#I dunno. we were talking at dinner and I just sorta realized that that sorta energy is missing from the current movies I’ve seen. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writingsfromhome · 3 years

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Chapters II

A/N: Sooo I know the wait’s been really long. I was sorta living in London in Oct, life got hectic, and just got back home and back to this story. What has everyone been up to in October? Any Harry costumes for Halloween?? ;) Part 2 is mostly some world building on Harry’s end, and finally pushing the story forward. I’m working on the third part, no promises, but hoping I can finish it...soon? It’s nice to be writing again. xx

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

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I’m a bit dazed when she leaves. I never thought I would see her again, or if I did she would ever talk to me let alone come over to my flat with her son. Her son. It’s hard to swallow, literally--my throat was drier than the Sahara.

I pour myself a glass of water. Y/N, here. In my flat. Making us dinner. She had a son with some other man, the son that I had dreamed of having with her one day.

My mind doesn’t care about the emotional distress I’m in, it plays old memories on a loop. The night everything ended.

I’m ashamed to admit that it took me two whole months to realize what I lost, realize what an arse I’d become. And by then she was unreachable, I tried to reach out to her sisters, her brother, but if they hadn’t already blocked they ignored me.

Five Years Ago

“I like this one,” Finn says after I have him listen to the chorus on a single we were planning on releasing in the summer. “It’s funky.”

“Yeah,” I take the headset from him. I would have been stoked that he liked it without his usual criticism, but I was feeling pretty low the last few weeks. I just wasn’t feeling the same passion for my music. It didn’t help that I was crashing with Niall until I found my own place and he lived with his very loud girlfriend. “It needs some work.”

“Alright mate,” Finn wheels me around to face him. “Where’s my spunky rockstar gone? What’s this zombie you’ve been the last few weeks?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “I’m just feeling a bit...uninspired.”

“Well you’ve gotta find that inspiration Harry,” Finn says, already turning away to respond to the text he got. “This single should have been finished yesterday, and we’re releasing it in four months. We need this in the bag.”

“I know,” I blow the air out of my cheeks slowly, like I did with the cigarettes I used to smoke. Now felt like a good time to pick one up again, but it reminds me of the pact Y/N and I made around graduation, to quit together….not like she was around to hold me accountable, I think darkly. “I think the breakup with Y/N and moving out and now I’m sleeping on a couch...it’s sucha shitshow.”

“It’s a setback but it’s not the end of the world,” Finn says absentmindedly. “Plus Y/N was never good for you, that woman was a drag. She was always scowling when I saw her. And you said she was always nagging, it’s a good thing you’ve gone your own way.”

“Yeah but-” I almost defend her but I remember the last few months we were together. She had gotten so negative, she was so unfair. “I’m just finding my feet again.”

“Well find them quickly.” Finn reminds me again. “Use the breakup as material for your album. Rage through it, put in all the shite you want to say to her face! You have to start somewhere and breakups are perfect starting point yeah?.”

It was a good idea, but making an album when I could hardly concentrate on this single was just depressing. I tell him I was calling it quits for the day, I promised to be back first thing tomorrow to complete it. He finally glances up from his phone to look at me, sighing but agreeing and before he can change his mind I’m out on the streets and on the tube back home. Well, Niall’s home.

The flat smells amazing when I walk in, I look for Niall but the shower’s on and I find his girlfriend in the kitchen instead. Great, I sigh, she was kind of a bitch to be around alone.

“Oh, Harry you’re home early.” she comments as I drop down on the couch which was also my bed. It was pathetic, but it helped when my cash outflows were more than in inflows. Sure I was looking for a new place to live but until Niall kicks me out I was glad I didn’t have to pay for a roof over my head.

“Yeah, not really a productive day.” I say. “That smells really good.”

“Oh,” she turns back to her food. “I was making dinner for our date night. Niall’s favourite.”

“I’ll get out of your hair tonight,” I say. She always did this, hinted at wanting me to leave when she could just tell me--I hated it.

“If you don’t mind?” She glances at me. She couldn’t even look me in the eye. “It’s just Niall and I haven’t had a proper dinner together in a while so it would be nice.”

“Right,” message received loud and clear. “If I’ve overstayed my welcome you can just say.”

“I’m not-” she places the knife she’s holding down. “That’s not what I said Harry. I’m thanking you for giving us the night...?”

“I hear the passive comments, you can just tell me to my face.” I can tell I’m bordering on aggressive but I don’t know how to back down. She was always judging me just like Y/N would.

“I’m literally not--Niall,” Niall had chosen then to walk in. “Tell Harry I don’t mind he’s here, he’s your best friend I just asked if we could have the evening for date night-”

“I’m pretty sure your girlfriend doesn’t want me around,” I pick my jacket up from the couch. I was going to leave. “She can just say that.”

“What did you say?” Niall asks his girlfriend and her jaw drops.

“I didn’t say anything! I just told you-”

“I’m leaving, enjoy your night.” I brush past Niall but he stops me.

“Where are you going? Just wait a minute. Let’s just talk this out we can-”

“I’m leaving,” I push Niall’s hand off and walk out. I didn’t know where I was going but I had to leave. Niall and his girlfriend could enjoy their perfect little flat with their perfect dinner date. I could find another place to crash.

“Finn?” I call the only other person who would let me crash for the night. “I got into some shite with my roommate, could I crash at yours for tonight I know your-“

“Oh Harry no,” Finn cuts me off. I’m thrown off by his answer, I stop halfway down the stairwell. “I can’t let you stay with me that-that’s not possible right now.”

“I’ve got nowhere to sleep.” I reason, I can hear how whiny I sound. “You won’t even know I’m there, I sleep on the couch anyway-“

“I’m sorry Harry I wish I could help but--look I’ve got to go we’ll talk in the morning.”

The phone goes dead and I stare at it in shock. What was I going to do? I was homeless.

I hit the streets and walk into the first pub, order the cheapest beer and log into my banking. I look through cheap hotels nearby, but the closest one I could afford was more than an hour by train. So I finish every last drop of the beer and begin my trek to the hotel. Niall calls me but I send him to voicemail, I didn’t want to talk to him. His girlfriend probably brainwashed him into thinking I was some sort of monster.

When I get to the hotel, it’s half decent but it’s loud as fuck and there’s some sort of bar on the main floor whose music carries up to the fourth floor where I find my room. I look at the tight space, at least it was clean.

I throw my jacket to the chair and dive straight into the bed. Fuck everyone, couldn’t they see that I was going through a hard time? Couldn’t anyone give me a bloody break?

I find a random channel and put it on for background noise while I take a lukewarm shower (the water never quite made it to hot), and consider my food options. I think about the dinner Niall’s girlfriend had made, I used to have that, I think. A girlfriend who made me dinner and a soft bed to sleep in. Everything changed so fast.

Suddenly my phone rings. Niall again. I let it go to voicemail. But a few minutes later there’s a knock on the door, Niall’s distorted face looks back at me from the peephole.

“How the fuck did you find me?” I ask when I open the door but Niall barges in, shouldering me out of the way.

“Why the fuck aren’t you picking up my calls? I was worried about you! You just disappeared!” I could tell Niall was furious; he rarely shouted like this and when he did his accent was always a lot thicker.

“So you stalked me?” I demand. “I already told you, you don’t need to worry about me!”

“I do!” Niall shouts. A distant part of me thinks it’s funny how loud we’re shouting, that the music downstairs is probably loud enough that nobody cares about the additional disturbance. “Of course I do! You’re my best mate, of course I care about you! You disappeared so I tracked your phone to make sure you weren’t pissed and passed out on the side of the bloody motorway!”

Niall continues shouting at me and t I let him go on about what an arse I was being and how much I changed. It’s only when he brings up Y/N, sympathetic that I was struggling without her that I stop him. I tell him I didn’t need her, she never cared about me or wanted me to succeed!

“Y/N doesn’t want you to succeed? Y/N?” Niall breaths heavily as he looks at me like I was crazy. “Are we talking about the same Y/N we both know? From our uni days?”

“Yeah! Don’t be thick, she was always so fucking negative! She told me she supported me and then she would just nag at me all day long.”

“You’re a-oh my god Harry, you’re an idiot,” Niall sits down on the bed, shaking his head. “Have you got your head so far up your arse you don’t realize that woman was bending over backwards so you could have your dreams? And you were treating her like-like a fucking used tissue.”

“You don’t know what it was like at home,” I say bitterly.

“No, I do!” Niall stops me.

“So she was complaining about me to you too?” I demand.

He confesses, Y/N’s sister and him went out on a few dates behind her back. She went in on him one night, complaining about how much of an ungrateful dick I was being to her sister. “Harry, Y/N was working long hours to provide for you, she was just asking you to see what she was doing. And before you say anything, don’t act so innocent, I was there on New Year’s, you were ignoring her and kissing up to your label. You put her through hell, and I watched her watch you. She never made a scene, she just made sure everyone was having a good time. You let her go Harry, I love you but you’re a fucking idiot for treating her so poorly and then leaving her like that.”

“I...” I think about what Finn was saying to me for months. What he told me today, he was the only one who understood when I complained about Y/N. “She was always so negative though, always nagging at me-”

“What was she saying?” Niall asks, his volume slightly settled, like he was almost out of steam. And I think about what she was saying: to think twice before buying something expensive, to have some dinner ready when she came home late, to take the clothes out of the dryer when I forgot, to call my mum on her birthday when I forgot. None of it was about my work, or her work.

I look to Niall, my best friend who traveled half of London just to make sure I was okay. And I think about Finn who turned me away when I needed him tonight. Who was talking shite about Y/N long before we began having issues. I can’t believe it, Niall was right, “I’m a fucking idiot.”

Niall sighs, probably relieved we didn’t have to fight anymore. I sit down on the bed beside him and lay on my back. I lost her, I just let her go. How could I have let her go when all she was doing was trying to support me the best she could? Even when I was being a dick.

“I have to call her,” I say suddenly. “I have to apologize I-”

“She won’t answer,” Niall puts my frenzied plan of action to rest. “She moved, I tried to visit her last month but there was some Polish family living there. And she won’t answer any of my calls. She’s left me behind too. Even her sister will barely talk to me.”

“I have to try,” I take my phone out and dial her number, I knew it by heart since uni. It goes to a generic voicemail. I try again, and again, while Niall watches. Finally he gets up and nudges the bag on the table. I only just notice he’d brought it in with him.

“Just get some rest Harry, I’d tell you to come home with me but my girlfriend’s pretty pissed at me and I’m probably sleeping on the couch tonight.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry about that.” I think about his girlfriend, what I did. I’d have to apologize to her too, she wasn’t kicking me out. “I’ll come by tomorrow and apologize.”

“I appreciate that,” he nods. “She packed some food for you anyway, said you might need it. She gets it, bad breakup.”

“Isn’t that your date night dinner,” I ask when I open it and the smell hits me.

“Not anymore--and don’t say sorry to me. Save it for her, just...take care of yourself. I’ll see you later.”

I give him a hug and see him off. I wolf the dinner down and begin calling Y/N again, then her sister, her brother, her other sister...but nobody answers. I contemplate trying her mum but even I knew that might be crossing the line. They probably hated me.

I cry myself to sleep and when I wake up again it’s 7am. The silence is deafening compared to the noisy atmosphere I fell asleep to. I feel it then; I feel alone, dreadfully alone. I reach out beside me but there’s nobody there, of course. Y/N was gone, I let her slip through my fingers and I didn’t want to believe it but I don’t think I was ever getting her back. Not after what I’d done.

I think about us, especially the end. We weren’t who we used to be, and I think I was the reason for that. We were just two ghosts existing together, remembering how it felt to have a heartbeat.

I fall back asleep, the thought of her on my mind as I do.

***

A knock at my door jostles me out of bed. I’m barely awake when a cart wheels into my room followed by a short man. He freezes when he notices me in bed, glancing back to the door to check the room number.

I glance at the time, it was 11:30, past checkout.

“I’m sorry,” I croak out before he could kick me out. “Could I just get a few minutes to get my things? I lost track of time.”

He eyes me, finally giving a quick nod and stepping out. When I get to the bathroom to brush my teeth I get a good look at how awful I looked: my eyes are bloodshot and puffy, I looked a mess. This was the I-cried-myself-to-sleep-twice look.

I brush quickly but my realizations from last night continue to badger me like a bad migraine. My stomach churns with regret and guilt and anger, and it’s quickly followed by a sadness so deep I don’t think I could ever recover from it. I couldn’t stay sober, I realize, so I walk into the nearest pub and order a pint. And then another. By my third, I’m drunk and it was barely noon. I have a dozen missed calls from Finn, I knew he’d be furious but I figure he was already angry so I ignore him.

I think I spend the rest of the day in pubs. I lose count of how many drinks I’ve had. Around 5 the bartender forces a number out of me and Niall shows up to take me home. I only slightly register that his girlfriend isn’t around, he tells me where she is but I don’t remember. I black out.

***

I don’t know how the next month passes. Or, actually, I don’t know how I manage to live through the next month. The days pass by and I go to the studio, I listen to Finn faff about and I come home and go straight to bed. I remember apologizing to Niall’s girlfriend, and Niall continues to get me to eat, but I mostly call Y/N’s phone. I go to our old flat twice and the third time the Polish man living there threatens me. I probably looked scary with my nest of hair and the beard that was growing in.

Finn grows impatient when I only come up with slow melodies. He wants me back on an upbeat song to introduce me to the world. I try to write things, but it’s only when I’m going through old shitty photos on my computer from when we used point-and-shoots in uni that I uncover a load of pictures of Y/N and me. She looks so youthful, so do I. She has her classic strawberry red lips and a daring look in her eyes. I look in love any picture where we’re caught in the background. I ache, how did I get so far away from him. My heart constricts, and then I’m locking myself in the bathroom, sitting in the bathtub with a beer and going through each picture. I hear myself laugh and cry, Niall knocks on the door at one point but I tell him I was fine. I can’t get enough of this nostalgia that threatens to choke me, but I wanted the punishment of this loss, I needed to see the way we used to be.

The one picture I land on, she’s blowing out cigarette smoke with her eyebrows raised. She’s looking at the person behind the lens, at me, with a glint of some inside joke. I recognize a few familiar faces in the background staring at us-at her. I touch the screen, I love her so much. I remember this night, she was stressed about graduation and nearly smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. Then the words comes to me: She worked her way through a cheap pack of cigarettes/ hard liquor mixed with a bit of intellect.

I rush out of the room and into the living room for my notebook. I write the lyrics down as they come, as the memories of uni and our wild days rush through me. All the trips we took, the late nights and early mornings, the booze and the sex, and the feeling of euphoric youth. I put all my crazy love into it. And when I’m done I have a good set, the chorus still isn’t quite right but I had something to show to Finn. This was going to be it, I felt it.

***

“Live drums and guitar?” Finn pursues his lips. “I thought we were sticking to a drum machine?”

“It needs live drums,” I try to convince him. “Think about this, it’s got big energy it needs the real thing.”

“I don’t know if this new energy is coming from this new woman you’re singing about, drugs, or a lot of coffee but I’m not complaining,” Finn chuckles. “And don’t tell me if it is drugs, the less I know the better. I’ll see what I can do. But that chorus--”

“I know,” I agree. “It’s not big enough for the song.”

“This woman you’re singing about it a wild thing, but then the chorus is about love it’s just not fitting. This woman...you meet her at the pubs you’ve been drinking at lately?”

“I met her drinking, yeah,” I tell him a white lie, avoiding any details about Y/N. It was becoming more clear to me that Finn just didn’t want Y/N and I to work out. I don’t know why but I don’t think I was telling him anything about her anymore.

“Okay, work on these lyrics I’m calling Ty and a couple other guys in to go over this too. I’ll get back about the drums later.”

By the time I’m heading home on the tube I have a yes for drums and I’m pumped. A teen on the platform even recognizes me and asks for a photo which takes my day from brilliant to blinding. I was on cloud 9.

I offer to help with dinner that night, Niall’s girlfriend and I had found a friendly medium and we settle for dinner around the small table. She talks about some friend she knows, “her boyfriend was trash though. Like, I told her when they were dating, but after they broke up and she realized it herself I wasn’t going to rub it in her face right? But she told me she literally told him about the baby when she broke up with him on the phone can you believe that? She literally said, “We’ve over and before you hear it from anyone else I’m having your baby but get this straight, it’s none of your business!”

“She said that?” Niall sits back in shock.

“That’s a really good line,” I comment absentmindedly and when they look at me blankly I explain. “For a song, like it’s a good line. I can imagine it...loud, guitar, backup vocals like I’m having your baby! It’s none of your business.”

“That would sound good in the one you’re workin on now.” Niall encourages.

“Yeah wait, s’cuse me.” I find my notebook and cross out the chorus to include that. By the time I’m done they’ve finished dinner and Niall’s left dessert on the coffee table. He understood the Zone, he wrote a lot more when we were in a band in secondary school. The memory prompts me to call him, I play him the new version of the song and ask for his opinion. He brings out one of my guitars I’d been storing in his closet and opens it and we have a session right there in his living room. By the time I’m done, I know I’m done and I convince him to join me tomorrow in the studio. I needed his help.

“This is about Y/N isn’t it?” Niall asks when we’re finishing up.

“It was,” I admit. “It had the essence of her, like the old her before I fucked us up. But now it’s a bit more than that.”

“It’s gonna be a hit,” Niall says. “Remember me when this gets big.”

“Mate, you’ll be right beside me on stage.”

***

But a few weeks later, after finishing the song and taking a break visiting my mum Finn gives me the bad news. My single was being pushed back further. He tells me, “They think it’s going to do smashingly but we’ve got two big artists coming out with albums. They think it’s going to get lost in the noise.”

I close my eyes. Deep breaths Harry, I remind myself. They loved it, it was just a set back.

But how many setbacks, another part of me asks. It was setback after fucking setbacks. All these setbacks turned me into someone I couldn’t recognize. I lost the love of my life because of these setbacks. I feel the temper flare up.

“Finn, what’s your role in all this?” I ask.

“In what? I pushed it Harry, trust me they-”

“You say that but it’s been over a year of setbacks.” I had enough. “I hired you because I thought you could help me navigate this shit show of an industry but you’re just dragging me through the shite. I’m getting nothing from you.”

“I’m working hard behind the scenes Harry,” he looks pissed, but worried for once, and I realize how much power I’ve given this man. “If I had a dollar every time I had fight for you I could fund your album myself.”

I snort, “Cut the bullshit. If I had a dollar for every song I’ve completed while I wait around for you to get me release dates I’d have enough to pay rent. I don’t feel like working in the studio today, and next time you’ve got a meeting with the suits I’m coming along.”

Finn opens his mouth and gapes like a fish. I leave him like that, feeling better than I had in a long time. Who knew all it took was realizing you let the girl you loved get away, and to go back to your roots.

And now I stand here in my apartment that my EP paid for. All my fans paid for. It was hard to wrap my head around it when I thought about it. Five years ago the release of my single might have been pushed, but at the next meeting I attended and fought for myself. I had to wait another year but I got a summer release date the year after, and it was a slow build but I get to release an album a couple years later.

Somehow, it worked in my favour. Releasing my best singles piqued enough people’s interest that by the time I announced my album the preorders paid the cost of the album itself. That was the same year my contract with Finn had to be renewed.I didn’t renew it. I signed at the managing company Niall was working at and my professional life has gotten a lot easier since.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Niall interrupts my journey into the past.

“I didn’t just dream that?” I joke.

“It happened,” Niall lays on the sofa. “Can you believe that? She’s got a kid!”

“I...I can’t.” I choke out. “How has so much life just...gone by without her?”

Niall looks to me. “I’ve missed her too.”

We sit in silence, lost in our own memories. I think of the album sitting half done on my laptop, most of those songs were about her. They were too sad to make my first album, they wanted me to include a lot of my earlier songs I made. This album was a lot of her. I wish I could sit her down and have her listen to it, it was my heart beating saying her name in a melody and I wanted her to know it.

“I should go,” Niall gets up quickly. “Did you ask for her number or anything? What did you talk about when I left you alone?”

“She didn’t want to,” give her number or talk. “I don’t blame her, she’s got her son. Is his dad in the picture?”

“No. Just her and Julien.”

“Julien,” I say his name. I remember when we were together, she’d said she loved the name whenever we talked about the kids we would have together. The ones who were never going to see life anymore. “He’s a smart kid.”

“He’s cute right? He was picking up all your instruments, you should tell her you’ll give him free lessons. There you go,” Niall chuckled. “I’ve got your way back to her.”

“You’re such a romanticist,” I tease him.

“No, I’m not the broody musician,” Niall walks up to the door. “Alright then, I’ll talk to you Thursday,” He had out-of-town talent he was scouting so I wouldn’t be seeing him.

After he leaves, I indulge in some more memories of life during a simpler time. I think about Y/N with whatever bastard got to call Julien his son. I think about her with this imaginary man, he was probably a handsome devil, dark haired. Did she call him the names she called me, I wonder. Did he see Julien on the weekends? Did she regret being with him, or did they catch up with a smile and touch on the arm when he picked his son up? I wanted to know. I needed to know. What sort of life had she been living without me?

I used to look her up all the time before, especially the first couple years we broke up. I would check her social media but she had made herself private, or deleted them. I stopped when I got into my first serious relationship after her, I had to force myself to stop and I only did it when I got really drunk. The last time I did it, I actually got her work profile. When I do it today, I also get her company information--I grin at my phone when an idea takes shape. Her company threw events, and I had a birthday coming up...

***

Monday morning I walk into Y/N’s building, her offices are on the ninth floor so I take the elevator up. The receptionist must recognize me because she does the thing where she stares a moment too long. I ask to see Y/N and I get told I had to have a meeting, she was apparently busy.

“It’s a casual thing,” I start to sweat, what if my plan didn’t work and I got turned away? “I ran into her and her son--Julien. She said she could make some time.”

Her face softens at the mention of Y/N’s son and I know I have her. “Mmm I could put you in at quarter past 10? Nothing earlier than that.”

I could wait for 10 hours if I had to, I think. Instead I thank her and take a seat. I open a random magazine and flip through until I see a picture of my face. Apparently I was depressed and heartbroken. I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous that was. The media decided to go with the angle of heartbreaker when I started releasing my music. They caught a few shots of me with different women within a few weeks and that sold it. Truth was I mostly had meaningless flings since Y/N, and if you could call an 8 month relationship serious, that was the longest I’d held out. When I was finishing an album with songs that rehashed the biggest heartbreak of my life, it was hard to get into the mood of settling with a single person. The heartache I felt every time I rehashed my past was made better by fun but meaningless sex.

Before I could do the torture of reading through the article, the receptionist squeaks my name and asks me to follow her. She leads me to a small board room where Y/N sits at the head, and I notice the shock on Y/N’s face that she forces into neutrality.

“Harry...” she eyes the receptionist who lingers. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

I glance at the receptionist, I was about to be caught in the lie. But when she notices me looking she ducks out and closes the door behind her.

“So, what brings you to my place of work?” she asks, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, I know this is your job and I promise I’m here in a professional capacity.”

“Okay...” Y/N says and I can’t believe I forgot this minor detail about her. Every time she didn’t believe me, she would stretch her words out: oookaaaay...

“I would like to hire your services for a birthday party I was planning.”

“For...yourself?”

“My birthday.”

“Unless something’s changed, your birthday’s in February.”

A nervous thrill runs up my spine, she remembered. “It is in February.”

“It’s November?”

“Never too early,” I shrug.

“You do know we throw corporate or industry events not...birthday parties?”

“No this is a big one.” Y/N still wasn’t warming up to me and I try to settle my nervous tics. It seems like the initial shock of bumping into me had worn off, and she was frosty like I expected her to be yesterday. Or maybe she was just softer around her son. “I’m inviting a lot of corporate people. I want it on a larger scale--a bigger venue.”

“And you decided to come here?” She says, and she does it again, you decided to come heeeere?

“Well I’ve been talking about this with my manager, and when I saw you yesterday I remembered this is your line of work! So, why not support your company than your competitor!” At this point I was saying anything to convince her I hadn’t stalked her last night and was trying to weasel my way back into her life.

“Just...cut the bullshit Harry. What are you doing here?”

“I’m serious,” I decide to walk closer and then decide why the fuck not. I pull out the chair beside her and sit. She crosses her legs but stays put.

I had no pre-approval for the party and was absolutely going to get in some shite but I add to the lie to convince her. “It’s part birthday celebration and part listening party. I’m releasing an album next year and I wanted some people to hear a couple of the songs and give their feedback so...”

“I thought listening parties were small intimate things?”

“I-”she was good, but I roll with it. “Go big or go home, yeah?”

“Right now,” she pulls a face. “I’d choose going home.”

I sigh, she was a tough cookie to break. “I just need you. Uh, you like your services. Professional services.” Way to make this weird Harry.

But my fumbling awkwardness brings a smile to her face, albeit a small smile that quickly fades, but I call it a win.

“You’re so odd,” she comments finally before pulling her laptop closer to her. “Okay, your birthday’s first of February and luckily aside from Valentine’s it’s not a big celebration month. How many people are you thinking? I can go through some popular venues right now.”

She was going straight to business and I’m unprepared. This made-up party was going to be very real, but I needed to find a way to make this personal too. I wanted to know how she was doing.

“Medium-ish? What do you think? You probably go to a lot of events right?”

“50-100?”

“Uh yeah,” she was determined to keep this professional. But I could be just as dogged. “Do you plan this out? Do you have a team?”

“I have a team,” she finally confirms. “But I would be leading it so don’t worry.”

“Oh I’m--I know you’re very organized and thorough. I trust you.”

There’s a beat of silence before she moves on quickly. “Any theme?”

“Surprise me,” I had no fucking clue.

“No,” she stops typing. “I hate when clients say that! I don’t know how to surprise you just...tell me what you want!”

I laugh. “Alright well maybe a bit of 70s inspiration? But classy.”

“I can see that,” she nods thoughtfully. “Disco ball and retro dance floor. Maybe you’ll grow out a mustache.”

“If I remember correctly you liked that mustache.”

She laughs, “I...” she trails away, realizing what we were talking about. I’d pushed it too far. “I’ll note down the theme.”

We sit in silence for a little bit while she types away, I break it by asking: “So I feel like we didn’t really get to talk yesterday. How have you been?”

She studies me before answering carefully, “Bumping into you and Niall yesterday was an unexpected surprise--it was nice seeing you two are doing good but...that doesn’t erase everything that’s happened between us.”

“I-no I’m not saying it does. I just want to know how you’re doing...you look like you’re doing really well.”

“I am,” she confirms, laying down her boundaries. “And I’d like it to stay that way, I don’t want any...complications.”

I stumble when she implies I’m the complication but I slide back into game mode and put a polite smile on my face. “I didn’t really get to say it yesterday but I...I’m really sorry about everything. I can say a lot of-”

I stop when she pushes away from me, like she needed the physical distance. “Why are you doing this right now?”

“Call me an arrogant son of a bitch,” I shrug. “But I just need to talk to you. Apologize, I just want to know you’re happy.”

Her eyes tear up and she looks away, twisting a ring on her finger. I watch as she tries to take a deep breath but it comes out shaky. “You know what, I am. I’m happy with the life I made. And I have a son now, I can’t do...” she gestures between us. “This. I don’t want to have these conversations. I’ve moved on.”

“You’ve...” it feels like I’d swallowed a cotton round. I was being selfish, I knew I was but I was desperate not to let her slip through my fingers again.

“I mean,” she continues like I hadn’t spoken. “You made it pretty clear what I was to you the last time we discussed us. You made it clear how you felt about me. And if you’re looking for closure, please don’t rope me into any plans you’ve made. I’ve already found it.”

Her hands shake but not as bad as the tremble in my body, from the anger at myself and the hurt I pushed down every day to survive. “I didn’t mean half of it,” I try to say gently. “I wasn’t in a good place.”

“Neither was I,” Y/N snaps, standing up. “But I didn’t stand in front of you and make you feel small and unloved. Now, like I said I don’t need this. If you want to set a meeting just ask Raina up front, I have to go.”

And just like that, I let her go. Again.

----------------------------------------------/-------------------------------

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#harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles series #harry styles fanfic #dad!harry #harry styles imagine #Musician!Harry #series #harry styles x reader #harry styles angst #this is angst #sprinkled w hs refs #if you're reading this I hope you're having a lovely week #and if not I hope it gets better #please forgive any grammar or plot holes #it's been a while

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sugrbugz · 3 years

Text

their reaction to you coming out as trans!! : BOKUTO, KENMA, AKAASHI, OIKAWA, TSUKKI, & ASAHI ♥︎

CW: this covers topics such as gender dysphoria, transphobia, and ignorant parents. please be safe my loves!!

transphobes get the fuck outta here right now

also i’m ftm myself so i’m writing from my own experience! if you want a non binary one or even mtf let me know! ♥︎

BOKUTO

would be so very excited to go clothing shopping with you but also giving you all of his hoodies in the mean time-

would love to show you off as his official boyfriend, would fight transphobic people for you

“hey bo, can we talk?” you asked softly, only causing him to open his arms wide from where he was sitting on your bed. you crawled into his lap like you always did, your hands shaking a bit when your wrapped your arms around his neck. “what’s up little owl!” he smiled wide, flashing you that beautiful smile of his. “it’s sorta serious love..” you mumbled making his smile fall only a bit, it falling completely when you started crying. “lovebug? what’s wrong..you can talk to me baby” he soothed making you nod. “i know we’ve talked about your preferences before and i don’t know where i fall but-“ you hiccuped, trying to figure out how to say it. “i’m transgender..i want to be a boy” you sobbed out, ultimately terrified he’d leave even though you knew he wouldn’t. “no..” he started making you cry only harder, not even three seconds later were calloused fingers there to wipe them, “you are a boy..not want, right baby?” he smiled softly, kissing your nose.

KENMA

his emotions would hurt him first only because he wouldn’t fully understand why you’re so upset

best hair stylist in the game!! he’d do your hair so you don’t have to deal with judgemental old ladies and weird barbers.

would 100000000/10 drop anything hes doing to snuggle you since he knows how much of a bitch dysphoria can be

it actually happened by accident. currently you were in the bathroom, shaky hands on a pair of scissors you’d found in the kitchen. it was one of those moments. you weren’t officially out to anybody, not even your boyfriend just simply out of fear of being disliked. however when kenma came to use the bathroom after doing a five hour livestream her heart almost shattered right then and there. you were too into your head to even notice his presence, snapping back to reality when he took the scissors from you. that’s when the tears started. he was quickly to pull you close, kissing your head. “i think i understand..but if i don’t, please explain..” he whispered softly into your ear. “i-i..” you stuttered, you didn’t even know how to say it. “i’ve been dealing with my gender for awhile and came to the conclusion that im a boy..” you sniff, snuggling into his chest since the comfort felt good. “okay baby, you’re still mine okay?” he spoke so soft it was reassuring. “but come to me instead of butchering your hair, you know damn well i could cut it better. dork.” he winked sitting you down to actually cut your hair properly.

AKAASHI

wasn’t totally surprised even though he is oblivious to most things

he would be so sweet about it??????? he wouldn’t even question you???? just accepting right away

after you were ready to come out? god he would be so overbearing with how supportive he was. “hey have you seen my BOYFRIEND?” or “are you doing okay, pretty boy?” he would do it all the time

he already knew. you’d asked him to pack your laptop in your book bag since you guys were going to study at the library. he usually didn’t snoop and honestly minded his business, but when he saw what he thought was a dildo his curiosity was peaked. you had millions of tabs open, all pertaining to the concept of gender identity. his heart softened sadly, upset by the fact you did this all alone. you came up to check what was taking him so long, face dropping when you saw what was open, “i-i promise i can explain-!” you rush forward but he quickly wraps two arms around you, kissing you softly. “shush. you don’t need to explain.” he smiled, “your preferred name and pronouns my darling?” he hummed in addition, grinning from the blush on your cheeks. “uhm..y/n..and he/him..please..” you whisper making him nod, “i’ve got the cutest boyfriend every yanno that?”

OIKAWA

would make fun of you for a bit until he realized this was actually serious

he would also apologize profusely for doing so.

would go out and buy you 67963334 slacks just to see you in them i know it

“tooru i’m serious!” you’d whimper, genuine tears pricking at the corner of your eyes. that’s when he knew he took it too far. “hey..i was just joking around…does me calling you girlie actually make you uncomfortable? why?” he was confused but then again you couldn’t blame them. you’d told iwa you were trans, hoping to get someway to tell oikawa but there wasn’t much acknowledgment of him at all. “yes..it does” you nodded wiping your eyes. “is it because you’re trans?” all the air in your lungs was knocked out of you at this. “how did you..” you’d ask softly, “i dunno! i’m just really good at this!” he giggled before kissing your head and getting off the couch you two were on. “one minute!” he ran upstairs and about five minutes later came back with all his old clothes he outgrew. “here! ‘ma saved them for donating to relatives but your more important” he hummed making you blush, “tooru you don’t-“ “and what’s your pants size?” “uh-i-“ “it’s okay doesn’t matter we’ll get all of them.” “ALL OF WHAT.” and that’s honestly how the rest of your night went.

TSUKKI

he wasn’t totally surprised but then again he knew how your parents were and would understand your hesitation for coming out

it didn’t really phase him at all. have you seen his gender nonconforming best friend? tsukki wouldn’t care unless you were authentically yourself.

would always give you reassurance, no matter how much you needed.

you’d come to your boyfriends house for the third night this week, his mom more than happy to let you stay. “he’s upstairs!” she’d smile from where she was making dinner. you already knew where to find his room, so coming inside and throwing your bags down casually wasn’t an issue at all. “y/n how many times do i have to tell your messy ass that you don’t put bags in the middle of the-“ he spun in his desk chair to look at you, his face falling the second he saw your face go red and tears streaming down your face. tsukki fucking SUCKED with emotions but he wouldn’t be pathetic and not try. “cmere moonie, what’s wrong” he frowned getting up and sitting on the bed, pulling you down with him. “i told them” you stated simply, his own anxiety kicked in. “and?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “they kicked me out.” you nodded towards the fourish bags you had dropped. “well..fuck them. here you’ll be loved and respected. they don’t deserve you. no one does. now, ill ask mom if we can move in the old dresser from akiterus room..you make yourself comfy. change, take of makeup, whatever it is. here? you’re allowed to be who you are.” and with that he was gone. tsukki may look like an asshole but he tries his best not to be for you.

ASAHI

wouldn’t initially get it, but it would take some explaining and he’d be absolutely on board

would probably smoother you in love and affection for being brave enough to tell him how you’ve been feeling

similar to akaashi he’d be quick to correct those who use incorrect pronouns (unless you tell him not too) while expressing love for his boyfriend

dating asahi had plenty of benefits, most importantly his ability to scare those off who were rude to you. you had come out to him a week ago, he needed some help understanding the process but soon he was very on board and understanding. now you two were eating lunch with noya and tanaka, watching a group of girls who ever now and then looked back at you to laugh and point. you’d just gotten your gender affirming hair cut the night before. you began to feel very self conscious about everything, just slowly tucking yourself into asahi who immediately realized something was wrong. “what’s up babe?” he asked watching you nod towards the group. with that he gently passed you over to noya who was very excited for the hugs he was allowed to give his close friend. needless to say asahi scared the living hell out of those girls. when all was said and done, he took you to the boys bathroom and locked the door. he simply hugged you, rubbing your back while you almost immediately cried. “it’s okay bunny..i’m sorry people can’t mind their own business-not that it’s my fault-i dunno why i apologized-sorry-i-“ he took a deep breath but his nervous rambling had made you giggle. “thank you, you giant teddy bear” you smiled leaning up to give him a nice soft kiss.

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buckybansre · 3 years

Text

my baby | reiner braun

warnings: angst (??) w/ happy ending, sorta fluffy at the end, hurt/comfort, references to alcohol.

pairings: reiner braun x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k

synopsis: reiner finally returns back home and all seems well. but is it actually?

it has been months since you got to see reiner and maybe even years since you got to see him for more than a few days a time, you hadn't realised how much you missed him until you were shuffling through groups of people who waited for their family members, just to get to the front so you could see him as soon as he got off the train.

so much time has passed since he was given the armored titan and sent on a mission across the sea, you guys never really had the chance to have a concrete conversion about what happened on paradis, but it was obvious that reiner avoided the subject so you didn’t push on it too much.

you always got self conscious about if his feelings for you still remained when he’d disappear for weeks at a time, but your high hopes persisted for your relationship regardless as you waited behind the gate for reiner to come through.

with his mother, karina standing next to you, your heart felt like it could pound through your chest at any given second.

i wonder if he’s gotten bigger,

i wonder if he’s grown a beard by now,

i wonder-

“reiner!” you heard his mom yell from your side, which immediately snapped you from your thoughts.

“r...reiner?” you looked at him, he looked different but still the same old reiner nonetheless.

he’d grown so big, and had stubble growing across his cheeks. you never smiled so big when you saw someone.

fuck, you really missed him so much. your mind couldn't help but ponder off to the next time he’d be requested to leave for another mission. it broke your heart. he only had a few years left, and in your head, those years are yours. they belong to you, you both earned this.

is that selfish of me? you thought, chewing on your bottom lip.

no. you reassured yourself. i am not selfish.

“y/n? i missed you so fucking much, god.” he rushed over and wrapped his around your waist, engulfing you into his warmness. his familiar scent of cigarettes (you had zeke to thank for that) and cologne quickly filled your nostrils. you only hugged him tighter which caused him to chuckle.

you’d forgotten that you cut about three inches off of your hair until reiner commented on it.

“did you do something new to your hair?” he whispered, shutting his eyes as he hugged you tighter. “you’re so pretty.”

your cheeks grew with a fiery feeling as he released you from his grasp and laid his hand on your cheek, running his thumb across every feature of your face which caused you to laugh.

reiner greeted the rest of his family, keeping his arm around you the entire time.

“let’s go home,” you said after he finished greeting his family, taking his hand into yours and leading him back home. “you need to rest.”

—

reiner always assured you that when he got back from his big mission, he would come and live with you, and he upheld that deal. you guys were so young, and it seemed like only a silly reality. but now, it had become real.

once reiner initially arrived back from paradis, you two moved rather quickly to pick a home before he had to leave again to aid the warriors in another mission.

the house was perfect for the two of you, and a family as well, if you and reiner ever decided you wanted to take that step.

you, so badly wanted to take that step. but reiner on the other hand never spoke about it, so neither did you.

nevertheless, the house seemed so tiny, even tinier when you were there alone.

you always insisted on decorating the house whenever reiner came back. it was your ultimate goal to make him feel wanted and welcomed.

he needed that reassurance, and you were more than happy to provide it.

“so.. do ya’ like it? i know it’s small and…” you trailed off as you both made your way into the house, seeing a banner and a few balloons spread across the dining room.

“what? no, it’s great, baby. as long as i get to come back to you, everything is great.” he cracked a smile as he shut the door and pressed a quick kiss to your forehead.

“i can’t believe you still like me after all this time, or wanna be with me even. it’s crazy, really,”

the mutual crush between you and reiner began when you both were nine. reiner was training to be a warrior and you, well, you liked to watch.

you’d sneak to their practices and watch reiner do all of the drills and after, he’d confront you on your innocent stalking.

from then, the rest was history. you grew close with the other warriors, always having their favorite baked treats on hand when they had a hard day of training.

bertholdt was the one to make you confess your feelings to reiner once it was for certain that he was inheriting the amour titan and that they’d be traveling to paradis.

you missed bertholdt. so badly.

him, reiner, you and annie were inseparable. always being spotted together.

your heart broke badly when you found out they’d be inheriting titans, because from then, a timer would always be clocking down.

thirteen years.

“i only have a few years left, i don’t know who i’d rather spend it with,”

that.

that made your stomach churn in all different kinds of ways. he only had a few years left before he’d be gone forever.

you wished that he never got the armored titan, even back then you’d pray and pray that porco would get it instead of reiner.

selfishly of course.

“we never talked about this but, um, how were things… in paradis…?” you chewed on your bottom lip, your eyes carrying their gaze from the counter up to his eyes.

“interesting to say the least,” he sighed, shaking his head. “i’m going to go freshen up and then we can go to a bar, okay?”

“uh, yeah, about that, your family wants us over for dinner.” you looked at him and smiled slightly. “your mom made something for you and gabi,”

reiner and gabi’s relationship always made you smile. it’s what stemmed your wanting to have kids with reiner in the first place. he’d do anything for gabi.

“oh yeah, okay,” he nodded with a smile, kissing your head before walking into the bathroom to shower.

what the fuck does he mean by interesting? and what the hell happened on that island?

you brushed it off and walked into your bedroom and begun to brush your hair in order to flatten the stubborn flyaways that came up since you did your hair this morning.

reiner came out of the bathroom within a few minutes and had a towel wrapped around his waist, droplets of water still covering his torso.

your cheeks quickly heated up as you got up quickly, even though you’d been with reiner for years, and even seen him naked multiple times, you still got flustered at the sight of him.

“uh, i’m gonna go uh, help you mom prepare dinner,” you walked out of the room before he replied. “meet me there in ten.”

it always shocked you how it wasn’t awkward between you both and everything just went back to normal so quickly.

you hoped to be married to him soon, have a few children and live in this house with him until his years were over.

you hoped.

you grabbed your jacket and bag and began walking towards the braun house. reiner’s mom made sure that when you two picked a place, that it was close.

you knocked on the door twice before it was opened by a small brown haired girl with gleaming brown eyes.

“gabi!” you grinned and leaned down to hug her. “i heard about what you did, it’s very impressive,” your fingers smoothed her hair back as you looked down at her.

“y/n! thank you!” she giggled before taking your hand and leading you into the house. “where’s reiner?” she peaked behind you before squinting her eyebrows.

“oh he’s just getting dressed, he’s gonna meet me here,” you replied as you step into the dining room of the house. “i wanted to come a bit early and help.”

you started by placing the plates and utensils on the tables for all the guests, then you helped karina make a pitcher of tea and by then dinner was ready.

you all sat at the table as karina and reiner’s aunt placed the few dishes of food onto the table.

“where’s reiner y/n?” reiners uncle asked as he began to cut into his food.

you did the same and began cutting into your food, answering before taking a bite.

“i dunno, he said that we would meet me here,” you took a bite of food and swallowed. “perhaps he fell asleep or something? i’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

everyone at the table nodded and with that, gabi began retelling her story about what happened on the battle field.

she was an impressive warrior candidate, and that’s saying the least. but you didn’t want gabi to inherit the armored titan, because similarly to reiner, you didn’t want her to have a short life.

but gabi seemed so happy, and it sickened you to your stomach. marley is poisoning these kids to want to be tools of war. it made you even sicker how every eldian parent thought this was normal, not even normal, they thought it was a prize of some sort.

it wasn't.

as gabi kept talking, no one realized how much time was passing. by the time she was done telling her story, everyone was finished with their dishes and the pitcher of tea was empty.

“i don’t know why reiner didn’t show,” you said, shaking your head to yourself as you began to help gabi clear the plates off of the table.

it isn’t like him to skip out on family dinner the day he gets back.

“he’s probably just exhausted,” the small girl shrugged as you both headed towards the sink.

“i think you’re right,” you smiled down at her, ruffling her hair as the dishes made a clinking noise in the sink.

you put on your coat and grabbed your bag.

“i’ll let reiner know that you guys missed him,” you said to everyone, earning a mix of goodbyes before walking out of the house and onto the windy street.

your shoes clicked against the sidewalk as you walked the few minutes it took you to get back to your home.

god, these things were killing your feet.

“reiner!” you yelled as soon as got through the front door. “why the hell didn’t you come to dinner?”

you looked well throughout the house and he was nowhere to be found, he wasn’t at home.

well then, where hell was he?

“fuck, reiner.” you sighed and put back on your jacket before heading out of your house once again.

you suspected him to be at the bar since he mentioned it earlier. it was either that or a damn emergency happened and he was with the other warriors.

you hoped it was the second one. because why else would he pass up dinner with his family on his first night back?

it took about fifteen minutes for you to reach the bar nearest to your home. by the time you got there you were shivering and your feet and hands were freezing.

as you walked into the bar you were greeted by the workers, you nodded in their direction and gave them a small smile in reply.

your eyes glazed around the room for the tall blonde, it didn’t take long for you to spot him sitting on one of the stools at the bar, downing another glass of brown liquid before requesting another.

you walked over to him and placed your hand on his shoulder. “reiner,” you say sternly. “i’m glad you’re okay but why didn’t you sho-”

“y/n! my girls here, everyone!” he grinned as his words slurred, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and squeezing tightly.

he’s definitely had one too many.

a few other drunk people cheered and he smiled at you before pressing a wet kiss to your cheek.

gross, reiner. you cringed slightly at the feeling of his wet lips against your cheek.

“reiner,” your voice was soft as you gently moved yourself out of his grip and sat in the stool next to him, frowning slightly at this sight of him. “can i have a water with no ice, please?”

“what?” he asked with a chuckle as he began to pick up his next glass of brown liquid which you quickly took from him and replaced it with the water you asked for.

“you didn’t come to dinner. everyone was so excited to see you.” you sat the glass down on the counter, trailing your finger around the cold rim before you made eye contact with him, sighing softly as you gestured for him to take a sip of water.

“oh fuck me,” he chuckled deeply, pushing the water slightly to the side. “it would’ve just been depressing, all they wanna know is how my time on the island was. i would rather die than think about anything that happened on that island ever again,”

what?

he’s never said anything like that before. but then again, you guys never made time to properly talk about everything.

and now, you felt horrible because of that.

you didn’t know what your boyfriend was feeling, which seemed to be a lot. yet, you were left completely in the dark.

but, that’s your fault for not inquiring sooner.

you shook your head.

no.

but everything that you just thought was completely true.

your eyes widened and you felt like ten pounds of weights were suddenly attached to your heart. it hurt that he would even talk about himself like that.

your eyes grew slightly watery, as you looked at him. in this light, this sight of him looked so different, he looked… unhappy, maybe? you didn’t know.

he was ruff, so jagged with scratches placed across his chin, bags under his eyes, his hair stuck up in different directions and the stubble growing across his cheeks that looked so handsome to you earlier just added to the look.

he looked tired.

but tired of what?

“let’s go home,” you said softly gently taking his hand after placing some money on the counter to pay for whatever reiner had been drinking.

“you asked me about paradis earlier,” he started.

“reiner,”

this isn’t the time or place. why now reiner? god.

“no let me talk, y/n.” his eyes met yours, they were filled with hurt and anger. the water that clouded his eyes could pour out any second but it refused to even trickle slightly.

you let him talk, even if it was in the middle of a halfway busy bar and the pair of you were gaining looks by the minute.

“everything that happened on that island was so shit,” he chuckled sadly. “did you notice how i was when bertholdt didn’t come back? i couldn’t even save annie.”

“reiner, i…”

“bertholdt is dead and who the hell knows what’s happening to annie right now! i failed them y/n! bertholdt died because of me!” he yelled and a tear finally trickled from his eye.

you guys were gaining the attention of people by the second now.

“i doubt that’s true, reiner.” you clenched your jaw.

reiner recognized that as a lie, but you didn't.

“no it is true, i’m a monster, y/n! i killed so many people! i killed my comrades! they didn’t know any better!” he stood up and tears just kept coming from then.

a tear fell down your cheek and you wiped it quickly. “reiner, please just let’s go home we can talk about this there,” you took both of his tense fists into your small hands and your thumbs crossed over his calloused knuckles a few times.

“y’know… even since we were kids, i always thought you were the most beautiful girl i’d ever seen,” he whispered, now cupping your face and looking down at you.

“and that always kept me going but i don’t know if i…” his voice cracked and he finally noticed the immense hurt on your face.

his heart dropped. he thought he lost you. causing a stupid scene in the middle of a bar, what the hell was he thinking?

“please,” your voice still somehow remained soft, your lips even ever so slightly curving up into a smile. “let’s just go home, okay?”

he silently agreed, ushering you both out of the bar as the pair of you gained looks from the others in the bar.

the walk back home was silent, but he still persisted to hold your hand the whole way back home.

you unlocked the door and reiner went straight to the bedroom but you stopped in the kitchen to fill up a glass of water for him.

as you walked into the bedroom you saw reiner sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at his lap.

you sat the glasser on the dress and walked over to him, rubbing his back as he wrapped his arms around your waist. unexpectedly, reiner began to quietly sob into your torso.

“you’re not a monster, okay? you were so young, you didn’t know any better. it’s not your fault.” you said quietly, kissing his head.

he brought you onto his lap and you wiped the last few tears that dropped.

“i’m sorry,” he whispered. “i wish i never inherited that stupid titan, i should’ve been here with you. i should be able to live a long life with the girl i love. i earned that much, right?”

a tear fell down your cheek, now knowing that you both shared the same regret of him inheriting the titan and learning the new information that he would’ve wanted to live a long life with you.

“yes, yes you did.”

you wrapped your arms around him tightly. “none of this is your fault, i promise. no one blames you, you were just a kid.”

he nodded in response, looking down at you.

“if anything it’s marley’s fault for putting such hard expectations on children.” you reassured him once again, pressing a longing kissing his temple.

he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours, his hands on your waist as he kissed you gently.

you kissed him back, draping your arms loosely around his neck. your stomach piled with butterflies as you felt reiner’s hands travel down your back before he pulled you closer.

your heart was heavy once again, but for a different reason.

you were in love. reiner was all that you yearned for, and he was yours. only yours.

you inhaled his scent indirectly, smiling against his lips as you felt so safe and warm within his arms, with his lips pressed to yours.

for once, you were optimistic about the future. because, well, everything felt so bright and perfect in that moment. you wished you could stop time in this moment and just replay this moment over and over again. you’d never get tired of it. and that way, reiner would never have to leave you again.

you sighed happily.

“i love you,” he whispered against your lips.

you rested your forehead against his and your eyes met his gleaming hazel pupils.

“and i love you, always,”

please don’t translate, post (on other platforms) or rewrite my work. requests for one shots are always welcomed, pls send!! <3

love, pey !!

#reiner braun #reiner x reader #aot imagines #reiner fluff #reiner angst #reiner imagine #reiner oneshot #aot #aot oneshots #shingeki no kyoujin imagine #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan

167 notes · View notes

petals42 · 4 years

Text

been so long and now...

Alright, not writing the fic but this is the fic I want to read for julie and the phantoms (okay updated note: I wrote it basically). Going to try to keep this quick (LOL it’s 7k). We’re starting after season 1 here.

[7k, Reggie-centric, Julie POV, child abuse mention, Ray is a good dad.]

Alright, the boys can now touch Julie (sometimes) and can still be seen when playing music, but other than that, it’s not super clear how much actually changes. And after that day in the garage, life seems to even out a bit. Which means Alex is off looking for Willie and Luke and Julie are spending a lot more time writing music together (and okay, maybe that’s new but if both of them ignore it, it's fine) and Reggie is back to hanging out with Ray.

Ray can’t hear him or see him and the conversations are by necessity very one sided. Either Reggie filling Ray in on his day slash his ideas on ghosthood or Ray talking to himself/the computer but somehow it becomes fairly commonplace for Julie to walk downstairs and find her dad talking to (around?) her dead teenage bandmate. And there are times, sure, where she is like is this weird?? Should i say something about this??? But Reggie is kind of being left on his own a lot and she never really wanted to listen to her dad mutter about cameras and if that’s how Reggie wants to fill his days then… well that’s not her business. Neither party seems to mind. Probably because her dad doesn’t actually know.

Of course, the Julie-magic power does eventually start working more and more and then Carlos knows they are ghosts and then her dad hears them talking in Julie’s room when Luke accidentally starts humming and then catches a glimpse of them in garage when there’s no lights on so he doesn’t see how the hologram is working and--

“It’s time to tell him, I think,” Julie says to the boys and Luke nods and looks excited and Alex twists his hands around his drumsticks the way he does when he is a little anxious (but mostly okay) and when Julie glances over at Reggie, she expects that large megawatt smile that he directs at Flynn or Carlos but instead, he looks even more uncertain than Alex.

“I dunno,” he says, one shoulder raised. “I feel like we have an okay system?”

His concerns get drowned out by Luke and Alex and Julie herself pointing out that her dad is in photography, at some point he is going to realize that this hologram technology does not obey the laws of physics and/or light, plus he keeps almost seeing them just around his house and…

They play a song to tell her dad and lately, the boys have been able to be seen longer and longer, especially when they are just in the studio and don’t officially bow so once her dad gets over the initial shock (which, admittedly, takes him a little longer than Flynn or Carlos), there are introductions and--

Julie finds herself glancing at Reggie the whole time. Waiting for him to bound forward and say that actually he knows all about Ray and actually they’ve hung out quite a bit and actually, it was him that’s been slowly doing the puzzle with Ray in the corner room and maybe the other boys do too because there are a lot more awkward pauses that she thought there would be but Luke seems to realize it halfway through so suddenly he is taking the lead (and maybe trying to impress her father like omg what???) and so it kind of gets forgotten. (especially afterwards, in her room, when her dad lowkey tries to grill her about her relationship with these boys and she doesn’t have good answers and ugggggh maybe they should’ve stayed holograms).

Anyway, things are still mostly normal after that. The boys are not often seen or visible (except more and more to Flynn and sometimes Carlos) and so Reggie is often back to hanging around her dad and one time Julie does ask him “Do you let him know that you’re here?” and “Oh no,” Reggie says. “I wouldn’t want to bother him.” And Julie guesses that’s true, Reggie is normally chilling with her dad when he is editing photos so, alright. Again, she has lots of other things going on. There isn’t much point in digging into this.

Except then-- then the boys start being seen more and more around the whole house. It starts in the studio and then sort of spreads and it’s a weird new normal for sure, them still walking through walls whenever they want so you can’t forget they’re ghosts, but you sure can see them around a lot. And if Julie is around and can make them solid, they can eat and so it become a not rare occurrence to have the boys come eat dinner 2ish times a week or at least try to (Julie’s “powers” only work about a fourth of the time, to be honest, but they can be seen so they usually hang around.)

And right around when that becomes common place, suddenly Reggie stops hanging out with Ray.

I mean, it’s not something that Julie notices right away but suddenly Reggie is around the studio a lot more and sometimes she assumes he is in the house only to find out he has been hanging by the beach or with Alex and Willie and there’s no real reason for worry but it sort of… lurks in the back of Julie’s mind. A weird sense that something isn’t quite right there, that Reggie used to love hanging around her dad and giving her dad full reports of their days and, okay, maybe it was weird but still… it bothered her. Now that it was gone.

And then, her dad asks her about it.

Not directly, but he comes sort of frowning into her room, asking if the boys are okay, and “yeah, why?” Julie says and..

“Oh, I dunno,” her dad answers, looking over his shoulder and drumming his fingers against his thigh. “It just feels… I don’t know, the house feels empty? Like… sometimes I think there should be someone and-- you know what, nevermind. It’s probably in my head.”

“No, no,” Julie says because she’s lied to her dad enough. “You’re right. I mean, Reggie used to hang out in the house all the time.”

“Reggie,” her dad says. “The bassist. He did?”

“Yeah, he was probably… what you were sensing.” and Julie has an awful moment of wondering if her dad thought that presence around him was her mom and if Reggie being more busy with other things was like losing someone all over again and--

“That’s what that was!” her dad sounds happy. And relieved. “Sorry. Who. Who that was. I thought I was going crazy.”

“No,” Julie shakes her head. “He’s real. And he was around a lot.”

“Hm,” Ray says and turns to leave. Then turns. “You know… he’s still welcome, you know? Unless you guys are practicing more…”

“I’ll tell him,” Julie laughs. And then shoos her dad out because she has got to work on this chemistry homework and sometimes it sucks -- having three ghost bandmates who should be in high school but who never have to do anything and don’t even try to help her and--

*^*^*^

“Hey,” Julie says, plopping down next to Reggie on the couch. It’s a few days later but this is the first time they’ve been alone-- Luke and Alex, realizing they were solid enough to go eat and running for the kitchen, Reggie opting to stay behind.

“Hi, Jules!” Reggie says and he doesn’t seem any different. With her and the band, he talks just as much as always, big bright smile, whining about the need for a country song, laughing at all their mishaps.

“I have a question.”

“What’s up?” He twists to face her, giving her all his attention. He does that, she realizes. Focuses on her. All the boys do, to some extent, but with different energies. Reggie’s is the biggest, she thinks. Honest and open.

“So… I’ve sorta noticed that you haven’t been hanging out with my dad as much anymore?” Julie tries to keep her tone casual. She’s not accusing him. She’s just… curious.

“Oh,” Reggie says and his head tilts as if confused by her confusion. “Well, yeah.”

There’s a beat. Julie thinks Reggie is going to keep talking. Reggie does not. Reggie turns back to where he was tuning his bass. “Uh, why?” she finally asks.

Reggie frowns at her. “Well, he can see and hear us now,” he says, as if this is very obvious.

“So?”

“So like… I don’t want to bother him,” Reggie says. “He does a lot of work during the day. It was one thing when he couldn’t hear or see me but now you know… I’m annoying.”

It’s Julie’s turn to frown, even though Reggie is already looking down again. There’s something about the way he says it, I’m annoying that bothers her. He says it as if it is an obvious fact. As if everybody knows it. As if it’s true.

“You’re not annoying,” she says. “I don’t think you’re annoying.”

He blinks at her. “Well, no, you don’t,” he allows. “And Luke and Alex don’t. Most of the time.”

“And Flynn and Carlos,” she adds.

“Most of the time. But still, see, all kids. Teens,” Reggie says. “But old people… parents are different. You have to--”

He cuts himself off and for a moment, his hand grips the neck of his bass tightly and there is a tension in his shoulders and suddenly Julie thinks she maybe is in a little too deep here. She doesn’t want to upset him.

“You’re dad is really nice but he still… It’s different,” he says and he shoots another smile at her, but it’s tight and fake and he jumps up the moment Alex and Luke burst back into the studio.

“So close,” Alex mutters as they come back in. “I had the sandwich IN MY HANDS.”

“Dumb choice,” Luke says, mouth still clearly full of something. “You gotta just hit the snacks, my friend. Focus on what’s quick and easy.”

The boys all head for their instruments and the moment is passing, Julie knows, and she also knows she now has clues that maybe she should put together but she doesn’t have time and why couldn’t her powers last just a little longer this one time? But-

“You should still go hang out with him again,” she tells Reggie as Luke starts tuning up and Alex gets settled behind his drums. “He misses you.”

There’s no time for Reggie to ask any questions but his frown of confusion as she turns away says it all.

*^*^*^

It grows, this curiosity and she realizes she doesn’t know much about Reggie’s parents. Luke’s, she obviously knows very well and she knows the story very well and she has heard enough about Alex’s to know that they are not worth seeking out but Reggie’s…

She’s never even heard him mention them. Not even in all their conversations about Luke’s. And this is a sensitive topic for all the boys and she doesn’t know how much to push or even whether to push so--

“What were Reggie’s parents like?” she blurts one day. Luke startles and looks up at her and that’s fair as they had been in the middle of writing a song and there was no reason for her to ask.

“What?” Luke says and she gets to watch as he tries to switch his brain over from music-mode to conversation-mode.

“Reggie’s parents,” she repeats. “What were they like?”

And she knows she’s hit on something when Luke’s head goes down and his shoulders come up and “I dunno,” he says. “It’s… we didn’t hang out there that much.”

“But you must know something?” Julie presses. “Like… did they ever come to see you guys play?”

“No,” Luke says and he’s leaning further away, eyes cutting to the door. “Look, I--”

“Were they against him playing music?”

“Uh- I don’t… Why are you asking?”

The question forces Julie to pause. And she chews her bottom lips as she tries to figure out the answer. Why is she asking? What does she think? What does she actually need to know?

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I just… he’s never even mentioned them.”

“Well, then… we probably shouldn’t talk about it,” Luke says and that’s fair, she knows it is, but she can’t help if she doesn’t have some information. And going to Luke was at least better than just googling.

“So there is something to talk about,” she says softly.

“No, I don’t… look,” Luke says and takes a breath. “Reggie never…. He never said anything about them, really. Not even when we were alive. He just… I don’t know. I told you, we never hung out at his house.”

“So you think they were…?” Julie lets the sentence dangle. Luke glares at her a little. Then takes another breath. Fiddles with something on his pants. Doesn’t speak. “You know I’m just trying to help, right?” Julie asks. “I just--”

“Reggie was really quiet,” Luke interrupts. “When we met him, I mean. He was… he was really shy.”

“Reggie?” Julie asks and she can’t help the disbelieving tone. That doesn’t make any sense.

“Yeah,” Luke says. “He was a great bass player, obviously, and nice enough but… really quiet. He… didn’t even laugh really. He just hung back a lot and… it’s weird to think about. Now that I know him.”

“You think he was that way because of his parents?”

“I mean… I dunno. Maybe?” Luke shrugs. “The few times he met my parents, he was… really weird.”

“Weird?”

“Just… weird.”

Julie opens her mouth to ask more questions, to say that that answer wasn’t specific enough, but Luke finally meets her eyes and suddenly she knows that this conversation is going to end.

“Look, if you want to know more, you can probably ask him,” Luke says. “Or like… don’t. It’s not like it matters anymore now, right?”

And there’s a trace of bitterness in that and a trace of please stop and more than a trace of I am uncomfortable with this conversation and so Julie lets it go.

“Yeah,” she says, worried she pushed too hard. “Yeah, you’re right.”

*^*^*^

The clues are all there and Julie isn’t sure what they point to, so she tries to listen to Luke’s advice and remember that it doesn’t really matter. Reggie doesn’t have to see his parents again and it doesn’t matter and he continues to seem absolutely fine with the band. Fine and happy and--

“Helloooo?” she hears him call from the front door, just as she’s hitting the top of the stairs. She turns, a bit confused because the boys never bother announcing themselves but she opens her mouth to tell him she has to finish homework before rehearsal today and then closes it when she says that he is not looking at her at all, but towards the kitchen.

She walks down a few steps. Bends over so she can peer down and see what he’s looking at.

Her dad is sitting at the counter.

“Hello!” Reggie is louder this time, and then waves his arms a little bit for good measure and her dad doesn’t see him, she realizes, doesn’t even flinch at all the noise and the arm flailing and she is about to tell Ray that Reggie is there when suddenly, Reggie’s face bursts into a grin and, seemingly satisfied that he is undetectable, the teenager plops himself down in the stool next to Ray.

Julie watches as her dad continues muttering to himself for a minute and then he pauses, and shifts, and glances, and she doesn’t know if he caught a glimpse of Reggie or if he can just sense it but his mouth quirks into a slight smile and he talks more now, at maybe a higher volume, but still to himself and Reggie doesn’t seem to notice the change, so she leaves them to it.

Reggie is still there when she finally finishes her homework two hours later.

*^*^*^

It doesn’t really get that much better. Reggie still avoids the house when he is visible and, when she catches him with her dad, she somehow knows that he had made sure he was undetectable before risking it and he doesn’t talk as much now, not when he’s learning from conversations with Flynn and Carlos that sometimes it’s part way through a conversation that they are suddenly audible, but she hopes it’s a little bit nice, at least, that Reggie is there at least part of the time.

*^*^*^

They play a particularly good show and the boys stay visible for 5 straight days. Reggie avoids the house the whole time.

*^*^*^

It’s a Friday night when Julie finally gets her biggest clue. It’s a rare quiet Friday. They don’t have a gig all weekend so there’s no rehearsals and Carlos is home and the boys aren’t visible or audible to anyone but Julie so most of her time is spent laughing at what they say and then having to explain to her dad and brother and she thinks they are going to try to play a game, maybe like Clue? Something all the boys can play, though Luke is pushing for twister even though the boys can literally go through people so that doesn’t seem fair at all and--

Something (a ball) whizzes past her head as she and her dad are bent over trying to remember the Clue rules and then she jumps as there’s the unmistakable sound of breaking glass.

There’s a moment of stillness and then it makes sense. There’s a vase broken on the ground and a baseball rolling under the kitchen table and she turns to see Carlos, looking shocked, mouth already open to apologize.

“Carlos!” her dad says, standing and moving, doubtlessly to go get the broom. But there is glass everywhere and his voice comes out angry because this is not the first kitchen object Carlos has broken by a longshot. “How many times have I told you not to play--”

Things move very fast then.

Her dad is moving towards Carlos because that’s where the broom is and Carlos is standing still and looking down because he already knows he’s going to get in trouble and then just as suddenly, Carlos is sort of stumbling back because he’s been pulled back and Reggie is standing where Carlos just was.

Squarely between her dad and her brother.

“It was me,” Reggie says. And he sounds sort of breathless but also certain and he’s not moving from where he stands.

Carlos is still sort of gaping that he was just pulled back by a ghost and Julie can see the other two boys processing that fact, the fact that Reggie just managed to touch another person and Ray jerks to a stop because a full teenage boy has just popped into existence in front of him. So no one says anything.

“I threw the ball,” Reggie repeats. More firmly this time. A lie, Julie knows, because Reggie had been on the couch with Alex. Nowhere near where the ball had come from. “It was my fault.”

His voice is still firm and his eyes stay on Ray’s for a second before looking down and his hands tighten into firsts before going slack and he swallows and--

He’s scared, Julie realizes. Scared, but still.

“It was my fault. So--”

“Reggie!” Her dad exclaims and he’s beaming, she can already see it, and then without a thought to whether Reggie is still solid or not, her dad is throwing her arms around Reggie as if he is a long lost friend

(Which in a way, maybe he is)

Reggie stays solid and his arms are pinned to his side and Julie sees him stiffen, sees his face frown in confusion.

“You’re here!” Ray says, still grinning. He leans back and slaps Reggie on the arm. “And solid, I see. Thank goodness. Come, come help me on this puzzle. You’ve been slacking and I swear this dark spot near the left corner is driving me crazy and-- Oh, Carlos, go get the broom and clean this up. No throwing balls in the house! Honestly, you’d think after the last time-- Reggie, wait, whatever happened with that telenovella you guys were watching, you haven’t updated me in forever.”

And then her dad is dragging Reggie away, who still looks shell-shocked, still looks like he was expecting something different, and Julie hangs back, partly to help Carlos clean up, partly to enjoy hearing Reggie slowly start to stammer out answers to her dad’s many, many questions.

*^*^*^

“Oh shoot,” her dad says an hour later, when family puzzle night is brought to an end because the three boys have abruptly vanished from existence. He looks at where Reggie had been sitting (roughly). “Well, we’ll finish next time.”

*^*^*^

What happens next, Julie calls in her head, the Period of Cautious Testing.

She sees it play out.

Reggie comes into the house, waves hi to her, but doesn’t say anything and then he goes and sort of… lurks near her dad, watching carefully and if her dad seems to be in a good mood (which he is often, to be honest), Reggie will either say hello or obviously pull out a stool to make it clear he is there and--

“Are you free?” Reggie asks. Or “Do you mind?” or “Hey, can I--?”

He says it when Ray can hear him and writes it if there is pen and paper nearby and even when there’s not, he stays tense and ready to fly if he’s not wanted, but--

“Of course!” her dad says. “Sit down.” “Come look.” “Oh, Reggie, check this out--”

And Reggie stares and listens and there’s this smile he has, not his usual huge grin, but a smaller softer sort of wonderful-filled smile and he pays attention to her dad as if he might be quizzed on the information later, still starts out not talking as much but--

“Okay, well tell me about,” her dad says. “Oh, do you think--?” And “Wait, I want to hear what it was like to--”

*^*^*^

“Your dad is really nice,” Reggie tells her one day. He says it right as they are starting rehearsal and doesn’t really look at her when he says it, looks more somewhere over her left shoulder and he is basically running away towards his mic stand but still…

It makes her smile.

*^*^*^

“Come play with me,” Carlos asks her, throwing his ball in the air.

“Where’s dad?” Julie responds. This is usually her dad’s territory. Whatever talents she had in singing and music and sort of dancing do not translate into sports.

“With Reggie,” Carlos says, throwing the ball up, tilting his head up to watch as it comes down and catches it. “They are talking about… I don’t know. Something. He said he’d be out but you know how they get.”

Julie does. And it doesn’t bother her but..

“Are you mad?” She asks, just to be certain. Carlos had been the only son. Still is. But also… “That they are hanging out so much?” Her brother is still young. Her brother maybe doesn’t--

“No,” Carlos says. “Not like I want to learn about cameras at all.”

Julie laughs.That’s true. And her dad sure can ramble.

“Also,” Carlos starts…. And then he is glancing at her and he is young and stupid and her ilttle brother, but when he looks up at her, he looks older and serious.

“Also, I think It’s nice. Reggie hanging out with Dad. I think he…”

He fiddles with his ball, but doesn’t throw it. “I think he probably needs that, you know?”

Julie did know, she just didn’t know that Carlos knew. And understood. And was willing to share Dad like that because he knew. She feels her face start heating up with pride.

“How did you--” she starts. Then stops. She knows how she figured it out and she had mostly relied on being able to see when Reggie was around and how he tried to stay away for so long and her conversation with Luke.

“Oh. Uh. Well, he started a stash of food in my room,” Carlos says. Julie blinks at him. “I went up there one day and he was shoving granola bars in a box in the back of my closet. That was already filled with other stuff.

“He was acting really weird. I mean, nervous and I dunno. I asked him why and he said it was always a good backup in case you couldn’t go downstairs and then I asked why I wouldn’t be able to go downstairs and I think he was embarrassed but still insisted it was safer and--”

Carlos shrugs. Flushes because he realizes he had been talking a hair too fast.

“I don’t know. It made him feel better so I kept it. And it honestly is sometimes easier than going all the way downstairs.”

“Carlos!”

“He has one in your room too!’ Carlos says, laughing. “Basket tucked under your bed, I think. I’m telling you, once you get used to access to rice krispy treats in the middle of the night…”

“Oh my god,” Julie says and they are laughing about this, because what else is there to do but…

“So it’s really okay,” Carlos says. “Plus I figure now you and me can play catch?” He turns on those big brown eyes for that last part and he is so good that Julie can barely stand it.

“Oh alright,” she makes sure to roll her eyes so he knows that she is not falling for him for a second. “Let me put my bag down.”

*^*^*^

The boys are not supposed to be on her computer (there has actually been talk of getting them their own computer to uphold this rule, but none of them really seem to have much interest in technology (besides TV) given that they can always just poof to whoever they need to talk to and force Julie to do the research for them) so it’s a surprise when Julie walks into her room and finds Reggie, glaring at the screen.

“Reggie!” she says, fully intending to yell at him. She has private things on there!

And then he looks up at her. He looks dark and serious and--

“Will you help me?” he asks. “I don’t know how-- this thing is so complicated.” And Reggie isn’t the one who will get frustrated-- that’s Alex when his anxiety gets to be too much or Luke when a song isn’t going well or even herself when having three rambunctious boys who can pop in on her literally any time gets to be a little much-- but he’s frustrated now.

“Okay,” she says, her earlier rant about privacy flying out of her head. “Okay, yes, let me help. What do you need to do?”

With the boys, it could be anything. Alex wants to watch videos of skateboarding so he can pretend he knows something about what Willie talks about, or there was the week he discovered Sense8 and then Luke really just wants to google guitars or also there was that week Julie tried to get him on music producing software and then he just wanted to read articles about how digital music was destroying the industry (like some old grandpa).

“I’m--” Reggie stops and stands. Takes a breath and blows it out. Julie waits. He looks somewhere toward the ceiling. “I’m trying to find my parents.”

Julie stills.

That is not what she was expecting.

“Oh,” she says and it’s a struggle but she keeps her voice carefully neutral. She also takes the moment to look down and see that Reggie has type “goo-gull” into the windows search bar.

He doesn’t add anything and so she sets herself to opening the real google and seeing what she can do. Contrary to popular belief, it can be a little hard to find people if they aren’t famous and have fairly common names.

“What are their names?” she asks and instead of answering, Reggie just passes her a piece of paper. It has their names on it. And what she assumes to be his old address. She senses the mood and doesn’t say anything else. At least he comes and sits next to her to see the search results pop up.

There are a lot of them.

“Don’t worry,” she says when she sees his eyes widen. “Even if I can’t do it today, I can put Flynn or-or my dad on it and I’m sure one of them can--”

“No,” Reggie says. “I don’t want-- not them.”

Julie nods and keeps scrolling. She doesn’t know what Reggie’s parents did for a living so she doesn’t know if some of these websites apply but she scrolls slowly and hopes he’ll tell her if he sees something.

After two pages, “Let’s switch to images,” she suggests. “Maybe you’ll see them.”

Reggie hesitates but then nods.

After some more silent scrolling, the silence gets to be too much -- “Why do you--?”

“There.”

Julie stops scrolling and, yes, there-- there’s something slightly familiar about that woman’s nose and the darkness of that man’s hair. She clicks to enlarge it, but it’s still a blurry picture, pulled onto google search from Facebook, if she had to guess and--

And she knows that you can’t really judge someone off of a photograph, especially not one that’s older and blurry but she…

They don’t look nice, she decides. Even though both of them are smiling. The smiles look tense and forced and they are standing a hair too far away from each other to be called close.

“That’s them,” Reggie tells her needlessly.

“Oh,” Julie says again. He doesn’t sound excited. He sounds… she doesn’t know what he sounds.

She waits, risks glancing at him to find he is still just staring. And the silence drags and then right- right as she knows she’s got to say something, anything--

“I thought it was normal,” Reggie finally says softly. “They. I thought they were normal. I mean… I thought everyone’s parents were that way.”

He’s still not looking at her. Still just staring at the screen.

“I mean… Luke fought all the time with his parents and Alex’s were just… always too religious and a bit off even before they knew and so I just assumed that everyone… you know.”

Julie did not know. Not really. Not at all.

“I knew they hated me,” he says and he finally glances over at her. He’s not crying, but his voice is tight and the nod he gives her is jerky. He looks away quickly. “For forcing them to get married. And for forcing them to stay together too, I guess, though… it wasn’t just…”

His leg is bouncing now. Jumping up and down even as his fist clenches and presses on top of it.

“It’s not even just that though,” and his voice rises now, almost desperate. “They hated me. They said I was loud and annoying and stupid and I… I thought that was normal. I thought they were right.”

He shoots up now, solid enough that her little table gets pushed back when his shin hits against it, but he doesn’t seem to notice and he swipes at his eyes, but he’s not crying. Just red and Julie’s almost crying, she realizes, but she’s also tense and her stomach hurts and she doesn’t know what to do.

“They were my parents and they hated me and I thought-- I thought that was normal. That everyone would always hate--” He cuts off and Julie opens her mouth again but she doesn’t know what to say. The boys… the boys are young and happy and they are all an open book, even when they try not to be, but now… Now Reggie clenches his jaw and stops himself. The boys never stop themselves.

“It wasn’t right though,” Reggie says and he’s angry now. More angry than Julie’s seen anyone. “It wasn’t fair. What they did. Making me feel… yelling at me all the time and-and sending me to bed without dinner so often that I- I fucking thought everyone snuck snacks into their room and shoving me around and even when they were happy, I just knew it could turn so quickly, that even one mistake could just ruin everything and I- I-”

He cuts off, breathing hard.

“Reggie--” Julie starts. She stands but he takes a step away from her so she stills.

“It wasn’t fair,” he says and he’s quieter now but it doesn’t feel calmer. He meets her eyes and his are wet. “I just don’t get how they could-- why they--”

“It wasn’t fair,” Julie agrees and this time when she comes closer, he doesn’t move. So she gets to put a hand on his shoulder and breaths a small sigh of relief that he is solid right now.

“I had to die, Jules,” he says, looking at her again finally. And this is… being dead is something the boys rarely acknowledge in a real way. It’s usually a joke or an offhand comment or their comeback for why they shouldn’t have to help her with calculus. It’s not this. Soft and serious and then followed by a dark chuckle. “I literally had to fucking die to figure out that they were bad parents. And I bet-- I bet they were glad.”

Julie opens her mouth to say that of course they weren’t, that any parent would be heartbroken, that he can’t know that but--

But she doesn’t know them. She doesn’t know if that is true.

“Well,” she starts but Reggie backs away and cuts her off.

“I have to go,” he announces. And then he glances at her and realizes she’s crying and maybe realizes what just happened because he runs his hand through his hair and guilt enters his eyes but “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry about-- You weren’t supposed to-- I gotta go.”

“Wait!” Julie tries, but he’s already gone.

*^*^*^

Her first instinct is to run and get Luke and Alex, to tell them to poof to all the most likely spots for Reggie to be, to tell them everything that had happened and then maybe run and tell her dad too for good measure and to probably cry a little more but she--

She doesn’t.

She doesn’t know what stops her or why instead of yelling and rushing down the stairs, she takes a breath and falls back onto her couch, but… that’s what she does.

She falls back and stares at the picture she’d found a little longer and--

I hate you, she thinks. You didn’t deserve him.

And then she closes the tab without saving it.

And she doesn’t tell anybody.

*^*^*^

Reggie is a little late to rehearsal that day, but not enough to attract much notice.

He comes in cautious though. Julie sees it, since she knows to look for it.

He poofs up outside the garage and then slowly walks in and he’s waiting, she sees, for someone to say something or act weird or for them to all stop talking at once in an obvious display of “we were just talking about your breakdown earlier.” He’s tense and cautious and--

“Dude, awesome,” Luke says in greeting, waving a hand at him. “You’re here. We can get started. I think I have a killer idea for a harmony echo thing in the chorus of--”

Reggie looks suspicious for a beat longer, eyes flicking between Julie and Luke and then Alex, but Alex is too busy trying out a new spin move with his drumsticks to really be paying much attention and Luke is still droning on about his latest idea and Julie just gives him a smile. And a nod. And hopes that her eyes convey she didn’t actually say anything.

She knows it was the right call when the tension leaves Reggie’s shoulders.

Reggie gives her a smile and a nod and then they all do what they do best.

They play.

*^*^*^

That night, Julie spots her dad alone (actually alone) on the couch, fiddling with something on his laptop, and when they were playing music together, she didn’t think about it but now it all comes rushing back.

The hurt and the anger in his voice and the fact that she didn’t know what to say or do and it was the right call, not to tell anyone Reggie’s private business, she thinks, but she suddenly feels very sad again and the only thing for it is to plop down next to her dad and curl into his side.

He hums in greeting and keeps his eyes on his screen and she just enjoys it. His warmth and smell and marvels in the fact that he is always there. That she can always do this. That she has a dad who will always let her sit with him and who has to be coached into being angry and just loves her so damn much.

“Honey?” he says and he’s closing the laptop to twist and look at her. There is concern in his eyes. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head and trying to ignore the heat behind her eyes that tells her she might cry. “Nothing’s wrong. I just-- It’s been a long day.”

“Too much practice?” he says.

“No, not that. Just… you know. One of those days.”

“Oh okay,” he says and then he’s lifting his arm so he can wrap it around her and squeeze her more firmly into his side. “Okay.”

They sit for a long moment, just breathing and Reggie should do this, she thinks, just sit and be calm and be held and she hopes one day, he does. That he is solid enough and comfortable enough and maybe he can’t tuck all that way into her dad’s side like she can but he should still… he should still try. One day.

She knows her dad would let him.

“Thank you,” she says. “For being such a good dad.”

Her dad’s soft laugh answers her. “Well, you know that’s my job.”

“Yeah, but… also for everything else too. With the band and the music program and for-for being so good to Re-- the boys. All the boys.”

She doesn’t know if he hears the name she almost said, but he tilts his head as if he knows. He probably does somehow.

“They’re great kids,” is what he says instead.

“Still,” she insists. “I know it’s a lot. But they- he- just thank you.”

He looks at her for a long moment and finally nods.

“Anytime.”

*^*^*^

“Thanks,” Reggie says, the next day, drifting over to where she is resting on the couch while Alex and Luke get into a semi-argument, semi-productive debate on a certain rhythm. “For not saying anything to the guys.”

“No problem,” she says. “But if you want to talk more or--”

“No, no,” he says, waving a hand as if that is going to make her forget the entire thing. “It’s not a big deal. It’s--”

“Reggie.” She says it firmly. She says it and then waits until he actually looks at her. “It is a big deal. Your parents were-- They were wrong and mean and fucking horrible and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s your right and I won’t say anything. But it is a big deal. Your feelings are a big deal. You are a big deal. So talk to me or to my dad or to no one but don’t tell me it’s not a big deal.”

Reggie blinks at her and Julie flushes. But doesn’t back down. Keeps glaring at him.

“Uh. Okay,” Reggie says. “I- I will. Or I won’t. Tell you that.”

“Good,” Julie says, nodding once. And then Alex and Luke turn back to them and it seems they have compromised (Or maybe Alex won and Luke is just saying they compromised) and they’re back to it.

*^*^*^

As far as Julie knows, he doesn’t talk about it. At least, not with her.

But, gradually, he stops hesitating before announcing himself to her dad and he starts buzzing with the same kind of energy that he does in the garage in the house and, then later, she goes downstairs for a late night snack and Carlos is there too, half-heartedly complaining that his stash has run out and he had grown accustomed to a certain style of living and--

“Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray Ray RayRay,” Reggie says, running into the house, tripping over his own feet somehow and skidding into the counter, knocking over the fruit bowl in the process. Her dad idly straightens it with one hand, the other reaching out to collect the apples and oranges that had rolled everywhere but Reggie grabs it and pulls. “You gotta see this, there’s a bird and the light-- bring your camera!”

“A bird?” her dad says, and he sounds a bit doubtful but he is already grabbing his camera.

“Huge bird,” Reggie says, waving his hands as if to indicate. “Biggest bird ever. I think it’s a condor!”

“A condor! A California condor??” her dad’s eyes go huge and then he’s throwing one camera at Reggie and grabbing another out of a drawer and there are apples and oranges everywhere and her dad almost brains himself stepping on one and flying forward but Reggie catches him and suddenly, Julie is in the kitchen by herself, surrounded by fruit, staring at a pancake her dad was supposed to flip.

She rolls her eyes and smiles to herself and grabs the spatula.

She doesn’t think they’re coming back any time soon.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #jatp fanfiction #my fic #reggie #ray molina #julie molina #fanfiction #bullet point fic #but it is 7k #also yes i just pulled the title from finally free #it seemed to fit

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meigh-day · 4 years

Text

Mine (Bokuto x F!Reader)

Title: Mine

Pairing: Time Skip Bokuto x F!Reader

Characters: Bokuto, Atsumu, Hinata, Sakusa, Female Reader

Warnings: Mild swearing, Mild angst to fluff

Status: Complete

Word Count: 5k

———————————————————–

"Hey, Y/N?"

The sound of running water and a voice at your side brought your hazy thoughts back to the present. You hummed a response as your eyes focused, widening at the sight of water overflowing into the basin. "Ah, shit..."

"You ok?" Atsumu tilted his head at you, concern lightly pulling at his features. He watched you hurriedly turn off the tap and replace the cap on the bottle before giving him your attention.

"Mhm, I'm fine." A smile trails onto your lips, as you offer up lies of reassurance. You were fine. Sorta. Good enough to be at practice anyway. Sure, your head was dully throbbing and you felt far too warm on such a cool day. But yea you were fine. The blonde setter made a small sound of disbelief as he pressed his hand to your cheek.

"Fine huh?" He frowned down at you. "Do ya think I'm an idiot? What are ya doing here when yer sick?"

He had a point. Why were you here when you were sick? It wasn't like this was an official practice. Some of the jackals had wanted to get in a little extra practice over the weekend and it's not like you had to even be here. So why had you taken time away from your days off to come? Well that was easy. A certain grey haired spiker was going to be there and the two of you just so happened to have plans to hang out later.

"Who else is going to take care of you guys?" You laugh, gathering up the bottles but before you can lift them they are already up and off the floor. "Hey..."

"Ya know it's a good thing Sakusa isn't here today... he'd have yer sick ass outta here so fast..." Atsumu settles the bottles into his arms and looks down at you as you stand.

"I know..." Your eyes shift to the side, your expression looking fairly pathetic.

He sighed. "Look if ya promise to take it easy then ya can stay for all I care."

You look up at him, a smile brightening your features. "Really?"

"Yeah yeah... I'll take care of water for the guys. Just relax and take notes or something."

"I will. Promise. Oh uhm... Atsumu?"

---------------------------

A pair of golden eyes watched the two of you from around the corner. Watching as Atsumu gently caressed your cheek. Watching as you smile up at him. It was difficult to hear what the two of you were talking about, especially with Miya's back to him, but that way you responded spoke volumes. And if what he saw wasn't enough, the words that did reach his ears, sealed the deal.

"Hm?" Atsumu turned back to you as his name left your lips.

"Don't tell Bokuto."

---------------------------

Bokuto stood, arms crossed and a look of irritation all over his features. The two of you were supposed to be hanging out together later. In fact the two of you had been spending quite a bit of time together outside of the team. At first the two of you just found yourselves together during team outings and before you knew it that had lead to exchanged numbers and a generic 'we should hang out sometime' sentiment. However, that sentiment had actually become a reality and soon the two of you were texting every night, having dinner together or going to a movie. Sometimes you'd just walk together after practice was over for the day. The time spent with you had started to become special to him but it was obviously not as special to you. Not with the way you had been smiling up like a lovesick puppy at that damned Miya idiot.

---------------------------

"Bokuto!"

"Huh?" He turned at the call of his name but it was too late. He watched as the ball sailed by him and dropped to the floor, rolling under the net.

Hinata went running after it as Atsumu turned, hands on his hips. "I dunno what yer daydreamin about but if yer not gonna spike my sets then I'll send 'em to someone else."

Bokuto grit his teeth, turning wide angry eyes at the blonde setter, ready to let him have it but before he could get out a word he was interrupted.

"Ah, damn it. Hold that thought." Atsumu was watching you from across the court, gathering water bottles like the rebel you were. He proceeded to march past the angry grey haired spiker and over to you before he unceremoniously hauled the bottles from your arms.

"Ah, ah... We talked about this." You huffed at him, trying and failing to grab at the bottles while he easily swatted your hands away.

"Now settle down or else." He smirked at you as he glanced over to Bokuto and then back at you.

You followed his gaze, his implication clear. Consider your attention grabbed. With a pout, your hands drooped to your sides in defeat. "Yea yea, I'll just sit here and do nothing I guess..."

"Good." He smirked down at you and proceeded to give you a head pat before briskly exiting the gym.

With a sigh you picked up your notebook and pen, intent on at least taking some notes for the guys. Normally you tried to be more involved in their practices. Making sure they had enough water and towels, taking notes and even tossing balls for them. Just anything they might need. You really cared about each of them and wanted to see them all do well, so it was annoying that you couldn't do much else except take notes and sit down without Miya noticing and mothering you. Though there was a small part of you that was thankful for his watchful eye, just gathering the water bottles had kinda taken it out of you and you were starting to wondering if it had really had been a bad idea coming today.

As you turn back to the court you are met by a pair of crossed arms and a frown. A smile immediately spreads across your lips. "Hey Bo."

You couldn't help the way your lips parted as the corners of your mouth turned upwards, your eyes lighting up, whenever he was near. What had definitely started as a friendship had started to turn into something else, at least for you. You always had so much fun with him, didn't matter what you were doing, you were just happy to be with him.

He does not return your smile, in fact his frown only seems to deepen at the sight of it. "So you're getting Miya to do all your work?"

"What? No. He...uh...just..." You stammer a little trying to think of a plausible excuse without exposing the fact that you were sick to the one person you were trying to keep it from.

Bokuto let out an annoyed huff as he looked away. "I really don't care. Just try to keep the flirting to a minimum."

"Flirt... What? Bo it's not like that."

"No? Then why are you even here today? It's just an extra practice, no reason for you to have come in the first place." Your expression fell at this words. While making plans to hang out you had offered to come along to practice since you were free anyway and, at the time, Bokuto had eagerly agreed. Now it seemed like he was regretting any and all enthusiasm he'd once expressed at the idea.

"I just wanted to help you guys out today." Your voice came out a little quieter than normal. It was true, your intentions weren't totally selfless for being here. You took every chance you could to be around Bokuto, even if it was merely watching from the bench as he practiced. He was such a beautiful person inside and out but there was something special about watching him playing that made him really glow. However, your doubts at coming today began to flood back in as he questioned your presence.

"By what? Sitting around doodling in your notebook? Honestly, y/n if you aren't going to do your actual job then you should just go home. We don't need you here."

We don't need you here...

Don't need you here...

Don't need you...

Go home.

His words felt like a bucket of cold water being dumped over your head. "You don't..." The rest of the words died on your tongue as you saw his irritated expression staring you down. "Oh." You nod, biting the inside of your cheek as your eyes lower, willing the tears that were stinging your eyes not to fall.

You take in a slow breath as you slip the notebook into your bag. This was not how you had seen your day turning out. You'd wanted to spend time with the team and do your best to help them. Then you'd hoped to end the day with Bokuto, someone who had become really special to you, but now you were left holding back tears as you turned back to him. "I, uh, " You feel your voice waiver and think better of whatever you had been about to say. " Sorry..." The apology is quick, almost as quick as the bow you offer up before hurrying out of the gym.

There are two pairs of eyes watching as you leave and both are confused. Bokuto lets out a sigh as he rakes a hand through his hair. He was already regretting this. It's not like you were his girlfriend and yet here he was being a total ass to you just because you were getting friendly with Miya. It shouldn't bother him so much but it did. He likes you. Liked you? Likes... Shit. After a moment he turns and start across the gym, his mind in disarray.

---------------------------

Atsumu wanders back in several minutes later, water and towels in hand. He sets them down on the bench, noting your absence on the bench as well as within the gym itself. Hinata grins at the blonde as he picks up one of the bottles. " Thanks Atsumu!"

"Mhm. Shoyo, where's Y/N?"

Hinata freezes a moment, opens his mouth and then closes it before quickly glancing around. Atsumu isn't sure what the hell this kid is doing, its almost like he didn't realize she was gone and is frantically looking around. Hinata was in fact looking around, but not for Y/N, he was merely making sure it was just the two of them before he spoke. "Oh, uh, she went home."

"Oh yea? Good. She shouldn't have come in the first place." Hinata went to open his mouth, an objection ready on his lips but then Atsumu continued. "She must like him an awful lot to come here sick on her day off..."

"Sh... Wh... Huh? Y/N is sick?!"

Atsumu looked down at the surprised red-head. " Yea. Isn't that why she left?"

Hinata pressed his lips together as his gaze travelled across the gym.

---------------------------

"What the hell is wrong with ya?!" Bokuto glanced up in time to see the approaching blonde heave a bottle at him, a curse falling from his lips as he fumbled to catch it.

"I.. what?"

"Don't pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about! I heard what ya said to Y/N you ass!" Atsumu yelled as he followed up the bottle with a towel.

The towel sailed across the small space between them and hit Bo square in the face, the larger man just having managed to get his hands on the bottle. "Knock it off Miya!" Bo grumbled as he pulled the towel off his head before tossing it onto the ground.

"Where do ya get off talkin to Y/N like that? Sendin' her off like she's some huge inconvenience."

Bokuto lets out a huff, muttering something under his breath as he turns his face away from the setter. Atsumu narrows his eyes at the man before him. "What the hell do ya have to be grumbling about you big idiot! Yer not tha one who got yelled at. She only came in today to try and help and ya sent her home like she'd done some terrible thing!" Atsumu crossed his arms, annoyance clear all over his face as he started to turn away." I don't get why she likes ya so much... Comin’ here on her day off... and sick too."

Bokuto was already feeling badly about what he had done even before the setter had come over to scold him. He hadn't meant anything he'd said. It didn't matter to him why you had come in, he was just happy to see you. He had been looking forward to seeing you after practice to hang out and maybe finally tell you how he really felt. But he'd let jealousy rear its ugly head and his harsh words had sent you away.

He watched as Atsumu started to walk away, the setter’s final words hanging heavy on his shoulders. You were sick. Sick?! Bokuto's eyes widen, his feet moving as he grabbed for the other man. "Sick? Y/N is... sick?" Atsumu turned, his annoyance softening a little at the stricken look on Bokuto's face. "Yea. I tried to get her to go home earlier but she was keen on stayin'... Wanted to see you..." He paused as he pressed his lips together and shook his head as he looked Bokuto up and down. "...for some reason." Bokuto let his hand fall away, the setter merely sighing as he gave him a pat on the shoulder before striding across the gym.

A moment later the doors to the gym open to reveal a rather damp Sakusa. He stalks into the gym, swipes a towel off the bench and starts drying himself off. "What happened to you?" Miya smirks at the man who simply returns a glare. "It's fucking pouring outside you dumbass." Atsumu tries and fails to catch the wet towel before it hits him in the face.

"Raining?!" Bo appears before them, worry etched into his features. Sakusa merely offers a grunt of affirmation before disappearing into the change room. The two men left behind exchange glances before turning their gaze to the doors.

-------------------------------------------

You had managed to make it out of the gym and almost a whole street away before tears started to slowly trail down your cheeks. Today was supposed to be special. You were going to go to practice, hang out with Bo afterwards and maybe, just maybe, finally confess your feelings. But now you were walking home, kicked out by the very person you had gone to see, and now you were crying. It felt like everything good about the day had turned sour and now all that was left was a bitter feeling that seemed to grow heavier with each step. In fact it seemed so heavy that you almost felt like you were having trouble walking. It's not like you were sick and probably had a fever and because of that your steps were much more sluggish. Nope, definitely not.

You wiped at your tears with your sleeve, letting out a heavy sigh as you trudged along the side walk. A moment later you felt one and then another slide down your cheek and you wiped those away too. It did strike you as a little strange, you were pretty sure you had stopped crying. As that thought struck you another drop fell on your cheek, and then another, it was only when you looked up that you realized it had started to rain.

Within a few minutes the small droplets that had started to fall turned into a downpour. You were running, your bag held over your head, as you tried to search for some shelter to wait out the rain. You're apartment was too far to keep going in this weather and your body was starting to feel fuzzy. Well your head was at least. Despite the cool air and even cooler rain that feel you felt too warm.

Finally, a small bit of luck came your way in the form of a park. There were several large trees that would do rather nicely to at least partially shelter you from the rain. You hurried under the nearest one, leaning against it as you let your bag drop to the ground and try to catch your breath. With each sharp inhale more dots began to dance in your vison. Your shaky legs deposited you at the base of the tree and as your vison goes black, your body going limp, you swear you hear someone calling your name.

-----------------------------------------

Heavy footsteps pound on the sidewalk as Bokuto frantically searches for you. He knew the route you took home each day, he's walked it with you enough that he could practically walk it blindfolded. He had tried calling and texting you before racing out of the gym. Even now, in the rain, he had his phone to his ear in another attempt to get a hold of you. With each failed attempt the guilt dug further into his stomach. The things he had said kept repeating in his mind. How could he say such mean words, such lies?! Truth was the team did need you there. He needed you there. It didn't matter if you just sat on the sidelines doing absolutely nothing, just you being there was all he needed.

With a sigh he taps the call button one more time. " Please… please answer." He begs to the air as the ringing starts again. A small distance away, a melody can be heard playing in time with each ring in his ear. At first Bokuto thinks nothing of it but as it gets louder with each step he finds his already fast pace increasing. A moment later he sees you, huddled under a tree to hide from the rain, but the tiny moment of relief he felt is gone in an instant as he sees you collapse. The only thing he utters is your name as he runs across the grass, dropping to your side and pulling your trembling body into his arms.

"Oh my god. Y/N?!" He takes in your appearance, drenched from the sudden downpour and cheeks flushed against your otherwise pale skin. Bokuto can feel tears in his eyes as he looks down at you in his arms. It was his fault you were out here in the first place instead of warm and dry inside the gym. Hell if he'd bothered to actually pay attention to you today instead of wallowing in jealousy maybe he would have seen you were sick and you'd be home, safe and comfortable. Because of him you were much worse off. Bo shook his head and grit his teeth. This was not the time to be floundering in self-pity. He needed to get you somewhere safe and now. So with that goal in mind, he scooped you up into his arms and took off.

-----------------------------------

Every time you opened you eyes you saw him. It was like your mind was playing some awful joke on you yet you couldn't help but feel comfort at the sight. Your eyes wouldn't open long but when they did you were greeted by Bokuto's face, concern carved into each feature. Sometimes it almost felt like he was really there, his large hands gently pressing against your cheek or forehead, his normally boisterous voice gentle and soft as he reassured you that you were going to be ok.

Finally, your eyes did open and they stayed open. The room was dark except for a soft light coming from the table lamp beside you. As your eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, confusion and panic started to eat away at the sluggishness you had been feeling. This was not your room, not your blanket and, when you look down at yourself, not your clothes.

"What the fu--" You pause, your eyes settling on the figure at your side. Bokuto's large frame was hunched over the side of the bed, his head resting on the crook of one arm the other outstretched, hand resting over your leg. One more quick inspection confirmed this was Bokuto's room, his blanket and.... oh my god... his clothes. After a moment he started to stir, his yellow eyes slowly opening as he yawned.

"Morning..." You say quietly. He hums in response but then freezes, his eyes traveling up to yours and then he's on his feet. "Y/N?! You're awake!" He cries out, hand pressing against your cheek and then forehead before he grabs you by the shoulders. "I was so worried!" Before you can do or say a thing you find yourself crushed against his chest as he pulls you into a tight hug.

"I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have said those things to you. We do need you, we always need you. We'd be nothing without you!" Bokuto relaxes his hold on you and you can feel him take a deep breath before speaking again, his voice coming out softer this time. "But as much as the team needs you... I-I need you." He whispered, pulling you tightly against his chest, one large hand firmly against your back while the other cradled your head. You relaxed into him, cheek pressed against the top of his shoulder as he whispered apologies into your hair while you softly trailed your hand up and down his back.

You felt your cheeks grow red from his confession and were thankful your face was hidden against him at the moment. "I hope you can forgive me Y/N. I was.. Well... I got jealous when I saw you talking to ‘Sumu and took it out on you. You don't deserve to be treated like that and I get it if you don't want to be friends or anything anymore but I promise I'll be better from now on."

He paused, almost holding his breath as he waited in the silence that followed. When you said nothing he felt his poor little heart breaking but he understood. He had been so mean to you and for no reason. After a moment he started to pull away, certain this must be a very awkward position to be in, when he felt your arms slide around his middle, your hand pressing into his back as you return the hug.

"Oh.. Uh.. You don't ---" Bokuto stammered before your slightly muffled voice broke through. "It's ok Bo. But you're right... I don't want to be friends anymore." You could feel his body stiffen in your arms at your admission and you could only imagine the heartbroken expression he must have on his face. You kept your arms around him and continued on. "I don't think I can keep being just your friend... I want to be more to you than that."

Bo released his hold around you, pulling away as he looked down at you, his own cheeks flushed at your confession. " You mean it?!" He looked so uncertain yet hopeful, like one word from you would break him down or build him up. You finally lean back and look up at him, a soft smile on your lips. "Bo, I've liked you for as long as I've known you. One bad day isn't going to change that." That was it, you could have simply nodded at him and he would have been elated but in just a few words you simultaneously filled his heart with joy and relief. Tears started to well in his eyes as he sniffled and you could feel your own tears wanting to fall.

"Hey now, no tears." You smiled up at him through your own glassy eyes, gently swiping a thumb across the apple of his cheek. He closed his eyes, leaning into your soft touch before his own smile stretch across his lips. "Like you're one to talk." He peeked down at you before mimicking your action, his thumb coming away wet.

The two of you sat in each others arms a little longer, relishing in the new warmth and comfort your confessions had brought. As your thoughts began to settle, a new question began to bubble to the surface and curiosity begged to have it answered. "Uh, Bo?" You lean up and away a bit so you can see his face. He sits up as well, his arms releasing their hold on you only to have his hands searching for your own. "Hmm?" He looks at you expectantly but you find yourself a little distracted as you gaze down at your intertwined hands.

"Y/N?"

"Oh, uh right." You look down at yourself a moment, taking in the shirt and shorts that were obviously too big for you, before looking back up at him. "These are yours, right?" He nods in affirmation, a small blush on his cheeks as he notes how cute you look in his clothes.

"Uhm, " You pause, the question poised on your lips has your cheeks turning a dark shade of pink. " How...uh... That is to say.. Uhm... How did I... get in them?"

Bo smirked, watching you stutter through your question, almost too distracted by how adorable you are to really listen but after a moment his expression shifts to confusion. "Huh?"

You fidget around a little, not really wanting to repeat it. "How did I get in them? I... I don't remember changing myself so... did... You. Or?" You let the sentence trail off, too embarrassed by the implication of what you had said.

"What? No!" Bo laughed and then froze when he realized what you must have been thinking. "Oh my god!! No No no!! I didn't! I swear!" He was frantically waving his hands in front of him, his face red and eyes wide. "I would never... I mean not that I don't want to see.. Shit I mean not like this... Oh my god shut me up." He covered his face with both his hands in an attempt to hide just how embarrassed he was from the sudden word vomit.

You on the other hand were highly amused and trying not to laugh. "Bo. Bo?" You pull at his arm to try and reveal his very red face but he doesn't budge. "Hey, It's fine just tell me what happened. Honestly, the last thing I remember is being in the park. After that it's all a bit fuzzy." He peeks at you through his fingers and finally relents after you aim a sweet smile his way. He goes on to tell you how he found you and carried you to his place since it was much closer. How he wrapped you in about three blankets while he called one of his sister's over to help. She had been the one to change your clothes and dry you off while Bokuto paced like a nervous wreck in front of the bathroom door the entire time.

You made a mental note to thank her in the future but for now, with your curiosity sated, you felt the pull of sleep at your body. Bokuto noticed it too, watching as your eyes started to droop. "You should get some more rest. You're not fully recovered yet and I want to take my girlfriend on a date as soon as possible." His words had you nodding slowly, you knew you weren't fully recovered yet and sleep did sound nice, a date sounded even better. Wait. You pause and glance up at him, the drowsiness momentarily paused. "Girlfriend? On a date?" He grinned down at you, the soft sleepy smile on your lips warming his heart. "Mhm, now get some rest."

You can't help the silly lopsided grin on your face as you start to lay back down, sleep already tugging at your mind. "Bo?" He pauses, body halfway standing as he moved to get off the bed. "Stay with me?" You request has his heart squeezing. "I'm not going anywhere." He says as he starts to move back into the chair. "No.." You mumble, peeking an eye open at him and pointing beside you. "Here." Bokuto just about trips over himself when you make your request all the more clear. Both of your eyes open when you hear him stumble, the chair stuttering across the floor as he braces himself on it. He looks down at you to see you peering up at him, a small little pout on your lips. "Please?"

He drags a hand across his face and through his hair, his nerves feeling a little frazzled. "I- are you sure?" He finally asks, already noting how easily he's caving into to you. A smile breaks out across your sleepy face as you reach out to him with grabby hands. Well, how could he resist? Bokuto crawls into the bed beside you, a little unsure how much space to give you. You on the other hand are quick to wiggle over until you are nestled up against him, sleep and sickness throwing any shame you may have normally felt out the window. Taking a cue from you, he slips an arm under you and pulls you closer, your head now resting on his chest. He lays there listening to your breath start to even out, his free hand carefully pushing your hair away from your face, fingers gently twirling the ends.

This was not how either of you saw your day ending, or how you had planned to confess but somehow it seemed to work out just right. Maybe in the morning, when both your brains had recovered with some sleep and inhibitions were back, there might be lingering embarrassment from waking up in the same bed, from words you’d said or sleepy demands made. Though, none of that would matter. Not when, in the end, he gets to call you his and you get to call him mine.

#bokuto x reader #bokuto #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #atsumu #hinata #sakusa #x reader #msby #Bokuto kotaro

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kessielrg · 3 years

Text

[Kingdom Hearts] Overboard

Summary: In which Riku has to play with his annoying younger cousin, and they both nearly drown. Sorta. [modern AU]

Rating: K

Word Count: 2,249 words

If you liked this story, please reblog!

---

Riku honestly did not like spending time with Sabrina. The only girl he could possibly tolerate was Kairi, a girl from his class. Sabrina was Riku’s cousin; which meant that she had to join him. Her being a year younger didn’t really help much either. Unlike him, who was a well sophisticated 6 and a half year old, Sabrina was still 5, and that meant she was still boring.

But he had to play with her today. He promised.

“Are we ready to set sail yet?” Sabrina whined. She was already sitting on their raft.

“Almost,” Riku sighed, gathering their oars. He had to be careful not to drop them as he walked over to her. “Here,” he said once he was close enough, “Take one.”

Sabrina gave the oar a rather disinterested stare. She only took it after quirking an eyebrow at him. Riku had to do his best not to let out a sigh of relief. The last time he told her that they were going to sail the ocean, she had a fit. Uncle Oswald really spoiled her. If it wasn’t for how cool Blaine was, Riku would never want to see his cousins, aunt, and uncle.

With Sabrina with her oar, Riku carefully placed his on the raft before pushing it into the ocean. He quickly got on, and was even more quick in making sure they didn’t immediately capsize. After he was adjusted, the duo started to row further out.

“Where we goin’ this time, Riku?” Sabrina casually asked. She wasn’t very good at rowing at the same pace he had, but it managed for now.

“Dunno about you…” the boy hummed. “But I am going to explore every world in the world.”

“Oh…” Sabrina mused. “Well if that’s the case, I’m going to find my true love.”

Sabrina let out a wistful sigh as she flopped back on the raft. The raft rocked violently for a moment at the shift. Riku just stared at her in annoyance. It didn’t help that she spread out more too. Her feet nudged at Riku just slightly, which only served to annoy him more. Sabrina didn’t seem to notice as she went on to wistfully ramble, “He’s gonna be funny, and cute, and looks at me like how Papa looks at Mama.”

Riku looked off to the side just to gag. Sabrina wasn’t blind to this. She sat back up (again, rocking the raft slightly) to fold her arms and pout at him.

“It’s a better thing than whatever you said.” she told him. To emphasize her point, she even razzed her tongue at him. “You’ll be all alone, and I’ll have a boyfriend.”

“Don’t think Blaine wants you to do that.” Riku told her with a click of his tongue. He tried to start rowing again, but they only moved in a lazy circle because Sabrina was refusing to help at the moment. The temptation to ‘accidentally’ bonk her with the oar was a strong one. Unfortunately, he held back; they were going into deeper waters now, and Sabrina was not the strongest swimmer.

“Blaine can kiss my big toe,” the girl declared, even placing her hands on her hips and leaning forward a bit for emphasis. Riku honestly expected her to fall over. She -unfortunately- didn’t and eased her way back into a proper position so she could help row some more. Riku still wished that he had anyone but her with him. Sora at school also liked sailing out into the ocean. In fact, Riku was very sure that Sora wanted to be a pirate, so the idea of rowing into the ocean really put the other boy in a good mood. But Sabrina? Still bad at rowing in time with Riku. Really bad.

To his surprise, it was Sabrina who noted someone coming up to them. The two stopped rowing as the newcomer came closer. Riku’s heart pounded when he realized it was Blaine. Was he in trouble for taking Sabrina into the deeper water? Was Blaine going to watch them? What did his cousin want?!

“Hey you kids,” Blaine called out, “Aunt Minnie says dinner’s gonna be ready soon. Pack it up.”

Oh.

Blaine had been sent by the adults to collect the younger duo. It was also their ploy to talk about him while he wasn’t there- not that he didn’t know their talks by heart. Always ‘it’s so nice that Riku and Sabrina are close in age so they can play’ and ‘Blaine must always feel left out because he’s so much older than them.’ Quite naturally, not having to deal with his feisty little sister was a treat. The 10 year old casually took a nibble out of his pretzel stick as Riku and Sabrina turned to him. Their raft was nothing more than an inflatable pool lounger, and their ocean was the in ground pool at Mickey and Minnie’s house. Blaine’s favorite part was that it looked like the kids were using pool noodles to row the poor lounger along; must have been Riku’s idea. Smart kid, that Riku.

“Go away Blaine!” his baby sister was the first to shout. “We’re finding adventure and you’re not invited!”

“Blaine is invited.” Riku immediately refuted, almost horrified at the idea Blaine couldn’t join them.

“No he’s not.”

“Yes he is.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Yeah-uh.”

“As entertaining as this all is,” Blaine loudly told them, netting their attention again, “My mission is to tell you two to dock it and get inside. Hurry up, before Ortensia comes out.”

“Yes sir.” the two kids grumbled with their own level of respect. It was enough to amuse Blaine into leaving for now. Riku was more than willing to head back, however Sabrina was a wee bit bitter.

“Brothers.” the girl whispered darkly under her breath. She turned to Riku just to say, “Don’t have any.”

“I don’t think that’s my choice.” he said right back. “Come on, Mom’s been working on dinner all day.”

“Aunt Minnie can wait.”

Riku looked at Sabrina like she had gained another head.

“But Blaine said-”

“I don’t care what Blaine said. I want to find my true love.”

“Sabrina, we’re going inside now.”

“No! I don’t wanna!”

“This is why I don't like playing with you,” Riku hissed. “You always make it about you!”

“Do not!” “Do too!”

“Do NOT!” Sabrina shouted just before hitting him over the head with her pool noodle.

Riku had not been expecting that whack at all. Even if there wasn’t much force to it (it was a pool noodle, after all), Riku found himself tumbling sideways and into the pool water. Sabrina let out a surprised shout as his head dipped underwater. When he didn’t immediately come back up, she started to panic.

“Riku!” she called out to him. Not long after, Riku’s head came back up, but she didn’t feel any better. If anything, she leaned over the edge of the lounger a bit more to really make sure he was alright.

“I’m fine.” Riku grumbled, using a hand to wipe his face off. He looked up at her and realized something before quickly telling her, “Sabrina, watch it! We’re at the deep end and you can’t-”

He didn’t have time to finish because Sabrina fell over the lounger as well. It didn’t take long for her to realize they were at the deep end. It took even less time to realize the lounger had drifted a good distance away from them. Panic overwhelmed her when her feet didn’t touch the floor, and it didn’t matter how fast she kicked her feet, her head kept dipping under the water. Riku rolled his eyes -very sure that she was just being over dramatic- before swimming over to her. Her thrashing made it hard to get very close.

“Sabrina,” Riku tried to tell her, hoping she could hear him over her splashing, “Hold on to me, and I’ll get us to the edge.”

Sabrina nodded, ceasing some of her desperation as she tried to move close to Riku. She blindly moved over to him, immediately clasping her hands around his neck when she was close enough. The sudden addition of her weight made Riku go underwater as well. The things he did for his stupid cousin.

Inwardly grumbling, Riku adjusted his body to help guide them to shore. He really hoped Sabrina would get the hint and help pedal them over, but she never did. When they got to the edge, Sabrina didn’t waste any time using his shoulders to hoist herself out of the water enough to crawl back onto the brick deck. Thankfully, with her weight gone, Riku bobbed back up in record time. He got out of the water as well, sitting on the warm brick to catch his breath for all that hard work. Sabrina herself had flopped down like a starfish to catch her breath. She stared up at the sky with a look that illustrated she thought herself lucky to still be alive. Riku looked at her and grimaced.

“Are you alright?” he questioned with a tone that didn’t care if she actually was or not.

Sabrina didn’t seem to pick up on it. Instead she gave a little nod of her head and gave a breathless, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.” Riku nodded. “Because I’m going to kill you!”

“No!” Sabrina shrieked as her cousin lunged at her. The girl was quick to scramble to her feet and book it back to the house.

“Get back here!” Riku demanded as he started after her.

“No, you’re going to kill me!” Sabrina yelled back, almost losing her balance as she tried to look back at him.

“For trying to kill me!”

For a moment, Sabrina straight up turned around to run backwards- almost falling over herself at least twice as she informed Riku in a prudent tone, “I actually could have killed both of us. Duh.”

Riku snarled as he reached his hand out at her. Sabrina yelped before turning back around again and running away even faster. Riku’s expression hardened as he went after her. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest that she was heading straight for the adults- that spoiled little snitch.

Sabrina managed to stay just out of his range as they got closer to the adults. When they were within earshot, Sabrina immediately shouted, “Daddy! Riku’s going to murder me!”

“What’d you do to Riku?” Oswald questioned without so much looking up.

Sabrina immediately stopped in her tracks, letting out a shocked -and completely over dramatic- gasp. Riku, who had just caught up, let out a few breaths before letting out a satisfied, “Ha!” at her.

“Riku, what happened?” Mickey asked while Minnie next to him opened her arms for the boy to hug her. Riku gladly took the offer- which led to Sabrina letting out another loud, offended gasp.

“Riku tried to drown me!” Sabrina blurted in absolute fury.

“After you hit me with the pool noodle.” Riku refuted as he got quite comfy sitting next to Minnie, even placing his head against hers. “I was actually trying to save you.”

“Were not!”

“Were too.”

“As riveting as this is,” Blaine declared as he came up as well, casually placing a hand on top of Sabrina’s head, “Everything’s all ready now. We can eat whenever.” He took a look down at Sabrina -who immediately took a hold of his hand to get it off her head- before smirking, and adding on a bemused, “Maybe now.”

“Thank you Blaine.” Minnie happily chirped. Blaine grinned at her, ignoring his little sister’s rude faces, before leaving again.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I am starving!” Oswald happily said as he got up.

“But Daddy!” Sabrina whined, stomping her foot on the ground. “What about Riku?!”

“Riku can make his own plate.” came the rather callous answer. This not being the resolution Sabrina wanted, she gasped again.

“I am so mad right now!” she declared. “I am crutching my pearls!”

“Clutching, sweetie.” Minnie gently corrected her. “You are clutching your pearls.”

“That’s what I said!” the spirited girl insisted, stomping her foot on the ground. But the moment to try to rat Riku out had passed. The adults all filed out to get something to eat, leaving Riku and Sabrina behind. Sabrina refused to look at Riku as he stood quite close to her. A wide smirk was well written on his face.

“You’re so cute.” Riku coddled as he patted her on the head.

“You can’t pat my head.” the girl spat, trying to swat his hand away from her. “That’s illegal.”

“Oh?” Riku happily mused. “You let Blaine do it.”

“Blaine is my brother,” came the rather exact answer. “He does things that cousins can’t. Especially cousins named Riku.”

Riku smirked. “Fine,” he then declared, even throwing his hands in the air. “You win. How about I make it up to you? I’ll give you my cookie.”

Sabrina glared at him. She folded her arms before asking, “Any cookie?”

“Any cookie,” he agreed.

“Including Mama’s peanut butter cookies?”

“Including Aunt Ortensia’s peanut butter cookies.”

Sabrina looked Riku over with a critical eye. She stood a bit straighter as she came to her choice.

“Alright.” she agreed. “I agree. But no raisins!”

“Sure, sure.” Riku agreed with a little wave of his hand. Together the two went to get something to eat as well. All was forgiven between the two of them.

For now.

#kingdom hearts #kh riku #riku #kingdom hearts oc #kh oc #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfiction #kh fan fic #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic #happily adopted #mickey mouse #kh mickey #kh minnie #minnie mouse #oswald the lucky rabbit #writers on tumblr

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galaxina-the-pyro · 4 years

Note

How would you improve the episode AYA?

...wait...you’re asking me?

I...I didn’t expect this...

The thing is is that I don’t think I could possibly come up with ideas for this better than, say, @authenticcadence18 or @springsfordays because their ideas are just too good (seriously, check them out, they have the literal best ideas for a rewrite of AYA, holy crap).

But if I were to rewrite it...hm...let’s make a checklist for stuff about AYA that just miffed me:

1. Plot B is fine. Plot B was probably the best part of AYA - Doof’s dilemma made sense for his character (and is hilarious), tied in with the name of the episode, and involved fun little shenanigans. My only gripe is that they didn’t go MONDO insane with it at the end, and said ending felt really abrupt.

(I also wish that, somehow, even Doof was involved with that “everyone knew” bit, but we’re gonna be scrapping that joke for this story - that joke is FUNNY, but it’s also degrading to Phineas, and is sorta a nice way of saying “yeah, you’re stupid for not noticing her feelings even though she’s not entitled to them - you’re the problem. It’s not like the episode is trying to hint at you two having switched roles, no, you’re the only one who was being oblivious and stupid.”)

2. We cut out Plot C entirely. Everyone trying to get Phineas and Isabella together was just...ugh. Why? And they had the audacity to compare what they were doing to all the AMAZING things they did when they were younger, like, guys - you set up some tables, decorations, and cooked them what I can assume to be a run-of-the-mill restaurant dinner - that has NOTHING on a rollercoaster through downtown. And their applause at that sweet but ultimately lackluster confession? Hurt. So much. Now that I think about it, it felt condescending, it unintentionally emphasized HOW uninspired this confession (as much as I love it) was, and it felt like they were taking credit for something they didn’t do.

And if we’re NOT gonna cut out Plot C...have Plot C be about FERB? Leaving for COLLEGE? Out of COUNTRY? Cuz I have a hard time believing that Phineas and Ferb are just OKAY with separating at such a long distance - heck, in “Candace Gets Busted”, FERB is the one who assumes that one day he and his brother are gonna own their own place together. It should at least be BROUGHT UP, don’t you think? (I’m conflicted on whether or not I’d keep Montessa in the ring or at least SHOW US how Ferbnessa happened, because I think what’s weirding people out is that they’re assuming that Vanessa literally waited for Ferb to turn 18 to start dating him - when I think it’s more likely that they kinda JUST started dating during the beginning of Summer? But I think stuff like that really SHOULD be explained because even though I don’t think it’s that weird, I understand why OTHER PEOPLE wouldn’t like the idea)

3. I kinda feel like this should have had more songs? I dunno why, I feel like this all could have been improved if we got a fullblown musical out of this (and...this may be me wanting a “What Might Have Been” reprise, lol) - like, make fun of HSM or something, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t have.

4. I kinda wanted to see more of the “where are they now”. Like, Jeremy, Stacey, Little Suzie Johnson, even that one couple with the lady who’s always like “what did you think, an anniversary dinner was just going to fall from the sky?” - I like stuff like that, it’s so much fun to think about. Also...I legit have so much anxiety over Perry never interacting with him owners ONCE in that episode, and even more anxiety over Pinky never making an appearance at all. Heck, if there was a good time to show us what the HECK happened to Django, now would be a great time.

5. I would have given the episode a unique intro, ala “Night of the Living Pharmacists” and “Last Day of Summer” - like, AYA is as much of a status quo shifter as those two episodes, why was it given the “Phineas and Ferb Get Busted” treatment?

6. Here’s a brilliant thought - NO ONE tells Phineas about Isabella’s crush? How about instead Phineas goes and wants to check in on her, because he really misses her and doesn’t understand why they don’t talk anymore (and he’s tried before, and they’ve nearly had conversations, but Isabella’s just too busy) - did he do something wrong? Is Isabella just too busy now? He needs to know. That should have been his priority, none of this “FrIeNd ZoNe” nonsense.

7. I would have made this into a near movie-length special. With all the topics that this episode brought up, particularly the whole “manipulating the situation” thing, I feel like a longer episode would have given them more time to talk about how stuff like that is...not okay.

[READ THE ACTUAL REWRITE OF THE EPISODE (well, my take at least) UNDER THE CUT!]

Okay, with those out of the way, how I would have written Phinabella the Movie...I mean...Act Your Age (I warn you, it’s not gonna be as good as @authenticcadence18′s or @springsfordays‘s ideas, so if you want quality stuff and not just mushy fanfiction fodder I’d check their stuff out):

I would have sorta made this entire thing take place during the “What Might Have Been” song - what that means is that it’s a collage of memories. How Isabella and Phineas met, how Isabella first got her “crush” (if you can really call it that, girl was full out in love lol), them building stuff with the gang during their canon ages, them going into highschool, Isabella ultimately choosing to give up her crush to maintain her friendship with Phineas (because her choosing to not be as close to Phineas because of a crush isn’t an option), Isabella’s first boyfriend (which probably’s gonna hurt a lot of fans, cuz I envision that to NOT be Phineas; but it’s Phinabella endgame, so relax); the episode just centers on the gang (mainly Isabella since it’s from her perspective) growing up.

Like, yes, all of the memories are gonna be Phinabella centered, but we gotta have SOME side-stories and junk, like maybe how Baljeet gets together with Ginger (and...how they break up...please don’t kill me), what ultimately leads Ferb to want to go back to England for studies (maybe it’s him wanting to be his own person and not wanting people to think he and his brother are just “a pair”), Buford...uh...something with Buford definitely, because I love him and he deserves it. Heck, maybe even the Fireside Girls can have their own arc with a graduation ceremony for their ranks (...what? I’m not linking stuff to the best fanfic ever, noooooo...why would-why would I do that?).

And maybe in this case Plot B SHOULD be different - maybe it should focus on how Doofenshmirtz first got to America, how he first met Charlene, what exactly led him to being evil in the first place, all that good stuff. Though, ultimately, that might be a little angsty - maybe there’s a reason why we don’t see exactly HOW Doof and Charlene divorced, because that could very well be the saddest scene ever, and it’s hard to put that kinda comedic spin on something so tragic (I mean, obviously there are comedies CENTERED on divorce, but like...they always SKIP the divorce part from what I’ve seen). Not to mention that this is a kid’s show, so...I doubt they’d actually show HOW it happened. This is just my thoughts. X’D

Back to the Phinabella.

Phineas and Isabella would have their confession during THIS part of the special rather than the very end (so, like...they’re still in highschool, and Isabella’s already broken up with that other dude in the story, and maybe Phineas had a girlfriend he just wasn’t happy with) - Phineas tries to do something big for Isabella, but it ultimately falls through because of Perry’s current nemesis (we never see who that is, lol), so he settles for something simple (at first he’s scared about it not “being enough” for someone like Isabella, but Ferb’s able to slap that nonsense out of him pretty quickly). He and Isabella spend the ENTIRE DAY together alone, leading to Phineas eventually singing a song he wrote for her to her, and the two have a cute little duet as a result (that has the opposite energy of “What Might Have Been”, so it’s important that somewhere in this episode that “What Might Have Been” is still a thing, it just doesn’t involve Phineas being aware of Isabella’s feelings, and it doesn’t involve Isabella trying to leave somewhere without saying goodbye, this would be more about Isabella, after trying to get over her crush, realizing that she still LIKES Phineas that way). They almost kiss, but they’re ultimately interrupted by Buford being Buford or something, but it implies that Phineas and Isabella are now a couple onwards from here.

Eventually it leads to a small party in the middle of Summer with the gang, with them playing some games and talking about how by the end of Summer, they won’t be seeing each other as much anymore because of college and stuff. They all remanence about the simple times - with Isabella eventually leaving (saying it’s because she needs to check on something, but really it’s because she’s sad that things are ending so quickly and she’s gonna miss everyone especially Phineas), and Phineas going after her to see if she’s alright (he’s oblivious, but he’s always been able to tell if she’s sad for the most part, save for maybe a few instances - but he’s older now, so he’s probably better at telling).

The two go for a stroll outside, and discuss the changes and stuff, how he and Isabella are ultimately going to have to work on a long-distance relationship and how Phineas is going to miss Ferb when he leaves the country, and how he’s gonna miss Isabella. And then they both realize that everything is gonna be okay, because they’ve literally dealt with worse situations and came out stronger for it - Isabella nor Phineas have any doubts in their minds that their relationship with each other or anyone else is going to sever just because of long distance.

Time moves onward, and there are a lot of changes (mainly talking about couples and other stuff - if it were me, there’d be endgame Buford/Gretchen and Ferb/Ginger of all people, and of course Candace and Jeremy would be married by this time). Phineas and Isabella are about to go into their last year of college, and decide to spend one more day together before they, once again, go their separate ways. The gang surprises Isabella by having made an ACTUALLY GOOD AND CREATIVE BACKYARD DINNER for the two per Phineas’ planning (the idea wasn’t bad, the execution was just lame imo), and long story short, Phineas proposes to Isabella. She obviously accepts, and everyone cheers for them as Isabella inner monologues about how change can be scary but it’s okay some mushy stuff about loved ones being there for you when you need them or something.

And finally, we cut to many years later, with Isabella as an adult now, looking out at the backyard of her current home, drinking some tea - this whole movie/special has taken place in this Isabella’s memories (if that makes sense), as she thinks on how she got there. The story ends with a child (we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl) calling to her and calling her “mom”, and Isabella leaving to check on her kid.

And...that’s how I would have written “Act Your Age”. Again, I recommend this and this over my idea (because again, their takes on this episode are perfect, I don’t think anyone can top them), but if you like it then great. This was still fun to write out and stuff, and I hope you enjoyed it regardless. ^^;

#phineas and ferb #pnf #act your age #phinabella #act your age rant #episode rewrite #galaxina rants #not as good of a rewrite as others but i think it's decent at the very least #but i dunno #what do ya'll think #lol

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orange-waterfalls · 4 years

Text

Cell Block Tango, Ft. One Wilford Warfstache

ty @executiveespressodepresso for the request

A/N: I KNOW, I know. It took a long time. A really long time. 2 weeks is actually not that long but I GET IT. I’m done though! I am finished, I have completed one(1) fic, and I can rest easy now. I’ve had a bit of trouble with these types of fics before, mainly I just didn’t know how to write them. But I figured it out! Maybe. Sorta. I dunno, I kinda like it... ANYWAYS uh song bumps the rating up to a T, but there’s not really much else. You perform a song for Wilford after a long day! That’s it. Also Talking about Feelings at the end because I was feeling Angsty and wanted some Plot. It’s a long one dhwukcgfeywf anyways enjoy!

Word Count: 3.0k

Performing the Cell Block Tango for Wilford

You plopped down onto the living room couch and sighed. What a day! What a great, awful, stressful day. You loved Wilford, absolutely, but the man could be a handful.

You weren’t sure how it was possible for someone to have so many bullets in one gun.

In any case, you had to stop him from KILLING PEOPLE for a while before getting to come home.

You didn’t have the emotional capacity to be mad at this point. You really needed to wind down.

First, you should make dinner. Last time Wilford stepped foot in the kitchen the whole house went up in flames. You grabbed your phone and called to order take out.

You rubbed your eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. You shook your head, knowing if you fell asleep Wilford might kill the delivery person. You went to the bathroom.

You turned the sink faucet on and splashed your face a few times. You looked in the mirror at your soaking-wet face. God Wilford was so difficult to deal with. Well… he’d gotten better… but he still had a long way to go before you could even consider taking him anywhere. If he wouldn’t pull a gun on all the therapists you took him to maybe he’d have gotten a little better in the time that you knew him.

Now that Wilford was back on your mind, you thought of a way you could maybe relax.

You walked back to the living room and looked down at the phone that you’d thrown on the chair beside the couch. You looked up, not seeing Wilford anywhere. You took a deep breath, and decided you deserved a little performing. As a treat.

You pressed play on the song when you found it, and you stood up. You stood with your back to the music, facing the wall.

"Pop. Six. Squish. Uh-uh. Cicero. Lipschitz," you said quietly. "And now, the six merry murderesses of the Crook County Jail, and their rendition of the Cell Block Tango…"

You began moving your arms in rhythm to the song. A smile twitched at your lips. This might’ve seemed a bit silly to anyone else, but luckily, you were alone. Right?

Yes, Wilford went to go see Dark. You were absolutely, 100% alone.

In fact, you were so sure that you were alone that you didn’t hear Wilford walk into the room. He saw you… dancing? Were you dancing? He didn’t think you danced. You didn’t seem like the type to dance. He tilted his head to the side a little, about to ask what was happening, before hearing the music play from the phone and closing his mouth. He decided to stay quiet and just… watch.

The music began speeding up and you started to get really into it, moving around a lot. As the chorus got close, you turned around, only to find Wilford staring at you. He was standing in front of the couch, near your phone. You stared back at him, the heat of embarrassment rising in your cheeks. You prepared to shamefully walk away, to avoid him by taking a shower or saying you had to run to the store, to make sure he said nothing about this to you or anyone else.

But, Wilford seemed to have other things in mind.

Seeing you watch him like a deer in headlights, he thought there was something he should do in this situation, something to make you more comfortable.

With that in mind, he plopped down onto the couch, respectfully folding his hands in his lap, and looked at you expectantly.

Was that the right decision? Too late to take it back now. Hopefully it was.

You blinked for a moment before you got the memo and started moving again. You felt your skin burn in the still-present embarrassment as you continued your… well, it wasn’t quite dancing. Something along those lines, maybe. You expected Wilford to talk, laugh, comment, make any noise at all. But he just sat, watching you. You looked at him, nervous. He smiled brightly at you and you remembered that this was Wilford, dammit! The man loved you and would never wish any harm on you, physically or emotionally. And that’s when you decided to put a little trust in your boyfriend, and started to sing right as the chorus started up.

“He had it comin', he had it comin', he only had himself to blame… If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I betcha you would have done the same! Pop! Six! Squish! Uh-uh! Cicero! Lipschitz! Pop! Six! Squish! Uh-uh! Cicero! Lipschitz!”

Wilford nearly got whiplash when you started to sing. Since when? Could you do this? You had never? You were also quite good, so… why didn’t he know?

You started getting more exaggerated and “angry” with your movements, which made Wilford smile. You looked like you were having fun(which you were) and he was happy about that. He also appreciated the few lyrics he processed over the look of joy on your face taking full control of his mind. He could relate to it, at least a little. He wondered if that’s why you liked the song…

He then realized that it probably wasn’t, but he liked the thought nonetheless.

“You know how people have these little habits that get you down? Like Bernie. Bernie liked to chew gum. No, not chew: pop! So I came home this one day, and I am really irritated and I'm looking for a little bit of sympathy. And there's Bernie, laying on the couch drinking a beer and chewing. No, not chewing: popping!” You were waving your arms around while telling the story, and got this angry look on your face at certain points. While making the face, you pointed at Wilford accusingly. He frowned at first, before remembering you were acting. And, damn, you were good at it! "So, I said to him, I said, "You pop that gum one more time..." And he did. So I took the shotgun off the wall and I fired two warning shots... into his head.” You made a fake gun with your hands and fake-shot at Wilford. He leaned back on the couch, put on a surprised look, and laid a hand over his chest, playing along. You smiled at him joyfully before going back to singing.

He bit his lip to not laugh, as you might’ve taken it the wrong way. He was just very… happy. And entertained with what was happening.

“I met Ezekiel Young, from Salt Lake City, about two years ago, and he told me he was single, and we hit it off right away. So, we started living together. He'd go to work, he'd come home, I'd fix him a drink, we'd have dinner. And then I found out. "Single," he told me? Single, my ass. Not only was he married, oh, no, he had six wives. One of those mormons, you know? So that night, when he came home from work, I fixed him his drink, as usual.” Wilford got a bit distracted at this point, just by you. Everything you were doing. The dancing, the acting, the singing, the smiles… you looked so happy. He wondered why you didn’t look like this more often. He wondered how he could get you to look like this more often.

He’d heard someone talk about karaoke at the store one day.

Could he do that? Could he buy a karaoke machine? Would you want a karaoke machine?

“You know... some guys just can't hold their arsenic.” He was snapped back to reality,(ope, there goes gravity) when you ruffled his hair harshly at the last line. He looked up at you again and found you were still smiling. He automatically smiled back.

“Now, I'm standing in the kitchen, carving up the chicken for dinner, minding my own business. In storms my husband, Wilford, in jealous rage.” You accidentally said “Wilford” instead of “Wilbur”. Who could blame you, honestly. To save it, you started acting like you were talking directly to Wilford instead of just a make-believe audience. Wilford, on the other hand, panicked a little when you said his name. It wasn’t the same name as the song said, so… what? He then came to the conclusion that you just wanted to get him to pay more attention.

"You been screwing the milkman," he says. He was crazy and he kept on screaming "You been screwing the milkman." And then he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times.” You leaned towards him, got up in his face, and grabbed and shook his shoulders. Wilford just kind of… sat there and took it, since he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He nodded a few times as well, seemingly a bit intimidated by you. It took much of your willpower to not break and start laughing at him.

His cheeks dusted a light pink because of how close you were getting to his face. He nearly leaned forward and kissed you, but caught himself. You were performing and he had no right to interrupt.

Still, your lips looked awfully kissable…

“If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I betcha you would have done the same!”

You had to mentally prepare yourself for the Hungarian part. You took a breath to lower your heart rate and told yourself that even if you messed it up, it was fine. It was just Wilford.

“Mit keresek én itt? Azt mondják, a híres lakóm lefogta a férjem, én meg lecsaptam a fejét. De nem igaz. Én ártatlan vagyok. Nem tudom, miért mondja Uncle Sam, hogy én voltam. Próbáltam a rendõrségen megmagyarázni, de nem értették meg.” You had to suck in a breath and miss a few lines to get your brain back on track. “Uh-uh! Not guilty!”

Wilford was thrown completely off guard at the Hungarian and he stared at the phone. Where the hell did that come from? More confusingly, when he looked back at you, you seemed to be keeping up with the words, for the most part. Did you know Hungarian? Did you just know this part? You slipped up a few times but, hot damn, it was impressive.

You had this sad, innocent look on your face the whole time. One that made him wanna get up and hug you. But he didn’t because he knew that you were fine and you were acting and he was gonna let you finish this wonderful performance of yours even if it fucking killed him, goddammit!

Okay, he was being a little dramatic. Even so.

“My sister Veronica and I had this double act, and my husband Charlie traveled around with us. Now, for the last number in our act we did these twenty acrobatic tricks in a row. One, two, three, four, five, splits, spread eagles, back flips, flip flops, one right after the other. So this one night before the show, we're down at the hotel Cicero, the three of us boozing, having a few laughs. And we ran out of ice so I went out to get some. I come back, open the door, and there's Veronica and Charlie, doing number seventeen: the spread eagle! Well, I was in such a state of shock I completely blacked out, I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until later, when I was washing the blood off my hands, I even knew they were dead.” You decided you kick your leg up a little both times you mentioned spread eagles. Wilford shook his head, a little dumbfounded. He understood the implications in the song, and his face flushed darker. He wondered if you did too, because it just seemed like you did it for fun. In any case, he coughed into his hand quietly, as to not make you worry.

You look at Wilford, a bit confused, but he just gave you a thumbs up for you to continue. You smiled and kept doing what you were doing, not noticing how flushed he was.

“They had it coming, they had it coming, they had it coming all along! I didn't do it, but if I'd done it, how could you tell me that I was wrong?”

Wilford watched in utter fascination at how you were moving. If he didn’t know better, he’d say you choreographed this.

Well… he didn’t know what you did when he wasn’t home.

But you moved fairly fluidly through dances and you seemed to be on-tempo, even if the dances seemed random.

Random does not mean unplanned, he reminded himself.

He was also a little distracted from your dancing by the song, because it was making him feel emotions he wasn’t sure existed. He was determined to memorize your every move, however, so that would just have to wait until another day.

“I loved Al Lipschitz more than I can possibly say. He was a real artistic guy, sensitive, a painter. But he was always trying to find himself. He'd go out every night looking for himself, and on the way he found Ruth, Gladys, Rosemary and Irving. I guess you can say we broke up because of artistic differences. He saw himself as alive... and I saw him dead…” You stood pretty still for this part, since the song was almost over and you were feeling pretty tired. 7 minutes didn’t seem like a long time, but it’s different when you’re working out.

You did pace a little bit, while keeping your arm movement to a minimum. You felt your heart beating due to the exercise and also the anxiety of your boyfriend watching you.

You did make a last-second decision to boop his nose when you got to the last word. This made Wilford blink harshly and look up at you with a pout. Before you went back to your original spot in the room, you gave him a little kiss on the nose. That made him grin from ear to ear and dig his fingers into his legs. You bit back a chuckle and started up again.

“They had it coming, they had it coming, they had it coming all along! 'Cause if they used us, and they abused us, how could you tell us that we were wrong? He had it coming, he had it coming, he only had himself to blame! If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I betcha you would have done the same!” You kept dancing the same as you did before, even though your legs were starting to burn, and you were having trouble keeping the same fluid movements. Some of them became a little more jerky and forced than you wanted them to.

Wilford noticed this and brought his arms up a bit, leaning forward in case you needed help. He figured you wouldn’t, but he didn’t want you cracking your skull open or anything.

He’d be very upset if you did that…

“You pop that gum one more time! Single my ass. Ten times! Miert csukott Uncle Sam bortonbe! Number seventeen: the spread eagle. Artistic differences…” You did all your previous movements for each woman’s line. Which included: The shotgun, throwing both hands above your head, getting in Wilford’s face, wiping a fake tear, kicking your leg, and shrugging, in that order. You were very out of breath and a bit disoriented, but that was okay because there was only a little bit left!

“Pop. Six. Squish. Uh-uh. Cicero. Lipschitz…” You ended the song by walking directly in front of Wilford and falling to your knees in front of him once you were sure the song had ended. You breathed heavily, feeling the tiredness from the day and the dancing catching up to you. You were about to ask Wilford “So, how bad was it?” before he slid to the floor and wrapped his arms around you. You froze, not knowing what was happening.

“You were fantastic,” He whispered. Which you thought was very strange because Wilford couldn’t speak lower than a yell, in your experience. You furrowed your eyebrows.

“Wil, what’s happening?” You asked, still out of breath. He squeezed you a little tighter.

“I just… wanted to show love to my partner?” He said hesitantly. You scoffed and hugged him back.

“Do you feel guilty because you embarrassed me?”

“Yes…”

“Wil, you’re fine, I promise.” You chuckled. He sighed and sat back. You looked at him and frowned.

“I…” He ran a hand through his hair and avoided looking at your face. “I… know I’m not the easiest to deal with and… I… I wanna… make you feel comfortable…”

“You do make me feel comfortable!” You took his hands in yours.

“But every time I’ve looked at you today you were always scared or angry!” He argued. You closed your mouth, not really having any argument.

“Mm…” You hummed.

“I… wanna… get better. I wanna be better. For you.” He grumbled. You smiled and twisted yourself around so you were sitting between his legs with your head resting on his chest. He laid his chin on top of your head.

“I think you’re perfectly fine.” You sighed.

“I don’t wanna be perfectly fine, I wanna be perfect!” He whined.

“Well, that’s an impossible goal.”

“Then… I wanna be perfect… for you.”

“That’s a better one.” You looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back, feeling a warmth spreading through his chest. You were listening. You understood.

And you loved him.

“Am I a good boyfriend?” He asked.

“Of course you are.” You snuggled into his chest.

“Can I kiss you?” He asked softly as he could. You squinted at him as he gave you his very best puppy eyes. You gave in, and gave him a peck. You could feel his arms waving around as he tried to decide what to do with them. Eventually, he placed them on the sides of your neck. You pulled back after a little and he stared at you adoringly.

“Don’t you look at me like that…” You warned.

“I love you…” He sighed and wrapped his arms around you, squeezing you tightly. You squirmed, trying to get out, but he didn’t move.

“Wilford…” You whined. “Lemme go! I ordered food!”

“Ok, I’ll let you go when the food shows up!” You huffed and let your body go limp as you succumbed to the hug.

You should’ve just cooked something.

#markiplier egos x reader #x reader #x male reader #x female reader #x gender neutral reader #wilford x y/n #wilford warfstache x reader #wilford warfstache x you #wilford x reader #wilford x gender neutral reader #x y/n #x you #x reader fanfiction

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tardytothepardy · 3 years

Text

Fruits Basket - Vol 17

I am,,, confused. Thoroughly. Did I read this too fast? Am I misunderstanding? This book felt like a series of "What? Huh? What? Huh? What? Whuhh?? Huhhhhh?????" and I am kinda bewildered.

So let's talk about it,,, somehow.

It starts with Shigure and Hatori talking about Akito's meltdown at New Year's, and how apparently Shigure tried to comfort Akito, but Akito was having none of it. The topic of Kureno came up, and how he just seems off, disconnected, in a sense, and also how Akito seems to have chosen Kureno above all the other Juunishi.

Panning over to Kureno, in the previous book Momiji gave him the CD of the play, "Sorta Cinderella". He seemed pretty affected by the things that Uotani said, but they also reminded him of moments with Akito, when he was younger. He calls Shigure later, asking for Tohru, which Shigure finds odd. What business would the two of them have? But it turns out that later, Tohru does run into Kureno, on her way to the store. She was squatting next to a bunch of birds, and when he showed up, they flew away. This is important at all, because that isn't what usually happens to the animals that the Juunishi share a spirit with (agh how to phrase things), in fact it's the opposite. Tohru asks Kureno about this, and then he solidifies any questions by hugging her and,,,, nothing happens. Somehow, he isn't affected by the curse. It has no hold on him, he won't turn into a bird (I suppose a rooster, specifically, which is kinda sad bc I was looking forward to that, in a little way. It'd be funny, if nothing else) if he gets really weak or sick, or if he hugs someone of the opposite sex.

Tohru asks him how this happened, and when, but Kureno doesn't really know. It happened randomly one day, a while back, but he has no idea was triggered it. It's just that, one day, he was vibin, doing his thing, and it just happened. No one else in the family knows, he's just been pretending that he's still a Juunishi. Kureno also said that he can't be with Uotani, that the CD was a wasted attempt, because he's promised to be with and take care of another person, that person being Akito. Kureno makes it clear, though, that he still does care for Uotani, but he just can't be with her. This whole time, it's been switching between the current interaction between Kureno and Tohru, and flashing back to when Kureno first realized that the curse broke for him, and Akito was just fucking losing his mind, screaming and shit. He begged for Kureno to stay, regardless of the curse (btw, at this point, Kureno's a teenager, and Akito's still a little kid, so it was a little while ago), and Kureno said that he would promise to stay with Akito, stay by his side, pretend that he's still a Juunishi, etc.

And then, at the end of the chapter, something is revealed: apparently Akito's a girl. To be honest, I'm not really sure what to do with this information. As far as I can remember, it doesn't really have much to do with anything. Why has he (she? fuck. I have no idea.) been presenting as a boy this whole time? Because his mom forced him, since he was born. Why did she do that? I don't know, it didn't say in this book. Hopefully it fucking clarifies later on, because I'm just getting vibes from that one Insidious movie, with that ghost/demon person. Wasn't that their deal? Something like that. Reversed, but something like that. Idk, I was too busy being scared shitless to think about the intricacies of the plot.

Anyway, so Akito's apparently a girl, but has been raised as a boy. Four of the Juunishi know this: Shigure, Hatori, Ayame, and Kureno, because they were all kids when Akito was born. Apparently, when Akito's mom (her name is Ren) was pregnant with Akito, they all came to her and were crying and shit, acting super weird. Like, they all just knew that Akito would be the God.

As a fun side note, Ren and Akito fucking hate each other. Just,, so much. Is there a person in the Sohma family that doesn't have familial issues, because it just seems like there are a lot of people who do. I think maybe Kagura doesn't? I haven't seen anything saying she has issues. Nothing much has been said about Shigure's, Hatori's, or Kureno's families, so maybe they're okay? I dunno, but one of the things that specifically shows up between Ren and Akito, is that Ren does not believe in the "bond" that Akito and the rest of the Juunishi have, saying that it's a fake love, that, if given the choice, the Juunishi would not behave or treat Akito the way they do, which is kinda true. From what I read about when Yuki first met Akito, there were a lot of conflicting feelings, ranging from "I hate you but also I never want to be away from you" to "This is hell on earth just being near this person but also to be away from this person is agony", and like, whoa. That's a lot. I doubt it's like that at all anymore, but there has been some mentions that Akito does have some higher hold on the Juunishi than other people do.

All this said and done, I still want to know more. I am heavily curious. I'd like to know more about Akito's whole situation. I'm glad he's not just a one-dimensional "bad guy", but dang, some of this stuff, it just feels like it's coming out of left field. (Is that a baseball thing? That sounds like a baseball thing. Idioms are weird.)

By the time that Kureno leaves, Tohru's a wreck. She's crying, and confused, and just,,, yikes. (I kinda was too, but just the confused part.) And so who comes to the rescue than Hanajima, and also Hanajima, but the small one. (I realized recently that most of these people are referred to by their first names, except for like, Uotani and Hanajima, which makes sense. A massive swath of these characters would all be "Sohma". It'd be confusing as fuck. But still. Idk) Hanajima felt Tohru's sheer confusion and despair, and Megumi tagged along because why not, y'know?

Hanajima decided that Tohru would stay with her for the night, so that she and Tohru and Uotani could all talk stuff out about what Tohru was upset about. Unfortunately for Shigure, Yuki and possibly Kyo? I don't think he was home at the time but maybe??, that meant that Tohru wasn't making dinner. So Yuki potentially gave Shigure and himself food poisoning, but hey, it's better than takeout, right? (Seriously, Tohru's back must be tired from cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, and dealing with everyone's emotional baggage, she's doing so much. And she still has her own personal shit that she does, like,,, how hasn't she lost her shit yet??)

Tohru says that Kureno was kind, in that he was looking out for other people's feelings and wellfare before his own, and Hanajima says that she (Tohru) does the same thing (which is what Uotani first saw in Kureno, and why she thought that he was like Tohru), but Hanajima worries that the more that Tohru does that, the more that she carries the worries and troubles of other people, it could end up hurting her. (We love a caring friend that cares) In the end, Uotani tells Tohru that it's okay, that she cares more about the relationships she has now than whatever she might have had with Kureno, which was nice.

Moving onwards, the school is making preparations for graduation! I don't think Tohru and Co. are graduating quite yet (maybe they are idk), but there are these paper flowers that they're making, and for some reason, shenanigans ensue. Like, a group of girls just nabbing a bunch of flowers that Kyo made?? Why? That's really weird of you to do. Stop that. (They were tracked down and forced to make up for all the flowers they stole, because for some reason they wouldn't give back the flowers they stole.) It's kinda weird, I forgot that Kyo is also kinda popular with girls, because usually we only hear from the girls that fawn over Yuki. But yeah, that's a thing for Kyo, as well. Weird, either way.

Now we are at the last chunk of the book, hooray! This isn't as long as the previous one 😬. So, Shigure and Akito got something weird going on. I'm not really sure what to think of it, honestly. Apparently Shigure slept with Ren, and Akito kicked him out of the main house as a punishment, which Shigure did not fight back at all. (wow that was not a large section at all i totally didn't just lose steam and stop right there at all nope not me i don't do that not at all)

I'll admit that part of me is still kinda,, squeamish? I guess? about people in the Sohma household being in relationships, it's just that they all have "Sohma", that is probably messing me up. Idk. It's definitely not a healthy relationship. All kinds of weird tensions and miscommunication abound. It's not a good time.

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ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 4 years

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Alfie takes a liking to one of his "bakers" sister. He starts to visit their house alot to talk to the brother. But really he is there cause he likes to watch her make the tea for them. He keeps trying to start a conversation with her but can only get short answers from her as she is a quiet kind of person. The brother can't figure out why Alfie is so interested to talk to him all the time. Ollie has figured it out though. I'd love if could get them to kiss.😘

//Sorry this took so long!

When Leora opened the door, Alfie immediately knew he was fucked. Instantly, he was met with a pair of deep brown eyes that held a bittersweet look to them. Alfie was usually the first to initiate conversation, gave him a bit of an edge. But he couldn’t seem to find the words.

“Can I help you?”

The least Ira could’ve done was warn him. Warn him that he lived with someone beautiful. A sister, or a wife, or a cousin, whatever she was, he could’ve warned Alfie.

“Ira in?” It seemed to be all Alfie could muster in the presence of such a dark-eyed beauty.

“He is, you must be his boss.” She suddenly averted her eyes. Realizing Alfie Solomons was at her door.

“Yeah.”

“Well, come in.” Leora let him inside. “He’s probably upstairs. I’ll be right back; you can wait in the kitchen if you’d like.”

Alfie cleared his throat and instinctually tapped a finger against the Mezuzah by the door. He’d need God to see him through this trial. He made his way down the narrow hall to the tiny kitchen. It was a typical flat in Camden. Rundown, small, damp sometimes. But the family seemed to be getting along just enough. That was the perks of working for Alfie, you could actually survive. Other jobs in London just put you more in debt.

He was there on business. Normally, he wouldn’t go to an employee’s house unless they were in huge trouble and avoiding him. But on the case of Ira, he needed the young man for a special task.

Ira came downstairs quickly so he wouldn’t make his boss wait long. Only twenty-three, he was looking to move on up in the world. Sometimes that meant having to do some dirty work for unholy men. If his parents were alive, they would be so displeased.

“Sir,” Ira greeted Alfie.

“Ira, mate, good to see you.”

“I’m glad you can trust me for this.”

Alfie rolled his eyes. “No need to be a kiss-ass, Ira. Just sit so we can discuss business.” His gruff tone lightened a little when Leora entered the kitchen. She made herself like a fly on the wall, just making tea.

“Lee, can you go upstairs?” Ira urged.

“S’alright. Family’s family. No secrets ‘tween family.” Alfie assured him. “You can go ‘bout your life, love.”

She looked a little hesitant, glancing at her younger brother. Ira gave her a nod, not going to go against Alfie. So, she went back to putting on the kettle.

But, Alfie wasn’t going to say much in front of Leora. He wanted her to think it wasn’t a big deal that he was there. He didn’t want her worrying and causing a fuss. “I’ll pay ya well, half upfront. Do it well and your pay will go up too.”

Ira nodded. He’d already been notified of his job offer. A ploy to run some of Sabini’s bookies off the tracks at Epsom later that month. It was a dangerous job, but Ira felt he had no other choice. “That sounds good, sir.”

“Easy operation. Nothing to worry about.” Alfie tried not to keep glancing over at Leora. She moved like a timid little mouse around the kitchen. Hardly making a noise. When the kettle whistled, she poured two cups and placed them on the table.

“Thanks, love.”

She didn’t say anything in response, just smiled slightly, and left the kitchen.

“So, that’s your sister or something?” Alfie asked.

“Yeah. It’s just been the two of us since our parents died. She took care of me for so long so I guess I’m trying to return the favor.” Ira admitted.

He nodded. “Good, that’s good. Right thing to do.” He agreed, gaining a bit more respect for the young man he didn’t know very well. “You have a gun?”

“No, sir.”

“Right, I’ll get you one and bring you it tomorrow. Drop by around dinner time tomorrow.”

“Oh, you could just give it to me at work tomorrow.” Ira pointed out.

“No, ain’t got time to do it tomorrow.” Alfie stood up. “Bring it here later.” Of course, he had time to give a gun to him at work. But he needed an excuse to return to see Leora.

~~~~~~~~

He did, and he continued to think of excuses, a credit to his wits. But it seemed like the only person who noticed, was Leora. Ira was just glad Alfie was trusting him so didn’t take offense to Alfie dropping by for seemingly no good reason.

But much to Alfie’s surprise, Leora, didn’t seem to mind. Every time he came around, she made her and Ira tea then left. She never said much. Even when Alfie began to include her in conversation. She gave very brief answers but didn’t seem to be offended. She often gave him a small smile whenever he addressed her. Especially if he called her ‘love’.

Around Alfie’s fifth visit, Ira had yet to return home from the butcher. Alfie wasn’t sure if Leora practiced yichud law, meaning they couldn’t be alone together because they were unrelated and of the opposite sex.

But Leora let him in. “Leave the door unlocked.” She requested in her usually quiet tone.

“Sure.” Alfie knew the various loopholes to yichud law, including an unlocked door. “Ira’ll be back soon I'm assuming?”

“He should be. Can I make you something while you wait?”

“Sure, love, tea’s fine.” Alfie followed her into the kitchen. “How’s everything going with you?”

“Very nice, thank you.” She answered in her usual, polite but brief manner.

He sat down and gave her an amused look. “You don’t say much, do you?”

She laughed softly. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. Some people are just like that. Some people tell me that I can’t shut me mouth sometimes.” He grinned. "Call me a nuisance."

“Well, some people are just like that.” She echoed him and set down a teacup in front of him.

“There anything you like to talk about?” He wondered, trying to get past her shy barrier.

She sheepishly shrugged. “I don’t know, nothing too interesting.”

“Bollocks, you know that’s not true. Everyone’s got interests. Books? Going to the pictures?”

She giggled and shrugged again. “I enjoy going to the museum.” She finally disclosed. “I’m not much of an artist but I can appreciate it.”

It seemed to suit Leora. He could picture her roaming the large halls of a museum, a small figure amongst the large canvases.

“Erm…can I take you to the National Gallery?” The question sprung from Alfie, and it even surprised him.

Leora’s eyes widened. She had noticed Alfie taking a liking to her. And she felt the same way. But she wasn’t sure it would ever amount to anything. She thought she would be too shy to say anything and he never seemed like the man who enjoyed being in a relationship. “I-I don’t know.”

“Sorry, it was forward of me to ask.” Alfie hid his wince from her.

“I suppose…I suppose we could. Maybe on a rainy day, when you’re not busy.”

“So, you would?”

“I think that would be nice.” It was probably the most daring thing Leora had ever done in her life. But it strangely felt right.

The front door opened and Ira came in. “Sorry, Mr. Solomons, I know I’m late.”

“S’alright, mate, everything’s alright.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

One rainy Sunday, Alfie pardoned himself from work without any reason. Ollie asked but was kindly told to mind his own fucking business. He drove to pick Leora up so they wouldn’t have to walk in the rain to the National Gallery.

Alfie held the umbrella above them both as they walked into the gallery. Leora didn’t say much but she seemed very pleased to be going to the museum.

“We can go wherever you want first,” Alfie said as he shook the umbrella out once they were inside.

“Oh, okay.” Leora smiled shyly. “Well, I suppose I could show you one of my favorite pieces.”

“Lead the way.”

The large canvas appeared to only be a painting of a port. An ancient port, upon further inspection. But Leora let him stand in silence, viewing the piece before she offered any explanation.

Alfie wasn’t completely baffled by art. He could understand high culture and liked to think he was learned. But sometimes he wasn’t sure what he was looking for if no one pointed it out to him.

“So, what am I looking at?” He peered at the little information plaque.

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba

Claude Lorrain

“This shows the Queen of Sheba leaving to visit King Solomon,” Leora answered. “From the Book of Kings.”

“Oh, right. That’s right.” He could vaguely remember the story.

“There she is, waiting for the ship.” She pointed out the small figure among the large landscape.

Alfie tilted forward a bit. “Oh yeah, can see her now. Sorta gets lost, don’t she? Lot going on.”

“That’s why I like the piece so much. I see something new every time I see it.”

“What’s your favorite part of it?” Alfie wondered, almost too overwhelmed with all the detail to pick out anything.

“Up there.” Leora had an immediate answer. “Above the queen, the statues on the building. They seem to be seeing her off.”

“Huh, yeah.” Alfie found what she was talking about on the right side of the painting. “They’re looking with the people up there.”

“It’s a nice little detail.”

Alfie glanced over at her. Seeing her looking at the painting was like seeing someone watching the sunset. There was a fond familiarity, but also adoration of its beauty. “So, I hope I haven’t been intruding on your house.”

“It’s okay. I know you’ve been talking to Ira often.”

“Initially, yeah, but I dunno.” Alfie rubbed the back of his neck. “Call it foolish but I just wanted to see you.” He admitted. It felt like a sacred place for her, a place where he couldn’t lie to her.

“Was there any reason?” Leora didn’t even pretend to be surprised.

“Call it a sense. You just seemed,” He waved a hand about to try and find the words. “A good contrast to me. That’s what people look for, ain’t it?”

“I suppose.” She smiled.

“Opposites attract.”

“They seem to. I was worried about you at first.” It was the first impression she ever divulged to him. The first opinion. “I’d heard about you.”

“I’m sure.” He couldn’t deny the stories people told about him. Whether they were true or not, it didn’t matter.

“But I saw for myself who you are.”

Alfie was surprised that she saw something different in him. Maybe she was mistaken? “I ain’t good.”

Leora nodded. “Most people aren’t. But most people don’t admit that they aren’t.”

“So that changes your view of me?” He asked doubtfully.

“Do you not see any good in you?” She inquired.

He pondered the question for a moment, looking at her like she was a painting that held so many different little details. “I see some good when I see you.”

“That’s all that matters to me.” She stepped closer to him and lightly touched his chest. “So you can kiss me now if you’d like.”

God, Alfie couldn’t resist. He tilted his head to press his lips to hers, completely losing all sense of the art gallery around them. They didn’t need to communicate with many words. And that felt fine to them.

#ugly crying asks

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v0n-butch · 5 years

Text

the craft (1996)

“id love to see the craft made into a fic” requested by anonymous.

warnings: death, attempted noncon, alcohol

a/n: first movie-inspired fic of more to come. centered around Billy (Skeet Ulrich’s character) and the witchy stuff getting played on him as karma. highly recommend watching if you like cult classics!!

—

You could’ve guessed before even moving here that Hawkins was gonna be a fucking drag. The weather was gloomy, the air wasn’t fresh like you’re used to, and it was so uncomfortably quaint that it made you feel stranded and claustrophobic. You bit your nails the entire flight and even after landing, while the pouring rain soaked your clothes and drenched your hair when first stepping foot in the small town.

It was an especially frightening discovery after a gritty argument with your folks, spouting on about what a brat you’re turning out to be, how much of a disappointment you’re bound to become; so in the midst of a fit enraged, not moving from where you lay stubbornly on your bed with angry tears, you had accidentally slammed the door shut. After realizing what you’d done, curiosity had replaced vexation. Neither of your parents could call the cops or toss you in some looney bin, so you chose to avoid catastrophe by keeping it low and only using it if bored in private. It felt oddly empowering, treasuring the gift, but you’d never been compelled to use it for harm before.

After eating dinner with empty conversation and the only background noise being imaginary crickets and the rain, you’d excused yourself once your plate was wiped clean. Stomping back upstairs, ignoring any distasteful remarks aimed at your departure. You wondered that if the town sucked ass, then that meant school likely would too.

—

It wasn’t hard to see from a mile away that you did not come from nor belong here. Cliques scattered the halls, although this school surely isn’t as big as your last it still has its fair share. Jocks and douchebags, popular cheerleaders, edgy goths. Those titles never served to you, naturally feeling better going alone. Nobody tried approaching the new girl just to say hi or bother looking in your direction. That is until basic jock Billy Hargrove did with a mischievous smirk during lunch a couple tables away, noticing you’re all alone sipping on your school milk. With crass confidence in his stride, he makes his way over to you in the most dramatic, full-of-himself way as possible taking a seat across from yours.

“Lookin’ pretty lonely there, new girl. Y/N is it?” he raises one brow, not asking for permission before snaking Doritos from your lunchtray, chomping while maintaining a smug expression. You scoff before shoving the red bag of corn chips toward him.

“Help yourself. And yeah, that’s me. Who are you?”

Billy has taken the bag with a don’t mind if I do attitude, answering you with his mouth full while licking the stained nacho cheese off his fingertips. “Name’s Billy. So why you here all alone? Haven’t found your crowd yet, or you just a ‘fraidy cat?”

You roll your eyes before playing along with his stupid game. “Well Billy, I just moved here and haven’t talked to anyone besides my lunch buddy that just hogged my chips,” you snip, watching the cocky blonde tilt the bag up to his mouth to finish the rest of the crumbs at the bottom. When he’s done with that portion of your meal, he points to the carton of two percent.

“May I?”

“Nothing’s stopping you,” you bite with sarcasm. He chuckles at your obvious distaste but nevertheless resumed picking at your food and chugging a good amount of the dairy drink down.

“You owe me fifty cents, by the way.”

“Oh yeah? How ‘bout I repay you with a little somethin’ else instead,” he inched closer, the proximity allowing you the feeling of his breath fanning your cheek. You’d been rendered speechless, caught off guard with how shameless and flirtatious he turned. “I’ll repay you with a few pointers, what with you being a little newbie ‘round here. Sound good?” he finished, grinning at how tense and worked up he made you in seconds. “What is it, sweetheart? D’ya think I’d repay you with somethin’ else?” he snickered, taking your carton again and quenching his thirst, the white drips of milk falling down his chin.

“Nope. Just don’t give a shit about your advice,” you snap back into character, his arrogance provoking you to try using one of your little tricks; maybe make him stutter or choke just so he’ll leave you alone. But that would be breaking the rules, and you were strict against taking advantage of it to cause trouble.

“I’ll give it to you anyways. See, my crew over there thinks you’re pretty cute, so you could come around anytime you like. Definitely avoid those freaks over there,” he slyly nods his head over in the direction of two girls dressed in black, chainsmoking. “They won’t be too welcoming.”

“What’s up with them?” you hush inconspicuously, intridgued by their scandalous bravado. You could see yourself hanging out with them even if that meant disregarding all the misinformation Billy feeds you.

“See the little one on the left? That’s Nancy the Slut Wheeler. Nickname sorta explains itself. She fucked more than half the guys on my team and cheated on her long-term boy toy Harrington,” he explains, not shy about what’s coming out of his mouth no matter how derogatory or degrading. “Not speaking from experience or anything. And the bigger one is Robin Buckley, she’s a dyke.”

“Uh, okay. That all the dirt you got or what?”

“Nah, there’s more shit floatin’ around here about stuff they do. I’ve heard they’re into witchcraft, but I dunno if I believe that one.”

Now that snagged your attention, but you wouldn’t share a thing like that with a guy like Billy. “Anyway, thanks for sharing lunch, Y/N. Was a pleasure. You should come to my practice after school, we could have another fun little chat. Whaddya say?” he licks his lips, holding your stare to persuade you into visiting. “Please?”

You really could give a fuck about watching a bunch of sweaty guys toss and argue around a ball, no matter which sport, but it was hard to find courage to decline his pleading yet intimidating stare. “Maybe I’ll swing by,” you hesitate, earning an enthusiastic holler out of Billy before he gets up from your table and makes a pit stop near you for a moment to whisper in your ear.

“Really looking forward to it, new girl.”

Successfully hiding your hot cheeks as he pats your back, sending a wink over his shoulder before heading back to his circle of friends not-so-subtly watching. When the bell rings to signal lunch’s end, Nancy and Robin catch your eye, ashing their cigarettes, fixating on you. Flustered from getting caught, you quickly snatch your lunchtray and dump whatever’s left in the trash, hanging your head low as you make your way to your next class.

—

Biology class was humiliating. After approaching Nancy and Robin about a group project assigned on your first day, Robin gawked as Nancy glared without a yes or a no about letting you join them. It was a long shot anyways. While awkwardly nodding as they both continuously stare you down, you shuffle to the very back of the classroom. With nothing better to do, thinking no one was paying attention, you flick your pencil in the air, making it stand as your hands stay in your lap. Moments later, getting lost in thought about Billy, wondering what his intentions were, how you were ever gonna fit in here; Robin witnesses the unworldly telekinetic party trick. Her mouth hangs in awe, not believing she allowed Nancy to bully her into rejecting you.

“You don’t know what you’re even talking about,” Nancy argues, popping her chewing gum as she gazes in the bathroom mirror and applies another sloppy smear of eyeliner.

Robin’s scoff is followed by a sigh before turning Nancy away from her reflection. “I know what I saw! She can... do things. Like with her mind. She’s our third, I know it,” the girl vigorously nods her head. Nancy remained unconvinced but decides to give in if it’ll shut her dimwit of a best friend the fuck up.

“Fine, okay! We’ll talk to her after school, see what happens. You better not be fucking with me on this. We don’t need any incidents happening because you’re seeing things that aren’t there,” Nancy stares her down like a wolf threatening to attack, eyeballing the taller girl with satisfaction as she gulps submissively.

—

You decided there was nothing better to do than make an appearance at Billy’s basketball practice after school. As he dribbles the ball and taunts his opponents, he spots you from afar and takes his attention off the game and momentarily directs it towards you instead. With a wink, he sticks his tongue out teasingly before taking his tank top off and giving one of his teammates a high five. While lost in the dance of seduction with Billy, you neglect to notice the presence of two girls lingering behind you.

“He’s not actually into you, you know.”

Snapping your head back in shock, you recover from the cheap scare before identifying the voice as Nancy Wheeler. The one Billy had accused of being the school’s slut. Right beside her stands Robin, not looking quite as vicious as her partner in crime. Robin, the significantly gentler and taller one, gives you a warmer greeting of a wave and a tight smile. Billy said that she was the infamous “dyke.”

“What are you talking about?” you ask, not easily trusting her word but also not believing Billy’s rumors either. Nancy looks over to the court where Billy skips around effortlessly, making a basket for his team and earning praise and applause from his coach.

“He did the same thing to me. See, first he’ll try talking you into sucking him off, then when that doesn’t work he begs you to fuck him. Says all the right things, you’re beautiful Nancy, please baby, I won’t tell anyone if you just come sit on my cock. Then after you tell him you’re still not ready, he tells the whole school you did it anyway. Makes shit up to impress people.” Nancy bites as-a-matter-of-factly, nodding over in Billy’s direction on the court. Billy, busily unaware of being your topic of conversation, jukes an opponent and snatches the ball, slamming the weaker boy down to the ground with a snap of his body being thrown to the ground. You tightened your hold on your schoolbag not knowing who to believe anymore. Hearing one thing and then another gave you a fucking headache.

“Look, it’s not— I’m not even here for him. It’s not what it looks like,” you stammer as Nancy raises her brow with dubiousness. She cracks a salty grin at you then turns to the boys playing on the court.

“Go Billy! Score that basket, baby!” Nancy shouts with manic laughter, sickly happy when the distraction disrupts his focus, causing him to lose the ball and get shoved backwards by another opponent. Nancy turns and slowly struts closer, sitting on the bleachers and leaning over to whisper in your ear with a ruthless ball of hate gleaming her eye. “He’s a jerk. I’d stay away if I were you.”

With that, she jumps off the bleachers and orders Robin to follow. The taller girl weakly smiles again as you sit and stare as they exit the gym and light a smoke outside. Billy watches them leave and huffs, jogging over.

“Hey. Thought I advised you to not hang around them,” he tisks, spreading his legs before pouring a cup of water down his chin to cool off. You blush and look the other way, clearing your throat.

“I wasn’t. They just sorta came and started talking to me,” you mutter with an attitude.

Billy scoots impossibly closer and fixes a stray hair dangling in front of your face, petting your cheek as if you were a child. “Well, don’t believe whatever shit comes from her fat mouth, alright?”

“Um— okay I guess.”

“That’s a good girl. Glad you came, by the way. Wanna gimme your number so we could do this somewhere a little more private, hm?” he beckons, taking another generous swallow to quench his thirst while holding your stare. You’re stunned and backed into a corner again to comply, nodding while grabbing a pen from your bag. Billy holds out his palm and nods to the pen in your hand, encouraging you to get writing. You waver another moment, unsure if it’s smart getting involved, before saying fuck it and writing the ten digits on his palm. Billy’s name gets shouted from his coach, breaking the thick tension that grew as the moments wore on. He yells back that he needed a quick break before blowing you a kiss. After tossing himself off the bleachers and getting back in the game, he stares down at his hand where the black smudged writing is and smirks, looking up only to find that you’re already gone.

—

“Almost didn’t think you’d answer, maybe gave me a phony number or you’d be with those weirdos again,” Billy snorts, bottlecap flying before handing a beer over. You chuckle uneasily before accepting the beverage, tasting the warm mediocrity before swallowing. It didn’t take long for him to call, now being week two attending Hawkins High. His choice of setting for this “date” was a rooftop of some dark building, stars out and streetlights being the only source of light. Billy’s arm has wrapped around you as you both sip on the beer he provided, an awkward silence suffocating the air.

When the blonde got bored, he’d started trailing his fingers down your back, tiptoeing them teasingly awaiting your reaction. When he gets nothing but you stiffening up, he swoops down to devour your neck, feeling you tilt your head for him to give more. Jackpot. His wandering tongue sucks a deep purple mark as his grabby hands reach to grope you through your bra, making you gasp and feel dumbfounded on what to do and what to say.

“Billy, I don’t think—“

“Mm, what is it new girl? You want more, don’t you?” he mumbles in your neck, then gets greeted by the feeling of blue balls and disappointment when instead of coming closer, you pull away. He scoffs and sits up, straightening himself out.

“I’m just not ready for... that. Sorry,” you weakly apologize, outrageously uncomfortable by the invasion of space and feeling wrong when you notice the growing tent in his jeans. “Are you... like, mad or something?”

Billy sighs, humiliated by your rejection that poked a hole in his ego. He won’t give up on his conquest that easy.

“C’mon, beautiful, not like I’ll tell anyone. We could just have a little fun—“

“No, I-I really gotta go. But I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”

Billy glares at the ground, kicking a rock by his feet in annoyance before rolling his eyes. Guess he’ll just have to improvise instead when he brags to the boys tomorrow.

“Yeah, fine.”

—

The next day, sly comments were thrown at you before first period started. He didn’t talk to you at all like usual, your classmates whispering and giggling about the alleged “fun” you shared with Billy the jock Hargrove. Dirty details travelled around locker rooms, even raunchy ones about you supposedly riding him in the backseat of his car calling him “daddy.” He threw in another lie that you asked him to slap you in the face as he fucked you. The purple splotch he sucked on your neck didn’t help defend yourself.

“Hey, Billy!”

The jock turns away from the boisterous crowd that had worshipped him all day. Once he catches your eye he whispers to a boy next to him, whatever secret so hilarious that he clutched his stomach and snorted when Billy finished. He swiftly strolls over to you and folds his hands, faking formality with a plastic smile.

“Yes, new girl?”

“I wanna know why you said that stuff about me. You damn well know we didn’t do anything! How could you?” you whisper-shout, feeling disgusted and violated. Billy snorts a laugh and regains his composure a second later as if all this is some comedy sketch.

“Oh yeah? Really, new girl, I’d love to do it again sometime. Truly... I just don’t like sloppy seconds. You were great though, I had— nah, Daddy sure had a blast. But we’re done here.” Billy pats your head with mockery before strolling over to his circle of friends without a care in the world.

“You know what? Fuck you. Next time I’ll charge a buck an inch, make it cheap.” you spit, barely making it to the bathroom to scurry and wipe the tears desperately spurting from your eyes. You crawled to the corner of the washroom and hugged yourself, quieting down when you hear footsteps inching closer before entering. It was Nancy and Robin.

“Can’t say we didn’t warn you —“

“I know I should have listened to you guys. But now I wanna fuck with this bastard.”

—

Lovespells don’t take much, and the rumors were true. The Bitches of Eastwick had let you in, only took more convincing of your worthiness to Nancy, but she warmed up to you. When she saw what you could do she had to give Robin credit, you truly were their third. And finally, you’d been put in a place you genuinely belonged.

“Is he— is he staring still? What’s he doing now?”

“He’s totally still watching you. Holy shit Y/N, it’s working, I can tell!” Robin whispers as she muffled her laugh with the back of her hand, seeing how Billy couldn’t take his eyes off you longer than five seconds even in the middle of a lecture. As the bell rang, you and Robin gathered up your things to meet Nancy for next period. Billy wasn’t far behind, trying and failing to remain inconspicuous as he followed you.

“He’s behind us.”

“What?”

“Look out.” Right on cue, Billy pushed you and Robin apart to make room for himself while tripping over his shoelaces.

“Uh, hey Y/N,” the boy gulps, scratching the back of his neck, seeing his posse from afar giving him a “what the fuck” look. He flips them off and rubs his hand over your back. “I just wanted to, yunno, apologize for that shit I said. I feel real bad ‘cause you didn’t deserve it. You deserve a gentleman and I can be that for you now,” he explains, blocking your way. His eyes are void of hate or ridicule, instead swirling with awe and devotion as he bit his lip awaiting your forgiveness. You pretend to think, giving his head a noogie like an obedient pet, then grant a forgive-and-forget.

“It’s cool. Maybe tell your friends later that you’re a lying sack of shit, but for now, carry these books for me and my friend?”

He nods vigorously like a soldier eager to please, graciously taking your heavy books from you and Robin and stacking them in his arms. “Of course, Y/N. Anything in the world. Um, do you think I could sit with you in math?”

—

Billy had no fucking clue what happened to him, but he wholeheartedly couldn’t find it in him to even pay it a speck of attention. It didn’t bother him that nothing gave him any pleasure nor satisfaction anymore, the world shrinking to this dead, lifeless black and white, the only light and color he could see that brought joy was her. He could die just feeling her in his arms and he wouldn’t be sad. With complete and utter tunnel vision blocking him from surroundings, everyday he devoted himself to any task she wanted, even pathetically following her and her friends to the girls’ bathroom. He got in deep shit from the entire female staff, but he remained indifferent.

If she said jump, Billy asked how high. If she wanted him to braid her fucking hair, he’d learn fast and make sure it was done thoroughly and flawlessly. Billy was touch starved, weak, losing sight of everyone else around him. No more charming girls into bed, no more basketball wins for the team, his only purpose being solely Y/N’s love or validation. All priorities from the past drastically altered, but there were no second thoughts. No questions, just wants. Needs. The power she held over him was substantial and beautifully overbearing, like black magic or something.

Weeks after the spell kicked in, she now sits in his Camaro with her feet on the dash as Black Sabbath roars from the speakers. No complaints were heard on his end when you demanded he change the music, happily turning it to your favorite station. You plop a sucker in your mouth, tasting the cherry red flavoring before patting Billy’s head and calling him a good boy. Billy blushed and leaned into your touch, pulling over by the pier and shutting the car off.

“You don’t even know what’s happening, do you?” she asks with a laugh. He joins her even though he wasn’t aware of what’s funny. But he finds her delightful, so anything she does or anywhere she goes, he follows.

“No. No I don’t, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters. Just you and me,” he promises, playing with a strand of her hair before leaning in. He missed her candy-tasting lips when she turns her head, then feels something in his stomach churn after getting denied her kiss.

“Tough luck, champ. I don’t want that from you, just wanted to talk.”

Talk? Billy recoiled, clenching his fists at his sides. Something inside him is intensifying, he just doesn’t know what. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s shaking, burning with a need that feels so close yet so far. There’s no control stopping it.

“I mean, do you even eat or sleep anymore? It’s pathetic. This should be wearing off soon...” she trailed off, watching the waves crash at a distance.

“I won’t fucking eat or fucking sleep until I get what’s mine, you understand? I don’t care about anything else. I just wanna... why won’t you hold me?” he implored, yanking the collar of her shirt so she’s closer to his lips. It almost feels too good to be true.

“Stop! Jesus, I didn’t mean for it to go this far! You’re under a spell, you jackass, now let me go!” she squeals, punching his chest. Billy ignores it, that indifference coming back. He reached for his belt when he thinks he has her where he wants her but gets stopped by a righteous kick to the crotch, making him howl in anger.

“Goddammit!” the boy whined, cradling himself through his jeans from the excruciating pain.

“Stay the hell away, you hear me? Don’t ever come near me or my friends again,” she threatens, exiting the vehicle before stomping away. Billy scrubs the tears off his face and punched the steering wheel with miserable frustration.

—

“He... he grabbed me. Wouldn’t let go this time,” you gulp, feeling the ghost of his frighteningly tight grip pulling you. Steam shoots from Nancy’s ears as Robin takes comfort and asks if you’re okay. Nancy has already stirred up a plan for revenge as she flips through the pages of spells, searching for the perfect one.

“Nance, what are you doing?” you ask with reluctance, knowing it isn’t anything good.

“We need to make him pay. He was gonna hurt you, case you forgot. Hargrove’s always been a goddamn scumbug, but he tried fucking you without your permission and he won’t get away with it this time.”

—

Billy gulps the last of the beer from the solo cup and belches, eyes half-lidded and bloodshot. They widen a bit when he spots Nancy enter the house party. He’s determined to do whatever it takes to get you again, and if he has to talk to your leech of a best friend, so be it. The blonde seeks Nancy upstairs and follows her to a vacant room.

“Where is she?” he demands lazily, eyes faltering once again as he loses balance and falls to the bed back first. He gets comfy with the beer nestled in his grip, still expecting her to give him insight on your disappearance.

“How cute. Miss tormenting your little wife, don’tcha, hot stuff?” Nancy mocks, crawling over to where he lays on the bed and trailing two fingers over his crotch. Billy reacts with stealth, disgusted as he roughly shoved her hand away.

”Don’t. I’m warning you,” he threatens. “Tell me where the fuck Y/N is. I need, I need to talk to her—“

“I’m not telling you shit! She doesn’t want you, understand? You meant nothing to her this whole time. She used you.” Nancy laughs and points her finger at him. Billy rolled his eyes, calling bullshit. You wouldn’t do a thing like that, not in a million years. This is typical Slutty Wheeler, throwing tantrums because she couldn’t get a taste of his dick anymore.

Nancy’s blood boiled, veins popping out of her forehead; on the verge to end this already. But she has to fuck with him like he fucked with her first. The teenage girl burns with hostility as she recalls the spell, working her magic. She runs her hands over her face as it morphs into yours. She takes a look in the mirror and finds your eyes staring at her reflection. With a sick, evil smile, she gets back on the bed and runs her hands down Billy’s chiseled chest, feeling him jump until he sees your face. He gasps, too dumb from the spell and drunk from the liquor to realize he was being tricked again.

“Baby, I’ve missed you so damn much,” he mumbles to who he thinks is you, unbuttoning Nancy’s shirt and kissing every inch of skin he sees. She moans in ecstasy, laughing at how fucking easy he is, then sticks her tongue down Billy’s throat. They were all over eachother for another twenty minutes until a furious knock interrupts.

It’s you and Robin.

“What the fuck?” Billy wipes his mouth of Nancy’s spit then throws himself off the bed in a hurry. Her spell wore off, now changing back to her usual self, giving Billy a playful wave.

“You’re — you’re a witch! They were right!” Billy stutters, his world turning upside down making him sick to his stomach.

“They usually are,” she shrugs.

“Nancy, you got what you wanted. He’s freaked out, now let’s go.” you ordered, the guilt eating you alive. Nancy doesn’t stop.

“Your lover’s a witch too, yunno. The only reason you’re obsessed with her is cause we cast a spell on you. But that’s why I’m here, helping you forget.”

Billy’s chest heaved up and down rapidly, shaking his head, sobering up. “No. No, she didn’t — she wouldn’t do that,” he denies, sweat gathering on his forehead and heart hammering fast.

”NANCE! This is fucking over! Now let’s go!” you beg, loathing his puppy-dog eyes. Robin stands frozen beside you, knowing how unpredictable Nancy got when she’s angry.

“You’re just jealous.”

Robin gulps and closes her eyes, knowing that’ll set her off.

“Jealous?” Nancy emphasized, preying onto the boy as he backs away. “You’re Y/N’s servant. You barely fucking exist to me. This whole time you’ve treated girls like whores, but you’re the whore!” she cries, feet lifting off the ground, towering over him as he backs further towards the window. Billy’s beyond petrified now, weeping quietly as he dares try calling for help.

“I-I’m sorry, Nance. You know I didn’t mean it. I liked you last year, but— but I’m in love with her now, and I’m sorry!”

His sorry ass apology does nothing besides push the last of her buttons, feeding into her wrath.

“Did you hear that, Y/N? He says he’s sorry! Oh, what a shame we have to kill him, ‘cause at least he’s sorry!” Nancy claws are her hair, spinning back and fourth, screaming nonsense as Billy pleads and holds his hand out to you.

“Who’s it gonna be, Y/N? This rapist scumbag slut, or your friend that took you in when you were a nobody?”

Tears of your own had escaped, mortified by how escaladed things have become. You shook your head helplessly, holding onto Robin for safety. There was no stopping her now. Like a wave from a natural disaster, Nancy thrusts her arms in the air and hurls the boy out the window with God-like force. You’ll never forget the sounds of his cry for help on the way down and the SPLAT when his body hit the pavement. Nancy lets out a sigh of relief as if a long day’s work is finally over, and wipes the sweat beading off her forehead. She turns to you and Robin after catching her breath.

“What’re you staring at, guys? C’mon, let’s find Robin a girlfriend next.”

—

my first whack at a horror-ish/thriller instead of drama/romance. I freaking LOVE this movie, def go check it out if you haven’t cause there’s a lot more plot I left out. thaaaank you all, I’ll be starting the next movie fic soon !:)

#billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove imagine #stranger things fanfic #billy hargrove #stranger things imagine #the craft (1996)

113 notes · View notes

silly-nonny-fics-are-for-fandoms · 4 years

Text

Impossible Happiness

Note: This is a gift fic for @angiezstuff! This is the last of the gift fics so I had to go big or go home, so this one is about 5.5k words! It’s based on the Jaystosuh AU with a little baby Gavin so hopefully you’ll like it.

Small TW bullying, and TW for stuff at the end. Nothing graphic but there is some sorta dark stuff, which is mostly angst and not that bad.

Gift fic 3/3, Jaystosuh.

Summary: Gavin was known at school as the weird kid. Maybe it was his blue hair, maybe it was because he was really smart for only being six years old. Or maybe it was because he had three caretakers and none of them were female. He didn't know. What he did know was that if his family knew, they would be very upset, and they had enough to deal with without knowing that their little bear cub got hit in class.

Read on Ao3 or keep reading

Gavin was a good kid, by all accounts. Of course, he had a very unorthodox life, but he never minded. He loved his family. Sure, his brother and his brother's boyfriends being his parents was something that most people didn't understand, but that was life for him. They loved him, he loved them, and his life was fun! Hosuh always did his best to make sure he had what he needed, Jay always helped him with his schoolwork, making sure as well that he didn't do anything too dangerous even though he really wanted to, while Stephen was tons of fun.

He didn't know why he lived with them, but he knew that an older woman came to visit them once a week. He didn't know her name, nor did he know what the reason for her visits were, but he knew she always talked to the 'adults' and never wanted to talk to him. He'd overheard, once, something about an orphanage, and came to a realization.

If he was a bad kid, the woman would take him away. He didn't want to go away. The other kids at school, the older kids, always called him weird and other names, one even kicked him, but he never hit them back! Hosuh always told him that he should not hit other kids! Stephen and Jay said something about an ash haul, but Gavin didn't understand what they meant.

"Gavin?" Hosuh asked, one morning after the woman left, "Can we talk for a minute?"

"Okay..." Gavin mumbled, staring down at the ground. Had he been bad? He followed the rules, he'd did his schoolwork, he could almost neatly! He could count to a hundred by tens or twenties, do addition and subtraction, he was the best reader in his class, he'd done everything his teachers asked, why did Hosuh look so serious?

Why did Jay and Stephen look so mad? Were they mad at him? Tears came to his eyes, and he began sniffling, face red.

"A-Am I in trouble?" He asked, staring up at his caretakers as he climbed onto one of the big kid chairs, "Did I do bad?"

"What? No, no. Little cub, you didn't do anything wrong." Hosuh said, helping the little six-year-old into the chair before he knocked it over, "We need to talk about school, that's all."

Gavin always loved it when they called him their little cub. He had a onesie, a bear, which used to be white until a laundry incident happened, thanks to Stephen, and the white onesie turned blue. He was their bluebear. Hosuh was their bunny. Jay was their fox. Stephen was a cat. He really liked when they gave in to his begging and all wore onesies with him. Those were the nights when they built pillow forts in the living room, watched movies, and all fall asleep in one big cuddle pile.

It didn't look like one of those days. Ever since school started again, those days had gotten lesser and lesser, since they all needed to do schoolwork all the time. Gavin liked the weekends, they did their shopping on the weekends, they took him to the park on weekends and he wasn't stuck in their house. Though, running through the woods and playing in the mud, pretending to be a prince slaying a dragon was always fun. He liked the mud too.

"Why about school?" Gavin asked, looking around the table. Jay looked scary, biting his lip and glaring at the table, while Stephen's hands shook in clenched fists on the surface. Hosuh had his normal, soft smile, but Gavin knew the look in his eyes. Sadness. Worry.

"Gavin, do you know Ms. Alice?" Hosuh asked, "The woman who comes to visit us every week?"

"You mean the scary lady who wants to take me away?"

Jay and Stephen's heads snapped up, eyes wide as they stared at the child. What did he just say? Why would she want to take him away?

"Why do you think she wants to take you away?" Hosuh asked then, raising his hand to keep his boyfriends from yelling. Gavin squirmed under their gaze, trying not to cry even more than he already was.

"Sh-She said somethn bout an orphanage. I don't wanna go away..."

"Gavin, you're not gonna be taken away!" Stephen exclaimed, reaching out for his brother's hand. "If someone tried to take you away, they'd have to go through me first."

"Hey, don't forget me!" Jay interrupted, "No way are we giving our cub away."

"Mhm, but that's not this conversation."

"Con... Conversition?"

"Conversation, Gavin. It means to talk with someone," Stephen said, giving Gavin's hand a little squeeze.

"Right. Now, Gavin, We have something to ask you. Are the other kids in your class nice?"

Gavin paused, thinking about the kids in his class. There were a few girls who really liked to make fun of him, ever since parents day last year when he had explained that if Stephen, Hosuh, and Jay took care of him then they were like his dads, though brothers fit better. He was a really bright kid, Mr. Bell always said he should be in the second or third-grade classes, but maybe that made the other kids upset? The other kids liked to tease him, some kids pulled his hair, but he tried not to think about that. There was one kid, a girl who entered the class later in the year named Anne, she liked to play with him. She had a little unicorn plushie which she carried in her backpack, but only Gavin knew about it.

"Mhm. They're nice." Gavin said, after pondering the question for a few minutes. The other kids were nice, they just weren't nice to him.

"Okay... Do they ever call you names? Or hurt you?"

"If they do hurt you, you hit back, right?" Stephen interrupted again, obviously worried for his little brother, "Don't let them push you around!"

They hurt. Their words hurt. They really, really hurt. But the kids who hurt him didn't understand, and he was confused; why didn't they like him? Why did they call him a gay? What even was a gay? They liked to make fun of his family, but he didn't understand why. It hurt when they were mean about his family.

He saw how worried everyone was, how upset they were, and he didn't want to make them more upset. He didn't want them mad at him.

"N-No, uhm. No one hurts me." Gavin lied, staring up at his family, "Why?"

The three teenagers sighed. All tension seemed to leave Jay and Stephen's bodies, while Hosuh just smiled. They were always honest with him, and Gavin knew he'd probably be in trouble for his lie if they ever found out, but he didn't want them to hurt because he was hurting.

"Ms. Alice was told by Mr. Bell that you were crying in class yesterday, so she wanted to know if everything was alright here. She was worried about you being bullied because, uh... How do I put this..."

"Because you have three caretakers." Jay said simply, "And we're all guys. "I'm pretty sure you've realized that isn't normal."

Gavin nodded. He'd never questioned before why he had three caretakers, no 'real' dad or a mom, because that was always how it was. For as long as he could remember, it was just the four of them, with the scary lady showing up every once and a while. And Gavin wasn't going to question that now, when everyone was already upset.

"Can I go now?"

"I dunno, can you?" Stephen asked, smirking as he did. Both of the other teens chuckled softly at the response, the question Stephen always asked whenever Gavin asked if he could do something.

"It's okay, Gavin. You can go play outside. Stephen, go play with him." Jay decided.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

Even though he protested, Stephen walked over and motioned for his brother to follow him. He wouldn't give up spending time with his brother for the world, even though he had lots of things to do. One day, he knew Gavin wouldn't want to spend time with him, and he didn't want to let that be his fault. Gavin grinned and ran out of the kitchen to the front door, being careful to open it so he won't get hit in the face, he'd done that one too many times, before running out into the front yard. He missed Hosuh's yell of 'Put your shoes on!', of course, and headed straight to the back yard.

There was a sandbox there, and a big pretty wooden ladder with vines creeping up the side of the house which Gavin liked to climb. It went all the way to the roof, and he hadn't managed to break it yet. So the rule, Gavin knew, was that if Gavin was going to play in the backyard, someone needed to watch him.

So he didn't end up on the roof again.

"Wait up a second, Gavin!" Stephen said, quickly picking up his brother before he could get to the sandbox, "We're putting our shoes on."

"What? Whyyyy?" Gavin whined, looking up at his brother and squirming in his hold. He did not want to be picked up! He wanted to play!

"There's acorns everywhere, do you wanna get your feet stabbed? Absolutely not!"

"But Stephen!"

"Nah, nah nah, don't you 'But, Stephen' me!" Stephen insisted, bringing him back inside and setting the six-year-old on the tile floor. "That's Hosuh bun's territory."

"What did you say, Stephen?" Hosuh's voice called from the kitchen, and the scent of him beginning to fry up some beef cubes for shish-kebabs, their dinner, wafted into the doorway.

"Nothing, Hosuh!"

"He said you say- mff!" Stephen covered Gavin's mouth, chuckling awkwardly to himself.

"Shush, Gavin, or you're gonna get us all in trouble. Do you want Hosuh to get upset?" He asked, and Gavin shook his head. He absolutely did not want Hosuh to get upset. "Good. That was called sarcasm; I didn't mean what I said."

He pulled his hand off Gavin's mouth, grabbing the child's shoes and handing them to him.

"Isn't that lying?" Gavin asked, sitting down before taking his socks out of his shoes. "Jay! Stephen's lyin-"

"I am not lying! I'm trying to teach sarcasm here and- Oh my God bro what the fu-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Stephen! Child!" Jay yelled from the stairs. There was another rule, which Gavin didn't understand, in their house. Sometimes, one of them would begin to say something, starting with sh or fu, and suddenly one of the others would shush them. Gavin sometimes wondered what they were going to say, but the act was often enough that he didn't think anything of it.

"We'll talk about this later, Jay!" Stephen groaned, but as he saw that Gavin finished getting his shoes on and was standing up, ready to run out of the door at the first sign of being allowed to, he decided to be lenient and shutting up about the whole manner. Their earlier conversation had probably put Gavin under a lot of stress, so it would be for the best to let him play. At least he wasn't crying anymore, thank God.

But they had seen a few bruises here and there on Gavin without a good explanation. None of them really believed that Gavin wasn't being bullied, though there was a chance that he just didn't understand what they meant when they asked if he was being mean. They were just kids, trying to raise another kid to the best of their ability, and Stephen was grateful that his boyfriends were willing to help him with his brother. He could never repay them for that kindness.

Sure, there were plenty of adults who were willing to help them; Ms. Alice, in particular, had helped them ever since the incident happened and they had to move in with Jay when Gavin was only two years old. Hosuh moved in two years later.

Stephen smiled as he helped Gavin to build a sandcastle, watching him play in the mud and poke at bugs, even joining in on the fun once his little brother threw a small amount of mud at him. Even as a little melancholy hole opened within his heart.

_________________

The next morning was a lot less serious. Today, they had a short to-do list before school tomorrow, including grocery shopping and a few supplies for one of Gavin's take-home projects. That meant they had to take the car. Gavin liked when they got to take the car, because he got to look as the world zoomed by. It was like the bus, but more fun!

Jay always drove the car, with Stephen in the front seat, and Hosuh always sat next to Gavin. If they were taking the car, that meant they were also probably going to the toy store.

Whenever the three of them had a little extra spending money, they always let Gavin pick out a toy or an activity. With both Stephen and Jay working part-time jobs after school, on top of Jay's family paying for the house and all those bills, it was at least once a month that they could take such a trip.

The toy shop was their first stop, it always was, in the case that Gavin couldn't decide what he wanted. That had been the case over the summer, and their ice cream had melted in the car, which was a nightmare to clean up.

As it was a weekend, the store was moderately busier than usual, with parents being dragged around by their kids. Gavin looked around excitedly, eyes sparkling as he held Hosuh's hand. In public, they all decided it was best for him to stay with Hosuh or Jay, as the chaotic energy the brothers had together was too much for their bank account or sanity to handle. The last time Stephen had watched his brother in one of these stores, it had ended with Gavin climbing one of the shelves and falling from six and a half feet up as Stephen laughed. Not an event any of them were ready to repeat.

Hosuh looked down at Gavin, smiling softly at the child. "Okay, Gavin. Pick one toy that you want, but there's a rule this time." As he spoke, Gavin seemed confused, furrowing his eyebrows in curiosity.

"But why?" He asked, his voice verging on a whine.

"Because, bluebear," Jay sighed, patting his head, "You have a nasty habit of throwing your toys. So the rule is simple; if it's soft, you can get it."

"Hmmm... Okay!" Gavin smiled, "I can go now?"

Hosuh nodded, walking off into the store properly with Gavin. Stephen and Jay stayed back towards the front of the store, with Jay gently taking Stephen's hand in his own.

"You've been awfully quiet. Something wrong?"

"Nah. I'm fine, just tired. You didn't have to study all night for homework."

"Ha! Maybe if you'd done it after getting home from work on Friday, it wouldn't have been so bad. Or you could've asked for help."

"Absolutely not! No way is Stephen asking for help!" The purple-haired teen huffed, walking off towards Hosuh and Gavin who were looking at the stuffed animals. Gavin seemed particularly interested in a giant teddy bear the size of his brother, the perfect size to curl up with next to the couch.

Stephen laughed, pointing at the bear, "Hey! That's bigger than you are, Gavin! You can't even pick it up."

Gavin pouted, "I can! Watch me!"

"Don't goad him, Stephen." Hosuh sighed, watching as the child attempted to grab the bear only to find himself unable to reach it. By a lot. Considering it was on top of the shelf, not even Jay or Stephen would be able to reach it without issue, and Hosuh realized it was probably designed that way to keep kids from grabbing at it.

"I can't get ittt..."

"See? I told you!"

"Hosuhbunny?" Gavin turned to the silver-haired teen and the two teenagers choked on air, drawing the attention of a few other customers. That was the nickname that Stephen called Hosuh whenever he was in a very, very cuddly mood, though it was usually shortened to just the animal title. "Help?"

"I'll go get someone to get it down- Uh, Stephen? Don't let Gavin climb on the shelves again."

"I got this Hosuh, I don't know what you're talking about, I'm awesome."

"Riiiiigght." Hosuh rolled his eyes, exiting the aisle and heading off to find an employee. Stephen sighed, looking down at his little brother, then smiled again.

"C'mon, let's go to the play area." He suggested, and Gavin beamed. There was a little play area at the back of the store for kids to play in while their parents walked around the store, so that they didn't bother them while they shopped or in the case that it was a gift. So Stephen walked with his brother to the play area and sat on one of the few benches they had for adults. The urge to grab for his phone was strong, and he was just a person, who soon found themselves staring at the screen. Every once and a while he glanced up at the group of kids to check on his brother.

The first thing Gavin noticed when they got to the play area was that there were quite a few kids from his class there. Not Anne, of course he wasn't that lucky, but instead there were his main bullies. A girl named Vivian his own age and three boys, the eldest of which he had a large bruise on his stomach from. With dread in his heart, he walked up towards them.

They couldn't hit him, not with the adults watching.

"It's the weirdo," They whispered to the other kids, "He's got three dads! The one with the purple hair is one of them! They're sick!"

"Sick? What? He looks nice..."

"Don't play with him, or you'll get sick too! Then you'll get your mommy sick, and she'll leave!"

Gavin was used to overhearing these kinds of talks. It happened every day in class. He walked over to the toy chest and grabbed a little cat plushie, worn from love and use, then sat down on the carpet. He usually had so much energy, so much want to play, but these kids always stole it from him by their words.

"Look! The weirdo has a kitty! Save it!" Vivian said, pointing at the cat plush, and Gavin held it close. No way! That plushie was his!

The three boys walked over to him, one of them grabbing at the cat.

"Give it!"

"No! It's mine!" Gavin huffed, holding onto it tightly, only to yelp as one of the kids gripped his hair and yanked Another took hold of his wrists and twisted, digging their nails in, causing a searingly stinging sensation across his wrists as he clung to the cat. "Ow! You're hurting me! Stephen!!" He didn't want to hurt them. He didn't want them to hurt him. He didn't want to be bad, he wanted to be good and not hurt anyone.

"Hey! Leave him alone!" He heard his brother say, and Gavin felt them let go. These kids knew better than to hurt him when the adults were looking, and they backed off. "Who the hell taught you that bullying was okay?"

"You're one of the weirdos! The sick ones!" One of the kids exclaimed after realizing who Stephen was. Immediately, they ran off to the other side of the play area, leaving Gavin and Stephen standing there. Gavin had tears streaming down his face, the pain still lingering. He hadn't wanted to be bad, he didn't want to make Stephen upset.

"Woah, Gavin, it's okay," Stephen said, kneeling down and wiping the child's tears. He looked around, seeking any of these children's parents, and saw Jay coming down one of the aisles. "Jay! C'mere!"

Jay was over to them before Gavin knew it, being scooped up into his arms protectively. It helped to stifle his cries, keeping them down so as not to get a noise complaint.

"Stephen, go look for Hosuh, then get their parents. They should be told."

Stephen didn't even bother arguing, instead just giving his brother a kiss on the head and walking up towards the front of the store. He'd expected something like this to happen eventually, if they kept coming out to this area. Of course, he enjoyed seeing his brother having fun, but he hated the looks they got whenever they walked around the mall. Because everyone knew the Ng boys.

He found the parents before he found Hosuh. Literally, bumping into them. A small group of the parents had gathered together at the front of the store, making small talk, while their kids were in the play area. He saw Hosuh talking with one of the employees, who he recognized as someone from their class, and walked up to his boyfriend.

"Oh, Stephen! Do you know-"

"The kids in the play are were bullying Gavin," Stephen interrupted, "They were pulling his hair and made him bleed." He watched as the color drained from both of their faces, horror crossing it.

"Is he okay?" Hosuh asked, his voice filled with worry, "I have bandages in the car but I don't- Who?"

"Jay's taking care of him. Talk to the parents for me so I don't end up screaming at them."

Hosuh nodded, "I got this. Stay with me?" He asked, reaching out to take Stephen's clenched hand in his own. They walked over to the group of parents, and once Hosuh started talking to them, Stephen noticed how they were more focused on him. Once Gavin's name was mentioned, before Hosuh had even brought up the idea of bullying, most of them lost the color in their faces.

Yeah, everyone knew the Ng boys. No, they didn't know them. They knew what happened to them. Stephen would never be able to forget the night which resulted in their current situation, and he was glad that Gavin did not know of the tale from that night. Of course, he'd been too young, barely even a year and a half old. He'd only recently learned to walk before that night.

"Stephen? Stephen?" Hosuh's voice broke through his thoughts, leading him back to the real world. "We need to talk to Gavin."

Stephen only nodded, taking a deep breath to find his voice. He could tell there would be a crash any day now, then he'd be back to normal. All the stress from school, of caring for Gavin, and remembering the sight in the living room- He needed to breathe. Right.

Gavin was still sniffling, hiding his face in Jay's chest. His wrists were lightly bleeding, likely from where one of the kids had dug their nails in, and an employee was explaining what happened to the kids. He couldn't help but overhear what the parents were telling their children, who were saying that he was a sick weirdo because he had three dads.

"No, sweetie, he has a brother. Their parents are dead. Sure, his brother is weird and maybe sick, but he isn't. You're going to apologize on Monday when you see him in class."

Dead? They were dead? He just had always thought he didn't have any. He had Stephen, Jay, and Hosuh. That was what he needed. He was so confused.

He felt himself being carried back out to the car, set in his booster seat, buckled in and he heard the car being locked after the others climbed in.

"Gavin, you said the other kids were nice. Is that... Normal?" Hosuh asked, "For them to be that mean to you?"

With a sniffle, Gavin nodded. "Ye-es..."

"Is it because you have three dads?"

"That's wh-uh-t they say." He felt a soft tissue being pressed against his face, and he quickly blew into the tissue.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Stephen asked, trying not to yell in the car, "We could've done something! We- We could've- We could've helped!"

"Stephe-"

"No, Hosuh, I love you but Stephen's right here." Jay sighed, "We are responsible for Gavin, so we need to make sure this isn't happening. I only have three questions."

"Yeah, and what are those?"

Jay and Stephen turned in their seats, facing the six-year-old in the backseat. Gavin was fidgeting in his seat, with Hosuh gently holding his hand for comfort and bandaging his wrists. They each had very different ways of raising Gavin, with Stephen usually being the fun one unless it came to his education or when he was under a lot of stress. Jay tended to be very strict, with his fun moments, though those would likely shine through more as Gavin got older. The blonde wasn't exactly known for being good with kids, but he certainly wasn't bad at it. Hosuh was gentle, soft and sweet and loving. He could be strict if he needed to, especially when someone messed with the few rules he had in place or when people were being lazy, but he loved to just spend time with them.

He was probably trying to make up for what he lacked when it came to his own upbringing, Stephen realized.

"One. Gavin, how long have these kids been picking on you?" Jay asked, his voice deceptively calm as it held the rage underneath.

Gavin reached up and wiped away his tears, sniffling softly. "Since last year... Parents day."

Right. Parents day. Stephen, as Gavin's legal guardian, had gotten an exemption on going to school that day to instead attend Gavin's, where he'd needed to explain that he wasn't raising Gavin alone. That his boyfriends were helping. It was their fault Gavin was being bullied.

"Right. Next, why didn't you tell us yesterday?"

"They're nice... But not nice to me. I didn't wanna worry you all about me. You're all so busy, 'nd I-"

"Alright. And finally, Gavin, you know we're never too busy for you, and that you can tell us anything, right? It doesn't matter if you're hurting, if you're scared, or if you did something really bad. We'll get through it together. If you're sad, then we'll smile until you can again."

"I know, Jay. I'm sorry. I love you all."

"We love you too, little cub." The three teens said in unison, Jay and Stephen sitting properly as Jay started the car. Grocery shopping went by fast, faster than it ever had before, and before they knew it they were safely home.

Sure, their living situation was a little odd, but it worked for them. They all had different ways of getting to this point in their lives, with Jay's only technically being voluntary, and they wouldn't change it for the world.

________

Someone was in their house. His mother handed him his baby brother, pushing him into the closet. "Stay here, Stephen. If I don't come to get you in ten minutes, please, run. Take your brother and take him away from here, take care of him."

"What? Mom, I don't understand," Stephen said, looking sleepily up at his mother. Gavin was asleep, his yellow pajamas a little messy as he clung to his brother, "What's wrong?"

"Just listen for once in your life, and stay quiet. I love you." The doors closed. He could see through the slits in the wood, he could see his mom carefully exit the bedroom. From down the hall, he heard gunshots. No one was supposed to have such easy access to guns, not that he knew, and he heard yelling. Clinging to his brother, he counted out the minutes in their closet, taking deep breaths to keep from waking up the infant in his arms. If his mom didn't come to get him, where would he go?

He could go to Jay's. Jay lived mostly alone, with his rich adoptive family being off across the country for the majority of the year. He had a few rules, including that their neighbor would check in on him at least once a day until he started high school, that he was never to get below an A in any class, and once he got into high school he would need to pay for his own food. He would also need to pay for his own college, but they would help if he actually needed it.

But Jay wasn't good with kids. Hosuh was.

Three minutes left.

He heard his mother scream, a foreign voice demanding something. Stephen covered his little brother's ears as carefully as he could, adrenaline running through his veins.

Someone was going up the stairs. He could hear the telltale creak of the third step, the shuddering moan of old wood of the top hall. Stephen knew he needed to move. He needed to move and he needed to move now. He opened the closet as carefully as he could, tiptoeing out, grabbing his cell phone from the nightstand before continuing out of his carpeted room as he heard his heart beating in his ears. He caught a brief glance of the living room doorway, a pool of red seeping out towards the hall. His entire body jolted as he remembered his mother's words. Run. Take care of Gavin.

He ran off towards the back door, which was unlocked from the inside, and he carefully opened it. There was ringing in his ears, he didn't stop running even as the acorns pressed onto his feet, fumbling to stay balanced. He could hear the police sirens, but he couldn't think, he could only move and hold Gavin. The loud noises had awoken him, and he was crying loudly as Stephen attempted to dial Hosuh's number. It was only nine, he should still be awake, why won't he pick up-!

"Stephen? It's so late, what's wrong?" Hosuh's tired voice came over the phone.

"Hosuh? Thank fuck! Meet me at Jay's house, no time to explain, I promise- Please!"

"I'll be there. Do you need me to stay on the line?"

"No, just go!"

Hosuh hung up the phone without a second question. He'd likely heard the panic in his voice, heard Gavin's unstoppable crying and decided it best not to argue. He lived closer to Jay's house than Stephen did, anyway.

Stephen didn't stop running until he got to Jay's house, his friends meeting him at the door with a shocked expression. He quickly handed the crying Gavin to Hosuh, who seemed quite perplexed as to why he was holding his best friend's little brother.

"Watch him, calm him down." He said before running into the living room and fumbling to turn on the television.

"What're you doing, Stephen? What happened?" Jay asked, walking into the living room behind his friend only for the television to ring out over the local news.

"I'm standing here at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Ng, who have been dead in their house."

Stephen jolted awake with a shock, tears streaming down his face. He hadn't dreamed of that night in at least a year, since the last big crash of stress and anxiety. His shoulders shook with silent sobs, and he felt the gentle hands of his boyfriends holding him. Hosuh was in front of him, wiping away the tears and holding his hand, whispering soft words of comfort to him. It always left Stephen in awe afterward, how someone who'd been disowned by his own family had so much will to stay calm and not get upset at him.

"It's okay, Stephen, you're here. You're safe. We've got you. Gavin's okay. It's all gonna be okay," He whispered as Jay wrapped his arms around Stephen and kissed his cheek, then his forehead, humming a soft song. He knew how much they enjoyed listening to him singing, be it a small hum or a full ballad, they loved the sound of his voice.

Stephen wasn't able to form words through his sobs, holding onto the sheets even as he felt something was missing from his arms, but their actions helped diminish the loss of sleep before it became too much. They did have school in the morning, after all. By the time he was calm, nearing twelve-thirty in the morning, the three of them were ready to fall into sleep's sweet embrace once again.

The door creaked open then, and Stephen's nerves filled him with a short burst of adrenaline. Quickly he turned to the doorway, seeing a small figure scuttling into the room.

"I- Uh... I had a nightmare. Can I stay with you three?" Gavin asked, sleep slurring his words, though the tear marks on his cheeks proved his words true.

"Sure, buddy. C'mon, you can be in between Stephen and I," Jay said, motioning for Gavin to climb up onto the bed as he let go of Stephen so he could turn over. Hosuh instead wrapped his arms around his waist, nuzzling against his neck as the child climbed into their bed. Stephen quickly pulled his baby brother into a hug, the feeling of being lost fading away. This was his family, the four of them together.

#Actuallyoddplan #Jaystosuh #Happy ending #TW: Bullying #TW: minor death #Angst #Fluff and angst #Gavin is a baby #Gavin Ng #Stephen Ng #Hosuh Lee #tw: nightmare death #My writing #Gift fic #I really hope this is okay #For every ounce of angst there is a pound of fluff

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antarestyl · 5 years

Text

PTA Sans: The one with Mrs. Smith

Summary: Sans is still waiting for the other shoe to drop and well... he has some interesting conversations in this.

AO3-Link

IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

I am sorry it took again so long. RL and writers block kinda made things very difficult but I had a few days off now and well... Christmas time always makes me nostalgic for this AU. I was to thank all of you who left Comments or gave Kudos. Thank you so much, you always gave me the motivation to return to this AU again and again.

All of you have fun with the chapter and have some wonderful holidays and a happy new year!

To be honest, Sans was a bit skeptic when things went unusually right and smooth. There were no strange after-effects from creating Azzy. Asgore and Toriel kinda coped with Azzy being around and being Azzy, Toriel kinda-sorta forgave him for lying to her, Frisk was overjoyed to have Azzy back and as something like a pseudo-sibling...

Hell, he even dunked Linda a few times again and it was GREAT. (Even with Linda being strangely more manageable these days. Guess she CAN learn after all. She still gave as good as always thou. )

Still, something inside him waited for the other shoe to drop. He waited for the humans to turn around and declare war on monster again seal them Underground. He waited for the officials to come down on Toriel's head and close her school. He waited for something to come and steal his stars or his life, for Toriel to realize that he was just a miserable bag of bones or for Papyrus to finally have enough or...

Or to wake up again in Snowdin.

He really really didn't like thinking like that. He KNEW it was a bad way of thinking, something he realized after months of therapy and something he had under control... most of the times.

It seems with everything that happened he was still a bit on the edge.

He felt it in his bones when he worked in his home office, when his fingers were a bit to tense to type quickly. He felt it when his magic seemed to ripple like waves when he wanted to do small delicate levitation work. He felt it when his magic took just a second to long to dissolve his food into magic at dinner, making him eat just a bit slower than usual.

Luckily, he was not the only one noticing these things.

So when he went to bed about three weeks after Azzy joined them for the PTA meeting, he was kinda surprised when Toriel pulled him into herself. Sans looked up and even in the dim light he saw her looking down at him with concern. It was hard to look at her expression like this.

“Uh...” Sans said, not knowing how to go from here.

“Knock knock.” said Toriel, making Sans blink more but answer just out of instinct.

“Who's there?”

“Water.”

“Water who?”

“Water you thinking in your skull, huh?”

Sans laughed a bit at that, Toriel joining in with her giggles.

“But seriously, Sans.” she said finally. “You seem a bit... distant.”

“I uh...”

“And tense.”

“What can I say, I am all bones, I am bound to be a bit... stiff.”

Toriel chuckled a bit and nuzzled him a bit. “I mean it Sans. Something is on your mind. … talk to me.”

And there they were, the three words that struck Sans more than anything. Not I love you not Let me help, no. Talk to me was the one that let his soul do a little jump. He didn't want to. Honestly.

He had to, had he?

“I... I really dunno, Tori.” Sans mumbled out, turning so he could bury his face into white soft fur. “I just... I feel...”

There was a soft paw on his head again, petting him and this shouldn't feel so nice and this shouldn't sooth him so much but it did. Toriel didn't even SAY anything but her touch and intent and the subtle touch of magic was enough.

She was worried and she wanted answers and Sans had no idea how to put it all into words.

“I just feel like... it's not over. Or it can't be over.” he mumbled. “I worked for years... and before that on something similar even longer and it never worked and now...”

“You waiting for it all to go wrong?” asked Toriel.

“Kinda? I mean... it was hard. So hard.” mumbled Sans. “And I know you and Asgore and Azzy... are still figuring stuff out. But all in all it's so... okay now?”

“Would you prefer if I was more angry?”

“No? I mean you got all right to be. With me, with Asgore, with nobody in particular...”

“Sans...” said Toriel, sighing deeply. “Listen to me?”

Sans sighed with relieve. Toriel talking meant he didn't had to talk now. He nodded and looked up into Toriel's eyes.

“I was angry.” Toriel said. “But I was angry for a very very long time. Angry and bitter. I was angry at Asgore, at the humans, at myself. I was angry even at the children that left me behind despite me warning them. I was angry at so many things, Sans. And I did things in anger I regret and ironically I judged Asgore for doing wrong things in his anger and grief too. And I was unable to let go of my grudge for a long, long time because sometimes it felt like it was the only thing that let me go on.”

Sans wanted to say something but Toriel just lifted a paw, showing him that she wasn't done.

“After the barrier fell... I was angry too. I was angry that Frisk saw Asgore as a father figure despite him trying to hurt them. I was angry that Asgore wasn't hurting MORE. I was angry that there were monster looking at Asgore with adoration, especially Undyne. I wanted to scream at all of them, wanted them to be angry and hate him just as much as I did in that moment. I wanted Frisk to not love him so much.”

Sans stared at Toriel. Sure, he had known she had a lot of issues with Asgore and that she could hold a grudge but he had never thought how deep this was going.

“But... in the end? I sat down with Asgore. We talked. A... a lot. And I came to realize that I misjudged him. That I did a lot of things wrong too and that Asgore was not the evil heartless creature I had pained in my mind. That he was suffering just like I did and just expressed it differently.” Toriel sighed. “We both got angry, we both grieved. He declared war on humanity to keep the Underground from losing hope. I took the body of our dead child and ran away and let my feelings fester. We both had to let go of this. It's not nice, it's not pretty and what happened was horrible... but we both had to accept that.”

“So... that was why you got along better suddenly?” asked Sans.

“I a way.” Toriel sighed. “It... took a lot. To let it go. But I learned a lot in that time. To not let my hurt and grief transform into the sort of dark anger like I had let myself do it before. So... when you told me about this.... about Flowey and As...Asriel... and how you had known my son was still out there, even if his soul was not there anymore... and how you told other people, Alphys and Asgore... I was hurt Sans. It hurt. Because I thought I was better now and that you would trust me with this.”

Sans looked away, soul vibrating with hurt. “I am sorry.”

“And I forgave you for that Sans.” said Toriel, gently holding his skull. “I was hurt but I forgave you because I can understand. And I honestly don't know what I would have done had you told me before. But what was done is done and we are dealing with it.” Toriel sighed softly. “Asgore and I will always have a very complicated relationship now. He hurt me and I hurt him and we forgave each other and are friends again but sometimes it still hurts. Sometimes I am jealous and sometimes I still feel that terrible dark bitterness but I know it's not fair.” She took a big breath. “It was reasonable of you to think I would not take this well. It still hurt but I didn't exactly put much confidence into you that I was able to handle it. And believe me, even now the whole thing is by far not as... okay now as you seem to think. But it is more okay than you seem to fear.”

Part of Sans was relieved. A big part of him even. As strange as it sounded, Sans was just happy that he wasn't the only one still mentally reeling from this.

“Are you still angry with me?” he asked.

“No.” Said Toriel. “I forgave you. I was angry, I worked through it. Things are... different now. With me and Asgore and Azzy and I still have to think about a lot of what happened in all these years since this horrible day. But I am not angry with you, Sans. We talked things out already and things will get only better from here.

Big fuzzy paws were now petting him more, cuddling him into Toriel's body and surrounding him with warmth. He felt himself relaxing more and more because darn this felt nice and he wanted to stay like this forever.

“So relax, my dear.” said Toriel. “Things won't just break apart.”

And in that moment, Sans believed her.

For some reason, Sans never really met with Mrs. Smith. He heard of her and saw her once or twice in the school but she never had talked to him.

From what Mettaton and Papyrus had told him, he kinda didn't want to anyway. It was still strange and Sans really didn't know if he should see it as a blessing or a curse.

Well if even Linda was freaked out, something had to be wrong about her... on the other hand, Linda gets freaked out at a ton of things that Sans considered as only shoulder-shrug-material. (Heh, get dunked on Linda!)

Anyway, he had heard of her, he had seen her once or twice walking through the school but he never actually talked to her. So he was kinda surprised when she suddenly walked up to him while he was waiting at Toriel's office, small brown lunch-bag in his hand. He had felt like grabbing some coffee and chat with Toriel if possible but when he heard the small cough behind him any thought of coffee and chatter went out of his head.

Something was wrong with Mrs. Smith and Sans had no clue what. She looked like a human, yeah. But... just... off.

The feeling was back. The feeling of wrongness was back in full force and it took almost everything in Sans to not let his bones rattle in absolute basic terror.

“Mister... Sans.” She said and Sans cringed again.

“Just Sans is alright.”

“It is nice to finally meet you. Until now you always seemed... indisposed.”

Sans made a face at that. Because... yeah... big can of worms. Very big can of worms.

“Uh... yeah.” said Sans, laughing uneasily as he tried to put his best unassuming smile on his face. Mrs. Smith didn't seem impressed. “So you wanna talk right here or....?”

“I think one of the unused classrooms will be appropriate.” she said smoothly and that was how Sans ended up in an empty classroom, sitting more or less uncomfortable on one of the chairs with Mrs. Smith right across him staring at him, clipboard and pen in hand.

“So. What do you wanna know?”

“First of all, I was told you are one of the guardians of the child called Frisk?”

“Uh... yeah, their mom and I are married.”

“And you are an active member of the Parent-Teacher-Association?”

Sans blinked at that. He never considered himself an active anything. Mrs. Smith was still staring at him and after a few seconds took to writing down something on her clipboard.

“I guess?” Sans said unsure, trying to sound casual.

“How would you describe your experiences at the school?” And that gaze was back on him. Sans tried to not look away.

“Well... it is different than my school back in the Underground.” said Sans easily.

It wasn't a lie. Nobody had to know that he never really visited a normal school. To be honest Sans was well past ready to lay his entire past to rest now. Nothing to see here, just a normal skeleton monster, totally boring, not-at-all interesting past, assume just the standard thing, okay? Okay.

“I see... in what sense?”

“Well... there are humans here? And... things are just different?”

Mrs. Smith wrote something down again and the looked at him again. Sans noticed that he hadn't seen her blink since they sat down. Humans usually did that right?

“You also filled in as a substitute teacher a few times?” She asked.

“Yeah, for science.”

It was super awkward but also kinda fun to mess around with the kids he had to admit but he gladly left the job to people who actually had the qualifications for that. Toriel only approached him as a last resort.

“What are your qualifications for that?”

“Uh... I have several doctorates and I worked with kids some times in the Underground.”

“What kind of work?”

“Babysitting.”

Again not a lie... he did babysitting, he kinda raised Papyrus and he did entertain and look after kids that came to Grillby's, simply because kids like his jokes.

Mrs. Smith was writing something again. Something about that made Sans more and more nervous.

Finally she looked at him again, eyes settling directly onto his.

“Would you say the school is a success?”

What kind of questions were these?

“I would say so.” Said Sans slowly. “I mean... we have monster and humans learning together and from each other. Understanding for each other and all that. Also Toriel does run the school very well, she is a great teacher and knows exactly what to do to make learning fun for the kids. Even the kids from parents that don't like monster seem to get along very well with the monster.”

Even Billy seemed to be... strangely okay. Frisk had turned him down politely when he finally managed to state his intentions to hold hands properly but they remained friends and Sans had seen him hanging out with Monster Kid more and more now.

“I mean... even I learn something new about humans and human culture every day.” added Sans softly, thinking of the last months. “And I kinda hope that the humans learn something about us too.”

Mrs. Smith nodded slowly and wrote something down again, this time more than before. Her pen moved for a whole minute before she looked up at Sans.

“And do you believe in this? Do you believe that humans and monster can change?” she finally asked, eyes boring into Sans as if she was trying to look at his soul. “Do you believe everybody can change?”

Something was wrong. Off. Something of that wording...

Was it just the lighting or... was there a glint in Mrs. Smith's eyes? And why did it feel like Sans's very soul was getting heavier? Why was he so afraid of this human? There was no reason to, she was just a normal human, she wasn't even aggressive towards him!

“I...”, started Sans, unsure what to say but willing himself to form words, any words. “I think so?”

Lots of people changed after all. Asgore and Toriel, Alphys, Undyne. Even Papyrus changed. Heck, he could argue that Linda changed. Frisk changed. He himself had changed. Heck, even Flowey... Asriel... Azzy was as changed as a monster ever could change with his new soul.

Sans had a long time to come with terms with that. Really. He had to come to terms with Flowey being the lost prince and with Flowey changing and wanting to be different and becoming Azzy...

It still didn't really delete what he had done, soulless or not. It still didn't change that Sans was hurt, so so hurt. It didn't change that his friends were hurt, over and over, that the Underground was the playground for a being too powerful for a single being and unable to feel any remorse or empathy towards it's playthings.

It didn't change that Azzy was Flowey and Flowey was Asriel but also that they were each a different being with different mistakes.

It didn't change that Sans still had to go through hell, through therapy and through nightmares and tears and panic attacks. It didn't change that he was broken by resets and loads and being helpless to change anything on his own. It didn't change that some scars probably will never really truly heal.

“You think so?” asked Mrs. Smith again.

Still, things had changed, right? Azzy was making an effort. So Sans could too.

“I mean... people do change.” said Sans slowly, trying to keep the unease out of his voice. “We learn new stuff about others and ourselves each day... and that can be used to chance. How we act, what we say and do around other people, our opinions on certain topics... it all can change over time.”

“So you say knowledge is the base of change?”

“... in a way? I guess?”

Was it knowledge? Did knowledge change Flowey to Azzy? Sans was not that sure about it... Flowey had told him that he did most of the things he did simply because he wanted to know what would happen.

He was bored and soulless and way way to powerful. What did made him change?

Frisk.

Kindness and mercy and a different view on things and an offer to help and a whole mountain of determination in a small human being that somehow had the power to make people listen to them, really really listen to them.

Sans fell in love with the human, loved them like his own child. Maybe it was a similar kind of love that made Flowey want to finally change.

Or maybe he really just... got the knowledge about how far gone he truly was and finally got the knowledge that instead of wallowing in it, he could indeed change.

That there was even the option of change.

“... interesting.” Said Mr. Smith before Sans could voice his thoughts and somehow, it seemed like it was supposed to be the final say in that matter.

There was a silence stretching between the two of them and Sans tried not to shiver. He didn't like the way she said this word. Luckily for him she seemed satisfied with him because she started to pack up her clipboard and pen and got her purse before standing up.

“I thank you for your time. This was a very... enlightening interview.” Mrs. Smith said and Sans blinked a bit at the sudden change of mood as she left the room.

“Uh... thanks... bye...?” he said weakly, long after she was gone.

What the heck just happened?

Sans was still a bit shaken when he came home. Toriel would pick up Frisk from soccer practice today and Papyrus was helping Undyne with the training still, so the house was silent when Sans let himself fall on the couch, face down into a pillow.

This was just all... weird. Especially his own reaction to Mrs. Smith.

It didn't made sense. Sans was sure he had never seen this human before. Why did he had such an reaction to them?

Why do they even seem so strange to him?

Questions he just couldn't answer. They seemed normal. The questions were a bit odd but nothing to bad.

The phone appeared almost on its own in his hand. A number was called quickly and only after the second ring did Sans really think about what to even say.

“... Sans...?”

“Hey Grills.”

“... are you alright?”

Classic Grillby, always right to the point. Sans took a deep breath.

“Yeah I am fine... just uh... wanted to talk.”

“You usually text, Sans.”

Damnit.

“Hehe... yeah...”

“So?”

“... do you think people can change?”

There was silence on the phone for a while, only the soft crackle of Grillby's flames could be heard.

“Philosophy?”

“Na, just... a conversation I had today.”

“... I see...” There was again a stretch of silence before Grillby spoke again. “I believe in change. Not completely however. I believe the very core of a person can't be changed.... but they can change their outlook, their believes, their approach to life and their behavior. I do believe a person that acted bad can do good and I believe a good person can change to somebody doing bad things. I believe every being has potential to be good or bad or anything in between and the potential to change... but also that not every person wants this change. And that some very fundamental things of ones being can't be changed, no matter what.”

“... that is a very... uh.. two sided theory, Grills.” Mumbled Sans. “But... what if there was something changed? Like... a soul?”

“... ah. You are thinking of Azzy and Flowey...”

“... and Asriel. I mean, I never knew him before Flowey. But... there are texts everywhere about him and Toriel sometimes talks about him and he sounds like the sweetest child... and then there is Flowey who was just... completely devoid of any morals. And now Azzy. It's just hard to wrap my heard around it. Has he really changed? Or was there always Flowey in Asriel and Azzy in Flowey?”

Grillby again was silent for a bit and Sans noticed that his breathing had speed up and willed himself to calmness.

“Asriel was a sweet soul.” Grillby said slowly. “Flowey had no soul. Asriel's soul shattered when he was wounded by humans and brought back his sibling to the Underground. And Azzy... Azzy is a new soul giving live by the King's love and magic. I don't think it's true change because it's not the person who changed but... a new person was created. First Asriel died and Flowey was born from his memories. And then Flowey gave up himself to give his memories to a newborn soul which became Azzy. I am not saying that they are completely separate people but... Asriel died and what was left became Flowey and Flowey gained a new soul which made him into something new again. Asriel and Flowey don't exist anymore.”

“... what about what Flowey did?” Asked Sans quietly. “Should I... get over myself? Should I just be okay with it? With him?”

“... no.” said Grillby. “... you were still hurt. And the one who did it was Flowey and Azzy has Floweys memories and all the concequences that come from that. He is not to be punished for his deeds but... you don't have to forgive and you don't have to forget, Sans. You were hurt, you are allowed to be upset.”

“I just feel bad no matter what.” mumbled Sans. “I mean... he is basically a child... He IS a child...”

“He still has memories reaching longer than your own, maybe longer than mine considering he lived through loop after loop after loop.” said Grillby. “But I agree, his mental age was stuck and stagnant in the stage of a child. And now he isn't anymore. He has to accept responsibility and consequences of action just like you and me. Including your unease around him.”

“... thanks Grillby.” said Sans quietly, not knowing what to say anymore.

“... Sans, do you want me to come over?”

“No... no, Tori and the kid will be home soon... but thanks.. I might uh... come over one of these days again.”

“Alright.” Grillby said gently. “Don't hesitate to call me any time again. There are many people that care about you. Myself included. And I am willing to help whenever you let me.”

“I know.”

“Have a nice evening, my friend...”

“You too... uh... and say hi to the others from me.”

“I will.” chuckled Grillby, some mumbling in the background indicating that he was no longer alone.

Sans was thinking about Grillby's words still when his family returned. He smiled and greeted them, ate dinner with them, helped Frisk with their homework, made puns and played around with Papyrus. And later, when it was just him and Toriel she took him in her arms and he cuddled into her soft fur and let himself relax.

There were still problems to be solved, things for him to understand. There was still the pressure of the knowledge that things are continuing.

Things keep changing. Some of them good, some of them bad.

But for the moment, Sans decided to care about all of that in the morning. There are people out there who care about him, his family and friends.

His soul was filled with love.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the void there was something and the something became somebody.

I am.

I need to go home.

A lost soul was formed and wanted to be found. The void was not the void if there was something or somebody. So the void stopped being the void around the person.

And a person, a lost soul found, fell back into the world, back into existence and time and space. There was a gasp and a small groan and maybe a muffled curse as they fell face-first into mud.

The void was the void again, the lost soul back where it belonged.

Wingding Gaster sat up from where he landed and looked around, rubbing his skull, his soul pulsing with a steady hum of life.

Time to go home.

#Undertale #PTA Sans #Sans #Toriel #Soriel #Grillby #Papyrus #Frisk #PTA Sans AU #PTA AU #fanfic #Gaster

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thechildoflightning · 5 years

Text

The Kübler-Ross Model Ch 1- Denial

Title: The Kübler-Ross Model [Masterpost]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairings: background LAMP

~~~

Chapter Title: Denial- Chapter One

Summary:

Stage One: Denial- Characterized by a refusal to accept reality in order to protect against pain of it.

In which Remy avoids confronting his feelings.

Warnings: PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Social Dysphoria, Accidental Misgendering

[ao3 link]

Denial- Chapter One

“Selected: Voicemail. One item. Tab one of one,” Remy’s phone says, a touch too cheerfully. Remy sighs, already slightly suspicious of who it’s from. He puts his finger to the screen, sliding it around as he searches for the desired section.

“Voicemail.”

One finger down.

“Daniel Zurko. M-”

Double tap.

“Hey Remy. I don’t know- I don't know what you were thinking. Flying off to Florida like that- Remy you can’t do that that’s- you could have been hurt and you can’t just- You can’t do that, okay Remy? I don’t know what’s going I on. I know you and Logan are close and I can only guess you went to him but… We gotta talk about these things, okay? It’s fine this time though, not a big deal. Let’s get you home, I’m worried. It’s- you can’t handle yourself Remy and I worry about you being by yourself. I know you’re 18 but Remy you have to understand there’s things you just aren’t capable of. I-,” a sigh, “Just, call me okay? Let’s get you home, we can talk then. I love you Remy. Call me.”

Things are fine.

Remy has been staying with Virgil, Logan, and their boyfriends for a few days now, and things are still very new, but Remy is adjusting just fine.

Everything is great.

His dad keeps calling him which is sorta annoying, but it’s easy enough to deny the calls. In fact, he doesn’t just deny them but ignores them completely, pushing them to the back of his mind to not be thought about at all. So far the plan seems to be working. Not answering calls means he doesn’t have to talk to his dad and ignoring them completely means that Remy doesn’t have to worry about them.

It’s a foolproof plan, denying the gravity of his situation.

And really, he isn’t denying anything. This whole spontaneous ‘run away until I can go to college thing’ isn’t that big of a deal. It’s only for a few months anyways. Then, he’ll go to college and everything will calm down. It’ll be fine. Everything would be fine.

Remy doesn’t feel fine.

See, the downside of running away and going to live with your cousin, friend, and their boyfriends is that Remy’s life has no structure. Sure, he's starting to build some for himself. He takes Cha-Cha for walks, stops by Starbucks, but he still has a lot of downtime.

And downtime means a lot of time to ruminate.

Remy thinks about things a lot. Mostly things he doesn’t want to think about. Like the fact that he had just traveled across the country with zero support from his father. Like the fact that he ran away and is refusing to talk to his father because Remy hit a breaking point and he just can’t do this anymore. Like the fact that he knows he’s way in over his head except that he has no idea what to do about that so he’s just bullshitting his way through all of this. Like the fact that everything’s pressing around him and sometimes it makes it hard to breathe and-

He needs to get out of his head.

He knows he does. He does. He just doesn't know how.

“Lot on your mind?” Virgil asks.

“Hmm?” Remy responds, pulling his attention back to Virgil. “Oh. I dunno. No.”

“Right,” Virgil says and Remy knows that Virgil doesn't believe him at all.

Remy huffs and shrugs.

“I mean, I dunno? I guess. But I’m fine. I just-” he trails off. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ a voice in him internally screams, but he isn't dealing with that shit so he shoves it somewhere deep inside of him.

“Just?” Virgil asks, carrying the word, because of course Virgil won’t let him get away with anything.

“I- uh I get my roommate or roommates today,” Remy says in place of actually answering with what he maybe should.

Virgil doesn’t speak for a moment and Remy thinks that maybe he really is going to be forced to share.

“Yeah?” he says after a minute.

Remy doesn’t sigh in relief, but it’s close.

“Yeah,” Remy agrees.

“Still have no clue why you decided to do that. You do realize how easy it would be for you to get a single right?”

Remy does, and he’d rather die than be put in a single. Even if his roommate is a complete asshole, the minimum social interaction from their conversations has to be better than being completely alone. Anything would be better than being alone. Remy hates being alone.

He’s always been alone.

He doesn’t think he’s ever going to stop being alone.

“I know. I wanted to. Come on, roommates are like the college experience.”

Virgil breathes out huffed laughter.

“Okay,” he says, voice full of mirth, “I mean I’m of the personal opinion that roommates suck but-”

“No you’re not-” new voice joins in, startling Remy a bit. It’s Patton or Roman but he can’t differentiate their voices super well yet. Getting there but he’s definitely not at the point where he can identify them based on three words.

“Uh yes, sharing a room with you was the worst experience of my life,” Virgil responds.

Past tense. It’s Roman then.

“Two things. One, we currently share a room so that’s bullshit. Two, you were the first to even agree with the idea,” Roman argues.

A dark shape enters Remy’s limited field of vision, backlit from the light coming through the window. A moment later, Roman disappears as he traveled away from the light source and presumably towards Virgil.

“I remember conditionally agreeing,” Virgil barters back, “And I was the first to agree because you asked me first. If you think about it, I actually took the most time to agree to the idea even if I technically answered first.”

“Eh, semantics,” Roman brushes off, “Anyways you like me to much to get rid of me.”

Virgil grumbles but doesn’t deny it.

“So what’s this about roommates?” Roman asks.

A chair scrapes against the floor as he takes a seat next to Virgil at the table.

“I get my roommate or roommates today,” Remy explains.

“And I was saying that he should have gotten a single.”

Remy would’ve hated a single. He’s just hoping whoever he rooms with isn’t going to be a complete asshole.

“Oh come on, roommates are fun.”

“If they’re anything like you were- no they are not.”

“Oh! Hey! Speaking of single rooms, Remy did Virgil ever tell you how Patton and him met?” Roman’s voice gains an eager tone, humor hanging behind it.

Remy rolls his eyes because he knows exactly where this conversation is going.

“Roman,” Virgil warns.

“You see, what happens when you have a single is that you have no one to let you inside if you lock yourself out,” Roman starts.

“Hey Remy, did I ever tell you about the time that Roman gave himself a concussion and a bloody nose because he fell off his desk?” Virgil quickly interrupts.

“Okay no- that’s not fair. I was trying to make my point. It’s your fault I fell off that desk.” Roman bickers back.

Virgil forms his rebuttal and the two of them go at it, hashing out an argument they’ve had probably a billion times.

Remy has in fact heard both of these stories numerous times, as they seem to be Roman and Virgil’s favorite pieces of playful ammunition at one other. With the two distracted, Remy slips away to check his email.

The roommate assignment hasn’t come. He sighs, and reloads it. Nothing. He sighs, and reloads it again, ‘cause he’s got nothing better to do.

He blinks in surprise when his phone reports that he actually has just gotten an email from the university. Remy lets the screen read the information to him, quickly speeding through the parts that seem unimportant. He eventually finds a name, just one of them.

Kai Jacobson.

Okay, one roommate. Remy can work with that. He thinks about reaching out, getting in touch, getting to know whoever this “Kai” is. But Remy literally got this email five minutes ago and that seems a bit stalkerish so he decides to wait a bit.

He holds off until after dinner and then emails his mysterious new roommate, eager to get to know him. Now that he actually has a roommate college is starting to seem more and more like a reality. Something thrums softly inside of Remy, and he thinks it’s maybe relief.

Kai doesn’t respond that night, but he has an email that evening and a phone number. They switch to texting.

It’s Logan that finds him a week later, sprawled casually across the sofa, earbud in his ear as he listens to Kai’s last text before responding. Cha-Cha was at his feet a moment ago, though the last time he leaned his foot down to brush against her fur, she wasn’t there.

He’s on his phone in the first place because his Dad called and he ignored it once more. After, his mind kept buzzing, so he opened up his texts and reached out to Kai, hoping for a quick response and a distraction. He doesn’t want to talk to his dad, doesn’t want to ruminate in what Remy has done. But Kai came through, replying to his text quickly. They’d been talking for awhile now and Remy has barely thought about his dad at all.

The text finishes reading itself and Remy holds down the mic on his headphones, eager to reply when a voice interrupts him.

“What are you doing?” Logan asks.

Remy pulls his attention away from his phone.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he snarks back.

Logan moves.

“I’m not sure,” he admits, as he comes closer.

“Talking to Kai,” Remy says, giving a real answer.

“Oh. Uh, who’s Kai?”

“A friend.”

“You have friends?”

The corner of Remy’s mouth twitches at the comment, not quite giving way to humor, but close.

“Sorry,” Logan immediately apologizes when he doesn’t respond. “Sorry. That was rude. I didn’t- I meant- I- I think that maybe sounded wrong. I’m trying to say-”

Remy let’s Logan flounder for words for a bit, giving him the opportunity to speak and clarify, but when nothing comes from it and Logan just seems to be angry with himself, Remy jumps in.

“You’re good Lo, you don’t need to apologize. Admittedly- don’t quite know what you’re trying to ask if your question isn’t ‘do you have friends’ but if that is your question, I don’t mind it and the answer to it is yes, yes I do have friends.”

Remy does. Most of them are from home but he hasn’t talked to any of them since he got here. He’s gotten a few texts and the group chat he’s in still carries on with spamming him constantly. (It’d probably be annoying if he didn’t constantly have it on mute). And it’s- his friends are good people. He just... doesn’t know what to say.

He hasn’t even worked up the courage to text them, and he feels pretty guilty about that because they probably have no clue what happened to him. They were going to go out to the movies a few days ago and if they hadn’t been concerned then, they certainly are now. Remy knows that. But he still doesn’t talk to them.

What do you say after you make an instinctual decision to fly across the country three months earlier than planned with no explanation or goodbye? What do you say when you run away from home and, sure, you’re an adult but you have no fucking clue what you’re doing and something deep inside of you hurts and you’re scared and lost and alone and you don’t know how to deal with that, how to even begin addressing that?

Luckily, Remy doesn’t get to ponder those distressing thoughts any further, because Logan speaks up.

“I meant-” Logan tries after a moment, but he just cuts himself again with another sigh. He takes a seat on the couch, leg pressing into Remy’s feet. Considering Logan’s the one that initiated the physical touch, Remy throws his feet onto Logan’s lap. One of Logan’s legs bounces as he continues to ponder his question.

“Y’know it’s fine if you did just want to ask if I had a friend or not,” Remy said. He can’t tell with Logan sometimes- when Logan regrets saying something because he realizes it’s maybe not considered ‘socially appropriate’ or when Logan regrets saying something because it’s not quite what he meant and he’s not getting his point across.

“No, no,” Logan says. His leg bounces faster. “I meant more- you have friends as in I’m interested in them? Tell me about them. Who are you talking to?”

“Kai,” Remy says.

“Who’s that?”

“My roommate.”

“You got your roommate? And just one? And you’re hearing this late? What about priority?”

“Mhmm,” Remy agrees, “I signed up for the gender-inclusive dorming which is why I didn’t have priority. I think I maybe told you that. But yeah- the freshman dorms are generally less roommates because they’re tiny apparently.”

“Oh. Yes. I remember that now. Patton’s dorm was very small.”

“Yeah. So it’ll be just the two of us.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Remy shrugs.

“Dunno yet,” he admits, “Kai seems pretty cool though. They actually live locally so we’re planning to meet up. And that should be nice- getting to know them a bit before I meet them.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Yeah. They were very disappointed when I admitted that I didn’t play any video games. Joking disappointed,” Remy amends so Logan is aware that it wasn’t a real issue, “Or well- he was a bit disappointed but short-term it's not really a big deal disappointed. But I sated him with picture of Cha-Cha.”

He recalls the conversation fondly. Maybe he should talk to some of his friends back him if this minimal interaction between him and a practical stranger gets him this hyped up. Remy’s always been an extrovert. People around him- good people, friends- have always had a recharging effect on him. He’s been lonely without them.

Or he would be lonely. But he’s not. Because he’s fine.

Remy pushes those thoughts away.

“Oh! And give me a second,” Remy pulls his phone back out, searches for the pictures that have been sent. “Kai said that Cha-Cha was yawning in one of them and that it’s very cute, look.”

Logan takes the phone from him. He struggles with the voice commands for a moment.

“Double tap,” Remy reminds, when the same description is being read off over and over again.

Logan gives a hum of acknowledgement.

“Very cute,” he observes after a moment, “I didn’t know she had spots on her tongue.”

As if summoned, Cha-Cha comes over from wherever she was, collar jingling slightly as she settles her head on Logan’s leg, panting ever so slightly.

“Oh yeah,” Remy says, “Totally forgot about those.” He directs his next sentences at his dog, “Yeah, Cha-Cha? You have little spots on your tongue?”

Cha-Cha doesn’t reply, but does shuffle over to Remy’s side, settling her snout under his arm and nudging him slightly.

“I know, I know, you want a walk we can go in a minute,” he promises. She noses him once more and then stops, presumably settling on the floor again. Remy reaches a hand to check absentmindedly, fingers curling into her fur.

“Phone,” Logan offers, finished looking at the pictures.

Remy lets go of Cha-Cha and extends his hand towards Logan. Logan presses the phone against his fingers and he grabs it, settling it on his chest.

“I’m going to take Cha-Cha for a walk,” he says. At the words, Cha-Cha shoots to her feet in and instant. “Wanna come?”

“Sure,” Logan agrees. Remy nods, and throws his feet off of Logan. The action causes his phone to fall of his chest and clatter to the ground. He makes a face and takes a minute to find it on the floor before standing and pocketing it.

He looks over at the nearest window, checking the light. It isn’t too bright outside, but it was raining earlier and Remy learned a long time ago that while the light flashing off of puddles was very pretty, it also hurt like hell and was generally very disorientating.

“Lemme grab sunglasses and we can go,” he says.

“Okay,” Logan agrees and Remy darts away.

A walk will be nice. Remy really needs to get out of his head.

There’s someone at the kitchen table.

Remy is not expecting there to be someone at the kitchen table.

“Uh, hey?” he offers.

He gets no response.

The whole gang’s supposed to be at work. No one’s supposed to be home right now.

“Remy?” a quiet voice asks, sounding completely and utterly terrified.

“Hey Virge, yeah it’s me. Mind if I sit?”

Virgil doesn’t respond. But his breathing is even, and he doesn’t seem to be hurt or anything, so Remy lets the worst of the worry leave him. He’s been friends with Virgil for years. He knows how to handle this.

“Okay. Well I’m going to keep making breakfast then,” he says after a moment, and continues into the kitchen. He throws a bagel in the toaster and pulls out what he’s pretty sure is jam. The contents catch in the light, which is a good sign, but Roman and Patton aren’t super great at putting things back in the same spot (though Remy knows they’re both trying) and it’s still a pretty unfamiliar kitchen to Remy.

He gets the jam- and it is jam- on his bagel and let’s Virgil know that he’s going to join him at the table.

He walks over slowly, waiting to see if Virgil gives any indication that he doesn’t want Remy coming near him. But he doesn’t really respond in any way so Remy takes a seat across from him.

“Hey Virgil, not a great day?”

It’s obvious that it isn’t, considering Virgil isn’t at work, but Remy still asks. He’s not really sure where Virgil’s at right now, but the question can’t hurt and should be an easy one for Virgil to answer.

“No,” Virgil confirms.

Remy nods, but he isn’t super happy about how short that answer was.

“I- Do you need help with grounding or anything?”

“No,” Virgil answers, “No I- I know I’m here. I know I’m in the kitchen. I- just- I’m really scared,” he admits.

“Okay,” Remy says, “Do you need or want anything from me?”

“No- I- it’s okay. I’m okay. I know I’m okay.”

“You’re sure?”

Virgil sighs roughly.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice seems a bit clearer, “Yeah, yeah I’m good. I’m okay. I’m safe.”

“Alright then. Well I’m leaving a bit to meet up with Kai.”

Virgil knows that information, Remy and Kai had planned to meet-up two weeks ago. But, with Virgil where he was at now, Remy thinks the reminder can’t hurt. It’ll give Virgil time for him to be okay with Remy leaving the house.

“You’re leaving the house?”

The fear is obvious in Virgil’s tone, even as Remy knows he’s probably trying to hide it.

“Yeah,” Remy says, “In about an hour. Don’t really know how long we’ll stay.”

Be as specific as possible, Remy remembers. Give Virgil space to respond. Acknowledge his fears, validate. Don’t let those same fears control decision making. Adapt, adjust, but keep moving forward.

“Do you want me to drive you?” Virgil offers. His fingers drum on the table.

“I was planning on taking the bus,” Remy says. He’d spent and hour last night trying to figure out the times online. It had been a frustrating experience, but he thought he’d finally figured it out.

“Oh.”

Remy knows Virgil, so he speaks up once more.

“Do you want to drive me?”

Remy doesn’t know what’s going through Virgil’s head right now. But he’s obviously scared- scared enough he hasn’t gone to work today, hasn’t left the house. It’s because Virgil hasn't left the house, that Remy is surprised Virgil even offers to drive him, but Remy also understands that Virgil probably doesn’t want him somewhere he isn’t positive Remy’s going to be safe at. And right now, Remy doubts there’s many places Virgil’s considering safe.

It had taken a while for Remy not to feel offended. When they were younger, Remy was insistent on being independent even as more and more people took that away from him. When he had first met Virgil, Virgil had seemed to do the same thing, not wanting Remy to be alone, go out by himself, etc. And Remy had hated it.

They fought about a few times before finally talking about it. Remy shared that he felt that Virgil was stealing away his independence instead of letting Remy come to him when or if he needed support. Virgil had apologized and shared that it had nothing to do with Remy, it was Virgil, and it was trauma, and he was working on it but sometimes he just got so scared and had to make sure Remy was safe. He couldn’t let Remy get hurt.

Virgil had worked on those fears, that lingering trauma and Remy had worked on not taking it personally and giving Virgil extra reassurances.

“I-” Virgil attempts, and right, Virgil’s offering to drive him. “I want you to be safe. I don’t want to leave the house.”

“I’m going to be safe,” Remy promises, “Do you want me to give you the address? I can also text you when I get there and when I leave if you want.”

“I-” Virgil hesitates, “Can you?”

“For sure,” Remy confirms, “I’m going to go get ready now. You good?”

“Eh,” Virgil offers, and Remy’s willing to take that.

He slips away to take a shower and then get dressed.

It’s getting dressed that trips him up, and he’s not even sure why. He doesn’t really care if he looks nice or not, he’s just meeting his roommate for the first time. He genuinely doesn’t feel a need or desire to look a certain amount of presentable. It’s more- it’s more his body he thinks. How his clothes look on his body. He’s all sharp edges. He’s tall and thin and rectangular, and his clothes show that. And when Kai sees him, they’re going to think…

Kai’s going to think what?

Kai’s just going to think he’s a guy wearing clothes. That’s literally it. Remy knows that. He doesn’t think that Kai’s going to pass judgement on him for what he’s wearing or not. And they wouldn’t pass judgement on Remy’s body intentionally, Remy knows that. But they- what if they pass judgement on his body unintentionally?

And why does that even matter to Remy? His body’s fine. He’s- he knows it’s fine. He’s fine with it. He likes his body. But Kai’s going to think…

Kai’s going to think he’s a guy.

But that’s right isn’t it?

Remy’s heart pounds in his-their-her-xyr-eir his chest.

He takes a deep breath.

“You’re a guy,” he says out loud to himself. “Kai’s going to see you and they’re going to think you’re a guy, and they’re going to be right.”

Remy pushes everything else to the side, stops worrying about how he looks. (Or more- he starts ignoring the fact that he’s worried about how he looks and what that means) and he moves to leave the house. He wants to talk to Virgil again first, so he doesn’t have time to be worrying about anything so it’s fine.

It’s fine.

He’s fine.

He.

“Virgil?” Remy calls when he’s back in the living room.

“Couch,” Virgil replies, “What’s up?”

“I’m headed out now.”

“I-” Virgil hesitates for just a second, “Okay.”

Remy knows how much strength it takes for Virgil to say that.

“Can I have the address?” he then asks.

“Yeah,” Remy says. He gives it to him, as well as which bus he’s taking, and promises to text him when he gets there and when he heads back.

“Okay, I gotta go,” Remy says eventually.

“Okay. Can-” Virgil cuts himself off. Remy waits. “Can I give you a hug?” Virgil eventually asks.

“Yeah,” Remy says, and then he’s being wrapped up in Virgil’s arms.

Virgil gives really good hugs. They’re firm and securing and loving and nothing like how confining his father’s have always felt. Remy lets himself melt into a moment, before slowly pulling away.

He gets Cha-Cha in her harness, calls out a goodbye, waits for one in response, and is out the door.

Remy arrives there perfectly on time and gets in line because coffee. He quickly texts Virgil to let him know that he's arrived and then texts Kai as well to tell them the same thing.

He’s just had someone show him to a table when a figure leans over him and speaks.

“Remy, right? I’m Kai.”

“Yeah,” he says with a smile, and reaches a hand out. Kai takes it and shakes it before dropping the hand and then sitting at the table.

“This Cha-Cha then?”

“Yeah,” Remy tells them, “You can say hi if you want.”

With permission Kai greats his dog with some cheerful cooing and pets. After a moment they stop and fall into semi-awkward silence.

“So,” Kai drawls.

“So,” Remy responds.

“I’m sorta awful at socializing,” Kai admits with a small laugh.

“That’s okay,” Remy says, “I don’t think I’m much better.

Five minutes later and they’re talking like they’ve known each other for years, initial awkwardness gone.

They talk about their dorm a bit, and Kai brings up their excitement at a gender-inclusive dorming option. Remy agrees with them, a smile on his face. Kai’s excitement is easily explained, the use of changing they/them and he/him pronouns making it clear why they picked it. Remy knows that he himself has to be hard to place. Kai probably assumes he’s just an ally. Which he is (isn’t he?). Remy almost wishes that Kai would ask him why he chose these particular dorms.

Except maybe not, because Remy knows what he’d answer.

He’s a guy. He’s cis. It’s fine.

He’s fine.

He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine.

He. He. He.

~~~

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