#also my chem teacher keeps saying “by show of hands” when she means “raise your hands” and nobody's telling her she has it wrong

[existencebringsonlypain]

my religion teacher keeps misgendering the holy spirit and it feels weird every time he does it

[artzee-bee]

Best friend’s ex | Benny Weir x reader

Fandom: My babysitter’s a vampire

Request: “ Um if you don’t mind can you write for mbav? Something along the lines of the reader and Ethan try a fake relationship thing cause Ethan asked her to? Like to get to Sarah/ or get her attention. And everyone is shocked cause they thought Benny and the reader would date instead cause all 3 of them are childhood friends”

Genre:Fluff mostly but I guess a little angst torwards the end

Warnings: some arguing and also it’s LONG, don’t say I didn’t warn you

A/N: This has a little Ethan x reader too but over all it’s Benny with a guest apperence from jelous!Benny torwards the end (or at least that’s what I was going for)

~~~

“Wait, you’re dating?! Like for real dating?!”

 You clinged tighter to Ethan’s arm “Yeah, we are” but you weren’t. You didn’t want to lie to your friends and it was honestly making you kinda uncomfy but you were doing it for E.

“Ok so how long has this been going on for?” asked Benny. You and your entire friend group were gathered around his locker and you decided to break the news to them about your and Ethan’s “relationship”, which was all bullcrap. He had asked you a couple nights before to pretend. He was hoping it would get him closer to Sarah.

“Um, no more than a month” E said, trying to sound as confident as possible and doing a fairly good job at it. Of course you saw right through him but everyone else seemed to buy his act.

“Well that’s...interesting news” Sarah laughed awkwardly

“You think so? Why?”

The group went silent for a moment

“Well, just cause” Sarah started, nervousness laced into her tone “I mean I would have guessed that Benny and Y/N were going to get together eventually.” Rory and Erika just nodded in agreement while Benny tried to suppress a nervous laughter.

“I mean, come on guys” he said “ I’ve known Y/N for just as long as Ethan.” 

“Yeah, but you two just always seemed, I don’t know, closer?”

“Well” Ethan interrupted “ seems like you were wrong on that one.”

Suddenly aware of how rude she sounded, Sarah babbled some lame excuse and left quickly, face red from embarrassment. Rory and Erika left as well, each in their own direction, but not before congratulating the couple once more. Benny was the only one left.

“You good Benny?” E asked

“Yeah, I guess it’s just interesting seeing you like this”

“I hope you’re not mad or anything I mean we…” you were quickly cut off by Benny

“No, no, absolutely, not! I’m really happy for you guys! My two best friends are in love, that’s really cool!” A pink tint made its way onto your cheeks hearing Benny say “in love”, even though you knew it wasn’t true. E smiled at you and hid his face in your hair. You wrapped your arms around his neck and he placed his hands on your hips, swaying you two back and forth for a moment

“Alright, well I gotta go. Chem starts in a few” you told your boys and headed to class, not before hugging both of them and leaving Ethan with a quick peck on the cheek

As soon as you got to class however, you texted your “boyfriend”

“Think that went pretty well”

“I think so too. Everyone seemed to buy it!”

“I know!” you said and the conversation ended like that. 

You switched your attention back to your teacher, who was discussing your next assignment but even though your eyes were on her, your mind was replaying Sarah’s comment on repeat. You and Benny, huh? You couldn’t say you disliked the idea or that you’ve never thought about it. You’ve always felt different when hanging out with him compared to all your other friends.You felt more free and comfortable. You couldn’t stop the smile on your face from the fuzzy feeling you got just thinking about Bens and you together.

“So how long are we gonna be doing this for?” you texted Ethan. Now that you thought about it, you could never date Benny after this. The sudden realisation made your stomach twist in knots. He would never even go on a date with you if he thought you to be Ethan’s ex! Bro code or whatever but you couldn’t blame them!

“I don’t know for sure, I don’t see why it should last more than a couple months.”

“Ok” you didn’t mind helping E. He was a great guy and one day, some amazing girl is gonna see that and be all over him, even if it’s not Sarah! And he’s going to fall in love and have a beautiful wife and a happy family and this thing you are doing right now is just gonna be a silly high school memory to look back at. You tried not to overthink everything like you usually do and go with the flow, have fun.

It was surprisingly easy to do. Holding hands and occasional cheek kisses didn’t mean much and you never had a “proper kiss”, telling everyone you were simply not fans of PDA. It didn’t feel much like you were a couple, just closer friends. Touchier.

About 4 months down the line, you and Ethan go on your last “date”, which really just meant pizza night at Morgan’s.

“Thanks for all this Y/N, I know you didn’t have to and it might have been awkward at times but it means a lot that you went with it all this time” Ethan says sincerely while pouring you a glass of soda

“Don’t be silly E! You are one of my best friends. I would do anything for you.”

“Yeah but, now you and Benny won’t be…” he didn’t finish his sentence, as if he wasn’t sure if bringing this up was even a good idea or if it was gonna make you mad. You told E about your crush on your best friend not long after your first day as a “couple”. You couldn’t lie to him and quite honestly, you needed someone to vent to. The more you thought about Benny, the more it hurt and while you weren’t mad at Ethan for bringing it up now (you knew he had the best of intentions), it was putting you off

“Let’s not talk about that tonight” you said softly

“Right, yes, of course! Sorry” you giggle and reached out for your glass of soda, raising it up

“A toast!” you declared dramatically, making E laugh “To our breakup!” Ethan raised his own glass and clicked it with yours 

“To our breakup!” he said before you both took a sip of your drinks

You laid down on the couch, getting ready to watch Scare Finder. Your head was resting on one of Ms. Morgan’s decorative pillows and you placed your feet on E’s lap. He rolled his eyes at you and you giggled

“I love you!”

“I love you too babe” he joked before laying down next to you and wrapping you in a hug. The couch was a bit too small for the both of you to lay down side by side and you felt the left side of your body  hanging off the edge but E’s arms were around your waist, holding you and you felt safe

“Can we..” Ethan whispered nervously “can we keep cuddling during shows even if we aren’t boyfriend- girlfriend anymore?” 

“Yes of course” you giggled

“Good, cause this is really comfortable” he whispered in your neck

“I know, I love it too”

~~~

 Your breakup was a much bigger deal than you anticipated.Your friends seemed not only shocked, but heartbroken too. You didn’t tell them anything about why you ended your relationship, saying it was too early and you didn’t feel like talking about it but that you were still close friends and nothing was going to change

Things went back to normal afterwards, except now you were single and so was Benny and you couldn't help the invisible pull, dragging you closer and closer to him. Everyone of his silly jokes made you crack up and you couldn’t even be mad at him when his failed spells ended up in a big mess that you and the friend group needed to solve. You hadn’t realised how much you missed him until you broke up with E. Whether or not that relationship was real, it felt like a real reason to stay away from Benny. It felt like you were taken because everyone else belived you to be. You couldn’t make a move on him because everyone knew you to have a boyfriend but now you didn’t and you couldn’t help yourself from looking at B in a different light.

You were over at his house, helping him pack some herbs he had to organise for his grandma, as punishment for wasting all her old ones on some spell. You were stuffing dried leaves in tiny jars, while Benny was busying himself attaching little tags to them, with the name of each plant.

“Thanks again for coming to help me, you didn’t have to”

“Anytime Bens, you know I’m always here for you” you looked at him and smiled sweetly. He looked into your eyes and said

“I know, Thank you” you nodded and switched your focus back on the plants, hoping he wouldn’t notice the blush on your face. Lucky for you, he started telling a story that happened in his geography class and things slowly fell into their usual, casual place, at least up until you had to leave.

You placed the last little jar in its respective spot on the shelf

“I think this is it, right?” Benny asked

“It should be”

“Perfect, I’m in dire need of a snack. You want chips? I have some upstairs”

“No, it’s late, I should head home”

“Um, ok yeah. No problem” but none of you moved after that, you just looked at one other for a little bit, until the awkwardness got too much and you took your backpack and headed to the door

“Thanks again” Benny said right when you reached the door

“No problem” and then time froze again. You got lost in his pretty eyes and barely noticed his chest rising and falling faster with every second that passed until, you both found yourselves in each other's arms, kissing deeply and desperately, as if you’ve waited all your life for this. Your hands tangled in his hair, pulling at loose strands, his hands running up and down your back, bringing you as close to him as possible. All your senses were intoxicated with him and finally, the little pit in your chest disappeared. Your lips fit together like puzzle pieces but than, all of a sudden, Benny pushed you away aggressively

“No, I can’t do that!” his back turned to you, but you saw the red in his face and his hands went to his head, massaging the back of his neck just like you had been doing

“Benny…”

“No, no, you are Ethan’s ex and we can’t do that! I can’t do that!”

“B, listen to me!” you tried to step towards him but at your slightest movement, he jumped back, finally turning to face you

“Y/N, that was a mistake and I’m sorry! We shouldn’t have done that! It was a mistake” your eyes stung from the tears threatening to spill down your cheeks

“Don’t say that…” you could barely hear your own voice and were genuinely surprised when B replied

“Of course it was! As much as I wanted to do it and as right as it may have felt, it’s barely been a few weeks since your last relationship with MY BEST FRIEND and your best friend too and we can’t, I CAN’T do this to him! You, you guys dated and…”

“But we didn’t!” you said

“Of course you did, are you out of your mind?” Benny looked at you, teary eyed and desperate “I saw you, we saw you! Holding hands and cheek kisses! He had his arm around your back every moment of every goddamn school day and every time I wished it was me! He had all of you and he could hold you during movie nights and spend all his free time with you and kiss you and run his hands through your hair and everytime he did it I imagined that I was in his spot, hoping you would look at me with the same love and admiration that you looked with at him but now it’s too late! It doesn’t matter that he didn’t cherish you better while he had you because I still can not take you! I can’t do that to him!”

“Benny it wasn’t real!”

“What does that even mean Y/N?” he was yelling now, but you knew he wasn’t angry, just hurt. You saw the tears in his eyes and how hard he tried to stop them from running down his face.

“We weren’t ever dating! We just pretended!” the madness in his eyes turned to a question, an invitation for you to continue “It was all a show Bens. He wanted to impress Sarah. He asked me to fake a relationship with him.”

Benny leaned over the table, resting his body on his arms. He seemed to be thinking for a while, until he said “That’s a stupid idea”

You laughed “I thought so too when he told me” Benny seemed to think some more before saying

“Such an Ethan idea to have” which only made you laugh more

“So it was never real?” he asks you finally

“No! It was just an act” but even now, Benny couldn’t say anything. He was looking at his hands nervously. You took a deep breath and said the one thing you could think of

“He knows if that’s what you are wondering” the boy looked at you with questioning eyes again “Ethan I mean”

“Ethan knows what?”

“That I like you” Benny straightened and looked at you with soft eyes once more, you felt your cheeks heat up and turned to walk away but Benny quickly grabbed your wrist and pulled you into him, holding you in a tight hug. 

“So, does that mean I can kiss you again?” a small smile tugged at your lips

“Please do”

[cheelduh]

How to get Hit-listed by a Stonehide Lawachurl (High School AU!)

Part 6 of the highschool au

Parts: 1 2 3 4 5

Pairing: Childe x fem!reader

Synopsis: Childe’s a menace to everyone when playing dodgeball. Even as his new girlfriend, you’re no exception to his affinity for raising hell during the most tranquil of circumstances.

Warnings: Swearing, bad humor, and absolutely horrid spelling mistakes.

Words: 5.3k

Note: Longest chapter yet sheeeesh 🗿

Negotiation is an art.

Childe, or "Tartaglia" has utilized the art of negotiations in his daily life. Whether that be scamming the ninth graders with fake weed, or convincing the teachers why he doesn't deserve detention for injecting random fluids from the chem department into the school's resident pet frog.

All in all, by becoming an expert in the field of negotiations, Childe is nothing if not a master, tongue silver and smooth as he takes on a new opponent.

Which is why he dutifully negotiates with you on this Monday morning in front of the History classroom, getting down on one knee and pulling out a—

"I hope to Barbatos you aren't proposing Childe," You hiss, panicked eyes landing on the velvet box he's pulling out. "Considering that we're sixteen and still in highschool."

As if remembering those meagre details, Childe gulps and shoves the box back into his pocket. "Uhhh yeah, I was just, tying my shoelaces?" It comes out as a question.

You let out a sigh of relief, overlooking how he undoes his shoe laces just to do them all over again.

The ring burns in his pocket as he gets back up.

"Why did you call me here?" You ask, hand on your hip, foot impatiently tapping. The tap tap tap isn't because of impatience though, it's because you need something to cover the nervous palpitations of your heart.

He gives you a vicious smile, sinister enough to shake the bones of anyone who's observing, opens his daring mouth to show the imaginary sharpness of his teeth. Then with the confidence of about a hundred shirtless tiktok boys, he finally demands:

"If you don't become my girlfriend, I will kill—"

"Yeah sure thing." You answer before he can finish, soft smile growing.

Childe chuckles evilly, "I knew you'd say that, but I've come prep—wait a minute." He snaps out of his villain origin phase, stumbles back a bit, then his eyebrows are furrowing in confusion. "Did you just say yes?"

You nod, cheeks flaring up. "Don't make me repeat it." Then you look away, too embarrassed to see his reaction.

For a second, Childe's internal conflict following the chain of this event causes him to temporarily malfunction, and all he can do it stare at you in amazement.

It's only when you tell him to stop staring and jump off the school roof is when he snaps out of his daze, a grin festering on his face.

He lunges straight at you, giving you no time to deflect him as he wraps his bone crushing arms around you, then lands a soft smooch on your forehead.

"Let go of me you idiot!" You barely wheeze out, light headed not only because of your lungs being squeezed like oranges, but also because of the sloppy kiss he's delivered so ungracefully.

He does so reluctantly, and you're unamused, wiping the stickiness off your forehead with a sleeve as he steps back.

"Ew what the fuck?" You say, glaring at him. "What's wrong with you?"

He completely ignores you, giddy with excitement. "Ah girly, you have no idea how long I've wanted to do that. I can't wait to introduce you to my parents and eat lunch together and kiss each other during break—"

"Slow down." You tell him, as red as a tomato towards all his suggestions. "We've barely started dating."

"Oh," Childe stops momentarily, then nods in agreement. "You're right. We should start small. How about I walk you to class?"

"We're already in front of class." You nudge your head towards the classroom, and catch Zhongli and Venti peeking from the side of the door, trying not to be obvious.

You narrow your eyes at them threateningly.

Childe tugs your arm, lovingly looking you up and down. "Let's walk to class together anyways. In a circle."

A complete waste of time, yet it's impossible to say no to the face he's making.

Before you guys depart he suddenly stops, gasping loudly, remembers something important. "I have to make a quick phone call."

Childe speed dials Scaramouche, and the latter picks up annoyed, answers the phone with muffled sounds in the back. Something that sounds a bit like pleading and whimpering.

He then mutters something that forces dread into your system. "You can release the hostages."

You hear Scaramouche groan on the other end, muttering a "such a pain in my ass", but choose not to question it immediately.

As soon as the phone call is done and you're back by his side, you point at his phone questioningly. "What hostages Childe?"

He gives you a close eyed smile, taking the fifth.

"What hostages Childe?" You repeat again weakly.

—

First period goes by smoothly for the most part. Lisa, your so called best friend, once again is bought off like a corrupted politician by your new boyfriend. She sits far away from you, leaving you without any defences against the menace that dotes on you a bit too much.

Throughout class, all Childe does is score Venti's colourful pens, and then writes you annoying little love notes, using the expert origami skills he's learnt from Anthon to deliver them to you.

Despite the threat of distraction these notes pose, the corners of your lips can't help but tug upwards at his enthusiasm and attempt at poetry.

Zhongli makes sure not to ask you two any questions the entire class, leaving you to your own accord.

Lunch comes around soon enough, and your usual table of Diluc, Jean, Kazuha, and Lisa is disturbed by the torpedo that is Childe, and he brings collateral with him.

Kaeya whole-heartedly ceases the opportunity to sit near his stoic statue of a brother purely with the intention to annoy the premature crap out of him, but one look from the redhead sends the chicken-shit right back where he came from.

When Childe forcefu—lovingly feeds you the smiley fries and dinosaur nuggets his stunning mom packed him, Diluc looks just about ready to hurl.

Lisa winks at you two, Kazuha doesn't even bother looking, and Jean tries with upmost effort to keep Diluc from launching himself at the whipped fatui boy basking in your attention.

"Quit embarrassing me." You whisper-exclaim sharply, noticing how Jean passes Diluc—all green in the face, a puke bag discreetly. "Shouldn't you be doing something illegal right now? Or vaping in the stalls?"

"I quit vaping for you girlie." Childe boops your nose with his finger. "Well, at least full time. I still need a puff when I'm around Signora, to like, get rid of her awful vibes."

While it is endearing how he quit vaping for you, it doesn't lessen the need for you to bury yourself alive right here and now.

Then you sigh, pick up a Dino nuggie, and shove it in his mouth, the tip of his tongue flicking your finger. You die inside.

"There, you happy?" The action of feeding him is so...intimate, it sets your heart aflame.

Childe's a lovesick puppy when he chews, imaginary tail wagging a hundred times a second. "Can I have a kiss too?"

Diluc slams his hands on the table and stands up, hurriedly picks up his grape juice and makes a break for it. You don't blame him.

"I'll kill you." You smack him with a napkin, blazing red. "I'll end your pathetic little life right here and now."

By the end of lunch, Lisa and Jean have to restrain you so you don't break the world record for the maximum amount of mutilations that can be done on a single body.

Fourth period is a break. A break from Childe you mean. It's expected of the school's resident bad boy aka menace to skip classes in order to skip over the bodies of his victims.

You bask in the momentary peace, until it's disrupted by a tap on the window. Reckon it's nothing, maybe a bird flew into it, because intentional taps are impossible from the third floor. Except your conviction is hindered yet again by another tap.

What a nuisance.

You finally turn to look outside the window, face down, and spot Childe waving incessantly, rocks in hand, oozing with excitement that can't be concealed and a grin that nearly takes you into cardiac arrest. Without meaning to, you send him a small smile, waving back as Baal drones on about quantum superposition.

Successful in gaining your attention, he moves aside to reveal the hefty corpse of a stonehide lawachurl with a destructive path in its wake. The ridges and bumps of its hide are enough to do a number on the road, ruining the school's playing field.

Your smile drops down into a horrified frown in the span of a few seconds.

"Wow." Albedo, your lab partner whispers from next to you, for the first time distracted in class.

"Yeah," Kaeya whistles from behind you two, one hand supporting his head. "What a gesture."

"Y/N, I'd be grateful if you could possibly obtain a black crystal horn for me from the specimen." The blonde asks, entranced by the corpse that your boyfriend is flaunting off to you with pride.

"Aren't those things endangered cutie?" Lisa makes sure to butt in, as per usual.

Yes. Your boyfriend with several issues and an affinity for chaos brought you the corpse of an endangered geo-infused creature that's five times the size of him. During school hours too, the fiend. Like a cat dragging the corpse of a dead mouse to its owner.

You groan into your hands, heart racing while the fire is coursing through your veins.

That idiot.

—

Childe is exceptional at a lot of things, like the switch and making weapons out of seemingly harmless things (e.g shiv out of a toothbrush), but what he prides in the most is physical education. With washboard abs, uber tall height, and a dickish smile to top it all, he has everything it takes to showcase his top tier athletic abilities.

He pounces at the opportunity to show off in front of you, wanting nothing more than to have you fawn over his strength. He's sure it'll be enough to have you all over him, wrapping your cute little arms around his muscled ones, passing him his water bottle and dabbing away at the sweat on his forehead. Most of all, he daydreams you planting your soft lips on his to congratulate him after a big game.

Physical education, for you, is a pain. You may be good with your brain, but games exert more energy than necessary, and coordination that lacks logic entirely. You're just here for the credit. The over-achiever part of you walks the extra mile to ensure a grade in the high nineties.

Although witnessing Childe clad in the school shorts and matching polo shirt is enough to make this worth your while, you'll die before admitting it. Especially when he gawks at you as if it's the first time you're wearing the sports uniform yourself. It has you fidgeting with your fingers and tugging your shorts down nervously.

You try not to flip him off like you usually do, especially since it's not even been twenty four hours since he's asked you out.

Mr.Zhongli blows a whistle, calling all the students over to surround him. It's odd that he teaches most of the subjects at this school, seemingly the only adult present, but no one questions it in fear of genshin logic. Moving on, he explains that you have a dodge ball game today.

Lisa groans beside you. She hates anything that requires the exertion of energy, oftentimes bringing a book to read while everyone else screams in the background.

You're relieved, mainly because Childe and Tohma are usually captains, and Childe always picks you to be on his team as a means to flex his skills. For you, it means sitting back and watching him carry your team towards a straight A.

However, all your dreams are crushed when Zhongli announces the team leaders.

"Y/N, I trust that you'll lead the blue team to the upmost of your ability. Childe, prepare to lead the opposing red team."

Your knees shake as you stare at him in disbelief. "But Sir—"

"No buts Y/N." He scolds you lightly, checking off your names on the clip board. "I'd like to witness your exceptional leadership skills."

In reality, Zhongli just wants to reenact a lovers-on-opposing sides trope, wanting to see how the two of you crack under the pressure. In a way, it is an exercise of leadership.

Instead of picking teams, Zhongli assigns teams for the both of you according to his own judgement, trying to make it as fair as possible.

Lisa pats your back after your teammates are assigned, trying to cheer you up. "It's going to be okay. You guys are dating now, so he'll go easy on you."

You look up to meet Childe's eyes from across the court. He gives you a charming smile, which turns downright barbaric as he lifts up a thumb and motions to slash his neck with it. Then he wickedly mouths "I'm going to destroy you."

You blink and turn away as fast as you can in fear. "We're fucked."

Lisa, witnessing the entire ordeal nods alongside you, doing nothing to reassure you because she herself has given up.

Suddenly a hand lands on your shoulder gripping you tightly. "Let's wipe the floor with that g*nger." The voice is ice cold, threatening enough to send a shiver down your bones.

You turn to meet Rosaria, who frowns at you. Most of the time she doesn't really put an effort in dodgeball, but she must've seen your crestfallen expression, trying to comfort you in her own detached way.

Rosaria is the other school nurse in training, alongside Barbara, but somehow her patients end up more injured, sick, or mentally defiled than before they entered the room. She also spends after hours beating up Chads in the school parking lot. Also runs a blog with her booby co-author Kaeya that emphasizes mostly on the dark knight hero.

Spotting the rest of your team behind her, you begin to criticize them one by one.

Standing against the wall is Kaeya, pushing both his biddies up with his crossed arms like an absolute whore. He's breaking about several dress code rules right now. Venti is next to him, drunk off his butt as he beat boxes with Tohma.

Eula mutters under her breath, on and on about seeking revenge on Zhongli for putting her beloved Amber on the opposing team, promising him an unfortunate fate. Xiao is miserably squatting on the floor, sharp eyes observing everyone in the gym, scowl not ready to dissipate anytime soon.

Then you look over at Childe's team in the distance. Jean with a determined look on her face as she listens to Childe's game plan, and Diluc crossing his arms with his brows furrowed in concentration. Even Amber, the best baller in the school, is stretching out her arms, assisted by the gifted princess of the school, Ayaka.

Not only that, but Childe has the king of dodging on his team—Kaedehara goddamn Kazuha. Beidou shoots you a wicked smirk, winking at you until she's disrupted by Ningguang's shove.

"Oh my god." You cry out when the realization hits you, falling to your knees in despair. "We're completely fucked!"

"No we aren't." Rosaria mutters lowly. "You're only fucked if you want to be. Don't you dare throw in the towel before the fight has even begun."

"But I—"

"Stop it." She grumbles again, rolling her eyes. "You're being annoying now. If you lose the game, that makes him the dom. Don't you want to be the dom?"

She's right. You do want to be the dom.

Her words of encouragement, and not at all veiled insults somehow allow you to find motivation deep within yourself. You get up and stomp towards the rest of your team, calling their attention with your newfound confidence.

"Listen here soldiers!" You shout out, determination clear as day. "I know I am not capable of leading. I know that I barely have the physical capabilities needed to defeat the opposite team."

You take a deep breath, pointing at your cutie patootie boyfriend across the gym as you seethe. "But that man, that harbinger of chaos, that instrument of war, is nothing but a tyrant. And I cannot let such a tyrant be a victor in this battle. Not when innocent lives are at stake."

Tohma speaks up, sending you a bewildered look. "What lives—"

"Shut the fuck up soldier!"

"Yessir!" He immediately stiffens, saluting you.

"Are you ready soldiers?" Your voice booms, and everyone reinforces their priorities, except for Kaeya though. He just lazily smirks.

After Zhongli places the balls in the middle, everyone prepares for the battle of the century.

'Gods, please let us win this war' you pray to the archons above, closing your eyes in concentration.

'Give me the strength to flex my superior skills' Childe wishes, then adds on quickly 'also I want to dominate this world.'

'Give me the strength to make it to Friday.' Rosaria prays for nobody but herself, rolls her eyes at all the unnecessary dramatics of this dodgeball game.

"3..." "2..." "1..."

Zhongli ends the countdown by blowing hard into a whistle, signaling the beginning of the game.

Not even two seconds later a ball whooshes past a few of you at the speed of light, followed by a tail of fire. The ball of death kisses Kaeya square in the nose, sending him reeling back into a wall with enough sheer force to cause an indent.

Everyone winces.

Before you all can reel in from the initial shock and make sense out of wherever the hell that asteroid came from, Zhongli's voice booms throughout the gymnasium.

"Mr. Ragnvindr, headshots are strictly forbidden. You are out!"

With a scoff, Diluc, satisfied with his work, leaves the court with no apparent qualms. He accepts his defeat with the upturned corners of his lips.

Rosaria pokes Kaeya's body with the tip of her heels, then cringes when he shakes awake, up from his short lived knockout and sends a wink her way.

"Getting handsy when I'm unconscious? I didn't think you'd be one to partake in such vulgar activities." His eye twinkles in mischief, and if his momentary defeat at the hands of brother has him fuming, he doesn't show it one bit.

The only thing that keeps Rosaria from knocking him out for real is the blood that trails down onto his lip. She doesn't want to clean blood off her shoes, especially since it's a pain in the ass to get off.

You're about to tell them to get up and take this seriously, but a softball does your job for you when it darts straight at Rosaria. With pristine accuracy, the girl manages to pitch herself away last minute.

You swivel in Childe's direction, who wears a remorseless grin, which only grows wider once you pick up a blue softball next to your feet.

The glare that he receives has him shaking in exhilaration. More so than the elation he'd felt when he took down that Stonehide Lawachurl for you, as a gift of promise.

You begin to bark out orders. "Eula, Xiao, and Rosaria cover the front and act as decoys."

They nod immediately, but Xiao still clicks his tongue in distaste as he starts following orders.

Then you offer Kaeya a hand. "Get up princess. You're on sniper duty."

With Diluc out of commission, the battle is fair and square now considering both sides have the same amount of people. Ergo, no one's at a disadvantage.

That is—until Lisa fake trips over pure air, landing on the floor in a dramatic slow motion.

You roll your eyes.

"Oh dear! I think I've twisted something." She cries out, crawling away from the battle field, acting as if she's paralyzed completely. "Don't worry about me. I'll cheer you on from afar. The battle has begun, and it seems as if I've become the first casualty."

You don't let the countless amount of Lisa's betrayals get to you, even this one. It's just her personality to flake out on anything and everything that requires her to do more than below the bare minimum.

Focusing on the match, your eyes are only on Childe, just as his are on you.

You aim the ball straight at his ribs, step back a bit, then propel the ball in the air with as much energy as you can, using your entire body as a power outlet. The ball spins in the air, reaching the awaiting victim.

Childe, unbothered, dodges the ball with perfect precision, the ball not even grazing his clothes at the least.

Your jaw drops open, and you're about to move for another ball until he grabs the same ball you threw at him. With the sharpness of a predator locking in on its pray, he focuses on you like a missile locks on its target, launching the ball in the air for power that has you trembling, second to the powerful ball that was thrown by Diluc.

With your pupils dilated at your impeding doom, it's Xiao that grabs you and thrusts away.

The ball lands on the floor, smoke rising.

"Holy shit!" You shriek over everyone else's grunts and shuffles. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Isn't it poetic?" Childe shouts back while he slides away from the balls being thrown. "Lover against lover. Either you're by my side, or in my way. And right now, you're in my way." He narrows his eyes dangerously. "Albeit reluctantly, I will take the victory babe. Even if we are on opposing sides."

"There was zero reluctance in that throw asshole!"

You thank Xiao, who wipes his hands on his pants in disgust. "Filthy humans. So pathetic and weak."

Mildly offended, you roll your sleeves up and begin to fight with everything you've got as soon as he walks away.

The dodgeball game goes as expected for the most part, Eula carrying for most of it with the flow of her skills.

Tohma actually tries like the presumptuous asshole he is, aims straight for his girlfriend Ayaka, and takes her out completely. His only justification for that is "I ain't no simp!"

He shelves his cocky attitude when facing Childe with a sense of dignity and prestige you didn't think he had in him.

The two one of a kind fuckbois puff out their chests so that they look more hefty than they are, having some kind of an Alpha match. The 'me stronger than you. me dominant. me get all the women' type beat.

Unfortunately, Childe manages to fence him with his throws, and lo and behold, the square off ends with a dejected Tohma dragging his feet to the nearest bench.

Eula oversees that Ningguang and Beidou meet a quick end, taking their slower dodging to her advantage. You're actually rooting for her, tasting a sliver of victory that you haven't reached yet. So close, yet so far.

Amber trips on herself in the middle of throwing a what should've been coordinated ball, and it loses most of its momentum. Xiao is directly in front of it, and will probably be able to catch it with ease.

Ah, another short victory.

If Childe loses his expert baller, he's only left with Kazuha and Jean, whom's lack in the art of throwing is made up by their ability to dodge most of the fastballs.

However, all your plans and hopes are crushed when Eula slides in front of Xiao last minute, sticks out her foot, and let's the pathetic product of Amber's would-be downfall hit her on the leg with the total force of about 0.0000001 newtons.

Your chances of winning have just went down by a staggering 60%.

"Eula!" You cry out, collapsing on the ground. "How could you?"

Tohma cups his mouth and bellows obnoxiously from the bench. "SIMP!"

"I cannot avenge my clan if I win a false victory." Eula crosses her arms, casting her gaze down in visible uncomfortableness. "Amber will pay her dues in two business days. Mark my words."

It all a load of cap. She's sleeping with the enemy and you know it.

You grit your teeth. Fuming with an abundance of rage, you pick up three balls and throw them all back to back, taking out Amber and Kazuha simultaneously.

Childe's heart flutters in another kind of delight when you pluck out his team members one by one with no hints of remorse.

In retaliation, Jean and Childe work in sync to swiftly take care of a distracted Rosaria.

"Shit." You hiss underneath your breath.

It's Venti, Kaeya, Xiao, and you who are the only remainders of your short-lived team. It's still two more people than Childe and Jean, giving you the upper hand briefly.

It's a mystery to everyone how Venti is still standing. You reckoned you would've lost him as collateral during the beginning of the match, but it seems he's able to hold his own.

When you squint hard enough, you realize that Xiao has been t-posing in front of the nonchalant SoundCloud rapper that's about as high as a kite. He must've been defending him throughout the entire round.

His defenses are all in vain once Childe correlates another attack with Jean, sharp-shooting four rapid balls that are secured on their targets.

Xiao swerves to the side, avoiding most of them, until one is about to reach a nonchalant as shit Venti.

You scream at him, eyes widening as you run towards them in slow motion. "NOoOoOOOo-"

The yaksha doesn't waste a moment, shifting so that he's covering Venti's body with his own, which to be honest is a pretty heartwarming sight.

The ball hits his lean back, a sharp thud following when it hits the floor.

Xiao is out. But his sacrifice is so inspiring that it brings tears to Zhongli's eyes, makes everyone in the gym go silent in awe.

Even the sadistic Childe melts, cerulean eyes gaining back their light, halting his fire.

When Xiao finally uncovers Venti's body, he speaks from the bottom of his dead heart. "I'd do anything for you..."

Venti shakes out of his baked state, blinking at him stupidly with a nervous chuckle. "Ehe~? I don't even know who you are."

The entire class sweat drops. Whatever slip of compassion on Childe's face earlier has become nothing but a memory. Even your eyes dim.

The next time Childe aims and locks at Venti, it's not with malicious intent. It's a favour, for you. In a way it adds dimension to who he is and the lengths he's willing to go for you, even at war.

Venti steps away with a bounce in his gait, hands behind his head.

Kaeya and you are the only ones left standing now, and the game becomes too tight knit to tell which side's going to win. It becomes utter chaos, balls being launched every second, stamina slowly decreasing as everyone lurches away from their demise.

As laid-back  and charming as the boy presents himself to be in front of the ladies, he's not very patient when it comes to facing circumstances like these. He's side lined for most of the match, finding it boring. And when Kaeya gets bored, the intensity of the tide changes, and everyone knows they're going to get a run for their money.

Kaeya coasts a hand around your hips, pulls you real close, purposefully leaning his bust into the side your innocent arm.

When Childe's smile drops, and the glint in his eyes reads 'DANGER' in full caps, you know it's time to be properly scared.

Your blood runs cold, mouth opening briefly and then clamping shut immediately.

"I'm so glad to be on your team Y/N. Maybe this'll give us the chance to become...closer." His hot breath fans against your ear, voice loud enough to be heard by onlookers.

Suddenly everything stops, falling into an unsettling silence.

You attempt glance at Childe, being met with a glare that's directed at the Captain of the Skating team. The ball in the orange-haired boy's hand deflates from the sheer intensity of the squeeze.

The tension becomes unreadable. Even Zhongli is caught mid-sip with his tea.

Quickly, you shrug off Kaeya's arm. "Childe, he's just fucking with you—"

Childe cuts you off by hurling a ball with nothing but the objective of cold blooded murder.

Kaeya whizzes past you, successfully ducking to avoid the hit, and his amused laugh rings through your ears. He rolls away from the following attacks, chucking his own series of colourful balls.

The events that unfold are blood-curdling enough to make even Satan boil his pants with diarrhea.

You take the clear opportunity presented by their concurrent dumbassery to take out Jean, the ace of the other team.

Childe's rage blows over when Kaeya eventually loses interest and takes the L, playfully winking at you while walking backwards to the rest of your team.

Now that all the distractions are dealt with, Childe's eyes flicker to you, and you share a murderous glance.

"Finally," He slaps the softball with a free hand, lips thinning into a homicidal smile. "I've been waiting for this. You better not disappoint me."

While Childe may be a violent anarchist who's only aspiration in life is to become a government contracted killer, he's also supposed to be your sweet boyfriend.

Slowly, you inch towards the front. "We don't have to do this Childe. We can coexist peacefully."

"Peace was never an option Y/N." He sighs, cracking his neck. "Besides—how else can I prove myself in your eyes? You may be my greatest weakness, but you are also my greatest adversary."

"I don't know, maybe start with not trying to obliterate me?"

"I'm obliterating you out of respect." He counters with a playful pout.

"Well I'll be paying my respects to your grave!" You lurch ahead into a sudden assault, yeeting as many balls as you can his way.

"That's my girl!" Childe whistles, grin widening psychotically when he goes all out, leaving you with an absence in favorable openings.

Out of nowhere, the fire alarms start going haywire, along with a beep in the PA system, which stops you two in your tracks.

A panicked voice of who you assume to be Yanfei shrieks through the comms. "CODE ORANGE! CODE ORANGE! EVACUATE THE BUILDING, THERE'S A STONEHIDE LAWACHURL ON THE PREMISES."

As if on cue, the ground starts rumbling and a Stonehide Lawachurl bursts through the halls and into the gym, looking around for something. Or rather, someone. It's sharp bumps and ridges make an indent on the floor, cracking it in.

Everyone falls into a state of panic, Zhongli trying his best to evacuate the class from the emergency back door as quickly as possible. "Settle down class, we have to follow protocol."

You, devoid of any emotion or sense of fear, turn to your boyfriend in such a calm manner it strikes an ominous dread in his stomach.

You stare.

Childe stares harder.

“I thought you killed it."

"I did." He retorts slowly, switching to gaze at the raging beast in amazement.

"Then why is it in the school!" You seethe, glaring daggers at his side profile.

Childe chuckles sheepishly, scratches the back of his neck. "I may or may not have stuffed the body in the boys washroom. Y'know, for safe keeping?"

The Lawachurl locks it's gaze on you, the prey, and then roars furiously. Turning into its geo-enhanced state, it begins charging at you with all its might, the target being solely Childe.

Leave it to your boyfriend to get on the hit list of an endangered beast.

"Fear not my vibrant girlfriend. Our first date can be surviving this." Childe cheekily kisses the top of your trembling hand before grasping it tightly and making a run for it.

[brendaaaa]

Lab Partners (Steve Harrington x fem!Reader)

“And the last pair will be…Steve Harrington and Y/n L/n.”

You bit your lip and turned to look at the king of Hawkins high. He wasn’t looking back at you, or even paying attention to anything the teacher was saying, but was whispering with his friend Tommy H instead. You watched him chuckle at what was probably some stupid remark his friend said, and your eyes intently focused in on him running his hand through his expertly teased hair, messing it up.

You closed your mouth, realizing that it had fallen slightly open whilst watching him. You coughed, and made eye contact with your friend Kelly. She was looking at you with wide eyes, and a bit of a smirk on her face.

Of course. Of course with your worst luck you would end up with Harrington. The boy was an asshole. And that was that. But you thought, rather bitterly, that didn’t change the fact that you were totally in love with him. Yep. Go ahead and shoot y/n. You were smitten with the hottest possible douchebag of the whole damn town of Hawkins.

You had never even really talked to him. Maybe he had brushed past your shoulder once in the hallways back in middle school, or perhaps you’d maybe randomly made eye contact with him once across the cafeteria on a rainy day where you weren’t sitting outside on the baseball fields like usual.

Anyways, logically speaking, there was no real reason for you to like him. Other than for his looks of course, which was somewhat shallow reasoning. And this was a fact that you absolutely hated. You cringed knowing that this boy could make your eyes drop to the floor in an instant, face blushing red, trying to look at anyone, anywhere but him, and there wasn’t a single thing about his actual personality, or what you knew about him, that you even remotely liked.

So that is precisely why your stomach was a flip flop of fluttery and unwelcome emotions when your chem teacher assigned you and Steve Harrington as lab partners for the final project of sophomore year.

The devil on your shoulder was delighted, thrilled even to be paired with the basketball team hottie, but your true consciousness fought back, protesting and feeling guilty that you were only drooling over him because of how cute he was. And besides, you didn’t want to have to deal with his jerkish attitude. Oh dear lord you were going to have to invite him over to your house. You didn’t want him to be in your bedroom! Your personal space! But that nagging subconscious was telling you, ‘yes y/n yes, this is the break you’ve finally been waiting for. All this time and Steve will finally be all yours, all yours. You can seduce him, charm him, he’ll be yours, all yours!’

You grappled under your desk for your water bottle. You seriously needed some ice cold water to keep you regulated, keep those unwanted thoughts out.

There weren’t many good sides to getting the hair as your partner.

If the rumors were true, Harrington had never gotten an A in any class, like ever. So surely he would be a drag to have around this project, full of dumb comments and contributing nothing, no real substantial work towards getting a grade.

You swished down some more water. Life would be so much easier if your teacher would just let you be partners with Kelly. She was a real one, your best friend since forever really. She could sort of empathize with how you were feeling, since apparently she had a thing for a guy ‘just like Steve, only worse’ when she was in California last summer. That made you feel better. You two could vent together about how hard it was liking such hot assholes.

You decided to be bold. You raised your hand. Kelly shot you a look. She was watching you like you were about to tell your mom that you had snuck out the night before. Social suicide. Looking at you like you were crazy, and whatever you were about to do was unpredictable as hell.

Which was probably true.

“Yes, Miss L/n?” The teacher pointed his ruler at you, giving you permission to speak.

“May I choose another partner?”

Kelly’s jaw dropped open, and she looked from you to Steve, back to you, up to the teacher. Although everyone else in the class was bored out of their gourds, Kelly knew you like she knew her own self, maybe even better, and she was living for this shit show of emotions you were displaying.

“Umm…” the teacher fiddled with the pen hanging out of his breast pocket with one hand, while his other finger slid down a clipboard, looking for where your name was listed.

“Ah, yes with Mr. Harrington,” he mumbled to himself, before looking back up at you quizzically.

“Is there any issue with your current pairing? Something wrong with Mr. Harrington?”

At this Steve finally took notice, frowning slightly as his eyes flicked over to you.

You sat still for a moment, trying to format the best way to word what you were about to say.

“Uh, kind of.” Everyone gawked. Did you really just testify to the fact that there was something wrong with Steve, king of the school??

“I mean no,” you quickly added, covering up your mistake, although by now Steve was amused while watching, enjoying watching you, some random girl he didn’t even know, get so flustered over the topic of him.

“What I mean to say is…” you watched Steve out of the corner of your eye. “My mom won’t allow me to have any boys over. Ever,” you fibbed. Ay, what was the harm in a little white lie, anyways?

“So obviously Steve is a male,” you said with a smirk, the class nervously laughed as you said that. Immature hormonal kids. Kelly mentally face palmed at some of the implications that statement alone made.

“And my mom would never allow him in the house. So uh, how would we ever get the project done? I need a female partner,” you explained to your teacher.

He nodded, a firm line pressed across his lips, slightly frustrated at the inconvenience of hafting to switch up partners this late into the planning of this project.

“Wait, hold on a sec.”

Your heart skipped a beat. Oh no, no. You were so close! So close to convincing the teacher to put you with someone else!

Steve was sitting up straighter in his seat now, a hand up, “hold on a sec,” he repeated.

“I don’t see why…” hey looked at you. “Um..name?” He asked, brow furrowed slightly.

You flushed bright red, wanting to roll your eyes at how embarrassed you were getting. You weren’t a shy person by any means, but having this whole exchange in front of the entire class wouldn’t have been fun for even the widest open book.

“Y/n,” Kelly spoke up for you, seeing as you were not going to supply your name on your own.

Steve snapped his fingers, “Y/n! Thank you…” he trailed off, seeming still mostly unfazed as he realized he didn’t know Kelly’s name either.

“I don’t see why nobody else can see that there is an obvious and simple solution to this. If y/n’s mom won’t let me come over, then that's fine. Y/n can just come over to my place instead!”

Now why, why in gods name would he say that? You thought to yourself. It was almost like he knew that he drove you mad, and he was just enjoying teasing you, stringing you along, while the whole time knowing that you were no match for him. Or was it actually the other way around? I mean, why were you so worried over him anyways? If anything you were the desirable one. Sure, you weren’t popular, but Steve was a jerk.

It didn’t matter. Either way you were a sucker for him, and he seemed to be abusing that knowledge. Knowledge? Now where the hell did that come from? Seriously, how had Steve even figured out you liked him? Did he even know? Or was he really just so lame that...ugh fuck. You felt like your brain was about to short circuit, finally blow out after running on high, when

“Ms. L/n? Would that work for you? Doing the project both here at school and also at Mr. Harrington’s house?”

You looked at Steve. He smirked. He knew you liked him, he knew, that bastard-

You looked at Kelly. She raised an eyebrow, basically giving her approval and saying, why not amigo?

You sighed, “Alright.”

Your teacher smiled, “Peachy.”

You turned to look at Steve one more time, and to your dismay and stomach butterfly syndrome, he was watching your carefully. He was fiddling with his pencil absentmindedly, but he was smiling. No, not smiling. Smirking.

You turned back around in your seat, slightly shivering. Oh god were you excited to go to his house. You corrected yourself, no actually, how much you were dreading going to his house. You finally just gulped down some more ice water, rolling your eyes at yourself, and decided that it was okay to be feeling two things at once. It was okay to view your crush on Harrington as both a joy and a crime. Your chances of getting him as your lab partner both a blessing and a curse. Who knows? Maybe Harrington was a bit of a multi-sided di himself. Prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside. You took another sip of water, laughing at yourself inside, Harrington? Sweet? What wishful thinking. If only, you thought.

If only there was some world where Steve was a nice guy, maybe worked at an ice cream shop, or was a pizza delivery guy, and maybe he’d babysit kids or whatever. If only. In the meantime, you had the douche bag to deal with. Word Count: 1668

[sleekervae]

The Neighbour [2.1]

Masterlist

A/N: OH MY GOD I LIVE!!!! Also, spoiler ahead for The Bastards graphic novel; not so much plot-wise but there are a few lines from the book. Indented paragraph is credited to Emerson Barrett and XoBillie.

“I have loved you from the moment you first smiled at me,

Giddy, mischievous, not ever looking for trouble yet somehow

Trouble has a way of always finding you.”

Remington stared wistfully at the view from Eva’s balcony, knowing how self-conscious she was when he watched her as she read a piece. In his lap sat Pluto, satisfied to have his ears stroked while he took his afternoon nap. 

He couldn’t explain it, but somehow Remington found he was always transported to a new dimension when he heard Eva’s poetry. It was so soft and delicate, he could appreciate it the same way one does the petals of the first flowers of spring. Everything about her writing was so soothing, now a familiar notion that he never wanted to let go of.

“You’ve ignited a fire in my belly with embers sparking and popping

Under the intense pressure of your dark eyes 

And the bubbling pearls of your laugh.

I loved you when I first ran into your open arms and marvelled

“My God, you feel just like home”

And with a few simple touches the open sores on my skin 

Recede and heal, and their pain is a faint memory in comparison

To the electricity your fingertips carry. 

I loved you when we were flying over the streets,

Vibrant yellow, orange and purple coating my eyes and

Painting you into Monet’s Twilight, Venice.

You’re a renaissance masterpiece that has been imprinted

Into the soft folds of my brain...”

Eva set her book down having finished the incomplete piece, watching her boyfriend with a dazed smile on his face as the echo of her prose sunk in. She simpered to herself with giddy.

“You know, I always have mixed feelings about reading you my poetry,” she said.

“Why’s that?” Remington asked, “It’s very good,”

“I know that. And you know that,” she smirked, “And I know that you know that I’m low-key inflating your ego with this shit,” 

Remington chuckled, reaching out across the small table to take her smaller hand in his, “Would it put you at ease if I told you my ego is too far gone?”

Eva rolled her eyes and snapped her notebook shut, “Maybe I should start writing poems about the things you do I find annoying?”

“You say that like it’s bad,” Remington shrugged, giddy when she shook her head in dismay at his teasing. 

Pluto continued to lie motionless in Remington’s lap, assuming the sphinx position as he had his ears rubbed. However, the tabby’s eyes sprung open when a guttural vibration shook through the small wooden table, disturbing the peaceful afternoon. 

Eva glanced at the familiar glare of ‘Blocked Caller ID’ appearing, refraining from showing little disdain as she declined the call. Remington however was curious; for the past few months he’d seen Eva decline calls like that over and over again. The first few times he figured it was telemarketers, or scam calls. However, he noticed how they came frequently in the weeks; more prominent on Wednesdays and Thursdays. 

“Who is that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Eva shrugged, “It’s blocked for a reason,”

“But if you blocked the caller... then you have to know who it is so you could block them,” he reasoned, “Right?”

Eva responded in silence, taking her phone and quickly tucking it beneath her thigh. Remington stared at her pointedly. 

“Eva, you get these calls nearly every day,” he said, “If it’s something bad... you know you can trust me with anything,”

“I know...” Eva nodded slowly, exhaling, “It’s my mom,”

Eva had been exceptionally non-forth coming when it came to her life back in Seattle, only remembering hearing about her friends and family once or twice. He respected her privacy, though he couldn’t help but be a tad curious. She fit the overall profile as someone who was running away from her problems.

“You blocked your mom?” he asked, somewhat in disbelief though from what he understood of their relationship he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Eva nodded, “Yep. Either she can’t take a hint or she’s way more stubborn than I am,”

Remington looked across the street to his own house, the gentle breeze billowing through the sheer curtain in the living room he remembered his mom helping him and Emerson pick out. 

“Why don’t you speak to her?”

“Why don’t you speak to your dad?”

“I told you already,” 

Pluto then leapt off of Remington’s lap and landed on the table, crossing over to his owner and staring at her with his big, soulful eyes. Eva smiled and gently scratched his ears.

“She showed up to my graduation, which would have been fine... but she showed up with her new husband and a kid,” she admitted.

Remington raised his eyebrows, “Her own kid?”

“Yeah. She got married to her co-pilot and they have a ten-year-old son together. She abandoned our family and started a new one,” Eva shook her head, “I guess being married to a chem teacher wasn’t as exciting for her,”

“What did your dad do?” he asked.

“That’s the best part. He knew about it and chose not to tell me. I just couldn’t believe it,” she replied, “But the fact that she just... she disappeared for years and then showed up again with a new family -- at my college graduation! How could I possibly celebrate after seeing that?”

“And you haven’t spoken to her since?” he asked tentatively.

“No. The way I saw it, she walked out of my life with no qualms. So... I walked out of hers. And it doesn’t matter how much she phones me; I don’t have time for disingenuine people,”

Remington reached over to take her hand that was resting on the table, stroking gently over the bumps of her knuckles, “Did you... did you meet her son?”

It was then Eva looked truly bummed out, “I think that’s the part I regret most. I mean -- he’s a kid. It’s not his fault his mom is a flake,” 

Remington nodded, “Do you still love your mom?” 

“I don’t know,” Eva shrugged, “Call me a coward, but avoidance is just easier to deal with,”

“You’re not a coward,” Remington assured, “I get it. But... speaking from experience, you can only avoid your issues for so long. As hard as it may be, you might want to address these problems sooner rather than later. I promise you won’t regret it,” 

“Rem --”

“She’s your mom. And obviously the fact that she’s still blowing up your phone should tell you something,”

Eva sat quietly, letting his words sink in. She knew Remington was right; knowing what she knew about him she also knew that he wasn’t just talking out of his ass. She appreciated that he understood where she was coming from, she just wished that his solution could be as easy as it sounded.

“I will call her back... eventually. My dad wants me to come home for Christmas, I guess I have to,” she chuckled sheepishly, warranting a sympathetic smile on his part, “Just... not today,”

“That’s okay,” Remington said, gently squeezing her hand, “It’s all gonna’ work out, Eva,”

“You can’t promise that,” she pointed out.

He shrugged, “Let’s not call it a promise, then. Let’s call is a whim,” 

July had faded into August, as did pandemic fatigue. The streets were becoming busier, the business’ were seeing more intake in revenue, and people were slowly coming back out to try and enjoy was little of a summer was left.

And while most people were doing their best to social distance and keep safe, the cases continued to grow. Safe in the confines of the house, Eva sat at the table and read over the final print draft of the band’s graphic novel. Eva was blown away, completely immersed from the plot line to the artwork. She was supposed to be working with Emerson on his latest project, yet afforded herself a small break. 

Across from her, Emerson was reading through Eva’s Tumblr blog, blown away at the amount of work she had posted since mid-June. Every prose and line was so vivid, painting a clear picture of her emotions. On the one hand, he couldn't help but be a little uncomfortable, knowing the sensual poems he was reading was about his older brother. On the other hand, everything was so poised and punctual -- he figured he may borrow some stuff to try on Shy some time. 

Eva turned to a new page littered with more text than it was visuals, but on the edge of the left page was a stunning, very accurate sketch of Remington. His hair looked so different in the form of a basic sketch, yet those eyes, that face still captured all the majesty and curiosity within. She was unable to help that her fingers glossed over the lines that made up his torso with all his tattoos visible, tracing down the length of his arm to the vanity beside him and back up again. The cold paper singed her fingertips as she read the prose beside the sketch, a small smile creeping onto her lips with every word that echoed in her brain.

“...Emerson thought that if hell and heaven had a bastard son, that it would be Remington. His brother had an angelic-looking face with big almond-shaped eyes. His eyes were brown but could shift into black, and melt into the iris. It was a look that Emerson though the angel of hell would be proud of. But then, in the right light, those dark eyes changed and came to glimmer like the purest of gold - a look angels would swarm for. Apart from the eyes, his face was the feature of him that seemed to never change no matter how brutal this world was to him...” 

Eva had to give credit to Emerson for his writing, capturing his brother in such a way that she herself would have. And like the flip of a switch, the memory of Remington’s eyes flashed through her mind, shining of gold and beauty the way the words had echoed to her. 

In another blink his eyes turned into the eerie shadow of black, flashing a look he’d throw her way when his lust for her consumed him. In one paragraph, Remington had been portrayed as a killer from hell, offering flowers to his peers instead of knives.

Though, all romanticism was put aside as Eva read the paragraph again, noting the last line she had skimmed over quickly:

“...his face was the feature of him that seemed to never change no matter how brutal this world was to him. The rest of him was not...”

There as no denying how cruel the world had been to Remington and his brothers, though the more she pondered the more she realized she had never seen the type of dejection in his face the way Emerson had described. He always appeared -- not happy, per say -- but content with his life. 

Emerson looked up from his tablet, noticing the way Eva’s eyes were glued to her own reading, her hand placed protectively over the sketch of Remington. 

“You okay, Eva?” he asked. 

She glanced at the youngest brother, shaken by the break in silence. But she smiled reassuringly and flipped the page, despite not having finished reading the last. 

“Oh, yeah,” she nodded, “It’s absolutely beautiful. I did make note of a couple grammatical errors... I hope you don’t mind,”

“It’s fine,” he grinned, “Deadline for rewrites is on Friday,”

“If you'd like, I could go through the rest for you. I’m in between articles right now,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Promise I won’t post spoilers for fans,” 

“Might have to get you an NDA,” he giggled merrily, “I’ll send the file over. You ever work with InDesign?”

“A few times, yeah...” she trailed off, a new train of thought lingering in the back of her mind, “Emerson... can I ask you something sorta’ personal?”

Emerson raised an eyebrow, “How personal?” he asked. 

She breathed out carefully, “Remington had told me about your dad --”

“What did he say?” Emerson asked quickly, his cheerful demeanour quickly souring.

“Just that he hadn’t been in the picture for a while,” she said assuringly, “Nothing else,” 

Emerson began to relax a little, “Okay. What’s your question, Eva?”

“Say he out of the blue started making an effort to get back in touch with you... would you take that offer?” she asked.

“Nope,” he replied shortly, “Because if he wanted back in our lives, it would be for his own gain,” 

Eva stayed silent, his quick answer all she needed to know that she shouldn’t push the envelope. Emerson saw the fall in her face, feeling a tad bad for being so short with Eva. 

“Sorry...” he grimaced, “I just... I don’t like to talk about my dad,” 

“I understand,” Eva nodded, “I’m sorry I brought it up,”

“... Why did you?” Emerson asked curiously.

Eva exhaled, her fingers picking at the edge of the glossy page, “Just getting room different perspectives. My mom and I don’t exactly have a Gilmore Girls kind of relationship. I’ve just been thinking ‘cause she’s been trying to get a hold of me for so long,”

“Was she nice to you? When you were younger?” he asked.

“I don’t really remember,” Eva replied truthfully, “She was -- superficial. There but not really there,”

He cocked his head, his wispy black hair falling over his eyes, “So... you’re trying to figure out if you want a relationship with your mom?” 

Before she could reply, they both turned when they heard footsteps echoing in the hall towards them. Michael had appeared, panning his camera around for new footage for the band’s Youtube channel. Eva was unsure whether she pay attention or turn back to the book and pretend not to see. 

“What’re you two working on?” he asked, focusing the lens on Emerson so Eva was just out of the shot. Michael respected that Eva was a touch camera shy. 

“Top secret,” Emerson replied promptly, “And if we told you, we’d have to kill you,”

“I won’t unleash that wrath,” Michael chuckled, “Don’t have too much fun!”

“We’ll try,” Emerson muttered as he sauntered into the next room. 

Eva closed the book and pushed it aside, sighing to herself as she pulled back her laptop and opened Emerson’s project. The youngest brother watched her unabashedly, picking off the air of uncertainty swirling around her. 

“Does Remington know your mom keeps calling you?” he asked.

“He was kind of curious as to why I kept getting all these blocked calls,” she replied.

“What did he say?”

“That everything was going to be okay,” she nodded slowly, “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that in my life and... it’s not. So, I’m super inclined to believe him,” 

Emerson swallowed, “My brother has a tendency to want to take care of everybody. And it’s not a bad quality. But he also doesn’t know how he can make it better,” he said.

“It’s not up to him to make it better,” Eva declared. 

“But he loves you,” Emerson stated, “And just because of that, he’ll want to help you find your way out of this. When Remington commits to someone, he tends to go one-hundred-percent all in,” 

Eva simpered to herself, “I appreciate him. He’s -- definitely been a plot twist,” 

“Good or bad plot twist?” 

“Very good,” 

Emerson smiled as she started to type on her keyboard, some of Eva’s vexations visibly released when the topic had changed to Remington. As she appreciated Remington, Emerson appreciated Eva for all that she’d done for him. He had this gut intuition, a simmering notion that Eva was going to be sticking around for a long time. And he had absolutely no problem with that.

“Can I ask you a serious question, though?” he asked.

“Of course,” Eva nodded.

“Do you like his blue hair...?” he asked with a drawling disdain.

The young brunette turned her head in the direction of the distant chatter of the boys. 

“I take it by your tone you’re not a fan,” she said.

Emerson scoffed, “He’s taking me back to the Kool-Aid dye trend,”

“Oh, Emerson,” 

[daveeddiggsit]

Game Time

WIDEOUT MASTERLIST

Series: WIDEOUT

Note: Well, it’s been two years since I’ve updated this series and I missed it so much. This one was a lot of fun to write. Can you tell I thirsted hard for Diggs in a football uniform? Let me know what you all think!! And let me know if you wanna be tagged in future installments! :)

Word Count: 4.6k

Pairing: Football Player!Thomas Jefferson x Reader

Warnings: nothing really. kissing, some language? football lingo

Summary: When you’re assigned to tutor Thomas Jefferson in chemistry, you find out that there’s more to him than just football. After you start dating, you attend your first football game to see him play for the first time.

Tagging: @coololdsoulpoetlove​​ @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs​​ @merrahonthawall​ @katierpblogg​ @thespianbooks​ @a-hopeless-fan​ @uniquelystarchildthedragon​ @wcreech​ @sabbrriiinnaa​ @imperial-martian​ @harpersmariano​ @icanneverbesatisfied​ @underthewillowtreerycb​ 

The hallway buzzes with sound and activity as you and Maria get your books out of your lockers.

As you close your locker and slip your bag on your shoulder, you can’t help but smile when you think of the events that happened this past weekend. Images of Thomas’ bright grin and his soft gaze right before and after your first kiss flash through your brain as you get lost in your thoughts.

“Y/N, are you even listening?” Maria’s voice brings you back to reality.

Your eyes snap over to her and you give her a guilty simper. “No, sorry. What were you saying? I’m listening now.”

“I was asking if you’re ready for the chem test tomorrow…” Your best friend trails off, narrowing her eyes at you, obviously suspicious of something.

“Oh uh, yeah.” You chuckle a bit nervously. “I’m always ready, M. Are you?”

“Mhm,” she starts before continuing without taking a breath, “Are you okay? I feel like there’s something up with you. You’re like… radiating this weird energy. You haven’t stopped smiling all morning. Not that it’s a bad thing, but...”

Your eyebrows scrunch together as you try to play dumb. “What do you mean? I’m not smiling now… What weird energy? I’m fine.” You say before your eyes flicker over Maria’s shoulder to see Thomas coming in your direction. Butterflies erupt in your stomach at the sight of him and against your will, that smile Maria mentioned finds its home on your face once more.

“See? There it is again.” Your best friend accuses, pointing a finger at you. Your gaze shifts back to her for a second and you shake your head, pursing your lips to force the smile that won’t go away. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Um... “ You trail off before your eyes flicker over her shoulder again. Thomas catches your gaze and winks as he makes his way over.

“What are you looking at?” Maria asks before she turns around to see your boyfriend approach you two. And suddenly, she thinks she understands.

“Well, would you look at that?” She turns back to you with a smirk, her tone teasing. “It’s your beau.”

Yeah, no kidding. She doesn’t know, yet, does she?

Thomas is grinning when he reaches you and his smile is contagious. He swoops down to press his lips to your cheek sweetly before draping his arm across your shoulders.

“Reynolds.” Thomas greets Maria with a nod, smirking at her wide-eyed expression. Her realization is evident on her face as she puts one and one together.

“Jefferson.” Maria replies, sobering up before she narrows her eyes at him. Oh, she fully understands what’s going on now. 

Thomas looks away from Maria to look down at you.

“Mornin’, sweetheart.”

You look up at him, your grin unfaltering. “Hi, T.”

“Meet me at the field after school? I wanna show you something.” Thomas says, his gaze soft and smile warm.

You nod, causing his smile to widen. 

“Okay, cool.” Your boyfriend leans down to press a kiss to the crown of your head before he lets you go and takes a step back. “Alright, ladies, as much as I wanna stay, I have to go and round up the boys. Make sure they get to class on time and blah blah blah. Team captain duties. I’ll see y’all in class.”

Maria rolls her eyes before deadpanning. “Of course you have to do ‘team captain duties.’”

Thomas just shrugs. Before he can leave, you pull something out of your backpack and call out to him.

“Oh, hey, T! Wait, before you go.” He turns to you, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips, giving you his undivided attention. “Here’s your hoodie back. Thanks for letting me borrow it on Saturday.”

The football player sends you a genuine smile. “Keep it. I want you to wear it for the game on Friday. It’ll be cold out and I want you to have some sort of school pride.”

Your jaw drops at his teasing jab. “I have school spirit!”

“Maybe I just want you wearing my hoodie, then.” He smirks before he quickly continues. “Alright, I’ll see y’all.” He waves, before he nods at the hoodie in your arms and gives you a pointed look. “That’s my favorite hoodie. I trust you with it. Keep it safe.”

You laugh and give him a mock salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”

Maria watches your encounter with her arms crossed. So when Thomas finally leaves and you turn back to her after putting the hoodie back in your bag, she gives you a look that says, “What the fuck, Y/N?”

A sheepish grin shows up on your face. “Yes?”

“You, uh… wanna tell me what the fuck just happened?”

A teacher passes by at that exact moment, reprimanding Maria on his way past. “Language, young lady.”

You both ignore him.

“Uh… yeah.” You start, walking towards class and Maria falls into step with you. “So, Thomas and I are dating now… as you probably found out.”

“You didn’t think it’d be important to disclose this information?”

“I’m sorry, M. I’ve just been stuck in my own head since it happened on Saturday and—”

“I knew it! I knew y’all weren’t just gonna study!” She exclaims, causing some students to turn their heads. She drops down to a reasonable tone before she continues. “Tell. Me. Everything.”

Her reaction causes you to laugh. “Ugh, you sound like my brother.”

“I’m basically your sister. Now, tell me everything. All the details!”

“I mean… after his practice we just went back to his house and Thomas convinced me to watch this show he’s in love with because apparently I remind him of one of the characters.”

“What show?”

“Futurama.”

“Gross.”

“Right? That’s what I thought!” You laugh before you continue. “Anyway, so I told him I’d watch one episode after he showered—”

“Ooh, spicy—”

“Not that kind of story, Maria.” You deadpan and she simpers. “So we watched the episode, and I told him it was kinda dumb and one thing led to another and next thing you know we’re…” You lower your voice, “Making out on his couch. Then he asked me, well more like told me, to be his girlfriend. I agreed. Here we are.”

“Making out? That sounds pretty spicy to me, Y/N.” She wriggles her eyebrows at you. 

“Oh my God, you’re terrible. And can you not use that word?” You groan, looking up at the ceiling in exasperation.

“No, but seriously, Y/N.” Maria says genuinely. “That’s actually really cute. I’m really happy for you guys.”

You smile at her before pulling her into a hug. “Thanks, M. Means a lot.”

She returns the hug for a few seconds before she pulls back to point a finger at you. “He breaks your heart, though, and he’s a dead man.”

“Oh, I know.” You laugh outwardly as you two head into your first class of the day. 

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

“Why’d you want me to meet you here?” You ask Thomas. You enter the gated entrance to the track and football field, one of your hands intertwined with his.

“You’ll see.” He says, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“Thomas,” you groan, impatience evident in your tone. “Don’t you have practice today? You’re not gonna make me sit through another one, are you?”

Thomas laughs heartily and shakes his head. “Nah. Practice isn’t until 7 today, so we’re fine. And I thought you enjoyed the view when you watched me practice on Saturday.”

You roll your eyes and look up at him. “I did…” You trail off and his eyebrows raise slightly at your confession (though it isn’t much of a confession anymore since you two are together now). “But that doesn’t mean that I wanna come spend my free time watching a bunch of dudes run around with a ball and tackle each other while getting yelled at by Coach Washington.”

He grins at that, looking down at his shoes for a second. “Understandable. I wouldn’t wanna listen to Coach’s yellin’ in my free time either.”

You two take your first steps on the turf of the football field and Thomas leads you towards the yellow field goal post.

“Anyway, why’d you bring me to the field, T? You said you wanted to show me something?” You ask, thoroughly confused.

“Yeah, I got something in mind.” He says softly, his gaze making you feel warm. “Remember how you said that we’ve never been on an official date before? On Saturday?”

You nod in response.

“Well, this is me changing that.”

“Aw, really?” Your heart swells and he nods.

“Mhm. But first, I gotta make sure of something.”

You raise an eyebrow and Thomas’ smile turns smug.

“Alright, darlin’, what,” he begins before letting go of your hand to gesture to the area around you two, “is this area called?”

You look around briefly before you tilt your head to look at him. Narrowing your eyes, you cross your arms and deadpan. “Seriously?”

“Ahh, you thought I forgot about our little football tutoring sessions, didn’t you?” His grin is playful as he watches you with an amused gaze. “Consider this a pop quiz. You need to be prepared before Friday.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a ‘real date,’ Thomas, not another tutoring session.” The look you give him is serious, but your tone is teasing. “Also, you know we have an actual test tomorrow for Chem, right? We should be studying for that.”

“Oh, I have been, sweetheart, trust me. I studied for a few hours yesterday.”

You cock your head to the right, grinning at him, unconvinced. “Did you, really?”

“You don’t believe me?” Thomas gasps dramatically, putting a hand over his heart. “Y/N, that wounds me.”

You chuckle and shake your head at him, thinking back to when you saw the open chemistry textbook on his desk. He’s definitely telling the truth.

“I believe you, Jefferson. Just a little surprised since it’s always a drag to get you to study for that class.”

“Hey, now, I’ve gotten better over time.” He sends you a pointed look.

“Yeah, that explains why we got nothing done on Saturday.”

“You were just as distracted as I was! Don’t gimme that. I’m not the only one at fault here, missy.” He takes a step closer and towers over you, but your gaze is challenging as you look up at him.

“I mean… you’re the one who forced me to watch Futurama.” You shrug, watching him deadpan. You wonder how much further you can tease him before you rile him up. “And you are the one who kissed me first, which then led to us being unproductive for the rest of the day. So, yeah, I’d say you’re the one at fault.”

Thomas just narrows his eyes as he looks down at you. One of his hands comes down to grab hold of your waist to bring you closer to him.

“Oh, so it’s like that, huh?” He asks, his voice low in tone.

“It’s like that, T.” You say, bringing your hands up to his chest.

“Did you forget that you kissed back? Or that you kissed me the second time? I’d say it was a mutual effort, darlin’. As good of a student you think you are, you pushed back studyin’ just as much as I did.”

He’s right. You are as guilty as he is. And right now, you’re even more guilty because you’re just trying to distract him from giving you your impromptu football lesson. 

You grin at that, leaning up to bring your face closer to his. “Alright, you win. Can’t argue with that.”

“Yeah?” He smiles down at you, his nose brushing against yours.

“Yeah.” You murmur before you push yourself up on your tiptoes to press your lips to his briefly. His arms pull you closer to him as he reciprocates the kiss and deepens it by leaning down and tilting your head up to thread his fingers into your hair. Thomas pulls away suddenly and you find yourself chasing his lips as he retreats.

“Uh uh, I know what you’re doing, sweetheart.” Thomas says, short of breath but grinning at the same time. “You think you’re slick, but I know exactly what you’re up to.”

“What am I up to, Thomas?” Your hands slide down his chest and arms until you lace your fingers with his once more.

He gives you a knowing look. “You’re tryin’ to get outta this tutoring session, but I’m not havin’ it.”

You send him an innocent simper. “Guilty.”

Thomas just chuckles and pecks you on the lips. “I forgive you.”

He then leads you a few feet forward until you're standing in the middle of the painted ‘Panther’ letters in the end zone. “Alright, let’s try this one more time. What is this area called?”

You sigh and look around, taking a second to think. Thomas watches you intently as you rack your brain for the answer. “Um… the end zone?”

A bright grin spreads across Thomas’ face as he beams with pride. “That’s it! You’re so smart, baby.”

You can’t help but smile at his praise as you two start walking again, this time towards center field. He points to the goal line as you walk over it. “When the ball crosses this line, it’s a touchdown, meaning that the team has scored. So, when I cross this line, you better be cheering on the sideline.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “When you cross this line?”

“Yes.” He says, an aura of pretentiousness surrounding him. “Oh, it’ll happen, sweetheart.”

You breath out a laugh, rolling your eyes at him. “You’re so cocky sometimes.”

“Hey, I prefer the word ‘confident’.”

You shake your head, biting your lip in amusement.

You two walk for a bit longer and your heartbeat quickens when you see a beautiful picnic set up in the middle of the huge Panther logo at center field. Your eyes widen in surprise as you look up at Thomas and he’s smiling genuinely at you, one of the smiles that make the corners of his eyes crinkle. And just like that the butterflies are back.

“You did this for me?” You ask, feeling elated.

“I had some help from the guys.” He explains softly. “They went out to pick up the food during their free period.”

You make a mental note to thank James and Aaron later.

“Thomas, this is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” Your voice is quiet as you look at the picnic (take out from the Thai place you went to a couple months back lies in the middle of the blanket). “Seriously, thank you, T.”

Thomas grins as you lean up to kiss him once more.

“Let’s eat, yeah?” He says before you both go to sit down and open your take out boxes.

After all the food is gone, you just lay on the blanket with Thomas and watch the clouds go by. You can’t stop thinking about how normal everything feels with your boyfriend. You haven’t been together for more than a few days, but it feels like you’ve known each other for years. You’ve never experienced this amount of closeness or intimacy with someone… and it feels so… natural.

“Hey, T?” You ask, voice quiet as you sit up with your legs crossed under you.

“Hmm?” Thomas hums, eyes closed, still laying down. His arm extends out towards you and you take his hand in both of yours. You busy yourself by lightly running your fingers over the lines and grooves of his larger hand.

“You know how you have a secret handshake with James? And the rest of your teammates?”

“Mhm, why?” He asks, opening his eyes to glance over at you. His hand clasps around one of yours and his thumb caresses the top of it.

“We should have one, too.”

Your boyfriend grins at that. “You serious?”

You nod and shrug. “Yeah, it’d be cool.”

“Okay.” He moves to sit up so that he’s right across from you, your hand still in his. “Let’s see what we can come up with.”

You spend the next 20 minutes going through different hand motions and taps to figure out which one would be the best for you two. Both of you look like you’re having a blast creating it.

“Alright, alright, I think we’ve got something here.” Thomas says. “Let’s do it slowly.”

You nod and you extend your hand out to meet his. Your palms meet sideways, then the backs of your hands touch before you tap your palms together again twice. Then, your hands move up to the sides of Thomas’ head to touch his forehead to yours.

You both are grinning as you pull back.

“I think that’s it, T.”

He laughs before leaning forward to kiss you on the nose.

“Can’t wait to do it on game day.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

It’s finally Friday. After a long week of waiting, game day has finally come.

When you and Maria arrive at the football field, the bleachers aren’t completely filled yet and both teams are warming up and stretching on the turf. You follow Maria to the sidelines so that she can start setting up. While she unpacks her camera, your eyes scan the field for a certain athlete whose jersey number happens to be 14.

You spot Thomas stretching in the middle of the field as he talks to James and Aaron. It’s the first time you see him in uniform and you have to admit… he looks hot. His helmet is off, so you can see the black lines drawn under his eyes along with the headband that spans across his forehead, holding his hair out of his face. His purple jersey hugs his form tightly, making his athletic form way more prominent than usual. On top of that, he seems to have pulled up the bottom of his jersey to reveal his abs as he stretches out. You can’t say you’re surprised to see Thomas Jefferson working out in a crop top.

Thomas seems to be speaking when James looks over in your direction and waves, causing you to wave back. He then says something to Thomas and nods in your direction, bringing your boyfriend’s attention to you. Thomas grins when he sees you, dismisses himself from his teammates, and runs over to you after picking up his helmet to carry it with him.

“Ladies, good to see you.” Your boyfriend greets the both of you as he puts his helmet on the ground. “Maria, nice to see you shooting again. Y/N, it’s great seeing you finally come to a game. Nice hoodie, by the way.” He says, sending you a wink, which causes you to blush.

“Mhm…” Maria hums, distracted by building her camera up and checking all the settings.

“Happy to cheer you on, T. It’s weird seeing you in uniform.” You grin, looking him up and down while biting your lip.

“What’d’ya think, sweetheart? How do I look?” Thomas asks, blue-steeling as if he’s posing for a magazine cover. His gloved hands gesture down his body, highlighting his form like he’s a show girl.

“Like a football player.” You laugh loudly at his antics and bite your lip while he grins at you. “But very handsome, T. I’m loving all the purple. The sleeve is a nice touch, too.”

He chuckles and poses by putting a hand on his hip dramatically, accentuating the purple sleeve on his right arm that hugs his toned bicep. “Yeah? You like it?”

And at that moment, Thomas’ teammates interrupt by yelling in the distance.

“Yeah, Jefferson! Get it!” Burr shouts, causing the football players around him to laugh along and follow along with his teases.

“Strut yo’ stuff!”

“Work it, TJeffs! Show us what you got, pretty boy!” James yells, pretending to take pictures of him like he’s a photographer at a fashion show. Thomas continues to dance around and strut like he’s a supermodel walking on a runway. Meanwhile, Maria is rolling her eyes by your side while you grin and shake your head at Thomas’ and his teammates’ tomfoolery.

Thomas keeps strutting and dancing for a little longer before he stops and shakes his head, laughing at himself.

“Alright, darlin’, I gotta get back.” He says, grabbing his helmet off the ground. He reaches his hand out and you extend yours to do your special handshake like you practiced the other day. 

“Good luck, T.” You say, tapping your hand against his twice. “Kill it out there.” Thomas leans his forehead down to press against yours to complete the handshake. 

“Oh I will, baby, trust me.” He says before winking and leaning in to give you a quick peck on the lips. Then, he starts backing away from you and slips his helmet on. “Panther Pride, remember?” You nod, grabbing and ruffling your (Thomas’) purple Panther Football hoodie. He gives you a quick salute before he turns around to run and warm up with his teammates.

“Y’all are too damn much…” Maria mutters as she changes the lens on her camera.

You pout at her words. The last thing you want is to become one of those annoying clingy couples that make out in the hallways between every class. “Are we really?”

She just looks up at you and smiles softly. It eases your feelings a bit. “A bit too much… but it’s cute. I think you guys are good for each other.”

You give her a shy grin and glance over at Thomas in the near-distance with his back turned to you who seems to be in the zone as he talks to his coach. He (unfortunately) pulls down his jersey so it covers his abs. Probably for game regulation purposes.

“Thanks, Maria.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

The game has been going back and forth since kickoff. While your team is the first to score in the first quarter, the other team quickly retaliates with a touchdown of their own to even the score. The frustration shown on Coach Washington’s face and through his body language grows more evident as the game goes on.

Right after halftime, the Panthers get a lucky break and Thomas catches a touchdown pass, putting you up by one point. It’s the first time you’ve seen him score, and he knows that, so you’re extremely ecstatic and a sense of pride fills you up. He celebrates in the end zone by dancing with his teammates hitting his helmet and jumping up and down around him. When they break away and Thomas goes running back to the sideline, he blows a kiss in your direction which makes you grin.

That happy moment doesn’t last long, however, because the Beavers come right back with a touchdown of their own, which puts them in the lead once more. After that, the scoreboard goes dry with neither team scoring for a great chunk of time.

The stakes are high. It’s a playoff game, which means that the bleachers for both the Home and Away sides of the stadium are full with fans. The stadium roars with supporters for each side. Everyone seems to be in their zone.

Maria, while she’d left you occasionally throughout the game to get a certain shot of a player or staff member, is beside you, shooting consistently and concentrating on the play that is about to happen. You look for Thomas who is on the field in a huddle with his teammates fulfilling his role as team captain. It seems that he’s hyping them up and giving them a motivational speech so they can close out the game and come out on top.

There are 13 seconds left in the 4th quarter. The Panthers are down by one and Coach Washington is yelling a play into the mic on his headset. The huddle around Thomas breaks and the players all go to line up at the line of scrimmage at center field.

You can’t help but watch Thomas as he moves. Your eyes have been on him all night; he’s the reason why you’re there, anyway. He’s the only reason why you learned the rules of football in the first place. It’s also a plus that he looks extremely attractive in all his glory: muscles and talent and all. It isn’t until now that you understand all of the stigma and hype around him at school; he’s great at what he does, and it’s no wonder why he’s so highly regarded as an athlete at your school.

After a few moments of quiet, the ball snaps and all the players on the field go into motion. Thomas takes off quickly from his initial position at the line of scrimmage and runs towards the end zone while trying to juke his defender. The quarterback throws the ball in Thomas’ direction and he is able to create just enough space between him and his defender to catch the ball, causing you along with the Home crowd to go wild.

He sprints it back to the end zone with his defender hot on his heels. The defender tackles him, but it’s too late. Thomas has already gotten the ball past the goal line, signifying that the Panthers have won the game.

For a moment, you’re worried that he’d gotten hurt while tackled, but he’s up and celebrating by spiking the football in no time.

“We won!” Maria says beside you before she turns her camera to capture the team’s reactions and celebrations on the field.

“We won!” You echo and you find that it’s the first time you’ve been truly excited about a sports win. You know how much this means to Thomas, and because of that, it means a lot to you, too.

Thomas’ teammates surround him in the end zone jumping up around him and pushing him around excitedly. He chest bumps and touches helmets with James and a few more of his teammates before the two teams line up to shake hands. After Coach Washington congratulates him, he starts to run over to you. 

You find yourself growing more and more excited the closer he gets and when he reaches you, you’re grinning wide. You push up his helmet to expose his face and you both lean in for a celebratory kiss. You hear Maria’s camera click beside you as you both smile against one another. 

“Proud of you, T.” You murmur when you pull back. Thomas looks like he wants to go in for another kiss, but his teammates interrupt by crowding around him from behind.

“You girls may wanna get away from here because Jefferson here is about to get drenched with Gatorade.” Burr warns you and Maria.

You both nod and back away from the scene and you mouth, “see you in a bit,” to Thomas. He nods before going to celebrate with his teammates.

When you and Maria get a safe distance away, Maria looks through the photos on her camera.

“Aw, you guys are adorable. That’s definitely going in the yearbook.” She says before tilting the camera so you can see a nice photo of you and Thomas kissing with his teammates excited about the playoff win in the background. You flush at seeing the image.

“Maria…” You trail off, your jaw slack from amazement. “That picture is amazing. My best friend is so talented.”

“Aw, thank you, girl.” She says, giving you a hug. “I’m just happy you’re happy.”

You smile before looking back at Thomas once more. He looks like he’s having the time of his life with his teammates and as he’s getting drenched with water and Gatorade, his gaze catches yours and you feel your heart soar when his grin seems to brighten (if that’s even possible) at the sight of you.

You are happy. He makes you happy.

[seblos]

there’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach - ch 4/10

chapter title: you’re on, lovers!

word count: 1,995

[one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine (coming soon)]

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“So,” Ashlyn leans over during history. “You and Seb, huh?”

Carlos looks up from the textbook he was reading in surprise. “What do you mean?” he asked, eyes widening. It wasn’t Ashlyn talking to him that surprised him. They had become closer as rehearsals progressed. Also, when they both had lingered near the GSA poster, Ashlyn had struck up a conversation with him. Turns out she was bi, and theatre queers always stuck together anyway. It was her words, rather, that gets his attention. 

“I mean, you too stare at each other all through rehearsal, you sit together at lunch, he drives you home like every other day,” Ashlyn lists, and Carlos’s heart speeds up. Was it really that obvious? “So are you two together, or…” she trails off.

“No! I mean… not yet,” Carlos feels his cheeks heat up. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind if we were… but no.”

Ashlyn smiles. “Cool. If it helps, he totally likes you too,” she adds.

“How do you know?”

She shrugs. “I just have a feeling.”

“Did he tell you?” Carlos feels his stomach twist. As much as he wanted confirmation that the other boy liked him back, the idea of hearing it from Ashlyn rather than him felt wrong.

“No,” she says, and Carlos lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “I mean, I haven’t asked him since I thought you two were already a thing. But we’re in baking club together and when I asked about you he kinda lit up.”

“Oh, okay,” Carlos nods, and his heart swells. “So what should I do about it?”

Ashlyn shrugs again. “I dunno, ask him out?”

He blushes. “No.”

“Alright, that’s on you,” she said. “But you should ask him to hang out or something. Get closer to him, so when you are ready it won’t be awkward.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to ask out Seb,” Carlos mumbles. “I’ve never dated anyone. I don’t know how to be a boyfriend.”

Ashlyn smiles sweetly. “I’m pretty sure he hasn’t either. It’s something you can figure out together, you know.”

After she says that, their teacher scolds them for talking, and the two bend back over the worksheet they’re supposed to be working on. As he stares at the textbook, though, Carlos can’t help but think about what Ashlyn said. They would be figuring it out together. It’s hard to believe that someone like Seb could possibly like him back, but it might just be true, and the idea of it makes Carlos’s heart leap to his throat.

—

“Every time we end rehearsal early, I feel like my life is a lot more like Glee than I think it is,” Carlos says, rolling his eyes as he zips up his backpack from yet another badly ended rehearsal. They had barely lasted half an hour today. At this rate, they’re never going to get the blocking done by the show. 

Seb laughs from where he’s organizing his sheet music over at the piano. Everyone had already filed out of the room, but Carlos purposely had taken his time, knowing that Seb would most likely be the last one out. By this point, it was just routine.

“To be fair, Miss Jenn was definitely a Rachel Berry in high school,” Seb comments, stuffing the folder in his backpack, and Carlos snorts lightly. “So,” he says, swinging his backpack onto his back. “Since rehearsal ended early, I’m assuming I’m driving you home?”

Carlos is about to say yes until he remembers what Ashlyn had told him earlier. Before he can overthink it, Carlos asks, “Or we could hang out? Since it did end so early… could we do chem homework or something together at my house?”

Seb looks surprised at first, and Carlos’s heart is still beating quickly, but the shock wears off quickly and is instead replaced with a smile. 

“Sure, I’d love to,” Seb says. 

As they’re walking out together, their hands brush together for a moment, and Carlos can’t tell if it’s on purpose or not. He debates grabbing Seb’s hand for a moment but ends up just grabbing the strap of his backpack instead to resist the urge.

Carlos swears that he sees Seb’s expression drop for just a second, but it’s so quick he probably just imagined it.

They still end up having Georgie give them a ride, who is surprisingly not upset about having driven all the way to the school just to drive the two of them back to Carlos’s house. Rather, she just gives Seb a sort of half-smile. He immediately blushes, giving her the stink eye, and Georgie just laughs.

On the ride over, though, Carlos realizes what they’re about to do. Seb is about to be in his house, in his room. He doesn’t know the last time he’s had someone in his room since 7th grade. Sure, Seb knows about his weird, split family already, but the idea of him experiencing it is so much scarier for some reason. He tried not to overthink it as Seb stepped into his house. 

“Carlos? Is that you, mijo?” his mother calls as he shuts the door, and Carlos suddenly realizes that he should have checked with his mom if Seb could come over before he invited him. To be fair, though, he’s never really done this before. 

“Hi, mamá!” He says as his mom steps into view. “I brought Seb over to work on some chemistry homework, I hope that’s okay.” 

He’s expecting some sort of disapproving look or passive aggressive comment about checking with her before bringing someone over. Instead, “So this is the Sebastian I’ve heard so much about!” is what his mother says, much to his surprise. 

“It’s great to meet you, Ms. Rodriguez,” Seb says with a smile, and his mom raises a sly eyebrow at Carlos, who only gives her a look in return. 

“Seb, are you staying for dinner?” she asks, turning her attention back to the boy.

“Oh, no, I need to be home to finish my chores. Thank you so much though!” 

“Chores, huh?” Now it’s Ms. Rodriguez’s turn to smile. “You could learn something from this boy, Carlos.”

Carlos just rolls his eyes. “I do some chores!” He defends. “Also, I told you mamá, Seb lives on a farm. His chores are a bit different from mine.”

“Alright, well, I’ll let you two get your homework done,” she dismisses them, and Carlos leads Seb upstairs to his room.

When they first enter it, Carlos immediately goes to his bed. He motions for Seb to sit down, who does so hesitantly. Neither of them say a word for a moment, and Carlos worries that he’s made a mistake inviting Seb over here. 

As if on cue, Seb breaks the silence.”So, you talk about me to your mom, huh?” he teases, and Carlos hits him with a pillow.

“To be fair, she asked about you,” he says, which releases the tension as both of them relax, getting back to their normal selves.

They both take out their chemistry homework, but it ends up lying abandoned on Carlos’s desk in favor of the two of them discussing theater and rehearsal.

“Can I just say, your facial expressions while Nini and EJ were singing were priceless! If I wasn’t so focused on hoping that this rehearsal would actually stay together, I would have lost it watching you.” Carlos laughs, and Seb glares at him harmlessly. 

“Let’s just say I definitely liked out version better! I’m telling you, trying to keep a straight face was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Surprised I can do anything straight, to be honest,” Seb says cheekily from where he’s laying on his stomach the foot of Carlos’s bed.

(The joke doesn’t exactly take Carlos by surprise, but just the casualness of it does. He had only ever made those kinds of jokes with Ashlyn, and had forgotten that he was able to make them with Seb too.)

“I love Nini, I do, but sometimes her ability to jump from boy to boy surprises me,” Seb continues. His phone lights up with a text notification, and he picks it up to read. “Speak of the devil, Nini just texted to tell me that she and EJ have officially broken up. Blocked his number and everything.”

“Wow,” Carlos raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you and Nini were friends.”

“Yeah, well, we met when we were young. Only other kid I knew that had two last names, which we decided to be the basis of our friendship, I guess. I ended up transferring schools, and I guess she skipped a grade or something because we didn’t meet again until last year when I got to East High and we got reintroduced during Brigadoon,” Seb explained.

Carlos nods along. He knew that Seb didn’t go to the middle school he had gone to with Nini and Ricky and all the others, but somehow it never occurred to him that he knew them before high school.

“I never really got close to her,” Carlos says, surprising himself. “I mean, we're friendly, but I guess I didn’t really think we had much in common. Plus Gabriella isn’t in any of the huge dance numbers, so I guess that’s how I ended up migrating more towards you and Gina.” 

He’s never really talked about his differences with the rest of the cast with anyone else because, well, he doesn’t really talk to the cast in general. Part of him wants to open up to Seb about the weird balance of being a sophomore who has some sort of authorial power over the upperclassman, but he can’t exactly put it into words and it hurts his head to think about. He files that thought away for later as Seb starts talking again.

“Are you calling me a dancer?” He asks, sticking his leg up for a moment. His tone is joking, but the smile across his face seems genuine, and it makes Carlos’s heart melt.

“Mmm, you could use some work,” he says, looking Seb up and down as if he’s judging his form, causing Seb to blush lightly. “No, but actually, you are a really good dancer. Compared to some of the others at least,” Carlos laughs, and Seb joins in.

“Wow, so kind of you,” he says, rolling his eyes although the smile is still spread across his face. “I’m kidding, I don’t even begin to compare to Gina and some of the ensemble. I would kill to be able to move so easily like that.”

“I think you’re doing fine, considering your lack of dance training,” Carlos says, and now it’s Seb’s turn to hit him with a pillow. “Although…” he starts as he considers how this idea will go over with Seb. “If you wanted to, I could give you dance lessons? Like before school or something?”

He’s expecting Seb to reject the idea or come up with excuses. Instead, the other boy's eyes light up and he props himself up on his elbows. “Really?” he asks excitedly, and Carlos sits up straighter.

“I mean yeah, if you genuinely want to improve and you want extra time practicing,” he says with a smile. “We could do once a week, or non-rehearsal days, whatever is best for you!”

“Non-rehearsal days would actually be perfect!”

“So do you want to start this Friday?” Carlos asks since that would be their closest non-rehearsal day. “Maybe, like, 7:00? Gives us about half an hour before homeroom. Or is that too early?”

Seb shakes his head. “I’m up every morning at 5:30 in the morning anyway, so 7 works fine for me!” he smiles.

Carlos smiles back before he processes what Seb had just said. “Geez, 5:30? That’s so early,” he says disgustedly. 

The way Seb laughs makes his head spin, and suddenly Carlos doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to survive private rehearsals in a few days. 

[slashersteve]

Can’t Cheat Fate [3]

pairing: Steve Harrington/Female Reader, slight Jonathan Byers/Female Reader || Fake Dating! Au

series summary: After years of pining after the same guy you finally decide to tell him, but unfortunately you waited too long and he’s found someone else. Luckily, Steve Harrington offers to help you get him back if you’re willing to help him win the girl of his dreams. 

warnings: some cursing my guy || word count: 2k+

Note: Jonathan get’s a little douchey in this one, like i said this fic is STUPIDLY CHEESY AND CAN GET ANNOYING but i wanna write it so- enjoy~~~~~~

| Check out my other works! | Can’t Cheat Fate Masterlist |

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The sound of shuffling and backpacks being zipped shut tore you out of your thoughts, and you had to sit there for a moment to wonder where you were. When you saw a lab table and heard your Chemistry teacher remind you all to read the next section of the chapter- you realized that you were about a minute away from lunch. You were completely distracted- your nerves getting the best of you the entirety of Chemistry. You were lucky your teacher wasn’t in a bad mood today or he might’ve called you to answer a question because of your distant look.

With shaking hands, you began to put away your binder, and chem textbook into your bag, trying to steady your breathing as well.

You will not chicken out today, you told yourself, if you do you’re going to regret it. So just do it! Jonathan wasn’t a mean guy, why were you so afraid? If he didn’t return your feelings, he wouldn’t be a jerk about it. Sure it may be a little awkward, but you were friends first and could work through the awkwardness. A burst of confidence replaced the fear and the nerves that stayed with you the entire walk to the cafeteria.

Jonathan was sitting in your usual spot, poking at his tray of food, something he did until you would arrive. Luckily, you decided to pack your own lunch today so you didn’t have to wait in the too long of a line for cafeteria food, “Hey!” you called maybe a little too excitedly, he looked up at you with a small smile as you sat down, setting your brown lunch bag in front of you.

“PB and J? And a banana?” he asked without even needing to see the contents inside. You grinned and nodded. Sure, it was the most basic lunch to exist, but it was your favorite, “You want me to get you a soda or something?” he was already pulling his wallet out, and standing up. You quickly shook your head because if he left now you’d probably run away.

“No I’m okay! Urm- how did the photos turn out?” you asked, starting out with small talk first before making a smooth transition into the confession of your feelings. Jonathan settled back in his seat, and he began to tell you how he arrived extra early to the photography room, but that everyone else in his class also had the idea so he didn’t get around to doing it.

“Bummer- I was hoping I could have one of those photos too,” you said.

“Maybe after school it’d be more available, if you’d like to come- you could wait outside the room of course,” he said, referring to your ink incident.

“Oh- I have to wait for you anyway,” you smiled, and Jonathan returned it with a smile of his own, you felt your heart swell up, and you blurted out, “Hey can I tell you something first? It’s something that I wanted to tell you for a while now, and I don’t think I can keep it a secret anymore.” Jonathan tilted his head.

“Oh...okay- I’m listening,” he nodded at you to continue. Your cheeks grew hot, and you found yourself looking at your unopened lunch bag, and gently chewing the inside of your cheek, trying to force yourself to just say it.

“Okay Jonathan I-”

But before you could finish that sentence, a new voice interrupted you.

“Hey (y/n),” Steve suddenly appeared in the empty spot next to you, making you jump slightly, “Sorry to interrupt whatever is going on here- but-” Steve merely glanced at Jonathan who was frowning before resting his eyes on you, “I talked to my swim coach about skipping out on practice- and we came up with an arrangement- every Tuesday and Thursday we can work for the full hour in the library after class.”

You blinked, “It’s Monday.”

“Yeah I can come today still! but I have to leave in the last 20 minutes to see how the freshman swimmers are doing, you know- I am the best swimmer and they need some advice...” he shrugged, and there he goes again. Who exactly are you trying to impress here Steve? You wondered as you glanced over Jonathan. He was looking forward, a distant, annoyed look in his eyes.

“Okay? Well- that’s actually good.” You weren’t lying, it did sound a good arrangement for him, he was the best swimmer according to the school records and himself- oh what are you doing? Why are you letting Steve distract you from telling Jonathan your feelings? This couldn’t wait until after? How could he choose a more inconvenient time for you?

Steve pat your knee, something you didn’t really take notice too, “Can you book the private study room?” You were becoming anxious by now, your leg bouncing up and down, wanting Steve to get out of here already so you could get on with what you were going to tell Jonathan. You just shrugged.

“Yeah I’ll do it before sixth.” Steve smiled, and squeezed your knee. You gave him a smile back, then for some reason as he got up, he winked and replied with, “You’re the best. See you after school.” And okay. Shaking your head, you waved as you watched him go. When he was back to sitting with his friends, throwing a glance over at you for a split second, you turned your attention back on Jonathan.

“So um- as I was saying...” you said, looking at Jonathan, seeing how overly annoyed he looked, and also...well...sad? You raised a brow, but decided to continue, “I was going to say before Steve interrupted is-”

“It’s okay (y/n), you don’t have to tell me. I already know.” Your eyebrows raised.

“You do?” Jonathan nodded, and began to gather all his food on his tray, “Oh well then…” you cheeks were completed heated by your nerves and surprise. He knew? You moved your hair behind your ear, offering a shy smile, “What do you think?”

“You know what I think,” he replied in a groggy tone, making you give him a confused look, and your shy smile falter. He stopped moving now actually looking at you, and he looked upset and annoyed which made your heart drop to your stomach, he rolled his eyes now, “You know what I think of him.”

You were about to speak when you realized why he was acting like that- does he thinks me and Steve are together? What kind of-

“Jonathan what are you talking about? I don’t-”

“I’m not going to dictate you on who to date or who you can mess around with…but with him? Of all people?” he cringed and now you were starting to get annoyed now, crossing your arms over your chest.

“You don’t- I wasn’t even- I don’t even understand how you even think I’m fooling around with Steve!” you said, trying not to be too loud but the people at the next table over could definitely hear you two beginning to argue.

“It’s obvious! Private study room? You ditching me to ‘help him with an essay’?” he made quotation gesture, you were fuming right now because you couldn’t believe this guy and the conclusions he somehow came to, “You could at least be more subtle about it, especially around me.” Oh what the hell!

“Stop acting like an ass! We’re literally working on an essay Jonathan- you’re welcome to sit in with us,” your voice was a bit louder now, the people in the next table were actually looking and even stifled a laugh when Jonathan shut his mouth.

It was honestly moments like this when Jonathan got into one of his moods where you wondered why you even harbored feelings for the guy for so long, he’d snap at you- usually when he was going through some stuff with his dad, you never faulted him for it, but this was just- so ridiculous and stupid of him that you couldn’t let him go on. So as you shoved your lunch bag back into your school bag, not caring if you were smashing the contents, and got up, you glared at him and said, “Get over your stupid hatred of Steve and grow up then maybe I’ll tell you what I actually wanted to tell you.” And with that you left.

Jonathan cursed under his breath, shoving his tray away and then glaring at the other students next to him. They quickly looked away, then Jonathan got up and left too, going straight to his photography class. You on the other hand didn’t actually know where you were going, he was your only constant friend. In fact, you were already starting to feel bad about the stupid argument as you left the cafeteria, and you would only start to feel more sad about it as the day inched to an end.

You’d have to see him in your class of the day anyway, and to get your bike from his car too. You already decided to apologize first, not liking when you fight with him even though sometimes you don’t really think half your arguments are your fault. You just wanted this empty feeling and the ache in your heart to go away for this misunderstanding.

***

As you walked into your last class, History it was, you made a beeline for Jonathan who appeared to be sitting all alone in the back, but as you got closer to take your seat, you were surprised to see that someone else was sitting there, a girl. You stopped in your tracks, seeing the girl leaning her head on her hand as she smiled, nodding along to him. He was smiling too, showing off his camera to her. Now they were leaning close, and you couldn’t help the pang of jealousy that sparked inside of you. Still, you walked over there, stopping by Jonathan and he didn’t even look at you.

“Jonathan,” you squeaked, he didn’t look but the girl did. She smiled up at you, her glossy lips shining in the sunlight that shined through the large windows, you didn’t give her one back, “Hey-”

“Oh- hi,” he spared you one glance, “I left your bike by my car- you can get Steve to take you home.” You clenched your jaw, biting back a response. His friend’s smile fell slightly, noticing the harsh tension between the two of you.

“I don’t want to fight anymore about something ridiculous Jonathan, it’s annoying. So I’m sorry, okay?” There you apologized. Jonathan looked up at you, then just gave a kurt nod, but didn’t say anything like a ‘I’m sorry too.’ It irked you that he didn’t, but what irked you even more was when he turned back to the dark-haired girl and started to continue their conversation. Her eyes lingered on you for a bit, but then rested on Jonathan, her brown eyes shining now too.

You didn’t know how to react, so you simply took a seat more towards the front now sad, and a wee bit jealous. Jonathan glanced over at you when your back was turned, lingering on you as well for more than a few seconds, and would catch himself staring for half of class.

When the day was over, you were quick to retrieve your bike from Jonathan’s car, bidding him a small good-bye (to which he kind of ignored because he was talking to Marlene you learned her name was) but then you ran into Steve in the middle of the hall just before you were about to leave the building to get it.

“Hey! Did you book the room?” he asked. Your eyes widened, you’ve been completely distracted by the messy events that happened in a mere three hours that you totally forgot! Steve could tell by your reaction that you didn’t and playfully waved his finger at you and shaking his head, “This is absurd (y/n), I expected better from you. Ugh.” You felt the corner of your lips curl up, then you released a nervous chuckle.

“It’s a first huh?” you replied, Steve grinned and dropped his hand to the side, “I’m sorry though- it just slipped from my mind I guess.” He examined you now, then tilted his head.

“Are you okay though? I heard everyone talking about some argument you and Jonathan got into…” you blinked, people were talking about it? “Not everyone of course- I just heard about it.”

“If you heard about it then everyone did- it was nothing, Steve. We get into stupid arguments all the time- can we walk and talk?” you thought you heard his laugh from down the hall, not wanting to deal with him and Marlene and just wanting to go home. Steve nodded and you both walked through the double doors, Steve holding it open for you, and then towards Jonathan’s car where your bike was leaned across the side of it, “It’s done, we’ll be back to normal. I’ll get here early tomorrow to get us the room okay? You just annotate the prompt tonight, and write down any questions that I’ll answer for you.” You honestly didn’t want to tell him the fight was about him, Steve would probably get a little big headed if he thought you liked him like that.

Steve nodded, “If you say so.” You retrieved your bike, and he spoke up again, “Is that your ride? Don’t you live like...a million miles away?”

“Yeah,” you shrugged. He put his hands on his waist and shook his head.

“No way- here just stay until the practice I thought I wasn’t going to is over, and I’ll give you a ride, we were supposed to stay here anyways,” he offered, and to be honest you were touched by the offer, but you didn’t think you could stay on school grounds any longer than you should be so you declined as you hopped onto your bike.

“Thank you, but- I kind of want to be home like now, have fun at practice though Steve, I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” you gave a small smile, and Steve nodded.

“Alright- see you tomorrow.” He watched you ride away, then huffed slightly, wondering what the argument was about anyway.

[urdearestmom]

fate (mileven week)

“‘A firebender and a master of the mind shall someday meet

Two halves of a whole, the Nether beast they must defeat

Stronger together, although this at first they may hate

Finally to find that it was always fate.’ What kind of bullshit-”

Mike Wheeler is royally pissed off. He’s always royally pissed off at something, it kind of comes with his personality, but this is the last straw.

On your sixteenth birthday, you’re supposed to get some kind of hint as to who your soulmate is in the form of something written, whether that’s something like a poem or just a simple one-liner. Nobody knows where these things come from, they just show up near you the morning of your sixteenth. It’s probably the Fates, or something. Mike doesn’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. When you meet your soulmate, they strengthen whatever power it is that you have, because another thing about this crazy world he lives in is that every human being is born with an affinity for something. However, some people possess powers more dangerous than others.

Mike Wheeler is one of them. He’s the only magna-powered person in his whole family. His older sister can lift twenty times her weight and his younger one can talk to animals, neither of which really interferes much with their daily lives or anyone else’s. His mom’s power is the ability to do anything perfectly. That’s actually a really useful one, in fact. His dad’s is perfect memory. He remembers exact dates and exact sequences of events, which can also be useful in some cases.

Mike, on the other hand, was born with the ability to create and manipulate fire. He’s also immune to it. When he was a baby, his mom had fed him and then he’d burped and set her blouse aflame, and that was how everyone knew that Karen’s boy was a firebender. It’s pretty cool and can be useful sometimes, but it’s very volatile, which is what makes it dangerous. He has a hard time controlling it, especially when he’s angry, which is a lot of the time because he has an extremely short temper. His whole life is just a vicious cycle.

So, when he wakes up on his sixteenth birthday and sees a wretched-looking piece of paper right in front of his face, he’s not surprised. What pisses him off is that it’s a fucking prophecy. He not only already has this stupid power, now the only hint he has to finding the single person in the world who might just love him the way he is is a goddamn prophecy. He can’t even meet his damn soulmate in a normal way.

He takes a picture of the paper and sends it to the group chat he has with his four friends. They’re the only people who have been brave enough to stand being close with him. Most of the school population is afraid of him; afraid that he’ll get angry and incinerate them, or something.

The Destroyer: guys i got my soulmate thingy

The Destroyer: woke up with it next to my face

The Destroyer: and it’s a fucKING PROPHECY WHAT THE FUCK

The Destroyer: IMG.347

The Destroyer: can’t even meet my goddamn soulmate in a normal way goddammit

The Vanisher: calm down mike

The Destroyer: I CAN’T CALM DOWN WILL FUCK

The Destroyer: THE ONE HINT I HAVE AND IT’S A PROPHECY!!!!! TF!!!!!!! WE HAVE TO KILL SOME MONSTER???? WHAT IS A NETHER BEAST

The Healer: idk what a nether beast is but sounds legit

The Healer: so you’re gonna hate your soulmate when you first meet apparently

The Destroyer: fuckinG GREAT THANKS DUSTIN

The Vanisher: where’s lucas when you need him

The Speedster: i’m here just

The Speedster: idk how to contribute to this

The Destroyer: i swear i’m going to set myself on fire

The Mimicker: if only that would actually work .

The Destroyer: stfu max i dont have time for your saltiness

Mike has to put his phone down because he can feel his body temperature rising and if he lets himself get too carried away he will spontaneously burst into flame. He hurriedly gets dressed in his specially-made flame-retardant clothes and pulls on his blocker gloves before making his way downstairs for breakfast.

At school, all he can hear about is the new girl. Apparently she just showed up this morning and no one knows what her power is. People have tried asking her, but nobody’s gotten anything concrete so far.

Mike couldn’t give less of a fuck. He’s not concerned with other people’s business. He hates having people in his, so why should he care about others’? In fact, he is so busy not caring about what other people are saying that he doesn’t even notice the person coming out of the restroom before he slams into her. She drops the bag she’s carrying and he drops all his books.

“Watch where you’re going next time,” growls Mike, bending down to pick up his stuff.

“Same goes for you, asshole,” comes the harsh response.

Mike stops in surprise. No one talks to him like that. Ever. They’re all too afraid of his temper to even try him. He looks up to find an unfamiliar face glaring back at him. This must be the new girl.

She’s quite pretty, but he hates her on sight. He’s not sure why; maybe the fact that she called him an asshole has something to do with it. He may or may not have deserved it, but that doesn’t mean he has to agree with it.

“Watch who you call an asshole, asshole,” he says bitingly, then picks up his last book and shoves past her.

He can feel stares on him, but he thinks people are mostly looking at the girl. She didn’t know who she was dealing with back there, otherwise, she probably would have run away just like everyone else does.

In chemistry, for which Mike isn’t allowed to participate in labs for obvious reasons, he doesn’t have a lab partner. Even if he did his classmates don’t trust him enough to sit next to him. He’s just sitting down and getting his books settled when the door opens again and in comes the same girl he just bumped into. She sees him right in the front row and her whole face wrinkles as if she’s just smelled something disgusting. A few minutes later, after she speaks to the teacher, she walks over to the empty side of Mike’s lab bench and drops her stuff before sitting down.

The girl openly looks him over again, and Mike feels himself shiver but he keeps his gaze directly forward. Something about her is off. Maybe she’s magna-powered too?

He sees her open her mouth. “I know what you are. And I hope you know I’m not afraid of you.”

Mike doesn’t say anything, merely picking at his nails as if he isn’t in the least affected by her words. What does she mean she’s not afraid of him? Who does she think she is? Even his friends are afraid of him, to some extent.

Mr. Lewis starts the lesson, and during the period Mike comes to know that the girl is named Eleanor Hopper. She’s his age. Her dad’s the new chief of police and today is her first day of school in Hawkins. She moved from Chicago. All irrelevant things that tell him nothing about who she really is, or as she would probably put it, what she is. Mike finds himself suddenly burning with curiosity (not literally of course, but he’s close). He wants to know what she does.

At the end of class, as they’re packing up their things, Mike turns to her and says, “You should be afraid of me.”

Eleanor raises a brow. “Why? So you can keep doing and saying whatever you want because no one will try to tell you you’re wrong?”

Mike feels his face twist into a frown. That’s not how it is at all and his face is getting hot, which is never a good sign. “You don’t know anything about me.”

She shoves her pencil case into her bag aggressively. “I know enough about pyros to assume your basic qualities, and I don’t like you. You all need anger management and a lesson in humility.”

“What did you call me?”

She gives a sarcastic laugh. “Pyro? Short for pyrokinetic? I recognize the blocker gloves, idiot. God, you don’t even know what your kind are called? Pretty stupid for someone in an honours chem class.”

Eleanor then exits the chemistry classroom, leaving Mike behind her with his blood boiling.

That’s it. He can’t stand her.

[buckysdamnplums]

Secrets

Author’s Note: This is my first time writing for a request so I hope it’s not a disappointment. And I may have gotten a little carried away. Also it’s my first time ever writing X-Men/Mutants. Please feel free to leave feedback :)

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader, Nightcrawler x Daughter!Reader

Summary: You’re a mutant who was taught to not be afraid of your mutation, but to be cautious of humans who hate you. Keeping your natural silk blue skin a secret was tough, but even harder to keep from your best friend and secret crush; Peter Parker. But what if Peter had a secret too? And what if you both shared a secret?

Word Count: 2233 (it’s a long one and i'm not 100% proud of it but I tried)

Warnings: Cussing and kissing, so not much.

Mutant and Proud. That’s what your grandmother had always told you. Sure, Mystique was a role model to many mutants, but she was your hero as well. And with the master shape shifter being your grandmother, naturally you were quite skilled in that area too. Though you also inherited a whipping tail from your father, Nightcrawler. In case you haven’t put two and two together, you were also naturally blue. However, your blue was on the lighter side and your skin was smooth to the touch.  

But this didn’t stop you from constantly shifting into human form. Of course you loved being a mutant, it made you unique and special, but the criticism and demeaning comments from close-minded humans did strike a nerve with you. So you chose to stay human in public, like your grandmother used to. It just made life easier, which is exactly what a high schooler needs.

When you were younger, you and your father lived at Xavier’s Mansion and there you were educated by the magic mind himself. As things started getting tough again for mutants, your father moved you guys into the boroughs of New York. Queens to be exact.

That’s how you wound up at Midtown High, school for science and technology. Also known as a school for the “gifted” as the locals liked to call it. Little did they know you were both gifted in academics and powers.

~~~

Your friendship with Peter Parker was one that blossomed quite unusually. You were in chem when you noticed your lab partner mixing some white sticky substance in the drawer next to him.

“Hey, what is that? I thought we were using cobalt and nitrogen. Why isn’t it blue?” You asked leaning over to get a closer look before he slammed the drawer shut.

“Oh uhh yeah.” He stammers.

“Then.. what’s with the secret white stuff in the drawer?” You questioned, raising an eyebrow at the nervous boy.

“Um that’s for Ned. Yeah he’s trying to plan a, uhh, silly string surprise for Michelle. Ya know, perk her up a bit.” He forced a laugh, turning back to the experiment at hand.

“Well I’m quite good at chemistry, if I do say so myself. I could definitely help with the silly string if you want.” You offered with a smile. And for some reason, Peter couldn’t help but agree.

Now here you were five months later laying on the couch in Peter’s apartment studying for an upcoming test. Aunt May just step out to run to the store and pick up dinner leaving you and Peter to the apartment alone. Not like anything would happen between the two of you, he thought of you as just a friend. Besides, he didn’t even know about the real you. He knew the “human y/n” not the natural y/n. Peter would probably go running for the hills if he saw you shift blue. Who wouldn’t? Apparently the only mutants that were truly accepted were those affiliated with the Avengers. The precious little “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” The ones who didn’t have to face the snarky comments and derogatory remarks. What you wouldn’t do to be one of them…

You were pulled from you thoughts as door flew open revealing May walking in with bags of groceries and two pizzas in hand.

“Hey kiddos, why don’t you take a break to eat. I don’t know, maybe watch a movie or something. You’ve been going at it for hours and at this point I don’t see how you could possibly learn anymore.” She places down the bags and boxes, moving over to take the red notebook from Peter’s lap.

“Hey May..”

“Nope. Eat. You too, y/n. Both of you. Up up.”

You and Peter locked eyes and with a shrug you both shot up from the couch making your way to the pizzas. Peter grabbed the box, you grabbed some drinks and movies then made your way back to your spots on the couch. Once you pushed in a movie, the two of you curled up into your usual cuddling position. Peter laid back on the couch, feet up, you tucked under his arm resting your head against his shoulder and an arm tracing patterns on his jean clad thigh. His hand was tracing his own little patterns on your arm, soothing you from the stress of the upcoming test.

These moments were your favorite, just you and Peter. Everything was perfect in those moments. It didn’t matter that you were holding back a huge secret from Peter (or that he was holding one back from you). These were the moments that you two could both just relax together. That is until you moved and noticed the hairs on Peter’s arms stand up and he tensed under your touch.

“Shit shit shit shit shit.” Peter mumbled under his breath, pulling you up with him as he rushed to his room.

What the hell. You followed him, barging through the door to his room. Now the sight before you was definitely not what you expected. You stared at Peter wide eyed as he stood before you trying to pull a body suit up his very toned body.

“Pete..”

“Shit y/n!” He exclaimed, finally pulling the last of the suit up.

“Pete what are you doing… are you..?” You couldn’t believe this. I mean it would explain those times Peter goes running off suddenly or how he always made it to your house in under 10 minutes, but still. Peter? He’s the Spider-Man?! Compared to this, your secret suddenly seem normal.

“Y/N, I uhh,” his eyes darted across your face, taking in you shocked expression. “I don’t know what to tell you.. But I gotta go. Something is going on and I need to go check it out. Promise I’ll explain later!” And with that, the boy who you suddenly fell even more for took off through the window.

~~~

You didn’t see Peter again until chem the next day, despite staying at his place until 10:30 hoping to catch him coming back in. May even offered to let you spend the night, but you knew your dad would start to panic if you didn’t come home. He was always so worried that you’d run into some anti-mutant supports and just wanted to keep you safe. Now here you were, not so patiently waiting for Peter to come strolling into the classroom.  A minute to the bell, Peter slid in next to you.

“Hey y/n, how are you toda—”

“Cut the crap Peter. What was that yesterday and why were you out so late? I had to tell May that you got an emergency call from Ned. Something about him getting locked out of the house so you went with his spare key. Thank god she thinks Ned would do something like that. Now are you gonna explain to me about this Spider—” you were cut off with a glare from the teacher as she made her way down your row, passing out tests.

“Hush it you two. Or you’ll both be taking F’s.”

“Yes ma’am.” You replied, sending Peter a look that said ‘you’re not getting out of this.’

After class Peter pulled you guys into a classroom that was luckily empty, seeing as most teachers took lunch off and left their rooms. He check the hall one last time before shutting the door and making his way over to you. You crossed your arms, a hard look on your face as you eyed the nervous boy in front of you.

“I uh, guess you know my secret then.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah I guess I do.”

“Look, y/n, I wanted to tell you. But Mr. Stark warned me about how you could become a target and taken as ransom or whatever and I couldn’t bare to put you through that. The only other person who knows is Ned. And that’s because he saw me taking off the suit too. Man I should really start locking my door.” He rambled on, hands flying all over the place as he spoke.

“It’s cool Peter. Actually I have something to show you too..” you thought it over quickly. Might as well show Peter your blue, it’s only fair if you both know each other’s secrets. “I, uhh, I’m actually a—”

You were cut off by Michelle who stomped through the door, “There you two nerds are. Come on, we have practice right now for decathlon right now.”

Grabbing your arm she dragged the two of you out of the classroom towards the auditorium for practice. Looks like you’ll be telling Peter later.

~~~

Funny enough, you told Peter in a way you least expected. You two were walking home from school deciding to skip out on the subway for a change. Peter’s arm wrapped around your shoulders, your’s around his waist. He was about to bring up your past discussion on what you wanted to show him when you heard gunshots go off.

Releasing him from your waist, the both of you turned to the source of the shots. You spotted people running out from a department store on the corner. By the time you looked back at Peter he was dashing down a near alley, pulling the suit from his backpack. Somehow your old training at Xavier’s sparked a flame within you as your feet carried you in the direction of the store. Pushing open the doors, you noticed the gunman at the cashier, bullet holes in the wall next to him. Slowly you made your way down the isles towards the hooded man. That is until a flash of white crossed your line of sight, followed by red and blue. Just in time. Peter knocked the gun from the guys hand, stalking towards the man. The coward took a few steps back, allowing Peter a chance to ask the cashier if he was alright. This also allowed for the robber to pull a knife out of his pocket, lunging at Peter. Your heart pounded as the reflected light of the knife shown in your direction. You knew what you had to do.

“Peter move!” you shouted, jumping in the way snatching the knife with your tail.

“Y/N? What the… are you a..” he watched on as you flipped the guy with your tail, successfully knocking him out. You looked down at him as he laid merely lifeless on the ground. It’s been awhile since you've fought, looks like Logan’s training really did pay off.

“Looks like you know my secret then, huh?” you repeated Peter’s previous words, a slight smile forming on your face. Looking down you noticed you’d also shifted back to your natural blue state. The pressure and stressed distracted you from trying to stay in human form.

“Yeah looks like I do.” He replied, sending you a small smirk.

“Oh uh, sir are you okay? At this point you could just call the cops inside, they've been waiting outside for a chance to come in. They've noticed that it works best if they let me handle things first. But uh, have a nice day and stay alert!”

Peter pulled you with him out of the shop, shooting a web to a nearby building at swinging off to a rooftop.

“Listen y/n,” he started, pulling his mask off and taking a seat on the edge of the roof, pulling you down with him, “if we're letting out all of our secrets right now then I’ve gotta tell ya. Okay umm so I like you. I have liked you for months now and I’m not sure why I waited so long to tell you but I—”

“Pete I like you too. I have for a while now and honestly I didn't think you felt the same.” You shivered as the wind started picking up. Peter pulled you into him, instantly warming you up. “I just didn’t think my blue form would be very.. uh… accepted by you.”

“Are you kidding me?! I think it’s awesome! I’m actually a bit offended that you think it would change how I think or feel about you.” His face fell at the thought of you thinking he’d actually treat you differently just because you were born differently than him.

“I know, I'm sorry Peter. It’s just my dad isn’t a shape shifter so he’s always blue and normally has to cover it with makeup and he worries about me and I guess it makes me paranoid about what others will think and I really didn't want to lose you because you're the best person in my life and it’s crazy how—”

You felt a soft pair of lips on your own shutting you up. You shifted to your side carefully to not fall off the building, placing your hand on Peter’s cheek.

“Shut up. I like you. You like me. And we're both a little special. Now that all the secrets are out, can we kiss again?” His question causes blood to rush to your cheeks as you nod your head.

Who would’ve thought sharing your secret would be a good thing. And who knows, maybe a mutant dating an Avenger will help people become more welcoming to mutants. This could be the start of something great not only for you but also for society.

[marauders-groupie]

The Things We Do For Spite

Inspired by and dedicated to my lovely Jo, @selflessbellamy - may we get our heads out of our asses and start treating our crushes nicely. 

(or not; we can always just go get coffee and take pleasure in doing illogical shit)

AKA: Bellarke as the unofficial class couple in denial

Also on AO3

"Class Jeopardy?"

Jasper nods, a shit-eating grin splitting his face in half. Clarke should've expected this, honestly. It's Jasper and no matter the fact that seventeen year old boys are generally ridiculous - he's even more so.

I mean, just look at the damn goggles.

But she takes a deep breath because she's got this, she's Clarke fracking Griffin and she's been through worse.

"And does Bellamy know about this?"

Bellamy. Of course Bellamy wouldn't sanction this and Jasper knows it, hasn't even asked, judging by how red his cheeks go suddenly.

"We were hoping you'd talk him into it."

"Oh, Jas, you know I can't do anything without his say-so. He's my co-president. He'd probably sue me."

She's only half-joking. They've never really been friends, Clarke and Bellamy, but they haven't become enemies either - until she challenged him for the title of the class president.

And then they had to share the position, which. Ridiculous. The guy is a stuck up, boring, tedious, preposterous, absolutely no good asshole with a chip on his shoulder. He wouldn't know fun even if it bit him in the ass.

Which is why her plan is gonna work. There is no way in hell Bellamy will approve of something as foolish as pseudo Jeopardy while they could be watching documentaries on the last day before the Christmas break.

No way.

In.

Hell.

"Come on, Clarke, he'll just -"

"Who will do just what?"

And there he is. Somehow he'd managed to skulk over and it should make Clarke furious, especially because of their heated exchange last afternoon over the next semester's budget, but in this instance it just makes her happy and so she beams at him, knocks him back a bit.

"Jasper was wondering if we could play Jeopardy today and I knew that you would never approve of doing something so trivial so I -"

"Oh. That's cool, yeah."

Clarke's breath catches in her throat. Jasper's eyes widen. Bellamy just smiles.

"Excuse me?"

"We could all use a little fun, right? So go ahead, Jasper." With that, he even claps the other boy on the back and gives him a smile that shows he's been parenting his little sister for the last couple of years. "Good job, buddy."

And that is why Clarke hates Bellamy Blake.

*

 Ok, so she doesn't hate him. Not really. 

He can be nice when he wants to and the weather is good. Once he even got her a spare pair of the comfiest socks when hers got wet from the sludge and she definitely does not still sleep in them sometimes.

He is also very pretty, in a way guys shouldn't be. Girls, yes, Clarke's gotten used to girls she likes being pretty, but Bellamy is like - out of this world pretty? Like the aliens just dropped him on his planet and forgot to come get him so now he, the poor soul, has to sit between these mortals with his marble-cut cheekbones and curls that probably feel even softer than they look.

Ok, so she's thought about it. It'd be a shame not to. She is an artist. He is beautiful. It's logical.

But he also fights her on everything and if she says the decorations should be red and green this Christmas, he'll say red and golden, and he calls her a princess.

So obviously she can't have a crush on him.

Socks be damned.

 *

 "Question for 150 dollars - "

Bellamy raises a hand. "Just to make it clear, we are talking fictional dollars, right?"

Raven rolls her eyes. "Yes, Blake. Get on with the program already. So, the question is - who of our teachers is the oldest?"

It's easy to slip away for Clarke, sitting in the last desk with her feet on the chair and the sketchbook in her lap. They didn't make her participate, at least, and Bellamy claimed he was only going to do it to make sure there's no gambling.

Although he did bring her a glass with punch so that was surprisingly nice, even though he just thrust it in her hand and ran away.

Maybe that's why she's drawing him now. Shirt sleeves rolled up, freckles dotting even his arms, and veins popping in the backs of his hands like they always do when he's tired.

But he looks content, too, and Clarke smiles to herself. She gives him too much shit. He's actually a really good human.

"Okay, a question for 300 dollars - who is the unofficial class couple?"

It doesn't even take them a second to reply. No. Her traitorous class screams in unison -

"Bellarke!"

Clarke keeps her eyes on her sketchbook, doesn't dare look up and, God forbid, meet Bellamy's eyes. Nope. Her ears are burning but she's not gonna look up.

"Guys, don't be -"

"Oh come on, Mont," Miller protests, "even you've seen them at the field trip, getting all cozy."

So Clarke might have fallen asleep on Bellamy's shoulder and he might have draped an arm around her and that might have melted into the two of them getting all twisted together but surely that's no reason -

"He just doesn't want to make Mom and Dad angry."

Yep, Clarke's definitely not looking up any time soon.

 *

 "Clarke -"

She whirls around to face him, heart beating wildly, and starts, "Before you say anything - I had nothing to do with that. You know that they've always shipped us and I just don't know what to do to stop them. I'm uncomfortable, too."

For the first time, she really looks at Bellamy, and - 

He doesn't seem angry. Not really. If anything, he seems amused, if the mirth in his eyes is anything to go by.

"I wasn't gonna say that you put them up to it. I was going to apologize if I gave them a reason to think you and I were -" he wrinkles his nose, searching for right words and it's so cute, so cute, and Clarke might just die, "an item."

"You? Why would you give them a reason?"

He shrugs but it's half-assed at best. His ears are burning pink too and it's oddly festive, his face all golden underneath the fairy lights. They fought over them for an hour and he finally caved in. Clarke celebrated that victory with a whole chocolate cake.

"I figured they noticed."

Her heart skips a beat but she tamps it down. This is Bellamy. Sure, he's the one she'd call in an emergency but he's also the one who constantly calls her out on her shit and he definitely doesn't like like her.

When she doesn't speak, still trying to process what she thinks is insinuated, Bellamy frowns.

"I'm going to get over it so you don't have to worry. This is not some unsolicited love declaration, I just wanted to apologize if I made you uncomfortable. I promise it won't happen again."

"Are you in love with me?" she blurts out because she's got her hands full of bulbs and papier-mache in the empty classroom and it's getting dark outside and maybe she's known this for a very long time, wanted him to like her as much as she liked him since the first time she saw him tutoring underclassmen the night before they had AP Chem test. 

And Bellamy frowns even deeper, says, "You didn't know?"

It's all it takes for Clarke to drop all the shit she's been carrying and finally kiss him quiet, the kind of kiss that leaves him confused for a moment but when he kisses her back, it's worth it. Yeah, he means it, and she knows it by the smile that ruins it entirely.

They emerge from the classroom fifteen minutes later, disheveled and blushing, fingers laced together, only to see Raven and Jasper grinning at them in the hallway, with Monty taking pics.

"What is this? A welcome committee?"

"Damn right!" Raven straightens up, her brace clinking as she gets a bundle of fireworks seemingly out of nowhere. "And it's welcome to your senses, dipshits committee."

Clarke hears Bellamy let out a breath and then they both burst out laughing, falling over each other and then to the floor.

This time she doesn't ignore how touching him feels both steady and exhilarating, and this time - when Clarke smiles at him - Bellamy smiles back.

Oh she's gonna have a very merry Christmas after all.