#He's not even surprised about it anymore he's just resigned to it and frankly disappointed as well

[yeonban]

Soma's been looking back on his friendship with Tatsuomi ever since the new chapter dropped and just. his entire reaction to it now is a calm 'so that's why you chose Naotora [over me]? to lick each other's wounds because you're both unfit to be bushi leaders?'

[borhap-au]

A hidden motif. 

“Kick harder!” he screamed, snapping me out of my thoughts. I immediately began to push myself further, even though I was already exhausted from the hour-long training. Billy didn’t treat me leniently at all. He demanded a lot from me, honestly, I often felt like I was the only one who was pushed to the limits by him. The rest had it much easier with Billy. Now he held the punching bag, as I was repeatedly kicking it.

“They won’t go easy on you! When you fight, you fight for your life! They won’t care that you’re tired!” he continued, and I stopped myself from kicking him “by accident,” and just continued to kick the bag. I knew where he was coming from and he was right. My exhaustion wouldn’t matter on a mission, nobody would ask me how I felt and if I still had the strength to fight back. They would simply kill me, or imprison me, and since we’re talking about terrorists, I wasn’t sure which option would be worse. But today I had enough. I really only wanted to lay down in bed, in full clothing, and fall asleep. Nothing mattered, not even my empty stomach. I just wanted to close my eyes and drift off, but Billy continued to push.

“You wouldn’t knock a ninety year old grandma over with that kick!” he attacked my technique and honestly, at this point I had enough of him and his denouncing language. Whatever I did was wrong in his view, he never felt satisfied with me and what I was doing. So I stopped kicking, threw the boxing gloves on the mat and just exhaled loudly.

“And I wouldn’t want to! What a monster would want to hurt a grandma? Probably the same who wouldn’t give a girl who barely has the strength to stand on her feet a fucking break!” I shouted in his face and turned around. He quickly grabbed me by my wrist to stop me.

“Leave me alone,” I continued, but this time I wasn’t screaming. I was exhausted and the tone of my voice confirmed it. I felt resigned, mad, and disappointed in myself. I couldn’t understand why I could never, no matter what, meet his standards and expectations.

“I want to go drink some water,” I said and turned my head to look him in the eyes. His face was dangerously close to mine as he looked at me with a firm look on his face. He wanted to say something, probably tell me that the training session isn’t over until he says it’s over, but I didn’t allow him to speak. I didn’t feel like long speeches, I didn’t want to explain myself to him. My message was clear, short and quick.

“Go fuck yourself, Billy,” I said and took my hand away. He wasn’t holding me firmly, he wasn’t trying to hurt me, just wanted to stop me so that he could express his views to my face instead of my back, however, I didn’t allow for it. Not anymore, not today. Today was over, as far as I was concerned, and only my opinion mattered to me.

Billy was so surprised by what he’s heard, he didn’t even answer. I went across the room to the table and took one of the water bottles, then gulped down half of it. He looked at me without saying a word for a solid second.

“Alright, you had your drink, and you’ve thrown your tantrum, now we can get back to the training,” he insisted, but I only smiled ironically, took my things and left the room.

“Goodnight, Billy,” I said on my way out and didn’t stop to listen to what he wanted to say to me. As I promised my body, I went straight to bed, only gathering the little energy I had left to take my clothes off, so I didn’t sleep in my own sweat. I slept for a solid 12 hours after that. I had to get all of my strength back and frankly, sleeping helped a lot. However, I still felt sore, my whole body was screaming for a pill to ease the pain. I barely managed to finish taking a shower. I ate a big breakfast and grabbed a soda. I got out in front of my trailer, sat on an old couch, and just rested.

Meanwhile Billy was confronted by the rest of the team over his harsh methods. They saw me yesterday coming back to the trailer, but none of them dared to disturb me. They knew it wasn’t the first time Billy pushed me to check the limits. This time even he knew he went too far. So he came to me, asked if he could sat down on the couch, and when I refused, still mad from yesterday, he simply sat on the ground in front of me. The view was quite endearing.

“Listen… I wanted to apologize. I know I went too far yesterday… and on a few other occasions. I didn’t mean for you to suffer, I just wanted to make 100% sure that if there’s a need, you will be able to protect yourself. I didn’t want you to ever find yourself in a situation where the opponent is stronger and has more resilience than you,” his voice was surprisingly soft. He sounded sincere.

“I’m already capable of protecting myself well enough. Thank you very much,” I said ironically and still a little mad from yesterday. Every inch of my body reminded me of how he treated me.

“No, you don’t understand. I NEED you to be safe,” his words almost shocked me. I looked at him with disbelief. Did he really mean it, I wondered.

“Why would you want that so badly? You don’t seem to treat any other member of the team so roughly,” I reminded him. I was salty about it and had a good reason for it.

“Because I don’t care for any other member of the team as much as I care about you,” he explained, but I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t say anything.

“Listen…” he continued. “I… really like you. And that one time, when that guy kicked you off the boat… I thought I lost you. I couldn’t bear the thought, so when you survived, I promised myself I’ll make sure you’ll never find yourself in a hopeless situation like that ever again. I can’t allow it, this job is too risky.” I was astonished. Deep down, I actually believed he hated me. He acted as if he did, that’s for sure. But he did it all because he liked me? Because he was afraid I’d die?

“I’d actually prefer if you didn’t fight at all,” he added. “I’d take all the punches for you if you let me.” At this point he sounded crazy. What happened to the Billy I knew? I sighed quietly and made him some space on the couch. He made sure his trousers are clean and sat down with me, thanking me for allowing him to do that.

“What do you want from me, Billy?” I asked, unsure. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore, it was as if everything I knew up until this point just disappeared.

“Just be safe, that’s all,” he answered simply. I looked at him for a while.

“You told me you really like me and you’d take the punches for me and you expect me to just return to everyday life after this?” I asked with a little disbelief, since it was simply impossible.

“Well…” he looked as if he wanted to say more, but he just added: “I don’t know.” It clearly wasn’t enough. I slowly put my head on his shoulder. I was still mad and I was definitely planning to have a long talk about his behavior towards me and how many things needed changing moving forward. However, right now I had no strength, and he apologized for what he did, so I gave him a pass for today. We sat like that for a little longer, and neither of us said a word.

On the next training session, a few days later, when I already started feeling better, he was much more careful and lenient with me. He asked me how I felt several times and made sure I didn’t overwork myself. He gave me directions rather than orders and it really felt like I learnt much more from that approach.

Sometime later, I allowed him to ask me on a date. I never saw him so nervous and excited at the same time. We actually had surprisingly good time, so we had many more. He wasn’t rough or tough with me ever again. He explained in more detail how he only wanted me to be able to protect myself, and didn��t care if I hated him for it as long as I was safe. He was rather clumsy and awkward at times when it came to relationships, but it was rather sweet as well. So we continued dating, became official, and happened to be the best partners on the team, working together since that day on.

“Look out!” I screamed and Billy dodged a guy who I threw out of the boat to the water. He smiled and walked up to me, putting his arm around me.

“That was great. You look hot with all that power in your hands,” he commented with a smirk.

“You’re not going to tell me to go harder?” I asked and smirked as well.

“Not until we’re around other people, no,” he winked at me.

“You guys are disgusting,” we’ve heard One’s comment.

“Thank you,” I chuckled and Billy kissed my lips.

[fenristheorem]

Hi! can i ask you lance with a very motherly s/o? thank you

 You're my first ask! Thank you so much @marytheredqueen!

I was originally planning on posting headcanons in a few days regarding Lance and how growing up as an orphan effected him and his relationships in the long-term, so I'll add in headcanons about how growing up without his mother specifically effected him as well 😊

~Headcanons under the cut because these are long as always~

Growing up without a mother:

Oh boy

This is major ouch factor

Almost too much to explain

I said ‘almost’, not ‘it is’

And bear with me, really, because this is SO LONG

Lance and Valkyon were born in a volcano; hatched from dragon eggs and then lived in a nearby village until the time they decided to leave (based on what Lance said in Origins episode 26). There’s very little detail about the specific events, but it’s known that Lance was able to charm a lot of people at a very young age with his strength and self-confidence. It’s also known that he learned about and practiced his dragon powers beginning at a very young age while Valk never participated. It’s unknown if they told the villagers where they were from, how they were found and if they could even talk when they were taken in, but it seems that the villagers never knew about their heritage

Lance was raised by this village, everyone took part in teaching and caring for him and his brother. They knew everyone, played with all the kids, learned lessons from everyone. It was well known that they were orphans, but nobody thought ‘well, they’re not my kids so I won’t worry about them’. Lance and Valk literally had a village to raise them. They learned a lot of general things because of this, from people working all different types of jobs, so therefore Lance is well-versed (roughly because it’s a distant memory, but it’s still there) in a lot of general aspects of life. He’s pretty self-sufficient.

However, he had a village to raise him, and while everyone took care of him, nobody was his mother figure.

At first Lance wasn’t entirely sure why other kids had a mother and why he didn’t. Were him and his brother abandoned? He found it very endearing, but overall strange, that one specific male and female took care of certain kids when the whole village could raise them all together, like with him and his brother. Over time, he learned social constructs better and began to understand more that his case was a special one.

Lance realized then that he and his brother could have had the same things the other kids had. He could have had an actual home instead of floating between houses, he could have had an actual adult to cook meals for him each night, who would learn his specific tastes over time and treat him as a major priority. He began to learn that he could have had a mature figure to rely on when he felt sad, scared, overwhelmed or lost. Everything that he was providing for Valk, he could have had as well, with someone who had more knowledge about life and their heritage. In a way, Lance felt a bit lost. He had to think of everything when he was growing up, because while he did have the villagers to teach him lots of basics, he never had one specific adult that he could really connect to and ask all his really important questions to.

Lance began to realize what he’d been missing. He watched the interactions between child and mother more, and saw how safe and happy the kids looked, and then realized that he would never feel the safe, warm embrace of a mother who would love him unconditionally and without question.

And then he realized that his relationship with the villagers, while nice, could never truly fulfill his biological need to have a mother

Suddenly he had a painful hole in his chest every day

But he kept moving on, because he had been fine so far without

He was sad and disappointed by the fact that he would never experience having a mother, but he realized that he at least had the villagers to give him the basic skills in life. It wasn’t the same, but it could have been worse.

So he grew more, watched out for Valk and worked hard for every scrap of reward he gained in life. He came from humble beginnings.

But one day he felt a bit different, and by the end of the week he realized he had specific abilities that none of the other villagers seemed to have.

He decided to practice with these abilities, learn how they work, as he must have gained them from his heritage and, therefore, they’re the only part of his parents that he’ll possibly ever know. He kept it a secret, realizing that his powers could be used in many ways, hoping to someday surprise the villagers and defend them in their darkest hours; to show them that something good became of him because they helped him.

And then he learned about what his heritage is

Talking to a village elder, he realized that his powers aligned perfectly with the legendary dragons, so he inquired about what happened to them. Realizing their noble downfall, he learned the first thing about his mother and his people that would stay with him forever. He now aspired to make them proud, even if they weren’t with him.

Lance took to harsh training after that. Staying up late into the night, practicing all that he’s learned about basic life skills, but also alchemy, spells, rituals, and his abilities. He never told anyone his heritage, and he urged Valk to keep it a secret, too; you never know what dangers could lurk around two young, inexperienced dragons if the world knew about their heritage. However, Lance still practiced heavily, and the first time he managed a successful transformation into his dragon form, while messy and very tiring, he felt as thought some part of him was right. He finally felt closer to his family. But the effects of not having a mother would always stick with him

Time passed. Lance and Valkyon found the Guard of El, and Lance found a very comfortable position as Chief of the Obsidian Guard. He was one of the leader’s right-hand-men, nearly indestructible, the greatest warrior in the guard and the protector of the good and innocent. He was proud of himself, Valk was proud for him, he had everything, could have any woman, everyone loved him. It was the village but better, because he could uphold and defend what his family, his people, his mother had sacrificed themselves for.

And then reality hit him hard

He discovered a horrible truth; him and his brother weren’t the last surviving dragons, and the guard was hunting them down

Now beemoov never specifies anything of how Lance found out, why there were surviving dragons when allegedly all of them sacrificed to create Eldarya, etc. but I have a headcanon of my own on how he found out (and frankly his whole past in general). It deviates a bit from canon but at least it’s a nearly full backstory (I’ll write about it if anyone requests it)

So when Lance found out this truth he never felt more grateful that he decided to keep his heritage a secret. And he pressed Valk to keep it a secret even more, in fear that his brother may not take him seriously.

This discovery turned Lance around. Suddenly he was feeling sick to his stomach. He felt blind. Were his people angry at him for defending the people who live within the realm they created? Possibly. After all, they all fought each other. He felt lonely again; and he didn’t have his mother to guide or hold him in this time of fear.

Lance began to realize that he was looking through rose colored glasses. He began to realize that few people acknowledged the dragons’ sacrifice anymore, and instead the point of the guard was to shove their nose in others’ problems, problems that hurt each other after the dragons sacrificed to keep them safe, and the guard seemed to use violence at times as a solution to these already-violent issues.

Ok, I’ve been deviating from the original idea of growing up without a mother, but I promise this is important.

Lance felt disrespected at this realization; for his people, for his parents. How dare they destroy each other when the dragons sacrificed themselves to avoid that?

How dare he help them in that by acting for the guard?

Suddenly his mother’s sacrifice seemed worthless

Suddenly he grew up without a mother for nothing

Suddenly he was no longer noble, like his people, because he was helping to hurt the people the dragons died for

His whole life - screwed up from the beginning and left lonely and scared with so much responsibility - was for absolutely nothing.

He couldn’t stay there anymore, and he couldn’t look at himself anymore

He faked his death, and decided that the crystal had to be dealt with, and so the long, lonely road driven by hurt, loneliness and a desire for revenge began, because certainly the fairies of Eldarya no longer deserved the precious gift of life from the dragons. They did nothing but hurt each other, so why did they deserve it now?

And he wasn’t afraid to die in this quest if it guaranteed his success, because after helping the fairies in their destruction, he didn’t deserve the gift of life from the dragons, his people, his mother, either.

And then it got worse

Instead of succeeding, he took away the last of his family that he had

Suddenly he realized how much the gift of life is worth

Suddenly the hole in his heart, opened first long ago when he realized he would never have a mother, re-opened from the ice that froze it over for his sake

He realizes now, that just because he felt he had a valid point, he ended up worse than the fairies of Eldarya. None of them killed their own family in their own ambitions, none of them sought to destroy Eldarya. They fought to protect their families and people, like him, but they didn’t kill their own family

He resigns, numb from shock that he could ever do such a thing on impulse, and allows himself to be taken prisoner

He asks only one thing - he wants to help bury his brother. Maybe it will provide closure and begin the path to some sort of change from what just happened

No? Well... it’s not like he deserves that honor anyways

The take-away from this whole spiel is that Lance grew up with a tragic past and it all snowballed into a lashing out of anger and disappointment upon realizing one fact, and this could have been very different if he had a mother. He would have had a closer relationship with others, he would have known how to nurture others better, how to possibly work through his emotions better rather than jumping into different situations immediately because he feels a certain way. He missed out on many vital life lessons that he should have learned, but didn’t. And while a village to take care of a child is nearly always beneficial, the child still needs it’s parents. A village is not a substitute for parents, it’s an extra teacher.

Due to this, Lance will always be different from others. He had to be self-sufficient, he had to take care of his brother, he had to be the rock, he had to be curious. It was the only way he could truly assure his and his brother’s survival, because they needed to be prepared in case the villagers decided to make them leave. Why? Who knows, but they didn’t have their parents, so clearly they could always lose everything they have, even when what they have is so little

Overall, I believe Lance is very smart, professional and strives to be better everyday, especially in A New Era, but he’ll never truly grasp the understanding of having close personal relationships. He can hang out with others, have a bit of a laugh, but he’ll never really rely on anyone, he’ll always have a back-up plan, a second way out. In a way, he’s always planning for the possibility that everything could fall apart and be taken from him, even things that he never knew he had or should have, so he’ll always be distanced from everyone. He can play the part of ‘perfect Chief of Obsidian and greatest warrior’, but he will always have a hard time understanding how to maintain a close relationship, because the only person he was ever actually close with was Valkyon, and he’s gone now

Perhaps if he had his mother as a guide, a teacher, a brick house in the storm of life, he would have perceived things differently and things never would have ended up like this

Lance with a very motherly partner:

i proMISE THIS WON’T BE AS LONG AS THE FIRST HEADCANON

Firstly I want to give a quick overview of what I perceive to be a ‘very motherly’ S/O - Being motherly suggests that someone acts upon maternal instincts, and maternal instincts differ from person to person. However, seeing as this ask requests a very motherly S/O, I’m taking a lot of the major aspects about maternal instincts, and what is typically seen in a mother and a motherly S/O, and writing them all within one person. So while there are many motherly partners and people, many of them are motherly in specific ways and are a bit less so in other ways, but again; very motherly S/O = putting as many major points as possible into one person. I originally wanted to write specific traits under their own bullets, but they just merge so much with each other to the point that it’s easier to just describe the general relationship. Hopefully readers who love Lance find a bit of themselves within some of the traits that I provide 😊

Lance didn’t originally intend to get this attached. He enjoyed her company, found it endearing that she worried about him despite his past actions, and found it even more endearing and amusing that she worried about him getting hurt on missions (you know, he’s known as the best warrior in the guard for a reason). However, something about how she treated him struck a chord in him. The villagers he grew up with were never this worried about him... they always just let him do his thing without much bothering. But her... she brought back to surface a deep chasm of mixed emotions that he thought he had forgotten. He realized in time that, while he likes when others depend on him and look up to him, it’s also quite nice for him to have a bit of a break. He begins to notice that he spends so much time trying to provide for others that he forgets to take care of himself sometimes. Suddenly it felt nice to have someone look out for him. He spent so long alone, without his brother and with no one to watch his back, that he realized having a close companion is something that he craves.

And this scares him

He’ll withdraw a bit, try to press the fact that she doesn’t need to worry about him. He’ll be fine, he’ll survive, he’s been through worse, but she won’t have any of it. He’s so used to allowing himself to live only the basics in life that when she begins to tug him into trying to enjoy and appreciate his life a bit more, it startles him a bit. How does he do that? Does he deserve it? He doesn’t really think he does, or can. So he gets a bit irritated every now and again, his personality bristles a bit as he tries to stress that she shouldn’t worry about him. He doesn’t mean to be prickly towards her, but it’s just so hard for him to accept that she wants to offer something the he lived just fine without.

He softens in time, begins to wonder why she wants to offer care to him. He comes to her one night and questions her; her motives, her thoughts, her feelings

She explains that it’s just who she is - she worries - about everyone. She’s a caretaker, she wants to help provide, to help heal, and he doesn’t do a very good job at hiding the fact that he’s in pain...

He softens upon realizing that she’s like this with everyone - it makes sense now - and is then disappointed at the fact that she treats him the same as she treats everyone

Just like the villagers...

It strikes a painful chord in him again, but he’s more comfortable at least understanding her reasoning now... but he notices subtle differences in time...

She seems to check in on him more-often than she does with the others. She tells him to be careful on missions and stresses that she doesn’t want him to get hurt. She worries about every little thing to the point where he needn't bother worrying because she has it covered. When he does get a small wound, or in the rare case he falls ill - but it’s not enough to send him to the Infirmary - she’ll move herself into his room to take care of him. She’ll try to be more included in his life and offer new subjects that she knows more on because she loves to teach him about things and she knows he’s genuinely interested in learning new things

Lance realizes that he truly enjoys all of this - yes even her endless worrying and rants about how she told him to be careful

And when she tries to scold him in a fit of anger because she doesn’t approve of something?

Fucking adorable

He begins to realize that she seems to spend more time with him than with others, seems to worry about him more than she does the others, cares about him more than she does the others

So he asks her another night why she’s so adamant on this - why she feels the need to press all of this onto him instead of giving it to someone who will - almost for sure - be more responsive to this. After all, Lance doesn’t know how to react to this; why does she insist on doing all of this for him when he’ll be fine anyways?

She admits that she enjoys his company, that providing moments of happiness during the day makes her happy as well, and that she admired his sturdiness in the whirlwind of life, but knows it can be tiring, and she enjoys being his safe place when he needs a break

“Well what if I don’t want to be fixed or protected or supported?”

“Then why do you keep letting me care for you like this?”

That stops him

And then he realized; he can find it irritating, annoying, and even overbearing at times, but he really enjoys having someone to care for him in a way that he should have had but never had

“I know you grew up without parents, and without someone to really take care of you, so I understand if my actions seem very strange to you, but this is what it’s like to have someone watch out for you. I worry because I care for you...”

But the look in her eyes, the way she speaks in a soft - affectionate - tone, and how she leans slightly towards him, almost looking ready to take a step towards him but hesitating, all tells him that while she may be a very motherly person, her feelings for him run deeper than just friendship.

‘I worry because I care for you...’ and the more she cares the more she worries

The instant this all dawns on him, he finds one of his hands tangled in her hair, the other wrapped tightly around her small waist to leave as little distance between them as possible, and his lips on hers in a harsh, desperate kiss that reflects all the things he wished he had but never could

Nobody ever offered to care for him like this, nobody ever opened their arms and gave him the opportunity to collapse into them in fatigue, so why should he push this away?

It’s then he realizes that he told himself to control his impulses better. Who’s to say she was alright with moving this quickly?

But she doesn’t push him away - she pulls him closer and lets him take her down onto the bed, and although she allows him to take the lead, they both know that he’s the one basking in her presence

He begins to soften more in time. He begins to realize that instead of being irritated, it’s better to listen to, accept, and diffuse her worries and concerns for him by reminding her that he’s incredibly capable of taking care of himself because he has the knowledge and experience to do so - he’ll do his best to come home safe. And when he’s hurt or ill, he lets her help ease his suffering. She’s forgiving with him, but still needs to scold him and rant every now and again because she needs him to know that she really cares for him. He lets her into his life more, finds places to take her that will spark new conversations and listens intently

And over time, he notices he begins to pick up a few things from her. He tells her to be careful, expresses his worries to her, panics a bit upon finding out she’s in the Infirmary and then steels himself to prepare for the worst as he heads there to do what he can for her (although, unlike her, he doesn’t come bolting through the Infirmary door like a wild Black Dog before asking so many questions that one would wonder if he’s interrogating her). And it comes to the point where one of the two doesn’t need to move into the other’s room for a few nights to care for them; they live together now.

He does this all because he knows better now that that’s what you do when you care for someone

However, as much as he’s gotten used to the fact that his S/O can act very motherly about him - and has come to appreciate that he has someone who cares for him that much - he still hurts occasionally at the fact that he never had a mother. He never had the first caretaker that he should have had

His partner recognizes this once in a while, when it seems like it’s really bothering him again

“Are you ok?” - silence - “You can talk to me, I’ll always be here to listen...” - silence - “You don’t need to talk to me now if you don’t want, I understand, just know that I’ll listen if you need to talk it out.”

His piercing blue gaze meets her kind eyes, a soft glint of a mournful smile on her face. She knows he has moments like these; where he thinks about everything he lost and everything he never had and needs to take a while to mourn it all again. But instead of looking away again, as he used to do...

“I wish I knew her... She seemed so taken by her emotions at times, like me, but somehow she still managed to make the right decisions through it all... I just wish I knew her, had her as a mother...”

Silence

“I know no one could ever take her place, or teach you the full extent of what she could have taught you, but she’s still your mother. She’ll love you no matter what, she’ll encourage you no matter what. She may not be able to tell you, you may not have been raised by your mother, but you’ll always be her son and she will always be your mother.”

She hugs him, offers to make him a cup of hot tea and cuddle on their shared bed, and he doesn’t resist. He misses his mother, wishes he could know what she could have taught him, but as he settles on the bed and watches as his partner shuffles around, he realizes that his S/O is right. He has a mother, who does care for him, who does forgive him (hopefully, he can’t be sure), he just can’t see or talk with her

His S/O returns to his side, hands him the cup and lays against him, her shoulder resting on the headboard behind him as she wraps her arms around him and settles her head at his shoulder. He relaxes against her as she strokes his back, and it occurs to him that while he didn’t know his mother, she must have acted similar to this - caring for him and loving him unconditionally

It occurs to him that his motherly S/O could ease the pain and grief that he carried with him from the beginning, and it’s her natural personality that does so

I don’t think that second headcanon was much shorter than the first one, but hey, this was written with Lance in mind and there’s not really a quick and easy way to explain Lance and his emotions lol.

Have a request? Ask them here!

But first, please read the rules list for asks!

[xo-stardust720]

Swiping Right (Into Love)  - ch 2

Special thanks to @natrogersfics​ and @chalantness​ for editing this chapter!

Dedicated to @aquajules​ because I promised her a new birthday fic (which I started...) but then ended up working on this update and finishing it instead... and then this update ended up being late anyway... What can I say? I'm a human disaster. Happy belated birthday Emilee!

Steve has never been one to really go with the flow.

That isn’t to say that he’s super uptight about everything in general, but when his roommate/best friend comes home with some  exciting news, the tone of Bucky’s voice is enough to cause Steve some anxiety and to be immediately on his guard. There’s a certain amount of glee and exhilaration in the way his friend burst through their front door… and this is Steve’s warning sign that he’s about to be dragged into some sort of mishap that most likely won’t end well for him. It’s not that he doesn’t trust his oldest friend in the world -- there’s no one that he  trusts more than Bucky -- it’s just that, most of the time, trusting Bucky is what gets him into awkward situations in the first place.

(Awkward  was putting it mildly. It was usually a disaster.)

It’s been this way since they were kids. Where Bucky leads, he’s usually along for the ride. On the occasions that his mouth goes running off and gets him into trouble, good-ole Bucky is the one there to bail him out. Literally. He actually ended up in jail once, a fact that his best friend still delightedly brings up as a conversation topic to this day.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for his best friend, he’s pretty sure his life would be quiet. And boring.

It would probably be  really boring.

So when Bucky comes home and throws himself onto the couch next to him announcing, “guess what our plans are for the weekend?” -- his first instincts are to say no.

He goes with his gut.

“No,” he says, not even bothering to look up from the sketch in front of him.

“You don’t even know what we’re going to do yet,” Bucky immediately protests.

“Doesn't matter.”

“Steve, c’mon! At least wait until I tell you what happened to me today before you decide you’re not going. And by the way, you can’t say no. You are an essential component to this plan, and I won’t let you ruin it for me, you punk.”

"Jerk," he automatically replies, but then he's letting out a sigh as he turns to face his friend. "What happened?"

“So I met these two ladies at the bookstore today…”

He groans, already knowing where this conversation is heading. “Buck, tell me you didn’t set up  another  double date.”

His best friend smirks. “You know that I did. Why do you even bother asking?”

“Because sometimes I still have hope that you’ll realize the women you try to set me up with tend to end up disappointed, and that you won’t do it anymore," he says, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, without me, you’d never go anywhere,” Bucky points out. “And I’ll admit, our dates could’ve been better vetted in the past. Sorry about that. They don’t know what they’re missing out on.”

“Did you at least tell her about me? So that I won’t be a shock to the system when she actually sees me for the first time?”

“I said all good things, I swear!”

“Bucky,” he sighs.

“No, seriously. You didn’t see these women, Steve. They were bombshells. We hit the jackpot!”  

Steve lets out another sigh. Bucky is always coming in all enthusiastic about whatever their next adventure is - this is how it's always been. Whatever Bucky's up to, he makes sure that he's never too far behind. Steve and Bucky 'til the end of the line, always, is what his best friend likes to repeat. And he believes him. Even if he never has anything else, he'll always have Bucky in his corner.

He turns back to his sketch, picking up the pencil that he’d abandoned and as he gets back to work, it prompts Bucky to begin telling the story of how his trip to the bookstore had ended up with a plan for the two of them to go on a double date with some strangers. In truth, it didn’t surprise Steve in the least that his friend somehow managed to infiltrate his way into a conversation after admitting to eavesdropping on everything they were saying. Bucky just had that kind of charm. “So, let me get this straight,” he says once his friend is done telling him what’d happened. “You’re setting me up with the girl that literally rejected  you  on Tinder. She actually swiped  left  on  you  -- which by the way, already sounds like a load of bullshit because  no one  ever swipes left on you. And after you showed her my picture, she agreed to be  my date  while her friend goes out with you.” He eyes his best friend doubtfully. “There are giant holes in this story, Buck.”

“But that’s what happened!” Bucky insists. “I had Natasha’s profile up on my Tinder and I’d swiped right and everything. We didn’t match. She really did say no to me!”

It's not as if Steve thinks his best friend is lying to him, per se. But the story sounds almost too good to be true. For most of their lives, Bucky has had very few problems when it comes to attracting members of the opposite sex. Hell, the same could be said for Bucky attracting members of their gender. People look twice whenever he walks past, and once Bucky had joined Tinder? Well, it's become even easier for him to fill a calendar with people to see and get to know.

But the same could not be said for him.

The day he joined Tinder, he did so with all the reluctance in the world and mostly at Bucky’s urging. His friend was having all the success (unsurprising) and wanted him to partake; which he mostly did so that Bucky would leave him alone and give him some peace. Even before he downloaded the app, he knew he wouldn’t have much luck on it, but as Bucky put it, “you never know, right? Some people actually find their future spouses there!”

Well, Steve did know. And as it turned out, he was right.

It started off well-enough at first. There were a few matches and, for a little while, Steve thought he was actually doing okay. Little by little, his hopes were raised and he thought  hey, maybe this new way of dating isn’t so bad. After all, no one wanted to be alone forever, right? It would be nice to have  some kind of companionship and to find the right partner. His profile was getting a few likes and the conversations were comfortable enough that he even went on a few first dates.

But after a couple of weeks, things started coming to a standstill.

The most annoying thing about Tinder though, was the ghosting - when the matches disappeared without any explanation. It's not something that Steve had purposely learned, but he didn't have to be a genius to figure out what was happening. The likes to his profile started dropping off, the conversations became the generic ‘How are you?  I’m fine and how are you doing? I’m good’ before stagnating. If he suggested they go get coffee, they'd stop replying. It was starting to become a pattern that he spotted immediately after the first couple of weeks. Having three separate first dates with three different women, he had a feeling that each woman was only in it for the free meal because they always suggested nice restaurants, but after the dates were over, there was never any follow up for a second date. As a gentleman, he believed that buying a girl dinner first before any romance started was the right thing to do. But realistically, it was starting to put a giant dent in his bank account, and if he started buying every woman dinner on the first date, he’d probably have no savings left.

This, on the other hand, did not seem to be a problem for Bucky, and Steve had resigned himself to accepting that sometimes other people just had all the luck. And looks. Bucky could get away with just about anything when he flashes his smile that seems to melt even butter. Steve lost track of how many coffee dates Bucky has had in the last couple months and it would seem he never had to worry about his bank account balances.

If Tinder has taught Steve anything, it is that most of the people who signed up for it really relied heavily on physical attributes. If you were attractive, you’d have a much better chance of getting a second and third date. And since everyone knows that Tinder is a hookup app, Steve knows he doesn't stand much of a chance there, either. He isn't the exception to the rule and he knows it. He will be forever known as Skinny Steve, the option no one wanted… not when there are other guys around that are taller, better looking, and more muscular. Women always seem to fixate on those particular characteristics and it isn’t like Steve could climb into a chamber and magically come out big and strong. He has what he has, and for the most part, he is alright with it. It doesn’t stop him from wishing from time to time that things could be different and that the world isn’t as shallow and vapid as the app makes it out to be, but alas, he tries not to dwell on it too much.

Bucky has even tried to help him out. He was the camera man behind all of his profile pictures and even helped edit his biography when he felt that what he had written down didn’t have enough “spice” to grab a woman’s attention. Quite frankly, it was exhausting trying to come up with some interesting facts about himself on the off chance that someone  might look past his pictures long enough to read. And even after all the effort Bucky put into changing his profile around, in the end he had decided to change his bio to simply say, “Hi, I’m Steve.” The people he matches with would either want to get to know him, or they’ll move on… it’s out of his hands.

He doesn’t even go on the app much anymore. Why bother when he knows people aren’t really going to swipe right on him? He was rejected enough on a regular basis.

Feeling Bucky’s expectant gaze, Steve tries his best to ignore it and to continue working away at his sketch. His best friend, never one to be ignored though, just pokes him in the shoulder. He was going to be annoying about this, he just knew it. Brushing back a stray hair that fell into his face, he faces his friend and gives him a small smile. “When is this aforementioned date?”

His best friend grins triumphantly. “After you’re done work on Friday, of course.”

“And where are we going?”

“Leave it all to me,” Bucky pats him on the back, gripping his shoulder with support in the way he always does. “I’ll tell the girls to meet us at your shop and we’ll go from there.”

Steve loves Bucky, he does, but Bucky has zero perspective about these things. Steve doesn’t see how this time would be different from any other time but he tries not to let the apprehension show on his face. He makes one last ditch effort to get out of going. “I don’t know, Buck. Look, maybe you should just tell ‘em I got sick or that something came up. Take Sam with you, I’m sure this girl would probably be happier to see Sam in my place.”

“She saw your picture and she said  yes to you! She’s amazing, Steve. Red hair. Green eyes. Literally looks like she could be a model. She might actually be one for all I know… I didn’t really get a chance to find out what she does for a living.”

“Well, at least she’s seen a picture of what I look like and knows what she’s in for. I was getting tired of people looking at me like you sold them some gold and what they actually got was bronze,” Steve sighs as the last of his resistance fades away and resigns himself to going along with Bucky’s plan. “Alright, I’ll go, but only because she was nice enough to say yes and it would be rude if I don’t show up.”

“It’s gonna be a great night, Steve! You’ll see!”

----

Over the next few days, Steve watches as Bucky becomes increasingly more excited about their “hang out” as it was described. Usually his friend would be the picture perfect of calm when it came to first dates, casually shrugging it off as if it was no big deal. The fact that Bucky was flitting around and trying to find the perfect activity for them to do, told Steve that perhaps,  this date  was different. At least, it seems to be different for Bucky.

Friday night, at 5:50pm on the dot, Steve waits with Bucky outside of his shop for the two girls that would be their dates for the evening. “Hey, there they are. The brunette is Wanda and the redhead is Natasha.”

Steve’s gaze immediately lands on the redhead as the two women walk towards them and he feels his heart lurch. This woman is  gorgeous. Her red hair falls in long smooth waves past her shoulders, she wears only a little makeup--dark mascara and a little pink on the lips--but she doesn't need more. Natasha is slightly shorter than her friend, and she’s all curves--Steve apologizes internally for even lingering on that but he wants to draw her because she has the proportions of a work of art. She looks like a movie star, or a model that Bucky had previously claimed she might be.

It makes Steve want to disappear. Perhaps it’s the cowardly way out, but he almost doesn’t want to meet Natasha because he wants to remember her in the moment before they meet, before the dismay sets in and she looks for an excuse to leave once she sets eyes on him. The girls are getting closer and then it’s too late, they’re there in front him and he can’t run away now. He takes a deep breath and steels himself for the disappointed expression girls always seem to have when they see him for the first time.

That expression never comes. Instead, Steve looks up into a friendly smile as the redhead extends her hand out to him. “Hi, I’m Natasha.” There’s no trace of the apprehension or disillusionment that usually accompanies the blind dates that Bucky sets him on. Natasha looks at him with attentiveness, like she’s already found him interesting and couldn’t wait to find out more.  

“Steve Rogers. It’s nice to meet you.” He can’t believe his voice works and that he remembers to take her hand. Her grip is strong and firm as she shakes his hand. Her skin feels soft and her nails are painted a bold shade of emerald green, he notices. She’s so well put together that it seems effortless, like she just woke up that morning and threw on the first thing she found in her closet without even looking. “Thanks for coming.”

“Well, I couldn’t pass up a chance to meet a guy that’s worth more than ten times other men I’ll meet collectively or so Bucky says,” Natasha winks at him. Her tone is flirtatious and he doesn’t know how to react. This is brand new territory for Steve Rogers.

“He said that about me?” Steve asks. He glances over at Bucky only to see that he’s completely wrapped up in Wanda, and he realizes that he’s still holding onto Natasha’s hand and he lets go, hoping that he doesn't come off too gawky and blundering.

Natasha grins as she lets her hand slip from his, and there’s something about her, the sparkle in her eyes and the colour in her cheeks, that has captured his attention so completely.  “He said a lot of nice things,” she reassures him. “Quite a friend you’ve got there, Steve.”

Before Steve could respond, Bucky approaches them. His arm is already around Wanda’s shoulders, looking as comfortable as can be and Steve wishes he could be the kind of guy that could pull off a move like that without looking horribly awkward. Natasha isn’t that much shorter than him and it probably could work if Steve tried, but he doubts it would be as smooth. He takes a moment to study Wanda, and he understands exactly why his best friend is so besotted by her already. Wanda is all smiles, and bubbly, as she extends her own hand to greet him and he finds that he’s immediately charmed by her.

“So, where are we going?” Wanda asks.

“Coney Island,” Bucky replies. “Games, awesome rides, great food - what more could you want on a first date?”

“Oooh! That sounds fun!” Wanda grins.

Steve groans internally and probably didn’t hide his expression well enough because Natasha catches it. “Not a fan of amusement parks?” she asks, looking curious.

“It’s not that,” he replies. “Just remembering what happened the last time I rode the Cyclone.”

“He threw up,” Bucky adds, smiling with glee.

They made small talk as they rode the train to their destination. People look at Steve differently, he notices right away. It’s not just that he’s with someone like Natasha, it’s that she actually seems like she wants to be there, conversing with him in a way that shows a lot of interest and energy and she’s paying no attention to anyone around them. It’s already one of the strangest dates he’s ever been on -- strange in a  good  way -- though what makes it weirder is the way people look at him when they see the company he keeps. It’s no surprise that Natasha turns heads everywhere she goes, she’s so stunning that Steve expects it. What  is  a surprise is that when the men look at her and then look at him, their expressions change -- and Steve can tell they’re wondering how he scored with someone so beautiful. Women tilt their heads, looking him over speculatively in a way that says  what does she see in him  -- and he does his best not to display any discomfort when he notices them staring.

Natasha carries most of the conversation between them and for that Steve is grateful. He’s in uncharted territory here, unable to completely process what is happening as the evening progresses. He has no idea what to say and figures it’s better to keep quiet, rather than risk saying something completely stupid.  He learns that she works in public relations, on special retainer to Tony Stark, New York’s very own famous billionaire and self-proclaimed genius, playboy, and philanthropist. She does a lot of damage control whenever Tony gets caught by the paparazzi doing something inappropriate for one thing or another. It keeps life interesting, she describes, you never know what he’s going to do next and the amount of money she makes is more than enough to compensate for the headaches he causes on a regular basis.

They talk about a variety of topics as they move through the amusement park. For a Friday night, Coney Island wasn’t too terribly busy, but it was crowded enough that they lost Bucky and Wanda part way through the first hour. Steve’s pretty sure that their friends disappeared on purpose and his suspicions were confirmed by Natasha when she shows him the message on her phone.

Wanda:  Let’s meet up later for dessert! That pastry shop in Bensonhurst around 10pm?  

“I’m 99% sure that we aren’t going to see them for the rest of the night, honestly,” Natasha rolls her eyes as she reads over Wanda’s text. She quickly types out  let’s meet up tomorrow instead xx, before putting her phone back into her purse. “So, I’m feeling a little hungry. Want to get some hot dogs?”

Steve blinks. “You mean, you still want to hang out?”

Natasha gives him an odd look before one of understanding crosses her features. There’s a small smile on her face as she nods. “Well yeah… I mean, we’re already here and I was promised a fun night. Did you want to leave?”

“No!” Steve bursts out. “I don’t- I just-- ” He feels his face begins to heat up as he awkwardly tries to figure out how to explain that this whole evening is an anomaly for him. It isn’t the first time Bucky’s “ditched” him on a double date in the hopes that the date would lead to something more. He’s done it once before and it was such a disaster that Bucky swore he wouldn’t do it again unless he was 100% sure Steve’s date wasn’t going to ditch him as well. The fact that Bucky’s essentially left him with a stranger now spoke volumes. And once again, Steve is struck by the realization that Natasha actually wants to spend time with him. He takes a deep breath. “You said you were hungry?”

The only place to get hot dogs, in Steve’s opinion, is at Nathan’s. Anywhere else and it’s just blasphemy. He pays for their food and drinks, despite Natasha’s protests that she could pay for herself (another first for him, he notices), and he lays out his coat on the sand for them to sit on when they decide to eat near the beach. Natasha sits close enough to him that he can feel her body heat radiating off her. She’s practically pressed up against him.  “So, you’re a tattoo artist,” she says, as she takes a bite of her hot dog. “Forgive me for saying so Steve, but you definitely don’t look like a person that would be tattooing people for a living. How did you get into that as a career?”

He laughs because it’s true, he’s not your typical tattoo artist. People often walk into his shop and do a double-take when they see him sitting behind the counter. He’s not big and burly like some tattoo artists, nor does he look intimidating either. “I kind of accidentally fell into it actually,” he shrugs. “I worked at a coffee shop throughout high school, and was always drawing something during my breaks for my portfolio… the plan was to try and save up money for art school. There was this guy, Drax, he was a regular at the coffee shop and he saw one of my drawings one day and offered me money for the design.”

“What was the original career plan?”

“There wasn’t one really…” he finishes up his hot dog and takes a sip of his lemonade. “Art was the one thing I was good at so the plan was to try and make a go of a career, wherever that took me. I’ve done some illustrations for children’s books and some graphic novels. In my spare time, I draw up some art based on popular tv characters or from movies and then make prints of the art to sell at comic cons. It does pretty well whenever I go to an event. Most of my income comes from tattooing though. It’s a pretty steady gig and it pays the bills.”

“Wow,” Natasha grins. “So how did you go from drawing art, to tattooing people’s skin?”

“Well, after Drax bought my first drawing, he came back two days later and asked to see more drawings and bought them all. He paid me enough money to cover my first year of college! Over time people were requesting more of my drawings to be tattooed and so he brought me on to do commission work. People would email me ideas of what they wanted for their tattoos and once they were satisfied, Drax would come in and tattoo them. He offered me an apprenticeship halfway through my college degree and I thought, why not? I’m still drawing and doing what I love, and I get to meet some interesting people too. And it turns out I have a pretty steady hand when it comes to tattooing people. The rest is kind of history.”

“That’s quite a story, Steve,” Natasha looks thoughtful as she smiles at him. “Can’t say I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.”

Heat rushes to his cheeks and he runs a hand through his hair. “Uh…I-” he stammers. “Me either. About you, I mean.”

She tilts her head slightly as she looks at him through her eyelashes. “I like it. You are a surprising person, Steve Rogers.”

Steve has no idea how to read the signals that she’s giving off. She’s looking at him expectantly, like she’s waiting for him to do something and it’s all he can do to try and keep up. She has a wonderfully expressive face, sharp lines and hollow cheeks but plump lips and beautiful green eyes framed by dark lashes -- and long red hair that looks so impossibly soft that it makes him want to run his hands through it.

  Does she want me to kiss her?  

The thought enters his mind as Natasha lifts her chin a fraction of an inch and she shifts even closer. His heart is pounding so loudly in his chest that he’s sure she could hear it from where she is sitting. She has his complete attention now, and he’s unable to look anywhere else but her lips. He thinks she wants him to kiss her but he doesn’t want to presume. Everything about this night is already so unprecedented and he doesn’t want to fuck it up in any way.

“Well, well,” a voice cuts in. “Doesn’t this look all cozy?”

Steve’s pulled out from the spell he’s under and he looks up to see a man and a woman he doesn’t recognize standing a few feet away from where they're sitting. He feels Natasha sit up straighter and she pulls away slightly as she turns to face them. Within seconds, the Natasha he had been interacting with disappears and a new version of her appears. She eyes the people in front of them warily, a polite but distant smile emerges. “Elektra,” she acknowledges, her voice even and void of emotion. Her eyes flit over to the man next to Elektra and if possible, Steve thought her voice became even colder. “Matt.”

“Hi Natasha,” Matt’s voice is low, his body language indicating exactly how awkward he is feeling. “I thought I heard your voice. It’s… uh… nice to see you.” Matt smiles wryly, as he fidgets with his cane and Steve suddenly realizes that the man is  blind. It certainly explains why he was wearing sunglasses at night. “Pun intended, of course.”

Natasha hums, but doesn’t say anything more. Instead, she stares up at them and even though she’s sitting, somehow the redhead is more intimidating in her stance than the two people standing. Steve has no idea what’s going on, but it definitely feels as if he’s accidentally stumbled into some kind of awkward situation that he has no privy too. Elektra is watching them with so much interest that it makes him feel more than slightly uncomfortable. “You look  so  happy, Natasha darling,” she coos, though it’s clear that the tone of her voice is more haughty than it is sincere. “How  wonderful.”

He has no idea what makes him do it, but he listens to his gut instinct and shifts so he slides in closer. He wraps an arm around Natasha’s shoulders and smirks, staring right at Elektra and silently challenging her to contradict him. “Thanks,” he says, confidently. His tone implies more than words ever could. “Her happiness is my top priority. If anyone can see it, it means I’m doing my job right.”

Elektra’s eyes narrow but she doesn’t say anything more. Instead, she wraps herself around Matt’s arm, clinging to him as if she has something to prove. Natasha turns, paying them no mind, and gives Steve a warm smile. It’s a smile that tells him she’s grateful, that she’s glad he’s there. “Enjoy your evening,” Natasha dismisses them and leaves them no choice but to shuffle awkwardly away. She lets out a sigh of relief once the couple is out of earshot and slumps into him. “Thanks for doing that. You didn’t have to help me save face in front of them, but you did and I really appreciate that.”

He really wants to know what that was all about but felt it was too rude to ask. It isn’t really his business anyway. He gives himself a few seconds to enjoy the way her body is nestled against his before pulling away. It isn’t gentlemanly, he reminds himself. It’s better to let her cuddle up when she truly wants to and not when it was a ruse to fool other people into thinking they were a couple when they actually weren’t.  “Don’t mention it,” he smiles at her as he stands up, holding his hand out to her. “Want to go for a walk? Or we can go play some games, we still have some credits to use up.”

“Sure, let’s go play whack-a-mole.” She peers at him, tilting her head as if she’s trying to figure him out. After a moment, she grasps his hand and pulls herself up, dusting off the sand that’s caught on to the hem of her jeans. She grabs his jacket and then slips her arm through his as they begin to walk away from the beach. “I have the urge to hit something.”

True to her word, they found themselves at the brightly coloured tent minutes later and Steve’s watching as Natasha eagerly uses the toy mallet to hit the plastic moles that appear at random before disappearing back into their holes. Natasha’s efficient as she hammers away, and Steve’s coming to find that when she puts her mind to something, she succeeds. The alarm above the score panel flashes red, indicating that she’s the winner. She turns to him in triumph, a wide grin on her face and the sparkle back in her eyes. “Pick your prize.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t it be me that wins you something?”

“Don’t play into gender roles, Steve,” Natasha rolls her eyes. “Pick something!”

He lets out a laugh as he looks up at the brightly coloured stuffed animals hanging from the tent and one immediately catches his eye. “The giraffe, please.”

“Interesting choice,” she looks at him curiously as the attendant hands him his new stuffed toy and they begin to wander off. “Why choose the giraffe and not the lion, or the penguin?”

“Giraffes are my spirit animal.”

“I… had no idea what I was expecting you to say, but that was not it,” she laughs. “Are you serious?”

“Well yeah,” he shrugs. “I mean, who doesn’t love giraffes? They’re one of the world's most majestic creatures. Most people automatically choose animals like lions, or tigers for their power.  Or they go for the cute and cuddly animals, like bunnies and pot-bellied pigs. But giraffes? People tend to miss out when it comes to giraffes.”

“But not you, huh?”

Why in the world is he talking about giraffes? Steve has no idea how their conversation has come to this but here he is, telling her his love for giraffes. All he can do is roll with it.

Perhaps it was the dim lighting from the street lamps all over the park, but Steve thinks that Natasha is looking at him differently from the way all women usually look at him. She looks at him like she finds him cute, like she enjoys their conversation and wants to keep it going. “Well, giraffes tend to stick their necks out and stand tall when they’re trying to reach for leaves, and have the ability to look down from above -- and I think that’s a beautiful personification for life. Like, don’t just be one with the crowd, fight for what you believe in and always try to see the bigger picture.”

He feels her gaze, and knows that she’s listening to his every word. “Something tells me that you fight for what you believe in, don’t you?”

“I mean… yeah? I try? If I see a situation point south, I can’t ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could.”

“Do you ever run away?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You start running, they’ll never let you stop. I grew up smaller than those around me and never really fit in anywhere either. My small size made me an easy target but I always try to give as good as I get. That’s one of the reasons why I like giraffes so much… they’re such gentle creatures but they don’t confuse size with strength. Size doesn’t always guarantee might or ability. Plus, they’re loyal to those who have earned it and they’re weird looking -- like me. So, that’s why I consider them my spirit animal.”

"I don't think you're weird looking," Natasha smiles. “I think I’m going to start seeing giraffes in a whole new light now.”

He has no idea how to react to the words she'd just said, so he keeps quiet, all the while feeling his cheeks burn red hot. They fall into comfortable silence as they walk along the path leading out of the amusement park, away from the crowds and into a quieter street. It’s getting late and the evening is almost over, he realizes regretfully. He doesn’t want it to end. It’s the best first date he’s ever been on and he’d definitely like to see her again if she allows it.

He tries his best to gather the words in his mouth. “So…” he trails off as he slips his hands into his pockets, the giraffe tucked tight underneath his arm. He has no idea how to do this. Usually his dates would make excuses to leave as soon as possible, and the ones that did stay always indicated that they would get in touch but never did.

Natasha waits as he pauses and heaves a sigh. He runs a hand through his hair in obvious anxiety, eyes unable to meet her gaze. He mumbles something beneath his breath, and Natasha blinks, “I’m sorry?” She asks, wanting for him to repeat the words he’d just said.

This time, Steve looks directly into her eyes, and when the words leave his mouth, Natasha’s reaction was not one he was entirely expecting.

“ -- do you want to go out again?” was what Steve said, the second time louder and with much more clarity than before. He gnaws on his lower lip, preparing for some kind of rejection as Natasha’s eyes widen slightly, clearly a little surprised. The next few words stumble out of Steve’s mouth hurriedly before he could even stop himself. “I mean, I completely understand if you don’t want to--”

“Steve,” Natasha interrupts him gently. She smiles softly. “Are you sure that  you  want to go out again?”

When she utters those words, his jaw drops and he just stops and stares at her with aghast, as though what she had just asked was unthinkable. He’s definitely confused now and he shakes his head in disbelief. “What? ”

“All night long, I’ve been trying to figure you out, Steve.” The redhead in front of him shrugs. “You know, when Bucky first suggested this double date I was really hesitant. But your friend said some wonderful things about you and I thought, ‘what the hell, why not... got nothing to lose’ and I found myself feeling kind of excited for the date all week.” She tilts her head slightly, meeting his gaze head on. “I even found your profile on Tinder and swiped right, hoping that we could maybe chat a little bit before the date but we never matched.”

Steve is flummoxed and somewhat speechless as he listens to Natasha speak, baffled at her words. It takes a few seconds for her words to truly sink in and his eyes widen in pure bewilderment. Somehow he finds his voice. “Really? You swiped  right  on my profile?”

“I did,” she nods. “And then tonight… I mean, I asked a lot of questions and you answered them, but you never really asked any questions of your own to get to know me… and you didn’t even question it when Matt and Elektra interrupted us! So I started to think maybe you weren’t really interested in me, that maybe I was wasting your time.”

That sentence is the  last  thing Steve would have ever expected to hear from someone like Natasha. She thought that he  wasn’t  interested in  her? It takes a longer time for the entire exchange to sink in, but when it does, Steve is annoyed with himself. His mind is running through the entire evening that they’d just spent together and he comes to find that she’s right. All of the things he’s learned about her in the last few hours were all things that she volunteered herself. He hadn’t asked her anything to show that he was interested. It’s no wonder she’s questioning his interest in her. He’s flustered as he quickly shakes his head, “Natasha, I’m sorry --”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Natasha waves her hands in the air, cutting off Steve’s attempt to explain himself. “I think I kind of had some stupid expectations of Tinder… I mean, expecting us to match was probably a little presumptuous and that’s on me.”

“I am interested,” he blurts out, holding her gaze. “I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that I wasn’t because it couldn’t be further from the truth. And as for Tinder… well, I don’t really go on the app or have my notifications on anymore.”

She blinks. “You don’t?”

So far his experience of the app has been shit. The only reason he downloaded it was because Bucky had made a comment on his nonexistent love life and  fuck, he let that get to him. But here was this beautiful woman standing in front of him and telling him that she had swiped right for him.  For him. And evidently, had been disappointed to find that they hadn’t matched.

“Well, I never seem to get any matches, so I kinda just stopped trying. I probably should've deleted my profile altogether, but I kinda forgot about it after awhile.” There's a masochistic part of Steve that speaks up. “Do I disappoint you?” He wonders if he does. He wonders if he did before he asked. He’s disappointed plenty before without meaning to.

There’s a bit of a cheeky twist to Natasha’s smile as she laughs slightly and shakes her head. “Well, not so far.” She takes a step closer and he feels his heart rate pick up. In the dim lighting, her eyes look impossibly large as she stares at him. He feels the warmth radiating from her as she leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek. She pulls back, smiling softly now as she takes in his expression. “I had a lot of fun today, Steve. And I’d like to go on a real date if you’re up for it.”

“But?” he prompts, realizing that she still had a few things to say.

“Despite what a lot of guys assume, I’m not an easy piece of ass,” Natasha shrugs, waving off his attempts to protest against what she was saying. She looks at him with a wistful expression. “I like it when people put in a little effort… and maybe my way of thinking is a little ridiculous, but  I know  I’m worth the effort.”

Steve is still gaping at her as she turns and hails a cab, leaving him there on the sidewalk. Just before the cab pulls away though, Natasha rolls down the window and gives him a mischievous grin. “Why don’t you think about it, Steve? Look for me on Tinder. Find my profile and swipe right, and then maybe I’ll give you my number.” Her playful grin turns into a soft and hopeful smile. “I’ll take a chance if you will.”

Steve watches the cab drive away, still unable to believe what had just happened. Natasha actually seemed sincere. It felt like she actually wanted him to find her and even though it’s a foreign concept to him right now, he feels  encouraged. It's been years since he’s gotten butterflies and yet that is the only way he can describe how he feels in this very moment.

He thinks about Natasha’s words a lot as he heads home, going over every little detail of the evening in his mind. She wanted him to find her, wanted him to work for it…  I know I’m worth it, she’d said. Though Steve has no doubts that the redhead is worth it, there’s a part of him that can’t help the trepidation he feels anyway. Natasha is amazing and beautiful, and completely out of his league and he knows it. It was infinitely easier when he’d thought this date would be a one and done kind of deal.

And yet. And  yet.

She wants to go out again, he reminds himself. On a real  date. Just the two of them.  Alone.

He pulls his phone towards him and unlocks it, scrolling until his eyes land on the tiny pink icon and taps on it. Dozens of profiles immediately load onto the screen, one after another, and he starts swiping left, looking for one profile in particular. When he downloaded the app in the first place, he hadn’t expected to get very far. Everyone knows that Tinder isn’t the safest way to find love, and Steve is aware of it to and wasn't too hopeful about it -- he just never expected something like this situation to happen.

Forty-five minutes pass and he’s still swiping left, when suddenly he freezes. His thumb, that had been ready to swipe left, halts its motion, and he stares at the photo that’s on his phone. At those eyes that look familiar, green and wide-eyed. At the tilt of her mouth, that Steve is coming to recognize as the start of a warm grin. Even in her pictures, Natasha is dazzling and he can understand why she assumed people would swipe right on her profile. She probably has her pick of men. He can’t imagine anyone swiping left on her.

His heart pounding, his thumb presses to the screen and he swipes right. There’s a moment of panic, the urge to drop his phone… to hide it. He can pretend this never happened and his life could go back to normal. He breathes out shakily, breathes in a bit more evenly. Why is he so nervous? She had said to find her, hadn’t she? It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

And then his screen lights up.

[bibliosexxual]

Pst hi I LOVE YOUR FICS you have no idea how much they give me life

It IS frankly heartbreaking… which means I’m totally into it.

(now also on AO3!)

***

Derek definitely went to sleep alone. He always does, these days. It doesn’t explain why he drifts awake in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone lightly poking his shoulder.

It’s probably not a good sign that when he opens his eyes and sees a gangly teenage boy in a red hoodie and grubby-looking black fingerless gloves standing over him, he doesn’t startle. His claws don’t come out; his eyes don’t flash. He just feels… resigned.

“You live like this?” the guy says, soft. Almost pitying. “I mean. You actually live here?”

That seems too obvious, not to mention too insulting, to merit a response. “What are you doing here?” Derek asks instead. His voice comes out low and rough. This is the first time in days he’s had any reason to say anything. “This is private property.”

The guy shifts on his feet and sticks his hands under his armpits uncomfortably. “Okay, straight to the awkward questions. I like that.”

Derek waits.

The guy sighs. “Look, I didn’t know this was your house. I mean… it is your house, right? You’re not just, I dunno, squatting here?”

Derek shakes his head.

“Okay,” the guy says. “So, um, sorry. I seriously thought this place had been abandoned years ago.”

Derek looks pointedly down at himself and then back up.

“Uh, yeah,” the guy mutters. “Obviously I was mistaken. We’ve established that. So… I found some stuff on YouTube on how to pick locks and— Wait, do you know what YouTube is? Do you go on the Internet, ever? Does your creepy haunted mansion come with wifi?”

Derek glares.

“Okay, never mind. Anyway. So I found these videos on lock-picking and I wanted to try it out, and I knew this place was abandoned—I mean, I thought I knew—and I was thinking it would be a victimless crime kind of thing, but then your door wasn’t even locked, and even if it had been, there are all these holes in the walls and all these windows with no glass in them anymore, and… Listen, you really shouldn’t live like this, dude. It’s not safe. Anybody could come in.”

“People like you, you mean,” Derek says. By this point he’s almost cautiously amused, but he keeps his face stern.

“No, people like… Bad people. Burglars.”

“You’re not a burglar?”

“No! Jesus, no. I’m just your average high school student.”

Derek raises his eyebrows.

“Okay,” the guy revises, “so I’m just your not-quite-average high school student… who was kinda curious about breaking and entering. I’m going to be a detective someday; I need to know these things.” He holds up his hands, palms out. “Definitely no burgling in progress, though, I swear. Except, um. When I thought this place was abandoned, I was thinking about maybe taking a trophy so I could prove to Scott that I was here? But obviously I’m not going to do that now.”

“Thanks,” Derek says dryly.

The guy appears to miss the sarcasm. He nods like, You’re welcome, and goes on, “Anyway, you do need some home security, dude. I mean it. Theoretically, there could be burglars in the future.”

Derek shrugs. “There’s nothing worth stealing here.”

“Dude. You’re missing my point by, like, a mile.”

Derek doesn’t know what to say to that, so he settles on another shrug.

There’s a bit of silence after that while Derek eyes this guy, curious. At first glance he’s nothing much to look at. Pale. Skinny. Baggy jeans. Brown eyes. Brown hair, buzzed short. Closer up, though, there’s something appealing in the long lines of his body, and something about his face that draws Derek in—the delicate curve of his mouth, maybe, or the intelligent gleam in his eyes, like he’s thinking about a hundred things at once.

Right now, it’s not too hard to guess what those hundred thoughts might be. He’s looking around with quiet horror at Derek’s bedroom. No doubt he’s taking in the bean bag chair Derek is using as a bed, the open suitcase on the floor that holds all of Derek’s spare clothes, and the far corner where there’s a hole in the ceiling—a small hole, though—and some weeds starting to grow up through the floorboards. It’s like this guy thinks he’s standing in a museum exhibit. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.

“I’m guessing I don’t need to call the cops on you,” Derek says at last.

The guy winces, focusing back in on Derek. “Uh, yeah, it would be really cool of you if you could not do that. My dad would kill me. He’d arrest me and then he’d kill me.” Derek must look confused, because the guy clarifies, “I’m Stiles Stilinski? My dad’s the sheriff, Sheriff Stilinski? So he can do that. Arrest people. Except, you know, not me. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully,” Derek agrees, and this time he can’t quite hold back the little smile he can feel tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, so.” Stiles smiles back, a soft, private kind of smile, and takes a few steps toward the door. “Thanks for that. It’s very decent of you. So… I’ll just go now. Let you get back to sleep and all.”

“Yeah,” Derek says. This has been the most bizarre conversation he’s had in years, and he’s secretly a bit disappointed that it’s over. It’s probably not normal that when Stiles—who’s just finished breaking into Derek’s house—pauses in the doorway, Derek feels a little pleased about it.

“Hey,” Stiles says, “I mean it about the locks. Get some.”

Derek lies back on his bean bag chair after that and listens, mentally tracing Stiles’ progress. He goes back across the hallway and down the stairs, floorboards creaking under his every step, and opens the front door, which lets out a harsh, drawn-out groan under his hand. Then he’s clattering across the porch and crunching away through the underbrush, slamming a car door, cranking the engine, and driving away. It’s amazing he didn’t wake Derek up when he broke in earlier, Derek thinks with something bordering suspiciously on fondness. He’s far too noisy to ever be a burglar.

When he’s gone, the house feels a lot quieter than before, and very, very empty.

*

Derek’s not exactly surprised when this same guy knocks on his door bright and early Saturday morning, two days later. He could hear it as soon as Stiles’ Jeep turned off the main road a mile from Derek’s house and headed up into the Preserve, blasting Duran Duran, and he could hear it when Stiles parked right outside the house and hopped out, his heart racing.

So yeah, by the time Stiles knocks on the door, Derek has been expecting him for a while. On the other hand, he is surprised Stiles is bothering with knocking after what happened last time. He’s also not sure what Stiles is even doing here.

That becomes clear when he opens the door and Stiles cheerfully hefts a toolbox up for Derek to see. “I brought a new lock for your front door! And some nails and a bunch of spare wood to board up the holes in the wall and the windows. And a tarp for that hole in the roof. It’s just a temporary fix, of course, but it’s better than nothing.”

At first Derek is too stunned to speak. Finally, he asks, “Is this some kind of apology for breaking into my house? Because that’s really not necessary. If you really feel like you need to give me something, it could just be, I dunno, a coffee. You don’t have to—”

Stiles sighs so heavily it’s basically an interruption and starts unpacking his toolbox on the floor of Derek’s porch. “Yeah, I do have to, or I’ll never forgive myself when you get murdered.”

And, well, that’s unexpected. And weirdly touching. People normally take one look at Derek and seem to assume he’s the one about to be doing all the murdering and maiming.

“Also, I can do it,” Stiles adds. “I’m totally qualified. I read like fifteen different Wikipedia articles last night.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Oh, well, in that case.”

Stiles stands back up, determinedly wielding a hammer. “Dude, just let me do this. I’m not going to be able to stop worrying about it otherwise.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Derek says, because it’s true. People never worry about Derek, and it’s fine. Really. Derek is fine. He’s always fine.

Stiles huffs. “Okay, but I’m going to anyway, so. Are you going to step aside and let me fix your lock, or do I have to stand here and argue with you first? I’ll do it. I have a whole speech ready about Beacon Hills’ seedy criminal underbelly, and trust me, I know. I have a police scanner in my bedroom, and I know all the crime statistics for the past year at least.”

He’s obviously not going to give up without a fight, and honestly… Derek hasn’t been in a fighting mood for a long, long time. He sighs. “Fine. You can fix the lock. But only under my supervision, and only if you agree not to sue me if you accidentally nail your hand to the door.”

“Gotcha. I’ll just focus on nailing other things,” Stiles says with a wink.

Derek can’t believe the nerve of this guy. He’s weirdly charmed by it, but he glares anyway, on principle.

*

They finish with all of Stiles’ planned repairs by noon.

Stiles wipes his hands on his jeans, steps back from the house, and turns to look Derek up and down consideringly. And then he says, casual, like an afterthought, “You’re a werewolf, right?”

Derek has him pinned up against the wall a second later, unable to hold in a growl, his claws sinking into the soft cotton of Stiles’ hoodie. He should’ve known Stiles was too good to be true. He doesn’t smell supernatural, though. He doesn’t even smell like a hunter, or like magic, or—anything, really. Just plain old human, a little sweaty now after working on the house. It’s innocuous enough to raise Derek’s hackles.

Stiles swallows and brings his hands up to rest gently over Derek’s fists where they’re gripping Stiles’ shoulders. “Yep,” he says, “okay. I thought so.”

“How did you know?” Derek demands, speaking slowly around the fangs crowding his mouth. “And what do you want from me?”

“At this moment?” Stiles taps Derek’s knuckles. “For you to stop leaving holes in my favorite hoodie. That would be nice.”

With effort, Derek retracts his claws and takes a step back.

Stiles brushes down his clothes rather pointedly and says, “Thank you.”

Derek refuses to feel guilty. Stiles can’t just walk up to his house and accuse him of being a werewolf and not expect Derek to react. That’s not how the world works. “Explain,” he growls.

“Not much to explain. I’ve got werewolf friends. And once you know what to look for, it’s not exactly rocket science to identify you guys.“

“What are you going to do about it?” Derek asks, wary.

“I dunno. I guess that depends on you. Do you like going to the movies?”

Derek blinks, completely taken off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m getting some friends together,” Stiles says easily. “Werewolf friends included. We’re gonna see Fantastic Beasts this Friday night. You could come.”

Derek hasn’t been to the movies since before the fire. His family didn’t go often. The Hale house had a home theater in the basement, specially calibrated for sensitive werewolf eyes and ears. Still, he remembers liking it the few times he and his sisters did hit up the theater downtown. It was always an event. “I like movies,” he says now, cautiously.

Stiles beams and punches Derek’s arm lightly. It’s a brave move, considering Derek’s fangs are still out. “Awesome,” he says. “See you at seven, then.”

*

Derek shows up expecting maybe two or three people besides Stiles. Instead, Stiles has amassed a small army, or so it seems to Derek. Derek stops dead in intimidated surprise when he sees them all.

Stiles sees him standing there and amiably leads the whole herd his way, then starts in on introductions without a pause for breath. It’s too fast and furious for Derek to keep up—Boyd, Erica, Kira, Allison, Scott, Lydia, Danny… They all look friendly, at least. As crowds go, it’s not too intimidating. It relaxes him that he can tell at a whiff that some of them are fellow shapeshifters, just like Stiles promised.

During the movie, Stiles sits next to Derek and lets Derek share his popcorn. Afterwards he hangs back from the group, walking a little ways back with Derek as he absently kicks along a random pebble on the ground. It makes Derek a little nervous, wondering if Stiles is going to expect him to talk a lot. He doesn’t. Instead, he fills the silence easily for both of them with a long ramble about the movie. Derek read the Harry Potter books, most of them anyway, as they came out; he thought he knew plenty just from that. Not as much as Stiles, though. He can spout all sorts of trivia.

Stiles seems to be enjoying it, too, just having someone to listen to him. Still, Derek feels like he hasn’t been a lot of fun. He hasn’t cracked any jokes, or warmed up much to any of Stiles’ friends. It’s a surprise when they get to their cars and Stiles pauses by Derek’s, says they’re all going to head over to iHop now if Derek wants to join them.

Derek appreciates the thought, and the fact that Stiles doesn’t look judgey when he bows out. It’s been a lot of socializing for one night.

“Maybe next time, though,” Derek says, and means it. Stiles smiles like he can tell.

*

A couple weeks later, Stiles gives Derek a cell phone. "Don’t freak out about it,” he says, shoving his hands in his back pockets. “It’s not like I went out and bought you a brand new iPhone or anything. It’s just my old flip phone.”

“I can see that,” Derek says. He might live alone in the woods, but he’s not that out of the loop. He used to have a phone a lot like this, back in high school.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “I was keeping it in the Jeep for emergencies, but then I figured this qualified as an emergency. It’s 2016. Who doesn’t have a phone in 2016?”

Derek assumes that’s rhetorical.

“I bought you a limited data plan, too. It was cheap. It’s not much, but you can text me sometimes, I mean, if you want. I put my number in there. It’s under ‘The Sex Bomb.’”

“Classy,” Derek says.

“Yeah,” Stiles grins. “That’s me, classing it up, all day every day.”

*

“Have you ever thought about… you know… not living in that house?” Stiles asks him one night, shifting sideways and kicking his feet up on the dashboard. They’re sitting in Stiles’ Jeep after another group movie night, eating burgers and fries—Stiles’ idea and Stiles’ treat. He treats Derek a lot. It’s like he thinks Derek doesn’t have any money.

Derek does have money, as a matter of fact, and not just from the insurance payouts. He has a job, part-time, at the greenhouse on the other side of town. It suits him. He gets to haul around bags of dirt all day and tend to the plants and not talk to people very much. It’s very zen.

So Derek does have money, and he’s determined to start treating Stiles for a change. Stiles doesn’t make it easy, though. He’s masterful at distracting Derek with chatter or a smile when it’s time to pay for things.

“Why wouldn’t I live in the house?” Derek asks now. “It’s mine.”

Stiles shoots him a look like, Who even are you? “Tell me this. Does your house even have electricity? Running water?”

“Yes. Of course it does.” There’s one working outlet in the kitchen. Derek uses it to run his mini-fridge and charge his flip phone. As for the running water, there’s a perfectly good stream right down the hill from the house.

Stiles looks doubtful. He slouches down a little lower in his seat, getting comfortable, and says, “Okay, but. You can’t tell me that’s your first choice of places to live.”

Derek shrugs. It was there, when he came back to Beacon Hills from New York. It was there, and it had been home his whole life, up until the fire, and he missed it. He’d camped out there on his first night back, and after that he just hadn’t had any compelling reason to leave. He’s a werewolf, after all. He could live in a cave if he had to.

“Can you, like… afford…?” Stiles starts, displaying an unusual level of tact and sensitivity.

“Yes,” Derek says shortly. He hates these moments where it almost seems like Stiles is pitying him. He’s not Stiles’ charity case. He can look out for himself. He was doing just fine before Stiles came along.

“Okay, well,” Stiles says, “at least promise me you’ll think about moving out.”

Derek grits his teeth and doesn’t say anything.

He does think about it, though. He starts looking at things like Stiles might, wondering what Stiles might think of this or that. He thinks about how it’s kind of cold, sometimes, bathing in the stream in the mornings. It’s kind of cold at night, too, when he’s curled up under his lone blanket on his bean bag chair. There’s a draft from somewhere, and sometimes he wakes up shivering. And it’s kind of lonely, too, waking up and not hearing anyone else around for miles. He didn’t used to think it was lonely, but now it’s different. Now he has something to contrast it with: all those evenings out with Stiles and his friends.

Maybe, even for a werewolf, this house isn’t as tolerable as he thought it was going to be. It’s annoying, but maybe Stiles was right. Maybe he should start thinking about moving out.

*

A week later, they’re all at In-N-Out after a bowling night. They go out together all the time, and Stiles keeps inviting Derek to come along. Derek even stays for the meals afterwards now, sometimes at least, and talks to Stiles’ friends.

When they’re all finished and just sitting around talking, Stiles leans back in the booth, stretches contentedly, and casually brings up Isaac Lahey. Derek doesn’t know Isaac as well as some of the others. He’s a freshman at the local community college, making him a little older than most of Stiles’ other friends, and he doesn’t always have time to come out with them, but when he does, he tends to be pretty quiet, like Derek.

Derek doesn’t get why Stiles is bringing him up now, at least not until Stiles says, “So I hear Isaac is looking for a roommate. Just, if anyone’s interested. Just throwing that out there.”

He isn’t looking at Derek in particular as he says it, but he nudges Derek’s calf under the table with his sneaker. Subtle he is not.

Isaac’s number is already programmed in the phone Stiles gave him. Stiles put everyone’s number in there, all his friends. All their friends now, Derek thinks tentatively. Derek stares at the number for half an hour when he gets home. Then he calls him.

The week after that, Derek moves into the spare room in Isaac’s apartment and takes his first hot shower in months. It’s bliss.

*

Stiles lets himself into their apartment all the time. He’s made himself a key; Derek doesn’t comment on it. He likes having Stiles around, likes watching him move and hearing him talk and having his scent in the apartment. He comes over a lot just to hang out, to watch TV with them on the couch or cook with Isaac or pester Derek to help him with his Spanish homework. Sometimes he drops by just to leave Derek things, like posters for the walls and DVDs and pizzas and fuzzy socks. Ambushing Derek with kindness and then disappearing off again.

Part of Derek likes it. It’s like having a pack again, albeit a small one, and it’s nice to be thought of.

Another part of him grits his teeth, because does Stiles still think Derek is so penniless and needy that he can’t even buy himself a pizza? Isaac has even jokingly started referring to Stiles as Derek’s sugar daddy, which is just so much no.

The more Stiles does it, the more Derek grits his teeth.

“I have a job,” he blurts one night when he catches Stiles mid-kindness-ambush. A jar of toffees, this time, because Derek mentioned a few days ago that he liked them.

“I… know?” Stiles says slowly, one hand on the doorknob. “You work at the Beacon Hills Plant Emporium.”

“Yeah, so, I have money.”

“I know,” Stiles says again. He lets go of the doorknob.

Derek deflates a little; he wasn’t expecting Stiles to know that. It doesn’t make sense for Stiles to know that. Stiles looks shifty. Deeper in the apartment, Derek can hear a door creaking—Isaac getting up from his nap. Derek crosses his arms and demands, “So why are you doing all this?”

Stiles blinks, all faux-innocence. He’s not very good at it. “Doing what?”

Derek ignores that. “Is this a pity thing? Like, ‘Poor Derek Hale whose earthly possessions all burned in a fire’?”

Stiles flails. “No! I mean, maybe at first it was, a little, but… no. I know you have money. It’s not— I’m not trying to suggest— Look, it’s because we’re friends, okay? We’re friends, and—”

“And he thinks you’re hot,” Isaac snickers, passing behind them on his way to the kitchen.

“—and,” Stiles goes on determinedly, as though he hasn’t heard, “every time I see you I just wanna do nice stuff for you.”

“He wants to do a lot of nice stuff to you, all right,” Isaac calls suggestively over his shoulder.

“Shut up,” Stiles calls after him, flipping him off. 

He’s blushing furiously. Derek feels like he probably is, too. He doesn’t know where to look. Fucking Isaac.

“Wow, okay. I’m just going to…” Stiles gestures awkwardly to the door behind him.

Derek nods, but Stiles doesn’t see it. He’s already in the hallway, door slamming shut behind him.

Well then.

Derek stands there for a moment, staring numbly at the blank expanse of the door and listening to the sound of Isaac microwaving something in the other room.

Then he goes after him. This isn’t the kind of thing he should just walk away from, or let Stiles just walk away from. It’s tempting to let him (Derek can still feel his face burning with embarrassment), but then again, it’s probably not going to be any less embarrassing three hours from now, or three days, so. Why put it off?

It’s pouring rain outside, thick sheets of water. Derek doesn’t want to go back for an umbrella, though. If he goes back inside, he might just wimp out and never come out again. So he pulls the hood of his jacket up over his head, takes a couple deep breaths, and jogs down the stairs to the parking lot.

Stiles hasn’t left. He hasn’t even turned on his Jeep yet. He’s just sitting there, banging his head repeatedly against the steering wheel.

Derek’s a bit concerned.

He walks over and knocks on the driver’s side window, and when Stiles rolls it down (after flailing and honking the horn), Derek doesn’t really know what comes next. There’s just the persistent thought that he shouldn’t let Stiles drive off like this, not when they’re on the brink of something here, and not when Derek’s been thinking about kissing him more or less since the night Stiles first broke into his house.

Stiles stares at him. His hair is a little wet, bangs dripping down into his eyes, but he’s nowhere near as soaked as Derek.

“Do you not own an umbrella?” Stiles frowns. “Or even a poncho?”

Instead of answering, Derek steps up on the Jeep’s running board, leaning his elbows on the sill, and kisses him through the open window. Stiles squeaks out an “Mmmph?” and then, “Mmm, yeah,” in a much more appreciative tone and grabs Derek by the ears to tilt his head to a better angle. They don’t stop until Derek starts to shiver, soaked through to the skin by the rain.

Stiles blinks at him, dazed, and then grins. “Do you wanna go on a date with me? With more kissing?”

Derek grins back. “Yes, but only if you let me pay.”

“I can do that,” Stiles says.

(end)

[thisdaynews]

A smear campaign, an untouchable Giuliani and an infected State Dept: Key deposition details

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/a-smear-campaign-an-untouchable-giuliani-and-an-infected-state-dept-key-deposition-details/

A smear campaign, an untouchable Giuliani and an infected State Dept: Key deposition details

Here are some of the most compelling takeaways from the nearly-500 pages of combined transcripts.

Yovanovitch felt threatened by Trump

Yovanovitch was well aware of the campaign to oust her before she was ultimately recalled to Washington in May. But the transcript of her deposition reveals that she felt personally threatened by Trump — specifically, after he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Yovanovitch would be “going to go through some things.”

“I didn’t know what it meant. I was very concerned. I still am,” Yovanovitch told investigators.

“I was shocked. I mean, I was very surprised that President Trump would — first of all, that I would feature repeatedly in a presidential phone call, but secondly, that the president would speak about me or any ambassador in that way to a foreign counterpart,” she added.

Giuliani was working against U.S. policy in Ukraine, Yovanovitch says

Yovanovitch described the extent to which the shadow campaign being pushed by Giuliani and others ran counter to U.S. policy toward the besieged eastern European country.

She said she told Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan that it was a “dangerous precedent” that “private interests and people who don’t like a particular American ambassador could combine to, you know, find somebody who was more suitable for their interests.”

At one point, she said Ukraine’s interior minister told her that two of Giuliani’s indicted associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, wanted her removed from her post because they wanted to “have business dealings in Ukraine.”

Rudy the influencer

If it wasn’t already clear that Giuliani has the ear of the president, Yovanovitch’s testimony should remove all doubt.

When asked if anyone at the State Department tried to push back on Giuliani’s campaign against her and his shadow diplomacy efforts, which were inconsistent with U.S. policy toward Ukraine, Yovanovitch replied: “I don’t think they felt they could.”

Her comments buttress those of other witnesses, who described a similar relationship between Trump and Giuliani. For example, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, said he was disappointed when Trump asked him to work with Giuliani on Ukraine-related matters.

The power of tweets

When Yovanovitch sought advice from Sondland, he recommended that she tweet-praise Trump to save herself. Yovanovitch immediately rejected the idea, saying she didn’t feel it was appropriate for a career diplomat to delve into politics.

She also testified that she was removed from Ukraine hastily in order to avoid a presidential tweet, which is often the way Trump fires or announces the departures of officials.

“This was to make sure that I would be treated with as much respect as possible,” Yovanovitch said of the rapid movement.

The whistleblower complaint was a crystallizing moment

Though State Department officials had been worried for months about Giuliani’s campaign to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate Trump’s rivals, the effort didn’t set off serious alarms until a whistleblower complaint tied all of the elements together.

That led McKinley to realize that Yovanovitch’s unceremonious recall from Ukraine was about something much bigger than he realized.

“After the whistleblower account came out and I started reading in much greater depth what was happening in the media, it became evident to me that Masha had been caught up in something that had nothing to do with the way she performed her duties in Kyiv,” McKinley said.

His concerns grew even greater after Trump released the transcript of his July 25 call with Zelensky.

“When the transcript of the call was released I’m just going to state it clearly as a Foreign Service officer, to see the impugning of somebody I know to be a serious, committed colleague in the manner that it was done raised alarm bells for me,” he said.

McKinley suspected Trumpian politics had infected State Department decisions

As news reports began fleshing out the whistleblower complaint and other details of Trump’s interactions with Ukraine began to become public, McKinley said he began to suspect domestic politics had spilled into typically nonpartisan diplomatic work.

That, plus the agency’s refusal to publicly back Yovanovitch after she was removed from her post amid a smear campaign by Trump allies, was a toxic combination, McKinley said, that motivated him to resign from the state Department.

“In this context, frankly, to see the emerging information on the engagement of our missions to procure negative political information for domestic purposes, combined with the failure I saw in the building to provide support for our professional cadre in a particularly trying time, I think the combination was a pretty good reason to decide enough, that I had I had no longer a useful role to play,” McKinley said.

Creating paper trails

Throughout his testimony, McKinley revealed decisions to sometimes create paper trails — to ensure that his and others’ efforts to support Yovanovitch were documented — and other times not to, so as not to annoy superiors.

McKinley indicated he made one such decision against creating a paper trail amid discussions about how to respond to a congressional subpoena.

“I’d spent a week with people not answering me, and so I’ve been a bureaucrat long enough. That’s a message, and I’m not going to be the one initiating again a trail,” he said.

But McKinley also indicated that a colleague, George Kent, had created a memo documenting his experience with the subpoena response that had been circulated among several officials inside the department.

Kent, according to McKinley, indicated that an agency lawyer appeared to be trying to “shut him up” and that there had been “bullying” tactics by officials inside the agency when questions arose about the handling of the subpoena.

Growing numb

While discussing the State Department’s response to Congress’ subpoena for documents in its impeachment inquiry, McKinley indicated that he hadn’t heard back despite several entreaties to top officials about how it was being handled.

“Were you frustrated at the lack of response?” a committee attorney wondered.

“I don’t have emotions like that anymore,” McKinley replied. “It was a reality.”

“You’ve been in a bureaucracy too long,” the attorney replied, with a bit of gallows humor.

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