#besides they are all adopted and youre james actual daughter...of course

[wizard-on-whales]

Acceptance

Angst and Fluff

You are James' daughter and you're struggling with yourself because you've recently come to the conclusion that you like women. But given James' past actions, you are terrified to tell him

Warnings: Angst, talk of homophobia, wlw, James acts like a deer in headlights

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You lay on your bed with your face buried into your pillow as your body wrecks out another sob. You didn't know how you were gonna tell him….or if you could. You knew your dad was a more “traditional” man and his reputation before you were born was not seen as an accepting one. Countless videos of him yelling slurs and saying other homophobic things could easily be found with the click of a button. So how the hell were you, his precious little girl, supposed to tell him you like women. Another sob escapes from your lips as you reach over and grab the lion plush he had given you years ago. It was his when he was younger and the smell of his cologne often lingered on it. You clutched it tightly like you did when you were a toddler, crying over nothing in particular. But this time you were crying over something huge, something that could determine your future and the relationship you had with your father going forward. As you curl into a ball and bring the lion to your chest, inhaling the familiar scent of your dad, there's a knock on your bedroom door.

“Dinners ready,” Your dad opens the door to tell you but his heart quickly clenches in his chest as he sees you curled up and crying. Despite the fact that you were almost 17, he still saw his little peanut, his little 5 year old girl who thought she could do anything.

“Hey, hey, sweetheart what's wrong,” He speaks quietly, stepping forward to sit on the edge of the bed. You quickly wipe away your tears and mumble a small “nothing” before trying to hide your mascara streaked face into your pillow.

“It's clearly not nothing baby, did something happen at school? Or did I do something? You've hardly talked to me the past few days,” He gently wipes a few strands of hair away from your face before resting his hand on your shoulder, his thumb rubbing back and forth to try and soothe you. Despite being upset over how he would react, the action did sooth you a little like it always had. Your heart jumps to your throat as he asks if it's his fault you're crying, you let out another sob, not being able to hold back. You felt awful about crying because of him and you felt guilty for not hiding it better.

“Is it something I did? You gotta tell me sweetheart so I can fix it,” He gives you a concerned look, clearly worried about how he fucked up if he upset you this much.

“I can't,” You sob quietly, trying to wipe your tears away as they fall quickly down your cheeks. He tries to help you wipe a few off your face but you get to them before he can. He rests his hand on your back, rubbing it slightly as he listens to your words.

“Why can't you tell me? I won't be mad or anything, baby, I promise,” His own eyes were glossy now as he helplessly watched his baby girl cry, clutching his old stuffy.

“You won't love me anymore,” You let out another full body sob as your words slip out, hiccups coming along with it as you bury your face back into your pillow. You hear your Dad let out a strand of “shhs” trying to calm you down as he attempts to pull you into his lap. He cradles you in his arms, his hand still rubbing your back as your tears stain his shirt.

“Why would you think that sweetheart?!? There's absolutely nothing you could do that would make me not love you. You're my whole world and I love you more than anything,” His own tears slip out of his eyes as he speaks, trying to calm you down. He tried so hard all your life to make you feel safe and loved, desperate for you to never have to feel like he did when he was a kid, but as he cradles your sobbing body he feels like he failed.

“I have a girlfriend,” You sob, your words muffled and quiet as you try to hide behind your lion stuffed animal. You feel and hear him let out a small chuckle as strokes your hair.

“Baby, why do you think I'd be so mad about you having a boyfriend,” Your heart jumps to your throat as he says boyfriend, clearly having misheard you.

“No! Girlfriend,” You lift your face away from him so that he can hear you as you cut him off. You see his face drop as he registered what you said. You push away from him, crawling back to your spot on your bed with your back turned to him. He stays quiet for far too long and with each second that passes the more you feel anxiety pooling in you. His hand gently rests on your shoulder again, causing you to jerk at first.

“Honey…I know I've, well…I-I don't really know what to say,” He says quietly, his voice defeated. A few more silent tears rolling down your cheeks as you fear the worst.

“You don't have to say anything,” You mumble, your hands fiddling with each other as you pick at the skin around your fingernails.

“No, I do have to say something. You're clearly upset over this. I know I haven't always been the greatest person…especially when I was younger but I'm willing to change that, especially for you sweetheart. I-well...I don't know much about, uhm…gay stuff…But if you give me a chance I can try,” He stutters over his words, clearly trying to find the right thing to say as he attempts to comfort you. He pushes your shoulder down so that you're on your back and facing him. He gives you a small smile, wiping more tears off of your face.

“What's her name?” He asks you for your girlfriend's name. The small action causes a smile to form on your face as he seems genuinely interested in knowing. He gives you another soft smile back as you tell him her name.

“She plays guitar like you,” You say quietly, looking away from him and continuing to fiddle with your fingers. He grabs your hand to stop you, knowing you have a bad habit of picking your skin when you're nervous.

“Yeah? I bet she's not as good as me though,” He jokes, trying to get a laugh out of you. You smile again, hitting him on the shoulder.

“She's better,” He pretends to act offended by that, clutching his hand over his heart and letting out a fake sob.

“How dare you,” He fake cries, trying to hold back a smile as you let out a small laugh. He looks back at you, wiping the excess tears off of your face.

“There is absolutely nothing you can do that will ever make me not love you, okay? Don't ever forget that,” He leans forward and places a kiss on your forehead as he speaks gently. You nod your head in understandment.

“Now c'mon, we don't want dinner to get cold. Maybe you can invite her over next time,” He stands up from the edge of your bed and holds his hand out to help you up. You take it and peel yourself out of your sheets, following him downstairs to see whenever monstrosity he's made for dinner this time.

✭-----------------------------✭

[lovelyirony]

that rhodeytony piece with the bots........... iconic. do you think we could have more of that sweet sweet mit era?? I just think they’re neat

Look. Rhodey hadn’t meant to build another robot. But Tony was at some business conference for the weekend, and Dum-E was just pitifully sad. If Tony had been there, he would’ve convinced Rhodey that Dum-E is a drama queen and acts like the end of the world is happening at any minor inconvenience. 

But why not give Dum-E a little sibling? This is how U comes to be, and he’s quite the gentleman, far more gentle than his big brother. 

Rhodey enjoys teaching him how to pick up socks and shoes, and how to put the coffee mugs on the counter gently, something that Dum-E is not good at yet, but they’re trying their best. (He has a stuffed coffee mug that they got from the pet store that he’s flung at every single surface so far.) 

-

Tony comes back from his business conference (which ugh) looking for cuddles, dinner, and maybe a movie date night if they can get Dum-E to stop trying to escape the apartment. 

What he isn’t expecting is for his boyfriend to be mediating a fight between two robots. 

Two. 

He stares at his boyfriend for a moment. 

“Rhodey, darling, is Dum-E having a...play-date?” 

Rhodey freezes. 

“Oh!” He says, grinning. “I, um...made him a sibling?” 

“And they’re...fighting?” 

“Well, for now. Dum-E’s mad because he didn’t get to put actual coffee mugs on the counter, and U is mad because Dum-E stole the couch blanket. I think U is really into decoration!” 

“Yeah, that explains everything,” Tony says faintly, sitting. “So...U? Like, the letter?” 

“Yeah, you like it?” 

“And you thought that it made a good name for what?” 

“Well, it was more of a placeholder, honestly. But then he liked it!” 

U looks over at Tony curiously. 

“U, this is Tony. Your other dad. We used part of his code to make you!” 

The arm bumps softly against Tony’s, which is an improvement from Dum-E, who tends to go full-force. (Although they’ve worked on it.) 

“So...” Tony says. “You think with U, we won’t need to look for a babysitter for date night?”

“No, we will. We definitely will. Dum-E hasn’t adjusted to a sibling yet.” 

“Poor baby,” Tony coos, patting Dum-E on the claw. “You thought you were going to be the only attention-seeker for a while, didn’t you?” 

He glowers, wheeling back and acting very high-and-mighty for a robot who just threw the equivalent of a tantrum. 

Rhodey looks at Tony, kissing him on the forehead as he leans over to lay on his legs. 

“How was the business conference, honey?” 

“Utter shit. I didn’t need to go, I was an ego boost for Obie to tote around.” 

“Told you that you shouldn’t have gone.” 

“If I said ‘no’ one more time, we would’ve had to have a phone call about my ‘five year plan’ and ‘legacy’ bullshit. You know that that gives me a migraine. Besides, he gave me a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant, so that means we get to have a good meal one of these weekends when you visit.” 

“Who said I would visit with you?” 

“Because Jarvis adores you and I think Ana wants to adopt you and force you to stay.” 

“You make a compelling argument,” Rhodey says, pretending to think about it. “I’ll...consider it.” 

Tony snorts. 

“And they say I’m the asshole here.” 

-

Two years later, Dum-E and U demand that they get a sibling. The dads are back home together (for now) and Jarvis has grown tired of reason. 

“They want a sibling, Sir.” 

“What, each other isn’t enough?” 

“They have requested many movie nights where there are siblings or groups of friends, and I think they want to, in a sense, replicate the scenarios.” 

“They’ve already done all of it? Wasn’t it them who got onto a plane for DC just because they wanted to see Pops?” 

“Yes, yes it was.” 

“You know, J, I still think that you helped them with that one.” 

“I most certainly did not.” 

(Jarvis totally did. He gets bored, you know? Besides, Colonel Rhodes hadn’t been home for three months, which should have counted for cruel and unusual punishment.) 

“Well, regardless of your guilt in certain situations, we’ll have a family discussion about maybe a new sibling.” 

Rhodey gets a text as he’s grocery shopping. 

hey, need to talk about family stuff. can you also pick up some more colby jack cheese? 

sure. what’s it about? 

your son has decided he wants a sibling. he convinced dum-e....

got it. 

Rhodey laughs to himself as he turns his cart around, going towards the dairy section. Of course U would decide something like that, it makes sense. 

- 

Tony is looking at Rhodey with a disappointed look on his face. 

“This is all your fault.” 

“How is this my fault?” 

“You dote on the boys too much.” 

“Oh, I do that? Who makes them Halloween costumes every year and hosts a party with all of the other appliances we’ve made over the years?” 

“Oh like you hate those, Mr. ‘Here’s-the-hand-made-Halloween-playlist’.” 

“True,” Rhodey says, setting down the bags. “Help me put away all of this stuff, half of it is yours anyway.” 

“We have a shared fridge, Honeybear.” 

“Tell that to your pomegranates taking up about two shelves!” 

“Only for now, and half of those are Pepper’s! They’re not all mine.” 

“Do you think she would want a say in the robot? After all, she does have to deal with U and Dum-E worshiping the ground she walks on.” 

“And she is the reason that Dum-E usually succeeds in his smoothie-making,” Tony admits. “Yeah, sure, invite her over.” 

- 

Whenever Pepper is asked what it’s like having to be a personal assistant to Tony Stark, she always wants to answer with something like “oh, it’s really fulfilling to help a company reach its goal and learn so much from my boss to apply to what comes next” or even “oh, it’s nice.” 

She got invited to dinner, and is now in a conversation about whether or not Dum-E and U, her boss’s children, should get a sibling. 

And the fact that her boss’s children are robots, have two dads, and think that Pepper is the best thing since life itself. 

“Why do they need a sibling?” Pepper asks, chewing on her pasta. 

“Because they’re bored, and we think that maybe we’ll stop getting calls from the fire stations around town that they’re trying to wreak havoc again,” Rhodey says. “They’ll want to teach the new sibling how life works around the house, and we can start on security measures.” 

“Can’t you just put a genetic lock on the door or something?” Pepper asks. 

“They’re surpassed it,” Tony says grumpily. 

“How?” 

“Don’t look at me!” Tony defends. “Look at Jim-dear, who is obsessed with true crime documentaries! They picked up how to gain evidence and use it for proof from him and Forensic Files!” 

Pepper puts her head in her hands. 

“Just once, I wish that we had a dinner to discuss a business proposal or something normal instead of whether or not your two boys need a sibling.” 

“Well, we are thinking about a daughter,” James admits. “And we wanted to talk to you about that.” 

“Why, because I’m the only female either of you know?!” 

“No,” Tony says quickly. “We know plenty of women!” 

“Name seven.” 

“Plead the fifth,” Rhodey jokes. “But you spend time here, and so we wanted to know what you’d want to see in a robot.” 

“How the hell should I know?” 

“You work for the best tech mogul in two hundred years,” Tony says. 

“Tones, you’re entirely too cocky.” 

“Oh shut up babe,” Tony says, no real heat to the sentiment. “Besides, I’ve treated you well, haven’t I?” 

“Other than embarrassing me in front of every single government official every time you interact, sure.” 

“You love it, they hate it, win-win,” Tony says, stirring around his mocktail. “But Pepper, seriously. What do you think about a third robot?” 

“Well, can’t get anymore chaotic,” Pepper sighs. “And I think having a girl around would be...nice. Not as chaotic.” 

“You saying girls don’t bring as much chaos?” 

“No,” Pepper says. “I’m just saying that we know when to bring it.” 

- 

Butterfingers is born, and she is the most perfect definition of a “daddy’s girl” any robot has ever been. She wheels around with grace, although she can’t stop bumping into things and dropping things, being worse than Dum-E. (Which he actually adores.) 

She follows Pepper along in awe, and can be seen usually in her office. 

Curiously enough, the only time she doesn’t live up to her name is in Pepper’s office, where she handles things with grace and Pepper gives her little tasks to do, like delivering cups of pens to employees or papers. 

Rhodey gets her (and the brothers) little souvenirs from his time away, and Tony has an absolute ball of a time making them all costumes and taking a million little pictures that are hung up everywhere in the building. 

But perhaps the crowning achievement are the Christmas photos. 

Usually, Stark Industries will take pictures of their employees, put a newsletter out, and wish everyone a happy holiday and all that. 

But then the employees have an entirely different idea. 

It comes from one of Pepper’s assistants after she’s made CEO, Julia. 

“Why not have the bots be the Christmas picture?” she muses, restacking some of the papers Miss Potts had to sign. “They’re always around the office, and they’re the unofficial mascots of the business. I think it’d be fun to see their Christmas hijinks!” 

Pepper smiles. 

“Julia, remind me to add a little extra to the Christmas bonus.” 

-

Rhodey finds the idea to be the best idea anyone has come up with in years. (Although it just gives him an excuse to take more pictures of the bots during the festivities.) 

Dum-E is only too happy to finally be allowed within two feet of tinsel. (Unfortunate incident in 1998.) U is very excited to show off his understanding of symmetry and how to pick out the perfect tree, and Butterfingers just wants Pepper to tie ribbons around her wheels so that she looks “extra-pretty.” 

Stark Industries’ holiday card involves Dum-E and U at either side of the tree, with U gently readjusting one of the many ornaments they’ve had the bots make over the years, and Dum-E is trying to pull off a ribbon from the top of the tree. Butterfingers is at the center, guarding any attempt to unwrap presents, and presenting her bow-filled-wheels. 

Pepper has the picture framed in her office. 

[dreaming-in-alicante]

First chapter is up!

I have 5 more chapters planned out. It’ll depend on how much work I have with the end of the semester, but I hope to update weekly!

Chapter 1: A research opportunity

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A month ago, Grace had sat shell-shocked in the Institute infirmary in the aftermath of the battle, attempting to process the bloodshed she had witnessed and the fact that Tatiana was dead. Jesse, busy talking to Lucie and her parents, making funeral arrangements, had left Grace alone for a while. It was Christopher Lightwood of all people who had noticed her sitting there frozen, who had walked over and offered an awkward pat on the shoulder. He expressed his sympathies and then, seemingly at a loss for a way to help her feel better, told Grace that she was welcome to come visit the lab at any time if she would like something to do to take her mind off of the circumstances. “You were a great help in figuring the function of the pithos that time,” he’d said before wandering off.

Of course that had been before. Before word of her confession had gotten out. Before her trial by Mortal Sword three weeks ago. The Consul had let Grace off without punishment because she was underage and influenced – manipulated – by her mother. No, not mother, Tatiana. You were never a daughter to her, Grace reminded herself. She bought you, you were only ever a weapon that she wielded.

Now that Tatiana was gone and Jesse was restored to life, Grace found herself adrift. Word spread quickly amongst the Clave about what she’d done: the misery she had inflicted on James and by extension Cordelia; her use of demon-gifted power to influence and seduce numerous men – including the Consul’s own son; her involvement in necromancy. She knew plenty of Shadowhunters would happily see her spend time imprisoned in the Silent City. She had made so many apologies that she had quite lost track, but it was not enough – might never be enough. She was still technically part of the Clave, yet no one seemed to know what to do with her. She was even invited to a party last week where everyone had given her a wide berth; a perfect example of how she remained part of things, but was held at a distance.

Grace had spent weeks alone in the apartment Jesse had found for them, reading like she had always done. Now that Jesse was not a ghost, he was no longer her constant companion. He was alive again, out making friends and experiencing the world anew. He had started training and was visiting all the sights of London with Lucie. It was everything Grace had wished for him for years, except now she found herself even lonelier than before. Jesse had invited her along to everything but it was awkward to be around even Lucie.  Despite their shared mission to restore Jesse to life and her newfound relationship with Jesse, Lucie was struggling to forgive Grace for her part in James and Cordelia’s suffering. After all, it was Lucie’s own brother and her future parabatai that Grace had hurt. So Grace continued a nearly isolated existence, most days only seeing Jesse briefly in the morning and evenings.

It was the boredom and loneliness that had finally driven Grace to make a call on the Consul’s house at Grosvenor Square. She had overheard Lucie telling Jesse that Christopher was hard at work on something and spending nearly every weekday in the lab there. Surely Christopher should despise Grace after the way she had hurt his friends. Yet he had offered a small wave and smile at the party several days ago when they passed each other near the refreshments. His small gesture and her desperate state had been enough for her to gather her courage and venture out today.

   ________________________________________________________

 Grace stifled a sneeze as she descended the steps into the laboratory. A smoky haze hung in the air and it smelled like… gunpowder? What on earth had Christopher been doing? She paused uncertainly and nearly turned in retreat before steeling her nerve and continuing down.

Grace reached the bottom of the stairs and peered around the lab. “Christopher?” she called tentatively. “Are you working down here?”

A messy head of brown hair, darkened by – was it gunpowder? – shot up from behind the lab bench on the far side of the room. Christopher pushed rounded goggles up onto his head as he strode over to her.  “Grace! How nice to see you again!” he greeted her. His skin and once-white shirt were also covered in a fine layer of dark dust. “I suppose I saw you a few days ago at the party but you weren’t there long were you? Jesse said you weren’t feeling well. I heard there was a cold going around, is that what you had? Are you feeling better now?” he asked kindly.

Grace hadn’t felt well at the party, but it had nothing to do with illness and everything to do with the fact that Jesse was the single truly friendly face in that enormous ballroom. Lucie had awkwardly engaged her in stilted conversation before being whisked off to the dance floor by Jesse. After half an hour hovering on the outskirts of the room Grace could simply not endure the suspicious glances from the other guests, and she fled back home. “No, I wasn’t feeling well, but I feel much better now,” she told him simply.

“That’s good to hear!” Christopher said earnestly. “It’s never fun being sick. I detest the medicine my mother makes me take for coughs. That’s actually a project I’d like to pursue at some point, to see if medicine can be flavored but still retain its potency. I think if one could take some fruit, for example, and isolate the components of the fruit – molecules they’re called – that cause the specific taste and – ” he cut himself off abruptly. “My apologies Grace, you obviously came here for a reason and here I am boring you. Did you need help with something?” he asked, looking at her expectantly.

Grace thought she could cry for the sense of normalcy in the conversation and the kindness in his gaze. It was the complete opposite of the stiff, clipped exchanges and distrustful stares she had received since her trial by the Mortal Sword. Jesse was there for support of course, but he also faced distrust – returning from the dead through necromancy tended to make people wary. So to have Christopher – one of the ‘Merry Thieves’ no less – act like nothing at all was wrong, it was a relief.

She would have told Christopher to keep talking about the cough medicine and molecules – the idea sounded quite fascinating – but he had asked her a question. “I…I came to take you up on your offer to help in the laboratory. That is, if you’re sure you still want my help” she said hesitantly, clasping her hands together. “I know you offered weeks ago and I understand if you would prefer me to stay away now that you’ve heard the full story of everything I’ve done…” she trailed off uncertainly.

Christopher blinked at her for a moment, seemingly in shock, before his face split in a wide grin. “Really? You’d like to work here in the lab? No one besides Henry has ever been interested!” He paused thoughtfully, adjusting his glasses. “Well, Thomas does often help but I believe he feels obligated as my cousin. It’s not that he has any deep fascination with science and invention. Although he did make the cure for the Mandikhor poison! But I don’t think he enjoyed the process.” He frowned. “I suppose solving the puzzle of a complicated antidote is much more stressful when people are about to die,” he concluded.

“So, you’re sure you would still like having me around?” Grace asked, tense. “After the pain I caused your friends, I understand if you don’t want my assistance.”

“Of course I’d like you to help!” Christopher replied excitedly. “Having another pair of hands is always useful, and you actually want to be here! As for everything with James and such,” he said seriously, “you apologized didn’t you? And I’m sure you won’t do it again if you feel so badly about it now.”

Grace was astounded. “I did apologize and no, I don’t plan to manipulate anyone in that way again,” she managed to say. “I couldn’t even if I wished to,” she added, “the Silent Brothers found a way to remove my power.” That ritual, performed two weeks by Broth Enoch, had made her ill. She spent the better part of a day asleep, and still felt exhausted the day afterward.

“Then it’s all settled!” Christopher proclaimed brightly. “Let’s see, there’s a space on the benchtop over here where you can work, I have some of my notes there now but I can clean those up, put them over with…” He scurried over to a bench on the left of the room and began tidying it, muttering to himself.

Grace followed slowly after him, still in some disbelief. Yes, she had traveled all the way over to the lab and hoped his offer to join him in the lab still stood. However, she had prepared herself to be brushed off. Had expected Christopher to distrust her now that he knew all of her questionable actions, the ways she had hurt his friends and cousins. Technically she also was, or had been, his cousin by adoption; for some reason she brushed the thought of it away. They weren’t actually related. Especially now that she had reclaimed the Cartwright surname, distancing herself from Tatiana.

“There!” Christopher announced, pulling Grace out of her thoughts. He had cleared the bench of papers and bottles and beakers, and brushed off a layer of dust. “This can be your work station,” he told her. “I’ll find you a notebook to record your findings in, and you can work with me on some projects! Or do you have any ideas or projects of your own you’d like to pursue?” he inquired.

“I read many books growing up, many containing scientific information, so I know some basic principles,” Grace said. “However, I fear that much of the information is decades out of , and I'm sure there are many advancements I have not learned of,” she confessed. “Perhaps you can tell me what you’re working on? Were you doing some experiment involving gun powder just now?”

“Indeed I was!” Christopher replied with a gleam in his eye. “For a years now I’ve been trying to adapt incendiary weapons for use against demons. Angelic runes prevent the gunpowder from igniting somehow, and unless runes are involved the demons can’t be harmed.” He gestured her over to the far side of the room where a couple of guns laid on the table, one partly disassembled, as well as a small grenade.

“You made the runed revolver for James, didn’t you?” she asked, trailing a finger over the rune inscribed on the barrel of the rifle laid out on the bench.

“I did,” Christopher replied. “The problem is, James is the only one who can use it. Something to do with his shadow powers. Even Lucie can’t make it work. Quite confounding.” He held up a very familiar object – the pithos that Belial had used to steal marks. “I’ve been testing different rune placements with this,” he said, “because I thought perhaps an indirect application would make a difference. I’ve tried inscribing inside and outside on different parts. I also have a collection of gunpowder that I put in this runed box.” He gestured with the pithos to a small cubic container, every side plastered with a variety of runes. “The gun still fires – that’s what I was testing before you came in. No telling whether it will have any effect on a demon though,” he said, “It depends on how the runes transfer energy, which is an area no one fully understands yet.” He paused uncertainly, and set the pithos back on the benchtop. “I know you said you’d like to learn, Grace, but I’m not boring you am I?” he asked, sounding troubled.

“No, not at all,” she said quickly, turning her attention away from the disassembled handgun she’d been inspecting to his face. “Truly, it’s fascinating. I enjoy learning and you do a wonderful job of explaining things.”

“Oh,” said Christopher, turning faintly pink at the compliment. “Well, jolly good then. Besides Henry, people never really want to hear details,” he confided.

Grace thought briefly that perhaps Tatiana had been right when she called the Clave a pack of fools. Was there genuinely no one besides Henry Fairchild who appreciated the extent of Christopher’s scientific work? Not even his friends? “How about this?” she said, turning fully to face him. “I promise that if I ever want you to stop talking I’ll tell you directly, but otherwise, I wish to hear every detail. Here, we can shake on it.” She extended her hand between them and asked, “Deal?”

Christopher looked bewildered for a moment, blinked, then took her hand and shook it. His strange violet eyes shone as they met hers and he said, “Deal.”

[prettyinlimegreenboots]

Santa Makes a House Call

So @expected-kiss I’m your @newsies-secretsanta! I hope you love the little story I’ve written you!  I had a lot of fun writing this! Enjoy!!!

“The only reason I’m willing to dress as a Santa is the cookies. The absolute only reason.” Race raised an eyebrow at Spot’s confession. 

“They’re our nieces and nephew. You’re not willing to do it for them?” Race asked, giving his husband a look. “Are you saying you won’t do the same for our kids?” 

Spot leaned against the counter, giving him a look. “Are you trying to tell me something?” 

“I would hope you’d want our children to see the magic of Santa by dressing up for them.” Race shrugged. 

Spot sighed. “You’re evil.” 

“Please do this.” Race leaned over, kissing Spot. “Addie, Ben, and Josie are going to remember this for a long time.” 

A thin smile stretched across Spot’s mouth. “Until they realize that Uncle Spot ruined their childhood dressing up as Santa.” 

“Well let’s hope they’re older teenagers before they find out.” Race shrugged, stealing a cutout cookie. 

A groan escaped Spot’s mouth. “I’m sending them to you and Jack when they find out.” 

“So you’ll do it?” Race grinned, popping the last of the cookie in his mouth. 

Spot shook his head. “You’re a menace.” 

So a couple of days later, all dressed in a Santa suit, Spot rang the doorbell of Jack and Kat’s house, hiking up a red velvet bag full of presents for the three children. The door swung open, followed by a loud laugh. “I hate you so much.” 

“Why Santa, you came!” Jack’s cheerful voice sounded back as he allowed his brother-in-law into the house.  

Following Jack into the living room, he grinned seeing Kat and Race in there along with the three children who had stilled at the sight of the Jolly St. Nick. “Ho Ho Ho!” 

“Santa! What are you doing here?” Addie, the eight year old, gave him a look as he took a seat in the oversized chair, propping the velvet red bag beside him. “You’re supposed to be here in two days. Dontcha have a lot of work to do at the North Pole?” 

Spot looked at his niece and should’ve known she would have all the questions. “I got a special message that there were some extra good girls and a boy at this house and I should make a visit before Christmas.” 

“But aren’t ya busy at the north pole?” She asked, taking a hesitant step forward towards him. 

Spot tilted his head as his lips slid into a grin. “The elves are very busy making sure my sleigh is packed with all the presents for the good little girls and boys.” 

Josie and Ben, who were 6, stood back by Kat, wide eyed and not moving. “Well, who do we have here?” 

“That’s my brother and sister . . . but shouldn’t you know their names, Santa!” Addie looked at him, tilting her head. 

Spot chuckled, holding his pillow belly. “Of course I know their names . . . Josie and Ben! Have you been good this year?” 

Their heads slowly nodded, looking at one another before looking back at Santa. “I’ve been good . . . Josie and Addie not so much.” 

Kat’s eyes went wide as her son threw his sister under the bus in front of Santa. A chuckle escaped her mouth as she looked at Jack who was shaking his head. 

“Now I believe I was told that all the kids, including your mom and dad have all been on their best behavior this year.” Santa continued, looking at them through the gold rimmed glasses he had on. 

Addie giggled. “Mom and dad aren’t kids, Santa.” 

“They can be young at heart, right?” Santa argued back, giving her a look with a grin. 

Shrugging, she stepped forward, leaning on the arm of the chair. “Santa?” 

“Yes, Addie?” Spot looked amused at his niece, who normally wasn’t shy at all, all of a sudden clamming up. 

“Can I put in a last minute request for a Christmas present?” She asked, innocently as Spot looked over at Kat and Jack. 

Spot grinned. “You can ask but I don’t know if the elves will be able to make it happen.” 

“Okay.” She sighed, before looking at him. “I want a puppy for Christmas.”

Spot chuckled. It was a debate Addie had been having with Jack and Kat for at least the last six months. Jack and Kat said no but she was trying every angle to get the puppy. 

“What do your mom and dad say about a puppy?” Santa’s eyes went wide as he looked at the eight year old. Sighing, Addie bit her lip. “They said no.” 

“Unfortunately, Santa has to have parental approval for any presents delivered.” Santa sighed. “I do wish I could bring you a puppy, Addie but mom and dad get final approval for presents that I deliver Christmas Eve night.” 

Sighing loudly, Addie nodded, looking over at her parents. “No puppy?” 

“Sorry, kiddo.” Jack walked over and crouched down in front of her. “No puppy this year. Maybe when you get a bit older.” 

As Jack pulled Addie into his arms, Josie walked up to Santa and gave him a look. “Hey Santa?” 

“Yes, Josie?” Spot tried to keep the chuckle from escaping but he failed as the young girl gave him a look. 

“I thought you’d be bigger.” She grinned, looking much like her mother who had an evil streak beneath all the lovingness. “Did you go on a diet this year?” 

Race threw his head back and laughed as Kat and Jack quietly chuckled at their daughter’s question. “Mrs. Claus has me on a bit of a diet . . . telling me that I need to take it easy so that I can have all those cookies on Christmas Eve.” 

“Oh.” She looked over at her uncle with a grin. “What’s so funny, Uncle Race?” 

“Just you Josie.” He wiped tears away from his eyes. “Do you want to ask Santa for anything?” 

Popping out her hip, she tapped her finger against her mouth, humming as she thought. “I want a skateboard.” 

Eyes wide, Santa looked over at Kat, who slowly nodded her head. “I will have to check with mom and dad but if I was to drop one off, what color would you like?” 

“Pink.” She quickly spoke, grinning. Before he could say another word, she wrapped her arms around his shoulder in a quick hug. “Thanks Santa!” 

She bounced over to where Kat was sitting as Santa looked at Ben. “Ben, do you have anything you want?” 

“A fire truck!” He yelled, throwing his arms up in the air with great excitement. 

Spot nodded, looking at the little boy. “I’m sure I can find a place for a fire truck in my bag.” 

“Can the kids get a photo with you, Santa?” Kat asked, holding up her cell phone, giving her brother-in-law a wicked grin. Spot held back his groan, knowing this photo will be on full display for many years to come. 

Josie and Ben both sat on Santa’s lap while Addie leaned against the chair. All three had cheesy grins on their faces while Spot’s lip drew upward in a smile. Kat took several photos before instructing the kids to give Santa a hug before he had to go. 

“Uhhh . . . Santa?” Addie bit her lip, looking up at the man. 

Tilting his head, Santa gave her a look. “Yes, Addie?” 

“Why do you smell like Uncle Spottie?” She asked, eyes widened with curiosity. 

Spot’s eyes flew to Jack and Race, who snorted and tried to keep the giggles in. “Who’s uncle Spottie?” 

“It’s Uncle Race’s ‘usband.” Addie rolled her eyes, giving the man a look. “Thought you knew who everyone was.” 

“I know a Sean, who’s married to Uncle Race but I don’t know anyone named Spot.” Santa smoothly lied as Addie shrugged. “And we must use the same shampoo.” 

Jack chuckled, walked over to pick up Addie. “How about we let Santa get back to the north pole? You need to get to sleep because if you don’t, then Santa’s not coming to this house. Tell Santa, goodbye.” 

“Bye Santa. Thank you for stopping by our house.” Addie grinned, wrapping an arm around Jack’s shoulders to steady herself. 

Spot leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’re welcome sweet girl. Merry Christmas, Addie, Ben, and Josie.” 

And with a wink, he made his way out the door. 

Ten Years Later

“Wait, you’re telling me that Uncle Spot was Santa all those years ago?” Addie’s eyes were wide as she looked between her parents and uncles. 

Nodding, Spot grinned. “You hit a little too close to home when you said that Santa smelled like me.” 

“I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on it when your dad and Uncle Race started laughing in the corner.” Kat shook her head, looking between her brother-in-law and her husband. 

Josie, Ben, and Addie looked at one another, laughter bubbling in their mouths. “Wow, who’s genius idea was it to have Uncle Spot dress up?” 

“He lost a bet actually.” Race shrugged. “Your mom asked us if we would dress up and he kinda lost a bet.” 

Spot’s eyes went wide. “Actually, you pressured me into dressing up, using our future children to guilt me if my memory serves me correctly.”

“Alright old man, whatever you say.” Race rolled his eyes, looking over at their own children, who were now teenagers themselves. 

Rose Elizabeth and Milo James were their pride and joy at fourteen years old. Spot and Race adopted them and loved them fierce, watching the two growing up. 

“So wait.” Rose called, giving the four adults a look. “So that photo you have of me and Milo with Santa, is that you papa?” 

Spot chuckled, shaking his head. “No. That was your uncle Jack. Payback was hell.” 

“Yeah and if I remember, there were threats involved with me dressing up.” Jack looked at his brother-in-law. 

Spot held his hands up innocently. “Uhhh I just remember guilting you and reminding you of how amazing of a Santa I was.” 

“I don’t know if I would use the word amazing.” Jack cracked a grin, scooting the chair back to escape the hit that was aimed his way. 

Milo laughed. “I think I may have been more scared of Santa after that visit . . .”

“Oi!” Jack cried. “I was a jolly old Santa. You and Rose ate it up. If I remember correctly, you sat happily on my lap and told me allllll the things you wanted that year.” 

Kat laughed. “You two were four when that happened. Our kids knew the secret but kept up the act for you two.” 

“And you two were so excited that Santa had visited your house that you ended up taking that photo in for show and tell many times and telling your classmates of the excitement of the season.” Race said happily, shaking his head. 

“Well, thank you Uncle Spot for initially dressing up as Santa.” Addie grinned. “That was pretty cool to do, even though you kept the secret from us.” 

Race laughed. “Could you imagine if you knew Santa was Uncle Spot? You never knew how to keep a secret as a young girl . . . the entire town would’ve known then Spot couldn’t go anywhere.” 

The laughter rose around the table as the four adults shook their head and the kids all laughed merrily.

[blankdblank]

Brother Dearest Pt 38

And thanks to @jessicamiriamdrew for help with the Hannukah portion of the story. I did want it to be bigger but the rest of the story got a hold of me and tugged me away from the sharing of that side of my oc’s family.

...

Another neutral holiday break had been planned with silver and blue as the main theme like the year prior, though this year in her pass to the kitchen by where your tree would be set up Edie had settled a picture frame of a blue handkerchief embroidered with menorahs. Timidly she glanced to James in his pass by holding her bags who grinned saying, “Add as many things as you like, this is your home too. Nobody will move them, except for Olive, she might sniff them a bit but we’ll shift them back if she does.” That eased out her grin on his way past and from her pocket she drew out a tan charred dreidel she settled onto the table she gently adjusted to lay just so in front of the picture frame.

Small hints had been given they were nearing the point of openly showing their faith again at least with you all. Among them a journal from Erik sent to you with a guide to Hebrew you had been promised to be taught to learn more from that side of your father’s past you knew nothing of. All their letters had been burned in the fires claiming their house in being snatched to the camps leaving just memories and stories Edie had been so kind as to have filled journals to share with you, seeing so much of him in you and not having you know that even your brief time together had made its mark. The lot of you had lost so much and you and Erik had grown under such polar opposite sides of the spectrum of pain, now clinging tight to the last of your bloodline, honoring one another’s faiths and choices merely to share when asked about them.

“How can you stand it?” The question from you making Edie grin eyeing your hand on Dawn’s round belly now shifting as her baby had started kicking again to demand it was time for a snack. “I think I’d tip over with kicks like that.”

Dawn giggled saying, “We both know you’re an anchor. Besides, mostly means time to eat, or sleep, last night Eddie was late to bed and the little one wouldn’t stop till he was cuddled up with us in bed.”

“Now that is terribly sweet.”

“I do think it’s a girl, and she loves her daddy already.”

“Who could doubt that,” you said rubbing your hands around her belly again, “Heart beat is faster, his sisters always had faster beats for their girls. Any names yet?”

“I like Marigold or Misty.”

Edie said, “Fine choices. You are carrying well, ankles are hardly swollen at all.”

Dawn chuckled, “As if Eddie would let me stay on my feet for more than a few hours a day max. James and Vic try to manage Teddy as much as they can. Don’t think I’ve seen guys so eager to do that before.” She said in your turn to ready some tea.

“We’ll have three soon enough,” You mused turning the tap on to fill the kettle.

Edie looked you over saying, “More than three soon enough.” Giving you a grin you returned.

“Hopefully not too soon.” You said, “I really want to get my degrees.”

She chuckled replying, “There is no question with a husband like James you will be able to do everything you dreamed of and more. You will be so much more than you hope for.” Your eyes scanned over hers only making her smile widen, “I may not throw planes, but women of our line have had a sense on these matters.”

Dawn, “Like fortune tellers?”

“Of sorts, when I show you how to make Latkes I’ll share more. If we had jelly I would show you hot to make sufganyot as well.”

That had you looking at her, “Su-,”

“Sufganyot,” she repeated slowly for you and clarified, “They are a kind of doughnut with jelly. Rather easy to make, I can show you later.”

“Thank you, we got some more of that special ground beef for the meatloaf like last year from Alberta, from that butcher shop you use while we have the ham, I am sorry we still eat it-,” her hand patted yours.

“You have seen to our diets for our holidays here wonderfully. And while I am more faithful to kosher than Erik it means so much to have so many choices to choose from, truly you have made us feel very welcome to honor our traditions here.”

With a shrug you said, “I may not ever be very good at either of our faiths, but I’ll try to make sure that none of us feels abandoned.”

Dawn stroked your back having taken the kettle off the burner in its whine, “You are so very good, a much better Catholic at least than a great deal I’ve met. Back in Brooklyn they all seem so proud of you but by Eddie’s history not one of them opened a hand to help you as a child. Really says something that a family of criminals was the one to take you in over the church goers.”

Edie said, “You are very good, to the core, and we will never abandon you either.”

Dawn asked, “Any changes to your classes next semester?”

“Yes, I’m swapping my Etiquette and Poise class for Cultural Diversity and in March I start my Bowling course.”

Edie asked, “How far does that put your through your degree?”

“Finished my 12 General Elective courses, my Visual and Performing Arts, Home Economics, Art, Global Cultures and my Art History is three of my Free Elective Credits. And I’ll have a third of my History credits and my Cultural Diversity credits.”

Dawn asked, “So roughly halfway then?”

“Um, sort of, there’s four credit groups on top of finishing my History credit leaving my 21 Free Elective Credits before I get moved up to graduate school.”

Edie smiled, “That is so good to hear. You should have your degree in no time.”

“Hopefully if all goes according to plan. Got a good chunk lined up for the next year, have to fill out the course selection papers. Most of the Professors seem to be up for teaching me this time around.”

Dawn said, “I know it was hard to get through my electives to get to my own degrees.”

That made you sigh and say, “21 credits, that’s seven courses minimum I have to shove somewhere,” making her smirk, “They said they could count another year of photography and the paper if I wanted to keep it up,”

Dawn, “Five classes left then.” Making you smirk at your eye rolling grin.

Edie, “Are you taking a music course?”

“No, not next year at least, I kind of hope not. I want to avoid being made a spectacle of, playing the organ in church occasionally when it rains is my close to public performing and anything outside of the organ I would have to learn the basics from scratch.”

Dawn said, “Oh you will be perfectly fine, if anything you can load up on some interesting courses. Just don’t get stuck in a Religious course.”

That had you groan, “That Professor is such a jerk. Just spends days arguing with the students from what I hear.”

Edie, “Don’t take his course.”

“Plus it does not go well when he gets to anything hinting to Jewish people.”

You said and she asked, “German?”

“No, he’s from Idaho, which really, I don’t get at all. He didn’t even serve in either war so it’s just, plain hate.”

Edie smoothed her hand on your arm as you lifted the kettle to pour the water for the tea, “Do not trouble yourself with those who target our people. This is a time of family and rebellion against those who try to impose upon us, our family never gives in.”

“No we don’t,” you giggled out to her widening smile.

“How long until your gown arrives?” She asked spreading yours and Dawn’s.

“Well, our gowns will be in a couple days actually. I picked you one too that you can try on, we can send James off on a walk or something so I can hide it all somewhere till the summer break.” After a tap of your finger on the counter you said, “Getting close.”

Dawn smiled saying, “Your wedding will be amazing, and I can not wait to see the dress I won’t be able to wear.”

That had you groan and roll your eyes, “Oh come on, we are getting married in the summer, tons of time for little Marigold or Misty to pop out and tussle with the rest of the Brock babies down the aisle,” making her giggle. “You are going to be just fine do not go on assuming you won’t be able to be spectacular in your gown.”

Edie nodded saying in a pat on Dawn’s arm, “Your daughter will be upon us right in time. A welcome spring blossom.”

Dawn in a try not to cry looked to you hearing in your offering her a mug of tea, “Women in our line have a sense on these things apparently. Your baby girl will be just fine.” You said smoothing a hand over her belly in its shift, “Yes you will, and Teddy will be so glad to meet you on the outside of your bubble.”

Eddie accepted the next mug you offered joining you on the way back to the living room to settle down on the couch to talk some more while Erik walked out with a wrapped object that James, with his hands on his shoulders was nudging him in the living room. “Choose a place for what you like. Wherever it needs to go.”

A bit bashfully the menorah in the cloth was exposed and Edie shared how he had been using scrap metals he’d found for the beautiful decoration. Right beside it on the table that James helped to move some decorations away everything was set up and smiled guiding him to come join you on the couches cuddling up to your side. Through the evening time seemed to bleed away and in the midst of making dinner Edie came to teach you to make some traditional treats showing glimpses of your lineage warming up your adopted family’s hearts in your open lesson up to the first lighting of the menorah. Some traditional songs were shared and bedtime brought on a new day of learning and bonding for the lot of you.

Norma and Victor were back in time for the arrival of the boxes that bouncing in their boots Victor and James chuckled on being shooed out of the house by Dawn so you could give the dresses a full airing out.

Loudly you gasped in Eddie’s lifting the dress from the box, “Oh it’s so breathtaking,” you murmured coming closer. The layers of ruffles on the skirt feeding up to the sweetheart bodice that without the corseted top looked a bit awkward at the joining of the sheer off the shoulder sleeves that stretched to your wrists.

Dot was the first one to say, “Pants off now.”

That had you giggle and Erik chuckle watching her and Dawn help you out of your sweater and trousers leaving you in your underwear and thick socks to step into the gown Eddie lowered.

Norma smiling widely said, “Oh it’s so perfect for you.” Unable to wait to even get it over your hips yet widening your smile.

Carefully you eased your arms into the sleeves pressing your hands onto the bodice that Edie buttoned up your back to Dawn’s grip of your hair while Eddie took Dot’s help to right the corset that around your back he eased for you to start hooking the front of it up to the gem coated broach for the top where the front joins at your bust. Carefully from the base up the laces were tightened and tied off for an amusing few minutes of hands keeping you steady and hands adjusting the skirt until like you had caught on fire they all stepped back. Everyone was about in tears in your glances around at the group until Eddie said, “Come on, let’s get the mirror.”

Erik was ahead of him having snuck the mirror from along the wall to settle in front of you for a lip parting view of yourself in your reflection. Up and down you looked over the gown feeling hands in your hair hearing several options on how you could tie back your hair to go underneath the veil. “Oh my mom would have died seeing this.” Teary eyed you wiped your cheek and you let out a deep breath to calm down.

Around your back Eddie hugged you kissing your cheek, “You look stunning, Sis. Sarah would have been in tears and I know your dad would have passed out seeing you.”

Edie said turning your head, “I wish we had our family gems for you.”

“I don’t need gems.”

Dot chuckled saying, “Might need to make a billboard for the guys to not buy you some.”

Erik, “You are inviting a King.”

“I’m not competing with Princess Elizabeth.”

Eddie chuckled, “As if she’d get a day as special as yours.” He said watching you shift on your toes swishing your skirt side to side widening his grin for your test on the movement of the dress.

“I think I want a top hat.”

Erik said, “We have a hat shop near our place. Are you not wearing a veil?”

Eddie said, “We have one,” he said hurrying out of the room to find the top hat, bit old and black but close to the style you might have been thinking of he brought back making you giggle in its awkward slide down your head at being too large for your head. Holding it up for you he said, “I think, we could work a smaller top hat, and the clip the veil in underneath, or wrap it around. We’d need one in white though.”

Softly you giggled, “Wonder how James will take it.”

Dot, “Probably be jealous how yours is better than his.”

Dawn said, “And we could go bulk, we could have hats too if you like.”

“Maybe not tall top hats for everyone.”

Dot, “Flat hats, cute little ones with some nice broaches.”

You nodded and Eddie said adding the hat to his head he’d return later, “We can sketch them up in our break then mail them off. Call up the shop first see if they’re up for the task.”

Stealing a glance at the boxes you said, “Alright, Dot, your turn, pants off.” Widening her smile to have you open her box she wrote her name on top of you helped to ease the beaded white gown out parting lips.

Norma, “It’s white.”

“Yes, the tradition of weddings is to have the bridal party and groomsmen dressed similar to the Bride and Groom to ward off spirits bent to ruin them.”

Covered to the shoulders the gown with an open back flap cinched at the waist at a belt of sorts for the sleeveless dress she eased into and smiled turning around to admire every angle of the dress secured by a button behind the neck centered in the minimal dip. The slim dress that Edie smiled in admiring her own dress that you helped her into in the closet saying while she looked at her reflection. “I know you don’t stand up with us but I thought you could borrow my fur wrap if you didn’t want to show your arms and you don’t need to wear a hat either to match us.”

Edie said on her way out to see her reflection while you eased your wrap around her shoulders widening her smile, “It is your day. Whatever you choose.”

Dawn held her own dress up a bit sadly while Norma said, “You all are going to be so lovely.”

“So are you, we’ve covered this. You are going to be able to fit into this in time. Don’t make me move the day to August silence your doubts.”

She scoffed as you stuck your tongue out at him, “You are not moving the big day.”

“I don’t even have a big day yet.” You teased taking her dress back to its box beginning the process of working all of them back into theirs including yours as they all rattled off numbers of days to get you to set a day. All the way through to May making you say, “Romans said it was bad luck for weddings in May.”

More than a few chortled and Erik said, “Why would that matter?”

You shrugged settling your sweater on your shoulders, “I don’t know. Supposed to have a break for the Feast of the Dead and the birth of the Goddess of, Fertility, I think.”

Eddie said, “May 14th then. Your favorite day. I am calling the invitation crew and giving them the date.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re calling the one from Washington the Trumans suggested.”

His face scrunched up and he said, “No, I’m calling that mom and pop by the china shop you wanted. Told them we’d work a date out of you after you settled on the paper and envelopes. With those nice raised edges for the rsvp cards. Just watch we get them to send off an RSVP card to King George over his morning tea knowing he can’t add anymore names to our guest list.” Unable to help it you grinned watching him stroll out of the room to make the call and brighten the day of the shop. Who have all been dying to know when they could get started on the invitations that you would personally address and make the day of everyone in the post office seeing they were finally having a day to prep for.

Into the closet of James’ old room the boxes were settled safely in time for you to slip down and get something started for lunch giving the brothers the signal on their lap around the barn with a whistle from Erik. Grins on the pair spread having been listening in as well as they could hearing the happy test of the gowns to the wedding day that had Victor lift James into a tight hug at finally having a wedding date. The pair of them sharing their amusement at the notion you wanted a top hat to go with his he hoped to have loaned you his for the pictures afterwards knowing how much you liked the thought of his wearing one for the ceremony.

A call from Dawn asking about the top hats had the hatter perk up as well glad for a job that tomorrow you would take a trip down to be measured and hand over the designs for the hats. Over the phone Eddie’s sisters and brothers in law gave their measurements after taking a stroll to their great uncle’s place, who used to be a hatter when he was younger. Only adding more questions of wonder on what you were planning for the big day involving hats.

.

“Miss Pear!” The name was gasped out of the wife of the Hatter behind the desk who all but shouted for her husband who came out and one by one had you seated on his measuring chair. Several designs of hat styles were used to find the right shape of hats for him to customize to the sketches you had brought up stirring up an amusing scene for the others to watch you and him choosing from decorations to add to each of the special hats. The veil and shoes were left, the former which Mama Brock was loaning you her same one her girls had worn with the latter being a matter of shopping with Norma and Dawn when you got back to Brooklyn again. On the way back the china shop gladly handed over the wedding china you had ordered to add to the rest of the supplies for the big day.

.

Christmas came and before you knew it the invitation and RSVP cards had been sent to you. One by one carefully the addresses to each person were elegantly written across the envelopes, those of which headed to those in the Royal Family were joined in bulk inside a package you mailed off to Buckingham Palace. A second package would be sent off from Brooklyn to the White House for the Trumans. The men from your platoons came next, each with stamps and added to the post with those meant for the people in town. The invitations weren’t required for them but a lovely token to hold onto until the ceremony. They were the first to return their cards that helped to give the amused caterers in town a start to how much food they had to ensure would be ready for the now named big day they had more than enough time to ready for.

Tons of snow kept you and Venom amply occupied in the snow maze the brothers helped Erik to design for a bit of heart pumping fun taking jars and painted stones from spots in the maze to others to see who washed up after dinner. Dawn and Norma together planned out the finer details of the nursery to be decorated upon your return to Edie’s continued bouts of journaling more tales she wanted you to have with you while apart she had remembered on winters with your father as children.

Cards from the platoons were noted and copies of the numbers to add to the mix while you added tick marks on the copies seating chart deepening James’ grin in your ceremony coming closer with each x on the days of his pocket planner. Along with your passed exams he noted to remember later as he had remembered his times with his former wife and son he would have a record of days that would make him bleed if the devastating losses would come. Vic had been keeping his own since meeting Norma and marked down the days for what he hoped to be the expected July birth of his child.

…

“Hey, Big Pappa,” you said nudging Vic’s hip in the smirk spreading action of passing him with half of the crib kit him and James would put together that you had carried up from the truck after your first day back in class.

“Why are you carrying that?” he rumbled taking hold of your end him and James set down after he’d been admiring the mural you had painted on the walls the days prior to suit Norma’s taste for her baby.

“Well I could levitate it up here but then James would keep trying to get the dressers on his own.” Making Victor chuckle to himself.

Victor asked, “How’d class go? You’ve got what, two new classes?”

“Ya, another History course and Cultural Diversity tomorrow instead of my Poise class. Not bad, History is a guy who is awfully fond of corduroy and elbow patched tweed jackets. Haven’t met the other yet.”

James, “You like your History class?”

“Seems fun,” turning their heads after they’d set the box down. “Kind of does, he’s not as strict but he likes to go into detail. Hear he likes to give diagrams and maps for when we get to battles.” Tugging the corners of their mouths upwards. “You know I like maps.”

.

Classes did go back to normal and while Cultural Diversity sounded interesting it had to be taught by one of the dullest Professors that had you more than pleased it was a one semester course and every other day. First and last class would be at Barnard leaving the rest for Columbia’s Campus with Photography and the Paper afterwards through the week alone until you got to March.

With the return of all the RSVP cards, including those from the Palace you had actually gotten a call from one of the secretaries to confirm when they were completed and sent out to you a stunning three weeks after having received them. To you it seemed a simple matter that the nobles took time to get everyone’s answers, where very much in reality they had all been puzzled for what to do with the cards at all until clued in by one of their newly married maids who had been jokingly asked if she understood even what the acronym stood for. Truman had been far more prompt and had them hand delivered by a messenger flown out from Washington who proudly handed his assigned package over with a verbal confirmation the First Family had ensured they would not miss the big day.

.

Bowling was fun, and with it came letters from the First Family with promises of letting you use their bowling alley in the White House upon your next visit. A simple, “Well butter my biscuit,” turned around the whole anxious beginning to the countdown to the big day as the world now was broadcasting the date of the ‘Ceremony of the Year.’ All details from that was being torn apart by the day on what little they could come up with for details only allowing ridiculous speculation for what past the day and country for the ceremony would hold in store for the world to see for decades to come.

In the lavish penthouse apartment meeting the infamous ‘Daddy’ to Portia and Preston came with a home cooked southern meal that had you turning over your second patty of fried chicken steak causing him to ask, “Your steak too tough Miss Jaqi?”

Lifting your eyes from the plate you shook your head with a smile calming him and the servers along the wall, “No, sorry, just trying to figure out what all would go into making this. James and Victor have a stack of cook books I’ve been going through to learn more recipes to draw from.”

His smile split widely and he said, “Well our cook Benjamina would be tickled to pass on the recipe to you I’m sure.” He said and certainly by your way out the recipe would be written out for you to meet you at the door.

Portia however took your glance her way mid slice of the patty to say, “I just can’t believe they wrote that piece on your wedding day in the papers. Honestly, May, June, hell even if you wanted it to be in a leap year what would it matter have your big day in May?”

James said, “Some people are superstitious sheep.” Taking another bite of his own food.

“There’s a big sort of uprising of tradition that June is the best month to marry in for some fiscal year tax break nonsense.”

Victor chortled to Norma as she said, “Can’t imagine hearing anyone marry for taxes.”

Dawn smirked at Eddie saying, “Anyone who assumes we get hitched for taxes is out of their mind. Romans honored the week of the Dead and if it is bad luck for weddings then here’s to hope that it’s the cameras that go down on the big day. Serves them right for thinking Jaqi’d choose anything close to a muffin sleeved silk pumpkin of a dress.”

Portia said with a grin of her own, “Well I know your big day will be fabulous. Can’t wait to see it. Bet the other girls will be fuming to hear I’m the only student attending.”

“Well it’s not like I’m taking the whole class to the big day just to prove I don’t hate them. At least they’ve decided since the White House had stated they were invited it must have been in the works since before I even got to the school to keep them from uproaring on the ‘elite’ guest list.”

Sir said with a smirk, “I take it he’s the only big kahuna coming?”

Dawn, “Just his family and King George’s family and a possible future son in law.”

Preston chuckled saying, “So them in the swarms of our like to fill the pews?”

“Pretty much,” James replied playfully. “Outside of family is our platoons and the whole town, which isn’t a whole lot of people to worry them. Certainly will be a nice small ceremony to knock them a bit off their feet expecting something grander.”

Portia, “I can’t wait to see your little hideaway in Canada. I bet it’s just picture perfect.”

Victor, “Should be, right in the heart of spring. Tons of green and more than plenty of flowers to pick to coat the cathedral and then some.”

Sir, “Well we’ve booked a room in the best hotel in Alberta and have hired a driver for the big day in advance, won’t want to miss a moment to get to see your home stretch.”

Pt 39

All –

@himoverflowers​, @theincaprincess​, @aspiringtranslator​ ​,@thegreyberet​, @patanghill17​, @jesgisborne​, @curvestrology​, @alishlieb​, @jogregor​, @armitageadoration​, @fizzyxcustard​, @lilith15000​, @marvels-ghost​, @catthefearless​, @imjusthereforthereads​, @c-s-stars​, @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore​, @mariannetora​, @shes-a-killer-kween, @ggbbhehe4455, @xxbyimm (Hobbit x oc)

X Marvel-Cast - @himoverflowers, @theincaprincess​, @changlingkhat

[queen-eliza-schuyler]

Work Place Problems- Chapter 11

“The election results, folks! Get your news here!” A mail boy yells, waving a newspaper around

On the front page was the bold title, ‘President Thomas Jefferson marries Secretary Hamilton and announces that there is a child on the way.”

Earlier that week

“Every action has its equal opposite reaction. John Adams shat the bed; I love the guy, but he’s in traction. Poor Alexander Hamilton, he is missing in action. So now I’m facing Aaron Burr with his own faction,” Thomas drawls in front of the press.

As he exits the stage after his campaigning speech, James greets him at the door.

“Burr is very attractive in the North, New Yorkers like his chances,” James says evenly.

“He’s not very forthcoming on any particular stances and besides, he only entered to spite Adams. He doesn’t truly want to win,” Thomas says.

And it was true. After Adams fired Hamilton, Burr decided he would run for president just to piss him off.

If he somehow got ahead of Thomas in the race, the plan was for him to drop out.

Aaron didn’t want the presidency. He had a 3 year old daughter, Theodosia. He didn’t want to miss a single thing she did growing up and presidential matters would take up too much of his time.

“He’s doing well ignoring questions. Ask him a question, it glances off, he obfuscates, he dances,” Madison notes.

Thomas chuckles. “And they say I’m a Francophile, at least they know I know where France is.”

James shakes his head. “Thomas, that’s the problem; see, they see Burr as a less extreme you. You need to change course, a key endorsement might redeem you.”

Thomas frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“What does everyone in this nation believe?” James prompts.

When Thomas remains silent, James continues. “They all think that Alexander Hamilton hates you. So if you get your fiancé to promote you…”

“….I get the presidential seat of power and we don’t have to raise suspicion by having Aaron drop out.” Thomas finishes.

“Exactly,” comes a voice from behind them.

They see Burr standing and smiling at them as he makes his way off the stage.

Thomas shakes hands with the man before turning to leave.

“I have to be on my way. Alexander is going to kill me when he finds out I forgot to do the laundry again,” Thomas says solemnly.

James and Aaron laugh and shoo him off.

Thomas climbs into his car and finally allows himself to smile.

He was going to win this election and get married to the love of his life.

He knocks on the door to hear a muffled, ‘Coming!’

Alexander opens the door and tilts his head back all the way to look Thomas in the eye.

Thomas smirks at the small omega as Alexander scowls at him.

“Get in, you fucking tree,” Alexander grumbles.

Thomas chuckles and enters the house.

“So, about the election-” Thomas starts.

“Ah, ah, ah. No. Stop worrying about it.” Alexander tutted, cutting him off.

Thomas shook his head with a blinding grin.

“No. I figured out how to win. We’re going to get married,” Thomas says, picking Alexander up and spinning him around.

Alexander shrieks in surprise only for it to fade into laughter at the sheer joy on Thomas’s face.

Once Thomas puts Alexander down, he asks, “What’s your secret weapon?”

Thomas flops onto the couch and undos his tie with practiced ease. “That’s the best part, darlin. It’s you.”

Alexander blinks. “What?”

Thomas pulls him into his lap and explains. “Everyone thinks we hate each other, right? So if you vote for me, it’ll seem like the obvious decision if you chose your enemy over your closest friend.”

Alexander nods slowly. “Is Aaron ok with this?”

“He’s one of the reasons I got the idea.” Thomas responds.

Alexander grins. “I’m going to go type up a statement, ok?”

Thomas nods before he finally smells the tantalizing smell of pie.

“Doll, are you baking pies for Mary and Eliza’s house warming tonight or am I delusional?” Thomas questions.

Alexander jumps up with alarm. “Shit, shit, fuck, shit. They’re going to burn.”

He sprints to the kitchen leaving a wheezing Thomas behind on the couch.

“Did you save them from the burning heat of the oven, sweetheart?” Thomas calls, laughter clear in his voice.

“For your information, yes, I saved them. And I made extra for us but if you don’t want it, I suppose I don’t need to share,” Alexander singsongs.

Thomas places a hand on his heart and looks at Alexander from where he was taking pies out of the oven with betrayal. “You wouldn’t.”

Alexander stares him dead on the eye. “Try me.”

Thomas snorts. “You’re too fucking tiny to eat all that.”

“Shut the hell up, Jefferson.”

Thomas chuckles fade into a sigh when he sees the notifications blow up on his phone.

“I‘ll be in my office if you need me,” Thomas calls.

“Ok, I’m going to be working on my paper on one of the tables in the library,”  Alexander calls back.

“Google, set a reminder at 7 to get ready for Eliza’s party,” Thomas calls.

They didn’t buy an Alexa in case of confusion between the Alexa and Alexander.

“Reminder is already set,” the automated female voice says back.

“I already did it,” Alexander says.

Thomas hums as he makes his way across the house to the office.

Thomas was almost falling asleep when Alexander’s voice came ringing into his office. 

“I finished the article. My editor is reading through and it should be up by tomorrow in the New York Times and news,” Alexander says.

Before Thomas can respond, Google's voice says; “Get ready for Eliza’s party. Get ready for Eliza’s party.”

“Google, stop.” Thomas says, rubbing his temples.

The alpha gets up and enters his room to change.

He leaves feeling more refreshed than before and frowns when he sees Alexander. He places his hand on the omega’s forehead to check for a fever.

“Are you ok? Your forehead is hot. Do you feel sick? I can tell Eliza if you feel sick, she and Mary will understand,” Thomas fretted.

Alexander smiles weakly. “I’m fine, love, lets go.”

Thomas gives him a look. “If it gets worse, we come back.”

“Deal,” Alexander reluctantly agreed.

Alexander ends up throwing up at the party and nearly fainting.

Thomas carried him home along with a bag full of medicine, candy, hot packs, and get well soon food.

He lays him down on their bed, laying next to him.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” Thomas asked, pulling Alexander close to him.

Alexander looked slightly better when he smelt Thomas’s scent. “I feel better.”

Thomas thinks. “What do you think you’re down with?”

Alexander sighs against his neck. “Actually, I know what’s happening.”

Thomas blinks in surprise. “What is it?”

“I was going to tell you later but I’m pregnant. I have three positive pregnancy tests in the bathroom to attest for it.” Alexander mumbles.

Thomas froze.

For a second, Alexander panics. 

“If you don’t want the child, it’s ok, I think Laf and Herc want to adopt. I want the kid but if you aren’t comfortable, they can raise them so that they’re close but not like-” Alexander rambles, cut off when Thomas places a hand on his stomach.

He looks up to see a look of wonder on the alpha’s face as he touches his stomach.

“I’m going to be a dad,” Thoma whispers.

“Yup. And I’m gonna be a mom.” Alexander jokes.

Thomas nuzzles his neck. “You’re gonna be the best mama there is.”

Alexander cracks a smile. “Mama?”

“That’s what I called my mother,” Thomas explains.

Alexander kisses Thomas’s cheek. “I love it but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be a papa.”

Thomas nods. “Sounds good, mama it is.”

Alexander snorts in amusement. “We’ll let the kid decide.”

Thomas presses a kiss to the top of Alexander’s nose. “If it makes you feel better about being a mom.”

[liivkiss]

The prologue to a story I probably won't continue ...

Sooo... After years of creating an account, but only beginning to actually use it a few months ago, I decided to make a post. But, before the story itself, some information: -  English isn’t my first language. Then, you will probably find some (or many) errors;  - It is a Harry Potter’s fic inspired by the story "Bone of the Father (Blood of the Enemy)" by Ellory on AO3; - This is just the prologue to a story that I'm not sure will continue, but I have several ideas for that. It will probably be called "Blood and Magic (make us a family)" - If you like it and want to continue or use it as inspiration for something, just let me know. At the end I will put some of my ideas for this story. I hope you like it, anyway!

----------

Grapevines: For Intoxication and Bonds

Halina was sitting on her bed (if you can call it that) in the smallest room in the Dursleys' house. In front of her, a hand mirror was resting on the pillows.

In the mirror, instead of her reflection, Sirius Black's image, her Godfather and one of the last connections with her parents, glowed like a computer or TV screen. But it was magic.

She really loves magic… 

Sirius told her that Headmaster Dumbledore believed it would be safer if he didn’t contact Halina, since he was a fugitive criminal in the eyes of the Ministry of Magic, but he couldn’t do that. He failed with her as Godfather once, he wouldn’t do it again.

There was a lot to teach her about the magical world, especially since she didn't grow up in this world.

"Magic Inheritances aren’t transmitted only by words, by someone simply named their Heir." Sirius said calmly to her.

He wasn’t exactly happy with her treatment at the Dursleys, but neither of them had what they needed to get her out. Then, he taught it through the two-way mirror. What she owned now belonged to her father, James Potter.

“A connection, formed by bonds of Blood and Magic, is necessary for the Family Magic pass for the child.”

“So… How did you manage to make me the Heiress Black? Aren't we related? We are?” She tilted her head slightly to the right, frowning.

Sirius laughed a little. She liked to see Sirius smiling. He always seemed a little lighter when he did that. “We are, distantly, but we are.” He replied, still with a smile on his face "But that wouldn’t be enough to make you my Heiress."

*x*x*x*x*x*

"Let's go together, then." Halina said, looking at Cedric.

“Together?” The blond boy asked, confused.

"We touch the cup at the same time. We make Hogwarts the winner of the Tournament. Together." She answered.

"That sounds like a great idea for me." He smiled charmingly, as he always did for everyone.

She never really liked that. It looked so rehearsed. Malfoy's smirks seemed more honest than Cedric's empty smile. They always talk about how kind the boy was, but he never helped her with all the mockery and obvious bullying she suffered, even before that year.

But, well, nobody helped her. He wasn’t different.

“At three?” Cedric asked

“Yes.”

“One…” The Hufflepuff started counting.

“Two…” She took a deep breath.

“Three!” Both said simultaneously, touching the Cup together. She felt a twinge in his navel and the world around her turned.

*x*x*x*x*x*

“See, Hali…” Sirius started to explain “Between biological magical parents and children the blood connection, which I imagine is obvious here, and the magic connection happens naturally. Unless, of course, something happens to prevent this. But this is rare.”

Sirius waved his hand in front of his face with a nervous smile, dismissing the last comment.

“These connections, of Blood and Magic, are the bridge for the passage of Family Magic to reach the child and connect with him. If there isn’t a link between Blood and Magic, the Family Magic doesn’t reach the person. Of course, the connection of a Parent and your Child is only the natural way for that connection to form. There are others, Marriage, for example. But that is for another time.

“That still doesn't explain us.”

“I'm getting there.” Sirius smiled indulgently at her impatience. “The Magic Connection between two people is simple to form and there are dozens ways this can happen. Contracts, oaths, family relationships. In our case, it was a Godparenting Ritual. In the ritual, my magic connected with yours, thus establishing a magical connection between us.”

*x*x*x*x*x*

“Kill the spare” Halina heard the hissing voice order someone.

“No!” She shouted, but it was too late.

The green light hit Diggory and he went limp on the floor. Not a second later, she was gagged and stuck in one of the cemetery headstones. Only then does she realize who is doing all this. Pettigrew was quiet, arranging what appeared to be a ritual.

She could only see Diggory's body in front of her, her wand (idiot! - she thinks of herself) is lying not far from him and she is trapped in a tombstone by… Tom Riddle, apparently.

The damn rat puts a snake-like creature, deformed and strange, but vaguely humanoid, into the cauldron.

“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" 

Pettigrew recites, causing a bone to come out of the grave below Halina and float into the huge cauldron.

Oh, that sounds so wrong.

She's screwed.

*x*x*x*x*x*

“But if it was just the connection between Godfather and Goddaughter, you still couldn't be my Heiress” Sirius continued explaining.

She listened attentively to everything. She loved to learn every single thing she could about the Wizarding World. Even though it might sound tedious to most people, for her it sounded so amazing and wonderful.

*x*x*x*x*x*

"Flesh - of the servant - w-willingly given - you will - revive - your master.”

Pettigrew continues the ritual on top of what she supposes is some potion.

It was Black Magic, however. Not Dark, not Obscure. Not even Ancient.

It was the Addictive and Dangerous Black Magic.

*x*x*x*x*x*

“While not the most conventional, it isn’t the first time this has happened.” Sirius commented “But the blood connection needed for you to be my Heiress, for Family Black Magic passed on to you, it happened because of our distant kinship. Your grandmother, your father's mother, was Dorea Potter. She was born in the Black Family and was actually my grandfather's younger sister. We are cousins, kind of.”

“Hmm… So this is the blood connection between us…”

“Yes. There are other ways to establish a blood bond, in addition to looking for family members. Adoption, through the correct blood rituals, is one of those means. Other types of rituals and even some oaths require the use of blood. They don't necessarily form a strong enough link to the Magic Inheritance, but it's there.”

*x*x*x*x*x*

Pettigrew approached her and cut off her arm, taking the blood that was spilling from the huge cut.

“B-blood of the enemy… forcibly taken… you will… resurrect your foe.”

“Well, shit.” It was the only thing she could think of.

*x*x*x*x*x*

Sirius then stopped smiling and became serious.

“But remember Halina: Blood is the most powerful and dangerous thing in the Wizarding World. Don’t give your blood freely. Don't leave your blood behind. And do your best not to spill your blood by force. The most unimaginable things, on the good and the bad side, are possible to do using Blood Magic.”

“I understand, Sirius.”

*x*x*x*x*x*

The liquid in the cauldron immediately turned bright white. Wormtail falls to his knees beside the cauldron with the shiny liquid.

The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened… 

“Let it have drowned.” Halina thought, let it have gone wrong… 

And then, suddenly, she felt a strong pull on her magic. He got out of it and spun around, flying away. The sparks stopped coming out of the cauldron. A second wave of magic surrounded her and she couldn't tell where it came from, but it entered her body and settled in her veins and core.

A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of Hali, so that he couldn't see Wormtail or Cedric or anything but vapor hanging in the air… 

*x*x*x*x*x*

The blue eyes, cold as ice, shine with rage. It couldn't be. Not yet. His plans were just beginning to move! Years of planning, just for that girl to die before her time! The boy was back, he knew he was. So, he had plans to redo it.

Furious, he tosses the Daily Prophet on the table before getting up and leaving the room. In the newspaper, on the front page, a headline stood out in its big black letters in uppercase:

HALINA POTTER ASSASSINATED!

----------

- To make it clear: No, Halina (Fem!Harry) didn't really die. As in Ellory's fic, if that wasn't obvious, Halina ends up becoming Voldemort/Tom Riddle's adopted daughter because of the ritual. - Ideally, this wouldn’t be a Bashing fic for Dumbledore, but he would be Manipulator and the real villain here. Hence the falsification of Halina's death.

I have some drafts for the first and second chapters, but I'm not sure if I'm going to continue writing this fic. But can I bring these drafts here eventually, perhaps?

I would need to translate them, though. They are all in Portuguese.

But that's it. What do you think?

[aion-rsa]

Hamilton: What Happened to Lafayette After He Returned to France?

https://ift.tt/3e6HpMC

He’s one of the most endearing characters in Hamilton. Introduced as bashful and vaguely awkward due to his struggle with the English language, the only major character in the musical with aristocratic titles—besides the King of England, of course—is strangely modest when standing next to the likes of Alexander Hamilton or Aaron Burr. But the Marquis de Lafayette doesn’t stay that way. Soon enough good-natured modesty gives way to spitting English rhymes faster than anyone else on stage. Actor Daveed Diggs may have even secured his Tony award before playing Thomas Jefferson with Lafayette’s rapid fire verbal assault in “Guns and Ships.”

Yet the thing about the same actor portraying Jefferson is it means we see nothing of Lafayette after the American Revolution is won in Act One. In “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down),” Lafayette promises he’ll go back to France and “bring freedom to my people if given the chance.” Later the ramifications of that are only opaquely hinted at in Act Two when Jefferson, fresh from helping Lafayette draft a declaration, returns as France’s fiercest advocate… and faces opposition from Lafayette’s biggest American pal. But other than Hamilton telling Jefferson that “Lafayette’s a smart man he’ll be fine,” we don’t actually learn how things transpired for our favorite fighting Frenchman. But that might be because while he survived the French Revolution… to say he was “fine” is wishful thinking on Hamilton’s part.

The truth is Lafayette tried to bring freedom to his people when given the chance, but he lost his own freedom for more than five years in the process (and almost his head). And these horrors were only beginning to reign as Hamilton and Jefferson were rapping about possible American intervention.

In reality, Lafayette and Hamilton’s friendship began a little later than the 1776 meet-and-greet at the bar in Hamilton. Alexander was already Gen. George Washington’s aide-de-camp (secretary) by the time Washington semi-adopted the Frenchman as much as an enlisted man. Washington knew to look for Lafayette in Philadelphia because Benjamin Franklin personally wrote him about how good-natured the young nobleman of only 19 was—Franklin even feared he’d be taken advantage of for his congeniality. Well, that and because Lafayette and his wife had deep roots in French aristocracy.

Like Hamilton, Lafayette became an orphan when he was 13. Unlike Hamilton, he did not suffer from a lack of funds or prestige. Technically named Gilbert du Motier, Lafayette inherited his title after his father was killed fighting the British in the Seven Years’ War (known as the French and Indian War in the U.S.). Some historians believe the death even inspired a strong anti-British sentiment in Lafayette. But then he may also have been driven by notions of his chivalrous lineage that earned him a role in France’s mounted infantry of Dragoons while still a teenager.

No matter the exact reason, he was soon taken by the cause of the American Revolution and speeches of liberty. So much so that he disobeyed his king and father-in-law to cross the Atlantic. Indeed, after marrying Adrienne de Noailles at age 16 (she was 14), Lafayette was forced by the father of the bride to go to London two years later since he wanted to join the American Revolution. Instead he spent three weeks at British court where he was presented before King George III. Lafayette obeyed but then after returning to France, he hid from his in-laws and purchased his own sailing ship the Victoire, which eventually carried him to South Carolina.

By the time Lafayette arrived in America, the Declaration of Independence was almost a year old, the British had carved Manhattan up, and Hamilton was Washington’s right-hand man. Washington met Lafayette at a dinner in August 1777. While the general was told to keep an eye out for the well-connected Lafayette, Washington was nonetheless taken with the boy’s natural fervor for gaiety and democratic ideals. The Continental Congress was also smitten with Lafayette—his refusing payment for his service and instead offering to purchase weapons for the revolutionaries has that effect—and they awarded Lafayette the title of “major general.” While it was an honorary title, Lafayette expected to one day lead a division of men after Washington thought he was ready.

Initially Washington balked at the idea, but eventually did put Lafayette in charge of American soldiers, most famously at the Battle of Yorktown where Lafayette’s men cut off the British’s ability to retreat. The general also thought so highly of the young Frenchman that after Lafayette was wounded in battle, he wrote the surgeon to think of him as Washington’s own son.

Lafayette also formed an extremely personal friendship with Hamilton. To the degree that some still speculate the pair—like rumors about Hamilton and John Laurens—might have had a romantic relationship. They certainly wrote of each other fondly, with Hamilton’s own grandson characterizing the three as “a gay trio” who resembled the Three Musketeers in the early years of Washington’s officers camp. Near the end of the war, Lafayette wrote his wife, “Among the general’s aides-de-camp is a [young] man whom I love very much and of whom I have occasionally spoken to you. The man is Colonel Hamilton.”

After the war, Lafayette returned to France where he became a vocal advocate for a democratic republic that maintained a constitutional monarchy. He’d named his first and only son Georges Washington Lafayette and one of his daughters, at friend Thomas Jefferson’s urging, Marie-Antoinette Virginie. He was promoted high among the French Army and the royal Order of Saint Louis and quickly became a chummy hunting buddy with King Louis XVI. Despite nestling himself further into the royal aristocracy, Lafayette also welcomed what seemed to be an inevitable French Revolution.

Like Jefferson (and most Americans), Lafayette saw his homeland following in the United States’ example and building a republic that valued the rights of individuals. In some ways, he was further along in those aims than Jefferson, as Lafayette was a member of the abolitionist group the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, and called for Black slaves to not only be freed but given farmland. He even wrote Washington in 1783, pushing his father figure to free his slaves. Washington declined.

The revolution that came to France turned out to be anything but what Jefferson had suggested to James Monroe in a 1788 letter. At the time, Jefferson predicted France would soon have “a tolerably free constitution” without “having cost them a drop of blood.” While Jefferson had grown from appraising King Louis XVI as “a good man” to a do-nothing who spent half the day hunting and the other half drinking, Jefferson believed a constitutional monarchy with a strong legislature was possible. After all, for the first time since 1614, France’s Estates-General was gathering in 1719 to create a new general assembly. What emerged was the National Assembly, though in it Lafayette found himself among a minority of aristocrats who believed the upper legislature should be determined by “head” (population) as opposed to “estate” (amount of land owned).

Jefferson—who once fretted 19 of France’s 20 million people lived worse than the most destitute (white) Americans—took this as grand news. He wrote the king would soon allow “freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of commerce and industry, freedom of persons against arbitrary arrest,” and a variety of other freedoms he was simultaneously beginning to lobby for in the U.S., eventually resulting in the Bill of Rights.

In this vein, Lafayette presented on July 11, 1789 his Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to the National Assembly. While none of the aristocrats at the time knew that it was at least edited by Jefferson (if not co-written), there was no mistaking it was intended to be seen as a French version of the Declaration of Independence. But it was perhaps already too late since the Storming of the Bastille occurred three days later on July 14. Ironically, Lafayette’s attempt to ensure a peaceful transition to a true republic might’ve helped speed along the bloodshed that soon followed. While the National Assembly eventually approved Lafayette’s Declaration on Aug. 26, King Louis rejected it outright on Oct. 2.

Three days later, a mob stormed Versailles, demanding Louis return to rule from (and be imprisoned at) his Parisian palace. By this time, Lafayette was the popular commander-in-chief of the National Guard of France, an armed force intended to maintain the National Assembly’s peace. He used this position to deescalate violence from a crowd now chanting for Marie Antoinette’s blood. Instead Lafayette appeared on the balcony with the French queen and king, kissing Marie Antoinette’s hand and squashing the bloodlust. Gestures such as these, or his order to allow Louis XVI to attend Catholic Mass in Paris (an order his men disobeyed), led to him being painted as a monarchist, or at least a soft moderate who the radical Jacobin extremists now rising to power suspected of being weak.

Around this time, Hamilton wrote to Lafayette, “I have seen with a mixture of pleasure and apprehension the progress of the events which have lately taken place in your country. As a friend to mankind and liberty, I rejoice in the efforts you are making to establish it, while I fear much for the final success of the attempts, for the fate of those I esteem who are engaged in it.” At this point in 1789, Hamilton was among a minority of Americans who believed the French Revolution could turn ugly; most preferred an optimistic view of Jefferson who predicted the goodness of human nature would reign.

In June 1791, already growing unpopular among Jacobin leaders like Maximillien de Robespierre and Georges Danton for his apparently cushy treatment of the royal family, Lafayette became an enemy of public opinion. This occurred suddenly and violently when he suppressed a gathering of 10,000 people after two men accused of being secret spies for the monarchy were hanged in a lynch mob. Lafayette ordered the National Guard to fire into the crowd, wounding and killing dozens. Afterward a new mob gathered and destroyed Lafayette’s home and attempted to assault his wife. Robespierre branded Lafayette a traitor of the Revolution and Lafayette soon resigned from his post in the National Guard.

Even out of power, Lafayette still wrote about the need of sparing the king and queen. In August 1792, Danton put out a warrant for Lafayette’s arrest. King Louis XVI, meanwhile, was executed at the guillotine on Jan. 21, 1793, where school children licked up the specks of blood that splattered from his neck and onto the ground. Marie Antoinette would suffer the same fate later that year, but by Feb. 1, France had already declared war on Britain, as well as Holland and Spain, and demanded the U.S. join them in the fighting to come. Secretary of State Jefferson was enthusiastic, but many Americans had come around to Hamilton’s cynicism about the French Revolution, most notably President Washington. Vice President John Adams summed it up best: “Danton, Robespierre, Marat, etc. are furies. Dragons’ teeth have been sown in France and will come up as monsters.”

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Lafayette, for his part, attempted to flee his way back to the United States. He didn’t get further than the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium). There he was arrested by the rival government and began more than five years of hell. He did better than family members though. His wife’s sister, mother, and grandmother all fell beneath the guillotine and the cheers of the mob in the Reign of Terror. His wife, meanwhile, begged permission to take her five children and stay with Lafayette in prison.

By this point, Lafayette had spent more than a year in solitary confinement after almost escaping Austrian custody with the aid of Angelica Schuyler Church (Eliza’s sister and Hamilton’s sister-in-law). As punishment he was half-starved when his wife and four daughters stayed with him in his cell. Elsewhere his son Georges Washington fled to America where he hoped to meet with his namesake, the President of the United States. Washington, who viewed Lafayette like a son, reportedly wanted to meet the boy but could not do so without looking as if he was sheltering the son of an accused traitor to our nominal ally. Instead Georges spent the winter of 1796 living with Alexander and Eliza Hamilton before getting to finally meet the now former president the following spring.

As Secretary of State, Jefferson did mastermind a plan to aid Lafayette and his family. Under dubious rationalizations, he got Congress to agree to finally pay Lafayette and his wife a salary for their service during the Revolutionary War, gaining universal support to offer a monthly pension to a national hero who in his own nation was considered a traitor.

After more than five years of imprisonment—and Robespierre falling under his own guillotine—Lafayette was finally released in 1797. Alexander Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow reports his hair had entirely fallen out of his head and his countenance resembled more cadaver than a living man. But even then, Lafayette was just one of many political prisoners in the Austrian Netherlands the newly victorious General Napoleon Bonaparte negotiated the freedom of. And yet, Lafayette could not return to America as he hoped because of new tensions between Bonaparte’s emerging dictatorial government and the Adams administration. Thus Lafayette eventually returned to France in 1800 where he retired from politics, despite Napoleon offering him multiple titles and opportunities, including becoming minister to the United States. Lafayette wanted the titles, but he did not want to be a member of Napoleon’s government. He also refused his friend Thomas Jefferson, now President of the United States, when Jefferson offered to make him governor of Louisiana in 1803.

Lafayette remained absent from public life until Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815—though he made enemies with the British again when he attempted to help the disgraced French emperor flee to the United States—and in 1824 he finally returned to America where he received a rapturous welcome in all 24 existing states he visited. He even got to lay the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston during the Declaration of Indpendence’s 50th anniversary. By this time, Hamilton was long dead, but Lafayette lived to see the truth in Hamilton’s enthusiastic promise from 1798 after Lafayette’s release from prison: “The only thing in which our [political] parties agree is to love you.” He also swore their friendship would “survive all revolutions and all vicissitudes.”

Lafayette died in 1834 and was buried in a cemetery in Paris… where his grave was consecrated with a layer of soil from Bunker Hill.

The post Hamilton: What Happened to Lafayette After He Returned to France? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[ca1e70-deactivated]

a list of my entirely way too niche headcanons ive actually implemented for everyones imagination:

name options ive used and refuse to retire: david elizabeth strider (sometimes i dont feel like being a douche to others and saying thats not his name), harley davidson strider, and david james strider for the sake of simplicity

im not gonna tell yall the like. oc exes ive given him bc thatll take eighteen years. 

i dont rlly have an explanation on the ghost thing besides the fact he just can? ive occasionally pulled from family ghost stories and experiences bc i somehow got landed with family members who lived in a haunted house for a decade and enjoy scaring me with all the stories (including the time my cousin literally died on the kitchen floor from a bronchial spasm and one of the friends that was over asked my aunt later what was up with the old man she saw in the corner of the room that night - my cousin is fine btw shes just a huge bitch and a third grade teacher and i dont like her)

whether or not hes done drugs is based on absolutely nothing besides how im feeling in that moment. either hes the designated driver and sober friend forever or he got fired from his job after doing a line at work during graveyard with some random customers theres no inbetween (this absolutely happened @ waho. if dave works at waho hes a mess of a person and thats on the diner itself.)

ok look i hc dave w/schizophrenia besides when i was 14 i had a hyperfixation with learning about it and then at 16 was prescribed a medication and had side effects so wack my therapist genuinely thought 14 yr old me was onto something and its a weird way to cope with the idea that lady put in my head that i might “develop it in my twenties” which i turn 20 this year and i havent been able to stop obsessing and panicking over the prospect so PLEASE dont come in my inbox calling me ableist im not out here all harley quinn in suicide squad with the voices ok hes medicated, he goes to therapy, the hard fast delusion that lil cal was nearly sentient and informed bro of every single thing dave did no matter how asinine it was is no longer a debilitatingly affecting him ANYWAYS

i actually use the chicken/egg farming family pretty often just because its hilarious to me to give dave like. an actual mom and dad. hes literally an uncle to like three different kids he just never visits because they make fun of his skinny jeans and he hates one of his (incredibly bare-bones ocs all of them) brothers who threatened to bash his head in with a little league bat after dave broke his star wars lego set apart on accident (but not rlly) so their parents were like “why dont you stay with your brother in the big city for a lil while champ” and then they just never picked him back up? and thats on favoritism 

the other one is that his name is actually david reed and hes the middle child of a family of three who literally live the standard golden retriever white middle class life only they went to disney land or something equally as dumb one year when dave was like 6 and he wandered off so bro literally just went “huh free game” because frankly he was an idiot who thought maybe i should take this kid home because its real dangerous in parking lots and then it was too late to NOT have it seem like a kidnapping and thats why daves never had a summer job, seen his birth certificate, or gone to school. but vaguely remembers what kindergarten was like and having a pet dog and calling someone mom as a kid. 

im not making a bullet point about his sex life headcanons just use your imagination and acknowledge the fact bro essentially worked within the sex industry and i enjoy putting dave through trauma as a catharsis 

i stopped doing this one usually but if he did go to school hes been in percussion since fifth grade and played the drums in his high schools jazz band as well as various edgy teenager garage bands he likes to pretend dont have a youtube presence and that hes absolutely never been shirtless in front of plenty of his classmates because he wore a hoodie to a show like an idiot. idk occasionally ill put him in an actual band he doesnt hate but keeps separate from his lil turntechGodhead internet persona (which i will ALSO touch upon in a sec) until they wind up getting looped into a tour with some bigger named band that has a show in *insert beta kid here*’s city and hes gotta come clean solely so he can visit his online friend. sorry derseasterous thats the one time weve ever run into each other and i made him have a crush on one of his bandmates i was in my anti-daverose phase where i made dave a hoe and also didnt want to admit i still loved the ship all these years later 

i hate it so much but you know the whole vr loli trap voice shit that was popular a while ago? hes fucking baller at it for some reason. he did it as a joke while talking to bro and they both about shat their pants. if im feeling real ambitious, hes got a separate soundcloud solely dedicated to doing dumbass rap covers or making his own but in the voice under the pseudonym elizabeth “beth” davids that he will never admit is his. well, he will, but hes gonna be really fucking embarrassed about it. irony or not.

talking abt seperate soundclouds and stuff ive always had it where turntechGodhead was his like. essentially internet fucking persona facade shit he used because we all had that phase where we wanted memorable urls and stuff but also didnt want to totally ignore the nagging fear of people finding you in real life, until it turned into real life ppl finding you on the internet. so he also has basically an adjacent set of social media under the same name but its just a boring username i havent decided on so everyone he knows irl doesnt mix up with what hes made for himself as TG and the people he knows as TG dont know what highschool he goes to. (this occasionally comes with the territory of ppl on parp being pissed that daves “lying” or “hiding things” from his friends as if he was doing it out of spite instead of just keeping embarrassing tagged photos and videos from football games or when he ate shit at the skatepark from fucking with his “rap career”)

every once in a while i get on a kick where hes just german. like, i just replace houston texas with hamburg germany and have him apply to a university in whatever state is applicable for whoever im chatting with and it goes from there? sometimes he moved when he was little and went through the whole visa thing, sometimes he didnt go through the visa thing, sometimes hes a dual citizen because of family and shit, its all dependent on what suits the situation best. 

one that ive been fucking with for a while but hardly break out (until recently with like 5 roses in the span of one day hell yeah) is that he has a neighbor at the end of the hall who is like a thousand year old witch lady that hes basically adopted as his mother figure in lieu of not having one and shes totally cool with it, especially bc when she kicks the bucket she fully plans on giving dave all her occult stuff so her figure-skating coach and realtor daughter doesnt sell it at a garage sale and lets it all go to waste. she also once brought rose up by name in a conversation without any prompting of her existence which dave didnt realize for days, and then one time cryptically stopped and stared at an empty space in the wall, went “she has potential, you know.” then looked at him sitting on her kitchen counter with a smile “lots of it” and hes thought about that weekly ever since. (it is important to note one of the occult items he leaves her is literally her own personal book of shadows shes been filling out for decades its like a 600 page leatherbound book dave has no idea what its used for but the sheer amount of homemade spells and etc in it is like. gonna murder rose the second this chick gets her hands on it i promise you.)

theres the standard strife shit? im not rlly gonna get into those theyre all basically cookie cutter bullshit. its just standard bro and dave abuse talk. i like to inclulde the whole 24hr live cam up in the apartment that definitely watches dave in every room besides his own and the bathroom, but that quickly delves into the prospect of middle-aged men stalking him online and basically sexually harassing him in his own god damn home by talking about how they can see him just trying to take his shoes off in the living room after getting home and frankly? its not one of my best takes! but once you throw it into the headcanon bin, its there forever. 

he actually really does do something with his photography but not enough to warrant anything exciting, but he has his own branding for it and regularly takes pictures of his friends or anything else he thinks is moderately interesting enough to take pictures of, but those are just thrown into shoeboxes under his bed in favor of posting genuine shots because he wants to keep his image intact and blurry photos of jade smiling in the tree they climbed up together while bec paws at the base of it while whining isnt exactly something he wants the whole world to see.

i also pretty often but him into either paleontology OR i put him down as trying to become a mortician because he thinks handing roadkill once he graduated from museum giftshop specimens to doing his own taxidermy on the side has prepared him enough to perform an occasional autopsy and start embalming real human corpses. (sometimes i put my own desires in and make them his bc i have to project at some point and put him through the same EMT course i dropped out of bc it was one semester and he already has pretty decent first aid skills, but he definitely didnt expect it to be as fucking wild at times as it is, but whats he gonna do? get a job back at waffle house? the company hes working for just offered to pay like half his associates in paramedicine tuition and hes already got all his pre-recs done when he started for paleo. at least its a stable job and hes got the ability to be compassionate in the moment) 

im running out of things that ive done to the poor kid. OH 

hes not a virgin he had a girlfriend all four years of high school (shes also one of his optional and designated exes plz keep up) and their relationship ends in one of two ways: she dies in a car accident a week before their high school graduation, or she stops talking to him entirely a week after their high school graduation until a couple years later she gets into (guess what) a car accident with her current wife/girlfriend and dies which leaves behind their daughter. who just so happens to also be daves daughter. her name is hannah and i love her like my own but no one ever likes her and thats on the conditioning of dirk. does dave end up taking her in? yes. shes awesome and the first time he takes her to the park to like run off some fucking steam she disappears for two minutes and dave is moderately terrified until she comes back holding a dead baby squirrel and thats the moment he realizes huh maybe things really do be genetic.

ok at the bottom of the list im gonna add the couple of times hes been a camboy which usually coincides with the live apartment cam thing and the amount of people in his dms calling him hot or whatever, but typically its more of a started the day he turned 18 and basically dipped around 20 in favor of showing up randomly with no warning to complain about a video game dick in hand because it gives him an outlet that wont annoy his friends bc this is the fifteenth time hes had a lot to say this week about a certain boss battle and also the comments fuel his ego and daddy issues.

the last one wasnt the bottom but literally unless its explicitly proven otherwise every time anyone rps with me there is the underlying fact dave strider was a goalie on his high school lacrosse teams all four years and (shocker another one) definitely had the hots for one of his teammates like major hots like first gay experience hots. like it was painfully obvious that teammate also liked him back hots. like one night at a team sleepover one of the other guys was like can yall just makeout and get it over with were fucking tired and dave really had the balls to be offended and ask what the fuck they were talking about while literally sitting halfway in the mans lap bc for some reason they had to share the same chair. 

he is also guilty until proven innocent of being the worlds biggest loner outside of that sports team and even though hes literally a jock he still opts to eat his lunch alone in the hallway or something like that and has a tendency to leave girls on read, but bc hes got an in with the rest of the jocks hes basically drug around to plenty of parties and since hes conventionally attractive enough and popular in the aloof way that he is, hes got plenty of tagged insta posts and twitter directs and snapchat streaks going. 

THESE WERE ALL NO GAME AND DONT INVOLVE SHIPS BC I LIKE TO KEEP MY OPTIONS OPEN AND THEYRE LITERALLY ALL BASED OFF RPS IVE DONE I HOPE YALL JUDGE ME ACCORDINGLY

[saccharineomens]

I want to know all the answers from your 100 question meme

Something you find romantic? Answer whichever #'s you feel comfortable answering; I want to know all your inner musings 😝

cat why do you do this to me

i’ll be sticking them below a readmore, then!

1.  Is a kiss considered cheating? Yes! Unless you’ve communicated with your partner that it’s okay.

2. Have you ever faked an orgasm? Nope

3. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Hmmm this is a really hard decision. I usually say telepathy, but I like shapeshifting, too. I loved the Animorphs books as a kid, even though I didn’t read them all.

4. Do you think you are going to be rich in 7-8-9 years? Monetarily? Nah. But I like to think I’ll still have strong, rich friendships and I think I’ll have enough money to live comfortably alone. 

5.  Tell us some funny drunk story. I just don’t really have one rip. Drunk people are hilarious but normally I’m the DD. I’ve got several pleasant stories, though! There was a time me and my best friend went to a pub and drank cider and played board games and video games until closing time. Afterwards we stopped at an Insomnia cookies, a storm caused the electricity to go out, and we got a half dozen cookies for free. (well, I felt guilty, so I left them a very large tip.)

6.  Why are you no longer together with your ex? I was going through college, it was long distance, and I felt he deserved better. We keep in touch, though.

7.  If you had to choose one way to die, what would it be? Well, painlessly, of old age, in my sleep, of course. But if that’s not an option, out of all the ways of dying, freezing to death seems the most humane. You just get tired, cold, and sleepy, and then you just...don’t wake up.

8.  What are your current goals? Graduate, mostly. Long-term I’d like to live with friends in a big house and my cat, and have enough free time to garden and craft at my leisure, and have the ability to travel wherever I’d like. I’d like to work on a game or movie I’m really passionate about, and I’d love to become a director someday.

9.  Do you like someone? I mean, I like a lot of people, but I assume this means romantically. So, kind of? I find a lot of people attractive and have a ‘if they wanted to date I’d be down’ feeling, but I don’t have serious feelings for anybody specific.

10. Who was the last person to disappoint you? Hmmm I have a terrible memory. Myself, perhaps? I have a really hard time with getting up when my alarms go off. Sleep inertia’s a big problem for me. This has led to me being late to classes and rushing to get ready, which is stressful.

11. Do you like your body? Ehhhh. I guess. It could be improved, like by not having health issues. 

12.  Can you keep a diet? Ha! No.

13. If the whole world listened to you right now, what would you say? I hope you have a wonderful day. The universe doesn’t care about us so be excellent to each other!

14.  Do you work? Constantly, every day. I work to learn new things, accomplish school assignments, make money, feed myself...All my life is is working, right now.

15.  If you could choose only one food to eat to the rest of your life, what would it be? Salad! Because anything can be a salad. Tuna salad, fruit salad, salad with salmon...

16. Would you get a tattoo? Oh, absolutely. The only reason I don’t have any is because of money. I have like five small ideas and one very large one that i’d like across my back. 

17. Something you don’t mind spending all your money on? Food, my family, and my friends.

18. Can you drive? Yes. Do I have a license? No.

19. When was the last time someone told you you were beautiful? Probably sometime in the past month by my mother, but she’s just about the only person who does.

20. What was the last thing you cried for? asdfjal;ksdjfs it was Treasure Planet. Jim and Silver’s relationship is just [clutches chest] so beautiful.

21. Do you keep a journal? Sort of, sporadically. 

22.  Is life fun? Yes!

23.  Is farting in front of people irrelevant? I mean, I prefer you excuse yourself, but more or less yeah.

24.  What’s your dream car? My sib got this really nice Prius used at a good price, and it has a lot of room and it’s a hybrid, so Nice. I don’t tend to pay much attention to cars, as long as they’re comfortable and low-waste.

25. Are grades in school important? I admit that they’re important to me, but that’s something I have to unlearn. My worth isn’t determined by other people.

26. Describe your crush. Ugh. I’m bi, guys. I get crushes on people all the time, every day. Saw this really pretty redhead in the cafeteria over a month ago, and I saw her again yesterday. She’s a couple inches taller than me and has really pretty curly hair, but I didn’t really, like, stare, so I couldn’t describe her face well past ‘cute nose’.

27. What was the last book/movie that really impressed you? Nothing jumps to mind. I guess I’m still falling over myself after seeing Mad Max back in like 2015, that was just the coolest experience ever. I find delight in just about every movie I watch, though. The second Jumanji-sequels movie was just as fun and amazing as the first. Klaus was just incredible in so many ways. 

28.  What was your last lie? I...really just do not remember. Probably telling myself “I’m gonna do my laundry today” a few days ago? Whereas I DID do my laundry today so HA

29. Dumbest lie you ever told? I saved this question for last and it’s late and I honestly can’t remember anything, asdjls sorry. My memory’s awful y’all. 

30. Is crying in front of people embarrassing? Oh absolutely. I mean it wouldn’t be if they weren’t uncomfortable with it, but they always are.

31.  Something you did and you are proud of? I did my laundry today? washed dried folded and everything. I also braved the nighttime neighborhood around my school to solo a Pokemon raid, which was cool. I’m proud of my animation done at the end of the last semester, and of how my teddy bear modelling is doing this week.

32. What’s your favourite cocktail? How am I supposed to choose this? How can you ask me to choose this? I’d have to line them all up and try one by one, honestly, before I could tell you. 

33.  Something you are good at? I’m pretty good at drawing anatomy and expressions, I think. I’m good at baking/cooking, although I lack creativity in the kitchen. I also think I’m a pretty good listener, and a good friend? 

34.  Do you like small kids? Most of the time!

35.  How are you feeling right now? Frankly, a little drained with all these questions, but determined to finish them. I’m a little hungry. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and wish I was doing homework, but I also can’t get myself to do it right now. 

36.  What would you name your daughter/son? Not sure! Every once in a while I’ll be like “ooh, that’d be a great name” and then don’t remember to write it down. Besides, I plan on adopting, and most kiddos already have names.

37.  What do you need to be happy? Money, friends, family, good food, and a place to explore. 

38.  Is there some you want to punch in the face right now? Not particularly. No one other than, well. The rich people I’m pretty sure everyone knows I dislike.

39.  What was the last gift you received? Well, anything my mom cooks for me is a gift, but the last Proper gift was from my friend @ wefflebugs , who got me a blu-ray copy of Into the Spiderverse and some coffee for Christmas  c:

40.  What was the last gift you gave? I gave my sibling @ aconfusedbird a keychain of one of the two Bubble Bobble dragons and kept the other for myself, for their birthday. Handmade from Perler beads. We’d play that game for ages as kids, and we always fought over who’d be the blue one.

41.  What was the last concert you went to? I think it was The Shins? They were so awesome!

42.  Favourite place to shop at? Well, I quite like Target. But I also adore small resale shops. They always have some really awesome things hiding there.

43. Who inspires you? Oogh, a lot of people. Like a million and a half artists I’ve met online, ones I only know their screenname for, inspire me to get better at art. James Baxter and Sergio Pablos inspire me to get better at animation. Wefflebugs’ art always has such lovely colors, which I adore. featherdragon15′s art has gotten a lot better lately, and that inspires me to keep working hard too! Not to mention they’re working for nasa which is rad af, and also inspires me to keep working toward my dreams. My sibling aconfusedbird inspires me a Lot in a lot of personal ways, like to be more kind to myself and to keep moving forward. My mom inspires me to keep gardening. roachpatrol/roach-works inspired me to get into welding, lizardlicks inspired me into wanting chickens and a small homestead. My teachers inspire me to keep working hard in school. 

44. How old were you when you first got drunk? 19, I think? I’ve only gotten properly drunk once. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat another boiled peanut, but other than that it wasn’t a problem lol.

45. How old were you when you first got high? I haven’t, actually. I don’t have a reason not to or anything, but it’s just never felt like the right vibe yanno?

46.  How old were you when you first had sex? I guess it really depends on your definition. Personally, I’d say I haven’t yet.

47. When was your first kiss? Well, I played spin the bottle when I was seventeen, which was technically my first kiss, but if that doesn’t count then it was about a week before I turned eighteen, and I kissed the guy who’d become my first boyfriend.

48.  Something you want to do until the end of this year? Play video games....I wish I had infinite time to play video games and watch movies and draw and just...enjoy my time on earth, you know? Without feeling like it had a deadline.

49. Is there something in the past you wish you hadn’t done? I try not to live with regrets. 

(50 is ‘post a selfie’ but im on a computer)

51. Who are you most comfortable around? Either aconfusedbird or featherdragon15, i think. 

52.  Name one thing that terrifies you. asdkfjal;sdf i’ve been listening to too much magnus archives and got recommended to ‘not be too scared of one thing’ if i want to avoid the creatures, so uh. hard to decide. I guess I’m scared of...hm. people who just lack the ability to create bonds with people? people who don’t care about other living things. humans can be fucking terrifying. 

53. What kind of books do you read? Oh, just about anything. Fantasy, realistic fiction, romance, mysteries, thrillers, scifi...all are great. I didn’t used to enjoy nonfiction but it really depends on the nonfiction.

54. What would you tell your 12 year old self? You’re going to have a best friend someday, and it will be everything you wanted. Things with your mother will improve when you’re in your last few years of high school. You’re going to become a great artist.

55.  What is your favourite flower? Not sure! I like many. There was this one flower i found in high school that smelled incredible, but I’ve no idea what it was. I should find it again.

56. Any bad habits you have? ...Well. Not waking up when my alarm goes off is pretty annoying. My procrastination in general’s frustrating. And, well, just between you, me, and the rest of the internet, (tw: self harm) my trichotillomania causes me constant distress and anxiety.

57. What kind of people are you attracted to? People who want to learn new things, are kind and compassionate, respect me, and have a good sense of humor. Someone I can be adventurous with.

58. What was the last thing you cried for? Well, i answered a similar question earlier, so I’ll answer for the second most recent time I cried. I was in Pennsylvania, the day I had to fly home, and when I went to check in for my flight, all the seats were taken, and I needed to pay for an upgrade if I wanted to guarantee a spot on the flight. This wouldn’t be a huge problem, except that for both of my flights to get home, an upgrade cost $70. And seventy dollars was a big chunk out of my budget for, you know, food. So I cried out of stress and frustration with the airport companies for charging me seventy bucks for ten more inches of legroom that I didn’t want nor need.

59. Is there something you don’t eat? Some food that truly disgust you? Not really! In terms of what’s normally accepted as “food” in American society, that is. I don’t care much for worms or insects. Other than that, I’m interested enough to try almost anything once.

60. Are you in love? In love? No. Am I full of love? Yes, for many, many, many things. 

61.  Something you find romantic? Oh man, anything could be romantic if done by someone I care for. I think gentleness is romantic. Quality time is my love language, so if my partner cancelled plans to spend time with me, that’d be romantic. I find romance in trying new things and going to new places.

62. How long was your longest relationship? Four months or so. It’s the only relationship I’ve been in, though, and I hadn’t intended for it to go past summer, so that was longer than I’d even planned on haha.

63, 64. What are 3 things that irritate you about the same sex? Opposite sex? Uhhh kind of hard to answer this one. I mean, i hate the culture in which men are raised to be, but I’ve heard that ‘male’ and ‘female’ brains aren’t particularly predisposed to anything in particular? Like, both men and women are capable of emotional intelligence and compassion, it’s just that our culture doesn’t encourage it in men. 

65. What are you saving money for? Food, college. I might treat myself to a school trip to Disney, but I don’t think I have the budget rn. As a student I’m kind of coasting by on the bare minimum rn, I don’t have anything i CAN save up for.

66. How would you describe your bad side? I mostly just avoid you or try to not spend time with you. 

67. Are you actually a good person? Why? I think I am. I care about other people and try to make other people’s lives easier and happier. I try every day to become more sensitive to other perspectives. I do what I can to benefit the earth for those who will come after me.

68. What are you living for? Ooh, deep stuff. I’m living for helping other people. I’m living for my friends and family. 

69 (nice).  Have you ever done anything illegal? Pfft, guys, jaywalking is illegal. So yes. I’ve also drank while underage before. But nothing really big, no.

70.  Do you like your body? Wait a second. This was number 11, too. Well, I guess I’ll change it to What don’t you like about your body? Which is my under-chin. It’s kind of a double chin, kind of not. But while most things I could change about my body, I don’t think I could change that without surgery. And yeah, I’ve thought about it. Not that I have any of the cash for it. I also wish I didn’t have (tw: self-harm) trichotillomania, so I’d have more eyelashes and eyebrows.

71. Have you ever made someone feel bad about themselves intentionally? I think I probably have, to douchebags. Like “hey, that’s inappropriate”.  

72.  Ever sent nudes? Nope!

73. Have you ever cheated on someone? God, no. Big #1 no no for me.

74. Favourite candy? I RECENTLY DISCOVERED TAKE 5′S AND REESES HAVE COMBINED INTO ONE GLORIOUS CANDY BAR, SO, THAT.

75. Is there a blog you visit every day, or almost every day? Tag it! Agh, okay. @ aconfusedbird, @ busket, @ loreweaver-universe, @ orange-plum. The four blogs I don’t actually follow, but whose blogs I visit every day. It changes around every few years. It used to be a different bunch back when I first got on tumblr. I really have no idea why I haven’t followed them. Habit, I suppose? Also, it still won’t let me tag my sib for some reason. (nvm I removed the tags, i don’t want to bother them)

76. Do you play any computer games? What is your favourite game? lmao uh, that’s kind of an understatement. I can’t list all my favorite games, but I’m very fond of The Last of Us. I have played. So many video games. I’ll chat about them anytime!

77. Favourite TV series? Avatar: The Last Airbender, I think. It’s really hard to top that.

78. Are you religious? Does God exist? Not really religious, no. I do think that there’s probably a god out there that sparked the Big Bang. I don’t really follow the Christian God because despite what every church service said, I never felt like He loved me. Jesus was a super cool guy, though. If there’s a god out there, I think they pretty much keep to themselves. Maybe have some fun watching creation, but don’t really interact with it at all.

79. What was the last book you read? Did it impress you and why? asdkfj;as i don’t remember. probably my textbook Directing the Story by Francis Glebas? It was a pretty cool book about moviemaking.

80. What do you think about vegetarianism/veganism? I’ve reblogged a lot on the subject. I respect those who practice it, but it can cause a lot of environmental harm. In theory, it’s not bad! 

81. How long have you been on Tumblr? Like eight years or so? Maybe nine? wild. I visited blogs daily before the number got high enough i was like ‘okay i’ll just make an account’.

82. Do you like Chinese food? Oh, yes!

83-85. McDonalds or Subway?   Vodka or whiskey? Alcohol or drugs? Subway, whiskey and alcohol.

86.  Ever been out of your province/state/country? Yes, yes, and no!

87. Meaning behind your blog name? I’ve had this one for many years now. I really like the word ‘saccharine’ -- inspired by @ saccharinesylph back in the old days -- and i couldn’t just name myself ‘saccharine’, so i needed something else. and I was pretty big into Good Omens at that time, and I was like ‘haha! saccharine, good, omens. saccharine omens!’ Plus, it feels like a very positive and comforting name, and I strive to be a comforting person. 

88. What are you scared of? ok i def answered this moving on

89. Last time you were insulted? uhhhhhhhhh no idea. oh, wait! i know. i was getting graded on my performance at my job late last year and i disagreed with the grade my boss gave me. It was like ‘person shows considerable care of their community and goes above and beyond to educate others’ and i was like ‘oh yeah that’s, like, my whole Thing, my whole Goals and Personality and Ideals’ and then my boss came in and was like ‘2/4′ and i was like ‘wtf??’ Apparently she felt that i just wasn’t really applying that part of myself to my job, and i was like ‘you serious? i’m doing a lot!’ but also she’s my boss.

90. Most traumatic experience? A series of emotionally/mentally abusive things my mom did during my childhood. It’s definitely had the longest lasting effects of any trauma. Permanent anxiety problems, ptsd, my self harm, the whole shebang. Don’t worry, though, like. Things are way better between us, and she’s apologized many times.

91. Perfect date idea? Going on a hike! Maybe walking on a beach. Just spending time together and talking. Eating some delicious food. Spending the entire day with each other, then curling up and cuddling at home and watching a movie. then talking some more. lots of handholding and kisses. im a super hopeless romantic.

92. Favourite app on your phone? the internet, ofc lmao. But other than that I use Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Pokemon Go an awful lot. 

93. What colour are the walls in your room? At school a boring white, although I’ve taped some art up. At home a really pretty light blue color that I did all myself.

94. Do you watch Youtube? Who is your favourite youtuber? I do! And I like so many channels, honestly. I really like Rachel and Jun, and I really like Pop Culture Detective. I’ve seen a lot of jackscepticeye’s stuff, too. Proko, Vox, and Sinix Design are all good too.

95. Share your favourite quote. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter.” -Dr Seuss

96.  What is the meaning of life? To be happy, enjoy yourself, and love others!

97. Do you like horror movies? Ha ha ha, not really. I liked A Quiet Place though. 

98. Have you ever made your mum cry? What happened? She’s cried sometimes over how she treated us in the past. Sometimes it happens because I talk about how she’s hurt me. She always expresses regret and apologizes again. 

99. Do you feel lucky or special in a way? I feel lucky with how I met my best friend. We’d had band together and kind of both thought each other as a cool person, but we didn’t really hit it off until a couple years later and she saw me drawing Homestuck fanart in Psychology lmao. The rest is history. Love you so much, Haley. I feel lucky my mom realized she was being abusive and stopped, too. Not everyone gets that. 

100. Can you keep a secret? Oh, definitely. But do tell me what needs to be secret, otherwise I won’t know. For example, my sib asked me to keep their gf busy while they bought her a present, so I tried, but then she was like ‘oh, where’s your sibling? we should find them’ i was like ‘oh no, i think they’re just buying something, it’s fine’ but she was stubbornly moving toward the checkout and i was like ‘stop, i think they’re buying something for you’ so i. kinda told a secret? i didn’t tell her what the present was though.

JESUS THAT WAS A LOT OF TYPING, LMAO. IT’S THREE AM. GOODNIGHT

[thereadingcycle]

This is How it Happened

This is how I believe the Drarry proposal happened:

  If there was one thing Harry and Draco knew how to do, it was argue. They’d been arguing with each other since first year, and that didn’t stop when they finally got together after the war.

  Most of the time they argued about little things: whose turn it was to wash the dishes, which movie they were going to watch that night, whether or not their living room needed a giant bear statue (Harry hated it. Draco loved it because Harry hated it). Sometimes their arguments were more serious. Neither of them would soon forget their biggest fight. It ended in Harry leaving their flat for five hours (the longest they’d ever stayed mad at each other). They were both a mess by the time he returned, and they spent the rest of the night making up.

  They always made up.

  Harry and Draco were always arguing with each other, so it wasn’t really a surprise that their engagement was the result of an argument.

  “I’m sorry, but I am not naming my child Reginald.” Harry and Draco were laying on their bed, it was a rare lazy day when neither of them had anywhere to be. The dreadful London weather gave them an excuse to spend the whole day wrapped up in each other. Somehow, they’d found themselves in a discussion about their imaginary house in the mountains with their imaginary children.

  Harry absently ran his hand through Draco’s hair again. It was something he always did when his boyfriend was anywhere within reaching distance. The feeling soothed them both. Besides, he had to make up for all the years that he wasn’t allowed to touch it.

  “Fine,” Draco sighed. “It doesn’t have to be Reginald. It can be Chauncey, and the girl can be called Gertrude.” Harry visibly cringed. He was starting to wonder if Draco was just messing with him, but when he looked down at him, his face showed no trace of humor.

  “It’s like you got these from a list of terrible baby names.” He remarked. Draco sat up and gave Harry one of his unlimited supply of dirty looks.

  “Well what do you suggest?” 

  “What about Lily and James?” Harry bit his lip and avoided making eye contact with Draco. He’d actually been thinking about baby names a lot lately and he couldn’t think of a better way to honor his parents.

  “After your parents?” Draco asked, incredulously. “You want to name our daughter and son after your parents who were married? Don’t you think that’s a bit weird? Why don’t we just call them Lucius and Narcissa then?” Harry was sitting up now too, obviously annoyed. Draco knew that he had hit a soft spot, and he knew he should back off, but he was never one to admit that he was in the wrong.

 “Because, you hate your father! And you know I respect your mother but- I don’t know. It was just a thought, but those are my parents’ names. Do you have to look so disgusted at the suggestion?” Draco felt his face crack. He knew they were drifting into dangerous territory, and they’d just had such a nice day… he didn’t want to spoil it.

  “I wasn’t trying to look that way, honest. I just think maybe we should try something more regal, y’know? So the kids at Hogwarts know that our little ones come from the best.”

  “Are you kidding?” Harry asked, a small smile playing at his lips. “These are the children of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy we’re talking about. Everyone will know who they are before they walk onto that train.” He shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts. “I don’t even know why we’re having this argument. Maybe when we adopt, the baby will already-”

  “Excuse me?” Draco interrupted him. “When we adopt? I will not be getting my baby from a muggle orphanage. How do you expect him to be top of his class at Hogwarts if he has no magical abilities?”

  “I mean,” Harry started. “I wasn’t really thinking ab-”

  “Exactly,” Draco cut in again. “You weren’t. We’ll get a surrogate. I already have a list of the best witches available to do the job.” Harry looked at his boyfriend, completely stunned by this announcement.

  “And I suppose you’ll be the father?” He asked.

  “Well, I thought-”

  “Unbelievable!” Harry burst out, standing up. “So you’ve already had all of this planned out?”

  “Of course, I-”

  “Do I not get a say in any of this? Do I not get a choice in-”

  “I thought this was the future you wanted for us!” Now Draco was standing on the opposite side of the bed, mirroring Harry’s hurt expression. They were both yelling. “Isn’t this what it’s all for, Harry? The life? The kids? The bloody happy ending? Excuse me for thinking about our future.” Harry tried to ignore the way Draco spit out the words “happy ending”. Of course it was all for the happy ending. Neither of the boys had even considered that they would get one. They both thought they would die at the hands of Voldemort. So now that they had a chance at one, it was all either of them could imagine, but Harry’s version didn’t end like this.

  “I want that more than anything, Draco. I want the life, the kids, the future, but you don’t get to make all of the decisions. It has to be a compromise.” Harry threw his hands up in the air, his voice rising with every sentence. “You can’t just not include me in your planning! Besides, you’re getting way ahead of yourself. When were you planning on us moving into this big house? When did you plan our wedding, do I get to know that? When did you even plan on us getting engaged?”

  “Tonight!” Draco exclaimed.

  Then no one was yelling. The silence stretched on between them for what felt like hours. Without a word, Draco reached into his bedside table and pulled out a small, navy blue box. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I was planning on proposing tonight.” Harry was stunned into silence. Draco dropped down on the bed, facing away from him. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve for a while. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, or when, I just knew that I needed to ask you. Because you are my only plan, Harry.”

 Suddenly, he felt something drop into his lap. He looked down to see an identical navy blue box, and before he realized what that meant, Harry was wrapping his arms around him from behind.

 “Mine too,” He whispered in Draco’s ear. “You’re my only plan too.”

That was the end of that argument, and the beginning of a lifetime of them.

[jobros-pleaseinteract]

Footprints

Birthday present for @bucky-babe who wanted some Ironhusbands so here we have a college AU (and a surprise AU very fun) also latinx Tony Stark. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bucky!

Tagging @myspideysensesrtingling @starksnack @sbidermanstan @cptdcnvers @sleepyoldchild @spideysstark @bamboozledfucker @irndad @thors-bleached-eyebrows

warnings: some hints to Howard Stark’s A+ parenting

    College. A terrifying time in any young person’s life, but even more terrifying if that young person looked like they were fifteen years old. Tony Stark, genius son of Howard Stark, at seventeen years of age is beginning his academic career at university, and the poor boy is fucking terrified. His father is too busy at some business meeting to help his only child move in, but his mamá is there with him, along with Jarvis to help him carry all his boxes in. Tony can feel his arms start to shake, and he can try to kid himself it’s from the weight of the box he holds in his arms, but deep down he knows it’s because he is about to shit his pants from fear. Sure, he’d gone to boarding school before, but this is different. Here, he is the youngest, a baby, and no one is gonna want to befriend a baby.

    A gentle hand passes over his head, caressing his head of curls. “Mi vida,” his mamá whispers to him as they wait for Jarvis to shut the trunk. “Mi amor, calm down. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

    Tony lets out a cough, trying to calm his racing heart. Yeah, nothing to be afraid of, except, you know, bullies and shit. He’s seen movies. He knows what college frat bros are capable of. He just wants to be challenged… and also maybe he wants to get away from his bastard of a father, but that’s besides the point.

    “You are going to do great things here, mi amor. I can feel it.”

    He can feel a smile tug at his lips. “Gracias, mamá.”

    It flows off his tongue like a river, his mamá’s native language that Howard refuses to allow under his roof. Maria wraps an arm around her son and runs her fingers through his thick brunette curls. She’s going to miss him as she always does when Howard sends her boy away. She’s left with an empty house all to herself; her husband is almost never home, not that she minds, but she misses when she could still hear her Tony’s laughter fill the cold halls.

    “You’ll call me,” she says more than asks. He always calls his mamá.

    “Claro. Who else are you going to complain to about the women in your book club?”

    “Ay, why your father insisted I join those ridiculous women is beyond me.” Maria rolls her eyes. “The books they choose are boring, and all they talk about are their yachts or houses in the Hamptons.”

    “You don’t want to talk about that?”

    A laugh escapes her. Howard may paint her as some sort of Spanish nobility for the press, but that wasn’t her. She was Mexican born, Los Angeles raised, and she wasn’t used to the life Howard led when they first married. She still wasn’t used to all the bragging and pettiness that came with being married to a Stark. The only good thing to come from her marriage is her son. And her friendship with the Jarvis couple.

    “Vamos,” she calls when the three of them manage to grab everything, “we have a dorm to see.”

    Tony, he isn’t so sure what to expect from a college dorm, but whatever it had been, it definitely does not match up with what he sees when he opens the door. Whoever his roommate is, well… he’s a total slob. Tony can feel the crease form between his eyebrows as he takes in the set of footprints on their carpet. What asshole tracks dirty footprints on a new carpet?

    “Oh, hi!” a warm voice greets from inside. “You must be James’s roommate!”

    He’s being swept up in a tight hug. It’s warm, maybe even warmer than the hugs his mamá gives. He’s released, and he sees who had embraced him. She’s beautiful, that’s for sure, and her face is so kind, all laugh lines and dimples. She’s big, bigger than tiny Tony, and he loves it. She’s like some sort of goddess, completely different from mamá, and yet exactly the same. The love they carry in their souls just radiates from them.

    “James!” the goddess yells into the bathroom. “James Rhodes, you get out here and meet your roommate!”

    “Okay, Ma, there’s no need to yell. I’m only five feet away, you know.”

    And there he is. An angel right before his eyes. Tall, dark, handsome--no, gorgeous. Wow, I am so gay, goes through Tony’s mind before he realizes, this is my roommate. You don’t hook up with your roommate, even if he is the most beautiful being Tony has ever seen in his entire fucking life.

    “Hi,” Tony squeaks, his voice cracking in a way that just makes him want to crawl in a hole and live out the rest of his days like some hermit, “I’m Tony.”

    “James,” the angel--his roommate--says, and his warm ass hand fucking engulfs Tony’s tiny one, and Tony wants to melt into the carpet right there. “It’s nice to meet you, Tony.”

    The goddess, who Tony’s infers is James’s mother, holds out her hand to Maria and gives her a warm smile. “Roberta Rhodes.”

    “Maria, pleasure to meet you.”

    “This your husband?”

    “Oh, no,” Jarvis scrambles to put down his boxes and shake Mrs. Rhodes’s hand. “Edwin Jarvis, I’m a, uh, family friend. Here to help him move in.”

    “Your husband working? That’s understandable, Terrence is back home looking after our daughter while I get to help James get settled in.” Mrs. Rhodes lowers her voice and stage-whispers, “He was nervous to meet his roommate.”

    “Ma!”

    “But I don’t think there’s any need to be nervous. You seem like a good boy, Tony.”

    “I, uh… I am?” He looks to his mamá for some guidance.

    “James has nothing to worry about with Tony other than late nights and some skipped meals. Recuerde comer, mi vida,” Maria tells her son. “Hopefully they can look after each other while they’re here.”

    They start unpacking, and Tony can’t get over the fact that his super hot roommate is the kind of guy to 1) wear shoes inside and 2) wear dirty shoes inside. Their carpet is absolutely covered in footprints, and while Tony isn’t a neat freak, it does kinda piss him off. But he can’t just call him out in front of everyone, can he? He’s actually a bit surprised Jarvis hasn’t said anything about it. But whatever, right? It’s the first day, and they’ve got a lot of stuff to move in, so it makes sense James would keep his shoes on, and Tony can always clean it up later… hopefully.

    Although Tony hates to admit it, he cries when mamá and Jarvis has to go. He’s a baby, practically, and he’s being left on his own to take care of himself. He can’t do that! He has problems with sleeping and eating and just, well, taking general care of himself!

    “You are going to be just fine,” Maria tells him as she cradles his baby face in her hands. “You are so talented, Tony, and I am so proud of you. So proud.”

    Tony sniffles and looks up at her with glossy brown eyes. “Are you sure?”

    “Of course, mi amor, I will always be proud of you.” She presses a kiss to his forehead and closes her eyes. “Te quiero, Tony.”

    “Te quiero, mamá.”

    Jarvis ruffles his hair and promises to write before he and Maria get in the car and drive off. Leaving him alone on the curb, fighting tears. He’ll be fine. Stark men don’t cry.

    Tony and James fall into an easy sort of friendship, and Tony starts to feel more comfortable at school. Rhodey, what James has lovingly been renamed, still tracks in those goddamn footprints, but Tony can’t bring himself to call him out on it. Whenever he feels frustration creep up inside of him, he remembers what always happens when he tries to make his father listen to him, and suddenly he’s unable to say anything to Rhodey about his messy habits. So he keeps his mouth shut and his head down whenever he wants to say something. He can handle this.

    His friends think he’s a fucking idiot for not just bringing it up. Well, they think he’s an idiot for a lot of other reasons, but they especially get onto him for this. Somehow, around a week into the semester, he managed to collect three mom friends: Carol, Pepper, and Natasha. He and Carol share a class together, but that’s not how she adopted him. No, it was outside of class, on the quad, when she and the other two girls were studying and talking shit, when suddenly this small boy was tripping over his shoelaces and his books were flying everywhere. They saw tiny Tony and adopted him on the spot, and now they made sure he actually ate, got more than two hours of sleep a week, and communicated with his freakishly hot roommate.

    “Tones, if the guy keeps tracking in dirt, fucking tell him,” Natasha sighs as they’re lounging on Tony’s bed one Friday night. “It’s obviously bothering you enough keep bitching to us about it.”

    “But what if he gets mad at me?”

    “He’s the one being slob,” Pepper points out.

    “If he gives you a hard time about it,” Carol says, “we’ll kick his ass. Now hold still.”

    Carol had bought some new nail polish and wanted to try it out on Tony, claiming the red and gold would go perfect with his dark skin. It’ll totally pop, Tones, just trust me, she had said when she’d pulled out the bottles. So now he’s lounging between Natasha’s legs, her fingers lightly scratching against his scalp while Carol paints his nails and Pepper flips through a magazine.

    “Where is your Adonis anyways?” Pepper asks. “He got plans?”

    “I think he said he had a Smash Bros tournament with uh… Sam? You guys know Sam Wilson?”

    “Yeah, he’s friends with Steve Rogers and that other guy with the man bun,” Carol answers. “Wait, Nat, didn’t you hook up with man bun?”

    “Like, once. Okay, so it was twice, but what can I say? He’s got nice arms.”

    “Thirsty.”

    “Shut up, Pepper, so are you.”

    “Wh-- no I am not, I am completely, 100% focused on classes, thank you very much! You have absolutely nothing on--”

    The door swing open, and Rhodey walks in looking a bit winded. He waves to the girls and Tony before disappearing into the bathroom.

    “...If he left a Smash Bros tournament, he isn’t worth it, Tones,” Carol tells him. “A quitter never makes an attractive partner, let me just tell you that right now.

    “Hey!” Rhodey comes back in and smiles. “Sorry for interrupting your party, but I remembered Sam let me borrow one of his hoodies last week, and if I don’t return it tonight, he’s never gonna let me live it down.”

    “Oh, was it the one hanging in the shower?” Tony realizes.

    “That’s the one! I got salsa on it and had to scrub it out.” He grins at Tony, and the younger boy swears his heart skipped like five beats. “Anyways, I’ll be back in a few hours. Want me to bring you back some pizza, Tones?”

    “That would be amazing, platypus, thank you!”

    “Anything for my tiny Tony.”

    The girls wait until he’s gone before turning back to their friend with wide eyes. He just looks back at them innocently.

    “What?”

    “What do you mean ‘what’?” Pepper says. “You just called him platypus, and he just called you his tiny Tony!”

    “Yeah, we have nicknames for each other, so what?”

    “Tony, it was the way he said it,” Natasha sighs. “We already know you’re in love with him--”

    “I am not!”

    “But, Tony, he sounded pretty fond of you.”

    “People can be fond platonically! You are fond of me! And for your information, I am not in love with him.” He stands up, ignoring the annoyed shout Carol gives him when the nail polish gets smudged, and puts his hands on his hips. “I am not in love with someone who is completely incapable of taking off his dirty ass shoes before walking on the carpet! I mean, just look at how messy it is!”

    The girls look down at the floor and are quiet for a few moments. Tony waits as they continue to stare at the floor and them give him a worried look.

    “What?” he asks.

    “Tony… there are no footprints on the carpet,” Pepper tells him.

    “What the hell are you talking about? Are you blind?” He gestures to the carpet where he can clearly see a trail of footprints leading to and from the bathroom. “They’re right here!”

    “Oh my god, you cannot be this stupid,” Carol laughs. “Are you being serious right now?”

    “Yes!”

    “Tones, if we can’t see the footprints you can clearly see,” Natasha says, “then have you considered he’s your--”

    “If you’re gonna say soulmate, I’m just going to stop you right there,” Tony interrupts her. “There is no way someone like me could ever have a soulmate, let alone one like Rhodey.”

    “And why do you say that?”

    “Because… well… because I’m me. Tony Stark, the absolute fuck up! I mean, my own father can’t even stand to be in the same room as me for more than five minutes without telling me what a terrible son I am! Why should I be soulmates with someone as wonderful as James Rhodes?”

    “There’s a lot to unpack here, but--”

    “ANTHONY EDWARD STARK, YOU GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS THIS INSTANT! HE IS YOUR SOULMATE OKAY?” Pepper suddenly yells, causing the others to stare at her with wide eyes. “You can see his footprints, we can. There is literally no other explanation for this!”

    “Pepper,” Carol hisses. She can’t just yell at Tony and expect everything to--

    “Yes, ma’am.”

    “Oh, wow, did not actually expect that to work.”

    “Well… you guys are like my moms, so. I listen to you.”

    “He listens to you, well that’s just great,” Carol grumbles. “He doesn’t listen to me.”

    “That’s because you’re just as reckless and stupid as him, Danvers,” Pepper says back. “Now, Tony, I want you to actually talk to James about this, okay? You know now that he isn’t just some asshole who likes to track dirt into the dorm; he’s your soulmate.”

    “But I mean, do we really--”

    “Don’t make me pull the full name card again, Tony, because you know I will.”

    “...Fine. I will talk to him about this. Now, Carol, can you please fix my nails? I think I fucked them up.

    Rhodey sneaks back into the dorm after midnight, trying hard to be quiet in case Tony went to bed. Of course, the little insomniac did not go to bed, and is instead sitting at his desk waiting for his roommate/soulmate. When he hears the door click shut, he turns on his desk lamp and swivels his chair, causing Rhodey to let out a shriek.

    “Oh, fuck! It’s just you, Tones. You scared the shit out of me, man.” He can see Tony chewing the inside of his cheek as if trying to find the right words to say. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

    “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong, or at least I don’t think so, I just, uh. Fuck. Okay so basically… I think you’re really hot, and I have since we first met, and, like, that’s really weird because we’re roommates and I most definitely should not be thinking that, and then I noticed you kept tracking fucking dirt onto our carpet, but I didn’t want to say anything in case you got mad, because I don’t like it when people yell at me, probably because of like childhood trauma or some shit, I dunno, but then today Carol, Pepper, and Nat realized that you weren’t tracking dirt into the dorm, I just saw your footprints, which, you know, means we’re soulmates.”

    “Wait… what?”

    Oh, god, Rhodey didn’t know. “Oh, well, we’re--well I think we’re soulmates. Because I can see your footprints when no one else can.”

    “Yeah, no I knew that.”

    “You knew?”

    “Uh, it’s pretty obvious when I can see your footprints, Tony, even when you’re not wearing shoes.”

    “Well… why didn’t you say anything?” Tony could feel his chest start to get tight and his breathing pick up. “Oh, god, you don’t want me, do you? That’s why you didn’t say anything! Because, because you know I’d be a terrible soulmate, and you don’t want that, and you deserve someone way better, someone like Sam Wilson, because he’s so cool, oh god, who wouldn’t want to be soulmates with Sam Wilson, he’s like--”

    Tony stops talking when Rhodey cradles his face in his warm ass hands, his entire brain going blank.

    “Whoa, there, calm down, okay? I didn’t say anything because I thought you knew, Tony.” Rhodey lets out a laugh and shakes his head. “Hell, I thought we’ve been dating for like a month now!”

    “...what.”

    “Yeah, you started calling me Rhodey and platypus and honeybear, and we’ve been cuddling and holding hands, so I thought you knew! Oh, god, this is so embarrassing! I totally thought we’ve been dating!”

    “Well, I… I mean, we could, uh, well, if you wanted to, I wouldn’t object to us, like, actually dating. As in we both know we’re dating.”

    “Oh you wouldn’t, would you?” Rhodey asks with a smile. “Well, would you object if I were to kiss you right now?”

    Oh my god, he wants to kiss me!

    “I mean, if you really wanted to.”

    “Oh, shut up, Tones.”

    “Why don’t you make m--”

    Rhodey leans down to kiss him before Tony can finish his snarky comment, and Tony does not mind one bit. Because Tony has never felt anything as fucking perfect as kissing Rhodey. His whole body grows warm as Rhodey wraps his arms around him, and Tony practically melts against him when he feels Rhodey’s fingers gently tug on his curls. He’s kissing his soulmate, and his soulmate is fucking James Rhodes, his platypus, his honeybear, his Rhodey.

[batgirl-87]

So @mdeenise “challenged” me to answer all of the questions from this Hogwarts Mystery Asks: MC. I’ve already answered some (can check ‘asks’ or ‘ask game’ tags, I’ll also link them in my Masterlist) so I’ll answer the rest I haven’t been asked yet here because

1. What is their whole name? 

Nereida Adelyn-Keira LaFontaine Black

5. How is there relationship with Jacob?

Keira and Jacob were very close - it was them against the world! They’re very protective of one another, they can get/have gotten into a lot of trouble together, both with a rebellious, mischievous streak; but they are also siblings so there’s teasing, embarrassing each other, lots of physical ‘play fighting’ - they’re very much like I can be mean to my sibling but if you’re mean to them I’ll hurt you. Clearly when he ‘disappeared’ it was devastating for Keira and she felt completely alone. 

6. How is their relationship with their parents?

Both Keira and Jacob loved their mom who was their primary caregiver. Keira honestly doesn’t really remember her dad much but Jacob hates him. She has a vague recollection of him and Regulus and Sirius, a bit better memory of Sirius who kept in contact with her and Jacob even after they moved to Canada, possibly to spite his parents but Keira thinks he actually cares about his younger half-siblings even if it was something that started out from spite or curiosity. 

When their mom died of course Jacob and Keira were very sad over their loss. They were then taken in by their mom’s close friends and moved to Canada from Ireland and while there was an adjustment period they both appreciate the care they provided, and while Jacob and Keira didn’t exactly feel like they belong in this ‘family’ their mom’s friends were great parental figures and they do care about them and appreciate everything they’ve done for them. Their dad was nonexistent in their lives after the passing of their mom (he passed soon after the next year, after the death of Regulus) but when they arrived in the UK to attend Hogwarts they did find savings left for them from their dad in Gringotts (safe to assume without his wife’s knowledge). 

So both love their mom and ‘adopted’ parents (unofficially adopted =p) and while Jacob hates their dad and views him as a manipulative, selfish, neglectful arse, Keira is pretty neutral and apathetic about her dad since she doesn’t really remember him all that well. But she appreciates the money! =p 

8. How’s their relationship with their family?

Ahahahahahaha - I’m cackling =p

Unfortunately, the family on Keira and Jacob’s mom’s side are all pretty much passed or they have no idea who they are =p Their mom and mom’s parents are passed and their mom had no siblings since her mom died relatively soon after her birth (undines...) As stated before, Jacob and Keira appreciate and care very much for their mom’s friends who took them in after her passing, although a bit of awkwardness since it’s not ‘really’ their family...

As for the Black side of their family *more cackling* Orion seemed much more interested in their mom than them and didn’t seem to want much to do with them, at least according to Jacob. Walburga hates them and this whole situation, of course! With good reason! She honestly probably would of had them killed. She focused most of her energy on ensuring this scandal did not get out into the public and was probably very relieved when they moved across the pond. Of course when Jacob returned to attend Hogwarts he was done living this lie and didn’t care who it upset and went by his Black family name, encouraging his sister to do the same - this family would not win! Walburga could try to deny it all she wanted but a paternity test (which I’ve done some research on Wizarding World paternity tests and some interesting ideas came up!) just proved it.

Despite this, Walburga and the rest of the Black family continued to ignore their entire existence. Andromeda may have been left out of the loop considering she was disowned from the family as well but when Keira and Tonks realized they were both related to Bellatrix Lestrange, and therefore related themselves, Keira was so happy to be accepted by some members of the Black family. Sirius also was accepting of his younger half-siblings and stayed in contact with them even after they moved to Canada. He may have only gone to see them at first out of curiosity and then continued to visit and communicate with them out of spite to his parents but he probably did care about them and enjoyed them more than Regulus because they weren’t brought up in a pureblood elitist household. Probably wished their mom was his mom which would just upset Walburga. And if Walburga didn’t hate them before, after she passed, Keira, now more spiteful and daring with everything that has happened, moved into the now empty (well except for Kreacher) 12 Grimmauld Place which would just piss Walburga off! How she convinced Remus, no idea - basically she was like I’m doing this and Remus had to go along with it =p

Wait, is Kreacher family? Keira and Kreacher argue a lot and she will not stand for him being mean to Remus or any of her friends and will threaten to kick him out although it’s an empty threat because she wouldn’t actually kick him out and make him homeless! Kreacher of course thinks she’s invading some place that does not belong to her but because she is a Black she sort of does belong there and while not related to his previous Walburga, she is to Orion so he has to put up with her =p They eventually reach an understanding. Kreacher is free to stay there and does not have to do any chores or cleaning up after her or Remus, as long as he’s nice... or just stays away from her friends and Remus. 

I’m not sure how Regulus felt about them, maybe neutral? I think discovering his dad’s affair would be a shock to him, he might be curious as well to meet them and I like to think did meet them at least once, possibly while their mom was passing (like Orion went to see her and Sirius and Regulus decided to go as well because, hey, it is their younger siblings whether they like it or not and it’s a hard thing to go through) but I think he was more worried and concerned about Death Eater affairs and tricking Voldemort =p

So while Keira is close with Tonks, and probably her parents as well, and both Keira and Jacob are accepted by Sirius, and maybe even Regulus, who knows =p, most of the Black family still pretends they don’t exist. Although I like to think Keira later bonds with Draco and they become close and overall these next generations are going to be better. And while Bellatrix may refuse to acknowledge Keira’s relationship to her, deep down she actually really likes Keira because she’s a strong, tough bitch who isn’t afraid of her and would have killed Dumbledore without even being a Death Eater if asked =p Seriously, Keira knows she’s actually Bella’s favorite. 

(This also pretty much works for my original HP OC bio where she was Sirius’ daughter because besides Tonks, Andromeda, and Ted, the rest of the Black family wouldn’t really acknowledge her existence either)

Does Remus count as family? Of course he does, he’s “Uncle Remus!” =p Remus and Keira had an instant bond, they are incredibly close - I like to think of it as two people who felt completely alone in the world found each other and now they were not longer alone. Keira is very much like Sirius, and Jacob can be very much like James actually, so it was actually nice for Remus to be around them if not bittersweet. I actually have a post about Keira and Remus’ relationship so I won’t say too much more besides they are very close and Keira is suuuuper protective over him.

9. Do they have any other siblings?

Sirius and Regulus Black

11. Do they have pets?

Keira has a Siamese cat and Jacob had a Barred Owl named Archimedes which I guess is hers now too? Jacob also wanted a dog or crup but then went to school so their ‘adoptive’ parents are taking care of it =p

14. Any crushes?

Charlie Weasley.

She won’t outright admit it but it’s obvious to everyone else besides Charlie. Wasn’t even aware of it herself for quite awhile! =p But fortunately she plays it pretty cool and isn’t a stuttering mess around him so maybe he has no idea she likes him because she’s so chill and nonchalant about it. Although she can be flirtatious but she can be like that with a lot of people =p (She’s related to Sirius she can’t help it! =p)

16. Have they ever dated someone before (Either back at their home or at Hogwarts)?

Rumour has it during her summer before Sixth Year, where she spent most of it in Canada, and going into Sixth Year she was dating someone. Has not been confirmed nor denied. 😜

(I think that’s all of them? Wasn't that much actually, I expected more =p But I still wrote a lot more than intended so sorry about that! Hope I explained things well enough! If anyone has any questions or want to talk about MC’s more hit me up! Thanks for your challenge! 😉💙)

[riverdale-is-just-okay]

The New Girl, chapter two

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three

Sweet Pea x OC

Word Count: 3105

Summary: Zoe is new to the Southside of town which means she’s fresh meat at the hellhole they try and pass off as a high school. Her main priority is to make sure her brother, Alex, is safe. Which is tested on their first day when he is targeted, but certain dark-haired boy comes to the rescue. Pea to the rescue again, but will he be able to save Zoe a second time?

Warnings: nope, swearing maybe

A/N: So there’s a little bit of medical-ness in this chapter and I’m no expert so excuse any inaccuracies. Also, I feel like I’m writing Alex much younger than he is supposed to be (15), but he has a close bond with his sister because in the time before they were adopted it was Zoe you took care of him, mostly, so he does rely on her quite a bit. Anyway, that’s that. Enjoy!

Tag List: @lolabean1998 @dinosaur-butt-nuggets @hakuna-your-matatas-darling @everheart12 (just let me know if you want to be added to or taken off the tag list for this or any other stories - also if they’re not working just tell me).

Her head pounds and all she can make out is the weathered ceiling tiles above her. She tries to push her body up, but is greeted with a searing pain that runs through her body and a few cries escape it.

"Hey, hey, don't move." A hand takes hold of hers. "Lie back. Just take a breath." She does. "Good."

Her eyes meet his and she smiles. "Well if it isn't Tiny."

He laughs. "You said you weren't a princess, yet you pull this crap. You really gave sleepy beauty a run for her money."

She giggles. "You're a secret Disney fan? I knew it. It's always the tough ones that are they big softies." She smiles, then stares blankly at the wall.

"Zoe? You okay?"

"I'm sleepy." Her eyes begin droop and her head rolls back to the pillow. The beeping continues at a steady pace so he knows he doesn't have to worry, not too much anyway.

"Sweet dreams, princess," he whispers placing a kiss to her head. He pulls his hand from hers and slips out the door. He quickly notifies a passing nurse that Zoe had briefly woken up, then pulls out his phone.

"Toni?"

"What's up?"

"You still with Alex?"

"No. Just dropped him off. Why?"

"I'm gonna need you to go back and get him. Take him to yours or the Wyrm or something. Just don't leave him in that house."

"Why not? You're scaring me, Pea. What the hell is going on?"

"Just go and get him. Then I'll explain."

"Toni!" Pea hears Alex's voice. "Toni. She's not here.”

"Tell me what's going on now," she says into the phone while wrapping an arm around Alex.

"I went back to check on Zoe, didn't feel right leaving her. And..."

"Pea."

"She wasn't answering so I let myself in. And... and I... I found her passed out on the bathroom floor... bleeding."

"Shit. Shit," she whispers, while Alex demands to know what's going on. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, I think so, she just woke up, she’s a little out of it, but the doctors don't seem worried, she's gonna be okay."

"Oh, thank God." She sighs rubbing her forehead. "Sorry for what I said before. It’s a good job you went back."

"All is good, Topaz. Just explain everything to Alex and make sure he's okay. I'm promised Zoe I'd keep an eye on him."

"Sure. Talk to you later. Keep me updated."

"I will." He hangs up and heads back into the room. Doctors fuss around her. "What's wrong? Is she okay? You everything is fine. You said she'd be okay," he yells.

"Calm down." A nurse places her hand on Pea's, pulling him away from the bed. "We're just checking over her. She's okay. She's gonna be fine," she says. "Okay?"

He nods. "Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Don't worry. You were scared, it's understandable. But your girlfriend is gonna be fine, I promise, just a little out of it for a few days." She squeezes his wrist.

"She's not my..." The nurse smiles up to him waiting for him to finish his sentence. But he doesn't want to. He has to. "We're just friends, I don't even know if we're that. We only met today. She's new to town."

"Oh, well whatever it is. She's lucky to have some like you watching out for her." He doesn't think so. No one is ever lucky if they know him. "She's new to town, you said. Do you mind contacting her parents? We’re still yet to receive her records.”

"Yeah, okay." He nods.

"Very lucky." She smiles one last time, the doctors nod to him and they're alone again.

He sits back in the chair beside her. "Mind if I borrow your phone, sleeping beauty?" he whispers. "Got to inform the King and Queen that their princess is safe." Then he sighs. "Shit." In panic, Pea scooped up Zoe, dressed in only a t-shirt and leggings and rushed out. She had nothing else with her, not even her phone.

Sweet Pea

4:37pm, Could you ask Alex for their parents' numbers? The hospital doesn’t have her records and they need to know that their daughter is lying in a hospital bed.

Toni

04:38pm, No need.

Sweet Pea

04:39pm, What? I'm serious. I need to tell them what's happened.

As he hits send, the door clicks open and stood in the doorway is almost the mirror of Zoe, but boy version, and his pink haired minder. Alex rushes to Zoe, who's still blissfully out of it.

Pea looks to Toni.

"What? He saw the blood, Pea. He just wanted to see if his sister was okay," she says. "How is she?"

"She's doing okay. They're gonna discharge her in the morning, but she's not gonna be fully back to normal for a few days."

"Alex, could I borrow your phone. Just to let your parents know what's going on."

The boy nods, tosses his phone over, then goes back to watching his sister with a deep frown. Pea steps out into the hall, then hits the contact that reads 'Mom 2.0'. He laughs, briefly, trying to work out whether that's cute or weird. He doesn't settle on an answer when the someone picks up.

"Alex, hunny, are you all right?"

Pea clears his throat. "Hello, Mrs Murphy?"

"No, it's Mrs Baker. Who is this? And why do you have my son's phone?"

"Sorry, Mrs Baker, my name is Sweet Pea and-" He pauses at the sound of laughter.

"Is this a joke?" she snorts. "No one names their child, Sweet Pea. Can I please talk to my son?"

"I met your son and daughter this morning. We go to the same school. Well there was an incident and Zoe got hurt..."

"Hurt?"

"She's okay, but I'm at Riverdale Memorial Hospital with her. Alex is here too." The other end of the phone is silent. "Mrs Baker?"

"She's okay?” The woman's voice is barely audible. "My ba..."

"Yes. The doctors have checked her out and she's fine."

"Oh, thank you." He hears her heavy breaths. “What happened?”

“I think it’s best if she explains.”

"I'm on my way, thank you so much." And she hangs up.

Zoe sits propped up in bed when Pea walks back in. They share a smile.

"How's sleep beauty?"

"Sleepy beauty?" Toni questions.

"Sweet Pea's crap attempt joke. I could have died, you know," she says.

"She should be called drama queen," Alex mumbles from his side beside her.

"Oi, you watch it. Even like this I could-"

"I called your mom," he tells her and hands back the phone to Alex.

"And?"

"She thought I was pranking her and insulted my name."

"I mean, come on." Toni smiles. "I've know you for years and it still makes me laugh." He sits beside her elbowing her in the side.

"I'm sorry." Zoe fights a smile. "Apart from that, how was she?"

"Worried. She's on her way."

"Thank you."

“Oh and I got her name wrong?”

“Yeah,” she says. “We never took their name, we kept our own name.”

“You told him?” Alex whispers.

She just nods.

An hour passes. The room goes from wild laughing to dead silence, while Zoe gets her beauty sleep, to whispering between the still awake three to wild laughing again. And then the door opens again. A woman with blonde hair and blonde eyes - the opposite look to Zoe and Alex - slowly walks in. Her worried look melts away when she's her daughter sat laughing.

"Mom," the girl whispers.

"Oh, sweetheart." She pulls her into a hug.

"Kind took a beating to the ribs, mom." She slumps back to the bed.

"Thank God you're all right." She kisses Zoe's head, avoiding the beautifully stitched patch of skin. She leans back, smacking her daughter on the leg as she does. "I said no more fights."

"First off, ow. And secondly, it wasn't a fight. They're never any are fights, just standing up for myself."

"Why do you always find yourself in trouble?" She sits on the bed beside her daughter.

"Guess I'm just unfortunate." She shrugs.

She strokes Zoe's hair. "I just want to keep you safe."

"I know." Zoe looks to Alex. "I get it."

"Well you're lucky, not even a this, soon to be, scar can faulter your beauty." Pea can't disagree. "You must be Sweet Pea." Zoe's mother offers her hand to him. He nods. "I'm Helen."

"Nice to meet you."

"And...?"

"Toni." The girl gets to her feet. "I took care of your other child."

She laughs. "Well thank you both. Clearly I can't leave them alone for two minutes."

"We were happy to help." Toni smiles. "Well, we should go, leave you to it. It was nice meeting you. See you two soon." She smiles to Zoe and nods at Alex. "Come on, Pea."

"Actually, do you mind if I just talk to Sweet Pea for a minute?” Zoe asks.

"Of course not." Her mom winks, then ushers the other two teenagers out with her.

"You're not funny," Zoe mouths as the door shuts.

"Your mom seems nice." He steps closer to the bed. "Or should I say 'Mom 2.0'?"

"Alex's twisted idea of a joke. It's actually surprising they're not related, they're so alike. But no, she's the best. Her and James both are, despite circumstances, we got lucky with them."

He smiles. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine. You need to stop worrying. I'm good, all thanks to you. I really appreciate you breaking into my house and committing a felony, just to save me."

"I've done worse than breaking and entering."

"Do I want to know?"

"It's a conversation for another day."

"Is it something to do with the jacket?"

"Maybe."

She smiles. And again the door opens. And man with dark hair steps in.

"Dad."

"Butternut, look at you?" He pulls her into a delicate hug, more considerate than his wife. "Don't tell your mother, but your brother filled me in and I am very proud of you."

"You're saying not to tell my extremely anxious and protective mother that you endorse my backstreet alternations."

"You can take care of yourself, nothing wrong with that."

"Well, not quite this time." She looks to Sweet Pea. Who's been stood in silence even since her father walked in and she's got an idea why. The brown and black uniform and the shiny badge pinned to his chest. Her father's a teddy bear and no matter who you are or what you've done if you protect either of his children, he will feel eternally grateful to you. But it's funny to see the giant gang member nervous.

"Yes, Sweet Pea." He takes his hand shaking firmly. "Thank you for everything." The boy just nods.

"I'll see you soon?" Zoe asks.

"Yes, drop by the house anytime, you are always welcome."

"Thanks. Bye." Pea stumbles out the door.

"I think he's in a gang." She laughs as her dad sits in the chair beside her.

"That's explains why he looked so scared." He crosses his feet up on the bed. "This could be fun." He teases. She just shakes her head laughing.

"Butternut, you have a visitor," her father calls her. She appears in the kitchen doorway and smiles.

"Tiny!"

There's a mix of a smile at the sight and frown at the name. "Sleeping Beauty."

"And we already on nicknames, this is advancing quite fast," her father says ending the brief interlude of conversation. Pea just stands awkwardly, while Zoe steps forward smiling. The effect her father has on this otherwise confident, intimidating boy, is quite amusing.

"Are you coming in?" she asks. "Or did you drop round to stand on the porch like a lemon... or should I say a pea?" She giggles.

"Er, yeah... thanks." He shuffles past Mr Baker and stands in the middle of the, slightly tidier, living room. He smirks at the boy's behaviour, then walks to his daughter.

"See you later, darling."

"Bye." She kisses his cheek. "You are so cruel," she whispers.

"Gotta have some fun."

"Go to work." She pushes him out the door with a smile, then turns back to Pea. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Are we just gonna stand and state at each other? What's up with you?" She takes hold of his hand and pulls him over to the couch. She sits crossed legged while he sits stiffly on the other end. She frowns. "Where's your jacket?'

"Warm out." He shrugs.

"Yeah?" She nods with a smirk. "It's like 60 degrees out, but sure."

"Just warm blooded."

"Thought snakes were cold blooded?"

"Er... yeah..." He actually becomes flustered.

"I can't believe the big, scary gang member is scared of my dad."

"Your cop dad," he states.

"I told him you're in a gang, you know?"

"You what?"

"He doesn't care." She laughs. "As long as you don't harm his family, you're all right in his books. But you did one better. You protected his family. So you really don't need to worry. He actually likes you... I think."

"You think?” She shrugs. “How are you feeling?"

"I'm good." She yawns. "Just sleepy, but when am I not." She lies back into the cushions.

"Sweetheart, I'm just going- oh, hello." They look up to see her mother standing at the bottom of the stairs smiling back at them.

"Hi, Mrs Baker." Pea sits up, Zoe doesn't move, her head still back against the pillow.

"I'm heading to the store, I didn't want to leave you alone, but seeing as you've got company..."

"I'm fine." She smiles, still unmoving. "You don't need to fuss."

"I'm your mother, I will fuss for evermore." She kisses her daughter's forehead, then closes the door behind her.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Pea looks back to the girl.

"I've had my mom and dad fussing over me all day, you don't need to as well. I'd tell you if something was wrong."

"You didn't tell me last time. I had to find you in a pool of your own blood."

"Fair enough. Although you make it sound way worse than it was."

"I don't. It was terrifying seeing you like that."

"Oh, well I'm sorry I worried you."

"I'm just glad you're all right."

"I am. All thanks to you." She finally sits up.

"I meant to drop by this morning, but I woke up a bit late."

"And by late you mean...?"

"10:30."

"Wow." She shakes her head. "You really got your priorities in line." She laughs. "How was Alex today?"

"All good. No trouble."

She smiles. "Thanks."

"Toni dropped him off?"

"Yeah, he's upstairs."

"Oh right," he says almost defeated. She frowns unsure of his reaction. "I should go." He stands.

"You kinda of can't." She takes hold of his hand and pulls him back down. "My mom entrusted you to keep an eye on while she's gone. Alex isn't the most responsible person, his is a fifteen year old boy, genius or not."

"You want me to stay?"

"It's more a question of safety. What if I were to fall again..."

He smiles. "I can stay."

"If you think that is best." She shrugs. He stares blankly at her for a moment. He wants to stay, but he suddenly feels weird. Like he doesn't know how to talk to this girl. "How about you tell me about you, your family. Seeing as I spilled my story yesterday."

"I've already told you." He smirks.

"No you have not." She frowns sitting up straighter.

"I have." He nods.

"When?"

"When I was driving you to the hospital."

She scrunched her brows, then speaks. "Wait, when I was passed out? That's cheating!"

"Still told you." He shrugs. "Not my fault you were unconscious."

She scoffs. "No and I utterly enjoyed the experience." She rolls her eyes. He smiles. "Well if you're not gonna tell me about you. You wanna watch a movie? We've got a couple hours until my mom's back." He nods.

With the sun pretty much gone, the TV is the only thing that offers the small room light. Pea sits slouched back against the cushions and at some point Zoe had edged a little closer to him, her leg touching his, since that moment his attention has been not on the movie. The flashing pictures illuminate her face as he watches her eyes flutter trying to concentrate on the screen.

“Zoe,” he whispers. She looks up to him with a smile. “Can I ask you something?” She nods yawning, then sits up. She stares back at him patiently waiting for him to speak. “So butternut?”

“Oh,” she sighs relaxing back. “Well when I first came to live with them, I refused to eat anything, but butternut squash soup. It was something my mom would always make me.” She smiles. “It reminded me of her. I guess the name just kind of stuck. I don't mind it though, every time I hear it, I think of her. She’s always with me, her and my dad.”

“My dad’s in jail,” he blurts out. She stares wide eyed, not because of what he said, more how he said it. “I should go.” He goes to stand, but she stops him - again.

“Why should you go?”

“Your face…” he says avoiding her eyes. “I’m in a gang and-”

“So? I don’t care.” She sits on her knees so her face is level with his. She takes hold of his face forcing him to look at her. “You have been so nice to me, looking out for Alex and checking on me. I don’t care that you’re in a gang because that is separate from this…” She smiles stroking her thumb over cheek. Her eyes drop, then she frowns. “Your tattoo,” she whispers. “I never noticed. How could I not notice…” He’s silent, he just watches her. She lifts her eyes back to meet his and edges forward. He can feel her warm breath against his lips and…

“Zoe!” She jumps back and looks up. Her brother stands by the steps. He frowns eyeing the two.

“You all right?” she asks, a little flustered. He nods, then looks to Pea. “Pea stopped by to see if I was okay and mom asked him to watch me. She doesn’t trust you.” She laughs.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching a movie.”

“Can I watch?”

“Yeah, sure.” She nods after briefly eyeing Pea. She moves to the far end of the couch and Alex settles in between the two slightly flustered teenagers.

A/T: Thank you for reading, hope you liked the second chapter, means the world that you take time to read my story.

Thanks again, all my love,

Oli x

*main blog: a-girl-stuck-in-a-fantasy-world

[andy-loves-corgis]

The Eyes, Laugh and Lies of Anneliss York - Part 1 (Lily)

Hey guys, I know this is mainly a Choices blog, but my lazy ass doesn’t want to create another blog so you’ll get some Harry Potter fanfics too!

Book: Harry Potter - Marauders Era

Pairings: James x Lily, Sirius x OC, Remus x OC

Notes: So, this fic is from 2015, when I just wrote for HP fandom, and @drakewalkerrosenberg wanted to see a little of my HP fics, so here it is.

It’s basic centered on my OC Anneliss York, her life will be told through the eyes of her friends and lovers now that she’s dead. Each chapter will be someone’s POV, and they will complement each other. Tell me if you want to be tagged.

***

Lily Evans

The house was cold, my husband’s family manor used to be full of joy, but now it was empty. His father died first, his mother couldn’t bear to live without him,passing right after, and now she was gone too.

Anneliss was dead.

I just couldn't stare at her portrait anymore, she was my best friend, the one who lived my ups and downs, who was with me every bloody time that I needed. She couldn't be just gone, a person like her cannot die! Life was beaming out of her fingertips at anytime. It hurt so much to remember the times that I've spent with her, mainly due to the fact that her gorgeous 7-month-old daughter is right here, smiling on my lap, playing with my son. Looking one more time to her smile, I can’t help but chant the words we’d always said to each other, even though she’s not saying it back. Never again.

“I love you like a sister, Liss"

November 11th, 1972

I was sitting at the far corner of the library studying potions, Severus was serving a detention due to Potter bullying instincts and couldn't be there with me. I had already written two parchments of our potions essay (even though the professor had said it could be only one and a half) and was checking the information when I felt someone's stare on me, when I looked at my side I saw a girl not much taller than me, with long brown hair with the sides pinned with bright red hair clips, eyes that I couldn't figure out if they were blue or green and some freckles spread on her face. I knew her, she was Anneliss York, Gryffindor; same year as mine. Somehow she was related to Potter and the talk was that she was the adoptive daughter of our Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher, Professor Dumbledore. She was a bit of a loner.

"Hi" she started shyly "Could you lend me the potions book when you're finished? There is no other available and I haven't started my essay yet. Besides, I really suck at this subject"

"Sure" I answered awkwardly "Humm... Do you want some help?" her face lit and she nodded.

That day she would become my best friend.

February 8th, 1974

"Why can't you go with me to Hogsmeade?" I ranted looking for my brown jacket in my drawers, the brunette on the bed beside me sighed.

"Lily, I've already told you, I'm going out with Sirius". She didn’t even bother to look at me.

I was dazed by her answer "I thought you got over your crush on that neanderthal", she sighed once again.

"And I did, he and James made a bet, fifty chocolate frogs on who would take a girl to a date and kiss her by the end of the day, he promised me half of the prize and I said yes".

"Wait. That's why that toerag you call cousin was screaming in the halls 'Evans, go out with me'?" I stopped my search for a second, really irritated.

"Probably" She said carelessly scraping the dirt out of her nails.

I had finally found my jacket and looked judgingly to her "You sold yourself short, and you're going to lose a perfect day with me and Sev", she snorted putting a red Every Flavor bean on her mouth, muffling the sound of her next words.

"Yeah, like I would go out with the couple".

"We're not a couple!" why everyone thought we were? She raised her brow and said:

"Sure" she said going in the bathroon's direction "I'll pretend he's not drooling over you every bloody minute, now if you excuse me I have to get ready for my first kiss and lots of chocolate frogs later on. I'm really a lucky girl".

I laughed at her remarks, she was really a girl of attitude.

June 21st, 1976

Mudblood

I couldn't believe he had said it, he could not have said it! He was my best friend, long before Hogwarts, when magic was just a silly daydream of mine. He said that word, that piercing word that would haunt me forever in the wizard world. It doesn't matter that he came to apologise, why would I be different from every other muggle-born that he called that? I was beyond second chances with him and that hurt me more than I could imagine. I was crying my eyes out in the dorm, so immersed on my own self-pity that I didn't hear her coming.

She sat on the edge of my bed and hugged me, I started sobbing "Why does my blood matter so much?" my body was shaking uncontrollably.

"Shhh" I heard her next to my ear, her hand was caressing my disheveled hair and I started to hear her voice filling my head. "It doesn't mean anything to those who really matter" She laid me on my bed and I heard her melodic whispers.

"Don't lose it all,

in the blur of the stars.

Seeing is deceiving,

dreaming is believing,

it's okay not be okay.

Sometimes is hard,

to follow your heart,

but tears don't mean you're losing,

everybody's bruising.

Just be truth to who you are."

And she lulled me to sleep, so I could wake up a new person. I would be a better friend to her, that was always there for me whenever I needed.

January 10th, 1977

The night was silent, the ones who couldn't find a place near the fireplaces went to sleep early because the cold outside was as imposing as the dark figure that was slowly starting a war on the wizard world, I was wide awake in my bed, thinking that I would be an adult ‪in 20 days‬, a mudblood adult, who could be killed at any moment.

"Lily, are you awake?" I heard Liss calling me, and the apprehensive tone she used worried me.

"Yes" I answered, but silence met me on the other side, I knew she had not fallen asleep so she was probably thinking about what she was going to say, "spill it" I almost ordered, the other girls in the room were sound asleep (Mary was too soundly for my taste).

"IsleptwithSiriusontheholidays" she said so fast that at first I couldn't understand, I guess it was the shock, because when I could figure what she said I choked on my breath.

"You did what? Merlin, Liss, haven't you dumped Edlor Thomas because he was only thinking about sleeping with you? How could you sleep with your bloody best friend?! That's crazy Liss, how did it started? Are you two dating now? Does Potter know? He's gonna kill him..."

"Lily, calm down please" she whispered pleading "It just happened, it's your fault actually, no one wanted to go with us to Tenerife! It happened, it was nice, we're still best friends, nothing has changed... I guess" I tried to calm my breath, but Liss' confession was making me uncomfortable about keeping my own secret .

"I kissed Potter yesterday, under a mistletoe" I confessed in a small voice.

"YOU WHAT?"

I couldn't even answer, since her exclamation had awaken all of the girls in the dorm, but I got the feeling that I wouldn't hear the end of it on the next day.

September 2nd, 1977

"Liss, wake up! It's first day of school, our last first day. I need to run or I'll have a heart attack" I was shaking a peaceful sleeping girl who started mumbling really pissed when awake, but started to dress up anyway. It was our tradition, actually it was my tradition. I would wake her up at dawn and make her jog with me on our first day of school, and she would be grumpy and snarl at my comments. That's just how we were.

"So, how are you?" I asked when we stopped by the Herbology greenhouses."Is Remus talking to you again? I couldn't find him yesterday at the banquet" she looked at the grass, she had been like this for two weeks now.

"No, no word since he broke up with me" she answered in a small voice.

"I think he's right you know, if you're battling feelings for Sirius you should just let them out, I think he likes you too. Of course you made a mess by dating Remus, but if he's giving you the chance to be happy, take it"

Her stare was lethal and I could study those eyes which sometimes seemed green and other seemed blue, she was really pissed.

"Well, Lily, I think it would be just polite of you to know your heart like you know mine. James won't chase you forever you know" that said she just started jogging ahead of me.

Touché.

October 13th, 1977

We were laying on the gardens, it was past the school curfew but we sneaked out anyway, it was our last year and I could afford some rule-breaking (I could cover it anyway by being a Head Girl). James Potter, the new Head Boy, had kissed me this afternoon, the Gryffindor lost the first game of the season to Ravenclaw and James was frustrated, I felt really bad for him. I was studying near the windows of the Common Room and saw him marching towards me, still in his quidditch uniform full of mud and sweat with a determined look on his face, we had become friends over the past few months and I never saw him like that. It was fast, he didn't even stop in front of me, just put both hands on the sides of my face and kissed me. 'You are going out with me next weekend' he said to my blushy face and I would have kissed him again if it wasn't for all the students around.

"Liss?" I asked the girl by my side, who turned her face from the sky to look at me. "I'm in love with James Potter"

And she would take my hand, smile at me and say "I'm glad you finally noticed it"

September 17th, 1978

"HE PROPOSED!" I screamed entering her flat as she jumped frightened in fear with her hand on her wand, those were dark times and for a flick of a second I forgot that.

"OH MERLIN'S ARSE!" she exclaimed after the information sank in "You are going to be married! I'm so so so happy for you" she was hugging me tight, I could feel her happiness and that made me feel alive, she was the sister that my own could never be.

"Will you be my maid of honor?" I asked drying the tears that I didn't even knew I was shedding. "If you didn't ask I would possibly slice your throat!" she said smiling fully.

"How about you and Sirius? When are you two tying the knot?" she started to laugh openly.

"Can you imagine Sirius Black getting married? He surely prefers to mess around in my kitchen and complain about the amount of drawers that he has here"

January 3rd, 1979

"I feel like we have to be afraid all the time" Liss told me while we were having tea at my place, I had to agree with her, those were dark times, but I knew something that she didn't.

"Let's do something stupid for once!" I said with a mischievous smile, I was becoming more and more like my husband, "Let's go to some shop, you buy me a dress and I buy you one, and we aparate in some beach and just pretend we don't have any worries! Just for today, please?” she laughed like I was crazy but went on anyway. We stopped by a muggle store that I loved, spent half an hour looking for the dress, actually she did, I already knew what to buy to her.

"Oh Lil, white? You know that when I use white it seems like my freckles multiply" she said when we were back to her flat and she tried her treat, I snorted, she looked amazing on the long strapless dress.

"You don't even have a hand full of freckles, don't let Sirius comments get to you. Besides the deal was: I would choose you a dress and you would do the same to me, now cheer up. It's time for the beach"

I was so excited to see her face, we stepped on the warm sand and we both smiled, she had her back to the sea and I was trying not to focus on what was behind her. "Here" I said taking a sparkly little head piece of my purse and putting in her hair "Something borrowed... hum, the dress is new"

"What's going on, Lil?" when she turned her eyes grew wide, as she took it all in her mouth opened and closed a couple of times. There was a small tent decorated with flowers, a strange man behind an altar and Sirius Black wearing a white tunic on the right side, while James was wearing a black one on the other.

"You need something blue" and I conjured a bouquet of blue spring star flowers "As for something old, you would have to go for our friendship".

"Oh, Lil" there were tears in her eyes, I felt honored to take her to the altar, so she could be forever happy, like I was.

November 15th, 1979

We were surrounded by Death Eaters, they were large in numbers than us and I was truly scared for the first time, Sirius was on another mission and Liss was at home feeling frightened all the time, the pregnancy taking its toll on her, I emitted the help signal to the Order's members, we needed back up, but I could never think that she would come, that she would risk herself and her baby for us. But she came, she came because I called, she came because we are her family and she wouldn't let anyone harm us, that's why when she was attacked and started bleeding near a dumpster I felt my heart sink.

"We will take you to a safe place, Liss" I assured her while James and I headed to the hospital "Everything will be alright"

But it wouldn't. I had to gather courage to enter her room in St Mungus, and when she looked into my eyes she knew, and that broke me.

"No" she said in a small voice, "no, no, no. no. NOOO!" she started screaming in her bed, she grabbed the sheets in her fists and cried. "My baby, not my dear baby! No, Lily!” she sobbed and collapsed on the bed when nothing more could hold her awake. And I was there the whole night when Sirius didn't appear, I held her hand because her pain was my pain.

January 14th, 1980

"I'm leaving the house by the end of the week" she said behind her tea mug, her eyes ,always so bright, were dead "It's been long since we stopped looking at each other's face. I think it's just better"

I couldn't meet her gaze any longer, my lie filling the space between us, I felt sorry for her, it was so unfair to have it all and see someone you love so much lose everything, she finished her tea and stood up "I will write you to tell where you can find me. Oh... by the way, this is for you" she said taking a little package out of her purse, when I opened my breath was caught in my throat, it was a comforter with little broomsticks on it. How did she know?

"You will be a wonderful mother, Lil" she said opening a genuine smile and I could see a flick of light in her eyes.

June 21st, 1980

We were laid on her backyard, feeling the grass on our backs, just like we used to do at school, our swollen bellies side by side, I was so happy for us, for how her life was back on tracks. We spent an awful lot of time together making plans for our babies, how they would be intelligent, and brave and would be best friends like all of us, and her light laugh would fill up the warm air, her eyes would light up and she would say:

"I love you like a sister, Lil"

.

Tagging: @ehkw1989 (Hey girl!)

[jadekitty777]

Troika - Chapter 3: To Speak Good

Troika - (Noun) Russian in origin, meaning “set of three” or “three of a kind”. It is a three-way dance between people.

Summary: Taiyang has a bad dream, Qrow has homesickness and James has a headache. Not necessarily in that order.Or, a series of snapshot events at different times of this trio’s relationship together.

Rating: T

Pairing: James/Qrow/Taiyang

AO3 Link: Chapter 3

Note: There’s one more after this, and then the story is done!

~

If someone told Qrow five years ago that he’d one day call Atlas his home, he would have laughed.

If that same someone added he’d do it entirely for James Ironwood, he would have told the guy he was more drunk than him.

Now, with the general dozing in the seat beside him and the tall white buildings that encompassed the upper streets of Atlas growing closer as the airship reached its port, he figured he probably owed that imaginary guy a round or two.

They’d both been gone a few months – he on a mission and James on security detail duty for this year’s Vytal Festival, as he often was. Both conveniently put them in Vacuo, so once he’d finished cleaning up an infestation of Grimm in the lower quadrant, he headed to the city, enjoying the rest of his time away with the other man. James was a bit too rigid to really appreciate the less reputable side of the kingdom which was rot with gambling and underground fight rings, so Qrow improvised, taking him to sand-sailing races and hiking trails instead. It was the walk through the hollowed-out mines, once filled with Dust and now left glittering with natural minerals and stalagmites that kaleidoscoped colors across the stone, that truly fascinated the elder man to the point he wanted to explore every inch of it. Rarely seeing him so boyishly eager, Qrow was happy to oblige even long after his feet were aching from standing too much.

It was all worth it if only for the moment he watched James place his hand against one of the crystals, awash in a gentle blue hue from the reflecting light, and Qrow couldn’t help but correlate the likeness of his lover to this place: that even if parts had been forever lost or broken, what remained was even more beautiful.

Of course, he never said it out loud. Spouting poetic nonsense like that was more Tai’s thing.

Qrow had gotten a chance to see his eldest niece too. She, along with Blake and some of the other kids from the old crew, were on a march across Vacuo with the restructured White Fang, hoping to spread awareness on Faunus civil rights using peaceful protest. They’d chosen to complete their pilgrimage at the crux of the festival, knowing the streets would be crowded from the event and the news reels would be more likely to headline their efforts.

So, mostly, Qrow stood in the thin shade of a light pole in a poor attempt to hide from the burning sun, holding up a sign and letting Yang talk his ear off. She had been so happy, animatedly recounting all the sights and cultures she had seen, all the strange foods she had tried, every new place bringing a new excitement. All of it wasn’t pleasant of course. They’d met a lot of opposition on their travels throughout Remnant that she mostly alluded to, but he couldn’t help but swell with pride as he realized his niece had found her way into following her dreams of being both an adventurer and a hero.

He stretched out his arms up above his head, hearing the slight crack of joints stiff from sitting too long, before he placed a hand on James’ metal shoulder, giving him a slight shake. As he started to rouse, Qrow said, “Time to wake up, Rin Tin Tin.”

Blue eyes blinked at him blearily, saying sleepily, “How do you even know that reference?”

“You have met Tai, right? If you think he didn’t own the deluxe boxset and spent every summer vacation watching it, you’d be very wrong.” He said in way of explanation, feeling the shift of gravity as the airship started to descend for a landing.

“I didn’t, because he doesn’t own it.”

“Not anymore.” Qrow said. “Someone accidentally put it in the fireplace.”

“You did not.” There wasn’t an ounce of belief in that retort.

He grinned cheekily, “You’ll never know.”

James eyed him critically. “Well, you’ll be disappointed to know I did find the send button on my scroll.”

“Jimmy, you’ve evolved! What’s next old man? Using the coffee maker?” He snickered as the other reached out and shoved him.

“Oh, shut up.”

He saluted him. But, after a few seconds of silence, said, “Permission to speak, sir?”

James had a better poker face than most, but even he was struggling not to smile. “Denied.”

“Rude, sir.” He considered it a personal victory when he heard the other laugh softly.

“Come on, cadet.” The man said as the plane jerked on its landing. “I’ve got to drop some stuff off at my office, but we can stop at the café first, alright?”

He responded with another little salute. “Sir, yes sir!”

~

Qrow sipped lukewarm coffee from the plastic cup as he watched the man who had bought it for him putter about his office, putting away some last-minute documents that he’d have to organize properly when he was next there. Back before they were dating, he used to ruthlessly tease James about how much of a workaholic he was, until the other eventually told him that he wasn’t the one who once spent literal years out on the field for his own profession. It had been one of the few times someone had managed to make him pause and actually think.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard a variation of it before – how the war was over. How he could take a break every now and again. But it was the way James said it, reminding him that years of his life were just gone, that struck a chord with him and suddenly he understood he’d missed so much. He would never get to be at Yang’s graduation ceremony from Signal as the fiery blond cheered. He would never be able to capture the moment Ruby came home, shouting with joy over her early acceptance to Beacon. Hell, he’d never get to see that stupid, goofy smile Tai probably had when he adopted Zwei. The more he thought, the more the key events piled up, the more seriously he considered removing his name out of the Huntsman rotation permanently.

He never did, but he did lessen his prominence in the roster significantly.

So there he was, in the middle of restoration efforts for Vale city, trying to redefine his life choices, when James walks up to him and says, “Why don’t we go get some coffee?”

He hadn’t really grasped the implications when he agreed until he actually had the cup in his hands and was sitting across from the other. “Jimmy-boy, did you just ask me out on a date?”

“That was my intention, yes.”

“Oh.” And maybe it was because, after having worked together in close quarters for months as the war came to an end, he’d found that he didn’t dislike James nearly as much as he used to or maybe it was because he just wanted to have something he hadn’t allowed himself in years, that he found himself tacking on, “Well good.”

And that was the start of their relationship.

Now, as he sipped on the bitter, overshot brew and realized years had passed since that moment, he found himself not regretting the choice.

“So, we’ll be home within the hour.” James said as he shoved a few more papers into his desk.

“Sounds great!” Was the chipper reply from Tai, voice a bit crackly from being on speaker. “Either of you two hungry? I can make dinner.”

When that blue-eyed gaze turned to him questionably, Qrow called, “Something light.”

“Yeah. It was a long flight.” The general agreed.

“No problem. I can’t wait to hear all about your trip.”

With it being so early in the semester at Apollo Academy, Tai wasn’t able to get the vacation needed to join them. Not that he really wanted to abandon his class for that long anyways. Apollo was a small, secondary school designed to support smaller classrooms for children with special needs, such as amputees. Having a daughter and a lover both living with permanent prosthetics, it had sparked the man’s interest in helping others learn how to cope with their new body parts and reach a sense of normalcy again. While looking for work after he’d lost his former job following the whole newscast fiasco, he’d barely paused to think when he applied at the institute.

Watching Tai whoop and holler as he danced around the house after he’d gotten accepted for the position, Qrow could have sworn his friend was twenty again.

James closed another cabinet. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah.” There was a smile in Tai’s voice as he added warmly, “I missed you guys.”

Qrow ducked behind his coffee as he smiled. James, who had paused to stare down at the phone, didn’t bother hiding his own as he said, “Yeah, us too.”

~

As he walked into their home, the first thing Qrow noticed was the smell of something sweet in the air that told him there was some confectionary baking in the oven. “We’re home!” He announced as he held the door for James, who came into the house with their luggage and carefully shuffled around Zwei who, despite his age, still found the energy to joyfully dart around his peoples’ legs whenever they got back.

There was a whistle, Tai standing in the alcove leading to the kitchen, “Zwei, come on buddy. You’re gonna make him trip.”

“It’s fine.” He said, lifting his square suitcase higher when, without warning, the clasp broke and a few weeks’ worth of clothing spilled out over the floor. The lump of dog underneath the clothing shifted and then he was popping his head back up, a pair of plaid briefs on his head.

When James sent a disgruntled look his way, Qrow shrugged, “Hey don’t blame me! I told you to replace that old thing years ago.”

“I still blame you.”

Laughing, their blond lover walked over, unearthing the rest of his poor corgi first before he started to gather up the clothes. James knelt down, seemingly to help, until his hand caught the younger’s wrist and, when he looked up, lent forward to press their lips together. Tai gave a gentle hum, smiling as he wound an arm over the other’s shoulders. They might have stayed like that awhile, if not for the buzzer from the kitchen that pulled them apart.

“Oh, that’s the dessert.”

“I got it.” Qrow said, giving Tai a wink as he passed on by.

“Well,” The wisecrack followed him, “There was dessert at least.”

He could hear the softness of their voices continue on as he entered the kitchen where he was definitely not planning on stealing pieces of whatever confectionary Tai had decided to make. He found the mitts as he pulled open the oven door, and at first, he thought they were cupcakes, until he lifted them out and brought the tray into the light to discover they were actually muffins.

Huh. Today was just full of ironic food choices.

He set it down on the cooling rack and flicked off the oven, before giving the area a look over. Tai, whether it be on the team, in the family or in their relationship, had remained the cook – so his little haven was pristinely clean except for the vestiges of where dinner was being made. There was something shimmering on the stove and, when he lent forward to look through the glass top, saw it was soup – chicken noodle, he guessed. Lettuce, freshly cut and washed, sat in a strainer. On a cutting board, shredded carrots and radishes that were probably going to be mixed in to make a simple salad. The tea kettle puffed out steam where it sat on the counter; he’d bet every lien he had that it was Jasmine. Their table had already been set; wooden chopsticks by his and Tai’s plates and more durable, metal ones for James.

By the time he was peeling off the paper liner from one of the muffins, his best friend was back, rolling his eyes at him. “Really?”

“It’s what you get for baiting me.” He replied before taking a huge bite.

Tai chuckled, before he went back to making dinner, dicing the rest of the radishes. As he worked, Qrow destroyed the rest of his muffin in a few quick bites, then sidled up next to the other. The knife slowed, the blonde observing him from the corner of his eye. “Can I help you?”

“Well I was thinking,” He started, dancing his fingers along the other’s back, but trailed off when the other jolted away. “Uh, you alright?”

Tai flushed a bit. “Yeah, sorry. That surprised me.”

“Geez, you’re getting old too.”

“Make more jokes like that and I’m hiding the rest of the muffins.”

“Forgive me!” Qrow rested a hand over his heart overdramatically, falling against the other’s shoulder. “For I know not what I say!”

His friend tried his best not to snicker but his grin was untamable. He set down the knife in favor of winding his toned arms around him, bringing them flush together. Tai pecked fond, little kisses along his face, until finally he got to his lips, lingering there. Qrow’s eyes slid shut, leaning in to the caress as he raked his hands through blond hair.

It was the hissing of the overflowing pot that drew Tai away this time. “Ah damn it,” He cursed softly before hurrying over to lift the pot off the burner.

Qrow lent back against the counter, watching him as he pulled off the top, letting the steam out to cool the angrily bubbling liquid. His eyes wandered a bit, pausing curiously on the patch of reddened skin around the edges of the heart tattoo. “Your arm…”

“Huh?” Tai glanced at him, then followed his gaze down to his own still-healing skin. “Oh yeah; I got it touched up, remember?”

“Thought you said you were doing that a few weeks ago?”

He shrugged, turning away to stir the soup. “Well, yeah but Ruby wanted to come with me. So, I postponed.”

That took a minute to compute. “Wait. Did you convince my niece to get a tattoo?”

“No, no.” He was grinning almost manically as he pointed the spoon his way. “She convinced Weiss to get one.”

That revelation took longer, but when it did, Qrow’s eyes bulged. “What!? Ice princess got some ink?!”

“Please tell me Winter doesn’t know.” They both glanced over at James as he entered the room, looking weary already. “Otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it on Monday.”

“Well, it’s not exactly in a discreet place, unless she’s wearing a long dress or really tall boots.”

“Just perfect,” Was the sigh of defeat.

Qrow started to guffaw. “So it’s on her leg? What is it?”

“A red rose with the stem wrapping around her ankle. It’s quite pretty actually.” Tai said, sounding almost fond. Whether it simply be for the art of tattoos or over his unofficial daughter-in-law, it was a little hard to tell. “Anyways!” He reached up to pull down some bowls. “Dinner’s pretty much done. Qrow will you pour the tea?”

“You got it.”

As the day faded to evening and the three of them enjoyed dinner together for the first time in nearly five weeks, Qrow felt a familiar wash of calm overcome him. He had missed this: a dog dozing under the table at their feet and them talking about their day. James recounting somewhat irritably about how lack his security team was. Tai excitedly detailing how well the students from his class were doing. Qrow chiming in about the highlights from the festival.

And when James finally remembered to ask, “By the way, what happened to your copy of Rin Tin Tin?”

And Tai answered, “Oh. Qrow was drunk one night and thought the trees on the cover were firewood, so he put it in the fireplace.”

Qrow couldn’t stop laughing, feeling more at home than ever before.

~~~

A/N: So, if anyone is wondering about the chapter titles, I was looking for another “set of three” idea to name them after. While looking for ideas, I found out three is a really common number in a lot of religious practices – and I stumbled upon Zoroastrianism. One of the philosophies is just like the titles of the chapters – Thinking good, acting good and speaking good will lead to a good life. There’s a lot more to it of course, but that’s a basic principle on their lifestyle.

I realized the chapters aligned pretty well with these ideas, so I went with it.

Chapter 1 is all about good action. It certainly fits James and his disciplined nature the most but Qrow and Tai both have their moments on debating “what the right thing to do” is.

Chapter 2 is focused around good thinking, hence Tai’s many bracketed thoughts in which he’s trying to fight his poor psyche with better views (I actually added a few when I decided on the chapter title). Likewise, Qrow’s own thoughts are a bit see-sawed while James is the reassurance.

Chapter 3 has the weakest connection, because Qrow himself is not a “good” speaker seeing as I depicted him struggling with expressing himself and the plot definitely revolved around a “slice of life” style story. The entire decision basically comes down to the ending – where he finds the most peace and happiness in the simple act of talking around the dinner table with James and Tai.

Now, there’s only one chapter left, but don’t worry, I have a great title in mind! Stay tuned, it’ll be up within a week!