#assume he got a secret santa or lucky santa thing--

[little-diable]

I'll be Home for Christmas - Dean Winchester (smut)

This is my @spnfanficpond Secret Santa fic for @katbratsupernaturalwhore - I hope you'll enjoy this! Enjoy my loves. xxx

Summary: Dean and the reader have always hated one another, a natural instinct they've run with. Now, on Christmas Eve, both cross paths once again, forced to endure one another's closeness.

Warnings: 18+, smut, oral (m), enemies to lovers

Pairing: Dean Winchester x fem!reader (2.2k words)

Divider by @firefly-graphics

The bar was crowded, packed with drunkards, lone people and those that got into the Christmas spirit a bit too late. Her tired eyes took in her surroundings, the decorations hung up on the walls, trying to drown out the sound of the Christmas playlist ringing in her ears. She was fostering another drink, hoping to pass the time till the road would be opened up again.

“I’ll be home for Christmas, fuck, I will be.” (Y/n) murmured the words before she took another sip, eyes taking in the faces of those near and far. And yet her gaze got stuck on a face she had seen one too many times before, the freckled cheeks, the plush lips and the forest green eyes that were staring right back at her. Fuck, if there was one thing she had wanted to avoid it was running into Dean Winchester, especially on Christmas Eve. 

The hunter pushed himself through the crowd, eyes not leaving her frame once - stuck on the prey he was about to tear to shreds, at least he’d try to. Anger thumped through her veins, an emotion so biting, (y/n) feared she’d pass out any moment now, too caught up on the hatred she felt, forgetting how to suck in the sharp breaths. Dean’s smirk began to widen with every step he took, coming to a halt in front of her table, seemingly allowing himself to take in her frame. 

“Well, would you look at that. Seems like Santa finally got my wishlist, and yet, even on Christmas Eve missy can’t seem to smile at me.” Dean’s teasing forced her to bite down on her tongue, not wanting to start another fight with the older Winchester brother, at least not in a crowded bar filled with nosy bystanders. With another eye-roll sent his way, (y/n) drowned her drink, trying to run from the man before she could snap.

“Have a good evening, Dean.” And yet, before she could even try to push past his broad frame, Sam entered her vision, smiling at her. A wave of relief flushed through (y/n) as she met the eyes of the younger Winchester brother, opening her arms to properly greet the one she had always enjoyed being around. Sam murmured his greeting against her forehead, relishing in her touch, “What are you doing here on Christmas, (y/n)? Why aren’t you back home?”

“The road is blocked, I was forced to stop here in hopes that they’ll solve it overnight, but it seems like today isn’t my lucky day.” She couldn’t help but let her gaze flicker towards Dean, adding more spite to the words she spoke.

(Y/n) barely remembered the first time she met the brothers, the hunters she had always admired, at least till she got to know them. From the first moment on she and Dean had hated one another, trying to take out one another’s ideas, hoping to push them into waves of misery they’d drown in. It had always been different with Sam though, a bond had instantly formed between her and him, allowing (y/n) to stay with the two of them every now and then, even joining the brothers on hunts whenever she got bored of being on her own. 

“Well, we’ve got to make the most out of it. Do you want another drink?” Sam squeezed her hand before he took a step back, not waiting for her reply, assuming that she’d want to spend some more time with them. All (y/n) could do was watch the tall man move towards the bar, leaving her alone with Dean once again.

“It’s pathetic how much you adore him.” Dean’s voice dripped with something she couldn’t pinpoint, it wasn’t anger, he wasn’t even teasing her. For just a moment (y/n) wondered if he was jealous, driven by the green emotion she detested more than the supernatural creatures she’d cross paths with. Her heart skipped a beat at the mere thought of Dean feeling more for her than anger, a thought (y/n) tried to push away as soon as she noticed what her beating muscle was doing. There had always been some tension between the two of them that rooted far deeper than their hate, a tension that drove her to imagining her body pressed against his; a tension that left her wondering how his lips would feel pushed against hers. 

“No need to be jealous, Dean.” The angry huff of air that clawed through him did its job to satisfy (y/n), allowing a grin to widen on her lips. “We both know you think of me when you’re lonely.” 

Before she could even process what was going on, Dean had grasped her forearm, pulling her closer till she felt his breath fanning over her skin. His green eyes were twinkling, projecting the emotions he was dealing with, a mixture so confusing Dean would lose his way in the storm he was fighting through, left to survive the cold whispers wrapping themselves around him, harder to endure than any creature taunting his restless nights. 

“I hoped that you’ve grow out of your bratty phase, but it seems like somebody should teach you a lesson, sweetheart.” He spat the last word, adding more strength to every vowel rolling off his tongue like a spell he’d speak to damn the ones wanting to hurt him. With her breath hitched in her chest, her gaze flickered down to his lips, just for a second, though a second too long, so Dean could easily follow her line of sight. “There’s no need for me to be jealous when I know you are the one begging for my attention.”

Dean let go of her seconds before Sam reappeared with another beer for them, oblivious to the spiteful words the two have just shared. The tall brother started asking (y/n) about her past months, wanting to hear every detail of the hunts she went on alone, the creatures she had been going against and the people she crossed paths with. And yet (y/n) barely focused her attention onto Sam, speaking to him without overthinking the details she was sharing, still hooked on the thought of Dean being jealous. Perhaps he was struggling with the same inner fight, torn between hate and attraction, unsure how to go about the emotions directing his every move. 

“I think I’ll call it a night, it was good to see you, Sammy.” (Y/n) gave into the need to rip herself free, no longer able to stick around, not with Dean’s gaze burning into her skin, leaving its invisible marks. She needed to run before she would do something she’d regret in the morning, having to focus on her way home, the goal of spending Christmas with the loved ones waiting for her arrival. With one last hug shared with him, (y/n) made her way out into the cold night, instantly wrapping her arms around herself. 

Fuck, why did Dean have to be such an asshole? Their life together could have been perfect, worthy of the fights they’d push through, something both could cherish, and yet the chance of turning their feelings into something good had been ripped from their hands by their anger, their anxiety and their confusion. Life with Dean Winchester by her side could have been perfect, a mere dream she drowned in late at night when she felt lonelier than in the past months. 

“Why do you always have to run from me?” His gruff voice forced her to a halt, front turned from him as she was staring ahead. Heat rose in her system, threatening to burn her surroundings to the ground with its strength, unsure how she should react to Dean’s words. “And don’t you dare lie to me.” 

“I,” (y/n) turned towards him, taking in his tall frame, how he pressed his arms to his sides as if he was holding himself back from reaching for her. “What are you doing, Dean? Just leave me alone.” 

She tried to walk away once again, and yet she didn’t get far, stopped by the hand reaching for her wrist, “You always run from me as if you can’t even stand to be in the same room as me. But we both know that you don’t hate me.” 

Their eyes met like magnets forced to unite, getting lost in the strength keeping them bound together. Dean’s free hand cupped her cheek, not giving her a chance to look away, hoping that their bond wouldn’t snap like a threat about to wear thin, “If I didn’t know it any better, I may actually think that you are in love with me.” 

Her mouth felt too dry to speak, to reply to his whispers with spiteful words burning on the tip of her tongue - an instinct rather than truthful words she wanted to speak. She felt her heart beating faster and faster, accelerating the speed of its beats as if she was running from the darkness threatening to pull her in. But there was no need to run, not from Dean Winchester, the man she had sworn to hate and yet simply couldn’t. 

“What do you want from me, Dean? Whatever you want me to say, it wouldn’t change a thing.” It felt as if her words gave him the push he had been desperately waiting for, lips meeting (y/n)’s with more force than she had anticipated. For a second she stumbled backwards, pulled closer by his strong grasp, not daring to let her part from him. The kiss was anything but slow, anything but loving, and yet it was full of emotions, a mixture so lethal (y/n) could only hope she’d survive this very night. 

“It changes everything.” Dean murmured his reply against her lips, forehead pressed against hers to allow themselves to keep on breathing. “Give me this night, just this one night.” He didn’t wait for her reply as Dean pushed himself away from her, he interlaced their fingers and kept pulling her ahead, eyes set on Baby. 

No words were spoken as he started driving, eyes finding hers every now and then, caught in the lust pumping through their veins, heightening their senses. His knuckles grew white, trying to keep his focus on the road as he felt (y/n)’s hand finding his knee, wandering up his thigh. Their eyes met, allowing Dean to focus on the smirk tugging on her lips, widening with every shaking inhale of breath Dean sucked into his lungs.

This was a clear act of payback, set on making Dean suffer.

“Sweetheart,” he was shushed by the “Let me” rolling off her tongue, trying to stare ahead. With quick moves she undid his trousers, pulling his hardening cock free. Dean had lived many lives, had survived a few death calls, and yet, he knew that whatever was about to happen could send him to grave, an end he’d welcome with open arms. Heat flushed through his body, filling every pore like lava threatening to burn his skin. 

“Are you that desperate? Can’t even sit still and wait till, fuck,” once again his rambling was cut short by her movements, she leaned over the console, steadying herself as she parted her lips. She greedily swallowed his cock, sucking on his tip as if she perfectly knew how to please the hunter. His moans filled the Impala, followed by the sounds rumbling through (y/n), sounds so sinful Dean couldn’t help but thank his lucky stars for the thick darkness surrounding him and the never ending lone road ahead. 

“Who’s the desperate one of us?” She teased Dean as she kept pumping his cock, wanting to rile him up, very well aware that her night wouldn’t end without at least three orgasms rocking through her system. Dean’s eyes flickered down to meet hers, an icy glance that made her chuckle, mouth finding its way back to his cock. 

(Y/n) hummed around him, sending vibrations through his body, teasing him closer and closer to his release. One of his hands found their way to her scalp, pressing her head down further, making her choke around him. He supported the bobbing movement, very well set on the fact that he’d cum any moment now. 

(Y/n) tightened her grip on his cock, speeding up the movements of her mouth. His moans urged her on, hoping that she’d never stop touching him, already addicted after the first taste of the forbidden fruit. She was the one for him, Dean was convinced of it, praying to whoever was listening that the endless back and forth between them would finally find its end. 

“I’m close.” Dean warned her, eyes struggling to focus as he moaned her name. She greedily swallowed every drop of his release, kept pumping him through his high till he grew soft in her grasp. And for a moment no words were shared between them, allowing (y/n) and Dean to sort through their thoughts. 

“Are we really doing this?” It was just above a whisper, and yet Dean picked up on every syllable. He needed a few seconds to reply, but the second their eyes met, Baby coming to a halt in front of the motel, Dean smirked at her, pulling (y/n) in for a bruising kiss.

“I’ll never let you go again, sweetheart.”

[abimess]

A gift misunderstanding

Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Masterlist | Library Blog

Summary: Being the chaotic person you are, you ended up accidentally mistaking the Christmas presents. Looking at the outcome, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

Warnings: suggestive conversation, sex toys (no smut)

Pronouns: not used || Word count: 959

I apologize for the delay, I was at my grandmother's house and I forgot to post before I left haha anyway, I hope you like it. Merry Christmas!!!

You do NOT have permission to repost or translate my work on any platforms (even with credit)

For this request | Christmas Special Masterlist

───── ⋅ ⋇ ❅ ⋇ ⋅ ─────

You're not a very organized person. And this usually gets you in trouble. But as well as being disorganized, you are also stubborn. So you continue to be disorganized, and you continue to get in trouble.

On Christmas Eve, things would be no different.

Sitting in the living room of the Avengers compound, you and your teammates exchange gifts of Secret Santa. And you're rather nervous.

This year you drew Wanda Maximoff in the Christmas game. Aka The Scarlet Witch, aka the love of your life. She didn't know about the latter though, and you intended to keep it hidden for the rest of your life, even if Yelena, your best friend, would tease you about it forever.

The brunette smiles shyly as you hand her the gift, and you try not to be too intimidated by her beauty. As the girl unpacks the wrapping, the surrounding group watches in a silence of expectation.

"What the fuck, Y/n?" Pietro is the first to speak, his angry tone matching perfectly with the look he casts in your direction.

You have a confused frown on your face until the moment you see what Wanda pulls out of the box. And then you choke.

The brunette, whose cheeks have taken on an impossible shade of red, is holding a black dildo. Beside her, Yelena disguises a giggle.

"Well... I... er..." You begin awkwardly, wanting more than anything to throw yourself out of the nearest window. "It's a... It's a joke! It's a joke." You finally decide, but the excuse doesn't seem to convince the others.

"Sure you're not implying anything there, Y/n?" Sam asks knowingly, raising an eyebrow at you. Tony's suggestive smile accompanies his next words, "I think Y/l/n is wanting to help her use it."

"Guys! That's my sister you're talking about!" Pietro interrupts the teasing next, sounding more annoyed than ever, and you decide that remaining silent is the best option.

Wanda puts the sex toy back in the box, and the brunette's silence only makes your muscles twitch more in embarrassment.

After a few more teasing comments and glances, the game continues as before, but you are no longer paying attention, all your efforts focused on ignoring Wanda's existence until you could get back to your room.

Lucky for you (or not) she seemed to do the same.

⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅ ⋇ ⋅

You leave the party at the first opportunity you get and mumble complaints and swear words at yourself all the way to your room.

As soon as you get there, you throw yourself on the bed, but it isn't long before knocks on the door are heard.

"Come in!" You grumble against your pillow, imagining it to be Yelena ready to tease you for the rest of the night.

"Can we talk about the gift now?" Wanda's playful tone makes you stand up abruptly, your heart beating rapidly with nervousness.

"I don't know, how about we pretend nothing happened so I don't have to jump off a cliff?" You suggest playfully and Wanda lets out a low chuckle before looking at you curiously. "What really happened there?"

"I got the presents mixed up, that one was for Yelena." You tell with an exhausted sigh and the brunette assumes an almost hurt expression as you say, "Oh... I didn't know the two of you were-"

"We're not!" You interrupt immediately, and clear your throat as the witch looks at you in a mixture of curiosity and amusement. "We're not. In this case it was actually a joke. I bought this for her because she's ace. She gave me a bucket of peanut butter cream. You know, because I'm allergic. I guess our sense of humor is questionable." You end your rambling with a nervous chuckle and receive an amused smile in response. "I suppose so."

"But you can keep it if you want. I mean, I'm not implying you- but it's okay if you do, of course, it's none of my business... I'm gonna stop talking now." With every stupid word that comes out of your nervous mouth your heart becomes closer to combusting. When Wanda smirks, you are sure you could die at any moment.

"Are you nervous, Y/n?" She asks curiously, walking slowly towards you. "You have no idea." You answer with a shy laugh, and Wanda smirks, looking at you with an indecipherable look. "Do I make you nervous, baby?"

"I thought that was implied." You answer in an affected whisper, her honey voice completely disarming you. Wanda giggles at your mesmerized look.

"You're cute." She comments shortly after, not helping your flustered state one bit. When she bites her lower lip, your eyes are immediately drawn to the action.

"Tony was right, you know?" she asks next, her breath brushing against your lips due to the closeness. You frown in confusion, your entire body hyperaware to her presence.

Wanda steps forward then, her face moving even closer to yours. You hold your breath as her mouth moves towards your cheek.

"You could help me out sometime." She whispers against your ear, sending a wave of intense shivers through your entire body.

Before you can process what has just happened, the brunette pulls away again, her warmth being missed at the same moment.

With your brain completely short-circuited, you just watch the girl walk away toward the door, your heart pounding heavily in your ears.

As soon as Wanda reaches the door, she sends a wink in your direction, a smirk never leaving her face as she disappears into the hallway.

With your body warm and your legs shaking, you try to regain the rhythm of your heartbeat and the coherence of your thoughts.

Less than a minute later, you go after her.

───── ⋅ ⋇ ❅ ⋇ ⋅ ─────

#Day 25: Christmas Breakthroughs (Zooey Kern x Reader)

And that's it for today! I hope you enjoyed it, thoughts and comments are always welcome ツ

Taglist: @yuhloversxx @madamevirgo @an-evergreen-rose @helloalycia @wandas1mp @cantcontroltheirfear @diaryoflife @cristin-rjd @ensorcellme @aimezvousbrahms @natasha-danvers @purplemeetsblue @randomshyperson @peggycarter-steverogers @b0mbdotc0m @ethereal-pxradise @stephanieromanoff @tomy5girls @gingerbreadcookieforlife @imapotatao @musicinourlips @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @allfiguredout @olsensnpm @magicallymaximoff @nothing-isimpossible @mionemymind @itsmionet @xastrydx @sxfwap @nicole-rayleigh-hot @wellsayhelloaagin @midnight-lestrange @1-800-depressedlesbian @b-5by5 @blackwow34 @nervoustrack @somewhatgreatexpectations @yeetus-thyself @chelleztjs18 @franfineashell @mrromanoff (if you wanna be tagged check the form on my BIO)

[moonstonediaz]

soooo based on the stills we got, can we assume that maybe chris is emotional cause he wont spend christmas with buck but in the end of the episode at the christmas party, eddie brings chris and chris is who buck is smiling at in that one still - so all around everyone is happy and best part is no taylor

little dove, you can assume whatever you want. whatever gives you joy, whatever makes your heart soar 😚💙

but the longer i look at the stills…eddie and ravi are in uniform and, it’s hard to tell due to the christmas lights, but it looks like it’s nighttime in their stills. the stills we got of buck in the santa hat, and then bobby and athena, and christopher—those are all in daylight.

i don’t know what’s so different about this episode. this episode over all others this season. they seem to be pushing the happy christmas narrative with the stills that were released. but it feels like…maybe…we won’t get a happy cliffhanger? almost like all of the happy we see will be early on? this has NOT been a happy-go-lucky season so…..idk! i’m just suspicious!! DON’T QUOTE ME ON THAT. THAT’S MY OPINIOn

i mean, think about it. go back to Ghost Stories—the big call they used in the promos (guy carjacked, shot, and buried alive) was done within the first ten minutes of the episode. (ignore that the rest of the episode had utterly nothing to do with the 118) SO, that being said, since they’re promoting the happy christmas stills, i feel that whatever big christmas event they’re at is going to be early on in the episode. leaving the rest for…christopher being emotional? maybe another big incident? (buck or christopher: life or death?!) they’re being super fucking secretive about it. and i’m super excited! i honestly have no clue what to expect but i’m begging for a buckley-diaz moment.

i’ll link a post here that talks more about the potential for danger since this is getting longer than i planned.

i’d manage expectations a bit. i mean, i don’t bc it’s fun for me. but sometimes people get their hopes up too high and get pissed off when what they had in mind doesn’t happen. the love story that they’re telling is extremely delicate and it’s being handled with the utmost care. so i’d stay positive! the shooting scene was absolutely devastating but exceeded my overall expectations and it’s my favorite thing they’ve ever done. so if they do go the angsty route where either buck or eddie or christopher is in danger….i mean i’ll be pissed about having to wait for the resolution, but i have no doubt it’ll be fucking fantastic in the long run.

yeah you definitely didn’t ask for all of that but i’ve been having A Day and i’m finally able to sit down and talk about it lol.

also, taylor is credited in the episode. no idea where tf they’re going to put her though and i don’t really care to speculate on it 🐸☕️

[plus-size-reader]

Pretty

12 days of Christmas Special 2

Henry Bowers x Plus size!reader (Sister)

Word Count: 1281 words

Warnings: none

Summary: How the Bowers siblings spend Christmas

——————————————————————————————————

Christmas in the Bowers house had always been sort of strange.

Butch had never really cared much for the holidays, and often worked through Christmas eve because of that. He didn’t like Christmas, and since your mom had left, he hated it even more so.

Which left you and Henry alone for most holidays during your childhood, which necessarily wasn’t the worst thing for you.

It was no secret that your brother could be moody and mean on occasion but he wasn’t all bad. You never doubted that Henry loved you, and he proved that even more around the holidays.

Henry didn’t really care for Christmas.

All throughout his childhood, there was basically no Christmas but when you were born, that changed a little for him. He went back and forth on how he felt for you, but overall, he was pretty protective.

...And when it came to Christmas time, he wanted you to have more than he had as a kid.

He knew that Butch tended to ignore the holidays, even now, and wouldn’t do anything for you. Not only that, but if you were lucky, he would ignore the two of you when he’d had too much to drink or a hard day at work.

It had always been that way.

When the two of you were younger, Henry would go out of his way to try and play Santa. He would make you little crafts and toys and wrap them in newspaper so you’d have something under the tree.

However, he didn’t have to do that anymore. Now that the two of you were older, Christmas was easier on you both.

For starters, you didn’t believe in Santa Clause anymore, so he didn’t have to jump through hoops to keep that illusion alive for you. That was for the best, as Henry didn’t have energy to do that anymore.

...And it didn’t hurt that Henry had his own money now.

He didn’t have to make you flimsy Popsicle stick houses and paper dolls anymore. If he wanted too, Henry could go out and pick up whatever he wanted for you, and in that way, Christmas was better.

Though, your father still didn’t want to be a part of it. Butch refused to even get you a Christmas tree this year, because he didn’t want to look at it.

For him, it was nothing more than a nuisance.

Of course, Henry wasn’t going to make you go without a tree. It was a tradition that he knew you loved, something you’d been doing since you were children. You had always gone to the Derry tree lot and picked out a live tree.

It broke your heart to hear that you weren’t going to have one this year, so naturally, Henry took it upon himself to make it all better.

He started by having the boys come in so that they could get it all figured out. Patrick complained at first, but at the end of the day, he decided to just do as he was told without starting a fight with your brother.

While it was no secret that your father hated the holiday season, that didn’t stop the Bowers gang from putting together the perfect christmas for you.

It took a little bit of convincing i.e threatening on Henry’s part to get the boys to help him out but once he did, they all got to work trying to make it all work.

That meant buying ingredients for cookie dough and cutouts, shopping, anything to make your holiday the best that it could be.

...But first, there was one thing you needed.

“Oh hey, I didn’t know you guys would be here” you hummed, shocked that the guys were standing in your kitchen. It may not have been shocking normally, but this was a Saturday at ten in the morning.

You didn’t even know they got up this early.

“Go get dressed, we have plans today” Henry prompted, eyeing you incredulously from where he was standing. You were still wearing your pajamas and that wasn’t going to work for what he had planned today.

There was a strange tone in his voice, something you hadn’t been expecting, but you knew better than to ask questions. Whatever it was, you were sure it wouldn’t take too much time.

Henry would probably drop you off at the house a little later so he could hang out with the guys at the quarry. Even knowing that though, you went to get dressed just as he’d said and didn’t ask where you were going until the car stopped again.

The Trans Am jolted slightly as Belch pulled into a parking space, causing you to lean a little too much into Patrick’s side.

You were going to apologize to him, but before you could, you glanced out the window to see where you were. You didn’t want to get too excited but you couldn’t help yourself.

It was the Christmas tree lot. 

You really didn’t think you’d be able to come here this year but there was no denying it. Every year, the Derry Christmas tree lot stayed the same, and it was perfect.

To you, Christmas wasn’t Christmas without it.

You couldn’t help the small gasp that left your lips when you realized where you were, your eyes snapping up to Henry’s face as if to clarify what you were assuming.

When he nodded, a small smile creeping onto his lips, it was over. You scrambled to get out of the car, urging Vic to get out as quickly as he could so that you could start looking through the aisles.

From where you were sitting, you couldn’t get there quick enough and didn’t even bother to wait for the boys to get out of the car before taking off.

On occasion, the boys would tease Henry for going so far for your benefit but you were his little sister and he had always done this for you.

It was second nature by now.

...And seeing how happy this made you, they understood why this had been so important to him.

“Christmas trees huh? Who knew” Patrick shrugged, watching the way you buzzed around happily, smelling the fresh fir and pine trees and feeling the needles beneath your fingers.

It was funny, of course, but more than anything, each of the four males were just enjoying the obvious happiness this was giving you.

When Henry told them that you liked going to pick out a Christmas tree every year, they never expected you to like it this much.

“We used to go with mom. I think that’s why she likes it so much” Henry shrugged, heading in your direction without much more than that, only to be followed by the rest of them.

You didn’t like talking about your mother, because she hadn’t come to see either of you in years, and there was no reason for you to care about her. However, there were certain things that just brought back those happy memories.

“You find one you like?” Henry asked, coming up behind you. You were looking at a pretty big fir tree, with big full leaves and a bright green color.

It was a nice one, one that you’d have to put in your bedroom to avoid the wrath of your father but a nice one nonetheless. Even if it was going to be a bitch to transport, if this was what you wanted, he’d figure it out.

“Yeah, isn’t this one pretty?” you hummed, gingerly feeling the needles. It was going to be difficult to get home, but at least you’d gotten one thing right.

It was pretty.

[kerie-prince]

We're Worlds Apart (6)

Draco Malfoy x American No-Maj!reader

series m.list | general m.list | previous chp

warnings: language, smoking (cigarettes), mentions of sexual activity (but no actual scenes), Blaise (you know what i mean <3)

summary: Draco Malfoy is a pureblood wizard. Magic runs through his veins and has been since his birth. You're a Wiccan No-Maj; a non-magical being with ordinary blood through your veins, but practices what you call magick. And this very practice upsets your neighbor.

a/n: would y'all be interested if i added a smut chapter? also fun fact! the little date bit where y/n thinks about her worst date is based on my real life experience. only we didn't go to mcdonald's, we went to in-n-out. and it was terrible

(gif cred)

Blaise Zabini.

This man was the walking definition of lust. Flirtatious, smooth, and most definitely a womanizer. He didn’t hide it in his actions and you didn’t care. He could break your heart and have you crying for weeks, but man, if he wasn’t gorgeous.

Blaise Zabini looked as if he was carefully molded by Aphrodite. A man almost too beautiful for the world, and you’re going on a date with him. He nearly knocked the air out of your lungs when he asked to take you out to the fanciest, most expensive restaurant in Buffalo. And who were you to say no?

The whole window incident was completely forgotten. He could see more if he’d like— “Hey Y/N?” Your employee brought you out of your thoughts. A soft blush was on your face as you tried to act like you weren’t thinking of your neighbors’ friend. “Uh, yeah, what’s up?”

“Did you want me to put the crystal beads in the front? They’ve been really popular today.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” You had a few more hours of your day left before going back home. You had called over two of your best friends to catch up and help you pick out an outfit for your date that coming Saturday. It was currently Thursday, but in case nothing in your closet was good enough, you’d at least have some time to go shopping with them. Which was probably going to happen anyway.

It was a really good day; it got really busy with customers and the usual nuisance was gone today. But no matter how busy it was, you still felt like time was passing by slowly. In all honesty, what you really wanted was to be able to see Blaise today even if it was for just a minute, just to say hi.

Your last date was six months ago and, well. If it went well, you wouldn’t be attending the date you were going to later on the weekend. It was a horrifying date; he took you to a fucking McDonalds on the first (and last) date, only paid for his own meal, and made weird sexual innuendos nearly the whole time. And the worst bit was that even though it was a terrible date, you decided to give him another shot by texting him saying that you’d like to go to another date and he never texted you back.

Blaise was only going to be around for a month, you know this. And you kinda felt bad for taking some of his time away from his best friend whom he was visiting for, but he asked you out. So, if he’s alright with it you should be, too.

After the store closed, you stayed an extra hour just to make sure everything was cleaned up and ready for tomorrow. As much as you were in a rush, you hated clutter and didn’t want to have to wake up earlier to clean. Most likely, your friends were gonna want to drink a little. Traffic home wasn't great, but once you got home you got exactly what you asked for.

Outside, Blaise stood against a wall smoking a cigarette on Draco’s porch. God, even the way he stands is hot you thought. He saw you pull in your driveway and put out the last of the bud onto the ashtray. Blaise made his way to you and your heart was beating hard. “Good evening, gorgeous,” he said in that mesmerizing British accent. I’d kill to hear that voice in the morning.

“Hello,” you sighed in contentment. He was about to say something before your friends pulled up next to your car. Internally, you groaned. You just had to hope they wouldn't say anything to embarrass you. Without taking the chance, you started thinking of a reason to excuse him back to Draco’s house but it was too late as your friends were already rushing to your side. Act normal, act normal, act normal—

“Hey Y/N, who's this?” Miranda probed. Her voice was suggestive and you caught how she looked Blaise up and down. Bianca, the shyest of the three stood aside and waved at him.

“Blaise, these are my best friends Miranda and Bianca,” your hands gestured to the girls by your side. “Guys, this is Blaise.”

He took their hands and kissed the top of them. “Well, you ladies have a goodnight. I’ll see you later, Y/N.” He winked at you before he left.

Miranda let out a sigh before she spoke, “God, you’re so lucky.” She started heading into your house and pulled out a bottle of wine from her purse. Yeah. I am.

—

Draco has no idea what he walked into.

Santa Marie’s was absolute chaos. There was nearly a horde of injured wizards and witches that he and his team had to help. People filled the waiting room and beds were constantly being changed for the next patient.

The worst bit of it was that no one had any memory as to what happened. “This is a really strong memory charm. Not as bad as how Lockhart was left, though. Any idea who could’ve done this?” Draco worked as he healed one person after the next. He’s been running around with Ian at his side.

“Not really. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this. Hell, this is probably the first time anything like this ever happened at Santa Marie’s,” Ian pondered. It was true. Something like this hasn’t been seen in this hospital. But Draco wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing about it. He became Head Healer at Santa Marie’s for a reason and he was going to prove he deserves this position.

When he found a few minutes to himself, he called his landline at home to let Blaise and Theo know that he might not come home for the night. Theo was the one to answer the call and offered to take Draco some clothes if need be, but Draco already had a bag in his office just in case something kept him there. Guess today’s that day.

“Are you by yourself?” Draco asked.

“Yeah, Blaise left about twenty minutes ago,” Theo confirmed.

“Where’d he run off to? Not like he has other friends around,” Draco chuckled. He used the time to eat a sandwich from the cafeteria vending machine. Wasn't as filling, but he figured it’ll do for now until he would be able to eat an actual meal.

“Don’t you remember? Blaise got his date with… what’s her name again? The muggle, witch one, fuck if I know,” Theo said. That’s today? Draco had forgotten all about it. Of course, if he had remembered, he’d probably be distracted from his work today. Wait, why?

Theo regained his attention by calling his name multiple times thinking Draco had just hung up. “I’ll call you later. Still got loads of work to be done.”

“Hey, do you think they’ll do it-” Draco cut the call off before he could listen to the end of that sentence. Last thing he wanted on his mind while he worked was Blaise doing… things with you. It wasn’t because he liked you. You’re his neighbor and things could get pretty weird. It took months just to get along and have one engaging conversation.

And honestly, Draco still didn't like how you were a Wiccan. He may not understand what exactly it means, but it didn't matter. What would even happen if for some reason, Blaise actually showed you what real magic looks like? That was what really concerned Draco. Showing a muggle magic. He didn't know what those laws were like under the Magical Congress, but under the Ministry it was only allowed to show muggles magic and the wizarding world if it had the promise of marriage or you were a mudbl— muggleborn.

And Draco knew Blaise. His longest committed relationship was probably three months, so marriage is a definite no. Draco didn't know why he was even worried about it, it's just one bloody date. He figured that America made him soft as he stood ther overthinking about literally nothing. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he almost didn't feel Ashley flick his forehead. “Ow! That hurt!”

“I’d be worried if it didn't. You were standing there like a damn zombie. You ready to get back out there?” Ashley sassed. Draco scarfed the last of his sandwich and followed Ashley back to the emergency room. Ugh, I want this day to end.

—

It was the best date you ever had. You weren't in love or anything, but you were definitely tired out. The dinner was amazing and the conversations were engaging and interesting. But it's the events after the dinner that you remember.

Unlike boyfriends and girlfriends before, Blaise took his time with you. Slow, sensual and just perfect. It was quite suspicious, actually. What man is this perfect? There's something up. Weird foot fetish, secret Star Wars nerd. Or worse. Star Trek you thought.

Two days after the date, your best friends drove straight to your house after a single text was sent. There was no way Miranda and Bianca were going to read about the details on a phone screen, no. They wanted to hear the explicit details with their own ears.

“He did what?” Miranda nearly choked on the wine. There was a certain confidence in your aura. You slept with a man hand crafted by the gods and it was the best time of your life.

Bianca sat bashfully listening to your story, but she leaned forward to hear you better. “Little trashy for a first date, but who the hell cares? Ten out of ten, would definitely do again.” You smirked at the end of your corny joke. Your friends looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Alright, we get it. What now, though? He's only here for a month. What's gonna happen now?” Miranda questioned.

“Dunno. But for now, I'm just having fun. At first, I thought it'd be weird since his friend isn't the most pleasant to live next to, but Blaise is different.” You could only assume they were different, but considering you were getting along way better you figured it was safe to assume they were.

“What does your neighbor even look like? I haven't seen him anywhere,” Bianca noticed. Now that you realize, you haven't seen your brooding neighbor in a couple days. Not that you cared. “Actually, I don't know. Work, probably,” you shrugged your shoulders as you brought your wine glass to your lips.

“Where does he work?” Miranda asked.

“In the emergency room at a hospital,” you answered.

“Oh. You know where?” Miranda kept at it. “No, we don't really talk much. Took me nearly six months to even find out that he even talks, let alone what he does for a living.” Just as you were about to take another sip, a certain black car was pulling up.

From afar, you could see the dark circles extremely prominent under Draco’s eyes and noticed him wearing the same clothes he left the house in a couple days ago. You actually pitied him, but admired him at the same time.

Being a doctor is no easy task, and here was one across the yard working day and night to help people. “Is that him?” Bianca noticed him from out the window. You nodded in response and took another sip of wine.

“I'm moving to England. There's no way that they have this many attractive men. Watch me pledge allegiance to the Queen, I don't care,” Miranda rambled. You laughed at her in response. “You said there's another person visiting him?”

“Yeah, why?” you quirked an eyebrow. “What does he look like?” Miranda looked at you with wide, hopeful eyes. You shrugged your shoulders, “Haven't seen him yet. Never comes out but I think I heard him once in the backyard.”

After a couple hours of talking and laughing, the two best friends decidedly went home and called you once they arrived safely. The night was chilly and the sky was clear. You admired the sunset and the orange and purple hues in the sky from the bench of your porch. If you could, you'd paint the scenery.

The sound of a door opening made you look to the side and saw Draco pulling out a cigarette. He looked around and once his eyes landed on yours, he reached in his pocket for the lighter. Once it was lighted, he took a deep inhale and let the smoke out with a long puff.

“Long couple days?” you asked from across. He took another puff before he started walking to the fence separating your yards. You did the same and leaned against it next to him. “Feel like shit,” he said under his breath.

“You look like shit,” you commented. Draco glared at you and you laughed at him. It took him a couple seconds to drop his glare and then he started laughing as well. When you looked at him, you noticed how his eyes crinkled and how bright his smile was. It was the first time you'd ever seen him like this and it made you feel a bit warmer inside. You remembered how when he'd first moved in, all you wanted was to be friends with your new neighbor and have moments like this.

The silence lasted a while when your laughters died down. He finished the last of the cigarette and stepped on it as you just stood and wandered into nothing. Whether it was an awkward silence or not, you didn't know. But considering you were comfortable, maybe it wasn't.

You looked at your neighbor and reached one of your hands out to him. Draco looked confused, like he once did when you first went to his door and reached for a handshake. He stood still as he expected you to say something. The expression spoke for him so you finally explained yourself, “Friends?”

Draco seemingly thought about it, eyes going back and forth from your hand to your eyes. He then looked at his house for some reason and met your eyes again. Hesitantly, he shook your hand, “Friends.”

This was going to be an odd friendship for sure, but after months of trying, a friendship began.

—

next chp

(っ◔◡◔)っ taglist: @beiahadid @malfoy-styles-wife @fivenightslaughter @juneballoon999 @leydileyla @fangirlanotherjust @originalsoulcollector @opiomancy @lipstickandloveletters @ninacotte @daedric-sorceress @frecklesandfirecrackers @hahee154hq @disartrous @oh-those-barricade-boys @lunalovecroft

[hawkandtory]

Potterheads (Hawkory)

This is an excerpt from a Hawkory story I’m developing. But I think this part can stand as a short story on its own. I guess you can consider this a sneak peek.

Summary: Tory discovers a little more about her boyfriend’s hidden nerdy side. She’s not the only one to make a discovery though.

Pairing: Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz x Tory Nichols

Hawk was sitting on the couch in Tory’s living room, channel surfing while she went to check on her mother. The name “Harry Potter” captured his attention and he looked back to find that Tory probably wasn’t coming back soon. He chooses the channel and sees that it’s half-way through, before he tosses a piece of popcorn into his mouth. He’d seen this one before, but it’s been a while since he’d seen any of the Harry Potter movies.

Tory returned to the living room, saw the back of her boyfriend’s head and thought it would be funny to scare him. With a smirk, she quietly creeps behind him before her hands suddenly grab onto his shoulders.

“BOO!”

“AHH!” Hawk jumps, causing a few pieces of popcorn to fall out of the bowl and onto the floor. Tory can’t help but laugh. “You did not just do that.” He smiles.

“I did.” Tory states proudly kissing his temple before going around the back of the couch to sit next to him. She looks at the TV and Hawk begins to panic.

“Oh I-I just turned it on, and this was playing-”

“This is the Half-Blood Prince right?” Her eyes watch as Ron Weasley tries out for the Quidditch team. Hawk froze at the mention of the title and slowly looks back at her. She notices him in her peripheral vision before her eyes meet his. “What?”

“You like Harry Potter?” He asks, accidentally sounding a little too impressed.

“Is the golden snitch worth 150 points?”

Hawk couldn’t believe his ears. Tory smiles at his reaction and grabs a handful of popcorn.

“What house are you in?” She casually asks before plopping a few pieces into her mouth. The smile on Hawk’s face slightly falters when he realizes something. Tory tilts her head at him, waiting for an answer.

“Uh…well see the last time I took the quiz was before I became Hawk…”

“Okay? So, what house did you get?” She could see him silently debating on whether he should tell her or not.

“…Hufflepuff.” He admits as he rubs the back of his neck.

Tory tries to hold in a laugh but fails to keep it in. She wasn’t making fun of him though. He was so embarrassed; she found it adorable.

“What’s so funny?”

“Hawk the Hufflepuff.” She smiles. “It’s cute.” He grimaces at the word “cute”. Tory holds up a piece of popcorn to his mouth, which he gladfully eats.

“Let me guess, you’re a Slytherin?” He asks as he chews.

“Ding. Ding. Ding.” She smiles proudly as he rolls his eyes. “Ugh, I used to have such a huge crush on Malfoy. I once had this really great dream that he and I were-” she cuts herself off and Hawk raises his eyebrows. “Hanging out…” she trails off before eating another piece.

“Mhm.” Hawk doesn’t buy it, but he chooses to let the topic slide. He refuses to get jealous over a fictional character his girlfriend had a thing for. 

“Actually, now that I think about it…” Tory suddenly stands up. “Wait here.” Hawk watches as she goes towards her room before he lets out a breath. 

He couldn’t believe Tory was a Potterhead too. The more he learns about her, the more they have in common. Where has she been all his life?

Hawk continued to watch the movie, losing himself in the plot before two hands suddenly covered his eyes.

“What-”

“Close your eyes.” He hears Tory command. He does what she wants. “Are they closed?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, keep them closed.” She said before he hears her walk around the couch. “Open.”

Hawk opens his eyes, not expecting to see the beautiful sight in front of him. The relaxed expression he had changes as his eyes widen and his jaw drops.

Tory was standing in front of him wearing a Slytherin school uniform: white button up shirt with a green plaid skirt and matching tie. She had black knee-high socks with a singular green stripe and an “S” printed where her knees were. She put on regular black combat boots and to tie the whole look together, the iconic Slytherin robe.

“I made the mistake of telling my friend that I liked Harry Potter.” Tory glances down at her outfit, playing with the robe a little. “She splurged and got me this for Secret Santa a few years back. That’s why it’s a little tight.”

Hawk’s jaw had dropped to the floor. How the hell did he get so lucky? What did he do to deserve her?

Tory looks up at him and laughs at his expression before she reached out and closed his jaw for him. “Judging by your reaction, I’d say it’s safe to assume that you like it?”

He grabs a hold of that same hand and uses it to pull her towards him, eventually getting her to straddle his lap. She giggled before it’s muffled by his lips on hers. His hands are on her waist and hers rest on his shoulders. 

“I’ve never been more attracted to you.”

“I can tell.”

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 36

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: New Year’s Eve

A/N: Oops, I'm late again. But this is the longest chapter so far (over 6k words) so I hope you can forgive me for that!

This chapter finally brings back some friends we haven't seen in a while and introduces a couple of new ones too. I'm not gonna lie, having read ToA just once about a year ago, my characterization is probably very off so my apologies for that!

Now, hope you guys enjoy this mega chapter! Please let me know what you think! It's suuper important.

Words: 6,2k 

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

…

After the boxing day Leo and Calypso returned back to their flat and the ‘normal’ life. Calypso already started remembering the downsides of working at a flower shop as it was a surprisingly busy time of the year with the wealthy people of that area wanting some flowers for their New Year celebrations. She and her boss Demi were the only two running the shop between the holidays while the second assistant was on a break. The older woman promised Calypso a day off for New Year’s eve, though, claiming that young people like her should be having fun that day instead of working. She graciously accepted the offer even though she didn’t have any plans for that day; after the eventful Christmas she kind of just wanted to stay at the flat with Leo.

But as it happened, Hazel texted her the day before the eve that she was having a small ‘gathering’ with a few friends and since Calypso hadn’t seen her for several weeks due to the work and a break from the art classes, she told Hazel that she would come. When she had asked Leo how he would feel about it, he had offered to go with her. Usually he would have spent the New Year Eve at Jason and Piper’s annual party but it was not happening this year due to their complicated situation. The flatmates had still decided to not tell Hazel or Frank about their own, developed situation, because they hadn’t even told Leo’s parents yet.

“So what is this Hazel like?” Leo asked Calypso as they were getting prepared for the evening out. “She doesn’t mind a stranger coming to her party, right?”

Calypso almost missed his question because of Leo’s current state of shirtlessness. A moment earlier he had wanted to know if she thought he should wear a light red or a white shirt to the party and hadn’t bothered to put either of them on yet. Not that she minded. No, her boyfriend definitely was not a bad sight with his tan, strong body, a quiet voice in her head said. “Oh no, she doesn’t mind,” Calypso finally remembered to answer. “I think she was even happy to hear you are coming with me. Besides, you have met Frank before, so technically you are not a complete stranger.”

“Are those two dating?” Leo asked.

“No, they are not. Not officially, at least. Hazel likes him but due to various reasons they have decided they shouldn’t rush it. Sounds kind of familiar to me.” Calypso looked at him significantly.

“It does? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leo raised his eyebrows, and Calypso nudged him on the arm playfully.

“Anyway, Hazel is great. She is the kind of person who seems really sweet on the surface but she would probably kick your behind if needed. She’s also kind of mysterious when it comes to her own story but I feel I can trust her. I may have even accidentally slipped her once that my flatmate is kind of neat.” She smiled at him shyly.

“Oh? So you’ve talked about me to her.” Leo grinned in response. “Hope you remembered to mention my good looks and quick wit…”

“Yep, and your modesty,” Calypso shook her head. “Seriously speaking, though, I find her very inspiring. Despite everything she’s been through, she’s thriving to do the things she enjoys, and she’s an incredible artist. Better than I, for sure.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I like your art.”

Calypso was happy and slightly flustered about Leo’s compliment but she wanted to explain herself. “I’m not selling myself short; I am just telling the truth. She really is that great.”

Leo raised his hand. “Alright, I believe you.”

“Good. Uh, hey, how should I wear my hair for the party?” Calypso asked as she stepped in front of a hallway mirror, taking some hairpins into her hands.

“I… I like it the way it is?” Leo looked at her with slight disbelief, as if he couldn’t believe that she didn’t like her current hairdo.

“Thanks… I don’t know. I could leave it mostly free but maybe I’ll add some waves.” Calypso wasn’t quite sure why she cared so much how she looked because that wasn’t like her, but she figured it might have had something to do with her being nervous about meeting new people at the party. Hazel and Frank were probably the only ones she knew there, after all. Her paying attention to her looks definitely didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she liked it when Leo gave her that special look that he reserved only for her.

“Sunshine, just so you know, you are the kind of person who will always stand out no matter what you wear. Me? Well, you could perform your magic on me but I’d still look like Santa’s elf.”

Calypso couldn’t believe that her boyfriend clearly had no idea of the effect he had had on her only a moment earlier (and still had). “Leo, don’t let this get to your head but I think there's a certain charm in your elf ears.” She took one of his earlobes between her fingers and tugged it gently.

Leo’s eyes brightened at her comment.

“If that’s what you think, then screw what anyone else says.”

“That’s the spirit,” Calypso approved, letting go of his ear and almost leaning close enough to give him a cheek kiss, but then she withdrew quickly. Leo looked quite disappointed. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked teasingly.

“I thought that you were going to kiss me,” Leo replied honestly.

“I’ve heard that there’s a habit that you kiss your partner at midnight on New Year’s. It’s not midnight yet, is it?” Calypso blinked innocently.

“No, but…” Leo couldn’t come up with any arguments to Calypso’s statement so he didn’t finish his sentence.

“Sometimes good things are worth waiting for,” Calypso finished with a smile and withdrew into her room to change her clothes. While doing that, she admitted to herself that this phase where everything was so new was pretty exciting.

…

A little bit later Calypso was dressed up in a dark blue short dress, tying the bracelet she had gotten on Christmas around her wrist when Leo got out of his room. He had switched his usual mechanic’s overalls to a white collarless shirt, suspenders, and pinstripe pants. Calypso had a feeling that he would have also put his tool belt on if that had been socially acceptable. To her surprise, he seemed to have even tried to flatten his curly hair a little, although it hadn’t quite worked out.

“Wow, look at you. The only thing you’re missing right now is a hat,” she noted, ruffling his hair a little. What she actually meant was that she thought he actually looked very nice in his current clothes. It was quite different from what she was used to seeing on him – even at school Leo usually wore a casual t-shirt or a hoodie and worn jeans – but she didn’t mind either look. Leo frowned at her, though.

“Don’t look so concerned,” Calypso continued with amusement. “I just meant that you kind of remind me of some film stars of the past. I just can’t get my finger on who. It’s a compliment, though.”

Leo’s frown disappeared. “Alright, thanks.” Then he took a second look at her and his eyes got that funny gleam he always got when he was about to say something embarrassing. “Woah, Sunshine. I’m suspecting that you are made of copper and tellurium.”

“And why’s that, mister chemistry nerd?” she asked, although she could pretty much guess his answer.

“Because you’re CuTe.”

Calypso shook her head in disbelief, but couldn’t hide her smile. “Really, Leonidas? Out of all the cheesy pick up lines in the world you chose that one?”

“Nothing wrong with chemistry puns, mi sol,” Leo claimed. “But I do think that you, um, clean up nicely.”

“As do you,” Calypso admitted, feeling the warmth gathering to her cheeks. “But we should probably get going now before we melt each other with these compliments. It’s getting pretty late already,” she noted when she checked the clock of her phone before dropping it back into her purse.

“Okay, I’m as ready as I can be,” Leo replied and tugged a strand of Calypso’s hair gently before picking his keys and heading to the door after her.

…

Frank and Hazel lived on a different campus than Leo and Calypso so it took them a while to find it. The party was organized in Frank’s flat because it was bigger than Hazel’s. The latter had explained that Frank had applied for a two-room flat because he had several pets (who would however be spending their New Year at Frank’s granny) and he was lucky enough to be able to afford it due to his work and because he had inherited his mother.

“I’m not sure what I was expecting but not this,” Calypso told Leo when she noticed a cat tree and a big pile of toys for both cats and dogs in one corner of the house. “For some reason I pictured him having a gym or something in one of his rooms.”

“I guess never judge a book by its cover,” they heard a voice behind them say. Calypso felt heat rise on her face as she realized the speaker was Hazel.

“H-hi, Hazel!” Calypso stuttered. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Hazel waved her hand when she noticed Calypso’s expression. “I can see why you would imagine that.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have assumed anything either way,” Calypso muttered. “What about you, though? What is your place like? I really should visit you some time.”

“Way smaller and I have a couple of flatmates there. But to be honest? I like it that way. My father tried to buy me a new apartment several times but something always happened to those places, like they were cursed or something. One burned, one had some water damage, one was full of bugs… But I was able to get my current place because I do some odd jobs for a neighbor. So far nothing weird has happened.”

“Not that it’s any of my business, but didn’t you once tell me that your father doesn’t contact you all too often? Yet he was going to buy you an entire apartment? Calypso asked, confused.

“I think it’s because he’s proud as hell,” Hazel shrugged. “His cousin or something - a president at your uni, I think - bought his son an entire house in a nice area, and my father just couldn’t let him flex about it. Well, his plan didn’t quite work out as I just told you.”

“Wait, the son of our uni’s president… then do you happen to know Jason Grace?” Calypso asked, connecting the dots in her head.

“Yes, I do,” Hazel answered. “A distant cousin. We lived in San Francisco at the same time for a little while until he moved away. And now we’re somehow both here. Small world.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Jason is Leo’s good friend. And this is Leo, by the way,” Calypso introduced, feeling weirdly happy about being able to introduce him to her friend, even if they were still keeping their relationship status a secret.

However, soon Calypso noticed that Hazel took Leo’s appearance in for a moment longer than was necessary and she couldn’t help but feel just a little bit uneasy even though she knew that she didn’t actually have a reason for that. Leo was dating her, and Hazel seemed very interested in Frank. But there was something unusual about her stare, and she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Hello, Leo.” Hazel seemed to return back to her regular self as she shook his hand, although the color of her cheeks might have been a tiny bit darker than a moment ago. “I’m Hazel. Calypso never stops talking about you at our art classes. I’m not entirely sure if it’s extremely adorable or a little annoying.”

“What?” Leo turned towards her and she couldn’t stop herself from blushing. “Cal, I didn’t know that you are constantly talking about me behind my back! Hope they have been good things, at least.” “Don’t worry, they’ve been nothing but good things,” Hazel reassured him, glancing at Calypso mischievously.

While Hazel’s teasing reassured Calypso that she had simply imagined her interest in Leo, they were getting dangerously close to the relationship topic, so she tried to change the course of the conversation. “Hazel, you didn’t have to tell him that! Now he won’t stop boasting for the next two weeks,” she said exaggeratedly even though in reality she was secretly kind of happy that Leo heard about her compliments.

“Sorry, Caly,” Hazel grinned at her, not looking particularly sorry. Then she leaned closer to her, whispering. “Just a little help from a friend. I thought you were going to get together during your vacation!”

“Th-thanks, but that really isn’t necessary,” Calypso whispered back, hoping that her acting was good enough to convince Hazel that she and Leo hadn’t made any progress yet. To her relief, her friend got distracted when a guy who was at least a head, maybe even more, taller than Hazel, with dark, short hair appeared next to her.

“There you are,” the guy said. “Nico was wondering if…” When he realized they had company, he gave them a polite smile.

“Oh, hi! Nice to see you guys!”

“You both have met Frank before, right?” Hazel asked.

“Yep,” Leo confirmed. “Frank thought I was a bad dog owner, but quite frankly, that was an understandable mistake.”

“How is your dog doing now?” Frank wanted to know. “Hope he’s good?”

“Never better! He enjoyed following Calypso everywhere while we were at Waystation over Christmas,” Leo replied happily.

“So are you two…?” Frank turned his head between Calypso and Leo. Calypso couldn’t help but wonder how many times they would still be asked that question that evening.

“No, no, no,” Leo denied. “That’s crazy talk. Right Cal? She just came with me because it was a better option than spending the holidays alone in our flat.” Calypso nodded along even though she didn’t like that they had to lie to their friends. But it was her who had made the decision to not tell them.

“Yeah. We’re just flatmates,” she confirmed.

Luckily, Frank didn’t ask more. Again, Calypso noticed that Hazel was staring at Leo with that mysterious expression on her face and she was already going to ask if something was wrong when Hazel addressed Leo:

“Have we… Have we met before? I mean, before tonight? You look so familiar to me but you can’t be…” She frowned.

“I don’t think so?” Leo seemed a bit confused. “Not that I remember, at least.”

“Oh… alright. I guess you just really look like someone I used to know. You haven’t ever lived in New Orleans, have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” Leo shook his head. “I’m originally from Texas. And yeah, I’ve also lived in a few other states for short periods of time when I was moving from a foster home to foster home but never in Louisiana.”

“Alright, sorry for bothering you about that,” Hazel said.

“It’s OK. Now that I think of it, though… I did have some distant relatives in that area, but I haven’t seen those people since I was a baby.”

“Really? What’s their last name?” Hazel seemed to get more interested again.

“Valdez, like mine. I think the mom of the boy who was around my age was my mom’s cousin or something like that. Why? Do you know them?”

“Yeah… Possibly… The boy’s name is Sammy Valdez. Does that sound familiar?”

“Hmmm…” Leo stopped to think about it. “Maybe. The boy’s name did start with S. I’ve seen pictures of me playing with another kid who looked a lot like me in our relatives’ yard but I think I literally met him just once. I was like one back then.”

Hazel seemed a little bit disappointed by Leo’s answer. “Alright. Sorry, it’s just that Sammy used to be my only real friend until I moved away from there and I was just wondering if you knew anything about how he’s doing now. I guess you don’t.”

“No, can’t say I do. My fam… well, they weren’t particularly accepting of me after what happened to my mom…” Leo said bitterly. “One of my aunts spread some sick lies… So, yeah, I moved to a foster home and haven’t seen any of my relatives since then.”

“I understand…” Hazel said sympathetically. Calypso imagined that Leo must have been grateful that Hazel didn’t question him more about what had happened. “Sorry, this is not a good topic to talk about at a party. My curiosity just got the best of me, that’s all.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Leo waved his hand dismissively. “Let’s just move on.”

“I agree. Frank, were you going to say something about Nico before you got interrupted?” Hazel turned to him.

“Oh yeah,” Frank remembered. “Nico wanted to know if it’s OK that Will comes here a bit later. He’s working today, apparently.”

“No problem,” Hazel replied. “We may not have a lot of food and drinks left by that point, though, but he’s gonna have to deal with that.”

“Nico? Not Nico di Angelo, by any chance?” Leo joined the conversation.

“Yep, that’s him. He’s my half brother. I know, we look nothing alike,” Hazel commented when she noticed Leo’s expression.

“No, I was just surprised that you know him and Jason too… Soon you’ll probably tell us you know Percy Jackson too.”

“I’ve heard stories of him from the others,” Hazel chuckled. “But no, haven’t met him personally, at least yet.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you met him some time soon,” Leo predicted.

Calypso felt she had already been quiet uncomfortably long, just listening to Leo and Hazel talk and trying to figure out what to make of it. She couldn’t deny that she had felt a bit jealous at first but when she had learned that Hazel had only seemed that interested in him because he had looked like an old friend of hers, she had relaxed somewhat. Maybe the trust issues were a result of many failed relationships, if she could call them that given that most of them hadn’t lasted too long. Cursing herself for her unnecessary thoughts, she asked:

“So, is there anyone else I know here besides Nico?”

“I invited Rachel from our art classes too,” Hazel answered. “You remember her, right? She said she was really happy to spend the New Year’s Eve in any place that isn’t his father’s penthouse.”

Calypso remembered Rachel as a really enthusiastic and unique artist. She herself tended to try to make her art look a bit more simplistic while you really had to stop and look at Rachel’s art to be able to see its many dimensions.

“Yep, I remember her,” Calypso responded. “I’ve often thought about talking to her but there’s something a bit… intimidating about her, like she knows something about me that even I don’t know…” “She’s fine, though, when you learn to know her,” Hazel reassured her.

“That’s nice to know. If I see her, I’ll say hi.”

“Good,” Hazel nodded.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Leo nudged her on the arm. “I’m getting hungry. Maybe we should go and get something to eat.”

“Somehow he is already hungry even though he ate at home before we left,” Calypso said in disbelief. “How’s that even possible, Repair Boy?” Then she realized how the nicknames may have sounded to the others’ ears so she hurried to add: “Um, sorry, we’re used to using nicknames at our flat. With everyone. I’m Sunshine, Jason is a Lightning Boy and so on. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure he won’t eat everything!”

“It’s OK, there’s plenty for everyone. Also, if you plan to dance at some point tonight, watch out for my pink haired friend Lavinia. She is a little bit eager about tap dancing.”

“I don’t think we are gonna dance…” Calypso cursed herself for blushing like a teenager when she pictured herself going for a slow dance with Leo, standing as close to him as possible. “…But thanks for the warning.” Then she waved at the hosts quickly and started dragging Leo out of the room.

“Well? What do you think of my friends?” Calypso whispered when they were picking some nachos on their plates and no one was in the hearing distance.

“Hazel seems cool,” Leo replied nonchalantly. “But you really think I pay attention to anyone else when I have my amazing girlfriend next to me?”

“You’re so cheesy, Leo,” Calypso said but gave him her brightest smile. She might have also kissed him if it weren’t for the other people nearby and the fact that she was carrying a plate full of food.

“Part of my charm, babe,” Leo claimed, giving her that stupid grin that never failed to make her feel things. He sat down on an unoccupied chair near the table and started enjoying his nachos. “Hey, these are really good! You gotta try them.”

“Babe? I thought we already had our nickname discussion,” Calypso interrupted him. She sat down next to him but didn’t taste her nachos yet, instead expecting his answer.

“But it’s better than Mamacita, isn’t it?” Leo asked innocently.

Calypso couldn’t argue with that logic. “Well, yes, it is, but… maybe you should stick to Sunshine. Or just Cal. I’m not… huge on pet names. I’m just not used to them.”

Thankfully Leo seemed to understand. “Alright. I won’t call you a babe, then. My mom just used to say ‘a dear child has many names’ and it seems that has stuck with me. I think she meant that we have a tendency to give nicknames to those we care about. Maybe that’s the reason why I sometimes go a bit extra with the names I give you guys… especially you.”

“Oh. I see.”

There was something weirdly sweet about Leo’s reasoning behind his nicknames and Calypso couldn’t help but smile down at her food. She didn’t realize she had been lost in her thoughts for a moment until Leo said:

“Earth’s calling Calypso. Try this,” Leo handed her a nacho that had some sauce she wasn’t familiar with on it.

“Chili?” she asked when she tasted it and felt a slight sting on her tongue. It wasn’t a bad sensation, though; this sauce was notably milder than the one Leo had once fed her. “You really find ways to make me eat it.”

“Admit it: you liked it.”

Calypso was feeling a little brave because they were somehow still alone in the room: “Make me.”

Leo was about to lean closer to her when someone entered the room without a warning.

“Uh… Hi!” Nico di Angelo finally reacted to their presence when Calypso and Leo jumped a bit farther from each other.

“Hi, Nico,” Leo greeted him. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone I know here but it looks like I was wrong.”

“Seems so,” Nico replied, not in a mood for small talk.

“So how is it going?” Leo asked. “And how’s Will?”

“It’s going,” Nico shrugged, combing some of his long bangs to the side with his fingers. “Been trying to take it easy lately. Doctor’s orders. Will works as an intern at a hospital and turns out they really needed his help on New Year’s Eve so he’s not here yet. Something about lots of fireworks related accidents and so on…”

“Fireworks suck,” Leo commented, and Calypso noticed an angry spark in his eyes. “They feel like such a waste of money and they cause people to lose their eyes and such.”

Calypso wondered if Leo’s hatred towards the fireworks had something to do with the fact that fire was involved but she decided to ask about it later.

“Tell me about it,” Nico agreed. “Anyway, how do you two know Hazel and Frank?”

Calypso briefly explained how she had met Hazel at the art class and Leo told Nico about Festus’ vet visit.

“Somehow Hazel even knows my second cousin from Louisiana. How crazy is that?” Leo marveled.

“Pretty crazy, yeah,” Nico admitted, not contributing more to the topic so Leo decided to ask about something else.

“You haven’t happened to hear anything about Jason or Piper lately? I accidentally ran into Piper at Christmas and she seemed to be doing OK then, but… I’m still a bit worried about them.”

“I don’t really know much.” Nico replied vaguely. “Just that Jason hasn’t been home much lately. He’s always training, or with Percy and Annabeth or… I dunno. Just avoiding dealing with the situation. Or that’s at least how Will has interpreted his behavior. He’s way better at reading others than I am.”

Leo let out a frustrated sigh. “If only those two talked it out, said what they really thought…”

Calypso couldn’t help but see the amusing side of Leo’s statement. She started chuckling at him and both Leo and Nico gave her perplexed looks.

“What’s so funny about this? I was trying to be serious, Cal.” He narrowed his eyes, folding his arms over his chest.

That only made Calypso even more amused. “I know, I know! I’m sorry. It’s just that… don’t you think that’s a little bit ironic coming from your mouth?”

“From my mouth…?”

Nico still looked like he understood nothing about what was going on, but Leo had at least a tendency to blush when he realized that Calypso was right.

“Oh, this is totally different!” he claimed. “I, um, have my reasons to keep my mouth shut in certain situations. But those two… they’re just being weird.”

“I’m not even trying to follow this conversation anymore,” Nico stated, going to gather some chips and a beer from the food table. “Will would probably be able to translate Leo’s incoherent speech but he’s not here so I’m just gonna eat quietly now.”

Leo gave him an annoyed look and focused on his own food for a while. Once finished, he told Calypso that he wanted to see where the rest of the guests were. Calypso, relieved that Nico hadn’t apparently connected the dots about their relationship, agreed to follow him, but soon she realized that it might have been a mistake when Leo was walking towards the dancing area.

Being on the dance floor usually meant that you were expected to dance.

And she was not ready to dance. At all.

First of all, she hadn’t danced in years and while Calypso usually wasn’t too self conscious about those kinds of things, she still didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of Leo and the others. Second of all, she was quite sure that people would speculate - again - if they saw her dancing with Leo and she didn’t want that. She may have told Hazel about her crush some time ago and she did trust her, but who knew what kind of connections the other people in the room had?

Suddenly she realized that she was being paranoid. The people at this party were in their late teens or early twenties and probably had never even heard of her father. And why would they care if she was dancing with him? That was a normal thing to do at parties. It didn’t automatically have to mean anything.

There were already a lot of people gathered on the dance floor when the roommates arrived there. A few were dancing a bit farther from the rest of the group, while the others were watching a pink haired girl with real tap dance shoes on showing her skills. She must have been Lavinia, Calypso concluded. And based on her determined look, she seemed ready to challenge anyone who dared to pass by into a dance battle.

“Lavi!” Hazel’s voice came from behind Calypso. “Are you showing off again?”

The group that was standing in front of Lavinia moved from her way, and Calypso got a better look at her. Her shoulder length hair was flying freely and she was wearing a purple T-shirt and black pants to go with her shoes. Calypso also noticed that even though she had stopped dancing, one of her feet still kept tapping quietly on the floor, as if she was unable to stand still.

“Sorry, Hazel. Couldn’t help myself,” Lavinia muttered, and Hazel’s expression softened a bit. Calypso was still surprised to see this side of her because usually she seemed very kind, but clearly she still had authority even over people who were way bigger and older than her whenever it was needed.

“It’s OK! But try to let the others dance too, and not just tap dance.”

“Alright,” Lavinia answered but rolled her eyes when Hazel didn’t look. Calypso could hear her whisper to the closest people: “She just doesn’t understand the art of tap dance.”

Soon after that, the people in the room started dividing into smaller groups, some trying to chat over the loud music, some dancing. Calypso and Leo tried to spot some familiar faces but Hazel had already disappeared somewhere and Frank, Nico and Rachel weren't nearby either. Just when Leo opened his mouth to ask something, Calypso noticed that Lavinia, who had stopped dancing, was approaching them.

“Hi. We haven’t met before,” Lavinia started.

“Yeah, hi. I’m Calypso. Hazel’s friend from the art classes.” She shook Lavinia’s hand and then turned towards Leo. “This is my b… flatmate Leo. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Lavinia Asimov. Hazel and I used to go to the same school,” Lavinia said, but Calypso couldn’t help but notice that even when she was shaking hands with Leo, she was actually eyeing her.

“That’s cool,” Calypso replied casually although she was starting to feel slightly weird because of the staring.

“So, Calypso, do you know how to dance?” Lavinia asked.

“Not really, I just know some very basics,” she replied. “Haven’t danced in years, to be honest.”

“I could teach you, you know,” Lavinia blurted.

“Really?” Calypso asked, slightly confused by the other girl’s eagerness.

“Sure, why not? I’m pretty good.” Lavinia grinned at her.

“Do you mean now or...?”

“Now or whenever you’d like.” The girl twirled a strand of her pink hair around her finger as she spoke.

It took Calypso a moment to realize that Lavinia was actually trying to flirt with her in her own way.

“Hold on. I’m really flattered, but… I’m already taken.” Calypso rubbed the back of her head. From the corner of her eye she could see Leo’s stance getting more relaxed when he heard her answer. “Sorry. You seem like a cool person, though.”

Lavinia seemed visibly disappointed by Calypso’s response. “Are you taken by him?” She pointed at Leo judgingly. “You could do better than that.”

Calypso wasn’t sure what to answer, given that she wasn’t supposed to reveal their secret to anyone, but to her relief Leo cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Miss Pink? We literally just met; what makes you think you know what kind of person I am? You’re right in one thing, though,” he continued before Lavinia could reply. “Namely, she is way out of my league. And her boyfriend would probably kill me if I looked at her in the wrong way.”

“But… didn’t you just say you two are flatmates?” Lavinia asked suspiciously.

“Oh, yeah,” Leo responded quickly. “Cal’s boyfriend lives far from our uni so it was more convenient for her to get a flat from somewhere nearer to it. He knows he can trust me.”

Calypso wasn’t sure what amused (and scared) her more: the lies Leo came up with or the way he managed to sound that convincing even though he was literally coming up with the story as he spoke. At least Hazel wasn’t listening because she probably wouldn’t have bought it. Eventually Calypso decided she needed to contribute to the story as well.

“Besides, my boyfriend knows that I would kick Leo’s ass if he ever did anything inappropriate.”

Calypso noticed that Leo’s mouth was twitching slightly, but he quickly pulled the poker face back on and rushed to nod along.

“Totally. I wouldn’t wanna try that.”

Lavinia finally seemed convinced enough. “Alright. Well… I think I’ll go and find something to drink now. Dancing makes me thirsty.”

“Okay, we might see you later.” Calypso nodded at her before she disappeared from view. Once they were sure that she was far enough, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whew, she really seemed convinced we are dating,” she whispered to Leo. “I was worried she wouldn’t believe us. Also, Mister Not-boyfriend, I’ll have you know I do not approve of lying but in this case it was probably for the best. So thanks.”

Leo grinned at her. “You’re welcome. Geez, Sunshine, do you see the effect you have on people? Everyone is falling on your feet.”

Calypso blushed a bit. “It’s a bit weird… I am not used to getting attention.”

“You’ll get used to it once I shower you with the Leo love,” he whispered and Calypso blushed even harder.

“Gods, Leo! Don’t say that here!” Calypso peeked around and was relieved to see that no one they knew was nearby.

“Couldn’t resist,” he claimed but then got more serious. “Uh, so… do you think dancing would be pushing the line that we have set?”

“It probably would,” Calypso said a bit sadly. “Maybe when we’re home, though.” She added quietly.

Leo seemed pleasantly surprised by her answer. “Oh! Okay. I’ll be looking forward to that.”

“Hey, listen,” Calypso spoke again. “Maybe we should split up for a moment. Nico and Frank could probably use your company and I’d like to catch up with Hazel a bit since I haven’t had a chance yet. Is that alright with you?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Leo nodded. “I need to make sure that Nico doesn’t eat all the miniburgers from the bar.”

Calypso chuckled. “Alright. Save some for me too! I've only tasted the nachos so far!”

“I will try,” Leo replied, emphasizing the word try. “Well, see you in a bit!” He waved at her.

Once Leo had disappeared, Calypso started looking for Hazel and found her from the balcony with Rachel and a couple of other friends of hers, watching the fireworks from the distance.

“Hi, you guys,” she greeted. “Looks like nice weather for the fireworks show.”

“Yep, it is,” Hazel agreed. “So… how did your little vacation go?” She went straight to the topic, smiling at Calypso slightly mischievously. “You and Leo seemed pretty chummy over there.”

“Chummy?” Calypso laughed awkwardly. “I don’t even know what that means,” she lied, trying to use the fact that she wasn’t a native English speaker as her advantage. “But the vacation was pretty good. Sure, there were some ups and downs as you can expect when you’re spending the holidays in a new place with people you don’t know very well, but overall? I had a good time.”

“I can almost see with my own eyes what exactly happened there now…” Hazel rolled her eyes. “Come on. Give me some details. Please tell me that some progress has happened.”

“But there really is not much to tell,” Calypso insisted. “I taught Leo’s little sister Georgina some baking and sewing and stuff like that and helped with the Christmas preparations and met some new people… Oh! And Leo’s family has an animal shelter; they had some adorable dogs and cats and…”

Hazel looked less enthusiastic when she realized that Calypso really was not going to tell her any news about her and Leo.

“So… nothing really happened?” she asked.

“No,” Calypso said as convincingly as she could. “Although we did have a good talk one day and I feel that we can be more open towards each other now. But we are not together. It’s not the right time for that yet.”

Hazel tilted her head, still unconvinced. “I heard Lavinia talking about you a moment ago, though. Something about some guy not realizing how lucky he was.”

Calypso started feeling she was reaching the limits of her acting skills, but she tried her best. “I… uh, may have told her that I was taken to make things less awkward. Sorry, I know that was extremely rude of me.”

“No worries,” Hazel reassured her. “I’m sure she’ll get over it quickly. Besides, I happen to know that there’s someone she really really likes and hasn’t just found the courage to ask her out yet.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I hope she manages to do that at some point.”

The girls proceeded to talk about other things, such as Hazel’s vacation, the foster animals of Waystation and their expectations on the upcoming art classes, with Rachel joining the conversation as well. Calypso was just laughing at Rachel’s story about the many uses of a hair brush (she had used one for painting and another for threatening her teacher who had misbehaved towards her) when Nico rushed into the balcony, looking even paler than usual.

“Calypso, I think you should come. Something’s not right with Leo.”

[lovelytarou]

you make me go uwu

pairing: midoriya izuku x reader

genre: fluff, angst

tags: inspired by the song uwu by chevy

a/n: i'm just projecting my izuku feels and me literally going soft whenever i see his chubby face in the manga ang going uwu over it, also i still have a christmas hangover so sorry if you don't celebrate that or not fond of it! hearts, reblogs & feedbacks are greatly appreciated 💗

midoriya izuku is a lot of things.

he's one of the best students at UA and was quite known to be a reckless person who never thinks twice about helping someone. his knack for breaking his bones was a testament to that fact.

he's no doubt going to be one of the best pro heroes out there soon, with a big heart, a kind soul, and a courageous spirit.

midoriya izuku is a lot of things and possessing such cute, squishable cheeks is one of them. or more likely, being cute is one of them.

this thought occured to you when he offered to help you in one of the classes you're having trouble with. being at such close proximity made you aware of just how green his eyes are and when the sunlight hits them just right, they look like beautiful gems. or how he always seem to mutter under his breath when he's thinking too hard, or how his right leg would unconsciously shift to you like he wanted to get closer.

but one of the things you noticed the most, is his cheeks while he puffs them out of frustration.

he's gonna give me a heart attack one of these days with how cute he is

incident #1

you were currently at the cafeteria, sitting at a table with the dekusquad (kaminari came up with it, izuku claimed their little group don't have a name) which consists of ochaco, shouto, tenya, and izuku.

everything is going well, the group had already bought their food and are now digging in after a collective, “itadakimasu!”

you just had the most fortunate opportunity to sit in front if izuku, of all people, who is too busy eating.

he paused for a moment to answer iida's question who's beside him and it made his cheeks bloated with the food inside.

you choked on your drink because you just felt your heart swell with how cute he looks. it almost reminded you of a hamster.

shouto who is sitting on your left, gave you a concerned look and offered you his water.

“are you okay, l/n-san?” his question made izuku turn to you both, you felt your cheeks heat up when he looked at you while looking like that.

“i-i'm fine, thanks.” you took the water from him and gulped it down to clear your throat, and cool your nerves.

“you should chew your food properly when eating or else you'll choke!” iida scolded, waving his hands in a chopping motion you all grew to be familiar with.

“s-sorry...” you can't help but scratch at your nape in embarrassment.

incident #2

“midoriya, you're up.” aizawa called one afternoon on another day of training.

the rest of class 1-a stood back while izuku stepped in front. this was another one of aizawa's endurance training and one of the challenges was to beat a bunch of the robots from the entrance exam once again. how he can call this endurance training, you don't know.

“SMAAAAASH!” you heard izuku yell, tearing through what was once a robot and turning it into scraps of metal.

he did this to the other robots and he landed on his feet with a very serious look that instead of making him look intimidating, it actually made him look more adorable.

“he's like an angry bunny–” you cut yourself off with a hand on your mouth as you laughed quietly, another flush blossoming on your cheeks.

“i know right?! look how cute he is, but he's scary when he shows how strong he is like that.” mina added, looking at izuku who's walking towards the both of you now.

you immediately composed yourself when his eyes landed on you.

“y/n! are you okay? your face is all red! are you sick? do you need to go to recovery girl? shall i take you to her? what if you're overheating?! it's so hot out and your hero costume's probably too heavy–” he began to ramble and you can only stare at him with wide eyes as he continued with his wild thoughts.

quickly dismissing him with a hand on his mouth as everyone started to look at the two of you, izuku stared down at it and felt flustered at how soft your hand felt on his lips.

he's practially kissing your palm, do you even register what you're doing to him?!

“shh! i'm fine! it's just...you're so–” you were about to tell him that he's just so damn cute but you were called by aizawa.

“uh, i gotta go! see ya later!” you scrambled away from him, heart beating fast inside your chest.

that was close.

incident #3

“hey, y/n? can i ask you a favor?” you looked up from your phone when izuku approached you on the dorm's common room.

worry is written all over his face as he fumbled with his fingers, thinking about you being too busy even though you're literally on your phone all day.

there he goes again.

before he can overthink more, you smiled at him warmly and stood up from your seat.

“sure, what's up?”

izuku gulped, “well, uh, i was thinking of a gift to give to someone but i, um, don't know if they'll like it? i kinda, um, need your opinion on it, if that's okay?”

he stared at you with big doe eyes and you can't help but swoon when he looks at you like that. of course, how can you say no to that face? he looks like he'd cry any moment if you denied him.

“alright! what gift did you get for this particular someone?” you teased, nudging his side.

he led the two of you to his room, which isn't the first time since it became a usual thing for the two of you to study together there or simply hang out and talk about your problems, about what you did that day, rambling about your favorite heroes...basically this has became your second room. and your's his.

“um, i got them this,” he opened his bedside drawer and pulled out a small box. inside it, he revealed a beautiful necklace with a letter D as a pendant.

“it's for ‘deku’ which sounds kind of cheesy since it's my hero name, but i just thought that if i gave it to them then that means i'm with them wherever they are,” he reached for something inside his shirt, showing you an identical looking necklace with a familiar letter on it.

you don't want to assume things, but whoever is this particular someone that izuku is going to give the necklace to, they sure are one lucky person. not only is he kind, thoughtful, caring, and not to mention cute, but they'd be lucky to have someone like izuku fall for them.

ignoring the sudden pang of hurt in your chest, you forced a smile on your mouth and cooed at him.

“aww, that is so cute, izu! i'm sure they would love that very much. i know i would! if they don't, you can just always give it to me,” you joked, laughing to mask your hurt.

“r-really? you think so?” when you nodded in response, izuku heaved a big sigh of relief, “well, i trust you, y/n. i'm sure they would love this.”

after that, you excused yourself out of his room and proceeded to go to yours. sleep didn't come to you easily that night, thinking about the special someone that izuku was talking about and how much it would hurt once you saw them together.

over the years you spent being his friend, you never thought you would harbor such deep, intense feelings for the green-haired boy. you don't doubt he has great things ahead of him, and because of that, you started to like him for how strong he is and how he continues to be a better hero, and an overall a great person. that awe soon turn to adoration. and before you knew it, you're falling hard for izuku.

last incident

it's christmas, and the day before, aizawa had made all of you draw lots for your secret santas. your heart stopped when you saw izuku's name on the paper you pulled from the bowl.

you didn't think too much of it and decided to give him something all might-related and called it a day, still a little sour over izuku falling for someone else.

when the dreaded day came, everybody was so chaotic and high on their holiday spirits. even bakugou, which they convinced to wear a santa hat and haul the gifts in a bag. although, he still had a big scowl on his face and basically threw the gifts to their designated owners.

“shitty hair!” bakugou barked, pulling out a gift from the bag. kirishima hopped over to where bakugou was sitting and accepted the gift with a big smile on his face.

“whoa, bakugou! you're my secret santa?!” he asked in shock, eyes shining.

“it does says my name there, doesn't it, idiot? now hurry up and open your gift already,” kirishima did just that and bursted into tears when his gift was a crimson riot themed crocs. he thanked bakugou over and over while the latter hid his smile poorly with a cough.

“whatever. dunce face! you're next!” he practically threw kaminari's gift to him which the boy almost failed to catch, earning him a snigger from the explosive boy.

“man, why do you gotta be the santa for christmas? you're cruel!” kaminari pouted, turning around to go back to where he was squished in between sero and mineta.

“you got a problem with that, dunce face?!” he growled, his palms crackling with his quirk. kirishima tried to diffuse his anger.

when everything is calm, bakugou proceeded to dig into the bag for gifts.

“here, you shitty nerd.” he tossed your gift to izuku, you almost yelped a ‘be careful!’ but izuku had great reflexes and caught your gift swiftly. his eyes widened when he read who his secret santa was. your eyes met each other but was abruptly cut off when bakugou called your name.

“y/n! here's yours,” he was oddly calm when handing you your gift, albeit a little bored.

that received a lot of complaints from your other classmates and you can only shake your head while chuckling at their antics.

deciding to get some time for yourself, you went to the balcony for some air and sat down on one of the steps at the entrance.

placing the gift on your lap, you read the tag attached to it. it was wrapped in a simple green wrapper with red ribbon that finished the look.

to: y/n

happy holidays!

from: D

the name made you curious and even if you hated yourself for it, lit a sparkle of hope inside yourself. what if it was him who gave you the gift?

you had no time to dwell much on the thought and opened the gift instead. your breath hitched in your throat as you recognized the familiar box. lifting the lid with shaky hands, you felt your eyes sting as you looked down at your gift.

it was the necklace that izuku showed you before. you were such an idiot for thinking it was for someone special and did not think it was for the secret santa.

you carefully lifted it in your fingers and the light from the inside catched the D attached to it. it was beautiful. izuku's words echoed inside your head.

“i just thought that if i gave it to them then that means i'm with them wherever they are,”

“did you...not like it?” the boy in question appeared beside you and upon noticing your tears on your face, he immediately thought it gave a negative effect.

gasping, you quickly wiped away your tears and shook your head wildly at him.

“izu, no! i-i love it! actually, it's kinda funny...”

“funny?” he tilted his head in confusion, concern still etched onto his face.

“i was sad that you care a lot about someone else to give them this wonderful gift. i didn't realize that you would give something like this...to me,” you laughed through your tears, sniffling a bit.

“why would you think that?” his voice is so soft and genuinely confused that you can't help but feel your heart beat even more, and fall for him harder than you should.

“because,” you think of a way to word your feelings better but instead what came out was, “you're you and i'm...me,”

it was stupid, but with the overflowing emotions you're feeling right now, it's hard to voice your emotions.

izuku huffed, his cheeks puffing up once again because of the action.

“what do you mean by that? i mean, you're the most amazing person i've ever met! and you're always there for me when i'm sad, and happy and-and...whenever i'm with you, i always feel this...this...warmth! it's like, when you come home after a long day and you just felt safe and comforted. or-or when my mom cooks my favorite food it just makes me feel fuzzy inside! it's like when i watch my favorite video of all might over and over again and i never get tired of it,” he sighed after his long speech, eyebrows furrowing into a frown as he stared at you with determination.

“what i'm getting at is...i care a lot about you, y/n.” he let out in one breath. he stared up at you with big eyes, those damn eyes that never failed to make your heart jump and stomach do flips.

chuckling at yourself, you raised both of your hands and squeezed his cheeks with all your might making him yelp in pain.

“ow! y/n...” he whined.

“sorry, sorry! i've always wanted to do that!” you snorted.

“i care a lot about you, too, izu–” he suddenly kissed the corner of your mouth, making you shut up in shock. he had a smirk on his lips, amused by your reaction.

“i've always wanted to do that,” he threw your words back at you. feeling your whole face heat up, you turned your back towards him and held out your hand holding the necklace.

“whatever! just help me put this on, will you?” you felt his hands take the necklace from your grasp. you shivered when you felt the cold metal touch your skin but it was quickly replaced by his warm hands.

“there.” he mumbled, voice far too close to your ear. before you can thank him, you felt his lips brush your nape where the lock was and squealed from the contact.

the idiot only laughed at this and ushered you to stand up, helping you to your feet.

“let's go back inside, i heard they prepared a lot of food today.”

without thinking, izuku grabbed your hand and led you inside the dorm. you could only let him drag you as you stared at your joined hands, playing with the necklace hanging on your neck before staring back up at izuku who's smiling at you.

he's the best gift that you could ever ask for.

[abby-abs]

Finding the light

Gif not mine

summary: Abby rekindles with the reader who she was close to while in the fireflies at Catalina island. After the attack in the hospital, Abby thought she was dead but finds out she was alive and living here.

AN: the rattlers never found lev and abby and ellie never left to go hunt abby down. so everyones safe and happy. enjoy. :)

“Abby?”

Abby turns at the sound of her name. Dropping what she was holding when she sees y/n. She looked different from the last time y/n saw her, she was taller, her hair was longer in her signature braid, but the thing that changed the most was that she was broader, her body more muscular with scars all over it.

“Y/N?” They run towards each other embracing in a tight hug. “Is it really you y/n?, I thought you were fucking dead.” She sniffles.

“You thought I was dead?I thought you were dead. You just ran off that day when you heard the alarms. I’d thought I’d never see you again.” Y/n holds her tighter crying into her chest.

“I thought so too but here we are. How did you...”

“Survive. After you ran off the older soldiers began to swarm saying something about a mad man on a killing spree. Shortly after I heard what happened. Abby, I’m so sorry about your dad I...”

“You don’t have to apologize for.”

“But I do I left you there alone I didn’t even go to find you to see if you were okay. All I could do was run until o found myself in the parking lot. I saw him. I saw a man shoot Marlene. It looked like they were arguing, but he had a girl in his arms. The girl Abby. He put her in a truck and went back to shoot Marlene point-blank in the head. I couldn’t do anything I had no weapon I just stood there frozen. He didn’t see me though he just got into the car and drove away as fast as he could. I didn't know what to do next so I ran away as far as I could.” You paused taking a deep breath. “ how’s Manny, Owen, Nora, Leah, Mel, Jordan.”

Abby cringed at the thought of her friends. She seemed to forget about Leah and Jordan or Nora who practically risked her life freeing her from the elevator so she could help Yara. She wanted to assume that they were fine but by the looks of the map, Ellie had for tracking them down says otherwise. Mel, she could give two fucks about, Owen alongside her but Manny who was one of her absolute best friends was gone. She absentmindedly rubbed her face where his blood was once splattered but then she remembered Lev, the reason why she was here. He kept her alive and sane after what happened at the theater. Y/n notices the shift in her expression.

“Oh Abs.” Her voice was shaking as she tears up. They were her friends too, long before all this craziness of revenge. They grew up together, trained together, laughed, snuck out, got drunk together, passed around a pathetic excuse of a blunt, and got high together. Abby knew Y/n probably spent countless hours mourning them thinking that they all were dead.

“We found him. That man you saw, his name was Joel Miller. We tracked him down and I was able to find him.” There was a strange feeling in Abby’s stomach when she said that. She knew that the fight was over and she got justice for her dad, but mentioning it after all she’s been through,  how much she’s grown as a person all resurfacing but she knew that y/n didn’t mean any harm after all she had no idea what happened over the last seven years. “He’s gone no. We.” Abby looks down pausing briefly “I took care of it.”

“Good, Jerry was a good man he didn’t deserve what happened to him.” Y/n saw Abby rub her arm like she used to do when she was uncomfortable all those years ago. So y/n took it as a cue to change the subject. What have you up to for all these years. I’m mean staying not the whole murdering of that Joel guy.” Y/n stumbles on her words.

“Well me and the others found this group called the wlf and lived there. Almost all of us did rounds patrolling the area while Nora and Mel worked as doctors. And you won’t believe this, I was roommates with Manny”

“Manny! Of all people. God that must have been horrible”

“Eh, I think I slept more times in the library than my own bed.”

“Still was on his sexscapades?”

“Like a feral rabbit.”

“How did you even get roomed with him?”

“Alphabet. Alvarez, Anderson with no one in between equals roommates.”

“Damn the alphabet.” You scold jokingly she laughs but goes back to rubbing her arm so you quickly changed the subject. “Well, I when down to Arizona saw the Grand Canyon.”

“How was that?”

“Just a bunch of rocks but definitely beautiful. You would have loved it.

“If I didn’t die of a heart attack from..”

“Yeah yeah your crippling fear of heights.” Y/n interrupted.

“You know I still hate it when you”

“What finish your sentences.”

“No cut me off rudely”

“Call it what you want Abs you know you love me”

“Jeez, you sound like Manny.”

“I sure miss him.” She says in a melancholy tone.

“Yeah me too.” Abby copies her tone. “Oh y/n I want you to meet someone.” Abby turns to Lev who was watching the interaction from afar. “This is Lev. He’s a kid I saved”

“More like I saved you, Abby”

“Whoa, where did all this sass come from?" she says holding her hands out defensively Yeah, he saved me then I saved him and we’ve been partners ever since.” Y/n gave Abby a sweet smile. “What why are you smiling like that you're kind of creeping me out.” Y/n grins with a small chuckle pushing her cheek to the side.

“Look at you all grown up taking care of kids being the bigger person

“I’ve changed for the better. He helped me see that constant revenge will only throw us in a nonstop cycle of killing. I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

“You won’t Abby. I know you”

“You know fuck all.” she scoffs

“I know that you’ll keep it up. You're a people pleaser Abs, always have been.”

Abby chuckled. “How did you find this place anyway.”

“Helped a group in the Hollywood area with a nasty pack of clickers. They were heading this way and asked if I wanted to join. You?”

“We got a tip about fireflies grouping in a town in Santa Barbra. No one was there but lev spotted a secret door that led to a basement bunker. There was a working radio so I tried to contact someone. We’d thought we lost all hope when there was no immediate response but we got lucky I guess. We hopped into our boat and sailed straight here. You don’t understand how happy I am to see you again y/n.”

“So am I.” She places a hand on Abby’s cheek before pulling away awkwardly. “What house are you assigned to? Maybe if you’re up for I can take you two on a quick tour.”

“Yeah that sounds great, we’re in 574.”

“Well, would you look at that right down the street from me. I’m up at 579.”

“Perfect I can go there whenever Abby is bothering me.” Lev jokes.

Y/n laughs “I like this kid.”

“And I liked it better when he didn’t know what a joke was.” Abby quipped back at him lightly nudging his arm.

“Well, you both are welcome there at any time. Oh, How about you two come earlier, you're probably starving and have nothing to eat at home. I’ll make us dinner then we can head to the rations distribution to get some food for you. Then I promise I’ll be out of your hair considering that you that both tired from your trip.”

“That sounds great. We’ll see you then”

“Perfect how does six sound. That should give me enough time to prepare the food.“

They are ready to part ways but y/n pulls her into another into a hug, then pinches Abby’s cheek.

“Ow, what was that for?” Abby asked fake annoyance in her voice.

“Just making sure you're real.” y/n rubs her thumb along the the scar on her cheek. 

Abby feels a warmth fill up her chest. “C’mere.” she pulls her into another tight hug.

Moments that feel like hours as they stood in each other's arms quiet cries coming from both them. They finally part and say their goodbyes to go their separate ways.

Abby closes the door to her new house with a sigh. God, there was something about talking to y/n even after years of seeing her that felt so normal. Almost as if you’d two spent the past several years together and never had lost touch. 

So what’s going on between you and y/n?” Lev chirped causing her cheeks to burn up.

[themonkeycabal]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Episode 1 SPOILERS

If you need to blacklist, I will be tagging all things as #tfatws and/or #tfatws spoilers

My roommate keeps calling this The Falcon and the Snowman. I'm not entirely sure it's accidental.

I was going to watch at midnight and then fell asleep. Betrayal. I will not forgive this, brain.

Bucky Barnes character development. Sam Wilson character development. Six full episodes of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. When we watched Civil War, did we think we'd actually be lucky enough to get a buddy idiot cop movie? Let alone six hours of it? #blessed

What are we expecting here? I have no idea, honestly. I think all the clips we've been seeing are from the first couple episodes, so they've hidden any sort of plot from us. We know Baron Zemo's around with his stupid purple ski mask and burning hatred for superheroes and probably specifically for Bucky who he tried (and honestly kind of succeeded, before then ultimately failing dramatically) to set up. And Sharon Carter will turn up at some point. OMG guys, Sharon Carter character development!

I'm just here for the buddy bickering and badassery.

SPOILERS BELOW

New World Order: Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes realize that their futures are anything but normal. *Realize*? lol

Also, it's tagged as "science fiction, action-adventure, buddy" Awww.

Aww, Sam looks sad as he gazes at The Shield.

"How's it feel?" "Like it's someone else's." "It isn't."

That's right, Sam! Listen to that voice. That's yours now, baby.

We're just going to roll right into a mission. Rescuing a Captain Vassant, whose plane fell out of contact shortly after take off, from the ridiculously named group LAF, somewhere over Tunisia. Sam's got to keep LAF from doing bad things and the US Military can't be seen doing anything blah blah blah, violation of treaties, yada yada. And Sam's all "blah blah got it". We're on the same page, Sam and me. Nobody wants to hear it, Briefing Exposition Guy.

We will have a Lt. Torres on the ground following along and offering helpful commentary as they go.

Sam is warned to be subtle as he falls backwards out of the cargo plane in very dramatic fashion and then swoops off on his brightly colored wings. lol

Sam gets to the captain's plane but the pilot is dead and a shady LAF guy is piloting. Oh no. Hey, it's Batroc. Last seen getting his ass kicked by Captain America in "CA: The Winter Soldier". He makes some jokes about their prisoner - presumably Captain Vassant. Awful cocky for a guy with a history of getting stomped on, you know.

Anyway, he's about to get his ass kicked by a Captain America again as Sam breaks into the plane. You might just be using wing shields now, Sam, but you're Captain America in my heart. Also, hey, dumb bad guys, don't open fire with an automatic weapon inside a plane or the ricochets might kill your pilot. And his body will slump forward and put the plane into a steep dive.

Batroc distracts Sam while the bad guys gather up Vassant and jump out of the plane with him. They have wingsuits, but Sam has, you know, wings. And like a jet pack. Don't hit the canyon walls, Sam!

Somehow the bad guys have waiting gunships. Did they expect to jump out of the plane over this canyon? I can only assume. Red Wing takes care of one of the helicopters. Man these guys are a pain in the ass. They wing suit into one of the many many helicopters that just happen to be right in the right spot. They're racing for the Libyan border. Then Sam shows up, they throw Vassant out the copter again — this guy is having the worst day — and glide into another chopper.

Man ANOTHER gunship? The hell? They're causing serious ecological damage to this canyon, what with all the zillionty missiles they're firing at Sam. How strapped is this thing?

LT Torres is trying to keep up, and you know, trying to get Sam to not fly into Libyan territory and cause an international incident or some such. Sam is struck by inspiration and not by a missile. But, the missiles are following Sam and Sam is following Batroc's chopper. Sam zooms through the open doors of the chopper, knocks poor Vassant out of the chopper AGAIN (but then catches him), and LAF blows up their own helicopter. Alas, Batroc escaped.

Sam saves the day and LT Torres is like super excited. Don't break your humvee, Torres.

Torres and Sam stop by a tea shop in Tunis, or somewhere. Sam's trying to fix his tech that got a little shot up and Torres buys the tea. A man comes up and thanks Sam for saving his wife. It's sweet. And then Torres gets up and wanders about a bit with his phone as he exposits about LAF. Is Torres about to become a pin cushion? Only instead of pins it'll be bullets? I'm not feeling good about his continued health. He's too cute and earnest.

Oh, he's looking for some sort of hidden, augmented reality tag on the walls. A red handprint, id'ing some group that calls themselves the Flag Smashers. Bad guys are really scraping the bottom of the evil name barrel. Anyway, they think the world was better during the blip. Nothing says better like mass failure of infrastructure and probably world wide famine. They want a unified world without borders. I have big doubts the world would be a borderless utopia during a blip-like event. Power vacuums invite trouble, seldom unity.

Anyhoo. Sam kind of agrees with me, "every time something gets better for one group, it gets worse for another".

Torres will track the 'online chatter'. But he's also heard some wacky things about Steve Rogers, conspiracy theory stuff, "they think that he's in a secret base on the moon, looking down over us". LOL. What? Is Steve a moon angel now? or Santa Claus? "You didn't like fly him to the moon?" Sam assures him that's all very much silly foolishness. Steve's in Boca working on his tan.

Sam's back in D.C. giving a talk about Steve at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space museum. "And he mastered posing stoically". Hey, I have that picture. Also, RHODEY! Hi Rhodey!

"A few months ago, billions of people reappeared after 5 years away. Sending the world into turmoil." Again. I know this was meant to come out before WandaVision, but timeline-wise this works better.

"We need new heroes. Ones suited for the times we're in. Symbols are nothing without the women and men that give them meaning." Sam holds up The Shield. "I don't know if there's been a greater symbol." Aww, he's retiring the shield. He hands it off to museum people and they put it in a display case. I think Rhodey has some thoughts about this. I suspect Rhodey maybe doesn't agree.

Sam and Rhodey wander through the Cap exhibit and Sam's talking about how when he left (or got snapped, it's not like you had a choice about that, Sam), his nephews were babies and now they're little men. Awww. Rhodey says Sam should bring them to D.C., he'll teach them how to fly, "the right way". lol.

Rhodey says it's crazy to think nobody will be carrying the shield. Sam points out they went 70 years without, so like …

Rhodey wants to know why Sam didn't take up the mantle. BTW, this is a cool exhibit, marvel peeps. Sam says it feels like it belongs to someone else … Steve. Rhodey says everything's broken. Allies are enemies, things are torn apart. People are looking for somebody to make it better. Having made his pitch, Rhodey leaves Sam to stare mournfully at the shield. I think you're afraid to pick up the shield, Sam. Afraid you won't measure up. But, you can do it. I have faith. Also, Steve was kind of a disaster in his own way. He wasn't perfect, which was the point of Steve as a hero. Pick up the shield, Sam.

A fancy hotel, chatting people in the lobby, up to a mezzanine, a group of very Russian oligarch looking dudes and their security. And lo! A metal arm punches through a wall and the Winter Soldier, looking very Winter Soldiery appears and stabs some dudes in the neck. This has a sepia, dream/nightmareness to it. Oh yeah, it's his old shiny silver arm. Totally a nightmare/very bad memory. "Hail Hydra" and he kills the head Russian guy. The poor dude who was just chatting in the lobby is caught trying to get into his door. He swears he didn't see anything, begs for his life and the Winter Soldier shoots him. Bucky wakes up, breathing heavily. Poor Bucky.

Glad he's in therapy. I'm sure goat herding in Wakanda was good and peaceful and all, but, goats will only get you so far. Also glad we've skipped the "wanted terrorist" part and gone on to traumatized hero.

I get the feeling he's not the best patient. He lies to his therapist straight off. Twice. lol. "You're a civilian now. With your history the government needs to know, you're not gonna … [therapist makes stabby motion]." lol (I love this actress by the way. She's been in everything for ages. She's great). "It's a condition of your pardon. So tell me about your most recent nightmare." "I didn't have a nightmare." She starts writing, Bucky objects and tells her she's being passive-aggressive, but he gives in.  

He has a list of amends to make and three rules to follow. He crossed a name off. There's a Hydra pawn who's a senator, he helped her get into office. "After Hydra disbanded, she continued to use the power I gave her." Hmm. He tracks her car and listens in on her plotting to have a congressman killed.

* Rule number one: Can't do anything illegal.

He's hijacked the Senator's car and is remote controlling it, making it drive all out of control and freaking her out. He says he was collecting intel to give to an aide to convict her. Absolutely only did that. Not one illegal thing about that at all, no ma'am.

"Rule number two?" "Hmm. What was rule number two?" "Nobody gets hurt. It's a big one." "Then why isn't it rule number one?" Oh, Bucky, you're a jackass.

* Rule number two: Nobody gets hurt.

"I didn't hurt anybody. Promise." He totally broke a dude's hand and then punched him in the face, knocking him out. I mean, there's levels of 'hurt' I suppose.

"The whole point of making amends is to fulfill rule number three." "Of course I completed rule number three."

* Rule number three: "I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James 'Bucky' Barnes. And you're part of my efforts to make amends." He says to the corrupt senator he's just been terrifying. And then he walks away as a tac team pulls up. lol.

What I'm getting from this therapy session is that Bucky is a big fat fibber.

Also he's got a little black book full of names. Including, I see, H. Zemo. That's not going to go as smoothly as taking down a shady government fatcat, I think.

"So you did it all right, but it didn't help with the nightmares?" "Well, like I said, I didn't have any." Fibber.

People wanna help you Bucky and you can trust them. "I trust people," he mutters grumpily. She asks for his phone and he hands it over. Look, lady! Trust! Probably government mandated trust, but still!

"You don't have ten phone numbers on this thing." … I don't have ten phone numbers on my phone. :( "Oh, and you've been ignoring texts from Sam." Well …

"I am the only person you have called all week. That is so sad." lol. Tough love from the therapist. I'm feeling a little judged myself, though. "You're alone." ALRIGHT DON'T RUB IT IN!

"You're a hundred years old. You have no history. No family—" "Are you lashing out at me, doc? Because that's really unprofessional." I love you Bucky, but you are a disaster patient.

Bucky relents. "I'm trying. This is new for me. I didn't have a moment to deal with anything. I had a little calm in Wakanda. And other than that, I just went from one fight to another for 90 years." Get this man a goat farm!

"So now that you've stopped fighting, what do you want?" "Peace." A goat farm. "That is utter bullshit." lol "You're a terrible shrink." "I was an excellent soldier, so I saw a lot of dead bodies and I know how that can shut you down. And if you are alone, that is the quietest, most personal hell." Get some friends, Bucky. "I know you've been through a lot. But, you've got your mind back. You're being pardoned. These are good things. You're free." "To do what?"

On the streets of Brooklyn. Bucky breaks up an argument between neighbors about trashcans. Hey, Bucky has a friend! Yori Nakajima who's probably like 80+. Did you babysit him back in the day, Buck? har har. They were going to meet for lunch, but some punk named Unique was putting his trash into Mr. Nakajima's trash can and just derailed the whole day. The horror. No joke, though, people get so nutted up about that. It's weird to me. Of course, I did also have a neighbor who never put out his trash for pickup and just snuck out at night before trash day and distributed his garbage into in other people's bins. Cheapass.

"Hey man, I'm Unique. Like Monique but it's got a 'u' in there for uniqueness." Yeah, you should have let Yori smack him, Buck.

Well now Yori is just not in the mood for lunch. Bucky tries to persuade him, but one grumpy old man out grumps the other. "But Izzy. We always go to Izzy on Wednesday. What if I buy?" "Fine. But no talking." lol. BFFs!

Yori is looking at the obituaries. "Look, nobody made it past 90 this week." Bucky tsks "So young, such a shame."

Bucky kind of smiles at the girl behind the counter at the sushi joint, Yori tells him he should ask her out. Bucky makes a "are you nuts, shut up" face. That doesn't stop Yori. "He would like to take you out on a date. Maybe to bingo or a night of pinochle." You're a wild man, Yori!

She's down by it, though, and she and Yori hammer out the details while Bucky's like uh, okay, so wow, that's happening. "There's a dance to these things. You can't … you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943."

Yori sees something and suddenly gets sad. His son loves red bean mochi. His son was a consultant, working abroad and he was killed. Oh. Oh Bucky, why you gotta … Yori's son was the innocent witness he killed at the hotel in his nightmare/memory. "I will never know what really happened to him." Brutal.

Delacroix, Louisana

Sam's on his way home. Wilson Family Seafood. Aww. His nephews are helping mom with the catch. "Blue for the snapper, orange for the white fish," Sam calls out. The boys run over to him. They do look like fine gentlemen. It's weird, Sam, I get it. I recently realized my oldest nephew will be 13 in May and it's like "no, he's only in kindergarten, what are you talking about?"

His sister greets him then tells him he's looking all sneaky. Sam deflects. Their boat has seen better days. The Paul & Darlene. Aww. Is that his parents names? "Baby being held together by duct tape and prayers." Just needs to float long enough for his sister to sell it. But Sam's all, uh I thought we were going to *discuss* that. Uh oh, family drama. "We did, and then you were off fighting Dr Space Cape or whatever (lol), while I was holding it together for five long years." Ouch.

Sam is not down by this selling the boat thing. His sister doesn't seem to think they're in a position to hold on to it. Also, she'd really like to not hash this out on the pier with like twenty other people around, Sam.

They get into more of an argument on the boat. The family biz is not doing well financially. Sarah won't let Sam help for some reason, and he makes some comment about the house and loans and she punches him in the chest. lol "I forgot how hard you hit."

Sam insists they can turn it around, consolidate loans. And she's all, been there done that, I've come to terms with this. He's a persistent little jerk. This is such a perfectly sibling argument. Notably he has moved himself out of punching range.

Aww, she wants to believe he can save the boat, but she has DOUBTS.

Back in Brooklyn. Bucky attempts his date. He turns up at the end of the sushi girl's shift and gives her flowers. "Well, if that's not the most adorably old-fashioned thing anyone's ever done."

They chat while she tidies. He tried online dating oh lol. It didn't take. She tells him "You sound like my dad. Wait how old are you?" "Hundred and six." Oh yeah, what a funny joke. Next she wants to know why he's wearing gloves. "I have … um … poor circulation." He grimaces at himself and glances out the window. Smooth as silk, Bucky. Smoooooth.

"Let's play a game." Now, I'm thinking like some weird dating word/get-to-know-each-other game or something. I don't know. But, nope, she means Battleship. lol. I like her.

The drinking game version of battleship. Bucky sucks at it. "You sure can drink." "Yeah, well." Super assassin, unfair advantage.

We're just going to rub in this whole The Winter Soldier killed Yori's son thing, as she says it's nice that he's spending time with the old man. Since he was all messed up after his son was murdered and how it was extra hard because he didn't know what happened. I'm not sure this is healthy, Bucky.

"There's no word for someone whose kids die." Okay, ouch, lady, jeez. Bucky looks like he wants to puke. Or crawl into a deep dark hole. Or something. "Because it's the worst thing that can happen." Bucky nopes right out the front door. So, maybe they should have played pinochle instead.

Bucky goes to Yori. Are you really going to tell this man you murdered his son when you were a brain-washed Hydra assassin? Yori asks how the date was, and Bucky sees a shrine to the man's son in the apartment. Poor Bucky. He makes some excuse about owing Yori for lunch and leaves. Yori's name is in his book of amends. :(

Back in Louisiana. Sam and the kids are packing up meals. His sister maybe wants to sell meals in addition to fish. Sam says they've got to get going to their appointment at the bank. She's says it's in an hour. Sam must be just the worst brother to live with "There's no such thing as on time. You're either early or late. Pick one." Man, no wonder he gets punched.

Switzerland

Lt Torres is walking down a street with an unusually large number of people just sort of milling around in the middle of the street looking at their phones. He's got his kind of hidden, recording. He stops a guy and asks if he knows what they're supposed to be doing. Oh it's the flag munchers, or whatever. There's a weird phony bird whistle and then people gather around a person handing out masks with red handprints on them. His decoy bad guy phone chirps and gives the order to run. A guy jumps out of a nearby building with two huge duffle bags (of money it seems) and walks off while the previously milling people become a seemingly panicked mob, distracting police and whatnot.

Torres tries to arrest the jumper guy, who appears to have some super strength as he kicks a policeman halfway across the street. Torres, you're cute, but not super bright. Torres gets body slammed and then stomped. He survives again, however, defying the odds.

At the bank. The account manager keeps giving Sam the side-eye as he goes through their paperwork. "Do I know you from somewhere." Sam's all modest, "I don't know. Do you?" And then he makes a little wing flappy move with his hands. lol. What a nerd. "Falcon!" Then he takes a selfie with Sam. Sarah is very done with all this. She tries to get them back on track. Account guy wants to know how Avengers make a living. Probably not looking good for your loan, Sam.

"Is there some kind of fund for heroes? Or did Stark pay you when he was around? My condolences, by the way."

Yeah, financially this is looking bad, my dude. "You have no income over the last five years." Well, but, he was blipped. I mean …

Alas, shot down for the loan.

Sam and Sarah argue on the street. Ah, Sam ran off to the Air Force and didn't deal with what was going on at home. Oh my, this is getting ugly. Speaking as someone who got disowned on account of a family business, let me just say, they're not easy. Nuh-uh.

"Half the boat's mine and so is the house. We're not selling our family's legacy." "You gonna do me like what when you know I'm right?"

I get it might be awkward to ask, but I bet you could have asked Pepper for a loan, Sam, and she would have given it to you gladly. Come on, man.

Later. Sam's working on the boat's engine, and it's not cooperating. In the cabin he looks at the family pictures on all the walls. He's having a rough day. About as rough as Torres who texts him to find a secure line and call him along with a selfie of his bruised and battered face. #important (lol, really?)

Sam watches the footage Torres caught and they chat about how Torres was supposed to be doing that stuff online and not getting his face kicked in in Switzerland.

Sarah interrupts and turns on the TV. Some guy is giving a speech about how everybody needs a hero. "We need someone who can inspire us again. Someone who can be a symbol for all of us. So on behalf of the Department of Defense and our Commander-in-Chief, it is with great honor that we announce here today that the United States of America has a new hero." hmm, no comment. Except, you should have taken up the shield, Sam. Now it's Sam's turn to look like he's going to puke. What did I say about power vacuums? Somebody will fill them, whether you want them to or not. 

This new guy looks like a goober. There, I said it.

credits

So … lots of setup. And very clear on the two guys trying to figure out where they fit in this world post blip and big wars. Both of them trying to fix broken families.

Plus a goober in a Cap suit.

So far so good. 

[wastelandlovingscenarios]

Companions react to Sole organizing a secret Santa!!!

companions and what’d they give for secret santa!

christmas/holiday asks are still open so please request if you’d like! ❄️

i’m gonna assume this is just a general ask seeing that there’s no romance involved!

-

Danse:

hes never really had time to celebrate the holidays, often busy with tasks that involved the brotherhood. now that he was freed from that place and had all the time in the world, he had the opportunity to celebrate christmas for the first time in years. doesn’t know what secret santa is. doesn’t want to participate at first but is ultimately forced to do so anyways, much to his dismay. secretly, he hopes to get sole cause he knows them the most out of anyone but ends up getting anyone besides them. knows literally nothing about anyone else, so the situation is horrible and is just chaotic for him. he overstresses about what gift he should get for said person, tiring himself out from overthinking but decides on giving them weapon mods. everyone uses weapons after all, right?

Deacon:

already knows what secret santa is. he’s read it off pre war books and has collected it from previous terminals hes hacked for work purposes. upon learning that sole is hosting a secret santa, he gets very excited, automatically joining in without a second thought. ends up being the best at the event, knowing almost every piece of information about most people in the commonwealth, including the stuff they’re interested in. has the easiest time getting gifts, knowing the exact places to find it and immediately retrieves it, wrapping it horribly and leaving it in a place where he knows they’ll find it. doesnt expose himself, even if he’s safe and permitted to, so the receiver never really knows who their secret santa is. regardless of the horrible presentation, the person he got beams with happiness and he’s satisfied with just that.

Maccready:

secretly excited but doesn’t show it. macs always been fascinated by christmas and the idea of it, so you know he’s about to join in regardless. doesn’t think about the gift too much, only wanting to participate in the event to indulge in the spirit. he’ll probably throw in some ammo, a handful of food/snacks, or if they’re lucky, a weapon he bought off someone for a good price. doesn’t spend much on the person he’s assigned to due to the fact that he has more important people to worry about giving the perfect gifts too. for example, duncan and sole. they’re top priority above everything and he won’t allow himself to give them a shitty gift in repayment for all the things they’ve given him.

Hancock:

doesn’t mind the event all that much, always willing to learn about prewar traditions even if he doesn’t care for it. hints at the person and tries to strike a conversation with them, asking what they like just to “get to know them better”. uses this information to his advantage and tries his best to pick out the thing they’ve mentioned. if he absolutely cannot find the item theyre yearning for, he’ll just resort to giving them things that he finds enjoyable, such as chems, alcoholic beverages, and whatever they’d like to get their fix on. if they ain’t into that, well... i guess you’re getting a random shirt for christmas.

Nick Valentine:

already knows what the event is and is more than glad to participate in it, wanting to feel that familiar nostalgia for himself. probably gives the idea more thought over the other companions and has consideration on what the person may or may not like. if he really can’t find a gift, he’ll just settle on something he knows anyone can use or will like in the end. it’ll more than likely be old style. for example, he’d get a radio or some good condition pre war books to give them, maybe even clothes that are near to perfect condition. he just hopes the person is grateful for the gift, really.

Sturges:

thinks it’s freshening to have a new tradition around and participates without another thought. he doesn’t go outside of sanctuary much and rarely takes the time to find random items just laying out and about, so he honestly just crafts something simple for the said person. it could be something like armor or weapons he’s been tinkering around with, maybe even a small, usable watch that’s he’s been needing to fix. in the end, he’s not great with general gifts but gives them things that’ll benefit them in the long run somehow, saving them the money they could’ve spent on those potential items in the future.

Preston:

loves the idea, believing that it’s a great way of bringing people closer to each other and strengthening their bonds. he wholeheartedly helps sole host the whole thing, wanting to bring it to its full potential. in all honestly, preston can cook pretty well for someone who’s been living off junk almost his entire life and makes use of his skill, knowing that he has decent food. so he makes something good, even at commonwealth standards, for the person he got and makes sure to deliver it freshly cooked. it’s easy to say the person was beyond satisfied with his gift and preston is ecstatic, already excited for next years secret santa.

Gage:

probably forced into it by sole. doesnt care one bit by the event and probably doesn’t even care for christmas all that much, only going along with it for the overboss’ sake. he’d complain under his breath on why he was needed to be a part of it but does it anyway. forgets about the gift and is reminded by sole eventually, much to his dismay. let’s be honest.. gage wouldn’t get that great of a gift. he’d probably kill some fucking radstag nearby last minute and drag it to sanctuary, promptly dropping it in front of the person with an irritated expression. “eat up.” he’d mutter, turning his heel to go back to the corner of the room he was previously hiding in. personally, sole feels sorry for whoever has gage and bites back a laugh when they get too intimidated to approach him.

[theawkwardterrier]

Fake It, Make It

A tropey Steggy Secret Santa gift for the excellent @sagesiren​/@theeleganteuropeanwoman! Wishing you as good an end to 2020 as you can get, and an amazing 2021!!  ✨✨✨

Summary: When Steve tells his mother that he is now dating a woman named Peggy Carter, his mother immediately wants to meet her. Which Steve would, of course, be perfectly happy to arrange, except that he is not in fact dating Peggy Carter (as much as he might want to be).

Read on AO3

Steve’s mother has been a nurse for thirty-three years. She’s familiar with the medical system and its limitations, and she’s a straight shooter even when it comes to her own mortality.

So when her doctor sends her for more tests after her annual physical, she mentions it to Steve during their weekly phone call.

“Dr. Nakhwa is worried,” she admits. “It’s bloodwork and scans now, but it might become something very quickly.”

“What can I do?” Steve asks, immediate and stricken. He had been trying to work on dinner as they talked, and his pot of water roils and hisses without answer.

“I’ll let you know if there’s anything,” she assures him practically, then sighs, quick and heartfelt and without drama. “But if it is something, I’ll just be so sorry for all the things in your life I’ll miss out on. Your first gallery show—”

“Ma,” Steve protests. No one knows his art better than she does - she signed him up for all the free afterschool art classes and every summer camp they could afford, and there are still paintings of his stored in her apartment a decade after he moved out - but he got his practicality from her, started training in carpentry on the recommendation of George Barnes back when he was a teenager and knew that there wouldn’t be money for college. He’s been able to do more custom woodworking lately and word has been getting around about his skill, but he’s accepted that he won’t be making his living off of the fine arts.

Undeterred, his mother says, “Oh, hush, even hobbyists can have dreams. But if you don’t like that, I’d be happy to see you in a relationship instead. It would ease my heart to know that you’ve found someone who can be beside you.”

And because easing his mother’s heart has always been at the top of his priority list, Steve finds himself blurting, “I’ve actually been dating someone. Now. I’m dating someone now.”

“Oh?” she says keenly. “Well, I hope to meet them someday soon.”

Steve coughs. “I’m sure you will.” He hopes that he’s somehow magically become a better liar in the past thirty seconds than he was for the first thirty years of his life.

Seemingly forgetting her earlier seriousness entirely, his mother adds, “What can you tell me about them? Can I have a name at least?”

“Peggy Carter,” Steve says without pause.

Later, he will ask himself why he didn’t just lie. It’s too soon, I don’t want to jinx anything. We made a bet and I’m not allowed to say her name out loud for a week. She’s a spy and I can only tell you her alias. He will berate himself for not just diving for some sort of distracting conversational offramp: the still-boiling pot, the cat yowling down in the alley, “that’s not important now, what else did your doctor say?” But he will never wonder why this was the name which came out of his mouth. He never has to search for it. She’s always on his mind these days.

“Peggy Carter,” his mother repeats. “Well, I’ll be happy to meet her. I’m off two Saturdays from now, if the two of you would like to drop by for a visit.”

His mother is the only blood family he has, that he’s ever even known. He’ll do anything for her. Even, apparently, say yes to this.

His mother’s follow-up scans come back clear. She tells him that in one breath, and tells him in the next that she’s so looking forward to meeting Peggy this upcoming Saturday.

“I don’t want to put this off until the next time I have a health scare,” she says. “And I could tell she’s important to you just by the way you said her name.”

So in his relief at her news, and to his later horror, instead of saying that he and Peggy have broken up, instead of saying that she has an emergency, instead of saying that she’s gone back to England indefinitely and they’ll just have to do it some other time, he says, “We’re looking forward to it to.”

When Steve confesses his predicament, Bucky laughs so hard that he slips off of his stool at Finnegan’s and almost knocks himself out on the bar.

“Could you at least help while you’re doing that?” Steve asks, torn between impatience and desperation, but his best friend just collapses into laughter again.

His mother already knows most of his friends. He supposes he could hire someone, but that seems like it might be taking it a step too far. And anyway, he’s overwhelmingly thankful that his mother is still healthy; it seems ungrateful, a temptation of fate, to give more weight and trickery to the lie.

Which means that there’s really only one thing left to do.

It doesn’t mean he’s relishing the prospect under the circumstances.

(Though he wouldn’t exactly be opposed to it under others.)

He asks Peggy Carter out for what’s probably the strangest date of her life and certainly the strangest of his on Monday, just as they’re finishing their lunch break. The rest of the crew, coolers over their shoulders, is already heading back over to the job site - Morita knocking his knuckles against that hideous brown hard hat of Dugan’s, Jacques explaining something as Gabe leans in - but Steve always does a quick sweep for trash just to make sure they’ve left the area clear. Peggy is heading in the other direction to track down Phillips. The boss is still legendarily prickly, but he doesn’t trust any architect but her these days.

“Peggy,” Steve forces himself to call before she’s disappeared. He wishes that this were just another one of those times that he had called her back for those innocuous, desperate five extra minutes of chatting. “I need to—Would you—Can I ask you a question? A favor, I guess?”

She tilts her head in invitation and he spills the story as quickly as he can, the rip-off-the-bandaid method.

“—and if you aren’t busy on Saturday, I was wondering if you could come over to say hi to her. It wouldn’t have to be for long, but it would make her really happy and I would—I’d really appreciate it. I can’t tell you how much.”

He stuffs his twisting hands into his pockets as he finishes, and pushes back his shoulders, hoping that he’ll still have a bit of dignity even once she’s rejected him. He doesn’t think she’ll be mean about it - he knows who Peggy is, the type of person to hand back hammers to the apprentices who’ve dropped them with a wordless wink, the type who lets someone else pick the takeout place if they’re having a bad day even when it’s her turn - but still, she’s Peggy Carter, and he’s Steve Rogers, the random guy who she knows from job sites and now the time he’d lied to his mother about dating her and then asked her to help him keep up the ruse.

“That certainly is a predicament,” she says instead of any of the gentle letdowns he was imagining. “But I must ask: why did you pick me?” It’s chilly today but bright, and the noon sun glints off her hair. He catches a smile, there and gone again, at the corners of her mouth.

“I said the first name that came into my head,” he tells her honestly, and then, just as honestly, “And I knew that my mother would like you, if you ever happened to meet each other.”

“Hmm,” says Peggy, smile all the way gone now, as if he’s disappointed her somehow. Her eyes are still soft, though. “Well, I suppose it’s quite lucky I am free on Saturday, then.”

“Lucky,” Steve echoes, and tries to figure out whether it’s true.

“You absolutely will not go out in this weather,” his mother admonishes, her arms set in a way that Steve is extremely familiar with.

“I’m certain that the subway—” Peggy starts.

“Of course the subway will be running,” Sarah says with the confidence of a born New Yorker. “Late and jam-packed, announcing that they’re going express any damn time, and there’s no reason for you to be on it.”

Peggy looks over to Steve as if he might step in, but even as he gives her a wide-eyed, helpless shrug, his mother is already leaving the living room and heading down the hall, calling, “I’ll get fresh sheets for you two, Steve, but please find Peggy something to wear.” (Sarah Rogers is surprisingly strong, but she’s also rail thin and an extremely charitable five foot two, and Peggy is...not. Something Steve has absolutely no complaints about, to be frank.)

They’ve told his mother that they’ve been seeing each other for nearly six months - Steve mostly left that part of the storytelling up to Peggy, who managed to spin something that had enough details to seem plausible but wasn’t so elaborate that Steve had felt bad about misleading his mother with a fairy tale. But even if their relationship was real, there’s no reason to assume that they would have spent the night with each other, that they would be comfortable sharing a bedroom.

“I’ll sleep out here,” Steve says immediately and with vehemence.

Peggy casts her eye over the couch, more of a loveseat really; the living room is too small for much else. “Will you be removing your head or your feet to fit, then?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Voice low to avoid his mother’s uncanny hearing, he says, “This whole day has already been more than you agreed to. I don’t want to force you into a situation that would make you uncomfortable.”

“I would say the same as it regards you,” she responds. “And if I was uncomfortable with the situation, I believe I would be the first to know. Now, I think I was promised something to sleep in?”

The collection of clothes he keeps at his mother’s is small, but he manages to dig up a large T-shirt and a pair of flannel pants for Peggy and the same for himself. She smiles at him, leaving to change, and he takes the opportunity to do the same before turning to put the sheets his mother had found on the beds, faced head-on with the reminder of the close quarters of his bedroom.

There isn’t much to see: his bed, the tiny closet, a dresser. He used to do his homework at the kitchen table because there wasn’t room for a desk. His bed frame had been a gift representing several birthdays and a Christmas as well, back in elementary school. Every other weekend, he would slide the trundle bed out, gleeful to finally have a chance to have sleepovers with Bucky somewhere other than in sleeping bags on the living room rug. The pull-out had used up all the extra floor space and he’d had to crawl off the end of the bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, but when he and Buck were telling each other scary stories quietly enough that his mother wouldn’t hear or reading comics under the covers, taking turns holding the shared flashlight, what had it mattered?

It definitely seems to matter now.

He stares at the two beds, tucked compactly side by side, and realizes that soon he and Peggy are going to be lying in them. Even if he pushes them as far apart as possible, it would be barely two inches before the dresser got in the way. No matter what, their hands could touch across that gap. If she’s a mobile sleeper, they could end up practically curled around one another…

He scrubs a hand vigorously over his face, mussing his hair and probably leaving him red-cheeked, but gathering himself. He makes both beds with care, returning to the linen closet to add top sheets, comforters, and light blankets too; he has no idea how Peggy likes to sleep.

The thought leaves him wide-eyed once again, but it’s too late to force his thoughts elsewhere. Peggy knocks just then, and he tells her to come in, hoping that his voice sounds normal as he does.

“I should have gotten you a toothbrush,” he says immediately upon seeing her, ready to scramble over and take care of it, but she waves a hand.

“Your mother gave me one. She also added my clothing to a basket of laundry she was taking downstairs so I would have ‘something fresh to wear in the morning.’ She wouldn’t hear any protests.”

As if she couldn’t have already figured it out from everything else today, Steve says, “She’s like that.”

“Yes,” Peggy says, thankfully amused. “I assumed.” She turns to the beds and asks, “Now, which would you like?”

Which one he’d like? He can’t think of anything that could matter less. He lists for her the pros and cons of each bed with the care usually reserved for life-changing decisions. She follows along seriously, though he recognizes the touch of humor around her mouth.

Ten minutes later, he is lying on the trundle, and she has her back to him as she examines the spines of the books on the small shelf mounted beside his bed.

She has washed her makeup off and her hair is in a single, simple braid. He’s heard the guys on the crew refer to certain women as “unbelievably beautiful.” Peggy isn’t that. She looks exactly as pretty right now as he had imagined she would, exactly as pretty as she does in her jeans and sensible blouse and Day-Glo vest on the construction site, or the time he had seen her dressed up in a gown for some awards gala, or when he had picked her up that morning and saw her wearing that red sweater with a black pencil skirt and felt lucky just to be walking next to her.

Still, he does find looking at her just now a bit hard. Difficult, he amends quickly, shoving the word hard away. She’s somewhat difficult to look at like this, unraveled and lovely.

“How fantastically minded you were,” she comments, smiling over her shoulder before flipping over to face him. “Is this still the sort of thing you like to read?”

“I usually end up with a bit of everything,” he admits. “But yeah, there’s some great sci-fi and fantasy being written these days.”

“It can be nice,” she says, “visiting other worlds.”

“It can be,” he agrees, not telling her that that’s what today has felt like: however awkwardly, unconventionally attained, it’s been like a brief, wonderful visit to another world.

They were only meant to stay for brunch.

“Don’t cook anything,” he had begged his mother. She was always covering shifts for other people, running errands for neighbors when she wasn’t working, on her feet all day regardless. Having a day off where she hadn’t already scheduled sixteen things was something of a miracle, and he was going to force her to take advantage of it. “I’ll cook.”

Voice somewhat insultingly skeptical down the phone, she’d said, “So, do you already know that this woman has a cast-iron stomach, or are you looking to poison a guest in my home, Steven Rogers?”

In the end, they’d agreed that he would take care of picking up fresh bagels from their favorite place. Of course, when Steve and Peggy arrived, his mother had already set out lox, cut fruit and vegetables, hard boiled eggs, and about six different types of cream cheese.

“You promised not to make anything,” Steve said irritably, giving his mother a hug.

“I promised not to cook,” she corrected. “Boiling a few eggs isn’t cooking. Even you can do that, after all.” And Peggy laughed from beside Steve and stepped forward to introduce herself.

Steve had promised Peggy that they wouldn’t stay longer than a couple of hours, and so at exactly 1:30 he glanced noticeably at his watch and asked if she needed to go to “that other thing you had scheduled.”

“Thankfully not,” she smiled, finishing her piece of crumb cake (his mother swore she just happened to have it left over). “I postponed it, and I’m certainly happy that I did.”

And despite the situation, Steve was happy too - happy that she’d come, happy that she stayed. She and his mother traded stories about their respective jobs, lamenting that even though they were of different generations and worked in completely different fields, one with women as the majority and one with them in the minority, they had so many of the same experiences: dealing with stressed or snappish or condescending people, having their knowledge and authority questioned, and managing to get enormous, important work done skillfully anyway.

“I still love it,” Peggy had said as they moved from the kitchen table to the living room. (Steve barely thought about taking the seat beside Peggy, and then started overthinking why he hadn’t considered more.) “Despite everything, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Sarah, voice already fond, as if she’s known Peggy more than a few hours. “I wouldn’t either.”

They’d talked about how Steve had taken shop class in high school - a few knickknacks he’d made were even still scattered around the apartment for his mother to show off; when she’d passed one over to him, even though he recognized its amateurishness, he felt a tenderness fill him, as if he was holding the hand of a younger version of himself. When he passed it to Peggy, he felt the gentleness of her hand on it too.

Later, he would realize that it was a bit suspicious for him to talk about how he’d gone from an A- in Shop to a carpentry apprenticeship to starting to work with Phillips’s general contracting company: surely if they had truly been dating, they would have talked about it all at some point before. But in the moment all he saw was the flicker in her eye as she told him that, oh, she certainly remembered his first day working with the crew.

It wasn’t that they didn’t notice the weather turning - the first flakes fell as the light began dimming low and gray toward evening - it was only that they were a bit busy making hot drinks and setting up the Trivial Pursuit board. This was probably how Steve would have been spending his afternoon regardless, but he watched Peggy carefully for signs that she was eager for an escape and simply too polite to say so. He even leaned over when his mother excused herself briefly and asked whether she was sure she still wanted to stay, to which she had responded, “I’ll almost certainly have my sports and leisure wedge after my next turn. Why in the world would I leave?”

When Steve went downstairs to retrieve the Thai takeout they had ordered, he did see that it was getting pretty messy outside. The wind had a bite to it, too, so he gave his order of miso soup to the man who’d delivered the food alongside the tip, and decided to see if there was an extra pair of boots around for Peggy to use later.

But after they’d finished with their dinner and watching The Sound of Music, which had been just starting as they’d flipped through TV channels, his mother had turned to the nine o’clock news, saw how hard the snow was coming down, and refused to be persuaded that a change in footwear would be enough. Truthfully, Steve would probably have stayed without question if he had been by himself, but the fact is that he came with Peggy. Peggy, who had stayed long past the anticipated two hours. Peggy, who he was not actually dating. Peggy, who he was now meant to sleep beside.

“I’m sorry for the early night,” he apologizes again as they lie together in the darkness with the radiator hissing slightly. Not realizing how things would turn out today, he had scheduled a 9 A.M. consult with a couple who were looking to have some built-in bookshelves added and he has be up early enough to bring Peggy home and get back to his apartment to change before heading into Manhattan.

“It’s no trouble,” she assures him again. “There’s nothing at all the matter with getting a good night’s rest.”

“And I’m sorry again about everything. About how today turned out, and for getting you into it into the first place.”

“Oh Steve,” she sighs. “Will you shut up about that, please?” and even though her tone lacks sharpness, the words are enough for him to flip over toward her in surprise. “I truly enjoyed myself today. And I would have come even if you had simply asked me without any sort of exceptional circumstances.”

“What do you—?”

“I liked meeting your mother. She’s nothing at all like mine, which perhaps is why I appreciate her so much. I liked sitting around and talking, playing games and eating good food and singing along with Julie Andrews, and I liked spending time with you.” Her voice dips even softer. “I liked it all, and I would have come anyway, if you had only asked.”

With the cloud cover and the snow still coming down, the window lets in little light. He can’t make out her expression, can’t see if she’s just saying things out of tiredness, or reminiscing about a pleasant afternoon, or if she might just be hinting at something which would justify the elevated beating of his heart.

He nearly thanks her for being a good friend, but somehow, the way that she’s turned onto her side to face him as well, an invitation, makes him breathe in and say, “But you’re Peggy Carter. I don’t know why you would have bothered.”

“Is that what you think of me?” she asks. He’s never heard her voice with that twisting edge to it and it takes a moment for him to recognize it: hurt. “That I’m some high and mighty miss, and I would never deign to even look at the likes of you?”

“No!” he says, not frantic, hard and simple and factual, trying to make her see. “It’s just that you’re Peggy Carter,” he repeats. “There are probably a dozen awards on your shelves. I’ve seen you skewer guys with a half dozen words for propositioning you, then get right back to work. Phillips doesn’t like anyone except his dog, but he turns down projects if you aren’t going to be working on them. You wanted to design buildings and you made that happen for yourself. You’ve worked on dozens of projects and they’re all different but I’ve wanted to stay in each one, even the offices.” His voice doesn’t drop as he continues, even as he half hopes that his words will be lost in the pillow beneath his head. “You’re creative and determined and gorgeous and fascinating and funny. Just talking to you should be any thinking person’s favorite thing. And I’m only a guy.”

She inhales deeply through her nose, as if she is trying to keep her temper somehow, but when she speaks, her voice is calm. “When there are novices on a job, you’re the one who helps them through their nerves and shows them the right way to do things. Other women have told me that they like to work on the same site as you because they know you would never make them uncomfortable and you’ve fought anyone who tried. After an evening out, you give your share of the tip and then stay behind and add a bit extra. You do it every time, Steve. I’ve watched you.”

“Anyone could—”

“The first day I met you,” she interrupts, “you introduced yourself to Mr. Jarvis. Most people don’t, you know. They’re too busy noticing Howard to even pay attention. The day after, you brought soup for Ana because you had heard she was ill. I don’t know anyone else who would have done that, bring soup for someone who he’d never met, the wife of the electrician’s admin he’d only known for a day.” Even with the hiss and clank of the heating, he thinks he can make out every dimension of the breath she takes in before she adds, low and direct, “You’re loyal and sharp and kind, you make wonderful art and adore your mother, and you’re so upstandingly moral I half expect you to ride into work one day on a white steed. Had you not kept moving away every time I tried to get near, I would have asked you out long ago. And if you had asked me all the way back then, before I knew anything else, I would have said yes too, just because of the soup.”

It’s been three years since he started working with Phillips, three years of watching from across construction zones as she cut stubborn men down to size with a sharp word (or her fist if necessary), of lingering at lunch for the chance to see her smile or hear her opinion on current affairs or some article that they had both read. All that time of thinking that she would never possibly consider him more than a friend, and she already had.

“Can I—” he starts, his hand moving tentatively into the tiny space between their beds. She catches his fingers with hers and lifts them to her mouth, placing a delicate kiss on the backs of his knuckles. His breath comes sharply into his lungs.

He has, a time or two thousand, pictured some imaginary world where she might kiss him one day. This isn’t at all how he envisioned it in any of those dreams - they were never in side-by-side twin beds at his mother’s house, for one thing.

Nothing in him cares.

When she says goodbye to him the next morning, his mother gives him an innocent smile and a reminder to drop by a Duane Reade for chapstick and...anything else they might need. He almost tells her that they were only kissing, but doesn’t think it will help. Besides, he was trying to avoid embarrassing details by stripping the beds before she woke up so she wouldn’t notice that the sheets had only been truly mussed on one.

(He wouldn’t have been expecting that sleeping in a narrow bed with Peggy half sprawled on top of him would be wonderful, but he’ll be the first to admit that he isn’t right about everything.)

Exactly fifty-one weeks later, his mother asks him how he and Peggy are celebrating their anniversary. He’s halfway through telling her before he realizes that she’s not supposed to know that it’s their anniversary at all, that she’s still meant to think they’ve been together a year and a half already.

“As if you’ve been able to lie to me once in your life, Steven Rogers,” she says with a laugh. “You said her name and I knew that you weren’t telling me the whole truth the same moment I knew that she meant something to you anyway. Now tell me about the ring.”

“How did you—?”

He has the feeling she’s waving a dismissive hand on her end of the phone. “Nothing in the world easier than reading you, sweetheart.” Her tone turns a bit thoughtful. “Peggy, on the other hand, she’s a bit harder. But even that first time you brought her here, I could tell. When the time comes for you to ask, she’ll say yes.”

She’s right.

[kingonafiftymetreroad]

Fic Rec Post

Hey everybody! One of my secret santas asked me what my favorite fics are so I decided to make a full blown rec post just for them. These are a little all over the place so I hope you can find something that you enjoy here! ☁️✨ 

Please make sure to read all tags and warnings before reading a fic. And don’t forget to kudos/comment!

🌙 The Finish Line (Is A Good Place For Us To Start) by LoadedGunn 122k

Louis Tomlinson, one-time Formula 1 World Champion, is looking forward to the 2013 season. He’s got Zayn in his garage and Liam in his ear, he’s got Cowell Racing backing him despite former indiscretions, he’s got experience and the best race car out there. Not to mention he’s the only racer they have, after Oliver dropped out late last year.

It hasn’t occurred to him that Oliver would have to be replaced by February. That is, until he finds himself at a party celebrating Harry Styles leaving Ferrari for Cowell. Harry hotshot Styles, who broke a record last year and is probably looking to make a big splash. Harry Styles, who is talented and somewhat intimidating. Harry Styles, who left Ferrari for reasons unknown and seems kind of lonely and harmless in person. Lonely, harmless, hot as fuck. Whatever.

The first thing Louis does is take him under his wing. From there it’s nine months of slow-burning romance, the past catching up to them, turning into the human puppy pile that is OT5 and a lot of feelings until, of course, reaching the finish line.

🌙 a promise lives within you now by sarcasticfluentry 46k

A Lord of the Rings-inspired Middle Earth AU. Louis is an Elven prince, next in line to become King of Mirkwood, and Harry is the orphaned Human boy who grows up alongside him. They fall in love, but Louis’s obligations to the throne, Harry’s mortality, and impending war threaten to tear them apart.

🌙 if you're for real and not pretend by brownheadedstranger 21k

In which Harry works in a bakery and Louis can't seem to find what he's looking for.

🌙 Into The Blue by zarah5 117k (story is locked, ao3 account required to read)

AU. In which Louis is Harry's scuba instructor and quite happy to provide the requested special treatment, pun fully intended. It can't be all that difficult to convince Harry that they're on the same page, right? Also, Niall and Liam may or may not be dating, and Zayn is surrounded by emotionally stunted idiots. He bears it with dignity.

🌙 Don't Unplug Me Or Shut Me Down by slashter 7k

Louis scowls. "He's a photography student. He works with gorgeous models and probably breaks hearts with his smile. I'm a nerd. I earn my money fixing broken crap, and for some stupid reason, I like it. He wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts, he's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers, et cetera, et cetera." Louis sighs. "I swear, the coolest thing I've ever done is wear contacts."

Basically, Louis is a self-proclaimed nerd who fixes things and Harry seems too perfect to keep breaking as many things as he does.

🌙 You Are The Blood by sarcasticfluentry 175k

A seventh-year Hogwarts AU in which Niall gets all the girls, Liam goes on a journey of self-discovery, Zayn falls in love, Harry wants something more, and Louis tries to figure out once and for all why he, a Muggleborn, was sorted into Slytherin.

🌙 this must be what all the fuss is about by youcomecrash 3k

"You're sweaty," he mumbles matter-of-factly. Louis opens his eyes and raises his head from between his arms. Harry's just staring up at him with a lazy expression and Louis kind of wants to kiss him to sleep. "That's because it's a hundred degrees in here, babe."

🌙 I Fell From the Sky For You (Like a Shooting Star) [by louserz] by waddupjordan (orphan_account) 8k (This was originally posted on tumblr by @louserz and this person had permission to post it on ao3 for the author. if the original author sees this and wants me to take this off of my rec post please DM me and I will. This fic displays elements of depression and homelessness although it is not tagged that way so please take caution in reading this. I don’t want to accidentally trigger anybody.<3)

Harry owns a bookstore, Louis is homeless, and apparently even shooting stars fall in love.

🌙 Sail Across Me by iwillpaintasongforlou 21k

Harry is a prince that is about to be forced into marriage against his will and running away to sea seems like a much better option. Louis is the captain of the infamous pirate ship The Rogue and he has a thing for helping defenseless creatures. Especially when they're as pretty as this one.

🌙 but maybe im just in love when you wake me up by theonewiththelarrystories 6k

lazy morning sex, prompted by Asher: "like a whole sleepy sunday morning vibe of waking up together and then louis pulling a sleepy harry into a warm bath and louis washing harry all over. a bit of body!worship, louis gently working conditioner into harrys curls and him practically purring. Then louis taking it slow with kisses on harrys neck and gentle touches and then fingering harry until hes whining with his head thrown back against louis’ shoulder little needy noises coming from his perfect fucking lips. and then harrys boneless and content while louis leads him back to their bed and spreads him out face down and rims the fuck out of him until hes screaming and then he fucks him gently and then they cuddle on the couch and harry wears louis’ white sweater and louis calls him ‘sweetheart.’"

🌙 strawberry milk fic by Wankerville 158k (3 parts)

This is a 3 part story. The 1st part was originally written alone and then the author added the rest. You can just read the 1st part (19k), and you’ll still be satisfied without feeling added pressured to read the whole thing. Please read all the tags and warnings for each fic beforehand!

🌙 and we live like legends now by soleilouis 16k girl!direction 

harry works at a juice bar, and louis is the cute girl that skates at the park right next door.

🌙 Through Eerie Chaos by MediaWhore 102k (story is locked, ao3 account required to read) @mediawhorefics​

For as long as anyone can remember, Old Hillsbridge Manor has always been believed to be haunted. Everyone in the village agrees and keeps a respectful, fearful, distance. New in town after a bad breakup and an internship that led to disappointment rather than a permanent job, Harry Styles figures taking pictures of the decrepit building could be a great new creative project. Or at least a much-needed distraction while he searches for a job and crashes at his parents’ new house. No one warned him about the apparitions though; about the music, the laughter, the people who flicker and vanish when you call after them, the echoes of a past that should be long gone… Harry has never believed in spirits but even he can admit that there’s something weird going on. What starts as mere curiosity evolves into a full-blown investigation and soon enough, Harry finds himself making friends with an aristocrat from the 1920s and struggling with finding the best way to tell him that he’s dead.

The Ghost Hunter AU where Niall lives to prove ghosts are real, Zayn is a skeptical librarian and Harry gets caught up in a century-old mystery and catches feeling in the process.

🌙 jump in the deep end by istajmaal 5k 

Louis’s stomach lurches as he closes the last bit of distance, Harry’s nose settling between his arse cheeks and pushing them apart. Harry’s lips brush against the puckered skin around Louis’s hole in a kiss and Louis lets out a whine so high-pitched he barely recognizes it as coming from himself—what if I'm not clean enough, what if Harry hates it, what if Harry pushes me away—but then Harry’s long, wet tongue swoops in a circle around Louis’s rim and Louis feels like all the breath is knocked out of him. He grabs for Harry’s hand, still digging into his thigh, and squeezes over it, until Harry releases his vice grip on Louis’s thigh and laces his fingers through Louis’s.

or, Louis's arse is a sensitive subject, so Harry approaches it gently. With his tongue.

🌙 the wheel breaks the butterfly by embodied 4k girl!direction @aliensingucci​

“Out with it, Styles,” Louis groans. Harry’s suddenly regretting this whole thing, and she’s sure she’s beet red now, so she just blurts it out so fast she’s not sure if Louis even understands her right away.

“I’ve never gotten head before.”

AU. harry and louis are roommates. girls' night ends a little differently than usual.

🌙 you flower, you feast by stylinsoncity 18k

He's King of the Underworld, but don't assume Louis has it all. He could stand for some excitement in his monotonous, eternal life and maybe, even.....a soulmate.

(Despite not having a soul.)

And along came "Harry".

🌙 you change, water sea by got2ghost 4k girl!direction (ziam with side larry)

“Zayn wants me to teach her how to make a girl squirt,” Louis says, like it’s the most casual thing in the world. Liam chokes on the water she’d been swigging from her thermos, which makes Louis throw her head back and laugh. Zayn’s brows pinch together and she pats Liam gently on the shoulder, muttering, ‘you okay babes?’

🌙 The Case Of The (Definitely Not Haunted) Styles Mansion by BriaMaria 40k

“So there’s a sense of humor buried beneath all that condescension, huh?” Louis said when he’d stopped laughing.

“It’s not condescension, it’s intelligence. I understand you might not be able to recognize it yourself,” Marcel said, then slapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh god, I’m sorry.”

Louis stepped closer, his eyes on Marcel’s face. “For being an asshat?”

“For being rude,” Marcel said, from beneath his palm.

Louis shifted a half-step closer until he was at the very edge of Marcel’s personal space. It felt like he was nudging at it, asking to be let in. Marcel flushed hot for no reason.

“Lucky for you it takes quite a lot to actually insult me,” Louis said taking one step closer. Too close. Too close.

Marcel met Louis’ eyes. Those blue eyes that reminded Marcel of poetry instead of science, lyrics instead of formulas. They were so pretty he wanted to drown in them.

---

Or the Nancy Drew AU where Marcel is a man of logic, Louis is a private detective who believes in ghosts, and the Styles Mansion is definitely, absolutely, positively *not* haunted.

🌙 You are the Lyrics by TheIfInLife 4k @larryficwriter​

or, Harry wears lingerie for the first time and Louis definitely approves.

🌙 Wild at Heart Ain't Hard to Find by QuickedWeen 11k girl!direction @becomeawendybird

Louis and her best friends Niall and Liam always take an annual vacation together. This year Niall has picked Redwater Canyon, a small tourist town where everyone lives like it's the Old West. There are saloons, stagecoaches, and limited access to WiFi.

The town boasts tours, excursions, activities, and the hottest woman Louis has ever seen in the form of the local blacksmith.

🌙 Withdrawal Was the Weeping by QuickedWeen 11k girl!direction

Confined by life and society, Harry spends her Sunday afternoons walking aimlessly about the countryside as it's her only source of freedom. One Sunday she is aided by the most beautiful woman she has ever met, but not everything is as it seems. Was it a trick of the light? Was it Harry's own active imagination? There is nothing to do but try to find her again.

🌙 i must admit i thought i'd like to make you mine by disgruntledkittenface 50k @disgruntledkittenface​

Louis fell apart when her ex broke up with her and moved across the country. Just as she’s starting to move on, Zayn comes back to town for their mutual friends’ wedding – with a new girlfriend as her plus one.

Blindsided and scrambling to save face, Louis lets herself get talked into a fake relationship with her new friend Harry. Their arrangement makes Louis feel pathetic and embarrassed, but it’s only going to last a few weeks. She just has to get through the wedding – what could happen?

🌙 tempted by the fruit of another by disgruntledkittenface 3k (zayn/louis/harry)

Zayn didn’t mean to look. And she certainly didn’t mean to watch.

It’s just that Louis and Harry are the worst hosts in the world; they’re in their bedroom, clearly fucking (again), and so loud that Zayn can’t concentrate on her game of Among Us in the living room. Liam has killed her twice. Liam. So she just went down the hallway to make sure their bedroom door was at least closed.

It wasn’t.

Zayn stumbles into a world of possibility when she stays with Harry and Louis for a few weeks.

🌙 I have more favorite fics but they are not included here due to them being deleted from ao3. They’re saved in PDF form both on my laptop and my phone (I go back and read them all the time) so if you’re interested in those you’re welcome to reach out to me and ask privately and I’ll share what I can.

This turned out a lot longer than I had expected. If you read through the whole thing thank you! ✨

[merryfortune]

The Monster in the Fruits Basket

hi @ina-bon​ I was your secret santa on the discord

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Ship: Takeru/Kiku

Word Count: 5,876

Tags: Alternate Universe - Fruits Basket, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Minor or Implied Child Abuse

   “I don’t like it here anymore, Gramps…” Takeru confessed and he stared at his hands whilst thinking about her. Kiku. “It feels like I’m sitting in a lukewarm bath. I’m just getting pruney.”

   His Grandfather regarded him cautiously. Ever with a stern brow and a stern upper lip.

   Takeru swallowed. “I want to go out and fend for myself again for a bit. I’m sick of being here. I want to pursue my passions in judo and other martial arts. When we went camping for those few months last year, it was the best time of my life. I feel antsy and dull in comparison to living here. With them.”

   “I disagree.” his Grandfather said. “I think you are making excuses.”

   “I’m not!” Takeru snarled, he banged his hand on the table.

   The door slid and Kiku was there, she was holding onto a tray of rice balls and looked jumpy and apologetic. Takeru looked up at her and the grizzle in his face all but vanished when he saw her. His eyes were wide, lit up, and for a moment, a flicker of remorse for having raised his voice.

   “Sorry, this is a bad time. But, when you're ready to come down stairs, there will be rice balls and other refreshments.” Kiku said and she excused herself just as quickly as she had interrupted.

   “I disagree vehemently.” Takeru’s Grandfather insisted, a low growl to his voice.

   Takeru glared. He felt like he was pushing at a wall which wouldn’t budge for it was all bricked up and mortared and more. And when that energy expired, he collapsed over the table, burying his head in the crooks of his overlapping, folded arms. The beads - bone yellow and blood orange - clinked on his wrist and glinted in the fluorescence of his bedroom’s light on the ceiling.

   This was twice now that Takeru’s Grandfather had to see his own, intimate kin wear that bracelet.

   He recalled meeting The Cat as a youth but his youth may as well have been another world with how it changed and collided. He had been playing out in the courtyard with a ball, just bouncing it off every surface available whilst trying not to hit any of the servants or other passerbys until it bounced to the other end. Into what appeared to be a barely open shed. He had crept inside and found a man in a beautiful kimono in a small room but he was caged. He was also holding the handball that he had been playing. They exchanged pleasantries and the man handed back the ball and he left. The man seemed glad to have had a visitor but his visitor was unsettled by the whole exchange, it seemed so ordinarily peculiar.

   He would only later learn that person was The Cat but he would learn it at a wake he unintentionally attended.

   After that Cat died, the next one was born and after that surreal moment, like a dollop of honey on a wooden spoon, in a summer afternoon, playing handball, the next Cat was born to him and his wife. He liked to think that he had done his best to raise the next Cat but life was arbitrary.

   Takeru shouldn’t have been born the Cat but his father died before he even learned he was a father. A freak accident. It could have been anyone. And his mother. His poor mother. She drove herself to madness because of her husband’s death and when her son was born, when she held him in her arms for the first time, still covered in the mire of being born, he did not remain a baby. He grew fur and claws, became a white and ginger kitten.

   It was harrowing for her to say the least and for six years, Takeru never saw his grandparents or even the outside world. He was his mother’s little treasure in every sense of possession. His little hands forever checked for stray hairs and claws. His little wrist was the most delicate of all as she checked that the rosary against all that being inhabited by the spirit and jealous of the Cat entailed. The rituals of it all were ceaseless until one day she didn’t come home from grocery shopping and she still hadn’t even ten years later.

   “I think you should go down and have something to eat.” Takeru’s Grandfather told him.

   “I’m not hungry.” Takeru complained.

   “You should eat regardless, then.” his Grandfather continued. “You will need the strength tonight. There’s a storm.”

   “I’m not some little kid anymore,” Takeru spat, “I’m not afraid of storms.”

   His Grandfather smirked and there was a clash of thunder. Takeru stiffened to the last hair on the back of his neck.

   “Then this discussion is over. Until further notice, I want you to stay here, in this lukewarm bath as you called it. If you run away, I will make sure she brings you back.” his Grandfather said.

   Takeru lifted his head off the table and his arms, he quirked his brow, “She? Whose she? At least do it yourself, you lazy old fart.” Takeru growled.

   His Grandfather ignored him. Gracefully, he got to his feet and Takeru scrambled to join him, a flurry of limbs until he straightened up. They left Takeru’s room and came down stairs to where everyone was. The atmosphere decidedly terse.

   Everyone was clustered around the long, low table in the centre of the room, trying to avoid the windows as they banged and rattled. At the moment, it was more the wind than the rain itself which had everyone on edge - assuming it was the weather at all which had made them uncomfortable, and not whatever they had overheard from upstairs between Takeru and his Grandfather. 

   Still, Kiku sat on her knees and she already had two plates at the ready as she hailed down Takeru and his Grandfather. Takeru readily sat down next to her as she piled one rice balls onto his plate before sliding it towards him with a smile. Takeru’s grandfather observed her, still standing up, awkwardly hovering close to Shoichi and Jin who were watching similarly twitchy.

   “See? No chives since I know you don’t like chives.” Kiku piped up. “Oh, and these ones are tuna-mayo since those are your favourite but this one’s chicken.”

   Takeru smiled. “Thanks, Kiku.” he replied but as he accepted the food, his smile faltered. He was thankful for her but she also represented too much to him but he ate the food to be polite. “It’s good.”

   “I’m glad to hear it.” Kiku smiled.

   With Takeru eating, it could be argued that the atmosphere was easing up from its irrational tenseness. Even Ryoken, who was sitting in the corner, like the mouse that he was, had unhooked his arms from around him and had reached for more of Kiku’s rice balls. She encouraged Ryoken to take more but saying that prickled Takeru, so he grabbed another - one which didn’t appear flecked with chives - and wolfed it down all but immediately.

   He didn’t spare a moment to savour it as he swallowed. He was just thankful for the food. It somehow felt that dinner was so long ago but it wasn’t really. The argument that he had had with his Grandfather had simply exacerbated that distance but the rice balls were good. Kiku was a good - no, great - cook. From the moment that she had arrived at this hodgepodge house for the exiles of the Main Kogami manor, Kiku had been charming all of those around her.

   Takeru kind of wished he had been there. That moment when she had all but turned up out of the blue and introduced herself to her so-called neighbours; enchanting Shoichi with not only her etiquette but her knowledge of the Chinese Zodiac. His little painted models had been fatefully sitting out in the sun and she had mentioned it to him, talked about how adorable they were but it was a set of twelve rather than thirteen and she was the biggest fan of the Cat from the story. She didn’t want him to be lonely.

   But Takeru was the Cat and he wanted to be lonely because bad things happened to those around him when he was anything but lonely.

   Yet, since meeting Kiku, Takeru had felt a slight change in him. A transformation different to how he became the Cat and how he became… nevermind that. Kiku was the reason that his fingers were pruning in this lukewarm bath. She treated him with a kindness that he wasn’t used to. Telling him he had a plum on his back and that she wanted to learn things about him, from him, going so far as to do her own research on subjects that he liked such as martial arts. She was dense and happy-go-lucky but her laugh was like nectar.  He liked it best when she was smiling, with her golden eyes all lit up like the sun.

   Soon enough, Takeru had eaten more than the lion’s share of the rice balls that Kiku had prepared, disgruntling Ryoken in the process but having seen his grandson eat so vigorously, Takeru’s Grandfather was pleased. Yes, there was a tentative serenity to sitting around, having a snack after dinner. There was even laughter and Shoichi, who was standing around, watching, hoping Jin wouldn’t come down from his nap at an inopportune time because it seemed like now was the time to strike. Just when there was a lull in the group.

   “Takeru,” his grandfather interrupted the teenagers at the low table, “I want to go outside. To spar.”

   “Huh? What?” Takeru half-growled, raising an eyebrow at the absurdity of such a demand. “It’s pouring outside.”

   “I think it could be fun,” Shoichi piped up, voice suspiciously airy, “and its not pouring, just… spitting.”

   Everyone glanced out the door on that. Opened just enough to let a breeze in because the days had grown humid and stuffy thanks to the spring showers. And it was dark out there but not with thick storm clouds. Just with twilight settling down in the puddles.

   “Ooh, you could show me that left hook that you’ve been working on, pretty please?” Kiku emphasised, taking the bait that Shoichi had set out. “You’re always talking about what a great judo master your grandfather is, I want to see this in action.”

   “It would be nice.” Takeru said, embarrassedly thinking about how he had been hankering to do just that for the past day since his Grandfather had come around to visit.

   “Good.” Ryoken piped up. “I’ll look forward to seeing an old man kick your ass.” Yet despite his stoking remarks, he seemed dubious of this sudden exhibition match between Takeru and his grandfather. 

   “Oh, shut up.” Takeru snarled but in a more playful way than usual.

   “Should we wake Jin up?” Kiku asked, looking towards Shoichi. “It sounds exciting, he should come down.”

   Shoichi waved her off. “Him getting enough rest is more important, besides, his sport of choice is soccer. Not martial arts, I doubt he’d be interested.”

   “Yeah, that’s true…” Kiku agreed.

   With that settled, despite a strange crackling feeling in the air which wasn’t lightning about to strike, everyone got up and shuffled outdoors. Going from the cool air conditioning indoors, just behind a sliver of glass, to getting out into the soggy grass of the front yard was disconcerting. It was humid - sticky and all encompassing - and getting dark. Storm clouds brewed and despite the subtle strangeness of it all, Takeru and his Grandfather took position in front of their crowd.

   Kiku stood with Shoichi who stood with Ryoken who stood by himself, out the front, just by the window. Kiku clasped onto her hands, cooing, as she watched how Takeru and his Grandfather eyed each other down. It was heated and fiery, without words, as they stared, readying their stances, and then pouncing. 

   They all gasped as Takeru was entirely outclassed by his grandfather. Takeru couldn’t let a single strike on his grandfather; he seemed so strangely clumsy compared to his grandfather who avoided him with ease. The nimbleness that Kiku, and even Ryoken, associated with Takeru seemed so slow as his grandfather blocked and parried his decisive movements. 

   “Appalling.” his Grandfather scolded him.

   Takeru gritted his teeth as he tried to force a landing on his Grandfather but he was stopped entirely. His Grandfather took his forearm and grabbed him. It was a reversal of all Takeru’s raw strength funnelled into his own upheaval. Takeru landed with a thud on his back on the ground. Kiku grimaced as she knew she would be the one to do the laundry later.

   “Is that it?” Shoichi asked. He scratched his goatee in thought.

   Takeru’s Grandfather sank to Takeru’s level. “You’re short-sighted, boy.” he said.

   “You don’t say?” Takeru sassed him. “Better get new glasses, I’ve been on the wrong prescription for years then.” He wasn’t even wearing his glasses tonight; they had been annoying him.

   His Grandfather rolled his eyes at him. “You need help. To get better at your practice, you need a more holistic and unafraid approach. One more balanced than brute strength. And I’m going to show you how.”

   Takeru’s eyes widened as he had the ghost of a question on his tongue, “What…?” he barely managed to eek out of his mouth as he had a terrible realisation of just how helpless he was in this position. His grandfather took his hand and Takeru watched as the bracelet around his wrist, supported and protected, was removed.

   It felt as though time slowed for Takeru as he tried to get up, tried to get the bracelet back, tried to resist every inch of what was happening to him.

   Shoichi stood, gawking, and guilty. He was acting strange but he couldn’t look away. Completely unlike Ryoken who shut down with what was happening. He looked away, eyes closed tight, and Kiku noticed how he flinched. She had an exclamation or a gasp just beyond her lips but she could only focus on Takeru as he ripped himself from the ground and how his Grandfather let the bracelet drop into the mud. A transformation completely unlike anything Kiku had seen occurred.

   When Kiku had first arrived at this house, it had been one accident after another which led into a spiral of female on male contact. Nothing serious. Just hugs and even something as simple as brushing up against Shoichi and then Ryoken and then Takeru had caused the curse upon them to activate. It was silly and kind of funny in hindsight as the pretty looking young men around turned into a dog, a mouse, and a cat respectively. It had been strange but light-hearted.

   This, what was happening now, was strange and anything but light-hearted. It was monstrous. 

   There was genuine fear and horror in Takeru’s eyes as he tried to get up but his body disobeyed him as he transformed. A transformation that was jagged and unshielded by the mist usually produced by the curse. This was raw and grotesque. A stench emanating through the yard, from Takeru, as his muscles burst and his bones broke, reshaping, until he was anything but human. Or even like an animal.

   Ryoken refused to look towards Takeru’s general direction; he had a hand clamped over his mouth and he was gagging. Shoichi was transfixed the same way one became transfixed around disasters like car wrecks. He was pale but stern. Kiku. Kiku was somehow both. Her stomach knotted as she recoiled visibly because of the smell and the sights; she wanted to look away, to alleviate the strange and horrible feeling in her gut, but she was unable to.

   Takeru became a creature the likes of which Kiku had never seen.

   His proportions were all wrong. On all fours and with a long tail but his appendages were stooped in ways that looked broken. His fingers were elongated and his bones were sharp beneath the taut skin of a sickly orange. And his muzzle was jagged with huge, gleaming eyes that were predatory and afraid.

   His Grandfather rose to his full height and he observed cooly as Takeru launched himself from the ground in shame. In fear.

   “Ta...keru-kun?” Kiku murmured. She blinked. 

   The sound of Takeru’s claws scraping through mud, through tile, through tree branches - wherever he landed in his fleeing leaps and bounds - echoed through the air. It began to rain but the rain barely softened the horrid sounds: the crunching and the breaking. 

   “That is the other form of the Cat Spirit,” Takeru’s Grandfather began to explain to the dumbfounded Kiku, “does it disgust you?”

   Kiku was silent but she leaned forward slightly with a horrified stare and a slackened jaw.

   “Does it scare you?” he asked.

   Kiku was silent but she was no longer still. She was propelled forward on something like instinct. She kept her head up and she passed by the bracelet in the mud as she kept going forward, as uneven and rock as her steps were. Where she ignored it, Takeru’s Grandfather picked it up and said his prayers for his grandson on it: not praying to any deity, just a girl whom he, and many others affected and involved with curse, had high hopes for.

   Kiku ran into the forest. Chasing after Takeru or what had become of him in this other form. She had no idea. She had no idea that the burden of his Curse ran so deep but it certainly explained some things. In the dark, she was blind to everything but she kept going forward, trying to find Takeru, unfettered even as she fell over and tripped. As she knew she had no idea what she was getting into. The instinct she was acting on was the kindness that she had been taught and she valued so dearly.

   She had to keep going, she thought to herself, before bile spiked suddenly in the back of her throat. She got up, on her hands, but she felt her whole body weaken and she threw up in front of herself. She wretched quickly, fouled by the taste and the quickness of how it had come from nowhere but it stopped her altogether.

   Confusion was thick and rotten all around her. Kiku didn’t know what to do, what would be right and what would be wrong, that was the truth of the matter as she tried to grapple with what she had seen. The sight of Kyo’s transformation was not something that Kiku would forget soon; the botched way his arms bent and the way his eyes gleamed. Recalling them was more than enough to elicit fear from her, making her skin prickle and her stomach squirm again. But, even so, with tears in her eyes and on unsteady legs, Kiku got up. She clutched onto a tree for leverage as she got up. She kept going.

   The rain felt freezing after being so hot. It was pouring down now with no end in sight. Only misery.

   Takeru sat on his haunches as far away as he could. He pulled up his knees to his chin and buried himself in himself. He clenched his eyes shut and he felt like a child. Beneath the leathery hide of this monstrous form, he felt like a small and vulnerable child again. Between every lash of cold rain, he could swear that he felt his mother’s breath on him, slowly encroaching on him with a cruel and all encompassing embrace, her hands following his limbs along to that bracelet.

   Those memories of his mother raked through him. A growl dribbled out of his mouth in genuine pain of them - and of this transformation. It was anything but painless, it felt like sulphur was in his veins. He hated it and he hated her and he especially hated her love. How it was transfixed on making sure he was protected, insulated, from the big, wide world which would hate him more than she hated him.

   Takeru whimpered to himself, all alone, on a little island in the middle of the flooded pond in the forest. He just wanted the world to collapse in on itself so he didn’t have to deal with it. He thrashed about, causing landslides around him with his claws but the senseless violence did little to quell all that fear and fury in his heart. Growling, he looked up, and he was surprised to see someone on the edge of the trees, on the shoreline of the pond.

   Kiku stood there, wonky and awkward, holding onto herself and a tree. She was looking out across the murky water to him. She tried calling out to him but her voice was too weak. Takeru’s wasn’t.

   He snapped at her, shouting, “Go away!” A monstrous snarl to his voice.

   Kiku didn’t even flinch as Takeru’s voice boomed across the water and through the rain. She just stared with this sympathetic look to her face.

   “Why… Why the hell’re you following me like nothing’s the goddamn matter?!” Takeru growled.

   Kiku tried to call Takeru’s name again but he cut her off with a howl. Her body language drooped. Saddened. And yet she stepped forward, nonetheless. The water was cold and thick around her, even at just her ankles.

   “I said go away.” Takeru growled, his voice frayed at the edges now. “What’s wrong with you…? Are you blind? Can’t you smell…?”

   Kiku kept coming forward. Takeru watched how she waded through the water, how it ate up to her knees now and how she held herself as she approached. 

   “Don’t you hate me? I-I’m creepy and sickening and we both know it.” Takeru whimpered. But then he turned to a roar: “Why can’t you leave me alone?!”

   Kiku slowly set foot on the island that Takeru was on. She felt exhausted. Drenched to the bone, the taste of vomit still on her mouth, to say nothing of the stench that reeked around her so she came to her hands and knees. Still, she crawled closer to Takeru, her eyes wide and huge.

   “I don’t need any of your pity.” Takeru murmured.

   Kiku listened but she kept crawling closer. Mud on her hands and knees, skirt dragging in the mire. She came within a talking distance of Takeru, stood at his paws on the mound, and looked up at him.

   “Please…” he begged her. “Please, don’t do this.”

   “Takeru-kun, but I…” Kiku murmured as she lifted a hand to him with the intention of stroking him so that he might feel some vain semblance of comfort in the downpour and misery. “But I love-”

   Takeru didn’t want to hear it. The way that seemingly simple word tumbled out of her mouth elicited the worst in Takeru. He struck out. He swiped at Kiku, tossing her back as she was nothing but a rag doll before him. Kiku screamed, more from the impact than from the horror of being hurt by her friend.

   “Don’t touch me!” Takeru growled. “Get lost!”

   Kiku was thrown into the water. A huge splash followed after her and then nothing. Just the harsh pitter patter of the rain hitting the coarse surface of the water. There was a moment where Takeru watched, with regret, before Kiku rose up. She broke through, panting and gasping, in the shallows on the bough of the island, fingers scrunching through the mire below her as she roiled with how she had been thrown and near drowned.

   “You’re annoying, I want you gone.” Takeru spat with guilt. “Next time, I’ll hurt you for real. For good…”

   Kiku dithered and her hand drew back. She noticed that the sleeve of her shirt was torn and beneath was fresh, stinging scrapes. She was lucky they were only shallow but they hurt like an acid burn, not just a cut. She clamped her hand over them for searing relief but it was curt. She looked up at Takeru again, her golden eyes looked like umber in the dim rain.

   Takeru turned his back on her. He didn’t want to see her anymore and he didn’t want her to see him, either. He begged and begged that she would turn tail but all, save for the rain, was still. Silent. 

   Then, slowly but surely, with her head hung low, Kiku got up. Water dripped off her in the course of her sluggish movements and she chewed her lower lip. And she made her decision. She turned around and walked off. Her legs like lead as she dragged them through the pond.

   Takeru’s ears, long and ribbon-like, anything but feline or human, twitched. He could hear Kiku leave, the sludge that moved around her, and Takeru’s muscles tightened. He wanted to hurt her so bad that she never forgives him. He had hurt her bad enough that she left - and maybe even left for good - and he wanted that and yet, his heart clenched. He didn’t want her to worry about him and Takeru knew - thought - that lashing out was the best option but… but he wanted to look back and he wanted to see Kiku looking back as well. Even if it was just once before moving on for good because things were too wrecked to be fixed or forgiven.

   Takeru couldn’t take it anymore. He was sick of losing people; he was sick of pity, he was sick of feeling miserable, and most of all, he was sick of having things forced upon him.

   He remembered something his mother said whilst taking his hand, toying with the beads of the bracelet on his wrist, but he couldn’t remember how cruelly she smiled. He remembered her assuring him that no, he was as human as anyone else. It was all just bad magic that this just so happens to happen to him. The fact that he became a child again afterwards was proof that the human was not the monster because the monster was temporary. That was trite but what she said afterwards was worse. She told him that she wasn’t scared at all and that she loved him. What rotten lies.

   She couldn’t have loved him less and she couldn’t have been terrified more. Takeru was revolted with certainty. 

   Every hour of every day, she checked to make sure that abominable bracelet was in place. She would draw the curtains tight and never let him out of her sight. It had been abhorrent but he had been a child. He hadn’t known any better or anything else but now that he did. He didn’t want anything akin to that ever again and he would rage against such sentiments in whatever form that they took before him.

   Even if it was Kiku. Kiku who remembered his dislikes and wanted to engage in his likes and told him that he had a plum on his back. Kiku was, Takeru realised with an alien ease, the first person to recognise him and acknowledge the real him. Completely unlike others who had been in his life before who claimed to love him, like his mother.

   Takeru buried his head in his hands. A guttural growl leaked out of between the crooked gaps of his teeth all wrong for his bizarre maw. He knew how those memories ended. Without closure. With his mother simply disappearing and how distant, faceless relatives told him, without knowing a thing about him, that his mother loved him above all. 

   “Stop it!” Takeru roared, thrashing around, swinging his arms, pounding his fists into the ground below. “I don’t want that kind of love forced on me! I don’t need it...”

   He kept murmuring it over and over. I don’t need it. And at the edge of the shallows, where only her ankles were wet, Kiku did hear him. She stopped and she sucked in a breath. She looked over her shoulders, her eyes that were pooled with hot tears, and she surged forward. A force of nature in her own right, outclassing that of the downpour that continued torrentially over them.

   Water skirted up the side of her as she ran back through the mire. She slipped and tripped, here and there, but was undeterred. She flung herself onto Takeru. He flinched as he felt her embrace the long spike of his bowed elbow. She buried her face in his grotesque skin. His head bent around with a snarl but Takeru couldn’t bring himself to say something as Kiku hid herself using his limb.

   “Let’s go home…” Kiku murmured. “We have to go home.” She reefed her face off him, holding him tighter, her cheeks were flushed as she insisted with the utmost determination, “We have to go home together.”

   Takeru blinked and he felt his heart waver.

   “O-Otherwise, I have a feeling, Takeru-kun won’t come back home - to that house - ever again.” Kiku said.

   She took a sharp breath and she could swear she could hear the front entranceway door of Shoichi’s place slam shut. She cringed. She just knew that Takeru was on the other side of that slam and she didn’t want him to be.

   “Stop. Let go.” Takeru growled.

   “No!” Kiku shouted, holding him tighter.

   “Don’t you get it?!” Takeru snarled.

   “No!” Kiku yelled. “No, I don’t get it.”

   “Let go of me!” Takeru howled.

   Takeru pulled back his arm. His head reared back, maw snapping, teeth glinting, and he hoped to forcibly rip Kiku off him but as he flailed about, Kiku held on. Her legs lolled about, straightly, as she held on for dear life to his arm. She whimpered, afraid, but trying to be brave. He slammed her into the ground, belly first and the blow winded her. She sputtered in the aftermath and Takeru glared. Fierce and vermillion. 

   Still face planted, Kiku mumbled, “I’m scared…”

   Takeru’s ears pricked up. He had almost missed it but he heard her. Her tiny little voice rife with terror. And despite that terror, Kiku began to get up. Her hands trembled but she still tried to hold onto the monster that was Takeru for anchorage. 

   “R-Right now, even though… even though I hear your voice, it doesn’t sound like you.” Kiku murmured. She shook as she got to her knees, still too weak to properly face Takeru. “Y-You’re in a form I’ve never seen before a-and it scares me.”

  Takeru stared. His lips were pulled back in an uncertain and feral way, and Kiku embraced him through it. Gladdened that he had stilled.

   “But I want to… I want to understand you now.” Kiku said. “Just like you listen to me when I’m discouraged,” she thought of how they had studied together after that big test had wiped them both out and how their marks improved together afterwards, she thought of how Takeru, and Ryoken, had gone to collect her from her grandfather’s house after the renovations and how it felt so wrong until she had seen him again, and finally she thought of New Years, sitting on the rooftop with him, making wishes on the stars and the skylines, “I want you to tell me when you are scared or hurting, or when you’re feeling weak, and let me worry about you! B-Because I want to keep living together with you.”

   Takeru examined Kiku through the lens of his slit eye. She trembled, soaked with water and mud, and she looked pathetic. But she was being honest. His heart fluttered somewhere within the arcane structure of this body’s form.

   “I want to eat with you, study with you, and worry about you… All those things, I want to continue to live with you.” Kiku sobbed as she embraced Takeru’s malformed arm. Her tears dripped down her face, mingled with the raindrops.

   Kiku trembled as she held onto him, a bawl in the back of her throat. Her words, though quiet, managed to silence the world. The clouds above were grey and Takeru stilled with shock as he listened to her impassioned pleading. And there was a change, almost imperceptible but Kiku felt it. She looked up.

   Takeru, naked as the day he was born, stood on his own two legs and he spoke not facing her, “It would have been fine if she didn’t love me at all…”

   Kiku was slow as she clutched onto Takeru’s lithe arm, he was wet with the slick of the rain. Kiku felt a little bit confused but elated too, with relief, as she looked at him, unacknowledged. Tears pooled in her eyes but she wasn’t crying, even if the muscles of her throat felt soggy and thick.

   “Or if she was scared of me…” Takeru continued, almost aimlessly but there was a shine to his voice, as though he were having a divine revelation about his relationships with others. “Being scared would have meant that she was seeing the ugly part of me. But Mom used to love to avoid looking at me. She avoided thinking about it - and I think she avoided thinking about the ugly parts of Dad, too, or maybe I was just the straw that broke her back…” Takeru began to sink, he sat down and Kiku joined him on her knees, still clutching onto him because she wanted him to feel some comfort in her fingertips. “But I wanted her to think it through with me, to worry with me. I wanted to tell her all the painful things but I never could.” His eyes began to water, his lilac-grey irises were glassy. “I wanted to live in the present with her.”

   Kiku reached out and cupped Takeru’s face. He was finally able to look at her. Her hair had become untied and was in waves and clumps of cobalt black. Her golden eyes were huge with concern and worry, edged with lingering tears. 

   Takeru swallowed a lump in his throat. He had always thought… He had always thought nobody would want to say those things to him, with him. See him as a monster and see him as a cat and seeing him as him as well. Takeru’s heart trembled and his head throbbed. He began to slump forward, into Kiku’s arms. 

   For a second, Kiku thought she was going to be kissed but then Takeru hugged her. One arm cupping her back and the other taking her hand as his body, weak and wracked with exhaustion, all but crashed into her. He nuzzled his face against Kiku’s, he heard a tiny gasp and then a little, thank goodness, under her breath. And in that goodness, Takeru felt a sublime peace that he had never truly known until this moment right here in the mud and mire. 

   “Kiku…” he whispered to her, grateful. He felt her flowing tears on his bare skin.

   The sky began to lighten. Clouds began to part for a feeble but kind sunshine that illuminated the drear of it all and Kiku held Takeru in her arms. He slept, a calico cat, white and ginger, in her arms and he dreamed softly, of dark nightmares melting back to sweet dreams as he was taken home by Kiku.

[anistarrose]

Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually (TAZ Balance AU)

AO3

Summary: In the aftermath of the catastrophe at the Miller Lab, Kravitz strikes a deal with his bounties. Their crimes against death will be forgiven if they can bring in two specific liches for arrest…

But unfortunately, those liches are named Lup and Barry J. Bluejeans.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, misc. BoB cameos

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz

I posted the second of three scenes in this chapter on Tumblr in January, not really expecting to continue it at the time, but it was well-received there, and I realized that I actually have a lot more ideas for this AU than I expected! This fic has been in the works for months, and I’m simultaneously so excited, nervous, and relieved to get it out of my mind and into the world.

That said, there is one other person who’s read this fic before, and that’s @fexiled! They’ve been an awesome (and patient) beta reader, and I’m incredibly grateful to them for all their advice, typo-catching, and encouragement!

***

Kravitz couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of sinister agenda would possibly bring a lich to a train station, but he’d intercepted Barry J. Bluejeans in stranger places than Rockport. If he was after any other bounty, he’d be worried about the nearby masses of civilians on holiday getting caught in the crossfire, or worse, being used as hostages — but with Barry, he never knew what to worry about.

Barry, for his part, didn’t seem fazed by the prospect of facing down the Grim Reaper in a transportation hub staffed entirely by identical clones of Tom Bodett, and he addressed Kravitz calmly and amiably:

“Ah, there you are. Hope you didn’t have a ticket for the Rockport Limited, ‘cause it left a couple minutes ago.”

“I have a magical sapphire scythe that lets me teleport anywhere on the Material or Astral Planes,” Kravitz replied. “Why would I need train tickets?”

Barry chuckled — nervously? Awkwardly? Without a visible face beneath his hood, he was difficult to read. “I dunno, leisure? In case I got on a train and you wanted to follow me, but legally?”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. Barry was normally talkative for a lich, but today, he seemed especially affable… not to mention unsurprised by Kravitz’s appearance. “Were you expecting me to follow you here?”

“You’ve followed me stranger places,” Barry reminded him. “Graveyards for dragons, necromancy conventions, the actual moon that isn’t just a secret society’s headquarters… point is, I kinda figured the ticket counter at a train station wouldn’t stop you.”

Kravitz adjusted his grip on his scythe, channelling a spark of the Raven Queen’s power to scan the area for magical traps. There were none.

“I don’t have any tricks this time,” Barry promised him, his hooded void of a face still frustratingly impossible to read. “No sabotage, no moon ogres. I just want to talk.”

A pigeon landed on the ground between them, pecking at a dropped sandwich without any acknowledgement of the two undead entities that could each obliterate it in a second.

“Let’s say I humor you, in the interest of not catching an innocent bird in the crossfire,” Kravitz replied. “What would you want to talk about?”

“I’m realizing this isn’t gonna sound that sincere, but… an apology. And a warning.”

“What world do you come from, where it’s appropriate to follow an apology with a threat? Are you going to, I don’t know, imprison my soul if I don’t forgive you?”

“The world I come from has nothing to do with it.” The lights beneath Barry’s hood flickered erratically, but he kept his composure. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time. You could be out there stopping evil necromancers, but I’ve been leading you on a wild goose chase for a decade, and I’m genuinely sorry about that. I’m sorry that I can’t do the things I need to do or save the things I need to save without being undead, and making what I can only assume is a gigantic bureaucratic mess for the Astral Plane.”

Kravitz sighed. “Are you hinting that I should just give up forever on chasing you, because you’re not evil? Do you really expect me to believe that, coming from a lich?”

“Well, I wasn’t counting on it, but that would be nice,” Barry admitted. “The thing is, whether you believe me isn’t going to matter a whole lot in… let’s see, at the rate we’re going, I doubt it’ll take much more than a year. You’re gonna have a bigger problem on your hands — and if you want even a slim chance of surviving it, you and your goddess and every plane in this system will need to be prepared.”

Kravitz eyed a clock on the station wall. “Keep making threats like that, and you’ll have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I end this conversation.”

Barry held up his hands. “Wait, wait, let me clarify — that wasn’t me threatening you! That’s me knowing what’s coming, and not wanting to see it obliterate this entire universe! I — I see, now, how that could get misinterpreted — but I promise, I’m not making this up just to mess with you! You have the ability to warn the Astral Plane, to warn the Raven Queen and by extension all the gods in the Celestial Plane, so that they can prepare for this and stand a fighting chance —”

“Excuse me, gentlemen? Is there anything I can help you with?”

A Tom Bodett approached them, completely unfazed by the lich and the reaper staring each other down of the Rockport Limited boarding platform, and Kravitz couldn’t help but wonder how frequently the humble employees of the train station had to deal with the undead making a scene.

“Stay back, mortal!” he shouted, twirling his scythe and jumping between the Barry and the poor, almost certainly underpaid Tom. “This is an arrest of one of the most dangerous death criminals in Faerun —”

But Barry had already vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the faintest wisp of red smoke, and Kravitz held back a curse.

This always happened one way or another, every damn time Kravitz had encountered Barry in the past decade. Barry had been right about one thing — he’d wasted an astronomical amount of Kravitz’s time over the years.

“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Tom declared brightly, as if he caused distractions that allowed ultrapowerful death criminals to escape justice every day. “He was making quite a scene — any idea what his deal was?”

Kravitz shook his head. “Just a lich playing mind games. As liches are wont to do, you know.”

At least, I hope that’s all Barry is, he thought with a shiver. But if he wants to give me a reason to believe him, then… well, he can do it from a cell in the Eternal Stockade.

***

“Hey, Reaper Man! I’ve got an idea for you!” Taako called out. Something about the gleam in his eye piqued Kravitz’s curiosity, even though hearing out ideas from death criminals was an objectively unwise idea.

“Do tell, then,” Kravitz replied, and the mischievous smile on Taako’s face expanded into a toothy grin.

“You hunt down a lot of different bounties, right? And Lucas and Maureen and Noelle, they can’t possibly be the worst criminals on your naughty list, can they?”

“Naughty list? What is he, Santa?” Magnus snickered. “I guess it is technically still Candlenights…”

“Today has been a Day with a capital D,” Kravitz warned Taako, “and I’m not in the mood to hear an argument about why I should let them go because morality is relative —”

“Cool your collarbones, Skeletor, I may have come here to get the Philosopher’s Stone, but I’m no philosopher. I was just thinking: what if we tracked down one of your bigger bounties for you? You let some harmless death criminals go, we bring you a really evil one in return, you collect a big old bounty and also get to see my charming face again! Doesn’t that deal sound like a winner?”

“In practice, it just sounds like a good way to get double-crossed — but in theory, it would be quite a bargain, I’ll grant you that.” Kravitz mentally ran through his list of bounties, almost immediately focusing on one particular lich that had vexed him for years. “And I have to admit, I’d love nothing more than seeing you three take a crack at bringing in Barry J. Bluejeans —”

The second Barry’s name was uttered, Taako let out a wheezy laugh like a congested elephant, and Magnus and Merle weren’t far behind, guffawing so heartily that they fogged up the insides of their null suit helmets.

“I laughed at that name once just like you, but when you’ve been hunting him for years to no avail, it won’t seem so funny anymore!” Kravitz warned them. “He’s easily in the top five most dangerous liches in Faerun, not to mention the number one most elusive!”

“Barry’s a LICH?!” Magnus chortled, as Merle doubled over clutching his stomach and Taako rolled around on the floor in hysterics.

“All that time in Phandalin, we were at the mercy of an evil undead overlord and we didn’t even know it!” Taako cackled, evidently not too troubled by the revelation. “Fuck, we’re lucky to even be alive!”

That caught Kravitz off guard. “Wait, you’ve met Barry Bluejeans?”

“And lived to tell the tale!” Merle boasted. “We could totally do it again, by the way!”

“Hang on, Merle,” Noelle interrupted. “Was this what you meant earlier? When you said you were friends with a couple of liches?”

Merle blinked. “When did I say that?”

“Never mind.” Noelle sighed, then turned to Kravitz. “There’s gotta be some mistake. Some kinda identity confusion. The Bluejeans I met in Phandalin, he — he was a good man. He tried to keep us hidden while he fought off that awful dwarf, that dwarf that was setting everything on fire as far as the eye could see. Mister Bluejeans was so reassuring, and so brave — if anything, I’d call him a hero, not some horrible undead monster.”

“That doesn’t really sound like our Barry,” Merle said. “He was kind of an ass. Told me to stab myself with a rusty fork.”

As his bounties squabbled among themselves over the true nature of Barry Bluejeans, Kravitz took the opportunity to pray to the Raven Queen.

Your Majesty, if these criminals think they can really track down such a dangerous lich… would taking their offer be the right choice? Or am I about to be scammed?

The reply was immediate, as if the Raven Queen had already been observing the Miller Lab intently and contemplating the situation for herself. I cannot make this decision for you, Kravitz. But I trust your judgement.

Thank you, milady. Kravitz collected himself, and announced his terms.

“I’ll tell you what. One lich isn’t quite enough to sell me on this deal… but two liches would be, especially if the latter of the two hasn’t been detected in over a decade. If you bring me the both of them in the next two months, everyone involved in this whole Miller debacle goes free — but if you fail, I come to collect all your souls. You still up for this deal?”

Magnus looked like he wants to ask for clarification, but before he could get a word out, Taako casually declared:

“Sure, dude, we’re up for it. Who’s the second lich, other than Barry?”

“Her name is Lup, and she was last sensed in the general vicinity of Wave Echo Cave ten years ago,” Kravitz replied with a smile. “That’s all I know about her, so that’s all the information you get, too. Good luck!”

***

“You’ve got two months to capture a couple of liches? And if you don’t, the Grim Reaper will take your souls?!”

“Shh, not so loud!” Magnus hissed, pressing a finger to Angus’s mouth. “Do you want everyone on the moon to hear?”

Angus glanced around the cafeteria. Exempting him and the three Reclaimers, it was completely empty aside from a few discarded, tattered Candlenights decorations. “Have you at least told the Director about this?”

Magnus smiled sheepishly. “Uh, it never seemed like the right time to bring it up.”

“Carey knew because she was there, but she didn’t seem too keen on being the one to break the news,” Taako elaborated. “Can’t say I blame her.”

Angus sighed. “And your new robot friend, Noelle. Is her soul a part of this bargain, too?”

Magnus nodded. “Yeah. We promised her we’d take care of it, so she’s hanging with the Regulators now —”

“And I bet Lucas Miller isn’t even dead after all, is he?”

“Perceptive as ever, Agnes,” Taako confirmed. “Maureen really did die, though. She went back to the Astral Plane.”

Angus took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, a gesture that made him look far older than ten. “No offense, sirs, but why didn’t just gamble with the Grim Reaper for your souls like normal people? You might’ve actually had a chance at succeeding, that way!”

“Huh,” muttered Magnus. “Good question…”

“Yeah, Taako, why didn’t we just gamble for our souls like normal people?” Merle echoed.

Taako shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I just thought that Kravitz guy sounded pretty okay, like he’d give us a reasonable bargain…”

“Reasonable? He made Magnus chop my damn arm off!”

“Arguing isn't going to get us anywhere, sirs,” Angus spoke up. He hoped he was putting on a calm facade, even though his feet were trembling in his shoes. “Did Kravitz tell you anything about these liches? Names? Locations of recent sightings?”

“Already jotted down all the details for you, my little man,” Taako answered, handing Angus a single sheet of paper. “Didn’t want to forget anything that would help you work your boy detective magic.”

“As if you could ever forget Barry Bluejeans!” Magnus scoffed.

“A lich named Barry Bluejeans? That can’t be right…” Angus took a look at the sheet, titled “Case File” in loopy cursive letters and broken up into two subsections:

Lich #1

Name: Barry Bluejeans

Last seen: The circular glass mistake formerly known as Phandalin, a couple months ago

Weaknesses: Gerblins (unless that was a cunning play so we’d let our guard down), pants that aren’t made of denim, the temptation to party and drink while other people do his job for him

Other information: Used to be Gundren’s bodyguard, and didn’t do a very good job — but who could blame him? That dwarf was an even bigger asshole than he was.

Lich #2

Name: Lup

Last seen: Wave Echo Cave, 10 years ago

Weaknesses: I don’t know, probably holy water or something

Other information: Zilch

Each section was accompanied by an illustration. Barry’s was a cartoonish drawing of a skeleton with jeans, glasses, and a mullet, while Lup’s was simply a series of question marks. At the bottom of the page, Taako had written: Now have at it, Caleb Cleveland Junior!

“…You really have a lot of faith in me, don’t you, sirs?” Angus asked quietly.

Taako shrugged awkwardly, as Magnus replied:

“Well, we know you’re way better at this than us. And you know that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, but you’re obviously our best shot.”

Angus took a deep breath. “Do you remember the reaper’s exact terms? Were there any loopholes we could exploit?”

“Were there?” Magnus mused, tugging at one of his sideburns. “Does anyone remember what he said?”

“Why are you looking at me?” Merle asked, prompting a laugh from Taako.

“Well, in that case…” Angus took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll interview Carey and Noelle to make sure we’re not missing anything, but we shouldn’t count on being able to cheat the deal. Do you think we could book a transport sphere down to Wave Echo Cave tomorrow morning, to go search for leads?”

“Should be no problem,” Taako told him. “Back to our old stomping grounds! I can hardly wait!”

“Reliving our old mistakes! Hooray!” Merle cheered sarcastically, and with that, the Reclaimers all sauntered back to their dorms with easygoing attitudes that Angus could hardly believe.

How are you all so cavalier about dying? he thought. How can you bear to joke about this situation?

And what will I do, if I can’t help you find these liches?

***

Notes:

I really appreciate people commenting on/reblogging this fic, especially for this first chapter! There's absolutely no obligation to do so, of course, but it would mean a lot <3

For what might be the first time in my life, I already have a surplus of chapters written, so the update schedule should remain consistent for at least a month or two (fingers crossed). Since this chapter was on the shorter side and included a scene I posted months ago, I think I’ll post Chapter 2 in a week, then switch to updating every other week from Chapter 3 onwards. (Probably still on Tuesday evenings, plus or minus 24 hours.)

Also, I’d just like to give a shoutout to Angus McDonald for always, always ending up with a bigger role in my fics than I expect when I start writing! But I’m glad he managed to sneak his way into this one, because there’s a bunch more Angus scenes coming up that I can’t imagine this fic without!

[despairforme]

anemone :   how does your muse view the world ;   as a cruel   &   unforgiving place ,   a land full of wonders ,   or something in - between ?  where does that world view come from   (   what experiences ,   life lessons ,   etc .   ) ?  

begonia :   how cautious is your muse ?   are they prone to noticing red flags ,   or paranoid to the point of untrusting most everyone ?   why or why not ?  

zinnia :   how has the loss of fallen comrades and/or loved ones affected your muse ?   has it taught them anything or given them any new perspectives ?

   ASK MEME ; 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒 . ( accepting! )

     It probably didn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Nnoitra had a negative view of the world. He hardly thought he looked like one of those happy-go-lucky type of people who only saw SUNSHINE. It actually took a special sort of mood to make Nnoitra see possibilities and be optimistic, instead of only seeing problems. He had been like this for as long as he could remember, even when he was a child. There was a darkness about him, as lame as that sounded. A heaviness hanging over him. A cloud. 

     His life had been turbulent. He had had extreme lows as well as highs. All things considered ( and especially since he deserved to have a miserable life ), he SHOULD consider himself lucky. He was allowed to live, if not in peace then at least WITH the love of his life. To be loved by the man he loved ( when he sure as shit didn’t deserve to ) made him a very LUCKY person. There weren’t many people in the world who got to have that sort of life. It somehow still didn’t keep Nnoitra from feeling helpless and depressed. Yet another thing he had always struggled with. Feeling down when he had no right to. 

     Overall Nnoitra thought the would was rather cruel, and that people more often than not had bad intentions. With regards to himself, he didn’t feel too often like he was receiving an unfair treatment from the world. Whenever something bad happened to him, he only remembered that he deserved for bad tings to happen. 

     ❝ ‘Da world ‘s a shitty place, ain’t it? But it ain’t like there are any other places ‘ta be. ❞ That’s right. There was only this life, and then there was NOTHING.

     What a fucking depressing subject. The next one wasn’t much better. Nnoitra had to snort out loud. ❝ I’m pretty paranoid, gotta admit that. I guess ‘daz what happens when ya got stabbed ‘n then shot. ❞ It was a logical explanation for his paranoia. Nnoitra ALWAYS thought that people were out to hurt him. After he got shot, he couldn’t even walk around in crowded placed without thinking that someone was going to pull a knife on him and jam it into his stomach. He wasn’t sure if he was good at noticing red flags - whatever the fuck THAT meant. He just usually assumed the worst. Would he call himself cautious? Yeah, he supposed so. Like for example how he insisted on keeping his relationship with Grimmjow a secret, because he thought that if anyone found out, Grimmjow would get attacked. It wasn’t really any WONDER that he was so goddamn paranoid about shit, considering all the things that had happened to him throughout his life. NOBODY’S nerves were made for this much shit. 

     Then the last question - if the loss of fallen comrades or loved ones had affected him. The answer was yes. Nnoitra had lived for seven years, thinking he had KILLED his best friend. It was not exactly a ‘ loss ‘ when HE had been the one to commit the murder, so he didn’t know if it counted. In any case, Grimmjow hadn’t died. That didn’t change the fact that Nnoitra had thought he was a killer all those years. Something like that... YEAH, it changed a person. He had already been filled with self-hatred before, but afterwards he truly began to feel like he deserved to suffer. He had come to terms with being a fucking horrible person. Even to this day, he still thought of himself as such, and he still thought he deserved to suffer. Nnoitra scratched his knuckles, not wanting to answer this question. It was very personal and he had only ever told one person about it ( and that hadn’t gone down well ). ❝ Mah - ❞ He decided to lie, making it sound as truthfully as possible by adding a roll of his shoulders. As if to brush the whole matter off. ❝ My mom died, ‘n I got this tattoo ‘ta remember her. ❞ He pointed to the tattoo on his chest, where the inky letters spelling out ‘ Santa Teresa ‘ were hidden behind the fabric of his t-shirt. ❝ ‘Daz ‘bout it. ❞ No, it absolutely was not ‘ about it ‘. It was just that he... COULDN’T share this story with anyone.