#I always wait for the moment where I cross paths with my old school bully in town. If he would have the nerves to trigger my anger...

[lady-lycany]

My supervisor accidentally quoted lyrics of a song by Till Lindemann (aka the singer from Rammstein)

Translated in english she was basically like "life would be easier, if it was easier" and that's basically the exact songtext of the song Knebel. Had the song the whole walk in my head and am now listening to it on repeat...

Man, I wish y'all could understand German. You have no idea, how that song describes 100% my mindset...

(also, I almost started to cry cuz society makes me miss out on having the satisfaction of a revenge, cuz I would end up in jail and that's not fair, if the person would really really deserve it 😪😩 god what would I give for one good moment, where I could at least 💫👊 right in the face. With a force that would break my knuckles)

[restlessfandoming]

“the president and the troublemaker” (part 10) (chilumi fic)

“Lumine is the student council president and Childe is the school’s number one troublemaker. They cross paths more than they’d like. Especially when Childe finds out Lumine’s big secret. Highschool AU à la Kaichou wa Maid-sama.”

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6] [part 7] [part 8] [part 9]

[Fic Masterlist] // [AO3 Link] // [Main AO3]

the president and the troublemaker (part 10)

Lumine should have known the instant she saw those blue highlights and mischievous grin that the new student was going to be trouble. Not as much as a certain ginger, but trouble nonetheless.  

He was playing his ukulele and singing about himself as his introduction, and the teacher wasn’t even stopping him. It didn’t help that their classmates were encouraging him with their words of praise and loud cheers. 

Lumine stood from her seat. “Great introduction—Venti, was it?” she said, keeping her voice as cordial as possible. “But we don’t allow personal instruments during class time. You can put it away in your locker later.” 

Venti’s face scrunched up sheepishly. “Ehe, sorry.” He tilted his head at her. “Wait, who are you?”

Lumine gave a polite smile. “I’m your student council president.” 

Venti shrugged. “Oh, okay,” he said. He turned to the rest of the class. “Sorry, looks like I’ll just have to play for you guys later.” 

There were utterances of disappointment as the new student sat in his seat, and Lumine sighed. “Rules are rules,” Lumine said to the class. 

Within the next few hours, as she led him through a tour of the school, she realized that everyone who met him, instantly liked him. Lumine had no idea what it was. Perhaps it was his cheerful and carefree disposition, kind with some sass—and of course his constant playing of his instrument as they roamed the halls. 

“Could you stop playing your ukulele, Venti? I’m afraid it’s a bit distracting to the other students who are in class,” Lumine said. It was the fifth time she had asked.

“I think we would all be better off with some light music in our lives, don’t you think, Madame President?” Venti replied with a light giggle. 

A tiny group of students had gathered around the two of them, and Venti happily played for the crowd. Lumine sighed, as it meant they would have to stop their tour again. 

“Oh, hi, Lumine!” Xiangling said, approaching from the crowd. “What’s going on?”

Lumine leaned against the wall. “New student causing a scene. He keeps playing his little ukulele, even though I’ve told him to put it away. Many times.”

Xiangling closed her eyes and listened for a second. “Wow, he’s pretty good!” 

“Not helping,” Lumine said as she rubbed her forehead.

“Where’s he from?” the chef asked. 

“Not sure,” the blonde answered. She turned to the new student, in attempts to stop him from playing, and asked, “Where did you say you were from again, Venti?” 

Miraculously, the bard stopped his music. “From the outskirts of Mondstadt! The countryside,” he answered with a smile.

“Ooo,” Xiangling uttered excitedly. “Why’d you decide to come here, to the city?” 

An even brighter smile. “Well, I actually lived here a long, long time ago, but I had to leave because a family member of mine got really sick. He passed away recently.” 

The whole hallway stilled, the mood expectantly dampened as Venti shared his past. 

However, his expression never changed; he kept smiling, blue highlights glowing in the sunlight. “And now, I’m back here to find my first love!” 

Everyone blinked at Venti for a second. Then, the crowd erupted into swoons and whoops as questions upon questions were thrown at him: What’s her name? How did you two meet? Where is she now? Is she cute?

“She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen!” Venti gushed. “She was always so kind to me, even when others bullied me. Oh, and she always made me the most delicious grape juice ever!” He perked up. “She knew I really loved grape juice.” 

“How romantic!” Xiangling squealed. (Well, of course; her love language is food, Lumine thought.) “But how do you know if she’s still here or not?” 

“Right,” Lumine agreed. How could he be so tiringly optimistic? “What if she moved away while you were gone?” 

Venti thought for a second, before shaking his head. An endearing fondness washed over his face. “Then I’ll just keep searching.” 

His teal eyes met Lumine’s. He gave her a smile, one not as cheeky as before—softer, more bashful. “After all,” he said, “I promised Lumine I’d always come back for her.” 

…

???

LUMINE?!

Lumine. 

As in me?!

She felt like she had been tasered right in the chest, her whole body locking up as eyes shifted towards her, whispers breaking out in the crowd—“But isn’t that…?” 

Venti, his head in a world of its own, nearly skipped down the hallway, humming to himself, oblivious of the reactions around him. 

“I wonder if she’ll hear me if I sing loud enough?” he wondered aloud as everyone saw him head outside. The gathering of students all followed him out the door.

Xiangling looked at the president, still frozen, with wide eyes. “Uhm, Lumi? Are you okay?” 

Lumine nodded stiffly, her head reeling as she searched her memories for anyone who looked like Venti. 

“Is that true?” her blue-haired friend asked. “What Venti said? About you...being his first love?”

Then it hit her. 

Lumine and Aether did play with a kid named Venti all the time as children. They played pretend as princesses and knights and dragons; the twins would giggle and laugh at Venti’s silly songs all the time; and Lumine would peel grapes and mash them up with sugar for everyone at the end of a long day of running around. It was a child’s simple recipe for “grape juice,” but Venti genuinely thought it was the greatest drink in the world. 

She would even scare off his (and Aether’s) bullies. Venti’s family wasn’t around much, so she took it upon herself to look after him: making sure he did his work, tending to his injuries, cheering him up when he cried. 

It felt like an eternity ago, those memories of happier, more innocent times. 

Lumine’s hand flew to her head, slowly pushing back her blonde bangs as the realization dawned on her. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Tone-deaf bard,” she said, her old nickname for him ghosting off her lips. “I-I knew him. Me and Aether, we used to play with him all the time.”

Xiangling’s eyes grew wider, if possible. “It’s true,” she whisper-yelled. “You are his first love!” she yelled, louder. 

The two stopped their conversation as they heard loud singing coming through the window. They peered outside, where Venti had climbed the tallest tree in the courtyard, and was serenading out to the entire school. 

Lumine’s jaw dropped, and she quickly ran out the door as well, Xiangling hot on her tail. “That idiot! He’s going to fall!” 

She made it to the foot of the tree, where she now clearly heard Venti shouting, “LuLu~! Where are you~?” 

LuLu…

That was definitely him. Venti was the only one who ever called her that nickname. 

“Venti! Get down here right now before you fall!” Lumine shouted up at him. 

He stuck his tongue out at her, and strummed his ukulele. 

As he started singing, drowning out Lumine’s demands for him to come down, Lumine felt the familiar irritation she felt so long ago, when she had to care take of him, despite all the stupid decisions he made. 

She grit her teeth. “Get down here right now, you tone-deaf bard!”

Venti stopped strumming, his head snapping to where Lumine stood. 

There was a brief moment of silence. Then, he jumped down. 

Lumine felt all the air rush out of her lungs as she gasped in shock, her feet carrying her to catch him before her brain could even think about it.

But as he fell, Venti tucked and rolled, gracefully landing on the ground, standing up straight in front of Lumine. 

“You,” he said, his tone the most serious it had been all day. “What’s your name?”

“Lumine,” she answered. She quickly added, “But I’m really different now; I’m not like I was back then—”

Venti leapt on her, arms wrapping around her in a tight embrace. His ukulele was even forgotten, dropped on the floor nearby. 

“LuLu!” he cheered breathlessly. He spun her around, breaking into giggles. “I’m finally home!” 

As the students around them broke into outbursts of shocked gasps and encouraging cheers, Lumine glanced at them, awkwardly patting Venti on the back. The bard was oblivious to her stiffness, ignorant of the craze he had just caused, the consequences that would follow his little public confession. 

Lumine could only imagine it now, all the gossip and questioning that would surround her within days, hours even. 

Please let this blow over quickly. 

* * *

“Venti…,” Childe muttered. At least he had a name for the little twerp. 

His posture slouched as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, dark eyes watching the scene unravel below with Lumine and the new kid. It was his first day, and yet, he was already causing a wave of news around the school. 

From the open window he stood by, Childe had heard everything. Venti was a childhood friend from Lumine’s past, and he had returned to her because she was his first love. 

To everyone else, this new student was an immediate favorite. Childe, on the other hand, felt acid pulse through his veins as Venti called out Lumine’s name, and he nearly jumped out the window when the two were embracing. 

Venti definitely wasn’t a fighter, right? It would be so easy to dispose of him—

Childe let out a sharp sigh, running a hand through his hair. 

What was this? Why was he feeling threatened by this new kid?

“Wouldn’t it be much easier for you to make it official?” someone said next to Childe. Looking to his right, his eyes met Albedo’s.

“You and the President, I mean,” Albedo continued, his piercing blue eyes trailing down to the courtyard. 

“Astute observations as always, Albedo,” Childe said. “What do you know about me and the Pres?” 

“I know that what the President told me was a lie,” the scientist answered. “There is definitely a sort of romantic chemistry between the two of you.”

“Oh? How do you figure?”

Albedo loosely crossed his arms. “I specialize in observations. Stolen glances, affirmative body language, rising body temperatures—habits indicative of romantic interest. For the two of you, it’s mutual.” He paused. “I don’t plan on telling anyone. I’ve kept it to myself, if you were wondering.” 

“Don’t scientists share their findings with the world?”

“I’m more interested...personally. I’d like to see how it plays out.” His blonde head tilted slightly. “Though, why you two haven’t started dating baffles me.” 

A tiny scoff escaped Childe’s lips. “Why’s that?” 

Albedo put his hand to his chin, thinking. “It would surely benefit the both of you. You would stop receiving those weekly confessions from every girl in school, and the President wouldn’t have to continue her tiring charade of acting like she doesn’t know you. It looks painful for you both.” Below, there were cheers from the students surrounding Lumine and Venti. “And you wouldn’t have to be silently fuming from up here while the President is being reintroduced to, quite possibly, her first love as well,” he added. 

Childe clenched his jaw. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. 

He started walking to the stairs without a second thought. 

“Interesting observations, Albedo,” he said as he walked away. “Do me a favor and use those skills of yours to find out anything about Venti for me.” 

He left the scientist mulling over his request while he headed straight to the courtyard. 

* * *

Lumine had managed to shoo the gathering of students back into their classrooms without too much of a fuss; Venti was a lot harder to get rid of, however, as he was currently glued to her side, his arm linked with hers. 

“Okay, Venti, it was nice catching up, but you have to go to class now,” Lumine said as they walked down the hallway. 

“Just like old times! You’re still trying to get me to be more responsible.” 

“And just like old times, it doesn’t work.” She unhooked her arm from his, putting her hands on her hips. “Seriously, Venti. You need to go to class. I’m not saying this as your friend; I am saying this as your student council President.”

“Aw, I forgot how scary you could be, LuLu,” he responded sheepishly. “Hey, what do you say we go to that old café by your house? Do you still live there?” 

Lumine rubbed at her temples as she rounded the corner. Thankfully, Venti’s classroom is closeby.

She stopped in her tracks when she looked up and saw Childe there, leaning against the wall as if he had been waiting there for her. 

“Ah, so you are alive, Pres,” Childe said. “I was beginning to think you were dead. Or were you just ignoring me?” 

Lumine gnawed on the side of her cheek. Of course he would show up right now.

“It’s a busy time for the student council. We’re planning our class trip,” she replied curtly. 

“LuLu, is this one of your friends?” Venti asked, teal eyes lighting up. He held out his hand. “I’m Venti! How do you do?”

“This is Childe,” Lumine interjected, gently pushing the bard’s extended hand down. “He’s a delinquent. Don’t associate with him.” 

The delinquent in question gave her a strained smile. “Ouch. I’d say my ways are quite reformed now, don’t you think?” He peeled off the wall, coming a bit closer—completely ignoring Venti. He continued, “In fact, I’ve saved you a few times, haven’t I?” He flashed a grin of faux-innocence. 

What was he doing? Was he really about to reveal all their secrets in front of Venti? 

“Venti, go to your class. I’ve got to deal with Childe,” Lumine said, desperate to get her old friend out of there. When Venti started to protest, she clenched her teeth. “Now.”

Venti let out a shaky laugh, his eyes shifting from Childe and Lumine, then disappeared into a nearby classroom. Childe’s eyes seemed aflame as he tracked Venti leaving. 

Lumine let out a heavy sigh. “What are you doing?” she asked, voice dropping to a whisper. “Do you want the entire school to know about us?!”

A smirk. “There’s an ‘us?’”

Now Lumine’s face completely burned. “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been coming to training, but I really have been busy with the student council.” 

Childe didn’t respond, and just stared at her. “Who is he to you?” 

“...Who? Venti?” She pursed her lips. “He’s a childhood friend. We used to be close, I guess. But I haven’t talked to him in years.” 

“Did you ever love him?” 

“Wh-What kind of question is that?” Lumine sputtered. 

Childe pressed in closer. “Just answer the question, Lumine.” 

She took a step back. We’re at school, idiot! If a student decided to walk out of a classroom at that very moment, their secret would be out. 

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I honestly can’t remember that much right now.” 

Childe’s lips tilted into a frown. “That just won’t do, Pres.” His voice had lowered. “Aren’t you going to save me?” 

Lumine’s heart rate sped up as she recalled the two of them, on the beach, whispering promises to save one another. 

“Save you from what? Be serious, Childe,” she said, annoyed. 

“Loneliness.” He flashed a quick smile. “Let’s go on a date.” 

Lumine stumbled back from Childe as if she had been electrocuted. “I-I don’t have time for this right now.” She turned on her heel, stomping away. “Go back to class!” 

She finally relaxed when she found an empty classroom to clear her head. Thankfully, Childe hadn’t followed her. 

He liked her. She liked him. So why am I still being like this?

Even with her limited knowledge of romance, she knew the next logical step would be for them to start dating, right? 

The prospect made her antsy. 

It was a complete unknown. There were too many ways it could go wrong, too many ways it could end in pain and ruin everything. To chalk it up, she was scared. 

She and her family had been absolutely heartbroken when her father had left. She witnessed firsthand what a broken relationship could cause, the damage it did to everyone involved. 

And yet, knowing all this, having all her fears festering within, she still insisted on seeing him. Childe. 

He made her feel normal, even with her secrets. He made her feel welcomed and safe. So she didn’t push him away. She wanted to stay with him. 

DING!

Lumine jolted from her thoughts, and pulled out her phone to check. It was the student council group chat, all wondering where she was, needing her to be present for another meeting about the upcoming class trip to Liyue. 

She sighed, pocketing the phone, quickly making her way to the council room.

I don’t have time to think about that stuff right now, she thought with a frown. 

Just get through the class trip, and then I can worry about that later.

Lumine glanced outside the window. Gray clouds had gathered in the sky. A storm was brewing. 

She stopped, and prayed for a smooth trip to Liyue.

* * *

[part 11]

[cupofteaguk]

i’ve seen the way you look at me when you think i don’t notice

FROM THE PETALS COLLECTION 

[pairing] :: jungkook x fem!reader

[genre] :: percy jackson au + angst 

[word count] :: 7.3k 

[note] :: attempted a son of hades!jungkook storyline. vaguely inspired by nico di angelo’s character arc if you’ve read the books (because coughs well this use to be an unpublished nico di angelo fanfic don’t at me LMAO), but you don’t need to remember the character slash be an expert in the story to read this fic! Also this is a friends to lovers fic hidden behind my attempt to write a story of grief. pls enjoy! 

.

When Jungkook is fifteen years old, he arrives at Camp Half Blood with pennies in his pockets, one Kim Taehyung on his back, and monsters on his tail. There are all kinds of creatures that have been following him for weeks—some with wings, some with clubs, but all with the intent of murder in their eyes as they chase Jungkook up the hill. Taehyung had warned him about this happening, that starting this journey would attract lots of unwanted attention from lots of dangerous half-breed monsters. Something to do with Jungkook’s scent, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. 

In the beginning, Jungkook hadn’t known what to expect, hadn’t known what Taehyung meant by strange creatures and a camp just for him. Even right now, as he is running as quickly as his legs can take him with his lungs feeling like it’s about to burst—he doesn’t really understand. 

What he does understand is that he has been alone his entire life. With a childhood filled with no father and a frightful mother, Jungkook has grown up spending time by himself in the company of his own thoughts and emotions. With such a strange (and lacking) family dynamic, it exposed him to lots of bullying and snide comments from peers, most commonly seen during school or walks home. The first half of Jungkook’s childhood is defined by this—by the teasing for being different, for failing classes, for being awkward and shy, for never knowing his place. The second half of Jungkook’s childhood is filled with sleeping on the streets, with stealing food at convenience stores, on how he’s been truly alone since he was thirteen. 

That is, until Kim Taehyung corners him at the midnight strike of his fifteenth birthday—which leads the two of them to this current moment. 

Jungkook doesn’t understand much right now. All he knows is that he needs to run. 

As Jungkook approaches the top of the hill, he sees a group of people surrounding an archway. They’re all bundled up in gears of shields and swords, and each of them turn towards the boys as the monster thudding grows louder and Jungkook’s calls become more clear. 

Half of the group near the archway break off, immediately making their way towards Jungkook and Taehyung. There are a few questions thrown here and there, before the main objective is just to make sure the boys get to safety. Taehyung’s weight gets distributed between Jungkook and another person, and together the bigger group makes their way across the hill. They cross a tall pine tree that Jungkook hardly notices, because he’s completely out of breath, wounded across his entire body, with legs that feel like jello. 

Taehyung’s weight shifts entirely to the other person as Jungkook trips and falls to his knees. Quickly, Jungkook whirls around so his butt and his arms are on the ground. With his eyes directed towards the hill, his heart crawls up his throat as he sees the monsters making their way up towards him. His body moves before his mind does, his arms moving him closer towards the archway. 

Someone settles themselves right behind him. “Woah, hey.” Your voice is soft, your hand between his shoulders is comforting. “You’re okay, you’re safe now.” 

“B-But!” Jungkook stammers, pointing shakily towards the creatures now growing closer and closer to everyone. “Those monsters! They’re coming!” 

As soon as he says that, the monsters stop in their path, right next to the pine tree from earlier. Their collection of beady eyes glare angrily down at Jungkook, their screams are hollow cries that press painfully against his ears. This conveyance of frustration continues on for a few seconds, before one by one the monsters turn around and make their way back down the mountain. 

Jungkook’s breathing is frantic, along with his heart rate, as he watches the creatures disappear below the dip. “W-What the hell…?” 

You angle your head toward in order for Jungkook to look at you—you wear an expression of softness, of understanding, and Jungkook momentarily sees stars. 

That, however, could have also been from the excess oxygen in him, and the fact that one of those creatures had landed a swipe to his head. 

You gesture to the pine tree. “You see that tree? That’s Thalia Grace’s tree—a long time ago, she and some of her friends were trying to get here, and Thalia sacrificed herself to ensure her friends could be safe. She was a daughter of Zeus, so he turned her into a tree that would protect the camp. Monsters just like those can’t get in anymore.” 

Jungkook feels the adrenaline fading, along with his ability to follow conversations. Daughter of Zeus? Like, Zeus from those Greek mythologies? The camp? Had this been the place Taehyung told him about? 

It’s all too much to keep up with. Jungkook faints before he can ask his question, in which the last thing he sees is your eyes, concerned and twinkling. He passes the thudding in his heart off as pure and utter exhaustion. 

Jungkook wakes up on top of a white hospital bed a few hours later, head swimming and Taehyung situated at the foot. He offers a cup of something called ambrosia that immediately clears the headache. “Woah, what the fuck?” He asks, holding the cup away from him and staring at it with wide eyes. He looks over at Taehyung. “What is this? My headache went away as soon as I drank this. Also, it tastes like banana milk. Is this a dream?” Without waiting for an answer, Jungkook leans back and takes in his surroundings. He looks to be an infirmary, beds with white sheets along the walls and light shining in through the windows. There’s a few other people lingering about, hovering over occupied beds. 

“Jungkook.” Taehyung’s soft voice pulls his attention back. “We’re in Camp Half Blood. You brought us here.” Taehyung’s smile is sad, but confident. “You brought me back, even though it was my mission to bring you here. Thanks.” 

Jungkook stares. “So… you weren’t lying about the camp. T-This is all real?” 

It is then that Taehyung explains everything to Jungkook. Explains that the Greek gods Jungkook learned about in class are real, and that sometimes they come down from Mount Olympus to mingle with mortals—which is where their demigod children come from. Demigods are part god, and therefore have enhanced physical ability as well as some level of control or skill over the realm of their godly parent. Taehyung goes over this information as slowly and as calmly as possible, but Jungkook still has trouble processing the information. In a way, it makes sense that Jungkook would be in this position. He’s always known he was different, always felt like he could never fully belong in the mortal world he spent so long occupying. He just could never label his feelings with a concrete answer. 

Until now, that is. 

Jungkook decides to ask Taehyung one more question. “Why couldn’t you explain any of this to me on the way over?” 

Taehyung seems to be choosing his next words carefully. “As we kept going, you were attracting more monsters. That’s something that normally doesn’t happen, unless the demigod the creatures are tracking is one that’s insanely powerful. Like, a demigod that’s born from the Big Three—Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades. I read accounts of what happened to us happening to other kids that were born from any one of those three gods. I figured that the less you knew, the better. A demigod who doesn’t know they’re a demigod is a much less serious threat—your scent isn’t as strong as it could be if you know about who you are.” 

Jungkook ponders this. “So my dad could be Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades?” He’s definitely heard of those gods. The ruler of all gods, and his two brothers. 

Taehyung presses his lips together, leaning forward in his seat so his forearms rest on his knees. “Maybe,” He says. “It’s pretty rare, though, so I don’t want to give you an answer only for it to not be true. Only time will tell.” He must see the lost, the confused, the anxious look on Jungkook’s face, because Taehyung takes a seat on the edge of the hospital bed. “Hey, JK, cheer up.” The usage of his nickname makes the corner of Jungkook’s lips turn up. “While we wait for your dad to claim you, you can stay with me in my father’s cabin. My dad is Hermes. He’s a patron to travelers, so all campers who come here are welcomed until they’re claimed by their godly parents.”��

Jungkook can only manage a nod at this. He still has many questions, still does not fully understand. With what Taehyung is telling him, Jungkook is not even sure he will belong here, or if he will be ostracized once again for being different amongst the different. 

But he trusts Taehyung—so he’ll follow Taehyung. 

.

Jungkook is at Camp Half Blood for a week before Taehyung is called for another assignment. It’s due to a prophecy given by the Oracle who lives on the campgrounds—the figure grants quests to campers to undergo a series of dangerous adventures in order to accomplish something for the long term benefit of demigods, the human race, the Greek gods themselves, anything of the sort. 

In the case of Taehyung, he is chosen by fellow camper Kim Namjoon to join him in and travel west and retrieve stolen items from a museum collection. It seems like an easy quest. At least, that’s what Jungkook is told. 

Kim Namjoon is a son of Athena, someone whom Jungkook met a day into his arrival at Camp Half Blood—friendly and smart and answers Jungkook’s questions about mythology with ease. It had been good when Jungkook first met the former, because he had many questions, some of which couldn’t be answered by Taehyung. Namjoon is someone that Jungkook immediately grows a fondness and admiration for—only leaving him that much more confident that the quest will go smoothly. 

“You guys will be okay… right?” Jungkook asks Namjoon, as the latter is shouldering his backpack. He’s not the only person seeing Namjoon and Taehyung off on their quest, but Jungkook had been one of the first people to show up. After all, when your only friend is leaving on an adventure, it tends to bring in the worry and the anxiety. “And you’ll watch Taehyung, won’t you?” 

“Of course I will,” Namjoon reassures, tight smile across his lips but he distracts Jungkook with a hand on his shoulder. “Taehyung and I have been doing quests together for a few years. We got each other’s back.” 

Taehyung slides in next to Namjoon, glancing over at Jungkook with all the care in the world in his eyes. “Hey JK, just promise me you’ll do your best to be comfortable here, okay? Keep trying out those different skills we were working on, okay? Your dad will claim you, I’m sure of it.” 

Jungkook looks down at his fingers, wringing the hands together. “I-I’ll try my best.” 

Namjoon and Taehyung exchange glances, partaking in a silent language exchange, before Taehyung looks back at Jungkook. “I know someone who can help.” 

Taehyung leaves Namjoon with his backpack before stepping away from the group, making his way down the hill back towards the camp grounds. Jungkook follows shortly behind. It’s still early in the morning, most campers are inside their cabins sleeping away the mist, but there’s a small group of campers near the archery grounds. There’s some laughter as a new person steps in to ready the bow and arrow. Jungkook watches as this new archer aims as the target, pulls back the bow, and—! 

“Y/N!” Taehyung calls. 

The person at the archery station flinches, sending the arrow a few centimeters away from the center of the target. You whirl around, and Jungkook’s stomach drops because it’s you—the person who helped him when he more or less crashed into Camp Half Blood. 

You gape, still holding the bow in your arms as your eyes narrow into a glare as you continue to stare straight at Taehyung. “Kim Taehyung! Where are your manners!” You call out. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a quest now?” 

Taehyung slings an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder. “I need to borrow you for a second, it’s important.” 

You seem to be saying something to one of your friends, because you hand the bow to a friend before walking over to the two boys. 

As soon as you reach your destination, you look at Jungkook and give him a bright-eyed smile of recognition—one that brings him back to the first time he met you, when he saw stars. “Hey!” You exclaim. “I remember you, you came in with Taehyung last week. You looked like you had been through a lot—are you feeling better now?” 

“I-uh…” Jungkook tries to form words. 

“He had some ambrosia, he’s fine,” Taehyung cuts in kindly, sending Jungkook a look he can’t decipher. Taehyung goes on a momentarily rant, explaining that Jungkook would just need someone to help him further adjust to life at camp, as well as help him figure out who his godly parent was. 

Taehyung says a lot of words, but Jungkook isn’t entirely paying attention. His gaze is fixed on you, taking in your easy smile and bright eyes. He can feel his eyes widen and the flush crawl up his cheeks the longer he lets himself look at you—yet, he doesn’t understand what it means. He’s never seen someone like you before, in his years of school and in his years living on the streets. 

“So, I just need you to help him out. Hopefully his dad will claim him before we get back.” 

“That’s something to look forward to,” You reply, sounding genuinely excited for that. You turn your full attention to Jungkook this time and smile. “Hi, I’m Y/N. Nice to finally meet you!” 

He takes your hand. Fifteen-years-old, and he wears his emotions in his eyes. “I’m Jungkook.” 

.

Jungkook is at Camp Half Blood for three weeks when he starts getting nightmares. 

Not only that, but it’s the same kind of nightmare—something horribly realistic and chaotic and messy but so painful that Jungkook finds himself waking up with tears dusting itself in his eyes. 

It always starts off the same: Namjoon and Taehyung on their quest. They appear to be in a room of antiques, each boy looking cautiously at the collection around them, with their backs pressed against each other. There is a low hum in his dream, where the voices emit a low frequency and sound like static—like he’s hearing the conversations underwater. Suddenly, a burst comes from above, a shatter of something in the room, a clatter of hollow bangs and clashes, and a yell. His dream always turns blurry after the fight starts, but it always ends the same—Namjoon pulling Taehyung away from a fight. And the latter is badly wounded. 

And Jungkook always wakes up at the sight of Taehyung. And it’s the same question that swirls around in his mind, over and over again. Did Taehyung die on the quest? 

At first, it’s easy for Jungkook to write off the dream as a dream—nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps his subconscious playing tricks on him, playing around with his fears and turning it into videos to play in his brain. But with each passing night, a voice starts to ring in his mind. 

My dear boy. It’s a deep voice, husky and low and full of pitiful sadness, like it can sense the pain that Jungkook is trying to internalize. Don’t you understand? Kim Namjoon let your best friend die. 

There’s something about the voice that is familiar, like he’s heard it before. 

The voice plays in Jungkook’s mind over and over again, like a record, and it shakes him to the core. The potential of what the voice is and what the voice could mean frightens him, and it shows. 

It shows in when Jungkook just outright misses the target with his bow and arrow in the present day. The pair of you are out on the field today, and you’re furrowing your eyebrows together. 

“Are you alright?” 

Jungkook stares at his arrow, somewhere flung off to the side, before his gaze shifts to you. You’re always so sturdy, so concerned, so worried for him. Besides Taehyung, who else cares so much for his safety and wellbeing—? 

He stops, lowering the bow. He wears a serious expression. “Can I tell you a secret?” He whispers. 

You furrow your eyebrows at his tone. “Of course. Is something bothering you? I know your father hasn’t claimed you yet, but the gods can be really busy around this time…” 

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not that.” He steals himself for speaking the words into reality. “I had a dream that Taehyung died, even though Namjoon promised me nothing would happen to him.” He doesn’t miss the way you flinch at his accusation. 

You don’t reply to him at first. You stare at him, eyes conflicted. Jungkook stares back, briefly wondering whether you’ve had the experience of knowing death. He doesn’t voice the question, choosing instead to maintain steady eye contact with your nervous expression. 

“Perhaps it was just a dream, Jungkook,” You say carefully. “Namjoon always keeps his promises. He and Taehyung have been working together on quests for years. And Namjoon is the smartest person I’ve ever met. If they ran into a situation Namjoon thought they wouldn’t be able to handle, he wouldn’t even think to risk the lives of the people he’s with. He won’t let you down.” You’re smiling tightly, clearly trying to keep the tension light but Jungkook suddenly finds that his heart is not in the mood. 

He wants to believe you. He wants to believe in Namjoon. But he knows what his dreams are. And that voice. These are things he cannot ignore no matter how hard he tries. 

But the thing is, his dreams are real—Kim Namjoon does not keep his promise. Jungkook can see this across his face the moment Namjoon returns to camp, alone. 

“Not only did they know we were coming,” Namjoon explains quietly to the camp counselors, late in the night, at a meeting spot reserved for higher ups. “They had taken over the museum a few weeks before we showed up. It was an ambush. I… I couldn’t save Taehyung.” 

No. 

“No!” Jungkook cries out, standing up and making his position known—loitering in the background of the meeting. 

Namjoon meets his gaze from across the gap that separates them. “Jungkook?” 

Jungkook’s head is spinning, his breath coming out in gasps, as he backs up slowly away from the growing crowd of camp counselors. “Y-You promised me!” He accuses loudly, pointing at Namjoon. “You promised nothing would happen to Taehyung! You lied to me!” 

“Jungkook, I’m sorry.” Namjoon steps out from amongst the group of counselors, a hand out in front of him as if approaching a frightened animal. “We were overwhelmed. If I could take it back and save him, I would—!” 

“Shut up!” Jungkook cries louder, running his hands through his hair. He should have known, should have known that weight in his gut was a warning and not a feeling. The tears in his eyes make it blurry to see anything to understand anything—because Taehyung is dead, along with his kindness and compassion and the safety he brought. “I hate you, I hate all of you!” 

Suddenly, there’s a rumble in the ground, a shake in the Earth so intense that a hushed silence falls over the crowd. At once, the ground splits open and a roar of fire explodes up from the pit, threatening to drag in anyone who gets closer. There are screams from the campers, from the counselors, but Jungkook doesn’t care. He’s so angry, so hurt, so lost. He doesn’t hear any of it. 

Until he hears your voice. “Jungkook!” You scream across the gap. 

Jungkook stills upon hearing you, lowering his arms and opening his eyes. Blinking away tears, he feels his heart rate slow back down to a manageable pace. The split in the ground closes before he looks up. He sees the camp counselors up ahead, equal looks of fear and horror across their eyes. 

He turns just enough to see you. You, with your wide eyes, looking confused and upset by what he has just done. And Jungkook feels nothing but disappointment. He has never done anything like this before, and he doesn’t know what it means. 

So he runs away. He runs away from Namjoon and this god forsaken camp that he knows will remind him of Taehyung. 

He runs away from the whispers from campers, a representation to serve that Jungkook will never truly belong here. 

He runs away from you, the only other person he would think to trust from now on. He can’t handle any of this anymore. 

. 

Two weeks after Jungkook runs away from Camp Half Blood, and a shadow of a figure appears to him in the midst of the evening air. It’s a ghost with a dark twisted smile, who calls himself Min Yoongi—a king in a past life, who now resides in the Underworld as a judge for all souls. 

He tells Jungkook that Jungkook is a son of Hades—which explains why he knew about Taehyung’s death, why he split the ground open all those weeks ago. There’s something borderline dangerous about Yoongi’s smile. 

Every fiber and nerve in Jungkook’s body is begging him not to trust this ghost. But, of course, Jungkook doesn’t listen. He stopped listening to things a long time ago. 

Besides, Yoongi soon makes offers that Jungkook cannot escape from. A way to bring Taehyung back, a way to strike revenge upon Kim Namjoon, a way—! 

Jungkook blinks the thoughts away. He had dozed off again, something he’s been doing a lot lately. 

“You should sleep,” Yoongi advises, his voice more of a whisper than anything else. There’s a touch of eerie to him, in his paper white skin and gray eyes. 

Even though Jungkook doesn’t desire sleep, far from it, he settles with listening to the ghost anyways. So he curls up on a makeshift pillow crafted from his beaten down (stolen) leather jacket, and closes his eyes. 

But instead of the previous nights, where he dreams about death and destruction, dreams up different ways Taehyung could have survived, dreams up Namjoon not caring about Taehyung’s death—he dreams of you. 

Dreams about you are such a rarity now, but they always make him feel warm. Content. Almost satisfied. 

In the dream, the pair of you are situated underneath a big tree at the edge of the forest. You’re in the middle of teaching him about Mythomagic—a card game he had immediately developed an interest for—and he realizes he’s dreaming about a memory this time. When he steals a look at you, he sees sunlight curling around your form, lighting up your hair and your eyes. He hears your laughter and sees the crinkle in your eyes. He can feel your happiness and the innocence in the air around you. He remembers the peacefulness, the calming nature of you. 

He misses it—he misses you. 

A cold chill running down his spine startles Jungkook awake as he springs into a sitting position. The fire before him has long since been put out, and Min Yoongi is floating in front of him. The latter wears a sharp look. “You’re dreaming about her again, aren’t you?” 

Jungkook sighs. Good things in his life could only last for so long. He runs a hand through his hair and turns to gather his jacket into his arms. “I thought I asked you to stop peeking into my mind.” 

“You were smiling,” Yoongi observes quietly. 

“That’s none of your business,” Jungkook snaps. 

“It must have been a good dream. I couldn’t see the contents of the dream, just the subject.” 

“Stay out of my head!” Jungkook hisses, standing up and sliding his arms into the jacket. 

“You care deeply about her.” 

“What do I have to say to get you to stop talking about her?” Jungkook retorts hotly, feeling his temper rise. It had been a good dream. The best one he’s had all week. 

Yoongi looks at him passively. “Just answer one of my questions,” He settles calmly. 

Jungkook grunts. “Fine. What is it?” 

“Why exactly do you care so much about her? You hardly know her.” 

Jungkook slides his backpack over his shoulder. He ignores the touch of passive aggressiveness in Yoongi’s tone. “She was the only one at camp who went out of their way to make me feel like they actually gave a shit.” 

“She cares more about Namjoon than you,” Yoongi interjects bluntly. “She and Namjoon have been friends for longer. She only talked to you because of Namjoon, after all. And don’t you hate him?” 

“Shut up.” 

“You worry she doesn’t care for you the way you do. Haven’t you wondered why she hasn’t tried looking for you?” 

“Shut up.” 

“She was only nice to you because Namjoon asked her to be nice to you.” 

“Shut the fuck up!” Jungkook explodes, turning towards Yoongi with his arm out in a striking motion. His arm cuts clean through the ghost, and he watches as the pieces wisp away into the air. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Yoongi will be back soon, probably to reprimand him, but mostly to carry on as if this hadn’t happened—to continue asking questions and continue trying to piss Jungkook off. It doesn’t matter. Jungkook could never bring Yoongi any harm. The latter is a ghost, after all. 

There’s still a lot he doesn’t understand. 

. 

Jungkook calls off his deal with Yoongi shortly after the You Incident—in which a series of dreams about you sent Yoongi on an accusatory streak that sent him back to the Underworld where he rightfully belongs. It’s good because he doesn’t want a ghost meddling in his personal business, and his personal feelings. 

It’s bad, however, because Jungkook no longer has an evil ghost by his side that offers up revenge. 

This leaves him to do the next best thing—try and summon Taehyung. 

As a son of Hades, his powers do include communicating with ghosts like Yoongi and cracking holes into the ground, but it also involves the ability to summon deceased souls. All that is required is a pit, some food, and a cantation in Ancient Greek. It’s supposed to be simple, and in a way it is. 

Except when the soul he’s trying to summon doesn’t want to be found, which is exactly how it has gone with Taehyung. He’s tried to get Taehyung’s attention for weeks now, to no luck. And he’s tried everything. 

Jungkook scowls to himself as he takes in the local convenience store to buy the various items he’ll need to attempt another summoning. Animal blood is one of the best tools for this type of power, but animal blood doesn’t exactly like up on shelves in aisles of grocery stores—so Jungkook has settled with fast food meals, chips, or anything cheap he can get his hands on. 

He glares at the lineup of sodas in front of his gaze, trying to focus but he finds his mind wandering against through his memories, picking the ones that are most guaranteed to make him feel like shit. 

His mind settles on a line Yoongi said to him countless times regarding you: She was only nice to you because Namjoon asked her to be nice to you. 

His hands shake in his pockets, determined not to believe it, but finding himself pool with doubt nonetheless. 

“Jungkook.” 

He jumps out of his skin at the familiar voice he’s spent the past many months thinking about, as the sensation rings through his body. He experiences brief flashes of emotions he hasn’t undergone in awhile: peace, warmth, hope. He turns on his heel and can’t help the way his eyes widen at the sight of you. 

The months that have passed since his disappearance really does wonders to your face. You look older. You look wary, but well prepared. Most of all, your eyes are still that bright light he remembers more often than he cares to admit. But you also look sad, like the sight of Jungkook is worse than you expected. 

“Jungkook…” You say again, quieter this time. 

You saying his name again brings him back to reality, brings him back to where he is and why he’s here. He doesn’t need you. Like Yoongi said, you’re friends with Namjoon—and Namjoon is the reason why Taehyung is dead. His voice sounds hollow. “What are you doing here?” 

“I should be asking you the same question.” 

His scowl deepens as he settles for a Mountain Dew on the rack. “That’s none of your business.” He catches the hurt that flickers in your eyes, but he turns towards the cashier before he can feel sorry for you. 

You trail after him. “Please don’t shut me out,” You plead gently. You stay behind Jungkook as he pays for his food. “I came here looking for you.” 

“Awfully convenient—but I don’t think you should be wasting your time,” Jungkook grumbles, bounding out of the shop and stopping along the sidewalk. “Why don’t you go back to Namjoon and keep being his best friend and just leave me alone?” 

A sort of realization seems to settle in your eyes, as if you’ve just confirmed something. “I’m not leaving,” You say firmly after a moment. “I’m here by myself, Jungkook. No campers, no Namjoon, it’s just me. I know you’re mad at Namjoon, and you have every right to be upset. I know why you cracked a hole in the ground. I understand all that now. But I really think you should stop blaming Namjoon and hurting yourself. Namjoon didn’t mean to let Taehyung die—!” 

Jungkook whirls around, his eyes a twin set of fire. “Don’t say his name,” He snaps roughly, but falls silent when you don’t even flinch. 

How could he raise his voice at the only person who has gone out of their way to ensure his safety? 

He turns away. He doesn’t apologize, and you don’t ask him to. 

The pair of you don’t say anything for a long moment—Jungkook just makes his way down the sidewalk and you follow along. 

He stops after a moment. He turns himself just enough so you can see his profile. “Fine,” He says, trying to ignore the flutter in his chest when you flash him an appreciative smile. “I’ll let you tag along. But only because I feel bad for snapping at you. I’ve just…” He sighs. “Been going through a lot.” 

You step forward to stand by his side. “We can talk about anything you want to, Jungkook. I’m still your friend.” 

He swallows thickly at your offer, hoping that you don’t notice. If you do, you remain silent. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” 

. 

Two days after you join Jungkook’s travels, you seem to decide he is calm enough for a sensitive question. But you’re sneaky about it. You wait until the night, when both of you are curling around a fire—you in your sleeping bag, and Jungkook with his signature leather jacket makeshift pillow underneath his head.  “Why are you so afraid to talk about Taehyung’s death?” 

He flinches at the mention of Taehyung’s name, knowing that snapping and causing a scene would do nothing to stop you from asking the question over and over again. You had given him a few days, but something about your tone tonight tells him that you won’t take no for an answer. 

Jungkook turns his head to look at you. Your eyes are flickering against the fire. “I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine.” 

You shrug a shoulder. “Sure.” 

He sighs, momentarily stumped. “I’m afraid that if I admit it, or let other people admit it in front of me, it’s true and there’s nothing I can do to bring him back.” 

“I don’t think Taehyung would want you to bring him back, Jungkook. He saved Namjoon that day; he sacrificed himself for a reason—!” 

“Okay, my turn,” Jungkook interrupts, refusing to hear any of it. “Why are you here? Really?” 

You are quiet for a second. “I was sent on a quest to come find you,” You reply after a moment. “The oracle told me about a prophecy where you were in danger. It said you had made a deal with Min Yoongi, said you were considering a soul for a soul trade to get Taehyung back. I was scared for you, Jungkook.” You sit up in your sleeping bag, leaning across the space between the two of you. “My turn. Why don’t you want to believe that Taehyung sacrificed himself to save Namjoon?”

“Because why would he do that?” Jungkook retorts back. “Why would he leave behind everything he cared about? Why would he leave me—?” The words choke in the back of his throat as his heart rams painfully against his chest, the underlying reason for his bitterness surfacing up again. He thought he had smashed his grief down far enough where it would never have to see sunlight again. “It’s nothing. I’m not playing this game anymore.” 

You are quiet, watching as Jungkook curls into himself and turns his back to you. “When are you going to start letting me in?” You whisper. “I didn’t accept that quest for no reason, Jungkook, I came because I care about you. I want to help you.” 

I’ve already let you in, far more than I wanted to, Jungkook thinks to himself instead, wrapping his arms tighter around himself. 

“I know that Taehyung would have never wanted to leave you. He cared about you a lot, and saw you as the little brother he never had. You guys deserved more time. You deserved more time to have the family you never got to have. You wanna know the last thing Taehyung said to me, after introducing us to each other all that time ago? He said that you guys only knew each other for a short time, but you were the strongest person Taehyung had known. I know how much Taehyung wanted to be there for you. But he also had other responsibilities.” Your fingers twitch as if you want to reach over and grab onto Jungkook. “Namjoon had been the leader of the quest, he was the main priority. Taehyung had to make the call. He would never have wanted you to take the guilt for a decision he made on his own.” 

Jungkook hesitates, before rolling onto his back. “Why does Namjoon deserve my forgiveness?” 

Finally, he spares a glance at you. You’re still looking at him, gaze sharp over the fire. It distracts Jungkook momentarily, as his mind thinks about how different you are from fire. Fire can be harsh, blunt, unforgiving, and relentless. Like him. 

But you are like the sun—bright, warm, longing. You refuse to give up on him. 

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” You whisper. “Because everyone deserves a second chance.” 

He stares at you. He doesn’t know what longing dances behind his eyes, but you seem to know, because you avert your gaze and grumble something about going to sleep. 

He watches you turn to your side, and he wonders. 

. 

Jungkook has tried to summon Taehyung a grand total of ten times in the weeks prior to his run in with you. Each time is met with failure, because it seems like Taehyung does not want to be summoned which is disappointing and disheartening. To be honest, it makes Jungkook less and less enthusiastic to keep attempting something he cannot guarantee. 

But as you stand next to him over an empty pit the pair of you have spent the last thirty minutes digging up, you take your hand in his. You smile at him, nodding. “It’ll work this time.” 

So Jungkook pours in the Mountain Dew and dumps out the bag of chips he’s acquired into the hole. As he repeats the same cantation he’s said for the past ten times, the food starts bubbling as spirits from the Underworld fight to get a taste of the offering. 

“Show me Taehyung!” Jungkook calls out, although he sounds worried and unsure. 

At once, a spirit with a bright light, brighter than the others around it, shines through. It slides to the front to drink from the food at the bottom of the pit. The figure morphs and forms into Kim Taehyung. 

Despite everything, despite the long hours that Jungkook has committed to summoning Taehyung, the sight of his friend does not fill him with joy. It fills his eyes with tears. 

You notice, you always do. You squeeze his hand, but you also let go of him. “I’ll leave you two.” 

So Taehyung talks. He talks and talks, about his quest, about his sacrifice, about Namjoon, about forgiveness. 

This is something Jungkook has wanted for weeks. Yet, the longer Taehyung talks, the deeper he can feel the rifts of frustration. 

Frustration at Namjoon, for whom everyone is telling Jungkook to forgive. 

Frustration at Taehyung, for leaving him drowning in the sorrows of his own nightmares. For leaving him, even when he wasn’t ready to be left. 

Frustration at you, for always caring about him, even when he’s sure he doesn’t even care about himself anymore. 

When Jungkook releases Taehyung back to the Underworld, he feels like a hollow shell. He simply stands there, in front of the pit that brought forth his best friend. His mind is whirling with questions, with a curiosity. 

You approach him slowly. “Jungkook…” 

“You should go back,” He mutters. 

You actually look shocked at this now. “What?” 

He turns on his heel to address you properly. “Go back to camp.” He doesn’t mean to sound so harsh, but the words come out like a snap. He tries to reprimand the situation when your face falls just a fraction. “Go back to camp,” He tries again, a little softer this time. He keeps his gaze on you, even when you look up to stare at him. “It’ll be okay. I just need a little bit of time.” 

At this, you nod slowly. You try for a smile. “Come back home, okay?” 

He thinks he knows what you mean, but you disappear before he can ask you. 

. 

He returns to Camp Half Blood after a few days, with his leather jacket and black iron sword. The campers that guard the border part for him like the Red Sea—with the exception of one camper. He’s an older camper, who even in the dark shines brighter than the moon overhead. It’s a son of Apollo quality. It belongs to Jung Hoseok, a camper Jungkook met when he first arrived at camp. Hoseok is like sunshine—he’s always bright and cheerful with a positive disposition. 

Today, despite still having that glint in his eyes, the boy wears a much more solemn expression. Almost as if he’s seen everything that Jungkook has gone through. Or, at the very least, has heard about it. “Hey Jungkook…” Hoseok greets. He doesn’t leave much room for conversation, because he gestures past the archway entrance, down the hill, towards the Big House—the main meeting place for campers, the central point of Camp Half Blood. “She’s waiting for you.” 

He doesn’t need a list of camp names to know who Hoseok is talking about. Jungkook just mumbles his thanks, trying not to draw too much attention to the flush against his cheeks as he follows the pathway down into camp. It’s late, so the grounds are devoid of people, making it easier for Jungkook to step onto the porch of the Big House. 

You’re on the porch, pacing back and forth with your thumb in between your teeth and you look nervous. You’re mumbling something underneath your breath. 

But your ears are just as good as your eyes, because as soon as Jungkook steps on the wood, you’re whirling around to face him. “Jungkook!” You exclaim, approaching him with tentative steps. “Y-You came back.” 

He levels you with a look, feeling a bashfulness overcome him. “You asked me to,” He says. There’s a slight pause. “I told you I needed time to think, and I have. You were right. Everyone deserves a second chance. It wasn’t fair of me to go after Namjoon the way I did.” 

You nod, giving him a small smile. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” 

Jungkook continues to stare at you, feeling a fondness overcoming him. “Thanks,” He finally settles with. “For, you know, finding me. For not giving up on me.” He looks down, scratching the back of his neck. “I should probably go find Namjoon and apologize.” 

You wave away his concern. “Namjoon is asleep.” You angle your head towards the oceanside that surrounds the camp. “Want to take a walk with me?” 

So you lead him through the camp, past the cabins of campers, past the archery set, past all that, to finally the beach located along the outskirts of the camp. It’s home to many boat races, surfing adventures, and firework displays. Currently, it’s devoid of activity. Right now there is merely a wooden pier that stretches out into the ocean, one that you and Jungkook walk down before you settle down at the edge. 

You pat the spot next to you, and Jungkook sits down. Since you don’t say anything, he allows himself to stare out at the horizon, and the movement of the ocean. When you still don’t say anything, Jungkook dares himself to look at you. The moonlight is cascading across your features. You look like home. You feel like home. 

You look at him suddenly, and knit your eyebrows. “Do I have something on my face?” 

“Oh, uh, no…” He trails off, forcing himself to look away from you. Should he tell you? Not tell you, but… “Hey Y/N,” Jungkook speaks before he can think otherwise. 

You look at him. “Yes?” 

Jungkook straightens his back a little. “I-I think I should tell you… I didn’t come back just for Namjoon. Actually, I came back to tell you that I, uh, well, I missed you—I mean, hanging out with you—I wanted to be a better person because of you—I mean, not just because of you, but—!” 

You start to smile at that, before you do something unexpected. You lean over and kiss his cheek. 

He feels like his body has just been shocked, the sensation dancing up and down his spine. “W-What was that for?” He’s trying to sound confused, but his nerves immediately start getting the best of him. 

Your smile is still present, but it’s a kind smile that touches your eyes and assures him of his choice to return. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice. You still wear your emotions in your eyes. That’s one that hasn’t changed over the past year.” 

He scoffs, but his face feels hot and he’s sure the effect he’s trying to go for is lost anyways. 

[screamingatanemptyroom]

Please Fix the Story! - pt 15 - Vampire Romance

The story continues!

Masterpost linked here

Enjoy!

________________________

“Class we have two new transfers today” The teacher announced cheerfully, ignoring the excited murmurs around the class. “This is Belaire and Alexander, they are a brother and sister who have recently moved to the area, please make them feel welcome!”  She turned towards us. “Would you like to tell us a little about yourselves?”

I stood up at the front of the classroom, feeling tired.

I hate high school so much.

I glanced over at Alex, like me he had camouflaged his red eyes with illusion magic, looking like a fairly normal seventeen year old male.  He looked over the students, his gaze stopping at the front row near the window, breaking out into a wide smile.

“Hello! I’m Alexander. I’m seventeen years old, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you all much better.” His eyes never left the object of their focus while he spoke, the intensity uncomfortable. I followed the trajectory of his gaze, and let out a sigh.

I guess I underestimated the pull of the heroine. I thought uncomfortably to the scene in his bedroom yesterday. He had woken up this morning perfectly normal, but continued to insist that he would go undercover at the school as well. Any time I tried to object he had grown angry, finally snarling at me to mind my own business. Throwing my hands up in the air, I had given up temporarily.

It’s like the reasonable brother I’ve known these past few days was just an illusion.

Everyone had turned towards me, waiting for my introduction. I sighed loudly. “She told you my name already. I’m… eighteen… I guess? I’m here to focus on learning so please keep your distance.”

There were a few disgruntled murmurs at my impolite words, but I ignored them. I wasn’t here to make friends.

The teacher’s smile stiffened in place. “Very… interesting. As for where to sit…” She scanned the room. There appeared to be two open seats, one in the back near the door and the other…

“I guess we’ll be neighbors.” Alexander grinned at Chelsea and stepped towards the empty seat next to her.

Only to fall flat on his face as I tripped him.

“Sorry, brother dearest, I’m a bit short sighted and need to sit near the front.” I stepped on his back, ignoring his grunt of pain and lightly sat down at the desk next to Chelsea. I glanced back at him, noting his gloomy expression and waved cheerfully.

“You…” His voice was a growl, only audible with my better than human hearing, but I interrupted him loudly, giving him a thumbs up.

“Thanks for being so understanding.”

Alex glared at me, and I smiled brightly back. I might not have been able to stop him from following the plot so far, but I’m not about to let him flirt with a confused adolescent right in front of me.

After a long moment, he stood back to his feet and headed towards the empty seat in the back.

“Wasn’t that a little mean?” Chelsea whispered to me, her eyes following his back a strange light in them. Strangely enough, she wasn’t overly concerned about him. If anything she looked… embarrassed. Compared to her tears and tantrums the last time I saw her, she seemed much more reasonable today.

Maybe she’s just not a night person?

“It was very kind, actually, once you take a longer view.” After all, he had committed double suicide after an unhealthy relationship with her in the original.

She seemed unconvinced. “Then why do you seem so… happy... when you watched him fall on his face?”

Oops, my inner villainess must have been leaking out a bit at that time. It was pretty fun to watch the hero fall though.

“It’s a vampire thing.” I answered finally. “You wouldn’t understand.”

She nodded innocently, not questioning further. I watched as she turned her attention to the teacher, taking notes diligently in a bright pink notebook.

You know, she’s a bit of a brat, but she seems fairly normal today... there may be hope for her yet. With Alexander’s recent changes, I might have more luck approaching the problem from her side instead.

My mind made up, I then looked back at the blackboard, wincing at the calculations written there.

Calculus, my mortal enemy… we meet again.

________________________

After class I grabbed Chelsea’s hand, pulling her into the hallway. I could feel Alex’s angry glare on my back, but didn’t turn back to give him attention. Before we could get too far however, we were stopped by two teenage boys.

“You’re the new girl, right?” The boy flipped his overly long blond curls out of his eyes, leaning on the wall to block our path.

I stopped with a sigh. “So they tell me.”

The other boy chuckled at my words, leaning closer. “You don’t look half bad. How about you skip the next period and come out and play with us?”

Chelsea, looking nervous, hid behind my back at their words. “These two are trouble.” She whispered in my ear. “Their fathers are on the school board, so the headmaster turns a blind eye when they bully others.”

“I see…”

She took a deep breath, tears in her eyes. “If you run away now, I’ll try to distract them.”

Did she forget I’m a centuries old vampire? I couldn’t help but grin. Although this habit of saving people is what keeps getting her in trouble, I can’t help but find it a bit cute. Definitely need to protect the young from my brother.

“Hey, we’re talking to you!” The blond one snapped, growing impatient. “Don’t pretend like you’re not interested.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “If you come with us, we’ll show you a great time.”

“Well although that sounds about as appealing as dousing myself in gasoline and running through a burning building, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to pass.”  I crossed my arms and grinned. “If you don’t like it, feel free to start a fight. It’s been a while since I got to beat up idiots, I’m starting to get a bit itchy.”

“…” Both of them stared in shocked silence for a few moments, until it was interrupted by Chelsea’s laughter. Turning red at the sound, the closest boy raised a fist, preparing to strike me.

“You…”

BAM!

He went flying backwards at a high speed, hitting the lockers behind him with a loud crash, denting the metal in. His buddy fell to the ground with a frightened squeal, staring up at the assailant with horror.

“Sorry.” Liam grinned, not looking very sorry. “Didn’t see you there.”

“W-who are you?” The terrified boy asked.

“I’m the new gym teacher.” Liam cracked his knuckles, staring down at him with a frightening smile. “Looks like you two boys have got some extra energy, trying to pick up my wife… I mean pick up this random high school student that I don’t know at all.”

“What?” The confused boy had no time to protest before he was lifted up by his collar. Liam dragged him behind him, picking up the other that had been thrown into the lockers as well. “Time for some special hell punishment… cough… I mean personalized training.”

“Do you know who my father is?!”

“I’m shaking with fear.” With a cheerful wave back towards me, Liam dragged the two boys away, leaving us to stare after him in silence.

“That’s… your husband?” She asked timidly.

“Yep.”

“He’s human, right?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Is he always so….”

“Yep.”

She grinned. “That’s so sweet. I want to have a romance like yours one day.”

Hmm. 

I pulled her into an empty classroom, staring at her for a few moments. After a short uncomfortable silence, she turned red.

“What is it?”

“Why are you so different today?” I asked quietly. “When you came by that night, you were a lot more… excitable.”

She winced at my words, shaking her head slowly. “I …” She trailed off, obviously unsure of what to say.

“You acted like I was your mortal enemy. Now you’re so friendly, and I’m not sure what to do with it.”

Chelsea stared at me for a few silent moments, and then rubbed her face with her hand. “I don’t know if I can explain this, it seems too strange.”

So says the heroine of a failed novel to a world traveling amnesiac.

I suppressed a smile. “Try me.”

“A few days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, and something had… changed.” She sighed softly. “I felt panicked, lost. It was as if the world had shifted somehow, and left me without a place.”

“Shifted…” A few days ago… that would have been around the time I woke up in this world.

“I know this sounds crazy. I had already met Alex before this, and thought he was handsome and cool but that was it. He wasn’t that important to me right then.  But after that… shift… I started obsessing over him. Wondering where he was, worrying that he wasn’t thinking about me. I received that letter, and it seemed to confirm my worst fears.” She stood up, pacing around the room uncomfortably. “I was frantic by the time I showed up in front of you. I was convinced that you were trying to separate us, that you hated me because I was human… I wasn’t willing to listen.”

“That’s a pretty accurate description of how you were… so what changed?”

She looked embarrassed. “Last night, it shifted back. It didn’t make sense. I felt a sharp pain, so severe that I thought I was dying. But once it passed, I felt… relieved. The world was right, I was no longer lost. It was like my place in the world was secure once more. When I saw you and Alexander this morning, it was horrifying to think of how I had behaved.”

“…” I couldn’t help but think of Alexander’s episode yesterday, which seemed strangely similar. When he was being reasonable, she felt lost and hysterical. Now that he’s obsessed with her again, she’s back to normal?

Something is wrong with this world.

“I know this doesn’t excuse how poorly I’ve acted.” Chelsea sat back down next to me, her eyes slightly wet with tears. “But I am sorry. I am grateful that you’ve gone to all this trouble to protect me. “

I patted her head. “It’s fine. We’ll help you out.”

“Thanks!”

“I do stand by what I said last time though: you shouldn’t be in a romantic relationship with Alex right now. You are a teenager and he is a centuries old being. Allow yourself the space and time to grow up, to enjoy your life without being pressured into life-altering decisions by an adult who is almost fifteen times your age.”

Chelsea paused at that, and then nodded slowly. “It makes sense when you say it today.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I just don’t know if I’ll still be rational about it later.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you whether you are rational or not.”

“…” Her eyes reddened at my words, and she threw herself forward, hugging me tightly.

“Thank you!”

“It’s fine… could you stop choking me?”

“You’re like the sister I’ve always wanted!”

“Sounds good… please let go.” How many times would I have suffocated in this world if I wasn’t already undead?

She finally released me, sniffing loudly. “So can I consider you a friend?”

I held up a finger. “On one condition:”

She nodded.

“Try to restrain the crying at everything.” If I’m going to be spending my time with the heroine, I’ll need all the crying-free time I can get.

She blinked rapidly, stopping the tears in her eyes from overflowing. “Deal!”

I let out a sigh of relief, shaking her hand firmly. “See, this is nice. I don’t get many nice calm moments like this…”

CRASH!

Four men broke through the window wearing bronze masks and brandishing weapons. “Kill the vampire scum and her minion!”

“… Curse my unlucky mouth! I really need to stop making vague foreshadowing statements!”  I pushed Chelsea towards the door. “Go get Liam.”

She nodded, but then halted at the door. “What about you?”

“I’m a vampire queen.” I grinned, showing my fangs. “You should be worried about them.”

She ran out, and I blocked the men from following her.

“Don’t let her get away!”

“Fool! We need to kill this monstrous hag first, then we’ll go after the brat that serves her.”

I paused at their words. “Excuse me? Did you just call me a hag?”

The leader of the four snarled at me. “Silence, foul demon!”

I grabbed a desk chair, snapping off a leg. “No, no no, don’t go changing your insults now. I already heard it, and I must say that I’m very offended right now!”

I let go of my disguise completely, allowing my eyes and hair to become a bright red once more.

“Unfortunately for you, I think I’m going to take out my frustration at your poor choice of words by beating it out of you.” I brandished my makeshift club.  “Try not to die, okay? I need to get confessions out of you later.”

“Don’t listen to her lies! We outnumber her!”

I laughed out loud, going full on villainess laugh with glee. Snapping my fingers, I spread my dark magic towards the doors and windows, sealing the exits, blackening all the lights.

The room plunged into complete darkness.

“You should have brought more men.”

With that, I leapt forward, club raised.

It was a one sided battle. Unable to see in the darkness, the humans flailed around, trying to corner me by the sounds in the room. To me, who could see perfectly, this provided a  source of amusement, including leading them into swinging at each other and injuring themselves. Eventually I tired of playing with them, and with four hard taps, knocked the men unconscious.  I dissipated my dark magic, just in time for the door to burst open and for Alexander and Liam to rush into the room.

“WIFE!” Liam ran towards me, somehow managing to step on all four assailants before reaching my side. He picked me up, squeezing me tightly in his arms. “Are you okay?”

“… You realize she’s standing calmly in a room with four unconscious assassins.” Alexander knelt next to one of the men. “I’m pretty sure she’s fine.”

“’Pretty sure’ is not good enough!” Liam held me up in the air, turning me around, looking concerned.

“Liam, I’m fine, you can put me down.”

“… Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“I can hold you longer, there’s no need for you to be tired.”

“Remember what I said when I agreed to let you be a teacher in this school?”

“…” Liam set me down, hanging his head. “You said don’t be creepy.”

“That’s right, everyone thinks that I’m a teenager and you’re a student. You can’t act like you usually do.”

“But you’re older than me! And we’re newly married!” Liam scuffed his foot against the ground, managing to grind his shoe on the head of one of my attackers. “It’s not fair!”

“We’re in high school. What ever made you think that life here would be fair?”

Liam tilted his head, seeming confused. “Why do you hate high school so much? Did you even go to one? You were a teenager centuries ago.”

I’ve lived multiple lifetimes as the side character or villainess in the worst version of high school to ever exist: teen romance high schools. I shuddered at the memory, patting his shoulder. “Just trust me on this one.”

“Can we focus, please?” Alex interrupted our conversation with a rude tone. “The important thing is that someone put Chelsea in danger.”

“Actually she was relatively very safe, she left the room before any fighting…”

“She’s such a special person, of course these groups covet her.” Alex looked down at the unconscious men with a sneer. “I have to protect her. I’ll pull her out of school, she can stay with me for now...”

PSST!

I pulled my brother behavior modification tool out of my bag and sprayed his face multiple times.

“BAD VAMPIRE! No stalking or kidnapping teenage girls!”

He wiped his face, his eyes changing back to a bright red in his anger. “Can you cut that out?!”

“I will when you stop being a creep.”

“You’re such a bit…”

PSST!

To my surprise, Liam took out a bottle and sprayed Alex before I could react. Seeing my look of confusion, he smiled. “Selina gave me an extra, said I would need it if you were going to be around so many hormonal teenagers.”

“That reminds me, what happened to those two boys from earlier?”

Liam let out an ominous laugh. “Nothing permanent.”

“Don’t ignore me!” Alex shouted. “This is about keeping Chelsea safe!”

“Exactly.” I waved the bottle of garlic water in the air. “Which is why she’s not staying with you. I’ll protect her.”

“Belaire are you okay?!!” Before Alex could respond, a tearful voice called out from the doorway. I turned, just in time to see Chelsea throw herself at me, crying.

“I was so worried about you!”

“I told you I’d be fine.”

“But you were outnumbered!”

“They could have brought an army, and I still would win.” I patted her head. “Trust in your friend.”

“…okay.”

“Now didn’t you just promise me that you wouldn’t cry so much?”

She laughed stepping away and wiping her tears. “Sorry.”

“…”

“…”

Liam and Alexander stared at us in shock.

Alex recovered first. “Since when are you two so close?”

Chelsea’s smile faded a little as she turned towards him. “We’re friends now.”

“But she’s standing in the way of our relationship!”

“We’re not in a relationship.”

“Don’t lie!”

PSST!

Liam stepped between them, spraying Alex again, looking confused. “Is it just me or did we just have this conversation, but with the roles reversed?”

“I’ll explain it later, dear.” I knelt down next to the unconscious men. “Now help me tie them up.”

As we restrained the men, ignoring Alex’s furious sputters. Eventually, the leader of the group woke up first, his initial confusion fading into horror as he stared up at us.

“Don’t be scared.” I smiled at him. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions.”

Liam cracked his knuckles. “Unless you plan on disrespecting my wife. Then you should be terrified.”

Chelsea also tried to crack her knuckles, looking much less terrifying. “Yeah, what he said.”

“…” Everyone, including the assassin, stopped and stared at her.

I patted her head. “I appreciate the thought, but stick to your strengths.” Turning back towards the captive man, I continued. “Now, who sent you?”

He glared at me. “Vampire scum, my brothers will hunt you down and send your soul back to Hell!”

Liam frowned. “Vampire hunter? I don’t recognize him.”

“Not everyone was willing to work under a traitor like you. His eyes were wide and fanatic as his speech became pressured. “A new world is coming, one which has no place for monsters and human traitors! We will cleanse this world of its filth! The flames of judgment will consume you, and we will watch with joy as you suffer!”

I rolled my eyes. “What a pleasant gentleman.”

“He’s certainly… passionate?” Chelsea shrugged.

The man looked up at her. “Foolish girl. You sided with these monsters. You betrayed your kind, and will be the first to fall!”

I saw something flash by me, and shouted “WE NEED HIM ALIVE…!”

SLASH

The man’s throat was cut, his blood soaking the front of his clothing as his wide shocked gaze met my own. His body slumped to the floor. Alex stepped back, wiping the blood from his hands, seeming calm.

“I won’t let anyone who threatens her to live.”

“Oh, isn’t that sweet.” I smiled, and then reared back and punched him.

As he hit the floor with a groan, I leaned over. “We needed him to talk, idiot. To protect Chelsea, I need to know who is behind these men. You are not this stupid, Alex. What’s wrong with you?”

“You don’t understand!”

I grabbed his collar, pulling his face close to my own. “You’re right, because I’m actually using my brain.”

“We have three other…” He paused looking over, as there were light groans from the other side of the room.

The three other men convulsed, white foam spilling from their lips.

“Poison.” I growled, dropping Alex and stepping away, frustrated. I searched the bodies. Beyond silver knives, there was nothing on their bodies. I turned the leaders head to the side, ignoring the large wound in his neck, and found a marking at the side.

A black rose.

A quick look confirmed that the other men had the same tattoo on their neck.

“Liam, do you recognize this?”

He shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t.”

Liam contacted his group, bringing in men to dispose of the bodies. As they cleaned up the room, he pulled me to the side, a sulking expression on his face.

“I need to return to the headquarters and look into this. I’m worried they might have ties to the hunters.”

I reached out and touched his cheek, smiling. “I understand.”

“It’s not fair! We’re finally married!” He frowned, picking me up and hugging me. “…But bringing a vampire into the hunters headquarters doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

“I’ll let Chelsea stay with me tonight and protect her. Don’t worry, and come home soon.”

He pulled me in, kissing me. “I’ll come back as fast as I can. Please be safe.”

“I will.” I squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I promise.”

________________________

It took very little effort to convince Chelsea to come stay with me that night. I was mildly worried about how quickly she trusted me.

But I guess that’s her problem in the story, right? She kept saving people with ties to the supernatural world and trusting everything they say.

Alex on the other hand, argued heatedly all the way to the castle once he heard she was planning to stay in my suite. As we entered the front hall, he grabbed my arm, snarling.

“This is ridiculous! I should be taking care of her!”

PSST!

Feeling bored, I sprayed him. “Maybe I need to put a more effective fluid in here? Like adding silver powder?”

He shook his head, garlic water dripping from his hair. “I don’t trust you to keep her safe!”

PSST!

Chelsea sprayed him this time. She held up the bottle, grinning. “Your husband gave this to me, saying it was useful!”

“That was the right thing to do.” I smiled back. “You keep that with you.”

“Miss… is this… person… staying here.” Selina arrived silently, a look of disapproval on her face.

“She’s going to be in my suite, Selina, please prepare her room.”

Chelsea turned to her, reaching out a hand. “I’m sorry for my actions the other day, Selina. I hope you can forgive me.”

Selina stared at her silently for a few moments. “Try to keep your hormones contained, teenager.”

“Umm… Sure, I promise.”

“… I haven’t teenaged-proofed the rooms. ” She let out a long sigh. “I’ll go prepare the bed… and place protective coverings on the furniture and carpets.”

Chelsea turned towards me, confused by the obvious hostility of my butler. I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Selina just doesn’t like teenagers.”

“That’s reasonable. I don’t like them either, and I am one.”

We laughed, heading up together.

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m staying with you?” Chelsea seemed nervous. “I don’t want to cause you more trouble.” 

“It will be fine.” I grinned, “You’re in the center of my territory now. What could go wrong?”

“... Didn’t you say you were going to stop making vague foreshadowing statements?”

“...” I patted her head silently, having no words to reply. 

________________________

I got her settled into a secure room in the suite after dinner. There were no windows, with only a single entryway through the door. Wishing her goodnight, I set up a chair in front of her doorway, ready to guard through the night.

Fortunately I’m a vampire and don’t really need to sleep.

After a few hours, just past midnight, I heard footsteps leading up the nearby stairs. I jumped to my feet, taking a defensive posture. “Who’s there?”

Alex stumbled up the stairs, his face pale, a pained expression on his face. “Bel?”

“Alex, what is going…”

He collapsed to the ground in front of me, grabbing his head, as I head him whisper.

“Help me.”

[itskateak]

Mint Ice Cream & Bubblegum Kisses - Chapter Six

(Bucky Barnes x Single Dad!Reader)

Chapter Summary: Bucky offers to help Y/N take Peter Parker and Angelica out for the day since they've been causing chaos and getting into trouble. The hiking trail behind the compound seems like the perfect place.

Word Count: 3.8K

Warnings: Some Language (Sam and Bucky were military men shh), Sam Wilson being a great friend and actual character instead of a 2D support, Anxiety attack, Mentions of time-correct homophobia, Fluff, Sam and Bucky being Bros, Sam Wilson being an Ally

A/N: For those who don't know, my best friend is in the hospital and I had to take a break from being online and writing for a bit. He's doing great right now and is getting much better :) - also, I know I have a thing for Bucky and that log crossing a river. Okay just let it happen. It's cute. 

And as a final side note, I really hope I’m putting more character into Sam Wilson. I wanted to expand on Bucky and Sam’s friendship more in this chapter and to build Sam as an actual character. I’ve read countless stories where he’s just a prop to get Bucky and the reader together or to just be Best Friend to Bucky and go along with anything. Sam Wilson is his own person and I really, really hope that he’s got some life in him in this one. Feedback on that would be nice if anyone wants to give it :)

Taglist is open! PM me, send an ask, or @ me on a chapter to let me know you’d like to be tagged! Strikethrough means I couldn’t tag you, but I will send you a message with a link to the new chapter when I update. :)

Masterlist

✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ 

Y/N checked his messages quickly, head tilted as he waited for it to update. Over weekends, he decided to work three hours each day to make sure nothing important and time-sensitive came in. He was close to the end of those three hours, which wasn't eventful at any point. Just low-level information relating to other movements that he'd already taken note of earlier that week.

He watched the few messages come in and glanced over them. Nothing seemed to be important other than Gamora saying that they would be stopping by to drop off Peter Quill for a recovery period. Something about an injury he gained through his own stupidity. He responded with a confirmation and said that Monday afternoon would be best since the landing strip would be clear.

"Do you have a minute?" Bucky called from the doorway. He smiled, but it looked a little forced. His posture was closed off and he looked physically tense.

"Always. What's up?" Y/N pushed away from his desk and closed the programs on his screen since he didn't need them anymore.

"Uh...I'm kind of...having an anxiety attack or something." Bucky said though it sounded more like he was questioning himself. He ducked his head sheepishly for a moment. "And Steve and Sam are not here and I dunno what to do."

"Oh. Okay." Y/N was taken by surprise for a moment. "Uh, come on in. Let's see if we can calm you down."

Bucky nodded and sat rigidly on the edge of the couch, his arms wrapping around his stomach. His fingers bunched up the fabric of his shirt and he gasped suddenly. He cracked a slight smile and snorted. "Didn't realize I was holding my breath."

"Breathing's important, Bucky. Do you know what set this off?" Y/N asked, pulling his chair up to the side of his desk and giving his full attention to Bucky.

"Loud noise. Not even sure what it was. It took me off-guard and...then I fell off the obstacle course." Bucky grimaced and took a deep breath, his eyes closing for a moment. "I...have a fear of fallin'. Ever since I fell off the train."

"Is it the height or the feeling of falling itself?" 

"The feel. I hate it." Bucky wrinkled his nose up in disgust. "I can still remember the feeling of my stomach in my throat."

"Hey, don't think about that. No need to get yourself even more worked up." Y/N paused, trying to find a random question to distract him with for a little bit. Maybe taking his mind off the things causing him anxiety would help calm him down. "Tell me about something Steve did in school. Did he ever get into big trouble?"

"Oh, yeah. This one time - it was like sixth grade, I think - he nearly got us suspended for a week. Johnny Sarsburg, a boy in our class who picked on Stevie for being short, was this tall and burly kid. Real jerk of a guy." Bucky moved his arms and laced his hands together. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. "One day, Steve got fed up with all the nicknames. Shorty Stevie, Munchkin Man...they went on and on. So, Stevie stood up to him. Thank God I was there, though."

"Don't tell me he tried to kick this kid's ass." 

"He tried to kick the kid's ass." Bucky nodded with a tone full of disappointed frustration.

"Oh, no." Y/N snickered behind his hand. 

"So, it was recess and Johnny came up to us. Stevie tried to hide behind me for a second, but I shoved him away. Johnny started picking at him and picking at him. Steve straightened up and clenched his fists, looked Johnny in the eye, and said: I may be short, but I'll always be a bigger man than you." Bucky laughed, breaking out into a smile for the first time. He ran a hand through his hair. 

"He didn't!" Y/N could see Steve Rogers, the man who had no regard for his own personal safety and hated bullies, doing something so ridiculous but just so...Steve.

"He did! Johnny didn't like that so much, so he cocked back his fist and came at Steve. Stevie tried to fight back, but he really wasn't a fighter back then. Just looking at a running track could make him break into an asthma attack and thinking about lifting a book could've snapped his spine."

Y/N snickered, shaking his head. Bucky was looking far more relaxed than he did when he came in. His shoulders weren't rigid and he wasn't gasping for breath. Though, it looked like his hands were slightly trembling still. "So, how'd it turn out?"

"At some point, I grabbed Steve around the waist and tried to haul him away. But Johnny didn't like that either, so he went after me. Now, I was a bit of a troublemaker so I knew how to fight. I wasn't lookin' to get into trouble, but Stevie had dragged me into a mess. Had to clean it up, like I do now." Bucky winked and chuckled. "The teachers had to come break it up and we had to explain what happened. Johnny was suspended for a week and our parents said they'd punish us at home, so we got off easy." 

"Even at home?"

"Oh, no. My dad was pissed and Stevie's mother almost hung him out with the laundry. But at least we weren't suspended like Johnny was." He leaned back against the couch and sighed. "Did you just distract me?"

"Maaaaybe. How're you feeling?" Y/N laughed and checked the clock. His time was up which meant the rest of the day was his to do whatever he wanted.

"Better. Not like I'm choking on my own air, at least. I'm still wired, though." Bucky held his right hand up to show how it was still shaking a bit.

"Wanda told me about a hiking trail behind the compound. We could go check that out and get Peter and Angelica outside for a bit. If you're up for that, of course." Y/N offered. He secretly hoped Bucky would take him up on the offer. He wanted the chance to talk to him more when they were both completely sober.

"That sounds...great, actually. Besides, I don't think you could wrangle both of them on your own." He said with a teasing lilt and stood. "I'll find Peter and meet you downstairs."

"I need to shut my computers down first." Y/N pushed his chair back and moved his mouse to wake his monitors. "If you find my kid before I do, send her my way."

"Roger that."

✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ 

Peter was walking a few feet ahead with Angelica on his back, bouncing her every so often to make her squeal and laugh. There was a light breeze rustling through the branches of the trees, which were providing the right amount of shade from the late autumn sun. The weather was that perfect balance of warm and cool. Just right for a light jacket. The trail wasn't well used, evidence provided by the undergrowth creeping along the edges of the path, threatening to overtake it. 

Y/N and Bucky were casually talking as they followed the kids. The conversation flowed easily between them like they'd been friends for years. 

"So, she's how old, again?" Bucky asked, hitching his chin toward Angelica.

"Eight. Nine next Wednesday." Y/N smiled wistfully, watching his daughter shoot a bright smile at him over her shoulder. He'd been so afraid that this move would've negatively affected her and caused her to be miserable. But she had never looked happier or carefree. She'd always been a solemn little girl with many worries on her shoulders.

"She's growin' fast, huh?" Bucky smiled, too, shaking his head as another loud squeal floated back to them.

"Too fast. She's always gonna be my little girl, though." Y/N glanced up as a couple of birds flitted from one tree to the next. "I'm glad she's happy here and finding her place. She doesn't say it, but I know she feels like an outsider sometimes."

"Why's that?" Bucky asked, sinking his hands into his pockets.

"I know she feels out of place among friends a lot. The fact her mother isn't around and she doesn't have a second parent...some kids can be really mean about that." He sighed. "And it's not like that's her fault. But she feels that way and I don't know how to help her."

"Why would she think it's her fault?" Bucky stepped closer as if he knew the topic needed to be kept quieter to not disturb the girl a few feet ahead.

"I don't know where she got the idea, honestly. Her mother did leave a note when she left and part of the reason she left...well, Angelica wasn't exactly planned." Y/N muttered the last part to make sure it didn't reach his kid. He loved her, he really did. At first, he'd been terrified at the prospect of being a father when he wasn't ready. But the moment he held that little girl in his arms, he was smitten. "And her mother said some...nasty things in the letter about her."

"I can't imagine how that would've been for you." Bucky gave a sympathetic grimace. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"No, it's okay. I don't talk about it much because it's in the past and we're doing great without that woman." He shrugged and smiled. "I kept the letter, though, as precautionary measures in case she ever decides to come back and fight for custody. I doubt that would happen, really, but the court system is so messed up and might not rule in favor of me despite the fact I've raised her."

"If a court of law can see how much you love that kid and how much she loves you and is happy with you and still not let her stay with you, then I might have to return to my vigilante days." Bucky joked, though he sounded and looked serious.

"Bucky, no."

"I'd do it."

"I know, but no." Y/N laughed and shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but I think an appeal would work better."

"Okay, you have a point," Bucky said. "So, I've never asked but what got you on the team? Steve didn't tell me and Stark won't because he's still mad about game night five months ago."

"I caught four embezzlers in the compound by hacking into the hidden servers that keep backups of pretty much everything, even if it's been wiped from the main servers. I would've gotten away with it if I hadn't tripped the single silent alarm monitored by FRIDAY. Tony promoted me shortly after I handed the information over to Grace Stevens in accounting." Y/N explained with a smile. "I thought I was fired or being thrown in jail. Those were the most terrifying few minutes of my life."

Bucky whistled. "That's impressive. Even Nat couldn't get through Stark's security lines to retrieve deleted footage of him drunkenly singing karaoke in his lab."

"I might have to go digging for that to earn a favor from Nat." Y/N took his phone out and made a reminder, causing Bucky to start laughing. His eyes crinkled up at the corners with his bright smile. "Oh, Pete, be careful! That might be slippery!"

Peter was halfway across the large fallen tree trunk over the moderately moving river. He turned his head to listen to Y/N and nodded, shifting his grip on Angelica. He moved slower then, watching his footing to make sure they didn't fall.

"So, we're gonna cross that?" Bucky asked, eyeing the log warily. Falling. He hates falling. That's right, Y/N thought. Of course, he'd be uncomfortable with something like this because he might fall.

"I guess. Wanda said there's lakeside access across the river and down the path." Y/N stopped at the tree, watching to make sure the kids made it across safely. He trusted Peter, considering the kid was a literal superhero and gymnast, but he was also a dad and his Dad Instincts were kicking in. "You gonna be okay with crossing?"

"If I don't fall, I will," Bucky forced a smile, but Y/N could see the anxiety behind it. 

"Here, take my hand. We'll cross together and we'll go slow. I'll make sure you won't fall." Y/N held his hand out to Bucky and tried his best to ignore the small jolt of electricity that shot through his veins when Bucky accepted it. "Come on."

"If I fall, I'm dragging you with me," Bucky said with a joking tone, but there was a shake to his voice as he stepped onto the log after the man holding his hand.

"Valid." Y/N snorted before focusing on where he was putting his feet. He couldn't slip and risk giving Bucky a heart attack. He was trusting him to get him across this river safely. "If you need to stop at any point, just tell me and we can."

"Nope. Just keep moving even if I start to freeze up because if I stop, I won't move again." Bucky was able to flash a quick lopsided smile even though he was doing something that ultimately terrified him. 

"You got this, Bucky!" Angelica shouted from the other side, bouncing on her feet like a highly-caffeinated bouncy ball. "You're almost there!"

Y/N grinned to himself. Leave it to his kid to become a cheerleader for them without even knowing that Bucky really needed that encouragement. He swore his daughter had supernatural abilities of knowing what someone needed when they needed it. When she was much younger, there had been nights where he was stressed about making ends meet and she would crawl into his lap and hug him tightly until he forgot what was bothering him.

Lost in thought for just the brief moment spelled ruin for him. His foot slipped on a wet spot and he lost his balance.

Bucky grabbed his arm and pulled him back, keeping him steady until he regained his footing. He chuckled. "Jeez, Y/N. I thought you'd be saving me from falling and not the other way around."

"You're lucky I'm nice 'cause I would've just shoved you off this log and let you wash down the river." Y/N retorted though he couldn't keep his expression stern and a smile broke out. "So, that spot's slippery. Be careful."

"Oh, I was just planning to plant my foot on it and run the rest of the way." Bucky teased, appearing way more at ease than Y/N expected he would. Maybe that's what happens when someone has to save their non-fearful friend from falling.

Once they were on the other side and on solid ground, there was a pause of silence between everyone before they all burst into laughter.

"Mr. Barnes, your face when Mr. L/N slipped! You were so surprised!" Peter bent over, trying to catch his breath. 

"Y/N, I thought you were a goner for a moment. And if I hadn't already had a hand on you, I probably would've just let you fall." Bucky was barely able to speak through his laughter, smile so wide his eyes were crinkled up. 

"Oh, I see how it is!" Y/N acted offended. "See if I ever team with you on game nights again."

"Ooh, he's serious." Angelica giggled, wiping tears from her eyes. 

"I'm sorry, Y/N but I was not risking falling just to save you if I hadn't already had your hand." Bucky took deep breaths, also wiping his face with his jacket sleeve. 

"What happened to till the end of the line?" Peter asked, taking deep breaths. 

"That's a me and Steve thing. And even then, I'd just let his dumbass fall." Bucky winced. "Sorry, language."

Angelica grinned broadly with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Oh, don't worry. Papa swears a lot more than you might think. He thinks I don't hear  him mutter things under his breath, but I do."

"You little snitch!" Y/N exclaimed. "I can't believe you!"

"Oh no...Angelica, we gotta go!" Peter scooped Angelica up and dashed down the trail. Y/N started to give chase but slowed down as they turned the bend. 

Bucky followed at a slower pace, shaking his head in amusement. He caught up to the father who was straightening his jacket. "You're not going after them?"

"Nah. I just made them think there was an actual threat. They'll probably get all the way to the lake before they realize I'm not actually chasing them." Y/N grinned. "So, want to tell me about that game night five months ago?"

"It started when Nat brought vodka back from a mission in Russia and decided not to tell us it was hundred-proof..."

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"Hey, Buck. How's your day?" Sam asked as he entered the training room with a towel around his neck and a water bottle in hand. "Sorry that Steve and I dipped on you."

"Don't worry about it. It's alright," Bucky grunted before setting down the set of weights he'd been lifting. "My day was pretty good. Except when Stark accidentally set off an explosion in the lab while I was running the obstacle course. Scared the hell out of me and then I fell off."

"Shit, man. You okay?" Sam placed his water bottle and towel on a bench near Bucky. "I know you don't like falling and loud noises so that just seems brutal."

"My adrenaline kept it low but I still started to freak out after I cleaned up." He admitted before taking a drink of his own water and using his shirt to wipe some of the sweat from his forehead. "Y/N helped me out with that."

"You went to Y/N? Why not Bruce or Wanda? Hell, even Nat?" Sam arched his brow and there was a hint of something behind his eyes.

"Dunno. He's nice, ya know? I figured he'd have some experience with that kind of stuff. Having a kid would teach you how to calm someone down when they're freaking out and I've seen him chill Angelica out faster than she could even process why she was upset." Bucky said, sitting down on a bench to give himself a break. He'd been in the training room for an hour already and it was about time to take a breather. "After that, we took Angelica and Pete out on that hiking trail Wanda found just to get them outside since they were causing trouble and everyone needed a break."

"Hey, as long as you found a way to calm down and not have a panic attack, I won't knock it. Happy for you, man. You're doing really good recently." Sam started to set up the machine he liked to use. Can't have a tree without the trunk, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes Bucky really didn't like Sam, but he was a great friend and great company when he wasn't being an annoying shit. But then again, he could be an annoying shit when he wanted to be. "Proud of you, man. Long road, but you're sticking with us."

"Yeah, yeah. Save the sappy shit, would you?" Bucky leaned his head back against the wall, taking deep breaths. "The hike was nice. Though Y/N almost fell off the log when we were crossing the river. I caught him before he did, but if he hadn't been holding my hand, I would've let him fall."

"You told him about your issue with falling?" Sam straddled the bench and rested his forearms on his thighs. "Dude, it took you like eight months to tell me about that and he's been here four months."

"Don't take it personally, Wilson." Bucky shrugged with a smile. "He's just got that calming feel to him. He's easy to trust and he's just really nice."

"And you were tellin' me to quit with the sappy shit? Do you hear yourself?" Sam cracked a smile as well. "I like Y/N, too. He's a good fit for the team."

Bucky nodded, agreeing. There had been something missing in the team dynamic for a while that no one could quite name or place, but Y/N and his kid had certainly brought it. The game night had really shown some of Y/N's full personality away from his daughter, though Bucky liked having Angelica around a lot. She was bubbly and sweet and brought a little bit of light on his bad days.

But Y/N...Y/N was just so thoughtful and selfless. It was obvious when he'd walked into his office that Y/N had no idea how to help him and was taken aback, but he'd helped him anyway. He showed genuine interest in the story Bucky had been telling him and even invited him along to an outing. They hadn't exactly hung out outside of the team nights and work hours. It was nice and he liked the idea of getting to see Y/N more often out of that stuff.

"Wait, don't tell me...Barnes, do you have a crush on Y/N?" Sam asked with a cocky grin.

"What? No!" Bucky said far too quickly, his face starting to flush. He was lucky he was already a little red from training, but Sam knew otherwise. His grin widened.

"You totally do!"

Bucky went to defend himself again but he sighed and turned his head away while Sam started to snicker. "Fine. Maybe I do a little."

"Man, I didn't take you for one to like guys," Sam said.

"Is...that an issue?" Bucky asked warily, his heart starting to flutter in his chest. For most of his life, he'd shoved that part of him aside and hidden it. Sure, he fooled around with a couple of guys in the forties but it never went very far. And war made people do desperate things. But he was worried that even now, he'd have to keep that part of him tucked away and ignore it.

"Hell, no. My best friend in college was the most flamboyant gay guy I've ever met. Smart as a whip and a beautiful musician. I don't give a shit, but I don't wanna hear about all the details. And that goes for women, too. That stays private, man." Sam wrinkled his nose up and it made Bucky chuckle. "I don't know how it was back then, but people are a lot more accepting now than they were. They legalized same-sex marriage a few years back. And if anyone gives you shit about it, I'll kick their asses."

"Thanks, Sam. That means a lot." Bucky smiled. "But if you tell anyone that I have a thing for Y/N, I'll kick you off the helicarrier again."

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Taglist: @shadowolf993​ @supernaturalwintersoldier​ @booty-ass-hoe​ @fightmemacbeth​ @pastel-boy-sungjae​ @unsure-username​ @myybebe​ (it works!! ^-^)

[i-did]

what would make renee angry in your opinion?

I had a really hard time answering this one actually. I thought about it for a while and asked a lot of my friends to see if they had any ideas, and here's what I came up with:

1) A professor or TA who is super shitty to her

Just a really shitty teacher.

as she goes through college, she’s bound to run into some assholes, and I don’t think Renee has perfect grades in the past or present. her not knowing academic terminology and feeling out of place in the college setting would make a lot of sense for a lot of the foxes, and Renee is good on putting on a smile, but she still eventually gets that one professor or TA that scoffs at her questions and “doesn’t have time for the likes of her” and the constant complete dismissal digs painfully under her skin and brings out her anger.

2) People who are intensely rude to her despite her best efforts to be as kind as she can be

Renee is patient, but we all have our limit. similar to the one above, but Renee dealing with someone who is just rude all the time and she struggles to keep reminding herself “we all have bad days, I don’t know what they’re going though.” Renee working in a coffee shop and a woman bumping into Renee and spilling her coffee on herself, only to yell at Renee for an hour, ignoring all of Renee’s pleasant customer service smiles. said customer later on becoming a regular and repeating this behavior, cutting off people in parking lots and flipping them off, Renee being kind and trying to give her a free scone only for the woman to tell her she hates scones, Renee offering something else only for the woman to tell her to shut up. that shit wears you down, and Renee still dumping her kindness onto someone every time only for it to backfire or be dismissed would make her have to take a few deep breaths in the back room before deciding, fuck it, she's cut off from active kindness, now only passible neutrality and not being aggressive is enough. 

3) someone who refuses her help

her knowing she could really make a difference, but some people just don’t want help, and she feels helpless and angry. she's not angry at the person, but the situation of them not being ready to accept help or even able to accept help makes her so frustrated she would start to grind her teeth in her sleep. She understands how it is, how hard it can be to take the first step to change or giving up pride or whatever the hurtle may be, but that doesn’t make it any easier than her thinking in her head “just let me fucking help you!!! or anyone!!! just let anyone in to help you!!!! fuck!!!” inside her head. she knows not everyone needs help or saving, but some people do, and when they shove her back, unwilling and not ready for it over and over while she’s trying to save them, she gets frustrated that she can’t.... do anything. and just has to wait. but Renee can be patient, and she’s willing to wait. 

4) Someone actively trying to wear her down and get under her skin

okay so this isn’t something that happens often, the closest Renee has really come to it is with Andrew when he first was scoping her out. but– if someone was actively trying to aggravate her, laughing at everything she said and making fun of her, pulling at her looser strings and picking at her ticks, watching to see what brought out her reaction, they could eventually do it and get under her skin. i think she wouldn’t let herself blow up at them since thats what they want, but she would silently excuse herself from the situation to take a breather. no one really does this with her, and Andrew only does this to size her up and even still his interrogation isn’t the type of harassment i’m imagining. i mean like old school bullying, not locker shoving, but the middle school girl shit that leaves emotional scars. and them being older, they’re less afraid to show it and be more straight forward mean. people don’t really do this to her tho, its too much effort to get a reaction, and when they do, its never what they would have wanted, like crying, but instead is her smile falling and then finding a way to make them feel like shit. Renee is kind, but she also knows how to play on a similar level as them, not just with fists. i HC Renee as plus size, and fuck it is hard to be different in anyway as a kid. but childhood bullying was the least of her worries and these people dont see how deep her personal self assurance has grown and how she has learned to stand with her head held high and her face serine. her and dan are quite similar in this, but dan is much more active and direct while Renee is passive in her letting it glide over her, dan has even gotten annoyed on Renee’s behalf and then annoyed that Renee was not affected and why she didn’t fight more directly back. 

5) People who are overtly cruel and she struggles to sympathize with

okay so, you ever see someone so mean and rude for zero reason to someone else and you’re just like... what the fuck??? Renee doesn’t let others get to her really, but damn.... someone going after someone else in ways that are just so uncalled for and so harshly.... it gets to her. She once watched an episode of catfish where the catfisher laughed at the girl, uncaring that he crossed so many emotional lines and manipulated people without really any care. and she wanted to throw the remote and punch the tv right where the guys face was on the paused screen. nothing like someone just, kicking someone else while their down with no mercy, or making fun of someone behind their back and them not knowing, making fun of the deaf kids voice behind his back and he doesn’t see them doing it, and she’s like, man, Fuck. You. in her head. I don’t think she was like, always a nice person, in fact, i think Renee used to very much so not be the type to sit with the alone kid at lunch but instead ignore him and think “yea he’s weird, kinda ugly” without thinking much of it. But then she decided to change, and she took everything she thought it meant to be a good person, and became that. she started sitting with the alone kid, she started doing charities, she started to smile instead of punch, and she started going to church. and so when she sees cruelness she was once passive in the face of, maybe even active in, she uses kindness. Renee is she good at using taking the high road in such a graceful way it makes others feel bad. like when she tells Nicky calmly “thats not very nice” after he jokes about Seth dying in a car crash on his way from the airport book 1, and Nicky feels like shit. it feels like shit to get called out sometimes, and while its not her goal, she does know it is an effect of it. (i don’t think she’s mad at Nicky in that scene, but she did say something since she is there to protect hers and she redraws that line in that moment, especially without Allison or Seth there yet to say fuck you themselves.)

6) Injustice and systems of oppression

for these i feel she gets more frustrated, overwhelmed, and sometimes resigned. she knows how dark and shitty the world is, but she stays up at night with her hand on her heart as she breathes deep, thinking about how... utterly fucked everything is. its pretty easy for me to HC that Renee is politically far left and has seen the dark side to lack of resources and systemic issues that are just... so overwhelming she doesn’t even know what she does as just one person. world pollution, corruption, class divide, flint water crisis, the homeless crisis, the prison system, functioning segregation in school systems, just... it all. she’s had nights after volunteering where she thinks “i did something, i did.” and she has days where she realizes “...i’m doing nothing, in the end... its all for nothing, there’s just too much.” just a bad day where she sits there, thinking about how much is wrong and wont be fixed and how ‘doomed’ things are, how broken, and she doesn’t feel at a loss, but rather this deep anger that comes from who she was before. 

7) herself. 

Her being unable to live up to her own standards. she still thinks mean things, she has mean and cruel urges, and when she has them, she remembers that she’s still a bad person trying very hard to be a good one, and she thinks she’s still a bad person at her core. she’s not self loathing with it, but she does think to herself “i’m a hypocrite.” and sits with that thought for a minute. sparring with Andrew has helped her, to balance the two sides of her in a way that feels both self indulgent and honest to her path forward. but sometimes while sitting in that church pew, she thinks of her dead mother, her dead step father, those she turned in without batting an eye, stabbing in the back to save herself, and she thinks “i should feel something.” but she doesn’t, she wasn’t sorry then and she’s not sorry now. and she thinks, “the others call Andrew a monster, and they don’t realize that i’m one too.” and she tries to muster up something deep inside her, but she cant. and it can frustrate her, how after all these actions, all those hours of beach clean up and homeless shelters and building houses in some other country and going around clapping her hands to the songs, but she’s still the person she is deep down. and it gets to her. i think her having a conversation with Neil one day, on what it means to be a real person, is she pretending who she is? is she her thoughts or her actions? which is the real her? and Neil saying, it’s all of it. every facet of the self is still the self, he is Nathaniel and Neil and Abram and every other person he has been and will be. we change but we are also always ourselves, and her actions are just as true as her thoughts. 

[lov3nerdstuff]

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 7.8}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 1.3k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

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A glimpse into the seventh week of travels (or the second week of August):

After the Spanish heat a week ago, it honestly shouldn't have come as a surprise to Robin that Greece at this time of year would be no better. Indeed, it proved to be even worse in terms of both the scorching sun and also the tourists it attracted. The islands obviously were a preferred destination for tourists from all parts of the world, but Robin hadn't known just how many people were willing to squeeze themselves onto a tiny speckle of sand merely because the water was supposed to be the bluest there. Neither could she understand what some people liked about lying in the sun all day, which was exactly what the majority of people were doing here. Undoubtedly, this made their mission a whole lot more difficult, as literally every place Robin and Snape went to was already crowded with muggles. After checking the seventh and final location –Robin had researched multiple options to search for today's object of study in advance– only to find it littered with people as well, she honestly had enough of humanity for crossing her plans like that.

"Why the hell are there people everywhere?!" She groaned under her breath, trying to keep her voice down as she looked at Snape in sheer frustration. They were sitting in the soft sand of a small beach in the most secluded bay imaginable, shielded by rocks and reefs and cliffs, and yet they were surrounded by a crowd of vacationers. "How are we supposed to do the thing here?!"

"As it seems, there is little to no possibility to follow through with the plan. The means to prove your theory rely on 'the thing', as you so eloquently called it, and I currently see no way around it." He replied in equal annoyance about the people screeching and laughing and running all around them, but at least he understood the problem Robin saw here. With a group of muggles around, it was practically impossible to go through with the spells she had come up with to acquire the clam-like thing they were here about in the first place. Not without some serious consequences at least. They were huge creatures, these clams, and that usually meant high efforts as well as lots of unwanted attention.

"I didn't come all the way to Greece just to be stopped by bloody tourists now!" Robin protested, even though there was little use in it. It wasn't Snape's fault after all, nor was there anything he could change about their unfortunate situation. "We've never let anything or anyone stop us before…"

"There is a first time for everything."

"Nope, I'm not having it. I'll get this stupid thing, with or without magic." She said, and in the utmost determination to see this through indeed, she got up from where she'd been sitting in the sand. There always was more than one way to do something, and if the easiest one didn't work, she would have to get her hands dirty after all.

"What, pray tell, are you doing?" Snape asked, sounding slightly alarmed as he looked up at Robin with a frown while she halted in her movement to return the gaze.

Seeing him sitting there, dressed all in black as always, in such a contrast to the white sand beneath them… Robin just had to smile. He'd actually let her show him how to put his hair up indeed, the way Robin had done it with her own occasionally ever since the new year's ball, by twisting it into a bun and fixing it with a wand or pen. And good gods it did look way too good on him, which meant that Robin had to remind herself not to stare from time to time. Times like now. Her eyes snapped back to the edge of the water a few steps ahead in an instant.

"I'm doing what everyone's doing. Going for a swim." She sighed in defeat, then took off her sunglasses and put them down on her backpack.

"No, you're not."

"Yes I am."

"Not if you're planning to do what I think you're planning to do."

"And what do you think I plan to do?"

"Diving down the part of the cliff that is underwater to find the clams yourself, then try to detach one from the wall somehow and bring it back to shore." He stated in obvious disdain for the idea, which only served to amuse Robin, even as he spoke on. "I will not let you do such a stupid and dangerous thing. The current would undoubtedly throw you against the ragged stone, especially underwater, and trying to separate one of the clams' shells from the wall also is nigh impossible without the… method you had originally planned."

"That's why I'm not doing that." Robin shrugged almost easily. Almost. "I mean yes, I will still need to dive down the wall of the cliff, but I'm not separating the shell from the wall. All we need is a few of the leaves that grow inside the clam, and I think I can get it to open up while it's still alive. Then I can take out the leaves underwater and leave the shell where it is."

"You clearly must be joking." He scoffed and finally got up to his feet as well, leaving him to look down at Robin once more with that ineffably intense expression. "You were the one who told me just this morning that this… creature can literally bite your hand off when it isn't stupefied before the leaves are taken out! And the dangers of nature alone you obviously disregard entirely."

"Well yeah, I will just have to be careful then." She argued back, but her words lacked the conviction she'd still had moments before. Perhaps it really wasn't the best idea. Both, the strong currents that far outside of the bay and the clams themselves were a serious risk, especially in combination. A risk that, if she really thought about it, wasn't necessary. Her pride wasn't worth risking her life for.

"Don't do this, Robin. Please. Think about it, at least."

"I just-... No. You're right. I won't do it, it was a stupid idea." Robin replied quietly, and she couldn't help averting her eyes for a moment. It really had been a beyond thoughtless idea to dive down the cliffside; there was a reason why she had come up with a theory and a strategy to avoid having to take those risks after all. Gods, she felt stupid now. "I was just being an idiot."

"You would have been an idiot had you gone through with it despite better judgement. Admitting that an idea is too dangerous to be executed however has absolutely nothing idiotic to it."

"I could've done it though, you know…" Robin said after a moment of silence, as she put her sunglasses back on against the insufferable brightness of the beach. "It would have been unreasonably dangerous, but I could have gotten those leaves."

"I know." He replied calmly, and picked up Robin's backpack before she could. "But instead of risking lives and limbs right now, we could also find a quiet place in the shadows and wait until dusk to return here in the hopes that the people will be gone once night falls."

"You would seriously suffer through this heat for five more hours just so I can be stubborn and prove my theory after all?"

"Obviously."

"How about some old-fashioned sightseeing?"

"Don't push it."

"I would never." A pause. A smirk. "We could send Dumbledore a postcard."

"Now you are just being sarcastic."

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[lilyvandersteen]

The Christmas Guest Chapter 5

Author’s Note:

It’s WIP Wednesday, and thanks to @redheadgleek​‘s Write a Little Everyday Project, I’ve got another chapter for you to enjoy. Kurt’s POV this time, and he, too, seems to forget they’re not actually boyfriends sometimes... Happy reading!

Read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 here on Tumblr, or read the story on AO3 or FF.net.

Chapter 5: Sweet Victory

 Kurt shivered as soon as the cold air hit him. Ugh. At least it was no longer snowing, but the wind tore right through him.

He looked at Blaine and Finn running around yelling and laughing and showering each other in icy goo, and shook his head in disbelief. Who on earth would willingly spend time outside on a day like this? Who would want to touch snow with their bare hands and have it thrown at them and LAUGH?

He shuddered to think of it. No, he didn’t want to be here at all, but Carole had all but forced him. So, first things first: he needed a game plan. How was he going to win this snowball fight in as little time as possible?

First, he made himself a snow fortress to hide behind, beyond thankful that his gloves were waterproof. Then, he made a mountain of snow balls, just to be prepared. And lastly, he used an old scarf of Burt’s to throw the snowballs with, so that he didn’t have to come too close to the others.

His first attack seemed a complete surprise for both Finn and Blaine, who hurried to hide themselves. Unlike him, they didn’t have a stack of snowballs at the ready, though, nor were they well-protected.

Kurt kept up a relentless pace of snowball throwing until he wore them both down, and then made them surrender.

Finn did so with bad grace, and stomped off to the house with a face like thunder, but Blaine surrendered looking at Kurt in complete admiration, and was it just Kurt’s imagination or did his voice sound husky, as if… As if he felt turned on?

Blaine bit his lip, still gazing at Kurt as though he came straight from Olympus, and before Kurt realized, he was stalking towards Blaine with the urge to pull their bodies together and kiss him until he ran out of oxygen. He’d almost reached Blaine when it hit him: they weren’t actually dating, so Blaine wasn’t his to kiss.

Oops, I forgot.

He hurried inside, his mind still reeling and his hormones going haywire. It was all too easy to slip into the boyfriend role with Blaine, who was everything Kurt wanted in a man. He’d have to be more careful, or he’d end up kissing Blaine without his consent, and that would backfire spectacularly.

Kurt took great satisfaction in denying Finn the sofa he wanted to sit on and the film he wanted to see, and hiding the tin of chocolate chip cookies from him.

Serves you right for forcing snow on me!

Blaine seemed content enough all cuddled up with him, his head on Kurt’s chest, and for a moment there, Kurt hoped that somehow he might feel the same, and that there was a happy ending in store for them.

It didn’t take long for that bubble to burst. Blaine excused himself to go put on a dry pair of pants, but though he promised to come back promptly to continue watching the movie, he didn’t. He stayed away.

Kurt only half enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, his mind constantly on Blaine. As soon as the credits started to roll, he switched the Bluray player off and went to look for his fake boyfriend.

He found Blaine in his room, with his back to Kurt, on the phone with someone who wanted to know whom he was spending the holidays with.

After vehemently denying he was with a guy who had apparently cheated on him, Blaine told the person on the phone that he was staying with Kurt and his family.

It was his answer to the obvious follow-up question that shook Kurt to the core.

“My boyfriend, Kurt, remember?”

You could have knocked Kurt over with a feather at that moment. Yes, they were keeping up the pretense for Kurt’s family, but why would Blaine lie to anyone else?

And then Blaine started talking about Kurt. How fashionable he was, how sweet and kind and beautiful and funny, “and he makes the best cookies, Coop, and you should taste his meatloaf recipe, it’s the best I’ve ever had, I swear”. According to Blaine, he was also “the BEST at snowball fights, you should have seen him, Coop, he was like this… general, and he totally creamed us, it was great!”

I really shouldn’t be listening to this. But oh, I’m so glad he likes me! Maybe we can stay in contact once we’re back in New York? If I give it time, who knows what might happen?

Kurt was just about to turn around and leave when Blaine said his goodbyes and then let out a deep sigh.

Kurt waited another minute and then softly knocked on the door. “Knock, knock, I’m looking for my missing boyfriend!”

Blaine laughed.

“I thought you might have gotten lost somewhere.”

Blaine shook his head. “My brother called. He always has a lot to say.”

“Seems like it. You missed the entire movie.”

Blaine looked stricken. “Sorry about that.”

“So is your brother also on the cruise?” Kurt enquired.

“No, no, he lives in LA. Goes from one party to another these days.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

Blaine let himself fall back onto the bed. “You have no idea.”

Kurt smiled at Blaine’s dramatics and sat down on the bed facing him. “Tell me about your brother.”

Before long, they were sharing their whole lives with each other. Blaine talked about growing up with a much older half-brother who resented him and who always wanted all the attention. Kurt talked about losing his mother as a child and then about getting bullied for being gay way before he even knew what that was. That led to Blaine telling him about the time he was bashed into hospital for going to a school dance with a male friend.

When he got too emotional to get any more words out, Kurt pulled him into a hug that lasted for a long time, gently stroking Blaine’s hair as he cried.

He worked up the courage to tell Blaine about Karofsky harassing and then kissing him, and about the death threats that had followed, something he’d never told a living soul, and then he was the one crying, and Blaine the one holding him and murmuring words of comfort.

What followed was more positive. Blaine talked about the Warblers at Dalton Academy, some of whom still felt like brothers to him. And Kurt talked about the like-minded people he’d befriended in New York, especially Isabelle and Elliott.

He was describing a concert he’d given with Elliott and Dani when he noticed Blaine’s eyes had closed, and he was breathing in and out slowly, his mouth half open, dead to the world.

Oh. He’s asleep. Am I that boring or was he just tired?

Kurt lay down on the bed facing Blaine, careful not to jostle him, and studied his face.

How was it possible that he trusted this man more than he’d ever trusted anyone after knowing him for only two days?

And where had Blaine been all his life? Only two hours away, apparently. They could have met long before, and it was only by the merest chance that they had crossed paths now.

He could hear Rachel’s shrill voice in his head proclaiming it was “FATE, Kurt, it had to be!”, and with a smile on his face, still pondering the vagaries of life, he nodded off too.

[fictionalabyss]

Money doesn’t grow on trees.

Pairing : Sam, Dean, John.

Word count :   1,701

Written for : @spnfluffbingo

Square : walking the dog

Warnings : Johns gruff and cranky parenting style, Dean forever getting in shit, Bullying mentioned in passing, secrets, Sam can take care of himself but Dean won't let him.

Masterlist • Patreon • Ko-fi.

SPN Fluff bingo 2020 Masterlist.

“Money’s for food, Dean.” Dean just looked down at the floor as his father continued to yell at him. “Food. Nothing else.” He didn’t argue, he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. He had tried when he was first accused but John hadn’t let him and he knew it wouldn’t change anything anyways. “Are clothes a necessity right now, Dean?”

“No, sir.”

“Does he absolutely need new shirts? New jeans?”

“No, sir.”

“No. What does he need?”

“Food. Shelter. School. Safety.”

“Don’t let me catch you wasting my money again, Dean.” John snapped. “It doesn’t grow on trees.”

“It is paper.” Dean muttered under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Good. Get in the damn car. We’re going.”

The entire ride was silent. Sam in the back reading a book while Dean brooded in the front seat next to his father, eyes out the window at the passing scenery. He hadn’t bought Sam new clothes. He had no idea where they had come from, but he was pissed about getting in trouble for it. Maybe Sammy had taken to stealing. It's not like Dean hadn’t done it before, but the fact that John didn’t even consider it a possibility infuriated him. John’s precious little Sammy could do no wrong, while Dean could barely do right.

Five days at the new motel, and Dean was noticing a pattern. The last three days Sam got home late, and this morning he’d rushed out an hour before he even had to be at school.  When Sam finally returned, Dean watched him suspiciously as he set himself up doing homework as if nothing was wrong, as if he hadn’t gotten back to the motel 45 minutes late.

And right before Dean served up supper, Sam seemed to jump up, eyes on the clock. “What?”

“I’ll be back.” Sam grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair.

“Where are you going?”

“Library. I forgot a book. I shouldn’t be too long.” And with that, Sam rushed out of the room, the door shutting loudly behind him.

Dean watched the door suspiciously for a minute. Sam was lying, there was no doubt about it. But why? What was he up to? Turning off the hot plate and unplugging it, Dean grabbed his own jacket and the motel key before slipping out, looking around for any sign of Sam.

The light must have been red when Sam got to the corner, because when Dean reached the sidewalk, Sam was just making it across the street. From there, it was easy to follow him through the streets while keeping a safe distance.

Dean followed him across two more streets and down another when Sam finally knocked on someone's front door. Did Sam have a girlfriend? And if he did why hide it? Nevermind, Dean knew why, he’d tease him endlessly. Dean smirked at the thought and waited, wanting to see this girl. His brow furrowed in confusion however when a much, much older woman opened the door, smiled at his little brother and ushered Sam inside.

“What the hell?”

Who was the old broad and why was Sam there? It didn’t take long for him to have an answer. Two minutes after Sam entered, the door opened and he came back out, two leashed dogs on his heels as he made his way back down the steps and to the sidewalk. Dean watched as his little brother started down the sidewalk and towards the nearby park.

Dean followed him, watched as Sam went into the park, let the dogs do their business and aimlessly walked the paths before he started back for the little old lady’s house again. The dogs were handed back off, and Sam was paid.

Sam wasn’t stealing, he was walking dogs for money? He knew Sam had always wanted a dog, begged for one. If he was trying to prove he could take care of one, that he was responsible, why hide it? No, it was something else. With a furrowed brow and a million thoughts running through his head, Dean headed back for the motel needing to beat Sam back. Why did Sam need money?

Entering the motel room, Dean glanced at Sam’s things still on the table as he turned the hot plate back on to warm up dinner again. Sam’s bag was beat up. Handle on the top broken, and a hole on it’s side. Rooting through the bag, Dean didn’t find anything of interest. Deciding to check Sam’s duffle, Dean went digging through it. Inside, buried deep down in a balled up pair of socks, Dean found money. He thumbed it, still wondering why Sam needed it. Was he planning on running?

Hearing the motel room door knob turn, Dean jumped back, kicking the bag out of view and crossing the room towards the small kitchenette. “Where’s the book?” Dean asked, not even having glanced back. He knew damn well Sam didn’t have a book with him.

“Someone else got to it first. I’ll have to check back tomorrow.” Sam pulled off his jacket and toed off his shoes by the door, his jacket getting tossed onto the bed closest to the door.

“Go clean up, it’s time to eat.”  Sam nodded and started for the bathroom. “And Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t lie to me again.”

“I-”

“Don’t lie to me.” Sam shut his mouth. “Clean up. Food’s ready.”

Once they were sitting and eat, Sam having not uttered a single word, Dean finally asked. “Why do you need the money.” No answer came. “I found it, Sammy. Why?”

“I needed new clothes.” Sam muttered.

“You could have told Dad.”

“And I’d just get more of your hand me downs.” Sam shot Dean a look. “I’m tired of it, Dean. I want something that’s mine for once.” Dean sighed, and started poking at his food. “Are you going to tell dad?” Sam sounded almost scared.

“How much more do you need?”

“Another 40, at least.” Dean's eyes shot up. “Some asshole at school grabbed my bag and ripped it, and I’m already breaking through both pairs of shoes I have..”

“Focus on school, Sammy. If your grades slip dad will lose his shit.”

“My grades are fine-”

“You heard me. Focus.” With a roll of his eyes, Sam’s attention was back on his dinner. “I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

“Okay.” Sam conceded.

When Dean got home from school the next day, John was already back, and he had a wad of cash in his hand. Sam froze in the doorway behind him, ready to run if things got ugly. “What the hell is this?”

“Dad?”

“Why did I find money hidden in a bag, Dean?” Dean glanced over to their duffle bags side by side on the floor. Maybe John hadn’t noticed it had been Sam’s bag and not his. “I was packing up, getting ready for us to go when I found it. Where’d it come from, Dean? You stealing it?”

“No.”

“No? Picking pockets? Swiping from a register? Skimming from the money I give you-”

“I got a job.” John cocked an eyebrow. “I- I started walking dogs. Sam needed some stuff, so I took care of it.”

“You hate dogs.”

“Yeah, well, anything for Sam, right?” Dean looked up at his father, almost challenging him. “That’s what you taught me.”

“You’ve been walking dogs?”

“Every day after school.”

“And what does Sam do when you’re doing this? You leaving him alone?”

“Sam comes with, plays with them in the park, you know how bad he wants a dog.”

John’s eyes shifted to his youngest hiding behind Dean. “Is he telling the truth?” Sam nodded so John’s eyes shifted back to Dean. “Your grades better not be slipping.”

“No sir, they aren’t. And I’ve been making sure Sam stays focused too.”

“Pack up, we’re heading out.” Both boys nodded and started to get to work.

“Thanks, Dean.” Sam whispered. Dean didn’t answer.

Dean knocked on a door, Sammy by his side. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it smart, Dean insisted on it. He’d taken Sam a little further out of town, where the houses were bigger and people had real yards. The door opened and a middle aged woman stood before them. “Good morning, Ma’am. My name is Dean Winchester, and this is my younger brother Sammy.” he flashed her a smile. “We’re new to the neighborhood and were wondering if you were in need of some yard work being done, or a dog walker?”

“Yard work or a dog walker, huh?” She looked both boys over.

“We could do other chores as well. Anything your kids or husband put off doing, we’re more than happy to help.”

“Well, aren’t you two very eager.” She smiled softly at Dean.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come on in. I’m sure I can find something for you boys to do.”

She headed inside, and Dean followed first, shooting Sam a wink. As they made their way through the house, Dean looked at the pictures on the wall. He’d hit the nail on the head with this one. Married, kids, neither husband nor children in the house at the moment it seemed, and from the looks of some of those pictures, the marriage might even be on the rocks. And they had money. Money enough to drop a few bucks on two kids doing some chores they didn’t want to do themselves.

As she brought them out back, three small dogs ran towards them making Sam’s face light up.

“You can start with cleaning my pool.” She pointed out. “We’ll go from there.” She glanced back to Sam who was happily petting the dogs. “He really likes dogs, huh?”

Dean nodded. “Always wanted one, but dad says no. It’s why he’s a dog walker.”

She nodded, watching Sam. “Twenty for the pool, and twenty for the dogs.” Sam’s eyes shot up. “If you come three times a week.”

“Deal!” Sam grinned.

“I’ll bring you the leashes.”

As she headed inside, Sam looked to Dean, happy. “Now you’ll be able to get your new shoes and you don’t have to lie about it.”

“Thanks, Dean.”

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Tagging :  Dean - @akshi8278  @adoptdontshoppets   @evyiione @karikatz12481 @idksupernatural

Sam -  @evyiione

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[ramblingguy54]

Binged The Owl House in one sitting recently and besides the interesting chemistry Luz has with Eda being such a rough around the edges mother figure catching my intrigue and Eda & Lilith’s very complicated sibling history between each other, another highlight of the series that struck a serious chord with me would have to be Amity Blight’s character arc and her development thus far.

In its first several episodes the way Amity acted caught my interest. Particularly her interactions with Luz in early episodes gave me the idea that she was raised to be an arrogant student not only due to the stereotype of magical natural talent she was born into that was expected by her peers, but also that she had an abusive upbringing, much like Pacifica Northwest from Gravity Falls. However, what sets Amity apart from Pacifica’s much harsher attitude in Season 1 is that she isn’t as intense as the latter was per say to the main character of their own respective series anyways. Amity in the Covention episode lashes out at Luz when she’s faced with the reality that Lilith had amplified her magic powers in the Witch’s Duel against Luz, showing her serious insecurities and visible regret for how much she’s had to sacrifice up to this point, like say her close friendship with Willow, to achieve what she’s been forced to believe is the “correct” path. This is more than just being upset at what happened in their Witch’s Duel. It’s Amity showing the years of regret she’s been bottling up and seeing that it hasn’t made her feel any happier about the choice of reluctantly following what her parents demanded the kid follow. Mae Whitman’s performance really nails that.

Pacifica took until Season 2 of Gravity Falls to actually start really socializing with Dipper & Mabel Pines, but Amity here is more than willing to interact with Luz from the get go, despite how much of snobby attitude she tries to carry at first. Even so much as encouraging and in a sense compliment Luz, too. Amity makes a strong first impression of being a kid with a lot on her plate emotionally to deal with, as well as lingering regrets of turning into what she is currently. The writers did an impressive job of hitting this right spot that while Amity can be a jerk, she isn’t without her moments of moral clarity either in Owl House’s starting round of episodes. That’s never an easy thing to accomplish in writing like this. It’s no wonder Amity started to have an eventual romantic connection with Luz, given that no matter how much of the odds are stacked against her capabilities, she still aspires to be what resembles her inner desires and that’s something Amity was robbed of in early childhood. Luz’s unwavering determination is bringing out the best in her conflicted nature as a blossoming aspiring Witch. That’s why she broke the Everlasting Oath between them at the end. Amity’s respect for Luz was beginning to grow toward her optimistic nature.

Human’s don’t have magical capabilities, but I doubt that will stop you.

Soon afterwards we get to see another big hint laid out of Amity’s family background and how that reflected upon the kid’s emotional growth in the episode, Lost In Language. Amity’s older siblings, while nothing like her parents, do like to tease her a lot. So much so, they wanted to go the extra mile and make copies of her private diary to not only get back at her uptight attitude, but also teach her a lesson about lightening up as a person and spread those copies around school, which Luz doesn’t take that idea too well. That was when the notion really started to cross my mind more that Amity most likely had very tough parents that contributed to her stunted emotion issues. There’s clearly makings of a troubled family life that stirred up Amity’s behavior into becoming this cold, emotionally distant, and harsh character. Quite a few poetic seeds are planted throughout Lost In Language’s story that surround Amity’s character and the kid herself comes to a realization that she needs to be better.

I saw that human girl again. I may have overreacted. I don’t want to come off as cruel. I just can’t show weakness.

I’ve been trying to figure out what your deal is. Are you a poser? A nerd? I know... you’re a bully, Luz.

Why are you doing this!? I’ve been reading you since I was kid! I know you’re not like this! Someone changed you!

Maybe you’re not a bully. I haven’t exactly been the friendliest Witch, either. I’ll think on that...

All of this comes to a headway in my favorite episode centered around Amity’s character, Understanding Willow. This story hit all the right notes for me on what a character’s redemption arc should be like. The emotional payoff between Amity & Willow’s dramatic tension against each other is terrific, as it shows both perspectives are empathetic. You feel for Willow getting turned down so badly by her best friend and being led to believe that she wasn’t good enough for Amity. However, you feel for Amity too because she only turned away Willow to save her from never being able to attend the same school since her parents threatened to pull strings to have their way, giving this a bittersweet new light over Amity’s conflict with Willow. Regardless, this doesn’t take away from Amity’s actions either that are brought into question by Willow’s emotional manifestation of raw anger. Amity may have been manipulated by her parents that much is greatly true, but who is to say she couldn’t have eased up on Willow after cutting her off as a friend? Amity’s parents aren’t obviously always around, so whenever she was at school Amity could’ve simply not just paid her any mind at least, instead of going above and beyond to mock Willow as a late magical bloomer with help from her so called friends too for years no less. That’s what made this episode around Amity a real stand out. Amity understands that she gets a fair share of the blame for treating Willow the way she did and could’ve made things easier for her former friend at school, as well. This particular statement from Amity’s deep remorse spoke to me.

That line, “I was too weak to be your’s...”, made me tear up because I’ve had my own fair share of being a shitty person to an old former friend I used to speak to years ago before having a nasty falling out with him. Granted, he was toxic toward me and did some nasty stuff, but I also returned that toxicity back at him, which only added more fuel to the fire between us and ended the friendship on bad terms. I did email him months or so later to clear the air giving my sincerest apologies, regarding being so awful toward him after seriously reflecting on it afterwards and went my separate ways from there. The point I’m trying to make here is I understand Amity’s pain of hurting someone you once had as a friend and feeling so terrible after the fact. This is where I grew to love Amity’s arc because even after she’s apologized for all the crap she put Willow through, she doesn’t look for forgiveness, but only wants her to know the painful truth.

Amity’s one of my favorite characters from Owl House for how well they tackled the idea of someone who was once close with someone, but had a falling out, due to an abusive upbringing that had a negative affect on their personality.

Can’t wait to see more of her development in Owl House’s future.

[socialjusticeartshare]

How Our Stories Won’t Save Us: Teaching Valeria Luiselli’s “Lost Children Archive”

The scene haunts me because I am an immigrant, because I can’t imagine what being deported feels like or what it could mean to a child. I was six and my brother four when we arrived in this country. I still remember that day.

THERE IS A SCENE in Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive that makes me reckon with the limits of my sympathy in the age of child detention centers. The main characters, Ma, Pa, Girl, and Boy, arrive at an airport. Ma is a sound archivist. She’s there to document the sounds of migrant children just moments before they board a plane to be deported. Peering at the tarmac, Ma narrates:

I slowly walk my eyes on […] the line of small figures now stepping out of the hangar and onto the runway. They are all children. Girls, boys: one behind another, no backpacks, nothing. They march in single file, looking like they’ve surrendered, silent prisoners of some war they didn’t even get to fight. […] If they hadn’t gotten caught, they probably would have gone to live with family, gone to school, playgrounds, parks. But instead, they’ll be removed, relocated, erased, because there’s no place for them in this vast empty country.

The scene haunts me because I am an immigrant, because I can’t imagine what being deported feels like or what it could mean to a child. I was six and my brother four when we arrived in this country. I still remember that day. It was December. And I felt the warm safety of arriving with my parents. I saw snow for the first time, and all I could think about was that snow was just frío frío (shaved ice). We were finally a family, here, “ready to build a better life,” like my father always said. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if my brother and I had arrived unaccompanied in a place that didn’t want us. Yet this is the reality for thousands of migrant children at the US-Mexico border. Many are younger than my brother and I were when we arrived.

Lost Children Archive is an evocative novel about displacement, migration, family, and the cartography of parenthood in the age of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. Published in February 2019, the novel interlocks parental angst with contemporaneous news about the migrant crisis at the US Southern border, histories of Apachería, and stories of lost children. So much of this book is about dreams of futures put off and put out, worlds that were prayed for but that will never come to fruition for migrant children.

Ma’s words raise the question: What does it mean for a child to surrender? And what can we do about it?

When a novel makes me question the limits of my sympathy, I must read it twice: one time for the story and the other to figure out how the author did it. As much as Lost Children Archive is about the child migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border, it is also about how we write, teach, and engage issues that we have not personally experienced. This is where I sit. I am a teacher, a scholar, and a creative. I am an immigrant with papers who writes about migrants without papers. I teach books about their experiences and lives. I often ask myself what gives me the right to tell and teach their stories, to translate experiences, emotions, and lessons that to me are like distant relatives.

What is a book about migrant children if not a book that teaches us to convert sympathy to action, into doing something — anything? In other words, how do we motivate our reading of such texts beyond aesthetic analysis and reasoning?

In the spring of 2021, I taught a course on migrant literatures. It was my first time teaching a class on migrants. My students and I read Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans, and Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive to debate and develop questions and arguments about (im)migration, the border, citizenship, colonization, and language.

The week we read Lost Children Archive, an unprecedented number of unaccompanied children arrived at the US-Mexico border. We read the novel alongside reports about their arrival and the living conditions in Border Patrol facilities. Like the characters in the novel, who collect histories, sounds, materials, and photographs, my class and I archived reports and images of the unfolding crisis.

On April 1, the United States Border Patrol released footage of two Ecuadorian girls, three and five years old, being hoisted and dropped over a 14-foot border wall by coyotes near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The girls were slow to get up from the desert floor as the camera moved toward the smugglers running away and out of the frame. The two girls were taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation. They will join a caravan of lost children at various points of the US-Mexico border, awaiting a fate as obscure as the desert floors. They wait to become refugees — waiting, as Ma tells her own children, “for an indefinite time before actually, fully having arrived.”

More than 3,200 migrant children have been detained at a South Texas Border Patrol facility. They are in a “large tent complex designed to detain unaccompanied minors and families with children for short periods of time.” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) requires that minors must be transferred to shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours of custody. But no one will move these children because shelters are unavailable. CBP lacks resources, space, and even food. Afraid and alone, without their parents, many children go hungry. In interviews, minors say they’ve only showered once in seven days. A pair of boys say that “conditions were so overcrowded that they had to take turns sleeping on the floor.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended “enhanced” mitigation measures requiring migrant children two years and older to wear masks 24/7 while at the same time allowing shelters to return to maximum capacity. No one seems to think about why these children came here: what cruelty, war, poverty, pain were they escaping?

Luiselli’s narrator contemplates this exact question:

No one thinks of the children arriving here now as refugees of a hemispheric war that extends, at least, from these very mountains, down across the country into the southern US and northern Mexico deserts, sweeping across the Mexican sierras, forests, and southern rain forests into Guatemala, into El Salvador, and all the way to the Celaque Mountains in Honduras. No one thinks of those children as consequences of a historical war that goes back decades. Everyone keeps asking: Which war, where? Why are they here? Why did they come to the United States? What will we do with them? No one is asking: Why did they flee their homes?

Luiselli tells us that these are our children, this is our crisis to deal with, and this is real. The child refugee crisis isn’t an intertext, a metaphorical archive, or a literary device that we can track on the page. This is the lived reality of thousands of migrants today as I type these words. Luiselli tells us that these children “wait for their dignity to be restored.” As an educator and immigrant, the least I can do through my teaching is to try to restore some of their dignity.

In our class discussions, we move away from metaphors to think about the border as a physical and conceptual place. We turn to the theoretical architect Gloria E. Anzaldúa, who famously illustrated la frontera (the border) as “una herida abierta [an open wound] where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country — a border culture.” This is where migrant children are held — a place of alterity, of inbetweenness, neither here nor there, a state-sanctioned purgatory between fleeing and arriving. It is a liminal space of transformation, which Anzaldúa argues is,

set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition.

Over the course of the semester, the border as a physical and conceptual structure becomes central to our engagement with migration. We discuss the US-Mexico border but also other, less tangible types of borders. We turn to the borders of language and how they shape the way we see ourselves. I tell my students that language can be a barrier for many migrants. I tell them that when I first arrived in the United States I did not speak English, that from the first to the seventh grade I was in bilingual classes. I did not understand the crossing guard’s commands to go and stop nor my gym teacher’s instructions to run, climb, and jump. I was bullied before I knew the word for it. I grew silent over the years and taught myself to hide my English, my accent, my legal status, and anything else that marked me as an outsider. I did this not for acceptance, which I thought unattainable, but for safety and peace.

I don’t know if my stories are relatable or if they work pedagogically. I draw from my personal experiences in an attempt to build a bridge between me and the migrant children. I don’t know if this bridge will support a path toward sympathy or action in my classroom or elsewhere. But I do know that there’s something powerful in witnessing my students engage with the child migrant crisis, question the ethics of detention facilities, and connect their own youths to the ones of migrant children.

We read reports and watch news segments about the migrant children at the border. We consume what others document about them. And in doing so, we see these children from the perspective of an immigration system designed to dehumanize the migrant. Without action, their stories become clichés. We must move beyond the negating rhetoric of undocumented, non-status, without papers, and begin to actually see these children as children in need of our protection and aid.

Children, Ma tells us, “force parents to go out looking for a specific pulse, a gaze, a rhythm, the right way of telling the story, knowing that stories don’t fix anything or save anyone but maybe make the world both more complex and more tolerable.” What are we learning from the stories we tell, from the ones we teach, from the real lives of migrant children at the US-Mexico border? What do these stories say about us, the things we value, the things we tolerate? In one form or another, we are answering these questions right now.

[browneyedmissy]

JV Childhood: Part I

Summary: Jackie wished they would all just stop staring.

Author's Note: So this is the first part in my mini anthology for Open Heart. I've been saying a lot that we need to be telling the stories all the characters who are BIPOC because there is so much depth to those stories to explore. This first part of Jackie's childhood and part two is her adolescent years, up through high school.

Day Two of @choicescocappreciationweek!

Thanks goes out to @somewillwin. I asked her some of her headcanons for Jackie and I used it to help me write!

Her first experience of true hate was when she was nine.

She remembered her parents whispering in the living room, her mother’s voice trembling as Jackie sat in the living room with her siblings, partly distracted by the cartoons on the TV.

She hadn't really understood why her mother was so stressed out at the time. Her teachers had the same nervous energy and when she went down to their family store, all of the customers were walking with their head down. Even their employee Tom's smile did not quite meet his eyes and he kept glancing at the TV which had been playing the news.

“Jaikalina, Avi.”

She looked up from the table where she was finishing her homework to see her mother with her purse in her hand.

“I'm going to lock the door and go to the store. You're not allowed to open it for anyone, alright? Avi, you're in charge. Dev and Anika are both asleep."

“Isn’t Tom working?”

“He quit, Jaikalina.” She pursed her lips at her daughter, finding the right words in her head. “It’s… complicated but he’s scared. And I don’t blame him.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll explain later, beta.” Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead before shrugging on her coat. “I’ll be back.”

Avi watched their mother go with a scowl on his face.

"Tom quit because he doesn't want to be associated with us. Don't let her sugarcoat it for you." He said cooly to Jackie. She turned to him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

He looked at his little sister with a look of annoyance and a little bit of fear?

"It means that life is going to be different for us, behan. You'll see it soon enough." He went to his room and slammed the door behind him without another word.

-

Jackie was sitting on the couch when her mother finally got home. Avi hadn't come down the rest of the night and after finishing her homework Jackie had turned on TV to distract herself.

“You’re still awake, beta.” She said in surprise.

“Yes. And you told me you would explain later. It’s later now.”

In the dim light, Jackie could see the exhaustion in her mother’s still beautiful face. She gave her a sad smile before gesturing to the dining table. Jackie hopped down and sat across her mother who was focused on a spot on the table.

“You’ve always been straight to the point.” Her mother said sadly. “And I suppose you’re old enough to hear this and I want you to hear it from me before anyone else. Tom was scared because of the things that have been happening to our neighbors and people like us. Do you remember when the airplanes crashed? Well, the men who did it were of Islam and they didn’t like a lot of what America was doing.”

She thought about the moment she saw the planes hit the towers. “But those people are all innocent. And we didn’t do anything. The people who did that are not even our people.”

"But we look enough like them."

She frowned, remembering how her friend Vera had missed a few days of school.

"They hate us because of how we look." Her mother sighed. "We look like the enemy to them."

"That's not fair."

Her mother gave her a weary smile. "No, it's not. But our safety is most important, Jaikalina. I need you to go by your American names for now."

Jackie frowned.

"For how long, maan?"

Her mother didn't answer.

-

She remembered leaving the town about a year later. Despite having better prices and better variety than a lot of the other convenience stores, there had been less and less people coming in. It was mostly her parents' friends stopping by at one point but when it was declared that the country had gone to war, they were afraid too.

Avi had found himself getting trouble with the school. She couldn't understand why he had been so angry since that night but their parents had agreed that they needed new scenery.

So she found herself in a new place, right after the new year. Her father had found accounting work until they could afford to rent a storefront and her mother was working a secretarial job for a local nonprofit.

She felt the eyes of her classmates on her and she nervously tugged at her skirt in her new 5th grade classroom. Her mother had insisted that she dress proper for her first day of her new school and she felt like one of those kids at a snobby rich private school.

"This is Jaikalina-"

"I go by Jackie, actually." She corrected her teacher, remembering what her mother had said. Her classmates stared at her and one of them raised her hand.

"Where are you from?"

"We- we moved here from New Jersey-"

"No, but where are you actually from?"

She stared at the girl for a moment, unsure how to answer that question. Their teacher gave the girl a look and she put her hand down.

"We don't ask people questions like that, Hannah."

"Yes, teacher." Hannah said with a sacharrine smile. "I'm sorry for being rude, Jackie."

Jackie suddenly realized why her brother got into fights. She stood there frozen for a moment, before her teacher directed her to her seat and she stared blankly at the chalkboard.

She got her lunch from her backpack after morning classes and followed the rest of her classmates to the lunch tables. Jackie sat down at a table and pulled out leftovers from the night before.

"I don't want to sit next to her." Hannah, the girl from before said in a loud voice. "Her food smells and my parents say that people who look like her are terrorists."

Terrorist.

She had heard that word coming from the TV, describing the men who had flown the planes into the towers. She stared at the girl who had used the word and was shocked to see the amount of hate in her eyes.

She simultaneously wanted to cry and scream as the eyes of her classmates turned to them. There were pitying looks in some of their faces but none of them seemed to be willing to say anything. She turned back to Hannah who had a confident smirk on her face and Jackie had the urge to slap it off.

Then, a jolt of fear trickled through her bones.

If she hit her, will they label her as a terrorist? Would she get in trouble like Avi and be labeled a bad kid?

"Well, people who say things like you do because of the color of my skin are bullies." Jackie finally said. "And probably racist too."

There was an oooh from one of the other students and a few of them cheered. Hannah narrowed her eyes.

"You better watch yourselves around this one. She'll backstab you for her country." She retorted as she walked away.

Her country? She was born here, in the United States…

She was still thinking about it when she got home with her brother and younger siblings later that day. Her brother let out a big sigh and dropped his backpack on the ground before plopping on the couch. Jackie looked at him, her backpack still on.

"I think I finally understand why you got into those fights, bhai." Jackie said.

Avi looked at her with a wry smile. "I'm sorry to hear that. I hoped you'd be spared that a little longer."

Jackie sat down on the couch next to him and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"The people at my school here- they put me in some of the 'lower' classes because they saw my old record. The kids in my class are mostly like us. I think the only black and Hispanic kids are in my class but they get it. They get the stuff we're going through."

"It's not fair."

"Naw, it's not behan. It will probably never be fair for us." Avi sighed. "I just hope that you'll be able to do better than I will. It's too late for me."

Jackie frowned. "You're only in high school."

"Yeah, I'm already in high school. It's going to be hard for me to get into college when the classes I'm taking aren't considered rigorous. I was never as into school as you were anyways. I'll probably go to community college for a while and then find a job. You though, Jaks, have time and you're smarter than I am."

"I can't believe your path is basically decided by the time you're 15."

He let out a humorless laugh. "A lot of your path is decided before you're even born."

-

"Jackie, wait. I want you to take this letter to your parents."

She froze, eyeing her teacher warily. She had mostly kept her head down in school, ignoring Hannah and focusing on her schoolwork. She didn't really have any friends, perse but she didn't mind. She had found a renewed interest in reading and instead of playing with her classmates, she would find a tree to sit and read at.

"I didn't do anything." She denied immediately, crossing her arms. Her teacher looked at her in surprise and her face twitched into a sad smile.

"I know, sweetheart. Just give this to them, okay?"

Jackie stared at the envelope and before grabbing it, stuffing it haphazardly into her backpack. When she got home, she slapped the letter on the table.

"What's this, behan?" Avi asked curiously from the kitchen. He had heated up some of the samosas from dinner the night before and was snacking on one as Jackie dropped her bag on the table.

"Something for mom and dad. Teacher wants me to give it to them."

Her brother took the envelope and opened it up. Scanning the letter, he looked up at his sister with a grin.

"Your teacher wants you to enter the advanced classes when you go to junior high. You have to take a test and if you pass, you can take them."

Jackie's face lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah." He ruffled her head. "I'm proud of you, Jaks."

-

"You'll be okay without me."

Jackie looked up at her brother. The summer before she went into junior high, he took a few classes over the summer and when school started again his grades had been much better than before.

So much so that when he graduated high school two years later, he had surprised everyone by telling them he was moving away and starting college in the fall. He had gotten accepted in a state school a few hours away. He hadn't decided what he was studying yet but the tuition was cheap and he had applied on a whim since his grades had improved.

"You'll start out high school right and I know you'll know what you want to do by the time you go to college. You'll be able to go to any school you want and you'll be the famous Varma, I know it."

"I'll miss you. Do you have to go?"

He laughed. "I'll miss you too. Take care of yourself and Dev and Ani too, okay?"

At the sound of their names, Dev and Anika, who had just turned 8 and 6, came forward and each grabbed one of her hands.

"Bye bye Avi. I'll miss you." Anika said quietly.

"Bye, Ani." He got on the bus and waved at them until the bus was too far away for them to see anymore.

[sillydodobird]

Glittery

Here it is, finally!!

This took forever and its insanely long and I can’t tell if i love it or hate it. I started this over a month ago and I just finished it. It’s one of the longest things i’ve ever written. Super sorry if anythings misspelled or wrong, It’s Christmas Eve and I really need to wrap presents! Happy Holidays to you all!

Paring: Chlonath 

Warnings: Kissing, Cursing. 

Length: 7K+, so buckle up. 

It’s probably the insane amount of sugar in her snickerdoodle latte that’s making her so sentimental. One is naturally sentimental around the holidays, but she’s looking at a really pitiful looking Christmas tree surrounded by more impressive Christmas trees. The small thing is barely 4 feet tall and kind of slouching to the side, but it’s adorable in its own little way. It has character. More character than the other overpriced 9 foot trees in the lot. 

Chloe has probably been staring at the tree a little too long because a teenager comes up to her and asks her if she needs help with anything. She makes a split-second decision and decides to buy the little charlie brown Christmas tree. She’s never actually bought a real tree, her parents grew up with real tree’s and both never wanted to deal with the hassle of having to care for a dead tree in their own living room, opting for the fake trees that are not as big of a fire hazard.

It’s not even December 1st and in the back of her mind, she realizes the tree might not make it until Christmas because of how early she bought it. Worse comes to worst she will just buy another one. 

This is the first year she’s spending most of the season alone, not going back to Paris until the day before Christmas eve. She can’t say she’s upset she won’t be with her father until then but she does feel a little out of place not being home.

She has her butler, Nico, drag the small tree in and place it right by the window, far away from the fireplace. She doesn’t have any Christmas decor at her apartment, this is the first of soon to come decorations. 

--

She hears him before she sees him. More accurately, she hears his weird gasp slash choked “Chloe?” 

Really she could ignore him, pretend she doesn’t recognize him, but some strange part of her longs for the normalcy of someone from Paris, even if that someone happens to be a hipster art student. She grinds her teeth before turning around to face him.

“Kurtzburg?” 

The ginger in question has changed since the last time she saw him, which was a little over a year ago. His hair is longer, pulled up into a messy bun. His cheekbones have gotten sharper and from what she remembers she thinks he’s gotten taller. Other things haven’t changed, he still has paint on his hands and he still has ripped jeans on even though it is 23 degrees outside.

Nathaniel doesn’t look nearly as confused as he sounds. She’s not sure if he’s shocked to see her because he didn’t expect to see a familiar face in New York or if he didn’t even know she was in New York. She, on the other hand, doesn’t know why he is in New York. Last she heard, he going to the royal college of arts in England.  

“What are you doing here? Are you on vacation?” He asks in french, which Chloe is grateful for because she really hates speaking English. 

Chloe fiddles with her Starbucks cup, her second of the day. “Uh, no. I live here.” 

Red eyebrows rise, “You live in New York?” 

“Yeah, I’m at FIT.” She doesn’t ask him what he’s doing here because she doesn’t really care.

“The fashion school?” Nathaniel asks, “That’s really cool, Chloe.” 

The blonde nods already feeling the awkward tension in the air. She���s not sure if Nathaniel can feel it, he’s always awkward, maybe he’s immune to it. 

He obviously doesn’t pick up on the weird air that comes with seeing an old classmate, “I’m at Columbia.” 

Oh great, the hipster goes to the college her father wanted her to go to. The Ivy League college that Chloe decided not to apply for because she did not want to follow in her father’s footsteps. Her father, while slightly disappointed, managed to be supportive of his little princess forging her own path in life. She realizes that this means she will probably be seeing him more than she wants too. 

“Very cool.” Her voice is monotone, displaying how uncool Chloe really finds it. 

He reaches up to grab a package of colorful Christmas lights from the shelf, “Well it was, uh, nice seeing you?” It sounds like a question more than a statement, and Chloe guesses the awkwardness is finally starting to register to the artist. 

“Goodbye, Kurtzburg.”

 Nathaniel makes a weird face like he’s second-guessing himself, “Uh...See you around, Chloe.” He leaves the aisle, taking the colorful lights with him. 

Once he’s out of sight Chloe lets out a breath. She can finally get back to shopping. 

-

Her townhouse is now a winter wonderland. A very well thought out the color scheme to be both holly and jolly but not nauseatingly so. 

Chloe decides to celebrate her newly decorated home with hot chocolate and watching Saturday Night Live’s Christmas special. 

-

Chloe really wonders how she managed to piss God off enough that he decides to make her life a living hell. 

She’s positive she’s cursed. Just today she woke up late and left her portfolio at her house, had to speed walk to class in 6-inch heels because her driver had a family emergency, almost twisting her ankle in the process and on top of everything her hair appointment had to be rescheduled. 

But now it’s pouring rain and she did not bring an umbrella. Even though it is well below freezing it’s not snowing outside, it’s just freezing cold rain. 

She’s sitting in Starbucks’s lobby, sipping hot chocolate and trying to work on her essay. It’s not due for another week but she feels like wasting time waiting for the rain to stop. 

Once again, she hears him before she sees him. He’s ordering a black coffee, weird how boring his coffee order is considering how artsy he is. His hair is down and he is wearing a ridiculously bright blue scarf that clashes terribly with his, well, everything. 

She’s debating on hiding behind her portfolio when he notices her. His blue eyes widening in recognition and she can see the moment of hesitation before he makes his way over to her. 

“Uh, Hey. Long-time, no see.” He jokes.

“Are you stalking me, Kurtzburg?” 

Nathaniel lets out whatever is a cross between a sigh and a laugh, “Still blunt as ever, I see. Would have thought you would have grown out of it by now.” 

Her blue eyes narrow, she doesn’t need or deserve attitude from a living breathing tomato. 

“What do you want?” She doesn’t want to attract any more attention to herself than necessary, the fact that they are speaking french is already attracting onlookers. 

“Nothing, Chloe. Believe it or not, I don’t seek you out. I’m just taking shelter from the storm, same as you.” 

Chloe hmphs but doesn’t bother responding to him. She bites her tongue when he decides to sit across from her. 

He takes out a sketchbook and some graphite pencils. She wonders how much he’s improved since the last time she saw his artwork. Admittedly, he was the best artist in their entire school. She remembers the beautiful paintings he did of Ladybug and Chat Noir and she can’t help but be curious about what is taking up pages in his sketchbook nowadays.

She resorts to sneaking glances at him. He doesn’t look at her, too focused on his art. His stupid hair falling in his face and he moves to push it behind his ears, where she notices he has multiple ear piercings. His eyebrows were furrowed and he looks to be having trouble with whatever he is drawing. 

After a while, he speaks up. “So why New York?” He doesn’t even look at her, still looking down at his art. 

For a moment she considers telling him to fuck off and let her write in peace, even though she hasn’t actually written more than two sentences. She decides to answer him with a smidge of politeness. 

“I like New York.” She really does love it here. It’s always busy and she doesn’t ever feel like people are watching her. Back in Paris, she could never let her guard down. 

“How does your father feel about you being here?” He’s put his pencil down, using his fingers to smudge the graphite. He still hasn’t looked at her but she hasn’t looked at her essay since he spoke. 

“Why do you care?” She spits out, she can’t tell if she’s annoyed at the fact that he’s asking such a personal question or if it’s the indifference his voice seems to project. 

“Curious. My parents hate that I chose to go to school in the states.” 

“Why did you come here? I thought you were destined for the Royal College of Arts.” She doesn’t realize she’s even asking the question until its out. 

Luckily Nathaniel either doesn’t notice how weird it is that his former bully knew where he was planning on attending college or just didn’t care. 

“Didn’t like the vibe.” He’s picked up his pencils again, fingers now dusted with graphite. 

Chloe bites back a laugh, “Didn’t like the vibe? What were they not hipster enough?” 

He does look up at that remark. His blue eyes meet hers and a weird feeling spreads through her stomach. His lips spread to let a small smile peep through. 

“Nah, just didn’t feel right.” 

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t try to get any more info out of him and he doesn’t bring up his previous question.

He does, however, ask what kind of classes she’s taking and she responds. It’s not awful, talking to the redhead. If anything it’s just nice to be able to converse in her natural tongue. She tries to figure out what he is drawing but he keeps it perfectly angled away from her. 

It’s about another 40 minutes when he starts to put his sketchbook away. She looks out the window and notices the rain has stopped. 

“Imma head on home.” He says while making eye contact with her. He has a soft smile and a dimple makes an appearance. He lifts his bag up and stands up.

“Bye.”

“Bye, Chloe. See you around.” He sends her one last smile, this time with teeth, and walks out the door.

Chloe tries her best to look uninterested, gives him a small wave and looks back to her laptop. She’s only managed to write two paragraphs in the last hour. 

Chloe tries to stay and finish her essay but quickly gives up after 20 minutes. 

It’s not like her essay is due tomorrow anyway.

-

Chloe manages to score an A on her marketing exam and she celebrates by taking a walk through the city to do some Christmas shopping. She’s already bought her parents, Adrien ( and by extension Mariantte), Sabrina, and all of the people her father employes to make her life easier. She did manage to contact her driver’s wife and plan a small romantic vacation for the two of them, so she's able to cross off ‘good deeds’ on her checklist. 

Chloe is admiring the newest line from Versace when she sees him.

She is 98% convinced he is stalking her and the next thing she should do is file for a restraining order.

He’s in a very ugly silver puffy jacket, jeans, and boots. He has a beanie on covering most of his hair but is unable to cover the unruly locks. She wonders how an artist can be so fashionably challenged. 

He’s also carrying bags, not shopping bags because Chloe highly doubts he can afford to shop in this plaza. 

She decides to ignore him. He obviously didn’t see her and she's definitely not about to walk up and start a conversation with him.

She does, however, see him when she walks towards the Channel Gardens. He has a camera in his hands and he’s zooming from tree to tree snapping away pictures. She didn’t know he was interested in photography, she wonders if this is for a personal project or a mandatory school project.

She turns away and starts her journey home. It’s below freezing and she’s ready to watch the polar express and wrap presents.

And if her thoughts drift to the redhead in the garden, well no one can prove it.

-

She’s listening to Terror Jr and trying to find inspiration. She doesn’t know if it’s because of the holiday stress but she has been severely lacking any inspiration. 

Chloe hates feeling like this. She feels like how she imagines the color brown to feel like. Boring, unimaginative and overall yucky. 

She is getting nowhere on this stupid essay and she’s also getting nowhere with the spreadsheets she needs to have completed by the end of the week. 

She’s at Starbucks again because while she does go to a fashion school the library is always crowded around this time of year and she’s claustrophobic. She’s only been in the Starbucks for a while, she’s only on her first toffee nut almond milk latte. 

Her father FaceTimes her, which is honestly surprising. Who taught him how to do that? Jean? 

The camera is pointing to the ground so she sees some of his shoes and the floor. He’s discussing the annual Christmas dinner at their house with all of their extended family. Chloe zones out through most of it until he asks if she’s bringing a plus one, during school, Sabrina used to be her plus one but now she can’t see that happening. She tells her father she doubts it and puts on a smile so he forgets about it. He’s perfectly fine going back to rambling on about Paris and his mayoral duties.

She manages to hang up with her father and goes back to writing her essay. It takes her about another 2 hours, and two more latte’s, but she manages to finish it. 

-

He finds her at Target again. She wants to know why he’s at Target so often and then realizes she can’t find that weird because she’s at target most days. 

“Maybe I should be worried about you stalking me, Bourgeois?” He teases. 

“Fuck off, Kurtzburg.” She doesn’t hold back this time but instead of being intimidated he, however, lets out a laugh and smiles a toothy smile at her. 

“Oh Chloe, it’s no biggie. I don’t mind.” 

Chloe rolls her eyes and starts to move her cart away from him, tempted to run over his feet. 

He catches up with her, “Alright, sorry. I just think it’s funny that this is the second time I've seen you at target.”  

“Have you looked at the calendar? It’s less than 6 weeks until Christmas.”

Nathaniel nods, keeping pace with her even as she tries to speed up. “Ah, nope had no idea.” 

She abruptly stops and he stumbles a bit. 

“What do you want?” She asks 

“Nothing. I just think it’s a funny coincidence.” he raises his hands in mock surrender.

“So you’re bothering me because?” She snaps.

He lowers his hands and she’s ready to hear whatever bullshit is about to flow from his mouth.

“I think we should hang out.” Her eyes widen and Nathaniel is quick to continue to add on. “I think we should hang out because it’s nice to see someone from home.”

“Come on, Chloe. We should at least try hanging out once.”

She glares at him, “Doing what?” 

He averts his eyes and shoves his hands into his orange hoodie, “Well...I uh…” He stutters “I really didn’t think you’d let me talk long enough for me to get to that.” 

Chloe rolls her eyes and walks away. If he wants to hang out with her, he’s gotta do better than that. 

-

They do become friends or what Chloe would call acquaintances who don’t hate spending time together.

 She grows used to the way Nathaniel dresses. She doesn’t approve of it but she is used to it. 

She grows used to the way he constantly doodles. How his hands are often covered in paint.and how he always had at least 3 earrings in. 

She’s not even really sure why he’s even trying to be friends with her. It’s not as if he doesn’t have other friends in New York, she’s seen his Instagram stories that include friends who she imagines share the same passion for art. 

But she’s now in those Instagram stories. He’s developed a habit of snapping photos of her and adding them to his story. He always tags her and she wonders if he’s completely okay with all of their old friends and classmates knowing they are hanging out. 

The first time she puts him in her story and tags him, he sends her a small little heart and smiley face emoji. No one is around to see her blush and therefore it’s totally fine. 

-

He’s asked for her help with some art project, something about Christmas lights and free not chocolate. Chloe doesn’t turn him down and now they are in the middle of Rockefeller Center, staring at the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.

Chloe is sipping on her hot chocolate, with extra mini marshmallows. Nathaniel is setting up his art supplies, thankfully it looks like he just plans to sketch and not paint. She wonders how long this is going to take and if they should go out for dinner afterward. 

The ice skaters are all around and Chloe remembers when her parents first took her here when she was a little girl. She hasn’t been ice skating in a few years and she’s pretty sure she would look like a newborn baby giraffe trying to skate. 

She’s content to people watch but Nathaniel wants to talk apparently. He’s gotten into the habit of playing a game like twenty questions, something about them needing to know more than the basics about each other. 

“What is your favorite Christmas song?” 

In all honesty, it’s probably that Pennies from Heaven song from the movie Elf but she doesn’t say that, “Merry Christmas, Darling by the Carpenters.”

“A classic.” He says while looking up at the tree, hand still moving across the paper. 

“What about you? Is it something like super obscure? Must be Santa by Bob Dylan?” She laughs.

“What? No! What even is that? Is it good?” 

“It’s definitely weird.” 

He laughs and Chloe realizes she doesn’t hate the sound. Doesn’t make her want to grind her teeth, his laugh is not obnoxious but it’s genuine. Like he’s honestly having fun just sitting here working on an art project with her. 

“It’s Please Come Home For Christmas.” He says after he’s stopped laughing “By The Eagles.” 

They go back and forth for a bit, she finds out he thinks Eggnog is better than hot chocolate which Chloe calls bullshit on and Nath finds out that she can’t possibly pick a favorite Christmas movie because they are all good, including the shitty hallmark ones. 

It’s around 11 o’clock. The crowd has died down and there’s no one around besides the stray couple still ice skating. Nathaniel is putting the finishing touches on his sketch. It’s gorgeous of course, he’s managed to blend the colors of the lights on the bright green Christmas tree to make it look as if they are twinkling, he’s also drawn the ice skaters and the hot chocolate vendor. She’s amazed he managed to put this much detail into something that’s only taken him 2 hours. 

“So what do you think?” 

It takes her a moment to realize he’s asking for feedback. She’s not sure why he’s asking someone who has very little artistic talents but she gives her honest opinion. 

He blushes when she tells him that it’s amazing. His cheeks a similar color to his hair. It really shouldn’t be cute but it totally is and Chloe wants to see it more often. 

-

They go to a special showing of Elf. It’s dark in the theater and she’s currently munching on popcorn and Nathaniel is sipping on his ICEE. 

She’s trying to focus on the movie because it really is one of her favorites. However, her mind keeps drifting to the redhead who just moments earlier was mistaken for her boyfriend. 

The usher at the movie theater just happened to mention how cute of a couple she thought they were, which side note: if they were an actual couple they would most definitely be the cutest couple.

Nathaniel didn’t even correct her, neither did Chloe. Which makes her mind race. Why didn’t he correct her? Does he care if people think they are dating? Does he want people to think they are dating?

Now her mind is curious how he would be as a boyfriend. The seed has been planted in her head. She wonders what he would wear on the first date, where would he take her, would he kiss her on the first date? How does he kiss? Is it soft and slow or fast and passionate? Would he be in control or would he let her take control? Would she want him to be in control?

Her thoughts are swarming around and she doesn’t even notice he’s talking to her until he taps her on the cheek. 

She smacks his hand away and glares at him. Just because she was entertaining the idea of kissing him doesn’t mean he can bother her. 

“You zoned out, I wanted to know if you wanted a refill?” He asks looking down at her now almost empty popcorn tub. 

She would actually love some sour patch kids but she’s not going to ask for that. “I’m fine. Thanks.” 

He smiles at her and then stands up and walks out of the theater. 

Chloe has finally managed to get her thoughts together enough to start enjoying the movie when he walks back in. He sits down and she figured he would go back to watching the movie but he turns to her, hands her two boxes of sour patch kids(original and watermelon) and puts his arm over the back of her chair.

 Chloe gives up trying to watch the movie. 

-

They are building a gingerbread house. Or more accurately Nathaniel is designing a beautiful gingerbread house, with intricately placed candies and icing. Chloe, on the other hand, gave up after 10 minutes; deciding to let the artist do what he wishes. She’s content to watch the grinch, the original animated version, and drink Eggnog. 

Chloe doesn’t really remember why he even came over, it’s a Saturday and she really should be studying for her finals. She shouldn’t be spending time with the artist who is way too invested in this editable house. But his tongue is slightly sticking out and his hair is disheveled like always. He’s also mumbling to himself about aesthetics and weight limitations. 

“The older I get the more I relate to the grinch.” She says.

Nathaniel is adding what looks like some candy shrubbery to the side paneling, “You love Christmas though, Chlo.” 

If Chloe wasn’t paying attention she might have missed that. He called her Chlo for the first time. The only other person who calls her that is Adrien, and yet it feels very different coming out of Nathaniel’s mouth. Somehow more intimate and affectionate. She wonders when they reached the point of nicknames. Would it be alright for her to call him Nath? Did he even realize he did it? 

Chloe recovers quickly though, “Of course I love Christmas, I meant that I understand where he’s coming from.”

Nath breathes a laugh, “Yeah? You gonna run away to live in a cave with a dog?” 

She rolls her eyes and goes back to the movie. 

-

While she likes to pretend that she is 100% aware and in control all the time, it’s not true. Right now she has no idea how this happened. When did they get into this position? She doesn’t remember him moving his arm to rest over the top of the couch, or when her legs decided to intertwine with his. She remembers how far apart they were when they first sat down though.

She wants to know if he noticed how close they’ve gotten. If he was just as unaware of it as her or if was secretly inching closer to her all night. She can smell him, and she’s trying hard to not being creepy about it at all. He smells strangely warm and fresh. She always kind of expected him to smell like art, like acrylic paints and clay. Instead, he smells like clean laundry and spiced oranges. 

They are watching it’s a wonderful life on her tv. The fireplace is crackling and the Christmas tree is glittering in the corner. Nathaniel is fully engrossed in the movie. He admitted that he had never seen the movie before and so here they are, sitting entirely too close together. 

She is honed into the fact that his right hand is absentmindedly stroking her hair. She wonders if he would notice if she moved her hand from her lap to his thigh and if she did would that be too forward? 

She decides to take a leap of faith because she’s not thinking straight and she can’t tell if it’s because of him or if it’s because of the glass of wine she had earlier. 

Her hand moves and she lets it rest gently on his thigh and she can feel him tense up beneath her. He doesn’t move or shove her off of him so she’s taking that as a good sign. 

Chloe is distracted by the movie when he moves, he jostles them so she is practically in his lap, he moves so one of his hands is on her hip and the other still in her hair. 

Nathaniel rests his chin on top of her head and she’s not breathing properly. She’s not paying attention to George Bailey or Clarence. She feels like she might overheat, he’s so warm and he smells so good. 

He hasn’t looked at her or acted like this is unusual even though they’ve never ever been this close to each other. He’s acting like this is completely normal, that she’s always been able to feel how his chest feels against her back or how his fingers feel on her hip.

Chloe wonders if he knows what he is doing to her? 

Does he know she feels like her heart is about to burst out of her chest?

Does he know how he makes her feel? How safe and happy she feels?

She doesn’t want to move, wants to stay in this moment forever or at the very least the entire night. But unfortunately, life gets in the way and Nathaniel whispers to her after the credits start to roll that he has to head home and that she should get some sleep. 

Chloe gets very little sleep that night. Instead, she spends hours tossing and turning, remember the way it felt to be held by him.

—

“Are you going back to Paris for Christmas?” 

The question doesn’t startle her, she’s been expecting it. Christmas is less than two weeks away. 

“Yeah, I still need to book my flight. What about you? Are you going back for Hanukkah?” She knows his parents miss him and even if he doesn’t say anything she can tell he misses them when he’s speaking with them on the phone. 

Nathaniel nods, “The semester ends on the 18th so I’ll probably leave on the 19th.”

They are in her kitchen, making some stupid holiday cookies that will probably burn in the oven but Nath seems excited.

“Do you think you’ll meet up with anyone from school?” She asks after a short pause. She is curious if he still talks to anyone back home. She doesn’t really speak to Sabrina anymore besides the occasional text every now and then and Adrien is busy with his career and Marinette. 

Nath shrugs and continues kneading the dough. His hair is very disheveled and she ponders when she started finding that attractive in a man. 

“I might meet up with Alix and Kim, maybe Max.” He says. “But I don’t think our schedules will match up well.” 

Chloe nods, she wants to know if their schedules match up. If this weird friendship they’ve managed to form will exist in Paris. Nathaniel doesn’t seem to be afraid to let people know they are friends, he’s posted about her enough on Instagram.

But she desperately wants to know if Nathaniel talks about her to anyone else. And if he does, what does he tell them. Wants to know if he talks about her with the fondness only one can talk about someone they treasure. 

He’s tearing open the packaging of the cookie cutters, with his teeth because Nathaniel could care less when he tells her they should travel together. 

She chokes on the glass of eggnog she’s drinking. 

“What?” 

“I said we should travel together, flying by yourself is so boring.” He says this way too nonchalantly. 

Chloe resorts to just staring at him, confused and slightly shocked. 

“I thought your parents would be picking you up from the airport.” She says and she can see that he doesn’t seem to understand why she’s apprehensive. 

“Yeah? And?” 

-

They do end up flying together, Chloe convinces him to let her pay for his first-class seat because she is not about to ride in Economy just because he decided to tag along. 

It’s an 8-hour flight. Nathaniel is wearing grey sweatpants paired with a Columbia hoodie and she’s not sure she’s ever seen him look less like a hipster. He is still wearing some very ugly sneakers so she guesses the world hasn't ended just yet. 

He’s seated across from her, watching a movie on his Ipad. It’s only about 3 hours into their flight and she wishes she could just fall asleep. 

She watching the Sound of Music, but in all actuality, she ends up watching the way Nathaniel’s hair falls into his eyes and counting how many freckles litter his nose and cheekbones.

-

She’s standing at the luggage pick up and Nath is standing next to her. Vaguely she realizes onlookers definitely see them as a couple. She moves a tad bit closer to him. To make it easier for other people looking for the luggage, of course. 

Chloe has met his parents before, Victor and Lisel. His parents are kind and warm, and it’s so obvious that they love their son. His mother latched on to him as soon as she saw him. His father actually greeted Chloe first. He is so unlike her own father that she instantly tensed up before he smiled at her. 

Lisel lets go of her son and immediately goes to hug Chloe, which startles her. She supposes other families are more touchy than her own but she still wasn't expecting it. She timidly hugs Nathaniels’s mother back. Nathaniel shoots her a smile when they pull apart and she works harder to push those butterflies down. 

-

She supposes she believed her parents would be waiting for her to arrive home. However, the only two who greet her are the family butler Jean, who takes her bags and then gives her a quick hug, and the family dog, a Shih-Tzu named Beignet. 

Beignet jumps into Chloe’s arms and demands attention, which is fantastic. It takes her mind off of her parents. 

Jean takes her bags to her room and Chloe makes her way through her childhood home. The entire hotel is decorated for Christmas with plastic trees littered around every corner. This year's theme is very pastel Christmas, baby blues and frosted green baubles and light pink bows. 

Beignet squirms in her arms and she sets the tiny dog down who then tries to get her to play a game of tug of war with a nearby toy. Chloe entertains him until he tires himself out, curling up beside his plush faux fur doggy bed by the fireplace.

-

Her mother is the first one to arrive home. Tossing her bag to Jean, who doesn’t even bat an eyelash at her antics. Butler arrives behind her, carrying multiple shopping bags. Her mother embraced her in a hug that Chloe returns, albeit the hug is very awkward and kind of robotic because they rarely hug. 

Chloe is wondering what has gotten into her mother when she releases her and begins to speak. “Chloe, my love, I found the most amazing dress for you to wear for Christmas dinner! It’s going to look dazzling on you!” 

Her mother continues rambling on even well after Chloe stopped listening.  

-

Her father comes home much later. Chloe is sound asleep on the couch with Beignet curled up next to her, Christmas Vacation still playing on the tv. Her father drops a kiss on her head and gives her a small squeeze. Chloe, recovering from jet lag, sleepy mumbles a greeting to her father. 

-

Nathaniel forces Chloe to hang out with Alix and Kim. They go Ice skating and Chloe only trips a couple of times. Kim, however, fell multiple times until Alix took pity on her boyfriend and grabbed his hand to lead him around the skating rink. 

Nathaniel asks her after Alix and Kim left if she had fun. Chloe tells him it wasn’t as deplorable as she would have thought and Nath rewards her with hot chocolate. 

-

It’s Christmas Eve and she hasn’t seen him since they went ice skating with Alix and Kim. She can’t lie to herself and say she doesn’t miss him. It’s been less than 48 hours but it feels like it’s been so long. 

She knows he’s not avoiding her. She knows that he has plans with his family. She spends time doing some self-care, taking a hot bath, drinking wine, and watching the Muppets Christmas Carol. 

It’s around 9pm when he calls her. 

His voice is hard and she can hear the cold wind through the speaker. 

“Are you home?” He asks.

“Yeah, but I’ve already changed into my pajamas so-“

“I’m outside. The doorman won’t let me in.” 

Of course, they wouldn’t let him in, they won’t let anyone in unless she told them too. 

She forgoes the elevator, opting to run down the stairs. She’s in her Hello Kitty pajamas and her hair is down and she has absolutely no makeup on. 

she gives the doorman, Georg, permission to let him in. Nathaniel all but runs inside, his hair is messy and awful, he has snowflakes on his jacket and she belatedly realizes that he’s wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. He comes straight to her, she doesn’t know what happened but something seems to be wrong. His eyes are hardened and she suddenly has a flashback to when they were kids and he was akumatized. 

She’s grabbed onto his wrist and is pulling him up the stairs to her bedroom, she doesn’t even bother looking back to see the look she knows Georg is giving her. 

Once they reach her bedroom he immediately makes his way over to her bed, uniting his shoes and taking off his hoodie. 

He’s laying down on her bed, she hasn’t moved, opting to lean against the closed door. He looks exhausted and drained. She wonders what happened, she assumes it’s something to do with his family and she wonders what in the world could have happened. She’s also having a very small moment of panic at the image of Nath in her bed. He looks comfortable and a little too good against her bedspread.

“You can come over here, you know.” He says after a while. 

She slowly moves to her bed, unsure if he wants to talk about what happened, or if he wants to outright ignore it. She finally sits at the foot of her bed, next to his sock-clad feet. 

“Just lay down, Chlo.” He nudges her with one of his feet and she decides to give in. 

She positions herself a respectful distance away from him. He doesn’t allow that.

He reaches over and puts an arm around her waist and pulls her closer, fitting them together and Chloe stops herself from thinking they are like puzzle pieces. His fingers are gently moving across her exposed shoulder, and his feet touch hers and she belatedly realizes he’s trying to intertwine their feet. 

She’s entirely too close to him. Friends do not cuddle each other. They definitely don’t allow their fingers to roam over the other's chest and they definitely don’t imagine themselves planting kisses on their jaw and neck. 

Chloe’s brain is foggy and filled with thoughts of nothing besides the redhead and the way he smells and how nice it feels to be held by him. 

She sneaks a peek at him and finds him already looking at her. She tries to think of something to say to break the silence but he interrupts her.

He interrupts her in the best way possible.

She remembers debating with herself about how he would kiss, but anything she could imagine pales in comparison. His hands are on her jaw and neck, his lips are not rough against her but not soft. 

She knows he can probably feel her shivering when his hands drift down to her waist and especially when one holds on to her upper thigh. 

She wastes no time in exploring him as well. She hesitantly bites his bottom lip and his hand on her thigh tightens in the most delicious way. His mouth opening for her and it’s now a whole different type of kiss. 

One of her hands is holding tight on his hair, allowing her fingers to pull slightly and he makes a noise that Chloe will try forever to recreate. Her other hand is moving down his chest and she stops them right above his sweatpants. 

She’s trying to figure out what her next move should be when he pulls away from her. Her heart stops and she’s nervous he’s going to take everything back and tell her this was a mistake. 

He, however, moves his attention from her lips elsewhere. His mouth pressing kisses to her cheek, jaw, and neck. He even presses a small kiss below her ear and she swears she swoons. 

He places one final kiss on her neck with a soft bite and then he pulls her even closer. Nathaniel embraces her and she has the chance to gather her thoughts now that his lips are not attached to her anymore. One of his hands is still on her thigh but the other one moved to her hair. 

He breaks the silence. 

“Your hair is down.” 

That’s what he’s going with? Mentioning her hair? 

“Well...I was going to bed before you barged in here.” She teases. 

He snickers and she feels it more than she hears it and that makes her entire face flush. 

“I like it. Your hair. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it down.” 

She hmm’s and is curious if they are going to act like the kiss didn’t happen and continue being just friends. That idea doesn’t sit well with her and she wants to latch onto him even tighter. 

“If it wasn’t obvious, Chlo. I do like you. A lot. Like a lot a lot.” 

Chloe laughs in relief and instead of responding she moves back to kiss him. 

Unlike the other kiss, this one is soft and sweet. Her hand goes to his face and she traces a thumb over one of his cheekbones. His hand moves from her thigh and wraps itself around her waist. She feels him smile into the kiss which makes her heart flutter. 

“Merry Christmas, Chloe.” He says when they separate.

“It’s 10pm on Christmas Eve.” She points out and he tickles her in response. 

-

He leaves around 1am on Christmas morning, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and then he’s out the door. Georg shoots her a small smirk and winks at her when he closes the door behind Nathaniel. She can’t even feel embarrassed instead she feels all tingly inside. 

-

“Merry Christmas, Chloe. For real this time.” He says when Georg opens the door. “Merry Christmas to you too, Georg.” Who in turn just nods his head in acknowledgment. 

She grabs his hand and pulls him inside. 

“Happy 4th night of Hanukkah, Nath.” She kisses his cheek and tries to walk into the hallway. 

Nathaniel has other plans and pulls her into his arms and kisses her. It’s nothing major but it’s sweet and makes her feel tingly again. 

It’s hours later, after awkward introductions and her father interrogating Nathaniel, snuggled by the fireplace with Beignet curled up at Nath’s side, she asks him what had him upset last night. 

He blushes and tightens his hold on her, he mumbles something about Alix and Kim which makes her very confused. 

“What? What happened with Alix and Kim? Did you guys have some kind of fight?” Even though Alix and Chloe are very different, Chloe can see what a good friendship Alix and Kim have with him. 

He shakes his head and moves so his head is digging into her shoulder and hair. 

“Alix and her annoying boyfriend said if I didn’t do something soon, someone would steal you away.” He says and then pulls away from her with wide eyes. “Not that I see you as some type of property! I don’t think that! I promise! I just kept thinking about it last night and I had to do something.” 

Her boyfriend is biting his lip and nervously petting Beignet. Chloe can’t help but love how flustered he looks.

“I’m glad they said something. If they didn't, who knows how long it would have taken for you to confess.” She says, her hand moving to his neck to play with the ends of his hair. 

“Hey! Why couldn’t you be the first one to confess?” He protests but grabs her hand in his and moves to pull her closer. 

“I could have, but I couldn’t tell if you liked me that way or not.” She says.

He presses a kiss to her temple, “You couldn’t tell? Even after I didn’t correct the movie usher? Or after I practically cuddled you to death while watching it’s a wonderful life? Really Chlo?” 

“I thought maybe you were just one of those touchy-feely friends.” 

He scoffs and she giggles more. 

“Well, Chloe Bourgeois. I want you to know that I really adore every little thing about you. Even if you obviously have zero taste when it comes to superior holiday drinks. Eggnog is obviously better than Hot Chocolate.” 

She smacks him lightly on his chest and he laughs. She giggles into his chest, content to just stay there with him while the fireplace roars with Andy Williams plays in the background. 

[javajunkieao3]

Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers Reunion Series

Peggy joins the PTA.

During her thirty or so years, Peggy had encountered her fair number of foes.  Red Skull.  Dottie Underwood.  Whitney Frost.  She crossed paths with unparalleled evil, or at least she thought it was unparalleled, until she sat in the basement of the Willowbrook preschool, listening as blatant opportunist, Barbara Pickens, dictated the plans for the annual holiday revue.  

Each year the students performed in a holiday show for the parents, taking part in small musical numbers that ended up being entertaining more for whose child wondered off stage than musical prowess.  There was an unspoken hierarchy with the musical numbers, and Peggy stewed silently as she saw her daughter, Sarah, was put in a meager chorus midway through the second act.  Barbara Pickens’ daughter was in no less than three numbers, her mother feigning surprise when Peggy highlighted that fact.

“We needed to even out the numbers,” Barbara said, voice sweet while her eyes warned against any challenge.  Peggy was never one to back down from a challenge, but she didn’t want to make a scene at her daughter’s school, so she waited until after the meeting in her kitchen.

“That insufferable arse goes ahead and puts her daughter in three numbers and Sarah is only in one,” Peggy vented loudly, pacing in her kitchen.  “It is complete and utter codswallop - “

Steve smirked at the British slang.  Peggy always tended to go a bit native when she was angry.

“I’m telling you, ever since I joined that ridiculous board she has had it in for me,” Peggy said.  “And I can take the looks.  The backhanded comments about my work.  But, when it impacts my daughter, that’s where it ends.”

Steve had doubts as to whether any of this actually impacted their daughter - she seemed to care very little about the show - but he knew better than to interfere when his wife was on a mission, whether professional or personal.

“What are you planning on doing?”  Steve asked.

Peggy lifted her chin defiantly and said, “What I do best.  Get to work.”

Like any other mission, Peggy diligently assessed the strengths and weaknesses of her adversary.  Barbara Pickens was well connected in the community and had the type of sway that kept people quiet out of fear of becoming ostracized.  Peggy lacked such concerns - she spent most of her twenties being ostracized one way or another in the SSR - but she deduced that a head on attack was not the way to win this war.  She needed leverage.  

One evening after putting Sarah to bed, Peggy sat at the kitchen table poring over old financial records for the school.  Steve walked into the kitchen for a glass of milk and Peggy said, “Listen to this, Willowbrook hasn’t had new costumes for the revue in the last five years.  Maybe I can call Howard and see if he’ll donate some.”

Steve looked over from the refrigerator and said, “You’re going to bribe the woman into giving Sarah more numbers?”

“Bribe is such a strong word.”

“And an accurate one,” Steve said, pouring himself a glass of milk and then sitting across from his wife.  He picked up one of the financial records and asked, “Where did you even get these?”

“They’re public record,” she said airily.  

“I don’t understand why you’re fighting this so much,” he said.  “Sarah couldn’t care less about this show.”

“She’s too young to see what is happening,” Peggy said.  “That’s why she has us.  To protect her.”

“I don't disagree with you,” Steve said carefully.  “If she was being bullied or was in danger, yes, it is absolutely our job to protect her.  But here, I don’t see the harm.”  

“Well, I do, and it is my job to protect her.  No, it is my duty as her mother to protect her from things like this.  I can’t just sit by and watch it happen.”

Steve sensed something behind her words and he gently asked, “Peg, what’s going on here?”

“It’s exactly what I told you,” Peggy repeated.  “This is unfair to her.”

Steve remembered what Peggy said earlier about this woman judging her for working, and he said, “You don’t need to fight every battle to be a good mother.”

“I know that.”

“And you are a good mother.  The best, if you ask me.”

He saw tears well in her eyes, and she murmured, “You’re not exactly an unbiased opinion, dear.”

He grasped her hand in his.  “I am grateful that our daughter will grow up with such a loving and strong mother.  Everything you are, everything you do, is part of that."

Peggy nodded, wiping at her eyes.  She looked down at the papers in front of her and let out a sharp exhale before she said, “Dear God, I was going to bribe the woman.”

Steve laughed and leaned forward, rubbing her back.  “It wasn’t your best moment of judgment.”  

“These weren’t public record,” she said in a small voice.

“Yes, I had a feeling they weren’t,” Steve said, standing up.  “Come on, let’s get to bed and we can shred them in the morning.” 

She stood and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his chest.  She took in his familiar smell - a mix of lemon and oak - and murmured, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.  “But we probably should get you off the PTA.”

[talltalesandbedtimestories]

A View To A Winchester (Part 15)

Series Page

Summary: Julie’s starting a new life after divorce in a home with a very nice view.

A Dean X OFC story. I got this idea staring out the view of my home office window and thinking how nice it would be to have Dean Winchester to ogle.

Section Word Count: 4,200    

Section Content: fluff, flirting, angst, bullying, R-rated language 

~~~~~

Dean called Cas and told him he was running late. And that Julie would be coming to the festival as well. “Another date?” Cas asked. I guess this is another date. Doing everything out of goddamn order again. What’s new? After a lengthy list of what Cas and Jack shouldn’t discuss or bring up, Cas ended the call with, “I guess that only leaves the weather. When it doesn’t directly relate to signs of an impending Apocalypse, of course.” Smart ass.

Dean drove round to pick up Julie in Baby, freshly washed and rumbling for attention. He rolled up her driveway and stopped at the edge of the front walkway. She hopped off the front stoop wearing faded jean shorts and a white t-shirt that read “Italians Do It Better” in green, white, and red block letters. He caught that cute little skip she usually only did when she thought no one was watching. A high ponytail bounced to match the lightness in her steps. Sun reflected off the large brown lenses of her sunglasses. She leaned into the open passenger side window.

Looks like a fucking college girl. Dean mentally cursed at his cock for springing to attention. And I’m acting like a fucking horny teenager.

“You clean up real nice.” Dean cleared his throat.

She smiled. “So do you.”

“Hop in, sweetheart. I don’t want to have to speed this time.”

She laughed and climbed in. “I don’t think my heart can handle another one of those drives.”

He reversed down the driveway. “Just don’t want to disappoint Jack and get there too late.”

A frown stared back at him after she fastened her lap belt. “You can blame me.”

“I don’t want to have to explain why you’re to blame.” He grinned.

“Fair enough.” She crossed those legs that reminded Dean of a 50s pinup girl. Nice and curvy in all the right places. Her attention turned toward her open window. The breeze played with the wispy hairs she hadn’t wrangled into the ponytail. She pulled at a strand that got caught in her candy apple red lipstick. Dean licked his lips. How does acting like a horny teenager differ from me acting like my usual, horny adult self?

“I’m glad you said yes to coming out with me, us.” Dean tried to revert to some neutral conversation.

“Thanks for inviting me.”

“There are a couple rules, though.” He smiled.

“Rules? Wow. Do I need to walk six feet behind you at the festival? If so, you can drive me right back home.” She pursed her lips.

He raised a hand. “Okay, rules was the wrong word. More like warnings, I guess.”

Her arms were crossed now. “That doesn’t sound any better.”

“If you haven’t noticed, I stick my foot in my mouth. A lot.”

“I haven’t noticed, which is odd considering how much I stare at your mouth.” She shot back in a sarcastic and seductive tone.

Damn. Not helping me focus here, Jules.

“You’ve met Cas. And, Jack is sort of a chip off the old block. But, a little better adjusted.” Turns out a five year old nephilim has better social interaction and communication skills than a two-thousand year old angel. Who’d have thought?

“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.” She nodded.

Dean raised a finger. “One thing he always wants, though, is to ride shotgun in Baby.”

“I have no problem being relegated to the back seat. I probably won’t get as queasy.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Is that a shot at my driving?”

She grinned and looked back out the window.

“Hm.” Dean turned up the volume on the stereo a little more to compete with the wind for the rest of the drive.

~~~~~

The expected awkwardness occurred once Dean arrived at Cas’s house. Cas forgot to invite them in after announcing he needed a couple more minutes and instead shut the door in their faces. Dean shrugged. “Sorry.”

Julie laughed. “It’s fine.” She turned and wandered down the path to look up at the cottage front. “It looks like a cute place from the outside.” Dean joined her, standing close enough to sniff the perfume she wore. “Is he worried I might find the dead bodies he’s hiding in there?”

A nervous laugh bubbled up from Dean. “Two guys, you know, the place can get messy.”

The door opened and Jack walked out, closing the door behind him. “Dean.” Jack smiled from ear to ear. He strolled with that goal oriented, mission style of his.

Dean patted him on the shoulder. “Hey, Jack. This is Julie.”

He tilted his head to Julie and outstretched his hand. “Hi, Julie. Nice to meet you.”

Julie removed her sunglasses and offered Jack a warm smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Cas’ll be out in a minute. I love festivals.”

Julie’s eyes widened. “Do you?”

“Yes, especially this one. It’ll be the second year in a row we’ve gone to the Italian Festival. Did you know Saint Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost things?”

Dean held back a sigh.

She nodded. “I did, actually. I went to Saint Anthony’s elementary school. We learned a lot of things about him.”

“Does it actually work?”

Dean watched Julie try and track the conversation with her eyes. “Does what actually work?”

“Praying to him to help you find something you lost?”

“My mom would say yes. I’m not quite convinced.” She smiled.

“Are you Catholic? Since you went to a Catholic school.” Jack started his interrogation.

“Whoa, easy tiger.” Dean interrupted. “Remember what we said about politics and religion?”

Jack thought for a moment. “Don’t bring them up if you can help it?”

Dean winked.

Cas slammed the door and jolted the three of them where they stood. He marched to the tiny group and nodded. “Hello again, Julie. Lovely weather we’re having.”

Smart ass.

~~~~~

Julie turned out to be exactly the insider Dean needed when they drove through Little Italy. She navigated him around the tiny side streets. They found a parking spot beside a line of row homes. Dean began to parallel park Baby into the tight area.

“You hate parking your car on a city street.” Cas reminded Dean, seated next to Julie in the back.

He turned around to glance between the two of them through the rear windshield as he reversed. “Yeah, well, I hate paying twenty bucks to park in a lot even more.” He smiled at Julie. “I should take you with me everywhere.”

He couldn’t see the reaction in her eyes shielded by the sunglasses, but her cheeks reddened.

“That doesn’t sound like a feasible request, Dean.” Cas turned to Julie. “You have your own life and daily obligations, correct?”

Jack sighed. “He’s flirting, Cas.”

Dean shook his head and righted himself in the seat to finish parking. “Think I can borrow you a bit longer, Julie, so you can direct us on foot the rest of the way?” He side-eyed Cas. “Alright if I ask her that?”

Cas nodded. “That seems fine.”

Julie laughed.

~~~~~

The four city blocks around Saint Anthony’s school and church were decorated with Italian flag streamers draped from every available electricity and streetlight pole. The streets were flooded with a river of people. Cas and Jack had disappeared into the two blocks comprising the fairgrounds a half hour ago.

The aroma of sauce and grease and beer had been too much for Dean. He asked for Julie’s opinion on what to try. She suggested a panzerotti and vinegar coated french fries. Her memory did not falter as she parted through the bodies to the food stand she had in mind. She told Dean she frequented this one often as a pudgy kid. After waiting in line for ten minutes, they searched for a place to sit.

Dean and Julie deposited their red and white paper food trays and large beer cups at one of a dozen picnic benches under a tent. The festival goers around them were enjoying a band’s rendition of an Italian folk song.

Dean sat and inspected the panzerotti. “What is this again?”

Julie placed her glasses on the table top, rubbed her hands together and leaned in close to him. “Deep fried dough with a molten, delicious mix of sauce and mozzarella inside. It’s like a stromboli bomb. I’d tell you to be careful, but there’s no way around it. First bite’s gonna burn no matter what.” She grinned. “So good. You’ll need that beer.”

Dean smiled and tore into the panzerotti. The contents seared his lips and mouth. “H-H-Hot!” He exclaimed and chugged down some beer. He swallowed and sighed. “Awesome.”

She laughed, nibbled at the corner of the treat in her hand, then fanned her mouth. “I can’t believe they’re allowed to sell these without someone signing a waiver first.”

Dean chuckled and blew on his snack, shoveling a couple french fries in while he waited for it to cool down. He noted the families and crowds, the conversations and music swarming all around. It felt stuffy, the heat of the nearby stands cooking and frying trapped under the tent. “This wasn’t as much fun last year. I basically just stood in the center of the fairgrounds with Cas while Jack hit every single ride. Three times each at least.”

Julie smiled. “Don’t they know how much you love food?”

“Oh, they do. But, it was more about giving Jack the chance to experience it, you know? And, helping Cas through it.”

She picked at the dough with her fingers and munched with care. “They both seem nice. But, what’s their deal? I don’t know many kids that call their parents by their first name.”

How do I always tell her the truth, now, without telling her everything. “Jack didn’t start living with Cas until a couple years ago. So, the dad/son thing is still kinda new for both of them.”

“Divorce?”

“He was never married to Jack’s mom.”

Julie nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s tough all around.” Dean watched her as he took another bite. He cringed at the hot sauce hitting his tongue and the expression on her face that was leading to another question. “So, you said you knew Cas for a long time. Did you two come to Delaware together? Did he work with you and your brother?”

He chewed, thinking. “He’s helped here and there over the years. When business slowed… I knew Cas would be lost for a while. I got my footing and told him this would be as good a place as any for him to start over with Jack.” The look she gave made him self-conscious. He patted a scratchy napkin around his mouth. “I’m covered in panzerotti, aren’t I?”

She shook her head, lids blinking slow, taking him in. “No. You’re all about saving people, huh?”

He smiled at her wistful expression. “Kind of hard to shake, I guess.”

“Julie!”

Dean cocked his head to the other side of the picnic bench at the call.

Julie’s eyes widened. “Maggie! How are you?”

“Good. Haven’t seen you in forever!” The tiny brunette was pushing a stroller. A passed out toddler covered in chocolate ice cream stains swayed in the seat.

Hm. Should share some ice cream with Jules after this. I bet she likes sprinkles.

Maggie’s big blue eyes surveyed Dean. He nodded at the acknowledgement. She looked back over to Julie. “How are you? Visiting your mom? How’s she?”

“I’m good.” Julie stated. Dean noticed her posture stiffen, putting a little more distance between them on the bench. This isn’t a “nice to see you again” situation. “Um, mom’s good. I see you have another little one.” She smiled and motioned to the child.

Maggie beamed back and pushed the stroller back and forth with one hand, on autopilot. Dean caught a weariness and exhaustion in Maggie’s smile. “Yeah. Davey, Jr. Just turned two a couple weeks ago. Dave’s grabbing some food with Madison. I think the last time I saw you was at the Flower Market years back. Maddie was four maybe.”

Julie nodded and smiled. Tight lipped and on guard. Yeah, she’s not one to give a lot of info to just anybody.

“I’d met your husband, Steve? How’s he?”

And there it is.

Julie cleared her throat and shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. We, um, we’re divorced.”

Maggie clutched her chest. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Julie shook her head at Maggie. “Of course you didn’t. Or, you wouldn’t have asked.” She turned and looked at him, her eyes screaming SAVE ME. “This is Dean.”

Dean whipped out his best smile and nodded again. “Hi there, Maggie.”

Maggie fiddled with her hair. “Hi.”

“Hey, Mag. I found Rich and the crew over by the grandstand. They’re saving us seats.” A tall, tubby man saddled up behind Maggie. He held a tray filled with grease and sweets and sipped on a huge soda cup.

“Where’s Madison?” Maggie looked over her shoulder.

“Caught up with some school friends. Gave her the last of the tickets.”

“Dave, do you remember Julie? She was in our class at St. Anthony’s.”

The blue eyes scrunched together under a low riding ball cap. A long slurp and then recognition followed. He pointed with the soda cup. “Julie Jelly Belly! First in the lunch line, last to get picked for Dodgeball.”

Maggie smacked her husband’s rather pronounced beer belly. Dean swore he heard some liquid slosh around in there. Julie’s face reddened. What a dick.

“What?” Dave asked with a shrug, then slurped again.

Maggie shook her head.

Dave gave Julie a leering once over. “You look great now.”

Dean leaned into Julie and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Amazing how some people just get better with age.” He made sure Dave heard his voice, loud and clear, above all the noise.

Dave’s vacant expression was the only response he got back.

“Well, we’ve got to go. But, it was great seeing you!”

Julie waved.

The couple wandered off. Dean watched Maggie smack Dave on the back once they were out of earshot.

Julie laughed. “God, sometimes I forget how little some people change. And I had a crush on him back in school.”

“On that?” Dean frowned. He pulled Julie closer.

“He was cute back then. Still a dick, but cute.”

“I wouldn’t have been a dick to you.” He whispered in her ear.

Julie pulled away to stare at him. She looked like she’d sucked on a lemon.

“I wouldn’t have.” He repeated. “I was never the popular kid. We moved around too much for me to make a name for myself. I hated guys like that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have noticed me, I’m sure.” She shook her head. “And, that’s okay.” She smiled. “You notice me now.”

He lifted his chin and looked down his nose at her. “Well, I definitely wouldn’t have picked on you. I protected Sammy from asshats like that. Gave them a proper beat down or wedgie when they deserved it.”

“Sammy had a good big brother.” She grinned. “Finish your panzerotti. We’re going to go take a walk through the fairgrounds next.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

~~~~~

At some point during their carnival exploration, Dean’s fingers had interlocked with hers. It may have been so he didn’t lose her in the crowd and pulled her through a massive bottleneck. But once he did it, feeling the warmth and tight grip she returned, he went back to hold her hand throughout the late afternoon that stretched into early evening.

“Aw, this is my game!” He fished a couple bucks out of his pocket and sat on a spinny steel stool attached to a makeshift plywood floor. “Want to try?”

“I’m not very good at shooting games.”

He tapped the stool next to him and placed the buy-in on the counter for them both. “Humor me, sweetheart.”

Julie sighed and sat. The game attendant swiped up the cash and flicked on their mounted water guns. “Step right up and take a chance!”

Dean tested the turning radius of his weapon. A tween sat to his right. He passed the time as they waited for two more contestants and spun in his seat toward Julie. “Just have to breathe into it beforehand. Get your sight level and don’t squeeze the trigger until the buzzer goes off.”

She smiled and nodded, leaning down to try and line the gun up with the bullseye target directly in front of her spot. Her sunglasses rested in the collar of her shirt. From Dean’s perspective, she seemed to be enjoying the time with him.

“Dean!” Cas’s deep baritone startled him out of staring at Julie. He marched up and stood between their stools in his pale green button up and khaki cargo pants. “We’re almost out of tickets.”

“Are you asking me for money to buy more?” Dean raised an eyebrow. Jack was on Julie’s left and they chatted.

“Of course not. I have my own earnings. I just wanted to make you aware that we’ll probably be done soon and ready to leave.”

“Well, we need two more players.” He nodded to the empty spots next to Julie. “Why don’t you and Jack give it a try?”

Jack shrugged and sat next to Julie.

Cas looked at the attendant. “What’s the hoped for outcome if one wants to win?”

The wrinkled man pointed to the horses at the left of the huge game display. “You get your horse to the other side first.”

“Fair enough.” Cas wandered over next to Jack.

“Alright.” Dean smacked his hands together. “Game on!”

~~~~~

“That kid cheated.” Dean mumbled, marching away from the game seven minutes later. He had Julie by his side, hands locked together again. “No way he won three games in a row fair and square.” Jack and Cas caught up to his gait on his left.

“His reflexes and speed could just be better because…”

Cas put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I advise you to stop talking now.”

Dean cocked his head to see Julie grinning. “Did you find all that amusing, Jules?” He tried not to grin back.

She stopped in the middle of the path and looked upward. Dean, Jack, and Cas all halted in a delayed response. “Hey Cas, how many tickets do you have left?”

“Eight.”

“Could we all go on that?” She pointed up to the three story high ferris wheel in the middle of the fairgrounds. The massive steel spoked frame was decorated in what looked like thousands of multicolored lights.

“I’m not opposed to it.” Cas replied.

Julie stared at Dean and squeezed his hand. He sighed. “Sure.”

The line for the ride wasn’t very long. Jack and Cas filed in ahead of Dean and Julie. When they rocked off in their own carriage they gave the waiting couple a friendly salute.

“Are you thinking this ride will calm me down?” Dean passed the tickets to the attendant and tugged her up the rickety aluminum stairs.

She slid next to him on the hard seat. “Not really.” She shivered.

“Chilly?” He asked.

“A little.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. The bar secured them in their carriage, they rocked backwards and up, and Dean’s secure footing disappeared. The evening sky above the rooftops and tree canopies turning deeper shades of blue as his eyes gazed higher.

“I kind of just wanted to get you alone for a little while.” She whispered, nuzzling into his neck.

“Hm.” Dean closed his eyes and smiled when she shivered again. They floated and swayed in a static spot as another group got on the ride.

“If you were perfect at that game, too, I would have thought I was dreaming again.”

“Again?” He rubbed her elbow. The carriage jerked up another click and stopped. Cas’s and Jack’s sneakered feet dangled above them.

“I don’t remember anything after Ina touched me, once we got to the shopping center and I parked the car.” Dean’s body turned rigid at the mention of the Jinn’s name. Julie slipped an arm around his waist and burrowed closer. Her warm breath bathed skin along his t-shirt collar. “I thought maybe she had drugged me. That’s what I asked the doctors. But, they said nothing came back in the tests to suggest that.”

His other hand latched onto her forearm.

“It wasn’t like I woke up in that bed as if no time had passed between the car and the hospital. It wasn’t a snap of the fingers. Have you… have you ever dreamed and felt like you’ve lived days, even weeks during it?”

‘Why, yes, Julie. I was kidnapped by a Jinn, a magical creature that feeds off human blood and puts its victims in a comatose, dream state. Hate to break it to you, but that’s exactly what happened to you, too.’ If I’m truthful right now, she might jump out of the damn carriage. “Weeks?” Avoid answering at all costs.

“That’s what happened. I was living my life. But, it was this, fantasy life. Just me… and you.”

Me? His thoughts focused on the night he’d found Julie. The Jinn was spouting some shit. Julie dreaming about me. The ferris wheel rotated without a hiccup with all its passengers accounted for and aboard the ride. The cool night air trailed over their entangled limbs. Goosebumps formed over her skin. He wondered how much of it was the wind or his fingers brushing along, needing to touch as many parts of her as he could. I was in her fairy tale life. Like the one I had, so long ago. The one that brought mom back to life and teased me with what could have been. Before she was really brought back by Amara, like a game show parting gift. ‘We appreciate you playing Dean. You were going to blow yourself up to save the world, but big sis and universe creating bro here worked it out, thanks to you.’ He stared at the back of Jack’s head. And there’s the former archangel slash human whose unstable powers took mom away again. A quick stab hit his heart. Here we are: one big happy band of misfits. Yeah, explaining supernatural stuff is going to have her looking at me like I should be committed.

Dean figured they had about eight cars to unload before them once the ride was done. They swirled and spun. The festival lights, the crowds, the noise; it all dipped close then faded away. He wanted to know specifics from Julie. The worry that his curiosity would only lead to more of her questions made him hesitate.

“Still there, Dean?” She tugged at his shirt.

“Yeah.”

“I freaked you out.” She stated.

“No. No.” He tilted his head down, nudging her forehead with his nose. He needed to look into her eyes and provide some reassurance. Those brown eyes were wide and cautious. He flashed her a smile. “What did we do in this dream of yours?”

Her eyes crinkled up with her grin. “A lot of what we started to do earlier today... in my bedroom.”

A brow lifted. “Why Julie, was I your sex slave?”

“Pretty sure there was mutual agreement in all of the activities that occurred.”

He bent down and kissed her, soft and slow. “I don’t doubt it. Was that all that we did? Cause that sounds like an awesome dream to have under any circumstances.”

“Not all. We just spent a ton of time together. Looking back on it now, the parts I can piece together, I should have known something was off. Because it was literally only you and me. In our neighborhood, in the city, taking drives along empty roads for miles.” She smiled. “I felt safe.”

He played with the tip of her ponytail as the carriage swung to a stop, almost at the very top of the wheel. “It sounds like that’s what you needed and your brain gave you that calm. That safety.”

“Well, then, you were just what I needed.” She kissed his cheek. “You were perfect. But, I gotta say, you were even better than what I could’ve dreamt up today, when you...” She trailed off when they locked eyes again.

“When I what?” He offered his best innocent expression.

She blushed.

“Come on.”

Her eyes drifted to his mouth. “When you ate me out.” The blush deepened under the ferris wheel lights. She licked her bottom lip, the red stain worn off it hours ago. It took a second for him to realize she mimicked his response to her statement.

“Sweetheart,” he sighed, shifting in the uncomfortable seat, his excitement growing at their proximity and the intimate confession. “You’re killing me, you know that?”

“Let’s put you out of your misery then.” Her lips brushed against his ear. “Can I come back to your place tonight?”

His eyes widened. “Well, I was already planning on staying over at yours... but, wherever. Long as we finish what we started.”

“Good.” She caught his lobe between her teeth.

Dean moaned. Gotta live up to this unstoppable sex machine she’s built up in her head. Yep, I may die tonight. But, what a way to go. Sure as hell a thousand times better than death by bacon. And, I fucking love bacon.

Part 16

Series Page

[lov3nerdstuff]

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 6.10}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 5.2k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

"Are you actually going to tell them the entire story?" Snape asked curiously once the girls' footsteps had faded entirely, turning to Robin with a not-smirk.

"Nah… I will tell them exactly what they expect to hear. Spells and plants and old castles and spooky dungeons. They have no use for anything that happened in between." Robin shrugged with a sigh, swinging her backpack back over her shoulders now that her jacket was gone.

"Clever."

"Did you expect anything else?" She smirked, giving him a smug look along with it.

"I wouldn't dare to."

"It seems I've taught you well after all."

"You're insufferable."

"Obviously." Robin laughed, leaning her head to the side and motioning down the hallway. "Let's get the Siazella to Professor Sprout, and the moss to the lab."

"Eager now, are we?" He smirked in return, without even attempting to hide his humor.

"Would be a true pity if I was eager only now." She teased right back, then sighed with a softening smile. "On a serious note, I actually can't wait to be back in our own dungeons. It's been a long day."

"In that case, lead the way."

To their luck, Professor Sprout was still in her office when they reached the greenhouse. It took a minute of explaining what exactly their matter was, but after that the herbology teacher was all smiles and excitement. Robin handed her the flowers, unshrinking them, and while she explained their specifics to the professor, Snape merely listened with a minorly amused and majorly proud expression on his face.

Robin for her part was surprised by how easily it came to her to talk to Sprout like an equal, which she probably shouldn't be doing, but the herbology professor didn't seem to mind, and actually took on a similarly proud expression to the one Snape displayed. Still, in an attempt not to completely overstep her boundaries, Robin merely stated the facts about the Siazella, carefully giving her own theory about how to best grow them as well, and then let Sprout take it from there. Shortly afterwards they bid their goodnights, agreeing that Robin would come back tomorrow afternoon to check up on the flowers.

When they finally made their way down into the dungeons and towards the lab, Robin felt like she hadn't been down here in ages. Like they had been gone for weeks. But it wasn't even ten o'clock in the evening when they finally entered the dark laboratory once again, and thus not even 24 hours since she'd last been in here.

The fire in the fireplace was lit in an instant, as were the candles spread around the room, and sooner rather than later, the room was filled with a soft comfortable light and a pleasant warmth. Robin sighed in contentment when she dropped her backpack onto one of the tables, summoning up the box with the moss while Snape threw his robes over the other table as he usually did.

"I suggest we do half and half." She mused, pushing the moss into the middle of the table before she also got out her notebook and a pen. "Gives us the widest range of possibilities to work with, in my opinion, but you'll probably know better."

"I agree, actually." He sighed, in tiredness not in annoyance, and went ahead to separate the moss into two piles. "Do you have a specific preserving technique in mind or may I suggest one?"

"No, go right ahead, the choice is all yours. I've done my part for today. The rest is up to you now." Robin smiled, and handed him one of the empty jars from one of the shelves even before he could ask for it. It was an every-day procedure to dry plants, and Robin knew enough about it to be one step ahead already. They would dry half of the moss, and then preserve the other half in whatever way he saw fit.

While Snape took care of the to be dried patch for now, Robin wrote a label for the jar and stuck it onto the glass, then a minute later sorted the finished thing with the moss in it into the shelves with the ingredients. Drying really was easy and fast, no thinking involved. The preservation process however took more effort.

The idea was to place the moss into a larger jar, which then they would fill up with a potion for long term storage. That potion however they needed to make first, and thus they both got started on cutting up the required ingredients. Before long the preparatory work was done however, and all that was left to do was waiting and adding things into the cauldron in the right order and at the right time. So far so good.

After a day out in the cold, the many flames' warmth that now filled the small room soon made Robin feel too warm for once, and she thanked herself for wearing layers that could be taken off individually. Sighing, she stepped over to the side where she wouldn't knock things off the tables, and grabbed the hem of her jumper to pull the thick fabric over her head at last. What she unfortunately hadn't considered was that the t-shirt she wore underneath was a loose fit. And that said t-shirt would ride up along with the jumper.

At first she didn't even take notice of the situation, but when she simultaneously heard a small gasp from off to the side and felt the direct heat of the fireplace in front of her brushing against the skin of her stomach, the situation became abundantly clear with a start. Her arms snapped back down to her sides in an instant, while an unstoppable heat rose to her face. Oh bloody hell… If anyone could be more awkward, she didn't know how. At least she was facing the fireplace, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw, and not looking at Snape who was standing a few steps to her side, and that was the only reason why she could suppress the burning embarrassment enough to make another attempt at shedding her jumper. Holding her t-shirt down, this time around.

Then she took a deep breath to fight the heat on her face, dropping the stupid piece of clothing into the corner she was facing, and finally turned around as if nothing at all had happened. That usually worked well with him, just pretending that certain things hadn't even happened. But as it seemed, she wasn't so lucky this time.

Snape stared at her in a mixture of embarrassment and discomfort, but mostly in concern and surprise. Definitely not what Robin had expected… annoyance, disgust, indifference perhaps… but why on earth did he look so worried?!

"Is, uh… Is everything alright?" She asked with a small frown and a slightly too high pitched voice while crossing her arms over her chest for a moment. But she just couldn't stop fidgeting and thus she went to trace the scar on her neck with her fingers once again. At least she was wearing a rather pretty lacy bra and not one of those granny ones… as if that would make it any better! She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at herself. Her brain did weird things when tired.

"Your side." He finally said with a very much concerned frown. "It seems that your fall did leave a mark after all."

"What?" Now Robin frowned as well, glad to abandon the awkward situation so very quickly even if in replacement for a confusing one.

"You promised you were fine, and yet your entire right side obviously is not." He explained pointedly, and Robin's eyebrows rose in surprise. Before she could think better of it, she took a glimpse at the damage, and indeed, her entire right rib cage as well as what she saw of her hip was starting to colour deep violet. Oh great…

"I promised that I believe I'm fine, which is the truth. I'm feeling perfectly alright, actually. This looks far worse than it really is." She said when she looked back up at Snape with a small shrug. "It doesn't even hurt. I wouldn't have noticed had you not pointed it out."

He kept frowning at her, but the look of betrayal vanished from his face at least, and Robin wondered once again if he had always been so very concerned about her wellbeing. Perhaps she was seeing more of it now because they actually were something like friends at this point. The thought made her smile, and her smile in return finally got him to stop frowning.

"If you say so." He mused, moving around the table in time to add the next ingredient to their potion. "You would tell me if you ever found yourself being any less than fine, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would." Robin replied sincerely, giving him another smile that hopefully didn't reveal just how touched she felt by his words. Maybe it was the overwhelming tiredness that was slowly taking a hold of not only her body but her mind as well, but she felt incredibly cared for in that moment. In a way she hadn't ever before, with no one else before.

"Good."

"I know you won't, but…" She said then, halting in her movement of picking up her notebook from the edge of the table, "Just know that it goes both ways, yes? You can talk to me about anything at all, should you ever find yourself not repelled by the idea. I'm right here."

He froze for a moment, in the same way he had back in the study when Robin had told him that his presence was comforting to her, but soon enough this tension melted away again and he returned her gaze in the same way as always. "I know. Thank you."

"Anytime."

Smiling, and perhaps a bit surprised at how easily he had accepted her words, Robin grabbed her notebook and then sat down on the ground by the fireplace, sighing deeply. Sitting at last; what a wonderful feeling. While waiting for the potion, she might as well start noting down the minor alterations she had to make to her theory after today's excursion. Five minutes of scribbling down quick notes and small reminders of what she would still need to look up later however, she started to yawn. Once, twice, five times, eight times… until the words on the parchment in front of her started swimming together suspiciously. Sighing, she placed the notebook down by her side. Geez, she was tired… the day truly had taken its toll. Her eyelids felt heavy as lead, and her head was almost too heavy to keep upright.

"Tell me something." She yawned again, looking over to Snape who had sat down at the table with an equally tired expression. "Anything. Please… I'm falling asleep."

"Perhaps you should retire to your room then."

"And leave you to do the work and suffer alone? Hell no!"

"You truly are too stubborn for your own good." He sighed, but quite obviously was too tired to argue with her. "Ask me something then, if you want me to talk."

"Alright…" Robin chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, trying to think of a question that would be appropriate and not all too teasing for once. They both were too tired for that. "Why do you always wear black? I mean… only black."

"Habit."

"And how did that habit develop?" She rolled her eyes, stifling another yawn.

"As a student, I eventually took to wearing black whenever I could because it was easier to hide the blood stains."

Now that got Robin's honest attention, and she frowned up at him in surprised concern. "What? Why on earth was that something you had to worry about?"

"I wasn't as fortunate as to get rid of my tormentors like you did, before… matters degenerated." He replied in a surprising amount of honesty, especially since it obviously wasn't an easy topic for him. "Perhaps I simply wasn't as adept back then as you have proven to be."

"I…" She didn't know what to say. Nothing she could say would change the past, nor would her pity do anything but embarrass them both. "Perhaps I was just lucky enough to have you to help me, that's more like it. I am everything but adept at dealing with people."

"You seem to be doing just fine with your roommates. They undoubtedly adore you."

"Yeah, but I'm their adult friend, as they like to call it. A big sister. Not an equal." She sighed, and rubbed her eyes to perhaps get her eyelids to stay open a little while longer. "It doesn't matter, I appreciate them and they appreciate me. We're good. Tell me something else. Something funny."

"I'm hardly the person to ask in that regard."

"I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that." Robin grinned to herself lazily. "You're the funniest person I know. Your humour just takes a while to understand."

"And you believe to understand it?" He quirked an eyebrow at her in amusement.

"Obviously." She replied with a smirk, upon which he just had to return the very same gesture. "You always tell me serious stories. Tell me a funny one for once."

"I would rather drown myself in a cauldron."

"Oh come on… I insist."

"Fine." He was surprisingly quick to give in and yield to her request, and Robin felt affirmed in her suspicion that he had never truly meant to decline her in the first place. A warm rush of pride welled up in her chest, and a smile came to her face as he spoke on. "What have you heard about the man who I superseded as potions professor at this school?"

"Not much. Actually, I don't even remember his name… something odd which reminded me of snails."

"Close enough; His name is Horace Slughorn. A peculiar man, with a rather twisted idea of making himself important in a carefully woven net of dependency and liabilities. Either way, he had a way of picking favorites. Students who excelled in classes, who had a promising future ahead of them in a field he deemed profitable for himself, or who simply were born into influential families. He hosted various festivities for those individuals, which I can assure you were dreadfully mindless and generally far more interesting for those not invited. Logically, the ones not in his favour did not take particularly well to the exclusivity of his attention and assistance. Which, precisely, is why at one point in my sixth year, a few students decided to mess with him. They brewed a decent enough Veritaserum after stumbling upon the recipe, and poured it into his tea just before potions class one day. It was pure chaos. He had to lock himself in his office until the effect had worn off, or he might just have spilled all of his plans and secrets to the prying ears and eyes of his students. I still remember the horrified look on his face when he realized he could speak nothing but the truth… I believe he always carried an antidote with him after that day."

"I can very well imagine. Just fabulous…" Robin chuckled, having closed her eyes halfway through the story when they had become too painful, too heavy to keep open. "I assume you were part of the group of students he favored?"

"Unfortunately. We weren't particularly fond of each other though."

"You were the one who gave those students who pranked him the recipe for the Veritaserum, weren't you?"

"I will never admit to such a thing." He replied after a second of silence, pointedly innocently, and Robin had to smirk. She'd definitely caught him right there.

"That was a fun story, by the way." She said instead, yawning again. "I enjoyed hearing it, thank you. Isn't it, the time for the… uh… next thing in the… in the potion now?"

"Indeed. Would you like to or shall I?"

"Feel free to. Don't even remember..." Robin mumbled, unable to open her eyes or lift a single finger at this point. Even talking seemed too much of a hassle now that her mind was barely still awake. The warmth of the fireplace to her right was making her drowsy more and more, and the soft bubbling of the potion, a comforting rhythmic pattern, was only adding to it.

And then there was Snape's voice, muttering under his breath about something she couldn't make out clearly, which was wrapping around her senses like a calming blanket of safety and comfort. Just like that, his voice was what finally pulled her over into the realm of sleep.

… … …

A soft rustling of fabrics, a quiet mewl. Warmth. Labored breathing. The sizzling of a dying fire. Movement.

Robin's eyes fluttered open for a broken second, lids still heavy and unwilling, and she dug her face deeper into the scratchy fabric balled up beneath her head. The sounds that had woken her up reached her ears again, and she shifted on the hard ground, hugging the fabrics wrapped around her even more tightly. That smell… it was so familiar. So comforting.

Her eyes fluttered open once more upon a new crackling close by, and they stayed open at last. The things she was feeling, was noticing, were starting to make sense at last, as her tired mind processed her surroundings. She was lying on the ground in the laboratory, close to the fireplace that was barely even lit at this point. Her jumper had been placed beneath her head as a pillow, and she found herself wrapped up in a cloud of black fabric. The colour, the smell… her mind filled with impressions of Snape. Her heart skipped a beat, and she couldn't help hugging his robes even more tightly around herself. Good gods… she felt overwhelmed with love and affection in an instant.

A sharp intake of breath, a barely audible whine. She wasn't alone.

Robin turned onto her other side upon the sound, urging her tried muscles to function for the small movement at least. The laboratory was mostly dark, filled with silver moonlight more than with the dying fire's golden glow. She first spotted the large jar high above her on the table further down in the room, filled to the brim with a bluish liquid and the almost black moss at the bottom. Her heart squeezed together for a second; he'd finished the potion, finished their work for her. Relief and thankfulness took over her mind for a moment, crawling through the tiredness into her cocktail of unsuppressed emotions.

Then her eyes fell onto something far more interesting, and she couldn't help but stare with every speckle of awe she found within herself. She really wasn't alone after all. Not far away from her, the faint light that had lingered illuminated the sleeping form of none other than the potions' master himself. Robin held her breath for a few long seconds, observing his distressed expression, the subtle movements of his closed eyes, the frown on his face.

He must've been leaning against the shelf on the wall behind him before falling asleep, just like she had hours ago… Now however he was lying on the ground as well, his head resting on his arm while the other was stretched out into the open space in front of him. His dark hair was splayed out on the stone beneath him like black rivers, always the contrast to his pale skin, especially in the soft silver moonlight. Robin couldn't help being inevitably and utterly mesmerized. This was the person she was in love with, the person she did love so very much, and she had never been prouder of her heart for that judgement.

And yet, when he made another heartbreaking sound that might be born of pain or fear alike, Robin found herself more lost than ever in return. He must be dreaming, tormented by his own mind, and as much as she yearned to, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. At least nothing that he would not behead her for once he woke up. Well, that wasn't true… she could simply wake him up in this instant. She should wake him up, should return to her room and he to his. But what difference would it make if he was having nightmares here with her or alone in another place? The thought pained her no less, rather more even. No, she wouldn't wake him up, wouldn't leave him alone. But she also couldn't watch him suffering, not if there was a chance that she could –perhaps– make it better in another way.

Robin took a deep breath, pushing past her nerves and worries, and finally scooted herself closer to him. Not much, not enough to be next to him entirely… but enough so that when she stretched her arm out towards him as well, her fingertips touched his. She would never dare to be so bold as to hold his hand, not now, not like this, but the light touch of her fingers resting against his would be alright for the moment. For both their comfort.

For a moment, Robin focused on the lingering touch, focused on letting her own calm and comfort ebb through her and carry over to him from there. After a while, the frown on his face eased up and his breathing slowed down in accordance, to the point where he almost looked entirely at ease. Without the mountains of facades, Robin couldn't help marveling at how vulnerable he looked. Almost like that one time, that one moment a long time ago… she indeed had never forgotten that look of rawness and intensity on his face. Neither would she forget this one now.

Even though he looked so peaceful now, Robin kept her hand right where it was when she closed her eyes once more. They would both move away eventually, long before morning… he would never need to know. But she would grant herself this one dream, this one time of falling asleep next to him. Even if that happened to be two arms' length apart.

… … …

When the heavy cloud of sleep lifted from her mind again, and she slowly rose from the deepest unawareness, the first thing Robin noticed was something warm by her side. Without thinking, she instinctively tried to curl around it, savouring every bit of warmth she could gain.

"Robin…"

She hummed in return, smiling softly at the familiar voice, but didn't move in the slightest. Her mind was at perfect ease, telling her that she was right where she needed to be.

"Robin…" He repeated more loudly, and she did wake up just enough to notice that he couldn't make himself sound as annoyed as he was obviously trying to. "Wake up now, will you?"

Finally she opened her eyes, and once she realized that she had curled around Snape in her still half asleep state, she sat up immediately and pushed herself to an appropriate distance.

"I, uh… Sorry for… that." She croaked out, pushing her hair out of her face as she stifled a yawn.

"Good morning to you too." He merely replied, quirking an eyebrow at her in subtle amusement. "It really is ridiculously difficult to wake you up."

"Perhaps you're just doing it wrong." She replied before she could help it, but once the heat rose to her head half a second later, she hid her face in her hands. "Ugh, my brain isn't fully awake yet. I'm so sorry… again."

"Don't be. I find it rather amusing, to be honest."

"You do?" Robin frowned at him in mild doubt while he rose to his feet with a surprising grace for… whatever time it was. All she knew was that rays of sunshine were falling through the small window by now, creating soft illusions on the stones beneath her.

"Obviously." He answered with a small smirk, which Robin could barely see as he walked over to the other side of the small room.

"Thank you for finishing up the potion last night, by the way, even though I imagine you must've been rather tired as well. And thank you for staying, instead of just leaving me here. I hope you at least slept well, despite the cold floor, and, well, my presence." She finally said with a surprisingly insecure chuckle, while she also rose to her feet, picked up his robes that had slipped off her shoulders, and then straightened out her own clothes after placing the bunch of black fabric on the table.

"Indeed, unusually well even. The ground was a nuisance…" He mused, then added more quietly, "But your presence was not."

"That's… good." Robin found herself smiling down at the ground for a moment, then finally remembered how to human and moved to pick up her jumper. "I did sleep well too, actually, but I'm still way too tired."

"Likewise. However, we are already more than fashionably late for breakfast, and I believe you have made an appointment for after the meal."

"Right…" Robin sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, before she tied her jumper around her hips instead of putting it back on. "Perhaps I should just skip breakfast and go change before tutoring."

"I would prefer for you to have a decent meal for once. An apple and a candy bar hardly count in that regard."

"Well, you won't stand out negativity, looking just like any other day, with your same outfit as always! But people might actually notice that I didn't spend the night in my own room if I'm looking like yesterday's messier version." She protested, then tied her hair into a ponytail to give her fidgeting hands something to do. It would at least help with the mess her hair had turned into overnight.

"If I remember correctly, nobody saw you yesterday other than your roommates and Pomona. As for her, she usually cannot even remember having prepared herself a cup of tea five minutes after making it. And as for the former, I believe you have quite the authority over them. Simply do what you do best."

"Which would be?"

"Playing their game by your own rules. Outsmart them; you are quite brilliant at that."

"I don't know… doesn't change the fact that I probably look like a scarecrow." Robin sighed, but she had to agree that an actual meal sounded amazing right now. And she did see his point in it as well.

"You look perfectly fine, Robin. Stop worrying over nothing." He replied while he placed his robes back over his shoulders like he so often did, but this time it made Robin's heart skip a beat. How did he mind so ironically little that she'd been wrapped up in it all night?! It was as if he'd forgotten about it, or perhaps he simply didn't care. He didn't seem bothered by it in the slightest either way.

Thus she picked up her remaining things, stuffing the notebook and pen into her backpack, and then followed him out of the lab a moment later. They made their way up to the great hall quickly, in companionable and mostly tired silence, until they parted for the first time in over a day before entering the hall. Robin went in through the main doors, Snape through the one to the side that was closer to the head table.

The very moment Robin sat down next to Cas and across from Jorien, she knew that this conversation wouldn't be as easy as Snape had made it seem. She'd been gone the entire night… obviously they would be curious!

"Hey there, stranger." Jorien greeted her first, with a small smirk on her face. The girls had finished eating for the most part already, while Robin just now got started to pile foods onto her plate.

"Hey guys…" She sighed with a small smile she just couldn't get rid of. "Ready for some tutoring after breakfast?"

"Oh no, we're not doing that." Cas intervened immediately, staring at Robin with a smug smile on her face. "We are not talking about us until you spill where you've been all night. And don't even try to tell me you came back to our room in the meantime, because I know you didn't."

"No, you're absolutely right, I didn't come back to our room last night." Robin shrugged with feigned ease, taking a bite of her toast. "I was in the lab. We worked on a potion that felt like it might very well take forever, even though it wasn't particularly complex. When I think about the preparations, my legs hurt just from the memory of standing at that table for ages... But anyway, all is finished by now, and I'm left feeling very much tired."

Both girls seemed sincerely surprised by Robin's easy and honest reply, and that was exactly what Robin had counted on. If she just pretended that it wasn't a big deal, that she was happy to share all those irrelevant details, they would lose interest without realizing the extent of matters she wasn't telling them.

"So you were just in the lab with Snape all night?" Cas sighed, and once Robin nodded with an innocent expression, her sigh turned into a groan. "How boring is that! I was hoping for something unusual… a secretly passionate romance with a handsome prince, or seeing as it's you we're talking about, at least some kind of adventure. Not just an all-nighter, and the same old."

"I think both Snape and I had enough adventure throughout the day yesterday… We were glad to be back in the lab with the 'same old' as you call it." Robin shrugged it off, enjoying the scrambled eggs even though they had long gone cold and soggy. But any food was good food right now.

"I think you're the first person to ever spend more than 24 hours in a row with Snape, happily." Jorien snickered, and Robin let her eyes flicker to the head table for a second, only to see Snape looking as indifferent as ever while he was talking to McGonagall. Actually, McGonagall rather was talking to him for the majority of it. Robin smiled at the sight, and then turned her attention back to her roommates.

"I think she's the first person who survived more than 24 hours with him!" Cas snorted in return, lazily swirling pumpkin juice around her glass. "I don't know how you do it, Robin… Two hours per week is quite enough for me."

"You're getting it all wrong, guys… He survived 24 hours with me. That's the real challenge." Robin smirked at them with a wink, and both girls laughed.

"Well, there's no disagreeing with that. Especially when you're being so very strict about literally everything! Do you still insist on tutoring after breakfast?"

"Obviously."

______________________________

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