#also ty! my finals were done earlier this month and I passed all my classes :)

[tethered-heartstrings]

I have too many fic idea and I can't start any of them *cry*

I don't know what to do so uhm, I'm sharing one with you if you don't mind :3

~What if Will Graham is a famous painter but he has this some sort of tendency to like, imagine or create a horrifiying gorey art (like murder or like those crime scene wed see at the NBC Hannibal) and sometimes, use blood (not human blood... Yet :) to draw his artwork.

And then there's Hannibal, who's of course, a therapist who'd apparently assigned as Will's therapist. Is he a cannibal? a serial killer? I don't know, I haven't thought about this yet :°

Basically the whole story is just about how Hannibal corrupt Will into murder. That's all I guess~

Also sorry if it's not understandable, I only have 2 and a half braincells rn so... yeah

Also wish you luck for your finals :D

I know that feeling! The idea part of it and sharing it with friends and mutuals is very exciting. I also have soooo many ideas, but actually opening up a document and *starting* it is hard.

and no worries, I understood it and don't mind you sharing at all! I think it is a really neat idea and I hope you are able to find the time and energy to execute it!

[crybabykiko]

Summer School

Kōshi Sugawara x Milf!Reader

Warnings: lmaooo bitch this shit hurted I can’t even get into it just know that I don’t wish to be perceived and will not be taking questions at this time. This is also not based on a dream I had and I am completely okay and sane

WC: 2.2k

A/N: Part of the lovely Miki Mouse Whorehouse collab- @undermattsun I love you I’m sorry my appendix got in the way of having this in on time. If you haven’t read the rest of the best mf porn trope collab in the universe, check out the mlist here for more hot milfs in your area that can read to you. 💕 and also ty kwis @honey-makki for the banner because y’all almost didn’t get one... she’s the real hero of the story.

The silence in the room was deafening as you sat in front of his desk. The air was thick with tension, and your palms, though sweaty, felt ice cold. He was always jovial, except for in moments like these, moments where he commanded attention. Moments in which he was serious, an ever looming presence over all his students- over the entire school.

“I assume you know why we’re meeting, right?” he said, taking a seat at his own desk, piled high with papers and discarded paper coffee cups- you could also just barely make out... an ashtray? Maybe that was only for after hours- hours like these in which he probably stayed on the school grounds half the night grading term papers and exams- as he’s not one to bring work home with him. You remembered him mentioning that from the orientation. You remembered the gentle, kind, Sugawara-Sensei with a warm smile and soothing voice; but the man in front of you was sinister.

“Final grades?” You swallowed a lump of fear and anxiety.

“They’re not good,” he scoffed, rifling through papers on his desk to pull out one riddled with red marks.

“Something like this definitely means summer school....”

He wasn’t letting up at his icy demeanor.

“That’s- it’s not an option,” you sputtered.

“I agree,” he said. “I’ve heard about your summer plans, I wouldn’t hate for you to miss out, they really seem like fun…”

Your blood was boiling over at the condescension, but it felt ice cold as it ran through your veins thinking of what you stood to lose if you protested him.

“I’ll tell you what,” Sugawara began, rising from his desk chair and crossing over to the classroom blackboard. He started erasing the day’s earlier lessons, leaving murky white streaks across the board.

“I’ll give you a chance to raise the grade, extra credit of sorts- how does that sound?”

By now he had picked up a slender wooden pointer with a white plastic tip. You had already put forth so much effort into Summer vacation, there was no way summer school was written into the occasion. But you felt yourself suffocated by the offer, a nervous twisting starting to build up in your gut as he stared at you, twisting the pointer in his chalk dust coated hands. You begrudgingly nodded.

“Great- it’s an offer you won’t be able to refuse, I know you…”

You knew exactly what he meant.

He bought the pointer to your chin, gently lifting before tracing it down your neck and décolletage, emphasizing the curvature of your breasts as he rounded the chair to be behind you.

“Let’s start with getting this off, yeah?” His hands massaged at your shoulders, gently pulling the woolen cardigan off your body, gently exposing you to the cool air of his classroom. You shuddered in response to the drastic change of temperature. Your exposed shoulders revealed the straps to your camisole and bra, Suga snapped the straps of both against your skin, a wince forming on your face from the soft slapping pain.

“Such pretty skin,” he remarked lowering his head to your neck, lips barely grazing the surface before peppered light kisses along it.

“You smell so nice too- all of this just to meet me, huh?”

You fixed your mouth to say no, but couldn’t get anything out against his advances. instead a small moan rose through the air as his kisses turned to kitten licks and a soft sucking right beneath your ear.

Sugawara’s hands were warm and soft as they lost themselves underneath the fabric of your shirt and bra, leaving a rash of goosebumps in his wake that rose almost as quickly as the heat to your face and neck. He slowly took your nipples between his fingertips, twisting gently as you threw your head into his chest.

“That’s it, it feels good, doesn’t it?” You hummed in response.

You felt him press his body into your back, the presence of his half hardened cock becoming painfully apparent as it slid against you. Suga crossed back in front of you, hands positioned at the buckle of the belt that held his pants at his waist. He didn’t bother to undo the clasps of his suspenders, slipping them down his shoulders instead. Still exposed, your chest rose and fell at the sight of him. Your eyes were locked at his waist, his own eyes growing familiar with your gaze as he slid the khakis down his waist, stopping just above the knee and leaving his hard-on fully visible.

You can’t recall when or how the straps of your shirt and bra fell from your body, but your top half was completely exposed to him as he pushed the head of his cock between your breasts, the soft pink head sporting a prominent freckle akin to the beauty mark under his eye. His cock moved against your skin, gaining soft friction as you held your tits together around it. You couldn’t resist sticking out your tongue to lap tiny kitten licks as he thrust- a soft yet lewd chortle from your own lips offered a little more lubrication, the slick sounds of his dick against your skin now rising in the sticky air. The spit glistened against the supple skin of your breasts as your hands held them together, fingertips hovering just above your pert nipples as you continued to envelop his dick with them. You started to help him, moving the mounds of flesh against him in a matching rhythm.

“Fuck yeah, just like that,” Sugawara hissed, speeding himself up. You could see the emergence of precum at the tip, tongue involuntary darting out to lick the salty fluid. His cock grew wetter, veins more prominent with each thrust against you. Your legs were presaging together in your seat, the thin panties you were wearing had started to become uncomfortably wet at this point, as you were so turned on at how turned on he was. In the back of your mind though, the heat on your skin translated to embarrassment, sickened by yourself for stooping to this level, disgusted by your need for perfection- how could you ever live with this?

No time to think about that now, though, not when he was looking down over you like this, cheeks pale pink, and strands of silver still king to his perspiring forehead. The feeling of his dick twitching against your tits weighed heavier than your pride at the moment, and you’d rather swallow several of his loads than grin and bear the stares of all those other bullshit PTA moms looking down on you- looking down on your kid. It was time to work for your bribe- just like the one you’d worked with Sugawara at the beginning of the year to get your son into his class.

Without warning, your son’s teacher thrust farther forward, pushing his dick past your lips- the signifier he was done using your tits to get off, and needed something more. You let go, moving your hand to the base of him, twisting your wrist upward as you opened your mouth wider and granted him full access.

“Very good- open up-ngh-, pretty thing,” He cooed through gritted teeth. “Want you to take this cock down your throat.”

His hands grasped the nape of your neck, pushing your head down further on his length. You gagged the first two or three passes- after all, it had been awhile since you had been adjusted to his size, or any man in general- being a single-mother does that to a person sometimes. But it took a few softer thrusts for your throat to ease up, and he was happy to oblige. He found you cute like this, so pliant with a mouth stuffed full of him. ‘Such a good mom,’ he thought, looking down to marvel at your face, nose buried in his pubes.

There was nothing more appealing to him than the idea of replacing your tight, wet throat with your even tighter pussy- than feeling the tip of his cock right at your cervix- the sensation of him filling you to the brim with his cum, and eventually seeing you swollen and round with his own child after a few months of making sure it stuck. Amazing thoughts- at least to him. But for now, he could wait; his mind telling him he’ll have all summer to wear you down since he has every intention of keeping you at his beck and call for the break, the looming thought of how much you owe him hanging over your head like the most perfect apple on a branch just out of reach.

Looking up at him from your seat like this fit that same illusion for you too. You shouldn’t feel this overpowering desire over the stiffness of your jaw and the burning of your throat- you shouldn’t enjoy the weight of his dick on your tongue, much less crave the feeling of him splitting you open. Yes these are all things you shouldn’t feel- but if it’s so wrong, why does it feel so right?

You popped your lips off of him for a second, gasping for air as strings of your saliva separated you from him. Your hand twisted at the base of his cock, pumping him with a tight grip. You could feel Sugawara shuddering under your touch, eyes meeting his to watch him stifle a moan by pulling his bottom lip through his teeth. He bought a soft hand to your cheek, stroking it lightly with the pad of his thumb before taking both hands to press your head back onto him- pushing as far down as he could fit- a harsh gag filling the room as his cock lodged itself in your throat.

His face was stained scarlet, nose scrunching and eyes creasing as he felt himself starting to slip, succumbing to his impending orgasm.

“Such a good-hhngh- such a good fucking mommy,” he said thrift gritted teeth, sending several hot ropes of cum sliding down your raw, and most likely bruised throat. You could barely hear the rest of his obscenities as he hit his high- your blood was already in your ears the moment you heard him say the word “mommy.” You couldn’t help but swallow every last drop, thinking of how much better it would’ve been if he did cum in your now drenched pussy. It was an invitation waiting for him, but your womb simply had to wait- a dull ache forming where you felt he should be.

You had several seconds to come back into reality, the fluorescence of classroom lights bringing you back to your surroundings of tinfoil planet dioramas and baking soda volcanoes among the rows of desks in front of you. You tried taking stock of how you got here in the first place, but your brain was liquefied in lust. Sugawara took a few moments to fix himself up, slicking his sweaty hair back as he readjusted his suspenders and rifled through the pockets of his pants. Pulling out a silver engraved cigarette case, pulling two out and placing one between his teeth. Handing you one, he pulled out his matching lighter, flicking it open to spark you up first. Almost as if nothing happened, he was the same, jovial, sweet Sensei that your 4th-grade son adored- the same kind, gentleman you entrusted your child to at orientation.

“Don’t tell the PTA,” he joked, a soft smile spreading across his still pink cheeks as he finished his drag, sitting back down in his chair.

“I won’t if you won’t,” you responded, rather breathlessly for having not done much work yourself.

You sat in silence for a beat or two, marveling at how he was able to turn himself on and off like this, at how he was able to continue on in the thick, sex stained air while filling out a gradebook.

“The final grade will remark as a pass,” he commented.

“I can’t give honor’s marks or it’ll look suspicious, so I’ll put in a couple extra credit points and just write it off as a book report or something.”

“Th-thank you, Sensei,” you uttered weakly, remembering just who Sugawara was- after all, he is your son’s teacher. As you stood, you picked up your purse and smoothed your skirt to leave. You slowly pulled the cardigan back over your sleeves, shuddering yet again at soft contact against your sensitive nerve endings, goosebumps still painting your body.

“You can call me Kōshi if you’d like- I’m not your teacher after all.”

“Thank you… Kōshi,” you corrected yourself.

He continued to work, not taking his eyes off the pile of papers in front of him, one by one, marking them up and down with red pen.

The click of your high heels sliced through the palpable silence as you began to leave the classroom. The voice inside of you screamed to hold your head high, not to look back, not to address him, not to crave him but that same voice fell down inside you, mind quelling its fear with a ‘you just have to tell him goodnight, it’s the polite thing to do.’

“Goodnight, Kōshi,” you called, twisting the knob of the door, pushing it halfway open before he stopped you.

“Oh, Y/N- please don’t forget to tell S/N to enjoy his summer vacation… you enjoy yours too.”

[hookingminor]

the way that you love me - anthony beauvillier

a/n: inspired by pov by ariana, a lot of it is from tito’s perspective. lightly edited. all fluff. thank you @thirteenisles​ for telling me to write for tito

word count: 2.5k

summary: anthony’s been in love with you for a long time

-

Anthony was in love with you.

He knew it from the moment he met you that he was done for. There really wasn’t anything inherently special about you, which probably wasn’t the nicest thing to say, but it was true. But when you smiled at him for the first time and extended your hand in introduction, something inside of him shifted.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible, and he didn’t even register it at first, but then he shook your hand and a calm settled over him. Anthony didn’t understand what it meant then, but he understood it now.

It was the same feeling he felt right now as he watched you sleep next to him your hair strewn across the pillow and mouth slightly agape. Soft snores escaped your lips, though you always denied it when he told you. It bothered him a bit at the beginning, the snores used to keep him awake during late nights when he had early morning practice. Now he couldn’t sleep without you, snoring and all.

You looked so peaceful lying beside him. With one hand lightly holding onto his bicep, his heart fluttered. It was something you always did when you were asleep: reach out until you grabbed some body part.

When he came home late at night from road trips across the country and settled into bed, you never failed to do the same thing. You were a notoriously heavy sleeper, but whenever Anthony slid under the sheets, you swatted in his direction until you came into contact with him. Whatever you hit, you grabbed onto before rolling over and crawling as close to him as possible.

The first time it happened, all Anthony could do was laugh. He thought you might’ve been awake and that his return woke you, but when he didn’t see your breathing change or eyes flicker open, his chest had gotten so tight he was afraid it would burst.

An overwhelming softness consumed him at that, and it hit him with full force every time it happened. It was the little things. You never realized you did it, nor did he ever tell you.

“Stop staring, weirdo,” you peeked one eye open and caught Anthony looking at you.

Anthony coughed out the stiffness in his throat before replying.

“I can’t help it,” he chuckled, hoping you couldn’t see through him and how vulnerable he was feeling right now, “You’re so beautiful in the morning.”

Whatever Anthony was afraid of you seeing, you didn’t because you rolled your eyes.

-

“Can you make me some tea, please?” You called out to your boyfriend who was rummaging through the kitchen.

“Yeah, give me a minute,” he hollered back, and you heard the coffee machine running to dispense hot water.

Anthony reached over your shoulder from behind to place the mug on the table next to your textbooks. He paused halfway through his retreat to rest his hand on your shoulder and gave you a soft kiss on top of your head.

“Baby, you have three other mugs in front of you,” Anthony said, noticing the half-filled mugs in front of you.

You shrugged, “It tastes better when you make it.”

Anthony left you to continue your studies, but your statement replayed in his mind as he went into the living room and turned on whatever game was playing at the moment. You’d said it without hesitation, and Anthony doubted you even processed what you said.

It was all he could think about.

Later that night when he went to clear the table after you’d disappeared to take a shower, he saw that the only mug that was empty was the one he’d made for you earlier.

He noticed everything after that. Every morning before you left, there was always a mug semi-filled with coffee or tea resting on the counter that you’d made before going to class. Every evening when he made you a cup of tea before bed, you drank every drop.

Intrinsically, Anthony knew he didn’t make tea any better than the next person, but it never failed to brighten his mood every time he woke up and saw the empty tea mug from the night before sitting on the nightstand.

-

Anthony knew you had your doubts sometimes. Not about him. Never about him.

But he knew you had insecurities. About your relationship, about yourself and the need you had to compare yourself to other girls, about why Anthony was even with you to begin with.

None that you ever voiced them with him, but he could tell when you began to pull away and close yourself off from him. He never understood why or what caused it, but he could always read the signs leading up to it.

Anthony also knew how to snap you out of it. The first time it happened, he feared you were going to break up with him, but now he was practically a professional.

“What are your plans for the night? Are you still going out with the guys?”

You had been unusually quiet during dinner, and now you were hand washing the dishes instead of just putting them in the dishwasher; a telltale sign you were thinking too much and needed a mundane task to clear your head.

Approaching you from behind, Anthony wrapped his arms around your abdomen and nuzzled his face into your neck.

“Actually, I was thinking we should stay in for the night,” the words sounded muffled against your skin, and the vibrations tickled, which only caused Anthony to squeeze you tighter.

“Oh?” You questioned, unable to stop the smile tugging at your lips.

“Mhmm,” he hummed as he reached forward to turn off the sink, “I can’t neglect my girl right before leaving for a road trip.”

“You’re not leaving for another two days.”

“Then we’ve got less time than I thought,” Anthony said with fake realization, “Better get started now.”

You squealed in surprise as Anthony spun you around and hiked you up by your thighs. He had no care for the wet hands clutching onto his shoulders as you steadied yourself. Leaving the dirty dishes to be dealt with later, he carried you from the kitchen and into the bedroom where he spent all night showing you just how much he loved you.

-

“How’s Y/N doing?” Mat asked Anthony when they boarded the plane, “Tell her I say hi.”  He’d plopped down next to Anthony who was sending you one final text before take off, and Mat knew that love struck face anywhere. It was a face he only reserved for you, and Mat didn’t have to look at his phone to know Anthony was texting you.

“She’s doing well,” Anthony answered, firing off an ‘I love you’ before locking his phone.

“Yeah? You guys are still coming to the wedding next month, right?” Mat asked. One of their teammates was finally tying the knot, and Anthony knew Mat was only asking so he didn’t have to be the only single one there. He would still be the only single one, but Mat always inserted himself into yours and Anthony’s relationship whenever he had to third wheel.

“Yeah, we’ll be there,” Anthony replied with an eye roll as he checked his phone one last time to see you’d replied with an ‘I love you too’ before switching it to airplane mode.

“God, it’s just a matter of time before you two are getting hitched and I’m left all alone,” Mat sighed before pulling an eye mask over his head and putting in his headphones.

Mat made the comment in passing; he didn’t understand the weight of what he’d just said, and he was already brushing it off and leaving Anthony to sit and think about it.

Maybe Anthony should’ve felt panicked after the realization hit, but all he felt was that same sense of calm wash over him. He’d never given much thought to his future. He definitely didn’t plan on ending things with you and when he pictured himself in five years, you were always there beside him but he’d never made definitive plans.

Mat began dozing off as the plane took flight, but Anthony was wide awake. He knew he wanted to marry you, he was sure about that. There was no doubt in his mind that you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, but the feeling was all-consuming.

He was happy, yes. Calm in a way he’d never felt before but also nervous. It wasn’t something you two had ever talked about, and for the first time, Anthony was insecure. He imagined it’s what you felt like when you started pushing away, and he finally understood.

Would you even want to get married? Did you want a life with him? Kids? A picket fence? The whole nine-yards?

Anthony knew he would give you anything you wanted, but the question was: Did you want him to?

-

As you flitted around the party, Anthony watched you with intent eyes. The girls had stolen you away earlier in the evening demanding pictures and that you mingle with them instead of hanging onto Anthony the entire night, not that Anthony minded that. He very much preferred when you were near him, if only to stop the chirps he was receiving.

“God, you’re such a lost puppy without her,” Jordan commented, snapping Anthony from his stupor as his gaze flickered back to his friends. Anthony blushed, knowing the comment was directed at him, but he had no comeback.

“Ease off, he’s just imagining his own wedding now,” Matt teased with a knowing look. Nearly all the guys had been there before, and Anthony knew they meant it in good fun.

“Popping the question any time soon, Beau?” Scott asked as he took a swig of his beer. Being the most recent one to get married, he understood the feeling probably better than the other married guys.

“Not soon but thinking about it,” Anthony admitted sheepishly. He wasn’t one to talk about his feelings with the guys. Sure, he went to one of the older ones if he ever needed advice, but those times were few and far between. By the raised brows of everyone near him, he could tell they were shocked with his admission. Happy, nonetheless, but still surprised.

Anthony had started thinking about it during the road trip when Mat had unknowingly dropped that bomb on him. He thought about it constantly, but he still hadn’t brought it up to you yet.

“Really? Good for you, dude,” Jordan said, and suddenly Anthony felt shy.

He couldn’t help it, his eyes shifted back to find you in the middle of conversation with Sydney as you snapped some pictures for other girls. You were glowing. You always glowed to Anthony, and maybe it was the wedding atmosphere, but right now, it was like you had a halo surrounding you.

Your face lit up at something someone said, and even though you were across the room, he could hear your laughter in his head.

The other guys exchanged a few glances between themselves as Anthony’s attention was stolen again by you. They couldn’t really blame him, they’d all been in his shoes at some point.

As the night dragged on and the drinks flowed freely, Anthony absorbed all of it: the soft voice you used when talking to the young kids who begged you to play with them, the way you clutched onto his arm when you made your rounds and mingled with other guests, the atrocious line dancing you did with Mat since Anthony refused to cotton-eye joe.

“Come on,” you said out of breath as you extended your hand to Anthony. You were tired from the long dance and a slower one had come on right after, “Just one dance.”

With a heavy sigh, Anthony took your hand as you led him to the dance floor for a slow dance. Your face was warm for the exertion and alcohol, and even a little sweaty and smudged, Anthony thought you were gorgeous.

His hands fell to your waist as yours wrapped around his neck, and he pulled your body flushed with his. You swayed to the music and rested your head on his chest.

“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you,” Anthony mumbled against your hair. Although unprompted, it wasn’t unwelcome.

“Oh yeah? Why is that?” You asked, pulling back to look at your boyfriend. It wasn’t normally like Anthony to be this soft, especially in public, but the wedding had only enhanced his good mood.

“Because I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful you are and how much I’m in love with you.”

He said it so simply and casually, as if he were recounting his favorite part of dinner instead of baring his heart for you to see. Your teasing smile softened into one of appreciation.

“Who knew weddings could turn you into such a sap, Beauvis?” you joked lightly, though you pulled yourself closer to him. It was that same stupid nickname Mat had called him one time, and you frequently used it much to Anthony’s dismay.

He tightened his grip on you as he returned your warm smile, and he could see it all right then: his entire life laid out ahead of him with you in the center of it all. Truth be told, Anthony was a sap for you, had been for a long time and you knew it.

“I want a winter wedding, too,” you commented easily after a moment, and Anthony felt his heart rate speed up.

“And if I want a summer wedding?” He threw back, though the smile on his face indicated he was only teasing.

“Hmm…” you paused to ponder the thought, “I think we might have to compromise on a fall wedding then. Summer is too hot for me.”

“Fall sounds nice,” Anthony mused, “A little difficult with the season, but we can make it work if you want.”

“As long as you’re there, I don’t really care when it is,” you replied, and Anthony found himself thinking the same thing.

He didn’t respond after that, deciding to let the music engulf the two of you as you continued to sway. Another slow song followed right after, but Anthony made no motion to leave. He would’ve stayed there all night if you wanted if it weren’t for Mat disrupting your dance and asking to cut in.

Anthony let him take over without hesitation as he didn’t really care much for dancing anyway, but he walked back to your table feeling lighter than he had ever felt in his life.

Unable to stop himself, he pulled out his phone as he watched you and Mat laugh on the dance floor, the song changing to a more upbeat one. Mat spun you away in a dramatic twirl that almost sent you stumbling had it not been for Mat’s hold on your hand.

Anthony smiled to himself as he opened Google to search for engagement rings.

[bukojuiice]

rose-colored boy

ೃ pairing: (eren jaeger x fem! reader)

ೃ  tags: college/modern au, fluff, humor, love at first sight cliché, mikasa is your cute little sister, armin, sasha, jean, and connie are your besties, and eren is a himbo who works hard and has terrible friends.

ೃ warnings: strong language and mild suggestive content

ೃ part 1/??? of my (eren x reader) college au!

ೃ word count: 3000 words

ೃ  my nav  →  my mha writing masterlist 

ೃ This is my very first snk x reader fic! so i hope you bear with some errors! qwq 

i’ve been following the anime ever since it was released in 2013, and this is the first time i’m  going to be writing for it.  this month’s manga chapter really took me out so why not channel my sadness thru writing an fluff! eren fic? 🤧 i hope you enjoy either way!

ೃ  please do reblog if you enjoyed!! (feel free to add tags too because i love reading them and my heart swells with happiness when people love my work!)

ೃ  in which (Y/N) (L/N), 20, still in school, and regretfully-unregretfully-her little girl scout sister's assistant, meets eren jaeger in an embarrassing too innocent door-to-door cookie sale whilst a humiliating party was going on.

cookies, suspicious maybe-maybe-not pot brownies, meddling little sisters and friends, “oh my god they were roommates” vine on replay 24/7, homework, tears, and fairy lights bring them together.

“I’m going to enter now.”

“Ahhh yes, please!”

“Shut up, please.” Eren muttered to himself as he tossed and turned around in his bed, but still couldn’t get to sleep. “When will they ever stop doing this?” Why did Eren’s next-door roommate and his girlfriend have to do this five times a day? They had a lot of stamina for 21-year-olds who didn’t have anything better to do.

Eren’s thoughts eventually brought him to his parents.

His parents- did they even exist?

For pretty much 14 years of Eren’s life, they had been out of town or out of the country. His older brother, Zeke, blonde, bespectacled, tall, and sometimes too far up his own ass older brother who Eren is able to confide in from time to time, recently got a girlfriend whom he’s hopelessly in love with (they’re even thinking about getting married which isn’t really a problem since the girl is genuinely nice to his older brother so Eren is good with her.), so… things in the family had been a bit rough and busy to say the least.

Communication with his parents wasn’t always the best.

Eren would study late at night back when he was seven, because no one bothered to help him with homework. Along with the fact that he wasn’t the brightest kid in class, and he knew that very well, but he had ambition and he was determined to make it big in the world. He focused more on sports, particularly Soccer in middle school and high school, and tried to balance that with his studies.  After being granted a Sports Scholarship from Shigashina University, Eren decided to rent and share a flat, living with his batchmates who he met at a mixer party (before Uni started as this whole meet and get to know each other kind of thing) and whom he was so quick to call his ‘friends’, just so that he could get out of the hellhole that was his own house.

But things turned out much worse than expected.

Eren thought that the ‘College Life’ was to focus more on pursuing your future career and make a name for yourself but… it was the other way around.

He thought that after Freshmen year, everyone would take things seriously. Sure, have some drinks, get wasted after finals, or have house parties from time to time. But he was unfortunately, dragged into the wrong crowd. After attending around 5 parties in the first few months of being generalized as one of the infamous and pompous freshman archetypes present in every university, he called it a year and spent the rest of his nights doing homework, projects, playing video games, staying at the school soccer field until 10PM while his roommates were probably smoking crack and not caring about the number of units they needed to take for each of their goddamn subjects.

 He was ~living the life~ and now that he regrets most of the decisions he made in freshman year, the only option that he has left was to wait until his third year and move to a different apartment.  

 Now, here he was, Sophomore year, nearing the end of the semester, and very much eager to get the hell out of here and also study for his upcoming finals on Constitutional Law II, as his professor, Mr. Erwin Smith, was going to throw hands if one of his students score below average on the exam.

 “EREN MICK JAEGER! BROOOO!” Eren winces when he hears the shrieky and annoying voice of his flatmate Thomas Wagner, calling out to him. “Wanna go and party with us?” Eren smiles halfheartedly, shaking his head, “Ah, no thanks. I have a game tomorrow and finals coming up on Thursday.” Thomas smirked and wrapped his arm around Eren, “Oh fuck that, live the college life ya spoon.”

“No, really I have to study.”

Thomas frowned and groaned, “Oh god, you’re such a killjoy. Fine, if that’s what you want. Don’t blame us if we tell you to buy some beer down the block.”

Eren cracked an obviously fake laugh and pushed Thomas away from him, “You’re an ass. That only happened once and that was when we first met. Don’t you even dare try to ask me to buy you shit again.”

“Woah. Woah. Woaaaaaah. That was a joke Eren. Loosen up will you?” Thomas raises an eyebrow, clearly taken aback by the brunette’s sudden aggressiveness. He hums Moves like Jaeger by Maroon 5 as a way to spite Eren whilst passing by him down the staircase.

The brunette shook his head, tying his hair into a bun carelessly and sprinting into his room without uttering another word.

Eren just wanted to study. He really did.

Instead, his roommates, all of them, mind you, were all partying in the lounge and the music was too loud and Eren was too annoyed.

They did manage to bring him out and make him stay in the kitchen where he mindlessly glared at anyone who came in. He sighed and tapped his pen restlessly amongst the insane amount of books on the table.

There was a knock.

His roommate, Floch, came in the kitchen with his girlfriend who Eren couldn’t even name with all the women he has brought into the apartment. She was hanging onto his arm and giggling. Floch’s eyes were red and his speech very slow and lazy. "Eren!" he said with a sly grin.

Eren raised an eyebrow, shooting him an irritated look. "What now Floch? Are you here to tell me to take a shot again?" The ginger-haired’s girlfriend giggled once again and kissed Floch’s cheek. Floch laughed and swatted her away, though he missed by a long shot. "Someone's at the door," a thumb pointing to the den. "wouldchumind ge'in it?" another giggle. The girl nodded sloshily. "Yesss! Erenieee get 'em door, please. Be a dearrrrr."

Eren frowned and stared at them menacingly, earning no reaction from the two as they were mad drunk. "You were just in the den," Floch’s eyes widened. "My lovey wovey-we was in the den?" His girlfriend’s mouth went into an O. "Di'nt notice tha'!"

Eren sighed and stood up. He miraculously got through the throng of bodies and to the front door. "Yes?" he called out exasperated, not knowing who was outside.

"Do you want cookies?"

Eren turned and looked to see a little raven-haired girl, a girl scout no less, a blonde-haired boy pulling on a trolley who looked significantly shorter than him, wearing rimmed glasses, and an overall appearance whom his “friends” would immediately label as a nerd they had to be a few feet away from if they saw him and lastly, a girl who looked very tired and very done with life.

Beautiful (h/c)-colored hair, her eyes looked like the starry night sky, twinkling as he catches her gaze and a smile that looked forced, but warm all the same.  

A girl who was just absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Eren was captivated. His heart was beating like crazy and he could feel his ears turn red. He would make a fool of himself if he looked red as a tomato right now.

"Um," The girl peeked inside and grimaced, squeezing the hand that was her little sister's shoulder and catching Eren’s gaze. "Mikasa, I don't think these kinds of guys would want cookies."

“Unless they're pot cookies,” Eren almost said. Mikasa pouted and widened her eyes at Eren.

The older girl crouched down and frantically covered her little sister’s eyes. "Nopenopenope, Mi, don't pull that on him."

"But (Y/N)!"

(Y/N).

Her name was (Y/N).

Eren smiled sincerely (for the first time today) and leaned back inside to the drawer by the door to grab the extra cash he and his roommates put there for emergency pizza and stuff. "You know what? You're absolutely brilliant at selling cookies. I'll take one."

Mikasa smiled back at him cheekily and tugged her older sister’s hand. "See, (Y/N)?! He wants some! Go get 'em!”

The raven-haired girl then turned to the blonde teen, practically jumping up and down. “Armin look! We sold another one!"

“We did!” The boy who was apparently named Armin, clapped his hands together, then gave the little girl a high five. “You’re a natural at this Mikasa!”

(Y/N) looked at Eren, then Mikasa, and sighed. She grabbed a bag from the trolley Armin was dragging around and pulled out a box of cookies. Eren grabbed them slowly from her, their hands almost touching as he gave (Y/N) a small smile. The (h/c) girl blushed lightly, though not visible enough for the brunette to notice.

"Hope to see you again!" Eren called out when the siblings said their thank you's and bid farewell.

And, this time, even for the slightest moment, Eren’s serotonin levels were going straight through the roof. His heart was still beating loudly, almost in sync with the trash music his roommates were blaring on the speakers. and for a moment, even just for a moment. 

He felt genuine happiness that he hasn’t felt in a very long time.

 The three of you continue to walk animatedly, now that the coast was clear and the guy from earlier wasn’t within earshot, your blonde friend just had to break the silence.

 Armin smiles, pushing his glasses up to the crook of his nose. “(Y/N), you did see how he looked at you right?” The blonde chuckles softly, catching his best friend off guard.

 You blinked. “Him?” You try to stop yourself from smiling, blushing profusely. “Geez Armin, I don’t even know his name yet.”

 “I’ll bet you 100 bucks that he goes to our Uni.”

 “Even if he does, it’s not like we’ll talk to him or anything. Judging from the place he lives in and the people he was hanging out with, we’re in two completely different worlds.” You shook your head in denial, holding Mikasa’s hand, your interlocked arms swinging playfully. Armin gives you a knowing look in response.

 Mikasa continued to wave back at the boy whom they had just sold cookies too. (Y/N) looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Wasn’t he nice (Y/N)?” Mikasa asks her older sister. (Y/N) returned her sister a small smile, “He was.”

 "I hope we see him again!"

"I'm sure we will."

 The day of Eren’s dreaded finals finally arrive.

He has prepared tirelessly for this. Hours upon hours of hard work. But, before he finally gets his well-deserved sleep, he has a few more hours to cram and absorb more knowledge for his exams.

So, what better way to do so than head straight to the library as soon as it opens at 6 AM?

This time, no one was going to bother him. No annoying roommates and no distractions.

Eren heads over to a table near the coffee and snack machines. He puts down his bag on a seat next to him, and begins to study once again. Looking through the course materials and the lessons that he still didn’t quite understand. Eren was so absorbed with studying and relying on his gut feeling that no other student in this university would think of going to the library at 6 AM on the day of finals… then he’s wrong. Very wrong. 

 “Sasha, should you even be eating mashed potato this early in the morning?” Armin asks the brunette worriedly, a huge tone of concern in his voice.

“Armin! Don’t chu worry! I ate heavy breakfast! Bacon, Eggs, and Toast! Did you not see me in the kitchen!?” She reassures her blonde friend, continuing to scoop up the mashed potato on a reusable cup.

“Liar.” Connie hissed, narrowing his eyes. “I was awake since 4 AM. Not once did I see you sneak into the kitchen until (Y/N) woke you up.”

“Atatata. Can we… stop with the negative vibes for a second?” Jean tries to become the mediator by holding his hands up against his two friends who were about to start an argument. “It’s finals week. We have to keep a clear mind, body and soul-“

“Jean, you know that’s BS.” You yawn widely, still practically half-asleep.

“Oh, come on! Can’t you just let me be positive just this once!? If we fail this exam I’m going to blame you!“

The five of you continue to talk mindlessly on the way to the library. Connie pushes the glass door open, very much excited to have this huge library all to yourselves.

Until…

There was someone already there.

Your eyes immediately come into contact with Eren’s. His radiant jade eyes staring into yours, mouth practically agape, his hands holding on to wooden chopsticks as the hot air of instant ramen breezes through his face.

“Oh?” Connie blinks. “Guess we aren’t the first ones here then.” He whistles.

“(Y/N)!” Armin nudges you in the arm in an attempt to tease you. “Guess your wish came true huh? We did see him again! By himself too!”

“W-what am I supposed to do exactly?” You turn to Armin, speaking in a hushed whisper.  

“Say thank you to him! Offer him to go on a boba date or something!”

“You got the Sasha seal of approval (Y/N)! He’s hot!” Sasha motions you a thumbs up and you can’t help but feel yourself already wanting to die of embarrassment.

The four of them slightly push you towards his table. With your friends cornering you like this, there was no way of escaping this.

All you had to do was talk to him and properly thank him for buying cookies from your little sister.

That was it.

No need for any extra ad-libs or poor and bad attempts of flirtation.

Just thank him (Y/N).

You can do this.

You breathe a hefty sigh then approach his table with confidence. The brunette continues to look up at you whilst turning the page of his reviewer that he wasn’t even looking at.

“Hi again! I just wanted to thank you properly for helping my sister and I, out the other day. Mikasa really appreciated the gesture you did for her, and she couldn’t stop talking about you to our parents since we saw you. You see, none of the other girl scouts want to be paired up with my sister because they think she’s an emotionless and monotonous freak. They’re really mean to her but she really wants to continue being a girl scout so my friend and I accompany her whenever she has to sell cookies!”

“It’s N-no problem!” Eren quickly replies, running a hand through his hair. “Why would they say such horrible things to your sister like that? Judging from the way she acted in front of me, she was quite the opposite. In a positive way of course! Those kids are just assholes who are intimidated because another girl their age is seemingly better than them.”

You giggle in response. “Thank you. I’ll tell Mikasa that you said that!” 

There was short silence for a few seconds until you realized that you forgot to say something. 

“Ah! I’m (Y/N) (L/N) by the way!”

“Eren.” He smiles, reaching his hand out to you for you to shake. You grip his strong and calloused hand firmly, and Eren could feel his ears turning red again while you were about to blush as red as a tomato.

You hear your friends snickering in the background and you took this as a sign to go back to your table. “I guess, I’ll see you around campus?” You ask, tilting your head. For, you actually really wanted to see him again after this.

“Yea! I’ll be seeing you!” He grins widely, watching you leave where he was seated. His smile then envelops into a frown as soon as you went away then he goes back to studying.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N)!” Connie whispers loudly, calling you over by waving his hand. Why was this dunce being so painfully obvious? “Ask him if he’s looking for an apartment or if he wants to live with us!”

“Already!?” You ask in disbelief, a bit shocked by what Connie had just said. He scoots to the left, as you take a seat between him and Sasha. “Guys, you’ve known him for like… 3 minutes. Only Armin and I actually interacted with him before this.”

“He has to pass the vibe check first.” Jean shrugs, sipping on an iced expresso. “But, yeah, he does seem alright from a few feet away.”

“Come on (Y/N)! Ask him!” Sasha nods approvingly. “It’s weird that he’s studying alone like this while we’re in another table trying to remain unaware that he looks lonely as hell.”

“UMmMM… maybe he wants to study alone because that’s the only way he can focus? That’s a thing that normal people do, Sasha.” You remark sarcastically, trying to think up of more reasons to not approach him again.

Armin clears his throat, “Look, (Y/N), it won’t hurt to try right? Besides, don’t you feel a tiny bit sorry for him? He does seem lonely and you do have a crush on him so… more ways to interact with him right?”

Your shoulders slump and you breathe a defeated sigh. “Okay okay fine.” You make your way to Eren’s table again but before you do, you turn to your friends. “By the way, I don’t really have a crush on him just yet. I just find him cute okay?”

“Yeah yeah.” They say in unison as you continue to walk back to the brunette’s table.

“Hi again Eren!” You wave and try your best not to fumble or look painfully obvious that you were infatuated by him. He looks up and you try your best not to smile like a weirdo.

“Hm?” He hums.

“Would you like to come over to our table and study with us?”

To be continued.

[limitlessgojo]

Blood Bound: Red Strings of Fate (Ch 6)

Warnings: Action, Coarse Language, Fighting, Descriptions of Blood

Previous Chapter: Special Grade

Next Chapter: Bird of Flame

Tags: Soulmates AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Fem!Reader

Taglist: @lessie-oxj @rizzo-nero @whoreuc @fkngkumiko @isl3t @gojoussunglasses @onepotatostand-blog @s-t-f-u-b-i-t-c-h @sunaswife

Notes: If you want to be tagged for every update, please mention it in the comments below ty <3

We are finally past the introductions and getting into the bulk of the story🥰💕 excited for this to unravel.

Chapter 6: Speed of Sound

You had a physical and cursed energy examination along with the second years the next day. Much like when you had your height and weight measured at the clinic. But this time, it was your power, speed, stamina, defense level, and flexibility with and without your cursed technique that they were measuring.

“Ugh, it’s so windy out today.” Mai complained. The sun was really bright as the four of you first years stood there.

“Y/n.” All of you turned to look at the source of the voice. You smiled brightly upon hearing him. “It has been a while.”

“Noritoshi senpaii~” you skipped your way towards him with a huge smile on your face. “How have you been?”

Noritoshi was always busy, with clan affairs, missions (now that he got recommended for grade 1 and is enroute to a semi-grade 1) and studies that you only had a short time to say hi whenever you passed by the other in the hallways. But he always secretly looked forward to seeing you.

He nodded his greeting to the other first years before turning to smile down at you as you came up to him. “Not too bad. Hope you’ve adjusted well to campus life?” he murmured, eyes softening.

“I’m okay, don't worry about me. Shared class today, this is my first time. I wonder how it will go?” You excitedly said.

“The usual, you might find it boring. Ah, and I’ve heard that you were given the title Special Grade. Congratulations.” He said.

“Is that something to be celebrated?” you asked while tilting your head to the side. “Thank you though.”

He mimicked you, tilting his head in the same direction and leaning forward so that your eyes were both still in line with each other’s, “It’s proof that you’re strong and that’s also a good thing.”

You hummed in thought. “I don’t really care about rankings to be honest. I just need to be strong enough to protect the ones I love.”

Noritoshi’s eyes slightly widened at that. He was about to speak when he was rudely interrupted.

“TSUCHI CHAN! You owe me a fight.” Todo senpai boomed with Momo sighing tiredly beside him. You jumped about 4 feet into the air at the sound and Noritoshi protectively held a hand in front of you again. “That’s enough Todo. It’s still early in the morning.”

“A fight, or else I will reveal who your ideal type is to everyone here.” He grinned.

Oh no he didn’t. The winds picked up around you as your cursed energy flared dangerously. Everyone except Noritoshi took a step back from you.

You looked up at him with the coldest eyes you have, “You promised you wouldn’t senpai. But I am not backing down from a fight. Don’t cry too badly when I bury you 6 feet underground.”

“There it is! Her dark side.” Miwa cried out. “You’re gonna die senpai.” But Todou just laughed. “I knew you were interesting the moment we met Tsuchi chan. It’s settled. A fight later after class.”

“Todo’s gonna die later. I look forward to seeing it.” Mai yawned nonchalantly as Mechamaru just nodded. Momo just laughed as she settled in beside Mai.

Soon Utahime called you all to attention and you went on with the activities. You were competing with Todo for almost every measurement (with the use of cursed energy of course. You were not so strong without it).

You just laughed at yourself as you found out you had the weakest physical punching power among the first years. Yep, you rely too much on your cursed energy to back you up.

You had the highest score though when you used your cursed energy. You warped the space around your hand in a spiral motion, the wind picking up around your fist, before you propelled yourself to punch the target. BAANG! It was pushed a number of meters back further than Todo’s target.

Todo just clapped. “Well done.” And the entire time, Noritoshi was closely monitoring you, staying by your side and asking questions about your technique.

At that, you tugged on his sleeve and he smiled and bent down for you. You told him quietly that you would tell him more about it later when you’re alone. His eyebrows raised, but his smile widened, “Thank you for that. I don’t mind telling you about mine too.”

The others were just silently watching you both out of the corner of their eyes.

“Mai chan, wanna bet as to when those two will get together?” Momo whispered. Everyone else except the two of you heard her.

“Depends on what you wanna bet on. But I’m willing to bet they’ll get together in the next maybe 4 months or so.” she smirked.

“3 months” Miwa piped up quietly.

“Maybe 2 months lol.” Mechamaru said.

“No. They might take… a few weeks. 3?” Todo said seriously.

Utahime cleared her throat out loud gathering all of your attention. “Last activity. Running laps. This track field is 400 meters long as you all know. Finish 1 lap. First without then with your cursed technique. Nishimiya and Tsuchimikado flying is permitted.”

You perked up at that and clapped your hands excitedly. Then stopped and thought about it remembering your father’s words:

“ ‘You don’t have to max out your abilities. We keep our clan’s abilities as much of a secret as possible to prevent any information leakage that may be used against us. Remember to use your technique wisely. You’re the strongest in our clan, sweetheart.’ You nodded, ‘Okay papa.’ ”

So God speed mode of a Mach 4 is out of the picture. Mach speed 3… maybe out. ‘No I can limit it to just under the speed of sound.’ you thought determinedly.

You zoned out the next hour until it was time to run with your cursed technique. “Are you okay? You look a bit pale.” Noritoshi put a hand on your back to support you.

You quickly shook your head “I’m fine, no worries.” He didn’t look like he believed you but let you go ahead.

“Tsuchimikado. It says here on your report that you can move at mach speeds.” Utahime spoke. FUCK. Oh well. You turned to her with the stiffest smile on your face as she realized you didn’t want the information disclosed.

You took your starting position, still determined to keep it under half the speed of sound. “Ready… go!” You whipped around the entire trackfield in just under 3 seconds.

“Tsuchimikado. 2.4 seconds.” You nodded and jogged back beside Miwa who gave you a high five. “That was sooo cool, you need to let me fly with you next time.” She excitedly said.

You laughed. “I’m not the best at holding people with me when I move at high speeds. But slow flying is fine.”

“Why don’t you go faster?” Todo asked. Everyone quieted down as you turned to him. “I have a feeling you've been limiting your output. You’ve obviously been holding back this entire time, are you not taking it seriously? We are here to challenge ourselves, there is no need to hold back.”

Your eye and finger twitched. “That’s not it.” This man was amazing at pushing your buttons. But you sighed as there was no reason to hide it anymore. “Utahime sensei can I-”

“Go ahead. When you’re ready.”

You took your starting position again. You could push Mach 5 if you wanted to, though just above Mach 1 should be enough.

But you can feel Todo just silently egging you on from the sidelines. And it honestly worked. “Start!”

There was a loud BANG! You were back in the starting line in less than a second. The only proof of your movement was the smoke and dust rising above the tracks.

“I am so sorry, but I didn’t catch that. I physically can’t. That was less than a second. Your speed please?” Utahime called out. “Mach 2.”

You stepped right up to Todo with a challenging glint. “Prepare yourself for later.” He just huffed out a proud smile, then you stood aside with Miwa and Noritoshi.

“Was that, just now a sonic boom?” asked Noritoshi. “No it was my ringtone.” you deadpanned. The others choked a laugh out at that.

He turned to you with a pout, but you just bumped his hip with yours and laughed “It’s called sarcasm Noritoshi senpai~” He quietly chuckled along, which he was surprised at how easy it was to do so whenever he was with you.

You all finished up. Momo was also pretty fast, going at 10 seconds around the track. Noritoshi senpai blew you out of the water to be honest. His record was 35 seconds on foot. How. That was over the world record for men’s running.

You noticed a red marking forming over his eye and remembered seeing it for a bit when it came to the strength measurement test earlier. He was just a bit behind you, Mechamaru and Todo in terms of power.

And Mechamaru and Todo were largely… disproportionate to him, being way bigger and bulkier. But he could somehow manage.

“Are any of you going to spar after this? If so I will be supervising.” Utahime sensei called.

“We will.” Todo senpai motioned between the two of you. Noritoshi surprisingly spoke up too, “I also wanna have a go against y/n if that’s fine with you.” He turned to you with a concerned look. You just smiled, “Of course it’s fine Noritoshi senpai!”

“Okay, try not to break anything, limit the damage here on campus please. I will be calling a close if it gets too bad.” Utahime warned.

“There's no need for that.” You smiled to yourself.

Author's Rambles: Mach Speed (AKA Supersonic speed) is described as a speed greater than the speed of sound. Mach X means that the speed is X times greater than the speed of sound. A Mach 5 would be categorised as Hypersonic speed^^. O/C uses her Psychokinesis to move her forward as fast as she can.

Blood Bound Chapter Masterlist

[muwur]

If requests are open.. Suga x reader -3rd year student- where friends to pining where reader is a exchange student mid year -parent’s job- and reader is new to the school, can barely communicate Japanese and is too shy to meet new people.. reader is welcomed as a co-manager for vb club and all the other boys adopt her has their sister. She tutors them in their English lesson too.. also how would Suga help her open up from her shyness..

request: sugawara x fem! reader who is a shy exchange student!

another beginning.

✩ one-shot ✩ for sugawara bb

❧ fem reader

✎ 4.9k words

a/n: FINALLY GOT THIS BBY DONE, ty for being patient requester <3 i hope its ok, lmk if u would like smth different!

also curious but do yall listen to music when you write or read? i dnt always but when i DO i listen to some boppy music so i can shake mah ass (unles im depresso AHAHA) LMAO rec me some pls--

send me asks--

current listen: juicy by doja cat, gasolina by daddy yankee, 11 PM by maluma

A pencil dangled between two of your fingers, gently swinging back and forth as you tapped the eraser’s tip against your chin in thought. Looking over Hinata’s shoulder at the worksheet laying on the table, you extended your hand and made a neat scrawl on the page. “That’s good translating, Hinata! However,” you dragged your pencil across the surface, marking a line and arrow to point at a space near the beginning of his sentence, “keep in mind that although gerunds look like verbs, they act as nouns. So, this word should go here.”

Yachi, who was seated to your right, nodded in agreement. “I looked through his notes doodles, and it looked like they were going over gerunds in class!”

With narrowed eyes, Hinata scanned the page, muttering the sentence underneath his breath. Suddenly, his hazel eyes lit up in understanding and his lips morphed into a round “O.” “Ohhhh, that make a lot more sense! Thanks, (y/n), you’re a big help, especially in English! Also, look, guys!”

He rummaged through his cluttered backpack and fished out a slightly wrinkled sheet of paper with a red “14/50” marked on the top right corner. Holding it up proudly, he declared, “I got a better score than last time! By nine points!”

“That’s still an F,” Tsukishima pointed out, eyes glued to the pages of the book he was reading. Yamaguchi and Kageyama tried to stifle their snickers.

“Y-You’re not even looking!” Hinata defended. The ginger was met with a shrug. “I don’t need to see the score to know you failed.”

Before any fighting could break out, however, the door swung open, revealing the remaining third-years. Bags of snacks in their arms, the four of them stepped in. “We’re back! Your parent/guardian let us in, (y/n),” Sugawara announced, setting his bag down on the table. The rest followed suit and set the goodies down. Rummaging through one of the bags, Daichi pulled out a meat bun.

“Hinata, here’s your meat bun,” he said, handing the snack to the excited first-year, who had long-forgotten Tsukishima’s snide remark about his lack of intellectual aptitude. Kiyoko offered Kageyama his milk, the slight brush of their hands being enough to stir Noya and Tanaka into an envious craze. Asahi tried to settle them down, nervously reminding them that they needed to act respectful in your home, especially after your family had agreed to let you all study there. You stifled a giggle as Sugawara and Daichi joined in, scolding their underclassmen for their poor behavior and threatening them with a time-out.

With an exasperated sigh, Sugawara took a seat next to you on the mat. “Ah, I can’t help but worry about how Ennoshita’s going to handle both of them on his own.”

Giving a sidelong glance to the second-year, who was now forcing Noya and Tanaka to complete timed practice problems, your lips formed a small smile. “Looks like he does a pretty good job at it, though.”

Sugawara let out an amused huff. “Guess I’m worried over nothing. Oh, also,” he dug into the plastic bag in front of him, taking out your favorite snack and offering it to you. “Here you go.”

(can u tell from my stories yet that fav snacks aka actions are my love language--)

“Oh, thank you, Suga, I didn’t even ask for this…” you flashed him a grateful smile and took the package from his hands, suppressing the blush that threatened to overcome your cheeks as your fingertips brushed. He gave a sheepish smile and glanced to the side in response, giving the back of his neck an anxious rub.

“Ah, it’s the least I could do to thank you for letting us all come over to study. It’s really helpful. I appreciate it, (y/n).”

“It’s not much, really. I’m more than glad to help you all (read: Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, and Noya) out with English and offer my place. Having everyone together makes it easier. They need to pass these exams so you all get to play.”

Your offer to help the team with their studies may have seemed a simple gesture as both their friend and co-manager. On the inside, however, you really were more than happy to have everyone over for whatever reason. It left you with a feeling of awe. The last thing you would’ve expected 3 months ago was to be sitting in your new home in Japan, surrounded by a group of people who accepted you despite your poor Japanese and late appearance to Karasuno. Just 4 months ago, after you learned about your parent/guardian’s job transfer to Japan, you were left feeling an array of mixed feelings:

Anxiety – a whole new country? With a language you could barely even speak or understand? How was that going to work? Could you even make friends at school? God knows how long it took you to make the friends you have now.

Disappointment – you were looking forward to graduating high school with the friends you’ve made throughout the past few years. Having to say goodbye would be difficult, and you’d miss them.

Yet, you felt a sliver of hopefulness – new experiences were waiting for you. You had the opportunity to lead a new life in a foreign place. It filled you both with fear and exhilaration.

On the night before your first day at Karasuno, you could barely sleep after spending hours religiously practicing how to introduce yourself in Japanese. Having to introduce yourself to the class and speaking with your new classmates was inevitable, after all. And so the next day, you found yourself standing in front of the classroom, trying to suppress the nervous shudder that threatened to rack your body and ignore the prickles of sweat on your palms. Despite how much you mentally recited your introduction that morning, your current situation left your mind blank, unable to conjure any words. Fueled by the awkward silence, the numerous gazes focused on you, and the growing pit of anxiety in your stomach, what came out was a quiet, jumbled form of what you intended to say.

“Hello, (y/n) (l/n). I’m (insert your original country name here). I can’t Japanese, but I hope friends. Everyone, nice to meet,” you bowed, both in respect and so that you could hide your face, which was red from embarrassment. You knew you messed up, but you pretended otherwise, hoping that nobody would point out your mistake.

You straightened up after a few moments of silence, registering the confused looks of your new classmates and feeling another stab of shame. In response to your introduction, the teacher raised her eyebrows and blinked in confusion. Then her eyes warmed, and she offered you a smile as she spoke up. “Class, this is (l/n) (y/n). She recently moved here from (insert OG country here). She’s still learning Japanese; however, her English is perfect, so I’m sure you can all learn something from each other. Please make her feel welcome. Your seat is over there, (l/n).”

Shoulders sagging, you made your way to your desk, avoiding eye contact despite the pairs of eyes that followed you to your seat. Focusing on the lecture was a struggle. Not only could you barely understand anything the teacher was saying; worries about how the rest of the day would go also flooded your mind. This was only the morning; how could you navigate your way through the halls? Ask for directions? Would you meet people? Where would you eat lunch? How could you survive?

The remainder of the classes went by gruesomely slow. Too embarrassed from your slip this morning and too shy to meet new people despite wanting to make a friend, you successfully dodged conversation with any of your classmates. You were relieved that finally lunch came by, yet that presented another problem. You weren’t sure where to go, but you were sure that you were going to eat by yourself.

After a few minutes of walking around the hallways, you settled for eating lunch in the classroom. At least it meant you didn’t have to rush to class after the bell rang. Taking a seat, you pulled out your boxed lunch and set it out in front of you. Painfully aware of how alone you must have looked, you pretended to look really interested in your meal (am i the only one or--). You poked it, broke it into pieces, then brought each sliver to your mouth and chewed slowly. If only your family had switched your phone plans earlier, then you could at least spend time scrolling the internet or lament to your friends back home about how your day was going.

Still “engrossed” in your meal, you failed to notice a figure standing in front of your desk. Only after you saw a hand situate itself on the edge of your desk did you look up.

You met the chestnut eyes of a boy. He bore a warm smile that made a small crinkle in his eyes and beauty mark. Strands of grey hair draped naturally in front of his eyes and framed the sides of his face. Despite your unease, his soft features helped to calm your racing heart and mind. He seemed a friendly person; after all, he was able to approach you.

“Hey, you’re (l/n), right? I’m Sugawara Koushi, but you can call me Suga. I’m in your class,” he introduced in pretty darn good English.

‘Man, that means he heard me this morning…’ you thought miserably. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel some relief. Perhaps you hadn’t given others or yourself much of a chance before jumping to the conclusion that you were incapable of meeting new people.

Clearing your throat, you shyly extended a hand to him in greeting. “Yes, I’m (y/n) (l/n). Call me (y/n). It’s nice to meet you, Suga,” you replied hesitantly, finally using the correct words in Japanese that you had been practicing the previous night.

Shaking your hand, his eyes widened in pleasant surprise. “Your Japanese sounds pretty good! You just moved, so you’re still learning, right? How about I help you improve that while you help me with English?”

You were about to nod eagerly in appreciation when you both overheard some snickering across the room. Two boys and a girl sat together, whispering quite loudly and sneaking oh-so-inconspicuous glances over at your desk. Taking notice that they were caught staring, they presumed to loudly munch on their meals and talk about the weather.

Suga only shot them annoyed glare and shook his head before turning his attention back to you. “Sorry, those are my… Friends.” The strain in his voice after saying that last word made you question if they really were on friendly terms.

After that day, you found yourself spending every lunch period with Suga and his other third-year friends Daichi, Asahi, and Shimizu. You initially felt unsure of how to talk to them, but after Sugawara’s efforts to include you in his circle and some reassuring words about being yourself and not letting a small, temporary language barrier hold you back from making friends, you earned a bit of confidence. While you spoke a hybrid of English and Japanese with them, you eventually managed to pick up a lot of Japanese from talking everyday, and after these few months of constant exposure, you were able to hold decent conversations. Additionally, the extra help you sought from the teaching staff allowed you to be able to keep up in class, and your instructors were understanding enough to give you some leniency on your assignments during this adjustment period.

Hanging around your new friends often, it was only a matter of time before you were introduced to the rest of Karasuno’s boys’ volleyball team. It occurred one lunch period three weeks after you first arrived, when Asahi suggested that you join some club activities. You were discouraged, however, considering that it was already halfway through the year, you didn’t know enough Japanese yet to converse with just anyone, and you were a tad shy, which made joining clubs a bit difficult. At that moment, your new friends all made eye contact with each other, then looked at you.

“Why not join our volleyball club?” Suga asked. “Shimizu could always use the help. She’s our only student manager.”

Shimizu nodded in agreement, her blue gaze soft. “Your help would be really appreciated. There’s a lot to this job, so having someone to split the work with would be relieving. You can also help me look for someone to take my place when we graduate.”

Later that day you found yourself in the gym being blocked by Sugawara, who was protecting you from two crazed boys whose collars were held back by Daichi. A ginger-haired boy looked at you with curiosity, excitedly introducing himself as Hinata and pointing out the names of the other members on the court (“This is ‘Bakageyama’ and that guy’s ‘Four-eyed Jerk Face’—").

Upon their release (which was granted only after they promised to behave), Tanaka and Noya dashed over to you, tears in their eyes as they held your hands and expressed their gratitude for your presence. “Oh, (y/n), you kind soul, helping Shimizu with the managerial work. Better yet, now we have two cute girls to support us, this is amazing!”

And that’s how you found yourself sitting with your new friends in your living room and feeling grateful for their vibrant personalities, kindness, and acceptance. You couldn’t have asked for a better batch of friends to end your year with. Though, you were most grateful to Sugawara. If not for him, the last several months of your highschool experience may have gone by miserably, with nothing special to note and no new friends to celebrate with. His gentle, understanding nature had done nothing but support you and make you feel welcome. He helped introduce you to a new, comfortable life you had trouble imagining before your arrival to Japan. He dispelled your doubts and fears, instilling in you a newfound confidence in your abilities. It certainly helped that the team was just as supportive and patient with you.

You could recount the events of the past few months that brought warmth to your heart. These people were growing on you, making you feel like you could be yourself more each day. Daichi provided you a sense of security and leadership. Asahi was empathetic, quick to detect your feelings of uneasiness and asking you if you were okay. Shimizu made sure to make you feel welcome as a friend and fellow manager, even inviting you to a café over the weekend to brainstorm ideas on recruiting a replacement (who you both later discovered to be Yachi) and try out some desserts. Tanaka and Noya tried to teach you all the Japanese curse words they knew, initially lying to you about their meanings so they could see the rest of the team’s reactions when you would blurt things out in the middle of practice (Let’s just say that Daichi, Suga, Ennoshita, and Tsukki knew whose fault this was, and Asahi was real shook hearing a string of curse words from your mouth while you sat there, no ill intent emanating from you whatsoever). Ennoshita gave you a comforting, easygoing presence. Tsukki was… Tsukki (LOL). But he could carry on a conversation, often genuinely interested whenever you talked about the culture back in (other country). And you knew he was soft. Hinata was a burst of energy, and you found his bickering with Tsukishima and Kageyama silly and quite precious. You often stayed with Yachi to toss balls to Kageyama late at night, much to his appreciation. Yachi and Yamaguchi were some of the biggest sweethearts on the team, and all you could think about was needing to protect them.

There was definitely something different in your interactions with Sugawara, though. You found yourself closest to him out of everyone. It may have been because he was the first you talked to, or maybe it was because he was one of the most easygoing people you’ve ever met. That, and you found yourself wanting to get closer to him. You wanted to know more about him.

Sugawara chuckled in response. “I suppose you’re right. We wouldn’t have made it this far without everyone,” he said softly, a tinge of fondness showing in his brown eyes. He proceeded to take out his schoolwork and pen, resting his chin in his palm as he read the words across the page of his assignment. Occasionally, you glanced over at him, admiring the way his eyebrows knit together in concentration, and how his hair brushed his cheeks whenever his head shifted in its position. How the grey tips of lashes kissed his bottom eyelids with each flutter of his chocolate hues. You even took a mental note that his lips, currently pursed in thought, were rather smooth and full in appearance.

A rogue thought about how those lips would feel against your own flitted across your mind. It brought a small pang to your chest, and you had to mentally slap yourself back into reality. You noticed these new feelings were starting to become more prevalent the longer you hung around Sugawara. You consulted your friends back home about it, and in their excitement, they insisted you had a crush on this guy (and demanded photos). Heart palpitations, heat-flooded cheeks, covert glances, and a desire for closeness in all aspects possible? All symptoms of infatuation, your personal love doctors concluded. You recalled when these signs first appeared about a month ago, after he offered to walk you home when practice had gone late into the night. Initially you declined, not wanting him to go out of his way when it was already dark outside. However, after seeing the soft look in his eyes as he declared he wanted to ensure you got home safely and that he didn’t mind the walk, your heart couldn’t help but give in and agree.

It was a tranquil night, accompanied only by the sound of crickets chirping and a cool, whispy breeze. About 15 minutes after having left campus, you were both seated on an aged bench at a small park, snacking on recent convenience store purchases to satisfy your growling stomachs. A comfortable silence settled in the air. The nightly surroundings were illuminated by the gentle glow of several nearby lampposts and stars that burned lightyears away.

Your gaze followed the tracks of a small bug crawling across the sidewalk in front of your feet. It skittered soundlessly against the pavement, eventually disappearing in the security of a bush. A gentle sigh took hold of your attention, and your eyes flickered over to your friend, who was peering up at the star-dusted evening sky.

“Do you know what you’re doing after graduation?” he asked, a hint of wonder in his voice.

You shook your head. “No clue, to be honest. You?”

He pursed his lips and took a sidelong glance at you before focusing back upwards. “Well, I’ve always wanted to be a teacher…”

“Seems fitting. Your Japanese lessons have been really helpful,” you pointed out, smiling.

The tips of his lips curved upwards as well. “Really? I’m glad. You’ve improved a lot, too. You’re a quick learner.”

“Heh, well I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Another comfortable silence fell upon you two before he spoke again. “I was thinking about how to keep in touch with everyone after we left, and how it’s a shame we’re leaving so soon after you arrived. I would’ve liked to know you better, too, but there’s only a few months left...”

His genuine words left a rosy tinge on your cheeks. As you were thinking of a response, you looked down, noticing how close your hand lay next to his. Heartrate quickening, you stammered, “Y-Yeah, I wish we had more time, too.. T-To hang around each other, I mean. But graduation doesn’t have to mean goodbye, right?”

“That’s true... You always know just what to say, you know that, (y/n)?” he turned his gaze on you and held out an extended pinky. “Promise to talk to me after graduating, then?”

You rolled your eyes playfully and huffed in amusement. Taking your own pinky and intertwining it with his, you nodded. “So long as you keep your end of the promise, too.”

“Of course.”

Sugawara’s voice brought you out of your momentary flashback. “(Y/n)? Can I ask you a question?”

Blinking your previous thoughts away and calming the warmth on your cheeks, you responded, “What’s up?”

He slid his assignment closer to you, pointing at a section he was having trouble with. “Here. I’m not sure if I’m doing this correctly..”

You leaned in, scooching towards him and closing in on the gap between you. Focused on the homework, you failed to notice how the brush of your shoulders made Sugawara’s body stiffen slightly. With your proximity, your scent easily wafted to his nose, and he could observe the closer details of your appearance. The hair tucked behind your ear exposed your cheekbone, looking soft to the touch. Your determined hues scanned the page, and he could visualize your thinking through your small, occasional self-nods. You looked cute and comfortable in the casual hoodie you wore, bringing him a strange, mixed sense of bashfulness and ease. His mind wandered, trying to envision how you would look if you wore any of his jackets, but his thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of your sweet voice and scribbles against paper.

“It sounds great, Suga! I just made a note there on how you can fix it; otherwise, it should be okay,” you gave him a reassuring smile as you slid his work back to him. You, however, didn’t shift back to your original position and instead stayed seated mere inches from the boy. Not that he minded, but…

“O-Oh, alright, thanks!”

It made concentrating during the rest of the study session a little difficult.

Occasionally you did get up, helping mostly the first and second years with some of their English assignments. His eyes would secretly (but c’mon, everyone but Hinata and Kageyama could tell) follow your figure, admiring the way you looked as you interacted happily with the others and did whatever you could to assist them. Yet you always returned to the same spot, near Suga. Close enough that everyone else on the team took notice (if they haven’t already), relayed the information via mental telephone, and secretly agreed to depart a bit earlier than they had anticipated.

“Oh, you guys are leaving already?” you asked everyone as they were packing up their belongings.

They all nodded in response, offering up their reasons for leaving earlier than the original time you set, which ranged from, “My parents wanted me home for dinner” to “My sister’s wasted and locked out of the house, nobody’s home—” (u good der Saeko)

Standing at your doorway, you waved to your friends, sending them off with a “I’ll see you at school!” as they waved back and filed out of your home. Looking over to Suga, who was still standing beside you, you wondered, “Oh, you’re staying?”

“Oh, yeah! I was surprised to see everyone leave so soon, but I was planning to head home in another hour. B-But I can go now if you need me to..!” he answered a bit shakily, waving around his hands in small, bashful gestures.

You shook your head and you waved your hand dismissively. “It’s okay, you’re more than welcome to stay for however long you need to.”

Settled back in the common area, you both tried to resume your schoolwork, but to no avail. Groaning, you leaned back, using your arms to support you from behind. “I’m tired of workingggggg.”

He sighed in agreement, resting an elbow on the table and propping up his head in a closed fist. “Same. Do you want to do something else?”

“Hmm..” you pondered aloud. “Do you want to see my room?”

Shrugging and responding with a “why not?”, you both stood up, leaving the common area to go to your room. You opened the door and stepped inside, Suga closely trailing behind you.

“Welcome to my room. Make yourself cozy,” you insisted as you sat on your bed and pat the spot next to you. He took your offer, taking a seat beside you and looking around your bedroom in curiosity.

“Something about this place really seems like you, (y/n).”

You raised an eyebrow at his comment. “Is it the messy pile of clothes in that basket or the neat desk I cleaned up this morning?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I suppose you could say those are part of it. I just meant there’s a lot to you that you should feel comfortable sharing with others. People are complex and there’s so many sides to a person we discover along the way. I remember how timid you were in our first weeks of knowing each other, and now you’re getting along great with everyone and work hard to improve everyday. You were able to overcome a stressful repeat of entering highschool, but this time in another country, and adapted just fine! Your kindness and determination is admirable.”

Twiddling with your fingers, you felt a sheepish grin form on your face. “Aha, you’re too kind, Suga. You know I couldn’t have made these friends or adjust so well without your help. I was too worried about talking to anyone until you came up to me, so… Thank you.”

You risked a glance towards the boy, finding his chocolate gaze already set on you. If none of your interactions in the past month had set your heart ablaze, then certainly this moment would take the cake. Sugawara’s eyes flickered downwards briefly in a moment of hesitance, then locked again onto yours with a hint of an undetectable emotion lurking behind those irises.  Neither of you could bring up any words to say. The only sounds present were the soft hums of your breathing and the low creak of your bed as you found yourselves shifting your weight in order to inch closer to one another.

His mind flooded with a cacophony of emotions, from crippling nervousness to an allure for risk-taking. He could barely come to terms with the current situation and what might happen. Maybe he was overthinking it. Surely being this close face-to-face with someone who you just happen to like doesn’t automatically mean they like you back and want to kiss you just as much. Perhaps you were just leaning in to rest your head on his shoulder; after all, you did seem tired from the events of today. Or, you were scooting close for a better look at his face so you could point out, “hey, you got a little something on your face.” Perhaps a crumb from the cracker he had earlier?

But when he took note of the way your eyes fluttered shut, eyelashes caressing the tops of your dusted cheeks, his doubts began to waver. Maybe this was the chance he’s been seeking out lately. Once Daichi deciphered Sugawara’s affections for you, eventually the whole team found out and began to silently root for him. Thankfully, despite their blatant attempts to help him out, you hadn’t noticed a thing. It made him wonder whether you were oblivious, or just didn’t like him, or both. However, in this moment, when it appeared as though maybe you returned his feelings, he felt he should—as Tanaka would say—shoot his shot.

A sudden knock on the door sent you both jumping 5 feet away from each other. Frazzled and wide-eyed, you choked out a weak, “H-Hello?” in response to the interruption. The door opened, revealing your parent/guardian, who peeked inside.

“Dinner’s ready. Would you like to stay and have it with us?” they were asking Suga.

Heart still racing from the fear that gripped it, he blinked in surprise. He piped out a polite no thank you, reasoning that he didn’t want to intrude.

“Nonsense, we’re happy to have you. Come soon.”

They closed the door and left, leaving you two in an awkward silence that was soon interrupted by the sound of your cough. “We should, uh, get going…”

Standing up, you reached for the door with Suga in tow. The tension in the air remained between the two of you throughout dinner. Nevertheless, Sugawara was able to leave a good impression on your family by being a good conversationalist, even earning a few laughs from your parent/guardian. It made your heart swell at how natural it was for him to be able to get along with others.

After dinner ended and he packed his things, you stepped outside with him to send him off, closing the door behind you. He was about to salute you with a “thanks for having me over” when you gave him a peck on the cheek so sudden that he didn’t have time to react before you were already making your way back into your house.

“Thanks for coming, Suga! I’ll see you at school! Let me know when you get home!” you exclaimed animatedly, shutting the door quickly to hide your embarrassment from your sudden actions. You leaned your back against it, instantly regretting what you did with tightly shut eyes. ‘Oh gawd how am I gonna face him at school tomorrow dhefjkg.’

But on the other side of the door, Suga stood dumbfounded, hovering a hand over the area your lips had touch. Though highly embarrassed, he felt a rush of elation pass over him like a humongous wave that never stopped crashing against the shores.

He was starting to really think it was a good idea to introduce himself to the cute new girl in class. Nice one, Suga.

[9r7g5h]

Teach to Learn, Learn to Teach

Fandom: Fantasy High

Rating: T

Genre: General/Friendship

Summary: Ragh and Tracker both have a lot to learn from each other. 

Words: 3269

AN: So, the topic of Ragh taking a level in cleric and Tracker taking a level in barbarian came up on tumblr, and I was so intrigued I had to write something for these gaybies. It will probably be three parts, one focusing on Ragh, one on Tracker, and one about them going home, or something like that. Just enjoy chapter one. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Fantasy High.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

They had both known, when Tracker first brought up her goal to Ragh, that it would be rough going. Fallinel wasn't the most welcoming of outsiders as it was, though at least High Elf decorum granted adventurers safe passage, so long as they weren't causing issues. But causing issues was the entire reason they were there, and Ragh's official adventurer certification he had received at graduation only did so much when he was helping Tracker constantly shoulder her way into temples of Galilea, trying to turn back the carefully placed lies the high priests had said to turn their goddess away from her wilder ways. 

The fact that she was actually making headway with the younger elves, the ones who saw how prim and proper their elders were and balked against that fate, only made things even worse for them. Add in the newly formed 'Pack of Galilea,' younger elves who not only wanted to worship the wild of the night but become wolves themselves, their leader constantly trying to convince Tracker to bite her so she could turn the rest of her pack and give more strength to the wild form of the goddess they loved, and, well. 

Honestly, they really should have expected something like this. Should have expected that the high priest would deem her a problem. Should have expected him to decide to end it. Should have expected him to know that only silver could hurt a werewolf, and armed the elf he had hired to do his will properly. 

Had they expected it, maybe she wouldn't be gasping in the back of their van, the silver poisoning from the arrow still stuck deep in her side seeping into her veins while Ragh tried to avoid the trees, putting distance between them and where they had been attacked. Had they expected it, maybe she would have cast Moon Haven earlier, ensuring their safety. Had they expected it, maybe they wouldn't have been goofing off, listening to music and chatting while their dinner cooked. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe she wouldn't be dying before she got to see Kristen again. 

"Ok, I think I lost them." 

She wasn't sure when Ragh finally pulled the van over, or how long it had been or how far they had gone, just that now he was besides her, talking. A knife in his hand, cutting through her second favorite shirt (damn them for that), pulling the cloth away from the wound. 

"Sorry sis, this is gonna hurt."

She barely felt him cut into her skin - the head hadn't gone all the way through, couldn't be broken off and the shaft pulled out, it had to be cut out and stitched up - but she did feel as he began to pull it out, the silver arrowhead brushing against the dying skin, making her howl in pain as everything within her wanted to flee. Flee the pain, the sheer burning agony of every single one of her cells dying, flee into the night and the moonlight until she could curl up somewhere that felt and smelt like home. 

But then it was gone. The silver was gone, she could think again, and though everything hurt, she could focus on Ragh's words. 

"Shit shit shit sorry sis, I had to get it out, shit. Fuck, god damn it, what was next? Think, Ragh, you know this." His voice fell to muttering for a bit as he pressed a cloth to the wound, looking through the medical kit. She wanted to say something, give him a hint or encouragement, but she was so tired. "Sterilize it, fuck, that's right! Where are you, you tiny little shit, you're hiding better then Riz to get out of PE... there you are!" He held up a small bottle triumphantly, used his teeth to undo the top, and splashed a generous portion directly into the wound. 

Tracker thankfully passed out immediately, her thoughts a dozen swirls of pain and Galilea thanking her for her efforts and wanting nothing more then to just sleep. 

It was morning when she next woke up. Her tank top had been replaced with a sports jersey, her side covered with enough bandages that she was almost sure she now classified as a large creature instead of medium, and the smell of burning fish covered everything else. Her stomach growled, despite the acrid smoke, and that was enough to get her moving, sluggishly kicking open the door to see what kind of trouble Ragh was in now. 

He was, surprisingly, doing well for himself. He had built a decent fire pit, had managed to grab a dozen fish or so from a nearby river, and only two of them seemed to have caught fire. The others actually looked amazing, and before she could even think the actual thought, she had grabbed one, sinking her teeth into the flesh, ravenous. 

Ragh just chuckled. "Good morning to you too, sis. I'm so glad you're ok. I was worried I was going to have to call Kristen and give her bad news, and honestly, your girlfriend scares me."

She couldn't help but laugh through her mouthful of fish, forcing it down so she could respond in a timely manner. 

"Full honestly, and I'll kill you if you ever tell her? She scares me a little bit too. Love her, but she has some weird shit going on with the gods that's just on a whole nother level."

She had been sleeping for two days. Ragh had done the best he could, keeping her comfortable and hydrated, just glad he had remembered enough from his mandatory healing class to stabilize her. He didn't know enough to actually heal, he had spent too much of the class mooning over a cute cleric guy in the front row, but cutting out arrows used knives, so he remembered that at least. 

"I just always relied on having a cleric," he admitted with a shrug. "Never thought much more about it."

"You thought enough to save me," Tracker pointed out, resting her non-cash covered hand on his shoulder. "Thank you." 

It took another day for her spells to come back, her energy finally high enough after gorging on fish and the few rabbits Ragh caught to finally cast a healing hand on herself. Ragh watched with a new found fascination as she unwrapped the wound, showing his shoddy stitches to keep her held together, only for the silvery light to flow from her hand, popping out the stitches and leaving her with healed, slightly pink skin. 

"Sis, you gotta teach me how to do that."

A raised eyebrow, a glance over at him as he half reached out, as if he wanted to touch her newly healed wound to make sure it was truly one, a tilt of her head as she waited for him to continue. He didn't, instead his skin flushing a deeper green as he shuffled his feet. 

"You want to become a healer?"

Ragh just shrugged, rubbing at the back of his head. They both needed to get haircuts soon, Tracker noticed and mentally filed away, watching as he felt the longer hair tickling the back of his neck and tried to move it away. Her own shaved side was growing out as well, much to her annoyance, though she quickly shook her head, forcing away the random thoughts as she looked back at her friend. 

"I know I'm not that smart," Ragh muttered, giving a shrug as if his lower intelligence score wasn't that big of a deal to him, "but even doing my best, there wasn't much I could do to help after, you know." He waved towards her and the pile of bloody gauze next to her. "I've never had to take care of someone before, someone else always did that, but now it's just the two of us, sis. What if it's worse next time? I don't know about all this religion stuff, but I've thought about it a lot over the last few days, and while I'm still gonna be the tank, it might help if I can also help take care of us." 

She wasn't sure what he was expecting, but Tracker could tell he wasn't expecting her to lean over and pull him into a giant bear hug, only to pull back a few moments later and punch him in the arm. 

"Don't sell yourself so short, big guy," Tracker said sternly, waggling a finger at him. "You kept me alive, which is the best thing you could have done. As for the healing, well, do you have a god in mind?"

Ragh immediately perked up, a half grin as he began to think. It would be a process, they would both soon find out - when he had come up blank, she had immediately begun with the most obvious of the gods: Cassandra and Galilea. Going over the pros, the cons, how both goddesses would easily accept him, though Cassandra might be a bit happier about it then Galilea was. But, eventually, neither of them just felt right to him, which was the most important thing. 

And so began their side quest - finding Ragh a god. 

"What about Tempus, god of war," Tracker asked one evening, gutting fish by the fireside as Ragh attempted to mend a hole in his shirt. "A neutral god, popular with a lot of fighters." 

It took him a long moment to answer, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips as he tried to keep his stitches straight. Tying off the line, he gave a small shrug. 

"Nah. I'm not much of a war guy. I like bashing heads, not overthrowing other governments for whatever reason I come up with, yah know?" 

“What about Gruumsh,” Ayda asked a few days later, pulling out the many goods she had brought from Riz’s borrowed suitcase of holding. She didn’t come often - Tracker had made it clear that this was her mission, and while all of their friends were ready to come the moment she said she needed help, she wanted to do this on her own first, or at least try. But every few months Ayda would show up in their camp with care packages and letters (Gorgug had made them satellite phones, but not all of them had planatar fueled vans to keep them charged with, so those were for emergencies only) and a few creature comforts they missed from home, stay for a meal, and then take back whatever they wanted to send with her, letters and keepsakes of their own to their own loved ones. 

It was always wonderful, getting the stack of letters from Kristen and Jawbone and the others, and this time she brought advice as well. 

“He is already the god of the orcs, which you are at least half of. I would need some of your blood to analyze the exact genetic makeup, and while that is a topic of conversation we will have to revisit in the future, for now I do believe Gruumsh would welcome you into his army.” 

Ragh was already shaking his head before she even finished, his nose wrinkled in distaste. “Nah sis, Gruumsh isn’t my kind of guy.” 

For a moment Ayda just stood there, watching him, her head tilted to the side. But then her eyes glowed just a bit brighter, and a look of understanding appeared. “Of course. You are neutral good. He is chaotic evil. Your alignments wouldn’t be compatible. I apologize for not thinking of this beforehand.” 

Ragh waved her off, giving her a fanged smile. “No harm, no foul, sis. I just get tired of people always thinkin orcs are evil, you know? I’m not, my mom’s not, Gorgug’s for sure not. So I really don’t want to get mixed up with an evil god if I can avoid it.” 

Ayda gave a deep nod of understanding. “On my honor as a wizard, and as both the mother and the daughter of the same quite wonderful half-orc, I swear to you, Ragh Barkrock, I shall not make that mistake again. Would you like an orange?” 

Ragh happily took the fruit from her outstretched hand, and Ayda gave a small, happy trill before returning to her unpacking, crying a few tears when he handed her a slice. 

“What about Talos, our lord of the storms and tempest that ravage our forests almost as well as you ravaged me last night?” 

Tracker could barely hide her eye roll and fake gag as she paid for their rooms at the inn, Ragh’s lately hook up hanging off his arm and batting his big elf eyes at him. She had known this was going to happen, again, and had warned him, again, that he needed better tastes in hook ups, but Ragh seemed to had a soft spot for elven twinks, and always ended up bringing one back to the inn whenever they were lucky enough to stay in one. She was just glad that they had separate rooms this time, and hadn’t had to sleep as a wolf in the nearest bush. 

“I’m not really a ravishing kind of guy,” Ragh said, trying to free his arm from the elfs’ grasp. “Sure, it’s fun to do every once in a while, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to commit to a ravishing lifestyle yet. What’s that, Tracker? We need to go?” Ragh looked at her with such desperation that she couldn’t turn her back on him like she had last time. 

“Come on Ragh, I have important things to do for Galilea.” 

“You hear the boss, important god cleric wolf stuff to do. I’ll call you, bye!” Ragh almost ran out the door past her, leaving the poor elf boy pouting at the table, wondering what Ragh meant when he said ‘call.’ 

“You need to work on your taste in guys, my dude,” Tracker said with a shake of her head as she slid into the driver’s side, glancing over her shoulder at the half-orc hiding in the back seat. “At least stop choosing the clingy ones?”

“Please, just drive.” 

In the end, it was Ragh himself who found his god, as was strangely right. 

The small town they had stopped in was, by far, their favorite stop so far. Mostly high elves, sure, but high elves strangely welcoming, much more like Adaine then the others they had met so far. A few other species were there too, half elves, a few fairies, and even a couple of gnomes that had taken residence in a nearby cave, turning it into a mix of apartment complexes and work stations. It was the most welcoming town they had been in; it almost felt like home. 

And, centered in the middle of town, were their shrines. 

It was common for towns this small, Tracker had learned, to not have a temple dedicated to every single god worshiped in the area. While for some towns that meant only one temple, maybe two if there were multiple families with influence, other towns had too many to count, each family or inhabitant following their own deity. So, instead, they had a shrine building instead, each deity with their own table and candles and cushions in front of them so those who worshiped them could pray. 

It was there, after he had gone missing for hours on end, that Tracker finally found him. He was just sitting there on one of the cushions, staring at the flickering candle, eyes both vacant and seemingly touched with a new found peace. He didn’t even notice when she sat down next to him, only starting out of whatever trance he seemed to be in when Tracker put her hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. 

“This is him,” Ragh immediately said, his face lit up with almost the same happy glow as whenever he reminded people he was gay and was met with acceptance instead of the hatred he thought he would find. “I was curious what was in here, so I walked in and thought it was some kind of weird like, massage parlor, but I found my guy, and this dude totally rocks, Tracker!  Hoot growl, up high!” 

Tracker immediately gave him his high five, giddy with excitement for her friend. And taking a look at the shrine they sat before, she couldn’t help but agree that it fit. Torm, god of courage and self-sacrifice, a provider of protection. Symbolized by a white gauntlet raised against a coming sword. For her bodyguard and best friend, yeah, it felt right. 

Of course, finding the god was only the first step in becoming a cleric. Then there was the training. 

Not all clerics were as blessed as she and Kristen were (though, of course, no one was as blessed as Saint Kristen Applebees, chosen and denier of Helios, creator of the planatar YES!/?, healer of the Goddex Cassandra). Some clerics had to work to gain their deity’s blessing, to prove that they were good enough vessels of the gods’ holy power. Some were just pains in the asses to get a hold of. 

Luckily, Torm seemed to approve of Ragh. 

It took a while, a few days after they left the town, Ragh standing between her and a weird lizard creature neither of them could remember the name of, for Torm to finally respond to the prayers Tracker had been teaching him. An almost imperceptible white light seemed to surround Ragh's hand as it came down against the lizards' jaw, just bright enough that Tracker's wolf enhanced eyes caught it as she bit deep into the creatures' tail. And each time he fulfilled his role of protector, showed courage as he walked by her side into the temples of Galilea, took up his weapon to protect her against whatever else Fallinel had to throw at them, it grew a little bit brighter. 

Until one day, without even thinking about it, he cast a Sacred Flame at an enemy on the other side of their camp site, the burning bright light zapping into the creatures' side, sending it scampering back into the wilds of the untamed woods in the far reaches of the country. Together they quickly finished off their enemies, Rahg wielding his weapon and a new found spells with an enjoyable ease, taking joy in the blessing of his god. 

She remembered that feeling, the power and joy from being blessed by one of the gods, the sudden innate knowledge of exactly what to do to make everything perfect and wonderful and right. 

The fight eventually ended, Ragh having taken the brunt of the damage, though one of them did get a slice at her flank. Before she could shift back and heal it herself, Ragh had reached out and touched her shoulder. Another burst of brilliant white light, something she would have to teach him to control later, raced through her veins and across her skin, invigorating her and closing most of the wound, leaving a scratch where before there had been a gash. All while Ragh stared in awe, eyes and smile wide, though clearly he was exhausted from the small use of magic. 

Another moment and she was back in her human form, healing him herself as he sat back, staring at his hands as his wounds closed around him. 

"Tracker..."

She raised her head from examining her work, making sure there wasn't something she had missed. 

"This fucking rules." 

An easy smile shared between them, Tracker knowing exactly what he meant. 

"Yeah it does."

[gothpanda]

A Little Bit of Attitude Ch. 18: Purple Moon

WORD COUNT: 5.1K

A/N: I’m unintentionally making this a PLL/Motley/The Dirt fanfic and I ain’t sorry Enjoy and thank you!

WARNINGS: Drugs, Language

TAGS: @madamsixx​

READ ON AO3 

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July 1984

 "Number 325" someone announces from the inside of the advising office. Sammi rested her head against a bulletin board with inspiring quotes for students and reminders of the new semester. She looked down at her ticket, seeing 334 in bold black letters that made her groan in her seat. "Number 326 for Mrs. Stogger," the speaker said in the lobby of the academic building. Sammi looked around at the people waiting to speak to someone just like her, a mix of ages in the hall. People brought books to read or sketchbooks to draw, or had their friends pass the time. Sammi only carried her notebook that was filled with tasks to do at Elektra. In terms of school, she was officially alone. She read over what she needed to get done by the end of the week. She also flipped through to see what she needed to finally have a degree in her hands. She interrupted her train of thought when Sammi heard someone elegantly sit on the wooden chair next to her. Sammi glanced up from her notebook for a moment to find a familiar face. A tall slim girl with long brunette hair read through her journal, writing down at a fast pace. Sammi looked over at her scholarly sense of style, appreciating it from afar like always. Sammi went back to keeping her eyes to the front of her, trying to keep her mind occupied. 

 "Oh hey, you're Samantha. The new secretary, right?" the girl said, making Sammi's eyes grow to her. She had a friendly smile to her, with soft dark eyes. Sammi smiled shyly at the girl, picking at her nails, and nodded. 

 "Yeah, it's Sammi outside in normal life. And You're one of the interns at work?" said Sammi politely. 

 "Of course, and yes, I'm Sabrina," said Sabrina, extending out a hand to Sammi, which she gladly accepted. "I didn't know you studied here. I thought you would've already graduated by now," 

 "I almost was but decided to be adventurous and travel earlier in the year. I'm kinda surprised also to see you here. I've never seen you around on campus before," said Sammi. 

 "Well that's because I just transferred from Sacramento, I really needed a change of scenery. I'm happy I have another familiar face to talk to while on campus," Sabrina said, putting her notebook in her messenger bag. 

 "Honestly, me too. I would see you around the office but never got a chance to talk" said Sammi, soon seeing a long dark haired tan girl who looked as tall as Sabrina walk towards them. She threw her bag to the floor and dropped herself onto the chair next to Sabrina, gaining her attention. The girl looked like a full athlete, with toned arms and legs from whatever they did. She tossed her hair over to one side, fixing her grey tank top. 

 "Hey S. Do you gotta wait long?" the tan girl said, peeking over Sabrina to see the small Samantha, knees tucked under her. "Oh sorry, I didn't see you there! I'm Emma," the girl extended her hand to Sammi, gaining a smile. She tilted her head for a moment, trying to remember the small girl.

 "Sammi. Um, have I seen you before?" Sammi asked, raising an eyebrow to Emma. 

 "Yeah we went to the same high school. You were on the volleyball team, right?" Emma asked, tying her shoelaces together. 

Sammi nodded, "Yeah I was, were you a grade below me?" 

 "Correct on that, I was also on the swim team. You're one of Tommy Lee's sisters, right?" asked Emma

 "Yep I am, now I'm getting that question asked a lot," Sammi chuckled along with the girls. 

 "I'm sure you do. Since it looks like you know Sabrina, do you wanna go get a bite to eat after this? Unless you have other plans to do," Emma asked, Sabrina, smiling at Sammi to try and get her to say yes. 

 "Totally!" Sammi said, in perfect timing for her number to be announced. 

October 26, 1984

 Sammi and Sabrina walked down the halls of Elektra records, passing the records and plaques hung up on the walls. Sabrina held eight hot coffees while Sammi scanned at the multiple folders that were in her hands. Both of the young women entered an empty conference room, a long, mahogany table in the middle of the room. They placed each coffee with a folder on the office chairs, even matching the assigned names. 

 "You don't have to stay for this meeting, do you?" Sabrina asked, throwing out the cardboard coffee trays into the trash.

 "No, Mr. Harrison had let me go early. Em's heading to your place at 7, right?" Sammi asked, fixing her blouse a bit from any wrinkles and pushing up her glass from slipping off.

 Sabrina nodded, adjusting her ponytail. "I don't know why she wants to go to this club so bad. She would not stop blabbing about it in class," 

 "Because you've never had a night on the strip yet even though you've lived here long enough," Sammi muttered, peeking down the hallway. Soon a team of suited men appeared marched in unison towards the young women. Mr. Harrison, a man who was taller than everybody with every inch of hair white as snow stepped in first, seeing Sammi and Sabrina. He scanned the office, nodding in approval and patting them on the shoulders. 

 "Thank you, girls, for the setup," Mr. Harrison said, rubbing his hands together. 

 "You're welcome, Mr. Harrison," Both girls said in unison. 

 "I would say you're free from being my shadow, Samantha. Have a good weekend for both of you," said Mr. Harrison, walking away to sit at the table's head. All eyes immediately went straight to him. Sabrina and Sammi smiled professionally at everyone, closing the door behind them on their way out. 

 "Okay well, maybe I'm busy with stuff of my own? You haven't thought about that?" Sabrina asked Sammi, throwing her hands in the hair as the two walked to the rest of the office. They walked past all the cubicles of co-workers, some they've never even talked to since working at Elektra. Sammi passed Sabrina's desk, grabbing the water bottle she left there by accident.

 "Studying doesn't really count if you're a walking encyclopedia, S," Sammi said, walking into the empty breakroom. She sat down by a big circular table, taking a sip of her water. Sabrina sat right next to her, grabbing an apple in the middle fruit basket.

"And what's wrong with wanting to study more?" Sabrina asked, sticking her nose in the air with pursed lips making Sammi give a tight-lipped smile to hold a giggle.

 "Nothing, but it's healthy to breathe fresh air. Even if that fresh air just has a bit of tobacco smoke in the mix," said Sammi, checking her freshly done red manicure. "Plus, we deserve a little fun. Midterms ended, and I already know I did great so I'll just reward myself," 

Sabrina shrugged with a growing smirk on her face taking a bite of her apple. "Are we gonna meet up with your people?" 

Sammi looked up to think for a moment, "Athena said yes. Tommy is in love with Emma, so yes. Vince will go anywhere I'm at. If Nikki isn't in a mood, he'll come. And Mick isn't feeling so good. I dropped off some food at his place before work," said Sammi, holding five fingers to Sabrina. 

"Awe Tommy is so dumb to think Emma would love him back like that," said Sabrina, pouting out her lip like a sad child. 

"You don't mind that we're gonna be with them, right?" implored Sammi. 

Sabrina raised an eyebrow, "No? They're all pretty cool, crazy beyond belief, but I still like them. Nikki seems like a tough nut to crack, though. And Emma seems to love everyone," 

"Awesome. I'm glad you and Em like everyone. For once I don't have to worry," 

"And you shouldn't. If I didn't like them, I probably would have only hung out with you at school or here. Plus, I like to see people go batshit crazy sometimes. It's like free front entertainment," Sabrina said with a smile. Sammi felt at ease with Sabrina's words, not worrying about the happiness and comfort of others on the Crue. "Oh, by the way, you're doing Em's hair," 

Sammi rolled her eyes, "At this point, she's gonna need to pay me to be her hairstylist," said Sammi, making Sabrina laugh.

* 

 In the cozy warm apartment that was reasonably close to their college, the three girls looked in their bathroom mirror to get ready for their night. Sammi sprayed the last bit of hairspray into Emma's loose curled hair, running her fingers through it to make it perfect. Sabrina wiped any extra nude lipstick from the corner of her mouth, feeling happy with her look. Emma leaned closer to the mirror, smudging a bit of black eyeshadow on her waterline to make her bronze eyes pop. Sammi pulled down a bit of her low cut blue velvet dress, checking her rear in the mirror. Emma tied a thin white scarf around her flare blue jeans that matched her pink top perfectly. "Where'd you get the bell bottoms, Em?" asked Sabrina, adding a necklace that matched her white dress. 

 "Found them at a garage sale! Pretty groovy even a decade later, right?" said Emma, walking out to put on her silver chunky heels in Sabrina's bedroom. Sammi smiled at Emma, spritzing some of Sabrina's perfume on her that smelled of crisp lilies from her nightstand.

 "Okay, you ladies ready for the night?" asked Sabrina, clapping her hands together as she walked into her bedroom. 

 "Someone seems finally happy to be going out," said Emma, bumping her hip against Sabrina with a smile. 

 "I don't want to be a Debbie Downer for most of everything. Besides Sam was right, we should have fun," said Sabrina, grabbing her perfume from Sammi's hands to spray some for herself. "Do you when Athena was gonna start heading over to Purple Moon?" asked Emma. 

 "No idea, but let's just wait and see when we get there!" said Sammi, swinging her black purse over her shoulder. 

* 

For being open for only two months, Purple Moon was the craziest club in all of West Hollywood. Let's Go Crazy blared throughout the two-story club with laser color lights jumping off the walls in the darkness. The three brunettes danced in the sea of people, bodies of strangers pressed up against each other. Sammi swayed to the beat of the music, feeling happiness around her already feeling the buzz of her drinks. As Emma looked out from the sea of people, her eyes grew with excitement when seeing three cool people. Athena, Nikki, and Tommy pushed their way to meet the girls. Nikki had a growing discomfort with this crowd, unlike Tommy loving the music. Athena turned Sammi around, engulfing her in a big hug with a smile on both faces. 

"This place is so cool!" shouted Athena, giving hugs to Emma & Sabrina as she danced around the sea. Tommy hanged his arm around Emma's neck, kissing her on the cheek while Emma shifted her gaze to the girls. Sammi couldn't help but look past Nikki in hopes of finding a shaggy-haired blonde with them. She hugged Nikki, tip-toeing to his ear. "Where's Vince?" Sammi shouted, scrunching her eyebrows together. 

"Your boyfriend didn't like the idea. Wanted to hang out with our friend Razzle," Nikki shouted, shrugging his shoulders. He eyed Sammi up and down, wrapping his hands around her waist. "You look beautiful. Didn't think a girl your size could feel up a dress like that," Nikki smirked, pulling Sammi into him. Sammi dropped her shoulders, slightly pushing away from Nikki. Athena grabbed Sammi's hand, twirling her around as the music changed to another upbeat song. Sammi glanced over to Nikki's discomfort, seeing him find his way to the crowded bar with Tommy behind him. Sammi tried her best to dance with the girls around her, but she couldn't remove the disappointed look on her face. 

"You okay?" Sabrina asked, leaning down to Sammi. 

Sammi shrugged her shoulders, "Yeah… Just wish Vince would've come," 

"Ignore it. Go get a drink and relax," Sabrina said, turning Sammi on her heels to the direction of the bar. Sammi smiled as she walked away from the dancing girls and passed the sweaty bodies. She squeezed between Nikki and Tommy on the bar, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. 

"Here Sam, have my drink and smile!" Tommy shouted, hanging his arm around Sammi's shoulders and slid her a random cocktail. Sammi smiled, taking a sip of the drink and wrenched at the taste of the alcohol. It was more potent and something that could get anyone drunk fast. It was precisely what Sammi needed for this night. As Tommy disappeared into the sea to find his new favorite girls, Nikki sipped his drink, eyeing Sammi with the color lights bouncing off her. 

"Really didn't think you'd let a guy ruin your night," Nikki whispered loudly into Sammi's ear, making her turn to his direction. Sammi sipped the random drink, thinking about Vince. "Wanna head upstairs? Fewer people to be annoyed by," Sammi looked over her shoulder, seeing all their friends enjoy their time together. Sammi thought they wouldn't miss her if she went away with Nikki. She nodded to the bassist getting a smirk and a hand to hold as he led them through the crowd. The second floor was designed mostly to be a balcony with some space to dance for overpacked nights. Even with a 'do not cross' sign up, Nikki and Sammi sneaked up the dark brick stairway. Dropping herself onto a small leather loveseat, Sammi laid her legs in Nikki's lap as she downed the rest of the strong drink. From the second floor, the music wasn't loud in comparison, seeing no speakers around them. Nikki rested one arm on the loveseat's head and the other playing with Sammi's heel strap. The two stared silently at each other for a moment until Sammi felt Nikki's hand rise up her leg. She tossed her legs off him, sitting up straight while lowering her dress a bit. 

"You're good, Nikki?" Sammi asked, feeling the buzz of alcohol go to her head and batting her eyes. 

"I am now that I'm with my best friend," Nikki slurred, draping an arm around Sammi and pulling her to his side. Sammi chuckled and rolled her eyes, dropping her head back. "What? You don't believe me?" Nikki asked. 

"Do you make out with all your best friends?" Sammi smirked at Nikki. Nikki scuffed at Sammi, taking the rest of his drink. "If I am then thanks," 

"My ass wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, unlike some people," Nikki said, raising his eyebrows for a moment. Sammi's smile went away from her face, looking out at the balcony in front of them. 

"Fucker should've told me he didn't want to come," Sammi mumbled under her breath, picking out her cigarettes from her purse. "He really just said he didn't like coming to a fucking club?" Sammi asked, lighting the tobacco stick. Nikki nodded, making Sammi roll her eyes and checking around to see no one catch them up there. 

"Yeah I think he was gonna show Razzle the Tropicana on Hollywood Boulevard. Apparently, that ain't got that in England," 

"So he wanted to go see half-naked girls basically 10 minutes away from me? That's fucking nice," Sammi spit out with annoyance, blowing smoke into the atmosphere

"But hey you like that so you gotta deal with the rockstars. A nice boyfriend," said Nikki, pulling out his stash from his back pocket. He poured a short chunky line in the back of his hand, snorting it like a healthy routine. Sammi looked over to Nikki, biting her lip for a moment as her eyes shifted to the drugs. Nikki could see the curious little face Sammi had one, making him smile mischievously. Nikki poured a bit more on his hand, not even needing to say a word for Sammi to understand. She closed one nostril and snorted the chunky line, feeling the string hit her. She hadn't done drugs since the beginning of the year, and her body was already feeling it. Her eyes began to water, making Sammi pinch the bridge of her nose to stop any tears. Nikki snorted some more before finally moving back into the loveseat. 

"And then he fucking asks why I still keep a distance!" Sammi shouted, flicking her bud into the dark corner. "Next time you all are on tour, you better keep an eye out for me on him!" Nikki chuckled at Sammi, slowly getting closer to her.  All of a sudden, Sammi jumped up onto her feet, almost losing balance as she pulled Nikki up from the sofa. Nikki felt immediate dizziness from the sudden movement, ultimately colliding against Sammi. He hung onto her waist, seeing her face so close yet so far away. Sammi slightly moved away from Nikki, trying her best to maintain distance. 

"Come on, let's go back dancing!" Sammi shouted, pulling Nikki by the hand as they stumbled down the stairs. Nikki tried his best to feel comfortable, happy the coke was making a bit of an effort in doing so. The crowd felt bigger to Nikki now, unsure if it was always like this while pushing past everyone. Sammi was oblivious to her surroundings, just trying her best to find their friends. Nikki let go of Sammi's hand for a moment, holding a tight grip onto her waist, trying his best to not lose her. Sammi didn't react, she felt great and happy, and being with people she loved made her more comfortable. Sabrina could finally see Sammi and Nikki again, making their group yell with excitement. Alcohol filled in their systems with possibly a mix of drugs could help any situation for this night.

* 

 "Why is food so much better when you're buzzed?" asked Emma, tossing a tater tot into the air and catching perfectly into her mouth. Athena, Sammi, and Tommy clapped alongside Emma as the six of them all sat together in a dark red restaurant. The Rainbow Bar and Grill, where girls offered blow jobs right as they saw Nikki and Tommy. Of course, they wanted to be one ounce respectful and turned the offer down just to have a bit to eat.  Sabrina rolled her eyes with amusement, sipping on her orange soda while Nikki chugged a small whiskey bottle. 

 "Because carbs love alcohol. It's a science I can't explain," said Athena, chewing on a chicken tender. 

 "We probably burned all the food we ate today from dancing, so eat up," said Sammi, glancing at Nikki right beside her. "You're not hungry?" 

 Nikki draped his arm around the young girl's shoulders, stealing a french fry from her plate. "I might be hungry for something else," Nikki winked, making Sammi only chuckle and stuff another french fry into his mouth. Sammi squinted her eyes to Nikki's other arm, trying to see the red mark in the dark. 

 "Hey did you go to the doctor or something? What's with the marks?" asked Sammi, almost grazing her finger before Nikki winced away from her.

  "Don't worry about it, Princess," said Nikki. 

 "Be careful, Sixx. Remember Sammi has a boyfriend now," said Tommy, flicking Nikki's ear with a dumb giggle. 

 "Yeah, who would rather see a mud wrestler with his other friends than me," said Sammi, feeding another fry to Nikki. 

 The girls around them all raised their eyebrows to Sammi, confused, and surprised by the thought of Vince's decision. Tommy shot a dagger look at Nikki, hitting his leg under the table as a form of communication. Nikki only shrugged his shoulders and took a bit of what was left on Sammi's plate. 

 "You mean that mud strip club up on boulevard?" asked Sabrina, pointing out towards the window in the direction of it. Sammi nodded as she took a sip of her cocktail. "Okay now, your sour face makes sense," 

 "Damn didn't think Vince would piss you off that fast," said Athena, turning her head as she felt a hand on her shoulder. As if by magic, Vince and a long-haired British man wearing a top hat stand right in front of the group's booth, holding drunken smiles. They both had drinks in their hands, almost already finished. Sammi pursed her lips at Vince, looking away to see Tommy quiet and glancing at everyone. 

 "Oh Vince! Razzle! How were the mud wrestlers?" shouted Nikki with a smile on his face, not bothering to move away from Sammi. Vince's smile soon disappeared as he looked at Sammi's scowling at him with a glare. 

 "Oh it was great! I never knew America could be like this!" said Razzle, his thick accent, making it hard for some to understand in their intoxicated states. He hung onto Vince, happy as a child in a candy shop. "Hey youse are some gorgeous women. What are you all's names? Especially this dark-haired beauty," said Razzle, kissing Emma's hand only to make her cringe. Sabrina and Sammi covered their mouths to hold in their laughs to Emma's discomfort. 

 "I'm Emma. This is Sabrina and the girlies over there are Athena and Sammi, Tommy's sisters," said Emma, yanking back her hand from Razzle's grip. Razzle raised an eyebrow to Emma, smirking down at her. 

 "How do you do, I'm Razzle. A nice gentleman from England who would adore any woman like yourself," said Razzle. 

 "Yeah well… no thanks. So Vince, how was your night?" asked Emma, tilting her head. 

 "Um it was good. Listen, Babe, can we go for a smoke outside?" asked Vince, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket. Sammi shared knowing glances between Emma and Sabrina, motioning them to let her out of the booth. Sammi gave an icy look to Vince, heading straight for the door. Nikki kept a smirk as his eyes followed Sammi, shrugging to Vince. As the two walked out, Razzle sat next to Emma as he tried to put on the charm. Athena and Tommy eyed the couple walk away, slowly growing with worry. 

"You know if you didn't want to hang out with me, you should've said something when I called you," said Sammi, crossing her arms as she faced Vince outside the busy sunset strip. 

"It's not that I didn't wanna hang out, Razzle came by my place all of a sudden, and I couldn't say no. Come on, Sammi, don't be mad at me," said Vince, wrapping his arms around Sammi's waist and leaving soft pecks on her cheek and neck. Sammi only pushed him away from her, clenching her jaw at Vince. "I didn't fucking do anything! You're really gonna be pissed I saw chicks?" 

"Yeah because your dumbass didn't fucking tell me! Nikki said you didn't want to come! Besides, I never liked seeing other girls before I got with your ass!" shouted Sammi, about to walk away from Vince until he got a hold on her arm. 

"Oh really, Nikki told you that? And you also don't think I could be mad at you for having Nikki's arm around you? You really think I like seeing that? You're gonna believe him?" shouted Vince, looking right into Sammi's eyes. 

"Tommy fucking hit Nik when he ratted you out, just fucking admit it," slurred Sammi, looking past Vince instead of giving eye contact. Right away, Vince was able to see Sammi's pupils bigger than usual, making her eyes almost black. "Are you high?" asked Vince. Sammi yanked her arm out of Vince's grip, almost stumbling onto the concrete. 

"So what if I am? Are you going to be more 'pissed' at me now," said Sammi, scowling at Vince. Vince scuffed at Sammi, shaking his head as he looked away from her. 

"Why do you keep doing coke?! Why do you keep listening to Nikki?!" hissed Vince, stepping right into Sammi's face. 

"Oh shut the fuck up about Nikki giving me some coke, it's getting old. You can't say shit if I want to get high. Because I'm pretty sure if we went a fucking drug clinic, you'd be way worse than me," slurred Sammi, trying once again to move away from Vince. 

"Oh don't give them that, Sammi. We're both two completely different people when it comes to that shit," said Vince, wrinkling his eyebrows together in a frown.  

"Oh really? Because last time I checked, I'm a rockstar's girlfriend who works at a record company," said Sammi, returning to her icy stare. "Just admit you're wrong for leaving me hanging for some big tit bimbos, and we can go back inside," 

"No, I'm not gonna fucking apologize. From the looks for it, you and Nikki seem to have gotten close like always tonight. Pretty sure if I asked A, she'd tell me," said Vince, matching Sammi's face. 

"You've got to shut up about Nikki and me every single time I'm around him. If you didn't want us without you, you would've fucking come!" said Sammi. 

"Fuck this, I'm out of here. Tell Nik and Tom they can take care of Raz, and call me when you're done being fucking stubborn," said Vince, shaking his head and beginning to head down the strip. 

"In that case might as well find a new girlfriend!" yelled Sammi at Vince, glancing around at some of the people staring right at her. She combed her fingers through her hair, marching back inside as the heels of her shoes clunked on the wooden floor. Walking closer to her table, she could see Emma had already moved away from Razzle and closer to Athena. Everyone reacted like foxes, turning their heads as soon as they saw Sammi come over. 

"Where's Vince?" asked Athena, scrunching her eyebrows together. 

"Gone. Stubborn ass didn't wanna say sorry," said Sammi, holding out her hand to Nikki to retrieve her purse. "I'm sorry guys, but I'm gonna head home, it's getting late anyway," 

"Wait, do you want us to come with you? We could crash at my place if you want, Sam," said Sabrina, looking up at her as she glanced over to Emma. 

"Only if you two want to, I don't want to ruin your guys' fun," said Sammi. 

"Trust us, Sam, you aren't. Do you wanna head with us, Athi?" asked Emma, smiling playfully to the other girl beside her. 

"Athi?" asked Tommy, frowning at the two girls. 

"Totally if Sammi's in a mood. Later boys. It was nice to meet you, Razzle," said Athena, sliding out of the rounded booth and waving toward the English man. 

"You boys have fun tonight, don't get too crazy without us," said Sammi, passing air kisses to all the men. 

"Goodbye loves, hope to all your pretty faces very soon," said Razzle, smiling happily at everyone. Sabrina chuckled along with Razzle, hooking her arm around Sammi's.

"Get home safe, ladies. Take some Advil, Princess," said Nikki, finishing his drink and motioning for another to the waitress. 

"We will," announced Sammi as all the girls headed to the strip, feeling the California breeze hit them right away. The four girls trailed down the street, Athena trying her best to haul a cab for them. Sammi suddenly felt the lows of her high go away, developing a headache with all the noise around her. She leaned on Sabrina for support, trying her best not to look suspicious to Athena. 

"What's it gonna be, my place or yours?" asked Sabrina, glancing at Sammi. 

"Mine. I have PJs to spare for you all," said Sammi, crawling into the small backseat of the cab.

"What did you tell Vince while you were arguing?" asked Athena to Sammi, looking over the two girls. 

"To find a new girlfriend because I'm not gonna say sorry for being around Nikki," mumbled Sammi, leaning her head on the window and shutting her eyes. Athena, Emma, and Sabrina all exchanged looks almost trying to read each other's minds. 

"Well, in that case, tomorrow morning should be fun,' said Emma. 

"Yeah, I doubt I'll see his ass tomorrow," mumbled Sammi.

One week later 

A knock on the door surprises Sammi, looking up from her pile of books on the small dining table. She checks the watch on her wrist, wondering if it could be Athena fresh out of work. The knocks got a bit stronger, finally made Sammi walk over and look through the peephole. She immediately rolled her eyes, swinging the door open with a hand on her hip. In the hallway stood a sheepish Vince, holding a dozen red roses. He didn't look right into Sammi's eyes, only extending his arm to pass on the flowers. 

"That's it? You're not gonna say anything?" asked Sammi, crossing her arms and scowling at her boyfriend. 

Vince scuffed, scratching his head before straightening up. "I'm sorry for going out and not telling you. And I'm also sorry for being a jealous little bitch," 

Sammi unexpectedly chuckled at Vince, calling himself a bitch, taking the roses out of his hand. "I'm sorry for being stubborn and telling you to find a new girlfriend. I hope this isn't your way of telling me you did." said Sammi, smiling carefully at Vince. He walked into the apartment, engulfing Sammi in a tight hug, happy to feel her accept it. 

"I don't think I'd call anyone my girlfriend if I fucked this up," said Vince, kissing Sammi with such love. "I know I can't get mad at you wanting to have a little fun like me or be around my friends. I just like to see you still be the same Sammi as I met," 

"Vince, I'm gonna be okay, but I do love that you care. It really does mean a lot. Besides, that was my first high since the beginning of the year, I'm not gonna go crazy," 

"And you're right, you're a grown adult who is way more responsible than most of the people my age I know combined. Also, my house is getting a little lonely without you," said Vince with an adoring smile. 

"Well that's what happens when you buy a mansion for one person that's also drastically far away from me," 

"So we're good? We can go out tonight and head over to mine?" asked Vince, wrinkling his eyebrows together in worry. Instead of a verbal answer, Sammi kissed Vince deeply, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

"Yeah we're good, dumbass…" muttered Sammi. 

[amyscascadingtabs]

i’ll walk through hell with you

chapter 6. i’ll be your arms, i’ll be your steady satellite

read on ao3

read earlier chapters

The Santiago Siblings with families spend a weekend together, Amy’s feeling weird, and Jake’s getting suspicious.

september.

Amy throws out the ovulation tests first. Then, most of the pregnancy tests.

She keeps a few, in case of emergencies, but she hides them so far inside their bathroom cabinet, buried underneath boxes of band-aids and disinfectant wipes, she tells herself it’s the same thing.

 She also throws out the vitamin supplements and the gross herbal teas, and puts the cherished pages of the fertility binder through her paper shredder while Jake shakes his head at her.

“You’re being crazy,” he states when she empties the paper confetti in the trash, immediately tying the bag shut and placing it by the door.

“Nope,” she responds. “I’m finally being sane.”

She stops doing yoga, not that she got into a habit with it in the first place. She goes back to her usual diet and coffee habits. She deletes every fertility-related bookmark off of her computer and unfollows all the Instagram accounts she once tried to find support in. There’s a smidge of panic and hard-hitting grief the first few times she sees a pregnant person somewhere, a harsh pain that comes with knowing for certain she’ll never experience it again, but most of all, Amy feels free. As heartrending as the knowledge is, she’d take it over uncertainty any day of the week.

 Her days of the week are moving quickly, too. It's like the moment she stopped being consumed by this, the rest of her life caught up with her, and now it’s speeding past. Leah starts her first Tiny Tots preschool class, and her parents cry for a good ten minutes after dropping her off the first time because their baby is growing up and it’s all moving too fast. They start doing proper research on allergy-friendly cats and even schedule a visit at a cattery. Work speeds up and she has to work overtime for more days in a row than she's done since having a kid, making her fear their apartment will fall into pieces and her daughter forget who she is, but she comes home each night to dinner on the table and Leah in pajamas begging her to read a bedtime story. She makes sure to thoroughly thank her husband, especially the night when there’s a takeout box with potato pancakes waiting for her, and promises him a proper reward once the weekend rolls around.

“Cool, cool,” he mumbles half-asleep as he makes himself the little spoon in bed. “Also, while we’re on the topic, those potato pancakes definitely weren’t because Leah and I had ice cream for dinner. In case you were thinking that.”

“Jake.”

“Mm. Goodnight, babe.”

 Even without the fertility treatments, her free time between work and family life remains strictly limited, but she does manage to squeeze in something much needed. Every other Thursday night at eight o’clock sharp, Amy finds herself outside the door to Rosa’s apartment, and every night Rosa cuts right to the chase.

“You’re not pregnant?”

“Nope.”

“Not taking any fertility medication?”

“Stopped them all.”

“Take a shot, Santiago.”

She’s decided not to tell more people about her experiences, doesn’t see the point when all she wants is to forget, but every other Thursday night, she vents. Rosa lets her speak, sometimes offering commentary but mostly just nodding, and Amy’s pleasantly surprised to discover it helps.

She’s not alone, and most importantly, she’s going to be okay again.

 ~

 october.

As the end of October arrives, it becomes time for the weekend with all the Santiago siblings and their families renting a cabin upstate. Tony calls it a tradition even though it's the first time they're doing it, but when Amy points this out, he simply shrugs and says it's important to have goals in life.

At first, she's skeptical about it - spending four days in a cabin with fifteen adults, thirteen kids and one dog feels like a polar opposite to the relaxed family time she craves - but it's been forever since she saw them all and she supposes she could use some time away from Brooklyn’s buzzing city life, so they decide to go. She nearly regrets it after three hours in the car with the Frozen-soundtrack on repeat, but then they reach their destination, and all is forgiven when Leah runs to hug all her cousins.

 Friday morning, they arrange a big leaf fight in the yard. At first, it's kids against adults, but as more and more children drop out, it becomes Santiago siblings against partners, and as more and more adults drop out too, eventually it's just Amy and Julian against Jake. The fight lasts until Jake starts complaining about there being leaves in his ear. At that point, Amy's laughing so hard her stomach hurts.

“Loser does all the dishes after lunch,” Julian grins, and Jake looks like he's about to cry.

Amy checks in on him after ten minutes. His shirt is wet from the soapy water and she can see the terror in his eyes as he looks to the mountain of dirty plates, glasses, and cutlery, but he’s scrubbing hard at them one by one with furious determination.

“Need any help, babe?” She sneaks her arms around him from behind, pressing a kiss to his neck and pulling out a small twig that’s still stuck in the back of his hair.

“Desperately,” he groans, wiping his hands on his jeans and facing her. “But I have to prove my strength to your brothers.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure Julian just wanted a reason to see you in a wet t-shirt.”

“He could have just asked.”

Amy laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll help you out.”

He squints. “Are you sure? You look kind of... tired.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Not like that,” he says, rolling his eyes. “But you look a little - I don’t know - pale? Did you not have coffee this morning?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t finish it. Creamer tasted weird.” He opens his mouth to say something, but she shuts him up with a glare. “I’m fine. Come on, I’ll help you finish these.”

 -

 They manage to get done right on time for a family walk in the woods. Leah makes it about a quarter of a mile before she starts complaining, so Jake carries her on his shoulders, which results in immediate chaos and tears from David’s twins when they demand the same and David can’t carry them both. Amy helps her brother by carrying Samuel on her shoulders, but the kid must have dog hair on his clothes from playing with Julian's dog, because her nose gets stuffy after only a minute. If it weren’t for the animal being straight-up adorable, or for Leah's excitement when Julian asks her if she wants to hold Oscar’s leash for a minute, Amy swears she would be yelling at this dog, too.

 The stuffy nose lasts for the entire afternoon, and she curses the fact that she forgot her allergy nasal sprays at home. Luckily, she’s surrounded by plenty of good distractions, and the afternoon disappears in a jumble of trying to keep different children from hurting themselves or others while also trying to make sure they’re happy, and if she’s not watching any kids, she’s trying to keep up with what feels like a billion different conversations going on at the same time. It’s enough to make anyone exhausted. She tries to have another cup of coffee, black this time to avoid the probably-bad creamer, but she only gets down a few sips before her throat goes all dry and she has to breathe real hard for the nausea to pass. She pours out the rest in the kitchen sink.

 Despite her tiredness and stuffy nose and sudden coffee aversion, Amy has a lovely day. When afternoon becomes evening, everyone who isn’t cooking dinner makes their way down to the nearby lake to watch the sunset. Leah’s in Jake’s arms with her head on his shoulder, looking all cozy in her purple fluffy hoodie as she sings the lyrics to Moana in the wrong order, and Amy can’t fight the urge to kiss her sweet little face until Leah grimaces and says stop, mama, hiding her face in Jake’s shirt as he laughs.

They’re her favorite sight in the world - the love of her life, and the child who’s held Amy’s whole heart in her hands since the first time she waved to them on an ultrasound screen over three years ago. Jake whispers something to Leah that Amy can’t hear, the girl giggles, and her heart aches with how much she loves them. She may never get the kids-plural family she pictured in her younger days, but she gets this, and it’s better than anything she could have imagined.

 -

When all the kids have gone to bed - save for seven-month-old Charlie, who’s wide awake and happy to get passed around between different pairs of arms - the adults gather in the living room for a chance at uninterrupted conversation and a glass of wine. Amy finds space in the corner of a couch, with Jake on her left and Tony’s wife Clara in an armchair on her right, and gratefully accepts the glass of red wine Lucas gives her. She takes a sip, first enjoying the taste, but the second sip tastes off and the third is awful. She tries to hide her grimace as she puts it down on the side table and asks for a glass of water instead.

 She's not really listening to the conversation, zoning out and just enjoying the comfort of Jake's arm around her shoulders, but Clara nudging her arm gets her attention.

“Do you want to hold Charlie for a while, Amy?”

“I’d love to,” she says, and the next second there's a baby in her arms who's shooting her the brightest of toothless smiles and reaching for her necklace. Charlie’s chubby fingers try to grab the L and J-pendants, so she gently separates his hands from them and he starts playing with a sling of her hair instead.

“Oh, you're strong,” she laughs as he grips it. “Wow.”

“Tell me about it,” Clara laughs. “Sometimes he’s lucky he’s cute.”

Amy smiles. The baby is already snuggling his head into her chest, making himself comfortable. He's truly adorable with round cheeks and light-ginger hair, melting her heart as he grips onto her shirt.

She's missed this. Still, it’s less painful now that she knows - she might never have more babies of her own, but she’ll always have plenty of nephews and nieces to hold, cuddle and play with.

“You're adorable,” she whispers to Charlie with a kiss to his forehead. “Yes, you are.”

“Hey, Amy?” David catches her attention from the opposite couch. “Aren't you guys going to have more kids?”

She can feel Jake freeze next to her.

“We’ve thought of it,” she says calmly. “But we landed on one kid. We’re happy with that.”

Jake squeezes her shoulder.

“Really? Huh.” David nods in surprise. “Don’t you want more kids, Jake?”

“It's not my decision to make,” he shrugs, like it was an obvious fact. “I'm just hoping we can get a cat soon.”

 Charlie falls asleep in Amy's arms, staying there even as people begin to drop out and head to bed. She gives him back to Tony when it’s time for a diaper change, closing her eyes and leaning against Jake's chest once her arms are free again.

“You okay, Ames?”

“Yeah,” she promises. “Just sleepy.”

“You didn't drink anything,” he notes, nodding to her untouched glass.

“Did you try the wine?” He nods. “I hated it. I think Julian has crappy taste in alcohol.”

Jake shrugs. “It tasted fine to me. Maybe your taste buds are being weird.”

“Or I have better taste than you.” She kisses him on the cheek. “Let's go to bed, babe.”

 -

 She’s barely closed her eyes before Leah climbs into their bed, full of energy as she makes space between her parents.

“I wanna go outside and play,” she insists, and when this doesn’t garner enough of a response, she frowns. “It’s morning!”

Amy reluctantly opens her eyes to reach for her phone, reading the time. “Half-past seven.” Weird. They went to bed at one a.m. and Leah’s slept through the night, yet it feels like she was woken up after ten minutes.

“Hey, I have an idea,” says Jake, pulling his daughter close and tickling her neck. “How about we play in here for a while? I have a great idea for something.”

“What?”

“Well, you see, bumblebee, you’re a super brave space pirate. This bed is your spaceship, and mama and I are your innocent, weak humans that you’ve captured.” He yawns. “The rules are that we have to lay still. If we move, we’ll fall out into space and, uh, die.”

“Okay! Dada, still!”

“I love this game,” Amy mumbles, pulling the covers closer around herself.

 The spaceship game lasts a full ten minutes before Leah tires, deciding that her parents are too boring captives for her taste and starting a new game that circles around her trying to jump from the bed onto her mattress in increasingly creative and less-than-safe ways. Jake defuses the situation before she tries to do a backflip, suggesting that they get out of bed and see if any other cousins are up yet, and Amy tries to open her eyes again. It’s painful - her body screams for more sleep, and she channels this into the pleading look she gives Jake.

“Can I get another half hour? I feel like I’m going to collapse if I get up now.”

“Huh.” A line appears between his brows. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yeah,” she yawns. “I just need thirty minutes, like I said.”

“Okay, I’ll wake you up when there’s breakfast - Lee, wait!”

He disappears out the door chasing after their daughter, and Amy sighs in relief as she lets her eyes fall closed again.

It still feels like no time has passed before Jake comes to tell her the thirty minutes are up, but she forces herself to get out of bed anyway. They have a long day ahead of them, and Amy’s not risking getting teased by her brothers for wanting to sleep in. Instead, she throws on a hoodie to hide the fact that she’s freezing, and pours herself a big cup of coffee at the breakfast table. She manages four sips before it threatens to come back up again. Luckily, one-year-old Milo chooses that exact moment to almost choke on his piece of toast, and no one except for Jake seems to notice the gagging expression on her face as she tries to swallow everything back down.

 She must be getting the flu, or maybe she’s picked up some other bug from her daughter. She’s cold, a little dizzy, and the stuffy nose refuses to pass even though she keeps away from the dog. They go to play in the woods while the sun is still shining, and Amy’s enjoying herself as she watches Jake run with Leah in his arms towards a tree, touch her feet against the wood and yell Parkour! only to make the girl lose it with laughter every time, but she’s so tired when they get home, she’s barely sat down in an armchair before she’s nodded off again.

 “Hey, Ames.” Jake’s firm hand on her shoulder makes her return to consciousness. His mouth is set in a hard line, and there’s a seriousness to the way he watches her that reminds her of the way he gets whenever she’s really sick, all worried and overly protective like he thinks she’ll instantly drop to the floor if he’s not right there. “Can we talk in private?.”

She nods, following him back to their bedroom where he closes the door. He sits down cross-legged on Leah's mattress, and she takes her chance to lay down on the bed, propping her head up with two pillows. “Okay. What’s up?”

He gives her a scrutinizing look. “Are you sure you’re just tired?”

“I mean, I feel a little off, I’m sort of dizzy and my allergies are annoying.” She sniffles. “Probably coming down with some bug. Why?”

“Your immune system is way better than mine, though. I’m always the first one to get sick after Leah and I’m fine. I don’t even think she’s been ill in weeks. Isn’t it weird that you’re the only one feeling sick?”

Amy shrugs. “Exception that proves the rule?”

“Yeah, or you’re not sick.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ames,” he says in a low voice, his tone slightly hesitant. “You don’t think there’s a chance you might be - I don’t know, pregnant?”

“Come on. How would that have happened?”

“Uh -”

She rolls her eyes. “Sure, but I think we established my body didn’t want it to happen for us again.”

“Maybe, but face the facts. You’re exhausted, your taste buds are funny, and you were like, seconds away from throwing up your coffee this morning. You’re cold, you’re dizzy…” He counts on his fingers as he lists the symptoms. “It sounds a lot to me like before we found out you were pregnant with Leah?”

“Or it sounds like it's been a couple of intense months, my body's fighting an infection and I’m getting ill once I'm relaxing.”

“Have you gotten your period this month?”

She glares at him. “Stop.”

“Well, have you?”

She sighs and pulls out her phone from her pocket, opening it to her period tracker. Current Cycle - day 33. “It's a few days late.”

Jake’s eyes go wide.

“No.” She shakes her head before he can say anything. “Nope. That doesn't mean anything. My cycle got screwed up after the treatments and they said it could take months to return to normal.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No. Seriously. We both know I’m not pregnant.”

He squints. “We do?”

“Yes. And I can’t let myself think about it, Jake, because if I do…” She bites her lip at the crystal-clear memories of ovulation strips, shots and negative pregnancy tests, of feeling betrayed by her own body time and time again. “I’ll start to go crazy. I just got away from that obsessive headspace. I can’t go there again, I can’t have another negative staring me in the face, I just… can’t.”

He nods slowly, gaze still full of worry as he sits down next to her. “Okay. I just thought I’d ask.” His hands rub soft circles on her neck to ease the tension there, his lips brushing against hers for a few seconds. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” She sighs. “God, I need another nap.”

“I’ll make an excuse for you,” he says, and she swears she’s never been more in love with him in her entire life.

 -

 Jake doesn’t bring it up again, and Amy’s grateful. It's not that she doesn't wish for his suspicions to be true - her falling pregnant naturally would be a miracle - but she can't let herself think about it, let alone hope. She spent a year hoping and it led nowhere. This isn't the first time she's imagined symptoms that turned out to be nothing. If she lets herself have hope another time, only to be faced by cruel disappointment, she's certain she's going to shatter.

The weather changes from gorgeous sunshine to heavy rainfall, effectively locking every present Santiago family member inside of the cabin and creating yet more chaos. Luis and Christian organize a game night for the kids, first consisting of child-friendly memory-games and puzzles, but as more and more kids go to bed, eventually the adults drag out Monopoly and get drunk. They also get insanely competitive. When Simon starts threatening Tony about having him do another challenge for his YouTube channel, and Tony threatens to wrestle Simon right there on the floor, the game is quickly changed to Cards Against Humanity which soon becomes a dangerous game of Never Have I Ever. Amy opts for alcohol-free wine, and it’s probably lucky, because her brothers are ruthless. Never have I ever had a catastrophic double date - drink. Never have I ever made out with someone at work - drink. Never have I ever accidentally startled a man with a genetic heart condition, resulting in his immediate death - drink, remind Julian he’s an asshole, and come up with a good revenge question. She’s relieved they go to bed before anyone can suggest a game of truth or dare.

 The next day, she's feeling much better, and manages almost half a cup of coffee without nausea. She must've been right about it being some kind of infection, she thinks, pleased that it seems to be passing.

The weather isn't improving, so she teams up with a few of her brothers and their families to go to a nearby, kid-friendly, museum while Jake, Julian, and Simon visit a sneaker outlet. Leah finds an activity station and plays there for nearly fifteen minutes with her cousins before breaking down in tears when someone takes a crayon from her, and after it’s been another ten minutes of crying, Amy eventually chalks the child’s sudden fury down to low blood sugar. She ruffles through her bag for a snack and finds an unopened bag of dried mango, and two slices later, Leah is back to normal. Amy also finds an unopened tampon package, giving her a nudging reminder that her period’s still nowhere to be seen, but she shakes away the thought. Had this been a couple of months ago, she would've been rushing to take a test, and she gives herself a mental pat on the back for acting so calm about it now. She knows this means nothing and she's not stressing out. There’s this tingling, cramping, feeling low in her stomach anyway, aching for a moment before immediately fading. Surely that must mean her period is coming.

 They go to bed early on their last night away, ready for the drive home the next day. Leah wakes up crying about a nightmare, so Amy ends up sleeping next to her in their bed with Leah's little legs curled against Amy's stomach and her hand gripping her wrist. As far as sleeping positions go, she could think of far more comfortable or ergonomic ones, but there's no denying the coziness of it. Leah snuggles her nose into the crook of Amy's neck, and Amy falls asleep just smelling her head, and if she’d ever been asked to describe the word peaceful with one situation, she would have chosen this.

 -

 At first, she thinks she's dreaming about a real past event. She's back in the bedroom of their apartment, with Jake sleeping on her right and Leah asleep in her room, but Amy's awake. She can't tell why, isn't fully aware of the narrative here, but she can tell that dream-Amy has an instinct. Something is causing her to get out of bed, walk towards their bathroom and grab a pregnancy test - one of the cheap paper strip ones - from a visible spot in the bathroom cabinet. Something is making her take it. Dream-Amy watches the test, sitting perched on the toilet and staring intently at the first line, and after what feels like the blink of an eye inside of her dream-reality, a second, faint but clear, line shows up.

Even though it's a dream, the explosive happiness is every bit as real as if she'd been awake. She takes the paper strip, wrapping it in a bit of toilet paper, and is about to go ask dream-Jake if he can see it too when she’s pulled out of the dream and back to reality.

“What the hell,” she mumbles as she opens her eyes. Jake and Leah are still sleeping, and it's every bit as dark outside as when they went to bed, but Amy's wide awake and officially weirded out. She's never been one for dream analysis or seeing them as omens of any kind, but something about the realistic feeling has caught her attention, leaving her confused and wondering if there’s any truth to it. She tries to repeat to herself that there isn’t, she isn’t pregnant and should go back to sleep, but her mind is reeling. She tries to do some breathing exercises to force her mind and body back to a relaxed state, but it’s out of reach. The what if-narrative plays on repeat in her head, and eventually, she accepts that she’s going to need to at least outrule the possibility. She’s pretty sure there’s a spare test left somewhere in her bag.

Carefully, she frees herself from the three-year-old’s grip and climbs over Jake instead. He grunts and opens his eyes for a second, but closes them again in the next.

 Amy uses her phone’s flashlight to dig through the contents of her bag, finding her calendar, pencil case, notebooks, and a crossword magazine. Headphones, painkillers, an extra phone charger. More snack bars and packets of dried fruit. Wet wipes, tissues, hair ties, and some makeup. She moves on to the inner pocket, finding allergy medication, tampons, even an expired condom that seems to have nestled its way into the bottom of the bag and stayed there for years, but no spare pregnancy tests. She almost thinks she’s found one, but a closer look tells her it’s an ovulation indicator, and she groans with disappointment. She could have sworn she left one for emergencies, but suddenly it’s gone, and she could wait until tomorrow and buy one, but she wants - scratch that, she needs - to know now.

 “Ames? Are you looking for something?” Jake’s voice is raspy, a mix of surprise and pure confusion in his tone, and she hums vaguely without looking back at him.

“I thought I had something in here,” she says in a whisper. “But I can’t find it. It’s nothing, you can go back to sleep.”

“What’re you tryna find?”

She sighs. “I had a weird dream, okay? So I want to take a pregnancy test, because I just need to know it wasn't real so I can go to sleep. I thought I had one in here, but I don’t, so…”

He yawns, and then, in a movement far swifter than she would expect from someone barely-awake, he gets out of bed and walks over to the plastic bag he brought home from the sneaker outlet.

“Jake, I’m sorry, but I don’t care about your sneakers right now,” she wheezes. He shakes his head and brings out another, smaller CVS plastic bag.

“I know,” he says, “but you might care about this.” He throws her a familiar, pink-and-white carton, and she’s not even caught it before she knows exactly what it is.

“You bought a pregnancy test.”

He nods.

“What - when - why?”

“There was a CVS close to the outlet, I told Julian and Simon I needed to buy some Aspirin, ran in and got this. They didn’t see it,” he assures her, noticing the worry on her face. “I was smooth. And as for why - I know you said you didn’t want to hope, but I thought in case you changed your mind and wanted to know, well... “ He shrugs. “It would suck if you were stuck here with no way of finding out, even if it was just another day. I know how much you hate not knowing.”

She twists the carton in her hands. “I really do hate it.”

“So, are you…”

“I’m going to take it. Now.”

“Now - now?”

“Now.”

 There’s a beat of silence, and then they’re silently racing each other out the door.

 Amy’s so used to the steps at this point, she doesn’t even feel the anxiety kick in until she places the test on the sink and nods at Jake to start the timer. There’s barely space for them both to sit on the floor of the tiny bathroom, so they’re squeezed together, him stroking her hair and holding her hand as she focuses on keeping her breathing steady.

It doesn't matter what it shows, she tries to tell herself without success. It’s just to check.

And yet, there's this odd sense of hope in her heart she doesn't recognize from the last months.

 “How did you guess?” She asks Jake, and he wrinkles his forehead, so she clarifies. “You remembered all the symptoms.”

“Oh.” He blushes. “This is going to sound bad, but… do you remember before we found out you were pregnant with Lee? There was like a week before you took a test, where you kept complaining about how it felt like you were getting the flu, or some kind of infection, because you were feeling off.” He draws quotation marks with his fingers. “You kept repeating that. And I was so proud of myself, because I'm always the first one of us two to get sick, but I was feeling fine. I thought I’d finally get to brag, and I was so excited, but then we found out you weren't sick.”

“Just pregnant.”

“Yeah.” He smiles. “Which, of course, was so much better. Except I never got to brag. It's haunted me since then. So this time, when you said you were feeling off and like you were getting sick… I remembered, and I made a guess. Also, I’ve read the list in your binder. But honestly, it was mostly the first thing.”

Amy laughs, genuine and hearty despite her nervosity. “You're ridiculous.”

He puts his arm around her shoulders. “And yet you keep wanting to have kids with me.”

“It’s like I must be in love with you or something.”

Her comment makes him snicker, and she thinks, not for the first time, that there could never be another person she'd want to do this with - no matter the results on that test.

 The timer rings. Jake turns it off.

“Do you want to check, or should I?”

“I don't think I can see another negative test,” she whispers, the fear making her heart beat out of her chest, and he nods and tells her to close her eyes. She hears him fumble for the test, and then he finds it, and there’s a moment’s silence that drives her crazy.

    “Ames?”

    “Yeah?”

    “What’d you say two lines meant, now again?”

    She opens her eyes, immediately snatching the test from his hands. “No way.”

    It’s faint, but there’s an obvious second line.

Amy just stares at it. She's worried it’ll disappear, like her mind’s playing tricks on her, but it stays.

“This is crazy.” Tears of happiness flood her eyes once she speaks. “This is - this is absolutely insane.”

“Told you so,” says Jake in an attempt of sounding smug, but she can tell he’s about to tear up, too.

“This is positive.”

“Sure is.”

“Oh my god.” She can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying, but she’s shaking, unable to believe her eyes as she looks from the test to Jake and back at the test. “Oh my god, you’re going to brag about this forever.”

He grins. “Consider the fact that I won’t to be a testament to how much I love you.”

She’s too overwhelmed to know what to say, so she just hugs him, smiling into his chest as he peppers kisses to the top of her head.

“Hey, Ames?”

“What?”

“We’re having another baby.”

She’s spent a year wishing for it, getting used to the thought in her desperation to get there, yet his words are impossible to take in. Another baby.

“Seems that way,” she whispers, and he laughs.

 There’s a second test in the carton, and Amy wants to take it right away, but Jake convinces her to save it for tomorrow so they can go back to bed before anyone notices they’ve been occupying this bathroom for a suspicious amount of time.

She doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep, not when a thousand thoughts are running laps in her head and she’s so in shock she thinks she might still be dreaming, but then Jake’s hand sneaks under the hem of her t-shirt and rests low on her stomach to make sure they're warm, he mumbles, and she places her own hand over his and relaxes.

 ~

  november.

Logically, Amy knows she’s pregnant.

All of the tests, a new one every day even though Jake tells her she’s being crazy again, are coming back two dark lines and plus signs and bolded words Pregnant, and the expensive test with the week indicator which shows how long it’s been since ovulation changes from 1-2 to 2-3 and 3+ Weeks. The fertility clinic gives her a blood test, confirms it’s a healthy pregnancy and schedules an early ultrasound two weeks later, which feels like an eternity. Time is moving excruciatingly slow, even slower when the nausea fully kicks in and she wants to spend as much of the day as possible laying down. She’s secretly happy she’s feeling terrible because that means the hormone levels are rising, and Jake insists on high-fiving her after the first time she throws up, but it does make the days feel even longer when all she wants is for them to pass.

Emotionally, the knowledge is much more difficult to wrap her head around. She’s terrified, analyzing every minuscule shift in her body in fear of there being something wrong and checking for blood in her underwear several times a day. She’s short on distractions, because she’s exhausted and moving too much makes her feel sick, so she’s mostly stuck on the couch after work watching movies and cuddling with Leah. They're not telling her yet - they're not telling anyone, except Rosa who figured it out soon as Amy declined a tequila shot - and Amy feels like a shitty parent who doesn't have the energy to run around and properly play with her kid right now, but Leah seems to get that her mom’s not feeling well, because she's more than happy to read books together and watch iPad until Jake comes home and takes her to the park for a bit.

 She wants to be happy, and every time she adds another positive test to the growing collection, she is, but she’s also dreaming nightmares and waking up in cold sweats in fear that this will be taken away from them. It’s too good to be true, the kind of happy ending you read about but never experience, and she can’t for the life of her try to fathom that it’s real. In short, she’s so hormonal she cries at stubbing her toe in the doorway, so nauseous she has to force down the few things she can consider eating, feeling guilty over how little energy she has to give Leah and how much responsibility this puts on Jake, and she can’t even allow herself to trust that they are having another baby.

 “This isn’t forever,” Jake tells her on a particularly exhausting evening after she's cried in his arms and eaten three lemon popsicles because they're the only thing that tastes remotely good. When she's cried a little more, about her fear and bad conscience and the deep shame in not being able to feel happy about something she's dreamt of for a year, he tells her, “just three more days until the scan,” and that does help.

-

 Amy doesn’t want to exaggerate, but she’s pretty sure the hours between six a.m., when Leah wakes up, and nine a.m., when the ultrasound appointment is, are the longest three hours of her life. Mornings are enough of a struggle to get through with a stubborn three-year-old who’ll put up a fight about anything from clothes to breakfast to brushing her teeth if she’s in the wrong mood, and they’re not made any easier when Amy’s feeling like this, but it’s moving particularly slow today when nearly all of her focus is divided between worrying about the scan and trying to keep her breakfast down. In the end, Leah doesn’t brush her teeth this morning and she has a yogurt smoothie in the car, but they manage to drop her off in time and she gives them a long hug each, so Amy considers it a success.

 Unfortunately, it’s a temporary one. She’s so nervous she can’t think straight, can’t focus on the Taylor Swift-tunes playing in the car or reply when Jake asks if she’s excited. Her head is playing possible nightmare scenarios on a loop, of there not being anything there, of them not seeing a heartbeat, or something else that will leave them no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. Taylor Swift sings something about cloaks and daggers and bright mornings, and Amy tries to see if she can memorize the lyrics for a distraction. She doesn’t get far before they get stuck in a traffic jam, though, giving them no option but to drive a few feet at a time, accelerating and braking on repeat.

 She knows that Jake tries to drive as smoothly as possible. He’s a good driver. She doesn’t have a problem with his driving, but the constant starting and stopping, the inevitable jerking movements, is absolute hell for her morning slash all-day sickness and suddenly all her focus has shifted to trying not to throw up in a moving car.

“I’m really sorry, Ames,” says Jake after casting one glance at her pale complexion, and she doesn’t dare to move her head but she mumbles a ‘not your fault’ before she goes back to taking deep breaths.

 She makes it through the congestion, and the nausea’s easing as they drive the last stretch to the clinic, but then there’s a slight bump as they drive into the parking lot and the fight is lost. She stumbles out of the car in search of a trash can, but it’s too far away. Instead, she has to publicly humiliate herself by throwing up right there on the curb just as another couple is walking out of the clinic and giving her what she assumes are grossed-out looks. She feels Jake’s hands on her shoulders as she coughs up the last bit, grimacing at the foul taste.

“Everyone’s going to think I’m hungover,” she mutters as he leads her to a spot further away, urging her to sit down.

“Oh yeah. That’s definitely what they think about all the women who puke outside of fertility clinics.”

His comment makes her laugh, but the laughter makes her feel sick again, so she stops.

“You okay?” He asks, carefully scratching her neck with one hand as he digs in his messenger bag with the other. “I have water if you want to rinse your mouth, and I’m pretty sure I have gum somewhere.”

“I’ll take water,” she says, accepting the green kid-size bottle that was definitely originally Leah’s and taking a cautious sip. “Sorry about this.”

“You’re sorry?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Damn, queen of unnecessary apologies. It’s okay.”

“I feel like crap,” she groans, ignoring him. “Sorry for whining.” “Okay there, ridiculous. Stop apologizing. It’s not something you can control.”

“But I don’t want to whine about this,” it comes out of her before she can stop it. “I don’t want to be sad, or scared. We fought so damn hard to get here! It fucking sucked! And now - I guess we’re having a baby, but I don’t know how to believe that, and I have to deal with the fact that pregnancy sucks, too!” She shakes her head, instantly regretting the quick movement but continuing to speak anyway. “I just want to be happy, and grateful, and I am. But I’m terrified. I can’t trust that it’s really happening, that it won’t be taken away from us again, and on top of that I feel awful all the time. I just… thought it’d be different.”

 Jake looks a little taken aback by her sudden outburst, opening his mouth before closing it and watching her with that same worried look she’s seen way too much during the last weeks.

“It will be,” he promises once she stops talking. “You’ve done this before. You know it gets better. You get a baby out of it, which - there are worse deals.”

“Yeah. But it feels so far away. It doesn’t feel remotely real. I wanted us to be happy now, to relax and enjoy this, but it feels like everything sucks.”

“Isn’t that just life sometimes, though? It sucks, and then there are awesome parts, and then it sucks again, and then there’s more awesome stuff.” He grimaces, looking down at the curb before meeting her eyes. “I know you feel like crap. I know you’re scared. Honestly, so am I. But we’re about to see our baby for the first time,” he smiles, “and that’s at least one of the crazy awesome parts.”

She nods. “It is.”

“Yeah.” He reaches for her hand, squeezing it. “I just think that… there’s always going to be shitty things, right? Sure, this year was rough, and I wouldn’t want to do it again, but we also had a million amazing moments with Leah, and together, in-between the bad parts. When this baby comes,” he nods to her still-flat stomach, “we probably won’t be sleeping and everything will be nuts for a while before we figure it out, but we’re going to have two kids and it’s going to be the best.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to tell you something I heard from a very smart person once,” he grins, looking proud of himself. “Life is unpredictable, but as long as you’re with the right people, you can handle anything.”

“That person sounds smart. Did they also make a butt joke after that?”

“Sure did. Made me cry, and everything. But what I was actually trying to say was…” Jake blushes, and she can tell there’s a moment of emotional sincerity coming. “I’m with you. I know that. I also know that as long as I’m with you, all the bad stuff is survivable, and all the good stuff is a million times better. And I’d rather have hard days with you, and Lee, and I guess soon whoever this is,” he holds his hand to her stomach through her sweater, “than good days with anyone else.”

“Me too,” she snivels, having to wipe the tears on her shirt sleeve because of course, this is making her cry. “How’d you get so wise all of a sudden?”

“Married you,” he shrugs. “And had kids. Also, I got hella old.”

“You’re forty-two.”

“Exactly. Shh.”

Amy laughs, with tears in her eyes because he’s hitting that perfect spot between wisdom and humor that’s one of the many reasons she loves him so much, and the smile on his lips grows wider once he sees that he’s made her laugh.

“I love you so much,” she whispers, cupping his face with her hands.

“I know. Love you, too.” She kisses him, and he kisses her back for a second before immediately pulling away and scrunching his nose. “Okay, ew, no. Vomity breath. Gross.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to apologize,” she teases. “But I’ll take that gum too.”

“Let’s just go inside and look at our baby,” he says as he hands her the packet, and she doesn’t protest.

 There are some routine questions and another blood test, and then they’re ushered into the ultrasound room. She’s nearly holding her breath as she lays down, eyes glued to the screen and Jake’s hand squeezing hers so tight she thinks he might stop the blood flow if he squeezed any harder.

At first, she’s scared she was right and there���s nothing in there, because everything is blurry and she’s not sure what’s what, but then it clears slightly and the ultrasound technician points out a white blob the shape of a lima bean, and there are tears of relief running down her cheeks.

 The technician says and here’s the heartbeat, and Amy has to clasp a hand over her mouth to keep from crying harder than she already is when a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sounds through the room in quick little beats.

She could listen to that sound forever.

 They get printed sonogram pictures of their fetus, which is slightly over an inch and just looks like a white blob but is well and truly perfect according to their doctor, and then they’re advised to go home and celebrate. They both have to stop crying first, though, so they stand outside the clinic for another while, just hugging without needing to say anything else.

 “So,” Jake says when Amy’s finally found space to breathe again. “How do you want to celebrate?”

“Do you want to go to Target and look for another shirt that says Big Sister and some stupid cute tiny clothes?”

“Oh, you know I do.”

 They get a long-sleeved pink shirt for Leah, six pairs of baby socks with animals on them and tiny pajamas with rainbow stripes, and then they buy alcohol-free champagne.

 ~

[omgsomeonesomewhereonearth]

I know I can’t stand you, but please stay anyway? (pt 5)

Pt 1| Last Chapter | Ao3 |

Patton hates lying. Patton never tells lies. Patton has told a massive lie. Ethan can’t stand Patton. He has no reason to ever help him. Except, of course, the most obvious one. A fake relationship, a family Christmas, and other shenanigans ensue.

Warnings: Swearing, original characters

Pairings: Moceit, eventually

“Oh, my god, Patton, I cannot believe you!”

“Okay, Vivian, wait-“

“Trust you to go and get yourself a gorgeous boyfriend like that when the rest of us aren’t looking!”

“God, Vi, no…”

“Mr ‘Woe is me, I’m so lonely I need to invent a relationship to tell mum about’!”

“Okay, well, now you’re just being mean.”

“Ohmygod, that hair! And his eyes! Is that a real piercing? Goddamn, Pat, I didn’t think you had it in you!””

“Vivian!”

His sister snickered, not registering Patton’s serious tone. She’d been smirking slyly at him the entire time he’d been trying to introduce Ethan to his Dad, and she’d literally dragged him outside at the nearest possible opportunity so that she could excitedly interrogate him.

Patton rubbed his arms as he grumpily surveyed the garden. What was the point of all this cold weather if he didn’t at least get some snow out of it?

“What’s going on, how long have you been together, why didn’t you tell me you finally got a real boyfriend?”

…ugh. He’d thought kissing Ethan earlier would be a good idea as it might finally get all of his infuriating tricks to stop – Ethan couldn’t keep flustering him with his teasing if he thought that Patton wasn’t bothered by it! (In hindsight it might not have been the best idea, but clearly, Patton wasn’t known for his ability to think things through).

Of course, Vi had to walk in at the worst moment and jump to the wrong conclusion.

“Vivian, please stop!” he whined, pouting at his sister, who was literally bouncing up and down like an excited child.

…Maybe that was why she didn’t mind being out here like this. They could be could be warm in the living room listening to Christmas music if he hadn’t been so stupid.

“Aw, am I not allowed to call your boyfriend hot?” She cooed, leaning forward to ruffle his hair.

…why exactly had he assumed his sisters would stop tying to baby him once he turned twenty-one?

“As I recall, you did enough ogling of Andre the first time I brought him home- don’t you deny it!” she finished with a triumphant giggle.

Patton rolled his eyes, tugging at the sleeves of his hoodie. Vivian was supposed to be his source of support this week! He’d been planning to go to grumble to her when Ethan got too frustrating, not listen to her gush about him! When she’d walked in on them, he’d wanted to lead her away so he could explain the situation, but then his father had been there, so he’d had to shut his mouth and play along.

Although, he had to admit, Ethan had been amazing with his father. He hadn’t been particularly worried about his mother – Mum loved everyone! Dad, on the other hand had a tendency to be a teensy bit more strict.

Still, Ethan had been incredible, shaking Dad’s hand, politely answering all his questions about his family, his classes, his career plans – Patton had never even seen Ethan tell someone what his favourite colour was without twisting his answer in some way! Patton didn’t think his father had ever taken to someone he’d actually been dating so quickly.

It was honestly kind of startling, seeing the way Ethan’s entire personality could shift in a second depending on who he was talking to. He’d become so warm and friendly and nice when he was talking to his mom, despite the fact that he’d been winding up Patton mere minutes before. And the minute Dad had approached him, his entire cool, detached demeanour had melted away, giving way to courtesy and polite deference as if- well. Patton wasn’t sure he was ready to start thinking about what he and Ethan had been doing before that.

In fact, he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about Ethan at all at this moment. Because thinking about Ethan would mean thinking about how he was actually, genuinely putting effort into helping him, and thinking about that would mean circling back to why Ethan was helping him, even though he didn’t even seem to like him most of the time and wondering if he didn’t actually have some tricks up his sleeve and- nope, okay, he was doing it again.

“Vivian, can we talk about literally anything else?” he begged. “Ooh, how about your wedding; surely that’s a more engaging topic?” Come on, Vivian had literally never passed up an opportunity to talk about her wedding, there was no way this could fail. Well, not that he could blame her, he was pretty excited too! There was going to be cookies, his little niece was going to be the ring bearer, it was going to be so cute. And of course, he was pretty excited for Vivian too!

If only her ‘finally’ getting engaged didn’t have to mean him constantly being asked when it was his turn.

“Oh my goodness, you’re right!” Vivian gasped, clapping her hands. Finally, a new topic! “Listen, I know you said you probably wouldn’t need a plus one, but it is totally fine if you want to bring Ethan; we can probably still make adjustments, have you asked him yet? Should I ask him? I should go ask him!”

…Or not.

“No, Vivian, that’s fine!” he urged, grabbing her before she could run back in. (It astounded him when people who hadn’t met his sister thought he was impulsive and easily excitable) “I mean – you know there’s a very good chance that Ethan and I won’t actually be together by the time you get married, and also that you might never actually see him again so maybe you shouldn’t actually do that probably?”

Oh, snickerdoodles, now she just looked concerned.

“What, why? Are the two of you okay? You know, most couples go through rough patches, that doesn’t mean-“

“No, no Vivian, that’s not it, we’re fine, we’re not having problems, we’re just-“ Oh fudge, he was just digging himself into a deeper hole with everything he said, wasn’t he?

“I should certainly hope we aren’t.” Ethan’s voice cut through the air and a long black coat was draped over Patton’s shoulders as he came to stand behind him. “You forgot to take your coat with you, love.”

Love? Oh, well, they were pretending to date, he supposed. It was a fairly standard cute pet name. There was no reason for his heart to jump when he heard it.

“This…isn’t my coat.” He did still put it on, but still. Definitely not his coat.

“Oh, I know, but you look so lovely in mine, dearest.”

Fake boyfriend, fake relationship, they were pretending to date, his sister was right there, that was the only reason…

“Ethan, hi! Patton and I were just talking about you!”

“So I gathered.”

“Or, I should say, we were talking about me and my fiancé – Andre, you met him in there – and how we’re getting married in the coming spring!”

Vivian was getting really quite good at showing off her engagement ring. Ethan, had apparently always been really good at getting on people’s good sides.

“Oh, congratulations, may I say, your ring is stunning. Your fiancé has excellent taste.”

“Aww, thank you! You’re so sweet. I was just telling Patton how lovely it would be if you could make it to the wedding, I don’t have a card on me, for obvious reasons, but Patton has one, you’ll find the details on there…”

“Vi, is this totally necessary-“ How on Earth was he supposed to explain this in a few months’ time, when Ethan didn’t show up?

“That sounds absolutely wonderful, I adore weddings, it’s so sweet of you to invite me.”

Patton knew for a fact that Ethan did not enjoy weddings in the slightest.

“Aw, of course! Listen, as far as I’m concerned, my baby brother likes you and you have incredible taste in facial piercings; we may as well be best friends already.”

“Thank you so much, yeah, you know, I wasn’t so sure about getting it at first, but-“

“Guys, can we go inside? Please?” He couldn’t fault Ethan’s coat for its warmth, but if he had to listen to this conversation, he’d rather be playing with Abby than freezing out here. At this point, she was the one person in the family who wouldn’t be praising Ethan to the skies right now, even if it was only because she was two and couldn’t really talk that much.

…

Patton had thought that his biggest problems during this visit would be convincing his family that their relationship was real and making sure Ethan didn’t do anything to mess him up. One day in, he’d come to realise that Ethan was way better at this than he could imagine anyone else being – maybe even better than Roman, and he was actually an actor.

Now his biggest problem was worrying about how sad everyone was going to be when he finally broke the news of the break up to them.

Patton was alone with his Mum and Dad – Vi and Andre were tired from the ordeal of taking a two year old through an airport twice, and Ethan had chosen to head upstairs too, after pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek (which had gotten Mum to coo) and muttering something about wanting to get some studying done (which had earned an approving nod from Dad), so Patton was left to help clean up after dinner.

…And his parents were still talking about his supposed ‘boyfriend’.

“Well now, I won’t deny that I was a little put off when I first saw him, he definitely wasn’t what I expected, but you know, once we got talking, I found him to be a fairly stand up fella.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that first bit hon, I thought he looked quite charming! Sure, it wasn’t exactly what I’d call conventional, but he’s a very handsome young man, and it was a very distinctive look. And I do love his manners so, he isn’t rude at all…”

…Suddenly, Patton was quite sleepy as well.

He went upstairs and found Ethan sitting up in his bed, surrounded by several pages of notes in a neat, slanting hand. He’d changed into a t-shirt and sweat pants, and pulled his hair back into a ponytail. He looked so different like this. Patton decided to add the way some strands of Ethan’s hair framed his face to the list of things he was definitely not thinking about this week.

Ethan didn’t look up as from his notes as he walked in.

“Um…hi?”

“Hm…oh, hey.”

“You’re actually studying.”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“Well, no, but…I’m not making you miss anything right? Do you have any exams coming up that you need to be focusing on?”

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. I wouldn’t have agreed to come out here if I thought it would interfere with my abilities to pass my classes.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Mm.”

“…You’re really very good.”

“Come, now Patton, it’s not nice to lie.”

“I mean, you’re really good, at what you were doing earlier. Everyone loves you.”

“I’m able to read people well enough to then deduce what they expect of me, and behave accordingly when I need to. Not exactly a skill. Most people do it every day.”

“…Okay. Um, do you mind if I just move your notes to the side a bit, so I can sleep on this side? I’m sorry about this whole situation though.” Patton gestured awkwardly to the bed. “I guess it should have occurred to me that we’d have to – but it didn’t, I’m sorry, I hope it’s not too weird.”

“Well, it’s not weird for me at all, but if you’re uncomfortable, those toys in the corner would make an excellent barrier for preserving your modesty.”

“Oh stop.” Patton giggled a little despite himself. “Goodnight. You’ll sleep soon?”

“When I’m tired.”

Patton drifted off quite quickly, Ethan’s solemn, focused face in the corner of his eyes as they closed. Ethan wore different faces around different people. He could be sweet and charming, polite and professional, open and friendly, at the drop of a hat. Still… right before Patton fell asleep, he couldn’t help but think that he preferred his Ethan, sharp and witty and infuriatingly snarky, but at least Patton knew he was real, he wasn’t trying to charm him, or – wait, had he said ‘his’ Ethan? No, nope, Ethan wasn’t his, he meant the Ethan that he got to see, not – this was fake, – Ethan didn’t even like him, and the feeling was mutual.

…Sugar cookies. He’d been arguing with Ethan literally this morning. Then he’d kissed him once and seen him be sweet with his mum and his thoughts were starting to go all funny. He really had been single for way too long. Maybe he should look into getting a boyfriend for real when he got back.

Taglist:

@lunatatic

@3-has-charm

[junker-town]

12 things to know about the NCAA’s 29-page Mizzou’s report

The NCAA says a tutor did a bunch of work for a dozen Missouri athletes. The punishments are steep for the tutor and her former employer.

The NCAA dropped a hammer on Mizzou’s athletic department Thursday, announcing a series of sanctions that most prominently include a 2019 bowl ban for the football team. The school will appeal, but for now, it’s in boiling water.

The punishments stem from compliance violations by a tutor who was a bit too helpful to the athletes she taught, sometimes taking exams and, in at least one case, “an entire course” for a player she was supposed to be helping. The Tigers’ baseball and softball teams also got postseason bans, but it’s the football ban that will get the most pub.

The NCAA’s investigation stretched from January 2017 to February 2018, when it formally accused Mizzou of academic fraud. The NCAA’s public presentation on Mizzou is here.

I’ve read the organization’s 29-page report. Here’s a collection of key things to know and some of the biggest eyebrow-raisers.

1. The tutor did work for at least 12 Mizzou players across at least five sports, according to the NCAA, but the biggest issues were with the three punished sports.

The cheating came across three types of classes, per the NCAA: ones at Mizzou, ones at other schools that Mizzou players were taking to load up credits, and a math placement exam at Mizzou. The players who benefitted from the tutor’s help were split between football, baseball, softball, women’s soccer, and men’s basketball.

But there was only one women’s soccer player involved that the NCAA mentions, and that player didn’t keep playing after the tutor did their work. A men’s basketball player is only mentioned as table-setter. The NCAA describes the tutor feeling pressured to help the player pass, because of an interaction with an academic coordinator, and thus doing a player’s work for the first time. From there, the NCAA says it became more routine.

The tutor left Mizzou in November 2016, the same month she self-reported NCAA violations to the school.

2. Four players, including two football players, allegedly got the tutor’s help to cheat an algebra class at a non-NCAA school. One of those players had an entire online algebra class done for him, the NCAA says.

This help spanned a wide range of services, as the NCAA tells it:

Her assistance ranged from obtaining student-athletes’ usernames and passwords and completing their coursework independently to writing out or personally completing work in the presence of student- athletes during their scheduled tutoring sessions. She also responded to screenshots of exam and homework questions with solutions to those problems, in a similar fashion to how she assisted the softball student-athlete described earlier.

This was where the tutor did a whole class for a football player, per the NCAA, after he failed the course in 2015. “The student-athlete acknowledged that he allowed the tutor to complete the entire course the second time because it relieved some of his burden during his final season,” the NCAA says, again tying cheating to continued eligibility.

3. The NCAA says the tutor did a whole Mizzou class’ worth of homework for one player.

One of the courses where the NCAA says cheating happened was an applied statistics class. This was an online class with 12 homework assignments, which students could complete at their own pace, along with three exams. The Committee on Infractions says:

From summer 2015 through spring 2016, she also provided four other student-athletes with completed assignments. She provided one student-athlete with all 12 completed assignments and the other student-athletes with four to nine assignments each. Two of those student-athletes took the class remotely. Generally, the student-athletes submitted the assignments as their own, though on a few occasions, the tutor submitted some of the assignments for one of the student-athletes.

Not just production of homework assignments, but sometimes delivery, too. Talk about an unparalleled commitment to service.

Three of the five players the tutor helped cheat in that class had already finished their playing careers at Mizzou, according to the NCAA. The two who hadn’t were a football player and a baseball player who the NCAA says subsequently kept playing.

4. The tutor didn’t always make much of an effort to help players solve problems, but instead just went right to doing them, per the NCAA.

The NCAA describes the tutor getting text screenshots of Statistics 1200 problems from one softball player, then solving them and texting the answers back.

5. The NCAA says the tutor helped two other football players cheat an online algebra course at Division II Adams State.

Investigators say the tutor got the players’ logins and did “portions” of the coursework for them, including “self-administered and unproctored” tests.

6. “Hi! I was wondering if you had finished the other homework assignments?!”

That’s a text message the NCAA says one of those football players sent the tutor. The two players “denied that the tutor completed any work on their behalf,” the NCAA says, but it’s clear the NCAA didn’t believe either of them:

Based on the corroborative information, it is more likely that the tutor completed all of the homework for one student-athlete and two-thirds of the homework for the other, as well as [two] unproctored exams for each.

7. Two football players got cheating help on a math placement exam that spared them from having to take a remedial class, the NCAA says.

You remember those tests, right? I took one my freshman year of college. At Mizzou, they’re supposed to be taken alone, but the NCAA says the tutor stayed in the room and helped the two players pass. One case was in December 2015, the other in April 2016.

8. The NCAA tries to explain why this case is different than the one at North Carolina, which didn’t result in the Heels getting punished despite offering sham classes for years. It explains poorly.

What UNC did was its own form of academic fraud, but the Heels weren’t punished. A major part of the NCAA’s explanation was that not only athletes benefitted from those courses, so they weren’t getting the type of special benefit that would constitute an NCAA violation. But at Mizzou, the tutor’s help appears to have been limited to athletes. She was an athletics employee, and the NCAA mentions no efforts by her to help other students cheat.

Had the NCAA made that point, it would’ve made some sense. But that’s not what the NCAA mentions as the difference. Here’s what the NCAA does say:

Among other differences, UNC stood by the courses and the grades it awarded student-athletes. In support of that position, UNC asserted that although courses were created and graded by an office secretary, student-athletes completed their own work. Here, by contrast, Missouri acknowledged that the tutor completed student-athletes’ work and, in most instances, this conduct violated its honor code.

Translation: UNC had joke classes, but players did the work themselves. Mizzou had real classes, but players didn’t do the work themselves.

There was no need for the NCAA to twist itself into a pretzel here, unless it just didn’t want to draw attention to how much it hates when athletes get benefits regular students don’t get for their school activities. The biggest of those, of course, is money.

9. The NCAA lauds Mizzou for its “exemplary cooperation” with investigators, but still punishes the school severely.

The NCAA cites some mitigating factors in determining Mizzou’s punishment: “prompt acknowledgement of the violation, acceptance of responsibility and imposition of meaningful corrective measures and/or penalties” is one. Others are efforts to resolve the situation quickly and an established history of self-reporting smaller violations.

Who knows how severe Mizzou’s punishment would’ve been without those points of praise, but it still feels like this decision could discourage others from talking to the NCAA.

10. It seems like Mizzou’s recent men’s basketball NCAA violations led to a tougher punishment in this case.

In 2016, the NCAA found a handful of impermissible-benefit violations and also said Mizzou “failed to monitor” its program for potential violations. It hit the school with a year of probation and a one-year postseason ban in men’s basketball.

“The panel makes specific note that Missouri now has had two Level I cases in less than three years,” the NCAA’s infractions committee writes. That panel decided not to consider this a “mitigated” Level I violation, which would’ve been better for Mizzou.

11. The tutor arguably got the stiffest punishment of all.

A 10-year show-cause penalty, meaning any NCAA school that hires her in the next decade has to keep her out of athletics. In practice, it’s easy to see the case keeping her from getting a job at all kinds of schools, both colleges and not.

12. Mizzou got hit with a handful of other sanctions that won’t get talked about as much but will still be frustrating.

Three years of probation, through January 2022. That’s department-wide, and it means if Mizzou has a whiff of another serious NCAA issue, the punishment could be worse.

A $5,000 fine, plus 1 percent of the school’s football, baseball, and softball budgets. The football budget fine won’t be a number to sneeze at.

A 5 percent scholarship cut across football, baseball, and softball in 2019-20 (which has to be spread across the sports based on recent scholarship allotment levels)

Several recruiting penalties for 2019-20, including seven-week bans on unofficial visits, “recruiting communications,” and “recruiting contacts and evaluations” in football, baseball, and softball. Those teams are also getting a 12.5 percent cut in both official visits and in-person evaluation days. Added up, it’s a big suite of recruiting penalties.

Vacated won/lost records, though it’s not clear how all those will work out. Mizzou’s going to lose at least a few football wins, in all likelihood. Vacating wins is pretty silly, I think.

Plus, every senior on these teams is likely to be allowed a free transfer, thanks to NCAA rule that can provide that when a team’s bowl-banned for the rest of a player’s career. It’s not yet clear how many Mizzou players are actually going to roll out.

[strongenoughfoundation-blog]

Libraries and Piragua (Lin-Manuel x Reader)

Summary: You were sexiled by your roommate on a day that you’d kill just to collapse into bed. You end up passing time with someone that makes your day end on a high note.

Word Count: 1,340

Warnings: Aimless plot, mentions of sex (nothing graphic), cussing, mentions of death (but character death like Abuela Claudia’s death in ITH mentioned is what I’m saying)

A/N: College AUs are my weakness, this is a demonstration of my knack for tying In The Heights into literally anything (and making my Classical Tradition professor proud with my Sophocles reference). Also, I am obsessed with the way Lin’s eyes are so expressive and was forced to take out approximately 1,000 references to them from this fic during proofreading. _________________________

“Please [Y/N]? You owe me from that time you broke the coffee machine, [Y/N].” you muttered, mocking your roommate’s pleas as you trudged across campus to the library. You planned on mocking your own stupidity for agreeing to her request once you were done being annoyed with her. She had to pick the one day you ended up having a terrible, rushing-everywhere, everything-goes-wrong kind of day to seal the deal with the guy she’s been pining over for months. 

You yanked open the door to the library with an unnecessary amount of force before you stalked inside. You made it upstairs, appreciative of the near empty scene. There was only a few people scattered among the tables or computers along the wall. At least you knew you’d be left alone with your bitterness. 

You pulled out a chair to toss your bag onto before shedding your jacket. Once you got settled in, you pulled out your headphones and laptop. You popped in one headphone and scanned your library looking for a song that might ease your exasperation. Once you had it playing you pulled out your textbook and leafed through it, debating whether you wanted to be productive or not. You settled on not and shoved it away before pulling your laptop closer. With your one free ear you heard a chuckle and you internally sighed before turning to find its source. The table to your right had a boy who was looking at you amused. You wondered if the dark circles under his eyes meant he was as exhausted as you were.

“That’s the least amount of effort to study I’ve seen all day.” his eyes glinted in amusement, dissuading you from the snarky comment you had on the tip of your tongue.

“I don’t think I can handle anything else today.” your body slumped at your admission and he nodded sympathetically.

“So, why are you here? Last minute cramming that you decided was not as important as you thought?” he guessed and you shook your head.

“My roommate, she’s uh-” you stopped abruptly, realizing that this was a total stranger. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he connected the dots. “Anyways, here I am.”

“How long are you banished?” he asked, tilting his head curiously.

“An undetermined amount of time. But from the texts I’ve had read aloud to me, I’d say quite awhile.” you deflated even more.

“Damn,” he chuckled. “I’ll let you fume in peace then.”

You nodded, hiding your disappointment as you turned back to your laptop. You reminded yourself that mere moments ago you had wanted nothing but peace, and this was someone who was respecting that. You tilted your laptop screen back a little more so you could see better as you tried to come up with ways to pass time.

You had an hour of peace before the boy at the table struck up another conversation, this one seeming to stick more. You listened attentively as you studied the way his eyes lit up and his hands moved through the air as he told stories. His name was Lin, he was a theater major, and he was from New York. A place that he loved dearly. It was also the setting of the musical he was writing. What had started as a brief summary of the plot had launched into a full scale synopsis and you egged him on with more questions. 

“I mean, piragua. It’s essential to capturing the vibe of the neighborhood but it feels a little awkward just throwing a random piragüero in there.” he tapped his pen against the table, something you were usually annoyed with but could, for some reason or another, stand when he did it.

“He could play the part of the narrator.” you suggested. You were not a theater major, you hadn’t written anything close to a musical in your life. The closest encounter you had ever even had with a musical was when one of your friends dragged you with her to see Rent and you spent a good portion of the time trying to figure out what was going on. That’s to say you were severely underqualified for suggesting anything to Lin.

“I’ve tried that but then it feels so unnatural having this weird breaking-the-fourth-wall narrator.” he sighed, running his hand through his hair, another habit you had noticed in the short time you’d spent with him.

“So use him as a plot device to speak through. Like Sophocles with the Chorus.” you tried again, this time calling upon the random knowledge from an obscure Ancient Greek Literature class you had taken your freshman year. He blinked at you surprised.

“What?”

“Well the Chorus in Sophocles’s work is like basically what he uses to tell the audience exactly what’s happening or how they’re supposed to feel, but he introduces them like a character - the city’s elders or whatever.” you elaborated, proud of yourself for remembering that much from a class you barely showed up to. It had bored you to tears at the time but now that you had inspired an awestruck expression from Lin, it felt like the most important class you had ever taken.

“That’s….kind of genius.” he finally responded, his hand searched the table for his pen before he started jotting down messy notes. You were sure that you had just unknowingly killed the conversation, so you turned back to your laptop once again, already trying to think up new ways to start another conversation with him.

“I’m gonna kill a character off.” Lin announced and you jerked your head back towards him in shock.

“What?” you echoed his question from earlier.

“You can’t bring up Sophocles and not inspire me to kill someone off.” he snorted, rolling his eyes playfully

“You’re turning your musical, about the neighborhood you grew up in, into a tragedy because a stranger mentioned Sophocles?” you spoke slowly before you laughed at that notion.

“Not a tragedy, but you did just help me figure a lot out.” he grinned and you reciprocated.

“I think I probably owe you coffee or something for that. Or if you want, I know this great diner that’s only a few blocks from campus. We could walk there.” he suggested and you nodded in agreement before you had even realized what you were doing. His smile brightened even more.

“No! Just you wait, I haven’t even gotten to the best part!” Lin exclaimed through your laughter.

“You tripped on your way up to receive your diploma, how could it go up from here?” your laughter was uncontained and the way his grin widened every time he invoked a new round of laughter told you that he didn’t mind much that it was preventing him from finishing his story.

“I dropped my diploma when I went to pose for the picture with the principal so my picture is a blur of me bending down to pick it up with the principal’s hand awkwardly stuck out in an unmet handshake.” he continued and you tossed your head back, your hand moving to your chest. You had been swapping embarrassing stories all night, your food long abandoned, and your waitress nowhere in sight. Lin’s warmth had made it so easy to open up to him and talk to him about anything, and before long hours had passed. Your phone buzzed against the table and you scooped it up to read the message.

From: Roomie❤ You can come back now, he’s left

To: Roomie❤ I’m gonna be back late tonight, catch up tomorrow?

You flipped your phone over so the screen was facing down as you turned back to Lin, giving him your undivided attention.

“I think you mentioned something about an embarrassing prom story earlier?” you encouraged him to continue and he let out a laugh before launching into another story that reduced you to tears. When you saw Lin light up as he spoke, you silently thanked your roommate for forcing you out in the first place.

Tagged: @overcaffeinated-and-underslept @itsjaynebird

[dpinoycosmonaut]

HOTSHOTS GOT GREEDY

by Bert A. Ramirez / July 13, 2018

               Perhaps the worth of a trade – arguably the biggest to hit the PBA over the last decade – that took place almost two years ago to this day may be reflected in the fortunes that the two teams involved in that blockbuster have enjoyed in the ongoing Commissioner’s Cup.  While the Magnolia Hotshots have been shut out of the playoffs, the Rain or Shine Elastopainters had not only topped the eliminations but have advanced into the semifinals against one of two teams, Giñebra, that have been touted as a title favorite.

               Yes, it’s almost like beating a dead horse, but we just can’t help it, if we are to base it on unassailable evidence borne out particularly by developments of the past few months, which have done nothing but reaffirm the big miscalculation that the Hotshots’ management committed when it pulled off this trade.  Exactly one year and nine months to the day the then-Star Hotshots traded their franchise star of 12 years, James Yap, for ROS hotshot Paul Lee on October 13, 2016, that deal is looking more and more as favoring the Elastopainters.

               This was again highlighted by the contrasting performances of both Yap and Lee with their respective teams in the games that sealed their teams’ fortunes in the ongoing conference.  While Lee was an abject failure in the Hotshots’ 89-78 elimination by Alaska with just six points, Yap added to his legend as a superb crunchtime performer with 27 points and five rebounds, spiking his play with a career-high-tying seven three-point shots out of 10 attempts to spark ROS to a clinching 103-97 victory over Globalport.

               Yes, I don’t know if Magnolia team governor Rene Pardo or team manager Alvin Patrimonio took note of the stark contrast between the two players they swapped (I don’t even think they’d want to think about it), but it’s there, as clear as daylight, that they erred in sending away one of their veritable legends for what they thought would be their next franchise star.   And considering the circumstances of that trade and the values involved – Yap did not even learn he was about to be sent away from the only team he had known all his pro life until the deal has been completed – it does look like James is now rubbing it into his former bosses’ faces and karma has begun to bite back and haunt Magnolia nearly two years after that trade.

               Let’s go and revisit that trade, just to understand what went behind that blockbuster deal that shocked many a sports fan, particularly the legion of Purefoods franchise faithful that have made the club arguably the second-most popular PBA team next only to the Gin Kings.  One would remember, of course, that the Hotshots then floundered just two years after scoring a grand-slam victory in 2014, only the fifth to be accomplished in league annals.  Wanting to shake up the team, the team’s management then thought of negotiating a trade, never realizing that the primary reason the club underachieved was the fact that Tim Cone, the Hotshots’ grand-slam coach who steered them to five of their 13 titles, was replaced by a complete tyro, Jason Webb.

               They found a partner in the Elastopainters, who at that time were in the midst of a contract impasse with their top star, Lee, whose two-year deal expired earlier that September and who before signing that deal had tried to ask for a release from ROS. The Elastopainters, thinking they had a disgruntled star in their hands, grabbed the opportunity when the Hotshots offered Yap, who at that time was 34 years old and was considered expendable enough by the Hotshots if they could get a star of Lee’s caliber who was seven years younger in exchange.

               The Hotshots never thought of the intangibles, the unquantifiable characteristics that make a difference between players, nor the fact that even if Yap was getting injury-prone because of age, Lee was equally vulnerable at seven years his junior.  Fact is, when Rain or Shine won the 2012 Governors Cup during Lee’s rookie year, Lee missed all of the final series because of injury.  Star never even thought of the values that the old Purefoods team so carefully nurtured under the Ayala Group – merit, loyalty, trust and gratitude – nor the fact that Yap had helped the franchise to seven of its championships and was arguably the most popular player in the league.

               The team’s leadership simply got too excited and greedy to acquire the six-foot Lee, whom it thought could give them more years, never mind the time-enshrined values that fans hold dear to their hearts and thus made the trade cause shock waves when it was finally completed and announced.

               Almost two years to the trade, faithful fans of the Hotshots feel more than ever that Purefoods management made a big mistake.  They did get to move on from the trade but after witnessing how the two players involved have fared with their new teams, they have confirmed that the true value of a trade may not be initially apparent but only be validated after repeated tests.  Granted that that 27-point performance by Yap was just one game and his best in fact in nearly two years with the Elastopainters, one should consider that Yap has not been specially featured by ROS coach Caloy Garcia and has, in fact, been benched for extended periods due to what Garcia claimed was his emphasis on defense.

               Lee, meanwhile, has gotten all the opportunity with the Hotshots with one glaring result: He has been virulent, as expected, at times especially in the elimination round, but has been almost an insignificant factor during big games, particularly during crunchtime when the game is on the line. In the last Philippine Cup finals where Magnolia was beaten 4-1 by San Miguel Beer, for example, Lee miserably failed to serve as the Hotshots’ expected leader and crunchtime performer in the face of an aching need by his team for a spark and an offensive force.

               At the height of a Hotshots rally in Game 4, Lee was inserted into the lineup and quickly turned the ball over twice, accounting for the start of the Beermen’s 10-0 counter run that all but sapped out the Hotshots and gave the Beermen a 3-1 series lead.  In the decisive fifth contest that he was supposed to take charge in particularly with the Hotshots in front this time and the Beermen mounting a comeback, the former University of the East star could not lay it all on the line like Yap used to do, passing it off instead of taking the shot and coughing up the ball a total of seven times.  It’s not a matter of championship experience as Lee was supposed to be championship-hardened himself and also was Finals MVP when ROS won the Commissioner’s Cup in 2016 just before he was traded.  But, as good friend and fellow Purefoods diehard Erick Reyes said, Lee was surrounded by bruisers at Rain or Shine, and he didn’t have to take charge the way Yap did with Purefoods during situations where the greatness of a player is defined.

               Looking back, it would have been more productive perhaps had the Hotshots opted for the status quo and let Yap retire with the club the way they did Patrimonio.  After all, Yap could still be productive as he showed with the Elastopainters, and the Hotshots have time and again looked for a creator that nobody in the lineup, save for P.J. Simon, could provide.

               On top of that, the ballclub would have provided a lesson in loyalty and values that not even the best, cold-blooded deal would have demonstrated to its loyal fans.  Let’s again hear it from my good friend, Erick, who knows a little something about personnel issues, having been a lifetime human resource practitioner in the corporate world, as he cites several NBA examples: “The Spurs could have shopped Tim Duncan for a younger center.  The Lakers could have gotten value for Kobe Bryant.  But they didn’t (trade them) because these organizations have class,” Erick says.  “Some things are bigger than basketball.  You just don’t trade the franchise’s face who gave you seven championships.  He did not only give you baskets; James gave us, Purefoods fans, moments to cherish.”

               That deal, in fact, has not looked as bad as it now does, and all because, one has to admit, the Hotshots got greedy. (Photo from PBA Images)