#But for real I got tired of seeing them insult an identity that's got nothing wrong with it

[unhinged-transmasc]

i think it says a lot about the people saying these things, that "misandrist sentiment" is usually accompanied by "you're not actually oppressed, you just got your feelings hurt." especially when you consider i've been internalizing that since age 13, when i first identified as a trans boy. that's a hell of a long time to be exposed to "just getting my feelings hurt." even adding more insult to injury that i wasn't even privileged and i'm also marginalized (also. a POC.) like.. do you really think a young teenager is gonna be able to emotionally handle "just getting their feelings hurt" on the basis of their identity. at what point would you consider maybe being kinder and being more compassionate cause that's what gets actual progress. like maybe if i started seeing that bullshit now, i'd be tired of it, but i wouldn't have internalized that i'm irreversibly a terrible person and it wouldn't have had such a lasting mental impact on me, wouldn't have taken me so much frustration to try to unlearn it and work it out.

and from what i've seen, especially for younger generations raised on the internet, this is.. kinda a decently common experience?from transmascs to even anyone who was AMAB, including cis guys -- we want to be progressive and help people but we're exposed to a lot of "lol men suck" even just jokingly, it's pervasive, it gets into our goddamn brains and makes us question everything and hurts us a lot, especially when it starts young. it makes a lot of trans people question if they're even supposed to be in the spaces that are supposed to support them. and hey, maybe that's what you actually want, for us to experience the "same" misogyny cause it will never be "as bad." but it's kind of really sucky cause a good number of us also experience misogyny on top of that so it's not like you're doing anyone any favors really. and even for cis guys it's just generally... not good. of course if you just enjoy making other people suffer out of revenge against misogyny in general, i guess that's your own thing and you can do that; if you genuinely want the power structure flipped on its head than have actual equality. but it is kinda stupid tbh.

and it also sucks that feminist spaces and society at large is not at ALL prepared to fully address all the ways that men suffer under the patriarchy, albeit differently from women it's still suffering. like. there's still a lot of cis men out there who think even the most basic things are gay, unmanly, feminine, not "real men" behavior. having a range of emotions, basic hygiene, the type of clothes you wear, your mannerisms and your lifestyle. and then there's a lot of feminists who think that men have nothing to suffer from and it's just so easy to "undo/unlearn/unpackage" a lot of this shit. and it sucks only trans people discuss this aspect a lot because it has affected all of us and shaped our experiences, but the deeper nuances of trans voices and experiences are not that heard in society.

i just. it's one of my hopes this is a subject that gains more importance in society within my lifetime. liberation for all or liberation for none ok.

[mogaiphobic]

When someone is discoursing in the replies of a post but they're doing it on ur rb of it so you're getting all the fucking notifs for it

[marauders-venting]

Gay Secrets and Fabulous Hair

pairing: jily (james x lily), wolfstar (remus x sirius)

genre: fluff FLUFF FLUUUUUUUUFFFFFFFFF

warnings: minor panic attack

words: 4508

“What’s up, Evans?” Sirius said, coming into the common room and sitting on the couch beside Lily.

“What? Oh, nothing,” she said.

“Come on, spill,” Sirius said. “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just Potter—”

“Ah, got James on your mind now, have you?” Sirius said, smirking.

“Shut up, Sirius,” she said, but she blushed and looked at her hands, giving her away entirely. “He’s just getting on my nerves is all.”

“Hmm, what did he do this time?” Sirius asks.

“Ok, this is going to sound dumb. But he won’t shut up about his hair and it’s giving me a headache. He’s just so self-absorbed. It was fine when I hated him because I didn’t have to listen to him rambling on about it all the time but now that we’re actually friends… it’s quite irritating.”

“Yeah, he hasn’t shut up about his hair for about seven years. Although I suppose I’m being a hypocrite right now cause, let’s be honest, neither have I.”

“True, true,” Lily said. “It just annoying, you know?” But she had a small smile on her face. She tried to hide it but Sirius saw it. He knew Lily fancied James. It was beyond obvious. But while she refused to admit it he could still have some fun, couldn’t he? Besides, it wouldn’t be long before Lily and James got together. He should take advantage of this opportunity before it’s too late. And he just had the perfect idea.

“You know,” he started, grinning mischievously at Lily, “we might be able to fix that.” Lily turned to him, eyebrows raised.

“I’m listening.”

---------

When James wakes up the next morning, Sirius is still asleep. Predictable. He changes and goes downstairs to breakfast but before he leaves the common room, a new notice on the noticeboard catches his eye.

Society for Witches and Wizards with Hair More Fabulous Than Life Itself

Exclusive invitations will be given to those with outstanding hair by tonight

If you wish to join and were not given an invitation, you may come to the auditions that will be held over the next two days and we, Lily Evans and Sirius Black shall decide if your hair is spectacular enough to join our club.

Again, it was predictable that Sirius would start a society for people with fabulous hair. But Lily? She was always going on about how James was too self-absorbed. This seemed pretty hypocritical. Although, in all fairness, Lily did have fabulous hair. James Potter, of all people, would know that.

All day, James waited for Sirius or Lily to invite him to join their society but neither one of them mentioned anything. Lily invited Marlene at lunch and she accepted, giving Lily a bewildered look until Lily whispers something in her ear and they both giggle and keep whispering together. James edges closer to where their sitting and tries to be as quiet as possible. Lily’s laugh was the most angelic sound James had ever heard and every time he heard it, it filled him with a sense of warmth and bubbly happiness and excitement. He knows that Lily doesn’t like him like that but he can’t help treasure these moments where he can appreciate all the little things about her that somehow nobody else seems to notice. Her laugh, her smile, her eyes.

James didn’t want to be in love with Lily. Loving someone who could hardly stand you was painful enough, but to become friends with her and realize that she’s more incredible than you could’ve ever imagined… that was a type of hurt James never thought he would experience. No, James did not want to be in love with Lily Evans. But it baffled him that there were people — living, breathing people who existed in this world — who had not fallen in love with her. James thought it was unavoidable.

He didn’t tell Lily any of this, of course. James had asked Lily out but she had turned him down. And that was it. He respected her decision. But that didn’t mean he could fall out of love. Because he was sure that it was love that he felt for Lily. True love or soulmates or whatever you want to call it. But this was it. This was the real deal. The only trouble was that it was only real for James.

It was nearly eleven at night when James finally asked Sirius about his invitation. He had given up waiting for either him or Lily to approach him and decided to just ask Sirius.

“I mean, I know we share a room but don’t you think you’ve waited a little too long?” James said. “Marlene got her invitation at lunch.”

“Um, Jamie, I don’t know how to break this to you but…” Sirius started, “you weren’t invited.”

“What?” James said. “But I have spectacular hair!”

“Just… come to the auditions tomorrow if it means so much to you, ok mate?” James merely shrugs.

The next day James still hasn’t decided if he wants to audition. On one hand, he knows he’ll pass the audition because, well, have you seen his hair? But on the other hand, he doesn’t want to give Sirius the satisfaction of knowing that James actually cares about his hair. Because he was sure that Sirius didn’t invite him on purpose. What other reason could there be? It certainly wasn’t because of James’ hair. That he was certain of.

It’s during lunch that James makes up his mind, after discovering that both Mary and Dorcas auditioned.

“They score you out of ten,” Mary explained to him. “I got a 7 but they said that isn’t a high enough score.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mary, you have beautiful hair,” James reassured her. Mary smiles at him like he’s a little kid.

“Thank you, James. I don’t really care, to be honest; I was just curious to see what they’re doing,” she says shrugging. “What did you get, Dorcas?”

“I got a nine,” Dorcas said.

“Good on you,” James says, clapping her on the back.

“Thanks, James,” Dorcas said laughing. “Are you going to audition?”

“Probably,” James said, shrugging. He tries to look nonchalant but he’s determined to go now.

When James finds the classroom that the audition is being held in, he knocks on the door.

“Come in,” says Lily’s voice. She and Sirus sitting behind a desk with quills and parchment. James enters and stands in front of their desk.

“Ok so how does this work?” he asks. “Do you just score me now or…?”

“Potter, you get a two out of ten,” Lily says, writing something down on a piece of paper. “Not nearly close enough to join. You’re dismissed.”

“What?! How? I have the best hair out of all of you!”

“Because Potter, your hair is messy and sticks up in odd places and it looks like you’ve never bothered to run a comb through it in your life,” Lily says.

“Sorry mate, she’s right,” Sirius said. He’s got a hand over his mouth but it’s clear he’s laughing.

“Wha— I… fine,” James grumbles. He points a certain finger in their direction and stalks out of the room, outraged.

---------

“Remus!” Remus turns around at the sound of his name and sees James walking towards him.

“Oh, hey James,” Remus says.

“Hi, Moony, my new best friend,” James says, swinging an arm around him. Remus looks at him suspiciously.

“What did Sirius do?” he asks.

“What makes you think Sirius did anything? Can’t a guy decide that no longer want a… a… annoying person as their best friend?”

“Really? Annoying person? That’s the best you can do?” Remus says, rolling his eyes.

“Give me a break, I’m not used to actually insulting Sirius,” James muttered.

“So what did he do?” Remus asks again.

“Did you hear about his and Lily’s Society for fabulous hair?”

“Oh yeah,” Remus said, laughing. “Oh. Did you not pass the audition?”

“It’s so unfair!” James bursts out. “I mean you and I have perfectly good hair.”

“Um, James…. I was, um, I was actually invited,” Remus mumbled.

“They invited YOU?!?!?!” James exclaims. Remus holds back laughter and nods. Benefits of fucking one of the founders of the society, I guess, Remus thinks. He nearly says it out loud but stops himself. James goes on to ramble about his hair but Remus isn’t really listening anymore. He’s thinking about Sirius (no surprises there).

If Remus is being honest with himself, he’s tired of sneaking around. He loves Sirius. He loves Sirius more than anyone. And he wants people to know it. He’s not saying they should go around broadcasting their relationship but being able to hold hands in public or make jokes (such as these) around their friends would be nice.

His whole life Remus had done nothing but hide his identity. When his friends found out he was a werewolf it was an enormous weight lifted off his chest. When he told his friends he was gay, not only were they all incredibly supportive, but it had given Sirius the courage to come out to Remus as well. That was how they got together in the first place.

Neither he nor Sirius had been ready to share their relationship with the rest of their friends back then. But Remus was ready now. But he didn’t want to push Sirius into anything. Sirius wasn’t out to their friends and if his family ever found out the consequences could be dire, even though Sirius no longer lived in Grimmauld Place. And Remus wouldn’t risk Sirius’ safety for anything. When Sirius was ready he would tell him. And Remus would wait. He’ll wait as long as it takes. He’d wait forever. Because nothing can compare, nothing can even come close, to the all-consuming happiness that Remus feels when he’s with Sirius. And he wouldn’t give that feeling up for the world.

---------

But Sirius was becoming tired of being closeted too. He used to be so afraid of leaving the closet. He felt the fear in his bones; it would make him shiver. It had been a safe place for him. Safer to hide his feelings, to bury them, than to risk his family finding out. Or worse, his friends finding out and hating him. But now the closet felt small and suffocating. Sirius was tired of hiding who he was. He was tired of it. When he was with his family he wore a mask of confidence and rebelliousness to protect himself. But when he was with his friends he had always been himself. Unapologetically himself. Keeping a secret this big from his friends, especially from James, felt weird and unnatural. But the threat of his family hung over his head like a vulture, waiting for the perfect excuse to strike, not only at him but at the Potters now too. And Sirius was afraid that this would be just the excuse they were waiting for.

---------

Lily and Sirius kept up the society for a couple of days before deciding that they had dragged it on long enough. They told the few people who had joined that they had been playing a prank on someone and thanked them for playing a vital part in it but it was over now.

Later that night, Lily was in the library working on her Charms essay with her friends, although they were doing more talking than working.

“Ugh, Lily, I can’t do this,” Marlene complained. “Please help me.”

“I can’t, Marls, I’m sorry,” Lily said, checking her watch. “I have prefect rounds soon.”

“You mean Head Girl rounds,” Alice corrected.

“Eh, it’s the same thing,” Lily said. “They’re equally boring.”

“Really? Even when you get to spend all that quality time with James Potter,” Dorcas said, winking at her.

“Shut up,” Lily said, blushing.

“Speaking of spending quality time with your crush—” Mary started.

“He is not my crush!” Lily insisted.

“You don’t really think we believe you, do you Lils?” Alice asked. Lily sighed in defeat.

“Fine,” she said. “I like him and I would also like to not make a big deal of it. You were saying, Mary?”

“I was just going to ask where Remus is,” she said. “He could help us with this essay if he wasn’t… preoccupied.”

“Yeah, he and Sirius disappeared after dinner,” Marlene said, smirking.

“Yeah, they’re not fooling anyone any more than you are Lily,” Dorcas said.

“Hey, I’m not that bad!” Lily insisted. “Am I?”

“Not quite,” Dorcas said, laughing.

“But that’s not saying much, Lils,” Marlene said.

“Ugh, now I really have to go,” Lily said. “But I can check your essay later if you want me to Marlene.”

“Lily, you’re an angel. I love you. Seriously, thank you so so much,” Marlene said, hugging Lily.

“Of course,” Lily said, laughing. “See you guys later.”

She hurried back to the Gryffindor common room to put her books away and find James. The first sign that something was wrong was that James wasn’t waiting to greet her at the entrance. Every day without fail, James would wait for Lily to be ready for their rounds, unable to hide his excitement. But today she finds him sitting alone in the common room, biting his nail and doodling on a piece of parchment while staring into the fire, seemingly absent-mindedly but Lily can that something is bothering him.

“Ah Potter, don’t be so upset about the hair thing, ok?” she says, coming up from behind him and ruffling his hair flirtatiously before she sits on the couch beside him. “It’s nothing personal. Well, actually no, it’s very personal but it’s all just a joke, right? It’s over now anyway. We called it off.”

“What?” he asks, looking at her. “Oh, yeah. I mean, no that's not why… you know what never mind.”

“What is it?” she asks.

“It doesn't matter,” James replies.

“Potter, something is obviously bothering you. If it didn’t matter you wouldn’t be thinking about it. What's the matter?”

“Fine,” James says. “It’s… I’m worried about Sirius.”

“Sirius?” Lily asks. She was confused. Sirius seemed fine to her. Happier, in fact, than he had been all of last year. Happier than he had been in a long time. She had thought that this was because he had left his family and moved in with James over the summer. But perhaps James had seen something that she hadn’t. “What about him? He seems fine, doesn’t he?”

“He seems fine,” James says. “But he keeps sneaking around at night and disappearing during the day—”

“Isn’t that custom for you two?” she asks, smirking.

“Yeah for us. But now he’s going alone. And every time I ask him about it he has the worst cover-up stories. I mean, there’s only so many times you can go to the bathroom in one day. I’m worried that he’s… I don’t know. He’s never done this before. I don’t want him to do something stupid and get himself hurt.”

“When you say sneaking around and disappearing… do you mean when he goes with Remus?” Lily asks, slowly.

“What?” James asks. “I mean, I never really thought about that. I just always figured Remus was going to the library to study or going somewhere with you or Mary or Alice. Like he does all the time. I didn’t think what they were doing was connected. Do you?”

“Um, Potter,” Lily says, starting to laugh, “you are really the most oblivious shit on the planet, aren’t you?”

“I am not!” James insists. Then after a moment, “what do you mean?” Lily rolls her eyes.

“I can’t believe I actually have to tell you this,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Remus and Sirius are dating.”

“What?” James says. Then after comprehending the words that Lily just said, he jumps up to his feet. “WHAT?” Lily starts laughing.

“How the fuck did you not realise that?”

“No way,” James said. “No fucking way. Sirius isn’t even gay, Evans.” Lily just laughs harder.

“Oh god, you really are stupid,” she says. “Fine, if you don’t believe me, go upstairs to your dorm right now, quietly, and see what Remus and Sirius are doing. If they aren’t making out, I will give you five sickles. If they are, you have to give me five sickles. Deal?”

“Deal. You’re delusional, Evans.” So they shake on it and James goes upstairs.

---------

The door is locked. James casts Alohomora non-verbally and creaks the door open. And there they are. Locked in a kiss, Sirius pressed up against the wall, his shirt hanging open, Remus’ jumper on the floor. James stands there, his mouth hanging open at the sight of his two best friends making out. Suddenly they break apart.

“James,” Sirius says, suddenly and Remus whips around to face James as well.

“Holy shit,” James says. “Holy shit. Um.”

“Oh god. James, we’re so, so sorry,” Remus said. “We didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

“No, don’t be,” James said. “I’m sorry I— Sirius, are you ok?” Sirius’ whole body was shaking and his face was as white as a sheet.

“Sirius?” Remus said, turning towards him. Sirius just shook his head and bit his lip, hands trembling uncontrollably. “Come here, love,” Remus whispered. “Sit down. It’s going to be fine. I promise everything is going to be fine. Just breathe, Sirius.” James hurried towards Sirius and hugged him tightly.

“Sirius,” he said, pulling back and looking him dead in the eye, “it’s ok. I promise you, I don’t care. I don’t care if you like guys or girls or both or neither. I don’t care. You’re still my best friend. You’re still my brother. You’re still you.” Sirius nodded and he seemed to calm down a little. He closed his eyes for a moment.

“Try to breathe,” Remus said, softly. He was holding Sirius’ hand, tracing slow comforting circles in his palm. James smiled at their joined hands.

“So,” he said, as Sirius started to calm down. “You two are dating?” Sirius nodded and Remus said a quiet, “yeah.”

“So that means you’re gay too?” James added to Sirius. “Or bi? Or something else?”

“I… um,” Sirius started hyperventilating again.

“It’s ok,” James said quickly. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I just…” Sirius closed his and took a deep breath. “I’m pansexual.” James was silent.

“I–I don’t really know—”

“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t know,” Sirius said, nodding. “It’s ok, though, I don’t mind explaining. Basically, it means I like people of all genders. Like… I like them for who they are regardless of gender. If that makes sense.”

“Yeah,” James said. “Thanks for telling me, Pads. And I’m really sorry that I… y’know, walked in on you and freaked you out.”

“It’s fine,” Sirius said. “We meant to tell you anyway, we just…” He glanced at Remus. James nodded.

“You–you really don’t mind this?” Remus asked, biting his lip.

“Of course not,” James said. “I love you guys. You’re my best friends and I want you to be happy. And if being together makes you happy then I’m happy for you— wait, fuck!”

“What?” they asked at the same time, looking alarmed.

“No, no, it’s no big deal. Just now I owe Evans five sickles.”

“What?” said Remus. “You were betting on… what?”

“I told her that I was worried about you guys because you kept sneaking around and disappearing and she said that you’re together but I didn’t believe her. So yeah, she bet me five sickles that you two are dating.”

“Damn, I thought we were good at sneaking around,” Sirius said, shaking his head and laughing.

“You were,” James said, “but Evans is… she knows everything.” A dreamy look came across his face and Remus and Sirius exchanged a smirk.

“Proud of you, mate,” James said, snapping out of his daze and clapping Sirius on the shoulder. “You too, Rem.”

“Thank you, James,” Sirius says, hugging him, “for… you know. Being so supportive. It really means the world to me.”

“No, you shouldn’t be thanking me,” James says, hugging him back. “I should be thanking you for sharing it with me. See, that’s the problem with our world. Well, one of the many problems but those are to fix another time. Moony, come here, it’s group hug time.” Remus rolled his eyes but smiled as he joined the hug.

“Okay, um, I’ll… let you get back to… you know,” James said, gesturing towards the bed. Remus goes redder than James has ever seen but Sirius grins. James leaves the dorm and goes back to the common room, sitting down next to Lily, who is holding out her hand expectantly. James high-fives her and she rolls her eyes and smiles slightly. He fishes five sickles out of his pocket and hands them to her. She cackles.

“I told you so,” she says.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re always right and I’m oblivious and dumb.”

“Come on, Potter,” she says. “Time to patrol the corridors.”

“Ugh, do we have to?” he asks, pouting.

“Yes, Potter we have to. Stop complaining, I’ve been doing this since fifth year. And my partner got replaced with an annoying little shit so—”

“Rude!” James said.

“But true,” Lily said laughing.

“Ever heard of a white lie, Evans?” James says, smiling and standing up.

---------

They cover half the castle while making jokes and laughing, not really paying attention to whether or not students were out of bed or not until Lily decides she has to bring it up.

“Potter, what’s up?” she says.

“What?”

“What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head.

“Come on,” Lily said, poking him in the side. “I helped you with the last thing, didn’t I? You can tell me.”

“Ok. It’s just… when I walked into the dorm they were kissing. And then Sirius saw me and he completely freaked out. Like he really thought that I wouldn’t be ok with it. He really thought I would hate him or something. And… I don’t know. I mean, after everything he still doesn’t trust me?”

“James…”

“It’s stupid, I know. This isn’t even about me. And I’m not trying to make it about me, I swear. I just… I don’t want Sirius to feel like he can’t tell me stuff. He’s my best friend. I tell him everything and I want him to feel like he can do the same with me. I don’t want him to keep secrets from me because he’s afraid that I’ll hate him because of it.”

“Ok, first of all, it’s not stupid at all. I get what you’re saying. But you have to understand where Sirius is coming from, too. It’s not that he doesn’t trust you. He would trust you with his life, James. He does. But usually, it’s the people we love and trust the most that it’s hardest to come out to. Because we think they’ll accept us but there’s always the chance that they won’t, you know? And if they don’t, how do you keep going from there? It’s taking a big risk. Sirius just wasn’t ready to risk his friendship with you. It means too much to him. Trust me, James, it was the same for me when I came out as bi. It’s not that he doesn’t trust you. It’s that he loves you too much to be ready to risk it.” James’ eyes were watering. He turned away so Lily wouldn’t see as he blinked them away.

“You really think so?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah,” she said. “But you can ask him if you want. Ask him if you can talk about it.” James nodded.

“Thanks, Evans.”

“Any time, Potter.”

“You called me James before.”

“So what if I did?”

“You never call me James.”

“I know,” she says. “Don’t get used to it.” Then after a moment, she adds, “I still can’t believe you didn’t know they were dating. I mean you literally spend all of your time together, you share a fucking room with them for Christ’s sake.”

“How did you know?” James asks. “Did they tell you?”

“God no,” Lily says, shaking her head. “You really think they would tell me and not you?

“I suppose not,” he replies. “How did you know then?”

“Well Potter, see I have these things in my head called eyes that I use to see. And then the things that I see go to my brain, where I string two and two together. Although, I suppose you wouldn’t know about that seeing as you don’t have a brain.”

“Oh, very funny,” James says, rolling his eyes. “Really witty. Your jokes are worse than Sirius’ puns.”

“Now that’s just mean.” And they both laugh. Lily has to bite her lip to keep from sighing. Ugh, his laugh is just too cute! she thinks. God, this is so stupid! Lily knows that James likes her. She knows that. And she likes him too. So what’s holding her back? She thinks for a moment and then the answer comes to her. Nothing. In this moment in time, right now, nothing is holding Lily back. She stops walking.

“Evans?” James asks, stopping as well. “Why’d you stop? Is everything ok? ” She leans forward slowly, not breaking eye contact with James. Lily waits until she sees the realisation grow in his eyes as he realises what’s about to happen and then she kisses him. Her hands find the back of his neck and she pulls him closer as she feels his hands in her hair. And then his hands are on her cheeks but only for a moment before she feels him pull away; he’s looking her dead in the eyes.

“Is this another joke?” he asks. “Because if it is it’s not funny.” Lily shakes her head quickly.

“No, it’s not a joke,” she says. “I swear, it’s not a joke.”

“Really?” he asks, his hazel eyes lighting up.

“Really,” she replies, smiling warmly. “I just really wanted to kiss you because… I like you, Potter.”

“Is this a dream? I mean, it’s gotta be a dream, right? Because there’s no way you just—” Lily laughs.

“No, Potter, it’s not a dream,” she said. “I really do like you and we really just kissed.”

“I— I… wow,” James said. “I mean, you know I like you, Evans, I’ve liked you forever. I just never thought I’d be lucky enough for you to like me. I mean…” James sighs and cups Lily’s face with his hands. “I love you, Lily. I mean, you probably already knew that but… I wanted to say it anyway.” Lily smiles warmth spreading from her cheeks to the tips of her fingers.

“I love you too, James,” she said, moving her body into his.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

“Yes,” Lily nods. And he does. Lily’s heart raced in her chest as James’ lips connect with hers and she tangles her fingers in his fabulous hair.

a/n: the part where James says that he should be thanking Sirius for coming out to him and not the other way around is based on my friend’s reaction when i told her that i’m bi. so yeah she deserves credit for that cause she’s the best

also regarding the part where sirius explains pansexuality to james,, please know that i am not pan and the explanation is something that i found on the internet. obviously, every pan person has a different experience but i hope i portrayed this fairly. if something doesn’t sound quite right to you please let me know because i dont want to spread a wrong image of pansexuality! thanks

[thatsamericano]

I Know My Love Should Be Celebrated, But You Tolerate It

Pairing: America/Romano, human AU

Ratings/Warnings: Teen, mild angst and some homophobia from human OCs.

Word Count: 2100

Summary: Alfred needs to tell his mother he’s engaged, but he knows she won’t be happy for him the way Matthew was when he got the news.

Alfred was sitting on the couch with his hand clasped in Savino’s, staring at the cell phone that was resting on the coffee table. Part of him didn’t want to pick it up to tell his mother that he was engaged now, because he knew she wouldn’t have the reaction he was hoping for.

Last night, he’d called Mattie only a few minutes after Savino had proposed. Matthew said congratulations, told Alfred he was happy for him, and most importantly, sounded completely sincere and not just like he was saying what he was supposed to. He listened while Alfred gushed about the proposal and possible wedding plans and chuckled quietly at some of Alfred’s more outlandish ideas. He was just as amused as he would’ve been if they’d been there in person and he’d been able to see Savino curled up into his side, blushing and with that fond, disbelieving grin only Alfred could put on his face. They talked for an hour and a half until Savino pointed out that it was past midnight, and Matthew might need to end the call so he could get enough sleep before he had to go into work the next day.

Alfred knew that his mother wouldn’t react like that. The first time he’d brought Vinny home to meet his family, his father shook his head and walked out of the room while muttering under his breath. Alfred had heard the car starting up outside as his mom gave them an extremely fake smile and asked them if they’d like something to drink. Later, she’d pulled Alfred aside to scold him for not “warning” his parents ahead of time that Savino was his boyfriend, not just his friend. She asked about his sexuality, and he hadn’t been able to answer to her satisfaction, because to him it wasn’t a question of men vs. women. It was a question of Savino vs. every other human being on the planet. If he couldn’t be with Vinny, he’d rather be with no one at all.

It had been two years since then, but Alfred could still vividly remember the look his mom gave him, which was identical to the look she’d give Baxter when he was a puppy and peed on the carpet. Like she loved him, because Alfred was her son and she had no other choice, but was deeply, deeply disappointed in him.

Alfred stared at the phone and jiggled his leg nervously. Savino squeezed his hand.

“You’ll have to pick up the phone eventually, tesoro.”

Alfred heaved out a sigh. “I know. It’s not like I don’t wanna tell her. I wanna tell everybody. Last night, when you asked me to marry you, was the happiest moment of my life. But I know if I tell her, she’s gonna try to make me change my mind.”

Savino smiled weakly. “But she’s not going to be able to, is she?”

Alfred shook his head and glanced back at his cell phone. “No. Nothing could ever make me change my mind.”

Vinny rubbed his hand over the back of Alfred’s hand. “I’ll be here when you call her. You won’t have to do this alone.”

He could do it. With Vinny holding his hand, he could swallow down his anxiety and tell his parents. Alfred picked up his cell phone, went to his contacts, and called his mom.

The phone rang twice before his mom answered. “Hello, Alfred.”

“Hey, Mom. I’ve got some big news to share with you.” He figured it was best to tell her right away. He glanced over at his fiancé, who was nodding in approval.

“Is it good news?”

“The best news. I’m engaged. Vinny asked me to marry him last night.” Alfred grinned, because it felt amazing to say that out loud. Some part of Alfred still couldn’t believe it was real. He was gonna marry Vinny, who was smirking because he knew it was taking every ounce of Alfred’s self-control to avoid squealing or screaming down the phone line like he had when he called Mattie the night before. Savino was adorable 24/7, but especially when he smirked like that, like he was the lucky one in this relationship. Alfred would’ve kissed him if he wasn’t waiting to hear his mom’s reaction.

He waited. And he waited. As he waited, the grin gradually fell away from his face. Alfred hadn’t been expecting anything different, but the way she couldn’t even feign a congratulations hurt.

“Oh,” she finally said. “I suppose you won’t be holding the, uh, ceremony, in a church, will you?”

“I don’t know. Vinny and I haven’t talked about that yet.” He knew they couldn’t get married in the church Alfred had been raised in, and that they couldn’t have a Catholic wedding either. Alfred noticed how she had avoided the word wedding but pretended everything was still fine.

“Will there be a gift registry?”

Alfred frowned. “Like I said, I don’t know. We just got engaged last night.”

“Then why did you call me?” His mom sounded irritated, like she had when he was five and wanted to show her a drawing he did in kindergarten and ran in while she was in the middle of doing work in her home office. That dismissal had hurt at the time, but not as much as telling his mom he was engaged and getting the same kind of reaction as a little kid clamoring for attention while their parent had something more important to focus on.

Alfred shrunk down mentally to that same age. “I just wanted to tell you because you’re my mom. I’m happy, so I thought maybe you’d be happy for me, even if you can’t be proud of me.” Tears were pricking at his eyes, and Alfred bit his lip so his mother couldn’t hear how upset he was. Savino scooted closer, so that he was pressed up against Alfred’s side. He couldn’t be closer without crawling onto Alfred’s lap.

His mother sighed, and she sounded so tired. Tired of him more than anything else. “Alfred, your father and I have been patient about this. We’ve been as tolerant as we can be.”

Alfred laughed miserably. “Sure. Dad won’t even acknowledge Vinny exists, and you tell all your snooty friends that Vinny is my roommate instead of my boyfriend. But you haven’t disowned me yet, so I’m supposed to be grateful, right?”

“There’s no need for you to get so hostile.”

Right. Because it wasn’t hostile for his parents to treat his fiancé like shit and to act like him being in love and happy was something horrible they had to tolerate and be patient about. Alfred bit his tongue to keep those nasty thoughts inside his head, and Savino nuzzled into his neck.

“I’m so sorry she’s doing this to you, caro,” Vinny murmured. Alfred silently kissed the top of his head and listened as his mother started lecturing him again.

“You’re so young. I remember being that age. You think you know everything, but you don’t.”

“I’m older than you were when you married Dad.”

His mother ignored what he said, just like he’d known she would. “I love you, Alfie. And it’s because I love you that I’m trying to help you avoid making a mistake you’ll end up regretting someday.”

Tears were leaking out of his eyes, but Alfred was so angry that his words came out as a growl rather than pathetic blubbering. Vinny deserved better than this bullshit. “Savino is the only person I’ve ever wanted to be with. I told you that two goddamn years ago. He’s been nothing but respectful to you and dad, but you guys never even gave him a chance. He isn’t a mistake, and I don’t regret anything about being with him. The only thing I regret is listening to you put him down for so fucking long.”

“Alfred, that’s—”

“I’m done. Call me when you can at least pretend to love me for who I am, instead of who you want me to be.” Alfred hung up the phone before his mother could say anything else, and Vinny immediately shifted onto his lap and started wiping away the tears from his cheeks.

Alfred sobbed harder at Savino’s kindness. “I hate her. I hate her so much for trying to talk me out of marrying you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and the only reason she can’t see it is because you’re a guy.”

Savino kissed his face and made soothing noises. “I love you so much. I wanted to rip her to shreds the second she made you cry.”

Alfred laughed wetly. “You sound so hot when you say stuff like that.”

Savino rolled his eyes and blushed at the compliment, like he blushed every single time Alfred tried to seduce him, no matter how cheesy his attempt was. “Idiota.”

Alfred surged up to kiss his fiancé, and Savino made a muffled sound of confusion but reciprocated a second later. Vinny was being too adorable and perfect for Alfred to not kiss him, but that wasn’t the only reason. He needed to feel something real, something lasting that wasn’t the rejection of the woman who brought him into this world. Savino’s hands planted on his shoulders, the warm weight of his body on top of him, and the soft pressure of their lips pressed together made Alfred feel safe and loved in a way nothing else could.

By the time they separated, Alfred was no longer crying. He felt significantly calmer as he petted Savino’s hair. “I don’t think I want my parents at the wedding.” It wasn’t a decision he would ever feel completely okay about. In an ideal world, his parents would be there in the front row, crying nostalgic tears as they watched him get married because they were so proud of him. But Alfred didn’t live in an ideal world, and he couldn’t keep pretending that he did.

Savino pressed a tiny kiss to his temple. “If you don’t want them there, then we won’t invite them. We should invite people who can celebrate with us. Unless your parents have a miraculous change of heart, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

Alfred scoffed. “If they decided to come, they’d probably act like they were going to my funeral instead of my wedding. Or they’d try to convince me I shouldn’t marry you, and I’d lose it on them a lot worse than I did today.” Alfred had been putting up with his mother’s bullshit for far too long, and he probably would’ve continued to put up with it if she had only been insulting him and not his fiancé. Alfred could take his parents’ disapproval, but he wouldn’t listen to anyone implying that Vinny wasn’t good enough for him.

Savino hummed in consideration. “We shouldn’t tell them until after the fact. Send them a postcard when we’re on our honeymoon and it’s too late for them to do anything about it.”

Alfred chuckled. “That sounds devious. I like it.” He grinned and rubbed his hands up and down Vinny’s thighs. “You should make evil plans more often. It’s sexy as hell.”

Savino snorted in disbelief, but he was grinning in the flattered, flustered way Alfred was so familiar with as he fiddled with the top button of Alfred’s shirt. “Amore, you’re hopeless. You think the way I breathe is sexy.”

“Anyone with working eyes or ears would. Which makes me a pretty lucky guy.” Alfred winked up at him, which he’d learned early on was a good way to flirt with Vinny. He wasn’t really good at this whole flirting thing, since Vinny was the only person he’d ever wanted to flirt with. All he’d ever been able to do was be a little too honest, recite lines from TV or movies, wink, and carry heavy stuff to show off his muscles. Miraculously, his clumsy attempts had actually worked.

They were working pretty well now, obviously, because Savino was leaning in less than an inch away from his mouth. “We’re both lucky, Fredo. Ti amo.”

Hearing that made Alfred weak-kneed even though he was sitting down. When Savino leaned in the rest of the way to kiss him, a shiver swept through him, even though he wasn’t cold. He grabbed at the back of Vinny’s neck and moaned when Vinny licked his way into his mouth. His mother’s reaction to his engagement, along with any other problems he had, ceased to exist as long as his fiancé was kissing him.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Schwarzenegger Holiday

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: E Word Count: 11,874

Includes the following prompts:

snowed in

making latkes together

“You didn’t think I’d let you spend the holidays alone, did you?”

Summary: When MJ’s granted a sudden visit to the safehouse where Peter’s been hidden for six months, she’s... nervous. What if he doesn’t want her to come? What if he doesn’t like her that way anymore? She has 24 hours to figure out what they are to each other and make peace with it. That’s the plan. Until they get snowed in.

MJ’s leg is jumping in the backseat of the SUV, the bop of her foot barely audible over the thickly-packed snow grinding under the tires. Anywhere else, this large, white vehicle would be conspicuous, but she supposes it’s fading in pretty well against this wintery backdrop. Probably less visible from above too; she quits bouncing her foot long enough to unbuckle her seatbelt and slide over to glance up at the sky, until the driver brusquely reminds her to keep her face away from the windows.

She’s dying to snark back and ask what the darkly tinted windows are for if they aren’t good enough to conceal the face of the vehicle’s occupants, but this guy kinda scares her. He’s something more secret than the Secret Service. If Nick Fury (the real Nick Fury this time, apparently—she has a whole backlog of questions and complaints that there wasn’t time to bring up during the handoff) hadn’t done an extra security check on the driver before sending MJ off with him, she’d be really worried right about now. Her suitcase is in the trunk and she’s clutching the box May gave her to her hip, wondering how she’ll be able to use its contents for self-defence if the need arises. Tear open the bag of flour and throw it in the guy’s eyes maybe?

Her strategy with the flour is sturdy, but there’s something else in this box for which she has no plan. There wasn’t time for her and May to discuss it, like there wasn’t time for MJ to interrogate Fury on where exactly he was while Peter was grappling with Quentin Beck all over Europe. Time, time, time. It’s been months, actually, since any of them seemed to have enough of it. She’s curious to know how the summer, fall, and now early winter have passed for Peter. He doesn’t even know she’s on her way. Nervous, MJ bites at the skin around her thumb nail. She hopes he’s happy to see her.

When Jameson totally fucked up her first date (and her new boyfriend’s whole life), Peter fled. He had to. Luckily, he’s being protected—so MJ’s been told—though the trade-off for safety is isolation. If it were her, she’s not sure she’d mind being handed an extended stretch of time to catch up on her reading, but she knows Peter’s different. Peter needs people. (She needs Peter.)

MJ knows that May Parker misses her nephew desperately. That’s why she tried to get the woman to go in her place, but everything with these Super-Secret Service assholes has a reason and a rhyme, even when the Scrabble tiles for Peter’s situation clearly spell ORANGE. May visited him for his birthday. Ned spent the weekend over Thanksgiving. Taking time away from work and school qualifies as a ‘noticeable absence’ and those need to be minimized. In the plainer terms May used when she explained the circumstances (at the same time that she proposed MJ take a trip to see Spidey the Desperado), none of the people formerly known to be close to Peter Parker can draw attention to themselves. They’ve been watched on the street, questioned by reporters, photographed by tabloids, and otherwise surveyed by who knows what methods operated by who knows whom. The last is MJ’s assumption; she isn’t stupid.

Apparently, becoming Peter’s girlfriend right before his identity was leaked to the world bumped her up to the third most important person in his life. She’s yet to learn whether Peter views her that way. The people protecting him do not have a schedule coordinated with him, so this trip wasn’t his call. Windows of opportunity open and close, schemes are adjusted, and girlfriends get left on doorsteps hugging boxes with the ingredients for latkes, crossing their fingers for a warm reception. MJ hasn’t figured out what she’s going to say to him after six months of nothing.

Then again, that’s basically how their friendship in high school went until her crush on him stopped crushing her enough to allow her to get the occasional insult out.

If he���s gotten over his feelings for her or just isn’t in the right headspace to entertain her, this is going to be awkward. At least it’s only until tomorrow. The same driver (for security reasons, blah blah) is picking her up before noon. One night of struggling to transition from dating back to just friends would, ultimately, be bearable for her, if that’s what Peter needs. She’d be able to talk it out with him without pining for their quick first kisses on Tower Bridge. Or their sloppy make-out session in the airplane bathroom when they woke up from their nap with half the ocean still to cross and the sudden feeling of relief that they were both alive. Yeah. MJ could definitely put that stuff behind her. In fact, maybe it’s better not to think of it at all and go into this visit assuming Peter’s feelings have cooled in light of other priorities. That way, this can be a night away from home hanging out with a friend, and not being left undisturbed with Peter ‘Where’d Those Abs Come From?’ Parker in the middle of nowhere.

She upends the mixing bowl in the box over that other item May included.

After so much doubling back and zigzagging down what have to be the most deserted roads in Upstate New York, the driver rolls to a stop in the shadow of a cabin-like house. It’s too house-like to attract the attention of wandering hipsters thirsty for cottagecore, but too cabin-y to suggest anything beyond temporary residence. MJ judges it to be a convincing safehouse. She climbs out, hefting May’s box, and accepting her suitcase from the driver. He moves much more swiftly, evidently uninterested in assessing the dwelling’s façade. Probably not his job. Even with her arms full, MJ steps precisely in the man’s footprints in the snow, just to see if her overexaggerated precaution will get under his skin. He ignores her. By the time she reaches the porch, he’s already completed whatever secret handshake or password exchange or retinal scan he had to do with Peter and is brushing past her, back to the milk-white SUV. She turns and stares after him, her last tie to civilization (until tomorrow), squinting against the light glinting off the snow.

Eventually, when the vehicle is gone and everything’s quiet, MJ accepts that she’s stalling. Eyes lowered, she faces the open door.

She starts at his feet. Red socks, the wool bobbled, the toe of the left twisted slightly like he put it on wrong and didn’t fix it. Her throat’s thick as she scans up his legs, in sweatpants, and remembers them encased in the Spider-Man suit as he crouched on the streetlight and watched Jameson blow his life apart onscreen. Hovering by his thighs are his hands. Oh, his hands. Though MJ’s gripping the box and suitcase with all her might, she’s recalling the gentle way he fit his fingers between hers. With a shaky breath, she can’t wait any longer and her gaze darts up to his face. Peter’s wearing this look she’s seen in videos of soldiers being reunited with their dogs—specifically, she’s seen it in the eyes of those dogs. The look is mushy and wet-eyed and begging for an eyeroll, possibly some verbal ridiculing, and instead, her heart reacts by flopping around unfamiliarly inside her chest. Him, is the sound of its thumping as it stumbles into her ribs. Him, him, him.

“Hi,” she says, voice coming out high. “Don’t hug me. The porch is wet and I’m holding a box.”

“I see that.”

He speaks. MJ’s mouth twitches into a relieved, silly smile. She’s missed the sound of his dork speaking so much that three words have her tripping over the threshold, almost slipping as her snow-slicked boots hit wood floor.

“The box is from May,” she explains, putting her back to Peter in order to set it down and to collect herself all over again. She’s here. He’s here, right where he’s supposed to be and where she was expecting him, but looking at her like that and with a jawline erupting in a faint scruff. It feels like a million years since she saw him last. It feels like a day.

“Can I hug you now?”

The suitcase she just drops.

MJ whirls to throw herself into Peter’s arms, hiccupping a relieved breath when he squeezes her close. Before she shuts her eyes to concentrate on the sensation of him solidly in her grasp after so long apart, she gets a glimpse of the living area beyond, the unlit fireplace. It’s homey and she isn’t sure if that makes her sadder, knowing he’s been living here alone. His hands slide over her back and she realizes she’s been hugging him a long time.

With a tight, uncertain smile, she draws back, cupping his shoulders, then dropping her hands to swing at her sides.

“Are you surprised to see me?” MJ asks. She already knows he should be, but she has to do something besides just stare at him.

“Yeah.” Peter laughs. “Take off your boots and stuff, come sit down.”

He’s smiling at her even as she’s fumbling to untie her laces.

“Sorry,” he laughs again. “I’m not trying to stare. I’m just not used to—”

“People?”

“Well, I see some people. I get supplies. But not super often and not people I… know.”

She saw how his face went pink before settling on that final word.

“You didn’t think I’d let you spend the holidays alone, did you?” MJ teases, now shrugging out of her coat. She didn’t notice that she forgot to zip it up when she got out of the SUV. She stuffs her gloves down the sleeve and passes it to Peter to hang on a hook by the door.

“I didn’t really think that was anybody’s call,” he admits.

His tone is joyfully unconcerned, but she frowns a little, experiencing second-hand frustration at the way Peter’s life isn’t so much being lived right now as run.

“I didn’t either.” She shrugs. “But your Avengers handlers, or whatever their job titles are, contacted me through May, so I figured I might as well come out. Not that I didn’t want to see you. I did. I really wanted to see you.”

God, now she’s probably come on too strong, overcorrecting after worrying she sounded like she could take or leave being reunited with her boyfriend.

“I really wanted to see you too,” Peter assures her. His expression softens. “We didn’t get a lot of time, before.”

“I’m only here until tomorrow,” MJ warns.

“Oh, no, that’s perfect. That’s great. I wasn’t expecting you at all, so this is incredible.”

He goes to grab the box, but she shouts, “No!” Peter stares at her. “Uh,” she says, “can you take my suitcase instead? I don’t know where to put it.”

“Sure.”

She follows him into the living room in her sock feet, wishing she packed slippers.

“The floor can be cold,” he says before she can voice her regret. “I have slippers around here somewhere that you can wear, and it’s warmer when there’s a fire. We can light one tonight, if you want.”

“That sounds nice,” MJ agrees.

“You can put that down in the kitchen.” He points her through a door. “I’ll just take your bag to the bedroom. The, uh, second bedroom. There are two bedrooms. I wasn’t gonna put it in my room. I don’t want you to think—”

“Peter, it’s fine.”

He nods jerkily and walks, glancing back once. She spies the promised slippers and shoves her feet into them before racing into the kitchen. Instead of systematically emptying the box and laying out each item, MJ rifles desperately through to the bottom and grabs the thing she avoided the whole way here. What was May thinking, including condoms in the care package? Well, logically, she can guess. Peter, mostly alone, opening the door to discover his girlfriend, arrived for an overnight stay. Yes, she can see exactly why May wanted to take precautions on their behalf because MJ definitely didn’t think of that and she doubts whoever brings Peter his updates and frozen pizzas has thought to equip him with prophylactics. They’re mostly concerned with keeping him alive and out of the hands of the authorities, not getting him laid.

Knowing Peter will return any moment, MJ looks frantically around the kitchen. She thinks she hears his footsteps. Shit. She yanks a pullout drawer open and chucks the box of condoms in next to the Cheerios, hitting the drawer shut with her hip as Peter walks in and grins at her. She plasters an anxious smile on in response.

He joins her at the counter and they begin to unload the box.

“Wait,” he says, partway through, “is this the stuff for latkes?”

“Mhmm. May told me she didn’t want you to miss out on any of your regular holiday traditions, even if she couldn’t be… Peter?”

MJ observes him, sympathy wringing her heart like a wet washcloth. He turns away from her and raises a hand to his face. She hears a sniff and assumes he’s wiping at his eyes and cheeks. She reaches out, hesitates, overcomes, lays her hand on his shoulder.

“I told her it should’ve been her coming instead of me,” she mumbles.

“No, no,” Peter assures her, still facing away, “I’m so happy to see you, MJ, seriously. I just miss her.”

“She misses you too.”

When he turns to face her, eyes still shining, MJ rewards his vulnerability by taking his hand.

“It’s not fair,” she tells him.

“It’s what’s gotta be done,” Peter says with a resigned shrug. “What I want isn’t as important as fixing this mess so I can go back to being Spider-Man. People need me.”

“You’re people too. There are people you need. That’s part of your humanity.” She’s ramping up now, arguing on his behalf with no one there to argue against. “Without that humanity, you wouldn’t be a good Spider-Man. You wouldn’t be a good guy. Protecting you shouldn’t just be about sticking you somewhere and watching you by satellite or whatever! Exposing your identity is a psychological attack and Nick Fury and the rest of them should be doing everything to ensure you can weather this storm psychologically, including keeping you connected to your family and your friends and—"

“My girlfriend.”

MJ exhales.

“Maybe not her,” she jokes. “She might just come in here and rant at you about reducing your stress, which is kinda counterproductive.”

“If I could listen to you rant every day, I’d be happy.”

She flushes and busies herself with putting May’s gifts away, probably all in the wrong spots, but Peter never corrects her, just works quietly alongside her until there’s nothing left in the box. Because she wasn’t permitted to bring her phone, MJ checks the time on her watch. It’s early afternoon.

“What do you do all day?”

Peter’s face lights up.

“You wanna see the room?”

“I recognize that look. This has something to do with Ned, doesn’t it?”

Her hypothesis is proven right when he leads her down the hall and opens a door to reveal a room housing a dozen Lego models. Everything’s probably Star Wars related, but she’s lost beyond the Death Star.

“Ned,” she says.

“Ned. He brought them when he came. I’ve done them all… well, a few times each.”

“I know I should be delicate with you because you’re a genius hermit, but, Parker, that’s so lame.”

Peter laughs out loud.

“That’s not all I do. Come on.”

He takes her hand (it doesn’t seem like he’s thought for a second about scrapping their relationship) and they walk back to the living room. On one of the couches, he has his Spidey suit laid out. But it’s freaky, like a skinned animal, with the innards of its tech exposed and skinny screwdrivers scattered on the floor nearby. He’s been tinkering. Because they have nothing else on the agenda, he explains the maintenance he’s done, more features he’s discovered. The list of protocols and capabilities seems almost endless. Watching him speak so enthusiastically, she wonders if maybe this is Peter’s version of holing up with a tall stack of books.

“No tracker in the suit?” she asks when they sit down at opposite ends of the remaining couch, legs stretched out and resting against each other.

“Nah. All that stuff’s turned off.” He lays his arm along the back of the couch and tips his cheek against it. “Where do your parents think you are right now?”

“At Betty’s.”

Her family knows she pines for Peter, but they don’t know she’s been granted this opportunity to see him. She doesn’t know what they’d say. Like the majority of New Yorkers, they like Spider-Man and don’t believe that he murdered Quentin Beck. That doesn’t mean they’d want her as involved as she is—though involved feels like a strong word when she hasn’t seen him since the day he was exposed and had to ride the first leg of this journey with a blindfold on. Seemed pretty antiquated. Her parents just want her to be safe, like how May wants Peter to be safe. MJ recalls the condoms. Ok, not quite the same.

“They think we’re in some kind of study lockdown, prepping for a decathlon thing in January, phones off,” she continues. “Betty doesn’t know I’m here, but Ned told her enough that she’ll lie for me if my parents call her. I’m thinking of promoting her.”

“How’s the team doing this year?”

MJ studies him. I spend every practice thinking about you even more than Flash talks about you, she thinks. I went home and cried the day Mr. Harrington told me I’d have to fill your spot. Nobody’s as smart as you. I’m bored without you. Sometimes I worry that I’m not a good captain and I just want to talk to you because I know it’d make me feel better, but you’re not there.

She pokes her toes into his thigh.

“Decent,” she says. “Flash wanted our name changed to the Midtown Spider-Men, but Mr. Harrington said no.”

When Peter groans and tucks his face into his arm in embarrassment, MJ does what she’s been too shy to do yet: she moves down to his end of the couch and kisses him as he turns his head to look at her. He holds her securely around the waist as she darts back in for a second kiss, a slower one. There’s no one around to spy, no one to interrupt. Everything in her zings upward like a hurled snowball and the kiss gains momentum. It’s not as hasty as the one on the flight home—it’s deeper, more grownup somehow. The prick of his facial hair enhances that adultness. For her, this is a kiss that says she’s been surviving without him, but now that they’re together, she prefers catching up this way rather than with words. They kiss like they can’t be stopped. MJ cups the back of Peter’s head, then his face, as their mouths nudge and coax, their tongues tracing each other’s lips before retreating. They separate to breathe and she presses her face to his neck, letting him hold her as she sits, still twisted with her feet on the floor, wearing his slippers.

“That’s one of the toughest things to do without,” he tells her. “I forgot it felt that good.”

“Too good,” she says wryly, lifting her head.

“Hey, based on what you were saying about my psychological needs, I’m due something ‘too good.’”

Really, it just isn’t possible not to think about the condoms as she smiles at him and chews the inside of her lip. Having sex with Peter is something she’s contemplated. She contemplated it when she watched him play trombone with the marching band during football games, and when he smiled as he walked down the hall at school with Ned. She contemplated it when she silently observed his late entrances to decathlon practices, and when she muffled her moans in bed at night, fantasizing about him. They kissed in London and sleeping together went from a daydream to an inevitability; they separated in New York and it went back to a dream. But now…

She’s only here for one night though. It’s too soon. When MJ kisses Peter, she knows she wants to keep going, but she doesn’t want to do anything impulsive and hurt them both more when she has to leave tomorrow. They need to think about this together. She should probably tell him about the condoms, so they have all their metaphorical cards on the table. And yet, she’s not able to jump from a single reunion kiss to asking if he wants to have sex on one of her future visits (if there are future visits). It’s not organic. It feels like working out their romantic plans on somebody else’s schedule. That makes her feel gross, cheated even.

MJ sags back from Peter and asks him to give her a tour of the rest of the house.

—

She’s rubbing the skin off an onion when, pausing in the grating of a potato, he turns to her and suggests something that proves he has gone a little screwy living alone: he wants to cook the latkes in the fireplace.

“You have a stove,” she points out.

“Yeah,” he agrees, now grating vigorously.

“We cook these in oil, right? You want to put a pan full of oil on an open flame?”

“We don’t fill the pan to the top or anything.”

“Ok, right, but still,” MJ persists. “Oil. Fire. A house you kinda need to stay standing because, one, it’s your secret hideout, and two, the sun’s gone down and it’s freezing outside and we’ll be cold without shelter.”

“How could we be cold if we had a burning house to stand next to? Kidding.” Peter grins at her. “It’ll work, MJ. I’ll be careful.”

“You will? No way am I letting you do this alone.”

“Aww.” He leans towards her and kisses her cheek.

“I didn’t say that to be romantic. I’m genuinely worried that you’ll set the place on fire.”

“I know.”

They continue preparing the batter and, after pouring oil into the heavy pan May packed for this, MJ warily hands it off to Peter. He carries it into the living room, where he lit a fire half an hour earlier. Setting the pan down away from the fire, he retrieves his nanotech suit and tugs his sweatshirt off to put it on, extoling its temperature-control virtues. He’s sure it can withstand a little heat. After all, it handled the cold of space no problem. MJ watches him nervously.

At least the fire’s died down some, so when he grasps the handle of the pan to hold the base over the heat, there aren’t any flames licking up his arm. Once the oil’s sizzling, Peter withdraws the pan so that MJ won’t have to reach into the firebox to distribute the batter. She spreads each glob out quickly to avoid melting the spatula. And, after standing way back because the oil pops from the pan to splatter Peter’s metal sleeve, it doesn’t go terribly. Though some of the latkes seem overcooked to her, he assures her he likes them better crispy. The way he says it has her touching the lump her black dahlia necklace makes beneath her sweater.

They return their latke paraphernalia to the kitchen, then settle on the couch again to eat.

“Good?” MJ asks. She likes them, but she’s never eaten a potato pancake before, so she has no frame of reference.

“Best ever.”

She smiles at Peter, watching him chew for a minute.

“You’ll miss this house’s fireplace when you’re back home.”

“This is my favourite meal in a long time and it has nothing to do with the fireplace,” he says. Her heart genuinely skips a beat. With quiet pleasure, she goes back to eating.

At home, she has her phone and her books and the TV—so many reasons to postpone loading the dishwasher. Here, there is no dishwasher and MJ realizes it’s really nice to dry while Peter washes the dishes by hand. Until he somehow cuts himself on the grater, bleeds in the water, and they have to leave the remaining dishes in the sink for a rewash while she forces Peter to the paltry selection of first aid equipment in the bathroom. Thankfully, the nick in his finger is small enough to cover with a single band-aid. She glares at him the whole time.

“I don’t even need this!” he says. “It’ll be healed up by the time I go to bed.”

“Keeping it clean until then won’t hurt you. Just take care of yourself, please?”

MJ isn’t aware that she’s pleading until she glances from his bandaged finger to his face and takes in his expression. He’s looking at her like he’s starting to get that she cares. Really cares. Cares more than it would take to come all the way out here just because someone else arranged it for her and provided the ride.

“Ok,” Peter gently agrees.

Without the usual evening distractions of a night at home (and after MJ refuses to construct a Lego Star Destroyer, whatever the hell that is), Peter pulls out the checkers he found on day two of his stay. Apparently, he was stir-crazy enough by then to raid ever nook and cranny of the house in search of entertainment for his overactive mind. They sprawl out in front of the fire. Neither of them know the rules, so he stacks his checkers into towers while she lays down patterns and skips them across the board. That devolves into deciding to create a single high stack, which devolves further into attempting to flip the checkers of the collapsed tower into the air with their thumbs, like tossing a coin. Peter flicks one as MJ’s leaning forward and it drops straight down the front of her sweater. He makes an offhanded joke about retrieving it and they laugh until their eyes meet and they remember that they’re alone, that it doesn’t have to be a joke. They scatter the last of the checkers scrambling to get close to one another.

She kisses him fiercely. The fire makes one side of her body hot, one of her eyelids glow orange before her closed eyes. Every time they do this is one time closer to having to let him go, but MJ isn’t interested in that right now. His neck is warm under her palm and her foot slips on the empty checkerboard when his fingers hook behind her knee to draw her leg towards him. They aren’t in each other’s laps yet, but it’s close. She’s getting used to the scratch of his scruff against her cheeks, chin, and upper lip. Can Peter feel her sweating when he slips a hand up the back of her sweater? Is his shiver as she moves her leg over his more than a sign that he wants to scoot closer to the fire? Pulling back from the kiss, she lets him strip her sweater off. The checker plonks out. He smiles as he spots the pendant hanging against her t-shirt. He groans more than he did cutting his finger as she takes his hand and places it on her ribcage, urging him with her eyes to reposition his palm where they both want it to be. MJ watches him swallow. Looking down, she sees firelight rippling in the flower’s black glass and Peter’s hand rising to cup her breast. She leans into it and grabs the back of his neck for another kiss.

As she’s psyching herself up to straddle her boyfriend’s lap, there’s a trill from nearby.

“What was that? I thought you didn’t have a phone.”

MJ releases Peter and—it’s not her fault—her gaze skims down his body as he stands. There’s a noticeable bulge in the front of his sweatpants.

“It’s an alert,” he says, tone so serious that she feels bad for staring at his erection. She only sneaks one more glance as he unearths a tablet from amongst the tools he’s been using to fiddle with his Spider-Man suit. Two glances.

“What happened?” she asks. “Are you in danger?”

“I’d protect you if there was any danger,” Peter promises, not looking away from the screen. He says it like it’s obvious, but the statement floors MJ, preventing her from quipping back about being able to protect herself. “But it’s not that. Just the weather.”

He tilts the screen in offer and she rises to stand next to him, looking at a swirling graphic.

“Snow?”

“Mhmm.”

“But it’s already snowed,” she says. “This is worth sending you an alert about? How do we set this thing to ‘do not disturb unless someone has a missile locked onto this house’?”

“Jesus, MJ.”

She shrugs.

“Or just a shifty-looking mail carrier driving by. Whatever. I don’t want to be narrowminded in my assumption of the appearance of a modern assassin.”

“Sometimes the people looking out for me go overboard about the wrong things,” he allows. “Looks like the snow isn’t coming until around three in the morning. We’ll be asleep. It won’t bother us.”

“It’ll bother me if I have to hear that sound again for no good reason.”

Peter tosses the tablet back onto the couch.

“I’m supposed to keep it on, but we can ignore it.”

“Yes,” she agrees, the heat of the fire around the level of her knees inspiring new heat to rise higher. “Let’s ignore it.”

“We can just get ready for bed. You’re probably tired from the drive today, right?”

And he’s looking at her so honestly, so innocently, that MJ finds herself nodding at his solicitousness. He’s too busy being kind to appreciate that she wants to stay right here by the fire and rub up against him until she sees stars. But maybe he doesn’t think they’re there yet. The timeline of their relationship is slightly fucked up, what with Peter having to flee the city as a fugitive. Have they been together the past six months or is this their second date? Maybe shyly holding hands is still their speed and MJ is majorly jumping the gun in wanting to pull his pants down and get a better look at what she started by putting Peter’s hand on her boob.

So, he puts the fire out and she brushes her teeth, then changes into her pajamas in the second bedroom. The house has central heating, meaning it’s still warm, but the walls and bedspread are bland, there’s no atmosphere without the hearth. MJ realizes she’s kept Peter’s slippers all day when she sits down on the edge of her mattress with a sigh and kicks her feet free. He’s right, she should be tired. The travel and the overwhelming joy of getting to see, hear, and touch him should make it easy to crawl into bed and let the sound of the wind—it’s picking up, carrying snowflakes—lull her to sleep.

MJ doesn’t even get the blanket folded down before she’s up, opening her door and crossing the hall to Peter’s room. Her hand hovers over the doorknob, then raises, ready to rap on the door instead. No, fuck it, she twists the doorknob and steps into his bedroom. Peter’s lying on his back in the dark with his eyes wide open. She leaves the door open behind her so the light he left on in the bathroom (in case she needed to get up during the night) can continue to show her the look on his face. The look of relief.

“I was gonna come to you, but I wasn’t sure…” He trails off.

“That would’ve been ok with me,” she assures him, holding her arms as the chill of standing around in a t-shirt starts to get to her, “but I don’t mind coming to you.”

“Come to me then,” Peter says, pushing back his bedsheets and shifting over.

“I missed you so much,” she gasps.

“I missed you.”

She strides to the bed and feels his arms tug her close even as she’s still drawing the blanket over herself. Peter hugs her hard and it’s ok that it’s horizontal because he’s also held onto her a hundred feet in the air, the two of them swinging between buildings. Any way he wants to hold her is ok.

What MJ thought, when she barged in here, was that they’d have some dramatic, fiery scene with passionate kissing and creaking bedsprings. She regrets undervaluing Peter’s warmth. As a person, but also physically. Cuddling into him beats slipping between cold sheets in the other bedroom. It’s nice to be wrapped around him in a moment that isn’t immediately following an attempt on his life, knowing that he isn’t going to leave her this time. Though she’s the one who’ll have to leave the next day, trusting Peter to stay put while she sleeps is what gets her to start drifting. This is better than having him as a captive napping buddy on the airplane. No motion sickness. They’ve already landed. He kisses her temple and she ducks her head into his chest, imagining she can count his heartbeats instead of sheep, knowing the steady glug of her own heart means more to him than he could tell her in words alone.

—

This morning is not last night.

The first thing MJ does is raise her head to squint at the time on the digital clock next to Peter’s bed. The second thing is pressing her mouth to his as he mumbles a sleepy, “Good morning.” It’s 6am, a disgusting hour at home, but here, a perfect time to start the day, and seize that day, as she is seizing a fistful of the t-shirt he slept in. She can feel him smiling. She can feel him reacting in lots of ways.

When she doesn’t slow the kisses, loosen her grip on the front of his shirt, or draw back entirely in embarrassment, Peter pulls her beneath him. It’s a lazy motion, like a cat swiping at something with a paw. His weight rests comfortably on top of her. Shifting around rucks her t-shirt up, so she drops a hand to his waist and slides his up too, until their skin meets from their ribs to the bands of their pajama bottoms. Her boyfriend groans and gropes for her thigh, hiking it against his hip. The noise and the blatant display of want (in addition to the erection now pressing directly between her legs) have MJ rubbing against him excitedly. She attempts to simultaneously kiss him harder and get his shirt off over his head. They struggle together, laughing, and once it’s gone, Peter drops back onto her with fervour.

His hands grip her hips, skim her waist, get tangled up in her hair. MJ catches one and guides it beneath her t-shirt. Their gazes lock and he seems to buck against her involuntarily, lightly squeezing her breast. With an airy moan from her, their kisses turn rabid. Their hips rock agonizingly out of sync for a minute—maybe less, maybe more, her mind isn’t on the clock anymore—then his erection strokes firmly up the center of her and they figure it out. They have to. She’s suddenly hellbent on feeling that again and, honestly, Peter doesn’t look any less devoted when their kisses are forced to stop thanks to the violence of their clothed grinding.

She comes first, clutching his back and his shoulder. He comes with a sharp flick of his hips that brings to mind the way he looses a web from his wrist. Kinda the same principle, she concludes, feeling the dampness of his pajamas against her abdomen before he flops to the side with a blissful, disbelieving sigh. MJ stretches out her legs and curls her toes. A grin creeps up her face.

“Good morning,” she replies.

Peter lets out a solo laugh.

Then he just says, “Wow.”

Still smiling, she buries her face in his pillow and lets him move around her as he gets up for the day.

“It’s early,” she says, lifting her head at the creak of him pushing the bedroom door wider.

“I know.” He stares at her adoringly. There’s no other word for it. “Being in bed with you is… too good. If I stay, I’ll go back to sleep, and I don’t want that. I want to see you as much as I can before you go.”

MJ’s smile fades. Right. That.

“And you’re walking out of the room,” she points out.

“Because I have to take a shower,” Peter laughs. “A short shower. Then you can shower, or not shower, and we’ll have breakfast and make the morning last as long as we can, ok?”

Can she just make him tuck himself into the box of kitchen stuff she brought and take him back home with her? Being apart from him again—willingly turning her back on this house and making new tracks in the snow—feels impossible. They aren’t supposed to be apart. But MJ nods, knowing it’s easier on them both that way. She watches him head towards the bathroom and reminds herself that this stay with him has already meant more to her than she anticipated.

She’s in her room gathering toiletries and clothes when she hears Peter shut the shower off. That’s on purpose. She doesn’t need to wonder any more about her lack of restraint today; seeing him walk back into his bedroom soaking wet and likely dressed in nothing but a towel would definitely test her. His presence in her thoughts as she shampoos her hair under the low pressure of the showerhead is sufficiently distracting. She braids her hair when she’s done, simply to focus herself with the task (and because she didn’t bring a hairdryer and accepts that her boyfriend’s probably not hiding one here someplace). Pausing at the door, she takes a deep breath, determined to look him in the eye and not just stare at the floor and blush because he’s touched her skin and brought her to orgasm. She smiles to herself in a moment of private congratulation.

Peter would probably hear her approaching footfalls no matter what, but with his too-big slippers flapping on her feet, MJ’s prepared for him to be looking at her when she makes her entrance into the kitchen. She’s not prepared for the box of Cheerios sitting on his table. Shit. Only now does she remember the condoms and where she stowed them. As she looks on, trying to think of what to say, Peter cheerfully pours himself a bowl and adds milk.

“Two things,” he says while she shuffles cautiously into the room. “First thing: you won’t believe what I found in with the cereal. Talk about a prize in every box.”

“Loser,” she mutters, rolling her eyes even as her cheeks flush.

“Super weird that that’s not the biggest thing I have to tell you, but I definitely want to get back to it, but, second thing, it snowed.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Uh, yeah, I remember.”

“Ok, well, it really snowed. Serious snow. Big, high, white and drifted snow.”

“You’ve slipped into song lyrics.”

“I got an alert,” Peter says, lifting the tablet he showed her the night before from the table.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It came through when you were in the shower, though it is harder to hear the noise from down the hall.”

MJ gives him a questioning look.

“I might’ve been on my way to the bathroom to, uh, see if you needed anything,” he explains, blushing guiltily, “when I heard it and had to come back out here.”

“Is this your handlers overreacting again?” But even as she asks, she turns towards the window. Of course, for security reasons, the blinds are down and the curtains are shut. “Can I look?”

He nods and she crosses the kitchen to take a quick peek, not wanting to jeopardize his safety. The level of the snow dips down near the side of the house, but the drift rises steeply. Within a few feet, it appears high enough to come up to her hips if she waded outside. And it’s still falling.

“There’s a lot of snow out there,” MJ informs him in a mildly panicked tone, snapping the curtains back into place.

“Mhmm. Cheerios?”

“You should be eating the eggs I brought you while they’re fresh,” she counters.

Her comment is half-hearted and distracted though and she too goes for the cereal. Between spoonfuls, Peter, across from her when she sits down at the table, unspools the consequences of the heavy snowfall.

“So, obviously, this isn’t an emergency, but it’s not ideal. You’re probably gonna have to stay another night.”

“Ok,” MJ says slowly. “Another night. But my parents are expecting me home tonight.”

“I’m sure Fury or somebody’ll get in touch with May and have her make something up. Trust me, nobody wants any questions to come up that’ll lead back to me.”

“What’s the ‘probably’ depend on?”

“Hmm?” He slurps the milk off his spoon.

“You say I’d probably have to stay tonight. Does that depend on how much more snow we get?”

“Um, yeah, that and a couple other things,” Peter says vaguely. MJ frowns at him.

“I came all the way out here to be with you, Parker. I could not be more in the middle of things than I am right now. Tell me what you know.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” He lets his spoon clink into his bowl. “So, the snow for sure. I mean, I’m guessing they have something heavy-duty that could plough the road if they had to, but getting a plough here would be conspicuous thing number one and having this rural road cleared when the rest of the area won’t be would be conspicuous thing number two. If you left that way, I’d have to leave too, get put in a new safehouse—”

“I don’t want to cause that big of a problem,” MJ assures him, finally pouring out her own bowl and trying to find some comfort in breakfast.

“You’re the furthest thing in the world from a problem,” Peter says with a quick smile. “But alright, so, with the alert, they suggested another option.”

“Which is?”

“To airlift you out.”

She bites down on her spoon as her jaw tenses.

“I don’t, um, really enjoy heights.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, “I remember.”

“You dropped me and it wasn’t funny.”

“Aw, that was months ago. Can’t we laugh about it now?” Her expression is his answer. “I actually did figure you’d feel that way. This would’ve been a helicopter, no landing, just somebody coming down a ladder to grab you and help you up into the chopper.”

“Don’t say ‘chopper’ like you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re way too much of a dork to be using that word. And yes, before you ask, I am criticizing you to mask my fear over how horrifying that sounds.”

“I told them no.”

“Wait… I thought… you didn’t have communication, right? Like, that’s why you can’t talk to your aunt.” Or me, MJ tacks on internally.

“Oh, it’s not a conversation. They just send through the planned course of action and usually I don’t have a choice, but this time I could basically give them a yes or no, proceed or no-go, you know?”

She sighs shakily.

“Thank you for not making me do that.”

“Well, based on the weather, they could ask again, so you always have a chance to change your mind, if you want.”

Peter’s not meeting her eye.

“Why the hell would I change my mind about dangling from a helicopter in a blizzard?”

“If you wanted to go,” he says quietly. “You’re the other thing this plan depends on. Like you said, your parents are expecting you and—”

“Peter,” MJ says, “the fact that I’m not being subjected to an extreme chopper rescue is only the thing that I’m second most grateful for. Getting to spend more time with you is number one. If they don’t have to draw attention to this house, and if your aunt covers for me, that’s great.”

Looking up, he gives her a mostly-convinced smile. Seeing it, she knows she has to press further. She taps her slipper against the top of his foot under the table.

“I hope it snows for a week,” she says firmly.

Peter beams. He lifts his cereal bowl and holds it out to her.

“Cheers,” he offers. After a derisive snort, she taps her bowl against his.

They eat in a comfortable silence for several minutes. Blocking out the death-defying premise of the recent plan, MJ considers the ramifications of staying put. She trusts May. May will know what to say to her parents, she’s very compassionate—and hopefully a believable liar. Well, MJ figures she’d have to be, with Spider-Man under her roof. School’s on winter break, so she doesn’t need to worry about an alibi for her teachers, though the flu would’ve worked as an excuse. It seems like she’s good from every angle. Resting her cheek against her hand as she scoops the remaining Cheerios onto her spoon, she observes Peter and feels herself smiling just to see him in front of her. His face in real life is still sorta miraculous.

“So,” he begins when she grabs his bowl (the guy’s been doing his solitary dishes for months—she doesn’t mind helping out), “I have a really important question.”

“Still a no to the helicopter.”

MJ has her back to her boyfriend, placing the bowls in the sink, when he responds.

“Should I shave?”

She turns, frowning in confusion.

“That’s up to you.”

“Well, see, maybe I would’ve this morning, except I promised I would be quick in the bathroom, and then anyway, I figured you’d be leaving soon and there wouldn’t be that many more opportunities for us to—”

“Oh my god,” she says as she catches on. “Please stop.”

“But if it bothers you,” Peter presses, rubbing the back of his fingers up his stubbled cheek, “when we’re kissing…”

“It doesn’t. It’s different, but… I’m good. You don’t have to shave for me.”

“Hypothetically though, if we were kissing for a longer period of time, I wouldn’t want to hurt your skin.”

“God, Peter, how long are you imagining we’d be kissing for that my face would be damagingly abraded?”

“Then,” he says, spreading his hands to their apparent future possibilities, “what if it wasn’t rubbing against your face?”

Spinning away from him, MJ stares with wide eyes at the wall above the sink.

“Does the idea of me kissing your neck freak you out?” Peter asks her back. “I don’t have to do that.”

Her shoulders slump as she laughs.

“My neck,” she murmurs to herself. “He meant my neck.”

“What do you— oh.” Goddamn enhanced hearing. “Uh, well, I-I didn’t know you had stuff in mind.”

“I don’t have anything in mind,” she says, turning to look at him.

Peter grabs the Cheerios and gets up to put them away. Holding her gaze, he pulls the box of condoms out of the drawer as he slots the cereal in.

“These showed up when you did. Unless some assassin broke in and left me a really sickening present.”

“I didn’t pack them, your aunt-slash-wingwoman did.”

His expression changes several times as he digests that.

“That seems like something May would do,” is what he lands on.

“It’s… thoughtful of her. Responsible parenting,” MJ agrees stiffly, trying to deal with the visual of Peter casually holding a box of condoms. Cool. Fine.

“So, the thought of… It’s just May making sure, in case anything… Yeah. I got it.”

But that’s not quite right.

“I’ve thought about it,” MJ blurts. “Not for this weekend, because I only expected to be here a night and this is something we should, you know, discuss.”

“Totally,” Peter says eagerly.

“I just don’t want you to think I haven’t…” She waves a hand.

“Thought about it,” he finishes.

“Yeah.”

“Me too. I’ve thought about it. Like, a lot,” he divulges with a relieved laugh that he quickly concludes with a clearing of his throat. “A normal amount.”

“That’s good,” she assures him. Her gestures feel gawky, her features feel misplaced on her face.

“I’d definitely be up for discussing it, especially after, uh…” Peter ruffles his damp hair as his face flushes. “…this morning.”

MJ’s suddenly made up of thoughts, so many thoughts that there’s no room for words, no possibility of speaking. This morning. Uh huh. Valid recollection on her boyfriend’s part. This morning was fantastic and kind of but not wildly unexpected and certainly closer to the sort of thing they’d need those condoms for than the few times they’ve made out have been.

“That makes sense,” she says, voice weak when it finally comes out, along with plenty of nodding. Too much nodding, really.

He sets the box on the counter.

“We could talk about it now.”

“We could do that,” MJ agrees, pulse accelerating with every additional second he spends looking at her. “The thing is, it’s early, it’s really early, and if we talk about that now, we’re gonna lose the whole day.”

Peter’s eyebrows raise.

“God, yeah, you’re right. You know, I think I’m, like, oversimplifying this discussion in my head because, yep, definitely, if you have a lot you want to say about it before—or if, even!—we, uh, proceed, then you should absolutely take the whole day to just get all your thoughts out there. For sure. I… yes. I support you and you should take all the time you need. More than a day! You could definitely take more than a day, obviously. You know that. I hope you do. Whatever you want, MJ.”

“I actually just meant that if we started talking about it, we’d lose the whole day to doing it.”

“Oh.” He sits with that thought for a minute, eyes roving the kitchen ceiling. “Why would that be a problem?”

He asks with such genuine confusion that MJ has to laugh, and that relaxes her.

“If we can’t think hard enough to determine why it’d be a problem, it’s a problem,” she reasons. “I want to think this through. I want us to both be ready. That alone—” She points at the condoms. “—doesn’t make us ready.”

“Ok. We’ll completely forget about them. No problem.”

Fueled by the intense focusing power of sexual tension, they pass the morning learning something that may actually be checkers as it was intended to be played. Anything around them making sense is an accident, as far as MJ is concerned, and mastering the probably-rules of the game isn’t really a win because it means they have to scramble to find something else to distract them. Peter takes up a post on the ceiling, cross-legged, and lets the body of his Spider-Man suit dangle down while he retools something in the hands. When he puts on the mask and starts talking to Karen, MJ quits watching him and goes into the kitchen to make them an early lunch of an extra-large omelette. It seems like a nice idea to curl up and eat together until Peter touches her hip a certain way and she looks at him too long. They force themselves to sit on separate couches.

After lunch, he digs out some non-Stark-tech supplies, like paper and pens. He lights a small fire and she draws. Once he starts paying more attention to her drawings than to his stuff, she draws for him, pulling her legs back so he can share her couch. She crafts caricatures of their friends, plays them across the page in short cartoons that are semi-faithful to the boring goings-on of their lives at Midtown this fall without Peter. He falls asleep with his head resting against the back of the couch and she executes swift sketches to capture the softness of his features. She doesn’t know how long his supine pose will last. She never knows how long anything will last, with him. He stays asleep, so MJ leaves her drawings and steals into the Lego room, disassembling at will. Peter’s a little panicked when he walks in half an hour later, but sorting the pieces she’s jumbled will give him something to do while she takes her own nap, she reasons.

But where to? The spare room doesn’t call to her in the slightest and returning to his bed will bring thoughts that’ll only keep her awake. She needs to revive after their too-early morning; she troops back to the couch and passes out with the warmth of the fire near her feet and the jangling of plastic Lego bricks in the other room.

The rustle of paper is the first thing MJ hears when she wakes up. She can’t remember dreaming last night, but during her nap, her subconscious played a short film of the two of them giggling as Peter cooked his Spidey suit in the fireplace. Weird. She blinks, tracing the sound to her boyfriend, cross-legged on the floor with his back against the couch as he flips through her rough portraits of him.

“Maybe you can do one of you,” he suggests without looking back at her. “And I can keep it when you leave. I don’t have any pictures of anybody.”

She hesitates a moment, then leans to wrap her arms loosely around his shoulders from behind.

“How’d you know I was awake?”

“I heard your breathing change.” A pause. “It sounds pretty creepy when I say it out loud, but I’m just doing what you do.” Peter twists to look at her, putting his hand over the back of hers on his chest. “Observing.”

“Right.” MJ glances down abruptly. “Like with the cereal drawer this morning and what you observed in there.”

“I hate to tell you this, but it sounds like you’re gonna talk about the thing you said we shouldn’t talk about.”

“I found clarity in unconsciousness.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means our problems don’t just disappear. Obviously.” She waves one hand in front of him, indicating the room where Peter’s presumably spent most of his waking hours since arriving here. “We have to solve them.”

“Is it… us having sex… a problem?”

“I don’t want it to be. I just want us to be, you know, in agreement. Not rushing into anything.”

“I think…” Peter sighs and shifts so he can look at her without contorting. She withdraws her arms from him and sits up, crossing her legs in her lap, planting her elbows on her knees. “I think we’re not gonna get everything we want. How can we, with these conditions? I don’t even know when I’m gonna get to see you again. We can wait, which is alright with me, but I can’t tell you how long we’ll be waiting for.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Because you know I have zero control here,” he says in a tone full of more irritation than she’s seen him display yet. “I don’t even choose what I eat for breakfast! It’s not like they’ve asked me to write up a grocery list. I am so sick of Cheerios. Out there, I was helping people, but stuck here… I don’t know, MJ. I’m basically powerle—”

She folds forward and kisses him, grabbing his face to hold him in place for a few extra seconds until his lips copy hers and quit trying to form the rest of that word.

“No,” MJ insists, face still close to his, “you’re not. And just so you know where I stand…” She takes a deep, terrified breath, pushing out the only truth she’s ever had trouble articulating: “…you are everything I want.”

Peter’s eyes are awed and hopeful as his gaze darts across her face.

“What about what you said about not rushing?”

“That was for your benefit. Personally, I can’t rush what I’ve already decided.”

“Especially not when May sends you here prepared, I guess,” he checks with a coy smile.

“We don’t have to do anything else,” MJ emphasizes, sidestepping the dork’s comment. “It’s amazing just being with you—and I will deny I said that so bluntly if you ever tell anyone.”

She smiles so he knows she’s teasing. He still jerks his head back in mock offense. Suddenly, his expression clarifies to… horror.

“You don’t wanna do this because you’re worried, do you?” Peter demands. “Not because you think I’m gonna forget about you or stop caring about you like this?”

“No.” But she averts her eyes because she did have that concern on the drive here yesterday, right up until they hugged. “I’m not trying to use sex for anything. If… if you did stop… and you wanted to be just friends again, that’s not something I could prevent. I realize now that I can’t focus on that possibility because—”

“Because it’s not a possibility at all.” He ducks his head until her gaze is trapped by his. Shaking his head, Peter says, “I’m sure about you, MJ. I’m not sure when I’ll be home or if the world—or even just the neighbourhood—will still want a Spider-Man by the time I can be that guy again, but I know the first thing I’m gonna wanna do when I get back is give you a kiss. Not as friends.”

“What about now? Do you want to kiss me now?”

“I always wanna kiss you.”

Right as he stretches towards her—seemingly poised to prove what he said—MJ jerks back. Peter looks up at her quizzically.

“Anything while I was asleep? Any alerts? I don’t want a whole team to come storming in here while I’m taking your pants off.”

It takes her boyfriend a few seconds to get his words out.

“I-I don’t want that either,” he says, voicing cracking as his cheeks redden. He shakes his head. “No alerts. Nothing. That means no change to the plan for you to stay here tonight.”

“Good. I was sorta getting used to the idea. They would’ve had a fight getting me out of here.”

She raises her chin confrontationally and Peter grins.

“And some people think Spider-Man’s trouble. They should meet his girlfriend, who marches in with a box of condoms and won’t leave until he sleeps with her.”

MJ gapes at him.

“That’s not what I did.”

Peter pushes up to his knees, smiling as he cradles her face in his palm.

“It’s basically what you did.”

“You massively oversimplified the events of the past—” She squints and makes a guess. “—thirty hours.”

“I was hitting the highlights,” he argues, sliding his hand to the back of her neck to draw her down to him.

Her laugh is as brief as one of her quick heartbeats as Peter’s fingers stroke her neck and he angles his head.

“Is that how you’re going to tell this story to our grandkids?”

The mirth falls from both of their faces; they absorb her facetious quip in the same instant. Then, their mouths slam together—MJ diving down, Peter surging up. Though she has the high ground (and doesn’t say as much to the guy with a roomful of Star Wars Lego), he builds momentum out of nowhere, driving her up until he’s hovering, then lowering, on top of her. She’s holding him as tightly as she can as they continue to kiss hard.

On instinct, she assumes, their bodies copy the morning’s posture with her thigh against Peter’s hip. He grasps it and presses his hips to hers. MJ swipes her tongue along his when she feels him hardening between her legs. This was always only a maybe, she thinks, eyes moving fast behind her lids as they follow the red glow of the fire that the movement of his head is causing to shift across her face. But this definitely feels like they know where they’re going. Somebody’ll need to go get the condoms from the kitchen at some point. Peter swings his head to kiss down her neck and MJ sighs. Yeah, at some point.

These clothes might not come off as easily as the red suit on the opposite couch, but his eagerness compensates for the fact that he can’t just tap his chest to drop everything to the floor. When both their top halves are bare (as with anything, Peter does not mind lending a hand in undressing her), he pulls MJ up so he’s sitting with her straddling his lap. He groans into her mouth as she traces the muscles of his abdomen and she hops forward to nudge her hips into his again.

“If I don’t go now,” he pants, “I don’t know when I’m gonna get up to grab a condom.”

So, he’s been thinking the same thing she has. MJ smirks.

“You should probably get one,” she encourages.

But he has her jeans undone and her hand down the front of his sweats—still over his underwear, for the moment—before he manages to repeat his words with any resolve. She throws herself aside and stares into the fire, licking her lips to chase the memory of his mouth’s pressure, while he scurries to the kitchen. His naked torso is beautiful in the glow when he jogs (dork) back in.

“You think it’s safe to leave that?” MJ asks, nodding towards the fireplace. “My preference would be not doing this on a couch the first time.”

“Second time?” he jokes.

“Maybe,” she says seriously, just to see the dumbfounded look it puts on his face.

“Yeah… we can, yeah… It’ll be fine. So, you wanna… my bed?”

“The traditional yet practical choice.”

He happily sighs out his, “Yeah,” and she wonders if he heard anything following her agreement to a theoretical second round. Probably not—he spoke staring at her boobs.

“What if I carried you?” Peter blurts as she’s about to stand.

“…I can walk.”

“Yeah, but… can I carry you?”

She watches him for a moment as he awaits her answer. She’s watched him so many times, but never while he was waiting for her, trying to find something to grasp in the silence, this guy who’s more than human and always flitting from one web to the next. MJ ends his freefall.

“Ok, Peter.”

As giddy with nerves as she was on their first date when he held her tight and wrenched her off her feet, she stands. He steps in close, taking her face softly between his hands, kissing her. She hops into his arms the second he lets go and laughs at Peter and herself when the action tips him back. He holds on though, pulling her thighs in snugly around his waist before catching her back to press her to his chest. MJ’s scared to kiss him as he walks them to his bedroom; arms wrapped behind his neck, she stares at him instead. They’re about to do this. He’s going to be inside her.

“You got it?” she checks once he’s sat her on the edge of the bed.

Peter plucks the condom from his pocket to show her. MJ nods in acknowledgement and he sets it on the nightstand. With a condom nearby—this assurance that they are responsible people and can therefore do whatever the fuck they like—she reaches for his hand and draws him in. Kissing, she scoots back and he crawls over her. She gasps when he moves his mouth enthusiastically to her neck and he jerks his head up with a self-satisfied expression.

“The sheets are cold,” she lies defensively. Peter just smiles and burrows his face back into the warm crook between her neck and shoulder.

“They’ll get warmer.”

MJ can’t believe it when she’s the one being stripped out of her pants first (her boyfriend is such a willing undresser). She feels vulnerable, between the sheets in only her underwear, but she’s determined enough to relocate Peter’s hand from her waist to her breast. He thanks her in a passionate mumble that raises hairs on the back of her neck as he darts in to kiss her firmly. Parting her thighs, she thanks him in return, for the kiss or the way he’s kneading her nipple between finger and thumb or something, relieved when he lowers his hips and she can feel his erection under his sweats. Fuck, a week ago, she was trying to convince herself that she’d be lucky and get Peter back next year. This is the greatest surprise.

Though she doubts she could knock the wind out of him, he huffs when she squeezes her thighs to his hips and unbalances him, rolling him over and landing on top.

“Wow, you wanna do it like this? I mean, yeah, awesome.”

Sitting astride him, MJ rolls her eyes.

“I just thought it’d be easier to get you out of your pants this way, since you seem like you’ve forgotten that you need to actually take them off.”

Peter shakes his head rapidly.

“I just didn’t want to rush you, like you said. Or freak you out or scare you,” he rambles.

This idiot.

“Why would I be scared? Are you concealing a weapon or something?”

“No,” he jokes with a goofy smile, pressing his hips upward, “I’m just happy to see you.”

“You so did not deserve those condoms.”

“Didn’t I?” Peter asks, the two of them working his sweatpants and boxers down. (She’s touching his thighs. His bare thighs. Jesus.)

“No. Huge mistake. You’re not mature enough for this. I’m going to tell your aunt.”

As long as MJ keeps talking, dropping onto her side and slipping her own underwear off is just a background thing that’s happening while she speaks. Her heart is hammering.

“Oh, are you?” he questions, running a warm, tentative hand down the curve of her naked hip.

“Mhmm. She’ll be really disappointed in you for, uh, wasting supplies.”

“Maybe I could make it up to you and you could forgive me.”

Peter’s fingers trace low over her belly, making her stomach flinch with the anticipation. He touches between her legs, the contact the subtlest flirtation. The look in his eyes says he doesn’t know what he’s doing either, but that he wants to do it together. Holding his stare, she rolls onto her back.

He proceeds when she widens the space between her thighs. His touch feels… fine, but not exciting, and MJ wonders if it’s because she’s watching him, possibly making him nervous. She closes her eyes and instinctually angles her head to press her forehead against Peter’s shoulder. Gradually, he strokes her with more assurance and she quietly mutters “yes” each time he does something that feels good. By the time he’s gotten her seriously wet and turned on, she’s gripping the sheet with one hand and his wrist with the other, urging him to go faster. Her body’s not satisfied but humming as Peter jolts recklessly across her to snatch the condom. He kisses her right as she’s opening her eyes at the disturbance.

“Yeah?” he asks, dick in hand.

She nods, breathing quickly and needing him to act before the sensations he’s stirred up dim.

“Yeah.”

It’s out of character, how slowly he moves next. He’s capable of care in abundance, of course, but patience? Caution? Restraint? None of these are words that would come to mind if someone asked her to describe her boyfriend. They cling to each other as he works his way deeper in incremental thrusts. Because he’s trembling, she holds him tight. She probably would regardless. Things almost stall, but then he gropes between them, locating her clit, and her clutch on him squeezes and releases, allowing him to suddenly slide all the way home.

“Fuck,” he says softly, head hunched down beside hers.

MJ rubs her hands over the quivering muscles of his back, certain the two of them are generating enough heat to melt the snow around the house and all the way up the road.

“I’m gonna come if I do anything,” Peter says in a desperate tone. “I can’t move.”

“You can move.”

“No. I… I wanna take care of you. MJ, please.”

Between them, she finds his hand and guides it in rubbing her clit. His body’s held taut above her and she turns her head to meet his searching eyes. Her neck arches involuntarily at her first unexpected moan and Peter clamps his eyes shut like it’s all too much. So she watches his tense, determined face while manipulating his fingers over her. When she’s close, coating his cock in her arousal many times over, MJ tells Peter to open his eyes. Then, she begins to rock her hips, letting him glide in and out. Their hands continue to stimulate her until she orgasms with a wet cry and pulls his fingers away. They hold hands hard and he thrusts with crazed strokes, coming with an understated choked noise.

He hasn’t quit shaking when he climbs off of her to deal with the condom.

“I don’t know,” Peter says, sliding back into bed and allowing her to weave her limbs around his. She smiles at how baffled he sounds.

“You’re ok.”

“This feels like shock, like I get after a bad beating.”

She sighs exasperatedly at this news. She might’ve suspected his secret identity for a while before he confirmed it, but she doesn’t know everything, isn’t in on all the missions and outcomes yet. When he gets home—after all this bullshit—she’ll demand to be kept in the loop.

“I guess you’re just overwhelmed.”

“That felt really fucking good,” Peter confesses in a low, stunned voice.

MJ starts to giggle and can’t stop. Tears stream down her face, into her hair, onto her boyfriend’s skin. He laughs too, but holds her greedily all the while. It reminds her how temporary this is.

Except, no. It’s not. No one can stop them from remembering this after she goes and he stays. No one can stop them from making plans, having hopes. Days are temporary, like snow, but feelings can last. How she feels about Peter definitely can. She’s made it this far and, on his end, so has he. On impulse, MJ kisses his forehead.

“I know what’ll help. Something to eat. We can see what else you have that can be cooked in the fireplace.”

“Frozen lasagna?” he proposes.

“Why not? Let’s try it.”

[alovesongshewrote]

Whumptober Day 19: Broken Hearts | Reader

Plot:  Part 3!!  Torture!!

Word Count: 3,158

Warnings:  Torture, threats, demons, possession, the demon is a mega asshole still

A/N:  Whump

Tag List:  @furblrwurblr​ @einahpetsyarcip​ @sorrels-scribbling​ @anxious-stitcher​ @alive-and-afraid​ @animedweeb333​ @douxiesdamsel​ @saroski05

Nari was not having a good time right now.  Her guardians, her protectors were dealing with some massive evil presence, and there wasn’t much she could do other than look for help with Archie.

Archie was also not having fun.  He was supposed to protect Douxie, to look out for him and make sure he was safe.  But now?  Now Douxie was anything but safe.  It was a new kind of horror, the cat-dragon decided, to watch his oldest friend get tortured in his sleep; to watch his skin tear on its own and the blood stain the sheets.  And then he had to leave him.  He had to leave his wizard, his boy, who he had watched over for almost a thousand years, to an uncertain fate.  He trusted you, of course, but this thing, this darkness that haunted you was a force to be reckoned with.  He didn’t want either of you to be hurt more than you already had been.

The two of them ran for a while until they found a payphone, which is literally the luckiest anyone ever gets in this story because those things are almost extinct, and called for help.  After that, all they could do was wait.

You were not doing any better.

You woke up restrained, tied to a kitchen chair with bonds that glowed the same blue as the demon’s eyes.  While this wasn’t the first time this had happened, it was the first time the magic burned.  Wherever it touched your skin an unfamiliar ache took hold.  That was new, it was different, and it hurt enough to make you wince.  The demon was waiting for that.  Now that you were awake, the fun could begin.

“Good morning, darling.”

You groaned a little bit, not wanting to deal with this asshole.  Unfortunately, you had no choice in that matter.

“What’s the matter?  Uncomfortable?”

“Eat a dick.”

The thing snarled, and the expression looked uncanny on your wizard’s face.  It was just so unlike him, and that reminder that he was trapped in there hurt you more than anything this demon could do.  That didn’t mean that the demon wouldn’t try.

It grabbed your face, jerking your head to face him, “Don’t get smart, now.  You don’t want poor Douxie to suffer any more than he has to, do you?”

You bit back a string of insults while trying to escape from the demon’s grasp.  That wasn’t going super well, and it only made the thing tighten his grip.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” you spat, words laced with venom.  The demon was unaffected.

“Do you want him to suffer?”

You stopped struggling and stared at the thing that controlled your boyfriend’s body.  He couldn’t be serious, could he?  Did he actually want you to say it?  

He jerked your face again, pulling it upwards, exposing your neck, “Come on, darling, we don’t have all day.  Just say it, yes or no.”

You stayed silent, incredibly wary of why exactly he would want you to say this.  In your first nightmare, he kept trying to manipulate you, telling you that if you loved Douxie you would die for him.  The situation was too similar for this to be a coincidence.

When you said nothing, the demon sighed, shaking his head.  You felt a sharp pain wherever his fingers made contact with your face.  Claws, you realized, were extending from his hand, carving into your skin and leaving shallow cuts across your cheek.  You gasped, trying to pull back, but that made things worse.  Not only did it give the monster’s talons a better chance to tear your skin, but it let you see the awful mix of demon and man that was this thing’s hand.  Simply put, it wasn’t Douxie’s.  It may have been attached to his body, but these long sharp claws were anything but human.

While you were distracted by that little abomination, the demon drew closer to you.  The hand that wasn’t embedded in your face curled around the chair, effectively boxing you in, not that you had anywhere else to go.  His figure loomed over you, reminding you that you were completely outmatched magically and physically.  You shut your eyes and gritted your teeth as the demon’s lips grazed your ear.

“If you say yes, I’ll let you go.”

Your eyes snapped open, and you turned to face the monster as much as you physically could.  Why the hell would he offer that?  To torture Douxie, probably, but this was too weird.  Before he’d based his attacks on your love for the wizard.  Why now, was he trying to get you to betray him?  You guessed it was because his identity as a demon had been revealed, forcing him to try another tactic, but that didn’t make too much sense if you thought about it too hard.  You knew that he was lying, he would never let you go that easily, the question was why?

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

You remained silent.  You weren’t going to say anything to this guy that wasn’t an insult.

“Well, you can't be blamed for that.  Here, let me show you,” he removed his claws and his hand from your face, allowing you to move your jaw again.  He moved that hand down the length of your body, and as it descended, your bonds loosened a bit and the burning subsided.  The demon pulled away from you for a moment, only to lean over your other side and push a strand of your hair back into place.  You didn’t make a sound.

“I bet you’re wondering why you get this deal,” he ran a clawless hand down your jawline, bringing it to rest on your chest, the same place he had stabbed you weeks ago.  You felt your muscles tense up as he lowered his head to rest on your shoulder.

“It’s because you remind me of my wife.  She had the same spark you do.  I don’t regret draining her, killing her slowly as I stole her power, but,” you could feel the demon smiling against you, as he paused, letting the threat sink in “There are some things I do miss.”

He kissed your neck, making you want to vomit.  You liked it when Douxie kissed you, but even though this was his body, it wasn’t him.  You were relieved when the demon stood, taking a few steps away from you.  You even relaxed for a second before he pulled out the knife.  Silver with a green gem.  It was the blade from your nightmares.

“This was hers once.  She’d never approve of it being used in this way, but she can’t exactly stop me from where she is, can she?”  he came towards you, pushing the point of the blade against your collarbone, “So, what’s your answer, darling?  Yes or no?”

You weren’t saying anything.

And it was pissing off the demon.

“Come on, darling, I’m running out of patience.”

Silence.  From both of you.

But you noticed his grip tighten around the hilt of the blade, his eye twitched, his jaw clenched.  It wouldn’t take much for him to explode.

It took nothing, actually.

“SAY IT!”  he screamed, the blade slicing through your skin, small drops of your blood hitting the wall.  You said nothing, but you could not hide your smirk.  The demon didn’t like that.  He placed the knife against your skin again, getting in your face and growling as he spoke, “Say.  It.”

You smiled then.  This may have been a powerful demon possessing your even more powerful boyfriend, but you were the one in control right now.  You said nothing.

The monster’s face went blank, and you smirked, even as he drove his blade into your chest.  It was enough to hurt, but not to kill.

He waited for you to say something, anything, but you just sat there, grinning.  He moved his blade down to rest against your ribs, demanding that you answer his question once again.  You refused, and the knife ran against your skin, breaking it and drawing blood.

The process repeated a few more times, but you never answered.  At this point, it had moved beyond refusing to respond out of fear.  If he wanted to manipulate you, the time had passed.  This was a game of defiance now, and answering meant surrender.  Answering meant death.

You could tell the demon was growing tired of this game.  Eventually, he threw the knife down and just started hitting you.  When he finished that, you were laughing.  Maybe this was just your way of avoiding the trauma that you would have to deal with eventually.  Maybe it was your way of letting Douxie know you were still there.  Maybe you had gone insane.  Either way, the monster was now slumped over your counter, screaming out of frustration.

Once your laughter had subsided, you leaned back still grinning, “You ruined my shirt.  Just, FYI.”

With a growl, the demon flew across the room, grabbing your throat again, not hesitating to squeeze this time, “You vile little-”

He cut himself off, letting go of your neck and stepping back.  You were already concerned, but the smile that spread across his face really set you on edge.

“Well, you won’t answer me, and you clearly don’t care about your own life,” he picked up the knife, “but maybe, you’ll care about him?”

He brought the blade over his wrist, Douxie’s wrist.  You started to struggle again, panic returning and adrenaline running through your veins.  The demon pushed the point of the knife through his skin, not far enough to cause any lasting damage, but more than enough to scare you.

“What’ll it be, love?”

“I-”

“Answer or he dies!”

“Okay, stop!” you cried, straining against the magic keeping you in place, “Stop it, please, I’ll answer, just don’t hurt him!”

He dropped the knife, grinning at you, “That’s all I needed to hear, darling.  Now, tell me.”

You waited until he was right in front of you.  You had never seen Douxie look so smug.  True, this wasn’t actually him, but it was still a weird experience.  This entire day had been a weird experience.  Your Douxie, the real Douxie, would never hurt you, ever.  He would never lay a hand on you, never swat you away or elbow you in the ribs or touch you when you didn’t want to be touched.  But today, his body beat the shit out of yours for hours.  Fortunately, if you got things your way, that would be over soon.  You tried to stay calm as you followed your plan.

First, you looked into the demon’s cold blue eyes.

Next, you let a few tears fall, trying to look as weak and unassuming as possible.

Then, you gave your answer.

“No.”

You waited for the demon’s response.  He smiled sadly, shaking his head, “I thought you’d say that.”

He drew closer to you, probably going in for the kill.  Whatever, it didn’t matter, what mattered was that he was close enough now for your attack.

Here’s the thing about them bindings.  They only last as long as the one doing the binding is focused on them.  When the demon had his little meltdown, you were able to free one of your hands.  It was only one of four limbs, but it was a good start.  You waited until the demon was in punching distance.

And then you just fuckin punched him.

It felt great.

Not physically, because, y’ know, hours of torture tend to make you feel like shit, but still, it felt nice.  

While the demon took a second to regain his bearings, you made quick work of your other bonds, freeing yourself quickly and getting to your feet.  You almost fell as soon as you stood, but shit, torture will do that to you, and you could deal with it later.  You needed to run first.  

So you did.  You grabbed the nearest weapon and bolted, not out of the apartment, but into your bedroom.  Sure, the demon beat you and Douxie before because you were in his domain, but now you were in your apartment.  It was over for him.  You had the high ground.

Thinking fast, you hid in the closet preparing your weapon, which was an unopened can of something.  Maybe it wasn’t great for melee purposes, but it would make one hell of a projectile.  You waited in the dark until you heard the demon outside.  You didn’t wait anymore after that.

You kicked down the closet door and yeeted the can at your boyfriend’s head.  It was a direct hit!  With a grin, you ran at the demon, tackling it to the ground and rolling away.  While it tried to get up, you slammed your fist into the ground, your magic forming a sigil on the ground and trapping the demon inside.

You stood up, breathing heavy but smiling.  But you weren’t done yet.  You needed to get Douxie back.

“Hey babe, I know you’re in there, and I’m sorry for beating you up.”

The monster growled, lunging towards you only to hit the invisible wall made by your sigil, “SHUT UP.”

You did not do that.  Instead, you kept on talking, “But I need you to come back to me.  I know you’ve been fighting him, and I’m sorry I couldn’t help you before, but I can now.”

“STOP THIS!”

“Fight him, darling, you can come back to me, I know you can.”  

Darling.  The word slid off your tongue like you’d been meant to say it all your life.  It just felt right.  It must have felt right to Douxie too because as the demon screamed, the glow of his eyes faded.  Blue turned to hazel, and your boy was back.  Behind him, smoke gathered, but you didn’t care.  Your mans was no longer possessed.  You could not stop the smile on your face as you grabbed his hand, pulling him out of the sigil.

In an instant, his arms were wrapped around you, and yours around him.  You buried your face in his chest, letting yourself relax for a second.  He was shaking and clinging to you as if he feared he would never hold you again.  That was valid.  Today was a traumatizing day for everyone.

You brought your forehead to rest against his, placing your hands on his face, tracing his cheekbones with your thumbs.  He was crying.  So were you.

“Hi,” you whispered.

“Hey.”

You let out a sob, pulling yourself closer to him, “I love you.”

“I love you too, I love you so much,” he said, repeating those words over and over, throwing in apologies pretty frequently. 

“YOU FOOLS.”

“Oh great, this guy again.” Your voice was muffled, but Douxie still heard you, smiling despite the situation.

“YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS.”

“Sure, Jan.”  Maybe it was the blood loss, but you had decided to be funny.  Also, it pissed off the demon, which was nice.

It growled again and lunged for you, and this time, the sigil flickered and faded, freeing the thing.  The monster had to take a second as he hadn’t expected that to work, but it did, and now you were in trouble.  Again.

Douxie had no time to deal with your delirious ass.  Instead, he picked you up and ran, stashing you in the elevator while he ran up the stairs to the roof.  He managed to beat the beast to the there, grabbing you from the elevator and running to the edge of the building.  He kept you behind him, trying his best to protect you.  The monster burst through the doors, now in its true form.

“(Y/N), I love you.”

“Eh, no, don’t do anything stupid.  We’re in this together,” you grabbed his hand, and smiled.  Maybe you were about to die, but that wouldn’t stop you from being a cute significant other.

“I love you, too, just by the way.”

Douxie shook his head, but he had no choice but to smile back at you.  That’s love children, that’s love.

You stretched out your hand, magic at the ready.  Douxie did the same.  

It was time to fight the demon.

It lunged at Douxie first, and he knocked it to the side with a spell.  It jumped back up, screeching again.  Now that you thought about it, you weren’t sure how your neighbours didn’t hear any of this, but you really didn’t have time to think about it.  The demon was coming for you now.  You dodged the attack, rolling under the monster and striking upwards.  It flew back, nearly falling off the roof, but it pulled itself back up at the last second.

“Hey, babe?  If we knock it off the roof, will that kill it?”

“Not sure, we’ll just have to see!”

Douxie attacked now, fighting off the darkness with flashes of blue.  You joined him, your magic whipping around the creature and throwing it, where else?  Off the roof.  Things looked good for a moment.  

Then the thing rose from the ground, knife in hand, starting in its true form and morphing.  But it didn’t turn into Douxie.  It turned into you.

And then it stabbed Douxie.

“NO!”  the scream tore itself from your throat as you ran at the demon, wrenching the blade from its grip and driving it into the monster’s heart, your heart, over and over again.

When it was dead, your face was wet with tears and blood, both yours and the demon’s.  You dropped the knife, covering your mouth and trying to keep in your sobs.

You felt Douxie’s hand on your shoulder, and you let him help you away from the body.  Neither of you could get far though.  A few minutes later, both of you were on the ground.  Your head was on his chest, his arms were around you.  From here, you could hear his heartbeat.  You wanted to look into his eyes, to make sure they weren’t blue, that this wasn’t a dream, that he was safe and you were safe, and everything was ok.

But his eyes were closed.

You just let your head drop back to his chest, and shut your own eyes.

“We did it, darling,” you whispered, “We’re safe now.  You-you were amazing.   I’m so sorry, Douxie, I’m sorry about all of this,” you gripped onto his shirt, trying to keep yourself grounded. “I love you, I love you so much.  Don’t worry, love, help is-help, help,” your words died in your throat as the world around you went black.

//

Even though you’d passed out, help was, in fact, coming.  It just took a while to get there.  

About a minute after you lost consciousness, Nari, Archie, Zoe and Claire burst onto the roof, finding a very dead demon, a dying witch, and an unconscious wizard.

Not a great thing to find tbh.

[chaotic-noceur]

but your lies were so sweet

[ day 6 | angstageddon masterlist ]

pairing: Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels x reader

summary: In his time with Statesman, Jack has gone by many names. In your experience, they were all just aliases for the same liar.

warnings: false identities, lying, no fluff all angst

credits: shout out to my loves @din-damn-djarin @ezrasarm for beta reading and nudging me back into writing this! Also, some inspiration was taken from Headspace by Lewis Capaldi.

a/n: ahhh we’re almost at the end of this week of pain 😭To those of you who have been reading these every day, I applaud you for sticking with us through it all, and thank you for all the love and support! To those of you who have just found this, welcome to the angst! Once again, i apologise for the pain but this ones pretty gentle considering Javi’s....

gif by @ithinkwehitametaphor

“Just tell me why!” you begged, grabbing his hand harshly. “I just want to know why Alex.” He tugs his arm free from your grasp as he spins round to meet your gaze. “Just tell me that and I’ll-” you swallow the lump that’s forming in your throat, “tell me why and I’ll let you go.” He clenches his jaw. 

He hadn’t meant for it to go this far, hadn’t meant to hurt you. But one thing had led to another and before he knew it… he’d found himself living the life that he had always wanted. Except it wasn’t real. It wasn’t really his. Worst of all, he’d dragged you so far into his fantasy that you were bound to get caught in the crossfire when it inevitably came crashing down around him. 

“Look, sweetheart,” his shoulders drop with a sigh. “There’s something you should know.” His voice is hushed, tired. You fold your arms in an attempt to not lose your patience. “That night you and I met? That wasn’t any mistake.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” you take a step towards him and he eyes the closing of space between you. You ignore the frown forming on his face. “It’s like the stars had aligned and you waltzed into my life and I was falling for you befor-”

“No, sweetheart. You’re not hearing me.” His duffle bag falls onto the floor with a loud thump as he grasps you by the shoulders. “Our ‘accidental meeting’ was no accident.”

“Wha-”

“The night we met, the thoughtful dates, the entirety of our relationship-” he lets go of you to wave his arm out for emphasis, “it was all one big set up t’ get you t’ fall for me. It ain’t nothing personal darlin’,” he shrugs cooly, “it’s just the job.” 

The nonchalant tone in his voice makes your blood boil and you clench your fists at your sides. “What are you talking about?” 

He deliberates keeping the act up, or spinning up a new lie. Either way, the damage has been done. But the dejected look on your face, the innocent glimmer in your eyes… it stirs something in him that he doesn’t want to address. Not now. Not while he had a mission to complete. 

There’s a sinking feeling in his chest that urges him to tell you the truth. To give you some semblance of closure. You deserved that much. 

He sighs before he speaks. “My name isn’t Alex, it’s Jack.” He watches as confusion blooms across your features. “Now I can’t in good faith tell you what it is I do for a living but I sure as hell ain’t no pilot. I don’t li-”

“No.” You bring a hand up to stop him as the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place. “You told me- you- you were so-” you shake your head in disbelief as you stumble back, strings of mumbled ‘no’s falling from your lips. Your hand clutches the door handle for support. He watches as you inhale shallow breaths, your eyes darting across the floor.

“I thought you loved me,” you whisper finally. He would’ve missed it had he not been paying you so much attention. 

“I only told you what you wanted to hear darlin’.” The weight of his words crash into you with full force and you struggle to breathe. You clutch a hand to your chest, clawing at the invisible knife that’s stabbing at your heart. “You don’t know anything about me, sweetheart.”

“Stop calling me that!” You throw yourself at him and shove him hard. He stumbles into the hallway until his back hits the wall. “You have no right to call me that!” You sneer. Turning away from him, you shake your head in disgust. You pace across the walkway as you compose your thoughts.

Eventually, you stop in front of your open door as you turn your head to look at him. When you speak, there’s a calmness to your voice that makes his stomach lurch in disgust. “You talked about wanting a love that lasts. A love so strong that you would do anything to keep it but you know what?” You raise your eyebrow at him tauntingly. “A man like you?” You scoff. “You’ll never be worthy of a love like that.”

You step over his discarded duffle bag before slamming the door shut behind you. Tears well in your eyes as you lean your back against the stained wood. Your shoulders drop in defeat as you slide to the ground, silent sobs wracking through your body. You’d fallen for the ghost of a man, a creation of your imagination—of his. But why did the pain feel so real?

Through clouded eyes, the photo frame sitting on your shared bookshelf catches your attention and something in you snaps. 

You storm across the room and hurl the offensive object at the wall. The shattering of glass rings out in your ears but it’s not enough to drown out the pain in your chest. Your glare fixes onto the collection of books the pair of you had started and you grit your teeth at the sight. Angry sobs echo across your empty apartment as you yank books of the shelf. 

You want every trace of him gone.

●●●●

When Jack gets back to headquarters, he’s greeted with proud smiles and shoulder clasps. Champagne gives his usual debriefing speech but Jack can’t stop your words from echoing through his mind.

You’ll never be worthy of a love like that.

Deep down, he understands that they were words said out of anger. He wants to believe that you didn’t mean them. But a small part of him can’t help but wonder… maybe you were right. No matter what he did, he never seems to be able to save the people he loved from getting hurt. 

The truth is, he’d never meant to fall for you or to have his affections returned. But the longer his little charade went on, the more he felt himself losing himself in the make believe of it all. He hadn’t realised just how much he’d missed the feeling of redamancy until you started loving him back. 

The thrill that had shot through his body with every gentle touch you gave him. The warmth that filled his chest with every smile you sent his way. It felt like the first balmy sunbeams of spring thawing the frozen ground after a long, icy winter. He had relished in the feeling - the relief of knowing he hadn’t gone completely numb to all emotion. He got so caught up in the bliss that he almost forgot about the hurricane of deceit that loomed over his head, threatening to make landfall at any moment.  

●●●●

Years later, when his muscles are stiff and his mind heavy with the burden of past missions, he’s finally ready to surrender his code name. He’s helped bring down countless criminal organisations and he was done. He was tired of the continual fighting; tired of the secrets and lies.

He loved his job, don’t get him wrong. The Statesman gave him a home when his had been so cruelly stolen from him. They gave him a purpose when he felt nothing more than blind rage. 

But he never quite managed to quench the tiny fragment of him that longed for a normal life. A life free from the looming threat of violence and death. A life where he has a local bar & grill and they know his order off by heart. He always wondered what his happily ever after looked like. He hopes he still has the chance to find out.

The months with you feel like a distant memory now, but the emotions remain. At times, he thinks he sees your face amongst a sea of strangers. He thinks he hears your voice, lulling him to the land of dreams. He thinks he remembers the taste of your lips against his, but he can’t be sure.  

●●●●

Glancing to the numbers by the door as he crumples the sheet of paper in his grip. He straightens the leather jacket before delivering three firm knocks against the door. The silence that he’s met with allows for the doubt to sink in.

Did you even want to see him? What could he possibly say to you to make up for the hurt? What if you’ve moved on? What if this just stands to cause you more pain? What if you hate him? You have every right to hate him. He hates himself for what he did to you. 

A metallic clinking jolts him from his thoughts and he reaches instinctively for the ghost of his lasso as he turns. His breath hitches when his gaze falls on you. The expression you wear is somewhere between anger and hurt and he doesn’t know which one he hates more.

You stare at each other for a quiet moment before both attempting to speak at once. Your overlapping voices form an abrupt dissonance that startles even yourselves.

“I wanted to-”

“What are you-”  He clears his throat awkwardly and you bring your arm up, gesturing for him to continue.

“I owe you a formal explanation,” he states. You scoff quietly. He owes you a lot more than that. “Perhaps we could talk in a more… private setting” He eyes the neighbouring doors suspiciously. A raised, unimpressed eyebrow is your only response. “The things I need to say… they aren’t for the public ear.” You roll your eyes at him. There was always some secret with him. When you fold your arms across your chest, he softens. “Please.”

A part of you hates him. It wants to scream and hurl insults at him until your throat is raw. But a bigger part of you needs to know why he had left. What he’d meant when he said it was ‘just the job’. Why he’d lied to you the whole time.

There’s a slight downturn in his lips that makes the rope around your heart tighten its grip and you want nothing more than to cut yourself free. But there’s a sliver of vulnerability in his eyes that makes it difficult to hold your anger.

With a sigh, you pick your dropped keys off the floor, step around him and key the door open with more force than necessary. You hold it open for him before leaning against the other side. 

Jack looks around awkwardly as he takes in the signs of you that are scattered throughout the space. He notes the distinctive lack of him. All remnants of him had been wiped clean. Although, he supposes they weren’t really parts of him to begin with. They were parts of the man he wanted to be. The man he will never be. 

The sound of you clearing your throat jolts him from his spiralling thoughts. There’s a fire in your eyes that wasn’t there before and he shrinks back slightly, feeling painfully out of place. He can’t recall the last time he was this nervous and he shifts his weight uncomfortably. You drum your fingers impatiently across your folded arm and he inhales deeply before beginning. Come hell or high water, there was no going back now.

“M’ real name is Jack, Jack Daniels.” The drumming stops. You stare at him, dumbfounded. An incredulous laugh threatens to leave your lips - he honestly expected you to believe that that is his name? But there’s no trace of humour in his eyes so you clamp your mouth shut. “I was an agent for a secret intelligence agency known as Statesman. Now, Alex was-” he pauses as he grapples for the right words, “a made-up persona, designed to capture your interest, so to speak.” You inhale sharply, though you hide it well. He continues. “You should know, it wasn’t you that we were after. Your friends were involved with some… suspicious people and we needed t-” you hold out a hand to stop him. 

“What do you mean ‘suspicious’?” You push off the door to step toward him. “My friends aren’t criminals!” He holds his arms up in defence. 

“No, they weren’t. But they were involved with some. It made them suspects. But you…” he looks to you for permission to proceed. You nod stiffly. “You were a tough nut t’ crack. Not even our finest agents could find a damn thing about you and that made you peculiar- an anomaly.” He tilts his head towards you as if congratulating you on a feat. His voice deepens when he says, “we don’t like anomalies,” and you scoff at the tone. 

“So they sent you,” you sneered, failing to mask your appalled tone. 

“There ain’t nothing better than live intel swe-” he stops himself short. He sees the way you start recoiling from him but he keeps going. “It wasn’t supposed to go as far as it had and I truly do apologise for fooling you but we had to know you weren’t a threat.”

Your heart hammers in your chest as the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place. Blank pieces start to fill themselves with vivid colours of truth. You were nothing but a pawn on a chessboard being manipulated. Your legs feel weak and you move to sit against the arm of the couch. He follows your movement, turning to you as you walk. There’s a distant look in your eyes and he gives you a moment for the words to sink in. 

“While the night we met may have been a setup-” he takes a hesitant step towards you and your eyes snap up to meet his, “my feelings for you were not.” You narrow your eyes at him and he stops pacing. He observes the subtle clenching of your jaw and he decides to crack open the box that he’d buried a long time ago. He needs you to see there’s a real bleeding heart beneath the facade he’d been forced to weave for you.

“I lost someone very dear to me once, a long time ago.” His gaze dances between you and the objects in the room. “I never thought I’d find someone after her. But then you-“ He stops short. Sighs. Worries his lip between his teeth for a moment before speaking. This all seems so far-fetched now. 

“You were never meant to get caught in the crossfire of all this.” His voice is but a whisper, like he was speaking a sacred confession. There’s a new note to his voice as his eyes flit back and forth between your own, as though studying them for any kind of reaction he could get. “I love you.” 

The room falls silent. Jack swears he can hear the distant ticking on a clock from deeper within your home. His heart hammers in his chest, the resonant beating echoes into his ears.

Finally, you smile. “You wanna know something?” There’s a sinister tone lacing your voice and it sends a shiver down his spine. “I never thought that a lie could sound so sweet,” you chuckle lowly, “until you opened your mouth and said you loved me.”

Jack feels his stomach lurch in response to your words. He always wondered what his happily ever after looked like. He supposes he’ll never know.

——angstageddon tag list

@din-damn-djarin @ezrasarm @chaoticspaceidiot @engineeredfiction @pedropascalito @dreamgirl-67  @hillarymurray4 @wille-zarr @oloreaa @this-cat-is-dea @marydjarin @roxypeanut @cryptkeepersoul @agirllovespasta @wickedfrsgrl @dindisneydjarin  @opheliaelysia @aeryntheofficial @adikaofmandalore @goldafterglow @yespolkadotkitty @chibi-liz05 @scarlettvonsass​ @rpcvliz @cinewhore @basura2319 @theravenreads @mxndoscyarika @jaime1110 @f0rever15elf @pancakepike @phoenixhalliwell​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​ @apunkpascal​

[endlessly-searching-for-you]

Happier Times

During my Christmas break, I binge read Endless Summer. Just as I expected, I fell in love with my two favorite characters all over again. And since I probably had too many marshmallows last night (hey, it’s been 2020, we all deserve a treat, right?), I came up with this fic idea. It’s sickly sweet and fluffy and cheesy and everything in between. Also, probability? Never heard of her.

Be warned and enjoy :-)

Here’s to happier times: stay healthy and safe! May 2021 be everything 2020 wasn’t.

Book: Endless Summer

Pairing: Jake x MC

Warnings: none, just sweetness and fluff (get some toothpaste ready)

Word count: ~2600 (10 minutes reading time)

The house was haunted.

Well, it was either that, or Taylor was losing her mind.

Between the two, she would rather have a ghost.

It all started innocently, with a missing laundry basket. At first, Taylor thought she left it in the garden, but it wasn’t there. She searched the house from top to bottom, but it wasn’t there either. “It couldn’t just get up and walk away! Have you taken it?” She asked her husband, but Jake shrugged and turned away, murmuring something she’d rather not hear.

It was a long shot, anyway. Jake never did laundry, not unless he really had to. He’d rather scrub the floors or wash windows. If she had to guess, it was because you didn’t have to do it as often, but she chose not to complain. She wasn’t a big fan of the household chores, either.

Next was her favorite coffee cup.

Taylor bought a set of six identical cups when they moved in, but this one was special. A little chipped and faded from years of washing, and still her favorite. Every afternoon, she would sit in her spot by the window and have a coffee in it. It was her “me time,” as sacred as it was short.

Gritting her teeth, she opened the fridge to grab a snack, but to her surprise, the food was also gone. Well, most of it. It was easier to explain——she didn’t know what it was with men and food, but she already got used to the sight of empty shelves. She only hoped he had the decency to restock it.

“Do you need anything? I’m going to the store.” Jake peeked through the door as if reading her mind, and she gestured hopelessly at the fridge. “Yeah, sorry about that.” He shot her a dazzling smile and left before she had a chance to say anything.

“Wait! Have you seen...” She uttered finally, but the loud click of the front door told her it was too late. With a sigh, she plopped in her chair. Coffeeless. It certainly didn’t help brighten her mood.

“At least the weather is great,” she whispered to herself. That much was true. The rains finally stopped, leaving fresh, crisp air behind. The sun was already hanging low, but she could still see stray rays fighting their way through lush greenery, and the blue sky matched the color of her husband’s eyes.

She smiled at her thoughts. So many things have changed throughout the years, but the way Jake looked at her didn’t. The warmth she felt inside when she thought of him didn’t, either.

And if she had a say in the matter, it wasn’t going anywhere. Ever.

Speaking of going anywhere, though—they could take a break and go to the beach. Sand would probably be still damp, and ocean waters cold, but it wouldn’t matter. They had a soft spot for the beaches from the very beginning. It was time to add another happy memory to their collection. Tomorrow, she decided, checking the weather forecast.

When she climbed to the top shelf, she wasn’t even surprised her bag and blanket were no longer among the other beach items. It was just her luck today. Cursing under her breath, she slammed the door a little too hard, summoning a cloud of ancient dust sleeping on the wardrobe.

This day just kept getting better and better.

Huffing and sneezing, Taylor reached the bathroom and stared in disbelief. The laundry basket she looked for the entire morning was back where it’s always been. Adding insult to injury, it looked like it was laughing at her anguish, mocking her with hundreds of its tiny eye-shaped holes. She ignored the insolent box and turned on her heel, trying to ignore the trembling hands.

“It’s fine,” she whispered. “Nothing’s happening. I’m just tired. I need to go to bed earlier. Or maybe have a drink. Yes, that’s a good start.” Mumbling under her breath, she went back to the kitchen and opened the cabinet. Then closed it and opened it again. And again. And again.

The more she looked inside, the more the wine bottle wasn’t there.

It was the last straw.

A sudden cry startled Jake. What on Earth happened? It didn’t sound entirely human. Without hesitation, he ran to the kitchen only to see his wife, as human as she ever was, waving an angry (and a little... dusty?) fist at the furniture. He tried to retreat silently, but she turned and pointed an accusing finger at him.

“You! Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Huh?” He looked her up and down. “You mean, more than usual?” He tried to joke, but under her death glare, the words got stuck in his throat.

“I keep losing things,” Taylor sniffled. “First the laundry basket, then my favorite cup—”

He wrapped his hands around her and whispered so low she couldn’t hear him, “Good riddance.”

“—and now even the wine is gone!”

“I’m sure we’ll find it,” he tried to cheer her up. “Just maybe not right now?”

“Why not?”

“You deserve a break.” He stroked her back. “And, uh, a shower. What were you doing, anyway?”

“Don’t ask. I think the universe hates me. At least today.” 

“Well, I know exactly how to cheer you up.” Jake beamed. “I’m taking you on a date. I already asked our neighbors, they don’t mind having more kids tonight, so we’re free. You know, just you and me, like in ancient times?”

“Come on, we’re definitely not ancient!” She laughed in protest. “But you’re right, it’s been a while. Give me five minutes. Where are we going?”

“A gentleman never tells.”

***

Thirty minutes later, Taylor felt the car coming to a stop. She still had no idea where they were going—just before they left, Jake asked her to close her eyes and stop peeking, and to her own surprise, she obliged. Now that he held her hand and helped her out, she didn’t even need to open them to know. There was only one place with that smell and salty breeze.

“Just in time to watch the sunset, eh?” She turned to Jake with a smile that quickly turned into a scowl when she noticed the bag he was holding. And all the missing items sticking out of it, her favorite mug and wine bottle included. “Don’t tell me it was you.”

“I’m sorry. Please, don’t be mad.”

She shook her head. “You could have told me.”

“That would spoil the surprise,” he murmured apologetically.

“But why my mug?”

“It was on the front. My bad.”

“And the laundry basket?”

“I forgot where you put this thing,” he swung the bag.

Taylor looked at her husband, trying to keep her dignity, but the laugh she kept inside finally broke free. It started small, with shaking shoulders, but before she knew it, she lost control entirely and doubled over, grabbing on to Jake for support.

“That was... something else,” she wheezed, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Sorry. Thank you. It definitely was a surprise.”

“Mm-hmm.” He grinned and nodded at the blazing sky. “What do you think?”

“Ten out of ten. Just look at the colors,” Taylor sighed in admiration, draping the blanket over their shoulders and snuggling to his side. “Also, great company. And food” —she curiously eyed a flattened sandwich before taking a small bite— “probably not poisonous. Overall, would recommend.”

Jake looked at her with his signature half-smile, and she felt the familiar warmth spreading throughout her body. She raised her hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind his ear, then pulled him in for a kiss and nestled her head on his shoulder with a happy little sigh.

Just as she was drifting off into sleep, she heard his low voice.

“I got a letter today.”

“Oh?”

“From the court.”

“Oh.” She gasped, any remnants of drowsiness gone in an instant. A while ago—a really, really, really long while ago—they decided to try and free Jake from his charges. Their friends helped—actually, they did most of the work, from Aleister hiring lawyers to Zahra unearthing real evidence—but they never got any response. 

Not until now.

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t bring myself to read it.” Jake admitted, smiling bleakly at the thick letter he fished out of his pocket. “I’m feeling like the Schrödinger’s cat right now. Both guilty and innocent until we open it. It’s funny how I couldn’t wait for it, and now I’m not even sure if I want to know.”

“Are-are you—” She stuttered, trailing a finger over the envelope. “Are you afraid you won’t be able to come home?”

“No,” he sighed. “It’s not that. The truth is, it’s not my home. Not anymore. My home is here. With you. No matter what they say, I am home.”

“Oh, Jake,” She wrapped her hands around his waist. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Princess.” He ran his fingers along her cheek and tipped her chin up for a kiss.

Taylor hesitantly pulled out of the embrace. “Well then, if you don’t read it, I will. Worst case scenario, everything stays as it is, right?”

She tore the envelope and unfolded the letter. Despite her apparent bravado, Jake could see her hands were trembling. She turned page after page, and when she finally raised her head, he couldn’t read her face. It was completely blank. Nothing, nil, nada.

“Well?” He blurted out. Deep inside, he felt his heart drop. It wasn’t right. His wife wasn’t good at hiding her emotions. She would smile, her starry eyes would twinkle with joy, she would never stare at him like that if the letter brought good news. His shoulders slumped, and he stared into the distance, blinking away tears. He could feel Taylor’s arms wrapped around him, her shaking shoulders and hot tears soaking through his shirt, but he dared not look.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know it was a possibility. Only now, when his luck took a turn for the better, he wasn’t seriously considering it.

He would get over it. He had mastered “getting over it.”

Just not now.

“Jake? Do you hear me?”

He looked at his wife, dumbfounded. Her whole face lit up. It didn’t make any sense, but she was beaming.

“You’re free,” she whispered. “You’re free.”

“What?!” He grabbed the papers from her hand and scanned line after line, not understanding half of the jargon. Still, the crucial sentence, written in bold, was not open to interpretations. All charges were dropped.

He was no longer a wanted man.

He wanted to shout, sing, dance, everything at once—but all he could do was stare at the letter.

“I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “I thought—You looked so—”

“I was shocked,” Taylor smiled apologetically. “I couldn’t believe it either. I shouldn’t be surprised, I knew you didn’t do anything, but—oh, you have no idea how happy for you I am right now!”

She jumped into Jake’s arms, throwing him off balance, and they both tumbled into the sand, giggling like a pair of teenagers.

“I just... can’t... believe... it,” he muttered, stopping to place a kiss on her lips after each word. “I was sure we lost.”

“But we won.”

“Yeah.” He helper her rise to her feet. “We should head back home, then. Pack our bags. I’ll get the plane ready, so we can start tomorrow morning.”

“So much for ‘my home is wherever you are,’” she let out an exaggerated sigh followed by a giggle.

“I mean, I don’t want to go back there forever. For a few days, a week.”

“For as long as you need.”

They stared into each others’ eyes for what felt like an eternity, even if only a few seconds passed.

“Can you pack my suit?” Jake finally broke the silence. “And a nice dress, and... you know, fancy things?” He waved his hand hopelessly, and Taylor only raised her brows in response. He whispered something into her ear, and her eyes grew wide.

“Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But I swear, Jacob Lucas McKenzie, if you keep anything, and I mean literally anything, from me ever again...!”

***

Jake fixed his tie for the millionth time. There was no point in denying it—he was nervous. And it wasn’t even his wedding.

It’s just been too long, and—

“Ah, to hell with it,” he muttered and raised his hand to knock, only the door swung open before he had a chance to do it.

“There you are!” A tall brunette in a frilly bridesmaid gown pulled him inside, clearly relieved. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” he muttered under his breath, stealing a look at the bride, who unsuccessfully tried to tame a stray lock.

She’s all grown up now, he realized with surprise. He half-expected to see a scrawny redheaded teenager, always at odds with the world. That’s how he still remembered and imagined her—except it was well over a decade ago. The young woman he saw right now looked happy and self-assured, and, well, beautiful. He couldn’t not admit otherwise without taking a dig at his own looks, and he was rather proud of it.

“What took you so long?” The bride finally gave up on her hair and extended her arm without as much as looking at him.

“Er, it’s a long story. I don’t think we have time for that.”

Rebecca turned with a gasp of surprise. She expected her cousin, and not her prodigal older brother. Nobody expected him to show up at her wedding, not after he disappeared without a word all those years ago. To be honest, most people probably even forgot she had a brother, the black sheep of the family.

She didn't.

Jake could see all the conflicting emotions on her face. He was glad when she finally settled on a smile and flung her hands around his neck, hugging him really tight like she tried to make up for the lost years.

“This was for everything,” she said with a smile, pulling back. “And this” —Jake staggered back when she slapped him across the face—“is for everything else.”

“I guess I deserved it,” he agreed, massaging his jaw. “Don’t worry, that’s how we show love in our family. You may go!” He shooed away the flock of bridesmaids.

“It’s been a while, Becks.” He smiled softly at his sister, and she snorted in return.

“You tell me!”

“I’m sorry. Really sorry.” He squeezed her hand and stared into her face, not unlike his own. “I never meant for any of this to happen. But it did, and I’m sorry. Will you ever forgive me?”

“I already did. But tell me one thing. Is it safe for you to come here?” Rebecca beamed at his nod and looped her arm through his. “We have to talk. But please, not now. I don’t want them to think I changed my mind.”

“If you want to run, just give me a word. I have some experience, you know.”

“God, no.” She laughed. “No running today, I promise.”

As they walked down the aisle, he kept glancing at his sister and ignoring the guests’ gasps and murmurs. Her gaze was fixed on her fiancee, who in turn was grinning sheepishly at the altar. Funny, how he never took her for the marrying kind. But then nobody took him, either, and there he was.

Maybe you just needed the right person. At the right time.

Because he was sure you didn’t need the gossiping aunts, no matter what customs said.

“Thank you,” she said when they stopped. “I’m happy you’re back.”

Jake smiled at his sister and her fiancee.

“So am I. Good luck, you two.”

He resisted the urge to wave to the crowd and instead darted to where he noticed his own right person. And as he held her warm hand, for the first time ever, he finally felt all the puzzle pieces were in place.

He was, after all, a lucky man.

***

@choicesficwriterscreations :)

[anchorandrope]

anti logic

i will never ever understand the anti logic, not only do i find it difficult to understand how they don’t see how obvious larry is due to the amount of evidence there is, but i also find it difficult to understand how they believe in the image and narrative that they put on both.

i can talk about why larry is real giving evidence for hours but i think everyone forgets one of the biggest proofs: their false imagen for the world.

the antis believe in all PR/stunts/beards and that the most articles that relate L or H with a woman are true, knowing this:

let's start with louis

according to antis, louis started dating eleanor in 2011, they broke up in 2015 and soon after he was kissing with another girl in a pool, he slept with briana and had freddie, during briana’s pregnancy he started dating danielle and they broke up a year later and a year after that he returned with eleanor. i’m wrong?

let's analyze (briefly) forgetting the thousand proofs that all of this is fake, let’s just look at the context:

he started dating eleanor, although they were seen publicly and they had some interactions through social media, it didn’t seem that they give each other much support (i didn’t say there wasn’t, i said there was little) but well, let’s suppose that the support was there but it wasn’t seen because “they maintained the privacy of their relationship”. years later louis leaves her and goes to a thousand parties with other girls, of course he had a lot of love for his girlfriend and he was not tired of her at all, so he left her and automatically started to party, did i lie up to here?

now let's move on to 2015, shortly after breaking up with his girlfriend of several years, he went out to party and got a girl he had just met pregnant, he wasn’t in a relationship with her at any time and he hardly supported her during the pregnancy and by late in her pregnancy, he started dating another girl like nothing happened. he saw his son relatively often for two years (2016-2017) but after that he disappeared. during those two years he had a thousand problems with briana and her family due to financial and public image issues. up to here everything real, am i wrong?

after breaking up with danielle and stopping seeing his son, he decided to go back with eleanor (whom he had left but it’s seen that she has zero self-love and returns with a person who treated her like that) as if to “take back” his life and make that everything that happened between 2015-2017 had not happened.

in the second stage of his relationship with eleanor, it’s noted that there is zero support from both parts, they don’t seem to be together for a long time in private, or travel together, or attend important events of the other, they are never seen publicly together, etc. true right?

added to all this, they believe in the narrative that louis is homophobic, since they think that for louis it’s an insult and somewhat misplaced to support the lgbt community.

in conclusion: louis left his girlfriend of several years, got a woman pregnant and abandoned her and his son, he had a relationship to distract himself and then he decided to cover up all this by going back to the girl he had cheated on and to all this, he is homophobic since he is offended if they think he supports the community.

now let’s go with harry

according to antis, harry is a womanizer addicted to sex who sleeps with any girl he sees regardless of their age, he is terrible with relationships since the few he had lasted 4 months at most except one of them that lasted a year although during all that year he denied everything and didn't spend so much time with her (camille), am i wrong?

again, let’s analyze (briefly) forgetting that this is all completely fake:

i could talk about the thousand women that harry was related to but basically he slept with a woman 15 years older than him, with his friends, with thousands of fans who were queuing at the door of his hotel to be with him, with many models, other singers, etc. right?

at the same time, he shows himself without fragile masculinity and raises lgbt flags on stage because he wants to receive a lot of support and if you support the lgbt community, they support you, right? it's all advertising and all it does is queerbaiting. true?

in conclusion: harry is a womanizer who sees girls as a toy and uses a community which was and is repressed for profit.

well, according to antis, that's how harry and louis are

to begin, let's talk about how homophobic it’s to prefer to think that shit than to accept that it’s part of the community but is repressed by the industry, the fact of looking for another explanation for oppression is homophobic, end of discussion, and this is said by a person who has been part of the community for years because of their sexuality and gender identity.

second, it shows how limited information and knowledge you have about reality, the industry is not a joke, the things that we larries propose are not “very crazy” there are thousands of cases of repressed artists (not only in the music industry but also cinema, theater, etc.) who tell about their experience years after being free, tell what happened to them and it’s the same as we propose what happened/happens with larry, so no, it’s not “very crazy” there are confirmed cases of all this, is not our invention.

lastly, WHAT A BAD IMAGE DO THEY HAVE OF THEM, do they really think all that of them and still see them as angels? because if you really think all this about them and say that everything they did/do is perfect, it speaks very badly of you, you may like their music but saying that they are “angels” and being convinced that all this is real makes me think you are not a very good person, is that your image of “angel”?

i sincerely feel sorry (and ashamed) that people who “love” both louis and/or harry as i do have that image of them, i can literally go on and get sooooo much deeper into the subject of the image that the antis have of them but with this i think i have enough to give them a point:

do you see your idols like this?

—————————————————

logica anti

nunca pero nunca voy a entender la logica anti, no solo me cuesta entender como no ven lo obvio que es larry por la cantidad de pruebas que hay sino que también me cuesta entender como hacen para creerse toda la imagen y narrativa que le pusieron a ambos.

puedo hablar de porque larry es real dando pruebas por horas pero creo que todxs se olvidan una de las pruebas mas grande: su falsa imagen frente al mundo.

lxs antis creen en todxs los PR/stunts/barbas y en la mayoría de artículos que relacionan a L o H con una mujer son verdaderos, partiendo de eso:

empecemos por louis

segun lxs antis, louis empezó a salir con eleanor en 2011, terminó con ella en 2015 y al toque ya estaba besandose con otra chica en una pileta, se acostó con briana y tuvo a freddie, durante el emabarzo de briana se puso de novio con danielle con la cual rompió un año después y un año despues de eso volvió con eleanor. me equivoco?

analicemos (resumidamente) olvidandonos de las mil pruebas de que todo de eso es falso, solo miremos el contexto:

se puso de novio con eleanor, aunque se los veía públicamente y tenían algunas interacciones por redes sociales no parecía que se den mucho apoyo mutuamente (no dije que no había dije poco) pero bueno supongamos que ese apoyo estaba pero no se veía porque “mantenían la privacidad de su relación”. años mas tarde louis la deja y se va a mil fiestas con otras chicas, claro mucho amor le tenía a su novia y no estaba para nada cansado de ella por eso la dejo y automáticamente empezó a salir de joda, mentí hasta aca?

ahora pasemos al 2015, al poco tiempo de romper con su novia de varios años salió de fiesta y embarazó a una chica que recién conocía, no estuvo en una relación con ella en ningún momento y casi no la apoyó en el embarazo y ya para mediados/fines de su embarazo empezó a salir con otra chica como si nada. vió a su hijo relativamente seguido por dos años (2016-2017) pero después de eso desapareció. durante esos dos años tuvo mil problemas con briana y su familia por temas económicos y de imagen pública. hasta aca todo real no?

despues de romper con danielle y dejar de ver a su hijo decidió volver con eleanor (a la cual había dejado como si nada pero se ve que ella tiene cero amor propio y vuelve con una persona que la trató asi) como para “retomar” su vida y hacer q todo lo que pasó entre 2015-2017 no había pasado.

en la segunda etapa de su relación con eleanor se nota que hay cero apoyo de ambas partes, no parecen estar juntos mucho tiempo en privado, ni viajar juntos, ni asistir a eventos importantes del otro, no se los ve públicamente juntos nunca, etc. verdad?

sumado a todo esto, creen en la narrativa de que louis en homofóbico, ya que piensan que para louis es un insulto y algo desubicado apoyar a la comunidad lgbt.

en conclusion: louis dejó a su novia de varios años, embarazó a una mina y la abandonó a ella y a su hijo, tuvo una relación para distraerse y despues decidió tapar todo esto volviendo con la chica a la que había dejado y a todo esto encima es homofobico ya que el se ofende si piensan que apoya a la comunidad.

ahora vamos con harry

según lxs antis, harry es un mujeriego adicto al sexo que se acuesta con cualquier chica que ve sin importar su edad, es pésimo con las relaciones ya que las pocas que tuvo duraron 4 meses como mucho salvo una de ellas que duró un año aunque durante todo ese año el negaba todo y no pasaba tanto tiempo con ella (camille), me equivoco?

de vuelta, volvamos a analizar (resumidamente) olvidandonos de que todo esto es completamente falso:

podría hablar de las mil mujeres con las que harry fue relacionado pero basicamente se acostó con un mujer 15 años mayor que el, con sus amigas, con miles de fans que hacían cola en la puerta de su hotel para estar con el, con muchas modelos, otras cantantes, etc. no?

a su vez, se muestra sin masculinidad fragil y levanta banderas lgbt en los escenarios porque quiere recibir mucho apoyo y si apoyas a la comunidad lgbt te apoyan no? es todo publicidad y lo único que hace es queerbaiting. verdad?

en conclusion: harry es un mujeriego que ve a las chicas como un juguete y usa un comunidad la cual fue y es reprimida para lucrar.

bueno según lxs antis, asi son harry y louis

para empezar hablemos de lo homofobico que es preferir pensar que una mierda a que aceptar que es parte de la comunidad pero esta reprimido por la industria, el hecho de buscarle otra explicación a la opresión es homofobico y punto, y lo dice una persona parte de la comunidad hace años por su sexualidad e idantidad de género.

segundo, demuestra la poca información y conocimiento sobre la realidad que tenes, la industria no es un chiste, las cosas que planteamos las larries no son “muy locas” hay miles de casos de artistas reprimidos (no solo en la industria de la musica sino del cine, teatro, etc) que cuentan su experiencia años despues de ser libres, cuentan lo que pasaron y es lo mismo que nosotrxs planteamos que le pasó/pasa con larry, asi que no, no es “muy loco” hay casos comfirmado de todo esto, no es un invento nuestro.

ultimo, QUE MALA IMAGEN TIENEN DE ELLOS, de verdad piensan todo eso de ellos y aun asi los ven como angeles? porque si de verdad pensas todo esto de ellos y decis que todo lo que hicieron/hacen esta perfecto habla muy mal de vos, puede gustarte su musica pero decir que son “angeles” y estar convencidx de que todo esto es real me hace pensar que no sos muy buena persona que digamos, esa es tu imagen de “angel”??

sinceramente me da pena (y verguenza) que personas que “amen” tanto a louis y/o harry como yo tengan esa imagen de ellos, literal puedo seguir y meterme muuuuuucho mas adentro del tema de la imagen que tienen lxs antis de ellos pero con esto creo que tengo lo suficiente para darles un punto:

ustedes ven a sus idolos asi?

[vohalika]

The Clitical Discordening

So by basically shitposting vaguely into the wind, I got involved with… something. Oh boy.

What the hell is going on?

Two days ago, a blog called “defenderofcrqueers” run by an 18 year old acequeer French girl called Sofia, calling herself tired of predatory lesbians, started a series of call out posts on a BeauYasha Discord Server which, from what I have been able to gather, is actually called Clitical Hole

The blog and the posts have been deleted

The first post was reblogged 40 times by the person who made it. 40 times. I counted.

In the posts, Sofia made serious accusations of transpbobia, biphobia, and aphobia, which some of the screenshots provided corroborated

There was also a section labelled xenophobia, which contained someone saying “fuck the French”

Put a pin in that

In between that were also “general violent behavior” or “objectifying the cast/each other” and liberate usage of trigger warnings, most memorable being “tw: lesbians”

Those posts very clearly already read as people shooting the shit with each other, making fun of being called predatory lesbians, talking about their personal relationships in sometimes maybe bad phrasing or poor taste, but that’s, you know, a matter of taste

The ratio between benign stuff and serious accusations was roughly 50:50, balanced enough for it to not be clearly discernable whether it was serious or not

Again, the blog itself reblogged this 40. Times. It got maybe 100 notes total.

I found this because a friend linked it in our 4 people discord after she got it from the mod of another discord

This led me to make two posts; one just vaguely making fun of how badly you can fuck up a call out post, and another explaining to an anon what had happened.

I stand by all of the points made in there, under the assumption that this was someone trying to do what has recently been done to a Fjorester discord server and failing miserably, while the members of the server largely treated it as a joke

Parts 2 and 3 were published, too, not reblogged 40 times. They contained more of the same, with some of the usual ace discourse you see all over tumblr in it

You know, claims that aces want to be oppressed to badly, acehets aren’t lgbtq, just the usual stuff you see everywhere which made it look pretty genuine.

Members of the server in question largely considered this a joke and trolled the author of the posts on the blog.

There were hints of a 4th post coming, including racism and antisemitism. You know, things a tad bit more serious than a bunch of lesbians being horny towards each other.

After sleeping on it for another day, I made a third post. Again, everything is now deleted, but keep in mind there were serious accusations and some pretty disgusting things in the screenshots.

This post was updated after the “saviorofcrqueers” blog and everything on it was deleted

Now I’ll have you know that my 3 posts on the subject had maybe 30 notes between them, largely by the same people. That’s fewer times than the blog self-reblogged the first post!

And yet somehow my posts were screenshotted and posted by the server in question, leading to of its members to contact me to clear the air

I will stress that these members have been nothing but polite to me

After talking things over with them and asking a few choice questions I’ll get into later, a new blog, “notallwhatitseems”, which is still up at the time of writing this, reblogged my most current post, owning up to all of this having been a prank to get back at the server for insulting her home country of France

So everything about that server is fake?

Well. Mostly?

For the record, I am not a member, have never been a member, and have no interest in ever being a member. It is not my ship and the general tone is not my vibe. In fact, they are very much against my ship, out of everything the fake call out included the 52 pages of BeauJester hate are probably the least manipulated and the most real, and you know what? That’s their prerogative. As I said in my first post, back in my days, people would raid tags with hate and then get raided back. Making your own community to hate on rival ships to your community is progress here. Godspeed.

(Ship hate, of course, rarely exists in a vacuum and can feature other shit, blah. I’m talking about it in isolation here. This is seriously not the most pressing issue by a long shot.)

The general tone of what I’ve seen from the server, even when it was kinda funny sometimes, is also just, plain and simple, not my cup of tea. Very frequently in what I consider to be poor taste. And that is fine, too. I’m not here to police how anyone talks to their friends in a private space outside of, you know, actual bigotry. To quote one of the people who got in contact with me:

So the two members who got into contact with me after seeing my post on the server. Source S is more of an outsider looking in, source Y is, from what I can tell, very much involved with this and was featured in some of the screenshots.

They both, independently of each other, confirmed to me that the transphobia and biphobia weren’t real, either manipulated or taken out of context, and that there’s actually a lot of trans people on the server. They also both reported that no one knew what the alleged racism and antisemitism would have been; probably members of color or Jewish members making fun of themselves.

So. Is that legit? I’m inclined to say sure. Three people confirmed this. Until anyone else comes forward, this is as far as it goes.

Except for the aphobia.

Source S told me unprovoked that there is indeed very standard aphobia going on in that server. I asked source Y about it, here’s what she said:

However, I would be amiss not to mention that the only person in this situation who identifies as asexual has said the following:

And, like. It is probably not my place to speak over what an actual ace person thinks about this, is it?

Wait, is that?

It sure is! I figured if I was already talking to primary sources here, I could as well talk to the primary primary source. Which I will now post unabridged.

At time of writing, there has been no response to that. And that conveniently also answers the probably most pressing question:

Why are you even posting this?

Or, in the words of an anon I received this morning in Germany and also France:

Anon, I’m not gonna delete shit.

Why? Because I think this is kinda important.

As you can see in the conversation up there, it really, really rubs me the wrong way when you abuse call out posts as a prank. Like, yeah, I am aware the whole concept has been meme’d to death on tumblr anyway and really bad call out posts have a long tradition. However, you kinda gotta put this into context, don’t you?

We’ve had a discord server called out for saying vile shit in this fandom before. First of all, the willingness to even hint at (and then reblog yourself for 40 times) another discord server being similar kinds of bad, toxic, and possibly harmful is pretty callous. Like, yeah, the post got no reach and I have even less, but throwing a community you apparently care about under the bus like that is, you know, not a very nice and actually kinda callous thing to do.

And second, fake accusations of bigotry hurt everyone affected by that bigotry. Yes, even in tumblr call out post format. The comical overuse of trigger warnings, a concept that is wildly mocked and misunderstood in the first place, is already in very poor taste. Manipulating content to believably depict pretty violent transphobia? Crosses a few lines.

Like, if you’re gonna do it for a joke, stick to posting the things that made members of the server celebrate themselves in the comments as “the funniest bitches on the internet”. And maybe don’t reblog it yourself 40 times, that shows a certain kind of conviction, doesn’t it?

I’m not gonna comment any further on the motivation behind this; as I said, my brain does not compute patriotism and I find it equally likely that “Sofia” is fucking with me, as she was with everyone else. I entertained the thought of this post being fake kinda from the beginning because the identities so perfectly fit several things being called out; xenophobia against the French at the forefront, of course.

Like, the only thing that made me believe in this being a genuine but misguided attempt at a legitimate call-out was the apparently manipulated content out of context and the fact that the OP apparently believed in their own post enough to reblog it 40 times.

So what my issue is here comes down to a crying wolf kind of thing: A fear that this goes down as a great prank, and the next time someone comes forward about fucked up things going on in a fandom space, everyone has gotta wonder if the tw: lesbians insulted France again. Something that by my estimation happens about five times an hour on the internet anyway.

Everyone, call out responsibly.

  (Yes I know I am basically contributing to how this incident will be remembered here. But at least it’s, you know, full of a whole lot of context.)

(Also, Sofia has used two throwaways, so at least that’s something she’s smart about. It’s why I don’t feel too bad about not censoring her name here. I expect the “notwhatitlookslike” blog to be gone by morning. Well, maybe afternoon, it is a little late in both Germany and France.)

[blightarts]

Blades of Order & Chaos

Chapter Title: 1 - Awakening

Previous Chapter: Prologue

Word Count: 4375

Disclaimer: All rights belong to Pixelberry. This is my version for the upcoming sequel of Blades of Light & Shadow. I am not claiming this to be the canon story of the book. This is only written to increase the hype for the actual sequel.

MC/Pairing: Kite (Blue Elf Male MC) / Kite x Nia

Taglist: @princessstellaris @mechaspirit @brightningstar @cal-north @mahariel-theirin @lxdy-starfury @tyrils-star @imturaxamara @kelseaaa

Everyone in the throne room stare in awe as the last surviving member of the Shadow Court, Sir Laundsellyn, reveals his true identity.

Sir Laundsellyn: Well, if you must know… My real name… is Lucius Nightbloom.

Kite grits his teeth, equipping the Bow of Gal’dariel in hand and drawing an arrow towards his supposed relative.

Kite: As if I’d believe such a superstition!

He lets the arrow loose as it rides the wind, making its way towards Laundsellyn’s head, but the shadow knight quickly parries it with the Blade of Light.

Sir Laundsellyn: You’re quick on your hands, I’ll give you that…

He smirks maniacally.

Sir Laundesllyn: …But not quick enough…

Laundsellyn brandishes the Blade and coats it with darkness, transforming it back into the Blade of Shadow, again leaving everyone appalled.

Mal: After all of Nia’s efforts of purify that thing…

Tyril: …Gone, in an instant…

Kite and his friends seethe in rage.

Imtura: Okay, that’s it!

Imtura charges forward, followed by Mal and Tyril. King Arlan’s guards do the same, but Laundsellyn remains unfazed. He sighs and snaps his fingers, letting his hovering swords loose. While Laundsellyn clash with Kite’s friends, his swords fly across the room and towards the guards. The swords easily pierce through their armor and their hearts, killing them instantly. As the dead soldiers collapse on the floor, the swords make their way towards King Arlan next.

Kite: Not on my watch!

Kite quickly stands in the way between the swords and the King while equipping the Blade of Sol and the Shield of Castiel. One by one, the elf parries and shatters the hovering blades, but unsuspectingly, one bolts past his face, leaving a wound on his cheek, and pierces through King Arlan’s heart.

King Arlan: Ack!!

Meanwhile, in the prisons of Whitetower, Aerin clutches his chest and crouches down, as it starts paining.

Aerin: What… is… this…?!

He turns to the barred window in his cell, showing the castle under attack, and wonders anxiously.

Aerin: Father…

Back in the throne room, as King Arlan collapses, Kite quickly runs to his aid.

Kite: NOOO!!!

Mal, Tyril and Imtura turn for a moment to witness what Laundsellyn had just done. They then face him with deadly glares.

Mal: You bastard!

Tyril: You’ll pay for that!

Imtura: AAAAAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!

As the three recklessly attempt to land a strike on the shadow knight, who just yawns at them, Kite gets on his knees and tries his best to help the King.

Kite: Your Highness, it’s okay. You’ll live.

King Arlan coughs up blood and gives Kite a reassuring smile.

King Arlan: It’s… too late for me now, Kite…

He reaches for the elf’s hand and grips it tight while both men are in tears.

King Arlan: Save the Realm… Save every… one…

The light fades from the King’s eyes as Kite grits his teeth in pure rage. He closes Arlan’s eyes and gently lays him on the floor, before turning to Laundsellyn with a glare.

Kite: I’ve had enough…

Channeling an Orb of Light in his hand, the elf stands up and walks towards the shadow knight, who knocks back Mal, Tyril and Imtura with a blast of Shadow magic from the Blade of Shadow.

Kite: Laundsellyn!

Laundsellyn notices Kite approaching him and smirks.

Sir Laundsellyn: Oh, are you approaching me? Instead of running away, you are approaching me. Even though with your allies incapacitated and your strongest weapon now in my possession, you still muster the courage to face me, the most powerful Shadow being?

The Orb of Light in Kite’s hand glows brighter as he gets closer.

Kite: I cannot slay you without getting closer.

Laundsellyn chuckles.

Sir Laundsellyn: Oho! Such foolish bravery. Then come at me as close as you like.

He approaches Kite at the same pace. When the two are only a meter apart, Kite drives one of his open hands, surging with Light energy, towards Laundsellyn. However, the shadow knight dodges in time, gets behind Kite and hits him on the back with the hilt of the Blade of Shadow. The elf gets knocked down on the ground.

Sir Laundsellyn: Too slow! Even with the power of the Light on your side, if your speed cannot match mine, you have no chance against me. You would’ve been dead by now.

Kite persistently stands up and faces Laundsellyn once more.

Kite: Are you sure you want to give pointers to an opponent?

Laundsellyn shrugs.

Sir Laundsellyn: Weaklings bore me. I’d like to have a challenge, and seeing how you’re the strongest among your friends, I figured you’d at least entertain me. But you’re just as disappointing as them.

Having enough of the shadow knight’s insults, Kite channels another Orb of Light in his right hand and Cleansing Fire in his left hand.

Kite: You have no need the right to talk anymore.

He clasps his hands together, fusing the both magical spells together into a more powerful one, which surprises and almost blinds everyone else in the room.

Tyril: Amazing! Kite is performing Coalescence Magic.

Mal: What is that?

Threep: A rare concept of magical where two spells are fused together to create a stronger spell.

Imtura: That’s awesome!

Loola: What makes it rare is that it requires two or more mages with incredibly high magical affinity to perform such magic, but since Kite is able to perform it on his own makes him a very powerful magic caster.

Kade grins and raises his fist up high.

Kade: Go get ‘em, brother!

While Kite’s friends cheer him on, Laundsellyn smirks and claps.

Sir Laundsellyn: Yes, that’s it! You’re growing so quickly. Now…

Laundsellyn puts his left hand forward, channeling Shadow Magic on his palm.

Sir Laundsellyn: Let’s see how strong you really are.

Kite turns to his friends while continuing to channel his spell.

Kite: Get everyone else behind me!

Mal, Tyril and Imtura nod in agreement before splitting up. Mal helps Kade carry Nia, Tyril and Loola use their magic to transport the guards’ corpses, and Imtura lifts King Arlan’s corpse and taking him behind Kite. Cleared of casualties in front of him, Kite is ready to fire his spell.

Kite: It’s time!

Laundsellyn grins.

Sir Laundsellyn: Nothing holding you back now, eh? Well, if you are giving it your all, perhaps I should too.

The shadow knight opens his hand wider, channeling Light Magic along with his already channeling Shadow Magic, astonishing everyone.

Loola: How can that be?!

Tyril: Light and Shadow Magic should not be able to coalesce with each other, since they erase each other when channeled together!

Laundsellyn laughs at the comments made.

Sir Laundsellyn: Did you fools forget that I am the descendant of the one who can channel both Magics together?!

The Light and Shadow energies merge into a far stronger type of magic while Laundsellyn continues his explanation.

Sir Laundsellyn: When the Light and Shadows become one, they create the most powerful type of magic that has ever existed; Chaos Magic.

White and black sparks begins to surge across Laundsellyn’s arm as he is ready to release his spell.

Kite: Brace yourselves!

Both Kite and Laundsellyn unleash their magic.

Kite: Coalescence Magic: Blinding Brilliance – Radiant Inferno!

Sir Laundsellyn: Chaos Magic: Rejection Pulse!

Kite thrusts his hands forward, releasing a wave of bright, yellow flames towards Laundsellyn, who in turn, quickly clenches his fist, unleashing a shockwave, infused with both Light and Shadow Magic. Both spells clash furiously, while both casters maintain their stance to keep their spells intact. However, Kite is struggling to keep himself standing.

Kite: I can’t… hold it… much longer…!

Mal, Tyril and Imtura immediately rush into his aid by placing their hands on his shoulders and back.

Mal: We got you, kit!

Tyril: Keep fighting!

Imtura: Show that coward not to mess with us!

Kite turns to his friends.

Kite: Everyone…

The elf nods with a grin before turning back to Laundsellyn. Together, the four scream with determination while the shadow knight smiles.

Sir Laundsellyn: Ah, yes. The power of friendship… how admirable. However…!

Laundsellyn thrusts his spell-casting arm forward, adding more force into the push of his Chaotic Pulse, causing Kite’s flames to be driven back.

Sir Laundsellyn: It’s all for naught!

In a panic, Kite and his friends push further and yell their hearts out louder, but it is all a waste as Laundsellyn’s spell eventually reaches them, throwing everyone back. Kite lands and skids across the floor while Imtura crashes against the wall, before landing on the ground, unconscious. While Mal is thrown back, Tyril collides with him, rendering both unconscious as they collapse on the ground.

Kade: Guys!

Kite struggles to stand up but is unsuccessful. Laundsellyn shrugs and shakes his head.

Sir Laundsellyn: My goodness, that was really tiring. As much as I love a good challenge, I really don’t want to stay in a fight for too long, or else it would get very dull.

He then turns to Kade, holding an unsconscious Nia in his arms.

Sir Laundsellyn: Now, hand over that elegant priestess, if you please? She’s worth more than what the Dreadlord believes.

Kade grits his teeth and glares at Laundsellyn while Threep and Loola gets in between them.

Kade: You won’t get near Nia. Not again, you Shadow Court scum!

Threep: She has been through a lot. Leave her alone!

Loola: We won’t allow you to harm our dear Priestess anymore!

Laundsellyn sighs and swings the Blade of Shadow, letting out a strong force to ward off Threep and Loola. They land next to Mal, Tyril and Imtura.

Sir Laundsellyn: This is boring me. Will you just hand me the priestess? It will be easy for everyone.

Kade looks around and spots one of the guards’ swords. He grabs it and points it towards Laundsellyn.

Kade: S-Stay back…!

With a flick of a finger, Laundsellyn easily disarms Kade before kicking him on the face, causing a nosebleed and letting the bard’s grip on Nia go as he is thrown back by the sheer force of the kick. Kite despairs at the sight of his brother’s pain.

Kite: KAAAAAAADE!!!

Laundsellyn marvels in his victory before crouching down beside Nia. He starts to reach for her but not before being struck by a fireball at his back. He turns to Kite, annoyed. The elf has his hand out, just finished casting Cleansing Fire at the shadow knight.

Sir Laundsellyn: You’re starting to get in my nerves, boy!

Laundsellyn hurls the Blade of Shadow and it pierces the ground, just right in front of Kite. The floor starts to crack then collapses, causing Kite to fall bellow.

Sir Laundsellyn: Tch! Good riddance.

With no further interruptions, Laundsellyn reaches for Nia once more, however…

GLEAM!!

…Nia’s eyes burst open, glowing brightly, as overwhelming amounts of Light energy surges through her, taking Laundsellyn by surprise as he steps back.

Sir Laundsellyn: This is…!

Nia raises herself from the ground, beginning to hover, before turning to Laundsellyn with rage in her Light-filled eyes. The shadow knight grins.

Sir Laundsellyn: Well, well, well… It’s been two thousand years… Priestess of the Light.

Laundsellyn takes a stance, ready to face Nia while she starts speaking and behaving like someone else entirely.

Nia: Lucius Nightbloom, you have done enough. Prepare to repent for your sins.

Laundsellyn pulls his swordarm back, preparing to stab Nia.

Sir Laundsellyn: Not planning too, milady. I’d rather slay you a second time.

More knights of Whitetower enter the throne room.

Knight 1: Halt!

They spot King Arlan, dead on the carpet.

Knight 2: The King is dead!

Knight 3: Slay the shadow dweller!

The knights begin to charge towards Laundsellyn but he was more focused on Nia as he dashes towards her, thrusting the Blade of Shadow forward, but the priestess evades the attack in the nick of time. Laundsellyn cannot stop his momentum as he continues to advance forward.

Nia: History shall not repeat itself this time, foolish deserter.

Nia blasts Laundsellyn with a large Orb of Light, propelling him outside the castle and into the sky. She then turns to the knights.

Nia: Tend to the wounded. I shall handle Laundsellyn myself.

The knights nod in confusion and do as they are told while Nia follows Laundsellyn outside.

Sir Laundsellyn: Ah! That hurt a lot!

Unfazed by the painful attack, Laundsellyn stops his trajectory by conjuring wings made with Shadow Magic and hovers in the air. Nia follows him and floats in front of him, putting her hand forward, ready to blast him once more.

Nia: Surrender and face punishment, Lucius. You have nothing else to do.

Laundsellyn chuckles and pretends to lay down, like he’s on a hammock.

Sir Laundsellyn: I would rather not. Besides, you are not my only goal here. What’s more important to me is reclaiming this.

He brandishes the Blade of Shadow as it hovers in front of him. Nia, realizing what the Blade can do, fires another Orb of Light towards Laundsellyn, who easily evades it this time.

Sir Laundsellyn: You cannot stop fate, Priestess, especially when it’s the return of the “Fateseeker”!

Laundsellyn channels Shadow energy in his hand.

Sir Laundsellyn: Shadow Magic: Relinquish!

He then snaps his fingers, fueled with Shadow magic, creating four duplicates of the Blade of Shadow.

Nia: I won’t let you!

Nia advances forward, trying to reach out to Laundsellyn with an Orb of Light being conjured in her hand.

Sir Laundsellyn: Too slow!

Laundsellyn uses the original Blade to block Nia’s attack while he hurls its duplicates in different directions.

Nia: NOO!!

The first duplicate Blade flies to the north, beyond Morella and towards the snowy mountains. The Blade lands on one of the peaks, breaking a seal, causing it to crumble and summoning a blue beam of light which pierces the sky. From the debris, a figure walks out, with the body of a human, the head of a hawk, and large feathered wings on his back. The figure takes a deep breath and spreads his wings, as if he’s waking from a very long nap.

Winged Figure: Millenia had passed… How are you faring after all this time, my love…?

The second Blade ventures to the  distant west, past Flotilla and toward the uninhabited volcanic island of Kel’Dhana, the former home of the orcs. The Blade plunges itself in the core of the volcano, breaking its seal, causing an eruption and summoning an orange beam of light which cleaves the sky. From the mouth of the volcano, an abnormally large orc clad in obsidian climbs out. Steam escapes his nose as he attempts to speak.

Obsidian Orc: It has been… too long… I crave for some destruction!

The third Blade glides to the far east, past the poison fields then towards the ruined and cursed city of Necropolis, home of the vhampyrs which is surrounded by a magical barrier. The Blade pierces through the barrier, shattering it, and opening the world to the city and its inhabitants. Each coffin inside the city bursts open, letting out the imprisoned monsters, and their leader, the Beast of Blood.

Beast of Blood: Hungrrryyyyyyy….

The fourth and final Blade flies to the south, in the barren wastelands of Zaradun. The Blade buries itself in the sand, searching for something underneath. Soon, it reaches the treasure room of an ancient dungeon and plunges itself in front of a decrepit machine. A seal breaks and a yellow beam of light drills through the ceiling and the sand before finally reaching the sky. The machine begins to move but then collapses, leaving some sort of golden cocoon in its debris. The cocoon then cracks open and from inside, unveiling a short woman inside with a sadistic smile.

Woman: My, my… after thousands of years… I’m finally free.

She fiendishly licks her index finger before spreading her arms wide. Golden webs begin to shoot out from the tips of her fingers, latching onto the walls of the dungeon.

Woman: I wonder what marvelous treasures the future has brought for me!

The women pulls the webs and the dungeon begins to collapse in on itself.

Back in Whitetower, Nia notices the four beams of light in all directions before turning to Laundsellyn.

Nia: What have you done?!

Laundsellyn pulls out a devilish grin before quickly floating upwards, avoiding Nia’s attack. The priestess glares at the shadow knight.

Sir Laundsellyn: Unleashed the Lieutenants of the Empire upon this realm!

Laundsellyn aims the Blade of Shadow towards Nia and hurls it at her, but she quickly evades it.

Nia: You cannot kill me again, Lucius!

Sir Laundsellyn: Who says I was aiming for you?

Realizing that the missed attack was intended, Nia turns to the Blade which is currently opening a portal to the Shadow Realm. Before she could act, Laundsellyn swiftly zooms past her, entering the portal and closing it immediately.

Nia: This cannot be…

Nia looks back at the beams of light in despair as they vanish.

Nia: The Empire… has returned…

The glowing light in her eyes start to flicker while the aura surrounding her begins to fade slowly.

Nia: This vessel’s companions… They are the key…

As Nia hovers towards the castle’s throne room, she speaks to herself through telepathy.

Nia: Nia Ellarious, your friends. Protect them. They are essential to the Empire’s defeat.

Once she reaches the room, she uses her Light magic to heal everyone who is still alive while lifting an unconscious Kite from the hole that Laundsellyn made. The knights, on the other hand, mourn the death of King Arlan and their fellow soldiers while they kneel by their corpses.

Nia: Protect Kite Nightbloom most of all. He carries the blood of the one who once defeated the ‘Fateseeker’.

Once Nia completely heals her friends, she gently lands on the ground and returns to her former self.

Nia: Huh? Where am I?

She turns to her friends groaning and coming back to their senses.

Nia: Everyone!

The priestess tends to each of her friends, making sure they are okay, especially Kite, but sees that the wounds they sustained during the battle against Laundsellyn were all gone.

Kade: Urgh… what happened…?

Mal: Did we win…?

Loola: I’m afraid not.

Tyril: My head hurts…

Imtura: My back hurts…

Threep: My stomach hurts… I’m famished…

Kite sits up and looks around for Laundsellyn.

Kite: Where’s that bastard?!

Nia gently and worriedly grabs Kite’s arms while she thinks back to what was said to her when she was not herself earlier.

Nia: Kite, it’s okay. He’s gone.

Kade: Like “dead” gone?

The priestess shakes her head in disagreement, disappointing the others and Kite most of all.

Kite: He stole the Blade of Light, and turned it back into that blasted Blade of Shadow.

Tyril: We have to reclaim it.

Nia: That is not our main concern now.

The group turns to Nia.

Mal: What do you mean, priestess?

Nia: I don’t know what happened but… when I was facing Laundsellyn…

The whole group was surprised that Nia had to face off against the shadow knight alone.

Imtura: Wait, you fought him while we were out cold?!

Mal: And you even sent him packing. Nice work, Nia!

Nia’s friends praise her for fending off Laundsellyn, however, she looks down, more concerned with what he has done.

Nia: That’s not important right now…

Kite notices uneasiness in his beloved’s eyes to which he responds by wrapping his arms around her.

Kite: What did he do, Nia?

Nia gulps and looks into Kite’s eyes.

Nia: He has unleashed the Lieutenants of the Empire…

Silence fills the room as Threep and Loola’s furs stand and shivers run down their spines.

Kade: Who are the Lieutenants?

Loola hovers on top of Kade and sits on his head.

Loola: The Lieutenants are considered to be the strongest soldiers of the Empire of Ash and the most trusted associates of the “Fateseeker”. After the Empire’s fall, they were sealed away, frozen in suspended animation.

Threep sits on Nia’s shoulder and helps Kite in comforting her while explaining who the Lieutenants are.

Threep: They are a total of four Lieutenants, but with Laundsellyn serving the Empire, you could say that he is now the fifth Lieutenant.

Everyone tries to process everything that just happened to them ever since the night before.

Tyril: This is just…

Imtura: …a lot to bear…?

Tyril nods at what Imtura said. Everyone turns to Kite.

Mal: What do you think we should do, kit?

Kite gulps, struggling to think of a plan, before looking at Threep.

Kite: Where were the Lieutenants sealed away?

The nesper shakes his head.

Threep: I am not certain, but they were imprisoned outside the borders of Morella; one in the north, somewhere in the mountains; another is in the east, in the cursed city of Necropolis…

Tyril is surprised at the mention of Necropolis.

Tyril: The home of the vhampyrs?

Threep: Yes.

The elf thinks back to his dream about his ancestor, Farin Starfury, facing off against her supposed brother and leader of the vhampyrs, the Beast of Blood. Threep continues to tell the group where the other Lieutenants were sealed away.

Threep: As I was saying, the third is located south of Morella, somewhere in the Zaradun Wastelands. This Lieutenant was sealed by the dwarves in an ancient dungeon but it costed them their lives, which ended with the dungeon being buried in the sands.

Mal freezes at the mention of an ancient dungeon underneath the Zaradun Wastelands. He speculates and worries if that was the same dungeon he explored prior to his retirement a few years ago. Threep goes on.

Threep: And lastly, the fourth is sealed deep within the volcanic island of K’ell Dhana, the former home of the orcs. Whoever was sealed there was believed to be the cause of the island’s destruction, prompting the orcs to relocate to where Flotilla is now.

Imtura recalls her nightmarish vision, regarding Flotilla’s destruction, and starts to wonder whether its linked to whoever was sealed in K’ell Dhana. Kite notices the disturbed expressions of some of his friends.

Kite: You guys okay? You’ve been having the same anxious faces since this morning.

Mal, Tyril and Imtura look at each other, understanding that each of them had seen something horrifying the previous night. They all turn to Kite and the rest of their friends.

Mal: Well, you see, kit…

Imtura: You weren’t the only one who had a weird dream about something related to the Empire of Ash.

Tyril: I believe that what Mal and Imtura are saying… The three of us must’ve dreamt or seen something related to each of the Lieutenants.

Kite is about to ask them about what happened but the acting leader of the knights approach the group.

Knight Leader: Brave heroes, the King is gone and the citizens are panicking because of the appearance of the shadow dweller and the beams of light that occurred in the horizons. We must act quickly. What do you suppose we should do?

The group turns to Kite.

Kite: What?

Kade: We trust your intuition, Kite. What should we do?

Kite shakes his head.

Kite: No, no, no. I may be the best among us, but I’m not a leader.

Nia: Well, we trust you in these situations because you’re the bravest among us as well.

Mal: Yeah, you were still the only one to keep pissing off Laundry Boy when he was about to abduct Nia and the one to receive the “drop you down the floor” treatment.

Tyril nudges Mal for ruining the moment.

Kade: Point is that we’ll follow you to the bitter end.

Imtura: Aye!

Kite looks at his friends and nods at them with determination.

Kite: Alright, I’ll think of something.

He turns to Threep and Loola.

Kite: Which do you guys think is the closest Lieutenant to Morella?

Loola: We believe it is the one sealed in K’ell Dhana.

Kite then turns to Imtura.

Kite: Imtura, get a ship ready. We sail as soon as possible.

Imtura: Spoken like a true captain, landrat!

Kite grins as Imtura points to one of the knights.

Imtura: You!

Knight 3: Eek! Y-Yes, ma’am?

Imtura: Take me to your harbor!

Knight 3: U-U-Understood!

The knight frantically runs and leads the orc towards the Whitetower Harbor. Meanwhile, Kite turns to the knight leader.

Kite: Keep the citizens safe in one location. If we do not return in a day, evacuate the whole city. As of now, we are dealing with a threat far worse than the Shadow Court.

The knight salutes in understanding.

Knight Leader: Understood.

He signals his underlings to move out as they carry King Arlan and their comrades’ corpses. Kite and his friends hurry to the port. Nia smiles at him.

Nia: That was amazing, Kite.

Kite: Thank you, Nia.

The group reaches the harbor with Imtura and the knight readying one of the ships. She spots her friends.

Imtura: Ah, just in time!

The knight gets off the boat while the group gets on it.

Knight 3: Fortune favor you, brave heroes. May the Light be with you.

Kite nods at the knight as he and his friends set sail towards Flotilla.

Imtura: Next stop, Flotilla!

The group stares into the vast ocean, bracing themselves for what’s about to come.

Meanwhile in the prisons of Whitetower, Aerin sits clumsily in his cell, still clutching his heart while screams of panicking citizens flood his ears.

Aerin: What… What is happening? Why is my chest still paining?!

He jumps in surprise when a portal to the Shadow Realm opens on front of him. Laundsellyn steps out of it.

Sir Laundsellyn: Ah, there you are.

Aerin recognizes the shadow knight and glares at him.

Aerin: You!

Sir Laundsellyn: …Was it something I did?

Laundsellyn shakes his head.

Sir Laundsellyn: Doesn’t matter.

Aerin clenches his fist and attempts to land a punch.

Aerin: Stay back, heathen!

But Laundsellyn catches his fist and knocks him unconscious with the hilt of the Blade of Shadow.

Sir Laundsellyn: We have much to discuss, Prince Aerin. I hope you are willing to listen.

The shadow knight drags the prince towards the portal, entering the Shadow Realm, before it closes.

––––– END OF CHAPTER –––––

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Chapter 53: Identity

Becoming The Mask

Barbara was at work when her phone buzzed. She didn't have time to check it – she was busy with a toddler who had swallowed a paperclip.

If it had gone into the kid's stomach, things might have been okay. There was some risk of the sharp point doing damage, or the wire catching and tangling in the intestines, but the rounded ends of the paperclip meant there was also a chance it would simply be passed through.

Unfortunately, instead of ingesting the paperclip, the child had aspirated it, so it needed to be removed from her right lung.

Immediately after Barbara got out of surgery, she had to work up the x-rays of a teenager who'd crashed his Vespa into a tree. Nothing was obviously broken and he didn't have a concussion, but there was a risk of hairline fractures.

And then, (because why not,) there were three successive cases of people who had stuck odd things up their butts and gotten those things stuck.

By the time she was able to sit down for two minutes and gulp some coffee, she had forgotten about her buzzing phone.

She didn't even look at her phone until she was leaving for the night. Barbara got it out to turn the ringer off, since she wasn't supposed to be on call that night, which never stopped anyone when they were short-staffed, which was often, and she was tired enough it would probably be dangerous for her to be treating patients again until she'd had some sleep.

(Also, she was probably tired enough that she shouldn't be driving, but Barbara never let herself think about that.)

After finding out she'd missed something as big as her kid sneaking around to fight a secret magical war, Barbara was trying to reassert some boundaries between her time at work and the rest of her life.

Her phone announced that she'd missed a notification.

It was just an exclamation point. What had that been supposed to mean?

Barbara turned her phone off and drove home.

"I'm back, kiddo!"

"We're in the kitchen!"

'We' meant Jim and Toby. Jim was pulling a shepherd's pie out of the oven. Toby and Barbara both inhaled appreciatively.

"You said it's lean ground beef, right?" asked Toby. Jim smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Tobes. You know if you cut all the fat out of your diet you'd get protein poisoning, right? Mom, back me up."

Barbara took a moment to remember this. She wasn't a nutritionist – she'd encountered this concept in a novel a few years ago and looked it up to see if it was true.

"He's right," she said. "It's the rarest kind of food poisoning. Not much risk of it happening here and now." Not in a city in the United States, haven of processed and instant foods.

Jim portioned out the steaming vegetables and meat and mashed potatoes. Barbara added some sour cream to hers.

"Is Nana out tonight?" she asked Toby.

"Yeah, she and some of her chess buddies are doing a tournament. Informal, I think, but maybe a prize? Like, a gift certificate or something."

"We should see if we can get her and Mr Strickler to play a match sometime," said Jim. "I think I heard once that he's a grandmaster, but I don't know how often he plays anymore."

That combination, Nancy and Walt, made Barbara's brain click and remember the significance of that exclamation point she'd sent herself.

"So … it's been a month. Have you made any progress on telling your friends' families about trolls?"

Both boys froze.

"We gave Vendel a bunch of family stories," said Toby. "Once he's done reading it, we'll find out if we have permission or we're going behind everybody's backs."

"Guess I should warn him the clock's ticking again," said Jim.

"We could maybe tell people now and say we're LARPing, and tell the whole truth later?" Toby suggested. "That's what my therapist thinks is going on."

"You told your therapist?" asked Barbara and Jim together, in very different tones.

Jim's eyes were huge. He had a white-knuckled grip on his silverware. "Tell me you didn't use the word 'Trollhunter' in front of her."

"… No?" said Toby in confusion. "I just said your character was a magic knight on a quest to fight an evil troll."

Jim sighed. "Okay, that's generic enough it's probably safe. Don't use any specific names or terms, though."

"Dude, you seriously think someone is spying on a random high schooler's therapy appointments?"

"Someone is spying on a random high school's entire history class," Jim pointed out.

The rest of the meal was tense. After they were done eating and cleaning up, Toby went back home, and Jim went upstairs to do homework.

Jim's yearbook from the previous year was on one of the shelves in the living room. Barbara brought it over to the couch.

She could use this to get an idea of who Jim and Toby's classmates were, at least.

Jim didn't have many signatures in the book. There was Toby's, of course. The rest all had generic messages – "Have a great summer" from Eli Pepperjack, "Have fun this summer!" from Shannon Longhannon, "See you in September" and a doodled smiley face from Claire Nuñez, and "Enjoy summer break" from Seamus Johnson.

People Jim knew? Or random classmates he approached so he wouldn't look 'weird' for not caring about yearbook autographs?

Barbara made note of all the names. She felt like Jim had let slip that the other children who knew about trolls were girls, early on, but she couldn't quite remember for sure and didn't want to rule anyone out. She flipped to the class photos to match names to faces, so she could keep watch for the signatories hanging around her house or across the street.

+=+

Enrique carefully printed the English alphabet. It hadn't been that hard to mimic from a reference image, but this was his first time writing it independently. He haltingly hummed the song to keep track of his place.

"Pretty good," said Claire, reading over his shoulder. He fought the urge to turn and strike. He was (supposed to be) safe. Claire wasn't purposefully lurking in his blind spot to attack him. "Definitely way better than my first scribbles. I guess next you should learn to write your name."

On another piece of paper, she printed it for him to copy.

The first letter was N. Sensible enough. Except wasn't that one pronounced 'nuh' instead of 'en' when it was in a word and not the alphabet? He shrugged. Claire knew this writing system better than he did – if she said Enrique started with N, he'd go with it until he had some evidence otherwise.

The second letter was O. He frowned. That … didn't feel right. Shouldn't it be an R?

The third letter was T. He stopped.

"Read it," he said to Claire, trying not to growl.

"Not Enrique," she said, without shame. "You only copied the 'Not' part so far."

Angrily, Enrique scribbled out the letters he'd written so far and the bit he'd copied from. In fast, shaky letters he copied out the rest of it and underlined it.

"No," said Claire, getting angry in turn, "you don't get to use that name. That's my brother's name, not yours."

"The kid can share. It's mine now."

"Oh, come on," Claire scoffed. "You're, like, hundreds of years old. I get that Jim's used to being called 'Jim' after sixteen years in deep cover or whatever, but you can't possibly have gotten that attached to 'Enrique' in just a few months."

… Did she really not know?

"It's the only name I've got."

"Bullshit. Other trolls had to call you something when you were in the Darklands."

Now he growled for real. "That wasn't a name."

"What, some kind of codename system? Then I'd think you'd welcome the chance to start using your real name again."

"I don't know what it used to be!" he snapped. "No one exactly kept track of who they were grabbing. And if we lived, it was 'Changeling' this and 'Impure' that if it wasn't just 'hey you'! Enrique's the first name I can remember having and you don't get to take it away from me!"

He stood there breathing hard for maybe a full minute. He'd cracked the pen. There was gloppy ink on his clenched fist. He licked it off before ink could drip on the floor, and popped the plastic into his mouth.

Claire's voice, when she spoke again, was a lot softer.

"How did anyone tell the Changelings apart, if … if you didn't have names?"

Enrique snorted. "You think they bothered? One Changeling's as good or as bad as any other. S'probably part of why Jim and the big Boss Man were so quick to change sides when they had the chance."

"Even the other Changelings?"

"The rule about not getting attached starts early."

Claire looked like she was about to cry. That … that wasn't fair, she didn't get to make him feel bad for her when they were in the middle of a fight …

"We give each other nicknames, sometimes," he admitted. Imp had been a popular one, if nothing else about a Changeling stood out. "Us or the goblins. But then when we get up top, it's like a rite of passage, you know? We get a name then. Using the old nickname's … like an insult. Saying you weren't worth making a surface agent."

Claire blinked rapidly a few times, then hugged him. He almost clawed her before realizing it wasn't an attack.

"Oi, easy!"

"You can't have my brother's name," she said stubbornly. "But we'll figure something else out."

"Not exactly your call to make," Enrique retorted.

"Don't ruin the moment."

"What moment–?!"

+=+

Previous Chapter (Troll Dads become official!)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Angor Rot’s debut!)

Not featured in the above chapter: Jim's internal panic, as he frantically tries to figure out how much Toby has already told Dr Archenn and how to warn Toby off telling her anything else, without exposing yet another Changeling's identity to humans.

Featured in the above chapter: my headcanon that Otto addressing Not Enrique as 'Imp' in early Season 2 was a deliberate insult. I've actually got a different nickname in mind for Not Enrique, it just didn't feel natural to bring it up in this scene. Imp, short for Impure, is basically a 'starter nickname' that all Changelings have in the Darklands, until and unless something about them stands out enough that the other Changelings start calling them something else.

[saiki-in-jsl]

No Powers Saiki AU (3k)

Where he also has anxiety and selective mutism. (But also, nobody has powers. And that volcano issue never happens because I SAID SO.)

Uhm uhhhh, in no way am I a doctor, so this may not be very accurate. Sorry!!

TW: Panic attack, I don’t think this one needs a skip so I’ll just leave it as that (but if you need one, tell me :eyes:)

Also on my ao3!

Also well shit, I do like myself some good Kusuo and Akechi friendship :,)

Also also, ugggghhhhhh, the italics stuff don’t go through when I copy and paste from my docs rip. This is why I prefer ao3 more (and because their tagging system is HEAVENLY) so if you wanna read with all them proper italics I suggest switching to my ao3

ALSO ALSO ALSO, RIGHT WHEN I FINISHED THIS, I DISCOVERED ASL AND JSL ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SO D A R N H E C K I’M SORRY. I did a big oopsie,,,let’s,,,pretend that asl,,,is,,default,,?

Saiki Kusuo was not your typical boy.

Since he was young, it had been painfully obvious that he was a gifted child, surpassing his brother by intelligence and strength. This had drawn many curious scientists to him, and after several tests that went on for hours and hours, he finally broke. He stopped talking and he stopped wanting to be around people.

His mother, equally as tired of the scientists as her son was, decided to hide his identity away from the public, constantly moving from location to location to avoid the people who knew of her son’s abilities.

This barely helped with Kusuo’s social development as a child, so the more he moved, the more he decided that he would much rather live in an isolated world than a world filled with people with prying eyes and loud mouths.

He did make a friend once though, but it barely lasted due to unforeseen circumstances that involved a few beat up bullies, and it had surprisingly hurt when he had to move away again. Akechi was his first real friend, and realizing that he won’t be seeing him again felt weird.

As much as he loved being alone, a friend would’ve been nice.

So the night before they moved away, he had pushed open his parents’ door, gripping his pajama top tightly, and whispered really really softly to his mother, “Mama. Will I ever make a friend?”

It was the first time he had spoken in a very long time, in fact, his mother couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to her without pointing and hand gestures. So predictably, she cried and hugged him tight, mumbling how sorry she was for ruining his chance at making a friend, too caught up with trying to avoid those nosey scientists.

Middle school went by like a blur, aside from the occasional school switch that still happened, yet not as often as elementary. He didn’t remember a single thing that happened during those school days, maybe a few anxiety attacks in the bathroom and a sad attempt at trying to socialize, but that was it. Maybe it really was easier to be alone, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about losing his breathing from the sheer amount of stress he got from the assembly hall.

Highschool came and Kusuo had a new plan: Accept that having friends are not necessary and speaking with your mouth is dumb. 

He quickly learnt how to use ASL, much preferring that language over vocally speaking, and made sure his grades were as average as possible. He had excelled through middle school and elementary school like it was nothing, but it had led him to be placed on stage many times because of this. So no more of that, because that was a recipe for disaster to him.

Kusuo made sure everything was in perfect place before heading to school. He made sure the school knew about his condition, and he also made sure to let them know he didn’t want to be publicly known as the school’s “mute kid”, so he’d definitely blend in without an issue.

Kusuo couldn’t believe what was happening. He hadn’t even fully registered his first year of highschool properly and his second year was already here. 

To start off, he had friends, something he did not expect to have. He could predict many things, the weather, what people were thinking, and if he tried hard enough, he could even predict who would walk by his classroom in the next second. But he did not see this one coming.

He didn’t even know how. Nendou was a dunce who went from copying his homework to hanging around and inviting him out for ramen and Kaidou was a chuunibyou who thought Kusuo’s hand gestures was some sort of secret language and ended up perceiving Kusuo as some ally to Jet Black Wings.

Yumehara, for no reason other than the fact that Kusuo looked cute, decided she was meant to be with him. A lot of effort was taken to avoid her, but just as she lost interest in him, the class- no, the world’s idol decided she’d have a crush on him too. Then there was the class representative, Hairo, who constantly screamed and moved and how does he not get tired? 

Then there was Kuboyasu, Toritsuka, Aiura, and so many people it made his head spin.

But they all had one thing in common when they communicated with him, and that was the fact that they all thought he was deaf. Granted, people who use ASL were commonly deaf, so he wasn’t blaming them for assuming so, and it did help him a little since this made them talk less around him and gave him a good excuse for ignoring them half the time.

Two years he spent in this highschool, and not once had he fired rapid ASL before. He never got the chance to, and he didn’t have much care for doing so. Mostly because most of the people around him didn’t even understand sign language.

But sometimes, listening to Toritsuka talk on and on about some cute girl could really put you on edge. Especially when he kept egging Kusuo on about the type of girls he liked.

The thing was, Kusuo didn’t like romance. He liked observing it and the idea of it, but he would never want to be a part of it. Frankly enough, he didn’t find any joy in it, he much preferred a life of solitude.

“C’mon, I know you can understand me, Saiki,” Toritsuka poked, grinning widely. “What kind of girls are you into? Or perhaps are into boys? Seriously, tell me, maybe we can go on a double date sometime. What about Teruhashi--“

Kusuo scowled, taking a step back and suddenly flying into fast ASL that roughly translated to several insults and long explanations as to why Kusuo wasn’t going to tell him. Toritsuka only blinked in surprise, because he swore he just saw the middle finger between those fast hand gestures, and he took a step back, raising his hands in defeat.

“Relax! Alright!” Toritsuka said, dropping the subject for good. “Next time fling me a note or something, that is seriously intimidating!”

Kusuo winced, feeling the third piece of paper Kaidou had just flung at him hit his head. This had been going on for the whole period, and Kusuo wondered why the teacher hadn’t noticed it yet. Most of the notes Kaidou sent weren’t serious anyways, and clearly not worth writing back to him.

He barely understood the references the boy was making anyways. 

“How about we hang out after school? Do you like cake?” The last note read.

Kusuo smiled softly. “Yes, I do like cake.” He wrote, and with ease, he strategically threw it back so it would land perfectly on Kaidou’s table.

Being around Teruhashi was not ideal at all, because wherever she went, many people would follow. Kusuo hated crowds more than anything, it made his throat close up and his face a little sweaty, though his facial expression would never express his discomfort.

It would always remain blank and devoid of emotions.

Which always peaked Teruhashi’s interest. She found it a challenge to make the “deaf” kid who barely spoke gasp at her beauty, it would be a mighty achievement, yet no matter how hard she tried, it just never worked, which only pushed her to try harder. It resulted in her falling in love with him, unfortunately.

“Saiki does have a cute face though,” Teruhashi mumbled under her breath right as she walked along with Kusuo. She assumed he couldn’t hear her, so she regularly said things like those quietly to herself whenever he wasn’t looking her way. He appreciated the compliment at times, but sometimes, they do get a little creepy.

Nendou probably didn’t understand the idea of deaf people, or perhaps he thought his idea was pretty smart. Either ways, Kusuo sometimes couldn’t understand why he had to shout at him to communicate.

Did Nendou think deaf people just had very very poor hearing? Probably. But it often got annoying when they were in public places, and Kusuo couldn’t even tell him to quiet down because he couldn’t tell when exactly he was actually shouting.

Both his shouting and talking volume were around the same range.

But, it was rather nice of him to go out of his way to learn a bit of sign language just so he wouldn’t have to shout at Kusuo anymore. It was actually pretty nice having an ASL buddy.

Note to self, do not use ASL around Kuboyasu too much. He will and can mistake them as gang signs and get either sappy or angry. Kusuo said in his head as he watched Kuboyasu stare off into the distance with his fists clenched, reminiscing about his gang days.

Several times Kusuo had mistaken Hairo’s sad attempt at ASL as actual words and once spent half an hour straight wondering why the boy had signed refrigerator geese to him during that dodgeball game.

Saiko had once walked up to him and declared that whatever “nonsense” Kusuo was going to sign, he’d know right away what they would mean. At first, Kusuo found it hard to believe that the rich boy had taken time to learn ASL within his one day of being in this school, but as it turned out, all Saiko did was hire a translator to follow him around to translate Kusuo’s words.

That was possibly the most amount of effort he’d ever seen from Saiko, and it was good enough.

Kusuo wondered if learning ASL had magically made him more attractive. Aiura would not leave him alone, with her blonde hair, tanned skin, overly accessorized things, and bubbly personality. She wasn’t like Teruhashi, who attracted more men than Kusuo could count on his fingers, so she wasn’t as annoying to be around with.

But then again, she was more forward than Teruhashi too, so it didn’t make her more appealing either.

Seeing Akechi again resurfaced too many feelings. He hadn’t really realized how much he missed his first friend, but then again, the same boy was probably very aware of Kusuo’s high intelligence and may accidentally reveal his secret with that blabbering mouth of his.

Though, Kusuo had to admit, Akechi hadn’t changed one bit since the last time he saw him. Besides the haircut of course, and some other details, like how good he was at deducting now.

Being around Akechi was always strangely comforting back then, there was just something about listening to him talk that made Kusuo feel comfortable. You could say his talking was like white noise to Kusuo.

“Why does everyone assume you’re deaf? You’re not deaf, you just don’t like talking a lot, right? Why don’t you tell them that? Is it because you find it easier to pretend to be deaf? I can understand that, you were always really quiet, which was nice because you were a great listener too. I never found out why you up and left our elementary school without saying goodbye, but you were crazy sma--” Okay, that was when Kusuo made him stop talking, and Akechi took this as a hint to keep it a secret. There was a pause before Kusuo finally signed something to him.

Sorry. 

“Nothing to apologize! I don’t think it was your fault anyways, but your plan worked like a charm honestly,” Akechi smiled. “I hope you missed me, because I know I missed you. We have a lot of catching up to do, I’ll start! So basically…”

Kusuo did. He really did miss him.

A play. Their class was doing a play.

After all that effort of trying to stay off the stage, he still couldn’t avoid it.

He’d feel bad if he didn’t show up to contribute, so he definitely couldn’t just ditch them. The most he could do was play a background role, but even then he’d still be painfully aware that he would be in front of the whole school, and he just couldn’t handle that.

But seeing everyone giving their all to make this play work, Kusuo couldn’t help but join along, regardless of his own condition.

Practice for the play went smoothly, and he found himself being able to cope with it. All he did was sway around like seaweed, since that was his role, and then walk off when his scene ends. Easy, nothing too complicated, he would be fine.

Until Saiko got his sensitive feelings hurt and decided to pull their budget on literally everything, including the costumes. Now, Kusuo couldn’t care less about that issue if it weren’t for the fact that; if the other cast didn’t have their costumes, they wouldn’t stand out as much, and there’d be a higher chance of the audience staring at him.

Yet there wasn’t much time to do last minute preparations for props and clothing, so everyone was encouraged to try their best in making their own costumes before the deadline. Kusuo predicted that no one would actually follow through, and for once, he wished he was wrong.

Apparently he didn’t wish hard enough, because that was exactly what had happened during the play. Everyone mostly came in their gym clothes, some with small props to make it look like they’ve tried, and some who just didn’t do anything at all.

When Kusuo’s scene finally came up, he and the rest of the people who played as seaweed scrambled onto stage, making waving motions with their arms to simulate seaweed underwater. Things went well for the most part, Kusuo did as practiced and waved around just like his other seaweed playing classmates, but the longer he stayed, the more aware he became.

Eyes, everywhere, in front of him, staring too hard, too long. Their mouths are moving, but he can’t hear what they’re saying, it was like they were on the other end of a glass wall. Were they talking about him among themselves? 

Had it always been this warm on stage? Was it normal for his hands to shake? Was he breathing? He didn’t remember exhaling, nor inhaling. His throat went dry, his whole body rigid from...fear?

Someone was pushing him, someone else was pulling him, but he can’t properly grasp what was happening. 

The world went a bit blurry before he completely went dark.

Kusuo woke up in the nurse’s office, body aching and throat dry. He wondered how long it took for him to wake up, but depending on the sun outside, it may have been an hour or so. He sat up slowly, groaning slightly from the pain, before suddenly being attacked by a hug from a familiar person.

“Pal! You’re okay,” Nendou cheered, finally pulling away from the hug to double check on his friend. He lifted his hands, proceeding to sign to him, You just suddenly fell over after they pulled you off stage.

My bad, Kusuo signed back tiredly. Sorry.

“What’d he say?” Kaidou nudged Nendou. Did he really have to ask? It was quite obvious.

“He says he’s fine.” Nendou answered, completely leaving out Kusuo’s apology, which he found strangely comforting yet offensive.

“He literally had a panic attack on stage, what do you mean he’s fine?” Kaidou argued, then he looked over at Kusuo with a deeper frown. “Why didn’t you tell us you were having an attack?”

“He wasn't being attacked,” Nendou said blankly.

“A panic attack, it’s different,” Kaidou huffed. “Saiki, not to be intrusive, but do you have anxiety?”

Did...he? He honestly never thought about it properly. Sure, he did have anxiety attacks every now and then when he was a kid, but this was the first one he had after a long time, so he never really considered he might’ve had anxiety.

Actually, it was starting to all make sense to him now that he thought about it.

“I’m going to take that as a yes but you didn’t know,” Kaidou said slowly, concern laced in his tone. It made sense that Kaidou would know, it did seem like he used to have the same issue.

“Oh for sure, can’t you tell from the way his eyes had widened just now by half a centimetre?” Akechi piped up from behind. 

Good freaking grief.

He knew his mother didn’t trust doctors, but Kusuo really needed to see one after literally fainting in school. Not only that, it wasn’t his first time having an attack either, this was just the first time it had gotten this bad.

Sitting in a psychiatrist's waiting room felt odd, because it seemed a lot more homey than a regular doctor’s waiting room, with paintings hung on the walls and carpeted floor. He wasn’t particularly nervous, but he knew his mother was, because the hand she was using to hold onto him was shaking.

It’ll be okay, he reassured, squeezing his mother’s hand tight.

And it was okay. The lady was really nice to him, gentle and understanding, she barely pried and most of the questions she asked were pretty normal. She was a little surprised to learn that Kusuo could speak, but not in a way that was obvious, only Kusuo could tell that she was.

Communication with her was sorta slow. He had to type onto his notes app on his phone for her to read to answer her questions instead of hand signing, which he didn’t really mind all that much.

His mother, who had been waiting outside for them to be done, immediately got up when Kusuo was finished and asked several questions, one being: Did he need to take medication now?

Fortunately enough, it seemed like his case wasn’t too severe yet, mostly because he could still handle being around people without an issue, so he didn’t need to take any meds for now. Although his selective mutism was pretty serious, it wasn’t too bad either in his case, due to the fact that Kusuo spoke through sign language rather than verbally, so he wasn’t completely mute per se.

He came back next week, and the next, and many more weeks after that. He really liked this therapy thing.

“So your friends think you’re deaf, so you’re using that as an excuse to ignore them sometimes?”

Oh, when she put it like that, it just made him sound like an asshole. But yeah, he pretty much was doing that.

“Is there a particular reason why?”

Kusuo drummed his fingers on his lap. There were many reasons why, but those reasons had long lost their meaning. At first, it was because he didn’t want any friends, but now that he did have friends, there wasn’t any reason for him to keep following them through. No matter how many times he told himself he didn’t like them, they were still his friends.

“And why do you not want any friends?”

“Making friends was hard, keeping friends was hard, and losing them was even harder.” Kusuo typed out. “I guess I stopped trying. But then they started coming to me, and it was weird because I had already accepted it.”

“So you got scared?”

She could say that.

She uncrossed her legs, only to cross them back moments later, and adjusted her glasses, leaning forward, “It’s okay to feel scared about losing your friends, but if you’re going to push everyone who wants to be with you away, then how are you going to know if they’ll truly leave you? There’s nothing wrong with wanting space, but people do need other people to survive.”

One of the many things he did like about his friends was the fact that they all knew he enjoyed sweets. It was pretty obvious that he did, with the way his face would smile softly and soften at the taste of coffee jelly.

Surprisingly, they never notice that he’d much rather be left alone. Either that, or they don’t care.

It was a small outing event, they were mainly just eating and talking, but also trying their best to include Kusuo as much as possible, even though he didn’t mind being left alone with his coffee jelly and cakes.

“Man, I feel bad not including Saiki in conversations sometimes,” Kaidou mumbled, assuming Kusuo didn’t know what he had just said because he wasn’t reading Kaidou’s lips. “Since it’s hard to talk to him sometimes.”

“I’m sure we’re trying our best,” Teruhashi beamed, making Kaidou flush red.

“We should probably just learn sign language like Nendou did.” Kaidou hummed, rolling a fork between his thumb and finger. “It’d be a lot easier.” Though possibly soul crushing for him, considering Kaidou had cram school and such already on his schedule.

“Sounds fun,” Kuboyasu commented. “I’d be down. Maybe we can surprise him.” Oh that was just too much, too nice, Kusuo didn’t even know what he did to earn this much love.

Nendou snorted, grinning widely as he pumped his fist on his chest, “I can teach you all!”

“That would save a lot of money.”

Kusuo stopped eating, a rare sight to see despite him being undisturbed, and he placed his spoon down. Everyone stopped talking, looking over at him in confusion before he finally opened his mouth, surprising them even more.

“I can hear you,” Kusuo managed out. “I always could.”

Teruhashi was the first to react, eyes widening and her face turning bright red. All those comments she muttered, he had heard them all.

Nendou blinked, smiling widely with his arms spread wide, “Congratulations on learning how to hear, pal!” Not quite there, but appreciated.

“Uh, uhm, OF COURSE! I knew the whole time,” Kaidou flashed a charming grin, which would’ve worked if it weren’t for the awkward pose he was doing.

Kuboyasu only stared, and drank his tea, “Oh. Well.”

“Sorry.” Then Kusuo paused, and raised his hands to sign. Felt more comfortable being like this, but you all are too nice to me. So the least I could do was tell you the truth. I don’t talk because I have selective mutism.

Nendou translated for them, and they all softened hearing this. Kusuo pressed his back against the booth seat and fiddled with his spoon before taking another bite. That felt easy, and weight lifting. Now that they know, he didn’t have to feel so bad about them going out of their way to do things for him just because they thought he was deaf.

“Of course I knew from the beginning,” Akechi boasted slightly, eyeing Aiura and Toritsuka with a smug grin. Aiura rolled her eyes at him, but pointed at Kusuo with a narrowed look.

“So you, like, could hear us the whole time,” she confirmed with him again. “I always thought you were just stupid smart, or something, at figuring things out despite not being able to hear, y’know?” Well, she wasn’t wrong about the smart part.

“That is so annoying!” Toritsuka blurted. “You’re annoying! Jeez! Would’ve been so much easier! Did you not tell us because you want an excuse to ignore us?” Kusuo recounted the number of times he avoided Toritsuka running towards him from behind, pretending he couldn’t hear him.

He proceeded to shake his head, very very slowly.

“He’s lying, by the way,” Akechi whispered. Kusuo clicked his tongue at that, earning himself a cheeky grin from Akechi.

Well that was that, now they all knew Kusuo wasn’t some deaf kid, even though that info might’ve spread throughout the school, which he really couldn’t care less about.

It was really nice, though, having friends he could trust.

[imagine-loki]

Pride and Prejudice

TITLE: Pride and Prejudice CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 43 AUTHOR: wolfpawn

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki was raised on Jotunheim as Laufey’s son after the war, but an agreement was then made that he would wed Odin’s daughter so Odin could secure the alliance of Jotunheim through the marriage. Loki, in turn, was raised to be king of Jotunheim, but how he views Asgard is far different from how Odin’s daughter is raised leading to a clash of cultures as well as uncertainty between the pair of betrothed youths.     RATING: Mature   NOTES/WARNINGS: Forced Marriage, not all fun and games. My first real step back into the Loki scene in over a year.

Tags - @skulliebythesea @asimovethroughthisworld @blackcherry26-blog @we-shadowhunter2901

Arden and Loki had far longer legs than Ella yet she walked through the palace at a pace that both Frost Giants were almost jogging to keep up with her, a fire in her eyes as she made her way to the throne room.

Those within the public gallery of the Jotunn court were gossiping and commenting amongst themselves at the comments that had been stated not half an hour before. They all jumped when the doors to the room burst open, not by a physical force but with a blast of green seidr, followed very closely by Ella, who strode into the room with an air that made the weary and angered Laufey think he was sitting in her throne and not his own. He had said nothing of the rumours circulating in his court such a short time previous as he did not wish to fuel them in any manner, but he was irate that any would be so callous as to imply that his son’s mate would take another without so much as considering her mate fighting on the battlefield. He could not stop Loki and Ella choosing to have more mates if they felt like it but he knew, considering the agreement with the Aesir on the marriage, that it would have to be mutually decided and of the two, he knew there was little to no chance of Ella being the one to ask for such. He, like most others, jumped when the doors of his throne room blasted from the hinges, but the fiery look in the eyes of the perpetrator of said destruction stopped him from making any comment. There were identical looks of fearful intrigue on Loki and Arden’s faces as they entered the room behind her, their gaze going to the broken doors for a moment before back to her as they followed her through the hall, the crowds of Jotnar parting as she made her way in front of Laufey.

“My King,” She bowed as she spoke, “I apologise for the manner in which I am interrupting your court but I feel I have to seek answers of a most peculiar kind from one who seems adamant to sow discord in your house.”

“Court seems to be wanting to discuss little else, we may as well seek truth now.” Laufey nodded.

“Thank you, My King.” She bowed again before looking around, looking the Jotnar in the eye as she looked for the one to start the rumours to step forward, her gaze going to angrboda who was giving her a malicious smirk. Ella returned the look with one of utter dismissal. When she got to one being, she paused. “So, I am curious, why would you state such things...who are you?”

The female Jotunn looked at her shocked. “What…? I never…”

“Don’t lie to me, I can smell one a mile off and considering the situation you are lying with regards, I can assure you, I am not in a gaming mood.” Ella snarled with a ferocity that scared the Jotunn. “Why?”

“I…” She stuttered but for a moment, her glance went to Loki, who was studying them both intently.

“Ah, I see,” Ella smirked. “So, where is this definition of masculinity that I would break my loyalty to my mate for? I am simply dying to meet him. I am expecting quite the specimen of a Jotnar.” She looked around. “Well?”

“It is a being by the name of Kristoff,” Arden informed her.

“I see.” Ella gave a small nod of thanks. “And where can I find this Kristoff?”

“Lurking over in the back, behind the sculpture of my grandfather.” Laufey eyed the Frost Giant in question. “Well, Kristoff, step forward and address the situation.” The King ordered.

Kristoff looked adequately uncomfortable as he was commanded and stepped forward. When he looked at Ella, he could see the analytical look in the Aesir’s face. He stood looking back at her in an almost challenging manner.

Ella studied him for a moment. “I know you to see but I think I only shared a conversation with you just once, I cannot be sure, yet I am supposedly risking everything for you. If this were true, surely you would not look at me with such disdain?”  

Kristoff’s eyes widened. “Disdain?”

“Thinly veiled but there nonetheless. So, why say such things? What would cause me to choose a mate in someone so...well, I can clearly see I am unappealing to you so I do not feel it too controversial to say that you are somewhat unappealing to me, not in looks but in mind. You hid here when other men rushed to Jotunheim’s call to arms. You are one of the only ones to claim excuses as to you not going that seemed very weak. So many males were required here, safety in case the lines fell, medics, farmers, yet you...if I am not mistaken it was a bad back? My, but I must have incredible curative powers I never knew I had obtained if you were supposedly not fit for fighting yet were with me so often...I would rival the best on most realms.”

There was a slight laugh at that.

Kristoff cleared his throat. “Well, you said…”

“Oh, I am going to stop you there. If you dare suggest anything, then before you do, I will get you to answer one thing for me. Where is my scar?”

Kristoff stared at her. “Scar?”

“Yes, I have a large scar on my body, I got it from an ambush attack on my family when I was younger, where is it?”

“I…”

“No, please, if this supposedly has been something that has been occurring, tell me where I am scarred.” His head shook slightly. “Better still, if this has been occurring in the absence of my mate, then you can tell the realm something about me that only I am privy to at this moment, yet I am sure I would have disclosed to you as a mate before now should such liaisons have occurred.”

Silence met her words.

“Nothing?”

“You said to say nothing if caught.”

Ella’s brow rose. “And when was this?”

“When you did that Aesir mouth act first.” Kristoff barked.

For a moment, Ella had no idea what he was referencing before realising. “Oh, right.” She turned to Loki, who seemed to be more than sceptical at everything going on in front of him. “Loki, have I ever, in the time we have been mates, tried to kiss you?”

Loki shook his head. “Not once.”

“Not once.” She repeated before looking at Kristoff again. “So...it’s highly unlikely that I would do such a thing with you.”

The Jotunn’s eyes darted back and forth. Little seemed to be actual words from his mouth as he stuttered bar the word ‘lonely’.

“Lonely? You think I would threaten the foundations of my very word because I was lonely. If I missed my mate so much…” She waved her hand and a second Loki appeared from thin air, though slightly see-through.

“She does not require the company of others.”

All gathered, Loki included, were startled by the ability of the imposter version of the prince to speak exactly as he did.

“I can also do versions of others and I have been able to use my seidr to speak with my mother personally, so try another excuse, I dare you,” Ella snarled.

Kristoff, stunned into silence, said nothing more.

Ella walked forward towards him. Though she was considerably shorter than the Jotunn, she stood tall while he shrunk back slightly. “Why say these lies?”

“I did not li…”

She caused a fiery blade to shoot from her arm as she had before. “Why say these lies?” She repeated, louder than previous.

“Jotunheim deserves…”

“You attempt to upset my house and dare state Jotunheim deserves different?” Laufey growled rising, though feebly from his throne. “I decide what is best for this realm, not you. I have done everything possible to keep the peace since the war and to allow us to prosper once more, as has my son’s mate. She is nothing short of dedicated to us and our realm and shows it time and again. We have just warred and she has personally guaranteed a food supply for us should we have required it.”

“We don’t need those filthy Aesir or their food.” Kristoff spat before glaring hatefully at Ella. “Nor do we need that brutes spawn here, threatening to ruin an already diluted bloodline.”

Loki took a step forward at that, his anger rising at the manner in which Kristoff insulted him, his mate, his father and mother in one comment. “You…” He paused as Ella lifted her hand to stop him, causing him to silence, curious as to the peculiar expression his mate had.

Ella looked to Loki and gave an apologetic smile. “I tried to tell you last night, but you were too tired, you did not hear me or you did not comprehend my words at least.” She turned to Kristoff again. “You mock Loki’s breeding when his character far surpasses your own. You mock my birth family and the family I am gifted as his mate. And you mock any children I would give him. You think you need to be of full Jotnar blood to be worthy of recognition? You are not half the Jotunn my mate is with double the Jotnar lineage. If you loath my mate for his blood, what do you say now?” She used her seidr to alter her dress, choosing a design that showed her abdomen, specifically the rounding it now had due to the child developing in it. “In eight months, I will birth Loki’s heir and you will simply have to deal with that.” She smirked at the disgusted face of the Jotunn who eyed the still ablaze weapon in her hand, seeing him consider his options. She then walked over to the female Jotunn who had started the rumour. “I would suggest the next pairing you try to damage, you consider your actions more carefully. You do not have the wit to do so to those with more intellect than that of a gnat. Loki leaving his interest of angrboda temporarily to toy with you does not equate caring for you. He did not then and he does not now, or can you not take a hint, even a century and a half later?” The female’s gaze fell. “Now that I have had to deal with trying to quell a filthy lie rather than reattempt to find a pleasant way of telling my mate of his impending fatherhood, I am going to leave the court to deal with real matters again. Any who wish to discuss this further should do so in their own time.” She walked out of the room with a similar air as to how she entered using her seidr to repair the doors with fresh ice as she did so.

Loki stood in startled shock trying to process what she had just revealed, from her ability to copy him to her admission that she had been carrying a child.

[aquariusrunes]

The Superfriends AU (part 9)

The flashes were blinding and the large lights heated the room like a sauna. His palms were moist with sweat as he reached up and pulled at his collar. Colin had not been this nervous this morning. And Damian of course, said he had nothing to be nervous about when he had started to feel anxious. But he did. He’d obviously been too tired to properly panic when Violet dropped off the outfit he was currently wearing, this morning.

It had started when he unzipped the black garment bag. The intricate details embroidered on the expensive fabric immediately caught his eye and sent up the most alarming red flags. He’d never worn anything so expensive. Not even the suits Mr. Wayne had gotten tailored to his form for the handful of galas Damian had taken him to, cost as much as his current outfit. 

The next anxiety laced arrow to hit him was when Damian had pointed out that Colin and Edna had yet to hold a real conversation. Their interactions with one another had completely ceased after his boyfriend’s introductions were finished. 

And then there was Edna’s ability to influence Damian. She was one of the few members of his family he let himself be pushed around by. He willingly did her bidding as well as valued her opinion. And Colin had thought making sure Marinette had a good opinion of him was important, only to find out that Edna’s had more weight. 

Now he stood sandwiched between the small woman who essentially invented fashion and one of the richest men in the world. Bruce had pated Colin on the shoulder when he first walked up to the two, a silent reassurance to the obviously panicked boy. The intimidating man now stood straight, shoulders squared with his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes were not on his son, who was currently up on a platform surrounded by fake trees, instead his dark eyes had a strange shadow cast over them, reminding Colin of the man’s alter ego. He was carefully surveying the room, analyzing everyone who fell under his intense gaze. 

On Colin’s right stood his boyfriend’s great aunt, her stance near identical to her nephew's. Her eyes were trained on Damian, unlike the boy’s father whose gaze was roaming the room. However, her glare was no less intimidating or fear inducing. Though, Colin couldn’t exactly blame the woman for her current enraged expression. 

His eyes went back to his boyfriend, Damian was dressed in a top that resembled a toga, the one strap tank consisting of billowy semi-sheer fabric, tucked into slim dark grey pants, that Edna had whispered to him were a cigarette style. He also wore a well fitted silver blazer, the material of which was lighter than the pants. His face covered in metallic silver and soft brown makeup, he was too far to really see the details the makeup artist had done, but he could see an intricately drawn crescent moon done in silver eyeliner on Damian’s right cheek, as well as the matte midnight blue lipstick. 

His hair had been wetted and dried a number of times before it was curled to Edna’s satisfaction. Now every time there was a pause in the camera’s flashes, a tall blonde woman would step up onto the platform and use a spray bottle to dampen Damian’s hair and then restyle it. Every time she tried to touch him though, he would aggressively react both physically and verbally. Colin had picked up on a few older female oriented insults, his boyfriend had a knack for talking like he just time traveled from Victorian London. The darker skinned boy eventually resorted to batting the bottle out of the woman’s grip as well as slapping her hands away. 

Beyond the problems he was having with the stylist, Damian was also getting difficult with the photographer. Not necessarily on purpose, but Edna was still less than pleased. 

Damian was a very handsome boy, not exactly what one would consider classically handsome, but his features were undeniably attractive. His naturally neutral expression was extremely attractive, and gave off an air of aloofness and mystery that most girls their age found irresistible. But very few people were aware of just how stunning the boy’s smile could be. Not the fake polite one he showed interviewers or those he couldn't be bothered with but had to interact with often enough to the point that forced him to be courteous. His real smile was absolutely breathtaking. 

The photographer had been trying to get that breathtaking expression for about ten minutes. Colin could see how the man was grating on his boyfriend's nerves. Edna and the photographer were becoming increasingly frustrated as well, which was totally understandable in the redhead's mind. But he was sure that if either of them snapped at Damian the boy would storm out in a frustrated huff. 

Poor Angel, he really was trying. He just had difficulty relaxing to the point where his natural smile could be displayed. He carried far too much tension around for sixteen year old, even with all his extracurriculars. 

Colin watched the blonde woman fight against Damian once again, his bangs had fallen into his eyes and she needed to correct them. His boyfriend’s palm raised, slapping the purple spray bottle out of her hand, it bounced off the platform and rolled towards Colin, Edna, and Mr. Wayne. 

It caused Bruce to let a low chuckle break from his lips, which took Colin far too much by surprise. He’d actually forgotten that his boyfriend’s father had been standing there. The wealthy man looked down at his Aunt’s unamused expression. “I did warn you about working with him.”  

“Yes.” She grumbled. “Forgive me for having faith that a sixteen year old could stand not to act like a child for thirty minutes or so.” Her arms crossed tightly over her body. “Honestly, why are your boys always so difficult?” 

“They aren’t difficult,” Bruce defended. “Just...different.” 

Edna rolled her eyes at the man.

“Different, sure.” She huffed. “Luckily, I planned for Damian’s ‘differentness’ and have a solution at the ready.”

Bruce cocked his eyebrow, giving his aunt a questioning look. She smiled up at him before her gaze lowered to Colin, the boy’s face coated in just as much confusion as Bruce’s. “Colin dahling.” The woman walked forwards several steps, leaning down and picking up the purple bottle. “Come here please.” She motioned at him with a curl of her fingers and he was quick to follow her, doing as told like a little soldier. 

“Yes ms-” He stopped himself. “Edna.” He finally said. 

She smiled, patting his hand. “Colin could you be a dear and go help Damian with his hair?” The ginger tilted his head, looking back at the blonde woman as she stomped off the platform. Another series of flashes fired, as Damian positioned himself in whatever way the photographer told him to. 

“His hair?” Colin asked. “I think it looks fine.” Truthfully he did. He wished Damian would wear it curly more often, but knew how unprofessional his boyfriend felt when he did. 

“Could you just go push his bangs back and use the spray bottle to help his hair curl a little more. Please dahling, it would be a big help.” Edna held the bottle out to Colin.

“Um…” Colin looked back at Damian as another flash went off. “I guess?” He questioned. “Right now?”

His hands slowly took the purple bottle. “No no, in just a moment, when I walk over to look at the shots we have so far.” 

“Yes ma’am.” Colin turned from the woman, facing Damian’s platform. His perplexed look melting away and being replaced with a smile as he saw Damian push his own bangs back, only for them to fall back into his eyes without the assistance of his ever precious hair gel. 

He only had to wait a moment before Edna patted him on the shoulder before swaggering over to the photographer. Colin was quick to hop up onto the platform and over to his boyfriend, who looked less than pleased. His face was set in a scowl and his arms were tightly crossed. The closer Colin got though the more of the makeup he could make out. Damian’s eyes were traced in metallic off white eyeliner, the shade only varying slightly from the moon drawn on his cheek, and a range of soft browns were used for his eyeshadow. The color pellet suited him extremely well. 

“You know,” He began, getting Damian’s attention. “You’re making this way more difficult than it has to be.” 

Damian didn’t respond, he just rolled his eyes, directing his gaze elsewhere. 

“It’d all go a lot quicker if you cooperated. It’d also be less painful too.” Once Colin was properly in front of his boyfriend he took note of the glitter highlighting his cheekbones, as well as a chain earrings that had been hooked onto his right ear, and a thick silver choker that resembled something out of the greek myths themselves around Damian’s neck. 

Damian gave Colin a rather dry unamused look. “If that woman would stop touching me, everyone would be in less pain.” 

“Dames,” Colin breathed. “She’s a stylist, it’s literally her job to touch you.” He rested his free hand on his hip. “She is getting paid to come up here and make sure that you continually look perfect throughout this shoot.” 

The boy only huffed turning his head away once again.

“Your aunt is getting a little frustrated with you as well.” Colin’s gaze drifted across the room towards the woman. She was sitting in front of a computer with the tall balding photographer, neither seemed happy with the shots they had so far. Edna’s eyes slowly traveled up, locking onto Colin’s. It nearly gave him a heart attack. 

He turned his attention back to his boyfriend. “I’m gonna spray you with this,” He held up the bottle. “And mess with your hair.” Damian’s eyebrow quirked up. “If you slap my hand, I will punch you in the face.” 

Damian’s shoulders visibly tensed when the mist fell over him, but he relaxed once Colin moved to brush his bangs back. While a little less tense, the boy still stood incredibly still, almost like a statue. Colin’s hands moved quickly, doing his best to mimic how the first hair stylist had shaped Damian’s hair before the shoot had started. It didn’t look perfect but it looked better than it did when his bangs were hanging in his face. In fact, once Colin was done it started looking more messy, resembling the boy’s rare bedhead after a sleepless night. But it looked good, at least in Colin’s opinion.

He couldn’t stop his laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He snickered, running his fingers through Damian’s curls, repositioning them. “You should really consider wearing it curly more often.” He whispered.

“Absolutely not.” Damian was quick to refuse, but couldn’t stop the corner of his lips from quirking up. “Why are you up here anyway?” He asked.

Colin smirked as he continued his work. “Board of me already babe?” 

Damian rolled his eyes, gaze dropped to the ground as he willed his blush to fade. He wasn’t great with nicknames, not when Colin used them. Shortenings of his name was fine, but it always got to him when more traditional pet names were used by his boyfriend. “No.” He muttered. “Just curious, after all Edna was rather clear about you and Jon not interfering while I work.”

“Your aunt asked me to come fix your hair.” Colin shrugged. “Probably because she knew you wouldn’t be near as cranky with me.” 

“I am not being cranky.” The boy bit back, earning an unamused look from his freckled boyfriend. 

“Dames.” 

“I don’t like people touching me Colin, she knew this when she asked me to be her model.” Colin rolled his eyes, hands moving out of his boyfriend’s hair.

“Yeah, but you're also very mature for your age and should be able to suck it up for thirty minutes or so.” Colin crossed his arms. “Seriously Dames, this isn’t like a crowd of Wayne Ward Fangirls trying to grope you on the street. That woman is trying to do her job and by you being cranky, it’s making everything run very inefficient.” 

“Are you implying I’m a bad model?”

“Course not.” The redhead sighed. “I’m implying that you’re acting like a child and it’s not cute.” He gave a small smile. “But other than your attitude, you’re doing a very good job.” Colin leaned forward and peck Damian’s cheek, the one not coated in eyeliner. “Just smile a little more.” 

Colin turned, hopping off the platform, and turning back to watch once he was far enough to not be in the shot. He flashed the mixed race boy a blinding smile once he was out of the way and gave him a thumbs up. Damian returned the gesture with a soft smile, not noticing the flashes of the camera as he watched his boyfriend who, after a few minutes, started to make utterly ridiculous faces. 

Edna and Bruce watched from their previous spot. Positions the same, backs straight, shoulders square, hands clasped behind them. Edna’s face cracked into a self satisfied smirk. Bruce’s eyes watching the scene before him critically. 

“So that’s why Colin’s here.” He finally said.

“Fail safes are important dahling.”

“What would you have done if Damian hadn’t brought him along?” 

“Please,” Edna looked up at her nephew. “Who do you think gave him the idea to invite the boy?”

… 

Marinette watched her cousin and his boyfriend retreat down the hallway, Colin’s arms wound around one of Damian’s. The boy had mentioned in the elevator that he needed to go feed Titus and would be down in the cafeteria once he was finished. Colin quickly volunteered to go with him. Marinette assumed it was because of how moody Damian had gotten towards the end of the photoshoot. She could practically see the negative energy radiating off the boy. Jon and Chloé, who had also been in the elevator went straight to the Mode cafeteria. Marinette and Adrien had gotten off on the floor with all of their rooms like Colin and Damian. Marinette making the excuse that she needed to call her mom and Adrien saying he forgot something in his room. 

Once she saw her cousin’s form round the corner of the hall she turned back around to look and see if Adrien had gone into his room yet or not. The door with a large number seven on it was firmly close, the blonde nowhere in sight. She turned back to her own door, took in a large breath to steal her nerves, then turned the knob and walked into the suite.

The room was large with a queen sized bed against a wall of floor to ceiling windows, the sheer black curtains were drawn currently. There was a fireplace in her room on the opposite wall, the one that her door was on. It was an electrical insert and so didn’t require a chimney. There was a flat screen tv above it and two red chairs in front of it. A silver rack was against the mainly empty wall, holding her mass of black garment bags. The west wall was mainly taken up by a large dresser vanity combo, which her accessory trunk was currently in front of. 

Her room had been mostly left undisturbed since she first arrived, save for the bed, which she had messily made that morning. Mostly everything in the room was well organized, especially her garments and accessories to make things a little less stressful for her during the hectic week. 

The large white comforter of her bed was wrinkled and had been pulled towards the center of the mattress, creating something that resembled a nest. In front of the mass of blankets, propped up on a couple of pillows was her tablet. Her nerves were on fire, but she still managed a smile when the head of her kawami popped up from behind the piece of technology. The small creature was quick to pause whatever video she had been watching, most likely a telenovela she had found on one of the streaming services Marinette’s family subscribed too. The girl had discovered relatively soon after becoming the wielder of the ladybug miraculous that the creature had a bit of an addiction to the television genre. 

“Marinette!” Tikki beamed, flying up to her holder. “How is the photoshoot going?”

“Well…” Her smile tightened. “Well.” She reiterated. “I think it’s going well. Aunt E is unbelievably specific.” Marinette’s hands clutched the fabric of her sweatpants before releasing it, she repeated this process a few times. “She made some intern repaint a handful of leaves on a fake tree because it wasn't mossy enough. She also made a girl cry this morning, sooo we’ve been off to an interesting start.” 

“Did you have to take your earrings off?” The tiny god asked, eyes large, searching her wielder’s face. She didn’t sound angry, necessarily, but Marinette knew she would be if she lied. 

The bluenette bit down on her lower lip, gaze fluttering down to the floor. “Yes.” She said, voice laced with a heavy sigh. “But only for thirty minutes or so.” 

“Marinette...” The kawami sighed. 

“Edna was insistent I wear her earrings!” The girl quickly defended. “I tried Tikki, I really did but she was so-so...insistent.” 

The small god stared at her obviously anxious choice. “That was very dangerous Marinette.” Her voice was still very gentle in nature.

“I know.” Marinette kept her eyes on her feet. “And I’m sorry, really sorry.” 

Tikki was quiet for a long moment before letting out a large breath, flying a little closer to the girl. “You’ll have to have them off again for the rest of the shoot, won’t you?”

“Again, I am so sorry.” 

“Marinette, having the earrings off is very dangerous.” Tikki reiterated. “Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

“Of course I do.” Marinette scrunched her hands into her sweatpants again. “But I did think up a plan!” She added quickly. “Since I have to take them off again, I’m going to hide them here in my room. That way you can watch over them and they aren’t floating around in a room full of strangers.” 

Tikki floated back down onto the bed. “I suppose that would be the best option. Do you know where you’ll hi-” A very solid knock came from her door, just two taps, but Marinette already knew who would be behind it. She walked to the door, then turned about to tell Tikki she wouldn’t need to hide, but the god had already vanished. 

She opened the door, revealing one Adrien Agreste, a sheepish smile on his face. “Is yours half as mad as mine?” He asked as Marinette stepped aside, letting him into the room before shutting the door behind him. 

“I’d say more disappointed, but I haven’t told her everything yet.” 

Adrien winced at her words. “I can come back later once you have.” He offered, to which Marinette gave him a look. 

“Definitely not.” 

“Damn.” 

“What happened to pretending it didn’t happen?” Suddenly Tikki was floating in the middle of the room again. “Acting like you didn’t know?! Not discussing it directly!?” The Kawami huffed. “Marinette there are only so many loopholes we can go through before you blatantly just break the rules!” 

“I’m sorry!” Marinette whined. “But I didn’t know what to do!” She took several steps forward. “Edna made me take off my earrings and I had to give them to someone! I couldn’t just set them down somewhere and risk them getting stolen or falling on the floor or something! And yes, Edna offered to hold them or suggested I let Uncle Bruce do it but, full disclosure I don’t know if I trust either of them with a miraculous. Like Uncle Bruce is very curious and I just couldn’t risk it!” Both Adrien and Tikki were becoming mildly concerned with how red the girl was getting, her speech increasing in speed with every shade her face deepened in color. “And Edna well I just don’t think I could ever in good conscience hand the earrings over to her! I mean yes she knows but she doesn’t understand. And in the moment, I mean you have to agree that under those circumstances Adrien was the best option since we weren’t taking photos together. But we’ll have to after lunch so I told him I had a plan and so I’m going to hide our mirac-” 

“PIGTAILS!” Marinette physically jumped back, colliding with the dresser. A small black cat like creature floating before her. “Take a breath girl.” He said. “Seriously, you’re going to pass out.” The creature turned his head towards Tikki. “Does she do this a lot?” 

“It’s not a common occurrence, but it isn’t necessarily uncommon.” The red god replied. 

“Good grief.” The black creature mumbled. “Look Pigtails, we aren’t mad. Under the circumstances, you did the best you could. Sometimes unpredictable stuff like this happens. I’m honestly surprised the kid’s pops hasn’t made him take the ring off during a photoshoot yet.”

“Marinette,” Adrien finally spoke. “You remember Plagg, right?” 

The girl’s eyes were still wide, her heart rate still slowing form the shock that had just pulsed through her body. “Y-yeah. I remember him.” 

“The two of you being aware of one another’s identities and interacting with each others miraculouses as civilians, it complicates things and if the past is anything to go by, makes things exceedingly more difficult. It’s why we find it better to keep personal things a secret. But I’m sure the guardian's already talked you through all of this stuff.”  

Marinette nodded her head, taking a step forward. 

“But,” Plagg let a breath out. “This is where we are now. And what’s most important is that the miraculouses are safe while the two of you can’t wear them. So, where’s this genius hiding spot of yours?” 

“I-I’ll get it.” She mumbled, quickly darting across the room to where her portable sewing kit was. 

Adrien and Tikki both kept their eyes locked on Plagg.

“That was surprisingly very insightful Plagg.” Tikki said, flying up to her partner. 

“I can be smart!” He retorted. “I understand the importance of our miraculouses! I don’t just think about Cheese.” 

“You just mainly think about it.” Adrien responded, pulling the tin of camembert out of his pocket and setting it down on the dresser. 

“Well yeah.”  

“Okay.” The three’s attention was directed towards Marinette as she sat down on the end of her bed, setting her now open sewing kit in her lap. Held tightly in her hands was a handmade Chat Noir doll. 

“What is that?” Plagg asked. 

“This,” Marinette held it up. “Is what I’m going to hide the miraculouses in.” She smiled, grabbing the small scissors out of her portable kit she flipped the doll on it’s side, looking for the seam before moving to cut it open.

“I-” Adrien’s head tilted. “I’m so confus-is that the doll Manon stole when she got akumatized?” 

Marinette looked up at him, the doll’s side already open. “Yeah.” She blinked before digger her fingers into the doll to pull out some of the stuffing. “I didn’t really know what to do with them afterwards. I couldn’t just throw them away, so I put them all in a trunk. I let her play with them whenever I babysit. Well, Ladybug and Chat Noir don’t live in the trunk. They’re usually either on my desk or the shelf above my bed.”

Plagg had flown over and was now hovering above Marinette’s shoulder, Tikki sitting on her other one. “You’re going to put them inside of it?” The small black creature asked. 

“Yup.” 

“I have never seen either of those dolls in your room.” Adrien said, sitting down on the arm of one of the red chairs.

“That’s because I hide them when you come over.” She glanced up at him. “Last thing I needed was a nosy kitty teasing me about my dolls.” 

“I am not nosy.” 

“Adrien whenever Chat Noir is in my room about seventy-five percent of what he does is rummaged through my things.” She shot him a pointed look. 

“I’m curious.” 

“Your nosy.” The girl set the doll down in her lap on top of her sewing kit, she then reached up and carefully pulled out her earrings. She let out a sigh, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders as she slipped the jewelry inside the doll. 

She then looked up at Adrien expectantly. 

He stared at her for a long moment with blank eyes, blinking rapidly before finally asking. “Why’d you bring the Chat doll with you?” 

Marinette’s cheeks tinted pink as she looked back down at the doll, she put some of the stuffing back in, that way the two miraculouses would be seperated. “I have my reasons.” She whispered. 

“Sometimes when she’s trying to think things out she’ll talk to it.” Tikki supplied from Marinette’s shoulder. “The whole identity thing has been on her mind a lot lately so she’s been talking to him quite a bit.” 

Marinette’s face grew more red as Plagg laughed. “That’s hilarious!” The creature cackled. “This one just confesses his undying love to the poster he has on the backside of his closet door.” 

“Okay!” Adrien stood quickly, slipping his ring off his finger and placing it in Marinette’s waiting palm. “Let’s just hurry up and go get lunch.” He turned away from her quickly, trying to hide his own blush behind his hand. 

Marinette silently slipped it into the doll, then replaced the rest of the stuffing. She was quick to thread a needle with some black thread then set to work repairing the doll. 

Both Kawami’s watched the girl closely. “This is actually a pretty sound idea pigtails.” Plagg muttered. “Unless of course someone obsessed with dolls get akumatized. But Hawkmoth should be out of range so, we should be fine.” 

Marinette hummed in agreement as she finished her stitch. “Good as new.” She whispered, twisting to set the doll in the middle of the small nest Tikki had made. 

“Should we be worried that there aren’t any heroes in Paris right now?” The god of creation asked, unknowingly inciting panic in her chosen. 

“Oh my god.” Marinette’s eyes widened. 

“I didn’t have a lot of time before I left,” Adrien turned. “But I was able to get a message to Master Fu with Plagg’s help. So he knows we’re both gone.” Adrien stuck his hands into his pockets. 

“If there’s trouble, then he’ll probably just call on one of the random holders you’ve been using every now and again.” Plagg added. “But I doubt Hawkmoth will try anything, and if he did, he'd probably call the akuma back once you two didn’t show.” 

“That’s true.” Tikki whispered. “Not much use terrorizing Paris when the objects your after aren’t even there. Still though, now that you two are aware of one another’s identities, I implore you to avoid being out of the city at the same time in the future. Just in case.” 

“Well it’s not like I planned on leaving.” Adrien said. “I found out like barely an hour before I boarded the plane to come here.” 

“Just a tip for the future.” Tikki added. 

“Are we watching Yo soy Betty, la fea?” The three looked back at the nest where Plagg had obviously made himself comfortable. “I love that show!” He looked up at Tikki excitedly. “Where are we right now?” He asked. 

The Kawami sighed. “He’s staying here then?” She asked, looking between the two humans. 

“We figured you’d both want to stay close to your miraculouses.” Marinette explained. 

“And we also thought that since you two hadn't seen one another in awhile, you’d want to hang out and catch up.” He smiled sheepishly. “Do you mind?” 

Tikki let out a small huff and rolled her eyes at the excited kitten rolling around in her nest. “I suppose not.” She slowly flew down and situated herself next to him. “But no cheese in my nest.” 

“Ahh! Tikki! That’s not fair!” 

…

It was so strange. Chloé Bourgeois, one of the most difficult and least liked people on the planet, a self given title, had only made two friends throughout her entire life. The first was Adrien, the two had known one another practically since they were in the womb. Literally. Emilie was pregnant on her wedding day, not that anyone save for maybe four people alive knew that, and Chloé was conceived after the reception. They’d always been pushed together, the girl’s mother lobbying hard for a relationship to bloom between the two. But Adrien was her oldest and dearest friend.

Sabrina was her second friend. She’d met her when she was ten. Chloé had made a girl at the park cry. The way Sabrina stared at her, eyes wide, drinking in the scene and raw emotions of anger and sadness radiating off the other two was one of the creepiest things Chloé has ever seen. So of course, she had yelled at Sabrina, she didn’t like the way she was being ogled at. The next day Sabrina had transferred into Chloé’s class. The ginger latched onto her, becoming a constant companion. Until Chloé tried to be better, then Sabrina moved on to Lila. 

Yet, in under twenty-four hours Jon Kent had proclaimed himself her new best friend. She’d opened up to him more than anyone else she’d ever known, even her therapist of three years didn’t know as much about Chloé as this random boy from Kansas now did. And everytime she said something bad about herself he would correct her. Everytime she said something bad about someone else, he forced her to list three things she liked about them. She’d never known anyone like him. The strange spell he had over her was so confusing. She honestly had no idea how they had gotten here in such a short period of time. But she didn’t hate it.

She sat across from him at one of the circular tables in the Mode cafeteria, now dressed in her sweats with her hair up in a clip. The metallic makeup still decorating her face. Her lipstick stained the rim of the white mug she sipped her coffee from as she watched the boy across from her animatedly rant. 

“Seriously though!” Jon banged his fist against the table, making both of their trays of food shake. He had been ranting about flannel the whole time they’d been in line. At this point, Chloé didn’t think anything was going to get him to stop.

“Plenty of high end designers resent the material, it’s got a stench of the midwest and middle class reeking off of it.” She sat her cup down. “My mother finds it personally offensive. She’d probably disown me if she ever saw me in it.” 

Jon stared at her for a long moment, eyes wide and blank before he finally spoke. “I’m going to buy you so much flanel, what’s your favourite colors?”

“Gold, yellow, baby blue, and duke blue.” She crossed her arms. “Please God, don’t buy me anything. Especially flanel.” 

“I’m gonna get you a yellow and blue one.” Chloé let out a large groan as the Kansan beamed at her. 

“Hey Chlo.” She looked up, making eye contact with one Adrien Agreste. His smile radiating that pure sunshine he was famous for. “Hi Jon.” 

“Hey Adrien.” Jon smiled back, sticking a spoonful of chocolate pudding in his mouth. 

“Mind if we join you?” Chloé’s eyes immediately flicked behind the blonde where Marinette Dupain-Cheng stood, partially hidden behind the tall model, tray in her hand.

“Course not!” Jon chimed after a thick swallow. “Got a big table because I figured all six of us would want to sit together.” Adrien walked around the table to sit between Chloé and Jon, while Marinette sat between the two on the other side. 

Chloé quickly noted the lack of earrings on her person. It was strange seeing her without them, she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she saw the girl’s naked lobes. Her eyes then darted to Adrien’s hand, now resting on the table. No ring. 

They must have stashed the jewelry away somewhere safe before coming down. She was more than a little relieved that an anxiety inducing scene like the one this morning would not be repeated. She swore her heart rate quickened every time she saw the two slip their miraculouses into one another’s hands. But the idea of two of the most powerful things on earth being left unguarded somewhere in the Mode building was somewhat unsettling as well. She’d just have to trust in the two’s intuition she supposed. Not much else she could do anyway.

“So, what were the two of you chatting about?” Adrien asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the table as the four began to eat their meals. 

“Oh.” Jon perked up. “I was just talking about how I was gonna buy Chloé a whole bunch of flannels.” He smiled at her cheekily. “Then we can wear them around and match so everyone knows we’re best friends.”

“Definitely not.” Chloé snapped quickly as Adrien began to laugh. 

“I think I would honestly give you one of my kidneys if you got this girl into flannel.” The blonde continued to laugh as he began cutting into what looked like chicken. 

“It’s not the worst material in the world.” Marinette said, voice somewhat quiet. “It’s just hard to work with when your designing for people willing to pay millions.”

“Exactly what I said!” Chloé shouted. 

“You said it smelled like the midwest and middle class.” Jon corrected.

“Yeah,” Chloé crosses her arms. “It’s the smell that makes it difficult to sell to millionaires.”

“I don’t even want to think of what my father would do if he saw me in flannel.” Adrien added before taking a bite of his food.

“Geez, what is with y’all’s parents?” Jon asked. “My dad wouldn’t have the slightest problem with me wearing flannel.”

“Does your dad regularly wear flannel though Jon?” Chloé asked. 

“Well yeah,” the boy stirred his spoon around what remained in his small bowl of pudding. “But my mom kind of hates the fabric. But she doesn’t get mad at me when I wear it!”

“Ah, but you see young one,” Marinette interjected. “Your parents care about you.”

“My father cares!”

“That you look good.” Chloé snorted. “Seriously Adri, it’s okay that your dad doesn’t love you. In fact, I think I’ve been doing much better since I accepted the fact that my mother can’t stand me.” The table went silent, Chloé preoccupied with her coffee didn’t noticed until she had set her cup back down. “What?” She asked, looking around at the concerned faces surrounding her. 

“Chlo…” Adrien reached out for her hand. 

“She cares Chloé.” Marinette whispered. “On some level, all parents care about their kids.” 

“She’s right.” Jon added. “She may not show it but your mother loves you Chloé.” 

The blonde rolled her eyes, pulling her hand away from Adrien’s. “It’s really not that big of a deal anymore. I’ve accepted it and I’ve moved on.” She turned her face away from the group. 

“Chloé-” Marinette was interrupted by a tray being slammed down on the table. They all looked up to see Damian who was pulling a chair up and sitting down between Marinette and Jon. 

“I hate this.” He said, monotone voice laced with rage. 

Colin quietly pulled up a seat, opting to sit between Adrien and Chloé. “Blood pressure dear.” The redhead mentioned, picking up a white mug that fizzed like a soft drink and taking a long sip from it.

“Hate what?” Marinette asked. 

“This.” Damian’s eyes squinted, hands extending. “Did Enda tell you what she did?” He asked. 

Marinette turned forward, fork poking at the pasta on her tray. “I think we’ve already established that Aunt E shared very little of what was happening during this trip with me.” 

“Alexander Galbaki has these fraternal twins in his family.” Damian began to explain, fist clenched around his fork. “I forget their names, it’s like russian or german though. But their our age, a girl and a boy who are never seen not with one another.” 

“I’m betting on a twincest situation.” Colin piped up, setting his cup down. 

“Does that happen in real life?” Jon asked. “I thought it was just a fanfiction thing?” 

Colin shook his head. “We looked up their instagram while Titus ate, they are like all over each other, it’s seriously nauseating.” 

“What do these creeps have to do with Edna?” Chloé asked, leaning forward and resting her chin on her fist. 

“Edna decided to have Marinette and I be her models for this after she found out that Galbaki is releasing a collection the same night as her runway!” Damian threw his hands out in front of him, his face clearly expressing that they should all be understanding his frustration. 

“And the twins are headlining it?” Adrien finally asked. 

“YES!” he screamed. 

“Oh.” Marinette nodded. “She wants us to compete with them.” She nodded a little faster. “That makes sense.” She twirled some pasta on to her fork. “Why is this pissing you off?” 

“She could have told us!” he stabbed his fork into his salad. “Seriously! If I had known I had a target on this trip I would have researched in advance.” He grumbled as he shoved his fork into his mouth. 

“Vanya and Demitri.” Colin sounded, Damian’s phone in his hand. “See it’s gross,” He showed the phone to Chloé, the screen displaying two very pale teenagers with platinum blonde hair. The girl was in a very skimpy white bikini her long hair straightened and reaching her butt, black headband holding back her bangs and a pair of high end sunglasses covering her eyes. She was seated on the lap of another very pale teenager in a pair of black swim trunks. His almost white hair swept back, sunglasses covering his eyes as well. One of his hands was weaved around the girl’s waist, the other resting on her thigh. 

“Okay ew.” Chloé mumbled as Colin shifted to show Adrien the picture. 

“I mean,” The blonde scratched at his head. “Yeah, that doesn’t look great but it’s just one picture-” 

“They are all over each other in pretty much every post.” Colin interjected. “It’s gross.” 

“So stop looking at it.” Marinette stated matter-of-factly. “No one is making you insta stalk them.” 

“We need to do research!” Damian growled. “I need to be ready to take them down at a moments notice.” 

“Dames is just pissy because Demitri is taller than him.” Colin said with a roll of his eyes. 

“He is a freakishly tall human being!” 

Colin leaned over to Chloé. “He used to be like way short when he was little, even though he’s shot up like a weed he’s still got short man syndrome.” He whispered, the girl quickly covered her mouth to stifle her giggle. 

“Speaking of insta stalking.” Chloé said through her breathy laugh. “Have we gotten any more updates on the drama back home?” She asked, question pointed towards Adrien. “Last I heard Lila was telling everyone she was Damian’s secret girlfriend?” 

“Has she upgraded form unrequited love to secret girlfriend?” Marinette asked, eyebrow cocked as she leaned forward on her elbow. 

“Something like that.” Adrien breathed tiredly. “According to Nino the girls have been asking none stop questions and the story just keep growing.”

“Growing how?” Colin asked, eyes narrowing. 

“Well, for one she’s been referring to him exclusively as Dami-Bear.” 

“Wow.” Damian stabbed at his salad again. “I hate that.” he shoved it into his mouth. 

“And she also told a very long and dramatized story about the two of you in Grease last summer.” Adrien glanced to Colin and then Damian before his eyes landed on his tray of food. “Nino didn’t repeat verbatim, but it apparently wasn’t really family friendly.” 

“Oh I’m gonna break her nose.” Chloé jumped when Colin’s fork snapped in half.

“Blood pressure darling.” Damian quipped, receiving only the dirtiest of looks from his boyfriend. 

“It could be worse.” Jon held up his hand, like he was trying to calm Colin from across the table. “She could be posting this stuff online or something, at least it’s contained to their class, right?” 

“I don't know.” Marinette hummed. “She’s got a lot of followers in school, not just our class.” She looked down at her food, brows knitted together. “Dames, you have international coverage, right?” 

“That might just be the dumbest question you’ve ever asked me.” 

The bluenette rolled her eyes. “Can I texted some friends from your phone?” She asked dryly. Damian only shrugged, gesturing across the table to Colin who still had the smartphone. The boy was quick to pass it over. 

UNKNOWN: You arent gonna believe this

New Contact: ??? 

New Contact: who?

UNKNOWN: Its Marinette.

UNKNOWN: dont freak out

UNKNOWN: but Im textng from Damian Wayne’s Phone

Marinette held out the phone, leaning close to Damian and smiled wide. The boy looked up at his phone, camera app open and focusing on him and his cousin. His face remained expressionless but he held up a simple peace sign as she snapped the photo. Marinette then quickly sent it off to the number she was texting. 

UNKNOWN: proof

New Contact: GIRL?!?!?!

New Contact: WTF!?!!?

_______________________________________________________________________

(part 1)  (part 2)  (part 2.5)  (part 3)  (part 4)  (part 5)  (part 6)  (part 7)   (part 8)  (part 9) - Here  (part 10)

Photoshoot Part 2! I don’t know why I thought I could fit this all into one part. Like seriously, what was I thinking? I also miss calculated how long these three sections would be, the next Incredibles Cameo will be in the next part for sure. Writing has been kind of hard this week but my mind has been racing with ideas. So buckle up y’all cause there are now some big plot twists that have wormed their way into my mind and have been embedded in this fic. I’ll be curious to see if anyone can see them coming ;) Thank you all so much for the comments! They always make me smile and get me motivated to write more! As always if you have any questions about the story or AU feel free to ask, I love getting them and will happily answer any question you got! And if you want to be tagged let me know! 

Can y’all guess who Mari is texting?

@graduatedmelon @northernbluetongue​ @violatiger8​ @bamagirl513​ @vixen-uchiha​ @beaversuenightly​ @tumbling-down-hills-and-stuff​ @todaylillypads​ @laurakinneylance​ @vgirl-10123​ @wellcrud-blog-blog​ @silvergold-swirl​ @crazylittlemunchkin​ @an-ahez​ @queencommonsense​ @ladybug-182​ @meganemily231​ @driftingmoonlitpetals​ @kand-roo​ @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry​ @theatreandcomicfreak​ @paradoxal-occurance​ @miraculousl4dybug @thanks-captain-obvious​ @sassydepression​ @multishipper1needshalp @wegan97​ @surprisebishhhhhhhhh  @redscarlet95 @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @synnesstra @fandomkitty8 @tired-yeetling @saluteswifties @kanamexzeroyaoifangirl @dast218 @naclychilli @royalchaoticfangirl @panda3506 @nataladriana9 @shreky-boi @my-name-is-michell @dawnwave16

[crowbarstodd]

Course Of Nature (4)

Chapter Summary: *banging pots together* DAMINETTE! DAMINETTE! Word Count: 3,272 Rating: G Paring: DAMINETTE!

Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |

Rena Rogue gagged as soon as she opened an aging door, hands covering her nose and mouth as she took a large step back. “This place stinks!”

Marinette felt inclined to agree with Rena Rogue, nose wrinkling as a foul stench invaded her nostrils, so strong her eyes stung from unshed tears. “You’ll have to get used to it,” Marinette said regretfully, “we’ll be spending some time here.”

Rena moaned, edging inside carefully, nose still pinched between two fingers.

The little off-white townhouse they’d been sent to investigate in Paris’ nineteenth arrondissement was almost charming at first sight. It sat trapped between a high fence marking the end of the street, and a baby-pink, connecting unit with a strip of green at the front only just large enough to fit a few common elder hedges.

The place itself was only slightly overrun by weeds, not enough to appear unseemly, which was probably why it was left alone by most of the unsuspecting neighbours. Marinette herself would have overlooked it completely had it not been for the large mold stain on the bottom right side of the door, and the putrid stench that coated the home. Oh, and the mission sent by Batman and Master Fu.

The inside was drowned in dust and rust, and none of the lights would turn on, so she and Rena resigned themselves to exploring the place with the limited light their torches provided.

“This is literally the worst villain hideout. Unhygienic and unaesthetic is what this place is,” Rena griped, searching through shelves for anything that looked mildly useful.

“There’s no proof this was a hideout. Just that Queen Bee sent a package here about two months ago.”

Rena stopped in her tracks. “Queen Bee? Like, Chloe?”

“No, like the politician.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

Marinette sighed, tilting her head to the sky, eyes shut. “I thought Chat gave you a debrief?”

“Sure, but he didn’t use any names. Just said that another villain sent a package probably for Hawkmoth.”

Wily cat, making her do all the annoying jobs. She’d get him neutered the next time she saw him. “Queen Bee is a corrupt Bialyan leader, part of the light.”

“So not Chloe?”

“Not Chloe,” Marinette confirmed.

“What do we call Chloe then?”

Tired of the conversation, and without any real answers to give, Marinette returned to searching the room for clues. “Call her whatever you want, Rena.”

“Bitch it is!”

“No.”

She zoned out Rena’s following playful whinges, focused on the wooden desk that sat alone in the otherwise empty room connected to the living room that Rena was investigating.

With careful hands she pulled the drawer of the desk open, worrying her lip as her heart pumped with excitement. Where else would one keep a package but their desk?

It was empty.

Disappointed, she shut it closed, only to hear Rena’s resounding shriek.

The living room was a mess of white.

An upturned milk bottle appeared to have fallen from atop the cupboard above the stove. It must have been balancing precariously already, relying on the shut door for stability, and tipping over when Rena pulled the cupboard open.

She stood in the center of the kitchen, an orange lighthouse in a sea of white, utterly drenched, and completely miserable.

In her hands, Marinette spotted something promising.

“Is that a USB?”

“Are you okay Rena? That sucks for you Rena, but don’t worry too much about it,” Rena muttered, peeved.

Marinette scratched the back of her head and let out an awkward laugh. “Sorry. You alright, Rena?”

“I’m drenched in milk, LB. But I found a USB and I managed to keep it dry.”

Marinette cheered under her breath, getting closer to inspect the gadget. It was a simple single-toned grey stick, made by LexCorp. “Only four gigabytes?” She mused aloud, expecting something more monumental.

Rena paid her no mind, wringing her hair over the sink, and yelping when the water that poured out of it was brown in colour. “Ugh, I should have just let Chat take this mission,” Rena grumbled. “Might have even enjoyed the milk.”

Marinette shrugged, a lazy smile painting her face. “I don’t think anyone’d enjoy an unexpected milk-bath, Rena, even silly kitty’s like him.”

Rena shook her leg clean, watching with wry eyes as droplets splashed onto the floor. “You always call him Kitty or Chaton,” Rena commented. “It’s kind of cute.”

If it was Carapace saying it, Marinette wouldn’t have batted an eye, but Rena was sort of pushy, and undeniably not-so-secretly interested in Ladybug’s (love) life. Marinate could see the teasing glint in Rena’s eyes and hear the mischief in her voice, enough to get what she was suggesting.

“Yes I do,” Marinette agreed. “Because we’re partners.”

“You don’t have nicknames for me!”

Marinette raised a brow. “You’re not my partner,” she sung.

Rena pouted, jutting her bottom lip out dramatically enough that for a second, Marinette saw her mask disappear and make way for her best friend who she knew was behind it. She’d never say it aloud, lest it encourage her friend’s more dangerous habits (running headfirst into attacks without a mask or protection) but Alya’s determination and vivacity had always been qualities that Marinette admired. That, and how lush her thick locks always seemed to be.

“What about your new partner then? Lark?”

Marinette snorted. Guess Alya held some second-hand anger on her boyfriend’s behalf after all. “You mean Robin?”

Rena rolled her eyes, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “Yeah sure, Robin.”

“What about him?”

“Well if not Chat, then?” Rena trailed off, but Marinette was sharp enough to know what she’d been suggesting.

Involuntarily, her cheeks burst bright red. Memories of last night that she’d tried so hard to forget — moonlight, a surprising confession, and lips —nope! She shook the thoughts out of her head, bringing her hands to her cheeks in an attempt to cool them down.

“Oh my god! Girl!”

“N-no!” Marinette stuttered out, adamant to explain things before Rena got the complete wrong idea. “It’s not like that! I don’t like Robin! Not even in a friend way!”

“Clearly not in the friend way! Girl, does he know?”

Stupid Robin. Stupid dumb Robin and his stupid dumb lips and their stupid dumb conversation and the terrible, awful, cringe-inducing, stupid-dumb ending to last night! “No! Alya!”

“What happened to no secret identities on the field? I don’t even know yours so you’ve got an advantage there.”

“I don’t think that’s the point, Rena.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “The point is are you gonna tell him?”

“No, there’s nothing romantic happening at all!”

Knowing better than to push when Marinette was sure she looked ready to explode, Rena simply wiggled her brows cheekily and returned to searching for hints. “Okay LB,” she said as she passed, patting Marinette on the shoulders almost patronisingly.

Marinette had to bite her lip to prevent a scream.

Perusing the little unit was much less eventful than either of the two girls expected, and in the end, they found nothing of use apart from the single USB stick that Rena had risked milk-dousing for.

“Literally the worst hour of my life,” Rena commented, inhaling deeply when they finally locked the rotting door behind them. “Never again.”

“You okay to get the USB to Master Fu by yourself?”

“Sure thing Ladybug. You go ahead and get your Z’s, you’ve got patrol tomorrow night as well.”

Marinette moaned at the reminder. Damn, and she was getting excited to make a new dress-shirt too.

—————————————

School the next day was interesting, to say the least. The class was abuzz, all gravitating around Chloe’s desk where she was sat bragging (no surprise there) about some celebrities her dad’s hotel was hosting.

“The Waynes are ridiculously famous and important,” the blonde said, leaning back against her chair as if she didn’t care at all. (She cared very much, and wasn’t as good an actress as she thought she was, Marinette noted.) “Bruce Wayne is like, the most eligible bachelor, and he brought three of his sons with him!”

“Three?” Marinette mumbled under her breath, taking her seat beside Alya. “Why does she say it like he has more?”

“He has five,” Alya supplied helpfully, flashing her a smile in greeting.

Soon enough Alya’s head was down, and her chemistry notes were out, but it was obvious that she was paying more attention to what Chloe was saying than what was on her page, but a tad too prideful to admit to herself that Chloe had anything of particular worth to say.

Chloe’s voice was loud enough that Marinette could join her friend in pretending to overhear, rather than listen to the blonde. “They’re going to be staying at my daddy’s hotel for two weeks,” she boasted.

“Wow Chloe, that’s so cool!” Rose awed. Even from the other side of the room, Marinette could stars forming in her eyes. It was like Prince Ali all over again. “I’d love to meet them! I heard the Wayne foundation helps hundreds of people every year, and that Dick Grayson is nice to everyone!”

She nudged Alya lightly with her elbow. “Dick Grayson?”

“Eldest son, I think.” Was Alya’s simple reply.

Chloe sneered, “someone like him would want nothing to do with you.”

“Well, I’m going to say hi anyway!” Rose replied hotly, learning from last time. Her chest puffed out in pride, leaving her to look like a bright pink penguin, but Marinette was happy for her. It looked like she wasn’t going to let Chloe talk her down anymore.

Chloe opened her mouth, probably to dish out an insult, but straightened as if remembering something important. “Fine,” she said instead. “Do what you want.”

Alya raised a brow and made a face that looked to a cross between impressed and disbelieving.

In a weird way, Marinette felt almost proud. Sure, each awful word out of Chloe’s mouth gave her some sort of vindication (who doesn’t love being right?) that always lead to her feeling guilty, but every time Chloe acted politely, against Marinette’s expectations, she was being influenced by Ladybug. There was something humbling about seeing her impact on the small scale, however minute it was.

“Will you all come with me?” Rose asked, wide eyes directed at the girls of the class.

Don’t look, Marinette urged herself. The moment she looked into Rose’s big Bambi eyes she’d be gone, and however much she loved Rose she needed to go to bed before patrol that night.

“Please?”

“Sure thing, Rose!” Alya agreed. “Marinette and I’d be happy to come.”

Raising her head to refute Alya, Marinette found herself staring right into Rose’s baby blues. Crap. “Yeah Rose, I’d love to come!”

Marinette’s mouth moved faster than her mind, and by the time she’d realised what she had done it was far too late. Rose had already turned to ask Alix.

God, if only Rose was a tablespoon less cute.

(“You’re going to see Dick Grayson? Can I come? I love Dick Grayson!

“Sure, Kim!”)

—————————————

Dick Grayson really was nice to everyone he met, and it didn’t take long for Marinette to understand why all of Paris seemed to swoon over him.

He was charming, had eyes bluer than blue, and a smile that looked so familiar, Marinette could have sworn she’d seen it directed at her before. Really truly, he was great. But all she could focus on was the screaming that was happening somewhere further down the hotel that nobody else seemed to care about.

Marinette inched backwards until she was out of sight, bolting down the nearest corridor, following the sound the best she could.

Tikki peeked out from inside her bag, gazing at her with questioning eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to transform, Marinette? It doesn’t sound very good.”

“I just wanna check first, Tikki. It might not be an attack.”

It wasn’t one. What she’d mistaken for innocent lives threatened by some Akumatised being was, in fact, two boys screaming at each other in the hotel hallway. Or rather, one boy screaming as the other responded, just as heated, but not as loud.

“You will regret this, Drake!” The shorter boy seethed at the other, who stood across from him, clearly unimpressed, back slouched and left hand in his corduroy pants.

The taller one, Drake, raised his hands in apparent frustration. “It’s a room. You’ll just have to settle with sharing with Jason.”

“I had the room with Grayson first. Return it immediately!”

“You sound like a brat.”

The shorter boy huffed, launching a well-aimed kick at the taller boy’s head, which he somehow managed to block, hand still in his pocket. “Your attack will be returned tenfold,” the shorter one announced, leaving ��Drake’ alone at last. Marinette squeaked as he walked in her direction, slipping around the corner as his eyes narrowed.

He didn’t seem to care though, walking out of the hotel without another look back.

Concerned about a potential Akuma victim, she trailed after him.

She felt childish to have been lulled in such an obviously false sense of comfort, but she was genuinely surprised when he disappeared from her sight after exiting the hotel, only to reappear behind her. He had one hand around both her wrists, keeping her from fighting back with her arms.

“What business do you have following me?”

Marinette spluttered, struggling not to let her eyes dart to her bag in concern as she felt Tikki’s concerned shudder. “I was just making sure you were okay!” Marinette insisted. “I just didn’t want you to get akumatised!”

He let go of her wrists, but his eyes were still in slits, and his knees were bent as if ready to bolt at any given chance. “Explain yourself,” he demanded.

He was pretty snooty if Marinette was being honest, but she supposed she’d be paranoid too if someone was following her. “If you get too upset, Hawkmoth will be able to use you to destroy the city,” Marinette explained, omitting some important parts about certain Miraculous’. It was weird he didn’t know any of this yet. “Are you new here or something?”

The boy sniffed in disdain. “My family landed here this morning.”

This morning…

Marinette gave his outfit a quick once-over.

Black skinny jeans; Givenchy, black shoes; Armani, Burberry jacket, and Wayne-Tech watch. Wayne tech phone peeking out from his pocket too… Rose was going to be so jealous.

(His target-brand Nightwing t-shirt confused her, though.)

“You must be a Wayne!” Marinate exclaimed, extending her hand to greet him. “I’m Marinette.”

He looked at her hand with a raised brow.

He didn’t move until her face shifted into a glare. “Damian.”

He was a little rough around the edges, but he was also mad, and she wouldn’t be Ladybug if she left some innocent person alone to be akumatised. “Nice to meet you, Damian. Do you like ice-cream?”

“I’m not fond of sweets.”

“I’ll find something for you.”

She grabbed his wrist, ready to tug him along, when he snatched his hand right out of her grip. “Unhand me!” He bellowed, looking angry again. Marinate wanted to slap a hand on her forehead, feeling idiotic for upsetting him even further.

“I’m not going to do anything weird, I promise. I just want to take you to my family’s bakery, get you some tea or something to calm you down.”

He looked on the verge of protest, but she must have said something right because he deflated soon after. “Some tea would be acceptable.”

They sat across from each other on the table nearest to the front window, seats comfortably cushioned with little round pillows that were decorated with flowers; one of Marinette’s own creations.

The bakery was one of her favourite places in the world. Little personal splashes made the place warm, from the cushions she’d made, the three small tables on the right side of the bakery for inside dining that she’d suggested herself, and the small red stain on the underside of the front counter that she’d created by spilling dye while making red-velvet cupcakes. She and her mom had spent almost an hour trying to remove any traces of it, but that little mark, shaped like a coma, was far more stubborn than either of them.  

He liked rice tea, she learned. Rice tea and plum dacqouise.

Well, he never said he liked plum dacquoise, but he clearly didn't dislike plum dacquoise. Her dad had asked if he’d like anything else with his tea, and when he looked to her for suggestions, there was one thing she couldn’t not recommend.

“I’d like the Marinette,” he’d said, voice frank. Her heart had pounded at how the sentence sounded, but she didn’t correct him or mention it in case it’d embarrass him. He wasn’t a native speaker after all, so it was impressive enough he could maintain a conversation and order all on his own.

“It’s my favourite cake,” she informed him after his first bite. He replied with a ‘hn.’

Easy silence befell them as Damian sipped his tea, looking out the window with slight interest. She was eating his cake, well her cake that he bought, content to sit in silence, appreciating how he simply nodded her way when he caught her, not too miffed at her eating his food. “Did you come here for a holiday?” She asked, striking up a conversation.

He tilted his head to the side, thinking. The bright lights seemed to highlight his jawline perfectly, because Marinette couldn’t stop her eyes from trailing downward. “For business mostly, but I suppose Gra— my brother might consider this a holiday.”

“Must be nice to have so many siblings.”

Damian huffed, folding his arms the way Alya’s younger sisters did when they heard something they didn’t like. “They’re not my siblings.”

“You just said you had a brother though?”

Damian spluttered, mouth moving as he protested mutely, unable to come up with a convincing response. “It’s not fun,” he said instead, replying to her initial comment.

Marinette smiled behind her hands at his petulant behaviour, not yet brave enough, or close enough to him to laugh at him to his face. “I wouldn’t know,” she shrugged. “I’m an only child.”

“I was too, once.” Damian’s eyes had a misty quality to them that Marinette wasn’t sure she wanted to touch on. Instead, she latched on to what felt like the only tangible part of what he said.

“Are you adopted?”

Damian all but hissed, leaning over the table to exclaim his response. “I’m the blood heir! The rest of them were adopted!”

She leaned back into her seat, surprised by his outburst.

Prepared to spend the rest of the hour suffering in heavy silence, Marinette was almost grateful to see a large, thorn breaking through the bakery window, engraving itself deep into the floor.

It shook the building down to its foundations, leaving the counter and the cakes it displayed utterly obliterated. Marinette coughed, inhaling a lungful of dust and debris caused by the projectile, wheezing out a breath. Her heart thrummed as she readied herself for a battle.

“I have to go!” She and Damian said in sync. She let him leave, expecting his worry for his family, and preoccupied with planning how to get to the Akuma.

Marinette let out a quiet “sorry,” as she trapped her parents in the back room, locking the door on them so they would be safe without noticing her absence.

“Tikki, spots on!”

End Notes: hhhhhhhhh so this is actually only half of my original plan for chapter 4 so I guess you can expect chapter five soon. I was so excited for the fight but chapter 4 got so long and I felt that the fight deserved it’s own chapter and I didn’t want too many events in one chapter because it’d feel too cluttered oh man.

But also! Daminette!!!!! 

Classic Bruce gets there secret identities to arrive later than their hero ones to avoid suspicion. We got our first peek at Tim, and a mention of Jason. If anyone’s wondering why Chloe only mentioned three sons,,, Jason’s legally dead so ye theres that. 

Daminette!!! They met!!!!!!!!! For those curious, his acceptance of tea was thanks to his appreciation of Alfred. Daminette!!! 

Things to look forward to next chapter: Akuma fight!!! Addressing the ‘Queen Bee’ situation completely, kind of addressing what happened the night damian stormed of jealous and MORE maridami goodness. (Is it obvious how much I love chapter 5 and how much I wanna get it DONE?

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