#Old desk now just sitting there taking up an absurd amount of space.

[terriblebicho]

I am probably having one of the most hyper-specific dilemmas rn.

[techtainia-makes-things]

firt aid omg 😭 i love that man sm, may i request first aid w/ gender neutral human reader who just likes to be around him in general? he just has a certain vibe to him that makes him more comfortable for reader to be around him than with other bots 👀

Thank you so much for this ask, it was a delight to sit down and write. That being said, it became a bit of mutual light-hearted complaining about work between close friends, which honesty is just how my mind works at this point. I hope that you enjoy it.

And thanks for reminding me that I never posted my other First Aid fic on Tumblr. ❤

--

“Hey Aid! When’s your shift ending?”

Every day you strolled through the medibay doors, and every day, no matter who was closest to said door, you would find First Aid.

“Hey Aid! I grabbed you some energon.”

And every day, First Aid would greet you with a brief wave. You would sit down on his desk, and do whatever quiet task suited your fancy.

“Hey Aid, I have a lot of paperwork to do. Can I hang out here?”

Underneath the mask, he smiled at the question. At this point, you already had your own little corner on his desk, decked out with everything from your very own human-sized desk, to an absurd amount of bean bag chairs for one person to occupy. Somehow, you always found a way, but come on, it was your space and you were going to do what you wanted, with First Aid in sight.

“Again? At least Ultra Magnus has decent handwriting.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you expect? Ratchet is an old doctor, he’s going to have the signature doctor handwriting.”

First Aid placed a data pad on his desk. “I mean, it’s an honor to work with him, but this paperwork is nearly unreadable.” He tapped the end of his stylus against its side.

Your drink rippled, and you smiled, taking a sip. “At least it isn’t a novel of the driest reading known to humankind.” You waved your mini-datapad with the roll of your wrist. “And I’ve read some pretty dry books.”

“Oh, definitely.” He fiddled with his mask, eventually slipping it off and placing it on the corner opposite to your space.

The next few hours flew by, in all honesty, loudly. It was almost like clock work: A bot would stumble in with some sort of absurd ailment (With all the stories that Aid had told you after hours at Swerve’s, your personal favorite was when Drift got his arm dented while doing backflips with Rodimus, as is the way of the Lost Light), one of the medics would sigh and take care of them. The moment they left, comments were made, and shanix changed hands. Repeat. In the end, you spent more time watching the chaos with First Aid than doing any of that oh so important paperwork (and shuffling through his issues of Wreckers Declassified, but that you two would take to your graves).

You and Aid settled back down in your respective spots after Whirl had walked in with a sword stuck in his shoulder. Without looking up from his datapad (you think), he hummed. “I’m surprised you don’t settle down in your office.”

You finish your drink with a prolonged sip. “And lose my mind trying to finish all this? Absolutely not.”

“But now you have to deal with the paperwork, and medibay shenanigans on a very accident prone ship.”

“Correction.” You point your stylus at him. “I get to hang out with you, with far more welcome interruptions than the stiff conversations I have with Megatron biweekly.” You sigh with a soft smile, staring down into your empty cup. “Something about you is just different, which is a sappy way to say that you are never getting rid of me.”

First Aid chuckled. “You say that like I’d ever wish to be rid of you.”

Those were the final words spoken before you both went back to work, and First Aid’s shift came to an end. You both got a drink from Swerve’s.

(A little extra for my first ask)

You and Aid walked out of Swerve’s laughing, with you perched on his shoulder.

“I can’t believe that Rodimus tried to go up against Trailcutter.”

First Aid nodded. “Really? It’s absolutely the kind of thing Rodimus would do. At least we don’t have to pump anyone's fuel tanks…again.”

Your eyes widened in playful shock. “Wouldn’t that be the third time this week? It’s only Tuesday.”

“Again, Lost Light shenanigans.”

“Yeah,” You started as he approached the door to your habsuite. “Lost Light shenanigans. Take care.” You waved goodbye to him as you punched in your lock code.

“You too.” First Aid waved back with a smile as he headed back the direction you had come (His habsuite was really not that far from Swerve’s, or at least closer than yours was)

[kaimelia]

Heartbeats (Ch.1)

a/n: hi! so, this is something I've been working on for a while and im finally posting it....I'm going to finish paper rings soon but this has been sitting in my computer for too long now and I want to start posting it! I hope you enjoy it :)

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

It’d started small; they were at the park, and Link was chasing their four-year-old around the grass as Amelia laid on the blanket, snapping pictures with a wide grin spread across her face. Scout ran into her arms, and she hugged him, glancing up at her husband as he walked back. She noticed a slight limp in his leg and raised her eyebrows in confusion, making a mental note.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, lowering himself onto the blanket across from her. “My leg’s just a little sore. I must’ve slept on it weirdly.” Scout moved from his mother’s embrace to grab the truck he had brought, pushing it around the blanket. Amelia tilted her head to the side.

“Okay, but you’ll tell me if it gets worse, right?” Her voice wavered more than she expected it to, and she knew Link would notice. He grabbed her hand.

“Of course.”

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

A week later, she woke up to the sound of him heaving into the toilet. She ran into the bathroom, placing her hand on his back and kneeling on the bathroom floor next to him. “You okay?” He nodded slowly before puking into the ceramic bowl again.

“I feel like crap.” Amelia placed her hand against his forehead, standing up to wet a washcloth.

“I don’t think you have a fever. Is it just nausea?” He breathed heavily once she placed the cool washcloth on his forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat on his face.

“I’m exhausted, too, but that could just be from work.” She frowned sympathetically, running her fingers through his hair.

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Amelia joked, happy to hear a quick laugh from him.  She glanced up as the bathroom door was pushed open.

“Is daddy okay?” The mother smiled, tousling her husband’s hair and standing up to take her son’s hand.

“Daddy’s just a bit sick. Let’s go get you ready for school, okay?” She led the boy out of their room and into his, helping him get ready for school. He rambled excitedly about his new dinosaur toy as she made waffles for him, pouring an absurd amount of syrup onto the plate. Link came down a few minutes later, rubbing his forehead with his hand. “Hey, you’re feeling better?” He shrugged.

“Gonna call in sick to work and sleep all day.” He placed his hands on his son’s shoulders. Scout turned to his father, excitedly waving the dinosaur in his face. “I can pick this guy up from school.”

“Can we get ice cream?” Amelia raised her eyebrows at her son’s request.

“You’ll have to convince your father on that one.” Scout grinned widely up at his father.

Amelia wasn’t at all surprised when she came home from work to see them eating ice cream in the living room, The Good Dinosaur playing on the TV. She kissed her son’s forehead, receiving an absent-minded greeting from him before his attention diverted back to the movie. She moved to sit on the other side of her husband and curled into his body. “Hi,” she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder. “Are you feeling better?” He pursed his lips tightly.

“Not really. But I’m okay.” She took a moment to look up at him, noticing the unusual paleness of his skin, the slight shake in his hand that was holding his ice cream. Amelia placed her hand over his heart, feeling the quick beating of his heart.

“Are you still having leg pain? From the other day at the park?” He paused for a moment as if in thought before confirming. “You should go relax. Take a nap. I’ve got him for the afternoon.” He hesitantly complied, leaving her to make dinner and amuse their son with conversations about space as he happily ate dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. Once she heard Link leave the room to shower, she proclaimed it was bedtime, promising to cuddle with the boy before bedtime. He followed her into the master bedroom without complaint, laying down next to her. Link returned to the room later, throwing his clothes into the laundry hamper.

“I think you should go see a doctor. I think that something’s wrong, Link.” He turned to face her at the sound of her soft voice. She was sitting on their bed, leaning back against the headrest with her computer open and about fifty different tabs pulled up, their son sleeping soundly with his head on her chest. Link sighed. “I’ve been keeping track of your symptoms. Leg pain, nausea, fatigue. I’m terrified to think that something’s wrong.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “We can ask Nico to see you sometime. Just get a scan done or something.”

“You think this is cancer?”

“I think that with your history, it’s not out of the question.” She closed the computer and placed it on the nightstand, wrapping her arms around Scout. “I’m scared of you dying. I would rather fight whatever it is with all of the information we can get.” He moved to sit next to her, pulling her into his side. “It’s not just you and me. We’ve got this little guy to worry about,” she motioned towards the sleeping boy.

“I’ll see if Nico can give me a scan tomorrow.” Amelia turned her head to look up at him.

“Thank you.”

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

“There is a mass on your leg. We can do a biopsy to see if it’s cancerous.” Nico’s face was stern as he spoke, although Amelia could hear the slight waver in his voice. She often didn’t think about Link and Nico’s friendship, but at this moment, she could see that this was difficult for the man in front of her. She looked over at Link beside her.

“When can you do the biopsy?” Amelia asked, squeezing Link’s hand. He squeezed hers back, his gold wedding band pressing into her skin.

“I already talked to Bailey, and we can have her do it in about half an hour.” Nico’s hands folded together over the desk. “I can’t be the one to do it. But it’s just a biopsy, and you don’t need an orthopedic surgeon for that.” He said something else that she didn’t quite hear, and he left the room a moment later. She turned to her husband.

“You okay?” Link shook his head.

“No. I just want to go home and hold you and Scout. I don’t want to be here in the hospital.” Her hand settled against his cheek, her thumb wiping away a stray tear that had fallen from his eye.

“Let them do the biopsy, and then we’ll head home.” Amelia helped him to stand up and silently led him to the exam room down the hall. They waited in silence, gripping each other’s hands tightly. Amelia laid her head on his shoulder. “Whatever it is, we’re gonna figure it out, okay?” When Bailey walked in, she offered them a sympathetic smile before asking Link to move onto the table and performing the biopsy. There was an attempt at small talk, yet Link seemed to have turned into a brick wall, ignoring whatever they were saying. The chief promised to rush the results, directing them to wait in her office. As soon as she returned to the office an hour later, the couple knew the results.

“It is cancer. We’ll make an appointment to stage it, and we can get you in soon.” She left a moment later, leaving the couple alone in silence.

“Link?” He looked over at his wife with teary eyes.

“I just wanna go home.” She nodded in understanding, offering him her hand and leading him out of the hospital. They were greeted at their house by their son, who Maggie had watched during the day. He eagerly jumped into his mother’s open arms, ranting about the day’s events.

“You look sad, daddy.” He wrapped his arms around his father’s legs, not noticing the cringe from his father at the pain.

“I’m just tired, Scout. All good.” Amelia rustled her son’s hair.

“Alright, Scout. We’re gonna get you your bath, and then you can come and cuddle with mommy and daddy for a while, okay?” She led the energetic boy into the bathroom, the sound of water running soon filling the home.

“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.” Maggie smiled sympathetically, rubbing Link’s shoulder before letting herself out of the house. He walked into the bathroom and rested against the doorframe. A happy scene played out in front of him; his son splashing water at Amelia, who was sitting outside of the tub. Her smile was genuine, and she looked over a moment later.

“Hey, we’re almost done in here. Quick bath tonight,” she teased, grabbing at her son’s nose. Scout giggled loudly. Link smiled and left the bathroom, changing into his pajamas and flopping onto the bed. There was a knock on the door soon after, Amelia walking in with Scout in her arms, his smile wide as she placed him down on the bed. Scout had always loved sleeping in their bed, curled up between his parents, surrounded by their love, as he would say. He quickly fell asleep, softly mumbling nonsense about dinosaurs and his cousins. Amelia’s eyes met Link’s. “What’re you thinking about?” He brushed his hand through the boy’s blonde hair.

“How terrified I am. Like you said the other night. It’s not just me anymore. I’ve got you and Scout.” He sniffled. “I don’t want to believe it. I think some part of my brain is convinced that if I don’t acknowledge it, it won’t be real.” Their son sighed contently between them, curling into his mother’s body. “It’s cute. How he curls up like that.”

“He was always in this same position when I was pregnant,” she whispered, pulling up the blankets between them. “Even now, almost five years later, he still does it.”

“How are we going to tell him?”

“We’ll wait until we know more, and we’ll explain it simply, answer any questions he has. He’s a smart kid. He’ll probably pick up on it before we get the chance to tell him.”

“You’re so calm about this. Normally, it’s the other way around,” he whispered, moving his arm under the pillow.

“I guess my brain understands that you need me right now. I’m sure I’ll start freaking out any day, now.” He breathed out a soft laugh. “But, I’m also scared. Just doing a better job at masking it.” She reached for his hand across the space between them. “Promise me one thing?”

“Yeah?”

“That whatever it is, you’ll fight. You promised me a few years back that you would always fight for our dreams. My dream is that you’re okay.” He nodded his head quickly.

“Of course.” Her lips turned upward into a small smile. “You have to promise me that you’ll be here whenever I need you. At all my appointments and treatments.”

“Scout and I will bring you ice cream every day.” Link’s eyes fell to their son, watching the rise and fall of his chest. “Try and get some sleep, Link.” She slipped her hand away from him and reached behind her to turn the lamp off, sighing tiredly. “I love you.” His hand found hers again.

“I love you.”

[breanime]

Hey love I don’t know if you’re still doing the 2000 followers event (Which by the way You go Glen Coco!) but if you are can you do Should’ve known better by Monica for Papi Rio (angst)

So this is the last song drabble for my 2000 followers event. Thank you all so much for following me and reading my work! I love you all!

*gif not mine*

When you got to the prison and told them you were there to see Rio—again—you expected to have to go through the usual procedure: turn in all of your belongings, get patted down by a particularly through guard, wait for a good 20 minutes for the hellish buzzer that let you know that in the next 30 minutes, you would see Rio. But when you got there, the guard at the desk frowned, looked away from you, and mumbled a single, devastating sentence.

“The inmate doesn’t want to see you.”

It was like taking a bullet to the chest—which you would take, for Rio, if you had to. You blinked, tears forming in your eyes. You drove four and a half hours to see him…

“I’m sorry,” you said, steadying yourself, “I think there’s been a mistake…”

“No ma’mm,” the clerk cleared his throat, “He’s requested to remove you from the visitor list. He’s only allowing his lawyer to see him at this time…” He looked down. “I’m sorry.”

“I want to talk to him,” you said, anger replacing the surprised pain.

“You can call the inmate at this number—” he slid a pamphlet over to you.

“I know the number,” you said back, “I have it memorized. I want to talk to Rio.”

“You can’t see the inmate unless he has you on the list—”

“—Then let me call him,” you interrupted, holding your ground, “I’m not leaving until I speak to Rio.”

“Cell phone room is around the corner,” the clerk said, defeated.

You grabbed your purse from the counter and stomped down to the cell phone room, slamming the door behind you. You dialed the number, accepted the charges, and waited. Five minutes went by before you heard that voice that made your heart skip a beat.

“Hey.”

You closed your eyes, the tears stinging in your throat at the sound of Rio’s voice. You missed him so much, it was physically painful to you. “I’m here,” you said, knowing that he knew what ‘here’ meant.

“I know. I want you to go home.”

“Fuck you.”

Rio sighed on the other end. You could hear some light chattering in the back, but every sound he made was in stereo, both because you were so tuned in to him, and because Rio was afforded a certain amount of room, space, and respect due to his status on the streets. Even in prison, he was still a King. “This isn’t fair to you,” he said, “and I… Fuck, I can’t keep asking you to waste your time—”

“You didn’t ask me anything!” You shot back. “You made this decision to shut me out without even saying anything to me—”

“Because I knew your ass would try to argue with me!”

“You’re damn right I will!” You were pacing now, stomping around the small room. “Why would you take me off the visitor’s list?”

“Because I can’t keep doing this to you,” he shouted back, “It’s almost ten hours, to and from, to get here, you stay all day for a 45 minute visit where I can’t even touch you…” Rio took in a steadying breath, and you pictured his eyes as red as yours were. “I can’t support you, or comfort you, I can’t take you on trips like we used to do, I can’t even make fucking money in here—I ain’t shit for you while I’m in here!”

You felt your blood boil. “You… I can’t even…” You took a breath, stopping your pacing. “I didn’t ask to go with you to Mexico,” you started, “and I didn’t need the shopping sprees in L.A on Melrose. I didn’t need the furs or jewelry—and I still don’t, Rio. Material things don’t mean much to me. You are what matters to me.”

You heard Rio swallow on the other end of the line, and he was silent for a moment. “I can’t keep letting you hold us down on your own…”

“But I want to!”

“Yeah, you say that now, but what happens in another month when I’m still locked up? What happens when my guys stop sending you money? Huh? What happens when you meet someone else—”

“Are you out of your mind?!” You gasped. “Do you think I’m that easy? That fickle?”

“No, but—”

“I love you, Rio!” You screamed. “I fucking love you, you dumbass!”

“Watch your mouth—”

“Why would you take me off the list?” You knew you were bordering on hysterical now, but you couldn’t help it. “Why would you try to shut me out, Rio? I thought we were in this together! Why—”

“Why haven’t you left me?” He asked back.

You froze, eyes wide. The question was so absurd, you had to take a moment to even think of how to answer that question. “…what?”

“Why haven’t you left me? I’ve been in here 215 days with a grip more to go, and you… Fuck… Why are you still with me?”

You blinked, letting the tears fall down your cheeks. “Because I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said back, “and that’s why I can’t keep doing this to you…”

“Rio,” you said slowly, carefully, “I never ever cheated. I never ever lied. You know that I’ve been with you through everything, and I always will,” you shook your head, wiping your tears, “I love you. I love you more than anything—money, jewels, trips—that doesn’t mean shit to me. I love you. There’s no man alive or dead who could make me leave you,” you added, trying to address his fears, “It doesn’t matter if you’re up or down, either way—I’m gonna be here with you.” You could have sworn you heard Rio take a shaky breath on the other line, so you kept talking. “You should have known better than to think I would leave,” you said, “You should have known better than to doubt me—and I’m mad, Rio. I am so mad right now because I love you so, so much. And I would do anything for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, doing five to ten, I will always be here for you.”

“…You won’t forget about me?” Rio asked, and you knew he must be alone now because you could hear the vulnerability in his voice.

“Oh, baby,” you sighed, a new set of tears streaming down your cheeks, “How could I forget about you? Think about it—every Saturday and Monday for the last seven months, I’ve been on that receiver sitting across from you. Me. Because I’m your girl.”

“You’re my life,” he said softly.

“I know,” you chuckled through your tears, and Rio laughed on the other side of the line as well, “that’s why you should’ve known better… asshole.”

“I love you too, mama,” he said, “Just… Give me a minute, okay? I can put you back on the list right now.”

“Yeah,” you leaned against the wall, “you better.”

Within 20 minutes, you were being walked to the back to see Rio. You were surprised, however, when the guard passed the room where you usually went—the room where you would sit across from Rio with a little window blocking him from you—and kept walking. He stopped in front of a door and turned to you.

“The inmate has bought five minutes,” he said lowly, “Try to keep touching to a minimum… I’ll be right outside.”

Touching? You held your breath, watching as the man unlocked the door to reveal…

Rio.

He was standing in the room in his orange jumpsuit with chains around his ankles and wrists—but he was there, with no window of glass blocking him off from you.

And now you were crying again.

You ran to him, vaguely registering the door shutting behind you, and cried into his chest. It had been over seven months since you’d last been able to touch him, and to have this moment with him… it was breath-taking. Rio leaned down and kissed you, and you melted into his embrace. It didn’t matter that he was chained, it didn’t matter that you only had 5 minutes.

All that mattered was him.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, his lips on yours, “I love you. I love you.”

You wrapped your arms around him, holding him since he couldn’t hold you, and that’s how you spent your 5 minutes, just in each other’s embrace, kissing and crying and sighing.

“Rio,” you asked, mouth on his, “You paid for this?”

“Mm hmm,” he answered, a small smile on his face, “It was money well spent.”

You laughed—you knew better than to ask how much it cost. Rio’s income had decreased significantly since he’d been locked up, but he was still making money. Of course, to Rio, it wasn’t enough. So for him to spend money to have this (probably illegal) privilege with you… It meant a lot.

There was a knock on the door, signaling that your time was up.

“Hey,” Rio reached up and brushed your tears away, the chains on his wrist clanking as he moved, “don’t cry. I love you, baby.” He kissed your tears away, creating a new batch with the soft show of affection. He was smiling when he pulled back. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For reminding me that you’re my ride or die,” he answered, his fingers brushing against your face gently, “I had a weak moment, but I’m good now. Cause of you.”

“I’m here, Rio,” you said, tapping his heart with your hand, “and I’ll always be here.”

You left the prison with a sense of hope; you had cried a lot, but you felt secure that now, Rio knew better than to doubt your commitment to him. You would wait for him for as long as it took, and now, he knew that.

That was the last time Rio ever doubted you, from then on, he was secure in the fact that his girl was going to be with him no matter what, and whenever he started to feel trapped or paranoid that you would leave him, he’d remember the things you said to him, and he reminded himself—

—that he should know better. And he did.

*******************************************************************************************

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think! (using my old taglist till Friday)

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[chilly-me-softly]

Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be Alright • Chapter 20

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

Evelyn waits with folded arms for Lucas to arrive, her right foot not stopping tapping against the floor. As soon as her mother had made her aware of what had happened, annoyance had sprung up inside her, growing stronger and stronger. She couldn't believe it. Yet he'd seemed to agree when they'd talked about it days before, had agreed with her that being alone with her mother still didn't seem like a good idea. That more time was needed, testing the waters. She had left relaxed about that at least, but it turned out she had put her trust in the wrong person. Once again.

She jumps from her seat as soon as the doorbell rings, opening the door and finding herself in front of him, his lips widening into a smile as soon as he sees her. Evelyn remembers to breathe as her mother had suggested only moments before, before letting him in. And she takes one last look at Ben quickly passing by before closing the door to the room behind her.

Convincing everyone to stay out of it had been hard especially since they were all still there in the house, but Lucas was her problem and it was up to her to deal with it. No matter what would happen in there or the screams they would hear, until she came out or specifically asked for their help none of them would be welcome inside those four walls.

"How was your trip?" he asked her as he sat on the edge of her bed, his gaze moving around the room before focusing on her.

"I'm sure you know I didn't ask you here to talk about that" she replies harshly at which he shifts his gaze to the cot a little further away from them.

"Listen Evelyn-"

"What's wrong with you? I just asked you for one thing"

"Yeah we always have to do everything you say. Like I'm some kind of puppet you can move around at your pleasure" the boy stood up abruptly approaching the window and putting a few more inches between them while Evelyn froze for a moment, leaning against the desk, quickly recovering though.

"Excuse me? You don't seem to have put up much of a fight"

"It's because... just how much longer are we supposed to go on like this?  With me constantly under examination and you..." the boy runs a hand through his hair in frustration.

"With me what? Thinking about my daughter's sake?"

"No you only think about yourself, that's the point! If you really thought about our daughter's sake... you would've done differently"

"Are you for real?" Evelyn scoffs even more incredulously, "You washed your hands of it as soon as I told you I was pregnant. I spent months alone thinking about how things would go, then you come back tell me a few sweet words and hope everything goes back to the way it was?"

"When are you going to let this go? I can't do this"

"Well then do something to make me change my mind!"

"You won't let me!" Lucas emits a guttural sound before crossing the space between them and standing in front of her, their chests rising and falling rhythmically and her stepping back but finding herself even more trapped against the desk.

"Let's start again. Let's put it all behind us" he murmurs, laying a hand on her cheek, shifting his gaze between her eyes and her lips as she shakes her head slightly, swallowing hard.

"I can't"

"Please Eve, please" his face gets closer and closer, he believes she's finally given in when he sees her close her eyes, their lips only millimetres apart. But in no time Evelyn sighs pushing him away.

"You can't do this. It's not fair" Lucas allows himself to be moved by Evelyn's hands pressing his chest lightly, allowing her to put a considerable amount of space between them again.

"Ever since you came back I've never given you false hope. I tried to be open but I was clear, you could come back into her life but not mine"

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"No, no it isn't. We are two completely different people, you are two completely different people to us. And I can't live a life for my daughter, I have to be happy for her to be happy with me"

Lucas sighs going to sit back down on the bed taking his head in his hands. He looks genuinely torn and Evelyn looks at him unsure of what she should do. She doesn't want to keep feeding whatever is going through his mind, but in the end she chooses to approach him anyway by crouching down in front of him.

"Lucas... what's going on?" she places her hands on his knees moving a thumb over the fabric of his trousers, "you can tell me"

There's no need for a lot of words though. She just needs to see his face when he finally pulls his hands away, his red eyes and trembling hands. Evelyn's eyes also fill with tears as she nods knowingly, biting her lip to keep from giving in just then.

"You're free Lucas. But this time... it will be forever. You won't get another chance" her hoarse, trembling voice, full of emotion, comes out in a whisper as she looks up at him, "I can't do this to her again"

Evelyn closes her eyes, not wanting to see what happens next. Her words clashing with what she expects will actually happen.

"I'm sorry" he croaks leaving her a light kiss on one cheek before running out of that room, leaving her on that floor in disbelief and confused and broken again.

-

A week later that day, she had found a letter in the mailbox. She'd ripped it in two as soon as she'd seen who it was from, but from inside that envelope a necklace had fallen out. Lucas wasn't used to wearing jewellery of any kind but she'd recognised that necklace, it was one of his favourites. If not his only one.

So she'd put that piece of paper back together where she finally had some explanation. He wrote that he hadn't meant to make fun of her, that he admired her because in spite of everything she fit into that world and made it seem simpler than it really was, while he simply couldn't see himself as a father. Not yet and maybe never after that. In general it had served to put that chapter aside forever or at least until her little girl would have been old enough to understand it all. She had therefore hidden it with the other stuff without telling anyone, thinking it was better that way.

Evelyn hadn't given too many explanations about the moment after everyone had seen Lucas run off visibly upset. It was as if from the moment he'd closed that door behind her, something inside her had snapped too. She didn't care, or maybe she felt so many things to just erased them all and made her feel one big emptiness inside. And everyone in the house seemed to be waiting for her to burst out at any moment.

But she had rolled her sleeves up and got on with her life. She had no power in the decisions and lives of others, everyone does what they feel and it's only necessary to find a way so that whatever happens does not affect us so much. As absurd as it sounded given her history, she would stop dwelling on things too much. If we give too much importance to something or someone it will sooner or later end up hurting us, on the contrary if we don't expect anything, it might surprise us.

It was a first step, it needed a lot of work but she had to think about the present. She was going to choose her battles from that moment on, spending energy only on those who really deserved it. Her daughter, her family and Jack for example.

Time had passed slowly but also so quickly, taking away the last days of the year and starting a new one. Now, more than ever, it was time to make new resolutions, make room for new things and try to do better, always.

That time in their household had always been very chaotic, trying to fit everything in with Ben's busy schedule was always a challenge. But that was what she liked the most, it wasn't a specific day that was special but the whole period. The atmosphere created when everyone got together. It didn't matter if it was two days before Christmas or if it had already been, if they had spoken the day before or if they hadn't heard from each other in months. That day had the power to relax her in a way nothing ever could in her life, and between the confusion and the chatter, time passed without her noticing.

But if so far she had only had to deal with one busy agenda, now there were two of them. Jack had the same or even more workload than Ben and on top of that there was the distance factor.

They had seen little of each other, spending together a day here half a day there at the earliest possible opportunity, time that always seemed to pass quickly when they were together. Seeing each other like this, always in a rush, was in a way worse than not seeing each other at all. Having a taste and nothing more only left a bitter taste at the end of the day.

So one evening out of nowhere she made a decision. She had been lying in bed reading a book, Cece already sleeping soundly, when her mind had started to wonder. She and Jack had agreed that they didn't want to spend another rushed day together just because they had to, he'd have an away game anyway and she'd want to spend her daughter's first Christmas with her family now more than ever.

And she had smiled as she closed the book, occupying the next few hours filling a suitcase with things that she, and the little one especially, might need for a short trip but still with no clear return date for the time being.

She got this feeling in her chest, a mixture of happiness and excitement that would make her jump and clap her hands and laugh uncontrollably for no apparent reason. She hadn't felt this way for so long, she had to admit, and it felt good.

She forces herself to get some rest and in the early hours, after feeding Cece, she heads over to Ben's. The boy sleeps on his side and immediately lets out a sigh as she shakes him lightly.

"Ben" she strokes his hair, crouching down in front of him as he opens his eyes slightly, "I'm going to Jack's. I'll get the car okay?" he mumbles something sketching a smile and closing his eyes as she smiles leaving him a kiss on his cheek before packing up the last of her things and leaving. She leaves him a note on the table for some extra reassurance, just in case, before getting into the car taking one last look at her little girl in the rear view mirror and finally driving off.

----

Hi everyone, I hope you like the chapter. I just wanted to tell you that I've decided about the bonus chapters I was telling you about last week to write them down and publish them at the end all together so as not to create too much confusion x

Tag: @alexajanecollins @emwritesfootball @rosie7703

Chapter 21

[gravelyhumerus]

Criminal Minds College AU

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Title: “I may just take your breath away”

Relationship: Jemily 

Summary:

Emily Prentiss, college sophomore, absolutely does not have a crush on the girl across the hall.  

Slow-burn Jemily college AU where they live across the hall and despite all odds, the universe pushes them together. AKA they’re silly gay babies who pine after each other for months. 

Read it on AO3

Tumblr:  One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, (bonus scene), Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Epilogue

“Come in, it’s open!” Emily Prentiss yelled out over her music blasting out of the laptop on her desk. She was listening to her pregame playlist, which was chock full of throwbacks, middle-school jams and of course, The Killers to keep things interesting.

Derek Morgan pushed open her dorm room door and waltzed in. He had a pair of light blue jeans on, held up by a brown belt, with a white t-shirt on top. He jumped on top of Emily’s slightly-too-high bed, and bounced as he grinned at her. Derek was many things, shy was definitely not one of them.

“You look hot,” Emily said, with as much sarcasm as she could manage, looking him up and down. She could tell he dressed up.

“You know it, princess.”

Rifling through his backpack, he grinned as he pulled out two blue college-branded metal water bottles, filled with what was probably not water at all.

“I made us sangria!”

Emily laughed, then spun back around in her desk chair. She still needed to finish her makeup. She had her foundation and eyebrows done, but she needed to focus as she applied her eyeliner.

“Did you just mix some juice into the wine?” She asked, taking the bottle from him, having a sip of the fruity liquid.

“Yup! There’s going to be a keg there, but I wanted to give us options.”

Emily laughed before focusing on her mascara wand gliding across her lower eyelashes, trying to finish up so they could start preing for the party. She wasn’t quite dressed yet either, still wearing her class jeans and not her going out jeans (there was an important distinction between these that mostly involved whether or not she could wear them with a belt.) Morgan was about five minutes earlier than she expected. Moreover, the boy had only sprung the invitation to the party during their lab that afternoon.

As much as she hated to admit it, Derek was basically 90% of Emily’s non-academic social life, the second year boy already very well connected due to his football scholarship, letting him in on all of the good parties. Unfortunately that also meant for Emily that he would spring themed parties like anything but clothes, or no cups allowed on her with absolutely no heads up most weekends.

Emily will not wear a tote bag as a skirt again if she can help it.

Despite the excessive drinking and mixed bag of party attendees, Emily genuinely enjoyed the boy’s company. Anyways, he was the best beer-pong partner that she’s ever had.

“Can I hop on aux?” He asked, leaning over her computer before she could even protest.

“Sure,” she replied, knowing he was already on his own Spotify account and putting on his playlist titled ‘FOR THE BOYS and emily’ that he found hilarious. She knew she could get him to sing along to the Mamma Mia! (2008) soundtrack once he was a few shots in, but for now she resigned herself to wordless EDM.

He sat on her desk, bobbing his head along to the beat.

Emily reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a smallish bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, with their college’s crest etched into the glass. For a school that denounced drinking-culture, they had a shocking amount of merch for sale that encouraged it.

She filled each to the line, and slid one towards her friend.

“Bottoms up,” she said, as they cheersed the foul tasting liquid. Morgan grinned and winked at her before shooting it back with the confidence that only a nineteen year old could have.

Vodka still made her queasy, but being underage meant that the college students would take what they could get. Morgan’s senior friends would boot alcohol for them for an extra five bucks, but only every few weeks.

The one thing about the states that Emily still couldn’t wrap her head around was the backwards alcohol policy. Almost everywhere else on earth she would already be legally drinking. Hell, when she was 16 she was passed out in a ditch in rural England, drunk off her ass on legally acquired beer. Even now, if they drove north of the border, Emily could be off to the bars, no questions asked. America was absurd.

“How was the rest of your day?” Emily asked him as she stood up, digging through her dirty laundry to find her other pair of jeans. She tossed aside her fuzzy pjs, a bra and an assortment of band tees but her jeans must’ve been at the bottom. She needed to do laundry but was ripe out of quarters.

“Eh,” he made a face, “I had to finish up that quiz for psych, but honestly I just needed to catch up on some readings. I had like fifty pages of a badly scanned book from like a hundred years ago to annotate.”

“Reading? In this economy?” Emily snarked at him, still rooting through the bin. She knew her blue jeans were here somewhere.

“Well I know you can’t read,” he replied in a haughty tone, “doesn’t mean the rest of us have to remain unenlightened!”

“Ha-ha.”

There they were, right at the bottom of the bin. She changed right then, with Morgan politely averting his eyes, despite the fact that both have seen just about everything in the year or so that they’ve been acquainted.

No, they didn’t hook up or anything, it wasn’t like that.

It was the strange phenomenon that only could happen in college where you get really close really fast. Emily’s RA had explained it to their first-year floor, likening it to soldiers in the war (Emily wasn’t sure if the metaphor was kosher, but it was apt.). Young adults first starting out in the world, free from their family supervision and previous lives, cling on to those around them for stability. The RA explained this as in a cautionary tale, explaining that this can lead to high emotions, to fights, and… a bit more.

This talk led into their floor-cest talk, which was apparently required in every co-ed dorm at their school. Emily was the first to point out the heteronormativity in that policy. Floor-cest, for the uninitiated, was the concept of hooking up with someone on your floor in the dorm. It was formally discouraged by residence life staff. It was easy to have meaningless sex, harder when you have sex with someone you live down the hall from. Things could get messy.

Emily and Derek got this talk on move in day, both sitting cross-legged on the floor of their common room as their RA, a bubbly girl named Carol, explained the fundamentals of dorm life. Emily has been dropped off by her mother’s driver, who helped her unload her things.

Emily was still reeling from being surrounded by happy families, of crying parents and bitter that her mother was too busy to even send her own daughter off to school. Not that Emily wanted her there or anything, but the gesture would have been nice.

She remembered the startling moment when Derek walked straight into her room and offered his hand, introducing himself to his new neighbour.

They shared a wall, the co-ed bathroom down the hall, and most of their free time for their first year at college.

He had assumed that the driver, Paul who was one of Emily’s favourites out of her mother’s staff, was Emily’s father, which started things off on an awkward note. Soon she was swept up in a whirlwind of his family: his mom and sisters who insisted that Emily pose for photos of Derek and ‘his new dorm friend.’

A year later, Emily and Morgan were basically siblings. Emily didn’t actually have any siblings, but after going to Chicago for thanksgiving with the Morgan family, she was pretty sure she had officially been adopted.

Last year, they had a much nicer dorm, one of the newer ones with big windows and nice common spaces. This year they were both living in the oldest residence, a beautiful red brick building, covered with ivy, but the inside was all painted this gross beige, and the paint would chip off whenever Emily tried to hang her posters. There was also no air conditioning, the showers didn’t get too hot and the kitchen smelt like eggs. It was definitely a downgrade, but at least Morgan was on the same floor as her again.

Morgan had lucked out and gotten a corner room with tons of windows, and Emily was right next to the bathroom and could hear when anyone flushed.

After donning the jeans and a black tank top, Emily grabbed her leather jacket and they were ready to go.

“Another shot?” Derek asked, grinning at her mischievously.

“Of course,” Emily said. “Where are we even going anyways?”

“Well, you remember David, the TA from our psych lab? His housemates are throwing a party in their backyard. I heard there was going to be a DJ!”

“David Rossi?” Emily said incredulously, “How did you swing an invite to that?”

“I can’t reveal all of my secrets, you know that pretty lady.”

Emily scoffed. It was probably through their mutual friend Aaron Hotchner, who despite not being much of a partier, was very in the loop about the happenings on campus.

“Did you invite you know who?” Derek asked, a bit too casually as Emily locked her door.

Emily refused to bite.

“She definitely has better things to do than hang out with the likes of us.”

---

“I’m a criminology major,” Emily repeated, the exasperation in her voice palatable.

The boy, who was on the rugby team as she already learned, had asked her what her major was. He misheard her and began asking her how she likes studying biology.

The music was loud and the boy was clearly wasted off his ass. She was pretty sure she saw him do a keg stand in the kitchen earlier.

Emily took another sip of her drink, keeping it close to her chest. She looked around. They were only five minutes off campus at a decent-sized student house. The room was close to being at capacity, the old home creaking under the weight of dozens of students crammed into the living room. Music blared on a strangely impressive speaker system. The party was at its peak in the backyard, and was probably only an hour from being shut down by the cops if it got much louder.

Emily had carefully positioned herself next to the open window, enjoying the slight breeze as the body heat was making the old house steamy with humidity. This also happened to be the location of the bong, but she accepted the trade-off.

Derek was currently playing king’s cup, a game Emily refuses to play, since last time she got roped into it she lost miserably. She was forced to drink the king’s cup: a mixture of shitty beer, whiskey, cider wine and whole cream from the fridge, as she had been a bit too slow with bouncing the ball into the red solo cup. Derek held her hair back as she puked off the porch that night.

Never again.

Emily squinted as a few people she recognized walked into the room. It was only a month into classes, so she really hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know the new random assortment of people in her building, lectures and in her general orbit but she was pretty sure she was starting to recognize some faces.

Entering the party was the blonde from the end of the hallway who always complimented Emily on her outfits when she passed and had the most colourfully decorated dorm in the entire building. ‘Penelope G.’ read her name tag pinned to her door in their RA’s loopy handwriting.

Next to her was a younger boy that she had seen in the cafeteria with Penelope before, and while Emily wasn’t that good at identifying ages, he definitely looked a bit too young to be at college. He was tall, skinny and had a mop of unruly brown hair. He was also wearing a sweater to a house party, which was a major beginners mistake. He looked around nervously.

A few seconds later, the door closed, only dumping an assortment of other boys into the already packed house.

Emily let out a breath she didn’t know she held, as she found herself hoping that Garcia’s other friend might have been joining her that night.

Derek had teased her already about the girl across the hall. Jennifer Jareau. “My friends call me JJ,” she had said. Second year varsity soccer player and communications major. The girl Derek was convinced that Emily had a crush on.

JJ was the kind of girl who propped her door open during orientation week and always waved at Emily when she walked down the hall.

She did not have a crush. She barely knew anything about her besides that she was blonde, athletic and was always smiling. Both had been so busy since school had started, and seemed to have completely opposite schedules that they hadn’t really gotten to really connect.

Whenever Emily was coming back to their floor, JJ always seemed to be leaving. And vice versa. Somehow they were on exact opposite schedules. Probably since JJ was a varsity soccer player with early morning practise, and Emily was a bit of a night owl (that was a polite way of saying insomniac procrastinator perfectionist.)

She seemed to hang out with Garcia around residence, Emily having spotted the two getting coffee or studying in the library together occasionally, hence Emily’s hopes that Garcia may have JJ in tow that evening.

JJ was also definitely, one hundred percent, completely straight. Fairy lights and Polaroid pictures on her walls straight. She even had a high school sweetheart that might survive the turkey dumping season. Emily didn’t know his name but JJ said the key word early on in the year: boyfriend.

Emily turned back to the boy in front of her, who was describing, in detail, how the stock market worked, without realizing that Emily was not paying attention at all.

He was quite conventionally attractive, with mussed curly hair and broad shoulders. He obviously was interested in her—or rather interested in talking at her and potentially sleeping with her—that despite herself, Emily decided to slot him into her roster for that evening.

Emily considered herself a reluctant bisexual. Women could make her heart skip a beat just by looking in her direction, and men could get it when the situation was right and she didn’t have any other options. The second half of this pleased her mother to no end, as when young fourteen year old Emily Prentiss had decided to come out to her mother—at one of their rare dinners together—she watched her mother grit her teeth and tell her to keep that to herself. Her mother had eventually accepted this part of her daughter’s life, but only under the assumption that Emily would eventually end up with a man, and keep the rest to herself.

Emily looked around the room and wondered if she was going to have any other options that evening besides the very talkative boy.

Excusing herself from the company of…Matthew, she thinks was his name, she tries to find Derek, who had disappeared into the kitchen. Emily weaved through the crowd, steering past a couple making out in the corner.

She turned the corner and found Derek filling his cup with more beer from the keg. He grinned up at her and did the same for her.

“I hate beer,” Emily said to him, grimacing at the scratchy taste of the fermented barley in her red solo cup.

“Suck it up buttercup, you’re in college. You also complained about the juice from earlier.”

“Yeah well, watering down eleven percent wine is as bad as this five percent crap.”

“It did taste a lot better,” he agreed. “Who was that guy?”

Emily rolled her eyes.

“Matthew attempted to explain macroeconomics to me.”

“Oh god, is that what men are like out there?” He asked. “Guess you’re stuck with me tonight.”

“Lucky me.”

“Pong?” He asked, gesturing towards the row of tables set up in the backyard, through the open door and passed the crowd milling about near the speakers. The game seemed to be wrapping up, as the two teams shook hands and reset the cups to their original positions.

“Always.”

They found their spot at one of the tables across from their new opponents: Penelope and her very young looking friend.

“Penelope Garcia?” Derek grinned, recognizing the girl from their floor and walking up to her for a hug. Their rooms were facing each other, and they had apparently gotten the chance to get to know each other.

She grinned and hugged him, clearly a lot more sober than him having only arrived minutes earlier. There seemed to be a lot of hugging at house parties, Emily discovered when she moved to America, acquaintances became close friends once alcohol was involved.

She had bright pink glasses and a matching dress, with bright artfully done make-up highlighting her large smile. Emily knew that she was a CompSci major and had loaded her dorm room desk with monitors and the largest computer set-up that Emily had seen in her life.

“Derek, my love,” Penelope replied, gushing over Emily’s friend in an unexpected, but not unsurprising way. “Fancy meeting you here! And Emily! Have you two met my fine young friend here, Spencer?”

She gestured to the boy, who waved awkwardly.

“Hi, I’m Spencer Reid,” he said.

“He’s like a boy-genius or something. He already has a degree in mathematics and he’s currently working on his second degree in engineering. Isn’t that très cool? We met at the club fair last week.”

“I’m double majoring in philosophy,” he added.

“How old are you kid?” Morgan asked him, quick to the punch.

“Uh- sixteen?” Spencer seemed to ask, shrinking into himself a bit. “I skipped a couple of grades.”

He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose, a brown sweater with a white shirt collar poking through and had tucked his brown hair behind his ears. He was still taller than Penelope, but the smattering of acne and wide eyes made it clear that he was very much a kid.

“More than a couple!” Morgan exclaimed.

He shrugged.

“Are you in intro to logic with Williams?” Emily asked, realizing that she had recognized him from somewhere.

“Yes, I am. Though I find his repeated chess metaphors a touch reductive.”

“You’re right about that. Like, we get it Willy, you play chess. Big whoop,” Emily said, then introduced herself.

He smiled at her, slightly less awkwardly this time but with a touch more confusion.

“And this is Derek Morgan,” Penelope piped in, “the most gorgeous football player I know.”

“Do you know any other football players?” Spencer asked.

“Now you hush!” She admonished him. “We have a game to play.”

“Do you two have something to drink?” Derek asked them, moving back towards their side of the long fold-up table, which was crudely painted in their schools colours.

Emily took a sip of her beer, wondering if the boy should be drinking.

Penelope babbled about how it was Spencer’s first college party, and how she was so excited that it was this one because look at the pretty string lights decorating the backyard and the fact that there was a keg, like in the movies.

Smiling at her new neighbour, Emily thought that this might also be Penelope's first college party.

Derek returned with a cup of water for Spencer, and some beer for Penelope. Spencer seemed relieved at the gesture, smiling as he took a sip. Emily marvelled at her friend's kindness, despite what anyone said about drinking culture on campuses either way, it was tough to attend a party and not drink, putting his drink in a matching red cup gave him the appearance of participation.

“Do we all know the rules?” Derek asked.

“The question you should ask,” Emily said, “Is if they’re willing to play by your rules.”

Emily had discovered that this game, depending on the people you were playing with, had radically different rules. While the premise of the game remained the same: there were six cups on each side of the table, into which you threw ping pong balls and whenever you got a ball in a cup, that cup was then taken out of the picture until there were no cups left. Depending on who you were playing with, the cups were filled with water or beer (Emily hated when they had beer in them, it make things sticky and it was very unsanitary), there were specific rules to what defined an airball, when one could get balls back, when you could call island and what was a permissible trick shot.

“Ha ha Prentiss,” Derek said to her, rolling the ping pong ball in his hands. “I wanted to know if they had played before.”

“Oh I’ve played before,” Penelope said, “and I am unbeatable.”

She waggled her fingers in a gesture that implied magic was involved.

“It’s simple physics,” Spencer added, “I’ve memorized the rules and common approaches. We’ll be more than fine. ”

“Ok pretty boy, let’s see what you’ve got. Eye to eye?”

Looking into each other’s eyes, rather than at their targets, the two boys aimed at the cups, with only Reid’s making it in.

“What the fuck Morgan,” Emily exclaimed as Penelope and Spencer whooped, “what even was that throw?”

With the other team having won the privilege of starting first, Emily was forced to toss her ball towards Penelope, who took it with a grin.

She threw first, missing the table entirely.

“Air ball!” Derek announced, leaping forward and waving his hands in front of the cups on their side, the rules granting him the ability to defend their territory.

Spencer frowned, apparently perturbed by this turn of events. He stuck out his tongue, aimed, and launched the ball, hitting Morgan right in the chest. The ball bounced off of it and fell straight down into the cup.

Derek’s draw dropped. Spencer and Penelope whooped in excitement.

“Derek, how did you lose us that cup?” Emily whined, pulling one of their cups to the side. One point to Spencer.

Derek, who had something to prove, lined up his shot. He gazed at his targets with the focus of a sniper, dunked the ball into one of their cups, dousing it with water, and rolled it in his hands, giving it a bit more weight. He aimed and fired off a quick shot into the centre-left cup. It spun around in the cup, floating above the water, but fell in. If the other team were crafty, they would have blown into the cup and Derek would have lost the point, but Emily sighed in relief when she realized that despite their first point, they didn’t know the rules well enough to beat the current reigning beer champs.

It was Emily’s turn. She took a gulp of her beer—she would always swear she was better when she was drunk because she didn’t think too hard about it—and threw. It neatly fell into the back right cup, scoring them two points for that round.

“Balls back!” Derek roared in delight.

Penelope tossed them, and the game continued.

They sunk one more shot on their turn. 3-1.

Penelope got another cup, Spencer missed. 3-2.

Derek’s ball bounced out, Emily sank hers. 4-2.

Only minutes later, after playing at breakneck speed, there were three cups left on the table and Derek and Emily were quite drunk, with Penelope not far behind. Reid, still very sober, was matching the duo with intense concentration.

It was his throw, with two cups left until his victory. He shots carefully, sinking it without a splash.

Derek and Emily had one cup to go. He went first, sending one barreling towards the cup. It hit the rim and instead of going in, it bounced towards Emily, who leaped forward and grabbed it before it fell off the table.

“Trick shot!” She yelled. Derek could try again, but only if he does it in an inventive way. At the frat house they spent a lot of time in first year, the only acceptable trick shot (under this house’s rules) was bouncing the ball off a poster of Obama. This time, Derek takes an empty cup, puts the ball in, and uses the cup to aim.

Somehow, it went in.

They leap into the air, yelling with delight. But they hadn’t won yet. The other team still had a redemption shot.

“How ya feeling kid?” Derek taunted, “Wanna give up now, save yourself the embarrassment?”

“Not a chance.”

He squinted at the table, lining up his shot with precision. With his left hand he licked his finger, sticking it up in the air like golfers do to measure the wind. Emily wasn't sure if this was a joke, something to psych Derek out, or something the boy was genuinely able to do. He frowned, seeming to ponder the information.

He aimed. He tossed it. He sunk the redemption shot.

They were in overtime.

“You can do it princess,” Derek told her, watching her with utmost intensity. Emily adjusted her stance, chugging back the last of that glass of beer, feeling the alcohol with greater focus than before.

She glanced around at the other team, but out of the corner of her eye she caught a familiar face looking at her: Jennifer Jareau from residence. Her not crush.

She was looking at her. Watching her play.

A swell of nervousness flooded up through her lungs, and she forced it out by huffing a breath.

She needed another drink. Moreover, she needed to focus.

Emily threw it. If it made it in, then they won. If she missed, Spencer and Garcia had another shot at redemption. They couldn’t lose this, not now, not in front of… uh, everyone. She was definitely not thinking about JJ in this situation. That would be something a frat boy thought about. She didn’t want to win beer pong to impress some girl, she wanted to win because she had pride.

The ball sailed through the air, Emily held her breath. It caught the lip of the cup, teetered. A splash announced that they had won.

Thank god.

With a whoop, realizing what they had done, Emily and Derek roared with joy, jumping into each other and hugging in their celebration. A few onlookers clapped, noticing how close the game had been.

They pulled apart and reached out their hands to their opponents.

“Great game,” Emily said, shaking Spencer's hand, “Really.”

He grinned despite his loss.

“Honestly I understand the principles, it’s simple parabolas and high-school level physics,” he frowned, “Unfortunately, I need to work on translating those parabolas into the real world.”

“We’ll work on it Spence,” Garcia grinned, shaking Emily’s hand while smiling at her younger friend.

Emily realized that in their celebration, Derek had spilled quite a bit of beer onto Emily’s sleeve and down the side of her shirt and it was currently dripping onto her boots. Emily sighed, handing her friend her cup.

“I’ve got beer all over me,” Emily sighed, “Get me a refill? I’m going to try to find a bathroom.”

Derek nodded and turned back to their new friends, chatting about how impressed he was with their game.

Emily felt a bit sticky, feeling the beer coat her bare arm. Walking back into the house, she glanced at the kitchen sink trying to see if there was any paper towel or something there, but no luck. The sink was full of dishes, the counters covered in assorted empties and cups, without a dishcloth in sight. Not wanting to rifle through their drawers, she made her way towards the staircase.

There was a couple making out on the staircase, which was not something Emily would do herself. It seemed a bit precarious since alcohol was involved, but, to each their own, she thought. Emily opened a couple of the doors upstairs before discovering one of the most disgusting washrooms she’d ever seen.

There was only one thing in the shower: dawn dish soap. The boys who lived here must use that for their bodies. Emily shuddered. On the sink were some toothbrushes, razors and some floss, but for some reason, no soap. Emily found a roll of toilet paper on the floor (ew), and wadded it up to try to reduce the wet spot on her side and hopefully from smelling like a brewery when she returned to residence.

For a moment, Emily found herself gazing at herself in the mirror, feeling hazy and a bit unsteady. She checked her make-up, noting that her dark red lipstick was holding up, but her mascara had smudged under her eyes giving her more of a goth vibe than the alt look she typically went for.

Emily sat down on the tub, patting the toilet paper against her wet clothing, feeling very drunk now that she was seated. Dammit Morgan, couldn’t he have spilled his beer on himself instead of her nice shirt?

The thud of the music was muffled, but there was a ringing in her ears that made everything feel very quiet. That was until there was a thundering of footsteps and the sound of a girl announcing: “I’m going to vom, right now.”

Emily sat, jaw dropped, as a red headed girl threw open the bathroom door, kneeled down on the floor next to the toilet, and relieved herself from the contents of her stomach without so much as a knock. The girl coughed into the bowl, yacking up what was probably way too much beer for the poor tiny girl.

“Oh my gosh,” said another voice, at the door, “I’m so sorry. We didn’t realize there was someone here! ”

Emily looked up, realizing the voice came from no other than Jennifer Jareau.

“JJ!” Emily said, not really knowing what else to do with the girl heaving at her feet.

“You ok?” JJ kneeled down next to her friend, carefully pulling her friend’s long hair back, tugging a hair tie off her own wrist and collecting it so that it didn’t get anything on it.

Emily felt stupid sitting on the tub, not helping anything. She tossed the rest of the toilet paper in the garbage, placing the half-empty roll on the edge of the tub.

“Can I get her some water?” Emily asked, “To rinse her mouth?”

JJ looked up at her and nodded. Emily felt herself blushing slightly as she turned away. Who let one girl’s eyes be so big, and so blue. It was rude.

She returned a minute later having had to rinse her own beer cup out in the gross kitchen sink to make sure that she wasn’t accidentally giving this girl some random person's sketchy cup.

Emily remembered that earlier Derek said that it was a varsity party, so it did make sense that JJ was also in attendance. The whole team probably was. The other girl looked like a soccer player, she had that vibe.

Emily handed the cup to JJ, who gave her a grateful smile. Emily felt their fingers touch for a moment, before JJ turned to attend to her friend.

She tried to get her to take a sip, and Emily took the moment to look JJ up and down, taking in her light blue skinny jeans, black tank and high heeled boots. She was basically wearing the uniform of a straight white girl at a houseparty. Not to say Emily wasn’t also basically wearing the same outfit, pairing the jeans with combat boots and attempting to set herself apart with her black nail polish and eyeliner that her mother once called ‘a lot.’

In contrast to Emily’s fairly undefined thin body, she took note of the strong looking shoulders that flexed as JJ kneeled down on the floor. She was definitely an athlete. Emily looked away, checking her phone, feeling suddenly embarrassed for looking at the girl.

‘Where u go bbg????’ Read a new message from Derek.

‘Girl puknigh up hre’ Emily typed, ‘Got her waterr’

Emily blinked at her typos, pressing the red underlined words, hoping her phone would correct them for her. She wasn’t that drunk.

The two girls were talking quietly, and Emily decided to take her leave, but before she could the red-head beat her to the punch deciding that she wanted to puke in peace.

“Leave me aloooooonnne Jennifer,” she wined. “Get out, I don’t want any more fucking water.”

JJ pulled back, making a face and holding her hands up in the ‘I surrender’ motion. Emily hurried out into the hall with JJ on her heels. The girl kicked the door shut angrily, and the sound of her retching ensued.

“There was a funnel,” JJ offered as an explanation. She leaned against the door. “How has your night been?”

Emily blinked. JJ was making conversation. She didn’t want Emily to leave just yet.

“So far so good,” Emily replied. “Doing better than your friend, at least.”

“That’s not hard to do. So I guess you didn’t chug from a funnel yet?” JJ quipped, smiling and revealing a perfect, white smile.

“Oh I have that scheduled for one-thirty, actually,” Emily said, pretending to check her watch and grinning.

“Let me know before you do, I’d like to watch that,” JJ said casually.

A wave of heat rushed to Emily’s face as she realized that drinking from a funnel would entail Emily on her knees, with JJ watching her… a thought that she needed to push out of her brain immediately.

“I’ll have you know,” Emily said in retort, “I can chug amongst the best. I am no stranger to these sorts of parties.”

JJ grinned. “Oh yeah?”

“I’m a reigning beer pong champ, I’ll have you know.”

They laughed.

“I saw your last victory. Very impressive.”

JJ, in a controlled fall, slid down the door and sat down in the hall, resigning herself to waiting for her friend. Emily wondered if she should return to Morgan now, but unable to tear herself away from the opportunity for a conversation with JJ.

“I’m awful at pong,” the blonde admitted. “I miss every time.”

“You probably just need a good teacher.”

JJ raised her eyebrows, “oh yeah?”

“I mean,” Emily said, sitting down onto the top step of the staircase, facing her floormate, “it’s all about hand eye coordination. It’s basically a sport. You need a coach.”

They both laughed.

“Well if that’s the case, why don’t you teach me?”

Emily gulped.

The door opened, and JJ fell back slightly before catching herself.

“I’m going home,” JJ’s friend announced.

JJ looked up at her dishevelled friend and nodded, turning back to look at Emily apologetically.

“Another time?” Emily offered, smiling before walking down the stairs and rejoining the party.

Next chapter ->

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

5 times Logan helped his partners get their shit together +1 time they returned the favor

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22854292

MasterPost

relationships: Logan-Centric DLAMPR (platonic creativitwins)

warnings: Remus-typical conversation topics (Teeth circa 2007, puke, crushing vids), food mention, minor injury and blood, panic attacks (kinda?), overworking, bad self-care habits, fluffy fluffy fluff.

Feedback Is Welcomed!

1- Deceit

Deceit paced about his new room, picking up and moving large boxes in repetition and yet refusing to begin unpacking. He assumed his most comfortable form with all of his arms out, as he would usually in his old room. The others had assured him that they didn’t find it disconcerting, but even just being on this side of the mindscape made him self-conscious. He moved another box compulsively.

It had been a month and a half since Deceit and Remus had finally been “accepted”, and it still felt surreal. Everyday he felt another barrier crumble with his new… partners? That was also odd to think about. He was constantly replaying the scene of Patton in front of him, after they’d steadily built a rapport, absolutely distraught with remorse. Taking his hand. Letting him and Remus into the life the others had built.

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized how steady the progress was. He’d been dating Remus for ages, and of course there was the half-year ago that Virgil started speaking to him again. He’d never been on particularly bad terms with Logan and Roman… Perhaps it was merely an inevitability he hadn’t recognized, or more likely refused to wish for. 

And yeah, he'd taken his sweet time switching over. He’d “moved in” weeks ago, but hadn’t yet had the will to unpack. Everytime he started, he stopped, the feeling that he didn’t have the right to claim the space. Because he had to keep it in his head that it could all be taken away, even after he continued to be assured by his partners otherwise.  But he was here now. He was here, and he was seen, his input listened to, he had the focus he’d been vying for finally. It was terrifying.

The conscious, of which previously Deceit had only had occasional glimpses when he visited, was just plain exposing. The snake wondered how Virgil of all people could have handled this living here when he moved, and then cringed at the thought. It spoke to how bad things were before, he supposed. Anything is better than living in the unconscious. It… didn’t bring out the best in anyone.

Deceit shook his head. It was the past, they'd all agreed. Things had changed, were changing.

Looking down, Dee realized a pair of his hands had been carefully shredding the cardboard lip of one of his boxes into neat little strips. Fuck. So much for reusing that one. He exhaled deeply, tipping his head back as though to clear it like an Etch-A-Sketch. He let his eyes lay closed for a moment before the sound of his opened door creaking wider broke the silence.

"Deceit? Are you quite alright?" 

Deceit spun around to see who had spoken. Logan stood in the half open doorway, hands folded in front of himself and head tilted a bit in confusion. Deceit did not find that expression cute on him, not at all. 

"I'm just peachy, and you?" The side lied with a sharp-toothed grin. Logan frowned a bit, and yeah, Deceit hadn't expected him to believe that, but call it a force of habit. 

"Falsehood. You have been staring into space for approximately five minutes. Do you require assistance unpacking?" Logan nodded to the mass of boxes. Deceit crossed a few of his arms.

"This conversation is obviously best had with you standing in my doorway like the absolute worst doorstop," He said dryly, "Why are you here?"

Logan seemed confused, hesitant before stepping fully inside. He looked around at the barren room quickly, probably noting that the only things in there other than the boxes were the bed, bookshelf, and desk. 

"I wanted to see how you were adjusting. I presume not well, given that your room has not changed since you first moved in over a month ago."

"You presume wrong."

"No, I don’t."

"No," Deceit smirked, showing gleaming white fangs, "you don't."

Logan nodded, and dropped the pretense of hesitance and took to opening and unpacking a box filled with philosophy books. To his credit, Deceit resisted the urge to snap at him and just accept the help. Character Development, he thought to himself with amusement, as the other began arranging the tomes on the expansive bookshelf.

"Would you like them arranged by the author's last name or by subject matter?" Logan asked,  without looking back at Deceit.

Deceit wondered if the helpfulness was another perk of the conscious. He then wondered if that was just one of the many nice things about Logan specifically. Then he stopped wondering because he remembered that questions usually needed answers.

"Um, just last name is fine." 

A few minutes passed in relative silence, Logan occasionally asking about some of Deceit's numerous psychology books as he moved on to the next box. It was nice to be around someone who didn't groan and walk away when he shared his thoughts on such subjects, not that he didn’t understand why most others did that. 

When it began to feel awkward just leaning against the wall while someone else did all his unpacking, Deceit began to empty boxes into the closet (Literally. He upended boxes of clothing before grabbing three or four at a time and arranging them on hangers). Logan, finished with the books, glanced over at Dee with a curious look.

"So. How are you feeling?" Logan asked, and Deceit could tell he wasn’t used to willingly asking questions like that. He wasn’t sure if he appreciated the concern or was annoyed yet.

"I thought feelings weren't your department, Teach?" 

"I'm being serious." There was a beat. Deceit sucked in a breath, regretful for his instinctive bitchiness. He turned away from Logan and started organizing the sizable portion of his wardrobe made of cloaks. Hesitantly, and with an amount of secrecy remaining, Deceit spoke. 

"Well, it's… good to be out of the dark, so to speak. Honestly, I'm still sort of reeling…" Since when did not lying get so hard?

"But?" 

Deceit paused again, finished with the clothes and taking a moment to fidget uncertainly. He spun around to set up his decorative houseplants, sighing.

"I feel exposed," Deceit said suddenly. Logan looked up from where he was organizing various items, tilting his head in that cute, confused expression he was prone to. Except not cute, because Deceit was not weak to such frivolous feelings at all.

"That’s absurd, You wear the most clothing out of any of us, down to the gloves-"

"Not literally, Amelia Bedelia," He snapped, twirling a heat lamp between a few of his hands. "I mean in a mental sense. You must know what I’m talking about, it's like being monitored." 

Logan seemed thoughtful, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. Deceit placed the lamp on a bedside table (lest he smash it against his wall while he gestured, which wasn’t unlikely), and sat beside him. 

"I would liken it more to being at the ready for consultation; being at attention. You are here because you have something to contribute that could be crucial to solving a problem. You will get used to it, you’ll probably even appreciate it at some point. For now, though, you would benefit from distractions. I would recommend spending time in the Commons. With Us." Logan smiled softly for a moment, "Around all the others, things seem to get easier. For me, at least."

Deceit stared at him, surprised at the tenderness with which Logan spoke. Looking around, the side noticed that the new room- his room- was now full of all his belongings. The boxes were piled up in the corner, and with a snap they popped away to nothingness. In fact, he could probably have just unpacked with a snap. Logan obviously knew that, too, but he still did it by hand.

Huh.

"Well, it appears you're all settled now. I should go, before your room begins to take on its effects, like ours do." Logan said, standing abruptly. Deceit noticed that he looked rather sheepish, and then realized that he hadn't spoken since Logan's small speech.

"Yes, uh- it appears that way. Thank you, by the way, for… helping me unpack." 

"It was my pleasure." Logan said with a small smile. All of his smiles were small, a bit reserved, but so surprisingly warm. A lot of things about him were like that, Deceit thought. Including the way he gave the snake a quick peck on the cheek before righting himself again, looking unaffected save for the small pink tinge to his countenance. 

“Disgusting,” Deceit said, a smirk on his face.

Logan nodded a bit to himself, looking over his shoulder before he left.

"I'll see you soon." It wasn't a question. And with that, Logan closed the door and was gone. 

Deceit sighed, not a tad dreamily at all, thank you very much.

He supposed that living here wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

2- Patton

Patton flitted about the kitchen with ease, humming a little tune and batting his fingers along the counter-tops as he prepared dinner. The first dinner that he'd officially serve for his whole, recently expanded family. He didn’t notice it at first, figuring that over the time they’d grown closer they must have all eaten together, before it hit him just how different all their schedule’s were; it wasn’t often that dinner included all of them before either. Breakfast, sure, but breakfast was easy- there were no stakes! 

He was being silly, he knew that. It was just dinner, nothing special. It wasn't even like making more food was hard, given that Pat could conjure ingredients at will (and they hardly needed to eat, anyway), but it felt monumental. This had to be perfect, this meal had to embody all the remorse the fatherly side felt for his treatment of the others. They could swear up and down that they’d moved on, and he wanted to move on, but he couldn’t quite believe it. Not yet. He couldn’t let himself have it that easy. They were his family now, they had to know just how much he loved them after everything.

Patton slumped against a counter, pulling his hands down his face. Why were things so stressful? There was a time when it was all simple and easy- he was sure of it. Why couldn’t things just be okay after they all agreed it would be, why did he still have to feel like-

Someone cleared their throat behind him.

Patton spun around quickly, putting on a smile.

“Logan!” Patton exclaimed, “I’m a little busy right now, Kiddo. How can I help ya?”

Logan raised an eyebrow.

“I am not the one in need of help, Patton."

"What do you mean, honey? Is somebody hurt?" Pat asked with a gasp. Logan only smiled a bit, an odd and uncomfortable kind of smile that made Patton feel suddenly guilty.

"No, nothing like that.” Logan assured him, “Do you want any- I mean, I am feeling rather restless. Would you mind if I assisted in tonight's dinner preparations?" 

"Oh!" Patton seemed caught off guard, but quickly recovered, "Of course!" Relief laced his voice.

It was only after Logan got started carefully cutting bell peppers that Patton realized what had happened. He glanced over at the taller side, feeling a sudden and intense surge of appreciation for the help (and maybe a bit of embarrassment at how he hadn’t caught on to the obvious front immediately). It wasn't out of the ordinary; all of Patton's emotions were intense, especially those he felt for his partners. 

Patton realized he'd been staring when Logan looked over at him, cocking his head to the side. 

"What's on your mind, dear?" 

Patton leaned against the counter, shoulders slumping. Logan was almost as impossible to lie to as Deceit.

"Oh, I'm just a bit nervous, Lo."

"That's understandable."

"Is it?"

"Of course. You're putting a lot of pressure on yourself because this is the first time that all six of us are having dinner together as part of… This," Logan gestured between himself and Patton, and then more generally around the room, "You want it to be perfect. But, you know that perfection is unattainable, darling." 

Patton felt immediately flustered at the accurate summary. This man could read him like a book.

Logan quickly washed and dried his hands as he finished with the peppers, coming to stand in front of Patton. Instinctively, the emotional side leaned into him.

"You're right, as usual." He admitted into Logan's shoulder. Logan chuckled lightly, fastening his arms around Patton's waist.

"You know how much I love to hear that."

Patton grinned and giggled against Logan’s collarbone, his mood lifting considerably.

"Mhm!" 

"We should probably get back to work, though, if you’re ready." Logan reminded gently after a moment, slipping his arms down to entwine his fingers with Patton's.

"Yeah, good idea." 

They worked together in comfortable silence for a while, movements well-practiced and precise. Shifting to the side as the other reached to get an ingredient, ducking down as a pot was carried over head, as they worked in tandem for the millionth time.. Well, the figurative millionth, as Logan would specify. 

The two were waiting now, as the food cooked. It was Logan that spoke first.

"Oh, and for what it's worth, Pat?" 

"Hm?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself. You certainly shouldn't worry about the others judging your food, because I'm sure that Remus' standards at the very least aren't particularly high. As the kids would say," he pushed his glasses up on his nose, smirking, "That Gremlin man has trash taste."

Patton couldn’t help it, he launched into a giggling fit at Logan’s use of, as Virgil would say, ``Tumblr Talk”. He couldn’t even get it together to scold Logan for the insult. When he finally calmed down, he looked up to find a very proud looking Logan. Patton smiled as wide as he could, brighter than the sun, and wrapped his arms around Logan again. 

“Thank you,” Spoken as quietly as Patton could manage, with tremendous weight behind it. 

3- Roman

He didn’t notice it at first; the splintering of the glass casing surrounding the dark ink, the cracks forming in his ornate and elaborately decorated pen. Roman had to keep working, he’d gotten into a groove and he knew that this time he could get the story right, if only his damned hand could move as fast as his thoughts. If he stopped, it could be weeks before he found the motivation to work like this again. He lingered a second too long between sentences, and immediately a blotch of void-black liquid pooled on the paper. The creative side growled,clenching his fist in frustration. 

And the pen shattered.

Roman cursed loudly, pulling his hand away to hold it over the wastebasket by his desk (Which was already filled to the brim with discarded and crumpled drafts). Needle-sharp shards of glass had embedded themselves in his hand, the blood flowing around them barely visible through the dark ink. Roman’s breath shook as he hazarded a glance at his papers. They were soaked through with ink and blood, completely unsalvageable.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuck.” The side chanted, feeling tears of frustration and pain prick at the corners of his eyes. Hours of work, all wasted. He began frantically knocking the remnants of the pen and ruined papers into the overflowing wastebasket with his uninjured hand, cradling the other close to his chest. Alas, the papers below it were already botched up as well. Nothing remained of his efforts. A sound akin to a growl-sob escaped his throat.

And then footsteps stopped right outside of his door, and his breath hitched.

“Roman?” The door was pushed gingerly open, revealing a very concerned looking Logan. 

“What’s up, specs?” He said, feigning a superior smile. Roman tried to hide his obviously injured hand. There wasn’t a chance he was telling Logan, of all people, what had happened. After all, he was the side to insist that Roman take more breaks, as though it wouldn’t mess up his flow entirely. Yeah, he did not want to deal with the incessant reminder that Logan ‘told him so’. 

But Logan already had That Look on his face. That studying, prying look that got under Roman’s skin and saw through him with perfect clarity. It was as annoying as it was hot.

“Roman, let me see your hand."

Roman held out his undamaged hand and smirked.

“What’cha looking for, Microsoft Nerd?”

“You’ve used that nickname before," Logan walked into the room, stopping mere inches from Roman. "Show me your hand.”

Roman grumbled, tossing out his arm with more force and flair than necessary. Logan deftly caught his wrist and held it in place, careful not to press against the injured areas as he scrutinized the appendage. He sighed, locking eyes with Roman and wearing that "I’m not mad I’m just disappointed/concerned" look. That meant trouble. Wordlessly, Logan took Roman’s uninjured hand in his and led the trait over to the bathroom, sitting him down on the edge of the ornate tub that fills half the room. The side then arranged an array of first aid items on the counter around the sink, including a harsh-looking disinfected that Roman winced at the sight of. 

“So.” Roman muttered, kicking his legs.

“So?” Logan replied, sterilizing a pair of tweezers. Roman groaned, throwing his head back melodramatically.

“Aren’t you gonna lecture me, Bill Gay-tes? You're being weirdly quiet." 

"So you admit you need to be lectured for something?" 

Roman scoffed in offense, "Well, I just meant- You're always going on about something that I did, even if I was just-" Roman cut himself off with a sharp hiss of pain as Logan began picking the glass out of his hand with the tweezers, methodical as always. 

"Apologies, this is going to hurt."

"Yeah, thanks for the forewarning- fuck!"

Logan made short work of the shards of glass, pausing to examine the rest of the medical supplies.

"I think you already know what I'm going to say, Roman." He answered, finally.

"You're gonna say it anyway though, huh, Dweeb?" 

"Yes, as it clearly bears repeating." Logan had now moved on to cleaning and wrapping Roman's hand with immense care, "You are overworking yourself, Roman. You need to take a break. You’re going to hurt yourself… again.

“I can… understand how it feels when you get the figurative ball rolling on a project. But your health is more important than whatever it is that you are working on. You can’t keep doing this, I- I’m worried about you.” He hid his eyes as he focused on bandaging Roman’s hand, drawing in a deep breath. “Now, I suggest we give you a change of scenery before you drive yourself mad.” 

Roman was pulled to his feet, suddenly nose to nose with Logan (who looked, now that he could see his face, much more distressed). Roman reached up tentatively and he realized with a jolt of embarrassment that he was crying, just a little. He pressed his hands to his face. The bandaged one smarted a little, though it was much less painful than before. He knew that Logan was right, but he desperately needed to restart the story he had completely destroyed. The thought of starting over was impossibly daunting in the emotional state he was in, but he couldn’t dream of putting it off, either. But, then again… 

“Fine. I suppose I could part with my work for a few minutes; my writing hand needs time to recover, after all.” Roman dried his tears, but still stubbornly refused eye-contact.

Logan smiled, knowing full well that they were all ambidextrous. 

“Would you like to point out the various plot holes in The Princess and The Frog with me?”

“Oh, you know me too well.”

4- Remus

The common room was unusually empty. There was no Patton skipping around the kitchen cooking, or cozied up watching Parks and Rec on the TV. There was no Roman twirling and singing loudly while tidying, or ‘looking for inspiration’. There weren’t even any signs of Virgil or Deceit curled up in their chairs, listening to music while drawing and reading dusty old moral philosophy books, respectively. There was, however, a Logan entering stage left.

Remus glanced over at him quickly, and then bit his tongue. Literally. He was curled up in a tight little ball in one corner of the couch, mindlessly gouging deep slashes into its arm with his clawed fingers. He fitfully acknowledged Logan’s presence with a nod as the bespectacled side surveyed his surroundings. The energy of the common spaces was always neutral- it had to be- but Remus could feel the air around him tremble with excitement, hysteria, and millions of rushing thoughts and feelings as the power of his aura pushed outwards unnaturally. Internally, he fought to keep it all in, simultaneously dreading being alone and being around someone he’d inevitably upset.

“Have you heard of crushing videos? That’s when someone puts small animals on a glass table- Oh! with a camera underneath, of course- and they’re wearing big heels and- and can you guess what they do?” Remus blurted, giving a somewhat manic grin to Logan. The trait seemed to have finished assessing the situation and took a seat beside Remus, turning to face him. Well, that was unexpected.

“Yes, quite awful. Although, they’re usually quite hard to find.” Logan added without hesitation, or seemingly any concern. Remus almost felt relieved, before his brain immediately discarded the subject as soon as Logan tried to engage with it and scrambled to find something new. Something worse.

“Have you seen the movie Teeth, circa 2007?”

“Yes, I found it highly unrealistic. It had quite a satisfying- if a bit twisted- ending.”

Well, there goes that topic.

"What do you think it would be like to vomit and then have to re-eat it?" Surely that would cross a line. Fuck, why was he like this?

"Unpleasant, most likely." Logan wrinkled his nose slightly, but made no move to further the distance between himself and Remus. "The acidity would damage the enamel on your teeth, of course. Which is also why you shouldn't drink excessive amounts of lemon juice." 

"Why are you still here?" Remus snapped, the words coming out harsher than intended. Logan blinked at him in surprise.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No!" Remus cried. He lurched across the couch, before pulling himself back (he'd been trying very hard to respect personal space; he hardly wanted to upset his new partners, if it could at all be avoided). “But, it doesn't make any sense. You should be upset, you should have already wanted to leave- fuck, I just keep- I make people uncomfortable. It’s what I do.”

Logan glanced around the room and nodded.

“I figured that's why it's so empty. It is odd how your powers are affecting the common space. The others can be… easily stressed.”

"It's not their fault! It's. It's me. But I didn't mean to!" Remus felt himself clawing the couch again, remembering how the room had emptied. Concerned looks shot towards him, because of course everyone could feel the room changing in a way it never should. They were trying to talk to him, help him, but the second he tried to speak out tumbled a disgusting stream of consciousness. As he was listing the crimes of Albert Fish, finally even Patton left, looking shaky and worried and apologizing quickly. Pat had spoken rapidly, much like Remus, and wow, had it really gotten that bad in here? Remus couldn't quite believe the apology, couldn't rid himself of the thought that if he didn't shove them away, they'd only keep pretending to be happy he was there. He couldn't stop. 

“Of course, it’s hardly anyone's fault. You clearly have a lot on your mind.” That managed to break Remus away from the spiraling thoughts (at least temporarily). 

"I guess so," He muttered, eyes downcast, "It's probably because I know I shouldn't be here. I feel it deep down, like a throbbing, oozing, pus-filled wound. I thought-" he broke off, for once unwilling to speak his mind as tears blurred his vision. 

"What do you think?" Logan prompted politely. 

"I thought that maybe, if everyone kept telling me that I could change, eventually I would." Remus was staring intently at the ground, tears spilling down his face. "But I'm just the same. I'm not- I'm not good like the rest of you! Dee and Virge got to be better, but I'm still… Wrong." He was desperately trying to keep the tremors out of his voice, but he was painfully aware of every waver and crack in his voice as he spoke. 

Without a moment's thought, an arm looped around Remus' waist and pulled him closer. Remus pressed against the other’s side instinctively, hands curling in the fabric of his shirt (careful not to tear it, of course). His words must have really struck a chord to elicit such a physical response from Logan of all people, something that was both worrying and weirdly comforting.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, cuddled together in the corner of the couch. After a while, the energy in the common room returned to its usual neutrality. When Logan finally broke the silence, Remus could hear him trying to keep the shake from his voice.

"Just so you know, we would not have invited you into this relationship if we expected you to be a different person. At least, that's the case for myself, though I’m sure the others would agree. You are here because you’re wanted here, Remus." 

Remus grinned, exposing stained fangs. He looked more tired than his usual self, but the mischievous sparkle had returned to his eyes.

"Love you too, you Sexy Pocket Square."

“Thank you?”

5- Virgil

Virgil pulled his headphones on, sinking into the music of Pierce The Veil. It was uncomfortably loud in his ears, but he didn’t mind much. He was tense, that was obvious. Every few minutes, he felt himself relax just a bit, but there was always just a little more tension in him, like there was one taut muscle he just couldn’t pinpoint and pull loose. Virgil let his eyes fall closed for just a moment, breathing deeply. 4-7-8, 4-7-8.

Yeah, no, that was not helping. Virgil’s eyes popped back open and he slid one of the headphones behind his ear, breaking the immersion but maintaining awareness. He pressed his back to the wall harder, eyes darting around the room. Nothing was wrong, which was exactly why everything was wrong. Everything was just a little off, just a little strange and bad, and the anxious side had no idea what it was that caused the wrongness.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true; It was just commonplace anxiety. Which, in Virgil’s opinion, made it all the more distressing. He knew it wasn’t going away, not when he tried to make it. It would stop when it stopped, or didn’t, with Virgil helpless to control it. He took off his headphones. He put them back on. Off, on, off, on. Eyes closed, eyes open, eyes closed, eyes open. Nothing worked. He gingerly placed a hand over his chest, feeling the intense pounding of his heart. With a deep, shuddering breath, Virgil drew himself to his feet to go make some tea. Tea was good, safe, easy, understandable. He could make tea.

The anxious side wobbled on his feet, feeling dizzy and unfocused, as though reality was slipping through his fingers like frigid water. Another breath followed by a shudder and gently opened the door and walked slowly down the mindscape stairs. Had he always walked like this? Was that how he was supposed to move his arms? There was no way the stairs were always this steep.

Entering the kitchen, it took Virgil five full minutes to gather the energy to remember where the tea was. It took another eight to set up the mug and put on the kettle, stare at the kettle for a while, and realize it wasn’t turned on. Finally, determining that the water was in fact boiling, Virgil hopped up onto the counter to wait, sitting criss-cross. 

A few more minutes passed, and Virgil began to notice that the silence was the very purposeful kind; the kind of quiet that was achieved by another presence deliberately being as silent as possible. He finally managed to focus his eyes on the table, at which sat one very confused looking Logan. 

“When did you get here?” Virgil asked, internally cringing at the way his voice felt in his ears. 

“Well, that can’t be good,” Logan replied, tipping his head to the side, “Are you alright?” 

Fuck, he was right. Virgil was getting everything just a little wrong, of course Logan noticed it! Like hell he’d admit it, though. This had happened before, he could manage this on his own. 

“I’m fine.” Virgil lied, catching the kettle as it began to shriek and pouring his tea.

“That’s funny,” Logan mused, looking back to his book, “I could have sworn you represented Anxiety, not Deceit.” 

“Ha Ha.” 

Virgil was spacing out again as the tea steeped, but it seemed Logan wasn't ready to drop the conversation. He snapped his book shut and he made his way across the room to stand in front of Virgil, keeping a respectful distance. The side’s hands were at his hips, his expression vaguely appraising. After a minute, Virgil began to squirm under the steady gaze.

“What?"

“You are extremely anxious.”

“No shit, L, what do you think I do here?”

Logan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Virgil immediately felt guilty for his biting tone.

“Maybe… I’m a little more on edge than usual.” Virgil admitted sheepishly, hopping off the counter to finish preparing the freshly brewed tea. Logan just hummed, staying quiet. An offering. 

“I have no idea why, though,” The trait continued, picking at the frayed edge of his hoodie, “Everything feels wrong, and I don’t even know why.” Virgil's inability to articulate the feeling chewed at him, making him curl his toes in his shoes. 

From behind, Logan gave an intake of breath as though to speak before cutting himself off. Virgil figured this was another prompt to vent, and hesitantly continued. 

“So… I’m just trying to find some way to calm down? But everything I do just makes it worse. And it’s not new or anything, I just… it’s the kinda thing you don’t get used to, ya know? It comes out of nowhere and just fucks up my whole day. It’s like, I dunno- coming home and everything in your house is shifted one inch to the left, or whatever. It’s surreal, I guess.” Virgil sighed, pushing his violet bangs out of his eyes and leaning back against the counter. He took an experimental sip of tea and found it just cooled enough to endure. Something in his chest settled a little. A bit of normalcy crept it's way back into his vision. 

Logan leaned next to him silently, looking to Virgil for permission before entwining their hands. Virgil drank his tea and let himself breathe for a moment. There was still a slight shake to his movements, but his heart had slowed and his head cleared a little. A small smile crossed his lips. 

“How the hell did you do that?” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Starlight.” Logan replied, ducking his head to hide his satisfied smile.

And the world felt a little more right.

+1 

Logan slid his glasses off his face, closing his eyes and groaning. He pushed his fingers against his eyelids and watched the dizzying bursts of color that kaleidoscoped across the darkness. He let his shoulders fall. He let himself stay like that for a few minutes, as though the insignificant little break could compare to a full night’s rest. Unsurprisingly, it only served to tire him more. 

His glasses fell back into place and his hands resumed their positions at the sleek keyboard. Logan’s fingers hovered just above the keys, staring blankly at the spreadsheets laid out before him. His eyes glanced across the words uncomprehendingly. For a moment, he had the ridiculous thought that he had, in fact, never known how to read in the first place. The confusion was quickly replaced by a wave of frustration at his very humanoid need for sleep, which was then followed by an overwhelming surge exhaustion. It was the kind of tired that sunk down into your bones and made all of your limbs weigh as much as lead. Figuratively, of course.

Logan didn’t realize he was drifting off, head in hand, until a sharp knocking on his door startled him awake. He took a moment to push his hair back before calling out. 

“Who is it?” 

“Tis I, the handsome and valiant- Ow!" The drawling voice was cut off by a dull thudding sound.

"Take it down a notch, Ssshakessspeare," a second voice hissed in a poorly contained whisper, "Thisss iss ssssserious, you extra bitch." 

Logan sighed, torn between feeling annoyed or feeling endeared. He stood and opened his door to find Roman and Deceit, standing side by side in the darkened hallway. Roman's hands were on his hips and his expression was challenging, while Deceit had all of his arms folded behind his back with a tired, exasperated smile. Logan felt guilt welling up in his chest, and quickly fought to suppress it.

“Can I help you? I'm very busy at the moment. there's some work I ought’ve finished last week that’s been stressing me.”

Deceit quirked a brow at that, a chuckle creeping into his words:

"Oh, it's obvious that you're stressed, Honey, you just uttered four consecutive contractions." 

Logan felt his face heat, prompting another, rather derisive laugh from Deceit. The logical trait cleared his throat.

“I really need to be getting back to work.”

“Aha!” Roman exclaimed, louder than necessary, “Hippocrates!”

“Hypocrite, my love.” Deceit corrected.

“Hypocrite!”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, sensing an argument brewing. He really did not have the time, or the energy, to fight. In fact, Logan noticed he was leaning fairly heavily on the framework for support.  

“What’re- What are you talking about?”

“I believe he’s talking about the fact that you recently delivered a few heartfelt lectures on the dangers of bad self care habits to some particularly grateful sides, and now they’re here to return the favor,” Deceit’s smirk widened in that infuriating way of his as he spoke, “You hypocrite.” 

With a sigh, Logan righted himself and offered the two a half-hearted glare.

"I don't suppose you would leave if I just promised to go to bed when you left?"

"Not a chance!" Roman called in unison with Deceit murmuring "I know when you're lying, love." 

After offering a few feeble arguments about the importance of his work to the creative process, Logan let the two loop and arm each around his waist and usher him down the hallway. If they insisted on holding him hostage for an hour or so, then fine. He could slip away when they inevitably got distracted and return to his work and totally not pass out at his desk.

"We're back, my Loves! Oh, and Remus, I guess." Roman exclaimed, a bit louder than Logan's liking. The latter inspected the scene before him with a mixture of appreciation, affection, and immense frustration. Remus was balanced precariously on the arm of the couch, grinning up at them and- miraculously- fully clothed. Beside him was Virgil, curled into one corner of the couch with his arms looped around Remus' waist to keep him from falling over. He wore a sleepy smile as he looked at Logan (whose reserve was already crumbling). Even worse (better?), just returning into the room with a tray full of various cups of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, was Patton. He turned to give Logan a smile brighter than the sun upon noticing him (figuratively).

"Heya! Cookies are almost ready,” He greeted, beginning to hand out the beverages.  Roman and Deceit took their places in the steadily building cuddle pile, but Logan remained stiffly where he was. 

“What are all of you doing?”

“We’re holding you hostage and watching nature documentaries until you fall asleep, because we love you,” Virgil explained, “Bitch.” he added for good measure. 

Remus toppled off the arm of the couch into the others, opening his arms invitingly. 

“If you don’t come lie down with us on this couch right now there will be blood, and tears.”

Logan took a tentative step forward. And another. 

He supposed the schedule could come a bit late this week.

[ghosttotheparty]

the secret of red sea glass

AO3 The train is always louder than Lucas expects, even if he expects the most.

It’s even louder when he rests his head on the cold glass of the window, his head bumping with the rhythmic rattling and thumping as the train speeds past fields and fields, and villages and villages, and skies and skies. They change colour as he watches. After watching the cottage-covered cliffsides and the stretches of sand and crashing waves of his home pass by, he watches vibrant colours pass, more vibrant, more bright than his home in the South.

There are green and pinks, purples and yellows, flower-covered cottages, trees, shrubs, gardens, fields of flowers in the East. Lucas has only been a few times, painting some of the rich, stuffy old families that can afford mansions. And their portraits to be painted. He’d be lying if he said he did his absolute best on all of them. But he supposes he doesn’t really have to do his best on all of them. There aren’t many people who paint sit-in portraits and the few others who do cost more than Lucas, who’s willing to take any amount of money he can. He smiles at the flowers because no one is in the cabin to see him, remembering the flowers he stole for his mother. He’d presented them in a messy, crumpled, dishevelled bouquet, after having stuffed them in his jacket to hide them. He’d had to wear the jacket until he arrived at the train station in the South, and he’d already been sweating and miserable hat point, but it was worth it to see her face light up. He knew she’d suspected him of having stolen them, but she still placed them carefully in a vase on the kitchen table proudly, until the petals had all fallen around the glass. Lucas kept some of the petals and crushed them into flakes, which he keeps in the locket he wears around his neck. His mother still has a collection of flowers, now dead and faded, but still beautiful in her eyes.

After a while (he doesn’t know how long; there isn’t a clock and he’s never been able to afford a working watch), the brightness of the East changes to darker, richer reds and oranges that blur until the landscape looks like a sunset under the sky in the West. Though Lucas likes the exuberance of the East, he can also appreciate the more toned-down colours. They remind him of his mother’s hair, a rich, dark brown that shines red under the sunlight. Lucas likes when she goes with him to the beach, rare as it may be, and lets her hair loose. It flows in the wind like waves, glistening and sparkling like the water under the sun. (Everything he sees seems to make him think of her.)

He would paint it all if he could.

He clutches his bag to his chest, resting his chin on the softness of where he’s stuffed his clothes, and sighs, letting his eyes drift shut.

---

When he wakes up, it’s dark. And cold.

The window feels like a sheet of ice, and it hurts to pull his head away.

It’s too dark to see much, except flashes of white in the shadows of night, as the light of the train windows speed past mounds of snow. He pulls his bag closer, wishing he had a blanket or a quilt, and moves closer to the window, suddenly awake. He’s never seen snow before. He’s never had the opportunity, never had anybody in the North hire him to paint them.

Of course, until someone recommended him to the king.

Thinking of it still makes his stomach swoop, still makes a shiver go down his spine.

The king.

He’s going to paint the king.

And his family, of course, though Lucas doesn’t know how many people are in it.

The queen, he supposes.

He knows they have a daughter, an ambassador of some sort to foreign nations. He thinks he has other children, but nobody really knows. Safety reasons, he assumes. Maybe he’ll have to take an oath before he leaves. An I-swear-not-to-tell-anyone-about-your-children-whom-I’m-painting oath.

If there are others, he assumes they’ve never left the North. Lucas can’t imagine. Though, to be fair, he can’t really imagine living in the North full stop. It’s common knowledge that everyone here is rich, richer than Lucas could ever hope to be. (Part of him is glad; he doubts anyone at his status could survive this weather. He shivers just looking out the window, though it’s cosy enough inside the train.)

The snow outside looks like it’s glowing. Lucas can’t even see the ground outside, or the gravel under the train tracks. If there are hills and mountains and trees, Lucas will have to wait until the morning to see them. If the morning ever comes. He glances around the compartment, forgetting about the lack of clocks, and sighs, wondering what time it is. After drifting in and out of sleep, seeing the world in a way he’s only seen in paintings, time feels like it’s fluid, like it’s flowing and rushing, and Lucas has lost track. It could be midnight or it could be six am.

He supposes it doesn’t matter, though, when he arrives at the castle. Or rather, the time of day is definitely not the most important thing going on his mind.

The fucking castle.

Lucas stops thinking when he sees it outside the train window, snowflakes falling like flashes of white light, the castle looking like it’s glowing, like the light from the sky is being stored inside.

It’s the biggest building Lucas has ever seen, bigger than the mansions and manors Lucas paints in. He doesn’t know what he was expecting if he’s honest, but a part of him is saying Yeah, that makes sense.

Another part of him in angry. Angry that these people (because that’s all they are: other living, breathing humans just like Lucas and the others) are living in a home with more rooms that they can use, more space than they can take up, more food than they can eat, more air than they can breathe, and Lucas has friends who skip breakfast because they save food for dinner. One of Lucas’s shirts is a hand-me-down from his friend’s dad.

But he stares in awe, forgetting his anger. A few of the windows glow gold against the white, like the insides of it are on fire.

Lucas exhales, a slow Woah that fogs up the window, and he quickly rubs the glass with his arm, watching as the castle comes closer, becomes clearer. He briefly wonders how he would go about painting it. It would need lots of blues.

It’s not until he’s making his way down the halls, following two posh-looking men who are carrying his bags, that it really sets in that he’s staying here. Not for long, of course, just for a week or two to finish the portraits, but it’s still somehow absurd to him.

The men lead him to a bedroom at the end of a long hallway. They go in first, struggling and stumbling through a slightly-too-narrow doorway with his bulky bags, and he hangs back, watching worriedly and uncomfortably for a second before looking away.

There’s a corner just outside the room, leading to an open stairwell. It looks dark, and a little dustier than the golden, glowing parts of the palace Lucas has seen. He glances up, and in the shadows and nighttime it looks endless, like it leads into a void. Lucas wants to go exploring.

But his name is called by one of the men (he can’t tell which), and he goes back.

The room is dark, except for the faint streaks of light coming in from the window, gold reflections off the snow outside, but Lucas can see well enough to glance around. It’s small in regards to the rest of the building, and dingy, neglected and ignored. It’s still the size of Lucas’s living room.

His lips purse in that same frustrated expression, and he takes a deep breath. It smells old.

“You’ll be called for tomorrow,” one of the men says, and Lucas turns around. He still can’t tell which one said it.

“Okay,” he says.

The men nod and leave.

Lucas sighs again, and he’s almost sure the slight disturbance blows up dust that’s settled on the crackly wood floor. He finds a candle on the desk (which rocks when he touches it; one of the legs is shorter than the rest) and lights it with a pack of matches laying next to it.

Even with the snowlight and candlelight it’s still dim, but it’s bright enough for Lucas to navigate around the room. The floor creaks under his weight, and it’s almost eerie in the desolate silence of the hall. He wonders what the other rooms down the hall are for. More guest rooms? They must not have guests very often based on the maintenance.

He unpacks, carefully setting an easel against a chest at the door of his bed. He doesn’t put anything in the chest, deciding to set his suitcase on top of it, open and resting against the wall. The tubes of paint go on the desk, sorted by colour, and he sharpens the pencils, gathering the shavings into a little pile on the desk when he can’t find a bin.

He changes into his sleep clothes, setting his clothing in his suitcase after folding them neatly and blowing out the candle. When he lays down in the bed, he realises how cold it is. And that there’s no fireplace. He falls asleep shivering.

[natasha-romanoff-deserved-better]

Collateral Damage

This was inspired by the scene in Avengers after the Hulk chases Nat, and she's sitting there shaking, and then again when we see her spaced out/disassociated after Wanda in Ultron with Clint helping her. I feel like it would make sense for Nat to have a habit of disassociating, especially with the way she was raised, so I wanted to explore that a tiny bit more.

Summary: Tony is left to take care of a broken and bloody Natasha after she returns from a solo mission.

Words: 2,982

. 

It is the robotic voice that finally breaks him out of his concentration. A quick glance at the clock tells him it’s twenty three minutes past 3AM, two hours later than the time he had promised Pepper he would be in bed by. She had been nervous to leave him- she always was when he was working on a new idea. But business had called, in the form of new ideas developing out of Oslo. And Pepper, being Pepper, couldn’t turn it down.

         “What’s up, Fri?”

         “I have been instructed to not alert you, however, per your Babysitter Protocol, I have deemed it necessary. Agent Romanoff has just returned from her solo mission and seems to be in need of assistance.”

         Tony frowns for a second, wondering why Friday had alerted him and not someone else in the tower, preferably Barton, who was the Black Widow Expert, before realizing there wasn’t anyone else. Barton was at his home, assisting Laura with the kids who had managed to catch the flu. Sam and Steve had fucked off to somewhere in Brooklyn, and Rhodey had taken a vacation to visit old friends down in Florida. Natasha had been on a solo mission for the last several days, and he hadn’t expected her back so soon. She wasn’t due back for another week at the soonest.

         Reluctantly, he places the tools off to the side. He hadn’t missed the “Instructed not to alert” part from Friday, and briefly wonders if he should even go up there at all. Natasha was Natasha, and forcing unwanted company on her was never a good idea. Usually, when Natasha returned from missions, she preferred to be left alone to destress by herself. When she did need help with something, Clint would whisk her off to the privacy of their shared floor. But if Friday deemed it important enough to disobey Natasha’s direct order to not inform him, he felt he should at least check it out. The assassin was notorious for hiding injuries and refusing being taken to medical. Pushing his chair back from the desk, he moves into the elevator. He doesn’t bother pushing a button, Friday immediately beginning his descent to the common floor, where Natasha apparently was.

         The elevator stops and the door opens. Tony steps out.

         He does a double take.

         Admittedly, he hadn’t asked Friday exactly what was wrong. But some warning would have been nice.

         Natasha was sat on the couch, staring straight ahead, unmoving. Her red ringlet curls were clumped together with … something dried dark. Something he assumed was the same as dark red substance he could see splattered on her skin and streaked down her jumpsuit. The same jumpsuit that currently had a large rip down the back.

         “Nat?” He calls hesitantly, taking a few steps forward towards the couch where she had planted herself and moves to the side, allowing him to see the front of her. The skin on her face was disrupted by a purple and blue bruise spanning from just under her eye to her jawline. Her lip was busted in two different places, with a cut along her forehead. She doesn’t answer him, doesn’t even shift her eyes to look at him. Just continues staring wide eyed ahead. Her suit was ripped in even more places in front- the shoulder, the chest, a chunk missing from her waist where more blood had spilled from. Her breath was coming in short, shallow breathes. Her body tense, hands clasped tightly around a small pocket knife.

         “Natasha. Hey. Can you hear me?”

         She doesn’t respond verbally, but her breath does catch for half a second. “Alright. Well.” Tony moves closer, though staying careful to not intrude into her space too much. He sinks to her level in front of her on his knees. “How about… we set this down, yeah?” He mutters quietly and gently covers her hands with his. One by one, without taking his eyes off her face, he works the knife from her fingers. She gives it up easier than he expected, and he doesn’t know whether to be relived at that or even more concerned. He tosses the knife onto the ottoman behind them, out of her reach.

         Tony sits back on his heels, surveying her and wondering what the hell he was supposed to do next. He wasn’t cut out for this whole caretaking thing. Sure, he cared about his team. But he had never had to deal with one of them bloody and dissociated. He tries to rack his head for what he would want someone else to do for him if he were in this situation, but quickly discards that idea after the only solution he comes up with is bring him a drink.

         “Right, then. First things first, I guess. Why don’t we get you cleaned and patched up?” Tony stands, purposefully slowing his movements as to not startle his teammate. He carefully reaches out and takes her arm, pulling gently. She goes willingly, still slack but not resisting, allowing him to maneuver her arm over his shoulders. They barely make it two steps before her knees buckle and almost send them both tumbling to the floor.

         “Oh, shit, shit! Okay, kiddo, no walking. That’s fine.” He keeps her right arm around his neck, but bends down and swoops an arm under her knees, while the other stays on her back to stabilize her as he picks her up. She’s lighter than he expected, and he makes a mental note to keep a better eye on her food intake.

         Tony guides them down the hall and into the master bathroom, Friday turning on the lights for them as they go. Carefully, Tony deposits Nat on the side of the bathtub, not letting go until he’s sure she won’t sway and fall off. Once she seems stable enough, he turns to the cabinet and pulls out a small washcloth.

         He looks at Natasha. Back down at the 5x5 washcloth. Back to Natasha.

         He huffs out a breath and throws the washcloth onto the counter. There is no way he would be able to properly clean her up with only that. The amount of blood covering her was a bit absurd, not to mention the hair situation.

         “Okay. I’m gunna take off your boots.” Tony drops to his knees again, lifting one of her feet into his hands and sliding her boot off. He moves to her other foot, apologizing when she flinches as his hands brush over her ankle. He inspects it more once both boots are off, noticing the unusual way it was bent. If not broken, it was severely sprained. Her ankle had always been a bit off since it had been broken during the helicarrier attack, so he isn’t surprised to find it in such bad shape.

         Tony moves up, hand hovering over the zipper on her chest. “Hey, Natasha? I’m gunna take this off now, but only if that’s cool with you. Is that okay?” He knows the chances of her actually answering him were low, but he wanted to make sure he was still giving her a chance to say no- just in case. She doesn’t, though, so Tony continues, taking the zipper and pulling it down, exposing her black camisole and sports bra she wore underneath. One at a time, he works both arms out of the long leather sleeves, paying extra attention to not bother the new puncture wounds he discovers on her forearm. He pushes the suit down to her waist before wrapping an arm around her torso, lifting her a few inches to allow him to push it over and past her hips. She doesn’t protest, or even make any sign of acknowledging what was happening, but Tony reminds her once again that he will stop if she told him too. Once he has gotten her down to her cami and boyshorts, he leans back on his heels.

         “Fri? What temp does she usually prefer?”

         “Preferred temperature is usually as hot as the faucet will allow, Boss.”

         Tony blanches. “Oh. Okay, um, wow. Maybe not quite that hot just right now.” He turns the faucet handle well past the cold, but not all the way- Burning hot water couldn’t feel the best in fresh cuts- and switches on the shower head, pulling it down from it’s hook.

         He knows she won’t be able to stand for a shower, but a bath didn’t sound like the best idea when she was covered in so much blood. Using one hand around her back and under her armpit, the other back beneath her knees to transfer her from the ledge and into the tub. Once she was settled on the ground, he picks up the shower head, switches the water pressure to a gentler spray and runs it over her bloody leg first, to check her reaction to the water.

         She doesn’t respond to the water, so he continues. He starts with her arm, holding it in his hand as he sprays it down. Most of the blood washes away with the water, but he still grabs the Loofa from the edge of the tub and softly scrubs, loosening the grime and dried blood from her skin. He switches to her other arm, making sure to be careful of the puncture wounds. He moves up to her chest, allowing the warm soapy water to flow over the cut under her collarbone.

         “I’m gunna do your hair now, okay?” As expected, she doesn’t answer.

         He tips her head back, carefully angling the water spray as to not get her face wet and soaks her hair. He leaves the loofa and shower head at the base of the tub, away from them. In exchange, he picks up the bottle of shampoo closet to him, squirting a dollop into his palm. He rubs his hands together for a second, then works the shampoo through her hair, fingers carefully carding through the curls and working out the clumped blood.

         He doesn’t mean for it to happen. The hand print shaped bruise on her neck had been hidden by her hair- He doesn’t notice it until it’s too late, and one of his hands brushes against it.

         Within a second, a hand is grasped around his wrist and twisting it back, while her other hand shoots towards his throat. He somehow manages to block her in her unfocused and dazed state. She may be a master spy, but Tony was an observer, and he knows her favorite go- to moves. He easily frees his wrist and prevents her next attack, tugging his arm away and capturing both her wrists in his hands. She tries unsuccessfully to yank them back, but he holds tighter.

         “Nat! Natasha! Hey! It’s Tony. It’s just me. You know me. You’re safe.”

         She doesn’t hear him, just continues weakly fighting. Her legs kick out, trying and failing to catch him. She arches her back, attempting to squirm away from his hold. He calls out to her again, louder this time. She flinches away, jerking backwards. Before Tony can stop it, the back of her head collides against the back wall of the tub. He curses loudly as her struggles increase at the newfound pain.  

         “No!” She screams. “Nyet!”

         She tries to pull away from his hands again. Her breathing sounds like she’s about to hyperventilate, and Tony worries about her hurting herself a second time.

He climbs over the edge of tub, clothes and all, shoving in behind her on his knees. He wraps one arm around her chest and the tops of her arms, and uses it to pin her to his chest. In retaliation, Natasha pulls her head forward and slams it back into his body. Tony brings his free hand up to her forehead to hold her head still against his shoulder.

         “’Tasha. You’re okay. You hear me? Ты в порядке.” She freezes at her native language, eyes narrowing as the words process through her muddled mind. Seeing the slight progress, Tony keeps repeating the phrases, chanting them desperately into her ear.

         Her body is still strung tightly, but she stops struggling. Several moments later, he feels the tension slowly drain out of her, and she relaxes, allowing Tony to take all her weight as he holds her.

         “You back with me?”

         She nods, a quiet yes falling from her lips, so quiet Tony almost misses it.

         “C’mon. Let’s let you out, then. I need to patch you up.”

         Tony stands first, then leans down to grip the tops of Natasha’s shoulders, making sure she doesn’t slip on the wet floor as she stands and climbs out of the tub.

         Tony points to the counter. “Sit.”

         Natasha lifts herself onto the counter, sitting with her legs dangling off the front. She wraps her arms around her body, shrinking into herself.

Tony methodically places the bottles and tubes next to her onto the counter, ignoring the face she makes at the medical supplies. She isn’t happy about it, but she isn’t resisting, which is better than normal.

         He pulls out a wad of fuzzy cotton balls and soaks them with the alcohol. Taking her right arm, he gingerly holds the cotton to the puncture. She winces but doesn’t try to move away.

         Tony looks up at her. “What happened out there, Nat?”

         She presses her lips into a tight line, debating if she was going to say anything at all. She gives him a halfhearted one shoulder shrug as she focuses her gaze on the wall above Tony’s head, refusing to look at him.

         “You know no one is going to be mad, right? I know that’s not how it was where you were trained at, but it’s not like that here. It’s okay to mess up or make mistakes. No one here expects you to be perfect 24/7. You can tell me what happened.”

         “Fuck off, Tony.” She tries taking her arm back. Tony tightens his grip.  

         Her lips twitch, and she quickly tries to cover by sucking it in to bite at it with her teeth. She moves her eyes from the wall to looking up at the ceiling now as a small amount of moisture begins gathering in the corners of them. He knew that trick all too well- looking up at the ceiling to prevent tears from falling. It was a favorite of his as a child. And Tony also knew Natasha- the woman he was pretty sure hadn’t cried since she was an toddler. Tony throws out the used cotton ball and picks up several more, drenching them again.

         “I don’t think I’ve seen you this beaten up since… well, ever, really. What’s up with your side? Did someone stab you? I know you didn’t do that to yourself. Your ankle is real messed up too, what’s with that? And I gotta say, those wounds on your arm look suspiciously like a dog bite.”

         “Stop.”

         “Not to mention you’re covered in other cuts. Normally I wouldn’t be too concerned, but I know your suit is extremely hard to cut. Meaning, someone did those to you on purpose-”

         “Tony.”

         “-And don’t think I didn’t notice those bruises in the shapes of hand prints.”

         “God dammit Tony, I told you to fuck off!”

         “Tell me what happened, Nat. You don’t have to hide anymore.”

         That broke the dam. Natasha drops her head, ripping her arm away from him to bring her hands up to hide her face in. She takes a shuddering breath, but it catches in her throat in a wet hiccup. She curls in on herself away from him, bringing her knees up to her chest to drop her head onto.

         Tony gives her a moment to herself, not wanting to crowd her. He grabs a bandage and takes his time to tightly wrap it around her hurt ankle, trying to provide some semblance of support until he could convince her to go to medical later. Finishing her ankle, he sets the tape back onto the counter. Her wet hair had fallen over her shoulders to help hide her face, but he didn’t need to see the tear tracks to know they were there.

         He moves over to the side of the counter and when she doesn’t protest, wraps an arm around her to pull her shaking body into his chest. With his other hand, he runs his fingers through her hair gently. He doesn’t shush her.

         “We. We were compromised. I got to the base but… I got there and they were waiting. For me.” She stutters out between gasping breaths. She raises her arm with the bite. “With reinforcements.” She snorts. “They uh. They wanted information. But I didn’t give it to them!” Her voice raises several octaves, a new wave of panic entering as she sits up straighter. “I didn’t, Tony, I didn’t tell them anything. I-“

         “Whoa, hey, shh. It’s okay. I believe you. I know you wouldn’t.”

         With his reassurances, she deflates again, more tears leaking down her cheeks. It draws his attention to the bags under her eyes, how pale her skin is.

         “Tasha… How long did they have you for?”

         “I don’t know.” She mumbles.

         Tony huffs. “Yes, you do.”

         “Fifty one hours.”

         “Fuckin’ hell. And how long has it been since you ate or slept?”

         “Sixty seven.”

         Tony mumbles a Jesus Christ under his breath, and makes another mental note to cuss out Fury tomorrow. He instructs Friday to turn on the oven.

         “Alright. What do you say we get some food into you and then head to bed, yeah?”

         The sides of Natasha’s lips quirk up into somewhat of a tiny smile. “Yeah. Yeah, some food sounds great.”

         She didn’t need to outright say it. Tony could hear the unspoken thank you that lingered behind her words.

[rora-s]

The Derivative  Chapter 8: Sports

Chapter 1 <- Chapter 7

“Do I even need to ask?” David snapped. Uncle Charlie just smiled smugly turning his hand around. The entire table groaned in annoyance. 

“It’s not what it looks like, promise” Don spoke up. 

“You brother hustling us?” one of Don’s friends Mike muttered. 

“I’ve only played once before” Charlie informed as they collected the cards to deal another round of poker. “I actually have a one in eight chance of hitting a set when I’m holding a pocket pair. I’m about 50/50 to draw a flush with suited cards in my hand, two off the draw. I also count my outs I- I multiply by two. I add one. That’s roughly my percentage of hitting.” he explained. 

“Card math” I muttered over my father’s shoulder as I walked past the table. Leaning over to snag some chips out of the snack bowl. 

“Mr. Eppes you need to take my seat, your son is killing us” David declared as Alan brought out more chips. 

“No, not me” Gramps objected “the only other time Charlie played, I learned my lesson about gambling with a mathematician” 

“Hey could I-” 

“No” Don cut me off “Ms. I-can’t-help-but-card-count” 

“Not my fault I was born with perfect visual memory” I muttered as my father got up and headed to the kitchen. 

“Hey weren’t we playing with bottle caps?” Charlie pointed out to his father.

“Yeah or else you’d have walked away with the pink slip to my car” Alan informed. 

“You know, there is some element of chance here” Charlie explained “you know I- I may just be getting lucky.” 

“Or you're just unlucky,” David joked to Mike. 

“That’s funny Sinclair keep that up. It comes back to me when baseball starts” Mike countered taking a swig of his beer as dad returned and handed me a Mountain Dew as he sat down with his glass of water. 

“Baseball?” Charlie questioned “”the FBI have a team?” 

“Yeah, we got a whole league.” David explained “there’s, uh, LAPD, Sheriffs’ department” 

“D.A.’s got the killer squad” Mike commented “Now that Kraft’s in San Diego, you guys don’t have a power hitter.” 

“What about Don?” Charlie suggested. 

“It’s not my thing” Don objected 

“Oh, you play?” Mike inquired. 

“Don went to college on a baseball scholarship,” Charlie informed. “What are you talking about? You played pro second base.” 

“Single A about a million years ago” Don muttered. 

“That’s great. It means you’re this year’s ringer.” Mike grumbled. 

“Nope. I’m sorry.” Don objected quickly “not interest buddy” 

“Come on, you gotta do it” David asked hopefully as Don’s phone rang. 

“Excuse me” he murmured to us answering it. “Eppes… we’ll be right there” he declared, getting to his feet. 

I sighed and shuffled back toward the kitchen where Alan was. “Looks like I’m spending the night,” I informed. 

He looked up at me confused “really? Why?” 

Just then Don popped into the doorway pulling on a jacket “hey dad I just got called in can she stay here tonight?” 

I gave my grandfather a look who sighed “yes of course” 

“Thanks,” Don murmured heading out. 

______________

3rd POV. 

“I’ve never seen him before,” Mr. Bayle declared, handing Don back the photo of Salazar. 

“Are you sure?” the agent asked. 

“Yeah” the man confirmed. 

“I mean, maybe he did some work for you guys around here.” Don persisted. 

“Yeah, he could have. I wouldn’t know” Bayle explained “Lisa was in charge of all that.” 

“I’m just trying to figure out if there’s any possibility that this man knew your wife.” Don insisted as they stepped from the other man’s kitchen into his living room. 

“Why?” Bayle inquired with a shrug as he stopped to face Don. 

“You’re not going to want to hear this” Don prefaced reluctantly “but there are some questions about Cliff Howard’s conviction” 

“The bastard said he did it,” Bayle scoffed. 

“I know,” Don nodded. 

“I haven’t seen you in a year” Bayle continued “I haven’t seen you since you interrogated me for 48 hours.” 

“Sir..” Don tried to speak up but the other man continued. 

“I had to call the funeral home handcuffed to a table.” 

“I was pursuing your wife’s murder wherever it took me” Don attempted to explain his actions. “So help me..” he paused shaking his head and biting his lip and Bayle took the moment to speak again.

“Now you want to tear these wounds open again.” 

“I don’t want to do that,” Don objected adamantly. 

Both men paused to breathe and Don’s eyes wandered over to the mantel where he spotted a picture he recognized he shuffled over to point at it “that’s your, uh, your daughter. What’s her name? Paula?” he asked, trying to remember. 

“Yes” Jonas answered, his voice still tense with emotion. 

“Right. May I?” Don gestured to the photo. 

“Go ahead,” Bayle allowed. Don took the photo from the mantel and looked at the young girl. “She’s a sophomore now.” 

“Yeah, so is my daughter,” Don admitted. 

“You have a daughter?” Jonas asked, surprised. 

Don nodded “her names Abby.” he chuckled slightly with a bittersweet spike in his gut “yeah she came to live with me not too long ago after her mother died, car crash” 

“I’m sorry” Bayle murmured, shifting on his feet. 

Don replaced the photo and turned to face the other man. “Jonas, don’t you want to know the truth about your wife’s death?” 

“Cliff Howard is the truth,” Bayle insisted. 

______________

Abby POV. 

“Okay tell me I’m crazy” Larry declared, setting his pencil down and rubbing his face with his hands. “I think I’ve just found a way to express Calabi-Yau manifolds in a way that goes beyond the existence of a nonvanishing harmonic spinor.” 

“You're crazy,” I muttered, taking another bite of my food. 

“Ch- Charles” Larry whined when he received no response from his fellow mathematician. 

“Has he been out there all night?” Uncle C questioned turning away from the window he had been gazing out of. Watching my father play basketball. 

“Well, on the bright side it seems like Don’s taken up an interest in sports again.” Alan commented. 

Charlie sighed taking the seat next to me “it’s like the evidence proves him right and wrong at the same time” 

“Oh, yeah, the old paradox of Schroedinger’s cat.” Larry murmured. 

“Is that that persian that keeps hiding out in our garage?” Alan inquired. 

“No, that's the Myers down the street’s cat” I muttered, taking a sip of my drink. 

“It’s an intellectual exercise,” Charlie explained. 

“I knew that,” Alan lied. 

“Okay this is vastly simplified” Larry prompted “there’s a cat in a box. 50/50 chance it’s been poisoned, but now here’s the paradox: until such time as we can open the box and observe the cat, for that time, that cat is both alive and dead.” 

“Larry I-I fail to see the analogy, though.” Charlie objected “I mean, in reality Don can’t be both right and wrong at the same time.” 

“Well, of course not.” Alan chimed in “I mean, if a man is both right and wrong, then something’s gotta be wrong.” 

“Positive and a negative equal a negative?” I scoffed. 

“No. the truth of Schroedinger’s cat is that the question itself is meaningless until we look inside the box.” Larry informed. 

“So you could ask a whole different question” I voiced. 

“For a whole different result” Larry finished. Uncle Charlie immediately straightened and turned to look at the window again. Before getting up and heading outside after his brother. “Well and off he goes again to help solve the unjust of the world” 

“You can always tell when he gets an idea he spaces out then runs” I muttered. 

Larry hummed in agreement “you know you are quite insightful young enigma quite like your uncle I’m surprised you’ve yet to push ahead of your peers in academia like he so did” 

“Oh here we go” Alan muttered. 

“Well I’ve tried they won’t put me in advanced classes because I wasn’t in school consistently as a kid.” I explained. 

“Well that’s absurd a brilliant mind shouldn’t be held back by the amount of desks they haven’t sat at or lectures they’ve witnessed” Larry voiced in annoyance. 

“Preaching to the choir,” I told him. 

“Yes but do me a favor and don’t get on the soap box of yours again” Gramps asked me. 

I nodded in agreement and picked at the last bits of food on my plate. “You know what?” Larry spoke up causing me and Alan to look at him but his eyes were trained on me “you should attend CalSci once you’ve escaped high school. We have no such requirements if you show the aptitude” 

“I don’t know I’m still looking at quite a bit of time being forced to look at this stuff in school let alone do I want to keep having to do school work beyond it.” I pointed out. 

“No no no” Larry objected waving his hands “it’s not like that at CalSci you can learn what you want and gain knowledge and work to gather more knowledge of the universe itself with a very hands on approach” 

I sighed finishing off my dinner and gathered my dishes. “I’ll think about it” 

“Very well” Larry accepted the answer as I stood up. 

“You done?” Alan asked. 

“Yeah” I murmured, taking my dishes into the kitchen. I glanced out the window and spotted my Uncle joining my father in his basketball playing. I loved basketball. The one sport I was decent at. As I watched my mind different back to just shortly before I went to live with my father here. 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

3rd POV. 

“Yo Calvin” Abby looked up from where she was sitting with her back to a wall in the courtyard book in hand. A girl named Naomi was looking at her from the basketball court with the ball tucked under her arm. Other girls around her were glancing in Abby’s direction and muttering to each other. “We need a even number get over here” 

Abby hesitated. Veronica was standing on the court eyeing her with the same hate in her eyes. However after one of her accomplices came over and whispered in her ear she nodded her agreement with the situation.  

Abby sighed and closed her book getting up and heading to the court. “‘ight y’all line up me and V will choose the teams,” Naomi declared. 

Abby stood in line with the seven other girls they had goated into playing with them. Veronica stuck to choosing her pals and Naomi was smart enough not to choose them but Veronica only had three friends and Abby ended up being the last one on the line as Naomi chose the girl next to her. 

“Calvin and V on the same team” one of the girls on Naomi’s team voiced “this’ll be interesting.” 

Abby scoffed and took her position on the court. “Hey bookworm don’t get in the way” Veronica snapped. 

“Then stay out of mine” Abby shrugged. Veronica shot her a glare as the other girls jeered. 

“Hey let’s play” Naomi called everyone’s attention. 

The game started out easy. Naomi had the ball and was heading down the court. Abby intercepted her snagging the ball easily and heading down the court when she was slammed in the side hitting the ground. Veronica had the ball now and shot it into the hoop. 

“Hey!” Abby yelled getting back to her feet “thought we were on the same team” 

“Thought I said stay out of my way” Veronica retaliated coming up to get Abby’s face. 

“Hey knock it off” Naomi pushed between the girls “either play or leave and sort your shit out the way you normally do and land in the infirmary” 

“You telling me what to do, china?” Veronica snarled at Naomi. 

Naomi shifted back a bit “I’m actually Korean not that it matters but what I’m trying to do is play some basketball. Now you two can go duke it out if you want at least it’ll keep the teams even” 

Veronica scoffed “whatever” she stalked back onto the court. 

Abby sighed and followed the game started up again and Abby barely touched the ball as it was passed from player to player. Until it got to a point where they had five minutes left of courtyard time and Naomi’s team was up by one. 

“We need to score. You beat Naomi at ball, that's a serious brag even with dead weights like Harp and Richards on her team” Veronica’s lacky Fiona stated. 

“Yeah well we aren’t going to if Veronica tries to score again” Abby muttered to the rest of the huddle. 

“You saying I can’t shoot Calvin?” Veronica turned to her angry. 

“No I’m saying our entire strategy has been geared to give you glory this entire time and they’ve figured that out” Abby explained “that’s why they’ve blocked our last five attempts.” 

“What? You want us to pass it to you?” Veronica asked “that ain’t how that works Calvin” 

“I don’t care who you pass it to” Abby shrugged “you just gotta pass it” 

Veronica thought about it a moment “Alright Fi you take it” she declared. “Let’s go” 

“Okay” Fiona muttered, sounding unsure. 

The game started and Naomi’s team got the ball dribbling down the court. Veronica intercepted as Abby and Fiona headed down opposite sides of the court. Veronica looked to pass it and saw Naomi guarding Fiona who was looking less than confident. Then she saw Calvin raise her hand. She was completely open. No one expected Veronica to pass the ball to the one girl she beat up every other day. 

Veronica passed the ball. Abby caught it easy and dribbled it a step before shooting it circled the hoop before dropping in to the cheers of the team.

“Alright ladies time to get inside” one of the matron’s called from the door the girls shuffled to the door Naomi scooping the ball. 

“Nice shot Calvin” Naomi told her, shoving her shoulder as she passed. 

Abby grabbed her book and headed inside. She was heading down the hall at a casual pace before she was pinned to the wall. Veronica had her collar. “That was a one time thing you got that?” 

Abby blinked at the other girl “really? You're so insecure about your status you have to make that point?” she asked with every ounce of sass she could muster. 

Veronica growled and threw her to the floor Abby got on her feet and shoved Veronica’s middle. The bigger girl pushed her away and soon they were grabbing at each other pulling hair and scratching. Soon someone was there to pull them apart. 

“Why do any of us expect different of those two?” Abby heard Naomi mutter to Fiona as Abby and Veronica were led to the infirmary.  

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_

Abby POV.

“Bye Uncle Charlie” I called from the shade as the mathematician peeled off the fence of the batting cages and headed back to his car. 

“Bye Abbs” Charlie replied with a wave. I glanced over at my father as another crack of baseball on bat sounded. He was really starting to get into a rhythm, a proud smile on his face. I smiled lightly and returned to my reading. However there was only a moment of peace before Don appeared grabbing his water bottle and taking a swig.

“You want to take a few whacks?” He asked, gesturing to the batting cage. 

I shot another look over at the ball spitter. “Uh no thanks I’ve never really..” I trailed off gesturing at the cage with an implied statement and apathetic wave. 

Don looked at the cage then back at me with a small amount of shock evident in his face. “You’ve never played baseball before?” He asked in disbelief. 

“Maybe once in gym class” I shrugged answering honestly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed Donald but I’m kinda on the nerd side of things” 

Don scoffed. “Come on” he grabbed my book and much to my relief remembered to put the bookmark in its place before closing it. “No daughter of mine is going to go through life without playing baseball”

I scoffed as I was pulled to my feet and given a helmet. I would normally put up a bit more of a fight but I knew that this sport meant a lot to him. So I kept my remarks to myself and went along with it. We headed out to the cage. He showed me what position to take. How to hold the bat properly and watch the ball. 

Even with his coaching it took a while before I actually hit the ball. When I did it was quite auspicious to us both. Despite it not going anywhere near where we wanted it to go. There was a lot of laughing and joking and we both left happy reliving the events in story with some subtle elaborations. Don excited to take me back some time.

Chapter 9 -> 

[lucywiggin]

Bodyguard

Chapter 1: Kang Gook hates stupid love songs

“Never again, “ Gook murmured to himself as he entered his apartment, “no more idols. I’m not doing this ever again.” 

It was almost midnight, and he was just back from fifty-four days of being part of the world’s second most popular boy band (and they were very bitter about not being the first) security detail. Hye-mi suggested the gig because she thought it would be a nice change of pace, and would allow Gook to do some European site-seeing on his free time. Well, it was a change of pace, but not the kind he had in mind.  

Assassins and terrorists, he could handle; but he just wasn’t acquitted to dealing with a crowd of hysterical fifteen-year-olds. All that crying and yelling when there was no real danger meddled with his instincts. 

But nothing mattered now, because he was home, and he’d never have to listen to another stupid love song again. That was a privilege he never would have appreciated in full fifty-five days ago. Gook was only twenty-eight, but dealing with teenagers and their music made him feel ancient.   

He put down his suitcase, yawning. He convinced himself to change into shorts and a t-shirt, then fell face-first on his bed. 

 Gook woke up at eight-thirty to find a message from Hye-mi. 

“Min-hyun really wants to see you,” Hye-mi’s message said, “could you drop by at around ten?”. Gook doubted that Min-hyun actually said that – she was only ten months old – but he went to shower and dress.   

“Look who’s here,” said Hey-mi in baby voice as she opened the door, holding Min-hyun, “it’s your uncle Gook. He’s been away for a really long time!” 

“Hi,” said Gook.  

“How are you?” Hye-mi asked. 

“Fine,” said Gook, “it was a long, noisy tour.” 

Hye-mi led him to the kitchen. “Sit down and hold her for a moment,” she ordered, “I need to get my iPad.” 

Gook held Min-hyun, supporting her head the way Hye-mi taught him when Min-hyun was less than one day old. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but smile back.  

 Hye-mi returned. “Your new client,” she said, passing him the iPad, “Han Tae-joo.” 

“No,” Gook said after one look at the photo. “Not another idol. Teenage girls are loud .” 

“He’s not an idol!” Hye-mi protested. “He’s the new chairman of the TB group. Pil-hyun went to high school with him. “ 

“I thought you went to high school with Pil-hyun,” said Gook. “Didn’t you go to school with him, too?” 

“I transferred only for the last year,” Hye-mi explained, “Han Tae-joo’s father sent him to England at about the same time, so I haven’t met him until five weeks ago.” 

“Why five weeks ago?” Gook asked. 

“His father suddenly died of a heart attack, and we went to the funeral. Then we mentioned him to mom, and she insisted we invite him to dinner. He’s an only son and his mother died when he was young, and you know how mom is with strays.” 

Gook was a living proof of that, though he thought treating a Chaebol as a “stray” was pushing the definition of the word. 

Hye-mi went on, “he was here for dinner twice, and she likes him. She told him he should hire you, and he told her he’d think of that. I guess he did, because he called me four days ago and asked to hire you. We already negotiated your terms.” 

Gook knew he was doomed. Between Hye-mi and Ms. Jung, he was stuck with the Han Tae-joo gig until told otherwise.  

Still, he wasn’t giving up without a fight. “Do you really want me to take the job because he was friends with Pil-hyun in high school? That was ten years ago.” 

Hye-mi laughed, “Oh, they weren’t friends. Tae-joo stole three of his girlfriends in a row.” 

“He sounds like a brat,” said Gook. 

“Pil-hyun says he was,” said Hye-mi, “but so was Pil-hyun, and look at him now. Pil-hyun actually thanked him: he said that if he wasn’t single at the right time he would have never asked me out. In a way, we owe him a favor. “ 

“Because he stole Pil-hyun’s girlfriends,” said Gook. He hoped Hye-mi would see how absurd that was. 

“I’m calling you a taxi,” said Hye-mi, who obviously couldn’t see the absurdity. “You’re meeting him in an hour. I sent everything you need to know about him to your email.” 

Gook accepted his fate. “Okay,” he said. “Fine, I’ll meet with him.” Even though he was feeling less than cheerful, he smiled again at Min-hyun before handing her back to her mother, because it wasn’t the baby’s fault that her mother and grandmother scared him into submission. 

“Dinner is at seven, don’t forget!” Hye-mi called after him, “mom really missed you. We all did.” 

 “I won’t forget,” Gook promised before he closed the door. 

Chapter 2:  A very un-Chaebol Chaebol

In the taxi, Gook reviewed everything Hye-mi sent him about Han Tae-joo. They were both twenty-eight, but that was where the resemblance ended. Han was the sole heir of the TB group, a less than ethical (though no suspicion was ever confirmed) conglomerate. He graduated from Oxford University’s Merton College with a first in Economics, then moved to the US, where he completed an MBA in Berkeley. After graduation, he worked at a Sillicon Valley start-up – not the TB’s group American branch, Gook noted – until five weeks ago, when his father passed away because of a heart attack. There were also pictures of him with nine different girls overall, usually at charity events – Han was somewhat of a playboy. Gook was not disappointed, or so he told himself. Most men were attracted to women; why would Han be any different?

Han Tae-joo looked even better in person than in his photos, which Gook definitely did not care about, thank you very much. He was also the most un-Chaebol Chaebol that Gook had ever met. For one thing, he didn’t remain seated behind his desk and waited for Gook to bow to him respectfully, but was out of his chair the moment his secretary let Gook into the room, crossing the space between them to shake Gook’s hand enthusiastically. For another thing, he smiled at Gook. Gook had met more than his fair share of Chaebols – they were abundant in his line of work – but they rarely bothered looking at him, let along shake his hand or give him a smile bright enough to light a room.

 “Kang Gook,” said Han, “I’m Han Tae-joo,” not Chairman Han, Gook noted. “I’ve been looking forward to meet you.”

Even if Hye-mi’s notes didn’t include Han’s long stay abroad, Gook could have guessed from his behavior that he spent a fair amount of time out of Korea. One had to admit, Gook thought, that Han’s attitude was refreshing.

“Chairman Han,” said Gook respectfully, bowing slightly. Just because Han broke protocol didn’t mean Gook was allowed to do the same.

“Please,” Han gestured at one of the visitors’ chairs in front of his desk, “take a seat.” He waited until Gook sat, then went back to sit behind his desk. 

“You know,” Han said, “at first I looked into your resume only out of respect to Ms. Jung. She insisted that you were just the person I needed as my chief bodyguard. However, after the results of your background check returned, I realized she was right on the mark. If I want to survive in this position, I need you to have my back.”

“And you got all of that from a background check?” Gook asked before he could stop himself. There was something about Han that tempted him to throw caution to the wind, and that made Han dangerous. Gook was a professional, and he wanted to leave the gig with his reputation intact.

“I got all of that from your background check plus Ms. Jung, Hye-mi and even Pil-hyun’s recommendations,” Han replied. “According to all your past employers but one – we’ll get to him in a moment - you never use force unless you have to, which means you have a strong moral code. You’re discreet, well-mannered, and my favorite thing about you: you have superpowers.”

shitshitshit

“Superpowers?” Gook asked carefully, putting on his best poker face. “Chairman Han, have you been watching too many Marvel movies?” And that was downright rude, but Gook was caught off-guard. Hey-mi knew about the telekinesis, but he would bet his life she didn’t tell Han. But who did?

Han didn’t look one bit disturbed by Gook’s rudeness.

“Telekinesis and mind control, to be precise,” he said.

doubleshit.

“You’re careful, which I like. According to my sources, you have used your powers on others…” Han paused and made a show of picking up some papers and consulting his notes, though Gook was sure he memorized every incident, “a grand total of eight times, out of which only two included mind control. The first of those was when you ordered that rapist to turn himself in and confess – which he did. “

That was almost seven years ago. It was Gook’s second gig, and he noticed his own client pouring something into a girl’s drink at a club. After that, Hye-mi took over vetting his clients before he accepted a position.

“How do you know I had anything to do with that?” Gook asked, his voice neutral. “Perhaps he had a sudden attack of conscience.”

Han snorted. “Sure he had; of your conscience. He doesn’t have one. About three days later he denied everything he confessed to. Fortunately, he handed the police enough evidence before that sudden change of heart. Then there was the assassin who tried to murder your client, who was also very talkative for almost three days, then again had that mysterious change of heart.”

The incident with the assassin was three and a half years after, and Gook really should have known that commanding him to spill everything to the police would put him at risk.

“I’m guessing the effect of your commands lasts a little less than three days.” Han didn’t wait for Gook’s response. “There were also six incidents of you using your telekinesis. The last time, according to my very reliable sources, was three weeks ago, when you saved a fourteen-year-old girl from being crushed to death by over-enthusiastic fans of that boy band.” Han finished.

Dammit, thought Gook. He thought he was discreet on that one. How did anyone notice, in the middle of that mass of screaming kids?

“I must say I’m disappointed – I expected a kitten saved from a tree somewhere on the list.”

 Gook did not appreciate being mocked. “Get to the point,” he said. “Are you blackmailing me?”

“No!” Han seemed surprised, as if the possibility never crossed his mind.  “I’m saying that I know what kind of man you are, and that I want you on my team. I don’t want a thug,” Han said, turning dead serious, “those are dime a dozen. I’m hiring you because you’re just the opposite. Look, I know that if I do anything illegal with you around, I will find myself at the police station, confessing my crimes, and I still want to hire you. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“It tells me you put a lot of trust in me for no good reason.”

Han put his elbows on the desk, leaning closer to Gook. “I have a very good reason,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve been out of this country for ten years. I know very few people and I trust no one. But to succeed in this position, I must be able to trust someone.”

“And you decided on me?” Asked Gook.

“You are, by far, the best candidate. Accept the position, please.”

 Gook never thought he would hear a Chaebol use that word, especially not in such a pleading tone. Either Han was the world’s best actor, or his need - desperation, even - to hire Gook was genuine.

“Okay,” said Gook. “But anything illegal, and you’ll be confessing on YouTube.” That felt strange, acknowledging the power he did his best to forget about. He never shared that secret with anyone, not even Hye-mi.

Han didn’t seem concerned, quite the opposite: he beamed at Gook, holding out his hand for another shake. Gook took it.

“Deal,” said Han.

“Deal,” Gook repeated. “I’ll start tomorrow,” he said, “I’m going to need your address and daily schedule.”

“Don’t you want to know how much I’ll be paying you?” Asked Han.

Gook shook his head. “Hye-mi already negotiated with you,” he said, “she knows what she’s doing.”

“She does,” Han agreed. “Smart lady. Scary, too.”

Gook couldn’t help himself: he chuckled. So did Han.

The story is complete! and you can find the next chapters in AO3. (13824 words overall).

[hedwigstalons]

The Tracy Prize - part 12

A slightly longer section this time.  Big thanks to @willow-salix for helping with the ideas of how to fix things between Claire and our favourite spaceman.

Here are the earlier parts for those that want to go back to the beginning: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11

xoxoxox

It was decided that Virgil would accompany Claire for her trip back to Denver.  He had local knowledge of both the city and university campus.  He was also a one-man removal team and when it came to brute strength for moving boxes Virgil was was your man.  He was the obvious choice.  Not that she had too much to move, her apartment was rented furnished so there was nothing bulky deal with.

It was with some trepidation that she unlocked her apartment and led Virgil inside.

The wages of a university lecturer were modest and her apartment was small.  It was a far cry from the luxury of Tracy Island.  Part of her worried that Virgil would look down on her for her humble living arrangements.  It just showed how much she still had to learn about the Tracy brothers.  They might live on a tropical island now but life hadn’t always been that way.  Jeff Tracy had made sure that his sons never forgot their roots.  They had been taught never to take their fortune for granted and never to look down on those who had less than they did.  

Her original departure to the island had happened in such a hurry that she couldn’t remember what state she had left her apartment in.  A quick scan of the living area revealed she hadn’t left anything embarrassing lying around.  Any mess was behind closed doors.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

The air inside was thick and heavy, warmed by the Colorado summer.  She left Virgil perched on a compact sofa while she went around opening all the windows.  Kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and the tiny work space that the agent had optimistically billed as a second bedroom but was really no more than a cupboard.

A quick scan of the kitchen revealed that anything fresh had long since gone off.  She might not have been gone for long but the summer heat had had an effect.  She grabbed a bin bag and started throwing out spoiled food.  The remaining dried goods did not make an appealing prospect for dinner.  

A shadow in the doorway showed that Virgil had already got bored of sitting down.  He took an appraising look around the tiny kitchen and offered to head out for supplies.  Claire gratefully accepted.  

She used the time he was gone to hurry around, throwing items into bags and boxes.  Scott wanted Virgil back and on duty as soon as possible so they planned to spend barely 24 hours in the city.  One evening and morning to pack down the apartment then a quick visit to campus tomorrow afternoon to empty her office before flying home again.

The remaining foodstuff in her kitchen were checked and anything still sealed was packed up for donation to a food bank.  She made sure to keep hold of the coffee.  She had lived with the Tracys long enough to know that Virgil needed coffee to survive almost as much as he needed oxygen.

The living room, bathroom and bedroom were also simple to pack up.

The cupboard work space was not so easy.  She had always kept the small desk that had housed her computer tidy and uncluttered.  The rest of the room was crammed with anything that didn’t have a proper home in the rest of the apartment.

When Virgil returned he found her sat on the floor trying to organise the accumulated mountains of life detritus.  Old text books were stacked precariously.  Boxes of childhood memories, carted from house to house but never unpacked, had been opened as though she needed to reassure herself that the contents were still safe.  The task of sorting piles for keeping, throwing and donating had ground to a halt.  

“Come on, time for a break.  I got pizza” he grinned at her while holding aloft a couple of pizza boxes.

Claire gratefully got to her feet, dusted herself down and shut the door on the mess.

One thing she had quickly come the learn about life on the island was that food was unpredictable.  Each member of the family had different levels of culinary skill and preferences.  Each took a turn at cooking depending on who was available.  The only thing you could be certain of was that if Grandma Tracy was responsible the food would be virtually inedible.  Claire had come to the conclusion that the boys’ stomachs must be as strong as the rest of their muscles.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard” she sighed between mouthfuls of pizza.

Virgil just looked at her, puzzled.

“All of that”.  She gestured vaguely in the direction of the cupboard where he had found her.  “Trying to sort out what I need to bring. It feels stupid not being able to let go of things.”

“So don’t”.  He said it as though it was the simplest thing in the world.  “You’re moving to the island.  We aren’t asking you to completely give up your past.”

“But there is so much of it.”

“It’s not like we are pushed for space.  Everything here will fit in Tracy Two and we can always make some space available in the store rooms.”

“It just seems stupid to cart it all around.  There are things in there I haven’t used for years.”

“Any yet still you keep them.  Memories are important, they make us who we are.  Sometimes we need to keep a physical reminder of our past.”

“Virgil Tracy, I didn’t have you down as the sentimental sort.”

He grinned.  “Hidden talents, me.  If it makes you feel any better you won’t be the only one on the island with a teddy bear.  Just ask Gordon to introduce you to Fishy some time.”

They finished off the pizzas, disposed of the boxes and carried on with the task in hand.

Virgil gave her the space she needed to pack, limiting his main contributions to stacking up the finished boxes ready for loading up in the morning and carting out the inevitable bags of rubbish.

The apartment soon resembled a cross between a warehouse and an airport departure lounge.  A motley assortment of boxes, bags and cases were arranged around the walls.

“Time to call it a night I think” said Claire.  “The rest of this can be dealt with in the morning.”

“Suits me fine” said Virgil, stretching out his back muscles after all the repeated bending and lifting.  

“Um”, she shifted about with embarrassment.  “As you can see I’m not really set up for visitors.”

“It’s fine.  I’ll take the couch.”

The absurdity of this struck Claire.  The couch was small.  Even sat on it Virgil had looked out of scale.  The idea of his attempting to sleep on it was ridiculous.

“Stop being such a gentleman.  Unless you are going to attempt some sort of human origami you’ll never fit.  You’ll be much more comfortable in my bed.”

As soon as the words left her mouth she realised how bad that sounded. She flushed scarlet.

“Um, I mean, I’ll take the couch.  I’m shorter than you.  And you need to be fit to fly tomorrow.”  Talk about state the obvious.  She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

“Thanks. Offer accepted.”  He flashed a trademark smile over his shoulder at her as he disappeared into the bedroom.

Claire flopped heavily down on the sofa and put her head in her hands.  How could she have said that?  The embarrassment burned into her soul. If Gordon or Alan ever got to hear that she had invited Virgil into her bed, even by accident, she would never hear the end of it.

xoxoxox

The morning bought a fresh flurry of packing fuelled by copious amounts of coffee.  

The had hired a van to transport Claire’s belongings to the airfield and this was nearly loaded and ready to go.  As Virgil carried the last box down the stairs Claire looked around the small space that she had called home.  It looked empty and forlorn, stripped of all her personal possessions.  

Claire breathed a silent goodbye and shut the door on one chapter of her life.

The other tie that needed severing was her association with the university.

Claire didn’t keep many possessions on campus so their visit should just be a brief one on their way to the airfield.  All she needed to do was empty a few drawers, check she hadn’t left anything on her work PC and hand back her security pass.  

She left Virgil enjoying the sunshine in the quad outside so she could say goodbye to her colleagues without having to make awkward introductions.  Not that there were many people around over the summer.  She hoped she would be in and out within half an hour.

As she headed down the corridor to her office her Head of Department appeared, almost as though he had been looking out for her.

“Hi Claire.  I was beginning to worry I’d missed you.”

“Oh, hey Mitch.  No, I’ve only just got here.  Are there many in today?”

“Only me and Clive and he is locked away in one of the haz-mat labs.”

“Ah well.  It would have been nice to say goodbye to the team but I know what it’s like.  As soon as classes finish everyone takes the chance to grab a vacation.”

“Hopefully the rest of them will come back though.  You know, I was surprised when you said you were leaving.  One minute you are booking up every lab slot available, the next you’re sending an email to say you’re off.”

“I was pretty surprised myself.  You just never can tell where life will take you.”

“So where are you off to?”

Claire avoided the question by rummaging through her bag for the key to her office.  She unlocked the door and Mitch followed her inside.  He leant against her desk, watching her while she opened and closed drawers, retrieving forgotten belongings.  

She booted up her work computer.  She had been pretty disciplined about keeping her research on her own computer but she wanted to make sure there was nothing sensitive left behind on the university network. She systematically deleted files and transferred a few interesting articles onto her tablet.

The book shelf was next on the list.  She packed the weighty tomes into the holdall she had kept spare for the purpose.

Mitch never left the office.  It felt a little unnerving to have him watching her all the time.

Feeling the effects of all the coffee from the morning she made her excuses and headed down the corridor to the bathrooms.

When she returned Mitch was still perched on the edge of her desk.  She had always got on well with him but she was starting to find his presence annoying.  As she went to gather up the last of her belongings she realised something was wrong.  Her tablet, which she had left on the far side of the desk, was now on the side closest to Mitch.  Her suspicions were roused.

Making up a spurious excuse about checking whether she had left her lab coat in one of the supply cupboards she swiftly exited the office again.

Once she was a safe distance away she activated her wrist comm.  Much as it pained her she knew she needed the help of one particular Tracy brother.

She opened a link to Thunderbird Five.

“John, I…I need your help.”

“Go ahead, Claire.”  John managed to keep the puzzlement out of his voice, Claire still tended to shy away from contact with him.  He could tell she was worried about something though.

“I’m on campus and something doesn’t feel right.  My Head of Department won’t leave me alone and  I think he might be after my work.  Can you check if any access attempts have been made on my tablet in the last ten minutes.”

“Sure.” Claire’s tablet had been connected to the International Rescue secure networks and it only took him a moment to call up the information he needed.  “I can see four failed log in attempts.  He didn’t get anywhere though, our systems are not easily breached.”

“Not this time but what if he has in the past.  I always thought he was just being friendly before but now he just seems, well…creepy. I’ve always been so careful but what if he already has some of my research.  I never kept a digital copy at work but what if he took photos of my notebooks.  We were often in the labs together.  If I wanted to work late he would usually volunteer stay on with me so that campus security wouldn’t chuck me out.”

The worry in her voice was now plain to hear.  John did what he did best – calming people down.

“It’s ok.  I can run a check of his university network files.  If I find anything I’ll wipe them.  I guess his network username follows the same convention yours did?”

“Yeah. It’s all standardised.  His would be Mhayworthy.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll see what I can find.”

John quickly accessed Mitch’s university profile.  He rolled his eyes slightly at the simplicity of the university’s security systems. Breaking through the defences wasn’t even a challenge.

Going off Claire’s suggestion that Mitch could have taken photos of her notebooks he started his search in the image files.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

There were hundreds of photos.  The notebooks appeared in some of them but only incidental to the main subject of the images.  Claire.

Claire at work.

Claire having lunch.

Claire walking through a park.

Claire leaving her apartment.

John didn’t want to alarm her but the man evidently had a full blown obsession.  The date stamps on the images showed he had been stalking her for some time.  

“Claire, where is he at the moment?”

“In my office.  Did you find anything.”

“You were right, he had some photos.”  He decided not to enlighten her on the exact nature of the pictures.  He didn’t want the truth to send her into a panic.  “I’ve sent a virus that will target all the image files on his computer.  It will also access his other devices via his cloud account so anything he has at home or on his phone will be wiped too.”

“Thanks John” and she genuinely meant it.  She made herself a promise to make it up to the spaceman for all the ill thoughts she had harboured against him.

For good measure John tasked Eos with monitoring the man, an easy task for her that would barely trouble her processing power and not impact on her other duties.  Life for International Rescue could get complicated this was reported to the police and Claire got caught up in a court case but he also wasn’t prepared to let the man off scot free.  It Mitch tried anything even remotely illicit in future Eos would alert the police through an anonymous tip-off and ensure that the full force of the law came down on him.

“Now Claire, I don’t want you to go back in there with him alone.  Give me your location and I’ll send Virgil up to you.”

Once he was assured that Claire was safe John got in contact with Virgil. His older brother was surprised to receive a call from his space bound sibling.

John quickly appraised Virgil of the situation, giving his brother rather more information that he had given Claire.  His intrusion into Mitch’s files had unearthed more than just the photos.  After Claire had informed the man of her impending departure his chemical research had extended beyond his academic interests and into the world of illicit sedatives.  Evidently the impending departure of the object of his obsessions had led him to darker thoughts than just watching her.

Less than three minutes later Virgil came pounding along the corridor and was by Claire’s side.  

Mitch looked up when he heard the door open.  The smile he greeted Claire’s return with soon vanished when Virgil entered the room.  

Virgil was making full use of his height and weight advantage and positively loomed over the other man.  He stayed polite for Claire’s sake but his attitude screamed alpha-male.

“Unauthorised personnel aren’t permitted in this corridor.”  Mitch was not pleased about the unexpected intrusion.

“It’s ok Mitch.  He’s with me.  He’s a…a friend come to help me move my stuff.”  The Tracy name was well known on campus, especially so soon after Denver hosting the latest round of the Tracy Prize. Claire felt it better to keep things vague, especially since Mitch seemed unaware of the identity of her companion.

Virgil flashed his visitor pass to show he was there legitimately.

Mitch instantly dismissed Virgil as a being of no consequence.  Someone picked for their brawn rather than their brain.  

“So Claire, I was hoping I could take you for a farewell drink.  It’s a shame the department couldn’t give you a proper send off but there is no reason why we can’t mark the occasion.”

“Sorry Mitch but I’m on a tight schedule.”

“Maybe this weekend then?”  He came across as hopeful, verging on desperate.

Virgil decided it was time to shut him down.

“Claire, we really need to get going.  Have you packed everything you need? We can’t risk losing our runway slot.”

This was a lie.  Tracy Two was currently in a hanger on the closest GDF base in case Virgil was urgently needed at a rescue zone.  They couldn’t risk being stuck for want of a take-off slot at a congested commercial airfield.  Virgil wanted to impress upon Claire that it was better they left quickly, thankfully she got the hint.

“Runway slot?”  Mitch asked.

“Um, yeah, this new job isn’t local.  I’m leaving town completely” Claire explained sheepishly.  She made an obvious show of checking her watch then turned to Virgil.  “You’re right, we really need to be getting out of here.”

Claire swept the last few items into her bag while Virgil claimed the holdall of books.

They left the building and made their way to the waiting van unaware that Mitch was watching their every step.  Unaware as he raised his phone to take some final pictures for his collection. Unaware of the curses that followed when the Head of Department found not only all the photos on his camera reel gone but the camera itself fully disabled.

John had done his job well.

[fernwehbookworm]

Woke The F*ck Up- Chapter 15

February 26th, 2018

Apparently, Kara no longer lived in her apartment. Lena found out the hard way when a squat Italian woman yelled at her until Lena responded flawlessly with an apology in her native tongue. The woman then made her come inside and sent her off with homemade cannolis. Lena didn’t want to call Kara and risk being ignored.  This conversation had to happen face-to-face. Lena’s next stop was Kara’s gym. It was the only other place she could think of to find her since she was too tired to pay attention to where Lena could only assume her ‘hideout’ was.

Her driver was one of the agents assigned to her in a nondescript black SUV. He took her to the gym and waited in the idling car while Lena went inside. She was impressed. The building was spacious. Free weights stood near the front. Various cardio machines lined the center. Off to the side was a partially walled off room boasting of a 30-minute ab workout. At the back was the second set of doors. Above it was simply a sign saying 'The Box’. The whole room was brightly lit. Blue was the predominant color but red and white accented it. On the walls were large printouts of different fighters from early boxing to modern MMA fighters. Lena even spotted a few of Kara.

The girl working the front desk looked young, probably a high schooler working a part-time job. She looked up at Lena expectantly but then realized she didn't recognize the person walking in.

“Hi! Welcome to the Power House. Are you here to sign up for a membership?” She asked brightly.

“Ah, no. I'm actually looking for Kara. Kara Danvers.”

“Did you have an appointment?” Lena almost laughed at the absurdity of needing an appointment with Kara. But she supposed Kara couldn't meet with everyone trying to join her gym, most of which were probably fans of hers.

“No. I'm an… old friend. But I'm only in town for a few days and I need to talk to her about something.”

“Let me see if she can see you.” The girl dials the phone at the desk and waits as it rings. Lena watches the people in the gym. It's not very busy considering it is still early on a Monday morning. Two burly men puff out harsh breaths while using free weights. One woman is cycling away on a stationary bike while two others gossip on stair climbers. She can hear music seeping through the doors of 'The Box.’

“Hey Coach K. There is a woman here to see you.”

“Who is it?” Lena hears the faint question.

“Hold on, sorry I don't get your name.” The girl directs the last part at Lena. Lena debates giving the girl the fake name she usually uses but decided against it.

“Lena Luthor.”

“Le-Lena Luthor.” She repeats, shocked.

“Oh! Send her to my office.” Kara says a little louder and more excited, Lena thinks. The girl points Lena to a door at the end of the room labeled ‘K. Danvers, Owner.’ The girl looks after Lena with a mixer of awe, confusion, and excitement. Lene ignores her and walks to Kara's office. She hesitates outside, taking a deep breath before turning the cold metal knob.

She enters the simple office. Kara awkwardly stands behind her desk rolling chair, hands resting on the back. She looks hesitant. Lena takes in the new room. The bare walls only have a few posters from what looks like early in Kara's career. A simple computer monitor sits in the desk with a few photo frames facing away from Lena. Behind the desk is a bookshelf full of different health and exercise books and Kara's trophies. Kara clears her throat.

“Hey. I didn't know if you would want to talk so soon. I know everything… it just must be a lot.” Kara looks more awkward then Lena has ever seen her. Lena lets out a harsh laugh.

“Yeah. You could say that.”

“Well, I’m an open book to you. Come on.” Lena almost laughs again but bites it back as Kara reaches up and places her palm to on of the larger trophies. A glowing green light scans it and the bookshelf soundlessly slides to the side. Now Lena does laugh and shakes her head.

“Of course your secret base is under your gym.”

“How else do I justify spending so much time here?” Kara shrugs and starts to descend the stairs. Lena sighs and follows after her.

“How do you run the gym if you're always down here?” Lena asks on her way down.

“My office phone is forwarded to my cell phone. I told them if they had a question to call me. The door automatically locks when I open the bookcase. Also, Winn set up sensors so that I know when someone is outside my office.”

Lena takes in the room again as they make it to the bottom. It is more brightly lit then last time. Workout equipment stands ready for use, monitors seem to be scanning the city while a police radio prattles on a low volume. Kara heads to one corner of the room that is much more of a living space. Lena recognizes her couch and television. Her bed stands more off to the side. A counter lines one wall with a small fridge and countertop gas burner.

“Are you living down here?”

Kara blushes as she sits on the couch.

“Yeah. My lease was up a couple weeks after… after we broke up. I wasn’t spending anytime there anyway so I moved most of my stuff into storage and listed my permanent address as Alex’s apartment. It was just easier.”

Lena catches the ‘we,’ like it was a mutual decision. Guilt lances her heart again. Only tempered by the fact that Kara had been lying to her. Lena sits at the other end of the couch.

“I just… I'm trying to understand why you kept this from me. I've told you everything. I've been so open about me, about my past, and I thought… I thought the trust was mutual.” Lena grabs one of the throw pillows and hugs it to her chest. Lena sees Kara's jaw work out of the corner of her eye, she just couldn't look at Kara right now.

“I know nothing I say can or will excuse this. But I wanted to tell you. I was going to. That's what I wanted to show you. So you could see this. See how far we had come.”

“But why didn't you tell me sooner? I mean, how many times did you lie to me about where you were, or what you were doing? Oh God, and when I came to see you. The bruised shoulder. Where you really even with James that night?”

“Yes! He had gone digging into Cadmus and was kidnapped. Winn had called me and I had to save him. But then I got shot-”

“You got shot!”

“It's fine. The armor Winn made me protected me. It was just that bruise.”

Lena rubs her eyes. Maybe she shouldn't have come. She should have just went back to London. She missed Sam and Ruby. She had called them as soon as she woke up to assure then everything was fine.

“So James found out who I am and insisted on helping. But that's another story. Long story short, he became Guardian.”

“When did all of this start?”

“A couple months before we met. My sister figured it out when James released that first picture in the paper, he didn't know it was me then.”

“So everytime. Every time you rushed off or said you were late and hung up. Every missed phone call. Every missed flight. It was because you were off being a vigilante.” Lena accuses, acid in her voice. She finally looks at Kara who seems to shrink into the corner of the couch.

“I didn't want you to worry halfway across the world. It's dangerous and illegal.”

“No shit. No, I wasn't worried about your safety. I was too worried about what I was doing wrong. If I had screwed this up. Worrying about whether or not I was good enough for you. God. I'm an idiot.”

“Lena-”

“No. I need some space. I'll call you later.” Lena swiftly stands and ascends the steps. The bookcase is still open but as she steps through it shuts and she hears a faint click as the office door unlocks. She strides through the gym and back into her waiting vehicle, asking the man to take her back to her hotel room. She calls Sam just to hear the voice of a friend. She hadn't told Sam about Kara. Just that she had seen her and they had tried to talk but it was too much and Lena had to leave.

“Do you want to work things out with her?” Sam asks honestly.

“I don't know. I mean I see her face and I know I love her. But she was lying to me. About something big. And she has her reasons for it but… I just don't know. All I know is I miss you and Ruby, but I feel like if I leave now then I won't get the closure I need.” Sam is silent for a moment.

“Maybe you should try therapy or something. Just so you can both say what needs to be said in a safe place.”

“Like couples therapy?”

“Well yes and no. It sounds like you just need an outsiders opinion. Someone unbiased to help you get the closure you need, where or not that means you and Kara try to work things out between you.” Lena bites her lip as she considers her friend’s advice.

“I'll think about it. And Sam? Thanks for being such a great friend. I don't know what I would have done without you and Ruby.”

“Of course Lena. We both love you. We will see you before you know it.”

I love you guys too. Bye Sam.”

“Bye Lena.”

Lena hung up. Feeling slightly better than she did before. She orders lunch to her room and sat down in front of the keyboard Jess had managed to get set up in her room. She began to play Clair De Lune. A classical piece that stuck with her from her childhood lessons. It was slow but good for different techniques. Lena lost herself in the piece before starting it again. Allowing the soothing tunes to calm her racing mind. Lena began to play a new song and another one after that. She played until her fingers began to get a little sore and her thoughts had been soothed from the angry panic they were this morning. Lunch had arrived while she played. The young bellhop dropped it off as she requested just inside the door. Lena ate the sandwich and chips in silence, seriously considering her friend's advice.

Now that she knew about Kara, she wasn't sure what she wanted. She had left the fundraiser with only thoughts of winning her back, but so much had happened in such a short amount of time. The only way to know was to talk it out but Lena dreaded that. She was never good with feelings. For the most part, she had learned to shut them out. But after Kara, after living with Sam and Ruby, Lena was becoming more attuned to her feelings. She liked who she was becoming in the short time since she decided to be better, for herself and Ruby. With a sigh, Lena decides to follow Sam's advice. Tomorrow. Tonight she was going to play her music and go to dinner with Jess.

February 27th, 2018.

Lena waited in line at Noonan's. She was hoping to get her coffee and grab the table in the corner. She was able to snag it, putting her back to the wall and able to see the entrance. On her laptop, she was looking over LexCorp numbers and dredging up the ancient knowledge she had thought she had never need from high school and college. Jess had sent them to her but she was having trouble getting through everything that absolutely needed her approval instead of her CFO's. Lena still hadn't decided what to do with the burden her brother had placed on her shoulders.

“Hi.” Kara's soft voice breaks into Lena's concentration. Startled, Lena blinks up owlishly as she adjusts from screen to real life. Kara stands, slightly unsure, coffee in hand but not attempting to sit.

“Hi. Please sit. I was just working on Stuff for LexCorp.”

Kara sits slowly, looking ready to bolt as soon as Lena didn't want her there. Lena types in a few notes before shutting her laptop and looking back up at the nervous blonde.

“How is it? Owning a company, I mean.”

“Awful. I never wanted it. My only blessing is Jess taking care if almost everything.”

“Oh. Umm… Well, at least you have her.”

“Yeah. And Sam and Ruby really help. I don't know what I would have done these last couple of months without them.”

Silence falls over the pair. Both nervously play with coffee cups and avoid making eye contact.

“So are you and Sam…?” Kara trails off, unsure if she wants to finish the question.

“Sam is my closest friend. I moved into her spare bedroom when the album released. But we are just friends.”

Kara lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and swallows past the lump in her throat. Silence stretches on again. Lena clears her throat and Kara looks up to meet her eyes. Lena pauses at the blue of them. The openness and the disarming kindness and hope. She swallows and finally says what she needs to.

“I don't know what I want Kara. I was never able to figure that out. That's part of the reason I never called you back. Then, when I saw your art at the fundraiser, I realized the massive mistake I made.” Kara opens her mouth to say something but Lena holds up a finger to stop her.

“Let me finish, please. That's why I came back, I realized that you did care about me and I had reacted rashly. I wanted to apologize at least, to talk things out. Then, I was kidnapped by my mother as soon as I landed, which I suspect had something to do with my new assistant, but that's another story. Finally, I'm saved from my mother by my ex-girlfriend who has been living a double life as a vigilante for as long as I have known her. Now I don't know what I want, again. It's something I need to figure out before I go back home. I can't do it alone. So, on Sam's advice, I'm going to see a therapist. I want you to come with me if you're willing, so maybe we can put everything in the open and get some closure for this whole giant circus of a shit show that has become my life.”

Kara sits silently until Lena gestures for her to talk.

“I think it’s a great idea, Lee.”

Lena’s heart soars at the nickname without her permission. Kara had a way of just slipping past all her defenses. It wasn’t fair, Lena should have known better than coming back here, where it all started.

“I actually already have one. A therapist, I mean. I started seeing her during my recovery after my accident. And after everything, I made some poor choices and Alex took me to see her again. She knows everything, so we can be as open an honest as we want to be.”

“You’ve been seeing a therapist?”

“Yeah, like I said, bad choices. But we can get into that later if you want. I’ll call Dr. Hamilton and send you her information.”

“Okay.” Lena takes a deep breath.

“So…”

“I’m not ready for small talk Kara. Thanks for coming, though. And I do want to talk through this, but not here.”

“I’ll leave you to your work then. Let me know when you make the appointment, I will be there. I promise.”

“No offense Kara, but right now your promises mean very little. But I will let you know.”

“Right. Call me later. Bye Lee.” Kara stands, hesitating before pushing in her chair and taking her cup away with her. Lena powers back on her computer and continues her work. After another twenty minutes, she looks up Dr. Hamilton and begins her own search before her phone dings with Kara’s shared contact information.

February 28th, 2018

“So, you are sure you want to do this? I am an advocate for closure, but I thought we were moving past this. At least it seemed that way to me. I don’t want you cutting open healed wounds.” Dr. Hamilton asks. Kara had arrived early to talk to her before her their actual session with Lena.

“Yes. I am sure. I think this will be good for both of us. Even if we both just say our peace and go our separate ways.”

“And do you want to go your separate ways?”

Kara opens her mouth to come up with a non-committal answer but they are interrupted by a knock. Dr. Hamilton’s assistant peaks her head in.

“Miss Lena Luthor is here, shall I send her in?” Kara nods when Dr. Hamilton looks at her and the therapist gives confirmation to the assistant.

Kara has never seen Lena look so unsure of herself, not even when she was kidnapped. Lena wears a large green sweater and black leggings and her hair is down. Everything about her is soft today, nothing of the Lena Luthor mentality came with her. That gives Kara a spark of hope that maybe they weren’t broken. Maybe they could fix this.

“Good morning,” Lena says. Kara shoots to her feet, then she realizes it was a mistake because there is nowhere to go from there.

“Morning, Lee. Umm… Lena, Dr Hamilton. Dr. Hamilton, Lena.” Kara gestures awkwardly between the two women. Dr. Hamilton offers Lena a hand to shake and gestures for her to sit in the chair across from Kara. Kara sits on one end of the couch while Dr. Hamilton site in a chair to the side.

“Lena, it's wonderful to meet you.”

“You as well, Dr.”

Once everyone is comfortable, Kara nervously plays with one of the throw pillows and Lena pulls her sleeves over her hands. The doctor watches the two as they both throw up defenses and gauge each other.

“Okay. so I am mostly here a moderator. Lena this is a safe place. I know everything about Kara and her sister has had me sign more NDA’s than I could ever come near to being able to get free of. Since this is a session with Kara, anything you say here is also covered by all of that.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Lena looks down to the ground.

“Now Kara. How about you start? Start from the beginning. When you decided to become a vigilante and then your side of events that have happened since meeting Lena. Lena, I am going to ask you not comment on anything Kara says. If you want to ask clarifying questions, that’s fine. Then when Kara is done, Lena can go and the same rules apply to Kara.” Both women nod.

“To start, I didn’t really decide to do it. More like I just couldn’t stand by any longer. There was a girl, barely out of high school, I think. She was rapped by some thug barely three blocks from my apartment. Later I found out he was low-level Cadmus muscle but I didn't know that then. Not until I started making connections. Then Winn and I had gone for a few drinks and to play pool at a bar, we were walking home and I heard a woman calling for help. I pulled up the hood of the jacket I was wearing, the red and blue one which was a gift from Alex, and knocked the man out that was trying to take her purse. That was the first night I stopped someone.”

Kara continues, telling about how she and Winn almost got caught several times. About the body armor Winn came up with and Alex figuring out her secret. Eventually, she gets to meeting Lena.

“I actually gave up my seat inside to an older couple when I saw you. It was the last table and I had just settled into my chair and I saw you through the glass. The couple was looking for somewhere to sit so I offered my table because I had to talk to the beautiful woman sitting outside, in August, in a sweatshirt. I will never regret that decision. Then when I saw you again the next day, I knew I had to convince you to go out with. I was never smooth with pretty women, Alex can give you horror stories about the clumsy, stuttering, mess I become. But with you, I was more comfortable and sure of myself than I had ever been.”

It takes nearly an hour. An hour of Kara describing her double life. In all fairness, when she was with Lena, then she was with Lena. She had only left that one night because James was in danger. And she had only taken phone calls again when James was in danger. She didn’t want being a vigilante to take away from Lena. At least until Cadmus became seriously dangerous and Kara felt like she couldn’t leave the country for days at a time. But when that happened, Lena did take a back seat in Kara’s life. Hell, Lena didn’t even feel like she was in the car anymore.

“And then when the news was released that you were missing, I just knew it was your mother. She was getting desperate with her funds depleted since Lex was arrested and I was a thorn in her side. Since she knew who I was then she knew how to draw me out. What she didn’t know is that my sister works for a government organization specifically tasked with taking her and Cadmus down. So as they stormed the compound, I could focus on keeping you safe and getting you out alive. And now we are pretty much caught up.”

Lena sits silently. It was a lot. Kara waits patiently, playing with the corners of the pillow in her lap. Dr. Hamilton had been scribbling notes the whole time. When the pen starts scratching, the doctor loos at Lena.

“Ok Lena, your turn. Go back as far as you would like but please, this is mostly about the events between you and Kara so try to keep it relevant to that.”

“I have lived a dark life. A simple one, coasting day to day, hardly ever sober as I tried to forget the pain of growing up in the Luthor household. I lost my mother at the age of four, I don’t even remember her face anymore. Just the love she poured into me. It was such stark contrast to the sharp coldness of Lillian. I think Lex tried to love me, but by the time I came around, everything good in him had been poisoned by Lillian. Lionel was hardly ever around. When he was, all he and Lillian did was fight. About money, work, women,  me. Sometimes… sometimes I would hear objects breaking as they hit walls. It would echo through the mansion, long after servants went home. It got worse when Lex Left for college. Then, one night, I heard a gun go off. Just one shot. But I crawled under my bed and stayed there until the sun rose. The next morning I braved the rest of the house. There was Lillian and Lionel quietly eating breakfast like nothing happened. That’s when I accepted my early admission to college and stop fighting them to stay in high school. I couldn’t be in that house anymore.” Lena was giving a little background for the therapist's sake, Kara knew most of it at this point.

“My childhood friend, Veronica, was also going early; though she was two years older than me. We had spent most of our time together, escaping our families and high society life. It was all very shallow until it wasn’t. I fell in love with her and she didn't. I closed my self off after that and used terrible coping mechanisms to make it through everything. And I did, I made it through each day until my entire life was turned upside down by this beautiful blonde asking to share my table. She didn’t know who I was, she didn’t even listen to my music, she was just listening to it to make her sister happy. Then she smiled and brightened my whole world. I turned her down for a date even though everything screamed at me to say yes. The next day we literally ran into each other again. I couldn’t say no again.” Lena continues like that, sharing how Kara gave her hope that she could find the love she long thought she didn’t deserve. How magical everything had been since they met.

“The first couple missed and canceled flights I didn’t think anything of. I mean, I was asking a lot for you to put your life on hold to see me. But then you started not returning phone calls or texts. The another missed flight. I didn’t know what to think. Was I not good enough, did you get a few free trips across the world and that was it or was the paparazzi just getting to you and I wasn’t worth it? So I started talking to my only friend and she thought the same things. I couldn’t keep putting myself through that and so when you missed another flight, I ended it. I know voicemail is a shitty way to break up with someone, but what else would I have done? I hadn’t seen you in weeks and so many phone calls had gone unanswered.  And then I went drinking with Sam, right back into my horrible coping techniques. I was dancing and flirting and I actually almost went home with this couple, a very low point for me. Then Veronica showed up.” Lena sees Kara flinch at the memories she was bringing up but Kara continues to be silent.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t really. I just needed to feel something that wasn’t a wrenching pain in my heart. Veronica promised the numbness that filled me for years. And it worked for a few hours until there was a knock on my hotel door. I opened it to find you, bruised and bloodied, then you were gone as soon as Veronica made her presence known. By the time I had grabbed a robe to chase after you, the elevator had already closed.” Lena takes a steadying breath. She looks at Kara who stares at the pillow in her lap. Lena can see wet streaks on her cheeks. It hurt Lena to hurt Kara all over again.

“After that, I spiraled pretty hard. Drugs and drinking. I scraped the album I had been working on and threw myself into my work to make the deadline. I saw Veronica a few more times, but then Sam and I got in a fight. Basically, it was sober up or forget seeing her and Ruby anymore. So, I did. After the album release, I moved in with them. I never had a place to call home before, never had somewhere to miss when I am traveling. In a very short amount of time, I found that with them. In all that I was also given LexCorp in the wake of my brother's arrest, which I turned over to be run by my personal assistant Jess because she was way more qualified than I am. Since then I have just been trying to figure out what I want for my future. I am taking a break from the music and touring. I think I will sell Jess my controlling shares and let her do with the company what she will.”

Lena continues to relay the events of the fundraiser and of the kidnapping. All too soon she is describing her decision for therapy and it leaves them sitting quietly in a room with a silence that is too loud. The doctor’s pen stops scratching as she lets both Lena and Kara process what has been said.

“Can I… Can I say something?” Kara directs her question at Doctor Hamilton. She nods.

“Lee, I know that how I treated you was awful. You questioned yourself because of me. But I think you did the one thing you knew would hurt me the most, whether or not I saw you with Veronica. You knew how my last boyfriend cheated on me, and yes you may have broken up with me over voicemail, but it still felt the same. Actually, it felt worse because… because… I… what we had was real.”

“I thought that too. Until I became an afterthought. Until you forgot about me for some personal crusade to save this city. You lied to me over and over again, you may not have slept with someone else but you cheated on me. You kept this vigilante a secrete like a dirty mistress.”

Kara sits back at the venom in Lena’s voice. She hadn’t thought about it that way at all. Lena settles back in the chair after saying her piece.

“Lena, tone it down just a bit. Kara is entitled to her feelings, as you are entitled to yours. Kara, do you have any other feelings to make known?” Kara shakes her head.

“Lena?” Lena shakes her head as well.

“Okay then. I think that is enough for today. I want you two to go home tonight and really think about what has happened. I want you to think about what you want from this therapy and each other. You both need definitive answers. If, if , you both want to continue your relationship together then I will strongly recommend a slow process of building trust and friendship before even broaching a romantic topic. But you both have to want it. And it will take time. So please consider your decision strongly.”

Both women nod at the doctor's advice and stand to be shown out. Lena heads to her waiting car with the agent holding the door open.

“Wait, Lena!” Kara calls.

Lena turns to her, trying to keep her face blank. Kara hesitates and Lena raises an eyebrow at her.

“Just… Thank you. For this. And for letting me tell you everything. I have wanted to do that for a long time. So, thank you.”

Lena nods, not trusting her voice and climbs into the vehicle. Kara stays huddled on the street against brisk winter wind. She watches the black SUV pull away and she swears she sees Lena look back at her through the darkly tinted glass.

[momentofmemory]

fictober - day thirteen

Prompt #13: “I never knew it could be this way.”

Fandom: BBC’s Merlin

Warnings: None

Characters: Merlin, Gwen

Words: 1160

Author’s Note: probs gonna write my nano around these two this year, so i thought i’d start practicing. which was a good idea, bc i’m clearly v v rusty.

>>A Kind of Warmth

Gwen sat at the table at the front of her chamber, the reports requiring additional laws on magic use laid out before her. She held a feather quill in her right hand, the ink slowly percolating out of the tip, staining the sheets a dark black.

Merlin was really supposed to be consulted for most of these, but he’d been helping with a mild outbreak in the lower town that morning. Gwen had planned to delay dealing with the reports (which were nearly as high as her forearm at this point) until he could join her, but after she’d gotten dragged into her fourth meeting on the intricacies of visitation etiquette, she’d used them as an excuse to hole herself up in her room. She’d even gone so far as to give strict orders for absolutely no one to bother her, short of a large-scale attack on the citadel.

(She almost hadn’t even added that stipulation, given their uncanny track record with such things, but it seemed irresponsible to not.)

She stretched her back and looked at the amount of paperwork she still had left, and let her head fall to the table with a resigned thud. She didn’t know how Arthur ever got through it all.

Her frustration ebbed at that thought, replaced with the melancholy she always associated with her late husband. She took the signet ring out of the pocket hidden under her skirts, and turned it about in her fingers.

Her chambers were so quiet at night.

The space had always felt large to Gwen, coming as she had from a one-room cottage with a curtain as its only division, but it only started feeling empty after Arthur was gone. Things were better now that Merlin had come back, and the kingdom wasn’t falling apart around her ears, but the yawning silence still got to her at times.

The bed pillows where she still surprised herself by finding strands of Arthur’s hair trapped in the frills. The metal cup on the desk, dented around the rim from the many times Arthur had hurled it at the wall, or more aptly, at Merlin. The dying fire in the hearth that she, Arthur, and Merlin had sat around for hours at a time trying to sort out the intricacies of centuries old trade agreements.

So many ghosts.

She shook her head and stood: clearly it was time to take a walk.

Gwen slipped her cloak on and then crept out the door, mindful to avoid her own guards just in case. She headed towards the hidden, winding passageways that allowed servants to pass unnoticed through the castle, hopeful that the late hour would mean no one would be about to spot her.

Her heels clicked on the stone floors and the sound echoed all the way down the hallway. Gwen winced and thought for not the first time that the soft-soled slippers she had worn as a servant were far better suited for such nightly exploits. Gwen did the next best thing, and took them off entirely.

She wandered deeper into the castle, her feet carrying her without direction, and eventually she found herself in one of the older tunnels that led out into the lower towns.

It was here that she stopped, because the light around the bend was glowing green.

Gwen shifted both shoes into one hand, and with the other pulled her sword from its sheath. She crept forward, thinking again about Camelot’s absurd odds of being attacked, and rounded the corner.

“Merlin!”

The sorcerer in question yelped and nearly fell over from where he’d been sitting on the floor. Gwen dropped her sword to her side and looked at the surrounding air. The green glow was not from a torch or another, earthly light source, she realized, but from Merlin himself.

He caught her eyes, and the glow vanished, leaving only the light from Gwen’s own candle.

“Gwen!” he stammered, rising to his feet in an awkward bow. “What’re you doing out so late?”

Gwen ignored him, and carefully placed a hand in the space the glow had just been. The light was gone, but it still felt warm to her touch. “Was that you?”

“Um.” Merlin shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” Gwen lowered her hand. “…It was beautiful.”

Merlin’s eyes widened, like no one had ever said that to him before.

Probably, Gwen realized, because no one had.

Hesitantly, Merlin raised a closed fist to his chest, and whispered a word Gwen didn’t understand as he opened it.

A brilliant, shining blue butterfly stood in what was once empty space.

Merlin stretched his hand out to Gwen, and to her delight, after a moment’s pause the winged creature inched over to her own. She marveled at the weightlessness of it; how infinitely delicate and beautiful it was.

“This is magic?”

Merlin nodded, and Gwen felt a giggle bubble up in her chest. “I never knew it could be this way.”

Another butterfly materialized on Merlin’s arm, his eyes growing soft. “I don’t think I did, either.”

“What do you mean?”

Merlin frowned, clearly trying to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. “…I think there wasn’t a lot of beauty in magic, after the Purge. Not because it turned evil or anything, but because beauty has a kind of… warmth to it, I guess.”

The butterfly on Gwen’s arm decided she was not, in fact, a flower, and flew back over to Merlin to try her luck with his scarf. Merlin watched it burrow into the folds before continuing.

“It’s terrifying,” Merlin said. “But it feels safe, too.”

Gwen bit her lip, thinking about all the years Merlin had spent afraid. “Not much safety going around during the Purge.”

He huffed out a laugh, and the butterflies faded away. “No.”

Gwen felt a sense of loss as Merlin’s magic faded, and she decided she wouldn’t stand for that. She cleared her throat.

“What else can you do?”

Merlin looked at her, a grin sliding across his face. “You sure you want the answer to that?”

“Don’t go all Gaius on me.”

Merlin laughed, and then light and colour such as Gwen had never seen exploded from his fingertips.

He spoke in a tongue Gwen had learned to associate with danger, but was also inescapably Merlin, and Gwen could never be afraid of him.

Gold swirled in his eyes and reflected in the dark brown of Gwen’s own, and she watched as his deft motions pulled the air from its natural currents and swirled it through the space. Gravity-defying flowers and twinkling lights materialized around them, caught up in the wind, and wrapped around Gwen’s arms and skirts such that she herself was glowing. The walls danced with colours more vivid than the brightest sunset.

A grin wide enough to match Merlin’s own spread across Gwen’s face, and she reveled in the tingling sensation of magic running along her spine.

She’d never felt safer.

[unavenged-robin]

Juxtaposition - 3

Part 1 + Part 2

Tim hadn’t meant anything by it, honestly. He just happened to stumble into the kid while having a camera in his hands, and that was all. It hadn’t been his fault if Damian was too busy drawing and didn't notice him: the brat was supposed to be a baby ninja, after all. Another thing he was not responsible for was Damian being... photogenic. He would never use the word cute, not even to save his own life.

Point is, the kid was sitting there, under a tree, surrounded by his pets - Titus' big head on his leg, Alfred the cat curled up by his feet - his head bent over an old sketchbook, and a look of total focus on his face, and Tim didn’t even think about it, he raised the camera to his eye and took the photo.

Click.

Damian lifted his head, looking annoyed but not surprised. So maybe he had known about Tim being there. Maybe he just hadn’t care enough.

“Taking photos of people without their explicit consent is a felony, Drake”, he said, narrowing his eyes at Tim. “I could report you and have you arrested.”

Tim snorted and plopped down on the grass in front of the kid.

It was such a beautiful day. The sun was warm over the skin and the wind was like a gentle caress on the face. Even the colors looked like they were happy to exist; they were so intense they seemed to vibrate under his stare: the blue was so blue the sky could’ve very well been the ocean, the green was so green the whole garden could’ve been just one, giant new leaf of a young tree.

And Damian, Damian was a spot of red and black in all that green, like a tiny ladybug resting in the grass, and his eyes were also the greenest green Tim had seen for a while. He had smiled at the kid with a contented heart.

“You happen to be a minor, brat”, he reminded him with a bit of teasing in his voice. “And I'm listed as one of your legal guardians. That means that, until you're eighteen, I can pretty much do whatever I want with you.”

Damian looked up from his sketchbook to squint at him. His cheeks were sun-kissed and his nose was getting too red under the warm light of the afternoon, and Tim remembers how in that moment he had the sudden, shattering realization that he felt a not insignificant amount of affection for his brother. And that had not been the only time he’s ever felt that way, but it had perhaps been the first one.

Damian had dismissed him without a second thought.

“You are not my legal guardian.”

“I am too.”

The words stayed there for a moment, lingering between them, then Damian had frowned at him, out of curiosity more than outrage, Tim thought, as he choose to believe him.

“Why?”, he asked.

Tim turned his eyes away, lifting his face to observe the branches of the tree above them swaying slowly in the wind. He didn’t want to ruin the quiet.

“Because this family is a mess and Bruce wants to be sure that, if he decides to go take another stroll in the past again, you won't be left on your own”, he explained anyway. It was both a surreal and a serious affair, and they both knew it.

Damian had considered it for a moment, gnawing pensively at the tip of his pencil.

“I won't be left with you anyway”, he decided with a shrug. “You would have to go through Grayson's body to get me.”

Tim remembers how he had laughed at that.

“Yeah, that's true”, he had said. “Neither of us need to worry about it.”

*

Tim stares at the ceiling of his own bedroom like he expects some kind of answer coming down from there, along with a few friendly spiders he’s never had the time to chase away.

That afternoon used to be a good memory, once upon a time. Now it comes at him at night, haunting him with its bitter taste of unforeseen omen, and Tim wonders if Damian ever thinks about it, if he remembers it as clearly as he does.

He hopes not. He hopes that, at least for the kid, it’s not ruined.

There’s still some good stuff attached to that memory, though. Damian had wanted that photo, marched down to this very apartment to get it. And Tim had developed the film just for him, showed him how to do it and pretended not to notice how invested Damian was. That had been nice too: teaching the kid something new, something harmless they both enjoyed. Damian had let Tim guide his hands through the various proceedings, he had even obeyed every instruction with a minimum amount of huffs and scoffs. That had been another good day.

Fast forward, Tim hadn’t been there for Damian’s eleventh birthday, but he had bought him a camera and asked Alfred to pack it up in the most childish, colourful wrapping paper he could find, and to give it to the brat when he looked less willingly to throw it away without even bothering to unwrap it. And of course he hadn’t expected much in return, but to his surprise Damian had actually texted him a short and very formal thank you. That meant the little gremlin had loved the gift. Tim had been happy about it.

Those memories still makes him smile, even if now they leave a bitter aftertaste on his lips. Nice moments like those had been a rare thing, little pearls lost in the sand of the constant fights, the misunderstandings, and the mutual disinterest.

And now the world was all chaos and fragile things, and none of them really know what to do. Not Damian, freshly deprived of the only two father figures he had ever known; not Tim, who had found himself responsible for him; and sure enough not Jason, who had just got himself trapped in the whole mess.

Tim sighs and gets out of bed. The clock radio on the nightstand marks four o'clock in the morning, but there's no way he’s going back to sleep tonight, he's sure of that. Better to make some tea and keep working on tomorrow’s case. At least that’s the plan when he gets into the kitchen.

He goes as far as to put some water on the heat, then the memories of that afternoon comes back to needle him. There must be a box somewhere, filled with the photos from the first film he had developed for Damian, the first photos the kid had ever took in his life, as far as Tim knows. And e hadn't told Damian this - of course he hadn’t - but he'd made copies for himself. At the time he hadn't even ask himself why: he had just wanted to do it, so he had gone and done it.

He finds the box tucked away on the highest shelf of his library, covered by a thin layer of dust. Housekeeping’s never been his strongest suit.

A faint gurgling from the kitchen reminds him of the tea he was making. Tim retrieves it, pushes some jasmine leaves into the hot cup, then goes and sits on the couch. He shoots a quick look at Damian's room, but the door is closed and no light seeps from under it, no noise comes from the other side. The boy should be asleep.

For some reason he can’t explain, Tim feels a pang of guilt as he opens the box.

Damian’s photos are all there and Tim picks them up with a smile. It's funny looking at his family through the kid's eyes: everyone looks a lot taller, everything seems bigger. It's a bit of a déjà-vu, because Tim remembers well enough how the world looks like on a child scale.

The first bunch of photos are reserved to Damian's pet, of course. Here’s Titus, sleeping on the library’s rug or sitting at Damian’s feet, and Alfred the cat curled up on the windowsill. There’s Batcow eating some grass in the back of their courtyard, Goliath with its wings spread out, getting ready to fly. Tim knows Damian misses them. He wish he could at least give them back to him but he has no space for pets in his apartment, and they can’t go home anyway.

He puts those photos aside, and the next one hits him like a fist in the stomach. Here, in front of him, there’s Dick. He's smiling down, his lips upturned, the affection so clear in his eyes. Tim tries to imagine whatever absurd excuse Damian had tried to made up to justify his wish to have a picture of him, and he can’t think of anything, but it’s pretty obvious that Dick had seen right through the kid.

Damian is the subject of the next photo. Even if it hadn't came up right after Dick's one, Tim would've known anyway that Dick was the one who took it. It's the expression on Damian's face to give it away, that little not-really-annoyed-but-pretending-to-be-anyway scowl that holds the same affection of Dick's smile. He can see that moment so clearly in his mind. How Dick would’ve said something like you can take a picture of me only if I can take a picture of you, and Damian would’ve rolled his eyes and then indulge the blackmail with a secret happiness.

He laughs heartily at the following four photos. They are a set of unfocused, very awkward selfies of Damian and Stephanie, with her being the head of the operation, since Damian's arms would be too short to even attempt it. Damian’s glaring in the first photo and openly laughing in the last one, and Stephanie had been quick, albeit a little imprecise, at capturing that moment. The result is a blurry picture with a very strange angle, but it’s still one of Tim’s favorite.

There are a lot of pictures of Bruce. At first they were taken from a distance, and they portray him from behind, or busy doing something else: bending over his desk to write a letter, sitting in the armchair reading a book, standing in the kitchen with Alfred sipping a tea. They all give the idea of stolen moments, even if Bruce had probably known what the kid was doing. Tim could see him playing along, waiting for Damian to decide what worked best for him.

And of course Damian had eventually decided to make Bruce a part of the new hobby. The other shots still have a formal setting, very different from the spontaneity of the photos of Dick and Stephanie, but Bruce smiles in almost all of them and there’s a complicity and a quiet happiness that makes Tim’s heart ache. He misses Bruce. And he can only imagine how much Damian’s missing him too, how all this time apart is affecting him, his memories, his relationship with Bruce.

Tim brushes a cold fingertip over the pictures and wishes he could fix, if not everything, at least some of it. They can’t have Dick back, but Bruce is still there, still alive, and breathing, and living a life that doesn’t include them anymore, and if anything, it hurts almost as much as believing him to be dead.

He takes a quick look at all the photos again and he wonders how it is possible that none of them ever realized how important those moments were, how much they would have missed them once they were gone. For all the unspoken things and the cruel past, for all the miscommunications and the fights and the bickering, the truth of what there used to be between them as a family it’s just there in his hands: it was love, love and nothing else.

He hopes that Damian can see it too.

He flips through the pictures one last time, and this time he’s forced to notice how there are no photos of himself, or of Jason, for that matter. It shouldn't have been unexpected, but it stings anyway, even if only a little bit.

Tim’s considering what to do with the photos, if put them in their box and hide it again, or leave everything here on the coffee table for Damian to find, when he hears soft footsteps behind his back and the decision is taken out of his hands.

“Hey”, he says when the kid circumnavigates the couch to come standing in front of him.

“Want some tea?”, Tim offers, lifting his own cup.

Damian shakes his head no and curls up next to Tim, tucking his bare feet under him. He looks still half asleep, which is kind of a blessing right now. Tim has a good feeling about how Damian will take the news of the existence of those illegitimate copies of his pictures, but you never know.

“Mine are still in my room back at home, I believe”, Damian whispers, as he reaches out for the box. Tim lets him have it, and watches him closely as the boy collects all the pictures in his hands.

“Alfred would never let anyone touch your room while you’re away”, he reassures him, and since Damian’s just got to the picture of Dick, he slings an arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulls him closer.

“We’re going to need an album for them”, he says gently. “Like one of those Alfred has back home. We can make a new family album or something. Show it to him once everything goes back to normal, you know?”

Damian nods as he leans against Tim’s chest. He’s still warm from the bed, and his hair is a mess, but also soft under Tim’s chin. He’s wearing one of Jason’s old shirt because for the second week in a row Tim forgot to do the laundry, and he smells like Dick’s aftershave because that’s what Jason’s using now.

Tim holds Damian a bit closer. They are all trying to pick up the pieces as best as they can. It’s not easy.

“We could go to the park tomorrow”, he adds, because why not. “Bring Jason with us. Take some new photos for your album. What do you say?”

Damian moves closer to him, eyes still transfixed on Dick’s face.

“Yes”, he answers softly. “I would like that.”

[sophie-the-shipper]

Whatever the Cost

Word Count: 741 Summary: Amy has a panic attack. [Amy’s POV] Disclaimer: I don’t own Brooklyn Nine-Nine and never had a panic attack. I feel paralyzed. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I feel like there’s something in my throat that isn’t allowing oxygen to reach my lungs. The world is getting dark as I struggle to breathe, and every amount of oxygen my throat allows to enter my system makes me alive for just a little while. Just enough time for someone to appear and save me, just enough time for someone to see me and hold me so that I can breathe.

And somehow those prayers were heard. The sound of that old door opening was never as satisfying as it was this time and if my breathing wasn’t a problem, I would hold out a breath I so clearly didn’t know I had.

I don’t know when he got there. I don’t know the time it was, I don’t know how long I was there reaching out for air, however little it was. I don’t know how long it passed since I got there either because the clock is faded and now I can’t even see it. I feel warmth, and I feel safe. It takes a moment for me to understand what’s going on. I hear a heartbeat, I feel some kind of soft fabric in my hand, I smell aftershave.

It takes me too long to understand the fabric I feel is part of his shirt, and that I’m probably hurting him since my hand also feels skin underneath that fabric. But no matter how badly I try to let go, my brain doesn’t cooperate with my heart. But my throat is allowing oxygen to enter, and I no longer hyperventilating. The aftershave I smell is coming from the shirt I’m holding, and I realize he must have used that shirt while he shaved and let some of it into it. Knowing him, he was probably late and didn’t care. He probably shaved whilst going to work, while sitting in the Brooklyn hectic morning traffic.

That heartbeat I hear is slowing down, and I notice then that he was probably worried. I didn’t have the time to realize that seeing someone you love hugging her knees and not being able to breath must not be easy, but when you’re in that position you don’t get the time to realize things like that. You just want air.

Sometime later I feel his skin against me, and I realize he’s holding me too tightly, but that’s actually helping him. His strong arms are holding me steady, and I take a huge amount of air that makes him let go just a little bit to allow my body space to expand, but I want him to hold me like he was. But I appreciate that small space, for now, I can breath easier.

My hearing comes back later, and I can hear his soft words against my ear, telling me I was going to be okay, to just breath, not to worry about anything but my breathing. Until then all I could feel in my ears was warmth, and I realize then that the reason why was his words against my ear, making me feel better. His voice is sweet and caring, and I never want him to stop talking. Which is a first, because all he usually says is ridiculous and absurd, and I just want him to shut up – usually my weapon of choice are my lips.

When I can finally open my eyes and see things properly, when I can finally see the clock, the table, the floor, when nothing is faded no longer, I can’t feel the warmth anymore. I panic for a moment, trying to search for that source of tender words, warm skin, and soft fabric. It takes me too long to remember why I was in that space in the first place, why I was hiding from the craziness in the bullpen, from the people not knowing what to do without the captain around, without their loveable prankster in his usual desk telling people something foolish. Without that father and son duo that made them laugh so much, cry so much, fight so much. That duo that was no longer there, but was missed so much.

And when the reason why I was there finally appears in that oxygenated brain of mine, I get up and wipe the tears that decided to fill my eyes, determined to have them back.

Whatever the cost.  The End

Clearly, Jake and Holt are in Florida. Jake was not with Amy in the evidence room. She was there alone.

Now read this story thinking about them both like me. Both sitting on the floor, Amy’s head on Jake’s chest, his arms around her, her hand holding tightly his shirt and him saying something in her ear while rubbing small circles in her back. Now I cry.