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bookishofalder · 4 years ago

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Pretty Girl - Seven

Summary: In which Pretty Girl and Flip take things to the next level after dating 6 months.

Warnings: Smut, language, talk of period sex, copious amounts of fluff. WC-5,507

A/N: Ah! I can’t believe this is the final chapter-just the epilogue to go now! Thanks so much for enjoying this story, it’s been wonderful to share. [Just to be clear, I’m a cis female and speak from experience in regards to the embarrassment that occurs around period sex. That scene is basically inspired by my own incredible husband. We celebrate menstruation on this blog!]

“I think we have to break up.”

A soft breeze blew in the window over the sink, the promise of summer in the air. He was wearing an old t-shirt and jeans and a frown that contrasted against the warmth in the air. Flip stared across the kitchen at (Y/N), eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Now why the hell is that, exactly?” He questioned, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms.

She gestured at him wordlessly for a moment, then pointed her finger at him accusingly, “I just don’t see how we come back from something like this, Flip. I really don’t.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, darling, come on!” He pleaded, giving his head a shake in disbelief.

(Y/N) marched to the fridge and flung it open, her back to Flip for a minute as she dug out what she was looking for, then spun around to face him. She had a can of soda in each hand-one Coca-Cola, one Pepsi, her expression indignant.

“These. Are. Completely. Different.” The pucker between her brows appeared as her frown deepened upon seeing him begin to laugh. “Flip! They taste entirely different!”

“Darling, they really, really don’t. It’s all the same, sugar and carbonation. That’s it.”

Setting the pops down on the counter, she huffed stubbornly, mirroring his crossed arms pose and glaring at him. Flip pushed away from the counter, no longer able to resist her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed the top of her head as he let out a rumble of a laugh.

She was pointedly not hugging him back.

“I can tell the difference.”

Flip leaned back and met her gaze, “You want to bet on that, pretty girl?” Her eyes sparkled with curiosity at his suggestion.

“Go on then.” She replied, grinning up at Flip.

Inwardly, though it had been a playful disagreement, he was happy to have her smiling again. Six months together and he still couldn’t stand to see her anything but happy, his daily mission to ensure she smiled and laughed more than anything else-something he was often successful at. He felt like he pulled in oxygen from her laughs and giggles.

“Hmm, well how about I pour each of them into a cup, and you don’t know which is which, and then you taste them and tell me which one is Coke.” He tucked some of her loose strands of hair over her shoulder, simply an excuse to touch her. He watched her consider the offer, warmth and affection shooting through him.

“That’s easy,” She replied with a nod, “And what does the winner get?”

“What do you want?”

He hadn’t meant for the words to come out as suggestive as they did, but (Y/N) simply rolled her eyes, giving him a playful wink. “Well, if I win...then I want to go to your place after lunch and purge your closet!”

Flip groaned, releasing his hold on her, though she remained leaned against him, to run his hands through his hair. “Of all the fucking things, darling!”

Giggling, (Y/N) reached up and stroked Flip’s jaw. “It needs to happen, detective. And since we’re both off this week, there’s never been a better time!”

Flip scoffed, “We’re off because we’re on vacation, pretty girl. Why the hell would I want to clean my damn closet on vacation?”

“Because you won’t do it any other time, you big grump,” Patting his cheek, she arched a brow at him, “Now, if you win?”

He considered for a moment. Initially, he was just going to use this as an excuse for spending the afternoon in bed with her. But now, high stakes were on the line and Flip wanted to match her offer. “Ah, I know,” He said with a grin, “If I win, you’ll let me take you to the gun range to train you on how to use my gun.”

With an exasperated sigh, (Y/N) stepped back from Flip, “Not this again, Flip, I don’t wan’-“

“It’s not about wanting, darling. It’s about safety around firearms, you should at least understand the basics of the one I have on me, just in case.” He reached out and cupped her soft cheeks, thumbs stroking gently. They often bickered about his insistence on keeping her safe, and this was a point of contention for them they had yet to work through.

“Uhg, fine!” She stuck her hand out, and Flip took it in his own to shake, sealing the deal. “I’m going to wander outside and check the mailbox while you pour, I guess.”

Spinning, she barely took a step before Flip smacked her affectionately on the behind, “Trust me, it’ll be fun at the gun range!” He joked, watching her retreating figure with admiration.

Without turning, (Y/N) continued toward the front door and called over her shoulder, “Funny, I was going to say the same about purging your closet, detective.”

With a bark of a laugh, Flip shook his head and turned to the soda’s, grabbing a couple of glasses and setting to his task. Noting which one was the Coke, Flip set them back on the counter and moved the cans to the table, where a delicious looking lunch spread was waiting for their argument to end.

It had begun innocently enough as they prepared lunch together in (Y/N)‘s comfortable kitchen, until he let slip that he didn’t see any difference in the two drinks and his girl lost her damn mind.

Flip had to admit, in addition to being a wonderful baker, she was a talented cook as well. But years of living alone and not wanting to clog his arteries from eating out constantly led Flip to become a decent cook himself, and he insisted on sharing kitchen duties, regardless of whose home they were at. And so, most days they would find themselves in the kitchen together, cooking, baking and chatting. They tended to spend more time at (Y/N)’s place, for various reasons including the proximity to the station, the overall warmth of her home and her formidable bathtub. Flip was a big fan of ending their days with a long soak before bed, whether he stayed the night or not-though, he mostly stayed the night.

Reentering the kitchen, (Y/N) tossed the mail onto the counter and glanced around at Flip, eyes twinkling. “Ready?” Flip responded by gesturing a hand at the drinks, his eyes sliding down her figure when she turned to them, admiring her curves in the high waisted shorts and a black band tee.

“Go on then, impress me.” He rumbled, watching her closely.

With a smirk, she took a sip of the first drink, loudly and unnecessarily smacking her lips. Her intent was probably to be obnoxious, but Flip found himself becoming semi-hard at her performance, eyes on her plump lips. She set the drink down and picked up the second, already smiling, and took the sip.

“Easy, detective,” She bragged, setting the second glass back on the counter. She pointed to it, looked at Flip over her shoulder and proudly announced, “This is the Coke.”

Damn it, she was right.

He didn’t even need to reply, as the expression on his face gave him away, and (Y/N) let out a gleeful shout before bouncing over to Flip, standing on her tiptoes and throwing her arms around his neck. One hand splayed out and pressed, urging his head to lower and meet her lips. She tasted especially sweet from her taste test, but Flip didn’t return the kiss, though his hands did settle on her hips instinctively.

“Yeah, yeah, you won,” He conceded grumpily when she pulled away to peer at him with a smug little smirk.

“Oh, come on Flip,” She breathed, rolling her hips into his slightly, “I can feel how not annoyed you actually are.” Groaning at the sensation, Flip shook his head before pointing at the table, ignoring his arousal.

“Lunch, then we’re getting this purge over with, and then maybe I’ll consider this,” He slid his hand between their bodies and patted his erection. “Maybe, if you’re a good girl.”

Cheeks blazing at his words, (Y/N) simply nodded at Flip with a small grin and then pulled away from him, moving to the table.

They let lunch stretch along, not rushing as they enjoyed relaxing together. (Y/N) did spend most of it explaining how the process of this clean out would work. Flip just knew he was going to be bagging a lot of clothes for donation or garbage at her insistence because she was right that he hadn’t done a proper tidy out in years. He hadn’t seen the point.

Though now, unbeknownst to her, he did have an idea of why it might be good to do one-in addition to the joy she would gain from doing it, that is. He just needed to ask her.

All in good time, he thought.

Four hours later, four, and they were still working away and Flip was starting to lose his patience. (Y/N) held up an old plaid shirt that had some minor tears in it, her face scrunched, “Well, how about this one?” He wasn’t sure if he was bothered more by her endless enthusiasm and patience for him, or her determination to seemingly leave him with little remaining clothing.

“I don’t see why I can’t keep that. It’s good for yard work.”

“Flip,” She deadpanned, “It looks like a bear mauled you while you were wearing this, it’s not suitable for anything.”

With an annoyed huff, Flip wordlessly gestured at the ‘dispose of’ pile. He grabbed a large garbage bag to put that pile into, knowing it would do no good to argue. (Y/N) was smiling away as she hung up a section of shirts he was keeping, ordering them by colour which, he had to admit, was visually very pleasing. After stuffing the throwaways into the bag, Flip had cleared enough space on his bed to lay down, stretching out the wrong way across, his joints clicking in places.

Closing his eyes, he relaxed for a moment, content despite the loss of many, he felt, quality pieces of clothing. Though when (Y/N) had made the point that, due to his overall largeness, his clothing would most certainly benefit men at the shelter who normally couldn’t find donations in their size, he had relented on many items that he didn’t wear anymore.

When he felt a couple of pieces of clothing hit his legs, tossed somewhat carelessly by (Y/N), Flip’s eyes snapped open and he sat up in protest, “Now what are you-Oh.”

Oh.

The clothing had been hers, shorts and shirt on the ground at his feet, (Y/N) stood in a simple white cotton panty and bra combination that instantly had him growing hard. It never ceased to amaze and disarm him, how fucking beautiful she was. Glowing skin, soft curves, plump lips, she was devastating. He often wondered what he'd done to deserve her.

Six months together meant they’d been on plenty of outings, either errands or dates, and he’d see the way others would admire her. He always kept a hand on her lower back when they walked together, both to keep himself steady, and to remind others that she was his, and he was hers. And maybe to remind himself, as well.

“Christ, beautiful, you getting a little warm?” He growled out, unmoving on the edge of the bed. With a coy smile, she walked over to stand in front of Flip, eyes only looking down slightly into his. He’d discovered pretty early in their relationship that she found their size difference just as much of a turn-on as he did.

“A little...worked up,” She admitted, closing the gap between them. With practiced ease, Flip lifted (Y/N) into his lap, her legs straddling his. Her fingers sunk into his hair as he latched his mouth to the curve of her throat, kissing her, then dragging his tongue along her skin. With a moan, she ground her hips down, rolling her heat across his hardness. “Maybe a lot, actually.”

With a groan, he wrapped his arms around her and twisted, depositing (Y/N) on the bed before jumping up to rip off his clothing, eyes never leaving hers as he did. When he pulled down his boxers and he sprang free, her gaze lowered and she licked her lips in anticipation.

“Pretty girl,” He growled, crawling over her and caging her body beneath his, his length resting against her thigh. “Do you think you’ve been a good girl, that you deserve to be fucked?”

(Y/N) gave a keening whimper, struggling to wrap her legs around him. Flip didn’t let her, he braced one hand on the bed next to her head, the other he used to still her hips. He began his assault on her neck and chest then, licking, biting and laving his tongue over the skin to soothe it, leaving light marks just how she liked it.

“Please, I’ve been good, so good, it’s been days, I need you,” She breathed out desperately, writhing under him.

Flip snorted, “That’s your own fault, darling, we could have been doing it every day this past week-“

Still whimpering, (Y/N) cut him off, “No, I told you, I was on my period.”

“And I told you,” Flip pulled back and met her eyes, his expression serious, “Unless it hurts, I don’t care what’s going on down there, it’s natural and it doesn’t bother me.”

They’d had this conversation a few times before, as spending so much time staying over at one another’s meant that, eventually, he’d been with her while she was on her period. And Flip didn’t mind, didn't care, going so far as to call his mother and ask if women were okay to have sex in such a state. After she spent five minutes roaring with laughter, she assured him that yes, with certain precautions taken, and it wasn’t on the worst of cramping days, it was perfectly fine.

But (Y/N) had shut down each time, insisting a few days without sex wouldn’t hurt all the while appearing shy and embarrassed. He hated that she felt that way, but he didn’t pressure her. He simply reminded her it was on the table, whenever she might be ready.

“I know,” Her small hand moved to his cheek, caressing it, expression softening, “Perfect man.” And then her lips found his and the sweet moment was over because it was fierce and possessive and Flip could feel her trembling with anticipation, with need. For him.

With the countless amount of times they had come together, Flip still felt an intense sense of rightness, of home, whenever he was inside of (Y/N), pulling sounds and curses from her lips as he moved. Whether it was a quick and passionate release like this or a night of never-ending pleasure, each and every time was always perfect. Exhilarating. Because they were made for one another, and every kiss or moan or touch only proved it; it was easy, so fucking easy to sink into that feeling of perfection, of irrevocable love so intense it was like taking a hit of a drug every damn time.

“Love you,” He murmured into her hair, his hips pounding into her relentlessly as her legs only encouraged him, tight around his waist to urge him closer, deeper.

Her response was automatic, “Love you more, Flip.” And then she was jerking beneath him as she crashed over the waves of her release, crying out as her walls fluttered back-arching, fingers digging into his shoulders.

His own orgasm washed over him, a long, low moan rumbling out of him as he filled her, his movements slowing, sloppy as he coated her walls with rope after rope of cum. “Fuck!” He finally cried, pulling out to jerk himself a few more times, another few spurts coating her stomach.

With a groan, he flopped on the bed next to her, careful not to push the pile of donation clothing off. Lazily, he draped an arm across her torso, kissing her shoulder. They stayed silent for a short while, catching their breath in the glow of the afternoon sun. These were always his favourite moments; when it was just the two of them blissed out and tired and content.

“I think we should move in together.” He blurted out suddenly. Inwardly he smacked himself on the head for His callousness. He had been thinking about it for a while now and had planned many ways to say it.

But of course, he just spewed out his thoughts with wild abandon. Christ.

(Y/N)‘s head jerked off the bed, and she leaned on her elbow, looking down at FLip with wide eyes. “Wait, seriously?” She was giving him a cautious but promising smile. His heart was pounding in his chest, harder than it had been just ten minutes ago.

Flip nodded, “Yes, pretty girl, seriously. Been thinking it a while,” He sat up, crossing his legs before reaching down to stroke her hair, “We don’t have to if you’re not ready, but I wanted you to know that I’m ready. I hate spending nights without you or coming here to an empty house. I love waking up with you, hell, spending all my time with you.”

He wondered why he chose this exact moment to ask her, when he was naked, his cock softening from their romp, her stomach coated in his spill. It wasn’t exactly romantic, though it did manage to increase the vulnerability he was feeling.

“I, wow, Flip. I’d love that, I hate spending nights apart too. I sleep so much better with you keeping me warm,” (Y/N) giggled, then sat up and took his hands into hers, “There’s a lot to discuss before we make a decision, but I’m ready too, Flip.” Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to his.

“Well, can I tell you what I was thinking, and then you can tell me if we’re on completely different pages?”

(Y/N) nodded, a smile splitting wide across her face upon hearing that he’d put so much thought into it. “Let’s hear it, detective.”

Flip grinned, “Well, I’ll be honest I like your place much more, not just for its proximity to the station. And I was thinking, I could rent out this place pretty easily, make some extra cash. Pay half the bills and whatnot at your place, and then maybe when we’re ready, we both sell and get a place a little bigger. Maybe something with a large backyard?” He’d meant to say less, but the more he spoke, the wider her smile grew, eyes sparkling in delight. A warmth was growing within him, spreading through his body. He felt almost giddy.

Instead of replying, (Y/N) launched herself into Flip’s arms, toppling them into the donation pile of clothing, and started peppering him with kisses.

"I'll take that as a yes?" He asked through his wide grin.

(Y/N) giggled, "Oh, detective, it's definitely a yes."

“Christ, it had to be the hottest day so far this year, didn’t it?” Flip grumbled, wiping his arms across his forehead and considering removing his shirt, though he wasn’t sure all of his latest love marks had healed up, so he kept it on begrudgingly.

(Y/N), as if knowing exactly when Flip would hit his limit in the heat, suddenly appeared at the propped open doorway, a large glass of lemonade in hand. John and Ron appeared behind her, following her outside with their own glasses. He watched, grateful for his sunglasses, as she walked toward him, hips swaying in her linen shorts, breasts curving beneath the thin white T-shirt she wore. Though she usually kept her hair down at home, it was too hot today and instead had it pulled into a high, messy ponytail.

Patting his arm comfortingly, she handed him a cold glass, “Here, take a minute, you guys are nearly finished.” And her eyes surveyed the remaining boxes, the armchair and the stereo system, all that was left of the items he’d brought from his old house.

“Thank you, pretty girl.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead before gulping down the lemonade like a dying man, already imagining the cold bath he’d be climbing into later on. Preferably with his new roommate.

“Bailey’s got burgers and beers ready in the back, so once you finish up you boys come through and have a rest, alright?” She smiled around at them, Ron and John both nodding eagerly, just as ready as Flip to be finished.

It only took twenty more minutes to get the rest inside, and Flip was impressed when he came through the door the last time and saw how neat everything was. Evidently, while they’d been hauling things inside, (Y/N) had made quick work of organizing anything she could lift. Even though Flip insisted she not do any of the hard work, he could tell by the number of missing boxes that she had carried a lot of them to the rooms they were meant for, getting a head start on the unpacking process.

When he followed his helpful friends outside, he found (Y/N) and Bailey laughing together on the back deck as they plated the burgers. Next to the grill, they had a table set up with all the fixings, including potato salad and, of course, more of (Y/N)‘s baking, this time in the form of mini sugared donuts.

Before he could make his way toward her, (Y/N) caught Flip’s eye and pointed at the lounger, a silent order to take a seat. With a grin he flopped down onto the seat, grateful to be off of his feet and out of the sun. Under the shade, it was much cooler, a soft breeze playing across his sweaty skin.

John walked up to his wife and kissed her on the cheek, thanking her for cooking for them. Ron had copied Flip, sitting in another lounger, his eyes closed. The atmosphere was relaxed, the best part of a busy moving day.

With a beer in one hand and a piled-up plate in the other, (Y/N) plopped herself into Flip’s lap and handed him his reward. With a grateful groan, he pulled the plate out of her hands and immediately started devouring the burger with one hand, the other snaking around her waist to hold her hip. She took a sip of his beer, watching him eat with a happy smile, her cheeks flushed from the heat.

“You two are such an affectionate couple,” Bailey pointed out with a smirk, “Even with a burger you find a way to cuddle, it’s almost annoying.”

The elder (Y/L/N) sister was, in many ways, opposite to (Y/N). She had a cooler, calmer personality, her humour more sarcastic and her gaze a little intimidating at times. Flip liked her, and her husband, quite a lot. They often had dinners together on Friday’s, and Flip had even taken John to the gun range a handful of times, discovering that despite (Y/N)‘s hatred of guns, John and Bailey were a little less wary of them.

“Nah, it’s groovy!” Ron amended with a grin, taking the plate Bailey was handing him with a grateful nod.

“I don’t know,” John said between bites of his food, pointing his burger between Flip and (Y/N), “I think of all the couples I know, you’d be the ones who’ve had sex on every surface and piece of furniture.” Ron and (Y/N) burst into laughter, Bailey shook her head, a small smile on her lips.

Flip flushed, his hand squeezing (Y/N)‘s waist, but made no reply beyond a slight grin. With a bark of warm laughter, John nodded his head, happy with himself.

The rest of that early summer afternoon was enjoyed in good company, the group casually conversing as they lounged in the shade, until the setting sun was low enough in the sky to capture their notice. They all pitched in on tidying up, bringing the leftovers inside while (Y/N) wrapped up a couple of donuts for Ron to take home. Congratulations and thank-yous were exchanged, along with heartfelt hugs and cheek kisses.

And then, it was just Flip and (Y/N), waving goodbye from the front door with wide smiles; alone at last. His mind on drawing a cool bath, Flip was caught off guard when he was suddenly pushed against the wall, and (Y/N)'s lips were crashing into his.

Flip was never one to question these types of moments, instead, his hands found the curve of (Y/N)‘s hips, pulling her close as his tongue licked into her mouth, and a moan escaped them both. They stayed like this for a few minutes, making out as they clung to one another, until (Y/N) pulled back and smiled up at him with wide eyes.

“You don’t have to go back to your place tonight, right?”

Flip shook his head with a smile, “No, I’m meeting the new tenants there tomorrow afternoon.”

Her eyes darkened considerably at his response, pupils blown with desire. Flip’s hands tightened on her hips in anticipation, eager to hear her next words.

“In that case, wait out here for about three minutes and then meet me in the room, okay detective?” She murmured, then pulled away and danced off toward their bedroom.

Flip stayed against the wall, considering for a moment and then deciding to strip off his little remaining clothing. He heard the sounds of the tub being filled as he pulled his shirt over his head, and his cock twitched in anticipation. He then wandered into the kitchen, helped himself to a glass of water, and then figured it had probably been long enough.

Making his way down the hall, careful to skirt around a few boxes piled somewhat precariously, Flip felt an overwhelming sense of joy; the stressful work was over, and now he was living with his girl full time. If anyone had told him last year that he’d come back to work after that fucking Klan case and meet the love of his life, he’d have scoffed at them, convinced he was an unlovable son of a bitch.

And then (Y/N) came along and found her way into his heart, shattering every doubt he had of himself and somehow, amazingly, fell in love with him. He’d never been happier, a sentiment that he knew he thought almost too often, but if the other shoe was going to drop, it missed its chance. He even liked fighting with the woman, for Christ's sake. Though they didn’t argue much beyond occasional bickering, especially since she apparently had an unlimited supply of patience for his various sour moods, they did sometimes had what Flip considered a ‘blow out’.

After each one of these intense fights, they would somehow meet in the middle, always willing to compromise with one another no matter how passionately they’d been arguing. And then, the sex that would follow was always mind-blowing, fast and powerful, and selfish. They’d each work to bring themselves off, which was never the case otherwise, usually striving to bring as much pleasure to the other as they could.

But Flip had always heard that makeup sex was on another level.

He had known for a long time now that he wanted to marry her. They’d spoken of it a few times, casually, each sussing out the other’s reaction carefully. Flip had learned that she hadn’t ever wanted a big wedding, something her sister had wanted, which had solidified the decision in her mind that it wasn’t for her. This suited him just fine, as he wasn’t one for big parties and it meant he could invest more money in the ring, get her something she could be proud to wear.

But first, there was tonight.

When he walked into the master bath, completely naked and already mostly hard, his cock stiffened further at the sight in front of him. Of her.

(Y/N) turned to face Flip, and though his eyes swept over her beautiful face, they didn’t linger as he took in the sight of her, standing wearing his favourite buffalo plaid shirt, unbuttoned with absolutely nothing else on. She’d taken her hair down, and it fell in waves around her shoulders, brushing against her stiff buds.

He couldn’t even form words, he was so turned on, seeing her wearing his clothes, standing ready for him to do whatever he wanted with her. He came undone entirely when, upon seeing his leaking, hard cock, she fucking whimpered.

With a growl, Flip closed the distance between them, swiftly lifting her onto the bathroom counter, which happened to leave her dripping heat at the perfect height for him to thrust forward, filling her in one motion. Fuck, she was tight around him, and so wet already.

“Fuck, pretty girl,” He groaned as she cried out his name repeatedly, “So fucking wet for me already.” He adjusted his arms, putting each under her legs so that she was pressed back and folded, exposing her enough to find an angle that tore screams of pleasure from her as he slammed his hips into her, splitting her open most satisfyingly.

“Fuck, fuck, that’s so good, so perfect Flip.” She whined, trying to keep herself steady on the counter as he absolutely ruined her with brutal thrust after thrust. He could hear himself growling and groaning out her name each time he pulled back, living for the way she screamed his when he would slam back in.

Keeping his arms hooked under her legs, Flip removed his hands from the counter and pressed them into her lower back under the shirt, both forcing her body a little closer and helping her to stay upright. He was impressed at her flexibility, though he checked her face as he moved, ensuring she was comfortable. The way her eyes rolled back told him everything he needed to know.

“You take my cock so well, you know that? Perfect little girl,” He broke off and moaned as he felt her walls tighten further around him as he spoke, her orgasm closing in. “Fuck, you love it when I tell you what a good girl you are, don’t you?”

Her mouth fell open for a moment before she could find the ability to speak, “I love it, I’m such a good girl for you, you fucking fill me so well, Flip,” (Y/N) whimpered out, her body beginning to tremble. “Fuck, I’m going to come!”

He increased his pace, her words bringing him closer to the edge, “Go on then, cum all over me, pretty little girl, and I’ll fill you up. Fucking give you all my cum.” He growled out, and her eyes rolled back again as her body seized up, her walls fluttering around him and her cries unintelligible. When Flip looked down at where their bodies connected, he saw just in time as her juices squirt out for him, splashing him in the warmth and fucking sending him barreling over the edge, his movements slowing as he pushed himself as deep as he could and releasing his cum into her.

It took several moments to come down from their high, the combination of the happy, emotional day, and the two days they hadn’t been able to have sex because of the busy work that was moving, made it so that their peaks were nearly debilitating. Flip could have sunk to the floor, he was so exhausted. Just able to remain standing, he instead slowly slipped himself out of (Y/N), both of them watching as their combined fluids seeped out of her deliciously. He was careful to let her legs down slowly, and she groaned in a little discomfort as he did.

“Bath time,” He whispered, helping her off the counter and to the toilet first. Once she finished, he stepped into the lukewarm water and helped her in after him, lowering them slowly until they could cuddle up, (Y/N) between his legs, her back on his chest. The water was a sweet relief to both the heat of the day and their sore muscles. They laid together for a long time; until the sun was gone and the twilight light was too dark for them to see anymore and sleep was a whisper away.

“You ready for a nice long sleep, detective?” (Y/N) asked him as they dried off, her eyes half-closed with exhaustion that he was certainly was mirrored on his face.

“In our bed, darling.” He replied, with a sly smile. She giggled happily, tossing her towel into the hamper.

When they climbed into bed together, still naked, (Y/N) laid her head on Flip's chest. One hand trailed lazily along his flat stomach, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

“I love you so much, Flip Zimmerman.”

His heart stuttered. He brought the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her to tilt her face up, meeting her tired gaze. “I love you more, pretty girl.” And he leaned forward and pressed their lips together in a goodnight kiss.

Both of them fell asleep easily mere moments later, wrapped up in one another in all of the best ways.

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iclaimedtobethebetterbard · 4 years ago

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stars in the sk(eyes)

Fandom: Sanders Sides Characters: Logan, Virgil, Roman, Remus, Janus, Patton Rating: Teen & up Relationships: Analogical, background Intrualiceit Warnings: Language, food, like 1 line that’s maybe suggestive but also said half-jokingly Word count: 5592

Read on AO3!

My writing masterpost

Starlight Universe masterpost

analogical week 2021 start - previous - here - next - masterpost

Summary: Logan has always loved stars. Virgil has always loved music. Maybe they can put those together with a little help from some friends.

Notes: Day 2 of Analogical Week 2021! @analogicalweek Takes place in my Starlight Universe, does not need context to read. Patton, Janus, and Remus are all nonbinary folks who use he/they pronouns and masculine terms in this universe (but in the flashback scene, Janus is only using they/them); Roman, Logan, and Virgil are all men who use he/him. (I know absolutely nothing about music or concerts or anything, so please don't roast me too hard for any inaccuracies, lol.)

They were only opening the concert; the real attraction was a band from out of town with a midsize following, making a stop on their tour. Not that Virgil was complaining to have landed this gig. It would be the biggest performance his band—the band he, Janus, and the twins had formed a few years ago—had given, by a lot. And that was exciting. Sure, Virgil had absolutely spent hours stressing over how big it was, but he knew how to manage his anxiety, especially when it came to performances, and the anxiety didn’t stop the excitement.

“You’re going to do wonderfully,” Logan had told him earlier that day as he’d been getting dressed, passing his fingerless leather gloves and then holding his jacket for him to slide into. He’d spoken it with a simple, unassuming confidence, as if it were a given fact. It had been more comforting than Virgil thought Logan knew.

With the memory of his husband’s words carefully nestled against his heart, and the jacket Logan had helped him paint rainbow stripes on sitting on his shoulders, Virgil found it easier to let go of the anxiety. Some lingering tension remained as he paced backstage, running through lyrics in his head and triple checking that everyone knew the schedule, but it wasn’t as bad as usual. Most of it, if he was being honest with himself, wasn’t even about the performance—it was about the surprise the band had put together, the surprise Virgil had had to bite his tongue a couple of times to keep himself from thoughtlessly mentioning it to Logan, even though the surprise had been almost entirely his own idea and the others were just helping. But he’d successfully kept the secret, and now Logan was out in the audience, and Virgil was backstage, and there would be no more chances to spoil it.

But Logan was out in the audience, and Virgil was backstage, and the final round of jitters was setting in. And when Logan wasn’t there, Virgil’s jitters took the form of pestering the hell out of everyone in the room, to make sure everything was perfect.

He checked all the instruments, giving Janus’s keyboard a once-over without touching because he knew better by this point. Remus’s drumset was already on the stage—he was drumming with his fingers on the end of the fallout table in the corner—so there was nothing to do about that. Roman was actively tuning his guitar, so Virgil left that alone too and instead checked his bass, just in case it had gotten out of tune in the last thirty seconds.

All of the instruments were fine, great, even, and Remus and Roman were undeniably being productive; Janus, who’d been on their phone in the corner, had stepped out for just a moment, probably to get a drink of water or something.

Things were in order. Which was good. Great, even. But it gave Virgil nothing to do with his restless energy.

“Are we ready?” he asked, jiggling his leg and tracing the pattern of his fishnet tights through one of the large rips in his jeans.

Roman looked up. “Yes,” he said shortly. Roman’s nerves tended to take the form of a very short temper, which didn’t mix well with Virgil’s perfectionism.

“Yeah,” Remus agreed, running a hand through his dark green curls and straightening his denim jacket.

“We all know the order things go in?” Virgil followed up after a minute of tense silence.

“Mmhm,” Remus said easily. Remus, and Remus alone, somehow always managed to remain at ease and unbothered no matter what. Virgil didn’t know how they did it.

Virgil took stock of everyone’s outfits. He himself was wearing fishnet leggings that went all the way up past his waist. Over them he had ripped black skinny jean, and a black crop top splattered with white paint. On top of that, he wore his black denim jacket, which matched the ones the other three were wearing. Virgil’s had the rainbow pride flag painted on the front, all down the lapel area; the rest of the jacket was covered in patches. He checked his makeup, examining the black eyeshadow and lipstick in his phone’s camera; it looked fine. Perfect, even.

Roman was the neatest of the group, made to stand out as the lead singer. He wore the same high-heeled doc martens as the other three, but in white where theirs were all black. He had a tight white longsleeve shirt made of a shimmery material and a matching pair of white pants, and the black jacket contrasting nicely against it all. Roman’s jacket had the aromantic pride flag where Virgil had the rainbow, and the rest of his jacket was painted with red roses all at the ends of long, intricate, thorny stems. His eyeliner was sharp enough to cut, and his curly hair was piled up atop a black headband wrapped around his forehead like a crown.

Janus still wasn’t back, but he’d been on the neater end too, to counter Virgil and especially Remus’s scruffiness. Their outfit was sleek and all black save for a thin white belt around their waist. A black hat with a broad round brim framed their face like a dark halo. His jacket had nonbinary and pan stripes on the front, and thin white squiggly lines running up and down like warped pinstripes everywhere else. (Virgil knew where on the jacket one line ended in a tiny snake head, and where one trailed off into a tail, but you wouldn’t notice unless you knew to look.) They were wearing black lipstick to match Virgil, and winged eyeliner to match Roman, and contour that emphasized the sharpness of his cheekbones; definitely the heaviest makeup of the group.

Remus, sitting in the corner and making noises to themself, was a sharp contrast to his boyfriend Janus’s sleek elegance. His black jeans, splattered with white paint to match Virgil’s crop top, were ripped almost to shreds, open nearly entirely from mid-thigh down to his ankles, with only a few clinging strands of fabric keeping them anywhere in the realm of being pants. The tee they wore—black again, with his own name painted on it in large white letters—was also ripped full of holes, these ones much more deliberate; he’d slashed it carefully with an exacto knife, kneeling on the ground and focusing with their tongue stuck out slightly, until it was exactly how he wanted it and you could catch glimpses of their top surgery scars when they moved. His makeup consisted of dramatic green and black eyeshadow, and his jacket had the trans and polyamorous flags on it—he and Janus, who had nearly identical collections of pride flags between them, had split two and two which color schemes they wanted to use. The rest of Remus’s jacket consisted of a few jagged holes and some incredibly detailed paintings of green tentacles.

The instruments were fine. The costumes were fine. The makeup was fine. What else did that leave for Virgil to fret over as the final minutes ticked away?

“How about the blocking?” Virgil said. “We can go over it again if anyone—”

“I promise we know, Virge,” Roman snapped.

“Come on, kiddo, you know he’s just trying to help!” piped up Patton, Janus and Remus’s other boyfriend, who was suddenly somehow present and sitting in Janus’s lap, his pastel outfit completely out of place amidst the varying edgy styles everyone else in the room was sporting.

“How did you get back here?” Roman and Virgil demanded in unison. Virgil hadn’t even noticed Janus was back, let alone that he’d brought Patton, who was supposed to be in the audience with Logan until the performance was over.

“Oops,” Janus said, not sounding even a tiny bit remorseful as they played with Patton’s dark curls.

“Did you leave Logan alone?” Virgil demanded of Patton, hands on his hips.

“Only for a minute! He’s getting snacks, anyway,” Patton said, wrapping his arms around Janus’s neck. “We both know where our seats are, he’ll be fine.”

“You already have a partner backstage, stop being greedy,” Roman scolded Janus. “Patton, you know we need to focus right now, can you please not distract my horny bandmates until after the show?”

“You sound like Virgil, with all that worrywarting,” Remus commented, snickering.

“Take that back this instant!” Roman demanded as Virgil gave Remus double birds.

Remus only guffawed, looking incredibly amused.

“Seriously, though, uh, Patton, with all the love in my heart: get out,” Virgil said.

Patton wrinkled his nose, but pressed a warm smack of a kiss to Janus’s cheek and hopped to his feet.

“Do I get a kiss?” Remus asked, reaching his arms out hopefully.

“Makeup—” Roman began warningly.

“I haven’t got any on my mouth!” Remus said triumphantly. “Suck it, Jan.”

Janus smiled wryly, fingers rising to but not quite touching their black lipstick that Patton had avoided so carefully. “The prices I pay for beauty.”

Patton giggled, crossing to Remus, clasping both his hands, and leaning down to kiss him sweetly.

“Great, you’re very very cute together but now is not the time, Patton get out and stop distracting your boyfriends,” Roman said, shooing Patton towards the door.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “High strung much?”

“Not all of us possess your—your stupid coolheadedness powers, Remus!” Roman snapped.

Patton paused in the doorway and pointed at Roman, getting out his dad voice. “Hey. Be nice.” The finger moved to Virgil. “Be nice.” His eyes flicked to Remus, then Janus, and his voice shifted to a different tone, half flirty and half joking. “You two be good boys.”

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god, I said to stop being horny!” Roman shrieked, chasing a giggling Patton out of the room and down the hall. He returned moments later, Patton-less and fixing at his hair to make sure it wasn’t too messy. “We had better not have any more alloromantic bullshit from any of you until after the show is over!” he announced. “Okay?” He didn’t sound quite as annoyed as before.

“Homophobia,” Remus accused teasingly.

But instead of snapping back, Roman giggled. “Oh, shut up.”

The twins began joking back and forth, Janus making the occasional amused interjection. Evidently Patton’s intrusion into the room, although technically unhelpful, had done wonders to break the tension, and Virgil reminded himself to thank Patton later.

Virgil’s phone buzzed with a text from Logan.

Logan: Patton found me, don’t worry. Logan: How are you doing?

Virgil: hahahahahaaaa i don’t wanna think abt it

Logan began typing, then the little bubble went away; a second later, the phone began to ring, Logan’s caller ID plain to see.

“Hi, babe,” Virgil greeted.

“Hello, dear. Would you like to walk me through your plan for the performance, to reassure yourself?”

Virgil let out a small sigh of relief. “Yes, please.”

“I am listening,” Logan assured him.

Virgil took a deep breath and launched into a detailed itinerary, knowing that Logan didn’t mind if he got a little too technical in his terminology because Logan was listening for Virgil’s sake.

“And then that’s about it,” Virgil wound down, carefully leaving off the final item from his explanation. It wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise now. “Oh, looks like we’re getting ready now, gotta go.”

“I love you,” Logan said quickly. “You’re going to do a wonderful job.”

Virgil let out a short laugh. “Thanks, L. Love you too.” He hung up, set his phone down on the table, and picked up his bass.

“You ready?” Roman asked, nudging Virgil with his elbow, as the group finally headed towards the stage.

Virgil sucked in a long breath. “Yeah. I think so. Are you?”

“Oh, you know it!” Roman grinned, a spring in his step. He paused after a second and glanced back to Virgil. “Sorry for being so wound up earlier.”

“It happens.” Virgil shrugged. “Right back at you.”

Roman nodded and put a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Hey. He’s going to love it. Just wait and see.”

Virgil looked away, half smiling. “I sure hope so.”

“He will, I know it!” Roman insisted as they climbed the steps onto the stage and emerged into what could practically have been the eye of a hurricane, for all the noise and light that surrounded the stage.

The sky above was fully dark; bright lights everywhere in the area contrasted against it. There was a decent crowd. The venue seemed almost full, as a matter of fact. The observation added a thrill of adrenaline to compliment the goosebumps from the chilly breeze across Virgil’s bare midriff.

Roman stepped forward and spread his arms wide right as the spotlights came up. “Hey, folks, thank you for being with us here tonight!” he said, his smile gleaming in the bright lights and his voice booming in the speakers. “We have some great hits lined up for you tonight! Let’s get it started, huh?”

Virgil waited a few seconds for the cheer of the crowd to peak. Janus began the melody on the keyboard; Virgil came in with his bass at exactly the same second Roman began to sing, and Remus picked up the beat on the drums on cue.

Virgil was quickly able to get lost in the music, all his focus on playing and providing backup vocals, leaving him with no more brain space for his anxiety. This was his favorite thing about music: its ability to keep him in the moment.

They played three songs. Two covers that always went over really well, and one song that the twins had written together about family that always left Roman just a little teary. Normally that would be their closing song.

But tonight was a little bit different.

Roman took a step back, nodding at Virgil; the pair of them traded places onstage, putting Virgil front and center.

“So,” Virgil said, the mic on his cheek picking up his words, “we were thinking we’d let you all be the first to hear our new song. Uh, I wrote this one. And normally Roman does our singing, because—well, you’ve heard his voice. But this song is kind of special. I wrote it for my husband. So. We thought I’d perform it tonight.”

As Janus began playing the melody, Virgil searched the front row of the crowd, squinting against the lights, until he found Logan, sitting next to Patton and gazing up at Virgil with shining eyes. “Lo, I love you so much, babe. More than every star you’ve ever shown me.” He took a deep breath and began to sing.

***

10 years earlier

Unknown Number: Hello. This is Janus. Logan’s roommate

Virgil: how’d u get this number?

Janus: I broke into Logan’s phone after you started dating and saved you to my contacts just in case

[read 3:43pm}

[3:46pm]

Virgil: i Virgil: wtf dude

Janus: Your boyfriend has been moping in his room all day, can you please come fix it? Janus: Roman is starting to mope too for no good reason, but he’s doing it in the living room and at this point it is starting to affect my quality of life

Virgil: yk i literally could not care less abt that part u asshole <3 Virgil: i’ll be over in 15 Virgil: is he ok?

Janus: He won’t talk to me, I don’t know what happened

Virgil: i’ll be over in 10

It was normally a 12-minute walk from the dorm Virgil was an RA in to Logan’s apartment just off campus, but Virgil could walk fast when he was anxious or alone, and in this case he was both. Even taking the time to grab a jacket, he still made it to the building in nine minutes flat.

Janus let Virgil into the apartment almost the second he knocked, relief plain to see on their face.

“You see?” Janus said over their shoulder in a scolding tone. “I had to resort to outside measures to deal with your bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Roman whined from where he was slumped on the couch, scrolling aimlessly through Netflix on the TV.

“Oh? And what’s this?” Janus demanded, hands on their hips. They dramatically pushed the button to open the microwave door, revealing a limp burrito wrapped in a damp paper towel.

“Lunch,” Roman mumbled defensively.

“You hate microwave food, and it’s four in the afternoon!” Janus snapped.

“I am in a creative slump, Jan! Have some sympathy!”

“No! Get your whiny ass off the couch and stop ruining my afternoon!”

Virgil took a deep breath and pointedly walked in between the pair of them down the hall towards Logan’s room. Roman and Janus’s still-bickering voices faded into the background.

“Hey.” Virgil knocked on the door, which had a piece of printer paper taped to it with Logan’s name written on it in blue sharpie and a couple of stars, both scribbles and stickers, scattered around it. He waited, and when there was no reply, he added, “Are you okay, Lo?”

“I’m fine,” Logan said, in a voice that had obviously been crying.

“Can I come in?” Virgil asked.

“Okay.”

Virgil pushed open the door and stepped into the dim room, closing it behind him. The blinds were closed, and Logan was curled up under a mound of blankets.

“Hey, baby,” Virgil murmured, kicking off his shoes and climbing to sit on the bed beside Logan and stroke his hair. “What’s wrong?”

Logan made a muffled noise of misery into the mattress.

“What?” Virgil said after a moment.

Logan rolled over. “Teacher didn’t like my essay.”

Virgil chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Okay, I promise I’m not making fun of you, but you do know that that is possibly the most stereotypically you thing you have ever said to me, right?”

Logan let out a little huff that was not quite a laugh. “I guess.” He was silent for a moment as Virgil continued to stroke his hair. “And I know it’s stupid. I still got a B+ and my overall grade in the class is fine and I know I’m a good writer and everything. But it sucks. I was really proud of it.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Virgil said, choosing to ignore the squirm in his gut that always happened when grades came up. It was so easy to compare or to worry about others comparing and then to worry about others getting upset over comparisons and—he dragged himself back to the present, forcibly setting the issue aside. “You’re allowed to feel upset,” he told Logan. “About anything that upsets you. Even if you wouldn’t choose it.”

Logan didn’t respond, but after a minute his hand snaked out from under the covers and grasped Virgil’s.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Virgil asked, struck with the idea.

“Huh?”

“A walk. Get out of your head for a little bit and hang out. We can talk if you want, or just be together.”

Roman’s voice grew particularly loud outside, and Virgil picked out a teary, petulant, “I hate you!”

“Plus it’ll get you away from that energy,” he added wryly.

Logan drew in a breath and sat up. “Alright. Let’s do it.” He pulled out a denim jacket while Virgil put his shoes back on and retied the laces. They made their way out of the apartment, hand in hand.

Roman was on his feet now, releasing an angry tirade at Janus, hands clenched into fists and sounding on the verge of crying, the TV remote cast on the floor beside him. Janus was sitting on the kitchen counter with arms crossed and an intimidating glare on their face.

“Hey!” Virgil snapped, and Roman cut off abruptly. “Eat some food,” Virgil told him on a hunch. Sure, Roman could be a little immature at times, but this was on a whole different level, and a lack of food seemed like the simplest culprit.

Virgil looked over at Janus, to make it clear that they weren’t off the hook either. “We’re going out. You two better make up before we get back. Clear?”

“You can’t tell us what to do—” Roman began stubbornly.

“Janus literally called me in to fix all your problems, so yeah. I can. Also open your windows, it’s gloomy as fuck in here.” Virgil opened the door and held it for Logan, tossing one last glare over his shoulder at Roman, who looked dumbstruck, and Janus, who avoided eye contact.

Logan was quiet as the two of them walked down the stairs and exited the apartment building, hands in his pockets (one still clasping Virgil’s) and eyes on the toes of his slip-on shoes.

“Wanna talk?” Virgil asked.

Logan tilted his head to the side for a moment, his thinking face slipping over his features, and then shook his head.

Virgil nodded. “Okay.” He fished in his pocket for his earbuds and plugged them in. “Let me know if that changes, okay?” He received a small nod and turned on his go-to playlist—a 12-and-a-half-hour-long composition of all his favorite emo songs that he could loop without having to put any thought in.

The two of them wandered through the streets, hand in hand, music blaring in Virgil’s ears and Logan’s fingers soft and warm against his. They made their way towards downtown; their university was in a small city, and it was pretty walkable.

As they walked, weaving around and across different blocks, occasionally stopping to peek into particularly interesting shop windows, the tension in Logan’s shoulders slowly began to relax and his gaze migrated from the toes of his shoes upwards to take in the surrounding scenery. Virgil felt himself relaxing in turn. The subdued, almost sullen look on Logan’s face was beginning to shift back to his typical bright-eyed curiosity, which meant that while maybe not all was right with the world, a whole lot was right with the world.

As the sky began to darken, Logan’s pace quickened with sudden purpose—but he didn’t lead Virgil in the direction of the apartment. Instead, he headed in almost the exact opposite direction. Virgil was lost for a moment as to where they were going, until the park in the center of downtown came into view. Ah. That explained it. He was kind of glad; he didn’t feel ready for the quiet time they were spending together to be over.

A scent caught his attention as they entered the park, and he tugged gently at Logan’s arm, nodding towards the mediterranean food truck. A small smile answered him, and a nod, and the pair of them made their way over. They both ordered gyros—Virgil chicken, and Logan, who was trying out vegetarian food, falafel.

Fifteen minutes later, seated side by side on a park bench and finishing the last of their sandwiches, Logan cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Virgil bumped his shoulder against his boyfriend’s. “Of course, babe.”

“I am feeling… better,” Logan said cautiously, as if he were testing out the words in his mouth to see if they felt true.

Virgil nodded. “Better is good.”

Logan nodded, eyes moving to the sky, which was now almost fully dark except for a streak of orange sunset leftover on the horizon. The stars were out, at least the brightest ones that could be seen even past the floodlights placed every so often across the park.

“You like space, and shit, right?” Virgil said, scooting closer to Logan and dragging his arm to wrap around Virgil as he rested his head on Logan’s shoulder. It was a bit of a rhetorical question, since he knew Logan had an astronomy minor and was the vice president of the astronomy club and had gone on no less than three eager rambles about space in the last month alone, but one could always do with a conversation opener.

Logan blinked and looked down at him. “I do.” You know this, his tone said, a little puzzled at the question.

“What star is that?” Virgil pointed at a particularly bright one, although he wasn’t paying nearly as much attention to the star as he was to Logan’s face.

Sure enough, Logan brightened, his eyes more interesting than any star. “Oh! That’s not a star at all—it’s actually Mercury!”

“Really?” Virgil asked, grinning and scooting closer.

Logan wrapped his arm a little more tightly around Virgil’s shoulders with an answering smile. “Yes, and it’s actually very fascinating…” And just like that, he was off, words spilling out of his mouth at a breakneck pace, gesturing eagerly with his free hand to emphasize his points.

Virgil listened, doing his best to follow along and asking a few questions whenever Logan started to wind down, but mostly just happy to watch his boyfriend’s lips as he excitedly infodumped, and his eyes, too, alight with delight, the frustration of the disappointing grade all but forgotten as he held Virgil and told him stories about the night sky.

It was nearly ten at night by the time they made their way back to Logan’s apartment, chatting back and forth in quiet voices and giggling. Logan broke off as he opened the door and got a look inside; he glanced over his shoulder at Virgil and put a finger to his lips.

Virgil hushed and followed him in, then saw what the need for quiet was: Janus and Roman were asleep on the sofa, Roman sprawled on his stomach on top of Janus with his limbs everywhere and his face buried in Janus’s chest, Janus with their arms wrapped around him and a throw pillow propping their head up and a worn copy of Crime and Punishment flopped over from where it had clearly been propped up on Roman’s back.

“Precious,” Virgil commented softly as Logan picked up the book, tucked a bookmark off the coffee table into it, and set it down with the tender care he seemed to reserve exclusively for books and Virgil.

Logan smiled. “They are, rather.” He looked down at his roommates. “Sometimes I wonder why I picked the two most dramatic people I know to live with.”

“Sometimes like this afternoon?” Virgil said with a chuckle.

Logan snorted. “Maybe. But then they do things like this, and I remember why I like them.”

Virgil noticed something on the tiny kitchen table. “Or this?” He pointed.

Logan came over to examine what Virgil had found. “Oh,” he breathed, a smile spreading across his face.

A plate of cookies sat on the table, together with a hastily handmade card.

“Sorry :( ❤️” it read in large, expressive cursive, and beneath it in smaller, neater handwriting, “I actually didn’t do anything wrong, but these are for you and I did the dishes, also you’re welcome for the date night.”

Logan laughed quietly, taking a cookie and offering the plate to Virgil, who accepted one cookie—they looked to be snickerdoodles. “Yes. Things exactly like this,” he said. He took a bite of the cookie and raised his eyebrows. “Not bad.”

Virgil grinned and leaned over to kiss him. “Not bad at all,” he agreed, pulling away.

“I literally gave you your own cookie,” Logan whispered, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, but it tastes better this way.” Virgil winked, mainly for Logan’s reaction—he pressed a hand to his mouth, stifling an amused smile that was still visible in his eyes. “I should go,” Virgil added, glancing at the time. It was Sunday tomorrow, so he didn’t need to worry about how late he was up, but he disliked walking home at night.

Logan nodded, taking another cookie and pressing it into his hand. “Text me when you get home?”

“I always do,” Virgil said, accepting the cookie and a goodnight kiss that still tasted just faintly of cinnamon and sugar.

And he did just that; he always felt a little awkward simply texting “I made it home,” or the like, so he usually tried to come up with interesting questions to send to Logan instead. Tonight, it was:

Virgil: hey Virgil: if u could pick one Thing u always wanted to do Virgil: and get a guarantee that u’d get a chance to do that thing no matter what Virgil: what would u pick?

Logan: Fascinating question! I would like the opportunity to name a star. Logan: I don’t imagine it will ever happen in real life, but I’ve always thought it would be… cool, for lack of a better word.

Virgil: ghfdkjghksdhj i will never be over ur love for space Virgil: u have a Brand and u stick to it

Logan: Well, a brand is important in life. :-) Logan: What about you? What would you pick?

Virgil: i think it’d be neat to be in a band Virgil: idk Virgil: like i don’t wanna be super famous or anything but like Virgil: being in a band would be neat Virgil: yk?

***

Ten years later, Virgil sang the last lines of his song looking right at his husband. “And I don’t even need to look to the skies/Because all of the stars are in your eyes.”

The noise around him didn’t fade away like in the movies; to the contrary, the cheering was so loud it was almost hard to focus. But Logan’s face was absolutely alight—Virgil couldn’t be sure at this distance, but he thought Logan might even be tearing up—and he was looking at Virgil like he was his whole world. Even with the bright lights and overwhelming sounds all around, it was easy to focus on Logan in the midst of it all, Logan pressing a hand to his mouth but smiling too wide for anything to hide it, Logan leaning into the side-hug that Patton—oh, and there was Patton, right beside him—was offering, but never taking his eyes off Virgil. Logan looked so happy, even though Virgil knew concerts weren’t really his favorite type of event, and Virgil was hit right in the chest with a renewed realization that Logan was Virgil’s whole world and damn, Virgil wanted to make sure everyone knew it.

But their time onstage was up, and the next few minutes were a bustle of packing equipment away and cleaning up the space they’d been allotted backstage, and it all went by in a bit of a blur, helped along by the remnants of Virgil’s performance mindset and slight overstimulation—though that was getting better now that he was offstage.

Virgil took a quick break, when the bulk of the urgent work was done, to just stand in the empty restroom and breathe for a moment, the noise of the other band who were now onstage thudding in the background so quietly he could hardly hear it. When he’d fully composed himself, feeling much calmer, he took a deep breath and headed back out.

On his way out, he ran into Roman, pushing a dolly with a box on it. “Oh, good, there you are,” he greeted Virgil. “Can you—oh, for crying out loud,” he broke off, looking ahead.

Following his gaze, Virgil snickered as he saw Remus, leaning against the wall with their hands clasped behind his head, grinning down at Patton, who was leaned forward, bracketing Remus with his arms, looking up at him and speaking, although Virgil couldn’t hear him from here.

“We still have work to do,” Roman said under his breath, but the exasperated gaze he leveled at the pair was altogether far too fond to have much real bite.

Virgil’s mind was on other matters; if Patton was here, that meant—

“Lolo!” Patton’s voice called brightly; he’d seen Roman and Virgil and stepped back from Remus, waving happily at the pair of them. “Virgil’s here!”

At the sound of Patton’s voice, Janus emerged from the room, a little further down the hall, that had served as the headquarters for the band. He bent to give the tiny man a kiss, then turned to Remus for another kiss.

Logan popped his head out just a moment behind Janus. “Virgil?” He brightened when he saw Virgil’s face, and stepped fully out into the hall. He hadn’t changed from his work outfit, still wearing a button down with the sleeves rolled up, a tie, and a pair of jeans, and a smile that he looked like he couldn’t wipe off his face.

He was still the handsomest man Virgil had ever seen.

Virgil looked to Roman. “Permission to get back on my alloromantic bullshit, captain?” he asked teasingly.

Roman rolled his eyes and swatted Virgil’s shoulder. “Go be cute,” he said benignly.

Virgil took off down the hallway to Logan, not quite running; Logan took a few steps to meet him, and Virgil caught him in a hug so eager he actually lifted the taller man off his feet for just a second.

Logan, half-laughing with surprise, grasped Virgil’s shoulders for balance as he regained his feet. “You wrote me a song?”

“Did you like it?” Virgil asked, holding him tightly.

“Virgil, I—” Logan seized Virgil’s face in his hands and kissed him.

Virgil wrapped his arms more firmly around his husband, kissing him back exuberantly and swaying slightly back and forth.

“It’s perfect,” Logan told him, breaking away only just far enough to speak. “You’re perfect.”

Virgil grinned, reaching up to run his fingers through Logan’s neat hair. “Careful, you’ll spoil me.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that,” Logan told him seriously. “It’s not spoiling if you deserve it.”

And really, what was Virgil supposed to do about that except kiss his husband again?

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imaeraser · 3 years ago

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Playing With Foxfire Kin’emon x Reader (Modern AU) Ch 1

TW: power imbalance, cheating, and age gap

(2.1k words)

Kin’emon x reader x slight Sanji

Summary: You have a summer internship at the Kozuki company, and have to stay at Kin’emon’s home. You try to limit your attraction to the married man, but the flame of passion burns bright. And playing with fire can only lead to one thing— getting burnt.

AN: I originally did this for myself and my sister as a joke— since there is little to no fan fiction for Kin’emon— but decided to post it. Hopefully you enjoy and cringe at some parts.

I fumbled my way through the airport. The musk of others smudged onto my shoulders while I bumped down the path as if I were in a pinball machine. The sound of the wheels of my suitcase grounding me on Earth before all of my thoughts flew away.

I raised my hand to shade my eyes as I stepped out into the open, while my foot jutted back from the force of the wind. I squinted down the road, but there was not an awaiting person in sight.

I sighed, and sat down on a sun-warmed bench near a smoking man. As I grabbed the side rest, the tacky feeling of day-old gum made my arm jump in revulsion.

“Ew, that’s so nasty,” I shook my arm as if the action would make the gum magically disappear, and then reluctantly started to pull it off with two fingers.

“Here let me help you,” another set of arms entered my vision. The stranger pulled out a handkerchief and scraped any residue off of my arm jacket.

“Thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver,” I turned to him, and stopped mid-thought.

His eye was staring at me intently, but I could only appear to focus on his swirly eyebrow— his singular swirly eyebrow.

“I think being a life saver is a bit of an over-statement, but I’ll take it.” He paused and tilted his head, yet the hair that covered one of his eyes did not budge. “Is there something wrong?”

I paused, “No, it’s nothing. I’m just a bit air-headed sometimes.” I flushed as I rubbed the back on my neck.

“Well, I think air-heads are cute,” he held out his hand, “Sanji.”

“Y/N,” I said as I replied with a handshake.

Once we retracted our arms he leaned over to his side, and proceeded to fill the atmosphere with the rottenly-sweet scent of tobacco. After a large puff, he released a light cloud into the air. The smoke got thinner and lighter as it floated up and died in the sky.

“What brings you here Y/N?” Sanji held out an unused cigarette and raised an eyebrow.

“I have an internship this summer,” I said as I shook my head and pushed the offering away.

“Let me guess...” he paused, “ Kozuki?”

“Yep,” I nodded. I threw another glance at the street, and the emptiness made my foot begin to tap the floor. “I think there was a guy that was supposed to pick me up.” I looked down at my phone- 4:57- a few more hours and I would no longer feel safe walking the streets alone.

“If you want, I can drive you. Just give me the address and we’ll be on our way,” Sanji offered a handsome smile.

My eyes quickly darted to his figure. He was tall and slender, but most of his form was hidden under a finely made suit. He shifted in his seat awaiting my answer, and the movement drew my attention to his abnormally built leg muscles. His demeanor was goofy, but I had only known him for a span of a few minutes.

As much as I wanted to say yes, there were far too many episodes of true-crime documentaries watched for me to allow this stranger to drive me home.

“No, I should be okay. I think I’ll wait a bit longer, and if he doesn’t show up I’ll call an Uber or something,” I said as I watched him lean back onto his seat.

“Well, I’ll wait until you’re out of here safely. I can’t leave a lovely lady like yourself all alone,” Sanji smirked as he crossed his ankles.

“Are you implying that I am incapable of handling myself?” I raised an eyebrow in playful contention. He raised his hands as if to calm my rage.

“Of course not, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said, as I leaned back into the bench.

Time quickly passed, and before either of us knew it we were watching the sky’s rolling clouds pull back and reveal an assortment of summer-time colors. The falling sun lit up Sanji’s flaxseed hair—spinning each strand into a gold thread. Perhaps it was a mistake to decline his proposal.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I said, glancing back at my phone.

“I’m meant to be wherever you are, mademoiselle,” he placed a hand on his chest.

I picked at my nails, and rolled a strand of my hair between my fingers, “Stop joking, you could do way better than me.” He gently clasped my hands.

“You’re selling yourself short. From the time I have spent with you I can tell that you really are gorgeous,” he looked me dead in the eye. The intensity and suddenness of his icy-blue gaze made me look away.

“I’ll take the compliment,” I said, before turning my eyes to the side. To my surprise I saw a man holding a sign with my name on it. “It’s about time,” I shook my head as I looked back over to Sanji. “Thanks for keeping me company, but the dude finally showed up. I have to get going.” I stood up, my knees clicking from being immobile for too long.

After waving goodbye, I dragged my suitcase across the concrete to greet the man. The closer I walked to him, the taller his looming figure became. As we both stopped our pace, my eyes widened in distaste as I looked at him.

His top-knot bobbed as he tilted his head, which provided a stark contrast to his worn out graphic tee that was half-way tucked into a pair of cargo shorts. He took a step towards me as he outstretched his hand, and I heard a resounding wooden thunk. My eyes trailed down to reveal a set of wooden clogs and knee-high socks.

“I am deeply sorry for being late, I was just a bit busy.” He rubbed his neck with his other hand, which revealed a raspberry colored hickey. I bit the inside of my cheek, as I looked to the side in disbelief— trying not to stare at anything in particular. “Oh, you must be looking at my car. It is an antique—”

“Y/N,” I hurriedly shook his hand. “I believe I am to stay at your house during the entirety of my internship at Kozuki?”

His heavily lined eyes blinked a few times before he opened his mouth, “You are correct. I am Kin’emon. My wife and I will be hosting you for the few months you are to be staying.” There was a glint of light that flashed as he moved his hand—which was seen with a golden band around his ring finger.

“Thank you very much for generously allowing me to stay in your home,” we began to walk to his car. “Oh I forgot, the email asked the interns to check the id of the person who is picking us up.” I paused before placing my hand on the sleek metal of the door handle.

“Yes, thank you for reminding me,” he slipped his black leather wallet out of his pocket and fished for his id. Once he retrieved the card, he placed his driver’s license into my hand.

I pulled out my phone, to look at the email telling us about our host. After comparing the information, I handed Kin’emon his drivers license back. “Okay, let’s go.” I said as I slid onto the creme colored leather of the backseat.

My fist supported my head as I watched the scenery meld together through the window. The sky quickly turned darker. My breath formed a little patch of condensation— due to the late hour and dropping temperatures.

The car ride was quiet, with the exception of some traditional Japanese instrumentals. But before either of us would try and fill the silence with awkward questioning, we arrived at his house.

I stepped out of the car, and heard the sound of the trunk opening as well as plastic wheels hitting the ground. While handing me my suitcase handle, his calloused hands brushed against mine. I whispered a quiet, thank you, before following him up to his home.

He opened the frosted glass door, which revealed a quaint home who’s floor was covered in what I perceived as bamboo mats. We both entered the house, and the scent of fried bread crumbs as well as curry swirled around us. I caught myself nearly drooling down my chin.

The sound of pots, pans, and utensils cluttering stopped as a woman in an apron stepped out of the kitchen. “Welcome home dear,” she said before turning to me. “You must be the intern. My name is O-tsuru, it is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.” She dusted her flour covered hands on her jeans before offering me a handshake.

I gave a soft smile as I shook her hand, “I’m Y/N, it’s lovely to meet you as well.” O-tsuru gently grabbed Kin’emon’s hand and led him to the kitchen.

“Food is almost finished, we would be delighted if you decided to eat with us,” her voice echoed from the kitchen.

I looked down at my half eaten sandwich from the airport Subway. The bread was chewy like a warm kneaded eraser, and the vegetables had an almost plastic sheen to them. “I would love to eat whatever smells that delicious,” I peeled off my shoes and set them near the door.

O-tsuru’s head popped out from the kitchen, “Just sit for a bit, and we’ll be out with food in a second.” Following her instructions, I pushed the floor sitting chair out so I could sit on my knees.

There were no legs to the chair, but seeing as the table was so close to the ground it did not present a problem. My eyes scanned the area of the house that was visible. There were sliding doors and paintings with Japanese characters drawn in sumi ink. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see something reflect the light of the overhead fan.

I turned to my side and saw two katana’s on display, both identical in looks. Black lacquered wood, with the image of fire painted down the middle. It looked too gaudy for it to be used as a weapon. As I glanced over the other decorations in the house, I decided to place the swords in the same category.

“Today we are going to be eating Tonkatsu Curry,” O-tusru said, as she clattered plates about to organize the table. I reached out to help her, but she swatted my hands away playfully. “You’re our guest, I can’t put you to work so soon,” she chuckled. I placed my hands back onto my lap, and waited.

Soon enough Kin’emon brought out the food, and the scent of curry wafted over from the pot. There was a plate set down that was full of pork chops covered in fried bread crumbs. O-tsuru set down a glass bowl full of lettuce— you could see droplets of water on the leaves.

“So we have some Tonkatsu here, but if you can’t eat that we also have nato,” O-tsuru sat across from me.

“What’s nato?” I looked at my bowl of rice, and sniffed it.

“It’s fermented beans,” Kin’emon took his seat next to his wife. “And if you’re allergic to anything here just let us know, I’m sure we can find something in the kitchen that suits your needs.”

As we dug in, the flavors exploded in my mouth creating a lovely blend. The dinner was mostly quiet, with the exception of some basic questions to fill up the time.

“I’ll let Kin’emon show you to your room. I have to wash some dishes,” O-tsuru grabbed a few plates as she stood up.

While the sound of water and the clanging of dishes ensued, Kin’emon stood up, and walked over to my luggage. The slight crispy nosies of the mats under my feet amused me.

“So...are the floor mats made out of bamboo?” I said.

“They are made out of rice straw, they’re called Tatami mats,” he walked down the hallway, and placed his hand on the door, and cracked it open slightly. “This is where your room is, you can call either of us if you need anything.”

I watched his silhouette as he turned around to meet back with his wife. Although he dressed like a patchwork dad and samurai, it looked as if he could still be a model for Calvin Klein. As he walked away, his muscles rippled under his skin. His arms were also well defined, but as my eye caught his ring I stopped

#one piece #one piece wano #one piece imagine #sanji x reader #kin’emon #kin’emon x reader #one piece self insert #one piece senario #sanji #sanji one piece #vismoke sanji #foxfire #foxfire kin’emon #one piece x reader #one piece x Y/N

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undermattsun-archive · 4 years ago

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japan national team x reader | w.c 1.3k

a/n: omg guys here’s the super cute epic collab fic i made w all my frieednsies <33 we all worked superrrr hard on this so pls don’t be mean!!!!!!!!! pls enjoy its xoxox and don’t forget to follow everyone here on this kidnapped by hq collab <33333333333

warnings: not proofread bc who does that xD (guys pls free me from this hell i’m in so much pain i didn’t even look at this i skimmed over it i left it as is, gg)

Read this while lsitening to the best song evar!!!!!!!!!!!1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_cXhBy78T4&ab_channel=JonasBrothers if you dont listen whil reading ill eat ur family MONCH MONCH MONCH

i go dwnstars, yelling ‘by mum!’ bfor laceing up my wite convrrse hightops (NOT blck becauz u cant sharpi on it) wth 1d lyrics scribbled on it. i rmb to draw a directioner infinite sign on mywrist. perfect, i think to mysdlf.

I never thot i would get to go to the olympics all the way on the other side of the planet in toky o japan! It was a dream come true for a simple, average, run of the mill girrl like me, who is 5’7 with naturally wavy hair, that’s not curly or strait and eyes as blue as the dark blue part of the ocean.

I been dreaming of the olypoics since fetus. I just knew I had to be here, but I never thought it would actually happen. The only thing that would make it better is if I had a smezxy smexy boyfrwend! (A/n: Tee-hee! Maybe even two! (Or five! <333) haha! Aren’t I so quirky? <3)

I’m Wearing A Mint Green Crop Top That Ties In The Front And Some Denim Shorts With Black Converse. I Don’t Need Makeup Because My Skin Is Naturally Smooth And Clear And My Lips Are Already Red #wokeuplikethis And I Listened Only To MCR And P!ATD On The Plane Ride. I Bet You Dont Know Who They Are, THey’re My Favorite Banxds And Are Super GOod And Like Underground Bands. (A/n: Okay But If You Don’t LIke Welcome TO THe BLack Parade GTFO Of My FIc I Don’t Need YOu Here xoxo)

ok so like,, im on my way to the olympics but then like, i get kidnapped !!! the car i was in was like super expensive and i cant see anything with the blindfold on. i hear voices of men all around me though, for like, a whole 30 minutes before they bring me somewhere and tie me up? "Take Her BLindfold off," one of them say, i hear. and im so nervous. but it's like a dream when they tug my blindfold off and im met with the prettiest emerald orbs ever looking back at me.

my stomach knotted in fear (more like an angry swarm of butterflies fluttering around ) i feel like screaming or squealing or both bc those eyes belong to someone so gorgeous . even more gorgeous than harry styles. hes like a god. i woukd so worship his foot. or something. (squee omg i can’t believe this is happening. i bet you wish that it was you huh?)

bro who tf has emerald orbs green eyes im blanking rn

^ yo i was gonna ask i cannot for the life of me remember who

his #afff14 sppheres peered into my soul i really just felt seen. i took a deep breath before fainting he was just so pretty. *one hours later* i woke upa nd saw the pretty viridescent peepers staring into mine. like he was literally two inches away from my face omg i could feel his minty breath on my lips it smelled so good.

“My name is atsumu miya,” he said gruffly, the gruffness in his voice so gravely. “And me and me mates here think yer the most gorgeous girl weve ever seen. I blink up at him, orbs gleaming amd full of tears.

“What do u mean, i’m just a normal quirky girl?” I say shakely, biting my lip. I bit my lip as the piss blond man spoke.

“You don’t know ur beautiful.” YOUR INSECURE DONT KNOW WHAT FOR YOUR TURNING HEADS WHEN YOU WAlk THROUGH THE DO OO OOOOOR

“U may be a normal quirky girl but ur OUR nroaml quirky girl now” his friend said with a deep voice. It was so deep that i almost thot it was like the ocean, he had curly balck hair and his eye were sooo mysterious (a/n i loooove sakusa i can’t believe him and his friends kindapped me omgggg XD)

“Stop it go away” osamu said (hee hee i can never remmber tell which twin is which LOL i think its osamuuu) “no u have to share” sakusa responded angrily. I starred at them and didn’t know what theyd do next!

I looked over to he side ans see sakura pulling out hand sanitizer passing it around to his teamates. The green orbed boys huff as they put it on. i wished i could see his whole face hes so sedy, look over here pretty girl, i gasp pulled from my thoughts by their captain kita walking into the room with his hands on his hips and was theat aran? “You look even better in peroiusn” aran said to me, walking over to me “how do you know who i am?” i ask.

“listen bbygurl...” he yealls, pulling out a chair to sit acros from me. “you dont get to ask the questions, we are your new masters, and you shall do as we say.” i gulp nervously, my stomach feeling like a sharkndao is happening inside. “we hope u will be worth every penny we payed foru.”

“M-m-m-masters?” my head felt like it was spinning in a teacup from disney land as i thought about what he just said to me. what did this mean? was i gooing to miss the olympics?? I wanted ot hate him with his super smug look on his face but i cant deny that he looks kind of hot and i’m into guys who look just like him,, the other guys r also relly attractive it makes my heart race. I look around trying to find answers when i make eye contact w a really really reall y tall guy who i thinks name is gao only to see another really really relly tall guy next to him,, hyakuzawa?

“what are yo going to do to me then?” ((*lenny face))

you ask, stomach bubbling. maybe i shoudnt have ateen that stale pizza earlier and washed it down with watermelon-lemon minute maid because now i felt like it was gonna come up. ((ew gross um tw vomit mention hehe)

“Dont worry were going to grab seme din din soon lil one,” one of them says. His name espapes me. Hes a ginger. They wont answer me for some reason and i suddenly miss my freedom when i would go to school (i go to an expesive private school for rich kids ahahah).

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH ME??” i yell again batting my fists against the ginger but he doesnt even blink. Ive decided hes hot but in a short king kinda way. His hair reminded me of of like cheeto coloured fine thread woven into waves.,,, like the ocean xD (ans...this has an ocean theme)

sudenly there was another voice it was yalling “BOKE HINATA BOKER” i looked with my stricking dark blue orbs and there wasd inother pair of stricking dark blueor bs like the ocean and blck hair. his voicde was veryy deelp an sexxcy (a/n lololol i luv u gakeyama kun *w*)

theres suddenly a loud voice in ur ear screaming directly into ur eardrum " BAKA KAGYEAMA BAKA" (wtf our they communicating ???? ? ) i cringe at the yellign and another pair of strong arms bulls me away . i land against a hard, solid chest, i can feel the six pack thru his track Suit.

and then my alarm clock playin what makes u beatyful goes off n i woke up.

amen.

i rub my eyes wakng up, starrn into the mirror at my super borng brwn ugly eyes and brsh my equaly borng brwn hair. i lok up at m wall and see harey stylz and niallr starinf back at me on t walls. i sigh dreamily. they wud twll me my brwn uairs beatufil.

#i'm gonna kermit #my eyes hurt #my brain is dying #where am i #kidnapped by hq #tw wattpad

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mischiefandspirits · 4 years ago

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Doppelgänger (12/19)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Control Freaks}

“Hey, we’re not here yet?” Danny and Tucker said as Danny flew up. “We paid us to cover for us at school. We’re going to the opening of that goth circus.”

Danny shook his head.

Cross over to the dark side…

The boys blinked as something settled over their link for a second before disappearing.

“What was that?”

Danny shivered and shook his head.

“Let’s just get to school.” They nodded and turned to fly off, only for their ghost senses to go off. They looked around and spotted a group of ghosts flying past with bags of money. “Those must be the ghosts we fought last night. Sounds right, come on.”

They took chase. Tucker blasted one of them and Danny darted down to catch the bag of money the ghost dropped before it could fall on the cop car chasing the ghosts. He set it in the car’s backseat and gave the police a wave before flying back up.

Suddenly their link went hazy again and Danny ran headfirst into Tucker as he froze in midair.

“Are we okay?” Danny asked, then his eyes widened as he realized Tucker was quiet. “Hey?”

Tucker shook his head and turned to Danny as the haze disappeared.

“What? Are we okay? We froze up for a second there. Yeah, we think so. Where’d the ghosts go?”

Danny shrugged and pulled Tucker through the billboard he’d frozen in front of. He looked around, but didn’t see the ghosts anywhere.

“Gone. Come on.”

They only made it a block before the haze settled over them again.

“What is that? We don’t know. It’s not us. Then maybe…” Both their eyes widened. “We need to find us, quickly. The train yard.” Tucker pointed back the way they’d come and they flew back to see a crowd of goths facing off against a crowd of parents. The two looked over the crowd of goths until they spotted Sam near the center. “There!”

They dove into the ground and came up next to her, invisible.

“Are you okay?” they whispered, but she didn’t look at them. She just kept staring forward with red eyes.

“Her eyes. We know. We need to get her -”

“Make them see us for who we are,” Sam muttered, then a flicker of purple light started at her waist.

Their eyes widened and they grabbed her, turning her invisible and dragging her into the ground.

“What were you thinking?” the two hissed once they’d come up in the abandoned warehouse the crowds were outside of, creeped out by how she didn’t speak with them despite being in ghost form.

The haze lifted.

She shook her head after a second and looked around.

“What happened?” the trio said. “We nearly just transformed right in the middle of a group of people! What? We-we don’t know what came over us. Something’s messing with us. Let’s get to school. But the opening ceremony! Our parents are out there leading the charge. They’ll kill us if they see us. Alright, fine.”

Sam glanced longingly in the direction of the circus train, but followed her partners.

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

“What was up with you two this morning?” Danny asked as he sat down at their lunch table.

“Two?” Sam asked, looking up from her salad.

“Tucker froze up on me while we were chasing down those ghosts you fought last night. It felt just like when you went blank.”

Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know. I remember chasing the ghosts towards a billboard. They flew through it then… then Danny was talking to me.”

“What billboard?” Sam asked.

Danny shrugged and Tucker’s face screwed up. “… It had a guy on it, with a red staff… I think.”

Sam frowned and dug into her backpack. She pulled out the promotional flyer she had for Circus Gothica. It had the ringmaster on it. He was holding a red staff, but the top of it was out of frame. “Was this him?”

“Yeah, except… you could see the whole staff. There was…”

“A glass ball on the top.”

“I think so,” Tucker dug his phone out of his pocket.

Danny frowned. “So Tucker wigged out seeing a Circus Gothica poster and you wigged out at its opening ceremony. Think there can be a connection?”

“I am Freakshow, ringmaster of the Circus Gothica…”

Danny and Sam looked over as a voice came from Tucker’s phone and Danny scooted closer to see the screen.

“… where your nightmares come alive.”

“Is that the trailer?” Sam asked standing up to lean over the table, but couldn’t get an angle where he could see. “I think it came on this morning, but I was fighting with my parents so I think I missed it.”

“Circus Gothica, where the clowns never smile.”

They didn’t respond.

She looked at their faces to see both of their eyes glowing red.

“Circus Gothica!”

She yanked the phone out of Tucker’s hand. She closed the video without looking at it. “Danny! Tucker!”

They blinked and their eyes went to normal.

“I think it’s safe to say something’s wrong with the circus. I can’t believe my parents are right.”

Danny frowned. “But what’s going on? Is it some sort of anti-ghost thing?”

Tucker’s eyes widened. “Right before Sam transformed, she repeated the ringmaster’s words. Something about revealing yourself.”

Danny shivered as he went pale. “The ghosts, the ones who’d been stealing things, we chased them right to the circus’s train.”

“Ghosts don’t care about jewelry and money,” Tucker said, “but humans do.”

“Mind control,” Sam growled, snapping her spork in half. “That’s why the performers at Circus Gothica are said to be able to do unnatural performances. They’re literally supernatural!”

“Those poor ghosts. Who knows how long they’ve been under his control. We have to help them,” Danny said.

“Preferably before they steal anything else,” Tucker hummed. “One problem though, how?” The two turned to him and he gestured to his phone. “We can’t even look at a picture or video of the guy before becoming mindless zombies. How are we supposed to fight him?”

The three frowned down at their lunches.

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

Valerie looked up from her homework as she heard a knock on her window. “Hey Valerie, we’ve got a problem!”

“You bet you do?” She grabbed her pistol and pulled open her curtains. She frowned as she took Doppelgänger in. “Why’s that one blindfolded?”

All three of the ghost kid were fidgety. One had their goggles pushed onto their head so a black scarf could be wrapped over their eyes. The second was arm in arm with the first, likely to lead them around. The third looked like they were trying to strangle the paper in their hands.

“Preventative measure,” the three said. “It’s what we need to talk to you about. Can we come in? Please? It’s about the robberies.”

She crossed her arms. “You can’t come in, but I’m listening.”

The one with the paper held it up so she could see. “Have you heard about this?”

“Circus… Gothica? Maybe. My friend said he was going to some circus and that one sounds up his goth partner’s alley. Why?”

“The ringmaster is controlling ghosts and forcing them to steal for him.”

She gave them a blank stare. “You’re kidding.”

They shook their heads and the one with the paper pointed at the rod the man on it was holding. “We think it’s his staff. We can look at this just fine, but seeing anything that shows the thing in full makes our brains shut down.”

“Then why aren’t you off stealing stuff?” she asked, before something clicked in her head and she looked at the blindfolded one. “Preventative measures.”

“We can snap ourselves out of it.”

“As long as you aren’t all hit.”

A horn honked and the three flinched.

She sighed. “Get in here.”

They dove through her wall. The two without a blindfold went to close her laptop and turn off her tv. “All clear.”

The third removed their blindfold and Valerie was surprised by the neon purple color of their eyes. She could have sworn their eyes were yellow.

“We can’t go after the circus,” they said before she could comment on it. “We can barely go after the ghosts without risking falling under the same spell. Heck, with all the billboards that have been popping up out of nowhere, we can barely fly around town without risking it.”

“So what, you want me to go in and beat the guy up?” she asked.

They shook their heads. “It might have been a ghostly crime, but he’s a human criminal. We can leave it to the police. We just need to make sure he can’t use the ghosts to get away.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

The three smiled and one held up a ticket.

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

Valerie scowled as she slumped into her seat. “This is stupid.”

“Everything is stupid,” the guy next to her moaned.

Valerie scooted away from him. “I feel ridiculous,” she whispered this time.

“You look great. You still sound a little too peppy though.”

She had half a mind to take out the wireless headphones Doppelgänger had given her and chuck them as far as she could, but she fought it down.

She was currently dressed in her most gothic attire: a torn Dumpty Humpty band tee that she’d been meaning to get rid of, a black leather jacket, black skinny jeans, the black choker necklace Danny had given her for her birthday (minus the topaz sun pendant), and a pair of her dad’s black work boots. Doppelgänger had also done her makeup, giving her dark smoky eyes and blood-red lips that matched the streaks of temporary dye in her hair, which had been left messy and in her face. The final piece had been a skull mask that covered the top half of her face.

Altogether, she blended in perfectly with the crowd of Circus Gothica patrons.

“Leave it to a ghost to think goth looks good.”

“Just because you can’t pull it off, doesn’t mean it’s a bad look.”

“I thought you said I look great.”

“You do. She doesn’t. We’re having a difference of opinion. Can we just focus on the task at hand, please?”

Valerie grunted and leaned back. She watched the contortionist twist herself in ways that might have been freaky, had she not known the woman was a ghost and seen other ghosts do way worse.

Doppelgänger had split themself at the neck once.

Her eyes caught on the side of the tent as a dark figure slipped out. She smirked and twisted herself to drop down through the hole in the bleachers. “He’s on the move.”

“Alright, be careful. And remember, you’re goth. You need to act like a fan, but you still have to be disinterested in existence and everything that comes with it.”

“How does that make any sense?”

“It doesn’t. Yes, it does. Just play it cool. You’ll do fine.”

Valerie slipped into the off-limits area and looked around. The area was actually pretty empty. There were a few devices -- that… well, she hoped they only looked like torture devices -- off to the side, but otherwise the room was empty.

“What are you doing back here?”

Valerie turned to see Freakshow walking in from another room.

She put on her best Sam expression. “Wicked, you’re Freakshow. I was wondering if I could get an autograph. You’ve got to be the sickest thing that’s happened to this garbage dump of a town.”

“Goth’s don’t sound like that. Stop backseat spying.”

“Yes, well, I am quite spectacular,” he said, adjusting his jacket.

“Oh god, he’s that kind of performer. And here we’d thought he was cool. Except for the mind control. Right, except for the mind control.”

“I suppose one autograph couldn’t hurt. What’s your name?”

“Scarlett. Could you sign my-Woah!” She faked a trip and crashed into his left side, putting enough force into it to take them both to the ground. The staff clattered off to the side.

“You daft girl.”

Valerie didn’t bother to keep up the charade. She rolled towards the staff, scooping it up and climbing to her feet in one smooth motion. Then she was out the tent’s back entrance.

“Wha-Get her! Don’t let her get away.”

Valerie smirked and dove around a set of crates just as a strongman and short ghost came flying out.

“I’m clear. The ghosts are all yours.”

Almost immediately one of the trio was slamming down on the strongman and blasting the short ghost. Valerie kept moving as the other two joined in. As much as she’d like to take down the ghosts, she needed to get the staff as far away as possible. She hit the button on her watch and her suit wrapped around her. With a click of her heels, she was shooting into the sky.

However, she’d barely made it to the first highrise before a swirl of tiny green creatures swarmed her.

“Give it up girl,” Freakshow said as a cloaked ghost flew up with him in her arms. “Return to me what you stole and -”

“Just shut up,” she said, using her hoverboard’s guns to fire on the small ghosts.

“Destroy her!”

Valerie readied for a fight, but then something landed in front of her and a green dome wrapped around them. Doppelgänger drew in the shield, then sent it exploding outwards to wipe out the smaller ghosts and knock back the larger one and her passenger.

Another of the ghost kid sucked up the ghost then plucked the ringmaster out of the air.

“We’ll bring this back to the circus,” the two said before the second flew off.

“You alright?” the one on her board asked.

“Fine.” She tightened her grip on the staff and looked over her shoulder.

After a moment, the ghost kid sighed. “I think that was the last of them.”

“Good.” She faced forward as they turned to her. “I had that under control, you know.”

They didn’t respond.

“Hello.” She waved her hand in front of their face. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” they answered, but their voice sounded off. Smaller, not as echoey.

She stepped back and looked them over. Her eyes landed on their face and she realized they weren’t looking at her.

They were looking at the staff.

Hesitantly, she shifted the staff into one hand then pulled their goggles up to see red irises, just like the ghost had described.

“You… You’re under my control?”

“I’m under your control.”

Her grip tightened on the staff. This was… She could do anything to the ghost kid. Could finally get her revenge. She could question them and find out anything she wanted. She could learn all their weaknesses. The only thing she really couldn’t do was destroy them, as there were two more of them out there.

She stepped closer to the ghost, grabbed them by the front of their suit. She looked them in the eyes, and froze.

She couldn’t do it. She should, but she couldn’t. Because she looked into their eyes, and saw Danny.

She could say she didn’t know why, but that would be a lie.

Even though Danny helped her with her weapons and let her rant to him whenever the ghost kid annoyed her, she knew he -- like most of the rest of the school -- thought the ghost was good. She didn’t get it, especially with his parents, but she also wasn’t blind. She saw his little frowns when she talked about how the ghost was a menace and noticed when he tried to keep the topic off them whenever he could. She was actually grateful he was willing to stay neutral for her, lord knows Star couldn’t.

So she knew Danny wouldn’t be pleased with her if she did this, but that wasn’t the only reason the ghost’s eyes reminded her of Danny. As much as she hated the ghost, she could recognize that they had a lot in common with her friend. Most of the time. Really only when it was one of their usual fights, just her and one of them, when they would bob and weave around her attacks with ease.

During those times, they were witty and could come up with the most ridiculous pun-filled taunts. It was something Danny liked to do, but only around people he was close to or during that one time with Skulker. They both made every situation seem so much brighter, made everything seem easier to handle, though she’d never admitted it in the ghost’s favor. And sometimes the ghost would get a resigned edge to their voice while they were fighting her that sounded so much like when Danny had to play mediator between her and his partners.

It was something she pushed aside, ever since it had hit her during her stay in the ghost zone, but now.

Now all she could see was Danny!

She growled and shoved the ghost away.

They staggered back off the hoverboard, but their flight took over before they could fall and they stayed level with her.

She looked down at the staff, glaring, then held it out. “I’m going to regret this.”

She let go.

She kept her eyes on the ghost as the seconds passed and a crash sounded far below.

They blinked and flickers of red energy came off their eyes, but their eyes remained the same.

No, they didn’t. Their eyes remained red, but the color became warmer, less like blood and more like fire. They were a brighter color with hints of orange. It felt softer, more compassionate.

It made their eyes look even more like Danny’s.

“Red?”

Valerie turned and flew off.

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

She hesitated, then knocked on the window in front of her.

After a minute, the curtain was pulled aside and Danny stared up at her with wide eyes. He opened the window and stepped back. “Val? What are you doing here?”

She carefully flew inside then recalled her board and suit. “Sorry, I just… can we talk?”

He nodded and sat down on his bed, gesturing to the space next to him. “Are you okay? You’ve been acting weird this past week. Is it about that clown guy that got arrested for using ghosts to rob places?”

“Something like that,” she sighed. She sat down and placed her elbow on her knees so she could hide her face in her hands. “He had this staff, it could control ghosts. Doppelgänger asked for my help to get rid of it so the guy could be arrested without the ghosts interfering.”

“Alright, did something go wrong?”

“Not exactly. The plan worked perfectly until… One of the ghost kid’s duplicates came to help me when a ghost chased me. After the ghost was taken care of, they turned to me and… and I had the staff so…” She waved her hand.

“They got mind-controlled,” Danny finished. They were quiet for a moment then he asked, “What did you do to them?”

There was no judgment in his voice -- not like what would have been in Star’s if Valerie had told her, not that she knew Valerie was Red Huntress. Instead, he sounded curious.

She picked her head up and leaned against him, staring blankly at his bedroom wall. “Nothing.”

“Really?” he said, unsurprised.

“I could have, a part of me wanted to, still wants to, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, not really. They were right there, completely helpless and I just didn’t do anything.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She looked up at him to see him smiling down at her. “Val, you’re not that kind of person.”

She sat up with a frown. “What do you mean?”

“Like you said, they were helpless. You wouldn’t take advantage of a situation like that. It’s not you. They probably knew that. Why else would they have risked bringing you in?”

Valerie couldn’t bring herself to say anything because Danny was wrong. She would have done it. If it had been any other ghost, if their eyes had been covered, she would have done it.

“This isn’t what I came here to talk about,” she said.

He frowned, but allowed the change in topic. “What’s up?”

Valerie took his hand and met his gaze. “Everything that’s happened lately made me realize I… I like you, Danny. I really like you, a lot.”

Danny blushed. “I…”

“I don’t know if you feel the same, but if you do or even if you’d just like to give us a try, maybe we could go on a date this weekend?”

Danny smiled and opened his mouth, then snapped it closed and looked down at his lap. “I-I can’t.”

“I under-”

“No, Val, I… I want to. I really really want to. I like you too.”

“Then -”

“But I can’t. I…” He pulled his hand away and his fists clenched and he bit his lip. “There’s something you don’t know, and it wouldn’t be fair to you to keep it from you if we were together.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t. I want to, but it’s not just my secret to keep.” He rubbed at his eyes.

She nodded and stood up. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry. I… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I-I should go.” She went to the window. “I’ll see… Bye.”

“Wait.” She turned to him as he went to his desk and pulled something out of a drawer. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you, but haven’t gotten the chance. You should probably take it now. I know you’re mad so I don’t know whe-”

“I’m not mad.” She wasn’t. She trusted Danny to keep her secret, so she couldn’t be mad that he’d keep someone else’s. She was just…

She took the device. It looked like a belt. She wrapped it around her waist and clicked it closed. With a beep, it hummed to life.

“It’s called a Specter Deflector. It repels ghosts and protects you from a lot of their powers.”

She gave him a smile that felt fake. “Thanks.” She tried to pat his shoulder, but he flinched away so she backed off. “Bye, Danny.”

“Later.”

She summoned her suit and slipped out the window.

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

Sam carded her fingers through Danny’s hair and shared a look with Tucker. The three were piled up on an abandoned building with some dinner, though the food had mostly gone untouched.

“Sorry, dude, we know you’ve had a thing for her for a while,” Tucker said.

“Haven’t.”

“You have, and it’s only gotten worse since you guys got back from Skulker’s.”

Danny pressed his face into Sam’s thigh.

“I still don’t get why you turned her down,” Sam said.

“If I dated her, then she found out we were Doppelgänger, it would ruin everything. And I couldn’t tell her. If I only told her about me, then that would be as bad as lying because I’d have to cover up everything about our connection with each other. And I couldn’t tell her about you guys.”

“You could,” Tucker said and Sam fought down her reaction to that. “We won’t make you keep this from her.”

He shook his head. “You guys still don’t trust her. I know you don’t so don’t try to lie. And I… I still don’t know how she will react anyways. It would be selfish of me to put you guys in danger just for a chance.”

“You deserve to be selfish sometimes,” Sam said, turning him to face her. “We want you to be happy.”

“I know.” He sighed and sat up. “I just… sometimes I wish I was Amity Park’s one and only halfa.”

His partners pulled him into a hug.

“You don’t mean that,” Tucker said.

Danny looked up at him. “I do. If I was, then you wouldn’t be in danger and it would just be my secret to tell, not yours.”

“Oh, Danny,” Sam whispered.

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

And the season comes to a close. There might be an extra week between this chapter and the next because I need to figure out how I want to go about posting season 2 since it isn't complete like season 1 was when I started posting it.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #valerie gray #sam manson #tucker foley #Doppelgänger au

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xmxisxforxmaybe · 4 years ago

Text

1998

Summary: Once your brother left for college, it became clear to you that Rami was going to make you Scott’s replacement. And as his replacement, you could expect two things.

One: Rami would continue spending more time at your house than his own.

Two: It was only a matter of time before Rami Malek talked you into doing something that could get you grounded for the rest of your life.

A/N: This fic is basically porn for the best decade EVER: the 90s. @the-real-ramimalekpeen I hope this does your request justice 💛

Wordcount: 7106

Warnings: All the characters are underage (17) so I will warn for drinking, smoking cigarettes, and PG-13 making out. Honestly though, by today’s standards, this fic is wholesome as fuck—welcome (back) to the 90s, bebes 💛

Considering it was after 9:00 pm on a school night, Rami Malek had no business being in your bedroom.

Except that Rami Malek, one half of the legendary Malek Twins, was always at your house.

His best friend, who also happened to be your brother, had just gone off to college. At first, you thought Rami still hung around so much because he was scared about doing the same next fall, but then, a part of you began to wonder if he really did miss your brother that much.

Scott was the first real friend Rami made when he and Sami came to your school as freshmen. At first, they didn’t appear to have a thing in common, but after a few months, Rami and Scott were inseparable. By the end of Rami’s first year at Notre Dame, everyone joked that Scott was actually Rami’s twin, not Sami.

One thing all three of the boys had in common, though, was their penchant for mischief. It wasn’t that they were bad. They were energetic, charming, and had decided to dedicate most of their high school experience to testing the limits placed upon them by authority figures.

After Scott had left and the time Rami spent at your house did not diminish, it became clear that to Rami, you were now your brother’s replacement. And as his replacement, you could expect two things.

One: Rami would continue his tradition of eating dinner more times a week at your house than his own.

This didn’t bother you because your parents loved Rami—they loved him so much they didn’t protest when he insisted on doing the dishes on the nights he ate with you. That was a win in your book because it meant you had one less chore.

However, Rami’s new focus on you did prompt a rather uncomfortable conversation with your mother.

One night after he had gone home, she knocked on your bedroom door and fixed you with that look as she took a seat on the edge of your bed. She sharply inhaled then asked if you and Rami were dating. Because if so, she and your father needed to set some boundaries about the times Rami could and could not be at the house.

The mixed look of shock and horror on your face made her laugh, but that initial reaction was quickly replaced with anger. Scott had girls at the house all the time and your parents had never said a word. In that moment, it became clear that your brother was afforded more freedom just because he was a boy. It was total garbage!

So, for the next few weeks, you stewed in quiet rebellion, outraged by the clear gender discrimination being doled upon you by your OWN parents, and when you confessed as much to Rami, he flashed you the famous Malek grin and you knew you were in for expectation number two: It was only a matter of time before Rami talked you into doing something that would get you grounded for the rest of your life.

A few nights later, you were watching TV in the living room and doing homework (you were doing homework while Rami seemed to be practicing his origami skills) when a paper airplane flew directly into your face and bounced off your forehead.

“Hey!” you yelled, glaring at Rami while you rubbed at the spot where the point hit.

He was already leaning forward, an apology tumbling from his lips which seemed pretty insincere considering he was also trying to stifle his laughter.

“What is this?” you asked as you picked up his paper airplane from the spot where it had landed, the bright colors of the paper catching your eye.

After you unfolded it and realized it was a flyer for a local band, your stomach began to flutter.

You looked up at Rami who looked like the cat that ate the canary. He nodded vigorously at the question on your face, then began to talk in a low, rapid voice.

“Got it all worked out. I’ll come over for dinner. Sami will meet us with the car after your parents are in bed. You don’t have to do anything other than follow my lead—and not get caught.”

At 17, music was everything.

You loved listening to live music, and as long as the concert was at an all-ages venue, you were allowed to go unchaperoned. That was great, if you wanted to see mainstream music, but since focusing his attention on you, Rami had turned you on to the joys of underground rock bands.

Instead of listening to another shitty recording, Rami was presenting you with the opportunity to see a live show.

Feeling giddy, you slammed your notebook shut and you and Rami spent the rest of the evening ironing out your plan. By the time he left to go home, you felt like it was foolproof.

* * * * *

The band was playing at a dive bar just outside of West Hollywood. Rami said the crowd would be fun—mostly college kids, partying it up on Thirsty Thursday. The plan was to hang out, watch TV until your dad gave you the look that meant it was time to kick Rami out, but instead of him leaving, you would call out your goodnights and he would sneak upstairs to your room and hide in your closet.

After you had said goodnight to Rami, you went back into the living room and tried to swallow all of your excitement. After fifteen minutes of fidgeting, you told your parents you had a big test in the morning and wanted to go to bed early.

They smiled and said goodnight, your mom following you up the stairs to take a bath and settle in with her book.

You went into the bathroom and followed your nightly routine, making sure not to rouse any suspicion, and when you finally climbed into your bed and turned off your lamp, Rami popped out of the closet.

“Are they asleep yet?”

“Shhh,” you hissed, clambering to the end of your bed and knocking into him as you stood. “Dad just shut off the TV.” “Sami’s waiting,” Rami said glancing at his watch even though it was too dark to see anything more than a blob of black on his wrist.

“I’m aware of the plan,” you whispered as you ignored his fretting and flipped on the closet light to pick up the outfit you had set aside earlier.

You paused in your movement and hurriedly flicked off the light. Straining your ears, you heard your dad walk by your room and you only released the breath you had been holding when you heard his door click shut.

You flicked on the closet light again, and almost pulled your pajama top off in your haste before realizing that Rami was staring at you. When you turned to look at him, he motioned for you to hurry up, his eyes growing larger as if the bigger they got the more hurried your movements would become.

You threw up your hands and harshly whispered, “Turn around!”

Rami blinked stupidly, his mouth popping open as he realized you needed to change. If you could have seen his cheeks, you would have seen that they were the same color of red as the squares of plaid on his shirt.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered as he turned away, his head hanging down as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his oversized jeans.

With a tsk of dismissal, you shimmied into your favorite LEI jeans with the flared bottoms tattered perfectly from dragging on the ground. You had opted for a fitted, light blue, long-sleeved tee that just showed off a bit of your stomach because the v-neck also showed off your cleavage. You thought about grabbing the flannel you had stolen from your brother, but it was still warm enough out not to need it. Besides, there was sure to be something in the boys’ car if you needed it.

Sitting on the floor, you pushed down the top of your thong, knowing it was peeking out as you settled in to do your makeup.

“I’m dressed,” you said as you began to swipe on some frosted blue eye shadow.

As you pumped your mascara, Rami whined, “Can’t you do that in the car.”

“In the pitch-black car?” you bit back as you scraped a bit of the eye shadow into one of your empty make up containers before dribbling clear lip gloss in to mix it up. As you dabbed it on your lips, you smiled at the perfectly muted but still-frosty compliment to your eye makeup.

Smacking your lips together with a pop, you quickly wrapped two small chunks of your hair up in two messy knots and secured them with tight, clear gumbands. You adjusted your chocker, then slipped into a pair of black, chunky shoes.

You grabbed your wide, black belt and looped it through your jeans as Rami paced, the swishing of his jeans starting to drive you a little crazy as you rushed over to fix up your bed so it looked like a lump of a human was still in it.

After situating your colorful hemp purse across your torso, you softly said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

Rami stopped pacing and looked you over before giving you a half smile. “You look good.”

“Until my parents catch us doing this and skin me alive,” you countered as you flicked off the light.

Rami grinned, his teeth flashing in the dark. “They won’t—promise.”

“Your promises have, like, an 83% failure rate,” you argued as you pushed past him and opened the window as quietly as possible.

“Fine—I swear on Sami’s life we won’t get caught,” he whispered before he scrambled out of the window and on to the roof.

He held out his hand and you took it while you climbed out after him. Your eyes looked toward your parents’ room, and your heart hammered as you were sure their light was going to flick on at any second.

“That mayyybe gives us odds in the ballpark of 70 - 30,” you whispered when you turned your eyes back to Rami, quickly pulling away as you realized you were still holding his hand.

He stifled a chuckle as he crept toward the farthest edge of the roof, and when a ladder appeared, you knew Sami was below.

“Go ahead,” Rami rasped, holding on to the top of the ladder as you swung your legs over and began to cautiously climb down.

When you got closer to the ground, you felt Sami’s hand on your calf as he whispered, “Hey, Y/N—you good?”

“Yeah,” you whispered back, a wave of ease sweeping through you when you finally touched the ground.

“Cute,” Sami smiled as he gave one of the twists in your hair a little tap.

You smiled back before turning your attention to Rami as he hopped off the second to last rung. With a practiced ease, he pulled the ladder from the roof without making a sound and laid it flat behind your mother’s rose bushes. The ladder was completely hidden, and you quickly realized that the boys had done this many times before.

The three of you jogged to where Sami had parked the car, and since you had followed him to the driver’s side, he opened up the back door so you could climb in. When Rami settled into the passenger seat, he let out a whoop of success. The three of you laughed, and you knew you had to ask, “How many times did you two sneak Scottie out of the house?”

Sami snorted and started the engine, while Rami shrugged his shoulders and turned his hands over, feigning ignorance.

“I see how it is,” you said, narrowing your eyes at Rami’s profile until he quickly turned and shot you a wink that was more like a blink.

You giggled, “One eye is a wink, you dork!”

Sami’s shoulders shook with a silent chuckle as he turned up the radio and you settled back in your seat to bask in the joy of being with your friends; it was well worth the trepidation you had felt about sneaking out on a school night, and as you watched Rami’s smiling profile, lit up by each street lamp you sped past, you felt a sudden flush of pleasure that he had gone through so much trouble to give you this night.

As soon as you were on the 101 heading out of the Valley, the boys both lit up. Rami offered you a cigarette, expecting you to decline, so when you said, “Why not?” he choked as he was inhaling and Sami’s eyes flashed up at you from the rearview.

“Um, this is my night of rebellion, okay? I may as well do it right,” you explained as Rami put your cigarette between his lips, lit it, then passed it back to you.

He watched with interest as you smoothly inhaled, then blew a stream of smoke out in his direction.

“What? You think Scott and I never partied together when mom and dad went outta town? Who do you think got me drunk for the first time?”

“How old?” Sami asked, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, his cigarette dangling from his lips as he relaxed back into the driver’s seat having just switched lanes.

“14. Got me fucked up on screwdrivers of all things. I couldn’t drink OJ for a month.”

The boys burst into laughter, then Rami explained that Scott had done the same thing to them.

“Sami was so hungover mom thought he had the flu.”

“And you weren’t hungover because you puked your guts out in dad’s hedges. I still don’t think he knows why that one turned brown and died.”

“Shut up,” Rami grinned as he lightly punched his brother’s shoulder.

“I’m driving asshole,” Sami murmured around his cigarette.

“At least I don’t look like one,” Rami countered, making you roll your eyes and take another long drag of your cigarette.

Because you didn’t smoke often, you already felt the sweet lightheadedness that came after a few pulls. You ashed out of the crack in your window and breathed in the cool air that was flowing from the boys’ open windows, contrasting deliciously with the heat of the smoke as it trailed down your throat.

“Fight nice, boys,” you called up to the front, before immediately regretting your interruption because they both teamed up to rag on you.

Twins, you thought as you countered their attacks as best you could.

Maybe it was the effect of the nicotine, or the natural high of sneaking out with the Malek brothers, but watching Rami from the back seat, you began to think of him as more than just your brother’s friend, and now, your friend. There was something about him, something about the way he made you feel that didn’t feel like any of your other friends.

And speaking of other friends, you looked at the back of Sami’s head and watched his eyes in the rearview mirror, but that thing, that chemical pull of attraction wasn’t there. When you glanced over at Rami, you felt it.

You let your gaze ping-pong between them, testing out your fledgling feelings. With a frown, you turned away from both of them and watched the cars in the parallel lanes, wondering if it was even worth figuring out.

“Helloooo,” Rami called, squeezing your knee to pull you out of your thoughts.

“Huh? What did you say?”

“I asked what you thought of Stacy.”

“Stacy Browning?”

“Duh. She’s like the only Stacy in our English class.”

“What about her?”

“She’s supposed to be here tonight.”

“Rami’s got the hots for Staaacyyy,” Sami sing-songed as he signaled and took the exit for West Hollywood.

Rami didn’t refute his brother and something mean bubbled out of you as an image of Stacy, laughing and pushing into Rami’s side as he wrapped his arm around her waist, his fingers just resting above the pocket on the ass of her jeans, flashed through your mind.

“Sami has a better shot than you any day of the week. Isn’t that how it usually works, Ram?”

You watched as the hurt twisted across Rami’s face, but your attention was drawn to Sami’s laughter as he guffawed, “Ooooh—harsh!”

You laughed, looking anywhere but at Rami, who half-heartedly joined in.

What you said made you feel sick, like an aftereffect of a violent action.

What the fuck, Y/N? you scolded yourself.

“Is this the turn?” Sami asked, growing serious as he navigated the crowded streets and started looking for parking.

“Yeah—park anywhere you find a spot. The bar’s like a block, maybe two that way.”

After a few more minutes, Sami found a spot and parallel parked with an easy precision.

“Good thing Rami didn’t drive,” you teased, trying to get him to look at you like he had before you’d hurt him.

Instead, he hopped out of the passenger side and slammed the door shut.

Sami opened your door, and chuckled as he said, “Fuck—there are at least three trashcans that have unclaimed relatives lying in the morgue thanks to him.”

You laughed and looked over at Rami who had a soft smile on his face. He shook his head, “Fuck you guys.”

You skipped over to him and poked at his ribs. “Come ooon—we know you didn’t mean to destroy the entire trashcan-family on Woodbridge Street. It was an honest massacre because you forgot which pedal was the break.”

“Like the first time I drove EVER!” Rami defended, finally turning to smile at you.

“And who doesn’t even have their license?” he shot back, his face coming dangerously close to yours as he picked on you.

“Like, excuuuse me for having an older brother! How keen do you think mom and dad were to let me drive after Scottie nearly got arrested for speeding—twice?”

“Oh, shit,” Sami said. “I remember that second time—”

The twins launched into a retelling of the story, one you’d heard a thousand times, but it made Rami laugh, his face back to its normal, jovial disposition. As you walked, your head turning between the boys as they spoke, you relaxed knowing it wasn’t in Rami’s nature to dwell on something negative. By now, he had probably dismissed your comment as a joke.

The bar came into view and there was no mistaking it for a nice place. The neon signs made it look more sinister than hip, and the trashcans outside were overflowing. However, the crowd queued at the entrance was just as Rami had described—college-aged kids, smoking, talking, and laughing as they paid their cover and ducked inside, the noise spilling into the street each time the bouncer opened the door.

Instead of joining the line at the entrance, Rami led you and Sami down an alley that was a little too dark for your liking.

“Rami?” you questioned, and he reached back for your hand, linking his fingers with yours.

After a few more steps, Rami stopped and released your hand. He reached up and banged loudly on the unmarked, steel door.

An older man, probably in his 50s, pushed open the door and flooded the backstreet with light. You squinted as you were assaulted with the brightness and the smoke that wafted out.

“Malek. My man,” he rasped as he fist-bumped Rami. “And Malek Número Dos. What’s up bros?”

Sami greeted the man in the same fashion as his brother, and then the man noticed you.

“Switchin’ it up tonight, huh? Bringin’ a girl ‘stead of leavin’ with one?”

You raised your brow and crossed your arms, that same feeling from earlier creeping through your chest and into your gut.

“Scott’s little sister,” Rami explained, and the older man chortled and gave you a full, lingering look.

He nodded with what you deemed to be approval and he fished out three paper bracelets from his pocket.

“Keep her outta trouble, yeah?” he said with a slow, lecherous grin.

“You can count on it,” Rami answered, giving him a tight, but still friendly smile as he turned to you, instructing you to hold out your wrist.

You watched as he positioned the neon orange band, then peeled back the tape.

“Too tight?”

“Nah. It’s good.”

Maybe it was nothing, but Rami’s thumb lightly stroked the spot where he had just stuck the band in place and when you looked up, he was watching your face.

You smiled at him, a slow, sincere grin and when he returned your look, it felt like you were swallowing honey—sticky and sweet, the warm feeling slid down your throat and made your cheeks feel hot.

Sami cleared his throat.

“Someone wanna do me?” he asked as he waved his bracelet in front of your faces.

Rami shot him a vicious look, but Sami just stuck out his wrist and waited.

“We meet right out front after the show. Not in the alley.”

You and Rami both just looked at him, and Sami prompted, “Okay?” as if he were dealing with two teenaged idiots instead of also being one himself.

“Yeah—meet out front,” Rami said dismissively, his eyes willing Sami to get lost, but he was already slipping away down the hall and out into the bar.

“You ready for this?”

“Just—just don’t leave me alone, okay?” you said, thinking about the way Rami’s guy had looked at you.

“Of course not,” Rami said with a reassuring smile. He lowered his voice and continued, “Let’s put some distance between us and Crazy Carlos.

“Crazy Carlos?” you hissed.

“No one calls him that to his face,” Rami assured you, then laughed at the way your eyes widened.

Once you were mixing into the crowd, the noise level ratcheted up and you were forced to yell into each other’s ears.

Rami’s eyes scanned the bar, once, twice, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking for Stacy.

“Wanna get a drink?” you asked loudly, leaning into his body to get closer to his ear.

“Yeah! What do you want?”

“Just a beer!”

Rami nodded and led you to the bar. You tried to take up as little space as possible and when you spotted a couple leaving their hightop along the wall, you tugged on Rami’s flannel to get his attention. He turned back to look at you and you pointed to the table. He nodded and watched as you darted over and took a seat.

Instantly, your hand landed in the waste of someone’s spilled drink and you huffed in disgust as you wiped your hand on your jeans. You looked around for Sami, but it was impossible to see through the throng of drinkers and the haze of smoke.

“You okay?” Rami yelled, taking the seat across from you and sliding your bottle toward you.

“Stop treating me like a baby! I’m the same age as you!”

Rami rolled his eyes, but his lips were drawn into a smirk as he took a swig of his beer.

You took a drink, too, and watched him comfortably lean back into the wall so he could face the room and check out the crowd, your mind immediately flashing back to that image of Rami and Stacy, laughing, touching.

“She’s not good enough for you,” you said through gritted teeth.

“What?” Rami asked, leaning forward as much as the table allowed.

“She’s not good enough for you!”

Rami shook his head, still unable to hear you. With a huff, you slid off your chair and rounded the table to stand between his spread legs. You rested one hand on his thigh as you leaned into his ear and yelled, “Stacy! She’s not good enough for you!”

Rami moved back, raising his eyebrows, as he sat up straighter on his stool.

“Not exactly what you said in the car,” he answered, your eyes watching his lips so you could make out what he said.

Scanning his face, you wondered if he could see that you were sorry.

Just as you leaned in to apologize, the lead singer whistled into the mike and made you jump. Rami’s eyes danced with laughter as he took another swig of his beer, and both of you turned your attention to the band.

“Hey, you drunk motherfuckers—you ready to put a little shimmy in your jimmy? A little rock in your cock?”

The crowd cheered, and you felt Rami stand, his front pressing into your back as he lightly pushed you into the crowd. He kept moving until you could see the stage, then he moved to stand beside you, his arm resting against yours.

The first two songs were great, and you knew that sneaking out had been completely worth it. The band was good, really good, and you expected you’d be able to say you’d seen them live before they made it big.

As the songs played, you and Rami both moved along to the music, heads bobbing and bodies shifting as much as the limited space allowed. Every now and then, you’d shoot a grin at each other, and when the third song began, you realized your beer was long gone.

You thought about shoving the empty bottle in your pocket, but Rami read your mild distress and leaned in to tell you to save his spot.

He shuffled through the crowd to get rid of your empties, and you widened your stance to save his spot, then refocused on the band.

Before the third song was over, Rami was back, and you mouthed thanks. He gave your hair twist a tap, just as Sami had done earlier, making you smile and shake your head.

After the next song, the bassist and lead guitar put their instruments down and the drummer disappeared.

“You’re fuckin’ animals and I love it! But those guys need a drink so I’m gonna slow shit down with a song I wrote a few years back.”

When the acoustic number began, you were shocked the lead singer’s gruff voice was so low and smooth. As he crooned, people swayed lightly with their faces trained on the stage. You don’t know whether it was you who moved closer to Rami or Rami who moved closer to you, but somehow, you found yourself standing partially in front of him, just close enough for his hand to creep around your waist. You smiled without looking at him and stepped into his touch, pulling his other arm to wrap around your waist as you leaned back into his chest. He laced his fingers across your stomach and leaned into your hair, both of you swaying in time to the soft music.

As you stood together, like a couple, your mind began to race. Everything became too much and not enough at the same time. Rami’s grip was too loose and too tight. The singer’s words were too soft and his guitar was too loud. The shadows cast on the stage were too dark and the spotlight was too bright.

And when you felt Rami’s chest vibrate into your back as he sang along under his breath, it felt too harsh, but when his pinky lightly stroked the exposed flesh on your stomach, it felt too sensitive. Your body was a tingling mess at his touch, so you took back some control. Your arms were already resting over Rami’s, but your thumb found his and you touched him gently, back and forth, in a mirror of the way his little finger was still sliding over the exposed skin of your midriff.

Rami’s mouth crept closer to your ear and you shivered as his breath rustled your hair. You wanted to crane your neck, turn into his body and give him the angle he needed to kiss you, but you were still at war with feeling too much and not enough at the same time.

When the song ended, the singer thanked everyone, then encouraged you all to grab another beer while he took a piss. You felt a profound loss when Rami relaxed his grip and let his arms slide away from your waist and to your hips.

“Want another beer?” he asked into your ear as he gave your hips a squeeze before he dropped his hands.

“Sure—yeah,” you lied.

You turned to watch him disappear into the crowd and almost immediately, Rami’s warmth against your back was replaced with a new but identical one.

“Having fun?”

You whirled around, your mouth popping open slightly before snapping shut.

“Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Sam—are you drinking?” you asked, bending slightly to sniff at his cup.

“It’s water, dumbass. They only have two more songs.”

You narrowed your eyes at Rami’s twin as he continued to look at you, clearly waiting for you to confess your secret. You didn’t know if he had seen the two of you during the last song or if he was just acting on a hunch, but you were not about to confess your feelings to Sami before you told Rami.

Even though that was exactly what Sami wanted.

The same blueish eyes as Rami’s bored into yours, but neither of you spoke.

You decided to answer Sami’s original question in a breezy tone, “By the way, yeah, I’m having fun. Are you having fun?”

He narrowed his eyes in response.

“Because I think this is the most fun I’ve ever—"

“Just tell him!” Sami interrupted with a huff.

“There’s nothing to tell,” you insisted, crossing your arms and stepping toward him as someone bumped into you.

“Stop lying.”

“There isn’t,” you insisted, hating the way Sami was smirking at you over the rim of his water cup.

He took a drink, then said, “Guess I’ll let Stacy know she’s free to come ov—”

“She’s here?!?” you panicked, your eyes darting in the direction Sami had been looking.

His laughter rang out over the din and you whipped your eyes back to his.

“Nothing to tell, huh?”

Your nostrils flared as you pinched at his side, knowing he was ticklish. He jumped away from your fingers, chuckling as he made his way back to his friends. You watched him go, making sure he was lying about Stacy.

Right before the band packed back onto the tiny stage, Rami shuffled back into his spot beside you and handed you a beer.

You greedily drank, thirsty from the smoke and eager to unwind your nerves after Sami’s taunts.

Rami watched you drink and smiled at you over the lip of his bottle in an identical grin to his brother’s earlier teasing smirk.

“Easy, killer.”

Swallowing, you reminded him, “This is still my night to let loose, right?”

Rami pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and bobbed his head in a slow nod, his eyes filled with something you couldn’t read.

The band started up again, actually playing three more songs so you got to bask in a silent satisfaction that Sami had been wrong about one thing. As the band bid goodnight, you were wired.

The set had been incredible, and you wanted to say so to Rami, but he was already nodding his head toward the exit. As you navigated through the crowd, you grabbed on to the edge of his flannel. It was last call, and as you passed by the bar, it was almost too crowded to toss your empty bottles on to.

When you were finally outside, you couldn’t stop babbling to Rami about how great the music was, even though your ears were severely ringing. He punctuated your excitement with several toldja sos, his eyes watching the crowd for Sami.

“I just love this feeling, ya know?” you exclaimed, bouncing on your toes and taking a cigarette when Rami offered.

“Imagine how it feels for them—the performers.”

You looked at Rami through the haze of his exhaling smoke and your eyes danced over his familiar, yet altogether new face. How could you have never seen just how attractive he was?

“Rami. I . . .” you dropped your gaze and flicked your cigarette nervously, wondering if you should just confess like Sami told you to do.

“Wanna thank me for draggin’ you out on a school night? Making sure you had a great time? Being the perfect friend? I assure you, all this I know,” Rami finished with a smug look, his round cheeks hollowing as he pulled on his cigarette.

“That’s just it. Are we . . . friends? I mean,” you floundered for a moment, your eyes landing anywhere but on his. “Don’t you just hang with me because you miss Scott?”

Rami laughed.

“Are you for real? In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t exactly look like your fuckin’ brother.”

Your eyes landed on Rami’s just in time to catch the way they dragged over your body, top-knots to toes and back again.

“You like the way I look?” you asked, your voice so low you almost couldn’t hear it over the ringing in your ears.

Flicking your cigarette to the ground, you stepped toward Rami, wetting your suddenly dry lips.

“Yeah. Thought that was obvious,” he said, his eyes half-lidded but still commanding as his blue-grey irises darkened when his pupils grew just a bit wider.

“Not to me,” you answered, shaking your head slightly as Rami’s hands came up to your waist, his ring and pinky fingers settling against your bare skin.

His eyes were almost shut. Your faces moved closer and Rami’s tilted slightly to the right—

“Ready to go?” Sami asked, jangling the car keys obnoxiously next to your ears, startling you and Rami apart.

“Jesus Sam you fucking cocksucker,” Rami cursed, running a hand through his curly hair as he glared at his brother.

“Not interrupting, am I? Because there’s nothing to interrupt, right?” he questioned you with an arrogant lilt.

“Nope! Nothing at all!” you shot over your shoulder as you stalked off in the direction of the car.

The boys quickly followed, and Sami snickered, catching you and slinging his arm around your shoulders.

“Have a good night, Y/N?”

“For the most part,” you grumbled.

Sami released you and you fell into step next to Rami.

His hands were buried in the pockets of his jeans and he kept his eyes to the ground as you walked. You kept checking your peripheral to see if he was looking at you, but he wasn’t.

The drive back was relatively quiet, Sami turning up the radio to drown out the ringing in his own ears. As you leaned back in the seat and watched the blurry skyline, Sex and Candy came on the radio and you tried not to think about Rami as John Wozniak’s deep voice reverberated through the car; you tried not to think about how close you’d come to kissing him and about how badly you didn’t want this night to end before you did.

Mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream

* * * * *

“Need help with the ladder?” Sami asked as he put the car in park.

“Nah. We’ll manage,” Rami answered as he got out.

“Goodnight, shithead. Thank you for driving,” you snapped before you opened your door.

“Better kiss him goodnight before Stacy does,” Sami said, looking at you in the rearview, puckering his lips so he could make a loud smooching noise.

“Stacy doesn’t live on my roof!”

“You ne-ever knooow,” he sang.

“Oh my god,” you said, smiling in spite of wanting to slap him.

Sami cackled as you opened the door, his lighter hissing as he lit another cigarette.

“I hate your brother,” you muttered on the walk back to your house.

“What did he say?”

“It’s not the what. It’s the way. Like he knows every fucking thing there is to know in the world.”

“Well . . . usually he does.”

“I know,” you sighed in defeat. “So can I hate him for that?”

“Absolutely,” Rami chuckled.

The streetlamps lit your way, but once you reached the edge of your lawn, Rami made sure you stayed on the perimeter of the dusk-to-dawn light. He wedged the ladder out from behind the roses, then set it up, stepping on the bottom rung to make sure it was steady.

“Go ahead. I’ll follow to make sure you can get your window open.”

Climbing steadily, you had to stifle a laugh thinking about how often your brother had done this, and done it stinking drunk. The effect of the two beers you had drank were long gone, but the thrill of what you were about to get away with still hummed beneath the surface of your skin.

That . . . and Rami’s presence.

As he stood up when he stepped off the ladder, your eyes locked and sent a fresh wave of butterflies to assault your stomach. Clearing your throat, you shuffled to your window. Rami followed, slowly and quietly working it open. As you waited, you were overwhelmed by the scent of him—the remnants of the bar, his fading cologne, the shampoo he used in his hair—all of it swirled together into something that was more intoxicating than a hundred beers.

You ducked into your room as soon as the window was open, and the sleeve of Rami’s shirt brushed against your arm as he helped you, his fingers featherlight on your shoulder before trailing down to the exposed skin of your lower back as you moved away.

You kicked your discarded pajamas from earlier toward the gap at the bottom of your bedroom door, made sure it was locked, then flicked on the light in your closet, pulling the door mostly shut so there was just enough brightness to see Rami as he stood in front of your window, hands back in his pockets as he crossed and uncrossed his feet while leaning against the window sill.

“Thanks for tonight,” you whispered, closing the distance and letting the last energy of the band spur you on to make your move.

“Yeah. Of course,” Rami murmured, his eyes finally meeting yours.

You were so close now, all one of you had to do was lean into the other’s lips, and somehow, you just knew it had to be you.

Your hands shaking slightly, you rested them on the top of his chest, the smooth fabric of his black long sleeve shirt warm under your touch.

He shuffled, awkwardly pulling his hands from his pockets so he could rest them on your waist, his fingers nervously ticking over the skin on your lower back.

You glanced from his lips to eyes, and when your eyes flicked back to his lips, he sucked in a breath.

Then, you kissed him.

He was stiff and uncertain at first, but as you leaned into him, your body flush with his, he relaxed, opening to exhale as he kissed you back, his tongue the first to swipe over your lips. You opened for him and when your tongues twined, it was electric—a culmination of everything that had been building between the two of you.

Moaning into his mouth, you grabbed the sides of his flannel and pulled him toward your bed, backing up until your legs hit against the mattress. You broke free from the kiss with a smacking sound before you pulled Rami on top of you.

You both silently giggled as he settled between your legs, his weight heavy, warm, and so fucking welcome on top of you.

Rami’s lips pressed into yours again, and soon you were exploring each other’s mouths with fervor. One of your hands had snaked around his torso while the other was thrust into his thick curls, urging his mouth to keep moving against yours.

He held himself up with one arm, but his other hand was roaming—sliding under your shirt to clutch at the soft skin of your side, then moving up to cup your breast over your bra.

With a sighing moan, you wrapped your legs around his waist and slid your own hands under his shirt to clutch at his hot skin. You rubbed across his abdomen and over his chest before moving around to lightly scratch across his back.

Only when you felt the hardness underneath his jeans grinding into your crotch did you regain some semblance of what the hell you were doing.

With one final buck of your hips that drew an obscene, entirely too loud moan from the back of Rami’s throat, you gently pushed him away.

Both of you were panting, swiping at your mouths to clear away the excess saliva.

Rami sat back and slid off your bed, adjusting himself as he stood.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

“I think we better say goodnight,” you said as you scrambled up.

Rami moved back to your open window and turned before he ducked out.

“Goodnight,” he said with a megawatt grin that lit up his entire face.

“Goodnight,” you said, your face split into the same grin.

He leaned in and sweetly kissed the smile from your face.

Your eyes had only just barely opened again, and he was on the roof, ducking down to whisper, “See you at school,” his face lit by that grin again as you watched him shuffle to the edge of the roof and down the ladder.

When the top of the ladder disappeared, you shut your window then dove onto your bed and gurgled with excitement into your pillow.

Senior year was definitely going to be a year to remember.

#rami malek #rami malek x reader #female reader #teenage reader #teenage Rami #guest starring #teenage sami malek #duh #rami malek fluff #rami malek THROWBACK #rami malek fic #high school fic #my writing

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imanativeofswlondondahling · 4 years ago

Text

Becoming A Stark? (27)- Peter Parker x Stark!femReader

Word Count: 4797

Warnings: Swearing probably

Author’s Note: One more chapter after this. It will be going up this Friday. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list which will turn into the sequel tag list after Friday.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List

“Wakey, wakey birthday girl.” Your dad’s voice comes from your doorway.

“If you really love me you’ll let me sleep.” You mumble, pulling your blankets towards your chin.

“Loving you has nothing to do with it. You have to get ready for school. But I wanted to be the first to say happy birthday.” You feel the edge of your bed sink in as your dad sits down. You look over, blinking as the bright light hits you a bit too hard. “How does it feel to be fifteen?”

“The same as it felt to be fourteen?” you shrug. “How did you know it’s my birthday?”

“I’ve seen your birth certificate. I’m not going to forget my kid’s birthday.” Tony reaches forward to push the hair away from your face. “You’ve got a busy day ahead of you. So if it were me, I’d get up and get ready.”

“If it’s my birthday shouldn’t I be allowed to do what I want? Like stay in bed all day?”

“Pepper will never allow that. Get up kiddo. You’ve got school to get to.”

“So you’re saying Mom is the one who’s actually in charge?”

“Most definitely.” Tony says before kissing your forehead. “Now get ready so you can have your birthday breakfast before school.”

“Does it involve green juice?”

“Would it be breakfast without green juice?” You roll your eyes, but push your covers back and climb out of bed. Reaching into your dresser, you pull out a pair of black ripped jeans before going digging in your closet for a shirt for today. Sassy shirt or band tee? Which seems right? But then your eyes fall on the blue tie dyed Pink Floyd tour t-shirt. That’s what you want to wear today. It’s slightly cropped, but not enough for it to be a dress code issue. You pull on the shirt and the jeans and then reach for a pair of red high tops. You love how comfy casual this is. The last thing it needs is your favorite jean jacket and you’ll be set. At least clothing wise anyway. You’ll add a couple small pieces of jewelry, your heart pendant and some earrings, and maybe throw your hair into a ponytail just so it doesn’t annoy you throughout the day. After a couple swipes of mascara and a little lip gloss, you feel ready to head downstairs. When you walk into the kitchen, your mom and dad are both waiting for you. A stack of pancakes are waiting for you with a couple candles stuck in them. You look at them puzzled. “Pepper said I couldn’t give you cake for breakfast so I figured this was the closest we could get.”

“Cake would just spike you and then you’d get hungry way before lunch.” Pepper rolls her eyes.

“I love it.” Nana and Pops had always made your birthday special, but this is a completely different kind of special. Your dad takes a lighter and lights the candles.

“Make a wish.” He pulls his phone out and snaps a picture as you blow out the candles. Tony can’t help but smile at you. “So anything you want to do for your birthday?”

“You don’t have today already planned?”

“I have some rough ideas, but I thought I’d get some input from the birthday girl herself.”

“I want to hang out with Peter after school.”

“Sure, invite him over.”

“I mean outside of the apartment.”

“Take Happy with you.”

“Dad-”

“Nope. Dead set on this one.”

“Fine.” You text Peter to see if he’s up for doing something after school. You’d be surprised if he says something other than sure.

“You have to be home by six.” Pepper adds. “Birthday dinner. But Peter can come too.”

“Where are we going for it?”

“Where would you like to go?” Pepper asks.

“Can we go to that Italian place we went a few weeks back?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Tony says.

“So what did you want to do?” Peter asks as he finds you after your German class.

“I don’t care. I just wanted to be free from the apartment for a few hours.” You admit.

“Well it’s your birthday, so anything you want to do is on the cards.”

“I could go for coffee?” You suggest.

“Coffee it is for my girl.” Peter takes your hand and walks you to the side of the school but you shake your head. “What? This is the quicker way.”

“I promised my dad we would go with Happy. He’ll be waiting in front of the school.”

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like me.” Peter’s nose scrunches as he says this but follows you towards the front of the school.

“That’s just Happy’s personality.”

“He likes you.”

“That’s ‘cause Tony’s my dad. I’m a Stark- he like has to like me or he doesn’t get paid.” You joke. “Did you tell May that my mom and dad said you’re invited to dinner?” Peter nods his head.

“Already texted her about it. She said to wish you a happy birthday.”

“Aw, May’s the best.”

“She is pretty great, as long as you don’t eat her cooking.” Peter says with a smile.

“The vegetarian food she made for me was pretty decent.”

“That’s because most of it was premade.” Peter smirks at you.

“That stuff is pretty hard to mess up.” You admit. You walk outside to the sound of your name being called and feel Peter drop your hand. You both walk over to where Happy is standing.

“How was school kid?” Happy asks you.

“Not bad.” You say as he opens the door for you and Peter to climb into the back seat.

“Where are we heading?” Happy asks as he sits down in the front seat.

“Coffee.” You say, knowing Happy knows where your favorite shop is.

“Anything for the birthday girl.” Happy turns a blinker on and pulls away from the curb. You click open your phone and see that your dad tagged you in a picture from this morning at the breakfast table.

“My dad can’t seem to keep anything private. The whole world knows it’s my birthday now.” You say to Peter.

“It’s just ‘cause he loves you kid.” Happy’s voice flows from the front seat. You roll your eyes, but you know he’s right. Now your notifications are filled with thousands of birthday messages on your dad’s photo. But you also see a few pictures you’ve been tagged in, so you click on your profile to have easier access to them. Some are from people you don’t know, edits of pictures you’ve posted or the paps have, but a few are from Betty, MJ, Ned, and then you see that Peter tagged you in a picture. You click over to peter_p’s profile and see the collage of photos from the few months you two have been dating and some from your snapchat streak before that, but it’s the comment that he posted that gets you.

Happy birthday to the best girlfriend I could have ever asked for @y/nstark. I’m my happiest when I’m with you and I’ve never laughed as hard as I do when you make me laugh. Here’s to fifteen years treating you the best it should. Hopefully fifteen is when I finally get you to watch Star Wars too. You have my <3 babe. Here’s the first of many birthdays together.

You look over at Peter, who is oblivious to the fact that you just read his birthday message. Feeling your eyes on him, he looks up at you. “What’s up?”

“You have my heart too.” Peter takes your hand in his and places kisses on your knuckles. It’s the closest either of you have gotten to saying ‘I love you’ in the almost six months of dating. It feels important.

“I think mine was yours before we even started dating. But I wouldn’t tell your dad that or I might not live to your next birthday.” Peter admits.

“I’m pretty good at keeping secrets.”

“So Peter, how’s your year going at MSST?” Pepper asks after orders have been placed.

“Good. I think anyway. I’m waiting for a couple of midterm grades to come back, but besides that my grades are where I want them to be and I’m taking my SAT and ACT for the third time next weekend.”

“Wanting to score well enough for MIT?” Tony asks.

“He’s trying to aim for scholarship levels. He’s already scored high enough to get in.” You say, unable to not brag about your boyfriend. Peter’s ears go pink at your words.

“Good to hear. If I’m going to talk to them about admitting you next year, then-”

“You’re a year off Dad.”

“I think we could get Peter into college a year early. I went early. I think Peter could do it too. He’s smart enough.”

“I won’t have the necessary classes.” Peter says.

“So we talk to MSST and you could take some extra classes to graduate early.” Tony points out.

“You’re just trying to get him a few states away from me.” You point out before taking a sip from your water glass.

“I think May isn’t ready for me to head off to college for a couple years. Financially.” Peter says with a slight cough.

“Well there’s always the September Grant.”

“Yeah that’s what you told her about when you came over the first time. I don’t think she’ll go for that lie again.” Peter says, reaching for his own water glass.

“The September Grant is a real grant.” Pepper says. “And it is through MIT. Now if somebody,” she looks at your dad, “utilized the name to cover for something else, he’ll have to explain that. But it’s a very real grant.” She lifts her wine glass but before taking a sip she adds, “And whenever you’re ready to head to college, it’s open to you.”

“Wow, um thank you?” Peter says, his cheeks going red. “I think today is supposed to be about Y/N though.” You smile at your boyfriend.

“Right, our birthday girl. How has your birthday been so far?” Your dad asks, taking a sip from his whiskey glass.

“Good. I got a 100 on my English essay. And I passed my Chemistry and Biology midterms. So I won’t have to retake either of those classes next year hopefully.”

“Never doubted you would pass.” Your mom says with a smile. Personally, you don’t love the fact that you have to take two science classes a year at MSST, but you’re doing it.

“A 100 on your essay? That deserves a toast I think.” Tony raises his glass. You roll your eyes but raise your glass too. “To our English scholar and birthday girl.” After clinking glasses, your appetizers were brought out. Bruschetta for you and Pepper, a salad for your dad, and fried cheese bites for Peter. As you all munch on your food, the conversation flows between projects your dad and Peter are working on, SI things, and more school talk from you and Peter. This continues through entrees as well. Your dad offers to order dessert, but Pepper reminds him that there’s cake at home.

Little did you know, there are also a multitude of people waiting for you at home. Uncle Rhodey must have let everyone in, but when you walk into your house there’s a group of people shouting “Happy Birthday!”. You look around the room, seeing your friends- Astrid, Betty, MJ, and Ned- standing near Nana and Pops as well as Vision and, to your and Tony’s surprise, your Aunt Nat standing to the side of the room. Peter’s hand is wrapped around your waist, he knows you’re excited to see your aunt. However, his sixth sense tells him that some of the people in the room, Tony and even possibly Colonel Rhodes, don't seem to like that she’s here. Neither man seems ready to drag her out of the room, at least not in front of you, seeing how she’s part of the reasons that Captain America got away. But you don’t know that. No one except the people who weren't in Germany know that. So he’ll smile and play nice, to make you happy on your birthday.

While you’re over giving hugs to your Nana and Pops, Rhodey and Tony make their way to say something to Natasha. “You’re here just for this. As soon as gifts are opened and cake is cut, you disappear, or-”

“I know. I wasn’t going to disappoint Y/N and miss her birthday.” Natasha says, squaring off to Tony, reminding him that he might be an Avenger but she’s not one to be messed with either.

“You’re still wanted for what happened in Germany.”

“I know.” Before any of them can say anything else, the birthday girl’s arms are wrapped around her aunt’s waist.

“Aunt Nat, you’re here!” Rhodey and Tony step away to give Natasha a moment with you.

“I am. I wasn’t going to miss your birthday.”

“Is Dad and Uncle Rhodey going to send you away to some like prison or something after this?” You ask all worried, but your aunt shakes her head.

“I’m pardoned for one night. It’s a birthday gift I think.”

“I’ll take it.” You pull your aunt in for another hug. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too. But today’s about celebrating you. So…” She trails off, motioning towards your friends and family. Across the room, Betty, Astrid, and Ned all look awestruck at the sight of you talking with the Black Widow.

“Come meet my friends.” You say, pointing towards where your friends are waiting. The room fills with the sounds of you talking with the people you love and who love you. Tony queues FRIDAY to play some of your favorite music and everyone relaxes into celebrating you. You end up on the couch surrounded by your parents to open gifts, the rest of your family and friends sitting in various places in the living room. So far you’ve opened a lot of graphic tees and books. Peter got you a shirt that said ‘The Sass is Strong With This One’ in the Star Wars print as well as a sweatshirt that said ‘Friday is My Second Favorite F Word’ which got a laugh out of everyone, Natasha got you some books you had added to your Goodreads page recently, Betty got you two sweatshirts that read ‘Gangsta Napper’ and ‘I’d Rather Be Sleeping’. You’re now on the gifts from Nana and Pops.

“We thought it was time for you to finally have these.” You unwrap the first of the two boxes, a smaller one. Taking off the paper, you’re surprised to find a jewelry box waiting for you. Inside is a pair of pearl earrings. “These were your mom’s. When she went into rehab, she left them with us, because she wanted to make sure that you had something of hers, one day.” You try to swallow the lump in your throat as you take the paper off the other box, finding a matching necklace. You don’t know what to say. You don’t remember the woman who left these for you as she went off to required rehab after giving birth to a crack baby. When you hear Mom, your thoughts go to Pepper, not the woman who these belong to. But you let the cold, weighted stones drape over your hand as you hold the necklace. “She wanted you to have them one day.”

“Those are beautiful.” Pepper says softly from next to you, breaking the silence that you hadn’t known how to break.

“Right, yeah, thanks Nana. These are gorgeous.” Pepper can tell there’s something about the jewelry that is making you uncomfortable, but she’s not going to just ask you in front of everyone. She can wait until it’s just you, her, and Tony, or even just you and her later. But the Mama Bear in her wants to pull you into her arms and never let you go. You place the two offending boxes on the coffee table.

“My turn!” Astrid says holding a light blue gift bag out towards you. “I’ve been waiting weeks to give this to you.” You pull out the tissue paper and reach a hand in to pull out a pair of Mickey Ears that are sparkling black with a rainbow bow in the center. “It’s the pride ears you talked about!”

“I love them Astrid!” Your friends know how obsessed you are with collecting new Pride stuff to have on hand for Pride Events or just day to day life. “Maybe I’ll wear them to Pride this year.”

“There’s more in there.” You pull out a grey shirt that says ‘To Read or Not To Read, What A Stupid Question’ as well as a baseball tee that reads ‘God Said Adam and Eve so I Did Both’ in Blue, Pink, and Purple ink.

“Astrid, these are amazing.”

Ned gave you a Labyrinth board game, Vision had gotten you some anti-math graphic tees, and now Uncle Rhodey was going to give you gifts before your parents give you their gifts.

“For you Baby Stark.” Your Uncle Rhodey hands you a box and you roll your eyes at the nickname.

“I thought my dad was the one who is supposed to be the one with all the nicknames.”

“Hang around him too long and you start up on them too.” You take the paper off and open the white box to find more graphic tee shirts. The first one you get not even halfway through reading when your dad shouts out.

“Absolutely not.” You finish reading the white print on the black shirt ‘Look Like A Princess Fight Like An Avenger.’

“You don’t like it, Tones?” Your uncle teases.

“Yeah Dad? I thought this would be my motto from here on out.”

“Burn it.” Your dad says angrily and your mom laughs. You turn the shirt around so your confused guests can read it. Everyone laughs as you set it on the coffee table to see what else is in the box. Underneath, there is a black sweatshirt that reads ‘The Trash Get Picked Up Tomorrow. Get Ready.’ Lastly, there’s a tee that reads ‘I’m Allergic to Mondays’. All of the shirts you’ve gotten so far are very you.

“Thanks Uncle Rhodey.” You set the shirts with the growing pile of new ones you’ve received today.

“Our turn.” Your dad says, reaching beside the couch to pull out a few boxes.

“This is way too many.” Most people at the party had limited to one gift. But your dad seems to have forgotten that there is such a thing as limiting one’s self.

“It’s not every day your kid turns fifteen.” You raise an eyebrow, telling him that that excuse doesn’t work. “Plus these are from me and Pep.”

“Fine.” You roll your eyes. He hands you a bigger box first, one that if you had to guess is probably a pair of converse. You take the paper off the box and aren’t surprised to find the familiar black and brown box waiting under the paper. But the shoes you find inside the box, you’ve never seen before. “Galaxy hightops?” You look to your mom, knowing that she had to be the one to find these.

“Thought you might enjoy them.” She says with a smile. You throw your arms around her.

“These are so cool!”

“Wow I see that I’m just chopped liver.” Your dad teases. You wrap your arms around him too.

“Thanks Dad.” He places a kiss on your forehead.

“Open the next one. I think you’ll enjoy that one too.” This box is a slimmer, flatter box and you guess it’s probably some piece of clothing, seeing as it doesn’t weigh a ton. You slide a finger under the tape to open the box open up after taking the paper off and open it up to find another jean jacket looking at you. You’re confused, since you already have one you wear a lot, but you take it out of the box and flip it to the back to look at the jacket before saying anything. And that’s when you see it. The tongue sticking out of a mouth. It’s a Rolling Stones jean jacket. You look between your parents.

“This one was all your dad.” Pepper says softly and the smile grows on your face.

“Even though they’re only subpar?” You ask.

“They make you happy and that’s what matters.” This time, your arms are around your dad before you can stop yourself.

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Always and forever kiddo.” Tony holds you close for a moment, before saying a little louder. “I think you’ve still got a couple more things to open.” He slides another flat box into your lap, saving the most important gift for last.

“Ok, ok.” You say, tearing the paper from the box. You’re guessing this is another clothing item and if it follows the trend of everyone else's gifts, it’s probably a graphic tee. But upon opening the box, you realize your guess is wrong. Sitting in the box is one of the most beautiful dresses you’ve ever seen. It’s a black cotton dress with flowers printed on it. There’s a burgundy trim around the neckline of the dress as well as white iridescent buttons, and at the bottom of the dress is an almost tribal looking print covering the bottom of the dress.

“I saw this in a shop and knew you had to have it.” Pepper admits.

“It’s beautiful.” You breathe out softly. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Pepper says like it’s no big deal, and maybe it isn’t to her, but it is to you. It’s your mom buying things like this because she thought it was important that you have things like that. It matters to you. Tony grabs the last box and hands it to Pepper instead of you, which throws you off. There’s a moment of conversation that happens only between their eyes. But Pepper takes a breath and then holds the box out to you. You look at her, silently asking if you should open it. She smiles at you and you start to take the paper off the small box. As you take the paper off, Pepper explains. “This is something that has been passed down from mother to daughter in my family for generations and when my mom gave it to me, she told me to hold on to it until the day that I wanted to give it to my daughter.” You open another jewelry box to see a beautiful opal ring with two small diamonds on either side of the gem.

“Wow. You want me to have this?” You can’t help but ask, staring at the ring in your hands.

“Why wouldn’t I want my daughter to have it?” Pepper asks, wrapping an arm around you. You lean into her side. “It’s yours until the day you want to give it to your daughter.” She says, as if passing a family heirloom on to you was no big deal. You take the ring out of the black velvet and hold the gold band between two fingers for a moment before sliding it onto your middle finger, guessing that that finger is the one that it will fit the best on. “We can get it resized if we need to.”

“No, it’s perfect.” You say, looking at where it now sits. You might never take the opal ring off, because it looks perfect where it is. You look up from the ring to look at your mom, when out of the corner of your eye, you spot Nana and Pops. They had given you jewelry too and you hadn’t directly put it on. Are you insulting them? “Thanks Mom.” You say giving Pepper another hug.

Later that night you find yourself looking at the ring as you sit on your bed. Your birthday has been pretty perfect, but you can’t help but think about the situation with the jewelry and wonder if you should have handled it differently. Should you have put on your biological mother’s jewelry instead? Should you have put on both? The questions linger in your head as you stare at the ring that you love because it came from Pepper.

“So all in all how was the big birthday?” Pepper’s voice draws you from your thoughts.

You smile before answering, “Good. I don’t think I could have asked for a better birthday.”

“You know you don’t have to wear it if it makes you uncomfortable or anything.” Pepper says as she makes her way towards your bed to sit.

You don’t understand what she means. “Huh?”

“The ring. It’s yours. But you don’t have to wear it-”

“I don’t think I’ll ever take it off.” You cut her off before she has the chance to finish her thought. “I love it Mom.” You reassure her.

“If I had known your grandparents were bringing you jewelry too, I would have saved it for another day. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or try to, I don’t know, step over your mom’s place-” Once again you cut her off before she can finish her thought.

“You didn’t.” Pepper looks at you, trying to gauge where you are at with everything that happened tonight. “If anything, I don’t know how to feel about their gift. But I know how I feel about yours.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Pepper says. You let your hand fall so you’re not staring at the ring, but your fingers of your left hand reach to your right to twist it.

“You know how I told you she left for rehab right after I was born because I was born addicted?” Pepper nods, remembering the story you shared right after you moved in with her and Tony. “Well, that’s a story I heard from someone else. I don’t have any actual memories from her. And I have the quilt she made and now the jewelry, but…” you trail off for a moment, collecting your thoughts. “It’s hard… I don’t know if she actually left those pieces for me to have, or if Nana and Pops took them so she couldn’t sell them for drug money. Nana and Pops have told me the truth about why my biological mother isn’t here. But she was a drug addict. There was a lot of stuff that Nana would mention off hand to Pops about being gone that she missed in terms of jewelry and stuff because my biological mother sold it. So I feel like I only have these pieces because Nana hid them, not because my biological mother wanted me to have them. Getting them as gifts, it… it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Because it’s something that Nana more wanted me to have than the mother that left me to go back to the drugs that could have killed me.” You take in a shaky inhale before continuing. “But you? You wanted me. You adopted me and you gave me stuff that was meant for your daughter.”

“You are my daughter Y/N.”

“There’s nothing saying that you and Dad won’t have a daughter one day.”

“We already do.” Pepper corrects you. “Can I sit?” She motions next to you. You nod. She sits next to you, wrapping her arm around you. You lean into the scent of lavender that calms you especially when coming from Pepper. “You’re my kid. Whether or not your dad and I have more kids one day, you will always be my first born. That’s why I wanted to give the ring to you. Because it felt the way it did when my mom gave the ring to me. It felt right. And one day, you’ll feel the same way when you give it to your kid. You’re my kid.”

“I feel…” You stop yourself, not sure if you should even voice it.

“You feel…?” Pepper asks, but doesn’t push.

You decide to start it a different way. “I worry that Nana and Pops might hate that I found you to be my mom.”

“If they do, we can sit down and talk with them. With everything else you have on your plate, you don’t need to be worried about anything else. Right now, you just need to focus on staying with the things that make you happy.” Pepper says, running her hand through your hair, hoping it will calm you. “You don’t need to spend your birthday night stressing.”

“I love you Mom.”

“I love you too sweetheart. Always have, always will.”

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dehvastation · 4 years ago

Text

Brotherhood at Last

Dehv:~ I’d asked every single female left in the building where Qhuinn had gone. All they’d done was smile at me and pat my shoulder. Tell me it was all fine. Or give me something to do. And since I was incapable of saying no to most of them when they asked so nicely, I’d be sidetracked more than once already. I stood in the kitchen with a few plates that hadn’t fit on the table and watched as an incredibly pleased looking Fritz hurried over to take them from me. I smiled shakily and handed them over and then took a deep breath. I’d managed to get dressed, though I looked a fucking state as I didn’t have a change of clothes so I was still in the basic black tee, scruffed up blue jeans and trainers that had been stuffed in my locker from ages ago to ensure I had something here in case I never needed it. Celebrations for actually being organised.

I turned and moved through the dining room until I could look out into the main entrance way to the manse. Would he come back in that way or through the tunnels? I didn’t even know which way they’d gone. The minute I’d been told to hang fire, I’d done as I was told. Waiting a good five minutes until I ran out the room and down to the gym in just my boxers. Thankfully I hadn’t seen anyone in order to traumatise them with my semi-nekkidness. I’d quickly grabbed what I needed from the locker, thrown some water and soap at my body and then rushed back up to the main hall. When I’d stepped through the door it was like a different place. There was activity happening all around me. I stopped dead and the door slammed shut, effectively getting everyone’s attention all at once. I lifted a hand half heartedly and then licked my lips before speaking, “Anyone want to enlighten me as to why my male was kidnapped by the friendly neighbourhood Brother when I should be spending the night with him celebrating and resting?” I swallowed the fear in my gut and let my gaze flick up to where Wrath’s office doors loomed at the top of the staircase. Movement to the right of them caught my attention and I watched as Beth made her way down until she was standing right beside me. I blinked and watched the others start up what they had been doing before my dramatic entrance. “He’s fine. Lets get this place ready.”

And so the various errands had begun. I stepped forward and nearly tripped over one of the tables that housed a huge buffet of cold meats and sides. Rhage was going to demolish that in no time. I could hear my own heartbeat causing the blood to rush until all I could hear was my own breaths as they came in harsh pants. Slowly increasing in pace until black spots started to darken my vision. That only served to ramp up my anxiety as there was no way I was going to have an episode with my eyes right now. I blinked, breathed, and blinked again before slapping a hand onto the table. All eyes swung to me and I watched as each face slowly came into view and morphed into a sympathetic smile. “What is going on??” I knew I sounded rude, but their collective sighs let me know they weren’t offended. ‘We don’t know exactly. But we do know he’s safe, he’s well and he’s going to be back here any minute…….now.’

As if on cue the doors opened and I saw the Brothers filter in, their faces barely making it into my line or sight as I searched out and found the face of my male. He looked pale and, frankly, shellshocked. I pushed forward and almost knocked the table as my thigh connected. I didn’t care, I just needed to get to Qhuinn and check he was alright. ~

Qhuinn: [I wasn’t sure if my feet even touched the ground after we left the tunnel. If it wasn’t for the burning pain in my chest and the fire in my veins from the blood of the Brothers, of MY Brothers, running through them, I would swear it was all a dream. But you didn’t feel things in dreams and I sure as fuck was feeling things. Would Dehv feel them through the bond? Did he know? Would he be proud? I needed to see him, to tell him, to have him reassure me. I hoped he was resting. I hoped he wasn’t. I tried to pick up the pace but a hand clamped on my shoulder, Wrath’s voice deep and commanding. “Relax. He’s probably waiting for you with the females.” Rhage chimed in, “Hopefully with food. I’m fucking starving” There were a lot of groans and laughter following that, it was typical Rhage. He had a one track mind, not that I had any room to talk except my mind wasn’t on food. The door opened and we spilled out into the massive dining area and my eyes focused like lasers on my male. It didn’t phase me that I was only dressed in sweats or that the males behind me had basically stripped down to their leathers, each of us had our robes draped over our arms. Though that lasted only as long as it took the doggen to scurry over and start removing those to be cleaned. I was sure he saw the mark on my chest, the newly minted scar that was red and angry looking at the moment. Though maybe he didn’t have time to track that as I crossed the room, the voices around us muted as he became my sole focus. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him close, my nose going straight to his neck to inhale his scent. He was here, this was real. Fuck…this was real. I leaned back and met his gaze, certain my eyes were the size of saucers as the words fell out in a hushed breath of wonderment] I’m a Brother….

Dehv: ~ I took in the ravaged throat, the blood on his chest and the wild look in his eyes and moved instantly. I knew he’d seen me and we sort of crashed in the middle. I wasn’t aware of much around me, though it would seem that the doggen were buzzing around and the females were greeting their males in my periphery. No one else mattered. I was wound tight, having felt various emotions through our bond over the last few hours. None of which I could make a huge amount of sense of. They bounced from fear to nerves to elation to uncertainty and back again. Other things were funneled through as well, the hazy drugged feeling, pain and determination. All of it was like being on the end of a rubber band someone was using to throw spit balls at the back of someones head. Constantly being stretched and then released. I managed a deep breath when I wrapped around Qhuinn, inhaling not only his scent, but those of every person who had touched him. I knew them all. The rage that scored through me was a knee jerk reaction to him being fed on, hurt, panicked. I was about to turn and growl out my exact thoughts on the matter when Qhuinn spoke. It was quiet. Practically a whisper, but the way he said it couldn’t have made it sound any louder to my ears. I blinked and then felt my mouth pop open. I stepped back and bypassed his throat, the mere thought of someone else feeding from him when I wasn’t there still had my blood boiling. Instead I lowered my gaze to this chest. Then to over his shoulder at each of the multiple brothers in just their leathers. They all had scars, scars that matched exactly as the blooded mess on Qhuinn’s chest would turn into. I felt the pride swell almost instantly. My grin widened and I grabbed my males face and kissed him hard. It wasn’t something that should get anyone catcalling, but of course the brothers whistled for effect. It wasn’t a kiss that was meant to lead to anything, for a start I couldn’t stop grinning, so it was mostly laughter and teeth. I stepped back to meet Qhuinn’s gaze once I had reassured myself he was alive in there and then shook my head. “That would explain the ups and downs of the last hour. I thought….it doesn’t matter. Oh fuck! Qhuinn, you’re a fucking Brother.” I knew he knew that already, I knew that he was likely shell shocked. But he deserved it, ten times over. I then laughed even harder and brushed my fingers lightly over the mess that was his throat, ensuring his chin was still tipped up to look at me. “Engaged and inducted all in the same 48 hour period. How are you holding up?” I calmed myself with some difficulty and tried to keep the massive grin off my face. I could tell that there was warring emotions going on, I didn’t even need the bond for that. His eyes held something that I’d have guessed was fear, but I couldn’t be entirely sure. There looked to also be pride and perhaps some slow dawning that he was worthy of all of this and was accepted and loved by the brothers, despite his internal demons. I hoped that was it, but with Qhuinn it could have been any number of things, and I trusted him to tell me so I didn’t have to second guess. Even if we were still standing in the middle of the room with every set of eyes on us. ~

Qhuinn: [I didn’t loosen my grip from around Dehv, instead if anything I held him tighter after that kiss. I blinked and felt that tumble in my gut at his words. It only cemented the feeling that this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. These things didn’t happen to me. I was the curse, the abomination. The cast out and discarded. My breathing caught and it took me several tries before I could pull the next lungful from the air. I met Dehv’s gaze just as a large hand clapped on my shoulder and a voice was telling me to ”breath, princess, it’s real and you’re spectacular”…I rolled my eyes and felt the doubt slip away even if only for the moment. I grumbled under my breath and flipped off the diamond eyed brother as I fought the grin growing on my face. I nipped Dehv’s lower lip and hummed contently] I feel like it’s my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. But at the same time I don’t feel right celebrating with those laying in the hospital beds, ya know? Also, I’m fucking starving and know if we don’t eat quick the hoover that is Rhage will eat it all.

Dehv: ~ I watched the varied emotions that ran through Qhuinn’s brain and therefore across his face. It was easy to see what was happening. He was putting in so much energy trying to connect the dots that he’d forgotten to put up the walls he normally did when something hit him hard. The little mouse up there was really working hard, and it was almost sweet that he couldn’t quite believe it. I had no choice but to lean closer when I felt teeth against my lip. He drew me in, always had. The smile I had was just for him and I nudged him with my nose so I could meet his gaze,my laugh light when the words I was about to speak were already said by a Brother. Instead I echoed them and answered the lingering doubts my male might have. “Davidson is going to be ok, I know it. He’ll pull through completely and you’ll patch yourself up and that scar will heal into a symbol of how important you are to these guys and to your race. So you better start believing it.” I nodded and then chuckled, “Rhage is likely to hoover up every last piece of food, why don’t I grab us a couple of places of food and you can go and check in with your Brothers now that you’re feeling a little more relaxed?” I smiled again and looked over Qhuinn’s shoulder. The males and their mates were all chatting or playing pool. Rhage already had a plate of food and was looking like he’d be onto a second soon enough. “Check in with V too and grab us both a drink. I feel we’ll be needing it with all the excitement.” I squeezed again, my lips finding his in another kiss before I stepped away and started towards the food table. There really was enough to feed a small army here, yet I knew that before the party was over every last thing here would have been eaten. ~

Qhuinn: [I let out a low growl against Dehv’s lips at that final soft kiss. If I had my way we would be outta here to celebrate properly but I knew that wasn’t an option. As wrong as it felt with some trainees still laid up in the hospital, we did deserve a little celebration right now as Dehv had pointed out. We’d survived, so far everyone had save for that damned human. Dehv had agreed to be mine and this last bit was just icing on the cake. I also knew that this wasn’t just for show. My ass was gonna be pushed harder now that it was official and I had even more to prove. I could only hope that it wasn’t all in vain and they’d realized I was the fuck up we all knew I could be. I watched Dehv head towards the food table, eyeing that ass a little too appreciatively when I heard the throat clearing of a Brother behind me. I spun on my heels, not even a little ashamed to have been caught up ogling my male. Tohr flashed a small grin at me and inclined his head to the side for me to follow him to the little alcove away from the noise. After asking how I was holding up and all that, he lowered his voice more, “Wrath’s going to give you a few days to wrap your head around this, it’s actually been in the works for a while so don’t think this was a spur of the moment decision that we’re going to regret.” He raised a brow like he knew that thought was just sitting idle in the back of my brain. I gave a slight nod, “After that, we have a lead for you to follow. E’s trying to dig up some more information on it. The only stipulation so far is that it’s super hush so you’re going to need to make sure you stay under the radar, Q. It’s the only way you’re going to get close.” Hope flared in my chest. This was almost too much. At the same time I knew that meant shit was likely going to get fucked up somewhere along the way. I bit my lip and let out a low breath] Can I fill Dehv in?

[My brow furrowed, I knew things were different when it came to Brothers and trainees as far as intel and all that, but this was different, right? I glanced at my male across the room and the plates of food he held for us. I wouldn’t keep him in the dark, not about this. Tohr grinned, “Normal circumstances these things we keep close to the vest, but it’s different with Dehv so yes, you can fill him in even though technically he’s still a trainee. We trust you to keep handling things professionally.” I snorted and then tried to stop myself. It was weird, but it was evident they did. After a few more minutes, I was given my reprieve and set off to rescue my male from the females trying to add even more to our plates.]

Dehv: ~ I got to the table and started to look around at the multiple dishes that were laid out. There was tons of food, and while I’d had a hand in actually laying it out, now I was focused with Qhuinn back in the room I realised I didn’t remember a single thing that was made. A laugh beside me had me looking over and I smiled at one of the many females that moved silently around the place. Always smiling and happy to see anyone they came across, brother, trainee or doggen. “Hey, I was just realising that I really didn’t pay any attention at all when I was helping you guys get all this set up. I must have looked like a complete idiot, so I thank you for only laughing when I wasn’t looking.” I winked and grinned. Pleased that the female laughed at me. Mary was pretty quiet, but insightful, and I liked that about her. No sooner had I opened my mouth to speak again that I felt someone else behind me. I smiled and stepped back slightly as Bella made her way into my eye line. “Is this an ambush? I swear I can get food for me and Qhuinn without dropping anything. I’m house trained for these kind of events.” They both laughed again and then started pointing out what all the food was. I rolled my eyes when the sausage rolls were pointed out. “Really? These are what sausage rolls look like. Good to know for when I sort out a picnic for Qhuinn.” I ducked and moved fast around the other side of the table when both females swatted at my head playfully. As I looked up at them both I felt my attention move past them to my male who was chatting with Tohr. I let my attention move around the room and then smiled slightly at the thought that popped into my head.

I could tell when the females knew they’d lost me as they stopped talking and both started to smile like they could read my mind. I waggled a finger at them and put the empty plates back on the table before walking to meet my male half way. I turned him on the stop and pulled him back to the side of the room where he’d been standing with the Brother a few moments before. “So, I had an idea.” I grinned widely and then turned Qhuinn so he was facing the room, stepping in behind him and wrapping my arms around his waist so I could settle my chin on his shoulder. Voice low so only he could hear me. “We have nearly everyone here who means anything to either of us who is allowed to be here. And I can understand if you want to wait or make calls to see how fast you can get the Brothers 3 here. But, fancy taking life by the balls and seeing if we can convince this bunch that a mating ceremony either today or in the next few days when Davidson is out the hospital is the best way to celebrate your quick thinking and induction into the Brotherhood?” I felt myself hold my breath. I wasn’t in any way worried Qhuinn would say no to the mating ceremony, but I figured that maybe all of this would be too fast and that would mean he'd want to run and hide or fight that shit in his chest that would insist it wasn’t real. I hoped that ensuring I was wrapped around him, and the looks the females were currently giving us was enough to convince him that my idea really was the best idea. I squeezed him gently anyway and tried to clam down on any nerves that tried to tell me I was about to fuck up the whole night. ~

Qhuinn: [My brows pinched when my male came back to me empty handed, despite the food still on the tables, yet I couldn’t help let out that sigh of contentment as his arms wound around my waist.I leaned back into him and grinned when he mentioned having an idea. Ideas between us could go one of two ways though if he was coming up with it, it was more 75/25 if shit would work out. My ideas on the other hand were more like 90/10 that shit would go out and fast. I was captain oblivious much of the time, but I wasn’t sure I could be more shocked at the words that came next. Here, I was getting ready to tell him that I wanted the ceremony before we went to hunt down the asshole that killed me and the jackass beat me to the punch. I no longer cared if this was all just a fucked up dream, I was going to hold on to it as long as I could. My face split into a wide ass grin as I settled my hands over his. I tried to keep my voice low, but I knew the others could hear if they wanted] The Brothers 3 would be here in a flash if they aren’t on their way already. V mentioned something about calling them, but if you want Davidson there, we can wait another night or two.

Dehv: ~ I didn’t do a particularly good job of hiding my smile at the indecision I could feel flowing through my male. I knew it wasn’t because he didn’t want it, but probably more to do with it overwhelming his brain at a time when he was already filled with a million thoughts and feelings. I probably should have waited to ask, or at least raised the topic when we weren’t in the middle of the room filled with brothers and their Shellans. However, I had always opened my mouth and spoken before thinking when it came to Qhuinn, so why stop now. I knew the minute his mind was made up and his fog had cleared, the smile was bright enough to burn up the whole room. That alone was worth it, whether the answer was yes or no.

The mention of Davidson settled my mind where it had already been going. Him and Nhick were the closest things to family I had on the training side. While I loved how the Brotherhood had embraced me, and how Qhuinn had come to mean everything to me, they were also my family. I nodded with my chin still resting on Qhuinn’s shoulder, tipping my head slightly to place a kiss on his jawline. “You’re right, I would like him and Nhick with me. Think you can summon the energy to go and speak to our King about whether he’d open his home to three trainees for a ceremony in a couple of days time so Davidson can be on the way to healing by then? Nhick won’t feel so guilty then either. And that gives Wraith a chance to annihilate you with his wit before you officially go through having the entire of my name stamped across your shoulder blades. Once that has healed we can go and do the tattoo privately together. I’m sure you know a good place.” I chuckled quietly at the thought of getting those done to really solidify things, like names carved into skin wasn’t a permanent enough reminder. “I’ll hang back while you ask, and grab us food this time. Since I got sidetracked with my amazing plans the last time. Just don’t be too long, I like having my hands on you.” ~

Qhuinn: [I growled soft at the tender kiss to my jaw and then groaned louder when Dehv said I would have to be the one to talk to Wrath and deal with Wraith. Dammit. I turned my head and nipped Dehv on the jaw and grumble more, my voice low as his was] And here I thought you wanted the mating, instead you’re throwing me to the wolves.

[I spun in his arms and planted a solid kiss on that damn grin of his] Fine, you go get food, plenty of it and I’ll go try to sweet talk the King.

[I nipped his chin, then squared my shoulder as I turned away and walked towards Wrath, Beth, and Tohr. I was halfway across the room when Fritz announced the arrival of the Brothers 3. Great, this was not going to be fun or easy. Well, at least it’d be like pulling a band aid off, telling them all in one fail swoop. If that bandage was attached with crazy glue and the wrapping went around a few thousand times. Super duper. I made it five more feet before I wished the ground would swallow me whole. “DA FUCK, Q??” I cringed and closed my eyes, counting to five. The room dropped to a deadly silent before I heard the thud of an elbow to the ribs and a hissed out order to behave, then the building snickering of the Brotherhood and their Shellan’s. This was my life now. I turned and snorted as Wraith bowled towards me, E heading to Wrath, and Shade made a beeline to Dehv. I managed to just barely brace myself from the blond idiot as he wrapped me up in one of his gigantic bear hugs, making my breath catch deep in my chest. “You fucker. You almost get your ass killed, then celebrate it by…oh fuck, you were hurt.” His arms dropped and I stumbled back, rubbing my chest and glaring. “Sorry. But dammit. We were worried about the accident and of course King over there told us we had to wait until now to show because of the whole big hush hush ceremony and what not. E’s been beside himself with worry, Shade too. Not me though, I knew you were fine.” I rolled my eyes at the blatant lie and felt that tug in my chest of belonging only grow.] I’m good, I promise. Well not good, but alive and all that shit. We were gonna pop over at sunset. Figured E’d be called here to help out too with all he injuries and shit.

[Wraith nodded and huffed a little about the lack of being able to get to me a little more as he hooked an arm over my bare shoulder. “So that’s the big mark, huh? You know just because you’re a Brother now it doesn’t get out of being our brother.” I laughed soft and elbowed his side] Never gonna get rid of me, Wraith. You’re all stuck. Speaking of…Dehv agreed to the whole mating thing. I was on my way to ask about Wrath opening the manse so you and the ladies can be there when the carving happens?

[I knew that Wraith would get what I was asking without me actually having to ask. We were often on the same wavelength when it came to things like that. He grinned wide, “Like we’d miss it. IF he won’t allow it here, we’ll go somewhere else, the cave maybe. But let’s see what the dude has to say.” He steered me towards Wrath and E, not slowing or stopping as the two stopped their conversation, each hitching a brow but it was Wrath who spoke first. “Why do I feel like troubles at my feet right now?” E snorted a laugh, “Don’t think you’re far off with that, especially if you saw their faces right now. Q, glad to see you’re healing well, but if you do that to me again, I will have your head, understood?” I did another roll of my eyes and grinned at him as I stepped close to give him a quick hug] You’ll probably have to get in line for that, E. Since you’re both here, Wrath, my King, I would like to ask for a favor. One I probably, most definitely don’t deserve, but I am going to ask anyway. Dehvastation and I decided we do not want to wait much longer to make things official, I think the accident really opened our eyes to some things.

[Wrath nodded slowly and I could almost feel the burn of his gaze as he waited for me to get on with it. Wraith squeezed my shoulder and E gave me an encouraging smile] We would like to obviously have the ceremony here with all the Brothers and their Shellans, but Dehv would also like Davidson and Nhick here and I would like Wraith, E, and Shade, along with their females. Perhaps in a few days when Davidson is able to attend?

[I waited and felt like the walls were caving in with each tick of the clock…]

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ashsblurbs · 5 years ago

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destiny or accident

Steve found his way back to Brooklyn after traveling around the world for his art for many years. He didn’t know why he was back in town. Maybe he missed home. Maybe he missed the way the town welcomed him back with its shouts and calls. The smells from the bakeries escaping through the air, wrapping him in a hug. He walked into his favorite coffee shop looking for a quiet place to draw, just a quiet place to think. He looked around hoping that he would see the one person he always loved would have been here. Maybe the reason he was back here was because he missed him.

“Pepper tell the school I will be there in fifteen minutes. I am going to stop for coffee first. Then I will pick Peter up. Thanks Pep.” Tony hung up the phone feeling the exhaustion escape over him. He really needed a pick me up fast. Peter was once again sick with a stomach bug. His five-year-old son had the weakest immune system of any kid. The poor thing was most likely bawling his eyes out. Ten minutes and daddy will be there, Tony thought. “Hi, can I get a large black coffee with a hint of sugar. Thanks, and keep the change.”

Steve froze at his seat when he heard the voice of his ex-boyfriend. He slowly turned in his chair to see Tony. Tony looked the same except for the gray in his hair and the business suit he was wearing. Steve never thought he would see Tony as the businessman his father wanted him to be. Tony was more of the man in ripped jeans and a band tee with oil stains all of it. The man that was standing in front of him he didn’t know but he did. He did want to get to know this man. He stood up and slowly walked over.

Tony typed away on his phone trying to make sure everything was running smoothly with his company. Honestly, he should just retire. Maybe get back to what he loved. Tony was shaken out of his thoughts by a tap on his shoulder. “Please no autographs today.” Tony turned around and he was taken aback by the sight in front of him. “Oh, I don’t want an autograph. Just wanted to say hi.” Tony just stared in awed. Steve looked wonderful. His hair was much longer and had a full beard. He definitely embodied the idea of a starving artist look. The silence between them became not awkward but more familiar.

“Steve.” Steve snaked around Tony to grab his coffee and leave. That was all he wanted to do was to say hi one last time. “Well, it was nice seeing you Tony.” Steve turned to leave even though deep down he wanted to stay right there forever.

“Wait don’t go.” Steve turned around to fine the Tony he remembered so many years ago. Only a few knew Tony without all of his masks and his walls were down. Steve just wondered if he was still one of those people. “I mean, hi Steve. How are you?” Tony had a dust of pink on his cheeks. He looked away trying to gain back some dignity which just made Steve smile. “Would you like to come sit with me?” Tony shook his head yes but then his eyes got really wide. He was no longer a twenty-one-year-old college kid, he was a full fledged adult with responsibilities. What would a few minutes hurt? “I just have a quick phone call to make.”

Tony went over to the corner and dialed Pepper’s number hoping she wasn’t to busy. Then on the third rang she picked up. “Thank god, you are my life saver.”

“Something wrong at Peter’s school?”

“No, I haven’t even made it to his school yet. I was wondering if you could do me a big favor and pick him up for me.”

“Tony, you know I would love to pick up my nephew, but I have four meetings today now because you were supposed to have those meetings. Can I ask why you won’t pick up your sick son?”

Tony huffed not really wanting to get into the details but knew Pepper would know he was lying if he tried. “Okay I will ask Happy. The reason I can’t is because I ran into Steve Rogers.” The line went silent for a second. “You are telling me you ran into the Steve Rogers. The one that got away. Randomly on a Tuesday afternoon after not speaking to each other for ten years.” This made Tony laughed. Life was funny like that.

Steve sat at the table doodling away once again waiting for Tony to get back. Something in him fluttered with excitement. He missed Tony very much. He missed all of the late-night talks and their inside jokes. If it wasn’t for Steve wonderful opportunity he got to study in Italy, which he doesn’t regret, he would have married Tony in a heartbeat. Life doesn’t always work out as plan. “What are you drawing?” Tony was back and sat down across from him like not a day had gone by. Steve turned the notebook towards him to show a drawing of the empire skyline. “This is beautiful. Wasn’t that our apartment.” Steve looked at where Tony was pointing. “Yeah, I must have drawn it on instinct.” Tony ran a gentle finger along the photo remembering how lovely those days were, but he wouldn’t change anything.

Steve closed his notebook and tucked it into his bag not wanting Tony to find some of his other drawings. Others were a little more personal. “So, how is life? I think I read somewhere you took over your dad’s company. Never saw that coming.” Steve chuckles. Tony shrugged with a slight smile. “Yeah I took over the company about five years ago after my son was born.” Steve’s eyes got really wide and coughed on his drink. Tony has a kid.

“You have a son?” Tony took out his phone and found a recent photo of a toothy grinned Peter. “Yeah, he’s five and my whole world.” Steve looked at the photo and saw Tony all over this kid. He just knew he was going to be a great man like his father. “He is such a cute kid. You and your wife should be proud of him.” Steve saw slight sadness cross Tony’s face. “I actually don’t have a wife. I was dating a lovely woman and then we got pregnant. Then the night Peter was born she died from a brain hemorrhage. So, it’s just been me and the kid.”

“I’m sorry, Tony”

Tony waved him off. “It’s fine. Both of us are very happy. We go and visit her every year on her birthday. It’s wonderful. But enough about me and my sad life. How’s yours? You know I have several of your painting on my walls at home. They are amazing, Steve. I always knew you could do it.” Like it was second nature Tony placed his hand on top of Steve’s. Steve didn’t move. It actually felt nice. “I’ve been all around the world studying different art techniques. Being back here doesn’t compare to anywhere else. My life hasn’t really felt complete.”

Tony gulped knowing actually what Steve meant. He hadn’t felt complete since there last night together either. Yeah, he had Peter which he loved very much but there was a hole in his heart that only one man could fix. “Steve, do you ever wish life was different?” Steve removed his had to put in his lap and looked out the window. Was he going to tell the truth or give Tony an excuse? “Tony don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t wish for my life to be different.” Tony was taken aback. He didn’t expect that. “But I do wish one thing. I wish you were there with me the whole time. I wonder if the universe knew we were ready to find each other again. At the right time.”

Tony let out the breath he was holding. He agreed with everything. Deep down his heart was missing Steve too without him knowing. Tony grabbed the front of Steve’s shirt pulling him closer for a kiss. This was what he was missing in his life.

“Would you maybe like to get dinner tonight?” Steve grabbed a pen and a piece of paper to write his number down. “Yeah, I would love to. Here’s my number.” Tony picked it up and laughed. “This is the same number you had ten years ago. I still have it.”

#stony #stevetony #superhusbands #superfamily #ash's blurbs

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oh-obrien · 5 years ago

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Inscrutable {3}

Inscrutable: Impossible to Understand or Interpret

Masterlist

Relationships: Stiles Stilinski x Original Female Character

Word Count: 6,159 6,537

Warnings: Mentions of underaged drinking

Author’s Note: Part Three!!! Uhh some angst? Soft Stiles? I really like this part and I’m very excited for the next one!! Message me or send me an ask to be tagged!

THIS PART OF INSCRUTABLE HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH MORE CONTENT AND HAS ALSO BEEN EDITED MORE THROUGHLY!

Friday night rolled around, and Finley found herself bobbing her head along to the beat of her ‘Old Skool’ playlist, which was comprised of all the 80’s music her dad made them listen to growing up, while she Dutch braided her hair in the bathroom mirror. A knock came from the door that led into her suitemates’ room and she paused her music, “it’s open!” She called loud enough that they could hear her. Bailey, a midfielder for the lacrosse team, slipped into the bathroom, her makeup bag in her hand.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come tonight?” She asked while she pulled out her foundation and a makeup sponge. “It’s going to be an absolute blast! Beach party is one of the most looked forward to parties of the year!” Finley finished her left braid, made sure it looked okay in the mirror, and tied it off with a rubber band.

She looked over to Bailey who had just applied way too much foundation to her face, her neck and face were going to be two different colors but that was not any of Finley’s business. “I’m totally fine. I told you I have a project to work on for my Intro to Law class,” she reminded her suitemate.

Bailey pulled out her mascara and applied a heavy coat to her eyelashes. “Oh, right I forgot you mentioned that,” she fanned her hands in front of her eyes to help the mascara dry faster. Finley continued to section her hair for her right braid and carefully watched her hands work in the mirror. “With that boy, right?” Bailey asked.

“Stiles,” Finley reminded Bailey of his name and continued to tightly braid her hair, “he’s on the men’s club team actually.” She had just remembered they had the lacrosse connection, and she also knew that meant they would soon be seeing each other outside of their class and project meetings thanks to the mixed morning workouts the two teams had agreed to participate in.

“Oh right! We have a mixer with them two Saturdays from tomorrow.” Bailey told her. Finley hadn’t been much of the party type before she arrived at college. Mainly because she couldn’t get drunk, or even buzzed off of alcohol; a special strain of wolfsbane needed to be mixed in for her to feel anything other than sober at all. Being the designated driver had gotten old for both her and her brother very quickly. “Well, we have to call it a mixer,” Bailey pulled out white eye black and applied it to her nose, so it looked like sunscreen. “It’s a risky business party.”

Finley pulled her second rubber band off her wrist, “risky business?” She asked, slightly confused. “Like the movie?”

Bailey laughed after she finished coating her lips in ‘ruby red’ lipstick and smiled at herself in the mirror. “Yes! Like the movie!” She rolled her eyes and closed her make up bag. “It’s like you don’t know anything about college!” Finley rolled her own eyes in response before walking into the threshold of her room, grabbing the door handle with her hand.

“Have fun tonight, let me know if you’re going to be hungover in the morning. I’ll go out and get you and Kenna coffee,” Finley told her suitemate before closing her door that led to the bathroom. She was immediately enveloped in the warmth and comfort of her room, the orange scent from her diffuser relaxing her when she breathed in. The warm glow of the lights she had hanging along the top of her wall had her even more relaxed, some of the tension seeping out of her body. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, basking in the silence for the first time in nearly three weeks.

She had been working all summer before moving her brother in, traveling around the country, and to a few international locations with her dad. After an entire summer of traveling and trying to avoid getting killed, she wanted at least a few days to relax, but instead she had to move her brother and then herself into college. Taking a deep breath, Finley opened her eyes when she heard a knock on the bathroom door that led to her room.

“It’s open!” She groaned watching the handle twist before her other suitemate, Mckenna, walked in. She had on a pair of white, denim shorts, and a sunflower printed bikini top, a pair of sunglasses sitting on top of her head. “Please wear a coat or at least bring one,” Finley pinched the bridge of her nose.

Mckenna rolled her eyes and leaned on the frame of the door while Bailey pulled a pair of ‘lifeguard’ shorts over her red, ‘lifeguard’ one piece swimsuit. “It’s me you’re concerned about?” Mckenna laughed and motioned to Bailey who now had a hard lemonade can in her hand. “That’s her third, and it’s only seven.”

“I don’t want to be up early tomorrow because she’s throwing up,” Finley groaned and Mckenna stepped into her room closing the bathroom door behind her. Bailey and Mckenna thought that Finley was only a light sleeper, they didn’t know that when one of them was throwing up in the bathroom, Finley could both hear and smell everything.

“You say that like she won’t go home with a soccer or men’s player,” Mckenna laughed while she sat on top of one of the two desks in Finley’s room. “So, I wouldn’t be too worried about her waking up you or the boy you’re having over. Speaking of,” she swung her legs a little bit. “When’s he coming over?”

Finely looked at her watch, “ten minutes. If even,” she shrugged. “And he’s not staying over he has a girlfriend,” she added after the fact. She knew Stiles would most likely hang around as long as she let him, but she didn’t plan on trying anything with him. She didn’t know him well enough to pursue anything yet anyways.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mckenna waved her off while sliding off the desk. “We’ll be gone by eight at the latest, we’re going over to one of the senior’s apartments before heading over to the soccer house.” Mckenna opened the bathroom door and they both noticed that Bailey was trying, and failing, to braid her hair. “Let’s go Bails,” Mckenna threw a wink over her shoulder at Finley before leading Bailey back into their room, both doors separating the three closing behind the pair.

Finley let out a loud groan as she got up and locked the bathroom door from her side, making sure a drunk Bailey wouldn’t be able to barge in any time soon. She walked over to her dresser and untied her sweatpants, letting them fall to the floor while she dug around her in a drawer for a pair of shorts.

She couldn’t figure out why she felt so on edge, she wanted to rip someone’s head off and cry at the same time, a feeling she hadn’t felt since the last big blow up with her grandmother months prior. Sure, the full moon was that night, but she had been able to more than control herself for the event since she was six years old. That couldn’t be why her emotions were so volatile. She grabbed her phone and unlocked it, looking for when she was due for her next heat, and it wasn’t supposed to occur for another two months.

Stepping out of her sweats she pulled the black Nike pros up her legs and flattened the band across her stomach. Tucking the extra fabric from her long sleeve shirt into them before pulling a pair of cabin socks on her feet. Her room often got warm at night, even with the air on as cold as she could make it she would get too hot to wear sweatpants for more than a couple hours at a time. Walking over to her body length mirror she turned to the side and looked over herself for a few moments.

She had always been on both the taller and ‘curvier’ side, even when she had been younger. The body type ran in her family, even Cian was on the larger side of D1 quarterbacks. Since she had been running around the country, quite literally, most of the summer and began intense conditioning for lacrosse soon after, she had lost around fifteen pounds and started to gain more defined muscles. She wasn’t uncomfortable with how her body had been changing, but it had come as a shock when she weighed in at media day and noticed the drop in her weight. She did enjoy how her legs were becoming even more defined than they already were and her ass looked amazing.

She jumped when a knock sounded from her room door and walked over to open it. Stiles stood on the other side, his legs clad in a pair of maroon sweats that read ‘Beacon Hills Lacrosse’ and his top half covered in just a while tee shirt. “Hey!” She smiled opening the door wider so he could walk in.

“Hey,” he winced, in what looked like pain, while he dropped his backpack on her floor, “I am so sore.” He groaned, stretching his neck out. Finley watched as he bent down slowly to pull his water bottle out of his bag, holding his back while he did.

“Oh, right men’s started a couple days ago,” she laughed watching as he sat down on the edge of her bed. “We were watching you guys run suicides earlier between shotting drills,” she felt a smirk pull across her face when she saw Stiles look at her with his eyes narrowed. “Looked awful if you want my opinion, but I went through that at the beginning of the season, so I don’t feel bad per say. I just feel sympathetic.”

Finley considered taking some of his pain away, but she wasn’t sure how he would react if she did, or if he already knew about that aspect of being a werewolf. Instead, she pulled a chair over to her closet to stand on while she looked around her top shelf for her heating pad. She usually used it before her heats when she would start feeling the symptoms of it onsetting, but she also discovered it worked magic on humans when their muscles were tense or tight.

“Here, hang on,” Finley plugged it into her extension cord and turned it on to the high setting. “Sit back on the wall with this on your back.” She told him after handing him the heating pad. She watched Stiles give her an ‘I don’t believe you’ look while he settled himself against the wall, the heating pad on his lower back. She stood across the room, her arms crossed over her chest while she watched some of the tension wash out of his body, his shoulders dropping and his face relaxing.

Stiles opened his eyes to look at Finley, a smug smirk on her face. “It worked,” he smiled while he rested his head against the wall, still watching her. Finley walked across the room and sat down on her bed on the opposite send from stiles, her legs crossed while she unlocked her phone.

“I’m right sometimes,” she laughed while she pulled up a takeout menu. “So how does grilled cheese sound for dinner?” She held up the menu on her phone while Stiles turned his head to the side to watch her. That was when he noticed she had on glasses, he had never seen her wear them before. The frames complementing the shape of her face and their tortoiseshell print making her blue eyes pop.

“Grilled cheese?” He asked in slight amusement, “doesn’t sound much like take out, we could make that here if we wanted.” He spoke. Finley watched as his body relaxed even more and he sat up a little bit straighter, pulling his legs in so they crossed.

“It’s a place called GCDC and it’s a grilled cheese restaurant,” she handed him her phone that had the menu pulled up on it. “If nothing catches your eye, we can try somewhere else, but I am the one from around here y’know?” Watching Finley skeptically out of the corner of his eye Stiles took the menu and began looking it over.

A few minutes later Stiles handed her back her phone. “Okay so, maybe I was wrong,” he mumbled. “This place actually looks really good, and this heating pad is fucking magical,” he moved it further up his back. Finley noticed how much more his face had relaxed and smiled lightly, he looked cozy and warm. Mixed with the subtle scent of orange filling her room and the warm glow of her lights she found herself wanting to curl up next to him and take a nap. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Finley realized she would have to actually go see her dad in the morning and sit down and talk to him about her feelings, the last thing she wanted to do. However, she could not let her emotions get the best of her in this situation and understood that her dad tended to give good advice in the area of ‘werewolf dating and romance’, as much as she hated to admit it.

“Yeah, I know,” Finley mumbled not wanting to open her eyes and have to look at Stiles again, “and that was to both of your statements,” she added. “If you tell me what you want, I’ll call and order it,” Finley reached over to the desk that had been placed at the end of her bed and grabbed a post it and pencil.

Stiles reached out for her phone that still sat unlocked on her bed and pulled his bottom lip between his teeth while he scanned the menu again. “Would you recommend a grilled cheese or mac and cheese?” Stiles looked at Finley over the phone, his brows knit together trying to make the tough decision between the two.

“So how about this,” she bounced the pencil on her leg, “we each get a grilled cheese and then we can split a mac and cheese?” Finley suggested. “Because both are amazing and I’m actually pretty hungry tonight.” She shrugged, she had lost weight, she could eat a little more crap than she usually would. “So, four cheese mac and cheese,” she wrote it down.

Stiles looked back and forth between a couple options before settling on one. “And-” he dragged out the word while he tried to make up his mind. “I’ll get the Young American I guess,” he shrugged while he handed Finley’s phone back to her. “Which do you usually get?” He asked while she wrote his order down.

“I usually get the French Onion,” she also wrote down her order. “Uhh, I have soda and iced tea and shit in the fridge unless you want something else to drink.” She tried to think of what else they could possibly order from the restaurant. “Anything else you could think of that you would want from there?” Finley asked. Stiles shook his head, his hair that still looked slightly damp from his shower, flopping on his forehead. It was a cute look, especially with how relaxed he seemed, but Finley knew she needed to reign it in before she accidently said something she regretted. She had never been known to have the best brain to mouth filter and did not need it getting her in trouble with Stiles.

Stiles tried to settle more into the feeling of the heating pad relaxing the tense and sore muscles in his back while Finley finished writing down their orders. She set her pencil back down on her desk and held the post it between her teeth while she crawled off her bed, jumping down to the floor before padding over to her other desk.

Stiles knew it was wrong, and he knew he shouldn’t do it, but he found his eyes following her movements while she walked around her room. Her figure was illuminated by the warm glow of her lights and the two braids in her hair flowed down her back almost perfectly. He watched the muscles in her legs flex while she leaned up on her toes to put the post it of their orders up on the wall. The way her shorts fit left absolutely nothing to his imagination and Stiles found himself observing how they hugged her hips and ass perfectly.

Stiles rolled his back against the wall and tried to focus on something else while he listened to Finley call in their orders. He tried to will his mind to think about something other than walking up behind her and slipping his arms around her waist while she spoke, tracing his lips down the side of her neck. He tried to remember what Lydia’s lips felt like on his, what her arms around him felt like, but he just couldn’t. Stiles closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose before letting it out slowly through his lips; he was with Lydia, he loved Lydia.

On Monday after he had spoken to Lydia, for far too long in his opinion, Stiles found himself on the phone with Scott on the verge of an anxiety attack. He loved Lydia, he truly did, but some pieces just weren’t fitting together right anymore. Scott had managed to talk Stiles off a ledge and told him that if he waited two weeks until he and Lydia were traveling to D.C. to see one of Stiles’ first lacrosse games, he would help Stiles decide if breaking up with Lydia would be the best decision for him. He had hung up his phone after the conversation and found himself flopping back into his bed with an over exaggerated sigh that had his roommate asking if he felt okay.

“Stiles?” He opened his eyes to see Finley standing in front of him, concern and confusion written on her face. “It’ll be here in like fifteen minutes, but are you sure you’re okay?” She asked.

Stiles sat up a little bit and groaned when he felt his muscles tense up again, a sickening crack traveling down his back when he stretched it out. “I’m okay just, I need to get used to it again,” he sighed. “I’m sure you’d understand it.” He laughed and moved the heating pad down lower again.

Finley bit her lip while she looked at Stiles, of course she didn’t fully understand it, her muscles would heal almost immediately after she strained them at practice. She could clearly see how the soreness had affected Stiles though, and she wanted to help but didn’t want to risk exposing herself. “We could have rescheduled y’know?” She asked him.

“I’m perfectly fine. I just needed a few minutes to sit down,” he waved her off before standing up and going to pick up his backpack. “I’ve been looking at the case stuff and I have a couple ideas on who the suspect is, but I think we need the rest of the case information he’s giving us Monday to finish it.”

Finley stopped him from bending down with a hand on his shoulder and offered a soft smile. “It’s good I was thinking the same thing because you need physical rest and I need a mental break,” she spoke. “We can look at it again at lunch on Monday, okay?” She pushed Stiles’ bag next to hers with her foot.

“Sounds good to me,” Stiles walked back over to her bed and pushed himself up on the mattress, settling the heating pad on his back again. Finley offered him a sympathetic smile before she grabbed her wallet and ID.

She slipped on her Crocs before grabbing the handle of the door. “I’m gonna go grab the food, you just don’t hurt yourself,” she laughed lightly. Stiles went to push off the mattress and she reached a hand out to stop him. “Didn’t I say to like, stay there?” She asked, cocking her head to the side, a playful smirk pulling at her lips.

“I need to-”

“It’s on me this time,” she waved him off when Stiles gave her a look that said he wanted to protest, and she opened her door and started to step outside before he could say anything else. “I said it’s on me,” she repeated.

Stiles leaned his head back against the wall and watched Finley leave, her door shutting quietly behind her. Being left alone in Finley’s room felt slightly wrong, and his curiosity had him eager to look around, but he wasn’t sure if it would be rude. He closed his eyes again, trying to focus on the warmth spreading throughout his body, but he got too curious to stay focused on the pain that spread throughout his body. Stiles opened his eyes and looked around the room, he noticed that the wall her window was on had been covered in pictures and slowly pushed himself off the bed with a groan.

Slowly he shuffled across her soft rug, not wanting to lift his legs too much and hurt himself even more and paused in front of the wall of photos. He quickly scanned over the wall and noticed that most of them seemed to feature Finley and her friends at various sports games or school dances, even sleepovers and vacations.

He realized he had quite a few similar photos hanging up in his room and smiled a little bit, he could be a normal teenager sometimes apparently. Between fighting the supernatural, trying to actually finish high school and making sure no on in his pack actually died, Stiles hadn’t had much time to be a ‘normal’ teenager the last few years. He had hoped he would change that at college and be able to let go a little bit, so far that had proved to be true, but he just hoped the trend would continue.

Stiles found himself looking past most of the pictures from lacrosse games or prom and his eyes settled on one that hung right next to the window on its molding. A little girl posed in front of a tiger cage in the pictures, a boy who looks quite similar next to her, they both had Mickey Mouse ears on, and their faces were painted to look like tigers. Behind the two kids stood a man who Stiles noticed in a number of other photos, Finley’s dad he assumed, and a woman who seemed to be almost a splitting image of Finley.

“That was our last family vacation,” Finley held a paper bag in her hand and closed her bedroom door. Stiles jumped when he heard her voice and gasped, putting a hand over his heart and groaning in pain. “Sorry,” Finley laughed and sat the food down on her desk along with her wallet and ID, “couldn’t help it. I wanted to see if you would actually jump.”

She walked over to where Stiles stood and ran her fingers over the picture, smiling sadly while she did. “That was two weeks before she passed actually,” Finley mumbled, “at the Animal Kingdom,” she pointed to another photo. Her and her brother, along with their father, stood in the same location for the photo and still wore Mickey ears, but they looked significantly older. “And that one is from when we were sixteen, there’s others somewhere on here.” She motioned around the wall. “We go the same week every year.”

Finley turned and walked back to her desk where the food sat. “Sorry I was snooping around,” he spoke while walking over towards her. He hadn’t meant to look creepy while looking at her photos, he just wanted to get to know her better and his curiosity had gotten the best of him.

“Oh, I don’t care,” she ripped the staples out of the paper bag with her nails and dumped them into the garbage bag. “I don’t really have anything to hide, and besides they’re hanging up so it’s just asking people to look at them. If I did have something to hide,” she slid the three containers out of the bag along with some plastic forks and napkins, “I wouldn’t leave it out in the open.”

Finley bit her lip while sitting down on the floor and opening her mini fridge, of course she had things to hide, but nothing in her room. “Uhh,” she bent down to look in the fridge, “alcohol or non-alcohol for the drink?” Just because Finley couldn’t get drunk off normal alcohol didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy it. Also knowing that his kids couldn’t feel the effects alcohol provided to others, Maxwell often had no problems with providing his kids drinks.

“You have alcohol in here?” Stiles asked in slight disbelief. Finley turned around and looked up at him, slightly shocked that had been his reaction.

“Yeah, and my suitemates have a shit ton more,” she laughed pushing a few bottles and cans around in the fridge. “So?” she asked Stiles waiting for an answer.

She saw stiles sit down in her desk chair next to where she sat on the floor. “I mean if you’re offering, I’ll take one of whatever you’re having,” he shrugged. Finley smirked and pulled out a can and handed it to him.

“I don’t know if you’re a fan of hard coffee like I am,” she pushed a few more bottles and cans around. “If not, I have a couple different beers and uhh- a few different hard lemonades.” She looked up to Stiles who had set her coffee can on the desk.

“Uhh I guess whatever beer you have then,” Finley sighed and pulled two bottles out, a Corona and a Bud Light, shaking both bottles slightly to tell Stiles to pick. “Corona,” he said firmly, and Finley smirked, holding the bottle out towards him.

She slid the other back into the fridge and pulled a magnetic bottle opener off the side of her fridge and handed it to him. “My dad and brother drink Corona,” she said, “I actually don’t like beer honestly.”

Finley watched Stiles open the bottle and he set the cap on her desk before putting the bottle opener back where it belonged. She handed him his grilled cheese and the container of mac and cheese, “go get comfortable again,” she nodded towards the bed, “I can tell you’re still in pain and I want to pick a movie to watch.”

Finley watched Stiles walk back towards the bed and set both containers down before pushing himself up on to the mattress, his brows furrowing in pain while he did. Maybe when he wasn’t paying attention she could try and take away at least a little bit of his pain. “What kind of movies do you have?” She heard Stiles ask while she pulled a chair over to her closet. She stepped on to the chair and pulled a blue, plastic bin off the top shelf, stepping down with it in her hands.

“Umm it’s a lot of old movies really,” she thumbed through the DVD boxes. “All the Jurassic Park movies, that are out at least, The Godfather movies, The Notebook,” she snorted while she flipped past it, “oh all the Star Wars ones, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo!” She pulled out the last box and flipped it over seeing it contained many of the classic seasons in the box set. “It’s up to you though,” she walked over to the bed and placed the box down, “you’re the guest.”

She watched Stiles flip through the movies she had before he paused on Star Wars, “I mean,” he held the box up, “it’s my favorite movie.” She saw him look closely at the box, “but I’ve also seen it like a million times,” he mumbled to himself.

Finley crossed her arms over her chest, “like I said. You’re the guest. You want to watch Star Wars,” she shrugged, “we watch Star Wars.” The Star Wars series had also been one of her favorites growing up. Cian claimed when he had been younger that one day, he would be a Jedi, eventually that dream shifted to working in law enforcement though.

“Yeah,” Stiles slid the box back into the same place he had pulled it out from. “But you looked really excited when you saw this,” he pulled out the Scooby-Doo box. Finley bit her bottom lip while he held it out to her with a wide smile. “They’re detectives, I mean with my FBI experience, I’m half a detective. So, it should be enjoyable.” Finley let her bottom lip fall from between her teeth and smiled as she grabbed the box from Stiles, going to put the DVD into the player.

Stiles smiled and watched Finley while she walked over to where her television and DVD player were placed on top of her dresser. As much as he had wanted to watch Star Wars, he saw how happy she had been when she found the Scooby-Doo box and figured it was the least he could do, especially when she had gotten dinner and invited him to her room. He took a sip of the beer that he held while watching Finley bend down to plug in the DVD player.

He quickly averted his eyes from her ass as she bent down and focused on the thin layer of white foam that had settled on top of his beer. He had to wait to make a move until he had broken up with Lydia, he couldn’t cheat on her, even if he knew he would be breaking up with her two weeks later. Instead, he opted to pull his phone out and text Scott while Finley fiddled with the DVD player.

“Scotty Boy, I don’t know how much longer I can take this,” he typed out the first message and sent it. “You know that wolfy thing where at first you can’t control when you turn? Yeah, that’s my hormones right now.” Stiles watched Finley tuck the DVD remote into the waistband of her shorts, if they could even be called that, before she picked up her own grilled cheese and hard coffee can.

Stiles felt his phone vibrate next to him while Finley set her food and can down on the bed. She pulled the DVD remote out of her shorts along with her phone from the other side, which she also set down on the bed. He looked over when he saw the screen on her phone light up and noticed that a notification for ‘Full Moon’ had popped up on her screen.

“You have two weeks man, and you just met her, can you really feel that drawn to her?” Scott had replied to his message. Stiles let out a loud sigh and Finley turned to look at him while she climbed into her bed, sitting down on the end opposite from Stiles.

“Well, someone sounds upset,” she laughed picking up the DVD remote and pressing play. Stiles didn’t answer for a moment and instead pulled his grilled cheese box closer to himself, opening it up before looking over to Finley who was still watching him.

He looked into her eyes and shrugged, “just Scott being Scott,” he quickly made up an excuse, “he’s actually with my ex-girlfriend and it’s a whole long story,” that should be a good enough cover.

“Oh damn,” Finley bit into her grilled cheese. “I’m sorry that must be rough,” she finished her thought. Stiles shrugged and took a bite of his own grilled cheese before trying to think of a proper response.

He swallowed the food in his mouth before continuing to speak, “actually it happened like naturally I guess, I can’t really be mad about it,” Stiles shrugged. “Besides, then I started dating Lydia and just life had gotten crazy, so I didn’t really have the time to complain about it and by the time I did I had already gotten over it.” Stiles picked up his phone and flipped it over again.

“Isn’t there guy code?” Finley asked. “Like whatever girl code is?” Stiles leaned over the end of the bed to set his beer down on the dresser next to it.

He shrugged, he wasn’t quite sure about guy code, and he hadn’t had the most conventional high school years to speak on it. “I mean, I’m sure there is,” he replied, “but me and Scott never really worried about I guess, petty stuff like that.” He watched Finley nod before she turned to look at the television. “Good luck with the full moon, by the way,” he sent Scott.

“I don’t know much about girl code either,” she looked back to Stiles, “so I don’t even really know why I asked,” he watched her look down at her lap, like she wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure if she should.

Stiles sighed before trying to think of something to continue the topic with, hoping to make her more comfortable around him. “I can also tell you that Scott made out with my current girlfriend once, well she kissed him,” he took another bite of his grilled cheese. “Now that I think about it,” he swallowed his food, “we have some weird little incestuous pit going on,” he laughed lightly.

“The football players and lacrosse girls at my school were like that,” Finley turned to face Stiles better and crossed her legs. “I can like make a whole confusing web of who dated who, and who cheated on who with someone else, and who hooked up with whoever and then started dating but had previously dated someone else. It’s confusing really,” she took a long sip of her drink.

Stiles shoved the last bite of his first half of grilled cheese into his mouth, “how’d you fit into that web?” He asked around his mouth full of food, wiping his hands on one of the napkins.

Finley rolled her eyes while sighing, “do you really want to know?” She asked him.

“I mean-” Stiles shrugged with a small smile, “I’m intrigued now. This seems like an absolute mess.” He hadn’t realized Scott had texted him until his phone vibrated against his leg, and he flipped it over to see a string of texts from Scott. Stiles, however, chose to ignore it; flipping the ringer on his phone off so it wouldn’t vibrate anymore.

Turning his attention back to Finley he watched as she fiddled nervously with the can in her hands, pressing indents into it where her fingers sat. “Uhh, well for starters I guess I have never dated anyone, never hooked up with anyone, never anything romantic with anyone,” he watched as a blush came over her face, traveling down her neck and past the collar of her shirt.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Stiles mumbled, feeling slightly guilty. Here he was, talking about all the girls he’d been with, which isn’t many, but still. He didn’t want Finley’s lack of experience to make her feel bad about herself.

Finley shrugged while she wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. “I had been really interested in one of the guys in our friend group, he played on the line for the football team,” she let out a long sigh. “But then he started dating this other girl, they broke up, he asked me to prom-”

“Oh, so that’s good!” Stiles interrupted. Finley gave him a tiny smile, but he noticed how her lips dropped back down into half a frown.

“Yeah, but then on the night of prom,” she balanced the coffee can on her sock covered feet, avoiding eye contact with Stiles. “He wound up getting back with his ex and prom sucked,” she sighed. She looked up to see Stiles pulling at the napkin in his hands. “And I just made it awkward,” she mumbled.

Stiles’ head shot up at her words. “No!” He cleared his throat. “No, you didn’t! I just-” he tried to find the right words. “I just feel bad, you seem so, kind and genuine, and- and you deserve to be happy,” he offered her a sad smile in return.

“I’ll find it eventually,” she mumbled, picking at the crust of her grilled cheese. She smelled the sympathy coming off Stiles, and she hated it. He felt bad for her, he just felt bad for her, he wasn’t actually interested in her, someone like him couldn’t be. She was also a supernatural freak, she bit the inside of her bottom lip, who would want to deal with that. She knew Stiles had before, but he and his were-ex hadn’t worked out.

After that a silence fell between the two of them, Finley picking at her grilled cheese while Stiles finished his. “I’m not really hungry anymore,” she pushed the mac and cheese container closer to him, “you can have it.” She saw that Stiles wanted to say something, but he hesitated. Instead, he slid their containers out of the way and set them on the dresser with his beer along with the napkins and forks.

“You really do deserve to be happy,” he said quietly, moving closer to Finley. She continued to chew on the inside of her lip to avoid crying and let out a long stream of air through her nose. “I’m serious,” he added. Finley set her drink on the desk and looked over to Stiles, her cheek resting on her knees while she did. His whiskey-colored eyes softened and he sighed, moving ever closer.

Finley felt his warmth from where she sat and wanted to move closer, it was like his natural body temperature was trying to pull her even closer. That and his scent had mellowed out, it turned sweeter, relaxing even, like cinnamon and freshly dried clothes. “Like I said,” she let her lip fall from between her teeth, “eventually.”

Stiles reached out and Finley didn’t protest, his arm wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her into him. She immediately felt most of the tension seep out of her boy when he pulled her into his side, her head resting on his shoulder. With the tension leaving her body and Stiles’ warm scent wrapping around her she couldn’t control her emotions and felt a few tears slip out of her eyes, dripping off the tip of her nose. “Hey,” Stiles said quietly, “I promise eventually it’ll all work out.”

“It’s fine,” Finley sat up and wiped her eyes, “I just- I let my emotions get the best of me and I just, don’t usually do that,” she stumbled over her words. Stiles leaned back against the headboard of her bed before grabbing her by the shoulder again and pulling her into him. This was wrong, so, so, wrong, Finley thought to herself, but she gave in. Resting her head against his bicep Finley sighed and felt her eyes slip closed, she couldn’t fight it and wasn’t quite sure why.

“You’ll be happy soon,” she heard Stiles mumble, “I promise.”

#stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski imagine #teen wolf #dylan obrien #dylan obrien imagine #teen wolf imagine #stiles stilinski x oc #stiles x oc #werewolf ofc #human stiles #anna writes

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iclaimedtobethebetterbard · 4 years ago

Text

it was always you (falling for me) - chapter 2

Fandom: Sanders Sides Characters: All the sides Rating: Teen & up (for swearing) Relationships: Prinxiety, Moceit, and QPR Intrulogical (eventually this will develop into Intrulosleep!) Warnings: Language; Remus being Remus; Shakespeare fans will probably hate my interpretation(s) of the plays I reference here, if the English major friend I showed this to is anything to go by, and I’m very sorry about that 😂 Word Count: 9042

Read on AO3!

My writing masterpost

start - previous - here - next - masterpost

Summary: In a world where you and your soulmate swap dreams once a month, seven young adults enter the same college as freshmen. Each of them is wondering when they’ll find their soulmate and what that will mean for them.

Notes: Secret Santa gift for sanders-sides-fics!

Chapter 2

Roman had a problem. A person-shaped problem. Specifically, a problem shaped like his brother’s excessively pretty roommate, who seemed to take pleasure exclusively in needling Roman every chance they got.

Roman groaned, burying his face in one of the pillows on his bed.

“Hm?” his roommate, Patton, said sympathetically.

“I swear Virgil has, like, an agenda against soulmates, or something,” Roman said, rolling over and staring despairingly at the ceiling.

“Now, kiddo, I’m sure that’s not true.”

Roman lifted his head to look at Patton. “Aren’t I older than you?”

“Only by a few months,” Patton said serenely. “Spiritually, you’re my kiddo.”

“Pat, that makes no sense.”

Patton blinked up at him with a too-innocent face. “If it feels dad to you, just don’t think about it any father.”

“Oh my god.”

Patton giggled, a noise of pure delight, then circled back to Roman’s original topic. “What makes you think he’s got something against soulmates?”

“Uh, the way ze rails against them at every opportunity, for a start?” Roman sat up. “We have argued five times in the last two weeks about soulmates, and only three of them were even about Shakespeare like usual!”

“Haven’t you only known Virgil for, like, three weeks?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point.” Roman climbed down the ladder to the ground. “Also, I feel like that makes it worse?”

“Hmm, maybe.” Patton seemed amused. “You talk about them a lot, you know?”

“He’s so annoying!” Roman said defensively. “Ze gets this stupid smirk like ze knows something I don’t and he doesn’t even seem to care about constructing sound arguments half the time!” He put his laptop into his backpack.

“Going somewhere?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, Virgil and Remus invited me over to their dorm to study.”

“Oh,” Patton said, a funny sort of look on his face like he was trying not to laugh.

“What?” Roman asked.

“Nothing, nothing.” Patton waved him away, still smiling to himself. “Have fun studying with Virgil.”

“I will,” Roman said brightly, heading out the door.

***

“I want to go get ice cream,” Remus announced suddenly, hopping to his feet. “Who’s coming with?” It was late, almost midnight, and Roman was sitting on the floor in what had been a nice triangle with Remus and Virgil until Remus had stood. The three of them had been alternately working on homework and arguing about Disney characters.

“Sure,” Virgil said with a shrug, tugging their hoodie up onto their shoulders—they’d been wearing it dangling off their body, with only their wrists in the sleeves holding it on. “Let me fix my eyeliner first, though.”

Remus nodded distractedly, looking around the room and turning in a circle.

“Whatcha looking for?” Roman inquired, getting to his feet as well.

“My wallet,” Remus said, gaze still roving around. “I don’t know where I—”

“By your chapstick,” Roman said.

“Ah!” Remus dove under his desk, scrabbled on the floor, and emerged with his wallet clutched triumphantly in one hand and his chapstick in the other. “Thank you.”

“How the fuck did you know that?” Virgil asked, turning away from the mirror hung on the door with their eyeliner in their hand. They’d reapplied it to one eye, in a perfect, pointed wing; the other eye still had the only slightly less perfect, barely faded wing they’d been wearing this whole time. It matched their black lipstick and the carefully blended eyeshadow on their upper eyelids.

“He put it down there when he was telling the story about trying to collect dried gum off the street,” Roman explained. “And the chapstick was already there right next to it. So that’s how I remembered.”

Remus nodded. “I would have gotten there in a minute, probably,” he agreed.

“I still don’t understand how the fuck you knew that, but good for y’all, I guess,” Virgil said, turning back to the mirror.

“ADHD solidarity,” Roman explained.

Remus made finger guns at him, nodding. “ADHD solidarity,” he agreed.

Virgil paused halfway through drawing the other wing on. “Oh, that makes sense.” They picked up the line again, their hand perfectly steady, drawing it out to a fine point. “I thought you said you were autistic?” they added after a moment, their face holding perfectly still as they filled in the eyeliner with a practiced hand; their monolid eyelids allowed them to draw the wings of their eyeliner wide and dramatic.

“Yeah, I’m both. There are high rates of comorbidity, and also they’re both genetic, so neurodivergence runs in families,” Roman explained, the sentence rolling out of his mouth without him stumbling over the words once or having to think about it at all. “Did you know about ten percent of the population is probably ADHD?” he went on eagerly. “It’s super underdiagnosed. Especially because of race and gender biases in doctors who diagnose it, and the misconception that it’s only something children have. I only got diagnosed because Remus did when we were little, and we’re twins, so then they tested me too. Even though we aren’t identical. It’s super frequent for identical twins to both have ADHD if one of them has it, though.” Roman bounced on the balls of his feet, tapping the tip of his finger against his thumb. “I wish we were identical, I think it’d be so funny. Like, impersonating each other, and things. We could make such good video skits.”

“We make fantastic video skits already,” Remus protested.

“Okay, fair. But you know what I mean. And we could switch places for a day and see who noticed. All the stuff twins do in stories. Twins are always identical in stories, it’s so annoying, I wish there were more stories with fraternal twins.” Roman paused for a second, his mind hovering for an instant between a not-fully-realized train of thought about the gender politics of twin representation in stories and the question of what animals were most likely to have twins. He chose, almost before he was aware there was a choice, the animals question, his emotions nudging him away from the energy talking about gender representation would take up. “Do you think kittens dream?” he asked, only a second or two after he’d stopped talking in the first place.

“Yeah, probably,” Remus responded without missing a beat, likely following his train of thought. “Better question, do other animals have soulbonds, and how do they know if so?”

“Maybe it’s a scent thing,” Roman said thoughtfully.

“Ooh, like with glands or some shit?” Remus looked thoughtful. “That could make sense. I wonder—I bet there’s answers on the internet. I’m going to look this up later. Are you coming, too, by the way? To get ice cream?”

Roman thought it over. “Sure,” he agreed.

“I’m ready,” Virgil announced, capping their eyeliner and setting it down on hir desk. “Also, I got whiplash about five times just listening to that conversation.”

“Good, my chaos is overtaking another victim and soon I shall rule the world. Let’s go!” Remus led the other two out the door and started walking towards the end of campus.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Roman inquired, shoving his hands into the pockets of his red letterman jacket to keep them warm.

“There’s an ice cream shop that’s open till one in the morning about ten minutes away walking,” Remus said over his shoulder. “Logan and I found it the first weekend here.”

“You two went in search of sweets without me?” Roman put a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt,” he declared in his most dramatic voice.

“Oh, shut up, we would have gotten around to telling you about it eventually. I mean, I’m telling you right now, so.” Remus shrugged. “Virge, aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty, so it’s worth it,” Virgil said, tossing their head so the long hair on the top of their undercut swished. They were wearing a distressed band tee and a black skater skirt over fishnet leggings and a pair of doc martens. It was quite chilly out, and even though they were wearing a hoodie too, Roman understood why Remus had been concerned.

“You are very pretty,” Roman told them seriously. Even aside from their clearly carefully chosen outfit, this was true. Their eyes were round and curious and a captivating shade of dark brown. Even with the boost from the platform of the shoes they were wearing, they were tiny. Roman was sure they couldn’t be more than 5’2” without the boots. The hair on top of their undercut was very long, almost down to their waist, contrasting with the closely-shaved back and sides of their head. About six inches on the ends of their hair were dyed purple. Their makeup, of course, was flawless, as was their golden-brown skin, which was just a little bit darker than Roman’s. He made a mental note to ask them about their skincare routine sometime; no matter how much care he treated his skin with, the acne on his cheeks refused to go away. It was his least favorite side effect of taking testosterone. “But you can be pretty and warm at the same time, if you want. I hate being cold. But I respect your decision to be pretty and cold if you want to,” he added quickly.

Virgil let out a slightly nervous laugh, rubbing the back of their neck. “Thanks, I think.” Their eyes widened as they looked past him. “Oh, my god, Remus, shut up!”

“What?” Roman asked, looking over at Remus, who was giving Virgil an evil grin.

“Nothing,” Virgil snapped.

“I didn’t say anything,” Remus said innocently.

“Shut up!” Virgil repeated, flipping the hood of their hoodie up and dragging it over their face.

“What’s going on?” Roman asked, confused, while Remus burst into cackles of laughter.

“Nothing!” Virgil repeated with great emphasis.

Roman let out a sigh of frustration, but Virgil seemed genuinely upset about whatever Remus had done when Roman wasn’t looking, so he dropped it. Maybe Remus would explain later.

Remus did not explain later; however, he did turn around to walk backwards after the silence had stretched on long enough to become awkward. “Is the ocean a soup? Discuss,” he commanded.

“Oh, not this again!” Roman groaned. “No, absolutely not!”

“Yes,” Virgil said, almost as soon as Roman stopped talking.

“No!” Roman stamped his foot. “That makes no sense!”

“It makes lots of sense. Explain how it’s not soup,” Virgil challenged.

The resulting argument lasted them all the way to the ice cream shop and halfway through their treats.

“Aren’t you going to take a side?” Roman demanded of Remus at last.

Remus looked up from his cone. “Oh, no, this is very entertaining for me, I could watch you two bicker all month. Please keep it up.”

“You’re a terrible person,” Roman told him, trying not to laugh.

“I never claimed to be anything else,” Remus said happily.

***

“—and that’s how you do it. It’s really easy, but it’s so fun, I could balance chemical equations for hours,” Remus said, bopping the tip of his dry-erase marker against the giant whiteboard in the library for emphasis. He and Roman and Virgil had all met up here to study; it was a sunny afternoon, and they’d gotten a nice spot by the window. The marker left a little black mark next to the diagram Remus had spent the last ten minutes drawing; he wiped the dot away with his finger. He was wearing a turtleneck with horizontal black-and-white stripes and a pair of faded jeans with paint splatters all over them and huge rips in the front that ran from his mid-thighs almost down to his ankles; he’d finished the outfit off with socks in sandals and a black felt beret. His outfit—vaguely artistic, but mostly just terrible—contrasted comically with the intensely technical pseudo-lecture on chemistry he’d just given.

Roman nodded without looking up. “I remember balancing those was fun,” he agreed. He hadn’t taken a chemistry class in a couple of years now, but Remus was majoring in it, and the best way for Remus to study was to explain it out loud, so he’d gathered Roman and Virgil in the library. They’d even been able to snag one of the coveted whiteboards. Roman was able to focus on his notes better with Remus’s animated talking in the background, and Virgil preferred quiet but was willing to put on his headphones to block out Remus’s noise, so all in all this arrangement worked out well for all three of them.

“Yes!” Remus agreed with a happy wiggle. He picked up his water bottle off the table and took a long sip. “Okay, next I have a bunch of molecules I have to memorize the structures of. Do you need anything first?” He addressed his question to both of them, but Virgil seemed pretty focused—or perhaps his music was loud enough to drown out other noises.

Roman, however, thought the question over. “Yes, actually, can you help me go over my lines for this one scene? It’s not very long.”

“Mmhm.” Remus held out his hands expectantly, and Roman handed him his script. Remus began fiddling with the dog-eared bottom corner of the page it was open to, folding it back and forth.

Roman dug in the pocket of his cargo shorts—he liked cargo shorts, partly for the shape but mostly for the pockets—and handed Remus a star-shaped fidget toy made of sequins that could be flipped back and forth. He’d rather the corner of the script didn’t get torn off by mistake.

“I think I’m off book, I just want to make sure,” he said as Remus accepted the toy and began fidgeting with it.

Remus nodded, scanning the page. “Sounds good. It’s just this one page?”

“Yeah. Ready?”

Remus nodded, and Roman launched into the scene. His character had most of the lines; it was essentially a glorified monologue. Remus interjected the two lines from other characters, using a hilarious nasally voice that made it hard for Roman to stay in character without breaking to laugh, but he successfully made it through the final line before dissolving into snickers.

“You’re word-perfect, kid,” Remus proclaimed as Roman got ahold of himself, handing him back the script.

Roman grinned. “Thank you!”

Remus nodded and took another sip of water before wiping down the whiteboard and launching into a ramble about the molecular structures he had to memorize.

Roman had just about tuned Remus out again and slipped back into the headspace where he could focus on his work when Remus broke off. “Logan!” he exclaimed, sounding delighted.

Roman looked up, and so did Virgil, pulling off hir headphones. Roman followed Remus’s gaze, and there indeed was Logan, his flat top haircut and dark academia outfit unmistakeable. He was stepping out of the stairwell that led down from the floor above, adjusting the strap of the leather messenger bag they used instead of a backpack. Even at this distance, the pins he kept on the bag were visible, neatly affixed in alternating rows on the bag’s buckle straps—a demiboy flag, an aromantic flag, an enamel pin shaped like an open book, and a handful of other pins Logan had collected from the university’s cultural centers during orientation. Roman had a few of that last category on his backpack himself; he knew he and Logan had matching land acknowledgment pins now, but he wasn’t sure if any of the other pins they’d chosen matched.

Remus darted across the wide open floor, weaving his way around a few students. “Logan! Hi!”

Logan looked up, a small smile finding its way onto his face as he saw Remus. He said something—presumably a greeting—but was too far away for Roman to hear, since he was speaking at a normal tone.

Remus seized Logan by the hand and dragged them towards Roman and Virgil. Logan laughed and said something in protest, pushing his square glasses up his wide nose as he followed Remus.

“Remus, I have to go to class,” Logan was insisting as they got close enough for Roman to hear. “Hello, Roman. Virgil.” They adjusted their already-immaculate clothing, the tendons in their thin hands flexing as they smoothed their mustard-brown cable knit sweater vest and tugged on the rolled-up sleeves of their periwinkle button down shirt.

Virgil gave a two-fingered salute. “Sup.”

“Hi Logan,” Roman said happily. “We’re studying!”

“Very nice,” Logan said, raising Remus’s hand—which was still clasping his own—and gently pressing it with their other hand. “I am always glad to see you, Remus, but I can’t stay long.”

“Okay,” Remus said. “I just wanted to say hi.” He gave Logan a quick, tight hug around the ribs before releasing them just as fast as he’d darted in.

Logan smiled again. “Hello, then. I hope your studying is going well?”

He received nods from the group, and gave them his own nod in return.

“You’ve got to go,” Remus reminded him. “You don’t like to be late.”

“True. I’ll see you later, dear.”

Remus nodded. “Wanna hang out tomorrow night?”

Logan considered this. “Maybe. I’m going to the Black Student Union meeting tomorrow evening. So it would have to be after that.”

“Okay, I can do that! I love you!”

Logan smiled. “I love you too, Rem.” They made as if to leave, then paused. “Roman, while I’m thinking of it—are you and Patton still free for lunch tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Roman confirmed. Logan and Patton had two classes together, and so together with Roman they’d formed a tight-knit little friend group very quickly; the three of them tried to make sure to meet up for lunch at least once a week.

“Wonderful. I’ll text our groupchat about it. See you then.” Logan tugged his hand out of Remus’s grip, waved, and set off at a brisk pace back towards the stairs.

***

“I’m telling you, Virgil, Oberon and Titania are a really good example of how soulmates can make it through rough patches!”

“Bullshit. They’re obviously not a metaphor for soulmates, why would the fae even have soulmates? Their story is a cautionary tale,” Virgil said languidly, lying on their back on the floor of their room.

“No!” Roman pounded his fist on the floor. “Why do you always do this?”

“Because it’s funny,” Virgil replied with a snicker.

“But you always bash on soulmates, specifically!” Roman said.

“Yeah, because I think society’s emphasis on soulbonds is dumb.” Virgil shrugged. “Anyway, if you think Oberon and Titania’s relationship is a good example of anything, I have some concerns.”

“No—no, stop! I didn’t mean it like that! They’re fae, like you said. I obviously don’t condone any of the ways they treated each other! I’m just saying that viewing them as a metaphor for soulmates makes a really interesting lens to view the other couples in the play! Right, Logan?” He turned expectantly to Logan.

“Wh—no,” Logan, who was sitting on Remus’s bed and combing their fingers through Remus’s hair, his head in their lap, responded. “You are both, objectively, wrong. Horribly so. Painfully so.”

“Hey! You’re not allowed to tell me I’m wrong about Shakespeare,” Roman countered quickly.

“Why did you ask me for my opinion, then?” Logan asked, rolling their eyes.

“I don’t know,” Roman grumbled.

“Wait, why can’t they talk to you about Shakespeare?” Virgil asked.

“Because they always win!” Roman crossed his arms.

“Oh, and I don’t?” Virgil demanded. “What am I to you, Roman? I thought we had something special here,” they went on playfully. “You make dumb arguments, I make worse ones, and then I win. I thought that meant something to you.” They pouted at him.

“That’s different!” Roman protested, stifling giggles at the mopey puppy dog eyes Virgil was sending him. “You just don’t care what I say. Logan actually refutes my arguments! It’s very humiliating!”

“I only do it because your logic is physically painful to listen to,” Logan said.

Roman crossed his arms and pointedly turned away from Logan, nose in the air. “Anyway. As I was saying. Puck’s role in all of this is really interesting, if you consider the question: are the fae supposed to be able to truly alter soulbonds, or are they only messing with feelings?”

“Dear,” Logan said plaintively, looking down at Remus, his fingers still carding through Remus’s curls.

“Hmm?” Remus responded, not opening his eyes.

“Make them stop,” Logan said beseechingly.

“Sorry fellas, you heard them. Stop torturing Logan, he’s already an English major, so he’s plenty tortured already. Or else I’ll have to dissect your spleens.” Remus wagged a finger in Roman and Virgil’s direction.

“What a terrible fate that would be,” Roman commented, flopping over to lie on the floor beside Virgil.

Seconds later, his phone buzzed; he pulled it out to see a text notification from Virgil.

Virgil: oberon sucks btw

Roman: Oh, it is ON!

Roman grinned as he sent the response, already anticipating the thrill of the argument that was about to ensue. He felt a warm thrill in his chest at Virgil’s answering chuckle—it was good to know Virgil was having fun with this too.

***

“—so I was hanging out with Virgil the other day at the library cafe, and he said The Tempest was dumb because magic solves everything.” Roman was lying on the floor of his dorm, tossing a bouncy ball up in the air and catching it over and over again. Logan was sitting at Roman’s desk, legs up and crossed on the seat of the chair as he worked on readings for an English class, half-listening to Roman’s rambling. “And that since it solved all the problems, it made no sense for Prospero to give it up. Which was completely ignoring all the bad stuff magic had done and the symbolism of him throwing it away!”

“What did Remus have to say about that?” Logan inquired with a small laugh, not looking up from the copy of Frankenstein in his hands.

“What? Oh, nothing. Remus wasn’t there.”

“Oh?” Logan blinked, glancing up from the book.

“Yeah, we were at the library getting Starbucks, we do that on Wednesdays now. Remus was in his history class, I’m pretty sure.”

“I didn’t know you and Virgil hung out together,” Logan said, raising their eyebrows.

“Oh, we don’t, we just get coffee on Wednesdays, it’s different,” Roman said.

Logan stared at him. “...What?”

“Like, we only hang out on our own time to get Starbucks and then argue about Shakespeare. It’s really fun! It’s a great system, honestly. And this way, you don’t yell at me about Shakespeare or text Remus rant essays about what you think I’m getting wrong!”

Logan looked away, a very called-out expression on his face. “You weren’t supposed to see those…”

“Oh, Remus didn’t show me, I just broke into his phone the other day and it was open to your texts,” Roman said reassuringly.

“Why would you break into—” Logan began, not seeming reassured in the slightest.

“I needed to check his calendar to see if he was available to come with me to the grocery store,” Roman explained. “You know we’re really good at guessing each other’s passcodes. He doesn’t mind, we break into each other’s phones all the time.” He paused, assessing Logan’s face, trying to gauge if their expression was upset or not. “I’m sorry I read the texts, though,” he added, just in case it had hurt their feelings. “I only saw the very end of it, it wasn't on purpose or anything. Promise.”

Logan sighed. “I know. It’s alright.” He reached across the space between them to press the back of Roman’s hand.

Roman grinned. “Only you would come up with a whole essay in a text,” he teased. “Dunno what I expected, really.”

“It wasn’t an essay,” Logan said defensively. “Technically speaking.”

“I dunno, it sure looked like if you formatted it with MLA, you could turn it in for a grade.” Roman giggled. “But hey, what do I know?”

Logan opened his mouth to reply, but stopped as the doorknob rattled with the sound of keys.

Patton stepped in. “Hey! If it isn’t some of my favorite people!” he greeted the two of them with a smile. His dark, wavy hair was a little ruffled. Normally he combed it to the side, but Roman remembered it had been windy today, so Roman guessed that was responsible for the irregularity. “How are you doing?” Patton asked the two of them.

“Better now that you’re here,” Roman told him with an answering grin. “How’s your day been?” He’d noticed that Patton really liked being asked how his day had gone.

Sure enough, Patton’s smile spread a little wider. “Pretty good, thanks! I haven’t had too much to do today, which is nice. How are you doing, Logan?” He sat down on the floor beside Roman, sliding his backpack off his shoulders.

Roman immediately sat up and scooted over to lean against Patton—he was an excellent cuddler; he was tall and chubby and he ran warm, and Roman liked cuddles. He tended towards understimulation rather than overstimulation, and hugs were one of his favorite things. Patton was always happy to supply.

“I’m alright, thank you,” Logan said as Patton wrapped an arm around Roman’s shoulders. “A little underslept, but otherwise good.”

“Good, good. You should sleep more. Are you both busy?” Patton asked.

“No,” Roman said, because Patton always had fun ideas.

Logan pursed his lips, glancing down at the book in his hands in consideration. “I can finish this chapter later. Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if either of you wanted to play a board game,” Patton said. He and Roman had each brought a couple from their homes, and together they had quite the little collection.

“Yes!” Roman agreed eagerly, breaking away from Patton and crossing to the shelf where they kept the games. “How about Clue?”

“I will decimate you both,” Logan said, deadly serious, adjusting their glasses and scooting to the floor.

“All part of the fun, Specs.” Roman pulled out the box and set it down between them. “Dibs on the red piece!”

***

“—so I told him that was utter bullshit—not in so many words, of course—and listed off the reasons why, and he simply did not seem to recognize how completely nonexistent his logic was, he just kept repeating his original points louder and louder.” Logan punctuated his rant about a classmate with hand gestures as he walked next to Roman on the sidewalk.

“I hate guys like that,” Roman said, making a face.

Logan nodded. “But I got full credit on my discussion post when I typed up my argument and I cannot imagine he got the same, based on his talking points. So.” He shrugged, clearly trying not to look too smug with himself.

“Good job!” Roman told them.

“Thank you.” Logan’s happiness was palpable. “How have—”

“Logan!” Remus’s voice shouted.

Roman looked in the direction of the noise; they were almost an entire block away still from the quad, where they’d agreed to meet Remus, but he seemed to have spotted them. He was sprinting at full speed directly towards them.

“Oh, dear,” Logan said, the exasperation in his voice belied by the grin on their face. They took a step back and braced themself, just in time.

Remus full-on tackled Logan in a hug, colliding into him at full speed. Logan stumbled back a couple of steps, but successfully avoided falling over. “Hello, Remus,” he said composedly, wrapping their arms around Remus and returning the enthusiastic hug. “How are you?”

“Much better now. I missed you,” Remus said into Logan’s shoulder. “Normal people get all weird about it when I tell them cool murder facts. You're much cooler than normal people.”

“It has been twenty-seven hours and about thirty minutes since you last saw me,” Logan informed him. “And thirteen minutes since we last texted.” They rumpled his curls, which fell messily in loose spirals about his face; they were mostly about chin length, although some of them were choppily trimmed shorter than others. Remus was very insistent about cutting his own hair. It was always mildly disastrous, but he insisted he liked it that way. He’d dyed it himself, too; he’d bleached a streak at the very front of his head and dyed it silver about a month before college started, with a surprising amount of success.

“Yeah, and I missed you.” Remus stepped back from the hug as Logan released him. “Also hi Roman, I guess.” He tossed Roman a grin.

“You are a terrible brother sometimes,” Roman informed him. “Hi.”

“Uh, I think you mean all the time,” Remus corrected him. “I’m joking,” he added. “C’mon, I got Starbucks for us! I have extra meal credits!” He seized Logan’s hand and reached invitingly for Roman’s.

Roman let Remus grab his hand, too, and his brother immediately began dragging both Roman and Logan at a slightly breakneck pace down the sidewalk. Several students dove out of their way until he dragged them to a halt by the food truck, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waiting expectantly.

Not even a moment later, the barista placed three cups on the delivery window tray and called out Remus’s name.

“Yes!” Remus pumped his fist, darted over, and picked up two of the cups—Roman recognized Remus and Logan’s go-to coffee orders, a trenta mango-dragonfruit refresher and a grande vanilla sweet cream cold brew with extra ice. Roman picked up the last cup, a warm drink in a grande cup; he sniffed to check what it was even though he knew what Remus usually got him. Steamed apple juice with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top—his favorite as a kid and still one of his favorites now. He wrapped his hands around the warm cup and followed Remus and Logan over to a sunny patch on the lawn.

Remus sprawled out, taking up more space than seemed humanly possible for one person to fill; Logan tucked their legs beneath them as they sat beside Remus and began pulling out a textbook, a dog-eared novel, and a handful of pens and pencils from their messenger bag.

Roman sat so that he completed the triangle between the three of them, his legs crossed so he could lean his cup against them between sips and not worry about knocking it over.

“Thank you for the coffee, Remus,” Logan said, his cup halfway to his lips as he flipped through the worn novel.

Roman nodded in agreement, breathing in the warm cinnamon scent of the apple juice.

“Of course!” Remus said exuberantly, taking a noisy slurp of his drink.

Roman and Logan both winced slightly.

“Could you be a little quieter, there?” Logan asked mildly.

“How dare you.” Remus clutched his heart, leaning back so far Roman was surprised he didn’t lose his balance and fall over.

Logan sighed, reaching over and placing a hand over Remus’s, gripped around the edge of the cup’s lid. “At least please be careful not to splash,” he said, guiding Remus’s hand downwards until the cup came to rest on the ground. “This textbook cost rather a lot and I’d like to sell it back in a decent condition at the end of the term.”

Remus let go of the cup, leaving it to rest where it was, and leaned forward. He took Logan’s face in both of his hands and looked seriously into their eyes. “Hey. You are my best friend in the whole world and you mean everything to me. I love you and I’m so glad we’re soulmates. But I draw the line at stopping my annoying behavior for anything less than a natural disaster.” He released Logan and picked his drink back up. “I promise I won’t spill on your book, though,” he added lightly. “Roman gets no such promises.”

“You wouldn’t dare, you know I hate being sticky—” Roman began heatedly.

“Okay, okay. Jesus. You two are really conspiring to foil all my chaotic little gremlin dealings today. I’ll order an ice water to spill on you instead, will that make you happy?” Remus snickered.

Roman frowned. “If you must,” he begrudgingly agreed, since this seemed the closest thing to a compromise he was likely to get out of Remus. He suspected it might be a joke anyway, but he wasn’t sure about that and didn’t want to take any chances.

But Remus didn’t return to the food truck, so it seemed likely that it was a joke after all. Instead, he devoted himself to more noisy slurping, crossing his eyes and looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“You’re the tallest one of us,” Roman said after a moment.

“Huh?” Remus looked up at him.

“He has a point, dear,” Logan said, turning a page.

“Like yeah I know I am, but what’s the point?” Remus asked.

“You said we were foiling your chaotic little gremlin dealings,” Roman elaborated. “You’re, like, fucking… six two.”

“And a half,” Remus added. “Emotionally, I am a chaotic creature of spite who’s about three five and can sneeze fire, though.”

“That makes no sense,” Roman protested.

“Does too,” Remus responded, crossing his arms.

“It does,” Logan agreed. “For example, emotionally, I punch that one classmate in the face twice a week, but we can’t always embody what we want to be. And you, Roman—emotionally, you’re very invested in Shakespeare, but in actuality, your interpretations are painfully bad.”

“Hey. You talking about me and Shakespeare is off limits. We’ve discussed this.” Roman waved a warning finger at them.

“I still think that’s unfair and have raised a motion to reject and overturn the ban.”

“Unfortunately for you, the judge and jury are my feelings, and you hurt them, Logan. Shakespeare and I have something special. You need to stop trying to come between us like this.”

Logan glanced up from his book to give Roman a singularly unimpressed look. “You are preposterous.”

Roman beamed at him and made a heart shape with his hands, holding it up like a picture frame to look at Logan through. “But you loooooove me,” he singsonged.

Logan nodded. “This is true.”

“You’re both nerds and Shakespeare isn’t even that good,” Remus put in, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’m divorcing you,” Logan said immediately.

“Noooo, come back!” Remus dramatically grasped at the air as if reaching out from afar for Logan.

“Fine.” Logan shrugged. “Then Roman’s disowning you.”

“Hey, that’s my line!”

“He can’t disown me, he’d miss me,” Remus said confidently. “Y’all are stuck with me.” He looked very pleased with himself.

There was silence for a beat, then all three of them burst into laughter.

“I’m really glad we’re all friends,” Remus said happily, leaning back and taking another long sip of his drink.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed.

“I don’t know,” Logan said, holding back a smirk. “Sometimes I think about a world where I don’t have to deal with a pair of himbos every day of my life.” He maintained his faux-serious face for all of the three seconds it took both twins to start pelting him with ripped-up blades of grass, then devolved into helpless laughter again.

***

“Patton, you good? You’ve been kind of spaced out all day.”

“Huh?” Patton looked up, blinking through his round gold-rimmed glasses. “Yeah, I’m okay! Just… boy problems, I guess? Which is… it’s new.” He wrinkled his nose for a second in a face of dissatisfaction before smoothing his face back into a smile.

“Oh? Want to talk about it?” Roman asked eagerly, leaning forward and resting his chin in his hands, interest definitely piqued.

“I don’t know…” Patton glanced away. “It’s complicated. And it’s probably not a big deal.”

“Patton. We are friends. The main purpose of friends is gossiping about crushes.” Roman crossed his arms. “I am offended that you would ever doubt my capacity for talking about boys in a gay way.”

“I don’t think that’s the main purpose of friendship,” Patton said, but his smile looked more genuine.

“Shush, I know that, I’m being dramatic. How about a movie night and you can spill the deets in a cozy setting with popcorn? And Logan?”

“I mean… okay,” Patton relented. “It’s probably not as exciting as you’re hoping for, though, I’m sorry.”

“Nonsense. You are perfect and so is everything you do,” Roman said absently, pulling out his phone and FaceTiming Logan.

“Roman! You’re sweet, but you know you shouldn’t go around passing out compliments that should go to you,” Patton said.

“Oh, stop,” Roman said, grinning wide.

Logan picked up on the second ring. “What do you need, Roman?”

“To see your gorgeous face, nerd. Also we’re having a movie night at me and Pat’s, attendance mandatory. Seven works, right? Pat’s having boy problems.”

Logan stared at Roman with a blank face for several beats. “And… you want me there to help… why?” he deadpanned.

“Shut up, you have a nonromantic boy toy, you’re basically qualified to help.”

“Don’t call Remus that! He’s a person, not a—wait, he’s your brother, Roman, that’s worse, that’s so weird—”

“—Anyway, I can more than handle giving Patton plenty of terrible advice on his love life,” Roman interrupted. “You’re there to tell him everything I say is a terrible idea and let me throw popcorn at you. We can watch Big Hero Six. C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

Logan heaved a sigh. “Fine. But you have to put your dad’s curry powder on the popcorn.”

“What kind of man do you take me for, Logan? Of course we’ll have curry popcorn! See you at seven, love you, bye bye.” Roman blew a kiss and hung up.

After his English class, Roman grabbed a burrito from the dining hall and hurried back to the dorm, making it there at half past six. Patton was already back; he made hot chocolate while Roman microwaved popcorn and tossed it in a bowl with curry powder.

At precisely seven o'clock, there was a knock on the door; Roman let Logan in and the three of them climbed into the nest of pillows and blankets Patton had built on the bottom bunk, pushing aside the bi pride flag and the Puerto Rican flag Patton had hung like curtains around his bunk.

“So,” Roman said eagerly as the movie’s opening bot fight began on the laptop screen, turning to Patton and bouncing (Logan grabbed the popcorn bowl out of Roman’s lap as it jostled), “spill!”

Patton squirmed under the attention, a half-hidden smile ghosting its way onto his face. “I don’t know… what should I talk about?”

“What’s he like?” Roman asked. “How do you know him? Is he cute? Have you got his number?”

“Oh, wow—that’s a lot.” Patton giggled nervously.

“Okay, start with is he cute?”

“He’s really cute,” Patton allowed, biting back another smile. “He’s got all these freckles all over his face and neck and hands, and his eyebrows are really expressive—he gets this really serious face when he’s thinking, and it’s… really pretty.”

“Eyes?” Roman demanded. “How are his eyes?”

“I mean, they’re eyes? They’re this kind of greyish blueish color. I don’t know, I try not to stare, especially when he’s looking, you know?”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Roman relented. “What else? Is he fashionable?”

“I—not really, honestly. He mostly just wears longsleeve tees and jeans. Sometimes beanies. He has these really cute yellow converse that he always wears, though. He, like—oh, gosh, I’m not sure how to describe it. He’s not, like, fashionable like you asked, but he—kind of the way he holds himself makes it seem like he is? He wears his clothes well, I think is maybe the phrase.”

Roman nodded. “Alright. Do you know whether or not he’s queer?”

Patton hesitated. “Um… I’m not sure. I don’t know either way. But he was the only one that laughed at a bi pun I made one time, and he wore a pink shirt and yellow belt with faded jeans one time, which I might be reading way too much into but it sure looked like a sneaky pastel pan flag.”

Roman nodded very seriously, taking mental notes. “All good signs. Anything else? Any stickers on his laptop or water bottle? Pins on his backpack?”

Patton shook his head. “They’re, like, super empty. He doesn’t really do anything that tells people about his personality. His outfits are usually really plain, like I said, and everything. It’s weird, because he’s got such a distinct personality, and he really doesn’t seem like someone who’d leave his stuff unpersonalized. It’s like he’s afraid of something, or something.” Patton was silent for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “But then, he seems kind of nervous around me in general.” He looked away, a worried expression crossing his face.

“Maybe he likes you back?” Roman suggested. “Plenty of people get nervous around their crushes.”

Patton shook his head quickly. “No, I don’t think that’s it. I think I know what the thing worrying him is. I just… don’t know how to talk about it with him.”

“You do realize you’re being super vague here, right?” Roman queried; he couldn’t parse what on earth Patton meant by that, but his curiosity was piqued.

“I know.” Patton bit his lip. “I, um, don’t want to talk about it yet, I think. It’s complicated. I don’t think it would be fair to him to discuss it with others.”

“Oh.” Roman did his best to hide his disappointment. “Okay, that’s fine. How do you know him?”

His attempt to change the subject didn’t seem to ease Patton’s discomfort, based on the way his shoulders drew up even closer to his ears. “...Kind of from a class we’re in together?” he answered after a long pause. “We’re partners on a group project.”

“Sounds like a meet cute to me,” Roman said, searching again for new lines of questioning that would hopefully not be as upsetting for mysterious and unknown reasons. “What do you like about him?”

Patton lit up. “He’s really sweet, actually. It takes some looking to see it, because he’s got a lot of walls up, but you can tell he’s really thoughtful and observant, and he’s really warming up to me, I think—he’s being much nicer to me than most people, and I’m starting to think he really means it and wants to be nice to me just to be nice, not because he feels like he has to.”

“Well, of course he’d be nice to you, you’re like the sweetest person I’ve met in my life,” Roman said, feeling bewildered by this line of reasoning.

“No, I—oh, nevermind. I was worried he wasn’t genuinely being nice for a while, but I’m really starting to think he means it, is my point. Anyway, he’s really smart—he’s so good at like, you know, synthesizing stuff? He’s really good at finding the information we need and paraphrasing it in a way that works really well for our project. I have such a hard time wording things how I want, you know? So it’s awesome that he can do that so well. And he’s good at puns, too! He tries not to laugh, but he scrunches his nose up and gets really red cheeks so you can always tell, it’s really cute. And one time I was trying to explain to our professor he was wrong about something, but I was kind of having trouble getting my point across, the teacher didn’t seem to get it, and he just spoke up and pointed out exactly where the misunderstanding was. It was really nice and reassuring of him. He just seems really protective of people he cares about, you know?”

“He sounds great, Pat!” Roman agreed.

Patton nodded, giving an excited little wiggle.

The brief silence was broken by a quiet crunching noise. Roman looked to his other side to see Logan, eyes fixed on the movie, who had worked their way through a solid third of the popcorn.

“Oh, you fiend!” Roman cried, seizing the popcorn bowl back since he was sitting in the middle.

“What?” Logan defended himself exasperatedly. “You two seemed to be handling that just fine! I like this movie! Neither of you asked for the popcorn back! What did I do?”

“...Okay, technically nothing,” Roman admitted after considering this defense and finding it to be unfortunately solid and covering all of Logan’s bases. God, they knew him too well. “But we are supposed to be doing this as a group.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Fine. Patton, he’s probably queer. You should ask him out and see what happens. Happy now?”

“Wh—how are you saying that with such confidence?” Roman demanded.

“Which part?”

“That he’s queer. I agree Patton should definitely ask him out at the first opportunity, we just hadn’t gotten to that yet.”

“I mean, I can’t say for sure, but being the only person in a classroom to react to a queer joke is pretty telling.” Logan shrugged. “Any other relevant details?”

Patton shrugged. “I don’t know. Janus—that’s the guy—he doesn’t talk about himself very much—”

“Hold on, Janus?” Logan interrupted. “Lanky white guy? Constantly acts like he’s just swallowed a lemon? Kind of a twink? Looks incredibly uncomfortable in his own skin? Growing his hair out?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Patton admitted. “You could maybe be nicer about him, though.”

“I’m sure I could,” Logan said, seeming unconcerned. “Yeah, I know him. He’s queer, I’m pretty sure he’s compatible with you. No idea if he’d be interested, or frankly what you see in him, but go for it.”

“Wh—how do you know him?” Roman demanded. “I feel left out now!”

“We met at the Aspec—at a pride center identity group. Also he’s Remus’s roommate’s best friend. They’re practically attached at the hip. I’m surprised you haven’t met him yet, with how much you hang out over there lately.”

Virgil had a best friend? A best friend here, at college? That was news. Surprisingly unpleasant news—Roman wasn’t quite sure why. It wasn’t like he disliked Virgil to the point of not wanting them to have friends! Of course not! Frankly, he was glad to hear the tiny emo had a social life. It just kind of stung that this was the first time he was hearing about someone evidently so important to Virgil. And not even from hir own mouth. He’d kind of thought they were closer than that. That he’d have learned basic facts about what and who was important to Virgil by now. Learning otherwise was a remarkably unpleasant experience.

Logan took another handful of popcorn out of the bowl in Roman’s hands, startling Roman out of his thoughts.

“Stop!” he yelped. “I want some, too!”

“You have more if this bag runs out,” Logan pointed out. “I have some extra popcorn in my dorm too. And you’ve been holding out on me with your curry powder.” He popped another handful into his mouth and crossed his arms.

“If you just asked my parents, you could have some of your own! They’d even give you the recipe! Now share with Patton!” Roman leaned himself and the popcorn bowl away from Logan, trying not to laugh.

“I don’t mind,” Patton put in. “It’s very tasty, but I’m not as attached as Logan is.”

“No, you have to take some, he’s been hogging it,” Roman insisted.

“I don’t mind!” Patton insisted. Roman shoved the bowl in his face, and he relented and took a handful.

“Let Logan have some more now,” Patton said, gently pushing the bowl back into Roman’s lap.

“Thank you,” Logan said primly when Roman relented.

“You’re welcome!” Patton said with an easy smile. The smile fell away after a moment, though, and he looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure about asking Janus out, though,” he said hesitantly.

“Why not?” Roman asked. “You really sound interested in him! What have you got to lose?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Patton said, worrying the edge of a blanket between his fingers. “I’m not sure if he’d be comfortable with it. I don’t—I don’t know.” He looked away. “I’ll figure it out, I guess.” He looked back at Roman and Logan, forcing a smile onto his face. “Thank you both for the advice, though. And for listening.”

“Patton—” Roman began, concerned.

Patton shook his head. “Let’s just watch the movie now, okay? Really. Thank you. But I’m good for now. Can I have some more popcorn?”

Logan wordlessly held out the bowl and Roman allowed himself to be mostly distracted by Big Hero Six. He felt better when Patton leaned on his shoulder, a genuine smile on his face as he watched Fred goofing around on the screen. Whatever the issue Patton was dealing with was, at least it didn’t seem big enough to keep bothering him after putting it aside.

***

“So,” Remus said with an evil grin.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to know,” Roman said. They were both sprawled on Remus’s bed, sharing earbuds as Remus swiped through TikTok.

“It’s nothing!” Remus protested.

Roman gave him a suspicious look. Remus’s face was entirely too innocent.

“I was just wondering when you’re going to get your shit together and do something about your crush on Virgil,” Remus said, the evil grin back.

“My what?” Roman did a double take. “I—I don’t have a crush on Virgil, we barely even get along!”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. The tension between you two is so high I’m surprised something hasn’t snapped yet. And you definitely have a crush.”

“I do not!” Roman grabbed Remus’s pillow and threw it in his brother’s face. “We’re barely even friends!”

Remus shoved the pillow aside and rested his chin on top of it, making a skeptical face.

“I mean, are they really pretty? Sure. But that’s not a crush,” Roman insisted.

“Mmhm. Okay. So what makes it not a crush?” Remus pressed.

“I—well—” Roman stammered, flustered by the very question.

“Uh-huh.”

“No!” Roman snapped, voice cracking. “I just—that’s a hard question to answer right off the bat! How do you define a crush? It’s just not, okay?”

“I mean, I define crush as, like…” Remus paused. “Huh. Okay. You have a point, or whatever. I guess… a crush is, like—huh. No. Okay. You’re distracting me. I’m teasing you about your crush that you totally do have, we are not veering off topic.”

“I do not have a crush on Virgil! I just want to be his friend! Okay?”

Remus made a skeptical face. “Sure, whatever you say. I’m still going to tease you about it.”

“Oh, whenever you find that third soulmate, I am getting so much revenge.”

“Eh.” Remus shrugged. “Like, go for it, but I dunno if you’ll have that much time to tease me about it before we get together. You know? Like, think about me and Logan.”

“Logan knew you were soulmates for two and a half years before you got togeth—”

“Yeah, because he’s smart, but I didn’t figure it out until thirty minutes before we got together. Or like. Thirty minutes before we started talking about it. You know this.”

Roman crossed his arms. This was unfortunately a very good point; the day Remus had figured out that Logan was one of his soulmates had been a pretty memorable one even for Roman. Logan and the twins had grown up next door to each other, and had been best friends since elementary school. One Saturday morning near the end of their senior year of high school, Remus had bolted upright in bed while Roman was brushing his teeth, blurted out something nigh incomprehensible, and taken off at a sprint; he’d slammed the front door behind himself on his way out and he hadn’t answered any of Roman’s texts for two hours, only to show up by sprinting back into the house and screaming at the top of his lungs “Logan and I are soulmates!”

This had prompted a lot of confused questioning from Roman. He’d learned that yes, Remus and Logan were definitely soulmates; Logan had figured it out in sophomore year but hadn’t said anything; Remus had only just figured it out; yes, Logan was still aromantic; yes, Remus was still allo; no, neither of them felt like either of these facts was an issue; and Remus was very happy.

“We’re going on, like, a date, but platonic,” Remus had announced to him that day, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’m really excited, this is so cool! Who’d have thought, right? Logan and me!”

Roman had smiled and tried hard to just be happy for Remus and Logan, and not jealous of them. Particularly about two months later, when they’d made their relationship official and become queerplatonic partners. He was happy for them! He was!

But Remus had never cared that much about finding his soulmates. Roman had. It didn’t feel fair. Remus, who didn’t care, got two soulmates, and one of them was literally his childhood best friend. Roman, who’d been daydreaming about finding his soulmate since he was too little to remember, and had learned just about everything there was to know about how soulbonds worked, seemed to have just the usual one soulmate. His soulbond hadn’t even developed until he was sixteen—admittedly, that was an expected side effect of the puberty blockers he’d been on for a few years before he’d been approved for T, but he was still salty about it. And when his soulbond finally had developed and he’d started tuning into his soulmate’s dreams, they were so creepy! He wasn’t sure he’d had a single souldream so far that wasn’t a nightmare. They ruined his sleep for the night whenever he got one. It was irritating and frustrating and all sorts of bad things; he’d actually cried over it a couple of times, not that anyone but Remus knew.

But as annoying as it was for him, it had to be worse for his poor soulmate—if these nightmares were what was making it through the soulbond, he could only imagine how much worse their nightly sleep must be.

He hoped he’d find them soon. He was ready for a proper romance, thank you very much!

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robinskey · 5 years ago

Text

Speechless (Billy x Reader)

Request: Hiii! I just saw your post asking for some Billy requests? Is it okay if I request you write an imagine/head cannon with Billy and a curvy reader who is sassy and gives Billy a run for his money but he catches her in one day where she’s not feeling really good about herself whilst at the pool or something and he feels this protective feeling over her and realises he’s screwed because he genuinely likes her? I would appreciate it soooo much ❤️

A/N: Hope you still like it, though, @fornixcation!

Warnings: Some swearing and Billy being flirty as heck. Also, discussion of body insecurity. Story under the cut.

You have a love/hate relationship with Billy Hargrove

It’s mostly hate tbh

You both have strong personalities, so you’re constantly butting heads

Always bickering

You’re the only one who can leave Billy speechless

Between your quick wit and soft curves

Billy’s always at a loss for words when he’s around you

For one reason or another

Thus, when summer finally rolls around, Billy’s thrilled

Finally, a break from you

And your irritatingly beautiful face

Then, one day, Billy’s lifeguarding at the community pool

It’s a sweltering summer day, much hotter than usual for June

Billy’s surveying the water from his perch in the lifeguard stand when a chorus of laughter draws his attention

A gaggle of gangly girls saunters through the gate

Teeny-tiny string bikinis hang off their thin frames as they chatter like chipmunks

There’s only one outlier in the group

A bigger-boned girl trails behind them

Her body is hidden under an oversized band t-shirt and baggy gym shorts

Her face disguised by a pair of sunglasses and a floppy hat

It takes Billy a second to identify her without her signature smirk or hip-hugging blue jeans

But eventually, it hits him

It’s you

A much sadder, quieter version of you

But you nonetheless

Billy watches as all your friends cannonball into the pool

He expects you to peel the black tee off your already-sticky-with-sweat torso and follow suit

But you don’t remove a single layer of clothing

You just locate a vacant spot, pull a novel out of your bag, and lay down on the lounge chair

Your friends spend the next half hour trying to convince you to join them

Every time, you just offer a lame excuse and a dismissive wave of your hand

The girls just sort of shrug it off

But Billy can hear the sad inflection in your voice

It bothers him more than he’s willing to admit

So as soon as he’s off his shift, he heads toward you

“You know, most people who come here actually get in the water”

You lower your book slightly to peer over the top cover

As soon as your eyes fall on the blonde boy standing at the foot of the chair, they roll toward the sky

“Not now, Hargrove”

You look back to your book

He blows air out of his cheeks

Out of the corner of your eye, you see him slide onto the lawn chair beside you

He leans over slightly to peek over your shoulder at the page

“Whatcha reading?”

You slam the novel shut, and he can feel your glare directed at him behind your sunglasses

“Ooh, is it something saucy? Something…” His voice drops an octave, growing husky. “...something sexy?”

You try to ignore the shiver that his tone sends down your spine

“Only if gruesome murder mysteries turn you on”

Billy squints at the cover

“A Time to Kill”

“Congratulations, you’re literate,” you murmur

Then, the novel disappears from your hands

You cry out in protest, “Give that back!” but he holds it out of your reach, and you’re not about to get up

Billy frowns at you, clearly having expected more of a fight

“Something’s bothering you today, isn’t it, Y/L/N?”

Your eyes travel over Billy’s bare torso, his well-defined abdominal muscles glistening in the sun

You collapse back against the chair, squeezing your eyes shut

“Don’t act like you care, Hargrove. It’s not going to help you get in my pants”

He scoffs, then folds his arms behind his head as he reclines in the chair

“I’m not trying to get in your pants. If anything, I’m just trying to get you to take off your pants,” he says, and your eyes pop open in surprise

Unable to see the shock in your expression, Billy simply gestures to your dark outfit with his elbow

“Aren’t you hot in that?”

“No,” you say, but the single bead of sweat rolling down your forehead betrays you

Billy raises his eyebrows above the rim of his aviators

“Okay, fine. I’m a little toasty,” you admit. “But I’m keeping the shirt and shorts on”

“Why? Don’t have anything on under it?”

You hesitate

“I’m wearing my swimsuit. I just-um-I can’t swim”

Billy sits up and swings his legs around to the side of the chair. He removes his sunglasses; the clear blue sky reflects off his irises

“I mean, we have plenty of lifeguards around here, myself included”

He bends forward a bit, resting his forearms on his thighs, and speaks in a lower tone

“Besides, if something goes wrong, I’m fully trained in CPR-including mouth-to-mouth”

You bite the inside of your cheek

This isn’t the first time Billy’s flirted with you

But you still don’t understand why you’re the subject of his attention

When your beautiful friends are literally feet away, splashing each other playfully and giggling like schoolgirls

You point at the group and suggest Billy joins them, sure that “any one of them would be willing to be a ‘kiss of life’ practice dummy”

“I don’t think I need any more practice. I’m ready for the real thing”

You make another play for your book. This time, you catch him off-guard and manage to steal it back

Billy sticks out his lip in an exaggerated pout

You raise your book once again to block out his expression

“Oh, don’t worry. Go back to your shift, and I’m sure some sweaty old guy will forget how to swim in no time”

“My shift’s over,” he says

His fingers curl around the top of your novel, lowering it

“Come on, Y/N. Why don’t you get in the pool? You can stay in the shallow end-”

“I said I don’t want to swim, Hargrove”

“Yeah, you did, but I don’t believe that. There’s a reason you’re wearing a swimsuit”

Heaving a sigh, you toss the book to the foot of the chair, remove your sunglasses, and place them next to it

“The reason I put on my suit was the get my friends off my case. I had no intention of getting in the water”

“Because you can’t swim?”

“No, you idiot. Because I don’t look like them!” you finally blurt out

Your face burns bright red; no amount of sunscreen could have prevented this blush

You’re more afraid of melting under Billy’s gaze than the heat, so you look away

“Just get out of here, okay, Hargrove? You said you’re off work, so there’s no reason for you to linger around”

Silence follows your outburst

Then, there’s a laugh

It doesn’t come from the girls still splashing each other in the water

But rather from the boy beside you

You turn back to Billy, scowling at his smile

“Find my insecurity funny, huh, asshole?”

Billy’s face falls immediately

He stares at you, unable to conjure the right words to say

“No,” he murmurs finally

You cross your arms over your chest

“Really? Then what’s so comical?”

“You feel insecure because you don’t look like your friends,” he repeats

Billy shakes his head, sending his soft golden curls into motion

“Rub it in a little more, why don’t you?”

“No, that’s not-that’s not what I’m trying to say”

“It’s not? Because it sure sounds like it”

“God, you’re impossible,” he sighs, burying his face in his hands

He’s silent for a moment, then raises his gaze once more

“You do realize you’re the hottest girl in Hawkins, right?”

Now, it’s time for you to forget how to speak

Because Billy Hargrove doesn’t say shit like that

Unless, of course, he means it

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Billy says, and his fingers brush your bare arm as he reaches over to pinch the sleeve of your tee. “Which is why you shouldn’t feel the need to cover an inch of that beautiful body, unless you want to”

Billy’s hand gravitates upwards, coming to rest on your cheek

Your heart beats against your ribs

“You know, you’ve got a pretty face, too-gorgeous eyes, a nice smile, irresistible lips…”

And then, suddenly, Billy’s mouth is on yours

He tastes of saltwater and nicotine-a strangely intoxicating combination

When he pulls away, all either of you can do is stare at the other

Speechless

Taglist: @novaddictx @sweetboibilly

If you want to be added to the taglist for my writing or for a specific character, leave a reply or send me a message! Thanks for reading. <3

If you liked this fic, feel free to check out my masterlist. :)

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove x y/n #billy x reader #billy x y/n #billy x you #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things x y/n #billy hargrove x female reader #billy x female reader #parker-potter writes

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imanativeofswlondondahling · 4 years ago

Text

Becoming A Stark (4) Peter Parker X Stark! FemReader

A/N: So this is the longest chapter I’ve written for this so far! And it’s one of my favorites. Also my mom surprised me with a Nintendo Switch to make up for the fact that I haven’t been allowed to leave the house since March so I’m hoping to get another chapter of this out this weekend but there’s also Animal Crossing now so.......... As always let me know your thoughts on this or if you want to be tagged whenever I post a new chapter!

Word Count: 8346

Warnings: Mention of drug and alcohol abuse, swearing I think

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Tony’s voice is painted with the smile he wears as Pepper walks into the living room.

“You saw me two days ago.”

“Two days too long.” He says before kissing her cheek. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

“That’s because this is just a stop. I’m not staying. I’m picking up Y/N.”

“You’re taking Y/N…?” He trails off in confusion.

“We’re going to get mani/pedis, do some back to school clothes shopping, and maybe get dinner. I want to get to know your daughter better.”

“She seems fine with hanging out with everyone except me.” Tony says dejectedly.

“You’re an acquired taste.” Pepper teases before placing a quick kiss on his lips. “Give her time. She hasn’t had even a week of having a father yet.”

“What time will you be back?” He asks, already knowing that he’ll have to fill his afternoon by himself.

“Six or seven maybe?” Tony glances at the Stark Phone that he’s actually started carrying with him now that it’s more personal. Natasha had snapped a picture of Y/N at, apparently, your favorite place in the whole city, which looks like a big book store. You’re not even looking at the camera, you’re carrying a ton of books and yet reaching for another one, but you’re smiling which is more than he can say for the past few days. When Natasha sent it to him, he immediately made it his background and lock screen. It may not have been a week, but you’re definitely becoming his world. “I’m going to see if she’s ready to go.”

You take one last look in the mirror, trying to decide if this is the outfit you want to be seen out in the world with famous Pepper Potts. Maybe you should change and dress up, but you’d rather be comfortable if you’re being honest. So instead of a dress or a romper, you’re in a pair of ripped denim shorts, a Rolling Stones t-shirt that you found at a thrift store a few months ago for so cheap but it’s in such good condition, and tie dyed high tops. You had thrown your hair into a ponytail with a red scrunchy only because the humidity was too much today. There’s a knock on the door. “Come in.” Jerk It Out by Caesars is playing over JARVIS, but he turns it down as Pepper walks into your room. You are in the middle of putting on the heart shaped pendant that Nana had given you for your thirteenth birthday as Pepper stands across your room.

“You ready to head out?” You glance back at the mirror once more time as you see Pepper in a red cocktail length dress.

“Do I need to dress up?” You ask, suddenly worried that your shorts and t-shirt won’t cut it in Pepper’s world.

“Honestly no. I probably should change. I came from a business lunch at this overly posh restaurant. If you’re good waiting like five minutes, I’ll go change.”

“Yeah I’ll be fine.” You grab a bag from your pile of bags, throw your wallet, a testing kit and then wander down to the kitchen to grab some low snacks.

“Rolling Stones?” Tony asks in mock surprise. “Couldn’t wear something like AC/DC or Black Sabbath? Have some taste if you’re really my daughter.”

“If you’re having doubts, I’ll go home to Nana and Pops.” You say as you throw the applesauce pouches in your purse.

“Nope. Not happening. I’ll forgive your subpar music taste, but we’ll get working on music education soon.” You just roll your eyes. You weren’t going to admit to him that you already listen to AC/DC a good chunk of the time and when in the right mood you listened to Black Sabbath.

“Y/N Miss Potts wants to know if you want her to grab you a pair of sandals for your pedicure.” JARVIS asks.

“I’ll grab a pair.” Turning to make your way back up the stairs, you walk back into your room. Grabbing the first pair of sandals you see. As you walk out your door, you see Pepper walking towards you in a loose white top, denim shorts, and a pair of sandals. “That’s the most laid back I think I’ve ever seen you.”

“That’s because you see me coming from SI most of the time and I have to dress up for that. But we’re going for comfy and casual now.” She smiles at you. “Did your dad see your shirt?”

“And give me crap for my subpar music taste? Yeah.”

“I had a feeling he might.”

“That’s why he’s not invited.” Pepper laughs.

“It’s not because we’re going shopping and for mani/pedis which he would be miserable at anyway?”

“That too. But still, if he hates on the Stones, he’s not invited.” Pepper lets out another laugh as the two of you walk back into the kitchen.

“What joke did I miss out on this time?” Tony asks.

“You had to be there.” You say instead of explaining.

“It’s nothing.” Pepper says, leaning over to place a kiss on his lips.

“I can’t tell if you’re corrupting her or the other way around.” Tony says as the two of you walk towards the elevator. “Maybe I should come along for supervision.”

“Bye Tony.” Pepper says, rolling her eyes before telling JARVIS to take them down to the garage. “So where do you normally go for back to school shopping?”

“Well we never had a ton of money, so Nana and I usually hit up the thrift stores. But I find great deals like this,” You motion to your shirt. “Four bucks and it’s basically brand new. Well as brand new as an old shirt can be.”

“Where are your favorite shops?”

“We’d go to Buffalo Exchange if we were looking for more like dresses and stuff. Like that one I wore to dinner I got at the Buffalo Exchange on the lower East Side. But there’s also a handful of good mom and pop thrift shops in Queens and Brooklyn if you’d rather head over that way. Bayside Thrift Shop is a good one in Queens or there’s Out of the Closet in Brooklyn.”

“Which one do you have better luck at?” Pepper asks as they walk to where Happy is waiting for them.

“I’ve always had great luck at Bayside.”

“So lets start there and then we can head to Buffalo Exchange before mani/pedis.” Pepper suggests.

“Where are we heading?” Happy asks as you and Pepper slide into the backseat.

“Bayside Thrift Shop in Queens.” Pepper turns to you. “Want to put some music on while we drive over?”

“Really?”

“Nothing you put on can be worse than what Tony puts on when he’s in a bad mood.” She says with a smile.

“Um ok. JARVIS can you play my June playlist?” You ask before he can list that you have a playlist called Tony Stark Can Rot. For some reason you feel like she wouldn’t like that as much.

“Certainly Y/N.” The first notes of Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses start to play and you relax into the seat. If you had headphones in, it would feel like all the times that you, Betty, and Astrid had gone between Queens and the main island during the summer. The biggest difference was you weren’t crammed into the humid subway car and sitting to your right was your dad’s girlfriend, who was the farthest from the evil stepmother character from the thousands of books you read growing up. In fact, she is sweet and kind, someone you could find yourself loving easily.

You turn your head towards the window and focus on the passing sights of NYC as you head towards the area you had lived your whole life. You could point out the hospital you had been born at if you turned down the right streets. If you went up a few blocks you would pass your elementary school, your middle school, and the school you’d be starting at in a little over a week. Your whole life up until a few days ago centered on this area of New York. That bodega was the first one you had been able to run to on your own and that’s the street you take to go the back way to Betty’s old apartment. “Missing home?” Pepper asks, seeing you staring out the window with longing.

“This place is all I knew for the longest time. I spent more time in Queens than I did in Manhattan.” You say with a shrug, not wanting to sound ungrateful, but you miss home.

“You’ve gone through a lot this week. It’s ok to miss it.” Pepper’s hand rests on yours and gives it a little squeeze. “Queens can always be home, even if you’re living in Midtown.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever give Queens up.”

“Even when I’m in Malibu, I miss New York like crazy. It’s definitely home.” You listen to what Pepper’s saying as Happy turns the familiar path to head towards your favorite thrift store. He pulls into a lot across the way from the thrift store before getting out to open the door for you and Pepper. “Now, will you show me your favorite thrift shop?” Pepper asks.

“Easily. This place is meant to be shared.” You can’t help but smile as the three of you cross the street.

“What do you like the best about Bayside?”

“They tend to have a lot of graphic tees. Both of like the band variety but also just like sassy variety. And I could live in tees if I didn’t have to wear other clothes sometimes.” You admit as you open the door and hear the familiar chime. You see Anita at the counter as you walk in.

“Y/N! We thought we were going to miss you for back to school shopping.”

“Never! I have to come to Bayside.” You say, being completely honest.

“Where’s your Nana?”

“I brought my… Pepper this time.” You say motioning to your dad’s girlfriend, but not knowing how to introduce her.

“Well any friend of Y/N is a friend of ours. We thought you might be coming by, so I set a few things aside that you might be interested in.” Anita reaches behind the counter and pulls a stack of about four t-shirts out. Pepper watches as your face lights up. “We just got them in.” You lift the top couple up to look at the bottom couple.

“These are awesome!” The black and grey shirts look similar to things that Tony would wear, but Pepper keeps that to herself.

“I’ve got them. You keep looking.” Happy says as he takes the shirts from your hands.

“Happy, I can carry them-”

“It’s clothes, they’re not heavy. I’ve got it.”

“Thank you Happy.” Pepper trails a couple steps behind you as you finger through the shirts handing. The first to get pulled off the rack is a Nirvana shirt with a yellow smiley face on it. Then a blue tie dyed Pink Floyd 1973 tour shirt follows it.

“That’s one your dad can’t even try to say he was at. Three year olds weren’t allowed.” You roll your eyes, but you can’t help but smile at Pepper’s comment. You find another more classic looking Pink Floyd shirt hanging on the rack a few shirts back that you add to your pile.

“If I had been wearing that would he have said I had better music choices?”

“Probably. He’s just judgmental when it comes to music.”

“The Stones are classics!” You argue as your hands run through the racks to fall on a Sweet Child O’ Mine Shirt. “Oh this one is a winner.” It has a faded look to it and you love that in your shirts.

“Definitely so.” Pepper takes it from the rack and hands it to Happy. “To be fair to all your tastes, I think this one is needed though,” she says pulling another Rolling Stones shirt from the rack and you smile at it.

“They are my favorite.”

“Tony would die if he heard that.” You shrug. “Wanna try these on?” Pepper motions towards the pile that Happy is holding.

“Sure.” But then an Eagles Hotel California Tour 1977 shirt catches your eye. “One more for the road.” You say before snagging the shirt. You try on the shirts you had found before getting to the stack that Anita had put aside for you. You look at the four finally. The first was a grey Pink Floyd 1972 Carnegie Hall T-shirt?! Holy shit! Your mind might explode. Then there’s a black Aerosmith shirt with a boombox with wings that says ‘Let the Music Do The Talking’ which is such a big mood. Underneath that one there’s a black Nirvana Unplugged in NYC shirt which you have been looking for forever since you love that album. And last but not least there’s a classic looking Guns N’ Roses printed on black shirt in a gold font. Anita knows you well. Four of your favorite bands and to be honest four of your new favorite shirts. So far all of the shirts fit pretty well, or even fall on the large side which is how you like your t-shirts.

Pepper knocks on the fitting room door. “I found a couple things I think you’d like Y/N.” You open the door wearing the Guns N’ Roses shirt. “Oh I like that one.”

“Really?” You’re surprised that Pepper would be into band shirts.

“You think I could date your father and not be into what he considers some of the greatest musicians of our time?” Pepper smiles at you. “But also gold is just a good color for you and your skin tone.”

“I’m not going to be Iron Man at any point.”

“Wouldn’t want you to be. However I did grab these shirts because I think your dad’s reactions will be worth it.” You look at them and laugh.

“He’ll never let me leave the tower wearing them.”

“So wear them around the tower to bug him.” You close the door and try on the two shirts. The first is a tank top that you probably never would have looked at had all of this not happened. But Pepper was right. Tony would react to it, hopefully. Across the black fabric printed in white the shirt reads ‘I’m A Female’. Then in pink it reads ‘Fe = Iron, Male = Man” before finishing in white ‘Therefore I Am Iron Man’. You open the door to show Pepper.

“If I walked into the kitchen one day wearing this telling him I was going on a run, how much of a heart attack would I give him?” Pepper doesn’t have a chance to answer before Happy does.

“He will lock you in the tower. And possibly never let you leave.” Happy states, knowing how protective Tony is even after only knowing this kid for a few days.

“Worth it.” You and Pepper say with a teasing grin.

“Can I take a picture? That might be my favorite shirt so far.” Pepper asks. You nod and then, shocking even yourself, you throw your hand out in the standard Iron Man pose and Pepper snaps the photo. “I love it.” You smile and turn back into the dressing room before the flush takes over your face at the affection from your dad’s girlfriend. You shake your head, pushing the thoughts that want to invade your mind out of your head as you lift the last shirt up to change into it.

This one is grey and in white letters say ‘Screw Your “Lab Safety” I Want Superpowers”. Your dad was going to hate it for sure, knowing so many scientifically modified people. But you love it. Plus it’s so comfy. You roll the sleeves a bit and then open the door to show Pepper and Happy.

“He’s going to hate that one as well.” Happy says the moment he sees it.

“Or he’ll laugh and say show it to Steve.” Pepper says, cocking her head to one side. “Either way, we’re getting it.” In your head you know you shouldn’t buy all the shirts that you tried on, but even if you let Pepper pay for the two that she found, the remaining ones should only come up to about thirty dollars, and you think you have that much in your wallet. You collect all the clothes in the dressing room, which Happy immediately takes from you, and you follow Pepper and him towards check out when your eyes fall on the most beautiful jean jacket you’ve ever seen.

It was a medium wash jacket, that had been loved just enough that it was no longer stiff. It had some wear and tear in some spots, but it was loose enough that it would sit perfectly on you. You have to try it on. Pepper sees you debating about the jacket, but can’t figure out why you’re debating. “It’s a gorgeous jacket. Try it on.” You take it off the hanger, gently as if it was a child instead of a jacket, and slip it over your shoulders. Rolling the cuffs up a couple times so it didn’t hang over your hands you look down at the jacket, loving that it hits an inch or two below where your shorts do. “Now that is how a jean jacket should fit.” Pepper says, smiling that you found something you clearly loved on this trip. You slide it off your shoulders and the price catches your eyes. Yes, thrifting can be great, but the jacket is still fifty dollars even at the thrift store. You don’t have that much.

“I don’t need it.” You say, not wanting to bring up that you can’t afford it even if you did need it.

“I’m not taking no for an answer on that. A jacket that looks that perfect on you has to come home with you.” She places her hands gently on it and lifts it from your hands.

“Pepper, really I don’t-”

“Tony can afford it and it needs a good home.” Then it hits you, Pepper’s not going to make- no let you pay for any of this.

“You found many things today.” Anita says looking at the pile Happy and Pepper had made on the counter. “This is going to look the best on you.” She places a hand on the jacket that Pepper had added.

“She pulls it off like no one else.” Pepper agrees. Anita and Pepper chat about the weather and honestly you’re not sure what else because you just watch as the number climbs. You’ve been coming here for years and never seen the number go that high. Your heart falls into your gut when the jacket gets added. Looking in your purse, you know you have about forty dollars to your name and that wouldn’t cover even half of that right now. But Pepper hands over a black card, similar to the one that Natasha used the other day, and doesn’t even stop the conversation. It’s like this money thing doesn’t even bother her. But it definitely bothers you. Anita puts the clothes into a cloth bag and hands it to you.

“Thanks Anita.” You smile at her, but you don’t know when you’ll be back. All you’ll remember now is feeling uncomfortable for spending Tony’s money here. Happy opens the door and you follow Pepper out of the shop. Pepper is trying to make small talk but notices you looking nowhere but the ground. She takes the bag from you and hands it to Happy.

“Can you put this in the car?”

“But-”

“Five minutes?” She says. And technically, Pepper is his boss, so Happy nods.

“I’ll be right across the street.” She smiles as he walks across the street.

“So wanna talk about it?” She asks, bumping shoulders with you.

“Talk about what?”

“Why the ground is so interesting?” Pepper takes a pause trying to give you a chance to speak. “Or maybe about why you went so quiet in one of your favorite places?” Normally, you’d just keep it to yourself but for some reason, you don’t think Pepper will judge you.

“We, uh didn’t have a ton of money growing up. Whatever money we did have went to making sure we could afford rent and my insulin and making sure that there was food on the table. So once I was about eleven, some of the other people in our building would let me run errands for them or watch their younger kids and they would pay me some pocket money for doing it. And that pocket money I saved in a jar throughout the year so that once I could go back to school shopping and twice a year I could buy Nana and Pops something nice from Christmas and their birthdays. We didn’t really celebrate many holidays, but the ones we did we celebrated really small. Santa would bring me clothes while my friends would get touchpads and toys and I didn’t question it because I knew that while their families didn’t have to worry about whether or not you were going to have to choose between buying medicine you needed to live or putting food on the table.

But Nana and Pops tried to make it so I didn’t feel that. So when I got the chance to go to The Strand or Bayside, it wasn’t picking everything that caught your eye because I was the one paying for it. So I would buy one or two books or shirts because I couldn’t afford to spend all that money if I wanted to buy Christmas presents too.” You play with Queenie’s tubing, not wanting to look Pepper in the eyes as you continue. “But in the past three days, Natasha, Tony, you, whoever, have made it clear that Tony’s made of money and that he’s fine with spending it on books, phones, clothes, whatever he or anyone else wants. But there are people out there that aren’t that fortunate.

The money that Natasha spent buying me books the other day could have paid for my Nana’s medicine for a month. Or how much you just spent on clothing for me could have bought me clothing for the whole school year and bought Nana and Pops Christmas presents. Hell I looked up how much my new phone cost Tony and it could have paid for four months of insulin. That’s sixteen vials. But more importantly that’s nearly 1500 dollars. And I bet if I lost it, he would have a new one waiting for me.” Pepper lets you continue the rant, and doesn’t let you know that he added more upgrades to your phone than the baseline one that does indeed cost as much as your medicine does. But what she would rather talk about is why does your insulin cost that much? “You guys might not care about money, but it makes me sick every time that you drop this money on me. I’m not worth it.”

“First of all, you are definitely worth it and so much more. Tony has money just wasting away in the bank and likes to waste it on the people he loves. That means he’s going to drop money on you. But coming from the lifestyle you grew up in, it’s going to take some getting used to. Plus in his mind, he has fourteen years of Christmas presents and birthdays to make up for.” Pepper watches as your eyes go wide and knows that this might be the wrong thing to say. “But Tony is also up for doing things for charity. So maybe you can come up with an initiative that he can throw money towards for you. Like maybe fighting to lower the cost of insulin for others? Because while it’s not a problem now for you to afford it, why should it cost so much for others? Tony would definitely like to fight that. And that is something that SI can also get behind as well.” You look up for the first time since finding the jean jacket back in the shop.

“Really? SI would get behind something like that?” You ask, not understanding why a tech company would get behind something like the cost of insulin.

“Tony wants to look into manufacturing things to make diabetics' lives easier, which I told him he needs to talk to you about before doing anything. But your name is part of the company. You’re a Stark now. So anything that SI does, takes an interest in what you have an interest in. So yes, the cost of insulin is something that SI will fight for too. Help me do some research on who to support and we can start the battle as one of your first introductions to the world as Tony’s daughter?” You nod, knowing this is something you’ve always wanted to help with but never had the power to do anything about.

“Thank you.” You say, before doing something without thinking- you throw your arms around her. Her arms wrap around you, but she’s not sure what she’s being thanked for.

“What for?”

“Listening. Being here. Being human?” You say, joking about the last one, but it feels right.

“Of course. I don’t know how to be anything else.” She says and pulls on your ponytail a bit. “Now you want to show us around your neighborhood a bit before we head back to Manhattan?”

“You want to see it?” You ask, surprised that Pepper wants to see Queens.

“It’s part of what makes you you, so yes.” Happy finishes crossing the street to be back with the two of you.

“There’s a really great coffee shop up this way. Or if we go down this way there’s an amazing sandwich shop called Delmar’s. Oh and Pops goes to play chess at this park down that way.” You point out three different ways.

“Coffee sounds like a plan.” Pepper says. You drop your arms, not wanting to hold on to her longer than you’re allowed to but Pepper keeps an arm around your shoulder as you walk towards the coffee shop you love. It was always a treat when you got to go, but the smell alone was something you had missed. They make all their syrups from scratch and you could spend all day there reading if you were allowed.

As you walk, you point out the book shop where you sold the books you were done with to make some extra money, the apartment building that you, Nana, and Pops lived until there was a rat infestation, and the bodega that you used to go to to stock up on low supplies. You wave to some people that you know by face alone and smile at the feeling of being home. It feels nice to share this world with Pepper, and almost makes you wish Tony was here to show him what home feels like to you. It’s not throwing money around on things you don’t need. It’s the feeling of the sun on your skin as you walk around the streets you’ve known all your life.

At the coffee shop, Pepper buys you and Happy coffee, yours iced and his hot, as well as an iced tea for herself. “So I was thinking, we could go to Buffalo Exchange to try and find you some bottoms to go with the shirts we found for you, or maybe a dress or two? That way you have some clothes until the rest of your stuff gets moved from Queens?” You don’t say anything, but you know she’s right. You only have a few more sets of outfits and half of them aren’t appropriate for school. You force yourself to take a sip of your coffee as you nod your head. “We don’t have to Y/N. We can hold off.”

“No, we should. I don’t have that much stuff left at the tower and some of it is more wear at home type stuff.”

“Do you want to make a stop at your Nana and Pops house and get some more stuff?” Pepper asks.

“Can I?” You miss your Nana and Pops so much it hurts.

“Of course. Tony isn’t trying to keep you from them. And we’re already in the area.” You can’t stop the grin from exploding on your face. You know that Nana and Pops won’t have much more baggage you can put stuff in though so you turn to Marcie, who’s working at the counter.

“Hey Marcie, do you guys have any boxes that you haven’t broken down yet?”

“Actually yeah. We got shipments in this morning of some stuff. What size are you looking for?”

“Big enough to put some clothes and stuff in.”

“Ah moving apartments again?” Marcie had helped you with boxes when the rat situation happened. “Rats again?”

“Not rats, but something like that.” You say with a teasing smile. She walks to the back and grabs the couple bigger ones.

“Will these work?”

“Those are perfect!”

“You can have them on the condition that you still come and get coffee occasionally.”

“Deal! I’m going to go to MSST so I’ll still come by!”

“Then the boxes are all yours.” She hands them to you and Happy offers to take them from you. Marcie looks at him with confusion but you wave it off.

“Thanks Marcie!” You say before returning to the table where Pepper sits.

“I’ll bring the car up,” Happy says. “Be back in five minutes.”

“Thanks Happy.” Pepper says as Happy takes the boxes with him as he leaves the shop.

“You seem to know all the people at your favorite shops.” Pepper comments.

“New York is more like a small town when you think about it. We all go to the same businesses over and over again. Why shouldn’t we know the people who’s shops we frequent?” You shrug. “Plus Marcie is the best person to get boxes from when you have to move buildings. Then you don’t have to pay for them.” Pepper and you both drink your cold beverages as you sit waiting for Happy.

“Have you ever traveled anywhere?” Pepper asks, wanting to get to know you better. You shake your head.

“I’ve uh never left New York. We never really had the money.” You glance out the window. “I don’t even have a state ID, much less a passport.”

“Well we can get you an ID sweetheart, that’s easy. And knowing your dad, he’ll want to get you a passport since deciding to take last minute trips is one of his favorite things. But if you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?”

“You’re not going to like plan a trip, right? Because you’ve spent plenty-”

“Y/N, I just want to get to know you. Now if Tony asks you, I would answer on the bet that he wants to take you wherever you answer.”

“The kid in me wants to say Disney World because who doesn’t want to go. But I think the actual answer would be the Grand Canyon. I’ve always wanted to see if it’s as big as it looks in pictures. And the third choice would be London. So many writers lived there and I want to see what inspires them to write the way they do.” You look back at your coffee. “I’m not the best at picking just one place.”

“Never said you had too.” Pepper says, trying to catch your eyes. “I think all three are wonderful ideas. Maybe we should go there, but leave Tony at home to finish the deadlines he never touches.” You look up at her with surprised eyes. “Ok, maybe he can finish them before the trips and then come along because if I steal his kid for that long, I’ll never hear the end of it. He might take my job away for stealing you for that long, if it didn’t mean he would have to start doing work again.”

“Really?”

“You’re all he talks about these days. And I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. He’s not someone that’s easy to get to know. And I would say he’s definitely an acquired taste, but once he’s in your corner, having Tony Stark have your back is sometimes greater than having Iron Man. I hope you get to learn that. Because I know he desperately wants to show you how much he already loves you.”

“But he barely knows me.”

“There’s this thing about being a parent, so I’ve heard, where you love your kid so much from the moment they enter your life. That’s how he feels, and how he’s felt about you since the moment he saw you for the first time. Every night since you entered his life he said to me ‘God Pep, I didn’t know I could love a kid so much.’ And I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.”

“But I’ve kind of treated him like garbage?”

“And you think you’re the first teenager to ever say things to their parents like that? You have a better excuse than most though. Most aren’t thrust into having parents as late into life as you were, but you’re dealing with a lot. Most people also aren’t dealing with having Tony as a father. I give you props for that alone.”

“You’re the one dating him.”

“Yes but that’s different.” Happy pulls up outside the coffee shop. “Come on. We have all the time in the world to debate who has it worse in regards to Tony.” Pepper teases you. You turn and wave to Marcie.

“Bye Marcie!”

“Good luck with the move!” She waves before returning to the order she’s in the middle of taking. You follow Pepper towards the car and climb into the backseat. Happy drives you towards the apartment he had taken-picked you up from less than a week from.

“Would you feel more comfortable if I stay in the car?” Pepper asks as you pull up and Happy puts the car in park. If it was Tony, yes. But you like Pepper. You want her to see the place that you think of as home so you shake your head.

“Plus I want you to meet my Nana and Pops.” You swing the door open before Happy even has a chance to open the door for you. You’re too excited to see Nana and Pops. Usually you would just run up the six flights of stairs to the apartment, but you’re not going to subject Pepper and Happy to that just because you don’t want to wait for the slow elevator. So instead you bounce on the balls of your feet as you wait for the elevator. If not for your fear of elevators dropping, you would have continued bouncing the rest of the way up. But finally, finally, the elevator arrives and you count the three doors as you pass towards home. It’s weird to not have your key so you knock on the door.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” You hear your Pops voice and you could almost cry. He opens the door and you don’t wait a moment before flying into his arms. “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” He pulls you away to say something, probably like ‘there’s no way you’re my granddaughter. You’ve gotten too big,’ but you push against his arms to wrap your arms around him again. “I’m right here. Not going anywhere. I got you.”

“Who’s at the door Lou?” Your Nana calls and it sounds just like coming home now.

“It’s me Nana.” You say even though the sound is muffled by your Pops’ chest.

“Is that you babydoll? What are you doing here?” Your Nana rounds the corner and then you're out of your Pops’ arms and into her’s.

“We’re sorry to just surprise you. But we were in the area and Y/N has been missing you.”

“Never apologize for bringing her ho- to visit.” Your Pops voice is a little rougher than normal. “You must be Pepper Potts.”

“Yes, nice to meet you. And this is Happy, or um Harold Hogan, our head of security.” In the back of your mind you place the fact that Happy’s real name is Harold of all things, but right now you’re too focused on the fact that you’re home. “Y/N also needs to get a few more clothes and things so Happy has some boxes for her to put some stuff in.”

“That’s fine. She’s always welcome to come and get things. This may not be as fancy as where she lives now, but it will never stop being her home.” Pops voice rings out and Pepper can feel that he’s not welcoming them in like he welcomes you.

“Pepper, will you come help me get the stuff in my room?” You ask. You know Pops probably isn’t happy with the way things are working out either, but leaving Happy, he can at least go over the security plan or something. Leaving Pepper seems just mean after how nice she’s been to you today.

“Sure honey.” Pepper smiles at you. She follows you down the hallway to the door where your name is printed in block letters on a piece of computer paper. “I like this.”

“Thanks, Betty made it for me.” You pull it off the door. “Do you think I can hang it on my door at the Tower?” Pepper nods.

“If you want to, I don’t see why you can’t.” You open the door and Pepper follows you into the room that is about a quarter of the size of your room at the Tower, yet feels more at home than the Tower. “So what is coming with this time?” Pepper knows that at least with most of the books and if you want any of the furniture, they are going to have to get a few men to move it.

“I’m thinking mostly clothing and maybe some of my books. Not all of them, but at least a few of them. Oh and there’s a blanket I’ve been missing.” You walk over to the dresser in the corner and open the bottom two drawers, which are filled with mostly distressed jeans and shorts. “All of these.” You say with a laugh.

“How about I work on putting those in this box while you get the blanket and pick out some books?” Pepper suggests. You shrug, it sounds like a good enough plan. Walking over to your shelf, you have to stop yourself from calling out to JARVIS to ask him to put on music and instead pull your phone and put on your playlist instead. Have you really gotten that used to living at the tower? Before you can get to the shelf, you spy the quilt you want sticking out from the under bed boxes.

You pull it out and hold it close. Part of you wants to unwrap it and drape it around your shoulders, but you know that you’d be wasting precious time doing that. So instead you trace your fingers over the different triangles of fabric. Pepper looks up and sees what you’re looking at. “Is this the blanket you were missing?” You nod and she comes to take a seat next to you on the twin bed that you grew up in. “It’s beautiful. Was it handmade?” Pepper asks, but doesn’t make a move to touch it since it’s clearly special to you.

“My, uh, mom made it.” With everything that has happened in the last week, Pepper hasn’t actually heard anything about your mom besides Tony talking about how your mom was a one night stand. “She was in a recovery program the first three months after I was born to try and get her recovered. Alcohol and drugs. Part of her recovery was making this quilt. Something to focus on as she went through withdrawal. It’s part of the reason I was placed with my grandparents. I was born two and a half months early and addicted to crack. So she wasn’t that fit of a parent. But they hoped that with rehab she would get better and come home. It, um, didn’t work like they hoped. She relapsed and they found her on the streets six months later dead of an overdose.” You don’t look up as you trace your favorite triangle, the peach colored one. “This is the only thing I have of her. I’d like to think she made it for me, but I think I know deep down, she only made it because the program made her.”

“She would have been lucky to know you.” Pepper says, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“But she didn’t so…” You trail off. “But I have Nana and Pops. And I have Tony now. And I guess you and the Avengers too.”

“You got bonus family galore.” Pepper holds you close. “I got you and I’m not letting go.” She whispers into your hair as she places a kiss there.

“Thanks Pepper.” You lean into her side, before placing the quilt into the box at your feet. “I’m glad you got me.” You admit.

It doesn’t take much longer to pack up the clothes and books you want from the room you love. There’s still other things you’ll need to come back for, but you can do that another day. You have the things you need to get you through at least the beginning of school. Before you know it, Happy is taking the boxes down to the car and you’re wrapped up in your grandparents’ arms once again. “You’re welcome anytime babygirl. You have your key for that reason.” Your Nana says into your hair.

“I know Nana.”

“And if you need a break, you come on over. Being Stark’s daughter isn’t the end all be all.” Pops’ voice is aimed more at Pepper than at you, but you nod.

“I know Pop.” You kiss both their cheeks. “I love you both. So much.”

“We love you too babygirl. Always have, always will.” Your Nana runs a hand through your hair. “Get going. You probably have big fancy plans for the day.”

“Still the same girl you know.” You say as you walk towards where Pepper stands. You follow her towards the door, but take one more look at your grandparents before you both start making your way downstairs. As you get outside, Pepper looks at you.

“Do you want to do more thrifting and mani/pedis or you want to call it a day? You still have next weekend? We can always do more back to school stuff then.”

“Do you mind if we don’t? I’m kind of exhausted.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I did. Plus we can order food to the Tower and maybe watch a movie or something instead. Calm night instead.”

“That sounds awesome.” You say as Happy starts the drive back to the Tower. Going back to Manhattan took a little longer than normal, just because of the time of day. You scroll through social media, trying to take in your last day as Y/N Y/L/N. Tomorrow the news breaks about you being Tony’s daughter, so you’ll take the calm before the storm. Pepper is reading over things on her own phone, probably SI stuff if you had to guess. “Pepper?”

“Mmm-hmm?” She answers as she scrolls.

“Will the explosion from the news tomorrow be bad?” You ask before adding. “Like you dealt with when Tony announced he was Iron Man. Will this be that bad you think?” Pepper puts down her phone and looks at you.

“I don’t think this will be bad news. I think there will be questions, but that’s why SI has been putting together a lot of press packets for different situations. If the press tries to spin it in different ways, we will be ready. The most important thing we have stated in all of this, is that while Tony didn’t know about you until recently, he is very happy to be your father and he is doing everything in his power to provide the best home for you.” Pepper pauses looking for signs from you on which way you were feeling. “For now, how you feel about everything is going to stay silent because of your age and such, but eventually, if you feel up for it, we’d love to publish something about you and your dad together.”

“Why about me?”

“Because the public will want to know, but also because you are one day possibly going to be a face of SI. If that’s the path you wish to take. Again this isn’t a decision you have to make anytime soon. Right now, the focus is keeping you out of the press as much as possible.” Happy pulls into the garage as Pepper says all of this. “But I think the public is just going to be interested in learning about who you are because you are an extension of Tony and they like knowing about him.”

“I can understand that. But I don’t even feel like I know him all that well yet.”

“You will in time. I promise.” Pepper says as she walks with you towards the elevator you had left only a few hours earlier. You had grabbed the clothes from Bayside, but Happy said he would get the boxes and take them to your room for you. Upon arriving to the living room, Tony is surprisingly waiting for you and Pepper.

“My two favorite ladies, back already.”

“Finished early. Figured we could do a night in instead.” Pepper explains as Tony gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“Did you have a good day kiddo?” Tony looks towards you and you nod before turning to Pepper.

“Thanks Pepper.” You say before giving her a quick hug. “I had a lot of fun today.”

“Of course. I had fun with you too.” Pepper’s arms wrap around you, squeezing you back. And for a moment you can’t help but wonder if this is what it feels like to have a mom. Yours was out of your life moments after you were born. You let yourself relax in her arms for a moment before you feel Tony’s eyes on the two of you.

“Uh, I should go put these things away.” You pull away from Pepper and make your way towards your room, canvas bags in tow without saying anything to Tony.

“It’s not fair Pep.”

“What?”

“She hugs you.” Tony whines as he plops down on the couch. “All she does for me is make playlists called Tony Stark Can Rot. How is that fair?”

“Now how would you know what her playlists are called?”

“I asked JARVIS to play some of her music so I could know more about her since she refuses to hang out with me. He asked which playlist and started listing them. To be fair it has some great music on it. But still, I would never make a playlist called Y/N Stark Can Rot.”

“You don’t name your playlists.” Pepper points out.

“Not the point.”

“The point is you're jealous that she’s closing herself off to you.”

“Maybe I am. She’s my kid. I want to know her. I want to do everything for her and with her. But everything I try backfires.”

“So don’t try so hard.” Tony’s brows pull together as he looks up at Pepper. “You suggested her friends coming over for dinner and that worked really well.”

“Yeah worked really well in that she told me about a teacher that hated her enough to throw scissors at her.”

“She also acknowledged that you’re going to be here for her from now on. That’s a success. So try doing small things like that. Don’t make huge gestures. Don’t you dare buy her a gigantic bunny. Try to let her get to know you. And don’t try to buy your way into her life. She hates that.”

“You literally took her shopping today.”

“We went thrifting.”

“What? All of that needs to be washed immediately!” Tony starts freaking out.

“This right here?” Pepper motions towards him, “This is the kind of reaction that will push her farther away. She loves thrift shops. She told me and we went to her favorite ones to look for clothes. She opened up about her life before us Tony. That picture on your phone. That’s a moment she shared with Natasha. You need to give her a moment to open up to you.” Tony notices Happy walking by with a couple of boxes.

“What all did you buy her today?”

“We stopped by her grandparents’ house so she could pick up some more stuff. She mentioned she was getting low on some stuff.” Pepper motions towards what Happy is carrying. “She really misses them. I think we need to give her time to see them too.”

“I’m not keeping her from them.”

“I’m not saying you are. I’m saying I think we should schedule times so she doesn’t feel that way. Also I told her that SI would start a charity fund to fight the cost of insulin.”

“Not against that but why?”

“She was feeling really uncomfortable about how comfortable we all spend on a day to day, based on her background with money.” Pepper says, not really explaining.

“That tells me less than nothing.”

“It’s her story to share. You’ll have to wait until she wants to share it with you.” Pepper kisses his cheek. “But you have an amazing kid.”

“I know that. I just want to know her like all of you know her.” Tony says frustrated.

“Give her time.”

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