrapped around his brother as he looked back aimlessly, chastising the whole building for all he cared. “Look at him! How can you not tell the difference? He’s wearing elbow pads. C’mon!”

“He also doesn’t look like he abuses the spray tanner.” Simon muttered, undoing the straps on Grace’s back.

“You know I only do it because Ryder does. I have to stay consistent with him.” Colt defends, jerking an accusatory hand at Simon, who only raises a brow, glancing at Colt and the harness on the teacher as he undid it. “And what the hell? Where were you? He shouldn’t have even made it into the harness!”

“It’s not his fault,” Grace laughs slightly, patting Colt’s shoulder.

“No, it is,” Simon countered, loosening the shoulder straps on Grace. “I should’ve caught it before they ever got you on the lift. But I was distracted.” 

“Damn right you were-”

“I’m sorry, Grace.” 

“It’s fine, really. I’m down now and I don’t need a change of pants so- That’s the best I could ask for,” He laughs a little, more so stuffed into his Brother's side like they were attached at the hip. 

“I’ll have to fill out an incident report- Step out, Hun,” Simon said, gently patting Grace’s thigh before his long legs hopped out of the harness, now slung in the crook of Simon’s elbow as he looked up to Grace’s face. “Stay by your brother for now, so no one gets you mixed up, yeah? I’ll get a PA to get you some ginger ale, stomachs get queasy after heights like that. Go stick your butt in a seat for the time being.”

“Yeah- thank you!” Grace calls out as Simon jogs away, another man approaching, looking confused. 

“The hell was happening over here? I heard commotion on the radio.”

Colt dropped his head a moment, rubbing a hand over his face. “Dan Tucker, you’ve seen photos- This is my brother Ryland-”

“No way-”

“They just got him back off the lift after mistaking him for me-”

“No way-”

“Ryland, this is my best friend and Head stunt coordinator Dan Tucker-”

“I’m your best friend?” Dan asked with a tender look and a hand to his chest. 

“Didn’t- didn’t you used to date a Dan Tucker-”

“Yeah, same guy,” Colt nodded solemnly. “The other guy was Simon Fischer, Co-Stunt Coordinator-"

“You also dated a Simon Fisher-”

“Also same guy-”

“Why are you working with so many of your exes-”

“Cause he’s a whore.” Dan provided with a soft nod, that had Colt squinting at him. “I am not a whore-”

“I mean..” Ryland drags quietly, a guilty smile coming to his face when Colt shoots a glare at him.

“Alright. I see how it is,” The stuntman says as he pulls from his twin. “First time you see me in three years and the first thing you do is judge my relationships- and you’re one to talk, Mr.’I need you to take me to get my stomach pumped after taking a bunch of pills from strangers’.”

“Techniqually, the first thing I did was almost get my back broken trying to do your job for you-”

Visiting his brother on set for a nice lunch had quickly turned into the worst internal stunt team disaster the industry had seen, apparently, because Ryland sat on the side line in his beanie and yellow coat, sipping a ginger ale and eating crackers while trying not to stare at the gathered team getting chewed out. 

He felt a little bad that he had gotten them in trouble, but he knows it isn’t a whole ‘them getting told off for taking something extra from the snack bar’ and was more on the line of ‘this is not something that should have happened and is super dangerous that it did’. 

But he mostly felt bad because Dan and Simon were sitting at the front of the small mountain of the stunt crew huddle. Dan was nodding along softly, but Simon was staring down the people speaking with a great seriousness, his flesh hand bracing on his half bend leg where he leaned against the set they were all crowded on.

“I’m gonna get you a tshirt that says ‘Not Colt Seavers’ on it,” His brother prompted, sitting across from him on the tiny metal chair that belonged to some paris romcom set that paused it’s shooting in the same location.

“No one will read it, better off just putting it on my forehead in permanent marker.”

“That does sound like an upgrade.”

“We have the same face,” Ryland pointed out. “As was the general consensus of the entire crew apparently.”

Colt closed his eyes with a throaty sigh and shook his head softly. “I’m never gonna not have nightmares about them almost throwing you off that thing.”

“That would’ve been an unideal physics lesson for my students, but we have been learning about different kinds of gravity for the past few weeks.”

Colt nodded softly, finger scratching at his paper cup in lost thoughts. It had been a while since he talked to his brother. No bad blood, just life getting in the way of regular visits and their jobs being at the forefronts of their minds.

“You really laid into that guy at the science conference thing-” 

“Oh god, you did not watch that video,” Ryland groaned, plucking off his glasses and wiping his hands over his face.

“I mean really. What did he do to deserve that-”

“He didn’t do anything! He just- he was a little catty about the paper I wrote. And I was drunk. Everyone was already laughing at me- it was a mess- And now I’m teaching sixth graders- do you know how passive aggressive middle schoolers are? I wore an orange tie over a blue shirt once and they told me they were taking away my ‘queer card’ because apparently, and I quote, ‘no queer person dresses that bad’.”

“Oh ho ho shit,” Colt laughed, shaking his head. “Kids are assholes man.”

Ryland nods softly, planting his elbow on the table and resting his cheek into his palm. “They’re gonna have a real wakeup call when they meet an actual queer adult in public and find out they all dress like homeless people.” 

“Homeless people or met gala,” Colt corrected. “Yeah yeah, Homeless, met gala, or rave.”

“Or cowboys.” 

“Bikers too.” 

“Also drag queens.”

“Drag queens are a given- Oh, you know what- Jiggalos.”

“I’d be terrified if sixth graders knew what jiggalos are.”

“Oh, they know way more than you want to know. That’s why you don’t have conversations like this with children, you’d be absolutely horrified by what they know. Which isn’t a surprise, ya know? They have access to the internet, they’re hitting puberty-”

“Ry, I would love for you to immediately shut up.”

“Message received.” Ryland saluted with his other hand, immediately sitting up straighter when he saw the stunt crew  break and start to disperse, Simon standing up quickly and holding off a conversation from a few people to walk over.

Colt’s eyes narrowed on Grace when he adjusted how he sat, crossing his leg over the other and folding his hands.

“No.”

Ryland glanced over to his brother, confusion written on his face. “No?”

“No, Ryland.”

“What do you mean ‘No’? You can’t just say ‘No’ and not give context, doesn’t make any sense-”

“You doing alright over here?” Simon asked as he approached, settling his flesh hand on his hip and looking down at Grace with a pinch in his brow. “You feeling nauseous? You come down yet?”

Ryland laughed a little bit, smiling up at the broader man. “I mean, I came down a while ago. It was the going up part that really got me.”

“Come down from adrenaline, Ry.” Colt clarified.

“Oh yeah yeah yeah, I came ages ago- came down ages ago- I’m good, all fine.” Grace muttered with stiff thumbs up. “All good and fine, baby- buddy.”

Colt took his sunglasses off his head and put them on his face instead before banging his face softly into the table, to which Simon didn't even look his way, only nodding softly, reaching into the back pocket of his sinfully fitted jeans.

“Okay, well, again, on behalf of the whole stunt crew, we are deeply sorry. And you’ll be getting a lot of those today if you stick around,” Simon said, while pulling out his wallet and thumbing out a card and dropping it onto the table, stuffing the leather back into his pocket. “Heard you guys were going to lunch so, it’s on us today.”

“Oh great,” Colt muffled, his hands gesturing up. “Now we can spend up to forty dollars total. Exciting.” 

“It’s my card actually, just don’t spend more than five grand and we’ll be good.”

“I’m sorry?” Grace half squawks before Colt’s hand is making a break from the card. Simon must know him pretty well, because he reads his mind and grabs it off the table before Colt can slap his hand over it.

“Nah nah nah nah nah, not you. You don’t get to hold my card anymore after last time.” Simon chastises, to which Colt has the gall to look annoyed at as he slumps into his chair. Like a child denied a treat as Simon holds the card out to Grace. “Please make sure he doesn’t use this. I can write off a lunch but I can’t write off whatever bullshit he tries to pull.” 

“Oh- thanks- you didn’t have to,” Grace says with a soft smile as he takes the card. “I mean, if you really wanted to be sorry you could pay my rent.” He jokes, but Simon just shrugs. “Sure. That’s fine. Whatever works.” 

And Grace just stares for a moment.

“I’m not- I wasn’t being serious-”

“Okay.” Simon shrugs again, making Grace’s face contorts in confusion, looking between Colt and Simon.

Colt groans out as he stands up. “Oh my god you guys are painful. You’re both different flavors of autism and it’s driving me up a wall-”

“I’m gonna ignore him for now,” Simon says to Grace, pointing back at Colt. “But yeah, have lunch on us, pay your rent on us- I don’t really care-” He said, before joining his right hand and leg prosthetic together. “I am very sorry for the incident, we will work hard to make sure it never happens again, and if someone tries to do that shit again, I want you to punch and kick and scream. Got it?”

“Aye aye, captain,” Grace salutes. “Yeah yeah, that’s cute but I’m being serious.”

“Oh, no, yes, I hear you,” Grace nods while folding his hands tightly, feeling a bit stupid. “Okay- because shit like that is why I no longer have an arm, right? And as good of a payout as it is, I do not want you getting hurt. It’s not worth the money.” Simon says seriously. “So please be careful. We’re all sorry. Enjoy. I’m gonna go fill out a fuck ton of paper work.” 

“Right, yes, thank you.” Grace says with a wave and an awkward bow of his head as Simon beelined for his next destination, unhooking his radio and already muttering into it as he weaved past people ringing in set pieces.

The teacher bit at his nails subconsciously, staring down into the swirls of the metal table. It always felt like he fucked up every interaction he had. The only good ones happened when he wasn’t talking much or wasn’t paying attention enough to put in his two cents.

“Ryland,” 

He glanced up at his brother, both his hands rested on his cheeks as Colt stared him down with a dead expression. “You can not get with my ex-”

“What is wrong with you? I was almost thrown off a friggin building theory minutes ago-”

“Because I know you, and I know your face, and my exes are off limits-”

“You’re being stupid-”

“No, I’m not being stupid. I’m being realistic. And I swear to god if you have sex with my ex then it will be a problem for both of us, because then I’m gonna have to bother him till he tells me which of us was better, and neither of us want that-”

“Okay, new concept here, have you considered the idea of not asking that?”

“I have, and I’m not interested.”

“Not interested in not knowing which of us is better in bed?”

“Not interested in not knowing if my dick is bigger-”

“You have free will, Colt,”

has the "ship grace with everyone ever" blunt rotation hit the eel hive mind yet

Be real Adrian who do you think you’re fooling

I swear man idk what came over me but here we are-

But MMM it hits the spot, using my free will as I please I suppose