Evie: I need everybody, all day long, to like me so much.
Sam: STREET SMARTS!
Mabel: Some people give off a vibe right away of like, don’t fuck with me. My vibe is more like “Hey you could pour soup in my lap and I’ll probably apologize to you!”
Theta: I’ll keep all my emotions right here, and then I’ll die.
Jericho: And I’m like “No, that’s the thing I’m sensitive about!”
Memphis: I look back on being seventeen and think “Oh god, how did I not die?”
Henry: Hi, I’m very gay, and I’d like a few dollars.
Ling: In terms of like, instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.
Isaiah: Nobody cared what I thought when I was a kid. They’d say “What do you think you’re doing?” but that just meant “stop.”
Will: You know those days where you’re like, this might as well happen?
Jake: Sometimes babies will point at me and I don’t care for that shit at all.
Sister Walker: You have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair.
The King of Crows: Everyone get out of my way! I just want to sit here and feed my birds.
Ling: (to Sam) Do you always run headlong into certain death?
Evie: Sometimes he walks. Occasionally shuffles. Once, I’m pretty sure I saw him amble into certain death.
[Cellphone rings]
Mabel, answering: I’m busy.
Sam: Do you think drinking thirty-six cans of red bull consecutively would make my senses more heightened or would I just die?
Mabel: …
Sam: …
Mabel: I’m on my way.
Sam: I turned out perfectly fine!
Jericho: Just this morning you thought a ghost made your toast.
Sam: I DIDN’T PUT THE BREAD IN! YOU DIDN’T PUT THE BREAD IN!
Henry: Ah Ling, I hope you don’t mind. I played for you while you were gone. Don’t worry, I only lost twice!
Ling: I was downstairs for two minutes. We’re playing Monopoly.
Henry: I may have made a few risky investments.
Mabel: He tried to build, and I quote, “A tower worthy of my sorcery,” out of 20 stacked hotels. On Jail.
hi!! for the fic prompts, could you do Evie and Sam hanging out/bantering as a short AU one shot in the modern world (like modern but pre covid) hopefully that make sense!! also I haven’t finished king of crows yet 😭 so I’d appreciate it if you avoided spoilers. sorry if this is too specific 😩😬. thanks!!!!!
Hi! I didn’t forget about my fic requests! Just was moving and life got really hectic and stressful for a while. Anyway, I’m back now baby! Here it is, as promised, a (spoiler-free) modern AU below the cut! Enjoy! :)
Find this fic on AO3 here!
“I think the Lincoln Tunnel is my own personal circle of hell,” Evie mused.
Sam’s eyes darted over to look at her where she stood swaying next to him on the bus. “You’re always so dramatic. Love that about you,” he grinned at her.
She rolled her eyes, “I’m serious! This tunnel is out to get me personally! It only has two temperature conditions: clammy or humid. Neither of which agree with my skin, by the way. Like, why is it like this?”
“Maybe because it’s a tunnel? A tunnel that runs under a river?” Sam smirked and looked back out the window of the bus. Which gave him a lovely non-changing view of the tiled walls of the tunnel Evie so despised.
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” Evie huffed.
“Oh doll, I know I’m funny. Don’t even have to take the time to think about it.”
“Yeah, it’s obvious you don’t spend a lot of time thinking.”
“You wound me Evie, you wound your devoted boyfriend. And for what?”
“For the fun of it I suppose,” Evie drawled. The other passengers of the bus around them were steadfastly ignoring the couple’s antics. Good old New Yorker’s. Could always be counted on to ignore everything happening around them so long as it didn’t pose any direct inconvenience to them.
Evie and Sam stared each other down for a moment before bursting into quiet giggles. They enjoyed teasing each other, but they loved each other more than anything. “Anyway,” Evie continued after they both stopped laughing, “we need to stop making these treks out to Jersey. I mean, why do we do this anyway?”
“Uh, because Henry and David live in Jersey? And we like spending time with them?” Sam raised his eyebrows at his girlfriend.
“Henry and David oughta come to see us in the city instead.”
“They already do. Quite a bit.”
“They only visit the city to see Memphis, Theta, and Ling,” Evie pouted, “We’re the afterthoughts.”
“We are not the afterthoughts I promise,” Sam reassured her. He knew she didn’t mean that, she just always hated being stuck in what felt like never ending rush hour traffic in the tunnel. “Remember how David brought those cupcakes he makes that you love so much the last time Theta and Memphis threw a dinner party? He made them specifically for you doll.”
“Hmph,” Evie was still frowning, clearly not wanting to be dissuaded out of her Lincoln Tunnel inspired grumpiness so easily. Sam took the opportunity to move closer to her and drape an arm across her shoulders. The bus chose that moment to lurch though, leaving Sam scrambling to grab onto the handle over his head and knocking into Evie as he did so.
Sam expected Evie to snap at him for jostling her. So he was surprised when the opposite happened instead. She bit her lip and looked up at him through her eyelashes. Sam’s breath caught. He knew that look. He liked that look.
“You just can’t keep away from me can you?” She murmured, blushing in a way Sam knew from experience was calculated to get a reaction. Didn’t mean he was immune to the charms of it though.
“Absolutely not,” he breathed, shifting even closer to her. All arguments and hatred of the Lincoln Tunnel forgotten for a moment.
They were snapped out of that moment by someone loudly clearing their throat. The man sitting right in front of where they were standing glared at them over his newspaper.
“Uh,” Sam fumbled and moved back from where he and Evie had been pressed up against each other. Evie giggled and Sam attempted a look of nonchalance. The man angrily adjusted his paper and started reading it again.
Sam glanced at Evie, who now seemed perfectly content to stare out the window at the tunnel wall and line of cars stretching alongside the bus herself. Sam could see her fighting a grin in the reflection though. She then suddenly turned and met his gaze directly. Sam could see her love for him, a mirror of his for her, shining through. Now he wanted nothing more than to get to Port Authority so they could catch the short subway trip home to their apartment. Their apartment, where he wouldn’t have to worry about disapproving men with newspapers glaring at them.
How much longer was it to Port Authority anyway? Couldn’t be long now, they’d been in the tunnel for what felt like ages. Just then Sam noticed the wall sign announcing the divide between where New Jersey ended and New York started. Sam groaned, they weren’t close enough to being out of this tunnel at all. Maybe Evie had been onto something after all. In this moment, the Lincoln Tunnel sure felt like Sam’s own personal version of hell.
Will: Thank you, Memphis, thank you, Mabel, for all your help.
Jericho: What about me? You didn’t thank me.
Will: You didn’t do anything.
Jericho: I like being thanked.
