#because apparently i’m not seven years old anymore

[timblrdrake]

my family is splitting between going to our new year’s party and other things tonight, and i know as rep for WE i need to go but damn i would literally rather fight killer croc

[seventh-district]

.

[marauder-misprint]

Tea

Sirius Black x gn!reader

Microfic - 642 words

cw: fluff

The flat that you share with Remus is empty when you get home from work. There’s a note on the kitchen counter that says he’s over at James and Sirius’. You smile to yourself because even after living together for seven years, they were still always with each other. But that was a large part of why you rented flats in the same building. Those boys were bonded for life and you were brought along for the ride. 

You head to your room to shower. You take your time undressing and waiting for the water to warm up. Anything less than scalding was too cold. About halfway through your routine, just over the sound of water, you hear the front door open and close. Remus must be back. You finish your shower, put on your robe and head into the kitchen to make your usual post-work tea, but you stop dead in your tracks  at the end of the hallway.

“Sirius?” you gasp, wrapping your robe tighter around your body. For once, you wished you had gotten dressed before going to start your tea. 

Instead of seeing Remus slightly slouched on the couch with his legs extended under the coffee table as you had expected, you see Sirius laying across the cushions with a pillow under his arm as he watches TV with the volume low. 

He looks up at you briefly, giving a wide smile before turning back to the TV. You stare at him momentarily in surprise, unsure why he is in your flat, especially when Remus is supposedly at his. It wasn’t like Sirius never came over to your flat. It was just unusual for him to do so when Remus wasn’t there. As you stare at him, a curl falls into his face and he leaves it there, semi-blocking his vision. If you had been closer, you would’ve tucked it behind his ear. Your face burns red at the thought. Tea. I’m making myself tea. You regain the ability to move and go to put the kettle on in the kitchen as you originally intended to. While the water heats, you retreat to your room to change into your pajamas which consist of shorts and an old t-shirt that you think once belonged to Sirius, maybe James. You ended up with a lot of the boys’ old clothes from spontaneous sleepovers at their homes during the summer. 

Once decent, you return to prepare your tea. You grab two mugs and bags of earl grey tea. Of course, you had added extra water to the kettle so you could make Sirius a cup too. He always wanted tea if someone else was having a cup too. With both mugs, you go to join Sirius on the couch. You hold out a mug for him, which he takes as he moves to sit up, making room for you. 

As you sit, you say, “I think Remus is at yours.”

“I know. He is,” Sirius replies and takes a sip of the tea. “He’s discussing Lily’s surprise party with James and apparently I was being too loud.”

You smile and drape a blanket over your legs. “So you decided to be quiet over here? I didn’t know you were here until I saw you.”

He shrugged. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“You literally saw me yesterday.”

“Yeah, but did we talk? No. I feel like I never get to spend time with you anymore since you got that job.” He paused. “How did you know I wanted tea?”

“Because if there’s anything certain in this life, it’s that Sirius Black will always drink a mug of earl grey if it’s handed to him. And if I didn’t have said job, I wouldn’t be able to live in this building. Not all of us have trust funds to fall back on.”

[crappymixtape]

come a little closer

REQUEST → dear nonny, SUMMER BLURB PARTY ❝ 💬 prompt 58, “do i make you nervous?” where steve and reader are more acquaintances and have mutual friends? – tina invites you to a party while her parents are out of town, but aren’t you too old for this shit? and then you run into steve and, god you wished you’d said no • +18 ( a little king!steve, a little spice, a little frenemies and a little fluff • steve harrington x reader )

C O M E A L I T T L E C L O S E R 🎶 waiting for a girl like you, foreigner

This was easily the stupidest decision you’d ever made, telling Tina you’d come to her party and then actually showing up. Because you were too old for this shit. Because you’d been out of high school for a few years now and who partied like this anymore?

You shot Eddie and Robin a glare as they stood next to you snickering under their breaths. They’d dragged you along with everyone else to crowd down in the basement and wait outside a closet door to see if Tommy and Carol would ever come out.

Seven minutes in Heaven. The most asinine game of all time, but everyone was eating it up. It’d been well over seven minutes and you were tired of hanging out with a bunch of old high school acquaintances.

“I’m leaving,” you hissed at Eddie and he grabbed at your hand with ringed fingers.

“No, not yet,” came out in a whine, looking down at you with big, brown, puppy dog eyes.

“There is no way in hell I’m going in that closet.”

Eddie grinned, smile lines creasing his cheeks. “C’mon, it’s not that bad.”

“Eds, you need glasses. Look at this,” you waved an arm around at the potential candidates you’d have the ‘pleasure’ of sharing a small, dark, linen closet with.

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “The worst is already in there,” he teased, “’sides, Harrington’s here.”

Harrington.

“Don’t even think about it,” you muttered and he grinned even wider.

“What? He’s nice now. Saved my ass more than a few times,” Eddie protested and you rolled your eyes.

“Absolutely not.”

Steve Harrington and his stupid member’s only jacket and perfectly coiffed hair and million dollar smile, the one that could – apparently – bag any girl he wanted. It had boggled your mind when Robin told you she’d made a new friend, Steve Harrington, can you believe it?? No, you couldn’t. Since when did King Steve buddy up with band geeks? A few shifts at Scoops Ahoy and you were already playing second fiddle to some asshole jock.

Well, not today. You didn’t need this.

Shooting back the last of the whiskey sour in your cup you gave the handle of the door one last glance and shook your head – stupid – but when you moved to leave the crowd gave a whoop.

“Shit, Tommy!” “Carol, oh my god, how was it??” “Did you find heaven?” “Gross!”

Tommy emerged from the closet triumphant, pumping a fist in the air with Carol under his arm, cheeks flushed and a big grin on her face. Everyone was eating it up and the thought of having to go in there with someone, anyone, made your stomach flip over.

“Eds, I’m going–”

“No–Sweetheart, stay!” he begged, nudging Robin with his elbow, “Right, Robs?”

“Are you kidding? No, you can’t leave. This is just getting good! What, are you nervous or something? Oh my god, you are! What’re you nervous about? Is it cos Peter Townsend is here? He’s so not your type–”

“Robin,” you hissed, cheeks flushed as every pair of eyes in the room settled on you.

“Wha–oh,” Robin chuckled and pasted on a piss poor excuse for a smile.

“You can’t go now,” Carol purred from under Tommy’s arm, “You’re up next, hon.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This wasn’t happening.

“Sorry, I have to be up early tomorrow for work and–”

“It’s only seven minutes,” Tommy sneered, the grin on his mouth pulling up at the edges – a shark with blood in the water.

You couldn’t breathe, air sucked out of your lungs as your grasped at straws, trying to muster up another excuse. You desperately looked to Robin and Eddie for help, but they were too busy whispering and giggling at your expense and your cheeks burned.

“Fine,” you pushed, trying your best to sound unbothered, chin tipped up in defiance.

“That’s more like it,” Tommy said with a whoop, rubbing his hands together, “And while you were too busy arguing with tweedle dee and dum over there we all decided you’re in with Harrington.”

Your stomach lurched dangerously, queasy and full of dread.

“But, I thought you were supposed to spin–”

“Nah, we put it to a vote,” Carol cut you off picking at her nails, “Better not keep him waiting.”

Keep him waiting? Your eyes frantically searched the sea of faces staring at you, but Steve wasn’t among them. When your gaze finally settled on the closet you saw it was just barely cracked, a shadowy figure shifting in the inky black just beyond.

You thought you were going to be sick, but you weren’t about to be made into a wuss. Turning to Eddie you grabbed his beer and chugged it in one go, then finished off whatever was in Robin’s cup too, shit, easy sweetheart.

“You’re on the clock,” Tommy goaded as Carol took hold of your hand and tugged you toward the closet.

“Have fun,” she teased, voice sing-songy, shoving you through the door and shutting it behind you, plunging you into darkness.

❝ MAYBE I’M WRONG, WON’T YOU TELL ME IF I’M COMING ON TOO STRONG?

Your eyes strained against the black of the small room, your body all too aware of there being someone else in there with you. It made the air thick, too warm and too close and the booze swimming through your veins had you feeling on edge.

“Thought you were gonna stand me up.”

Steve’s voice broke the tension and you jumped at the sudden noise, pulse fluttering against your neck.

“You’re lucky I didn’t,” you cut back, trying to stick to your guns, but then he shifted a little closer, his breath warming over you cheek, and it melted whatever resolve you had left.

“Ouch,” he half-laughed, arm brushing yours as he rocked on his feet.

It was slow, but your eyes were adjusting, dense black shadows blurring into soft indigos and violets and Steve’s face swam into focus. Thick, dark lashes framing warm, hazel eyes, the strong slope of his jaw, moles chasing across his neck and cheeks and that dumb grin. The one he was giving you now.

"This is stupid,” you muttered and Steve laughed, tutting at you.

“You didn't have to come, you know,” he teased and you gifted him with a particularly bratty eye roll.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” you snarked and it pulled the corners of his mouth up into a tiny grin.

“At the time, huh? Not anymore?”

You scoffed, shook your head and folded your arms over your chest, but the words wouldn't come. Stuck in your throat at the way you could feel the warmth of Steve's chest lingering just a few inches away, the scent of his cologne making you dizzy, hazy at the edges and all of a sudden unsure.

Shifting on his feet, Steve's toes bumped into yours as he put a hand on the wall next to your ear and leaned a little closer.

“Do I make you nervous?” he asked, his voice notched a little lower, closer, closer, closer, and it made something in your belly twist.

“Nervous?” you huffed a weak laugh, “Keep your pants on, Harrington. I don’t even know you.”

“D'you want to?” Your breath caught in your throat as he crowded over you and lifted a hand to tuck your flyaways behind your ear. “You can obviously do whatever you want, but–” his tongue flicked out to chase along his lower lip and heat pooled in your belly at the thought of what he might taste like, “–aren’t you a little curious?”

“Curious?” you breathed, voice barely above a whisper and he nodded softly.

“Yeah, what it would be like.”

You’d been in classes him with since grade school, watched as he won everyone over for popularity in middle school and shot to the top of the social pyramid in high school all while you lingered down at the bottom with Eddie and Robin and Jonathan, but you couldn’t deny it. Of course you’d looked at him just a little too long, eyes stuck on the way his Levi’s hugged in all the right places, heart racing when he smiled at you from down the hall.

“To kiss you?” you asked and he hummed, a low rumble in his chest.

“Only if you want to,” came out strained, a strangled sound as he pushed the words from his lips and you found yourself arching into him.

“I–” you started, lashes fluttering atop your cheeks, “–I want to.”

And Steve wanted it too, hadn’t realized just how down bad he was for you. You in those jeans. You and the way you seemed immune to his charms. You and your confidence and fire and disregard for everything ‘cool’ or ‘trendy.’

“You sure?” he asked again, body tensing as your hips bumped into his, jaw ticking as he bit down on the heat swelling his chest.

“Kiss me,” you whispered and he felt himself unravel at the way your voice edged on needy, a little desperate, a little bossy and God – you were hot.

His free hand moved to rest on your waist, fingers pressing into the plush of your hip, breaths falling heavy between you as he leaned down, down, down to capture your bottom lip between his and it was like a rubber band snapping.

Years worth of tension pulling and stretching and straining as you both played it all off like nothing. Like you didn’t care. The thought of you being with each other like this a joke, but the only people you were fooling was yourselves.

Steve tugged at your bottom lip and it pulled a sound from your throat that put him in the palm of your hand — soft, pliable, yours. He dropped his hand from the wall to grab at your other hip and you teetered a little off balance, grabbing at his shoulders to steady yourself.

Your arms looped around his neck too easy then, like they’d been doing it for years, like they’d mapped the curve of his neck and muscles pulled taut across his back a thousand times. Pressing your tongue to the seam of his lips he opened to you and you licked into him, tasted spearmint, cheap beer, Steve, and you wanted more.

He slotted a knee between your thighs and you gasped, a lovely pretty sound he wished he could keep forever, keening for him as he pressed your back into the wall. Parted your lips with a pop and dragged messy, open-mouthed kissed down your neck, your collarbone, your shoulder–

“Harrington, is your watch broken? Jesus it’s been like ten min–”

“Shit,” Steve stumbled away from you into the shelves full of towels as Tommy yarded the closet door open, the sight of you two dropping his mouth into a little ‘o’. Hair messed, foreheads dewy with sweat, lips kiss-bitten and a hicky sucked to your neck.

“My bad, did you need another seven?” Tommy grinned.

Head leaned back against the shelves, Steve squeezed his eyes shut, chin tipped up as he pushed a heavy sigh from his lungs and all too aware of the way the crotch of his jeans was way too tight.

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve hissed, hands tangled in his hair and it made you laugh. A soft, little thing without any heat behind it, cheeks flushed and pink.

“It’s all good, Hagan,” came out easy, confidence swelling where Steve’s had deflated, “We can finish it in the car.”

And God, Steve would’ve made a mess of his pants right then and there if you hadn’t pulled him from the closet and up the stairs out to your bronco with a bench seat more than wide enough to fit two people on top of it, more than confident you wouldn’t need another seven minutes.

crappymixtape™ • steve harrington masterlist // stranger things masterlist ♥️ reblogs and comments keep me going, friends! ily! ♥️

[lemonlover1110]

Baby Steps

Satoru Gojo

[Chapter 29] Growing Family

← Previous Chapter - Story Masterlist

Pairing: Satoru Gojo x f!Reader

Discord +18 - Twitter - Ko-Fi

*this is really the last chapter, thanks for sticking with me in this cute adventure🥹

Seven years after Seiji is born, you constantly find yourself thinking about destiny and your first discussion with Satoru about it. Neither of you are sure, but you’re happy that this is how your life turned out. You love waking up next to him as his wife and proceeding to start off your day with him and your kids. With your seven-year-old Seiji and your five-year-old Saori. 

You both have teaching jobs– Of course, they’re very different. Satoru teaches three teenagers, one of them being Megumi, while you teach a classroom full of at least twenty second graders. Satoru always tells you that you’re one of the reasons he decided he wanted to become a teacher, apart from the part that he’s the strongest (you still have no idea what he means) and that’s his duty. You have a much bigger home than before; yet neither Megumi nor Tsumiki live with you anymore so many rooms are empty, however, considering the fact that you have two young children, the house is still very lively.

Satoru still had a great idea to fill up the empty rooms, and that’s how you find yourself expecting your third child with him. You swear to Satoru this is the last baby you’ll have, but that’s what you said when you gave birth to Saori. It’s easy to forget how bad pregnancy and childbirth are when you watch Satoru being the best possible father to your kids.

“Daddy, can you help with my homework?” Seiji asks, even though you’re the one that teaches his grade level and knows what his teacher is teaching. Apparently you’re great at explaining things but daddy just does it better, and you feel your eyes roll to the back of your head as you watch Seiji approach his father with the notebook. 

“Sure thing, buddy. Wait till Saori finishes with my nails.” Satoru answers, watching as his daughter paints his pinky nail a blue color. She was going for pink since it’s her favorite color but then she decided that blue would match his eyes (in reality she couldn’t find the pink nail polish and didn’t want to admit that she lost it). It’s fine though, her father will just buy her another one. “Wow, look at you. You’re doing such a great job.”

“I know.” Saori answers, so focused on not making a mess and painting her father’s whole finger. Satoru manipulates his infinity every time that she’s clearly about to paint his whole finger. 

“Saori, will you hurry up?” Seiji asks, clearly annoyed. He wants to get finished with his homework so he can watch TV, since you told him he could watch his show after he was finished with homework. You offered to help, but he turned you down.

“Don’t rush your sister, Seiji.” Satoru says, and he watches how Saori sticks her tongue out at her brother, causing Satoru to sigh. “Don’t stick your tongue out at your brother, Saori.”

“I can help you, Seiji.” You pop into the living room, where your husband and kids are. You find yourself bored for once in your life because Satoru took care of everything.

“It’s okay.” Seiji responds, making you pout. He does usually accept your help, but during your third pregnancy you’ve been a victim of pregnancy brain. You don’t think you’ve ever felt dumber, so stupid that even your seven-year-old notices.

“Saori, honey, will you paint my nails next.” You say and she perks up. For the first time Satoru fails, not turning his infinity on and getting nail polish all over his finger. She smiles brightly and nods her head.

“I’m done with you, daddy.” Saori tells her father, and he laughs as he looks at the unfinished hand. He stands up and walks over to Seiji to help him with his homework. You take Satoru’s seat and extend your hand to your daughter. “Do you want blue as well, mommy?”

“What other colors do you have?” You ask.

“I used to have pink.” She replies, which makes you laugh. She doesn’t have it anymore so you don’t see the point in bringing it up. She begins to paint your nails, and she’s awfully concentrated until she finally speaks up, “When’s my baby brother or sister getting here?”

“Around two more months.” You answer. You’re due in December, a little while after Satoru’s birthday. A month after her birthday. “Are you excited to be a big sister, honey?”

“Yeah.” She answers. She’s focused, therefore, she can’t talk. You stare at her, watch how concentrated she is. She has to push her white hair out of her face since it covers her vision. The more you stare at her, the more you realize how neither of your kids look like you and you hope that the third time around you give birth to your twin. “When’s my birthday?”

“In a month.” You respond since you won’t count down the weeks until her sixth birthday. You can’t believe just how fast she’s growing up, it feels just like yesterday when you found out that you were pregnant with your baby girl. You smile, watching as she paints your whole finger. Satoru has shown you his infinity, yet you still find yourself surprised how she never messes up Satoru’s nails. “Woah, you completely missed the nail there.”

“Sorry.” She apologizes yet she continues to make the same mistake. You aren’t paying too much attention to it, you just listen to Satoru explain to your son how to do his homework. You’re sure that you could explain it better, but you still smile. You never really thought you’d be here seven years later, but here you are.

You wouldn’t have it any other way.

-

Satoru isn’t the type of man that goes to bed early– Well, he wasn’t. Up until he had two babies under two and ever since he had to handle a very energetic Seiji and a crybaby Saori, he’s been going to bed since eight at night. When you put both of your kids to bed, you both go to bed as well. His head barely touches the pillow and he’s passed out.

This specific night though, when his head touches the pillow, a scream comes from his daughter’s room and he sprints out of bed and to her room. He literally just put her to bed, there’s no way that she already had a nightmare. Seiji isn’t much of a prankster either so he’s ready to kill just about anyone.

Satoru finds his little girl with her knees to her chest. She buries her head in her knees, and she covers her ears. Satoru looks around, turning on the light. He’s about to ask what’s wrong since his eyes don’t see anything, but he feels the energy. His eyes land on the half open closet and he begins to walk towards it.

“Is everything okay, Saori–” Seiji comes running into the room after hearing his sister scream. He’s much slower than his father, but regardless he’s here.

“Go to your room, Seiji. Take your sister.” Satoru orders and Seiji does as instructed, even though it takes some effort to get Saori out of the room but he succeeds. Satoru fully opens the closet and a sigh leaves his body seeing the small curse. Nothing scary to him, but surely scary for his baby girl. 

He exorcizes the curse with no issue before walking out of the room and going to Seiji’s room. Seiji comforts his little sister, who’s trying to hide under the blue blanket that Seiji let her borrow. There’s a frown on Satoru’s face as he walks over to his babies and sits on the edge of the twin bed. He engulfs his kids in a hug.

“I’m sorry you saw that, Saori.” Satoru mutters. He feels guilty that the curse that he holds is passed down to his children. He’s known they can see them, but he tries to protect them as much as he can. Sometimes he can’t though. Satoru’s parents want him to start training his son as well, after all, Seiji is a descendent of the Gojo clan but Satoru doesn’t want to do that. He wants his kids to be free of this all. 

That’s not his decision to make though.

“Everything’s gonna be okay while daddy is here.” Satoru reassures them. He kisses the top of their heads, and just holds them while he can.

“What happened?” You show up a little too late. Getting up from your bed is the hardest exercise that you face lately. Satoru chuckles, it’s not like you’re really going to understand anyway. He doesn’t want you to.

“The kids are sleeping with us tonight, honey.” Satoru says, picking both Seiji and Saori from the bed and carrying them to your bedroom. You slowly follow behind, already out of breath by simply getting up from bed and going to Seiji’s bedroom.

When you stand in the doorway, you watch how Satoru tucks them in the middle of the bed, filling their faces up with kisses. Maybe it wasn’t exactly planned, but you’re glad you’re with him and the fact that he’s the father of your kids. Now, as his wife, you can’t imagine spending the rest of your days with someone else and you can’t imagine a father more perfect than him– Of course he has his flaws but they hardly poke through.

He often asks if you think he’s doing well as a parent, worried that he’s messing everything up. You can’t even begin to say how proud you are of him, and how you think he’s a far better parent than you are. He loves to remind them that their father is always there to help them, protect them, and love them. Maybe that’s why you agreed to have a third child with him, plus the process is always fun.

“I love you two so much.” Satoru says, and while he should lay down with them, he’s no longer tired, and when he looks back at you it seems like you aren’t tired anymore either. “We’ll be right back, do you want to watch some TV for a bit?”

They nod their heads and Satoru turns the television on. They’re too agitated to go to sleep as well. Letting them stay up for half an hour isn’t the end of the world. He then walks over to you, and throws his arm over your shoulder. You walk out of the room and go downstairs to the living to sit down for a moment and talk. It’s rare that you find yourself alone to just talk.

When you take a seat, a moan leaves your lips, and he furrows his brow. You grab his hand and put it over your belly, and your baby doesn’t waste time kicking. No matter how many times he’s felt it, it always amazes him. He always looks so in awe, and he doesn’t remove his hand until his baby kicks a couple more times. He then pecks your lips, muttering, “Thank you so much for this.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts because this is the last time we’ll have a kid.” You tell him, and he sweetly smiles at you, pecking your lips again. You rest your head on his shoulder for a minute, and he enjoys the moment. You appreciate the unusual silence. You’ve gotten used to so much noise, and you’ll grow to miss it if you sit in silence for too long. You still appreciate it.

“How’s Kaya?” He asks, interrupting the silence.

“She’s planning the baby shower. She’s going crazy.” You respond, and you hear him chuckle.

“Isn’t she due soon? She shouldn’t be stressing over a baby shower.” He says and you hum in response. You wouldn’t know either way, you opted out for a baby shower the second time around since you were already stressed enough planning a wedding and handling Seiji. Every time you’re reminded, you laugh due to the fact that your father was right about the fact that Satoru would knock you up months after Seiji’s birth.

“She’s due around Halloween– Maybe two weeks before Saori’s birthday.” You answer. That’s so soon, Satoru only prays that her water doesn’t break during the baby shower and that he has to handle all the chaos. Satoru knows Daisuke is absolutely freaking out about it all; Satoru knows that feeling all too well, he’s still freaking out even though this is his third baby.

“Our baby will finally have a little cousin this time around.” Satoru comments and you chuckle. Seiji didn’t need a cousin, he had his younger sister. This new baby doesn’t though, and you’re adamant on not having more kids which he understands since he’s not the one that carries them for nine months.

“What ended up happening in the kid’s room?” You ask, and Satoru takes a long minute to answer. There’s no point in lying. He lied so much to you when you first met, he can’t do that anymore while you’re his wife. You swore you’d leave him if you ever caught him in a lie again, and now he tells you the truth even when you can’t see it. He doesn’t see the point in telling you a problem that you can’t solve.

“Well… Uhm… A curse.” He answers, and you remove your head from his shoulder. You slowly nod your head in response, and you aren’t really sure how to answer that other than,

“Oh yeah…” There’s some things that you’ll never understand about them nor about your husband. You don’t like to think about the fact that there are some issues that you’ll never be able to help them out with, only Satoru can help them.

You sit in absolute silence for a minute as you get lost in your thoughts. Satoru watches you, wondering what goes on in your mind.

“Are you okay?” He asks, and you sigh. You can’t try to play it off as if you’re okay because you expect him to remain honest with you, it’s hypocritical to lie to him.

“Yeah, it’s just… What if you aren’t around and a similar issue comes up. How would I handle that?” You ask, and he wraps his arm around you, bringing you in for a hug. He kisses the top of your head, his hand going down to rest on your belly. “I just feel useless for some stuff, Satoru.”

“You aren’t useless, baby.” He responds. He doesn’t want for you to think about this– He doesn’t want to think that you’re useless in any way. It makes him recall an incident from five years ago, and he hid the truth to not worry you. “Can I confess a lie I told you?”

“Better be from before we got married.” There’s a frown on your face, and Satoru chuckles.

“You remember when Seiji was three and Saori two, how they went running to you crying about a bug that you could not find?” Satoru asks, and you remember the incident clear as day. You were scared shitless but you still went after the bug to kill it; when you couldn’t find it and they kept crying about it, you just comforted them while Satoru dealt with the problem. “There wasn’t a bug, it was a curse. But you still managed to deal with the problem, even when you didn’t know what it was.”

“That does make me feel better.” You smile at him before kissing his lips. “I love you. You always know the right thing to say.”

“I love you too, baby.”

-

“Seiji, stop!” Saori yells at her brother who keeps messing around with her tiara. You’ve already struggled getting into a kangaroo onesie to go out with them, you’re already far too tired to stop their bickering. You have no idea why you agreed to go trick-or-treating with them, you doubt you can walk too much. In your defense, you promised you’d do it two months ago, and your circumstances now are much different than before. You should’ve known that by Halloween you’d be in a much different mood. You only glance at Satoru, who lays down on the bed and stares at the phone, and he stands up to deal with it. “Seiji!”

“Seiji, what are you doing?” Satoru yells, walking out of the bedroom to go to where his kids are at. Satoru crosses his arm as he looks down at the seven-year-old who wears a superhero costume, ready to go trick-or-treating. Seiji tries to play it off as if he’s doing nothing, but he’s holding his sister’s tiara in his hands. Satoru sternly says, “Give it back and apologize.”

Seiji drags his feet, walking over to his sister to give her back her tiara. When Saori gets her tiara back, she runs to her father’s side and hugs him. He picks his little princess up from the floor and kisses her forehead. She sticks her tongue out at Seiji, making Satoru sigh and say, “Don’t do that.”

“Mommy! Saori is being mean to me!” He yells, hoping to have a parent by his side. You’re forced to leave your room to deal with it, even after your efforts of not dealing with it.

“What’s happening?” You ask. You look at Satoru and Saori before looking down at Seiji. Before Seiji responds, Satoru says,

“I got it handled, honey.” He puts Saori down on the floor again, “Apologize to your brother, Saori.”

“What for?” She responds, giving her father doe-eyes, which always work. He looks away, at his son.

“Apologize to Seiji for sticking your tongue out at him.” Saori crosses her arms before dramatically turning to her brother. She mutters an apology which is good enough for the minor offense. When you’re no longer needed, you begin to walk away, but you don’t get too far before your name is called again.

“Is Megumi still going with us?” Seiji asks, and you nod your head in response. You then look at your husband.

“Change. We have to get going soon so we get home early.” You order, and Satoru has no option but to do as you say. That’s what he signed up for when he chose to marry you. 

When you’re back in your room, you lay down on your bed, grabbing a picture frame that’s beside your bed and looking over it because every time Megumi is brought up you’re reminded of the little family you had six years ago. It’s an old photo of baby Seiji, Megumi, and Tsumiki. Looking at Tsumiki’s precious smile almost always makes you cry, and when the tears well up, they spill as you laugh at Megumi’s awful smile.

Maybe you should’ve appreciated those times more, but you had a lot on your plate. It’s not like you can stop time or stop awful things from happening. You’re still happy with your life right now.

The picture frame is snatched from your hands, and you glare at your husband. He looks at the picture before he puts it down on the nightstand. He leans down, and kisses you, “Don’t start getting sentimental now, it’ll ruin your night.”

“I’ll try not to.” You respond. He takes a seat on your side of the bed, his hands resting on your belly.

“I got a call.” He announces, and it makes your brows raise. He clears his throat, “We’ll have to go trick or treating without me. It’s an emergency.”

“Oh?” You reply. You want to be upset about it, but you know he doesn’t do it on purpose. Satoru is the first one to be bummed out about missing time with his kids. “I can take the kids out.”

“No! I want you to stay here till I get home.” He sounds defensive, and you know better. It’s rare when Satoru says no, so you’ll listen. He pecks your lips, telling you, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” His head goes down and he presses a couple of kisses on your belly before he promises,

“I promise, I’ll be back as soon as possible. We gotta take these kids trick-or-treating together.”

[tojiscumdumpster]

CHAPTER SEVEN - TOJI

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀✧ summary page

Within the next few minutes, I’ll be dead. I knew this the moment I saw that blue-eyed freak reappear after when I thought I killed him. Fucking sorcerers and their cursed technique bullshit. Maybe I was too confident thinking I would win the second time. I doubted myself at first, but then I calmed down… No. 

 I was just too confident.

 A world like this wasn’t meant for a monkey like me. I was born into a fucked up family that treated me like shit because I didn’t have any cursed technique. The scar on my lip reminds me of it every day. I got over it, though. I accepted this was my faith. I served my purpose, and it was time for me to go.

 Still, I can’t help but wish I made it out alive. That I had a little bit more time. 

 “Nah,” I replied, vaguely. 

 How am I supposed to answer some cliché question like that? 

 Any last words?

 Why would I tell him that? 

 Tell him about the thoughts and images that’s in my head.

 Tell him that I had a wife who I actually saw some good in me. Good enough to get pregnant and raise a kid together. Tch, me? Toji Fushiguro? A husband and father? I never thought I would live to see the day. And of course, it didn’t last long. 

 My wife died because of an incurable sickness. I never felt pain before. Not when I’m standing here with half my body blown off. Not when my family tortured me. But the day she died, I felt pain. I didn’t cry. I just felt empty. Felt like I had no reason to be decent anymore. How was I supposed to raise a kid by myself? 

 She told me I was going to be okay. 

 I wasn’t okay. 

 I’m a fucked a person.

 A fucked up father.

 . . . I was never made to be a fucking dad. Me selling my son to my family is better than what I could’ve done for him. It wouldn’t make any difference if I was or was not in his life because I would never be good enough to be a father. . . A person. . . But I met. . . Her.

 In my final moments, I think of my late wife, my son, and—

“Dad!” Megumi’s deafening voice wakes me up. “It’s almost five. We have to go to the store.”

  What the…

 What the fuck was that? 

 Lately my mind has been clogged with thoughts and what feels like memories I used to have. Could never decipher them, but that dream was probably the clearest I had. 

 Me being on the verge of death (wouldn’t be the first time), apparently being killed by some blue-eyed fuck. Giving Megumi away to the Zen’in Family? Like fucking hell. I would endure the shit they put me through every day for the rest of my life knowing it would keep my kid safe. I just don’t understand these dreams I’ve been having.

 Are they signs? Is my judgment day coming where I would have to atone to my sins? Some bad shit about to happen to me? Megumi? I don’t fucking know. 

 I don’t care for karma. I don’t care for faith, destiny, or any of that manifestation bullshit. But I do believe in purpose, and sometimes I feel like I don’t have any. That there isn’t any.

 I’m a dad. For what? To fail my son. I was a husband, had my flaws but shit, I tried. And for what? To lose her only after being parents together for eight years? It was unexpected. Nature calling, and at the moment, I never hated whatever fucking god above so much because they took her away from me. 

 From me and Megumi.

 Please take care of Megumi.

 It’s like I can hear her lecturing me about all the times I had our kid eating take out or having him walk home alone from school. 

 Take care of Megumi. . . Yeah, I’m trying.

 I have to do better.

 I need to.

 The little purpose I have is left for him.

 “If you can’t go anymore, can you at least give me the money so I can go by my-”

 “No,” I interrupted, clearing my throat. “No, let’s go. Sorry, kid. Your old man was dozing off.”

 Here’s another thing about being a parent. Being around other parents who force small talk while their kids go off and buy shit. Because we’re parents, that means we have to share funny stories and randomly show baby photos to people you don’t even fucking know. Why? I don’t know, but I bet the mom next to me that has been talking my ears out for the past fifteen minutes could tell you.

 Having Megumi as my kid means he’s going to have most, if not some, of my traits. One of them being how much of a loner I am that appreciates his space. After my failed attempt to walk around with the kid to maybe have some father-son bonding, I figured I just stand at a comfortable distance and let him do his own thing. 

 No pressure. I’m on his time. Not the other way around.

 Still, me standing alone was not a fucking invitation to talk to me.

 I respect women. I do, but I’m two seconds away from telling her to fuck off in the nicest way possible. 

 Though, I have a reason why she approached me to begin with. 

 How she’s invading my space, trying her hardest for me to look at her tits. The extra pout she gives her lips while talking to me. How she’s still asking me one off questions, despite my vague one word answers.

 She’s looking to get fucked, but she’s just too shy to say it. 

 Attractive for most part. Probably five-foot-ten, maybe in her late thirties. Strong perfume. Hair drops right below her jaw. 

 Hm, not my type. 

 “So, here’s another photo-”

 “Sorry, why are you showing me these again?” I abruptly asked. 

 “I—” she stumbles over her words, pushing her hair back while giving me a timid smile.

 “Seems like you had other reasons.”

 “Like?”

 I shrug. “To get fucked.” I can tell that my brute honesty throws her off a bit, but she gathers herself. 

 “Are you offering?”

 “No.”

 She’s probably taken back by my response. I wouldn’t know because I casually walked away to the next aisle. 

 Back in Tokyo, I gained attention, but in America? The women here look at me like I’m a fucking piece of meat. Not that I don’t mind, but shit. 

 What would help if they didn’t waste both our time with trivial chit chat and just cut straight to the chase. 

 Anyways. 

 Told the kid I’ll be walking around the store if he needs me, and of course he replies with whatever . Like I should be surprised. 

 He’s my son, after all. 

 Pretty packed for a Tuesday night at the store. Guess all the parents are out buying their kids shit, too. While Megumi is getting his supplies together, figured I could go to the meat section to make dinner tonight. Probably hot pot for the kid and offal for me. 

  Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing this parenting shit right. You know, letting Megumi be by himself to buy things while I roam around. Probably not because I see families throughout the store and they look happy, for the most part. 

 The look on their faces, the light conversations they’re having about who knows what. . . I can tell this is going to be one of those fucking nights for me. 

 Remember there was a point in my life where I was content with the small family I created. My wife. Megumi. Living in the shittiest apartment building back in Tokyo and barely making ends meet. 

 I came from a wealthy family. One of the wealthiest in Japan. I was supposed to be a silver spooned brat that was grateful to be born into money, only later to be beaten and emotionally abused, which eventually left me in the streets. 

 And you know after all the shit those Zen’in fucks put me through regardless of the amount of money I had access to, I’d always choose what I had with my wife and my strained relationship with Megumi. 

 But of course, any good that happens to me is only temporary. Can only imagine how long I have left with Megumi until he turns eighteen and moves far away from me if he decides to go to college. 

 Is it wrong for me to wish my kid would cut me some slack? Probably, but that’s not something I would ever ask him. Though, I can fucking admit that it stings how he addresses me has changed over time. 

 Daddy to Papa, now to Dad. Soon he’ll start being formal and shit by calling me father or even my first name. I guess I should be grateful he’s calling me anything at all. 

 Damn, if I liked alcohol, I would’ve said I need a drink right now. Maybe a few. Being in family settings makes me feel the emotion I hate feeling the most. Vulnerability . 

 It makes me feel weak, like I’m pitying myself. I don’t care for pity. I don't care to say I didn’t deserve to experience trauma. It happened. There’s shit I can do about it. No point for me to keep thinking about it. 

 It’s just hard when your son doesn’t even want to be seen with you in public to go school supply shopping. 

 I need to clear my head. 

 Already worked out twice today, and clearly that’s not working. Maybe some pussy. It’s been a while since I last had sex. Maybe I need…

 Y/N .

 Here I am again thinking about her at the most random fucking times. I said I need her. Would I ever tell her that?  Most likely not. 

 How can I tell a woman that I don’t know that I need her? To be around her and have her bubbly personality overshadow my grumpiness. To stare at her in dead silence and think how fucking pretty she is. How good she smells. How can I tell Y/N that? 

 She’s good company. 

 That’s all she is…

 Soon she’ll see I’m no good. 

  “Miss L /N told me you’ve been doing good in class, kid.”

 Been home with Megumi for about two hours now. School shopping is not fucking cheap, to say the least. My job pays well, but the cost of shit in America is still something I’m trying to adjust to, especially in comparison to Japan. 

 Megumi is the only reason why I haven’t gotten broke yet. 

 “Yeah,” he responds flatly.

 I stuff my mouth with a piece of meat. “Want to talk about it?”

 “Not really.”

 “Alright.”

 There goes that loud silence. 

 I continue, trying to keep conversation. “Food's good?” He nods. “Think you got everything you needed for school?”

 “Yes, Dad.” Annoyance fills his voice, making it very clear that I’m bothering him. 

 “Everything’s okay?” I asked. 

 “Can’t we just eat in silence? Why are you forcing conversation?”

 Oh.

 “Sorry, kid. Just trying-”

 Megumi pushes back his chair, standing up with his plate in his hand. “I’m going to my room. Thanks for dinner.”

 What the fuck am I doing wrong?

 I talk, he’s annoyed with me. I don’t talk, I feel like he’s being neglected again. Not sure if I’m giving Megumi too much space or just enough space, but it’s kind of fucking hard when I don’t how he feels. 

 When you come from an abusive family that doesn't know how to give or receive love, it passes onto you and potentially it’ll pass onto your child. 

 That’s what I’m trying to prevent. 

 I was scared as shit when my wife first told me she was pregnant. I mean, how the fuck was I supposed to be a dad? I don't know what it feels like to have one. But I knew I was going to be okay if I had her by my side.

  I’m a fucked up person. . . A fucked up father. 

 “Fuck, I need to take a walk,” I say to myself. 

 I get up to put the leftovers in the oven so I can finish later. Before I walk out the door, I tell Megumi I’m stepping out for a while and guess what he says? 

 Whatever. 

  Patience, Fushiguro. Patience.

  Be kind to yourself, Toji . That’s what Y/N told me the other day. I have messaged or contacted her at all since I got her number yesterday. Maybe I need to talk to her… see her… just for a little bit. 

PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

discussion question #3 — the more we see toji and megumi's relationship, struggles are shown between them. more so, on toji's part. do you think he should continue making small talk or allow megumi to come around whenever he's ready? looks like toji is afraid to let that happen because he doesn't want megumi to feel neglected. thoughts?

[oldfashionedmorphine]

happy sunday! it’s time for another preview of…

on the same frequency!

PS: the reason i’m doing these this way is because i kept making all these chapter moodboards but i didn’t know what to do with them because the fic is being released all at once, BUT since i planned to share some wips of each chapter anyway, i just decided to make them extra fancy! oh and sunday because the fic releases on a sunday… and seven in total because it was a seven (there’s seven chapters lol) 😈

-.-. .... .- .--. - . .-. / ..---

December 23, 1995

“And what’s that?” Holly points to a gray box with numerous dials and switches.

“That’s a transceiver. It’s part of my old ham radio.”

“What’s a ham radio?”

“Well, uh, it’s kinda like any radio—only you connect to specific radio frequencies used for non-commercial broadcasting… like it’s meant for personal communication and you can even communicate with people across the globe, although unlike a walkie-talkie, you need a license in order to transmit anything—I still have my license too—actually renewed it last year even though I haven’t touched a ham radio in years…”

December 23, 1985

Will checks his watch again, it was 10:23 am—What’s taking him so damn long?

Another three and a half minutes go by and then Dustin’s mother’s car comes into view and he watches him exit the vehicle and quickly hurry up the driveway. But before Dustin even has a chance to knock, Will opens the door and huffs, “You’re late.”

“Yeah, sorry. My mom kept arguing with me about not wanting me to go anywhere by myself anymore because of Jennifer Hayes—apparently she’s been missing since Friday—”

“Jennifer’s missing?”

🎶 a song from chapter two 🎶

rating: mature

tags: alternate universe, not canon compliant, major character death, grief/mourning, ptsd, blood and injury, supernatural elements, time shenanigans, butterfly effect, thriller, angst with a happy ending

release date: 11/26/2023

✨ previous chapter preview ✨

ch1

tagging:

@kaiminluu @greenfiend @total-serene560 @across-thestars @boahey @magentamee @daydreams-in-the-moonlight @soyboystan @foodiewithdahoodie @booksandpaperss @likegoldintheair @mandycantdecide @hazmatazz @sparks-olivarpente @1-tehe-1 @lucasvenkman @rebellius @maru-chu @septembr-moon @kamomillatea

(if you’d like to be tagged/untagged for the next preview, please let me know!)

[foap-enjoyer]

AI-Less whumptober, Call of duty Soap edition. Starting off fluffy!

Overworked | Insomnia | Exhaustion

Exhaustion. Soap x either Ghost or Gaz, your choice! Soap is too tired to tell who he's talking to anyway.

~

He was exhausted.

One whole fucking week. Twenty-four fucking seven. That’s how long higher-ups had had him working for. Running surveillance- a solo mission, of course, because why wouldn’t it be?

Soap knew for a fact he wasn’t the best candidate for something as delicate as surveillance, especially something that required him to lay low. Soap Mactavish didn’t do laying low, but apparently, he was the best candidate for this his commanders had on the roster at the time. Which, now that he had time to think about it, was almost insulting. Not to him, of course, but to the whole British military. He himself had been flattered, at the time.

Now, however? 

Now, these ‘commanders’ could shove a few hundred guns up their asses collectively and fire them to the sound of a Queen song. The mission sucked. He’d been shot at, he hadn’t slept, and he never, never wanted to ever see their dumb smiling faces ever again. Stupid old men who should’ve retired years ago instead of sending him on a one-way trip to hell. 

He’s still not even sure how he got out alive. Not that he wanted to think about any of that right now. His time of ‘usefulness’ was over, the mission was done, he was back on base, and most importantly he was fucking tired.

“I’m going to need a debrief, sergeant.” 

Of course. Of course he couldn’t have a moment to breathe come seven days later. None other than Captain John Price meeting him on the tarmac at two in the fucking morning asking for a debrief. If he wasn’t his higher up, Soap might’ve considered throttling him out of pure spite. 

But he didn’t. Instead, he gave a half-assed smile and looked up at the man. Price’s stern eyes instantly softened at the look. “Jesus, Mactavish.”

He was swaying on his feet like a damn flag in the wind. He felt like he could collapse at any given moment, and the tarmac under his feet was the last comfy place he could think of. “Think you’ll find my name is John.” 

Price snorted, waving his arm towards the door, “Fuck off and go sleep, I’ll see you first thing tomorrow-or, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “I’ll see you whenever you wake up next.”

“I don’t plan to wake up.” He mumbled as he moved past his Captain, the man hot on his heels. He could feel a hand ghost over his shoulder, steadying him as he wobbled. “Ever again.”

Somehow, he was able to make it inside. The hand on his shoulder leaves him reluctantly with a squeeze as the heat of the building encases him, steadying him in its own way. 

It’s beautiful. 

It seeps into his cold, frozen skin. Brings life back into him, and at the same time, reminds him just how tired he is. The heat slows him drastically; his muscles are relieved to not be aching as much as before, and it makes the full weight of his exhaustion very well-known to his brain. 

Not that it wasn’t already. But now, he felt more zombie than he did human.

This zombie-body would not make it to his room. This zombie-brain couldn’t even remember if he had his room key to even get into his room. So he aimed closer, nearer.

His squadron’s common room was only down the corridor.

The common room was about as lush as one could imagine a military, government-issued common room could be. A sad little kitchen, a small chipped dining room table, and most importantly, a sofa. 

Sure it was an old, creaky one, but it was a fucking sofa, and Soap honestly couldn’t give a rat’s ass about spring consistency. Not anymore. His back was already aching, and that sofa would definitely not fuck it up further than it was already.

So, gathering what little energy he had left, he shuffled along. His feet were heavy, and his eyes were closed as he slowly manoeuvred himself through the empty corridors. His hand glided across roughened brick as he guided himself forward purely through tired muscle-memory. When he finally arrived at his desired door, he eagerly let himself in.

The common room looked abandoned when he peered inside with half-lidded eyes; the lights of the kitchen were on, bleeding a soft yellow glow out into the rest of the room. But other than that, it looked undisturbed. The chairs were empty, the room untouched. It looked perfect.

He soon comes to realise, after he’s collapsed onto the cushions, that he is in fact, not alone.

“Soap?”

Soap forced his eyes back open from where they had closed once more, groaning. God, how tired was he that he didn’t realise the sofa was in fact not empty and he had just willingly fell into the lap of a poor random soldier head first?

His eyes blurred with exhaustion as he attempted to push himself back up onto his elbows, sleepy, yet frantic to move out of the way. “Sorry,” He murmured tiredly, yawning, “Sorry, sorry-” 

A hand rested hesitantly on his head, pressing his cheek back onto the warm thigh beneath him. “It’s alright.” They assured him, beginning to gently scratch at his scalp. His eyes fluttered closed at the contact, and a noise left his throat that he could only, embarrassingly, describe as a purr. But he was too tired to honestly care.

If the soldier above him heard it, they didn’t comment. Instead, they moved slightly, getting comfy, before their hand disappeared, something soft and fluffy hitting his back a brief moment later. A blanket. Where the fuck had that blanket come from?

The hand returned, running through his matted mohawk. Talented fingers began working at the knots in his hair, and he sighed into it, relaxing further. “You broken?”

He shook his head slightly into the thigh. A no, which was half-true. He had enough bruises and cuts to make an adventurous toddler jealous. Sure, he’d been shot at, but he was a Sergeant for a reason, and a madman on top of that. He’d jumped off of way too many cliffs and rolled down one too many hills in his time spent in the wilderness of Russia.

The voice huffed fondly, fingers continuing to work their magic against his skull. The other hand reached to rub against his blanket-covered shoulder. “Sure you aren’t.”

~

Also can be found here, on AO3:

Ouch. - Chapter 1 - Tsukuyomi_Ravioli - Call of Duty (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

[imaginesmai]

Once upon a fairy tale - Ubbe Ragnarson (7)

Barely alive, it’s been a couple of rought weeks BUT I’M BACK. Other parts: Once Upon A Fairy Tale Masterlist  

Plot: Ubbe and you take important decisions, about your future and the future of your kingdoms, not knowing that something bigger than you is happening outside the castle’s walls.

When Ecbert told Ragnar about your decision to stay, the king didn’t look surprised at all. He humored you with your father, agreeing about the old age and bad knees. They both exaggerated their physical conditions between laughs, and concurred that they needed to take the hunting trip easy.

From behind your father, you watched with a soft smile the interaction.

You hadn’t noticed until that year how close your father and Ragnar were. Back at Wessex, you didn’t have many friends, and not a relationship as close as them. As you stared at their interaction, you felt your heart growing bigger, feeling that you had taken the right decision.

The moment was cut short when Ubbe and Sigurd appeared. Apparently, Aslaug had had a bad night and wouldn’t be gracing you with her presence. And, since Hvitserk hadn’t shown up for breakfast, he had declined going with them.

The hunting raid was complete and ready to go, you guessed. And it was time to share with Ubbe the news.

Both kings looked at you when the brothers arrived. Before you could notice the difference between them, Ubbe talked.

“I’ve been looking for you” he lifted the corner of his mouth, not completing the smile. “Good morning, father. King Ecbert”

“Ubbe” your father nodded in recognition.

“Where is your saddle?”

Indeed, while Sigurd was wearing his riding clothes, Ubbe was still in his usual, prince-ish robes. Not only he was wearing a long, cobalt tunic with silver embroidery, but he didn’t carry the usual smell of staying in the barn for hours.

When his brother rolled his eyes and walked away, Ubbe smiled. He had had enough time to prepare his horse, clean his riding boots and choose his favorite saddle. If he had wanted, he could have gone to the hunting raid, just as it was planned for him to go.

He liked to hunt. Like the adrenaline of chasing a prey and the silence of the forest. When they hunted, his father and him went back to his childhood, where they shared a deep bond. But he had decided against it.

“I won’t be accompanying you today, after all” Ubbe explained. “There are… matters I need to take care of. Maybe I can help princess Y/N packing”

“You won’t have to” Ecbert interrupted him.

“Oh”

Looking at your father, Ubbe lowered his head. His idea had been to stay behind with the excuse of helping you to pack. He didn’t know why, but after you were interrupted in his chambers, he had felt the need to spend one last day with you. Hvitserk had left the castle early in the morning to complete his weekly activities in the cabin, which included two brunets’ servants and the daughter of the baker.

So there was little chance of being interrupted.

He tried not to show his disappointment, because if you didn’t have to pack bags, then he didn’t have a reason to stay.

“We’ll be… staying. For another day” you explained, not meeting his eyes. “Because my father might get tired in the hunting raid, and it’s a long way back to Wessex. If it’s not a problem”

When Ragnar didn’t answer, Ubbe realized you were talking to him.

It took him by surprise that you were staying, but it was even more surprising that it was just for a day. Because he had known, deep down, that his intention today was to convince you to stay. That, during the last seven days, he had tried; first unconsciously, then as a choice. He started the summer mildly convinced that he had to marry you, and now he didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

Just that a day was an awful short amount of time.

“You could always check the old storage room” Ragnar proposed finally, breaking the silence. “It’s full of games and objects you used as children, and I’ve been asking you to take a look for a while. Maybe Y/N can help you”

“She can. She’s really organized” Ecbert contributed. “Besides, it is a bad day to stay outside. Just let these old dogs enjoy the hunting raid and find something to do. We will be back soon. Don’t want to get too tired”

“Indeed. Only God knows how many days in bed will earn us the hunting trip” Ragnar started at you with an amused smile. “Might be weeks”

“Might be, my dear friend. Shall we go?”

Both kings turned around and walked towards the carriage, that would take them to the designated part of the forest. Where the rest of the town would be waiting, with their dogs and bows ready.

While they walked away, you thought about how lucky you were. Your father would willingly stay for the whole summer if that’s what you wanted to, if that made you happy. He would also cancel the hunting raid and ride back to Wessex himself.

You stayed in silence as they got into the carriage and told the driver to move, until they drew up dust from the path and Sigurd kicked his horse to lead the way.

You had never had any problem talking with Ubbe. With remarks or mean words, you always kept the conversation going until you were torn apart by the adults or one of you couldn’t physically talk. But while the first drops of rain hit the ground, you kept quiet, not knowing what to say.

The meaning behind your decision was clear – that you wanted to try again, that you were willing to finally accept his hand. That you had consciously turned away the chance of changing your fate, consciously had chosen to marry him, without a proposal or weeding plans.

Staying meant you had admitted your intention of moving forwards, to whatever future you could hope for, and now it was Ubbe’s turn to answer. The decision of staying instead of going to the hunting raid could be an answer, but he didn’t know your decision yet.

So you waited, as rain started to wet your hair and soak your dress.

You waited in silence, until a cape was wrapped around your shoulders and a pair of hands turned you away from the path your father had just disappeared from.

“We should get inside” Ubbe spoke through the rain, that had gotten heavy a matter of seconds. “Fuck. It’s – fuck!”

“Oh my god” you couldn’t help but laugh when suddenly you were hit with what felt like a gallon of water.

You let yourself be lead away from the main door while Ubbe wrapped an arm around your shoulder. With a natural instinct, you shifted closer to him until you fit under his arm.

It wasn’t funny, but you couldn’t stop laughing, and soon, Ubbe was laughing too. It wasn’t the pearly smile you had seen that day at the courtyard, that flashed in your mind without your permission. It was different, and at the same time, wonderful.

You ran through the rain, not tripping against each other’s feet by luck. Servants that were taking cover in the barns stared when you passed by, and a man with bulky clothes tried to stop Ubbe with a scandalized scream.

Once you finally took cover, you were soaked. The rain had drenched Ubbe’s cape, now heavy on your shoulders, and the bottom of your dress was full of mud. Even your socks, under thick books, were wet. Still smiling, you stared at Ubbe as he moved your hair out of your face, letting you see his full smile. It was beautiful, his chipped front tooth a reminder of you.

Although he was too drenched to the bones, his hands felt warm, or maybe it was your cheeks. Or maybe you were running a fever and you were hallucinating, because suddenly, it was a déjà vu from that morning. He was looking at your lips and you were wondering what it would feel to stay forever, not just for a day.

His finger hovered over your mouth, a ghost touch.

“You look like a wet rat”

“And you smell like a wet horse”

He scoffed and for a second, you thought he was going to actually kiss you. That he was going to move forward and you were going to meet him at the middle. In a perfect fantasy, he would ask you to stay and you would choose to, not using excuses or prologues.

You would never know, because thunder roared in the sky and the moment was broken.

 -

 What Ragnar defined as an old storage room was everything but that. It could have been a room, a long time ago, with high windows and a clear view of the forest. But someone had decided to start accumulating things inside, and now you could barely take two steps straight.

You hadn’t bothered bathing, neither had Ubbe. As if not spending every minute of the day together was an offense, you changed clothes with your backs to each other, not even using the bathroom. You chose a dark green dress that showed your boots, comfortable to move, and Ubbe had put on a different tunic.

He showed you the storage room, moving the curtains. Everything was covered with white, dusty sheets, and you were in for a long morning.

“I threw Hvitserk down the stairs with one of these” Ubbe said from behind you, breaking the comfortable silence in the room. “He broke through a window and didn’t even get a bruise”

You looked away from the pile of children’s clothes that you were trying to organize. He was holding up a large piece of wood attached to one wheel, the other missing. Indeed, you remembered using a similar one in some occasions, although you didn’t have a specific memory with it.

Between mountains of garbage, you had found many children’s toys and clothes. After spending a lifetime of summers together, you had gathered a good amount of entertainment options. In a useless attempt of bringing you closer, your fathers had brought you everything a child would want or need. Not realizing until it was too late that you would hit each other with it before sharing.

“Didn’t you race me with one of those in the gardens?” you tried to remember, getting closer.

“You were winning so I tried to shorten through my mother’s roses” he chuckled. “She got mad, but you were furious”

“You destroyed every last of them!” you laughed too, remembering that summer.

It was one of the first ones you spent in Mercia, and you had never used a toy like that one. Thinking you wouldn’t know how, Ubbe had raced you and you had won, and in the meantime, he had destroyed half of his mother’s garden. You remembered her scolding and feeling furious at him.

So angry, that you used his favorite wooden sword as a throwing dagger during the next day.

You moved closer to him, looking at the piece of wood. Even if you had argued more than talked, it wasn’t always boring. There were games and competitions. When you were all young, Ubbe didn’t discriminate you from being a girl, and included you in the games where he thought he could win. Somewhere in the way that changed and your worlds drifted apart.

“You care too much about flowers” he said, raising from where he was sitting.

“It’s not I have many things to care about in here. I can’t cook, train or ride, and needlework is definitely not one of my passions. No matter how much your mother tries” you explained. There was only a foot between you two. “Flowers are… nice. They are beautiful”

“If you want to, I could assign some more servants to the garden. So they can help you take care of them”

If you want to stay, I could make you happy, just so you know

Ubbe let the hidden meaning clear. Because if you left after your father rested, then the garden was the least of your concerns. He couldn’t care less about the flowers or the garden, and he knew right then, that if it made you stay, he would send his whole army to take care of those flowers.

In that dark room, crowded with objects from your past, he waited for you to answer. It was impossible that you hadn’t understood what he meant, and by the way you stared at him, he knew. In just seven days, he had made a decision that had been asked from him for sixteen years. Sixteen years under the pressure of getting to know you and take you as his wife.

Only when you were no longer under that much pressure, he finally saw it clear.

“It would be nice” you answered, your voice small. “You could help me sometimes. If you want to”

Through the window, another lighting broke the sky. The storm was now loud and wild, thunders and lighting accompanying the rain. Someone appeared through the trees riding a horse at full speed, towards the castle. It would take them a while to reach the gates, and you didn’t notice them.

Not when Ubbe’s blue eyes were staring right into your soul, and when yours couldn’t decide where to look – to them or to his mouth.

“You’re staying” he tried, not a question but a fact. A need.

“If you want me to”

Before you could notice the smoke that was raising from the middle of the forest, he crossed the invisible line he had drawn sixteen years ago and pressed his lips against yours. They were rough and demanding, not like the shy, first kisses you had shared with boys in your kingdom.

You could have fallen if it wasn’t for the table that was behind you, or for his hand that pressed your hips against his. There was no air between you two, no space for second guesses. Only his lips and hands on your body, and yours on his neck.

One of yours caressed the back of his head, your thumb brushing the soft hair where his braid started. Not knowing what to you with the other one, you held yourself together by holding onto the desk. Afraid he would let you go and you would crash into the ground, knees turned into jelly.

But he didn’t let you.

With his free hand holding your head straight, demanding more of you, he broke free for air. His pupils were blown, almost no trace of blue behind them. No one had ever touched you the way he was, and you understood that no one would in the near future, if you had a saying in it.

Ubbe didn’t move his hand from your face. Instead, giving you time to push him away, he lowered it down your neck. Something inside him screamed to let go, to forget about what was expected from him and lower his hand more, until there was no turning back. The way you were looking at him, the way you weren’t moving, made it harder.

But he resisted and let his hand go to his original place, to your cheek.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked after a long minute, his voice rough and deep. “We don’t – you don’t have to. Not even if you stay”

“Shut up”

Once more, you crashed your lips against his and he let you, smiling against them. You could feel every curve and corner of his body that you had guessed that morning under the covers. The room’s temperature grew in seconds, and when the hand on your waist moved lower, you let him.

Sixteen years of frustration, hate and disagreement were forgotten as you felt your skirt move higher, his leg making its way between yours.

One thing was to sleep in the same room, to let people assume you were together, but another one was to actually do it. Before you could regret your decision or let your brain caught up with your heart, someone knocked at the door urgently.

“It’s the king! The king is dead!”

Want to read more? Check out my side blog @imaginesmaimasterlists, where I keep all the masterlists! Feedback is always appreciated

Taglist:

@66vikings

[rockinlibrarian]

Post-Umbrella Academy S4 Reaction Part 6: Miscellaneous Thoughts and Master List (spoilers under cut)

Well, here we are! If you're just joining me, I've been spreading out my Season Four reaction essays over the past week, and now I'm finally done. Let's wrap up what we've already gone over, shall we?

"Part One: Reacting More to the Fandom than the Show," is me expressing discomfort at having enjoyed myself watching, and then coming online and seeing HATE HATE HATE. Oddly enough, as moods mellowed in both directions, it seems that I and the angry people actually have most of the same criticisms, so it's a...glass half full thing or something? Forest for trees? Horror for tenticles?

"Part Two: Still Not a Show Write-up, a Fraction of a Fanfic Instead," is when I got the most BRILLIANT (if possibly something only I would care about) idea for a fix-it, and shared the scene (from the middle) I'd spit out that day. I have gotten lots more ideas since, too! Expect a proper first chapter sometime...in the next month or so! (That's "soon" in Me-language).

"Part 3: Viktory!…ish," is me expounding on the thing I loved most about Season 4 (though also giving some tips on how it could have been improved).

"Part Four: On How to End a Story," is me expounding on the thing I liked LEAST about Season 4 (though also in a constructive way!)

"Part Five: On Love Triangles," is me expounding on probably the most controversial aspect of Season 4 (for which my opinions are mixed! Just to annoy the two extremes! Or just because that's what my opinions are, mixed, sorry)

So finally-- I couldn't stretch this out to an even seven posts, sorry Viktor-- I present to you ALL MY OTHER THOUGHTS THAT AREN'T COMPLEX ENOUGH FOR THEIR OWN POSTS! Under the cut, because I'm still trying to be unspoilery on main.

One Viktor thing I forgot to mention in his essay is that his voice has dropped like an octave (one of the reasons they had to skip a few years between seasons, I wager. The other obvious one being that there's no way Aidan Gallagher passes for Being in the Body of a 13yo anymore), and this still THROWS me. Apparently I keep character voices in my head when I’m writing, listening to their lines in their voices to keep them sounding like them, but I didn’t realize how FIRMLY the old pre-testosterone Viktor voice WAS lodged in my brain until suddenly it SOUNDS DIFFERENT. I have learned something about how my brain works with voices! It’s a bigger deal than I thought! I’m still struggling to replace the voice in my head, but I just keep immediately going to the old voice.

I’m really not sure about the career paths anyone took in the preceding six years. Ben getting mixed up in cryptocurrency, that is pretty funny— intelligent enough for him but also jerky. Allison as a(n actually) working actress, yes. Diego’s delivery driver, oddly yes, but wouldn’t it make more sense for him to have sought out janitorial work first, since he actually has experience? I already mentioned how I’m sad Viktor never got back into music— maybe a different instrument, if the violin is too traumatic. Maybe just teaching in general—he outright says in the available excerpts from Extra Ordinary that teaching was his passion. Whatever inspired him to open a bar? But at least I’m pleased he was so successful at it. Five as a CIA agent, yeahhh, that was one of the secret careers I figured all his theoretical physics students suspected him of having, but it might be a little TOO Commissiony to have sought out if he had a choice in the matter. I do think he enjoys going undercover at Keeper events though because they’re the only people crazy enough to listen to him when he tries to tell his story. But he’d never admit that. Lila is obviously unhappy about full-time momming, but why did she go that route in the first place if her parents live with them? Does Klaus not have a job? Why is it assumed he wouldn’t have a job? He’s sober now. I am still very pleased with myself for making him a VA counselor in “New World Symphony,” and I feel like everyone should embrace this headcanon of mine, because it’s genuinely good. I really don’t get Luther as a stripper —an exotic dancer— at all. I guess he was just THAT PLEASED about getting his human body back, but otherwise, how is that anything like the character we’ve known previously? Unless he’s making a point of trying to be NOTHING like his old self?

The deleted scene of Luther and Diego talking did a lot to show Luther’s mindset, and ties him back to the person he was, and it would have made his character make so much more sense if they’d included it. But it still doesn’t explain the stripper thing.

I recognized Klaus’s subplot from the comics, and was kind of proud of myself for doing so (I don’t think I’d read the comics before S3). I just wish it had anything at all to do with the rest of the story. Klaus’s deleted scene at AA is the biggest example of one of the deleted scenes making a huge difference in how different parts of the story might have landed— it wouldn’t have made his subplot affect the PLOT, but it WOULD have wrapped up his arc on a CHARACTER basis, and he would have seemed to be in a much better place to get annihilated from.

The timeline-hopping subway could have been used SO MUCH MORE, and more integrated into the main plot! I feel like they maybe intended to when they first came up with it but then never got their plot to tie together properly. At least there’s SO much fanfic potential in the concept!

I laughed aloud at the King Reg restaurant. There really should have been more of that— the end of Season 3 promised a lot more Reggie being Capitalist King of the World. Where’s Har-mart? I want my Har-mart in there. (That’s another “New World Symphony” reference).

Speaking of the promises of the end of Season 3, the Ben on the subway was so not an intermediate stage between Ben walking out of the garden and Ben getting out of prison. Who was he really, what was he going to be doing? If that’s the timeline-hopping subway, that opens up so many possibilities that were squandered!

Another Ben missed opportunity: Jennifer was in a squid. Ben has a squid(-like monster) inside him. This feels intentional but they never really followed up on it. This should have connected the two of them, not just that ANY Marigold-baby who touched Jennifer would set off the reaction. It should have been more clearly, specifically BEN. I’ve always loved the theory that “Jennifer” was the Horror’s name, and ended up using it in “A Captain with Seven Children,” so now I’m toying with the idea of what if there’s only one Squid, and Jennifer was inside the squid that was inside Ben, on some weird interdimensional level, and that’s why they feel Insta-Connection, because they’ve unconsciously known each other all along???? Doesn’t anyone else see this?!

Speaking of Jennifer, I remember somebody posting info about Season Four casting calls on Elliott’s House, and someone complaining why’d they have to scrounge up a new Love Interest Character anyway. MY theory was that she was actually a human Delores, and it wasn’t a NEW Love Interest Character at all. Well, I was half-right, it WASN’T a new Love Interest Character, it WAS someone we’d already heard about who was actually intrinsic to the plot, and I like that.

Speaking of Love Interest Characters, Sloane and Ray were done so dirty. There was no in-story reason why Sloane didn’t get remade with the others at the end of Season 3 after all. They just didn’t want her around anymore. Which, okay, you want to focus on your original cast (but then, Lila? You let Lila stick around, so why NOT Sloane?), but you could at least find a way to write her out that has some modicum of logic to it. Like, make her a Food-and-Travel writer and send her to Italy (sorry, yet another "New World Symphony" reference). And, look, I know being married to Allison is probably not a walk in the park, but Ray is not the type of guy to give up on his wife. If she’d been married to someone else, yeah, it makes sense that they’d leave her, but RAY? Totally not in character.

Speaking of previously established but not fully formed before Love Interest Characters, ABIGAIL. I said in the endnotes of the last chapter I posted of “New World Symphony” that because I was writing a straight-up AU, nothing that might happen in S4 would affect that story, but the one thing I WAS afraid of was that I might have gotten the characterization of Abigail (who, spoilers, will be showing up in Chapter Five) completely off. I had made her LESS cruel than Reggie, and she did seem likely to turn out to be a Bad Guy— but good news! Her Bad Guy turn feels not at all contradictory to her less-Bad-Guy presentation in my fic! I actually hit her personality fairly accurately!

I love the Allison and Klaus match-up— I feel like they always were friends, and they should have shown more of it in the past! It’s interesting that they seemed to be the only ones staying (deep) in each other’s lives at the start of the season. But I’m curious how they got back in each other’s lives in the first place. What made Klaus seek her out versus any of the siblings who apparently lived closer by? And what kind of overtures had Allison made to any of the others and them to her in those preceding six years? It seemed like some conversations must have taken place for things to be awkward but not so awkward that she doesn’t get invited to her niece’s birthday party.

I kind of liked Viktor’s calm “we’re not friends and that sucks but,” in order for them to get past their MASSIVE unresolved issues, but it didn’t feel quite past enough by the end. We may never be friends, but we will always be family, and I will stand by you, sort of thing, would have been enough.

I think the writers mixed up October and December. Why is Gracie’s birthday in December, when Lila was already several months pregnant at the beginning of April? October makes more sense. And yet Ben apparently died in October, even though the weather was pretty Decemberish at his funeral. Although, come to think of it, that could also have been a subconscious Viktor effect. Doubt Reggie rushed home to him and went, “Before we tell you what happened to your brother, take an extra dose of your pills! Just to be on the safe side!” Hence, a slightly unseasonal snowfall centered around Hargreeves manor.

Watching the teen Hargreeves interact is always fun. I liked that Viktor and Ben were hanging out— lends credence to the common assumption that they WERE friends (if not as close as V & Five were) as kids, and I appreciate that as someone who submitted a “567 are friends” fic to Masked Author this year. I also liked the alternate timeline Academies Five and Lila ran into.

Speaking of teenagers, or preteens, or however old she is, I never expected Claire to have such a big role, and I love her. She is clearly her mom’s daughter, yet remarkably well-adjusted.

Speaking of offspring, I wanted so much MORE of Diego and Lila’s kids. Gracie is such a brilliant mashup of her parents in what little moments we saw of her. But I couldn’t tell you anything about the twins, and I wish I could. Give me more generation-two cousins!

As you’ve probably gathered by my insistence on bringing up Legion throughout these essays, I always think of TUA as being tangentially connected to what I tend to think of as The Hawleyverse, what with there being SO much overlap in the crew and writers. It’s odd that the only actor overlap we got was Kate Walsh and Nick Offerman, both of whom had small side roles in one season of Fargo each, though. And I'm thinking of Fargo now, because I thought there was something very Fargo-esque about the introduction of Jean and Gene. They’re very Fargo-esque characters in general, really. I didn’t like them that much though. And I hate that Cher song they danced to.

I also hate “Bad Touch.” Really, I expect better from this music team! Oh, I just looked it up, Maggie Phillips only picked songs for the first season, that explains it. 😅 (Even Jeff Russo was phoning it in a bit though, I have to mention because a Legion background music song just came on my computer and it’s SO DANG GOOD and the music in TUA didn’t really give me that feeling this season). That said I DID like all the songs I HADN’T heard before, the subway song especially. Also, I appreciated them using Tommy James’ “Think We’re Alone Now” in the final scene, that seems like something the Proper Timeline got right, erasing that Tiffany version from our memories. Sorry! That album was such a cringey part of my childhood. I don’t like that the “oldies” station is now playing the Tiffany version instead of the Tommy James version.

But to end on a good note: The Deli of Fives. How utterly entertaining is that. Also, if “Max” is the name Grace would have given him if he wanted it, it fits him. King of All the Wild Things. May that brilliant kid now move on into a long and storied career. Or may he focus on college and get a Real Job, whatever works for him I guess.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to converse with me on any of these thoughts! I really like being conversed with! It helps me know I’m not invisible! Viktor-complex, you know.

[avalonia320]

WIP Wednesday - Darkest Before the Dawn

Chapter six of Darkest Before the Dawn is almost done! Writing Lillie's POV for the first time was fun - this chapter will be split between her and Louis. Initially, I wasn't going to have anyone else but Louis and Daniel narrating the story but it didn't seem right to have Lillie's first moments as a fledgling told through someone else's eyes. Have a sneak peek!

***

But now she was awake. 

Her eyes were still closed and she wasn’t ready to open them yet, still assessing, until finally, she pulled herself upright. It was easier than she’d expected; her memories of what had happened were foggy and porous but she knew she’d been broken, felt her body crumbling, felt herself dying. She still remembered the sound her head had made when it had hit the wall and the brutal shock of pain that only lasted for a second before she could feel nothing at all.

But now…she stretched her limbs, assessing. She wasn’t numb anymore. She felt…strong. Energetic. A live wire zigzagging through her veins, energizing her. The only thing that still hurt was her head. Tentatively, she touched the back of it, wincing at the tenderness. It felt soft, too soft, and she had a horrifying feeling that if she pressed too hard her fingers would go right through her skull. 

She pulled back her fingers, looking at the drying blood on her hand and it all came back to her in a rush, no need to reach through the brain fog to put the pieces together because they were replaying in shocking 3D clarity. She’d come with Louis to his old house to try and communicate with Claudia. He’d taught her the Fire Gift. She’d fallen into a trance. Something had taken her over, stripping her of all control even as she huddled in a corner of her own mind, terrified and helpless. Louis had -

“Oh God,” Lillie was on her feet in a second, turning to look at the cracked wall, the blood pooled and drying on the floor. “Am I a vampire? Louis - am I a fucking vampire?!”

Louis was still on the floor, slumped against the wall. He was staring blankly ahead. “Louis!”

Finally, as if it took an incredible effort, he raised his head to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his red rimmed green eyes only meeting hers for a moment before his head dropped and he was staring at the ground once again.

“Oh my God,” she was whispering it over and over, staring in wonder at her hands. Her short, broken fingernails had grown into sharp, opaque talons.

A mirror. She wanted to find a mirror. 

But apparently thought and movement were bonded together in this new body of hers, because even as she thought it, she was across the room, too fast, slamming into the opposite wall. Not nearly as hard as her fatal launch via Louis earlier, but still, the house shook for a moment and a large crack zagged from the floorboards up to the ceiling.

So she was a vampire and she was still clumsy. That wasn’t very Bella Swan of her. 

Well, here was some good news. Her mind was extraordinarily clear - it felt clean, like a new notebook. It refused to be sidetracked as her human mind so easily had been. She’d been looking for a mirror. There was one on the wall to her left. 

Lillie took a deep breath and forced herself to turn slowly instead of launching herself accidentally once again. Walk like a human, she told herself and the giggles burst out of her, strange euphoria taking her over, as she took an exaggeratedly slow step and then another.

Well, she thought they’d been slow but she was now face to face with the mirror. At least she hadn’t crashed into it and brought her and Louis seven years of bad luck they most definitely did not need.

She didn’t look as strange or as different as she feared. Her skin looked smoother, more luminescent - she could blame it on the light but it wasn’t. She could see the sheen, see how tiny imperfections had been smoothed away, like a dream foundation that would never rub off. 

It was her eyes that took her breath away. They were normally hazel, leaning more towards brown than green, but now…she touched her face hesitantly, leaning forward. They were shockingly bright - all green now, just a shade or two darker than Louis’s. Huh. Maybe he’d had hazel eyes like her when he was human.

She turned to ask him and some of her euphoria faded when she saw him still slumped there, staring hopelessly at the ground, eyes fixed on the drying pool of blood.

“Louis, are you ok?”

He didn’t answer. Concern had her propelled back to him before she realized it, though this time she came to a halt just before smacking into the wall she’d already damaged so badly. Hmm. Maybe she’d get the hang of this after all.

[alexanders-pokemon-adventure]

A little rain in every life must fall

Trigger warning themes of depression and themes suicidal

Derek Dagda

In the hospital Alexander was being cared for at Derek sat in a Secluded hallway and thought. Sera tarot reading had no been a clear and undeniable sign that they would succeed he wonted and alexander continuing to worse state was … deeply apparent to derek. Alex is wasting, derek could feel it . Sense a steady waning in for lack of any other Terminologies Alexander’s life force , knew sera and the professor could feel it to in their own strange way as Well. Derek Understood undeniably that the situation was bad but A selfish and unreasonable part of himself felt resentful of Alexander’s family for coming. Their large family have been coming in shifts for the last week. Derek felt it was like they were saying goodbye like they were saying it was already over. it made some Incoherent raging part him want to scream “ ALEX IS NOT DEAD WHY ARE YOU CRYING LIKE ITS OVER , WHY ARE YOU CROUNDING THEM , ALEX DOSENT LIKE BEEING CROWDED”

But…he wouldn’t .Maybe 19 year old Derek Fresh out Of their apprenticeship and angry would have but 28 year old Derek would not. It was the truth that alexander may die soon and their family has the right to be here .

“Needed some space ?” Sera ask as she leaned against next to him

Derek side and nodded”yes , I wanted to think”

“ anything specific” she prodded

“ I don’t know” and A soft sigh was all Derek could muster , there was so much to think about. Their plan to help Alex was still painfully theoretical, Victoria, we’re still out there doing gods know what, alexander’s family had questions that none of them seem to be able to answer satisfactory and then their was Nimbus alexander’s Castform that while they had not been rendered comatose in the greenhouse incident had clearly suffered some kind of damage to their cohesive energy matrix that remained abnormal even weeks after the fact . And then there was. Sara didn’t allow him to finish the thought

“ thinking about the card, Derek ?” Sera asked handing him the The seven of cups

her uncanny ability to hit the nail directly on the head was some thing that used to shock Derek. But after a few years of being friends, with a psychic, the novelty of such things, begins to wear off.

“ it didn’t go unnoticed by me that your face Took the place of the oracle or the lover “ she said “ so i know you two have been a thing for a while bbuuuut I’ve noticed you two have never made it official ?” She said more as a question. Than a statement

“Hmm have you now , didn’t you also say that the images might not be literal , that they may just represent alex imagining the future, not the actual future” derek was deflecting . And he knew it .

“ your going to make me ask, aren’t you” sera said as a statement

“ Someone less nosy wouldn’t ask at all” Derek responded also as a statement

“ Well, Alex and I are best friends and you and I have been friends for the better part of a decade. Also, I’m psychic nosiness comes Prepackaged with all my relationships, unfortunately . So im asking why Aren’t you and alex together ?”sera said

Derek knew the answer “ because alexander doesn’t want to, I’ve asked they said no “ . Sera seam Genuinely shocked by that answer “ they said no ?”

“Not in so many words but it wasn’t yes , Sera “ derek answered “ i dont think alex want that kind of “ he paused Searching for the right words “ i dont think Alexander want a serious romantic relationships anymore ,not after Antonio”

Sera was Silent for a long moment after that and derek wondered if she too remembered the day the Titan slayer killed alexander Five closest friends, and lover , Remember, the weeks that followed when she literally found Alex on the ledge of the starlight tower ready to jump. How when we and their family got them to the Mental health facility ,alex looked so hallow ,so lifeless. Derek knew alexander treatment at that Facility had help them grieve and work through the pain and trauma. help them decide they no longer needed and it was no longer healthy for them to be a Ranger. That it help Bring them to a place where they can feel joy again…but

“ i dont think after Antonio died and Alex stated getting better that they want that kind of relationship again”

“Hmm i had hoped that after four years , that after all this time … that maybe you two would be able to make it work “ sera said

Derek knew because it was sera that her comment was not meant to hurt him or question his Resolve but an actual hope for his and Alex’s happiness. After all, she was one of the few who knew that before there was an Alexander and Antonio, there had almost been a Derek and Alex. But that was along time ago What they had been then in their ranger Apprenticeship days was in the past No matter how much Derek wished it could be his and Alex’s future. Alex would have to want it to and he did not believe Alex Did.

“ you don’t think Alex doesn’t want to because of Antonio do you? . Alex has know that Antonio would’ve wanted them to be happy and to find someone else?” Sera ask

“ I dont know Sera, i think they know logically that Antonio only ever wanted them to be happy . But knowing in your mind and knowing in your heart are not the same thing . Besides alex may just not want or Prioritize that aspect of their life anymore poeple change “ derek said

Sera and Derek stayed silent for long moments in that quit hallway

“Derek i don’t think your face being on the Seven of cups was a coincidence , just like I’m certain our presence on the five of wands wasn’t one . I think your presence in alexander life acts as a nexus of possibilities just like all the other symbols on that card you draw them towards different paths. I think you should tell them when they wake how you feel and what you want and even if alex says no at lest you both will have your Answers and will be able to make choices from there.”

“ but what if they say no?” Derek ask a hint of desperation in his voice

“ then you’ll know alex cant give you what you want and if they cant , you deserve more than an Unfulfilling Situationship with your best friend of over a decade Derek. It’ll suck for a while but it will pass and you both will be better for it.

Derek thought it was terrible to hear unasked for advice that was completely correct , but what did he expect being friends with a Nosy psychic.

[jmagnabo92]

GGSB Fest 2024 - A Gift To Cherish

@goodgodfathersiriusblack

Prompt - Snakes/Parselmouth

When Harry's accused after the snake incident in book 2, Sirius points how dumb everyone is about it.

AO3

***

Sirius knows that the wizarding world at large is rather… dumb.  That was obvious given how easy Voldemort took over the first time and the way Pettigrew could easily frame him.  Although he managed to gain his freedom and take custody of his godson – seven years after when he should have and a long fight with Dumbledore and the Ministry (because again – the world is dumb) – he isn’t surprised to discover just how dumb the world is.  

As in, dumb enough to think Harry, his twelve-year-old godson, is apparently setting a monster on the school – Slytherin’s Monster to be precise.  

All because he speak to snakes.  All because he’s a parselmouth.  

It completely ignores everything they thought about Harry previously, and even worse, there’s no proof other than his ability.  In fact, there’s anti-proof.  

Which is why Sirius is standing with Harry at Hogwarts and laying out exactly the reasons it can’t be him.

“Let’s list the reasons it wasn’t him: 

On Halloween, he was never alone because Ron and Hermione were with him and there were a whole room of ghosts that could attest that Harry was in the room for Nick’s deathday minutes before you all saw him.  

Additionally, let’s remember that everyone has issues with Filch – so whatever happened to the cat… well, everyone has a reason to do something.

Then, he was literally in the hospital wing when the first attack occurred (not to mention, why the blood hell has no one told that kid to blood chill out since Harry was literally a baby – he’s not a bloody hero, he’s just a kid!

Then, he was literally seen by Hagrid and those two Hufflepuffs that seem determined to blame him minutes before Nick and that other Hufflepuff were found. 

Lastly, there’s nothing wrong with being able to speak to snakes, and no one bloody asked him what he even said.  You all just assumed – just like you did last year – and frankly, I’ve had it!

My kid deserves better than this shit.”

He’s faced with the school, most of whom are looking rather sheepish, and the staff that look ashamed of themselves.  

The silence reigns for several minutes before Harry breaks it.  

“Can’t we just go home?” Harry questions.  “I know that it’s better to go to Hogwarts, but honestly, I’m tired of this up and down back and forth nonsense.  I can’t do it anymore.”

Sirius looks down at him, and nods.  “Yeah, kid.  We can do that.”

“Good.”

***

No one dared to stop them, and Harry was able to finish his second year rather peacefully… especially compared to what happened at Hogwarts.  

The attacks didn’t end with Harry’s departure and eventually, Hogwarts had to close.  They never found the person doing it (although everyone concluded that it wasn’t Harry) and the school closed indefinitely.  (No one knew that the Weasleys had discovered the truth, told Dumbledore and he solved the obvious problem, but without someone to imprison or blame it on, the school could not re-open).  

Sirius, meanwhile, started a smaller school with people who wouldn’t judge Harry so quickly, and even let Harry grow with parseltongue in a way that meant others weren’t afraid of it anymore.  He had made it his mission to make it so that no one would be judged for an ability.  

Years later, Harry smiles at Sirius and says, “I’m really glad you never freaked out over my ability.”

Sirius grins.  “Well, I think most people would think it’s rather interesting … it’s just that Voldemort kind of ruined it, you know?  Made it seem like it was something to fear… when it’s not.  It’s a gift.  An ability to be cherished, not feared.”

Harry grins.  “Exactly.  And now, thanks to you… everyone’s a lot more likely to cherish it.”

“Definitely.  That was the mission.”

“Mission accomplished.”

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Outside POV (5) Masterlist

Links last checked: December 11, 2024

part one, part two, part three, part four

all that kindred eyes can see (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Teachers Dan and Phil figure that they could quite easily keep their relationship secret while working at the same school. It's only for half a year after all. But the keen eyes of a trio of friends soon start to pick up on little hints and clues. It's a good thing the students mostly just want to admire their love and figure themselves out along the way.

Always Together, Never Apart (ao3) - cherryblossomphil

Summary: “They were attached at the hip. The centers of each other’s lives. Inseparable.”; Dan and Phil’s relationship, as seen through the eyes of their friends (based on Vidcon 2k15)

House Hunters (ao3) - citizen101erased

Summary: Kath and Nigel go down to London to help Phil and Dan find a house to buy.

Immediate Family (ao3) - philsroots (shanegray)

Summary: “The first few times I didn’t mind all that much, but now it’s all the time and I’m starting to dread starting conversations.” Cornelia says, almost laughing.

Dan peels at the corner of the crisp bag, creating a small tear before slowly pulling it apart.

“It’s really that constant?”

or the one where Dan really wants a metaphorical picket fence and I write a love letter to being the gay cousin in a huge traditional family

Merry and Bright (ao3) - ahappyphil

Summary: Dan and Phil host their first Christmas.

now i smile and face the girl who shares my name (ao3) - plinth_of_life

Summary: kath meets her newborn granddaughter.

Oh Brother (ao3) - ahappyphil

Summary: Phil comes home from the Halloween gathering, and Martyn has questions

shadows / nocturne / parting clouds (ao3) - Tarredion

Summary: Phil wakes up with a migraine, causing him to snap at Dan. Throughout the day, while visiting a city for the ii tour, Cornelia observes the tension, and eventually, the two of them console.

since i looked up to you (ao3) - morelikeexisting

Summary: I've been meaning to tell you something, but never had the courage to — it reads — basically, i am gay.

And Adrian thinks: this is how he is going to come out? Through a fucking e-mail, and then he laughs, happy and proud and overwhelmed, because confrontation has always been Dan's weakness and this ... this e-mail is so, so Dan.

( or the one where dan comes out to his brother )

slipping through my fingers (ao3) - Gal_tic

Summary: Even though he said he’d never grow up, Phil grew up.

Or, Kath reminisces on how time flies

sometime, stranger (ao3) - dieofthatroar

Summary: Karen's thoughts on a little boy she thought she knew

the bear (ao3) - dizzy, waveydnp

Summary: Seven year old Phil has an imaginary friend, and his mother is concerned.

The Fantastic Mr. Whiskers (ao3) - chiridotalaevis

Summary: Mr. Whiskers does not approve of guests. But this human? This human was ok. This human could stay.

The Royal Mr. Whiskers (ao3) - chiridotalaevis

Summary: Mr. Whiskers just could not understand why they had to move to a new apartment. This apartment was perfect! It had the couch Mr. Whiskers liked, the little nook above the fridge from where Mr. Whiskers could keep watch, a nice warm bed for him. All the smells were accounted for, all the walls sufficiently improved by Mr. Whisker’s claws. But no, apparently with Phil moving in, his humans didn’t have enough space anymore.

the conversation (ao3) - calvinahobbes

Summary: "They had a joke in there. About a sex tape with him and Dan." A fic about Phil's parents and That Conversation.

they grew up so nicely, didn't they? (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Cornelia doesn’t just get a boyfriend when she starts dating Martyn, she gets a whole second family too. Kath and Nigel welcome her with open arms and she becomes a pseudo older sister to Phil.

She is there watching from the sidelines as a boy bolts right into Phil’s heart and sets up camp. She gets to watch as Dan and Phil build careers and an internet community and all the trials and tribulations, as well as the pride and happiness, it brings along.

through the years, we all will be together (ao3) - possumdnp

Summary: Martyn comes home for Christmas in 2009 and finally meets Dan, that guy his brother won’t shut up about. Ten years later, and it’s like Dan’s always been a part of the family.

Two of Martyn’s family Christmas celebrations, a decade apart.

to use black ink (ao3) - moonythejedi395

Summary: Laura Anise Jones, at the ripe old age of 12 ½, knew exactly four things in life. The first was that she would never touch illicit drugs. The second was that it was best not to tell anyone anything about herself, as nothing good would ever come of it. The third was that adults will always lie. The fourth is that the only exception to the previous rule is her English teacher, Mr. Lester.

together: a tale in five board games (ao3) - dieofthatroar

Summary: Dan in his BBC LGBT interview: "I had friends who honestly would be like, 'so, are you going to get a girlfriend at some point?' and I was like, 'so you have no idea, even though we've been friends for five years.'"

Dan and Phil have this friend that comes over for monthly board game night.

watching terrariums (ao3) - obsessivelymoody

Summary: They’re silhouetted against the gloomy grey London sky, light only touching the high points of their faces, illuminating their eyes. They look carved from marble, and by someone who is really able to capture love.

Or, Dan and Phil in 2019, told through two perspectives at two different times.

where we can live (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Karen and Kathryn wait for their sons.

"Why did we have to have kids?" (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: Cornelia is recording on her phone, hoping she’ll never forget this sight. It’s so beautiful, more beautiful than she can say. So expansive, so lush— so peaceful… peaceful…

A ficlet about peacefulness and laughter.

[louisupdates]

Louis Tomlinson on his new album, struggling with fame and a One Direction reunion

The boyband star on his love of rock music, finding his own voice outside of One Direction, losing close family and fame's strangest moments

BY NEIL MCCORMICK (9.11.22)

“Do you mind if I smoke?” asks Louis Tomlinson, tapping cigarette ash into an empty Coke bottle. “The modern man smokes a vape, apparently. But I still smoke ciggies. I’m a judgemental f---er, and I hate vapers.”

He's kidding, but the former One Direction boyband star certainly does like a cigarette, getting through half a dozen during an hour-long encounter in a hotel boardroom that reeks of stale tobacco. “Maybe I drink too much for a singer. Maybe I smoke too much for a singer. But it can be quite demanding, this life. So, for me to have those little vices, it’s important.”

Tomlinson is getting ready for the release this week of his second solo album, Faith in The Future. He seems both nervous and excited. “The lows are lower in a solo career, but the highs are higher,” he suggests. “Because you are not one of 4 or 5 anymore, you have to take full responsibility for everything, so it hits you at both ends.”

Scruffily unshaven, in gym wear and trainers, the 30-year-old hops up to open a window, while chatting away in a friendly and engaged manner. “I never really chose this life,” he insists, with a strong Doncaster accent (though he lives in Hertfordshire now). “I auditioned for X Factor and crossed me fingers. And now, here I am.”

In 2010, at the age of 18, Tomlinson and four other young hopefuls (Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik) were assembled into a boyband mentored by entertainment impresario Simon Cowell. Although they didn’t win the talent show, their impish appeal saw them rise to become the most successful manufactured group of the modern era, achieving levels of fan mania comparable to the early days of The Beatles.

Together for five frenzied years, 1D have scored four number one albums, sold more than 200 million records worldwide, notched up over 21 billion streams, won seven BRIT awards and their final tour in 2015 grossed over $200  million (£173 million) in revenue. For a time, Tomlinson’s floppy fringe adorned teenage bedrooms all over the planet. There was considerable hysteria when 1D said they were taking a “hiatus”, citing exhaustion.

Tomlinson was the oldest member (two years Styles’s senior) with the shakiest voice but adored by fans for his genuine smile, wacky fashions and undisguised pleasure at being part of the gang. Styles had a cheeky swagger, Malik was the sensuous R&B singer, Horan the folkie-next-door, whilst Payne was a cocky Jack the Lad (whose solo career has been a bit of a washout). As time went by, Tomlinson shed insecurities to get more involved in songwriting, helping push 1D’s pop rock side.

Faith in the Future (out on Friday) dials up the guitars, building on his chart-topping 2020 solo debut album Walls, inspired by Britpop and indie, the music of his pre-fame youth. “I used to spend all my Friday nights in this place called Priory, it was f---ing unbelievable: £10 all you can drink! That’s been banned now. It was in that bar where I fell in love with guitar music.” 

Although he retains a fondness for a big chorus, it is not a sound you would particularly associate with 1D. “I don’t relate to right-down-the-middle pop,” he admits. “But I wouldn’t say that was dumbed down in One Direction. Maybe I dumbed it down myself. Maybe I assumed I couldn’t be exactly who I was.”

Tomlinson was the last of the five members to release an album, and reveals that he was a reluctant solo artist, upset by the band’s decision to separate at the height of their world-beating success in 2016. 

“It was a bit daunting. I’d just got to a stage where I really started to feel like I found my rhythm, I was enjoying songwriting, I felt like I finally worked out where I am in that band. And then it’s like: ‘Okay, well, now we’re going on a break.’ So there was a bit of petulance from my end, I was frustrated.”

He admits that he has felt competitive with his former bandmates and been jealous of Styles’s enormous solo success. 

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me at first. Only ’cos I didn’t know where to place myself, and really my only point of reference was other members of the band. But it’s not surprising to me that Harry's the most commercially successful because he really fits the mould of a modern star. 

"He’s not just doing music, he’s got film as well, and the (stadium) tour he’s done is unbelievable. It took me a while to work out where I stand. But I look on Harry like a brother, man. I have a lot of pride for what he’s doing.”

He says band members are quietly supportive of each other. “I’m sure the lads will text me when the album comes out, we check in on each other, we’re good like that. I bumped into Niall (Horan) at Glastonbury, and even though we hadn’t spoken all year, it was like absolutely no time had passed. Because we've lived through such experiences together in One Direction, this bond that we have is for life.”

Tomlinson has had other issues to focus on. In 2016, his mother Johannah Deakin, a midwife, died from leukaemia, aged 43. His parents separated when he was a child, and Tomlinson is estranged from his father, a hotel manager. He has seven younger half-siblings, one of whom, Félicité Tomlinson, died of an accidental drug overdose in 2019. 

“I’m coping good, man,” he says. “I’m a glass half-full person because what’s the alternative? I’m not saying that there have not been some dark days, because there have. But I had a really lovely upbringing, and my mum was as good as gold.

“Even though she’s not here anymore, I wouldn’t want her to feel guilty for what happened. She wouldn’t want that to define my life and my happiness.”

He also feels a sense of responsibility to his family. “I’m the oldest of all my siblings, and I knew that I had to put on a brave face.” Nonetheless, Tomlinson, who is also father to a five-year-old son, whom he shares with his ex-girlfriend, confesses wariness when it comes to talking about it. “It carries its own weight emotionally and I’m wanting to escape that because I don’t want people f-----g feeling sorry for me.”

He addressed grief on 2019 single Two of Us, but has consciously sought out more upbeat subject matter for Faith in the Future, on songs including The Greatest, Lucky Again, Out of My System and mercurial indie rocker Silver Tongues. 

“I have become a bit of a soundboard for people’s grief, so I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because if I can help other people just from a little conversation about my own individual experience, that’s great, I really want to be there to help. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a burden.”

Tomlinson has been thoroughly enjoying being back on the road. “Performing live was always my favourite thing. I’ve had to build it back up, because I’ve never toured on my own, I had to relearn my craft and what the show needed. So it’s not as if I went into small theatres and thought, I used to play Wembley stadium, I’ve f---ing failed! I was having too much fun.”

He jokes about not even noticing if there has been any change in the level of luxury as he has shifted from one of the biggest bands in the world to a solo artist determined to prove himself. 

“Hotel rooms can be kind of lonely when you’re moving all the time, so it doesn’t matter how luxurious it is. I sleep on the tourbus, cause that’s where my band are, so its really social. It’s a f---ing lovely tourbus!” Next year he will be back onboard, touring Britain’s arenas. “It’s all going the right way, and I’m thankful to be here, doing what I love. It doesn’t feel as manic as it did in One Direction, but I still get recognised everywhere I go, so not much has changed.”

Like many stars, he’s conflicted about fame. “It’s something I have struggled to deal with over the years. If I go to the pub with me mates and we’re having a drink and being social, it doesn’t matter if just one person stops and is like, ‘Oh it’s Louis, can we have a picture?’ It takes me outside of that normality. Just one photo can kind of bug me for the next half hour. But I’m still ambitious, and if that means raising the temperature (of fame) again, it’s a little bit daunting, but that’s the life.”

There have been some exceedingly odd aspects to being a boyband superstar. A strand of online fan fiction imagined a passionate affair between Tomlinson and Styles, which was subsequently depicted in a graphic, animated sequence on hit HBO series Euphoria. Another piece of 1D fanfiction is being adapted for forthcoming movie The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway as an older woman having an affair with a boyband star. 

“It’s weird, all that s---,” tuts Tomlinson, disapprovingly. “But there’s not much you can do about it. I’d rather they didn’t, like, but it is what it is. I won’t be watching it.”

Tomlinson is excited about his new music, raving “I can imagine some of these songs being on albums by bands I would have listened to as a kid. It took me a second to find my feet after One Direction, and realise I need to be brave enough to embrace what I love.” 

He says he thinks about success differently now. “Its all about musical fulfilment. When you’re one of four or five, it's hard to express yourself as an individual. This music is who I am.”

He still expects One Direction to eventually reunite. “When you look at it on paper, it’s like, ‘How the f---’s it all gonna fit back together?’ We’re all making very different music, doing our own thing, all busy all the time. So I don’t see anything happening for at least another 10 years, but you never know. It looks pretty jumbled. But I think there is a world where it all kind of fits together.”

Full article

[jcniper-backup]

light spider

jcniper

Summary:

“Let me get this straight, you were bit by a radioactive spider and now you're running away from an evil alien parasite that duplicates itself named David?” Joel looked like he was regretting quitting cigarettes.

“Yep. Well the alien infected a guy named David, and I think it's from a different universe.” Ellie started rambling.

“I’m too old for this shit,”

Notes:

Fun fact: Ellie’s powers are inspired by a variety of different jumping spiders that give off the appearance of glowing/bioluminescence.

PROLOGUE

Ellie’s social worker once told her that she had a knack for making things more difficult for herself. It was the only thing the two of them ever agreed on. It didn’t matter how hard Ellie tried not to cause any trouble, she always found her way into it in one way or another. That ‘knack for getting into trouble’ is what she blamed when she got kicked out of her newest place for allegedly stealing her foster brother’s things–she didn’t–and beating him up after he accused her–which she actually did. 

 

She had bounced states three different times, the result of enthusiastic foster parents that had promised here she was going to find a forever home before they realized that her ‘mental health’ and ‘behavioral issues’ were too much for her to handle and sent her back into the system. It happened again. Now she was in New York, and she was pretty sure Marlene had given up on her. 

 

Marlene had stuffed her into a girl’s home and drove away almost immediately. The only thing that was her saving grace was her grades, which shocked even Ellie. Four months into being there, she applied to a boarding school scholarship just to get an excuse to use the computer and ended up getting in. When Marlene came back to the house looking happy and asking for her, Ellie thought it was a joke. 

 

It wasn’t a joke. 

 

She got pancakes and a dorm room at a ‘higher learning’ high school out of it. 

 

“How am I gonna tell them that I actually hate school and didn’t think I was actually gonna get in?” She muttered under her breath. 

 

“You’re not going to do that,” Marlene rolled her eyes. 

 

“But–” 

 

“Do you want a dorm room you share with one other girl, or to go back to the girl’s home where you share it with five?” 

 

“Let’s get going.” 

 

“That’s what I thought.” Ellie didn’t argue anymore. Marlene must’ve grown tired of pretending to celebrate with Ellie and went silent. When Ellie moved in, she didn’t get to see who she would be rooming with because she was apparently allowed to move in a week before move-in week actually was. 

 

A week to herself. 

 

That was something she’d never had before. 

 

She tried not to wonder how it would go wrong. 

*

 

Ellie was really bad at making friends. 

 

It was one of the first facets of her personality she had discovered when she was a kid. A lot of people thought she was weird and too much, and she wished she knew what about her she had to change to make it so people actually cared about her. 

 

Ellie decided that this year she would do emotional damage control and not even try to make friends here. That wasn’t what she needed to do. She needed to make it work so she didn’t go back to a group home with an overbearing guardian breathing down her back twenty-four-seven.

 

She got into the swing of it pretty fast. A lot of her classes were more art and music focused, but she did have some core classes including a physics class that she really didn’t want to take. She had been hearing other kids gossiping about how the new teacher was a hardass. She couldn’t do that. Her and hardass teachers always ended up in verbal sparring matches. Ellie was always the one that ended up getting kicked out of class. The entire day, a pit was forming in her stomach. 

 

It only got worse when she got into class. The teacher was an older man with salt and pepper hair, tan skin and a face that said ‘I haven’t experienced joy in my one hundred years of life’. He didn’t look like he should be a teacher, though. The way he stood, the way he surveyed the entire room, and the way he dressed was just not what she expected from a teacher in New York. 

 

She read the board. 

 

‘ Mr. Miller.’ 

 

“Sit down, the bell’s about to ring.” 

 

She did, despite the irritation his tone caused her. Ellie did her best to remind herself that she wasn’t trying to start fights with anyone this year. Students kept filing in, chatter filling the room. A girl sat down right next to Ellie. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, swinging behind her head. It was shiny. She glanced over to Ellie and smiled and Ellie had to keep herself from panicking because she had freckles that reminded her of constellations and this wasn’t the way she pictured her school year starting. 

 

The bell rang, but Ellie didn’t notice. Neither did the other girl. “Hey,” The other girl said. 

 

“Hey,” Ellie nearly squeaked and immediately felt like she was going to die. “Um, hey. I’m Ellie.” 

 

“Dina. I’m right across the hall from you.” 

 

“Oh, really?” 

 

“Hey, you two in the back row. What’re your names?” Mr. Miller interjected. Ellie became acutely aware of all of the students that were staring at her and Dina. Dina shrunk a little in her seat, away from Ellie. 

 

That made it a little worse. 

 

“I’m talkin’ to you. What’re your names?” 

 

“Are you a cowboy?” Ellie blurted out. 

 

‘ Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ 

 

He paused, obviously thrown by the odd veer off course from the conversation. “Names.” 

 

“Dina,” Dina said. “Sorry for talking, sir.” 

 

Ellie sighed, “Ellie.” She didn’t say sorry. He glared at her for a second and then shrugged and turned back to the board. 

 

“Great. Neither of y’all are in trouble.” He was definitely from the South. Ellie found herself trying to guess his accent. Louisana? Florida? Wyoming? Was Wyoming even the south? That was when Ellie realized there was a difference between ‘rural’ and ‘the south’ and briefly had to reteach herself everything that she’d ever learned about geography.  She glanced around the room, looking for signs before her eyes found a cup that said ‘ Keep Austin Weird’ on it and got the answer to her question. 

 

He was from Texas.

 

That explained the trucker-cowboy-private-investigator vibes that she was getting from him. “I understand everyone wants to talk, so just do me a favor. Shut up during the lesson. I’ll teach, let you guys get to your assignments and as soon as you get to your assignments you can chat amongst yourselves. But if you cheat, I’ll know.” 

 

“How?” A boy asked. He was sitting on the other side of Dina. They both shared a look and she chuckled a little. Ellie rolled her eyes. 

 

“I just will.”

He was still looking at the board and writing things, “Like I can tell that you’re texting under your desk right now.” 

 

“Woah.” 

 

“How did he do that?” Someone hissed. 

 

Ellie was ready to get out of there. “Can you guys shut the fuck up?” She hissed. 

 

“You shut the fuck up.” 

 

“All of you shut up.” Mr. Miller said. 

 

It worked. 

 

She had never seen a teacher say shut up in a monotone voice in a room full of high school children and get them to do it the first time. It actually worked. Ellie gave him kudos for that. Kudos from her basically meant she wasn’t going to try to make this man’s life harder in one way or another.

 She was ready to zone out and zone out hard. 

 

That didn’t happen. 

 

He was actually good at teaching. 

 

All of the concepts were basics. Things that even Ellie, (she had walked in convinced that she was going to fail this class), could get. He drew things out, “My drawing ability should probably put me in jail.” Joel said. “So, forgive me. Here are the concepts you need to know.” He drew everything out. 

 

Momentum, conservation of energy, Newton’s laws of motion, motion, position, gravity, and so on in so forth. For momentum, Joel drew a stick figure swinging from construction crane to construction crane. All of them were different types of action scenes of varying levels of amusement. 

 

“It’s the first day, we’re going to do something fun for the first assignment. Pick one basic concept of physics and create an illustrative diagram that shows an example of the concept in real life. You have until the end of the next class to do it. Make it entertaining, I don’t want to be bored when I’m grading your things.” 

 

The class stared at him blankly. “Go, get started.” 

 

“So…we’re just…drawing…?” Someone asked. 

 

Ellie stared. She didn’t want to stare a gift horse in the mouth. “I’m not expecting you to understand concepts enough to write an essay on the first day of freshman year.” 

 

That sentence alone made Mr. Miller her favorite teacher. The class devolved into different discussions, but they kept it low and respectful and Joel ignored them until the bell ring. Everyone packed up.

 

Ellie turned, wanting to talk to Dina more and realized she was gone. Everyone filed out of the class so fast that she stood there for a second. Mr. Miller was still at his computer, disinterested in everything else going on around him. Ellie walked up to his desk, standing there and waiting for him to turn. When he didn’t, she cleared her throat. He glanced up at her. “What?” 

 

“Sorry about talking earlier, and uh–asking that dumb question? It was dumb.” 

 

“What’s your name again?” 

 

“Ellie.” 

 

“Ellie,” He paused. Something in his face looked off, like he was in pain. The air around him seemed to warble and glitch like static. It happened so fast she was sure he hallucinated it. The coffee mug he had been holding shattered on the floor. 

 

“Damn it,” He muttered under his breath. 

 

“Let me help.” She didn’t know what to do, but she wanted to help somehow. Ellie started grabbing tissue after tissue, ready to help clean it up when Joel shook his head. 

 

“You’re gonna be late for class.” 

 

“I am?” She glanced up at the clock. “I am! Oh, shit.” She started running out the door, cringing when she realized she had said that curse word aloud. “Sorry.” 

 

“I don’t care if you cuss.” He called after her and she careened down the hallway, going as fast as she could.