#I know I shouldn’t have gone to the craft store today

[rosicheeks]

Can we see the painting you did? 😊

Not the one from tonight but here’s a few I did the other day 🥰

[redflagshipwriter]

Reassembly 4

ch1 ch2 ch3

Kon and Peter: clown to clown communication commences.

New York had some massive craft stores. Peter had to direct Kon to one, which was fair but nerve wracking since he didn't actually know for sure it existed here. 

Luckily it did. 

Kon’s stepdad must have been loaded, or maybe Kon didn’t understand finances the same way that Peter did. He loaded up a cart with everything that Peter pointed out. He got two pairs of sewing scissors, which was a wild decision Peter could barely wrap his mind around. Was Kon planning to cut with both hands at one time, or for buddy crafting sessions? Those things were like fifty dollars a pop!

Some consultation with the staff helped them get metal decorative bits and three different sturdy mesh fabrics, one of which had glitter on it. They were all black. Peter eyed Kon for that, kinda impressed by the commitment to an aesthetic. Kon was like a little kid in the store, rolling down aisles on the back of the cart and tossing everything in without even checking prices. Peter found himself caught up in the euphoria and talking waaaay too much shit about projects he wanted to do, despite knowing he definitely couldn’t afford it. He really shouldn’t have. But Kon actually seemed interested when Peter talked about his design for a spidersuit- in a subtle way! And Kon just wheeled back to the big section and started trying to talk him around on the merits of red and blue tinted leather instead of athletic fabric.

It was funny, so he went along with it. And then Kon tipped the entire rolls into the cart and went in search of thread to match.

Peter stared at the back of his head for a long moment processing. Was he for real?

“Hey, I didn’t mean today,” Peter said, scrubbing a hand through his hair and trying to sound casual. “I don’t have any cash with me. I mean, I’ve got some, but not like that much-”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kon interrupted. His voice was a little weird. Almost short. Like he really didn’t want to talk about money. “I have that covered. Luther pays for whatever I want as long as I keep in contact.”

“...Okay, thank you,” Peter said, because that seemed like a great minefield to stay out of. He mentally reclassified Luther to an estranged and possibly financially abusive Dad, not a Stepdad. “Hey, if we’re sewing leather, I don’t think we can do that by hand. You want to look at the machines?”

Two industrial sewing machines and a serger later, Peter desperately and unsucessfully tried to talk Kon down from buying his very own bedazzler. He slouched behind Kon in the checkout line, wondering if this was just the kind of mistake a man had to make for himself. No way was he actually going to get enough use to make it worthwhile, right? Right?

The total made Peter feel kind of green. Kon paid for it all with a swipe and not so much as a blink. Then he bundled up all the bags and hefted them with no apparent effort. 

“Hey, let me help,” Peter protested, strategically snagging a couple. They had two sewing machines for jiminy cricket’s sake, that had to be heavy for a normal guy. 

A moment too late, he realized that Kon was a big strong guy who lifted a lot of weights. He’d probably deliberately taken the heavy bags because he had good reason to think he was stronger than Peter. Aw, fiddlesticks. Should he pretend this was heavy? Had he just given too much away? Kon seemed like a nice guy but Peter really didn’t know-

Kon just let the bags go with a bemused smile and a, “Thanks, dude.” He appeared to have not a single thought about the situation as he started walking to the door. 

Good. He didn’t know that these were like, heavy. It must be nice to be a big strong guy.

Ah, well. Peter trotted after him.

His day had gone off the rails. The library was open now for sure. He had planned to be there by now, refreshing his website design skills. Maybe he’d gotten an email back about a possible job. He really should check-

But it was only one day at the absolute most, Peter justified to himself. And it was really really nice to feel normal again and do something impulsive but harmless with another teenager.

They wound up in an unsettlingly clean, empty apartment. Kon carelessly threw their loot on a pure white rug and walked in without kicking his shoes off. He pulled off his leather jacket and threw it at the couch without looking in a show of coordination that Peter could respect.

Peter shucked his tennis shoes carefully and lined them up against the wall before he ventured in. Kon was already opening up the fridge and pulling out cans. He threw one to Peter. 

Peter caught it without a thought and then blinked at it. Carbonated juice? Weird, but probably good. He said, “Thanks, man,” as he cracked it open. He took a sip and made a face. It was good, but very weird. He looked at it again and noticed that it was also somehow a yogurt drink. Fruit carbonated yogurt was a concept that he had not encountered before. 

‘Don’t be a dork. It’s probably a rich person thing.’

Kon perked up like a dog hearing a car approach. “I have to-” He gave Peter a distracted smile. “I’ll be right back. I have to do something. Could you uh, entertain yourself? Maybe set up our stuff?” He was already edging to the door.

Peter shrugged, confused at the sudden turnaround but amiable. “Okay, I’ll wait,” he agreed easily. 

Kon was gone so fast that Peter almost thought there was something supernatural about it. He shut the door, bemused.

And he did what he said. He cut off tags and threw away packaging. He plugged in the machines and set them up, one on the desk and one on the table. He mused that the apartment was furnished like a fancy hotel room. He sat down on the sofa to wait. 

It took a while. He couldn’t track the time without turning on the evil janitor phone, but Peter was pretty sure that at least like, ten minutes passed. He shifted uncomfortably. Was this weird? 

Kon was awfully casual about leaving someone he’d just met in his space. Peter didn’t mind, exactly. He knew that Kon wasn’t dangerous to him because his spider sense hadn’t gone off at all. But Kon didn’t know that! Didn’t he, like, know about stranger danger? Objectively, Peter could be a pretty dangerous person. Not by temperament, but still…

He sat there for a while and worried about Kon’s self preservation skills. After that, he ended up just getting started on his spidersuit.

Frankly, the leather idea was… Well. He had to rethink some of his concepts, that was for sure. It was easy to make a spandex suit. The hardest part of that was dealing with the endless teasing from Mr. Stark. But leather didn’t have the same stretchiness to it. So he sketched out a few ideas, tossing out numbers and proportions and trying to figure out how much he needed around each joint to accommodate his spidery range of motion. 

And then he remembered that he uh, was doing this with another person present. 

The jumpsuit thing? It made sense when he was wearing Stark tech. There was a big benefit to having no seams. But there was a reason that his first ever suit had actually been in two pieces: that was how normal people dressed. 

‘I can’t exactly tell Kon that I’m a misplaced superhero.’ Peter choked down a laugh and borrowed the leather jacket off of the couch. It would work as a pattern.

He traced the main pieces onto the scrap material they’d gotten. It was a real pain in the ass to do without cutting the clothes apart, but he had a pretty good understanding of how a 3 dimensional object was made from a bent 2 dimensional object and figured out something that he was mostly confident was accurate enough.

Peter put his hands on his hips and looked at his tracing victoriously. Then he frowned. He looked at the jacket again.

Aww, man. He sadly started drawing another line, a couple inches inside the first one.

Kon was big, okay? Kon was a big strong jacked guy! Peter was pretty jacked for his size, too, shoulders way bigger than his waist. But he was uh, just built smaller. The shape would work for Peter, but the size was going to be way off if he just replicated the pattern. He bit his lip as he worked.

“What are you doing?”

Peter jumped four feet straight up in the air and flipped onto the couch. He landed in a spidery crouch on the balls of his feet with both hands splayed down for balance. 

He stared at Kon with wide eyes. Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh fuck.

Kon laughed. “Sorry, did I startle you?” He draped himself over the couch backwards, head pointing towards the floor and knees over the backrest. The smell of smoke wafted over.

…smoke? What had he been doing?

“Yeah, sorry,” Peter said slowly. 

‘Did he- he didn’t notice that wasn’t normal? Or maybe that’s something normal humans can do here. I mean, Kon can fly!’

Holy shit, he was in the clear.

“I was going to cut myself a jacket pattern,” Peter explained. He got back off his crouch on the sofa cushion. He tried to be as normal as possible about it. Wow, he was killing this. “I used yours to make a pattern, hope that’s okay. I didn’t mark it up or anything.”

“It’s cool,” Kon assured. He tilted his jaw upwards so that he was watching Peter upside down. “Sorry about how long I was gone. I got caught up helping my neighbor’s cat.”

“...With a fire?” Peter asked before he’d thought about it.

Kon frowned at him. 

“I mean, you smell a little smoky,” Peter demurred. 

The other guy laughed nervously. “Yeah, my neighbor is a bad cook.”

Peter nodded and accepted that. He knew all about bad cooks. “Do you cook?” he wondered. “I’m not great, honestly, but I can do a few things.”

Kon perked up again- and wow, this guy was like the world’s largest, most handsome golden retriever sometimes. “Cooking? I ordered everything in- can you show me?” His eyes sparkled like he had never before considered that he could cook for himself. 

Wow. Peter smiled, but he silently judged Kon’s parents. Why didn’t he have any practical life skills? “Yeah, of course. What do you have for groceries? Your parents won’t mind if we cook?” He started cutting out his pattern pieces in the test fabric. He had 5 main ones- two sleeves, a back panel, and two front pieces. Shit, he’d need to get a zipper, wouldn’t he?

Kon snorted and let his head fall back and hit the bottom of the sofa. “I live alone,” he said. “No one is going to even notice.”

“...How old are you?” Peter asked.

“Two,” Kon lied blithely. 

Peter made an aahhhh of comprehension. Fair enough. “I would have guessed like, 17,” he said.

“Is that how old you are?” 

“...Yes,” Peter lied, remembering that’s what his ID said now. He finished cutting out the back panel and put it aside.

Kon flipped himself up and back onto his feet. “Cool. I’m like, 16,” he said. “Basically.”

…That was a weird thing to say, but Peter noted it. Maybe he meant he was 15 going on 16. That would actually make them the same age.

“Are you from here?” Peter decided to move the conversation into more neutral territory. “I am, I’m from Queens.”

“Baller,” Kon said. “Nah, I’m from Hawaii. I recently moved to the mainland. I still have a place back there, but I have some things to do over here and they’re always kinda last minute, you know?” He scrunched up his face. “Flying over everytime someone has an errand gets kinda tedious.”

“That’s true,” Peter agreed. 

Kon seemed to brighten. “Plus, my friends are here.”

“That makes a big difference.” Peter smiled at him, genuinely happy for the dude. Maybe he had a shit time at his high school in Hawaii. Maybe he got bullied for being too big and handsome and friendly. “Hey, did you think about how you want to add the mesh to your jacket? It is this jacket you wanna alter, right?”

“I want to replace the back panel,” Kon said instantly. “Like, the seams and structure are the leather, and then the back is see through. Wouldn’t that look so fucking cool?”

“It would look cool,” Peter had to admit. It was the kind of look he wouldn’t go for, personally, but he might if he had traps like Kon. Still, he had to check. “You don’t use this for protection, right?”

Kon stared at him blankly.

“Like, for riding a motorcycle or something?” Peter prodded. Wow, he felt awkward. This was dumb. Kon wasn’t actually a 2 year old with no life experience. He should have kept his mouth shut.

“No, but why would that matter?” Kon asked slowly.

Peter felt his shoulders ride up, like he could turtle away from the conversation “Uhhh, well the mesh isn’t going to be as strong as the leather. Obviously. So if you fell, you might get more scratched up. That’s all.” 

God, why did he talk? Why did he ever talk?

“Ohh,” Kon said. Then he huffed out a laugh. “Nah, that’s not an issue for me. I’m tougher than that. Also, I don’t ride a bike.”

“You don’t do anything dangerous, then,” Peter confirmed with some relief. “Cool. So, I was thinking that we should leave a bit of the leather to attach the mesh to. Gimme? Thanks.” He took the jacket. He barely noticed that Kon was giving him a really weird look. “So, if it was my project, I would cut out a rectangle…. Well, it curves by the neck, but still. I would cut out the leather, leaving like an inch beside each seam. What do you think?”

“Sounds good.” Kon took the jacket back and picked up one of the sets of scissors. He played with the scissors for a moment, opening and closing them at high speed. “Vroom vroom, let’s go.” He flung himself onto the floor, back pressed to the sofa, and started cutting.

…Peter took a moment to hope that he hadn’t given advice that would ruin Kon’s jacket. He went back to his project until Kon said, “I’m done. What’s next?”

“Which mesh do you want?” Peter asked. Then he sucked in a break. “Ah, fuck.” 

“What?” Kon was standing so fast that Peter didn’t actually see him move. He looked tense and ready for action.

Peter didn’t notice. He was pressing his thumb and forefinger on either side of his nose and wondering why he was such a dummy all the time. “We need to wash the fabric first,” he said apologetically. “Obviously not the leather. But the mesh needs to be washed. Where’s your washer?”

He gathered up the fabric and followed Kon’s instructions. Kon trailed behind, obviously curious. “Why do we need to wash it?” he asked.

“Uh, it’s never been washed before, right?” Peter explained. He shoved the fabric inside and started looking for detergent. “Usually fabric shrinks when you wash it for the first time. So if you cut it first, sew it in place, and then eventually wash it, it’ll shrink and like, warp, and ruin your stuff.” He grimaced at the memory. Kon had bought the supplies like the cost was nothing, but Peter remembered vividly the crushing disappointment and pain of accidentally ruining something he’d made. Fabric wasn’t expensive, but it was expensive when you didn’t have money.

‘I just lucked into this,’ Peter thought, and felt guilty. ‘I’m going to be able to have a spidersuit just because I happened to meet Kon and he was nice enough to spend money on me. Am I taking advantage of him?’

He put the detergent into the load and started the washer. Man… He needed to make sure he was a really good friend to Kon. Because that’s what this actually was, wasn’t it? Kon had immediately started hanging out with him and bought him things because he was lonely. He was trying to get a friend. It was kinda like Mr. Stark, except less pathetic, because Kon wasn’t a super rich superhero with awesome super friends who could just tell them he needed help. Kon was a teenager who lived on his own and had an estranged Dad and maybe like, no one else in his life. Did he even go to school? Was whatever was going on with him even legal?

“...Do you want to get started on lunch?” Peter suggested. He was hungry, but that wasn’t why he asked. They had time to kill and he wasn’t going to make Kon watch him work on the spidersuit. 

“Yeah! What do you want to make?” Kon followed him back to the kitchen and watched with a sort of pleasant curiosity as Peter checked the fridge and cupboards. Literally the only things sitting out on his countertop were a bottle of dish soap and a sponge. That was it.

The fridge had canned drinks and take out leftovers in it. The cupboards had two cups, one of which was storage for a fork, spoon, knife, and pair of chopsticks. 

Peter gave Kon a strained smile and bent to check the lower cupboards.

They were empty and eerily clean. There weren’t even any cleaners in there, so that was wild. “Kon,” he started, and then didn’t know where to go with it. “Do you own a pot or pan?”

“No, why?” Kon cocked his head at him. He honestly seemed just curious and not a bit embarrassed. “Should I?”

“...We need one to cook in,” Peter said. And a few other things. Did– did Kon not own any plates, either? 

‘I guess he wouldn’t need one if he gets take out and uses the containers all the time,’ Peter rationalized. ‘But who lives like that? Why didn’t someone teach him how to live like a person?’

And who was cleaning this place? It hadn’t seemed so weird when he entered. But now that he knew Kon lived alone, this was just bizarre. If Kon wasn’t living with a neatfreak parent and he didn’t own anything but dish soap, how was his apartment so clean? Did he have a maid service or something?

Kon was way weirder than Mr. Stark. Peter gave his new friend a queasy smile when he realized that. Man, this guy needed help. “So, if we don’t wanna do takeout, we need to go shopping,” Peter said. That was an understatement. “A pan, a couple of plates, and groceries.”

Kon pulled the wallet out of his back pocket and waved it around. “That’s fine. Lexy has it covered.”

‘Lexy? Not Luther? Is Lexy his stepmom or something? Or is that a nickname?’

Normally, Peter would feel bad about spending someone else’s money. But this time he felt a kind of vicious satisfaction in the idea of running up this dude’s credit cards. Wherever Kon’s Dad was, he was a dick and he owed his kid some vegetables and a frying pan. “Yeah, okay. Do you have reusable bags we should grab on our way out?”

“I don’t think so. What are those?” Kon asked.

“...We’ll buy some,” Peter decided. “They’re usually made of canvas or something. It’s so that you don’t have to buy the one use plastic bags all the time. Let’s go.”

“Cool.”

Kon in the group chat: guys I have made a CIVILIAN FRIEND. 

Bart: neato im happy for u!

Cassie: big if true

Tim: What’s his ssn i just wanna check something

Kon: I don’t think he knows I'm a superhero. It’s nice, but is that weird?

Cassie: probably because you’re not famous enough yet sorry

Tim: get gud

Bart: get good

Kon: fuck u guys. I’m undercover. I’m being so normal.

[lornahansonforbes]

“Why Miss Noshie, you are a caution. I know as well as you do, Sharhonda is off her rocker. That rocking chair of hers has gone off the rails.”

“Minnie, I’d love to sit here and go on but I’ve got to get over to the store right quick and start something for the potluck on Saturday. I know I’m bringing Butter Beans and Neck bones as side but I haven’t thought about a main. I know something will fall into my buggy. Anyway, let me go and I’ll holler at you later on.”

“You go on, Miss Noshie.?I’ll be around here somewhere. Bye for now.” Minnie placed the receiver back in the cradle and the phone rang just then.

“Hello,” she said with a smile in her voice. “Hey, Miss Sherry. How y’all doing today? Good to know. What’s that? Dr. Preston’s been calling me? I was talking to Miss Noshie and yes ma’am, it takes a moment. Let me hang up and you can put the good doctor on the blower.” A series of clicks came through the earpiece and then Dr. Preston came on the line.

After a few minutes talking to him about Clifton and his high cholesterol. No matter how many times I tell Clifton not to go Mildred’s over by the interstate, he’s still going to get a plate. I told Dr. Preston that I’ve spoken to Mildred and Prissy about Clifton. We’ve been in cahoots for several months now and he gets the same thing every time he goes there and they’re not going to give into his temper tantrum. “Preston, I know for a fact that Clifton is served two pieces, an ice cream scoop of mashed with a teaspoon of gravy and a scoop of greens. He also knows that Mildred and Prissy aren’t going to give him anything else because he’s slick to me telling on him.”

I rang off from Dr. Preston and looked out the window to see the postman put something in the mailbox and pull away onto his next stop. It being a cool crisp autumn day here in Crutch Holler, the sun was trying to peak through the clouds, I knew I had get my day started. The dishes weren’t going to wash themselves and the laundry isn’t going wash and fold itself either. Then I looked over at the laziest dog in the county seat, Titus. An eighty pound flat coat Retriever who’d not flinch if a marching band came through. Dumb as a basket of rocks but in a pinch he’s turned into Cujo if he felt I was being put on. Titus has a coat on him that’s the color of fresh churned butter. I shook my head and got up out of Granny’s club chair so I could possibly get something done today.

As I was going on about my day, Muggy, Jonny and Tull were standing around the produce section talking about Charlene and Julia. “Charlene did say that she and Julia had made a day of it by having lunch at The Tea Room and shopping at Leonard’s for Sarah’s wedding,” Tull stated emphatically.

“Pish posh,” exclaimed Jonny. “They were possibly doing all that but I’m sure that they went to The Hollywood first thing since I work at the bank, I saw the pending charges and it was over $500 they spent, but that’s all speculation on my part,” she finished up in near a whisper. Muggy chimed in quickly.

“Bless your heart, Jonny. It’s his money they’re spending and I know you’d never speak out of turn about them or anyone else because I know you live off Billy’s survivor benefits and I’m surprised that old Buick is still being held together by a wing and a prayer.”

“I know I shouldn’t yet you have this idea that by you shopping at the Dollar Store you’re going to make a sow’s ear into silk purse even with all your crafting skills,” Tull jabbed and then they all burst out laughing.

“It’s not silk, it’s a poly-cotton blend,” Muggy said in between catching her breath. As they were wiping away the tears, Mr. Thompson, the manager of the Food Fair supermarket walked up on them.

“Afternoon, ladies. Y’all shopping or should I ask y’all to come over to the break room? Got a fresh pot on,” he said with a smirk.

“Can we turn on our stories while we’re eating your day old doughnuts you stole from Honey Dew’s dumpster,” Tull shot back.

“Miss Tull, of course you can. I’m okay with you bringing crow to the potluck,” Mr. Thompson said as he turned on his heel and walked away.

“What is it you and that lifelong bachelor,” Jonny asked. “Why don’t the two of you get a room or do I have to give you each a butter knife to see if either of you are going to spend a day with me at the fair in Lexington. Dana’s station wagon still runs like a top and it’s got room for the both you.”

“Jonny,” Tull stammered. “He’s just so annoying and he doesn’t want to get wrinkle on that suit.”

“Miss Ma’am, we have to leave Mr. Thompson alone. He’s a wonderful man and we all know he visits Palm Springs twice a year,” Muggy stated. “Now, let’s do this and go home. I got Teen and Babe coming over for dessert tonight.”

[cellsshapedlikestars]

So Jon and Sansa both see a crime being commited and become prime witnesses to arrest this big crime mastermind (Petyr? Or maybe Tywin?) and they have to go to witness protection... Only witness protection makes them pretend to be a married couple when they actually don't know each other. Does that sparkle something in that brilliant brain of yours as a prompt?

Look I'm in a Mood™ today and wrote this in a weird fugue state so don't @ meeeeee. I also like barely edited this so who knows if it makes sense, and grammar? I barely know her.

Also, I don’t really know how to do trigger warning tags, so this is my warning that there are vague mentions of blood/gore/violence.

.

.

Sometimes when she wakes up, she forgets.

But then she looks around the room that isn't her room and she has to tell herself that it is. This is her room. This is her home. That is her husband downstairs making breakfast.

(And sometimes she wakes up unable to breathe, the dreams are so real; the blood and brains and pieces of skull spraying the wall in front of her, the sounds of men pleading for their lives. The strong arm wrapped around her, one hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming, the only thing that kept her still and quiet and hidden under the desk, the only reason she's alive. He's downstairs making breakfast.)

….

If there was ever a place to get lost, she thinks, it's here.

She stares out the window of her house, the same as every other house on the street. Row after row of identical houses. Neighborhoods of them, the suburbs stretching on forever. They've been here for two months and she doesn't even know her neighbor's names. The one across the street is Edmond, she thinks. Maybe. Edmure? No, if it were Edmure, she would remember, because of-

(But Alayne Stone doesn't have an Uncle Edmure.)

“I'm headed out.”

She turns to look at her husband.

“Have a good day,” she calls, just like she does every day. She watches him walk out to their nondescript grey sedan, just like he does every day. He backs it out of the driveway, then drives west, towards the main road.

…

They don't talk about before.

He is Aemon Stone. They met in college, in a geography course that they both almost failed, and they fell in love. They just got married and moved here - not that any of their neighbors have asked, so she's only had to tell that story to her new coworkers at the craft store.

They're trying to start a family.

(Jon, she thinks his name is, she remembers the agents calling him that, before they were handed folders with their new lives inside. But Jon is not her husband. Aemon is.)

…

Sometimes she likes to think she's a hero, giving up her whole world just to take down the bad guy. She's a hero, a martyr, the protagonist of her own daydreams. Her actions will save the lives of countless others.

(The reality is that she had no choice. They gave her one, technically, she doesn't have to testify against Petyr Baelish, but they all knew there was no choice. If she stayed, he would've found her. He would have killed her and anyone she could have possibly told about what she saw. She knows Aemon had no choice, either, and sometimes she wonders what he gave up. But they don't talk about before.)

…

She tries not to let her mind wander too much, but it's hard not to. Her life is routine. Mundane. She makes friends with her coworkers but she can't – she won't– let them get too close.

The problem with all her free, mundane time is that it gives her space to think – gives her time to regret.

She remembers that weekend, remembers thinking what harm could it do? Remembers thinking the bachelorette party sounded so fun. Remembers taking cash out to play the slot machines, ordering drink after drink until she felt numb.

It all goes a bit fuzzy after that. No matter how hard she tries, she can never remember how she got into the back halls of the casino, to the places where guests aren't allowed. She remembers a strange man kissing her, large, with scarring across his face, who told her that a pretty bird like her shouldn't be back here and demanded a kiss as payment. She remembers running, running, running.

If only she hadn't run.

If she hadn't run, she wouldn't have found herself in that room. She wouldn't have heard the door opening, turned around to see him, watched his face twist in horror when he saw her. He wouldn't have had to tell her get down, hide.

She remembers not being able to move, frozen to the spot at the sight of the gun at his hip. She remembers the way he'd pulled her down under the desk, one arm around her waist to keep her still, one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, just in time, just before the door opened again.

(And she remembers the men who came in right after, the gruff where the fuck did Rivers get to?)

…

She's seen the tattoo.

(She doesn't think she was supposed to. Aemon Stone shouldn't have a tattoo.)

They try not to get in each other's way – he works days, she works closings. She sleeps in the master bed, he sleeps in a guest room down the hall. He wakes up early and makes breakfast and leaves her a plate. She eats while he goes for a run. But every once in a while...

That day he'd been coming back from the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist. She's never upstairs when he takes a shower, but she had gotten the urge to read, for the first time in months, and had gone up to grab one of the books that came with the house when she ran into him in the hall.

And there, on his chest, right above his heart, the mockingbird tattoo.

(Aemon Stone is her husband. He is not one of them.)

(But Jon Snow was.)

…

She probably should be scared, but she can never find it in her to be. Their handlers wouldn't have put them in the same house if they thought he'd hurt her.

(He's the reason she's alive. His arm around her waist, his hand over her mouth. Get down. Hide.)

…

Sometimes she wants to ask – why?

Why did he hide her?

Why is he here?

He was one of them, there's a tattoo on his chest that proves it.

Why did he save her? Give up everything for her to live?

…

She slips, once.

She's at work, in the break room, heating up a mug of soup in their tiny, low watt microwave. The break room TV is on, the news is playing, and then he's there.

Petyr Baelish, donating a giant check to an orphanage. Everyone's clapping and cheering him on and all she can hear are the screams of two men, pleading for their lives. Begging Petyr Baelish to stop. (They had wives and children and their screams echo in her head and-)

“Alayne?” her coworker, Myranda, shakes her arm. “I think your food's done?”

She's shaking so hard that the soup sloshes over the side of her mug and she apologizes as she cleans it up and Myranda asks if she's sick or something. She has to go home early because she vomits into the break room trash can.

At home, Aemon is watching football on TV and he's surprised when she comes home early. All he says is, “everything ok?” and she knows what he's asking.

“Everything's ok,” she tells him and he nods and she goes upstairs.

They don't talk about the past, but they don't talk about the present, either.

(And they definitely don't talk about the future.)

…

There's one time she doesn't wake up confused or breathless.

She wakes up screaming.

In her dream, he finds her. In her dream, Petyr Baelish walks around the desk and bends down and reaches under and pulls her out. In her dream, he tortures her like he did those men. In her dream, he puts a gun to her head, just like he did-

She wakes up screaming.

The door to her room slams open and she takes a gasping breath and looks up at her husband, standing in the doorway with a baseball bat in his hand. His hair is wild and his eyes are wide as they search her room and she tries to tell him it's all in her head but she can't make her voice work. When she tries, the words just come out as a small sob and she watches his tensed shoulders relax and he sets down the baseball bat.

She curls into herself and cries into her bent knees – for her dreams and her fears and the knowledge that this might never end. It's a choking, clawing abyss in her chest that's been growing as the days and weeks and months slide by – that she will never see her family again. She'll never eat mom's cooking or hear her dad yell at the TV when his team loses or see Robb's infectious smile or argue with Arya or talk about philosophy with Bran or watch one of Rickon's basketball games. She'll never get to play with Lady again.

She has kept them locked away inside her, tried to forget about them because Alayne Stone doesn't have a family.

The bed dips and she lets out another gasping sob as she feels an arm settle around her shoulders. “Alayne,” he says, and then again. Again and again, until - “Sansa.”

“I'm not Sansa,” she whispers when she finally looks up.

“Sometimes you need to be,” he says, his voice is steady and he brings one hand up to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “It's hard, not everyone can just change who they are. Especially not like this.”

“You say that like you're some expert,” she sniffs, wiping at her cheeks now that her tears have slowed. She feels like a mess – her eyes feel hot and puffy, her nose feels raw, her throat is sore, but she also feels more human than she has in months.

He hesitates, seems to think hard about something before - “Aemon Stone isn't the first person I've had to become.” She jerks back a bit, but she doesn't pull away.

(He saved her life.)

“Who else?”

“Before this, I was Aegon Rivers.”

“I thought your name was Jon Snow? That's what they called you.”

“Jon Snow,” he says, voice low and soothing and she feels herself relax, settles into the warmth of his arms a bit more, “is a federal agent who went undercover with the Mockingbirds two years ago.”

She looks at him, then – really looks at him. At his grey eyes and his long face and his black hair wild from sleep, at the scar that runs through his eyebrow and the dark stubble that he meticulously shaves off every morning.

“Jon Snow fits you better,” she tells him.

“And Sansa Stark fits you.”

“I'm not Sansa Stark anymore,” she reminds him again, feeling her voice waver, though she thought she was past it. “This was just a bad dream, I promise I'll do better.”

“Like I said, sometimes it's hard,” he tells her. “And sometimes it's easy to forget who you are.”

“Is it for you?” she asks. He doesn't answer, but she thinks he doesn't need to, she can see it in him and she wonders how much of Jon Snow he remembers. Two years is a long time to be someone else. “I don't...” her voice breaks and she has to drop into a whisper. “I don't want to forget them. I know I have to-”

“What if,” he cuts in when her words fail her completely, “what if we're Jon Snow and Sansa Stark here?”

“They told us we-”

“No,” he shakes his head, “I don't mean... not in the house. Not during the day. But how about, once a week, at night, when it's just us, when the rest of the world is sleeping – I'll come in here and just for an hour, we can remember.”

The words make her ache and she nods and looks over at her clock. One hour – one hour to remember who she is and where she comes from. One hour to talk about anything and everything – about the past and the present and the future. It's not a lot and it's a risk and against the rules, but-

“Yes. Please.”

He nods and looks a bit grim and she wonders, once again – why? She doesn't think he wants to talk about Jon Snow. He's doing it for her – he's saving her life again and she still doesn't know why. Maybe she'll find out, some day.

“Ok,” he breathes, like he's jumping off the deep end, “Sansa Stark – what's your favorite color?”

[after-witch]

Title: Oh Honey Honey ('Oh Sugar Sugar' Part 2) (Yandere L Lawliet x Reader)

Title: Oh Honey Honey ('Oh Sugar Sugar' Part 2) (Yandere L Lawliet x Reader)

Synopsis: The newest regular to frequent your little pastry shop is a little unusual, but his appreciation of your craft is a welcome distraction from the terrifying suspicion that you may have a stalker.

notes: yandere, stalker behavior

You waved cheerfully at a little boy through the glass window of your store, as his grandfather gently urged him along the street; he was maybe 2 or 3, and had practically shrieked in joy when his grandfather bought him the biggest, cutest looking cupcake you'd had in the display that morning.

With the store empty for the moment, you turned back to your daily specialty case and decided to give it a quick cleaning. A regular, the older gentlemen who'd recently revealed that all the treats were actually for an associate, was due to arrive soon, and he typically bought up most of your special case. You leaned over the front counter, grabbed a rag and a bottle of cleaning solution, and gave the glass a quick spritz. You were humming to yourself when you heard the door bells jingling.

You turned, smile ready, expecting the older gentlemen--and almost flinched in surprise. It was not your regular, but someone new. He had lanky dark hair and wore an unassuming, casual outfit consisting of a white shirt and jeans. 

You swiftly stepped behind the register. “Can I help you today, sir?” 

"Yes, in fact," the man said. "I'm here to give my compliments in person." 

Confusion must have registered on your face, for he continued. "I normally have an associate buy my pastries for me. But I wanted to see your shop for myself, so..."

"Oh!" 

You hadn't meant to say it out loud, but you couldn't help it; nor could you help the more genuine smile that you gave the man who'd bought hundreds of dollars worth of pastries in such a short time period. Baking was your passion--but it was your business, too, and you couldn't help but truly appreciate people who supported that business. "I'm so glad to finally meet you! Thank you for all your business."

You held out your hand jovially, and the man came forward to accept it with a low, firm and slightly awkward handshake. When he pulled away, he glanced at his hand for a moment, before returning his gaze back to you. You couldn't help but hope he was getting enough sleep.

"I should be thanking you," he said. "For all the pastries, I mean."

At that, you beamed. "Well! Let me show you what's in our special case today..."

**

You had a stalker. Well, maybe you had a stalker. You weren't quite sure. All you knew for sure was that something was... off, lately. At first, you attributed it to getting less sleep than normal. With your bakery busier than ever, thanks to your new regular and even a nice business contract supply 2 dozen breakfast muffins every morning, you weren't getting as much sleep. 

So it would only be normal, you thought, to be a little on edge. A little testy. But less sleep didn't account for the odd, creeping feeling that you were being watched, especially at night. You could have swore you heard strange sounds, too... whirring or clicks. Cameras? You didn't know.

Nor did a lack of sleep account for some things that had gone missing from your apartment. A favorite nightgown you liked to sleep in; a favorite mug. the berry-red one you’d gotten two Christmases ago; even, as you discovered one morning, a lingerie set that you'd tried on once and then been too embarrassed to wear again. Still, it was expensive and the thought that someone had taken it--and why someone would take it--made you feel sick.

To say that you were not your usual chipper self for the rest of the morning was an understatement. You did your best to smile for the customers that came in, but even they must have sensed something was wrong; you even got extra tips from a regular, an elderly woman who tut-tutted you and told you that you should consider taking a weekend off.

The thought was tempting, but you knew that with running a small business came sacrifices--including the inability to just "take off." Still, you thought, you could take a little nap. A short one, 25 minutes, tops. You didn't often temporarily close up shop for breaks, but it was quiet and you weren't likely to get too many sales before the lunch rush, anyway.

As you were about to flip the sign, however, a figure suddenly walked up to the door. You jumped, then internally scolded yourself for being ridiculous--it was just your regular, or "Ahh, Mr. Regular?," as he'd awkwardly suggested you call him when you’d asked for his name. It was odd, but, the man was also downing an exceptional amount of sugar while buying up entire cases worth of your goods on the regular, so it wasn't your place to judge.

You bit your cheek to suppress a sigh of frustration and opened the door, stepping back so he could come in.

"Oh," he said, "are you closing?"

You smiled, or tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace than anything resembling your typical sweet countenance. "No, no, I was just going to close up for a nap... I mean a break." You shook your head. You shouldn't bother customers with talks about naps, it probably made you sound lazy.

He quirked his head slightly, staring at you almost intensely. "Yes..." he said softly, almost murmuring. "I see those circles under your eyes... you haven't been sleeping well."

The personal turn of the conversation made you feel awkward. You looked away, embarrassed. You hated the idea of customers seeing you as anything other than the cheery pastry shop lady, a source of sugar and sweetness and delicious goodies. "Um," you said, "I guess not, I've just been a little, you know--out of it. You know how things go."

You laughed, mirthless and empty, and gestured towards the case. "So, anyway. I actually don't have many special pastries today, I've been a little busy." You mentally slapped yourself for giving excuses, even bland ones, though it wasn't like you were lying. 

You'd woken up early so you could head into work and finish off some really nice specialty items you'd baked last night, but rummaging around your drawers for something to wear led you to realize the lingerie was missing, and you'd spent 2 hours drifting between panic and disgust.

But rather than walk towards the case and pick out today's purchases, your regular simply stood in front of you. Head slightly quirked still, eyes expressive--concerned, you thought, he looks concerned about me. 

You couldn't deny that a customer worrying about you brought up conflicting emotions; frustration, because you didn't want to mess with your public persona; and a warm mixture of comfort and flattery. Someone liked your pastries enough to care about you.

"Is everything all right?" He said, finally. "Are you feeling sick? Or is something else keeping you up?"

You stared, feeling lost for words. You didn't really know him, and you hadn’t even told your friends about your potential stalker. But the weight of the past few weeks, the build-up of fear and disgust and stress, seemed to push you down until you found yourself sliding into one of your cafe chairs. He followed suit, pulling his knees up until he practically crouched on the seat.

You hesitated. Should you really be telling him any of this? “I… don’t want to bother you with any of my personal problems.”

“It’s not bothering me. I’m curious,” he said, lightly.

You sighed. Here goes, you thought. “I… I have a stalker?” Your hesitancy quickly morphed into an awkward blurting. “I mean, I think I do. I’m not sure. It’s just the past few weeks. I keep hearing these weird noises. And I feel like I’m being watched.” You bit your lip. “And someone took my underpants?”

Actually vocalizing the thought made you realize that it could just all be in your head. I mean, whirring noises? Missing lingerie? Maybe there were ants in the walls and you’d donated the set and forgot about it.

You half expected him to look embarrassed and give an excuse to leave. But instead, he looked thoughtfully at you. “Hmm. Have you called the police?”

It was you who felt embarrassed now. “No…” You shrugged. “I mean, what can they do, anyway? I don’t have any proof.”

He regarded you with a grim nod. “That’s true. They won’t act without evidence.” He gave a little huffy sigh of his own. “Well… if it were up to me, I’d do a stake out. See if anyone comes into your place at night. I could get some equipment, if you want.”

You smiled--subtle and soft, but a genuine smile. At least he didn’t think you were crazy. At least he validated your feelings. And he’d offered to help, even if you would never feel comfortable taking him up on that offer.

“I appreciate it,” you said. “But maybe I’m just being paranoid. I don’t want to drag you into all this…” You sat up straighter and decided to change the subject--you’d had enough worrying about a stalker for one day. “Say, do you want to see the kitchen? I need to finish up a cake I started last night, for the special case. Maybe you can pick out the fruit toppings?”

For a moment, your regular looked shocked.  He nodded, slowly. His expression never quite fully recovered its normal neutrality, and he stood up almost cautiously before following your lead into the open kitchen door accessed from behind the counter.

“Sorry for the mess,” you say lightly. “I didn’t have time to start dishes yet.” You gestured towards a countertop where a small cake stuffed with mascarpone and nestled within a layer of marzipan sat. There were little dollops of cream forming a circle on the top of the cake. “I’m going to top it with some fruits, why don’t you pick out which ones you like?” You covered your mouth, suddenly. “I mean--if you want to buy it, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

He cleared his throat and a small smile flickered across his lips. “Of course I’ll buy it. Your cakes are delicious.”

You laughed a little, showing your teeth, and took out some little jars of fresh fruits from a small fridge underneath the counter. As he looked over them, you turned and began tossing a few empty pots, pans and stirrers into the sink so that they could soak. You couldn’t help but hum a little, used to singing while you clean.

“Yes, I’ve decided,” he said suddenly. You turned around and saw him staring right at you.

“Decided?” You asked. Something about the way he was looking at you felt familiar. You thought about whirring.

“On strawberries,” he replied. He slowly held up the bowl of freshly cut, ripe red berries. “For my cake.”

**

L sat, crouched on the couch, staring at the video he’d taken of today’s events. You confided in him, which was delightful. You’d smiled at him, which was even better. Watching you put the glorious finishing touches on a scrumptious pastry in the kitchen was just... well. Icing on the cake.

He pressed a button on the controller and rewound the video to the moment where you'd laughed, light and airy and perfectly melodious to his ears. Your smile was genuine, then--not the constrained smile you'd given when he'd interrupted your nap plans; nor was it the sometimes plastic smile you wore when you were clearly exhausted with giving endlessly bright customer service.

Your real smile was something to be treasured. Especially, he thought to himself, because it will be a long while before he sees it again. You won’t be smiling much after he kidnaps you--after he acquires you, he corrected himself. 

According to his calculations, you won't start feeling more accepting of your situation for at least a few months, but it may be sooner (or later) depending on certain variables. You will be scared first, he knew--scared and maybe angry with him for deceiving you and trapping you. And that wouldn’t be very conducive to the smile and laughter he’d quickly become addicted to taking in.

He lifted up your favorite mug and took a sip of the warm coffee inside, relishing the last bits of your lipstick left on the rim, before rewinding the video to watch you again. Time will heal your wounds--but in the mean time, he will be so very generous and patient with you.

[everlarkficexchange]

Not today

Written by: @emilia206

Prompt 4: Trope: Jealousy Katniss. Modern AU Katniss Everdeen sees his ex boyfriend as the date of one of her coworkers in the company party. She shouldn’t care, because she broke with him, one year ago and still…. when their song plays, against her better judgements, she finds herself dancing with him. [submitted by @alwayseverlark] 

Rating: Mature

Word count: 8062

British lingo you might be unaware of:

A-Level’s - Last form of examination before students go off to university. 

Ladbrokes - betting shop

Tesco - food store

(If I left anything out, let me know)

A/N: Thank you to my wonderful beta @melting-starlight, on ao3 she’s Starlight_Wren.

Forlorn, she stares down at her lager, it’s the first moment of quiet she’s had since she entered the pub. Plutarch had been the first to drag her away, talking about everything from what his lunch was like to how much the station was missing her shows. She had only been able to nod and smile, making agreeable noises at the appropriate times, but otherwise letting all of his words wash over her. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, Plutarch had bustled off through the crowd to go talk to another unsuspecting colleague. She had tried to crane her neck over the other patrons’ head, to see if she could spot either Johanna or Annie, the only reason she had relented and come to this thing. But before she could make any discernible recognition, Fulvia, Plutarch’s right hand woman, had sidled up behind her, saying that they simply must ‘catch up’. Ever straight to the point though, she had skipped pleasantries and gone right to the heart of the matter. What had she been doing this past year? 

The answer was a pretty simple one, but for some reason that escaped Katniss, it needed lots of explanation. She had spent close to forty-five minutes getting her brain picked apart. Trying, to no avail, to explain to the silly woman the exact reason she had uprooted her and left everything behind to travel all over the globe. Meeting new people, not many, but some. Enough people, Katniss thought. At first, there hadn’t really been a point in it, other than she had to get away from the shit show that was her life. Five years she’d worked at that stupid radio station, blathering on about meaningless things that made her mind fog up with the mundanity of it all. And all she had gotten out of it was a small damp flat in the north of London, with expensive bills and an insufferable landlord. Five years of only seeing her little sister once, twice if she was lucky, a year. Five years of shattered dreams and a dead end job. And still, this woman could not understand why she would want to leave. Of course Katniss never said any of this to Fulvia, but it had been swimming around her head throughout the entirety of the conversation. Instead, she had given watered down reasons and held her tongue as Fulvia had gone on to say, “But what about that boyfriend of yours? I remember him being so supportive…” 

She didn’t want to get into that, how she had left him behind. It had been a year and the wound that it had inflicted still ran too deep, was too painful to get into. Especially with nosy, judgy Fulvia. So, she had politely excused herself from the conversation, taking to the bar and ordering herself an overpriced pint. Fantastic. It wasn’t like she was strapped for cash or anything. 

Having given up on searching for Annie and Johanna at this nightmarish reunion, she had found herself a quiet corner in the buzzing room, sitting on a lumpy sofa and setting her drink down on an aged wooden table that had ring marks on the surface from drinks overspilling. It wasn’t often that she thought about Peeta, having long since trained her mind to immediately turn and run in the other direction if any thoughts began leading her down that painful path. But now, with Fulvia bringing him up, and being surrounded by people who had all been privy to their relationship, it was only inevitable that she should think of him. Specifically, the last time she had seen him.

 —————————–

His face had closed off, completely shuttering all emotions that would otherwise flick across his face. And still, as he stood, staring blankly at her, she continued talking. Trying to explain herself, explain why she just had to leave.

“Please Peeta, believe me when I say it isn’t you,” she whispered, “I just feel so trapped in my own life, and I feel as if I don’t leave now, I never will get anywhere.”

“What about us?” he replied, tone blank and neutral, but still betraying the underlying anger and confusion.

She shook her head sadly, tears falling unbidden from her eyes. Desperately wanting him to hold her and tell her it would be alright, but needing him to stay well away from her so that she could do this. Finish this, clean and precise as Johanna had told her to do it. 

“Right,” Peeta said, voice hollow.

They stood there, silence engulfing the little flat. It was never silent in there, the generators downstairs always humming, her boiler constantly gurgling away, but it seemed even these held their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“I think you should leave now,” Katniss said to her feet, not daring to look up at his face. 

She stood in her kitchen, stock still, as if any movement from her would cause her to break and shatter on the linoleum tiles of the floor. She listened as Peeta collected his toothbrush and spare clothes. Katniss flinched at the sense of finality she felt when the door banged shut.

 ————————-

Their break-up had been anything but clean and precise, and it wasn’t a wonder considering that Katniss had been at the helm of it. It was ironic, really, that for five years, her income had depended on her being able to talk for hours about nonsensical things, always upbeat and on the ball for the listeners chiming in, but when it came to her own boyfriend, she hadn’t been able to get the words out right. She had made him think that it was him that was suffocating her, when in actuality it was everything. She was pushing thirty and already she could feel herself stagnating. 

She wished that she could do it again, try not to make such a mess of it as she had done. How could she have known, though, the profound affect it seemed to have had on Peeta? He had always been so supportive of her decisions, only asking that she open up to him and be honest. Of course she hadn’t expected him to be completely OK with her decision, but she had been hoping that he would at least understand her reasoning. Instead, he had been angry and confused, perhaps even rightfully so, before he had completely shut down becoming cold and distant in the moments prior to him slamming out of her little home.

“Penny for your thoughts?” a perky voice said next to her, pulling Katniss out of her reverie. 

Looking up, Katniss couldn’t help but smile at the big brown eyes that were peering down at her. Rue. Her intern from a year ago. She didn’t look much different,  just a little older and worse for wear. But that’s what this job did to you, lured you in with promises of bigger and better ahead, before getting you trapped and very much stuck. 

“You don’t want to know,” Katniss replied, shuffling over and making space for the young woman.

“Oh, and why’s that?” Rue asked, her lips quirked upwards in a smile.

“Neither thinking, nor talking about it will solve a thing,” she mumbled down at her glass before taking a prolonged drink from it. She reveled in the fizz and slightly bitter taste as it washed down her throat. 

“Well, if you’re gonna be all closed off to me, your favourite intern, I’ll let you in on all of my issues to date,” Rue said, taking a sip from her own glass.

Katniss smirked. It was true that Rue was her favourite intern, but that wasn’t exactly a feat. Most interns that Katniss had been given the responsibility of taking care of had been so awful that they were fired within their first two weeks of working at the station. 

“So, remember how you warned me before you left, that this job ‘will suck me dry of all inspiration and motivation’ whilst also ‘dashing my dreams and love for the craft’ but not before ‘restricting what me on what I can talk about, and instead giving me stupid shows that will make me want to die’?” Rue paused, taking a drink from her pint.

“Yes, I do recall telling you all of those things, I assume you’ve come to the conclusion that I was correct and that you should have saved yourself while you could,” Katniss said, trying not to gloat at the fact that she was at least right about something, and it wasn’t just her overreacting and being dramatic.

 Rue nodded her head vigorously, her corkscrew curls bouncing, “Well, I’ll be honest. At the time, I thought you were just being dramatic, or maybe you were bitter about something, but you really were so right. I can’t get anyone to take me seriously or invest in any bigger show ideas, or get them to take on or promote more obscure artists. The sponsors continuously overlook me so that they can pour more money into presenters who have a body to boot. Even though that shouldn’t matter, ‘cause we’re on a fucking radio, nobody is looking at the face or body behind the voice anyway!”

 “And as soon as I try to get Plutarch or Fulvia to give me a recommendation so that I can move to something a little more low key and less industrious, they tell me that I shouldn’t leave, that I have so much potential, and that it would be such a waste for me to go do something less mainstream, because how will I ever be recognised then?” Rue finished with a defeated groan, flopping back against the leather cushions. 

Looking up at the ceiling, Rue asked, “How’d you get out? I mean for me, it’s just an endless cycle of early mornings, playing music that makes my ears bleed, and frustration that after all my hard work, I’ve just become another peppy girl on the radio.”

Katniss snorted at this, “Depressing, isn’t it? After all the analysing of different styles of music and poetry, it amounted to this.”

“Fuucckk,” Rue groaned at the ceiling fans, “It’s depressing because it’s so painfully true. Do you know how many hours I spent holed up in my room studying for my Music and English A-Levels just so I could at least get a seven, and now I’m stuck here.”

Katniss nodded her head, “Only ‘cause I did the same thing though. What were we thinking?”

“Ugh, I know! My mum told me that this was an ‘unsustainable career path’. I hate to say it, but I think she may have had a point.”

A crash came from the other side of the room, effectively interrupting their mutual venting session, a clattering of glasses fell to the floor and shattered, causing both Katniss and Rue to jump before turning around to see what happened. A flustered waiter apologised profusely to a skimpy blonde who looked upon him with narrowed green eyes, and a stain that looked an awful lot like red wine spilled on her yellow dress. The few people who had been applauding the waiters slip up began to slow their claps when they realised that the unfortunate woman who now had a stain across the front of her dress, was not taking it on the chin as it were. In fact, she looked like she was a few seconds from throwing a fit.

“Oof, would not want to be that guy,” Rue remarked, “Glimmer looks about ready to go get his ass fired.”

Katniss turned to look at Rue, who was leaning her chin on the back of the sofa, “How’d you know her name?”

Rue made a face, “She’s a presenter at the radio station, she does the show that Annie used to do.” 

“Shit, really,” Katniss said, blowing air through her teeth to make a low whistling sound. “That show was one of the more popular ones.”

“Still is. Rumour has it that the company hired her to replace Annie, who was making noises to leave, so they sent her Glimmer as an intern. Annie left a week later, claiming that the work environment had become insufferable.”

Katniss had turned back to watch as the waiter bent to pick up the broken glass, whilst so-called Glimmer rolled her eyes impatiently at another waiter who was handing her paper towels to try wipe up the mess on her dress. While watching, Katniss listened intently to what Rue was saying, “People weren’t surprised when she quit. Glimmer is quite literally the epitome of a toxic work environment.”

“Oh well, this just makes me all the more glad that I left,” Katniss said. Annie had emailed her when she’d quit, but hadn’t given a reason why. At the time, Katniss had just assumed it was because both Johanna and herself had already left, but this must have been the breaking point for her. 

“Oh, she’s not even the worst of it,” Rue said, a cynical smile touching her lips as they watched another woman with jet black hair and pinched features walk up to Glimmer, she took the paper towels from the waitress and threw them down to the floor, yelling something unintelligible, “That’s Clove. As you can see, she’s got quite a temper on her. She’s the one who replaced Johanna as DJ. The two of them together are quite… formidable.”

Katniss turned in her seat to grab her drink from the table so she could drink and watch this scene unfold in front of her. She would be lying if she said that it wasn’t just a teeny bit entertaining. Taking a sip from her mellowing beer, she almost choked when she saw who was joining the show. Blond ashen curls, broad shoulders, and a slight limp from a rugby injury that had never quite healed. It was Peeta. Her Peeta, consoling this shallow, pitiful, blonde bimbo. 

She could feel Rue’s eyes on her, watching for a reaction. Katniss swallowed painfully, oblivious to the taste, eyes glued to what was happening in front of her very eyes. Maybe it wasn’t him. It couldn’t possibly be him. There was no way, absolutely no fucking way, that the Peeta Mellark that she had known all throughout secondary school, was even remotely affiliated with such a cow. Deep down, Katniss knew that she was possibly being a little harsh, but jealousy, lots of it, was rearing its ugly green head, skewing her opinions.

“Yeah, and then there’s that,” Rue uttered, “reason number fuck knows what as to why I ‘strongly dislike’ Glimmer.”

Katniss breathed deeply, shoving down the irrational, possessive anger that was overcoming her. She cleared her throat, which had become exceptionally tight in the last two minutes, “Are they… an item?”

“I wouldn’t say so,” Rue said, turning around to face the other way again, “as far as I know, they’re just fuck buddies. Who knows, though, maybe he does the wine and dining as well.”

Katniss, following suit, also turned around, sitting stoically, and taking slow sips from her sweating drink. “So he’s fucking her.”

Rue nodded, sighing a little as she did so, “I know it might not be my place to comment-”

“It probably isn’t then,” Katniss interrupted, wanting very much to go back to her hotel room now.

  “But,” Rue continued, “you were really fucking dense to let that man walk away from you. I have no idea what happened between the two of you, but even I can appreciate that ass, and oh my god those shoulders,” she pretended to fan herself, before turning incredulous, “and he’s not even my type.”

Katniss snorted at this, turning around for a quick second, to survey the specimen that was now patting down an incensed Glimmer. She couldn’t deny that he still looked sexy as fuck. He definitely seemed to have fared this year a little better than her. Turning back around, she looked down at what she was wearing. A simple dress that she’d bought from a charity shop when she was sixteen, it was light blue and the material was soft and light, perfect for the humid weather that London summers were, but it did look as if it might be on its last legs. Her hair was loose for once, and hung in ebony waves down her back, but otherwise she hadn’t made much of an effort, as could be seen by her scruffy trainers and mismatched socks. She didn’t need to impress these people anyway. 

“Yeah, stupid indeed,” Katniss muttered. 

They sat there then, silence washing over them, until the unmistakable sound of a speaker system being plugged in echoed throughout the crowded room. Katniss looked up to see her friend climbing up onto the bar, a little wobbly on her feet, but her voice was commanding no less.

“Alrighty, I’ve been asked to do a little set tonight, but because I forgot to set up a good playlist that will please all of you old folk, I’ll be taking requests,” she made to get off the bar, but paused mid-step hollering across the room, “And if I think your song request is shit I won’t play it, feel free to take it personally.”

Katniss didn’t really care much for the offer to request music, she was just relieved to know that Johanna had, in fact, shown up. She had been wondering whether either of her ex-work-colleagues had actually bothered. Knowing that Johanna was here, though where she’d been all night was something Katniss would like to know, meant that Annie was probably here as well. 

Rue, on the other hand, immediately got up. Kissing Katniss on the cheek, she proclaimed, “Oh, I have a song that Jo simply must play.” 

She walked off into the crowd, but abruptly turned back, looking down at Katniss, who was still cocooned in the soft leather of the sofa, “Also, if you get any interesting job offers don’t be scared to recommend me,” with a wink, she waltzed off again.

Alone once again, and trying desperately to distract herself from the ‘pat down’ Peeta was assuredly still giving Glimmer, Katniss gulped down the rest of her pint, before standing to go get another. 

Waiting at the bar for the barmaid to get to her drink, she tapped out a rhythm on the polished wood. Distracted, she almost didn’t notice the familiar opening chords to a song she hadn’t let herself listen to in a year. 

Johanna’s voice sounded over the speaker system, “For all you lovesick idiots here tonight, Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey.”

Katniss’ breath stilled in her chest, this must have been some sick joke the universe was playing on her. Despite herself, Katniss searched the room for the familiar face that she had once danced to this with at prom. Scanning the crowd, her eyes finally landed on a seemingly just as stunned Peeta Mellark, his face so pale and pinched he looked like he was about to throw up. He, too, looked to be scanning the crowd. He couldn’t know that she was here, could he? She knew  that she should probably shrink back into the shadows, or, better yet, vacate the premises and head back to her hotel room, to avoid any unnecessary drama that she most certainly did not need. Yet, against her better judgement, she stood her ground, not actively looking to be seen, but not hiding from sight either. 

Her eyes stayed on him, noticing with a missed beat of her heart that Glimmer and Clove were both conspicuously absent. The song had already passed the first verse when Peeta’s eyes finally locked on hers. His eyes widened in surprise, but beneath it was still the same warmth and affection that had always been. Her sharp intake of breath told her all she needed to know, those baby blues could still make her knees weak, could still make her feel like she was adrift and untethered in a desolate ocean, with him being the only tether to reality. Their gazes locked on one another as the second verse began;

A singer in a smoky room

The smell of wine and cheap perfume

Peeta’s eyes stared holes into her, and for a moment it was as if no time had passed, as if he was standing on the other side of the school’s assembly hall as an entire year group of nervous sweaty eighteen year olds danced the evening away to overplayed 80’s tracks. Katniss was even greeted with the familiar erratic beating of her heart, wishing and hoping that he’d just bottle up the nerve and ask her already!

That night, she had been the one to walk across the dance floor to ask him to dance, but tonight, it seemed it would be Peeta who would take the first tentative steps towards her.

For a smile they can share the night

It goes on and on, and on, and on

 Drink forgotten, Katniss stepped away from the bar, walking towards the people already congregating to dance on a small open space on the floor. The first chorus sounded through the room;

Strangers, waitin’

Up and down the boulevard

Their shadows

Searchin’ in the night

Streetlights, people

Livin’ just to find emotion

Hidin’ somewhere in the night

They met in the middle, and Katniss looked up at him through her lashes. 

“For old times sake,” Peeta murmured down to her, offering his hand.

She tried not to let his remark sting, that their relationship is in fact in the past. That he had moved on from her, that she should too. But falling into his arms, head resting over his breast bone listening to his heart thumping away, letting him sway them to the music, felt so natural and familiar. The tears stung behind her eyes, and she bit her lip to stop herself from sobbing out loud. She didn’t want to be sad, to mar this song with her regrets, when it was accompanied by so many good and happy memories. Of the two of them messing around in his kitchen, or her bedroom. 

So, she swallowed down her tears, and let herself fall back in time to when things were simpler. Letting the music and words wash over her, rejuvenating her weary soul.

Workin’ hard to get my fill

Everybody wants a thrill

Payin’ anything to roll the dice

Just one more time

Some will win

Some will lose

Some were born to sing the blues

Oh, the movie never ends

It goes on and on, and on, and on

She laughed when he spun her, then recaptured her in his arms. He swooped low, before lifting them back up and spinning them in slow circles. 

Strangers waitin’

Up and down the boulevard

Their shadows

Searchin’ in the night

Streetlights, people

Livin’ just to find emotion

Hidin’ somewhere in the night

She took the lead, moving them faster, along to the tune of the song. Pulling away from his embrace, but holding on to his hands, as she spun herself to lean her back against his chest with his arms crossed protectively over her.

Don’t stop believin’

Hold on to that feelin’

Streetlight, people

Don’t stop, believin’

Hold on

Streetlights, people

As the song began to slow again, and Steve Perry ad-libbed his way through the end of the song, Peeta turned her again so that they were pressed chest to chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and their steps became so minuscule they could do it on a pie plate if they wished to do so. She stared up into his bottomless blue eyes, a genuine smile lighting up her face for the first time this evening. 

“I missed you,” he whispered.

Her smile faltered slightly, and she looked down, ashamed at how easily she had let herself fall back into his arms. The moment of magic had ended, and she was thrown back into the icy cold reality of her life. For christ’s sake they hadn’t spoken in a year, and now suddenly they were dancing and laughing on the dance floor!

Don’t stop believin’

Hold on to that feelin’

Streetlight, people 

He turned them one last time. He leant his cheek on the top of her head, sighing quietly as if knowing about the beratement Katniss was giving herself in her head. He swayed them as the song faded out. She pulled away, chancing a glance up at his face. The pain she had inflicted onto him shone through his eyes, and though it killed her to do it, she could only pull further out of his arms, backing away. He watched after her, arms limp at his sides, and she turned, pushing through the crowd.

“Oi, watch it!” Someone called after her as she shoved past people. 

Finally, after stepping on numerous toes and elbowing a few people in the sides, she made it over to the makeshift DJ table. Johanna was leaning against it, chewing on a toothpick as she announced in a lazy drawl the next song. Behind her shoulder she could see Annie leaning heavily into some guy with bronzed curls and tanned skin, Katniss thought that she had seen him before in a couple of Annie’s instagram posts. 

“Ahhh, Brainless,” Johanna called out when she spotted a breathless Katniss standing before the table, “here to make a song request? Maybe another one that you can dance to with lover boy.”

“What the fuck, Jo?” Katniss cried out, “Did you put that song on just to mess with my head? ‘Cause it sure as hell worked.” Katniss ran her shaking hands through her hair, not caring if she messed it up, or if it got tangled. 

Johanna raised her eyebrows in surprise, “Wait, you don’t actually believe I put that song on, do you?”

“Well, who else, Johanna?!” 

“I didn’t even know you were here up until five minutes ago, let alone him!” Johanna spat out, incredulity lacing her voice, “And besides, I’m only taking requests this evening. I did let everyone know,” she sniffed, rolling her eyes.

“Ok fine, if it wasn’t you, then who?” Katniss hissed, “Because I will start throwing arms if I have to, Jo.”

“Jeez, don’t get your knickers all in a twist, it was only a little dancey,” Johanna teased. Looking at Katniss’ bemused face, she relented, “If you promise to not beat the living lights out of her, I’ll tell.”

“‘Kay fine, I promise,” Katniss said, her anger subsiding a little. Whoever it was, it wasn’t their fault that she couldn’t just leave when she definitely should have, “Just tell me who.”

Johanna nodded her head in the direction of the bar, Katniss followed her gaze, eyes greeted with an apologetic looking Rue. Rue grimaced a little, apparently having watched Katniss’ outburst. At least she looked sorry, Katniss thought. 

Her anger having dissipated, the feeling of regret and sadness settled cold and heavy in her stomach. She deflated against the table, feeling very tired all of a sudden, “I need a smoke,” she muttered, “Lighter,” she held out her hand.

Johanna grumbled under her breath, fishing through her pockets for a lighter. “Give it back after,” she warned, slapping it into Katniss’ outstretched palm.

Katniss weaved her way through the crowds once more, being a little more careful to not piss off so many people this time, until she got to the coat rack next to the door. The coat rack itself was leaning over under the weight of all the coats draped over the top of it. After some digging around, Katniss found her light jean jacket and pulled it out from underneath the mountain of others piled up on top of it. Pulling it on, she pushed open the door to the pub and stepped out into the night. 

It looked like the sun had just gone down, streaks of orange fading into the sky as dusk settled over the stinking, sweltering city. It had cooled off quite a bit from earlier, and Katniss huddled herself further into her jacket, trying to leech off any residual warmth from it. She walked down the shallow stone steps,  found herself a place to light her cigarette. Leaning against the cold brick wall behind her, not caring if she got her coat or dress dirty. She fished a loose cigarette out of her coat pocket, and lit the fag, taking a long drag from it, breathing it back out into the cooling air.

“Those things kill, you know,” A voice sounded from behind her. She scowled at how it made her heart leap hopefully in her chest. 

“I know,” she almost growled, wanting him to fuck off back to Glimmer already. She couldn’t deal with having him thrust back into her life, pretending like nothing happened between them. Like she hadn’t irreparably fucked up their entire relationship, just because she felt ‘claustrophobic’.

“I thought you were quitting?” Peeta asked, walking to stand next to her and pulling out his own cigarette. 

She passed him Johanna’s lighter, “You can’t talk,” she snorted as she watched him light his, “And anyway, I am. I just keep emergency ones in all of my coats, and in a few of my trousers.”

Peeta laughed at this, “Yeah, sure does sound like you’re quitting.”

“Hey,” she protested, “I never keep a lighter on me, that way I have to ask someone, and then they’re also accountable for my inevitable lung cancer.”

Peeta’s eyebrows rose at this, and he took a puff from his own cancer stick, “Oh yeah, and how long did it take you do that mental gymnastics.”

Katniss only rolled her eyes, and they both stood next to each other staring out at the street. They watched as a bus pulled up at the stop, and an old man stumbled out, hobbling into the Ladbrokes opposite. A siren blared somewhere in the distance. Two extremely drunk men sat on the steps a good ten metres away from them, but were loud enough for their slurred words to reach the two.

“Listen Katniss, about before,” Peeta started, breaking their comfortable silence, “I didn’t mean to make you feel crowded or guilty, or anything like that.” He looked to her, but she stared resolutely ahead, taking slow small puffs from her cigarette.

“It’s fine,” she finally said, “forget about it. I probably shouldn’t have even danced with you in the first place, what with you being with Glimmer and all.”

“Ah, shit,” Peeta breathed out, “I didn’t think you knew about that.”

“Yeah well, I do,” Katniss snapped. 

Peeta looked as if he wanted to say something, but Katniss cut him off before he could, “I really don’t want to know.”

Peeta nodded his head. They were quiet for a moment.

“I mean, it’s not like you’re not allowed anyway,” Katniss said, scuffing the toe of her already scruffy trainer against the cracked pavement.

Peeta huffed out a bemused, short-lived laugh, “Care to explain that, whilst we’re out here talking civilly?”

“What?” Katniss asked, “Are you asking why I broke up with you?”

Peeta nodded his head once more.

Katniss sighed, “I feel like I’ve told myself and everyone around me the same explanation about a million times, but standing here it doesn’t feel like enough.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” Peeta whispered.

Katniss sighed, trying not to sound too exasperated. What’s it to him anyway, she thought. “Look Peeta, I told you before, and I’ll say it again. It wasn’t you.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop asking myself if I did something,” Peeta said.

Katniss finally turned to look up at him, as he stared up at the darkening sky, searching it for the few visible stars, “We’re not even thirty yet, Peeta, I’m not ready to settle. I wasn’t last year, and I definitely am not this year. And I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you told me you weren’t ready yet either, and you’re allowed to be with whoever you want, even if it is someone as silly and shallow as Glimmer. I guess it’s better to get your mid-life crisis out the way now,” she said with a smirk, before sobering and adding quietly, “I’m not completely oblivious Peeta, it’s not like I don’t see her appeal.”

Peeta looked down at her, opening his mouth, she was sure, to deny that Glimmer’s big boobs were the reason. She held up her hand to stop him, “Who knows though, maybe someone’ll convince me to come to this thing again next year, and I’ll see you again. Hopefully with someone other than Glimmer. And just like this year, I’ll steal you for a dance, and then lure you outside for a smoke, and we’ll catch up,” she paused for dramatic affect, stealing herself for what she was going to say next, “After that, you’ll kiss me, right up against the cold brick wall,” she watched as Peeta’s eyes widened at her bold statement.

  Maybe it was her pint of beer that had made her so free and uncaring with her sentiments. Though Katniss would never describe herself as a lightweight, she admitted to herself that it had been a good six weeks since she’d had a proper drink. On second thought, she remembered the last time she drank before tonight being a little over a week ago, and it had been a cider. She grimaced at the thought. Fuck, she mused, when did I become a lightweight? Peeta cleared his throat uncomfortably, prompting her to continue, but unsure of whether she was finished or not. Katniss mentally shook herself before finishing in a low, sultry voice, “Just like you’re going to do this year.”

 “Fuck,” Peeta breathed out, and Katniss watched him visibly struggle to swallow. She tried, and failed, to suppress her smug little smirk, that she could still affect him like this. It eased the green beast within her, the one that had wanted to stamp her foot and cry out earlier when she had witnessed Peeta wiping down the front of Glimmer’s dress. She shook her head. She didn’t want to think of Glimmer, Peeta was out here with her now, that must count for something, right?

“Are you, umm - being serious?” Peeta stuttered, and despite herself Katniss grinned at how flustered he was getting, the pink staining his cheeks betraying how agitated he really was, “Or are you just pulling my leg?”

Katniss took a long drag from her fag, sucking on it until it was down to the stub, “Do I look like I’m joking, Mellark?” 

She watched as his pupils dilated even more in the darkening night, until the blue of his irises were only thin rings around the black pits of his desire. She reveled in being able to do this to him still, after all this time. It comforted her, in a weird, possessive, unhealthy sort of way.

 “No,” he whispered, voice hoarse and barely audible. He dropped his cigarette on the floor, not even bothering to stamp it out before stepping forwards. Large hands came to a rest on her waist, pushing her further back against the wall. She bit back a slight moan at the way he seemed to shelter her, the stark contrast of the cold wall behind her, nipping at the backs of her legs, and the heat that enmantend from his body and radiated onto her. She took a deep shuddering breath, pushing her chest upwards against his. Her hand shook slightly as she stubbed out the remnants of her cigarette against the wall next to her, before letting it fall to the ground as well. 

Their faces were so close now, their mouths only a hair’s breadth apart, all it would take is for one of them to lean in, to close the tantalisingly small space between them. “Tell me you want me to,” Peeta uttered, breath fanning her face. She bit her lip, a sly grin gracing her features.

She leant up on her tiptoes, tracing a path to his ear lobe with her breath, “Peeta Mellark, I want you to kiss me up against this brick wall, until I’m breathless and my knees are weak.” 

 He groaned loudly, and she was about to tell him to be quiet when his lips descended greedily on hers. Knocking the breath right out of her, as he sucked and bit tenderly against first her top and then her bottom lip. She whimpered, admitting to herself that she had missed the way it felt to be kissed by someone who cared. Who didn’t just do it as a way to get into her underwear. 

It was his turn to smile smugly, he pulled away from her, and she chased his lips with her own. Wanting them back, wanting him to plunge and plunder. She huffed out a frustrated growl when he moved even further away. She opened her eyes, taking in his face that grinned with feigned innocence down at her, “What’s the matter Everdeen?” He asked teasingly, “Knees not weak enough yet?”

She glared at him, he knew exactly what he was doing, and she wasn’t having any of it, not tonight. Lifting her hands to his hair, she played with the blond locks, smiling up at him demurely. She would tell him what she wanted step by step if necessary, but she didn’t think it would be. Cocking her head to the side, she mirrored his look of feigned innocence, before tangling her fingers into the shorter hairs at the back of his head, and pulling his lips back down to hers. He grunted against her, and she opened her mouth ever so slightly in invitation. 

It took her all of two seconds to lose all inhibitions, Peeta’s hands moved up from their resting spot on her waist, one cradling the back of her neck and one stroking up and down her back in a motion that made Katniss giddy with desire. Their tongues met in a dance, reacquainting themselves. Peeta’s dove into her mouth, rediscovering everything he already knew about her. 

Peeta placed his leg in between her own, which had opened a little of their own accord, bringing it upwards slightly, daring her to grind up against it. Stubborn as ever, though, Katniss refused to take the bait. Knowing him, he would probably tease her, pull away before she could really get going. But when he tugged on her bottom lip with his teeth, she relented. She could feel her knees turning into jelly, forcing her to slump down onto his leg. She ground down on it experimentally, the rough material of his jeans rubbing up against her boy shorts. Katniss swore into his mouth, and did it again, letting the motion stimulate her throbbing center. She was almost glad that he couldn’t feel the intensity of the heat that seemed to be pouring from her core, but another part of her needed him to know that he could still do this to her. Could still drive her to do halfway insane things, like letting him ravage her up against a wall with all of her ex colleagues a mere few metres away. Pulling his head down further, she held him there, desperate to drink more of him in. 

“Katniss,” he whispered against her mouth, before diving right back in. 

It was her turn to grunt at the power in which he started almost devouring her mouth, she could only cling to the locks of hair wrapped around her fingers, in hopes that she wouldn’t just crumple to the floor. She was rocking against his leg in a steady rhythm, each stroke of his rough denim trousers against her center making her more frantic, desperate for more. Her nerve endings felt frayed, threatening to short circuit and send her spiralling through the abyss. Peeta continued to busy himself with her mouth, pulling away before delving back in, more thorough and rough each time, so that she could only whimper helplessly into his mouth.

It was when the hand that had been stroking leisurely circles into her spine crept towards her front before meandering downwards, that Katniss came somewhat to her senses. She stopped his hand with one of her own, before it could get to the hemline of the skirt to her dress. She pulled away from his lips that had been stroking soft sublime on hers, and looked at him. Eyes blown wide, lips swollen and red from kissing, blond hair tousled and mussed from all her incessant tugging. She was sure she was mirroring this disheveled appearance back at him. He lowered his leg from where it had stayed resting against her, but his hand stayed trapped between their two bodies. If it weren’t so painfully obvious how much they had missed each other, it would be comical how fast and hard they’d fallen back into heated touches and frantic kisses. 

She took a deep breath, wondering if she should apologise, or at least explain, but her brain was still fogged with arousal, and she was finding it very hard to look him in the eye. Instead, she got back on to her tip toes and brought her arms up around his neck, pulling him close to her for a hug. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he slowly brought his arms around her waist, holding her to him as well.

“One day, Peeta,” she began, talking into his neck, “one day…”

“But not today,” he finished for her.

She nodded and squeezed him tighter, a hundred memories of them together flooding her mind, and for the second time this evening she had to fight back the urge to sob. She could only be relieved that he had understood, understood why she couldn’t let him do that, not now, and certainly not here. 

He squeezed her back, and she swore she felt him inhaling her smell, at any other time this would have turned her on beyond reason, but now it only saddened her. How had she managed to fuck it up again? He pressed a quick kiss into the juncture of where her neck met her shoulder, before releasing her from his grasp. 

She wobbled, still a little unsteady on her feet, but managed to start walking in the direction of her bus stop. As she walked past the two drunk men that were still sitting on the stone steps to the pub, she heard one of them call out to her.

“Is the show over, sweetheart?” he asked, sarcasm along with whatever he’d had to drink lacing his voice, “That’s a shame, me an’ Chaff here were really startin’ to ge’ into it.” 

Katniss turned to look at the man who had said it, scathing reply waiting at the tip of her tongue, but before she could say anything, the other man, Chaff she assumed, slurred out;

“Won’t you give an ol’ man a kiss before you go?” The two men guffawed as he made kissy faces at her.

“Arseholes,” Katniss muttered under her breath.

The man with salt and pepper hair down to his shoulders called after her again, though all traces of amusement were gone from his voice. He sounded surprisingly sober when he told her, “I see the way you have him wrapped around your finger, sweetheart, you could live a hundred lifetimes and still not deserve what he gave you tonight,” he burped loudly and continued, “One day he’ll realise that, he’ll realise that he’s better than tha’, be’er than you.” 

 Katniss tried to ignore his words as she waited at the traffic light for the little green man to pop up so she could cross the road, but they still made her blood run cold, because maybe he was right. She turned her head to the side, waiting impatiently for the cars to come to a slow at the T-junction, when the old man, who had since left the betting shop, added his own snarky comment to the fray. If she had known how many people were watching them, she wouldn’t have let it get that far, or go on for so long.

“When do you think he’ll notice the exact degree of your indifference?” He asked in a voice that was weathered and old, but still demanded her attention. He had posed his comment as a question, but he said it as if he already knew the answer. She wasn’t indifferent, she thought, but doubt coursed through her. Hadn’t she just used him to prove a point? A stupid petty point, that she was better than Glimmer. She shook her head at the notion, it had just been a drunken mistake, nothing more.

She turned her head to face the decrepit old man, biting out a response, “Those are some awfully big words for a filthy old beggar, let’s hope you don’t choke on ‘em.” 

The old man threw his head back and laughed, his cracked voice making it sound more like a cackle than anything. To her surprise the man actually did start choking, on his own blood. He bent forwards, crouching low as he spat blood to the floor. 

“Gross,” Katniss muttered, before hurrying across the road. To hell with the traffic, she thought, she just needed to get the fuck out of here.

 The shame and regret were already starting to curl themselves around her, and she felt almost sick with it. She was once again being reminded of how easily being around Peeta could fuck with her head, how it could make her do things that she otherwise wouldn’t do. That she’d sworn to herself wouldn’t happen again. Because, yes, her drink might have had something to do with it, but it was also him, he was intoxicating. The moment she had noticed he was in the room, she had wanted him, needed him. And it might be true that she could make him feel the same way, but people never seemed to see that he was just as good at it as she was. He was always the sweet golden boy, who had had the misfortune of falling in love with the likes of her.

She looked across the street when she arrived at the bus stop. The pub was pouring light from it’s windows and she heard the music playing. Peeta had already disappeared, and Katniss wondered how much he had heard. She hoped none of it. The old man was shuffling into the Tesco next door to the Ladbrokes, and the two men were still sat outside the pub, drinking from flasks. She looked up at the timetable that the bus stop provided, and cursed under her breath when she saw that her bus wouldn’t be arriving for another seven minutes. 

She was about to start walking down the highstreet, so that she wouldn’t have to stand, waiting like a sitting duck, when her phone vibrated in her coat pocket with an incoming message. 

Pulling it out of the pocket, she read what it said.

Johanna Mason [Sent 10:21pm]: Where are you? I’m hungry and bored, wanna get smth to eat?

Katniss considered ignoring the message, but her stomach rumbled in response to the thought of food.

Katniss Everdeen [Sent 10:22pm]: At the bus stop across the road. Don’t you have a set? 

Johanna Mason [Sent 10:22pm]: Ofc you are. Yh I do, but any moron can do this. These song requests are driving me insane tho, so… food?

Katniss Everdeen [Sent 10:23pm]: Yh alright, what tho?

Johanna Mason [Sent 10:24pm]: I could really go for a kebab… and a smoke. We’re leaving now.

Katniss looked up from her phone. Shit. Johanna’s lighter. Peeta still had it. She watched as Johanna banged open the doors to the pub. Trailing after her was a wobbly Annie and the man from earlier. Katniss looked around her, hoping one of the many corner shops littering the street were still open, but they were all depressingly closed. Katniss glared at the closed signs on all the shop doors as if their existence offended her eyes, because in that moment, they really did.

She’d get that lighter back - she turned and saw the group crossing the road - though, maybe not today.

[astringofmadhousefloozies]

Hobbies and Holidays, Or The Halloween Fic

Yes, I know it’s June. I just like Halloween, man. Yuu’s quiet dedication to the finest of holidays sours when confronted with assholes who fuck around for clout.

Contains coarse language, attempted violence, sexuality and nerds being nerds. As always, if you enjoyed it or have any questions, let me know! I like talking with people.

~*~*~*~

"What's cooking?" Ace, cheery as could be, walked his way up towards your set up on the Ramshackle front lawn. "Is it curry? I hope it's curry."

"You might not want to stand downwind." You poked at the bubbling mess on the propane stove, sweat rolling down your back. A beautiful August day, perfect for your project. This sure as hell wasn't something you wanted to do indoors.

"Whaddya mean by that?" The breeze shifted towards him, and he turned an impressive shade of green, stumbling back with his nose covered. "What's in there?"

"Mice. I told you to keep upwind." You went in with a hand strainer, and scooped a pile of tiny bones onto a ratty towel.

"Why are you boiling mice?" 

You mirrored his are-you-goddamned-stupid-or-something face back at him. "I wanted the bones. I went to Sam, but he said he's not allowed to order in dermestid beetles after last time, so I gotta do it the old-fashioned way."

"That's absolutely disgusting,” her said, the disgust and disbelief plain on his face.

"Don't we all know. Grimm fucked right off when the ghosts showed me the mouse graveyard."

"And your first thought at a pile of rotten mice was 'ooo, free bones' like some kinda crazy necromancer?"

"Yup." You scooped out another pile of bones. If you left them in there too long, they'd simply dissolve like in a cooked fish. As it was, you'd have to find a way to strengthen them. Maybe dip them in resin?

"Why am I your friend, again?"

"Because you feel responsible for me."

"Yeah. And you're fun when you aren't being weird and doing shit like taking cemetery pictures."

"I'll stop taking the pictures when I stop finding good grave iconography."

"Yeah, weird. I'm going to leave you to be a gross little maggot by yourself today."

"I'm not eating them."

"They're stewing in a pot."

"To get the meat off!"

"Yeah, whatever. See you at supper. I hope you don't stink."

"We'll find out, won't we?" you muttered, sotto voce, but he was already gone.

~*~*~*~

It was a beautiful day in September, and you heard him far before he knew you had. When you turned to look at Idia, floss wound around your fingers, he started. "Is my stealth that bad?"

You gave him the ghost of a smile. "You're not as quiet as you think you are." He hasn't cottoned on that you can hear what's in his headphones, if they aren't set just right on his head, and you aren't about to tell him. The face he makes when you pick him out so easily was too good to lose.

He nodded, fidgeted, looked at the spread on the table. "What are you doing?"

"Well, she's got to dry. So I'm working on this pattern until the top coat goes on."

'She' was a currently eyeless, disembodied head, that you'd picked up along with her body in a second hand store for a pittance. You'd unstrung her, scrubbed her clean, and now were putting on a face to match her sweet if imperious expression, a bratty princess of a girl in miniature. You hadn't realized you'd liked dolls until you'd seen her. But, when you had, your breath fled your throat in the same way it had only once since coming here.

He looked, but knew better than to touch. He did a little bit of craft work himself, mostly model painting, and wasn't about to muss your hard work. "She's... nice?" He didn't quite get the appeal, despite having two vinyl dolls you knew of stowed carefully in their packages under his bed. When you'd asked, he just muttered that they were anime characters and didn't come out except for photos because something something collectibles something resale value. Boys.

"I could do better. But it's enough. Thank you for letting me borrow the painting set up."

"Y... welcome." He squinted at the embroidery, finally noticing something. "Are those bones?"

In the center of each withered, poisonous blossom in your embroidery hoop, you'd stitched a tiny vertebra to serve as the center. "Yeah?"

"Why?"

"Why not?"

He wasn't ready to push it any further. "If you want..." He hesitated, and stumbled, and you waited until he just brought out his tablet to tap it out on a screen instead. "You can come do that in Board Game Club, if you want. There's a window. Azul shouldn't mind."

"I'll join you after I gear up and put the sealant on her. Thank you for inviting me." You gave him your best, most dazzling smile. "You know how much I like when you include me in your stuff. I know it's not always easy for you; how shy you are and all."

He squeaked and looked away, and you continued. "I should be there in about an hour. Make sure Azul doesn't keep up trying to wager me in chess. I can't fucking play worth a damn and he knows it."

He smirked. "He likes easy marks. Maybe try and get goo-"

You flicked a bone at him, and it hit him square on the nose as he yelped.

~*~*~*~

Welcome, October. Coolness and colour, a certain something on the breeze that felt like a home you'd never let go. Even if it hadn't quite hit the dorms the same way as they main area of the school. (Those little fairies that ran the weather machine didn't seem to believe in seasons for the dorms, or perhaps Crowley gave them a chewing out after the spring?) In amongst the Heartslabyul roses, you'd think it was still summer, and you weren't one to let a day of warmth go.

"Oh, in this chapel of ritual, smells of dead human sacrifices from the altar..."

"Stop that."

You looked up at Riddle, who'd found you in your secluded corner. "Why?"

"You can't sing and the lyrics are awful."

"Is there a rule against that?"

He nodded. "The queen gets to approve all music."

"Ah, of course, mine rosen liege. My petaled monarch. Emperor Rosa." A collar appeared on your neck, and you did not slow down. "Cardiac Sovereign. Dauphine De la Coeur. I can do this all day, Riddle; that collar don't do shit cause I ain't magic."

The colour was high on his cheeks. "Is it your job to annoy me?"

"Oh, you got me. I wake up and spend every moment thinking 'How do I best piss off Riddle Roseheart? How about I stand outside his door and blast nightcore from a boombox?' "

He narrowed his eyes at you. "Stop joking."

You laughed. "Yeah. I only do that with Shoenheit."

That managed to get a bit of a smile out of him. "Why are you being a pest over here, and not at your own dorm?"

"I'm just doing crafts, man."

"While sitting on the grass."

"Yeah, man. Won't be any grass to sit on soon enough. Made sure to not be on the croquet grounds or anything."

He looked at the mess of foam and ribbon around you. "What are you even doing?"

You looked down, and back up at him. "Crafts?"

"More specifically, before I kick you out for being awful."

You held up a padded frame, that you were carefully wrapping a satin ribbon around the many bars of it. "What does that look like?"

He just glared instead of admitting he didn't know, so you got to your feet and held the frame over your chest, the shape clarifying by being pressed over what it mimicked. "It's ribs. It'll tie on with more ribbon. Might put beads and stuff on it too."

He looked for a beat before nodding. "For later this month?"

"Indeed."

"... Continue, then. But be quiet!" 

He was nice enough to remove the collar before he left, but not nice enough to leave it off as soon as you resumed singing to yourself once you'd assumed he was out of earshot.

~*~*~*~

"Hey, Lil?”

"Yeah?"

You looked over the riot of cheery pumpkins and Far East aesthetics that had sprung from your lawn. "You should've asked me, first."

Lil smiled at you. "But then you would have said no."

"I wouldn't have. But," you guestured to the papier mache dragon, "Really, my dude? This isn't what I would have picked at all. I'm not going to match."

"You're working on a costume? Already?" He lit up. "What's it going to be?"

"You'll see."

"Do I get a costume?"

You looked down at your not-cat. "Grimm, I didn't think you'd want one."

"I do now!" He scrambled to your shoulder and tugged at your hair, wailing. "Costume! Costume!"

You rolled your eyes. "Stop that, before I sell you to Lil to practice recipes on."

~*~*~*~

Grimm was no help. He changed his mind every few minutes on what he wanted. At least your incorporeal roommates were a sweet help, finally gearing him up with a hat by the beginning of the week.

"Do you still need one, Yuu?" The middling ghost, the one neither plump nor skeletal, seemed concerned.

"No, babe. I've been working on this since..." August, you think. "I'm good. I hope I can get a week out of it. I could at least do a different face each day."

Realization dawned across his face. "That's what that was for? I see. I guess you won't need..."

Oh, he made you a costume. Layers and layers of rotten gauze from the curtains, a spindrift take on the bedsheet ghost. 

"Hey, I can use this, don't worry. Can you stoke the fire? I've got to dye this to match, I'll need some water boiled."

~*~*~*~

There's too many fucking people. You don't know any of them, they're loud, and they cram in wherever you need to go. But their fussing over you, their asking for pictures is nice. If only...

"Hey, are you lost, kid?" You lean down and reach a hand out to a fearful-looking six-year-old. "I can help you find someone who can help?"

He promptly burst into tears and collided into Floyd as he ran away.

"Hey there itty bitty. You need an adult? Hold on." Even with Floyd... being Floyd, he was a hell of a more welcome sight to the kid, and soon had him balanced on a shoulder to yell for his parents. "Who's under all that?"

"Your favourite shrimp, you overgrown string bean."

Floyd make an o of surprise and flicked the veil up. "It is you under all that! See, kid, She's not scary. She's pretty."

The kid simply eyed him dubiously before going back to trying to wave his parents down to get away from these lunatics.

All your hard work paid off beautifully. A mass of bones, beads and decay, a beautifully jeweled skeleton crowned with a fine halo of gold-and-bone spines and dried flowers. You rattled gently with every step, eyes staring out from a painted skull. They only thing you regretted was Riddle catching you earlier. Even if he hadn't intentionally steered it that way himself, everyone would assume you'd intentionally went to match Heartslabyul. Even more, now that you'd turned those curtains into a veil, even if you'd stuck all the bone and garnet drops you could onto the edges.

"Thank you, Floyd." You leaned up towards the kid. "Didn't mean to scare you, little darling."

The kid just stared at you in fear, and fortunately his parents came along to claim him, leaving you and Floyd by yourself.

"Shrimpie~" He'd scooped you up to replace the kid in his arms before you could protest. "You're so cute like this! Let's go to the alchemy room."

"What's in the alchemy room, Floyd." At this point you were used to him just... hauling you wherever. And you’d found that if you went along with the lighter end of it, he took you seriously when you said no. Weirdo he was, he'd at least gathered that you'd hang out willingly if he didn't push it.

"Oh, well you look so nice! You'll look much nicer in the water tube than the dummy we have in there."

"There are several reasons that can't work, Floyd. Least of it is I only breathe air."

"You're a ghost right now, you don't breathe at all."

"This outfit would not survive a dunking. I'm not sure it'll last the week if I don't repair it every night."

He kept smiling at you. "Even better! Wearing nothing at all on Halloween! Everyone would take even more pictures."

"Yeah yeah, and you have nothing at all in your room if I want to speed that up." You flicked his nose. "Put me down and we can walk over and check how it's going."

"Excuse me?" A stranger. "Can I take a picture of you and your boyfriend like that."

"I'm not her boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend. Go ahead though."

~*~*~*~

"What are you working on?"

Idia's voice was slightly muffled under the pumpkin head. "People kept calling my projection 'cute'. Idiots! They don't know the true fear of Pumpkin Hollow. So I'm adjusting the projection mapping so it's less cute, and more accurate."

"Hm. It seems fine to me as it is."

"You would think that. You don't care if there is a cuteness to things that are scary."

"There's beauty and sweetness in even death." You thought for a moment. "This is for that series you sat me down for? You got mad when I played with the toys?"

"Those. Are. Collecta-" he stopped when he whirled on you, faltering into silence. You really wished you could see the face he was making, he made such sweet faces, especially when he looked at you. You craved them, wanted him to look only at you with those expressions.

You smiled at him. "There's no use in leaving a toy in a box! I don't buy anything I don't intend to play with."

"Ah. Errrrrrrrrghhhmmm." He turned back to his work, took a deep breath, and turned back around. "You watched them, would you give me feedback?"

"Sure. Could you lean down a little?"

He did, and you carefully pulled off the pumpkin, revealing - nothing. No head at all.

You laughed. "Turn that off."

"Why?"

"I just opened your box. Time to play."

He made a strangled noise and started back, looking this way and that. "Right now? Anyone could come in!"

"Just for a moment! How can I give you a kiss if I can't see where I'm aiming?"

His head flickered into view, with a face full of mischief. "... Just one?"

~*~*~*~

"What happened to your makeup?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, model boy." You looked Vil up and down. "You're actually pretty hot like that. It's a miracle."

"Of course you would only find me attractive when I look like a corpse." He rolled his eyes hard enough to sprain. "Do I need to go lie down in a glass coffin too? Stay very still while you actually work up the courage to touch me?"

You snorted. "You wish I would touch you, you overblown jackass."

"With you looking like that? I'd die."

"Bite me, asshole."

"You'd like it if I did."

Your tone grew playful. "Is that a promise for later?"

"Ugh." His shudder was too exaggerated to be anything but an act. "Go ask your ugly little playmate for a bite, we all know what gross shit you get up to."

"You're just mad it's not you."

He pointed a perfectly manicured nail at your painted nose. "You're just mad I want nothing to do with you."

"Then why are you even talking to me?"

"I- why am I talking to you. Go away."

You did, but not before pulling on his cape to wrinkle it.

~*~*~*~

You had a dreadful feeling things were about to get worse. Call it intuition, or paranoia. But with any luck, that would change after a good night's sleep.

(It did not.)

~*~*~*~ These fuckers were getting exhausting. What a grand idea, picking unknown flowers to stick in your hair for selfies! That wasn't an excellent way to come down with a hideous case of contact poisoning at all. You had to swat one girl's hand away from a bed of monkshood, reciting symptoms of aconite poisoning at her until she stalked off in a huff. 

And futzing around with the decorations! The only reason you didn't outwardly congratulate Leona on trying to rip apart a bunch of tourists was that murder is supposed to be bad, no matter how irritating and disrespectful the murder victims were. Even you knew better than to go around fondling random ears and tails! 

(That's why you'd made the anatomy books in the library your friends. Far more polite than going up to a fellow student and saying, "May I feel around your skull for a few hours to satisfy my scientific curiosity? No one at home has ears like that and I'm very curious about the underlying muscle structures." )

Better see what's going on everywhere else.

~*~*~*~

You got up in tiptoe and lightly touched his arm. "Hey, Floyd?"

"??? Yes, Shrimpie?" His face instantly brightening, he dropped the absolutely delighted Magicammer he'd had pressed to the shelf and turned to you, leaning in as you crooked your finger.

You whispered in his ear, "Why waste magic on them when you can do so much more with your fists?"

He shone like the sun as he pressed his cheek to yours in lieu of something more intimate. "You always know just what to do."

~*~*~*~

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE."

The crowd of idiots instead turned on you with flash photography. "Another ghost! This'll get so many likes!"

"I MEAN IT!" Blinking away the spots from your eyes and casting all good sense to the wind, you grabbed a fire poker from inside your bedroom door and started swinging. They laughed and clapped - and only stepped back when you got the damned thing stuck in the wall while taking a swing.

"What an excellent show!" And more. Fucking. Pictures. How in the fuck Vil deals with this shit without murdering everyone in a hundred-foot radius, you'd love to know.

"I SAID-" yank "GET THE FUCK-" yank "OUT OF MY HOUSE!" The force of finally pulling the poker from the wall sent you careening onto your ass, and Grimm only stopped long enough to laugh at you before resuming his own ineffective charge. You stumbled to your feet, muttering. "Stupid little mother fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking..."

"Oh, it's a chase game! Let's go!" And they all fucking scattered into different rooms as you watched them in disbelief.

"I am going to kill everyone in this building and then myself for good measure."

~*~*~*~

"Leave."

"Aren't you going to scare me, Miss Ghost?" This last idiot was joyfully skipping around a bedroom that you'd had the ghosts empty out, nattering into her phone. A livestream, you think.

You're in you goddamned pajamas. "Sure. We don't use this room because the floor's not sound. Get the fuck out and leave before you fall through to the next floor."

The girl instead started to hop in place. "Oooooo, so scary! You'll have to try better than that!"

You rushed her. You probably would have throttled her (and wound up with a new ghostly roommate in the process) but as she backed up, your leg went through the floor where she'd weakened it, which left her cackling. 

"You weren't kidding! Bye now!" And she just fucking left you there like the wretched asshole she was.

~*~*~*~

"I'm so sorry, Yuu."

"Nothing to be sorry about, Mal."

He rested his head on your bare knee and looked up at you. "If I hadn't picked your home as a stamp location, people wouldn't be invading this dorm, and you wouldn't have been injured."

"You fixed me up, didn't you?" He was the one who had pulled you rightways, and shut the scratches on your leg. Of course, he could have left your socks on to do that, but hey, those had been fixed too. You reached down and put your hand on his cheek, rubbing circles by his eye while he stared up at you like an adoring dog.

"This was supposed to be fun for you, so you could have a perfect Halloween."

"That's still a few days away yet. There's still time. And hey."

He blinked up at you as you leaned your face in close, flushing faintly as you did. "Any luck, we'll all make it to November without assault charges."

~*~*~*~

"Yuu?"

You subconsciously growled like a rabid animal as you turned to Lilia with your eye twitching.

"By all the queen's powers." He shrank back. "You alright?"

"Magimons broke the lock on our bedroom and shook her awake last night." Grimm was, by some miracle, in a better mood than you; content to be a comforting weight in your arms and be your anger translator.

"They took," you added, "my groceries."

Lil looked at you in blank shock. "What about the wards on your doors?"

"That's for magic, not fucking morons with no sense of personal space." If you made it through 'til November without actually biting someone's throat out and getting put down like a mad dog, you'd be sincerely surprised. "You of all people should know that."

"Hey, I put them back up after I drop in. You want to go sit with Malleus today? I think you need it."

"Nope. If I snap at him he'll take it to heart. Or just kill everyone who's not staff or student because they upset me."

"No he wouldn't."

"We both know he would."

"He would not because that would be bad press for the kingdom."

"... well, damned if I ever though I'd say this, but thank god for politics."

~*~*~*~

You stare at the empty plinths as everyone started yelling and scrambling. You look to the rubble of the statues, the bases, to Cater, and back to the rubble, nudging what may have once been a staff with you toe.

"And it's not even for a fucking political movement."

~*~*~*~

"Yuu, if we can get rid of the magicam monsters, we can have the party!" Grimm smiled up at you, all sharp teeth and blue eyes. "Aren't you happy?"

You didn't have the heart to tell him that at this point, you'd rather they'd just cancel everything and simply sleep through till All Saint's. Fuck your costume work. Fuck the party. Fuck everything. If you see another jack o lantern you will smash it. Fuck this holiday. You're so tired.

"Yuu, do you have ideas on how to drive the magicam monsters away?"

You stared past Cater's ear because you didn't feel like looking anyone in the face. "Tried to brain a few with a fire poker. Th'just thought it was funny."

This was met with the sound of air sucked through teeth, and a warm hand on your shoulder. "Come with me please!" And Ortho pulled you away with the force of a vaudeville hook.

"You're having a very bad time!" So sweet, so earnest. Right now he was the only person here who could be that chipper and you not want to put their nose out the back of their skull.

You gave him a weary smile. "What was your first clue, honey."

"She keeps kicking in her sleep. When she sleeps. And she's all snappy and horrible!"

You gave Grimm a single light warning shake. "Shut up, Grimm."

"Would you like to stay over so that you can rest properly?" He was hovering directly in front of your face. "Maybe if you're somewhere you won't be woken up, you'll feel better."

You raised an eyebrow and stared over at Idia, who was trying very hard to pay attention to both your conversation and his. "Shouldn't you clear that with someone first?"

Ortho rolled his eyes, the effect on his little boy face frankly hilarious. "Oh, he'd be so upset you have you over. Deeply so. He wouldn't get a wink of sleep with you there." He leaned in. "Except he would, because you wouldn't do anything to keep him up with me there, would you?"

You wheezed. "You think so little of me, Ortho."

"I like you very much even if what you both get up to is gross."

"Of every boy in this school, Yuu. You picked that one."

Ortho glared down at Grimm. "That is my brother you're talking about."

"Stop it. Can we check back in?"

~*~*~*~

"So we're going to run round and scare the piss out of them?"

Jade nodded. "That is the idea, yes."

"... Can I help?"

"Of course, Yuu." Jade smiled his smile that didn't reach more than a millimetre beneath his eyes. "But we've agreed you can't have any blunt objects. For everyone's safety. And the school's reputation, of course.."

"... Yeah, that's for the best."

~*~*~*~

"Can you guys watch Grimm for the evening?"

"Of course." Mal beamed at you from his seat on the Ramshackle steps. "Where will you be that he doesn't want to be?"

"I don't like the horse."

"You ride horses?" Idia was sitting between Mal's legs as Malleus carefully arranged the bright hair into a high ponytail.

"Epel taught me." You paused for a minute. "Do you?"

"Mother made me learn. I haven't in years."

"Makes sense." He didn't like the outdoors, after all. "Mal, how'd you convince him to let you touch his hair? He only lets me do that in private."

"It will look nicer coming out of his pumpkin helmet if arranged higher." Mal crooked his mouth and dragged his lacquered nails along Idia's scalp, making a soft noise when Idia gasped, shivered and abruptly stood up.

"Nope nope nope nope no more of that-"

"May I at least put the elastic in?" Mal held up a black band. "It's fireproof."

He instead snatched it and ran for the library as fast as he could without cracking the armour. You and Mal watched him leave.

"Hm."

"Mal?"

He was still watching the blue light vanish into the distance. "I think I can see the appeal." His dreamy smile gained a sharp edge. "What a delicious sound."

You snickered. "God, I know, right? You should hear some of the other ones I've got out of him."

"You're both disgusting."

~*~*~*~

You hadn't worked out an actual story for this one, just your ghostly roommates and Grimm telling everyone to leave the statues alone. But some asshole, wearing aviator shades and the ugliest piecemeal hoodie you'd ever seen, mounted a plinth to start taking selfies. And once that started, more got the idea, and joined him, trying to nudge the statue away to make room.

So, that's where you came in, pulling into sight at the end of the drive, in tarnished gilt and rotten splendor, jeweled Death on a pale horse.

Sunglasses looked at you and froze, before snapping another picture.

Fucking pictures. You're so sick of pictures.

You snapped the reins and nudged your heels, and who knew anyone on two legs could move that fast? Though potentially being run down by a warhorse was great motivation to move thine arse, as it were. And, thank god, everyone else booked it out the gate after him. 

It only took a little maneuvering to lock the gate while still up on a pale horse named Beans, and now? Time to take him to his stable and go the fuck to sleep. Maybe through past tomorrow. Fuck Halloween.

~*~*~*~

You were riding your merry way when a familiar voice called out to you. "You dropped some loot!"

"What did I lose, Idia?" His little speakers mimicking the clang of armour were working overtime as he jogged up beside you. Once he reached you, he held up... a shoe.

"Huh." You looked down, and you had indeed lost a shoe while charging down a bunch of Magicam-obsessed assholes on a warhorse. "Thank you." That's when you gave Idia a level gaze, and stuck you leg out at him.

He swallowed back his noise of shock, and shaking, took your stockinged foot and slid the shoe back into place. 

"Good boy."

He was turning from shell pink to a deep red that rivaled the roses in Heartslabyul. But that didn't mean he didn't know how to keep playing when emotions were high. Before letting go, he leaned down and kissed the top of your foot.

Now it was your turn to go red; a wonder the painted skull didn't simply melt off of your face.

~*~*~*~

"Shrimpie~"

You took a breath and prepared yourself. Scoopsies was inevitable.

True to form, Floyd had his whole conversation with you in a bridal carry. "We're gonna have the party!~ We chased them all away!~"

"That's..." Honestly, despite all the rage and pain this week had caused, you were rather happy about the news. "Nice."

"Ah - where'd your face go?" He leaned in, and you stopped him from getting too close with a finger pressed to his lips.

"I didn't feel up to wearing everything." Your embroidered gown and painted skull was replaced with a simple back veil and black dress. "I kind of hate this whole holiday right now and I'm ready to kick the next pumpkin I see."

He nodded, kissing your fingertip as he did. "I can help you after. But we need this all for the parade." He brightened. "You should paint up and get on the horse again for it!" He smiled, full of dreamy fondness and not a small amount of hunger. "I heard what you did to the magicam monsters... I wish I could have seen."

"Hey, I heard you didn't do too badly yourself." You leaned in conspiratorially. "Anyone pee themselves?"

He smiled like the sun post-eclipse. "Yup!"

~*~*~*~

Epel had been nice enough to help you kit out Beans in a fancy black harness, so in amongst the crowd of costumed students, you were both equally eye-catching. And hell, pictures weren't so bad right now. People were keeping a distance, murmuring to each other as they aimed their cameras. You thought you were getting a dirty look or two from Vil for stealing his thunder, but he had himself on the prow of a ship! It wasn't comparable.

"So," you said, leaning down a little, "How are you handling this?"

Idia looked up at you, you thought. "The mask makes it easy. They're looking at the costume, not me."

"I'm glad it helps. I wish you'd take it off, but you being comfortable is more important."

"What? You want me to ruin the effect by taking the mask off? Clearly you have no respect for the holiday." His voice had the sweet, bubbling quality that came when he was excited and happy, and it warmed you to hear it.

"Oh, no, of course not. But why would I want to taste a plastic kiss,” you said, reaching a hand down to run the trailing ribbon of his hair through your fingers, “when I could taste you instead?"

You had to give him credit, he only faltered for a moment before continuing. "Right now? In front of everyone?"

"I would if you'd let me, right now." You lowered your voice. "And worse."

He stifled a groan and only walked funny for another ten minutes.

~*~*~*~

"I thought you didn't like horses." The stables were in sight, but Idia had turned up, surprising you.

He rolled his eyes, and held his arms out. "Dismount, fair maiden."

What.

"I mean it. Your Pumpkin Knight awaits."

You shook your head, voice soft. "Baby, no."

"I'm trying to be romantic. Like your novels."

"Idia."

He stared back at you, sour-faced. "What."

"I outweigh you by at least sixty pounds."

"I can do this. I carry Ortho around all the time."

"Ortho's chassis is mostly fibreglass and aluminum. I can carry Ortho. I think Grim could carry Ortho."

He took a step forward. "Do you want me to leave you on the horse or not."

"His name is Beans." But, you managed to dismount into Idia's arms, where he stood stock-still and trembling.

"Kkc."

"Babe? Put me down before your back goes out."

His knees gave out first, and he crumpled beneath you as you both yelped.

"You alright?"

"hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

You crawled off his chest and he could actually breathe again.

"Better?"

After a few breaths, he managed a weak smile. "Maybe kiss it better."

Beans beat you to it, snuffling at Idia's face to make sure he wasn't dead.

~*~*~*~

You are not much of a party person. You like them, but the ideal party is a few friends hanging around in the same room, chatting at a reasonable volume and then going home to go the fuck to sleep. This was a little much.

But you know what this party had that you hadn't seen in what felt like years? Cute girls. In cute costumes! You've been flirting your ass off, with decent success; it turns out that the Magicam Live you did with Vil weeks ago had paid off in the form of smiles and fluttered eyelashes as girls crowded around you to hear tales of how fucking obnoxious you could be in this school and get away with it because you had friends in high places.

At least, until you caught something out of the corner of your eye, and you stopped. "Hey, I gotta check on someone - raise your hand if you like boys. Okay, you see -" You stopped and pointed at your poor, unsuspecting target. "With the blue-black hair and the painted spade? That's Deuce, he doesn't know how to talk to girls worth a damn, so give him some slack. But he's a sweetheart, you won't regret it."

"What about the redhead?"

"Ace is a prick but he's delightful. Chat him up too." With that, you went to check on Idia, huddled into a corner after an attempted force-feeding.

"You alright, babe?"

He nodded. "They're too much. But I'm alright now."

You leaned back against a nearby chair, looking him up and down. "You sure you aren't going to eat anything? I don't think anyone's going to care too much if you have your face out."

He remained completely still, and you realized you could hear a faint whirring.  "Idia. Have you been using the robot double all evening."

"... I swapped out ten minutes ago."

You made a noise and he flinched. "I was going to swap back in after it calmed down!"

"... No you weren't."

"Okay, no I wasn't. But I was there for a while. I have proof, I brought plates back with me."

"You could have just told me. It's been a hell of a lot for you, I know what you're like."

Idia - well, his robotic avatar - shrugged. "If you're going to lecture me... come by and do it here."

You stopped. "You really want me to yell at you in person?"

"I want you to come by. If you want. You can stay as long as you want... if you want. I have snacks, and movies, and games that even you could play."

You snorted. "Oh, the siren call of a fucking nerd trying so hard to woo his chosen..."

"I changed my mind actually, you can't come."

"Aww."

"... That's a lie." He paused. "You can even take the Yume Twins out."

Those vinyl dolls he never let you touch. You throw your veil back and kissed the stupid plastic pumpkin head. "It's a date."

~*~*~*~

"Yuu?"

You peered at Malleus from around a stack of Tupperware. "Mal?"

"You.. enjoyed it all, despite everything?"

"Despite everything." You hefted the stack towards him. "Would you like to help? I want to grab stuff from the party that'll keep at room temperature."

He absently flicked a finger, sending the dishes swirling around to settle in a stack in midair, before placing a hand on your shoulder. "I have a... request."

"Anything," you said, and you regretted saying it as his breath hitched.

"Would you..." His voice faltered, and instead he simply wrapped you in a tight embrace, leaning down to bury his nose in your hair. You could feel him, chest heaving, scenting your greased hair through tulle, murmuring something against your scalp.

"Malleus."

He stopped, but did not move.

"No spells."

"You would not forgive me if I tried." You could feel his smile against your hair.

"I would not." You pulled back enough to look at him, and nearly froze at his besotted gaze before he schooled it into his more usual face. "Mal, you know you only feel this strong because I'm your first friend, right?"

"Does it matter? It is sincere."

And that makes it so much worse. "You know I don't feel about you like that."

"..." The grief that flickered across his face was enough to shatter a stone heart. "To stand with you and hold you is enough."

And they said fairies can't lie. They could, they were just terrible at it.

"You said you were going to ask for something?"

"... Not anymore. I doubt you would give it."

He vanished into thin air in a swirl of wind, and the Tupperware clattered to the steps, the spell holding them gone.

~*~*~*~

The nice thing about Idia's room is that, being a prefect, he had an attached bathroom to scrub the paint off of your face. It was a monochrome murder in the sink, splatters of grey with the occasional pinprick of red where you'd disturbed the new bumper crop of pimples from painting up as a skull for a week. Thank fuck that was over with. Even if the day proper had been lovely, the events of the week had thoroughly soured you on Halloween.

"You alright?" Idia poked his head in, long since divested of armour.

"Yup. How'd you get that shit off so fast? You got a suiting-up machine hidden somewhere?"

"It's less complicated than you'd think. Cosplay magic."

"That's nice. Unbutton me."

"... wha."

You looked at him via the mirror, meeting his wide eyes and shimmying in place. "Unbutton me. I can't reach them all myself."

"How'd you get that on every day?" He hesitantly walked behind, eyeing the row down your back as though it would burn him at the touch.

"I have roommates, remember?"

"Mmh." He finally undid the first three, before flicking his gaze back to yours in the mirror. "A... Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't ask, otherwise." You kept looking, as he took a breath and resumed. "Idia."

He paused.

"Keep going, I'm just going to chat at you for a bit." Two more. "You know I..." How to phrase this. "I don't intend to stay mint on card forever, you know. You can take me out and play."

He twitched, but kept going. "Maybe I don't want to damage you. There's only one of you, after all."

"I'm not so breakable." You had one side of you face completely clear, the other still smeared grey in the creases. "Would you rather stay mint condition, yourself?"

"..." He took a moment to gather himself, staring at the exposed skin of your back. "Maybe I want to... admire a bit. Get to know my- your- Uh."

You waited with a soft smile, until he found the words. "No one said you have to play straight away when you take something out of the package. Right?" He placed an experimental hand on the expanse of flesh between bra band and waistband, and did not draw away.

"Right."

"... Maybe I just want to hold you a bit before we play."

What a sweet boy you had. "Take all the time you need to. Even if we never play like that, I like you. Spending time with you is what I want."

You could see the motes of pink flickering through his hair. "Can I hold you now?"

"Of course."

He slid his hands under your dress, around your waist - then grabbed your soft, flabby tummy in both hands and squeezed. "Soft~"

You squealed with laughter. "What are you doing?"

"It's bare skin that's neutral territory," he huffed, before hugging your back to him and resting his chin on your shoulder. "And it's warm, too."

"Not so much as you. Keep me warm, will you? It's getting so damned cold at night."

He buried his face in your hair. "I can do that."

~*~*~*~

You woke to someone banging at the door.

"Son of a bitch." You managed to free yourself from Idia's sleeping grasp and make it to the door as a familiar voice started up. "Shroud, your tin can brother's already helping with clean-up, if you skip out because of a stupid game I will-"

You opened the door and looked levelly into Vil's face, which twisted in surprise. He gave you a once over (unshaved legs, mussed hair, boxer briefs from the men's section and a blue-black striped shirt that was clearly not yours) and then peeked over your shoulder at Idia (dead asleep, smiling faintly, possibly naked under the blankets). He kept looking between the two of you with increasing disbelief and horror, until he stepped back, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Good for you."

"Thanks." Your face still hadn't changed.

"It's twelve thirty. If you're not both out helping clean up by three, I'm telling everyone."

"That's not much of a threat."

"Maybe to you. Shroud!"

Idia shuddered awake, bleariness washed away by terror as he saw Vil in the door and covered himself in the blankets.

"Be out helping cleanup by three or I'm telling everyone exactly why you're late." With that, he stalked off and you shut the door, mirroring his nose pinch.

"Dramatic bastard, ain't he? Even when he's being nice."

"How is that nice?" He only stopped shivering when you sat back down on the bed.

"Two and a half hours, Idia."

He blinked at you.

"How much can we do in two and a half hours?"

Realization dawned, and he started snickering as he dragged you in close.

[joyful-soul-collector]

50 Christmas Ornaments My True Love Gave To Me

Summary: It was Christmastime in the Stark-Rhodes-Potts’ household, with Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, Peter, and Morgan all sitting at the table. Jingle Bells was playing quietly in the background, and each one of them was working on decorating a clear plastic christmas bauble, a growing pile of colorful ornaments in the center of the table.

OR

The Iron Family gets carried away making Christmas ornaments, and Peter talks to his dad about asexuality

Taglist: @phahbiyah @keep-a-bucket-full-of-stars @clevermuffinalmondpeach @stuck-in-a-fictional-universe @canonismybitch @freckledmountain @hold-our-destiny @not-your-housekeeper98 @misskirkstark @iron-loyalty @skeeter-110 @m3ga1nsp1r3d @nazezdha321 @peterparkerspidgeons @fallenstar07 @baloobird

Let me know if you want to be added/removed! I don’t mind at all either way! Also thank you to @baloobird for beta-reading this for me!

Read on Ao3!

“This was the best idea. Peter, remind me never to doubt you again,” Tony said, gazing at his newly made red and gold Christmas ornament. It was Christmastime in the Stark-Rhodes-Potts’ household, with Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, Peter, and Morgan all sitting at the table. Jingle Bells was playing quietly in the background, and each one of them was working on decorating a clear plastic christmas bauble, a growing pile of colorful ornaments in the center of the table. 

“I told you it would be fun!” Peter said with a laugh, carefully pouring a bit of red glitter into his own ornament. 

“Told you!” Morgan echoed, despite the fact this activity had been a complete surprise to her and she had told Tony no such thing. Morgan reached forward suddenly, grabbing the white glitter. 

“Oh, dear you need to be more careful with that,” Pepper said as Morgan spilled some on the table trying to pour it into her ornament. “Here baby, use the funnel.”

“Finished!” Rhodey said suddenly, nearly startling Peter into flinging glitter everywhere just as Morgan had done. Rhodey held up a bauble that had been painted in three stripes of red, blue, and grey, with “T+R+P=‎⎊” painted in black overtop. It took Peter a moment to realize that the colors were representing each of their Iron Suits, and he said “Awww” along with the rest of the family. 

Both Tony and Pepper kissed Rhodey on the cheek, Tony on the left and Pepper on the right, and Peter laughed at the sheepish but adoring smile Rhodey gave them in return. He placed his bauble next to the others and gazed fondly at the colorful pile. 

“I think these are my favorite ornaments,” he said with finality. 

“Ha! You sure about that? You like them even more than your special War Machine one Pep gave you?” Tony said, an eyebrow raised skeptically. 

“He’s a close second of course, but these are my favorite since we made them together as a family,” Rhodey said, grinning happily. 

“Aw, you’re extra sappy today, Pops,” Peter teased, putting the top on his ornament, and smiling at the layers of red and white glitter in his candy-cane themed bauble. 

“Are you implying that I’m sappy all the time?”

“Not even just implying. You’re sappy. You’re a sappy, mushy, lovey-dovey, man,” Peter said, scrunching his nose at his father, and sticking out his tongue childishly. Rhodey made a mock-offended gasp, and pressed his hand to his chest. 

“I’m deeply offended by this. You know I’m not sappy, right Little Mo’?”

“Super sappy,” was all Morgan replied with, clearly more interested in stuffing bits of ribbon in her ornament than she was in the conversation itself. The rest of the family laughed as she continued to fill her bauble, and Tony threw an arm around Rhodey’s shoulders. 

“Nah, I think I actually agree with you, Honeybear. These are probably my favorite as well, I can’t believe we never did this before. I almost wish we could make more, we were each only able to make five,” Tony said, looking down at his completed ornaments beside him, a slightly disappointed look on his face. “I had a lot more ideas for what to design.”

“I did too,” Pepper said, looking down at her own baubles, neat and elegant, all themed with the colors of white and gold, unlike the rest of the family, who had gone a bit more wild with their designs. 

“Well… who said we’re not allowed to go back to the craft store and get some more?” Peter said tentatively. When all three parents raised an eyebrow he quickly went on. “I mean we have plenty of paint and glitter and ribbon left! We could probably just get some more baubles and have enough supplies to make more--I mean what else are we gonna use this stuff for? Might as well use it up on more ornaments so we don’t waste it, ya know?”

The three adults were now wearing varying convinced facial expressions, though Morgan’s response definitely worked in Peter’s favor. 

“Yes! Let’s do it! Pleeeeease???” she said, looking up at them and giving them her best puppy eyes, garnished perfectly with a little sniff. 

Peter was grabbing his coat before they even said “yes.” 

~~~

“Ya know, I distinctly remember you saying all we had to get was more ornaments, and that we already had enough supplies to make another batch,” Tony said, frowning at Peter, who was gazing at the rows of glitter on the shelf. 

“Yeah yeah, I know, but we only got christmas themed colors last time! What if we got something else besides the red, green, white, and blue?”

“Well we got gold and silver too, and a little black--”

“You know what I mean,” Peter groaned with a roll of his eyes. “We could do so much more with some extra colors--Ooh look!” Peter snatched four containers of glitter off the shelf and presented them to Tony. “We could make pride flags! You and me could have personalized asexual pride ornaments!”

Tony sighed at the sight of the bottles. 

“Well… that would be cool… I dunno kiddo…” Tony said slowly, pushing his hands in his pockets as he thought. 

But Peter suddenly realized what he was doing and his face turned red with embarrassment. He really shouldn’t be asking for things right now, especially when he only wanted these colors because he was feeling a little insecure. That’s not a good enough reason to be spending money on glitter they were never gonna use again. 

“I--Um, nevermind, sorry,” Peter said, his hands shaking a little as he reached up to put them back. 

“What? No, Peter, I was--”

“There you two are!” Pepper said suddenly, making them both jump and turn in her direction. She made her way over, Rhodey and Morgan trailing behind. “What’re you doing over here?”

“Well the kid’s twisting my arm into getting us some pretty ace glitter,” Tony responded, and Pepper glanced at the bottles Peter was still holding. Peter grimaced inwardly, wishing Tony hadn’t said anything. He didn’t need Pepper to explain to him they can’t just buy whatever he wants just because he’s a little upset. 

But she wasn’t angry with him. She snorted, rolling her eyes at Tony’s pun. 

“Well if you two get your pride flag then I want mine too,” she said, reaching over and grabbing some pink, purple, and blue bottles, the colors of the bisexual flag, and throwing them in the basket with the pack of ornaments. The knot of nervousness that had formed in Peter’s chest instantly unraveled, and he suddenly felt a lot more at ease about putting his own bottles of glitter in the basket. 

“Hey don’t forget mine!” Rhodey said, reaching for the pink, yellow, and blue bottles, the pansexual pride flag, and putting them in too. 

“Oh, you guys need the polyamorous flag too!” Peter chirped, snagging the blue, red, and black bottles of glitter. “We can use the gold paint back at home to put the pi symbol on it too!”

All three parents smiled warmly at him, and Rhodey reached forward to ruffle his hair affectionately. Peter remembered when Pepper and Tony had first started dating Rhodey, they’d been so nervous to tell him because they were scared he wouldn’t like it. Peter was only about ten when they told him, and he could tell they had been very worried. Peter colored a picture of the three of them holding hands the next day, and hung it up on the fridge. He found out later that Tony had given it to Rhodey, and Rhodey keeps it in his wallet now, taking it everywhere he goes. And when Rhodey eventually moved in and got married to Tony and Pepper, Peter was extra enthusiastic in helping him get settled, to make sure he felt welcome. 

Peter’s always done his best to make sure his parents knew he loved them, and accepted them just the way they were. 

But Peter was suddenly snapped out of his memories by Tony’s voice. 

“But what about Little Mo’? We can’t have her feel left out!” he said, gazing down his daughter by his feet. But Morgan suddenly held up a large colorful bag, showing off the contents to her fathers, mother, and brother. 

“Pom poms!” she squeaked happily. The bag was filled with hundreds of colorful pom poms of varying sizes, some of which were definitely too big to force into the ornaments, but Peter knew that wouldn’t stop Little Mo’ from trying. 

“Oh yes, you forgot, Dad,” Peter said, scooping up his little sister and resting her on his hip. “The ‘P’ in the acronym doesn’t just stand for Pansexual and Polyamorous, it also stands for Pom Poms.”

“Oh yes, that’s the new one isn’t it?” Tony said with a snort, now sorting through the glitter in the basket to get rid of repeated colors. 

“Yup. Maybe I can get MJ to design a pride flag for it,” Peter said with a smirk. 

“I’m sure she would do so happily,” Pepper said, taking the pom poms from Morgan to put them in the basket, and kissing Morgan's head. “Now why don’t you and your Dad get back to the car and buckle Morgan in while your Papa and I get everything checked out?”

A few minutes later Peter walked out of the store with his sister and dad, and Tony was buckling Morgan in her carseat. 

“Snug bug?” Tony asked her as he adjusted the straps of her seat. 

“Snug bug,” Morgan confirmed with a giggle. Tony smiled and booped her nose, before drawing out his phone and opening up a game. 

“Wanna play on Daddy’s phone?” he said, handing it to her and helping her put in the headphones. Then Tony moved back up to sit in the middle row of the van, where Peter was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“You never let me play with your phone when I was little,” he said bluntly. “I’m sensing a favorite child has been chosen.”

“Pfft, is that another one of your spidey powers? Your Spidey Sense get upgraded along with your suit?” Tony asked with a roll of his eyes. “No, I just needed her to be distracted.”

“What? Why?” Peter asked with a frown. 

“Well, it seems my other bug isn’t so snug,” Tony said, looking at Peter pointedly. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What’s up kiddo? You seemed a little worried back there,” he said. 

“I did? When?” Peter said, hoping to wiggle his way out of the conversation somehow, stall until his Mom and Papa got back. 

“When you were asking about if you could get the ace flag colors. You know I was joking right? I wasn’t actually considering saying no to you, I want you to be able to show your pride however you like,” he said gently. It seems Peter wouldn’t be able to get out of this one.

“No, yeah I know that, it… wasn’t you I was worried about,” Peter said with a sigh. “Part of it I guess was uh, well you know how I get guilty asking for things. I didn’t want to make you spend money on me.”

“Ya know for the child of a billionaire you sure worry about money a lot,” Tony said with a smirk. “I don’t mind spending money on you. You’re important to me, and I have the ability to do it, so I like to. But, you already know that, and I have a feeling the money wasn’t the only thing bothering you. Am I right?”

Peter’s face turned even redder and he glanced out the window to see if his Mom and Papa had come to save the day. 

No such luck.

“I uh… Flash said something the other day. Bothered me,” Peter muttered. 

“What did he say, kiddo?” Tony said, reaching over to squeeze Peter’s hand. 

“…he said nobody would ever want to date someone who was asexual like me. That no one would wanna be in a relationship with someone who wouldn’t, uh--” he glanced at Morgan to make sure her earbuds were still in, “--‘give them any’.”

Peter looked down and picked at a loose thread on his jeans, avoiding his father’s gaze. 

“Oh Peter, I’m sorry. That’s not true, there are plenty of people who will love you just the way you are,” Tony said, smoothing a thumb over Peter’s knuckles. 

“Yeah, I mean I-I know that in the back of my mind--I mean you’ve got two people who love you, and you’re ace like me, so--so I mean I’m sure I’ll find at least one person, it’s just--” Peter broke off with a sigh. “What if… What if I find someone who’s okay with me being ace, but they’re not nice in other ways? What if there’s only one person who’s okay with me being ace, and it turns out they like, I dunno, hate that I’m Spider-Man? Or they’re even abusive or something? What if the only person who will ever like me is someone who’s bad?”

“Peter, nobody really ever has just one person they’re compatible with. I learned that when I fell in love with Rhodey,” Tony said with a soft smile. “There’s going to be more than one person who’s okay with your asexuality, just like there will be more than one who isn’t. There will be people who are okay with it but are terrible in other ways, just as there will be people who aren’t okay with it but are amazing in other ways. 

“And of course, that means there will be people who are just bad for you overall. People who aren’t okay with your sexuality and are awful. But that means there will also be the opposite! There will be people who will be fine with your asexuality, and are also kind, and funny, and will have qualities you love. 

“Humans are complex, you’ll never meet one that’s exactly the same as the other, and yet we have the ability to love so many different people, in so many different ways. It’s part of why I fell in love with both Pepper and Rhodey. I love how unique they are. 

“Like you said: two people who are so different from each other, and yet they both fell in love with an asexual person like me. And neither of them are terrible, obviously,” Tony said, and Peter laughed, finally looking up at him. Tony smiled and gave his hand a final squeeze. “Basically, of the hundreds of humans your age in New York, I doubt there’s only one person who would be good for you, and even less likely that the only people willing to date you are abusive and awful. It mathematically doesn’t make sense. Throw in the fact that you’re the kindest kid I’ve ever met, and I doubt there’s an asexual-accepting human in the world who wouldn’t wanna date you.”

Peter laughed again, leaning back on the headrest as his chest filled with relief. 

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I dunno what I’d do without you to help me with all this stuff.”

“Of course, kiddo. It’s what Dads are for.”

~~~

An hour later, Peter and his family were finishing up making the last of their baubles, Peter carefully painting the Spider-Man logo on his glittery asexual pride ornament. He was feeling a lot better after the talk with Tony, like a weight had been lifted off him. It even made painting a little easier, despite the fact he was awful at painting. 

Rhodey had finished about half an hour earlier, now in the kitchen making cookies while Pepper and Morgan watched Klaus in the living room. The smell of Rhodey’s cookies wafted into the dining room where Peter and Tony were still working. Peter snapped up and sniffed the air, drinking in the scent of chocolate, butter, and sugar, the signature smell of Rhodey’s chocolate chip cookies. 

Peter’s stomach gave a deep growl at the scent, whining miserably about how empty it was. 

“Wow, someone’s hungry,” Tony said, glancing at Peter’s middle with a smirk. 

“I knoooow,” Peter groaned, wrapping an arm around his belly. “I was so distracted by the ornaments I forgot to have a snack when we got home. Dumb super metabolism, I’m gonna starve to death before those cookies get out of the oven.”

“Well don’t do that,” Rhodey said, walking in with a plate piled high with cookies. “Guess you were so distracted you didn’t hear the timer go off either, huh?”

Peter wasn’t listening though. He’d already put his ornament down to let the paint dry and was making grabby-hands at the plate, practically drooling. 

“Alright alright, calm down, don’t eat too fast either, you’ll give yourself a tummy ache,” Rhodey said, handing him the cookies. Peter scoffed as he stuffed a cookie in his mouth. 

“I’m fifteen, I don’t get ‘tummy aches’,” Peter said through his mouthful of cookie. 

“Tell that to whoever got a tummy ache from eating a whole solid chocolate santa in five minutes last week on a dare from Ned,” Rhodey muttered as Peter stuffed more cookies in his mouth. 

“That was not a ‘tummy ache’, that was Extreme Christmas Celebrating.”

“It was a tummy ache. You said ‘I have a tummy ache.’”

“I did not--”

“Uhh, guys?” Tony suddenly interrupted. Peter and Rhodey looked at him, and Pepper glanced back from her position on the couch. 

“Yeah?” they all said. 

“I uh… I think we have fifty ornaments here,” he said, staring wide-eyed at the pile. Peter blinked. 

No, no way, they didn’t make that many. 

“You sure you didn’t miscount?” Rhodey said, looking at the pile more closely himself. 

“Oh I’m sure. There’s fifty ornaments here. We made fifty ornaments,” Tony said. 

“That can’t be right, each of us only made… only made…” Peter had been about to say five, but realized that was before they bought the second batch of ornaments. If they made five, and then each made another five… 

“Ten. There’s five of us and we each made ten ornaments,” Pepper said in disbelief. “How did we not realize we’d be making ten each? Fifty ornaments?”

They all stared at the pile in silence for a few moments. 

“Well, I guess the tree will be a bit crowded this year,” Peter said, taking another bite of cookie. They all laughed, then Rhodey, Tony, and Peter, settled on the couch next to Pepper and Morgan to finish the rest of the movie with them. 

Later that day when Peter had a bellyful of cookies, they decorated the tree with their new ornaments, as well as the ones dragged out from the boxes in the garage. And while it was a bit crowded like Peter had predicted, it was the best one they’d ever had, with their pride ornaments glittering in the firelight, and Morgan’s pom pom baubles adding the perfect sprinkling of color to the green branches. 

Peter had never seen a more perfect tree. 

[withteeths]

Maybe Steamrolling Games is Bad Actually

Videogames are unique in that they are inextricably tied to corporatism and have been since birth (this is an oversimplification but roll with it). This means that to an extent most companies even since the ’80s have never really cared about proper preservation or easy access to their titles. Nintendo carts were originally manufactured to have their battery die in 3 years so you would have to buy a new one (this failed, but it’s why you still see a lot of dead carts floating around). I think there's a nostalgia issue within the gaming fandom regarding "oh x was great back then" but a lot of the time, games manufacturers have been historically shitty and anti-consumer and it’s just that they now have the tools to execute it much more effectively. Regarding obtrusive DRM, that’s an issue PC games have had since their zenith, where if you lost your original copy of a manual or a small plastic key you could never play a game again because the codes were individualized for each copy and support would refuse to give you a new one. Even back in the arcades, there were particularly batshit examples like the CPS board, which I shit you not was built to explode a battery pack filled with corrosive acid if it detected you were attempting to repair or modify it. There’s a lot to say about the current state of games but what I would likely illustrate is that 2/3 major consoles are racing to decide who will be obsolete first. Games consoles are reaching a point where they are trying to emulate PCs with more restrictions and DRM. We're already seeing interest in steam spike again and it’s likely that eventually, we will see almost a crash for consoles where no one can justify the price for games they can play on a PC rig. The only solution I see there would be a merger between the two consoles which feels inevitable. 

That being said as interest in the PC space increases again so does attempts at entering the bubble. We have Epic, Origin, Microsoft, Indiegala, Itchio, and Steam all vying for attention, requiring accounts, and offering exclusives to justify the use of their storefront over others. Some people think this is a good thing because it's breaking up Steam's monopoly but it literally is not, if you ever really wanna hear me rant ask me about Leftist obsession with itch being some sort of ethical steam, which it is provably not. In the end, the real sort of saviour figures that work to preserve games are random ass people on the internet. I know people who automatically assume that at the end of the day, companies care about games preservation too, and they usually have a three-pronged argument that cites a) Steam’s ability to allow the redownloading of delisted games, b) retro companies periodically rereleasing titles for modern consoles in compilations, and c) companies doing limited reruns of a game that fans request. All three of these examples are basically an incredibly effective use of diversionary tactics, but most of the time when someone cites these I just assume it’s a misunderstanding and not outright malicious intent because a lot of the time companies will attempt to actively implant these ideas to build brand loyalty.

My main dissertation is usually that Steam is incredibly selective with what titles you can redownload, and most importantly, corporate benevolence is more-so a band-aid on a gaping wound! There’s no contingency for when Steam might migrate to a new service, go belly up, or become obsolete when a new OS is created. That means thousands, tens of thousands of dollars worth of games are just gone, permanently, along with fan mods, DLC, and content. It’s a terrifying thought that not many people bring up when discussing the problems with game storefronts that focus so much on providing a cloud and have DRM attached to every purchase. In a way, Steam preceded the trend of not allowing consumers to actually own the things they purchased, and they’ve avoided criticism by strategic use of silence and creating the illusion of a company being made by the consumers they’re attempting to serve. At the end of the day, Steam is a business, and if you ever lose access to your Steam account, or they decide to up and leave one day, you will not be able to play almost all of those games, even if you have them installed on a hard drive, because if you’re online, they connect with a server to ensure your steam account has the ability to play them. When it comes to other arguments like the limited rereleases or use of compilations to preserve arcade titles, I usually just beg people to look at community-driven options that have existed for years. The Scott Pilgrim game is a big source of contention, but I would point out that for years now, it was playable, for free, with all the DLC, on PCs. Preservationists didn’t wait for the gods of Universal and O’Malley to rerelease it for 30 bucks or save up to snatch the fucking ridiculous 200$ limited edition with shitty paper cut-outs, they straight up just did the work to make the game free and available. RCPS3 has (with a contemporary build) been able to run the game pretty flawlessly for years now, in fact, it was how I played through a majority of the game in high school on my shitty brick of a laptop. If you look further out than this one example then it gets even better, MAME and other emulation backends have been able to play obscure, unfinished, and homebrew titles with 100% accuracy, on almost any setup, for free, for decades! I found out about many of these options back in 2015 or so, certainly late to the curve, but I never really questioned as to why emulation, games preservation, and some key titles being available on PC remained some sort of arcane, unknown knowledge to most people interested in games. In the end, the answer was a highly effective propaganda campaign that combined with strategic use of DMCA takedowns has resulted in the concept of communal games-preservation and emulation becoming some sort of debate, where people will wholeheartedly side with corporations in some sort of quest for preserving things the “ethical and correct way,” which is code for preservation on the condition that it remains profitable for the IP owners.

 I think the best way to illustrate this would be with the community built around the preservation of an infamous PS4 title, PT. The story of its inevitable delisting from the storefront and the messy breakup between Kojima and Konami is well known, so I won’t regurgitate it, look it up at your own leisure. What is significant here is corporate reactions to attempts at preserving the game, which can basically be boiled down to Konami acting with borderline rabid fervour to prevent redownload, redistribution, or recreation of a seven-year-old demo, released for free download. Mentions of solutions to redownload the game have been taken down, fan-made recreations for PC, and archival servers that store a copy of the game for future preservation or emulation. Usually when this is brought up a debate occurs citing that technically speaking, Konami has a right to do this whenever they want, for whatever piece of media they believe infringes on their copyright. On one hand, yes this argument is factually correct considering the current state of copyright and ownership of media, but on the other hand, what compels someone to step into the ring for a multi-million dollar company with the primary argument being “well actually, people SHOULDN’T be able to play this specific video game until it benefits the shareholders”? In my opinion, it’s some sort of corporatized symbiosis where players believe that, if you cull the bad actors and play by the rules of the company, you may be able to eventually play the game a couple of years down the line. Sure, this has happened in the past with a few isolated cases, but it can’t be stressed enough that this is a genuinely dangerous and reductive position for people to take regarding games preservation.

 I have two colleagues, Mariken and Fotocopiadora, who released a short interactive title called Videopulp (playable here: https://fotocopiadora.itch.io/videopulp). It’s a dramatic reimagining of a real historical event, wherein a promotional event was held in 1994 at Lelystad to destroy bootleg carts by a figure in a Mario costume. This perhaps best encapsulates something I am pleading with younger generations to understand, as an archivist, art historian, and creator: corporations are not your friends, and they never will be. With the rise of online circles of leftism, this concept is starting to gain traction but is starting to be polluted with concepts of fandom and tribalism. This has lead to arguments that while *most* corporations are bad how could you say that about Nintendo? Or Valve? Mario is so innocent and characters like Wheatley are beloved by all! I feel some people don’t realize that they can enjoy a select title or character without enlisting in a corporate faction in the battle for “best company” or “best videogame”. It leads to a parasocial kinship with a nonexistent figure that was hand-crafted to ensure consumer loyalty to a certain brand. It’s depressing, terrifying, and should stand as a disquieting example of how the grip of capitalism on works of art has permanently distorted how we think and engage with media today. So, what’s the solution? As always I can never really provide something concrete that’ll act as a cure-all, only things that people in games need to work towards. Bring up conversations about games preservation, create archives for your own work, support archivists and boost their work whenever a new discovery is created, and try to promote optimism and solidarity in your hobbyist communities. I’ve noticed a lot of futility being intertwined with the future of AAA gaming, use of online storefronts, and the inability to own pieces of media anymore, and I feel this should be pushed back against, even in a minute way. Open-source programmes still exist that allow you to hold on to what you have purchased, offline and ad-free options exist for games launchers, e-readers, and media players. The future isn’t bright, but it is not a place without hope, and as long as people continue to enter communities with passion and ingenuity, I think we have a chance at stopping the events at Lelystad, 1994 from happening again. 

[simplybakugou]

Sweet Like Strawberries

↝ Wanting to make something to cheer your hero girlfriend up, you decide to bake something that’s just as sweet as her.

BINGO SPACE: Baking at Home

⋆ PAIRING: prohero!uraraka x reader ⋆ WARNINGS/TAGS: fluff; bakery!au for the reader :) ⋆ WORD COUNT: 1567

A/N: shouldn’t be a surprise anymore but this is another bingo piece for the bingo event by @bnhabookclub​ lol. i loved writing for uraraka and this was just so cute. thank you to @happygalaxymilkshake​ for requesting uraraka for this prompt! credits to @bnhcs​ for the beautiful colored uraraka cap in the banner!

FULL BINGO MASTERLIST

✐posted 08.08.2020✐

Uraraka’s feet felt heavier than they ever did that day as she had to practically drag her feet inside her apartment complex. To make her day worse than it already had been, the elevators were shut down for maintenance and she wanted to burst into tears at the mere thought of having to walk up seven flights of stairs just to get to her apartment. 

The security guard at the front gave her a sympathetic smile, raising a single fist as she was silently cheering the hero on. Uraraka just gave her a lazy smile as she proceeded towards her long and gruelling journey up. 

Although the experience was the worst, obviously since no one wants to walk up so many stairs at once, Uraraka had two reasons to want to push forward instead of simply collapsing at the lobby and taking a small nap there: she wanted to sleep in the comfort of her own home and she was looking forward to seeing you, her lovely significant other.

Finally she made it to the seventh floor, her body even more exhausted than it already had been from a long day of patrolling and keeping evildoers in check for their actions. Uraraka was a sweaty mess by the time she made it to her apartment, missing the lock with her key a few times before successfully unlocking her front door.

You turned your head from your spot in front of the TV in the living room, initially afraid that someone had broken in as you weren’t accustomed to seeing your girlfriend home so early but then you smiled widely as Uraraka leaned against the door. “You’re home!”

“Mhm,” Uraraka hummed, trudging over towards you. She tossed her briefcase with her hero costume to the side, slipping her shoes right beside it as she plopped onto the couch with you. You laughed as she nuzzled her face into your lap, resting her head on you. “I’m so tired.”

“Long day?” You asked and Uraraka nodded. “Did they let you go early?”

“No, I asked Tsuyu if she could cover my last patrol shift. They made me come in at five in the morning today and I don’t think I would’ve made it through the night if I stayed,” Uraraka complained.

“You work so hard, Ochako, I’m glad that you’re getting a little break now,” you said, rubbing your girlfriend’s back. “I’ll go cook something up for you! What’re you in the mood for?”

Uraraka whipped her head up, her expression softening at the sound of eating some of your top tier cooking. “Really? You’ll make something for me?”

You chuckled, ruffling her hair. “Of course, silly! It’s the least I can do.”

“Y/N!” Uraraka exclaimed, leaning forward and hugging you tightly. She pulled away momentarily. “I’m in a sweet mood. Your baking is so good!”

“Alright. Give me an hour. You sit here and get some rest, I’ll be in the kitchen,” you said, standing up and walking towards the kitchen.

Uraraka watched as you walked away, falling back on the couch with a smile on her face. She grabbed the TV remote, switching through the various channels aimlessly, catching up with the many shows she was never able to finish due to her demanding job.

You quickly grabbed your ingredients from the pantry and the fridge, already having the perfect recipe in mind. 

Although you were dating one of the top heroes in the country, you had absolutely no interest in pursuing heroism yourself. You owned a small bakery by your apartment on the corner of the intersection as you grew up baking with your parents which inspired you to own your own store. In fact, it was because of your bakery that you met Uraraka.

One day Uraraka had decided to stop by the new, at the time, bakery by her agency and ended up meeting you. She grew attracted to the beautiful person behind the counter and behind the delicious pastries and soon enough she found herself visiting the shop often just to see your face.

Once you had gotten closer to Uraraka due to her frequent visits, you decided to ask her out, as she was extremely nervous whenever she was around you to ask you out herself. Since then you had been dating for a few years and you eventually moved in together. 

You were busy once you began whisking away at the ingredients and beating them together. You decided to make a strawberry cake as you couldn’t recall the last time you made a cake, outside of work at least. On top of that, you wanted to make something special for your girlfriend and something easy, at least for you since you were experienced. In no time you managed to whip up the cake batter, pouring it into a cake pan and sliding it into the oven. 

Uraraka was still lying on the couch, dozing off momentarily before jolting awake due to the uncomfortable position she was in, especially since sleeping on a couch is not pleasant. She decided to stand up at the sound of you working hard in the kitchen for her, stretching as she walked over to you.

“What’re you making?” Uraraka asked, peeking over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of what you were doing.

“A cake,” you said simply, adding more sugar into your icing. You glanced over at Uraraka, noticing that she looked like she wanted to help out. “Come here.”

You set the spatula down, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards you. You stood behind her, pushing the bowl in front of her. “Do you wanna help?”

Uraraka nodded eagerly and you chuckled. “Just fold the sugar in, I wanted to make it a little sweeter for you.”

“Okay,” Uraraka said, following your instructions. You watched her, leaning on the counter as she worked. Although you enjoyed watching as she assisted you, you couldn’t help but want to be more involved with the task at hand.

You took a step forward, wrapping your arms around Uraraka’s waist. She stiffened under your touch, her pink cheeks burning into a more intense rosy color. Your hands slid atop of her own as you worked with her and mixed the icing together. 

“Looks ready to me,” you said, pulling away from her.

“R-Right,” Uraraka said with a stutter.

You simply laughed, planting a kiss on her cheek. “Even after all this time we’ve been together, you still blush when I’m around you.”

Uraraka giggled sheepishly. “I can’t help it! You just make me so nervous sometimes.”

You smiled at her words, taking the bowl from her and letting it cool in the fridge. “Can’t believe I can make a top hero nervous.”

“Well it’s not like you’re a villain that I need to stop or something,” Uraraka said, pulling herself up as she sat on top of the counter. 

You approached her, placing your hands on either side of her body as you closed the gap between your bodies and leaned forward, causing Uraraka to blush even more but still feel anticipated by your straightforward and bold actions. “You’re so damn cute, you know that?”

Uraraka smiled as you kissed her softly, pulling away at the sound of the oven ringing to announce that your cake was finished baking. You grabbed your oven mitts and took the cake out, letting it cool on the counter first before placing it onto a plate and letting it cool in the fridge. On the way you grabbed the icing mixture and some strawberries, washing the fruits and scraping the icing from the bowl into a piping bag. 

Uraraka watched in amazement as you moved swiftly around the kitchen. She loved watching you bake, enjoying how concentrated you would be when making something and how elegantly you moved when working on your craft.

Under any other circumstance you would want Uraraka to ice the cake with you but you knew how tired she must have been and decided to quickly ice little rosettes on the top of the cake and piping swirls at the borders of the cake. Finally you garnished the cake with the strawberries, wiping your forehead as you looked down at your masterpiece with satisfaction.

“It’s ready!” You said, calling out to Uraraka who had gone back to lie down.

She immediately sprung up, her mouth watering as she ran over to you, gasping at the sight of the beautifully decorated cake. “It looks amazing, Y/N!”

You grabbed a knife, cutting into the delectable looking dessert and cut out a big slice for your girlfriend. You placed it onto a plate, handing it to her with a fork and watching intently for her reaction, despite the countless amount of pastries and desserts she had taste tested for you.

Uraraka swallowed the bite she had ingested, a wide grin on her face. “It’s so good! It’s so sweet, too!”

You smiled slightly, content with the fact that Uraraka enjoyed it. “It’s all for you. I know how much you love cake so I thought I’d make something sweet just for you.”

Uraraka set her plate down onto the counter, wrapping her arms up around your neck as she hugged you. “Thank you, Y/N. I know I can count on you to make me feel better when things are tough.”

“Of course, that’s why I’m here, Ochako.”

If you’d like to be added to my taglist, please join here!

Taglist: @pinkcowgirleggpanda​ @xtsundere-princess​ @wesparklebitch​ @hot-pocket01​ @iamthe-leaf @ahrininetales​ @kirisclementine​ @happygalaxymilkshake​ @hookedinto-fictionalworlds​ @entraptas-kid-sister​ @mirakeul​ @thatpeachybandgirl​ @selfship-mishaps​

[seungcheolsbodyharness]

warnings: theft, breaking and entering, religious undertones, demons, bodily manipulation, kidnapping

wc: 4.5 k

when you look throughout history, you can easily see how greed - for power, for money, for control - has lead to countless downfalls. the romans, the ottomans, napoleon, thousands of names attached to the idea that eventually, taking too much and hoarding it for yourself will eventually bring about an end.

especially when you take that which you were never meant to have. 

they say those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.

you like to consider yourself a fairly average person. you have a good job, you have good friends, an apartment that’s a little smaller than you’d like but is all yours, and every now and then you like to do something new. something fun. 

even if your friends tell you that what you consider fun is what they consider boring, but it doesn’t matter much to you. you enjoy yourself, even if you’re still staying inside your comfort zone. you try to reason that eating somewhere new and taking cooking classes are fun, laughing goodnaturedly when they roll their eyes. 

“you should try something really new.” they’ll tell you. “something you’ve never done before.” 

you were surprised when a coworker had asked you to go speed-dating with her. not unpleasantly, of course, but surprised nonetheless. it was just the sort of thing your friends would push you to do, and you’ve never considered yourself to be shy, so you agree. 

which is how you find yourself sitting in a crowded restaurant, sitting in a long line at a long table, and across from a similarly long line of men. men you don’t know, have never met before, and will only speak to for maybe five minutes before your time together ends and they move on to the next person. 

all the men you’ve met so far have been nice enough - save for a few who most certainly were not - but definitely not the type of guys you’d be interested in dating. which is fine, you’re here to have fun and meet people more than find a new boyfriend. 

that’s how you feel, at least, until the buzzer sounds and the last man of the night slides into the chair across from you. he’s tall and slim, black hair short, his face youthful in a way that makes you wonder if he’s even old enough to be in this bar, and when he smiles at you he reminds you a little bit of that one emoji. 

“hi!” he says, “my name is hansol.” he scratches at a spot behind his ear, nodding attentively when you tell him your name. “have you had any fun with this? this isn’t really my kind of thing, but my boss thought it’d be good for me to branch out, so...here i am.” he ends with a laugh and you can’t help but laugh with him, it’s so infectious. 

“yeah,” you agree, “a coworker asked me to come with her and then she ended up getting crazy sick, but i was already here so i figured why not, yknow?”  hansol nods and takes a sip of his beer and you take the chance to ask if he’s even old enough for that, smile teasing.

he laughs. “i’m thousands of years old, thank you very much.” you laugh loudly at that, nearly doubling over onto the table. 

“oh, oh man i’m sorry,” you say, breathless. “honestly, i’m really here because my friends think i’m boring.”

“no,” hansol has the decency to sound shocked. “i mean, we’ve only just met but you don’t seem boring at all. and what kind of friends are they to say that anyway?”

“it’s fine, i know they don’t really mean it.” you wave your hand, almost to wave away the idea that your friends would say something like that in an attempt to be malicious. “but they’re kind of right. i pride myself on doing new things, but even the new things are always kind of safe. i’ve just...always done the safe thing, i guess.”

“well, if you want.” hansol hands you the small, laminated menu the waitress had set down before anyone had arrived. “you should take this.”

you snort at the suggestion, turning the menu over in your hand. “and what will that do, exactly?”

“taking things you’re not supposed to is exciting, isn’t it?” he offers, shoving his own menu into his coat pocket. “i have a...collection of things i definitely shouldn’t have.” he whispers, smile wide. 

you raise an eyebrow at him. “what are you, a klepto?” 

he chuckles. “i prefer to think of myself as...a collector of priceless items.”

you roll your eyes. “priceless as in you haven’t paid for them.”

“yes, exactly.” he smirks, shrugging his shoulders. “maybe you should come out with me one day. see how exciting it can be.”

you narrow your eyes at him. “are you inviting me on a date to watch you steal?”

he shrugs again. “only if you’d like. i could teach you to dine and dash, too, but i’m not as big on that as my one friend. and man, can he eat. i prefer the tangible stuff.”

you tell yourself it’s a terrible idea. scream it internally, really. 

it doesn’t keep you from giving him your number after the final buzzer sounds, and telling him to call.

there’s a bit of a glint in his eyes when he tells you he will. 

the call comes a few weeks later, when hansol asks you to meet him at a coffee shop across the street from a shopping mall. 

“hey there.” he greets you, smile lopsided and nearly a smirk as he waves to you from a table near the back. “i wasn’t sure you were gonna show up.”

you shrug and join him, taking a sip from the latte you’d ordered. “so….what’s on your not-shopping list today?”

he laughs. “nothing too big. i would hate for you to get too nervous and make a mistake, you know.”

you raise an eyebrow. “see, hansol, i’m just here to watch. that's what we agreed upon. i'm not planning on doing any...shopping.”

hansol hums and his eyes roll back, thoughtful. “i guess i did say that, huh? fine. but once this is over you'll wish you'd made a grab too.” he finishes his coffee and stands. “shall we?” 

you shrug and look at him with what you hope is nonchalance, but truthfully your heart begins to pick up speed as you follow him through the shop and out the door, coffee cup clutched almost too tightly in your hands. 

you hope it's not too obvious when they start to shake, but hansol must notice because he smiles at you softly and takes one of your hands in his. he squeezes gently as you walk across the parking lot and into the food court, thumb running over the back of your hand as he walks up to the directory. 

“what, you didn't already have a place in min?” you ask, but he ignores you in favor of continuing to scan over the map before pulling you in the direction of a crowded department store. 

“so.” he asks, “you like diamonds?”

you stop moving immediately and stare at him in shock. he doesn't look back until he feels the resistance via the hand he still held. 

“what?” he looks bored and slightly irritated. “not everyone likes diamonds. maybe you're more into amethyst, pearls, rubies even. that's why i'm asking.” 

“i don't want anything. especially nothing gaudy and….” you lean towards him and whisper, “conspicuous.” 

he rolls his eyes and smiles. “another time then. come on.” he tugs you forward and towards a line of scarves, gloves, purses. 

a woman approaches, no doubt to ask if you're in need of any help, but hansol fixes her with a glare that sends her scurrying off in another direction. you think you see his eyes go black, but you chalk it up to the nerves eating away at your stomach. 

“hansol.” you whisper, “i don’t think i want to do this anymore.”

he looks at you from the corner of his eye, brows raised. “too much excitement for you already? maybe we should start somewhere else.” he scans the store quickly and nods. “yeah, nothing i really want here anyway. come on.” he leads you in the direction from which you came, back out into the hallway of the mall itself. 

“you hungry? some food will probably settle your stomach.” 

you narrow your eyes at him and pout. “i never said anything about my stomach.”

hansol rolls his eyes. “your hands are shaking, and you’re obviously nervous, and nerves tend to be bad for the stomach. let’s go eat something.” 

you sigh and let him lead you back towards the food court. you settle on pizza, and sit together in one of the tables surrounded by a wall of plastic plants. “can i ask you something?”

hansol nods, mouth full of food, and gestures for you to go ahead.

“why do you like to steal?” it’s something that’s been on your mind since you met him, nagging at the back corners of your brain as you tried and tried to come up with a reason for him to be so interested in having things he shouldn’t have. “i’ve been trying to understand but i just...can’t.”

hansol swallows and takes a sip from his drink, leaning back in his chair. “i just like it. it’s fun.”

“it’s fun.” you try to put as much bored disbelief into your tone as possible. “i find that hard to believe. i’m nearly having an anxiety attack just thinking about it.” 

he giggles. “that’s because you’ve never done it. if you’d just let me help you, you’ll see how fun it is. how good it feels. it’s like the best damn high you’ve ever had.”

“i...i’ve never been high.” you tell him, slice of pizza raised to your mouth. 

he smiles. “then i think this is exactly what you need.” 

you swallow, the food in your mouth feeling like nothing more than a hard lump in your throat. “i - i don’t know…”

“something small, easy, i promise.” he takes your hands in his and looks directly into your eyes and you feel your nerves melt away. “i won’t let anything happen to you. you see, i never get caught. and i don’t intend to start now.”

slowly, dumbly, you nod. it seems easier to just listen to him, you think. you finish your food and you find that he was right, it really did make your stomach feel better. “okay.” you tell him. “i think i’m ready.” his smile is wide and bright as you continue, “but it has to be small. very, very small.”

he nods. “of course. i have the perfect thing in mind.” 

hansol takes you across the mall to the craft store. “there’s plenty of teeny, tiny things in here that no one will notice have gone missing.” he says quietly, leading you down an aisle of yarns. “at least until they do inventory.”

you frown up at him, not pleased by his joke, and continue down the aisle without him, eyes scanning for something small, but also loose - something out of a bin, nothing packaged, but also nothing that was out in view of everything else. you had enough common sense to realize that without hansol’s advice. 

then you spot it. 

at the end of the aisle, there’s a bin full of small foam animals - really small, smaller than even the palm of your hand. easily shoved into a coat pocket or purse. you let the sleeve of your sweater fall down over your hand and hover your sleeve-covered hand over the toys, gripping just enough to grab one as your hand finishes its skim over the top. you bring your hand back to your side, the tiny toy nestled safely in your clenched fist, then slipped quickly into your purse. you scratch the barcode sticker from the tummy of the toy and stick it to the back of a display. 

you slowly make your way back to hansol, who’s looking at a row of paint brushes that cost more than you’d have thought reasonable, but that didn’t matter. 

“hansol, i - i don’t want to do this. let’s just leave.” you fiddle with your hands and don’t meet his eyes, so you hear him sigh, and can almost feel his eyes rolling. 

“alright, let’s go.” you look up at him through your eyelashes, and he gives you a small smile. “don’t worry about it. it’s cool.” 

you feel your heart pounding in your chest as you approach the exit, hands trembling where they hide in your sleeves, but you keep your face stoic and even as you step through the security measures just before the doors. 

nothing happens. 

you walk back to your car with hansol, and you lean against the hood, watching him pace. he’s clearly a little disappointed, probably having hoped to get more done this afternoon. “i’m sorry, hansol.” 

he opens his mouth to tell you once again that it’s fine, but you hold up a hand to stop him. 

“what i mean is i’m sorry this is all i could get.” you reach into your purse and pull out the toy, a tiny foam whale nestled in your palm. a smile spreads wide across your face, and your heart is beating no longer with fear but excitement. 

hansol looks down at the toy in your hand and smirks. “you played me pretty good, huh?”

your smile grows and your hands shake as you speak. “yeah, yeah i did, huh? oh, oh man it was like - like my heart, yknow, it was beating so hard, and i couldn’t stop thinking about what might happen, but then i just did it, yknow, and i peeled the sticker off and - and i stuck it somewhere, but - but you know how sometimes -”

hansol rubs his hands up and down your arms, telling you to breathe, and you take in a heaving breath, cheeks almost sore from smiling, heart still pounding. “so, how do you feel?”

you laugh, sound bubbling out of you as you shrug your shoulders. “you know what, i don’t really know! i just feel - i dunno, tingly? excited? like i’m ready to run a marathon? oh man, i just feel - a lot, i guess.” you giggle some more and hansol laughs back, hands moving down to hold yours. 

“i’m glad you had so much fun.” there’s a softness in his eyes that you want to write off as being fond, but you don’t want to make any assumptions. “you wanna go get dinner? i’ll pay, everything above board, i promise.”

you hum, rocking back and forth and your heels. “um, yeah, hansol, i think i’d like that.” 

he squeezes your hands and smiles, begins rattling off restaurants he wants to take you to.

hansol takes you on more dates, mostly dinner, but occasionally he’ll mention wanting to bring you along on another one of his...outings. you shrug - the adrenaline kick had been nice, but not addicting, and you haven’t been able to bring yourself to steal anything since that first time. 

the two of you are strolling through the park, bundled in sweaters and scarves to ward off the winter air.

“i want you to come with me tonight. it’s not a big deal, no big job or anything, but it’d make me feel good to have you there.” his thumb rubs over your hand, swings it back and forth between you two. 

you hum, mulling it over in your mind. “what kind of….job, is it exactly?”

he hums back, “well, ‘job’ makes it sound like i have someone else telling me what to do, and it’s not like that. it’s more like i just see something i want, and i figure out how to take it.”

“okay, so what is it you want to take?” 

hansol smiles, eyes shining. “just some jewelry. some art, maybe.”

you peer up at him, eyes narrowed. “art?”

“yeah, you know - paintings, sculptures, maybe you’ve heard of them?” he’s smirking and you wish it didn’t make him look more handsome so that you could be more irritated at him. you make up for it by smacking at his arm. 

“of course i know what art is, you asshole.” you sigh. “fine, i guess i can come along.”

his smirk softens. “looking forward to it. i’ll pick you up tonight, late, so try to take a nap.” he leans down and kisses your forehead and you laugh. 

“yeah, sounds like a plan, i guess.”

you want to say no to him. you really, really do. but you don’t, and late that night there’s a gentle knock on your door. you’ve dressed yourself in all black, worn your most comfortable shoes. you open the door and hansol’s beautiful smile greets you, but there’s something...off about him tonight. you can’t put your finger on it though, and follow him out to his car. 

the two of you drive along in silence, one of hansol’s hands interlocked with yours. 

“tell me again.” you say softly. “why do you do what you do?”

hansol doesn’t really reply, just hums. he takes his hand from yours, and puts it on the steering wheel so he can put his other hand out of the window. 

“i just do it because i want it. yknow? i see something i want, so i take it. i want something, so i have to have it.” his voice is soft. dark. 

you nod, wrapping your arms around yourself to ward off the wind from the open window. “where are we going?”

“you’ll see.” 

you frown. “it’s not like i’m going to blab about it to anyone.”

in the dark, you could swear that you can see the glint of hansol’s teeth. he glances over at you, and you see eyes that aren’t human. goosebumps rise up your arms and you shut your eyes tight, pressing the backs of your palms into them to rid yourself of the vision. you open them again, and hansol’s eyes are back on the road. 

maybe, you think to yourself, you really should have taken that nap.

the drive comes to an end maybe half an hour later - hansol pulls into the driveway of a large house, all dark windows and doors, cars parked neatly in front of the house. other than being a bit larger than normal, it really seemed like any other house. 

hansol parks and gets out of the car, waiting for you to follow suit. 

“this isn’t what i was expecting,” you whisper, leaning against the hood while hansol scrolls through his phone. 

“what were you expecting?” he responds, not taking his eyes off the screen. “that i bring you to a museum? oh no. not this job.”

your skin crawls. “you said we were here for….jewels? art?”

he hums. “i’m here....” he trails off, begins walking up the driveway towards the door. “i’m here for a trumpet.” 

you narrow your eyes at him. “a trumpet?”

he looks back at you, but you can’t see his eyes in the dark. “it’s…part of a collection, you could say.” 

you shrug your shoulders and follow him onto the porch. you’re expecting him to do, well, something to the door, but he just....twists the handle and the door slides open without a sound. 

he looks back at you over his shoulder, eyes shining as the moon comes out from behind the clouds. a breeze rushes past, ruffling your hair and making no noise. hansol motions for you to follow him, and you do. 

the house is silent as he leads you through the halls, the house much larger than it appeared even from the outside. despite the dark, he seemed to know exactly where he was going as he began to climb the stairs up to the second floor. you slow your steps, hesitant, but suddenly there’s a tugging from just below your navel and you catch up to hansol quickly. 

“stay close.” he whispers. “it’s in this next room.”

you reach the top of the stairs and right in front of you there is an entrance to a room, barely lit with moonlight through a large window. 

“go in.” hansol directs you. “you’ll know it when you see it.”

“wait.” you whisper harshly. “why do i have to go in and get it?”

“just do it.” hansol’s voice is loud and dark and you whip your head around, heart pounding as you look to see if he’s alerted anyone. you wait, and wait, but nothing and no one comes. 

“no one can hear me but you.” hansol says, “now go and get the trumpet.” 

you don’t have time to dwell on his words before the tugging behind your navel comes again, dragging you forward into the room step by awkward step, feet moving with a mind of their own. your heart pounds harder than you can ever remember, eyes frantically scanning the walls in the dim light. you catch a gleam of something from the corner of your eye, turning slowly to see the light from the moon bouncing off of something unlike any instrument you’ve ever seen before. 

and yet, somewhere inside you, you know that this is exactly what hansol is looking for. shaking, without even thinking, your hands move up and grasp the trumpet, removing it from the shelf as slowly as you can so you don’t disturb anything else on display. 

the second you hold the trumpet against your chest, the room floods with light. your eyes flash up to hansol, standing just outside the doorway, back away from you. you can see that not just the room but the stairway, likely the entire house, is now alight. your only thought is that you’ve been discovered, but hansol doesn’t seem to be too perturbed which only frightens you more. you hurry to him, shoving the stupid trumpet into his arms, and he smiles at you. 

his eyes are black and his mouth is full of knife-sharp teeth. 

“thanks, babe.” he says. except his mouth never opens to form words. you think back to what he told you before you entered the display room. 

“no one can hear me but you.” 

“what are you?” you whisper, unable to move. you can’t be sure if it’s from fear or something...else. 

“i don’t know if you really want that answer.” his voice fills your head, making his way back down the stairs. your body follows. you can hear the pounding of steps and voices yelling from behind and above you, but hansol just continues moving forward until the two of you are back in his car. 

“now, now.” he says as he starts the car. “there’s no reason to cry.”

you hadn’t realized that you were. shaking, your hands put on your seatbelt as he pulls down the driveway. “what are you?” 

he doesn’t answer, just continues driving down the road, back towards town. you start to cry, sobs wracking your chest.  your hands shake, and you scream, and you want nothing more than to throw yourself from the car and get away from him. but aside from the shaking, you cannot make any part of your body move towards freedom. 

“don’t bother.” hansol says. his voice is harsher, a warped version of what you’d heard in knowing him. “i’m not letting you go anywhere anytime soon. you see, there are...places i can’t get into because of what i am. you, on the other hand - human, pure. you can go anywhere. the angels wards would never be alerted by you. not until we’re already gone.” 

“what the fuck do you mean, angels?” your voice comes out shaky and torn, throat raw from screaming. 

he looks over at you and smiles, mouth still full of knives. “you asked me what i am, didn’t you?” he laughs and your hair stands up on end. “i’m most certainly not an angel.” 

“i want to go home.” you whisper, feeling terrified and broken. “please let me go home, i won’t tell anyone what happened. i swear.” 

he laughs again. “of course you aren’t going to tell anyone.” he leans over and presses his lips to yours. “not if you want to stay alive.”

you scream. you wonder if you’ll ever be able to stop screaming out your fear and anguish. 

he doesn’t take you home. instead the two of you keep driving, until you can no longer keep your eyes open. 

when you awake, you find yourself in a bed in a room, surrounded by piles and piles of...stuff, ranging from unworn clothes to books to art, sculptures and paintings alike. 

as weird as your surroundings are, all you can focus on is the pain in your throat - the screaming and sobbing had done a number on you. it was the only thing that reminded you this was not a dream. 

you slowly pull yourself from the bed, towards what you hope is a bathroom. you open the door and step inside, turning on the sink and watching the water run red. you sigh, unable to feel anything but hopelessness. you turn the sink off and shut the door behind you, walking back into the bedroom and towards the other door, moving slowly around the things that littered the floor. 

you open the door and find more piles in the hallway. you walk forward, down the hall, listening to what sounds like a tv playing and following the sound. 

you find hansol, seated on some sort of throne, eyes glued to the screen in front of him. 

“how nice of you to join me, pet.” he smirks. his teeth are normal, now. his eyes are not. 

“i need water.” you force out. “real water.” 

he says nothing, but hands you a glass filled with what appears to be water. you sniff it, find it normal enough, and drink. your throat feels instantly better, almost miraculously so. 

“where am i? why is there so much...shit?”

hansol barks out a laugh. “my things are not shit, pet.” 

“i’m not your -”

“you’re in my home. my home in the human plane, anyway. you wouldn’t be much use to me if i took you to hell. your soul would be tarnished and the angels would see you right away.”

“i’m not your pet.” you mumble. 

“fine.” he shrugs. “assistant, then. point is, you’re not going anywhere until i find the last trumpet.”

you narrow your eyes at him. “what do you even need these ugly ass trumpets for?”

he turns to you, smiling wide, all-black eyes crinkling. “tell me. what do you know about the end of days?”

your blood runs cold. 

you wish you’d never gone to that speed date. 

[jesusmick]

Sad Boy Hours in Mexico

I have always wondered about the deleted scene from s9e6 where Mickey meets a guy wearing a Gay Jesus shirt. Here is a little drabble I wrote to try to fill in some gaps and explain how Mickey decides to go back to Chicago and prison. Featuring Mandy bc I love her. (2000 words).

It is dark by the time he turns the key to his apartment, the faint click of the lock rattling the loose doorknob. He doesn't know why he even bothers to lock it. He has nothing worth stealing, the drugs and the cash both locked up safe in Alonzo's apartment across town. Even if he did have something of value stashed away in his shitty third floor apartment, nobody in the neighborhood would dare try to break in. The people here, his neighbors, they left him alone. Come to think of it, his coworkers did too. Maybe it was because getting in with the Sinola cartel had been his dad's idea. He had been working with them for over a year now selling overpriced party drugs to stupid American tourists, but the other dealers still called him "El Menor". The younger. The lesser. Even 2000 miles away in Cabo, Mickey was still living in his father's shadow.

He kicks the door shut and toes his shoes off, dropping his backpack by the door. He's exhausted. The fog curling around his mind begs him to collapse on the bare mattress in the corner of the room and sleep until he forgets. He has done too much remembering for one day.

Instead, he moves to the beat-up mini fridge in the other corner of the room. Besides the mattress, the mini fridge, and the broken dresser that had been in the room when he moved in, he is alone. The single bare light bulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling does little to make his home for the last 14 months feel lived in.

Opening a beer, Mickey steps out onto his balcony and folds himself into a plastic picnic chair he inherited from his neighbor when she moved out.

Elena. She had been nice, Mickey thinks. Young and terrified, she had reminded him of Mandy. They would occasionally sit out on their balconies together and smoke. She didn't speak English, and Mickey's Spanish was fairly limited, but they got on. She had moved out a few months ago after getting pregnant with her drug addict boyfriend. Mickey knew he was in jail now. He also knew that he was the one who had sold Hernesto the drugs he had been on when he robbed the liquor store down the block. Mickey suspects that Elena knew too, but she never mentioned anything. She never blamed him and when she moved out, she gave him a potted plant and the plastic chair.

The plant had died weeks ago. Mickey wonders if Elena had her baby.

Taking a sip of his beer, Mickey's mind wanders to Mandy. He knew she had left Chicago years ago. They didn't talk much, but last he checked she was in Los Angeles working as a cocktail waitress in a bar frequented by the same trust-fund babies who made up the majority of his clientele. In a way, he was jealous of her, but also incredibly proud. She had gotten out. Out of their father's clutches, out of their shitty neighborhood in the Southside, and out of her own way. She was making something of herself, all by herself, even if that something was watered down appletinis.  

Mickey, he could never be that person. He needed others too much, he thinks. He was too soft, too lost in his own head, too attached. Those first few weeks in Mexico had been some of the loneliest of his life. That was why he fell in with the Sinola cartel in the first place. Well, that and the fact that he was in the country illegally, making holding down a regular job impossible. His father had connections and he was desperate for a distraction. He wasn't stupid enough to call his group of dealers and distributors a family. He knew that they wouldn't think twice about killing him if he did something he shouldn't. But Mickey wasn't stupid, and so far, coasting along in this new life had made things easier. He had a job, a purpose, and a small shitty apartment to come home to at night. It was enough.

Until it wasn't. Until today.

He thinks that maybe he was a little bit numb. That being on his own for so long had turned his head to business and buried his anger, his sadness, his fear under a thick layer of dust and cheap Mexican beer.

Suddenly, he realizes that he is crying. He doesn't know when it started, maybe since he sat down on the porch, but if the dotted teardrops soaking into his shirt are any indication, he has been silently crying for a while now.

He rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms and pulls out his phone. He doesn't know why he does it. But he finds himself scrolling through his contacts and pressing call before he can think twice.

She picks up on the 4th ring. Mickey thinks maybe he would have preferred it if it had gone to voicemail.

"Mickey?" She sounds like she is somewhere crowded, Mickey can hear car horns softly in the background and the sound of high heels clicking on the sidewalk.

"Hey, Mandy." His voice is softer than he intended.

"Hey." There is a long pause before she continues and Mickey thinks that maybe this was a mistake. "I thought you were in Mexico."

"I am. How's LA?" God, this is awkward. Fuck, he and Mandy had never been good with words, even at the best of times. Now, after not speaking in years? What was he thinking?

"It's good, I'm good. I'm on my way to work actually."

"Oh, right. Do you want me to call you back? Sorry, I should have texted first."

"No, no, its fine. I still have a bit of a walk. What's going on?"

And that's it, isn't it? Nothing is going on, at least nothing that should have any affect on Mickey's life. But here he is, sitting on his shitty porch, drinking his third beer, and trying to keep his voice from betraying the fact that he's been crying.

It's just not fair. It's not fair that he should be out there, moved on to some new chapter of his life. Some new partner. While Mickey is here, still somehow waiting for him.

"Mick, you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here." He rubs his eyes again, pressing hard until he sees spots. He keeps them closed.

"You heard from Ian?"

It's out there now. The reason he called Mandy. The reason he was so distracted and irritable after seeing that college kid from Chicago wearing the "Gay Jesus" shirt. Alonzo had shoved him out of his apartment while they were counting the day's profits and told him to go fuck himself after his fourth nasty remark.  

"Yeah," Mandy answers, "I've heard from him."

"And?" Mickey asks, suddenly frustrated. He stares out across the balcony railing, streetlamps flickering and the warm glow from neighboring apartments illuminating the street below. They should be staring out at the street together.

"He called me a few day's ago. I guess you heard about the whole Gay Jesus thing. He stopped taking his meds, got in with the wrong people, blew up a van. His sentencing is on Friday."

"Jesus Christ." Mickey exclaims softly.

He's quiet then. He can hear the sound of a crosswalk through the phone and Mandy's heels on the pavement. He thinks she might have pressed the phone to her chest because he hears her greet someone softly and the background noise suddenly fades.

"I should go." Mickey says and he hates how his voice breaks. Hates that he let himself get this affected. Hates that he is here, alone, in his shitty apartment with his shitty job stranded in fucking Cabo of all places.

He is about to press end on his phone and go grab a fourth beer when Mandy's voice, suddenly clear, speaks again.

"He misses you, Mickey." And that is just too much.

"If he misses me so much," Mickey's voice wobbles dangerously, "why did he leave me in fucking Mexico?" And he is openly crying now. He knows Mandy can hear it. And he hates that too.

Mandy sighs. "He's fucked up Mickey. Just like we all are. But he does miss you. He's pissed at himself for going off his meds and embarrassed that he let it go so far, but I think if you called him, he would listen."

"But he wasn't off his meds last year. He was himself. Or maybe he wasn't, I don't fucking know. He kept saying that he had is life together. He said he had a boyfriend."

"Some fucking boyfriend he turned out to be." Mickey thinks he hears real anger in her voice then, and he reminds himself that Mandy cares about Ian too. That Ian's sentencing was probably just as hard for her to hear as it was for him.

"He didn't even notice that he was off his meds, Mick. He just let him spiral until it was too late to do anything about it. He didn't even go to his hearing."

Mickey could hear the sound of metal scraping in the background and he thinks maybe Mandy was opening her locker before her shift started.

"What should I do?" He knows he sounded desperate, lost, but he doesn't care. He is desperate and more than a little lost.

"You love him, and even though he may be shit at showing it, he loves you too. Figure it out, my shift is starting."

"Yeah," Mickey sighs, "Okay. Thanks, Mandy."

"Bye. Call me later if you want."

She hangs up and Mickey drops the phone to his lap.

This whole day was just too much. Mickey isn't sure what he had expected Mandy to say, but hearing that Ian had gone off his meds and blown up a van wasn't it. When he saw the kid's shirt, he assumed that Ian had taken a job as some sort of gay preacher or social media activist and was now living a cushy life with his boyfriend in one of the hipster neighborhoods up in Chicago. His boyfriend who was probably just as smart and attractive as Ian. Someone who appreciated craft beer, who wrote poetry, and drank soy milk. Not someone with a lengthy criminal record, a fucked up family, who didn't know how to love someone without driving them away.

Somehow, knowing that Ian's life was falling apart, that his boyfriend as a piece of shit, and that he was going to prison gave Mickey a sick sort of vindication. He would never have let things get that crazy. He would have noticed Ian's mood swings and erratic behavior. He would have taken care of him and set him straight before he could have hurt anyone. Before he could hurt himself.

But Mickey knows that isn't fair, and truthfully, he is more worried for Ian than anything else. He has no idea what mental state he is in or how long his sentence will last. And prison is no place for someone like Ian. He's too soft. Too caring. Too proud.

With a new resolve, he wipes his hands on his jeans and picks up his phone. He doesn't really know who to call about something like this, so he finds the phone number for the public defender's office.

The call is quick and to the point. He knows what he wants and he knows what he is going to risk.

He agrees to meet them at the border in Tijuana in two days.

In the morning he will have to get a bus, a nearly 24 hour drive up the coast. But now, for the first time in over a year, a calm settles over him.

The plastic picnic chair strains as he stands, scraping against the concrete of his balcony.

He's not scared of prison. Looking around his room, he realizes that he has been practically living in a prison cell since arriving in Cabo. He is scared of Ian, though. Scared that Mandy is wrong. That Ian doesn't love him and that he is giving up his freedom, his future, for a man who has left him heartbroken so many times before.

As he crawls into bed, arranging his limbs under a threadbare blanket, his mind jumps back to a lifetime ago.

What you and I have makes me free.

Mickey thinks that he was right, back then. There is no freedom for him without Ian Gallagher.

[tisfan]

May I take Your Coat?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25288321 For @livewire28 

Bucky is a selkie, headed into the human world to find a potential mate. He has no intention of staying very long... until he does.

Wanda is closing up the tiki bar for the night and wishes this last-minute customer would hurry up and go... until she doesn't.

Inspired by several tumblr posts I’ve seen where the human offers the coat back after knocking it down, or whatever.

Bucky flopped up on shore, scratching his belly over the sand and wending his way up to the rocks. There was a cave there, long since used for such purpose. Human things were stored there, neat and tidy. If he was lucky, the rain barrel would be full and he could take a bit of a bath.

Long gone were the days that a half-dressed, scruffy stranger could walk into a seaside town and not immediately be run out by the local coppers. There were standards. He couldn’t look like a vagabond. 

Humans were weird.

Bucky made his way to the cave and then shrugged out of his coat.

It always took him a moment to find his land legs again, and he was glad enough that there weren’t people looking at him. Not even his own kind.

The cave was cool, and well laid out, the earthen floor long since cleared of stone and debris, flat and firm under his feet. A few human style chairs were set around a flat surface. Tabul, Bucky thought was the word, or close enough.

The rain barrel was full and he drew a few buckets into the tub to wash the salt smell from his skin, to scrub out his hair. Things they didn’t really worry about during their day to day lives.

He checked the gift box; trophies from past loves and gifts for new courted mates. Never stolen. Selkies weren’t thieves. Take one, leave one.

A fine string of black pearls, intermixed with a rose pearl every five beads. That should be well enough. Human women preferred jewelry, men preferred weapons. Or gold. There was some of that in the chest, too.

Bucky took his own offering, a handful of pirate treasure that he’d gotten from one of the wrecks nearby. The sea was hard on things from the land, aside from treasure. Eventually, someone would come, check the box. Gather up that which could be crafted. Everyone contributed because the system benefited everyone.

If you wanted a child, or a mate, you went through the cave.

Bucky found clothes there, sealed in a zip locked bag. He knew about those, too. Plastic. It filled the ocean, no matter how much the selkies tried to gather it up and toss it back on the shore. But it kept clothing dry and free from dirt and stains while waiting for someone else to be able to use it.

He dressed. Finger combed out his hair, gently untangling the strands. He looked well enough to pass for a local, he guessed.

Slinging his coat over his arm, Bucky put on loose-fitting shoes -- he hated shoes, all selkie hated shoes, but the humans got mad if you weren’t wearing them.

Stupid human rules.

But it was the only way to be sure.

If a selkie mated with another selkie, they could birth seal pups, which was tolerable, or a selkie, which was ideal. Or a human child, which was not ideal at all. 

Humans no longer looked at a child left on the beach or the docks as a blessing. The child would end up in the human foster care, sometimes adopted out, sometimes neglected, but often taken far away from the sea, too far for their parent to find them, so they would never know… until some years, or even generations later, when they had their own child.

Who might be a selkie.

But any selkie who took a human as their mate, the child would be selkie.

For the women, it was easier; come ashore, spend a few days with a relatively tolerable human, come home and have the baby. The only time that went wrong was if the human found and stole the selkie’s coat.

For men-- 

Well, there were a few options. Selkies weren’t thieves.

But the cost of a child was high; the cost of living a half-life among humans was high.

Many selkie men chose to raise a child not of their blood, help provide for a child with a selkie mate, adopt the offspring.

It wasn’t a bad plan, not really.

But Bucky wanted his own child.

Was that too much to ask?

*

Wanda sighed as the man walked into her bar. There was no dress code, aside from yes, please wear clothes. It was a beach bar, tiki themed and tacky, but it meant no one expected the floor to be swept. It was almost closing time, though, and she’d already shooed the rest of the locals and tourists out.

“It’s already last call,” she said. “I can get you one drink, and anything that’s left cooked in the kitchen, but that’s all.”

“That will be well enough,” the man said, and he was beautiful, really. Dark, windswept hair that looked like he’d been swimming most of the day. Blue eyes, cleft chin. Cheekbones that would worry the TSA, they were that sharp.

The clothes, not so much. A tourist tee from one of the shops up on the strip and ugly shorts with pineapples on them. Sandals, which wasn’t typical. But he carried a brown silk sport coat tucked over his arm. Gorgeous, almost golden. Glittery, reflecting back the light from the imitation tiki torches. The shop owner didn’t like smoke from real torches, so they had ugly fake electric things. And light up palm trees. It was tacky as shit.

Which meant, at least, her customer mostly matched the decor.

She wished she didn’t have to work the night shift -- she was always cranky during the evening -- but school was in the morning. One of these days, she was just going to collapse. Trying to do two full time gigs, and her side-hustle where she consulted for people doing gardening and helped them lay out and select plants. She barely got any time to breathe. Certainly relaxing was all the way out of the question.

Which didn’t make her the best host to a customer coming in to eat a plate of cold fries and drink a beer.

“Long day in the sun?”

“Something like that,” the man said, sitting down at the bar, moving gingerly. He didn’t look sunburned. Maybe he was just sore. Too much swimming.

“Well, we’re closing soon, so you enjoy your food. Yell if you need something, but I gotta start clean up. I was supposed to have help today, but both the other girls called out,” she said.

“Is there anything I can do to assist?”

Wanda didn’t quite scoff. Like a tourist would want to help do the dishes or put the stools up. “It’s just basic stuff. Put the seats up on the table, rake the floor for trash, empty--”

The man got up, drained his beer, and Wanda half expected him to leave without paying, saying he was going to leave a bad review and would be back to talk to the manager, because honestly that was what she was used to. Tourists were people with money, and most of the time, they were entitled pricks.

Instead, he wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, and then-- got to work putting up the stools.

“Thank you,” Wanda said. She probably shouldn’t let him help; Thaddeus Ross, her boss, would not be pleased with her if something happened to the man. Or even if he complained-- or if someone else complained. But she was so tired, really, what could it hurt, just this once? “My name’s Wanda.”

“Bucky,” the man said.

“Thanks, Bucky,” she said. “If you can do that, I’ll get the kitchen shut down, then take out the trash.”

“Will do, Wanda,” he said, and he stressed her name, like a caress.

She suppressed a shiver, headed into the kitchen. She didn’t have time or energy to worry about some guy.

Loaded the dishes into the industrial washer and started it. Sometimes she wished she had one of those at home. Once the dishes were in the rack, it took about four minutes to clean them. She had to be careful unloading because the dishes would be hot as hell, but it was nice.

And then she’d look at the space it needed and the cost and decide if she needed a plate in four minutes, she could just wash it in the sink.

By the time Wanda came back out to wipe down the bar, Bucky had put all the chairs up except the one he had been using, stacked all the trash bags by the door, and was raking the floor to get up all the random cigarette butts, spare change, and cruft that gathered around the tiki bar.

“Wow,” she said. “Nice job.” She took his plate back into the kitchen and left it by the washer. There was no point unloading the whole thing to wash one plate. Opening shift could get it tomorrow. “Here--” she snagged his jacket, flipped up the last stool, and then offered it to him. “Thanks for your help.”

Bucky reached out his hand tentatively for the jacket, as if he were shocked that she’d touched it. Or given it back. Or something. She couldn’t help petting it. The material was so soft.

But when he reached for it, his fingers brushing the fabric, a jolt of heat, of desire, of-- something passed from her to him and back.

“You-- want to go to one of the all night pancake houses up the way and buy a girl a cup of coffee?” her mouth said before her brain engaged. She never asked anyone on a date, even if she was interested. 

“Yes,” Bucky said, and his voice was husky and seductive. “I would like that very much, I think.”

[birdsandspades]

I Was Never Good at Waiting- (Sugawara x Reader) Chapter 1

- It was your last year in highschool, everything had been going smoothly until you got assigned the new teacher. Sugawara Koushi was handsome, maybe too handsome for his own good. Be he wasn't flirting with you right, teachers shouldn't do that....I guess we will see where this year goes.

Work Count - 4,281

----

“Stand clear, the train doors will be opening shortly.” The speakers overhead rang out as you pulled into the station.

You waited for your turn to step off the train step and onto the concrete platform in front of you. Your phone buzzing in your jacket pocket as you walked up the station stairs to the streets. Turning it over, your screen illuminated with your mother's contact name. You slid your thumb over the screen and lifted the phone to your ear. 

“Hi mom.” You beamed, nodding a thank you to the man holding the station door open as you walked outside. It wasn't unusual with everything she had on her mind that she would forget important days on your schedule. But none the less you were happy she remembered today. 

“My big girl is a third year! I can remember when you were just little, hiding in between your father's legs on your first day of kindergarten!” Her laughs bounced from the phone speaker.  

You chuckled lightly at her remark while looking at your watch, 7:50 still plenty of time to get to school. Stopping at the beginning of the cross walk you watched the cars pass by as you waited your turn to cross. “How are you doing mom, how is grandpa?’’ You questioned as the light turned red and the crosswalk countdown started. 

“We are good, he's been walking around outside again. How are you kiddo, did your dad call you yet?’’ She smiled, already knowing the answer.

“No, but he did send me one of those motivational animal photos, the standard greeting.” You laughed. It was his signature text, his way of saying “I’m thinking of you, just don’t know how to say it.”

Your first destination was in sight as you rounded the corner, a small convenient store you frequented often during the school year. The roof had been repainted over the summer, the dull blue replaced with vibrant red. The door and concrete light poles painted to match. Much to your amusement the same burnt out bulb remained on the neon open sign. The P had been dark the first time you walked into the store, and had remained unlit every time since. 

“Mom, I have to go but i’m glad you called.” You rushed as you entered the store. 

“Ok, call me after school and tell me how it goes, I love you...i’m so proud of you ya know. My big girl so…” She choked on her words, on the verge of a motherly breakdown. 

“Bye mom, I love you!” You exclaimed, stopping her short of her emotional speech. You loved talking to her, but she could go on forever if you didn’t cut her off. 

Dropping your phone into your bag you scanned over the drink selection. You opened a few different cooler doors, finger hovering over the assortment of coffees before ultimately deciding on your regular cheap can. Why fix what isn’t broken? You walked it over to the counter and set it down before pulling out your wallet and setting some money into the tray, scooting it towards the clerk. 

“Hey kid, first day of school already?’’ The old man smiled as he scanned your item and took your money from the tray. 

You nodded and smiled as he handed you back your change on the tray and the can of coffee. “Sadly.” You laughed lightly, picking up everything. You thanked him, walked to the door, “Have a good day.” You waved as you pushed it open and continued your walk to the school. 

Your breakfast usually consisted of a trip to that very convenient store, and the occasional dinner, and light midnight snack. You never really had time to make breakfast and lunch for your day while getting yourself ready for school. With your parents gone most of the time you had to manage yourself. But you didn’t mind it, you understood the implications of the life your family lived.

Your father was traveling most of the year for his job as a wildlife photographer, and your mother was with your grandfather in Tokyo. She had made the decision to leave when your grandfather, her father became ill. Grandma had passed away when you were younger, too little to really remember her face, but old enough to remember the feeling of walking hand and hand with her in the gardens you tended together. Grandpa decided to keep the house and live by himself that same year. The memories weighed too heavy on you and your family to tear that away from him. 

You had told your parents it was fine to leave you with the house while they were away, you used the excuse that it would teach you responsibility. You could get a part time job and focus on your studies. You did end up doing just that, but it was also nice having the alone time so many adolescents craved. 

Slowly your school came into view as your morning walk ended. Aoba Johsai, it was the school your mother went to as a kid and now you were rounding out your years as a student as well. You walked through the gates of your school as you searched around for the group of students that would be crowding around the homeroom assignments for the year.

“F/N- chan!”You looked around, greeted by your two favorite idiots pushing past the groups of students walking through the front gates behind you.

Hiroto, a pole of a boy. He sported a pair of glasses and his usual brown bowl cut. He had looked the same since you met him, just slightly taller as the years went by. He had the same dull white tennis shoes on as he had for the past three years. You wondered why he had never gone out to buy a new pair. He had the money and the time. But he still saw the use in them, the beauty he would say. He saw that in a lot of things. That was probably why he had a permanent smile tugging at his lips. His sunny disposition on life couldn't be dampened, no matter the storm.  

Yua had been that perpetual storm. Not in the dark and gloomy sense, she was more like a hurricane. Everything she did was a whirlwind of emotions and energy. She did everything on a whim. Led by her heart, never her head. You could tell that just by looking at her. Her hair was freshly bleached, a stark change from the dark green you had seen only months before. Her hair was much shorter now as well, messily chopped just below her ears. Her appearance changed with the seasons, always slightly bolder each time. She was bold with everything she did, unwavering and powerful. But nonetheless devoted and caring to everyone around her, that was the trait that drew you to her in the end. 

Next to each other, they looked completely out of place. But together you made something special. You balanced each other out, each giving one another the friendship you all had desperately sought after in your early years. They were your best friends, your only friends. 

You had met Hiroto a few days after moving to Japan with your family. He was the son of one of your mother's fellow professors at Tokyo University. They had stuck you in a room with the quiet boy one morning during a staff meeting. He had inched toward you over the course of the hour, head tilted to the side in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the game that lit up your GameBoy screen. You had caught on after a while, getting up to sit next to him. He silently thanked you, watching you pass level after level. As time went on watching, turned into playing, playing turned into talking, and talking turned into “Mom can Hiroto come over for dinner tonight, I want to show him the dog across the street.” It had been a quick growing friendship, you two meshed together so well it was almost like he was meant to be your best friend. 

Yua on the other hand was the polar opposite. She had at one point been the worst part of your days in fourth year.

Everyday she would pick fights with you. Most days it was innocent enough, she would push you, maybe call you silly names. But you had always ignored her, unfazed by the gremlin child you were forced to interact with everyday. You could tell the lack of attention bothered her, and she was going to get a reaction out of you one way or another.

She had stated it was because your hair was all over her desk and she was tired of moving it out of the way, but you knew better. Over the course of the lesson Yua would snicker to herself, a little evil laugh echoing behind you every time you tried to move away from her. She had always been a bit strange to you, but the vocality of today's evil acts were putting you on edge. The lunch bell rang and you were ready to get away from whatever she was doing behind you. You stood up, stepping on a layer of h/c strands splayed out on the floor below your desk. You turned around, horrified by the tight grin that painted the girl's face. In her hand was a pair of craft scissors, in the other was a fistful of your hair. 

Mean words were exchanged, fists were thrown. Before you knew it you both were landed in after school detention for the foreseeable weeks to come. During those after school hours was when she grew on you. She opened up to you over the year, showing her kind and caring nature in small bits and pieces. She was still an absolute goblin most days, her nasty jealousy streak peaking through in her worst moments. But she loved and cared for everyone she met, and you saw it. She just had a chaotic, overbearing way of showing it. It took years to work your way up to the friendship you both had now, it also took years to grow your beautiful hair back to it's original glory.

“Have you looked at your homeroom assignment yet?” Hiroto smiled once he reached you.

“Not yet, I just got here a few minutes before you two.” You answered, wrapping an arm around the both of them as you pulled them into a hug.

“Aww F/N, it's been weeks since we’ve seen you. That stupid job at the coffee shop kept you away from us.” Yua frowned, groaning into your hold.

“Well it was only a summer job so you can annoy me all you want now.” You laughed, pulling them towards the crowd of students.

“Hiroto-kun, can you see any of our names, all these BEAN STALKS are blocking the way!” Yua yelled at the students crowding the listings. 

“Yeah I see all of our names by each other, we're in…homeroom...five I think.” Hiroto craned his neck to see over the heads in front of him, squinting at the small text. 

“Who's the teacher this year?” You questioned, looking up at him as he decoded the lines in front of him.

“It says Sugawara. I think he’s new, he wasn't here last year.” Sinking back onto the soles of his shoes Hiroto pulled you and Yua out of the crowd and towards the school entrance. 

“Sugawara just started this year.” Smiled a girl next to you as you made your way inside. 

“Yeah, he's supposedly pretty young, and attractive.” Her friend smiled slyly at the last bit, nudging you with her shoulder as you moved past her to your shoe locker. 

“As long as he can teach this idiot math I'm sure he will be a great sensei!” Yua laughed as she ruffled up your hair. 

“I’m not that dumb. But it would be nice if he would be nicer about my questions, unlike Shirato Sensei.” You shivered at the thought of your teacher last year. Taking off your shoes you slipped them into your locker, sliding your feet into the assigned slippers on the floor. You closed the door, the lock clicking as you turned to walk with your friends.

It was your last year at this school, your last year with your friends. You had already decided to attend Tokyo University the following year, it was a dream to finally be closer to your mother. Hiroto was destined to inherit his father's small but profitable insurance business. Yua, well who knows what she was gonna do at the end of the year, she probably didn't even have lunch figured out for the day. 

You walked with your friends as you made your way towards your classroom for the year. You were engrossed in the conversation they were having on last night's newest anime episode. You had no clue what show they were watching, or who any of the characters were. But you loved to listen to their passionate debates, the small rise Yua got from Hiroto always making you laugh. You would miss this when school was over, so you basked in it. The feeling of happiness that only they could give you. 

A hand on your shoulder turned you away from your bickering friends. Turning around, you were met with a pair of honey eyes, Yoshiki. 

“Hey, I was calling you but I don’t think you heard me.” He laughed, his eyes soft and uncertain as he looked between you and your friends. 

“Oh, i’m sorry. It's hard to hear anything over these two.” You smiled, laughing as you pointed to the two of them. The bell rang, giving you the chance of escape. You pushed your two friends on as you waved a goodbye to Yoshiki. 

He raised his hand, giving you a small wave as you rushed down the hallway.

“That was weird, does he still talk to you?” Yua questioned, looking back at the confused boy.

“No, we haven't talked since winter break last year.” You frowned as you pushed them inside the classroom. It was for a good reason, you didn’t know what to say to the boy. If you had found the words before maybe the awkward interaction could have been avoided, but that time had since passed. 

You found some nice seats by the window, a reward for being the first few into the classroom. The room was located on the third floor of the school. The window had a beautiful view of the schools court yard and all the trees surrounding it. Yua took the seat in front of you while Hiroto sat in the seat across from you. You had taken this seating arrangement since the beginning of fifth year, it was tradition. Watching the rest of your class file inside, they slowly choose their seats as the classroom filled up. You watched the clock tick the seconds away as you waited for your first class to start. 

The final bell rang and everyone sank into their seats as they continued talking to each other. A few minutes passed before the door to the classroom slid open and a man walked in looking at the bundle of papers in his hand. The students quieted in unison as he made his way to the desk at the front of the room, setting down his papers and coffee cup before turning toward the chalkboard. He picked up one of the larger white chalk pieces that sat on the small shelf underneath.

“I’m Sugawara-sensei, I'll be your homeroom teacher as well as your science teacher this year.” He wrote his name on the board as well as the period times. Once the full schedule was written down he turned around, a wide smile directed at the students in front of him. Setting down the chalk, he reached for the attendance sheets on his desk. 

The girls you saw at the lockers were right, he was attractive. Was that the right word to use? Maybe encaptivating was better in this situation. 

His soft grey hair fell around his face, framing each one of his delicate features. His hazel eyes scanned the room as he talked. They were deep and full, like a cup of coffee with just the right amount of cream. You followed the curves of his face to the small beauty mark under his eye, over his petite nose, acrossed his milky white skin, to his soft pink lips. You watched them as he spoke, coming apart, pressing back together. You were mesmerized by them, by him. 

He flashed a smile your way and tilted his head opening his mouth again. 

Yua touched your shoulder lightly, noise flooding your senses. You looked around the room at the eyes that laid on you, and you alone. 

“L/N- san, that is your name right?” Sugawara questioned.

You looked up at the man standing at the front of the class. His words directed at you as he stared your way with a sweet grin. 

“Um yes Sugawara-sensei, i'm sorry…” You trailed off as your face heated up. 

He laughed lightly as he continued the roll call, his eyes shifting from you to the next student. 

How embarrassing you thought, “Everyone probably saw how I was staring at him.” You signed, laying your head in your hands.

“Ok, well let's get onto our morning meets and then we can discuss how I expect my class to be run.” Sugawara led everyone's eyes up to the chalkboard while he continued on with the morning information. 

You tried to focus on his words, you really did. But you were just a teenage girl, your mind wandered. It wandered to his frame, he wasn't the tallest teacher you had at the school, maybe around 5’8- 5’9 but he would tower over you. He was what the magazines would call slim fit, maybe more on the fit side. You watched as he continued to write on the chalkboard, his arm muscles tensing against his white button up, then relaxing as the fabric loosened again.

“Hey stupid, pay attention!” Yua harshly whispered over to you, pulling you out of your inappropriate thoughts. 

Your face began to bake again as you shook your head slightly and smiled apologetically at her. “He’s your teacher idiot, stop drooling over him and focus for Christ sake.” You warned yourself as you set in to focusing on the information he wrote on the board.

Sugawara had already moved on to the itinerary of the class schedules and when he would be back to teach science for the day. Pointing to the last class of the day a girl at the back of the class raised her hand pulling his attention away from the board.

“Hmm, yes...Hina?” He pointed at the girl who seemed pleased that he already remembered her name. 

“Sensei could you tell us a little about yourself since it's your first year at Seijo?” She questioned, ready for him to deny such a rude request. 

“Um, well I guess I could tell you a few things about myself.” He hummed in response, sitting down on top of his desk. “I just graduated college last year in the spring so this is my first real teaching job, i'll be helping out with the volleyball teams here at Seijo when I have free time, and…” He paused for a moment, glancing at the book on his desk. “Well I really like poetry.” He smiled at the last fact before standing back up.

“It’s time for college prep courses, so go ahead and start your independent studies and I'll call you up one at a time so we can start your files.” Sugawara sat down in his desk chair and pulled out a paper from his pile. “Ok, Hiroto you can come up and take a seat.” Sugawara pointed to the chair next to his desk as he flipped through the papers. 

“So now I know why you liked “Lolita” so much.” Yua snickered as she pulled her desk next to you. “You practically had a drool puddle on your desk Y/N-chan.”

“Oh shut up, it won’t happen again. I just didn’t expect him to be so, I don’t know, beautiful.” You puffed as you pulled out your summer reading.

“BEAUTIFUL?” Yua shouted, pushing away your hand as you rushed to hush her. The eyes of classmates landed on the both of you as well as Sugawara’s from the front of the room. 

“Independent study is independent.” Sugawara reprimanded as his gaze rested on you.

“I’m sorry sensei.'' You apologized, looking over to Yua who was busy avoiding both of your heated gazes.

Sugawara turned his attention back to Hiroto and you looked back down at your desk. 

“Yua, do you have to be so loud? Just do your summer work.” You whispered harshly, opening up your book and turning away from her.

The minutes ticked by as Sugawara called each student to the front of the room for the individual college discussions they would have. This would be a bi-weekly thing he would have to do, during this time he would guide the students on the right path to getting into the schools they wished to pursue. It was his job as your homeroom teacher to make sure you knew what you were doing after you walked out those doors and on to college.

“L/N- san, it's your turn to come up.” Sugawara was monotoned, flipping through to your file.

You turned away from your book to see Sugawara motioning for you to come up and take a seat, his eyes trained on the papers in front of him.

You gathered your belongings, making your way to the front of the room. You stood awkwardly next to the chair beside him, eyeing the light wood of the seat. 

He looked up at you and back down to the seat before smiling, “Come on, take a seat. I promise I won’t take long.”

You slowly sat down, scooting the chair a few inches away from his own as you handed him your papers. 

He responded to this by moving his chair closer. “Ok so what college did you pick...” He mumbled while looking through your documents. “Tokyo University, that's where I went, and you're gonna go for a culinary degree?” He caulked his head slightly, looking up at you.

You nodded, earning a smile. “I um, I liked to bake stuff. Like cakes and pie and pastries…” You trailed off as you looked down at the desk. The bell rang, signaling that it was time to leave for your club introductions. You started to stand up as Sugawara put a hand in front of you motioning for you to stay seated. 

“I’ll see you soon class!” He waved as everyone walked out of the classroom, the butterflies settling into your stomach as the last student closed the door behind them. It was probably out of courtesy, but for you it was a death sentence.

“Well if you ever need someone to sample your recipes you're welcome to bring them in.” He continued, flashing you a soft smile as he held your gaze. 

For a third time in one period your face heated up as he continued to look your way. Your eyes trying to fix on anything but him. Finally he looked back to the papers and flipped through them.

“Well your test scores are decent, but your math may need some working on if you want to pass the entrance exam, and your class finals.” It sounded more like a threat then friendly advice as the words left his lips. He winced slightly as he saw you sink into your seat, he had not meant for it to sound that way. 

You nodded, playing with your fingers as you stammered. “Math is my worst subject. I have a hard time with it. No matter how much time I put into it, it just doesn't make sense.” You paused before going on. “But I’m going to focus on it this year. Since I quit volleyball I'll have more time to study.” You sighed, mad about the decision. 

“Volleyball, what position?” He perked up at the mention of the sport, leaning in closer. 

“I was the team's main setter sensei.'' You finally looked up at him, but the eye contact didn’t last long when you saw his smile.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll find you a tutor for math twice a week, but only if you come back to the team.” He closed your file, pushing it into the pile. 

You looked up in shock. “Sensei I, yes please. I tried to sign up for one but they were all assigned to students.” You sat up in your chair, taken aback by such a kind gesture. 

Smiling he stood up and you took it as your sign too as well.

“Then it's a deal. Go find the volleyball team in the gym for the meeting and I'll let you know who I find at the end of the day.” He walked towards the classroom door, opening it. 

You nodded and started towards the door. “Thank you sensei!” You smiled as you walked past him, bowing slightly before running down the hallway. 

He waited till he couldn’t hear your steps before he made his way back to his desk. He sank back down into his seat and let his head drop down into his hand, “Sugawara Koushi, what the hell are you doing?”

----

Next Chapter

----

[legendaryorangeloot]

Collarbone

The moon is just cresting the horizon when I reach South City. Its cool light pulls on the roots of my hair, makes my teeth itch. I spent all day today goofing off at work, pacing like a bored zoo animal. These feast days are so rare, and my excitement hangs in the air like charged particles before a lightning strike.

And now it's time.

The moon fills my heart with a ferocious lust, buoying me up as I let my long, loping stride eat up the Gravois pavement. I can hear the music at Greatness already. I go there "straight" a few nights a week, let myself be seen. I'm a regular. I even dated the previous bartender, learned the cameras, the exit routes, the watching spots, the nearby alleys. Greatness is my garden, and I tend it carefully.

I like it because it attracts normal boys. They're sweet in a way you don't have to take seriously, smart in a way that never threatens you. They tend to have carefully-groomed hair, endearing sincerity, and well-marbled flesh.

Not all the produce is sweet, though. When I transform, I'm little—more coyote than wolf, more coydog than coyote. All-black, bristle-brush fur; pricked ears that make me look smart and alert. A dog you'd take home with you if it followed you down the street. I grew to trust the bartender, the first relationship I'd had. Born of necessity or not, I thought it would be forever. He was wild, too, in his own all-human way, and loved my secret. But it was because he had his own. One night, without warning or consent, he leaned over me, whispered in my alert black ear as he sank into my body, "I wanted you the second I saw you like this. You're the sexiest dog I ever fucked."

I like to think that he saw the sorrow in my eyes as I turned my head and clamped his trachea shut with my strong, strong jaws. It was intimate, almost erotic. For minutes he fought, thrashing, sweaty, nude, his erection waning, waxing, finally waning forever once I began to eat his throat, and all his blood left his body and soaked into his bed. His teeth felt like tiny hard candies to my canine senses. When I ripped out his tongue at the root and savored it bite by bite, I imagined I could taste everything he'd ever tasted, somehow stored within the muscle he'd used to gain my trust.

But that time is not this time. That time was just the first, and now the kills are deliciously unadulterated by love or regret.

As I near the bar door, I put on the right personality – wild, but not vicious. Available, but not easy. Challenging, but harmless. I check my reflection in an antique-shop window to make sure all this personality-shifting hasn't affected my shape.

Without careful control, sometimes you'll think "act harmless" and the power inside you makes it mean "look smaller, look younger". I have nothing but careful control. There are a few other people with the power to change into a wolf, a specific wolf that looks rather like their human form, but I have finesse that they can only dream of. I can play this body like one of those expensive synthesizers with all the sliders and knobs, as long as the form is human, canine, or both. And I work at my craft, mostly preferring the wholly-unnatural, anthropomorphic, six-foot-tall "wolfman" shape, complete with the goofy clawed hands and feet. What can I say? They're useful, if hideous, constructions. Second choice: a real wolf, a timber wolf, huge. The kind you see in nature documentaries, every hair in place, unmistakably lupine.

I am so proud of all the carefully-sculpted forms that I feel vaguely ashamed of my natural one. Not the average-build, solidly-muscled human one, with the deeply tanned olive skin and the untameable black curls, but the real one, the one that looks half-coyote, half-Schipperke. It was the thing I was most embarrassed to show the bartender, the boyfriend, even after he'd seen me as a slavering movie-monster nonsense beast a dozen times. He saw my true form and thought me weak, small, fuckable. A dog.

But now his opinion is gone, digested, and irrelevant, because I am alone, and I am hungry.

I won't lie and say I notice you across a crowded room. That when I walk in, all the other people fade away. That it is lust at first sight. No, you escape first notice in an inoffensive way, a practiced way. You're a listener, I can tell. You move your eyebrows involuntarily when you're eavesdropping. Wolf-creature that I am, I can't tolerate eye contact, but I do watch those charming brows from the corner of my eye.

I sit at the bar and chat amiably with a girl I kind-of know, at a volume I know is audible to you. I surreptitiously look at you while you're not looking. You're lovely. You're rakish, scruffy, endearingly asymmetrical around the eyes. Your gestures all speak volumes. You even smoke adorably, like you learned it much too early.

My story for tonight, my bait, cast out into the noise of the bar: recent breakup, broken heart, need distraction. It's a hard one to turn down, I've found. Your brows go up minutely on "distraction". I know you think you know what I mean, and it will make the eventual reveal that much more satisfying.

I contain my eyeteeth before they can visibly lengthen, because that's a rookie mistake, but, oh, how I want them to be longer. I want them that much closer to your skin. I can imagine how it will taste, all sweat and smoke, the fine hairs crumpling under my rough tongue, the restraint I'll have to exert when I use just the sharp, sharp points to tease the first bite.

I let my kind-of friend talk at me about her kids, her day, her husband. But what I'm thinking about is where I'll start on you. Your loose plaid shirt reveals the edge of your clavicle, and the sight of it has my mouth watering in an instant. It's been so long. I'm torn between speeding things up by making the first move, and resisting the temptation to rush through this sensual experience you and I are going to share.

I never could resist temptation.

You're writing in a notepad, so this is an easy introduction: "Whatcha' writing?" I try for "chipper, good-natured interest", but lust makes it come out more "sultry purr". I don't think you mind. You're falling all over yourself to answer, the love of your work and your obvious interest in me giving you a puppylike eagerness that I instantly adore, and preemptively mourn.

I listen, mostly. You're a writer; you write. In conversation, you do the same kind of IQ-gauging I did in my human dating life, throwing out a breadcrumb trail of wordplay that gets progressively more challenging. I do understand, and I laugh at the right times, I let our eyes meet for spare milliseconds so you know I understand. I parry back, I surprise a few laughs out of you. I play off of your self-deprecating humor, testing your boundaries for submission, loving what I find.

But my brain really isn't in peak wordplay condition. I just want you now. I want the moment when I gently bite the skin above your collarbone. I want to hear you gasp and moan, hear that unnameable noise-with-an-edge when you feel my real teeth, hear your hazy excitement bloom into bright fear as you realize what will happen next. I want that first bite, the crunch of that beautiful, delicate bird bone against my incisors, and the next bite, and the next. When we're done, I want the walls to double as a red Rorshach test. I want to make the crime scene techs vomit.

You compliment my loud sudden bark of a laugh, and for once, maybe for the first time ever, I am genuinely flattered. I feel like I probably shouldn't give you the compliment I thought of in return, which is: "That made me like you so much that I want to find out what you taste like." But then I say it anyway, and you blush, and I imagine licking your cheek hard enough to burst some superficial capillaries, imagine tasting everything about you, even your embarrassment.

Even though I've laid out a welcome mat for you between my thighs, you still just talk to me, still treat me like a person. It throws me a bit at first, but I figure we have all night. There are drinks and jokes. We tell stories that quickly get more and more personal. I find out about your parents, your brother, your wonderfully strange upbringing. I tell you some carefully-censored tales of living in rural Texas. I tell you a completely-false story of how I got my completely-true nickname, "The Terror of Bulverde". To make up for the lies, I tell you the real true truth of how much I love my family.

The conversation is weirdly nourishing on its own, and the bottles of Shiner are cold and remind me of home. You talk with your hands more and more as you get drunker, and my accent gets stronger and stronger as I exercise my rarely-used human voice. We laugh at ourselves, how ridiculous it all is, can you believe we've never met before, it feels like I've known you forever.

Next thing I know, we're being shooed out of the bar at closing time, and you're suddenly serious when you ask me if I'm sober. I say "As a goddamn judge," solemnly, but my accent is all the way up to 11, and we grin at each other stupidly. You invite me over, and I had almost forgotten that this was the whole point, that this was the endgame. I'll get to still those talking hands, eat them from fingers to palm, bathe my muzzle in your well-educated brain, see if I gain your powers when I consume your heart. I've already made up my mind not to waste one single bit of your beautiful body. I'm going to den up in your house for days, gorging myself until you're gone.

I don't care that everyone saw us leave together. I am Icarus, my wolf-wings melting in proximity to your purely-human kindness. This kind of sentimentality is what gets creatures like me killed, I remind myself. But then you take my hand, gently, and I feel like I should go confess my crimes and be skinned for a coat. Or, given my absolute size, some kind of shawl. Your gentleness is both warming me and burning me alive. I wonder to myself if this is what hard drugs feel like. Drugs don't really work on werewolves. The drug that you are is working on this werewolf, though.

We stop several times on the walk to your apartment to shove each other into little alleys, indented doorways, and once, accidentally, a shrub, and we make out like it's the last thing we'll ever do, which seems appropriate to the occasion. You kiss like you talk: not a monologue, but a friendly give-and-take, with your hands frequently involved. We crack jokes continuously, and interrupt each other, and play-fight, and the feel of your wiry muscles and their light shield of fat under my play-punches makes my stomach rumble. The moon is full, and fully out, and I know I've let my hair lengthen, and that my eyes are probably less human-looking than I'd like, by now.

On your doorstep, fiddling with the key and lock, you tell me that I don't have to sleep with you, that if I'm too drunk, that if I have reconsidered, you won't be upset. I ignore you and step over the threshold and start undressing before you've even closed the door behind us. For a second, you look as though perhaps you aren't sure if you're awake or asleep.

We race to the bed, shedding clothing, and you practically pounce on me, not predatory, but playful, and we forgot to turn on any lights, and it's so exciting and I'm so hungry I think I might die. Your hands are everywhere on my body, always followed closely by your mouth, and that, and everything I can touch on your body, and every glimpse of you I catch, lit by the wan streetlight, is making me want you more than I thought was possible.

And I am somehow in your lap, and you're a much larger person than I thought you were, or maybe I've gotten smaller, and the next thing I know I'm me, the real me, the little black wolf, just muscle and fur and teeth, and I'm sinking those white, white teeth deep into the soft, beautiful junction of your neck and chest. And I didn't even give myself time to appreciate it, but here we are, and here's that bone I wanted, crunched to pieces, half-eaten already. And your look of shock and betrayal and realization makes your bone and flesh curdle in my jaws, but it's too late to put it back.

We freeze this way. It's a Moment, one that feels like we exist outside of time, yet we don't; the seconds are marked by the rapid pulsing of your blood onto the sheets, onto the floor, your delightful soft-pink skin paling before my eyes.

And you say, plaintively, "I thought you liked me." I am consumed by regret, it's a pyre, I'm being burned at the stake by a single sentence, and the pain makes me desperate for a solution, until I realize I may have one. Just one. My shape shifts without conscious thought to some kind of confused dog-with-hands, but I use them to shove whatever fabric I have near me against the wound at your throat, and press down hard. I bite the inside of my cheek and hot blood wells there instantly, mixing with the remnants of yours in my mouth. You're so, so smart that even near-exsanguination can't keep you from figuring out what I'm doing. You look by turns terrified, hopeful, disgusted.

I bring my lips to yours and try to will whatever particle transmits lycanthropy into my mouth's blood, hoping this is really how the process works. You look ill. You look bloodless. You pass out, and I'm left holding my discarded shirt against your fatal wound, and remembering how to pray: god if you just let him heal just let him live he will figure this out I will make it up to him I will make it up to you I will go and sin no more oh please, oh please, oh please

Epilogue

The bizarre, crushed-looking scar atop your torso always elicits questions you can't answer truthfully when you're naked with other people. The bone never grows back, and your new physiology prevents an implant or a surgical fix. You'll never need to see a doctor again. You might live to be hundreds of years old. No one knows our potential lifespan. No one knows anything about us.

You seem to take it all in stride, telling one woman it's where you were hit with a warhammer, telling another man it's from a skydiving accident. It makes you very mysterious and intriguing, and the gossip about you is always entertaining, if painful, to overhear.

You say you forgive me, and maybe, since you've now experienced numerous full moons yourself, felt what I felt that night, you mean it. But you've never hurt a soul. I selfishly infected you with a kind of insanity, and you infected me with your gentleness, your curse of caring about others. So I skulk around the edges of your life, and I bring you raw red beef and whole chickens and half the rabbits I catch each month. We never speak, or kiss, and I never, ever look you in the eye.

[ericsonclan]

Trimming the Tree

Summary: Omar loses a bet with Louis and has to fulfill Louis' unique idea for Christmas decorating.

Word Count: 1884

Read on A03: 

“Alright, everyone, I have an announcement to make,” Louis stood in front of the picnic table, his hands proudly pulling upon the collar of his coat. “I’m sure everyone remembers the bet I placed with Omar back in October, the one where he said there was no way I could bag five rabbits singlehandedly for us in one day and I did.”

“I remember the bet,” Omar replied calmly, setting aside his stew bowl. “It’s one I’ve begun to dread considering the fact that you still haven’t called in that favor you won from me,”

“Well fear no more, Omar, for today is the day I call upon you for that favor,” Louis declared, a cheeky grin on his face.

A frown pulled at Ruby’s lips as she looked up at Louis. “Now I know I don’t have to tell you not to choose anything stupid. And by stupid I mean dangerous,”

Louis raised his hands in self-defense. “Why, sweet Ruby, I would never! What I have in mind for Omar isn’t dangerous at all. For you see, the favor I am asking for is that Omar be a tree,”

Clementine’s brow quirked at that line. “A tree? What do you have up your sleeve, Lou?”

“Only a deck of cards, my dear,” Louis replied with a wink.

Omar looked unimpressed. “You want me to be a tree. What does that involve, standing completely still for an entire day?”

“Ah ah ah, not just any tree, Omar,” Louis lifted a finger. “You see, the tree I want you to become is… a Christmas tree,”

That got a reaction out of the kids. None of them had had a Christmas tree for Christmas since before the world ended. There were pine trees that grew in the forest, but they were a great distance away and most were far too large to carry. The one year obtaining a Christmas tree had been attempted back when they were young teens, they’d almost lost a kid in the process. Having a human stand in for the Christmas tree was an interesting prospect to say the least.

Omar crossed his arms, eyeing Louis evenly. “And what exactly will I be doing as a Christmas tree?”

“Why being decorated of course!” Louis quipped. “There’s a box full of decorations in the basement that the school used to use. You’ll stand in place in the music room and the rest of us will dance around you and put decorations all over your clothes and hair,”

“You know,” Aasim cut in, “There’s a perfectly reasonable alternative to this which is building some sort of artificial tree ourselves. I think-”

But Aasim had already lost the attention of the others before he started. Most of them were quite excited at the idea of decorating Omar, the little boys already abuzz with ideas and inspiration. Omar looked rather conflicted at the thought of being a stand-in for a tree but upon seeing the joy in A.J. and Willy’s faces his expression softened and he gave Louis an approving nod.

“It has been decided!” Louis declared, dramatically drumming upon the table. “Tomorrow we shall convene to decorate the music room and Omar!”

---

The next day after all the chores had been completed everyone gathered in the music room to begin decorating. Prisha, Violet, Willy and Ruby had grabbed the decorations from the basement while A.J., Clementine and Louis had gathered together all the paper and craft supplies they could carry in order to make even more decorations. Omar and Aasim tidied up the music room in order to prepare it for its Christmas transformation.

Once they were all gathered and had everything ready, Omar took his place at the center of the room, standing in as the tree. Ruby put one of the few Christmas records they had on the gramophone. “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” began to play and everyone bopped their heads softly to the music.

Louis rooted through one of the boxes of decorations, clearly looking for something in particular. “What better way to start our decorating than with… tinsel!” The dreadlocked boy threw the silver strands into the air with a happy cry watching in glee as they came to rest all over Omar’s afro. A.J. immediately followed Louis’ lead, grabbing his own handful of tinsel and throwing it directly in Omar’s face.

“Not the face, goofball,” Clementine instructed, coming over to join them by the boxes. Fishing inside the nearest one, she grabbed a simple ball ornament and stepped forward, gently dangling it from Omar’s ear.

That seemed to be the signal everyone had needed to really get started. Violet and Prisha grabbed a length of garland made from red tinsel and began to circle Omar with it, smiling at each other as they did so. Willy had gone crazy with the ornaments, trying to place them on any possible place they could stay: Omar’s other ear, his nose, each one of his fingers. He wanted to take off Omar’s shoes to decorate his toes too, but Aasim put a stop to that.

The Indian boy had been working mostly with Ruby on other ways in which they could decorate the room for Christmas. Colored candle holders filled the room just as they had the night of the hootenanny, but now paper snowflakes had been added to the mix, decorating the walls and being scattered across the top of Louis’ piano. Paper chains crafted by Clementine and decorated by A.J. also did their part to brighten up the room as well as joining the garlands wrapped round and round Omar’s form.

Omar tried his best to stay still, a soft smile on his face as he watched his friends get into the Christmas spirit. Blowing a stray piece of tinsel away that was tickling his nose, he looked over at Louis who was in the mist of trying to make a paper crown as a “tree topper”. “You know, Louis, if this was your plan all along, shouldn’t you have made the bet with someone taller, say, Aasim or Prisha?

Louis smiled, looking up from his cutting. “If that had been my plan from the beginning, then certainly. But it wasn’t. I just made that bet on a whim and inspiration didn’t strike till later. But boy, when it did, I just knew I had to make this happen. You may not be the tallest tree, but you’ve certainly brought our Christmas to life,”

The boys looked around the room together, smiling at all the joy that was present there. There hadn’t been a true Christmas celebrated here in quite some time. Last year they’d been in the midst of healing from the Delta attack with Clementine and Violet still recovering from their injuries. The year before, well, they hadn’t known it at the time, but Marlon had been too busy hiding the truth about what happened with the twins for any Christmas celebrations to happen at all. 

And even the years before that the kids had all been so focused on survival, just barely scraping by each winter, that it had never felt like Christmas was something worth celebrating. Now things were different though. Things were peaceful, they were safe, and the reintroduction of the greenhouse and the additions of a vegetable garden and rabbit hutch meant they had quite a bit of food stored up for winter. For the first time in a long time they were all happy, really truly happy.

Eventually the decorations had all been used, the room was fully decorated, and Omar was covered from head to toe in tinsel, ornaments and garlands. The kids took a step back, admiring their work proudly.

“Great job, team,” Louis declared, tugging on his collar once more. “Before we call it a night though, there’s one more surprise for everybody. Well, everybody but me and A.J. that is. You ready, buddy?”

“You know it!” A.J. ran over to Louis’ side, bouncing excitedly. “Is it time to tell the secret now? Can I, can I, can I?”

“Just a second, little man,” Louis chuckled, fondly ruffling the boy’s afro. “How ‘bout we show instead of tell them?”

“Right!” A.J.’s eyes lit up with joy and he rocketed out of the room, Louis close behind him. It took a few minutes, but soon the others could hear the pair’s footsteps shuffling back towards the room. Louis backed through the door with A.J., both boys carrying something within their arms. It only took a moment for everyone to recognize what it was.

“A tree!” Willy shouted, his mouth wide open in awe. “A real live Christmas tree!”

It was indeed a Christmas tree, but a much smaller one than the full-grown pines that grew so far away from them. It was about A.J.’s height and had been placed inside a large planter which the pair now placed upon the floor.

“That’s right,” Louis smiled proudly. “This was the source of my inspiration: a pint-sized Christmas tree we can plant and grow in our very own yard!”

Everyone oohed and ahhed at the tree, stepping forward to get a closer look and touch the tiny branches for themselves.

“Louis and I found the tree a few days ago,” A.J. explained, standing beside the tree. “But when we found it, Louis told me we should keep it a secret, a scallion secret,” he raised a finger to his lips and looked at Clementine with a smile. Clementine returned the gesture, happy to hear the Disco Broccoli line from him.

“Wait a minute,” Aasim raised an eyebrow. “If you already had the tree, then why did you convince Omar to stand in as a fake tree instead?”

“Because this is our outdoor tree. Omar served as our indoor tree – duh,” Louis said dismissively in a way that caused Aasim to roll his eyes. “Although once we have this little beauty planted, we can probably transfer some of Omar’s decorations over to it,”

“You expect me to stand still like this for the rest of the day?” Omar asked evenly.

Louis thought on the question for a moment. “Well, per the rules of the bet I could require you to uphold the favor for the entirety of the day as I originally stated, but in the spirit of Christmas I will graciously declare the favor fulfilled,”

“Wonderful,” Omar immediately reached up to remove the ornament from his nose then got started on taking off the rest of the decorations. The others helped him until only the paper crown and a few stray strands of tinsel lay upon his head. Omar knelt down and picked up the box that had been refilled with the decorations once used to adorn him. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s plant this tree,”

“The party continues outside!” Louis crowed, moving to pick up the tree once more. “C’mon everybody, let’s head outside!” With that he was off, A.J. scurrying alongside and helping hold up a corner of the tree. Everyone else followed closely behind, their conversations picking up once more as they left the decorated music room behind and headed toward the outdoors. Christmas wasn’t contained in just one room; it was all around them.