#Or bake that casserole I promised I was going to make with them | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mycharacterdump · 1 year ago

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𝐋𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐓 '𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄' 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐑 a three - part symphony .

there's a blue light in my best friend's room there's a blue light in his eye i wanna see it shine there's a ship that sails by my window there's a ship that sails on by there's a world under it i think i see it sailing away i think it's sailing miles crashing me by crashing me by.

PART I. BLOOD

Things weren’t always this way.

When I was a kid the clouds didn’t hang like gallows, the summers were swelteringly hot and the winters bitterly cold in the throes of the Mojave but I found salvation in river water and the crackling of firewood in the den, there were bubblegum scented secrets and promises sworn with dirt stained fingers, adventures every corner I turned, I could hear a melody in everything — even the windstorms that battered on our window shutters, even in the arguments my parents had that echoed off the kitchen tiles, even in the deafening silence of night. Music was imbued in every sound and the whole world was a lengthy love ballad that I had the divine pleasure of dissecting.

The day that music died, I was on my bedroom floor trying to decipher my pre-algebra homework and snacking on a pre-assembled food platter that Mom always bought on her way home from work. She could never be bothered to make them herself like other moms at my school did. Every other week there was a food related fundraiser where all the normal mothers in their Suburbans and perfectly ironed collared shirts would strut up the front steps of The Meadows with fresh baked brownies and gingersnaps or some obscure casserole recipe for Thanksgiving, and I would arrive alone to my classroom with a plastic container of sugar cookies.

As much as I resented her for it, the sugar cookies were always a hit with the other kids. Still I wished she would put in more effort. Even if I wasn’t technically hers. I could’ve been, though, I realized early on. If she wanted to, she could’ve claimed me.

Dad was put in the driver’s seat when I turned three. That’s when Mom wanted to go back to work after spending the last nine years raising my older half-brother George and I. Dad tried his best but he seemed damned by the universe in nearly everything he did when it came to homemaking.

I overheard him once tell Mom jokingly that Mercers were cursed. Then I heard her agree.

Anyway, I was rail thin and still had a head full of dark brown hair that I always had pinned up in braids I learned myself, I walked through the front door and bright hazel eyes that hadn’t witnessed a shred of conflict. I was still dressed in my pressed blouse and navy blue skirt that had been my school uniform since I was five years old. I was kicking my legs around, colorful socks adorning my feet after I discarded my Mary Janes, the poster child for well-off, cautiously rebellious children everywhere.

My ears were plugged with a pair of earbuds that I had connected to my iPod. Dad let me buy whatever album I wanted off of our account for my birthday that year, so I wisely chose Avril Lavigne’s Goodbye Lullaby. While What the Hell reverberated against my eardrums I could faintly pick out the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut. That was a tell tale sign that George had gotten home from his study group — he and I had a terrible habit of being too rough with everything we touched.

He must’ve noticed I’d stolen the platter, because instead of ducking into his room so he could continue studying (The Meadows was brutal when it came to homework, I realized as soon as I gradated elementary), he barged into my room. I let out a theatric scream with my mouth full of broccoli and scowled at him.

“I could have been naked!” I cried out.

“God forbid I see you in a Hello Kitty training bra,” George snorted dismissively as he went to steal the platter. I held it away from him. “Don’t start, Lyo.”

“I’m still eating,” I hissed at him.

George and I never did get along. He was six years my elder and I think kind of resented me for being born. I took all the attention away from him and, since Dad took the reins, had less of a strict upbringing than he did with Mom. Plus I was just as smart as he was and it didn’t even take me hours of studying to get where I was already. That really pissed him off, despite the fact he had just gotten accepted to NYU Grossman and had taped the acceptance letter over my straight-A report card on the fridge so no one forgot.

Most people didn’t even register that we were siblings, as while we both possessed gangly limbs and a face painted in freckles and the same green-brown hue in our irises, we couldn’t have been more different otherwise. He had a head full of ginger hair that I always weirdly envied as I was given my birth mother’s dark tresses, and he had a paler complexion, skin ghostly white while mine was more sun kissed — which I thought looked better anyway, considering we lived in Nevada. His nose jutted out from the middle of his face and mine was flat in a way that my first grade teacher described as puggy and his eyes were round and puffy and mine were angular with a distinct curve.

We both considered this a blessing, even if I used to pray at night that I would wake up and we’d look more alike so the kids and teachers at school would see me as a real Mercer.

“You’re gonna need to start packing soon,” he chose to say while popping a carrot into his mouth. I narrowed my eyes at him. He didn’t falter. Why would he, after all? I was seventy-five pounds of attitude and a bit of arrogance.

“Why would I do that?” I asked in return. “Are we going to Disney Land or something?”

George chewed his carrot loudly. I flinched but tried my best to focus on the equation in front of me when he didn’t answer me immediately. “No,” he eventually said. “New York.”

“New York?” I echoed. He nodded. “Why are we going there? To see your stupid college?”

“Because Mom’s moving there,” he informed me.

I seemed caught off guard by this. I didn’t believe him at first, naturally. “Bullshit.” I denied.

“Not bullshit,” he said. “Don’t act surprised. You know her and Dad have been fighting since forever.”

I swallowed when he said this. I knew that much was true — Mom and Dad couldn’t seem to last a day without divulging into a petty argument over the most menial things. I had learned a long time ago how to drown it out and immerse myself in my own world. When I was really little I would try and intervene, thinking I could somehow save them from each other, but of course I was too small and my voice didn’t carry and I was always overlooked.

“I’m not going to New York,” I immediately denied.

“... Okay,” George said as he shrugged and left my room with the platter, kicking the door shut behind him.

And that was that. No one was putting up a fight for me. Not like they ever did.

I guess they thought I would feel grateful. It would be Dad and I, how Mom thought it should’ve been since the day I was left on their doorstep. And I wasn’t that upset over it being the two of us, more so that I had every gnawing doubt confirmed that she held no maternal instinct when it concerned me. Not even deep in the crevices of her psyche. Not even in her DNA, like they said most mothers did.

I was holding out hope she would take me in as her young.

In truth, she would’ve eaten me alive.

Dad encouraged me to help George pack — a symbol of good faith, I once thought, before I walked in on Dad collapsed in a puddle of his own tears and I realized that he himself couldn’t stomach seeing his first born and only son off. This time I felt this immeasurable guilt. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that this was all my doing. If I hadn’t been born or if my birth mother had wanted me, none of this would be happening. I had destroyed a family. The one thing my father ever wanted, I singlehandedly dismantled with my hands still too small to fit a human heart in them. How was I meant to fix him? I couldn’t even take his burdens for him, if just for a moment.

We watched Mom and George climb into her sleek Porsche and cruise out of Jadeleaf Court where we had spent my entire life as a family, or else a crude resemblance to one.

The silence between Dad and I was deafening.

Life, as always, carried on. I went to school the next day without pestering George in the kitchen over breakfast. We were territorial about our shared love of Cap’n Crunch Berries. Now the family size box was all mine. It felt odd, sitting alone at the kitchen isle and scooping up the greasy cereal and shoveling it into my mouth without worrying about my older brother creeping up behind me so he could dump the bowl onto my uniform. Dad and I didn’t know what to talk about during the car ride to school. Normally there were interjecting voices complaining at each other that made us laugh to ourselves, because how couldn’t they see how wonderful the world was outside of their material worries? And when I came home at the end of the day, the house was silent. The peace was disturbing.

Kids at school weren’t shy to gossip. Some of them who lived in my neighborhood had witnessed Mom’s car leave and never come back, others heard whispers from their parents who worked with her at the dinner table and soon enough it was public knowledge that we were on our own. I tried not feeling ashamed; I tried embracing it, that we were taking on the world ourselves, but it was difficult when an invisible weight was placed on my shoulders every time I passed a group of people in the hallway and they’d side-eye me like I was some circus freak for not having a mother anymore.

One day, after I’d stepped off the bus (Dad went back to work full-time about a month after they left, so no more pick-ups), I was dragging myself home through the thick heat of the desert and drowning out my surroundings with music when I noticed a car pull up beside me. It was slim and black and there was a Chevrolet emblem reflecting the sunlight off the hood. I was never that interested in cars, but I did recognize this one. It was Mr. Echols’. He taught pre-calc, a class I had undertaken that year ahead of all my peers. I always thought he was handsome; he had short-cut black hair that began sprouting a few shakes of salt on the sides, these piercing blue eyes, and a cocksure demeanor that catered well to an audience of hormonal girls on the edge of seventeen. I also liked the way he would untuck his shirt at the end of lessons on long days and I could catch a glimpse of his lower stomach and happy trail. The boys said it was intentional. I thought they were all stupid.

“Lyonet?” Mr. Echols spoke up as he rolled down his window. I tucked some flyways behind my ear, wondering if he meant me and not some other Lyonet that happened to be walking down the same street as me. But he kept looking at me with his dreamy eyes and I almost sunk into the scathing concrete. Almost. I managed to swallow my quickly forming doubts about my appearance and nodded at him.

“That’s me,” I replied, my whole disposition a bit maladroit.

“What are you doing walking in this heat?” he asked, his mouth slanted as he flashed me a grin and jerked his head toward the empty passenger seat. “Get in, I can drive you home.”

I didn’t have the stomach to tell him that most doctors would conclude I was still too small to be allowed in the passenger seat, obediently rounding the front of the car and climbing inside. I fumbled around for the seatbelt before I could hear Mr. Echols chuckle and reach over, pulling the leather strap over me and buckling me in. I glanced up at him, my hazel eyes, the only thing I inherited from Dad, it seemed sometimes, crossing gazes with his own that I thought had more backlight whereas every time I saw myself in the mirror it looked like my soul had been carved out and I was some uncanny valley replicant of who once was Lyonet Mercer.

“What’s your address?” he then inquired. I gave him the answer in a too quiet voice. “What was that?”

“9236 Jadeleaf Court,” I repeated, a little louder this time.

Mr. Echols nodded and pulled away from the curb. I glanced through the rearview mirror and watched the stop sign I was at shrinking in the distance, the words warping from behind the heat waves.

It didn’t occur to me until he began talking that I still had music playing faintly in my ears. I quickly yanked my earbuds out and crumpled the wires up in my hands and he chuckled in a way that made me feel warm and my guts twist inside out.

“You couldn’t tear me away from my Walk-Man when I was a kid,” he said, giving a fond sigh as he cruised along the streets of Cherry Creek. “I’d rather have died than sit on the bus without any music. Of course, well, I listened to old shit. The Police, Van Halen, R.E.M, etc.”

I smiled at him. I liked hearing people talk about music — it was one of the few things Dad and I had left that wasn’t tainted by Mom and George’s leaving. “I love those,” I told him. He seemed caught off guard.

“Wasn’t aware kids knew them,” Mr. Echols said. He sounded earnest about it rather than condescending, which I appreciated. “Everyone in my classes is listening to Kanye and Jay Z and, uh, Nicki Mirage?”

“Minaj,” I corrected with a laugh that left my lips before I could stifle it. “I — I like them, too. But my Dad only listened to old rock when I was little. Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and Sonic Youth and Def Leppard… Some Blondie, too. We would dance around the kitchen to More Than A Woman.”

Mr. Echols sported that charming grin again that made me sink further into my seat. “Wow, a man of taste. Or maybe just an old man like me,”

“I don’t think you’re that old,” I decided to return. Who knew I could be so playful? Nowadays I felt too drained to give anyone the time of day, let alone the sprite I used to possess.

He laughed, then leaned in closer and my eyes widened before he grabbed onto the glove box and opened it. A binder of CDs was revealed and his eyebrows perked up at me encouragingly. I reached my hands forward and slid it out of the compartment, immediately starting to browse his collection. I must’ve been smiling hard because he stuck his hand out to poke at my cheek.

“How’s that for old? Pop one in, we’ll drive a few circles around the neighborhood.”

In the end, we wound up doing three loops around the subdivision while jamming out to Ghost in the Machine. I would headbang and he would laugh and then join in when we came to a full stop. During the songs I did recognize, we would turn them into duets, and it wasn’t until the sun was cresting the horizon that he finally pulled up in front of my house and ejected the CD from the mouth of the player.

I grabbed my backpack up off the floor after unbuckling myself, not needing any help this time, and smiled brightly at Mr. Echols. I couldn’t remember the last time I had so much fun or felt so carefree. Not even my friends could coax laughter out of me most days where as once my voice was my most prized instrument.

“... Thanks, Mr. Echols,” I said at last.

“Rory,” he corrected me. I could feel my heart flutter. We had graduated to a first name basis already? I felt compelled to return the gesture.

“Lyo,” I returned and stuck my hand out cheekily. He rolled his eyes as if we’d been friends for decades and needed no introduction, but he eventually caved and accepted it, shaking my hand gently.

As I pulled my hand away and began to push myself out of the passenger seat, he grasped my shoulder in an attempt to stall me. It worked. Of course it worked. I looked back at him and cocked my head sideways curiously.

He pressed his lips into a thin line before bringing his cell phone out his pocket. “Put your number in,” he said. “For emergencies. I know it’s just you and your Dad now. I wouldn’t want you to feel alone if anything happened to him.”

I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t sure it was allowed, but then again, I couldn’t find it in me to care. I accepted his phone and typed in my number and saved it under the initial L. I didn’t add any emojis. That seemed too risky, at least in my opinion. So did giving him a name that was easily identifiable. I didn’t want him getting in any trouble over a good deed.

I finally left the car and trotted up to the front door, a grin forming on my lips.

From then on out, I was beginning to feel like myself again. Maybe even a little better. I woke up early in the mornings like I used to and made breakfast for Dad and I — even if it was just bowls of cereal — and I would take my time in the shower so I could condition my hair twice to make it look extra shiny and smooth for when I got to school, plus I started paying for my uniforms to be dry cleaned like Mom used to have them done before and I convinced Dad to take me out driving. I wanted to learn as to not have that dependence on the bus anymore, since the kids were still ruthless and took pleasure in tugging on the braids that took me the better half of each morning perfecting and snatching my phone out of my hands to see what I was using as a means of ignoring them all. For private school snobs, they acted like fucking animals.

I was looking forward to the holidays. The entire summer and half of autumn had been the worst time of my life and I knew that with my invigorated spirit Dad and I could make something worthwhile out of what we were given. I didn’t even care if George planned on making time to fly out for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah; I had it covered from here on out. I was ahead of the curve. Acing all my tests, avoiding half the curbs upon rounding street corners, and keeping up with my appearance more than I ever had before.

I was nearly full grown.

PART II. FLESH

The first day of Hanukkah I had received a text message from Rory. We were communicating daily at that point, even on the weekends. He would ask me about school and my homework at first, then it unraveled into him divulging all the gory details about the affairs rampant in the teacher’s lounge, and eventually I would clue him in on the day to day student theatrics that took place in my other classes.

R: Think you can meet me at the end of the street?

I glanced away from my Korean coursework (Dad insisted that I take extra classes after Mom and George left) when I noticed my phone light up and I could feel a smile being woven on my lips.

L: be there in a sec

I rifled through my drawers for some after school clothes and settled on a shorter cut sundress and one of Dad’s hand-me-down cable knits, pulling my hair up into two messy space buns that sat square on the back of my head before tugging on my sneakers and rushing out of my bedroom, practically tumbling downstairs. When Dad called out asking what the fuss was about, I dismissed it with a simple Diggy’s outside. Diggy, or Diego, was a kid I’d befriended in the fifth grade and the only thing that kept us in the same circle was our shared adoration for Dungeons & Dragons. He was a cleric. I was a fighter. We worked well together, I thought. We always had each other’s back.

And it’s not like I didn’t want Dad to know about Rory — okay, maybe I didn’t, because I had enough wits to understand that we’d struck up an unusual sort of relationship but I didn’t know if I had the vocabulary available to explain to Dad that it wasn’t like what met the eye. I was an old soul after all, like he’d said from the time I was a toddler, and that meant mine and Rory’s were the same.

I wrote somewhere it was like we were forged from the same star. The more we got to know each other the brighter we burned together.

I spotted his car from my driveway and sped walk down the street. I kept readjusting my sundress and sweater, hoping one wouldn’t detract from the other as I approached the passenger side and ducked into the seat. Rory was watching me the entire time with a grin I could only describe as fond. It made my heart flutter, admittedly.

“That’s cute,” Rory said at first. My eyebrows leaned inward and he gave a chuckle. “What you’re wearing. You know you don’t have to dress up for me.”

Instinctively my face flushed and I touched my cheek which felt like it was burning. “I was just changing. School makes me sweat.” I blurted, then flinched at my wording. He was amused by it, at least. I kept cursing myself in my head until he reached out and brushed his fingertips across the back of my neck.

“I meant it as a compliment,” he reassured. “I like your hair this way. Let me guess, you appreciate old cinema as well as music?”

“... Is Star Wars that old?” I asked in return with a crooked smile. It took every ounce of confidence for me to summon anything more than awkward, disjointed laughter that I felt bubbling up in my chest.

“Guess not. It’s not technically cinema either.” he joked as he leaned back casually against his seat, his arm still slung over the head rest of my seat.

I glanced around for a moment, then cleared my throat. “So, um… What’s up?” I asked eventually. The tension between us was palpable. I nearly choked on it.

“Oh, that’s right,” Rory said, reaching behind me and pulling out a sloppily wrapped gift box from the backseat. My eyes widened, caught off guard by the sudden gesture. We were giving each other presents now? But it wasn’t even Christmas yet, so maybe I had time— “Happy Hanukkah, Lyo.”

I lit up. He had gotten me something for a holiday he didn’t even celebrate? I beamed down at the present before he coughed into his fist, prompting me to begin opening it. When I tore away the crinkled wrapping paper and slid off the lid, I was taken aback by the sight of his binder of CDs decorated with a bright red bow.

“Holy shit,” I breathed out as I reached to take it out of the box. “Is this—?”

“My personal collection,” Rory confirmed with a chuckle.

I started shaking my head. Manners dictated I did so. “I can’t have this,” I insisted first while still taking a peek at all of the CDs kept in their individual sleeves.

“Of course you can. It’s already yours. Plus, it’ll get much more use out of you these days than it will me,” he said, extending a hand to place upon mine. I could feel every nerve in my body being struck by pulses of adrenaline.

“... Thank you,” I said quietly. I didn’t think it through when I looked up at Rory and saw his blue-blue eyes and stupidly alluring grin and leaned in so I could leave a soft kiss on his pinkened cheek. I froze in place, knowing I must have crossed some invisible boundary that had been set up from the moment we became friends off campus, but while he didn’t respond at first eventually he placed a hand under my chin and tilted my head so our lips could meet.

It was gentle and tentative and everything I could’ve ever asked for out of a first kiss. All the other boys that showed interest in me before were too eager, too obnoxious and not to mention too grimy. Rory was none of those things — he was their diametric opposite, really. He was calm, he paced himself in everything he did, he was mellow and he had this intoxicating scent of cologne that he must’ve knew would drive all the girls in his class insane. It certainly had that effect on me.

He pulled away before I did. Personally, I could’ve kept kissing him until I lost my breath, but then I reminded myself we were still in plain sight and anyone passing by could’ve seen us and been thrown off. The last thing I wanted was some middle-aged mother witnessing us together and crying wolf over a situation I felt I had total control over, so I sunk back into my seat with the binder still in my lap.

“I should go,” Rory said at last. I eyed him for a long time, still feeling the compulsion to bring him into another kiss. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t felt so aware of my surroundings until that very moment. Life had felt like I was wading through a pool of old memories and remnants of what could’ve been ever since Dad and I were left on our own.

“I — I liked it,” I said suddenly. He glanced over at me, seeming more wary than before, and it made me feel guilty. I had instigated it. I might’ve just ruined it, too. “And I like you. A lot. I know it’s strange because of our ages but — but no one’s really cared to try and, y’know, talk to me and even care about my life, like, ever. Ever ever. But I don’t wanna ruin this, either, so if I should stop just tell me—”

“Lyo,” he let out.

“No, really, it’s fine, I’ll go,” I decided as I held the box close to me and went to open the door. Before I could step out, Rory took a hold of my upper arm and kept me seated. I looked back at him. He seemed conflicted; not sure whether letting me go or having me stay would be the right choice. I knew it must’ve been difficult and I wished that burden hadn’t been plaguing whatever relationship we had.

His eyes met mine. Time stilled. “North Shore Inn,” he said. “it’s in Overton. Meet me there on Saturday. Ten o’clock.”

I’d never been to Overton nor heard of the North Shore Inn, but I wasn’t going to reject his offer. It might’ve been the last night of Hanukkah, however I knew that Dad would likely be asleep by then and I could sneak out with relative ease, and I was right. I didn’t know how I was supposed to dress — casual or showy? I lacked any of the tool to put on a face of makeup; Mom had given me the products she wasn’t bringing with her to New York, but those had long since expired and I feared the repercussion would be a horrendous outbreak, so I decided to make up for it by wearing one of my form-fitting tees and the most expensive cargo pants I owned. I covered myself up with an oversized hoodie after assembling my hair into buns and crept downstairs.

I was right. Dad was passed out in the recliner. Unlike most fathers, one glass of wine incapacitated him rather than a pack of beers, which was kind of ironic considering he was born and bred in France. He used to tell George and I he quit drinking for us. George never really believed him, mostly because Mom was hypervigilant every time he held a glass of whiskey at backyard gatherings that he would at best sip at to be polite before pouring it into the bushes. That was the Dad I remember. My Dad. I wondered often if George felt betrayed by him when I was born. Maybe that was why he refused to see him as anything but a pretentious wannabe philosopher — I just saw a man trying desperately to mend the wounds he created in his youth through the only means he knew how: not through hard logic but sensibility.

Not so many men in the world were that gentle and thoughtful. No one, I thought, except for Rory.

I biked across town, my calves straining by the time I had crossed the limit into Overton. After a while of aimlessly cruising around I spotted the glowing sign for the North Shore Inn. I could feel a pit form in my stomach which disconcerted me at first before I pushed it aside and pedaled forward. I ditched my bike near the fence and hoped no one on this side of town would feel compelled to grab it, sauntering around the premises until I stumbled across Room 44.

Holding my breath I stared at the metal numbers. Could this be real? It had to be, as I was more aware of every extremity I possessed not to mention all the organs that pulsed deep within the cavity of my chest. Finally, I raised my fist and left three quick raps on the door. A part of me didn’t expect anyone to answer. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he thought it was too risky, that I wasn’t worth losing everything for. I would’ve understood. It wouldn’t be the first time someone left me behind.

Then, the door came open, and I saw his smile and the whole world began spinning faster on its axis.

He told me I looked comfortable. I felt a blush encroach upon my cheeks so I reached down and tugged my hoodie over my head, revealing the tunic I had on underneath. His expression softened as he examined me; I felt like I was being picked apart surgically, all methodical and calculated. I was still a skinny thing. I found it difficult to eat the past few months, even more so than before. Hanukkah was supposed to have helped, but I felt too nauseous half the time thinking about Rory and the time we’d spent together. It was a good sick, I think. A lovesick.

After scrutinizing me for a while, he invited me to sit beside him on the edge of the motel bed. It was stiff and the duvet was noticeably cheap but I didn’t mind. All I could focus on was him. He reached out and placed his palm against my burning cheek. I swallowed hard. I didn’t know what to do, how to perform best for him — he’d surely had plenty of women, how was I meant to compete?

You can relax, he said, all breathy and full of tension. I obeyed as best I could. I let my shoulders go slack and I could feel my breathing slow, though it was more of an intentional thought than a natural response. Our eyes met for just an instant before his gaze drifted to where my lips were. I’d smothered them in lipgloss as I was heading out the door, so they shimmered and would taste like strawberries. Instead of engulfing me in a heated kiss, he moved his thumb over my mouth to smear away the lipgloss and then pressed his lips against mine.

My eyebrows furrowed but I didn’t protest. How could I? I figured I’d wanted this for longer than even I had realized in that one paralyzing moment. And I was paralyzed. For some reason it felt like I was no longer in control of the situation as he lowered me onto the lumpy pillows and groped parts of me that hadn’t yet been explored by anyone and left dry kisses on my face and neck. I squirmed around at some point, which must’ve upset him somehow as he grasped my wrists and pinned them above my head. My breathing quickened. I felt my heart rebel against me as it rattled in my chest. He must’ve felt it somehow, because he kept saying Relax, relax, relax, but I couldn’t.

I don’t know what happened. I thought I was ready for this. I felt ready until the moment I dreamt of had come to fruition and I could feel his hands all over me and his lips reaching places I had only ever touched in the dark. When I lowered my arms so I could place them on his shoulders in an attempt to ground myself it only seemed to irritate him as he held tightly onto my wrists and pinned them back above my head.

I tried to like it. I wanted to so badly. More than anything I wanted to find the beauty and pleasure in the act. The raw passion and the aching desire. But I just… Laid there. Almost entirely motionless, I stared up vacantly at the ceiling and counted each thrust he made, tears stinging my eyes as I hadn’t anticipated the intense panging below my stomach to radiate throughout my lower half. The room was eerily quiet apart from his grunts and curses he’d say under his breath.

Then, at some point, he lifted himself up from where he’d splayed atop me and he reached for the nightstand. I wondered if he was searching for a condom — everything felt so bare when he shoved himself into me. Instead of any protection he held up what looked to be a vintage Polaroid camera. His fingers unfurled and he pressed his palm against my cheek and whispered some words of encouragement before pressing down on the button. A flash blinded me. I grimaced and turned away. He forced me to look back up at him as he set the camera aside again.

When he finished all that I had left to immortalize it was a deep hollow made in my gut and a soreness between my legs. My vision was still bleary from the blinding flash of the camera. When I could focus on my surroundings again, he had lifted himself off of the bed and began pulling on his shirt and pants. Before I was able to reconcile with the disorienting shift in my emotions he’d asked me if I needed a ride home.

I shook my head. I may have felt weak and unraveled, but I didn’t want to leave my bike behind, nor did I really want to share any space with him alone again.

I biked all the way across Summerlin so I could get home. When I opened the door and snuck in through the kitchen, the time on the stove read 3:03 A.M. Somehow, it’d felt like longer. Exhausted but restless, I trudged upstairs and kicked off my shoes and entered my bathroom. I didn’t switch on the lights as I started the shower. I undressed in the dark. I didn’t want to face myself or see any of the damage inflicted upon me.

I stepped underneath the hot water and let it consume me.

PART III. PULP

I had deleted Rory’s number from my phone. He didn’t seem bothered, as I received no virtual or verbal complaint whenever I’d turn in my assignments at the end of class. Nor did he ever call on me, staunchly ignoring my very existence if it didn’t have to do with grading my work. I was still the best performer in his class. At the end of the semester he awarded me with a certificate, like the kind you’d receive in elementary school for participation or attendance, and told me to have a good summer. I felt the primal urge to beat him until his blood coated my fists and his face was unrecognizable. A puddle of bone and cartilage.

Not everything was so grim. Over Christmas, which I wasn’t certain we’d celebrate as we were missing Mom who was the only Christian (non-practicing, but still) in our household, Dad had surprised me by placing a large box in front of me after I’d opened the rest of my gifts. When I undid the ribbon and looked inside, a wide-eyed, bushy tailed sheepdog pup looked up at me like I’d hung the moon. I started crying. I didn’t stop. Dad came to console me, holding me against his chest as the puppy tumbled out of the box and joined us.

We named him Homer, because he looked wise and all-knowing underneath all his grey and white tufts and also because he ate the donuts that Dad had ordered the day before for Christmas breakfast.

On New Year’s, my Dungeons & Dragons party group chat lit up my phone with notifications about a small get together at Kira’s. She was our monk and also the first girl I had a devestatingly pathetic crush on when we met in the eighth grade. I told Dad I didn’t feel like going because I didn’t want to leave him alone, but he insisted I go since I’d spent the last few weeks locked up in our house.

“See you next year, kiddo,” he said as he pressed a kiss atop my head.

Despite wanting to have a good time, I mostly felt spaced out — just like I had since Hanukkah. I felt like a spectator more than a participant in the festivities my friends had arranged for us; there was a wide variety of food available that I felt no inclination to eat, music blaring from the surround sound system Kira’s parents installed in the basement where we dwelled for our weekly campaigns, and warm conversation about their collective years. I just sipped on the cocktail Kira gave me and sat on the couch, occasionally pitching in when it’d been a while since I spoke.

Eventually, Diego came to sit beside me. I offered him a halfhearted smile and nudged him.

“Everything okay, Lyo?” Diego asked in a way that I know he wanted to sound innocent but was made painstakingly clear he was genuinely concerned. “You’re kinda quiet tonight.”

“... Long day, you know?” I chose to excuse.

“Really? On New Year’s Eve?” he denied with a shake of his head. “You can be honest with me. I’m not gonna go telling everyone like Kira or Bo.”

I swallowed, unsure whether I should be honest or save him the trouble of having to try and mend the permanent wounds that were etched into my very being. “This year just sucked,” I said. “I wanna forget all about it.”

Diego’s lips pressed together into a thin line and he began nodding along. “Well. I get that,” he finally surrendered. “But you know we’ll always be here. Right? We’re a party.”

I forced a brighter smile. “Yeah,” I said quietly and clinked my cup against his.

When walking home after the clock struck midnight, not wanting Dad to wake up alone on New Year’s Day, I thought a lot about the past year of my life. I had lost everything; my family, my pride, my dignity, any hope of a semi-normal life going forward. I was stripped of my humanity and made to be a plaything. A porcelain doll with cracks where my red hot veins once resided under what used to be my living flesh. Maybe even worse — a ghost, whose words spoken could only be deciphered through the methodical sliding of a planchette across a board and whose presence had diminished from a bright spark to a softly flickering candle flame. I didn’t know who I had become. I certainly didn’t recognize who looked back at me in the mirror. My face was sunken in and devoid of color. I’d lose more weight, so all of my clothes hung off me like I was a stiff mannequin. I might as well have been. I had shown no real signs of life since that night at the motel.

Homer greeted me at the door. He was waiting for me. He was always waiting for someone. I suppose we all were; me, my Dad and this dog.

I turned sixteen that February. I was gifted more presents than I anticipated from my friends; a new set of die from Bo, a silver ring in the shape of a star from Kira, and a copy of the Atlas Obscura from Diego with a note that read: FOR WHEN YOU WANT YOUR OWN ADVENTURE.

Mom sent George with a card and a box of chocolates I hadn’t eaten or liked in years. I felt somewhat lucky that my brother was there, even if we didn’t always get along. It was nice knowing they hadn’t forgotten all about me. He picked up my birthday cake (strawberries and cream) and held up a disposable camera to take a snapshot of me blowing out the candles. I tried not to flinch when the flash went off.

George had gotten me a picture frame of our first day attending The Meadows. I was five and he was eleven, and despite the fact I knew he must have held some contempt for me even then he had an arm slung around my shoulders and he held me close to his side. We wore matching white polos and khakis, though we couldn’t have looked more different otherwise. Still, in the certain light we were captured in, I could see our eyes lit up the same kind of greenish-brown.

Then, he handed me a photo of an ultra sound. I glanced up at him in confusion. He was smiling. I hardly ever saw him smile.

“Rosie’s pregnant,” he announced. He sounded more happy than he ever had before, however I could still pick out the tremor in his voice. He must’ve been nervous as hell. “She’s due in September.”

Dad was overjoyed. So was I. I hadn’t expected Dad’s reaction to be so… Intense, though. He couldn’t stop crying. He hugged George so tight that he nearly turned purple. It was in that moment I knew that something was wrong. While Dad was naturally a very emotional being, there was a hint of sorrow in his expression when he pulled away and stroked his only son’s cheek, tear stains evident underneath his tired eyes.

In bed that night I couldn’t find sleep. I tossed and turned underneath my blankets as I thought about Dad and George and even Mom. What had become of us all this past year? Mom was living in New York, the life she had always wanted yet couldn’t quite achieve entirely because there would always be a tether through George to Dad, and at the end of that tether was me, someone she couldn’t escape no matter how far she fled. Then there was George, a budding med student whose future had shifted drastically in an instant, all thanks to a bright pink line. And finally there was Dad, who was himself but not at the same time. Almost like an exaggerated iteration of himself; someone putting on a performance. It was unsettling, if I’m being honest. I wanted him to be happy because it had been so long since I’d seen a genuine spark in his eyes — but I’m not sure I wanted it to happen like this.

I scooted out of bed eventually and trodded halfway down the stairs before I heard muffled conversation. My eyebrows knitted together as I sunk onto the steps, resting my head against the railing as echoing voices chorused throughout the first floor. I could hear distress emitted from George’s lips, and a solemn silence was held for a couple beats before a sob broke out. I could hear it then: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my baby boy, I’m so sorry.

I knew it. I knew something was wrong. What had Dad done?

I crept back up to my room. It felt intrusive to try and insert myself into their conversation and I didn’t want anyone pissed off at me. So I forced my eyes closed and willed for sleep to come, even if I had an endless cacophony of thoughts ringing in my head.

Morning light filtered in through my blinds, bleaching my walls and carpet a soft yellow. I grimaced as the sunbeams struck my eyes and I rubbed the last of sleep out of my vision before pushing myself up onto my elbows. The house was quiet. I wondered if I was the first awake, if my body didn’t let me sleep for as long as I wished it would’ve, but then I heard rummaging and I figured it was the sound of Dad helping George gather his things so he could depart to the airport.

I pulled a cardigan I’d tossed over my desk chair over my head and went to assess whatever damage had been wrought the night before. I braced myself for what was coming. My breath was stifled in my throat as I walked downstairs and glanced around for any sight of Dad or George. Eventually, I wandered into the living room and saw them both sat on the couch. Cups of steaming coffee were left untouched on the center table.

“... Morning,” I spoke up.

“Lyo,” Dad assumed a smile as soon as he noticed me. It wasn’t his natural smile, though. There was a shadow of melancholy encompassing his expression.

George glanced up at me. He looked thinned out. Defeated. More so than he usually did when he’d come home with pages upon pages of notes to study for school. Light didn’t reach his eyes and it made me feel sick.

“What’s wrong?” I immediately asked. I didn’t want to engage in small talk — if something bad had happened, I deserved to know without anything impeding it.

Dad visibly swallowed and motioned for me to sit in the empty spot beside him. I eyed him and George warily as I walked ahead, advancing until I was seated between the two of them. As soon as I sat I could hear my brother inhale shakily.

I can’t remember exactly what happened next. All I can recall is hearing Dad say I’m sick, and then take a breath before elaborating while my world spun out of orbit. Something about cancer. Renal cell, I later discovered. Eight months to live with treatment, give or take. As a result, I couldn’t stay in Summerlin. He couldn’t take care of me anymore. So George would. He and Rosalie, in their new rental in Avalon — I guess that’s where they’d been that whole time. I never cared enough to ask.

I rejected the idea at first, of course. I wasn’t going to let my dad rot while I pretended I could live a normal life across the country. How could I? He had done everything for me. Maybe it was my turn to do the same for him. No, it was definitely my turn. I didn’t care how much I’d endured since Mom and George left. They left. And it was up to me to pick up the pieces of the life we had that they shattered with little remorse.

But then Dad was guiding me upstairs as I fought back and cried. George kept asking me the same questions about what I wanted to take with me and what I could stand to live without until Dad could pack it up properly and send it to New York. I didn’t answer; so he opened up my dresser drawers and tossed whatever he could into my suitcase. I hadn’t used it in years. It still had Hello Kitty stickers plastered on the shell.

I was forced out the front door still in my pajamas when the taxi pulled up to our driveway. I kept reaching out for Dad, expecting him to reach back, but he just watched from a distance as George forcibly placed me in the backseat and tossed my suitcase into the trunk. As the house I had grown up in shrunk in the distance, so did the image of my father, distorted by the waves of heat that encompassed the atmosphere.

I felt worse than I ever had. Worse than when I found out my own blood came from a stranger, or when my flesh was desecrated. I felt like I’d been ground to a pulp.

EPILOGUE

After enduring a hellish four months in Avalon, trying and failing miserably to integrate into the teenage social scene at my new public school, I received a phone call from my Uncle Remy. He was Dad’s older brother who had moved from Chicago to Summerlin so he could watch after him as he got sicker. And he did. He could hardly manage a conversation when I called. Normally the line went quiet and I assumed his drug cocktail had caught up to him and made him drowsy, so I always hung up first. At some point George told me it’d be easier if I gave him space — I almost rung his neck for even suggesting that. Rosalie was the mitigator in our household. I’m sure I would’ve been cast out onto the streets if it weren’t for her.

Uncle Remy said that Dad was deteriorating by the day and that we should all take time out of our schedules to visit. I gulped down the fear and the anger I felt forming in the base of my throat that made me want to cry out and I carried on the message to Mom and George. Of course, Mom made some excuse that Dad wouldn’t like to see her anyway. I tried my best to talk reason with her. He still loves you, I said. He loved the idea of me, Lyonet. He needs his real family. Not someone who pretended to be a part of it. she replied.

She thought she was being the bigger person. I knew she was a coward.

George made up an excuse as well. His daughter, my niece Maia, had been born a few weeks prior and med school was royally kicking his ass. He would try and catch one of the last flights out at the end of the year. Make a holiday of it for himself, the baby and Rosalie. He was being willfully ignorant. He knew that Dad wouldn’t survive until the winter.

I boarded the plane by myself. I watched as we cut through the cloud cover and ascended high enough to where you could pick out faint speckles that were meant to be stars. If I were raised any differently, I’d had held out hope that if we lifted ourselves high enough we would somehow reach heaven — but I didn’t. No one in the faith I once shared with Dad postulated about fancy castles erected in gold and white or some eternal gathering of loved ones around a dinner table full of food and wine. It was about a oneness with God. I felt no such thing on earth, so I didn’t count on it for the afterlife, either.

Uncle Remy picked me up from the airport. We didn’t talk much because in reality we didn’t know each other very well. I could only pick out faint, bleary memories spent at a cabin in Illinois that my mémé and grand-père had bought when they first immigrated to the States, where he would toss me over his shoulder and sprint down the boardwalk before launching me into the stifling cold lake.

He didn’t seem as lively now. Then again, I doubt I did either.

My house didn’t feel like my house when we arrived. I stepped in through the front door for the first time and months and everything felt changed. I was brought up to my old bedroom first since Uncle Remy said Dad was still asleep. When I entered I could feel my stomach bottom out. Old posters still hung crookedly on the pink painted walls and my shaggy rug I got for my eleventh birthday was splayed out underneath an empty desk and chair. There was even a small family of stuffed animals that resided on newly installed shelves.

I sat on the edge of my old bed and put my head in my hands. How was this happening? What had become of my life? I lost everything and I was only sixteen.

Half an hour later Uncle Remy knocked on my door and told me that he’d woken up. It was like I was moving through a pool with how slow each movement I made was, wading endlessly through a vast body of water that could’ve sunk me at any given moment. I eventually made it across the hall to where the master bedroom was. I could hear the soft humming of medical equipment and canned laughter emanating from the TV. When I opened the door, I saw Dad in bed, but it didn’t look like him, not really.

He was deathly pale. There was no more glow in his skin and no light reached his eyes. The beard he had prided himself on growing out for the first time in his life had been shaven, so his face was clean but it didn’t make him look any more like himself. His chest lifted and fell in uneven pants as he tried to catch his breath. It felt wrong looking at him. There was no dignity in this kind of death.

“Lyo?” Dad rasped out. A weak smile twitched in the corner of his mouth and tears began accumulating on my waterline as I saw him. “C’mere, my wild girl.”

I walked across the room obediently and went to sit at his side. “... Hi,” I said, the word strained.

“Good to see you,” he replied — I could tell it took half his energy just to conjure up a sentence when at one point in time you could never get him to stop talking.

“You too,” I returned. I forced a smile. I had no other choice, even if it was evident I was on the brink of falling apart.

Dad lifted his hand up and wiped away the stray tears that escaped. “So grown up,” he noted. There was a sense of awe in his words, like he hadn’t watched me grow from the time I was left on his doorstep. “Just like your mother, I think.”

“... Yeah?” I said as my eyebrows pinched together. I didn’t know what to think of that assessment, as I never knew her. I hadn’t even seen a picture of her. I wasn’t sure Dad had one, anyway. She was an elusive creature from what I had heard.

“Always have been,” he hummed. “I… I wanted to tell you about her. Before. But… I didn’t know how.”

I shook my head at this. “You don’t have to say anything,” I assured him. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” he insisted, pressing his lips into a frown. “You deserved answers. You deserved more.”

“So did you,” I returned as I leaned my cheek into his open palm. A saddened smile pulled on the corner of my mouth while we gazed at each other, drinking one another in for what I knew in my blood and in my bones would be the last time.

Dad stroked my cheek gently. Always gentle, always kind. Always an angel, never a God. “I got everything I wanted.” he said, and he sounded very decided on that matter, so I didn’t argue.

We sat in silence for a while. I couldn’t resist reflecting on my life in Summerlin that was coming to a close. With Dad gone, I would have no reason to be there anymore. All of my friends were planning on spreading out across the country to attend different schools and soon enough we’d fall out of contact and never see each other again. No other family lived there. What I had left would be returned to ashes and dust.

As Dad began waning in and out of consciousness, he mustered up the strength to ask me one last thing. “Sing,” he said, losing his breath after.

I swallowed and nodded, looking down at our touching hands as I beckoned the words out of my throat.

She wore faded jeans and soft black leather She had eyes so blue they looked like weather When she needed me I wasn't around That's the way it goes, it'll all work out There were times apart and times together I was pledged to her for worse or better When it mattered most I let her down That's the way it goes, it'll all work out It'll all work out eventually Better off with Him than here with me Now the wind is high and the rain is heavy The water's rising in the levee Still I think of her when the sun goes down Never goes away, but it all works out.

He died two days after I left.

Rosalie told me to go to homecoming after the funeral, which was a horrid affair I’d rather not detail. I wanted to scream at her: I don’t want to dance and make friends. I want to be in the ground. I want to be dead. But I knew she’d just tell my psychiatrist what I said, and I was convinced in my rampant paranoia he was out to get me, so I stayed quiet and let her dress me up in her old sheer red dress she never got to wear to prom and decorate me in a thin layer of makeup so I wasn’t too overwhelmed.

The dance sucked. I never attended homecoming or any other school sanctioned events at The Meadows, always forfeiting them in place of a Dungeons & Dragons session at Kira’s. Somehow I got caught up in a crowd that shuttled me to an afterparty. I knew I didn’t have much of a choice in going; Rosalie would be worried if I came home too soon.

So I drank the bad Kool-Aid cocktail made in a punch bowl and swayed my hips to the music that blared overhead. It wasn’t until a taller, broad-shouldered male approached me that I felt dwarfed for the first time since — well, since Rory, who had never even attempted to contact me after the whole town found out about Dad’s cancer and subsequent passing.

He spoke at me with alcohol laced breath and I endured it because I didn’t know any better. Even though I felt a deep urge to knee him in the dick and escape, I let him say whatever he wanted and think I was impressed, which apparently was an easy feat, as soon enough his hands were on my hips and we were dancing together and I was a bit too tipsy to care what happened next.

I half-expected for him to escort me upstairs or even shove me in a bathroom and take me there, but just as he began hitching up my dress I could feel it. The pills I’d taken from the clique of stoners I befriended at the dance had caught up to me and were beginning to trigger the first seizure I’d had in years. I slid out from underneath the stranger’s grip and he started loudly complaining, but I was lucky enough that he didn’t feel the need to trail after me.

I stumbled through the crowds and then the kitchen, the harsh overhead lights momentarily blinding me before I located a closet and tripped inside, praying for some sort of relief. It didn’t last for long, because someone began knocking on the door as soon as it was closed.

“You alive?” the person asked.

“Yes!” I returned, wanting them gone just so I could wither away in peace. “Just — fuck off!”

The door opened then and as I looked up at the person I could feel the size of my heart increase by tenfold. My whole body was lit aflame. I had never felt anything like it.

I could remember striking up a small conversation with him before I lost consciousness, but my final thought had been how, for the first time since Dad and I were left on our own, I could hear a symphony.

there's a world outside my doorstep flames over everyone's heart don't you see them shining? i want to hear them beating for me i think i hear them waves crashing me by.

#lyonet — character study.#self-para #10.2k words

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reallydumbdannyphantomaus · 2 years ago

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Valerie, Paulina, and Danny are stuck in a time loop as the end of the world looms. It goes about as well as you'd expect. (ao3) (p.s. if you read an earlier version of this already, this is a longer and more complete first chapter, tho the first section is almost entirely the same) also tagging @not-your-average-url since they specifically requested it

Loop 0

"Oh my god, Valerie, do you have to be so dramatic?" Paulina snapped her compact mirror closed, meeting Valerie's glare with her own, just as fierce. "Now we're both in trouble."

"Don't say shit about my dad, then," Valerie said, fingers clenching at her side, "and we won't have a problem."

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true."

"My dad baked you brownies every year for your birthday, and you called him a fat loser to my face. You should've expected to get punched."

Stuck between them outside Principal Ishiyama's office, Danny sighed. Sam and Tucker were right: he'd developed too much of a "hero" thing. Jumping in the middle of Valerie and Paulina's fight to break it up only got him sent to the office as well. He should've left well enough alone, but it was too late now.

"You and your dad's fall from grace isn't my fault. All I did was acknowledge it."

Danny groaned. It was the end of the school day. The last bell was about to ring. And here he was, trapped between two angry former crushes.

"Paulina, could you stop being an asshole for, like, five minutes?" he said, pinching the bridge of his nose where his headache pounded. He just wanted to go home and pass out. Between Skulker and his homework, he'd only gotten about an hour's worth of sleep last night.

Paulina scoffed. "Whatever, Fenton."

Valerie turned her glare on him. "I don't need you to fight my battles, Danny."

"I really just wish you wouldn't fight at al—"

A wisp of blue air escaped his mouth just as the world exploded in light and noise and pain.

Loop 1

Danny burst awake to his blaring alarm.

The world came into focus bit by bit, as the jackrabbit pace of his heart slowed to a normal pace. Danny could make out the glow-in-the-dark stars over his bed, faintly shining in the morning light.

“Danny, if you’re not ready in 15 minutes, you can take the bus to school! I’m not waiting!” Jazz yelled on the other side of his door.

“Uh, okay!” he yelled back, trying to keep his voice from quivering. Was it… a dream? It all felt so real, so normal, even, right until the end…

The smell of burning bread wafted into his room. Mom burned her toast again. She burned it in his dream, too, but she burned it most days. That didn’t mean anything. Had Jazz yelled at him in the dream? He wasn’t sure. He’d been pretty sleep deprived so a lot of the day was pretty fuzzy.

He had the strangest sense of deja vu the whole day. When he got to school, Dash knocked into him in the hallway and sent him crashing into the locker. This happened most days. Less common was Sam shouting “Douche Baxter!” after him. She’d said that in the dream, too.

“New nickname?” he said.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess. I mean, it fits him well enough, right?”

“Y-Yeah. Yeah.”

Sam frowned. “Are you okay? He didn’t actually hurt you, did he?”

Danny waved her off. “Nah, Skulker gave me worse last night. Just some… weird deja vu.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Okay, well. If you change your mind…”

“You and Tuck will be the first to know, I promise.”

“Good.”

The rest of the day wasn’t any better. Dash stumbled over the same presentation on the industrial revolution he vaguely remembered sleeping through in his dream. The cafeteria served the same almost-crunchy tuna noodle casserole. Mikey slipped in the same puddle after one of the football players removed the CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign.

“I think I’m going crazy,” he said as Nathan helped to pick Mikey up off the floor.

“And this is news?” Tucker said. Sam elbowed him. “Ow.”

“What he means is: what makes you say that?”

“I just—I had this dream last night, and I think it’s… coming true?”

“Like a prophetic vision?”

“Something like that. Like, in my dream, Mikey slipped in the puddle just like that.”

“So?” Tucker said through a mouthful of his turkey sandwich. “Mikey falls all the time.”

“It’s not just that. It’s—I swear I heard you call Dash ‘Douche Baxter’ in the dream too. And I heard his presentation, too.”

Sam sat back in her seat, humming thoughtfully. “What else happened in the dream? If we are living your dream, then what happens next?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. I only remember bits and pieces. The next thing I remember for sure happening is Valerie and Paulina getting into a fight in seventh period.”

Tucker laughed. “Oh, I’m putting money on Valerie to win that fight. A hundred percent.”

“Okay, well how about this: if the fight happens, then you’ve got some weird prophetic vision going on. If it doesn’t, then it’s just a weird dream.”

“Works for me,” Tucker said around another mouthful.

“I guess,” Danny said. The ending of his dream played on a loop in his head. He was pretty sure they’d died there at the end.

He really hoped Valerie and Paulina didn’t fight in seventh period English.

The clock ticked interminably slow the rest of the day. Every sound made him jump. He turned his head at every movement. Every word spoken was checked against the catalog in his head of his half-remembered dream. He second-guessed everything that happened around him. Had Kwan sat down quite so heavily in his dream? Did Star ask that question? Yes, she definitely had. He remembered it. Right?

As the bell rang for seventh period, every muscle in his body ached with the strain of being held in tension for so long. In his dream, Valerie and Paulina had got up to fight almost immediately after the bell rang. Lancer hadn’t even gotten class started yet.

He eased himself into his seat, staring between Valerie and Paulina, both of whom seemed… set on ignoring each other. His eyes darted back and forth, but neither of them even looked at the other. Lancer moved to the front of the classroom and wrote The Scarlet Letter on the board and the two girls were both still staring at their desks.

Danny let out a sigh of relief. It was just a dream after all.

Lancer’s class passed in a blur. He pillowed his arms on his desk and let the teacher’s low drone lull him.

As he had almost passed out, he gasped as the cool mist of his ghost sense escaped him. He looked out the window to see something bright and green and burning race toward the classroom. He stood. Paulina screamed.

The world exploded again.

Loop 2

Danny burst awake to his blaring alarm.

—

Loop 0

Sometimes, Valerie couldn’t believe she was ever friends with Paulina Sanchez.

She wasn’t always this girl, was she? She wasn’t always someone who dragged everyone down to make sure that she was always on the top, right? At some point, the two of them were just normal, everyday friends.

Weren’t they?

Over Danny’s head, Valerie glared at Paulina, who was fixing her makeup. Whatever the past, the present reality was that Valerie was no longer Paulina’s friend, which apparently meant that she was now Paulina’s target.

She could handle it, though. She would never be favored by school administrators in a fight regardless of the context, so she had gotten excellent at not reacting.

Until Paulina brought her dad into it.

Valerie clenched her fist at the thought. Damon Gray had always been kind to Paulina. She’d even told Valerie once that he was more of a father to her than her own dad. He didn’t deserve the words that came out of Paulina’s mouth.

"Oh my god, Valerie, do you have to be so dramatic? Now we're both in trouble."

“Don’t say shit about my dad, then, and we won’t have a problem.”

Danny cringed between them. Poor guy, getting stuck in this mess. He really should’ve just let her go to town on Paulina rather than getting in the way.

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

“My dad baked you brownies every year for your birthday, and you called him a fat loser to my face. You should've expected to get punched.”

"You and your dad's fall from grace isn't my fault. All I did was acknowledge it."

"Paulina, could you stop being an asshole for, like, five minutes?" Danny finally spoke up, a heavy layer of exhaustion in his voice. Valerie had no idea why he insisted on staying up so late every night, but it clearly took its toll on him. She was pretty sure she’d seen him dozing in each of the three classes they shared.

Still, she didn’t need his help with Paulina. It was her own problem.

"I don't need you to fight my battles, Danny."

"I really just wish you wouldn't fight at al—"

Danny gasped mid-sentence, and the world erupted.

Loop 1

Valerie jolted awake.

Cold sweat stuck the old Humpty Dumpty t-shirt she slept in to her back. Each breath came out as a stuttering gasp. She pounded her chest with her fist, desperate to get some control over her breathing.

A knock on her door. Her father’s exhausted voice. “Val, I’m heading to bed. Have a good day at school, sweetheart. I’ll see you for dinner? My shift starts at 8, can you be home in time?”

Valerie took a deep breath. Then another.

“Val?”

“Yeah!” she said, keeping her voice more-or-less stable. “Yeah I can—I can make it.”

“Good. Good morning!” he said with a chuckle. It was her dad’s new favorite joke: now that he worked the night shift and went to bed in the morning, he said “good morning” the same way most people said “good night”.

She heard the soft click of his door closing and let out another halting breath. It was 7:15 AM. School started in an hour. Last she remembered, school had blown up.

She got ready in a haze, showering, getting dressed, eating. She packed up her homework that she’d done two nights ago (last night? Was that whole day a dream? A vision?) and changed into her Red Huntress armor. Elmerton was a ways out of Amity Park proper and it had its own high school. Dad, though, had taken one look inside it and its broken lockers and moldy ceilings and marched right back out.

So she still went to Casper High, despite the commute. Besides, her dad had said, he didn’t want her to leave all her friends.

(She hadn’t yet figured out how to tell him that only Star would still talk to her, that Paulina and Kwan and Dash had dropped her like a sack of potatoes at the first sign of trouble. Kwan had come up to her and apologized two months ago, but she wasn’t ready to forgive so easily. She held grudges like it was going out of style. Ask Phantom.)

So she covered up her Huntress activities with stories of going to Paulina’s house. She got to hunt ghosts and protect the town, and her dad got to think that she was living a normal teenage life. It worked out for both of them.

Flying to school cut down on her commute a lot, too. Instead of 45 minutes, she could get over there in just 20 minutes, 15 if she booked it. And today was a “book it” kind of day, if only to get through the weirdness as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, the weirdness kept coming. At her locker, she heard Sam Manson’s shout of “Douche Baxter” just before Dash jogged past, laughing at what looked to be Danny Fenton, picking himself up off the floor. Typical Dash, except it happened the same way in her dream.

Nathan came up to her in third period. He did that a lot, too, but he didn’t usually do it with yellow roses—except he did today and in her dream. Mikey slipped and fell in the cafeteria, again; Tyson, one of the football player who used to jokingly flirt with her, moved the CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign just in time to Mikey to walk by. Coach Tetslaff gave Tucker Foley detention for being on his phone. Again.

None of this was odd behavior, except it had happened the exact same way in her dream.

“C’mon Val, keep it together,” she whispered to herself. “This doesn’t mean anything. It could just be a crazy coincidence.”

The only thing in her dream that wasn’t common was the fight with Paulina. Paulina was often mean, but she had never come for her dad like that before. Valerie had always thought they had an understanding that Damon Gray, at the very least, was off-limits. If Paulina said the same things to her in seventh period English, then she’d know for sure something was up.

(She ignored the voice in her head that said that would be too late.)

So when English came around and Paulina couldn’t even look at her, she breathed a sigh of relief. As Lancer launched into his lecture, she glanced around the room. There was Paulina, staring at her desk, scribbling notes. Kwan, behind her, drumming his fingers on the desktop, humming something under his breath. Danny, behind him, head pillowed on his arms, not even pretending to pay attention. She smiled a little; maybe they hadn’t worked out, but he was still pretty cute when he was sleeping.

It happened like this: Danny gasped. She turned to the window to see something radiating green and fast approaching. Paulina screamed.

The world exploded again.

Loop 2

Valerie jolted awake.

—

Loop 0

"Oh my god, Valerie, do you have to be so dramatic? Now we're both in trouble."

Paulina dabbed the finishing touches of her foundation before snapping her compact mirror closed. Her cheekbone still throbbed where Valerie had gotten in one good punch before Fenton got in between them. It would probably bruise later, but Paulina was determined that no one but her would ever see it.

“Don’t say shit about my dad, then, and we won’t have a problem.”

Well, if Valerie would’ve ever reacted to the other things she said, then she wouldn’t have had to go after Mr. Gray. And besides—

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

Valerie clenched her fist like she was going to hit her again. Paulina half-hoped she would, so that maybe she could come off as just the victim in this. She really didn’t want to deal with her papi if he found out about this little adventure to Principal Ishiyama’s office.

“My dad baked you brownies every year for your birthday, and you called him a fat loser to my face. You should've expected to get punched.”

"You and your dad's fall from grace isn't my fault. All I did was acknowledge it."

"Paulina, could you stop being an asshole for, like, five minutes?" There was Fenton, butting in again. For such a loser, he seemed to have a real problem minding his own business.

"I don't need you to fight my battles, Danny."

"I really just wish you wouldn't fight at al—"

Fenton gasped. She was conscious of something ripping her apart, then she was conscious of nothing at all.

Loop 1

Paulina screamed into awareness.

The numbers on her alarm clock read 7:15—15 minutes before she usually got up. One of her proudest achievements was when she perfected her 10 minute makeup routine, meaning she could get ready for the day with only 45 minutes before the first bell.

This was the first thought on her mind as she calmed her racing heart. Not whatever strange nightmare had woken her up, but that fact that it had robbed her now of her most precious, fought-for, extra 15 minutes of sleep.

She groaned aloud, flopping back in bed and squeezing her eyes shut, like she could go back to sleep through sheer force of will. After a minute, it became obvious that she was still too shaken to doze off again. She flipped off her alarm and, pushing herself to her feet, began her morning routine.

She showered. She ate breakfast—Honey Nut Cheerios, except they were almost out. She’d have to remind Alma to pick up more on her next trip to the store. She did her makeup, adding a little flare in her eyeliner and eyeshadow, since she had the extra time. She put on the outfit she’d laid out last night, careful not to smudge anything, got in her custom-made pink convertible, and left for school.

Later, Paulina would never quite admit how long it took her to notice anything was wrong. In her defense, her days had long since melted into a blur. She barely knew where one ended and the other began in a normal situation.

It wasn’t until Mikey slipped in the cafeteria that she caught on.

Mikey fell, often. But Tyson wasn’t usually the one who messed with him; this was something new. After he stole the sign and Mikey ate it, Paulina watched Tyson look directly at Dash, an odd little blush on his face as the other boy laughed.

Oh, Paulina thought, I’ve seen this before.

In her dream, she’d thought it weird that Tyson was trying so hard to get Dash’s attention when he could clearly do better. She noticed it because it wasn’t normal behavior. This wasn’t an everyday thing. For something like this to happen both in her dream and in her life was just… too weird.

She ran the events of her dream back through her head. Most of the day was the kind of unremarkable that she couldn’t remember for the life of her, except for right now and—

And the end. The fight with Valerie, Fenton intervening.

Her dying.

Well, if it was some fucked-up prophecy, she just had to keep it from coming true, right? She instigated the fight with Valerie there in English. She was big enough to admit that that part was on her. So then all she had to do was keep her big mouth shut and her dream wouldn’t happen.

Easy-peasy.

She couldn’t quite keep her hands from shaking through the latter half of the day. Every second was too long and not long enough. When she finally walked through the door of Lancer’s classroom, she nearly fell into her seat.

“Are you okay?” Kwan whispered from behind her. She coughed out something like a laugh.

The bell saved her from having to give an actual answer as Lancer ushered them all into their seats to begin his lecture. Paulina stared at her desk the whole time, avoiding Valerie’s desk at all costs. She scribbled on a piece of paper just to have something to do with her hands.

And… nothing. Valerie said nothing to her. A quick peek behind her revealed Fenton sleeping at his desk (as always). The tap-tap-tap of Kwan’s fingers on the desk between them kept pace with her beating heart.

She dared for a moment to think it was safe.

Then Fenton gasped. A green light overtook the classroom. She screamed as the world exploded again.

Loop 2

Paulina screamed into awareness.

#danny phantom #dp fanfic #my fic #danny fenton #valerie gray #paulina sanchez #time loop fic #yeah ok so i wrote a whole chapter #dont come for me #i'm still working on switch but this is living in my brain and i needed to get it out

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notbecauseofvictories · 3 years ago

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weird q but do you have any advice on how to grocery shop healthily when you can only do it after work+classes and post-8pm because i always end up wandering around vaguely depressing and more tired than hungry so i just grab easy junk :/

Get yourself some frozen fruits and vegetables!

Fresh fruits and vegetables come with an expiration date, and the promise of work---chopping, storing, being mindful of using them up before they go bad. Frozen fruits and vegetables eliminate all that! A bag of chopped frozen spinach will last forever, and it's easy to stir together with boxed pasta and a light lemon butter sauce. After a long shift, you can put frozen fruit, yogurt, and milk (maybe some kale!) in a blender for a delicious smoothie, rather than peel kiwis.

I don't know if you've been in the frozen aisle lately, but they're getting really creative---riced cauliflower, stir-fry starter packs, mixed vegetables in pre-made sauces. Just avoid anything in a cheese sauce and/or high in sodium.

You can look for similar short cuts for other healthy staples too. If the idea of making rice or beans sounds exhausting after studying for a test---don't. Canned black beans can be a great source of protein; diced, canned tomatoes make for great additions to lasagna or enchiladas. They make single-serving packs of rice you can microwave! There's no need to make something harder on yourself than it needs to be.

(Personally, I like making a big batch of couscous or quinoa---it's shelf stable, and fresh-made it lasts about 2 weeks in a tupperware container. You can use it as a base for just about anything: quinoa and kale power bowl, couscous with tomatoes and basil, couscous with green beans, quinoa broccoli skillet, etc. etc.)

For meat, I highly recommend chicken breasts (cheap in bulk, take them out of the original package and freeze in individual ziplock bags!) or canned tuna.

Store your leftovers in an air-tight container in the fridge. You can use these for an easy crust-less quiche, pasta salad, or casserole. Leftovers are why Midwestern America invented the casserole, tbh---all you need to do is make some potatoes or pasta, and toss with whatever sauce/vegetables you have; cover with a cheese (any cheese) and bake at 350 F until warm through and the cheese is bubbly.

As a final note, canned soup can be a wonderfully easy way to get the nutrition you need! Check for low- or no-sodium options, since (as with all of these options) a lot of salt gets added to canned soup to preserve flavor.

#tw food #no love sincerer than the love of food

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marauderundercover · 2 years ago

Text

A Thousand Years ch. 16

AO3 (Also, just realized the last part I posted here was chapter five. Oops. Chapters 6-15 on AO3. My bad)

Slowly, Marinette blinks, her eyes opening slowly as she wakes up. She smiles softly at Dick, taking a moment to just soak in his eyes. They were the most beautiful color she’d ever seen, and she treasured mornings like this. Mornings where they could both take time to wake up, and get lost in each other’s eyes.

��Morning.” Dick says, his voice slightly husky. Marinette smiles sleepily at him.

“Morning.” She says back lightly, letting out a soft sigh as she just watches him. It was peaceful. It was quiet. It was-

“You both have obligations besides staring grossly at each other.” Damian huffs, throwing their door open. Marinette snorts, burying her head into her pillow as Dick sighs.

“Buddy, it’s Saturday.” He tries. Damian scoffs.

“Just because it is Saturday does not mean that you should waste your day away in bed. Come along, we are having brunch with Todd and Drake.” He says. Marinette’s eyes widen and she sits straight up in bed.

“We’re what?” She asks, wracking her brain for the information about brunch. How could she just forget something like that? They must’ve had it planned for-

“Indeed. I called them earlier and they both agreed to come. Drake said he’ll bring coffee and Todd is bringing some sort of sweet breakfast casserole. I believe he said it’s a French toast bake, but I doubt there is anything French about it.” Damian says, tilting his head and frowning. “Is that Richard’s shirt?” He asks. Marinette feels her face heat up as she tries to come up with something to say.

“Sure is, kiddo. Why don’t you head into the kitchen and make sure Titus and Alfred the cat have had their breakfast while M and I get ready for brunch?” Dick suggests. Marinette lets her shoulders slump slightly as she feels the relief wash over her as Damian nods and leaves the room. Dick glances at her, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Not a word from you.” She warns, trying to suppress a smile. Dick just grins and leans forward, giving her a quick kiss before leaning back and stretching.

“Suppose we should get up and get everything ready for brunch.” He says with a soft sigh. Marinette nods, though she can’t help but wonder why Damian would choose today to have a family brunch.

---

“I’m sorry, what?” Dick asks, quickly glancing behind him to make sure Marinette was still in their bedroom getting ready.

“I don’t see what the problem is, Richard.” Damian huffs. Dick takes a steadying breath.

“Dames, what if she says no?” He asks. Damian scoffs.

“I feel that is unlikely.” He says, his chin upturned.

“And why do you feel that? We haven’t even been together a year, yet Dames. These things-”

“You were planning on asking her to become one of my legal guardians, were you not?” Damian asks, and Dick freezes.

“How- Damian, were you looking through my files again?” He asks, running his hand over his face in exasperation.

“It pertains to me, so I fail to see why you’re so upset about this, Richard. Obviously, I would be fine with it. Marinette is-” Damian pauses, and Dick glances at his kid again. He takes in the slightly confused look on his face, but doesn’t miss the determination in his eyes. “Marinette is already a mother figure in my life. Much as you have become a father figure. And I don’t understand why you would be worried about asking her to be your wife.”

“Dames, buddy, can we please drop the subject? I promise I’m not saying no. But I am saying that I don’t think we’re ready for that yet, and I don’t want to risk losing her. You understand that, right?” Dick asks quietly, practically pleading. Marinette was going to be out any minute and he didn’t want her to hear any of this conversation. Damian scowls, but nods.

“Fine. But you get to tell Todd and Drake about the change of plans.” He says before his face evens out. “Marinette, I would like to assist you in preparing a savory dish for the brunch.” Dick turns and glances at Marinette, trying to read her face to see if she’d heard any of the previous conversation. But instead of looking shocked or freaked out, she just smiles and nods.

“Of course, Dames.” She says, nodding towards the kitchen. Dick lets out a breath as the two walk away. He barely has a minute to breathe before the door swings open and Jason and Tim barge in.

“We’re here! Con-” Tim starts to say, but Dick darts forward and covers his mouth with his hand.

“Wait a-” Dick gasps and yanks his hand back. “Did you lick me?” Jason snorts, holding up a hand for a high five, which Tim gives him.

“You’re the one who covered my mouth, Dick. Now why are you acting so weird?” Tim asks, frowning. Dick sighs.

“I didn’t propose. Damian was trying to set it up, but I told him that it’s not time yet.” He says quietly. Jason snorts, shaking his head.

“Never thought I’d see the day where Demon Spawn tried to be a wingman.” He says. Dick grins, shrugging.

“He’s honestly not half bad. But I just- I can’t ask her something like that. Not when…” Dick trails off, thinking back to the conversation he keeps putting off. Tim frowns.

“You still haven’t told her?” He asks. Dick shakes his head.

“If you don’t, you realize the Gremlin will, right?” Jason asks. Dick scoffs, shaking his head.

“He wouldn’t do that. He knows how important that secret is.” He says, a wave of doubt washing over him as he looks between Tim and Jason. “He wouldn’t, right?”

“Dick, have you seen the pie plate that Alfred- oh. Hey guys!” Marinette says, grinning as she walks in, a bit of flour on her face.

“Hey Marinette.” Tim says, grinning as he holds up the cup carrier. “I brought caffeine.” He adds. Marinette grins, taking the cup he offers her.

“You’re a lifesaver, kid.” She says with a grin, taking a sip.

“Marinette! I have located the pie plate!” Damian calls from the kitchen. Marinette grins.

“And that, gentlemen, is my cue. Quiche will be ready in about an hour.” She says, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before walking away. Dick watches her walk away, and makes a resolution. He’d tell her about Batman. Today.

---

Marinette tries not to stare at Dick as they sit with Damian and watch a movie. Apparently, “Big Hero 6” was on the list of movies that Damian had never seen. And Dick thought he would really like it. But ever since brunch, Dick had been fidgety. She could almost constantly feel his stare on her, but the second she looked at him, he’d look away. And she’d caught him opening his mouth several times, then shutting it just as quickly. Trying to put her focus back on the movie, she can’t help but smile softly at the interactions between the main character and his older brother. The older boy was so supportive, and looking at the two reminded her of the relationship between Dick and Damian. Slowly, she gets lost in the story of the movie and stops focusing as much on Dick’s fidgeting.

“I wonder why Tadashi didn’t bring Baymax to this expo. You would think there would be a section for students. He and his friends-” Damian’s rambling is cut off as there’s an explosion on screen. Marinette’s heart stops, frowning as the movie takes a turn she hadn’t expected. Damian glances at her, and Marinette does her best to give him a reassuring smile before gently wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He leans into her slightly, both of them silent as the tragedy plays out in front of them.

“I thought this was a superhero movie.” Marinette says softly to Dick, unable to stop a few tears from escaping as Hiro disappears into his grief.

“Superheroes aren’t immune to loss.” Dick says, his voice full of emotion. Marinette thinks back to everything that happened in Paris and nods slowly. He was right, after all.

“Shh. I would like to see how this plays out.” Damian requests quietly. Marinette gently squeezes his shoulder before settling back and putting her focus back on the movie. She would also like to see how Hiro was going to overcome everything.

---

Dick watches nervously as Marinette shuts Damian’s door. Jason and Tim had offered to take his usual patrol route so that he could talk to Marinette without risking Damian barging in. And now that he was asleep, it was time. But he was scared. What if Marinette hated him for it? What if she decided she didn’t want anything to do with him? What if she hated him? He’s so lost in thought, he almost misses Marinette grabbing his hand and tugging him back to the couch.

“What’s wrong?” She asks gently, a worried frown on her face. Dick opens his mouth to say that nothing’s wrong, but she cuts him off. “My love, you’ve been fidgety since Tim and Jason left. And you look worried. Let’s figure this out together, yes?”

“I have to tell you something. And I’m afraid you’re going to hate me.” Dick says, hating how weak his voice sounds. Marinette nods slowly.

“Okay. Um. You’re kind of scaring me.” She says, and Dick can practically see the million worse case scenarios running through her head.

“I’m Batman.” He says, wincing slightly at how abruptly he said it.

“You’re what?” She asks, blinking rapidly.

“I’m uh, I’m Batman. I mean, I wasn’t always. I was Nightwing, and before I was Nightwing, I was Robin. But then Bruce-” Dick sucks in a breath, hating the tears that he can’t push away. “Bruce died. And Gotham was falling apart so I- I became Batman.” Marinette blinks.

“You’re Batman?” She asks. Dick nods slowly. She frowns. “Damian is Robin, isn’t he?” Dick purses his lips, and nods. Marinette tilts her head. “Jason is Red Hood, and Tim is Red Robin.” She says. Dick blinks.

“What-”

“It’s what makes the most sense. Based on body type and personality. And the fact that Tim told me to call Jason if I was ever in Crime Alley and needed help.” She says, shrugging. Dick huffs out a laugh, shaking his head as he swipes away the tears.

“You’re uh, you’re taking this very well.” He says. Marinette winces, and for a split second, Dick worries that he’d made a mistake. That maybe she wasn’t taking it well. Or maybe she was-

“I was Ladybug.” She says. And this time, it’s Dick’s turn to just blink in shock.

“What?”

“In Paris. I was uh, I was Ladybug. And Adrien, he was Chat Noir.” She says, her voice full of pain. And suddenly, everything makes sense. Why Paris was such a touchy subject. Why her nightmares of the place were so bad. Because she remembered everything, and she had lost everything. All to save her city. Dick pulls her into a hug, breathing a little easier as she relaxes into his arms.

“The one time I thought I was dating a civilian.” Dick laughs, shaking his head. Marinette snorts.

“You and me, both.” She says. Dick leans back on the couch, and Marinette cuddles closer to him, tightening her hold. “Are you and Damian safe?” She asks, after a few minutes of silence.

“As safe as vigilantes can be. Both of our suits have kevlar and plenty of body armor. I wouldn’t let him out unless I knew he would be as safe as possible.” Dick says softly, trying to reassure her.

“Mmmm. Coming from the man who wore nothing but a leotard and cape when he started out.” She teases. Dick chokes.

“You’re familiar with Robin’s looks?” He asks, and she hums in response. Dick’s favorite suit comes to mind. And he suddenly remembers his loving girlfriend is also a fashion designer. “I don’t suppose you’re familiar with Nightwing’s looks as well?” He asks, clearing his throat. Marinette snorts.

“If you’re referring to the suit with the deep V, yes.” She says and he sighs, waiting for her to tear it apart. “But I won’t say anything bad about it, because you like it.”

“Really?” He asks, looking down at her. She grins up at him.

“Yup. But I will say a deep V is an awful choice when going out to fight crime. It practically gives your enemies a target of one of your weakest areas.” She points out. Dick shakes his head, unable to stop his grin as she laughs softly. It was okay. Everything had worked out.

#maribat #maribat dick grayson #maribat marinette dupain cheng #dickinette #maribat damian wayne #maribat mominette #maribat jason todd #maribat tim drake #platonic daminette #platonic jasonette #platonic timari

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obeymeoasis · 3 years ago

Text

What MC Packs On A Picnic For The Boys

You’re out shopping in the early morning for groceries and realize just how lovely the weather is today. It’s warm but there’s a slight breeze in the air, which is a welcome change from the oppressive heat of the past few weeks. You decide to plan a lunch picnic for all of the brothers out in the garden. They’re about to find out why you consider food to be one of your love languages.

Lucifer

For Lucifer, you pack cucumber sandwiches. You lay down thinly-sliced cucumbers and a layer of lemon-dill cream cheese onto soft white bread with the crusts removed. The sandwiches are light and dainty, perfect for Lucifer who tends to avoid heavy lunches.

You nervously watch him take a bite and then sigh in relief when you see his eyes widen slightly, which is as surprised as Lucifer is ever going to get.

"Pet, these are delicious." He dabs at the corner of his mouth with a napkin and you chuckle at how elegant he looks while sitting on the picnic blanket.

Mammon

For Mammon, you grill up some thinly sliced steak, bell peppers, and onions. You add fresh guacamole and pico de gallo before wrapping everything up in a warm tortilla. You hope this will satisfy Mammon, who prefers to have a heartier lunch.

You watch him take an enormous bite and laugh at how he has managed to get guacamole all over his mouth. "Treasure, this is amazing! Probably the best thing you've made me so far."

You smile, incredibly pleased, but have to turn away from Mammon as he eagerly digs into his meal and starts spilling bits of food over the blanket.

Leviathan

For Levi, you prepare a fresh batch of sushi rice. You take some in your hand and add spicy salmon filling before shaping it into onigiri. You decide to make another one with umeboshi, pickled plum, and wrap both of them in seaweed before sprinkling them with sesame seeds.

When Levi sees the onigiri he practically squeals with delight. “MC! Did you really make these for me? These look just like the ones Ruri-chan’s human classmate made for her when they went on their school trip!”

He takes tons of pictures but refuses to eat the onigiri, saying that he’s going to keep them safe forever. Only when you promise to make them for him whenever he wants does he take a bite, munching happily.

Satan

For Satan, you roast some chicken, carrots, and potatoes in the oven with rosemary, thyme, and garlic for seasoning. With the drippings from the chicken you make a quick gravy to go on top.

You laugh at how proper Satan looks, sitting with his legs crossed on the picnic blanket and using his knife and fork to eat delicate bites of his meal. He closes his eyes after a mouthful, something he only does when he’s really enjoying his food.

He reaches over to gently stroke your cheek. “This is absolutely wonderful, love. Thank you for cooking.”

Asmodeus

For Asmo, you make penne pasta with grilled shrimp. The combined mixture of tomatoes and heavy cream in the sauce make a lovely pink color, and you garnish with fresh basil and grated pecorino cheese.

Asmo practically lets the food go cold because of how many pictures he’s taking. “Darling, this is stunning! So cute! Will you cook other things for me too so I can post them on my Devilgram?”

Once he finally takes a bite of his meal he showers you with compliments, saying how impressed he is with your skills. He gives you a quick kiss on the cheek for your efforts.

Beelzebub

For Beel, you make a Shepherd’s Pie in a large casserole dish, usually meant for serving dinners. You brown and season ground beef and combine it with corn, peas, and carrots. The mixture is topped with creamy mashed potatoes and grated cheese before being baked in the oven to a golden brown.

You hope the meal is hearty enough to satisfy Beel. And even though you’ve seen him eat before, you can’t help but watch in amazement as he practically inhales the whole thing, even though it’s still quite warm.

He smiles at you and rubs his stomach. “MC, this was really good. Will you make more for me next time?”

Belphegor

You know Belphie is going to be asleep for most of the picnic. It would be difficult for him to overcome his sleepiness with the warm weather and cozy atmosphere. You make him a simple smoothie with blueberries, bananas, almond milk, and honey.

He takes a few sips gratefully before laying his head on your lap. He practically purrs as your thread your fingers in his hair and lightly scratch his scalp.

Before he drifts off to sleep he looks at you and whispers "Thanks, MC. You always take good care of me."

The brothers are horrified to learn that because of how much effort it had taken to prepare all their meals, you didn't have any time to pack anything for yourself. They take turns feeding you bites from their meals and everything is washed down with glasses of iced peach tea and strawberry lemonade. Feeling the wind in your hair and hearing the rustling of the leaves in the garden you close your eyes, feeling utterly happy and content.

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rhaenyratargcryen · 2 years ago

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okay I’ve got this THOUGHT in my head and I just had to share

okay so eddie doesn’t die but the reader doesn’t know it coz he’s been placed in something like witness protection coz of the strong hatred or whatever and the reader goes on to become a fantasy author and dedicated their book to him and they meet again at a book signing and they immediately recognise him (even though his hair is short now and dyed black and his dressing style is totally different and he gives his new name for the book signing)

shaking and screaming and crying and throwing up anon your BRAIN your BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL BRAIN

you guys were friends forever, like, since middle school, when you were made to feel like a loser for reading fantasy and writing your own little stories. you were always made fun of for it, always had to eat by yourself, never invited to anybody’s birthday parties. and then one day eddie walked up to your seat in the cafeteria and read the word 'dragons' over your shoulder in whatever you were writing that day and freaked out and invited you to join hellfire. and you never looked back!!

you two were inseparable from that moment onward. every book your parents bought you would go to eddie after you finished it. you'd always discuss them in-depth, daydream about being whisked away together to a world where dragons and trolls and wizards really existed. everything you ever wrote, he was the first one to read it, and he never beat around the bush with you. he knew you were the real deal, and he told you that he thought so every single day. it made you blush and you always told him to knock it off, to stop lying, but his praise made you shine.

you always danced around your real feelings for one another, especially as you got older, never thought the other felt the way you did, until you finally finally get your shit together and kiss him one night after hellfire right before everything happens with the upside down (because of course you know about the upside down - eddie needed you, he always needed you, that wouldn't have changed just because things involved being suspected for murder and another dimension with an evil demon now) and you can’t get over how unfair it is that you’re finally together, but you can’t be together how you always should have been.

and then he dies, and he takes your heart with him, and you don't write for ages. the only person you ever wrote for is gone, so what’s the point now?

and maybe after eddie dies you start having dinner with his uncle wayne once a week, and one day while you're sitting on opposite ends of the couch, eating some kind of casserole and talking about one thing or another, shooting the shit about what eddie was like when you’d first met, wayne will look up at you and say, “hey, you still writin’ your stories, sweetheart?”

and you’ll get teary-eyed and you won’t be able to look him in the eye when you tell him no, you haven’t been able to write since eddie died. wayne will click his tongue at you, empathetic but sad, and he’ll say, “eddie wouldn’t have wanted you to stop on his account,” and that will make you cry hard. you feel bad - wayne’s never been good with tears - but he takes your plate from your hands, sets it down on the coffee table, and he lets you sob into his flannel until you nod and promise you’ll try again.

you sit down in front of an open notebook for the first time in months when you get home that night, and once you start to write, you can’t stop. soon you’ve got a fully-fledged premise built off of half-baked ideas you and eddie had come up with together over the years, and you decide you’ll do it. you’ll write the book.

so you write the book about a young knight who dies a martyr slaying a dragon and saving a kingdom, and you don’t let anybody read it except wayne. this is good, he tells you. not that i know much about this kind of stuff - was always yours and eddie’s thing - but it’s good, darling. it’s real good. he would have loved it.

so you decide to polish it up and send a sample into a few agencies. and you start to get responses, rejections, of course, at first, but then you get a few requests for the full manuscript. you try not to get your hopes up. and then your first offer for representation comes in the mail, and you work the hardest you ever have at anything to edit it down into a book you’ll be able to sell. it has to be perfect. for eddie.

the day you sell the book, you show up at wayne’s door with a cake and the check they faxed you. it’s eddie’s birthday, coincidentally - he would have been 25 - and you pull your personal checkbook out and write wayne a check for enough money to get himself out of hawkins, if he’d like. they think it’s gonna be huge, you tell him. they think it’s gonna make me rich and famous. wayne had always been your family as much as he was eddie’s, and you felt you owed it to him to take care of him now that eddie was gone, especially since he’s the only reason you started writing again in the first place. he accepts with teary eyes and the two of you eat eddie’s birthday cake at the kitchen counter.

when the book is edited and submitted and it comes time to pen the dedication, you know exactly what to say.

for eddie, who slayed demons for me, and who taught me how to face my own.

months go by and then suddenly one day you wake up and it’s publication day. your publicist set up a launch event for you at a small bookstore in indianapolis, and you get there early in the day, and your photo is everywhere, and the line is out the door, and you’re so overwhelmed that you have to excuse yourself to the restroom to let yourself break down and cry.

when it comes time to starting the signing, you settle into your chair and plaster on a grateful smile, thank everyone for coming, until you’ve gotten through most of the line. the afternoon has bled you dry. you're looking down at the most recent book to be set in front of you. it's one of the very last ones you have to sign, you've signed hundreds at this point in the night and you're exhausted and emotional and all you can think about is your hotel and the jacuzzi tub waiting for you and -

"for robert, please?"

that voice. you recognize that voice. you haven't heard it in years, but you know it immediately, and you look up, and it's -

your heart breaks. it looks a lot like him, but it can’t be. you know it can’t be him, because he’s gone, so you shake your head at yourself and smile up at him, and he smiles back down at you, and then you gasp, because it is him.

it's eddie. eddie, who died all those years ago and left you here by yourself. eddie, who never let you give up on writing, who knew it was what you were made for, even when you felt like you couldn't keep it up. eddie, who has always been your best friend, even in death. eddie, who saved your life. he's grinning down at you and you don't know how to react.

"you wrote a damn book, huh, baby?"

you jump up from your seat and rush around the table, throw your arms around him, your face in his neck. he groans at the impact and wraps his arms around you, too, and tight. he smells the same. how is it that he smells the same? you have to look at him again. at his eyes, his beautiful brown eyes, now hidden behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. at his hair, which he wears close-cropped, now, and dyed a darker color. the clothes that he’s wearing are nothing like what he used to, but you decide that they suit him. being alive suits him. you’ve easily forgotten by now that you’re not the only two people in the room.

eddie brushes your hair back from your eyes, wipes the tears from under them, the ones that mirror his own, and kisses you gently, and you hold his face with shaky hands as you murmur you're here? how are you here? you died, eddie, how are you here? against his mouth. he smiles and assures you that he’s real, he’s here, he’s got you. he’s not going anywhere.

and he promises to explain everything to you - he mentions something offhandedly about witness protection, it wasn’t safe for me in hawkins - but you realize that despite the fact that you can hardly believe it, you don’t actually care how he’s here, just that he is at all.

and then when you're over the initial shock of it all, you'll run one hand up into his hair and say this is different, and eddie will laugh, he’ll lean his forehead against yours, kiss you once more, his eyes bright as he says, “you think i’m a hero, hmm?”

#i'm. crying #anon you broke me #i'm broken #i need to write this fic lkajsndf;nwqf #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson/reader #eddie munson blurb #the tense is all fucked up w this one i don't care #wow okay so i accidentally deleted all of this and had to start basically from scratch #and i'm crying because the first version of it was p e r f e c t #and i feel like i got it all back from memory #but still #😭#i changed eddie’s age from 22 to 25 in that one paragraph bc i realized it probably takes a long time to write a book #lmfao

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resident-mercie · 3 years ago

Text

Leon S. Kennedy - Vacation Fluff/Head-canons!

sorry for the recent lack of posts guys!! i've been a little tired recently and i've been playing a lot of animal crossing and resident evil 3!! i hope you understand :)

i've been lacking a little on leon headcanons recently, so i figured i'd write him some more! let me know if there's any interest in a carlos version for this :)

finally! the two of you were both on leave from work after a particularly long assignment. not that you didn't enjoy taking on an assignment with leon by your side, but you'd much rather be together at home or somewhere nice.

leon was used to working hard, so he found it difficult to wind down sometimes. on the first night you were on leave, he couldn't sleep. all he could do was take your hand in his, and stare at the ceiling. he was tired, sure, but all his eyes could do were trace patterns that he could see in the ceiling.

by the time you woke up the next morning, leon was still laying awake, eyes open, looking up at the ceiling.

"leon? are you okay?" you throw the duvet off of you, and turn to face him. he didn't really reply, aside from a gentle sigh.

you had no choice - clearly you had to go somewhere, and take his mind off of whatever he was ruminating over.

"say! wanna go on a road trip?" you beam, and he gives you a smile. "i'll pack! and drive!"

leon managed to give you a chuckle. "okay. you've won me over!" he rolled his eyes, before laughing again.

it wasn't long until you'd packed some clothes and toiletries, and had packed it into your little pale blue car, ready to go. leon sat in the passenger seat next to you, wearing his tan aviator jacket. trust your luck for your vacation to end up in the middle of fall.

regardless, leon was cosy, and was slowly drifting off into a slight doze as you started driving to your location.

you hadn't told leon about your retreat for a week, but you were so excited to get there - a woodland cottage, with a river nearby, a pottery shed, and acres of forest to explore.

while you were stuck in a small amount of traffic, you'd turned to face leon. he'd woken up from his little nap, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. he managed to give you a smile, before stretching.

"...whereabouts are we?" he yawned, and gave a slight laugh.

"we're not far now! you're going to love it. i promise." you smile back, giving his hand a quick squeeze.

"i know i will!" he gave you a kiss on your cheek. "i love you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you had been at the cottage for a handful of days now, and you already noticed an improvement in leon's happiness and overall demeanor.

leon had gone to explore the woods for the morning, leaving you alone in the cottage. while you would prefer to be cuddled up with him, it was good for you to have a little alone time.

the cottage had a small, albeit bountiful little vegetable patch in the back garden. you had hoped to surprise leon with dinner tonight, now he was busy exploring. you wanted to cook something hearty and warm to counteract the frigidity in the fall air. you really couldn't understand how leon could spend so long outside when the temperature was so unbelievably low.

shivering as you pull your sweater around you, went out into the back garden, unearthing carrots and potatoes from the coarse dirt. you put them in a woven basket, and carried the basket inside to wash the vegetables in the rustic sink.

you had settled on making casserole for dinner that night - you already had meat in the prestocked refrigerator, so you started preparing the meal right away.

you LOVED to cook - it was one of your favorite past-times to cook and bake for leon, whether you were on assignments or at home.

you couldn't help but think about how much fun you and leon had together on your trip - fishing, swimming, making pottery together (which neither of you precision to master), and exploring the woodland together. you began to daydream about exploring the woodland together, thinking about how he lent you his aviator jacket to keep you warm against the frigid fall air.

you began to dice the vegetables, thinking to yourself about the trip some more. sure, you had enjoyed it, but what about leon? had he enjoyed it as much as you had?

it was as if you had thought about him too much - right as you started to heat the casserole, the cottage door was pushed open, and leon emerged, giving you a smile, a bundle of wildflowers in his hand.

"hi honey! i got you these!" he grinned, putting his assorted wildflowers in a nearby jug on the windowsill. "how was everything while i was gone?"

for the first time in a while, leon was fully smiling, eyes sparkling with vigor, his face flushed from exploring the chillingly cold woodland.

you couldn't help but smile back at him. "i really hope you're enjoying our vacation, leon."

he gently takes your hand in his, looking you directly in the eye, before kissing you.

"of course i am! i love you so much."

i hope you guys have had a fantastic couple of days while i was inactive! please take care of yourselves and enjoy your weekend! <3

- mercie :)

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onekisstotakewithme · 2 years ago

Note

the triad wedding if you're still answering the wip asks!!!

oh hi anon! Thank you for your kind message, definitely still answering WIP asks! 💜

Triad wedding (aka story #5 of "Home") is of course, BJ and Peg renewing their vows for their tenth anniversary. And since Hawkeye is there to celebrate with them, well they have a private ceremony of their own.

And I promise it is not yet dead, it's sitting open on my laptop right now. I meant to work on it earlier tonight, and then Events Transpired, but I've got hours until bedtime anyway.

ANYWAY ON TO THE SNIPPET.

The kitchen smells like simmering tomatoes, and Hawkeye is in his element, whistling Cole Porter as he tugs the pasta from the oven.

“I think I’ve got just enough time to get the garlic bread in,” he remarks to no one in particular, turning to grin at BJ, and stopping when he sees that BJ is watching him. “What?”

“I just love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Can I help at all?”

“Nah. Don’t you have guests to greet or something?”

“They’re not here yet. So how about I pour myself a glass of wine… and toss you a salad?”

Hawkeye’s eyes flash, and he swallows hard, apparently lost in thought as he stares at BJ. “Oh?”

“To go with the garlic bread and pasta.”

“Right. Uh…” Hawkeye looks distracted, his cheeks flushing pink as he bends over the pasta with a cheese grater and a hunk of cheese. “Where’s Erin?”

“Out of earshot, if you’re worried.”

BJ’s desire for Hawkeye – which has been simmering all day like Hawk’s pasta is now – has not been diminished by the sight of him in his nice shirt, sleeves rolled up around his elbows, his clothes protected by his apron.

It shouldn’t be so hot, BJ thinks with a gulp, but then that fire is doused slightly by love – Hawkeye worrying about their daughter overhearing the filthy things BJ wants to say.

“It smells great, Hawk-,” BJ starts, but then Hawkeye looks up and whistles.

BJ turns, only to see Peg walk in, wearing a blue and white polka dot dress, her hair in a loose knot at the back of her head, a few wisps falling around her face, Hawkeye’s sunflower pendant winking in the light, the chain delicate against the soft skin of her throat.

God, BJ thinks, looking between them. I am so gone on you.

“Peg, you look…. Wow,” Hawkeye breathes, before holding up a spoon. “Want to try this?”

“Sure.”

“Have you seen Erin?”

“She’s in the living room, working her way through Make Way for Ducklings again,” Peg explains, walking over to the counter. “In her best pair of overalls too – she insisted.”

“Your mom won’t like it.”

“Ah, hell with it.” Peg shrugs, before standing next to Hawkeye. “What’ve we got here, darling?”

BJ loves the sight of the two of them next to each other, Peg’s head barely coming up to Hawkeye’s shoulder, his dark head bent to her light one, like the sun and the moon, and BJ is the one caught in their gravity.

“An old family recipe,” Hawkeye says, putting his hand on Peg’s lower back as he holds out the spoon. “Here.”

Peg takes a bite, and groans a little in delight. “Oh God.”

“Good?”

“What’s your secret?”

“I soak the pasta in olive oil before I bake it.”

“You mean you don’t boil it?” she asks, surprised.

“Nope! Just soak it in olive oil for twenty minutes, add it to a casserole dish with tomatoes, and Bob’s your uncle!”

She stands on her toes, kissing him on the cheek. “I’ve never had an uncle Bob but I appreciate the sentiment.”

#bj x peg x hawkeye #m*a*s*h #mash #mash 4077 #bj hunnicutt #peg hunnicutt #hawkeye pierce

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fruitcoops · 4 years ago

Note

So my finger is actually broken and it made me think about the series where Remus took a stick to the face and Sirius took care of him if you’re willing to do another part to that so I can live vicariously that’d be great

Hey lovely! I’m so sorry for the massive delay on this fic--hopefully, your finger feels better soon <3 Coops and O’Knutzy credit goes to @lumosinlove!

This fic also includes Cap and Logan being brothers, O’Knutzy fluff, and my personal favorite ask of all time:

Anon: We have seen protective Leo in action and he is an absolute badass, but what about the other 2/3 of O’Knutzy. Because gods know they would all protect their fairy gay mother if anyone were to mess with him in the slightest

TW for bruising, swelling, injury

Read the rest of the series here!

“Where is he?” Leo demanded as soon as the door opened. His mother would have been appalled by his lack of manners, but he was too worried to bother with pleasantries. “Is he alright?”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Hello to you, too, Knut. Harzy, Lo, how’s it going?”

“Depends,” Finn said. “How’s our favorite rookie doing?”

Logan took a more direct approach and kicked Sirius lightly on the shin. “Move, I want to see my future beau-frère.”

“Are they here?” a rough voice called from the living room.

“Don’t get up, Loops!” Leo shouted down the hall, making a beeline for the kitchen. “Are you feeling okay?”

There was a muffled curse from the other room, followed by footsteps; Leo scowled. “I’m not made of glass,” Remus huffed as he shuffled into the room with an ice pack in his hand.

All three of them hissed in sympathy and Leo felt phantom pain in his nose at the wide bruise across Remus’ cheekbones. “You should go lay down again, dude.”

“You made me soup?”

“You can only have it if you promise to rest.”

“I don’t have a concussion.”

“Your face looks like someone biked over it.”

“Rude. I’ll call your mother.”

“You don’t have her number.”

Remus shot him a look and turned to the others, who were watching in clear amusement. “Tremzy, a hand?”

“Can’t tell you. I want soup.” Logan ruffled his hair as he walked past; Remus batted him away, but he was smiling. It was even more crooked than usual with the latent swelling, and Leo felt a pang in his chest when he noticed the missing dimples. He looked so…not Loops. “Où sont les casseroles?”

Finn frowned and glanced in the Tupperware. “That’s not casserole, Lo.”

Sirius reached up and pulled a large pot down from the cupboard. “Pots, Harz. You’ve been dating these two for almost a year and you still don’t know French?”

Finn hopped up on the counter. “Keeps things interesting.”

Leo blew him a kiss and received a wink in return, making them both laugh. “Thanks again for bringing this over,” Remus said as Leo turned the stove on and grabbed a wooden spoon.

“Anything for the rookie, right? You look better than last night.”

“Yeah?” Hope lit in Remus’ less-swollen eye; he was still bruised to hell and back, but the puffiness had gone own significantly and a good night’s sleep seemed to have done him good.

“No thanks to the captain,” Finn snorted, swinging his legs until Sirius whacked him on the thigh with a spoon. “I swear to god he was just fucking with us in the groupchat.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “What did you do?”

“I told the truth!” Sirius protested. “I don’t know why they’re all pissy.”

“You were so vague,” Logan groaned. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and scrolled through the texts, then cleared his throat. “Home safe. Re is fine—"

“Get over here—”

“—getting lots of cuddles from Hattie,” Logan continued, ducking out of Sirius’ reach as he read aloud. Leo stepped closer to the stove to let them both run past. “Thanks for the messages. Thanks for the messages? Thanks for the fucking messages?”

“That was pretty vague,” Remus agreed, hiding a smile behind his hand when Sirius finally snatched Logan’s phone away.

“I’m keeping this,” he threatened. “And I sent messages to people who reached out individually with questions, including your boyfriend.”

“Which one?” Logan asked with a smirk.

Sirius shook his head. “Knutty, will you be offended if I kick him out of the house?”

“Eh.” Leo shrugged, still stirring. “He could use some fresh air. Maybe put a bowl of water out with him.”

Logan grabbed a towel and rolled it up, snapping it at Leo’s ass; it connected with a sharp smack and he dodged the second attack by less than an inch. “Hey, cut it out!” Remus laughed. “He’s making me soup!”

“Yeah, Lo, we don’t want to leave the invalid in the hands of Cap’s cooking,” Finn drawled.

Sirius heaved a sigh. “You are all so mean to me.”

“I love you!” Remus said, putting a hand over his heart in mock-offense.

“You don’t trust my cooking either.”

He hesitated for half a second and Sirius spread his hands. “I trust most of your cooking. And all of your baking.”

Leo perked up. “Will you make cookies for us?”

“No.”

“Come on,” he wheedled as bubbles began forming around the edges of the soup. “You know you want to.”

“He made some for the block party two weeks ago,” Remus said with a grin, leaning over to smell the thick steam. “I’m domesticating him.”

“He’s like a feral cat. Once you let him in and feed him, he starts making cookies and never leaves.” Logan slotted himself between Finn’s knees for a cuddle with a devious glance at Sirius.

“I regret knowing you,” Sirius muttered; the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth gave him away, and Leo smiled to himself as he pulled a few bowls out of the nearest cabinet. “Soup’s ready?”

“Soup’s ready. Where are we eating?”

“Well, Loops is eating on the couch so he can rest,” Logan said, ignoring Remus’ eye roll.

“I’m fine.” All four of them gave him a skeptical look and he threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “Alright, we’ll eat in the living room and pretend I’m on my deathbed. Jesus Christ.”

Leo gave him a playful nudge as he handed him a bowl. “That’s what friends do, right?”

Remus’ face softened and he bumped him back. “This was really sweet of you, Knutty.”

“What was I supposed to do, leave you here alone with only your fiancé and your dog for company?” He looked behind the kitchen island and paused. “Speaking of, where’s my baby?”

“I’ll get her.” Sirius wandered out of the room and they heard the back door open a moment later; after a few seconds of muffled noise, Hattie came barreling into the room in all her long-legged glory. One side of her fur was mussed into bedhead, but Finn dropped down and immediately smoothed it out again as he smothered her with affection.

“Oh, was somebody taking a nap on the deck?” Remus cooed, grabbing a handful of spoons from a drawer.

“I missed you so much!” Finn said, laughing as she licked his face. “So much, precious girl! It’s been too long!”

Hattie wiggled out of his hold and galloped toward Leo—she tripped over her too-big paws and rolled to a stop at his feet with a lolling tongue. “Oh, my munchkin,” he groaned, lifting her into a cradle hold. “Do you think your dads would be sad if I took you home with me?”

“Yes,” Sirius and Remus chorused.

“But I made them soup!” He stuck his lower lip out in a pout and held her closer to his chest. “It’s only fair.”

Logan turned a pleading look on Sirius. “You can’t say no to that face, can you?”

“Someday, you can have a sleepover. For right now, we’re going to eat soup and then make Remus take a nap.”

Leo declined to mention the fact that he had not answered the question and filed that particular information away for later use. For all his bluster and grumbling, Sirius was a softie for puppy eyes of any sort.

They gathered in the living room and carefully balanced their bowls so nobody spilled on the carpet. Remus curled up to make space for Sirius on the couch, while Logan perched on the armrest of Leo’s chair and Finn took the floor; Hattie made the rounds with a roving nose and tried to steal bites wherever possible, to little avail.

“This is really good,” Sirius said after a few minutes of hungry silence, shoving another spoonful of broth in his mouth. “Mon dieu, what is this?”

“Italian wedding soup,” Leo said, breaking a meatball in half. “Mom’s recipe.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “You’re not Italian.”

“Not even a little.”

“You guys are the best, by the way,” Remus said. “This is exactly what I needed.”

“We would’ve beat the rookie up if you asked,” Finn informed him with a casual bite of soup. “Say the word, it’s done.”

Remus shook his head. “It was an accident. He tripped, I came up too fast, and it snowballed from there. Kid’s lucky he didn’t get a skate to the face when we fell.”

Logan blinked at him for a second. “You’ve seen your face recently, right?”

“No, actually, it’s a bit difficult to see my own face,” Remus said drily. “I’m sure it looks worse than it feels.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows, but made no comment. Leo wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know that story or not; seeing Loops in any amount of pain was hard enough. “Kind of ironic, right?” he said instead. “After all that time spent fixing us, you’re the one we get to take care of.”

Remus snorted. “How the turntables. Hestia did all the heavy lifting.”

“That Tupperware was heavy.”

“Do you want to tape me back together next time?”

“Don’t try me, Loops, I’ll do it and give you a moustache.”

They bickered and teased for the next half hour, long after their bowls were empty and Hattie laid down with a dramatic huff after her unsuccessful quest. Finally, Remus dozed off on Sirius’ shoulder, which they took as their cue to leave.

“Thank you again, guys,” Sirius said as they pulled their coats on. “This really meant a lot to both of us.”

“No problem,” Finn said with a shrug. “We were worried, and bringing over a little soup was easy.”

“It was good to talk to you both outside of practice,” Logan added, giving him a one-armed hug. “Keep us updated?”

“Bien sûr.”

“See you around, Capsicle.” Leo mock-saluted and Sirius laughed under his breath. “Take care of our rookie.”

“Will do, Knutty.”

Leo maneuvered his container around his seatbelt as Finn turned the car on, trying not to lose another lid down the crack between the console. “I’m glad we did that,” he said after a few seconds of comfortable silence.

“Me, too. Loops still looked pretty rough, though,” Logan said quietly.

The side of Finn’s mouth turned down a tick. “Next time we play the Ravens, that rookie is getting checked like he’s never been checked before.”

Leo’s back cracked as he stretched his arms over his head. “Oh, yeah, Kasey and I already have a plan. That kid is never even going to see the net.”

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