#aNYWAY a bitch is just projecting on two muses instead of one this time and waving it off as development.

[theaidalifedidntchooseyou]

“You’re drifting.”

“Drifting?”

“What are you afraid of?”

“..Myself.”

“Hm.. Can’t relate.”

Gloved fingers intertwine loosely in a motion of comfort and the original palette jostles faintly. Corbenik’s at least earned a laugh from his host, as soft and melancholic as it is. The whole idea of compassion is still a weird sensation for him, but hours and hours of self-reflection told him that he had been compassionate since the very beginning. No AI would have sacrificed themselves two-fold like he did just from purpose alone. Still, laughter is infectious, and the Rebirth finds a faint smile crawling along his lips briefly ( ovan should laugh more.. it’s easiest to tell how he feels when he laughs, but at least he smiles ).

Cyan hues peer down, tracing at the contours of cross-hatched fingers with his gaze. The twin gunners are both occupying the floor of Corbenik’s study, a loose circle of tomes decorating their fields of vision. Despite the swapped palettes, the both of them match the overall color theme the epitaph was loosely going for, even though they’re just sitting on their knees with their hands together.

In other words, it was picture-perfect blackmail.

Even then, Corbenik was the only person who could see what was going on inside Indou Masato’s head at any given moment. He tended not to more often than not, but such a rare closeness would be nowhere occurring without that caveat of being someone’s epitaph. Snow white locks shifted some as he shook his head gently, breaking himself of a fruitless train of thought. 

“Good, you’re still in there,” Corbenik hums softly.

He finds a wry smile on his host’s lips. He doesn’t want to be, but he’s refraining from saying it aloud. Ovan doesn’t even have to speak if he doesn’t want to--Corbenik could easily have a perfectly fluent, one-sided conversation with his thoughts alone. However.. that wasn’t as beneficial as the association of one’s lips parting to voice the very same words. They both knew that.

The both of them also knew that he’d awoken from another nightmare--a messy one, it seemed, rather than just a recollection of the past coming to haunt him. Ryou must have been sleeping at his apartment again ( he’d ask why they hadn’t just moved into the terror’s spacious apartment together, and it seemed more or less a family political matter more than anything. it was safer to have two havens than one in the event something broke down. corbenik chanced to call it a fear of commitment once or twice ), or else Ovan wouldn’t be here at near three in the morning in real world time, looking horrendously tired and restless all at once. That was when Corbenik decided to take the discussion to the floor while Masato tried to collect his thoughts, reaching for his epitaph’s hands.

It was almost amusing how often people forgot Ovan was really just a human with emotions, too, craving comfort in moments of weakness. Ryou must have been incredibly tender when he was there. Good for him.

But, he’s not here right now, or Corbenik wouldn’t be the one comforting the blunet in front of him.

“What was it this time? You’re still breathing shallow,” he asks softly, making little sense of the split-second flashes of imagery he can probe as Ovan remains silent to find a decent synopsis he can remember. His captured digits tighten faintly as he tiredly mutters what he remembers.

“..A very dark part of me stepped into memories and tore them apart, brutally.. It swallowed the me that was present in those places..and took out that self-loathing on the people that mattered in them,” Ovan explained, “..it was so brutally detailed down to the very discolorations of gaping wounds. I didn’t think it was possible to cling to details like that.”

“You’ve always been one to nitpick the details, Masato.”

“..I suppose..”

“Was it AIDA?” It wouldn’t have been the first time he had coaxed him from an AIDA-induced nightmare.

“..I would usually assume so, but.. why would I feel the need to kill the same people I want to protect? ..it doesn’t trigger like that, ever. ..rarely is it the aftermath, but still.” He hangs his head, bright blue locks falling forward in what could only be described as self-directed shame. No, it’s not AIDA--this is different, and that’s why he’s so strung up about it. Masato couldn’t reason himself back to sleep. He’s been stumped.

Corbenik purses his lips some in thought. He’s taken to reading up on dream interpretation often, both for Ovan’s sake and his own. Feeling the burden of his partner’s guilt and shame ( which was getting better, he had to comment to himself ) weighed in on what it be might representative of. “Maybe it’s a reflection of you.”

Ovan’s silent at the suggestion, slate hues also trained on their hands, unmoving. The trace of AIDA had a vicegrip on his need to never lose sight of the people he loves the most, but it was no longer the true reflection of himself after the Rebirth, and the ensuing purification of <Tri-Edge>. Even so, Corbenik was one of those reflections--or else they wouldn’t have been paired in the first place--so the only other logical description was that it was a dark reflection of Masato himself.

“..all of your negativity manifesting itself to wreak havoc on everything once precious to you. If you weren’t you, I would venture to say you’re stressed out, but..”

“The fact it was so unsolicited makes me think that it’s trauma-induced,” Ovan believes, but he’s vexed by it. His brain was doing a good job of working against him and funneling these emotions into a knife to stab into himself. It was one of the things that perplexed Corbenik as an AI. The human body suppresses these things for the sake of homeostasis, but loses itself when those same suppressions are left alone for too long. Yet.. how was the conscious supposed to know that? Only the subconscious could rear that ugly head--yet, without the rationality of the conscious, dream manifestations run awry to the point that it’s too damaging to sit through.

What a mess--a fascinating mess.

With Masato’s track record, Corbenik didn’t expect any less from that prolonged, compounded grief, rage, sorrow, and shame. So many shades of the same feeling ( pain ), it made sense it would combust in fond memories. It was Corbenik’s turn to give a lopsided smile.

“You’re so hellbent on erasing yourself, but you push it away so much that it comes back twice as hard, no?” 

To this, he spies the other’s chest expanding as he holds his breath. Back to the guilt, the shame, the knife created solely to make him bleed. He felt like he deserved it--that edge of selfishness bit hard at him, but it was also part of the reason why Masato fought back so often, too. He wasn’t about to throw away everything he’d built from then on after getting a second chance. Ovan’s sheer will was what drew Corbenik in all those years ago.

He had never stopped fighting, and when he did, he had hit the ground running again.

How admirable, came a gentle thought as grey-tipped gloves untangled themselves from umber, soon burying themselves in much longer, brighter locks. Corbenik shifted as slate blue watched with careful detail, and soon, he was sitting with his legs crossed, pulling the other obliging gunner to rest his head in his lap. It wasn’t often the epitaph was affectionate, but there were few that he paid no mind to when it came to being gentle. Besides, it was all too easy to give what his host wanted, which was both a place to rest, and the sensation of fingers tousling his hair. 

“..I’m not sure of what I want for myself, so I resort to destroying anything I can within me in that moment of conflict, huh,” Ovan mutters tiredly from the epitaph’s lap, his cheek pressed against his thigh. Corbenik continues to play with his hair, and it causes Ovan’s eyes to flutter despite his stoic expression.

“That’s one way to look at it,” the rebirth offers, “Whatever explanation feels right to you is more than likely the answer.”

His answer satisfied the other’s doubts for now as the tired gunner closes his eyes once more. “..I don’t know how to dispel one or the other,” he mutters, to which Corbenik tilts his head, demonic hues softening. Always searching for an answer--that was so like him.

“You’ll come to discover it in time, Masato,” he assures him quietly, “Now rest.. you won’t have to carry the remainder alone. I’ll be with you.” He feels the body against him relax some, much to his relief. He didn’t think sleeping with an M2D on was the most comfortable thing in the world, but, it wasn’t like Masato could feel it on most of the time anyway. Still, there was the assurance of not being alone. Humans were strange like that, Corbenik frowned some, realizing his own attachments were driven by what he had picked up from humans as well. The need to be near another.. it was unnerving that only some could operate ( or fool themselves into believing that could operate ) on their own. Masato must have been one of the ones that couldn’t, but had to. ..It was a wonder he kept going, the stubborn man. Still.. that was part of the reason why he was magnetized in the first place. The least Corbenik could do is provide him the companionship he needed while he tried to figure out himself. Time was on their side, after all.

“..Sleep well.”

[gyujeongfmd]

P L O T C A L L 

following the trend, and using this as a new year / new me — jk, not really i’m still the same. but consider this a post to get new connections / build on old ones, see any possible overlap with schedules and what not. i’ll be on dscrd or ims (probably on minjung, but you can still reach me on gyu) :~) anyways, spiel over, under the cut are my babies’ current doings.

if you wanted to keep any of the event threads, let me know and i’ll continue to respond! :~) 

G Y U J E O N G

emotionally, he’s still stunted. probably borderline on the edge of getting back with his first love despite not knowing what he’s falling into — either way, he’ll be caught up with that mentally to the point where he won’t have time for other conversations / be short-fused for a bit (idk maybe your muse intervenes and it just gets plain-out messy, angsty chaotic roll of confusion)

as a result, old friends he might have more arguments as he’ll be more pensive / uptight in the current situation while new friendships may have to be paused because he’ll be hard to get a hold of (on a day where you might get a hold of him, drag him out because 99% of the time he’s been cooped up in his room)

in addition, his personal life has been aired out by today’s seoul — so bring it up and you get an even bigger bitch

career wise, he is still working on his otakgyu line. lmao, it’s been a while since he released the last batch, but gold star has him worked to the point where he hasn’t been able to release. so, he’s finally gonna release it this quarter, so hit him up and get that promo box of shoes

music wise — he’s working on his own solo project as gold star told him he had to get that shit done because fans have been asking for it after his last album. so, he’s working on drafting up a song to appease them. catch him in the studio this quarter

on top of that, he’s been tasked as gold star’s teddy to come up with things for ultraviolet’s comeback — ask him about it, or don’t either way he’s not very happy with either of those things since he feels he has so many other better things to do but has to do this shit instead

platinum, he’s created two of their title tracks which he’s not that happy about? but then again, when is he really happy about creating things for gold star’s capitalistic greed? nonetheless, he’s been working on those tracks so when they get released maybe your muse is a fan or not? idk let him hear it out or any overlap in promotions work! 

all in all, grumpy gyu back x100 — if you want something antagonistic or just neutral, you know he’s your guy

M I N J U N G

if gyu is emotionally stunted still, minjung is emotions on haywire. she’s reeling in what she feels for the people around her / the people of her past, and wrapped up in processing those viscerally one by one that you’ll probably get more bits of abstractism from her this quarter? more aloof, and more times she’ll be staring off doing nothing than being proactive and moving

friendships, she likes to keep the small fraction of people she’s close to. so, she’ll answer calls pick up, and invite for face to face interactions over any texts / phonecalls. hang out with her and she’ll probably just want to get drunk and talk about how the world likes to fuck her over time and time again despite her being the catalyst for her own demises

career wise, equinox isn’t doing anything too flashy. the next round of comebacks are also so… not her. she’s really regretting re-signing with gold star at this point since each comeback has just been plain out shit since she’s resigned.

however, work doesn’t have her that stretched thin group wise? so, catch her at gold star buildings — recording, dance practice, etc.

solo wise, she’s released some good bops (i’m biased) — so, gold star’s ready to bust her in the first quarter of 2022 with a comeback album. she’ll be writing songs during this time, and finding bits of inspiration in her time off. music talk of past releases / future releases or just getting her out of work, all of it fits her schedule

aka if you just want your muse’s head to be fucked with riddles, minjung can be your gal

others

anything base complex related or just related to the friendships within gold star / volunteering could also work since both of my muses are in gold star! or it doesn’t have to be schedule based, so if you want to do something outside that realm, i’m down too!

[ears-awake-eyes-opened]

Smashed

(Hayffie ❤️. Sensual angst and relationship building during the 72nd Hunger Games. Raw and vulnerable Effie is without a doubt the most gorgeous muse I’ve ever had. — Thank you for sharing the prompt. Writing this story brought up memories of a young man who died in his sleep in November 2019. I’d known him since he was 5 years old. Someone who has been drinking heavily, which can mean as few as 5 drinks, give or take, on an empty stomach, may need help. Watch for signs of alcohol poisoning, and don’t let them fall asleep unattended. The young man I knew had little experience with alcohol. If someone had been caring for him similarly to how Haymitch takes care of Effie in this fic, then he would likely still be alive. I think about him often.)

***

Haymitch startled awake and clutched his knife. His ears rang with an echo of shattered glass followed by humming. The sounds were muffled but too loud to be the residue of a dream. Dawn hadn’t yet broken, and it took a moment in darkness to remember whose bed he was in. ...The Capitol’s. The penthouse. The same room he’d slept in for 22 Julys but would never stoop to call his own.

This was supposed to be his day to sleep in if he could. The tributes from 11 and 12 had been killed during the bloodbath at the Cornucopia the day before, and he’d spent the afternoon with Chaff. Everything between then and now was a bit hazy. There’d been Vodka shots, and then a *pick-up* game in the betting lounge to see which of them would be the first to be propositioned for sex.

Not ten minutes in, Haymitch was approached by a woman with pale blue hair flowing down her back, a jeweled collar around her throat, and breast implants the size of cantaloupes. “Hey, victor. Wanna get out of here?”

“Not tonight, sweetheart,” he muttered low enough for Chaff not to hear. This was his buddy’s game, not his. The last thing he wanted in the middle of the Games was to be a piece of meat for some Capitol bitch.

A waif like creature with tattooed olive skin and an unusually large ass for her tiny frame sidled up to Chaff soon afterward. ‘I win,’ he mouthed as he walked out the door with his hand already sliding into the back waistband of her pants.

Glass shattered again, shaking Haymitch from his fog covered memories. What the hell?! As the humming grew louder, he dragged himself out of bed and followed the sound into the living room.

Effie sat on the sofa wearing yesterday’s clothes. Her ankles were crossed on top of the coffee table. “I’ll have another, dear!” She called to a red-clad Avox. He stepped out from the shadows and handed her an oversized champagne flute. She dropped her feet to the floor and promptly filled the new stemware from a large, nearly empty pitcher of orange liquid. Her flute overflowed. The liquid pooled on the table, then dripped over the edge to the purple rug. The Avox stood by with a handtowel draped over his arm, but she didn’t call for one so he remained inconspicuous.

“You know...” Effie spoke to the pink wig she’d taken off at some point and set beside her on the couch, “I’ve always thought that rug needed more color. Orange goes with purple like wildflowers on a mountainside.”

She tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, bent forward at the waist, put her mouth to the rim of the glass, and sipped the drink with a loud slurp until it was emptied enough to not spill further. As she raised her head, she caught sight of Haymitch.

All traces of the lipstick she’d worn the day before were gone. Her lips glistened with whatever she was drinking. A thought flashed through his mind of what it would be like to kiss her. He’d wondered before. As she licked her lips, looking at him like she was, he had a hard time thinking about anything else.

Neither of them glanced away nor said a word as he watched her swallow the rest of her drink. The spell broke when she smashed the flute to the floor and started humming again. The tune this time was unmistakable. It was the same melody that played in the arena when images of dead tributes were projected into a darkened sky.

“Effie, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m having brunch!”

“Brunch? It’s 5am.”

“Mimosas make any meal brunch!”

“I don’t see a meal here, sweetheart. Have you eaten since yesterday?”

“Yesterday we had dinner with the children. You remember. They picked at the food, but they had the decency to use silverware.”

“That wasn’t yesterday. That was the day before. Have you eaten anything since then?”

“I never eat on the first day of the Games. Nothing settles well...”

He’d been too wrapped up in his own miserable sense of responsibility and tension on Day 1 to notice her eating habits or lack thereof.

“...But these mimosas certainly are delicious.” She snapped her fingers and the Avox stepped into the light again. Effie held up the empty pitcher. The Avox took it as soon as he was clear that she didn’t intend to throw it on the floor. “Bring us another round and two more glasses.”

“Hold up,” Haymitch said to the Avox. “Bring a pitcher of water and a plastic cup. Make sure the pitcher is plastic too. And bring some crackers. ...And an empty bucket, thanks.”

“And crepes! With strawberries and cream cheese, chopped candied pecans and a drizzle of maple syrup... and mimosas!” Effie added.

The Avox looked to Haymitch who quietly shook his head. “Let’s start with crackers and work up to the rest. I think you’ve had enough alcohol this morning.”

“Amitch Habernathy! Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot have!”

“Sweetheart, I’m just trying to help.” He went the long way around the rug to avoid stepping on shards of broken glass, and he sat beside her on the sofa.

Through worn layers of makeup, he couldn’t tell if her cheeks were pale or blazing. He raised his hand slowly to her forehead. She held her breath as he touched her. Her skin was clammy but held some warmth. “How many drinks have you had?”

The back of his hand still grazed her forehead as the answer barely escaped her throat, “I lost count.”

He assessed the pile of broken glass on the floor and believed it was enough to be concerned about her. Her body was slight under all those layers of clothes she wore. He’d stared at her enough to know it. Besides, she hadn’t eaten in a day and a half.

As he dropped his hand from her forehead, she caressed along his cheek, his jaw, his neck, then down the front of his rumpled T-shirt. “You’re so pretty,” she said.

She’d never touched him so personally. It almost scared the shit out of him because she felt so good. “I ain’t so pretty. You’re just drunk,” he reminded himself.

“I ain’t so drunk...”

Effie Trinket saying “ain’t” was drunk for sure, but he knew it would be pointless to argue with her.

The Avox brought Haymitch’s requested items in a bucket. They nodded to each other: Haymitch in appreciation, and the Avox in relief that Effie was no longer breaking champagne flutes.

“You’re pretty too,” she said to the Avox. All six of your eyes are pretty. But not quite as pretty as this guy.” Her palm still lingered on Haymitch’s chest, and she whispered to the Avox, “Have you seen him naked? Holy Mary Mother of God, he’s so fine!”

Haymitch wondered if and when Effie had actually seen him naked. He blacked out too often to know. “I don’t think any mothers of gods want to see me without any clothes. Let’s leave them out of this.” Making light of her comment was safer than picturing himself naked with Effie.

The Avox poured water into the plastic cup and left the crackers in the bag instead of laying them out on fine china. Haymitch waved him off with gratitude then handed her the cup of water. “Drink this slowly. It’ll help you sober up, and when you wake up later you’ll feel like a small train hit you instead of a big one.”

“I don’t want to be sober!” What she wanted was to forget all the death she’d witnessed that day, but she took the cup of water and drank anyway. Haymitch’s attentiveness was more intoxicating than the alcohol had been. “...Is this what it takes?”

“What? Water?”

“Me being drunk. Is this what it takes?...” For you to touch me, she didn’t say. She gripped his T-shirt.

“You’re not making sense, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me ‘sweetheart.’ It means you’re pissed off, or worse it means nothing. I’m more than nothing. I want to mean more than nothing!” She let go of his shirt and shoved him. “I don’t want to look at you.”

But her eyes were still on him. Like inlets of a wild sea, he could drown in them if he let himself. She’s even more insane drunk than sober. But he couldn’t look away from her regardless.

“I have to go.” Effie set the water cup down and stood up. The room started spinning, so she plopped back down. “...My shoes are broken. I can’t stand up because my shoes are broken!”

“Your shoes are fine, honey. Do you want to take them off?”

“I love these shoes. Can’t you understand? How can you be so blind not to see that I LOVE them?”

“Okay, they’re great shoes. Maybe they’ll work better if you have something to eat.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a couple of crackers, eating one and handing her the other. “Food will keep some of the alcohol that’s still in your stomach from getting into your bloodstream.”

As soon as Effie ate the cracker, her long-empty stomach craved more. She took the bag from Haymitch and popped a handful into her mouth.

“Go slowly,” he said, “Like with the water.”

“Stop interfering!”

“Fine!” He sat back on the couch and folded his arms behind his head. “Do whatever you want.”

As she chewed the crackers, she bent forward to unstrap her shoes. Using his foot, he slid the table forward so she wouldn’t bang her head on it. She didn’t seem to notice his ‘interference.’

With a bit of food in her stomach and the high heels off her feet, she stood up and managed to remain standing even as the room spun. Haymitch put a leg up on the table, barricading her from walking in the direction of smashed glass. With an unsteady gait, she took the long way around the room. He followed her with the bucket of crackers and water.

As she wobbled through the living room, she unzipped her dress. “Is it hot in here? Or is it just me?”

“It’s definitely you.”

By the time she got to the hallway, she’d slipped the sleeves down her arms, and the dress spilled onto the floor in a puddle of chiffon.

His jaw dropped as she stood there in a baby blue corset, matching panties, and lace trimmed thigh high stockings. “...Holy Mary Mother of God.”

“I thought you said we were leaving mothers of gods out of this.”

“You changed my mind.”

“Oh...” Her stomach lurched, and she felt its contents pushing up against her esophagus. Shit. Throwing up was one thing that annoyed Effie more than bad manners. She commanded her stomach to settle down, but the will of her body to get rid of those last few mimosas and that large handful of crackers was more powerful.

She rushed to her bathroom, and vomited in the toilet. She crouched there in stillness while her guts churned inside.

Haymitch knelt behind her. “I’m right here, honey.” He touched her head gently and gathered her hair up into his hands. He’d never touched it before. Each strand was light and soft like a feather. Why she’d want to cover up this delicacy with wigs, he had no idea.

She threw up several more times until her stomach was empty. By then she was crying. He stroked her hair, feeling dangerously close to the brink of something inescapable. “How about I get you some water and help you into bed, okay?”

She nodded almost imperceptibly, completely defeated. “Everything’s spinning.”

“Put your arms around my neck.”

She did what he requested. He picked her up off the floor and carried her to the edge of her bed. She was very drunk but not unaware of the sensation of his arms. Being there felt warm and safe and insanely good. When he let go, she didn’t like the absence. She cried some more, unable to contain the tears, emptying the contents of her heart as it had been with her stomach.

He poured her another cup of water and sat beside her, drawing small circles on her back while she sipped slowly. “The bucket’s here if you need to throw up again. I know you’re dizzy.”

She shivered. When those shudders turned to shakes, he knew it would be best to get her warm. “When you’re ready, let’s get you under the covers.”

“My corset...” Her throat hurt to talk. “Will you help me loosen it so I can take it off?”

Haymitch had loosened a fair number of corsets in the past twenty years. He didn’t know why he was so affected by this raw and vulnerable version of Effie. His hands trembled untying the laces at her back. He stopped when the corset was loose enough for her to unhook in front. If she couldn’t manage the hooks, then it would be staying on, because if he took off her corset there was no way in hell he’d be able to stop there, not with the way he was feeling.

“What do you need? A shirt? The robe on the hook in the bathroom?”

“The robe is fine,” she whispered.

He stepped away to get it for her, and when he came back, the corset had slipped several inches. There was no avoiding a view of her breasts, and he was only willing to be honorable to a certain extent. He was going to look for as long as she, drunk or not, would let him look.

She was refreshingly different than the woman he’d met yesterday in passing. Effie’s lingerie and the other’s hair were similar shades of blue, and maybe that’s why he thought of the comparison just then. Effie’s breasts were small enough to fit fully in his hands. They were firm from the fastidious care she gave her body, and he vowed right then to never taunt her again about those efforts. Her nipples were pink and upturned. She must be nearly 30, but her breasts probably hadn’t dropped a centimeter from where they’d been at 18. His mouth watered just looking at her.

When he glanced up at her eyes, they were on his, watching him watch her. He didn’t know whether her lack of embarrassment came from pride in her body or her altered brain state. Maybe he’d find out another time, or maybe this would be the only time he’d ever see her breasts bare. Either way, this had to be enough for now because she was still shivering.

He sat behind her and helped her into the robe. She fumbled with the corset hooks until the garment fell away. She tied the robe closed then peeled off her stockings. Bending forward made her more dizzy, so she sipped more water and ate a cracker before sliding under the covers.

Haymitch propped pillows behind and in front of her to keep her lying on her side. Then he lay facing her. He stayed on top of the covers because to climb inside with her, especially now, would be as much folly as unhooking her corset would have been.

Her eyelids were heavy.

“I’m gonna be here if you need anything. I’m gonna wake you up several times the first hour, then maybe once each hour after that. I’m warning you, so hopefully you won’t be as pissed at me. I know you’re tired, honey, but you drank a lot on an empty stomach, and your body has to process it. Throwing some up helped, but the alcohol in your blood could still rise for a while as you sleep. I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

He thought of the thousands of times he’d subjected himself to the risk and certainty of alcohol poisoning. None of those times mattered to him because that was his life. But this was Effie, and for whatever reasons, her staying alive mattered a hell of a lot more to him than he would have expected.

As she dozed off, he listened to make sure her breathing was regular.

The first time he woke her, she hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep. She touched his face the same as before. “Sometimes I feel like my heart’s going to burst. You know?”

He really didn’t know what she meant by that, but he knew from personal experience that drunk people rarely make sense, even to themselves. He checked her pulse at her wrist. “You’re heart’s gonna be fine.”

When he withdrew his hand she said, “Don’t. Don’t let go.” She fell asleep again with him lightly holding her hand.

The second time he woke her, she teased, “I finally got you in my bed.”

“Finally?? I don’t remember you ever trying.”

“Trying appears differently to different people.”

The third time he woke her, she said, “I want to kiss you.”

“Another time,” he assured her, “When you’re gonna remember it.”

“I’ll remember it now.”

“I don’t think so, and I’m not willing to risk it. Someday when I kiss you, you’re for damn sure gonna remember it.”

The fourth time he woke her, she said, “You’re getting on that train tomorrow, and I hate it. Every time it takes you away from me, I hate it more.”

He was afraid of what she might say next. Soon she was going to forget this conversation, and that reality was a mixture of relief and agitation. Because he wasn’t going to forget.

The fifth time he woke her, she asked, “Why do you keep waking me up?” The bubble had burst.

The sixth time, she pulled her hand away. “Haymitch! Quit waking me up!”

The seventh time was an hour later. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Making sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

He lay in bed with her until noon, listening to her normal, even breathing and periodically checking the temperature of her skin with the back of his hand. He didn’t wake her again — because he didn’t want to hear her tell him to leave.

She woke up in the afternoon alone. Her head was throbbing, and the daylight hurt her eyes. She dragged herself out of bed, pulled herself together, and put on a pair of dark glasses.

The dress and corset she’d worn the day before were laying at the foot of the bed. Why didn’t I hang them up? She did so belatedly. I must have been exhausted last night. She’d worked the floor until early morning, making connections, trying to help escorts and mentors from other districts secure sponsors.

She passed through the living room and saw her wig on the couch and her shoes on the rug. Did I take those off here before bed? I can’t remember. I must have had too many drinks. That would explain the headache. She gathered them up and returned them to her room.

Haymitch was eating in the dining room. The Avoxes had laid out a full spread. “How are you feeling?” he asked her.

“Like I was hit by a train.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes. My stomach hurts, but yes.”

“Eat a bit then. It should help.”

She sat down, and looked awhile at Haymitch’s eyes. Almost remembering... something. She took off her dark glasses and looked again.

“I think I had a dream about you last night.”

“You’re dreaming about me, eh?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Still, something danced along the edges of her memory. It was almost... beautiful.

Haymitch smirked like he knew a secret. “What do you remember about the dream?” he asked.

“I licked my lips...” I wanted to kiss you. DID I kiss you? “...And you touched my forehead the way my mother used to when I was sick.” I wanted to touch you too... your face, your neck, your chest. DID I touch you?

“So, in your dream I was your mother?” He teased.

“No!”

“...Holy Mary Mother of God, no?” His grin was big enough now to show the gap between his teeth.

It was rare to see him gleeful. Effie loved it, but... “Wait. Those words were part of the dream somehow. Did I say them or did you?”

“Maybe we both did.”

She eyed him suspiciously. The dream had been sensual, erotic at times. I took off my clothes.. Or did you? You carried me to bed. Did we sleep together? Did we...

“You touched my hair.”

“It’s soft like feathers.”

“In the dream?”

“Sure. Why not.”

She recalled confessions of a bursting heart and wanting him...

Effie’s heart was racing now. She pushed her chair away from the table, stepped into the kitchen and started opening cabinets. To the Avoxes she questioned, “Where are all the champagne flutes?”

Of course they couldn’t answer. Confusion spread across her face. “Haymitch?...”

“You smashed ‘em up real good, honey. Like cannon fire.”

Honey? “In the dream?”

“Nope. On the living room floor.”

“What happened last night?”

“Last night I was asleep.”

“Then what happened this morning?”

Haymitch took his time before answering.

“I demand to know what happened between us this morning!”

“You were drunk. I took care of you.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s ALL?! You try taking care of somebody who’s drunk. It ain’t easy.”

She dropped back into her chair with chagrin. “I feel like I should thank you.”

“You already did.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah. You showed me your breasts.”

“What?” Effie’s face flushed pink all the way through her makeup.

“I figure we’re almost even now, since apparently you’ve already seen me naked.”

“What?! How do you know that?”

“You told my friend here early this morning.” He looked to the red-clad Avox for confirmation. “Right?” The man shrugged his shoulders, and quickly escaped to busy himself in the kitchen. “I recall your words were, ‘Have you seen him naked? Holy Mary Mother of God, he’s so fine.’”

Effie pressed her palms to her cheeks to try to temper the blood rushing there. “So THIS is what mortification feels like.”

“You’ve got nothin’ to be mortified about. You think I’m fine, and I think you’re just about the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” You make me want to do things to you that I’m terrified and thrilled to think about. “See? We’re even.”

“Did you sleep with me?”

“I watched you sleep to make sure you stayed alive.”

The way he said it, all of it, set something warm into motion. It buzzed along her spine and down her arms. The sensation throbbed in her fingers. She felt it pulling her to hold his hand, but other forces kept her frozen. Just reach across the table and hold his hand! Why is that so intimidating?

Full of uncertainty she asked, “What’s going to happen?”

“I’ll get on the train.”

“Haymitch... when you do, I’m going to hate it.”

“...I know.”

[jacensolodjo]

I... honestly don’t know if I got into Shane’s mindset properly here but whatever. And I never feel like I fully grasp Jack but. Look. I wrote a Thing with them ok?? I tried lmao *Tony Stark I think I did okay.gif*

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

Jack had said she wanted at least 10 minutes of solo fight time. So Shane had no choice but to wait on the hill in prone, sniper rifle at the ready. She doubted she would actually fire a shot before Charging down the hill towards Jack. Patience was not at all Shepard’s strong suit and everyone knew it. Especially Jack. Shane was starting to wonder if Jack was teasing her, testing her. 

And showing off. She was showing off. They both did, they both cajoled each other into higher and higher kill counts. If they were going to kill something, let it be Cerberus fuckheads, had been the logic from the get go.

Shane watched, half-disbelieving, as Jack literally ripped the spine out of a Nemesis. As the other biotic was turning to look at the hill, Shane quickly pulled the trigger. Jack flinched, just a little, as the bolt slammed through a heavily armored Centurion that had been barely a foot away, right at the brain stem. Guess I gotta tell Anderson disconnecting the computer still works, Shane thought. 

“So your way was cleaner,” Jack shrugged as she spoke over the comms. 

“I’m hurt y’think that’s why I did it,” Shane remarked back, rolling her eyes even though there was no way Jack could see it. 

Shane really wasn’t the sniper of the crew. She could do it, but she hated it. And her original classification had always meant her CQC was top notch. And had only grown after Project Lazarus and finally getting the go-ahead to be called ‘Vanguard’ rather than ‘Adept’. 

“Yeah well, still got another minute solo,” Jack said dismissively before turning to walk back into the fray. She had lured a good number of them out of the building but Shane was sure there were quite a few waiting for them inside still. 

Shane tapped the side of her helmet, swapping frequencies. On her last mission she had managed to snag the frequency codes that most of the lower-level Cerberus troops used. It was far easier to eavesdrop on them that way than trying to get EDI to hack into their system. And at the moment, she didn’t even have the Normandy nearby. The two biotics had taken a simple shuttle to this simple planet for a simple kill Cerberus mission. 

“We need backup! Repeat: backup! Subject Zero and Commander Shepard are here!” a frantic voice was screaming. A little late, Shane mused, but she didn’t much care if they got backup or not. It would just put her on more even footing with the scoring. 

“No backup, you are ordered to evacuate. If you stay there you will be signing your own death warrant. Do not engage Subject Zero or Commander Shepard,” a calmer, cooler voice replied. Shane wracked her brain. trying to pin down where or if she had heard the voice before. 

“But we need backup to cover the escape! We’ve lost a quarter of our defenses already! Our troops are saying they haven’t even seen Shepard enter the fray yet!”

“Then enjoy dying.”

“Banes, you can’t--”

Banes?!?! That was it.

“Armistan, I’m a little offended. Why shouldn’t I have some fun on y’company’s dime?” Shane broke in, unable to stop herself even knowing it meant they’d realize she had their frequency and everything else. 

“Commander Shepard, this is not the first time you’ve interrupted my work,” Banes said coolly. 

“An’ the first time I did wasn’t the first time y’Cerberus fucks sicced a Thresher Maw on me.”

“Ah, so you did learn about Akuze. A shame that memorial didn’t turn out like it should have...” 

“Fuck you!” Shane instantly felt her biotics activate around her. “I’m going t’ fucking rip your head off your fucking body y’piece of scheiße!”

“Now, now no need to get nasty,” Banes chided, still cool as a damn cucumber. Why the hell were Cerberus men always like this? Always knowing exactly how to just make her even more mad!?

“Once I’m done here, you’ll see how fuckin’ nasty I can really be,” Shane growled, standing up. She surveyed the area in front of her. Jack had gone inside. Damn. She had gotten distracted yelling at Banes. Holding back a sigh, Shane instead Charged down the hill and past the carnage Jack was responsible for.

“I look forward to it. Troopers, change to frequency gamma. This has been a wonderful chat, Commander Shepard, but I’m afraid it ends now.” 

“I’m not done with you!” she didn’t care if the frequencies had already changed. She’d get him eventually. He had to know that. 

“You are for now,” Banes said before a very soft click. Shane growled again but then turned the frequency back to the one she shared with Jack.

“Where the fuck are you?” Shane demanded, a lot harsher than she meant. She was still riled by her conversation with Banes. Dammit. She thought of apologizing but knew Jack would likely just wave it off. 

“I could say the same damn thing, bitch! What, were you daydreaming out there?” at least Shane could count on Jack not much caring if Shane was a little curt. 

“I eavesdropped on them. They’re trying to evacuate instead of holding the area,” Shane explained, running at her max speed while following the trail that she knew would lead to Jack.

“Uh huh. You did way more than eavesdrop,” Jack said. Shane honestly didn’t know why she thought she could ever fool Jack. Jack knew what Shane was going to do before Shane even thought it. 

“You would too if you heard fucking Banes on the line using your number,” Shane returned before finally sprinting around a corner to find the meat of the action once more. 

“My nu-- oh, fuck that! That’s hardly--” but Jack stopped speaking to instead fling two Guardians at a wall, smashing them into pulp within their armor. 

“Hardly worth gettin’ pissy over?” Shane asked mildly, Charging right past Jack to fire off a short burst from her stolen Mattock into a line of troopers. 

“Well, kinda, yeah. But... thanks,” Jack admitted, before flinging a Phantom into the air. Shane smiled to herself before peppering the Phantom full of holes as it rotated in mid-air. 

In all honesty, Shane was glad to hear Jack wasn’t reacting as badly to ‘Subject Zero’. She was healing. But that wasn’t going to make Shane suddenly shrug about the use of the moniker. Especially from Cerberus. 

“Also, it was kinda half-selfish anyway. Banes was responsible for what happened to Kahoku’s men. He sicced a fuckin’ thresher on me when I went to look for the missing troops,” Shane continued, seeing no point in pretending it was all selfless caring of Jack’s ‘feelings’ 

“Ah, damn. S’e’here?” Jack asked as the pair finally reconnected to storm down a hallway. Jack had heard the tale of woe many times when it came to Akuze, but the Kahoku mission was new. Though Jack never really cared about learning new things about Shane, in that she didn’t actually go asking, it was only natural to learn more at ‘surprising’ times. They couldn’t possibly talk about each other’s 20+ years of life in the galaxy and still have time to kill some Cerberus fucks. It wasn’t hidden history, just history they hadn’t brought up yet. The reason they worked out so well is they had no expectations of such. Their histories had to come up organically, not after playing 20 questions. They bonded because their trauma was shared, the same people had caused them both a lot of pain and torment. In different ways, sure, but still the same people.

“Nah, I dunno where he is but he definitely isn’t here. The way he said things it seemed like he was already on a ship away from here,” Shane admitted. It was a disappointment but it would be rectified. 

“Well, you and I both know there’s no Cerberus fuck in the galaxy who can hide from us for very long. You wanna go after him, you know I’m fucking there,” Jack said, not even sounding out of breath yet. Shane had to admire her resilience. 

“Yeah, I know. Let’s finish up here then we’ll worry about Banes,” Shane said, offering a slight smile at the other biotic. Jack smirked back then as one they literally leaped into the next battle. 

[thompsborn]

fic where harley is a doctor that works w helen cho that sees peter often because of how much he gets hurt from being spider-man? and they fall in love bc they r already smitten for each other bc why wouldn't they be

i didn’t know how much i needed an au like this until you sent it omg

[read on ao3]

—

He’s in the middle of taking a sip of coffee when the alarm goes off.

“Mister Keener,” Friday says, as he’s cursing over the hot coffee that’s soaking into the front of his shirt. Thankfully, it’s not hot enough to actually burn him, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant. “Your assistance is needed in the Medical Wing.”

Harley frowns. “What time is it?”

“Four fifty eight in the morning, Mister Keener.”

“Jesus, really?” Harley sets his mug down and turns his arm over to look at his watch. His brows shoot up towards his hairline, surprised. “Wow. Okay. Didn’t realize it was... Jesus. Alright.”

Friday sounds almost amused when she tells him, “Doctor Cho is insisting you hurry.”

Harley sighs. “Yeah, okay. On my way.”

At this time of the night, the only medical staff on hand are the ones who live close by—like Helen, who has an apartment less than a two minute walk away—and those who live on site, like Harley, who’s had his own floor in the tower since he was fifteen and told Tony over a phone call that he was thinking about coming to New York once he was done with high school. Because of this, Harley isn’t all that surprised to find that it’s only him and Helen that show up in the MedBay—if anything, it’s what he expected.

And he should have expected who, exactly, they’re treating in the middle of the night, but he still finds himself mildly surprised when he comes face to face with Peter’s sheepish grin.

“Of course it’s you,” Harley says, standing at the foot of the hospital bed with his arms crossed over his chest. “Who else would be waking me up like this?”

“Don’t lie to me,” Peter says, sheepish grin turning a bit snarky. “You weren’t asleep.”

Harley purses his lips. “I could’ve been.”

Peter rolls his eyes, but doesn’t get the chance to respond before Helen is hovering by his side, snapping her gloves into place and instructing, “Friday, give me the run down.“

“Mister Parker has several second degree burns along his left leg and left arm,” Friday responds. “His right wrist is broken, and there appears to be a laceration along his abdomen.”

Harley winces in sympathy. “Rough night?”

Peter tries to shrug, but the movement makes his features twist up in a flash of pain. His voice comes out a bit strained when he says, “You could say that. There was—house fire. Not fun.”

“Get everyone out?” Harley asks, if only to provide a slight distraction as Helen assesses the broken wrist, likely checking to see if it needs to be reset or if it’ll be able to heal properly as it is. Peter tries for a grin.

“All of ‘em. Even the kids pet turtle.”

Harley pats Peter’s right knee, careful to remember that it’s his left leg with the burns. “Job well done, Spider-Man.”

“Harley,” Helen says, grabbing his attention. She’s apparently deemed Peter’s wrist not a main concern and is already peeling Peter’s suit off of him. Harley snaps into focus instantly, listening intently as Helen tells him, “I need you to take care of the laceration while I get started on the burns. When that’s done, we need to get that wrist in a cast until it heals.”

Peter pouts. “A cast? Really?”

Helen looks at him sharply. “Last time we didn’t put you in a cast, you managed to re-break your arm before it could heal. Twice.”

Peter’s pout vanishes with a meek chuckle. “It was an accident?” he offers.

“You, Peter Parker,” Helen says, averting her attention back to his burns as she speaks, “are somehow my best and my worst patient of all time. And I’m Tony Stark’s doctor, too, so that says a whole lot about you.”

“Hey—” Peter cuts off with a hiss as Harley starts to disinfect the large cut on his side. Harley offers an apologetic half smile that Peter waves away with another wince and a wobbly sort of grin. “I’m not worse than Mr. Stark.”

Helen hums, high pitched and teasing.

“I’m not,” Peter insists. “I’m not!”

“Believe what you want,” Helen tells him.

Peter huffs. “Why are you being mean to me? Aren’t doctors supposed to be nice to their patients? Isn’t that, like, a thing?”

Harley snorts when Helen says, “Next time, don’t wake me up at four in the morning with second degree burns and a broken wrist, and maybe then I’ll be nicer to you, hm?”

—

The thing is, Harley didn’t plan on this.

As in, growing up, he was sure that what he wanted was to be a mechanic. He loved to build, take apart, recreate, understand. It’s all he ever did. Hell, when Tony Frickin’ Stark broke into his garage, the guy ended up making Harley his own mechanic heaven to say thanks for helping him out.

And Harley still loves all of that, to be fair—he spends a lot of his free time tinkering in Tony’s lab now, helping him out with whatever the man’s working on and often working on his own fun little projects on the side—but it’s not his main drive. It’s not the center of his world.

He thinks it started when he saved Tony.

In a way, anyway—he had only been twelve at the time, and it’s not like twelve year olds are exactly apt on having life changing realizations that change the course of their future. Still, he was a twelve year old that saved Tony Stark’s life, and there was some kind of thrill, almost. It was hard to explain then, and Harley isn’t sure if he could put it into words now, but the feeling had made his fingers feel all tingly and his heart thud heavily in his chest. It was similar to when he built his first successful bot and it came whirring to life, only the feeling was intensified.

He felt like he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. He knew he wanted to save lives.

“You’re getting better,” Helen tells him, after Harley’s helped the medical team with bandaging up the members of the Avengers that just returned from a mission. None of the wounds had been major, mostly just scrapes and bruises, but it’s the most amount of people Harley has helped treat at once, which is a big step.

Harley shrugs, drying off his hands, having just finished washing them. “You’re a good teacher.”

Helen chuckles at that. “How are your classes?”

“Good,” Harley answers, nodding his head. “Kinda boring. I know most of it already, thanks to all the training you’ve given me, but that‘s not really new. I knew everything they taught me in high school, too.”

“You sound like Peter when you say that,” Helen muses, an amused quirk to her brow.

Harley rolls his eyes. “Y’know, people keep saying that, but I only see him when he’s bleeding out and that doesn’t make it feel like we’re all that similar.”

“Oh, you’re similar, alright,” Helen says, laughing a bit. “You’re both genius kids who bust your asses off to save people’s lives.”

Wrinkling his nose, Harley says, “But I don’t do it in spandex. Key difference there, doc.”

Helen holds her hands up in some kind of surrender. “Just saying, you two are alike.”

“I’ll make sure to tell him you said that next time he breaks his leg,” Harley quips.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Friday interjects, “but Spider-Man is reportedly injured and heading to the tower now. ETA of six and a half minutes.”

Harley rolls his eyes up to the ceiling with an exasperated sigh. Helen can only laugh.

—

“Ow. Ow, ow—oh, Jesus, that’s—ow—!”

“Sorry,” Harley says, only averting his eyes for a second to flash Peter an apologetic look before focusing back on the stitches he’s giving him.

Peter curses, slamming his left fist into his own thigh as Harley pushes the needle through. “This sucks,” he complains, clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth. “This is—why is this worse than getting stabbed? Why do I prefer getting stabbed over this? This blows.”

“You need to stop moving,” Harley tells him.

Making an indignant sort of noise, Peter asks, “How the hell am I—I can’t stop moving! This hurts, man, like—like, really fuckin’ hurts!”

“Moving makes it worse, dipshit,” Harley retorts, fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

“You know what else makes it worse?” Peter glares at the wall. “Not having pain killers.”

Harley does roll his eyes now. “Not my job. I just give you the drugs, I don’t make them.”

“I know, but Mr. Stark isn’t here for me to bitch at, so I’m complaining to you about it instead.”

Harley can’t help the way that he snorts at that, finishing off the last of the stitches as he does so. “I usually don’t like to listen to someone complain while I’m working.”

“Sucks to suck,” Peter replies. “Are you done?”

“Yep.” Harley leans back, taking off his gloves and tossing them into the trash. “Any other injuries? Stab wounds? Broken bones?”

Peter hums, tilting his head from side to side. “I don’t think so. Friday?”

“All clear, Mr. Parker.”

Harley frowns. “The fact that you had to ask worries me.”

Peter shrugs. “I get hurt a lot. Kinda used to it.”

“Still,” Harley says. “That’s concerning. Like, you still feel pain, right? You would know if you were hurt somewhere else, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, trust me, I feel pain,” Peter snorts. “But some things just... don’t matter? Like... I dunno, but if it’s not serious, it’s like my brain filters it out on it’s own to focus on other things. Which, probably, y’know, not good, but, like, oh well.”

“Definitely not good,” Harley murmurs, frowning to himself as he squints around the room for a moment. “Well, if you have nothing else, then you’re good to go. And, honestly, thank god that’s all you have, ‘cause this is the first time I’ve done anything without Helen around and anything more than stitches would’ve had me flipping shit and fucking it all up.”

Peter lets out a light laugh, pulling his shirt down, over the gash that Harley just finished stitching. “You wouldn’t fuck it up,” he says, sounding light and humorous yet entirely serious, too. “You’re, like, really good at your job, Harley.”

Harley scrunches his nose up on his face. “Ew. Don’t be nice to me. It’s gross.”

Peter laughs again, a little bit louder, though the way it makes his stomach jump has him wincing when it pulls at his stitches. “I’m serious!” he insists. “Like, I know you’re still a med student and stuff, but Helen is probably the best person to be training you, so you’re, like, more qualified than most normal doctors. You have the experience that most people still in med school don’t have. I mean, you patch up the freakin’ Avengers, Harley! You gotta be good at this to do that!”

“I help patch up the Avengers,” Harley corrects. “The only person I’ve ever fixed up by myself is you, thanks to your insane ability to always get hurt.”

“It’s a talent,” Peter shrugs. “And hey, I bet it keeps you entertained.”

Harley snorts. “Entertained is not the right word for it, Spidey. Impressed, maybe, by just how much trouble you’re capable of getting yourself into.”

Peter grins. “Gotta impress people somehow, right?”

—

Harley wouldn’t call it bonding.

Because it’s not. It’s not bonding. It’s small talk, and pleasant conversations, while Harley sets a broken bone or treats another burn. It’s filling the silence because, apparently, Helen trusts Harley to handle Peter on his own, unless it’s a major injury that requires more than one person on hand, and Harley isn’t sure why he’s being trusted with this, but he’s pretty intent on not fucking it up.

But it isn’t bonding. They’re just... acquaintances. Who talk. Like, a lot, because Peter comes in at least four times a week needing treatment for something, and that gives them a lot of time to talk. Maybe Harley learns a lot about Peter during this time, like his favorite song, and what his comfort hoodie is, and why he became Spider-Man in the first place. Maybe Peter learns where Harley is from, how he met Tony, and what made him decide to be a doctor over a mechanic.

Maybe, after a few weeks, they start having inside jokes, built not only from the time they spend alone together, but also from the months upon months that Harley was helping Helen treat Peter, too. Sometimes, Peter snorts so hard that he reopens his stitches and Harley has to fix it. Sometimes, Harley can’t stop laughing when he needs to have steady hands and he ends up hunching over on himself and wheezing because of whatever it is that Peter said. One day, Peter comes in when he isn’t injured, dressed in casual clothes with a few textbooks from his ESU courses in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. “I’m headed up to see Mr. Stark,” he tells Harley, “but I thought I’d give you this,” and he holds out the cup of coffee with a big, cheesy sort of grin.

“Why?” Harley asks, though he accepts the cup gratefully.

Peter shrugs. “I’d probably have bled out ten times over if it weren’t for you, and you looked, like, really tired yesterday, so I thought you might need it.”

He is tired—exhausted, really, because his classes may not be hard but there are some big tests coming up that he needs to study for and it’s hard to find the time to study in between training with Helen and doing all the millions of other assignments that are being tossed his way. He takes a sip of the coffee, hums in satisfaction at the way it warms him up, and says, “Thanks.”

“Least I could do,” Peter tells him.

So, maybe they’re friends. Maybe—maybe—Harley is starting to look forward to seeing him and keeps trying to think of a casual way to offer they hang out sometime, outside of the med bay. Maybe Peter starts bringing Harley a cup of coffee every time he goes to visit Tony, and maybe Harley starts to feel a little thrill whenever he hands the coffee over and their fingers briefly brush.

Maybe it is bonding, but it’s not a crush. It’s not.

(”You’re adorable when you’re in denial,” Helen tells him.

Harley sinks in his seat and tries to disappear. “Shut up.”)

—

The letters of his textbook are blurring in front of his eyes when the alarm rings.

He jumps at the sound, looks up at the ceiling with slightly squinted eyes and furrowed brows, expecting Friday to calmly inform him that his assistance is needed in the med bay, like usual. Instead of that, though, the alarm continues to blare, and all Friday says is, “Urgent. Urgent. Urgent.”

Which is code for: someone’s about to die if he doesn’t hurry.

Instantly, he jumps to his feet, feeling wide awake despite being on the brink of dozing off just a few short moments ago. “Okay,” he tells himself, rushing out of his room and sprinting towards the elevator, which is already open and waiting for him. He only just barely thinks to swipe his tablet along the way, clutches it in his hands while he says, “Okay, okay, okay—who, uh—Friday? Who is it?”

“Iron Man and Spider-Man are both heavily injured and require immediate assistance,” Friday informs him gravely. “Doctor Cho is already treating Mr.Stark and has told me to inform you that you will be in charge of Mr. Parker.”

“Oh, god,” Harley breathes, pinching the bridge of his nose and giving himself a second to take a deep breath while the elevator takes him down to the proper floor. “Jesus. Okay. I need, uh—give me a list of Peter’s injuries, Fri.”

“Of course, Mr. Keener.”

The list is sent to his tablet immediately, and it’s—extensive. Third degree burns and multiple shattered ribs and various bullet wounds, only some of which are clean through, meaning that there’s various bullets that they need to remove before Peter starts to heal around them. The more he reads, the faster his heart thunders in his chest while his mind automatically sorts through it to think of what needs to be prioritized, what to treat first, and how to keep Peter alive.

By the time he reaches Peter’s room, he has a game plan figured out, and he only falters for a short moment when he sees Peter on the hospital bed, writhing around and sobbing in pain. The rest of the medical staff in the room freeze, likely already aware that Helen put him in charge, and wait with bated breath.

“Alright,” Harley says, mostly to himself. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

—

Maybe it is a crush.

Harley is finding it hard to deny it now, as he sits beside Peter’s hospital bed, his hands feeling a little bit shaky where they’re clasped together and hanging between his knees. They had to undergo emergency surgery, and Peter’s heart had stopped four times throughout the procedure. Bringing him back had been the most panic inducing thing Harley has ever experienced in his life, and he couldn’t even show it because he was the one that was put in charge.

But they did, all four times —they got his heart going again and they got out all the bullets and treated all the burns and did everything they could to stabilized the broken bones. They gave him multiple IV’s, all of which he’s still attached to, and he hasn’t woken up since he passed out from the pain shortly after Harley’s arrival—and he passed out looking at Harley, too, with wide, pleading eyes that seemed to be begging for mercy, filled with agony and despair.

Harley would do anything to never have to see that look again.

“How’s he doing?” Helen asks, stepping into the room. She looks tired, undoubtedly exhausted from doing whatever she could to stabilize Tony just a few rooms down. Harley feels that exhaustion in his very bones.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Harley tells her. “Lost him a few times, though.”

Helen hums sympathetically. “But you got him back.”

Harley hesitates, then nods. “Yeah, we did.”

“Good,” Helen says, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You did good.” She stays like that for a moment, doesn’t move, and Harley appreciates the gesture but kind of wants to be alone. Maybe she senses that, because a moment later, she’s pulling her hand back and asking, “Are you staying here?”

“‘Til he wakes up,” Harley tells her.

Helen smiles at him warmly. “Make sure you get some rest, too, okay?”

Harley doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep until he sees Peter awake and talking again, but he still nods at her and says, “Yeah, alright.”

After Helen leaves the room, after it’s just Harley and Peter again, he finds himself reaching forward and taking Peter’s hand in his, and, other than the innocent brush of fingers when passing a coffee cup, this is the first time they’ve touched outside of Harley treating Peter’s wounds. It’s a bit of a startling realization, but Harley finds comfort in the contact, listens to the steady beeping of the heart monitor and starts to relax with the reassurance that he really did good, that Peter is going to be okay and Harley is the one that saved him.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but with that relief flooding his veins and Peter’s hand in his, he finds himself dozing off and doesn’t bother forcing himself awake.

—

At first, he doesn’t realize he’s waking up, his senses still muddled with sleep. It feels almost as if he’s floating in unconsciousness, warm and comfortable and— 

“Harley?”

And he wakes with a jolt, eyes snapping open and instantly searching, only coming to a stop when they land on wide brown eyes looking right back at him. “Oh,” he breathes, blinking once and sitting up straight despite the way it makes his back complain. “Oh, my god. You’re awake.”

Peter tilts his head, just a little bit, and looks down at their intertwined fingers.

“Right. That.” Harley clears his throat and scrubs his free hand over his features, trying to wake himself up with a sheepish little smile. “It’s, um—not important, actually. How do you feel? Any pain, discomfort, anything like that?”

For a moment, Peter doesn’t respond, just keeps looking at their hands before rasping out a hoarse little, “’m kinda—kinda thirsty. M’throat hurts.”

Instantly, Harley gets to his feet and pulls open the mini fridge in the room to grab a bottle of water. He takes it back to Peter, hands it over, and feels somewhere stuck between doctor mode and something else, the worry and the uncertainty and the fear from hearing the flat line all mixing together until he feels nauseous with it. Peter accepts the water bottle gratefully, takes tentative sips from it and only winces slightly when he swallows it. “Better?” Harley asks.

Peter smiles, a bit small and tired, but just as genuine as always. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Harley murmurs, hovering by the chair he had been sitting in before. “Is there anything else? Just, like—anything at all? How do you feel?”

“Tired,” Peter tells him. “Like, um... groggy, y’know? And... out of it.”

Harley nods, a bit relieved that the dose of pain killers he chose was the right amount. “That’s to be expected. You were really roughed up, Pete.”

Peter frowns down at his water, brows knitting together. “What happened?”

“There was an ambush,” Harley tells him. “I guess Doc Ock was out and about, so you went to confront him and he got enough hits in to alert Tony, so he went to help you out, but Ock apparently teamed up with Rhino and they were able to catch you guys off guard and get the upper hand. Rhodey and a few others went to help out, but they didn’t get there in time to stop you guys from nearly getting killed, so, when you came in, it was... not pretty. But, you’re both gonna be fine.”

He wants to say that it’s not a crush. It can’t be a crush, isn’t supposed to be one, even if seeing the way Peter lets out a puff of air and relaxes back into his pillows is kind of a... not so bad sight. He looks tired and a bit beat up and a little too pale, but he’s good. He’s alive. Being alive looks good on him.

Maybe, Harley admits. Maybe it is a crush.

“Thank you,” Peter murmurs, head lulling back into the pillows. He holds out a hand and Harley isn’t sure what the action is for, but he doesn’t think before reaching forward and tangling their fingers together.

Harley clears his throat. “What for?”

“Not letting me die,” Peter says.

The mere idea of letting Peter die makes Harley’s heart stutter in his chest. “Of course,” he mumbles, a bit stricken. “I’ll always save you. It’s my job.”

Peter squeezes Harley’s hand, falls asleep with a sigh and a smile on his face.

Harley still doesn’t leave.

(It’s definitely, one hundred percent, a huge, gigantic crush, and maybe... maybe he’s okay with that. Maybe liking Peter Parker isn’t all that bad.)

[lgcyonghwa]

happy anniversary!

warning: this post is LONG AF! next year i am so not gonna do this - will make a graphic or something instead - because i legit typed for hours. don’t feel obligated to read the whole thing - feel free to scroll down to the sections where you are mentioned. 

holy ravioli, i can’t believe legacy is turning one! the last year was chaotic for me real life wise and legacy provided a great place to escape and enjoy writing with my friends. i chatted with so many of you wonderful people and have no doubt i’ll be missing some on this list. if i happen to skip you by accident, just know i love you anyway.

both of my muses went through a lot. yonghwa i’ve had since the very beginning and his journey did turn out differently than i expected. i created him to be perfect on the outside, slowly rotting on the inside. he has a lot of insecurities that he refuse to acknowledge and a crippling greed for money...to the point i legit created a list of free stuff available at legacy and still track his earning. he ended up not deteriorating horribly as i expected due to having an overwhelmingly strong support system. dang it, y’all, i wanted to fuck up my character. 

as for daehyung, he’s proven to be the ticking time bomb comedic relief asshole that everyone can’t help but respect for not having his ass kicked out of the company already love - he’ll continue to be a pest and harass people that he find fancy in. career wise, i am surprised he is doing so well despite hating the world and most of the people in it. guess deep down inside he actually cares about acting and finds joy in it. one day, hopefully, he’ll be singing his own ost. 

i would like to thank our cute sara, who played yonghwa’s brother @lgcyoon​ and currently plays @lgcseojin and @lgchana​~ sara was one of the first people i plotted with at legacy and i really enjoyed the friendship between seojin & yonghwa. seojin was an adorable tsundere pupper and yonghwa is over-affectionate and secretly appreciated. they had their ups and downs and in season 2 of the future dreams, that really came out. i am glad they were able to work through their issues and i think that is why their friendship feels so believable to him. seojin also had a part in daehyung’s life...can we get that communal shower yet, buddy? yoon, though you are too busy to play him now, will always be yonghwa’s doting older brother. i don’t think i’ll put up that wanted connection again because yoon is so perfect and yonghwa already latched onto him with both legs and arms. 

second up, i gotta thank my girl gabby for always being there. @lgcparkdohyun and yonghwa’s brotherly bond is incredibly strong and in fact, one of my best plots to date. we’ve essentially plotted them out from diaper days and they are as close as two guys could be without screwing each other, really. we’ve also been here since the beginning together and high fives man, our boys technically both made it. 

@lgcxcharlie is yonghwa’s supportive girlfriend and she is so adorable. a much needed ray of light in his life. funny thing is that they met a long time ago, via bread. did charlie know that she’ll end up getting a boyfriend out of her kind bread donation? see, this is what happens when you feed a hungry cat - he’ll keep following you for more. now you are just going to have to keep him~

for my beloved rose who plays @lgcjude, @lgcjina and @lgcwon, i love youuu. with them on tour together and sharing a room, i hope jude is not annoyed yet by the fact yonghwa keeps on climbing into his bed. as for jina - hello, fellow season one winner, high fives. they might have to keep some distance due to opposite gender, but at least they’ll always have that respect for each other. now won, sorry, the devil is never letting you gooooooo. he’ll continue to harass you for years to come. 

@lgcseolmi​ + @lgcichika​ & @lgckit​ - my typo queen nam~ we haven’t known each other for very long but damn did you rise quickly on my favoritism list. i love you lots, even though you are a dork who can’t spell anything right! :3c we’ve threaded already with the girls and now i am waiting for the new baby boy!

my al is the best person for cat gifs ever. every so often, i’d get a cute gif and feel my happiness grow. in fact, like we talked before, you send me so many cat pics that i believe you are a cat and will treat you like one. pet pet pet pet! @lgcinsoo​ and @lgcyue​ are both great babies, but you know i have bias towards our insoo. he is such a kind, loving puppy and both of my characters appreciate him. one more obviously than the other. 

em, how the hell do you post so fast even though you got three characters? also, how on the earth have we managed to talk so long without doing a single thread together? oh wait, shoot, it is me isn’t it? @lgcaaron​ is still waiting on his starter and my ass typed this long af thank you note instead of that hohoho-

i still have so many boys i want to interact with for the project origin group but those i’ve already had a chance to thread with, i’ve all loved. our @lgcxpv​ is a wild child but so precious in yonghwa’s eyes. we’ll always have their shower scene to reflect back on. also, your precious max is one of dae’s only semi-acknowledged friends. our @lgcxhaneul​ is the sweet mandu that will keep on getting squished by his loving hyung. we love @lgcseul​ who deserves all the hugs and @lgcminjun​, who will definitely become one of yonghwa’s favorites. @lgcjiho​ & @lgcharu​ are both soft cute boys that i am still planning on hitting up more.

though we’ve only had one thread, i strangely really enjoyed the interaction between yonghwa and @lgceunho​. i feel like they still have more to explore and hopefully will find themselves together in a future event!

also jia, we’ve been around since the very beginning too. i miss writing together. @lgchyunjin​ should come and love on yonghwa more. ; v ; we are the early day boys ya knowwwww. i enjoyed chatting with you on twitter, can always count on you to be around liking people’s posts to show support. 

lately, i’ve also gotten to plot with @lgcsubin​, who is a sensitive boy with depth. i love his character and i hope to write more with you, nic! also, thanks for being around and asking what’s wrong whenever people are upset. i think it is so precious.

stef, i am so glad you joined legacy and see, it is fun, right? daehyung will continue to bully @lgcxjunghwan​ but he does it in an affectionate way, alright? love to lulu ( @lgcminseok​) & simone (@lgctee​) for always being there to chat about stuff~

jen, thanks for teaching me how to gif. i’ve enjoyed our chats via discord and we should do it again sometimes KEKEKEKEKE @lgcxjinah​ and @lgcxjongsuk​ both have their places on my character’s heart - i love them both!

here, i just want to acknowledge some of the people that dropped but still had a huge impact on yonghwa’s life. i don’t know how many of y’all will remember them, but back in the day, yonghwa had a best friend called kiyoung and a crush on yujin. when those two dropped at the same time, oh, that was a huge blow. thank them both for being a part of his life. also, jane was a heavy loss for me because i adore her quirkiness. bobby come back, you can blame it all on me. 

lastly, i want to thank all of the mods for their hard working maintaining the rp! thanks so much, legacy wouldn’t be fun without you! 

for the head admins, i have a few extra blurbs because we’ve been together for a whole year. for our admin l, you’ve worked hard. it is not easy to run events and i feel like i’ve definitely pushed you with some difficult questions before. i am glad we are friends and get to chat often about random tidbits. i am also happy you are taking time for yourself and taking care of real life concerns. your wellness is always the priority! character wise, i have a feeling @lgcmiso​ and daehyung will actually get along well~ 

marie because i can’t even remember what is your official admin letter OTL i just remember you as the mother of merlin and writer of @lgcxking​. it is not like i don’t like jin, but that king is the one i had the most threads with. i really love yonghwa and king interaction because in a place where everyone must be civil and friendly, their hate for each other is so damn refreshing. i still think five years from now on they’ll be friends, but not before trying to claw out each other’s eyeballs first over their smutty fanfics. sorry for keep harassing hyuncheol and calling him papi, please continue to feed me merlin content. he is the best boy. 

FINALLY admin g our grace you are so awesome. i can always count on you to hear me bitch for the two minutes before my angy fade and for last minute cramming. on the week before date lottery is due and i am wailing pathetically for my points, grace is always here to pull through! @lgchanbyul​ and yonghwa as on screen couple is actually pretty adorbs. also @lgcjaesun​, thanks for dealing with daehyung as a dorm mate. the devil is gone now but his influence will always be there

i have so many more people i want to mention but only so much time. just know i appreciate everyone. thanks for a great year, hopefully there’ll be many more!

[gukyi]

love, guaranteed | kth

summary: with the celestial ball quickly approaching, kim taehyung is horrified to find out that you, his best friend, are dateless. to remedy this, he initiates The Match Project, a matchmaking service designed to find the most optimal date. to you, it’s an opportunity to meet someone else so you can stop pining after your clueless best friend. to him, it’s an opportunity to finally, once and for all, tell you how he feels.

{hogwarts!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x reader word count: 11k genre: fluff + light, slow angst warnings: this is an idiots to lovers fic a/n: [distant screaming] [police sirens] oh god what is this !!! it couldn’t be.... a ... a fic ?????? just kidding, it is! just a reminder that i am still on hiatus and will be for another month, so inactivity should be expected. other than that, i am on break this week so i figured that while the inspo was rolling i’d write something !!! only jungkook’s au left and then we’re done .. my god.....

“I’m retiring,” Kim Taehyung says as he collapses on the worn yellow couch in the Hufflepuff common room with a dull, pillowed thud. You listen as he exhales, like he’s trying to rid himself of fifty years of pent-up aggression despite being a seventeen-year-old still finishing up his secondary schooling. From where you sit by the table under the window that overlooks the gardens, you can make out the tip of a tuft of golden brown hair and his old leather loafers, which aren’t so much loafers as they are feet-covers, considering how tattered they look. Every time you tell him to invest in a new pair he says that with only half a year left in this uniform, it’s absolutely not worth it.

You don’t really have the heart to tell him that if he plans on becoming a wizard psychologist like he wants to be, he’ll probably need to get a new pair anyway.

“Who’d have thought,” you muse from where you sit, placing the handcrafted wooden bookmark that Taehyung made you in second year into your book to save your place, “that after seven years of toil, trouble, and general stress, it was the decorating committee that took the great Kim Taehyung down. Write it in the history books.”

“I’m serious, Y/N!” He exclaims, swinging his legs off of the couch to assume a sitting position. “I’m done. It’s over. The decorating committee and I are breaking up.”

“Can you do that?” You ask with furrowed brows. Taehyung always makes everything sound so much more devastating than it actually is—one of his many talents—so you can’t imagine this, whatever it is that went down during Celestial Ball preparations today, is really going to change anything. “I mean, you are the head of the committee. I don’t think quitting is an option.”

“Says you,” Taehyung says like he’s about to prove you otherwise. “See, you don’t think quitting is an option because you’re one of those people that ‘doesn’t give up’,” he says, putting the phrase in air quotes like that’s supposed to mean anything. “Unlike me, an intellectual who knows when to quit.”

“Taehyung, you’re literally the head of the committee. You campaigned all throughout the fall semester to earn the position even though you were a shoo-in to get it because the only other person that wanted to do it was that one colorblind sixth-year,” you remind him with a roll of your eyes, as if he needs a refresher. All he could talk about over the entire summer break was how much he wanted to decorate for the Celestial Ball and give the Great Hall one of those Muggle home renovations. “Not to mention you had me, your incredibly loyal best friend, go around putting up your campaign posters instead of doing my Defense homework like I was supposed to.”

“You know I love you,” Taehyung says with a pout.

“The seventy-three I got on the test the next day says otherwise, but out of the goodness of my heart, I will believe you,” you say, teasing. You get up to sit down on the couch beside him, leaning back into the cushions against the armrest as you place your feet on his lap.

“Oh, did you get new socks?” Taehyung asks when he notices your mustard yellow socks. One of your other Muggle-born friends bought them for you over break as a Christmas gift as sort of a gag gift, considering they just have the word BITCH written all over them. “I like them. They suit your personality.”

“Do you have something to say to me?” You say, offended. You reach out to kick Taehyung’s chest to defend from his personal attack. Unfortunately for you (and fortunately for him), Taehyung takes your outstretched leg as an opportunity to go in for the kill, leaning over to tickle the underside of your knee, a place he knows is one of the most sensitive parts of your body.

(It’s a long story. To sum it up, in the third year the two of you were studying together before it somehow turned into a play-fight that ended with the other students threatening to call Sprout as the two of you were cry-laughing so hard.)

Immediately, you burst into giggles and start squirming, but Taehyung’s an actual demon out for your blood and his fingers follow you, even as you worm your way off of the couch to escape his evil clutches. Being ticklish is a weakness and a curse that only the truly sadistic like to capitalize on.

“Taehyung, oh my God, stop! Taehyung, please, I think I’m about to—” With a thud, you land on the rug beside you, the force rumbling through your body and knocking the wind out of you. Taehyung bursts into laughter instantly, clapping hysterically as you glare at him. “You are the highest form of demon possible. I just want you to know that.”

“Voldemort is quaking,” Taehyung jokes, making you laugh despite the fact that there is no sinking lower than tickling a ticklish person. He’s lost a couple points because of that. “Come on, come back up here with me.”

“You’re a demon and I hate you.”

“Please,” Taehyung begs, sticking out his lower lip and blinking because he knows it’ll get you to do anything. It’s how he convinced you to traipse around the castle campaigning for him even when you had a Defense Against the Dark Arts test the next day. He could get away with murder with that expression.

“Fine,” you cave almost immediately, because you’re nothing if not a sucker for him. “What was it this time?”

“With the decorating committee?” He asks. “Oh, nothing much. It’s just—no one can agree on anything and we only have a month before the ball. Like, today for example, we had a thirty minute debate on whether to have velvet curtains with satin lining or satin curtains with velvet lining. And all of the sixth-years say satin curtains because the shimmer they’ll give off in the candlelight is sort of like stars and it’s a Celestial Ball, but velvet is much more seasonally appropriate, in my opinion. It’s a February dance! We can’t have summery fabrics like satin at a winter ball. That’s just not how it’s supposed to work.”

“Have you maybe considered, I don’t know, silk?” You ask.

“Silk curtains!” Taehyung cries with such disdain you never realized how much of a problem someone can have with fabrics. “You wound me, Y/N.”

“Fine, not silk, then,” you say, backing off. Clearly you have no eye whatsoever for decorations for Celestial Balls so you should just leave it all up to Taehyung, the master. “But just for the record, I think velvet will look much nicer. And if you get crushed velvet, it’ll still glow in the light! Best of both worlds.”

“Y/N,” Taehyung declares, an epiphany in his eyes as he turns to grip your shoulders, “you’re a genius. Did you know that? An absolute fucking genius! Those sixth-years are gonna piss their pants when we get crushed velvet curtains. What would I do without you?” He says, collapsing back into the cushions with a satisfied grin.

You laugh. “Probably end up with satin curtains with velvet lining.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “The sixth-years are so annoying. All they were talking about today was finding a date for the dance. I mean, who cares about dates? It’s all so superficial, anyway.”

“I’ll bet they’re all planning to ask that one Slytherin, Park, out. He’s a real hunk, according to all of the underclassmen, I hear,” you say.

Taehyung scoffs. “Last I heard, Park was flunking Muggle Studies.”

“A hunk indeed,” you muse. “Has anyone asked you to the ball yet?”

“No,” Taehyung says with a flick of his hair for emphasis. “Everyone’s probably waiting because they’re too scared to be the first one. I can’t help how much the people love me.”

“Believe me, I know,” you say, muttering under your breath with a sigh. Taehyung’s charming and wonderful and perfect, but no one has fallen victim to his games quite like you.

“What’d you say?” Taehyung asks.

Quickly, you search for a cover-up. “Just that people are probably waiting to see if your ego will shrink before they commit themselves to that.”

Taehyung pouts, nose scrunching up as he pinches the side of your torso in response to your teasing. “Has anyone asked you?” He asks, changing the subject before you have the chance to bruise his ego again.

With a shrug, you shake your head. “No. I’m not really someone people ask to balls.”

“Hold on a second,” Taehyung says, standing up for emphasis. Oh, God. “Are you telling me that no one, not a single person, has asked you to the Celestial Ball? With only a month to go?”

You frown. “You don’t need to rub it in, asshole.”

“You’re saying,” Taehyung continues, “that you, my stunning, intelligent, funny, witty, talented, sarcastic, legend of a best friend, are dateless? Impossible.”

With that, you feel your cheeks heating up a bit from all the praise, something Taehyung is usually much more sporadic and lowkey about. Every now and then he’ll quietly let it slip how much he admires you, and how much he treasures your friendship, but this is like flinging a bucket of water in your face with how bold and upfront it is. Always a dramatic.

“Yes, well, the joys of being yours truly,” you say with a smile, accepting your life for what it is. There’s only one person you’d ask to the dance, and he doesn’t even know it.

“This is blasphemy! It’s an outrage! It’s—”

“If you’d like to do something about it,” you say as you grab your book and head up to your dorm for the night, “then be my guest. But you know that I’m not a big fan of the whole dating-for-the-sake-of-dating thing.”

“You’re giving me your full permission to find you a date for the ball?” Taehyung asks like a child given a blank piece of paper and a brand new box of crayons.

Your eyes widen slightly at what Taehyung’s insinuating, but even if he is a devil who tickles people for his enjoyment, you know that whatever he’ll end up doing probably won’t be too bad. Hopefully.

With a final turn, you meet his eyes and warn him. Just so he knows who’s really in charge here. “Don’t make me regret it, Kim!”

He grins.

Taehyung has been nowhere to be found all day.

Which would normally alarm you, considering his infectious personality and his constant need for human interaction. If you haven’t seen your best friend all day, your instinct is to assume that he’s dead. There are plenty of things inside and outside the castle that could kill him in an instant. Just one of the caveats of attending a magical school on the top of a secluded mountain.

“You’re allowed to worry about him, you know,” Sowon says as she bites into some corn on the cob beside you without a care in the world. She was one of the first friends you made in Hufflepuff house on the first day, even if Taehyung did end up securing the spot as ‘your annoying best friend’ in the end. “He is your best friend.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to seem too clingy,” You say, attempting to reason this out. “I mean, he’s probably fine. He’s never died before, so I don’t really see why I should be concerned now.”

“Yes, because nothing says consolation quite like the fact that he’s never died before so you don’t need to worry about him dying now,” Sowon deadpans, butter on the edge of her lip. “You’re one of the smartest students in the House and yet, I’ve never seen you be as unreasonable as you are when you’re talking about him.”

“I am not being unreasonable!” You cry defensively. “Look me in the eye and tell me that Taehyung’s died before. I dare you.”

Sowon rolls her eyes. “You going to the ball with anyone?” She asks, changing the subject probably for the sake of her own sanity.

“No,” you say, shrugging. Not unless Taehyung has anything to do with it, which, judging by his absence for the entire day thus far, doesn’t have you feeling too confident in your response.

“Let me ask a different question,” Sowon says like some sort of goddamn wizard psycho-analysist, like she’s about to read your palm and tell you your future. “Is Taehyung going to the ball with anyone?”

You sneer, narrowing your eyes at her because you hate when she plays this game. It’s because she always wins, no matter how much you try to block her path. Losing sucks, but losing because the other person has this annoying habit of always being correct is even worse. “No, but I don’t wanna hear it, ‘Won. You know I don’t like conforming to the whole heteronormative dating culture thing.”

“I get that, but you’re telling this to a lesbian who’s trying really hard to convince you to muster up enough courage to just—Ask. Out. Your. Best. Friend. Not because you need to conform to gender and sexuality secondary school dating bullshit, but because you’re in love with him!” Sowon exclaims, punching you in the shoulder just for good measure.

“Now look who’s being unreasonable,” you say pointedly. “We’ve made it through seven years of friendship romance-free. I’m not gonna fuck it all up.”

Sowon practically crashes her head against the wooden table.

“Besides, why should I take responsibility for the fact that he’s wonderful and hilarious and endearing and one of my favorite people in the whole entire world? That’s his fault,” you add on.

“This is why I hate talking to you,” Sowon says. “You have no idea what things could come out of you telling him.”

“Y/N!”

The both of you turn your heads to the doors of the Great Hall to find none other than the devil himself, Kim Taehyung, standing in the entryway with a giant piece of posterboard in his hands. He’s waving wildly in your direction, making you smile guiltily at Sowon as she glares at you, a single eyebrow raised.

“Oh, God,” you hear her mutter to herself as Taehyung proudly marches over, the gigantic poster in his hands not the least bit obtrusive.

“Jesus, Tae, is this what you’ve been doing all day?” You ask as he places the posterboard in front of you and Sowon—it’s a tri-fold, now that you’ve got a better look at it. He jumps over the table so that he can stand on the other side, like a salesman trying to pitch you a deal with a fancy professional display and everything.

“Hey, Sowon,” he says with a grin, making her salute in response. “How are you?”

“Losing brain cells.” She frowns, turning to you slightly as you grin helplessly and stupidly. Before Taehyung has time to ask her to elaborate, she gets up. “I’m going to go do something that makes sense in my mind, like Wizard’s chess, or my Potions work. See you guys around.”

“Wait, Sowon, don’t you wanna see what I’ve created to help Y/N find a date to the dance?” Taehyung asks. She glares harder, if that’s even possible.

“No, I’m alright,” she says with a forced smile. “Not to rain on your parade or anything, but I’ve given a bit of advice to Y/N to help her on her quest, if she so chooses to listen to me.” Another pointed stare. “I’ll see the both of you around, alright? Good luck, Y/N.” She does give you a friendly wave and a peace sign to make up for the verbal damage she’s been spewing out at you for the past twenty minutes about unrealistic things like Telling Taehyung How You Feel and Asking Him Out on a Date.

“Alright, your loss!” Taehyung calls after her before immediately directing his attention back to you with a devilish grin on his face. “So, Y/N. I bet you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing all day.”

“Uh, not really,” you say, a lie meant only to curb his ever-growing ego.

“Well, I’ve spent the entire day thus far devising a foolproof plan to find you the best date for the ball, no exceptions. This has a 100% date-guarantee and if you don’t end up with one, then you get your money back,” He says confidently, fingers itching to open the tri-fold and reveal the glory waiting within.

“Wait, hold on a second, I’m not paying for this am I—?”

“Presenting: The Match Project!”

Taehyung flips open the sides of the tri-fold to reveal a bright pink background, littered with glitter and hearts cut out of red construction paper, stars and sparkles made out of that glitter glue that you can write with. It looks like Valentine’s Day ate his posterboard, vomited it back out, and then ate it again. At the very top, in gigantic red and gold letters, it reads: THE MaTCH PROJECT, the “a” suspiciously small and in lowercase, like Taehyung wrote the whole thing and then realized he was missing a letter.

The entire thing is particularly overwhelming, if you’re being honest. You don’t think Taehyung’s ever put this much effort into anything in his life. He’s got hand-drawn charts and graphs littering the sides and a survey taped to the middle of the board, front and center. On it, questions like “On a scale of two left feet to royal prince, how important is proper ballroom dancing to you?” and “If the conversation dies, what random topic are you willing to bring up to keep it going?”

“What on this godforsaken Earth is this, Taehyung?” You ask, in shock. You stand up to look a little bit closer, admiring the obvious dedication that Taehyung put into this creation. The tri-fold is covered in evidence that it’s Taehyung’s work, from the missing ‘a’ to the smudged writing, to the flecks of silver and gold glitter that covers his fingers, face, and hair and makes him shimmer in the candlelight of the Great Hall.

“My work of genius, obviously,” Taehyung boasts. “Listen, Y/N. I spent the entire day developing a matchmaking survey system to find the perfect date for you, as selected by me. Anybody I match you with will have a 90% or above approval rating by yours truly, because I would obviously never let you go out with someone that I don’t think is the most optimal match for you. What do you think?”

He’s probably waiting for you to say something like “Taehyung, you’re my hero!” or “This is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done,” or any other comment that normally comes out of your mouth when he’s being his dramatic, overzealous self, but instead, you say this:

“You did all of this for me?”

And it does something that very seldom you’re capable of, which is rendering him speechless.

“Well,” he falters, trying to find the words. “I—Yeah, of course I did. You’re my best friend. Why wouldn’t I?”

He makes you warm on the inside, you realize. Like the sun is rising from the inside out, like summer and spring are blossoming from within your chest, spreading outwards like flower petals and a hazy breeze drifting through the sky.

“So let me get this straight,” you say quickly, shaking any ridiculous thoughts from your mind before your staring becomes too obvious. “You made an entire matchmaking service just so that you could find me a date to the Celestial Ball?”

“I would like to remind you that you gave me your full permission to do so. I’m just saying,” Taehyung points out, as if you don’t already know exactly what you’ve signed up for. It’s Taehyung. Of course you know.

“Something that I am beginning to regret already,” you tell him, overwhelmed at the effort spared in an attempt to find you a date for a measly school ball.

Taehyung scoffs, shaking off your concerns with a wave of his hand. “You’re just a hater, Y/N. I spend my entire Saturday curating the perfect matchmaking survey and no ‘thank you, my lord and savior Kim Taehyung?’ No ‘I owe you my firstborn child, Kim Taehyung?’”

“What are you, Mother Gothel?”

“I’m surprised you even know who that is,” Taehyung says pointedly. “Come on, Y/N,” he pleads, dangling a small piece of parchment in front of your face. “I made like, fifty copies of this using just my wand because this school doesn’t have printers for some godforsaken reason. I nearly set my entire dorm room on fire.”

With narrowed eyes and a suspicious smile lacing your features, you snatch the parchment out of his hand, tearing it slightly as you take a closer look at the questions. It seems, largely, quite legitimate for something that’s the creation of a seventeen-year-old Hufflepuff who still gets lost in Hogwarts despite it being his home for the past seven years. Other than some of the stranger questions such as “If you could be killed by anything on Hogwarts grounds, what would it be and why?” and “The Ministry of Magic is wrong—surprise! Change the classification for one magical creature and explain,” the survey is mostly standard, things about “Describe your ideal type” and “Do you have any House preferences (you may pick more than one)?”

“Fine,” you mumble, making Taehyung pump a fist into the air in success. “But only if you fill it out as well,” you declare, grabbing one of his many copies and stuffing it into his chest. “You’re dateless too, aren’t you? I’m sure there are plenty of wizards and witches hoping to be matched with you through your mysterious matchmaking algorithm.”

Taehyung clutches the paper against his chest, looking at you with a smug grin. He opens his mouth. Smirks. “Deal.”

That night finds you sitting in your bed, amongst your textbooks and essays and study guides, staring at the The Match Project survey that your best friend forced into your fingers earlier. It’s blank, but Taehyung’s been pestering you about it ever since you got your hands on it, popping his head in and out of the common room to remind you to fill it out. The questions are so easy, so perfectly Taehyung in every way that they could be, and yet, completing the form seems more difficult than ever.

You could always just tell Taehyung how ridiculous this entire thing is, and how much you don’t care about having a date to the Celestial Ball, but you can’t bring yourself to. He went through all of this effort—made a whole fucking tri-fold posterboard and nearly set his room alight in the process—and you’ll be damned if you don’t do this one thing for him.

Besides, Taehyung going on this epic quest to find the perfect date for you is nothing if not the perfect sign as to how he feels about you.

“Don’t tell me that this is what Kim has gotten up to,” Sowon’s voice interrupts. You turn to find her leaning against the frame of the door, holding a piece of parchment that looks particularly familiar in her hands.

“He gave you one, too?” You hum to yourself, amused at Taehyung’s antics. He certainly is going all out for this.

“Not so much gave as much as forced into my hands, but yes, it seems so,” she muses, walking over to take a seat beside you. “I must say, it’s quite comprehensive.”

“That’s Taehyung for you,” you say. “But he must know that we have no intention of being paired up together, so I can’t imagine why he’d give one to you. Other than to gloat, which is a frequent hobby of his, in case you haven’t already noticed.”

Sowon turns to you with a scoff, flipping some of her hair behind her shoulders. “You don’t know?”

Know what?

“After Kim showed you… whatever it is that he showed you, the whole thing gathered a lot of press. And I mean a lot, too,” Sowon explains, making your eyes widen. Nothing good ever comes from Taehyung receiving more attention than necessary. “Like, he set up a whole table outside of the Great Hall with that god awful pink posterboard and there were fourth and fifth years running up to him to grab surveys to fill out and he was putting them all into individual piles based on preferences and—quite honestly, I’d never seen him so popular and organized all at once. I swear he even managed to give one to Park, which shocks me because I’m pretty sure he has a thing for that one really quiet Puff in our year, the one that doesn’t talk.”

“Hold on,” you say, brain attempting to process everything Sowon’s just laid out in front of you. “You’re telling me Taehyung has somehow turned this ridiculous matchmaking service into a business?”

“I’m serious,” Sowon assures you. “I’m pretty sure I saw someone give him money, even if Kim does seem the type to enjoy setting people up together like this is the 1800’s just for the hell of it.”

You collapse back onto your bed, feeling old study guides and torn textbook pages fold under the pressure. “Jesus Christ.”

“You should fill it out,” Sowon tells you with a nudge. “Who knows? Kim seems like he knows what he’s doing. Maybe you’ll meet someone that will actually get you to move on from him,” Sowon tells you, that annoying thing called reason ringing in her tone.

“If only,” you sigh.

“Come on, Y/N. You’ve been hung up on him since the day you met—don’t you think it’s time to try and branch out? Have you ever been on a real date? Like, a real one. None of this ‘we went to Hogsmeade together that one time’ bullshit.”

Your silence is all the answer Sowon needs.

“If you don’t make any attempts to move on then do you think you’ll ever be able to?” She asks you pointedly. You are damn well aware she knows the answer to her own question. “Or, you could fill it out and hope that Taehyung realizes every answer is about him.”

“No. Absolutely not. No way,” you immediately tell her.

“Then just try,” she says, shaking your shoulders for emphasis. “Who knows, you might end up finding someone you really enjoy spending time with. And if you don’t end up finding a date to the dance, you can always hang out with me. We’ll have a blast and we’ll trash talk every boy in our lives. How’s that sound?”

“Fun,” you grumble, not sounding like it’ll be very fun at all.

“Good,” Sowon says, satisfied. She stands up to head back downstairs to the common room, but before she does so, she points at you accusingly. “But you have to fill out that survey and give it to Kim. I’ll make you. And you know that I can be even more unbearably persuasive than him, so you better.”

With that, Sowon flutters down the stairs to leave you collapsed in a pile of papers and quills and books, staring at the survey in your hands.

Fine. If Sowon’s so insistent that you either tell Taehyung how you feel (not happening) or try and move on (a more likely scenario), then you may as well go all out. It’s not as though Taehyung will put too much thought into what you write down. For all he knows—friends is all you’ll ever be.

A deep breath, inhale and exhale. Where it says, “Do you have any House preferences (you may pick more than one)?” you mark down, in sharp, permanent, heavy black ink:

Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor.

“There he is,” you exclaim happily as you walk into the Hufflepuff common room, having finished up your classes for the day. Taehyung’s sprawled out on the hardwood floor, legs crossed, surrounded by what looks to be dozens of The Match Project surveys, some in stacks and organized piles and others carelessly displayed. “Everyone’s favorite matchmaker.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Taehyung orders, not even moving to look at you. “It makes sense in my head and if I think about anything else for too long, then it won’t make sense anymore.”

“How long have you been sitting here?” You ask, strolling up to him. You have to say, you’re quite impressed by his work ethic. Even if he is spending it on something that is arguable not work. His fingers flutter across the ground, moving papers here and there, and you can practically see the cogs turning in his brain.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Taehyung admits. “I skipped Potions, I think. And Divination. But that’s it, I swear.”

“Taehyung!”

“What?” He cries defensively. “This is more important. I have until the end of the year to worry about my grades. The Celestial Ball is in less than a month!”

“You’ve been working at this for hours, Tae,” you tell him, nudging his shoulder. “Take a break for a little. Stretch your arms and legs.”

Taehyung pouts, like a petulant child who refuses to leave the candy store.

“Come on,” you say, giving in another persistent push. “No one’s going to fuck with your system. It’ll be good for your brain, and you can go back all refreshed and ready to go.”

You hold out your hand for him to take so you can pull him off the floor. He isn’t even sitting on a cushion or anything—his body must be aching for him to sit on a pillow or any sort of soft surface. He looks up at you, big brown eyes that shine caramel against the warm golden of his robes, and wraps his fingers around yours. The both of you crash on the couch, admiring all of the work that Taehyung’s put into this matchmaking service of his after only a few days. It’s booming.

“Are people really paying you to do this?” You ask, impressed.

Taehyung smiles guiltily. “They were at first, but now I’ve stopped accepting payment. I really like matching people together, you know? Just for fun. And it’s working out super well! Every match I’ve made has been successful so far.”

“Seriously?” You exclaim. “You must have a knack for this.”

“I do, thank you very much,” Taehyung tells you proudly, hands adjusting the collar of his robes for effect. “Speaking of which, you still have to give me your survey. Don’t think I’ve forgotten!”

“It’s up in the dorm, let me get it,” you tell him, getting off of the couch to scurry upstairs. You watch as Taehyung settles back into the couch cushions, letting the stress roll off of his back and sink into the fabric. You can’t imagine his job as Hogwarts’ unofficial official matchmaker is a walk in the park, even if he does enjoy it.

You return as quickly as you left, parchment held tightly between your fingers. It feels weird—giving your best friend a survey on who you’d most like to be with, who you’d most like to date. Especially when that best friend happens to be the answer to the survey (though that detail can remain hidden).

“Some of these questions are so… you, Tae,” you say with a shake of your head as you hand it over to him. “Like, I know that if you could re-classify any magical creature you’d lower the Crup to two X’s just because you want one as a pet so badly. You told me that in fourth year.”

Taehyung grins, caught red-handed. “I’m impressed you still remember.”

“Aren’t I supposed to?”

You lean into the cushions, feeling the tension fade from your skin as Taehyung gives your survey a quick overview. His expression seems to change from one of excitement to something undecipherable, even to you. His thick brows furrow and mouth turns down, lips pressed together in a thin line. Like he’s thinking about something. Like he has something to say, but has locked his lips for fear of the words escaping.

“Is everything alright, Tae?” You ask, leaning into him with a hand on his shoulder. Isn’t this what he wanted? A matchmaking survey filled out by you so he could match you with someone else?

And isn’t this what you wanted? A blank canvas, a fresh start, a clean slate? Someone to hold, to know, to love? Someone that isn’t Taehyung?

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a sigh, voice muffled. “Everything’s fine.”

Taehyung sets you up with a Gryffindor named Yuta three weeks before the Celestial Ball. He comes marching up to you while you’re eating lunch in the Great Hall and plops down both your survey and the Gryffindor in question’s with a satisfied grin on his face.

“Can I help you?” You ask as he swivels in to take a seat next to you, immediately helping himself to some of the roasted carrots on your plate.

“I’ve matched you with someone,” Taehyung says proudly, shoving the parchment in front of you. “Now,” he declares, “normally I don’t show the two people matched their surveys next to each other, but since you’re my best friend, I decided to make an exception.”

“Wow, I’m honored,” you say, mock-touched.

“You should be. He’s on the Quidditch team, which is what you wanted, right? Someone sporty and athletic,” Taehyung asks as clarification. You can hardly remember what you wrote down on your survey—all you distinctly recall is making sure your answers were the opposite of Taehyung in every way something could be the opposite of him.

“Yeah,” you trail off. “I mean I wrote that, didn’t I?”

“I guess you did,” Taehyung says with a hum, thinking about something else. “I think you’ll like him.”

“Cool,” you tell him.

“Cool,” he tells you.

Taehyung stares down at the wooden table.

You stare down at your roasted carrots.

The silence that befalls you isn’t one you’re used to—not the normal type where the two of you are sitting together without saying a word, appreciating each other’s presence without needing to vocalize it. It’s not like that. It’s not like that at all.

This one—it’s tense.

“Well,” Taehyung says, the conversation having fallen into something sufficiently awkward. “I’m gonna go. I have like, at least five surveys that just have Park’s name written all over them, which I’m going to have to figure out because I’m pretty sure he’s taken. So, yeah.” He gets up, sending you some version of a finger gun-peace sign, like he couldn’t decide which one to do so he ended up just doing a strange combination of both. “Enjoy your date because I worked really hard to match you. 90% approval rating, remember?” He says, tapping his temple. “See you around.”

He walks off without another word, waving to some other people in the Great Hall and accepting a few more surveys along the way, but his goodbye makes you frown.

See you around means that you’re not sure when next you’ll come across each other. See you around means that another meeting is unclear, unsolidified. See you around means that you only expect to see each other in passing, not on purpose.

See you around means maybe, but the only thing is that Taehyung’s never been a maybe to you.

Yuta’s nice. He’s almost nothing like Taehyung, athletic and really into professional Quidditch teams, something you know essentially nothing about. He has a close knit group of friends who are all either in Gryffindor or Slytherin, and on weekends they frequent the parties that Slytherin house throws that you and Taehyung have never attended.

But he’s patient and kind and walks you around Hogsmeade, pointing at all of his favorite stores and favorite things to eat. He explains how the professional Quidditch league works even if the information goes in one ear and right out the other. He buys two licorice wands and gives one to you, but you don’t have the heart to tell him how much you despise the flavor.

“You’re friends with Kim, aren’t you?” Yuta asks as the two of you take a seat in the Three Broomsticks. He flags down a waiter and orders two butterbeers and a basket of multi-grain bread, the weird wizarding kind that has all sorts of magical spices and nuts in it.

“You mean the one running this whole business?” You ask, trying your very best to prevent the conversation from going stale. “Yeah, guilty as charged. He’d been begging with me to fill out the survey.”

“But it’s all just to find a date to the dance, isn’t it?” Yuta asks as the waiter drops off the bread and butterbeer. He immediately takes a sip of his, the foam gathering at the corners of his mouth, making you laugh. “What? What’s funny?”

“Oh, just the butterbeer on your face,” you giggle. Immediately, Yuta grabs a napkin to wipe away the bubbles. “But yeah, Taehyung really wants me to go with someone.”

“Well, it’s nice of him to arrange this whole thing. I mean—not just because of me, but just in general. It’s obvious he really cares about you,” Yuta says before chuckling, like he’s remembering something. “He actually came up to me before we came out today. He told me that I better not fuck anything up with you because you have to have the perfect date to the Celestial Ball, no exceptions.”

You nearly cough up your butterbear. Sputtering, you ask, “he said that to you?”

Yuta nods, though it’s clear that whatever Taehyung told him, no matter how bizarrely threatening it was, didn’t faze him much, if at all. “Yeah,” Yuta tells you. “He’s really protective of you. I hope I’m doing this date justice.”

“You’re fine,” you assure him.

And it’s true. Yuta’s fine. But that’s really all he is—just fine, nothing more, nothing less. He doesn’t know your preferences or your likes and dislikes, which is fine, because you’ve hardly spoken. He’s respectful and friendly and generous, trying his hardest not to scare you away while also trying his hardest to keep you entertained.

But he talks about things you have no penchant for and buys you food that you think tastes disgusting, and the conversation isn’t stale, per se, but it’s by no means light and airy either. And you can’t even fault him for it, because it’s not his fault that the two of you got paired up. Not his fault he wrote down what he was looking for on the survey and you wrote the complete opposite. But everything he does makes you think of how Taehyung found him before the two of you came out to Hogsmeade and told him to treat you right or face his wrath.

At the end of the day, you have a fine time. Just fine.

“I enjoyed spending time with you today,” Yuta tells you as he drops you off outside of the Hufflepuff common room. “I think it went well, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you say with a shrug and a smile you hope doesn’t seem too forced. “It was nice. I’ll see you around, right?”

“Sure thing,” Yuta says with a grin as he turns to head back up to Gryffindor tower, where all of his Quidditch-playing, licorice-eating friends await him.

You unlock the door to the Hufflepuff common room and swing the wooden thing open, letting out an exhale you feel as though you’ve been holding in all day. Like always, there Taehyung is, sitting amongst a pile of matchmaking surveys organized just the way he likes it, brows knitted in concentration. Even the sight of him makes you relax, shoulders sinking and heart warming. God, you’re fucked.

“Oh, you’re back,” Taehyung says when he spots you walking in, mouth curving upwards. “How was it? Was it perfect? The best? 90% approval rating, don’t forget,” he reminds you as he stands up, disregarding his system to chat with you.

“It was… fine,” you tell him honestly. No point in lying. Maybe Taehyung has another match up his sleeve.

“‘Fine?’” Taehyung asks, shocked that for once, his algorithm’s failed. “Just fine?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, walking over to collapse in the seat by your favorite table. “He was nice and all, just… not really what I was hoping for.”

“Oh,” Taehyung says with a frown, seemingly disappointed in himself. “I thought he was perfect. He matched everything that you wrote down,” Taehyung pouts. He fumbles in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a neatly folded piece of parchment. Is that yours? Has he kept it all this time? “You wanted someone athletic and extremely sociable. Maybe a partygoer. Someone who was clean-cut and sharp. I don’t get it.”

“It’s not you, Tae,” you assure him, this day feeling longer than ever. “Sometimes things just don’t work out, you know?”

“But it was supposed to,” he says with a whine, making you smile at his childlike nature. He thumps down amongst his pile of papers and surveys and diagrams, hardwood floor creaking under the pressure. He stares at his surroundings, each survey filled out with such care, such hopefulness, and frowns. “I’m sorry,” he tells you. This isn’t something he should apologize for. “I just—I really thought, you know? I mean he matched everything you wanted and it really seemed like you two would just hit it off, or something. I guess not.”

“It’s not your fault,” you tell Taehyung, walking over to him. The last thing you had wanted was for him to blame himself.

“I’ll try again, I promise,” Taehyung tells you firmly, fists clenched in confirmation. “I’m gonna find someone for you, Y/N. Someone perfect, who will treat you right and give you the best Celestial Ball experience of your life. Mark my words.”

“So I don’t get my money back just yet?” You ask, teasing him a little with a small grin on your face. Taehyung meets your eyes with his big brown ones, and you watch as a lopsided smirk overtakes his solemn expression. You miss seeing him like this. You miss being with him like this, like always.

Like you’re supposed to be.

“Not yet,” Taehyung tells you, snatching up a very specific pile in his circle of organizational hell and marching off, out of the room.

As the Celestial Ball draws nearer and nearer, Taehyung’s business, service, whatever the hell it is, only gains more and more attention, fools desperate for a date seeking out his aid. And, like always, Taehyung delivers with the utmost accuracy. He’s seemed to assume a somewhat permanent residence right outside the Great Hall, tri-fold on display and a never-ending supply of surveys sat at the table where he spends most of his time nowadays. And when he’s not sitting there, broadcasting The Match Project to anyone willing to listen, he’s surrounded by completed surveys in the Hufflepuff common room, circling him like flower petals.

You don’t really know how he matches people up, if you’re being honest. He says he’s got this system but that’s as much as he’ll tell you, your conversations these days brief and insignificant. You’ll walk into the common room to find him amongst his flurry of papers, say a brief hello and tell him to take a break because he’s straining his back, and head up to your room. If he sees you pass by his table outside the Great Hall on your way to a class, he’ll wave happily, usually surrounded by at least three or four people who are asking him about his services. Never enough time to talk.

You go on two more dates that Taehyung’s arranged for you. They’re not so much dates as they are meetings, little get-togethers to see if the two of you will get along well enough to accompany each other to the ball. A trip to Hogsmeade here, a bit of lunch in the Great Hall there.

Taehyung always makes sure to tell you exactly who he’s set you up with before you go out. He makes it a point to find you beforehand, shoving the two surveys in front of you just to prove that his decision is the best it could be.

“He’s really into playing football, which is that muggle sport where they kick around a black and white ball—”

“I know what football is, Tae.”

“Yeah, well. He also wants to work in Ministry and hopes to become the Minister one day.”

It makes you wonder—if he’s coming up to you to tell you everything he knows about the person you’re apparently destined to be with—if he’s going up to the person in question and warning them. Telling him what he told Yuta, the Gryffindor. Telling them that they better not fuck up because he only wants the best for you.

Is that scaring them off? What message is that sending to them?

Taehyung’s always been protective of you. It comes from being your best friend for so long—knowing you not even like the back of his hand but like his own face. It comes from always wanting the best for you, so much so that he’ll go through with making an entire matchmaking service just so that he finds you the perfect date for the fucking Celestial Ball. It’s always been like this.

Two unsuccessful dates later finds you with less than a week to go before the Celestial Ball and Sowon’s proposition of going with her and talking trash about the boys in your lives looking more appealing than ever. It wasn’t so much that they were failures as it was that they weren’t what you were looking for. Taehyung’s followed what you wrote down for the survey to a T, done his very best to pair you up, but nothing’s working. For what may or may not be obvious reasons, depending on how you look at it.

It’s one of the very few occasions when you creak open the door to the Hufflepuff common room to find Taehyung not sitting amongst stacks and stacks of papers, parchment worn and ink bleeding, sifting through the piles furiously, pairing different surveys off with each other before reorganizing the whole thing and starting all over again. Instead, you find him having fallen asleep mid-process, leaning against the back of the worn yellow couch with his mouth hanging open. Tufts of his golden hair dangle in front of his eyes, and a paper sits in his hand, like exhaustion had overcome him while he was in the middle of analyzing someone’s responses.

In sleep, Taehyung looks like a child. Not that he turns into a baby or ages backwards, but the hard lines from his furrowed brows and the tension in his shoulders vanishes, leaving behind someone who has yet to face the harshness of the real world. Someone who dreams just for the sake of dreaming, not because they need to worry about their future or are holding themselves to a standard of any sort. His skin is smooth and warm and his body is soft and comforting.

Watching him, you smile to yourself. Very rarely do you get to see Taehyung asleep—you stay in separate dorms and he almost never takes naps—and the sight reminds you, even if just briefly, of the closeness you share. There’s no one else in the common room besides the two of you, a gentle message that says, it’s always just been the two of you.

You have half of a mind to leave him there, let him rest. He’s been working himself to the bone over the past month, every person in Hogwarts’ student body desperate to get a taste of the matchmaking service he provides, not to mention a pile of seventh-year homework he has to get through nightly. But you know your best friend, you know Taehyung, you know everything there is to fucking know about him because he’s always on your mind and always in your thoughts, how could you ever forget anything about him? And you know that Taehyung hates going to bed because there is always something else that he wants, that he needs to do. It’s why he doesn’t take naps—why he’s always wishing that there were more hours in the day. Because there’s always so much to be done.

Slowly, you tiptoe over to him, hoping not to wake him roughly. You kneel down beside him, letting the sight of him sink deep into your memory so you won’t forget this, even when you’re old and wrinkly and can’t hold your wand properly anymore. You reach down to take the paper from his hands and place it with the rest of him, but one quick glance at the writing and you realize that it’s yours.

Which is strange, because he doesn’t know how your most recent date-not-date went, so why would he be looking at it? It’s not as though he knew that he needed to match you up again. You hold it up, staring at it, noticing how it’s worn around the edges, like it’s been looked at over and over. How the ink has faded, sunken into the paper, unmovable. Your fingers trace over your answers again. Looking for a Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Gryffindor. Someone extremely active. Wears well-fitting, sharp clothing. Clean-cut hair. Enjoys going out and hates staying in.

And you stare at what you’ve written like it’s personally offended you, hating the way the words taste in your mouth. Reading each response as you look over at Taehyung, still fast asleep against the back of the couch, and you see the way he sniffles in his sleep and all you can think is, who the fuck am I kidding?

Even if you filled out a million matchmaking surveys, you’d always end up right back here.

“Tae,” you say softly, quickly putting down your survey amongst the rest of the papers, like you haven’t been staring at it and pondering the meaning of your existence. “Tae, wake up.”

He mumbles something unintelligible in response, head swaying side to side as you slowly shake him awake.

“Tae, you fell asleep,” you murmur.

“Y/N?” He asks, recognizing your voice even through his sleepy haze.

“Yeah, it’s me.” He still hasn’t opened his eyes, almost as if he feels as though he’s dreaming the whole thing. “You fell asleep. Wake up.”

Taehyung shifts over slightly, but still seems to be dozing off, drifting in and out of consciousness. “Did you go on another date?”

“Mmm,” you hum a response, “I did.”

“Did it—” his head falls before he picks it back up again, “Did it go well?”

“It was alright,” you say. “But I wasn’t really interested in him.”

“Hmm,” Taehyung seems to lean into your touch, even if it is as simple as a hand on his shoulder. “I just wish… just wish I could find somebody—”

“What are you talking about, Tae?” You ask sadly, jerking him a little harder.

“Find somebody you’d want to be with,” he finishes up. “I read—” a hiccup, “I read your thing and I realized that I can’t keep hoping—hoping you’ll want me instead of someone else—”

“Taehyung, what’s going on?” You ask, eyes widening as his drowsy mind betrays his thoughts. What on earth is he talking about? Could—could it be?

“I tried my best,” he says, and it sounds so goddamn sad. Makes your breath hitch in your throat at the sound of his words, faltering slightly, either from sleep or from truth.

“Tae, wake up,” you say, giving him a hard shake, unsure if you can handle anything else that spills from his lips. His eyes blink open, big and dark and beautiful, like always, and his mouth curves into a hazy smile when he sees you. You’re almost positive he has no recollection of what he’s just told you.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” He asks as he yawns, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes. “Didn’t you have a date?”

“I just got back,” you tell him, moving away. Maybe he can’t see you shaking. “You fell asleep.”

“I did?” He asks, looking at his surroundings, blinking a few more times. “Oh, I guess I did.”

“I just came to wake you, you know,” you say casually, standing back up and dusting yourself off. “I know you hate taking naps.”

“Thanks,” he tells you, leaning forward to gather up all of the surveys. They’re in relatively good order, other than the one sitting on top of the pile, out of place. Yours.

“Okay, I’m gonna go,” you say, already beginning to beeline it to your dorm. Can he hear your heart pounding? It sounds like a bass drum in your ears.

“Wait, Y/N?” He says, catching your attention.

You turn around to look at him, see him gazing back up at you like there are a million thoughts flying through his mind. You can’t imagine you look much different.

“Do you think he was the one?” He asks.

You shake your head. It’s the easiest question you’ve ever been asked, especially when the answer is staring you right in the face. “No,” you tell him. “I don’t.”

The night of the Celestial Ball, you’re sitting on your bed in a pale blue dress sent to you by your mother, staring at your fingertips. Obviously dateless, Sowon’s made the executive decision to take you under her wing, even if she is already going with someone else from your year. She promised she wouldn’t leave you out.

The ball is already an hour in when she pops her head into the dormitory, long brown hair done neatly in an updo and a creamy white dress draped over her body. She looks gorgeous, but she always does, so this isn’t unusual.

“I know I said I wanted to be fashionably late, but this wasn’t what I was going for, you know,” Sowon says jokingly, walking over. She hands you a white rose from her bouquet, placing it between your fingers. “What’s got you so down? You can’t be in a bad mood when we trash talk men. I won’t have it.”

“Nothing,” you sigh, helpless. Taehyung and you haven’t spoken since you found him asleep in the common room, and now you’re sitting on your bed on the night of the Ball, his only failed survey.

“You’ve never been a very good liar, Y/N,” Sowon says with a shake of her head. “It’s Taehyung, isn’t it?”

You don’t need to move a muscle to give Sowon the answer she’s looking for. It’s as if his name is sitting in the air, permeating the oxygen. Like it’s inescapable, wherever you go.

“I took your advice and everything got worse,” you deadpan, trying to laugh at yourself. Instead, the sound comes out more like a dying goose. Things haven’t been going well recently.

“Impossible.” Sowon frowns. “My advice is golden.”

“I went out with a bunch of people and tried to move on and I couldn’t.”

Sowon smiles to herself, a small sigh escaping her lips as she sits down next to you, takes your hands in her own. “Okay,” she says. “So maybe you didn’t move on. Maybe you’re still thinking about Taehyung even after trying your hardest not to. But that’s okay, alright? It’s okay to not move on sometimes. You weren’t expected to fall head over heels in love with one of those people you went out with. All you did was branch out. And maybe it didn’t work, but that’s alright. What matters is you tried, Y/N. You tried your fucking best and you shouldn’t have to wallow in self-pity on the night of the Celestial Ball, of all nights, because of it.” She stares you straight in the eyes and normally you would be intimidated, but the fond grin lacing her features soothes your worries. “That’s not what I wanted for you. And that’s not what Taehyung wanted for you either. Obviously. Otherwise he wouldn’t have done all of this for you. Even if it didn’t work out in the end.”

“Ugh,” you huff out, falling against your bedsheets, crumpling up the hair that Sowon so painstakingly did for you earlier. “I just—I wish it was easier, you know? That I wasn’t so hung up on him.”

“Well,” Sowon declares confidently, “then let’s go down to the ball and you can show him how much you don’t need him. Or any date, for that matter. Because you’re a strong, independent woman who doesn’t conform to stereotypical secondary school heteronormative dating standards.” She pulls you up with her.

“I’m pretty sure that once I see him enjoying himself with his own date, I’ll realize that for myself,” you muse. You never did ask if Taehyung, after all that time spent helping others, found a date for himself. But, knowing him, he probably had no problem doing so.

“Taehyung doesn’t have a date,” Sowon tells you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“What?” You ask, blinking in shock. Taehyung? Dateless? Now, that’s a surprise.

“Yeah,” Sowon says. “When Nayeon and I went down earlier, I saw him sitting at one of the tables all by himself. He was like, halfway finished a second glass of the fruit punch. I thought you knew.”

“No, I had no idea,” you say, shaking your head. You wonder if he even tried to match himself up with anyone else in his service. You did make him fill out one of his own forms, after all. He must have at least tried. There must have been plenty of people eyeballing him, submitting a survey in the hopes that they would end up paired with him. Surely, there must have been someone he would have worked well with.

It’s almost like he was waiting for someone.

Your breath catches in your throat. “Sowon, do you have any spare surveys? Any?”

“Me? Yeah, he gave me one even though he knew I was already sort of semi-seriously seeing somebody,” Sowon says. “Why?”

“Can I have it?” You ask, eyes wide and full of hope. Maybe Taehyung is waiting for somebody.

Maybe all he needed was an excuse to be with them.

Sowon shuffles through her belongings and hands you the survey, all crumpled up after weeks of sitting in her desk drawer, forgotten about. She asks if you need anything else, and if you’re going to be joining her. You tell her not to wait up, because you have something you need to do beforehand.

“Okay,” Sowon says as she begins to walk from the room. “But I’d hurry it up, if I were you. Time you spend up here is time you’re wasting down there, with him.” With that, she winks before her dress disappears down the stairs.

It’s as if she’s known all along.

Do you have any House preferences (you may pick more than one)?

Hufflepuff. Seventh year.

Describe your ideal type.

Someone so determined to find his best friend a date that he makes an entire matchmaking service for them. Scruffy hair. Needs a haircut. Hates naps.

Someone who loves you back.

By the time that you reach the Great Hall, the Celestial Ball is in full swing. Flitwick is conducting the band as they play a fun, lighthearted tune, and students of all years are dancing around, enjoying each other’s company.

You spot him sitting at one of the corner tables. There are crushed velvet curtains behind him, a soft rose gold color reflecting in the candlelight. Good choice.

He’s all alone, as Sowon told you earlier, and there’s an empty goblet with a couple red droplets still left inside.

“You look like you’re having fun,” you deadpan, a small smirk playing across your lips. Taehyung looks up at you, and you watch as he takes in the sight of you in front of him. You have to admit, he looks awfully good in that suit of his, muted yellow bowtie complimenting his warm brown hair and golden skin. From a distance, he looks like one of those Greek gods, goblet by his side, ethereal glow surrounding him.

“So much fun,” Taehyung says, immediately scooting over so you can take a seat in the chair next to him. The two of you stare out into the sea of students in the Great Hall, watching as everyone enjoys themselves on one of the most exciting nights of the school year.

“Looks like The Match Project was a success,” you comment softly. “Everyone seems to really be enjoying themselves.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung agrees. “I mean, it was just a one time thing, but I think that I did well.”

“Me too, but you’re sitting here, dateless.”

“So?” Taehyung asks with a huff.

“So, how are you, my incredible, talented, dedicated, hardworking, inspiring, artistic icon of a best friend, dateless?” You ask, forcing Taehyung to look at you. You’re grinning, beaming, maybe, and it makes him roll his eyes. “Didn’t you fill out the survey, too?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a sigh. “But I couldn’t really… find anyone that matched with me perfectly. So here I am.”

“Well,” you say, placing your second and final survey in front of him, “I have one more for you.”

“Y/N, you know I don’t really care about—”

“Just read it, Tae.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes fondly at your persistence, but does so nonetheless, eyes glazing over the ink scrawled across the page, messy and unkempt from rushing. You watch as something lights up in his eyes the more he reads, like a single spark illuminating the night sky before the fireworks follow. Watch as he can’t contain the way his mouth widens into a smile, all teeth, the way his cheeks turn to a soft muted scarlet.

“What is this, Y/N?” He asks, like he can’t believe his eyes. He turns to you, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so hopeful, so desperate.

“It’s—it’s the survey I meant to give you the first time,” you tell him. “I should have just told you, I know, but I just—I had been in love with you for so long and I thought that maybe it was just time to move on so I filled out everything by writing down things that I knew were the opposite of you but it didn’t work out so—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Taehyung says, stopping you with a hand up. He reaches down to hold your hands in his own, “go back a bit.”

“Well, I thought it was time to move on so—”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Further back.”

“I should have told you—?”

He shakes his head again. “No. Just a little after that.”

You look at him and it feels like all the weight has been lifted off of our shoulders. Feels like when you crash on the couch in the Hufflepuff common room after a long day. Feels like when the sun streams in through the windows and lights up your favorite table. Feels like home.

“I’d been in love with you for so long,” you say, and it sounds like a song. Sounds like music to your goddamn ears.

“Yeah.” Taehyung smiles to himself. “That part.”

“What about it?” You ask teasingly.

“I don’t know,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “it’s just nice to hear. Taken you forever, but I suppose the wait’s been worth it.”

“Hold on a second,” you say. “You knew?”

“What?” Taehyung asks. “No, I had no idea. I just—I figured that if you were confessing, or whatever this is, then you knew how I felt about you,” he says. “God, I tried so hard to keep it from you because I was so—I was so scared that you’d find out and never want to speak to me again, but you sit next to me on the couch and let me tickle you and you wake me up when I accidentally fall asleep and you still use that bookmark I made you in second year and God, I can’t help it. And then you handed me your survey and I read it and it was nothing like me and I just thought, ‘Fuck,’ but I wasn’t going to fuck with your love life just because I was in love with you, so I tried my best to pair you up according to my system, but I guess—”

“I guess we both made mistakes,” you say, finishing his sentence. “Every time I thought about that survey, or the dates you sent me on, I—I always thought about what you had written. I wondered if you were searching for someone, too.”

“I was,” Taehyung says.

“So was I,” you say.

“Did you find them?” He asks, leaning in.

You nod, feeling his breath fan out against your lips as your eyes flutter shut. “I did.”

Then, he presses his lips to yours, and it feels like a warmth spreads throughout your body, from your heart to your bloodstream to your fingertips, engulfing you from the inside out. Feels like something in you has caught on fire—perhaps your heart, knowing you—and you won’t be making any efforts to put it out. Taehyung presses his lips to yours and pulls you close to him, wraps his hands around your body in every way that he can, every way possible.

Things like this—they’ve been a long time coming. Of course they have.

You and Taehyung part, breaths heavy as you rest your foreheads against each other. It feels so natural. It feels like this was always meant to be. Like this was written in the stars from the moment the two of you laid eyes on each other.

“I guess The Match Project does have a 100% guarantee,” you say. The last two people who ended up dateless found each other in the end. Go figure.

“I told you,” Taehyung says. “How would you rate your experience with The Match Project, on a scale of one to ten?”

“A million,” you declare happily, pulling him in for another kiss. “A billion. The service was unparalleled. I mean, I found the love of my life? What more could you ask for?”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

[viktcrr]

「maxence danet-fauvel & nonbinary」⇾ samuels, viktor, the senior radcliffe student’s records show that he/they are a capricorn and 24 years old. he/they are studying visual arts, living in noland and can be observant, ingenious, reticent & dependent. when i see him/them i am reminded of a sculptor’s hands clay-ridden, the insistent hum of tv static, and a crying preacher inside a dusty funeral home.  ⇽「james & 21 & est & they/them.」

hllo !!! i’m james n here’s one of my big idiot muses <3 he’s not actually dumb he’s :/ a bit evil. bt thts okay hes still <3 beloved <3 LKDSFHLSADLKGFSHLKD anyways!

TW DEATH, HEAVY GRIEF, OVERDOSE / DRUG ADDICTION, HOSPITALIZATION, HYPERSEXUALITY, RELIGION MENTIONS, MENTAL ILLNESS

aesthetic.

old tvs and their static, worn tapes, horror movie screams, spilled ink, a sculptor’s hands, clay-stained, chicken scratch handwriting, messy notes, messy hair, scoffs and eye-rolls, bruised knuckles, sore throats, funeral homes and a crying preacher, shattered ceramics, knife fights, high ledges, vertically-striped pants, red lights, the moon shrouded in clouds, cigarette butts, graveyards and half-empty wine bottles, sitting there for hours and talking to nothing, about nothing, a god complex, gold rings adorning both hands, barbwire baseball bats, having never played baseball in your life, deep eyebags and broken mirrors, a permanent chip on one’s shoulder, yearning, longing, wishing.

basic info.

full name: viktor phillip samuels

nickname(s): icky vicky :/

b.o.d. - jan 2nd

label(s): the black hole, the crepehanger, the impious, the opaque, the tempest, etc.

height: 6′1″

hometown: rochester, new york

sexuality: pansexual uwu

pinterest

stats

inspired by: beetlejuice (beetlejuice), sid (toy story), jack sparrow (pirates of the caribbean), francis wilkerson (malcolm in the middle), azula (avatar: the last airbender), vicky (the fairly oddparents), stu macher / billy loomis (scream), marshall lee (adventure time), bojack horseman (bojack horseman), any it’s always sunny character :/

biography.

born to mama and papa (preacher) samuels in rochester, new york - fifteen minutes after his twin sister, tatiana samuels. years later, rosa samuels joined the gang.

was an awkward, quiet kid growing up, he didn’t interact well with others and preferred being left alone to dig up worms and draw on the walls of their childhood home. the only exception was his twin, really.

as he got older he grew out of this, but instead became like … sort of an asshole? maybe to compensate for years of childhood awkwardness. he’s the sort of person who will bite the hand that feeds him & developed into a full time nuisance by middle school, unlike tatiana who was much more subtle about her conniving manners.

always has been a fan of ‘darker’ materials. grim & creepy morbid shit. probably the biggest tim burton fan, ever since he was a kid … not a good look for a preacher’s son, but he never really felt ‘in’ with the rest of his family to begin with. classic black sheep syndrome.

drew disturbing pictures as a kid that probably prompted one or two or five phone calls home to assure everything was fine.

just really had a knack for art at a young age, from drawing to painting to playing with clay. it’s always been his Thing and probably is the only thing he’s good at.

being twins with tatiana was hard. they were near opposite besides both being quite mean-spirited. tatiana handled being in public better, left a better image behind - but viktor had talent, more than she did. they loved each other deeply - y’know, those unbreakable twin bonds as cliche as it sounds - but found each other as competition for their parents’ attention. a rivalry for affection.

in high school is when viktor really started to act out. it started extreme, like losing his virginity in their church and vandalism around the neighborhoods. faked being possessed in the middle of sunday service & almost had an exorcism performed on him.

his only redeemable trait was like … just his sheer talent in the arts. was in a 3D art AP course and specialized in sculptures. he could pretty much create anything he wanted with enough dedication.

because he was the problem child, the one who deserved to be disciplined for all his antics, tatiana could sneak away and get away with whatever she wanted much easier. on the bright-side, for her, i guess.

not a very motivated person - wasn’t planning on going to college, much less going to radcliffe but his parents literally wrote & sent his college application for him because they weren’t going to house a deadbeat but had too much heart to kick him out onto the streets. cool!

he’s actually pretty smart but he just doesn’t apply himself. has a minor in english because he didn’t care for an extra course-load, but he’s good at writing & analyzing literature. is going to use it to write and illustrate his own series of children books with a style similar to tim burton’s. not for the kids, but because he likes to leave a trail of terror in whatever he does.

has been experimenting with himself since high school but college is where he really had started to crack down on himself. was out as pansexual & nonbinary by his sophomore year of college just … not to his parents, who don’t really need to know.

if you asked him if he believed in twins having a psychic connection with each other - he’d tell you he wouldn’t know. it felt believable at times, but sometimes he had no idea what was going on inside of tatiana’as head. on the other hand - viktor had always felt oddly transparent to her, like she knew all of his moves before he did. the only person who could predict him accurately.

( TW DEATH, GRIEF, OVERDOSE / HOSPITALIZATION BEYOND THIS POINT )

when tatiana disappeared, viktor knew something was up. it was a twist in his gut, pure instinct that something wasn’t right. and it wasn’t right - and when she was proclaimed missing, they couldn’t find her.

and when tatiana died - viktor knew. it felt wrong, something cut so severely in him he could pinpoint her death to the second. he didn’t know how, or why, but he knew it. knew it before anybody else had.

afterwards he went on a sort of bender. he’d begun to struggle with a mild drug addiction late senior year of high school / early college, but he was managing it up until this point.

his mental health had also sunk to an all-time low, when it’d never been great to begin with. (manic & depressive episodes. once fixated on a sculpting project for six months and then knocked it off the table and destroyed it as soon as he finished it for no apparent reason.)

tatiana’s body wasn’t found immediately, and when it was … viktor went off the rails. ended up overdosing & being hospitalized. spent six months in & out of psychiatric care after that.

came back to radcliffe to finish his senior year because … for the reasons above, he hadn’t been able to complete it. just wants to get his credits and get out of here.

is still dealing with a lot of trauma & grief, especially since the one year anniversary of tatiana’s death was this month (january) - causes him to spiral and be unpredictable in regards of his mental health. he stopped taking his medication, so. :/ some days are alright, other days are pretty bad.

UPDATE: now that summer’s come n go ... viktor hs been thru <3 a lot <3 recently. switched therapists (his :/ last one got her license revoked) & started new medications, went to a treatment center briefly ‘cos .. he wasn’t doing too well :/ bt now he’s back baybey! trying to be better n trying to be sober but ... :/

personality.

the human embodiment of a gremlin that was fed after midnight. a goblin, if you will. one of those cats with a narrow head and really big ears … that’s them!

a big horror & halloween enthusiast. loves the old campy horror movies & probably has an abundance of masks from different movies. dresses like a grimy millennial beetlejuice more than they should because they just … love those black & white vertical-striped pants.

can appreciate the lore & cryptids at radcliffe and likes to feed into the fear that surrounds them. is probably the cause of a few ‘anomalies’ and ‘paranormal sightings’ because they’re just … a jerk.

fashion alternates between e-boy (they would be tiktok famous if they were 17 & didn’t think that a majorly minor based app was weird.), millennial beetlejuice, and goth in a crop top & sweatpants. big fan of crop tops and a big fan of sweatpants.

they can be really fucking mean? petty, aggressive, a major instigator. will literally spit in your face for little to no reason, you could just look at them the wrong way. the kind of person who will stick their gum into someone else’s hair. other than that? they’re like … sort of okay. they’re not always mean, just a dick about 90% of the time lmao

like okay yeah they’ll call someone a stinky bitch for no reason except they feel like it and believes it. it’s fine, they’re fine, we’re fine.

despite the fact that they’re probably getting into a fight whenever, considers themself to be a lover and not a fighter but that’a primarily because they fuck a lot. uses it as a coping mechanism, like they’re this big fancy carnival show that’s like ‘come one, come all! fuck the dead girl’s twin brother!’ and it’s … a Lot. might have a problem with hypsersexuality but they’re not fully aware of it.

the preacher’s whore son, basically :)

pansexual & nonbinary, switches between he & they pronouns often and without a pattern, but they have such a fragile grip on their identity that you could call them ‘dog-faced bitch’ and they’d turn around like. sup.

vastly impulsive … like i said, they destroy their own creations for the fun of it. spends all teir money on useless shit, will cheat on someone because they feel like it & likes the thrill, screams into the night sky frequently like a cat in heat.

will also spend months creating useless shit for no reason too. spent six of them sculpting a hollowed out tree the size of them & then took a sledgehammer to it.

they’re very super dramatic. would play the organ at church when nobody was looking after them and service was about to start. would just churn out these super haunting, creepy melodies like they were phantom of the opera. would do the same exact thing at home on their keyboard with the pipe organ setting whenever they got grounded until their parents took it away HBDSJFNGKH

will absolutely not talk about their ‘time away’ because it’s not anyone’s business, not even their own younger sister. still refuses to talk about tatiana’s death, or their mental health, or their addiction (fallen back into it but it hasn’t gotten severe … yet :/), or anything involving their own emotions.

will just change the topic abruptly, no warning. asks about the jonas brothers instead and they fucking hate the jonas brothers.

that being said they’re absolutely not over tatiana’s death & it’s to the point of obsession over it. like there’s some kind of secret that needs to be uncovered, even though there just. isn’t. tatiana was their rock and they were pretty much dependent on her. kept them grounded. could control them when nobody else could, got into their head easier than others. it’s sort of like rosa lost two siblings that day because viktor hasn’t been the same since.

emotionally unavailable while also crying twice a day. cries during their brawls but still wins. is stony-faced when they tell you they cheated on you with your much hotter best friend.

will tell you straight up what they want from you, no bullshit & no beating around the bush. just blunt. if they want to fuck, nothing else, then that’s it. if they feel deviation or developing feelings then they’ll ghost in less than a second. is awful like that but feels no shame.

but also emotional as shit and it’s confusing. will cry on a whim and then flip you off if you try to console them or ask them what’s up. will bite you.

they go to therapy but they just fuck around and wastes their therapists’ time … also is fucking their therapist, but that’s neither here nor there. so they’re not really getting the help they need.

likes to be intimidating but not … with their body or anything because they’re a TWIG but uses their love & knowledge of horror and creepy shit to their advantage. has an abundance of fake blood. has channeled the energy of jack nicholson and used it on tatiana’s boyfriends before (also is a big fan of sfx makeup & has dabbled in it)

probably chases kids around with a chainsaw without the chain on halloween every year.

generally never doing good, both mental health wise & morally. would probably steal candy from a baby for funsies.

i don’t know if there’s a good to them somewhere deep down, but they don’t see any issues with themself either. nothing really breaks through to them anymore because the only person who ever made them stop and think about their actions was tatiana, and well, y’know. :/

an introverted reclusive type who doesn’t like most people or going out, but does so anyway if it means a quick high & a cheap thrill.

pretty observant and likes to analyze people even though they’re often like … partially wrong. judgmental because they like to make people feel bad, not because they’re a righteous mighty person. because they’re not. so like, a hypocrite!

wanted connections.

a roommate… but it’s an absolute nightmare to live with him.

enemies… because viktor would have a lot of them…

familiar faces… people who knew tatiana or of her / were her friends. maybe even those who dated her, and who viktor would’ve tried to intimidate / scare at any given chance :/

pitiful glances… people who take pity on viktor and he hates it sooo much.

hooligan gremlin kids… just a friend group of grown ass adults who do drugs and fuck shit up around town like they’re edgy teenagers.

high school girlfriend… probably the one he lost his virginity to inside his family church :/

childhood acquaintances… people who knew him from his youth.

exes… good & bad terms, but mostly bad terms because viktor is an actual demon. probably cheated on them.

soft… i don’t know if he’s soft towards anyone and/or is capable of it but we can try. we can try.

unrequited… either viktor just doesn’t like them or he’s holding back because he’s :/ got issues with relationships & is self-sabotaging as one does

enemies with Tension… of the … spicy kind if you know what i mean. wink.

friends… old friends, new friends, bad friends, good friends, close friends, frenemies, etc. i don’t know how many he had but if your muse likes to cause a ruckus and fuck shit up then viktor’s your man.

hook-ups… current or old. friends with benefits, one night stands, anything and everything because he fucks around a lot.

ride or die… friendship but make it extreme.

bad influence… he’s just toxic to be around and brings out the worst in people :/

bad egg… he’s gotten into a few fights :/ maybe you witnessed it. maybe you were in it.

literally anything i wld love all sorts of plots.

[goshwrites]

business (yandere x reader) 1

warnings: swearing, ageplaying, obsession, unhealthy relationships

word count: 2.9 

A/N: still not completely my best writing oof but here we go

taglist: (none as of yet since i’m keeping the taglist for the ben solo blurb separate from this one)

  You know how like in some novels things happen right away one after another? Like the very next day or something?  Well that didn't happen with you.  The day after the whole fiasco with Romeo and Juliette... things were pretty chill. Boss of course seemed just a little agitated, but that was normal in your opinion since well... she always had a resting bitch face. Always. And then it was two days after it.  Still nothing. You somehow got hit in the head with a paper ball that was thrown so badly it flew over the small wall that separated the cubicles instead of the trashcan. Yeah. That person's aim was horrible, but eh. They offered you chocolate once so you were cool.  Three days after everything still was kind of cool. Someone's phone kept buzzing the Backstreet Boy's song I Want It That Way and of course any reasonable person would sing along with it which of course was you.  Then four- well that was Saturday. And that was your glorious dayoff of going to the store and getting facial masks.  And fifth was Sunday and with that you mostly chilled while working on editing your paper.  Six was... Monday to say the least.  No comment.  And then what do you know? A whole week went by the incident and it seemed that no one even remembered or cared or just... were even awake to see it.    Tuesday started out kind of nice. You didn't do that annoying thing of where you wake up like ten minutes before your alarm and then you try to go back to sleep because hey it's way too early but then you can't because anxiety and you spent like seven minutes inwardly arguing with your anxiety and before you know it- it's time to get up.  But that didn't happen. That happened on Monday, yes, but Tuesday? Nah you woke up to the beautiful bliss of birds using their vocal cords and like some violins playing in the background. Over all it was nice.  And you got a cheese bagel at your nearby bagel shop because they're everywhere.    You greeted the security man that stood by the door with a 'good morning' on your way into the large building that also housed other companies like some kind of shoe company and like maybe one of Jojo's bowties? You really didn't know and didn't really wanna know. You walked out of the elevator of the floor you were on and proceeded to make your way to your cubicle. You sat down with the rolling chair moving backwards a tad before you reached out and got out your laptop from the beach bag. You were just typing in the password and going to your documents when you heard a soft, "Good morning," from your left and you look over to the opening to see Ben standing there. A small grin came onto your face at seeing the dark skinned male.  "It is this time." You mused while thinking back on your grumpy mood yesterday. He chuckled while flashing that pearly white grin of his.  "And am I not glad for that?"  "Oh shut up." You said playfully towards the male as you brought up your latest project on your computer.  He just chuckled and shook his head as if he just knew that you wouldn't pull through on your threat. And well he was right.  "Uh huh. Anyways since you're in a better mood, I was thinking we could like go out for lunch?" He suggested with a shrug as you looked back up at him. He always liked to wear bright colors since he could always pull them off so well, so today he was wearing a neon yellow t-shirt and washed-out jeans. You weren't really wearing anything special. Just blue jeans, (f/c) shirt, and some converse so eh. Nothing special or extraordinary. Just the way you liked it.  But somehow Ben always looked nice in everything he wore.  You decided to just shove your writing abilities to the back of your mind as you pretended to think about it.  "Hmmmm. I don't know. I don't really know if I like you or not." You said while stroking your chin as if there was a beard there. He chuckled and shook his head.  "Awww. Come on, (N/n). I know you do and you know you love me." He practically whined to you with a childish pout making you giggle.  "Of course I love you. You're one of the few people that are tolerable here." You told him with a grin and a shake of my head.  'You know you love me' was that one inside joke between the two of you. Whenever one just wasn't budging on something for whatever reason the other would always play that card. And usually it worked.  He was probably about to say something about being offended by that statement, but your little bicker was irrupted.  "(L/n)! My office!" You heard your last name being called out causing you to sit up right in your chair. And there standing at her office was Boss. Now Boss... was an interesting woman. One, she was born and raised in Liberia until her family moved here causing her to have a very strong accent. Two, she was very... well... blunt. She was like the Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsey of writing. And three, even though her natural hair was black, she had dyed it a sort of burgundy red that stuck out like on a traffic light.  But you've never been called to her office before. Not unless it was for another project. But... you were working on a project. So why did she call you?    You forced yourself to rise from the rolling chair before you took in a deep breath. Just... don't jump around conclusions. You and Ben shared a look of mutual look of worry and confusion before you forced yourself to walk out and into the hallway. Others had already stopped typing to give you the look of 'uh oh' as you walked. Honestly you felt like you were going to your own funeral at these somber looks. But alas you reached the glass down of Boss's office. It was that type of office from Superman of where the walls were glass. You had to admit, you liked it.  But at the moment you kinda wished the walls were concrete so no one could see you get fired. Wait.  Fired? Now that started the anxiety ball rolling.  But before you could turn away and maybe act like you were too sick to come to her office, she saw you and simply waved you in. Those glass walls. Traitors.   You took in a deep breath and entered into the carpeted office room. Besides being all fancy with her name on the door in a sort of Instagram font, Boss had a reddish, dark brown wooden desk with four small drawers on each side at the top, and two large drawers at the bottom. The desk was definitely an expensive one since the handles for the drawers had designs on them. Overall Boss just causally flexed with the desk.  And the carpet was like really comfy too as you shifted on it sort of nervously. Boss just looked at you before she picked up a Rubik Cube and just twirled it in her hand. She looked down at the multiple colors as she mixed the cube up.  And finally easing the growing of your anxiety- she spoke.  "Sit down, (L/n)." Obediently you sat down in the brown, leather chair that actually fit very well with the desk. She waited a few moments as if she was waiting to see if you were comfortable before she spoke again. "Do you remember what happened last week?" What? What happened? What week? Last week?  What happened last week?  You had no fucking idea.  But were you gonna admit that? Hell no.  "Yes, I do." You told her with a nod to make it seem like you weren't an idiot.  "Well, today... I got the phone call from Stevie saying that she and Issac have gone back to his home town to get married."  Wait... who? Then... ohhh yeeaaaah.  Last week... those two. Right.  "Wow. They didn't waste any time, huh?" You said while acting like you had an excellent memory of all things at all time. Yup.  No dummy here.  But that kinda brought up a question... why was she telling you this?  "No, they did not." She said with a shake of her head before she leaned forward in her seat. "But.. I'm sure you're wondering why I am telling you this." You nodded at her words and she took this as a cue to continue. "Well... I assigned Stevie to an assignment that I thought that she was ready for, but now that she's getting married... well... I will need someone else for it."  Huh. Why was she telling you this?  Then... wait... oh. Oh.  "You... want me for the assignment?" You asked as you couldn't hide the surprise that leaked into your voice.  Huh. So obviously you weren't the first choice, but at least you were the second. Better than none, right?  "If you will take it." Boss responded with a shrug as she looked down at the Rubik Cube while simultaneously solving it and speaking. Woah.  "Well I mean uh- I would love too, Boss. But..." You briefly trailed off as you shifted in the leather seat.  "Just what is the assignment?"  "It's actually an interview." An interview? Now... that is something you did not have that much experience on. Who would you be interviewing? Harry Styles?  Oh now that would be great. (But sadly this isn't a 1D fanfic) "Well uh... I don't really have that much experience with like journalism and like interviews." You awkwardly confessed as you scratched your head. "But... who is it?"  Boss paused as she stopped almost... completing the Rubik Cube. What. How did she that so fast? But your confessed and amazed eyes moved back up to Boss whenever she answered your question with, "Edward Gimmens." Then... wait.  Edward Gimmens… as in... that really rich guy?  That Edward Gimmens? You just stared at your Boss in amazement as she finished the Rubik Cube. But you weren't amazed by her skill- okay yes you were actually- but more with the fact as... "How... did you get an interview slot with him?"  As far as you knew the philanthropist, billionaire, and whatever he had on his resume didn't do interviews for magazines that centered around Millenniums and Gen-Zs. He did it for those really big and out there magazines, you know?  "Well, believe it or not, he came to us. But that is not important. You'll have to come up with your questions and such, but you can use Stevie's notes." She said as she set the cube down and pulled out a folder out from her desk.  You blinked a few times at her rapid explanation as just.. woah. "But of course that's if you are taking the job."  That... was the million dollar question, wasn't it? Or the billion in this case. Ha, ha, ha.  "I... well... I... what makes you think I can do this?" You found the words coming out of your mouth before you could stop them. Uh- uh- uh- "Of course I am grateful you offered it to me, but umm... why?" You quickly added as to not seem rude.  "Well... Stevie was my first choice since she's done work like this before." Boss began with a shrug as she leaned back against the chair. "But when she had to go... well... you just popped into my head as the next capable person to do this."  You? Capable? You still got anxiety with ordering your own meal. "You... think I can do this?" You asked hesitantly and in an unsure way as your (e/c) eyes met Boss's. She smiled just a tad before she leaned forward.  "(L/n)… I see potential in you. You're a good writer and you know how to set a pace right in whatever you write. You're just... how do I put this? Not confident in your abilities. So... I'm giving you the old... shove-you-out-of-the-airplane thing."  That... did not sound ideal. Not at all. But still you slowly nodded your head.  "All right. Thanks, Boss, I'm honored you think so highly of me, but umm... can I have some time to think about it?"  "Ah yes. Of course, of course. Take as much time as you need." She said while waving her hand in the air and with her accent sort of slurring her words together making the 'course' sound like 'close.'  "But just not too much time. This does need to be written, you know."  You nodded before you stood up from the comfy chair.  "I'll... let you know by Friday." You decided on that day while your anxiety told you in one ear that you won't be able to decide by then and your self worth was whispering how she would find someone else in that time period. Fun times.  "That is good, (L/n). I'll be awaiting for your answer." She said with a nod as she stood up as well. You couldn't help, but slightly smile at the way she worded things. "And ah! Just in case you do decide to take the job, here is the notes Stevie had." She said while picking up the folder she had brought onto her desk previously. She handed it to you and you took it from her dark and freckled hands.  "Just read it over and see what you think."  "I will Boss. Thanks." 

  With one final goodbye and wave to Boss, you exited out of the office and back down the hall to your cubicle.

So... you weren't getting fired? You actually kind of got promoted in a way? I mean, if you did this interview right... others would be put on your desk. 

But this was Edward Gimmens, the CEO of Gimmens Incorporated. This was a man who's spent nearly three decades in making his name known in whatever way.

He was a well known and looked up to man in whatever he did. Whether it be taking mankind steps closer to having flying cars or what he was most known for, and you found it a little humorous, cosmetics. 

Yes that's right.

The philanthropist, inventor, and very rich guy was famous for his makeup. Somehow he had figured out a way to have any foundation or concealer or blush fit exactly to your skin tone. Instead of having to make a formula for each different skin tone, he was somehow able to make one for all. Needless to say, the product instantly became a favorite around the world. Even you had tried it once, and contrary to what you expected, it somehow blended perfectly. 

He was like the Willy Wonka of makeup. And you were suppose to interview him. 

  You sat back down on your rolling chair with a huff. But should you take it? It was a great- like really great- opportunity for you and the magazine. Of course Boss can always get somebody else, but still. 

It was great and big and perfect, but... also stressing. You were going to have to come up with questions... but Stevie did leave behind notes for you. And thinking of the notes- you had the folder. 

You set it on your desk before you opened it up to see the Instagram font that was Stevie's handwriting. 

Man. You'd probably kill someone for being able to write that elegantly.

You read over what she had so far in her notes and you had to admit that she had some pretty good ideas of what she wants to ask. You bit your lip and decided to close the folder for now. 

Hmm. Maybe... just maybe, this won't be so bad.

But of course- you needed another person's opinion on this. 

"Hey, Ben?" You decided to speak up over the clicking keyboards to your cubicle mate. 

"Yeah?" Came his one worded reply.

"I would love to go to lunch with you."

And even though you couldn't see it, you knew he was smiling.

[nxrthmizu]

-Lordbug, Robin and Kitty Noir- Chapter Six: In Which Marinette Befriends Her Ex-Bully

/Part One//Part Two//Part Three//Part Four//Part Five//Part Six//Part Seven//Part Eight//Part Nine//Part Ten//Part Eleven/

Description: Uhhh exactly what the title says + akuma attack but instead of being the cause of Chloe, it’s Lila

Warnings: Cursing, self-harm and suicidal feelings, bullying

---

“Alright class, settle down!” The teacher yelled, a scowl worn on her thin lips. “Today we’ll be doing your first assessment- A group project. I have already decided your groups, and they will be as followed- Rose and Juleka, Alya and Lila, ...” The teacher droned on, and Marinette blanked out, only listening for her name, hoping that she’d be paired with Damian. “... Damian and Adrien, Marinette and Chloe. That’s it. Now get to work!” She snapped, banging her papers on the desk loudly. 

Damian turned to Agreste with a grim smile. Great. His enemy. Perfect. 

“Good luck, angel.” He murmured to her, moving over to Agreste’s desk. He hoped she didn’t notice, but when he passed her, his fingers had accidentally trailed past hers, and now his cheeks were burning. 

Well, she noticed. But it wasn’t really the top of her lists of things to deal with. 

Chloe grudgingly moved up, sitting where Damian had been a few moments ago. Marinette cleared her throat awkwardly, drawing out a piece of paper. “So... Um, do you have any ideas for the project?” She asked meekly. 

“Look, Dupain-Cheng, I’m... Sorry.” Chloe snapped. “I... Didn’t realize that bullying was that bad, and having experienced it with Rossi, I... I’m sorry.” 

Marinette smiled softly. “It’s okay. We’re both Lila’s victims... Truce?” She smiled, extending her hand. Chloe’s eyes narrowed, catching a trace of some pale pink lines underneath the sweater sleeve, but she didn’t say anything and only shook her hand. 

“This doesn’t mean we’re friends, Dupain-Cheng.” Chloe proclaimed. “Just allies.” 

Marinette giggled a little at it. Who knew? Chloe reminded her of Plagg- Both really just soft kitties on the inside, just a little rough on the outside. “Alright, Chloe.” 

Across the room, Damian had been glaring at Chloe. He had figured out some time ago that Chloe used to bully his precious angel... And he did not trust Chloe at all. His glare, if translated into words, would spell: If you hurt my angel, I will end you. 

Chloe coughed awkwardly. 

“Dupain-Cheng, could you please ask your... Boyfriend to stop glaring?” 

Marinette giggled. “He’s not my boyfriend... And Damian’s just like that. You’ll like him once you get to know him.” 

Chloe seemed to doubt this. “Right.” 

---

“Um... Why are you following me, Chloe?” Marinette asked, curious as to why the blonde had insisted in following her the moment she stepped out of the classroom to get home. 

“You need to do something about your clothes.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “You need a new style, and who better to ask than me?” She flipped her hair, flaring her ‘gorgeousness’. 

Marinette laughed. “Of course, Chloe.”

A cough interrupted the two girls. “If you don’t mind, Bourgeois, I can walk Marinette home.” 

The said girl blushed. There. That was the second time- That she could remember, anyway, he called her name. 

“Nuh-uh.” Chloe refused. “She’s going home in my limo. Shoo. Go away. It’s girl time, boy.” 

And that was how Chloe left Damian speechless, standing alone as Chloe dragged a giggling Marinette on to the car. Shaking his head, he figured that more friends would do his angel well- Although that still didn’t mean that he liked that the mayor’s daughter was taking his angel for him, he supposed it was for the better. 

---

“Alright. We need to do something about... This.” Chloe huffed, pointing at all of Marinette. 

“But you just pointed at all of me.” (Httyd anyone?) Marinette sighed. 

“Exactly. Now take off that sweater and let’s see what other clothes you have.” Chloe instructed, already beginning to go through her closet. 

No. If I take off my sweater, she’ll see my- 

“Take it off. Don’t worry, I won’t stare. Quite sure that there isn’t anything to stare at, anyway.” Chloe mused, urging the other girl to take off the sweater. 

“No!” Marinette refused. She can’t see my scars-

“What is this?” Chloe breathed, looking at the pale lines that revealed themselves when the sweater sleeve pulled up a little. The girl immediately pulled the sleeves back down defensively, but Chloe Bourgeouis wouldn’t take a no for an answer. She forced the sweater off Marinette, gasping at all the red lines on her arms- Some fresher than the rest- Recent marks. 

“M-Marinette...” Chloe faltered, beginning to reach over to trail her fingers over the marks. When Marinette retracted, she angrily reached out, grabbing the dark-haired girl’s hand forcefully. “Do your parents know about this?” She demanded. 

The girl shook her head feverishly, trying to yank her arm from Chloe’s grip, but since she’d been eating less and less, she wasn’t in any state to fight against the well-nourished daughter of the mayor. 

Chloe shook her head in shock. “Where are... Your knives? Tell me where they are.” 

After the blonde insisted fiercely for a few more times, Marinette revealed a drawer in which a few small kitchen knives lay hidden, wrapped with felt. Without a pause, Chloe reached out for them, shoving them into her bag. “I’m taking these from you.” She told Marinette sternly. “And from now on, every day, I will check your arms. If I see any new marks, I’ll tell your parents about this. You don’t want them to worry, right?” Chloe indeed knew Marinette well- She would never want to bother her parents with such a matter. “Then don’t do it.” 

She nodded. “Sorry.” She murmured softly, looking guilty. 

Chloe snarled. “What are you sorry for? Be sorry for yourself! This is pathetic. Don’t hurt yourself! You’re important, whether you believe it or not! You’ve organized so many things last year. Where’s our old class president? The independent, confident Marinette? That’s you.” Chloe pointed right at the other girl. “This- This isn’t you. You used to fight back when I bullied you. It’s the same thing with Lila. You fight back.” Seeing the girl shivering, Chloe softened, taking the girl’s hands into her own. “You aren’t alone.” 

Marinette sniffled a little, nodding. “Thank you, Chloe.” 

The blonde huffed. “Now. We need to do something about your outlook. Drop the pigtails. We’ve got to make you look more confident. If you look confident, you will be confident.” 

“AKUMA!” A shrill scream from outside interrupted the two girls’ moment.

“I- Chloe, can I ask a favor?” Marinette murmured, her eyes pleading. “Please, please, please, go out there as Kitty Noir for me. I can’t.” 

The blonde took a few seconds to process this. “You’re- Oh god, you’re Kitty Noir.” 

The cat Kwami immediately protested. “Marinette! You can’t do that! You’re the only true cat!” 

“Oh god.” Chloe was panicking now. No. She had to help. “Paris needs you, Mari. Get out there and kick some akuma butt.” She told her sternly.

“I can’t.” Marinette whimpered. “Paris deserves better.” 

“I chose you for a reason! And I never make the wrong choice!” Plagg hissed. “So get out there. Say it, Marinette.” 

“Plagg... Claws out.” 

---

Moments after she transformed, she detransformed. “I can’t do this.” She sobbed. 

“Maybe- Maybe we could get another miraculous,” Plagg suggested, eyes lighting up. “Come on, Mari. Robin and Lordbug are waiting!” 

“Alright...” She sighed reluctantly. “Where do we get a miraculous, Plagg?” 

“Fu’s place.”

---

When Kitty Noir and Chloe landed outside of Fu’s massage shop, Robin had already gotten ready and was jumping out of Damian’s bedroom. If he had been a second earlier, Kitty would’ve caught him coming out of Damian’s room- Which would’ve revealed his identity. 

“You’re asking for this miraculous because?” Master Fu asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“I... I can’t do it alone.” Marinette’s voice cracked. “I’m not deserving to be the black cat, sir. Please take the ring back.” 

“Plagg has made his choice.” Master Fu answered, smiling in knowingness. “Besides, Robin needs you.” Realizing the mistake he made, he coughed and immediately tried to correct it. “And so does Lordbug.” Turning to Chloe, he scrutinized her a second before picking out the bee miraculous. “This is the bee miraculous. Secure it with your life.” 

“Understood.” 

“Now go out there and kick that akuma ass.” 

---

“This is Queen Bee.” Kitty introduced, jumping in to block a blow from the akuma- An ex-classmate of Lila’s, who’d shown up in Paris for a vacation- But had accidentally found Lila, and in wanting revenge for what Lila did, gave into Hawkmoth’s orders. Don’t ask Robin how he knew that. He’s Robin. He just knows. 

“Right. Help out, yea?” Robin grunted, kicking away another flying object that the akuma flung at him. 

“I want revenge from Lila Rossi! Where are you, huh, you lying bitch?” The akuma roared. 

“Woah.” Queen Bee muttered under her breath. “Guess we aren’t her only victims.” 

A look of warning from Kitty reminded the girl to protect their identities. And honestly, if Robin had been paying attention, he’d have immediately guessed their identities. 

“Kitty, Bee, go find Lila Rossi! I have a plan.” Robin growled, leaping away from a crashing car. 

The two superheroes nodded, running off. 

“I think he wants to use her as bait,” Kitty said, panting a little as they sprinted over the rooftops, Queen Bee still trying to get used to her powers. 

“Well, I hope she gets killed in the process,” Bee muttered off-handedly under her breath, making Kitty laugh. 

“Let’s not get our hopes up.” Kitty grinned, jumping off a building to where the girl had been spotted. 

---

“Kitty Noir!” Lila gushed over the superhero, beaming. Kitty only stepped back from the girl before Queen Bee pushed her forward. 

“We need your help.” Queen Bee smiled forcedly. “Come with us.” 

---

Lila was placed on the tip of the building, in the perfect view of the flying akuma. 

“I really hope she gets hit.” Queen Bee sighed, crossing her fingers. 

“Honestly, same.” Robin sympathized. “She keeps hurting my angel.” 

Queen Bee raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Your angel?” 

Robin glared at her. “Marinette.” He sighed. “She’s perfect.” 

Queen Bee nearly hooted before nudging Kitty Noir, who only blushed and stepped on her foot with force, earning a shriek out of the yellow superhero. 

“Quiet!” Robin hissed, glaring daggers at Queen Bee, who only huffed, annoyed. “The akuma’s coming, take cover.” He instructed. 

“Lila! Oh, we meet again, old friend.” The akuma cackled, tracing a finger creepily down Lila’s shoulder. “I’m going to make you vomit all those lies you omitted!” 

Glancing over the ledge, the three superheroes watched as the akuma laced lines to Lila- Lines that were attached to a controller. Lila had become a puppet. 

“Holy shit.” Robin breathed, watching the thing unfold. “That’s some badass villain shit we got. Alright. Here’s the plan.” 

The two turned to him. 

“Okay, we don’t have a plan.” 

---

“I lied to Sancha and Molly. I said that you didn’t want to join them.” Lila confessed, choking as the akuma continued to cackle, pulling on the strings. Alya, nearby, waiting for the superheroes, looked on, horrified. “I lied. It wasn’t Marinette who threatened me. I threatened Marinette. I told Chloe if she didn’t chase Sabrina from herself, I would.” Lila continued to choke as a smoke substance left her throat, each lie she confessed getting darker and darker. 

“Marinette was innocent. So was Chloe. So was Lily, Freya, Angelina, Pomeline-” The girl continued to spout the names of the people she’d destroyed. 

“I think we know who the true villain is, here.” The akuma spat, jerking on a line that made Lila slap herself. 

“But that doesn’t mean you have to hurt the villain.” Kitty Noir spoke up before Queen Bee or Robin could stop her. 

“Hmp! As if you understand.” The akuma harrumphed. 

“I’ve been bullied before. I know how it feels. Everyone turning against you, you’re alone. There’s no way out.” Kitty Noir continued, slowly stepping towards the akuma. “It doesn’t mean they’re right, but it doesn’t mean you need revenge. It makes you the same as them. It makes you the very person you didn’t want to become.” 

“She destroyed my life. My friends all left me.” The akuma hissed, black tears falling down to the earth like stained rain. 

“So did mine.” Her voice was quiet. 

The akuma stared at her in stunned silence. 

Take her miraculous!

“Hawkmoth.” Kitty began. “He’s a bully, too.”

“You said you were bullied.” The akuma sniffled. “What did you do? You said we shouldn’t take revenge. Then do we just stay quiet?” 

“No, because your feelings matter, too.” Queen Bee interrupted, standing up. “I’ve been a bully before. I didn’t know, and for that, I apologize.” Kitty could hear the truly sincere apology right there. “You don’t stay quiet. You fight back.” 

Kitty shot Bee a smile, taking her hand. “So, please. Hawkmoth is a bully. Give us your hand.” 

The akuma slowly landed, Lila limp in her hands. Her fingers reached out, but before she could take Kitty’s extended hand, Hawkmoth’s voice grew louder. 

Don’t listen to them! They’ll only lie to you, the way Lila did! 

“Take my hand.” 

She did. 

---

Never in his life had Robin been that impressed. He had never seen anyone convince a villain out of, well, villainy. His whole life he’d been taught to fight and that was it. He’d never been taught to talk, to give chances. And for that, he respected Kitty, Bee, and most of all, his angel. 

“It’s alright.” Kitty hushed as Robin ‘disappeared’, and Lordbug appeared to purify the akuma. “What’s your name?” 

“Rachel Roth.”

---

(In this au, Raven isn’t in the teen titans. I’m planning to put Chloe and Raven in a relationship (It’s that or Chloe with Nathaniel, but I like the idea of Chloe as a bully growing with a bully victim as the love interest.)) 

(Tag list! @yin-390 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @constancetruggle @the-navistar-carol @never-neverland @rayray384 @mystery-5-5 @black-streak @bluerosette23 @seraphichan @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @mikantsume @graduatedmelon @thebookwormfairy @crazylittlemunchkin @shizukiryuu @screamingtofillthevoid @serenacross200 @zestyzealot @redscarlet95 @roseinbloom02 @beautym3 @resignedcatservant @sizzling-fairy-oil @tinybrie @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry )

[areasontobreathe]

The Miys, Ch. 56

This one got away from me.  I meant for it to just be some filler, but it turned into a serious conversation, somehow.  Those wily OCs keep getting away from me.  *Spots one sneaking out the door* Hey!  Get back here!

By the virtue of having to proof the pizza dough, Maverick managed to dash into our quarters with just enough time to shower and change before sitting down with us for dinner.  He gulped down a glass of wine before even reaching for any food, nodding his thanks to Antoine as he handed the glass back. Conor and I glanced at each other, concerned: Maverick rarely drank with dinner, and if he did it was usually sparingly.

He must have caught our glance. “My hands are shaking and my back is a mess of knots from checking – and I quote – ‘everything in the lab that may have had anything to do with the construction of the platforms, along with any equipment that may have interacted with them after construction’.  So sayeth Grey Hodenson.” He paused to stuff a fish-laden slice of pizza in his mouth. “Mmph. Sorry. Hey, Zach.”

“That’s literally every piece of equipment in BioLab 2 and the fabrication lab,” Conor interjected.  “Grey is making you do all that?”

Maverick shook his head. “Huynh is coming down on everyone with this, Con. Grey’s just protecting their technicians and researchers.”

“What about Xiomara?” I asked, waving my hand to grab their attention before glancing at my sister. “I mean, the platforms being unsafe would fall under her department, right?”

Tyche picked up on what I was hinting at. “Does she even know about this issue?”

Conor glanced back and forth between us for a moment. “I – I honestly don’t know,” he admitted.  “I’ve been so caught up in defending myself that I didn’t even think to ask.”

“If Councillor Hodenson knows, would they not think to pass the information on to her?” Antoine asked reasonably.

It was my turn to shake my head. “Don’t you remember on Level One?  Grey gets incredibly forgetful when they’re under extreme duress.  With the recent gravity increase, I don’t think anyone has been sleeping all that well. Derek told me earlier that he’s been having nightmares.  I know the three of us haven’t been sleeping worth a damn.” I gestured between myself and my two partners-cum-guard dogs.

“Surprised you can sleep at all, the way Maverick snores,” Zach snickered, earning a half-hearted glare and the confiscation of a slice of pizza from his plate. “Hey!” he protested weakly.

Still staring him down, I took the biggest bite I could manage of the slice in my hand before sliding the rest of the pizza on the table toward him. “Be nice,” I admonished around my stolen mouthful.  “The point is, Xio may not know about the situation.  I’ll touch base with her tomorrow, first thing.”

Later, Tyche and I were sitting in the living room while the guys were cleaning up and joking around in the food-prep area. “Does he do that often?” she asked, referring to the earlier situation with Conor.

“Hmm? Oh, umm…. No? Not really?” I scrunched my nose. “This is the first time I’ve known him to do it while someone else was here?”  

She looked at me skeptically. “Mon soeur…” she started with the same fond tone that she usually reserved for calling me ‘silly bitch’.

“I’m not lying, you can have Noah check the recordings later. I swear. Yes, he does lose his temper sometimes, but he makes a point to ask me and Maverick to leave while he calms down or warns us before we get home that he had a bad day and needs some time to himself.  I can’t really think of any time that it’s been something one of us did that set it off – usually it’s work or a hydroponic project that gets him that frustrated.  We didn’t even know that he was throwing things until we came back for something once, thinking he was just laying in bed or reading a book or something, and we caught the mess he had made while he was cleaning it up.”

She seemed reluctantly mollified. “I really thought for a second that… Anyway, assuming you are telling the truth – and I will check – it makes sense that he was so upset when you walked in earlier. But if I check with Noah, and he tells me a different story…” She left the threat hanging as she gave me a pointed look.

“Check all you want,” I assured her. “Cross examine, be specific, grill them. If I’m blind to something, let me know.”

Before we could say anything else, the other four joined us.  Tyche left the couch in favor of sitting with Antoine in the armchair, while Maverick took her seat next to me.  Surprisingly, Conor let Zach sit on my other side, in favor of sitting on the floor and resting against mine and Maverick’s legs. It wasn’t unusual for him to do after losing his temper – I wasn’t even sure he realized that he acted like he had to earn back his spot on the sofa – but I hadn’t expected him to do it in front of other people.

My favorite source of never-ending surprise didn’t stop there. “Antoine,” he asked, clearing his throat. “Do you have anyone on staff who, uh, helps with… anger management?” He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment when Antoine’s eyebrows shot up.  “I got… mad as hell today, and I was throwing things in front of Zach.  And it’s not the first time I’ve tossed a room ‘cause I was pissed off.” Leaning forward, he shoved a hand through his hair and forced himself to keep talking. “I’ve never raised my voice or threw things at Sophie or Mav, and I try to make sure that no one is here when I do it.  But today… Zach was here, and Sophie and Tyche got home and the door was open, and I could’ve… Even if it had been a accident, someone could’ve got hurt, and – “

“No one got hurt?” Antoine cut in, glancing around with concern. I could see his fingers digging into Tyche’s hip where his arms were around her, his professional façade cracking just a hair at the idea that she had been in potential danger. The three of us who had been there shook our heads, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am well aware that Tyche will likely be checking the recordings to ensure that you are save, Sophia and Maverick.  I will be checking them with her, just to be sure.  And yes, Conor, we do have some people on the Ark who are trained to handle anger management.”  When Antoine removed his hand from his face, I caught him clenching it in a tight fist for a brief moment.

Apparently Conor wasn’t the only one with an unexpected temper. “Antoine,” I said softly. “I already told Tyche, go ahead and check the recordings. Grill Noah. Conor really has always made a point to make sure we weren’t here when he knew he was going to lose it, and he tried as hard as he could to make sure we didn’t realize how badly he was handling it. But I do think he could use some help learning a more… productive? Way to handle things.” I stroked Conor’s hair and smiled slightly when Maverick moved my hand so he could do it, instead. “I did suggest boxing,” I pointed out, glancing up.

“The last thing I want to do is graduate to hitting things,” Conor grumbled.  “That doesn’t seem like a good idea at all.”

“Actually, boxing is an effective outlet for aggression,” Antoine argued. “It has proven to provide a safe outlet for violent urges, especially if it is not an activity you have ever taken up before.  Over time, it reprograms the same physical impulse that causes you to throw things to instead channel that aggression toward hitting something that is designed to be hit, or toward a sparring partner who is consenting to engage and is physically protected.”

“There has to be something else. Something non-violent.”

“Any physical exercise can provide an outlet, but it may not be as satisfying,” our resident therapist relented.  “Running, aerobics, or dance are found to be the most effective due to the high cardiovascular output they provide.”

Conor nodded, taking that into more serious consideration.  “Running sounds better.”

“Awww, you don’t want to start taking dance classes?” Maverick teased, grunting when I elbowed him. “What? You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be a little funny.”

I glared at him as Tyche cleared her throat. “Um, Maverick? Sweetie? Sophia took dance lessons for years.  Believe me, just the stretches will have you pouring sweat when you first start.”

“It takes about the same amount of discipline as martial arts,” I picked up from there. “Precision, and complete focus on what each part of your body is doing at any given time. Not to mention the amount of strength you have to build up, depending on what you’re doing – at one point I could squat close to three hundred pounds. Not for long,” I admitted. “But I could do it.”

“Maybe you should start dancing again,” my sister mused. “It was good for your anxiety.” I tilted my head, conceding her point, but didn’t say anything.

“I am tempted to make the entire ship start taking up more cardiovascular exercise,” Antoine sighed.  “Since the most recent gravity adjustment, the reports of anxiety, paranoia, and insomnia have far exceeded what we anticipated.  As Sophia suggested at dinner, it seems that very few on the Ark are unaffected.”

I snorted before descending through giggles and into outright hysteric laughter.  I glanced up briefly to see everyone staring at me, waiting for me to explain the joke. I managed to pull myself together long enough to gasp, “Ten-thousand-person flash mob.”

One by one, the entire room descended into laughter, the seriousness that had settled upon us temporarily broken by the mental image of everyone on the Ark dancing their hearts out.

<<Prev    Masterpost    Next>>

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Part 30

“Think on it,” Ansgar said. “Maybe even talk to your sister about it. She knows me. She knows how I work.”

Elias’ face fell into an odd, unreadable expression. He kept silent for a long moment, and when he smiled, the light did not reach his eyes. When he spoke, his words were a whisper - not angry, but intent. “She knows how you… work, eh?” His eyes narrowed. “Does she now?”

A shard of ice stabbed down Ansgar’s back - a familiar jolt, one that, as it melted, brought back a wave of memory. A memory of Rufus Valentine, of Faye’s brother, when he’d made a similar challenge. A similar challenge which had led to a deep friendship while he was married to Faye. A similar challenge which, when things fell away, had led to a threat of death upon their next meeting - should they ever meet again. Which Ansgar hoped they would not.

He hated the idea of having to kill the man.

And now, he saw the beginnings of the same from Elias. The natal spark. It froze Ansgar, his beer glass hovering, his hand unmoving, his facial muscles stiff, eyes rock hard and boring into the other man. It took a moment before Ansgar moved, but what made the shell of ice break away was the sudden flash of fear in the other man’s eyes. Ansgar lowered his mug and set his hands flat upon the table, considering, thinking.

And finally, he let his breath out. Here we go again…  He relaxed. He smiled, the alcohol in his blood easing him. He spoke. “Look, friend….”

But Elias cut him off. “Answer my question, Martinsson. Exactly what knowledge does… does my sister have about you?”

Ansgar smirked, glaring at Elias through the sides of his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Careful, Elias. I see that nasty little question just sitting there on the tip of your tongue,” he sneered. “If you’re as buzzed as I am, you might just ask it. You might just say something stupid, something you’ll regret. And believe me, you’ll regret it.”

“I deserve to know. I’m her brother.”

Ansgar sighed. “Listen, man. My sister is four years younger than me. Her name is Leda. She lives here in Stockholm. Works as an interior designer and she’s talented as fuck. In fact, I use her on my own projects from time to time. She’s a bit of an entitled, spoilt little bitch, but I love her dearly. Anyway, my brother and I, we are both fully involved in her life. I know, at any time, who she’s seeing. I know who she’s dating. I know who she’s fucking. Follow me?”

Elias’ eyes widened. “I do,” he spat.

“Good,” Ansgar squinted and gave a curt nod. “So, know this. Should anyone, any man, or any woman for that matter, ever hurt her, in any way, shape or form, I will hunt that person down and put a bullet in their brain, and don’t think I am speaking in hyperbole because I am most certainly not.”

He paused, then, letting the sentiment sink in, glaring at Elias through lowered, narrowed eyes. He relished in the renewed wash of apprehension that slid over Elias’ features. He knew he was frightening him - but moreso in gaining the man’s respect rather than driving him to somehow forbid Ansgar’s relationship with Joline.

It was a fine line that Ansgar trod. And he knew it.

He took a sip of beer. “The only reason I know the identity of those persons who fuck my sister is because she tells me. She’s honest with me and… and… and open with me, and that honesty comes only in her own time and on her own terms. I neither force her to tell me these things nor do I ask those whom I suspect have carnal knowledge of her. Do you see where I’m going with this, Elias?”

Elias nodded and swallowed.

Ansgar smiled. “Good, I’m glad you do. So then,” he instructed, “the first lesson learnt is that I understand entirely where you’re coming from. I get you. I’m an older brother, too. I respect your feelings about me, about Joline, about this whole situation.”

“Fine. And the second lesson?”  

“If you want to know whether Joline and I are…,” he cleared his throat, pulled a face, and and gestured with a subtle vulgarity, “… well, don’t you think you ought to ask her, instead of me? Or simply wait for her to tell you? Out of respect for your sister and out of respect for your own career.”

Elias frowned, confused. “My… c-career?”

Ansgar nodded slowly, humming a tight lipped “mmm hmmm,” prodding the man to think. He kept his eyes on Elias but hid his face behind a long pull of his beer.

“Oh,” Elias nodded sagely. “I get it. You just laid the possibility of this lucrative, cushy job right at my feet, and now I’m… I’m….”

“Acting the unappreciative arsehole big brother,” Ansgar chuckled. His next words were sharp and cutting, but he spoke them with a smile and a lighthearted air. “I can elevate your career to new heights, my friend. But at the same time, if you somehow end up on my bad side… I can ruin it.”

Elias laughed nervously. “Look, Ansgar,” he leaned forward, elbows rest heavily upon the table. “All I want to know is… is… is what your intentions are toward my sister. You’ve been in the news lately, with your wife and –”

Ansgar lifted a hand. “Don’t you dare mention her. Not now. Not ever.”

Elias slinked back into his chair and sipped absently at his beer. “Fair enough,” he said, “but I… I can’t help but be concerned. I’ve heard… things about you.”

“That’s in the past,” Ansgar declared. “Far, far in the past. Things… circumstances… hardships have changed me. Enlightened me, so to speak. I can assure… assure you that my intentions toward your sister are nothing but honorable. I like her a great deal, and I care for her.” He swallowed down a belch. “I’d do anything for her, anything.”

“Even hire her unappreciative arsehole big brother?”

“If it means that I get the benefit of your talents, then yes. If it means giving you a path to more income, to give Joline some reprieve from taking care of your mother, then yes. If it means giving your boys more opportunities, more for their education, more time with their… their father, then yes.”

Elias shook his head quickly, blinking in surprise. “You know… about our mother?”

Ansgar nodded. “I know she’s ill, and gravely so. I know Joline’s caring for her. She hasn’t told me as much, hasn’t shared that with me, but I know it nonetheless. She’ll tell me when she’s ready, I’m sure of it, but if there are things I can do behind the scenes to make her life easier, make things better for your mother, then I’ll do it.”

Elias stared, as stiff as Ansgar had been earlier. Only the thing that pierced him was not a shard of ice down his back. Rather, it was a warmth to his heart, a shock to his mind as he attempted to process what Ansgar had just told him.

And the gobsmacked look of him made Ansgar laugh. “Come on, man,” Ansgar guffawed. “I’m not that much of a dick. My reputation isn’t that terrible, is it?”

Elias chewed his bottom lip. “I guess not,” he said. “I just never expected you to be so… so generous.”

“Funny,” he mused. “Joline said the same thing.” He paused for a moment, and the two men considered each other, sussed out the truths of each other, bolstered a new found respect for each other. A respect which Ansgar wanted to seal up, hold tight to, and commemorate. He lifted his hand, and with a quick gesture, summoned the server.

And the server responded immediately, bringing a bottle of Akvavit and two small, stemmed glasses. Ansgar thanked the man, and turned to Elias, gesturing at the setup on the table before them. “Please,” he said. “Do the honors. Pour for us. Pour, and we’ll sing and we’ll drink to our new friendship.”

“I’m not sure I can do this. These fancy to-dos, I’ve always been removed from them… at the theatre, I mean. As house manager, even though I plan these events, I’m not really involved, other than looking to make money for the theatre.”

Rose looked at her new friend with compassion, “You’re unsure because this is personal… and you like him.”

Joline wanted to deny it, wanted to preserve herself, wanted to maintain her dignity and save face. She threw barrier after barrier after stonewall after obstacle to keep Ansgar at, the very least, arm’s length away from her emotions. But if Rose read her that well, she’d already failed to keep him at a safe distance.

“Shit,” she muttered to her feet, her chin dropped to her chest. She kicked at a pebble in the grass with her summer blue heels. Where had she gone wrong? When did intense sexual attraction and chemistry become ‘it’s personal… and you like him’?

Rose chuckled again when she saw Joline’s reaction. She took a shot at what she thought she saw in Joline and the woman all but confirmed it. “Hey there, girl… honey. It’s happened to the best of us.” She caught Joline’s eyes. “We need to rub one out, satisfy Mother Nature’s physical itch to guarantee that the human race continues. Turn to the first person who… wets,” she winked, nodding to the conversation the previous night, “our female bits.”

“That happen to you?” Joline pulled out of her pout. Away from the scrutinizing looks and gossiping whispers, she felt more herself.

“You met Jacqui. She was my summer love affair… four years ago.” Rose linked her arm through Joline’s at the woman’s look of surprise. She followed the curve of the party setup, taking her friend with her. “Don’t be so shocked.”

Joline leaned her head on Rose’s shoulder, their pace leisure and unhurried despite the heavy beat from the rock music coming for the arcade area of the picnic. “How clichéd to catch the feelings for my partner.”

“I shudder to think,” Rose laughed at Joline’s statement, sarcasm dripping from each syllable.

“Tell me, tell me about you and Jacqui,” Joline begged, wanting the distraction more than to spill her guts to her friend about what was happening with her.

“An intern, she was, my Jacqui. We tried to hate each other. I hazed her shamefully.” Rose yanked Joline along to a shelter to sit down. “Let’s sit and chat. The sun is lobstering my face, I can feel it.” The two women stepped under the safety of the natural shade of the all wood gazebo.

Joline pulled her skirt down as she folded herself onto the bench that lined the inside. “So what happened? How did you turn up the temperature?”

Rose leaned back, stretched her legs out in front of her, and stacked one ankle over the other. “Jacqui looks delicious in green.”

“Huh?”

“A heated argument over some basic risotto ended her in wearing the shit. I… ahem… licked—you can fill in the rest. We kept it under wraps for a bit, but feelings can’t be contained… or shoved in a freezer.”

Joline furrowed her brow and then burst out a laugh. “Her or you?”

Rose smiled, fully committing to the memory of it. “Me. A self-inflicted punishment to,” she raised her hands to demonstrate air quotes, “’cool down.’”

“Did it work?” Joline crossed one long leg over the other and crossed her arms.

“For those eleven minutes, it did. But here I am, four years later, just as hot for her now as I was after that time out.” Rose pursed her lips, reading Joline’s defensive body language, sensing her need to hear just why this story applied to her current situation. “Honey, it’s not cliché. It’s wonderful and awful, it’s amazing and terrifying, it’s empowering and painful. It’s all those things when you open up to something—ah! Someone new.”

Joline looked away, scanning the park away from the Martinsson Construction festivities, over the lawn and the trees and the everyday people milling around being normal. She sighed. “I was married before. I met him at university and married him a week after we graduated. I dated him for two years, married him at twenty-one, and divorced him ten years later.”

Rose studied her friend’s face for a long moment. The woman didn’t blink, her eyes glued to the horizon, steeled and dark as she relived her ancient history. “I get it now,” Rose announced with a sympathetic tile of her head. “You had your chance. Is that it? So what happens now? What happens to you now?”

“Secret hidden affairs that last a week, maybe a month at best,” Joline admitted sadly.

“Because you’ve… what? Decided?”

“It’s what I know to be true.” At least it had been since her divorce two years ago. “Nobody wants a divorcee.”

Rose clicked her tongue in her mouth in disdain, disappointed that Joline didn’t see the double standard in her own generalization. “You do. Ansgar is too.” She threw her hands up in frustration, in disgust.

“It’s different for men. He… I’m his lover, but there’s nothing more to it than that.”

The breeze made the trees sound of rain, but it didn’t reach the tense air within the gazebo. Their blue eyes warred over the truth, their own personal truths setting them on opposite sides. Joline knew her empty love affairs of the past two years. Rose had seen Ansgar’s previous marriage and how his dynamic with Joline appeared differently than any relationship that came before.

“He brought you here! His first public appearance since returning to Stockholm. That’s worth more than few tumbles in bed.”

Joline sat forward on the bench, hooking her hands over the edge, and hunching her shoulders in disbelief. “Or maybe it was easier for him not to answer questions about his ex-wife.”

“If that were true, you’d be plastered to his side. Where is your temporary lover?” Another heavy dose of sarcasm with so much emphasis on her pronunciation of temporary.

Jutting her chin in the other direction, Joline didn’t unfurl from her hunched, shell like position. “The VIP tent, with my brother.”

“Your brother?”

Joline confirmed it, shuffling her feet along the wood planks of the floor, wishing she knew what kept them so long. “He invited my brother, his wife and their kids, because he knew I’d object to it.”

Rose burst out a humor filled laugh, shattering the tension in the gazebo. She pushed to her feet, using her momentum to get up into Joline’s face. She pulled the woman out of her prickly, protective and neurotic pose onto her feet. “Honey, that’s foreplay!!” She tucked Joline’s hand under her own arm this time to get her in the center of the party.

“Wha—what do you mean?”

“He’s bringing your people closer into his circle. Schmoozing them, charming them… marking his territory around you, sweet cheeks. It’s all foreplay and pillow talk. You can take your maudlin nobody wants a divorcee crap elsewhere, honey. There’s no room for it here, not with his bullhead around.”

Joline stumbled to keep up with Rose as she made a beeline for the VIP tent, peeking in the windows to get a glimpse inside. The butterflies in Joline’s belly beat a southbound flight, making her slightly nauseous. Rose led them round to the flap inside and dragged her unwilling friend behind her into the tabled area.

Ansgar and Elias sat in the center, clinking their shot glasses together and knocking them back. Their raucous laughter drowned out the other ambient noise of the beer tent. And then there was the singing…. Out of tune, louder than sin and so much less melodic than any song that either woman ever had the displeasure of listening.

[caramell0w]

The Acquisition- Chapter 14

Parings: Business owner!Bucky x Reader (AU)

Summary: You are part of a business merger. Can you make it through with your heart still intact, or will The Winter Soldier tear you apart?

Warnings: More proof her dad is an ass and needs to rot in hell. 

A/N: I just hope everything works out okay!

Word Count: 1564

Masterlist | Previous Chapter

If you like my fanfic, check out my books

I’m in a standoff with my dad, neither of us saying anything. I hear movement behind me, and I spin to see Jasper walking toward me. “Stay the fuck away from me.” I take a step back, trying to keep my distance from everyone. I know there is no way I am going to be able to outrun anyone. Not in my current condition anyway.

I look at my dad again. “This is one of the men that kidnapped me and tortured me, Dad. Why are you helping him?” I want to cross my arms over my chest, but everything hurts too much.

“He stopped me from getting a huge account. This was going to put Landon Enterprises above Barnes’ and I was going to pay off my debt instead of selling the company.” He tilts his chin in Bucky’s direction. “Your future husband stopped all that when he got wind of what was happening. Mr. Sitwell and Mr. Rumlow have been working for me for some time now.”

“So you’re the one who set this whole thing up? Sent them to take me and torture me?”

“Well, Brock took it a bit far. You weren’t supposed to be so bashed up. I need to be able to sell you off to someone else once James is no longer around.”

I’m baffled at his statement. I don’t even notice when Jasper comes up behind me and wraps his hand in my hair, holding me in place.

“James, you’re being quiet. Anything to add to this conversation?” Richard asks.

“Only a real bottom feeder would use his own daughter for personal gain. When we get out of here, you’re going to rot in a prison cell. I’ll make sure I do everything in my power to make sure to spend the rest of your miserable life there.”

The man behind him cocks his gun and presses it into Bucky’s head. Bucky stands there so calm, but I can’t. “NO!” I yell. Jasper holds my hair a bit tighter and I flinch from the pain in my scalp.

“Y/N, look at me,” he commands.

I look at Bucky, tears staining my cheeks. “He’s not going to kill me yet. He needs me.”

“You’re right, James. I won’t. Not yet anyway; but that doesn’t mean I can’t shoot you at all.”

The man standing behind him pulls the trigger and Bucky goes down to his knees with a grunt. I watch the smoke curling up from the end of the gun and I hear a blood curdling scream before I recognize it as my own. I struggle to free myself from Jasper, but he pulls my head back so I’m looking at the ceiling. He leans in, “Don’t worry he won’t suffer too much. Wish I could say the same thing for you.” My neck hurts from careening it back so far, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. “I’m so glad I learned just how far James will go to protect you. It certainly has come in handy. I don’t think we would have made it this far if it wasn’t for that.”

“Why not wait until after we’re married? I would have a controlling interest in the company. Wouldn’t that work out better for you?”

Good old dad chimes in. “Yes, it would. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. Alexander Pierce will be here soon and we need the contact signed showing the company will foot the bill. This project is going to bring in millions of dollars.”

“Yes, and endanger the lives of thousands of people.”

“Richard, why enter into this merger and the arranged marriage with George if you were just going to devise a take over? What’s the point?” Bucky asks from his spot of the floor.

“The marriage was arranged before this even fell in my lap. I didn’t have a choice at the time, and then I hoped you wouldn’t find out about it,” he sneered.

“You had to figure we would have been watching everything. It’s a liability to take on a company your size without knowing everything.” Bucky leans forward and grabs his leg, trying to stop it from bleeding. “Are you just going to let me bleed out here? I mean, it would probably be easier to let me die.” The smile Bucky displays isn’t warm and fuzzy, it’s dark and sinister. He’s planning something, but I have no idea what it is.

Richard sighs and shakes his head. “Take him to the back room and tie him down somewhere. Get the bleeding to stop. For the love of God, don’t let him get any blood on any more of the rugs. This one is already going to be a bitch to clean.” My phone starts ringing in my pocket. “Answer it.”

Hey drag Bucky off as Jasper pulls it from my pocket and I can see it’s Steve calling. “Ah, looks like the lap dog is trying to get in touch with them.”

That’s right! Steve is still outside in the car. He’s going to help us get out of this, I just know it. Jasper puts it on speaker. “Hello?” I ask.

“Ah, Ms. Y/L/N. It’s a pleasure to speak with you. My name is Alexander Pierce, and I’ve heard a lot about you from your father.”

“Where’s Steve?” My voice is shaky now.

“Your guard is alive. There are a few things I need from you in order to make sure he lives.”

“You’re going to let me see that he’s alive for myself.” I struggle to get out of Jasper’s grasp and I’m sure I pull a stitch in the process.

“You have no right to make demands.” He walks through the front door, his eyes shimmering in delight.

“Clearly you need me for something and unless I help willingly, you’re not going to get what you want. I want to see Steve, alive. I want to talk to him for a few minutes.”

He smiles as he stops directly in front of me. “You’ve got balls, don’t you, girl?”

I continue my struggle to get free. “I had to learn real fast when daddy dearest arranged my marriage to James. You are not to hurt either Steve or James otherwise you will never get what you want.”

He shrugs, “That’s fine, I don’t actually need either of them, I just need you. James can currently stop this because of the arrangement and the selling of the company at the time of the wedding. That’s in the agreement. Once the papers are signed and everything is legal, the process of selling begins. If you’re no longer in the picture Richard keeps Landon Enterprises for a while longer and we can move forward with the business arrangement. The wedding has already been postponed for a few weeks, we only need a few more to finalize everything.”

“Then why kidnap me and ask he fix it in the first place?”

“We hope there could be some kind of agreement made, but when he attacked Mr. Rumlow and ultimately killed him, we knew we had to change tactics. You’re our goal now. Without you, there is no sale.”

I stand my ground. “Let me talk to Steve.”

He huffs, annoyed that I’m coming back to this request. “Fine. Jasper, take her to see him, but be quick. We have a flight to catch in an hour.”

Flight? My heart pounds in my chest and my legs feel like jello as I march down the hallway of my father’s house. Since I didn’t grow up here, I don’t know my way around. We stop outside a room and he pushes the door open. Steve is tied down to a chair with a gag in his mouth. I try to move toward him and Jasper tightens his grip. “That’s far enough.”

“Steve, it’s going to be alright. Don’t do anything stupid and tell Bucky the same.” He gives me a slow nod of understand. “Bucky has been shot in the leg.” Again, he nods. “Good. I’m really sorry, but she’s going to help.” His eyes widen a fraction, and he understands what I mean.

“What do you mean, she?” Jasper asks.

“Nothing.” I spit at him.

“Who the fuck have you been in contact with?”

Your worst nightmare. “You took my phone, how could I be in contact with anyone?” You better be as good as you say you are, Nat. I need you to get us out of this.

The door slams shut and Jasper is dragging me back into the living room. “I think she might have called someone. Check her phone.”

Alexander holds my phone to my face and it unlocks with ease. He checks recent contact and messages but comes up short. “There’s nothing here since two days ago. Who did you call?”

“No one, clearly.”

He slaps me across the face. The sting burns down my throat and I hold back the tears that want to fall. “Let’s go. The plane to Thailand leaves in an hour, and I’m sure she’ll fetch a pretty penny. Send someone in to take care of James and Steve. I don’t want anything pinned to us. Make it look like an accident.”

I’m dragged out of the house and shoved into a car kicking and screaming. I only stop when they cover my head with a bag and press the cold steel of a gun to my head. When I get out of this, dad is going to pay with his life.  

Next Chapter

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[wardencommanderrodimiss]

halloween special 2019

(Or, Halloween Special 2027, because this is set immediately after Turnabout Academy but contains no reference to it besides the fact that Juniper exists.)

A Fae AU side story. A classic meme of the autumnal season gets a cannibal joke twist, and the real horror story is the friends we made along the way. Written with the profoundest apologies to the professor from whom I took an entire semester course on Edgar Allan Poe. 

----

It still feels like the crack of dawn, after the week they’ve had, but dawn is admittedly later in late October, and the sun is already risen, so it’s not early at all. It’s no one’s problem but Phoenix’s own that his brain is still zombified. Trucy woke him up, flinging her things all around the apartment to get ready to head out: Juniper has joined her trick-or-treating group that already consisted of Trucy, Vera, Jinxie, Athena, and Pearl, and Pearl still doesn’t have a costume, and now neither does Juniper, and Vera hasn’t finished making hers, and it’s T-minus two days until Halloween.

So he scrambled some eggs for his daughter and ushered her out the door after making her promise to say hi to all of the other girls for him, and then he crawled back into bed. Barely three minutes after, his phone rang. That was marginally better than his phone ringing once he had fallen back asleep, but this deprives him of the chance of going back to sleep at all, probably, and actually it’s not better. Phoenix doesn’t know why he thought that. He squints at the tiny screen on his phone to see that an impossible amount of symbols, including what looks like some Japanese characters, a pentagram, and a simplified pixel art hand making a middle finger. 

“Hello, Maya.”

“Niiick! I need you to settle a dispute!”

Phoenix groans. “Between who?”

“Hello.” Iris’ voice comes through as clear as Maya’s, clearer than humans ever are on phone calls. Magical speakerphone. Phoenix drops his face into his pillow. 

“Iris says that the only one of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories to involve cannibalism was his one weird-ass novel that he never finished. But he’s gotta have had more than that right? He strikes me as a cannibalism kinda dude.”

“I don’t know,” Phoenix mumbles into his pillow, and then, resigned to his fate, he lifts his head and repeats clearly, “I don’t know. I’m not the literature guy.” He knows Shakespeare, and what he knows about Shakespeare is that he needs to keep Maya away from it, else she might decide that Puck is a role model. “Iris would have more of an idea than me.”

“Nick! You can’t take your ex’s side over me!”

Iris giggles in the background. “This is an argument about objective facts, Maya,” Phoenix says. “I’m not ‘taking sides’ personally.”

“Okay, but, Montressor was definitely saving Fortunado down there to chill him to a good eating temperature and then have him as a snack with the Amontillado. Like that’s gotta be why he killed him that way.”

That’s one of the few Poe stories Phoenix knows. He can answer this one. “There was no Amontillado,” he says wearily. “That was the whole point of the story, Maya. He lied about having the fancy wine to get Fortunado down to the catacombs because that was the best place to kill him quietly. There wasn’t any cask of Amontillado.”

Maya gasps. “What?” She sounds so betrayed that Phoenix almost laughs and almost feels bad. “He lied? He can’t lie!”

Now Phoenix does laugh. “What, did you think he was fae because elaborately killing someone for some unmentioned slights is a fae thing to do?” She sounds more scandalized at the lie part that the murder part, which, for anyone even slightly versed in fae culture, does make sense. 

“Well—” Maya sputters. “Yeah!” She heaves an exaggeratedly loud sigh. “I guess The Cask of Amontillado really isn’t a story that implies cannibalism.”

“There was other wine in the wine cellar where he walled up Fortunado,” Iris says. “Perhaps one of those would pair with him just as well for Montressor’s meal as you imagine the Amontillado would.”

“You don’t need to patronize me,” Maya says, sounding less irritable than Phoenix expects. “But, oh, Nick, other question! Why would the narrator, obviously possessing greater strength and no morals, not simply eat the old man so as to get rid of his creepy staring eye and better muffle the treacherous tattletale heart?”

“Telltale,” Iris says. Maya groans at the correction.

“Bitch-ass snitch,” Phoenix says.

“No,” Iris says. “Definitely not. Now, to return to the heart of your question, Mystic—”

Maya and Phoenix both snicker. What follows is not a long silence, but it is a loaded one, and then Iris resumes speaking, her clipped tone betraying her annoyance with the inadvertent pun. “The heartbeat was not a real sound,” she explains, “but rather the psychological manifestation of his guilt at committing the murder.”

“Oh,” Maya says. “So it’s like when you want to get coffee you have to have a barista make it and hand you the cup because if you tried to serve yourself from a machine it always explodes back in your face. It’s not the machine that hates you, it’s you who hates you, and the machine is the expression of it!”

“That is…” Iris trails off, clicking her tongue in thought. “Actually, yes, similar, though no one but the narrator could hear the sound of the heart.”

“So he wasn’t fae either,” Maya says. “Otherwise the whole house would’ve been, ba-dum! That they all felt it! And then probably it would explode.”

“Y’know, if he had eaten the old man,” Phoenix says, because sometimes it is fun, a flex of creative muscles he doesn’t usually get to stretch, to play along with Maya when she has her inane musings, “he still would’ve heard the heart beating, right, because it was just in his head. But instead of yelling at the cops that it was under the floorboards—”

Maya knows where he’s going with it immediately; either he knows the way she thinks too well, or she knows him. “—dude woulda been yelling about hearing it in his own stomach. Man, can you imagine? You’re just some beat cop coming in to investigate and then the guy starts shrieking about killing a dude but instead of starting to tear up the floorboards to show you the body he starts trying to claw open his own stomach?”

Phoenix considers that. He decides that yeah, it would be pretty far over on the scale of fucked-up things he’s seen as a lawyer. Sort of like Matt Engarde tearing up his own face in despair and fury, but also way worse because it would involve definite cannibalism and possible disembowelment, depending on how far the narrator got in his attempts. “Yep,” he says. “That’d be fucked up.”

“You could write it,” Iris says. “Poe is public domain, is he not, and you an adult man who could get away with it under the name of ‘literary reimagining’ rather than it being called ‘fanfiction’.”

“No thanks,” Phoenix says. “I’m not gonna be the man who messes with the classics.” He’d pitch the idea to Larry if Larry made his name on literally anything other than wholesome life-affirming picture books. Actually, he still wouldn’t, because Larry is an artist as well as a writer and there’d be a chance that he’d turn it into painting rather than prose and that is a level of horror Phoenix doesn’t want to go to. Better just to stay on the level of Maya reading cannibalism into every horror story that crosses her path. 

(Would Athena call that projection? He is not going to think about that any longer.)

“Glad anyway you could help with our dispute,” Maya says. “Cuz” - she’s never settled on one nickname for Iris, but cousin or a derivation usually means she’s not angry with her - “was getting wistful when Pearly went off to talk shop with all your daughters, so she wanted to get in the holiday spirit and it spiraled. I made it spiral.”

As tends to happen around there. As Maya is wont to do. Phoenix isn’t surprised. He also decides to ignore the “daughters” remark. It’s not worth arguing that Trucy is his only daughter, and okay maybe Vera half counts, but on the other end of the spectrum, he’s known Juniper for not even a week. 

So instead he voices the matter that is bothering him. He’s afraid to speak it into the world lest she hadn’t thought about it, but he also needs to be prepared. “So, Maya,” he begins warily, “you planning on venturing out for Halloween?” 

He’s dreaded this holiday ever since that first year, when she figured out what trick-or-treat meant and decided that this was the most fae of holidays, what with one being allowed to threaten and extort strangers for goodies. It’s more blatant than the fae usually are, even. That first year, he had to keep her entertained and distracted all night, with candy and other sugary sweets and campy movies, so she couldn’t go and fulfill her suggestion of egging Edgeworth’s car as revenge for him being “a huge douchebag to us in court”. She had gotten the eggs ahead of time and stashed them in his fridge so at eleven they made a run to the corner store for other ingredients to teach her how to make omelets. 

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m staying right here. Pearly can have her fun. But you and I are totally on for our post-Halloween bargain bin on-sale candy shopping spree. You’re buying! It’s tradition.”

“Huh?” It happening three years in a row, and then not for the next seven years, does not a tradition make. “Objection!”

“Nope!” She sounds positively gleeful; he can picture exactly what her smile looks like, how wide and toothy. “Ignored! What’s it that judges say again - overruled! You are overruled! And your penalty is reading Poe for a refresher so we can talk about it more! We need to talk about the one with the cat because I can’t decide if the cat is fae! Or even if it’s one cat! I want everyone’s input!”

His phone display shows a pixel jack-o-lantern with a grin in a probable approximation of Maya’s. He drops his head back onto his pillow. “Goodbye, Maya.” 

The second Halloween, they carved pumpkins in the office; Pearl demanded they not have scary faces, Maya ate half of the seeds even before they roasted them, and Phoenix tried not to think about how last year at that time Edgeworth was around that they could consider the prospect of egging his car. When they dropped pumpkin guts on the floor, Mia flung it right back at them to get it stuck in their hair. The third year, they brought Pearl along for candy shopping, too, and she sat in the cart atop a throne of bagged sweets and pointed out clearance decorations she wanted for next year. They’re boxed up somewhere. He should find them for her and the other girls. For next year, or seven years later, it’s not that much of a difference, is it?

“And,” he adds, “I’ll see you in November.” Start anew. “Tradition, right?”

[spaceskam]

Lovefool

Super late Day 4 of ladies of rnm week: favorite f/f pairing

ao3

“And who are they?”

“Those are… We call those three The Plastics.”

An amused smile found Maria’s face as she looked over to Liz and Alex who were both staring very pointedly at the trio who seemed to be navigating the cafeteria in slow motion. It was Maria’s first day at a new school in a new state and she’d been lucky enough to find friends. Or, they found her. Apparently, the POC of Roswell had to stick together to avoid too much trouble.

She didn’t need proof to believe that.

“Why The Plastics?”

“Because they don’t talk to anyone except for each other unless it’s for sketchy purposes, they’re basically a crew of mobile, slightly terrifying mannequins,” Alex explained, pointing a fork in their direction without any worry. She nodded slowly, turning her gaze to the infamous group. She sort of got it they were all gorgeous.

“See, Max, he’s the nicest one, he’ll be friendly a little,” Liz said, gesturing to the one with a kind smile and a baseball hat firmly on his head, “Actually, he might be the only one who is semi-approachable.”

“Then, that one is Michael,” Alex continued, “He’s super quiet and has quite the reputation. Been to juvie twice and has been suspended, like, a dozen times for fighting.”

“He’s kinda cute, honestly,” Maria admitted, tilting her head as she took in the stoic boy who let the only girl of their group twirl his hair around her finger.

“Oh, he’s absolutely cute. In like a rugged, you-kinda-scare-me, would-choke-me-during-sex kinda way,” Alex said almost wistfully and she had to hold back a laugh, “He stole my textbook once, but he gave it back, so he’s not all bad.”

“She his girlfriend?”

“Oh, no. They just… do that,” Liz said, “That’s Max’s sister, Isobel Evans.”

“The Almighty.”

“Enviably confident.”

“Prom Queen Barbie.”

“Heartbreaker extraordinaire .”

“A massive bitch.”

Maria snorted at their descriptions of the blonde. She was stunningly gorgeous and stared at Michael with a charming smirk. She seemed to fit your stereotypical mean girl with the only exception being that she hung out with her brother.

“She’s that bad?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s the worst. She dated my sister and then broke up with her, like, extremely publically,” Liz said.

“She did the same thing to my brother. Not that I actually care about his feelings, but she did that when she was a sophomore and he was a senior. Her power,” Alex sighed wistfully all over again. Maria snorted. “Nah, but we actually used to kind of be friends. Something happened when we were like thirteen. Well, I know what happened. She started dating Kyle Valenti and Kyle was beginning to hate me at that point and so she had to turn on me too. So, I guess I got lucky that she only broke my friend-heart and not my romance-heart. Or maybe not, I don’t know. I’m over it.”

“And she’s just, like, your classic mean girl. She uses people and she’s just a bitch to everyone who has to be around her. I had to do a project with her last year and she just acted like I was stupid the entire time. It was the worst,” Liz grumbled before Maria had time to fully process Alex’s words.

“Well what about her is so appealing? Like is she like secretly super funny or something?” Maria inquired. It didn’t make sense that a girl who basically shut herself off to everyone but her brother and some random delinquent managed to get people to fall for her that often.

“She’s pretty, she’s charming, guys think it’s hot that she’s into girls, girls who are into girls want a girlfriend that pretty so badly they take what they can get,” Liz said, but then she paused, “Or at least that’s my theory. She and my sister were polar opposites and she still fell, so…”

“Honestly, someone just needs to break her heart so she gets it’s not a game,” Alex said and Maria decided that he was most definitely not over their friendship break up.

Maria cocked her head to the side and tried to see what was so charming about Isobel Evans. She had long blonde hair and striking eyes that were visible with a cafeteria between them, but that seemed to be it on the surface level. Well, actually, her smile was intriguing too. And the fact that she only talks to those to was intriguing. Maybe people get attached because they like getting a taste of the mystery.

Before she had the opportunity to look away, Isobel caught her staring. She made it very clear that she saw, making very direct eye contact and raising a challenging eyebrow. Maria didn’t bother looking away, giving a small smile to the blonde. Isobel slowly grew a smile of her own, her tongue splitting her lips and dragging across the bottom one. Maria understood a little bit better what her appeal was.

“Oh my God,” Liz said, stealing her attention away from Isobel, “I have an idea. Let’s break her heart.”

“How?” Alex asked, “Everyone actually falls for her. She’s like an addiction.”

“Okay, but they wouldn’t if they went into it specifically to break her heart. Like… Maria,” Liz said, grinning almost deviously. Maria’s eyes went wide.

“What? No, I-I don’t even know her,” Maria said.

“You don’t need to, you’ve got us. We can coach you,” Alex said, seeming right on board with the idea. She looked between them as she began to realize just how serious they were. It was a lot. She didn’t want to ruin the friendships she’d just made, but purposely hurting someone’s feelings?

“C’mon, Maria, haven’t you ever been around a mean girl? Haven’t you ever had your heart broken?” Liz pushed.

Maria sat back as she thought about it for a moment. She’d had her fair share of both of those things. She had one too many memories of girls who didn’t look too much different from Isobel shoving her into lockers or onto the ground or insulting the way she dressed. She’d been with boys and girls alike who broke her heart and left her a mess in their wake.

Honestly, she wouldn’t mind getting a little payback.

“Okay,” Maria agreed hesitantly, “Tell me what to do.”

There was instant regret when they squealed so loud that it hurt.

-

Maria saw her opportunity to get Isobel’s attention two days later when she found Max Evas being thrown against the lockers by a few dickheads.

“Freak,” they laughed, almost like they thought it was clever. It wasn’t even hard to stroll up to them with a smile the moment she realized Max had no intention to fight back. She would’ve helped him regardless of Isobel Evans.

“Hi,” she said as she tapped one of them on the shoulder. They all turned to her with confused eyes, even Max. “You know, it takes a real dick to pick on someone you know won’t pick back. Your ego must be very, very pathetic.”

The three assholes let Max go, blinking at her as the confusion grew. Max just looked intrigued.

“So, what is it that makes that ego so sad? Did mommy throw away your drawings? Did daddy not play enough ball with you? Or is your dick just that small?” Maria asked. She could watch as the guys grew irritated with her probably entirely correct assumptions. Max was biting back a wild grin. “Oh, you look angry. You wanna shove me into the lockers? Do it. I so very promise that I won’t be as good a person as my friend Max here.”

They stared at her for a moment before stalking away and grumbling like a crew of toddlers. She rolled her eyes at them before turning back to Max who had that dopey smile on his face. It was clear that Liz was right in saying he was the nice one. Hopefully, he would pass on her good deed to his sister. Liz and Alex had said the main ways to get Isobel’s attention was confidence and/or one of her boys thinking she wasn’t half bad.

"Thanks," Max said, “You’re friends with Liz, right?” This really was going to be so easy.

“Yeah. And no problem,” Maria said, smiling. Max nodded his head curtly and, before he could say anything else, his eyes focused on someone behind her.

“What did I tell you about walking down Fuck Hall by yourself?”

Maria looked over her shoulder and time seemed to slow down as she unintentionally zeroed in on Isobel Evans. She was even more stunning up close than she had been from across the room and Maria was struck with a new wave of understanding of why people fell for her. She was captivating and something about her drew you in even when she didn’t even look at you.

Except she was looking at Maria. That was unmistakable.

“It was okay, I had a hero. This is…” Max trailed off once he realized she’d never given her name. Maria turned to face Isobel as she stepped up, her long hair swishing the side as she tilted her head to the side. Jesus Christ.

“Maria DeLuca,” Maria said.

“Isobel Evans,” Isobel said.

They both stared at each other for a while. Maria had no idea why Isobel was staring, but she knew why she was. Part of it was to follow through with the plan‒to make Isobel fall for her and then dump her‒and part of it was because she was so fucking hot. Literally, it made no sense. What did her parents look like? How did a normal person look like that? It was unreal. Maria wanted to memorize her.

The silence was only broken when Max chimed in, “Maria told Wyatt Long that he had a small dick.”

Isobel snorted and looked over to her brother with an awfully fond look. It reminded Maria of the look she’d seen her give Michael. Maybe that was it. Maybe people wanted to be the one to break her shell and earn that look. Maria could understand that.

“Good. It’s probably the truth anyway,” she mused, looking Maria over one last time before holding her hand out to Max. He grabbed it mindlessly, almost like a child. “Maria,” Isobel said instead of a goodbye, giving Maria a confident smile before she strutted away with Max in tow.

Maria let out a slow breath as she watched her walk away. Fuck. Within a few seconds, Liz and Alex appeared at her side and very rudely stole her attention from Isobel Evans’ long-ass legs.

“How’d it go?” Liz asked almost excitedly. Maria was beginning to think they were finding way too much joy in the prospect of taking down Isobel.

“Fine, I guess. I got her attention I think.”

“Okay, so now she’s interested. Or we hope she’s interested. Let’s wait a couple days and see. But I think you should, like, stare at her all the time. Make sure she knows you’re interested,” Alex suggested, “Maybe steal something of hers so she has to talk to you.”

Maria snorted, “What, you got that idea from Michael?” He didn’t even try to hide the blush on his cheeks.

“Shut up.”

Maria nodded though and looked in the direction that Isobel had disappeared. She figured being caught staring at her wouldn’t be a hard feat. Staring at Isobel Evans might be the easiest task she’d ever been given.

Maybe this was actually going to work.

-

Calculus was a lot more interesting whenever paying attention wasn’t involved.

Maria focused in on Isobel the entire class. She was sitting beside Michael who was all but asleep against her shoulder. The teacher didn’t say anything to them which had to mean they did this a lot. They had done so nearly every day that Maria had noticed. It must’ve been a staple.

The moment Isobel looked back at her and caught her eye, Maria’s phone buzzed. She held back a groan and looked at the screen.

Liz: good luck!!!!

Maria shook her head, a small smile pulling at her lips as she moved her gaze back up to Isobel. She was still staring. Maria raised an eyebrow and Isobel just offered her signature little smirk. God, she was so hot. For a moment, she was thankful that she had gotten a heads up about the heartbreaker that was Isobel Evans. She might’ve fallen for real had she gone in blind. It was too easy when she was so gorgeous and weirdly caring towards her two misfit boys.

Her eyes were overwhelming and, the more Maria allowed to tune into the psychic part of herself, the more she began to see something she had to assume that no one else saw. Maria had been embarrassed by this ability and kept it to herself, but she did let it do its job when she moved somewhere new. Auras were so important to being aware of who you kept in your company. For example, Liz was bright yellows and white, exuding excitement about the world and eager for whatever was thrown at her. It had to explain why she was so excited about messing with Isobel‒it was a new project she could tackle. Alex, on the other hand, had a darker, yet almost striped aura. It wasn’t something she’d ever seen before, but a quick discussion with her mother informed her that it probably belonged to a natural healer who had personal struggles to heal before he could heal others.

That led her to Isobel Evans. She seemed to exist in a constant of a dangerously dark royal blue that seemed almost brown sometimes, screaming about how guarded and aware she was. It almost made Maria nervous that she already knew what she was up to. But how would she know? She didn’t know. She couldn’t know.

Maria didn’t notice when class ended. She was stuck in thoughts about Isobel and what her aura could possibly mean about her. Something had to have happened to her. No one was that guarded for no reason. What had happened to her?

“You know, some people might take all the staring as an insult.”

Maria snapped out of her trance to find Isobel standing in front of her, her pale hand pressed down on the desk. Her nails were nicely cut. Michael stood behind her a few feet, slumped against another desk and picking at the tattered hem of his shirt.

“Are you one of those people?” Maria asked, trying to make it seem like she’d been completely aware that she’d been approached.

Isobel took a slow breath and stood up straight, using her tongue to drag her bottom lip between her teeth. Jesus Christ.

“Not when it’s you,” Isobel said simply. Maria just raised an eyebrow. “You should come sit with us at lunch.” Maria had been prepared for this. She had been warned for this by Liz. That was like an invitation for a trial date. No one said no, even if they weren’t actually interested in Isobel. Once she’d even asked Liz herself on behalf of Max. She’d obviously said yes.

Maria obviously had to say no.

“Mm, thanks for the offer but I’m good. I already have a place to sit at lunch,” Maria said simply. Isobel’s face fell and, while Maria tried to seem like she wasn’t paying attention by putting her binder in her back, she could see Michael stifling a laugh.

“You don’t want to sit with us?” Isobel clarified as if it was unheard of. Which she supposed it was. They were sort of like the Cullens in Twilight. Just a group of hot people that everyone was dying to be apart of for some reason. Even if they probably all had the personality of a cardboard box.

“No, I’m good. Thanks though,” Maria said, but she made sure to give Isobel a very clear once over as she stood. “See you around I hope.”

Maria turned and walked away, being sure not to look back as much as she wanted to. She pulled out her phone, opening her group message with Liz and Alex.

Maria: she’s interested

-

The next day at lunch, they were approached by Max who, in all his boyish charms, had his eyes solely on Liz.

“Hey, Liz,” Max said, smiling helplessly, “Isobel wants you to know she’s throwing a party.” Liz blinked a few times in confusion and Maria was just as lost. Why would she want to tell Liz of all people? No offense to Liz. But that didn’t exactly go with their plan.

“Me?” Liz asked, her hand pressing over her heart. Max blinked dumbly a few times.

“Huh? Oh-oh, no. Maria. Isobel wants Maria to know she’s throwing a party. Sorry. Just… the invite is for all of you. You know… if you want,” Max fumbled about, his face growing more and more red the longer he stood there. Maria’s hand went to cover her mouth. Oh, was that boy lovesick.

“Mmm,” Maria hummed and Max slowly managed to steal his eyes away from Liz and look at Maria.

“So, you’ll come?”

“I might.”

Max slowly nodded and looked at Liz one last time.

“I hope so,” he says, slowly backing away until he eventually had to turn around. The three waited until he was far away enough before all leaning in with matching grins.

“This is really working,” Liz said.

“Yeah, but Max has it bad for you, Liz,” Maria snickered. She blushed, shaking her head.

“No, Isobel has a thing for you and Michael has a thing for Alex, it would be way too weird for their entire group to have a thing for our entire group. That only happens in teen dramas,” Liz rambled. Alex rolled his eyes and playfully swatted at her arm.

“Yeah, right. As if Michael Guerin would be into me. No, Max is the one who looks like he’s high on you all the damn time,” Alex teased. Liz scrunched up her nose adorably, shaking her head.

“Stop! This isn’t about me, this is about Maria and how she single-handedly got Isobel Evans to throw a party,” she said. Maria tried to hide her smile. She wouldn’t lie‒she was excited. She was eager to talk to Isobel and see if she could figure out where all the walls came from. Oh, and to break her heart. That was a thing.

Yeah.

Totally.

“They don’t usually throw parties?” Maria clarified. The two shook their heads.

“No. Well, I mean, they’ve thrown one before, but that was a long time ago. That didn’t count. This is… this is a way to get you around her. She really likes you!” Liz damn near squealed. Maria laughed as she shushed her, looking to see Isobel smiling at her with her chin in her palm.

“If you get any louder, everyone in the cafeteria will hear you,” she said. Liz waved it off but got quieter.

“This is gonna be good.”

-

The party was shockingly full, the Evans’ residence nearly shaking with the number of people.

Liz was clutching Maria’s arm despite the excitement on her face. Alex was extra hardened tonight, stoic face in full force as he walked beside her. Maria knew that he totally planned to get Michael’s attention tonight even if he hadn’t exactly said that. He just looked that good.

“Hey! Liz!” Max’s voice broke through the crowd, his tall frame sticking out over the crowd as he waved for her attention. Maria had no idea how he even saw her with everyone in the house being at least a few inches taller than her. There was a reason she was clutching onto Maria. Still, he wove through the crowd to meet them. “You wanna go in the kitchen? There’s less people to trample you.”

Liz looked to them for permission and they both waved her away. She gladly let Max lead her to the kitchen. One down, two to go.

Maria and Alex leaned against the wall for a while, drinks in hand. Isobel was supposed to be the hostess or even enjoying her own party, but she had been pressed against the opposite wall for the entire party with Michael glued to her side. Maria didn’t mind. It made it easy to have an entirely silent conversation with her from across the room. It was a constant challenge on who would approach who first. Isobel seemed to think her job was done, she approached her the first time and got her here, so it was Maria’s turn. Maria, though, was pretty insistent that she was the one who needed to be swept off her feet.

“Do you think it’d be sexual harassment if I asked Michael to dance?” Alex asked, his words weird enough that it got Maria to look away from Isobel. It took a lot to do that.

“Alex, what?” she laughed, shaking her head, “Why would that be sexual harassment?” He shrugged.

“‘Cause I’m me,” he said simply. She didn’t know whether to laugh or hug him in response to that statement. Instead, she just shoved his shoulder.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that Michael isn’t going to take it as sexual harassment,” Maria insisted, gesturing with her head towards the boy who had been making ‘fuck me’ eyes at Alex all night. Or, honestly, all week. Month even.

“If he does, I’m blaming you,” he said. She nodded, accepting the blame since she knew it wasn’t going to go badly.

And it didn’t go badly. Maria wasn’t exactly sure what he said to Michael, but she saw him smile for the first time ever and he accepted. When Alex turned to lead him to dance, Maria could see the absolute shock on his face. She smiled encouragingly before turning to make eye contact with Isobel again.

’And then there were two,’ Maria mouthed to her. She watched a pretty genuine smile find Isobel’s face before she dipped back her cup. She pushed off the wall with determination.

Maria would be lying if she said she didn’t start to feel nervous as Isobel approached her. She stepped up close, standing tall and confident as ever. Maria had to remind herself that this wasn’t real. Or… it couldn’t be real.

“You wanna go for a ride?” Isobel asked, her deep voice nothing short of alluring as it cut through the sound of the music with minimal effort. Maria tilted her head back.

“You know this is your party. You just want to leave?”

“I think we both know I really only wanted to see you,” she said as if admitting that was the easiest thing in the world. Maybe it was. “Besides, I trust Max and Michael not to let the place get chaotic.” Maria raised an eyebrow and nodded to where Michael had nuzzled up to Alex, both of their hardass personas showing a few too many cracks as they cuddled in the corner and shared a beer. “Okay, fine, I trust Max not to let it get wild. He’d want to show Liz he’s responsible or something. Point is… I don’t want to be around anyone other than you right now.”

Maria smiled easily. “You hardly even know me and you want to be alone with me? Sounds dangerous.” Isobel took a step closer, hardly any space between them anymore. If she breathed heavy enough, they’d touch.

“I think you might be worth the risk.”

So Maria agreed.

Isobel’s car was clean aside from the stack of neatly folded men’s clothing in the backseat. Maria didn’t question it.

“So, a mindreader,” Isobel said as she started up the car. Maria froze. There was no way she could know that. How could she know that? “Let’s just say I know the stare. You were reading me in class the other day.”

Maria didn’t know how to answer. The plan was to flirt, to make her fall for the hard-to-get act that Maria had put up. Not for Isobel to immediately zero in on that one very personal thing. But then the knowing looks that Isobel seemed to always have made sense. She did always know. Maybe not all the details, but overall… She knew.

“You’re psychic?” Maria asked softly. She could feel her body heating up with nerves. What if she knew that she was planning on hurting her? What if she was going to do something mean like drive her to the desert and leave her there as payback?

“Something like that,” Isobel admitted, looking over to her with a smile that was closer to the one she usually gave Max and Michael. “Probably why I was drawn to you the moment I saw you. Kindred spirits.”

“Is that a pickup line?” Maria asked, clearing her throat as she desperately tried to gain back some control of the conversation. Isobel laughed.

“Maybe,” she said, but after a beat, she added, “No. It’s not. But uh… What’d you see when you read me?”

Isobel seemed genuinely interested in the answer. Maria gulped softly, looking out and wondering if she should answer. They hadn’t gone over this situation. They hadn’t expected this situation. Maria decided to tell the truth.

“You’re… really guarded,” Maria said softly, looking over to her. Isobel didn’t seem to react. She didn’t confirm nor deny. “It’s like you’re hiding something. Which I understand. I don’t like people knowing I’m psychic either.”

Isobel glanced over at her for a moment before turning her eyes back to the road. The air felt heavy, questions going loudly unsaid and Maria didn’t know how to bring it back to playful or flirtatious. It had gotten too heavy and it’s not like she could leave.

“I’ve never met someone like me. Well, I mean, I have Max and Michael, but never a girl. I never thought I would,” Isobel admitted, her wording feeling careful in a way Maria didn’t understand. She turned in her seat to face Isobel with furrowed eyebrows.

“They’re psychic too?” she asked, wanting more information. She was intrigued about Isobel on a different level than she had been before. Was it something else? Was there a reason they kept to themselves with a few exceptions? She wanted to know.

Isobel looked over at her for a moment before slowly pulling into the parking lot of some alien-themed playground. She turned the car off and turned to face Maria.

“You get it, don’t you?” Isobel said softly, her eyes searching Maria’s face for something, “That when you’re different like that‒when your mind can do things it isn’t supposed to be able to do‒that you have to keep your guard up. It’s the only way to make sure the people you love stay safe, right? Or do you disagree?”

“I think…” Maria paused as she took in Isobel’s face. It was a little more desperate than before like she wanted to hear whatever she said and was going to take it to heart. For a girl who was talking about how sturdy her walls had to be, she sure as hell was letting them fall for Maria. She welcomed it. “I think that’s true to an extent. You should protect yourself, but you shouldn’t be completely closed off. Sometimes letting people in is a good thing. It keeps you from being lonely.”

“You think I’m lonely?” Isobel asked, leaning closer. It wasn’t defensive, it wasn’t annoyed, it was honest. Isobel Evans was honest.

“You threw a whole party just to see me,” Maria teased and a smile slowly broke out on Isobel’s face, “That sounds lonely to me.”

“I mean, can you blame me? You’re gorgeous,” Isobel said, laying back in her seat, “And clearly smart too.”

“Right back at you,” Maria agreed. Isobel smiled at her as the car fell silent again. This time, it wasn’t heavy. Or, it was, but in a good way. She sort of understood the kindred spirit thing Isobel had mentioned. She was easy to talk to if she put the bullshit on the backburner.

She was really going to have to talk to Alex and Liz about not hurting her.

“Do you want me to drive you home? It’s getting late,” Isobel offered, gesturing to the digital clock above the radio that brightly announced 10:53 PM. Maria watched her for a moment before nodding even though she would’ve liked to spend more time with her if only to learn more about her.

“Sure,” she whispered.

Maria directed her to the Wild Pony, the bar her mother had bought that they happened to live above. The entire drive there was lighthearted and playful like Maria had originally wanted, but she couldn’t deny that she liked that it got a little deeper than that. She liked that she’d been let in.

“Let me walk you to the door,” Isobel said once they pulled up to the back of the building that had a metal staircase that led straight to the apartment. There was a staircase on the inside as well, but she didn’t want the questions from her mother on why she was dragging an underage blonde bombshell through a crowd of creepy drunk men.

“You don’t have to,” Maria laughed but didn’t fight it as they scaled the steps. “Oddly enough, I had a good time with you.”

Isobel scoffed, “Oddly enough? I think I take back to compliments I gave you.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“You’re right,” Isobel said softly, taking a step closer, “I don’t.”

Maria smiled easily as Isobel stepped closer, her eyes flickering to her lips. Standing so close to her with her staring like that made it nearly impossible not to close the space, so Maria just went for it. Isobel welcomed the kiss with a smile, draping her arms around her neck. Maria grabbed her hips and pulled her closer.

They fit together almost too well. Isobel melded against her seamlessly, her head tilting and lips parting as she deepened the kiss without a second thought. Part of her told her this was probably a bad idea. She’d been at her new school for three weeks and she was already making out with a known womanizer. However, Isobel had seemed awfully approachable tonight and she really, really wanted to kiss her. Why should she deprive herself of that?

Besides, Isobel was a really fucking fantastic kisser.

Isobel hummed as the kiss ended, a lazy smile on her face as she pulled away. She pressed a couple of extra pecks before she slowly let go. Maria was left feeling dizzy and questioning if she should invite Isobel inside. God, she wanted to.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” Maria said before she could even process what she intended to do. Isobel gave quite possibly the prettiest, sweetest smile in existence and she nodded.

“I’d really like that. We can meet at the Crashdown?” Isobel suggested.

“I can’t wait,” she said, reaching out and tugging her forward for one last kiss. Isobel went willingly.

Maria completely about anything else.

-

“I don’t think we should break her heart anymore.”

Alex and Liz stared at Maria with wide eyes. Maria had admittedly spent most of the weekend with Isobel and she was more than a little convinced that she was just really terribly misunderstood. She was sweet and funny and cuddly and she didn’t see the heartbreaker part of her. It seemed like she would’ve ended it before she opened up.

“Oh no. You’ve fallen for the head Plastic,” Alex said as if he didn’t have hickeys on his neck that screamed Michael Guerin. Maria scoffed.

“No! I just… She doesn’t actually seem that bad and I think she’s just scared to get close to people,” Maria explained, “Besides, you two are trying to get with her brother and her best friend so I feel like you’re hypocritical. I mean, who’s to say that they aren’t going to break your heart?”

“Because they’re not known assholes,” Liz argued, but paused as she looked over to Alex, “Okay, well, Michael is, but Max is a good guy.”

“Isobel really isn’t bad, you just don’t know her,” Maria tried. They both shook their heads.

“Jesus, Maria, we thought you were smarter than this. She’s actually going to hurt you and you’re going to feel so dumb because you knew it,” Alex pointed out, nothing short of pity on his face. Maria frowned as she looked between the two. Maybe they weren’t good people. Maybe she really was wrong. What kind of good person set out to hurt people?

The problem was, if she stopped being friends with them, that left her with no one. Well, Isobel, but that was still new and touchy and Maria didn’t want to rely on her as her sole form of companionship. She was stuck.

“Look, I won’t fall for her. I just don’t want to be cruel,” Maria said, hoping she could somehow get both friends and possibly a girlfriend.

“Maria,” Liz said softly, “You can do what you want. But what happens when she finds out that you intended to hurt her?”

Maria paused, looking between the two of them.

“You would tell her?” she asked. They scoffed, sharing a look that she felt left out of. She didn’t understand even when they looked at her. All it did was make her nervous.

“No. She’ll just know.”

-

“I’m beginning to think you lace your lipstick with crack because fuck I love your kisses.”

Maria snorted as she let Isobel pull her back in for a kiss. They’d come to the drive-in to watch some shitty alien movie, but neither of them could say what the plot was or even what any of the characters were named. They were far more interested in making out in the backseat of her car like they’d been doing most nights for the last couple weeks.

“Does Max just not care that you take the car all the time? I thought you had to share it,” Maria commented against her lips. Isobel scrunched up her nose.

“Ew, don’t mention my brothers when you’re kissing me,” Isobel said. She had a smile and went to kiss her again, but Maria pulled away with her eyebrows furrowed.

“Brothers? You have another brother?” Maria asked. From everything she’d heard, it was just the Evans twins and no other siblings to be seen. Hell, even when they went to the party, all of the pictures on the walls were just two parents and two children. Isobel’s face made it clear she’d said something she shouldn’t have.

“Um, yeah. Michael is my brother. We were adopted,” she said, leaving an empty space that Maria’s brain finished. But Michael wasn’t.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay. We found each other after we were separated, that’s all that matters,” she said simply, her voice fading as she spoke. Her hands idly tucked Maria’s hair behind her ear all while she avoided eye contact.

“Can I ask you something?” Maria asked softly. Isobel nodded. “Why do you have a reputation of dating a lot of people and breaking up with them?”

Isobel huffed a laugh, tilting her head back and looking at the roof of the car. Maria waited patiently for her to find the words.

“I… I can’t help it, I guess,” she whispered softly, “I want… I don’t know, I want someone so bad sometimes. Like I want a relationship, I want to be with someone and to connect with someone. I want someone like me. But then once I see that they aren’t and they’re getting too close to me and my brothers, I end it. I can’t risk their sa‒I can’t risk being weak.”

“Being in a relationship doesn’t make you weak,” Maria tried, but Isobel shook her head.

“No, look, I can’t explain it to you. There’s something about us that… We’re different and that’s as far as I can explain it to you right now,” Isobel said. And she was right. Maria didn’t get it, but she seemed so sincere that it was hard to do anything but take her word. She already knew they were psychic‒she could understand that there was something else. “I’m just… They are my first priority. Letting someone in is just… not a good idea.”

“You sound like their mother,” Maria commented softly, though she was hanging onto Isobel’s words. Isobel smiled.

“I feel like it sometimes, but that’s not it. We take care of each other. We’re all we have,” she said. And then she took a deep breath and looked towards Maria. “Then I met you.”

“Oh yeah?” Maria hummed, smiling effortlessly.

“Yeah,” Isobel said, her serious face never wavering, “I think… Well, I know I’m comfortable with you. I feel safe. I don’t think fuck with me or my brothers. I trust you. Is that crazy?”

“No,” Maria said, smiling so wide it hurt her cheeks. The Ice Queen Isobel Evans trusted her. That had her heart pounding in her chest. “I trust you too.”

Isobel relaxed finally and gave a small smile her way before giving her a really sweet kiss. It had Maria reeling. How could anyone think poorly of Isobel when she was this sweet?

She moved in for another kiss.

-

“Has she figured it out yet?”

Maria rolled her eyes at the question Liz asked. Weeks had passed and nothing was going bad. Actually, things were going great. Liz and Alex were, for the most part, really great friends. You know, when they weren’t reminding her of their shitty idea, though she had a theory it was because neither of them had successfully managed to find a way to date Isobel’s brothers yet. But Isobel herself was a godsend. The longer she was with her, the more she couldn’t understand any hatred. She was heavenly. It was worth all the pitiful looks she got from people in the halls who were expecting her to be dumped.

“No, she hasn’t and she isn’t going to,” Maria insisted even when Liz gave her a doubtful look, “Seriously, Isobel isn’t going to find out.”

“Isobel isn’t going to find out about what?”

Maria and Liz snapped their heads in the direction of the voice to find big, bad, sexy/scary Michael Guerin. Maria was almost too distracted that he was actually speaking to process his words. Even though she hung around him a lot, she didn’t recall him ever actually speaking. He was either asleep or communicating via various grunts and hand gestures.

“Are you actually speaking right now?” Liz asked, following Maria’s thought process. Michael’s face seemed to be set in a glare.

“Isobel isn’t going to find out about what?” he repeated. Maria licked her lips nervously and she shared a look with Liz. What could she do? She could lie, but she didn’t think it would work. Isobel had already confided in her that they were all psychic, so he would easily know if she was lying. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Okay.”

Michael turned on his heels and began stalking off. Maria didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that he was going to tell Isobel that she was up to something. She instantly raced after him or, rather, raced to get to Isobel first. She’d rather it come from her than for Michael to tell her she was being suspicious. That would be so much worse.

Even if all of this was bad.

“Isobel!” she called once she spotted her, Michael already a few steps ahead. The world seemed to move in slow motion as Isobel smiled at her before turning her attention to Michael.

“She’s lying to you,” Michael said simply, making himself something of a barrier between the two women. Maria wanted to slam her head against a wall.

“What are you talking about?” she said, confusion in her eyes as she looked to Maria. And Maria could try to lie, but, fuck, what was the point anymore? She sighed, letting her face drop against her hand. “Maria?”

“I don’t know what it is, but she is. I heard her talking to Liz,” Michael recited, sounding too much like a desperate child running to his mother. And, like a mother, Isobel held out her hand. He grabbed it willingly and she swapped their places, protectively tucking him behind her as she stepped up to Maria.

“What is he talking about?” Isobel asked carefully. Maria felt a little sick.

“Listen, before I even tell you, I want to say that our entire relationship from almost day one was real. I promise. Everything I told you is real,” Maria insisted. She could virtually see Isobel’s walls build. “But… originally, the plan was to break your heart like you do to everyone else. Alex and Liz taught me how to get your attention and how to flirt with you.”

Isobel furrowed her eyebrows, taking a step back and pressing into Michael.

“But I told them I didn’t want to because I actually like you. Seriously, it was so fucking stupid, but once we actually talked, I… I like you. It was a stupid idea, they just wanted to get back at you for hurting Rosa and, well, everyone else. But I swear, it wasn’t like that. That was just… the beginning,” Maria tried to explain. Michael looked almost as hurt as Isobel.

“Alex wanted that?” he whispered, but Isobel shook her head and he looked away as if a silent pledge not to make it about him.

“You didn’t even fucking know me. Neither of them knows me either. That’s actually‒” Isobel cut herself off, closing her eyes and taking a slow breath like she did so many times when she wanted to gather her thoughts. “You know what, I don’t owe you my energy.”

Maria watched with a pained heart as Isobel walked away.

-

“We can make her a cake.”

“Bring her balloons.”

“A muffin basket! She can’t say no to a muffin basket!”

Maria groaned, burying her face further into the pillow as she listened to Alex and Liz ramble off ideas on how to get Isobel back. They didn’t seem to get that she had managed to gain Isobel’s trust and then immediately told her ‘ha ha I only did that to hurt you on purpose’. That wasn’t exactly a forgivable offense. All she knew was that she was hoping she wasn’t too hurt.

“I don’t think that’s going to get my girlfriend back,” she grumbled. She didn’t know what would other than giving her time. If even that.

“Okay, but she does have to realize that she was a bitch and it wasn’t that outlandish for someone to want to see her torn down,” Alex said. Maria could hear Liz slap his arm right after.

“That doesn’t make what we did right,” Liz scolded. Maria sighed desperately.

“Look, I’m really thinking a muffin basket will work. It made Michael forgive me for being a dick,” Alex tried again.

“Maybe… Maybe we should just go apologize to her.”

“I don’t know if that would actually help,” Maria admitted. Isobel was closed off for a reason. While Maria didn’t have a complete understanding on the full reason for it, she knew enough to know that she had done nothing but made it worse.

“Well… she deserves to hear it.”

Maria groaned when she realized she had a point. Even though it wouldn’t actually get Maria anywhere, she knew that Isobel did deserve an apology. While it had been real for their entire relationship, she knew she would feel hurt if she found out the only reason some gave her the time of day was to be malicious.

“Fine. I will.”

-

Maria had to swallow any pride she had left as she walked up to the Evans’ residence the next day. She hated having to do this, hated having to apologize for something she didn’t even really want to do in the first place. But she knew that she had done wrong and needed to apologize for it.

So she knocked on the door.

Max opened the door and while he had always had a pretty high opinion of her, he didn’t anymore. Which she guessed she deserved. Well, didn’t guess. She did deserve it.

“Can I speak to Isobel?” she asked softly. He pursed his lips.

“I don’t know.”

“Max, move.” Isobel’s voice was as sharp as ever and it easily got Max to move out of the way.

Standing in the doorway with the sunlight hitting her just so, Isobel looked just as stunning as she did when she wasn’t feeling betrayed. Maria was thankful that she didn’t look too broken.

“I… I just wanted to apologize. I can stand here and give you excuses, but there’s no point. I fucked up when I agreed to go into it to hurt you and that’s all on me. The moment I actually had a conversation with you, I decided it was done with, but that didn’t mean that my original intentions weren’t malicious and I can’t take that back. I understand if you don’t want to speak to me anymore, but I really am sorry. We all are,” Maria explained sincerely. Isobel nodded.

“I know, they sent me a muffin basket this morning,” she said, a slightly amused smile on her face. Maria held back a groan. “If it helps, I know I kind of deserved it. I am a massive bitch to almost everyone in that school.”

“So what? That doesn’t give me the right to be horrible,” Maria said. Isobel smiled as she leaned against the doorway.

“I do know you were sincere in our relationship, by the way,” Isobel said, “I wouldn’t let just anyone in. I’ve read you a couple times. I know it was real.” Maria tried not to feel too embarrassed by that.

“Yeah, it was. Is. It is real. But I understand you not wanting to be with me,” Maria said. Isobel leaned against the wall.

“Could I read you a few more times?” she asked. There was something in her voice that felt like there was more to it, but Maria didn’t look too far into it. There was no point. Somethings she just wasn’t close enough to know.

“Yeah, of course,” Maria agreed.

“And, if I like what I see,” Isobel paused, giving her a once over, “Could we start over?”

Maria blinked a few times as she tried to process what she was hearing. How had this apology turned into Isobel asking for a second chance? That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

“Why would you want that? I hurt you, I lied, I‒”

“Genuinely like and care about and wanted to impress your new friends. I can understand it. I’ve done worse for less,” she said and that was another thing Maria decided not to question. She was happy enough with the prospect of getting another chance.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Isobel said, opening the door a bit wider, “You wanna come in for a reading?”

Maria knew this could go badly. She knew so damn well that this could easily be Isobel fucking with her, that this could be where the real heartbreak came in. But when Isobel gave her that smile, how could she ever say no?

“By all means, lead the way.”