bakerstreet | the picture prompt

the picture prompt

the integrated picture prompt meme

FOR ALL YOUR GEN, SHIPPY, SMUT AND AU PIC PROMPT NEEDS

i. COMMENT WITH CHARACTER. INCLUDE PREFERENCES (gen/shippy/smut/au/all)

ii. OTHERS LEAVE A PICTURE (OR TWO OR THREE....)

iii. REPLY TO THEM WITH A SETTING BASED ON THE IMAGES.

THIS POST WILL BE IMAGE HEAVY AND POSSIBLY NSFW.

link to an image: embed an image: control width and height:

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[He pushes a little on the back of Matthew's head, just fond, small contact.

He gets a text back.

Declan looks at it.

And pockets his phone.]

We'll stop for something to eat on the way.

Oh, good.

[ Matthew responds with the eagerness and gratitude of an excited puppy, though he hadn't thought of wanting food until this moment. When they reach the car again he tosses his stuff in the back, clambers into the front passenger seat, and buckles in for another ride. ]

Did you text Ronan?

[ Even in his rediscovered cheeriness, he asks the question with some care. If Declan didn't then Matthew really should, before Ronan realizes he's gone.

That would be ugly. (He has no idea it already is.) ]

Yes.

[He tosses his phone to Matthew - well, no. He doesn't toss it because Matthew, bless him, won't catch it. He hands his phone to Matthew, and takes his pillow at the same time as he heads to the car. He imagines that whatever Ronan says in response is going to be nasty and at the last minute, he changes his mind.]

Don't read it. It's probably not about you, anyway.

[Except that it's absolutely about Matthew. About the war between them and how Matthew is the only thing that Declan can use against his brother.]

[ He's lifting the phone to check the message when Declan tells him not to, and for a second afterward he just looks at the darkened screen. Considering the likelihood of that being the truth. He eventually lowers the phone again, holding on to it for his brother and obediently leaving the message unread.

He'll text Ronan later himself, for whatever that's worth. For now it's enough he knows Matthew hasn't been kidnapped by another drug dealer or something.

He puts it out of his mind. ]

Where do you want to eat? We could go to Nino's. Or something else.

[ They could get dried out hot dogs from a gas station and he'd sing their praises. ]

[Matthew, stop being cute and tempting to drug-addled psychopaths, please.]

Let's get it out of town.

[The faster they get out of town, the less likely that Ronan will show up, drawn to them by some irresistible Lynch magnet, brewing for the kind of fight that will end up with Ronan expelled and Declan picking out foundation to cover his black eye.]

There's the burger place on the way up.

[It is a pit stop kind of diner, the sort of place their father used to love, the kind of place that still can put Declan in the most uneasy of moods, but it doesn't matter. It's good enough.]

[ Matthew's life would be one hundred percent free of drug-addled psychopaths if it weren't for Ronan.

But then, if it weren't for Ronan, Matthew's life would be one hundred percent free of anything.

He tips his head, then smiles suddenly. ]

The one with the creepy cow?

[ What he means is, does Declan mean the diner that, in a reach for tourist attention and memorability, has a rather unsettlingly designed fiberglass cow on the roof, frozen permanently in mid-wave at the road? Matthew, so easily amused by life and its weird things, has a picture of that cow on his phone somewhere, from the last time they'd made their way out there however long ago. ]

[He gets in the car and looks over at Matthew, with a slight look of dismay on his face.]

What is it with you and that cow?

[Matthew why. But he starts the engine and already starts plotting that course. Of course that's where they'll go.]

[ Matthew laughs at Declan's expression. ]

It's funny.

[ It's funny and ugly and maybe there was a time when the three of them could have stood in the parking lot and agreed on that fact before going inside to eat together.

The music picks up again when Declan starts the car and Matthew settles back in his seat, thoroughly content once more, the prior events of the afternoon behind him. It's probably not very fair but that's how he works. ]

So what are we gonna do in D.C.?

You're strange.

[He shrugs. He knows it's how Matthew works. He loves that it's how Matthew works, honestly.]

What do you want to do?

You're strange, [ he echoes back, a silly, brotherly rib so pleasant that it sounds like a compliment. ]

I dunno, let's do lots of stuff. Can I see your school?

Sure, if you really want to. I'll have classes, you can sit through them if you really want to.

[He's smirking a little because Matthew does not want and he knows what's coming next is his blustering inability to say no without thinking that Declan might be offended.]

Huh? [ Matthew has no control over the sudden scrunching of his nose. ] Oh. [ That is not what he meant. He just wanted to see where this school thing happened. ]

I mean-- You think that'd be okay?

[ Hopefully not?? ]

[Declan laughs, then. It's a good noise.]

Sure.

[He's laughing though so clearly he's teasing.]

You can do my homework, too.

[If Declan wanted to fail.]

[ Whoa whoa whoa, that is too much. Matthew twists his body around to face the driver's side, protest written all over his face. ]

Hang on, Declan--

[ And then it sinks in. ]

Oh. You're joking.

[ He relaxes back into the seat, shaking his curly head, trying not to smile. ]

You do not want me to do your homework.

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the picture prompt

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I have no idea why this took so long

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