#I hope I did well with the Hanukkah information

[vaspider]

Hello! I’m the person who asked for advice about representing Hanukkah at the library a while back, and I wanted to offer an update! First of all, thank you so much to you and to everyone else who chimed in. Everyone was super helpful.

After a brief power struggle with the woman who normally does the displays (she tends to be a bit possessive of them), I was able to get a shelf on the Christmas display shelves for Hanukkah! I am only a clerk, and a relatively new one, so I do not get a say in holiday budgets to buy decorations, but I was able to print a sign and a picture of a menorah and some pictures of Dreidel and gelt to put around the books, and I’m going to print an informational sheet for people who would like to learn more.

I am in charge of the coloring pages we put out, so I made one each for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and three more neutral winter ones. We’re also going to be able to put up a social media post on the first day of Hanukkah wishing a happy holiday to people celebrating, and the library director is going to see if he can convince the regular display person to give me a shelf or two in the display cases as well :) We had a few of the books people recommended, and I’m going to request we buy more, including some Sammy Spider books (I did ask a few months ago if we could get some for Rosh Hashanah, which the director was very amenable to, so I have high hopes).

Again, thank you so much to you and your followers for your help— the resources you gave were all really helpful, and I learned so much looking through them to work on this.

<3 This is an ancient ask and I'm sorry it's been buried in my inbox for literally almost 2 years. I'm trying very hard to get past the scam spam. :(

Thank you for updating me.

[personwhowrites]

i saw the pagan yule celebration ask and can i request a jewish reader one? i don’t see a lot of chanukkah fics and i’m jewish, maybe the reader is making do with what they have around base to make the foods we eat around this time and making a makeshift menorah to light on the different days?

Edit 1: I would absolutely love to write something about this, but I don’t want to get anything confused in the Jewish tradition. I know nothing about it and I don’t know how to even start looking for real proper information about it. I was hoping you could message me information about it? I would really appreciate it so I get nothing wrong!

Edit 2: hi! So I finished writing! I had some help from anonymous person who helped me explain the Hanukkah more. I did have to do more research on it. I hope I get most the events right! I did rush through this. I’m sorry!

The men watch as you held candle slightly confused on what’s happening. You smile and look at your menorah placing the candle in the middle. It was sight to see on their end.

“You’re Jewish?” Soap says finally and walking over. “Didn’t know that..”

“I don’t tend to share it..” You mumble looking at the candle. “It’s something I only do at home, but since I’m going to be stuck.. here will all of you this Hanukkah.” You pause for a moment and take a deep breath. “Might as well follow my believes..”

“I know some stuff about Hanukkah.” Gaz says walking over to you. “My ex-girlfriend was Jewish so.. I can celebrate with you.”

“That’s so kind of you Gaz..” You mumble looking at the lit candle. “..I got you guys some gifts..”

“But Christmas isn’t here yet?” Soap says looking at you confused. “I don’t un—“

“Each night, after a candle is lit.. people tend to give each other gifts.” Gaz says looking at the candle. “They let candle burn for thirty minutes before sundown..then the next day they add another candle starting left to right or right to left..”

“You really do know about Hanukkah..” You say softly looking at Gaz a bit of shock displayed on your face. “How long were you with that girl?”

“A couple of years..” Gaz says softly before turning to others. “We are celebrating Hanukkah.”

“Are we allowed?” Price says slightly confused. “Like can people just start celebrating it?”

“I mean..I don’t mind..” You mumble softly walking over to your bed. “I still will be doing it no matter what.”

“Do you have latkes or sufganiyot?” Gaz asks walking over to you. “I can go out and look for some.”

“I do, they’re in the fridge.” You respond grabbing a small bag from under you bed. “Here..”

You hand him a small wrapped box and walk over to the rest. Also handing them a small wrapped box. They stare at in confusion as Gaz thanks you happily and opens it. It’s a ring.. a very expensive ring.

“Y/n…” Gaz says looking up. “This must of cost you a l—“

“Don’t worry about it.. now excuse me.” You mumble grabbing a small book besides your desk. “I’ll be outside.”

You exit the room and the others stare at Gaz. They seem to be slightly panicked on the whole situation.

“Gaz what do we do?” Prive says looking at him. “Do we like follow h—“

“Just..be there for her, this Hanukkah is about family, friends and coming together.” Gaz says looking at the ring. “I’m guessing the eight days will be long..”

“But there is nine candles?” Soap says pointing over at the menorah. “So wouldn’t it be nine?”

“No.. technically the middle candle is the helper.” Gaz says softly looking at the men. “Tomorrow is when it really starts.”

“So was she supposed to give us this gift?” Ghost says looking at the box in his hand. “Or what?”

“I really don’t know some people do give a gift on this day others don’t.” Gaz says with a shrug and looks at your menorah. “It’s a very pretty one.. sliver.. interesting choice.”

“So..does that mean we have to go buy something for her?” Soap asks slightly confused. “Or what?”

“Not really? I guess she did it for her tradition..But I suggest we do.” Gaz says putting on the ring. “It’s also rude to not thank her for the gifts and to even open them..”

The men quickly open the small gifts. Price getting a ring, Soap and Ghost getting necklace. They stare at them, also seeing the expensive marks.

“..Okay then she likes to spoil people.” Soap says putting on the necklace. “..Isn’t that bad?”

“It’s a gift.” You say behind them. “Enjoy it.”

“Finished your prayers?” Gaz says slightly embarrassed. “I could of join y—“

“It’s fine Gaz, I don’t want you forcing uosueld into this.” You says setting the book from before on your desk. “You guys want some Latke?”

“Which is what?” Ghost asks walking over to you.

“fried potato pancake..” You mumble in response. “We just have to hear them up.”

“Works with me I am hungry.” Soap says with a smile. “And that sound delicious.”

You respond with a small chuckle and go back to you menorah. You lick your finger and place it on the flame extinguish it. Then turn to the other, their faces now giving an expression of understanding. Ghost eyes giving some understanding.

—

The eight days went by quick, you started to have a bond with them. A powerful meaning bond, laughs and some smiles shared each night. Soon on the eight day they surprised you by memorizing a prayer, thanks to Gaz help.

It was all peaceful, it was slightly strange to them to them still. Yet seeing you smile and laugh with them made them all forget it. They shared stories with you that they wouldn’t normally do. The meals were wonderful and time was well spent.

On the final night Ghost covered your eyes as the other three rush around the room. It was slightly confusing on your end since you never really expected something like this from them. Once Ghost removed his hands from your eyes there the men stood holding a gift for you.

“..What’s this?” You mumble grabbing the gift. “You guys didn’t have to..”

“Well we did.” Ghost says crossing his arms. “Now open it.”

You give a small shrug and open the box. Seeing a badge and a necklace. You look at them as Price holds a paper.

“Welcome to task 141.. You are officially a member.” Price says with a smile. “You are no longer a person in training..if you accept.”

You happy nod and hugs them. I’m the background, the light off menorah lifting the now new found home..

[hjellacott]

Tumblr wouldn't let me respond to you so here it goes @oswalish #oswalish since you've blocked me.

"Adamantly". Well all I'm doing is staying in a fandom that has meant a lot to me since I learned to read, that promotes love, respect for people, friendship, standing up for what you believe in, confronting injustice and hatred, and diversity, sending messages such as we're all better because we come in all colours, forms, shapes and sizes, and we're all valuable, special and have a place in history. I know that if any of my money goes to J. K. Rowling, it'll go straight into organisations such as Lumos, which protects institutionalised children and helps them find a forever, or into Beira's Place, which helps victims of sexual abuse, or perhaps into donations Rowling makes to help women in oppressed countries such as Afghanistan to get them lawyers if they've been imprisoned, and be freed and sent back home, or into donations Rowling makes to help Ukrainian refugees, and so on. Or perhaps my money will go to Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget to combat poverty and social inequality, with a particular emphasis on women and children, and which additionally funds major disaster appeals as the focus of the Trust's international support, or into her regular donations to Medicines Without Borders, or into the money she puts in things like when she helped create Edinburgh University's Centre for Regenerative Medicine, or her donations to Scotland's Multiple Sclerosis Society, or The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at Edinburgh University. You can read more about her charity work here: https://www.borgenmagazine.com/facts-about-j-k-rowlings-charity-work/ I mean she doesn't have the Order of the Companions of Honour for nothing, she has it because she does so much for so many, and I am very happy to give whatever money I can afford to give to someone that I can trust to put it where she thinks it'll be more necessary, contrary to politicians.

Hogwarts Legacy was a game bought by a dear Jewish relative to me for Christmas (because I wasn't brought-up very religiously and we don't do Hanukkah, but Christmas is more popular where we live). She's elderly and couldn't understand the whole buying it online, so she gave me the money so I could buy it for myself, out of the kindness of her heart, and knowing all the causes Rowling supports and hoping some of my 50 pounds would go into that. And she also did it because she knew my late father, who was such a Harry Potter fan and with whom I bonded over our mutual love for Harry Potter, would've loved to get me the game and remind me of all those days reading Potter together when he was still alive, so she kind of did it for him as well. And I play when I don't work or study, in my few spare hours, knowing some of the money will go into charity, and exploring the world I fell in love with through my dad and thinking about him as I do, which is very especial to me.

People have accused me of being anti-Semitic even though I belong in the Jewish community and actively support it and have gotten into dangerous situations for protecting Jews. People have accused me of being transphobic even though I've been campaigning for transgender rights for the past decade, going to protests and voting and talking to politicians and everything, and am very good friends with several transgender people. But I don't care any more. I know the things I do and the activism that I do and my heart is at peace. And I realise that the people who accuse me of shit without knowing anything are the same ones that do the exact same with Rowling. They accuse her of transphobia because she stated that sex is real and that you can't change biology (which is a medical fact) even though she's supported by plenty of transgender individuals who I've seen speaking out and thanking her for giving them a voice when their own collective is bullying the shit out of them. They accuse her of anti-Semitism because she used goblins in her stories, when 1, goblins are a big part of European folklore (and particularly of Rowling's, since she lives in Scotland, which is one of the places with the strongest links to celtic folklore) and everyone uses them, and 2, even the Jews stand in support of J.K. Rowling.

And additionally, I am not going to let a mob of violent jerks give me any lessons on morality. They're bullying children for linking a fandom or a videogame, making them self-harm and want to die, and telling them to kill themselves for liking Harry Potter. There is no way I'm ever going to stand in support of those people, ever. And they're bullying transgender people as well, particularly detransitioners, and supporting horrible things like transmaxing, or like children having life-changing surgeries without needing to see doctors first to be clear about the impact of it, and when people like me begin trying to inform possibly transgender children that if they have surgery, there really is no going back, and there could be chronic pain and boobs don't grow back, and all those things cannot be fixed later, they call us transphobic as well, even though what we're trying is to make sure people are properly informed before making any decisions.

So yeah, I sleep well at night, my conscience is very calm, and I am baffled at the oppression, aggression and authoritarianism displayed by supposed supporters of the transgender collective. They're behaving like Nazis and trying to give lessons about anti-Semitism. Well, the irony.

[canmom]

Animation Night 137: Jidaigeki the Second

Hi everyone. Hope you’re enjoying any winter holidays that take your fancy. (Hanukkah sameach!) According to Annex 3 of Animation Night Policy we do not observe “christmas” - instead, let me tell you a tale of the past...

Mukashi mukashi... back in the distant misty era of 2020, an era of bloodshed and plague and impending social change (we hope), I wrote the longest Animation Night ever.

Which mostly wasn’t actually about animation at all, but an excuse to infodump about samurai. Armed with a book with the exciting title of Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History, I wrote at great length about everyone’s favourite feudal landlord-administrator-soldier class, and the genres of fiction that portray them...

^ me, relating information to passing tumblr users

Japanese revision time! 時代劇 jidaigeki basically just means ‘period drama’, and it needn’t have anything to do with samurai at all. Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago we watched Rintaro’s adaptation of Teito Monogatari, which qualifies as a jidaigeki despite taking place entirely in the 20th century. チャンバラ (chanbara) is a little narrower, referring to samurai films with an emphasis on the swordfighting.

Animation Night revision time! On AN 24, we watched oldschool films like Namakura Gatana [1917] and Benkei tai Ushiwaka [1939] along with Sword of the Stranger and Afro Samurai, and a small sampling of Seirei no Moribito, Samurai Champloo. Elsewhen, on AN 100 we watched The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Winter Days and Mononoke-hime, on AN 91 we marathoned Naoko Yamada’s incredible adaptation of Heike Monogatari, and on AN 122 we did the same for animation milestone The Hakkenden.

So are we out of animated films about samurai? Ha! No we ain’t.

The occasion this time? I’m itching to show you all Inu-Oh, but Science Saru are holding it tight to their chest at the moment. But there is something else!

Nahoko Uehashi is an ethnologist turned fantasy author, known for her works like Seirei no Moribito (Guardian of the Sacred Spirit) and Kemono no Sōja (The Beast Player), both of which have been adapted to anime by Production IG. In the first, Balsa, a bodyguard atoning for seven deaths, is entrusted with a young prince marked for death by his father - a prince who is, unknown to all, incubating a strange force of spiritual renewal. In the second, Erin, a girl from a culture being genocided, inherits the skill to control animals through her music and thus finds herself drawn into feudal politics.

Neither is exactly set in historical Japan, but that’s in the same way that most Western fantasy isn’t exactly set in medieval Europe. Both have a kind of thoughtful, slightly oldschool tone - highly attentive to nature, and avoiding simple heroes and villains. And Production I.G. - despite being a studio known primarily for scifi - turned out to be a perfect match.

Well, earlier this year, Production IG released their latest adaptation of Uehashi’s works in the form of 鹿の王 Shika no Ō (The Deer King). Co-director Masashi Andō has been a key animator for many many years, and in that time managed to work with just about anyone you’ve ever heard of. He drew for Ghibli under both Miyazaki and Takahata on nearly everything, for Satoshi Kon on Tokyo Godfathers, Paranoia Agent and Paprika, for 4C on Tekkonkinkreet, for Makoto Shinkai on Your Name, for Mitsuo Iso on Dennō Coil, for Mamoru Oshii on GitS 2: Innocence, for Anno on Eva 3.0... A glance over his sakugabooru page will show you why: he’s an expert in the realist tradition, not quite as flashy as some of his peers like Ohira or Inoue, but with a fantastic sense of naturalistic motion and an ease at drawing all sorts of weird angles.

^ this guy’s in a lot of gifs, he seems important

The Deer King was Andō’s first time directing, so he was joined by Masayuki Miyaji, who worked himself up from being a production assistant at Ghibli to storyboarding on a whole long list of TV anime, and acting as one of two ‘assistant directors’ (not entirely sure what that entails) on Spirited Away, before hopping into the director’s chair with Xam’d at Bones in 2008-09. Miyaji is of the school that situations animation within film at large, taking inspiration mostly from live action - or at least he was at the time of Xam’d.

So what’s it about? In a feudal setting cut up by war and plague, a slave and a young girl survive an attack by plague-carrying dogs and make their escape, hoping for a peaceful life - a classic Uehashi adoptive parent situation. But with the plague running rampant, prejudice everywhere, and the empire’s doctors searching for a cure, they won’t get it. It’s a lot of novel to pack into one film, and I’m warned that it struggles a little to contain it all, but Ando’s enormous experience shines through to give a film full of subtle and expressive animation.

Anyway, it’s one I’ve had my eye on for ages, so I’m really eager to watch it with you.

Now, let’s roll back the clock a bit. No, not quite to the sengoku jidai - 2012 will do. The Annecy International Film Festival is weighing up a massive slate, including a couple you may remember like Wrinkles (AN 87) and Children who Chase Lost Voices (AN 132). But there’s an odd little one tucked in there: a film by Toei, adapting the 70s manga Asura by George Akiyama. It’s a story set at the beginning of the sengoku period, where drought and famine wrack Kyoto, following a feral child who survives an attempted cannibalistic infanticide as he grows up amid all the war and devastation. Buddhas will be carved, symbolically. It’s that kinda thing.

George Akiyama was controversial in his day for his depictions of suicide, self-mutilation and cannibalism; ComiPress called him the ‘unstoppable king of trauma manga’. After making a serious impact with a bleak apocalyptic sci-fi story inspired by the infamous Maoist cult the Japanese Red Army, and even more so with an autobiography in which he revealed he had mixed Japanese-Korean parents (inspiring Big Racisms in those days), he surprised everyone by retiring. It didn’t stick. He moved from scandalising Shōnen Jump readers to adult manga, then back, uncannily anticipating the Aum terrorist attacks. He sounds like a fascinating guy and I’d like to read him some of that. Maybe it will be a Comics Comints one day. Hehe.

The most curious thing about Toei’s adaptation is the animation method. It’s very common now to place 2D animation in 3D scenes, but here we see the opposite: traditionally painted backgrounds populated by stylised 3D characters. Viewed with modern eyes, it has an interesting, uncanny look - certainly videogamey, but I’m curious to see how it works in a larger film. This CG approach may seem less odd when we consider director Keiichi Sato had the year before directed Tiger & Bunny at Sunrise, whose story of corporate-funded superheroes needed CG to plaster logos across the suits. Sato would actually later go on to mostly work in live-action film, notably the adaptation of Gantz we watched on Toku Tuesday 40.

I can’t guess what we’ll all make of Asura. It could be really great, a neglected classic like Birdboy - or it could end up being so exaggeratedly grimdark as to end up kind of goofy. We’ll find out! Animation Night would be no fun if we stuck to the well-known roads. At a brief 75 minutes, Asura is a pretty digestible size like an OVA episode.

After all that war and death, we probably want a breather. 百日紅 Sarusuberi (Miss Hokusai) looks at a different aspect of history - the renowned ukiyo-e painter Hokusai, best known for that one wave you might have seen here and there. Hokusai, it turned out, had a daughter called Katsushika Ōi, who followed her dad’s footsteps into ukiyo-e. Her story caught the eye of mangaka Hinako Sugiura.

Sugiura is another one I’ve got to have a look into. A manga artist with a deep interest in history, particularly the Edo period, she learned manga from Murasaki Yamada - not just a regular in the pages of Garo magazine, the fascinating alternative manga magazine, but a feminist essayist and a poet. Sugiura also debuted in Garo, drawing on ukiyo-e to great effect for her historical manga. She retired from manga in 1993 to focus on her research, and became something of a TV personality, supplying NHK with information on the Edo period for a comedy program.

The film intercuts Ōi’s life with her dad’s, a series of episodic stories in which we meet other painters from the period and watch Ōi growing up in the Edo period, working uncredited and trying to figure out sexuality. The animation comes from a studio called... Production I.G.... hmm I think I’ve heard of those guys?

So this time, the director was Keiichi Hara. While Masashi Andō was enjoying that wide-ranging career with all the big name directors, Hara was doing one thing, and that was directing Doraemon and Crayon Shin-Chan for Shin-ei. Two of the absolutely largest anime franchises in Japan, they don’t get a lot of play abroad - but then one is a kids’ series and the other leans heavily on Japanese wordplay so it’s not entirely surprising. From 1984 to 2005, Hara directed a movie for one of these two franchises nearly every year...

...I’m not kidding!

Anyway, it seems that in 2005 he decided he’d had enough (I can only assume) and from that point on he started directing non-franchise films. Quite a few of them actually - something for a future Animation Night, perhaps.

With Miss Hokusai, Hara could call on Production I.G. legends like Toshiyuki Inoue and Norio Matsumoto to realise a detailed, grounded Edo Period in exquisite detail. The clips I’ve seen look beautiful - I’ll try and have more than that to say later, but I am absolutely categorically out of time at this point.

So! Two Production I.G.s doing what Production I.G. do best, and a little oddity of Toei’s. If you’re willing to indulge me, please head over to -> twitch.tv/canmom <- for some mobies!

We may be up a bit late by UK standards, but I hope you can hop in for a bit, as suits! Movies will start in about 20 minutes (~21:20 UK time), modulo audience. See you theeerrreeeeeee!

[libertyreads]

Book Review #76 of 2023--

Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds. Rating: 3 stars.

Yes, you are seeing correctly, I’ve officially started my Christmas in July reads--half way through June. Sometimes Christmas in July just has to start two weeks early. With the sheer volume of books I’m hoping to go through in the next three weeks, it’s the only method to the madness. And I actually started this year with a Hanukkah romance. In this one, we follow Shira and Tyler as they land in Nantucket a day ahead of their families thanks to a freak storm. Shira convinces Tyler to help her get better with boys so she can ask out someone who works with her uncle once they finally arrive for the holidays. But can Shira get over the embarrassment she felt three years ago when Tyler rejected her? Can those flirting lessons really help her land Isaac?

There are some things I think this book did really well. Like the setting. For some reason, I love the idea of a location that is normally so busy in the summer and it being used as the setting for a winter story. I think the author does a good job of showing that this is normally a summer/beach town and that those who are around now are the every day Nantucket people and those who came for the holidays specifically. It all felt authentic and real. I also loved Shira’s giant family. Even if they were a bit much at times. I think it helped move the plot forward without it feeling forced. I loved the friends to enemies to lovers storyline. It all made sense and it was all done really well. I thought Shira was a little oblivious at times but that could come from her being so stuck in her own world of books and lessons with very little time for actual dating. Tyler was a sweetheart and I appreciated that he let Shira get to the same understanding of their friendship/relationship before pursuing anything. And, as always, I loved the holiday scenes. I can’t say for sure how true to life the Jewish traditions were handled but I enjoyed them and thought it was pretty informative for someone on the outside. We also got some Christmas stuff in there too thanks to Tyler’s family celebrating the holiday.

The story dives into an unexpected plot that I don’t think the summary even mentions in passing which made it a bit of a shock. I didn’t mind that part of the story too much but I did feel like it took away from the rest. I don’t know if it was just one plot line too much for me or what. I liked where that plot line actually ended up and I think it was fun. It just took away from everything else going on for me.

Overall, I give the book a 3 star rating, the romance a 4 star rating, and the holiday-ness of it all 4 menorahs.

[ramlionbam]

i went on a birthright trip. we got to see a lot of israel, though im not sure how authentic stuff like the bedouin camp really was. regardless we did hear some stuff about bedouin culture from someone there and i hope that they make lots of good tourism money to help their community from it.

we did talk a bit about palestine/gaza because we did pass by the border or at least saw it from afar iirc. we also talked about working towards coexistence/peace a little bit. we didn't talk very critically of israel on the trip though. we did go to see an idf base which i think wasn't usual?

as far as the other young adults on the trip, a lot of them did enjoy going out and drinking and partying, but we also had more spiritual moments and did shabbat services and the like together (plus hanukkah candle lighting, it was a winter trip) or had discussions facilitated by the staff about our experiences.

i did experience some personal stuff on the trip due to a really messy friend breakup because i was very emotionally unregulated and they didn't express their boundaries very well and also treated me like shit. i didn't feel that the staff really supported me through it and because of my frustration with that and some other things i was made to sign a behavioral agreement or else be forced to fly back early.

since i grew up conservative i also think the general taglit trip i went on wasn't for me, it felt a bit more geared towards people just getting in touch or less religious. i think there are other programs i could have gone on though.

overall i don't regret the experience. i wish we'd been able to have more frank discussions to inform us about israel's state (wrt palestine but also with racism, with queer rights, etc.) and the history more. but mostly my friend was such a bitch that it's a miracle that the experience wasn't ruined for me, which i place entirely on how beautiful israel is and how meaningful it was to go there.

okay. does anyone have lived experience with taglit? most sources i can find are either that its the source of all evil or that its perfect.

if you know me i have some opinions that others might consider more "extreme" on the left side, and if i started being fed bullshit i wouldn't be able to stop myself from speaking up. but i don't want to put myself in a position where i become the "problem person" so if dialogue is generally not encouraged i would rather just not go.

[mischief-and-tea-by-the-sea]

Holiday prompts: 8, 11, 20. FUCK MY SHIT UP

And white the fading forests grow

If anyone had told Kate Pryde years ago that she'd wind up spending a whole holiday season at a quaint little (little being relative) cabin in the New England wilderness instead of the Xavier School or any other large gathering of mutants, she'd have laughed them right out of her face.  If anyone had said she'd be spending that season with Emma and Christian Frost, Bobby Drake, and Loki, she'd have noped herself away and never speak to that person again.  

And yet...

"Kate, explain your lovely little candle tradition again, please?" Loki requested from where he fussed with the 12' Douglas Fir, trying to turn it to the perfect angle for decorating.  He glanced over his shoulder to see the look of surprise on the spritely brunette's face.  "Robert attempted to explain it, but he's so busy making eyes at Christian that I think he missed details."  

Bobby pouted from where he sat at the table with his boyfriend, Kate, and her girlfriend – okay, so they'd only been dating a couple of weeks, but Kate thought she was important enough to bring out to Loki's cabin in the middle of nowhere for the winter holidays – Danni. He reached out with the hand that Christian wasn't holding, and he gave the wooden dreidel a spin.  

"I didn't miss details, Loki.  I just...well, my parents weren't exactly orthodox.  Or even practicing.  Jewish stuff was on a need to be convenient basis with them.  Or when my grandmothers visited, so it wasn't as ingrained in me as it was Kate," Bobby defended himself.  He blushed a little when Christian lifted his hand and kissed it.

Loki walked over, rolling his shoulders until they popped.  His eyes fell on the dreidel as it spun and spun, finally slowing down to land on a character he didn't quite recognize.  Well, he could read it, but he didn't understand its meaning.  It wasn't as if he hadn't encountered many of Earth's cultures over the centuries he was alive and popping down here for visits, but he hadn't blanketed himself in most of them other than the more northern ones that based their religious practices off of what they'd learned about Asgard.  

"Alright, so what does that mean?" Loki asked, nodding toward the toppled dreidel.  "Robert spun it, so what does he...gain or...lose, I'm assuming is the object of the game?"

Kate just smirked a little even as Bobby's pout grew.

"It landed on Shin.  It means to 'put in'.  He has to put pieces of his gelt...his chocolate coin...into the middle. Which means that the three of us have a chance to win it."  

Loki reached out for the shiny gold 'coins' that were stacking up at the center of the table.  His hand hovered over them, however, and he looked from Kate to Bobby.

"May I?" he asked, hearing Frigga's voice in his head to not touch without consent.  When both Bobby and Kate nodded, he plucked one of the coins from the middle and studied it.  "And this is chocolate?  Inside this gold..."  

Emma walked closer and set her hand on Loki's lower back, stroking across his spine with her thumb.  

"It's not real gold, darling.  It's gold foil wrapped around chocolate," she told him with an indulgent smile.  

"Ohhh...that is a charming tradition," Loki remarked. "I do like chocolate, and dressing it up as a treasure when it is one makes it even more fun, doesn't it?" He set the coin back onto the table right where he found it then wrapped an arm around Emma's shoulders, snuggling her against his side.  "And this is a holiday like Yule...or Christmas?"

So they didn't just hover, Loki summoned one of the other chairs close, and he eased into it and tugged Emma into his lap. He didn't miss the looks of surprise that the two X-Men snuck to each other.  

"No, it's...well..."  Bobby looked to Kate for help.  "Sorry, Loki.  I'm just really bad with all the details.  I can make the latkes, I can light the candles, and I can play dreidel and apparently lose all my gelt, but it just wasn't the biggest of traditions in my house," he apologized and squeezed Christian's hand back.

"Sweetheart, I don't think you're offending our host by not being Mr. Trivia," the elder Frost sibling said sweetly and stood up to fill crystalline punch cups full of homemade egg nog for everyone.  

Emma made herself quite comfortable in Loki's lap. The only one missing from their little holiday away from everyone else had assured her that he was on his way, but for the moment, she was content with this motley family she'd somehow managed to accumulate.  Many times throughout her life, each family she'd claimed had built up into a monument she could trust enough to be vulnerable around only to crumble under the weight of betrayal and indifference.  Even now, she worried that letting these few, these happy few into her heart lest it shatter her heart like that diamond bullet.  

"Kate, you grew up in the faith with all the traditions and background," Emma replied in a tone more gentle than the sassy Queen was known for.  

Kate set the dreidel in motion before standing up to take two of the cups from Christian, one of which she offered to Danni before touching a kiss to the top of her girlfriend's blonde crown.  As she reclaimed her chair, the dreidel stopped again and fell over, making Bobby crow a little as it once more fell onto Shin.  She stuck out her tongue at him and tossed a chocolate coin into the middle of the table.

"Yes, I did.  I mean, my family wasn't Orthodox, but we kept the holidays and most Sabbaths...when Dad wasn't working late at the office.  I went to Hebrew school.  I think I learned even more from Erik," she explained and set her cup on the table out of the way.  

"Thank you, Christian," Loki stated as he took one of the cups from Emma's brother.  He took a sip and let the thick eggy liquid sit on his tongue for a moment before he swallowed, tasting the bourbon and nutmeg keenly.  "This is...very strange but delicious," he added. "If you'd rather not explain, I understand.  I'm just curious as your world has so many mystical options to choose from." Then those verdant eyes of his sparkled with the mischief he was known for.  As if tempting her, he added, "I'll show you mine, Kate, if you show me yours."  

"Hey now," Danni pretended to sound jealous and made a dramatic show of slinging her arm around Kate's shoulders. She kissed her cheek then plucked up the dreidel to take her turn.  While the wooden toy spun and spun, she gestured between Loki and Kate.  "By all means, babe, lay it all out on the table. If nothing else, I want to learn about all the shiny pagan holiday stuff from Asgard," the tattoo artist stated before turning her eyes to what her prize or predicament would be.  

Kate met Loki's and Emma's eyes and shrugged a shoulder.  

"Fair enough.  I'll tell you all about it, if nothing more than to impress my lady," she replied and gave her girlfriend a flirty smile.  

The dreidel stopped and fell over.  It landed on a boxy looking letter without a bottom.

"That looks very similar to Uruz," he stated. "The rune of strength," came the codicil.  

"It's hay," Kate said.  "It means that Danni gets to take half the pot.  That is what's at the center of the table.  Go for it, babe" she explained and encouraged her girlfriend.

While Danni collected her portion of the loot and Christian reached out to spin the dreidel, Kate started into the history of the Jewish rebellion against the Greek and Syrian oppressors, but she became more animated when she spoke about the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem and how there was not enough olive oil to burn all seven candles of the Menorah, but they lit the first anyway.  It was a portion of the history that she and Erik Lensherr discussed most often, especially because she saw the hope out of oppression, and liked to think that she reminded him of that to soothe his cynical heart.  

"And when they thought they only had enough oil for one day, it burned for eight days," Kate finished.  

She took a drink of her egg nog and looked at the others.  The dreidel had been completely forgotten, even though Christian's spin had earned him the other half of the pot, while everyone listened to Kate the Storyteller. Blinking over their rapt attention, Kate cleared her throat.  

"So, now you know about Hanukkah, Loki," she mused, smirking at the way the King of Jotunheim huggled his arms around Emma and buried his face against her shoulder.  

Loki eased Emma from his lap and carefully set his cup onto the table where it wasn't in anyone's way.  He walked around until he stood between Kate and Danni, leaned down, and kissed Kate's cheek.  

"Thank you for explaining," he told her in the tenderest of voices.  

And for good measure, he touched his lips to Danni's cheek.  

"And welcome to this strange little family," Loki replied at her look of confusion before he made his way back to the tree to don its finishing touches.  

Bobby looked down at the center of the table and the dreidel and finally nudged Christian to point out that he'd won the rest of the loot, but without warning, his boyfriend tilted his head and delivered a sound kiss to his lips instead.  Something that Bobby wasn't going to turn down at all.  

"I'd say get a room, you two, but you'd just tell Danni and me to do the same," Kate teased as she looked at her meager winnings, knowing that her girlfriend would likely share a chocolate coin or two.

"Besides, you both have a room here, Katherine," Emma stated as she, too, stood up and finished her egg nog.  She took hers and Loki's cups to the kitchen to set in the sink then walked over to join one half of her significant others at the tree. She set her hands on his back; she'd already picked up on a little tension before she couched his strained shoulder blades.  

"What has you worried, darling?" she asked mind-to-mind so as not to concern the young ones.  

"Oh, you know.  Thinking that Anthony should've been here by now.  Pepper assured me that she wasn't keeping him any longer than necessary.  Otherwise, he would've driven her mad," Loki responded the same and tilted his head when Emma rested her chin on his shoulder. He touched his lips to hers then went back to adding shimmery crystalline ornaments to the branches of the tree.  

Kate and Bobby watched Emma with Loki.  Of course, Christian would recognize a more settled demeanor to his sister than years past, but it was truly the former two mutants who could see more of a difference because they'd lived through her pining over Scott.  While Danni and Christian headed into the kitchen to wash up and to check on the slow-roasting prime rib in the oven that they'd all been smelling since noon, Kate leaned closer to speak to Bobby where they wouldn't be heard.  

"Can you believe that our White Queen is so happy? With Loki?"  

"And Tony Stark," Bobby concluded. "It's weird, Kate, but...I don't know.  Seems right. More right than...all the rest." He shoved a piece of unwrapped gelt into his mouth then offered one of his few left to Kate.  

*

Another hour and a half later, they all stood outside the 'cabin', which was actually more elegant and upscale than the term 'cabin' would imply.  Snow dusted their boots, and they were all wrapped warmly in layers of shirts and coats, scarves wrapped around their necks, and beanies covering their heads and ears.  Kate held onto Danni's hands, and Christian was snuggled with his back to Bobby's chest.

Of course, the cold didn't bother Bobby at all; just as it didn't affect Loki now that he'd come to grudgingly accept the benefits of his Jotun biology underneath the Aesir glamor he continued to wear.  

"What are we looking at again, Loki?" Christian was the one to ask.  "I mean, the snow on the trees is beautiful.  The snow...as far as our eyes can see is lovely, but...we're just standing out here staring at...well, I'm not sure."  

Loki peeked over Emma's head at the others, making sure they all would have the best view of the horizon.  Then his longing gaze fell on the driveway again and the car that had yet to appear.  

"Soon, Christian, you'll see.  It is, after all, the Winter Solstice," Loki explained and nodded to where the sun was just beginning its descent toward the horizon, turning much of the scenery in the distance into silhouette.  "The longest night of the year.  I believe in your Iceland, the word for it is Vetrarsólstöður, which is very close to what it is on Asgard."  In fact, Loki repeated the word for Winter Solstice in the language he'd been raised with, and it sounded nearly identical to the Icelandic term.  "In our tradition, as in many of yours dating before the influence of Christianity, it is the death of the sun through the coldest months of the year," he added.

"I have several friends who are Asatruar...and plenty who are Wiccan of some variety, and that's pretty much how they celebrate it, too," Danni announced then kissed Kate's hands through her gloves.  

Just as the sun dipped down a little further, and Emma leaned closer into Loki's side to comfort his worries, a cherry red SUV of the newest models not even out on the market yet for public purchase, no less stylish than the Audi R8 Spyder of the same color, pulled up to the cabin and stopped just behind all the other cars.  The lights cut out, and the door opened and slammed closed before a figure dressed all in black and red ran over to the group gathered in the snow.  

"I didn't miss it, did I?  Bambi, tell me I didn't miss your thing," Tony asked and nearly pleaded, his voice catching in his throat as the thought of missing his S.O.'s holiday moment tore into him.  "Sorry I wasn't here soon.  I had to stop for the extra food and cake and..."  

"Anthony, shush," Emma scolded gentle and reached out a hand to the newcomer.  

Just as Loki did, and Tony rushed over, giving the others a polite but perfunctory greeted as he set his hands into his lovers' and happily let them fold him into them.  

"You didn't miss it, ástin mín," answered Loki in a hushed tone.  "It's just started."  

And together, the bundles of lovers watched as the humongous fire-orange sun lowered herself to the horizon and below until she was all gone, leaving in her wake a blanket of black sky and twinkling stars and the first quarter moon that smiled on all of them like the Cheshire Cat.

At that moment, while they all held still and silenced in the last moments of the sun and first moments of the longest night of the year, the trees around the cabin appeared to shake away their snow cloaks, and bright white-gold and green fairy lights sparkled into existence. Everyone's gasps of surprise made Loki smile, and the Trickster – this fallen prince of Asgard and forgotten prince of Jotunheim – felt a longing that he'd ached to be fulfilled at last find its way home.  

(Title taken from Loreena McKennitt's "Snow" on To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987) and Songs for Winter Gardens (1995), and again on A Midwinter Night's Dream (2008).)

Holiday prompt list can be found here.

[fandom-imagines-stories]

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Gif credit @rainbow-motors

Dean Winchester x Reader 

Words: 1518

Summary: Alone on a hunt for the holidays, 19-year-old Dean calls up his childhood friend. 

Notes: I’ve been obsessed with Young Jensen content and I found this gif (Thanks to the creator!) and I really wanted to write something for a younger Dean. Call me lazy, but I didn’t want to include the hunt itself in this one. I thought writing the moments before and after would be cute, so enjoy! (Bit of a mess, but I hope you like it)

Want more Supernatural? Find it HERE

-

“Hey Sammy, it’s me,” Dean started the voicemail grimly. It was the third one he’d left for his younger brother, “I know you’re not happy with me and that’s why you won’t take my calls, but dammit man, I’ll be back as soon as I can. It’s just another hunt Sam. I’ll be back before you can say Hanukkah.” He thought for a moment before finishing. “Merry Christmas, Sammy.” 

He ended the message and tossed his phone on the motel bed with a huff. He knew Sam was pissed about him going on a hunt alone, especially over Christmas, but he didn’t think the silent treatment was going to last this long. Dad gave him an order and he wasn’t going to let him down. 

Dean sat down in front of a pile of books and sighed. He hated the research parts of hunts. He just wanted to kill the son-of-a-bitch. Unfortunately, he wasn’t totally sure what this particular son-of-a-bitch was. Over the course of seven years, 15 kids have gone missing right around Christmas time. No notes, no bodies, nothing. If his dad had any theories, he certainly hadn’t shared them. So research time it was. 

About three hours and two illegally obtained beers later, he had a couple of theories ready. It didn’t seem like a spirit or vampires, and without heartless bodies, it wasn’t a werewolf. Since the disappearances always happened around the holidays, he figured that the creature might have Pagan roots. Either that, or it could be a Grinch of a witch somewhere. Whatever it was, it was sure putting a dent in his holiday. 

Maybe that’s why he dialed the number. Sure, his dad told him he needed to do this on his own, but if it really was some Pagan entity, he wasn’t really sure he could take it on by himself- not that he would ever tell his father that. As far as his dad was concerned, Dean could handle anything that the dark world threw at him. But right now, looking at the Christmas lights through the frosty motel window, he wanted a friend. 

“Jack Frost, can’t say I was expecting a call from you.” Your amused voice made Dean smile. You had the phone wedged between your shoulder and your ear as you painted your toenails Christmas Tree green. Just because you were a badass hunter didn’t mean you couldn’t be festive. 

“Hey Y/N,” Dean chuckled, pushing away from the book covered table and cracking open another beer, “how’ve things been on your side of the Midwest?” 

“Oh, you know, vengeful spirit here, vampire there, nothing too exciting.” You twisted the top back on the polish and hopped off the bathroom counter, being careful when you walked so you didn’t get any polish on the carpet. “Mom’s been off with the twins, trying to give them a little bit of a normal Christmas up in Oregon.” 

“Why aren’t you with them?” Dean wondered. Your family wasn’t like his family. You and your mom somehow made it work. You weren’t usually separated, at least not for long. 

“I had a hunch that someone else was going to be needing me this year.” Dean let out a long, frustrated groan.

“Sam called you, didn’t he?” 

“Sammy boy was worried that you’d have a lonely Christmas so he asked me to hang around in case you needed some help.” You shrugged.

“Hang around? What do you mean hang around?” 

“Come to room 114 and find out Dean-o.” With a smirk, you hung up and waited at the foot of your bed, flipping through channels on the television. You settled on a channel that was playing The Year Without a Santa Claus. 

When you heard the knock on the door you walked on your heels to open it. Dean gave you an annoyed glare, but you could tell he was happy to see you. He barreled passed you, nearly knocking you off balance. 

“Watch the feet!” You whined, pointing at your newly painted toes. Dean rolled his eyes. 

“You painted your toenails?” He scoffed. “What are you? 13?” 

“Don’t be a Scrooge, they look nice.” You had long been able to handle Dean’s snarkiness. 

Your mother had run into John Winchester back in 1990 on a spirit case. Dean was 11, you were 10 and Sam and the twins were about 7. While your parents took down the ghost, you and Dean had to babysit. While he was obnoxious at first, the two of you got along pretty well. You bonded over being the oldest siblings, constantly having to look out for your kid brothers, worrying whether or not your parents would come home, remembering the parent that you’d lost, for Dean, it was his mother to a demon, for you it was your dad to a werewolf. 

After that, John and your mom would sometimes meet up if only to have you and Dean look after the younger kids. You even ended up going to the same high school for a while. Dean was probably the closest thing you had in your monster-hunting world to a best friend. And you, not that he would ever say it, were the closest thing he’d ever had to a crush. 

“I think I may have a lead on what we’re looking for here.” You informed, tossing him your journal. Astonished, Dean scanned the page. 

“How did you-”

“I’ve been researching gods in my free time.” 

“You are such a nerd.” Dean scoffed, taking a closer look at something you wrote. 

“Yeah well this nerd has saved your ass more than a fair share so shut it, Winchester.” You smirked, snatching back your journal. “Based on the case files of the missing kids, I have an idea of who we might be dealing with. Gryla is from Icelandic folklore and she, uh, eats naughty children.” 

“And here I complained about the coal.” Dean grimaced. 

“If we don’t figure out where she is, these kids become Christmas dinner.” While you dove into more research, Dean looked over your shoulder at the TV. 

“Are those puppets?” 

You scrambled to turn off the TV, but Dean stole the remote. 

“It’s a Christmas classic.” You reasoned, feeling yourself turn red. “I watched it with the twins all the time when we were kids.” 

“I think it’s adorable.” He leaned ever so closer to you without realizing it. Like a magnet pulling you together, you found yourself inching closer and closer until-

“Are we going to hunt this thing or not?” You suddenly exclaimed, backing away quickly. He was just kidding around. Dean was always pretty flirty. It was just part of your friendship. He didn’t feel that way about you- the way you felt about him. 

-

You burst through your motel room door, half carrying Dean in with you. In a panicked rush, you sat him down on the bed and scrambled to find your first aid kit. 

“At least we beat the damn thing, right?” Dean smirked before wincing at the pain. His wound wasn’t life threatening, but it sure hurt like a bitch. 

“This is going to hurt.” You warned, turning on the radio to drown out any pained sounds that Dean made. As you cleaned the wound, his eyes were locked on you. You tried not to notice. It was the pain that was making him look at you like that. You covered the wound with a bandage and put a fair distance between the two of you. You hoped he couldn’t see how much you were shaking. 

“Everything okay?” Dean asked. 

“Yeah, yeah everything’s fine, Dean.” You lied, laughing nervously. “I just got kinda freaked out when I saw her attack you.” 

“You sure that’s all that’s bothering you?”

“I thought you were going to die, Dean, I think that’s a sufficient reason to be a little jittery.” Dean got up from his place on the bed and walked towards you. 

“We’ve known each other for how long, Y/N? I can tell when you’re not telling me the whole story.” 

You ignored him, electing to listen to the Christmas music coming from the radio instead. It was one of your favorites. You mouthed the words to yourself. 

“Through the years, we all will be together. If the fates allow.” 

“Fate hasn’t exactly been our friend.” You scoffed. 

“Huh?”

“The song. It says ‘if the fates allow’. Fate doesn’t seem to like us this year.” 

“I don’t believe in all that.” Dean said, shaking his head. “And if I did, it looks like ‘fate’ has had it out for me for the past fifteen years.” 

“Fair enough.” You crossed your arms over your chest, watching snow start to fall outside the window. Neither of you said anything. You both just watched the white flecks tumble down to the earth. You turned around and found him standing right behind you. It didn’t startle you. It felt like he was meant to be close to you. You breathed in slowly before whispering. “Merry Christmas Dean.” 

“Merry Christmas.” 

You didn’t need any mistletoe for what came next. 

[peterxwade24]

Safety Found in Red Sleeves

Chapter 6

So, who’s ready for chapter 6? We get to see all of temp heroes. (Brielle, Alicia and Bellamy belong to @soap-lady and her lovely fic “Fashion Upgrade” go give her some love).

Anyways, onto the fic.

You’ll notice minor edits, such as Kim’s hero name. He went through a very minor edit after I discovered the Vietnamese zodiac.

Renarde Véloce looked at Alicia, her Miraculous, a yellow circle with the Leo star sign, hung against her chest, before nodding. “Say Mullo get squeaky to activate the Miraculous. When you’re ready to detransform, without your timer being up, say piailler.”

Alicia nodded and smiled, bouncing on the pads of her feet and shaking out her hands. “Mullo, get squeaky.” Alicia was consumed in a sardine gray light and when it disappeared  she was no longer Alicia.

Standing in her place was a hero in her own right. Her hair was piled atop her head in a beehive, her hair was an ombre of violet to pale purple to gray. She wore a white long sleeve jumpsuit that was tight around the arm but loose fitting after it reached her waist. Over her jumpsuit she wore a green shawl with a thick white ribbon along the top edge that ended just before her waist. Her hands and feet were covered in a thin skin coloured material to give extra protection. She had a thin green headband a few inches away from her bangs and an even thinner ribbon wrapped around her waist three or four times. She had a pale yellow-green veil around the bottom of her face with a purple masquerade mask which had light purple details.

Renarde Véloce smiled and twirled her finger in a circle. “Turn around.”

She spun in a slow circle before finally facing Renarde Véloce. “What do you think?”

“Very good. What’s your name?”

“...Sournoise.” She responded before tapping her cheek and nodding. “Yeah. Sournoise.”

“Cool.” Renarde Véloce smiled and grabbed Sournoise’s hand. “Let’s go.”

---

Trâu looked over Bellamy, his Miraculous, a thick leather arm band, seemed to give off a puff of steam, before a tiny smile grew on his face. “You say Longg bring the storm to transform, clear skies to detransform before your timer runs out. Have at it.”

Bellamy smiled. “Longg, bring the storm.” He was consumed in a crimson light and when it disappeared, he was no longer Bellamy.

He had a large straw hat atop his head with a thin white veil around the brim. He had a red tank under a dark brown robe tied with rope around his chest and upper arms. The rope was tied with a smooth white stone in the shape of a club or a mushroom. He had three red claw-like marks on each shoulder and fanciful designs in the same red up his neck and across his face. He had black on his eyelids and his lips while his eyes were slitted like a dragon’s. His eyes glowed golden through his veil, an unimaginable heat radiated from his pupils.

Trâu nodded, stretching his arms over his head. “Punaise will want you to have a hero name. Have you thought about it?”

“Colchis, it’s a dragon from mythology. I figured, being a dragon and all, that I’d do a little bit of research.” He smiled and bounced on the balls of his feet, despite the fact that he wore geta.

“Cool.” Together, Trâu and Colchis went off to train.

---

Althaeban lazily watched Brielle fret over her Miraculous, a yellow and brown striped scrunchie around her wrist. “You transform by saying Pollen buzz on and detransform before your timer runs out by saying buzz off. The team and I wouldn’t have chosen you if we didn’t think you would be able to handle it.”

Brielle nodded. “Pollen buzz on.” She was consumed in a warm yellow light and when it disappeared she was no longer Brielle.

She wore a long-sleeved loose-fitting yellow jumpsuit with a red-orange sash wrapped around her waist. She had an orange shawl wrapped around her shoulders which covered her entire back. She had gauntlets on her forearms similar to Poulain Rouge’s but yellow with orange bands around her wrists. Her feet were clad in brown flats with light brown socks. She had a chunky red necklace around her neck with a bee on the pendant which hung against her chest. Her hair was pulled back into a ballerina bun with brown streaks throughout it. Her face was obscured by a brown mask which stretched from her cheekbones to her forehead with black hexagonal patterned eye lenses and three black dots between her eye lenses. Two of the brown streaks in her hair stood up as though they were antennae.

Althaeban flicked her eyes over her suit and nodded. “Cool. What’s your name? BugBoy’s gunna wanna know.”

“Bumble Bee.” She smiled and did a quick twirl. “Let’s go.”

---

Thana shouldered her bag, a soft brown faux leather computer bag, filled with her emergency supplies. She grabbed her suitcase, a black twenty-one inch hard shell modeled after Batman’s suit, and left her room. “Bye Sabine. Bye Tom.”

Thana left the bakery and smiled at Chloé’s limo, which would be taking her and her friends to the airport. She loaded her suitcase into the trunk, beside Chloé’s white twenty inch hard shell suitcase. She closed the trunk and slid into the back seat beside Chloé. “Who’re we getting next?”

“Our boys had a slumber party last night so we’ll get them first before we go to get the Pinkette and Adrikins.” Chloé smiled at her friend and tapped on the divider between the driver and the back. “To the Lê Chiến residence please.”

The girls sat in companionable silence in the backseat, their phones plugged in to finish charging.

Kim and Nino were waiting on the sidewalk outside of the building. Kim had a navy twenty inch hard shell suitcase while Nino had a green twenty inch hard shell suitcase. After Kim loaded the suitcases the two boys joined the girls, plugging in their phones as well.

“It is too early to have make up on Chlo.” Kim grumbled as he laid his head in the blonde’s lap.

“Why are you so awake Chlo?” Nino asked as he grew comfortable in Thana’s lap. “It’s like three in the morning.”

“You think all of this happens naturally?” Chloé scoffed goodnaturedly. “Agreste Manor please.”

The four friends rode in silence, the two boys slowly falling back to sleep.

Adrien opened the door as Alix loaded their suitcases into the trunk, his was identical to Nino’s but red while hers was bronze.

“Hey guys.” Adrien greeted.

“Everyone wrote the address for Chloé’s dad’s hotel as the return address on their luggage tag, right?” Alix asked as she slid into the car and laid her head in Adrien’s lap.

Chloé nodded. “If your luggage tag falls off we have back ups,” she gestured to the bag of neon orange circle tags with a picture of part of the earth on them, “but try to keep track of them.”

Chloé’s carry-on bag was a yellow tote bag, Kim’s was a red backpack, Nino’s was a blue backpack, Adrien’s was a green backpack, and Alix’s was just her gray and pink sports bag.

---

Thana smiled at the informational representative as she placed her suitcase on the scale. “M. Bourgeois has kindly offered to cover the checked luggage fee for not only his daughter but also for myself and our three friends while M. Agreste is paying for his son’s.”

The woman behind the desk nodded. “Of course.” She smiled and motioned Thana on. “Find your gate, and the rest of your party, and wait for the boarding call. Have a nice flight.”

“Thank you. Have a nice day.” Thana went in search of the gate, grimacing as she found the rest of her class in the waiting area. She rolled her eyes and sat down in a chair a short jaunt away from the class, but close enough to overhear their conversation.

“-of course when I asked Bruce he just,” Lila snapped her fingers and smiled, “snapped and made it happen. He would do anything for me.”

“You see, that’s funny. Since I’m the one who wrote the essay and submitted the essay.” Adrien approached the group and smiled at Thana. “Hey Thana.”

“Adrien.” Thana waved. She went back to her Instagram feed, watching soap making videos and getting ideas for what to give her uncles and aunts for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Ōmisoka.

Chloé, Kim, Nino and Alix joined the duo soon after. The six friends calmly waited for the boarding announcement for their flight, continuing to shoot down all of Lila’s lies about how she’s the one who got them the trip.

---

Thana took a deep breath of the polluted Gotham air, the slight hint of familiarity soothing her. A small smile took over her face, and she adjusted her red hoodie, pulling the hood over her hair, as she stood just outside of the airport with her suitcase next to her waiting for her friends to collect their luggage. She looked to the rooftops, hoping to see her brother but knowing if he was running with the Bat then they were probably back in their cave, before a tap on her shoulder made her turn to look at Kim.

Kim gave her a smile, a sad smile but a smile. “Looking for him?” Kim draped an arm across her shoulders and gave her a light squeeze. “According to the email that Wayne sent Adrien, one of his sons will be guiding our tours while another one of his sons will be acting as a bodyguard.”

Thana nodded. “He’s got four sons, one’s our age and the other is younger. Best case scenario, Dick will be the guide and Jay-Jay the bodyguard. Worst case scenario, Tim will be the guide and Dick will be the bodyguard.” She shrugged and looked for their friends. “We should get on the bus before Lila and her court get the good seats in the back.”

---

Thana looked up at the building, her eyes filling with tears. “Kim. Kim, I can’t go in there. Before this was a hotel, before Wayne bought the building, I got shot at in there. I’ll give you my luggage, put it in Chlo’s room and I’ll just, I’ll just sneak in change before the morning headcount but I cannot sleep in there overnight.” Her voice was low, barely above a whisper, and it cracked with emotion, pulling a deep frown from not only Kim but also Chloé.

“Of course Fragolina. We’ll cover for you.” Chloé grabbed Thana’s hand, giving it an affection squeeze, before helping their friends form a wall to allow Thana to slip away from the group and fade into the crowd rushing past them.

-*-*-*

Jason paced his apartment, trying to decide if he actually wanted to do this favour for Bruce before remembering the possibility that his sister could be amongst their ranks. He sighed and shook his head, he’d just do what Bruce asked him to do.

He turned away from his windows, unlocked with the curtains open to give his siblings easy access to his apartment if they need to crash while they’re out, to walk into his kitchen. He set to work making a lunch for Damian, reminding himself to toss in a couple extra snacks because Damian was going to be out with Ed and John for the day tomorrow. He wrote a little note for Damian in Arabic and tucked it inside the lunch bag before putting the bag in the fridge. Jason had some business to attend to, some Red Hood business, that he couldn’t bring Damian on so he’d asked Ed and John to take him because all of his siblings were going to be busy tomorrow.

---

Jason in his full Red Hood gear, stood in the alley across the street from the dumb building Bruce bought. He’d renamed it, of course, to the Wayne Enterprises’ Kaya Hotel but that didn’t take away the memories he had. Bruce had only cared because he knew Jason had gotten shot at in there, he hadn’t cared that it was the nth time that jackass had shot at kids nor did he care about all of the other kids who’d gotten shot in there, namely Thana.

Jason tightened his grip on the can of spray paint and waited until more people had cleared out of the way. He double checked that no one was going to see him as he sprinted across the street to the side of the building. He grit his teeth and he surveyed the side of the building, he needed to make it big enough to memorialize all of the people but small enough that Batman wouldn’t know he was the one who did it.

He pulled the top off of the can of spray paint, a metallic silver, and began throwing up the rough shape of several bullets, one bullet for every kid who was ever shot at in the building, while keeping an ear out for the sound of one of his look outs letting him know someone was approaching.

He smiled as his vision was coming to life, the silver bullets getting a black outline before he numbered them in a matte fire red. One of his look outs, a twelve year old girl named Taylor, alerted him to the incoming presence of the authorities. Taylor’s siblings, Jesse and Morgan, who were located closer to his position because they weren’t quite as loud, let him know when they were closer.

Jason collected his supplies, remembering to grab the spray paint caps, before he ran off. He’d come by later to cover the bullets in a waterproof sealant to protect it from the weather. He smiled as he scaled the side of a building, going back to the rendezvous point to wait for the trio of siblings.

He tucked the cans of spray paint into his bag, waiting a short five minutes before the three siblings appeared. He smiled and tossed them a wad of cash, the exact amount unknown. “Payment for standing around and keeping an eye out for pigs.”

Taylor smiled at him and nodded. “Thanks.”

---

Jason sat in the coffee shop again, a cup of black coffee in front of him as he waited for Harvey. There was a second cup of black coffee waiting for Harvey, accompanied by a blueberry scone. Jason tapped his fingers against the table, his nerves getting the best of him.

Harvey walked into the coffee shop, his eyes landing on Jason’s black and white hair before he made his way over. Harvey sat down in the chair opposite Jason with a small smile. “Mr. Todd, what can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you knew any really good private investigators. It just, there are some sketchy circumstances surrounding my sister’s relocation and I wanna look into them.” Jason batted the handle to his cup between his hands before looking up at the other man. “If you don’t know anyone personally, do you know anyone who would?”

“I might know a guy, and Cobblepott might know a guy.” Harvey sipped at his coffee. “Selina probably knows a few.”

Jason nodded. “Okay. Thanks. Do you have his card?” Jason looked at Harvey, his green tinted blue eyes boring into Harvey’s blue orbs.

Harvey passed over a business card and smiled. “Give him a call after you talk to Selina and Cobblepott.”

“Thanks Harvey.”

Jason took a minute to finish his coffee and shoot a text to Ed, who was more likely to have his phone on him than John.

Jason frowned at his phone and sighed. He shook out his shoulders and walked up to the counter. He smiled at the barista and waited for her to finish doing her task. “Hi. Can I get a venti caramel brulée crème frap to go for Selina?”

“I’ll get right on that.” The barista smiled as she started Selina’s frap.

Jason smiled and slipped a twenty into the tip jar before swiping his card to pay for the coffees he had ordered. He graciously accepted the frap from the barista and smiled at her. “Thank you so much. Have a nice day.”

---

Jason slowly jogged to Selina’s apartment. He had a few hours to chat with the woman, who for all intents and purposes was his mother, before he had to go talk to Oswald. He caught the door as a resident left the building with a smile directed at the resident, who just scoffed at him.

Jason climbed the stairs and when he stopped outside of Selina’s door.

“-come on Lina! Come out with Red and me! We’ll have fun.” Harley’s voice sounded from within the apartment.

“Selina! Come on. We never have fun like we used to.” Pam’s voice sounded from close to Harley’s.

“Girls.” Selina’s voice washed over Jason, she had always been his favourite of the women his sister claimed as aunts, letting her have the other two. “Do you two want to be in Arkham when Thana comes home?”

Jason knocked on the door, which caused all three women inside to freeze. Jason gave a tentative call of “Mom?”

Selina seemed to stumble over herself to rush to the door. She flung it open, not hard enough for it to bounce off of the wall but rather forcefully. “Oh kitten.” Selina wrapped Jason in her arms, before pulling back to look at his face. “What’re you doing here?”

“Mom, I called you. I um, I brought you coffee.” Jason held out the cup to Selina and watched as Harley and Pam peaked around the corner.

“Oh kitten, thank you.” Selina accepted the cup and took an appreciative sip. “What’s up catnip?”

“Harvey said you might know some guys, some PIs. There was some sketchy circumstances surrounding Thana’s departure from the city and I wanna look into it.” Jason looked at the floor. “B’s making me act as the class’s bodyguard while they’re in town and I, I just need to know if he had anything to do with her being removed from the city. After I leave here I’m gunna go talk to Oswald, see if he can give a couple names. I figure, the more guys searching, the better the information will be.”

Selina looked at the boy who was practically her son and felt dignified rage well up in her being. Rage at her on-again off-again boyfriend and his stupid morals. “I swear, if he had anything to do with getting Hatter’s girl outta Gotham, I will break up with him for real.” She took a breath before glancing over her shoulder at the other Sirens. “You two need to make sure you’re not in Arkham. Stop Jerome from whatever plots he’s got so he isn’t in Arkham when she gets here.”

Pamela nodded while Harley glowered at the floor. “We got that.” Pamela pulled Harley out of the open window.

“Mom, you’re friends are so extra.” Jason smiled.

---

Jason waved at Selina, who was waving at him from the window in her apartment, as he walked to the Iceberg Lounge. He had a lot of things he still had to do.

Jason walked into the lounge, waving to the bouncer posted at the door as he passed, and started looking for Oswald, Pere or Gale. He passed by several people he recognized, giving only a nod in recognition.

Jason spotted either Pere or Gale, he never could tell them apart, and started making his way over towards her. “Hey. Can you direct me to Cobblepot?”

She nodded, the grey moon on her forehead the only clue of who she was, before incling her head to indicate that Jason should follow her. She walked back to Oswald’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in.” Oswald’s voice burst from the room.

Jason followed either Pere or Gale into the office, where she bowed and ducked out of the office.

“Hey Oswald.” Jason greeted while he sat down in the chair across the desk from Oswald. “Harvey said you may have-” Jason was cut off by his phone ringing, prompting him to hold up a single finger as he pulled out his phone. He sighed and answered the call. “John? I’m kinda-”

“Do not. Jason, we have a situation. The Bat is out and about.” John cut him off. “Ed and Itty Bitty are in a restaurant.”

“I’ll shoot Mom a text. She’ll take care of him.” Jason sighed. “Keep me updated.” Jason hung up the phone and shot a text to Selina. She shot him back a text letting him know the Sirens were covering it. He looked back to Oswald and smiled. “As I was saying. Harvey said you may have a couple PIs in your pocket.”

“Of course. In regards to Hatter’s girl.” Oswald nodded and pulled open a desk drawer. He rifled through the documents within for a moment before pulling out several business cards. “Any of these guys, they owe me a favour.”

---

Jason sat on the couch in his apartment. All of the business cards were laid out on his coffee table, Tim, Steph, and Cass sat on the opposite side of the coffee table while Damian was asleep on Jason’s lap. “Everyone pick two or three?”

Tim shrugged while Cass nodded. All four of them grabbed a few cards before the other three shoved them at Jason.

“Okay. Everyone grab a drink and a last snack. Then it’s time to go to bed.” Jason grinned, he piled the chosen cards close to the corner of the table and pulled Damian to his chest. He stood up and carried him to bed, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Jason went around the apartment to clean up a little before stopping in the two other rooms to press kisses to his siblings foreheads. He knew that everyone would be fine as long as they stuck together.

Taglist

@southamericangothamite @maribat-is-lifeblood @mystery-5-5 @our-preciousss @mochegato @chocolatecatstheron @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @2confused-2doanything @wannajointhecrabcult @dreamykitty25 @tomanyfandomsonmymind @moonlightstar64 @justafanwarrior @mialuvscats @pheony1882 @pepelachanel @moongoddesskiana @abrx2002 @ladybug-182 @greatcatblaze @thatonecroc @vixen-uchiha @superbwhispersconnoisseur @lilkymilky @susiej1118

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Do You Tree What I Tree?

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: T Word Count: 8730

For @justmattycakes​! Happy holidays!!! Massive thanks to @spiderman-homecomeme for organizing this Spideychelle Secret Santa!

Summary: Home from their various colleges for winter break, MJ and her friends make a day out of going to cut down their own Christmas trees. Being alone in the woods—just her, Peter, and an axe—seems like the perfect opportunity to admit that her feelings for her friend have changed.

“Wine and cider!” Peter announces, jabbing a finger at the car window as they pass a rustic-looking roadside sign.

MJ smirks to herself. His touch will probably leave a smudge on the glass, which Flash will painstakingly wipe clean later. She likes Flash much more now than she did in high school—they all do—but she likes to build up a little vindictiveness towards him in advance, for when he inevitably says or does something douchey.

“Whine inside her, is that what you’d do if you could actually get a girlfriend?” Flash asks immediately. Sweet justification for MJ, though she rolls her eyes.

Flash is driving, but Betty trusts his skill enough to smack his arm from the passenger seat, then turn to smile back at Peter.

“That sounds nice. We should definitely stop on the way back.”

“Yeah,” Ned pipes up. “Maybe they’ll have a fireplace too, where we can thaw our fingers.”

“Babe, I won’t let your fingers get cold.”

“Aw, babe,” he croons, reaching over his girlfriend’s shoulder where she sits in front of him to tangle their fingers together.

“Back to your intense lack of dateability,” Flash persists. MJ swears his original asshole persona comes out so much more whenever he slides behind the wheel of his dad’s Cadillac Escalade. “Are you having a lonely winter, Parker? With only your cold lab bench to keep you warm?”

Next to MJ, Peter sighs and mutters, “Same old Flash.” She thinks he says it only to himself, but he darts a look at her and they share a smile.

“Well, I don’t have your L.A. weather,” he allows, artfully changing topic.

Flash will talk for an hour straight about the numerous perks of attending UCLA, including the constant sunshine, the short-shorts, and the absence of his current listeners. The last they all recognize to be a blatant lie, but they like him enough to let him get away with it. MJ has a special sympathy for Flash in those moments; she’s still growing from the girl she was when they were all at Midtown together, when she found it so much easier to edge away from other people or, when she did interact, to speak defensively, insultingly, and with liberal use of the middle finger. Her communication skills have flourished with not being able to see these people in person every day. She’s actually amazed with how she’s clung to them, certain she’d failed to develop the kind of solid relationships people were supposed to form in high school and that she’d just stagger forward through her fine art degree (PoliSci minor) with a wild hope of connecting to other humans through the doodles that she’s developed into graceful sketches, from sketches to oil paintings with sweep and verve.

The five of them are in their second year at their respective centres of learning now and it feels really nice to gather after living by too-brief text exchanges, missed calls, and videocalls that somebody’s roommate inevitably arrives home in the middle of, loud and invasive. When MJ’s speaking to Ned or Flash, they can push through. They have the boisterousness and, in Ned’s case, natural good nature, to conduct two separate conversations at the same time. Betty prefers to hang up and try at a better time, when they can speak uninterrupted. Peter’s different from all of the above. MJ always sees how he blushes, as though he’s being caught talking to her. It makes her flush in return. There’s no reason for them not to be as close as either of them are with any of the others, but conversations with him make her feel different. Without meaning to, their voices lower and they wander away from whatever topic they start with; on some nights, into the most intimate tracks of their inner lives. She gets why he feels caught to be interrupted because it’s disorienting for her too, being dragged back to the larger world, hearing a voice other than his in her ear. She likes traditional phone calls with him the best because she can lie in bed with her phone pressed to her ear and he doesn’t have to know.

“Are we almost there?” Ned says when Flash pauses in his rhapsodizing of Venice Beach.

MJ, sitting in the middle of the backseat, watches her friend unlock her phone and check the map.

“Yes. Under two miles to go.”

“And we’re super sure about this place?” Ned checks.

“Mhmm. A friend of a friend in my French workshop went last year and got the most spectacular Fraser fir,” Betty assures him. “I saw it at her Christmas party. That’s the one you couldn’t go to because you got the flu, remember?”

“Ugh,” he agrees.

“We passed a tree farm awhile ago,” Peter ventures. “That wasn’t it?”

“Betty told me the owners of that farm own this lot too. It’s cheaper to get your tree here because they don’t tend the lot in the same way,” MJ informs him. She likes the look on his face when he listens. She likes the feel of his leg bumping against hers as they traverse the uneven gravel sideroad.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be making up the cost difference paying for a paint job. I can hear the stone chips!” Flash complains. As if he’s ever paid for so much as a tank of gas.

“It’s an adventure, moron,” she says.

“I wasn’t prepared for stone chips.”

“I told you everything in an email last week, when we were planning this,” Betty calmly reminds him. “We should all be prepared.”

It isn’t visible to her right now, but MJ knows her friend has a shiny, compact saw at her feet, tucked into a neat black case, looking bizarrely like a tennis racket. Her own axe is trapped beneath Peter’s shoe so it doesn’t slide forward under Flash’s seat and slice the soles off his shoes. It’s quite sharp. She made sure.

“Listen,” Flash demands, “I’m the transport. Someone else can take care of the less significant details.”

“That is so fucking dumb,” Peter mumbles.

“What?”

“I said, I hope your feet don’t go numb,” he says more loudly. MJ turns her head, like she’s trying to follow the gentle backwards sweep of falling snow with her eyes when she’s really trying to hide her smile from Flash’s suspicious gaze in the rear-view mirror. “Did you wear waterproof boots and warm socks?”

“Of course. About to make winter my bitch.”

Betty twists to catch MJ’s eye.

“You wanna take this one?”

“Go for it.”

While Betty educates Flash on why that is not an acceptable thing for him to say—not with two of his female friends in the car, or ever—MJ drums her fingers on her knees. Her mittens are piled in her lap for now; despite her natural inclination to insult Flash’s ride, it heats up nicely. Plus, she’s tucked between Peter and Ned. She glances to her right to check on the latter and finds him huffing a warm breath on the window. He traces his finger through the resulting condensation, drawing a heart and writing ‘B+N’ in the middle. MJ glances at Peter and he’s already looking at her.

“So, tree?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve been told to keep it under six feet. A measuring tape and a ladder might’ve been helpful, but there wouldn’t have been anyplace to put the ladder once we got the trees on the roof of this thing.” She smacks the SUV’s ceiling and Flash goes, “HEY!”

“You can just choose a taller one,” Peter suggests, “and then cut it shorter.”

“I feel bad about the waste though. It’s a living thing.”

“I can help you with that.”

“Oh yeah?” MJ’s genuinely curious. She knows May prioritizes Hanukkah customs to keep Peter’s connection to both his ethnoreligious traditions and his lost love ones strong, so she doesn’t know how a Christmas tree fits into that.

“Right before you guys picked me up, May had an idea. She thought it might be nice just to get some pine branches for, like, generic winter decorating and to make the apartment smell good.”

“That’s a really good idea.”

“Yeah. I was gonna grab scraps from where other trees had been cut down, but I can get them off whatever tree you pick instead. Or you can. You have the axe.”

“I’ll give you a turn with it if you help me drag my tree back to the car,” MJ bargains with a smile.

“I can definitely help.”

Of course he can. He could probably carry a dozen trees if he felt like it. Over his head. With all the roots and clumps of frozen earth still attached. But the thought of him hauling the tree back with her rather than for her is something she appreciates. As she nods, she gets the fluttery feeling she’s been experiencing more and more whenever he’s called her this term. Their calls have gotten longer. A younger version of herself would be amazed at the way she can now talk for hours without noticing the time slipping past. And it never feels wasted. Actually, when they aren’t talking, MJ misses Peter. She can’t completely put it into words and so she hasn’t. What she’s done, besides continue to answer every time he calls, is offer him a chance to swing the axe she brought. Romantically, there’s room for improvement.

Their overlapping winter breaks are going to end in another week and she’s scared the calls, as treasured as they’ve become to her, won’t be enough.

“There!” Betty cries. She flings her arm across the dash to point.

“That’s the woods,” Flash says, brushing her off.

“No, that’s the driveway! You’re going to pass it!”

The jarring, inelegant jerk of the wheel as he takes Betty’s directions at the last moment tips Ned into MJ and MJ into Peter. They all groan in discomfort, but Flash seems supremely pleased with himself as he straightens the tires. Off the gravel, their passage between the trees is muffled by the packed snow on the laneway other cars have driven over. There’s a dusting on top as today’s thin flurry continues to fall. As she sits up straight following Flash’s terrible Baby Driver impression, MJ feels Peter’s hand on her back, through her coat, and her face gets hot. Unable to meet his eyes in thanks, she leans towards Ned instead and the two of them stare out at the picturesque scene where low drifts spill over the ground and every pine, spruce, and fir—all dusted in white—looks like the perfect Christmas tree.

“Hats on,” Betty instructs as Flash pulls to a stop next to a pickup truck with a tarp already laid out in its bed, awaiting a tree. “Shoelace check. Gloves and mitts secure.”

“You sound like you’re prepping us to jump out of an airplane,” Flash laughs.

He swings his door open while Betty’s trying to get back into her winterwear checklist with the rest of them, letting in a gust of cold air that disturbs the warmth MJ’s hoarded as well as Betty’s good temper. She reaches across the center console and shoves Flash with both hands, pushing him straight out of the vehicle with a “WHOA!”

Betty’s nonchalant as she flips her mirror down and adjusts the positioning of her pompom hat before stepping out of the SUV herself. Peter and Ned pile out, laughing, and MJ climbs out Peter’s side. Flash is next to the car, brushing himself off.

“I’m going to get sick,” he pouts.

“Say cheese!” Ned encourages, snapping a picture as Betty runs into shot to pose next to her victim, cupping his face between her gloved hands.

“Maybe this’ll make him change his mind about the cider place,” MJ notes to Peter hopefully.

“I feel like we’d be stopping there no matter what,” he muses. “It was either making Flash fear hypothermia or Betty sneaking back to the car first and tampering with his brake line or something.”

“So, which way looks good, babe?” Ned asks his girlfriend.

As she told them, this lot isn’t the manicured family attraction the last place was. There aren’t any employees standing around—easily spotted even as they drove past the tree farm down the road in their orange crossing-guard-style vests—or a map marking which areas are which type of tree. There’s just sort of a main track that’s been tramped down by passing feet leading between trees. It’s easy to see for a ways, but beyond that, the forest grows denser. MJ knows Betty did her homework and can identify tree varieties, and she doesn’t actually care which type she gets. She’s here for the experience, and for the idiot next to her who gives her a thrill every time the nylon sleeves of their winter coats rush against each other.

“Hmm,” Betty says, and strides forward through the narrow entrance. From there, things fan out. She taps her bow saw, now loose, against the side of her leg. “Well, what would everyone like to do?”

“I’m going wherever you are,” Ned vows. She shoots him a soft smile.

“Me too,” Flash decides. “You’ll get us in and out of here fast so we can get warm. Not like Parker, who’ll probably get lost in the first five minutes.”

“What?” Peter asks, insulted. “Will not.”

“Oh yeah? How’s your sense of direction without that robot lady in your head?”

“Karen is not a robot lady, she’s an AI.”

“Same diff.”

“It is not. A robot lady is like what they have on The Jetsons.”

“Whatever. Point is, without your GPS, I don’t trust you.”

“Well,” Peter counters, “we can just look at our phones.”

“Already tried that,” Flash informs him. “I don’t get a signal out here.”

Regardless, the rest of them check.

“That’s alright,” Betty persists, trying to be chipper to maintain group morale, MJ’s sure. “It’s daylight, the snow’s not coming down hard, and nobody’s going off alone. Now, Flash, Ned, and I are going that way.” She points, then glances from MJ to Peter. “Do you guys want to stick with us, or…?”

MJ opens her mouth and looks to Peter, shuffling beside her and doing some sort of best-friend telepathy with Ned, based on the stupid, scrunched up looks on their faces. Is he going to say something? He’ll probably want to stay with Ned. It’ll be weird if she speaks up for both of them. But if she doesn’t, when are they going to talk, just the two of them? Since they’ve all been back in the city, everything’s been done in a group—buying presents for friends and relatives, going skating, getting hot chocolate, attending Flash’s ugly holiday t-shirt party (L.A.-themed, so no sweaters allowed). The woods though. The woods are quiet and friendly and private. Snow muffles sound, fresh air and cold wake her up and fill her lungs until they burn with everything she’d say to Peter if she just had this opportunity. No Ned and Betty hanging back to offer encouraging looks, no Flash to ruin everything with a terribly timed innuendo. MJ just needs Peter. Just her and Peter. Please, dork, she thinks, don’t say Ned.

The words come from her.

“I think Peter and I’ll go that way,” she declares, nodding sharply in a direction that isn’t Betty’s.

“Yeah,” Peter adds.

Oh, thank god, MJ thinks.

“He’s gonna get you lost,” Flash warns. He’s already stamping his feet like he’s freezing to death on the spot, though the cold isn’t that bad with the tree cover. “Then he’ll go nuts in the woods.”

“I have an axe,” MJ reminds him flatly. She glances at Peter. “Bring it.”

Peter snorts a laugh.

“No one will be re-enacting anything that remotely resembles The Shining,” Betty instructs. “Meet back here in, how long, do you think?”

“Depends,” Flash says. “How long should we wait before declaring those two missing and sending out a search party, of which I will not be a member, but will be happy to direct from the comfort of the Escalade with a hot drink in my hand and my feet against the heating vent.”

“Dude, don’t do that,” Ned pleads. “You’ll make the whole car smell like your feet.”

“My ride, my rules.”

“Should we just…?” Peter asks MJ. She nods.

“Let’s go.”

“Ok, um, an hour!” Betty decides.

Peter gives her a thumbs up and the two of them follow the path as it diverges, then cut away again, wading through ankle-deep snow where no other tree-hunter has walked today. The sound of Flash goading the other two fades. MJ stops for a minute and turns to watch them march into the trees. She takes a deep breath in and out.

“You good?” Peter asks.

“Yeah.” She hefts the axe onto her shoulder to look more lumberjack-esque (and so she doesn’t slice it into her calf as she walks). “Come on.”

Despite promises to share, she refuses to surrender the tool any sooner than she must. Soon enough, she’s huffing, face passing through damp clouds of her own breath and chilling her flushed cheeks and frozen nose. Balancing her temperature out here is a tricky thing; as long as they keep moving, as they are, she stays warm, but with Peter crunching along in the snow beside her, she’s too warm. MJ bites her mitt between her teeth and unzips her coat a little to let the brisk air circulate around the back of her sweaty neck.

“You’re not gonna catch cold?” Peter asks solicitously.

She shakes her head.

“Ok,” he says, “but it’d be just like you to get sick and say nothing about it while Flash complains all the way home that he is sick when nothing’s wrong with him.”

“The only thing he’s suffering through is his body’s natural rejection of us. He spent too many years thinking he was better than we are just to end up right here, hacking down Christmas trees together.”

“Probably caroling,” Peter guesses.

“Probably. He claims his favourite holiday song is the instrumental version of ‘Carol of the Bells,’ but that has to be a lie.”

“My money’s on something super cheesy.”

“Mine too,” MJ agrees with a grin.

Gradually, she slows, taking in the pine trees around them. Her guesstimation is that some of these go up to ten or twelve feet, but there are shorter options tucked in between. Younger, or those that maybe didn’t get as much light as they grew. She wipes the back of her mittened hand across her forehead, pushing her slipping fleece headband back where it’s been sliding forward.

“So,” she asks, “any of this look good to you?”

She lowers her gaze to find Peter hastily averting his from her face.

“That one?” he says, pointing to a tree at random.

“Peter, that one’s longer than Flash’s SUV.”

“Oh. Right. Um, ok…”

Focusing now, she watches his upturned face and the serious expression that sinks into it, the way snow’s been sinking into her hair. Maybe Betty was right about wearing a hat, though Betty’s hair is also significantly flatter than hers and thus more conducive to hat-wearing. Well, it’ll be fine. They aren’t stranded or anything and the snow’s not getting to them as much as it was when they had to walk across the clearing to reach this stand of trees. They’re sheltered here. As MJ hoped, it’s quiet.

Instead of asking Peter how much of his remaining holiday he’d like to spend with her, or how he feels when she forces him to hang up the phone first (he must notice), or why, exactly, he was so quick to agree to go off into the woods with her when he could just as easily have insisted they all stay together, she criticizes the first tree he takes genuine interest in.

“Crooked.”

“Too dense.”

“Too sparse.”

“Weird empty area.”

“I swear to god, something moved in there, Peter. I do not want a fucking National Lampoon Christmas, ok? My mom will freak out if I bring a live squirrel into our home.”

He’s laughing at her when they finally spot one that looks pretty good: shorter but not squat, full but with soft, long needles rather than nasty ones bent on treating them both to non-consensual acupuncture if they stand too close. It doesn’t look sickly or as though it’s currently inhabited by birds or rodents.

“So young,” MJ does note, assessing its size in comparison to a taller tree a yard away. “Oh well.” She raises the axe and adjusts her grip.

Peter goes scrambling backwards, almost slipping, then tries to pretend he was only calmly moving out of the way, that he is not afraid of the radius of her swing. When he starts babbling about how quickly his body could probably heal from an axe wound (though, with all the crazy shit he gets up to, that’s actually not something he’s experienced yet), she finally laughs at him.

“Relax,” she says. “You can just hold the branches up at the bottom while I chop through the trunk.”

Fearless—and even more determined to prove it now that she’s given Peter a scare—MJ drops to the snow and wriggles under the tree, as close as she thinks she should be while still being able to swing the axe. Peter’s hand makes her jump. She whips her head around, nearly getting a clump of needles in the eye, but he’s only skimming her coat by accident as he gathers the lowest branches away from her. As she asked. Right, he’s not touching her on purpose and he’s not even doing the not-touching activity on purpose but because she told him to. He’s trying to help. Frustrating.

She props herself up on her elbow and takes an awkward whack at the tree. The blade sinks into the bark like it’s supposed to, but it’s still somehow surprising to feel the give. MJ takes a few more tentative swings and the axe sinks deeper, requiring some force to yank it out again. She grunts and hears Peter crouch down behind her.

“Is it going ok? Can I do anything?”

“Umm, maybe be prepared to pull the top of the tree in the other direction so it doesn’t fall on my head. I think I’m almost halfway.”

“Yes, please don’t make it fall on your head,” he requests.

“It won’t as long as you do your job,” she promises gruffly, hewing in once more.

“Do you think this would be easier with a saw?” Peter’s voice is higher now, coming from the other side of the tree. Though the branches fell when he changed position, she can feel them only resting lightly on her as he holds the top of the tree away. Probably standing on his toes.

“Don’t say anything against my axe.”

“I’m not! I was just thinking out loud!”

“A saw,” MJ informs him with another swing, “is not as badass.”

“Good point.”

But is he just agreeing because the tree’s starting to topple and the final swings to break through it take her blade closer to his shins as he dances out of the way? Maybe.

She clambers out and, with the tree now on an angle, is able to chop from an upright position, down on a diagonal until she buries her axe in the snow, then yanks it free.

“Oh, you can lay it down,” MJ tells Peter when she realizes he’s standing there with his arms full of tree, face hidden as he keeps his head pulled back from the branches.

He does so gently and then they stand there in triumph. MJ hurls her axe into the ground.

“Would you quit that?” Peter requests, jumpy.

She grins.

“Sorry. Just really feeling this.”

“I can tell.”

They took their time making their selection and can do one of two things next: either trim the branches for Peter to take home to May right here or drag the tree back to Flash’s SUV and perform the necessary amputations there. They do neither. MJ shrugs her shoulders and flexes her fingers inside her mittens, exorcising the tension of gripping the axe’s handle. She turns, glancing casually around, but really looking for something invisible—a reason to stay. A rational delay before rejoining the others.

“Hold still,” Peter says, as she’s looking back the way they came. The way she thinks they came. They stomped around this area, circling every tree, for a while, so the footprints are a little confused.

“What? If you try to tell me there’s a squirrel in my hair, I’m not going to believe you.”

He smiles softly.

“No squirrel, just snow.”

She stares at her friend warily as he approaches, then sweeps snow from her headband. That’s when she realizes one side of her coat is soaked from lying on the ground. It can’t get through though, it’s just the outer layer. Still, Peter walks a complete circle around her, wiping snow away.

“There,” he says.

MJ sighs.

“Peter…”

“Yeah?”

His face is so open as he looks at her, flakes flying around and between them. Her heart squeezes almost painfully because there have been so many days of not seeing his face without the assistance of a screen. Now that he’s here, it’s too much.

“Umm… how many branches do you think May wants?”

MJ crouches and puts her back to him, feigning being deep in concentration over the fresh Christmas corpse splayed out in the snow. She feels like a detective at a crime scene. Peter exhales heavily behind her, then drops to her level.

“More is probably better, right? She’ll probably take some in to work or try to give them to the neighbours anyway.”

“True.” They both reach for the axe. “Go ahead,” MJ says, quickly withdrawing her hand.

Peter shaves off what he thinks May might like—plus at least an armload more—in quick slices and snips.

“Jeeze, this thing is sharp.”

“I know,” she says proudly.

“I want one. For the suit, I mean. You think that could work?”

“Well, you already have a bunch of less probable-sounding features, so why not a spider with an axe made of webs?”

“Ned’s gonna be so excited when I tell him.”

“I’m excited,” she says, maybe a little too forcefully. It’s not a competition. She doesn’t think he’s already forgotten about her. There’s just some kind of glitch in her brain-to-mouth connection that no Spidey tech could possibly fix.

“I think we’re ahead of schedule,” Peter tells her.

He pulls out his phone to check the time while MJ cleaves into the fallen tree’s trunk, cutting it down to a size more suited to transport and her family’s apartment.

“We could do this in two trips,” he presses. “Take the tree and come back for the branches? Or vice versa?”

“I think we can manage it in one.”

She glances at him and he looks mildly frantic.

“Or two,” MJ amends. “Two would be better.”

Are they finally going to talk? That has to be the reason for Peter stretching this out, doesn’t it? But he moves quickly to grip the lowest branches of the tree, down where MJ severed it, and she grabs those on the opposite side of the trunk. After a jerk to get it going, they slide the tree smoothly over the snow, leaving a fine trail of needles. It occurs to her, as they walk, that she was worried about this part on the way in here, that the tree might pick up dirt from where others have walked, but the ground looks fresh and sparkling in the sun. That’s not familiar.

“Peter? Are we going the right way?”

“What? Yeah. Aren’t we? We have to be. Because the sun was…”

He gestures very unconvincingly overhead and her heart plummets in her chest. For once, not because she’s scared of saying something about her feelings for him and hearing they aren’t reciprocated, but because what Peter’s not saying directly is that they might be lost. And the worst part of that scenario is Flash being right. No, no, no, Peter will not make Flash right, not today.

“It’s been snowing,” she reviews. Stupid and obvious, but facts are soothing to her. “How much do you think it’s snowed? Not that much, right? It can’t have. We must’ve just started walking the wrong way.”

“Definitely. Ok, let’s turn around.”

So, they swing the tree with them and strike out in the opposite direction, not going very quickly as they navigate the trees. They pass the stump they lately created and MJ plucks her axe from the snow on the way past. It just makes her feel better, having it.

Unfortunately, this way isn’t correct either.

“Alright,” she says slowly. “What the fuck.”

“Let’s leave the tree for a minute.”

They set it down. She realizes she’s sweating.

“How could we be lost? How could you be lost?”

“There aren’t exactly landmarks,” Peter says. “It’s just… trees.”

“Maybe we should’ve gone to a place with signposts and neat little rows.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

He wanders over to her, watching her with careful eyes.

“I wasn’t this cold when I called today an adventure.”

“Maybe you should zip your coat back up.”

But she’s too warm and uncomfortable to do that just to challenge how he’s calling her bluff.

“Are you scared?” he asks. “You don’t need to be scared. I think we did a lot of circling. We didn’t walk too far in any one direction. I could climb a tree and look around?”

“Climb a tree? One of these trees? The ones covered in snow with the thin branches and the spiky needles?”

“Hey,” Peter jokes, hitting her arm with his elbow, “you’re supposed to be cheering me on.”

“I…” She closes her mouth. He frowns.

“Is something wrong?”

“We’re lost and Flash is going to gloat.”

“Besides that.”

“You’re trying really hard to get us out of here.” That should be a compliment, a commendation, but it sounds accusing as it leaves her mouth. MJ feels on-edge, heart beating all wrong.

“…Should I not be?”

God, she’s being strange. She can feel herself being strange. Everything’s aligning to buy her more time and she’s panicking trying to work out what to do with it. The snow is falling softly all around and she’s auditioning to play the most awkward protagonist in the history of Hallmark holiday movies.

“Are you looking forward to going back?” MJ asks abruptly.

“To the car?”

“To school. In January.”

“Umm, kinda? I mean, it’s going well. But you know that, we talked about this stuff the other day when you and Ned were over at May’s.”

“Yeah.” She’s thinking, staring down at her cut tree, debating how to mention that there’s one thing they didn’t talk about, that she couldn’t bring up, because she felt strange about doing it with Ned there. She goes to continue, unsure of her phrasing, but ready to push onward, when Peter answers, looking thoughtfully up at the pale-grey snow clouds.

“It’s really nice to be home, but I also don’t like living in the past.”

He glances at her to see what she thinks. She’s noticed that he does that a lot, when they’re on a video call. Sometimes, she teases him about it—the way he makes certain assertions sound like questions because he wants her input, values her opinion, thinks of her as wiser than him (she is) though he’s the genius playing around at the upper end of the grading curve in all of his classes.

“Sorry, what were you gonna say?” he asks, spotting the unfinished thought in her expression, how she holds her eyebrows a little too tightly together.

MJ shakes her head.

“It’s nice to have you home.” As Peter’s beginning to smile, swaying slightly towards her, she rambles on, “It’s nice to have everyone home. I mean, I could go longer between having to see Flash in person, but what can you do, right? It’s worth it to have Ned home. And Betty. And you.”

She swallows.

“There!” he shouts, pointing past her. She squints.

“What is it?”

“Our tracks.”

Trusting his superior eyesight, MJ troops after him. Sure enough, their deep treads from earlier are still faintly present—now gentle indents as the snowfall works to even everything out again.

“But we don’t have to hurry back,” Peter says. She avoids his eyes.

“Except we probably do, now that we’ve wasted time being lost.”

“We were never actually lost.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night, Spider-Man. Help me with the tree.”

He does, then hightails it back to collect May’s branches once MJ’s in the clearing with only the little trail left between her and the makeshift parking lot. She pulls her bounty along and through the gap, suddenly back with the rest of her friends.

“Did you manage to lose Parker out there?” Flash asks immediately. “Nice. Up top.”

She rolls her eyes instead of meeting his hand in a high five.

“He just had to go back for something,” MJ explains, expressly for the benefit of Ned and Betty.

“What’d he do, drop some of you guys’ sexual tension in the woods?”

Flushing with the sting in the air and self-consciousness, she walks past Flash. Just close enough to drag the tree over his feet and make him start whining about getting dirt on his blindingly-white designer snow boots. When his complaints cut off, she knows she’s in trouble. It’s like the sudden silence in a horror movie that you just know means nothing good.

“Never mind,” Flash says loudly. “Sexual tension present and accounted for.”

MJ whirls around to see Peter’s arrived and is staring at her with a pleading look on his face. Or he was, until Flash’s words sunk in. Surely, Peter’s fast enough to snatch his keys, toss them to Betty, and have them all climb into the SUV and wheel outta here, leaving Flash behind? But during the holidays? She’d feel bad. He’s lucky.

“Can we just get the trees loaded?” Peter asks, moving to help MJ pull hers closer to demonstrate that it’s not so much a question for Flash as a demand for him to shut the hell up. Flash probably doesn’t understand. He’d need tact for that.

“Fine. And not a scratch on the Escalade,” Flash commands.

He opens the trunk to reveal a set of carefully folded tarps; they’re too ratty to actually belong to him, so MJ’s betting that they’re Betty’s or Ned’s. Those two went on a big, romantic camping trip together right after high school graduation, so these could be remnants. The first tarp crinkles in Peter’s hands as he pulls it out and unfolds it. Beneath the second—removed by Ned—there’s a Burberry blanket protecting the SUV from the tarps. Honestly. Momentarily forgetting about their awkward moment in the forest, MJ catches Peter’s eye and nods at the blanket. The two of them start laughing and soon, Betty and Ned have spotted them and are laughing too. Flash is perplexed, which, as always, is when he gets grouchy and defensive.

“Can we pick up the pace, people?” he requests. “I need a hot drink and an even hotter fire. I can barely feel my fingers.”

“Wait.” MJ frowns and pauses in assisting Peter with dragging the longest tarp onto the roof of the SUV. “I have a tree, Ned and Betty each have trees… Flash, where’s your tree?”

She turns her head and notices Ned just cutting off a gesture of slicing a hand across his throat to insist on her not finishing that question. Betty sighs and explains.

“Flash’s service came back while we were out there.”

“Dude,” Peter huffs, stretching to reach and finish tugging the tarp into place, “you had service? You could’ve texted us to see if we were, I don’t know, lost.”

“This should come as no surprise to you, Parker,” Flash says snootily, “but I had other priorities.”

“Oh yeah?” MJ questions suspiciously.

“He went online and bought an artificial tree,” Betty says with a roll of her eyes.

“Sacrilege.”

“More like brilliance,” Flash corrects. “It has snow-encrusted branches, pre-strung lights, and the thing isn’t gonna die in a week, so it’s better for the environment.”

“Isn’t it plastic?” MJ checks in a slow voice, waiting for him to catch on.

“Yeah.”

“Then the process used to produce it created harmful emissions and when you find it next year and decide to throw it out because you’re no longer ‘feelin’ it’ or whatever excuse you have, it’ll go straight in the trash and from there to one of the many, many local and international landfills that house our city’s waste.”

“You’re pretty judgy for a girl who just fucking murdered a tree.”

“I did my research,” MJ counters easily. “This is a sustainably managed forest. They maintain the trees, protect new growth and transplant saplings every spring to ensure the health of not only the cash crop, but the forest as a whole. Pre-light that, dickhead.”

Feeling flustered, she goes to give Betty and Ned a hand with positioning their tree on the roof. MJ stands on the ledge offered by the open trunk and stabilizes the tree while the others guide it into position.

“Tension,” she hears Flash diagnose under his breath. He’s smart enough to not meet her eye when she glares down at him.

They encounter a small problem while loading the second tree: both Betty and Ned have selected especially full specimens. Side by side, they take up the entire roof, and MJ’s tree is still on the ground with Peter’s mountain of branches, waiting to be slung onboard.

“I don’t think it’ll fit,” Ned says after jumping into the air twice to take a look at the available space (none).

“Neither do I,” she agrees. “Guess it’s going in the trunk.”

“In the trunk?” Flash is there in a, well, flash. He slipped into the driver’s seat, ostensibly to doublecheck their route home, but really to start his seat-warmer and turn the Christmas radio station back on. His distress is juxtaposed against a jazzy rendition of ‘Winter Wonderland.’

“Yeah. There’s nowhere else.”

“Guys, please. Are you trying to get back at me for the sexual tension comment? It’s forgotten. I lied. No tension here. Cut the act and tell me that thing’s going on the roof with the others.”

“While ‘that thing’ is a capitalist nexus, it’s also a precious symbol of everything I love about Christmas,” MJ says firmly, “and it’s going in the trunk of this SUV.”

“Guys?” Flash glances at the other three, but nobody sides with him.

“Don’t worry, Flash,” Betty says kindly. “We won’t use the second tarp to go on top of the roof trees, we’ll line the trunk with it instead. There won’t be any needles, I promise.”

That is definitely not a promise she can make, and MJ’s sure her friend is aware, but she’s taking a shortcut to winning this standoff and MJ admires that. The placating seems to wash over Flash like the spirit of Christmas over Scrooge McDuck. Suddenly, he’s smiling.

“Yeah. We can do that. Of course. But.” Oh no. The smile’s warping. Flash is about to be an asshole again, MJ can see it coming fast on the horizon. “The tree’s going to take up more space than just the trunk.”

MJ peers into the SUV. Shit. He’s probably right.

“Oh,” says Betty, not getting the issue, “well, we can fold the seats down, right? The tree isn’t that tall. Come on, guys, we’ve had real problems. This is nothing!”

She beams at them and Ned wraps an arm around her, hugging her to his side.

“We’ll lose a seat in the back,” MJ says.

She’s profoundly annoyed by the satisfaction on Flash’s face as she’s the one to say the words, point out the obvious. Isn’t she always? It feels like her role in this friend group and she never minds that, never has until this very situation and its inevitable conclusion.

“Somebody’s gotta sit on somebody else’s lap,” Flash singsongs. “And it’s not me because I’m the driver!”

The other four look at each other.

“Betty,” Ned begins, “you and I could…”

“But she needs to be in the front to navigate,” Flash irritatingly points out, “and before you say it, you shouldn’t double up in the front. It’s not safe.”

Maybe they can back over him when they steal his ride and drive out of here, MJ theorizes. She sighs. Loudly. Vexedly.

“I’ll sit on Peter.”

She proceeds to make eye contact with none of them, just fishes a sloppy coil of rope out of the back and works with Betty to feed it over the trees and through the windows. Some cold air will blow into the SUV, but that won’t matter so much to her, she guesses, since she’ll have the benefit of Peter’s body heat. Who needs a seat-warmer when you can have an actual human lap? Ugh, no, not funny, but she tried to consider it in a way that doesn’t make her want to volunteer to sit in the trunk with her tree.

Finally, they lift her tree and Peter’s branches inside, position them, and shut the trunk. Flash is whistling ‘Carol of the Bells’ as he practically skips to the driver’s seat. Betty, far more compassionate, gives MJ a reassuring look before she gets in. Then Peter climbs into the back, taking the middle seat, and glances at her, lingering in the snow. She groans to herself and folds into the car as Ned gives her an encouraging pat on the back.

Maneuvering is awkward. Peter cranes his neck back like his whole body is leaning to make room for her, but it’s not possible—he’s already pressed back against the seat. She sits. He rustles beneath and behind her. Before she can panic and insist on walking home, Ned gets in and slams the door closed (Flash complains).

“Uh,” Peter starts, “do you wanna shift forward so I can buckle my—”

“Absolutely not. If we’re sharing a seat, we’re sharing a seatbelt. I don’t want to end this excursion by flying through the windshield when Flash swerves the car off the road because he sees a snowdrift that looks like a butt or something.”

“Hey! I’m an excellent driver,” he complains, starting the car.

“I could just, like, hold onto you?” Peter offers.

MJ’s heartbeat rockets. She presses the top of her head to the ceiling to ground herself.

“No. We’re using the seatbelt.”

Peter stretches it away from the seat and holds it for her to grab; she passes it back for him to fasten. The second it clicks into place, Flash throws the SUV into reverse and hits the gas. Peter must move his head away from behind hers because MJ’s genuinely surprised not to feel his nose break against the back of her skull.

“Excellent driver, huh?” she questions flatly.

“There was ice.”

“Sure there was.”

Flash winks at her in the rear-view mirror and instead of siding with her, MJ catches Ned chuckling.

“I’m sorry, but it’s funny. You guys look ridiculous seatbelted together,” he says.

But she doesn’t feel so much ridiculous as confused and on alert, swaying with Flash’s accelerations and decelerations (thankfully minor compared to how he started off). Every time, Peter’s hands jump to grab her: shoulders, waist, legs. Once, he grabs her hands and even though she still has her mittens on, dripping melting snow onto the seat on one side and the tree branch she’s clutching on the other, it’s startling.

“Sit still,” Peter tells her when she jerks out of his hold.

“You sit still.”

He laughs.

“I can’t go anywhere—you’re sitting on me.”

“Then try having less bony legs,” she suggests, though they both know the nerd has more muscle mass in one of his legs than the rest of the SUV’s occupants have in their entire bodies combined.

“Right up here!” Betty directs. “We have to pay.”

MJ sags gratefully into Peter, relaxed for the first moment of the short drive from the lot to the tree farm. She tenses up again when they pull in and Betty offers to be the one to hop out and pay for their trees. There is no reprieve from Peter’s lap. She hands over her cash to her friend with a sigh and listens while the trees are removed from the roof, shaken by a machine to rid them of loose needles, and replaced for transport home. When the trunk opens and the tree farm guy slides MJ’s little tree free, she shivers at the cold air blowing in.

“Take off your mitts and put your hands by the vent,” Peter suggests.

MJ looks around and sees that the only vent she can reach is the one their feet are bracketing, down by the floor. She fights the grip of the seatbelt to bend forward. Ah. Hot air on her freezing fingers, plus, she’s out of the draft coming through the open trunk.

“This is better. Thanks, dork.”

She glances back and spots the stricken look on her friend’s face as he watches her, still seated on his lap, but now bent over. MJ sits swiftly upright.

“I’m actually not that cold,” she says, spine rigid beneath her coat and her sweaters.

Peter sighs and, while Ned’s looking out the window to watch her tree get vibrated and wrapped, tentatively offers MJ his hands. If Ned notices that they’re holding hands when the SUV is completely repacked and they’re on their way to the place with the wine and cider, he doesn’t say a word about it. It’s shared body heat. It’s a survival tactic. That’s what MJ tells herself as she finds her and Peter’s fingers moving gently from a perfunctory clasp to intertwining.

They stay that way until Flash pulls off the road at the cider spot, which turns out to be an apple orchard. Well, more than just the orchard; there’s a whole barn here, but fancy, with a designated lot and possibly a restaurant inside.

“This is so cute!” Betty says.

MJ concentrates on shaking her hands out of Peter’s before Flash puts the SUV in park and turns around to see them.

The two of them are the last out of the car and she’s stiff with the silence, listening to their friends laugh and gripe about the cold (Flash) as they wait with Ned’s door open. Before MJ can push through her thoughts and fears to say anything, Peter’s arm comes around her. Her eyes widen. …And he unbuckles the seatbelt. Probably just because she was taking too long. She slips over into Ned’s vacant seat and is about to scramble out when Peter catches her hand. MJ turns.

“Will you tell them we’ll meet them inside?” he requests.

Heart hammering, she relays the message, then looks on as Ned and Betty hustle Flash through the doors before can make another of his unwelcome comments or otherwise interfere.

“I think we really need to talk,” Peter says, after MJ pulls the door closed to preserve what little heat is left in the vehicle.

“We talk all the time,” she argues. She thinks, Yes, please talk to me.

“About a lot of stuff. You know, most stuff.” He wedges his fingers under the edge of his hat to run them nervously through his hair.

“That’s a generalization, but a fair one.”

“But, you know, lately, I’ve been, uh, wishing that we could talk about…”

“…even more stuff?” MJ guesses, hopes.

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

“You know, our schools aren’t that far apart,” he says, like it’s the first time he’s realizing this.

She smiles wryly.

“I’m aware. That’s why I came out for Thanksgiving first year when you couldn’t make it back to Queens. Even if we did eat take-out shrimp Pad Thai instead of homecooked turkey.”

“And,” Peter adds, “it’s why I showed up at your dorm to help you study for that midterm you were stressing about in October.”

“And why I picked up when you called me every night,” MJ says, quieter. He smiles softly.

“I was talking about the distance.”

Summoning her courage, she looks him right in the eye and lets her still-uncovered hand sneak back over his.

“What distance?”

“You’re my best friend,” Peter starts. “You and Ned.” MJ frowns. Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, she’s misjudged this, seriously misjudged this.

“Oh. Well. Great. Cool.”

“No, MJ!” he says quickly, noticing the look on her face. He flips his hand under hers so their palms meet. “I’m definitely in love with you, I just mean… Well, oops, I guess I said it.”

She’s pretty impressed with her own control over her facial features—maintaining a slightly-happier-than-neutral expression—when half of her brain is setting off fireworks that seem to be landing and fizzing around on the other half. He’s in love with her. Definitely.

“For as fast as your mind works, your mouth always manages to get ahead of it,” she observes.

Peter’s expression goes from tortured and fumbling to sharp and decisive.

“That’s good advice.”

“What? That wasn’t advi—”

He darts forward and kisses her, hand emphatically clutching hers. There’s a humorous smack when their mouths separate.

“Oh my god,” Peter says, “I forgot to ask if it was ok to do that.”

MJ smirks.

“My only complaint is that you beat me to it when I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that all day.”

“I did wonder,” he admits with a small smile.

“And you couldn’t have helped me out?” she asks, exasperated.

“A big part of being friends with you is knowing you rarely need help. You’re good, like, ninety percent of the time.”

“What do you do the other ten percent?”

Peter shrugs.

“Kiss you and ask if you have plans for New Year’s? By the way, do you have plans for New Year’s?”

He tries to adopt a casual expression but now that MJ thinks about it, she can’t recall the last time her friend looked at her with anything like mild interest. He can’t pull it off anymore, if he ever could. Apparently, she wasn’t always watching that well, because she clearly didn’t know everything.

Peter loves her. He loves her.

“I have a feeling I’ll probably be available,” she tells him. “I have a bad habit of trying to be where you are.”

“I love that about you.”

MJ kisses him quickly, then shoves him away, nearly into the pine tree resting on his other side. Whoops. It’s just that she can feel how easy it would be to get caught up in this moment, and they’re still in the back of Flash’s SUV. People are waiting for them. She takes a deep breath and gives Peter a searching look.

“If we walk in there like this—” She shakes their clasped hands. “—what do I say?”

“Tell them your hands were cold.”

“I… I don’t want to hide it, I just…”

“I know. It’s ok. It’s new.”

“Yeah.”

Peter nods sympathetically. He’s her friend first; he’s not going to push her to speak before she’s ready. (He probably knows he couldn’t if he wanted to.)

She hauls the door open and they stride through the snowy parking lot together. The sun’s already struggling to come out and flakes whip high into the air, catching in the light. They step inside the building to see brightness streaming through the windows, their trio of friends crowded around a table. Flash seems to be making Ned sprinkle cinnamon into his hot apple cider while he films it—presumably to post for the enjoyment of the Flash Mob. (That’s still going. He has a shocking number of followers.) Betty turns and her gaze slips down to their joined hands. She smiles.

MJ has the excuse ready. When Flash and Ned glance over, she’s prepared to tell them her hands were cold.

She opens her mouth.

“Peter’s my boyfriend now.”

[poormeowmeowcollector]

The perfect Christmas Tree

Relationship: Loki/short!reader

Summary: You want to make the Christmas season something more livid within the tower, but you can't find a good tree. Until Loki offers his help.

Notes: part of the 'Tis The Season Challenge of @the-emo-asgardian and a twisted form of 10. Finding the perfect Christmas tree. But, in my defense, it didn't say who is the perfect Christmas tree ans it's 3am.

Read On AO3

You always loved Christmas. It is the time of the year when your family is a little less annoying and you are a bit more tolerant of listening to "All I Want For Christmas Is You” (as long as it's the My Chemical Romance version) and the food is just a huge plus.

The Avengers don't have the best memories around Christmas—maybe with the exception of Sam, Steve and Bucky—and you can't blame them. Hell, Thor, Loki and Wanda aren't even Christians, but Thor enjoys the food and Loki just goes around saying that this is a celebration stolen from pagans and then capitalism stole it from Christians. And he does celebrate Yule but you caught him at 4am raiding the cookies Wanda had baked for Hanukkah.

And, since Christmas is the happiest season for winter, you decided to make the perfect Christmas celebration the tower has ever seen. And you are so close to it. There are cookies and movies and songs and decorations and Wanda and Thor helped you include Hanukkah and Yule to the party—since Loki, the actual witch, is too busy with seasonal depression to help—but something is missing.

And that something is the damned tree.

You tried to find the best tree but it was pointless. Both Thor and Loki are extremely sensitive to earthly plants, so an actual tree is out of the list, and all the fake ones look too fake. And you want something special for the tree, but you don't know what.

So, you are now just sitting in the living room, staring at the empty corner with the decorations from the three religions beside you and trying to think of what to do.

"Still thinking about that tree, huh?" Loki's voice interrupts the silence. You hide a flinch and turn to face him with a smile. He smiles back, walking closer and leaving the hot cup of chocolate on the table.

"That obvious…" You sigh. He has seen better days, that's sure. The dark circles from the attack have returned, making his pale green eyes glow, his hair looks like a mess and he's in some dark green Æsir pyjamas. But he's still pretty.

Or your crush is still going strong.

"Why don't you just give up. This thing won't work and you know it," He asks and you frown, staring at him as you search for an answer.

He turns away to take a sip of his chocolate, and your eyes are still on him. On his hair. They look like they used to during the attack, like a sinister Christmas tree.

He sees you smiling like you just lost your mind as your brain clicks everything together.

"Stand up," You demand, and he gives you the raised eyebrow.

"What?"

"Please, stand up, I have an idea!" You repeat. He still doesn't get it but obeys.

"Great. Now go to that corner," You instruct as you smile. Loki gives you a look but does what you say. And you grab the green garland and tangle his body with it, careful not to tie his hands.

"What are you doing?" He asks, way too clearly than needed. He always does that when he's angry.

"You'll be the Christmas tree!" You smile. And he glares at you, not believing what you say.

"Forget it," He snaps and tries to walk away but you put a hand on his chest.

"Please, it'll be fun. For me, please…" You beg, deploying the puppy eyes. For the last months on the team, Loki had suggested a lot of crazy things and you will not make him take your turn to madness. He sighs and closes his eyes.

"I will regret it but… fine," He hums, walking back to his place as you pass the red garland around him.

"You will look so pretty!" You exhale, grinning like a sunbeam.

"I haven't slept for a week, haven't showered in three days and I'm running lower on will to live than your laptop on battery. How will I be pretty?" He disagrees, and you suppress a frown. You always hate it when he doesn't feel good, he doesn't deserve it.

"Don't you trust me?" You ask, blinking at him. He sighs, again.

"I do, dear…" He tries to make a small smile, but he looks like he doesn't remember how.

"Then, trust me when I say that you will look perfect," You respond, making his smile widen.

He stands still as you tangle him with the lights. You are too focused on not risking him getting electrocuted to speak and he stays silent as well. But when you are done with this, he says one word "cocoa,". You nod and grab the cup from the table, standing in your tiptoes as you place it on his lips and let him sip—he can't move his hands without ruining something.

"Thank you, dear," He smiles and allows you to place the cup back before you can start placing the balls and decorations you made with Thor and Wanda, or tangle the little ropes with the garlands and lights in order to sit there.

And then, you hang two pieces in his ears, glad to find out that they sit perfectly and that Loki doesn't give you the murder glare.

"But why are you so eager to make this thing?" He asks, watching as you try to tangle a homemade star of David on his shoulder.

"Because this is a season when we can just have something together and be less miserable," You respond without a second thought. Loki makes a low sound from the back of his throat.

"Why have you decided to hate it so much?" You ask, staring at him.

"It doesn't feel right," He mutters, almost ashamed of his answer. You tilt your head, asking for elaboration. "It's all about family and being with people you love and all those things and… I haven't lived it… It's like it's mocking me, you know," He looks away, the shame getting stronger. It was about Asgard, like always…

You cup his hand, he was inhumanly cold as always, searching for his eyes. "That's why I'm making this thing. You're not the only one with bad or no memories about this season, and you deserve some happy memories…" You speak softly, hoping you don't make things worse.

He turns back to you, his eyes glowing with tears he tries to hold and a slight smile on his lips. He mouths a thank you, not having the voice to speak it up. And you reply with a smile, squeezing his hand before you release it, a small whine echoing.

"I just have to place the star and you're ready," You announce, digging into the bag for the golden star. You laugh as you take it out and stand on your tiptoes to reach Loki's head.

"Do you want me to duck?" He asks, seeing your struggle. To be fair, you are not exactly gifted with inches and he is the third tallest avenger, after Thor and Steve.

"No, I'm fine. I just gotta…" You sigh between your teeth, trying to reach him.

A green light appears beneath you and lifts you up several inches, reversing the high deference. "Thank you, sweetie," You smile. He tries to hide a blush.

Damn, he looks so cute from up here!

You place the star and balance it on his head, secretly thanking him for his good posture. You lower yourself to have eye contact. "Now you look like a pretty Christmas tree," You smile and kiss the tip of his nose.

His magical platform vanishes, and two glowing hands that tickle when they touch you bring you closer to him. At first, he just brushes his forehead to yours. But then, you pull him to a kiss.

He tastes so nice, like snow and mint and chocolate. And you can smell the aftershave in his face, feel the small grin before he kisses back, the magic hands holding you softer, closer.

"Alright, what's going on?" Tony asks, or yells, from the door. The magic hands vanish and you stare at him.

"I'm kissing our Christmas tree," You blink, as if this isn't the weirdest thing you ever said.

"I love it too…" You hum, bringing him close to a hug.

"Ok, you're high. Loki, let's suppose you are the one with a decent state of mind. Why are you covered in Christmas decoration?" Tony sighs. You can see Loki grinning, his cheeks flushed.

"Oh, I'm the Christmas tree," He answers, again, as if this isn't on his top ten of weirdest things he ever said. Tony groans.

"Why did I wake up today?" He asks himself, rubbing his eye bridge.

"And, can you call the others? We're about to light him up, people should watch." You ask, smiling at Tony. He sighs and nods, speaking to JARVIS as he settles on the sofa.

"Cocoa, my love?" Loki asks. You nod and grab the cup, bringing it to his lips and letting him take a long sip. When he's over, you place it back and steal a small kiss, tasting the chocolate again.

"You really know how to make a hot cocoa," You smile at him. He bites his lip and tries to hide his blushing.

And then, people start arriving. And they all stare at Loki like he's naked. Some ask what is happening and you inform them with a smile. When everyone is settled down, you plug in the lights and walk back to admire your work.

Loki grins and raises his hands like he's asking for a hug, watching as people start smiling at the sheer ridiculousness of the view. And he doesn't give a care.

Sam takes his phone out and snaps a shot, grinning. Everyone but Steve, Bucky and Thor mimic him, snickering echoing.

"You won't post something, right?" He asks, hiding his worry. Loki has been trying to fix his public image since he became an Avenger, and this is certainly not what he means by this.

"I promise nothing," Sam smiles.

Loki tries to walk to where Sam is, but the sound of plugs getting pulled and decorations breaking stops him.

"Don't post. It's private. We'll pick up the mess," You snap. Sam nods and leaves, everyone following his steps until you are alone with Loki again.

"Come on, lets get those things off you," You mutter and untie the decorations before you get the garlands and lights off him. As you put them back to the bag, he kneels down and makes all the pieces of broken balls and hammers disappear.

"You know…" Loki trails off, now sitting on the clean ground. You already know what he's about to say.

"This was ridiculous and embarrassing, I know. I'm sorry," You don't get the courage to stare at him. But he does let his hand cup yours, bringing you down to him.

"It was fun. You know, I love it when you let me be goofy and have fun… Not a lot of people did in the past," He smiles, brushing his cold fingers against your hand.

~~~

"You get used to it, actually," Loki hums, staring at the tree.

Well, the "tree" is a hologram of Loki yesterday, his hands raised and a self proud smile on his face.

You hum, shifting to get more comfortable in his shoulder. He smiles and turns to you.

"Well, you make a good tree," You shrug. He traces his fingers on your cheek, giving you another sweet kiss.

[fuckingthefictional]

Secret Shelby.

Finn Shelby x Reader

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays or happy-whatever-you-may-celebrate.

Here’s a crap fic that’s way too long, and half of it is probably gibberish- but hey enjoy!

“Where the fuck is Finn?”

The clock ticked teasingly- it made Arthur more annoyed. By waiting around they were losing time that could be spent working. Or more importantly, getting drunk.

The air was thick with tension. And all of the Shelby’s and the rest of the Blinders were growing increasingly impatient with the youngest brother. He had yet to make an appearance and it frustrated the eldest Shelby to no end.

If there was one thing that the Shelby family expected with the business they owned, it was to be on time- everyone knew that the Shelby’s hated tardiness and the fact that Finn hadn’t shown up was pushing them all into a state of annoyance.

“I said where the fuck is Finn?” Arthur asked again, not particularly asking anyone directly.

“I’ve not seen ‘im.” Isaiah replied from the column he was leant on.

Tommy took an inhale of his cigarette and swilled the whiskey around the glass it was contained in.

“If Isaiah doesn’t know Arthur, then I have no fuckin’ clue. If you’re that bothered about the lad then go and find him.” Smoke blew from his mouth, “Until then, we’re going to talk business like real businessmen.”

—

That same morning on the other side of Small Heath, Finn Shelby was tucked up in bed. His arms wrapped around his loves small frame.

You were still fast asleep-you were tired what from being up most of the night in discomfort.

Finn, however, found himself marveling at his girl’s belly, the skin was stretched taut over the swollen bump. It cradled the baby that had yet to be born.

The young Shelby rubbed a circle into the skin with a rough hand across the top of the bump. The movement obviously had caught the attention of his unborn child because soon after he could feel the small jolts and jabs against his palm.

The action brought a smile to his face but subsequently caused you to groan and hiss in pain.

He’d forgotten how sensitive your belly had become in the weeks leading up to delivery. The doctors had said, that because of your small, adolescent frame- it gave the baby less room to move around comfortably.

Finn knew you’d do anything for your baby to be comfy and safe within your body though, so you had proclaimed that if it meant a few days of discomfort and pain then so be it.

“You okay?” Finn mumbled into your messy hair, “do you need anything love?”

You had to smile at his offer. Ever since you’d become pregnant, Finn had been home a lot more. You hadn’t expected it (not that you weren’t thankful and grateful for it), you knew how much family meant to him- how much the business meant to him. How much proving himself to his brothers meant to him.

When you brought it up with him though, he just claimed that “You’re my family now. You and our little bean.”

“Love?”

You were brought out of your thoughts to see Finn looking worried.

You caressed his cheek, “just hold us.”

He slowly pressed a long kiss to your hairline and then proceeded to wrap his arms around as much of your waist as he could reach.

“What do you think they’ll look like?”

The thought caused you to smile softly, “I hope he looks just like you. With your curly red hair and freckles.”

Finn chuckled into the crook between your shoulder and neck, “so it’s a he huh?” I stroked the bump lovingly, “I think it’s going to be a little girl- a spitting image of her mother.”

The idea of the baby being here made you both sick with nerves but also full of joy and excitement.

Pregnancy was a new concept for both of you, especially considering you were both only 17.

But you were so glad that Finn had stuck with you for the duration of your pregnancy.

He never missed an appointment and constantly talked to the small baby that grew inside of you. He’d even tried to take up knitting, Finn had managed to make a scruffy looking bobble hat for when the baby arrived. It looked crap- but you appreciated it all the same.

Children, however, were a different story. Finn had obviously been in charge of looking after his nieces and nephews in the time when his brothers were abroad fighting.

And he still occasionally did it whenever Esme or John needed a spare hand.

And you were known to babysit and tutor children around Small Heath. You were one of the few genuinely liked people in town.

You weren’t judgemental and were willing to help others- and as much as the Small Heath inhabitants didn’t want to admit they were thankful.

The idea of your own bundle of joy was different. You’d both held and cared for babies that belonged to someone else- and the idea that this child growing inside of you was your responsibility made you anxious.

But you and Finn and soon the baby had each other and that was all that mattered.

//

“Mum?” The soft knock from the entryway of the office caused Polly to look up from the books she had been poured over minutes previously.

Micheal walked in and took a seat in front of his mother.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

Micheal frowned slightly, he didn’t know whether he was reading too much into this.

“I’m worried about Finn.” His face conveyed serious stature though as his mother looked up at him from behind thick lashes.

“And why is that?”

“Because I haven’t seen him in days.” He licked his lips, “He hasn’t been at the betting den, or the garrison, his apartment is empty every time I check. For fuck's sake he hasn’t even shown his face at the family meetings.”

Micheal shifted in his seat, “Him not showing up to family meetings is not normal. When has Finn ever missed out on a chance to prove himself?”

Polly stubbed out her cigarette into the ashtray, she looked as if she were thinking hard for a solution.

“I’ll bring it up with Tommy, truth be told I’m worried too. Finn has never been gone this long without calling, writing or even just visiting.” Her hand brushed some stray hairs out of her face, “I agree, it’s not like him.”

//

You didn’t understand how you had grown so big in the last week. You knew you were entering your 38th week and that you were coming into the area of potential delivery dates.

Finn had put you in bed rest and was adamant that it would stay that way until the baby arrived.

Some of the ladies from around town had been keeping you company, their children presenting you with hand-me-downs from when they themselves had been babes.

Staying in bed was nice for the first day or so- but then your pregnancy hormones kicked in and you couldn’t help but feel smothered and miss the absence of using your muscles.

You hated bed rest- but you knew it soothed Finn knowing that his two loves were tucked up and safe in bed.

You knew Finn had been avoiding his family like the plague, he still did jobs that paid the bills and kept money coming in. But whenever he saw his brothers- he’d only speak a few sentences around them.

He’d gotten a right bollocking from Tommy, saying that he needed to prioritize his family over whatever he had been so occupied with.

So that’s what he did, he focused on his new family. He still spoke to his Aunt Poll and occasionally Micheal and Isaiah.

But you were beginning to get frustrated with your boyfriend. You knew that his absence in the Shelby family was hurting them, and doing more harm than good.

It hurt Finn as well as much as he didn’t want to admit. These were the brothers that practically raised him. The boys that taught him everything he knew. The boys that shaped him into the person he was now.

And that had been why you’d persuaded him to go out to the Garrison for the evening- just him and his family (plus Isaiah).

At the time you’d thought it was a great idea, you just forgot one detail. You were heavily pregnant and due anytime soon.

And of course, the baby chose the only time that their father was out to try and make an appearance.

—

Finn walked into the pub, the smoky air and rowdiness of the patrons made Finn feel at home.

Considering he had been coming to the Garrison since he was a young lad, he had become used to the behaviour from the drinkers that spent their time in the pub.

He shouldered the door to the private room, and there sat his brothers, cousin, and Isaiah.

“Oi, Oi who’s this?” John’s cocky voice chirped from the corner of the booth.

“I don’t know mate,” Arthur shot back, “looks like a stranger to me.”

“Shut up.” Finn grumbled back, rolling his eyes.

Finn sat down next to Isaiah, who in turn passed over a cigarette.

The next hour was spent playing cards, they were all completely aware of how uncomfortable the youngest Shelby was. Finn kept looking towards the door, tapping his foot anxiously.

Tommy finally spoke up, “Where’ve you been then, aye Finn?”

“Y’know out and about.”

Tommy and Arthur shared a look, “You know that’s not what I meant Finn.”

Finn was glaring at his older brothers now, he knew that they wouldn’t give up until they had every piece of information.

That was until Harry knocked on the hatch and claimed that there was a phone call for Finn

He abruptly rose from his seat and slammed the door upon exiting.

He picked up the receiver that the barman was holding for him.

“Hello?”

“Finn!”

“Y/N- what’s wrong?”

There was a pause and he could hear your harsh pants through the line.

“Y/N/N?”

“The baby-“ there was more wincing from your end, “The baby is coming.”

“Shit.”

“Just get fucking home now! For fuck sake.”

With a last few reassurances, he put the phone back onto the holder. Finn turned only to see a small crowd comprised of his older brothers.

Finn started to push past them but was stopped by hands on his shoulders.

“I need to go.”

“Not until you tell us where you’re going.”

He was starting to get angry, “For fuck's sake Tommy- let me go!” He broke free and started to break into a sprint.

His lungs were on fire and his legs burnt but Finn continued the pace all the way back to where his girl was waiting.

What he failed to notice was his brothers tailing him in the family car.

—

You were hunched over panting harshly, grasping onto the mattress with white knuckles.

You knew labour was bad- but you didn’t expect it to be this bad. The rippling pain was intense and you hadn’t expected the process to be this quick.

The ladies at the hospital had said that a first-time labour would be a slow process- evidently, that wasn’t the case.

“Come on baby, work with me- at least wait for yer father, yeah?” You mumbled to the empty room.

Another contraction struck your body causing you to yell out in pain.

“Y/N/N?”

It was Finn.

“Bedroom!” Was the only reply you could muster.

A few seconds later your boyfriend rushed into the room, he immediately knelt down to your level and slowly kneaded the bottom of you back.

You let out a few more groans- your belly felt tight. It was almost as if the contractions were seizing your entire body and you could feel a harsh pressure urging you to push.

You found yourself grasping Finn’s shoulder, “I need you to check...I can feel something.”

Finn just gawked at you, speechless. However seeing you in pain, he did as he was told.

And low and behold there was what looked like the top of a head.

“Baby’s coming now, love.”

You grunted in response, as he helped you up onto the stripped mattress.

And then the door flew off of its hinges, and in strolled the Shelby brothers.

Finn seemed to be in as much shock as you were.

His shouts of anger rang out, as you groaned again and again.

At this point you were in a lot of pain and all you wanted was privacy and rest. And to have this fucking child out of your body.

“Did you invite the entirety of fucking Birmingham to witness this!” You screamed, hands finding their way to the metal bed frame which was situated behind you. The men just stared on- seemingly speechless.

“GET OUT!”

They scarpered from the room, saying something about “fetching Aunt Pol”

You didn’t care anymore, you’d given up trying to be rational and following the instructions that had been given at the hospital to you months prior.

If your body wanted to push, then you’d bloody well listen.

Finn had placed warm water, towels and a blanket on the bedside table. He then proceeded to climb behind you and press soft kisses to your sweaty brow.

“Finn I need to push.” You announced, “this baby isn’t waiting for anyone else.”

You could feel him nod behind you, “what can I do to help?”

The words would have been sweet if you weren’t too busy pushing a human out of you.

“Hold my knees back.”

He complied, and you felt your knees raise up to your chest.

And then- you began to push.

It felt like an eternity, but then you felt a release and heard it. You heard a high pitched scream, and a kick to your thighs.

The baby was here.

You looked up at Finn, who was teary-eyed and slowly reached down where your hands met the small body of your daughter.

By the time you sat back up with the baby cradled in your arms, Finn had a pair of scissors in his hand, he cut the cord and then began to clean the baby with the towel that was previously laid out.

You reached for the soft blanket that had belonged to Finn as a baby and wrapped the newborn up carefully.

“She’s perfect.”

You nodded in agreement, “she has your nose.” You smiled widely and stroked the small baby’s nose gently. The action caused the baby’s face to scrunch up- which in turn caused the young parents to laugh and smile in awe.

Finn softly kissed your temple and whispered sweet nothings to you, as you just leant back into his embrace.

The birth was finally catching up with you. You were so tired, and you soon felt yourself drift off into a deep slumber.

Finn took the baby into his arms and gently lifted her down into the bassinet, she mewled in protest to being put down.

The thought made him smile, the fact that his baby was already attached to his parents.

He proceeded to lift the sheets and blankets over your body, giving you warmth while you slept.

Finn then once again enveloped his baby girl into his arms, as he held her up against his chest.

He didn’t know he could be so capable of loving someone like this.

The quiet bliss was soon broken as Polly and Ada burst into the room each of their arms held bags.

“Aunt Pol?”

“What’s the bloody hell is going on?” Polly ranted on, “Your brothers said-“ The older woman stopped mid-sentence as the baby let out a little squeak. Almost as if she were announcing her presence.

“Aunt Pol, Ada- I’d like you to meet the newest member of the Shelby family. this is Theiadora Elizabeth Shelby. Theia for short.”

Polly looked close to tears and the younger of the two women gasped.

“You named ‘er after mum?”

Finn nodded in response.

“And this,” he motioned to your sleeping figure, “is my girl, Y/N.”

Finn just looked towards the two most important people in the world. He softly stroked his child’s face as he bent down to kiss her face.

“Welcome to the Shelby family, Theia.”

—

It was a few days later, both you and the baby were doing good. Finn barely put Theia down, it was evident that even at a few days old- she was a complete daddy’s girl.

Which you found completely unfair considering what your body had put up with for her to even be here.

But you soon got over the minor bitterness that you had felt ,when you woke up to the sight of your boyfriend cradling Theia’s small body and vowing to always protect her.

You’d gotten close to the Shelby ladies in the past few days too. Polly brought fresh food round every few mornings and usually stayed for a cup of tea if Finn was around.

And then there was the Shelby sister, though you had only known Ada for a few days, she’d become your biggest supports next to Finn.

She’d try and come over everyday, bringing her son, Karl with her.

You were thankful for her presence and she made you feel reassured, like you actually knew what you were doing.

Finn had told you that it was because Ada had been in the same boat as you, that she too had been a young mum.

But you knew it was only a matter of time until you were officially introduced to the Shelby family. So when Ada turned up to you and Finns home, you were understandably taken by surprise.

“Ada, is this really necessary?” You asked as you cradled the small baby in your arms. Theia was snoozing and even at a few days old she produced little snores like her father did.

Ada just continued to pin back your hair, “Yes, you have to meet my brothers. So does little Theia.” She paused, sensing your uneasiness, “It’ll go smoothly Y/N, Finn would never put you or Thee into harms way.”

Her words soothed your queries about this introduction. She was right. Finn had promised to protect you both from harm.

And you knew he wasn’t one to break a promise.

—

Finn had already gone to Polly’s house to help set up for dinner- as he knew that the others wouldn’t.

It also gave him time to explain to Polly about why he had kept his girls a secret (Which she had been quite furious about.)

“Why didn’t you tell me? This family does not keep secrets.”

Finn didn’t have an answer to that, he just shrugged.

“How long have you been together”

“Nearly two years.”

The questions kept coming

“Where did you meet?”

“She was tutoring Katie with Maths, I walked into the kitchen and found ‘em doin’ algebra.”

This went on for some time, until Polly finally asked.

“Do you love her?”

“More than anything.”

The sweet conversation was interrupted by the boisterous banter between his older brothers.

John grinned at him, seemingly proud that he finally knew the secret that his younger brother had been keeping to himself.

“How’s fatherhood treating you, Aye Finn?”

Polly smacked her nephew around the head, “Mother and baby are healthy- If you must know.”

“And what are their names?” Tommy’s cool, calculating voice queried from the stairwell.

“The-“

“Theia Elizabeth Shelby.” A female voice beat Finn to the answer. Looking up he saw you holding the baby in your arms, Ada and Karl next to you. “And I’m Y/N Y/L/N.”

You walked over to where Finn was situated and he wrapped his arms around your middle. The tiny baby in your arms was snoozing, and like her father when asleep, had no intention of waking up for a while.

The other Shelby’s looked on as Finn doted on his girls, making sure that they had made the trip safely and asking about other minor details that Tommy, John and Arthur would never have thought to ask their ladies.

“You look familiar.”

You looked over to see who had spoken, John sat on one of the rickety kitchen chairs, starring inquisitively at you.

“Where’ve I seen you before?”

Ada smacked her brother across the back of his head, this caused a yelp to arise from the man.

“‘the fuck was that for?”

Ada just rolled her eyes, “She’s not from a whorehouse if that’s what you’re thinking John.”

The comment didn’t go unnoticed by Finn, who’s face had flushed in anger at the idea of John possibly trying to call the mother of his child a whore.

You laid a hand on his shoulder, “I used to tutor some of your children. Help ‘em with school work or any stuff they may have missed out on.”

Tommy spoke up from his spot in the kitchen, “so you’re a teacher, aye?”

You blinked, “No, I just tutor and occasionally look after children from around the area.”

“Is it good pay?”

You were once again taken aback, “Pardon?”

Tommy repeated himself, “I said is it good pay?”

You couldn’t quite see what the outcome of this conversation was, but you could see the cogs moving in his head.

You cleared your throat, “I don’t get paid Mr Shelby, I do it all voluntarily.” You stared at him blankly, “A lot of the families around Small Heath don’t have the money to pay me for what I do. Besides I’ve always said that support from others shouldn’t come at a price.”

Polly and Ada nodded approvingly, while Finn just looked at you with adoration.

“‘ow old are you then.” John popped up this time.

“I’m-“

“She’s 17, seven months younger than me.” Finn quipped, curling a few strands of your hair around his fingers.

“And how long ‘ave you been with our Finn?”

“Just over two years.” You answered the questions.

“Where’d you grow up, I don’t recall seeing you around Small Heath?”

“I-“

“Bloody Hell boys,” Ada huffed as she set Karl down on the small armchair in the corner of the room, “What is this? An interrogation?”

You shot Ada a thankful look, the questions were beginning to make you feel slightly overwhelmed and out of your depth.

The slumbering babe in your arms began to squirm around, as she started to awaken. Theia let out a small series of yawns, before her face scrunched up and her eyes slowly opened.

The whole room fell into a hushed silence as they watched in awe.

“She has your eyes Finn, lad.” Arthur spoke from his position by the mantle.

“Yeah, she’s pretty perfect.” He replied.

Tommy stepped forwards glass of gin in his grasp, “Aye well let’s say a toast to the newest Shelby!”

They all raised a glass and together chanted in tandem, “to the newest Shelby.”

You looked up to the Shelby you had fallen in love with all those years ago- he pressed a kiss to your lips.

Life felt good- life was good.

[ghostspideys-moved]

chasing visions of our futures: chapter one

a/n: I haven’t given up on my other oc fic, I’m just taking a little break, and I had lots of ideas as of lately for this one, so hopefully people still enjoy this as well.

word count: 1.5k

pairing: barry allen x oc

summary: River Matthews decides to cause some chaos in Central City, mostly for fun, but also for the attention she knows she’ll get from The Flash. When he catches her, and she gets a second chance, she has to decide whether she should take it or if there’s no changing for her. There’s a lot more to her the more Barry tries to dig, and the more he does, the more River’s afraid he won’t like what he finds out.

chapter summary: River causes some chaos in Central City, and so close to the holidays. But she may have given herself too much credit in thinking she could escape the Flash.

With the holiday season already in motion, plenty of people were scrambling to pick up last minute presents here and there. River could practically feel the stress and anxiety buzzing in the air. Central City surely didn’t take the holidays lightly.

A number of stores were open later to accommodate all the frantic last minute shopping everyone was doing. For as cheerful as the holidays were supposed to be, the intense emotion and rushed thoughts as people hurried from one store to another hit River like an oncoming train. But by now, she was used to it. She’d need to focus anyways if she was going to go through with her plan.

Tuning out all of the noise that came with hearing people’s every thought, she made her way into a nearby toy store. Naturally, the store was decorated as far as the eye could see. There was no escaping the mass amounts of tinsel and paper snowflakes. 

As a kid, she might have loved the flashy displays, but after all this time, it mostly felt bittersweet. What she definitely didn’t love was the crowd of people frantically searching the store, hoping to find whatever it is their children desired. It was that much harder keeping her powers in check with so many of them, but she tried her best to push through it. 

Though it might seem a childish plan in nature, River weaved her way past people, using whatever powers she could muster to mess with the toys in just about every aisle. She watched on with something that might have resembled joy as toys came to life, marching off of shelves and attacking people. Of course, it didn’t take long for people to realize and run towards the entrance, screaming and clattering over each other to escape. There were little plastic robots chasing after people, toy monkeys attacking shoppers with their symbols, demonic-looking dolls biting at people like something out of a horror movie, you name it.

River couldn’t help the laugh that escaped as she watched the chaos. All it had taken was a few little toys and everyone was running off in horror. It was kind of pathetic, the way she saw it, but that was what she’d been hoping for. 

And, as she’d expected, the Flash was quick to show up to the scene as the last wave of shopper passed by him. River, not wanting to get caught for obvious reasons, made a run for it. 

Of course, she wasn’t stupid. She knew she couldn’t outrun a speedster. But River had the upper hand as far as she knew. Without hesitation, she ran through the aisles, her body completely passing through the shelves as though they weren’t even there at all. The Flash was already after her, though she briefly saw him pause, probably confused to see her moving through things like a ghost. But whatever the case, he was shaken out of it rather quickly, and to River’s dismay, he could do exactly the same thing, and he was fast. There was no winning this, was there?

Before she knew it, the Flash caught up to her and slapped a pair of handcuffs around her wrists. River tried to phase through them, but it didn’t work. That hadn’t ever happened before, and she felt a slight panic settle in her chest.

“Good luck getting out of power dampening cuffs,” Flash said, a knowing grin on his face. 

Not River’s finest moment, but she supposed this was on her for even thinking this would go well for this time. She’d had several run-ins with him this week, but maybe she’d just gotten sloppy and overconfident this time. 

As pained as she was to be caught, River didn’t really put up a fight on their way to S.T.A.R. Labs. There was no point. Even worse was being locked away in a cell that was made to counteract her powers. 

“Bringing toys to life in the middle of a store? Kind of tacky and cartoonish, don’t you think?” The guy in charge of locking her up - Cisco, she was sure she’d heard Flash call him in passing - was getting on her nerves just a bit. “Not very talkative, are you?”

“Not to people locking me in...whatever this is.”

“It’s called the Pipeline, for your information,” Cisco explained. “And you’re not getting out, so I wouldn’t try if I were you.”

If he wasn’t standing on the other side of the glass, River might have done something to shut him up, but she couldn’t. For a brief moment, she was relieved to see the Flash return. At least she could tolerate him better. 

“You know, after three days of trying to stop you, you made it surprisingly easy this time,” he said. 

River sat down, leaning against the cell wall. “Not on purpose. I let my victories get to my head, and here we are.”

“Well, it was harder with barely any way to track you. You know, there isn’t a single record of you anywhere past eight years old? Why is that?”

Sure, River was locked up and unable to escape, but she wasn’t going to give in so easily. “Does it matter? You caught me.”

He didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, and she couldn’t blame him truthfully. Over the past few days, she’d learned she couldn’t read his mind, or any speedsters. They thought way too fast for her to comprehend. But she could tell he had a curious nature to some degree. And his next onslaught of questions sold that for her.

“Well, as far as we know, you’re not a metahuman. Doesn’t seem like you were here during the particle accelerator explosion. So how’d you do that? With the toys?”

“Magic.” There wasn’t the slightest bit of teasing in her voice, but they didn’t seem to believe her.

“Magic’s not real, so nice try,” Cisco said. 

“It’s just as real as Santa Claus.”

The Flash and Cisco shared a look of confusion as they turned to one another. “I’m sorry, do you think Santa is real?” Cisco asked.

River looked up at them, wondering what the hell they were so surprised for. “Yeah? Doesn’t everyone? Isn’t that like the whole point?”

“Oh my god,” Flash said under his breath. “You dropped off the face of the Earth when you were eight, and no one told you since then?”

“Look, I don’t know, okay? The last time I celebrated anything was with my mom and my brother before I disappeared, and that was Hanukkah when I was eight. So, yeah.”

It was then that River realized that was already too much information. It wasn’t on purpose, though. It just came out.

“Where did you even go when you disappeared?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Cisco snorted. “We’ve seen a lot of weird shit. Try us.”

River hesitated for a moment. They’d probably just think she was crazy. “I went to Hell, that’s where.” They both seemed less surprised than she’d expected. 

“What did you do to deserve getting sent there?” Flash asked. “Especially as a kid?” “I’ve really already told you too much,” she said, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You also didn’t look all that shocked.”

“We have some friends who deal with that kind of thing.”

River raised an eyebrow. “And yet you still don’t believe in magic.” “Magic is just science we haven’t figured out yet.”

She couldn’t help snorting. “Yeah, alright. Are we done now?” For a moment, she thought they might let her be so she could wallow in her misery. But just as they were about to leave, the Flash seemed to have a sudden thought, like a light bulb suddenly went off in his head. “We know this guy - a friend of ours who helps us sometimes. Half-demon, surprisingly nice, really into plants. His name’s Hawthorne. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?”

At first, River was ready to dismiss it, but they’d perfectly described her brother. Though she hadn’t seen him since she disappeared, she’d kept tabs on him, whether he knew it or not. Mostly out of curiosity. 

“Maybe.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted her brother involved in this. She could only imagine how disappointed he might be in her. 

“Will you just give us one second?” Cisco dragged him away, presumably to discuss whatever it was they were thinking.  She couldn’t make out anything under the hushed voices, unfortunately. Before long, they wrapped it up and turned to her again. 

“Right, well, we will be back with something for you to eat, because we aren’t monsters, and then we’ll figure out what to do with you in the meantime,” Cisco said, clapping his hands together. “So just sit tight.”

Already, River wasn’t liking this at all. But there wasn’t much she could do about whatever they decided to do, so she did exactly that and tried not to die of boredom in her cell. True to their word, Cisco came back with something for her to eat in the meantime. 

By the time the Pipeline door opened again, Hawthorne was standing on the other side with the Flash, and he looked very surprised to see her. He must have been expecting anyone else but her.

“I’m sorry, what is my sister doing here?” Hawthorne asked, turning to Flash. “Barry, you didn’t tell me I was dealing with my sister.”

“I didn’t know!”

River stood finally, crossing her arms. “Nice seeing you again, Thorny.” The look on his face was priceless, and she never wanted to forget how equally terrified and confused he looked. “Surprised to see me?”

[atlafan]

Take it Slow  - Part Twenty-Seven

a/n: okay this is my first shot at a harry:y/n fic, and it will be multiple parts. y/n had a bad experience with an ex over a year ago, and finally accepts her coworker and good friend Niall’s invitation to go on a blind date with his friend Harry.

Warnings: Smut.

Masterpost (all previous parts can be found in the masterpost)

Rachel left around 10 the next morning so you could get ready for the day. You were so happy to have alone time with her. You both didn’t get as much one on one time together as you’d like. You decide on wearing your hair up in your classic high pony, especially since your nephew was starting to get grabby. You put on a pair of skinny jeans and a black sweater. You put a pair of booties on, and wait for Harry.

He keys into your apartment around 12:15. He was getting better about being early for things.

“Love?” You hear him and come out of your room. “Hey cutie.”

“Someone’s in a better mood.” You practically jump into his arms, kissing him on the lips.

“Yeah, sorry again for being a meanie.”

“S’okay, we all have our moments. Ready to go?”

“Yup.”

Harry lets you pick the music for the ride.

“Alright, so please, tell me all your good news.”

“Okay, so yesterday afternoon my supervisor called me into her office, and at first I was scared. But she called me in to tell me that because of the work I did on that project last week, our contract has been extended, thus gaining more business. Apparently a lot of good word has gotten back to the CEO about me. Get this. Not only do they want to pay for grad school, like the whole thing, not just half, BUT they want to give me a raise. Like a significant one with a new title and everything! They want to make me an associate director!”

“Are you kidding me?! That’s incredible baby!” His hand squeezes your thigh. He felt terrible for blowing up at you last night. You could’ve celebrated. “We have to celebrate tonight!”

“I’m so excited! And they said I could pretty much pick whatever program I want as long as it’s online. Don’t say anything to Niall though. They’re planning on bumping him up to, but they plan to talk about it Monday. There’s all this restructuring happening. I’ve only been there two years, I can’t believe it.”

“I’m so happy for you, it’s great they’re recognizing your work! And I know how much you already love it there, this is like icing on the cake.”

“I know! She said they didn’t want to risk losing me.”

“That’s amazing, this is so great.” Harry was beaming. He was so proud of you. “What school do you think you’ll apply to?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need to look over the information my supervisor sent me, and then do some research. I need to figure out what I want to become a master.” He chuckles.

“I’m so proud of you, really.”

“Thanks babe.” You put your hand on top of the one he has on your thigh, and you stay like that for the rest of your drive.

//

Harry brought a ton of equipment with him. It was too cold to take photos outside, so he brought this giant white sheet to hang up in your brother’s living room. It went all over the floor as well, creating a nice background. You were holding your nephew while he was setting some of the lights up.

“Thanks again for coming out to do this.” Your sister in law smiles while clearing some toys out of the way.

“Oh, it’s my pleasure. These are my favorite kinds of photoshoots.” Harry smiles back. He looks over at you lovingly while you rock the baby and talk with your brother. “I brought some props with me, was there anything in particular you were hoping to do?”

“Well, as you can see, we’re all wearing the same sweater. I think we’re trying to go with a season’s greetings vibe? Almost like a winter wonderland? I’m not Jewish, so we didn’t want it to be too overbearing with the religious stuff.”

“Right, yeah we can definitely do that. I can show you some samples too of some after effects. I can edit in some snowflakes, or even a snowman behind ya.”

“Did you hear that honey?” She says to your brother who is laughing with you about something.

“Hm? Yeah, that sounds good.”

“So, we’d like some of the three of us, obviously, some of just him and I, some of just him and daddy, and then some of daddy and I.”

“Alright.”

Harry sets up two different cameras, one on a tripod, and the other around his neck. He connects his laptop to it so the pictures will go right in. You didn’t realize his freelance operation was quite so high-tech. Harry unfolds a collapsible bench, and sticks it on the sheet.

“Okay, so if dad wants to sit on the bench, and them mum can sit right in front.” He comes over to you, gesturing to hand the baby over. “Thank you, hey little guy.” He coos to the baby. “And mum if you wanna have him in your lap…that’s perfect.”

Harry uses his handheld camera for a few test shots, and then goes over to the camera on the tripod. You go behind him to watch them pop up on the screen. He had gotten the lighting perfectly. No shadows, no one looked shiny, you were impressed. You made a funny face to your nephew to keep him happy and smiling.

“How ‘bout one where you’re all sittin’ on the floor?” Harry goes behind your brother to move the bench out of the way. “That’s great.” He snaps a few shots. He tries to get a few candid ones in.

“Do you have a chair or basket you wanted to put him in for his solo shots?”

“Yeah! Let me go grab it.” Your sister in law pulls over a little chair to rest the baby in.

Harry gets in close to get some different angles. Your nephew is mesmerized by the camera, so the pictures come out really good. You loved seeing Harry do his job.

“Mum and the baby next?”

Your sister in law picks the baby up, and gently rocks him. Harry gets a few shots from the still camera, and then goes over to the two of them.

“Let’s get his face on your shoulder, and then have you looking down at him. Mind if I touch ya hair, love?” You and your brother give Harry a funny look.

“Um, not at all.” He moves a few strands of hair from her face.

“Perfect.” Harry moves behind her to get the shot. “Just tilt your head up a wee bit, there ya go.” Another shot. “Dad, can we get ya on the other side of them?” Your brother move where he tells him. “That’s amazing, thank you.”

Harry takes a few more shots of just your sister in law and the baby. Then moves on to your brother and the baby. He got a really good one of him lifting him over his head.

“He’s bein’ so good, haven’t heard a peep yet.” Harry says.

“We fed him right before you guys got here. He snaps the minute he’s hungry.” Your brother explains. “You wanna hold him while we take our pictures?” He asks you.

“Of course!” You take your nephew. “Where’s his bubby in case he gets hungry?”

“In the kitchen, right side of the fridge.” You walk into the kitchen to grab the small bottle, and a rag to throw over your shoulder, just in case.

On cue, your nephew starts crying, but stops the second the nipple of the bottle hits his mouth. You soothe and feed him, sitting down in the rocking chair near the set up. Harry looks over at you, distracted by how gentle and sweet you are. Your brother coughs, grabbing his attention.

“Right.” He walks over to the two of them. “You’re a little stiff, just relax a little. Let’s put this arm here.” He takes your brother’s arm and puts it on the small of his wife’s back. “And you can you put your hand on his chest?” He furrows his brows looking over how they’re standing. “Can you put your other hand in your pocket? Ah! There we go.”

Harry goes over to the tripod, he flashes you a quick smile as you continue to feed the baby. He takes a few photos. You finish feeding your nephew, and sit him up to burp him. Once he does burp everyone starts laughing, and Harry is able to get a great candid shot of the two.

You hand the baby off to his mom so you can help Harry pack up his gear, and get everything into the car. When you both come back in, you see your sister in law has put out some snacks for everyone.

“Mind if I hold him?” Harry politely asks. She passes the baby off to him.

“Mm, this hummus is so good.” You say.

“It’s that fire roasted pepper one.” Your brother says sticking a carrot in. He takes his checkbook out of his pocket. “Harry, wanna talk shop in the kitchen?”

“Sure.” He follows your brother into the kitchen. Your sister in law leans close to you as you both sit on the couch.

“He’s such a doll.”

“I know. And so talented.”

“Incredibly professional. I see why you like him so much, if I heard a man call me love like that in that accent, I wouldn’t have let him go either.” You both giggle. “I’m so glad he was able to squeeze us in, he must be so busy this time of year.”

“You have no idea.” The boys comes back and sit in the area with you. Harry sits right next you, baby still in his arms.

You tell your brother all about your big work news, and how excited you are.

“But don’t tell mom or dad, I wanna tell them myself.”

“Sure thing, so Harry, are you gonna come to our uncle’s Hanukkah party next Saturday?”

“Plannin’ on it yeah.” You and your brother share a look, trying not to giggle.

“It’s a really fun party.” Your sister in law says. “I remember the first time I went.” She giggles. “It’s a great way to be initiated into the family.”

“What are you doing on Christmas this year? Another vacation with your girlfriends?” Your brother asks. You feel shy all of a sudden, and put your hand on Harry’s leg.

“Um…no. I’m actually going to England for a week or so with Harry, to meet his family.” Your brother and his wife look at each other then back to you.

“Does mom know?”

“Yes.”

“Does dad know?”

“No.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Don’t tell him either.”

“He has to know.”

“I’m not saying I won’t tell him, I just don’t need you spilling the beans, and then him calling me freaking out.”

“Why would your dad freak out?” Harry asks, adjusting the baby’s head to rest on his shoulder.

“He just…overthinks every little thing.” You explain. “You think he takes news well, then two days later he has a million different questions.”

“How long are you gone for?” You sister in law asks, trying to break some of the tension.

“The 23rd through the 29th, so literally a week. I’m really excited, I’ve never been to England before. Harry said we’re going to spend a couple days in London too. I’ll get to do all of the touristy stuff.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun.” Your brother says. “What will you do for New Year’s?”

“Niall’s having a party.” You look up at Harry. The baby has fully passed out on him. “Oh look at him!” You rub the baby’s back. “You two just had to have the cutest baby in the world, didn’t you?”

“Mind if I take him back? I don’t want him freaking out when he wakes up.” Your sister in law giggles.

“Sure, thanks for the snuggle little guy.” Harry coos to the baby before passing him back over. “Well, I suppose we should get goin’, (y/n) and I are gonna celebrate her big news.” He stands up.

They walk you both to the door. Harry and your brother shake hands.

“Thanks again for everything.”

“No problem, and like I said I should have these for you in the next couple of days, you’ll be able to download all of the images and have them printed wherever.”

//

“So, where do you feel like going tonight? Anywhere you want.” Harry smiles at you in the car.

“Gosh, I don’t know! It would be fun to go somewhere that has dancing. I’m just so jazzed up.”

“That baby is the cutest baby I think I’ve ever seen.”

“Right? Can I ask how much you charged my brother? I hope he didn’t try to stiff you.”

“No, no, he didn’t. In fact, he wanted to overpay me. It all worked out, don’t worry. How come he got so weird about us going to England?”

“I think it’s just cause I’m leaving the country with you. My dad also has a way of putting him in the middle of things.”

“Do you want me there when you tell your dad?”

“God no, I’m gonna tell him over the phone so I can hang up if I need to. I’ll call him next week or something, I’m not really worried about it right now.”

Harry brings you both back to your apartment. You rummage through your clothes to find something to wear.

“We could go to that club a few blocks from here. You know the one that has food til a certain hour, and then the dance floor opens up?”

“Oh yeah! That would be perfect. I haven’t been there in a long time, probably since the summer.” You furrow your brows at the pile of laundry on your bed. “I cannot decide on an outfit! It’s gonna be cold tonight, so I know I should wear pants.” You scratch your head and dig for a pair of dark blue jeans that have a few intentional holes in them. “Hmm, what to wear with these though…oh!” You snatch your black crop top from the top of the pile. It was cute, tank top style, a little low cut, but it had a nice fringe on the bottom for some texture.

“A crop top?”

“Yeah, these pants are pretty high waisted, it looks good together.” You take your clothes off to change. “You know what, I need to find the right bra for this.” You walk over to your dresser and search for one that goes with the shirt. “I bought one to specifically wear with this top.”

Harry goes into your closet to put on a fresh t-shirt and sits on your bed to wait.

“Aha! Found it.” You put the bra and put the top on, and stand in front of him. “See? You can just barely see my piercing.” You point to your belly button. You go into the bathroom to throw a few curls in your hair and run your fingers through so it looks wavy. You put some night time makeup on and feel ready. “All set?”

“Yup.” He wraps his arms around you and gives you a kiss on the top of your head. “Uber’s here, let’s go.”

The bar area of the club was a little crowded when you got there, but because there only two of you (and maybe because you pushed your boobs up when you spoke with the host), you were able to get a small table after only five minutes. Since you were celebrating, you both ordered a big plate of nachos to split, and some tequila shots.

“I’m so glad you like doing tequila too. A lot of people don’t.” Harry says as you two clink the small glasses before tossing them back.

“I know! I don’t get it. I’ve never had a problem with tequila, ever.” You both decide it’s a good idea to stick with the same liquor, so you both order margaritas. “Margaritas and nachos, what could be a better combination of food?” You giggle, diving into the cheesy chips. “So, you’ll actually dance with me tonight?”

“Yes, I will.” He rolls his eyes playfully. “Maybe after a couple more drinks though.”

Harry loved watching you dance. You always had so much fun, and it made him have fun too. He loved hearing you say, “I love this song!”, to just about every song that would come on, and the way you’d yank him closer to you to dance. And you. You loved the way Harry would let loose in times like these, not caring if anyone was looking. The way he would move his hips along with yours, or when he’d stop to twirl you around, the quick kisses you’d share.

You both had a great night. Harry ordered an uber when you both agreed your feet were too tired and you both were just too drunk to keep dancing.

“That was so much fun!” You exclaim twirling around into your apartment. “Thanks again.” You wrap your arms around his neck, deadweighting him.

“Jesus.” He laughs, almost falling to the floor with you. “Alright, time for some water, yeah?” He lifts you up, and sits you down on the kitchen counter. He fills two glasses of water and hands you one. You both take small, slow sips. “I’m glad you had a good time.”

“I always do when I’m with ya.” You slur. He stands between your legs.

“Ready for bed?” You pout. “What?”

“Dontcha wanna love on me?” You run your hands through his hair. He rests his hands on your thighs.

“I do…but maybe in the mornin’, love.”

“Why?” You pout again, really jutting your bottom lip out.

“We’re both a little too drunk.”

“Not you, just I am.” He gives you a half smile.

“You’ll be mad at me if we do anythin’.”

“No I won’t.”

“(y/n).”

You lean down and kiss him, pulling him closer to you. His fingers press into your thighs. Your stomach starts to feel weird, so you let go of him.

“Oh no.” You say and hop off the counter.

“What? What oh no?” He looks at you very concerned.

“I think…I had too much dairy tonight, I don’t feel very well.” You put a hand over your mouth and run down to the bathroom attached to your room.

Harry quickly follows after you, and hears you throw up. He sighs, and goes to get a rag to run under some water, and a hair elastic. After he hears you flush the toilet, he comes in.

“No! Don’t come in, I don’t want you to see me like this!” You turn your face away. You feel him take your hair and put it into the elastic.

“Not the first time I’ve seen someone spew.” He crouches down next to you and presses the rag to your forehead. “Are you lactose intolerant? I didn’t think people threw up from that?”

“I’m sensitive to dairy, so I think because those nachos had so much cheese, plus the combi, the combi, oh no.” Harry stands up and uses his hand to brush back any hair he may have missed in your ponytail. He rubs your back while you vomit again. He pats the damp rag across your forehead again. “I’m so sorry.” You say, flushing the toilet and wiping your mouth.

“It’s alright, love. Happens to the best of us.”

“I think I’m through.” He helps you stand up, and you look at yourself in the mirror. “Yikes.” Your makeup had run down your face from tears. You run the water in the sink and brush your teeth. You turn the hot water on and grab your makeup remover rag. Harry watches you as he stands in the doorway.

“Don’t think I’ve seen someone only yak twice from drinkin’.”

“I told you.” You dry off your face with a hand towel. “It was from the dairy, the cheese.” You make a disgusted face. “Not eating that for a long time.” You look at him and sigh. “That was disgusting, I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” You take your hair out of Harry’s makeshift ponytail, and shake it out.

“S’alright, vomit doesn’t really bother me.” He shrugs, and follows you to your bed. He takes his shirt off, then his pants, and you do the same. He kisses you on your temple before going into the bathroom to do his thing.

You got cozied up in his t-shirt, and got into your side of the bed. He comes out and joins you.

“Sure you’ll be alright?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna dry heave or anything.”

“Guess that was one way to sober up. C’mere.” You rest your head on his chest, and he puts an arm around you.

//

The next morning you both wake up around ten. For once, you wake up almost completely on top of Harry. You must have fallen asleep on his chest and never rolled over. You rub your eyes as you start to wake up, and see that he’s sitting up, reading from his book.

“Mornin’.” He says looking down at you with a smile.

“Shower?” He nods yes, and you both get up.

You both brush your teeth before going in. You felt gross from last night still. You peel his t-shirt off and put your hair up. You both step in to the warm water, and stand in it together, arms wrapped around each other. You felt groggier than usual, and could feel slight cramps forming in your lower back. You groan into him.

“Whatsa matter, love?” He says, chin resting on your head.

“Getting my period this week.” You knew that already due to your birth control tabs, but it was still annoying nonetheless. “I’ve got the precramps.”

“Better to get it now than while we’re away though right? Less things you’ll have to pack.”

“That’s true. I hate getting it when I’m traveling.” You nestle into his chest more.

Harry takes your chin between his fingers and tilts your head up to look at him. He leans in and gives you a soft kiss on the lips. You nuzzle your noses together, making you smile. You wrap your arms around his neck, and go up on your tiptoes so you can kiss him properly. His hands moving down to squeeze your butt. You feel him harden against you, and you press yourself more on him. You tongue enters his mouth to find his, and you’re happy when you’re greeted with his.

You push him back against the cold tile, taking him by surprise a bit. Harry’s mind can’t help but race. If you would let him, he’d pick you up and put you against the wall. He would drive into you with his hard cock and have you screaming his name. But no…he couldn’t have that yet, and it was driving him nuts. He was genuinely curious, though, about exactly what you planned to do with him right now.

You lace your fingers through his hair, and gently tug. Your mouth moves to his neck and you bite down on him. He groans, tilting his head back. You push your body as close as you possibly can to him, as you suck on his skin harder. What is she trying to do to me? He asks himself. You reach down between the two of you, and wrap your hand around his throbbing cock. He sucks in a breath as you work your thumb over his leaking tip. You lean your forehead against his chest as you look down. You take a deep breath as you rub him against you.

“Woah!” He flinches. “What’s, um, what’s happening right now?”

“I just…” You look up at him. “I just wanna rub the tip against my clit. Can I do that? Please?” He blinks at you. “And then I’ll suck you off, okay? I’m not trying to tease, I just wanna feel you against me.”

“O, okay.”

You look back down, and move his tip to rub against your clit. The contact felt amazing to you both. His slick tip rubbing against your clit had your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“Fuck.” He groans, eyes closed and teeth clenched. His hands move to your breasts, and knead them, needing something to hold onto.

You move one of your legs up around one his legs so you can get a better angle. Harry pries his eyes open to watch your hand around him.

“I’m, I’m not gonna last much longer.” He says, panting.

You drop to your knees and take him into your mouth. His hands rest gently on your shoulders, not wanting to pull your hair in fear of triggering you again. His hips thrust forward, hitting the back of your throat. You need to use one hand to pump him, not able to take all of him into your mouth. Your other hand was on his hip, fingers pressing harshly into him.

“God, you take it so well.” He says through a moan. You groan against him, and the vibration makes his hips roll further. His nails are digging into your shoulders as you bob faster on him. “Fuck, (y/n), I’m gonna come!” His hot come splurts into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop.

You stand up, and rinse your mouth out in the shower water. Harry quickly pulls you over to him, pushing you against the tiles this time. He kneels in front of you, and connects his mouth to your clit. Your hands go right to his hair. He holds on your thighs up so he can get his tongue inside you easier. You almost lose your balance.

“Ah! Harry!” You moan. “Please, please just take me to the bed!”

He stands up, both of your pupils are blown out. He quickly turns the water off, kneels back down, and lifts you up over his shoulder. Neither of you care that you’re soaking wet, you’ll just throw the blankets in the dryer later.

Harry puts you down on the bed, and gets on top of you. He kisses you firmly, you stick your tongue in his mouth and he sucks on it. You moan loudly as his thumb presses down on your clit.

“You really want it, don’t you?” He asks, biting down on your collar bone.

“Fuck! Yes, I do. So bad. Please, let me feel your fingers.” Harry’s jaw clenches, he should have known that’s what you meant. But his small glimmer of hope told him you wanted more than that.

He bites down on you harder, sucking on your skin, leaving a nice purple bruise in its place. He had to do this. He had to get his frustration out somehow. And you were letting him. His fingers plunge inside you, making your hips buck up towards him.

“I love how wet and tight you are, it feels amazing.” He says into your ear, taking the skin just underneath between his teeth. Your nails sink into his shoulders. They rake down his back as he pumps in and out faster.

Your hands grip onto his butt, and your nails sink into his cheeks as you move your hips to grind against his hand. He bit down on your neck harder, he was hard again, there was no doubt about that. He grinds himself against one of your hips.

“Harry, fuck!” He hit that spot that you love so much. He didn’t even need to rub your clit to make you come, this felt good enough. “Harry!” You’re screaming his name. You weren’t sure what made you feel so hot today, maybe it was the hormones, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care if your neighbors heard you screaming either.

You release all over his fingers, he removes himself from your quickly, and grips himself. He jacks off onto your stomach. Your mouth falls even further open at the sight. He collapses next to you as you both catch your breaths.

“Holy shit.” You say, closing your eyes.

“Sorry, I, it was just…I had to come again.” He says looking down at your stomach.

“It’s okay.” You smile at him. “I can’t always be the one to come more than once.”

“Let me go get a rag to wipe you up with.”

“No, it’s okay.” He raises an eyebrow at you and you giggle. “I’m gonna go hop back in the shower quick. Could you throw these blankets in the dryer while I’m in there.”

“Mhm.” You kiss him quick.

“Thanks.”

You get up and go into the bathroom. You gasp when you see yourself in the mirror. You put your hand over your mouth so he doesn’t hear, and you close the door. You inspect the many large, purple bruises on your neck and collar bone. These were going to be hard to cover, and they were going to take a long time to heal. You rinse off quick, and wrap yourself in a towel. Harry is in the kitchen making smoothies.

“Love, I made breakfast.” He smiles handing you a glass.

“Thank you.” You take a sip. “Mm, yum!” You take another big sip and put your glass down. “Um, babe?”

“Yeah?” He looked so good, just standing there in his tight black boxers. You rub your hand over your neck. “Jesus.” He pulls your hand away. “Shit, I did a number on you huh?”

“Yeah, in a couple different spots.” You had two prominent love bites on your neck, and two more on your collar bone. He rubs his thumb softly over them.

“Did it hurt?”

“Um…yes, but…not in a bad way.” You blush. You look up at his neck. “I gave you a pretty good one too.”

“Mhm.” He smiles.

“You don’t mind?”

“Nah, they heal pretty quickly. They’re not that noticeable on my skin. But you’re a little fairer than I am.”

“They’re just hard to cover with makeup. I’ll need to wear a scarf or something. Um…I like getting them, I like the way they feel. Just…when you feel the need to bite me that hard, could you find a more discrete spot?” Harry cocks his head and looks at you. He takes a sip of his smoothie.

“But if I did that, how would everyone around you know you had a boyfriend?” He walks by you, leaving you stunned, and sits down on your couch. You sit down next to him, sipping on your breakfast. “I mean, that’s how everyone knows I’m seein’ someone.”

“It’s just not very…professional. People will notice, and talk. Otherwise I wouldn’t care where you did it.”

“But I like it best on your neck. It’s my favorite place to bite into. You’d deprive me of that?” You were sweating. If he kept talking to you like that, you weren’t sure how much longer you’d last before your lips were wrapped around him again.

“N, no. You can do it without leaving such a large mark can’t you? I mean, what if my family saw?”

“Alright, ya got me there.” He fake pouts. “Guess I can try to be more careful.” He sighs. “Anythin’ ya need to do today?” You mean other than you? You thought to yourself.

“Hmm, I wouldn’t mind going to Walmart, I’m low on some stuff. But you don’t need to come with if that doesn’t sound like fun.” You laugh.

“Nah, I need some stuff too, now that I think about it.”

“Great, I’ll drive us.” He frowns. “Am I a bad driver or something?”

“What? No! I just prefer driving.”

“Why?” He just shrugs at you. “Well, I would like to drive if that’s okay.”

“Alright.” You get up, and he watches you walk into your room. Something about your ass shaking in a towel made him smile. He gets up to follow you.

The second you dropped your towel, Harry’s arms were wrapped around you, pressing your back to his chest. You giggle as he presses kisses to your neck and shoulder.

“Harry…”

“What?” He whispers in your ear.

“We’ll have all day to do this, but we need to go to the store now, okay?” He rolls his eyes and lets go of you.

“All day, huh?” That shit eating grin covers his face, and this time you roll your eyes.

“You’re ridiculous.”

[andimack-crack]

A christ-mack story: Andi Mack

Read part one here

Read part two here

Read part three here

Read part four here

Part five: Locked in for Christmas part 2

[Word count 1682]

"it's about to get really cold in here and no cell service either it's like everything's cut off"

"I...I think the doors locked"

Andi's POV

"Locked we can't be" Buffy shoved past pulling on the handel it was no use.

"How is this happening?" Cyrus stressed

"Bowie's new security system is broken it must of locked us in" I said realising

"Well where's the control panel we can unlock it" Buffy said

"Its broken Bowie has the instruction manule at home we don't know how" I protested

"So where stuck in here on Christmas eve with no electricity" Jonah's breathing became erratic

"Jonah there no need to panic" Cyrus reassured

"There's every need to panic who knows how long we'll be here for before anyone comes to find us" Jonah panicked

"Relax I'll call my parents" I said whipping out my phone only for my face to drop

"Its on 2%" I confessed

"My phone broke last week" Jonah said

"Luckily my phone is working" Buffy said happily but she then looked confused

"No bars" she informed

"Let me try" Cyrus tapped his phone "I don't have bars either"

"Cell service is cut off as well" Jonah said

"We're gonna die in here" Cyrus said dramatically flopping on the couch

"No we're not our parents will realise were missing and come looking for us" I said

"But we never told them where were going just that we'd be back before 6 so they wouldn't disturb us" Buffy said

"Okay Jonah now you can panic" I huffed. I checked my watch

Time: 6:00pm

Looks like we'll be here for a while.

*******

T.J's POV

"Have you seen Buffy?" Marty said.

I was walking home from work when Marty quickly ran up next to me.

"No not today" I responded

"Oh she's not answering my calls but it's probably a good thing" he said

"Why you avoiding her?"

"No but I haven't got her a good Christmas gift" he complained

"Dude come on its Christmas eve I know you leave things to the last minute but this is a new low" I scoffed

"No I wanted to go online and book something for us to do together but nothing good or affordable" he said

"Dude it's Buffy take her go-karting or something"

"I want it to be romantic or festive I can take her go-karting anytime" he was right to be fair

"What are you doing for Cyrus?"

"Nothing I got him a gift for Hanukkah he said not to worry about anything else"

"Seriously I would've at least got him like a card" that grabbed my attention

"You think I should've?"

"Its up to you man but maybe Cyrus feels left out that he doesn't get to celebrate like everyone else" he said raising his eyebrows

"Shit I didn't think about that your on we can help eachother" I patted his back

Meanwhile...

Andi's POV

Time: 7:00pm

"I'm hungry" Cyrus whined

"Cy-guy I love you and all but you have the stomach of a baby deer" Jonah said

"I have dinner around this time I can't help it" he said crossing his arms

"Well there's no food plus we didn't eat that long ago are you seriously that hungry? Maybe it's just boredom" Buffy said

"Yes I'm that hungry" Cyrus simply said crossing his arms

"It doesn't matter sooner or later we're gonna need food Jonah your in here half the time is there anything we can eat?" I asked hopefully

"Bowie put in a vending machine" he pointed to the back of the room.

We all piled in front of it eyeing the bottles of water the bags of chips and chocolates and sweets but I groaned we needed coins we only had dollars

"We can't put dollars in" I frowned

"Bowie keeps a key to get into the machine somewhere under the till" Jonah said he went behind the counter and started looking I gasped in disbelief

"Jonah the till" I pointed out

"What about it?" He said not looking up

"The till has coins inside of it" Buffy said

"That's stealing" Cyrus interjected

"I thought you were hungry" I stated 

"Guys now's not the time to be at each others throats" Buffy said standing between us

"Buffys right" Jonah said opening up a bag of chips.

we all looked at him in disbelief again we saw the open vending machine door and charged at it nabbing all the contents.

"Oh yeah I got it open." Jonah smiled

******

Marty's POV

"How about you take her... surfing"

"T.J it's winter and the beach isn't for miles... Maybe you could take Cyrus to a petting zoo" I suggested

"He has a fear of flamingos I don't think it would sit to well with him" he protested

"Dang this harder without Jonahs third braincell" I admitted

"Times getting on anyways I think I better get home before Amber sneaks into my room looking for her present" Tj said checking his phone.

"Alright... still no word from the others" I said also looking at my phone

Weird.

*******

Andi's POV

Time: 9:45pm

Buffy was looking over at some guitars me and Cyrus were laying on the sofa at opposite ends Jonah was excessively cleaning the floor with a rag and lemon scented floor cleaner he had found we were all in silence accept for the sound of Jonah drilling a hole in the floor.

"Jonah why just why?" I said frustrated

"I clean when I'm stressed this is calming for me" he went back to scrubbing.

"Please don't argue" Cyrus said

"It's freezing in here now" Buffy said rubbing her arms up and down.

"Look guys we need to stop complaining it's Christmas eve" Cyrus dug into a box pulling out several candles and some matches "Andi help me light these"

He placed the candles around the room close to us Jonah and Buffy came over to huddle close with us Cyrus took a guitar from the wall handing it to Jonah

"Come on its Christmas we barley get to be together like this no drama no technology let's enjoy it and try to make it festive play us something Jonah" Cyrus encouraged

"Well okay then" he shrugged picking up the guitar.

He started to strum the cords I instantly recognised them closing my eyes and humming along

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

Next year all our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Make the yuletide gay

Next year all our troubles will be miles away

Once again as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Will be near to us once more

Someday soon we all will be together

If the fates allow

Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow

So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Jonah's voice and the candles made a really warm calming atmosphere so much so I let my eyes stay closed for a little longer as I drifted off

Time: 11:46pm

I was jolted awake by the sound of rattling at the door. My face lit up thinking someone had arrived finally I saw Buffy, Cyrus and Jonah fast  asleep I got closer to the door seeing a hooded figure grunting trying to pull the door I realised it wasn't someone rescuing us it was someone breaking in. I shook my friends awake quickly

"What now Andi" Buffy groaned

"S-someone's breaking in" I said panicked

"Are you sure?" Cyrus said slowly coming too.

"Yes"

"Oh my god u-um behind the counter" Jonah ordered we all hid

"What do we do?" Buffy quivered in fear

"We um we-" I started

"Set up and elaborate number of traps that will hurt them and one of us can run and get the cops and we need to trick them with a recording of an old movie" we all slowly looked to Jonah

"Are you serious" Cyrus whispered shouted

"Worked in home alone" Jonah shrugged we all shook our heads

"Okay we distract them by yelling and make a break for it" I said

"Okay are we ready?" Cyrus said shakily.

We didn't have time to answer the door opened and we all jumped up screaming and shouting the figure took his hood down to reveal Bowie and Bex trailing behind him we all stopped seeing who it is

"Mom...dad?"

"Yeah why are you shouting?" Bowie said a little intimidated

"We thought you were breaking in" Cyrus said ashamed

"Well these two came and told us you were all in here" Marty and Tj appeared from behind Bex Buffy and Cyrus rushed forward to be engulfed in hugs

"We were walking home and saw the four of you laying asleep we went to Andi's apartment" Marty muffled from Buffy's embrace

"We owe you guys one" Jonah said suddenly Marty and Tj rushed to hug Jonah as they held him in a three person spoon

"Thank god we missed our third brain cell" Marty laughed I turned to my parents

"Did you two make up?" I asked hopeful

"Yes we did sorry for worrying you" Bex apologised

"Its okay I'm glad your happy" I said relieved

"Actually your mom and I have some news" Bowie said putting an arm around Bex

"We're having a baby" she smiled

A-a b-baby? I'm getting a sibling?!" I said joyfully

"Yep I found out a few days ago" Bex beamed with happiness

"Congratulations" Cyrus declared happily

"I'm here to give you pointers on being a sibling if you need it" Tj said pointing finger guns

I took a glance at my watch

Time: 00:01pm

"Guys it's passed midnight" I announced

"Merry Christmas Andiman" Jonah said giving me a side hug.

Merry Christmas.

[justsomewritingsandshit]

The Struggles of a Male Veela - (Part 6 - What A Revelation!)

Louis Weasley x Soulmate!OC

Length: 3926 words

Warnings: soulmate!au, altered ages of next gen, female OC, Hunter Parrish as Louis, mostly about Selene, jEaLoUsY

Part 6 of this series | Masterlist | Part 5

Three weeks after her awkward date with Mari Singh, Selene felt the first sign.

The young woman was mid-conversation with her friends, whilst they all sat at the Slytherin breakfast table. Well, it was less of a conversation and much more like an unnecessarily heated debate. Today’s (debate) topic was the correct pronunciation of the word ‘gala’. Ben Boot, a well-travelled young man, had informed his three closest companions that he’d recently discovered that many Americans pronounced the word as ‘gay-la’, rather than ‘gah-la’. Which was entirely wrong in Selene’s opinion.

Emery took a dramatic breath before she bravely announced that she too pronounced the word as ‘gay-la’. “It sounds right that way!” At her friends sneers, she defended herself, “Well it does to me!”

“Disgusting.”

“Absolutely.”

Emmaline pressed her fist over her eyes, looking away from her sister, “You think you know someone!”

Their friendly razzing of Emery went on for a bit. Eventually though, it faded out as the students needed to finish their breakfasts before they went on to their morning classes.

Glancing across the Great Hall, Emmaline commented, “It looks like lover-boy’s fan-club is getting bigger, huh?” She sent a rather sneaky glance towards Selene, who was chewing on her toast, as she spoke.

“Huh? What club?”

Ben mimed to Selene that she had crumbs clinging to the side of her lip, “Oh, you know! Your boy-toy’s little fans. Oh, no, no, on your left side.”

Successfully ridding herself of the clinging crumbs, Selene’s eyebrows drew into a furrow, “What are you lot on about?”

Emery sniggered, “You’re little Gryffindor, Sel.”

“Huh? You mean Louis?”

“Oh,” Emmaline teased, “So she does know who we’re talking about!”

Selene was a little stunned by their teasing remarks. A part of her understood why her friends must have assumed there to be a romance forming between the two. After all, Selene was not the type of person to immediately latch onto a new friend, especially in the way she had with Louis. Did she become casual acquaintances with people? Yes. Did Selene seek them out, then spend hours talking and laughing with those new acquaintances? No. Like most people, the young girl could be considered a creature of habit. Not seeing much need to branch out, Selene tended to stick with her tried-and-tested friend group. To add a new person into the role of friend meant something to her, growth. But, to her overly hopeful friends all of whom wanted only the absolute best for their friend; this friendship looked more like a potentially blossoming relationship.

And that was the wrong assumption…

“Okay,” She took a sip of her water, before she turned to look at them, “First of all; Louis and I are friends. He is not my ‘lover-boy’.” She ignored Ben’s ‘but you want him to be’. “Second of all, yes I’ve heard about his fan club. They’re… uh, they are…” Selene struggled to find a kind but straight-forward word for ‘a little bit scary, but mainly weird’.

“Creepy? Yes.” Emery answered, blasé. “Like, I would be the first among us to admit that Weasley is super fit.” An uncomfortable ripple raced through Selene’s gut. Briefly, the girl wondered if her monthlies (as her mothers’ called it) were making an appearance earlier than usual this month. “However, I agree that this whole club thing is very weird.”

Ben nodded, “Yeah! I mean, Louis is cute. And yes! I think we all would let him slap our arse, should he so choose to!” Emmaline and Emery both nodded at his words, and Emery even lifted her glass of pumpkin juice in toast. “But, lovey, dearie, sweet love-child-of-mine, just put the school out of its misery, and claim that Adonis as your own!”

Inwardly, her stomach rolled again at his first statement, stopping suddenly once speaking had trailed to a finish. Outwardly, however, Selene cheekily rolled her eyes as if she was amused by Ben’s exasperation on the subject. “Whatever.” She dismissed it all nonchalantly, before standing up from the bench. “Let’s get going, I want to stop by the hospital wing before class. My stomach’s not feeling right today.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Emmaline swiftly rushed her friend out of the Great Hall, the Slytherin girl’s worry-wort nature taking the reins.

There is an old muggle saying, once could be a coincidence but twice suggests a pattern.

The uncomfortable turn of her stomach – the one that had made Selene previously think that she wanted to be sick, or that she had cramps early that month – appeared again. And the sensation appeared as suddenly as it had before…

And, with the holidays approaching, it felt like everyone was getting progressively more excited for the end of term. The entire castle had begun its descent into excitement for the upcoming holidays.

Like in muggle shopping villages and districts, Hogwarts began the festivities almost as soon as the calendar switched from November to December. The corridors were decked out with red and green coloured wreaths and garlands. The house elves worked diligently, silently completing their work in a single night.

Tiny first years had started to gather together with older students. A portion of them prepared gifts and played games for Hanukkah. The students who celebrated Solstice and Yule were already marching across the school’s lawns for items they wanted to use in their altars – this particular group was an interesting mix of muggle-born ideologies of wicca and witches, as well as the magical version of wizardry. Those who celebrated Christmas were doing their best to stock up on papers for wrapping, they were ordering rolls of it by owl ready for their last few Hogsmeade trips before the 25th. Even the professors were getting into the spirit – Professor Longbottom had his singing tulips (which were a rare find of his from a trek across the Scandies in his late twenties) hum seasonal songs whilst he taught.

And as the term wound down, most of the students were gearing up to take the train back down to London. There were a few who were eager to be left (relatively) alone in the quiet castle. Selene happened to be undecided on the subject, tossing up whether she should stay or to go home and celebrate Yule with her busy mothers’.

The Slytherin was mulling it over when she was heading back to the common room. She only had one class left for term, but the textbook she needed was in her dorm. For a moment, she thought about sneakily using the accio charm, but knew it was banned for a good reason – flying objects can be hazardous when not charmed to fly above people after all. She weighed the pros and cons; she’d have more things to do in the castle, more people to talk to, her parents would probably have to work on Yule… Eventually, she decided to stay at Hogwarts for the holiday. When she got to her dorm, she would owl her mothers to let them know.

She turned the corner that lead to the grand staircase, thinking about asking if Ben was going to hang around the castle too this year. Selene had seen that the girls had already packed their trunk to leave, so she didn’t feel a particular need to ask them the same.

Unfortunately, Selene’s next turn into the adjacent corridor had led her to be the sole witness as an older girl (from the year above) slid her claws over the forearm of a familiar-looking blonde boy.

That stomach turn happened again.

Selene swiftly turned around, deciding to walk to the common room the long way. Also, she had suddenly decided to return to her home for the holidays.

Yule celebrations came and went early in her home.

Selene’s mothers were very apologetic when they told Selene that they’d have to work on the day of Yule. Still, the three of them had held a smaller, more intimate celebration a few days before.

The earlier celebration left the young girl to aimlessly wander around her own home on the actual day of Yule. She was bored out of her mind. It was approaching the late morning and Selene had already cracked onto her holiday homework – all part-the-way-done, apart from a Runes essay, which required a lengthy reading of a textbook that she had left behind whilst franticly packing.

The Slytherin had decided she should finally owl the school, to see if they could let her off on the Runes essay, or at the least send over her the textbook. She had made her way up to family attic, where her great-great-grandparents had set up a make-shift aviary for their business owls years ago. Apparently, back then they had run a small mail-order potions business. It was a Morgenstern family rumour that they sold an illegal werewolf suppressant potion, before wolfsbane had even been invented.

Selene’s owl hooted softly to the girl, making its presence known. It sat on rigidly on its perch, a pile of letters and small boxes on a tall table to its immediate left. Selene pet the owl carefully, slipping the bird two treats. Then, she arranged some more water and feed for it before she gathered up all her mail.

“Thank you, Soot!”

The first few letters were Christmas cards from her various muggleborn friends, some including cute non-moving photographs of their families. One had a Father Christmas who was drawn to be surfing on a beach, from her friend whose family spent the holidays in Australia. Another was a sexy version of the red-clad man, the words asking if she’d been ‘naughty’ that year – that one was from Naomi Gardner, who had written in thanks for setting her up with Mari.

Ben had done what he usually did and had written her a lengthy letter. He opened it with a greeting, as well as some well wishes to Selene and her mothers. Then Ben informed her that he had decided to stay at Hogwarts that year (which was usual for Ben, as he kind of hated his extended family, who had a tradition of gathering together this time of year), and that he loved the gift that she’d left for him under the Slytherin common room tree. At that point in the letter, the boy demanded that Selene open the gift he had included. It was a gorgeous goblin-made quilt set in her favourite shade of mauve.

Ben went on in his letter to detail the latest gossip going around the castle, ‘It turns out that wench in the year above, you know the one! The absolute wench Julie McNamara, that swish! She was seen trying to flirt with your mother-missing boy before term ended! I cannot believe the gall of the wench! Everybody knows that he only has eyes for you, I swear!’

Last year, Ben had been gifted with a spelled pen. It automatically censored his cursing. It had been a joke-gift from Emery but ended up being his favourite writing utensil to date. As such, Selene had fitted it with a never-ending ink-well, and Emmaline had spelled it to be impossible to lose.

He went on; ‘Apparently, he had to have his family step in! The wench just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I’m telling you Selene; everyone said that it was absolutely disgusting! She had to be formally warned away by the professors too. In this day and age!’

Selene felt an unclear anger suddenly rush through her body.

She could easily see how Julie McNamara would make Louis uncomfortable. He was such a lovely guy, but he got awkward when anyone even jokingly flirted with him. In fact, the first time she ever jokingly winked at him, his face went fuchsia for three-and-a-half minutes. Poor Louis! Selene could picture in her mind how her Louis would try to uneasily shift away from her, but…

Her hand released Ben’s letter. It fluttered to the carpeted floor silently.

Oh.

“Oh,” Selene breathed, tears springing to her eyes for no reason. Her thoughts were now cleared like the sky after a storm, “I like him.” That explained so, so much. So much. “Bollocks.”

The week following her realisation, Selene was working on autopilot. She went about her days like nothing was out of the ordinary. Dinner with her mothers, doing her school reading, finishing up the assessments she’d started before… Selene did it all, without a single complaint.

That worried her mothers.

“Sweetheart?”

“Hmm?” Selene looked up from her plate to see her mother, Dorothea, looking at her in concern. “Sorry, did you ask me something?”

The woman shook her head, dark curls bouncing as she did. “No, sweetheart. We just, you know –”

“The point your mother is trying to get to,” Her other mother, Appoline, sent her wife a cheeky glance before her expression melted into a concerned one. “Are you feeling alright, Selene?” At her daughter’s furrowed brows, she went on, “Your mother and I have noticed that you seem to be a little spacey, dear.” Her tanned skin pulled taut around her pursed lips, “Are you having a disagreement with the girls?” Appoline was referring to Emmaline and Emery, as well as Ben.

“No, I…” Selene wasn’t even sure what to say. Her teenaged brain told her to lie to their faces. Letting her parents know too much about her school life, her social life, might lead to a lecture Selene did not want to sit through… Although, “I just realised that I, uh, fancy one of my friends. A lot.” The Slytherin had been stewing in the idea all week and was now desperate to at least speak the words out loud. “I, um, I didn’t realise until, like, last week.” She paused, pushing her vegetables around on her plate, avoiding their surprised eyes. “So… yeah. That’s it really.”

There was a moment of awkward, confused silence.

Clearing her throat, Dorothea spoke to her daughter sincerely. “Is this something you want to discuss with us further, sweetheart?”

Selene mulled over how to answer. Did she want to talk about this? Maybe. Until now, she didn’t realise how pent up she had begun to feel. Did Selene want to open up to her married parents about this, though? Two lesbians (well, one of her mothers is bisexual), who had been monogamously together for longer than ten years? Not really.

The teen smiled awkwardly at her parents, “Actually, I think I want to talk to the girls about it. I might send them an owl, or-” Selene stopped herself, to think on it for a moment longer, “This is probably something I want to say to them in person, though.”

“Okay.” Appoline nodded in understanding, before she tactfully changed their dinner conversation, “So, I was listening to this Korean band yesterday.”

She brought it up with her friends when they were all corralled in the safety of the common room. Selene waited until it was late, as there would be less people around to hear them discuss something so personal. Slipping it into the already flowing conversation, “I realised I fancy Louis.”

All speaking stopped. Ben, who had been using his personal copy of ‘Hogwarts; A History – Volume 24’ to prove a point, loudly snapped it shut. Emery had paused mid-chew, and there was a gummy serpent still hanging from the corner of her parted lips. Emmaline, who was sat next to Selene, stared at her friend in complete shock.

Selene shuffled nervously in her seat, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Girl, what do you mean–?”

“’Just realised’?” Emery finished her sisters thought, the gummy falling into her lap.

Selene sighed, the sound tinged with embarrassment, “Well… When you lads were making fun of me, saying that ‘of course I liked him’.” The three nodded, knowing the instances she was talking of, “I, uh,” She let out a breath chuckle, “Well, I didn’t know. I thought I only liked Louis as a mate, you know; a friend.” Her head tilted, “I mean, I’ve always been attracted to him,” Her head tilted the other way, “I just did not know that I, uh, you know… fancied him. Like proper fancy, you know?”

Ben’s mouth was agape.

“No. I don’t know.” Emmaline disagreed. “How did you not know?” To Selene’s friends, it was so clear – her feelings had been so transparent to them, so see-through. “You were undressing him with your eyes, for Merlin’s sake!”

“I was not!” Selene argued indignantly.

“Oh, you were too!” Ben argued back. “The two of you are always looking at each other, starry eyed. Frankly, it’s a little sickening. And not in a good way!” He flung his book behind him, leaning closer to Selene. “We told you, as well!”

Emery nodded, “We did!” She viciously bit the head of her now-retrieved gummy serpent, “And,” She paused to quickly chew, “You basically go on study-dates, nearly every bloody day.” Emmaline nodded in agreement with her sister. “Babes, when you said you were going out with Mari, on Halloween, we were so confused!”

Ben sighed, “Ah, that’s right! Ugh, we were convinced that you had been courting Weasley before that.”

Selene scoffed, “Courting him? I barely know him!”

In wizarding society, courting was serious. It was like a person screaming their personal commitment to another in a court of law. There was no way to go even one day without another wizard finding out about the commitment. Firstly, because every child was taught about the process in their first year of education at whatever school they attend. Secondly, every couple entering into courtship had to be witnessed by three other witches or wizards, as a testament to how serious the process is (and also because three is a deeply important number to magic-users). Young witches and wizards could date to their hearts content, but courting meant a true declaration of intent – the intent being marriage or a binding, of course. There had been times where dating had led into courting. And they were also rarely broken, due to the gravity of the whole process.

There would have been no way for Louis to be in a courtship with Selene – her heart ached in joy, at the thought of being in anything with the blonde Gryffindor – without any other person knowing.

Emmaline scoffed back, mocking Selene, “’Barely know him’?” She smacked Selene’s shoulder, “You spend everyday in each other’s presence, you should know everything about each other by now!”

“Well, not everything!”

Emery butt in, “You definitely know enough!”

“What are his sister’s names again?”, Ben challenged her.

“Victoire and Dominique,” Selene answered automatically, before rolling her eyes, “That’s a basic thing to know about another person!”

Emmaline nodded, “Alright then, what are his cousins’ called?” Selene looked away from her, not wanting to see the smug look on her face, “You know them, don’t you?”

“Wow!”

“It’s not private information!” Selene argued with them, “We do go to school with half of them!”

Ben gave her a disbelieving look, “I bet you couldn’t name the collective five cousins that we,” He pointed to himself, then the twins, “Have had at this school.”

“Daisy, Marcus, Kipper, Damien,” Selene struggled with the last one, “I, I want to say Humphrey…”

“Oh, honey…”

One moment she was completely oblivious to these feelings she had, and was living her life perfectly normally, the next moment she’s almost paralyzed – with what she wasn’t completely comfortable in calling fear… but it was an emotion closely related.

Also, there were questions clogging her thoughts now… Should she tell Louis of her feelings for him? Should she leave it be? Most importantly, how is she to act around Louis now?

Her mind shouted many ways not to act – and the dozens of reasons why she shouldn’t act in those ways. But how could she maintain their previous easy camaraderie? That camaraderie, and their ability to instinctively know what the other is thinking, was so comforting before. A small pit of dread pooled in her stomach, at the thought of losing that friendship with Louis.

When this dilemma was brought up to the girls (which again, included Ben), they told her to act as she had before – mainly because they knew she liked him even then, so there shouldn’t be too much acting involved for her.

“So, how were the holidays for you?” Louis had joined Selene at their study table, as usual. He quickly slung his bag off his shoulder, before plopping down onto the wooden chair. “Anything exciting happen?” The Gryffindor leaned over the table to whisper conspiratorially, “Any fights?”

Selene’s pulse spiked at his proximity, but she quickly composed herself to the best of her resting-bitch-faced ability. Once she was normal again, she realised that the question made no sense to her, “Like a physical fight?”

Louis choked trying to hold in his raucous laughter at her question. Although, he was not as successful as he might have had hoped for. Even though the blonde covered his mouth, hushed chortles managed to escape. Louis’s eyes even watered. After a moment, he forced himself to take deep breaths, to compose himself. “Sorry. I forgot you’re an only child.” Selene’s confused look did not fade, “You know, there’s just a certain level of craziness that having siblings brings. Plus, the high tension of the holidays... With my family, there’s more than enough sparks flung about to start a fire.” Louis paused as he remembered, “In fact, two years ago; there was an actual fire.”

Selene’s eyes widened, “No!”

“Yes.” Louis leaned forward again, excitement and humour plain on his sweet face as he remembered the absurdity of the situation, “So the twins-”

Purposely, the Slytherin guessed one name wrong, “Rosie and Fred, right?”

Louis beamed, oblivious to her purposeful mix-up. He was just overjoyed that his mate was putting in effort in remembering his extensive family members. “Roxanne and Fred,” The blonde softly corrected. “Well, they decide one afternoon, that my grandpa Weasley’s Christmas tree was not festive enough.”

The dark-haired girl tilted her head, “Is that your grandfather who is obsessed with muggles?”

“Yes!” Louis did not think he could be grinning more – surely, his face might split in half if he even tried. “So, every year he brings out this ancient fake Christmas tree – it was a gift from my Aunt Hermione’s parents, probably about twenty years ago.” He paused, to duck his head when the librarian glared their way, with her penetrating, evil eyes. Louis waited until she turned back around before he went on, “The twins knew that most trees had lights on them, but grandpa Weasley didn’t… They managed to convince him that he should use candles.”

Selene’s eyes sprung into wide-eyed shock, “They didn’t!” At Louis confirming nod she pressed, “At least he charmed them, right?” The blonde’s face turned mischievous. “No! He forgot?” Her gasps had been quiet enough, but they always had an audience when they were together.

Two first year Hufflepuffs (who had twenty-four textbooks piled between their arms) got to watch firsthand as Selene dissolved into a fit of laughter. It began with a loud snort, which left Selene trying to cover her face. To no avail it seemed, as her giggles were audible all the way from where the first years were lollygagging. One of the Hufflepuffs decided that they way Louis was gazing at her – his eye lit up at her enjoyment, not daring to look away for even one moment – had to be what true love was.

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