#anyways i looked through my schools entire course catalogue for this and it shows. made me realize how many classes i wanna take but cant

[palukoo]

tww teacher au for the ask game!

combining this with another ask from anon: tww academia au!! bc i was gonna make this college anyways bc most of them are too pretentious to work at a high school even if they are passionate about education

jed was the chair of the economics department for a really long time (including when some of the staff went to whatever made up school i'm having them be a part of) and would be like. kind of a polarizing figure on ratemyprofessors. his classes are generally engaging and you learn a lot, but the lecture is on externalities and he's been talking about national parks for the last twenty minutes. he also tends to run late, and his class isn't easy, but he has tons of office hours and writes great recommendations. he would generally teach like a freshman/intro course for fun (maybe intro to macro?) and then one or two advanced classes. for like, some structure, these days he's probably the president of the college/uni, but maybe he just. let's himself teach a random class every semester anyways, because he misses it. (if he occasionally hijacks the american studies or theology department, who is gonna stop him? usually its like. history of the global economy or something tho)

leo is probably like the provost or dean or whatever in charge of faculty or something. if he teaches, which he probably has at some point but idk if he still does, it's probably some foreign affairs class. like international security or something.

abbey is probably the chair of their pre-med program or like the director of their (science) research programs. there's probably someone calling it nepotism at some point, until everyone points out she's had this job since before jed was president, so. checkmate. she'll rotate between a few different classes, probably like. an anatomy at some point, but for some reason i really like the concept of her doing some molec cell or biochem (def more on the cellular side of things as opposed to ecology, and also less genetics, so. but maybe more public health). a lot of students are kind of afraid of her but tons of people apply to work in her lab, and she really loves her lab students so much.

cj could do like. media/publicity for the school, like that's a job she could easily have, but i kinda want them all to actually. teach, so she probably teaches some form of media studies/communication studies/journalism. students love her, because she's funny and smart and energetic in class, and compassionate about extensions and whatever. she takes her job super seriously, and wants to give everyone the best chance she can. she'll like, practice in her lecture hall ahead of time.

toby i can't decide on. you would think some form of writing or communications class, but i want to give him like. a bunch of classes cross listed as like sociology and political science and philosophy and american studies. like he'll teach like political ethics, or classes about civil rights, or literature about specific political movements. he assigns like no tests and all papers and grades them like. harshly, but the students who really come in and try, he loves and will work with. realistically he should probably be chair of a department but idk which one.

josh teaches a bunch of political classes and his students all make fun of him, thank you. like he'll teach classes on legislative processes, and he's like not a bad professor and clearly knows what he's talking about, but he also comes in with coffee stains and messy hair and his chair breaks weekly and he and his projector are in the middle of an ongoing war that they all know he isn't winning. he (like cj) really wants his students to like him, and they mostly do. his lectures can also get a little tangenty, but that's okay. he should also probably head a department, i guess political science, but rip to all those other profs.

donna ta-ed for josh at some point when he was still really new at it, and was probably going to do political science but also maybe english, who knows, in grad school, but ended up spending a summer working in the admissions office and actually really loved it, so she did admissions for a while until she got too depressed rejecting students, and now she does some form of academic counselling and everyone loves her, and she absolutely will fight professors on behalf of students

sam also does some niche cross listed humanities classes, like he'll do literature & law, or american lit and culture. he does a ton of pre law advising also!

amy! amy is probably chair of the gender/sexuality/women's studies department bc i say so. she mostly teaches more gov focused classes, though, like women and the law, or women in leadership, or sexuality in america. she's also kind of harsh on grading, but she's super good at helping students make connections for their careers and shit.

joey teaches polling/stats and political polling classes thank you.

half of them are known for writing those papers that are clearly part of a huge academic disagreement where they're just criticizing other people's papers. usually at different schools, but not always. interdepartmental/humanities prof gatherings are fun!

[charincharge]

I Don’t Want To Wait, eleven

rowaelin high school bff au masterlist

Based on the prompt:

“Person A falls into Person B’s lap”

A crowd of screaming students streamed past the window as Aelin slouched down at her desk. The last day of school was supposed to mean early release, ice cream down by the pier and finally celebrating two whole months of freedom.

But not today. Not for Aelin. Instead, she was in hell.

She barely paid attention as Principal Havilliard explained their detention task, though she didn’t miss her fellow detentionee’s groans as he spilled the ancient library card catalogue onto the floor, his foot shuffling them even further out of order.

“I have paperwork I’ll be doing in my office right next door, and I will notice if this door opens one inch. You have three hours to put these cards back in order,” he smirked, his boot-covered foot shoving the cards around some more. “See you all at seven.”

Aelin glanced over at Rowan, hoping for any kind of assurance, but just like the last twenty hours, he refused to acknowledge her. She knew she’d screwed up; she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so awful as when she saw Rowan’s red-rimmed eyes pick her up for school this morning. She’d apologized profusely, over and over until she wasn’t sure she could apologize anymore, but he just shrugged stiffly and refused to look at her. It had felt like the longest day of her life, and it still wasn’t over.

“Some for youuu,” Dorian cooed, scooping up the cards from the floor and plopping a pile onto Rowan’s desk.

“Some for youuu,” he continued around the room, distributing cards to Manon, who Aelin had been not entirely surprised to see in detention. Dorian dumped the remainder of cards on his and Aelin’s desks, smartly avoiding an already-napping Lorcan in the back corner of the room.

“It’ll be finished fastest if we separate by letter, and then organize each letter,” Dorian explained.

Manon laughed as she started sorting. “Your dad make you do this on your free time?” she asked.

“You know it, babe,” he said with a wink. “Nah,” he said, shaking his head with a wry smile. “My dad just loves giving me detention.”

Dorian kicked up his feet onto the desk as he began his sorting, aimlessly chatting with Manon.

As Aelin began her own sorting, she glanced over at Rowan again. He was dutifully separating his own piles, shoulders tensed, as if he could feel Aelin’s gaze on him, his own eyes boring holes into the desk in front of him, refusing to look up. She hoped against all hopes that he’d look up and all would be forgiven, but she knew that wasn’t likely. Fuck. She’d really fucked up. She had no idea what to do or say to make it better. She felt entirely out of her depth. Rowan had never ignored her for this long, and she was starting to feel like a drug addict going through withdrawal. She was tweaking, in desperate need of any kind of acknowledgment – a flash of his dark green eyes, a smile, a nod… anything.

Instead, they sat in tense silence, the only sound the shuffling of index cards. The minutes ticked by, endlessly, and Aelin could feel herself growing more frustrated with Rowan’s silence with every passing second. She knew she was about to burst.

“L’s are done,” Rowan said, pushing a stack of index cards to the corner of his desk. Manon collected them and dropped them onto the front desk, adding them to her own pile.

Aelin glanced at the giant wall clock. 4:45. Only two hours and fifteen minutes more of the silent treatment. She groaned and placed her head down on the desk.

“Okay, what’s going on with you two?” Dorian asked, pointing at Aelin and Rowan. Rowan’s back stiffened, going ram-rod straight as he frowned at Dorian’s question. “Aren’t you supposed to be best friends?”

Rowan scrunched his nose up and finally, finally glanced toward Aelin. The pain in his eyes nearly knocked Aelin out. She inhaled sharply, biting on her lip, trying to hold back the onslaught of emotions just a look from Rowan caused.

“We are best friends,” Rowan mumbled, causing the knot in Aelin’s chest to unfurl slightly.

“Then again,” Dorian smirked. “I repeat. What’s going on with you two?” he asked. “Because you’re kind of acting like you hate each other.”

“We don’t hate each other,” Aelin burst out, her heart pounding.

Rowan frowned, finally putting all his attention on her. “I don’t know,” he began. “What you did was pretty hateful.”

Aelin leaned toward him, her voice hoarse with desperation. “And I said I was sorry a million times. I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Ooh,” Dorian perched himself on a desk between the fighting pair, looking back and forth at the dueling friends. “Should we all talk it out?”

“No,” Rowan snapped, going back to his card organization.

“Boo,” Manon jeered, joining in on what Aelin would rather not have as a group discussion, causing a bright smile to appear on Dorian’s face. He was living for this drama, apparently. “Kind of sounds like you two just need to kiss and make up.”

Aelin’s cheeks flushed at the mention of kissing, which she tried to push down immediately, covering her face with her loose hair.

“Mind your own business,” Rowan frowned, bravely talking back to Manon in a way that Aelin was sure would get him snapped at. But instead, a feral grin appeared on Manon’s face as she twirled a piece of her white blonde hair with a long nail.

“Oh come on. I dare you.”

“What?” he asked.

“I dare you to kiss Aelin,” Manon repeated smugly.

She raised her eyebrows at Rowan, who’s lips turned down even further.

“Don’t be stupid,” Rowan said, rolling his eyes. Aelin stomach hurt with how fast he’d dismissed the idea. “I’m not kissing Aelin on a dare.”

“Why not?” Dorian asked. “I will.”

Dorian slid off his desk and leaned over Aelin’s. Aelin leaned back, laughing softly at Dorian’s half-hearted attempt to bring his lips closer to her face, and swatted him away.

“Very mature,” Rowan grumbled, tugging his fingers through his hair as he glared in Aelin’s direction again.

“Oh, come on,” Dorian prodded. “We all need a break anyway. Let’s play truth or dare.”

Rowan scoffed loudly, never stopping organizing his cards on his desk. “What are we, in seventh grade?”

“Don’t be a pussy, Whitethorn,” Lorcan called out from the back corner of the room. Everyone’s heads whipped around at the sound of his gravelly voice. Aelin watched with curiosity as he stood, his large arms stretching overhead as he cracked his back and neck loudly.

“Truth or dare,” Manon chanted. “Truth or dare! Truth or dare!”

Aelin laughed as Dorian and Lorcan both joined in, slowly approaching Rowan’s desk until he was surrounded.

“Fine!” he shouted.

“Great!” Dorian ruffled Rowan’s hair, earning another disgruntled frown from the blonde. “Manon, truth or dare?”

“Dare!” she answered excitedly.

“I dare you to flash us,” Dorian said with a devilish smile, causing Manon to roll her eyes.

“Boys.” She shook her head. “So fucking predictable.”

Her voice was deadpan, but she fulfilled the dare regardless, lifting her shirt to show the room her black bra. The boys’ jaws dropped slightly, completely silent as she pulled her shirt back down and fluffed her hair, completely unphased.

“Lorcan,” Manon drawled. Before she could even ask the question, he puffed out his chest and grinned.

“Dare.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

Her golden eyes glowed as she pretended to think over her question. “I dare you to kiss Dorian,” she gleamed, showing off a perfect row of white teeth.

Lorcan merely rolled his eyes again. “What, you think I’m going to get all no-homo, as if I haven’t had a threesome with another dude before?” Manon shrugged. “C’mere, pretty boy, gimme a kiss.” Lorcan laughed as Dorian mimed pointing to himself, as if to ask Who, me?

Aelin blushed furiously. She knew that seniors were more experienced than she was. Well, a lot of people were more experienced than she was. But a threesome? She could feel herself heat up as Lorcan slid his hand into Dorian’s hair and placed his mouth over his for a hard kiss. Dorian’s mouth moved in tandem with the senior’s, until Lorcan left him with a soft press of his lips and a cocky grin.

Dorian cleared his throat. “I mean, I get it,” he admitted. “Why everyone’s lining up to fuck you.”

“Not everyone,” Lorcan said, flashing his dark eyes at Manon for a loaded second. Aelin remembered all of Manon’s callous rejections and wondered if there was more to the story than they were seeing. She was so wrapped up in trying to figure it out that she barely even registered when Lorcan turned his attention to her.

Lorcan grinned widely. “Aelin, truth or dare?”

“Umm…” She paused. It was no secret that Lorcan wasn’t her biggest fan. And she had a feeling he was getting ready to torture her. She had no desire to flash an audience or kiss anyone but Rowan, so she decided to go with the safer answer.

“Truth,” she answered nervously.

“Who in school are you hottest for?” he asked.

“What?” Aelin squeaked, her voice going unnaturally high as all eyes turned to her.

“Who in school are you hottest for?” Lorcan repeated. “Who do you lust after? Who do you think about when you listen to I Touch Myself?”

Aelin’s mouth dropped as she gaped like a fish. “I…I…” Her cheeks burned as she scanned the faces in front of her, trying not to pause on the dark green eyes that were suddenly rife with curiosity. “Did I say truth? I meant dare,” she said, changing tactics.

Lorcan rolled his eyes and motioned this thumb downward. “Booo.” He made a raspberry sound with his lips as he stuck out his tongue. “Fine, I dare you to give one of us… whoever you want… a sexy lap dance for thirty seconds.”

“I don’t know how to do that!” Aelin croaked out, getting more stressed by the second. She’d have to choose someone. She wanted to choose Rowan, of course. She’d be most comfortable being close to him like that, but she hated that he was still so mad at her. She didn’t want to risk upsetting him even more.

“One or the other. We’re waiting, Aelin,” Lorcan drawled.

The room silenced as Aelin stood and looked at the four students sitting in front of her, laps ready and waiting for her. She was about to take a step toward Rowan when his eyes went to the floor, avoiding her gaze, and she redirected, stepping in front of Manon.

Aelin glanced over her shoulder. “I wish I had music,” she complained.  

“I’ve got you,” Lorcan smirked, pulling out his phone from his back pocket. Of course he’d smuggled his into detention. He cued up some rap song with a thumping bass that Aelin wasn’t familiar with, and she took a deep breath as she pretended she didn’t have an audience.

Her hips swayed side to side, dipping lower.

“Lap dance means on her lap, prude,” Lorcan shouted, and Aelin resisted the urge to glare at him over her shoulder. Instead, she got closer to Manon, pushing her legs wider as she awkwardly shimmied between them. She turned around and leaned her head back as she felt Manon’s hands at her sides, helping her maintain her balance as she dipped low to the ground.

“Annnd… time,” Dorian said, clapping loudly as Manon threw Aelin a wink. Adrenaline pounding through her shaky legs, Aelin barely stood upright before tripping over Manon’s extended foot and plopping into Rowan’s lap.

He stood nearly as soon as she fell, hands firmly placed around her waist as he shoved her away from him. “Gods, Aelin, be careful!” he reprimanded her, and Aelin felt tears prick at her eyes. Rowan had never acted like this with her before. He’d said she was still his best friend earlier, but now she wasn’t too sure. His eyes were stormy with upset. All she wanted was for him to smile again.

“Sorry,” she mumbled her apology, and he awkwardly shook her off. It was then she realized it wa her turn. To ask Rowan.

“Rowan,” she said, her voice shaky. “Truth or dare.”

“Truth…” he answered carefully.

“What else do I need to do to make this better?” she asked. She just needed an answer. Anything to do to repair what she’d clearly destroyed.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.

Dorian made a loud buzzer sound. “That’s not a satisfactory answer.”

“Even if I really don’t know?” Rowan answered, exasperated. Dorian shook his head, and Rowan practically growled in frustration.

“Your original dare still stands,” Manon said, sing-song. “You can always decide to kiss Aelin.”

“Fine,” Rowan said, causing Aelin’s heart to skip a beat.

“What?” her eyes widened, clearly not hearing right.

“I’m taking the dare,” Rowan said with an annoyed glare. “I’m kissing you.”

Aelin wished the ground would open and swallow her whole. She didn’t want Rowan to kiss her on a dare. That was not how she’d imagined that happening. Especially not while he was so mad at her.

“No!” Aelin exclaimed, chest thumping wildly as panic flooded her system.

“No?” Manon scoffed.

“I don’t consent to this dare!” she squeaked out.

Rowan wound his arms tightly across his chest, clearly getting more annoyed with Aelin by the second. “It’s just a kiss. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Maybe not to you, she wanted to scream. But instead, she swallowed back the lump in her throat and nodded softly. Rowan visibly relaxed at her agreement, but as soon as he started to lean forward, Aelin couldn’t help but think how wrong it all was. She didn’t want her first kiss with Rowan to be because of a stupid dare. She wanted him to want to kiss her. And she certainly didn’t want an audience for it. She’d imagined kissing Rowan so many times, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined it would happen like this.

His lips had barely brushed hers when Aelin turned her head to the side, so his mouth landed just beyond the corner of her lips, making full contact with her cheek instead.

“Burn,” Lorcan cackled loudly, causing a flood of embarrassment to rush through her.

“Sorry,” Aelin whispered.

“S’fine,” Rowan mumbled, his cheeks stained with red as he looked anywhere but her.

“Kisses mean something to me,” she finally said.

“Spoken like a real virgin,” Lorcan heckled, and Aelin could feel herself shrink even further. Rowan spun around on his heel, his chest heaving as he unleashed on his teammate.

“What is your fucking problem, man?” Rowan spat as Lorcan stoically raised a dark brow in his direction. “I get it, she made you look like an idiot, wounded your manhood or whatever, but you need to let up.”

Lorcan held his hands up in mock surrender and meandered back to his seat, grumbling something about “stupid sophomores.”

Rowan sat loudly back at his desk, clearly seething as he began shuffling through his index cards again. Aelin flushed with relief at his defense of her. She wanted to throw her arms around him and thank him, but instead she threw him a grateful glance, which he accepted with a small nod. It wasn’t a smile, but she’d take it.

“Game over?” Dorian asked, and Manon nodded quickly, retreating to her desk.

“Virginity is just a concept, anyway. Don’t let anyone convince you that you’re losing anything when you have sex,” Manon said too loudly in Aelin’s direction. “It’s a sexist concept created by men to boost them up and control women’s bodies. Sex means different things to different people, and anyone who tries to make you feel bad about your sexual experience or lack of it deserves a special place in hell.”

Aelin had never appreciated someone as much as she did Manon in that moment. Lorcan pretended not to listen and shoved his earbuds further into his ear, slumping back into his seat.

“Thanks,” Aelin said quietly, and Manon shrugged.

The four of them worked quietly for the remaining hour of detention, shuffling the cards back into alphabetical order with methodical ease.

When Principal Havilliard returned at 7pm on the dot, Aelin sighed with relief. “Have a good summer,” he said, effectively dismissing them and walking out the door.

Aelin lingered, hoping to steal a moment with Rowan, but it seemed that he was anxious to get somewhere else.

“Glad I’ll never have to deal with you again,” Lorcan mocked as he made his way to the door. “Fire breathing bitch,” he hissed, passing her by.

Fury steamed at his words, and Aelin stood quickly, wanting to launch herself at him. Her fist reared back, ready to punch, but it was restrained as Rowan stepped in front of her and took his own swing, his fist cracking loudly against Lorcan’s nose.

Blood dribbled from the nose as Lorcan staggered backward, laughing maniacally. “Oh man,” he laughed. “Good for you, Whitethorn,” he said as he wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. “See ya never,” he said, glancing between the two of them and giving a half-hearted salute.

Rowan hissed as he clutched at his fist. “Fuck, that shit really hurts.”

“Rowan!” Aelin raced to his side to assess his reddened knuckles. She pressed against the skin gently, checking for broken bones, and he loosened his fist, letting her examine each finger carefully. She glanced up at him, and he was watching her with a cautious gaze. But when she went to remove her hand from his, he squeezed her fingers softly.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, squeezing his fingers back lightly. “But thank you.”

“He was pissing me off,” Rowan replied.

“I’m so sorry, Rowan,” Aelin said again, and Rowan sighed loudly as he stretched out his sore fingers.

“I know you are, Ace.” He rubbed at his face. “It’s just going to take me a while you get the image of your dead body out of my head. It was… fucked up.”

Aelin was about to apologize again when Rowan stopped her. “And I know you’re sorry. But I’m allowed to be mad for a while, okay?”

Aelin nodded in understanding.

“Well,” Aelin cleared her throat. “Thanks for defending me, even when you’re mad at me.”

Rowan finally cracked a smile; it was the most beautiful thing Aelin had ever seen. “Yeah, well, as infuriating as you might be, no one is allowed to talk shit about you. Except me, of course.”

“Of course,” Aelin replied too quickly. She tried to hide her smile, but she couldn’t. Just a small amount of attention from Rowan, and she felt her heart mending itself.

Rowan groaned, frustrated. “How do you do that?”

“What?” Aelin asked, perplexed.

“Like, two minutes ago, I was still furious with you!” He exclaimed, exasperated. “And now…”

“And now you’re… not?” Aelin asked, hopefully as they made their way to their lockers to collect their things. The school was eerily empty, everyone long gone to their first night of summer plans.

“Just. Never again, Aelin.” She nodded rapidly. “I’m serious.”

“Want to get that truce dinner?” she asked. “I felt too guilty last night to eat anything.”

As if on cue, Rowan’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. And Aelin had a feeling she knew exactly who it was from. “Unless you have somewhere else to be?”

“Nope,” he said, shoving the phone into his pocket.

“I can’t believe we’ve both punched Lorcan Salvaterre,” Aelin giggled as he led them out to his car.

“Just call us Rocky I and Rocky II,” Rowan said, draping his arm across her shoulders, causing Aelin to laugh wildly.

“That’s not their names.”

“They’re not?” he asked. “Then why are the movies called that?”

Aelin shook her head and leaned into his side. As she and Rowan bantered about the movies he clearly needed to watch in the near future, Aelin finally had hopes for the future. It was going to be a good summer. She just knew it.  

~*~

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[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic  during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Dreamshaper

Dreamshaper has 54 stories at Gossamer. Her stories often feature Mulder and Scully exploring their feelings in ways you really, really wish you could’ve seen on the show. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Found in Memory, Just By Existing, Purpose, and Promise. Big thanks to Dreamshaper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm not at all surprised people are still reading X-Files fanfic! There's a deep catalogue of good and interesting fiction there, and the X-Files still has cultural significance. And of course there were the recent seasons to bring it back to mind. I think if you had asked me in 2000, I might not have supposed that it had this kind of staying power. So now I'm thinking of this interview as a time capsule--what will my answer be in 2040?

My own fic was not designed to have staying power. If anyone is reading it now, bless them, they are kind and patient. I would only recommend probably reading the first and last things I posted just to see what kind of growth is possible. The first time I ever posted fic, someone told me to never write again. I was a teenager. I was crushed but I went on writing anyway, and I worked hard to improve.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I think of two things. As for the show itself, I still think of Mulder/Scully as the ultimate in romance. I can still picture certain moments from the episodes, from the movie. I look for pairings with tension that reminds me of theirs--an almost-regency level of UST, but with a modern element of danger.

As for the fandom itself, I grew up in it. My entire online life and the core of how I participate in fandom was formed here. I was 17 or so when I started writing and posting MSR. I was 18 or 19 when I started meeting fans in real life. I was fortunate enough to fall in with people who were equal parts gracious and nerdy, and while my own nerdiness is innate, I remember and emulate the kindness which was shown to me.

I have an entire side post to this question about how strongly I disagree with the current age stratification in fandom--this idea of not interacting across artificial age divides is tragic to me.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!

(Posted by Lilydale on December 22, 2020)

[statticscribbles]

Reset

Summary: Sweet Pea/Reader Request: reader was sexually assaulted by a friend of hers, & she distances herself from the friends, because they tell her that she’s lying & she opens up to sweet pea, maybe he comforts her? I just could use some comfort even in the form of sweet pea TW: Sexual Assault, Gaslighting, Verbal Abuse, Abusive Relationships/Friendships -Thoughts-  ~flashback~

You’re not sure what you were expecting when you’d gathered your friends at your usual hang out spot. You no longer shook at his presence but you weren’t expecting him to show up. Still you’d told them you had something important to say; with him there, his hand around your best friends waist had you shutting down. “Y/N, come onnnnnn you drag us all out here in the middle of the night for what? Is it about what happened at that party again? You know  Lance didn’t actually do anything, it was a dream is all.” -They were friends with him first, why would they believe you. Of course you were lying.- “I’m moving.” You shrug a little; not surprised when their faces don’t crumble. You’d barely been spending time with them after the party, after the incident as they’d called it. “When?” Lance tilts his head leering at you as he always seems to do now. “Three days.” “Where?” You shake your head.

“Close by apparently, job transfers and all.” You nod, they understand two of then had moved to the other side of town because of their parents getting job transfers. –Might as well lie about this, they think you’re lying about everything- Your parents hadn’t had any problem buying the trailer for you. They seemed relieved, being able to send you out of town to get away from your nightmares, your whining, -your lies- You’d discussed it with them, and they’d given you an ultimatum when you’d come home.

~~~You’re trying to sneak through your back window, of course your parents are awake, and of course Lance had called them saying how drunk you were, how high you’d gotten at the party. They don’t bother asking what happened, launching into a tirade about how irresponsible you are, how childish and immature. How you’re destroying any chance of a future for yourself. Your father spouts off about expecting you to end up knocked up from one of ‘these parties’. Your mother take a gentler approach compared to him. “How about this, there’s a nice covenant in Riverdale and-“ “I’ll go, but not to the sisters.” Your mother’s surprised at your agreement, your father beams. “We can get you one of those trailers, in that trailer park, we’ll pay for it, just keep your grades up. Three days to pack what you want.” He leaves after that, your mother does as well, you can hear them moving in their room and as you walk upstairs, head swimming and heart racing you catch yourself in the mirror. –Doesn’t even look like anything happened, just that you fell, you really did just get drunk and dreamed the whole thing up- You wake up the next morning, looking back in the mirror, you can’t help but cry, you’re shaking and dry heaving occasionally looking back into the mirror to catalogue the bruises and imprints he left against your skin. You decide about telling your friend, grabbing your first box and starting to pack your books.~~~

It’d taken you four days to move everything over and settle yourself in the trailer your parents had gotten; it’s in the back of the lot, barely still in the trailer park. You avoid any of your neighbors, trying your best to not panic as you make your way towards Riverdale High. You’re keeping your eyes on the floor. –They’re looking at you cause they know what you’ve done. You’re that liar that got thrown out from Centerville.- You cringe at your internal monologue, trying your best to shake it off, freezing when you crash into someone. “ You okay?” You look up, brushing yourself off and nodding, not looking at whomever you bummed into. “Sorry I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s no problem, where are you trying to find?” You look up into the boy’s face, hoping you’re not blushing, or if you are you can brush it off as the embarrassment from the fall. “Math, with-“ His hand nudges the schedule and you offer it to him. “Huh, you have almost all your classes with me, I can walk you to most of them, the only class you don’t have is science, but you have that with Fangs so-“ “Fangs?” You question and he beams. “My friend Fangs, I’m Sweet Pea, you are?” He holds his hand you for you to shake, handing you back your schedule. “Y/N.” “Did you just move here?”

“Yes, from Centerville.” “Centerville, Jesus, you glad you got out?” He whistles slightly and you sag in relief. “Yes, it was awful.” You relax, comforted by his similar reaction. “I can’t imagine, actually I don’t want to. Is it true that half of the main school have been in the corrections center?” “No, that would mean they got caught.” You offer a wry smile and Sweet Pea smiles back. “Well then, let’s hope none of them follow you here.” You laugh nervously nodding.

You’re thankful that Sweet Pea seems to keep you in his sights. It not hard considering you share all your classes so far. “So we can eat lunch with my friends if you want?” “Sure, sounds good.” –Don’t freak out. They’re not like yours were.- You follow Sweet Pea outside, toward a table with a group of guys in black leather; they’re joined by another group. You watch as they turn nodding to Sweet Pea. “Alright introductions then, everyone, this is Y/N. She moved from Centerville a few days ago.” You wave and the entire group at you.

“This is Toni and Cheryl, Cheryl’s Captain of the River Vixen’s, which feature, Veronica, Josie, and Betty; Betty’s dating Jughead, who’s leader of the Serpents, which includes Toni, Fangs, and me.” He gestures to each person as he names them. You wave to each of them and they wave back. “Is it a dumb question to ask what the Serpent’s are?” You’d heard whispers of them in Centerville but the rumors varied from an after school club to a prison run gang. “We’re a gang.” Fangs states and you nod, relieved at the open answer.

Sweet Pea had been the one to invite you to his trailer, you were nervous, but followed him in surprised when no one else was in. “You live alone?” “Yeah, it’s just easier, my parent’s have their own place I just wanted to stay.” He nods to the couch and you sit down watching him as he moves around his home. “Out of curiosity why did you move here of all places? Can’t have been for the ‘pep’ can it?” –Lie- “I uh, my parents were going to send me to the Sisters and-“You cringe at his frown. “Why?” -Lie to him. Lie to him.- “They thought it would be better for me.” –They didn’t want to deal with you; they were tired of the lies. Like your friends, like Sweet Pea will become.-

“Better how? Or is that one of those, not allowed to talk about it.” You shrug. “I just; I made some bad choices, got on the wrong track.” He drops the thread of the conversation instead asking how you’re finding Riverdale and how you feel about living in Sunnyside. He talks about himself telling you about chaining himself to his old school, and protesting about Riverdale trying to get rid of the Serpents.

It’s not long before Cheryl decides to throw a party for some reason or other, everyone is excited and you hope the terror you feel can be interpreted as the same. You arrive with the Serpent’s, specifically Sweet Pea, he’d insisted it was easier for everyone to carpool, and he had an extra helmet for his bike so it wouldn’t be a problem for you to ride with him. “Come on Y/N Cheryl’s parties get crazy it’ll be-“ Whatever he’s saying fades out, as you step forward.

~~~ “Seriously Y/N, it’ll be fine! No one will care you weren’t invited. Seriously just come in and have some fun!!” You offer a strained smile as you follow your friends stepping through the door to hear music blasting. You’re moving around the main room, cringing at the sound, you can’t hear your own thoughts, let alone anyone saying anything so when Lance appears holding out drinks for everyone, you think nothing of taking it. Everyone else is drinking why shouldn’t you.~~~

Sweet Pea holds something out to you and you recognize it as a water bottle. –Don’t take drinks from anyone, always watch your drink- You hesitate, but take it anyways, surprised when it’s sealed as you open it. “Come on everyone’s this way.” Sweet Pea herds you further in and you wait for his hand you touch your shoulder, to steer you where he wants you. –Upstairs to the bedrooms, god knows this place must have extra rooms no one will check in- He walks with you, hand hovering behind your back as you turn past the stairs and back through the kitchen to the backyard. You stare fearfully at the pool for a moment, stepping back, bumping into Sweet Pea’s arm.

“You okay?” –Lie.- “Fine.” You take a swig from the water bottle and notice how everyone’s gathered in a circle eating pizza. “Hey you two made it! Sorry about the secrecy Y/N, we usually do an inner circle party once a month!” Cheryl nods to you and you tilt your head. “Inner circle?”

“Yeah we’re all really close, we went through a lot together, you’re part of that now.” -They know, they know, they know.- “So, as usual Sins and Secrets time!! It’ll be interesting now since we have Y/N to confess to, and we get to hear her deepest secrets.” Toni laughs as Fangs explains the rules; Sweet Pea sits next to you. “Cheryl can go first to show you. Since it’s her party.” Toni nods. “I slapped Jughead when I thought his dad killed my brother.” You turn to the rest of them and they shrug. “That’s not that dark Cheryl..”

“I don’t want to scare her off. Come on Y/N confess.” –Lie, Lie Lie, if you tell the truth they’ll never talk to you again. You don’t have anywhere left to run, lie, lie lie.- “ I uh, I moved from Centerville because- I just-“ You swallow; you don’t realize someone’s arm is around you until they’ll pulling you closer. “Hey it’s okay, you don’t have to say anything.” You shake your head. “No you guys should know I’m a liar, get over with the realization you don’t want to be friends with me.” You swallow, shaking still as you look around at everyone.

“I left Centerville cause I lied about a lot of stuff, happening to me.” You can see Cheryl frowning, as do Veronica and Betty. “You lied about being sexually assaulted?” they guess and you nod, still shaking. “Why would you lie about that?” They sound upset, angry even. –You did it now, they’re going to hate you, might as well spill all of it.- “Well I mean we were dating so it’s not like it counted cause we were dating and even then I didn’t say no or anything I didn’t even try to leave.” –You tried to run he just was too fast, he didn’t want you to move, he gave you too much to drink, it wasn’t drugs they flushed out of your system too fast to be tested anyways.- “My, his friends agreed with him, it makes sense, I was just wanting attention cause he broke up with me, it wasn’t anything serious either way we just-“ You fade off watching everyone staring at you.

“Sorry, I just, I can leave it’s no problem for me to-“ “Fucking hell I can see why you left Centerville, full of rapists and people who look the other way.” You freeze. “What?” –No you’re supposed to hate me, I lied, I lied.- “That must have been horrible, I’m so sorry that happened to you.” “No, but it didn’t like everyone said I was just making it up, it wasn’t real so-“ –They’re angry for you. They want to hurt him as much as you do.- You quiet as they all seem to crowd you in comfort, Betty and Cheryl taking your hands and Toni awkwardly hugging you as Veronica nudges Sweet Pea away, you turn gripping for what you now know was his arm.

You’re not one hundred percent sure what the look they share is, but it flashes across all their faces and Sweet Pea offers to take you home moments later, you nervously grab a slice of pizza eating it as he leads you back out of the house and to his bike. “Hey, listen Y/N, I’m sorry all that happened to you.” You shrug. “I’m sure there’s been worse.” Sweet Pea sighs kicking the ground. “Just because there’s been worse doesn’t make what you went through okay.” You nod to him and he pulls you into a hug as he holds the helmet out to you.

You swing your leg over getting off as he pulls up to his trailer. “Sweet Pea, I, I didn’t tell them everything.” “Hey it’s okay, you don’t have to. It’s your choice to talk about it. “I, can I tell you?” He nods opening his door and sighing as you sit on the couch. He sits next you and you burrow under the blanket and into his side. He chuckles slightly and you smile up at him. “I’m here, you can tell me whatever you want.” You nod closing your eyes.

~Lance had brought you upstairs before leaving you to sit in the room for what felt like hours. You’d been confused, sluggish to respond when you’d felt the zip tie sliding against your wrist. “So you don’t run off and say anything.” His voice is distorted and you sit, sliding against the side of the bed trying to snap the tie off the post. You manage to dig it into your skin enough where you know it’ll leave a scar. Your knees are also bruised a product of trying to pull yourself free, using your own body as a counter weight. Lance returns laughing at you. His voice is echoing and you don’t realize its because he’s not alone. When he shoves you, jerking the tie back against your wrist and almost throwing you onto the bed is when you fall back into unconsciousness, whatever sedative combining with the drinks to knock you out.~

“What’s his last name?” Sweet Pea growls out and you shake your head. “Sweet Pea, please don’t he’ll know it was me.” “He’s going to need to answer for that, one way or the other. Serpent’s protect their own.” “That extends to friends?” You ask surprised, unsure how the Serpent’s manage to protect so many people. “Relationships.” “We’re not in a relationship.” You state confused when Sweet Pea seems shocked. “Sorry right, still, he’s going to pay for that.” “There’s more.” You reach for the water bottle on the table and Sweet Pea pulls it to you, you place it back on the table after drinking from it, shifting away from him slightly. “Y/N, come back, you don’t need to move away from me; I don’t think less of you.” You sigh shakily.

“You don’t need to tell me right now, take a break sweetheart, come here, come here.” He slowly reaches for you and you fold into his arms, as he tucks the blanket around both of you, you curl into him shaking as you sob. “They thought I was lying, they said they knew him best, they said-“ “Shhh, shhh love, it’s alright, it’s over, it’s over. You’re safe now.” You don’t bother nodding just sighing and laying your head on his chest. “Thank you.” You say as you start to drift off.

When you wake up you haven’t moved. Sweet Pea hasn’t either and you watch him for a moment trying his best to stretch his arm to grab at his phone, you reason his other hand would be far closer but it’s currently wrapped around you, you nudge him with your forehead and he turns. “You can move your arm, if you want.” “No.” He states and you frown. “It’s literally easier for you to do it with this arm, just move it.” You tug at the arm wrapped around you and he just tightens his grip.

“Just let got of me and I’ll grab it for you if you want.” Sweet Pea shakes his head pulling you back to his chest as you half struggle to get up. This causes you both to tip off the couch, you’re waiting for your head to smack against the floor but you open your eyes to see Sweet Pea smirking at you, your head cushioned by his arm. ‘See that’s why I didn’t want to move it.” “So it could get crushed by my head?” “No so it could protect you.” “Oh that’s dumb. I’m not-“ You close your mouth as he glares.

“If you say you’re not worth protecting I’m never letting you go.” “I’m not worth protecting.” You smile shyly, face flushed. “Was that serious or do you just want to mess with me?” “It’s semi-serious.” You counter and Sweet Pea shakes his head moving back to the couch nodding at you to do the same. “Semi-serious meaning.” “I’d very much like you to not let me go, but that’s just my preference.” Sweet Pea nods thoughtfully. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” “Pop’s, it’s good one of our preference’s lined up, but now we have to see if others do.” “Pop’s the diner right?” He nods and you swing your leg over on his bike. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to judge me on my order.” “No just pay for it.” He shouts of the roar of his engine.

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[magicalforcesau]

Fragments of the Garden - Origins - part 1

A companion collection to Dancing With Ghosts in Your Garden

(ao3 link)

Getting into Diagon Alley had been a bit of an event, her mother had to take off work and get Bo up and off to school before they could finally head out. The time and place on the parchment had been specified down to the minute, but as they seemed to circle the same block for the hundredth time Satine started to wonder if maybe this was all some elaborate prank.

“I’m sorry, love,” her mother finally turned to her, “It’s supposed to be right here, but I don’t see a Leaky Cauldron anywhere along this stretch,” Satine looked back down at the parchment again, rereading the same message she had a thousand times since receiving it. Disappointment started to seep into her bones and she looked up in desperation, one last time scanning the buildings around them. Her eyes drifted just right of her mum and she lit up.

“It’s there!” Satine pointed her finger at the old iron sign dangling over the door, dripping water on passing pedestrians. When she glanced up at her mother though she was only met by confusion.

“Uh, what is dear?” Her mother’s eyes seemed to skim over the building without seeing it, and Satine was struck with an odd feeling of experiencing something that her family never would.

“The Leaky Cauldron,” Satine answered, grabbing her mum’s hand in her own, “I’ll show you,” Determined she pulled them across the street and up to the building, her mum still showed no signs of acknowledgement so Satine pulled open the door and dragged her inside.

“Oh,” the soft gasp came from behind her and she glanced back to see the surprised look on her mum’s face, it seemed entering the building was enough to break through whatever weird magic surrounded the place and she followed her mum’s gaze from the owls swooping through the windows to the dishes washing themselves in the kitchen.

“You must be the last of the muggleborns,” A creature was approaching them, eyes like a hammerhead shark and face long, it took Satine a moment of staring to realize that their mouth was on their neck, “You’re a little late, but I know we can be a little hard to find,” The creature pulled out a piece of parchment and skimmed it over, “So you’re the Kryze’s?”

“I’m Satine, and this is my mum,” She found herself answering for them, her mother looked a little pale so it was probably for the best.

“You can call me Jho,” they said pulling out a brown stick, that Satine realized with belated excitement was likely a magic wand, “Follow me and I’ll let you into Diagon Alley, make sure you buy a wand when you get in there, because otherwise you’re not getting back in,” they made a sound that she assumed was a laugh and she tugged on her mum’s hand in order to follow close behind.

“How many pounds is a wand?” She wondered aloud and Jho scoffed.

“Pounds. When you get inside you should first go to Gringotts, transfer over the amount your letter told you to bring and they’ll give you real money,” They were facing a brick wall and Jho turned back to them for a moment, “Welcome to Diagon Alley,” they turned back and tapped a pattern into the bricks with their wand and suddenly the whole wall melted away, bricks turning into themselves to get out of the way and a bustling path with funnily dressed people was revealed. Satine stepped through pulling her mum in with her and the wall closed up behind them.

“Hello you must be the Kryze’s,” They turned and were greeted by someone who looked almost human, but with white and blue pieces coming from her head instead of hair, “I’m Professor Shaak Ti from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, here to help our new muggleborns find their way in our world,” Satine’s mum stepped forward dropping her hand for the first time.

“It’s lovely to meet you. I must say I’m very overwhelmed,” Her mum had seemed to have gotten over the shock and Satine took the opportunity to tune out the grown-up talk and gaze around the new world she’d stepped into.

Owls seemed to be a common theme as they swooped around in broad daylight, landing near magical folks wearing a wide variety of interesting clothes. Most commonly seemed to be cloaks and funny hats, but she saw one witch wearing an outfit entirely made of feathers and hoped very much that her school uniform would not be something that itchy. Her attention was drawn next to the shop windows. There was one with a broom floating in the window, many children seemed to be gathering around it so she wondered if maybe it was a toy of some sort. A building with sweets in the window boasted such things as cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties instead of chocolate croissants and eclairs and she saw a tall wobbly looking stack of cauldrons in the next. Her eyes landed on another window jam packed with books and her heart leapt in excitement.

Satine had always been a reader. She read during both class and lunch, as well as nearly constantly at home and when she’d gotten her letter to Hogwarts, she’d read that too, but she hadn’t considered that a new world of people would provide her a new world of books to read. She found herself approaching the window, excited to read the spines until her mum was done talking when a flash of dark fabric bumped into her sending her falling backwards onto the cold stone pavement.

She looked up and her eyes met that of a witch’s, they were such a light blue they looked like ice, although Satine would maybe attribute some of that to the witch’s personality.

“Watch where you’re going, girl,” She spoke sharply, and the wizard behind her turned and rested his eyes on Satine too. His were a dark blue, but held the same kind of coldness, like how she imagined the bottom of the ocean would feel like.

“They’ll let anybody in here these days,” The first part was spoken under his breath, but not quiet enough for Satine to miss it, “We have more important things to worry about than another lost, muggleborn,” He turned on his heel and continued on.

“Don’t muggle parents teach any manners,” the witch also spoke as she turned to follow her companion further down the street.

Shocked and confused Satine continued to sit where she fell staring off after them. She jumped when suddenly a hand was thrust into her view.

“Need a hand?” She turned and looked at the newcomer, he was a boy near her own age, with a wide grin and warm brown eyes. She took his hand and he pulled her up, “Are you ok?”

“I think so,” She replied, but found herself still staring after the icy couple.

“Hey, whatever they said, don’t let it bother you,” The boy gained her attention again, “They’re pretty much as old-fashioned and traditional as you can get,”

“You know them?” Satine questioned.

“Yeah, the Kenobi’s,” the boy rolled his eyes, “My family used to attend their pureblood dinner parties until a couple years ago when my older brother Hevy lost his temper… But good riddance I’ll say, none of us Fett’s care too much about blood status politics anyways,” Satine’s head was reeling trying to make sense of it all.

“Purebloods?” Satine asked, too busy trying to catalogue all these new terms to ask it with a little more of her usual finesse.

“Purebloods are wizards whose family line is all magical,” He answered, and with the realization of who she likely was he continued, “There are halfbloods who have one magical parent and one muggle parent, and muggleborns who have 2 muggle parents.”

Satine thought back to the words the Kenobi’s had said to her and a new fire started burning in her chest. She had no time for such an old-fashioned way of thinking, she needn’t prove herself to them she’d been invited here and that was enough. Still they’d manage to plant a small seed of doubt in her mind.

“I hope I never see another Kenobi again,” She decided and the boy laughed loudly at that.

“I understand that sentiment,” He agreed, mirth still sparkling in his eyes, “By the way, the name’s Cody.”

***                                            

Riding the train had been exciting, looking up at the castle had been extraordinary, but standing next to her peers waiting to be shepherded through the doors to the great hall was as nerve wracking as it could get.

Cody, who she’d written to a few times to test her new owl, Sundari, had explained a lot of wizard things, especially the sorting. Cody laughed at her on the train and said if there was any way she was anything, but a Ravenclaw he’d eat every vomit flavored jelly bean in Honeydukes. She was still nervous though, and as the time crept closer even Cody looked a little pale.

The doors swung open suddenly and they followed the prefects inside, each student taking a moment to admire the starry night sky, before they stopped before the stool with the old sorting hat resting upon it. Cody had mentioned that they changed up the order of ceremony a lot, sometimes they’d go in alphabetical order or the reverse. Or they’d just go at random, Satine hoped that whatever way they went she’d be one of the first to get things over with.

So of course, it was her luck when they decided to go in alphabetical order anyways. Cody was called before her of course. His name was spoken loudly and it made it easy to pick out his older brother, and fourth year, Hevy who cheered embarrassingly loudly for his little brother. Cody stepped up onto the stage and sat on the stool, the hat barely sat on his head for a moment before shouting out for Gryffindor. The red and gold table cheered loudly, and Cody was smothered in a headlock by his brother as soon as he reached it.

Satine waited patiently as names were called all the way through J and readied herself for the K’s before suddenly the man up front started calling for Z’s. She felt a spark of indignant rage as they started going in reverse which would leave her as one of the last to go, she cursed her own luck as she tried and failed to not look a little grumpy.

Finally, finally her own name rang out over the crowd, and she heard some cheering from the direction of Gryffindor table as she stepped up shakily onto the stage. The hat was dropped over her eyes and she heard its voice speak through her own thoughts.

“Oh, quite right, with a mind like this it can only be,”

“RAVENCLAW!” The hat was removed from her head and she looked across the large room to see the dark blue and silver table cheering passionately for their new member. She felt something warm settle over her as she walked over to the table and was patted on the back and high-fived all the way to her seat. She’d worried a bit about belonging, but to think her place in this school had been so easily found made her grin widely. She sat down and had a minute to collect herself while they called the next student, and then maybe she could start making friends with the other Ravenclaw first years-

“Obi-Wan Kenobi!”

At first, she’d thought she was imagining the hush that crossed the room at that name given her own ears suddenly seemed muffled. She threw her gaze onto the stage as a boy with perfectly styled hair, and finely pressed robes walked poised up the steps to the stage. The words of the older Kenobi’s, who could only be his parents, rang in her ears as she frantically made eye contact with Cody over at the Gryffindor table, who gave her a worried look and a shrug. They both turned back to the stage and waited for the final verdict of who would have to put up with the son of the most pretentious wizarding family in England.

***                                            

When Obi-Wan Kenobi had first gotten his letter to Hogwarts, he’d reacted with the poise and manners that his mother had instilled in him since he was born.

“Your letter came today,” His mother had said, handing it over to him, “When your father gets home from work today, he will once again tell you what you are expected to do,” Obi-Wan didn’t spare a glance at the letter, instead keeping direct eye-contact with her.

“Yes Mother,” He replied as he had been instructed to do and she nodded in acknowledgement.

“Now leave me to my work, you may have the afternoon to reflect,” He gave her a short bow in thanks and used every ounce of willpower not to scurry out of the room. Once his mother was out of sight though, he let all pretenses drop and all but ran to his bedroom.

Throwing himself onto his bed (he mentally noted to remake it before his mother saw the wrinkles) he hugged the letter delicately to his chest and grinned in absolute elation.

He’d been dreaming about this moment for as long as he could remember, memories of bedtime stories from his parents, before they’d deemed him too old, about their own time at the school. The absolute honor that they felt having been chosen for Slytherin and how one day he too would get to experience it. He’d dreamed of the green and silver robes when he was a child, but as years passed and his responsibilities around the house grew and grew, he found himself these days just dreaming of the school itself.

He chided himself for thinking that way, but if he were honest with himself about his own selfish desires, he was wishing these days about being away from this house and away from the people within it. He knew he’d never escape the demands of his family and he would be foolish to ever try, but he certainly wouldn’t mind them not breathing down his neck every moment of the day.

Once again he shook his head, banishing the thoughts, he knew he was lucky to be a Kenobi such thoughts about his parents he really shouldn’t consider. They’d given him all the finest toys as a child, and on his 6th birthday when they’d swapped out all his toys for fancy robes, they’d gotten him only the best, plus, he remembered with excitement, they’d let him choose one sweet from Sugarplum’s and didn’t even bother to remind him that boys should not have such a fondness for chocolate.

This year, on his eleventh birthday, they’d given him the greatest gift a wizard could ever receive, he turned over on his bed eyeing the sleek Elder wand on his bedside table. It had been darkened with a varnish and there was a real strip of silver winding around the grip. It was his prized possession.

The reminder of the wand brought him back to the letter still gripped tightly in his hands. Gently he peeled back the wax seal, and pulled out the parchment within. He didn’t need to read the letter, already knowing exactly what it said, but that didn’t stop him from reading his name over and over again, wanting to memorize the script in case he was in a dream he would wake up from.

He eventually left the letter and the list, tucked back inside the envelope, on his nightstand. It was rare he had the afternoon off from chores or some sort of manners lesson, so he would be foolish to waste it daydreaming. He remade his bed, sheets perfectly smooth, and sat at his desk pulling out his father’s old transfiguration textbook for the hundredth time, flipping it back to page one.

***                                            

When Professor Windu called his name, it all became real to him. He ignored the hushed whisper that fell across the hall, his parent’s reminders to stand up straight and walk with purpose echoing loudly in his head as he started forward. His palms were sweating, but he ignored it in favor of schooling his expression to be neutral, his eyebrows pulled together slightly as the whispers got louder and the hat stared at him funny, but his father's disappointed tone smoothed his expression once more. Once he had sat down on the stool, facing the audience, he knew from experience he did not look any part nervous.

“Well, well a Kenobi, welcome back,” the hat spoke as it slid down over his eyes. It was silent for much longer than he’d expected and he fought the urge to fidget, “You seem to think you’ll be assigned to Slytherin,” The hat commented finally.

“I’m a Kenobi,” He thought back as if it was obvious, “My place is in Slytherin, like my family before me,” The hat hummed which felt very odd, like a vibration through his skull.

“Your family has fit into the Slytherin name for generations,” The hat agreed and Obi-Wan mentally agreed with satisfaction.

Yes, he was certainly on his way to following the guides his father had set up for him, he’d be a Slytherin and make friends within it, work towards becoming a legislator and-

“It’s my place to determine where you will succeed,” The hat interrupted his thoughts to muse once more, “I think the best place for you would be-”

“RAVENCLAW!”

***                                            

The hat had been silent for so long Satine had been starting to wonder if something was wrong. So, when the announcement had finally been made, she jumped in surprise before the words really registered within her mind.

“Ravenclaw,” She echoed in surprise, and the realization finally dawned on her. She watched as the pristine boy walked down from the stage, he still looked bland and neutral almost like he was bored by the whole thing and it made Satine rather mad. When he passed by her she ignored him, she would not cheer for someone like Kenobi. She did make eye contact with Cody again who seemed very surprised about something, but she would not have time to bother him about it now. The feast was beginning and even her disdain for Kenobi would have to wait until after such a marvelous feast was enjoyed.

***                                            

The feast was everything he dreamed it would be, but he found himself staring at his empty plate rather than gathering anything for himself. The Silver plate was almost right, but the blue table cloth just kept the hat’s voice echoing in his head, ‘Ravenclaw!’

Him? A Ravenclaw, that hat had to be daft, and likely had it out for him, seeing as how his parents may actually kill him for this. It wasn’t even his first day here and he’d already failed them. Surely, he’d be forced to polish every single one of his fathers awards next time he was home. For this he may even have to shine all the dishes too. Though, he supposed, he’d be lucky if they didn’t lock him up in his room all winter break.

Him, A Ravenclaw! Sure, he liked learning, but didn’t that show his ambition? That was a Slytherin trait, right? And he supposed resourcefulness and creativity could be seen as similar traits. Maybe it was because he wouldn’t describe himself as cunning, but he couldn’t really see himself as witty either.

He noticed suddenly that there were eyes on him. He looked up from the table, suddenly realizing where he was and made automatic eye contact with a girl across the table from him. She was also a first-year judging by her robes, she had hair the color of wheat and eyes the color of the sky which she was using to glare at him now that she had his attention.

“Um, hello there,” He greeted, nearly biting off his own tongue for using a filler word, his father would really have his head come winter break, if this was the path he’d be going down.

“Don’t tell me you’re not planning to eat anything,” Her voice was filled with fire, “You know that’s quite rude,” He didn’t know what had provoked her, but he did realize that perhaps what she said may be true.

“Well, it’s not really your business, but I’ve no appetite this evening,” He retorted, but still glanced at the feast around him for something to take, he didn’t want to offend the staff. He reached for a roll, but suddenly the food vanished and the desserts appeared.

“Serves you right,” She said, before ignoring him in place of spooning pudding onto her own plate.

Obi-Wan stared at the desserts lining the table, there were many he’d always wanted to try and his eyes kept coming back to the chocolate pudding. He caught himself mentally begging the girl to call him out again as an excuse to have some, but she didn’t, so he just stared off across the room at the Slytherin table and listened to his mother’s voice echoing in his head.

[zims-left-shoe]

Agent Mothman (Dib x Male Reader)

Like most of my other fics, characters are aged up to high school. Plus, a friendly reminder that my request box is open!!

The silence was overwhelming. The pressure of everyone's collective held breath was almost palpable, your chest reactively tightening for no good reason. As you looked around you, eyes were wide, jaws were set and clenched in preparation to cringe. The only two who stuck out from the crowd were Zim and Dib, when did they not? Zim looked lost in thought, mind seemingly several thousand galaxies away, hands folded together neatly in front of his face, his chin resting on them. Dib, on the other hand, appeared to be over the whole ordeal. His posture was slouched as he stared ahead at the board through half-lidded eyes. As the quiet persisted, an anxious energy settled over your classmates (besides the two previously mentioned, of course). Eyes twitched, fingernails scraped the tables, feet began to tap restlessly on the floor.

"Y/n." The teacher finally spoke, bringing the whole class to sigh in relief, the building pressure suddenly released all at once. Many students leaned back in their chairs, high fiving each other. "Y/n, you will be partnered with Dib." You shrugged your shoulders as many looked to you in pity, some even whispering their sympathies. You had never aligned yourself with any group in particular throughout your school year. Granted, you were only a few months in, but you had switched schools so much you had learned to play the field. You avoided Dib considering his stigma, enabling you to be tolerated by the majority, however you were never mean to him. In fact, you rather liked him. You only chose to silently observe him rather than act upon your curiosity. 

"But wait, who's going to be paired with Zim?" You heard a student groan, everyone's breath being held once more. You let your gaze drift over to your partner. He seemed relieved, a slight smile settling on his lips. This was probably the best case scenario for everyone. No one else had to work with Dib, and you were the only one who never picked on him for being just a bit different. 

Once your teacher had finished reading names, you were all asked to sit with your partners. Without an ounce of reluctance, you sauntered over to Dib's otherwise empty table, taking one of the many available seats surrounding him. You needed to figure out a plan quickly, considering you only had one night to do the project. The project wasn't super taxing, in fact it seemed almost like busy work that would promote socialization at the same time, but it wasn't like your time frame was ideal. 

"Dib, right?" You held up your hand in a slight wave. "I don't think I've officially introduced myself. I'm Y/n."

"I know. The new kid who has no real friends yet is somehow still deemed acceptable by the popular kids? An anomaly for sure." Red painted his face, his eyes widening as he realized how his words may have came off as. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound rude. Or creepy. You know what? I'll just stop talking." An awkward chuckle escaped your lips as his eyes fell to his sneakers. After a slight pause, Dib spoke again, his tone much more reserved than before. "I can just do the whole project and you can put your name on it if you want. It's not that hard." He was giving you an out, not wanting to piss you off. Reaching an arm out, you slugged his shoulder lightly.

"Nah, come on. I don't roll that way. Besides, I want to hang out with you a little."

"You...want to hang out...with me?" Dib pointed a finger to himself, eyes wide behind his large glasses. An incredulous expression was etched into every single feature of his face, as if he couldn't believe those words left your mouth. 

"Yeah." After that syllable, the bell rang, dismissing you from school. You stood up, gathering your things. "Anyway, I'll be at your place after dinner. Just text me your address or whatever." You quickly scribbled your digits down on a scrap piece of paper that was laying around, passing it to him. "See ya!" You dashed away, sneaking one last glance back to see Dib still sitting in his chair, as still as a statue, not believing that this was even happening. 

Your stomach felt as if it was full of butterflies, and you couldn't shake the grin that had spread across your face as you began your walk home. 

God...he was even cuter than I thought... You were embarrassed by your own thoughts, pinching yourself on the arm. Truth was, you may or may not have been stalking him a little. He lived in your neighborhood, and you just couldn't help it. You had always been a hopeless romantic of sorts, and all it took was one look at him in class giving a presentation on the gremlin in his backyard and you were in love. You didn't even need his address, you knew where he lived, but you didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, so you asked for it anyway. Plus, it was a way to sneak him your number. And it wasn't as if you were actively trying to find out where he lived. It was pretty much impossible to ignore him and Zim screaming at each other as they ran back and forth between their houses all day. 

"This is going to be a long night." You sighed out, foot striking out to kick a rock, the satisfying skittering sounds it made calming your nerves a small amount. 

-

You drew in a deep breath as you brought your fist to the door, rapping on it a few times. Rocking back on your heels, you clutched your notebook and other supplies tightly to your chest, internally cringing at yourself. Everyone at school thought you were incredibly cool, but on the inside, you were just a lovesick gay who was overflowing with big dumb energy. The door swung open, bringing you to jump and be pulled from your motivational speech that was being given inside your head. 

"Come on in. I'm surprised you showed up." Dib stepped aside to let you in, gesturing past the living room to the kitchen where a purple-haired girl sat at a table, picking at the remaining food on her plate. A floating monitor hovered near the table as well. "We're just finishing dinner, but you can follow me if you want." Nodding, you padded behind the social outcast wordlessly, taking a seat next to him at the table. "Gaz, this is Y/n, my partner for my project. Y/n, this is my sister Gaz."

"Hey." You waved to the girl. Her expression remained squinty as she continued to pick at her food, eyes dancing between her plate and a Game Slave which was charging on the counter. 

"Whatever." She grumbled, never even directly acknowledging your existence once. You began to wonder if Dib was actually the most normal out of his entire family, which was saying something. Dib awkwardly cleared his throat as he pointed to the floating monitor, which displayed a man in a lab coat and goggles furiously working on something. 

"Oh, and this is my dad. He's at work right now, like usual. When he can't be with us for dinner, he either videocalls us from his lab or plays a pre-recorded video reminding us of chores and dinner instructions." Despite how sad the things he had just said sounded, not an ounce of bitterness was up for display on his face. Instead, his eyes shone with pride, happy to have a dad who was making a difference in the world, even if he could never really be a conventional father. "Anyway, just let me clean up and then we can get to work." Dib stood up, bringing his own plate over to the sink and running it under water, placing it in in its respective place in the dishwasher afterwards. Waving for you to follow him, he led you down the hall to a room that was clearly his. The door was covered in posters and stickers of aliens and other supernatural creatures, a good sized "Keep Out" sign the centerpiece. You wondered what would be inside, becoming excited. You figured you were the first person besides his own family to be seeing his room. He twisted the knob, casually pushing the door open, allowing you to step inside. 

"Wow..." You trailed off as you glanced around. There was so much to look at. Your eyes darted from one thing to the next, barely able to take it all in. There were several computer monitors surrounding a desk that was littered in papers and catalogues for supernatural hunting items, a few prototypes of possibly his dad's inventions scattered there as well. His room was lined with posters of aliens and other entities, an important looking briefcase thrown haphazardly onto his bed. The one thing that held your gaze the longest was a ginormous cork board. Several photos, drawings, diagrams, and hurried scribbles of notes were tacked up there, filling it to the max. Each paper was connected with color coded strings, things circled in colored pen seemingly at random, although you knew better. It was the definition of organized chaos. In large, bold, red letters, one word was scrawled on a paper at the top of the board: ZIM.

"I'm sorry, I tried to clean it as best I could. It's still kind of a mess." Dib hurriedly stacked papers together on his desk, trying to make it look presentable. 

"It's fine, don't worry about it. You should see my room. Half of my shit isn't even out of boxes yet, and we moved in months ago." You laughed, sitting down on his floor. "So, alien invasion, huh? Isn't Zim that kid with the skin condition?" You asked, gesturing to his cork board. His shoulders tensed as he unplugged his computer and brought it down to the ground, taking a seat beside you.

"Could we just get to work? Please?" He seemed to want to sweep that subject under the rug, and you decided that you would let him.

"Okay...so anyway, this research poster. You got a topic in mind?" Your prompt drew him out of his unsociable shell, albeit hesitantly. 

"Personally, I was thinking Area 51, but if you wanted to do something else..." He genuinely appeared to not want to upset you, despite usually not caring about how he came off to others. 

"That sounds great, Dib. Interesting too. You think they're really hiding aliens there?" Laying down on your stomach, you rested your face in the palms of your hands, gearing up for a long talk. A smile crept onto your face as immediately his eyes lit up.

"I'm glad you asked."

-

"I think we have the essentials. Now we just need to get them onto the poster, which is probably the most time consuming part." Dib stretched his arms towards the ceiling while you yawned and cracked your back. You didn't know how long you had been sitting on the floor for, but a glance to the clock by his bed told you it was 8:01 pm. The two of you had spent the last couple of hours researching, organizing notes, and mainly just talking about yourselves. You had no idea why everyone constantly was ragging on him. You found him to be incredibly interesting and entertaining, hanging onto every single word he spoke. You weren't really sure if you believed in all of these supernatural creatures, but you also didn't think that they couldn't exist. 

"I think so too. You ready to start on the poster now?" Reaching out, you gathered the posterboard and construction paper Dib had brought in from his garage together.

"Yeah, in a minute. I have to use the bathroom and then see what Gaz is up to, I'll be back in a few." You hummed a response, Dib standing up and exiting, closing the door softly behind him. Deciding to take a closer look at the Zim conspiracy board, you pushed yourself to your feet, leaning close to try and decipher the grainy images. One in particular caught your eye. It wasn't in color, and everything seemed fairly blurry. Zim, or what was supposedly Zim, was hunched over something that looked to be a robot. Except, as you looked even closer, Zim seemed to have these buggish eyes and long, skinny antennae in place of his hair. Rubbing your eyes, you flopped down onto Dib's bed.

"God, I must be seeing things." You had managed to convince yourself that you had been staring at computer screens and papers for far too long, and that your eyes were playing tricks on you, showing you what Dib wanted you to see. Closing your eyes for a minute, the rise and fall of your chest turned slow and steady, and you could feel your grip on reality loosening. 

A ringtone of sorts snapped you back from your almost-doze, and at first you thought it was your phone, but after waking up a bit more, you realized it was coming from one of Dib's monitors. It appeared he was getting a call. The monitor showed nothing besides a logo of some sort of eye, as well as an option to accept the call or decline. Filled with curiosity, your feet took you to his desk where his monitor sat. You barely felt in control of your body as your finger swiped at the screen in the direction to accept the call.

"Agent Mothman-" The voice coming through the monitor was distorted, but you got the impression that it was on purpose. The image displayed was a dark silhouette of what seemed to be a man. "You're not Mothman."

"You mean that cryptid from West Virginia? No. I'm not." You took a seat in Dib's desk chair, which was very comfy. You assumed he spent a lot of time in it when he wasn't hanging out with Zim. 

"Who are you and what do you know?" The voice was menacing, and you vaguely wondered if Dib was involved in something more serious than you thought. Quirking an eyebrow, you tried to not let any miniscule amount of fear you were feeling show.

"I'm, we'll just say Agent, uh...Nessie." Feeling uncreative, your mind drifted to the Loch Ness Monster. 

"You're not Nessie either." 

"You got one of those too? Ugh, fine. What about Agent Chupacabra?"

"Well, no, but...you're not any agent we know of."

"But I could be! Agent Chupacabra reporting for duty!" You brought your hand up to your head stiffly in a mock salute.

"But you're not a member of the Swollen Eyeball! What are you doing on Mothman's computer?" 

"The Swollen what now?" You were smiling stupidly, only because you couldn't really grasp what the current situation was. 

"Hey, sorry, Gaz decided to hound me over drinking the last soda, so I took a little longer than I thought-" Dib opened the door to reveal you sitting in his desk chair, trying to look all spooky for the guy in the monitor. You thought he'd laugh at your stupidity, but he was not in the least bit amused. "OH MY GOD AGENT DARK BOOTY!" Slamming his room door, he darted over to where you were sitting, almost tripping and falling on his face. He made a strangled noise as he noticed the disappointed expression that rested on the silhouette's face.

"Who is your little friend, Agent Mothman?" The distorted voice was cold, and you could feel Dib almost shrink next to you.

"Listen, I can explain-"

"I thought we stressed secrecy, and the fact that you are not allowed to have outsiders sit in on our important meetings."

"Meeting?" All of a sudden, several of the other monitors sparked to life, various other silhouettes coming into view. Just in one glance, you could see that Dib wanted nothing more than to fade away into a cloud of space dust in that moment. You stayed silent, knowing that Dib was in some serious trouble because of you.

"We had a meeting at 8:30 pm sharp, Mothman. You knew this. And you had a friend over?" Dib's face, already pale, turned even more so. Any lighter, and you thought for sure he'd become a ghost on the spot. 

"I am so sorry, I had a school project, and he's my partner, I lost track of time." He looked absolutely helpless, and without a word, you stood up and gathered the poster supplies. Snapping back to his senses, he turned to you and began shoving you out of his room and herding you to the front door.

"Dib, I-"

"You really need to go!" There were no other words said between the two of you as he quite literally slammed the door in your face. A sigh slipped past your lips as you clutched your project items in your arms, dragging your feet across the pavement on your walk home. You lazily stumbled through your front door, mumbling a greeting to your parent(s) as you headed to your room, gearing yourself up to finish the project before morning. 

-

"Thank you to Y/n and Dib for their, erm, informative...presentation on Area 51. That was your last one, so enjoy your last five or so minutes of class." Your teacher went back to their desk as you and Dib retreated to your own table. You hadn't talked much since the incident last night, and quite frankly, you were tired from spending hours of your night creating the visual portion of your project. Dib's lips were tightly pressed together in a thin line, and you guessed there was something he wanted to get off his chest. 

"Look, Dib. If there's something you want to say to me, just do it. I'm sorry for answering your call, that was not a good move on my part, and I also apologize for getting you in trouble with your, uh...society." Running a hand through his dark hair, Dib shook his head.

"No, that was my bad. I forgot I had a meeting. I'm also really sorry for kicking you out and then forcing you to finish the project on your own." Your expression softened, unable to resist forgiving him.

"Yeah, that was kind of a dick move." You elbowed him jokingly, hoping he would loosen up now that bygones were bygones.

"No, seriously. How can I make it up to you?" He looked as if he wouldn't be taking no for an answer. He had gotten a taste of what having someone who genuinely enjoyed being around him was like, and he wasn't willing to let that go. A sly grin tugged at your lips, and almost immediately an idea came to mind.

"Consider yourself forgiven if you take me ghost hunting, or whatever it is you do." His shoulders tensed, but relaxed when he realized you weren't making fun of him. 

"Well, you're in luck. I just received a case file investigation last night on a bigfoot lead. I'll pick you up at eight, if that works?" His words were cautious, almost as if he still believed you were phishing.

"It's a date!" You cheered happily, already excited about getting to spend more time with him. A faint blush dusted his cheeks at your wordage.

"Of-Of course." He stammered out, grateful for the bell that rang not even a second after. 

"See you tonight, Dib!" You waved as you made your way home, wanting eight to come as fast as possible.

"He knows the project is over, right?" Torque Smacky raised an eyebrow, questioning Dib and wondering why someone as cool as you would be hanging around with a guy like Dib by choice. 

-

The doorbell rang, and you sprang up from where you sat on the couch, overjoyed to head out. Practically throwing open the door revealed Dib in all of his trench coat glory, albeit a bit nervous looking and sweaty. 

"Alright Mr. Mothman, where are we going?" You grabbed onto his arm, eventually linking it with your own. He cringed at the nickname, but resisted nothing else. 

"To the park. Apparently, some woman saw bigfoot there the other night. Also, fun fact, I saw bigfoot in my garage one time. He was using the belt sander." Your eyes widened, and you immediately realized why everyone called him crazy. You took it upon yourself to believe him. He obviously believed in himself, so why shouldn't you?

"Interesting. You see any other spooks in your time here?" He shrugged as you walked.

"I mean, I think a few ghosts and, well, aliens of course, but we've been over that. Also, I have vague memories of being abducted by aliens as a kid. I think they were trying to experiment on me to create some sort of genius super baby or something." You couldn't help the laughter that tumbled from your mouth. It wasn't necessarily laughing at him, more so that you weren't sure how else to respond. You didn't want to put him down, but at the same time, his story was very out there. And although you weren't 100% on board with the whole supernatural thing, you believed in him and his words. If that was his truth, you would stand by it. "You ever see anything supernatural?" You pointed a finger to yourself, as if to ask, 'me?'. 

"Well, I mean...I did live in West Virginia for a while when I was younger...a lot younger. And then we moved around a lot." Your eyes instinctively narrowed as you tried to recall those times with you and your neighborhood friends. "And, you know, Mothman was like the local legend. He's basically a celebrity down there."

"No way! Did you actually, like, see him?" If you didn't already have it, you sure had his full attention now. 

"No. I believed in him for a while, but we never saw him, and as I got older and distanced myself from there, I just kind of figured it was bullshit. My friends and I, we would go out at night trying to hunt for him with flashlights and stuff. Sometimes we'd bring lamps onto the porch and plug them in, building little 'Welcome, Mothman' forts to sleep in." You chuckled, remembering how much you had believed in all the spookies and specters as a child. 

"That's adorable." Dib's lips were parted in a smile as he continued to lead you deeper into the park. You weren't sure when you had actually gotten there, but you weren't really paying much attention.

"Well, maybe we could do that together some time. I know Mothman isn't really big in this part of the country, but who knows. Maybe he'll come." Softly bumping Dib in the side, you were pleased to see his smile only grow. 

"I'd like that." The nice moment was interrupted by rustling of the trees, and Dib turned on his flashlight, pointing it to the treetops. "There!"

"I thought bigfoot was more on the ground!" You called as you raced after him. You both came to a grinding halt, your feet skidding in the grass to try and avoid ramming straight into Dib's back. The boy you were with aggressively pointed his flashlight into the tree, resulting in a loud hiss from whatever was up there. "Maybe it's just a cat, Dib!" You tried to pull him away, not really liking how riled up he was at the moment.

"Zim! What are you doing here?! What evil things are you planning?" 

"Zim?" You looked upwards, following the beam of the flashlight. Sure enough, there was a green body hunched in a tree branch, a robot of some sort next to him. 

"None of your business, Dib-stink!" Zim spat, turning to face your friend. It was then you got a good look at his face. It wasn't the slightly abnormal one you were used to seeing every day. His eyes were red and buglike, sleek, black antennae sprouting from his head. 

"Holy shit, Dib. You're not crazy." You flicked your flashlight on as well, aiming it at who you thought was your classmate. "He really is an alien!" A strangled cry came from the alien sitting atop the tree branch.

"GIR! Do something!"

"Yes, master!" The once cheerful-looking robot suddenly turned much more serious, dropping down from the branch to where the two of you were standing. You yelped, unsure of what this thing was capable of.

"Relax, his robot is pretty much usele-" Dib began, but his sentence came to an abrupt end when several missals and other weapons emerged from his head. 

"How do you like GIR's new adjustments, Dib? I finally got his behavioral chip fixed to where he's responsive, but not too serious." Zim smirked, and with the point of one of his clawed fingers, his robot was on the two of you. 

Simultaneously, both of you let out a scream, reaching desperately for each other's hands as you ran for your lives back to Dib's place. Your feet pounded the pavement, lungs feeling as if someone was raking knives down your throat and organs, yet despite all that, you both refused to look back. Only when you were on his porch did you feel comfortable sneaking a glace behind you, only to find an empty street lit up by streetlights. Breathing heavily, the two of you leaned on each other for support. Dib looked very worse for wear. He didn't seem to be too athletically inclined. 

"I think...we lost him..." You spoke between gasps for air, grinning all the while. He nodded vigorously, still wheezing. After the two of you had regained your breath, you both managed to catch each other's gaze. You felt every portion of your brain that was in charge of thinking shut down as you leaned in closer to him. You were barely even aware of what you were doing as you pressed your lips to his. His eyes looked as if they were about to burst from his skull, but after a moment, they eased shut as he relaxed into the kiss. You pulled away, feeling heat rush to your cheeks, almost as if your face was on fire. Your stomach was tied in too many knots to even look at Dib, but if you had, you would have seen that he wasn't fairing much better. In fact, he was probably in worse condition. "Thanks for the night of fun, Agent Mothman."

"Uh-huh." He mumbled out, and his brain looked miles away. You decided just to go home before you did or said anything else that could be classified as stupid. As you power-walked away, Dib's hand found its way to his lips, where the feeling and warmth of your own still lingered.

[ceealaina]

Title: Who’s Gonna Pick You Up? Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: T4 - First Date Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate universe - no powers Summary: In a world where Tony is less playboy and more awkward nerd, he's mostly bored and lonely now that he's graduated from MIT and Rhodey's off on his Air Force adventures. Agreeing to a blind date with Ty Stone doesn't turn out to be his best plan, but luckily Nat's there to save to day. (And even more luckily, she's got a cute brother and Tony is just his type.) Word Count: 5200

All Natasha had wanted was a cup of coffee, and an hour to herself.

Bucky and Clint and Sam had been driving her crazy all day, starting when she had woken up and gone downstairs only to find dregs in the coffee pot and Clint’s dirty underwear on the kitchen counter. 

The morning went downhill from there. She loved her adopted brother and the two dumb idiots they lived with, but sometimes the three of them could get on her last nerve. This was one of those times. So after narrowly avoiding getting shot in the foot with an arrow (long story) she had grabbed a book and headed for the coffee shop on the corner for some peace and quiet. 

And for about fifteen minutes, she’d had it. 

Which, of course, was when Smarmy Assholes 1 and 2 had walked in. 

Natasha read people. She couldn’t help it; it was just something she did. So as soon as they passed through the door, she couldn’t help cataloguing them. And when they snagged a table near her, she couldn’t help eyeing them over the top of her book, keeping an ear out for what they had to say. It was somehow even grosser than she’d expected. 

“It’s not like I want to,” the taller guy was saying. “But he’s Tony Stark. I get in with him and I’ll have business connections for the next few decades -- not that I’d even have to work, with all the money I’d be getting out of him. I just have to suck it up for a bit, turn on the charm, make him fall in love with me. It’s not like it will be hard.”

“Still,” his friend said. “You’ve seen him, Ty. All quiet and shy and… Weird. Seems all needy, too. I’ve heard he’s only got like, one friend, and he’s off with the Navy or something. He’ll be following you around like a lost puppy.” 

“Can't be worse than you, Justin,” Ty retorted, making Justin flush and look away. “Anyway,” he continued. “Needy can be good.” He smirked then, a look that Nat knew entirely too well, and her fists clenched as she fought the urge to punch him in the face. “It’ll be so easy to talk him into anything I want. And he’ll be so busy falling over himself trying to please me, he probably won’t even care who else I’m screwing on the side.”

Justin was smirking too now. “Get some good blackmail pics and you’ve got him for good.”

Natasha quietly seethed. These two chucklefucks were practically twirling moustaches they were so gross. It was a little ridiculous, like they’d gone to the same school of cartoon villainy, but she was having none of it. She was just considering the best way the traumatize them for life when the bell over the door rang, catching her attention. She looked over to see a slight man walk in, about twenty years old. His hair was a mess of dark curls that he kept pushing out of his face, and he was just a little too dressed up for a cafe -- fitted pants offset with a Van Halen tee and a sports jacket. There was a streak of grease or engine oil on his forearm that he apparently hadn’t noticed, and he was looking around for someone, a little nervous but mostly looking pleased and hopeful in a way that made Natasha’s heart clench. 

A quick glance over showed that Justin and Ty were still plotting to kick puppies or whatever, and, making a split second decision, Nat hopped to her feet and headed for the door. 

“Tony?” she asked, carefully aligning herself to block him from their view. When he turned at the sound of her voice, she gave him a bright, disarming smile. “Hi! I’m Tasha. I think you’re here to meet me?”

“T-Tasha?” he repeated, looking confused for a minute. “I... But Obie said... I thought...” He stammered a minute, looking flustered, and Natasha waited patiently. 

“Is everything okay?”

He seemed to get a hold of himself again, giving her a bright smile, hopeful like before. “Yes, sorry. I think I got your... name wrong. I was a bit distracted when Obie was telling me about you.” He held out his hand. “I’m Tony... but then, I guess you already know that.” He laughed a little, a self deprecating note in it as his cheeks flushed a little. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Natasha adored him already. 

“You too,” she told him, returning his handshake and then shifting to give him a kiss on the cheek. His blush deepened and he gave her a shy look from under ridiculously thick eyelashes. “Come on,” she told him. “I’ve got a table by the window.” Nat wasn’t a tall woman, but even in her heeled boots Tony was barely a couple inches taller than her. She put her arm around him, steering him towards her table and carefully keeping him out of sight of Ty and Justin as she did. 

Tony winced as he pulled his chair without a loud screech, giving a nervous little laugh.. “Sorry,” he mumbled, casting a quick glance around to see if anyone had noticed. 

Natasha just shrugged and grinned at him. “Happens to me all the time,” she assured him, lying through her teeth.

He gave her a dry look. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said, catching her eye with a wry grin. “You look like you’ve never been embarrassed a day in your life.” 

Natasha straightened a little. He had spark; she liked that. 

They made small talk for a few minutes, Tony getting himself a black coffee and sighing happily at his first sip. He made vague mentions of the project he was working on without giving any real details. The way he spoke suggested that Ty already knew what he did for a living, and so Tasha played along, smiling encouragingly when he went off on a tangent. 

“Sorry,” he flushed when he realized he had been talking about robotics for ten minutes, chewing at his lip as he looked at her with soft eyes. 

“It’s alright,” Natasha told him genuinely. “I mean, I only understood about half of what you said, but you obviously love it. Your entire face lit up. It’s a good look on you.” 

Tony grinned wide, flushing again. “Thanks,” he mumbled, ducking his head toward the table. “And, um. Thanks for doing this.” He looked up at her again from under his eyelashes, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I don’t really do this a lot,” he admitted. “I was really, uh. I was glad, when Obie said you wanted to meet me. This is... I’ve been having a fun time.” 

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him. “Come on,” she teased. “You’re gorgeous. I don’t believe you don’t have all the boys and girls lining up around the block to take you out.” 

Tony rolled his eyes, fighting back the pleased smile creeping over his face. “Well. I‘m also a giant nerd with the unfortunate habit of talking about engineering and math for way too long.” He bit his lip as he gave her a grin. “Most kids go through the awkward dating stage at fourteen, but I guess I gotta do it now, since I was kind of busy studying at MIT then.” 

“Fourteen?” Natasha repeated, incredulous, and realized her mistake when Tony frowned, like he’d expected her to know that. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just... didn’t realize it was quite that young.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Tony flushed again, dropping his gaze to the table and picking at his napkin for a moment. “That’s not a problem, is it?” he asked making eye contact for a brief moment before his gaze skittered over to the corner. “Sometimes it freaks people out,” he added in a mumble, and Natasha felt like punching something at the hurt in his voice.

“Not a problem at all,” she assured him, curling her hand over his on the table. Tony positively beamed, his entire face lighting up, and it was at that moment that Nat noticed Ty out of the corner of her eye, frowning at them speculatively. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, watching as he leaned over and said something to Justin, who turned to face them too. 

Tony’s smile flickered. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just...” Natasha trailed off, weighing her options. 

Ty was absolutely the type to make a scene, and if he embarrassed Tony in front of the entire cafe, she would definitely kick his ass. But ideally, she would get Tony out of here before it had the chance to get that far. Which left her with two options: She could give him a sweet brush off, let him think it was her — but she’d known Tony for less than an hour, and already knew he would blame himself for it — or she could confess. 

Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she drew in a slow breath. “I need to tell you something.” 

Mirroring her body language, Tony leaned in close over the table. “Okay,” he told her. “Is everything alright? Is there something I can help with?” 

“No,” she admitted. “The thing is, you didn’t have my name wrong. I’m not actually your date.” 

Tony’s eyebrows drew into a confused frown, head tilting to the side. “I don’t understand.”

Natasha made a face. “You were expecting to meet a dude, right? Named Ty?” At Tony’s slow nod, she tilted her chin to the far corner. “He’s over there — don’t look!” she added sharply. 

“I don’t understand,” Tony repeated. “Is this like... Did he send you here to make sure I was legit or something? Because... I mean, he knows Obie. Ty is the one who asked to go out with me?” 

“No, I know. Tony... Ty is a complete dillweed, and you can do so much better. I overheard him talking about you before you got here. He’s an asshole. He just wants to use you, and...” She watched as Tony sank back in his seat, eyes shuttering. “When you came in, I put it together that you were his date and so I intervened before he could see you,” she finished softly. 

“Oh,” Tony said softly. He wasn’t looking at her at all now, focusing intently on the coffee menu over Nat’s shoulder. There was a red tinge to his cheeks, and Natasha saw his jaw working as he clenched his teeth before chewing on the skin around his thumb. “Okay,” he said, and she could hear the hitch in his voice. He offered a weak smile, still not looking at her. “I guess I should have known. Cute guy wanting to go out with me? Probably should have been suspicious when he hadn’t even met me yet.” 

“Tony...”

He met her eyes for a minute, his own shimmering slightly. “Anyway, I should go,” he mumbled, moving to collect his wallet. 

“No, you don’t have to,” Natasha told him quickly, curling her hand over his wrist again. “Or well, we should probably leave before he comes over, but... you don’t have to go. We can hang out somewhere else.” 

Tony yanked his hand away from her. “Thanks for looking out for me, or whatever,  but I don’t need your pity date,” he told her, and it sounded harsh but she could still hear the hurt in his voice. 

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest. “Do I look like a woman who does pity?” she asked dryly, and Tony stopped at that because, well... No, she didn’t. “Yes, okay, I wanted to rescue you from the worst first date ever. But I wouldn’t have stayed if i didn’t genuinely enjoy talking to you, Tony. You’re hilarious, and brilliant, and adorable to boot. And believe me, if I wasn’t a fully committed lesbian, I’d probably be trying to lure you to my bed as I speak.” 

Tony snorted despite himself at that. “Lesbian, huh?” he asked, finally meeting her eyes again. 

“Yup,” Natasha drawled. “But don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s me.” 

Tony rolled his eyes at that, a hint of a smile curling across his face. 

“Look, it’s about time I head home anyway, before someone burns down the house. Why don’t you come home with me? You can meet all my friends... They’re gonna love you, I know it.” 

“Home with you?” Tony repeated. He arched an eyebrow. “That sounds... unsavory. Thought you were supposed to be a lesbian.” 

He was tempted though, Nat could see it, and she grinned. “I am. But don’t worry, if you wanna be unsavored, I’ve got a brother, and you’re just his type.”

Tony giggled at that, and Nat grinned back at him, easy and bright. 

“Come on, Tony. I’m sorry about Ty, but he’s an absolute asshole, and you’re much better off without him. Come meet some real friends.” 

He scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, alright,” he agreed, giving her a soft smile. “Why not? I’d like to meet your friends.” 

Natasha’s smile grew. “Outstanding,” she declared. “Do you want to grab a coffee to - oh, for fuck’s sake.” 

“What?” Tony asked. “What’s-?” He cut himself off as two men approached the table, and the look on Nat’s face made it pretty obvious who they were. 

“Tony?” Ty demanded. 

“Uh, yeah?” 

Ty looked back and forth between Tony and Natasha, his eyes narrowing. “It’s me. Ty.” 

Tony caught Natasha’s eye and then blinked up at Ty blankly. “Ty who?” 

Ty looked like he was seething now. “Ty Stone.” He gave Natasha a dirty look. “Your date.” 

Tony just gave him a bland smile. “Sorry, never heard of you,” he said, before turning back to Natasha. 

“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of me? Our fathers worked together! Obadiah Stane set up this date.” 

There was a heavy sigh from Tony, who didn’t bother looking back up at Ty. “Darling,” he said to Natasha, and oh boy he was laying it on thick but Ty didn’t seem to have noticed. “Shall we go?” 

Natasha beamed back at him, taking the hand he held out to her and letting him help her to her feet. “Of course,” she agreed, moving around the table. “Excuse me,” she added, when Ty blocked her path. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ty asked. “There’s clearly been some kind of misunderstanding” 

“No misunderstanding,” Tony told him. “Obviously you’ve made some kind of mistake.” He made a show of looking Ty up and down. “But I’m definitely not here to see you,” he added, and Nat could have applauded. 

Ty looked like he wasn’t giving up though, and so there was nothing else for Natasha to do except to pretend to trip against him and gracefully slam her fist into his stomach. 

“Darling,” she said to Tony, letting him take her arm and lead her out the door while Ty was still trying to recover his breath. 

They made it around the corner before Tony burst out laughing, almost doubling up with the force of it. “Okay, that was kind of fun,” he admitted, and Nat grinned back at him.

“What was that you were saying about having no social skills?” she teased. “You can bullshit with the best of them, so you’re already halfway there. And that means you’re going to fit in with us wonderfully. Now come on, before he decides to follow us.” 

Tony hesitated a minute. “You don’t, I mean... this more than made up for the shitty first date I would have had. You don’t actually have to make all your friends meet me. I’m kind of a lot for most people.” 

Natasha just rolled her eyes, grabbing his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and pulling him down the street behind her. “You haven’t met ‘a lot’ until you’ve met these assholes,” she told him. “They’re going to love you, I promise. Besides,” she added over her shoulder. “I wasn’t kidding about my brother. James would never forgive me if I told him about you and didn’t bring you home for him to meet.” 

Tony flushed pink at that, but didn’t argue further.

It started to rain when they were almost there, a sudden surprise downpour, and they ran the last block to Nat’s house. Tony was laughing, apparently not bothered, which was good because they weren’t fast enough to avoid getting completely soaked. 

“Hey, assholes!” Natasha hollered loudly as they passed through the front door, making a face as she peeled off her drenched jacket. “I’m home! And I brought a friend!” 

Tony grinned to himself at that, flushing a little when he caught Nat’s eye. “Um. I’m kind of dripping on your floor,” he pointed out, holding his leather jacket open to reveal his now-transparent white t-shirt. Natasha just shrugged. 

“They’ve seen worse,” she promised him. “But we’ll find you something dry to wear. Hello? Anybody home?”

“Jesus Tasha,” as masculine voice answered. “You get lost on your way to the kitchen? What the hell are you screaming… for...” 

Tony had been distracted by his t-shirt, pulling it away with his chest with a wet squelching sound, and looked up as the voice trailed off. He blinked at the man coming out of a room a few feet down the hall, all sharp blue eyes and broad chest and thighs. He was quite possibly the hottest person Tony had ever seen, and Tony gave him a tentative wave and a smile. “Hi,” he offered. 

“Hey,” the newcomer replied, still staring at Tony before he promptly walked into a wall. 

“Oh shit!” Tony cried, instinctively moving toward him while Natasha snorted with laughter. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” The stranger waved him off gruffly. “I’m fine.” 

“Tony,” Natasha interrupted, giggling from the stairs. “This is my brother, James.” 

“Oh,” Tony said, and then clued in to what she had said and his eyes widened. “Oh!” He rubbed at the back of his neck, shy and adorable. “Um, hi James. I’m Tony.” 

He offered his hand out tentatively, and James took it with a quirk to his lips, and a grip that made Tony a little weak in the knees. 

“Bucky,” he told him. “Everyone calls me Bucky, it’s just Tasha who refuses to.” 

“Because it’s a stupid nickname,” Natasha replied easily. It sounded like an argument they’d had a million times over, and Tony grinned as he listened to their easy banter, missing Rhodey like crazy for a minute. 

Before he could get too bummed out, there were footsteps clomping down the stairs, and a blond man with ridiculously large arms (seriously, Tony was going to start getting a complex if he stayed here too long) slid past Natasha. He arched an eyebrow at Tony. 

“Oh hey!” he said, his voice just a little too loud. “Another puppy!” 

Without waiting for a response, he headed down the hall to the kitchen while Tony blinked at him. “I”m not a puppy,” he protested, getting a laugh from Bucky. The newcomer ignored him, and Tony frowned a little, because that seemed unnecessarily rude. 

“Ignore him,” Bucky told him warmly. “He’s deaf. He’s…” He grabbed a tennis ball off the side table and launched it down the hall, hitting Blondie square in the back. 

“Ow!” he hollered, turning to stare at them. "What the fuck?” 

“Hey asshole!” Bucky retorted, enunciating a little more clearly so he could read his lips. “Where are your hearing aids?” 

Blondie made a face. “They broke again. Cheap Hammertech.” 

Tony looked horrified. “HammerTech? No wonder they're broken.” Bucky snorted at that, and Tony gave him a quick smile before following his lead and turning back to the other man so he could read his lips. “Let me see them? I bet I can make them better.” 

“What?” He looked at Tony like he was nuts. “I’m not giving you my aids to play with, no way. You’ll break them, and they’re my only pair.” 

He moved off down the hall toward the kitchen, leaving Tony spluttering after him. “I wouldn’t break them!” he protested. “And they’re already broken!!” 

“Ignore him,” a new voice said, repeating Bucky’s instructions. “Clint’s just pissed I beat him at MarioKart.” 

Tony turned to face the newcomer who smiled at him warmly, and actually moved to shake Tony’s hand. “I’m Sam, nice to meet you.” 

“Tony,” he answered, beaming wide. Sam grinned back, and then looked over at Natasha. 

“New puppy, huh?” he asked. 

Tony stared at him and, although he probably wasn’t aware of it, actually pouted, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m not a puppy!” He glared at Natasha. “I thought you said your friends were nice.” 

“I said they’d like you, not that they were nice,” Natasha offered with a smirk. 

“Don’t take it personal,” Sam assured him, patting him on the shoulder. 

“Tasha’s always bringing home strays,” Clint added from the kitchen doorway, his hearing aids apparently working again. “Starting with Bucky and including all of us.” He frowned then, poking at his left ear. “Aww, hearing aids,” he whined, pulling them out again. 

“Okay, seriously.” Tony set off down the hall after him, apparently over his shyness in the face of potential engineering. “Give them to me. I can fix them, I promise.” 

Natasha, Bucky, and Sam all watched him go. “Where’d you find him?” Sam asked when they’d disappeared, grinning as they heard the echoes of Tony trying to convince Clint to let him fix his hearing aids. 

“At the coffee shop,” Natasha offered primly. “What?” she added, at the look Sam and Bucky shared. “I can’t make friends?” She rolled her eyes at them. “He was heading into the worst date ever, so I rescued him. Don’t look at me like that.” 

They all looked down the hall as they heard Tony’s voice raise again, Clint’s following suit, and Bucky grinned. “I like him,” he declared, before narrowing his eyes at the smirk on Natasha’s face. 

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “Thought you might.” She and Sam waggled their eyebrows at him ridiculously, and Bucky huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“And I hate you. Both of you,” he informed them, stomping off down the hall. 

Sam snorted as he watched him go, glancing over at Nat. “You are a menace.” 

“I do my best,” she told him with a wink, dashing up the stairs to change into some dry clothes. When she returned to the kitchen, it was to find that Tony had, in fact talked Clint into letting him tinker with the hearing aids in question. He was sitting at their rickety kitchen table poking at them with a screwdriver that he'd apparently pulled from his pocket. Tony was completely focused on the machinery in his hands, tongue poking out between his teeth as he concentrated while Clint sat across from him, staring with a critical eye. Sam was watching the whole scene with amusement, and Bucky had pulled some bread from the fridge and was making toast, pretending not to be sneaking little glances at Tony every three seconds.

“Hey, Tony,” she said, snapping him out of his stupor. “You must be frozen, huh?” 

“Oh.” Tony glanced down at his arms and blinked, apparently just now noticing the goosebumps on his arms. “Uh, yeah. I guess.” 

Natasha beamed and moved over to Bucky, bumping her hip against his and raising her eyebrows. “Hey James, why don’t you lend Tony some clothes, hmm? Then we can pop his clothes in the dryer. Don’t want him catching cold.” 

Bucky’s eyes widened and he glanced over at Tony, since Natasha wasn’t even trying to be subtle, but the other man had already delved back into working on the hearing aids. “I hate you,” he muttered, abandoning his toast and stomping off to get Tony some clothes. Natasha caught Sam’s eye over the table and shared a grin with him.

He returned just as Tony was sliding the hearing aids back across the table to Clint, looking all pleased and fidgeting in expectation. “Go on. Try them!”

Still looking suspicious, Clint positioned them in his ears. “Okay, what’s the big--” He cut himself off at the sound of his own voice. “Holy shit. What the…” He pointed wildly at Sam, across the room. “Say something!” 

Sam raised his hands helplessly. “What do you want me to say?” 

“Holy shit!” Clint said again. He stared at Tony incredulously. “How did you… These aren’t just fixed, they’re like ten times better than they were.” 

Tony beamed, looking absolutely delighted. “It’s just kind of… What I do.” Then he yelped as Clint hauled him out of his seat, physically lifting him off the ground and wrapping him in a back-cracking bear hug. 

“Thank you,” he told him sincerely, and Tony flushed as he planted a kiss square on his cheek. Then he was depositing him on the ground and heading off down the hall. 

“Hey,” Bucky yelped as Clint practically shoved him into the shower in his haste. “Where the hell are you going?” 

“Outside!” Clint hollered back over his shoulder. “Gonna go listen to some birds!”

Bucky shook his head. “Weirdo,” he muttered affectionately, catching Tony’s eye and getting a grin out of him. 

“Cute and useful,” Sam teased, “We should keep him, huh Buck? Wanna do our microwave next? Hasn’t been the same since Bucky and Clint got drunk and tried to make s’mores in it.” 

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Okay, I don’t think Tony is here to fix our shit.” 

“Aww,” Natasha teased, voice dry. “Look at you, coming to his rescue.” 

“I don’t mind,” Tony added, looking back and forth between them with eyes that were just a little too sharp. “Seriously, I love this shit. And it’s a microwave, it’s not like it’s hard.” 

Bucky stared at him, a little awed; he’d always been a sucker for intelligent men. “Still,” he muttered. Shifting when he realized he was still staring, Bucky held out the t-shirt and sweatpants he’d wrangled. “Here,” he offered. “If you wanna change.” 

Tony’s lips twitched, as he took the clothes in question, giving Bucky a quick once over. “I don’t know how well they’re going to fit, but thanks.”

When Tony had disappeared down the hall to the bathroom to change, Bucky whirled on Nat and Sam. “Stop,” he hissed, cautious of his voice carrying. “You two are about as subtle as a freight train. You’re gonna freak him out.” 

Nat and Sam shared another look, and gave him identical grins, which was just creepy. 

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Natasha told him sweetly, sliding past him to the sink. “Coffee, anyone?” 

“I mean it, Tasha! Stop trying to meddle in my love life.” 

“Oh ho ho.” This was Sam, arms folded across his chest as he waggled his eyebrows at Bucky. “So you admit there is some romance happening here.”

“I didn’t say that!” Bucky insisted. “Also, stop doing that with your eyebrows, you look fucking stupid.” Sam didn’t stop, and Bucky groaned, slumping down in a chair at the table. “I’m moving out.” 

“Why would you want to move out?” Tony asked suddenly from behind him. “This place is awesome.” 

Bucky turned around to say… something, but his brain shorted out at the sight of Tony in his clothes. They were a little loose on him but fit better than expected, and he looked adorable as shit, especially with one wayward curl ignoring all his attempts to brush it out of his eye. 

“Ignore him,” Sam told him, smirking at Bucky knowingly. “He threatens to move out every other day, and yet we’re still stuck with him, so I wouldn’t take him seriously.” He kicked out the chair opposite to Bucky. “Now come sit down, have some coffee, tell us about yourself. What’s your favourite colour, favourite food… favourite movie?” 

Tony looked amused as he settled into the offered seat, grinning wide when Natasha slid a fresh mug of coffee across the table to him. “Uhh. Red, cheeseburgers, and.. Right now, probably Repo Man?” 

“No shit,” Sam drawled, sharing another look with Nat when Tony closed his eyes in delight at the first sip of his coffee. “That’s Buck’s favourite movie too. Won’t shut up about it. Watches it every week.”

“I…” Bucky sent him a murderous glare. “I don’t watch it every week,” he protested in a mutter. “It’s just…”

“Ridiculous, right?” Tony offered, “But also like you can’t look away from it?” 

Bucky grinned at him. “You know, Fox Harris couldn’t drive a car, and the first day of filming he drove into a bridge?” 

Tony’s eyes lit up at this factoid, and then they were sharing weird facts about the movie, and then sci fi movies in general. Neither of them noticed Sam and Nat slipping out of the room, Sam setting some strategic lighting on his way out. The longer they talked the more Tony seemed to loosen up, alternating between leaning back in his chair and then shifting forward again, unconsciously moving into Bucky’s space. He was a mouthy little shit too, once he got going, dry and sarcastic, and pointing triumphantly to accentuate his point. His whole face lit up when he got started on something, and Bucky kind of couldn’t stop staring at him. 

Their coffee was almost gone before Bucky looked up, frowning when he took in the empty kitchen. “Where did Sam and Nat go?” 

Tony blinked, following his gaze, and then they met each other’s eyes, coming to a realization at the same time. 

“Is this…” Tony ducked his head a little, momentarily slipping back into shyness and giving Bucky a soft little smile. Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. “Did they set us up on a coffee date?”

Bucky glanced down at the almost empty mug. “Guess so,” he admitted. “I’m gonna kill them,” he added without any real heat, grinning ruefully.

Tony shrugged. “I don’t know,” he told. He drew in a deep breath, cheeks flushing a little. “As first dates go, it wasn’t so bad. Beat my last one, definitely.” 

“Yeah?” Bucky caught his eye, watched the way Tony swallowed at the heated look he was giving him. Bucky couldn’t stop himself from leaning, curling his hands around Tony’s neck. Tony blinked up at him, eyes wide, and Bucky closed the distance between them, kissing him gently. 

For all his shyness, Tony was a good kisser and though it stayed relatively chaste, there was a soft brush of Tony’s tongue against his lips that sent little shivers of heat up Bucky’s spine. He pulled back, stroking his thumb over the thrum of Tony’s pulse in his neck, and Tony grinned back at him, open and wide and happy. 

“Then how would you feel about getting out of here and having a real date, where those assholes can’t spy on us?”

Tony laughed at that, eyes sparking in delight. “Can we make out a little more?” 

“Absolutely. Whatever you want, sweetheart.” 

“Then what the hell are we waiting for?”

@tonystarkbingo

[tavi-hayes]

practice challenge ~ journey to the palace

((whoopwhoop, idk how i managed to write this (given it’s quite long and i usually never ever write stuff this long) also please excuse me again for any spelling/grammar errors i try. alsoooo thanks to these wonderful girls: Bethia @h-hart​, Kat @clara-choii​ and Pia @brookelynnsanders​!))

It was silent at work today. The only sounds were the flipping of pages and the ticking on keys of a computer, followed by a frustrated sigh occasionally.

“Maybe we should get some more flutes?” I said, “they’re not that expensive and they won’t take up a lot of space here.”

Lola, being distracted by her laptop, showed no sign that she had heard what I just said.

“Helllooo, Lo are you there?”

“Huh, what?” she ran her hands through her hair as she looked my way.

I lifted the catalogue to show her the flute page.

“No Tavi,” Lo leaned her head on the back of the chair, doing the accounts must have tired her. “We already have flutes, and no one is ever interested in them. They have been here for decades.”

I rolled my eyes, “maybe that is why no one is interested. They look grim.”

Lo refocused on her laptop, and I flipped another page of the catalogue.

Oeh, the bass guitars. My favourite part.

I ran my finger over the page, paying a lot of attention to each one.

There were electronic bass guitars, but also the semi-acoustic ones. Some were very modern-looking with the brightest of colours, while others go for more of a vintage look.

I don’t know if I would ever be able to part with my own baby. The bass guitar, that I now owned, had been eyeing me every day since it had arrived in the store. It had been love at first sight.

But it was such a big investment and I just didn’t have that kind of money.

A part of my earnings was needed for us to make a living, pay the rent and do the groceries for example. And the other part that wasn’t needed for that, entered our savings jar.

We had been saving money since the day my dad was put behind bars. For whatever reason those bars had been in St. George. Freaking St. George.

The province didn’t even have direct borders with Denbeigh, Ottaro was right in between.

That made a simple, but still long, car ride impossible. Not taken the problems that come with the snowy climate into account.

That same climate also caused issues for our only transportation option.

Denbeigh’s climate was hard to predict at times. It could be a beautiful day with sunshine and a clear sky, but then you wake up the next morning to a thick layer of snow.

And because those snowfalls could happen in at least 8 out of 12 months, a lot of planes got cancelled in those months. The only airport anywhere near Winnipeg was privately owned. So the owners could literally ask the prices they wanted for the plane tickets. And boy, they were only focussed on making a profit.

For a simple family of Fives, those prices were unpayable. Hence why we had been saving money for 6 years now, still nowhere near able to pay for tickets. My mom would need a ticket, Daniel and I would too, and we just can’t leave little Aria and Arlan. My dad should be allowed to see them as well. That’s means we already need the money for 5 tickets. But if we include Daniel’s family, with his wife and little Melody, then that would equal 7 tickets.

So yeah, I would never have been able to buy that bass guitar.

Until Lo had a brilliant idea. They would give it to me as my birthday present for the upcoming 10 years. At first, I couldn’t accept that kind of gift, knowing it would have been a huge investment for the Wood family as well. But they insisted, hinting that they would get an employee discount anyway since you know Mr Wood owns the place. So, the price dropped, and they ignored me, so I had to give in and accept. It was the best gift I had ever gotten.

The stores door busted open, “GIRLS!” Gina’s voice took me back to earth. “they’re about to do the draw!”

“What draw?” apparently Lo shared my confusion.

Gina rolled her eyes and grabbed Lo’s laptop from the table. “Wait, I was working! Save it, save it!”

The laptop was put right on top of the catalogue I had just been looking through. Lo ushered over as well.

“Let me just,” Gina had opened an internet page and started typing in the website address of Winnipeg’s number one news channel, WTV. Such an original name.

The news anchor, some middle-aged woman with very fake looking blond hair, appeared on screen. “What is she wearing?” Lo asked, disgust and confusion both showing on her face.

“A track suit, it’s part of her image,” Gina unmuted the laptop, the crow-like voice of the woman filling the room, “now shush, I wanna hear this.”

“… Cameron Porter has been selected for the Illéan national ice hockey team. The star of Winnipeg’s very own ice hockey team, the Winnipeg Belugas, will accompany the national team to the world cup, taking place later this year in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Last week’s draw concluded that Illéa will have to face the German Federation and New Asia in the group stage. The national team’s training will start next week.”

Lo and I shared a look, “this is what you wanted to see Gina?”

“Since when do you care about ice hockey?” I asked, this was something new.

“Urgh, you guys are intolerable,” she silenced us with her finger.

“… and now we will switch to the royal palace in Angeles, to watch the live draw for Prince Arin’s Selection.”

The draw, of course that was what had sparked Gina’s interest. For some unknown reason, the entire Selection had slipped from my mind.

Nevertheless, I felt a little flutter in my stomach. Nerves. Looking over to my friends, I noticed the tense looks on both of their faces. Lo’s hands were clasped together, while Gina’s had disappeared in the pockets of her cardigan.

“Welcome,” some weird voice-over called.

With that the camera focussed on the prince.

“Urgh,” I rolled my eyes.

Lo poked me in the side, laughing, “oh Tavi your distaste is showing.”

“I don’t understand how you can hate someone who is that good looking. I mean have you seen that jawline? Perfection.” Gina had had a crush on the prince for as long as I had known her.

I rolled my eyes again, “I don’t hate him.” The drawing began before I had time to explain myself further.

“From Allens … Idalia Moretti.”

“He doesn’t look very happy,” I couldn’t help but comment, “or comfortable.”

Gina sighed probably annoyed that she couldn’t listen to the show properly, “his engagement was called off not that long ago. That is a pretty hard thing to deal with.”

“Yeah, I see, it’s so hard that he’s having a Selection. Shouldn’t he like get over the other girl first?”

My friends ignored me.

“From Angeles … Emily Rose White.”

This thing was going to take forever. I just wanted to look at the catalogue again, not at that prince, “he’s making me feel uncomfortable, just by watching him.”

Again, no response from either of my friends.

I took that as a sign to remain silent, knowing very well my friends wouldn’t reply anyway now that their eyes were locked on the prince.

“From Dakota … Brooke Lynn Sanders.”

Gina let out a breath she was holding, “okay now is Denbeigh,” she took our hands in hers, “fingers crossed it’s one of us.”

Her hand palms were sweaty, she must really want this.

“From Denbeigh … Octavia Hayes.”

We were all silent for a minute. Then Lo started screaming, Gina joining her. “Oh my GOODNESS!”

“Tavi! You’re going to the palace! You’re going to meet the prince!”

“Yeah,” I was absolutely lost for words. Meeting the prince hadn’t been the first thing that came to my mind, hell it hadn’t even been the second or third thing.

The first thing I thought was: I’m one step closer to getting my dad out of prison. I will be in that freaking library day and night looking for the book that is going to help me. There must be something somewhere about a second opinion on a court order, or something else to annul the judge’s decision.

“Ohhh, I’m sooo jealous of you right now. You are going to meet the prince! And there’s a chance he will fall in love with you and you’ll have beautiful babies.” Gina pulled on one of my curls, it bounced up and down as she let go of it.

“Uhm, I think that particular chance can be redeemed to zero.” I bit my lip, not even in my biggest dreams had I imagined my name would be drawn.

“Tavi, listen. I know you only applied for those laws books, but you need to be friendly to the prince if you want to stay,” Lo insisted, “or else you will be eliminated.”

“And I have to interact with him?”

“There are girls who would kill for a chance of even being in one room with him,” Gina took over, she sounded very serious suddenly. “You’ll meet him that’s for sure, and if you actually try you might make it far enough to earn a date. Just at least try to be nice, okay?”

“Just don’t insult him,” Lo added, “or his family, or the country. Okay, don’t insult anyone.”

The way my best friends were looking at me brought me right back to the good old school days. That was exactly the way teachers had looked whenever I had done something naughty. Which had basically been at least once every day.

“Do you promise?” Lo asked when I didn’t respond.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try not to insult anyone.” I sighed, this is going to be so much harder than I thought.

All of a sudden a lot robot-like voice yelled “BREAKING NEWS”.

It just scared the living shit out of me. We turned as one towards the laptop again.

On the screen was that fake blond woman in her tracksuit again.

“Prince Arin just completed the draw for his very own Selection. Some famous girls will be joining him at the palace. Our very own province will be represented by Octavia Hayes. You might have heard of her, given that she is some meekly Five. But her father’s name will ring a bell. Octavia’s father is Caspar H., a dangerous convict in prison for murdering Winnipeg’s beloved mayor Wilfred Wallis. He might have very well passed the criminal gene onto his daughter. Not only is she definitely not a good representative for Denbeigh, but the lives of the royal family might all be in danger.”

“Damn it!” Stupid news anchor. Why couldn’t they just stay out of my family’s business. Now the entire country will be aware of this. My dad’s arrest did make the headlines of some newspapers when all that had gone down. But that had been 6 years ago and I had hoped no one would remember that.

But now it was out in the open. Again.

It didn’t even matter that my dad was innocent. He had already been suffering for it by being locked up far away from our family.

“Tavi,” Lo put her arms around me, “that’s just bullshit, no such thing as a criminal gene exists.”

Gina joined our hug, “you can’t take anyone seriously who wears a tracksuit on live TV.”

*** Couple of days later ***

Dear dad,

My name got drawn for the Selection, I’m going to the palace and meet the prince. Some palace person is coming to pick me up anytime now so I can’t write a lot. Plus, if the mail has already arrived then you will have to wait another month before you get this anyway.

I asked Daniel if he could start writing a monthly letter as well, maybe he can even add a little picture of Melody so you can see her for the first time. He said he will take care of mom, Aria and Arlan as well. Molly will just cook dinner for more people, which she doesn’t really mind doing. At least that’s what she said.

Anyhow I will write to you from the palace.

Lots of love, 

Octavia

Zohl wzw, R’n hxzivw. Tlrmt gl gsv kzozxv, z dslov mvd vmerilmnvmg dsviv R wlm���g pmld zmblmv. Ovzermt nln, vhkvxrzoob mld gszg rg urmzoob hvvnh orpv hsv’h gibrmt gl orev ztzrm. Zmw dszg droo gsv xlfmgib gsrmp lu nv. Droo R gfim rmgl zm lfgxzhg? Zxxliwrmt gl DGE R’n tlrmt gl hozftsgvi veviblmv rm gsv kzozxv, yvxzfhv lu blfi ‘xirnrmzo tvmvh’. Yfg gsv kvlkov dsl olev blf droo zodzbh yvorvev blfi rmmlxvmxv, vevm ru gsv dslov xlfmgib hvvnh gl gsrmp lgsvidrhv. Qfhg pmld gszg dv nrhh blf wvziob. Zmw R droo gib vevibgsrmt R xzm gl tvg blf ivovzhvw. Qfhgrxv zodzbh kivezroh.

*** At the airport ***

The car journey all the way from Winnipeg to somewhere in Sota had lasted for ages. Even though I hadn’t really been aware of that, since I fell asleep as soon as they closed the doors behind me.  

A frustrated voice had woken me up, “can you please stop drooling all over the leather upholstery?”

My eyes flew open, saliva was indeed smeared on the seat. I quickly wiped it off my face, where it had been present as well. “Sorry,” I mumbled, I then realized we had arrived at the airport, I quickly opened the car door and jumped out.

What I immediately noticed was the rain puddle I had landed in. My shoes and socks were soaking wet. Great.

“Maybe you should try to act more lady-like?” the driver said with a very disapproving tone, looking me up and down. He had already taken my guitar case out of the car and was about to put it right onto the wet street. I quickly grabbed the case out of his hands, clutching it close to my body.

The driver sighed, “there’s the entrance to the airport. Inside it will be clear which directions to follow.”

I made my way towards the entrance he had pointed at when I heard him mumble to himself, “why did I had to drive a barbarian?”

As I turned around, the car’s engine had been running again. I wasn’t sure if he could see me, nor I did I really care. I showed my middle finger to the car anyway. Asshole.

Never had I seen an airport before. It was freaking massive, people walking in all possible directions. Some carrying luggage with them, others with balloons that read “we missed you” or “welcome home”.

One day, my fam and I will be waiting at the airport, carrying one of those dumb balloons around. Coming to pick up dad.

I snapped out of my daydream by someone tapping me on my shoulder. “Miss Hayes, please come with me.”

Nodding, I followed the person not really having another choice since I had no clue which way I had to go. Maybe this is some insane kidnapper.

My heartbeat increased; did I just make a stupid mistake?

“Only one girl has arrived so far. You are to wait for the others before you can board the plane.”

Okay, no insane kidnapper then.

Unless.

This is a complete setup created by his crazy brain.

Panic filled my body, damnit how will I get out of this situation.

Okay, if I just push the person onto the floor, that will give me a chance to run for my life.

One. 

Two.

Three.

I took a deep breath in, ready to make the push. But at the last minute the person side stepped which caused me to lose my balance. He looked at me in a very funny way, “please take a seat, the flight attendant will come get you in a few minutes.”

My cheeks turned very very warm, the redness might very well have equalled the red colour of a traffic light.

Trying to calm myself down, I slumped down into a chair. Yikes, only now became I aware of it again. My socks were still wet and cold. Sigh.

After taking a few deep breaths in and out, I noticed the other girl.

“Oh hey, you’re also a Selected?” I started, realizing it wouldn’t be a bad thing to talk to someone.

She turned towards me, “I am Brooke Lynn Sanders, but just call me Brooke please!”

Not knowing what else to do, I waved at her a little awkwardly. “hi Brooke, nice to meet you. My name is Octavia, but please call me Tavi.”

“Nice to meet you Octavia. Did you have a good journey?” I could already tell she did have the lady-like manners I had been lacking.

Oh god, I couldn’t possibly tell her about the drooling situation, so I decided to stick to a vague answer. “Yeah, it was alright thanks. What about your own journey? Which province are you from?”

“My send off from Dakota was a bit bumpy but I am here now. I wish they would have let me take the train though...”

Another girl arrived, also looking very much like someone the prince could end up with. Compared to these two, I was more of a rag doll.

Pushing my feelings behind that wall deep inside me, I waved her over, “oh yeah hi, please join us.”

We chatted some more for a bit, until Haven arrived.

The way she was walking, the only person I had seen walking like that was Long-Beard Logan, the homeless guy who could often be found near New Wave Records. He walked the same way, but he had one wooden leg.

Then Haven opened her mouth, a weird voice coming out, “hi.”

I noticed Brooke shared my confusion, “uhm hello?”

She took out her phone and typed something, it read ‘I’m Haven’.

My confusion hadn’t ebbed away, “are you alright?”

She typed some more, ‘yup:)) just got a bad cold! what are your names?’.

As a response to that we all introduced ourselves again. These girls didn’t seem to be that bad, hopefully the other Selected at the palace were the same. But the chance of that being true was small. Also, why did I care what the other girls were like? I wasn’t there to make friends, with them or with the prince. I had applied for the thing I needed most. Access to the royal library.

“Have you guys ever been on a plane before? This is all very new to me.” I admitted, trying to ease the nerves that had been building up inside me ever since my name had been picked in that draw.

Brooke had a very strong opinion on planes. Private planes more specifically.

Which came as a shock to me. The private plane part. I didn’t know what I was thinking but taking a private plane had never crossed my mind.

In the meantime, Brooke started talking about the CO2 emissions.

“How else would we get to the palace without having an endless journey? It’s not like there’s a teleportation device, right?” I said a little more vicious than I intended. The higher castes used planes all the time, if anyone had a cause in the destruction of our planet it was definitely them.

Brooke definitely had thought of it all, as she mentioned the outstanding quality of the Illéan train system. Clara chimed in to agree with her.

I decided to not mention my exact thoughts about the higher castes, given the fact that I had promised my friends back home not to insult anyone. So I just nodded my head, “yeah okay I understand your point.”

We were able to board the plane shortly after that. Brooke sat down in a window-seat and Clara nestled herself in the seat next to Brooke’s.

I took a chair on the opposite side of the plane, trying to create some sort of privacy for myself without being rude.

Haven sat down in the seat next to me and smiled at me.

The entry door closed; I could no longer contain my nerves. “Here we go I guess.” I tried to calm my breathing, but it didn’t really help. I tried to think of my family back home in Denbeigh, didn’t help either. I heard my dad’s voice in my head, it was like he was actually talking to me, “You are a strong girl, the flight will be over before you know it. Octavia, you can do this.”

A weird sound whisked my dad’s voice away, I looked over towards the source of the sound. It was Brooke choking on her drink. “Please don’t die,” I said. Her dying here would be a shitty start to this whole adventure. Besides, Brooke actually seemed like a nice person.

She coughed, “I am – I am trying.”

Haven mentioned her sibling, how they were close and stuff. She then asked if we had any siblings ourselves.

This provided me with the perfect distraction. I turned towards her, “yeah, I have three siblings. One older brother, a younger sister and a younger brother as well.”

Normally I would never share such personal information with someone I had just met but talking about them was the distraction I so desperately needed from this whole plane situation.

The others talked some more, but I just realized the one and only thing that would get me through this.

Music.

“If you guys don’t mind, I’m gonna listen to some music.” I said as I took my earphones out of my bag. “Haven would you like to join?” I asked her politely, given that she was sitting right next to me and it would have been quite rude otherwise.

She smiled at me and nodded, so I handed her one of the earphones. “I do have a very mixed taste in music so you’re in for a treat.” Maybe I could even make her listen to our own music, you know casually extending Five Whispers’ audience.

As a reply, Haven winked at me, “I love a girl with mixed music taste.”

Oh who would have thought, I had something in common with another Selected. I too liked people with a diverse music preference, since music says so much about a person. The quote ‘You are what you listen to’ was on one of the walls of New Wave Records music store. It was also my own personal life motto.

Clara and Brooke continued chatting, but I didn’t listen anymore. The music had taken a hold on me and it had only released me from its grip when the plane hit the ground in Angeles.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 1994 and Me

I have no idea how I first discovered Spider-Man the Animated Series. I know it wasn’t the first Spider-Man THING I ever encountered. That was some other Spidey show but I’ve checked them all and have no idea which one it was. But as a kid I didn’t know there was more than one show. I didn’t even know Spider-Man was more than a cartoon!

 So I conflated the then current 1994 cartoon with whatever show I’d seen and by extension with Spider-Man as a whole.

 To me back then Spider-Man WAS that show. The idea of comics, movies, video games and everything else never occurred to me and when I did discover them in my mind they weren’t the ‘real’ Spider-Man.

The ‘real’ Spider-Man was this show.

 Thing is I never knew when it was on. I just knew it was on Fox Kids the cable channel. And my family didn’t have cable. So I spent a long time hoping and praying every weekend that maybe my folks would take me to one of our family friends or relatives who did, and that they would have Fox Kids in their package and that Spider-Man would be on when I was there.

 Everyone in my family and at school I was hungry to see that show, and so they got me a VHS collecting 3 episodes for my birthday. They also taped one and a half episodes from a Saturday morning show that aired the cartoon before I had to go to Greek school.

 As a result of what I can only describe as playing those tapes on loop I can practically quote ‘Night of the Lizard’, ‘The Sting of the Scorpion’, ‘The Menace of Mysterio’, ‘Make a Wish’ and ‘Attack of the Octobot’.

 Whilst the latter two episodes are not well regarded, and I sympathise as to why (they’re basically a subpar adaptation of ‘The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man’), when I was the target demographic they really spoke to me.

 And not in a ‘kids don’t know taste’ kinda way. The plot concerned Spider-Man visiting the bedroom of a kid who was a huge Spider-Man fan, hanging out with them, confiding his secrets to them, going on an adventure with them and ultimately that kid restoring both Spider-Man’s memory of himself and resolve to BE a hero.

 Can you spell ‘wish fulfilment’?

 During one fateful trip to a family friend’s house (who always had the best stuff) I caught the two episodes which are probably the lasting legacy of the whole show, ‘The Alien Costume’ Parts 1-2.

 For all young and impressionable viewers I think these episodes left an indelible mark on them, along with the follow up episode.

 Try if you will to imagine yourself NOT knowing Spider-Man wears any other kind of costume besides his red and blue one. Then imagine the idea of Spider-Man...as the bad guy. Not just the bad guy...but scary. Then imagine he’s made bad, and made scary because his clothes are literally making him that way and forcing themselves on him, even when he doesn’t want them to. Then imagine seeing an even badder, even scarier Spider-Man, but you don’t get a good look at him. you just know he’s ‘out there’.

 Now imagine you are like 6 years old seeing all that.

 For me and new Spider-Man fans like me, our experience with the black costume and Venom was about as close to what the original readers of the 1980s went through as possible.

 What helped make these episodes so impressionable was the fact that my mind was filling in the blanks for what the ‘evil Spider-Man’ might look like.

 Then a while later, by complete chance at an entirely different friend’s house, she showed me a video that had the fabled third part of the story and so, like every 90s kid, I became entranced by Venom!

 And you know what, he was everything my childhood imagination had dreamed up and more. This wasn’t just a scary looking guy, with a scary attitude; this was a guy who was literally stalking our hero. As a kid you might’ve felt a certain comfort from Spider-Man. He was older than you, he was the hero and he was powerful. You either wanted to be him, or wanted to befriend him. But in this episode, suddenly he was as scared and as vulnerable as you were.

 Following those three episodes I spent a lot of time alternating between fear and fascination for Venom and the black costume, and I longed to see those episodes again somehow, even when I eventually did get to see the show more regularly.

 That happened when my family had to move in with my grandparents for 2 years, although I also caught the debut of Black Cat before that. Since Felicia was in whatever Spidey cartoon I first saw waaaaaaaaaay back I sort of knew the character and liked her.

 Anyway, back to my grandparents, during that time they got cable and eventually Fox Kids. So finally one of my childhood dreams was fulfilled and one day I taped a marathon of Spider-Man episodes beginning with the last half of the second part of the epic Spidey/X-Men crossover and ending during the first half of the first half of the also epic Spidey/Daredevil crossover!

 Again, I rewatched this almost religiously and since I didn’t quite understand the magic of the remote, I wound up sitting through the ads too and thus I’m still compelled to invest in the Chelsea Building Society and the 1997 Christmas catalogue.

 Not long after I rented a VHS from Blockbuster (remember those?) containing the Alien Costume/Venom episodes and soon committed those to memory too.

 Finally in now being able to watch the show regularly almost everyday I wound up seeing every other episode too, and seeing them like 5 times or something.

 The first of these episodes I really remember was the incredibly dumb ‘Partners’ wherein I was happy to see Felicia and Scorpion again, and got introduced to the Vulture for the first time. Also I got introduced to Silvermane but he was less than dignified in the episode. If you’ve seen it you will know what I mean.

 Among the most impressionable were the Carnage centric episodes and Secret Wars stuff. But I still fondly remember one morning seeing Spider Wars part 1.

 Mind = blown.

 Aunt May is dead. Green Goblin and Hobgoblin are together. New York is wrecked. Everyone hates Spider-Man, even Robbie! And this is all because of...Spider-Man!?

Another Spider-Man!

Another Spider-Man combined...with Carnage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It helped that, though I didn’t realize he was a different character, I’d recently gotten a toy featuring the Spider-Ben costume and so when Spider-Carnage in an incredibly similar costume showed up, suddenly what I’d regarded as a dumb alternate costume action figure became startlingly relevant.

And the hits kept coming.

There’re even MORE Spider-Mans?

Spider-Man with Doc Ock’s arms!

Man-Spider!

And who is this blonde Scarlet Spider dude?

Ben Reilly and this whole storyline wound up being more important to me than I realized as around this time the Clone Saga was being reprinted, thus I was picking up my first Spider-Man comics off the back of recognizing both the Scarlet Spider and Spider-Ben costumes.

The next night I saw the final episode.

Of course I didn’t know it was the end. I thought for sure there was more coming and if I obediently watched enough of the reruns someday I’d see the fabled (and totally imaginary) next episode where Spidey finally reunites with Mary Jane.

However else I felt about the episode at the time, the story bears the distinction of introducing me to Stan Lee himself as he made his greatest ever cameo in the episode.

At the time it was confusing and surreal. The idea of anyone actually CREATING Spider-Man, or fiction in general, was a foreign concept to me. It grew more surreal as via osmosis I gradually began seeing this ‘Stanley guy’ in other places...except he was REAL, not a cartoon!

After being frustrated by the lack of follow up, and being bored by having seen the show so many times over, I began to...not exactly grow out of the show but began to sour on it a bit.

And upon entering the comics, realizing the show was actually based on THEM and regarding every deviation from them as ‘wrong’, I began to actually hate the show.

For the next 10 years or so I longed for another Spider-Man show, a better and more accurate one.

I went back and forth between disliking and lightly enjoying the show until about 2012.

I might not have many kind things to say about the Marc Webb Spidey movies. But after several years of distancing myself from Spider-Man and pretty much comics in general, the hype for the movie got me back in the mood and slowly but surely I disappeared back into the rabbit hole and this time got in deeper than ever before. Part of that was rewatching the show in it’s entirety from start to finish.

Initially I noticed the flaws, but then that last episode hit me. And over time, I fell in love with the show and see the worth it had beyond it’s flaws.

Quite apart from introducing Spider-Man and his world to me, it ‘educated’ me on the character in ways that actively helped me navigate the comics when I eventually did start to read them.

And looking back, there’d never been a more spiritually faithful take on Spider-Man ever before that show. It wasn’t a cartoon show using a comic book character, it was a comic book cartoon show!

So on this day, I thank you Spider-Man 1994. I wouldn’t have loved this character without you!

[stattic-writes]

Reset

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[babybluebanshee]

Feedback - A MHA Fic

Hizashi Yamada may be loud, obnoxious, childish, goofy, and frankly have the stupidest hair on the planet...but he's still a teacher.

Aaaaaand Ashido makes five. Sorry, kid, but “tooken” is not a word.

Hizashi made a harsh red line through the incorrectly conjugated verb, then moved his pen over to a legal pad. In large capital letters, he wrote “VERB REVIEW B4 WEDS.”

After he finished writing, he tapped his pen against the paper once. Twice. Then, he underlined his note. Three times.

He moved back to Ashido’s paper, and tallied her score in the corner - a 64%. Not bad, by Ashido’s standards, but it could stand to be improved. He’d have felt slightly better about it if he hadn’t written even lower percentages on Mineta, Kaminari, and Hagakure’s papers.

He sighed and polished off his soda. As was his way, he tried to look at this from a positive angle. He’d known the unit on irregular verb conjugation was going to be rough going in, especially in a language as absolutely insane as English. He taught the damn course and he sometimes had trouble with it. At least now he had an idea of where the students needed the most work before the test on Wednesday. The extra review would be good for all of them. And hey, maybe he could do some browsing online and try to find some review games. Those seemed to help when the kids were struggling with sentence structure.

Hizashi smiled as he tossed the empty soda can in the wastebasket by his desk. Everything would be fine. Class 1-A was one of the most promising groups of kids that UA had seen in years, and what they didn’t learn right away, they always managed to get eventually. He scribbled a little happy face on Ashido’s page (to complement the one she had doodled after her name), and set the sheet amongst the other graded assignments.

He casually looked over the next, slightly crumpled sheet in the stack. After a moment, he closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. Goddammit, Bakugo...

For the past three weeks, Bakugo had been turning in assignments that were only partially done. At first, it had just been a question or two left blank. Then five or six questions. Then entire sections.

This time, aside from his lazily scrawled name in the corner of the paper, Bakugo had left this entire paper blank.

Hizashi shoved his hand up under his glasses, trying in vain to rub away the headache this would doubtlessly bring on. He was so glad he’d taken out his hearing aids while he graded. Right now, the noise would not have helped. At all.

He marked a giant zero in the corner of the page, pressing so hard he was momentarily afraid he’d rip a hole in the paper. As he set Bakugo’s paper off to the side, his stomach clenched in hunger. This was as good a stopping point as any, he supposed. Time to find something to constitute dinner.

He padded down the hall and into the kitchen. Just as he was trying to decide if he felt motivated enough to go through the trouble of cooking vegetables and meat for some ramen, or just blasting it in the microwave and eating like a poor college kid, he spotted the pink bag on the counter, the words “Shrimp Chips” emblazoned on it in cheerful bubble letters. He lunged, quietly blessing Shouta and his pathological need to have a constant supply of garbage food in the apartment at all times as he tore into the foil bag with his teeth. He pulled out a handful and stuffed them into his mouth.

Something soft and fluffy snaked its way between his legs. Looking down, he saw Mame’s two giant green eyes staring up at him from the black void of her face, gazing longingly at the chip bag. Her fluffy tail swished back and forth lazily. She opened her mouth in what Hizashi assumed was a pleading mew. He smiled down at her and shook his head, moving his legs to sidestep her. Mame bounded away from him and jumped onto the nearby table, splaying herself out quite contentedly on the table in a pile of papers, discarded mail, and Hazashi’s school bag. She immediately rolled onto her back and stretched out a paw longingly. She then brought her paw back to her mouth, once, twice, three times.

She was signing “food”. And Shouta said you couldn’t teach a cat to sign.

Hizashi chuckled, swallowed, and then signed back, “First of all, child, you’re not even supposed to be up on the table.”

Mame blinked in response.

“Second, these are my chips. None for you. Shouta doesn’t want you eating anything but cat food anyway. He already feels bad when he has to explain to the vet why you’re so fat.”

Mame rolled back over, letting out a squeak of indignation, before stretching and jumping off the table. Unfortunately, her shifting weight jostled Hizashi’s bag, and before Hizashi could set the chips aside and catch it, everything inside had spilled out onto the floor. He tried to glare angrily at Mame, but she had suddenly become very interested in thoroughly cleaning her front paw. He supposed it didn’t matter. He could never stay mad at her anyway.

He brushed the chip dust off his hands and began to sort through the mess on the floor. Honestly, he’d needed to clean out this bag for a while. Its contents were a mess of lunch receipts and old notes he’d written to himself and playlist ideas for the radio show that had never fully come to fruition. As he crumpled up the trash in his hands, he uncovered his gradebook. He groaned slightly as he began to realize that meant he hadn’t recorded any of the worksheet scores yet, and he was already more than halfway through the pile. He’d have to go back and do them all again.

At least he’d caught himself. And he also had shrimp chips. That sort of softened the blow.

He gathered up the rest of the mess from his bag and put it on the table. He’d sort through it all before bed. Then he gathered up his gradebook, tucked the chips under his arm, grabbed another soda from the fridge, and walked back towards the bedroom.

He flipped open his gradebook with one hand, so he’d at least have it open to the right date by the time he sat down. It fell open to a page near the beginning of the semester. He was just about to shake the book to turn the pages (very nearly losing his underarm grip on his chips), when something caught his eye.

“Bakugo, Katsuki: 88%”

Huh.

His eyes drifted downward, to the next assignment he’d catalogued. An 87%.

He approached his desk, and he began arranging his things to his liking, but he never once took his eyes off the grade book. He scanned the next assignment. Bakugo had scored an 84%.

Hizashi sat down slowly, his chips and the rest of the papers forgotten. He turned the page in his gradebook. Bakugo’s next grade was an 89%.

The next was an 88%. Then a 90%, followed by an 85%. Another 87% and another 89%.

This didn’t make any sense. How could Bakugo start out with such high scores and then suddenly start turning in blank assignments?

He turned the page and got his answer. A 73% was the next grade he saw. It wasn’t exactly failing, but it was a dip in quality, jarring compared to the previous pages.

Maybe the blank assignments weren’t so sudden.

He continued to scan the page. The percentages hovered around the low seventies for a while. On the next page, they dipped into the sixties. Checking the dates, Hizashi saw that these grades began three weeks ago, right around the time Bakugo had started turning in the half-finished assignments.

The decline was steady, until Hizashi finally got to the last assignment he’d recorded. A 58%. A far cry from where they’d started.

His phone was in the corner, next to his hearing aids. He snatched it up and opened up his text thread with Shouta. His husband would be out patrolling right now, but it was still early, and Hizashi hadn’t gotten any breaking news updates on his phone. Hopefully, he wouldn’t catch Shouta at a bad time.

Quickly, he typed, Yo, have you heard anything from Cementoss or Ecto about Bakugo’s grades?

Shouta’s response was quick, taking a little more than a minute. Hizashi was the only person who could brag that Shouta had never left him on read in the entire time they’d known each other.

No. Why? Short and sweet. That was Sho for you.

I’m grading 1-A’s last assignment. Noticed something super weird.

Yeah?

So I’ve complained at you about the kid turning in unfinished work, right?

Many times. They’re enjoyable rants.

Before Hizashi could reply, Shouta sent another message. Do I need to talk to him again about getting his work in? Because I’m sensing the last talk didn’t stick.

Hizashi smiled and replied, Not sure yet. I looked at his grades from the beginning of the semester and they’re good. Not perfect, but good.

Hmm…

Then I started noticing him slipping. He was still handing in complete assignments, but he was getting more stuff wrong. Then he starts handing in this half-assed stuff and his grade just drops more. It’s weird.

What do you think is going on?

Dunno yet. That’s why I was asking if anyone else has said anything. If they had, I was thinking maybe we could have him talk to Hound Dog or something?

Like I said, haven’t heard anything from either of them. They’re not shy about telling me when someone is struggling.

It was true. Hizashi had never known either of his fellow teachers to turn away students who came to them for extra tutoring. And if the students wouldn’t come to them, they had no problem approaching them privately and gently insisting they should. There weren’t many students who would say no to a guy who looked like a walking corpse and someone who could make the parking lot swallow you up.

It just made everything more confusing. He couldn’t think of why Bakugo was doing so much worse in his class than any of the others. It couldn’t be because Bakugo particularly didn’t like him. Not that the kid was particularly fond of any of his teachers, but Hizashi had seen the way Bakugo behaved around people he genuinely hated, like poor Midoriya. That explosive resentment was a far cry from the casual annoyance Hizashi usually saw on Bakugo’s face when they were having a long lecture about diagramming sentences.

Then the word caught him. Explosive.

He thought of Bakugo during training, igniting the nitroglycerin-like sweat that poured off him, and making thundering explosions, loud enough to rattle windows and be heard for miles.

Hizashi’s gaze flicked up to his hearing aids, still at the corner of his desk. English had been a challenge for him because of them. Obviously, learning another language entailed being able to listen to it and pick up the various patterns, words, and grammar rules.

He picked up his pen and tapped it against the desk. Yes, English had been difficult for him, because he’d been deaf since birth. He knew that was the reason.

He could only imagine what it must be like for someone who doesn’t even realize something is wrong yet.

He tapped out a response to Shouta’s last text. I think I know what to do. I’ll explain when you get home. Love you xoxoxo.

Hizashi picked up Bakugo’s blank worksheet. Next to the zero, he wrote, much more lightly, “See me after class.” Then he underlined it. Three times.

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

Hizashi kept his eyes trained on Bakugo as the rest of the class filed out of the room. He thought it pretty telling when the normally cocky little twerp was trying his damnedest to look everywhere but at him.

Finally, Bakugo stood up from his desk and approached the front of the room, hands deep in his pockets. As he did, Hizashu covertly touched the screen of his phone. The video he had queued up began, and a high-pitched whine filled the room. Even though his headphones cancelled out most of the feedback, it still made him wince as his hearing aids worked overtime to process the frequency. It was irritating, but he’d survive. He needed some proof.

“What do you want?” Bakugo muttered tersely.

Hizashi flicked his gaze down at his student’s pocket, where he’d stuffed the blank homework assignment Hizashi had handed back to him. As if sensing that Hizashi was looking, Bakugo crumpled the paper in his fist and shoved it further down.

“Look, I’ll do the stupid thing again if that’s what you want,” Bakugo said, a bit louder. Hizashi knew the kid was trying to intimidate him. He tried it with literally everyone who even looked at him funny.

Hizashi just sighed quietly and replied, “This isn’t about one assignment, Bakugo. It’s about the last several assignments.”

Very few of his students had ever heard Hizashi use his “authority” voice, as Shouta called it. Hizashi honestly didn’t like using it. Most of the teachers in UA were some form of intimidating, and he didn’t want to be that way. He wanted his students to feel like he was a friend, rather than an authority figure. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know when it was time to straighten up and start putting on a teacher voice.

At least the tone had gotten Bakugo to stop looking at the floor and move his eyes somewhere in Hizashi’s general direction.

“It’s not my fault your class is a waste of my time,” the kid muttered.

“Then you should have no trouble explaining to me why your average score on my homework was an 87% until recently.”

Bakugo didn’t answer at first, but Hizashi could practically see the wheels turning in the kid’s head, trying to offer up some angry response that would hopefully scare this prying teacher off.

The high-frequency playing on Hizashi’s phone droned away. It was starting to make his skin crawl. Bakugo didn’t show any signs that he even noticed it.

“Guess your teaching bored me so much it made me drop a few IQ points,” Bakugo offered up weakly. Once again, his gaze was firmly fixed on the floor.

Hizashi took a deep breath, and said, “Bakugo, how long have you been having problems with your hearing?”

That really got Bakugo’s attention. His red eyes contracted to pinpricks, and he straighten his whole body to look Hizashi square in the face. “What the hell are you talking about?” he shouted. His words echoed through the empty classroom. “I can hear just fine!”

“Uh huh,” Hizashi said, picking up his phone and showing it to Bakugo. “Then why couldn’t you hear this high frequency that’s been going for the past few minutes?”

For a split second, Bakugo looked at Hizashi like he’d slapped him. Then the familiar rage contorted his features again, and he shouted, “You’re a liar! You didn’t have anything playing on that piece of shit!”

Hizashi held the phone out to him. “Check if you don’t believe me. But blow it up, and I’ll have you expelled faster than you can blame Midoriya.”

Bakugo swiped the phone from Hizashi’s hand and looked down at the screen, studied the video of the high frequency. He tapped play on the screen, and instantly, the dreadful noise filled the room again. Hizashi actually flinched a bit at the renewed onslaught.

He watched his student stare in silent confusion at the video for a whole thirty seconds before Bakugo spoke up again. “I...it...this stupid video doesn’t even have any sound,” he grumbled, thrusting the phone back towards Hizashi.

Hizashi took the phone, mercifully muted the video, and stuffed it back into his jacket pocket. “Now, back to my original question: how long have you been having problems with your hearing?”

“I already told you, I don’t have any stupid problems!”

“Then you’re definitely gonna need a better excuse to explain away these half-assed assignments,” Hizashi retorted firmly. A brief flicker of confusion crossed Bakugo’s face, and Hizashi guessed this was the first time a teacher had actually sworn in front of him. Hizashi took advantage of the confusion to add, “I talked with Aizawa and the other teachers. My class is the only one where you pull this stunt. Incidentally, math and literature are classes that don’t revolve around being able to hear what your teacher is talking about very well. Unlike, say, English.”

Bakugo merely growled.

“Maybe you’ve noticed ringing in your ears? Or that sound is fading in and-”

“How many times do I have to tell you?!” Bakugo’s sudden shout filled the room. Those red pinpricks were back on Hizashi, full of fight and fire. He had no doubt that Bakugo’s palms were roughly two seconds from starting to pop. “If you can’t get it past your stupid, gel-encrusted hair and through your thick skull, then maybe you’re to one having problems with your hearing!”

Hizashi couldn’t help it - he started to laugh. He’d been prepared for Bakugo to insult and demean him (the crack about his hair was almost a given), but this was just too good. And the look on the poor kid’s face - torn between unbridled confusion and an animalistic urge to jump the desk separating them and claw Hizashi’s eyes out - only made him laugh harder.

Finally, Bakugo barked, “The hell is so funny?!”

Hizashi simply reached up and slid his headphones off, being sure to turn his head slightly so Bakugo could see the thin wires running from the insert to the black processor behind his ear.

“I kinda hope I’ve got a problem with my hearing,” he said. “Otherwise I paid through the nose for the world’s ugliest jewelry.”

Bakugo didn’t reply. He just kept staring - gaping really - at Hizashi’s ears.

Hizashi set his headphones down on his desk, and said, “I’ve been deaf since I was born, but I’ve only had hearing aids since I was about six. I wasn’t kidding when I said they were expensive.”

No reply.

“The doctor who fitted me with my first pair as a kid told my parents that’s probably why I cried so loud. I literally couldn’t hear myself and stop.”

Still no reply.

“The headphones serve a double purpose. They protect my hearing aids against damage, and have a backup power source for them if the batteries ever die while I’m fighting villains or helping in a rescue.”

Silence.

“Bakugo?”

“...you mean to tell me those stupid headphones you wear actually have a purpose?”

Hizashi laughed out loud. “Excuse you, but those things are the height of fashion and function. At least that’s what Hage pays me to say.”

Was that a flicker of a smile Hizashi saw on Bakugo’s face? He decided not to press his luck by asking. Instead he said, “Now, will you answer my question or not?”

Bakugo chewed his lower lip a bit. Another beat of silence passed, and then he finally grumbled, “A while.”

“I’d ask you why you didn’t say anything sooner, but I already know why.”

“Screw you.”

“So you’ve noticed some symptoms?”

“...yeah. It mostly started as ringing.”

“Started?”

“Yeah, it’s worse now. Now sometimes people will just...cut out when they’re talking to me. If I’m not looking directly at them, I miss what they say.”

“And I’m not gonna ask you to learn lip-reading just to get by in English class. It’s a pain, trust me.”

“You can read lips?”

“Yep. I sign too. Since I went through a chunk of my life not being able to hear anything, it can be a little overwhelming. I sometimes take them out when I’m at home. Or in a boring staff meeting.”

That one actually got Bakugo to laugh. Or snort, really. But at least it was something other than confusion or fury.

Hizashi smiled and said, “But you’ve been able to hear your entire life, and if it’s caught early, you might not need as elaborate a set-up as mine.” He took a business card from his back pocket and held it out to Bakugo. “This is for a woman named Nanama Sakakibara. She’s one of the best audiologists in Japan. I want you to think about seeing her. Also, I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that your explosions are what’s damaging your hearing, so maybe think about hitting up Power Loader for some ear protection in that costume of yours.”

Bakugo gave him a stiff nod, but eyed the card like it might bite him. He flicked his glance back up to Hizashi’s. “Do I have to take it?”

Hizashi’s smile morphed into a cat-like grin, and he said, “No, of course you don’t have to. I can always keep it to give to your mom when I set up an emergency parent-teacher conference to discuss your near-failing English grade.”

Bakugo narrowed his eyes at him, then silently snatched the card from Hizashi’s hand. “You’re a dick,” he grumbled.

Hizashi merely smiled wider and picked up his headphones, sliding them back into place over his ears. He slipped back into his announcer voice and said, “I’m a dick because I care, sparky.” He gave Bakugo a double finger-gun, and added, “Now amscray before Eraser gets suspicious about why you aren’t at training yet.”

Bakugo began to move toward the door. Hizashi found it pretty promising when he didn’t immediately shove the card into his pocket, with his incomplete assignment.

When Bakugo reached the door, he stopped, one hand on the door frame, his shoulders tense and his head ducked down.

A beat of silence.

Then: “Thanks or whatever.”

And suddenly Bakugo was gone.

Hizashi shook his head. The gratitude was more than he’d expected. At least it was better than holes blown in the walls.

[angsty-nerd]

Fictober 21

#21. “Change is annoyingly difficult.”

Roswell, NM fanfic

Max & Arturo, Isobel, Mr. & Mrs. Evans.

Just as a mini note... this one is also the (rough) start to one of my bunnies hopping around in my head, so it might pop back up at some point in the future as Ch 1 of a multi-part fic.

Again, below the cut for a bit of length...

Year 1

There was a slight bounce in his step when he entered the kitchen that morning, and it was enough to draw his entire family's attention.

"Well look who is up and moving early this morning," his father greeted him dryly. "Got plans to do something with your life today, Max?"

Isobel snickered, so Max shot her a glare as he dropped into his seat at the table and poured himself a bowl of cereal.

"Cut him some slack," his mother protested on his behalf. "It's been rough for him lately. And I think it's nice to see you doing better, Max."

"Thanks, Mom." He replied with a grateful smile. It was a fairly typical family exchange. His father would criticize him for his lack of drive; for not being at college or having a full time job. Max would usually protest that he was working on his novel, or that tutoring students from the Military Academy was a real job, but his father would hear none of it until his mother shut the conversation down.

At least, that's how it would go on the days that Max left his room at all. Some days he had trouble even facing the outside world. Sometimes he couldn't even get out of bed, held prisoner by the crushing weight of his guilt in a queen-sized bed.

"Oh dear," his mother suddenly sighed with a shake of her head. She and his father were reading the newspaper over breakfast like they did most days, trading sections back and forth between the two of them as they ate.

"What is it?" His father glanced up from the sports section curiously.

"Oh, it's the anniversary of that accident last year where those poor girls were killed."

"Tragedy," his father mumbled with a shake of his head, as his eyes went back to the baseball box scores.

"The Daily Record has a memorial on the front page today for the two girls who were in the car. And an expose on that Ortecho girl that was driving. It says that her autopsy showed that she was drunk and high at the time of the accident. And she was known around town for being both a vandal and a drug dealer."

Max just kept his eyes trained on his cereal bowl. He didn't want to look at Isobel. He didn't want to know what was going through her head listening to their mom talk about the worst day of their lives.

Thankfully, he heard the newspaper pages rustling as his mom moved on to a different page. "Such a shame that she had to take two innocent girls with her when she decided to go."

He winced at her words, wanting to defend Rosa, who had no say in the matter, but knowing that he couldn't. After all, she was drunk and high that night. He saw her.

Needing to escape, Max shoved the last few bites in his mouth, and then rinsed his bowl, calling out a goodbye to his family as he hurried out the door.

It was a big day, after all. It was a day a year in the making, and he had plans.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He went straight to the Crashdown.

One year ago today, Liz Ortecho's sister had died. A few days later, she abruptly skipped town without saying goodbye and essentially broke his heart in the process. Since that day, he had spent twelve months fighting depression and trying desperately to write his feelings out, all while missing and longing for Liz.

His father wasn't wrong when he complained of Max having no direction in life. He had two plans at the end of high school. One involved following Liz on her road trip and falling in love and just allowing her life to take him along on her adventure. The other involved traveling Europe with Michael and writing his first novel. Both dreams burned to ashes in that blue car alongside the bodies of Rosa, Kate, and Jasmine.

But now a year had passed. And Max was heading to the Crashdown with a single minded purpose: to see Liz Ortecho again. After all, she would want to be with her father today of all days, wouldn't she?

As Max drove his Jeep into the town square, he slowed, startled at the sight of a number of sheriff's department vehicles parked haphazardly in front of the Crashdown, lights flashing.

He pulled into a parking space about a block away and sat there, watching and worrying. He could see Sheriff Valenti speaking with Liz's father, while his deputies seemed to be cataloguing evidence from a crime. Arturo Ortecho looked stressed out. He was talking with animation, his anxiety clearly high.

Suddenly the sheriff stopped writing notes, placed a hand on Arturo's shoulder and seemed to ask him a question. Arturo nodded firmly.

Just like that, Valenti ordered his men to pack it up and call it a day.

"No crime to report here," he announced, loud enough that even Max could hear.

Within a few minutes, the police presence was gone, and Arturo was alone with a broom, sweeping up the broken glass on the sidewalk all on his own.

Angry and determined to help, Max stepped from his Jeep and crossed the street to speak with Liz's father.

"Mr. Ortecho." Max greeted him. "Can I ask, what happened?"

Arturo nodded at him. "Max Evans, right?" Max nodded. "Liz always liked you." He said thoughtfully as he swept.

"I always liked her." Max replied, trying to not laugh at what an understatement it was coming from him. "We were friends. How is she doing? Is she here?"

"Oh, no," Arturo dismissed, with a long emphasis on the denial. "No, she's working hard, summer classes and a research internship. My little genius. No time to come home to her Papi. It's good though. Better for her this way."

Max nodded, because as he surveyed the scene he actually did understand what Arturo was saying. Broken glass littered the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, and it looked like both the door and the windows along the square had been busted in.

"Can I help you clean up, Mr Ortecho? It's a hard enough day for you and I don't have anywhere to be."

"Oh, I…"

"It's the least I can do for Liz." Max insisted, and it seemed to be the right thing to say. Arturo swallowed his protest and nodded.

"I can handle this mess just fine, but there's plenty more inside. There's another broom and more cleaning supplies in the break room closet."

"Got it."

Max stepped through the frame of the door into the restaurant and froze, surveying the scene in front of him. Liz's father wasn't exaggerating when he said there was more of a mess inside. It looked like there had been an earthquake, tornado, or some other natural disaster. The floor was covered with broken glass, broken plates, mugs, bowls…anything breakable had been strewn around the room and destroyed. Even all of the restaurant's cutlery was tossed all over the floor.

It also looked like there had been a food fight. Clearly the intruders had gotten into the store room as well, and made as big of a mess of the place as possible. Gobs of ketchup dotted the tables, melted ice cream was dripping down the long front counter, and chunks of chocolate cake were sticking to the walls in a number of places.

But the mess wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the bright red paint on the wall screaming, "MURDERERS, GO BACK TO MEXICO".

Max's heart started pounding and he suddenly felt like he was losing his breath. He braced himself against the wall beside him and tried to force himself to take long, even breaths, but it quickly became harder, as he started crying and gasping for air.

We did this. He kept thinking. I did this. Because of me, Rosa was named a murderer and Arturo is a target.

Guilt flooded through him, overtaking the initial panic that he felt at the sight of the disaster in front of him. He forced himself to pull it together, surveyed the room, and got to work.

I did this. I will fix this. He decided.

He went to the back closet and grabbed a broom and a dustpan. He prepped a trash can for himself, and finally snagged a few of the plastic tubs from the bussing station. Slowly and carefully, he started sweeping up the debris, dumping a dustpan full at a time into one plastic bin so that he could fish out any silverware or anything else salvageable, before dumping the rest in the trash.

He had worked through about a dozen loads when Liz's father joined him from outside. Working together went much faster than alone, and soon the floor was clear and they shifted their focus to cleaning the booths, and then the countertops.

It was mid-afternoon, when Arturo emerged from the store room with a bottle of solution and a tag. "Since youve been so kind to help me, I will ask one last thing...can I please take advantage of your height and ask you to clean that for me." He gestured distastefully to the painted walls.

"Of course," Max agreed, and immediately went to work trying to wash away the stain of racism that the town had left behind.

"Oh no!" Max exclaimed sadly when he realized the paint thinner was cutting straight through the mural beneath as well. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Ortecho."

"There's nothing to be done," Arturo said sadly with a shrug. "At least it is only the one wall. I'll have Maria come over to see if she can fix it when you're done. She isn't quite as talented as Rosa, but she's the next best option."

After he was done with the wall, Arturo offered to make Max a burger, but Max refused. "No, you take care of yourself, Mr, Ortecho. I'm good. I have something else I need to do anyway."

"Okay," Arturo replied, and he grasped Max's hands in his own. "Thank you for your help today."

"I'm glad I was here." Max started to leave, but as he reached the door, he paused and turned back. "Mr. Ortecho? Please don't tell Liz about this...me helping with the cleanup I mean. She doesn't need to know."

Arturo just nodded in agreement, and then Max was out the door and gone. He passed the window repair guy, who was just arriving to replace the windows. Max smiled and waved as he crossed the street and hopped back into the Jeep.

One year ago his entire life had changed for the worse, and for the last year he'd been lost, treading water, despondent. But today, a year later, he was going to change his life again. Because he knew after spending the day with Arturo exactly what he wanted to do with himself.

So Max drove straight to the Chavez County Sheriff's Department office in Roswell and enquired about the process to sign up for their academy program. He filled out the paperwork on the spot, and by sunset his future was no longer this nebulous unknown thing that he feared.

He walked into the house that evening and flopped onto the couch next to his sister, feeling lighter than he had in days, and it showed.

"What's with you?" Isobel asked curiously. "Did Liz come home like you dreamed she would?"

"No, actually, she didn't. I just finally figured out what I want today."

"Oh yeah, and what's that?"

"I...I want to help people, Iz. I want to feel like I'm standing up for what's right. I don't want being a bad person to define me for the rest of my life. I guess...I want to make up for my mistakes. So I signed up for the Sheriff's Academy."

"You what?" Isobel gaped. She stared at him for a long moment and then finally nodded. "No, actually, I can see it. You've always been a pain in my ass, brother. Now you can focus all of that 'do the right thing' energy on other people instead of me."

"Hey now!"

"Seriously, though. Change is annoyingly difficult, Max, and so far you've kinda sucked at it. I'm glad that you found some direction. I hope that this is good for you."

"Thanks, Iz."

Two months later, the next freshman class initiated their training program at the Academy, and Max was sworn into civil service. That day, while standing in his freshly pressed uniform in front of the U.S. and Zia flags, he officially became Deputy-in-Training Evans. When the oath was over, they handed him a white cowboy hat, which Max held in his hands for a long time, before carefully placing it on his head and following his training officer to his first assignment.

[sirkkasnow]

02 Always Take the Nickel Tour

Ao3 link

07/01/13 Monday

Morning dawned with a pleasant chill. Between Stan, Soos and Ford, they got the old station wagon - a sky-blue Ford Fairlane - rolled away from the house and tucked in at a shallow angle next to the Stanleymobile. The S still leaned forlornly against the dented siding. They’d get it hauled up and nailed back into place later.

Stan swept the road-trip debris off the front passenger seat and cracked the glove compartment. He set aside the age-yellowed manual and the service records, most of them crisp and fragile on ancient transfer paper, one new, extensive and computer-printed.

He then flipped through everything else, scanning with an expert eye for items of interest. 

Brand new insurance card in the name of Clara Jane Merrick. A small collection of much older insurance cards in the name of Charles and Caroline Merrick. Vintage pressure gauge, matte black LED flashlight, heavy-framed designer sunglasses, can of pepper spray.

Photograph in a gold-stamped cardboard frame. Stan fished that one out, curious. The photo stock was the old-school linen textured stuff. Three blondes of varying shades grinned back at him, lined up like nesting dolls by age – forties, twenties, preteen – with matching sunhats and huge smiles. The smallest and darkest-haired was instantly recognizable as Clary. She was maybe twelve years old here, a beaky girl still growing into the aquiline nose neither of the others shared. He flexed the frame in one hand, squinting in to read the penned inscription on the photo's back - Carrie, Charlie, Clary.

Stan filed that away for later reference, returned the less-relevant stuff to the glove compartment, then leaned way over along the bench seat to pull the hood release.

The sun had slipped past noon by the time Clary finally emerged from the house, looking far less threadbare than she had the prior night. She was crisply dressed in yesterday’s Bermuda shorts, a fresh button-down shirt and a silk scarf patterned with dragonflies - wrapped twice, snug, knotted off-center at the throat. “Good afternoon, Stan.”

“Hey, Clary. Feelin’ better?” He was elbow-deep in the car’s guts by now, a few unsalvageable bits laid out on an old towel to one side. Grease streaked his forearms. The engine was pretty nice for something near the age of his own wheels, a huge V-8 that had seen very little use. This must have spent most of its life in a garage.

Clary stepped in alongside Stan, peering despondently into the engine compartment. “Sore, but rested, at least. What’s the diagnosis?”

Stan hissed in thought. “Drive belt assembly’s shot, electricals are kind of a mess. Radiator hoses of course. Think the engine block’s okay. The body damage isn’t too bad.”

Clary ran exploring fingers along the battered chrome of the front grill, mouth set in an unhappy line. “Except for the concave hood, I suppose. What can I do to help?”

“Know anythin’ about cars?”

“Repair? Not a thing.”

“It’s gonna be a while.” Stan glanced sidelong to study her profile.

“Ford said it may take weeks.” Clary’s tone was conflicted, teeth catching lightly at her lower lip, brow furrowed.

“Ford doesn’t know what he’s talkin’ about when it comes to cars, but yeah, he’s not wrong. This thing’s old and the parts are gonna be a pain to scavenge up.” Stan straightened and toweled off his hands. “Orderin’ stuff in would take a while and I know from experience that you don’t always get the right widget through the mail. Might have a couple ideas about local sources…we’ll see. You okay?”

That air of pinched distress was tight around her eyes again. She rolled her shoulders back, looking up and out into the forest. An unhurried breeze set thousands of green-velvet branches into whispering motion. “Okay enough. It’s gorgeous here,” almost as an afterthought.

Stan flicked his gaze heavenwards for a weary moment. Yeah, she’d be staying for the duration. What the hell was it with tourists and pines? “Y’get used to it. Check out the Shack yet?”

“Not yet. I was promised an expert guide.” She stepped away, heading around the back of the wagon to unlatch and hoist down the mountain bike from its rack. A faint residue of reddish dust clung to the tire rims. “Maybe when I’m done unpacking the basics? Since I’m going to be here a few days, there are people who need to know my plans have changed.”

“Thought you were on vacation.”

“Money never sleeps, and unfortunately it’s easy to get some things done on the road.”

She trailed back and forth for a while, parking the bike and hauling a larger duffel bag into the house. Stan worked methodically through the last few items on his engine checklist and jotted down an occasional note. By the time she returned he had a more or less complete catalogue of what needed work. He lowered the badly-dented hood into place and latched it. “Fixin’ this is gonna be an adventure.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. Let me know what you need in terms of parts, I can cover whatever – “

Stan ducked his head, stifling the wide flash of his grin behind one hand. “Careful, kid, don’t leave yourself quite that wide open. This is pretty much on Ford anyway so I’ll take most of it out of his hide. C’mon.” Clary paced in his wake, looking up and out across the Shack grounds like she hadn’t bothered before – probably a fair enough assessment after yesterday’s chaos. “So car repair’s not your bag, no shock that. How about arts and crafts? Tall tales? Improv?”

“I’ve had to put on a song-and-dance routine for the IRS a few times. Does that count?”

That startled a laugh out of him. “Depends on whether you pulled it off.”

“I definitely pulled it off. At least no one’s come looking for me yet.”

“Maybe you help me help Soos around the Shack, then, put those tap-dancin’ skills to the test. A favor for a favor.”

Clary frowned at him in puzzlement. “I’m game to try. This is all a bit outside my wheelhouse.”

“Honestly, you could get stuck in way worse places than this. We’ve got tons of stuff for the discernin’ passerby. Merchandise, magic, mystery, uh, mayhem, you get the picture.”

They walked through the house and he held the showroom door open for a moment. Clary peeked through at the flock of tourists trailing after Soos like happy ducklings. “You interested in this kinda stuff?”

“Interested enough to read the bumper sticker. Not enough to actually plan you into my itinerary.”

“Damn shame, that, you’d be missin’ out on the ninth wonder of the world.” He managed to time it in sync with Soos’ patter, the rhythm of the show familiar as breathing, and got a chuckle in return. “They’ll wrap up in a few, we’ll take a quick look at the gift shop until they clear out. Then you get your Founder’s Tour.”

“That’s you, then, not Soos?”

“Got it in one. I built this place from the ground up! Sure, the house was here and the junk was here, but I’m the one who spun it into a wondrous house of mysterious junk.” His hands swept up and out in a marquee arc. Clary gave him that wry, oblique glance he was getting used to.

The gift shop was temporarily abandoned. Stan made himself comfortable leaning against the counter and watched her pace the periphery, trailing careful fingertips over the snow globes. “Take a look around! If you see an impulse buy, make it.”

“I’ll pick out a few things before I go. If I don’t have physical evidence, no one will believe that I was here.” She picked up a snow globe, flipped it over to stir the flakes into motion, then set it down with exaggerated caution and headed for the freezer.

“Just because you’re stayin’ over does not mean you get to sneak in here for an ice pop.” He watched her peer through the glass at their collection of frozen novelties. “This as far out west as you’ve gotten? I mean, we’re off the beaten path and you’re just passin’ through, right? Most folks would’ve taken the main route north of here.”

“This is my fifth state in - “ She frowned, then sighed. “Three days with the overnight, I guess. I’ve been taking it slow and sticking to the state highways, since I’m traveling solo.”

“Long way to drive alone.”

“Yes.” Clary skimmed through the T-shirt rack and plucked out a question mark to hold up against her chest. “You started this place up, then. Can I ask how long you’ve been at it? There’s some history here, I can see that much.”

“Thirty years.” Easier to say now that the long wait was over, that was for sure. He studied her thoughtfully; she was a tough read compared to the usual Gravity Falls crowd. “Can’t say that I ever thought I’d start to enjoy this line of work, originally the idea was just to get the mortgage paid, but go figure. Built a pretty nice business out of tellin’ lies – ‘scuse me, stories.”

A bare sliver of a smile curled along her lips. “You did. I can tell this is a local institution. You’re retired now?”

“More or less. My brother wanted to haul me off on an expedition. Couldn’t say no.” Stan ducked his chin, smiling to himself. “Couldn’t up an’ close the place either, so I left it all to Soos. Been nice to come back and see what he’s made of it, stick my hand in again. You can take the man out of the Mystery Shack, but you can’t take the mystery out of the man, I guess.”

Clary came to rest at the counter next to him, hands empty, he noted. “So I get a rare chance at a tour from the original Mr. Mystery.”

“What, nothin’ here inspires you to drop a wad of cash?”

“I think I’ll make my purchases after I have a functioning car.”

“Fair enough. You’re about to witness a true master in action.” The excited murmur of shopping-primed tourists was beginning to build at the interior door. “We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before the next gaggle rolls through, so you get the short form. Anythin’ specific you want to see?”

They slipped out of the shop as the current group started to trickle in, ducking into the showroom. Stan couldn’t help sweeping an arm out to indicate the entire collection. “Behold, the Mystery Shack!”

Clary appraised the exhibits with cool cynicism. “Which one of these gets the least attention? I’ve always loved the half-hidden displays best.”

She strolled at his side, hands in her pockets, lips twitching now and then as he spun familiar stories. Coaxing a laugh out of her at the right points, a smile here and there, felt like a little victory. There was a customer like this in every tour, the one who’d been dragged along by family or friends. If that one could be won over the rest of the group would be eating out of his hand.

“I have no idea what this is. Must be a Soos addition.” Stan peered at the tiny huts shingled with pine cone scales built into a series of branches suspended from one of the ceilings, glittering with well-concealed LED lights. “All right, the Village of Cannibal Pixies, to whom we’re apparently now rentin’ space in the showroom. They’re out huntin’ their fellow fairies for the rest of the day, but they’ll be back this evenin’ and no doubt throwin’ quite the party, which is just as well, because most of the other fairies ‘round these parts are about as much fun as a root canal….”

She had to bite her lip against a horrified laugh. “I thought these were all your creations?”

“Nah. You’ve gotta keep the mix fresh. Throw in somethin’ new and the tourists will flock through the doors. It’s been almost a year since I got to add a new exhibit, actually.” Stan nudged her in the side with an elbow. “And you are gonna help me put my mark on the place again. Think you’ve soaked up enough inspiration?”

“I’ve soaked up something. Inspiration for what, exactly?” Stan ushered her through another door, one tucked into the shadow of a larger display’s curtain. They wove together through a twisting hallway and he savored her blink of surprise when they emerged a few steps down the hall from the kitchen.

“We’re makin’ another attraction for the showroom.” He’d already laid out most of the basics earlier that morning, with a vague plan towards taking stock and maybe patching some bits and bobs together, but the prospect of testing their new guest’s creative skills – not patience, that’d be rude – was too good to pass up.

The contents of the kitchen table were pauper’s choices, honestly. A handful of pelts, odds and ends left over from birds long since parted out for other projects, a couple of smaller skulls, coils of heavy aluminum wire for armatures. Clary sifted through the remnants with a careful hand and a dubious expression.

“Surprise me.” He dropped off a tack hammer and a few brads on his way past. She made a faint incredulous noise, her head swiveling to follow, and Stan shot her a flat look of challenge: Show me what you’ve got, bean-counter.

Her shoulders stiffened, and she settled cautiously into one of the kitchen chairs. “Pliers?”

“Toolbox under the table.”

The toolbox jangled heavily as she hauled it up into easy reach. He tuned out the low noise of her work for a while. His own projects kept him plenty busy – sprucing up the display cards for a couple of the new oddities Soos had incorporated, reviewing the merch inventory and a couple of new concepts, moving on with a hum of pleasure to update the current supply list for the Stan O’War.

It was the better part of an hour before he heard the chair scrape back. “Tinfoil?” Clary asked.

“Two drawers over from the fridge.”

A few clunks and a crinkle, then he heard her muttering spoon, spoon under her breath, clattering through the silverware drawer. She paced back over to the table and dragged the chair back in with a shallow sigh. Stan glanced over and saw her hunched over an armature, brow creased as she padded out the shape.

“You all right over there?” He was trying not to laugh. This was not the kind of focus he’d been expecting.

“Flashbacks to high school art class, nothing too traumatic, I promise.”

This went on for a while. Stan drifted out of the kitchen to track down one of the Shack ledgers and his last box of spare critter bits, which he set wordlessly at her elbow. She ransacked the contents and didn’t look up when she spoke. “Putty?” He rattled through a drawer and dropped off half a jumbo packet of the plumber’s two-part type on the table, which Clary pulled in and unwrapped.

It was well past five when something mostly complete sat before her. She had come up with a compact little mustelid nightmare, something weaselish in build with elaborate grasping talons pieced together from every sharp claw remaining amid the sorry leftovers he’d dumped out of his dwindling box of tricks. Wings scavenged from a sharp-shinned hawk he’d collected on some roadside ages ago were anchored in half-furled at the shoulders. The mink skull had been carefully if inexpertly re-skinned. Brow ridges and tiny, twisting horns sculpted out of plumber’s putty crowned the toothy head.

The thing was cute in an amateur way. He thought, bemused, that it might make a decent plush toy.

Clary flipped the critter over, features creased in complete concentration as she stitched in the last bits along the belly. “Got any paint?”

Stan folded his arms, trying and failing to suppress a grin. “Y’know, normally I’d just patch together bits from a fish, a squirrel and a chicken, and call it good.”

“Hell with that, we’ve got tourists to impress.” Clary hissed under her breath as she stabbed herself with the needle. When she finally stretched, he heard her neck pop and saw the wince. “What time is it anyway?”

“Half past time to pack it in, kid.”

She sat up straight in surprise, glancing out the window into the saturated deep-golden light of late, late afternoon. “Oh no.”

Stan tilted his thumb her way, letting the grin widen. “So I think you might be on the hook for pizza tonight. Seein’ as how you’ve been dead to the world for hours and we’d be goin’ with cereal otherwise.”

An indignant pause hung in the air as her brows rose sharply. “There’s still plenty of time for me to call my insurance company. I might well have whiplash. Those old-school bench seats with no headrest are infamous for that.”

He slung a dirty look over his shoulder as he retrieved the paintbox from a cupboard. “Ford said you were fine.”

“I don’t think I heard him mention a medical degree in that list he rattled off.”

“All right, fine, we’ll split pizza for the gang.” Her eyes narrowed to calculating slits. “Lady, you drive a hard bargain. Howsabout you tell me what this thing is and then we’ll talk.” Stan opened the paintbox and sorted through half-empty tubes of acrylics. “You know how to drybrush?”

“Nope.” Clary studied her spiky-clawed creation, somewhat at a loss. “Let me mull this over a moment….”

“It helps to have some idea what you’re doin’ before you start stitchin’ things together, y’know.” Stan picked out a dark chocolate brown and laid down a quick basecoat on the horns. “You’ve outfoxed the IRS? Then all you gotta do is think on your feet.”

There was a brief quiet. The weight of her gaze lingered on him as he dipped into a deep purple and started shading along the inner edge of the brow ridge.

“This is the lesser Northwestern horned hawkweasel,” she said at length, adopting the deep, plummy tone of a nature-documentary narrator. “Or the midnight mink. Fierce far out of proportion to their size, these crafty, fearless creatures feed mainly on fish and whatever birds they can catch. Usually solitary, as the moon wanes they gather up in gangs to hunt their favored prey – nightmares. The bigger, the better.”

“Where’s a winged weasel gonna find nightmares in the depths of the Cascades?” Stan plucked out a liner brush and limned the eyes with a perfect pinstripe of metallic teal.

“Everything that can think has dreams. These little fellas like the blackest, bleakest ones they can find, and some of the denizens of these forests have deep and terrible dreams. If not for these guys, some of those denizens might wake up.”

Stan snorted in soft amusement as he laid highlights in along the horns. “Not terrible for a first shot. Soos might dig the idea, and hell, at least Lovecraft’s long since out of copyright, yeah?” He sat back, assessing, then touched on a last few dots of color. “This is about as show-ready as it’s gonna get. Hang on a sec.”

He toted the not-quite-weasel down to the office, setting it on the least cluttered file cabinet for later – it was going to need a story card at the very least – then swung by the deserted gift shop, cracking the vending machine open to fish out a couple of ice-cold Pitts. Clary was packing away tools by the time he returned to the kitchen, and he set a can within easy reach. “Nothin’ like a cold one to finish up the day. Cheers.”

“Cheers.” She picked up her can, popped it, then tapped its edge against his. “I’ve got to wonder.” He eyed her, momentarily wary, as he dropped into his own chair. “What possessed a man from New Jersey to land way out here in the hinterlands of Oregon? It’s certainly pretty, but this is about as close to the absolute middle of nowhere as I’ve ever been.”

“You actually interested in me? Or do you ask everyone these kinda questions?”

“I’m mainly interested in you.”

That was a bit of a surprise. A chuckle snagged in Stan’s chest as he met her frank regard. “Usually the longest I can get people to listen to me is when I’m sellin’ somethin’, and even then it’s tough luck.”

“I don’t buy that for a second.” The faint curve of her smile was half obscured by the rim of her soda can. “No way you kept this place running for so long without knowing how to string an audience along in suspense.”

“It’s, ah, it’s a knack. I’ve been good at it ever since I was a kid.” He cleared his throat and took a lingering sip, buying a moment. Her brows quirked in expectation. “So, you’re serious?”

“How long do you plan on leaving me in suspense?”

“The last time someone started askin’ personal questions, she tried to eat me,” Stan muttered. “Can you imagine? I’m practically skin and bones.”

That bought him a sharp laugh, right on the beat. “Come on. You can’t just leave it there.”

Stan took a long look at her, then drew breath, fired up the cockiest grin in his repertoire, and launched in. “So, y’see, there’s this irresistible thing called ‘revenge’….”

Clary was a good listener and a better interrogator, absorbing whatever outrageous half-truth he had to offer without scoffing, pressing with well-targeted questions at every opportunity. Every time she cut close to the bone he’d flash her something shiny to distract. Verbal sleight-of-hand was so second nature by now that he barely noticed doing it. Stan couldn’t tell how much of it she was buying, which was disconcerting as hell.

In the end he paid for the pizza. She slipped in behind him to press an overgenerous tip into the delivery driver’s hand.

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There are plenty of repair records in the glove box, the old manual, and some other potentially interesting odds and ends.

Just take the repair records and the manual.

Go through all the personal paperwork.

Is there any money in there?

[theajaheira]

transitional

read it on ao3!

“So you’ve warmed up to computers a little, huh?” she said very casually.

“I-I suppose so,” said Giles, who couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something.

“And you think they’re maybe worth getting to know a little more?” said Ms. Calendar. “Like, outside a workplace environment?”

i think a lot about how we never saw giles and jenny go from awkward friends into moony-eyed dorks. so i took a stab at writing that.

Giles spent the night dancing, and regretted it sorely in the morning—pun intended. His back ached from the battle and the Bronze alike, he hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, and Snyder’s godforsaken early-morning faculty meeting was grating on his nerves. It was difficult enough to stay awake; he felt he should get a bloody medal for managing to act civil.

Ms. Calendar had no such qualms when it came to professionalism. She showed up five minutes late, staunchly ignored the look sent her way by Snyder, sat down next to Giles (there was an audible murmur of surprise from the staff at this), and leaned back in the chair, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

Giles was the only one close enough to hear her softly snoring, and it irritated him tremendously—though not for the usual reasons. In times past, he might have been infuriated at Ms. Calendar’s lack of decorum and respect, judging her for both her tardiness and her obvious napping. Now, he was mostly just annoyed that she could sneak in a bit of shut-eye and he had to stay awake through this absolute nonsense.

“The library, Mr. Giles, has sustained earthquake damage,” Snyder announced about fifteen minutes into the meeting, with a dirty look at Giles as though the earthquake had somehow been his fault. “Of course, this renders it unusable until it’s properly fixed.”

“Obviously,” Giles agreed.

“We’ll be sending some workers in tomorrow to take a look at the damage,” Snyder informed him. “Make sure that all the books are removed so they can get to fixing things.”

“What—that’s—tomorrow?” Giles sputtered. Next to him, Ms. Calendar jerked awake, giving him a semi-panicked what-did-I-miss look over the tops of her sunglasses. “I have to remove all the books from the library tomorrow?” Giles tacked on.

Ms. Calendar first gave him a small thank-you smile, then stopped, frowning. “Wait,” she said, looking over at Snyder. “Seriously? Aren’t there people who can help him with that?”

“Thank you for volunteering, Ms. Calendar,” said Snyder with satisfaction. “As you two will both be doing this, none of the school budget will be going towards paying extra labor. And as I am conducting performance reviews in two weeks—”

“Can he seriously blackmail us into it?” Ms. Calendar whispered to Giles.

“He’s a power-mad moron,” Giles muttered back. “I’m fairly certain anything is within his jurisdiction.” He was well aware that the entire faculty room was staring at him and Ms. Calendar, and was rather glad he was too tired to care about how this must look to them. Both of them sitting together and whispering to each other, Jenny wearing the same clothes from the day before—oh, lord, scrap that bit about not caring.Giles straightened his glasses and tried to stop blushing.

“—as I am conducting performance reviews in two weeks,” Snyder continued, looking just as bewildered as the rest of the staff room to see the two most violently combative teachers sharing secrets, “I think you would both do well not to rock the boat. I’ll expect that library free of books before the workers show up tomorrow.”

Ugh, thought Giles, but decided against saying it.

“Ugh,” said Ms. Calendar. Then, “Can we at least have an extra day?”

“No,” said Snyder. “Library repairs cost extra on Saturdays. Meeting adjourned.”

As the faculty filed out (Giles did his very best not to listen to the whispering teachers, all of whom had things to say about why he and Ms. Calendar had shown up in disarray), Ms. Calendar put away her sunglasses, then turned to Giles with a small, tired grin. “I mean, I’d have helped you out anyway,” she said, “but it sucks that he’s making you do this.”

“I’ve functioned on worse sleep before—”

“Yeah, but I don’t think you ever danced the night away,” said Ms. Calendar, grin widening.

“Oh, for—” Giles felt the twinge of familiar annoyance, now paired with an exasperated affection. “It was one dance,” he said.

“Five,” said Ms. Calendar.

“It was not!”

“You weren’t keeping great track of the songs,” Ms. Calendar pointed out.

“You never let me leave the dance floor!” Giles countered. “More than one dance implies breaks between the dance!”

Ms. Calendar scoffed, her eyes alight with the same warmth Giles felt. This argument was different, he thought, in a way that had his heart fluttering. “A dance is a song,” she said. “When the song ends, the dance itself is over, even if you’re still dancing.”

“You never let go of me long enough for the dance to be over,” Giles persisted.

Ms. Calendar gave him an open-mouthed grin. “You’re a hard guy to let go of, Rupert,” she said, and batted her lashes.

“Oh, ha ha,” said Giles, standing up. Ms. Calendar’s face fell a bit; he couldn’t imagine why. Awkwardly, and trying to recapture the fleeting comradery between them, he said, “To the library, then?”

Ms. Calendar was blushing. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. Library. Obviously.”

The library was a wreck. Even without the debris left by the monster, the shattered glass from the skylight, and the broken table containing the Master’s skeleton (Giles supposed he should count himself lucky that Snyder hadn’t asked about that), there was still the fact that Giles’s books were entirely in disarray. He couldn’t stop the distressed little whimper as he looked upon what had once been an organized research space.

And then he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” said Ms. Calendar. “We’re working under a weird time constraint, sure, but I’ve packed up way more stuff than this in way less time.” She considered. “And hungover, actually. So we’re fine.”

As she headed towards the first pile of books, Giles frowned, playing the sentence back. “Why were you packing and hungover?” he asked.

Ms. Calendar stooped, picking up an armful of books, and turned back to Giles. He noticed, with a strange flutter, that she was holding them all with care. “I travel a lot,” she said, tried to shrug, and remembered just in time that she was holding the books. “I’m not really one to stick in one place for longer than a year. Whole lot of world, you know?”

“No,” said Giles honestly.

Ms. Calendar laughed, a sound of genuine, pleased amusement that Giles hadn’t heard from her before. Mostly, when she laughed, there was a biting edge of mockery or bitterness or some other flavor of one-upsmanship; Giles liked this laugh better. He wanted to hear it again. “Well, at least he’s honest,” she quipped, placing the books down on the checkout desk. “So you don’t travel much?”

Giles hesitated. Generally, when people had asked before, he had made some weak joke about stuffy academics and left things at that. But Ms. Calendar was currently the closest thing he had to a friend, and the first person in Sunnydale he had chosen to tell about his Watcher status. That felt important. “I spent the better part of the last twenty years at a desk job in the Watchers’ Council,” he said, “preparing myself to train a Slayer. I was more than desperate to prove myself worthy of the cause. It left little time for travel.” He smiled a little sadly. “I’d rather like to live the life you do,” he said.

Ms. Calendar shook her head. Her expression was more gentle than Giles had ever seen it—directed at him, at least. “It gets old,” she said. “Doesn’t leave a lot of time for friends, you know?”

Giles snorted. “And I suppose I make time for my sparkling social life in between the research and the nearly being eaten by monsters?”

That made Ms. Calendar smile. “Fair point,” she agreed. “So we’re both lonely—”

“You cannot possibly be lonely,” Giles scoffed, appalled by the very notion. “You’re one of the most outgoing, charismatic people I’ve met. How on earth could you not have made friends on staff already just by virtue of being yourself?”

Ms. Calendar blinked, then turned a rosy pink. Giles played his words back, and began to blush a bit himself. “Wow,” she said. “Um, that’s…kind of the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me in a really long time.”

“Your bar is very low if you’re calling me sweet,” said Giles dryly, which made Ms. Calendar laugh again. “Shall we start on the books?”

Giles was still having trouble getting used to the ease with which he and Ms. Calendar worked together. They had been assigned to tidy the staff room for a bake sale two months ago, and had spent more time shouting at each other than actually getting any work done. The teachers had been displeased, the bake sale had been bumped a week, and Principal Flutie had said, in an injured tone of voice, that at Sunnydale High, we foster community, not combativeness! Ms. Calendar had responded to this by flipping Giles off behind Flutie’s back and stalking out of the office, leaving him to clean up the rest of the staff room on his lonesome.

But they had exorcised the demon together easily, Giles bringing out his old grimoire and Ms. Calendar typing without argument. They had researched the Hellmouth and the Master together, Giles finding books for Ms. Calendar to page through. And now they were sorting books into boxes to pack away, and to Giles’s utter shock, Ms. Calendar took to his supernatural cataloguing system like a fish to water.

“You were expecting me to struggle with this?” she laughed, handing him a stack of books for the box labeled Demons—Dismemberment. “It’s honestly not that hard.”

“It requires a, a rudimentary understanding of the contents of each book,” stammered Giles, his heartbeat picking up as he looked at her. He was a bit tired, he told himself. Tired, and the tea in the staff room was undoubtedly much too caffeinated. “Or at the very least, an ability to assess—”

“Rupert,” said Ms. Calendar, looking at him with playful sympathy, “has your only exposure to human society been Buffy, Willow, and Xander for all these months? You know I love those kids, but Willow’s the only one among the bunch who even knows what the Dewey Decimal System is.”

“I-I must confess, I am a bit…unused to adult company,” Giles agreed. “It’s been a while since England.”

“So you had friends over there?” Ms. Calendar placed another stack of books on the counter.

Giles stilled, unsure how to answer that question. After a good few seconds of silence, he knew that he had inadvertently answered it anyway. “No,” he said simply.

Ms. Calendar looked up, and it took Giles a moment to recognize that the sympathy in her eyes was no longer teasing. “Well,” she said, and bumped his shoulder. “The English are obviously morons.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Excluding you!” said Ms. Calendar hastily, wincing. “I just meant…they’re missing out.” She gave him a nervous little grin. “You’re kind of an okay guy when you’re not telling me how computers are going to directly cause the end of all human interaction.”

“Did I say that?” said Giles, alarmed. “Truly, computers aren’t all that bad. I really would like to learn more about them.”

Ms. Calendar’s face then went through a series of expressions of which Giles couldn’t fathom the meaning. First shock, then disbelief, and then a sort of stunned smile crept across her face. “So you’ve warmed up to computers a little, huh?” she said very casually.

“I-I suppose so,” said Giles, who couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something.

“And you think they’re maybe worth getting to know a little more?” said Ms. Calendar. “Like, outside a workplace environment?”

And at that moment, something revealed itself to Giles that he had somehow never noticed before: Ms. Calendar was extremely beautiful. In the days when they were at each other’s throats, all he had seen was a veritable hurricane of a woman who refused to admit when she was wrong, and his frustration had eclipsed any notice he might have taken of her sweetly quirky smile or her dark, sparkling eyes. He was not at all thinking about computers—had completely forgotten the question she had posed—when he said, rather breathlessly, “Yes, I think—yes.”

Ms. Calendar smiled, leaning closer—

“Attention,” blared Principal Snyder’s voice through the intercom, and Giles and Ms. Calendar jumped apart. “A reminder to our students that the library will be closed until further notice. Also, Miss Cordelia Chase is still due at my office for questions regarding security footage of her car driving into the school. Thank you.”

“Seriously?” said Ms. Calendar, glaring at the intercom. “You choose now to do this?”

Giles leaned against the checkout desk, rather stunned by the about-face his feelings for Ms. Calendar had taken. He had always felt strongly towards her, even when they had been workplace enemies, so it stood to reason that his feelings would remain strong in this new context. But being hit with romantic inclinations this fast, and this unexpectedly—

“Books?” said Ms. Calendar.

“Yes,” said Giles, hurrying past her to the stack of books still on the checkout counter. “Um, these go in—”

“Evisceration,” said Ms. Calendar, her voice softening. Giles turned to look at her, and saw that she was giving him a sweet little smile the likes of which he had never seen her give anyone before.

“Yes,” said Giles again, feeling the beginnings of a rather soppy grin of his own.

Ms. Calendar turned on the radio when they were three-fourths of the way through the books, humming along to the little jingle played before the news. Giles, however, found himself rather tired of current events. “Might I change this?” he asked.

Ms. Calendar looked up, surprised. “I thought you’d like this,” she said. “Aren’t you all Mr. Intellectual?”

The fact that she said this without a hint of mockery made Giles feel too ridiculously fluttery to manage a coherent sentence. “Well, that’s—y-yes,” he stammered, horrified with himself. This was the woman he had had actual debates with about the merits of technology, and now a schoolboy crush had him unable to speak around her? “Yes, I simply—news has been rather, rather draining lately. I think I’d like some music.”

“Classical?” said Ms. Calendar.

“Not particularly,” said Giles, and flipped the stations until something with a respectable beat came on. As he turned to Ms. Calendar, he saw that she was staring at him incredulously. “What?”

“This is rock and roll,” said Ms. Calendar.

“Yes, it is,” said Giles, bemused. “Is that surprising to you?”

“Yes, it is!” said Ms. Calendar, and gestured towards Giles as though this somehow clarified things. “You’re—I once saw you call a vending machine an infernal contraption! There is a running theory that you’re some kind of time traveler from the nineteenth century!”

“Well, I’m a modern Regency man,” said Giles mildly. “Besides which, I figured classical music might put us both to sleep rather quickly. You’ve gone through how many cups of coffee in the last hour?”

“Twelve,” said Ms. Calendar.

“That cannot be healthy,” said Giles.

“I was up all night,” said Ms. Calendar. “I’ll take a sick day tomorrow and sleep it off.” She was grinning. “It’s a good song, though,” she said, and then extended her hand to Giles.

“Oh no,” said Giles. “No. You have gotten more dancing out of me than I have done in the last five years at least.”

“C’mon, Rupert,” Ms. Calendar wheedled. “The song’s already half over, and I really need to move around a little in a way that’s not lifting heavy books.”

In answer, Giles crossed his arms, leaning stubbornly back against the checkout desk.

“You know what,” said Ms. Calendar, looking more amused than annoyed, “I am too tired to push this issue,” and shrugged off her leather jacket, placing it on the table and beginning to dance herself. She had moved with adrenaline-fueled precision, the night before, dark hair falling down and out of her messy bun, but it was clear that the sleep deprivation was beginning to hit her rather hard. Still, she danced, eyes fixed determinedly on Giles as if daring him to comment on her utter childishness—and then she swayed, and fell.

Giles honestly didn’t decide to catch her. He didn’t even make the conscious choice to take two running steps across the room as soon as he saw her sway. All he knew was that, the moment she should have hit the floor, she was somehow in his arms instead, forehead bumping against his.

They hadn’t been this close when they were dancing. She smelled like magic and too much coffee and something that was just her, and Giles was having trouble remembering to breathe. Part of him was afraid that any sudden movement would shatter the moment. Part of him was afraid that she would let him pull her closer.

“Thanks,” said Ms. Calendar, her voice suddenly thick with sleep. “Guess the whole zero-hours-of-rest thing is catching up to me, huh?”

Giles steered her gently to a chair, helping her sit down at the checkout desk. Removing his jacket, he draped it over her shoulders, telling himself very firmly that her bright, adoring eyes had more to do with sleep deprivation than genuine appreciation. “Rest up,” he said. “I can finish up the books while you nap. I’m quite practiced at keeping late hours.”

“I drank too much coffee to get any sleep,” mumbled Ms. Calendar, who was already resting her head on her arms.

“I’m sure you did,” said Giles, patting her shoulder.

Ms. Calendar sighed, leaning into his touch. “Just gonna…relax for a little ‘n then I’ll, I’ll…” She trailed off, her breathing evening out.

Giles tried to remind himself that there were a thousand and one reasons that a Watcher having a relationship was a bad idea. All these reasons flew very neatly out the window when Ms. Calendar murmured something incoherent, then tugged his jacket closer around her. She’s so small, he thought, and yet she’s so much more confident than I think I’ll ever be.

Ms. Calendar opened her eyes again, half-awake. “Rupert?” she said.

“Mm?” said Giles.

“I wanna dance with you again later,” said Ms. Calendar, and promptly fell back asleep. Giles spent the next twenty minutes analyzing this statement and got absolutely no work done.

(“Shameful,” said Principal Snyder. “Shameful. Napping on the job, Ms. Calendar? Wandering around muttering to yourself, Mr. Giles? Now I am going to have to pay people to remove the books. On the weekend.”

“We make a good team,” said Ms. Calendar.

“That we do,” said Giles.

“I am never putting the both of you on an important project again,” said Principal Snyder, and completely missed the high-five Ms. Calendar gave Giles under the table.)

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: Kill la Kill

Well, I’m more than five years late to this series. Probably the most egregious tragedy of my ‘Dubs Only’ policy, since the series never came to the Mighty Santa Clara County Library, and it took forever for Netflix to pick up the series, and years more for them to finally add the dub, then I had to find time amongst all the other things I was watching and things to do, then when I finally did have time, Netflix dropped it.[1]

Fortunately, it’s one of the limited dubs CrunchyRoll deigned to have. Not that they want to make it easy to find dubs...

Fortunately there’s a spreadsheet.

Anyways, I do have Amazon Prime, which means I have Twitch Prime, which means i get the most random free things.[2] Recently, that includes a month of Crunchyroll… premium I think is the nomenclature? Which is weird, since Amazon is also attempting to get in the anime market, and somehow doing worse than Netflix, so that they’d send traffic to a competitor is curious.[4]

Anyways, Crunchyroll also has the Konosuba dub, so that’s next.

Was I doing something besides complaining about anime streaming…

Oh, right.

Kill la kill.

Spoilers!

What do I have to say about Kill la Kill? To be honest, I’m not sure. I loved the series. To thread-sundering bits. If I were capable of such things, it would easily be included in my Best of Anime list.

But that’s also the problem. Imperfect works have things to nitpick and analyse and imagine improvements. Kill la Kill is the sort of series that even the imperfections are built into making the whole better.

And it has been analyzed and loved for five-plus years. What can I possibly say that hasn’t been said by countless, more articulate and educated voices?

Besides “ignore what looks like blatant pandering and watch it”?

I could do a navel gaze consideration of fanservice, but I’m not comfortable with addressing such a fraught topic in the public sphere yet.

Seriously, though, it’s super anime goodness. If you like Anime, you owe it to yourself to watch Kill la Kill.

Kill la Kill is another piece of media that psyches me up to create. It’s unabashed, goofy, and you can feel how everyone involved was just having fun. It doesn’t just impress you with the skill and creative output, it makes you feel like you can do this, too.

While I’ve always been interested in animation, my creative focus has always been towards writing[5] and comics, Kill la Kill was the first time I yearned to make animation.

The show looked at its limitations and found ways to make corner cuts work to make the whole better. Stilted, static shots and cuts are used for drama and comedy. The first shot that really blew me away was an early episode where protagonist Ryuko caught her friend Mako, and moved the girl to her feet, the whole time Mako remained stiff. It was hilarious, and not cost or labor intensive, but it made the scene better. Such artistic decisions pepper the frantic animation, and I loved every use.

The animation alone is worth the price of admission.

The narrative also was fun. Though, I must admit, as is often the case, when the show had to buckle down a tad bit to tell its big story, I found myself wistful for the early, episodic tales.

The initial premise is a good formula: troublemaker Ryuko arrives at Honnouji Academy, ruled by the despotic fist of Satsuki Kiryuin, and the two come in conflict. Ryuko gets a sentient sailor uniform, which transforms and grants Ryuko powers. Now Ryyuko must fight her way through the school hierarchy to face Satsuki and get answers.

The first three episodes focus on combat (though one of those is in the form of a tennis match), which would’ve worn thin eventually. Episode four, however, is when I went from ‘This is fun’ to ‘I can watch this forever’.

Ryuko, faced with needing to reach the school on time or face expulsion, must get herself, Mako, and a random third classmate through an egregiously dangerous obstacle course and uphill. And the entire episode is rambunctious, Loony Toons shenanigans that I kind of wish would’ve been a multiparter.

If the entire series was Ryuko having to face down numerous challenges that would be normally mundane, but are here supercharged into hilarious excess, I would’ve been quite happy.

Eventually, however, the main plot had to take over.

(Twists and big spoilers follow. Please watch this show.)

The show never really loses its absurdity. The Big Evil turns out to be the concept of clothing, as a giant, sentient cloud of thread elevated humanity’s evolution and inspired us to wear clothes, so we’ll be primed in a few generations to be consumed by clothes to allow reproduction.

And Satsuki’s Mom is in charge of making this happen.

Thus the good guy contingent are a bunch of nudists with mecha technology trying to resist this.

Like, the series justifies everything in the world, but the world’s also insane, to the point the battle cry of the heroes becomes essentially ‘Things are crazy, so let’s be crazy.’ And it never falls to sincere drama, just an ever climbing series of absurdities one-upping the last absurdity. And it’s so fun to just go along with the ride.

But it also makes it difficult to be committed to the big narrative. It’s a joke. A funny joke, but lacks the structure for the audience to be committed to the story.

Committed to the characters, yes. Besides Satsuki’s mother, everyone is very likeable and fun, and said mother’s only reason for not being among them is she’s too tied to the main Arc to be full blast absurd like the rest.

I would’ve preferred if the scale stayed small. Just Ryuko battling to the top of Honnouji Academy, the staff experimenting with all the absurd things they can do with the formula, but I can’t say the show they did produced wasn’t fun.

I like Kill la Kill. I’d happily watch it again someday. It’s good to pump you up and make you go out and accomplish something.

Even if that something is possibly streaking. Kill la Kill has a weird relationship with clothes.

If you want more of my hot-blood-fueled works, might I suggest supporting my Patreon? You’ll get early access to things I make, and help support a creative person doing creative things. Like a podcast, someday, hopefully.

Thanks for reading.

Kataal kataal.

---

[1] Then re-add it after I finished it. Dang you, Netflix, making me look like a fool! [2] Waiting to get my own Switch before I use the free months of Nintendo Online. And I’m waiting to see if the rumors about updated models coming bear fruit.[3] [3] Adulthood involves a lot of careful planning for leisure. Don’t grow up. [4] Current rankings is Funimation > Netflix > Crunchyroll (poor Dub attitude) > Amazon (Horrible cataloguing). I haven’t gotten HiDive yet, but I’m excited to try it! [5]  Ever since second grade, when I looked at a picture I drew and thought ‘Oh, I’m bad at this. I better be a writer instead!’

[jimlingss]

Starlet and Moonstruck [2]

Chapter 1||Chapter 2||Chapter 3||Chapter 4||Chapter 5 Words: 5.3k Genre: Fluff & Humour, Actress!Au Summary: As a newcomer actress struggling to make a name for yourself in the tough industry, you’re absolutely ecstatic to see your Dispatch pictures on the front page of Naver....but..what is this?! This isn’t about you!

Who’s the third guy from the left?!

Cr.

Once the digital clock, blaring red numbers back at him, has switched the minutes from 59 to 00, Seokjin refreshes the page immediately. He knows the competition is low but he can’t risk losing out on this opportunity. He would regret it for the rest of his life.

The blank screen switches to one with a catalogue full of posters, plushies and hoodies. Seokjin glimpses over at them, putting each object into the shopping cart. In five minutes, he’s at the online checkout section, grabbing his wallet to pay.

As he opens up the leather pouch, he finds himself with less than thirty dollars in cash but whatever. Seokjin brushes it aside, grabbing his card and purchasing the items with express shipping.

Even if he’s broke, as your number one fan and with you as his ultimate bias, he’ll always make an exception in his funds to buy your merch.

Oh...the stanning life.

//

“Nice job, Seokjin!” “You’ve got this in the bag!” “Great job!”

He stands in the corner, arms folded in front of him, head dipping with each compliment and growing sheepish from embarrassment. The owner of the coffee shop has never been this kind to him before. In the past, he was often told to scrub the brown toilets back to white or to go diving in the dumpster for a cheap necklace she accidentally threw out. He even has to sweep up her toenail bits after she’s clipped them at the front entrance, sitting on the stool, waiting all day for customers.

But ever since Seokjin’s obtained the name ‘Third Guy From The Left’, business has been better. Thus, the lady has treated him with a strange amount of courtesy, going as far as to tell him to simply sit there and do nothing.

He got this part-time job on the side to help him make ends meet while he chases after his real dream of being a director. Of course, he has the job of being your bodyguard now but the owner of the café can be very persuasive and he found himself continuing to pick up shifts.

“Oh my god!” Yet another girl swoons and he ducks to hide his warming face. “Can you please sign my phone?”

Her friend jumps, “me too! Me too!”

“Nope! Nope!” The stingy owner stops him from signing with the permanent marker. “You have to buy a drink first!”

The girls stare at her before huffing out, grabbing the wallets from their bag. As if that wasn’t enough, his boss continues to capitalize on his popularity, setting out a drink package that allows others to take a picture of him, increasing the price if people want to take it with him, continuing to increase if they want him to sign something and the list goes on.

The owner goes out, setting up a large sign that the ‘Third Guy From The Left’ works here and she goes to social media to rave about it. There should be lineups winding all the way down five blocks but the coffee shop is ridiculously hard to find. Seokjin, himself, gets lost frequently and initially, he only found this place by accident. It’s a huge maze of through alleyways and unnamed streets, passing through rough neighborhoods and unpaved roads. It’s no wonder the café doesn’t get many customers and why the rent for the place is so cheap; location, location, location - the realtors always said and this place sucks.

A lot of people went on the internet to say that the owner of the café was lying and such a place doesn’t even exist when they’re unable to find it but a few people tread on and they do manage.

“You should keep working here forever!” The middle-aged lady snickers under her breath, licking her thumb and counting up the wad of cash. “I’d make sure you wouldn’t have to lift a finger or use that brain of yours until retirement!”

Seokjin merely laughs, hoping his shift will end soon.

//

“H-hello.” He bows from his waist, accidentally knocking his head into the desk and wincing with an ‘ow’. He steps back, standing straight again with his navy blue binder hugged to his chest. “My name is Kim Seokjin, I am twenty-four years of age and I’m looking to apply here at this company.”

The man behind the desk and the team of interns turn their heads to look at him. Upon finding that he’s unrecognizable, the man turns down to his papers. “Sorry. We’re not hiring.”

“I-uh…”

Another intern steps up, guiding Seokjin out the door before he can provide any sort of explanation for his cause. The door shuts. The binder falls to his side when his arm slumps. He presses his forehead against the wall, sighs through his teeth, the feeling of rejection tingling his senses. How is he supposed to move forward with his dream when no one will even give him a chance?

“Seokjin?”

He spins around but doesn’t know who it is. The boy drops his chin once again, only to do a double take, eyes widening at the sight of you. “Y/N?”

You skip up to him, chewing a snack in your cheek and swallowing it down. “What are you doing here? I thought this was your day off.”

He spends a long moment staring at you, soaking in all your features and making sure he’s in reality, not dreaming up a storm at night. He’s still trying to get used to seeing you around in real life and not on the digital screens or behind metal fence barriers. But today, it’s much different.

You’re makeupless and sporting an old hoodie from your high school alumni. It’s not bad. You look fine, the same eyes and sparkle, the smile and sweet voice. It’s simply that he’s used to seeing you flawless, without a blemish to spare, hair blow dried with copious amounts of products and volume. Seokjin always considered you as a goddess.

But you’re much more human than he thought.

“I...uh...I’m trying to apply for a job.”

“At the company?” You raise your brows, digging your hands into the sweater’s pocket. “Don’t you already work as my ‘bodyguard’?”

You make air quotations and he fights back a smile, glad that you’re a burst of vivid energy in his monochrome life. “I’m looking for a job where I can-”

“Right, right.” You remember now. “You want to be a director…..hmmm…..let me try.”

This is your moment to shine. It’s now that you can truly show off your status and the position you have in this place. You can finally flaunt off your power to someone and impress him.

“Ahem.” You tap on the desk, interrupting the presentation of the interns who are scribbling ideas for a new production on the whiteboard. The man swivels around his chair, exhaling in exhaustion and he gives you an unimpressed expression. “Mr. Wang, please give this man a job.”

Your hands are on your hips and you cock your head to one side. The man narrows his eyes at you, pupils boring into your visage. The interns have quieted down, waiting impatiently for the shenanigans to be over. Seokjin gulps, anticipating an answer.

To him, your backside is the strongest, the most admirable and he’s already proud of himself for not dropping to the ground in screams over his bias actually fighting for him-

“Who are you?”

//

Well shit. If that guy didn’t work at the company, you would’ve punched him in the face.

“It’s okay, Y/N.” Seokjin repeats as he gazes at you, repressing soft giggles as he observes you rub your eyes for the millionth time with the sleeve of your sweater. Upon asking, you strongly denied that you shed any sort of tears. “Really. It already means a lot to me that you tried.”

It’s embarrassing. You’re ashamed. Your entire face is red and you wish the earth would open to swallow you whole. Your pride is too much sometimes and for your ego to be bruised, you feel angry and upset. Someone at the company, your company, didn’t even know who you are.

“Y/N?”

“Shut up.”

Seokjin wonders how you can be so cute.

He smiles happily, walking back to your apartment with you alongside him. It’s a rare day off for you too - granted by Soo-Ae who’s scrambling to get several more auditions for you and then it’ll be back on the grind of memorizing lines and practicing the scenes out until they become muscle memory.

“HEY!”

You shatter Seokjin out of his daydream and he watches as you go flying to your car in the parking lot. A horde of kids go sprinting out of the bushes nearby, rushing past him in scattered giggles, feet hitting against the concrete pavement. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

You bend over, hands on your knees, whimpers and whines leaving your throat. The man who was with you approaches in light steps, bewildered when he heard you cussing aloud. But then he spots the big brown turd on the hood of your car and the bright yellow word ‘POO’ sprayed across from the doors.

“Dammit.”

You always knew doing that laxative CF was a bad idea.

Out of the corner of your hawk eyes, you find an empty can of spray paint rolling near the tree and you scream. The two kids jump up in response, laughing their heads off and you chase them around the parking lot, spitting on the ground and yelling at them to clean up the mess they made or you’ll find their parents and sue for damages.

Meanwhile, Seokjin is in a state of incredulity, unable to comprehend that this adult woman who he’s idolized and worshipped, is running after the neighborhood kids, uncaring that the fabric skirt is being flipped up and giving him an eye-full of pink panties.

It’s not a bad thing. He finds it kind of funny in a way.

“Got you now!” You wiggle your fingers, cornering them by the front entrance of your apartment. The two children exchange a look, excited from the chase as if you were playing a game of tag with them. There’s good reason why they’re not afraid of you - sure, you’re pissed that someone took a shit on the hood of your car and vandalized it but the vehicle was always a piece of shit anyways.

And you have no plans on beating them up, reporting them to the police or suing poor kids who already didn’t have enough to eat. They were simply mischievous children making memories for the future. You were at that age once and if you got in trouble for all your mischief-making, you’d be in prison by now.

The two of them swap looks and at the same time, they bolt in different directions, right out of your grasps, a hair away from nipping them by the collar of their shirts. You sigh with a smile, shaking your head. “Seriously stop it! I’m going to actually call the police one of these days!”

If you become rich and famous in the future and you move to a nicer part of town, maybe you’ll look back on today and miss being around these terrorizing kids. They’re one of the few things that make you feel less lonely.

“You know...” You tilt your head with a pout, exhausted from the ordeal. “-You’re my bodyguard. Aren’t you supposed to defend me? It’s your one job.”

Seokjin stifles back a laugh, opening the door to your apartment complex. “Against little kids?”

The pair of you enter the stairway, marching up a few levels and conquering the mountain of steps. But as you fish out for your key to the door, the thought floods back in your head and you drop your arm, sigh dripping of tiredness. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” He blinks in his innocence, not understanding the purpose of the apology.

“I couldn’t get you the job. I couldn’t even get them to hear you out. I….I couldn’t do anything for you.” The shame and self-disappointment cripples your confidence, prompting you to blink away the tears and clench your fist. An urge to pull on the strands of your hair overwhelming you.

But Seokjin places his hand over yours and you lift your chin, locking your eyes with his warm ones. He shakes his head and smiles at you graciously, the corner of his lips raising, looking as handsome as he did in the photos that caused you to be here with him. “You’ve already done enough for me. It’s okay, Y/N. Thank you.”

“If anything,” he adds on, “it didn’t really matter that much. I-....I actually have another interview with a director I really admire and if he could bring me under his wing, that would be...a dream…..it’s just...”

“What?”

“I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be.”

You smile back at him, melting in your spot. Your heel spins around and you finally unlock your door. “Anyone would be happy to have you.”

//

With your reassurance in mind, voice echoing in the hollows of his brain, he takes a deep breath and enters the shop, smoothing out his polo shirt and his neat hair. Seokjin’s hands are shaking and quivering, yet, he takes the courage to step forward. Immediately, he finds the table where the esteemed Park Chanwook is, reading the menu and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

If Seokjin stanned you and had you as his bias, Park Chanwook is his role model. The man began as film critic and from then on, helped to create masterpieces like ‘Lady Vengeance’, ‘Oldboy’, ‘The Handmaiden’ and ‘The Truth Beneath’. He’s won thousands of awards, Best Director to Daesang, famous in his field and to be several meters away from him, Seokjin feels nauseous.

“H-hello.”

“Oh, you must be Kim Seokjin. Nice to meet you.” The older man motions to the unoccupied chair across from him. “Take a seat.”

The younger man blacks out for a few minutes. He doesn’t remember making small talk or ordering from the waitress but by the time he focuses back in, the director is chuckling and he has his entrée half eaten in front of him. “You’re a very charming individual, Seokjin. I'll give you that much but I think we should start looking at your credentials.”

The director wipes his mouth with the tablecloth napkin, setting aside his unfinished lunch and grabbing his file folder. He has Seokjin’s binder as well, flipping through the perfected portfolio that’s had heart and soul poured into each page. Seokjin holds his breath, knee bouncing underneath the table, watching as the director hums every so often and looks through his resume.

“Alright.” Mr. Park Chanwook closes up the documents, clasping his hands onto the table. “You have a good education and a good personality. You’re likeable and easygoing which is very refreshing to see.”

He blushes, flustered from the amount of praise. Seokjin had graduated from the prestigious Seoul University two years ago with a Film Studies degree; albeit not a popular major, one he was shamed for and one where he finds difficulty finding a job in. After graduating, he worked on honing his camera and writing skills before officially applying and entering the entertainment industry. Unfortunately, he never received any calls back and he had given up on his dream of being a director long ago until he found you.

It was you that reignited the fire within him, you who inspired to chase after his ambitions again.

“But aside from those things-” The older man shakes his head and Seokjin’s heart falls to his stomach. “-you have no other background, no experience, no network, no connections. And because of those things, those crucial things, I don’t think you’re suited for this job.”

The bomb drops upon his shoulders and Mr. Park continues, “perhaps in a few years time but I’m deeply sorry Kim Seokjin, you’re not what we’re looking for.”

There’s a moment of silence.

Seokjin gathers his wits and he breathes out a steady breath. “H-how can I improve?”

How can he receive more experience if no one wants to give him a chance? How is he supposed to build relationships when others won’t even talk to him? How is he supposed to make it if no one helps?

Park Chanwook sits back in his seat, crossing his arms and exhaling an extended stream of air. He seems to contemplate the question deeply before answering. “You’re kind and earnest - that much, I can tell. It’s admirable and something I hope you won’t lose in the future. I have a son your age and you actually remind me a lot of him, so, allow me to be frank with you. I hope you won’t take my criticism to heart.”

“Y-yes…” Seokjin nods, “please go ahead.”

“Not everyone can become great people. If it were that possible and easily obtainable, then everyone would be great. Every single person would be a superstar but in reality, there is one.” He holds up his finger before putting it down again. “Not everyone can achieve greatness. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a family?”

“I do.”

“Good,” he hums. “Take care of them. Take care of your parents and support them, start your own family, settle down. Your dream isn’t just your own. It affects everyone in your life.”

It’s at this second that Seokjin really looks at the man in front of him, the person who seems to have exhaustion permanently etched into his bones, wrinkles in places where there shouldn’t be, tired eyes and sunken in cheekbones. “As someone who’s been in this business for a long time, too much...I know when it’s enough. I know when it’s better if someone were to let go. I want you to make a living, Seokjin, and this isn’t it.”

The man has seen things, lived through hell and came back, turned a blind eye when he shouldn’t have but was forced to. The industry is cut-throat and competitive, full of backstabbers and liars. For the sake of keeping another person sane, he pours out all his honesties.

“The sooner you quit this race that has no finish line, the better your life would be.”

Seokjin sits alone in his chair. The world pulls away from him. He can’t do anything but listen to the heartbeat that pounds in his eardrums. His head downcasts to his lap. And he receives the painful advice as best as he can. “T-thank you.”

//

The darkness came before the light could even fade away.

Seokjin is collapsed in the corner, arm rested on top of his knees, head leaning against the wall, phone pressed against his ear. His portfolio binder, full of photographs and writing, his countless ideas, are abandoned by his side, discarded and dumped. “Come home.”

His father tells him on the other line and his mother’s tearful voice can also be heard. “We’re not sad, son.”

“If you’re worried about disappointing us then don’t be. I’m already happy you’re my son. I don’t need anything else from you. You’ve just been gone for so long.”

“We miss you,” his father intercepts again. “Jjanggu doesn’t even remember you anymore. Your younger brother asks about you a lot. We miss you. Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time in Seoul? Son, just let the dream be a dream. Come home to us.”

He sleeps that night.

When his guilt, his agony, his turmoil has become too much to bear, Kim Seokjin escapes the world of reality to the ones in his dreams, letting his exhaustion release him from his nightmares. But when his mind prevents him from leaving into a deep slumber, his tear-stained pillow tells more stories than his broken voice can manage.

He only finds a sense of solace in your presence. You, who is too nervous and preoccupied with the audition to notice his anguish, too ignorant to realize his suffering. It’s a good thing. He doesn’t want to speak out his bleak future and the prospects of having to desert what he wants most.

“Why are you eating right now?”

Soo-Ae, your manager, is on the phone and she excused herself to the washroom, leaving you with your bodyguard. You’re still chewing on the way to the conference room and Seokjin giggles at your cheek that’s stuffed with chicken. “I gained weight for the role. This is my last chance to gain some more.” You lick your fingers off, using a wet wipe to fix your lipstick and clean up any greasy messes. “Alright, wish me luck!”

He opens the door for you, “good luck!”

At least if he couldn’t achieve his ambitions, if he saw you make it, maybe it’ll be enough for him.

“You should dump him!” You visibly sulk, hands on your hips, bottom lip jutted out. The role was created in order to promote the chicken company that would sponsor the drama. It’s a side character and not of any importance to the plot but as long as you get screen time, you don’t care what kind of things you have to do. “You should eat chicken instead! Don’t you know that chicken can cure all kinds of things like the flu to heartbreak?”

You pause, pretending that you made the main role laugh. “See?! It’s already helping you already! I’m telling you he’s too-”

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” The middle judge of the three rubs his forehead and frowns as if he’s under a massive headache. “Look, to make this go by faster, we need someone with more charm or someone with more fame. It draws in more attention to the drama but you obviously….wha-.....what’s your name again?!”

You scoff openly in disbelief. Your resume is right in front of him and he couldn’t look down to read your name? Meanwhile, Seokjin sits at the back of the room, watching the entire scene play out and he wishes it was part of the audition. Unfortunately, he’s about to witness you get slaughtered.

“I’m going to be clear with you - you’re not talented,” the lady to the left remarks in a cold tone. “You don’t have the skill or the material we want. Your posture is bad, your expressions are stiff, you recite lines like a robot - really, why are you even acting? Is this a joke to you?”

A muscle in your cheek twitches but you keep quiet. “I recommend you reconsider your career choices,” she says and you tremble in a mixture of emotions, all threatening to pour over your head like a bucket of ice water.

You slowly turn off to the last lady at the right, your only hope left remaining. But she seems to be distracted, staring off at the glass windows of the city buildings. They’re prepared to call for the next person and you hold back your tears, bawling up your fist to your side.

“I..I’m still going to act! I’ll make it one day.” You manage without your voice wavering and you look at the producers straight in the eye before bowing from your waist. “Thank you for your constructive criticism. I will work hard in the future to improve my abilities and I’ll come back.”

The man pulls his hands over his face, wondering what he has to say to get the message through your thick skull. “No. Don’t.”

“I will. It’s my dream. Thank you for your concern but it’s my life.”

Seokjin’s heart has stopped. His eyes have grown wide. Something strums within his chest.

“If your words alone could make me give up, then that means I lacked sincerity within my dream and that it meant nothing to me. Thank you and goodbye.”

You hold your head up high, strutting out of the room, leaving the producers rolling their eyes in indignation and shaking their heads at your ignorance. On the other hand, Seokjin trails behind you, watching your backside and wondering how you could be so close but so far away.

He marvels at you. You’re a star shining in the sky, a starlet that he can never reach.

//

If only the image in Seokjin’s head and his high regard for you was true, perhaps, you would be a perfect, immortal angel. Regrettably, you are a very flawed individual.

“I can’t do this anymore.” You ball up the damp tissues in your hand, the tears continuing to cascade down your cheeks. Seokjin is at a loss of what to do, the person he reveres is broken in front of him, mascara running down your cheeks, oversized sweater enveloping your frame.

It was an act.

The entire outburst in front of the producers was a mere facade to save your pride.

You were lying to them, lying to the world, lying to yourself. And now you’re tired. You’re simply exhausted of running in the absolute darkness, chasing after nothing, meaninglessly wasting your days away without an inch of improvement. You can’t do this anymore.

“W-what about all the things you said in there about coming back in the future?”

Seokjin doesn’t understand. You were so cool in front of the producers, level headed and calm. On screen, you’ve been even more amacculate. To see you crying on the floor, huddled up by yourself with the apartment lights off is utterly baffling to his mind.

“It was a fucking lie!” You scream at him, hurling the paper tissue box at his stomach to which he catches. “I’m so tired. Do you know how long I’ve been doing this for? Six years! More than half a goddamn decade! I lost contact with all my friends, my family doesn’t even want to call me, I don’t have food to eat, the hot water doesn’t even work in this stupid place and the only thing I thought I was good at, they told me I suck.”

How is he supposed to comfort you? How is he supposed to make things better? Seokjin doesn’t have any clue.

“You said that if their words were enough to tear you down, that means your dream wasn’t sincere…”

You chuckle mirthlessly, shaking your head and wiping your cheeks with the sleeve of your hoodie. “You don’t understand. T-they’re professionals who’ve been working there longer than I’ve been alive...they know what they’re talking about. They know from first glance who’s good and who’s bad…”

You gasp for a breath of air. “You want to know something?”

Seokjin sits across from you on the floor, gazing at your face soaked in by the moonlight. He always thought you looked the most beautiful in the milky wash, where your beauty wasn’t dissected through harsh artificial lighting and your skin glowed instead. He’s especially transfixed at the way your tear drops twinkle, rolling off your cheeks like sparkling diamonds.

“What is it?”

“I’m good at acting. I fucking know I am.” You bitterly smile to yourself, sniffling the cries away. “It’s true that I was inspired at a young age but it was a stupid dream. “My entire life, I’ve been likeable, pretty, outgoing. It’s easy. It’s easy to act happy.”

You’ve always had a talent for smiling on cue, acting as if everything’s okay, putting on an appearance that you’re put together.

You whisper your words out, each syllable wrapped in an unadulterated pain. “You know, if you start to pretend you’re happy, it might feel like it’s real. For a long time, you’ll believe in it. But in the end, it’s fake. It’s bullshit. I’m not happy - I hate myself - and I live a shitty ass life.”

Seokjin has always put you on a higher pedestal. You are the flawless actress, the beautiful goddess with a shining smile that he could only imagine pinning after. You were the one he daydreamed about, the person out of his league, the individual behind the screen, the black mirror of his computer and phone, the one he glorified and looked up to.

There’s almost a sense of betrayal by the way you’ve broken down in front of him. You’ve been presented so perfectly that witnessing your tears, your bitterness, the human inside of you, it should leave a sour taste on his tongue. He’s been lied to. You’re far from the image you present. You've broken the fourth wall. You’re not the impeccable, happy woman that he thought you were.

No.

Each teardrop that rolls from your eyelashes to your chin, dripping on the floorboard, echoes loudly in the apartment, causing him to wince, shattering his expectations, piercing straight through his soul and slapping him across the face with a simple realization-

You’re no longer merely someone he idolizes.

You are L/N Y/N, a dedicated starlet trying to make it in the cut-throat industry, a girl who was initially crass to him but only as a defense mechanism. You aren’t that far away figure anymore, shining brightly in the sky to which he gazed upon from a distance with admiration.

You are here. You are a human.

He repeats the same words the director gave to him. Only, this time Seokjin twists them around.

“You’re earnest. You work hard. You’re good. I know it. Not everyone can become great people - if it were easy then everyone would be a star. In reality, there’s only one. You’re that one.”

You scoff, stealing another tissue to dab at your eyes. “Yeah right.”

“You are.” He reasserts in a strong voice, timbre shaking the walls of your home. You look up at Seokjin, the boy who’s black cloud of hair nearly pricks into his eyes, his irises that have softened and plush lips downturned in frustration. The white sweater on his frame and black, ripped pants are worn but still firm on his body. “You just have to keep going in order to make it and never stop. Your dreams are your own and you shouldn’t put blame onto other people or make excuses because of them. If they care about you, they’ll understand. It might be difficult but I’m here. I’m here for you.”

“The race doesn’t have a finish line but the point of it isn’t to finish. It’s the process of running.”

You laugh aloud, a ringing and familiar tone that has him easing. You wipe your eyes again but there’s no point, not when more are accumulating by the second. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t give up.”

It’s not only to you but for himself as well.

“Don’t be naive,” you mutter past the thick lump in your throat, too stubborn to hear his sweet encouragement. As much as you want to listen to him, step back up again, you don’t want to be disappointed again and again. For your entire existence, you’ve been let down over and over again. There’s only so much you can bear by yourself.

“You make it sound so easy. It’s not. You don’t understand-”

“Maybe I don't.” He retorts back in a sharper tone. “But I know this is just the beginning. If you can become so easily knocked down from a few words and rejections, then maybe you do lack sincerity within your dream.” Seokjin traces the same words you used earlier and you tear your eyes away from him.

“Y/N. If you can overcome these struggles, you’ll rise higher and higher. And you don’t need to do it alone. So...don’t give up. The most beautiful days haven’t even begun yet.”

You burst out crying, grabbing the entire tissue box to weep on. He smiles down at you, wiping away his eyes and Seokjin finds that he doesn’t care that you’re not as perfect as he remembered. You’re no longer the actress he loves.

You’re Y/N. And somehow, that’s a million times better.

//

Seokjin opens up his laptop, clicking a few times before a blank document is on his screen. He inhales a huge breath of air, fingers hovering over the keyboard and after a moment of mustering courage, he begins to write the first few lines of a new script.

Lights. Camera. Action.